In Which I Review Extant (1x1)

Space. The final frontier. These are the....

Oh. Wait. It's not that sort of space show? Okay, cool. When I first saw the previews for Extant, I was both befuddled and intrigued. Science fiction mission in space meets Alien-esque pregnancy conspiracy meets a whodunit. None of that is to say that it didn't look cool, but rather I was confused as to what the show was supposed to be. Still, Halle Berry. Can't go wrong with her. I was genuinely surprised by how good the first episode, "Re-Entry," was. It kept me on the edge of my seat; it had a lot of thought provoking ideas woven in between an actual mystery. I am hoping this summer show doesn't go the way of Under the Done with its science fiction silliness. The basic premise is of a woman who returns from a year long solo mission in outer space to find that she's pregnant and all sorts of mysteries unfold. I know it sounds trite, but what saves the show, at least from the pilot, is that it's not simply a "who is the baby daddy!" type scenario; there is an actual philosophical bent the series. It's about more than just alien pregnancy.

Let's just get this out of the way: there are a lot of characters in this show. And I don't remember all their names or why they are important. That was the one weakness so far. They introduced characters off stage and then, when they were brought in, I couldn't quite remember who they were. At the center of the show is the basic family unit of mom, dad, child. Some time in the future, Molly and John Woods are raising their son, Ethan. I don't know how far into the future, but technology has come quite a way yet people are still driving cars and fashion remains very 2014. So, I'd guess it's at least 50 years into the future, maybe 60-80. Both Molly and John are scientists but of a different variety. I'm not scientifically inclined enough to understand what Molly was doing in space, but apparently it was important enough to warrant a year long solo mission. The pilot is set after her re-entry. John works with robots, but, interestingly enough, seems to strive for the all essential human connection that artificial intelligence lack. You would think these might be reversed, and not because of gender. People who work in space, at least on TV, tend to have a more positive outlook on life and humankind, having seen Earth from afar and understood that the things that divide humans--religion, money, culture--don't exist except through human agency; we make those things divide us, but in reality, out there in space, Earth is just a big blue marble with no such divisions. So it's refreshing to see Molly be the one who is more skeptical about life. Which leads us to their son: Ethan. First "omg--what!" moment of the show; Ethan is a robot powered by batteries.

This came completely out of left field. I was not expecting John to open his son's back and insert a new power source. But once you see that Ethan is not human life, you can't stop noticing how inhuman he is. He has a quiet demeanor, he stares a lot, there is a certain "Daemon, son of Satan" vibe about him. He's prone to anger and rage, but also seems to love his father very much. The show definitely has a philosophical slant to it: what is life? how do we define what is human? Is a little boy who runs and plays soccer and like ice cream and sleeps with a night light any less human because he happens to be machine? I like that Ethan is self-aware; he is under no delusions about his state of being; he tells his father, "I'm not real" despite John's protests. John and Molly both love their son but have a different view on him. Molly is obviously more scientific when it comes to Ethan--the love he displays is not "love" but a series of electrical impulses hardwired into him to mimic love; John thinks Ethan is fully conscious of emotions and how to display them because he was raised, from the start, by humans. Despite claiming that Ethan is their son, Molly is wary around him. She seems awkward and unsure; John is the one who ties Ethan's shoes and tucks him in at night. John created Ethan as part of his work, but whatever his original purpose was behind AI creation, it has changed since raising Ethan. The best scene of the episode was John talking to share holders of a major company, looking for funding to continue his research and development into robotics.

During this presentation, John sums up what is probably the over arching theme of the show: life--whatever that may be--will out. The title of the show, Extant, refers to that which is still in existence. It's the opposite of extinct. The machines John is creating are a new form of life, but that doesn't mean that they can't be "human." If you raise the machines, from their conception and birth, with the all important "human connection," then they are just like you and me. They know good from bad and have free will. When asked what is to stop the machines from rising up in rebellion over fleshy humankind, John simply replies "nothing." But there is nothing to stop fleshy human beings from uprising against each other either. Because John sees these AI's as just as human as himself and his wife, he doesn't think any precaution needs to be taken against the dangers of AI. It all centers around, what is life? At the same time that John is trying to persuade businessmen, and the audience, that machine life in the form of Ethan is just as real as flesh, Molly receives some startling news about another form of life.

We're given just a glimpse into Molly's past. Before she married John, she was involved with Marcus, who I think we can say is "dead." Yes, note the quotation marks. Molly clearly still loves him and misses him, but we aren't given any insight into how he died. Keep this in mind. Her solo mission in space, so far as we can tell from the small glimpse we got, was fairly normal. Until, suddenly, it wasn't. The event in question must have happened only very recently, within the final month of her mission. A solar flare took out the power (or something, I'm not an expert on space stations, I'm just going with what I saw) of Molly's "home." When she went to investigate the outage, a man appeared to her. Now, bear in mind, Molly is supposed to be 100% alone on this station. For a man to suddenly appear behind a closed door, having written "help me" on the glass is enough to make anyone freak out a bit. But when you add in the ex-factor, it's gets even freakier. Yes, the "man" on the outside of the door is Marcus, the dead lover. Or at least, someone wearing a Marcus suit. Alien? Most likely. But we don't know from where he came or what he wants. All we know is that he and Molly share a moment before Molly blacks out. When Molly comes to, the footage taken by the space station shows her totally alone. No dead-alien-ghost-ex to be seen. Molly makes the hasty decision to erase all evidence of this encounter. Back on earth, during her first medical exam, it is discovered that she is pregnant. Cue the dramatic music.

There are some other mysteries going on outside of sudden alien pregnancy. The agency Molly works for obviously knows a bit more than they are letting on. Working in tandem with the owner of a multimillion dollar company who refuses to fund John's research into AI, they are keeping close tabs on Molly and whatever happened to her up in space. We get the impression that this is not the first time something mysterious has happened to a returning scientist. Before Molly went up, there was another. But upon his re-entry, his readjustment did not go well and he committed suicide. Except, he's apparently alive as well--appearing in the final moments of the episode. I assume he is the one who sent Molly the note about knowing what happened to her in space. How he faked his death and what he knows and whatever happened to him on his own mission is part of the mystery. And finally, Mr. Yasumoto, the owner to the company who is privately funding John, has a whole aura of suspicion about him. Whenever someone is "hatched" some a substance, you should probably keep an eye on them. I don't know what is up with him. Is he looking for new life? He is just really rich and bored? Is dying a slow death and looking for way to subvert it? Is he an alien himself?

Overall: check it out! There are a lot of threads being dangled in front of the audience and right now the connection between all of them is incredibly nebulous. However, unless the show goes cheesy, I think it's going to be a very good summer mystery.

Miscellaneous Notes on Re-Entry

--"We always end up where we're supposed to."

--Molly was infertile before her run in with the alien. I wonder if that played a factor in the alien "choosing" her.

--Ethan is a creepy kid, but I think that's part of the overall themes presented in the show: what is life. Is Ethan creepy because he's not "human" or is he creepy because that's part of his personality and development?

In Which I Review Under the Dome (2x2)

When I was younger, there was a book I enjoyed reading called The Very Hungry Caterpillar. As the title might suggest, it revolved around a...well, very hungry caterpillar who proceeded to eat and eat and eat his way through the book until at last he transformed into a beautiful butterfly. It was a fun story. However, the very hungry caterpillar was not about to destroy a town with its insatiable appetite. In this weeks episode, "Infestation," the caterpillars decide that their needs outweigh the needs of Chester's Mill and with bloodthirsty vengeance they strike out against the townsfolk! No, I'm just kidding. Caterpillar's don't have any sort of higher thinking or free will that would make them mortal enemies to the town of Chester's Mill. They're just hungry, is all. So we must kill them! This episode was basically straight up Under the Dome silliness: fire! life and death! teen vigilantes! hungry insects! population control! messianic logic and god complexes! love triangles! Goodness, that's a lot for one hour of TV, is it not?

Do you know what is potentially not good? Having the psychopath known as Junior (Little Crazy Pants) find the dead body of his ex-girlfriend in their high school. And by ex-girlfriend, I mean the girl he loved but who rejected him, only to wind up locked in a cellar for awhile because Junior thought the Dome was playing with her mind. Yeah, the Dome was playing with HER mind, Junior. Go take your crazy elsewhere. Now, here's a question: why in the name of everything is Angie's body covered in butterflies? Is it symbolic? Cool visual effect? Was the actress unable to appear as a corpse so they used a stunt double and decided to put the flying insects covering her face so that the audience would remain blissfully ignorant over her true identity? However, what I'm more worried about is Junior very tenuous hold on reality, especially since his violent tendencies are well known. He spends most of this episode moping about and crying and holding Dead Angie's hand but woe to the person who hurt his precious Angiekins. When Junior finds you, there will be hell to pay. Unless of course, Junior is the one who killed Angie. Last week it seemed clear that it was Mysterious Lake Girl (who still does not have a name!) who axed (literally) Angie. This week, evidence suggests otherwise. A hand print, specifically a man's hand print, was found on Angie's body. Mysterious Lake Girl is mysterious but she's not a man. Or is she? What if she can change her body? Or her hand! What if she can become one with the Dome and change her appearance? You think I'm joking but it's totally possible that this is where the show is going. Or maybe Junior killed Angie. The night before, Junior got very drunk and blacked out and doesn't remember anything; maybe he got up, in a blind drunk rage, and went and killed Angie. Evidence for this? Well, he's crazy so that helps. But Junior also finds Angie's bracelet under his cot in the jail cell (he's living there cause living with Papa Crazy Pants doesn't seem to be working for him). Do I really think it's that cut and dry? No, of course not. There's no way that Junior killed Angie and that we're being given all the hints for that right off the bat. Misdirection, folks.

In other news, Big Jim is now Jesus. Or at least in his head he's Jesus. Big Jim has always had a God Complex, but the fact that the Dome spared his life has caused him to turn over a new leaf. "I've become a believer," he tells Joey and Norrie over Most-Awkward-Breakfast-Ever. Actually, a small tangent: why do Joey and Norrie think it's a good idea to bed down in casa loco? Why aren't they staying with Barbie and Julia? Or with anyone else? I mean seriously, anyone else! Joey's a smart kid, surely he could find literally anyone else in the city of Chester's Mill who would let him and his girlfriend crash on their couch. Or heck, break into one of those empty homes and sleep there! It worked for Max-No-Last-Name. Living with Big Jim just seems like a bad idea. Back on track now, Big Jim and Science Teacher Pine have a little tet-a-tet in which she informs Big Jim (and the audience) that they have a serious problem on their hands: caterpillars. The Dome is messing with the reproductive cycle of the caterpillars; it has accelerated it in fact. The butterflies are laying eggs at an increased rate, which leads to more caterpillars, which leads to more butterflies. Why is this a problem? Because caterpillars are hungry and are going to eat the entire food supply of Chester's Mill! Right. All of it. First off, why is this just now being discovered? There are obviously farmers who live in Chester's Mill--we met a bunch of them in season one! So why are they just now discovering this issue? You'd think the people who grow and tend the food would be the first to be clued in that there is an infestation of very hungry caterpillars! But no, the writers need to give Science Teacher Pine something to do to justify bringing her into the show (and killing Linda in the process) so caterpillar infestation! Second, Science Teacher Pine's plan is...interesting. Burn them all!!

Without any approval from authorities, without help from anyone, Science Teacher Pine decides to set the food on fire! Everyone's reaction to Science Teacher Pine's plan is mild acceptance, "yes this makes perfect sense. We should destroy our crops in order to kill the things that want to eat our food. Never mind that we still need to eat. Oh, maybe Barbie has another idea? That's cool too." Big Jim thinks that this is "the first test." The Dome, having spared his life (which it did not do, Julia did that) is now presenting Jim with a series of tests to see if Jim can be the Hero and Savior Gotham Chester's Mill needs. Good LORD, Jim Rennie. Get off your high horse. You are not Jesus! Thankfully, Barbie steps in and points out that burning the food supply is probably incredibly stupid. Oh and Barbie can fly a plane. Neat-O! Barbie performs some stunning air tricks in his little plane and sprays pesticide on the crops to kill all the hungry caterpillars. However this does not solve a central problem that Science Teacher Pine brings up at the end of the episode: there are too many people living in Chester's Mill. They do not have enough food to sustain the population. Well, DUH. You didn't think of this when the Dome fell? It really has taken someone this long to figure out that without more food coming in, eventually the food that does exist will be consumed and there will be starvation. So let me guess, the caterpillars were a foreshadowing of the real infestation: man. And we're going to set them on fire (probably to appease He Who Walks Behind the Rows).

And finally, Julia proves that she is quite possibly incredibly stupid. Julia is convinced that Mysterious Lake Girl couldn't possibly have killed Angie; when Barbie points out that Mysterious Lake Girl was at the school, her shoe matches the bloody shoe print found at the scene of the crime, and that no one seems to know who she is, and in fact Mysterious Lake Girl doesn't even know who Mysterious Lake Girl is, Julia gets all huffy and declares that she feels like she is loosing Barbie. What? Because he disagreed with you? And this is a few hours after you two woke up in bed together? You know what might be the real tipping point of this relationship: dealing with the fact that Barbie killed your husband! But I guess we've moved beyond that, so instead we have to set up a really odd love triangle between Barbie, Julia, and Sam (Mystery Man in Cabin). Julia is obviously turned on by the fact that Sam has weird pictures of Mysterious Lake Girl drawn 20 years ago. Sam and Julia think Mysterious Lake Girl is special, therefore they are totally going to hook up. Hey, relationships on this show have been formed over less. See: every romantic couple on the show.

Miscellaneous Notes on Infestation

--The butterflies flock to Julia because she's the Monarch. That's her secret power.

--"She's a scared little girl, she couldn't have killed Angie!" Julia, seriously, YOU LIVE IN A GIANT GOLDFISH BOWL. And it's the fact that this is a girl who trembles a lot that is your indication that she couldn't possibly have done anything wrong?? Why are you still using logic and reasoning? You live under a Dome that is trying to send you messages. Give up the logic ghost, honey. You'll be better for it.

--"What do you have faith in?" "You, Big Jim" (insert eye roll here)

--Who killed Angie? I'm still going with Mysterious Lake Girl

--Joey, Norrie, and Junior try to take matters into their own hands and gun down Mysterious Lake Girl. These kids have basically learned nothing.

In Which I Reveiw The Leftovers (1x2)

Aggression. If kept unchecked it has a tendency to boil over and cause havoc. When you're so angry about the events in your life that you just want to hit something...it's good to keep a plastic penguin around. In this weeks episode, "Penguin One, Us Zero" the leftover anger of loosing friends and family bubbles up in various forms of aggression--violent and non violent ones. Tiny little indicators that you are just not the picture of mental health. There were a lot of plot strings in this episode, some that had zero to do with the others but are obviously important to the overall narrative. Gun fights, robbery, tree chopping, and man vs toaster oven, all manifestations of aggression that just can't be kept under lock and key anymore. 

 Kevin is still having a rough time. In the narrative of the show, it has been a few weeks since the parade to remember the heroes who were taken. After killing many dogs and punching a member of the cult, Kevin's coworkers are a bit concerned that he's lost his marbles--a distinct possibility seeing as his father lost his own marbles. Kevin is having weird dreams, most of which revolve around violence. In the pilot, he crashes his car into a deer; this week, he is stalking through the woods, scantily dressed I might add, to watch the Mystery Man with the Gun shoot at a member of the cult (my guess is that the target was Kevin's wife). Is Kevin crazy? I'm going to go with YES. In two episodes, he's violently assaulted someone, killed a pack of dogs, had conversation with a Mystery Gun Man who no one else even sees or can find, he's dismembering a toaster oven to find a lost bagel like some crazed drug addict who simply can't rest until the problem is solved, and he seems to have a hard time distinguishing from being awake and being asleep. The worst part might be that those around Kevin keep trying to cover up his obvious psychopathy. The mayor (who apparently is/was sleeping with Kevin's equally mental father) tells Kevin to lie to the therapist about not killing any more dogs; Kevin's lieutenant is willing to cover up the evidence of Kevin's own state of mind; Kevin's own father--who is presented at first as being totally rational and then starts talking to spirits in the air--tells him to pretend to be normal. Why is it so important that we ignore his state of mind? I think the other issue is that the show is trying to present Kevin's obvious tenuous hold on reality as if there are forces greater than him that are interfering in his life--so his mental degradation isn't his fault; it's the work of some metaphysical "Other." In the opening dream, Kevin's feet are on fire (okay?) and then he wakes up to find that his neighbors have set something on fire and when he goes over to help them, he ends up burning his feet in the snow.  It has a decidedly "this was all destined to happen" feel about it, but doesn't change the fact that Kevin is having some pretty odd dreams and waking violent flashbacks.

Last week, Meg decided to up and leave her fiancee and join the Guilty Remnant Cult. Her reasons for that have yet to be explained, or even why the GR was after her in the first place. Do they just randomly choose people they think will come along? Meg is being kept in the pledge house, meaning that she's still allowed to wear color and doesn't have to smoke yet. Laurie, Kevin's estranged wife, is Meg's sponsor. In order to become a full member of the GR, a pledge must be toughened. Which apparently means giving up one worldly possession a night and chopping down trees. I'm sure the chopping down of the tree is supposed to symbolize something--as Meg points out in the show to my amusement--but I'm much more interested in the other practices of the cult, not necessarily how one becomes a cult member. Why no talking? Why smoke? What exactly do they want? Kevin says they want to remind everyone of what happened, but...why? It's only two episodes in so I'm not going to predict that the show won't answer those questions yet, but in this post-LOST age, they can't keep us waiting around forever. The Leftovers is presenting these vignettes of people poorly coping with traumatic events as if there is a deep level of symbolism behind them, but that's not what the show was based on. There are no answers, so trying to wade through the minutia of symbolic meaning feels pointless. The entire bagel sequence from start to finish was one long tortured metaphor for insanity and also the disappearance of 2% of the world's population. Kevin, the tortured hero, rescues the bagel by freeing it from the confines of the toaster reality--the toaster being hell obviously. Now, Kevin, armed with his new knowledge about the inner workings of the toaster can rescue everyone and everything and the world can live as one. Except, again, that's not what this show was supposed to be about. There is no solution, there is no greater mystery to unfold that exists outside of human understanding. People vanished and now we cope. Go with you gut, The Leftovers. Have Kevin be completely mental and killing dogs and talking to invisible friends. It makes more sense than to slowly unravel some metaphysical mystery that is supposed to teach us all a lesson.

In an unrelated side story, Kevin's son and his uh..friend?...Wayne are now on the run. Wayne's compound was overrun with cops who are incredibly bad at their job. In what universe do cops fire on people before they are fired upon, go running into a house to terrorize girls who have been brain washed, and threaten to kill them if they try and flee? The scene failed to give me any kind of context for why teenage Asian girls are suddenly a threat. Wayne himself manages to flee, and Tommy takes one of the girls--who is SUPER important according to Wayne--with him. Wayne is a creeper. He likes to "hug it out." This is how he cures people. He hugs them. I'm sure there is some underage sex going on as well, but it's really about the hugs. Does Wayne really believe he's some sort of Messiah, or is he just a manipulative warlord pimp who is good at being charismatic? He talks a good game, I'll give him that. He manages to make Tommy think that there is some higher level plan and the little Asian girl (Christine?) is a big part of it. Sure. What is Tommy's deal though? He's obviously haunted by what happened a few years ago (good, that's the premise of the show) but is he really so into Wayne's message that he can't see how full of holes it is? The problem with that is Tommy is clearly not into the message! He refuses the magical Wayne hug. There is probably some "I want my pain!" thing going on here, but until we learn more about Tommy, he's just rather a blank box who is trying very hard not to sleep with Christine.

Craziness must run in the family, cause I don't know what Jill's deal is unless she's just a time bomb waiting to explode like her dad. She and her friend, who is doing such a nice impression of American Beauty teenage femme-fatle, spent the whole episode stalking a woman who carries a gun. They seems to think that the gun-carrying woman, who lost her whole family the day of the disappearance, is going to hurt someone. I guess that's the world in which they live now--gun automatically equals a violent scenario. It couldn't just be for protection, because no one and nothing is safe anymore. It's a tortured realization but not one that is unexpected. Is this more of an effort to feel something? Is Jill hoping that she'll witness violence first hand? Yeah...she's her father's daughter.

Miscellaneous Notes on Penguin One, Us Zero

--"I like dogs"
"Then stop shooting them cause that's what crazy people do!"

--Is Mystery Man with a Gun real? He has some obviously not real moments in the show: refuses to give his name, leaves his truck with a dead dog in Kevin's driveway, claims he is doing the Lord's work. He's either real and very strange or dead-all-along and there is something other worldly going on with Mystery Man with a Gun, Kevin and Jill and their various states of mind fuckery.

--"I should never have told you to watch The Wire." Haha. Obvious HBO show reference is obvious.

--I guess Meg has overcome her past life or something. Poor tree.

In Which I Review Under the Dome (2x1)

Look what came back! Oh happy happy day! A year ago, when this blog was brand new, I decided to review Under the Dome as a fun summer project. Over the course of one summer season I went from intrigued to confused to really angry to somewhat mollified. There were plots and intrigues and random characters who came out of basements to make pronouncements (RIP Max No-Last-Name) and there were funny eggs. By the end, I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend another summer with the show, but a year away has made me rethink that. This show is silly. It's weird and sometimes frustratingly stupid. It can be over the top cheesy and melodramatic. But if you stop expecting it to be a masterpiece of science fiction, then it can be fun. And the season two premiere, "Heads Will Roll" (yes, I'm serious. That is the title for this episode) was actually rather compelling. I barely remember what happened last season, but it doesn't matter much. Just go with the flow. Welcome back to Chester's Mill, a town like yours and mine, except stuck under a really big fish bowl. 

When we left off last summer, Julia had dropped the magical egg into the lake, pink stars were falling, and Big Jim and Little Crazy Pants Junior were about to hang Barbie. The premiere picks up right where we left off and explores how (almost) everyone got to live another day!

I don't think the Dome is happy. Instead of letting Big Jim exact his plan to kill Barbie to cover up his own crimes, the Dome sends out a loud noise. This noise is painful for those inside Chester's Mill; so painful, in fact, that most of the residents pass out right where they are standing. Only Barbie, Jim, Junior. and Linda are left standing no the green because you need your main characters to do something other than fall to the ground. Oh, I'm sure there is an explanation for why they weren't affected--the Dome loves them more, the Dome hates them more, the Dome is a fickle bitch who likes to pretend it's God and tease the little ants that live inside it. Normal Dome stuff. But along with the now passed-out residents of Chester's Mill, the Dome has become magnetized and is pulling all the metal objects toward it--grills, car keys, hand cuffs, cars. Barbie manages to weasel his way out of the noose and he, Jim, Linda and Little Crazy Pants Junior go to inspect the wall of the Dome. Now this is a brilliant plan. Surely nothing bad will happen when you go to where all the REALLY HEAVY metal objects are being drawn. It's not like this could possibly lead to anyone's death or anything.

RIP Linda. You were sad a lot in the first season and it made it kind of hard to like you in the end, but being crushed by a car against a magnetized mystical Dome is no way to go.

While Barbie, Jim and Little Crazy Pants Junior are witnessing the crushing of Linda, Julia is still at the lake having deposited her egg. (I missed writing about this show). Moments after releasing the egg into the watery depths, a girl appears in the center of the lake, obviously drowning. Julia, being the smart resourceful girl that she is, dives in and proceeds to pull her out with the help of a New Guy! The New Guy stumbled out from nowhere and saves the day. He's going to be important, I can just feel it. The New Guy takes Julia and the slightly drowned New Girl to his house where we learn that his name is Sam and he's an ex-alcoholic and an ex-EMT and, because we need to give some sort of sympathy to the handsome mystery man, he lost his sister to suicide and has become a recluse. He and Julia have buddy-buddy time, which is exactly what I would do if some guy appeared out of nowhere, told me he was a recovering alcoholic who now lives alone because the small all-American town hates him. Also what I would do: leave the unconscious drowned New Girl alone with the New Guy while I went looking for all my friends. Smart, Julia. Smart. The New Guy does pose as an interesting new figure, I'll grant. Sam obviously has some inside information about the Dome in the form of a book we see him flipping through, which includes images of the New Girl and bloody handprints. However, he fails at babysitting and the New Girl gets up and leaves without him noticing. Who is she? I think the fact that she came out of the water moments after Julia dropped the egg make it pretty obvious: she was what was inside the egg. Growing? Incubating? Ready to be hatched? Does this make Julia her mom? Is New Girl a manifestation of the Dome? What ever she is, she spends most of the episode wandering around town looking lost, dazed, confused and mysterious. Angie is the only one, outside of Julia and New Guy, who notice her. Remember that for later.

The dynamic team of Barbie, Jim and Little Crazy Pants Junior have decided to split up, most likely because Jim still really wants to kill Barbie. Jim heads to his house and the underground shelter where Angie once had such a pleasant life as the resident captive. There, Jim gets stuck with a Dodee ghost. Remember Dodee? Jim murdered her and then burned the radio station to the ground because...she was hearing things? I don't honestly remember. Suffice to say, Jim killed her and Dead Dodee is not happy about her new situation. The question is, really, is that Dodee? Dead Dodee doesn't think so. Dead Dodee claims to be a messenger. And I suppose I'm to assume that this is a message from the Dome? The Dome honestly just likes screwing with people. On the one hand, we've got Dead Dodee who is telling Jim that the Dome is demanding his sacrifice or else everyone, including Little Crazy Pants Junior, will suffer. But on the other hand, Julia thinks the Dome wants the killing to stop because violence is bad. I think poor crushed Linda would agree with her, but sadly she's unable to voice an opinion because the Dome smooshed her with a car. When Jim finally manages to get out of the shelter (random explosion that does not kill Jim nor renders him deaf, or at least with a slight ringing in his ear), gun in hand, he meets back up with Little Crazy Pants Junior, but just then another mysterious magnetic pulse goes off and still more people collapse to the ground, including Little Crazy Pants Junior! Oh no! Apparently this is a wake up call for Jim who thinks that he is to blame. Sure. If the Dome really is angry that Jim killed Dodee (and is basically a mob king pin who is trying to rule the town with an iron fist) then yes it's all Jim's fault.

Oh Little Crazy Pants. I almost missed you. After the Dome renders him unconscious, Little Crazy Pants Junior has a dream. Or, I suppose in this case, we'd call it a vision. Wandering through a deserted Chester's Mill that is not Chester's Mill, Junior encounters something called Zenith. Now, if I had to guess, that's going to be important. How do I know? Because when Junior finds a snowglobe (dome alert!) of the town, it clearly shows Zenith Tower...and then it turns to blood. Future tip: things that turn to blood and break in a TV show are probably important. Continuing down not-Chester's Mill lane, Little Crazy Pants Junior sees a woman walking around town. Turns out to be....Mommy Dearest. Remember: Junior thinks his mom killed herself and all she left behind were paintings of the Dome and what's to come. Oh, and a lot of emotional trauma because Little Crazy Pants Junior was stuck with Big Crazy Pants Jim. The Vision-o-Mom insists that she never left Junior and that he's her "sweet boy." Um. Your boy locked a girl in an underground shelter, handcuffed her to a bed, and basically made a menace of himself last season. He's not playing with a full deck here, Mrs. Rennie. Momma Crazy Pants might top Little and Big Crazy Pants in terms of crazy because this whole vision feels real, as if Momma Crazy Pants might be apart of some Dome conspiracy.

While all this is going on, the other three Miracle Children (Jorrie! Oh you sweet little couple) are running for their lives since all the metal in Chester's Mill is out to get them (Under the Dome, Season 2: When Trash Cans Attack). This was actually a rather interesting sequence--knives flying, nails flying. But, a quibble. Joey hides behind a table with his hand still out front and a nail proceeds to lodge itself in his palm. Hand, nail, wood, miracle wudnerkind with some sort of mystical connection to the Dome (God). The Messiah overtones are strong with this one. And when the nail passed through his hand, leaving a gaping wound, it was a bit too "Christ" for me. Joey has been set up, all along, as the one who understands the Dome; he was fascinated by it and he clearly has a stronger connection to it than some of the other kids. But now that they've gone and put a clear Christ image on him, I have to wonder if Joey will be dead by seasons end. The Dome doesn't want any more killing, or maybe it wants the RIGHT death. Poor Norrie. However will she cope without her Joey? The trio meet up with Barbie and...another new person. Ok, seriously. I have New Guy, New Girl, and now New Girl, the redux? At least this one came with a full name: Rebecca Pine, high school science teacher who has (gasp) been studying the Dome since it fell. She proposes that they need to De-magnentize the Dome by creating some Frankenstein science project. Now, don't get me wrong. High school science teachers are totally smart. My uncle is one. But, why is it that the only person studying the Dome since it fell is a high school science teacher? Aren't there...engineers in Chester's Mill? People who work with peers and not acne faced angsty teens? What exactly have those people been doing (probably going to Max No-Last-Name's underground Fight Club). So: in sum, we've got science vs Big Jim's test of faith. Science vs faith, why do I think this going to be the strong central theme for this season? Big Jim's solution to the Dome problem isn't as elegant as a science project---he thinks killing himself will do the job. And Julia is more than happy to help out, until she realizes that the Dome wants the killing to stop, and like a miracle the Dome stops pulsing and the fog clears. Now was it faith? Or was it the the magnet from Science Teacher Pine working after building up a charge? See. Science vs Faith.

Now that the town has returned to normal, or as normal as it gets when you live in a giant Dome, we get several revelations. Ready? They are rather big. First, New Guy Sam is really Uncle Sam (insert joke here) to Little Crazy Pants Junior. Sam was Junior's mother's brother. Is Sam just as crazy? Uncle Crazy Pants? Big Jim is obviously not happy to see his brother-in-law and when Little Crazy Pants Junior tries to tell Jim about his vision of Momma Crazy Pants, Jim dismisses it--because Jim clearly hasn't learned anything from the past hour in which a Dead Dodee tried to give him a message from beyond the grave which resulted in him almost hanging himself. So yes, why would we listen to Little Crazy Pants when your mysterious recluse brother-in-law suddenly shows up looking for New Girl (not science teacher, Lake Girl)? It's not like this should send up red flags for people living in a giant fish bowl. Angie, who is not Big Jim's biggest fan, asks Junior to have her back (STUPID) because Angie still wants to appease the Dome by offering a blood sacrifice of Big Jim. And this leads us to the conclusion. Angie sees New (Lake) Girl and follows her into the high school. New (Lake) Girl runs scared from Angie but not before Angie notices that the New (Lake) Girl is overly fascinated with a locker--shiny metal!. When Angie looks inside, there is some sort of glow and then...an axe chops off her head. Or at least kills her, I'm not sure if she's headless. RIP Angie. And RIP whatever remains of Junior's Sanity. Killing his little Angie-kins is not going to be good for his Crazy Tendencies. Cut to the final moments of the show: Junior's mom--alive--painting while a news report talks about a dome having fallen over a random town. So...she's alive? How? And what does she know about the Dome (probably everything). Theory time: the locker that so fascinated New (Lake) Girl holds another mini dome, with a replica of Chester's Mill inside. The residents of Chester's Mill are actually an ant colony and the Real Dome is in the Big World where Momma Crazy Pants is. Everything is a smaller version of the world, all of them living inside a Dome.

Miscellaneous Notes on Heads Will Roll

--What an utterly pretentious title. No heads rolled. Unless Angie really is headless now.

--Of course Stephen King has a cameo in this episode.

--"What the hell are you supposed to be? The Ghost of Christmas Future?"

--Raise your hand if you feel a love triangle brewing between Barbie, Julia, and Rebecca Pine. Barbie will have to choose: faith or science.

In Which I Review The Leftovers (1x1)

I have a soft spot for anyone who was once associated with LOST. As a former LOST-a-holic, I try to keep track of where the actors and producers and writers are and check out their new creative projects. Sometimes, it's a success (Once Upon a Time) and sometimes it's a dismal failure (Josh Holloway in Intelligence). Since LOST ended four years ago, co-creator and head writer Damon Lindelof has been off the TV grid, mostly working on the Star Trek movies. His venture back into TV is in the form a book-turned-small screen adaption of life post "Rapture." Going into this episode of TV, I must admit I had little interest. Post-rapture TV has been done before. The world turns gritty and ugly; most of the time this rapture event leaves the world backwards, technology has decayed, people are fighting over wells for water, rusted out shells of cars line the streets. All of which makes little sense since I'm fairly certain the book of Revelation makes no mention a technological standstill. The post rapture, post apocalyptic world is a hellscape to remind viewers, and characters in the show, of a life that once was, a better life. And maybe that's all well and good but it's deadly dull when each new "post" world is exactly the same. You can also expect some heavy handed metaphysical musings from the characters about God, divine wrath, sin, the Devil, ect. What is refreshing about The Leftovers, at least from the first episode, is that none of this really happened. The secular and pious voices come from the TV channels, which, over the course of the hour Pilot, vacillate from scientists who have no answers to religious leaders who have no answers. The post apocalyptic landscape looks a lot like our present day, just with less people. Technology still works, kids go to school, adults go to work, cars run, iPods play. The metaphsyical nature of a rapture is left to the talking heads on screen because what the characters in the story care about is how this event personally affected them; and more to the point, how they, the Leftovers, are coping with it. Hint: most of them are coping with it badly. 

Three years ago, 2% of the world's population suddenly vanished. There was neither rhyme nor reason; they just simply left the earth. This "rapture" took all sorts of people: celebrities known for excessive living, newborn babies, fathers, mothers, the old and infirm, the young and healthy, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist. We aren't given much in way of the confusion that surely followed, but rather we move forward in time three years to how everyone is dealing now. It's a small town and the mayor, following a federal mandate, is insisting that everyone is ready to move on. It's time to remember the heroes (even if their heroic quality is simply being taken) and have parades and celebrations. We have a tendency in America to celebrate and "remember" tragic events. Anniversaries of days gone by are brought up annually with picnics, parades, balloons, fireworks. It's...bizarre. At the same time that you're supposed to be moving on, you're forced to continually relive the event in question, as if we are worried that moving on means forgetting. And it's something Police Chief Kevin is against. He doesn't think three years is enough time for people to start feeling better. Kevin thinks that the town is basically trying to put a shiny spin on the tragic loss and move on, as if suddenly having millions upon millions of people vanish can ever be moved on from, especially when there are no answers to be had.

Kevin himself is an interesting guy. Father, husband, cop. He is small town America personified, except I think it's quite possible that he's loosing his mind in the wake of loosing those he loved. None of Kevin's immediate family was taken three years ago, but yet somehow he lost them. His son, Tommy, has joined up with a mysterious guru who claims he can help people unburden themselves but comes across as a dangerous warlord who enjoys flashing knives at people in the dark--and just so happens to have many Asian bikini-clad women lounging around a pool. Kevin's daughter, Jill, was once a straight-A student who is now numb and angry. She lashes out violently at times, and then moves to dissociation during acts of sexual violence (chocking a guy while he masturbates and all she can do is stare and the ceiling and let one tear fall). And Kevin's wife, Laurie, has decided to join up with a fascinatingly disturbing cult that might be the reason to keep tuning in, if only to learn what the heck his Guilty Remnant wants and why they act the way they do. More on them in a minute. Kevin, though, is obviously angry but trying his best to keep it together. He drinks quite a bit and I think is sleep walking, during which time he destroys his kitchen. He blames it on a deer though, so that's okay. There is a feral threat lurking around every corner--mobs, rabid dogs, sharpshooters, but most of all... men. Kevin's daughter might think that he'd never hurt a dog, but by episodes end, he's tearfully unloading his handgun into a pack of rabid dogs who came out of nowhere to take down a deer. The wild things that hurt the innocent--it's a motif in the show. Just as the wild dogs attacked something that was simply standing there, the angry mob attacked the cult even though they were leading a peaceful protest. And, of course, just as human kind was going through their day to day lives, someone or something decided to pluck 2% of them away.

Cults are a typical occurrence in any kind of "post" world. Upheaval always forces people to reexamine their lives and make drastic turns. Laurie, Kevin's wife, made her choice at some point after the rapture. She has taken up with the Guilty Remanent, a cult living in the suburbs. I like that they are in the suburbs; it drives home the point that these were all normal people until something happened to the world in which they live. Normally, the cult would be out on some desolate farm, cut off from the rest of the world. But these specters in white live amongst everyone else, even though they aren't welcome. Their cultic practices are unique to say the least. Dressing in all white doesn't seem too far off the path, but the chain smoking is. Boards with quoteables line the hallways, "we do not smoke for our enjoyment. We smoke as a demonstration of our faith." We learn little about the cult, mostly because no one is allowed to talk; they use paper and pen to communicate. At the remembrance memorial, they appear with signs telling people to stop wasting their breath. The cult was probably the most interesting part of the episode. Part of their duties include following unsuspecting people around, silently, smoking, and staring. It unhinges a woman name Meg who decides to join them instead of having them follow her anymore. What they believe in, or don't believe in, has yet to be made clear but it's something to look forward to.

There are a lot of other goodies in the show but for a pilot episode, it's more important to get the main cast down--the family who didn't loose each other in the rapture but are lost to one another anyway. It's possible that the show may delve into the more theological aspects of a "post" world--God, angels, demons, and Satan may appear, but I somehow doubt it. The show doesn't much care for the how of the rapture and maybe not even the why, but the what now question. The people taken will likely never come back and the characters still around will never get an answer as to why they were left over. It's how they learn to deal with and live in the new world that matters.

Or maybe it's aliens. This is Lindelof after all.

 Miscellaneous Notes on the Pilot

--I'd encourage people to check the show out. It's an interesting hour of TV.

--There are a lot of characters so far and it's hard to keep them straight, but that's very LOST. There are also some flashbacks, but unlike with LOST and ONCE, they aren't important yet.

--Christopher Eccleston plays an American preacher. He'll always be the 9th Doctor to me, so it's a bit odd but I really want to know what caused him to start spewing information about those taken.

--Lot of interesting musical elements in the show--classical piano motifs cut in at intervals of violence or upheaval.

In Which I Review The Fault in our Stars (Movie)

Some infinities are bigger than others

Over a year ago, when this blog was brand new, I did a series of books reviews. One of the fist books I talked about was John Green's "The Fault in our Stars." I gave it an A- and a rave review. I admit I am biased when it comes to John Green products. I've been a big fan of his for a long time, both as an author and as a vlogger. When I heard that Hollywood was adapting his New York Times best selling novel, I was both thrilled and incredibly apprehensive. How could they possibly hope to match the beautiful story John Green wrote? They couldn't manage to cast people who would do Hazel and Gus justice, right? Most of my fears were assuaged when I saw the trailer for the film--if the 1 minute long trailer could make me cry, then it had to be on the right track. You should know going in that this is going to be a rave. Honestly, this might be one of the most faithful adaptations of a novel I've seen in years. But, fair warning, if you go to see the film, take some tissues, you'll need them. 

Hashing the Plot

Let's do a quick overview of the plot before I get into what I liked and didn't like. Hazel Grace Lancaster is 16 years old and dying. She was diagnosed very young with cancer, stage 4. She wasn't expected to survive long but went through all the treatment options we assoiciate with cancer: chemo, radiation, more chemo, and finally a "miracle" drug that managed to prevent the cancer from spreading any further. Despite the miracle, Hazel is still dying, just more slowly now. Her lungs "suck at being lungs" and she needs a constant stream of oxygen supplied by a tank. When the film picks up, Hazel is just living her life day-to-day as one might expect: she watches TV, she goes to the doctor, she hangs out with her parents. But her mother and father are worried that she's depressed, a side of effect of the cancer. Hazel's voice over tells us that it's a side effect of dying, but almost everything is. Her doctor and her mother encourage her to go to a support group. The group serves as a cliche piece of any "cancer story" you read about--a group of young people who must strive to find the beauty in life despite all the odds. They sit in the literal heart of Jesus Christ and talk about how they are doing today. Hazel hates every second of it. Unlike the plucky young heroine of other cancer novels, who's illness causes them to struggle admirably, Hazel has accepted that she is going to die and that oblivion is inevitable. Then Augustus Waters bumps into her.

Augustus Waters is a boy who lives for the symbolic and the metaphorical. Take the cigarette, put it between your teeth but never light up, thus taking away the power it has to kill you. Augustus Waters, trying to take back control of his life, one non-puff at a time. Gus is both like and not-like Hazel. He had cancer but has been cancer-free for over a year; he lost half a leg because of the disease but for the most part he sees his life "on a roller coaster that only goes up." His only fear? Oblivion, which is cute and pretentious, but so is Gus. This is a boy who only does something if it's symbolic and metaphorical, after all. Hazel finds this fear of the oblivion silly and tells him so at their first meeting while sitting in the Literal Heart of Jesus: there will come a day when all of humanity is wiped out and everyone and everything will be forgotten. But if this bothers you, just ignore it. That's what everyone else does. Gus is drawn to Hazel instantly but Hazel is more reticent. She wants to just be friends because Hazel sees herself as a grenade, and one day she's going to explode and harm everyone around her. It's her responsibility to lessen the casualties. But as Gus smiles and says, "you keeping your distance from me in no way lessens my feelings for you." And so, a friendship is formed. One of the ways they bond is over the novel "An Imperial Infliction" by one Peter van Houten. Hazel swears by this book; it's her totem that she carries around because it accurately describes what it's like to die but the author is someone still alive, something Hazel responds to as she lives her in-between life. The book ends mid-sentence because that's how life goes, but that doesn't stop Hazel from wishing she knew what happened to the character's friends and family. Sadly, Mr. Houten refuses to speak to his fans and lives a life of solitude in Amsterdam.

The world is not a wish granting factory, but sometimes you do get what you desire. Augustus arranges it so that he, Hazel, and Hazel's mother can visit Amsterdam to speak with Peter van Houten in his home, and hopefully get answers to what happens to family members after someone dies of cancer. Gus does the big bold romantic gestures a lot and you fall in love with him because of it--slowly, and then all at once. Amsterdam is both a success and a failure. On the one hand, Hazel and Gus grow closer and Hazel decides that despite life being a shout into the void, this is the only life she gets and she wants to spend it with Gus. On the other hand, it turns out that Peter van Houten, the man with the answers, is a drunk hack who refuses to speak to the pair or give them any sort of answers. He is, as Hazel so rightly put it, a douchepants.

I am going to stop the plot hashing here because I do not want to spoil the movie. Rather, go see it yourself or read the book or do both! To go any further means giving away some things that are very spoilery and this is a movie/book you should savor without knowing what happens next.

What I Did Not Like 

I have almost nothing to put here. Really. I have maybe 3 very tiny nitpicky things but that's it.

--There was one conversation between Hazel and her dad about the universe that I thought should have been left in, but it's not a reason to hate on the film as a whole.

--If you haven't read the novel, it might be hard to understand what "An Imperial Affliction" is and why Hazel and Gus love it. In the book "The Fault in Our Stars" Hazel uses it a lot as a benchmark of her life. She related to the lead, Anna, quite a bit (something that is important to van Houten as well).  For example, the line "the risen sun too bright in her loosing eyes" is a phrase that Hazel and Gus discuss frequently, but the movie doesn't spend a lot of time focusing on the fictional novel within a fictional novel. I think it works well for the movie if you haven't read the book, but as a book reader, you do notice it.

--This critque is to Hollywood in general: do yourself a favor and find a scholar who can speak Greek and Latin in order to teach your actors how to say things in that language. It is not pronounced "harm-may-sha" it's "harm-ma-tea-ah." It only bothers me as someone who reads Greek and Latin.

What I Liked

--Everything. My sad paltry useless words cannot accurately convey how beautiful this movie was. The movie was an almost word-for-word adaptation of the novel, which is what I was hoping for. Why change something when it works so well? There is a lot of pain in this film, make no mistake. I lost count of the number of times I cried. But if there is one lesson (there are several) in this book/film: that's the thing about pain, it demands to be felt.

--Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgot. Casting for TFIOS needed to be impeccable and it was. When Ansel was cast as Gus Waters, I was very apprehensive. He wasn't quite what I pictured from the book, but he sold it in this film. Clad in leather, with a beautiful smile and kind eyes, but moving through life from metaphor to metaphor, he did it perfectly. Shailene has really proven herself in the past few years of being able to do anything. Her history with the book is well known; she wrote a letter to John Green expressing her love for the novel long before the movie was cast. She brought Hazel to life

--The smaller story line of Isaac was given just enough space to make Isaac a fleshed out character but not to detract from Gus and Hazel. He was also some much needed comic relief without being simply comedic. In particular, I loved the basement scene where Isaac is raging against the world while Hazel and Gus try to have a serious conversation.

--The soundtrack is also really good and I enjoyed seeing the pair in Amsterdam for real.

Overall rating: A

Just go see it. You have no reason not to. This isn't just another YA adaptation. This isn't another life affiriming sick movie. This is something more.
So go see it.

Okay?
Okay.

In Which I Review Maleficent

And yes I know it's true that visions are seldom what they seem...

When I was younger, Sleeping Beauty was a classic favorite. Like most young girls growing up in the middle of the Disney Renascence, I loved the songs and the story and I found Maleficent to be particularly terrifying. To this day, I would still rank her among the scariest Disney villains. The wicked fairy who turned into a larger than life dragon is still quite the iconic image for Disney. The latest venture back into the world of classic stories is another in a long line of revisionist films in which the villain is transformed into a misunderstood anti-hero and the "real" story is told through the eyes of a character who was previously denied a voice in their original tale. The last example, in theaters at least, was Oz the Great and Powerful in which we learned how the Wicked Witch became wicked and of course, Once Upon a Time has been doing the villain into anti-hero into hero take for three seasons now. Most of these ideas are following in the rather large footsteps of Gregory Magurie's "Wicked" saga in which the Wicked Witch of the West is given a name and a voice and a story that cannot be reduced to "ugly witch tries to kill a good girl." Where Maguire succeeds is in his character of Elphaba--that her story is outside of normal anti-hero woman tropes; her love life factors in, but only much later. How she became "evil" is a series of events beginning with her birth. And this is what Disney--be it Oz the Great and Powerful or Maleficent--fails at. They are still stuck in 1959. The moral of this new bright and shiny Maleficent movie? Don't have sex. Sex is bad. Virginity is good. 

Hashing the Plot

I want to do a quick, down and dirty plot explanation before moving into the problems I have with this film--and, to be fair, what I did like about the picture. Be aware that this is NOT spoiler-free. We are told from the first few moments that this is not the story we have been told before, but that what we are about to see is the true version of events. Long ago, there were two kingdoms, the human one and the fairy kingdom (called for some inexplicable reason The Moors). The two kingdoms were incredibly different--the human or "real" kingdom was populated by men who warred and were gluttonous and envious and revengeful. The mythic fairy kingdom--the realm of the divine--was beautiful and glorious, an inner sanctum only accessible by those who were magical and pure themselves. The king of the human land hated the fairies and wished to see them destroyed, but a tentative peace has been established at the start of the film. Inside the divine realm lived a little fairy by the name of Maleficent who was--as you might expect--good and kind and proper. She heals trees and is friends with the various mythic inhabitants that live in her realm. She's also an orphan because this is Disney and all heroes are orphans or have lost at least one parent (no, I'm not kidding. You tell me one famous Disney figure who has both parents living happily with them). When she is still quite young, a human boy wanders past the threshold of the mortal and into the divine. Heads up--in mythology, transgression into the divine never ends well.

The young boy--who is also an orphan, shockingly enough--is named Stephan and he and Maleficent become fast friends as children. Stephan visits Maleficent and the divine realm often and as they grow up together, the nature of their relationship changes. Before her 16th birthday, Stephan gives Maleficent a kiss and tells her, it is a true love's kiss. But Stephan, being a mortal boy, goes back to the mortal world to seek out his fame and fortune and gradually he begins to visit the divine realm and Maleficent less and less. But don't worry, Maleficent just gets over him. No, I'm just kidding, of course she doesn't. Because all women are weak and silly and the only thing that could possibly make them interesting is a man. But I'll come back to this later. For reasons that don't make a lot of sense, the king of the human world decides to go to war with the divine realm, which is now under the protection of Maleficent herself. The two sides engage in battle and Maleficent decimates the king's army using the Ent's from Tolkein. Well, at least that's what they look like. At the same time, she does some harmful damage to the king and the king is now at death's door. The king has no heir, only a daughter (and women are weak and foolish and cannot rule without a man), so he promises to marry of his child to the man who can kill Maleficent and bring back proof. Stephan, during all this, has become a close ally to the king, though we do not know how an orphan boy with no money or skills or talents ended up being the servant to the king. Stephan has grown ambitious in his years away from the divine and so seeks out to kill his former friend, Maleficent.

Stephan returns to the divine realm, bearing a sleeping potion. After he has lulled Maleficent into a false sense of security, he gives her the drink that will put her under and then takes out his knife, determined to end her life. But at the last second, he cannot do it, so instead, he violently removes her wings and leaves her in the woods. And yes, you are supposed to read this as sexual and yes, to be technical and CORRECT, it's a metaphorical rape and a loss of innocence. Maleficent awakens in pain and grieving for her lost wings but also her lost love who has betrayed her. This sexual awakening and trauma changes Maleficent and she determines to seek revenge on Stephan. Because Maleficent has changed, the divine realm changes. It grows dark and gloomy and the creatures grow fearful of their new dark queen, who is the Mistress of All Evil. Because she can no longer fly, Maleficent saves a raven from death and the raven swears allegiance to Maleficent, and can now turn from raven to man at Maleficent's will. After a short period of time, Stephan and the new Queen have a baby girl and there is to be a celebration in the kingdom.

From here, the film is incredibly derivative of the Disney animated classic and so this is going to go fairly quickly. At the party, Maleficent shows up and curses baby Aurora--on the babe's 16th birthday, she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a death like sleep, never to be awoken except by True Love's Kiss, which Maleficent does not believe exists after Stephan's betrayal. Fearing for their child's safety, baby Aurora is sent to live with the three good (and incredibly annoying) fairies in a remote part of the forest until they day after her 16th birthday. The child grows up unaware of who she really is, and the whole time Maleficent stands guard over the child, watching. Because the fairies are incredibly ignorant on the ways of child-rearing, Maleficent finds herself, more often than not, taking care of Aurora and she comes to care for the child to the point where Maleficent tries to remove the curse, unsuccessfully. Maleficent and Aurora grow closer and Aurora wishes to come live with Maleficent in the Moors, which prospers once again under Aurora's hands (cause virginity is good and the divine can only be handled by the sacred feminine). But when Aurora learns her true identity, she returns to Stephan's castle. Stephan has become increasingly paranoid and has no reaction to his daughter except to lock her up. There, driven by the curse laid upon her, Aurora stumbles across a room full of spinning wheels and pricks her finger, thus subcumming to the a death-like sleep.

Prince Philip, a totally colorless character if ever there was one, tries unsuccessfully to wake the Sleeping Beauty. But there appears to be no hope for poor Princess Aurora when Philip's lips fail. Maleficent, overcome by grief that she could not stop the curse, promises the sleeping girl that she will stand guard over her and let no harm fall upon her. And then Emma Maleficent gives Henry Aurora a kiss on the forehead and the curse breaks because there is nothing more powerful than a mother's love (we get it Disney. You like Once Upon a Time and Once Upon a Time likes you. You're glad that they have decided to fan-wank to you for the past three seasons. You don't need to pay homage to a show that pays homage to you. It's redundant). The mother-daughter pair try to leave only to be stopped by Stephan who is determined to kill Maleficent once and for all. Maleficent turns her raven into a dragon and there is a very loud battle. Whilst this happens, Aurora stumbled upon the room in which Stephan has kept Maleficent's wings, locked in a cage, but apparently still working. Aurora frees the wings, which return to Maleficent and she defeats Stephan. Crisis resolved, Aurora unites the kingdom and they all live happily ever after. 

What I Liked

 --The visuals ARE stunning. There's no denying that most of the budge for this film went into making it as beautiful as possible. The land of the fairies is exactly what you think it will be, full of color and life and a sort of dream-like mythic reality that humanity can never hope to penetrate. There are some instances where I thought it was a little much, as if they threw in color and light just for the sake of it.

--Angelina Jolie was born to play this role. When this movie was announced and you heard who would play the lead, I bet most of you said, "of course." She is deliciously wicked and broken in the role. She wears the leather costumes with ease and those prosthetic cheekbones fit her to a T. You can tell that Jolie had a lot of fun with this role, really sinking her teeth into doing some good ol' fashioned scene chewing.

--The costumes are to die for. Or at least Maleficent's are. The snake skin horned head wrap is stunning and I imagine there will be an Oscar nomination for the film's costuming department. The costuming for Aurora is perfunctory; it gets the job done. The princess is rendered in soft virginal hues of pink, peach, gold, and blue.

--The curse scene was the best in the film. Straight up Disney brought to life, and I'm not going to complain. Jolie had a ton of fun filming that one, and it works for her. 

What I Didn't Like

--Let's talk about sex. This movie is predicated on the fact that sex is wrong and virginity is to be celebrated. I gave this deceleration to my mother as we left the theater, to which she responded "what?!" What essentially happens to Maleficent, her driving motive for the whole film, is a loss of sexual innocence and purity. The removal of her wings as she sleeps is a stand in for both the wedding night and, as I mentioned, rape. It is this incident that turns Maleficent into the mistress of all evil; while she was still virginal and pure, even though she knew the ways of the world and the wickedness of man, she was still "good." The writer of this film decided that they only way to make Maleficent an interesting character was through sex, motherhood, and most damning of all, a man. Once she meets Stephan, her entire center becomes the love she bears for this man. We are told nothing about her life in between Stephan's visits, only that when he is gone, she mourns for him. And when he robs her of her sexual power--takes her divine feminine--she becomes a leather clad, staff wielding, baddie. The land of the divine, the fairy land, becomes dark and sinister, thorns overtaking the flowers and peaceful nature because Maleficent has lost her heart (and virginity). The woodland creatures live in fear of what Maleficent has become, a sexually aware woman who's entire modus operandi is focused on a man. Now, I am not trying to diminish rape even in the slightest, but this movie is one giant fail of the Bechdel test because everything revolves around a man: be it the dying and vengeful king; young boy Stephan; teenage heartthrob Stephan; horrible father Stephan; and crazed Stephan who must die. You almost expect Maleficent to pull out a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream and her Adele "21" CD and sing "Someone Like You."  It is only when Maleficent if gifted her sexual power back--in the form of her divine angelic wings--does she manage to conquer the man who stole it from her in the first place.

The only time a man is not in control? Virginal Aurora. Philip is reduced to a side character who has maybe 10 lines, which is ironic given that the Disney animated film is really his story, not Sleeping Beauty's. Aurora is the perpetual virgin queen that was promised, if not on film than in the mythic reality in which this film operates and from the archetypal world from which it draws. True love's kiss from a man does not work on Aurora, her father has little emotional effect on her, and in the end we aren't sure what the status of Philip and Aurora even are. When Aurora enters the fairy land, it springs to life in the wake of her purity and innocence. The final shot of the film is Aurora, bathed in gold (the same color, mind of you, of the divine light that radiates from Maleficent's wings once they are returned to her) being crowned queen of both the mortal and the divine realm. Philip is there but only in the last few seconds, and the movie leave it vague what their relationship is. Are they to be friends as once Maleficent and Stephan were, thereby breaking the violent cycle? Are they to be lovers? Partners? We are not sure. Disney canon will, of course, say that they are lovers and will be wed, but Disney canon also said that Philip's true love kiss would wake Aurora from her curse. Aurora is not made the queen of the realms because she is a good ruler or even because she has a strict "right" to them (the mortal one perhaps though that is complicated since the sexist overtones of the movie make it impossible to believe that the kingdom would let a woman rule, but not the divine. Maleficent was the ruler because she was the "best" of them all). Aurora rules because she is the essence of purity and sexual innocence. Her interactions with Philip, when they meet, are timid and shy; she can barely speak to him.She is the perfect example of being demurely feminine.

What saves Maleficent, in the end, is motherhood, not that evil and revenge are wrong, because she has no problem still going after Stephan. When Aurora is still a screaming babe, and the fairies are too inept to take care of her, Maleficent sends the raven to the baby with a milk flower from which Aurora suckles. It may be through a middle man, but Maleficent gives the baby suck, which is something that is not even subtly about motherhood. While I understand that THIS is the new take on the Sleeping Beauty story, it's not new. It's the same idea you would have found in 1950s and 1960s Disney and outside Disney. Women are saved because their nature is to be nurturing mothers who love their children. I don't want to call it propaganda but Maleficent's entire center is first based on sexual loss and then on being a mother, or, if you want to get rather un-puritanical, grin and bear your husbands affections because your children are your reward.  And if you want to extend this metaphor, consider this: Aurora is played by several younger actresses until Elle Fanning takes over. The actress who plays the 2-3 yr old Aurora? Jolie's own daughter.

It's a bit un-post modern and it's not really revisionist: the only way for a woman to be powerful is to be either a virgin (Aurora) or a mother (Maleficent), though the virgin clearly trumps all. In a way, Maleficent becomes the Sleeping Beauty who who has something taken from her and only returned through true love. There are a few images that reinforce what I've been saying that I'll just touch on them quickly: the potion Stephan gives Maleficent is blood red and we only see it steadily dripping on to the ground like the blood that would have occurred during the breaking of the hymen; the metaphor is taken further by the wings being on display, like a bloody sheet that would have been hung up to prove that a marriage was consummated. There is a lot of phallic imagery, from the way Stephan constantly weilds his knife, to the many swords used to take down Maleficent to the staff Maleficent uses after the assault as a crutch (metaphor alert: Maleficent uses the representation of the male sex organ because her own sexual power has been taken!). I suspect some will claim that Maleficent gets her sexual power back (her wings) and thus defeats Stephan but I find his problematic for two reasons. First, Maleficent does not retrieve her wings, they are given back to her by Aurora. And second, even with her recovered wings, Maleficent can not be the queen of the divine realm; that position now belongs to virginal Aurora.

--Aurora. Oh boy, where to start? Well, for one, they kept her very Disney-fied. She's a simpering moron with little to say or do. Elle Fanning's job in this movie to be pretty. She is to stand quietly and smile and look pretty. Like in Disney, she is granted gifts from the fairies: beauty and grace. Because that is all a woman is supposed to offer this world, I suppose. A true revision would have given her some smarts so she didn't do idiotic things like think the leather clad woman with horns was her fairy godmother (not kidding).  I suppose since all that was required was to be pretty, she did it well. You can add Philip to this list as well as an essentially useless character who's role was to simply be there because nostalgia dictates it.

--The three fairies, who were the best part of the Disney move, are incredibly annoying and shrill. They are the comic relief of the film and spend more time shrieking and fighting with each other than they do anything else. In the Disney film, they are actually quite helpful and powerful. Another case of turning women into simpering idiots, I suppose.

--A lot of quiet moments of no action or advancement. Now, I complimented Jolie in this role and I meant it. But too much of this film is the director having Maleficent sitting or standing and simply looking. She spends a lot of time watching and gazing and the director takes advantage of Jolie's looks and makeup and costuming to find ways to light her and angle his camera to capture her beauty. It was fine the first few times because she does look incredible, but after awhile, I began to get annoyed with the constant close ups and focus on her cheekbones and eyes. 

--Maleficent doesn't turn into a dragon. I am going to repeat that. Maleficent doesn't turn into a dragon. Good lord--even ONCE got that part right!

Over all grade and thoughts:  I'm going to give it a C. The film is visually stunning and Jolie is divine looking in the costuming. But the not so revisionist "revision" and really sexist plot line take away a lot of the enjoyment I expected from this film. There is little in the way of laughter, though the film tries with the three fairies and occasionally the raven, who was a good character if very underused.  It's a very short film, for a summer flick, so it may be worth the money to go see it, but I'd wait until your local theater offers cheaper tickets.