Today at Tor.com, I point out that the geniuses at Universal who have decided to remake Videodrome apparently did not realize that Cronenberg had already taken care of it when he made eXistenZ.

For those who want to know more about eXistenZ – and you do! – the trailer is below. It’s hilariously over-explainy (IN A WORLD…), and doubly hilarious because even all this explaining takes care of maybe the first half hour of the movie, and everything after that is an idtastic free-for-all.

Fair warning: I get queasy every time I watch this movie, so if you have a tender tummy, think twice.

I have to admit that, after thinking about it a little, I was hard on Isabelle Fischel from The Dwelling Place. Sure, she was nuts, but let’s just review:

Wearing this dress meant slapping this thing on every day:

I KNOW, RIGHT?

First of all, this thing went on after you put on your shift (or chemise, in my tortured parlance), and beneath the waistband you can see the corset, which your internal organs probably just LOVED.

(ETA: I seriously cannot tell if this is a corded corset with the petticoat on top and some unholy undersleeves attached, or if this is a corded bodice with sleeves that went under the petticoat, and had a corset on top. I’m hoping it’s the corset with the busk and then the petticoat waistband going over, because heaven bless that woman if she had something laced up OVER this shit.)

Now then! The horizontal lines in the skirt are pieces of rope shoved through channels sewn into the petticoat. Later, these would turn into hoops, which is nice for ladies, since I can only imagine what it feels like to drag, oh, fifty yards of rope with you wherever you go? Maybe more; the circumference of the skirt is probably five to six feet, and there are how many channels in that thing? (Uh, P.S., how hilarious was it that people claimed women were the weaker sex? Just saying.)

Below left, a close up of the the UFO sleeves, which are wired for horizontal support, since you had another yard of fabric in each dress sleeve. (Seriously, the 1830s just could not have been uglier. I’m not fan of the 1860s superhoops or anything, but at least by then they had stopped sticking hot air balloons on their shoulders.)

Below right, the busk! At this point in history they were made of wood, bone, or ivory, and you basically shoved it into your corset as a front spine to keep you from collapsing under the weight of your own clothes. Have fun!

Heaven knows the clothing of the 1830s would drive me up the wall. If I had to wear it, I too would be riding around the countryside with my rifle shooting anyone who looked remotely comfortable in their clothes. So, you know, point to Isabelle.

This week, I tackle the seemingly endless and screamingly worst of all the Cookson adaptations I have seen, The Dwelling Place.

Brief note about the Experience: I don’t think I’ll be recapping each one. Some of these are deadly dull stuff. However, I’m starting out with some of the really terrible ones to build appreciation for the ones that aren’t so bad. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome involving overwrought, cheaply-made period dramas of the 90s. By the time I hit The Wingless Bird, you’ll think I’m screencapping Citizen Kane.

So, The Dwelling Place is about the fiercely beautiful and clever Cissie Brodie, who marries her rapist.

I’d like to say this is an unusual screencap, but it’s not. We just sort of have to take the movie’s word for it that she’s smart and pretty, since she spends most of the movie staring blankly into space and marrying rapists.

Anyway, after her parents’ death, Cissie packs up her passel of brothers and sisters and moves them all into a cave to prevent them having to go into the workhouse. Life sucks, and then it sucks more when the lord’s son rapes her and she comes down with a case of bairnsketball. It’s a searing commentary about the plight of the poor! Also, Cissie marries her rapist.

Era: 1830s
Heroine: Cissie Brodie, hardscrabble young lady who marries her rapist.
Siblings that require looking-after: Innumerable downtrodden siblings played by varyingly-talented child actors.
Illegitimate (Self or sibling): Her bairnsketball.
Asshole Father?: Check!
Romantic interest(s): Matthew Turnbull, the local carpenter; Clive Fischel, rapist.
Bairnsketballs: Oh, is there ever.
Fistfights: Does it count as a fistfight if you shoot your own sister?
Assaults: One rape, by a man she MARRIES LATER. OH MY GOD.

“Maybe if our Joe hadn’t set a trap for the rabbit…”
Continue reading

My review of the apparent season finale of Eleventh Hour’s first season, “Medea,” is up at Tor.com.

I thought it couldn’t possibly be the season ender, and then they started a new somethingsomething-week series in its time slot, so I guess that WAS the season ender and Eleventh Hour decided to go out with an episode that did not even have a science crime. It was a kidnapping. Period. Also, Agent Marley got shot in the ass with an arrow. Way to wrap it up with a bang, show!

Also, that was the picture released as promo for the season finale. They might as well have captioned it, “Dr. Rufus Sewell and The Great Googly must solve a kidnapping and rescue Agent Marley.”

For the next season of this show, here’s what I would like to see:

- A show that does not suck.

Think about that over the summer, okay, writers? I mean, either you go all the way with the frozen head thing and make this show the best camp on television, or you develop some actual characters over the break so that science crime is explored, not just solved. For you guys, maybe the frozen head thing is best.

We begin The Catherine Cookson Experience with “The Glass Virgin.” This miniseries was the one that started it all – and stopped it all, since I didn’t go back to another one for over a decade. By the end of my re-watch, I knew why.

The Glass Virgin is about a young girl, raised as gentility, who finds out she’s actually the daughter of a whore and therefore socially untenable. Distraught, she leaves the house with estate groom (and total hottie) Manuel in tow. Will she make it in a cruel working world? Will he make it into a life as his own man? Will they, you know, Make It?

NOTE: These screencaps are awful. I can’t do better. Think of it as part of the joy, like that soundstage echo in the 1970s Masterpiece Theatres.

Era: 1870s
Heroine: Annabella LeGrange, gentlewoman, seventeen, dumb as a sack of hair
Siblings that require looking-after: None, unless you count Annabella.
Illegitimate (Self or sibling): Self.
Asshole Father?: Check!
Romantic interest(s): Manual Mendoza, the groom at her estate
Bairnsketballs: None
Fistfights: Four

“MANUEEEEEL!”
Continue reading