The Serene Wombles

Today marks one year since my very first post on this here writing and review site. And what a year it has been! Me with the reviewing, you with the sometimes reading my reviews. Not to mention the occasional paid writing success, the publication of my labour of love analysing the end of The Dark Tower, the completion of my novella, and so many other things. For the first couple of months this blog averaged six views a day, now it averages sixty-two, and around 1,800 views a month. It’s still an itty-bitty blog spewing into the ether, but it’s reassuring to know that some of you found something interesting in what I had to say.

Anyway, in celebration of ISotHM’s birthday, I’ve decided to cap off the year by handing out some meaningless awards: The Serene Wombles!*.

Eligibility for a Serene Womble in conferred by being the subject of a review in the past year. There may have been better or more worthy things that came out this year, but if I didn’t find them relevant to my interests, or if I simply didn’t have the time to review them, they won’t be eligible for a Serene Womble. I make no pretense that these awards are significant or important in any way, but I enjoy having the opportunity to praise and draw attention to things I have loved.

The Serene Wombles are divided into two categories, those that apply to recent releases, and special Time Travelling Wombles for the most awesome things in my Reviewing Through the Time Machine posts. The division between the former and the latter may at times seem arbitrary – why should a film that came out in 2009 count as a recent release, whilst a TV Show that ended in 2009 requires a time machine? It’ll always be a judgement call, and the judgement will have been made on a case-by-case basis at the time of reviewing. Sometimes I use a time machine for my reviews because I want to review something that came out in 1939, sometimes because I want to review something more recent that’s out of print, or because it’s a TV show that’s been cancelled. A show that was cancelled in 2009 therefore seems different to me than a film that was in the cinema in 2009, but may have only recently reached my eyes. At the end of the day, these are not the Oscars, they’re the highlights from a blog, and are therefore subject to my whim.

Let’s get started!

The Serene Womble for Best Film: Captain America: The First Avenger
Eligible Films: Moon, X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern, Possession, Captain America: The First Avenger
There was some stiff and not so stiff competition in this category, but nevertheless, a clear winner. Moon was aesthetically pleasing, but a bit slow, and short on female characters and ethnic minorities. X-men: First Class was exciting and joyful, but deeply problematic in its representation of women and non-white people. Captain America was a fast-paced joy from start to finish that dealt expertly with its subject matter turning out something nuanced and impressive from a premise that could have been uncomfortably ‘all-American’ and patriotic. I’m very happy to award the first Serene Womble for Best Film to the First Avenger.

The Serene Womble for Best TV Show Game of Thrones
Eligible TV Shows: Misfits, Dirk Gently, Outcasts, Being Human (US), 10 O’clock Live, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Torchwood: Miracle Day.
Will this be a surprise or not? I don’t know. I’ve done a lot of squeeing and cheerleading for several TV shows over the past year. If I wanted to split this into fiction and non-fiction I’d be able to reward 10 O’clock Live the way I want to, but then it would be the only one in its category. If you’d asked me half a year ago, I’d have said Misfits without a doubt. It’s very close, and I’d love to reward Misfits for its originality and indie-quirkiness. If I were judging on its first series it would have won hands down. I didn’t feel the second series was quite as strong throughout, though, and whilst I still loved it, A Game of Thrones wins in terms of groundbreaking TV for this year, bringing epic fantasy to hugely successful, internationally acclaimed television in a way I don’t think has been done before. Perhaps the closest previous offering would have been BBC miniseries such as Gormenghast and the 1980s Chronicles of Narnia, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen epic fantasy produced on such an international scale that was as sexual and violent and true to its source material. It also offered roles like that of Tyrion Lannister to the superb Peter Dinklage, allowing him to shine in a way that’s rarely possible in the sort of roles usually offered to actors with dwarfism. It was stonkingly well-cast all round as well as being a visually stunning and gripping adaptation of a beloved fantasy series.

The Serene Womble for Best Actor Eve Myles for her portrayal of Gwen Cooper in Torchwood: Miracle Day
Eligible actors: too many to mention. This category is open to any actor in any recent production that I’ve reviewed in the past year – film, TV, radio, podcast, whatever. I’ve also made the decision not to distinguish on gender. It’s not something I really understand in this day an age. It’s not like sport, where physical differences might mean that men won over women disproportionately often. All that matters for this category is the acting. Having said that, maybe Eve Myles will be a controversial choice. You all know I supported Peter Dinklage for his Emmy, and his contribution to Game of Thrones certainly added to its win for TV show, but Eve Myles wins hands down, for me. I was blown away by her acting in Torchwood: Miracle Day. Any previous series of Torchwood? No, she wouldn’t have had a chance. I never really liked Gwen, before, but Eve Myles brought it this series, and she deserves recognition for a consistently shining performance on all different levels.

The Serene Womble for Best Novel Jumper, by Steven Gould
Eligible novels: A Dance with Dragons, by George R R Martin; Witch Week, by Diana Wynne Jones; Charmed Life, by Diana Wynne Jones; Hexwood, by Diana Wynne Jones; The Dragon Keeper, by Robin Hobb; Dark Lord of Derkholm, by Diana Wynne Jones; Jumper, by Steven Gould; Reflex, by Steven Gould; Jumper: Griffin’s Story, by Steven Gould; I, Zombie, by Al Ewing.
This was probably the hardest category to judge. So many entries, so many good books. It was particularly complicated by the whole Time Machine issue – unlike film and TV books can remain ‘current’ for a long time, and, for the most part, I only put them in the Time Machine category if they’re out of print (at least in the UK, where I live) or otherwise over-looked. So new books like I, Zombie are up against classics like Hexwood. This was further complicated because I reviewed some books before I introduced the Reviewing Through the Time Machine category of posting, and, what’s more, I reviewed a whole bunch of Steven Gould books in one post, two of which are out of print where I live, but three of which aren’t. Helm and Wild Side I had to order second-hand as ex-library books from the US, whereas Jumper, Reflex, and Jumper: Griffin’s Story I bought new. Give me some slack, I’d only been doing this blog 20 days by that point. Anyway, I decided to resolve this by saying that the three Steven Goulds I bought new belong in the ‘recent’ category, whilst the others will go in the Time Machine one. Once I decided this, my life became much easier.

I, Zombie was astoundingly original and tickled me, personally, but it has an odd break in the middle where it almost becomes another book and starts following a character much less appealing than the main character. Very close to winning, but not quite. Hexwood is a classic and one of my all time favourites – a got-to comfort book. It’s more cohesive than I, Zombie, and just as original, in its own way, but it’s also of a very similar mould to a lot of other Diana Wynne Jones books, with the strong female character who falls in love with a broken-yet-powerful charismatic and enigmatic man. In all honesty I would have felt I’d slighted one or the other if I’d had to choose between them. Jumper, on the other hand, is simply excellent. Tight and fast-paced, but full of interesting and engaging characters. This is the best superhero novel I’ve ever read, and much more interesting and original than most superhero plots full-stop. If only the film had been closer to the book! It’s got everything, as well as hitting some of my particular happy buttons, such as an expert handling of secret-identity angst.

The Serene Womble for Best Podcast The History of Philosophy Without any Gaps

Eligible podcasts: The History of Philosophy Without any Gaps and Marco and the Red Granny
Only two entries in this one. I’ve mentioned more podcasts in passing, but these were the only two I reviewed. I was torn. I sort of felt like I should choose Marco and the Red Granny simply because it is an SF story, and the general purpose of this blog is to review SF/F/Spec Fic. But I also review stuff if I love it really hard, and The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps is well worth your time. Ultimately, I felt that although the ideas are bright and original, the pacing for Marco and the Red Granny was uneven and the central character a little difficult to engage with. I still think it’s a great podcast and think Hub are awesome for experimenting with the field of podcasting for longer fiction, but The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps won out. Hard to compare two podcasts of such different genres, but the latter is polished, entertaining, and informative.

Peter Adamson has a smooth and engaging podcasting voice. He’s also an expert in his field, and he brings in other experts to supplement his accounts and offer alternate view points. This podcast is pitched at just the right level – accessible for the interested layman but also informative for the experienced philosopher or historian. I’ve taught Ancient Philosophy, and I felt it really filled out my existing knowledge. This is great easy listening for the lady or gent on the go, looking for a bit of ear candy on the way to work, or down the allotment. You’ll drift in and out of an ancient world, feeling soothed and entertained, and you’ll actually come away having learnt something, as well. Of course, it’s not the same as reading the texts themselves, but I’m sure you’re all aware that there are more books worthy of your attention than anyone could read in lifetime. Let Peter Adamson do some of the work for you.

The Time Traveling Wombles

The Time Traveling Womble for Best Film Mr Smith Goes to Washington
(Embedding has been disabled for this clip, but you can go watch it here. Please note that this is the climax of the film, and as such both very famous and spoilerific. It contains nothing I didn’t know before watching the film for the first time, but if you want to avoid spoilers this is the clip I linked to in my original review.)

Eligible Films: Silent Running, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Bell, Book, and Candle
In a year when politics and big business has been prominently in the news, where a lot of people have felt the rich have been squeezing the poor, where democracy has sprung from revolution and here in the UK we debated and voted on voting reform, Mr Smith Goes to Washington held a particular relevance. 1939 to 2011, the issues are still the same. I was watching it in my bedroom with tears rolling down my face. I’d seen it before and known the plot long before I saw it, but it didn’t matter. ‘Filibuster’ is nearly synonymous with the above scene, to me. Maybe it doesn’t have quite the same familiarity with non-US audiences – I have a slight trans-Atlantic background, and it can make it difficult for me to judge these things – but people everywhere should watch this film. If they remade it now, it wouldn’t be as good, but if they released it now, it would still be relevant. Sometimes a classic seems ponderous and clichéd when viewed through modern eyes, but this one isn’t weighed down with its worthiness. It’s funny and moving and electrifying. It’s also quietly feminist in a way a few modern films could learn from. Clarissa Saunders is an icon to be envied – probably the brightest, most savvy person in Washington, embittered by politics, but still willing to hope when prodded by Mr Smith’s naïve enthusiasm. And this is 1939, folks!

Make time for this film. If there’s only one film I recommend that you go and watch, make it this one. It will reward you.

The Time Traveling Womble for Best Actor James Stewart
Eligible actors: again, too many. Anyone who acted in any of the productions I reviewed through my time machine. Jean Arthur and Lee Pace are honourable mentions, as are Kristin Chenoweth and Kim Novak, but there was really no contest. When Jimmy Stewart brings his game to town he’s incandescent, and there’s no denying that he’s on fire in Mr Smith Goes to Washington. And I’m not just talking about the filibuster scenes where he’s all sweaty and hoarse, for which he supposedly swabbed his throat with mercury. I’m talking about the quiet naïvety and straight played simplicity that makes his earlier scenes a delight as well. Well done, Jimmy. Not that you need praise from the likes of me to go with your Oscars and 80 odd years of critical acclaim. I hope that we’re still singing your praises long after I’m gone, too. A stunning performance, simply stunning. Can’t think of when I last went to the cinema and saw a performance like that.

The Time Traveling Womble for Best TV Show Pushing Daisies
Eligible TV Shows: Pushing Daisies
OK, so it was the only one in its category, but it still would have won. I did have plans to review other TV Shows, but time got away from me. My description from the review is still true: ‘The most beautiful, funny, poignant, stylish, and original television show ever to get axed.’ I still ache inside over the fact that there were only two seasons, and both were only half as long as a proper season, due to the writers’ strike and the cancellation. If I had one credit to spend on giving one cancelled TV Show the time it deserved… well, I don’t know, it would be a very tough competition between this and Firefly. It’s that level of originality and quality. If you haven’t seen it, do so, now!

(Incidentally, Brian Fuller is still my top choice to make a Chrestomanci TV series. Lee Pace would make an ace Chrestomanci/Christopher Chant. Just think about it – a quirky show with magic and style, Lee Pace in exquisitely cut formal wear. Brian Fuller, hear my prayer…)

The Time Traveling Womble for Best Novel The Wolf Within
Eligible novels: Helm, by Steven Gould; Wild Side by Steven Gould; The Silver City, by Pamela Belle; The Wolf Within, by Pamela Belle.
One of my favourite novels. This book is just awesome for the secret identity angst, pushing all my buttons. It just goes to show that it isn’t always a mistake to jump into the middle of a trilogy. This is the second book of the Silver City trilogy, but, although I enjoyed the first book, the second is a tighter, more swiftly paced, more deeply characterised novel. The first couple of chapters are a little awkward, but once it gets going this is a book that grabs you and won’t let go. Credit should also be given for the range of different cultures, mix of races, and positive depictions of women and gay characters. In all cases the characters are fully rounded and not simply there to make for diversity. If only there were more books like this.

And last, but by no means least:

The People’s Choice Award Torchwood: Miracle Day
Perhaps the most arbitrary of all the awards, this is the one you voted for with your feet. The selection for this award is based solely on the review post with the single largest number of hits. Until a few days ago it was Doctor Who, ‘A Good Man Goes to War’. I assumed it still would be until I checked just now. That post is still the one with the largest number of hits in a single day (210), but Torchwood: Miracle Day, has hedged into the lead with (at time of posting) 446 hits to 434.

What does this signify? Who knows. Attention could mean love or hate, although I imagine I would have received more trolling if it were hate. Would the number of hits for all my ADwD posts add up to more if I put them together? Maybe, but let’s not forget that this was just the first post out of several for Torchwood as well, and I’m not sure it would be right to pit multiple posts against single reviews. You might suppose that this is also unfair on my more recent posts, having had more time to garner hits, but given that this beats my most popular Misfits post from last autumn by 162, I think it legitimately says something regarding what you guys enjoyed reading about.

Thanks again for staying with me through the year and helping me build this blog into something worth both my while and yours. It’s been fun!

*I use ‘womble’ here in the sense that derives from gaming speak, i.e. a combat womble is a character maxed for combat skills – they might have strength, dexterity, and constitution at 18, but wisdom and intelligence scores of 6. I therefore figure that someone who had maxed for happiness would be a serenity womble. No copyright infringement is intended for The Wombles, which are cute, rubbish collecting rodents.

Captain America: The First Avenger

I know I owe you guys another Read Along with Rhube, but I can’t keep it inside any longer: this film was so good. All the squee I had for X-Men: First Class, plus some more, with none of the race and gender issues. If you haven’t already seen this film in the cinema, do it now.

Plot:

Somewhere in the present day Arctic circle a mysterious and oddly shaped plane is uncovered.

Somewhere in Norway, in 1942, Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) and his team of Nazis invade what looks like a monastery to steal a mysterious artifact.

In lots of places around New York at the same time Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a short, skinny man with asthma, is getting rejected from the military again and again. Steve is a nice guy who never backs away from a fight, wants to do his duty, and is mysteriously unable to get women. He’s ‘Hollywood Homely’, in other words – i.e. he’s actually not a dickhead and he’s still really good-looking, but because he’s going to become an enormous stud-muffin we have to pretend for a bit that he can’t get women.

Anyway. On a double-date with his successful military friend, Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Steve is effectively ignored by the friend of Bucky’s date he’s supposed to be with. So he goes off to try and enlist again, as you do. Bucky realises he’s missing and catches up to go ‘WTF, man, we’re on a date!’ and whilst Steve is going on about how much he wants to help the war effort, Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) overhears, and decides to help Rogers enlist by getting him into his special program.

Rogers doesn’t know what Erskine has planned, but when in training test after test reveals that Steve is both smart and a nice guy, Erskine decides that this is his man. During the testing period, Steve also meets Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) and the awesome Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). Despite his supposed dweebiness, Peggy seems to quite like Steve – probably because she’s neither blind nor an idiot, and he’s blatantly a really nice guy.

So, Steve is chosen for Erskine’s experiment and gets turned into the massive stud-muffin we all expected from the trailers. Unfortunately, a spy for Schmidt somehow got into the room, kills Erskine, and manages to destroy all the serum in the process. It seems that Schmidt was an early experiment of Erskine’s, but because Schmidt was a Bad Man, the serum only made him worse (apparently working on the same theory as ‘only bad witches are ugly’). Rather than an army of supermen, the US now has only Steve, and the program is cancelled. Steve becomes little more than a mascot, ‘Captain America’, shipped around the country with dancing-girls to promote the war effort.

Unsurprisingly, when he’s sent abroad to entertain the troops he’s rather less well received by men who have been fighting and dying in the field whilst he’s been prancing around on stage. As this was never what Steve wanted to do when he was trying to join the army, he’s pretty depressed by this. When he learns that a large number of men, including his friend Bucky, have been captured by Schmidt, Steve decides he can’t sit back and do nothing anymore. With Peggy’s help, he sets off on a one man mission to save the day… and succeeds.

After this success the army sits up and takes notice of him again, and agrees that he can head a team to launch an attack on Schmidt and his organisaton, Hydra, which has broken off from the main Nazi party. Because everyone now agrees that Captain America is properly awesome, Steve is allowed to choose his own men. Of course, he chooses Bucky, as well as a pleasingly mixed race crew of men he freed from Schmidt’s base.

The rest, I’ll leave to your imagination.

How good was it?

This film was so good it was practically erotic. I never really fancied Chris Evans before, but, umm, yeah. Forget whatever rom-com you were thinking of – if you want a date night movie, take your lady/man to see this. Adrenaline + hardbodies = win.

And let’s just give a shout-out to the special effects crew. Watching the trailers I was genuinely curious about whether they used one man or two for their weedy-dude to stud-muffin transformation. It was Chris Evans throughout. The only draw-back was that the voice was slightly off throughout the weedy-Steve scenes. I wouldn’t have thought it mattered, but you could tell it was the voice of a man with a much bigger chest, and it was distracting – not least because I was trying to figure out whether this was a dubbing or effects issue, because I didn’t know if it was the same actor or not. Hopefully I have freed some of you from this by letting you know what I did not.

Apart from the effects and the phaw, though, this was a thoroughly excellent movie throughout. If you’d told me two years ago that Captain America would be up there with my favourite superhero movies of all time I would have been extremely sceptical. This was probably the movie I was looking forward to least of all the Avengers movies. I always thought Captain America was the most ridiculous and least appealing of all superheroes. Sounds like a big, butch, ‘isn’t America wonderful and patriarchal’ vehicle. He also had the dorkiest of all superhero costumes – running around with a freakin’ flag on his chest. Of course, Captain America was originally designed as a propaganda device, so it’s really unsurprising that that’s how he was, but updating him into something plausible and entertaining for the twenty-first century was going to be a real challenge.

And they achieved it. They really did. I gather from my more comics-informed cinema-going companion, Lee Harris, that the weedy-dude underdog aspect wasn’t a part of the original story, which makes it a really smart trick for the movie. This is what saves the picture and transforms it. Instead of taking a jock and just making him more jock-like and launching him on the world to enforce American values, they gave us an everyman figure who’s just a fundamentally nice guy who wants to do his bit in any way he can. He can still go forth as an ideological symbol, but it’s a subtle shift that makes him much more palatable. I also liked the fact that he’s chosen because Erskine, who is not American, identifies with the values that Steve holds dear – not as American values, but as a universal marker of decency. He likes Steve not because he’s ‘All American’ but because he doesn’t like bullies, and because he’s prepared to fight bullies even if he knows he doesn’t have a hope in Hell. It opens the figure out for the rest of the world to make him their own, which is a really difficult thing to do for a character called Captain America.

I also adore Peggy Carter. There’s not a lot of room, in the setting, for believable strong female characters, but they pull it off in a way that X-men: First Class, which had much more room for maneuver, did not entirely succeed. Peggy doesn’t need to be super-powered to kick-ass. She just shows herself to be calm, determined, and a phenomenal shot. When Steve knocks her out of the way of the car Schmidt’s spy is driving at her it’s pretty clear that she actually would have had the bugger if Steve hadn’t got in her way. No martial arts or super-strength required for this lady to kick-ass. What’s more, there were female agents working in the war. There weren’t as many as the men, not by a long shot, but it’s entirely plausible that a character such as Peggy would exist.

I also liked the racial diversity of Captain America’s team. Up until that point in the film my one big reservation was how white it was. I still think the general crowd scenes and the recruitment offices could have been a bit more mixed, but it was awesome to see that Steve selected an African-American and an Asian-American amongst those for his elite team. I gather that this actually reflects the comics, too, which is rockin’, but I also enjoy the treatment of them in the film. Granted, it probably glosses over the racial tensions such a decision probably would have aroused, but this is a long film with a lot going on – it wouldn’t have been possible to cover this in any depth anyway. Plus, there’s an extent to which it’s nice to have non-white people join a group of heroes and have it not be made a fuss of. They’re just the dudes Steve recognised as being awesome. They’re not exceptional for being black or asian, they’re exceptional as people. After what happened to the black and latina characters in X-men: First Class, it was something of a relief.

Overall, this is a truly well-constructed, fast-paced, and engaging action movie that not only treats its source material with respect, but updates it for the tastes of the modern audience. The love story is nice, but under-stated. Steve Rogers is a thoroughly likeable character. I like what it does for race and gender. I’m slightly annoyed with the ‘being bad makes you ugly’ angle (and the implication that only beautiful people are good), but I’m not sure there was a great deal they could do about that without ditching the Red Skull/Schmidt character completely. This film has an absolutely fantastic cast, and they are all bringing it to the table with both wit and poignancy. The special effects are great, and so is the cinematography.

I can’t wait for the Avengers movie – I want more Captain America now.

(P.S. you definitely need to stay after the credits. It’s AWESOME.)