Films of 2012

[Gillianren]

Then why do people love Coen noirs? In those, the noir heroes are nearly always stupid.

Do you consider Fargo to be a Coen noir? I do. I further consider Margie to be the hero of it, and I think the Coens (and the Academy!) agree with me. And she isn't stupid. Not anything like. In The Man Who Wasn't There, a much more classic noir, Billy Bob Thornton's character isn't stupid so much as out of sync. He's making intelligent decisions with the caveat that there's something else wrong with them. Barton Fink is just in Hollywood, a completely different culture from the one with which he is acquainted. Golden Age Hollywood at that, which gives him expectations which are directly in conflict with the reality--he thinks that, since they pay so much lip-service to having skilled writers, they'll actually want the kinds of things those people write. And my review of Miller's Crossing (I've only seen it once and wanted to double-check my impressions of it) suggests that the Coens themselves aren't sure what's going on half the time. And most of the rest of their work doesn't count as noir.

19 months ago.

I knew it was some time ago, but I couldn't remember quite how long. And it is an answer to the question as to why it's not eligible for Best Animated Feature.

[parallaxicality]

I think if we are going to classify anyone in Fargo as a noir hero then the best fit, for my money, is Jerry Lundergaard. And he is stupid in the extreme. And however smart Margie may have been, she couldn't save anyone. Burn After Reading has its share of idiots as well, and I'm sorry, but if you're willing to blackmail a violent man and place the few remaining shreds of your marriage on the block because some shyster you just met fed you a schpiel about drycleaning then by any definition you are stupid stupid stupid.

I knew it was some time ago, but I couldn't remember quite how long. And it is an answer to the question as to why it's not eligible for Best Animated Feature.

Spirited Away won in 2002, even though it was released in 2001. So I think Arrietty may have a berth this year. Which is sad, because now it's up against Brave, Frankenweenie and ParaNorman. It should have gotten a token release this year, when its stiffest competition would have been Rango.

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters has been moved foreward to 2013, so I removed it from the lead.

[Gillianren]

Burn After Reading isn't noir. By any definition I'd consider reasonable. Yes, everyone in it is stupid, which is part of why it's not one of my favourites, but it doesn't support a discussion of how people in noir are stupid. I also don't see the point to limiting a discussion of noir to the Coens, because one of the things they like doing is playing with genre conventions. I think a better place to start would be where I started, with The Maltese Falcon. Or perhaps with Double Indemnity, where Fred MacMurray isn't stupid per se, just not smart enough to realize that you should never trust Barbara Stanwyck. (Seriously. It's like a law or something.) Perhaps I should add a requirement that everyone in noir, be they villain or ostensible hero, has to have at least one blind spot which influences their actions for the worse.

As to the Academy . . . I wish they'd play by their own rules. Being released in 2001 makes Spirited Away ineligible for nomination in 2002 by Academy rules, but there are all kinds of movies which have violated what ought to be the simplest one, the rule about calendar years.

[parallaxicality]

UK

Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls: I was beginning to think our video saturated age had rendered the documentary obsolete; there were no topics left to compete with the 24-7 carnival of augmented reality. And yet, here are twin lesbian yodelling Kiwi comedians to remind me that not all wells of human difference have been tapped. At times, this trailer resembles an unaired episode of Flight of the Conchords.

Ek Deewana Tha: A R Rahman gets top billing for this rather conventional Bollywood sopper. Good looking cast though.

Hadewijch : A woman kicked out of a convent for being too religious finds solace among Muslim suicide bombers. Drunk and squinting from a distance, that idea almost makes sense.

ID:A: Danish Bourne wannabe.

Position Among the Stars : Documentary follows the lives of a family living in the slums of Jakarta.

A Woman in the Fifth: Noir-ish Anglo-French hybrid with Kristin Scott Thomas as a femme fatale and Ethan Hawke apparently playing Brad from The Rocky Horror Show. After Leaving I was prepared to write Scott Thomas off, but she shows she can do icy and inscrutable admirably here.

[parallaxicality]

New rule: No more Bollywood. It just gets in the way.

For the week of Friday, 24 February:

US:


Tomorrow, When The War Began: This movie’s been getting flack for feeding into current Aussie xenophobia about Asian invasion. Still, it’s the most popular upcoming US release, so that message obviously translates well. Wonder how this bodes for the Red Dawn remake?

Wanderlust: Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd join a hippie commune. Not much else to say really. The script doesn’t take this in any unique or truly surprising directions.

Conception: Nine different couples each conceive a child under very different circumstances. One night stand, longtime couple, lesbians, and… er... kids. There seems to be a tendency in US comedy to try and make jokes out of situations that are not particularly funny. Unprotected teenage sex is not, by itself, all that funny, I have to say.

Act of Valor: This movie’s big gimmick is that it was filmed using actual Navy SEALS and crewmen. That means of course, that it’s not likely to include a trenchant critique of the American war machine. From the trailer, this feels like the highest-resolution video game I’ve ever seen, not that that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Gone: Amanda Seyfried just may be the most beautiful woman alive right now; whether she can actually act is still an open question; one this trailer doesn’t answer. The story (lone girl goes after serial killer no one else believes exists) has been done before in various forms, and given that there are only two possible outcomes (she’s right or she’s wrong) there’s not much suspense to build.

Good Deeds: Tyler Perry makes another movie. I’m glad he seems to be moving beyond his Medea schtick, and this sets a nicely optimistic tone in cynical times, though you could argue it’s just being hypocritical; “You gotta be tough, you gotta be cool, you gotta be stronger…, or have a rich guy give you a free apartment.

Black Butterflies: Reverent-looking biopic of Ingrid Junger, “The Sylvia Plath of Apartheid South Africa”, a time and place that would have had Sylvia piling on the pebbles before she could walk. The cast includes some Dutch heavy hitters, including Carise Van Houten and Rutger Hauer.

Footnote: A father and son, both named Professor Shkolnik, come to blows when the father accidentally receives a prize his son was meant to get. The trailer nicely balances humour and the darker undercurrents of longstanding family rivalry.

God’s Country: I think this is meant to be one of those movies where a smug city slicker goes out to the country to teach those yokels some civilisation, but then goes native and fights for their freedom. Kinda like Dances With Wolves or Avatar. But to be honest, I didn’t really see what so great about their way of life. Maybe I’m just not Godly enough.

Neon Flesh: Apparently, getting involved with prostitution is a bad thing. I wouldn’t have guessed. Trailer is somewhat fleshy, as you’d expect.

Raising Renee: Documentary about an artist who takes on the care of a mentally disabled relative. As can be expected, things don’t turn out all roses and sunshine.

The Forgiveness of Blood : stark drama set in Albania, where disputes are still settled the Old Way. Somehow, the complex web of retribution and allegiance forces two kids to stay indoors for six years. A rare look inside a place still regarded as the most lawless in Europe.

Unicorn City: Movie about LARPing. I’m a bit of a fantasist, but I’ve never seen the point of LARPing. For me, there are two worlds, reality and the rest, and if I ever tried to mix the two, the reality would just keep getting in the way.

[HenrikOlsen]

Unicorn City: Movie about LARPing. I’m a bit of a fantasist, but I’ve never seen the point of LARPing. For me, there are two worlds, reality and the rest, and if I ever tried to mix the two, the reality would just keep getting in the way.

Keeping them apart is part of the skill, LARP'ing isn't about mixing reality and fantasy, it's about taking a short visit to fantasy land.

It does look like the trailer's about someone who fails to do that separation.

[SeanF]

Act of Valor: This movie’s big gimmick is that it was filmed using actual Navy SEALS and crewmen. That means of course, that it’s not likely to include a trenchant critique of the American war machine.

And that's a sad thing, isn't it? I mean, wouldn't it be nice if Hollywood would just once make a movie that's at least somewhat critical of the US military?

[Gillianren]

Tomorrow, When The War Began: This movie’s been getting flack for feeding into current Aussie xenophobia about Asian invasion. Still, it’s the most popular upcoming US release, so that message obviously translates well. Wonder how this bodes for the Red Dawn remake?

I read the book, and I suspect badly. Then again, the fact that the Red Dawn remake has had something like three postponements so far doesn't bode well all on its own.

Conception: Nine different couples each conceive a child under very different circumstances. One night stand, longtime couple, lesbians, and… er... kids. There seems to be a tendency in US comedy to try and make jokes out of situations that are not particularly funny. Unprotected teenage sex is not, by itself, all that funny, I have to say.

No, though I think funny things can be said about it. (My problem with Juno was not that she was a teenager!) Still, I'll pass.

Gone: Amanda Seyfried just may be the most beautiful woman alive right now; whether she can actually act is still an open question; one this trailer doesn’t answer. The story (lone girl goes after serial killer no one else believes exists) has been done before in various forms, and given that there are only two possible outcomes (she’s right or she’s wrong) there’s not much suspense to build.

I saw Chloe and the first season of Big Love. I think she can act.

God’s Country: I think this is meant to be one of those movies where a smug city slicker goes out to the country to teach those yokels some civilisation, but then goes native and fights for their freedom. Kinda like Dances With Wolves or Avatar. But to be honest, I didn’t really see what so great about their way of life. Maybe I’m just not Godly enough.

I frequently feel I could do without the life which ends up being defended. There seems to be an assumption that we should all be living the same way, and the way the city slicker lives is always wrong. There's never a "good" way to live in cities, in these movies. It's one of the reasons I don't watch most of them.

Unicorn City: Movie about LARPing. I’m a bit of a fantasist, but I’ve never seen the point of LARPing. For me, there are two worlds, reality and the rest, and if I ever tried to mix the two, the reality would just keep getting in the way.

I have a lot of friends who LARP, to the point that, when I got a documentary about it from the library, I was waiting to see which of my friends were in it. Given that it was filmed about ten miles south of me. Unfortunately, that movie will not help you understand, but the friend of mine who was in it for fifteen minutes or better can explain why he does it. It's just that Monster Camp doesn't really care. But the short version is that it's the grown-up version of playing Let's Pretend, and because you are a grown-up, you can have better props and things than when you were five.

[parallaxicality]

You would have to pay me, literally, to dissect the dreary shadowplays on offer this week. So instead, here's the Frankenweenie trailer:

Looks sweet

And finally, a decent look at ParaNorman

[whimsyfree]

May as well start early, as I have no idea when I’ll be able to update this. I’ll try and do at least one update a month until June, when I’ll be free of school and looking for gainful employment.

John Carter: Stay with me; I have a LOT to say about this one. Do you know when a John Carter movie was first mooted? 1931. That’s right. This movie has been in development hell for 80 years. I think there’s a reason for that. When Burroughs wrote his John Carter novels, the tropes he established (burly men in loincloths rescuing buxom naked princesses from alien monsters and moustache-twirling villains) were, if not new, then at least new to the sci-fi genre. Now, after the camp of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, the misogyny of Gor, the inanity of He-Man and the ego-fuelled implosion of the Star Wars prequels, it has degenerated beyond cliché into something worse; something rotten; perhaps, thanks to the efforts of the form’s greatest corruptor, L Ron Hubbard, even something evil. John Carter’s legacy is that no matter how many warnings it imparts, or futures it predicts; no matter how many George Orwells, Aldous Huxleys, Margaret Atwoods and Arthur C Clarkes may come along to redeem it, science fiction will never be taken seriously. As such, I fail to see the point in attempting to take these tropes back to their origins; they are quite simply beyond redemption, and I think audiences will know that, even if not consciously.

John Carter is fantasy. That's what you do with sci-fi that embarrasses you: call it fantasy. "burly men in loincloths rescuing buxom naked princesses from alien monsters and moustache-twirling villains" sounds like Conan the Barbarian. No-one calls that science fiction, even though he's from Cimmeria, which is a place on Mars.

[Gillianren]

That's not where I make the distinction; to me, John Carter is clearly science fiction.

[parallaxicality]

I think you can make a distinction if the scifi veers so far from the explicable it ceases to earn the title. Much of Star Wars would fall into this category.

Not to break up the conversation, but I was going to post an interesting little contrast:

The Japanese trailer for "Brave" . . . compared with the most recent US trailer


I think I can safely assume that Disney believes the Japanese are more intelligent than we are.

[Jim]

I think you can make a distinction if the scifi veers so far from the explicable it ceases to earn the title. ...

And how far is that? You could make an argument that Star Trek veers into the inexplicable. Or Blade Runner. Dune, absolutely.

[tnjrp]

John Carter is fantasy. That's what you do with sci-fi that embarrasses you: call it fantasy

It is true that some people use the term "fantasy" as pejorative. I know I do, occasionally

However, obviously there is no clear distinction between scifi and fantasy, you can always find works that don't fit either category very well, no matter how you define them. Then there is a subset of "yous" who are willing to argue at length that "science fiction" doesn't even exist, no matter how you define it. But that aside, I think the Barsoom books and other "sword & planet" stories are typically classified as "science fantasy" since ca. 1950's - they are ostensibly science fiction, offering quasiscientific explanations and utilizing technology instead of just saying "it's magic", but there is no particular attempt at scientific rigour and they feel more like fantasies than science fiction.

Anyway, I think we can start to label John Carter the movie as a critical stinker by now, even if it doesn't tank at the BO (these issues aren't related, and in this case the audiences* seem to be on the forgiving side compared to the critics):
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/john_carter/

---

*) even some fairly notable people seem to like it a lot, including the veteran spefi author Michael Moorcock:
http://www.multiverse.org/fora/showp...&postcount=122

[parallaxicality]

And how far is that? You could make an argument that Star Trek veers into the inexplicable. Or Blade Runner. Dune, absolutely.

Dune definitely fits the bill as science fantasy, but I think it was always meant to be. Blade Runner's genetic engineered slaves seem closer to reality now then when the movie was made, and Star Trek's only real concession to fantasy is warp drive (and maybe the holodeck, on occasion)

Anyway, I think we can start to label John Carter the movie as a critical stinker by now, even if it doesn't tank at the BO (these issues aren't related, and in this case the audiences* seem to be on the forgiving side compared to the critics):

I think people feel forgiving simply because John Carter formed the basis of so much they love, like Star Wars and He-Man. Certainly the fanboy sites are hyping it up. Even I would have given it a chance if they'd bothered to actually make Mars red.

[SeanF]

Dune definitely fits the bill as science fantasy, but I think it was always meant to be. Blade Runner's genetic engineered slaves seem closer to reality now then when the movie was made, and Star Trek's only real concession to fantasy is warp drive (and maybe the holodeck, on occasion)

Huh. I think I would've put the transporter as a greater concession to fantasy than either warp drive or the holodeck.

[parallaxicality]

Heh. That's what the Heisenberg compensators are for!

[HenrikOlsen]

. . . , and Star Trek's only real concession to fantasy is warp drive (and maybe the holodeck, on occasion)

And the psionics of the Vulcans et al.
And basically any episode written by Brannon & Braga.

[Gillianren]

Dune definitely fits the bill as science fantasy, but I think it was always meant to be. Blade Runner's genetic engineered slaves seem closer to reality now then when the movie was made, and Star Trek's only real concession to fantasy is warp drive (and maybe the holodeck, on occasion)

While I do think the "science fiction" versus "science fantasy" distinction is an important one, and have used it regarding Star Wars many times, I still hold them all distinct from just plain old fantasy. (Except on my bookshelves, where I don't divide the genres. Because it would mean shelving Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul in different categories.) And I don't consider either to be a perjorative, myself.

I think people feel forgiving simply because John Carter formed the basis of so much they love, like Star Wars and He-Man. Certainly the fanboy sites are hyping it up. Even I would have given it a chance if they'd bothered to actually make Mars red.

Roger said it's very good at what it's trying to be most of the time, which is an endorsement if you think it is, I suppose. He also says it's lucky for the character that Mars has air he can breathe and a temperature high enough so he doesn't need a shirt most of the time.

[whimsyfree]

Dune definitely fits the bill as science fantasy, but I think it was always meant to be. Blade Runner's genetic engineered slaves seem closer to reality now then when the movie was made, and Star Trek's only real concession to fantasy is warp drive (and maybe the holodeck, on occasion)

I was never a regular watcher but one episode I surfed by made the remarkable claim that as an astronomical objects collapses, so do the orbits around it. I'm not sure if that's science fantasy or just science ignorance.

I think people feel forgiving simply because John Carter formed the basis of so much they love, like Star Wars and He-Man. Certainly the fanboy sites are hyping it up. Even I would have given it a chance if they'd bothered to actually make Mars red.

JC still sounds a lot like Conan except it's set on Mars whereas Conan is set in a mythic terrestrial past. JC is an immortal who travels to Mars by astral projection when his earthly body dies. There a new body appears for him. I don't see much concession to science there.

While I do think the "science fiction" versus "science fantasy" distinction is an important one, and have used it regarding Star Wars many times, I still hold them all distinct from just plain old fantasy. (Except on my bookshelves, where I don't divide the genres. Because it would mean shelving Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul in different categories.) And I don't consider either to be a perjorative, myself.

I don't really appreciate the term "science fantasy". If it's science fiction without the science, wouldn't it just be fiction?

[Gillianren]

But science fantasy does operate on a premise that what's happening is scientific. It's just that the science might as well be magic for all its basis in reality.

[Van Rijn]

I use the term "science fiction" to describe stories where the science or technology is an important part of the story, often the central issue of the story, even if it is make-believe science or technology (FTL drives, for instance). I use the term "science fantasy" to describe stories where science is used as a trapping to justify the fantasy, but is essentially irrelevant. For instance, midi-chlorians. Pure fantasy doesn't bother with a science justification.

[Paul Beardsley]

I was never a regular watcher but one episode I surfed by made the remarkable claim that as an astronomical objects collapses, so do the orbits around it. I'm not sure if that's science fantasy or just science ignorance.

Definitely the latter.

JC still sounds a lot like Conan except it's set on Mars whereas Conan is set in a mythic terrestrial past. JC is an immortal who travels to Mars by astral projection when his earthly body dies. There a new body appears for him. I don't see much concession to science there.

It's just a means of getting him there. Once on Mars, this stuff is barely mentioned. It's not so different to stories in which someone gives a handwaved explanation for a faster than light drive. We the readers know that you can't travel to another star system and back (with an adventure in between) and still be recognised by your pet dog when you get home. However, sometimes we want to be entertained by an adventure that focuses on the planetary adventure part, but which ignores the implications of relativity.

A more serious criticism of ERB is that he ignored new scientific findings about Mars including those that would have made his stories more interesting. (I only read about this - I can't actually cite any examples.)

I don't really appreciate the term "science fantasy". If it's science fiction without the science, wouldn't it just be fiction?

Science fantasy takes the assumption that future or distant civilisations will invent things based on scientific or technological principles that we cannot guess at - which is probably true! For instance, we are not aware of any principle that enables light to be solidified into a metre-long cutting beam. In Star Wars, it's assumed that there is such a principle, and it's been mastered and long ago taken for granted - so much so that nobody even bothers to wonder how it works, it's enough to see what it does. To my mind that's a perfectly acceptable example of science fantasy.

By contrast, there is no attempt at justification in the Harry Potter books for the Mirror of Erised. We are simply told it works by magic - and that too is perfectly acceptable.

But the Star Trek example you gave is not acceptable. Anybody watching Star Trek because they are interested in space travel (which is probably quite a lot of people) will know that the danger to the Enterprise crew is bogus, and that makes for bad story telling.

[parallaxicality]

For the week of Friday, 9 March:

John Carter: Can’t really think of anything more I can add to the conversation so here’s a ten-minute clip.

The Decoy Bride: The sort of movie you wouldn’t expect Kelly MacDonald to still be making after No Country For Old Men. Plot is so hackneyed I feel no need to exposit it here.

Cleanskin: Sean Bean finally gets to use his real accent, even if he’s still playing a riff on Sharpe. Nice to see Charlotte Rampling earning her crust, but the trailer has all the moral ambiguity and thematic complexity as an episode of 24.


US:

Friends With Kids: Two words guys: artificial insemination.

A Thousand Words: Liar Liar ripoff in which Eddie Murphy can only speak 1000 words before he dies. If this were real life, I’d give him 30 seconds.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen: Given that the guy who wrote this also wrote Slumdog Millionaire, there’s a chance this movie may be less sappy than the trailer. I can only hope, because in the current climate setting a benignly imperialist sappy romcom in the Yemen is spectacularly ill-timed.

Silent House: remake of a Uruguayan frightflick that, like Rope was done (apparently) in one long unbroken take. Elizabeth Olsen appears to be crowning herself a scream queen. You’d think she’d have more options, but OK.

Playback: Really guys? A Ring ripoff? Given that the only people likely to see this are people who liked Ring, you’re kinda shooting yourself in the foot there, don’t you think? And is it too late to mourn for Christian Slater’s career? Or was that lost cause years ago?

Jiro Dreams Of Sushi : Top sushi chefs attain a mastery of the blade akin to samurai, so to be declared the best sushi chef in Japan is a state somewhere below demigodhood. This is a documentary, but it follows in the tradition of DimSum, Tampopo and Eat Drink Man Woman in selling the sheer deliciousness of Oriental cuisine.

A Drummer’s Dream: Drumming is another art in which true masters attain a level of skill akin to magic. While this is not my world, I can appreciate great skill when I see it.

Bending the Rules: Oh goody. A movie starring Jamie Kennedy and a wrestler.

Good For Nothing: rather odd Western about a romance between a useless drifter and an English lady

Shakespeare High: Documentary about a southern California high school drama program. Why do people insist on performing Shakespeare in RP? Shakespeare didn’t speak RP.

The Sound of Noise: Comedy about a bunch of weirdos who commit acts of “musical terrorism”.

[Gillianren]

John Carter: Can’t really think of anything more I can add to the conversation so here’s a ten-minute clip.

We're making noises about seeing it, but now that Graham's back in school, it would have to be on a weekend.

Friends With Kids: Two words guys: artificial insemination.

Things like that apparently don't exist in fiction unless it's supposed to be part of the joke. As in, they're never even discussed unless that's what the movie is about.

A Thousand Words: Liar Liar ripoff in which Eddie Murphy can only speak 1000 words before he dies. If this were real life, I’d give him 30 seconds.

Speaking of mourning for people's careers. I have a friend who insists he should now only be allowed to voice animated animals. He actually was good in Dreamgirls, but then he made Norbit and reminded us of why we don't care.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen: Given that the guy who wrote this also wrote Slumdog Millionaire, there’s a chance this movie may be less sappy than the trailer. I can only hope, because in the current climate setting a benignly imperialist sappy romcom in the Yemen is spectacularly ill-timed.

I think I saw the trailer three times during my frenzy of pre-Oscar movie-going. Not once it did inspire me with much interest in the movie.

Silent House: remake of a Uruguayan frightflick that, like Rope was done (apparently) in one long unbroken take. Elizabeth Olsen appears to be crowning herself a scream queen. You’d think she’d have more options, but OK.

I've always figured movies like that must be filmed in substantially less time than regular movies. Yes, you'd still go through it a few times, but it's faster to go through the whole thing a few times than each individual bit, given all the work involved in changing sets and cameras and costumes and things.

Playback: Really guys? A Ring ripoff? Given that the only people likely to see this are people who liked Ring, you’re kinda shooting yourself in the foot there, don’t you think? And is it too late to mourn for Christian Slater’s career? Or was that lost cause years ago?

Oh, I still mourn for it. Then again, I'm pretty much exactly the demographic he appealed to, once upon a time.

A Drummer’s Dream: Drumming is another art in which true masters attain a level of skill akin to magic. While this is not my world, I can appreciate great skill when I see it.

Oh, I can appreciate skill at drumming. I've known some very skilled drummers in my day; I'm still in touch with several of them. (Or back in touch, I suppose.) But as a classically trained musician, I can only take drumming so seriously.

Shakespeare High: Documentary about a southern California high school drama program. Why do people insist on performing Shakespeare in RP? Shakespeare didn’t speak RP.

Because people don't know that. The thought process is that Shakespeare is the ultimate example of High Class British, and therefore, he must have spoken the way High Class British people do now. The fact that he wasn't born into that class and the fact that accents have shifted over the last four hundred years is more information than the average American has. Besides, I've read that his accent was likely closer to an Appalachian one, and that would be a little jarring even if it were accurate.

[parallaxicality]

Because people don't know that. The thought process is that Shakespeare is the ultimate example of High Class British, and therefore, he must have spoken the way High Class British people do now. The fact that he wasn't born into that class and the fact that accents have shifted over the last four hundred years is more information than the average American has. Besides, I've read that his accent was likely closer to an Appalachian one, and that would be a little jarring even if it were accurate.

Well to be fair the BBC and the RSC are just as guilty, if not more so. Poshness has always been the route to the Bard, and it's truer now than it has ever been. Most of the British dreamboats making waves today (Benedict Camberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Eddie Redmayne, Damien Lewis et. al.) went to Eton.

[HenrikOlsen]

Oh, I can appreciate skill at drumming. I've known some very skilled drummers in my day; I'm still in touch with several of them. (Or back in touch, I suppose.) But as a classically trained musician, I can only take drumming so seriously.

As opposed to percussionists?

Who also make music by hitting things with sticks, but tend to be able to hit a wider range of things.

[DonM435]

I haven't seen John Carter yet, but I'm delighted to hear that the producers did not relocate ther story away from Mars, nor update the period to the present, nor scale down the Green Martians. I hope that they retained a reasonable amount of the original plot as well.

I read the books when I was about nine years old, in my Dad's dusty old editions, as these had not been reprinted in a long time. I didn't scoff at the science until the eighth volume (Swords of Mars) wherein Carter visits Thuria, the greater moon. Burroughs acknowledges how small the world (a.k.a. Phobos) really is, but invokes some bizarre scientific reality principle to have Carter proprtionately reduced in size so as to have s full-sized world of adventure and menace.

Now, that was going too far! Didn't stop me from reading the rest of the series several times, though.

[Gillianren]

Well to be fair the BBC and the RSC are just as guilty, if not more so. Poshness has always been the route to the Bard, and it's truer now than it has ever been. Most of the British dreamboats making waves today (Benedict Camberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Eddie Redmayne, Damien Lewis et. al.) went to Eton.

Well, I'm also perfectly okay with "I perform Shakespeare with this accent because this is my accent." Patrick Stewart, for example.

As opposed to percussionists?

Who also make music by hitting things with sticks, but tend to be able to hit a wider range of things.

Yeah, we still called 'em drummers in the orchestras I've been in. Then again, I play viola, so what do I know?

[Jim]

... JC is an immortal who travels to Mars by astral projection when his earthly body dies. There a new body appears for him. ...

Just to pick a nit, his body doesn't die, it goes into a trance-like state... suspended animation... stasis. This allows him to return to it periodically, although in later books, he learns how to do it without returning to his body.