Syfy’s weekly original movies are generally good for two things:

1) Mansquito.
2) Saying, “Sure, this is bad, but it’s no Mansquito.”

However, even SyFy’s single-minded quest to make the worst movies ever hit a snag this weekend, when they presented Beyond Sherwood Forest. It’s Robin Hood, with a dragon, and it should have been awful.

Shockingly, it wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it was no great shakes either, but it was just as entertaining as any episode of the recent BBC series. Better, it felt like there was a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek self-awareness of the trappings of the legend. (The blatant Prince of Thieves moment above is followed by the slow-motion path of the arrow…which bounces harmlessly off the dragon as Robin looks on, dismayed. Reader, I cracked up.)

So, if even SyFy can make a decent Robin Hood flick, that begs the question: what makes a legend tamper-proof?

The easy answer to the first question is that no legend is tamper-proof; Prince of Thieves beat the Robin Hood legend to a bloody pulp fifteen years ago. However, unlike other legends that have been buried by bad movie adaptations (Dear Greek Myths: so sorry about Troy), Robin Hood seems to survive all the spoofs and TV series that can be thrown at it, and Beyond Sherwood Forest is no exception.

See, Julian Sands is creepy. (Well, also his character is, but that’s incidental.) He kills Robin’s father and chases Robin into the woods, where little Robin grows into a comely outlaw whose Sanctuary contract must have had a rider that begins, “Sooooo, we do these weekly movies…”

Meanwhile, the equally comely Maid Marian (Erica Durance, immune to awful scripts from all that Smallville) runs away from her arranged marriage, joins forces with the woodland outlaws, and gets caught up in backlash from a populace whose ties with Robin have made them a government target.

Also, there’s a young lady vampire Druid who turns into a dragon in the sunshine and works for Julian Sands because he tore her heart out and is holding it hostage in the basement of the castle. You know, the usual.

Partially, this movie skims above the rest of the SyFy muck because it doesn’t make the mistake of trying to be more than it is; it’s a B-movie and knows it, and even though people are constantly stabbing an invisible dragon, you get the idea that they were all in it for the free trip to Prague. (Except Julian, who looks like he really believes there’s a dragon, because that’s how he rolls.)

But in another smart move, the movie itself sidelines the dragon until it needs an excuse for CGI or a reason for vampire Druids to be hanging out in Sherwood Forest. (That’s how you know it’s a SyFy movie.) But the A-plot is largely what every Robin Hood movie is about: the struggle of a few good-hearted outlaws with superhuman fighting abilities going up against the tyranny of an illegitimate governor.

It’s an odd choice for a SyFy premise, except that Robin Hood already slides close to the edge of the fantasy line with his preternatural abilities and +10 charisma. (Peter S. Beagle nailed it with his ghostly Robin Hood procession in The Last Unicorn: too fantastic, even in a fantasy world.) Really, is it only strange that no one added dragons to this guy a little sooner?

Recent remakes of Robin Hood have focused on the gritty realism of the legend; the BBC series paints Robin has a traumatized war veteran, and Ridley Scott’s upcoming take handles the idea of a hero whose best days are behind him. But Robin Hood is, at heart, an escapist fantasy; his legend centers on unbelievable abilities, a supporting cast Joss Whedon would envy, and his success through chivalry (a code of behavior more often lauded than practiced). He was, like most folk heroes, more than human; and what better fantasy than that?

Also, this one time, he fought a dragon.

[This piece originally appeared at Tor.com.]

Shimmer has released The Clockwork Jungle Book! I’m in it, alongside flisters Amal El-Mohtar and Rajan Khanna and a bunch of other awesome writers. (Also, the cover just kills me, it’s so awesome.)

My story is titled “A Garden in Bloom,” and follows the adventures of a shipping magnate who knows just what to do with his disposable income:

The day Pieter van der Rijsen received news that he had made his fortune, he commissioned the garden.

It has as much faith in humanity as you would expect, coming from me! (…yeah.)

Apparently my favorite Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers number, from Carefree, has gotten the chop, so I can’t repost it here and talk about why Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers remain one of my favorite screen pairs of all time. (Hint: because they are awesome.)

Also, good news: the movie was slightly better than I remembered, because at least Fred wasn’t the guy who clocked Ginger. (The rest of the movie makes no sense. Never has, never will. There is a whole song about yams! There’s nowhere you can go from there!)

Instead, I will show you this awesome miniature clip-show of them set to Cake’s “Love You Madly,” which gives the casual passerby a sense of what they could do together (hint: ANYTHING THEY WANTED, THEY WERE AWESOME).

ETA: This is on my mind because the Turner Classic Movies channel is having a Fred and Ginger marathon today, for anyone in the US who feels like tuning in and enjoying!

Okay, I had so many issues with this movie I cannot even begin. Luckily, this covers most of them. The line report, movie notes, and me freaking out, below the cuts!

Please note: in the interest of thoroughness, this post is epically long. My bad.

The line was smaller than last year (because we went to a smaller theatre), and we stood calmly in the back-and-forth of velvet ropes. For an hour and a half. (Hint: after an hour and a half, no line is calm.)

At 11:55, the theatre door opened and people streamed out. One of them was carrying a life-size Jacob cutout, which she had to hold over her head as she stepped over the ropes to the exit, because people kept reaching out to touch it. She totally beaned at least four people on her way out. When someone asked, politely, “Where did you get that?” she grinned and smarmed, “Early screening. Invitation only,” and swanned down the escalator.

At the realization that the theatre had scheduled an advance screening that didn’t let out until five minutes before their intended screening, the volume level rose sharply.

When, ten minutes later, the theatre doors opened again, there was a stampede.

Women leapt over the velvet ropes, elbowing one another out of the way. Screams erupted as people got smacked. Sharp shouts of “Hey! HEY!” came from people near the front of the line, who were trying not to get trampled by the wave of people. Someone tripped, and was tripped over. Someone screamed, “Watch my poster!”

It was over in maybe twenty seconds, but holy shit, you guys, those fans are NOT KIDDING.

And then it was time for the movie.

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So, after I gave a stab at being vaguely professional over at Tor.com, Fantasy Magazine offered me a chance to drop all pretense. I gently turned them down, saying, “There really wasn’t that much more of the movie to make fun of.”

Then I laughed and laughed, and wrote them Ten Things You Should Know about New Moon.

7. There is a dreadful shirt shortage on the La Push reservation. Luckily for young werewolves who shred their clothes when making the transformation, the forests of the Pacific Northwest are an excellent natural source of jean cutoffs.

Still to come: a blow-by-blow of the evening, including the stampede, which will never stop being horrifying/funny.