Reviews...
Oct. 27th, 2012 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatSo I watched Mockingbird Lane last night. This was the new series by Brian Fuller. (The creator/writer behind shows such as Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies, who I'm thinking has an insanely perverse fascination with death or possibly an obsession?) Don't get me wrong, I find his series interesting and innovative, but...they do tend towards the somewhat creepy and perverse. Mockingbird Lane certainly falls under that category.
It should be noted that I've seen reruns of The Munsters. Small factoid, back in the 1970's-early 1990's there were these things called "reruns" which made up 40% of the television landscape and featured mainly series from the 1960s, 1970s, 1950s and on occasion 1980s. They weren't all relegated to one channel (TVland) but were available on all the channels between the hours of 3pm-6pm, on Sat's earlier. Some of the public access channels such as UHF had them all the time. Back then, we had just four-six channels, not 4,000.
The Munsters was basically a poor-man's version of The Addams Family or a rip-off of The Addams Family. It featured a monster family living in midwest suburbia, where the normal people were often depicted as far more monsterous in their actions than the Munsters. And the Munsters were more loving and happy. It was meant to be a satire and was somewhat affective, although the more popular Addams Family was a tad better and more biting.
This version was fun and mildly amusing. It featured "Frankenstein" - this is the friendly good natured Hermen, who was very tall and looked like Frankenstein. Lily - his wife and a female vampire. Grandpa - Lily's father and technically, Dracula. Marilyn, who was normal.
Eddie who was a vampire.
This version changes things up a bit, with Eddie as a werewolf. Possibly because the vampire bit has been overdone? Also the special effects are a lot better.
Other than that? It sort of falls flat in places. I liked it, a whole lot better actually than Grimm which follows it. (I only mention that because Grimm kept interrupting it with commercials and teasers regarding Grimm.) Could have done without the handicapped nasty female neighbor who couldn't eat Dracula's blood cookies because she is "gluten-free".
While it's nice that awareness of gluten-intolerance is increasing, what is not appreciated is treating it like some bizarre fad Hollywood diet. It's not. Or as something similar to vegetarianism or being vegan (not that I think those are fad diets, but they are also lifestyle choices). Being gluten-intolerant is NOT a choice. We don't choose it.
It's an autoimmune disorder. Which by the way has existed since the Dark Ages. The doctors just didn't figure out how to diagnose it properly until relatively recently. You can die.
Although to be fair to Fuller, that was possibly why he included the joke. All the jokes were about death - so fair game. Unfortunately many of them fell flat or were repetitious.
One too many jokes about Hermen's breaking heart, Eddie turning into a werewolf being a metaphor for puberty, and the food chain. Yes, we got it.
So while interesting and innovative, I can see why NBC chose to show the pilot as a Halloween special and not pick it up for a full season. It's over-the-top like American Horror Story, but not biting enough or cute enough to quite cut it. Also it's sort of sappy in places.
Fuller, unfortunately suffers from the same syndrom as Tim Burton does, he's more interested in the set, style, absurdity, and mythology, than he seems to be about the characters and actual story/plot. I think both are frustrated set designers and F/X specialists.
In other news, reading the latest fanfic-ebook bestseller, aka contemporary romantic boddice ripper porn (for want of a better description) by Sylvia Day, entitled Reflected in You - mainly because I wanted to read something fun which required no concentration. (And had hot sex scenes. This one, unfortunately doesn't, troubling sex scenes - yes. Hot? not so much. (I actually ended up skimming or skipping over one which went on for ten-twelve pages. Not the foreplay, the actual "fucking" went on for that long. I kid you not. People, sex scenes should be no more than two pages at the most, anything longer than that starts to get either repetitive and dull or ludicrous. The sex scene in the book shouldn't take longer than it does in actuality. Sex isn't a spectator sport! Also 90% of the appeal is the anticipation, not the act in a book or film or tv show. That's why the hottest sex scenes are often ones where the characters are fully clothed.) But I keep hoping. Note - I don't find murder mysteries fun. I have a highly analytical job - I solve puzzles all day long. Fun is not having to solve one.)
It's a troubling book. I'm convinced I read it somewhere before and most likely as a Buffy/Angel fanfic or a Buffy/Spike Everybody's Human Fanfic, one or the other. But that's not the problem I'm having with it. The problem is that the heroine and hero are clearly suffering from borderline personality syndrom or narcissism. They are resolving all their issues with sex. Don't talk anything out. And punish each other with sex or removal of it. And...have insane jealousy issues. The hero is a control freak, who wants to possess and own the heroine. I find myself yelling at her in my head - honey, don't walk, run, from this guy. This is not love - this is addiction. Neither of these characters really love the other one, what they love is how the other makes them feel sexually. They are in love with the endorphin rush of romantic love. And their adoration is self-absorbed and ego-centric. It's all about them, the other guy might as well not be there. Abusive relationships in literature fascinate me - because I've seen them in real life. Not had them but witnessed them. In pornographic romance novels...I find them somewhat troubling, because this is meant to be a romantic fantasy and there are reader's out there who think, actually think, this is a great love story and a romance worth striving for. That's the troubling part. Troubling but fascinating. I want to figure out why. Why the impulse?
What is it about our society that propels us towards these psycho-destructive impulses?
In Carrie Fisher's novel Shockaholic and later in interviews with Eddie Fisher - it's revealed that Fisher is similar to the guy's in these romance novels. He was charming, seductive, adoring, but he fell in love with love or rather in love with someone else adoring him, stroking him, telling him how great and wonderful he was. He wanted to possess Debbie Reynolds (the star, because everyone else did), and Elizabeth Taylor (because she was the most beautiful woman out there and his best friend's widow). He wasn't a bad man, he did care about others in his way - people aren't just one thing or another...but he was destructively self-absorbed, addicted to adoration. And it made his life and those lives around him - a bit hellish at times. His addictions destroyed his career and his family.
I see this dynamic a lot in present day Everybody's Human fanfic. The weird thing about the Buffy and Twilight fanfics...is well the writers often depict the female character the exact opposite of how she appears in the story. In Buffy fanfics, Buffy is often rendered a whiny, clingy, needy thing...who is insanely insecure and easy to push around, while in Twilight fanfics, Bella is tough, snarky, smart-mouthed, and can take care of herself. It's weird. Granted I've never really read Twilight (couldn't make it through the first 50 pages), but my guess from all the reviews that I've read is that Bella is not like that. You'd think it would be the opposite?
Anyhow, I don't recommend any of the e-book romance novels. But they are certainly selling like gangbusters.
It should be noted that I've seen reruns of The Munsters. Small factoid, back in the 1970's-early 1990's there were these things called "reruns" which made up 40% of the television landscape and featured mainly series from the 1960s, 1970s, 1950s and on occasion 1980s. They weren't all relegated to one channel (TVland) but were available on all the channels between the hours of 3pm-6pm, on Sat's earlier. Some of the public access channels such as UHF had them all the time. Back then, we had just four-six channels, not 4,000.
The Munsters was basically a poor-man's version of The Addams Family or a rip-off of The Addams Family. It featured a monster family living in midwest suburbia, where the normal people were often depicted as far more monsterous in their actions than the Munsters. And the Munsters were more loving and happy. It was meant to be a satire and was somewhat affective, although the more popular Addams Family was a tad better and more biting.
This version was fun and mildly amusing. It featured "Frankenstein" - this is the friendly good natured Hermen, who was very tall and looked like Frankenstein. Lily - his wife and a female vampire. Grandpa - Lily's father and technically, Dracula. Marilyn, who was normal.
Eddie who was a vampire.
This version changes things up a bit, with Eddie as a werewolf. Possibly because the vampire bit has been overdone? Also the special effects are a lot better.
Other than that? It sort of falls flat in places. I liked it, a whole lot better actually than Grimm which follows it. (I only mention that because Grimm kept interrupting it with commercials and teasers regarding Grimm.) Could have done without the handicapped nasty female neighbor who couldn't eat Dracula's blood cookies because she is "gluten-free".
While it's nice that awareness of gluten-intolerance is increasing, what is not appreciated is treating it like some bizarre fad Hollywood diet. It's not. Or as something similar to vegetarianism or being vegan (not that I think those are fad diets, but they are also lifestyle choices). Being gluten-intolerant is NOT a choice. We don't choose it.
It's an autoimmune disorder. Which by the way has existed since the Dark Ages. The doctors just didn't figure out how to diagnose it properly until relatively recently. You can die.
Although to be fair to Fuller, that was possibly why he included the joke. All the jokes were about death - so fair game. Unfortunately many of them fell flat or were repetitious.
One too many jokes about Hermen's breaking heart, Eddie turning into a werewolf being a metaphor for puberty, and the food chain. Yes, we got it.
So while interesting and innovative, I can see why NBC chose to show the pilot as a Halloween special and not pick it up for a full season. It's over-the-top like American Horror Story, but not biting enough or cute enough to quite cut it. Also it's sort of sappy in places.
Fuller, unfortunately suffers from the same syndrom as Tim Burton does, he's more interested in the set, style, absurdity, and mythology, than he seems to be about the characters and actual story/plot. I think both are frustrated set designers and F/X specialists.
In other news, reading the latest fanfic-ebook bestseller, aka contemporary romantic boddice ripper porn (for want of a better description) by Sylvia Day, entitled Reflected in You - mainly because I wanted to read something fun which required no concentration. (And had hot sex scenes. This one, unfortunately doesn't, troubling sex scenes - yes. Hot? not so much. (I actually ended up skimming or skipping over one which went on for ten-twelve pages. Not the foreplay, the actual "fucking" went on for that long. I kid you not. People, sex scenes should be no more than two pages at the most, anything longer than that starts to get either repetitive and dull or ludicrous. The sex scene in the book shouldn't take longer than it does in actuality. Sex isn't a spectator sport! Also 90% of the appeal is the anticipation, not the act in a book or film or tv show. That's why the hottest sex scenes are often ones where the characters are fully clothed.) But I keep hoping. Note - I don't find murder mysteries fun. I have a highly analytical job - I solve puzzles all day long. Fun is not having to solve one.)
It's a troubling book. I'm convinced I read it somewhere before and most likely as a Buffy/Angel fanfic or a Buffy/Spike Everybody's Human Fanfic, one or the other. But that's not the problem I'm having with it. The problem is that the heroine and hero are clearly suffering from borderline personality syndrom or narcissism. They are resolving all their issues with sex. Don't talk anything out. And punish each other with sex or removal of it. And...have insane jealousy issues. The hero is a control freak, who wants to possess and own the heroine. I find myself yelling at her in my head - honey, don't walk, run, from this guy. This is not love - this is addiction. Neither of these characters really love the other one, what they love is how the other makes them feel sexually. They are in love with the endorphin rush of romantic love. And their adoration is self-absorbed and ego-centric. It's all about them, the other guy might as well not be there. Abusive relationships in literature fascinate me - because I've seen them in real life. Not had them but witnessed them. In pornographic romance novels...I find them somewhat troubling, because this is meant to be a romantic fantasy and there are reader's out there who think, actually think, this is a great love story and a romance worth striving for. That's the troubling part. Troubling but fascinating. I want to figure out why. Why the impulse?
What is it about our society that propels us towards these psycho-destructive impulses?
In Carrie Fisher's novel Shockaholic and later in interviews with Eddie Fisher - it's revealed that Fisher is similar to the guy's in these romance novels. He was charming, seductive, adoring, but he fell in love with love or rather in love with someone else adoring him, stroking him, telling him how great and wonderful he was. He wanted to possess Debbie Reynolds (the star, because everyone else did), and Elizabeth Taylor (because she was the most beautiful woman out there and his best friend's widow). He wasn't a bad man, he did care about others in his way - people aren't just one thing or another...but he was destructively self-absorbed, addicted to adoration. And it made his life and those lives around him - a bit hellish at times. His addictions destroyed his career and his family.
I see this dynamic a lot in present day Everybody's Human fanfic. The weird thing about the Buffy and Twilight fanfics...is well the writers often depict the female character the exact opposite of how she appears in the story. In Buffy fanfics, Buffy is often rendered a whiny, clingy, needy thing...who is insanely insecure and easy to push around, while in Twilight fanfics, Bella is tough, snarky, smart-mouthed, and can take care of herself. It's weird. Granted I've never really read Twilight (couldn't make it through the first 50 pages), but my guess from all the reviews that I've read is that Bella is not like that. You'd think it would be the opposite?
Anyhow, I don't recommend any of the e-book romance novels. But they are certainly selling like gangbusters.
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no subject
Date: 2012-10-27 05:19 pm (UTC)I'm not quite sure what Mockingbird Lane was aiming for. It wasn't funny. It very much lacked humor, if it was supposed to be black humor. It wasn't exactly serious. It would likely give little kids nightmares, and I think most adults would be bored after a episode or two if it played out as a series. I think the original The Munsters, as silly as it was, was a better idea.
Incidentally, ABC apparently wanted to cash in on NBC's Mockingbied Lane as well. They did an interview on the news with John Astin (Gomez from the original Addams family series) and showed it last night instead of waiting till closer to Halloween.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-27 05:39 pm (UTC)Agree - it wasn't funny, well except for the slapstick bit at the beginning and when they first entered the house.
90% of comedy is timing. It's hard to do well. If you see the punchline before it happens or if it feels telegraphed it won't work.
The original wasn't great but it was executed better. Sort of fell into the same comedy trope as Bewitched, I Dream of Genie, and Addams Family - a light satire of 50s suburbia.