Welcome to another edition of the infrequent and grainy Catherine Cookson Experience, in which I try to explain why, in the mid-1990s, the BBC lost its marbles and decided to film as many of these low-budget potboilers as they possibly could before some enormous sky-clock ran out (which is as good an explanation as any for why these happened).

Because there is a thin line between hilariously terrible and normal-terrible, many of these Cooksons are not as fun as others. There are those whose cheese is appealing (The Rag Nymph), and those that are genuinely enjoyable (The Wingless Bird). Then there are those that are, say, The Round Tower.

Then there is The Fifteen Streets.

This dismal, awkward screenshot pretty much sums up The Fifteen Streets, which ostensibly follows a family of dockworkers from East Tynside and their class and religious issues, but really there’s just a Protestant mystic and a fair and a bunch of iffy child actors and a posse of idle neighbors that is always crowing the frame and two leads who do an indifferent job of things except when it comes to sucking face, which they are allllll over; of all the Cooksons, most of which seal the deal with a chaste peck, this is by far the sucking-face-est. Many of the plot points that end in tragedy (which is all of them, this whole thing is a tragedy) go sour as if to spite the two of them for having wandered onto a frigid beach to neck and not supervising anything else that’s going on.

Vital Stats:

Era: 1900-ish.
Heroine: John O’Brien, technically, though this whole thing is such a plot soup of terrible decisions that really, no one deserves to be considered heroic.
Siblings that require looking-after: Endless, confusing, nebulous siblings. Also Sean Bean.
Illegitimate (Self or sibling): Negative.
Asshole Father?: You know, technically yes, but that is the least of this Cookson’s problems.
Romantic interest(s): Anne of Avonlea.
Bairnsketballs: Two!
Fistfights: This entire effin’ thing is one big fistfight.
Assaults: Oh gosh. One offscreen, one bizarre piece of nonsense onscreen that we will get into when we get there.

Shall we?

Continue reading

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate. I have a lot to be thankful for, not least for all the amazing people I’ve met via the magic of the internet.

I’m taking a break from stuffing my face to report that, in a move I can only assume is a Thanksgiving present made exclusively for me, the BBC has announced the full cast lineup for its four-movie Shakespeare cycle airing next year, encompassing Richard II, Henry IV (Parts I and II) and Henry V.

I had known about some of the cast (Ben Whishaw, Jeremy Irons, and Tom Hidleston as the kings, alongside Michelle Dockery, Lindsay Duncan, and David Suchet, among others), but the full cast announcement has just been made, and I’m slapping it here because there’s too many names I like to even bother with excerpts.

Take a look under the cut for some Awesome Actor Camp Gladiatorial Games!

Continue reading

What I did this weekend:

I saw Breaking Dawn, Part 1. It was, in its own way, a fascinating example of a film that has all the content of a horror movie and none of the context. Also in its own way, it was stupid and cringey, and when Jacob looks into the eyes of a newborn and falls in love with the hottie she’ll become if he can just babysit her for the next 18 years, you honestly don’t know whether to laugh or cry. (I laughed. Then I made horrified faces at my friend.)

Speaking of awful movies that are seen with friends, the other thing I did this weekend was a guest post at The Night Bazaar, in which they asked me to be both personal and sincere at the same time, and write up some people I am thankful for. I included my family, the family that keeps my family up at night, and all the friends who have ever sat through a terrible movie on my account. Because seriously, everyone who comes here with WHAT WAS THAT on the tips of their fingers is fighting the good bad-movie fight (it’s a real fight, shut up), and it’s awesome. Thank you.

SPOILERS BELOW, for anyone who has been in a pop-culture hamster ball and doesn’t know what happens in this train wreck.

***

In a telling scene in Breaking Dawn, a skeletal Bella stands in front a mirror, running her hands over the bairnsketball that she’s been told is going to rupture her heart before it comes out. Various in-laws argue about what this means for her (spoiler: broken back and shattered ribs, among other things).

And Bella cringes beatifically into the mirror, and a plucky folk song plays.

This is perhaps the worst thing about Breaking Dawn: it has all the content of a horror movie with none of the context. (Second-worst thing: having to sit through the wedding in what feels like real time.)

It’s almost remarkable how much the movie presents female-gaze psychological horror, made somehow even more monstrous by the romantic lens through which it’s filtered. From the very first moments of the movie, in which Bella is walking around in a pair of shoes that have been purchased for her over her protests, but are nevertheless the shoes we know she’ll be wearing, because of course. On her honeymoon, her husband withholds affection, because he claims he can’t keep from hurting her and this is better for her; he reduces her to tears as she begs him to have sex with her. (His reason for withholding: the first time they had sex, he bruised her in the throes of passion. The movie downplays this into a few fingerprints here or there, which both dilutes the subtext of spousal abuse and makes it somehow even worse than he’s stonewalling her romantically. The following silence, in which they play chess for several minutes in a Pottery Barn catalog, would be a tense portrayal of a marriage falling apart if it weren’t for the comforting soundtrack assuring us that he knows what’s best, and the little wifey will come around.)

When she finds herself pregnant, he withholds all support for her when she decides not to make the decision he would have made about the fetus. (Additional consequence of being pregnant: she’s visually and contextually infantilized for the rest of the film, unequal even to stand up on her own). She lies about her situation and whereabouts to her father (from whom she has been effectively cut off by marriage); her friend in the know belittles and berates her. As the baby drains her life, her in-laws face off to decide what’s best for her and/or the fetus (a term baby-crazy Rosalie repeatedly amends to, “BABY,” in all caps). Near the point of birth, her husband blames her for having decided to keep the baby, and guilt trips her about how he will hate the child, because it is reflective of she decision she made. The baby itself snaps her spine, breaks both her knees, and causes heart failure.

It’s a domestic-horror situation that seems a natural cinematic offspring of Rosemary’s Baby, but somehow the film (and, to some degree, the source text) manages to put the viewer in an even more horrific situation: in order to support any kind of autonomy for Bella, the viewer has to support her series of truly boneheaded decisions in the face of people who are trying to dictate what to do and are, in fact, making more sense than she ever does. (Argument by the anti-fetus contingent: “It will kill you, there is absolutely no doubt, if you want to live you need to get it out.” Argument by Bella: “Well, if it kills me it kills me, and you’ll have the baby to remember me by.” Help us help you, Bella!)

Perhaps the half-hour wedding scene was an attempt to frame as romantic the subsequent events of the film, which are not romantic whatsoever. Even the honeymoon scenes (in which Bella discovers that her bags, packed by someone else, contain nothing but lingerie) take on a strange purgatory quality; when she deploys peignoirs in an attempt to seduce him into having sex with her after the first bruise-inducing time, he laughs and turns away from her. (Bella’s miserable face is one that appears repeatedly throughout the film, as she suffers one indignity after another.) But the movie seems determined to avoid the subtext it continually presents, and uses its succession of plinky folk songs in the background as an attempt to bring the romance back to a movie that otherwise would have us all rooting for Bella to take that speedboat back to shore and get the hell out. (The songs all have lyrics about the joy of subsuming one’s entire identity, just in case you had missed the message.)

In the past, there has been enough of the absurd to help balance the creepy subtext; this movie has its moments of that as well, though they don’t do much to overcome the feeling of wanting to grab a teenage girl by the shoulders and say, “You’re not taking any of this seriously, right? RIGHT?” Jacob, when he reads his wedding invite, gets so angry he rips off his shirt (never not funny); the awkward wedding speeches are true to life in a way that makes you want to gently claw your own face; there’s an almost-endearing montage of Bella trying to prepare for The Big Moment by brushing her teeth and shaving.

But otherwise, only the werewolves offer any relief from the A-plot horror, and that’s not saying much. The pack has vague politics, and one girl-wolf whose primary personality trait is that she’s unwanted by the man of her choice, and its usual limitless supply of cut-off pants stored in the hollow trees of the Pacific Northwest. However, other than trying to manufacture an outward threat for the Cullens, there’s really nothing doing.

(ETA: I can’t refrain from mentioning imprinting, which is presented so matter-of-factly that it somehow surpasses the surrealist comedy of a man looking into the eyes of an infant, seeing the hottie teen she’ll become, and falling to his knees, mostly because the first time it’s discussed is during a beach visit where it goes largely unmentioned that one of them is babysitting the toddler who will one day grow into the woman who better love him back, dammit, and the combination of the image and its apparent acceptance by everyone is a blow from which that little leitmotif never recovers.)

Having covered the body-horror in the first installment, the sequel is freed up to give Bella a chance to be the Mary Sue-est vampire who ever sparkled through the forest. That might be for the best; this movie has enough mixed messages to deal with all on its own.

(By the by, when Bella is healed and made beautiful by vampire venom in the movie’s closing moments, her haggard face is smoothed over and made up; her anorexic limbs are not filled in. Even in the details, this movie really nails it, you know?)

Man, I am already looking forward to the promo battle between these two, just because.

On the heels of the Snow White and the Hunstman trailer comes the trailer for “Mirror Mirror,” from on-notice director Tarsem Singh!

The good news is that the costumes look gorgeous, and he’s got a serious handle on that color story. (I could also, potentially, be talked into the Bollywood musical number. We’ll see.)

The bad news is that, while I’m glad to see this is a different approach to the tale and employs Singh’s usual visual flair, this also looks like it’s careening past Tenth Kingdom Boulevard towards Cringetown Way.

But don’t take my word for it – enjoy Dog-Prince Armie Hammer and Royal Assassin Nathan Lane for yourself!