Eccleston! and media log

[fannishliss]

I'm trying to record my media consumption for 2012.

27- 35. Heroes s1.15-23.  During January, I watched the first season of Heroes.  I liked it fairly well.  It still had a bit too much predictability, and a few plot holes, but I liked the main characters well enough to care about what happened to them.  Sad to say, I don't care much for Sylar.  I don't understand his motivations... or why he does what he does ... or how it works... if he is like Peter or different.... even the mirror of Sylar and Peter didn't work for me 100%.  My favorite is Claire.  I thought her acting job was very very good and her character was believable and interesting.   For Eccleston fans, the relevant episodes are 1.13 The Fix, 1.14 Distractions, 1.16 Unexpected, and 1.17 Company Man, plus a brief introduction in 1.12 Godsend. Chris does a fantastic job, very intense and very physical as usual.  Honestly, I couldn't picture him as Sylar, which he was offered first -- but it would have been amazing.  Claude does survive s1, though he doesn't reappear -- he goes on in the graphic novels.  I also liked that Claude got a bit of backstory in Company Man.  :)   I'd recommend that if someone was interested in Claude's role, to get the whole first series (cheaply) because it does tell a complete story in and of itself, and Claude's character fits well into that story. But you could also just read the synopses enough to learn about Peter Petrelli, and that would be enough background to understand Claude based on the five eps he's in.   // So that was 23 episodes.  :)

There have been four Supernatural episodes so far in 2012:
[#21] 7.11  "Adventures in Babysitting" wr. Adam Glass  1-6-12
 While Dean goes after Dick Roman, Sam tries to help a girl whose father, a hunter, disappeared while investigating a truck stop.
The highlight of this ep was the little girl Hunter, modeled after the girl hero of True Grit, and her interactions with Dean.
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36. 7.12 "Time After Time" wr. Robbie Thompson 1-13-12
Dean has been sent back to 1944, while Sam teams up with an old friend to get him back.
Omg, Nick Lea of "Krycek" fame plays Eliot Ness, while "Logan" from Veronica Mars plays the baddie.  Oh, yay, guest stars!  plus, awesome costumes!  The other highlight of this ep was the brilliant teamwork and camaraderie between Sam and Sheriff Jodie Mills (who upon googling, turns out to be fully certified in stage combat -- bring it on, show!!)
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37. 7.13 "The Slice Girls" wr. Eugenie Ross-Leming & Brad Buckner  2-3-12
Dean and Sam run into a tribe of Amazons, who mate with men, begetting daughters who are meant to kill their fathers.   The highlight of this ep?  other than shirtless Dean? :)   I liked the crusty professor they hired to do their translations of Greek… and I liked the flask and the mentions that Bobby might still be around (though really, I hope he isn't!)
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38. 7.14 "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magic Menagerie" wr. Andrew Dabb & Daniel Loflin 2-10-12
Sam has to face his clown phobia when a series of bizarre deaths point to a Plucky pizza place.  This had several great side characters in it.  I loved the manager girl, the hapless mom employee, and even the overly plucky assistant manager boy.  Plus, of course, the real highlight was the Unicorn!!!!  and the kid in the lion suit rocked!!!   Plus, Sam doing bad cop, SO BADLY.  :D Many things rocked about this ep.  Yay!

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I also finally managed to watch both  Let Him Have It and Jude, two of the most important film roles of Chris's career.

39. Chris made his big-screen debut as an unknown in Let Him Have It (1991, dir. Peter Medak).  (Chris had had four small bit parts in TV in 1990-91) The film is based on the real-life story of the last person to be executed by hanging in the UK.  The subject, Derek Bentley, was a young man, only 19, who suffered from epilepsy and learnindisabilities. His death caused a public outcry,  and the death penalty was abolished in the UK. 
Chris brings amazing power and conviction to the role.  He did a great deal of research about epilepsy and its effects on mood and learning disability.  He fought with the director about Medak's apparent desire to sugarcoat the character of Derek; Chris felt it was important to show his moody and difficult side.   Even in his very first role, and as a young man whose career was based on this break -- Chris refused to bend in his interpretation of the character.  He got to know Derek's sister, and wears Derek's actual watch in the movie.  With Let Him Have It, Chris set the pattern for portraying working class characters with authenticity and as much complexity as he could bring to them.   The courtroom scene, where Derek visibly loses the ability to process the questions that are being asked of him, is especially powerful.  Chris has an amazing ability to physicalize the emotions of his characters, and this is no exception.  It's a slow movie, and sad, but well-done, and a must-see for any fan of Chris.  For those who like the Revenger's Tragedy, one of the corrupt sons ("Junior") is the same actor who plays Chris Craig, Derek's ne'er-do-well buddy in LHHI.  Derek's mother is played by Eileen Atkins, who I loved in Cold Comfort Farm as Judith Starkadder.  You also get to glimpse two of Chris's cousins in the opening scene, Rebecca and Peter Eccleston, playing younger versions of Derek and his sister. 

40. Jude (1996, dir. Michael Winterbottom, wr. Hossein Amini, from Thomas Hardy's last novel pub. 1895)
By the time Chris made Jude, he had done a lot of good work which is still well-regarded to this day.  He had just completed three admired TV serials -- Our Friends in the North (1995); Hearts and Minds (1994); and Cracker (1993); plus he'd been in Shallow Grave (1994), and Let Him Have It (1991).  [Two less well-known but AWESOME pieces from Chris's early career are the beautifully filmed and thought-provoking  Anchoress (1993) and the very weird but ultimately nifty "Death and the Compass" (1992, dir. Alex Cox, based on a short story by Jorge Luis Borges).]  Being in this full-throated costume drama with Kate Winslet -- Chris was prepared to unleash himself upon the world.  Why didn't this happen?
It was no fault of his, or of any of the actors, or even of the director.  Blame Thomas Hardy, or perhaps the screenwriter, Hossein Amini, who you may remember from Drive (2011) or Snow White and the Hunstman (now in post-production). Basically, blame the dead babies.   o_O  You may remember a certain controversial scene in Trainspotting (director Danny Boyle's 1996 followup to 1994's Shallow Grave).  But what might fly in a gritty movie about heroin addiction, won't necessarily fly in a costume drama.  I had assiduously read all the summaries -- yet still somehow convinced myself they would not ACTUALLY follow the plot of the book in having Jude's sad oldest son, Little Jude, strangle his siblings and hang himself, but they did, and showed the bodies on camera.  I had to cover my husband's eyes (he is a child-care professional by day).  Even the ending, which left a modicum of hope in terms of the relationship between Jude and his true love/cousin, Sue, pales in comparison to the crushing blow dealt by the babies' horrible and tragic death.  You can really see why Sue's mind was warped by what happened. The beautiful on-screen chemistry between Winslet and Eccleston, and the nobility of their characters, can't overcome the tragedy.  It's really hard to recommend a viewer to this film.  But, if you are a fan of Chris, you will see another example of the amazing power of this actor.  It's a deeply felt and deeply moving performance in the midst of a very tragic story. 
Chris was to follow Jude with Hillsborough (1996) in what I call his Triumvirate of Tragedy, which I haven't seen yet.  Am hoping to distract myself with a little bit of Elizabeth (1998) in which Chris plays the sexy, highborn, bad Duke of Norfolk.  Will not be surprised if he dies!

status: 40. 

Comments

[bloose09.livejournal.com]

You should write reviews for a living, you know that?

Heroes: I watched Heroes for a couple of seasons hoping it would all tie together somehow. I finally gave up :( There were some of the characters I never connected with and really didn't care what happened to them, so it was hard to keep my interest up when they became the focal point for a number of episodes. As for Sylar? I agree, what was the motivation? Just because he could?

Jude: You do know the ending in the movie was changed from the book, right? There is no hope in the book. The children's death is an anchor point of the novel. What other tragedy could have befallen Jude and Sue to fracture their relationship to the point they separate? Do you feel there are some acts that can only be read in a book and not shown in a film? Or just not shown in certain genres?

KW and CE were both incredible in Jude. I have always been a bit baffled as to why CE's career failed to be boosted by Jude, when KW's career was.

LHHI: This piece set the tone of CE's career and the roles he would be offered. I agree, it is a must see for the social aspect as well as CE's performance.

Enjoy Elizabeth.

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your note of confidence re my reviews. I was trained in literary criticism! but I don't do it for a living. :D

I was hoping the kids would die of influenza or something. :P Just having the boy hanging with his tongue sticking out, and the little babies all blue, was TOO HORRID. O_O Sue could even have still said "Your child killed mine" if he caught the illness first and transmitted it to the others... revisionist I know!

I know that in the book everyone dies... I think it would be excusable to change the book to give Sue a reason to live -- or even, you know, the Creature's dream [from Frankenstein] where even though society denies him and his mate a place, he dreams of a utopia in South America. Hardy temporarily opens Australia as a possibility of escape but then shuts it down again. You would think that in 1895 with the mass emigration, that America might be an option. The repeated imagery of the trains in the movie seem to taunt Jude Fawley with mobility while constantly denying him any real escape from his origins. :(

I don't know how literary sticklers might take such a change of ending. But certainly the way it did end, with that modicum of hope, was better than nothing -- but still not enough to recuperate the movie from the deathly image of the murdered babies.

Watching the movie did actually make me want to read the book... I loved both Tess of the Durbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd. Crowd has the best ending. I have now dream cast Winslet as Bathsheba and Chris as Gabriel Oak, so I play it out that way with its happy ending. :)

Husband is gearing up for Macbeth right now -- which has one of the most poignant child murder scenes in all of literature. That hardly ever takes place on stage. It's just too horrid to watch. So yeah, I mean, children dying is a fact of life, but I would really prefer not to see dead babies on screen. Urgh!!!

I think it could have been a very different movie with just that key change ... giving the babies a different kind of death would have gone a long way to softening the movie for the American audience.

I am a scholar of Mary Shelley who bore five babies to see only one live. So very heartbreaking. Yet somehow she prevailed, even after Percy Shelley died. Amazing.

PS I love the icon of Jude reading. I wanted to scream in frustration when he was being seduced by Arabella. She was so wrong for him! He just couldn't see it! If only he'd managed to stay celibate for the sake of his scholarship!!! :P

[desertport]

and the kid in the lion suit rocked!!!

"This is the best job I've ever had!!"

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

he was awesome! :D

[develish1]

as you know, I think, I finally got a copy of Jude, although I haven't watched it yet.

It's one of those I had to have, but am not in a hurry to actually watch, if that makes sense?

as for whether or not he does in Elizabeth, are there many where he DOESN'T die? lol

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

I keep movies lying around to watch when the mood strikes. Netflix doesn't work for me for that reason. I kept Let Him Have It for at least two months? I've been psyching myself up for Jude since the summertime, so I've had plenty of time to wrap my head around it... also, I've watched lots of clips on youtube. :D

Here is one of bloose's beautiful icons, of Jude reading his Latin or Greek. I'd like to remember him just like this. :D

[silverlunarstar.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the episodes with Claude!

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

you're welcome!

[aililinnea.livejournal.com]

Can I re-post your review of LHHI in my journal when I get to it? You said everything I would have said, and probably better. I will of course credit you and link back here.

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

Sure! That would be great. :)