The Mad Apprentice

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Learning that you can just search for stock at Half Price Books on the internet takes away pretty much all of the fun treasure hunting aspect of shopping at the bookstore, but at times like these when you don’t really want to just wait and see how long it will take to find a book and in the meantime your kid just completely forgets what happened last time, there is definitely something to be said for the gains in efficiency.

Which is to say, I’ve read the second book in Django Wexler’s Forbidden Library series, The Mad Apprentice. And yes, okay, it’s a middle grade book about an orphan who discovers she is heir to a magical world but also maybe there’s a guy she wants to kiss even if the physical act of kissing has not crossed her mind as a literal fact yet, even after two full books. But also, I really kind of love the concept.

  1. All books have some capacity for magic, even if it’s just one perfect turn of phrase
  2. Some books are a lot more magical than that, and open portals between locations on earth or to distant real or imagined worlds
  3. Some books imprison creatures, and defeating the creatures within the book (or getting them to agree to serve you) gives you their powers, in a variety of possible ways
  4. The people who have this power, Readers, are kind of the bad guys if you think about it much at all

Alice, the orphan I mentioned, has learned quite a bit about how to be a Reader, so now she’s ready to be thrust into their world due to an unexpected violent circumstance: the death of one of the Master Readers[1], and at the hands of his apprentice no less. Apparently, the other apprentices, in these circumstances[2], gather together and capture the offending apprentice and either deal with him themselves, or else bring him back for the justice of their masters. Which is how Alice finds herself in a group of four other apprentices as well as her friend(?) Isaac, hunting through a labyrinth that is slowly losing its magical power to a) perform whatever justice they decide but also to b) make sure none of the other apprentices loot any powerful book artifacts along the way. Because being able to trust the other people in your posse is way too much to ask, of course.

But also, shouldn’t the labyrinth be a lot more bereft of power and a lot less dangerous than this, without anyone to maintain it?

See what I mean? Good stuff.

[1] She is an apprentice, and the apprentices call them the Old Readers, since among other things they’re basically immortal, and it makes you wonder why have an apprentice system if you don’t really intend to pass on your power at some point, but why ruin a great premise by poking perfect logic at it? But my point was, I think Master Reader fits better.
[2] The fact that it happens often enough for there to be an accepted process is another reason to wonder why have an apprentice at all, but I said I wasn’t doing that.

The Stepford Wives (1975)

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I’ve reached the point of downloading a new free streaming service because it was 1080p and all the others are 720p.[1] And The Stepford Wives still looked pretty bad. Man, I should have turned to the digital archivists.

Like most things in the past month or so, this is for my podcast, which continues its streak of movies I’ve never seen. I think society was the scare? And 1970s was probably the style? Man, I wish I could remember anything just lately. (Last night, I could not remember the word for “coaster”, as in the thing you put your glass on to protect the table. But it’s okay: the girl, who is three, spotted me.)

NOTE: This review assumes not that you’ve seen the movie, but that you are aware of its place in the cultural zeitgeist. If you are coming in blind… go watch it instead of reading this. It’s worth a look!

Anyway. This movie is as old as I am, and while I’ve never seen it obviously, I’ve long known that its text deals with feminism. That is, with how men of the time[2] really didn’t like the idea of women having lives or interests of their own, vs just being available for cleaning and sex. And maybe parenting I guess? I think I always thought it was a brainwashing movie, but it turns out to be something else.

But my point was, Joanna’s rising horror as she realizes that the women of Stepford are not actualized humans, and that those who remain are changing too: the reason why this is happening is the text of the movie. My claim is that there’s a subtext as well, and it is about fear of the suburbs, where every person is the same, every conversation is the same, nothing ever happens, nothing ever changes, and worst of all, living there is to tacitly agree that all of these things are the things you want. You used to be cool and hip and have a camera through which you reflected back to the world its inherent artistry. Now you have backyard barbecues and a husband at the country club playing golf or something. …I admit, “or something” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this particular instance.

Best to go back to the city, where okay you may be murdered at any moment and people just carry inflated sex dolls down the street in broad daylight, but at least you’re not dead inside.

But also: it’s honestly a pretty scary movie for all that it has virtually no violence of any kind. Creeping dread is real, y’all.

[1] Of course I would watch it without commercials on a paid service if that had been an option. But it was not, alas.
[2] I’m not saying things are perfect today, but I think they’re better than the above description.
[3] Apropos of nothing, but the script was written by William Goldman, of Princess Bride fame. Bro had range!

The Mars Arena

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I think the hardest part about seeing Laurence James fall off of the Deathlands series is that the books are no longer reliably sci-fi genred. In The Mars Arena, for example, the book starts days after they last teleported from / to anywhere[1], on the run from a local gang who vastly outnumbers them, and ends with no redoubts or mat trans units anywhere in sight.

After a subplot with a scientific community in Montana come to see a falling satellite goes nowhere[2], our intrepid heroes are kidnapped into a Hunger Games style tournament in Las Vegas, as proxies for a bunch of west coast barons[3] who are in competition to see who’s in charge for the next year. As, unexpectedly, is someone near and dear yet recently absent from their group. Not, of course, on the same team though. That’d be way too easy.

The thing is, the propulsive plotting, side characters, constant air of betrayal, scary mutant monsters? All of that is still present, and still works well. But these new authors have lost a lot of the thread of the characters, such that they’re sort of becoming one note caricatures[4]. I still don’t have the data to really know much, but I’m guessing different authors have a better grasp on some of the threads than others? For sure, nobody has the whole picture except the original guy, and he died 26 years ago. Well, or maybe me. But I’m not sure what I can do about it at this remove, you know?

[1] Like, I don’t even remember how the last one ended. Were they likely to teleport anytime soon? The tightly connected narrative between each book is the thing I miss third most, though I suppose this is directly related to how a lot of different people are writing these in a random order instead of one person all in a row. Obviously you could make sure of the continuity, but who wants to waste their time on a low rent men’s adventure series? (Clearly not the people at Gold Eagle who had no idea what makes this series great.)
[2] Yet? I wish I had faith on that point.
[3] Perhaps a precursor to how things are in the Outlanders series? As I said, I’ll be watching for these little connections.
[4] The characterizations of the main people[5] being consistent is what I miss second-most about the series. Well, that and the underlying feminist egalitarianism among the group. That part is gone less often than consistent characterization, but I think in a very real way the failure points are coming from the same place. Wrong character actions are how you lose that kind of thing.
[5] So far, still JB Dix and Doc are hardest hit. Jak was always sort of one note in the first place, at least before and after his family stuff happened, Mildred has done okay for whatever reason, and Ryan and Kristy as the two mainest characters have of course been treated best by the continuity fairies. But still not always perfect.

Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things

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I am really looking forward to when the podcast people watch a few movies in a row that I have already seen. I’m not saying I don’t like watching new things, but I am saying that I’m really trying to reduce the number of podcasts saved to my phone, and they[1] are not making it easy! This was filed under the scare of zombies and the style of bottle episode, which is insider baseball for “takes place all in a single location”. And then they had exactly six movies[2] that fit that bill, so they randomized one more time, to land on Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, from when horror movies that were not deep and thoughtful were explicitly b-movie rolls, and leaned very hard into that aesthetic. Probably for budgetary reasons?

The deal is this: a group of six college or so theater kids, led by a [seventh?] avant-garde performance artist director, except really all of those descriptors are secret code for “is an absolute asshole”, land in their sailboat on a graveyard island[3] in, I don’t know, the Caribbean maybe? Then they snipe at each other, while the one girl with bugged out eyes whose acting style is to intensely watch everyone else as they snipe at other occasionally declaims oracular doom.

NOTE: Interrupting my flow to warn that I’m not exactly concerned about spoilers in this review.

Which (the oracular doom from before I interrupted my flow, I mean) makes sense in context, when you consider that the asshole director guy’s main goal[4] is to cast a spell with infant blood as the ingredient and Satan as the patron, to raise the dead and take control of them to use as he will. So anyway, the sniping and the spellcasting and the bugged out eyes and a handful of extremely gay jump scares constitute 80 plus percent of the movie.

Later, well, I think you can guess what happens later.

I don’t think absolutely every character gets what they deserve, but boy does the movie attempt to make a case for it. Independently of all that, the ending is kind of bleak, at least if nautical training transcends mere death.

[1] in the fall of 2021, at least
[2] Not counting options such as Night of the Living Dead that they’d already seen.
[3] No idea if this is a real thing, but apparently the idea is, the locals come out and hold funerals here, and it’s used for nothing else, and over time they re-use the same places over and over as decomposition progresses, so the bodies may be buried atop one another layers deep? Seems made up to serve the plot, but what do I know?
[4] aside from exerting his authority over everyone else

Lord of Illusions

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Another podcast movie, because there have been so many in a row I have not seen. The scare was witch, and the style was LA, and so here we are with a noir about male witches and real magic vs illusion “magic” and also good vs evil, by Clive Barker: Lord of Illusions.

It’s time I think to admit I don’t really get Clive Barker. There’s nothing wrong with this movie. It’s great to get to see Scott Bakula in his prime, and I like noirs that have modern[1] settings and sensibilities. But I feel like people get excited when they see Clive Barker’s name attached to something, and meanwhile, I have no clear idea what it is I expect when I see his name. I saw Hellraiser[2], and it was a weird family mystery that had far fewer Cenobites than were advertised to me by pop culture, and then this is a weird almost-family mystery that’s also an almost takedown of pop culture magicians like David Copperfield, plus the whole noir with the maybe but maybe not treacherous femme fatale, and a dude with his head in a spiky box who is the bad guy. I think I even liked it, but I definitely didn’t get it.

The surface level plot made sense from moment to moment, but if there’s an essential Clive Barker-ness, I am just out of the loop, that’s all. Anyway, cool magic show, somewhat incomprehensible final battle, hyper-young Famke Janssen, and best use of the Ten of Swords I’ve ever witnessed. (Plus it was awesome that the mysteriously unrevealed tarot card wasn’t just Death like always.)

Whatever else it was, I’ve talked myself into remembering that it was very stylish, and that’s not nothing.

[1] Look, I get it, the ’90s aren’t modern, I’m just old. But still!
[2] Not reviewed because I saw it on The Last Drive-In, and Joe Bob says so much about a movie that I don’t know where my opinions end and his begin.

Send Help

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During the previous date night, we saw previews for the new Sam Raimi film. Lo and behold, new date night happened soon enough that we actually got to go see said film, after sushi dinner. Yay, date night!

So, Rachel McAdams is a frumpy[1] single lady with a pet bird, a Survivor audition tape, and dreams of corporate promotion. Unfortunately, her old boss[2] has recently died, and his inheriting son has no real interest in her qualifications for the new Vice President position, because his frat bro is available, and also as I may have mentioned, she’s frumpy. But, because she’s actually talented at her job and they might lose some business, she’s invited along to Bangkok to close the big deal. Which is why she is available to wash up on an island down the beach from her boss when the plane unexpectedly crashes into the ocean on the way there.

Bam! Premise of Send Help achieved.

The boss guy is, as previously hinted at, kind of a dick. Maybe a lot of a dick, even. And Rachel McAdams is a little bit over the top with her intensity, even though she is certainly the aggrieved party. If this were on the Hallmark Channel, she’d soften his rough edges and he’d get her to let her hair down and they’d build a cozy island paradise for themselves. But it’s a Sam Raimi movie, so instead this is all psychological cat and mouse as we wait to see just how real that intensity is, and/or just how ingrained the dickishness is. Can they survive the elements and the circumstances and each other? It sure is fun (and hilarious and disturbing and disgusting) finding out!

Plus, get her away from the makeup artists for a few weeks, and she doesn’t look very frumpy at all. Funny how that works.

[1] If she was ten years older, I think they might have even gone for dowdy
[2] Portrayed via somewhat subtle implication by Bruce Campbell

The Bad Seed

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Podcast movie, as I try to blow through some of them and reduce my enormous queue of podcasts to listen to. Scare was creepy children, and style was 1950s, and they claim (I think accurately) that The Bad Seed is literally the only movie that fits this intersection. Not least because I think about someone making a movie about a remorseless sociopath child in the 1950s, and honestly I’m stunned that even one such movie was made. It just doesn’t hit the same when you see it made in the ’70s, America had a much lower opinion of itself by then.

Imagine a 1950s family. You know the type. Father is a colonel in the army (probably) and went off to fight the Nazis, but that was a while ago, and now it’s all white picket fences. Mother has just the loveliest drink service that she rolls around the house to entertain people. Daughter is blonde-with-pigtails and practicing the piano on the regular, when she isn’t winning every prize at her private school.

Well. Almost every prize.

Before you know it, the little boy who won the penmanship medal is drowned off the dock at the town’s lake, the medal is missing, and wasn’t Rhoda acting ever so peculiarly toward him earlier that day? Alas, father is off to Washington for work for a month, and mother is left to deal with her simmering suspicions, her psychology-obsessed landlady, just the creepiest handyman ever, and the increasingly inebriated mother of the dead boy, by herself.

The acting initially came off as “1950s”, which, fair enough, but after a while it was stranger than that, with so many random monologues, but then I remembered this was based on a play, and I’m sure with the script lifted directly from the play. Aside from the question of what actually happened on the dock, the movie mostly concerns itself with examining the question of nature vs nurture, with every character coming down firmly on the side of nurture, and the title taking the opposite position.

Honestly, it’s pretty good, if you can tolerate 1950s acting. As with when I started this review, I really am quite surprised it ever got made, though. I know the ’50s were not the rose garden of American perfection that certain political parties would have me believe they were, but I really didn’t know 1950s America was aware of this fact.

But also: stay after the credits for actress on actress spanking. That is to say: not the characters, definitely the actors. 70 years ago certainly was A Time!

Noroi

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Podcast movie! The scare was demons, and the style was found footage, and the movie was Noroi: The Curse.

Found footage can be silly. Why are these people recording everything? Why, having seen the things they are recording, do they not make different choices instead of just continuing to record? How did they get so good at filming things? This latter clearly doesn’t always apply. Sometimes, they lean into the “bad camera operator” angle. Sometimes, and thankfully this is one of those, they lean into the professional angle. Sometimes, both.[1]

So anyway, there’s this documentary filmmaker in Japan, and he catches wind of some strange goings on at a local apartment complex. I forget the instigating incident. But something weird happens with a little boy staring out of a window, and some inexplicable sounds on his footage, and he starts pulling on threads. A psychic girl here, a tinfoil clad conspiracy theorist there, dead pigeons everywhere you look, and before you know it there’s a mysterious name, a drowned village, and everyone involved in the documentary are dropping like flies.

Ah, you are saying, why didn’t he just quit? I don’t disagree, but I never felt like he made an inexplicable choice until the last ten minutes of the film, so, not too bad as such things go. Anyway, I’m surprised I missed this one. It was 2005, right around the time the whole J-horror thing got so big that their movies were being remade in Hollywood constantly for a year or two. And yet, not a clue it existed[2]. Which is a pity, as it hangs together very well and is pretty scary. Recommended.

[1] I’m looking at you, Blair Witch Project.
[2] haha oops. 2005 is when the documentary was made. This came out in 2017. No wonder I never heard of it, it’s new!

Wake Up Dead Man

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Did you know they made a third Knives Out movie? Of course you did, it was like two months ago and you’ve already seen it. …and now I have too!

Wake Up Dead Man is a locked room mystery in which a fire and brimstone priest with a small but dedicated congregation is murdered, apparently by the new assistant priest (who has some specific Catholic title, and I will not be able to help you more than that) with a motive of “stop ruining the church”. But once Benoit Blanc gets involved, well, you know there’s going to be more to it than that.

The movie did a thing I’ve never seen before. Well, first it did something I’ve seen lots of times, which is dole out information in a way that recontextualizes what you thought you knew. And it does this several times. I could tell I was in for a treat when I had the idea it was basically all over but the “gather everyone in a room and tell them what really happened” scene, only to realize there was more than an hour left. Which brings me to what it did that I had never seen. The consulting detective, having been called in to solve the case, actually shows up in the middle of things and well before the events of the case are even over.[1]

Anyway, it’s a mystery, so I don’t really want to go crazy with detail, but I felt that the subject matter was treated with surprising kindness, even though it was ripe for lampooning or even axe-grinding. The typically star-studded cast was as good as you expect them to be, I could not stop chuckling, and every time I thought I had a handle on what was going on and felt very clever, I was 25-50% right at best, but never in a way that felt cheap or like I was actually writing the smarter story in my head. Good stuff.

[1] I know. Christie had Poirot onsite for murders all the time. The difference is, he just happened to be there when the events were set into motion. This was a different thing where you would expect the police and famous detective to only show up once the crime is over, but in fact the crime still had days left to go. Look, it’s unusual, okay!

City of Dragons

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I’ll start off by saying for the record that there will be spoilers for earlier books in here. Couldn’t be helped. So if you’re just here to know whether I like Robin Hobb’s third Rain Wilds book so you can decide via my oh so timely intervention whether you ought to read it for yourself, the answer is I do.

As of Dragon Haven, all of the stunted, deformed dragons were successfully relocated. Also, the nice bird keepers really like each other, the musical elderling is having a rough time, the regular dragons remain completely self-absorbed, and that one guy from Bingtown who is a total dick is still a total dick. Thusly opens the second half of the series.

City of Dragons is about two things, more or less. The first thing it is about is exploring Kelsingra. Why do the dragons ancestrally remember this city so fondly? Does the fact that Fitz came here once have any bearing on the plot? Too bad none of them can fly and get here, due to the implausible geography of a vastly wide river that is also constantly in flood, innit? (It’s to a lesser extent also about Thymara’s continued inability to come to grips with her sexuality. She’s still less annoying than Katniss, to be clear.)

The second thing it’s about is the plot’s slow but inexorable progression towards… comeuppance? consequence? confluence? simple climax? Honestly, given the characters involved, I think all of these things apply. In short and with no important specifics, there are a lot of characters heading to Kelsingra. Tarman the liveship barge with supplies, for example, or Hest the trader’s son with perceived privilege.[1] And I think that of the many characters headed in that direction, very few of them have the slightest idea what they’re sailing into. And I think it’s going to be pretty explosive. (Mostly figuratively.)

Of course, this kind of thing can be problematic, cf some of The Wheel of Time. So knowing the next book is the last one helps a lot towards not being extremely disappointed by a book that is more than half “moving pieces around the board”, as does my confidence that this is again the first half of a long book instead of actually two books, even if (happily!) the ending is a lot less abrupt than the first time it happened.

[1] For reasons that make no sense if you have somehow read the previous books but not this one, his scenes were among my favorites.