So, here’s the deal: Part of me always wanted to save the best Cookson for last. However, the moment comes in your life when you realize you are just never going to make it through A Dinner of Herbs, and if I waited for that to happen before I did The Moth, this entry would be dated sometime in 2017. So, let’s just end 2011 on a high note, with the very best Cookson of them all: The Moth!

The Moth is actually where all this rigmarole got started in the first place: my friend Eileen, who knows from period pieces, brought The Moth over on a visit on a lark, thinking we’d watch it a little and then hang out and actually do something in New York. That was foolish, obviously, because as soon as we finished that one I was looking for the next one. Also, it turns out we accidentally started with the best one, which made the rest of the Catherine Cookson Experience sort of a slide downhill? Not that I hold that against Eileen at all; I think the only way to handle Cookson is to start with a nice one, because if you open with The Tide of Life the entire thing sort of becomes a non-starter.

However, that does nothing to diminish the fun of this puppy, where things are good and/or good to make fun of, which is the ideal combination for a great time in a Cookson, I feel.

Vital Stats:

Era: 1913.
Heroine: Robert Bradley and Sarah Thorman, who deserve equal billing here, I think. He’s a ship-builder who loves to read and feels social injustice keenly! She’s a lady of the manor with budding feminist feelings! Together, they fight crime.
Siblings that require looking-after: Millie, Sarah’s younger sister, who has Peculiar Yet Winsome on speed dial.
Illegitimate (Self or sibling): Somebody sure is!
Asshole Father?: This thing is an Asshole Father-Off, and competition is fieeerce.
Romantic interest(s): Each other! Marvelously. In a way that makes you want to bang their dolls together almost as much as they do.
Bairnsketballs: Check.
Fistfights: Oh gosh. Definitely a few fights, including one instance of someone getting attacked by a carpentry implement to the face.
Assaults: None! It’s a Christmas miracle!

Under this cut, endless glee. Also, endless pictures, sorry.
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In the war of the Snow White movies (it is a very minor war), Tarsem Singh’s Snow White has released an opening volley of promo pictures!

I am a huge fan of the yellow robe-type outerwear, and I really love how it’s cut to fill the frame.

Some of the rest of it…well.

Things get interesting.
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I have spoken many times about the messed-up movies that helped define my childhood. The Red Shoes might be the primary offender in this case, but The Last Unicorn, The Linguini Incident, and The Flight of Dragons also feature heavily.

However, there are several formative movie experiences that I missed the first time, when you’re in that golden age of understanding that makes you the primary target for that particular piece of cinema entertainment. Labyrinth, for example, I didn’t see until high school, too late for me to wholeheartedly embrace the Henson-ness, and WAY too late for me to not snicker at the relentless sexual-initiation subtext of pitting Jennifer Connelly against the Thin Tights Duke, a dynamic that jump-started puberty for so many others.

Another one of these gems I seem to have missed is Rigoletto, a jewel in the crown of the Feature Films for the Family series.

(Actual tag line on that video box cover: “A musical fantasy ringing of truth and filled with mystery and love.” Just…keep that in mind.)

It has nothing to do with the opera Rigoletto. In theory this is good, since Rigoletto is kind of odd. (There’s a Duke who wants to bang everyone, and his jester Rigoletto, who gets cursed by some gent and who keeps his daughter locked up in the house except to go to church, and of course the Duke saw a hot virgin at church and wishes to sex her, and sends nobles to find her, but they follow Rigoletto and when they see his daughter they think he has a mistress, so they blindfold Rigoletto and make him participate in the kidnapping of his own daughter, and she gets to the Duke’s and is like, “Oh, you’re that guy staring creepily at me all through church!” and he’s like “Nice shoes, shall we bang?” and Rigoletto shows up and is like, “I am going to kill that Duke, I am so mad, okay, you dress as a boy and get out of town and I’ll hire an assassin,” and she dresses as a boy but comes back to warn the Duke as the Duke is pleading for his life with his new girlfriend in the room (awkward), but the daughter is still like, “I’ll sacrifice myself for the Duke I love!” and then the assassin drags a corpse in a bag over to Rigoletto and Rigoletto is like “YESSS ALL RIGHT let me look inside OH MY GOD IT’S MY KID OH GAH THE CURSE” the end.)

However, this movie’s plot is even weirder.

And frankly, could have used an assassin.
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So, the Emmys happened! I didn’t watch (there’s no point, plus since Cate Blanchett lost the Oscar to Gwyneth Paltrow there’s no justice etc.), but I hear that overall, things went well. Plus, Downton Abbey won some things! That’s great news! That damn show and what it does to my blood pressure is something we shall speak of another time. Or, if you follow my Tumblr, I have already spoken of it multiple times and we’re all set.

(From left: Elizabeth McGovern in a lovely dress, Joanne Froggatt in one of those dresses that you know makes you feel like a princess right until the photos roll in and you realize your costars are Amazons and you have made a mistake about proportions, and Michelle Dockery, who is wearing a really great dress to which someone has inexplicably added one of those cutouts the vampire queens always have in their armor so the hero can get the stake through it.)

Thank the ladies of Downton Abbey, who are demonstrating several of the red carpet trends this year: lots of red, textured neutrals (and black!), some purple, and one really awkward thing in every picture.

In fact, let’s get right to the incomplete but completely nerdy Red Carpet Rundown, shall we?

This is, for me, a short post. That means only ONE bajillion pictures.
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Miss Universe! Yes, it’s that time again, when hopeful young ladies gather from all around the world to grin their beautiful hostage grins into the camera, and to be dressed like fools in “National Dress” by horrible pageant planners secretly trying to test what young ladies are willing to wear on camera.

That answer came back: Practically anything.

I have tried to look at this and understand what happened. In the past, this category has been spectacularly awesome (Thailand!) or hilariously fun (the national costume of Iceland is dignity!). This year is what I can only term a Hot Mess, with Intermittent Laughter.

This year also seems to be the year that the always-fantastical undercurrent of this whole glittery mess went from subtext to text:

Tanzania, auditioning for a role in the inevitable Metropolis remake, and/or putting mortal fear into her enemy contestants. Either way, SUCCESS.

However, she had some serious competition in the Science Fiction and Fantasy category.

Under this cut, a bajillion pictures.
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