OPEN the POD BAY DOOR

Hands up, everyone who used to have a radio like this!

Back in the day, you'd tune in a program you wanted to hear, and then it would be lost in the aether, disappearing back into the mist like Brigadoon.

But not any more. Now we have podcasts!

So it was a big thrill for me to do a live interview last week at the SciFi4Me Radio website. The subject was Alias Hook, on the program Live From the Bunker.

Big thanks to interviewer Kammie Settle and tech whiz Jason Hunt for making it all so enjoyable. Here's the link if you'd like to catch up with the podcast!

My first podcast—I feel like such a professional!

MASS APPEAL

What happens in the confessional stays in the confessional. According to Catholic law, any priest who violates the confidentiality of the booth will find himself excommunicated.

So if a priest happens to hear something dire after Mass one Sunday—like a death threat, to be carried out in one week—he has no recourse but to spend the next seven days combing through the community, hoping to identify the malcontent and diffuse the situation, or possibly even arm himself in self-defense.

At least, those would be the choices in an ordinary action thriller. But neither the Irish drama, Calvary, nor its writer and director, John Michael McDonagh, can be classified as ordinary.

Although much of the action follows the outline above, the film transcends its action, branching out into a poignant, often scathing, and even occasionally blackly humorous meditation on the human condition.

GoT fans will recognize Littlefinger in  Gleeson's wayward flock

And it mostly succeeds in its grand aims, thanks to a marvelously skilled and subtle performance by the great Brendan Gleeson in one of his best roles. He stars as a caring village priest whose parishioners practice most of the popular Deadly Sins.   

The film's seven Stations of the Cross symbology plays into McDonagh's larger themes of sin, virtue, sacrifice and redemption. But nothing in the film feels like a sermon. A barely recovered alcoholic widower who came late to the priesthood, Gleeson's Father James strives to be of some practical use to his parishioners.

And not by offering up a bunch of empty platitudes about God's will or Heaven and Hell

It's because he doesn't presume to tell anybody what God wants that Gleeson's flawed Father James is so appealing. (Read more)

FIRST THINGS LAST

A great beginning is everything.

Don't you just love it in movies about writers when the author sits down to actually write?

Author sucks at the end of a pen, or flexes his fingers over the the keyboard for about 3.2 seconds, then commences to churn out the first two or five or ten pages of his magnum opus—as perfect and divine as Athena springing full-born from the head of Zeus.

Ah, such a charming fantasy. But don't be fooled, kids. In real life, the beginning of a book is the hardest part.

Everyone knows the first couple of pages or paragraphs, or sentences are the most important of the book—especially in this ADD-afflicted era, when there is so much competition for our shrinking attention spans. But that doesn't mean those first deathless lines are going to be the very first thing you write.

In my case, those opening pages are the very last thing I write! Or at least the last thing I write well.

Nicole Kidman's Virginia Woolf, The Hours: real writers write over.

During the first draft of a novel, I'm basically telling myself the story. I know it's all going to change in the rewriting process anyway. For that first draft I'll start anywhere that seems to get me into the story, some conversation, or interior monologue, or action sequence that gets me going. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first word.

Once I've plunged in, I keep adding scenes as they occur to me (and usually not in chronological order) until I have some sense of a story arc heading for a conclusion. For me, knowing how the story ends is essential before I can go back and re-tackle that all-important opening.

There are times, however, when first instincts are serendipitous. For Alias Hook, the very first paragraph I committed to a Word doc remained the first paragraph of the book in print—at least in the UK edition:

Every child knows how the story ends. The wicked pirate captain is flung overboard, caught in the jaws of the monster crocodile, which drags him down to a watery grave. Who could guess that below the water, the great beast would spew me out with a belch and a wink of its horned, livid eye? It was not yet my time to die, not then nor any other time. It's my fate to be trapped here forever in a nightmare of childhood fancy with that infernal, eternal boy. 

The Disney version ends where my story begins.

True inspiration struck belatedly (as usual), and I wrote an entirely new prologue for the US edition. However, that first paragraph remains intact as the first words James Hook "speaks" to the reader as his personal narrative begins—although the rest of the opening chapter surrounding it changed many, many times.

And that's just the way it is. Only after plowing through the entire narrative, with all its drama, humor, and heartbreak, can you possibly understand where your story really begins.

(Above: Russell Brand as Captain Hook, photographed by Annie Liebovitz.)

FRENCH and INDIAN WARS

Epic veggie fail, but Mirren is as tasty as ever

No surprises, but lots to savor in fun foodie film feast Hundred-Foot Journey

If you've seen the preview trailer for The Hundred-Foot Journey, you've seen the movie. If you've seen any foodie film in recent history in which cross-cultural food becomes a metaphor for spicing up life and/or romance—Chef, Chocolat, Babette's Feast, Like Water For Chocolate—you've seen this movie.

Basically, nothing happens here that's not telegraphed in the first fifteen minutes, or so, besides which every major plot twist and punchline has already been revealed in that trailer.

And yet, having said all that, The Hundred-Foot Journey has its easygoing charms. Thoroughly engaging performances are provided by a mixed cast of veterans and newcomers, led by the always sublime Helen Mirren and Indian national treasure Om Puri.

The location is irresistible, a sun-drenched corner of the South of France where an upstart family-run Indian eatery sets up shop across the street from a venerable French restaurant.

And there's plenty of good-looking food (of course), from haute cuisine to vivid massala-spiced Indian dishes to simple French country cooking, presented with enough relish to make it all go down smoothly.

Scripted by Steven Knight from the novel by Richard C. Morais, the film is directed by Lasse Hallstrom.

Fleeing political prising in India, the large and boisterous Kadam family is searching for a new place to put down roots when their decrepit vehicle breaks down in a charming French village. Widower Papa (Puri) buys a large stone farmhouse for the family's next culinary enterprise, with grown son, Hassan (Manish Dayal) in the kitchen.

Charlotte le Bon and Manish Dayal

The only catch? It's right across the road from the elegant one-star Michelin restaurant of Madame Mallory (Mirren). Papa insists the town is big enough for both classical French and traditional Indian food, but a cold war quickly escalates between the two establishments.

Meanwhile, Hassan sparks with Mme. Mallory's young sous chef, Marguerite (the lovely and spirited Charlotte Le Bon), who recognizes in him the soul of a fellow food artist. (Read more in this week's Good Times.)

Are we hungry yet?

DUELING HOOKS

Hugh Jackman, rehearsing for Pan

If only this was Hugh Jackman  in swordfighting rehearsals for Alias Hook! But sadly not. If you read my post on Crossbones, you'll recall that Jackman is playing arch-villain Blackbeard in a new live-action Peter Pan movie, Pan, in production as we speak, to come out from Warner Bros. next summer.

People are finally starting to realize that Captain Hook is everybody's favorite character in the Peter Pan universe. Seriously, who else besides J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, could ever think of that bratty, heartless eternal boy as the hero? These days, we know better.

(Over on Disney's Once Upon A Time, Hook is practically the star of the whole show thanks in no small part to sexy Colin O' Donoghue in the role. But then, Disney is notorious for graverobbing its own past successes in the fairy tale realm to accommodate changing tastes. Just look at Maleficent.)

Colin O'Donoghue, Once Upon At Time

But in the upcoming Pan, it looks like the only way they can think to make a good guy out of Hook is to team him up with Pan against an even more dastardly villain—Blackbeard.

This is not an entirely unprecedented idea. Barrie tells us that James Hook was once "Blackbeard's bosun." So it's not too much of a stretch to imagine the two of them running amok in the Neverland together.

In the Pan version, the boy Peter (to be played by newcomer Levi Miller) is an orphan whisked off to Neverland. He meets James Hook as a young man in Blackbeard's crew, and they become shipmates and allies.

Garrett Hedlund is cast as Hook, most recently seen as Dean Moriarty (the Neal Cassady figure) in On The Road, and John Goodman's mysterious driver in Inside Llewyn Davies. It'll be interesting to see if he can ditch that modern hipster vibe to play Hook.

Apparently, Peter and Hook will be friends at the start of the story. But the badder Blackbeard gets (one assumes), the closer they come to an epic rift as each one has to choose what side he's on. 

Garrett Hedlund: hipster Hook?

I'm not sure if making James Hook the buddy—or even mentor—of little Peter is the best use of such a witty, sardonic, and complex character. And as to the whole idea of Hook as one of Blackbeard's crew? Well, the James Hook in my novel laughs at the crack-brained notion that, rumors aside, he would ever actually sail with Blackbeard —who was a well-known lunatic! Just sayin'...

So, not the way I would (or did) tell the story, but it's good to know Captain Hook and Peter Pan are still going strong in pop culture!

(Notice I'm not even going to mention the upcoming Peter Pan Live TV project, due in December. That's another post...)

Hey, maybe Hugh is playing Blackbeard (instead of Hook) because he's saving himself for the lead in Alias Hook! Well, a girl can dream, can't she...

BUZZY

Alias Hook is now officially "buzzy," according to the current edition of Us Weekly!

 For any two-fisted readers out there who are interested in a twofer, Amazon is now bundling Alias Hook and The Queen of the Tearling at one discounted price. Experience the buzz!

MIRACLE GROW

Actors age in real time in audacious, mesmerizing 'Boyhood'

Remember the 1964 film 7 Up? It was the first in a series of extraordinary documentaries that profiled a classroom of seven-year-old British kids, who were then revisited and filmed by director Michael Apted at seven-year intervals to see how their lives were turning out. (They were 56 in 2012, when Apted last checked in.)

The evolution of lives and stories in real time is not something the movies often do. In fiction films, especially, stories are telescoped into dramatic highlights with actors of various ages playing the same part at different stages of life.

Which is why Richard Linklater's Boyhood is so refreshingly audacious. Linklater had the simple, yet brilliant idea to shoot a scripted film over a period of 12 years, allowing his cast—including his child protagonists—to age naturally onscreen.

Ellar Coltrane (in the central role of Mason) was seven years old when the film started shooting in 2002, and 18 when it wrapped last year. One minute, little Mason is sniggering over a lingerie catalogue with his schoolyard buddies, then he's encountering bullies, experiencing his first fast-food job and the first stirrings of romance, and waxing philosophical about robotic mind control and the meaning of life. Nothing much remarkable occurs as the narrative evolves, but it all feels so achingly true.

Ellar Coltrane grows up before our eyes

 Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette are both excellent as Mason's divorced parents. It sounds like a stunt, but watching these characters grow up before our eyes (including the adults ), makes for a bold, moving, and utterly mesmerizing moviegoing experience. (Read more)

FINDING (MY) NEVERLAND

Want to see what the Neverland looks like? Take a look at my new Pinterest board for Alias Hook!

True, it's a work of fiction. Fantasy, even. But that doesn't mean the Neverland can't be visualized—rife as it is with magical creatures, ecosystems, micro-climates and historical flashbacks.

You can find anything in cyberspace, and I've assembled a pictorial tour of the world of Alias Hook, from the Indian villages, Fairy Dell and mermaid grotto of the Neverland to the Restoration-era origins of James Hook himself.

Although I don't subscribe to the Disney version of the story, I love the flying ship in this marvelous concept sketch for Peter Pan by the gifted artist Mary Blair.

Want to see the 17th Century French harpsichord James Hook plays in his lonely cabin on board his ship, the Jolie Rouge? It's here. Interested in Hook's ornate scarlet coat, or the antique chemise my heroine, Stella, wears in the Neverland? They're on the board.

The Indians—I call them the First Tribes—are a presence throughout my story. The poised young chief, Eagle Heart, can be seen on the board.

So can the interior of the Medicine Lodge where James and Stella spend their last night in the Neverland.

I've been fortunate to discover the work of some excellent artists online who specialize in Native American scenes. This is an image by contemporary artist Howard Terpning, called "White Woman" (the name of the creek in the picture).

But I see it as members of the First Tribes by the Inland Waterway in the forest of Neverland, where the boys and the fairies live.

And what fun would the Neverland be without mermaids? James Hook is initially terrified of the mermaids—he calls them the loreleis—and considers their Mermaid Lagoon the most treacherous place in the Neverland.

Here's an image that communicates the eerie mystery of the Lagoon. I think this is from a turn-of-the-century painted tile, and I just love it! Look at the provocative, Theda Bara expression on the mermaid's face, as she placidly wrings out her hair.

Seductive and sinister—that's the Mermaid Lagoon.

Then, of course, there are the fairies. A great deal of the plot in Alias Hook revolves around fairies getting up to mischief. And speaking of fairies, forget about Tinker Bell.

These fairies work hard, as the keepers of magic in the Neverland, and protectors of the boys. And they play hard at their moonlit Revels in the Fairy Dell.

The Victorians were feverish fairy-painters! Here's a detail from the painting "The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania" by Joseph Noel Paton, completed in 1849.

I love how diverse the fairy population looks in this image—and how much frenzied frivolity is going on.

This is exactly how I picture the Fairy Revels in Alias Hook.

New pins will be going up as time permits (she says hopefully). So please do check it out, and keep checking back.

Enter the mystic portal. Live the dream!

AFTER THE BALL...

Huge and grateful thanks to the wonderful folks at Bookshop Santa Cruz for hosting my reading/signing for Alias Hook last week. It was a blast!

For starters: look at this cool chalkboard sign they posted out front, in the corner between the Chocolate cafe and the front door to BSC. "Santa Cruz's own"—I'm so touched!

Next: scroll down to take a look at some of the fine folk who showed up for this event. That would be YOU, the reading public! Hearty thanks to everyone who came down to cheer me on. Your presence was most appreciated!

Now that I've come back down to terra firma, it's time for practical matters. If you missed the signing, but your interest in Alias Hook has been piqued by the various ramblings and mutterings in this blog, I have glad tidings.

My Blog Tour continues all over the Internets, and there's still time to enter one of several giveaways for a *FREE* copy of the book (in hardcover, yet)!

Visit one (or all) of these sites and try your luck:

Reading Frenzy Giveaway closes July 25.

Cheryl's Book Nook Closes July 27.

A Bookish Affair Closes July 28.

Cocktails and Books Closes July 29.

Let Them Read Books  Closes July 30.

Thanks to these and all of the intrepid book bloggers out there who are helping to spread the word about Alias Hook. Writing a book is a solitary pursuit, but it takes a village to get it into the hands of readers!

LAUNCHED!

The local media blitz for Alias Hook continues!

Even though my book was officially unleashed last Tuesday, the festivities keep on coming.

My interview with Santa Cruz entertainment guru Wallace Baine appeared in The Guide section of the Sentinel on Thursday. (With photos by the great Shmuel Thaler, yet!)

And imagine my delight to see artwork from my little book on The Guide's cover.

This week, I'll take to the airwaves to chat with two of my favorite radio hosts. Tuesday night, July 15, 7 pm, it will be my very great pleasure to be a guest on Bruce Bratton's Universal Grapevine program on KZSC.

The next day, at 8:30 in the morning, I'll be on the air again with the ebullient and charming Rosemary Chalmers on her morning show at KSCO.

Later that same day—actually, the evening of Wednesday, July 16, at 7:30 pm—I'll be reading a couple of (brief) passages from Alias Hook,  attempting to make up plausible answers to your questions, and signing copies of the book at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

(Btw, I went downtown to Bookshop last Tuesday, my publication day, to see if my book was actually on the shelves yet. Was absolutely gobsmacked to find this giant display right by the front door! Of course, I'm such a nerd, I had to capture the moment. For an author, there is nothing like seeing your books in situ, out in the world!)

So if you're out in the world Wednesday night, please do come by the Bookshop and say 'hello.' If you can't make it to the BSC event you can still reserve a signed copy via their website.

And that's just about all I can do to help launch Alias Hook on its way. The rest of Captain James Hook's voyage of conquest is up to him!

TASTY FREEZE

Flawed, but fun 'Snowpiercer' is a hip summer cooler

How's this for an allegory for the human condition? In the post-apocalyptic future, the surviving members of humanity are trapped together in a giant, high-speed train endlessly circling the globe on the ultimate fast-track to nowhere.

That's the story in Snowpiercer, the first English-language film from Korean cult filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, a brooding cautionary tale of social dynamics and environmental suicide dressed in the trappings of a bloody, brawling action thriller.

It's a rather despairing look at the species, and the plot is not exactly airtight, but the director's energy and humor, and some entertaining performances make it worth the ride.

The film is adapted from a three-volume French graphic novel, Le Transperceneige. Set in the aftermath of global environmental collapse, the comic is the perfect, vehicle for filmmaker Bong, who tried to warn us about the catastrophic effects of climate change in his delicious eco-monster movie mash-up The Host.

 

He gets to explore the consequences of our negligence in Snowpiercer, which begins when a botched attempt to halt global warming launches a new ice age and freezes the planet.

All of Earth is reduced to frozen white waste, except for a cross section of people who have boarded a ginormous train driven by a perpetual motion engine on a track that circumvents the entire globe, one revolution per year. The plot itself revolves around a group of rebels led by Chris Evans and Jamie Bell, stuck in steerage in the "Tail" of the train, battling their way forward to the "Head" in search of justice.

Along the way, they release drug-addled engineer Nam (Kang-ho Song, star of The Host) from his cryogenic sleep. Nam is valuable to the rebels because he knows every inch of the train, and Song is invaluable to the film for his hipster sarcasm. (Read more)

HAPPY BOOK DAY!

Unleash the books!

Happy Publication Day to Alias Hook! Today, my little book officially releases in its multiple US editions—hardcover, ebook, Kindle, and audiobook. Sniff, I'm so proud…

Big thanks to the wonderful folks at Thomas Dunne Books who have helped me get this puppy out into the world. Without them, I wouldn't have had a clue what to do.

But look at me now—I'm on a Blog Tour!

Don't worry; I don't expect you to read every guest post and/or interview I've done for these sites. There will NOT be a quiz!  But if you're looking for something new to read, I encourage you to check out some of these book blog/review sites.

Most of them update every couple of days, and the range of interests is wide!

Happy reading to all!


July 1: Icey Books - review

July 1: Sara's Organized Chaos - review

July 3: Passages To the Past – review, excerpt, giveaway

July 5: Harlequin Junkie – excerpt, interview, giveaway

July 7: Upcoming4.me – review, giveaway, original essay, republishing ‘The Story Behind ALIAS HOOK’

July 8: USA Today’s Happy Ever After – round-up of Fairy Tales Revisited

July 8: The Lit Bitch – excerpt, giveaway, review

July 8: A Bookish Affair – review

July 9: Booksie's Blog - review

July 9: No More Grumpy Bookseller– excerpt, giveaway

There'll be bubbles involved later today...

July 9: The Window Seat on a Rainy Day -review

July 10: No More Grumpy Bookseller– review

July 11: Dear Author -review

July 11: Reading Frenzy – interview, giveaway

July 14: She Reads– Picture This – guest post

July 14: Gone Pecan – excerpt, giveaway, review

July 14: Oh Magic Hour - review, interview, giveaway

July 15: A Bookish Affair – interview, giveaway

July 15: Books-n-Kisses— interview, review

July 16: Literary, etc. – excerpt, interview, giveaway

July 17: Let Them Read Books – excerpt, giveaway

July 18: Let Them Read Books – review

July 19: Cheryl's Book Nook – review, excerpt, interview, giveaway

July 21: Mary Gramlich– review, excerpt, interview, giveaway

July 22: Cocktails and Books– review, interview, giveaway

July 23: My Friends Are Fiction – review, interview, giveaway

July 24: Reading the End – review, giveaway

July 28: Reading the Past– interview

July 29: Dark Faerie Tales – review, guest post

APPROACHING LIFT-OFF

It's only a few scant hours before the US edition of Alias Hook officially launches!

My author's copies of the hardcover arrived today, and what a vision they are, sigh! It never gets old, opening up a box like this. Talk about Christmas in July!

Meanwhile, now playing on the Amazon page for Alias Hook is an excerpt from the Audible audiobook—which also releases tomorrow—expertly read by Ralph Lister!

Click on the "Listen" doohickey and prepare to be transported to the Neverland.

A 25-stop Blog Tour is also getting underway as we speak, wherein generous book blog proprietors allow me to flail away in guest posts or answer interview questions, all from the privacy of my own keyboard. Okay, I already do all of that here, but the cool thing is, many of these blogs are hosting giveaways of my book—as in free!

Like Amy Phillips Bruno at her excellent book blog, Passages to the Past. Her Alias Hook giveaway is open until July 13, so check it out!

Okay, all together now: 3...2..1...

AUDIBLE ART

There I was, cruising around on the Internets today, when I stumbled upon this lovely thing.

It's the new cover art for the upcoming audiobook of Alias Hook, and  I think it's pretty cool!

This image has it all—mermaid, fairy, flying boy, pirate ship, and a tropical island. And just a hint of a mysterious female presence—so mysterious, you might have to look twice to see her.

(Not to mention how perfectly color-coded it is to this blog! How did they know?)

The audiobook is releasing on the same day as the US edition, July 8. It will be read by Ralph Lister and it's available for pre-order as we speak as an Audible Audio Edition from Amazon.

Or you can pre-order it from Blackstone Audiobooks.

Sadly, there are no sample audio snippets available, at least, not yet. Guess we'll have to wait until next week!

BLOGS R US

Good Grief, I seem to be all over the blogosphere this week, ranting on about villains, villainy, fairy tales, and Alias Hook.

The Hugo Award-winning sci-fi blogsite, SF Signal, invited me to weigh in on its "Mind Meld" feature of the week. And forget about redemption; this time the topic is Villains We Love to Hate!

A selection of genre authors contribute their ideas on Worst. Villain(s). Ever. Me, I tried to steer clear of the heavy hitters—your Voldemort, your Sauron.

Because in books, as is so often the case in real life, the worst, most egregious villainy is often perpetrated not by the designated evildoers, but by more or less ordinary folks behaving very badly. That's the kind of life-sized villainy that gets me steamed.

Then, just another click away—look, Ma, I'm on Huff Post! Here's a piece I wrote on the fashion for rewriting fairy tales, listing some of my favorites in the genre.

Why do these ancient tales (in which I also include mythology, folklore, even Shakespeare) endure? Because each new generation of bards and storytellers reinvents those tales to keep them vital and current. Times change. Tastes change. One woman's Beast is another woman's Prince.

In this piece, I salute some writers who have dared to retell an old tale from the villain's side of the story. Like Tad Williams' Caliban's Hour. In one fleet, revisionist tale, Williams creates one of the most soulful of modern Beast-heroes!

REDEEMABLE VILLAINS

It's my very great pleasure today to have a guest post up on the excellent speculative fiction blog, Layers of Thought.

My topic is "Top 5 (Redeemable) Villains." Since I've already revealed my soft spot for Captain Hook, I was asked to come up with some other designated villains from fantasy fiction, characters who I think may have gotten a raw deal. Characters who might deserve a chance to tell their side of the story!

Case in point: Circe. Okay, she turned Odysseus' men into pigs. But remember, they were a shipload of strange men of unknown provenance invading her island. And it's not like she killed or enslaved them; they were free to roam around her island in peace, enjoying the fruits of the land.

All they had to give up was the man-like shape that made them war-like. (Get rid of those pesky opposable thumbs, and no more weapons can be grasped!) Besides, she only turned them into swine after they spent a night of gluttony feasting at her table.

Click here to read the rest of the story. Then let me know what villains you would like to see redeemed!

STOKED!

Hey kids, check it out!

It's a real book!

My first copy of the US edition of Alias Hook arrived yesterday (in hardcover, yet), and, seriously,  could a person get any more stoked?

This is only the second time I've ever had a book published in hardcover. And the first one just wasn't the same, since it was only published in German, and I couldn't read it.

But I can read this one. And let me tell you, seeing my words in print—well, it's just indescribable. (Obviously, or else I'd be doing a better job of it!)

And right now, for a limited time only, you have a chance to read Alias Hook too—for free! From now through July 4, there are 10 copies up for grabs via a giveaway on Goodreads. Nothing to buy, no hoops to jump through, just follow this link, sign up and try your luck.

Meanwhile, I'll be reading from Alias Hook, signing books, and generally flailing about at Bookshop Santa Cruz on Wednesday, July 16, 7:30 pm.

I would love to see you there!

LOST and FOUND

Family and history collide in intimate, yet powerful 'Ida'


Who says size matters? At a mere 80 minutes, the Polish film Ida is a small miracle of economic storytelling, emotional complexity and astonishing scope. Co-written and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, it is both an intimate, mostly two-character drama, and an unsparing and unsentimentalized look back on two tumultuous decades of Polish history as told over the course of a few days in the life of a young woman.

It's everything we want a film to be—focused, beautifully composed, surprising, and powerful.

Shot in expressive black-and-white by cinematographers Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal, the film begins within the fortress-like walls of a rural convent. It's about 1962, and Anna (lovely and luminous Agata Trzebuchowska), an 18-year-old novice, is an orphan raised in the convent. She has never known anything else than the orderly routines and obedience of convent life; meals are taken in silence, discipline is strict, and the young novices regularly prostrate themselves on the stone floor of the chapel before their wooden Christ.

Anna is about to take her vows. But before she can, the Mother Superior tells her she must visit her only remaining relative, an aunt she never knew she had who lives in the city.

Aunt Wanda (a superb Agata Kulesza) is a tough, chain-smoking, hard-drinking, middle-aged court judge who sleeps with random men and has little interest in bonding with her niece. But she shows Anna an old photograph of her mother (Wanda's sister), tells the girl that her birth name was Ida—and drops the bombshell that their family was Jewish.

Their family history proves to be a harrowing tale, dating back to the Nazi invasion of Poland, and continuing into the severity of the Communist era. But director Pawlikowski reveals it only in small, potent bits, as the two women set off on an impromptu odyssey, first to the farmhouse where Anna's family once lived, and then on a quest to find her parents' unmarked grave.

Along the way, their fragile alliance is shattered and reformed, painful secrets are told, and a subtle portrait emerges of the troubled legacy left to a younger generation born out of chaos. (Read more)

Every beautifully composed frame film tells its own story.

PIRATES LITE

Hey, I like a good pirate yarn as much as the next girl—and considerably more than most. And a successful pirate series could only bode well for Alias Hook.

But NBC's much ballyhooed Crossbones is sinking fast.


First the good news: it's not aimed at kids. And it doesn't have zombies, which has become distressingly de riguer in the genre since the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

But it doesn't have much in the way of, you know, pirates either. In the opening five minutes or so of the first episodes, pirates board and plunder a ship at sea, but the rest of the action so far has been confined to an island. Sure, plots and counter-plots unfold, but where's the swashbuckling? Where's the yo-ho-ho-ing? Where's the adventure on the high seas?

A tough death to fake

The show's main pirate is Blackbeard, but this is the old rogue in retirement, his trademark mane snowy and neatly coifed and trimmed. (Although he keeps his original moniker, "White Goatee" lacking a little something in oomph.)

I even kind of like the idea that Blackbeard has faked his own death and gone underground to rule his own little pirate island kingdom, unmolested by the Royal Navy.

But anyone who knows her pirate history knows that the real Blackbeard, Edward Teach, died spectacularly in front of numerous witnesses, on board his own ship in a pitched battle with Lt. Robert Maynard. Like Rasputin, he was hard to kill; five pistol balls and twenty sword cuts were found in his body after he finally keeled over, and, for good measure, his head was chopped off and hung from a yard on Maynard's ship.

Dueling Blackbeards: Malkovich

So, not the kind of mystery-shrouded demise from which he might have rolled over with a nod and a wink when no one was looking and slunk away. Even if you go in for the imposter theory, who else but the maniacal Teach could have lasted that long in combat?

Then there’s Blackbeard himself, as played by John Malkovich. He can be a marvelous actor, and he has a swell time gobbling the scenery here, but I don’t think Malkovich would be anybody’s first choice for a swashbuckling pirate—especially not with whatever strange accent he uses here. And especially not the way he spends all his time swanning around the island in a white djellaba instead of out there on the deck of a pirate ship. He has moments of loony menace, but he lacks a certain robustness.

Dueling Blackbeards: Jackman

(As a point of comparison, here's Hugh Jackman in sword training to portray Blackbeard in a new live-action Peter Pan movie coming out next year. (What's Blackbeard doing in a Peter Pan movie? Well, that's another blog.) He looks more piratical in sweats than Malkovich has managed in two hours of screen time so far.)

The wheezy plot revolves around a fancy ship's chronometer en route to London that the pirates steal. The nominal hero is ship's doctor, Tom Lowe (Richard Coyle), who's really a British spy trying to keep the device out of the pirates' clutches, and who becomes Teach's prisoner.

 Coyle works hard and lands the occasional deadpan wisecrack, but—hello!—he's NOT A PIRATE! He's the enemy of the pirates, so what fun is that?

The island is home to the usual scurvy dogs and a surprising collection of nubile women. (Borrowing a page from Game of Thrones, the community boasts its own brothel, but, unlike GoT, everyone keeps their clothes on even in mid-clinch. This is network TV, after all.) But there's not really anyone in the cast worth caring about.

No, wait, I did like one character, the black woman pirate (Tracy Ifeachor) who’s the first to board the king’s ship at the beginning. But she’s quickly relegated to the status of bit player, with only a few lines of dialogue. Too bad. I wish they’d write a story about HER!



Years and years ago, there was a TV show in syndication called Queen of Swords. It was like a female Zorro in old California, an aristocrat’s daughter by day, but a crusading swordswoman for the downtrodden at night.

It was all a load of hooey, but cheeky enough in its silliness to be entertaining. It had a level of pizzazz I fear Crossbones will never attain.

BOOKADAY 1 & 2

I've just discovered the month-long "bookaday" conversation currently rocketing around the blogosphere. Every day in June, us bibliophiles (or "fetishists," as we are known to Kindle devotees) are invited to tell a story about the books in our lives. Who could resist?

Today's topic is Best Bargains. I have an unfair advantage in this category since I reviewed books for the SF Chronicle for 13 years, so I got lots of free stuff. (And they paid me too—what a racket!)

One of my biggest scores was a hardcover, first edition (with dust jacket) of Charles Palliser's debut historical novel, The Quincunx. I knew nothing about Palliser or the book at the time (let alone had I any clue what a "quincunx" is), and no doubt I grumbled lustily about its girth: 781 pages, not counting maps, charts, and family trees. But it turned out to be one of my Favorite. Books. Ever. (Here's my review on Goodreads.)

 Also for review purposes, I once received a massive paperbound galley of Edward Rutherford's first historical novel, Sarum, which I also loved.  (My review was so positive, it was quoted—with my name!—in an ad for the book that ran in The New Yorker.)     

A couple of years later, when Rutherford came to the Capitola Book Cafe, I showed him the ad. (Of course I kept it; it's my only chance to say I've been published in The New Yorker!) And he was gracious enough to sign my well-worn dog-eared galley.

I made out like a bandit the year I went to a Historical Novel Society conference and swapped one of my little paperbacks of The Witch for a spanking new hardcover of Broos Campbell's robust seafaring adventure, The War of Knives.

But one of my best bargains ever came out of the Edward R. Hamilton book catalogue, from which I used to feed my fiction habit way back in the day before I had online access.

This catalogue offered thousands of mostly remaindered books at cheapo prices—but with only a scant sentence or two of description, it was always a crapshoot what you'd get!

But some sort of guardian book angel must have been at work the day I ordered a remaindered hardcover historical novel called Playing The Jack, by an author I'd never heard of, Mary Brown. I wouldn't have spent more than about three or four bucks on it, and probably less, but I took a chance—and fell madly in love.

To this day, I will rhapsodize about this book to ANYONE not speedy enough to get away!

(PS: Since I came in a day late to this conversation, I missed yesterday's topic, Favorite Book(s) from Childhood. But, aha! Here's a blog I recently posted on that very subject!)

FAIRY EXCHANGE

Sleeping Beauty villainess tells her side of the story in Maleficent

For 40 years, feminists have complained about the sanitized fairy tales force-fed to little girls in Disney cartoons—the ones that promise a handsome prince and true love's kiss. And over the last couple of years, the Mouse House seems to be getting a clue. (Well, better late than never...) Brave featured an independent-minded princess who didn't get (or need) a prince. In last year's mega-hit Frozen, an ironic plot reversal was built around the (mistaken) notion of true love's kiss.

Times and tastes change, of course. Kick-ass heroines (the very phrase is already a cliche), in the Katniss Everdeen mode, are all the rage in the YA fantasy market—to which all little pink Disney Princess fans graduate soon enough. And it probably made a difference that the above Disney films were largely conceived, as well as co-written and co-directed, by women—Brenda Chapman and Jennifer Lee, respectively.

For Maleficent, the studio turns over scriptwriting duties to one of its most accomplished players, Linda Woolverton, who wrote (among other things) Disney's fabulous Beauty and the Beast, and its live-action Alice In Wonderland. It's Woolverton's task to blithely rewrite the vintage Disney Princess cartoon, Sleeping Beauty—or at least provide a bracketing story around events in the earlier movie that pretty much changes everything.

Not your ordinary fairy wings.

This time, the story is told from the viewpoint of the so-called evil fairy, Maleficent, formerly the designated villain. It's an audacious idea, and a nod to the trend for rehabilitated villains, a la Wicked (not to mention Alias Hook).

And while the narrative stumbles now and then, Maleficent is often a savvy and entertaining live-action revision. With the formidable Angelina Jolie in the title role, we get a character who is both deliciously wicked (when she needs to be) and surprisingly, believably tender as her side of the story plays out.

Disney's original, in all her wicked glory.

In this version, we meet Maleficent as a young fairy (Isobelle Molloy) growing up blissfully happy in the moors, a verdant haven for all manner of magical CGI critters adjacent to a kingdom of humans. For some reason never explained, Maleficent is blessed with majestic hawk-like wings as tall as she is, which enable her to tumble around joyously in the sky, but also to swoop down on anyone or anything that threatens her precious moors.

As a child, she befriends a human boy, Stefan, who strays into the Moors one day. They become close friends—until the day, years later, that he betrays her. It's not simply that his love isn't true enough, but as a grown man (now played by Sharlto Copley), driven by ambition to inherit the kingdom, he commits an act so heinous and horrifying against Maleficent, it hardens her heart and sets her on the road to villainy.

The symbolic weight of this action for female viewers cannot be overestimated, and it ground's Maleficent's psyche in something much deeper and more primal than an unhappy romance.

When her former friend becomes King Stefan, and he and his queen celebrate the birth of their daughter, Aurora, Maleficent crashes the party and delivers her famous curse: on her sixteenth birthday, Aurora will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a trance-like sleep from which she will never waken.

This is the "familiar" part of the story, except things don't play out the way we expect in Woolverton's clever script. Not to give away the best surprises, but Aurora, raised in secret by three fairies in a cottage in the wood, grows up a wild child, beloved by all the woodland creatures. Including, gradually, Maleficent herself—whom Aurora calls her fairy godmother.

When Aurora (now played by the dewy Elle Fanning) nears her sixteenth birthday, Maleficent actually tries to revoke her curse, but can't. Ironically, the only possible escape clause is "true love's kiss"—which Maleficent believes does not exist.

The film marks the directing debut of visual effects wizard and production designer Robert Stromberg (Oscar-winning art director on Avatar and Alice In Wonderland). The effects are sophisticated, especially the transformations of Maleficent's shape-shifting crow familiar (nicely played by Sam Riley in human form). Also cunning is the way the faces of actresses Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville, and Juno Temple are morphed onto tiny winged bodies as the guardian fairies—although too much time is wasted on their slapstick Three Stoogettes routines when they switch to human size.

Something to crow about: Sam Riley and Jolie.

In an earlier scene, there's something ugly, gratuitous, and out-of-character in the savage way winged Maleficent keeps diving into the fray when an invading army attacks the moors—especially since giant bog creatures of trees, rock, and mud seem perfectly capable of defending themselves.

Short shrift is also given to the story's central motif, the death-like sleep into which Aurora falls when the curse is fulfilled. Her sleep is usually shown to cast a pall of tragedy over the realm; in some versions of the tale, the entire kingdom likewise falls asleep for a hundred years.

Here, she's only asleep for about five minutes of screen time before the apparent rescuer(s) start parading in. I love how the notion of what does (and does not) constitute "true love" is handled in this sequence; still, waking the princess from a nap doesn't have quite the same dramatic urgency.

But despite these missteps, the film's fresh ideas (including its notion of who the real Sleeping Beauty is) help this radical retake cast a certain spell.