Book Review: "Howard's End," by E.M. Forster

Crush Du Jour Rating: Patrick is confused! (Translation: "Um...didn't get it.")

I know, thanks to school and stuff I've been pretty lax with the book reviews, but they're coming, they're coming...I received this book from my grandmother for Christmas, along with Zadie Smith's On Beauty, which shall be reviewed pretty soon after this one. Apparently the two are connected - Smith intended her book to be an homage to this one, which she considered to be one of the best books ever written.

I have to disagree. Generally speaking, the plot is this - two families, the wealthy and liberal Schlegels, and the middle-class-but-still-well-off conservative Wilcoxes, are brought together when young Helen Schlegel and Paul Wilcox announce, and then just as swiftly terminate, a harebrained engagement. Helen and Paul recover fairly quickly, but Margaret, Helen's older sister, strikes up a friendship with Paul's mother, Mrs. Wilcox. When Mrs. Wilcox dies, with only a rough pencil-written note that leaves Howard's End, her country estate, to Margaret instead of her family, the tension only builds, even after the Wilcoxes unanimously decide to destroy the note without telling Margaret.

Things proceed on from there at a rather muddled and tiresome pace. Forster does a lot, and I mean a lot, of telling instead of showing, with Margaret and Helen and the others going on about the nature of love and marriage and decision-making and hayfever and what have you, with a great deal of philosophizing that I either didn't understand or didn't care about. I realize I may sound a bit immature, and maybe I might enjoy this book when I'm older, but as it was it simply could not hold my interest. The narrative has this annoying habit of leading a reader in one direction, only to make a sudden turn that has no bearing on the story at all. In this manner the book ends on a fairly large deus ex machina, and I left it feeling unsatisfied. For instance, Mrs Wilcox dies, the book spends several pages demonstrating that Mr Wilcox is a) mourning his wife, and b) an awful pig-man, but then a few pages later he up and proposes to Margaret! Who accepts, of all things!

For another thing, the characters are all uniformly unsympathetic and poorly developed. Helen is irrational, selfish, and thoughtless. Margaret is easily bored, haughty, and disturbingly pleased with the unearned quality of her wealth. Mr. Wilcox and his children are even worse. I couldn't find one character in which I could relate to anything, since both families are composed of snobs who really don't give a damn about anyone but themselves. And their characters have no bearing on how they actually react to things, which while it might have made the book more unpredictable, also removed any ounce of sense from the narrative. There was really no point to the whole thing, and I couldn't for the life of me guess how any of the characters had progressed from the beginning of the novel to the end. They all seemed more or less the same to me.

The point is, basically, the story was about well-off people who disagree with and make catty remarks about other well-off people, while a few not-so-well-off people show up here and there to throw a monkeywrench in things. Margaret may lecture on at length about love, but as someone who kept herself on a pedestal thanks to her money and had nothing to do with men, what experience does she have on the subject? Yes, yes, I might understand it better when I'm older, but there really isn't that much incentive in this book to ever get it a try ever again.

It finally came!

Yesterday, I went to get the mail, just as I had for the last two weeks, and found three enormous packages, all addressed to me. One was a book from Green Man Review, one contained two books from Ballantine, and one contained what I had been ripping my hair out waiting for: my contributor's copies from Cicada. My beautiful, beautiful issues were here!

We're going to have to order more copies. Everyone in my family wants one, and six just isn't enough. *lol* It was amazing - my story was mentioned in the Editor's Letter at the beginning of the issue, and it had fabulous illustrations - of Paulie, of his sister, and of his mother Jeannie. They were surprising and original but ultimately I felt that they fit the story perfectly.

And my name - believe me, I know my own name, and I've occasionally seen it in print - in The Gateway, at the Green Man Review, but there's just something about it here - seeing my name in a literary magazine, with pages like a book's pages, with my name at the top of every other page just like a novel's - it just seems like a different name, an author's name, it looks different. I can't really explain it, but it's a really cool feeling.

Full-Blown Obsession Time

This week's obsession? Disney, Disney, Disney, Disney, Disney, Disney, Disney. Animation, to be more precise. I'll even take Pixar.

I want to watch animated Disney movies, I want to listen to their music, hell, I want to write for Disney (I've got lots of ideas!). I mean, since January I've started watching all the movies, and I've worked my way through Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Toy Story (which was partially written by Buffy's Joss Whedon! Imagine that!).

Now I'm seriously considering watching the older films - those I've tended to shy away from, because I'm more a fan of the Alan Menken musicals, but hey, I can't afford to be picky. It takes four years to make an animated feature, and the next best thing, Disney's Enchanted, isn't out until November and I'm going to have to wait until 2009 for The Frog Princess. I've never even seen Sleeping Beauty. Or The Black Cauldron, though I'm a little iffy about watching that one because I'm quite attached to Lloyd Alexander's books and Disney's live-action "adaptation" of Ella Enchanted had me spitting blood.

Still...I just finished watching the Making-Of featurettes on The Little Mermaid DVD, and I was fascinated by the process that brought Little Mermaid into being. Did you know that Ursula was originally intended to be King Triton's sister? How does that work? Let me imagine:

Seahorse OB/GYN: Congratulations, it's a girl!

King Triton's Mom: Honey, I can explain...

King Triton's Dad: She has tentacles.

Triton's Mom: I don't think it's such a big deal...

Triton's Dad: Tentacles, woman! With suckers!

Triton's Mom: You know, when she grows up I'm certain it'll be a very sensative issue for her so...

Triton's Dad: Since when has anyone in my family had tentacles?

Triton's Mom: I'm really starting to object to your tone, mister!

Triton's Dad: YOU CHEATED ON ME WITH AN OCTOPUS.

Triton's Mom: You mean squid.

Triton's Dad: ....

Triton's Mom: Cause, she has, y'know, six tentacles, not eight...but...oh crap.

Triton's Dad: But, but, our gardener is a squid.

Triton's Mom: I'm pretty sure my great-great-uncle's step cousin was a squid, it could be a recessive gene...

Triton's Dad: I WANT A DIVORCE.

Triton's Mom: I GET HALF.

Triton's Dad: YOU CHEATED ON ME WITH A SQUID.

Triton's Mom: YOU CAME HOME WITH CRABS.

Triton's Dad: Those crabs were personal friends of mine! And they were finally acquitted of those date-rape charges!

Triton's Mom: FINE.

Triton's Dad: FINE. (You get the kids.)

Triton's Mom: What?!

Triton's Dad: Dibs out! *exit Ocean left*

Baby Triton: *sniff* I really hope my little sister doesn't try to overthrow me...

Anyway, another nice surprise on the Little Mermaid DVD was the animated short The Little Matchgirl. It was one of this year's Oscar nominees for Best Animated Short. Seven minutes long, traditionally hand-drawn with some CG touches, completely silent, it kept perfectly to the Hans Christian Andersen Story. At the last minute, I was afraid they would change the tragic ending (since the fact that the real Little Mermaid died didn't really go over all that well with the makers of that Disney adaptation), but they didn't. I absolutely cried my eyes out. I kid you not. I've heard that story about a million times, but this particular animated version had me runny-nosed and bawling. So sad, so wonderful - see, that's why when Disney gets it right, they really get it right. That's why I'd kill to write movies for them.

Sent: "Golden Opportunity"

To Fantasy Magazine. I checked out their online copy of Cat Rambo's "The Dead Girl's Wedding March" and really liked it. I also enjoyed her disturbing update of The Little Mermaid (the real one, not the lovely but unfaithful Disney version) in Strange Horizons' "Foam on the Water." Plus, I mean, Cat Rambo. What an awesome author name! Gives the reader a little jolt, like Max Power ("It's the name that you love to touch! But you mustn't touch....").

Anyhoo, "Golden Opportunity" is, I believe, the second of this year's Creative Writing Class stories I've submitted (the first being "Parasite: A Love Story" - and "Whiff" was written in last year's class). "Tear for a Rose" has potential, once I clean it up and find a title that doesn't sound so embarassingly florid (Gossamer Obsessions, anyone? The only reason I've kept that name is to remind me of how with every story I am trying to use less purple prose...). "House Hunting" still needs fixing, although it's taken an interesting turn in the rewrites (I've added a wedding!) that might require me to do a little more worldbuilding.

But now I have two stories "in the mail," as it were - and this time I paid attention to format! I went to the SFWA website and found out exactly how much I had been doing wrong. Urgh! My problem was that while I always followed the submission guidelines mentioned by the magazines themselves (double-spaced, once-sided, ragged right margin, etc.) I never considered that there might be standards that are apparently so standard that I never knew of them until I looked them up. Like underlining instead of italicising (no big deal - it's the same for MLA format), and putting my address on the first page of the manuscript (I figured the address on the coverletter and SASE to be enough - stupid me!) and putting the title of the story in the centre of the first page.

It's kind of a bummer, to tell the truth. I'd hate to think that some of the rejections I've received might have been partially due to bad formatting. I had the basics, right? Right? While it might not have been enough to merit the story's immediate banishment to the wastebasket, it certainly might have biased the reader against acceptance, and that kills me. I know, no use crying over spilt milk or improperly formated short stories. The best I can do know is to keep sending them out with the right format and hope my luck changes.

As of Now, I am an Officially Published Author

Yup - the March/April 2007 issue is officially out in the States, in Japan, in countries all over the world, it seems - just not where I live, apparently. I have six issues coming to me, but they're taking sooo slow, and people are getting the chance to see my story in print with the lovely illustrations before I do. No fair.

It's pretty cool to think my magazine is getting sold in Japan - one of my mother's friends who lives there pointed it out, and that makes it even more exciting...NOW IF ONLY I COULD GET MY COPIES....Argh!

Anyhoo - I checked out Fantasy Magazine, and I'm seriously considering sending "Golden Opportunity" their way. Again, they take e-mail submissions, so that's great, but I'm a little nervous. I read online that there are standards for submission that I've never heard of - and I really hope that hasn't contributed to people rejecting my work out of hand. Did anyone else know you had to put your address on the first page, if you provided a cover letter? Anyone else know that italicised words had to be underlined in the submission? I sure didn't.

Another prompt rejection

...for "Parasite: A Love Story." So the question to asked here is: should I resend it to another magazine right away, or have it workshopped again to see if I'm missing something obvious?

Worse, AnimeJune! WORSE WORSE!

Imagine, completely forgetting to mention how Postscripts got back to me to ask for "Parasite: A Love Story." Silly me. No, it's not an acceptance, per se. Just as I mentioned before, they prefer to be queried first, and once they get the story then they'll decide if it's good or not. According to their website, they're full up on stories until Issue #16 (they've just published Issue #10, and they're quarterly), so while they're still looking for good stories, they're going to be a lot choosier.

Anyway, though, I queried the editors with a brief description of "Parasite," and instead of saying, "That's a dumb idea. Don't waste our time," they said, "Sure, send it along." So, points for me for being able to present myself properly. It'll definitely come in handy when I'm looking for agents.

Bad Animejune! Bad, bad!

A beloved relation recently took me out for a (belated) birthday dinner, and gave me a nice amount of birthday money. Well, despite the growing mound of books on my desk, I went and bought Anyone But You and Getting Rid of Bradley by Jennifer Crusie.

This is YOUR FAULT, Mum and Dad. You should have NEVER taught me how to read! *lol*

Dear Melanie

I'm so happy to have people commenting on my story! As my first published work (and as of this week, yes, it's officially published! I'm an officially published writer!), I'm ecstatic to hear feedback, especially if it's positive. *lol*

Normally, I'd reply in the comments section, but since other people might very well have the same question, I might as well write a post about it. Melanie asked in the Comments section of last post whether "My Brother's Own Words" was based in any part upon real life. There is actually very little about this story that is based on real life, for me - my parents fight occasionally, but they've been happily married for over twenty years. I have two younger sisters, but they are far more socially developed than I am. I do not, nor have ever owned a parrot - and although my mother's best friend has an African grey, he's actually rather vicious in unfamiliar company.

No, I did not base this story on real life. A lot of my stories are - "Tears for a Rose" and "Golden Opportunity" both make use of my own personal feelings of social alienation, "Desert Muse" confronts the problem of writer's block, I wrote "Whiff" as a reaction to my newfound sensativity to smells after my mother quit smoking, and "Red Bird, Red Bird" was actually written to express my worries of writing after "My Brother's Own Words."

"My Brother's Own Words" is a special case - it was the first short story I wrote with the intention of trying to sell it. I'd tried novels for years, but I could never manage to finish them, or they were terribly derivative medieval stuff (something I'm struggling through presently while working on Reading 'The Willow King'). I wrote it during the summer of 2005. That year, I had to have my wisdom teeth removed, and while I quite a bit frightened (I'd never been anesthetized before, and I have a low pain threshold), the whole thing went fine and I recovered quickly enough.

During the three-day weekend of my recovery, I lay on the couch all day, did no work, and ate nothing but Tylenol 3 and Neapolitan ice cream while applying icepacks to my swollen jaw every 20 minutes. It might have been the painkillers and sugar talking, but during those three days my Idea-Filter turned off, and allowed "My Brother's Own Words" to be written.

My Idea-Filter, basically, is that little voice in my head that keeps me from attempting to write things that might by too overwhelming for my present abilities. I write fantasy stories, so the ideas that get jammed in the filter can be pretty weird (to the tune of "what if limes ran the government?" or "holy matrimony between a man and a bowl of chocolate pudding").

Well, one of those ideas was "what if there was a boy whose dad was a human, and whose mother was a parrot?" It managed to slip through the Idea-Filter, and since I had three days with absolutely nothing else to do, I wrote the whole thing right away. Although the idea was kind of weird, the rational (and not sugar-addled) part of my brain allowed me to apply rules to the bizarre plot so that as outlandish and magical as it was, it could still be, as Melanie put it, "realistic." It could still be a coherent story with a narrative and characters and a reasonable conflict and resolution.

Ultimately, the experience actually helped me to tone down my Idea-Filter. I used to be a little self-conscious about my writing talent, and was skittish about doing things that were too "out there," but with the way "My Brother's Own Words" turned out, it allowed me to try for crazier ideas, so long as I was able to put them into a story that said something real, that people could understand regardless of the species of their parents.

Of course, I was a little worried afterwards. So far, "My Brother's Own Words" has been the only story I've sold, and for a little while, I was nervous that maybe, just maybe, it had been because of the painkillers and sugar that people liked my story. An irrational fear, but still - as I kept getting more rejections for "Desert Muse" and "Parasite: A Love Story" and "Whiff," I wondered if I would ever be able to write as well again.

Now, of course, I know that's total hogwash - I realize how incredibly fortunate I was to sell "My Brother's Own Words" after so few submissions, and that even the best writers have to deal with mountains of "didn't work for me"s before they succeed. Getting rejected doesn't necessarily make me a bad writer - it just means I'm a writer. For every story I write, there will always been people who love it, and people who will think it's absolute garbage. My job, of course, is to find those particular editors, agents and publishers who make up the former category.

I'm so glad you liked my story, Melanie, and thank you so much for commenting! It made my day!

Not Down Yet

Yes, the rejection from Strange Horizons was disappointing, but I'm back on track. I just sent an e-mail query to Postscripts magazine with a brief description of "Parasite: A Love Story." If they like it, they'll request that I send an attached (rtf) file of the story, which again is a boon, because the magazine is in the UK and that means postage, postage, postage. But not if I'm asked to send in an e-mail file! Hooray!

Movie Review: Disney's Pocahontas (1995)

Crush Du Jour Rating:
Dax Needs a Hug ("Oh! It had so much potential! So much wasted potential!")


Yes, yes, I went out and rented Pocahontas. What was I thinking, you ask? Well, when I rented Hunchback of Notre Dame I was expecting it to be awful, and while I ended the movie in giggles, now I can't stop listening to the soundtrack on my iPod and several key scenes are still stuck in my head. Yes, I really liked The Hunchback of Notre Dame - I enjoyed it immensely, in fact. It's pretty close to buy-worthy. And because at the moment I cannot get enough Disney, I thought I'd give Pocahontas a try. Needless of the story, it was bound to be well-animated, and the same pair who did Hunchback's fabulous music worked on this one's soundtrack, and on top of it all - I expected Hunchback to be bad and it was anything but, so I had the same expectations for this one: that it might just be wonderful, history and source material be damned!

Yeah, well, it wasn't, sorry to say. Just like Hunchback served as a thematic restyling of the earlier Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas works as a second Little Mermaid - i.e. strong-willed, curious girl finds herself attracted to a man from another world, even though her big bad Daddy thinks he's a pale-faced savage and doesn't want her to have anything to do with him. Pocahontas loves Englishman John Smith, but her father the Chief wants to banish the white men from their shores (because his shaman's niftily predicted that the white men "are ravenous wolves who devour everything in their path"), and the Governor Ratcliffe, leader of the Virginia Company (and played by Disney stalwart David Ogden Stiers - who has voiced, so far as I know, five main Disney characters: The Narrator of Beauty and the Beast as well as Cogsworth, this film's Ratcliffe as well as his toady manservant Wiggins, and the Archdeacon from Hunchback of Notre Dame) wants to dig America up for its gold.

The plot reads fine on paper, even with the standard Disney additions like Animal Friends (a mischievous racoon and a protective hummingbird), Talking Inanimate Objects (Grandmother Willow - a talking tree), and Convenient Magical Plot Devices (listening to the wind, Pocahontas can speak the King's English! Hooray!), but really, the writing is crap. It really relies on the ridiculous "Noble Savage" idea of the American Native, which is just plain dumb. Pocahontas and her friend Nakoma seem to be the only American Indians who can speak in fluid, complex sentences - even the Chief is reduced to stilted language like "you make my heart soar," and "Kocoum will make a good husband, he will build a sturdy house."

Plus, the whole "noble savage" idea that the natives are "at one with nature" is pure romanticized phony baloney. Yes, it's Disney, but I couldn't help but notice it. Like during the "Paint with All the Colours of the Wind" number, when Pocahontas shows John Smith a mother bear and her cubs, going so far as to pick one up and hand it over to him. I don't think the mother bear would make a distinction between a Caucasion or a Native American - if you picked up her babies she would rip your face off. Plus, the ending was pat and anticlimactic. Most Disney movies end with a large battle (that conveniently kills and seriously wounds no one important), but Pocahontas merely leads up to one and then cuts it off.

I mean, you have the "Savages, Savages" reprise, with the Virginia men marching off against the Native Americans, guns and bows at the ready, both sides spouting superstitious B.S. about each other ("I wonder if [white men] even bleed?" "[Native Americans] are dirty little heathens," etc.) and the Chief is seconds away from clubbing John Smith's pretty blond head in when Pocahontas runs up just in time, throws herself in front of her man, and says, "I've chosen my path." This of course, changes the Chief's mind instantly, launching him into a speech about "ending violence and hatred." The battle's cancelled, although Ratcliffe manages to get off one good shot that hits John Smith by mistake. And that's the movie. Dull, dull, dull.

The animation's nice enough, but that's natural with Disney. A lot of work seems to go into Pocahontas' hair (which again calls to mind the cool animation in The Little Mermaid that made Ariel's locks so poofy and twisty in the water) and how it flaps, flag-like, in the wind. Really, though, other than a few magical clouds, Grandmother Willow's special effects, and the sparkly "Colours of the Wind" number, there wasn't a whole lot of occasion for truly spectacular visuals.

The music was also sub-par - true, I said something similar about The Hunchback, and now I'm re-listening to "Hellfire" and "Out There" a bajillion times more than "Be Our Guest" on my iPod right now, but here the music really is unpleasant. I might like to download the score, because Alan Menken's music hasn't failed to thrill me yet, but a lot of the songs just seemed tired - particularly the strangely anemic "Virginia Company" song, which sounded a bit like a jingle for a life insurance company. "Just Around the River Bend" had some spark, and "Savages, Savages" was worth a chuckle or two (not just because when my little sister sang along to it as a baby, she'd say "Sausages, Sausages," "Cabbages, Cabbages," or "Sandwiches, Sandwiches," - but also because of snort-inducing lyrics like "beneath their milky hide, there's emptiness inside!"). Part of this was because of the singing voices - Pocahontas' (Judy Kuhn) was dead-on, but the Chief was sung by Jim Cummings - a very prolific Disney voice actor (Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, a bunch of voices from Disney's Hercules, Razoul the Chief Guard from Aladdin) - whose voice was so instantly recognizable it jarred with the Chief Powhatan's actual voice (Russell Means). John Smith's voice was also a little off - admirably, Mel Gibson actually sings some of the songs (like "The Virginia Company"), but I didn't know that until after I looked it up - the John Smith singing voice for some of the later songs (like the added "If I Never Knew You") sound a lot like Mel Gibson, only just a little bit off (for instance - Mel gives John an English accent, but while singing he sounds jarringly American), which distracted from an already horrible song. Seriously - "If I Never Knew You" pushes the bounds of saccharine Disney ballads.

There were also a few A-list (or at least A-list now) actors in the cast in this movie, and part of that is what it jarrring. Sure, it was a pleasant surprise to discover reading the credits that Christian Bale played hapless colonist Thomas, but with Mel Gibson as the male protagonist - well, that sorta screwed things up. Part of it is the star's obvious star baggage, which corrupts the character he's playing no matter how hard he tries - and part it has to do with singing. If the voice actor's unknown (or unrecognizable) one doesn't notice difference between the Talking Voice and the Singing Voice so much, but if one is a Big Star, with a voice that people recognize from hundreds of movies, than if they have to use a different Singing Voice, it's pretty noticeable. Other examples of this would be with Cary Elwes in Quest for Camelot and Patrick Dempsey in Brother Bear II.

So yeah, when filling my DVD collection, I'm not going to be purchasing Pocahontas. I'd really like to just pretend it never existed - Hunchback was just so much better, and the musical team from that is going to be working on Enchanted, so there's plenty of upcoming Disney material to make up for past mistakes.

More bloggy changes

I'm finished Jennifer Crusie's Bet Me, and once I'm done straining myself over the three (!) final papers I have to write in two weeks, I'll post a review for it on the blog. For now, I just have some news, and another Disney movie review using my brand-spankin' new Crush du Jour rating system (self explanatory once I display it).

Strange Horizons e-mailed over the standard "didn't work for us" rejection for "Parasite: A Love Story," so I have to go and find another magazine to send it to.

Also - Enchanted news. Someone leaked five promotional poster designs for the movie, and while Disney removed them pretty quickly from the Ain't It Cool News page that broke the story, they couldn't do it fast enough to keep from people posting the five on blogs easily discoverable using the Google Blog search. Four were handdrawn and black and white, the last one in full colour with photographs. The handdrawn ones looked nice enough - one had the Princess Giselle character falling out of the sky into Patrick Dempsey's arms, one showed Princess Giselle looking coyly out of a magic mirror while the other film characters (Dempsey, his character's daughter, Susan Sarandon's Evil Witch, the Handsome Disney Prince character) looked on, one showed Dempsey holding Giselle, while a bunch of actual Disney characters (Dumbo, Timon and Pumbaa, Sebastian, etc.) looked on in adoration, and one where Dempsey was just holding Giselle, I think. The full colour one looked fantastic - Sarandon in full purple Evil-Witch regalia (at a glance, she's easily mistakable for Angelica Houston), with Giselle (Amy Adams) looking befuddled and sparkly in front of an evening New York skyline.

I seriously can't wait to see this movie - although it has a bit of the makings of Last Action Hero to it. Last Action Hero made a great deal of funny pokes at Arnold Swartzeneggar movies, and of course, Arnold Swartzeneggar spent the next decade still making those movies. Here, Disney's spoofing Disney, but if Frog Princess and the rumoured upcoming Rapunzel film are any indication, they're bound to return to the formula they're mocking soon enough. I couldn't care less - bring on the animated Disney!

Minor Frustrations

Although most of the books I review for Green Man Review come directly from Green Man Review, occasionally publishers will send me ARCs out of the blue. A few weeks ago, I received a copy of The Poisoned Crown by Amanda Hemingway, thought "Hmm, this looks relatively pleasant," and put it underneath Duty and Desire. I picked it up today, after zooming through Duty and Desire (the ending was surprising, and definitely not one I think Jane Austin might have come up with), and discovered that it was the last book in a trilogy. Which means 1) I can't read it right away because I've tried reading later books in series and it drives me absolutely insane unless I've read the books that came before. 2) It means I have to get the first two books at the library, and that means 3) I have to do an omnibus review because there's really no point in contributing a review of the last book of a trilogy if website don't already have reviews of the first two books. Argh!

So, until The Greenstone Grail comes in at the library, I'm going to relax and read My First Official Romance Novel - Bet Me. I've read the blog Smart B---- Who Love Trashy Novels (I can't swear during Lent this year), and I've wanted to try romance ever since, but I never had the time because I usually had a huge stack of fantasy novels to read, than a huge stack of University books to read, and then another huge stack of fantasy novels that were given/bought for me during the school year that I hadn't read yet because of the aforementioned University novels. Well, now I'm going to read it - refresh my palate, I guess, with purely fun books before I start again on the Review Books. Either way, I'm going to try and mark it with my New Marking System, and give you guys an informal review of it when I'm done.

My New Marking System, you say? Whatever could that be? Again, reading the Smart B---- website, I learned one of the writers dog-eared the pages of the novels she reviewed - she dog-eared the tops of pages that had passages she loved, and dog-eared the bottoms of pages that confused her or had stuff in them that she didn't like. I'm kind of obsessive-compulsive about the state of my books (I'm overcome with disappointment if I crease the spine, even), so I'm using tiny post-its instead, but they should do the trick. A post-it on the top of a page means I liked it, and on the side means I hated it. It promises to be an interesting experiment, because oftentimes after I read a book I can be kind of "m'eh" and not know exactly what I thought of it. Comparing the bad parts to the good parts might help.

Chipping away at a mountain

I've finally, finally finished the last of my Univeristy books and can go back to my massive To Be Read pile. I've returned to Pamela Aidan's Duty & Desire, will follow it with a bizarre little pamphlet of stories by someone named M.R. James, and then on to The Poisoned Crown by Amanda Hemingway. After those, and a forthcoming Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, that's it for the Green Man Review books. After that comes My First Romance Novel, Jennifer Crusie's Bet Me, the trio of Fired-From-Chapters/Coles-So-This-Is-My-Last-Chance-For-A-30%-Discount Novels, not to mention the books I got from my parents and grandparents for Christmas.

And after that are the How-Can-I-Not-Buy-Them-When-They're-This-Cheap-at-$2.00-A-Hardcover books I bought on impulse at the University Bookstore. I'm particularly looking forward to Elizabeth Hand's Winterlong, Margo Lanagan's Black Juice, and Cecelia Ahern's If You Could See Me Now (set to become a Hugh Jackman film in the near future). And all three cost less than $10 combined.

Of course, I still have exams and essays to write, so I shouldn't let myself get carried away, but it is quite nice to be back to reading for fun. And hopefully, I'll be able to post some more personal book reviews later too.

In other news, I e-mailed the editor of CICADA (pronounced SIH-KAY-DAH - I'm glad I asked) to ask when the issue with my story is coming out. She promptly replied that I will be getting my contributor's copies in about two weeks. Not only that, but my novella's going to be illustrated! I can't wait to see how the artist interpreted my story! So two more weeks - two more weeks before I'm officially published!

Hurrah! Disney's (possible) triumphant return!

Okay, I believe I mentioned in some posts a long time back that Disney, with it's half-animated musical Enchanted might finally be the start in the right direction we've all been waiting for. Not on this blog (but to my parents) I was starting to complain about how the "Disney Princess" thing has become a brand name to merchandise decade-old movies instead of making actual new princess movies.

Well, over at Ain't It Cool News, they're reporting that John Lasseter met with shareholders to talk about Disney's upcoming projects, and one that they mentioned is The Frog Princess. Here are a few of the things that have me excited about it:

1. Apparently, it's going to be hand-drawn! Yeehaw! That's what I'm talking about - now that Disney and Pixar are together, it's better for everyone if Pixar sticks to the CGI films and Disney keeps with what it's done best for sixty years - fantastic, two-dimensional, hand-drawn feature films.

2. It's going to be a MUSICAL!

3. Obviously, there's going to be a princess in it, which makes it just so nice. Apparently, Disney's making a big deal about how the story's going to be set in New Orleans, and the protagonist will be Disney's first ever African American Princess. Um, well, I'm going to have to agree with some of AICN's Talkbackers and say: who cares? In the last ten years, we've had Jasmine, Mulan, Pocahontas, and Esmerelda - who were Arabic, Chinese, American Indian, and Eastern European (but a swarthy Eastern European!), respectively. Ah well.

Now normally, I'd be insanely excited about this, and in many ways I am. But not completely. There are a few sticking points in my brain that keep this from being the absolutely perfect return to form I hoped Disney would make:

1. They stole my idea. Well, no, not really. Not at all, actually. I've been daydreaming lately about making my own animation company to make musical fairy-tale movies, and I had a few ideas in mind for the films (one was an accurate retelling of The Little Mermaid, sad ending and all, only because of Disney's copyright it wouldn't be called The Little Mermaid, but something more vague like Hans Christian Anderson's Mermaid or something). One was a version of The Frog Prince. I like to imagine that Weird Al would voice the wisecracking amphibian and Sarah Silverman would tone down her humour a tad to play the spoiled beyotch princess...but anyway, getting a little ahead of myself - I was kinda wishing for a Frog Prince movie to be made. Sure, I love the Disney princesses, but there's nothing wrong with having a male protagonist in an animated film, is there? Heroes are outnumbered by heroines ten-to-one in the protagonist department, it seems to me. There's Quasimodo, and Aladdin, and Peter Pan, and Simba - and that seems about it. Maybe it's just me. Oh yeah, and Kenai from Brother Bear - I guess I'll count him, although the movie wasn't very good.

Anyway, realistically I know there is a next-to-nothing chance that I'll start my own animation company and do Disney-style stuff (or at least in the next five years)- I have more of a chance of actually working for Disney itself. Still, I can't help but feel a little disappointed that I wasn't able to implement my idea first.

2. Alan Menken isn't doing the music. Randy Newman is. Alan Menken, in my eyes, is the master of providing dynamic scores and excellent songs to help narrate a film. Randy Newman did Toy Story - and it was background music. Are they going to be, y'know, actual show-tunes that push the story further along and explain things, or are they just going to be (N'Awlins-Flavoured) soft-pop tunes whose drippy lyrics kinda sorta metaphorically refer to the movie itself (like Phil Collin's work for Brother Bear and Tarzan?) Again, I'll refer to an AICN Talkbacker who recalled a Family Guy bit where Randy Newman, sitting at a piano, can only make songs about what he sees, to the tune of "red-headed lady, gonna eat an apple, now she's not gotta eat it, now she's breathing on it, chew, chew, stop, chew..." etc.

Still, I'm really glad that Disney is going back to animated, fairy-tale musicals. I mean, The Little Mermaid came out 18 years ago (really? wow) and children are still buying the toys. That's a sign that those types of movies have longevity, if you ask me.

Another Story Finished

I finished the first draft of "Water Calls to Water," but 10-to-1 I'm going to end up changing the title, because it's incredibly vague and doesn't have a whole lot to do with the story. I'm going to have to do it quickly, though, I have to have it printed and magicked into 14 copies by Thursday. Going through it, it seems that the first half is written in a markedly different style than the second, and I think that has to do with the fact that I just got off reading something interesting before I started writing it, so the first half was me unconsciously mimicking that style, and the second half was a few days afterwards when my own style resurfaced. Still, my decision for Lent to not go a single day without writing a least a sentence has helped my writing considerably. It's never writing that's difficult for me, it's starting to write that's hard.

It's been a month, so pretty soon I should be hearing back from Strange Horizons on my story, and also from CICADA as, if all has gone well, "My Brother's Own Words" has made it into the March/April 2007 issue.

I've also been nominated for Lieutenant Commander of my university's Science Fiction club - er, I mean, Secretary/Treasurer. At first I was a little nervous and was going to turn down the nomination (because I really don't have a lot of free time left with my job on top of my school), but my friends in the club said the job could be as easy or hard as I wanted it to be. Besides, part of the reason nothing happens to me is because I don't take enough risks. Plus, I get the keys to the office and can have my own office hours! That is, if I'm elected.

Nothing much else has happened. I was actually forgiven quite quickly by The Gateway, because I got to see and review 300. Let's just say, it didn't live up to the hype. You can read the entirety of my review in next week's issue.

Books and Tour

Guess I forgot one last book for University: Bram Stoker's Dracula. Ah well, it looks interesting enough, and it has to be better than the nauseatingly unpleasant Francis Ford Coppola film adaptation. I swear, the only way Coppola could have made that movie worse is if he put Nicholas Cage in it (believe me, it didn't help Peggy-Sue Got Married).

Also, yesterday I officially signed the papers that say I'm going on tour with my Choir. I wasn't able to go on tour last year because I didn't have a steady job, and felt that I couldn't afford to take a week off in May if I wanted to snag full-time summer employment. Now that I have a steady job, I'm off to explore various small towns around Canada. All my choir friends say that tour is a hard, but really fun experience - there's Skit Night, and Pajama Night, and Hotel Night, etc. Along with signing release forms stating my allergies and emergency contacts, I also had to choose a billet partner, because we won't be sleeping in hotels for the majority of the trip (we'll be staying at people's houses, I think). Thankfully, I found someone I know and like who hadn't chosen her billet partner yet, so I'm all set.

The music's also progressing really well - we sound really good. Solo or no solo, I'm still getting this concert's CD when it comes out.

Book List's Back Up!

I still have some school reading to do (see the restored "What I'm Reading" Sidebar), but since these are the last books I have to read before I'm done (not counting all the essays and short stories that I have to read), I can go back to updating it on my blog because after these I'm back to reading normally. I still have a stack of about twenty books that I haven't read yet - three of the books on the stack are the novels I bought to comfort myself when I was fired from Coles and Chapters, last summer. Shame, shame, shame on me. I also still have books from Green Man that need to be reviewed. Oh well. There are worse situations, I must say.

Edit: Also - I started a new short story. Similar to how I wrote "My Brother's Own Words," I turned off my Ridiculous-Idea-Filter and just went with it. I've only typed about a page, but I think it's pretty good.

Be Kind, Rewrite

Yeah, so it doesn't rhyme. Who cares? I'm an aspiring novelist/screenwriter, not a poet. Also, as it is currently 8:15am here, I haven't actually deposited the rewrite of "Whiff" intended for On Spec into the mailbox yet, but as it is already packaged and stamped, and as I don't have time to blog until about 6:00pm tonight, I'm just going to assume that today will be the day I send it in. However, if a giant eagle swoops out of the sky, tears open my knapsack with its talons, and flies off with my manuscript before I can mail it, rest assured I will let you know as soon as I can. Anyway, I changed the story quite a bit, but I think I hit all the points that the editors commented on, so I think it has a fairly good chance.

Once again, my lazy arse got a kick in the pants from watching the Oscars last night. They were kind of ho-hum, not a lot of surprises (except for the unpleasant kind - Eddie Murphy didn't win!), and nothing particularly special happened, but I did pay extra attention to the screenwriters that won, and the speeches they gave. Wow, I would love to be up there. Makes me want to work double-time on my own screenplays.

On a nicer note, I had a nice Reading Week, managed to keep (most of) my Lenten promises for five and half days, but the latter half of it was spent worrying and tearing away at two papers which are due tomorrow. One I finished on Friday, but the last one I'm still worrying over (half a page to go!), and of course I forgot or didn't go to a ton of things I was supposed to. Because of the stress of finishing said papers (along with going to my job), I didn't go to my sci-fi club's Firefly marathon, I didn't go to The Gateway Reading Week party, and I completely forgot to attend a Factory Girl screening in order to write a review.

That last one has me really bummed - one of my Lenten promises is not to rent or buy movies, so the only way I can see ones that we don't already own is to review them. I really wanted to see Factory Girl, and it didn't hit me that the screening was supposed to be on Friday until 11:00pm last night. To make up for it I'm probably going to have to do another article, like interview some band I've never heard of who performs music I don't like listening to at a club that I never attend. I hate doing those, but about 70% of A&E assignments are those kind. Besides, I doubt after forgetting Factory Girl that the editors are going to waste another movie review on me for a while. ARGH!

Cheers for Ron Perlman!

As a last gift before Lent, my parents bought Beauty and the Beast, The Complete First Season. For those of you who, like me, were born after 1985, no, Disney did not make an inane half-hour animated series of it like they did to, well, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Tarzan, Lion King...wow, long list. Anyhoo, the series I'm referring to is the 1987 one starring Linda Hamilton (also known as *cue Ahnold voice* "SARAH CONNAH!") and Ron Perlman (he of the many DC voice acting gigs, oh yeah, and HELLBOY and the much-anticipated Hellboy 2).

Perlman plays the leonine Vincent (in spectacular feline make-up) who rescues corporate lawyer Catherine (Hamilton) after she's mistaken for someone else and brutally assaulted. He takes her down to the secret city of tunnels that lie just beneath New York, nurses her back to health, and their romance blossoms accordingly - in particular for Vincent, who acquires the ability to feel whatever she's feeling.

This comes in handy when she transfers to the District Attorney's office to do some actual good, because whenever she gets in trouble (which is often - quite a lot of nasty folks in NY), the show'll cut to a scene of Vincent peacefully reading or studying a map or having a bubblebath only to jerk up when he senses her fear, yank on his cloak, and run through the tunnels to save her with a lot of fang-baring and roaring and clawing.

It is fabulous. Vincent is like Fabio crossed with Simba. I love it. There is a general formula to the episodes (Catherine takes on a case, Catherine gets assaulted by criminals, Vincent hitches a ride on a subway to save her), but they intersperse it with enough Vincent-gets-in-trouble episodes to spice it up a bit. Oh, but I love it.

What I don't love, is that after rapturously finishing a bunch of Beauty and the Beast episodes, I discovered the family's copy of Hellboy went missing, and with my Lenten promise not to rent movies or buy them, I'm not going to see it for forty days! Argh!

Disney Battle! "Beauty and the Beast" versus "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"

Today, jonesing for my animation fix after watching Beauty and the Beast, I went out and rented Disney's 1996 movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Yup, it turns out that the Mouse House didn't make only one movie about a lonely disfigured individual with inanimate objects for friends who has to contend with inately stupid and superficial French hicks. It seems only fair that I make the two battle it out, commentary-wise, to see who comes out a winner.

The Story
B&TB: Spunky, literate gal Belle agrees to imprisonment in the Beast's castle in order to free her father, and in the process helps the Beast to become a nicer person while falling in love with him at the same time, which conveniently breaks the spell and transforms him into a gorgeous Prince.

HOND: Eeeevil Minister of Justice Frollo is guilted into adopting a deformed gypsy child, who grows up into a deformed bell ringer who falls for spunky, limber (!) gypsy Esmerelda. Eventually growing a spine (albeit a crooked one), Quasimodo saves Esmerelda from burning at the stake, only to watch her fall for handsome soldier Phoebus.

Similarities: Both stories center around a fugly main character, are situated in France, and place a heavy emphasis on the theme that people shouldn't be judged by appearances. Both stories deal with pretty heroines who are held against their will in flat-out gorgeous buildings, only to be freed by their new misshapen friends.

Differences: B&TB, based on less difficult source material, sticks with the myth and its main message. HOND on the other hand, deals with much more difficult and controversial themes - such as racial and religious persecution.

Advantage: Beauty and the Beast. It's a simple story, with profound themes and a necessary message, and it gets the job done. Hunchback may dig deeper, but it does so less well and ends up muddling the several meanings it tries to convey. Sure, both movies say that people shouldn't be judged only on appearances - but at least B&TB demonstrates both sides of that point by making the villain a tasty hunk of beefcake with a sleazy interior. In HOND, Quasimodo's no looker, but neither is Frollo - and in the end, all the good-looking characters (namely, Esmerelda and Phoebus) end up being purehearted anyway.

The Fugly Hero
B&TB: Beast (real name never revealed). Was turned into a furry, horned beast at age eleven for acting like an obnoxious, spoiled asswipe in front of the worst person imaginable: a enchantress with an inchy wand-finger. Confined to his magnificent castle with his (approximately) thousands of servants, who have all been turned into various dancing/singing household items, he has to fall in love with (and have that love returned by) someone who isn't a prancing bedpan by his twenty-first birthday if he wants to be human again.

HOND: Quasimodo. The deformed (and inexplicably fair-skinned) child of swarthy gypsy parents was adopted by Frollo after the Minister of Justice inadvertantly killed Quasimodo's mother. Raised in a belltower and weaned on Frollo's hypocritical teachings (his alphabet: A - Abomination, B - Blasphemy, C - Contrition, D - Damnation, E - Eternal Damnation!), he's in charge of ringing the bells of Notre Dame and being a little noticed as possible.

Similarities: Both characters can incite angry, jeering mobs by simply appearing in public. Both are alone but for their magically-animate friends who would normally be inanimate (the Beast has his silverware servants, Quasimodo a trio of gargoyles), and both are painfully aware of their monstrous appearance. Both have their own private space in their Gorgeous Buildings in which they express their repressed feelings (Quasimodo has a loft in which he crafts dolls and windchimes and other bric-a-brac, the Beast retreats to his West Wing to smash furniture and destroy paintings and stare into magic mirrors). Both are quite strong and when provoked can use said strength to do incredibly bad-ass things. Both end up being accepted by society at the ends of their films.

Differences: While both are courageous, Quasimodo is innately gentle and uses force only in self-defence, while the Beast is hot-tempered and prone to violence. The Beast, at least until the end of the movie, remains unknown to the oblivious French villagers near his forest - but the HOND indicates that Quasimodo is a well-known, but rarely-seen figure (when he leaves Notre Dame for the first time to participate in the Festival of Fools, he is quickly recognized as "the bellringer."). The crucial difference between them, of course, is that the Beast's hideousness was a punishment for his cruel behaviour, and by renouncing his heartless ways he returns to his handsome form. Sadly, Quasimodo was born the way he is, and remains that way at the end of the film.

Advantage: Beast. Let's face it, he makes the most psychological progress in his movie (from a spoiled little boy into a brave, compassionate man), he eventually returns to his adorable self, and oh hey, he gets the girl. Quasimodo was pleasant at the beginning and is pleasant at the end (although with a little more self-confidence) and the girl he adores still goes for the hot blonde. He's a nice enough kid, but Quasimodo ultimately ends up short-changed.

The Plucky Heroine
B&TB: Belle, the well-read and self-absorbed daughter of an eccentric inventor. Animal sidekick: the intelligent but cowardly horse Phillipe.
HOND: Esmerelda, the feisty dancing gypsy girl. Animal sidekick: Jolly, a goat (who wears an earring!).

Similarities: Both are strong-willed, looked down upon by the French Hicks, and are compassionate towards the downtrodden. Also, both end up briefly imprisoned in their films' Gorgeous Buildings.

Differences: Belle is buttoned-down, while swarthy Esmerelda, with her revealing clothing and pole-dancing (!) antics, is blatantly sexual and more physically fit. As well, Esmerelda is firey, whereas Belle is gentler and intellectual.

Advantage: Belle. Esmerelda's exoticised appearance (dark skin, bright green eyes, rakish single earring and gypsy garb) makes Belle look like a plain-jane in comparison, but she makes some ridiculously stupid decisions wheras Belle is smart as a tack. And let us not forget, that Belle actually falls for the Fugly Hero, while he is fugly, while Esmerelda sees Quasimodo only as a friend and prefers handsome, witty Phoebus as marriage material.

The Villain
B&TB: Gaston, the devilishly good-looking but dastardly huntsman paragon of French Hicksville.
HOND: Frollo, the hypocritically pious Minister of Justice.

Similarities: Both harbour naughty thoughts for the Plucky Heroine, and are selfish, self-righteous, and vain. They share a similar demise as well - upon the ramparts of the Gorgeous Buildings of their respective films, they tumble to their deaths when they attempt to backstab the hero/heroine.

Differences: Um, well, Gaston is more blatant, and (dare I say?) honest about his intentions - he wants Belle, he tells her so. He doesn't like the Beast, so he stirs up a mob (a singing mob!) to destroy him. That could just be because he's as dumb as a post, though. Frollo's more cunning, but he's also a seriously disgusting perv, as in, a hair-sniffing, undergarment-rubbing horny old man. And ugly, too - his long-boned, hook-nosed appearance seems a departure from the usual exaggerated-feature design of Disney Villains, and seems more in keeping with a Dreamworks' animated baddie - like the Phaoroh in Prince of Egypt.

Advantage: Frollo. This dude's playing for the major leagues of evil - he's religiously intolerant, bigotted to the point of attempting genocide, emotionally abusive, and as pervy as all get out. Frollo's simmering badness makes Gaston look almost redeemable - I mean, hey, the all that guy wants is a hunting lodge, a little wife, and six or seven strapping young sons. He's not trying to eradicate an entire race of gypsies! Gaston throws Belle's favourite book in a mud puddle - Frollo sets a house on fire while the family is still inside. Do the math.

The Music
By the way, when I say "main song," I'm referring to the song in a Disney film whose tune is integrated into the general instrumental score of the movie. For instance, the "main song" for The Little Mermaid wouldn't be "Under the Sea" but "Part of Your World," because the notes in the chorus of "up where they walk/ up where they run" frequently reappear in the score.

B&TB: The main song for this was, naturally, "Beauty and the Beast" - which was wonderfully performed (apparently in just one take) by Angela Lansbury, the voice of Mrs Potts - a song sung by an outsider who observes how two people who appear to be so different gradually come to love each other. Other songs include the iconic "Be Our Guest," "Something There," and "Belle."

HOND: The main song was "Out There" - a ballad which was performed by the voice of Quasimodo, Tom Hulce (from Amadeus) - about Quasimodo's desire to leave Notre Dame and explore Paris and live like the regular people he's spied on all his life. Other songs include "A Guy Like You," "Topsy Turvy," and my personal favourite - "Hellfire."

Similarities: Both are composed by Alan Menken, and the scores are both suitably darkly-themed. They both have a carnivalesque tune set to a grand spectacle ("Be Our Guest" and "Topsy Turvy") both have a humorous number by the magically-animated-inanimate objects ("Something There" and the added "Human Again" for B&TB, and "A Guy Like You" for HOND). The villains both get a number as well ("Gaston" and "Hellfire").

Differences: Alan Menken puts a decided Gothic tone to his score for HOND, full of Latin choruses which suits the Church theme. The musical subject matter is also more serious and much more religious in HOND - lots of prayer and appeals to God and references to piety and sin, etc. Also, while B&TB reprises its main song for a final chorus at the end of the film, HOND reprises the minor, opening song - "The Bells of Notre Dame".

Advantage: B&TB all the way. I spend my childhood watching and re-watching these movies over and over again, day after day, sometimes even twice in the same day. I'm pretty sure HOND was the last movie I did that with. I can easily remember (and hum!) the tunes from B&TB, but apart from "Out There" and "Hellfire," I can barely recall the music from HOND, and I watched that only yesterday. I also just plain prefer the music of B&TB, with its moody but delicate theme, to the heavier and less nimble music of HOND, and Lansbury's gentle but sprightly "Beauty and the Beast" plays out better than "Out There" with Hulce's distracting vibrato.

I can also sing the music to B&TB in public, something I cannot do with the incredibly creepy ode-to-old-man-lust "Hellfire," in which Frollo proceeds to beg the Virgin Mary to either a) kill Esmerelda to end his unholy hard-on, or b) give him Esmerelda so that he can get it on hypocritical-geezer-style. During said number, the old man rubs himself with Esmerelda's scarf and faces down a chorus of shadowy judges holding bishop's crooks who condemn him for being horny. I wouldn't want to have to explain that number to my kids if they ever watched this movie.

Now, I'm not saying HOND was a bad movie - it was surprisingly good compared to what I ws expecting. Like all Disney films, it had cute characters and fantastic visuals - but I don't think the darker tone it was trying to go for quite succeeded.

Curse you, Disney Vault!

On a whim, I went out and rented what is easily one of my favourite movies of all time, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, the second of the three musicals that Alan Menken and Howard Ashman did for Disney (the other two, natch, being The Little Mermaid and about half of Aladdin). Of course, I can't just go out and buy this DVD like I did with the other two because some jackhole over at the Mouse House thought it would be a laugh to lock up the only animated movie to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar inside the Disney Vault for who knows how long. Seriously, the copies of the 2002 DVD Special Edition are currently selling for about $100 each on Amazon. Not fair.

Rewatching the movie was a delight, but it did open my eyes to a bunch of bizarre facts. For instance - the DVD included a new musical number, Human Again, which was fantastic, but I'm kinda glad they ended up cutting it because it seriously screwed with the time continuity of the movie (is it autumn? winter? spring already? The snow's gone - no, it came back!) . Also, I finally put together the math that had the Beast freed on his twenty-first birthday (hey he's my age now!), with the lyrics that Lumiere sings about the "ten years we've been rusting". What, you can't mean the Prince was turned into a Beast...

...when he was eleven?! ELEVEN? You mean, when he was a child? The magical Enchantress on the stained-glass windows was shocked and appalled that an eleven-year-old was rude to her? The narrator rumbles on about how this child, presumably an orphan prince being raised by servants, was "spoiled, selfish, and unkind". Really? Give me the name of an eleven-year-old who isn't! The prologue continues...yada yada yada...and the enchantress can see that there is no love in the Prince's heart...so she turns him into a Beast until he's of legal majority? Why not spank him and send him to bed without dinner? I can kind of imagine how this would play out:

Enchantress: *knock knock*

Prince: *opens door* Yes.

Enchantress: Sweet Prince, mayn't I stay the night? I'm so cold...

Prince: Um, Mrs. Potts says I'm not allowed to talk to strangers.

Enchantress: But I got a flower - look, pretty flower...so pretty...

Prince: Gee, thanks, lady, but I'm a BOY. So why don't you just chillax, I'm in the middle of kicking Cogsworth's ass in Halo 2.

Enchantress: Don't be fooled by appearances! Beauty comes from within!

Prince: Well YOU'RE old, your FLOWER's gay, and I wanna play me some Halo 2, beeyotch!

Enchantress: *magification* Surprise!

Prince: Oh, poop.

Enchantress: You obviously have no love in your heart...

Prince: What? But I love my X-Box! Ask anybody!

Enchantress: So I'm going to rob you of a normal human puberty and turn you into a Beast - if you can give your heart to something other than an inanimate object by the time you're twenty-one, you can be human again - and drink alcohol in most countries. Oh yeah, and you also have to KEEP my so-called GAY FLOWER, because it'll tell you how much time you have left. Also, here - have this Peeping Tom Device--er, I mean Magic Mirror. C'mon, the kid's gotta learn about these things sometime! EXCELLENT - I forsee no psychological damage arising from this AT ALL. Ta ta! *leaves*

Prince: *beastification*

Prince's servants: *knicknackification*

Beast: Grrr...what's puberty?

Knick-Knack Servants: SHIT.

However, him being beastified in childhood does explain his behaviour - like that fact that he no longer knows how to use a spoon (or, perhaps, he just doesn't choose to - because there's a good chance that spoon used to be a person!) or read, for that matter. He overcomes his pettiness pretty quickly, though. If he was beastified later, he might have been a little less savage, even with his appearance. But to me, given his age, it seems that he started acting like a beast because he looked like a Beast, and not the other way around. But - if he hadn't been beastified, he wouldn't have found Belle, so I suppose the Enchantress did good in the end.

I enjoyed how the movie made Belle good, but not perfect. She's an intelligent, educated person living in a backwater town of French hillbillies...and she is completely aware of it - just listen to the way she sings about the "little town...full of little people". Well, bonjour to you, too, Belle! It makes sense that she falls for a haughty beast-prince who can cut her down to size, a little. Especially in the scene where she blatantly disregards orders in favour of her curiosity, checks out the West Wing, is entranced by the magic flower (not just because it's shiny and pink - well, maybe), and gets chewed out by the Beast. "NO MEANS NO, BELLE!"

But the ending always kills me - I love it when Beast turns back into a handsome (and not at all emotionally stunted) Prince, and the castle goes from a dark building covered with demon imagery into a shiny white palace with cherub and angel artwork. Strangely enough, it almost seems like the castle's appearance changes with the Beast's moods. When he's happy and all lovey-dovey over Belle, the castle is clean, bright, and the sun is shining. When Belle leaves, it's back to being black and gothic and stormy. Does the Beast inadvertantly have weather powers? Two X-Men in one!

However, I can also imagine an entirely different scene once the Beast is turned back into a Prince:

Beast: *princification*

Belle: *jawdrop*

Prince: Hey, baby.

Belle and Prince: *magicalsmoochification*

Castle: *er...poofification*

Knick Knack Servants: *ordinaryservantification*

Prince: Hooray! Let's celebrate! Break out the silverwear!

Mrs Potts: Yeah about that...we don't have any.

Prince: Why?

Mrs Potts: Because they're all human now.

Prince: Don't we have anything? Candles? Teacups? Hat racks? Towels? TOILET BRUSHES?!

Mrs Potts: I'm afraid not. We're Human Again! *songanddance*

Prince, Belle, other Servants: *crickets*

Prince: I say, to BED, BATH & BEYOND! Posthaste! Bring the carriage around!

Mrs Potts: No carriage.

Prince: Well then, bring the piggy-back servants around!

Piggy-Back Servants: SHIT.

I love this movie.

If Daniel Craig ever gets strep throat...

...Than the folks who made this nifty video know just the guy to fill James Bond's shoes: http://www.ifilm.com/video/2811296/collection/1065/channel/viralvideo.

It's a giggler.

*whipcrack* Back to WORK!

I love reading Elizabeth Bear's blog (see the newly added "they must need bears" in the Link section). She seems to get so much done that reading her progress spurs me to keep writing even though I've been very lazy with it of late.

I got some interesting comments in class about my newest story, "A Little Early". It was supposed to be a light, fluffy, comical fantasy parody, but some of the characters (particularly the nameless villain who enters, makes a few lame threats, and than has an amusingly abrupt death) were flat, and the story could have been deeper. I once considered making it a novel, but the premise seemed a little thin for that so I tried a story.

As usual though, the comments mainly concerned: "We need details! We need backstory! We need fantasy-world explanation!" My classmates have said this about nearly every one of my stories. However, I am really the only fantasy writer in my class - nearly everyone else writes about broke college students and couples falling apart and people committing suicide, and all with lots of sex. So I'm guessing they aren't really fantasy readers, which makes me wonder which of their comments I should consider relevant and which ones are simply a matter of taste. I notice that when I submit stories to my online Fantasy Writers group, the comment about "explain the fantasy world" almost never comes - I suppose because they are more open to it because they are expecting new things every time.

Anyway, I think I've finished with the "Whiff" rewrite - but I'm going to give it a day or two, and then come back to it and examine it more closely. "Parasite: A Love Story" is currently lurking around Strange Horizons's corner of the Internet, waiting to be read, and I'm quite anxious to hear back from them. I've been to the site several times now and have liked what I've read - plus, they have published lots of Elizabeth Bear's stories.

Now I think I'm going to see if I can't go back to Reading 'The Willow King', spruce up "House Hunting" (now that I no longer have to worry about a word limit), restart "Magic Doesn't Grow On Trees" from scratch, and of course, push through and see if I can finish the Safety Boyfriend screenplay.

As for reading, it's all been for school, but I'm almost finished. I had to read Toni Morrisson's Beloved and Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, and I'm thinking of comparing them in an essay. Beloved had a very cool ending, and it went in some unexpected directions, but I have to say that I liked The Secret Life of Bees so much more. It was such a warm, happy, pleasant book, it's definitely a keeper.

Just learned that cover letters aren't necessary...

...and that Strange Horizons takes electronic submissions!

I've just saved about $5 in postage! Thanks, Strange Horizons!

Can't Change Just One Thing...

I received a contract from CICADA Magazine last Thursday. I took a weekend to think it over, before I finally signed it and sent it in on Monday. If all things work out as they should, "My Brother's Own Words" will make it into the March/April 2007 issue, and if the planets align, I will receive my six contributor's copies in time for me to shamelessly show them off at my Creative Writing Class. I've already planned (or mostly planned) to whom I plan to give them:

1. One for me.
2. One for my parents.
3. One for Maternal Grandparents
4. One for Paternal Granny.
5, 6: Back-up copies?

I'm very excited - even if the issue doesn't come out in time for bragging rights, I'll still get paid in time for me to make a very substantial dent in next year's tuition, which will leave me time to save up for Film School after I graduate.

It took a great deal of dithering, but I finally got off my ass and started rewriting "Whiff" in order to re-send it back to On Spec. Their rejection letter remarked on some problems with the plot (namely, that there is very little build-up to to Big Reveal of the Baddie, so that by the time Mr. Evil shows up it's a bit like a deus ex machina) .So I've tried to get rid of that, but of course, by doing that I've started changing other parts of the story, too. I can't change just one thing.

So one of my charcters, through the various rewrites, had turned from a flirt into an asshole into a n00b, and I've added a plotline (main character Chelsea does NOT like stinky artificially-scented soaps!), and I've gotten rid of the introductory sequence where the Science Fictional Device is first used in a Harmless Context in order to Explain its Use to the Reader - while this explained the plot nicely to my Non-Sci-Fi-reading Creative Writing classmates, it was too long according to the sci-fi-gourmets over at On Spec. So I cut it.

Hey, at least On Spec offered to accept a rewrite.

A Little Bit More Romance

While my desire for romantic comedies has been sucked dry for the time being by the marathon that produced the last pair of comentaries, I've still been interested in the romance genre. I've just added a links section to the blog, and I've included a site that I have visited regularly for the last year: Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels. It's a fantastic site, and even as I have yet to read what can be precisely categorized as a romance novel (I swear, I've moved Jennifer Crusie's Bet Me to the top of my To Be Read Pile, just as soon as I finish my required textbooks and Green Man Review books), this site has seriously opened my eyes to how interesting a genre Romance can be.

The web mistresses, Candy and Sarah, are a hoot. They are intelligent, well-read women who are perfectly aware of the ire that can fall upon the Romance genre, and while they are quick to defy the convention that only Lonely, Ugly Women with Cats read romance, they are just as willing to admit that the romance genre has produced a lot of shit (as much as any other genre, really). They give raucous and hilariously scathing reviews of bad romance fiction, as well as insightful and well-written reviews of good romance fiction. They are the reason I went out and bought Bet Me.

As luck would have it, one of my classes - a Popular Culture Comparative Literature class - ended up being about Popular Literature, ie genre literature: sci-fi, romance, adventure, mystery, horror, etc. The professor is fabulous, and the class is so fun that I often make a complete ass of myself because I want to participate and raise my hand and argue all the time. Anyway, right now we're on the Romance section, and while there are a lot of new things I've learned, there are few things I'm beginning to dislike, and downright disagree with.

The things I do agree with are quite interesting: my professor has not been the only person to suggest that one of the reasons Romance is villified more than any other genre (despite taking up an astonishing 40 percent of the paperback industry) is because it is written for, read by, and published almostly exclusively by women, so people are more inclined to take it less seriously (as opposed to say, mystery and science fiction, which were pioneered by mostly men). Argh! Stupid men! More people are inclined to believe that the women who read romance are lonely and undereducated, who read about the adventures to make up for what's lacking in their own lives, which is just silly.

In an essay called "Trying to Tame the Romance," Jayne Ann Krentz goes on about how new female editors who haven't actually read romance have tried to "tone it down," thereby eliminating part of what makes Romance so special. For instance, these women are tired of aggressively seductive heroes and vulnerable virgin heroines. I really enjoyed how Krentz says that part of the Romance's allure is that the hero, by being the sexual aggressor, is both the hero and the villain, that it adds to the romantic conflict which beefs up the narrative, and that because the hero ends up tamed and romantic by the end of the book, it is the heroine who is in control, by having brought this man down to size. Awesome! Krentz also wrote how virginity, in both myth and folklore (mythology being one of the foundations of popular and formula fiction), has been accorded special importance - but that in the modern romance, keeping the heroine a virgin doesn't make her a childish, vulnerable naif who is schooled by the hero, but an intelligent and sexually responsible woman who has simply been saving her virginity for the right man, which I think is a fantastic, and in my mind, more romantic concept.

After that essay, I was also required to read Krentz's own novella "Connecting Rooms," which I enjoyed. I was a little put-off by some of the language (and the rather twee last names of the protagonists - Amy Comfort and Owen Sweet), and the "love (or at least desire) at first sight" concept, but I ended up liking the story immensely. It had a little bit of a mystery tone to it, and basically involved a neurotic romance author/real estate developer having to pretend that her sexy hired private investigator is her fiance in order for him to stakeout a relative's new boyfriend to see if the dude's legit or a golddigger. The conflict is that as a very masculine and overbearing male, Owen is very inept at communicating with Amy, but they eventually discover that they can communicate just as well without words (but not without moans and grunts, hint hint).

Now, after this, I was required to read Kathleen E. Woodiwiss' "The Kiss" and another essay written by Krentz and Linda Barlow called "Beneath the Surface: The Hidden Codes of Romance". Those readings did not go over so well. "The Kiss," well, let's just say I initially thought it was a parody of romance stereotypes. Supposedly a "historical" romance set in Antebellum, Georgia during the plantation years, I can pretty much describe the plot in about thirty seconds:

Jeff, the dark-haired, filthy-rich, and unattached Bachelor: I need a woman!

Untrustworthy Brit: Woman for sale! Woman for sale! Get her while she's hot!

Raelynn, the poor, but fiesty and preternaturally beautiful heroine: I fiestily object!

Jeff: Why, she is hot! I'll take her!

Untrustworthy Brit: Cha-ching!

Jeff: Servant, see that she's giftwrapped for marriage! I instinctively know that despite never having seen her before, and having to buy her like a common cow in front of dozens of people, that she is the woman for me! Conveniently, I will now mention that she bears a startling resemblance to the woman I've been having lushly described, romantic, but sex-less dreams about for the last few months!

Raelynn: Hooray! I think.

Jeff: Let's go meet the family!

Brandon and Heather, Jeff's brother and sister-in-law, whose own forced-marriage backstory is unnecessarily shoe-horned into the narrative: You mean to tell us that you bought a poor, foreign woman with no social connections and that you mean to marry her today, without knowing her for more than twenty-four hours?

Jeff: Yes. Are you angry?

Brandon and Heather: We're ecstatic! After all, what kind of wealthy 19th century plantation owners would we be if we opposed a marriage simply based on the lack of social circumstance on the part of the wife whom you've never met before and have absolutely no prior knowledge of! HOORAY!

Raelynn: Oh, but I do have social circumstance - my father was noble before he died and my untrustworthy Brit uncle took me to America.

Jeff: HOORAY! But I'll still refrain from having sex with you, because our marriage was so fast.

Raelynn: Oh, but I like sex!

Jeff: HOORAY!

Brandon and Heather: HOORAY!

THE END.

Despite the fact that the names and attitudes are pretty anachronistic for a "historical" romance (a quick web search told me that Raelynn, meaning either "beautiful lamb" or "ewe lake" is a modern English varient of Raelyn), there was absolutely no conflict in the story whatsoever. Everyone accepts everything without any qualms or second thoughts or doubts . Raelynn doesn't object, Jeff's family doesn't object, and the language is as sickly-sweet and as purple as grape jelly.

Now, while I agreed with most of the "hidden codes of romance" in the Krentz and Barlowe essay, there was a part where the essay deals with the repetitive, flowery and hyperbolic language that critics of romance love to make fun of (you know, passages about "tender savagery...and souls joining as one" etc. etc.). The essay actually says that this language is integral to the romance genre, that it touches on narrative codes that every reader can instantly understand (thus creating a shared community of readers who all gather the same shared meaning from one story), and that it raises the narrative to mythological levels. This is what I disagree with. The essay believes that romance writers all using the same expressions and lines creates a "shared" voice over an individual, artistic voice - but I call it lazy writing.

I've nothing against lush and descriptive passages during the more important parts of the novel - like the meet-cute, the realization of love/desire, and the requisite sex scene, but not throughout the whole thing. To paraphrase The Incredibles, if everything is mythological, then nothing is. Chocolate is all well and good, but if someone is forced to eat nothing but chocolate without interruption for hours on end, by the end of it even the most ardent chocolate fan is going to be pretty sick of it.

Part of what I like about reading is discovering the new ways that certain authors describe things. If I've understood the essay correctly, there's nothing wrong with every romance author describing green eyes as being "like sparkling emeralds" - because that expression is so familiar that no reader can possibly mistake it for anything else. Emeralds = really green, thus heroine's eyes = really green, thus no reader will wonder if the heroine's eyes are really more hazel, or sea-green, or something silly like that. To me, that simply seems to encourage the stereotype that romance readers are stupid and uneducated - that they have to be led through a story with obvious metaphors in order to understand it correctly. It also suggests that certain romance authors aren't comfortable with their stories being open to different interpretations - they want to hammer home their stories so that they are read the way they want them to be read, not necessarily how the readers want them to be read. I'm more of the opinion that authors only write half the story, and the other half comes from the readers who interpret it through their own acquired codes of understanding.

Also, as I have previously mentioned, it comes across as a little lazy. Her eyes are "sparkling emeralds"? Really? Wow, I'm certain that no one else in the history of literature has ever thought about comparing green eyes to jewels before. How original! Did you come up with that all by yourself? Ever thought about comparing them to "spring leaves" or "glass bottles" or "the Chicago river on St. Patrick's Day"? I'm not saying there aren't exceptions - for instance, if the context of the characters would make this metaphor plausible. For example, if the hero was dashing jewel-thief, I wouldn't think twice about him comparing his lover's eyes that way.

Anyway though, I also have to consider that not all romances are equal. Just like any genre, it has its' awful examples and its awesome examples. Still, despite the disquieting "codes" included in the essay, I'm still going to give the Romance genre a shot - I already peeked at the first page of Jennifer Crusie's Bet Me and liked what I saw.

Romantic Comedy Commentary Part II

Finally, yes, I bring to you the second half of my romantic-comedy movie marathon - with reviews of Kate & Leopold and Serendipity.

Kate & Leopold
I was a bit more excited about watching this, as opposed to Serendipity, for four reasons. 1) Hugh Jackman's in it. 2) Hugh Jackman boasts an English accent. 3) Hugh Jackman plays a noble aristocrat. 4) The plot is nicely science-fictional in nature. When I finished watching this movie, I realized I'd forgotten a few things, namely 1) Meg Ryan's in it, and 2) Ew! Incest subplot! Ew ew ew!

I couldn't believe how these two yummy Hugh Jackman movies were so hampered by ridiculously annoying heroines. Someone Like You's Ashley Judd was a damp, whimpering mess, but at least she seemed like a decent person when she was taking her meds. Kate & Leopold's Kate, played by Meg Ryan, is a washed-out, shrill, selfish shrew (say that three times fast!).

The movie begins in the late nineteenth century, as Leopold, Duke of Albany (Jackman! With an accent!), is distracted from watching the ceremony commemorating the under-construction Brooklyn Bridge by a bizarre man (Liev Schreiber) who takes pictures with his disturbingly modern camera and giggles whenever the construction workers mention that the bridge will be "the biggest erection in the world". Leopold gives chase, but loses the man. Leopold then returns to his uncle's mansion, where he and dear old Uncle have a spat about the nature of the aristocracy (Unkie needs Leopold to marry someone loaded because the Duchy is strapped for cash, Leopold hates being born to priviledge and would rather be remembered for his actual accomplishments).

Leopold is put into an even deeper funk when he catches that same strange man, in his own house, taking pictures of his sketchbooks (in which he's drawn his personal ideas and inventions). Again the man runs away, and Leopold again chases him - all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge. Leopold, ever the hero, tries to catch the man when the dude tries to jump off the bridge, but he's given an eyeful of mace in return, loses his grip, and falls into space.

Flash forward to the present. The man turns out to be a modern-day freaky-deaky scientist named Stuart, who discovered a rip in the space-time continuum, and promptly used it to follow his great-great-great grandfather around in the 19th century. What he wasn't expecting, however, was that his great-great-great grandfather would follow him back to the present. Leopold, upon recovering his senses, is understandably freaked out, and so is Stuart's ex-girlfriend, Kate (Meg Ryan with brittle hair and weird-looking lips).

Of course, Kate is freaked out for a different reason. She's not a huge fan of Stuart's theories, especially since their own four-year relationship did not terminate all that amicably. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that she loathes him, with a fierce, irrational, and shrill intensity - however, her contempt for the four years she wasted with a guy who was too geeky to pay the rent is not enough to incite her to go looking for an apartment that isn't directly above his. In fact, she uses this to her advantage, by bursting in at all hours of the day to squawk and rant about how much of a prick Stuart is, and it is during one such rampage that she meets Leopold.

Naturally, Leopold's (however tenuous) connection to Stuart immediately labels him as nutjob asshat in her eyes, but her assumptions are eventually dissuaded by the fact that Leopold is everything that she is not. For one, Leopold is honest to fault. Kate is in marketing, a job that is perfect for her gigantic ego, complete self-absorption, and her love of all details superficial and unimportant that make her okay with being a big fat liar. Leopold is perfectly polite - to the point where he will always rise when a lady leaves the table (even if anyone with taste and class would be hard-pressed to called Kate a lady). Kate is crass, loud and vindictive.

Leopold is, in fact, such a dashing, kind-hearted, tolerant, thoughtful man that it is nigh impossible to come to terms with the fact that he finds Kate attractive. Notwithstanding the fact that proper 19th century tastes would have thought a person styled as Kate is (short hair, sleeve-less dresses, pantsuits) to be either a girlish-looking man or a whore, Kate is so unapologetically rude to him for 70% of the movie I expected his delicate aristocratic ears to be steaming within an hour of their introduction. Somehow, though, he thinks she's adorably spunky and free-thinking, so unlike those vapid rich bitches he had to court back home. Whatever.

While the unrealistic relationship is one of the sharpest sticking points, the other is the theme of incest that hangs over the plot like a bad stink, even if it's never actually brought up. At the beginning of the movie Stuart introduces Leopold as his great-great-great grandfather, but he doesn't get to spend a lot of time with him, since Stuart spends much of the film in the hospital after falling down an elevator shaft (funny time-twist: since Leopold went on to invent the elevator, after he's yanked into the present, every elevator in the world vanishes/stops working). Since Kate has to babysit Leopold while Stuart recovers in the psychiatric ward of the hospital (he gabbed a bit too much about how he manipulated the space-time continuum), Leopold falls in love with her.

Love has limits, however, and inevitably Kate crosses them when she tries to impose her truth-is-relative-in-marketing-bullshit ideas on Leopold when he refuses to help her advertise a disgusting diet butter product. With Stuart's help, he returns to the past as a man heartbroken enough to give in to his uncle's demands to marry one of the rich girls at his party. Meanwhile, Stuart examines some of his photographs of the past a little more clearly, has an "OHSHIT!" moment, and rushes off to show Kate that she is in one of the photographs - somehow, she was meant to go back in time to be with Leopold. Learning her lesson (a little too conveniently), she jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge and through the time-rip, to arrive just in time to prevent Leopold from proposing to some vapid rich bitch.

Of course, Stuart never seems to realize the fact that if Kate was destined to go back in time to become Leopold's wife, than he just spent the last four years boinking his own great-great-great grandmother!

Essentially, Hugh Jackman was delightful as the Duke of Albany, a convincing romantic hero, but Meg Ryan's Kate had very little going for her so I found it hard to believe that a romance between them could spring up within the course of one week. C+

Serendipity
While this movie was much less offensive to me than Someone Like You and Kate & Leopold, it wasn't very heart-string-pulling. While this is partly because Hugh Jackman has nothing to do with this movie, and partly because its characters aren't as well-drawn as the couple in Fever Pitch, this movie, while not repulsive, still contained a whole lot of m'eh.

Jonathan (John Cusack) and Sarah (Kate Beckinsale) meet for the first time when they both grab the same pair of black cashmere gloves during a Christmas season shopping frenzy. A cute, pleasant, but relatively unexceptional date follows. Despite the fact that Jonathan has a girlfriend and Sarah has a boyfriend, Jonathan asks for her phone number. Sarah responds with a bunch of hippy-dippy fairy-tale nonsense about fate - how people can still choose, but that coincidence has a way of giving people signs about what choices they should make if they want to be happy. So when she gives Jonathan her number only to watch him lose it a heartbeat later in a gust of wind, she assumes Fate is annoyed and wants them to back off.

Jonathan, being rational, calls bullshit. Sarah decides to give him more of a chance, and asks him to write his number on a five-dollar bill while she writes her number on the inside of a first-edition copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. She then proceeds to pay for a packet of mints with the five-dollar bill, and promises to sell her book to a used-book store. Thus, she explains, if they're meant to be together, Jonathan will find the copy of Love in the Time of Cholera, or that five-dollar bill will find its way back into her hands.

Again, Jonathan calls bullshit, so she relents, drags him into a hotel, and gives him one more chance. They'll each pick a separate elevator, and choose a floor at random. If they're meant to be, they'll choose the same floor. Fate, at this point, performs the first of a series of teases that occur throughout the film: Jonathan and Sarah actually pick the same floor (23), but a bratty kid hijacks Jonathan's elevator and pushes all the buttons, so that by the time he reaches 23, Sarah has left in a huff.

Seven years pass, and our would-be lovers haven't met up again, and are in fact engaged to other people. Sarah turns out to be a therapist and is engaged to a fruity shinai (flute) player named Johan (played by an amiable John Corbett). Jonathan, a producer for ESPN, is about to marry a decent girl in three days. Both heroes are relatively melancholy about their place in life - Sarah, in particular, has abandoned her Fate-obeying beliefs, having learned her lesson after seven years of never finding that five-dollar bill.

Jonathan, after spending an afternoon drenched in Fateful Sarah-references while trapped in a taxicab (advertisements with Sarah on them, an annoying biker singing "Sarah....Sarah...") suddenly discovers a sudden desire to restart his search for Sarah. The rest of the movie is a series of teases as Sarah and Jonathan, in their renewed hunt for each other, come within inches of finding each other, only to be miss each other at the last minute. Honestly, they share the screen for about ten minutes of the movie. That's it.

While the characters are fine, if a little nondescript, the theme of the movie is kind of cloudy. What, Fate didn't want them to get together when they were young and only mildly attached to other people, but when they're both about to embark upon permanent relationships with people who love them, Fate suddenly steps in and says, "Drop the dorks, it's time to shack up!" ? I mean, being a girlfriend who gets dumped for another girl seems a mite less painful than a fiancee whose betrothed cancels their wedding to hook up with another woman, don't you think?

Honestly, the film never discusses what those seven years apart did to make Jonathan and Sarah's impeding reunion more important. The film never even shows how the fiancee and Johan deal with the painful surprise that the people they believed to be their soulmates, the people who were days away from promising to be with them forever, are in fact perfectly willing to throw all their love away in order to chase down a person they spent three hours with on one night seven years ago. What was the point of all this? In some cases, Fate is even cruel - for instance, Jonathan's fiancee gives him a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera for a wedding present, not knowing that she is inadvertently handing him the Fateful copy with Sarah's phone number in it. Way to make a woman the unwitting instrument of her own heartbreak, eh?

Finally, the movie wasn't all that funny. Parts of it were cute, I guess, but really, the characters were all more or less blah. There was nothing particularly interesting about either of them to explain why a meet-cute that lasted less than three hours would be enough to occupy their obsessions for seven years. I personally found the loosey-goosey shinai player to be more interesting than John Cusack. Heck, I found Jeremy Piven to be more interesting than John Cusak. I could definitely watch a romantic comedy with Jeremy Piven at the head. For being inoffensive, mildly entertaining, but not exactly gripping, Serendipity gets a solid B-.

Well, well, well - it appears that for my first ever Romantic Comedy Marathon, the first prize ribbon goes to the American version of Fever Pitch, which was a delightful, funny, relatively realistic comedy with a very delicious Jimmy Fallon in it. Yes, I said American version. As one of my helpful commentators pointed out - there was actually a British version that came out first, in 1997, which starred Colin Firth as a man in love with a football (soccer to you Yanks) team, as well as his girlfriend. If I can find it, I might want to try to watch that, too.