A Cinderella Christmas

This one isn’t about writing, but it is about women in a creative field.

Emma Rigby (shout out to those Hollyoaks fans - which I’m really not, but I liked her in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland) is Angie, a woman who runs a successful catering business belonging to her uncle. The problem is that she shares business with a lazy, gold digging cousin Candace and she won’t be able to get full control until Candace is married. This is Candace’s rule and their uncle has no clue that Angie does all of the work. Also, I’m fairly certain they live in the Matthews house from Boy Meets World.

They cater a party for the wealthy businessman, Nikolaus Karmichael (according to imdb that’s how it’s spelled), who desperately wants to run his family company his own way or start his own company with his inheritance. However, he can’t have control of his inheritance until he’s married. I know, it all sounds like the film takes place in 1904, but it’s supposed to be 2016. Anyway, Candace suffers from a facial peel mishap and can’t attend the Christmas function as a guest (Nikolaus invited her for some reason), so Angie of course goes in secret because it’s a masked ball! Always with the masked balls. I do like the game they place at the ball where attendees bring a stocking with items related to their personality. The anonymous stockings are hung on a tree to be picked out by other people and then they have to match who they belong to. Naturally, Angie and Nikolaus choose each other’s stockings and hit it off, only for Angie to run back to the kitchens before the unmasking.

All of this is hinted at being the mastermind of Zelda, a dress shop owner in town played by Mindy Cohn. You know, Natalie, from the Facts of Life. Mrs. Garrett must’ve taught her to butt her nose into people’s loves lives.

The ball happens in the first thirty minutes of the film, which was a nice touch instead of dragging out the abuse she’s suffering from her cousin. Oh wait, now we have to fill up the other hour of the film with Nikolaus’s gross marriage proposal. That’s right, he does the actual fairy tale thing and proposes to the woman the Christmas stocking belongs to. He hires Angie and Candace to plan a Christmas Eve wedding in hopes that his mystery woman shows up.

Angie discovers that Nikolaus drives her nuts and agrees to trick him into thinking that Candace was her at the ball. Of course, this is Candace’s plan and she tries to behave like Angie leading up to the wedding. And so the story turns into Cyrano. Candace wears an earpiece on her dates with Nikolaus and Angie feeds her what to say while realizing he’s not such a bad guy. He also starts to realize that Angie is the one he gets along with and worries about Candace’s type A behavior. And thank the Hallmark Christmas movie gods that Nikolaus is not a complete moron. He figures out with almost thirty minutes left of the story that Angie is who he met, but is upset that she cares so little for him that’s she’d let him marry Candace. That’s a legit upset.

SPOILERS!

Angie’s friends, who are barely in the film, turn on Candace’s microphone so everyone at the wedding hears her and Angie argue about the business and Nikolaus. Nikolaus (who doesn’t hear any of this) tests Candace by proclaiming that he will give up her inheritance and calls off the wedding based on her negative reaction. His mom than tells him that he’s earned his inheritance without getting married because he’s shown maturity. Apparently, she let’s him help run a multi-million dollar company, yet does not trust him to spend his own money. Angie’s uncle also apologizes because he feels like her and Candace constantly lying to him makes him a bad father. They are two grown-ass women! You aren’t responsible for their actions, man. Candace also gives Angie a bullshit apology of being jealous of her. Then Nikolaus shows up and he and Angie go to be young, hot entrepreneurs together. The end.

Things that were super annoying in this made-for-cable Cinderella holly, jolly schlock were Emma Rigby’s American accent, the use of Christmas phrases as swear words, and the over sentimentally of the dialogue. What I loved besides the stocking game - Angie quotes Oscar Wilde.

Love Actually: Movies about Writining

Unless you are five or living under a rock, you know the movie Love Actually. But just in case - it’s several relationship stories revolving around Christmas most of which aren’t the healthiest (you know it’s true). Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy writer Richard Curtis’s stuff a lot of the time (Vincent and the Doctor is one of the best historic episodes of Doctor Who ever written), but this was more fun than it was practical. The best romantic love story in it is the couple who work as body doubles for filming sex scenes.

But that’s not the story I’m focusing on in this short holiday blog. Colin Firth plays Jamie, a thriller author who finds out his girlfriend is cheating on him with his brother. Instead of sorting out the drama, he escapes to France for a writing retreat. Already healthy. We’re doing well. A Portuguese woman named Aurelia (Lucia Moniz) is hired to keep house for him while he works. Despite them not speaking each other’s language they fall in love and he proposes. Yes. He proposes to a woman who doesn’t understand him! I’m not sure how that works outside of arranged royal marriages of the 1100 to 1700s.

Anyway, she does take an interest in his book after half of the pages fly away into the local pond. This is because he writes on a typewriter and (as they both point out with annoyance) he doesn’t make copies. All I think of is the first book I tried to write on a floppy disk which got corrupted. It’s fine. I’ve since rewritten the book 10 times. I should really finish it one of these days.

The Holiday: Movies about Writing

I’ll keep this one short. The Holiday is a film by Nancy Meyers about two women who switch houses and lives for the holidays. Cameron Diaz’s character is Amanda, a trailer editor whose boyfriend cheated on her. Kate Winslet’s character Iris and her brother Graham (Jude Law) are a newspaper columnist and book editor respectively whose parents are also in the writing industry. Beloved unto me, Jack Black rounds out the cast as Miles, a film composer who befriends and potentially dates Iris. Amanda and Graham start dating too and discussing his work and family but . . . I like Iris’s plot better so let’s focus on that.

First, there is Iris’s toxic relationship with her ex, Jasper, played by he who does not smile, Rufus Sewell. Despite breaking up and him being engaged to someone else, they still work together and he relies on Iris to be his support and editor. He even sends her pages from his book while she’s on vacation TO GET AWAY FROM HIM. This is a douche writer who no-one should want to be like. That having been said, you know he’s probably a very successful author. The douches always are.

The positive relationship Iris finds (besides Miles) is also with a writer and it’s my favorite part of the movie. Eli Wallach plays Arthur who wrote screenplays during the golden age of Hollywood. He and Iris instantly bond and she finds out about his life and late wife, Marion, who he based all of his female heroes on. Arthur says Marion had gumption, something he want Iris work on so she can move on from Jasper. He recommends movie after movie to her featuring some of the best written leading ladies - Stanwyck, Russell, Bacall, etc. He tells her to be “the leading lady of her own life” which is a great line.

P.S. Why do Graham’s kids say they never have grown-up ladies visit them? What is Aunt Iris? A penguin?

A Christmas Memory: Movies about Writing (Copy)

Netflix. You need to learn to think for yourself. But no. You keep canceling some of your best shows in favor of spending money on Hallmark holiday ripoffs. Luckily, there’s still some class on streaming.

I found the 1997 version of A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote on Kanopy. Eric Lloyd (from the Santa Clause) plays young Capote in the form of Buddy who is excited for “fruitcake season” with his best friend/ spinster cousin Sook (Patty Duke). They send the cakes to everyone including F.D.R. For several years, Buddy has lived with the Southern cousins Sook, Callie, Seabone, and Jennie (Piper Laurie) (as well as a dog named Queenie and visits from a Cherokee housekeeper named Anna and a neighbor girl named Rachel - not Harper Lee, or is it, I’m not sure). Other than Sook, the cousins make snide comments make about his mother back in New York and his absentee father. Jennie worries that Buddy is not going up to be “a man” since he spends all of his time with Sook.

Despite the protests from the other three cousins, Jennie is determined to send Buddy away to military school. Still, Buddy and Sook go through their Christmas adventures of tree chopping, gift delivering, kite flying, and visiting bootleggers. In the end, Buddy is still sent away in hopes that the military school will give him a better education. It gives Sook opportunities to stand up to Jennie and both she and Buddy grow up a little. It’s kinda dark for a Christmas story.

I did also watch the 1966 version narrated by Capote himself which includes more of his fantastic descriptions, but depicts the Native bootlegger talks in broken English like a reject from a 1950s western. Buddy doesn’t go to military school on screen in that one either, just in an epilogue.

By the way, I know Truman Capote did go to military school, but I don’t know if the cousins sent him or his mother did. Either way, there is mention of Buddy’s future as a writer. He gives a notebook and pencil to Rachel so she can write down tall tales she tells about her family. And everyone talks about how they’ll miss hearing his “little stories”. And those little stories would someday be about them.

A Thanksgiving Visitor: Movies about Writing (Copy)

Although this is not about writing, it is based on Truman Capote’s happy childhood memories staying with his “spinster cousin”, a woman in her 60s named Miss Sook (Geraldine Page). Young Capote is called Buddy (Michael Kearney) in these childhood tales while adult Capote in all of his lispy glory narrates.

Buddy is being horribly bullied by a classmate named Odd Henderson (I’m not kidding, that his name). Miss Sook is the only person in the household who understands that academic Buddy does not know how to fight back against a bully like the other cousins want him to (yes, everyone else in the house keeps telling him to punch this kid back - oh, the good ole’ days). As a more progressive adult, Miss Sook then invites Odd Henderson to Thanksgiving dinner.

There are other childhood traumas such as one of the cousins trying to force Buddy to kill a turkey and jealousy over attentions of a pretty young female cousin. Hey, Truman Capote could have been curious about pretty girls as a child.

SPOILER ALERT: Of course, a drama occurs when Buddy sees Odd steal Miss Sook’s cameo. Buddy tries to reveal the theft in front of everyone at dinner and Miss Sook tries to cover for Odd because she states that “two wrongs don’t make a right”. Buddy humiliating Odd didn’t help the situation. However, Odd does return the cameo when Miss Sook lies that the cameo was not missing.

Miss Sook is clearly an inspiration for a writer’s voice. The way she talks is very poetic yet simplistic. She is also a woman trapped in a family who does not understand her and dreams of leaving for a new life. But a single woman in Great Depression South is not a person able to escape those with small minds. Of course, the cameo she planned to sell for her freedom was worthless and she never has the heart to tell Buddy.

To Kill a Mockingbird: Movies about Writing

I know, know. Technically, this movie isn’t about writing or Truman Capote - TECHNICALLY - so I’ll keep this short.

If you don’t know, To Kill a Mockingbird is the award winning 1962 film based on the novel by Harper Lee (her only novel published with her consent - you hear me, Go Set a Watchman people)! In case you didn’t have to read the book in high school or watch the movie in film class, it’s a from the point-of-view of Scout. Scout is a lawyer’s daughter living in Great Depression Alabama. She is telling the tale of the big moments of her childhood including when she and her brother Jem tried to make friends their mysterious neighbor and her father defended a Black man wrongly accused of assaulting a white woman.

The book/film is presented like a memoir, with and unseen adult Scout narrating over the top of each change in season or introduction to a crucial moment. Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) is the perfect father in so many eyes, however no more than in his daughter’s. I do get chills throughout this movie at the little moments. Still, you see it differently at different times of your own life, especially when one is viewing racism, the justice system, gender roles, and parental roles. As a screenplay, the adult Scout only gives you snippets of her own feelings, choosing to show instead of tell (as they constantly tell you to do in writing class).

The book is loosely based on author Harper Lee’s own childhood where she witnessed racism and discontent in her own hometown. Scout’s next door neighbor during summer vacations is Dill, a talkative and awkward little boy. Lee’s next door neighbor as a child was Truman Capote, a talkative and awkward little boy. Capote supposedly used to call the pair of them the “apart people”, because other children didn’t always get along with the two bookworms. They had a lifelong friendship that needs to be stated before I can continue these blogs because in talking about Capote, I’m going to be talking about Lee a lot too.

Truman Capote Theme: Movies about Writing

Most of the next few months I will be writing about films about or by Truman Capote (off and on). Why Capote, you may ask? Because I want an excuse to watch Murder by Death. But Murder by Death has nothing to do with Capote as a person or writer, you say. Shut up - I say.

I will probably pause this theme for some other upcoming events/seasons, but you get the idea.

Also, I did watch the new season of Feud, but I planned out these blogs before that - I swear.

Character Study - Hollywood and Ghosts (Copy)

For this first list, I'm mainly looking at a couple of ghost films. There's a reason for this. Keep reading and you'll see. Also, I only picked films that as a writer I could also recommend watching for character study reasons.

Hollywood and the history of film in general has a strange relationship with ghost stories. Today we think of ghosts falling into the genre of horror with box office and critical successes like The Conjuring, the Others, and the Sixth Sense. But it was not always like this. 

Ghosts in silent and early talking film were usually comedies. The spirits were slapstick foibles meant to be an excuse for the hero to do silly double takes. This continued into the 1930s and 40s where witty ghosts humorously tortured the only human who could see them such as in the Topper films.

The other type of early ghost films would be more serious mysteries or dramas where the ghost turned out to be a living man in a mask. Think Scooby Doo where the owner of the abandoned amusement park actually kills people. There were naturally some exceptions, but most of those were not from the United States, for example Swedish film The Phantom Carriage (1921) which inspired Ingmar Bergman and Stanley Kubrick to be creepy.

So what changed ghosts from being comic fodder and murderers in masks? In 1941 Irish author Dorothy Macardle published Uneasy Freehold, an atmospheric and eerie ghost story that sold extremely well. Three years later it was made into a film under the U.S. title, The Uninvited. It’s the story of a brother and sister, Ray Miland and Ruth Hussey, purchasing a gorgeous house atop an English cliff. In doing so, they get to know Stella (Gail Russell), the daughter of the people who built the house. She is drawn to the house, even in adulthood, and the new owners must solve a mystery to save her life. 

But this is a character study and I promised you ghosts. What makes The Uninvited a shift in the genre was the way it handled its ghosts - one who cries and one who brings the cold. I don’t want to give away the mystery, but let’s focus on how these 2 ghosts have distinct personalities while barely showing them on screen.

The ghost who cries is, besides clearly being depressed, is established as gentle and having a clear connection to Stella. The ghost who brings the cold is established as violent and bitter. All of this is shown to the audience/reader through actions and sounds, not facial expressions or jump scares.

As a writer, showing instead of telling can be one of the most difficult tasks. But it creates a better bond with the character for the audience. They get to figure out the character on their own and that stirs up emotions. 

The Uninvited is somewhat forgotten now, despite it causing a shift in how to make ghosts scarier and complex without the cornball. Comedy ghost movies were still prominent in the 1940s/50s, but by the 1960s movie goers got goosebumps from films like Carnival of Souls, The Haunting, and The Innocents.

There was one where they combined the two idea: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), based on the book of the same name (but I confess the movie was better). In this film the ghost is a prominent character who establishes his personality the first time he laughs to frighten potential buyers away from the house he haunts. While this gruff sea captain spirit provides chills at first, he also is a part of the comedy of the story and his relationship with Mrs. Muir, the independent single mom who moved into his house, reveals his softer side. This is not a horror movie, but the ghost is not a joke. He's a former human who still has clear emotions and motivations.

Now let’s get to 1 modern film from a director who was inspired by The Uninvited: Guillermo del Toro ’s Crimson Peak. Again I am only focusing on the ghosts as a character study.

Within the film there are multiple spooks but only some are really given clear personalities. Both are seen on screen, but their character traits are based on what isn’t told outright. The first is the ghost of the former mistress if the house, Lady Beatrice, who had been killed by an ax while taking a bath. She is described as a harsh, strict, and abusive woman, yet this could come across in a description of her ghostly face. The way she sits in the bathtub with wrists up suggests her uptight attitudes. Her only words in the film are accusing and in no way helpful to the main character.

The other ghosts who gets to show some personality are three young women named Pamela Upton, Margaret McDermott, and Enola Sciotti. Instead of explaining their traits as presented in the film, watch it for yourself. Pamela Upton and Enola Sciotti have the most revealed about who they were when they were alive. What character traits do you find?

Salem's Lot: Movies about Writing

First rule of being an author in the Stephen King universe - never travel anywhere to write something.

It’s been a while since I’ve watched or read Salem’s Lot (personally, I’ve always loved the fictional history of the town more than the actual plot of the book - and, yes, before you’ve asked, I’ve read the short story). My first thought when I heard about this one was, “It’s under 2 hours? They must’ve cut out the whole story!”

Ben (Lewis Pullman) is a writer who comes back to Jerusalem’s Lot looking for inspiration. He rents a room from a woman demanding payment in advanced when she hears his profession. His second encounter after the local sheriff is meeting Susan (Makenzie Leigh) who is reading one of his books and insults it without knowing that he’s the author.

At the same time, Marsten House, the haunting source of all local urban legends, has a European antiques dealer moving in. Straker (Pilou Asbaek) and his mysterious partner Barlow (Alexander Ward) are the catalytics who will destroy the town (in case you haven’t read the book).

Spoilers ahead.

A group of characters will come together as vampires take over the town. Ben and Susan are joined by teacher Mr. Burke (Bill Camp), Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard), Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickley), and 11 year old Mark (Jordan Preston Carter). Honestly, I spent most of this muttering, “I don’t remember that in the book.” Look, there were vampires and the cast gets killed off one by one.

Ben is the first person Mr. Burke goes to when he realizes that there are vampires. He thinks that just because the guy is a writer that he’ll believe in vampires. And he does, because this movie has no time for character development. There are other quips about being a writer, but honestly, they are really just repeats of how being an author is not always viewed as a legitimate career. Maybe I’ll just watch the mini-series from the 70s.

Muppets Haunted Mansion: Movies about Writing

There have been 3 different Haunted Mansion movies, but this is the only one that feels like a love letter to the ride. And it’s a Muppet movie so I might have a giant poster of it as a part of my extensive Haunted Mansion collection. By the way, this also has the highest critical Rotten Tomatoes score of the 3 versions (but saying that, I do really like all three and the latest version is much better than critics said).

If you haven’t seen this, Gonzo has been invited to a party at the mysterious mansion where his favorite magician once disappeared and he brings Pepe along for comic relief. The pair end up trapped in the mansion over night where the ghosts are played by the other Muppets save for the usual celebrity guests like Will Arnett as the Ghost Host who invited them, Taraji P. Henson as the Bride Ghost attempting to marry Pepe, Yvette Nicole Brown as the driver warning that they won’t survive the night, and Darren Criss as the graveyard caretaker.

It’s the Caretaker’s scene that I want to focus on for a blog about writing. Before Gonzo and Pepe enter the mansion, the Caretaker warns them to walk quietly as he doesn’t want to outdoor ghosts to wake up. He claims that “once they start, the never cease) in a song (because it’s Darren Criss). He tells the stories of various ghosts played by Danny Trejo, Alfonso Ribeiro, Chrissy Metz, Jeannie Mai Jenkins, and Edward Asner (in one of his final roles). One of the ghosts is Mary, played by SNL’s Sasheer Zamata. She is dressed in clothing that is probably supposed to represent the middle to late 1700s. She had a piece of long paper and a quill. The Caretaker sings that she “wrote mysteries with masterful quill, not knowing the ink of words could kill”. Mary is then seen licking her quill before continuing writing, then dropping down dead.

First, Mary being a writer in this time period is not as strange as people might think. The late 18th century included MANY female writers including poet Phillis Wheatley, playwright Mercy Otis Warren, philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, and the start of many novelists (many of whom wrote under pseudonyms). However, ink was not made of anything poisonous at that time that I know of or could find out (if anyone can correct me on this with a source, I would be most grateful if you leave a comment). Therefore, does this mean Mary was murdered? That someone poisoned her ink? Is there an entire back story here of a woman’s creativity being stolen by her killer? Or maybe she was just allergic to iron gall ink. Wonder if she was anemic.

Coraline: Movies about Writing

Coraline - the delightfully creepy tale of a child being courted and hunted by an ancient terror who creates a dreamworld to catch her in. But that’s not what I’m going to write about. I’m going to focus on Coraline’s parents.

Mr. and Mrs. Jones are working on a gardening catalog when they move to the “Pink Palace”, the Victorian home turned into apartments where Coraline discovers the tiny door leading to the “Other Mother”. Her mother is the editor and her father is the author. These jobs fit their personalities. Dad is more laid back and silly. Mom is more rigid and practical. My favorite line of Charlie Jones’s is “I have a terrible case of writer’s rash on my-”, but his wife cut him off as he points to his butt. He works on a computer that appears to be a little out-of-date (either that or the story takes place a few years before I think it does) on a cluttered desk with the usual research and half-drunk coffee. How do I know that coffee is half-drunk? Because that’s part of the process. Duh.

Coraline’s mom (who is name Mel according to the internet, but I’m not sure if they ever say her name in the movie) keeps Charlie on task. She is also in charge of the finances, promising Coraline that things will change once the book sells.

Coraline feel ignored by her parents even though they work from home. In the world created by the “Other Mother”, a creature known a the Beldam who wants to keep children and eat their lives away, Dad is a pianist who writes songs just for is kid and helps her in the garden. The Other Mother cooks delicious food and buys Coraline whatever she desires. Although it’s sweet that Coraline wants the attention of her parents, the Other Mother’s world clearly did not give them jobs.

P.S. In the part where Coraline touches a switch that shuts off the power, including her dad’s unsaved work on his P.C., he lets out a cry which I feel in my soul every time.

Field of Dreams: Movies about Writing

Normally, in September and October I do spooky films about authors and newspaper people. However, James Earl Jones, one of the icons of my childhood, passed away. I know he was in his 90s, but it doesn’t matter. I’m still sad. His deep voice and infectious smile meant a lot to me as a kid. So here’s a short blog about Field of Dreams - it kinda has ghosts in it.

If you weren’t alive in the 90s, you might not know this film. A struggling Iowa farmer, who regrets his last encounters with his baseball-obsessed father, is told by a disembodied voice to build a ball field in his corn. So he does. The ghosts of famous players (as well as a doctor played by Burt Lancaster who did so much good, but never got to the majors) show up in the field. However, only certain people can see them.

James Earl Jones plays Terrence Mann, an award winning author who has hidden himself from a corrupt world which he feels expects too much of him. In case you can’t tell, he’s based on J.D. Salinger. He was the favorite author of the main character Ray and his wife Annie in college. Annie fights to keeps Mann’s books in the local school district, arguing about how pacifism and learning from reality are not reasons to ban a book (she makes a good speech about Stalin and Nazi book-burning). When the voice tells Ray to help Mann, he discovers a bitter man unwilling to speak to a fan. Mann gave up writing a decade early to become a software programmer, feeling like after two terms of Nixon as president, no one was really listening to him anyway. Still, he sees the ghosts like Ray and his family do. He goes to Iowa and returns to a sense of wonder and hope in humanity. And he’s going to write about it, because, “That’s what I do.”

Frankeleda's Book of Spooks: Movies about Writing

You want to see something creative and original?

Well then, "Let’s summon the writer”, as this show says.

Frankeleda’s Book of Spooks is an award winning Mexican stop-motion series about Frankeleda, a deceased author who needs readers for her stories or she will fade away. Her sharp-toothed talking storybook, Herneval, doesn’t see it that way, thinking that sharing stories will awake something terrible. You see what they’re doing here? Huh? Huh?

Okay, yes, the metaphor for being a writer is pretty obvious. Each episode has our ghost-host tell a story that usually a lesson for children mixed with some nasty critter or supernatural terror. I’m not gonna lie. Some of these tales were impressively scary for a kids’ show. Spoiler warning: Things never turn out well for the children in her stories which Herneval points out doesn’t seem fair. The book is like her conscience, attempting to protect you, the audience, from whatever Frankeleda’s latest story is . . . and from whatever is keeping them trapped in a scary old house.

SPOILER ALERT: As the reader, you hear a final story about a girl named Francesca Imelda who is expected to do all of the domestic duties for her father and older brothers after her mother dies and wicked Aubela moves in with them. Her escape is story writing, something she does at the most inconvenient times just like any other young writer. Her biggest fan is a owl-child (Herneval prince of the spooks - yep, the book used to be a really neat owl-prince) that lives in her house, but she thinks is a dream. By the time she’s grown, Francesca feel confident enough take the most perfected of her horror stories to a publisher, who instantly tells her that it’s unladylike. She leaves the office crying, declaring that she will quit, until she attempts to cross out her own name and ends up creating the name Frankeleda. The prince of the spooks, also now grown, shows up at that moment to plead with her to help him create new nightmares so his people will not fade away. He essentially kills her in hopes that she will replace his current nightmare writer. Something went wrong and the prince was turned into a book. The original nightmare writer trapped him and Frankeleda in his consciences and that’s where they have been ever since.

As an author , Frankeleda is obsessive, tragic, and does not take criticism well. She doesn’t care if she puts her audience in danger for her art and her own freedom. And she will never stop writing.

Insert maniacal laughter here.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Have I been waiting for this film for decades? Yes. Did it meet my expectations? Well, I kept my expectations low. That having been said, here’s my brief review.

In case you don’t know the general plot, Lydia, Delia, and Lydia’s daughter, Astrid, are returning to Winter River for Charles’s funeral after he was eaten by a shark. Lydia and Astrid have a strained relationship due several plot points (Lydia’s work on a cheesy paranormal investigator television program, the death of Astrid father/him not being a ghost Lydia can see, and Lydia’s boyfriend/TV manager. Over the years, Lydia has been worried about the return of Beetlejuice who has been waiting for the right opportunity to finally force her into their marriage contract. In the meantime, Beetlejuice and an army of shrunken head guys have been running a bio-exercism business that apparently no on in the Netherworld is fine with now. Adding to these events are two additional complications: Beetlejuice’s ex-wife and Astrid’s first boyfriend. Oh and they through in some more lip syncing scenes for good measure.

Warning SPOILERS AHEAD.

Like, major spoilers.

Seriously, have you watched the movie yet? No, then stop reading.

I’m assuming you’ve seen the film if you are still reading. Here we go.

Things I was annoyed at:

Delia and Lydia should’ve known there was a “murder house” in Winter River. It’s not like the family wasn’t probably still living there in the 90s. This could have been easily fixed with Lydia just saying, “Wait! I remember that! THAT was the house?” when Little Jane told her about it.

Lydia only mentioned Barbara and Adam Maitland once. They were her second set of parents. She was ready to commit suicide knowing they would be on the other side to take care of her. Lydia should have at least mentioned them few more times under her breath and had their wedding photo or sheets photos somewhere in her possessions.

Things I really liked (honestly, I liked most of the movie but these were the standout moments):

  • Lydia’s ex-husband covered in piranhas.

  • The entire Mario Bava flashback sequence.

  • The stop-motion animation scenes.

  • Monica Belushi’s look (she wears staples now).

  • Willem Defoe constantly being handed cups of coffee (can he even really drink it? he’s dead.)

  • The fact that Beetlejuice does NOT go to Hawaii.

  • The idea of Jeffrey Jones not having a head.

  • Winona Ryder’s wardrobe.

  • Jenna Ortega as less-goth than her mom, but still morbid, teenager.

  • Beetlejuice letting Lydia use his powers for a moment of revenge.

  • Michael Keaton and Bryan Adams being a collaboration I never knew I needed.

  • All lines and jokes spoken by Catherine O’Hara.

Hey, does anyone else have MacArthur Park stuck in their head? Or more importantly, is anyone else’s brain trying to automatically replace the lyrics with the Weird Al parody song? Just wondering.

Beetlejuice (Poe-Pourri): Movies about Writing (Copy)

This will be a short one, because it’s based on a short one.

Remember the Beetlejuice cartoon? What? You never watched it? My nostalgia riddled mind will tell you it was amazing . . . so probably best not to trust me. All you really need to know is that Lydia and Beetlejuice are friends in the cartoon, there’s no Barbara and Adam, and it had a lot of little kid humor (so. many. burping. jokes.).

Beetlejuice is freaked out one night reading a book of poems Lydia left at his roadhouse in the Netherworld. I don’t know why the ghost lives in a roadhouse, but I digress. Poe shows up at his house with a rapping raven, a literal steamer trunk, and handfuls of cash which he throws around when he cries about Lenore. I didn’t know writer’s got residual check’s in the afterlife?

The greedy Ghost with the Most invites Poe to stay at the roadhouse as he continues his search through the Netherworld for Lenore. Seriously, where is Poe getting all of this moolah? He was never rich in life. Anyway, Lydia comes over to fangirl over the wailing author while Beetlejuice is driven mad in a montage of Poe tales.

Due to this episode airing when I about seven or eight, I thought Lenore had been a real person, not an allegory for the loss of Poe’s wife and other women he loved. I also thought the Masque of the Red Death was a little mask with a runny nose.

Batman (1989): Movies about Writing

Vicki Vail, the forgotten Batman love interest! This movie gets me right in the childhood (but not Batman Returns because I wasn’t allowed to watch it - my mom thought the Penguin was too violent and scary). It’s a little upsetting that I haven’t watched this in probably twenty years, but I can still quote parts of it. Why hasn’t my brain reused these memory cells for something useful like math. But seriously, HAVE you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

In case you don’t know, Batman is about the rise of . . . Batman (Michael Keaton), the vigilante who is attempting to protect Gotham City from a general crime wave and specifically from the newest villain The Joker (Jack Nicholson). Meanwhile, Batman’s true identity, billionaire Bruce Wayne, struggles with childhood trauma and finding a work-life balance.

But this is a blog about writers, not heroes. That brings us to Alexander Knox and Vicki Vale, a journalist and photographer attempting to prove that this “Batman” terrified criminals keep ranting about is real. Knox is played by Robert Wuhl (look him up and you’ll say, “Oh! That guy” because you’ve probably seen him in something) and Kim Basinger plays Vale. Vicki and Knox are being mocked by the rest of their co-workers and the police, so they decide to start some undercover work. They get into a party at Wayne manor where Knox tries to interview the top politicians including Harvey Dent (Billy Dee Williams) who never get to see as Two-Face. Wayne is amused by the pair who make jokes about his wealth without knowing he’s listening. He even tells Alfred (Michael Gough) to give Knox a grant.

One of the key plots of this movie is the power of the press. Joker is annoyed that about Knox and Vicki focusing on Batman in the papers. He decided that Knox “has no style”, so he threatens Vicki multiple times insisting on his face being splashed across the paper. Both journalist characters are very stereotypical. They do research. They wisecrack. They put their feet up on the office furniture. Knox is the wise cracker who seems to annoy everyone he interviews and Vale is a serious photographer who is more upset that Batman steals her film of him than she is about a near death experience.

Wednesday: Movies about Writing (Copy)

I’m rounding out my Poe blogs with a writing related piece of media not about Poe or even featuring a living version of him, but where he is a central character.

If you grew up with me, went to school with me, or met me, you probably know that I’m a huge Addams Family fan. I’ve seen the original series multiple times (but confess to only sitting through the 1970s Halloween special once).

Yes, I have seen most Addams Family incarnations and don’t ask me what I thought about those recent animated films unless you want to see my hair burst into flames. I put off watching Wednesday because 1) I loved Adult Wednesday Addams on Youtube written by and starring Melissa Hunter and how could anyone do it better than that (they can’t), 2) Tim Burton keeps breaking my heart, and 3) I was waiting for my boyfriend because he wanted to watch it too. Still, this is not my giving my opinion of the show. This is me talking about depictions of writers and writing in films and TV. (In case you do want my opinion just message me in the comments).

In this Netflix series, Wednesday is an aspiring author of mystery novels featuring a teenage sleuth in a difficult relationship with her mother. Meanwhile, Wednesday is thrust into a mystery at her new school while feeling like she’s living in her mother’s shadow. Yes. Her therapists points out that her real life connections are pretty obvious.

Poe comes into this as the school’s most famous pupil. The yearly house competition teams are named after his stories and the secret society is hidden behind his statue. However, the poem that helps one to figure out the password did not feel like a work of Poe’s. Just saying.

I did enjoy her sitting with perfect posture on her antique typewriter and using her novel as an excuse to be glad when her roommate was angry with her. She keeps her typed pages in a file box with her initials on it which I confess to being jealous of. However, I am really trying to remember what it was like to be in high school, forced into a social life, hunting for murders, AND having time to write! Oh. To be young.

Tim Burton's Studies in Creativity

This will be a long one. There are three movies Tim Burton directed that I think of as his look into the mind of creatives. Technically, the inventor played by Vincent Price in Edward Scissorhands is a creative, but I’m looking more at the idea of taking a deep depth into the minds of artists. Although, I do appreciate how Burton and I both grew up with a healthy Vincent Price fanaticism. Totally, totally, healthy.

Now, understand that I used to love a good Tim Burton film. Beetlejuice was one of my “happy movies” as a little kid (you know, the ones kids watch on repeat until their parents want to “accidentally” destroy the tape). No one at school knew what I was talking about when I mentioned Frankenweenie (the original live-action short, not the animated remake). I frequently quote Mars Attacks! I was obsessed with Sleepy Hollow when it came out. I even loved the episode of Faerie Tale Theatre Burton directed! However I have been very Burton cautious of late (meaning I’ve seen of all his movies, but also blocked several of them out afterwards). If there is a movie that should have been on this list, let me know. However, if anyone suggest Dark Shadows or the Marky Mark Planet of the Apes, I will block you.

Image from https://consequence.net/tag/big-eyes/

Big Eyes - This is probably the most difficult of stories Burton attempted to tell as it is about a woman trapped in an abusive relationship. A part of me can’t help feeling like a woman should have been part of the team to tell Margaret Keane’s ordeal. Perhaps that’s close-minded of me, but sometimes men can’t fully fathom how terrifying being a woman is in a situation like that. The isolation, the anxiety, and the worry for one’s child is only at the surface of the film, being portrayed in one nightmarish scene. They did have the real Margaret Keane as a consultant and the amazing Amy Adams in the part, but it might have been a different movie if a woman had more of a hand in the writing.

The movie does do several things very well. Fist of all, in case you don’t know, the movie is based on the true story of Margaret, an artist and single mother who attempts to make money from her art in the 1950s, when women weren’t hired for anything creative. Most animation studios (Disney especially) didn’t even hire women for anything beyond ink and paint. She marries a man named Walter Keene (played by an intense Christoph Waltz) who sells her stylized paintings of children with large eyes as his own and they become mass-produced best sellers. The frustration and pain of not being recognized for one’s own creativity is shown through the amazingly wild visuals of Tim Burton and the excellent expressions on Amy Adams’s face. Margaret Keane says that she draws the eyes so big because eyes are how she shows the inside of person. Burton attempts to show the same by framing many shots directly on Adams’s face.

Walter threatened her and her daughter many times as she started to object to his lies about the artwork. Something they both always wanted was to be able to live off of art without a day job, something all artists and writers dream of. The difference is, Walter Keane wanted to live off someone else’s art. Margaret and Walter also have different views of the commercial aspects of art which is another thing Burton and the screen writers present in a great way throughout the movie. She feels cheapened by his actions and the way he turns her art into postcards and posters. In addition, when critics negatively review the work, Walter takes it personally, when it’s Margaret who feels the most of what is said.

The idea of the sexism in the world is well-portrayed with Margaret worried about having to lie to her own daughter about the artwork. She’s led to believe by the world around her that it’d better for the family if Walter can sell the work for financial stability. When she tries to sell work under her own name in a slightly different style, she is hit on my art collectors who do not take her seriously. When a female friend who can sense the lies, Walter scares her away with male bravado.

Spoiler alert: Eventually, Margaret escapes from Walter and finds support in religion. Her new community gives her the courage to sue Walter and she has to paint in court in order to prove that the art was hers all along. The real Margaret married a third time to a sports journalist who she says helped her find her voice in the public. I just think it’s a shame that she became famous as Keane and had to keep that name on her artwork.

Big Fish - I know that this is not about someone who needs creativity to as a livelihood, but it’s still about how creativity can be a part of survival. I sometimes think that people forget that this was a damn good movie! It’s very much a human study piece, not an adventure film or spooky love story, which might be why it’s often looked over. And everyone in it does such a good job. I once saw Alison Lohman at a convention and told her just how impressed I was with her mimicking the actions of her older counter-part Jessica Lange. I also told her that my friend and I applauded at the end of Drag Me to Hell (apparently, we were the only Sam Raimi fans in the theater).

The movie is about a journalist Will (Billy Crudup) whose constantly trying to find the truth in the tall tales his father Edward Bloom (Albert Finney/Ewan McGregor) always told before his dad passes away. We learn about his dad the same way he did, through fanciful stories where the dad befriends giants, outsmarts school rivals, saves werewolves, and catches the biggest fish you’ve ever seen using just his wedding ring on the day his son was born. Burton uses his signature set dressing and style in when the audience is within one of the father’s stories. When we return to the real world, the colors are muted, not dull, just not as fantastical, and the filming style draws the eye to the human emotion instead of the action.

Spoiler alert: In Will’s search for fact versus fiction, he and his wife (a photojournalist which I thought was a nice touch that she was also an artist) rehear the many stories Edward created about his own life. Will attempts to pick them apart, digging for what pieces were real like any good investigator would. It isn’t until he meets with a woman he thought his father had an affair with. As the woman, Jenny (Helena Bonham Carter) tells yet another tall tale to Will, she gives him two conclusions about his father. Number one: that there was never another woman for Edward Bloom than Will mother (the Lohman/Lange character). Number two: that everything in Edward Bloom’s life is fantasy except for Will. Will is his reality.

As Edward is in the hospital towards the end of his life, the family doctor (Robert Guillaume) tell Will the truth of the day of his birth. Will is hungry for the knowledge which is a very typical birth story other than the fact that Will was born a week early which was why Edward was still on the road at the time and regretted on being there. The doctor adds, “And I suppose if I had to choose between the true version and an elaborate one involving a fish and a wedding ring, I might choose the fancy version.” Still, Will counters with, “I kind of liked your version.” When all is said and done, Will does finally understand why the tall tales are so important to his father. Will makes up his own version of his father’s passing, telling it to him on his deathbed, an elaborate story of a hospital escape and a return to the river where all of the most important characters of Edward’s life have come to see him off. And Edward Bloom becomes his own story - he’s released into the river, turning into a big fish.

Edward Bloom tries to tell his son Will that they are both storytellers in different ways. The point of the film is not that the father is a liar or delusional. The point is that, in his creative mind, the world could be so much bigger and more interesting than it really was. And that was something he wanted his son to have - a world where anything could happen. At the end of the film, you find that Will continues his father’s legacy by telling his son all of the tall tales he grew up with.

Ed Wood - One of the greatest Tim Burton films of all time! This is a masterpiece of the artistic mind from the joys to the failures, the moments of genius and the crippling depression. Burton does an excellent job of making his movie look like a cheesy monster movie and everyone in it overacts on purpose. What makes this film really good is not historical accuracy (I’ve been led to understand that much of this is really toned down when it comes to alcoholism and personal relationships), but how it gives the feel of anxiety, failure, and rooting for the little guy. A delusional little guy.

If you are unaware, Johnny Depp plays Edward Wood Jr., the king of bad cinema who develops a friendship with an aging Bela Lugosi played by Martin Landau. Ed desperately wants to be the next Orson Welles, writing, directing, and starring in pictures. However, his slapped together together style and choice to hire actors made up of his friends and financial backers. Ed is optimistic, refusing to believe that his movies are terrible.

Wood’s big break in the story is Glen or Glenda, a movie close to his heart as it’s about a man who dresses as a woman, something that he’s been hiding from his girlfriend Dolores (Sarah Jessica Parker). The movie is filmed over a short period with Wood in the lead and Lugosi as a scientist. Ed uses all first takes, filming in locations where he has no permit, and fills in the in-between shots with random stock footage. He’s disappointed when he’s told it’s the worst film ever made. This does not seem to drag Ed down as he looks for people to invest in his next picture Bride of the Atom and the Bride of the Monster. He, Bela, and his group of friends who Dolores calls abnormal, try to convince the masses that his movies are worth it. Eventually, Dolores leaves him, fed up when he gives a better role in the Bride of the Monster to a woman who gave money to the production. The production suffers many problems like being thrown out a studio and having to steal an octopus prop. The biggest issue is Bela’s morphine addiction, the only thing that keeps him going as an out-of-work actor who feels forgotten by the world. The best scene is when Lugosi is swearing a blue streak about Boris Karloff.

Despite his own issues, Ed tries to save Bela after a suicide attempt, checking him into rehab and visiting every day. This is how he meets Kathy (Patricia Arquette), a young woman who doesn’t mind that Ed is a transvestite obsessed with angora and becomes his biggest cheerleader. Sadly, Bela passes after a final moment of feeling like an amazing actor where people ask for his autograph. There is a true feel of how Hollywood destroys people, leaving them behind as the next big trend comes along.

Spoiler alert: Ed convinces a church to give money for his most famous movie Grave Robbers from Outer Space (later called Plan 9 from Outer Space). He uses his last footage of Bela and tells a story around it, hiring Kathy’s chiropractor as a Bela double. The rest of the cast is made up of his usual friends, wrestler Tor Johnson, and camp TV personality Vampira. The more he films, the more the church leaders object and criticize. They ask him why he allows the cardboard tombstones to fall over on set and demand one of their church members be cast in the film. Ed has a breakdown, donning his favorite sweater and running to famed Hollywood restaurant Musso and Franks. Sitting in a booth is Orson Welles (played by Vincent D’Onofrio, but voiced by Maurice LaMarche). Ed runs over and the pair have a short but meaningful conversation about how studios and producers can destroy an artist’s vision. Welles says, “Visions are worth fighting for.” Emboldened by his hero’s words, Wood returns to set insisting that everything will be done his way.

The movie is not a happy, uplifting story of overcoming the system. Still, Ed Wood is the essence of a creative mind run wild. He’s too busy coming up with ideas and making them come to life in his own unique way to realize that he is not the brilliant man he thinks he is.