I Just Have a Few Notes

I got home late from Osaka last night and didn't feel like watching a movie. In the morning I watched the second episode of Robert Blake's YouTube series. Recorded within the last couple years, the episodes are just him at home going through boxes of old photos. So far he's talked almost exclusively about his roles as a child. Apparently he didn't think too much of Lost Highway at that point in his life, something seemingly confirmed by David Lynch in this interview:

Although, this interview from the time of the film's release shows him being more positive about it--and also somewhat derisive of his body of work previous to it:

I guess people change. Which is a pretty good summary of Lost Highway, actually.

I didn't realise Lost Highway, in 1997, was Blake's last movie. I wonder why. His arrest didn't happen until 2002.

Speaking of performers with strong personalities, lately I've been reading about how Jenna Ortega rewrote a lot of her own dialogue on Wednesday.

“There was times on that set where I even became almost unprofessional in a sense, where I just started changing lines … I would have to sit down with the writers, and they would be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I would have to go through and explain why I couldn’t do certain things."

Ortega went on to give specific examples, quoting stereotypical “teenage” dialogue that clashed with Wednesday’s dark, brooding persona.

“Everything that she does, everything that I had to play, did not make sense for her character at all,” Ortega said. “Her being in a love triangle made no sense. There was a line about like, this dress that she has to wear for a school dance and she said, ‘Oh, my God, I love it. Ugh, I can’t believe I said that. I literally hate myself.’ And I had to go, ‘No, there’s no way.’”

Ortega even mentioned choreographing her own dance, the most iconic scene from the show, after discovering that Wednesday was originally meant to inspire a flash-mob, stating: “why would [Wednesday] be okay with that?”

Ortega implied that she had completely reshaped her character to give Wednesday more of an arc, saying, “I grew very, very protective of her, but you can’t lead a story and have no emotional arc because then it’s boring and nobody likes you.”

I don't agree that arcs are essential to creating good characters or stories but, for the most part, it sounds like she was definitely a better writer than the show's credited scribes. The fact that Tim Burton has just cast her in Beetlejuice 2 suggests it wasn't Burton she was clashing with, either, and that Burton had a relatively small creative role for a director on Wednesday. If they do another season, I hope they get better writers. Maybe they should just have Jenna Ortega do the writing.

Speaking of publicised rewrites, I've been amused by this ongoing story about Dave Filoni's supposed involvement in the filming of the Vader hallway scene at the end of Rogue One. Freddie Prinze Jr., star of Filoni's Rebels, recently claimed the Rogue One scene was 100% conceived and executed by Filoni even though Filoni himself claimed in an earlier interview that he'd never filmed any live action before his work on The Mandalorian. Then, finally, Gary Whitta, one of the original writers on Rogue One, said the scene was filmed by the film's original director, Gareth Edwards. It wasn't even part of the reshoots by the second unit director.

Which sounds a lot more plausible to me. I remember when Filoni imitated the sequence in the final episode of Rebels where it made absolutely no sense.

I bet at some point Filoni, or one of Filoni's people, told Freddie Prinze that story about Filoni making the scene for Rogue One, just like Filoni has successfully convinced people he created Ahsoka Tano. The guy's career is taking credit for things at this point. Meanwhile, what has he done since George Lucas sold Star Wars that wasn't running off fumes from Lucas and Jon Favreau? I suspect the upcoming Ahsoka Tano series will be the make or break point. When that show ends up sucking, everyone's going to stop buying into his PR except his most virulent stans. And that'll be yet another headache Disney can't afford.

I'm reminded again how Bob Dolman complained about Disney execs tampering in the writers room on the Willow series. And the stories going around about how the ending to the latest Ant-Man movie was changed to its current lame incarnation. And I'm reminded of the Disney Dark Ages of the 1970s and early 1980s, when a lack of a strong creative vision and too many unimaginative cooks in the kitchen nearly sunk the studio. And here we go again.

Everyday is Like Wednesday

I finished watching the fourth episode of Wednesday, which means I've finished watching all the episodes directed by Tim Burton. Mostly I enjoyed it, although obligatory wokeness did creep in and it was sad hearing Wednesday deliver such popular sexist terms as "mansplaining" and "male gaze". But at some point, someone decided all Goths should be woke.

I guess many people cherish the summer camp sequence in the second Barry Sonnenfeld Addams Family movie, when Wednesday, in Native American cosplay, launches a raid on the kids dressed as pilgrims. There's a divide between those of us who enjoy it as a slightly absurd pretext for Wednesday's bloodlust, and those of us who think the politics are the point.

The pilgrims are certainly taken through the wringer in the new series. I wonder how the original pilgrims would have felt after suffering religious persecution, harsh months at sea, and winters of starvation, they'd have their reputations consistently demolished for decades starting in the late 20th century. There were conflicts between the English and Dutch settlers and the Native Americans, generally more complicated than is usually talked about. Certainly not as bad as what the Spanish did. It's certainly not fair to say they committed genocide. Lumping them in with the Salem witch trials that occurred decades later is also a bit lazy, though really not so different from the politics Tim Burton inserted into Sleepy Hollow. Where are the revisionist fantasies of English Protestants being imprisoned and massacred by Anglicans?

The Addams Family, with its difficult logical balance between deadpan morbid humour and its characters' genuine desire to do good, provides fertile ground for propaganda, I guess.

Anyway, Jenna Ortega continues to be a delight. The dance sequence in the fourth episode is being talked about so much I couldn't avoid hearing about it. And it was worth the hype as Ortega is pretty sweet and sexy dancing to "Goo Goo Muck".

I feel like the cinematography improves after episode two. And I like the teen drama story centred on the girls. The Addams Family humour translates well to Wednesday being the odd girl whose humour manages to be just out of step with everyone else. In this incarnation, the contrasting "normal" people are more complex, which makes Wednesday's attitude more satisfying. I thought it was a great idea to have Wednesday lose the fencing contest in the first episode, which ups the dramatic value of her being excellent at most things most of the time. By the fourth episode, I felt like we needed to see her caught off guard a few more times.

Anyway, I guess I give the show a B- so far. It's available on Netflix.

Twitter Sonnet #1649

The longer day extends beyond itself.
Revolting bays deny the carrack's keel.
Redeemed, his ancient power moved the elf.
A rugged ground can smooth the roughest heel.
A crooked arm concealed a ball of rice.
The sweetened beans embrace the roasted cake.
A ticking clock was cold, bereft of spice.
A precious wine predicts the lot'll bake.
The sodden cotton clogged the sunken eyes.
A boarded corpse retained a spoiled saint.
Erasure robbed the lead of vicious lies.
The savage sky deployed a rain of paint.
Reluctant stomps decide the groovy odds.
A clock creates the sloppy rhythm gods.

The Day is a Girl

Happy Wednesday, everyone, or to everyone east of Belarus. I guess this is a good time to talk about Wednesday, the new Netflix Addams Family spin-off. I finally got around to watching just the first episode and mostly enjoyed it.

It's funny that it's directed by Tim Burton, whom many people mistakenly believed directed the two films from the early '90s. It seems to be his first successful project in years, too. Danny Elfman's new music is great, referencing the style of the classic Addams Family theme while being something new and his own.

Most of the casting is great. Jenna Ortega, in particular, is great, finding shades of expression in a character famous for only occasionally smiling.

I seem to recall a lot of people getting called racist or something for saying Luis Guzman is miscast. Well, whatever it is, you'll have to call me that, too, because he's no Gomez Addams in my book. I'm not wild about Catherine Zeta-Jones, either. Neither of them have a sense of depth to their wit, neither seems morbid. And they have no chemistry.

But so far they're not around a lot. I like the look of the Nevermore Academy which Wednesday is forced to attend and her colourful werewolf roommate is thankfully a little more than just a one note foil.

The show was clearly designed for girls and Wednesday, the point of view character, is given some suitable suitor selection, so far mainly between a mild mannered coffee shop employee and a tortured poet. I like that the show doesn't make everything easy for Wednesday, too, and the thing that ultimately keeps her from trying to escape Nevermore seems to be the challenges it presents to her.

There are a few hints of ironclad woke requirements that Netflix seems to impose on shows occasionally but so far nothing as silly as Rose beating up thugs in an alley on Sandman or any of the bullshit on the live action Cowboy Bebop. At least Wednesday is established as someone who trained in deadly arts.

Wednesday is available on Netflix.