I didn’t actually watch any movies this week. I know, right? Anyway, here’s some reviews of some other stuff I’ve been doing.
Arthur and I have been re-watching Angel on DVD. His homework schedule has been light for the first time since entering high school, so I suspended my Netflix account for a month and we’ve been spending “family time” watching 1 or 2 episodes a night, and are currently up to episode 19 (of 22) of season 2.
I got on board late with Buffy and Angel, watching Buffy in reruns after it was all over, and starting Angel reruns from the pilot while season 4 was still in prime time. I fell in love with Angel right away, and really thought it was better than Buffy. On re-viewing, I can see why some people never got bit by the Angel bug. Season 1 is choppy and inconsistent. Some of the episodes are outstanding, but overall, the show struggles to find a voice. In episode 18, though, Faith is brought in. What works is that Faith epitomizes what becomes Angel’s unique voice: The gray area of redemption.
While Buffy battles evil and works to draw a line in the sand, with her always on one side and evil always on the other, Angel is about the fluidity of the line and the place of individuals on either side of it. Angel is a vampire with a soul. Faith is a slayer gone evil. Both can be redeemed. Angel is about regret, remorse, atonement, and vengeance. That last is the tricky one, as season 2 progresses, Angel becomes more interested in fighting the enemy (Wolfram & Hart) than saving souls, and this is all it takes to push him dangerously close to switching sides.
Watching a television series is making me very conscious of the craft of writing. Seeing how a bit of dialogue is inserted for exposition; when it works, when it doesn’t work. There are scenes that are stiff, there are people being told things they already know. Nonetheless, I stand by my contention that Angel is one of the best things ever televised.
Angel: After the Fall is a “season 6” continuation comic book. Despite Joss Whedon’s hand in the plotting, I’m just about ready to give it up. The premise is that the culmination of the grand cliff-hanger battle that ended season 5 was the transporting of the entire city of LA into Hell. The hellish illustration is murky and hard to follow. Characters from time to time shine through, but there’s too much going on. Hell is a busy place; it’s hard to get a feel for what’s important when there are SO MANY demons and so much muck and so much RED.
Duma Key is Stephen King’s latest, and for regular reader of King’s work, it is especially remarkable. I’m not a King fanatic, but I’ve read many of his books, and as far as I know, this is the first one written in a first person voice. It’s a remarkable change for a writer of fifty or so books, and it brings a new sensibility to the pages.
Edgar Freemantle is simply nothing like a King character. He’s something like King—being a middle-aged man recovering from a body-crushing injury—but his voice has never before appeared in a King book. He’s wealthy, down to earth, direct, and confused. He speaks of his pain, his marriage, his daughters, and the growing mystery surrounding his time on Duma Key in an intimate and personal way. His new friend Wireman, his neighbor on Duma Key, is perhaps a more typical and stylized King character, but the friendship has a unique feeling.
Edgar, a construction company owner, was crushed by a crane. He has lost an arm, has a brain injury, and is rehabbing a crushed hip. He has rented a house on an isolated Florida Key to recover and paint. Once there, he gradually learns that there may be a supernatural reason that the prime real estate of Duma Key is relatively uninhabited, and that his own injury may have a supernatural component. Well, we expect this of King, but the horror is not the focus of the novel; the characters are.
The horror side of the plot bears a definite similarity to The Shining; the confluence of psychic people, a violent past, and an isolated location, but that part of the book is not nearly as important as the characters. This is a book about people.
I wrote an extensive review (seriously, 2000 words—what was I thinking?) of The Bond Code by Philip Gardiner at my James Bond site. The book is about the occult influences on Ian Fleming and James Bond. You might be interested.
[…] Royale, Quantum of Solace I had planned a post on this topic today, and by coincidence I find that FelixLeiter.com has posted a screenshot and some speculation about Felix Leiter in Quantum of […]
Delurking: Hi Deborah! I’ve read you on A&J and then in the comments on Shapely Prose, as well as your book Elements of Ritual. I don’t comment much in either online space, but I use the same name when I do.
I’ve never been a Buffy/Whedon fan, but I’ll have to check out the Stephen King book. Most of his books are available in $8 paperbacks so between discovering him and Terry Pratchett, I have a serious paperback habit. And I just watched The Shining last night! (The book was better, as it almost always is.)
Duma Key is, IMHO, King’s best horror novel since The Stand (my all-time favorite King horror work).
I haven’t been reading Angel:After the Fall. I have been reading Buffy Season 8, and I’m still trying to decide whether I’m going to stick with it through 30+ comics. I can’t stand waiting for a month or so between books and then getting so little info in each book, and I have trouble keeping track of the drawn characters – I just don’t “see” them the way I see a live actor.
I liked some of the themes of Angel, but I found the series way too choppy and inconsistent. I also tired quickly of the whole Conner sub-plot, which made it hard to watch most of the second half of the run. To me the transitions between humor and drama were never as smooth and seamless as they were in Buffy, they were clumsy and ham-handed. I liked the puppets though……
Ken, The puppets ruled. If you like Season 8 but don’t like the wait, or the ridiculously short length of comics these days, buy the trade paperbacks as they come out. I’m considering switching to that method myself.
Maewyn, hi! Welcome.
I loved the Connor storyline on Angel, and I loved Vincent Kartheiser’s portrayal, which I know is not a popular opinion – where I saw pain, others see petulance.
I didn’t start watching Angel until it’s 3rd season, which may color my perception of the Connor storyline. In fact, the very first episode of Angel I watched was the one where Connor (billed as The Destroyer) showed up at the Hyperion. I thought Angel was getting better with each successive season (although I didn’t love the last season, when they had to wrap everything up, there were also some fantastic moments in that season), so I was really disappointed when it was canceled.
And I don’t always pay attention to sets, but I was so fond of that Hyperion set.
I was not a Connor fan, but certainly the plotting around Angel having a son led to some great places.
I think seasons 1 and 4 were weak; the whole Jasmine thing was just Epic Fail as far as I’m concerned. I thought they really found their footing with season 5; putting them inside W&H was genius, and I will hate WB until my dying breath for cancelling it just as it was at its peak.
“I thought they really found their footing with season 5; putting them inside W&H was genius”
Agreed – that worked really well. The characters also were meshing well then. I would have liked to see where it went from there…
Have you caught up with the new Serenity series yet? I haven’t. I don’t have a convenient comic store, although my local 7/11 is getting the Buffy comics a couple of weeks after their release. I may wait for the new Serenity to be released in the trade version, just so I can have it delivered.
I have a subscription at my local comic book store, so if I don’t stop by for weeks and weeks, they hold things for me. Which makes reading Buffy worthwhile; I tend to read 2 or 3 at once.
Serenity is so far so good, but as you say, too little per issue.
I loved the Connor storyline on Angel, and I loved Vincent Kartheiser’s portrayal, which I know is not a popular opinion – where I saw pain, others see petulance.
Sorry, Maur. Where others saw petulance, I saw constipation posing as anger.
Also, I can’t call it anywhere near the greatness that Deb gives it. There were too many things that didn’t work. Also, too many annoying gimmicks. Powers that Be in shiny costumes. Cordelia as a demon? Cordelia as a PTB or whatever she became? The white room with the tiger? The affair with Gru? Fred and Gunn? Fred turned all blue? Season 4 Angelus was so ridiculous, (whether it was a matter of the writing or the acting) that I thought the big reveal (under the thing with Faith) was going to be that he’d been faking the transformation… he was THAT awful.
Don’t get me wrong; there is a lot that I like. There is a lot that was smart. Just too many trip-ups to maintain my unbridled loyalty.
I loved the white room with the tiger.
Uck. I liked it once. But it got annoying. Nearly everything Gunn got annoying.
Omigod the puppets was the best thing ever. I loved when he attacked Spike.
“You’re a wee little puppet man” may be the best line EVER.
Seriously.
I posted a link to that YouTube clip in comments at the cross-post (and no, I hadn’t read this comment thread before I did it).
Yep, great linik.