Movie Review: The Swan Princess (1994)

Seeing as I've watched pretty much all the animated musical Disney films of the 90s lately, I've moved on to the animated musicals that other companies made in a bid to cash in on the Golden Age of Animation Disney briefly revived. One of those was The Swan Princess, based on the story of Swan Lake, naturally.

Now, I could complain about the visuals, and how the facial expressions on the human characters looked kind of weird or they moved oddly, but let's face it, I've watched a lot of animated films and the only ones who've managed to make humans move realistically are Disney, Dreamworks, Warner Brothers (with The Iron Giant - the only animated movie they made), and Don Bluth (and Don Bluth is borderline). Also - in a film whose hand-drawn water- and light- animation effects were actually fairly decent, the Swan Princess folk inexplicably switched to CG to portray the rippling of the lake, but only for the last five minutes of the film. ANYWAY...

There's no question of Prince Derek and Princess Odette being made for each other - the movie explains how they've been forced to spend every summer together because their ambitious parents hope to unite their two kingdoms through matrimony. Of course, the parents aren't quite ambitious enough to force them to marry if they don't want to, which seems a bit wishy washy. "What if Odette's not for the merger?" her dad asks in the catchy opening tune "This Is My Idea." Derek's suspiciously elderly-looking mother replies, "URGE HER!"

For most of these enforced summers, Derek and Odette have not gotten along, and the accompanying musical number accords the bad feeling to Derek's childhood fear of cooties and adolescent discomfort with losing at cards to a girl. Magically enough, on the last summer, when they are both (presumably) of age, they take one look at each other, the hormones (belatedly) kick in, and Derek says, "You're hot, let's hook up," and Odette says, "Like, yeah, okay." Sadly, Odette realizes that Derek, for all his hotness, still possesses one fatal flaw: he is as DUMB AS A POST. She asks, "Yes, I'm beautiful - but what else?" and Derek, with royal aplomb, replies (and I'm accurately quoting here), "Well, what else is there?" Which makes sense in a way - since they've probably spent more than ten summers determinedly avoiding each other, it stands to reason the only thing that made Derek perk up this year was the fact that Odette grew boobs and blond hair during the interim.

As one might expect, the wedding is promptly called off and Odette leaves in a huff. It is at this point that the film's villain, an evil sorcerer named Rothbart (played with whispery camp by Jack Palance), whose previous attempt at a coup on Odette's kingdom was foiled, swoops down on Odette's carriage, whisks her off, and puts her under a spell that changes her into a swan by sunlight and a human by moonlight in order to persuade her to marry him. Yes, that's right - he wants to marry her because he's too lazy to try to take the kingdom by force. Anyway, since he used magic to do the kidnapping, all Odette's father can say under questioning was that Odette was attacked "by a great animal" (Rothbart in disguise, natch).

Naturally, Derek hears the cryptic witness statements "great animal," "not what it seems," and "Odette gone," and is determined to use all of his intellectual powers, however woefully limited, to get Odette back and thus prove that he doesn't only love her boobs, he loves the heart underneath her boobs, which he bet he would have been able to say if Odette hadn't interrupted him with that unlady-like snit-fit. He and his friend Bromley (a chap with an interchangeably British-Australian accent who's a dead-ringer for Beauty and the Beast's evil sidekick Lafou) spend a few humorous slapstick scenes practicing archery, before Derek comes up with the lamebrained idea that a "great animal" that is "not what it seems" can only be a transforming animal, so his entire plan is to head off into the forest and literally shoot anything that moves. Bromley agrees. Their friendship seems primarily based on the fact that Bromley is the only character who's more of an idiot than Derek is, so this isn't surprising.

Guess who he almost shoots? That's right - Odette, in swan-form. Odette, having had a few days (weeks?) to get accustomed to her spell (and its cure: kiss a dude and have him make an everlasting vow of love and prove it to the world), comes to the conclusion that Derek is a dude, and seems to like her, so she might as well call him her soulmate and have a whole drippy song number about how they're meant to be ("Longer than Forever") despite the fact that she already established that she really didn't want anything to do with him only a few days (weeks?) before. But seeing as how the spell is really crimping her style, I guess she figures Derek'll do.

And let's not forget her new talking-animal friends: being stuck on a lake, naturally her new buds are all aquatic creatures - Speedy the turtle, Jean-Bob the frog (played by John Cleese in a hilarious French accent), and some kind of Scottish puffin with a penchant for military catchphrases - they are present for the requisite song-and-dance numbers and comic relief, but aren't all that memorable past the silly but rather sweet subplot that Jean-Bob believes he's really a prince who needs a kiss to break his own spell.

Well, these creatures help Odette lure Derek to her lake, where she turns back into a girl in time for Derek to NOT shoot her. She relays the whole story to Derek, who comes up with an idea: the next night his mother's planned a "There's Plenty More Fish In the Sea" ball for Derek to find a new wife, so if Odette shows up then, he can make the vow in front of a crowd of people, which should meet the "prove to the world" condition as well. Unfortunately, they forget about the new moon the next night, which means she's stuck as a swan, so Rothbart (not handling Odette's constant rejection very well) uses a spell to change his maid into Odette's doppelganger to go in her place, adding a not-before-mentioned plot point that if Derek swears his love to another girl, Odette will die. How convenient...

Derek, having evidently been hit on the head as a child, is easily fooled. Odette collapses, Derek screams a few Darth-Vader style "NOOOOOOO"s, kills Rothbart with his manly prince fighting powers, and that, apparently, breaks the spell and revives Odette. Happy endings are had by all.

Not quite. Twitchy visuals aside, the movie's not all that bad (and certainly better than Quest for Camelot), partially because on many levels it knows it's silly, so it just runs with it for the most part. The setting is quasi-medieval and vaguely European, and no real names or time periods are mentioned, so they can have an excuse to have arrows and horsies and ball gowns everyday. The comic setpiece where Derek hunts the musicians is pretty funny, as well as the "This is My Idea" musical number, and the character of Rogers, as Derek's sarcastic valet, brightens up the pace considerably.

But...The main characters are borderline unbearable. Odette's nice, but we don't get to know her very well - she spends much of the movie giggling, giving cheering advice, or crying her eyes out because Rothbart's a meanie. I mean, at the end, when Derek tries to revive her, he says "It wasn't just your beauty, it was your kindness and your courage," etc. etc. - I kept wondering: "Derek, you are mentally challenged - how could you realize something that even I didn't get?" To describe Derek, I'll have to quote Disney villain Scar, in that "the lights are not all on upstairs." Dude is stupid, man. Really - and he's going to end up as KING of TWO kingdoms - how's that going to work out?

And as for the songs, there's one catchy number ("This is My Idea"), a silly-but-pleasant one ("No More Mister Nice Guy" - Rothbart's jazzy explanation of how he's going to go apeshit on Odette's kingdom once he takes over), one song that is annoying in how memorable it is ("Longer than Forever" - I keep humming the refrain, dammit, despite not remembering anything else) and a few that are simply awful in their tackiness (like "No Fear" - the one song they stuck with in the lame sequels).

I think one of reasons I didn't like the songs much in this film is because they didn't seem to segue smoothly into the narrative. In most animated musicals, the song arises out of, or is inspired by something the characters are already doing. But in Swan Princess, it's the other way around - it's like they wrote the songs first and had to write the story around THEM, so what happens is that the characters will suddenly suggest a half-assed special event (let's steal a map! Let's have a beauty pageant! Let's hunt musicians for sport!) that really isn't relevant to the story at all, that then transforms into a cheesy number ("No Fear," "Princesses on Parade," and "Practice," respectively). Interestingly enough, the lyricist for the tunes was Dave Zippel, who if memory serves went on to pen the lyrics for Disney's Hercules, which were pretty good.

Still, despite some good-natured humour, the songs are cheesy, the main characters unsympathetic, and the animation is distracting. Really, it's not that bad (even stupid people deserve to fall in love), but it's not that good either.

Crush du Jour Rating:
Ron is reasonably amused. (Translation: "M'eh.")

Yes, it really IS neat!

While eventually recovered from the blow of not getting the Little Mermaid solo in choir, and having to listen to someone else sing at the concerts that will end up on the CD, I've still felt fairly melancoly, for the purely childish, selfish reason that it should be me up there. Mum suggested that maybe I lost the solo for Lent, to learn a little humility. I suppose that makes sense - I've always had a big head about my big voice, and it was confident, bordering on certain, that I was going to win the Little Mermaid solo.

Well, I guess it turns out Mum was right - the choir rehearsal right after Easter (and the last one before we go on tour on the 28th), the choir director came and gave me a Good News - Bad News - Good News announcement (his words).

Good News: The soloist got her dream job to work as a nurse at a children's hospital.

Bad News: Because of that job, she can't go on tour.

Good News: As the understudy, I GET TO SING THE SOLO ON TOUR! Me me me! As one of my friends pointed out, "That's, like, nine performances to that other girl's two!" I mean, how lucky am I? How often does the understudy get that lucky?

Of course, I let it go to my head pretty quickly, so God took it on Himself to remind me that pride is a sin: I got up to sing on the last rehearsal, and FORGOT ALL THE WORDS TO THE SONG I'VE SUNG SINCE I WAS THREE. So embarrassing, but at least I got it out of my system before we go on tour so I have time to straighten out my jitters and adjust myself to the slower tempo. Now, I could quibble over the minor details - like how the other girl's on the CD, and how she shouldn't have been able to sing the solo in the first place if she wasn't able to go on tour, but there's no point, really, is there?

Besides - my parents have hinted that if the first performance isn't a huge drive from our city, they might come to see me anyways - and if they don't, one of the social conveners for the tour usually films some of the performances, so I might be able to finagle a copy with my solo on it.

I'm so excited! So excited!

Book Review: "Practical Magic" by Alice Hoffman

I've read books that have eventually been turned into movies, and I've watched movies and then gone and read the original books (The Hunchback of Notre Dame is actually at the top of my TBR pile now. Seriously.). For the most part, while some of the movies have been fun, the books have been buttloads better, if for nothing else, than because there is more space for the goodness that a two-hour movie just doesn't have time for.

So, let's just say I had some high hopes for Practical Magic. I'd read Alice Hoffman's The Ice Queen and adored it, and I'd seen the film Practical Magic and while on the whole I didn't quite like it, there were certain scenes and themes that were pretty interesting - so I figured the book had to be about a million times better, right?

Well, no. In the book, two orphaned sisters are raised by a crotchety pair of spinster aunts after their parents die in a fire. Sally, the eldest, is determined to be good, sensible, helpful, and logical because she's secretly afraid the aunts will cast her out if they aren't pleased with her. Gillian, the younger, grows up into a gorgeous, devil-may-care wild child who eventually runs away, promising never to come within a hundred feet of the aunts ever again.

Their aunts aren't explicitly labelled as witches until the end of the book, but it's obvious pretty early on that they are considered to have special powers. They (and by extension, the sisters) are ostracized by the superstitious, but women will still come to the aunts' back door begging for love potions. The experience of spying on the aunts' customers scares the two girls about love - the customers are portrayed as pathetic, selfish, troubled women who have no idea what they're asking for and are ultimately betrayed by their own wishes. Both girls decide never to be cornered that way.

However, both sisters end up, against all odds, trapped and severely hurt by love. Sally falls in love with a hardware salesclerk named Michael, but after he's killed in a fated accident she has a nervous breakdown for about a year, and spends all her time thereafter devoting her life to her own daughters instead of serving herself. Gillain, meanwhile, flits about with a number of men, but unwisely falls for an abusive drug-dealer named Jimmy. After he inadvertantly dies, Gillian returns to stay with Sally, and the reunited sisters, along with Sally's daughters Kylie and Antonia, eventually rediscover all the good things that come with the heartbreak of true love.

Practical Magic is one of Alice Hoffman's earlier books, and while I'm glad to say her style improved by the time she wrote The Ice Queen, the storytelling in this book left a lot to be desired. Here, Hoffman does an enormous amount of telling over showing. We're told that Sally is the responsible, logical one who refuses to believe in fate and magic and love, and we're told that Gillian is the insecure wild one who thinks she's isn't worthy of true love. How we are told is through rather blunt internal musing and a large number of lists. Hoffman lists things like a madwoman in this book. To evoke a bizarre childhood, instead of focusing descriptively on a few special scenes, she creates a grocery list of barely-described, mundane actions - and she does it all the time. Lists of Sally's accomplishments, Kylie's insecurities, the sisters' cherished memories, common superstitions, chores, fears, recipes -- on and on and on. It is such a frequent narrative habit that it becomes quickly tiresome, and gives the details a shallow quality.

The pacing of this book also has a disturbingly random, out-of-the-blue element to it. Every single person - I am not making this up - every single man who falls in love with Gillian, Sally, or her daughters does so instantaneously, with one glance followed by flash-of-lightning-certainty that renders them virtual slaves to the girls' will. This leaves us with an uncomfortable lack of romantic build-up, which in turn explains very little about why Sally and Gillian are so attractive. I can imagine it happening once, but four times? Also, each character seems confined to a set amount of emotional triggers, where if one is accidently tripped, it can send the character over the deep end or provoke a certain unexpected action, which is convenient for the narrative but appears pretty sudden and unrealistic to me.

However, like The Ice Queen, the magical elements of the book are restrained and subtle. For all her telling and her lists, Hoffman never comes out and says: "Hey, the aunts are WITCHES - so maybe THE GIRLS ARE TOO." Instead, she uses descriptions, scenery, and setting to demonstrate the aunts' otherworldliness, letting the magical occurances build up slowly so that by the time a Big Magic happens (somewhere near the middle, concerning Gillian's dead boyfriend), it fits in smoothly with the tone of the novel and gives it a consistency while easing the suspension of disbelief.

In many ways, the novel has a fairy-tale quality to it, probably intentional. It explains the frequent hairpin turns in character and narrative development, the frequency of love-at-first-sight, and the intense and sudden changes that occur around Sally and her family. While I love fairy-tales, Practical Magic demonstrates how some elements of folktales and myth just aren't suited to a long-format story. The ritualization of the formula, that fits a shorter tale, is repetitive when stretched over more than three hundred pages.

This might have explained why I found the movie more enjoyable - except that the movie uses very little of the material from the book. In the movie, for instance, there is a curse that is supposed to kill the true love of every woman in the aunts' family, the aunts are more present (they're little more than bookends in the novel), Sally's girls remain children (they're teenagers at the end of the book), and Sally ends up moving back into the aunts' house when her husband dies - which does not happen in the novel, in which Sally makes a point of leaving the aunts' house when she's widowed, in order for her kids to have what she believes is a "normal" life.

In the movie, I particularly liked that the Gary Hallet (Aidan Quinn) character turns out to be the "perfect man" that Sally wished for as a child - with one blue eye and one green eye, who can flip perfect pancakes, and ride a horse backwards and forwards - but that particular cute tidbit was invented, apparently, by the screenwriter (Robin Swicord), and Gary and Sally's true relationship is, like nearly every other relationship in the novel, instantly set in stone.

Neither interpretation of the story was completely engaging - while cute, the film occasionally verges into the "too cute" realm of Bewitched, and isn't nearly as subtle with the magical element (another change: in the book Sally and Gillian never use any magic of their own - but they each have specific magical powers in the film) and although Alice Hoffman's language is as poetic and beautiful as ever, the narrative is unfocused and all over the place so there wasn't a lot to hold my interest.


Crush du Jour Rating:
Topher is disappointed. ("I kinda liked the movie better...")

Book Review: "Bet Me," by Jennifer Crusie

As you can probably guess, I've been backed up with my book reviews, so I'm getting them all done while I can.

This was the first book I read after I finished my University reading - and let me tell you, what a palate-cleanser it was! This is, by the way, the first official romance novel I've ever read - and I have the lovely Bitches over at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels to thank for that. I'd been lurking over at their blog for quite a while, but I'd never had the chance to get any romance novels, because I had books to review for University, and books to read for my parents/grandparents, and of course, the towering pile of sci-fi/fantasy books I bought for myself but haven't had the time to read yet!

I'm kind of a stickler for reading books in the order I've acquired them (since I still have the three books I bought at Coles/Chapters when I was fired - last summer - and they still haven't been read yet), but after all the heavy "thinking" books I had to pore through for English (Cosmopolis? Like, gag me with a spoon!), I said "Screw it!" and picked up Bet Me, which had been languishing somewhere near the bottom of my TBR pile.

The book opens on our protagonist Min (short for Minerva - because her mother wants her to be a goddess - kill me now), who is having an extraordinarily bad day. First, David, her boyfriend of about three months, breaks up with her because she won't have sex with him. Second, this break-up means she will be dateless to her sister's wedding, and her calorie-counting-appearance-is-everything-Harpy-QUEEN of a mother is going to hold that against her and probably link her failure to her weight, which is ample, but not unhealthily so. Third, she overhears her spineless ex-boyfriend make a bet with another man, Cal, that he won't be able to get Min into bed within a month.

Inconveniently, she doesn't hear all that clearly: Cal, not being the oblivious ass that David is, refuses the bet, but not wanting to offend David (who is a client) he deflects it with another bet: that he can take Min to dinner. He succeeds, but only because Min decides to string Cal along for a month to revenge herself AND have a conveniently HAWT date for her sister's wedding (she justifies her behaviour because her friends inform her that Cal has a reputation for being incredibly commitment-phobic). The date proceeds horribly, and Cal and Min decide never to see each other again - but Fate (or Chance, given the book's theme) seems determined to keep throwing them together.

There's so much about this book to love. First of all - the characters. Cal and Min are by no means perfect, or similar, but their differences and personal problems and despicable families (seriously - they both lucked out and missed the asshat gene that claimed most of their relatives) complement each other in delightful ways. Min, in particular, is very concerned with her weight - she's not obese, but she's definitely not thin, and her hateful mother is convinced that "all men are visual" and that if she and her daughters aren't Barbie-perfect, their men are bound to cheat on and leave them. Cal responds to this with flat-out denial. Crusie is brilliant at describing how attracted Cal is to Min, especially while she's enjoying good food. There's one scene in the book that is just perfect: Min, after enjoying chicken marsala at a local restaurant, tries to improvise a low-fat version and fails miserably - Cal simply says that some food, and some people, are just meant to have a little butter and oil in them to be delicious. This is the part where I swoon, people.

Cal and Min are both backed up by a hilarious bevy of friends, each of whom is fully-drawn and contributes something meaningful to the story while still remaining a distinct personality. Crusie masterfully depicts how these groups of people become more and more integrated as Cal and Min become closer, until they become one lively, cohesive bunch of friends.

The closeness of the friends also emphasises the complete and utter wrongness of the novel's villains: David, of course, is not only determined to have Min back, but doesn't want to pay off the bet should Cal succeed: he still thinks Cal accepted the bet, a bet David put ten thousand dollars on. David is aided in his plans to break Cal and Min up by Cynthia, Cal's ex-girlfriend, a gorgeous couples therapist Cal broke up with when she proposed marriage. She got famous preaching all these four-step plans to love so often she believes it herself, and knows that her career is pretty much dunzo if she and Cal don't tie the knot. Her textbook referrals to behavioural patterns are pretty funny, especially when she puts her theories into action, but in the end she knows Cal just as little as David knows Min.

Crusie also has a wicked sense of humour, particularly in dialogue. I could practically hear the zings as Min and Cal verbally spar, break up, find an understanding, spar again, fight again, end up closer together, and then go back to bickering. The pacing is also, for the most part, fast and even, although it drags a little in the third act. The amazing and wonderful thing about the writing is that it isn't only funny, and heartfelt, and sexy (I can never look at chocolate donuts the same way again...read the book and you'll know what I mean), but it's intelligent. The characters are all smart in their own way, and while they are prone to their own mistakes and prejudices, Crusie describes their motivations in a way that allows the reader to relate to them, even when they're being stubborn or wrong-headed. Especially Min - what a wonderful heroine! I'm no twig either, and I've had my share of humiliations whenever I go to a clothing store and the pretty tops won't fit or the pants are too small - but she comforts herself in a way that I do, by collecting funky accessories that aren't affected by size. She collects gorgeous shoes (like the pair on the cover!) whereas I like dangly earrings.

Hot damn, this book is Romantic with a capital R, but the writing allows it to be such without having unnecessary sex scenes. In fact, there is only one, near the end, that I shan't describe because you have to read it for yourself to truly enjoy how yummy it is. Crusie builds up love and affection and attraction through action and dialogue - she doesn't rely on the out-of-the-blue-OMG-HAWT-SECKS scene as a crutch. This is definitely a Keeper book - and not just a Keeper book, but a Comfort-Reading-Break-the-Spine-Reading-It-A-Million-Times Keeper book.



Crush du Jour Rating:
Hugh is in love! (Translation: "Fantastic!")

Book Review: "On Beauty," by Zadie Smith

Sorry about this - I'm still fiddling with the perfect format for my reviews. Anyway - wow, I have to say, wow. I wonder how I might have read this book had I not read Howard's End first? I read about a chapter in and my strongest thought was: "I am reading a re-make." That astounded me. I've seen remakes of movies, re-adapations of Shakespeare places, covers of songs - but I didn't think people were, well, allowed to remake books.

Yes, eventually On Beauty meanders off in its own particular direction, but the first few chapters are pretty darn close to those of Howard's End. Howard Belsey, the white, British professor of art history at fictional American university Wellington, flies to London to see his son, Jerome, when his kid e-mails that he's engaged. Just like the previous book, Howard shows up just in time for the two stupid kids to call it off. Again, similar to the previous book the Belseys (multiracial, radically liberal, intellectual) do not get along with Jerome's ex-intended's family, the Kipps (black, viciously conservative, religious), but nevertheless Howard's overweight, African-American wife Kiki quickly befriends the ailing Mrs. Kipps, so much so that when Mrs. Kipps kicks the bucket, she leaves a handwritten note leaving Kiki a priceless painting that outrages her family.

Smith deals with a great many characters, and I guess it's to her credit that they aren't all pretentious, oblivious, spoiled elitists like those in Howard's End. Most of them are, but not all of them. Howard, the de facto protagonist, is a boorish, controlling pig who, while claiming to be trying to get back into his wife's graces after a disastrous affair, continues to do ridiculously idiotic and selfish things. His daughter, Zora, feels unattractive and socially awkward, but is nevertheless willing to scheme and manipulate to get her own way. Youngest son Levi has a few sweet moments, but his overflowing idealism combined with a complete ignorance of the "street" he claims to belong to do not bode well for his fate. And while Forster was more charitable towards the Wilcoxes in Howard's End, Smith does not place very much focus on the Kipps at all, preferring to portray them as hypocritical, homophobic, and cruel bigots. At least Forster gave the rival family a little depth.

Anyway, though, there are a few characters to root for. While I found it hard to believe Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox could ever get along, I found no trouble believing Kiki and Mrs. Kipp's relationship. Kiki is an astonishingly colourful, warm, and well-rounded character, so much so that it only increased my hatred of those characters who treated her badly - that is, nearly every other character. Smith evocatively portrays her humiliation at Howard not only sleeping with another woman, but with a skinny, white woman who also happens to be a family friend.

In many ways, it's more interesting than Howard's End, because most of the theorizing takes place in dialogue that is more or less dynamic, rather than the stifling dull internal exposition that Forster uses. It still isn't enough to save this book - I found myself out of my depth among people who were so interested in discussing the theory of art (is this a painting for painting's sake? Or is this a painting for all paintings? etc.), and the theory of love and the theory of justice, beauty, etc, that they never have time to see or do any of it in practice. I felt detached from all of the characters except Kiki, so in truth I had no interest in seeing how their petty, narrow lives would turn out.

Crush du Jour Rating:

Patrick is sympathetic. (Translation: "Nice try, really, but it still wasn't all that good.")

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.