Canavan’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Canavan’s comments from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.

Lena said: Who is getting ready to dive in? I double checked and this big boy is available on Scribd!

The book is also available in digital format from the usual sites.

I think I actually put forth the recommendation for this book, so will join in when the time arrives. The collection, edited by David G. Hartwell, is a short survey of sword & sorcery, with the 19 stories (only two original) dating from the very early days of the subgenre to more recent times. In looking at the tales listed in the table of contents, I see that I’ve already read about a quarter to a third of them. And I’m familiar with all of the authors but one.

I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Fiona asked: Temple of Doom was PG-13?

If I recall correctly, Temple of Doom was the movie which led to the creation of the PG-13 rating.

Lena said: Oscar shocker - Will Smith slaps Chris Rocks and then curses him out

This is just one of the reasons why I don’t watch these shows.

J. wondered: What is the appropriate course of action in this situation?

Moderators are bound by the same terms of use as non-mods, but other than that I think Graeme and Lena are correct when they state that mods are pretty much free to do as they please when it comes to how they run their groups. I also endorse Graeme’s recommendation about “voting with your feet”. I’ve done that once or twice.

Lena said: A new series about the story behind the making of The Godfather:

That could be interesting, although I gotta wonder if we’d learn anything new. I can’t think of many other films that have been quite so obsessively dissected and discussed. The stories about Coppola’s fights with Paramount about casting, budget, etc., etc. are legendary.

I watched The Batman this past weekend. Leaving aside the question about whether or not the universe really needed another big screen incarnation of the Caped Crusader, I will admit that I liked this new one (directed by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson) more than I expected. The Batman hits a lot of the same beats found in the Christopher Nolan trilogy, but differentiates itself in a few interesting ways. (view spoiler)[As an example, while most of the Batman movies in recent decades highlight the notion that Batman shares certain commonalities with his costumed enemies (cf. Nolan’s The Dark Knight), the Reeves script pushes this idea quite a bit further – to the point, in fact, where by the film’s end Batman begins to seriously question the ethics and efficacy of his primary role as vigilante. There is a sequence, one perhaps calculated to make fans of cartoon vigilantism squirm, that shows the ease with which the Riddler has been able to recruit on-line adherents to his own brand of righteous vengeance, a pretty clear callout to the events of January 6. (hide spoiler)]

Ratings for this movie and a few other things I’ve seen on the big and small screen during the past few weeks.

Cruel, Cruel Love, George Nichols & Mack Sennett (1914) ✭✭
One Week, Edward F. Cline & Buster Keaton (1920) ✭✭✭✭
The Scarecrow, Edward F. Cline & Buster Keaton (1920) ✭✭✭½
The Play House, Edward F. Cline & Buster Keaton (1921) ✭✭✭
Cops, Edward F. Cline & Buster Keaton (1922) ✭✭✭
Our Hospitality, John G. Blystone & Buster Keaton (1923) ✭✭✭✭
Sayonara, Joshua Logan (1957) ✭✭✭½
West Side Story, Robert Wise (1961) ✭✭✭✭
Anatomy of a Song, John Musilli (1976) ✭✭✭½
Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant, Leythum (2011) ✭✭
Marvel One-Shot: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer, Leythum (2011) ✭✭½
Marvel One-Shot: Item 47, Louis D'Esposito (2012) ✭✭✭½
Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter, Louis D'Esposito (2014) ✭✭✭✭
Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King, Drew Pearce (2014) ✭✭✭½
Daredevil, Season 1 (2015) ✭✭✭½
Daredevil, Season 2 (2016) ✭✭✭½
Daredevil, Season 3 (2018) ✭✭✭½
Team Thor, Taika Waititi (2016) ✭✭✭½
Team Thor: Part 2, Taika Waititi (2017) ✭✭✭½
Team Darryl, Taika Waititi (2018) ✭✭✭½
The Green Knight, David Lowery (2021) ✭✭✭½
West Side Story, Stephen Spielberg (2021) ✭✭✭✭½
The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1 (2021-2022) ✭✭✭½
The Batman, Matt Reeves (2022) ✭✭✭✭

I was in New York City last month and caught a few shows. Ratings for those:

Music Man, Jerry Zaks (1957/2022) ✭✭✭½
Company, Marianne Elliott (1970/2021) ✭✭✭✭
Skeleton Crew, Ruben Santiago-Hudson (2016/2022) ✭✭✭✭½
Tina, Phyllida Lloyd (2018/2019) ✭✭✭
MJ, Christopher Wheeldon (2021) ✭✭½
Prayer for the French Republic, David Cromer (2022) ✭✭✭½

I’ve given the Storygraph site a cursory once over. The one area where it clearly outshines Goodreads is the user interface; it’s a lot cleaner and more intuitive than the buggy and archaic Goodreads one. The site also allows half- and even quarter-star ratings. I like that option, although I realize that others vehemently oppose the idea. One of Storygraph’s big selling points is its personalized book recommendations. This isn’t a feature that particularly interests me (in fact, I usually find these tactics intrusive and annoying), but it may appeal to some.

For me there are some real downsides (at least right now) to a switch. The data transfer process is not perfect. Maybe this will improve. Use of the site is free…well, sort of. There is monthly fee for accessing so-called “premium” features of the site. I am always suspicious of such freemium-monetized apps/sites. And the community features of Storygraph are at this point in time pretty rudimentary. Again, maybe this improves/expands in the future, but I’m pessimistic. I recall that Booklikes had similar aspirations along those lines.

Even if I ultimately decide to stay with Goodreads, there are possible benefits to a Storygraph presence that’s at least modestly successful. Such competition might spur Amazon to sink some money into fixing up some of the problems that have long plagued Goodreads. As things stand right now, there is little incentive for Bezos to do so.

“Matryoshka”, Joanna Parypinski

(view spoiler)[Matryoshka dolls are sometimes (but by no mean always) representative of a mother carrying a child within her womb. Parypinski’s story builds directly on his tradition. I found the idea rather novel and I thought the writing was pretty good. I just wish I had liked the story more. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭✭

“A Heart Arrythmia Creeping into a Dark Room”, Michael Wehunt

Hmm. I thought that this piece of meta-fiction was over-clever and over-written nonsense.

“…[the] distant tree lines rake through the egg yolk of the sunset.” There is more stuff like this. Give me a break.

✭½

Lena said: It can’t beat Drew Barrymore’s performance but it looks watchable.

I can’t readily guess based solely on the trailer just how good or bad this remake of King’ Firestarter is going to be. But I will say that I don’t recall the original 1984 version with much fondness. Good cast wasted on a bad script with bad direction. I distinctly remember being appalled with George C. Scott’s character.

Lena said: New little addiction I learned about through Smithsonian

Oh, my. That is indeed a fun little puzzle. I bookmarked that one.

“Caught Root”, Julia K. Patt

(view spoiler)[The lead story in this anthology involves a cultural/technical exchange meeting involving two societies on New-Ur. I found this one to a bit slight for my tastes. Patt structures the narrative so that we get a lot of back-and-forth debate on the finer points of economics, automation, ecology, etc. that frankly felt too much like the author lecturing the reader through his characters. And the final scene, coming out of nowhere, seemed unearned. (hide spoiler)]

✭✭½

Lena said (in part): Here is the ten hour series

Thanks a bunch for the link, Lena.

I have a hard time envisioning Fred Weller as Smiley. He strikes me as too good-looking. I can more easily see Richard Harris as Control. Coincidentally, there’s also a Harry Potter connection with that role in the 2011 film — Control was played by John Hurt, who had the recurring role of Olivander, the wand-maker, in the Potter series.

Lena noted: New LOTR coming to Prime!

I know I’ll be watching these when they start to air, but I do wonder how the writers are going to deal with the “prequel problem”, i.e., telling a story that the viewer already knows the ending to.

Lena said: Ooh, I never saw In the Heat of the Night, now it’s a must.

All three of the 1967 films in which Sidney Poitier starred are “of their time”, but of the three I think In the Heat of the Night has aged the best. Plus it has really great performances by both Poitier and Rod Steiger. The film won a bunch of awards including Oscars for best picture and actor (for Steiger).

Lena also said: I just finished Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and I want to watch both adaptations.

If I live long enough and manage to find the time, I’d love to go back and re-read some of those earlier John le Carré novels. I’ve long wanted to see the 1979 BBC series which starred Alec Guinness as spymaster George Smiley. It’s supposed to be really good, but so far it’s not possible to stream. I have seen the 2011 film directed by Tomas Alfredson and starring Gary Oldman as Smiley and thought it was excellent (although it necessarily compresses a lot of what’s in the book).

I’ve recently watched a bunch of shorts (mostly by Winnepeg auteur Guy Maddin) and participated in a mini-marathon in honor of Sidney Poitier, who recently passed away, but not much else. I did manage to catch The Matrix Resurrections. Watching Resurrections was almost like watching two films. (view spoiler)[The first half or third is a rather clever meta-narrative in which Lana Wachowski critiques fans who in the past have clamored for a Matrix sequel and/or co-opted and re-interpreted the movie's themes to fit their own agendas. But then, perhaps inevitably, Resurrections morphs something very much like what it criticizes, a kind of tepid rehash of ideas found in the earlier films. To be clear, it still represents a marked improvement over the second and third entries of the franchise, but that’s a pretty low bar. (hide spoiler)]

I also managed to see “The Mezzotint”, the most recent episode in the long-running BBC series, A Ghost Story for Christmas. Like the last three (dating back to Christmas of 2013), “The Mezzotint” is directed by Mark Gatiss, and like many of the past episodes (dating all the way back to 1971), this one is based on one of M. R. James’ classic tales. Gatiss’ adaptation takes some noticeable liberties with the James story, but, somewhat to my surprise, the changes are for the most part effective, although I think the director allows the altered ending to go on for a bit too long.

The Bishop’s Wife, Henry Koster (1947) ✭✭✭½
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Stanley Kramer (1967) ✭✭✭½
In the Heat of the Night, Norman Jewison (1967) ✭✭✭✭✭
To Sir, with Love, James Clavell (1967) ✭✭✭✭
My Dad Is 100 Years Old, Guy Maddin (2005) ✭✭✭
Glorious, Guy Maddin (2008) ✭✭✭
Spanky: To the Pier and Back, Guy Maddin (2008) ✭✭
How to Take a Bath, Guy Maddin (2008) ✭✭✭
The Hall Runner, Guy Maddin (2014) ✭✭✭
Louis Riel for Dinner, Drew Christie (2014) ✭✭✭
Lines of the Hand, Evan Johnson & Guy Maddin (2015) ✭✭½
Anne of Green Gables, John Kent Harrison (2016) ✭✭½
Eternals, Chloé Zhao ✭✭½
Guy Maddin and Robert Enright in Conversation, Criterion Collection (2021) ✭✭✭½
The Matrix Resurrections, Lana Wachowski (2021) ✭✭✭
The Mezzotint, Mark Gatiss (2021) ✭✭✭✭
Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts, Eran Creevy, Joe Pearlman, & Giorgio Testi (2022) ✭✭✭✭

Lena mentioned: Moon Knight

Thanks for the link to the trailer. Looks interesting.

Terror Tales of the Scottish Lowlands , edited by Paul Finch.

A few thoughts on Ellen Datlow’s anthology as a whole. There were a very few stories here that just failed to click for me, not because they were poorly written, but because I simply wasn’t in tune with the ideas being expressed and/or the manner in which those ideas were presented. But most of the entries are keepers. In fact, there are more than a handful of really excellent stories including Elizabeth Hand’s “For Sale by Owner”, John Langan’s “Something Like Living Creatures”, Karen Heuler’s “Money of the Dead”, Kelly Link’s “Skinder’s Veil”, and (my personal favorite in this volume) Laird Barron’s “Tiptoe”.

Thanks to Lena and Fiona for their perceptive and enjoyable comments.

Overall rating: ✭✭✭½