I have conflicting feelings about the 1989 Phantom of the Opera movie. On the one hand, if you divorce the movie from its source material, it’s not a terrible film. On the other hand, I really don’t think the Phantom should ever, ever be a slasher film.
Continue reading “Phantom Histories: The 1989 Film”
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera is either a lot of flash with little substance or one of the best musicals of all time, depending on your personal tastes. It undoubtedly has incredible sets and costumes paired with beautiful music. Whether that is enough to overcome the way it glosses over many of the meatier parts of Gaston Leroux’s novel is a matter of some debate. One thing is sure, however: it brings the love story from that novel back to scenter stage.
Continue reading “Phantom Histories: The 1986 Musical”
One thing I forgot to mention last rant was that Adrian Paul took over as the director for a couple of episodes in season four (“Homeland” and “Methuselah’s Gift”), and he also got behind the camera for two episodes in the fifth season (“Revelation 6:8” and “The Modern Prometheus”). Probably not coincidentally, three of the four episodes he directed are among the best in the series. Again, Adrian Paul’s contributions made Highlander: The Series the success it was. Unfortunately, as he lost interest in the series, the show also went downhill.
Continue reading “A Kind of Magic: Highlander The Series, seasons five and six”
Despite struggling a bit early on without a clear direction, season one of Highlander: The Series was popular enough to warrant a continuation. That alone was remarkable enough; the franchise hadn’t exactly shown itself to be terribly viable beyond one movie up to that point. The second season did face some major hurdles, with the lead actress leaving the show and some budget cutbacks. Despite these problems, the show hit its stride and went on to produce some of the best moments of the franchise in seasons two through four.
Continue reading “A Kind of Magic: Highlander The Series, seasons two through four”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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)”
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”
Babbling Brooks 