Song of Ice and Fire

Upon reflecting the end of yet another semester, I was talking with one of my friends about my 21st century fantasy seminar and this reminded him to inform me of some good news. Apparently HBO has recently ordered a new series that will be adapted from A Song of Ice and Fire, the first of the series being A Game of Thrones. Casting is now in order. Who else is excited?

Precursor to The Village

The young-adult novel mentioned in class that shares plot elements with M. Night Shyamalan's 2004 movie The Village is Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix, published in 1995.

Moorcock on Tolkien, Lewis and company

"Epic Pooh," an infamous anti-J.R.R. Tolkien, anti-C.S. Lewis screed by the great British fantasist Michael Moorcock, written in 1978, can be found in its entirety here, at Revolution SF. An excerpt:

I sometimes think that as Britain declines, dreaming of a sweeter past, entertaining few hopes for a finer future, her middle-classes turn increasingly to the fantasy of rural life and talking animals, the safety of the woods that are the pattern of the paper on the nursery room wall. Old hippies, housewives, civil servants, share in this wistful trance; eating nothing as dangerous or exotic as the lotus, but chewing instead on a form of mildly anaesthetic British cabbage. If the bulk of American sf could be said to be written by robots, about robots, for robots, then the bulk of English fantasy seems to be written by rabbits, about rabbits and for rabbits.

Enchanted Music

I might be alone, but I hated the music in Enchanted. No particular reason that I can point to, I just didn't like it. To my ears, it never really lived up to the Disney classics, such as:



Feel free to disagree or one-up me with other Disney songs.

And as a supplement to the excellent CD Andy made for us, I would suggest the following tracks for this semester:

Coldplay - Cemeteries of London (England, graveyard, ghosts, witches... perfect Graveyard Book song)
Murder by Death - Comin' Home (Werewolf overtones, a la Kelly Link)
Mew - She Came Home for Christmas (Creepy child abuse theme, harped by Joe Hill)
Symphony X - Awakenings (Wishing well, shown in Enchanted)
Porcupine Tree - Lazarus (Ghosts... kinda)
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris (Works for that short story with angels)
Nightwish - Beauty of the Beast (Gothic vampire theme)

Enchanted References

On Wikipedia I found a page that mention the references to Disney films in Enchanted. I know Wikipedia not the most reliable but I though it would be interesting to post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_references_in_Enchanted

Sex, Potions, and Rock n' Roll?

In a recent article I stumbled upon in anticipation for the next movie installment of Harry Potter, Director David Yates speaks on his take of the film and what he tried to really showcase. 

He claims this film is much more sexualized than the previous one (where our biggest romantic moment came with a sickeningly  awkward kiss....) and that although sex itself isn't shown (thank god...talk about unsettling), we will apparently be able to tell its there. 

Ok, granted I get that the characters are getting older, and we can't have them just eat chocolate frogs and sharing hugs forever, but i never got the impression that the sixth book was in anyway classified in the "sexual explosion" category. Yes, they were clearly in their teenage prime at 16 in this installment, but i would never say i felt it was ever "quite naughty".  

I call shenanigans. 

I am obviously aware of the whole "treat movies as separate entities of their novel counterparts" idea. I agree with this, and I have always been generally annoyed with those that seek to pick apart miniscule details of the movies that don't agree with the books...but I feel this is a little bit bigger than that. It's like presenting a whole different feel and atmosphere to the story, when in fact, while a little of this sexy spunk is needed to show maturity, it should not be an overriding and overbearing movie. 

Is this just me? Did I misinterpret HPHBP in this regard; did i miss this apparently obvious sexual definition? Or is this just Yates and WB working together to increase the moo-la flow at the end of it all? Afterall, sex does pay. And its not like there are millions of girls out there that would only be too eager to dish out their bucks to see Dan or Rupert turnin' it on...

I would like to hope the later....the easier answer to accept

Last class we talked briefly about how specific scenes in Enchanted mimicked specific scenes in other classic disney movies. For some screen captures that illustrate this checkout this link:  click me.

* Sarah if you haven't already found these they might be helpful. :)