Better Titles for Captain America: Civil War (minor spoilers)

Captain America: The Avengers 2.5
Captain America: Actually Winter Soldier Though
Captain America: You Don't Need Another Spiderman Origin Story (Just Yet)
Captain America: Dad and Dad are Fighting Again
Captain America: Did You Know The Russo Brothers Also Directed Community, Pt 2
Captain America: We Know What You Came For: To See The Avengers Beat Each Other Up: Sigh, Here You Go
Captain America: Contains Minimal Captain America or America In General
Captain America: Bureaucracy Strikes Back
Captain America: Hey Remember Hawkeye Though
Captain America: No We Are Not Making Planet Hulk
Captain America: Sorry Your Dad Was Like Obsessed With Me
Captain America: Pew Pew Pew

and finally
Captain America: Take A Good Look Because You Literally Will Not See These Guys Together Again For Another Two Years While We Introduce A Whole Bunch of Randos You Don't Really Care About

I jest, but have you seen the Doctor Strange trailer? It looks dumb af.

We Do Not Have Nearly Enough TV Shows About The Biblical King David; Here Are My Thoughts

Friends, I've been thinking about the Bible a lot lately.  Not in any kind of way that might make me a better person - that would be ridiculous - but as source material.  In my continuing quest to slaughter as many cultural sacred cows as one person can fit into a lifetime of poverty and self-doubt ("making theatre"), I seem to have somewhat overlooked the Bible as a potential source of old, familiar stories to mangle beyond recognition.  Which is foolish, because there is a bit when God sends two bears to maul forty two children to death because they mocked an old man's baldness.  Straight up God-murder.

Now, the reason this is on my mind is that I am approximately halfway through the first and only season of NBC's cancelled 2009 series 'Kings': a kinda sorta modern-day-but-not-actually-the-world-as-we-know-it retelling of the King David story.  (David's not king yet though, he's just hanging around being inconveniently Chosen by God while Ian McShane - who is king - Ian McShanes his way through some speeches about butterflies.)  It's set in a fictional kingdom (Gilboa) with a fictional monarch (Silas, who in the Bible is Saul-no-not-the-Damascus-one-a-different-one) but all the clothes and technology and what have you are contemporary.  It's pretty neatly done, the problems of the shows (and there are problems) aren't really with the world-building element of it.  In fact, it's the kind of conceptual approach that you could easily see being theatrical: it's what you might do with a Shakespeare play or a Greek tragedy to keep it, y'know, not dull as fuck.

(Quick sidebar: Why don't we do more Bible plays?  Western theatre tradition practically evolved out of them, what with the Medieval idea that the only thing better than a play was a play on a cart.*  And yet Bible stories are pretty much screen adventures only these days - in fact, it's one of the first things Hollywood did once they figured out they could do picture and sound and colour at the same time.  The new technology came in and Cecil B. DeMille said, "Charlton, go up on that rock, talk to God, and make it sexy."**  And I guess that got into our heads somewhere along the way because, with the exception of nativity plays, I'm far more familiar with the idea of the cinematic Bible epic than the theatrical one.  (Of course, now I've written that I can think of at least three examples of Bible stories being done onstage but screw you brain, you came up with this lame idea for a blog, have the courage  of your convictions dammit.))

ANYWAY. The problem with 'Kings', I think, is that it starts the story in the wrong place. It's ok. Lots of people do it. It happens to the best of us, George Lucas, with our insistence that we meet Anakin at the age of ten and... and that is a different blog. Basically, 'Kings' would be much, much better with the same world-building, some of the same actors, and a totally different plot.  This is the biggest trick that 'Kings' misses: making David a pre-kingship blond-haired big-eyed innocent Luke Skywalker type. Biblical David? HUGE DOUCHEBAG.  The second biggest trick is not only the de-gaying of the David/Jonathan relationship, but the turning of Jonathan into a standard jealous, scheming villain.

A lot has been made out of the Biblical are-they-boning relationship between David and Jonathan, son of Saul, the king that David is nominally serving - Oscar Wilde cited them alongside Achilles and Patroclus as an example of "the love that dare not speak its name", and there was an awful lot of Medieval "THIS IS WHAT A HOMOSOCIAL RELATIONSHIP LOOKS LIKE AND THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO BE SEEN HERE" wrangling.  My personal position is that you can explain away David and J-Dog kissing and telling each other that they love each other so much more than they love women as an extreme product of a patriarchal society that prized bonds between men above heterosexual relationships but why would you? It's not like there hasn't been enough queer erasure over the centuries, and no-one's going to prove it definitely one way or another, so yes, I am all for it: David and Jonathan, Bible Boyfs.

EXCEPT.  Except for David's aforementioned douchebaggery.  Really, the story of David and Jonathan resembles less Achilles and Patroclus, and more 'The Giving Tree'.  David turns up post-Goliath slaying, and Jonathan is so overwhelmed that he, on the spot, strips off and gives David his armour which, as well as being a real example of a Biblical striptease, symbolically gives David his position as heir to the kingdom.  That is how much he loves him.  David's response is something along the lines of "Oh thanks bro, yeah, did I ever tell you about how I killed a giant just now?" This continues, with David falling out of favour with Saul and running away, at which Jonathan immediately ups sticks, abandoning his father and people, to follow David into exile.  David's response, again, is, "oh hey, um... Jason? Jonathan.  Yeah, no, I knew that." The rest of the time it's Jonathan professing his love and David going, "Well, I am better than you and everyone else, Jonathan."  In the end, there's a big battle and both Jonathan and Daddy Saul are killed.  Then David expresses some affection, composing one of his trademark psalms on the lyre - but then again, maybe he was just the world's first douchebag to pick up a lyre at a party and say, "This is an original composition."

And through all of this, by the way, David is married to Jonathan's sister, Michal.  Whom he bought for two hundred Philistine foreskins.  (The asking price was a mere one hundred, but David knows you get what you pay for.)

So this should be a TV series in its own right, shouldn't it?  It deserves at least a few seasons to let the tragic inequality of the relationship hit home before Jonathan dies in David's manly arms, plus you can set it during the time D&J are in exile together - throw in some kind of Biblical supernatural demon-fighting alongside the overarching plot and you've got a monster-of-the-week set up fuelled by potential slash.  Jonathan is in love with David, while David makes it his mission to bone any man, woman or celestial being that looks at him sideways, along with the occasional implication that David's just scared of his feelings for Jonathan.  Then the series is cancelled before we get anything more than an obligatory drunken kiss episode.  There's nothing a network loves more than some good old queer-baiting, after all.

But it could be a fascinating study of unequal relationships: an opportunity to both loathe David and yet understand why Jonathan is so drawn to him, to empathise with Jonathan, to want him to break free of this toxic, unrewarding state of affairs, and yet still, with a tiny, terrible part of your soul, want him to hang in there because David might - might - one day love him as fully as he deserves.*** But while fighting monsters.****  As in 'Kings', Jonathan will be played by Sebastian Stan because he deserves a chance to do the character in a way that isn't horrible, and David will be played by Idris Elba, because we need to believe that we too would follow him to the ends of the earth on the off chance that we might get a snog.

Rest assured, there will be many such shots of Sebastian Stan crying.

Starting later in the story also allows us to visit the whole final-season Bathsheba debacle. This is where even the Bible has to start acknowledging David's douchebaggery.  Now king, replete with many wives (many wives), he goes for a stroll on the palace roof and sees naked babe (Bathsheba) having a bath - I've never been quite clear whether the aptly named Bathsheba was also bathing on the roof, as Leonard Cohen would have us believe, or whether David was a massive creeper on top of everything else, and once he realised he could see into some girl's bathroom window, did not think the decent thing would be to look away.  Either way, David's reaction is something along the lines of, "Damn, girl, let's get you impregnated." To this, Bathsheba says: WE DON'T KNOW BECAUSE THE BIBLE LITERALLY DOES NOT HAVE A SINGLE WORD ABOUT HER CONSENT IN THIS MATTER.  NONE.  IT JUST SAYS DAVID "WENT IN TO HER".  LIKE, WOW.  WOW, BIBLE.  EVEN FOR YOU.

So anyway, Bathsheba gets all good and impregnated, the only fly in the adulterous ointment being her husband, Uriah the Hittite, who is off fighting for David in a war that he should be in too but, y'know, roof-bath-chicks to nail.  So David calls him back home and does something along the lines of that Monty Python sketch, "Your wife, bit of a goer is she? Nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean maybeyoushouldgoandhavesexwithhersonobodywillknowthechildismine" until poor Uriah has to say, "Look bro, it's not that I don't appreciate the respite from the horrors of war and all, but don't we have this, like, incredibly sacred and ancient rule that soldiers on active duty don't sleep with their wives?" And David says, "Ugh, you are not making this easier for me. I mean, really you are bringing this on yourself." And he sends him to the worst bit of the fighting where he'll definitely be killed.  And he is.  And then David marries Bathsheba because hey, it's good to be the king.

The coda to all of this is that, as aforementioned, even God has to admit he might have not been totally on point when he decided that David was going to be his Super Special Bro on Earth, so - in the manner of people who hate being wrong - he totally overreacts.  The prophet Nathan pops along and tells David that a) his child with Bathsheba will die, b) someone he loves will "take all his wives" and c) everyone is done playing happy families.  Sure enough, the child dies (David, in one final defiant act of gold-medal douchebaggery, mourns while the child is alive and refuses to mourn after the child has died because he knew it was coming), and years later David's son Absolom starts a coup against him that is kicked off by Absolom having sex with all of David's concubines in public.  (I feel like Game of Thrones could step up a little.)  Bathsheba kind of does get hers in the end, as she makes the dying David promise that her son Solomon and not his actual heir can be king next, and I like to think she did it through pinching the tube on his morphine drip until he said yes.

So, obviously, this is the final season of, I would say, about five.  Four seasons of David and Jonathan hunting demons and almost making out, then Jonathan dies, a lot of the original cast departs, and you get one of those slightly weird situations where the show limps on for another twenty episodes before a kindly network exec shoots it in the head. But what a glorious mess it would be.

Or, even better, a PLAY. A big non-naturalistic Greek tragedy style play, in which the first half leads up to David marrying Bathsheba, then there's a time jump, and the second half is Absolom's coup and a big fuck-off civil war, ending with Solomon becoming king.  That's gold dust.  That's the lost Shakespeare play right there.  And someone clever and angry like Howard Barker should write it,  it'll be staged in the Olivier, and the critics will say things like "powerful but overreaching" or "impressive in scale and ambition if ultimately unfocused".  But I'll be happy.  And that's what counts.


Bonus Bible: The Book of Revelation as arthouse film

Like any rational person, I love (the first season of) Sleepy Hollow.  The Tim Burton film also, but specifically the current series starring my eyeliner idol Nicole Beharie, and the excellently-nosed Tom Mison.  If you don't know what I'm talking about - you poor thing - the current Sleepy Hollow series takes the Washington Irving story of the Headless Horseman and says, "Yes but what if it was actually about the Biblical apocalypse?" It's great, trust me.

But as much as I love Sleepy Hollow and its attention to detail when it comes to translating the most whacked-out book of the Bible onto the screen, I cannot help but feel there is a better way of going about dramatising the Book of Revelation.  Which is, essentially, not to bother with plot.

Revelation is the stoner's favourite for a reason.  Most of the Bible is written like an over-excited child taking twenty minutes to describe going to the bathroom - "And then...and then...and then..." - but Revelation doesn't even bother with these attempts at incident.  It just describes John of Patmos's big weekend on a vision quest (at one point a coyote voiced by Johnny Cash turns up).  The easy joke here (that I just made a couple of sentences ago) is to say "stoner diaries" and be done with it.  But it has too much structure and weird, terrifying logic for that. No, I am talking getting the heads behind Fantasia and A Field in England together and letting them have at it. It will feature only Tilda Swinton playing all the parts (probably), and will be so terrifying that the world will literally end.

Go in peace.

*Medieval Mystery plays: actually pretty interesting and often gross.
** Accurate.
***Just describing Sherlock now.
****Or Supernatural.

Happy Birthday, Mr Swan of Avon: And Now Some Completely Uneccessary Lists About Shakespeare

Bringing the month of 450th anniversary celebrations to a close (because we all celebrated Shakespeare's birthday for a full month, with balloons and cake and don't lie to me), today we bring you Lists of Stuff You Didn't Know You Needed To Know But Definitely Do.  About Shakespeare Characters.

Now lists of this kind are ten a farthing: Best Villains, Best Monarchs, Best Women etc (because belonging to a group that comprises 50% of the population is obviously its own genre) but we at Jane Shakespeare pride ourselves on offering you a little more Bard for your buck (not sorry).  From now on, when someone turns to you on the street, cornering you with a look that betokens literary malice aforethought, and snarls, "Quick! Name Shakespeare's five biggest hipsters or I'll slice you up so thin I could print the First Folio on you", your days of gibbering in confusion and idiocy are over.  Really, I am almost too good to you, but the general festivity and several large bumpers of wine I have been consuming daily to mark the occasion mellow my usually tyrannical mood.  "Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains." - indeed, Bill, and Happy Birthday.

(A/N: I was originally going to include a 'Top 5 Characters Most in Need of an Intervention' list but a) I had trouble limiting it to five and b) most of my notes* were "ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL" written in increasingly manic handwriting.)


Top Five BFFs
There's nothing a Shakespearian protagonist needs more than a trusty second in command, someone to wipe away the tears when everyone just won't stop trying to kill you, and provide wise words of comfort when the incestuous overtones start getting a bit much.  I would personally be very grateful to have any of these at my side, and probably more than a little aroused.

5) Enobarbus (Antony and Cleopatra)
Who's BFF? Mark Antony
Why? Sometimes you just need someone to describe in fulsome terms why your girlfriend is awesome. Antony, bless him, is not the most loquacious tool in the shed, and much of his dialogue could be replaced with "totes", "STFU" and "soz babes" and you'd still very much be in reception of the gist.  Enobarbus, however, comes out with one of the most famous speeches in the canon (you know, barges, burnished thrones, that one) about his best pal's lady friend, bringing the entire Roman Empire perilously close to going "actually yeah, I'd totes provoke a civil war for her too, let's just have an amphora and call it a day". Points deducted for the fact that he eventually jumps ship for Team Octavius, who has terrible hair and his parties are lame, but he has a great speech while he makes the decision.

 4) Cassius (Julius Caesar)
Who's BFF? Brutus
Why? Every hero of a regime turned renegade needs a power behind the throne to topple that regime.  Cassius is the ideal Second in Command, the manipulator who sticks to the shadows in order to let you shine.  He's a Pete Campbell, a Littlefinger, redeemed by his totes-no-homo love for Brutus - and seriously, imagine if either Pete or Littlefinger decided to truly and deeply love another human being. Terrifying.  My version of Julius Caesar is basically called "Brutus and Cassius' Excellent Adventure", and it ends when Cassius turns to Brutus with tears in his eyes and says, "you love me not" in Act 4 Scene 3, and Brutus gives his angstful reply, "I do not like your faults", voice cracking with emotion, presumably while manfully clasping the back of Cassius' neck and peering deep into his soul. Cue Snow Patrol.

3) Poins (Henry IV Parts 1 and 2)
Who's BFF? Prince Hal
Why? Poins is kind of a weird anomaly in the Henry IV tavern scenes - he appears to belong to some kind of aristocracy but, like Hal, spends his time hanging around with lowlives and drunks.  He and Hal seem to have a closeness to rival Hal and Falstaff, tag-teaming each other for a series of hilarious public-schoolboy-style practical jokes (public humiliation of the elderly, torment of minimum wage service workers etc), and Poins is never around when Hal isn't, leading to the inevitable conclusion that Poins is desperately in love with Hal and follows him everywhere trying to pluck up the courage to tell him.  (This is a recurring theme in the selection of this list.)  Hal also unburdens himself to Poins in Part 2, when everything is going a bit mopey and minor key, and Poins gives him a sharp "suck it up, Crown Prince of all England" talking to, which is only slightly undercut by the revelation that Poins has been telling all and sundry that Hal is going to marry his sister, but I won't insult your intelligence by pointing out how obviously that's a displacement tactic for unrequited homoerotic yearning. Like Cassius, the relationship breaks down with Poins' armour-piercing line, "My honey sweet lord, you love me not." Not in a gay way though. (Totally in a gay way.)

2) Celia (As You Like It)
Who's BFF? Rosalind
Why? Celia wants to jump Rosalind's bones. Yes, I know they're cousins, and yes, I know she ends up married to a man, but these are minor details on the road to pastoral sapphic bliss.  There is no way Oliver is anything other than a beard, and perhaps a way to spite Orlando-obsessed Rosalind by stealing her thunder for continuously and concertedly ignoring the woman who has been at her side from Scene 1. Celia loves Rosalind more than her own father.  More than she loves sleeping in a soft bed, or having nice things to wear, or not smelling like sheep all the time. When people point out that Rosalind overshadows her, she does not give a single solitary fuck. She dreams of being overshadowed by Rosalind, ifyouknowwhatImean, andIthinkyoudo.  She is her friend, her constant companion, her support, her conscience and, admirably, survives the extreme sexual confusion of seeing Rosalind dressed as a boy.  When asked to perform the marriage vows for Rosalind and Orlando, she says simply, "I cannot speak the words." I will brook no other interpretations, though I admit it is entirely possible that I should have called this list 'Top 5 Cases of Unrequited Homoerotic Longing'.

1) Horatio (Hamlet)
Who's BFF? Hamlet
Why? Oh, everything.  Everything about Horatio is precious and understated and we should celebrate him like the special sunflower that he is.  It cannot be easy being the best friend of an emotionally fragile bereaved philosophy student, but somehow he manages. As with the best of Shakespeare's supporting characters, he has his own quiet arc happening in the background of the play, going from enlightened man of reason who politely exposits on Denmark's political situation to Captain of Team Hamlet, supporting him through shipwrecks, funerals and sword fights alike. He is the Agent Coulson of the Shakespeare universe. He is not afraid to call Hamlet out on his bullshit ('no, buddy, you just murdered two of our best friends, that's totally what you did') or express uncharacteristically instinctive concern for his wellbeing ('I just have a really bad feeling about this duel thing'), and even tries to die with his friend but ultimately agrees to live and honour his memory by telling his story, when, like, literally everyone he knows is dead.  And I hope you appreciate that I made it this far without pointing out, once again, that Hamlet and Horatio are totally gay bones for each other.



Top 5 Hipsters
Whilst we tend to think of hipsters as a modern invention, along with selfies and emoticons and all the loud music the kids listen to these days, Shakespeare is, as always, ahead of the game.  These five would not be out of place sporting ironically nostalgic t-shirts featuring 8-bit video game characters whilst shuffling through the Shoreditch night as the music of plastic-framed glasses clacking sounds in the background, the mating call of the hipster.

5) Edmund (King Lear)
There is no doubt in my mind that Edmund spent his school days carving the anarchy symbol all over the desks and going to detention for wearing non-regulation skinny jeans rather than school trousers.  Do not talk to Edmund about legitimacy because legitimacy is, like, so mainstream.  Edgar is legitimate and Edgar probably listens to Coldplay.  Give Edmund half a joint and ten minutes and he will be expounding his complex socio-political theories about why the system is totally fucked, man, and the only thing to do is tear it down and start again.  Later though, because there's this band playing but you haven't heard of them and you wouldn't know where.

4) Apemantus (Timon of Athens)
Timon of Athens is not performed often because it is, essentially, not a very good play.  Timon is a man who has lots of nice things and then gives them all away and then is very surprised when this leaves him with no nice things.  Timon is not very good at maths.  In the second half of the play, mostly spent wandering a wasteland that is conveniently near Athens, the only character who joins him is Apemantus.  Apemantus feels the same towards Timon now that he's poor as he did when he was rich, because he hated Timon when he was rich and he still hates him now he's poor because he hates everybody because fuck society man.  It is one of Nick Hytner's greatest failings as artistic director of the National Theatre that in his production last year, Apemantus did not sport a deep vee and unimpressive moustache. And that is all there is to be said on the matter.

3) Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing)
One cannot deny that there is more than a touch of the black-rimmed specs about Beatrice.  She definitely has a moleskin journal, and she definitely uses it to write performance poetry about why the patriarchy means the institution of marriage is inherently corrupt and also stopping her from getting a boyfriend.  She has many impressively insensitive speeches about why everyone around her is stupid and tedious and marriage is for mainstream idiots, which she then follows up with various weakly delivered lines that amount to, "Not you though, Hero.  I just meant people exactly like you."  As with most hipsters, her presence is politely tolerated by family and friends until she can be foisted off onto another of her kind.  After that, she and Benedick write each other ironic love poetry on their typewriters.

2) Hamlet (Hamlet)
Prince of Denmark, Prince of the Hipsters.  An interesting case, this one, because almost every generation has given forth a production of Hamlet in which he embodies a predominant teen stereotype of the day - grunge, emo, public school, and now hipster.  Perhaps this is because there is a certain type of studenty pretentiousness that never really dies (it just comes at the cost of crippling debt now), but nor would we want it to.  Hamlet scores pretty high on this list because he is quite a loveable hipster, really, and also has somewhat more cause than most other entries here.  Having said that, I do not want to think about how many scarves he and Horatio had in their shared student flat in Wittenberg.  Also, they definitely used to invite Rosencrantz and Guildenstern round for ironic board game night and then always pick Articulate and always win.

1) Jaques (As You Like It)
If Hamlet is Prince of the Hipsters, then Jaques is their king.  Jaques is such a hipster, any production that does not costume him in red trousers and have him entering the Forest of Arden on a fixie bike is…well, probably making the right decision, but you know.  Jaques is so hipster that laughing is too mainstream for him, unless it's laughing ironically with hollow, detached hauteur at the accidental poignancy of the hilarious peasant who probably eats fast food and likes reality television.  Jaques claims the top spot because all his problems are First World Problems in the Firstiest Worldiest way possible.  He has enough money to travel around at leisure, spending an indeterminate period of time hanging with a banished duke and ordering buskers to play weird genre mash-up music that he wrote.  He is, essentially, on a perpetual gap year, forever seeking solace in his own misery, pointing out doomed couples at their own wedding, and refusing to stick around for the disco.  Jaques, he would have you know, does not do disco.

(Honourable mention: Prince Hal. Rich kid, hangs around in East London to annoy his father. Case closed.)


Top 5 Badasses
Joss Whedon once pointed out that Shakespeare kills his characters off all the time and he gets way less flak for it (but then again, Shakespeare didn't kill off Wash). It's a dark, dark universe out there, and only the fittest/least conventionally Tragic survive.

5) Achilles (Troilus and Cressida)
For the greatest warrior ever born, Achilles sure spends a lot of his time avoiding doing any actual warrior-ing, choosing instead to lounge upon silk sheets with snarky boytoy Patroclus (this one is canon, guys, I swear), encouraging him to do impressions of his bosses.  Occasionally his bosses turn up at his tent to ask him to fight and he says something like,"Hey. Hey. How's that war going without me? Never mind, I can't hear you over the sound of me not giving a single embattled fuck." Achilles is essentially every teenage douchebag ever, but with the ability to kill a man with his little finger. Then again, such is the force of his warrior-ing that a little bit of it actually ends the play so maybe he was just being considerate.

4) Lady Macbeth (Macbeth)
Lady M scores low on the list because, despite being indisputably terrifying, she is very much all talk.  We can blame this on Ye Misogynistic Olden Dayes, of course, but we still cannot place her any higher until she actually does some killing, rather than just saying repeatedly, "I TOTALLY WOULD BUT YOU ARE THE ONE WITH THE PENIS HERE". I don't make the rules.** Also you get the impression that maybe if she'd had an actual career, she wouldn't have turned to murder and treason as a funtime hobby.  Despite this, she's still a force to be reckoned with, and thus deserves her spot (hee) for being a badass by proxy.

3) Coriolanus (Coriolanus)
Coriolanus is kind of the explicit badass of the Shakespeare food chain. He captures a town single-handedly and spends most of the first two acts wandering around wearing clothes made of blood (and then, according to some interpretations, takes a sexy shower of angst while ripping his shirt off manfully in a moment that totally contradicts every single other aspect of his character contained in the rest of the play but hey, you got to sell tickets somehow).  He doesn't score much higher though because he is the easiest unstoppable killer to manipulate in history.  The majority of the play is people telling him what to do and him saying "that sounds legit", whether the instruction in question is to don sackcloth and humble himself before the proletariat, or turn around and march on said proletariat.  Unsurprisingly, this ends with arch-nemesis/make-out buddy*** Aufidius getting so pissed off he stabs him in the heart.  Which is maybe overkill, but he was being super flaky.

2) Portia (The Merchant of Venice)
Let's change it up a bit here.  Portia might not fight any physical battles but she is scarier than everyone else in the entire play put together.  The Victorians loved her because she's wise and virtuous and blah blah blah, forget all that, she's a hideous racist bitch, basically.  She's casually xenophobic about nearly everyone who tries to hit on her who isn't the colour of cottage cheese, and completely destroys Shylock's life because JEW (this may also be why the Victorians loved her).  But what makes her most terrifying is her sheer balls.  I don't know if you've noticed, but even by the standards of Shakespeare's day, everything she does in the courtroom scene is hideously illegal.  Impersonating a lawyer, pointing out loopholes that aren't really loopholes, turning the proceedings back against Shylock (who is not, after all, the one being tried) - at the very least, he would be a due a re-trial.  Perhaps this is the point - the court is already so inherently biased against Shylock that they'll allow Portia's shenanigans, but I like to think it's also because she stared the Doge in the eye while running a knife along her teeth.

1) Henry V (Henry V)
As with Portia, there's a lot of bollocks going around when it comes to Henry V.  And as with Portia, he claims the top spot amongst Shakespearean badasses for having pure unqualified moxy.  Where guys like Achilles and Coriolanus know they are top of their game, King Harry plays russian roulette with not only his own life but the lives of an entire army.  He marches a pitifully small force over to France and plays the underdog-iest away game in the history of ever, and all because the French did some French sneering, because they are French (Shakespeare is a balanced and objective historian). At Harfleur, he never has to make good on his threats to let his soldiers rape the women and murder the children of the town if it doesn't surrender, but the jury's out on whether he would or not, had push come to naked infants spitted upon pikes.    At Agincourt, the moment that tips the battle in his favour comes just after he orders the execution of his prisoners of war (straight up war crime, in case you weren't sure).  All in all, Henry wins against extraordinary odds through a combination of fierce chat, strategic ruthlessness and a willingness to play dice with a whole lot of lives.  But I don't know, actually, maybe that doesn't make him a badass.  Maybe that just makes him a dick.



Top 5 Sexiest Characters
I once had a dream that my job was to describe attractive celebrities in entertaining ways.  Until I work out how to monetise this skill and make my dream a reality, I'm just going to write more about which fictional characters I would totally do.

5) Hector (Troilus and Cressida)
Troilus and Cressida takes place in a terrible world full of terrible people.  Shit is just constantly going down over there.  But in the midst of the carnage and betrayal and venereal disease and fedora-wearing Trojans, there stands a beacon of honourable hotness, a bright spot of old-fashioned hunkitude, one DILF to rule them all.  Go thy way, Hector, go thy way, indeed.  Hector will fight your morally dubious war and put up your shelves just because you asked nicely, probably with his baby son in his arms at the same time.  It is but one illustration of how soul-destroying Shakespeare wished this play to be that Hector meets his end at the ignoble hands of Achilles' Myrmidons hiding in ambush.  Let us take comfort, friends, in the fact that even Achilles required back-up to kill Hector, such is the force of his unadulteratedly righteous bodaciousness. Here endeth the lesson.

4) Prince Hal (Henry IV Parts 1 and 2)
I am aware that people do not always share my high opinion of Prince Hal, but then again, people are not always as naturally blessed with such inherent and unwavering rightness as I, and also people can suck it.  Moral ambiguity.  Quick wit.  Desperate craving for fatherly approval complicated by deep love for a surrogate father figure he knows he will ultimately have to reject. Symbolic defeat of his foil in single combat, complete with knicker-dropping Shakespearian smack talk ("I am the Prince of Wales, and think not, Percy,/ To share with me in glory any more./ Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,/ Nor can one England brook a double reign/ Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales." PHWOAR.)  Hal is a sexy little bundle of angst and quips.  He is, essentially, a Joss Whedon character.  And I can give no higher praise than that.

3) Rosalind (As You Like It)
I think I can best sum this up with a line from The Mighty Boosh: "They call me the Confuser. Is it a man? Is it a woman? Ooh, I'm not sure I mind." But before there was Noel Fielding, there was Rosalind.  Rosalind, let us be clear, will mess you up in the head.  She is a magical fantasy androgynous wizard coquette, and she waltzes through the Forest of Arden like she owns it, leaving a trail of sexually confused hysteria in her wake.  The worst one can say of her, perhaps, is that she bestows herself upon a man not worth her time and who can bring little to the relationship besides some terrible poetry and light vandalism of trees, and perhaps also that she fails to notice Celia waiting patiently at her side (see above).  Whilst in Twelfth Night, Orsino has a visible moment of heterosexual relief upon the revelation of Viola's identity, Orlando - one suspects - is easy either way.  And so, undoubtedly, is the audience.

2) Edmund (King Lear)
If there's one thing we love here at Jane Shakespeare, it's a rebel with a cause.  And Edmund is the rebel-iest cause-iest rebel with a cause that ever did rebel, with a cause. As with the best of his kind, he flits back and forth across the line of the redeemable, not so much immoral as twistedly amoral, but (BE STILL MY HEART) in the end, just wants to be loved.  In a play full of world-beating lines, his dying words - "Yet Edmund was beloved" - go straight to the below stairs area as a simple statement of fact from someone who still can't quite believe it.  And when the Marvel films wheel out their Loki version during his inevitable redemption via death (for nothing is truer than the fact that Thor is King Lear In Space), I will cheer out loud in the cinema.  Edmund beat out Hamlet for this list for several reasons (see here for details), but mostly because you get all of the moody introspection coupled with the remarkable ability to get shit done (shit, in this case, is usurpation and eye-gouging by proxy).  Brooding and motivated? Get it, Edmund. Get. It.

1) Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra)
There is only one character in the canon whose sex drive starts an actual war (shut up yes also Helen of Troy) and only one character who can justly wear the crown of Shakespearian Bangability. Cleo is not only one of the greatest roles maybe ever, she's also an indisputable MILF.  Part of her appeal is her capriciousness - imperious and coquettish by turns, all throwing shade about Antony's boring wife one minute, and threatening to stab up unfortunate messengers the next.  If 30 Rock's 'MILF Island' was an actual thing, she would win by a landslide.  (New idea. MILF Island: Shakespeare Edition.  NO WAIT - THE HUNGER GAMES: SHAKESPEARE EDITION.****)  But Cleopatra wins mostly because, while she is undoubtedly slammin' of mind and body, all the descriptions of her seem to revolve around the aura of awesomeness she carries with her into the room.  Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Cleopatra has sexy in her soul and that, ladies and gentlemen, is something to which we can all aspire.


And that's it. Much as I tried to keep it to one entry per character, Edmund wangled two (he's like that) and looking it over, some of my favourite plays are glaringly, painfully apparent (haha screw you Othello).  All that remains to be said is that, of course, these are only a matter of personal opinion and completely open to debate so feel free to put your own suggestions in the comments.  No, go on.  Really, I would love that.  Disagree with me.  I dare you.

*Yes, I make notes.  These poorly-structured over-emotional outbursts don't just spring into being fully-formed.  (Actually they mostly do, but sometimes I need to procrastinate.)
**Lies.
***No seriously, Aufidius has this whole speech when the two enemies join forces that basically says, "I have such a hate-boner for you.  No seriously, I have dreams about this. Sweaty dreams."
****It cannot be just me that routinely assesses the room they are in by determining the order in which its inhabitants would die in the Hunger Games.

Very Boys Such Bromance Wow So Unlikely Alliances Much Cheekbone Part 1: Thor: The Dark World

Blimey, it's been a while, eh?  Not to worry, adulthood hasn't got me yet.  If you're wondering why I've decided to title this three-part blog post* with a variant on 2013's strangest yet most persistent meme, it's because these three works of media degraded my ability to think in full sentences to about that level.  Really.

...

Thor: The Dark World: Review: Basically I'm Reviewing Loki: Just Loki: Where Do I Stop Putting Colons

Ok. So. I'm going to preface this review by saying that when I saw the film, I was suffering under the combination of having just said farewell to a supremely lovely cast of actors on an excellent production I'd been working on for a few months, and that farewell came in the form of excessive drinking and very little sleep, so my emotions were already dancing a merry dance all over my nervous system. The result of this was that when the film finished, my immediate instinct was to go and light up a cigarette that can only be described as post-coital. I collapsed, limbs splayed in my cinema seat, hyperventilating with the sheer force of ALL MY FUCKING FEELINGS.

And then I snapped out of it and remembered the first half of the film. Because the first half of the film is, frankly, dull as fuck. It starts ok (gratuitous crotch shot of Loki) and then just kind of stops (very little Loki until halfway through and then it's All Loki All The Time).  And for once in my life, I'm not just being a fangirl (I said not just being a fangirl). Basically, there's not enough Loki to make this film deliver on its promises. It was marketed as 'Thor must ask Loki for help, angst ensues' and that's just not really what it is. Tom Hiddleston has been walking the earth like the Wandering Jew with cheekbones, to promote a film that he's barely in.

To be honest with you, I don't even remember that much of the first half (something about Christopher Eccleston's career not quite panning how he expected) and awkward segues into comic interludes, mostly courtesy of Kat Dennings as Darcy, though even her infallible ability to be deadpan and awesome seems strained in the odd, tired energy of the events. There's also a cameo appearance from Chris O'Dowd, going on a date with Natalie Portman and let's all back the fuck up and read that again because CHRIS O'DOWD WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON A DATE WITH NATALIE PORTMAN GET BACK TO THE BASEMENT. So there are more jokes than the first film but none of the effortless delight of, say, Thor walking into a pet shop and demanding a horse. In fact, there are actually too many jokes to sit comfortably with the amped-up grit factor and the tone lurches drunkenly all over the place from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again via a rainbow bridge**.

Part of this is the criminally under explored villain, when the film can actually decide who the main antagonist is - Malekith or Loki.  If the rumours are true that a bunch of Malekith's stuff was bumped from the film to make way for Loki, then it raises the horrifying possibility that Tom Hiddleston's original role in the film was confined to maybe just one eyebrow raise and that is a world that I want no part in.  I am disappointed in the disservice done to both Chris Ecclestone and his character, not least because when they announced him I spent two days in a sort of glee-coma unable to say anything except repeat, "Malekith the Accursed.  Dark elf.  Christopher Ecclestone." But things were always going to be difficult post-Avengers. The first Thor had the advantage of being largely encapsulated in its own universe, the action confined to the remote realms of Asgard and New Mexico. Now the Marvel Cinematic Universe's internal public is aware of superheroes, the threat level has to be very finely judged for solo outings because otherwise just, like, call the other Avengers, y'know? And frankly, all the known universes collapsing in Greenwich kind of seems like at least an equivalent level of threat to a leather clad sociopath letting aliens on flying bikes into New York. But whatever, maybe Bruce Banner was on holiday. 

And I suppose things were also always going to be difficult in terms of how to write Loki. After going gloriously and hammily full villain in The Avengers, giving him any kind of arc must necessitate a little backtracking - bringing him home is a start (and let's not forget the moment in The Avengers when Thor tells him he can stop and come home and goddamit it, you can see in his eyes that that would actually maybe be really nice were it not for the whole attempted genocide and mass murder blips) but in The Dark World, it's just done in far too broad brush strokes. This is where the lack of Loki becomes problematic. There's not enough time to make this film what it deserves to be, which is Thor-and-Loki-go-to-family-counselling. I'm not quite sure that the MCU appreciates what it has in Hemsworth and Hiddleston, which is a few dozen gallons of heartbreak and an effortless chemistry. This film feels like it was written for lesser actors, ironed out into Hero and Villain, and yet the Brodinsons of Sassgard*** run away with every scene they're given (in Loki's case, cackling). Hiddleston's least subtle character elicits, weirdly, his most subtle performance,**** doing more acting with his eyes in one scene than there is in the rest of the film combined, and Hemsworth leads the film with lovely sincerity, retaining the streak of self-effacing humour brought out in The Avengers (I mean, thank all the Nordic gods, because the lack thereof in the first film was what sent me running into Loki's mad arms in the first place).

The fact is, the greatest superpower any of these films possess is humanity - that's what gives us the hook to keep us coming back, and is also why Superman movies are doomed to fail in comparison.  Tony Stark has his inner demons, Bruce Banner has his rage issues, Steve Rogers is a good man in a bewilderingly and increasingly complicated world, and Thor has a dysfunctional family. It's even ironic, maybe, that the most ridiculous Avenger (space-god-thing-with-science-magic) has the most affecting and, dare I say it, relatable backstory. Not so much with the frost giants, obviously, but the fuck-up sibling and the inability to ever really give up on family when they're threatening to take over the world that your signifiant other lives on, well, we've all been there.

Or maybe at this point Hiddleston's popularity with the fan base is just becoming a hindrance to writing a well balanced story.  I mean, there's a right way and a wrong way to love Loki. The right way is to appreciate him for the magnificent bastard he is, in which case you probably like Avengers Loki best, slasher smile, death metal hair, eye-ripping and everything. And there's the wrong way, which is to watch him whilst silently keening "MY BABY YOU JUST NEED A HUG", in which case you probably like him best in the first film, all wobbly bottom lip and palpable and justified sense of betrayal. (I'm somewhere in between the two, since you ask, feeling somewhat relieved at the last second reveal of him finally sitting on the throne of Asgard, with a moment of "oh thank god, that's my clever little psychopath", but far far too many moments of "JUST LET YOUR RIPPLING BLOND BROTHER SAVE YOU WITH HIS LOVE" for me to be entirely comfortable with myself. It is not, after all, a million miles away from "he just gets tense when he's trying to usurp a throne, he loves me really!")

This film was stuck between the two, flirting with both sides enough to be really really frustrating but not nearly enough to be satisfying. What we want, I suspect, is for Loki to be - like any good trickster figure - consistently and ambiguously using his emotions for his own gain. Like Sherlock. Or Artemis Fowl. Or - Loki's classical ancestor - Edmund in King Lear. We want a conman who is always ultimately up to something but in the moments when he displays vulnerability, left wondering whether it was all an act or possibly, maybe just a little bit sincere. We were almost there with this film. His 'death' is a particularly egregious example - the redemption, the regret, it should have been a Type 2 Loki fan's wet dream (and also how I was predicting they would write him out of the franchise). But there just wasn't time to process it. The quick cut to the gags about Chris O'Dowd and Thor hanging his hammer on the coat rack undermined it so quickly that there was no way he was really dead. Similarly, perhaps showing Loki's lonely displays of grief over Frigga's death (Frigga, my thoughts in brief: wow someone had some awesome in their coffee this morning, oh wait look she's dead in order to further the character development of the male protagonists, colour me shocked) would have made the later bluff too obvious, but it was obvious anyway because this film took a fond farewell of subtlety in the opening credits, so lingering just a little bit longer on him blowing stuff up with his mind would have been an infinitely more satisfying exploration of character.  That, in the end, was the core disappointment - everything was undercut so swiftly that you hardly knew how to feel about any of it (ambiguity is great, confusion is not). We're invested in these characters now, and not for the big explosions. Iron Man 3 was a darkly sincere look at the individual, not the costume. The Thor story should be an obvious contender for this type of treatment and yet became something so much less than the sum of its parts.

Look, it's not all bad. It was worth the ticket price for Hemsworth and Hiddleston alone, frankly. From the moment they Reservoir Dogs their way down the halls of Asgard, through the chase on the spaceship ("Well don't hit it, just press it gently." "I AM PRESSING IT GENTLY.") to Loki's deadpan "Ta-da" upon emerging into Vanaheim, the central section of the film is a pure joy. And, crucially, it's set us up for a Thor 3 in which the action is Thor-Loki centric, and me being the eternal optimist that I am, I'm going to hope for all the bickering, sparring, betrayal, game playing, double bluffs and tentative reconciliations we were promised this time. And after all, Loki essentially won this one. I can't really hate that. So until then I'm going to wait for the DVD and play a specific twenty minutes of it nonstop until my laptop breaks (cf also: War Horse) or Gotterdamerung occurs.  Whichever happens first.


*THREE PARTS.  Seriously though.
**A mysterious repaired rainbow bridge - how? It was a massive deal that Thor couldn't go and see Natalie Portman at the end of the first film and there was a shoehorned-in mumble about dark energy in The Avengers and now it sort of turns out that, basically, Asgard engineers totally could have done it, no problem, but the thing is, like, union stuff, and also they'll need to get some parts in.
***Kudos for this outstanding piece of wordplay goes to my colleague, Kate. Good writers imitate, great writers steal etc etc.
****No seriously.  Go and watch his other stuff and tell me he doesn't bring unnecessary melodrama to more conventionally written roles.  Then watch Thor again and tell me why and how he's finding deft emotional complexity in Giggling Space Despot.

True Romance: 'The Name of the Doctor' (Doctor Who) and 'Second Sons' (Game of Thrones) Reviews

Author's Note: As you can probably tell, I wrote my Doctor Who review immediately after seeing the episode (for the third time).  Game of Thrones, on the other hand, has taken me a week to get round to watching, hence the lateness of this review.

Doctor Who Series 7, Part 2, Episode 7: The Name of the Doctor

Oh Stephen.  I know I say this every year but I swear, I'll never doubt you again.  It was only when my brain had stopped playing the word "WHAT" on a loop and I'd drunk a substantial amount at a Eurovision party that I realised what a truly fantastic episode this was.

I'll admit, a large part of this conclusion came from the cessation of my hyperventilating-y thoughts of OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU TAKING MATT SMITH AWAY FROM ME because, rationally, let's look at the facts: a) We know he's in the 50th anniversary special and b) I don't really believe John Hurt is going to take over full-time as Doctor Number Twelve.  There was that mention of the Valeyard early on in the episode that seems like a great big honking clue: for those unaware, the Valeyard was (in Old Who) the Doctor's final regeneration gone all evil and introspective, basically.  Take that coupled with the closing dialogue about Hurt "not acting in the name of the Doctor", factor in the show's propensity for wordplay/riddles/literal language and it seems to me that, for all the talk of the 50th anniversary marking Matt Smith's regeneration, it could be just as much about resisting a regeneration.  For bonus evidence, the BBC released an interview of Tennant and Smith (together at last) in which Smith said that 10 and 11 seemed to get on pretty okay but there was Someone They Weren't Allowed To Talk About who was more bemused/annoyed by the two of them - given that Hurt was announced to be in the anniversary show months ago, I bet this is who they're talking about and he's sort of the Doctor but not.  Because he's the evil Valeyard guy.*

Although then again, I've just thought back to that "Introducing John Hurt as The Doctor" caption and have immediately doubted all of this. I mean, the Doctor lies though, right?  Let's move on before I devolve back into sobbing "please don't take away Matt Smith" again.**

Speaking of sobbing, I did.  I was all tarted up to dash off to the aforementioned Eurovision party the minute it finished and it was a good twenty minutes before I actually left the house because I was completely redoing my eye make-up.  River River River.  That was some pretty fucking glorious River.  Anyone who wants to disagree, let's take this outside, because that's my River - not clingy and dress size-y and smug, but brave and calm and brilliant.  The moment where the Doctor caught her hand and said "You're always here to me" literally made me drop my fork and neglect my delicious takeaway like a hilarious romcom moment.  We've had so much of the Doctor being superior to River, brushing her off, ignoring her etc etc that she was in danger of becoming just a running joke (Moffat thinks wives are annoying, no-one is surprised) - and it looked like that was how it was going for the first half of the episode too - so that whole dialogue ("I thought it would be too painful" "I think I could have coped" "For me") was possibly one of my favourite things this show has ever done.  All we wanted (me and my pal River) was some acknowledgement that she was in some way different to every other companion that heads through those doors, and we got it.  Sorry Amy, but I'm awarding the 'Girl Who Waited' badge to your daughter.  If that was River's final goodbye - and I suspect it was written so that Alex Kingston could or could not come back as the show demanded - it was a bloody good one.  Compliments all round.

Not least to the actors.  At least forty percent of my DON'T LEAVE ME MATT SMITH woe wasn't down to the frankly inexplicable level of attractiveness he manages to achieve on a weekly basis (this week's new Doctor-fetish: blindfolds) but to the fact that, unlike the rest of the show, he just gets better and better and better.  I mentioned a few weeks ago how he's undeniably a different Doctor to the one who shouted at baked beans that we started with; that came to beautiful fruition here with Smith skipping electrically along the spectrum from comedy to tragedy, and nailing it all the way.  He's so good I'm not even going to make a joke about wishing he would nail something else as well ifyouknowwhatImean.  There's not much I can say about his performance that I haven't said before, except that I am so so so looking forward to seeing how 10 and 11 interact, since 10's whole schtick was 'bouncy yuppy' and 11's whole schtick is kind of 'ancient old man fragility with the face of a twelve year old'.  I turn instead to the supporting cast: Vastra, Jenny and Strax once again prove themselves to be as able a TARDIS family as any ragtag bunch of misfits from the RTD era, and bring a substantial amount of human drama to the proceedings (which is impressive, considering that they're two-thirds cold-blooded). I even welled up a little when I thought Jenny was dead (which would have been a cruelly Whedon-esque move) and her "I'm so sorry, I think I've just been murdered" was chilling and heart-breaking in perfect measure.  Similarly, Strax and Vastra's "The heart is a simple thing", "I have not found it to be so"got me right in the feels - which only begs the question: if you can write like this, Moffat (see also above mention of Doctor/River dialogue), then why don't you, like, all the time?  It certainly silenced my inner Moffat-can't-do-characters demons.

And speaking of characters, this leads us, of course, to Clara, who deserves a special paragraph all of her own.  I was very satisfied with the resolution to the Clara mystery: the whole 'Impossible Girl' thing always seemed like a bit of a red herring.  Far more interesting were the moments when she was confirmed to be 'ordinary' - because that's really what companions are for, in the end, is to celebrate the capacity of the ordinary and everyday for heroism. My prediction was something along the lines of "Clara is just a normal girl being copied across space and time and ultimately the evidence will be all there in the TARDIS" and you know what? It kind of was.  Just, y'know, the burnt out shell of the future TARDIS.  But they were in it.  Oh shut up, I'm going to take that one, and there's nothing you can do about it.  The episode also seemed to clear up the hazy Clara-Doctor dynamic somewhat (maybe it was all that River in the air) with him saving her in a desperately parental way.  Hopefully now Jenna Louise Coleman can get her teeth into something with a bit more in the way of defined personality, because she bloody deserves to.

If I had to have a complaint it would be the villains, such as they were.  The Whispermen were very reminiscent of one of my favourite Buffy episodes/villains, the Gentlemen from 'Hush', complete with creepy nursery rhyme - so much so that it strikes me that writers of this show really need to stop presuming that the Atlantic Ocean magically stops the fans from being aware of Joss Whedon.  I felt like they didn't really get much of an outing, being an obvious red herring to deflect marketing attention away from THAT ENDING but maybe they'll pop up again in future with some extra creepy powers?  Let's hope so, it has been a while since we've had a vintage Moffat take-a-standard-fear-make-it-so-you'll-never-sleep-again villain.  The Great Intelligence was ultimately a bit of a letdown, really.  Contrary to my usual opinion about Doctor Who doing over-laboured story arcs (unfavourable, for those in doubt) I sort of felt he hadn't been signposted enough throughout the series, at least not enough for a Big Bad.  Still, ultimately none of it was really about that, was it? The greatest villain on the show, as always, is the Doctor himself.  Oh I am excite, please to make it November soonest.

So I'm calling it: best series finale of the Moffat era.  It didn't quite have the razzle-dazzle/ preposterousness self-regard of Series 6 mid-series finisher A Good Man Goes to War, but it didn't need it: I'm enjoying this quieter, more self-contained mode, and it gives the show a gravitas (if not a dignity) that allows it to strike exactly the right balance between silly and serious.

In conclusion, kids, it's going to be a very long summer.


Game of Thrones Series 3, Episode 7: Second Sons

The obvious centrepiece of this week was the hilarious and tragic Lannister-Stark wedding.  Lannister family events are understandably awkward occasions (all that inbreeding) but this was more so than usual, given that the nuptials were taking place between sensitive hedonist Tyrion and trembling sorority girl Sansa.

I do so enjoy it when the show takes the opportunity to play with its form a bit, especially Cersei and Loras's little moment under the stars.  In a show that excels in putting together unlikely characters and watching the magic, they set up a potential watercooler let-me-show-you-my-hidden-vulnerability moment, only to have Cersei snap "Nobody cares what your father says." Speaking for us all there, Cersei - I still haven't forgiven Loras for not being nearly as good-looking as the books say he is.  Cersei and Margaery's conversation was, similarly, fantasy's equivalent of Sex in the City, or maybe Hollyoaks.  "If you ever call me sister again, I'll have you strangled in your sleep," hisses Cersei at Margaery's perky breasts after the queen-to-be goes a step too far in advancing the Tyrell domestic policy of winning hearts and minds.  Indeed, Margaery was in danger of slipping more than just a nipple this week as Joffrey seems to be not quite so entirely under her spell as we've been led to believe, ignoring his mother's half-hearted attempt at parenting to go and deliver a casual rape threat to the newly wed Sansa Stark-Lannister.  My hatred of Joffrey has reached something like fascination - I'm too saturated with loathing to hate him more so I just wait in a state of something like awe to see what he'll do next.  He's like the Usain Bolt of sadism.  Just when you think he can't top leading Sansa up the aisle in lieu of headless Ned, he offers to come and help her out with her wifely duties later that night, only it's not an offer and I wanted to reach through the TV screen and make him drink his own spinal fluid.

Across the sea, Danaerys is still on a high as she wins a company of mercenaries over to her side (the Second Sons of the episode title).  Another deviation from the books here, with Daario coming in the guise of a character from an 80s-era children's fantasy film rather than the gold-toothed, purple-mustachioed swashbuckler of the books.  Given that Dany clearly has the hots for him (it's amazing what a gift of the severed heads of your enemies will do, I keep telling my dates that but they insist on getting me chocolate) it's probably for the best.  No reaction from Jorah as yet, but given how much I love Iain Glen's petulant little face as he intones "Khaleesi"in manner that is simultaneously bored and longing, I'm looking forward to it.  Quite a lot of nudity in Dany's storyline this week too - not only is there a requisite concubine getting pawed around, we get full on khaleesi-tits-and-arse too.  I don't know what I expected, to be honest - it is Game of Boners, after all - but the nudity count has been surprisingly light in recent weeks and setting that scene in her bath seemed particularly unnecessary.

The third main strand of the episode was probably just there to balance out the genders on the nudity front, to be honest, as Melisandre gets jiggy with Gendry, if your definition of getting jiggy is tying someone up and attaching leaches to their unmentionables.  I know it's mine.  The most interesting aspect of this strand, however, was the conversation between Stannis and Davos in the dungeons, as Stannis attempts awkward make-up sex with his bf (or just says he'll set him free, whatever).  Mainly this is because Stephen Dillane and Liam Cunningham are putting in such fucking good, understated performances.  The way Dillane plays Stannis, he's the guy at the party that there's nothing technically wrong with but no-one wants to hang out with and you just know he really, really wants to be your friend.  The tacit acknowledgment that Davos was right about maybe not murdering innocent boys was a thing of beauty, and Stannis' attempts to make everything ok again were painfully reminiscent of his stilted interactions with his wife and child a few weeks ago.

The episode was bookended by two more odd couples (alas, no Brienne and Jaime this week, though after last week's BE STILL MY BEATING HEART rescue, they deserve a breather). Firstly, Arya and the Hound reach a tentative detente after one little attempted rock-murder, as it transpires he may be her best hope of getting back to her family.  The show seems to be set on presenting Sandor Clegane in more and more of a sympathetic light of late - no complaints, I'm just intrigued as to what exactly do they know because he sort of disappears from the books at some point.  (Not much Littlefinger of late either - after delivering that stonking monologue about chaos, maybe he's gone out on a high? Ah well, the plot requires him back soon, I believe.)  Our other couple was Sam and Gilly, who have a beautiful - if not terribly exciting - equilibrium to their scenes, with Gilly building a fire while Sam thinks about baby names.  One White Walker attack later - heralded by some frankly much scarier crows - and the mysterious dragonglass seems to be coming in handy.  When you get to Westeros, Dany, you could make a packet on that alone.

All in all, an entertaining episode that had an enjoyably gossipy feel to it - lightweight in comparison to recent weeks, though tightly focused nonetheless.  Sadly there is no episode next week, which means I'll have to wait a full fortnight for my next Jon Snow/Brienne and Jaime fix.  It's a hard life.

This Week's Winner: Doctor Who in spades.  I keep just remembering bits and smiling a beatific smile. And then crying.


*The good people on the Guardian comments section seem to think he's not the Valeyard since he's already appeared in Old Who but instead maybe the very first incarnation who wasn't yet "the Doctor" (i.e. Matt Smith is the 11th Doctor but not the 11th regeneration) or the missing Time War Doctor who ended it by killing everyone and therefore acted for "peace" and "sanity" but not "in the name of the Doctor" - which would put an interesting spin on Christopher Ecclestone's tenure as he always seemed to take personal responsibility for the whole shebang but hey ho (actually thinking about it, this makes the most sense).  Either way, we're all agreed that Hurt is only along for the 50th anniversary ride and MATT SMITH IS NOT LEAVING, OK? OK.
**Right, well, I've just read that the Beeb have officially announced that Series 8 will air next year in split-series format with Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman and Stephen Moffat all returning BUT it will mark Moff's last tenure as head writer and possibly contain a mid-series regeneration. So now I just don't know what to feel.  I mean, on the one hand, more Smith/Moffat in the foreseeable future, on the other...all things must pass.  Fuck you, Doctor Who, I'm pretty sure I'm not meant to feel this existentialist about a children's show.

All the Feelings: 'The Rings of Akhaten' (Doctor Who) and 'Dark Wings, Dark Words' (Game of Thrones) Reviews

Two very different episodes, two very loud cries of fangirlish glee.  Television is definitely better than people.

Doctor Who Series 7, Part 2, Episode 2: The Rings of Akhaten

I'll say it now, there's no way I'm reviewing this episode objectively.  It was strongly reminiscent of 2007's 'Gridlock' (David Tennant, kittens), not only in aesthetic terms but in my reaction to it, i.e. I know it was in all honesty not the best but SINGING and THE DOCTOR and A CUTE THING and OVERTLY MESSIANIC SPEECHES and come on now, so many points for trying.  I swear to god, I would have teared up if I hadn't been watching with my mum, who has a very low tolerance threshold for sci-fi and fantasy.  When I showed her the trailer for The Hobbit, she giggled uncontrollably and asked me what Martin Freeman thought he was doing, to which I huffily replied, "HE'S GOING ON AN ADVENTURE."

Well, I was right about one thing: the episode started with the Doctor delving into Clara's past like a box of delicious chocolates.  Presumably no-one has ever told the writers of this show that there are potentially bad connotations to allowing a man whose face is able to twist into seemingly infinite contortions to sit behind a Beano and a pair of NHS specs staring fixedly at young children because Matt Smith + Children = Always Everything Good Ever.  Children are a bit of a recurring theme for Moffat, clearly, and not just the "wait here, I'll be back in ten years" trope.  If you can talk to children, you're good news in the Whoniverse - in Nicholas Sparks adaptations it's boats, here it's children.  (Sorry Mark Kermode, I stole your joke.)  On the one hand, it's a way of reminding all of the intensely-gazing mouth-breathers watching (it's only okay when I say it) that this is a children's show and do try not to crash the internet on your way out, but on the other hand it's often written with a knowingness that belies the adult perspective it's being written from and for - I think it's now obligatory for every child that turns up on Doctor Who to Teach The Doctor A Valuable Lesson and Be Very Unimpressed By Him Because Children Are Discerning.  I'm thinking more of the mini-prequal Moffat wrote (here) than this episode because, to be fair, the Queen of Years was more straight up creepy.

Speaking of children and growing and changing and whatever other spurious segue I can make here, it was a rite of passage this week, as Clara took her first trip into space.  I always wondered why more companions don't go for the 'back in time' option, personally, but then again I've had my first TARDIS trip planned since I was seventeen ("The South Bank 1599, leave off the brakes and I'll tip extra"*). Clara continues to grow on me, with Jenna-Louise Coleman elegantly avoiding the pitfall of choosing between 'smart' and 'kind' and instead showing herself to be extremely adept at both.  This bodes badly for the blog, of course, as I am generally only able to convey either extreme rage and/or despair (Amy) and extreme worship and/or lust (River Song).  Currently Clara lies somewhere along this axis at a point marked "warm respect".  But, y'know, I warmly respect the hell out of her.

So yes, I know the pacing was all wrong and the plot was predictable but it was comfy - it felt, again and at long last, like a proper episode.  It had aliens called Doreen and Indiana Jones references and a child in peril and obligatory alien forehead bumps and Matt Smith stood in front of a big orange glowy thing and said things that hit all the right spots** about stories and how we were all forged in the heart of a star and days that will never come being infinite and all that overreaching, grandiose bollocks that shouldn't work but really, really really does.  I love Doctor Who most when it forgets that it should just be a funny Saturday tea time show.  I love the fact that the people making it so clearly and earnestly believe in its importance, and I love how readily this is accepted by the people that watch it.  I love it because it takes everything that just shouldn't work, shoves it into a blender and shrugs majestically when it works, and when it doesn't.  Maybe I'm feeling sentimental because the show is approaching its 50th anniversary but it's episodes like this, largely underwhelming yet still able to pull off moments of frankly hubristic grandeur, that prove its uniqueness.  All in all, a showcase of the most familiar comforts of Who.

On a similar note, I just watched this trailer for the 50th Anniversary Special comprised of bits of all eleven Doctors and now I'm crying.  Crying.  Like, actual tears.  At a trailer.  I fear I may be blind by the end of the real thing.


Game of Thrones Series 3, Episode 2: Dark Wings, Dark Words

Because I am cold and heartless, I don't give many fucks about Bran and his Whiny Quest of Leglessness, so it was with a sinking sensation that I watched the opening of this week's episode.  However, I am glad to report I had not accounted for several things:

a) Bran has, hilariously, hit puberty in the, er, week between when we last saw him and now.
b) Bran who is, I say again, going through puberty, dreams about his brothers (it's only okay when I do it).
c)  Bran also has Jojen Reed turning up in his dreams, missing 'enigmatic' by a country mile and landing squarely on 'fucking smug'.  So it's at least faithful to the books, then.

Even better, when Jojen turns up for realsies later on (accompanied by his sister Meera, who is awesome), everything he says sounds like a come-on. "What else did you see?" asks Bran throatily, discussing second sight with his new bro.  "The only thing that matters," says Jojen staring into his eyes.  "You."  That's not fanfiction.  That's the script.  Who knows, Bran's Whiny Quest of Leglessness Now With Added Homoeroticism may become my favourite part of the series.

Anyway, after a scene with the second least interesting Starks (Robb and Catelyn***), in which the writers desperately try to justify Robb's Wife as a character, there comes the first real thrill of the episode: everyone's favourite odd couple, Jaime "Family First" Lannister**** and Brienne "Of" Tarth.  Hi Jaime and Brienne!  Hello also to Jamie's accent, which is rejoining us after a brief holiday.  It must have been hard for Jaime, growing up as the incongruously Scandinavian Lannister sibling.  Gifts of herring every feast day when the others get cloaks and swords and the like.  Anyway Jaime's game plan as of this moment seems to be a Westeros variant on "Are we there yet?" leaving poor, put-upon Brienne to shout that so help her, if she has to come back there, she will turn around back to Harrenhal and there will be no sexual tension for anybody.  His back up plan seems to be a Westeros variant on "lol u fancied Renly he was gay", but hey, it's working.  Just sit back and watch the magic happen.

Joffrey and Cersei next and, worryingly, I think I'm actually starting to enjoy Joffrey's scenes.  Then again, he has not yet forced prostitutes to beat each other this series, so there's still time.  Essentially, he acts exactly how every teenage king ever would and has acted times a factor of a thousand dicks.  Shae counsels Sansa on the wisdom of forming an alliance with a dude who sleeps with a lock of your mother's hair under his pillow.  Three seasons in and Sansa's gaydar is still not functional as she starts batting her eyelids at Loras "Rough Trade" Tyrell before being led off to tea with Margaery Tyrell and her grandmother, Diana Rigg.  Lady Di is, as always, a treat and I'm very much enjoying Natalie Dormer's scheming, butter-wouldn't-melt Margaery (in all seriousness, one of the things the series does very well is take the non-point of view characters from the books and go "fuck that ambiguity").  The later scene between Joffrey and Margaery is frankly brilliant, as Margaery starts to unpick what poor romantic Sansa never could, i.e. how to control a petulant teenage psychopath with near-absolute political power, using only a crossbow and some cleavage.

Not only did we get Diana Rigg this week but another pleasing addition to the cast in the form of Mackenzie Crooke doing Ambiguous Wildling Animal Magic.  One of the strengths of the series (both book and television) is how sparing it is with the magic - so sparing, in fact, that I occasionally forget about it altogether but being reminded by Mackenzie Crooke's nigh-on Lovecraftian features is perfectly acceptable.  Anyway, here he is alongside Jon Snow's girlfriend casting yet another withering look in Jon Snow's bewildered direction.  Bless, it's not his fault - no-one ever sat him down to explain the birds and the bees, as demonstrated by a long and actually pretty well done scene between Catelyn and Robb's Wife of which the gist was "oh man Jon Snow he ruins everything and basically we're all going to die now".  Cut to Jon Snow's lower lip quivering several hundred miles north of there.  His Woobie Sense is tingling.

But there's not much time to dwell on Jon Snow and his implausibly tousled hair because ARYA!  Damn, girl, where have you been?  I've had to sit through, like, five Sansa scenes already. Anyway in her three odd minutes of screen time, Arya manages to be at least thirteen times more awesome than anyone except Tyrion, encountering the Brotherhood Without Banners (apparently some kind of eco-terrorist organisation in this incarnation, led by Paul Kaye, another winning casting choice) without flinching.  Well, last season she did make time in her busy schedule of kicking ass and taking names to give to Faceless Men for one on one chats with Tywin Lannister.  Speaking of Lannisters, I thought we were a bit Tyrion-light, though as I said last week, we won't be seeing everyone regularly from here on out (no Dany either, surprisingly).  HBO has shown stunning good sense thus far in not inflicting on us more time with the Greyjoys than is strictly necessary - just a brief glimpse of Theon being tortured, and given spurious hope by Simon from Misfits, and I don't think anyone will be complaining about that.  Anyhow, sneaking in at 37 minutes is Tyrion who manages to be a total boss even when a prostitute is squeezing his face with one hand.

Back to Brienne and Jaime for the final treat, I didn't think we'd get to see them fight so early in the series.  It is, as expected, excellently and believably done, in part because Jaime insists on commentating like that one irritating kid playing football at school, in part because Brienne rolls her eyes and advances on him almost casually, only to be stopped by a brace of Boltons looking for Jaime's head.  End of episode.

All in all, an extremely satisfying affair.  Still not quite the balls-to-the-wall-awesome I'm waiting for but it's early days yet.  Like the series opener, there was a lot to set up, new characters to introduce, etc but there were also enough returning favourites (Brienne, Meera, ARYA) and unfavourites made palatable (Bran) that I enjoyed it start to finish.  The plotlines were juggled beautifully, the scene shifts were seamless, the dialogue was as (nay, more) impressive than the action and the performances were pretty flawless.  Keep it up, Game of Thrones, this is frighteningly good stuff.


This week's winner: Game of Thrones.  It was tough one because 'The Rings of Akhaten' had me feeling all the feelings there ever were, but I know in my heart it was a ropey episode with a few good set pieces.  'Dark Wings, Dark Words', on the other hand, had accelerated enough to be consistently excellent all the way through with its series of odd-couples, and, with all of the players now in place, marks the recommencing of the game fo' srs.  Makes you just want a grab and sword and kill something, really.

*I am aware that Martha Jones has somewhat stolen my thunder on this one, but I do an excellent impression of someone who doesn't know that Martha Jones ever existed.  The main difference is that they're smiling.
** I meant emotional spots, you perverts.
***This is unfair.  I forget Sansa.
****I toyed with Jaime "I'll Slay Your King" Lannister, but it's really hard to communicate the subtle intonation of the innuendo over the internet.

The Hobbit: Dwarves are Heroic and In No Way Intrinsically Hilarious Because of Their Height (spoilers)

Spoilers! Heavy, heavy spoilers for The Hobbit.  But it has been around for 60 years so it's your own fault, really.

I swear to god, I have three draft posts sitting in my Posts folder, none of which were good enough to publish, even by my admittedly lax standards.  Please don't hurt me for my accidental five month hiatus.  I'm very sorry and it won't happen again (maybe). (To cut a long story short, life happened in the form of me starting an MFA and even when your MFA is in professionally playing Let's Pretend - or as it is officially known, Theatre Directing - it is still an MFA and demands much more of your time than watching X-Men cartoons and smoking out of your bedroom window.  Who knew?)

But I'm here! I am back this New Year because there has just been so much pop culture of late and I cannot possibly let it go by without whipping up a few rounds of my signature cocktail of capital letters and inappropriate drooling.  Where to begin? There's last autumn's telly-land, which saw The Hour pick up steam after a shaky start dicking about with an organised crime storyline that was somehow less believable than having a Soviet spy in the midst of a fairly inoffensive BBC news programme (um, spoilers?); however, after hanging in there only to see what the offspring of Anna Chancellor and Peter Capaldi might be like and how soon it would be taking over the world, the last two episodes were absolute barn-stormers.  Merlin ended for good with both a bang and a whimper and this truly is a tragedy for those who stuck with it from the beginning.  Although I don't think Arthur took his top off once last season, so maybe it is time to move on.  There's a whole new Twilight film to mock, coming hand in hand with the blessed knowledge that there are to be no more, hallelulah praise the Mormon Jesus that spawned this dust-bunny of menopausal fantasies and unfulfilled life prospects in the first place.  Christmas Doctor Who was tentatively promising for the coming season, starring not only a new companion but Lesbian Silurian and Lesbian Cockney, who are much more likely candidates for a spinoff than John Barrowman ever was.

But before any of that, there is a film that must be talked about.  A film that I have looked forward to, not with the pants-wetting fist-biting glee of The Avengers, but with something far more likely to warm the cockles of my Middle-Earth-loving heart.  And boy, were my cockles warmed.  I'm talking, of course, about The Hobbit.

Un petit confession, as the French say.  I love Lord of the Rings.  That's not the confession.  The confession is that I love the films.  Burdened with an English student's guilt over enjoying an adaptation before reading the source material, I turned to the books at the tender age of thirteen and commenced a three-month project of staring in horror at the bricks of text in front of me listing rhyming dwarf-dad name after rhyming dwarf-dad name.  Why was there another song in Elvish? Was I supposed to read it? Sing it? Perform an interpretative dance to it? Had it really been going on forty pages and these people were still talking about events that not only had we never encountered, but never would and would have no bearing on the plot? Even I have a saturation point when it comes to fantasy.  I OD'ed hard on A Song of Ice and Fire, making a headlong dash through the three-and-a-half-thousand odd pages of the first four books only to have some kind of breakdown around the beginning of the fifth and hurl it across the room crying, "I simply can't bear learning any more awkwardly partnered Latinate and Anglo-Saxon names!  Bear me to the fainting couch, I believe I have the vapours! AND WHO THE FUCK IS ARTHUR DAYNE?" At some point, I will pick up the fifth one again.  When the screams of beloved murdered characters have stopped echoing in the wind.

As always, I digress.  I was saddened that I did not love reading Tolkien because I had very fond memories of The Hobbit being read to me as a child.  The Hobbit is a very simple children's story, certainly not one that seems a natural fit for a series of of epic films.  But Peter Jackson cottoned on to something very clever with the LOTR films, which is that Tolkien is simply not a natural storyteller.  The universe he creates is rich in character and landscape, the morality of the books cleaves to something undeniably decent and stirring.  But by Frodo's quivery bottom lip, he cannot string a story together in a compelling way.  Peter Jackson, however, can.  Peter Jackson can sustain a story as complicated and rich as this one over nine hours and not lose anything from it that was worth keeping.  (Except the Houses of Healing in Return of the King.  That could have been kept in favour of a bit of Liv Tyler looking wry, surely.)  So if Peter Jackson turns to me and says, "Y'know, there's a lot of stuff I wanted to put in those films but couldn't", I am actually more than happy to hand him my copy of The Hobbit and say, "Okay, Pete.  Go to town on this."

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is still Tolkien's Hobbit.  It is not, as some have suggested, Lord of the Rings 4.  Which would be silly anyway, as The Hobbit is set 60 years before. Tch.  At its centre is the comfort of home, the bigness of the world, the notion that it is small acts and small people that stand against the dark.  The Hobbit is a (relatively) small story set in an epic fantasy universe and that is exactly what Jackson delivers.  When Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, he could not have known what it was the beginning of, what Middle Earth would grow to be.  Most of us reading The Hobbit for the first time did not know either - it is rare to find someone who read Lord of The Rings before its predecessor.  But we do know Lord of the Rings now.  Either we have read it or seen it or simply become unavoidably aware of it through pop cultural osmosis.  It would almost be impossible, I think, to create a version of the Hobbit in which we weren't watching it looking for the links with the story and universe we already know, and in which I wasn't asking the question, "Does Benedict Cumberbatch look sexy as a dragon?"*  Jackson has embraced this and turned The Hobbit into a kind of three hour bubble-bath for Lord of the Rings fans with a butler on hand to drop a chocolate into your mouth every now and then.  It is audacious, visually stunning, funny and, above all, surprisingly charming.  Sorry, just gagged on my own gushing there.  Let's fix that.

It's not perfect by a long chalk.  I've seen it twice and it doesn't stand up to second viewing in the way that the LOTR films yield endless delight, especially if you are a bit drunk and making once of your friends drink every time Gollum switches personalities.  After the initial thrill of being introduced to a whole new raft of characters to shout "take your shirt off" at during inappropriate moments, the second viewing had me checking my watch during the long (long, long) first hour and a half.  Then it starts getting really good (like, really good) and it's all slightly obscene looking Goblin Kings and Andy Serkis and fire and eagles and eagles on fire (except the last one) and then it ends.  Gah.  So the second one better be really good is all I'm saying because I remember the plot of The Hobbit as being there's some short dudes who go and get a slightly shorter dude and there's a dragon and some trolls and some goblins and a ring and then the dragon dies and everyone drinks lemonade. Most of those plot points have already been covered in great detail.  Peter Jackson better have something fucking spectacular up his sleeve (actually we already know he does, it's called LEGOLAS).  So if you weren't a fan before then you definitely won't be converted by this but if you were, then see it once in the cinema and then wait for the DVD so you can identify hilarious moments of homoeroticism with your friends (they really need some more women in this universe).  Also, see it in 2D and normal frame rate.  It seems much more like a film and less like a game of 'That was CGI, that was pyrotechnic, that was CGI'.

But.  Enough beating about the bush.  No, that wasn't a euphemism.  Because I know what you really want, you filthy little blog-readers you.  I know what you have been waiting for all these months, and frankly, it disgusts me.  If you think I am going to make a fool of myself disclosing the most intimate struggles of my shattered psyche in the consideration of whether it is a crime against all that is right and good to look at Richard Armitage dressed up as a dwarf and wonder whether a new and disturbing fetish has been awoken in me, well you can look elsewhere for that kind of smut because you won't find it here.  Nor will you find musings on whether Peter Jackson watched North and South before filming started and was so hopelessly smitten with Mr Armitage that he decided to put in a frankly alarming quantity of shots in which Thorin Hardwood or whatever his name is stands atop a rocky outcrop brooding so furiously on his lack of kingliness that Viggo Mortensen is considering suing.  Nor will I comment on how the background music seemed to so taken with him that the Latinate (Elvish?) chanting during that bit at the end where stands up on the tree to take down the Orc-Video-Game-End-of-Level-Boss might as well have been shrieking, "RICHARD ARMITAGE! STANDS ON TREES! RUNS THROUGH FIRE! HE IS MANLY WITH MAN PAIN IN HIS MAN EYES!"  I'm sure at some point they were considering having him saving some baby orphans from the flames on his way to the fight but it was cut for time (it was the only thing cut for time).

Nor will you be hearing anything from me about the startling coincidence that sees the three most eligible dwarves - Thorin, Suspiciously Attractive Dwarf (Kili, played by Being Human's Aidan Turner) and his brother/boyfriend** Less Attractive but Still Doable Dwarf (Fili, played by Dean O'Gorman) - sporting a noticeably smaller quantity of prothetic nose and beard accessory than the rest.  James Nesbitt as Bofur, whilst hiding his everyman charm beneath a hat that I thought was going to take flight and a moustache that looked sad independently of Nebitt's own facial expression, could still legitimately have replaced all of his lines with "I'm James Nesbitt.  And now you want to have a pint with me."  Elijah Woods puts in a brief appearance as Frodo and I had to stop myself from standing up and congratulating Ian Holmes on having such a fine-looking nephew and asking if the cheekbones ran on the other side of the family and, if so, were there cousins? (I, by the way, was convinced that Elijah Woods has a painting in an attic somewhere looking like shit because as far as I could tell, he hasn't aged a day, but everyone disagreed with me on this point and said he looked haunted by the loss of times past.)  All this and the elves won't even make a proper appearance until Part 2.  (Although special points for Flight of the Conchord's Brett Mckenzie reprising his internet-stealing silent cameo from Fellowship of the Ring complete with a new elvish name that means 'singer' and even more special points for Lee Pace who you probably know as the guy who made pies and resurrected the dead in Pushing Daisies as LEGOLAS' DAD ON A FUCKING ELK LOOKING FABULOUS.)

So put that in your elongated Gandalf pipe and choke on it, good reader.  The various aesthetic qualities of the cast will emphatically not be reflected on in any way, not even how good Saint Cate Blanchett is at turning slowly in a shimmery dress (twice).  This is a new, more mature Jane Shakespeare and you can take your filthy gutter-dwelling minds elsewhere for that kind of thing.  Also Martin Freeman just deserves, like, ALL THE HUGS and those pointy little hobbit ears are really working for me.  He is everything you could want and more (less? There's a height joke in there somewhere) as Bilbo, and I very much admired his choice to play his scenes with Thorin as a particularly egregious rom-com. ("I'm just a hobbit.  Standing in front of a dwarf.  Asking him to love him.")

All in all, I really liked it the first time and bit less the second time but, as you can tell, I'm loving the prospect of cracking out the wine and settling down with the DVD to holler in a manner most women reserve for the stripper on their hen night.  Bring on Part 2.  In Pete We Trust.

*In the event, we will have to wait until the next film to find out, and yes, I am aware that Smaug will be CGI and not Cumberbatch in a dragon suit but it should be.
**Seriously, what's the deal here?  I'm pretty sure they're related in the book but they seemed to spend an awful lot of time going off to bond and then coming back looking flustered and out of breath.  Why were they the only two dwarfs up in the middle of the night tending the campfire?  Why were they sharing an eagle when there were clearly enough for everyone to have their own?  If they weren't looking out for the horses, then what were they doing? It's a conspiracy.