Jenn's World

I didn't realize the director they chose also directed Pleasantville, one of my favorite movies of all time, less for the story--though I did enjoy the portrayal of teenage sexuality, particularly how it didn't take the easy way out and just go 'sex is good, adults are bad' like so much modern media--and more for the cinematography and the creative use of color. He was also able to coax a really memorable, strong performance from then relatively unknown actress Reese Witherspoon. I hope he brings a similar touch to Hunger Games. I'm looking forward to seeing who they cast for the other groups, especially Haymitch. I've always pictured Haymitch being played by the actor of Javert who did the Les Mis 10th Anniversary 'dream cast' tv production. The problem with most older actors is they don't look beaten down enough. Nicholas Cage would make a surreal choice for the part. I suspect the director won't cast any big names, but Cage would certainly bring the crazy.

Modern Marvels did an episode on "Barbarian Battle Tech." Though even the show seems to acknowledge that "Barbarians" to cover everything from the Celts to the Huns is perhaps not the best word, the info about the weapons will be interesting to any fantasy enthusiast. I had no clue that the Celts had chariots, though I wonder if they really did use them in the way described. It seems--un-Celtic. It also says that there is a surprising advantage to fighting naked except for blue paint--though mail is still a more effective protector.

Anyway, you can watch it here.

Tonight, ABC is premiering their latest hyped series--"V," which is apparently a remake of an earlier science fiction series with the same name. The first eight minutes of the show are available for free online.

Although I wouldn't waste your time on it, honestly. Unless you want to learn how not to tell a story.

It's just too formulaic. I can picture executives sitting around in a studio, ticking off demographic groups--there's the rebellious teen. The hard-worked single mother. The religious guy. The person being overlooked at work. And the black man.

It's obvious that the show is trying to invoke Lost--which I finally got around to watching--even the title minus theme music fade dramatically into the foreground. The show does try to hang a lampshade on it by joking that the movie Independence Day "is merely derivative of its other science fiction predecessors." But as far as I can tell, this series isn't going to be anything new.

The commercial where the alien asks the news reader "not to ask any questions that might portray them in a negative light" is amusing, not because of the obvious, overplayed menace in the question, but because the television news guy is all "what?" It's humorous because obviously, the writers haven't been involved in journalism, to act as if this stipulation is unusual or even unthinkable. Anyone who's worked with established politicians knows that in some cases, there are limits to the questions you can ask--which often have to be submitted in advance, no less. So how this request should surprise him...

Though, of course, the wisest politicians will field any question, because chances are, they know more about it than the reporter does. I was often pleasantly surprised as a newspaper editor at how intelligent the politicians were. They are not all spotlight seekers with good hair, strangely.

Anyway, "V" starts too slowly. It has none of Lost's in-your-face slashes of temporal displacement, a brilliant type of storytelling that should have obsoleted the "info-dump" in V's intro. Also, V's focus on so many characters dilutes any chance of me empathizing with one. You just can't flash cliches on the screen and expect me to identify with them. Either sink your teeth into the characters, or get to the special effects, else you leave me yawning.

Anyway, perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised by the rest of the episode. There was a series, I think it was on sci-fi in the late 90s, that played with the same premise. But instead of this show, where the aliens were obviously bad guys, you never quite knew whether the visitors were good or bad. They offered human beings all this advanced technology, but the humans were still suspicious, and there were alien hate groups and all sorts of interesting, advanced themes. Too advanced, perhaps, for viewers. It was V's premise done right.

Looked up the show I liked: It was called "Earth: Final Conflict." I don't think I watched all five seasons, though. Either I quit watching after they killed off all the people I liked or they quit broadcasting in my area.

Anyway, speaking of Lost...

I was watching an episode with Rousseau and I suddenly realized, "That's Ambassador Delenn!" I was surprised it took me so long to notice--must be the lack of a bone plate. So I had to wikipedia it to make sure I was right, and it turns out that not only does Mira Furlan play both characters, she's also Croatian. Which means something to me because I did my college thesis on Yugoslavia. The ethnic cleansing there inspired the racial aspects of the novel I'm working on--as well as providing some of the motifs. Furlan is a Croatian who married a Serbian, and who fled Zagreb after she was harassed for attending an International Theater Festival in Serbia, making her, supposedly, a national traitor. She had agreed to do the performance before the war broke out.

It's a hard situation. On the one hand, you have this chance to remind the Serbians that their enemies are human, too -- something many soldiers obviously forgot during the war. Dialog between the two very similar cultures who had been living in peace together since WWII could have been a bridge to solve the genocidal rampages. Art should continue despite war.

However, at the same time, by participating in an event, no matter how international, in Belgrade, capital of your worst enemies, you are bringing legitimacy and helping, at least economically, the people who are massacreing you. Art may be beyond borders, but it can also be twisted. Politicized.

It must have been a tough decision. I cannot even begin to speculate what was the "moral" action was or what I would have done in Furlan's place. I wasn't in her situation, I haven't heard both sides of the story, etc. I strongly suspect I would have been out with the Croatian nationalist army, wielding whatever primitive weapon I could have against the superior armed Serbs, because if someone hurt the people I love, I couldn't not fight back. Whatever the rightness of her decision, Furlan's goodbye to Yugoslavia--written in response to the death threats she received when she got home, shows a woman of intellect and courage. And should be required reading for any writer whose characters are about to make "The Speech."

It's here in full, but an excerpt:

"It seems that I've been chosen for some reason to be the filthy rag everyone uses to wipe the mud off their shoes. I am far too desperate to embark on a series of public polemics in the papers. I do, however, feel that I owe myself and my city at least a few words. Like at the end of some clumsy, painful love story, when you keep wanting, wrongly, to explain something more, even through you know at the bottom of your heart that words are wasted; there is no one left to hear them. It is over...

"I know that it may seem out of place to swear t0 pacifism, to swear to love and brotherhood of all peoples while people are dying, while children are dying, while young men are returning home crippled and mangled forever...But I have no other way of thinking. I cannot accept war as the only solution, I cannot force myself to hate, I cannot believe that weapons, killing, revenge, hatred, that such an accumulation of evil will ever solve anything. Each individual who personally accepts the war is in fact an accessory to the crime; must he not then take a part of the guilt for the war, a part of the responsibility?

In any case, I think, I know and I feel that it is my duty, the duty of our profession, to build bridges. To never give up on cooperation and community. Not the national community. The Professional community. The human community. And even when things are at their very worst, as they are now, we must insist to out last breath on building and sustaining bound between people. This is how we pledge to the future. And one day it will come...

It is terribly sad when one is forced to justification without having done anything wrong. There is nothing but despair, nausea and horror. I no longer have any decision to make. Others have decided for me. They have decided I must shut up, give up, vanish; they have abolished my right to come home...

Can the horror of war be used as a justification for every single nasty bit of filth we commit against our fellow man? Are we allowed to remain silent in the face of the injustice done to a friend or colleague and justify our silence by the importance of the great bright national objective?...

To whom am I addressing this letter? Who will read it? Who will even care to read it? Everyone is so caught up with great cause, that small personal fates are not important any more. How many friends do you have to betray to keep from committing he only socially acknowledged betrayal, the betrayal of the nation? How many petty treacheries, how many pathetic little dirty tricks must one do to remain "clean in the eyes of the nation"?

I am sorry, my system of values is different. For me there have always existed, and always will exist, only human beings, individual people, and those human beings (God, how few of them there are!) will always be excepted from generalization of any kind, regardless of events, however, catastrophic. I, unfortunately, shall never be able to "hate all Serbs", nor even understand what that really means. I shall always, perhaps until the moment the kind threats on the phone are finally carried out, hold my hand out to an anonymous person on the "other side", a person who is as desperate and lost as I am, who is as sad, bewildered and frightened...

I reject, I refuse to accept such a crippling of myself and my own life. I played those last performances in Belgrade for those anguished people who were not "Serb" but human beings, human beings like me, human beings who recoil before this monstrous Grand Guignol farce in which dead are flying. It is to these people, both here and there, that I am addressing my words. Perhaps someone will hear me...

I am sending this letter into a void, into darkness, without an inkling of who will read it and how, or in how many different ways it will be misused or abused. Chances are it will serve as food for the eternally hungry propaganda beast. Perhaps someone with a pure heart will read it after all.

I will be grateful to that someone."

(Mira is apparently currently working on a film with Oscar winning director Danis Tanovic of "No Man's Land" called "Cirkus Kolumbia" which is tentatively slated for release in 2011. Not much info on it yet, but it looks interesting. Filming just started, so I wish her the best of luck!)

The cast list for a pilot of George R.R. Martin's: A Crown of Fire and Ice series is up. Arya Stark is EXACTLY how I pictured her--kind of like the girl from the 'To Kill a Mockingbird' movie. Anyway, they all look good. We'll see if they can act good. (Yes, writers can use bad grammar too when we feel like it.)

I started re-watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy while I was sick (now I'm coughing up phlegm, though I don't have the flu anymore, which is good, though now I feel like Nicole Kidman from Moulin Rouge, without the blood) and I'd forgotten how awesome it is. I remember when the Fellowship of the Rings movie came out, my reception was lukewarm. I loved the beginning in the Shire but as Aragorn got introduced and went all Bruce Li on the Nazgul, I got a little discouraged, because swordfights are cool and all, but I was worried the real story--of a ordinary people who struggled with impossible temptation--would get buried under Conan-like tactics.

That's right, I am probably the only person ever who wanted to shout "Less swordfighting! More hobbits dancing!"

Admit it. The fireworks were so freaking cool.

I also hated Liv Tyler as Arwen. For some reason, it just rubbed me the wrong way. Watching it again, I still hate every scene that she was in.

I think it was her acting. While there's some really good acting (can you imagine playing Saruman and trying to say "We must join with Him, Gandalf." or " I gave you the chance of aiding me willingly, but you have elected the way of pain!" with a straight face? The writing's fine, its just that Tolkein has been ripped off so often that the lines feel like they belong in a B-movie, even if the wizard fight scenes were very well done.) in the movies, something about Liv Tyler just felt off. Like it was too over the top, nothing understated about it. I do give her mad props for learning Elf though.

I could be I just resented the intrusion of romance in a story that was low-key on romance. I recognize that sex sells and maybe the romantic storyline drew some more interest, but I hate love stories. Usually, I resent them because they take away from a book's plot. I'm like, "step away from the woman and get back to the villain-bashing." And so many romances just have drama that, while may be like real-life, doesn't build any tension for me because you know it's going to work out. Especially the authors who the characters are completely hating each other because of a MISUNDERSTANDING. They'll talk it out eventually, you know they will, so why bother. I prefer books that keep the romance angle really minimal, or, alternatively, bring it along really slowly and gradually. Or there's some real stakes involved. I'm thinking Daenarys storyline in the Fire and Ice series, where her relationship with Khal Drogo made a big difference to the plot. As was Kahlan and Richard's relationship in the Wizard's First Rule. If we don't keep our hormones down, the hero goes braindead? Now that's a real barrier.

I would probably enjoy romance more in books if they weren't usually such a throw-away thing. It feels like the editor says, "oh, you have to put a kiss scene in chapter 11" and so, even though the characters have barely noticed each other before, they suddenly realize they are passionately in love with each other and start making out. Alternatively, there's the unrealistic romances. When you see and boy hating a girl, you know they're going to fall in love by the end of the book and live happily ever after. How many times is the hate caused by the girl behaving irrationally and then coming to her senses, warming up and letting her frigid shell melt? My least favorite cliche ever. How many times do people who hate each other in real life fall in love?

Oddly, I don't mind the romance so much in the female-centric vampire romances. I suppose because the focus on the romance allows it to develop a little more naturally. Or something. Or maybe I have lower expectations when I approach the genre. Fantasy can educate and force us to think, "what if?" But mostly, vampire romances tend to be episodic, no one learns anything, and character development is limited. There's escapism and escapism. And I enjoy it, I just don't expect great things of it. I think we should call the vampire romance genre "Trash with Teeth."

But maybe every ostracized group needs its own subclass to look down on. (Brandon Sanderson has an amusing essay on it and nerdom here). Which is why it's good to see essays like this one on the Gemmell awards. Though it leaves me scratching my head--are there any hard sci-fi only fans anymore? I thought the Lord of the Rings movies would have got everyone admitting that fantasy can be awesome.

Anyway, having meandered from my main point--while I was worried the sword and sorcery aspects and somewhat anvilicious environmental message overwhelming what I loved, now with the movies safely concluded, I can watch the first movie with joy. While I was right about the main thread being overwhelmed in some ways (COUGH Two Towers COUGH), Gollum was such a scene stealer that, if there was a war with swords and orcs going on in the aisles of the theater, I would still be watching him muttering "my precious."

I'll watch the movies, love the movies, and hum with my hands in my ears during the Liv Tyler scenes.

PS: Random sidelines: What WAS the Nobel Prize committee thinking? They get an EPIC FAIL. And isn't the Soviet Version of Winne the Pooh the cutest thing ever? If you remember the Disney movies, you don't need subtitles. I wish I had Vinni Puh on a T-shirt saying something about destroying the capitalist system. That would be so awesome.

And it doesn't look like I'm going to get my revision done in time. I realized suddenly that I do some serious mantel-rearranging, which entailed writing an entirely new chapter that's basically nothing but explanation and doing some other stuff. So I'm about halfway done now, I think. And every revision seems to add another layer of words, so it looks like we'll finish up somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 words. I'll just cross my fingers and hope that won't be too long for publishers to stomach from a new author.