I believe that the greatest danger to genre fiction nowadays is not the denial of respect from some notional group of literary tastemakers but the very real likelihood that sf/f may become respectable. Those who thirst for the foamy gray poison of respectability should consider the fate of jazz, once a popular medium, now respectable, ossified and ignored.
– James Enge

Why Science Fiction Authors Can’t Win via Bowing to the future

Just watched Dead Like Me: Life After Death on Netflix. It’s amazing. I highly recommend it to anyone who ever liked the show.

From “Stephen Sondheim and Frank Rich at Avery Fisher Hall”

…directors feel they can improve a show. They have such contempt for the authors. We (the authors) know what we?re doing and they don?t. It?s contemptuous of them.

Eh, I respectfully disagree. But I have strong feelings on the place of Authorial Intent. I also think he’s picking and choosing, as earlier he compares the role of mama Rose to Hamlet, and feels that there’s lots of room for different interpretations. Apparently, an actor bringing something new to a role is ok, but not so much for a director?

“They painted the lily. They painted it really well, but it’s painted.” In other words, “Pygmalion” did not need to be rewritten into “My Fair Lady.”

YES! Absolutely :) I found the musical first and thought it quite nice, but was utterly blown away when I read Shaw’s original. And he had a much better ending.

‘Green Grow The Lilacs’ is a very bleak play about homosexuality. Would you get that from ‘Oklahoma!’? I don’t think so.” Rich then noted, “from some productions!”

My junior high class put on an Oklahoma production with… subtext. (At least, that’s how I saw it.) For my money, that’s the way it *should* be played. Was a bit put off to see the movie afterwords and find no subtext in it at all. (But that’s 50’s movie musicals for you.)

Silly Novelists – I guess wish fulfillment via purple prose isn’t such a new thing. :)

I’m finally getting around to watching the remake of The Lion in Winter with Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close. I’m halfway though and it’s phenomenal. That’s tough for me to say. I know (and adore) the original backwards and forwards the way some folks know Shakespeare. My family and friends have been known to quote it at the drop of a hat.

So, the history geek in me is nit picking the props (the mail isn’t riveted, but that’s a stone bitch to produce and expensive as hell besides) and intrigued by some of the costuming choices (vaguely eastern look for Louis and Elinore – makes some sense when you think about the impact of the second crusade).

Alais’s accent seems to meander though most of Europe at different points, but she’s *beautiful* and carries off her delivery with a lot less pouting than Jane Merrow, so I’ll forgive it. A younger Jonathan Rhys Meyers is playing Phillip, and looks very feminine compared to how he swaggers about on the set of The Tudors. Actually, they’re playing Phillip a lot softer and less intense and seething than I’m used to, but it seems to be working. (She says halfway though the movie. We haven’t yet gotten to the scene with the tapestries)

The production values and cinematography are beautiful – incredibly lush when compared to what the crew of the ‘68 production had to work with. (yay for technological progress)

The cast seems to work best with the quiet scenes – the big blustery arguments aren’t working as well for me, but that might just be dissonance in my own head from being so familiar with O’Toole’s scene chewing. Actually, they’re making my least favorite scenes (Richard and Elanor in the garden, for example) really *work*. I never quite believed Anthony Hopkins’s Richard in his quieter moments, though he never had any problem matching O’Toole in the fights.

They’re still playing John as an imbecile, but that’s a fault in the text itself. (He was a better ruler than Richard, in many ways, but got a serving of some of history’s worst PR) I believe all three sons as damaged children here, as well as ambitious princes, and I believe Henry and Elanor as deeply flawed and regretful parents, as well as rulers. In total, I think all the new performances are more nuanced, and very interesting in and of themselves – not just as a contrast to the original.

And I must mention that Patrick Stewart looks damm sexy, and Andrew Howard (Richard) has some amazing blue eyes. (Like, in some lights I’m almost thinking Fremen blue.)