Category: Film

The Simple but Significant Plot Shift of In the Heights

On By Charlie BrooksIn FilmLeave a comment

Spoilers for In the Heights (play and film) follow.

The excellent Broadway musical In the Heights received a film adaptation this summer and, like most such adaptations, it went through some changes from stage to screen. Character arcs shifted slightly, some numbers got cut, and a few items got added to make the show more topical. But one particular change left me really thinking, and I feel that it subtly alters the tone of the entire story.

Continue reading “The Simple but Significant Plot Shift of In the Heights” →

Phantom Histories: The 1962 Film

On By Charlie BrooksIn Film, Phantom HistoriesLeave a comment

The 1962 adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera is everything the 1943 film was but more so. It has strong acting (with the Phantom played by Herbert Lom), plays up the disfigurement of the title character, and has the unfortunate tendency to overemphasize the Phantom as a charming and sympathetic character. It matches what the 1943 film did well (save for the extra spoke in the love triangle), but keeps from being the ideal adaptation by repeating the previous film’s flaw of making the Phantom too much of a good guy.

Continue reading “Phantom Histories: The 1962 Film” →

A Kind of Magic: Highlander The Series, season one

On By Charlie BrooksIn A Kind of Magic, FilmLeave a comment

Following the catastrophe that was Highlander II: The Quickening, no one wanted to see another Highlander movie. The franchise got killed the moment someone decided that the immortals were really aliens from planet Zeist. But Davis-Panzer Productions wanted to continue the franchise somehow, probably because it was the only property they owned that had moneymaking potential. Movies were a dead end for the franchise (at least until later in the 1990s), so the production company had to out its hope into a TV series.

A TV show allowed for more episodic adventures with different immortals, drawing from the rich tapestry of experiences of immortal Connor MacLeod. After all, Connor was about 500 years old, and the movies had only scratched the surface about his past. There was only one major problem: Christopher Lambert, the actor who had brought Connor to life, didn’t want to do TV.

Continue reading “A Kind of Magic: Highlander The Series, season one” →

Phantom Histories: The 1943 Film

On By Charlie BrooksIn Film, Phantom HistoriesLeave a comment

What do Claude Rains, Lon Chaney, and Michael Crawford all have in common? They each starred as the titular antagonist in adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera which, while excellent on their own, missed key pieces of the puzzle that keep me from considering them to be on the same level as the original novel.

The 1943 adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera goes one step further in that, while solid on its own, I believe that it actually did some long-term damage to the franchise that carried over into subsequent adaptations. Yet, at the same time, it gave the story some interesting twists that you can’t find anywhere else.

Continue reading “Phantom Histories: The 1943 Film” →
Avengers

My Favorite Superhero Casting Jobs (so far)

On By Charlie BrooksIn Comics, FilmLeave a comment

Superhero movies vary from extremely faithful adaptations to the realm of, “Why bother calling that giant cloud Galactus in the first place?” Similarly, casting our favorite superheroes has been a grab-bag of terrible choices, ideas that seemed bad originally but turned into pleasant surprises, and actors that so perfectly fit into their roles that it’s hard to imagine anybody else taking their place.

The list below deals with the latter, focusing on my ten favorite casting choices in superhero movies. The actors who made this list not only turned in great performances, but in my opinion helped define the way people think about their iconic characters. That means that I did leave out some great performances, such as Adam West’s Batman or Heath Ledger’s Joker, because those characters have so many different interpretations that it’s hard to embrace just one.

Continue reading “My Favorite Superhero Casting Jobs (so far)” →

The Thirteenth Doctor: Companion Evolution

On By Charlie BrooksIn Doctor Who, FilmLeave a comment

Spoilers for “Revolution of the Daleks” (2021 New Year’s special) follow.

In its 58-year history, very few episodes of Doctor Who have featured the titular Doctor on her own. Human companions serve an important role in grounding the Doctor and serving as the lens through which the audience experiences the zany journeys. Without companions, the Doctor is just some inscrutable alien, and she has no reason to explain the many bizarre things she encounters in her travels through space and time.

In addition to serving as audience avatars, the Doctor’s companions act as teammates and, on the many occasions where the Doctor gets in over her head, rescuers. This formula has worked consistently for decades, yet there has been some evolution here and there. Under the Thirteenth Doctor, the companions have reached a new stage of development that is both similar to and yet different from the relationship they shared under previous incarnations of the Time Lord.

Continue reading “The Thirteenth Doctor: Companion Evolution” →

A Kind of Magic: Highlander II, part one

On By Charlie BrooksIn A Kind of Magic, Film1 Comment

Okay, let’s get this over with.

Highlander II: The Quickening. When you’re talking about crappy follow-ups to good movies, you’re talking about Highlander II. It is easily one of the worst sequels of all time, and even all the monkeying around with director’s cuts decades later has failed to make it even remotely tolerable.

The saddest part? Highlander II isn’t even the worst movie in this franchise. That honor goes to Highlander: The Source. But one trainwreck at a time. Let’s go over Highlander II, both its successes and failures.

Nah, I’m only kidding; there are no successes to discuss.

Continue reading “A Kind of Magic: Highlander II, part one” →
The Timeless Children

The Thirteenth Doctor: A Question of Identity

On By Charlie BrooksIn Doctor Who, FilmLeave a comment

Spoilers for the Series 12 (2020) finale of Doctor Who follow.

Following the huge continuity bombshell dropped by the Series 12 finale “The Timeless Children,” Johnny Spandrell of the Randomwhoness blog posted this thought on Twitter:

That’s quite a fair question to ask. As I mentioned last time, I’m not a fan of stories that exist just to tweak in-show continuity. The Doctor is already alien and somewhat difficult to relate to, being a millennia-old alien being who travels time and regenerates into new bodies upon death. Does making her the foundation of an entire alien society really do anything story-wise?

I argue that “The Timeless Children” does much more than continuity-tweaking. In redefining the Doctor, it opens up many potentially interesting stories in the future. More importantly, it goes back to one of the inherent themes in much of modern science fiction: a matter of identity.

Continue reading “The Thirteenth Doctor: A Question of Identity” →

Doctor and Master

The Thirteenth Doctor: Pros and Cons of Continuity

On By Charlie BrooksIn Doctor Who, FilmLeave a comment

Spoilers for Series 12 (2020) of Doctor Who follow.

I quite liked the continuity-light approach of the Thirteenth Doctor’s debut season. I felt that relying on new aliens and monsters rather than dredging up the old standards provided more of a focus on who the Doctor was and what was important about her.

That said, my favorite moment in the Thirteenth Doctor’s run definitely comes from the climactic moment of Season 12’s “The Timeless Children,” which is anything but light on continuity:

 

So even as I celebrate a continuity-light approach, I lose my mind when the show plays a 30-second montage that acknowledges the Doctor’s long history. Why does continuity have that effect, and when does the show’s 50+ years of baggage drag it down?

Continue reading “The Thirteenth Doctor: Pros and Cons of Continuity” →