Goodbye, Jon Stewart

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when I first saw "The Daily Show."  My best guess is that it was probably the year 2000, right around when I had access to cable television for the first time in my college dorm.  That would have been the second year of Jon Stewart's tenure as host, when they were still doing a few of the "local news" segments left over from the Kilborn era.  However, the political coverage was also ramping up, and quickly attracting the attention of other youngsters like me.  My initial impression of "The Daily Show" was that it was a lot like SNL's "Weekend Update," except a full half hour.  The satire felt more well-considered, and the presenters more committed to the jokes.  It wasn't quite appointment viewing for me, but I found myself watching a lot of Jon Stewart and his merry band of correspondents, including Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert.

So even before rise of Fox News, it was worth watching.  However, 9/11 and its aftermath were what really made "The Daily Show" what it became known for.  The news media landscape was changed forever for the worse, and "The Daily Show" emerged as an important counterweight to the babble of the 24-hour news cycle, and particularly to the paranoid right-wing sentiments that fueled the second Iraq War.  I kept watching "The Daily Show," not only because I found it funny and informative, but because it was one of the few media outlets at the time that was presenting a view of the world that made sense to me.  I made sure to keep myself very informed through other outlets - I was watching the BBC World News and reading the New York Times daily - but Jon Stewart's editorial voice was invaluable for making sense of post 9/11 America.  The fact that it was being presented through a half-hour satirical talk show on Comedy Central that used to air after junk like "Crank Yankers" didn't dissuade me.

And as the show changed, the host changed too.  Jon wasn't my favorite part of "The Daily Show" in the beginning - the Steph/vens were much more entertaining to watch.  However, Jon could cut through the hypocrisy like few others, which lead to moments like the "Crossfire" interview that took down Tucker Carlson.  I didn't see the first post-9/11 "Daily Show" with Jon's famous monologue until a few years after it aired, but it's required viewing.  You can see his stubborn optimism, his intellectual rigor, and his formidable ethical fiber coming to the fore.  You can see the man who would devote an entire show to pressing the cause of post-9/11 responders, the man who took months off from "The Daily Show" to make a movie about a wrongly incarcerated Iranian journalist, the man who has become the most trusted name in media as so many of the legitimate newsmen of our day were lost to scandal or corruption.  Jon Stewart used to downplay his work in interviews, pointing out that he was a comedian.  He's stopped doing that in recent years, as "The Daily Show" and its offspring have grown in influence and impact.

As much as I'd like Jon Stewart to stay, part of me knows that it's probably time for him to go.  I've watched "The Daily Show" regularly for about fifteen years now, and Stewart's go-to shtick has become a little too familiar.  That would be fine if he were on a network late night show, but "The Daily Show" is another matter entirely.  If it is to remain the satirical institution it has become, it needs new blood and some freshening up.  Stewart's already been surpassed in many ways by "Daily Show" alums Stephen Colbert and John Oliver.  I have high hopes for Trevor Noah, though he's going to have his work cut out for him, especially as an interviewer. Stewart's always given even his most contrarian rivals a fair shake, and I suspect many of them will be as sad to see him go as the rest of hie audience.  It's going to be strange not to see Stewart behind the desk, doodling over his note cards and doing his terrible-yet-endearing impression of George W. Bush.

David Letterman's retirement made me pause last year, but Jon Stewart's imminent departure is hitting me much harder, and not just because I still watch his show.  Stewart is almost certainly the major comedic influence of my late Gen-X, early Gen-Y generation.  I was there to see his rise and subsequently followed his career through thick and thin and an ill-considered Oscar hosting gig.  And now I'm here to see him go, after sixteen years.  We're not part of the same milieu, and I don't really identify with him in any way except politically and intellectually, but that's enough.  I'm firmly convinced that "The Daily Show" helped to keep the political discourse in this country from becoming worse than it already was in troubled times, and for getting many of us to pay attention to boring but vitally important issues.  Jon Stewart, in his own unlikely, fascinating way, made a difference, and I'll always be grateful for that.
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A Trip to "Slow West"

The western has been dead for years now, if the internet is to be believed, and yet good ones keep being made year after year.  We've gone from classic westerns to spaghetti westerns, revisionist westerns, post-modern westerns, and urban westerns.  I'm not quite sure how to categorize "Slow West," the directorial debut of musician John Maclean.  Its main characters are the odd couple pairing of a cynical bounty hunter, Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender), and a naive Scottish teenager, Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is newly arrived in America and travelling through dangerous, lawless western frontier in search of his beloved Rose (Caren Pistorius).  After a chance meeting and a close brush with death, Jay pays Silas to guide him through the wilderness, but of course Silas has his own agenda.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the title, but "Slow West" is a decent description of the film's storytelling approach.  Though there is the constant presence of danger, and our heroes are forced into several violent situations, the film's pacing is fairly leisurely, allowing plenty of room for character building and soaking up the atmosphere.  We learn about Jay and Rose's past gradually, through several flashbacks.  Silas and Jay are not the best of traveling companions at the start, but eventually find common ground after enduring several trials and tribulations together.  There's a refreshing clarity and straightforwardness to the film's messages, which are embodied by Jay, the perhaps foolishly hopeful youngster who refuses to give in to cynicism and doubt despite having every reason to.  It's a strangely old-fashioned and romantic outlook for a western that is so clearly revisionist at its core.

I'm not familiar with John Maclean's earlier work, but he clearly had a strong enough reputation to attract a stellar cast.  In addition to Fassbender and Smit-McPhee, Ben Mendelsohn, Rory McCann, and excellent newcomer Caren Pistorius do fine work.  I'm especially impressed with Kodi Smit-McPhee, who is making a nice transition from child actor to adolescent actor, and hopefully beyond.  He uses his physical awkwardness to his advantage, but never cedes any presence.  And he provides a great contrast to Michael Fassbender, in the hypermasculine, lone wolf part that he's always been so good at playing.  Silas is a bit underwritten, but Fassbender still does an excellent job of giving him an inner life and suggesting bits and pieces of an eventful past.

John Maclean's inexperience in features shows, particularly in the scripting, but so does his wonderful visual sense, his strong storytelling sensibilities, and a very particular sense of humor.  One of the best moments of the "Slow West" comes toward the end of the second act, when the film is taking a breather after an action sequence.  Jay and Silas happen across the skeleton of a man crushed by a fallen tree he was trying to cut down.  It's a morbidly funny moment, but after the senseless violence we've seen the pair subjected to, it's also a strangely reassuring sign that death visits everyone both bad and good.  It gives Jay and Silas something to bond over, ruminating over natural selection and its strange exceptions.

Maclean builds a version of the old west around them that is fascinating to explore.  It's a harsh and unforgiving place, where death lies in wait behind every hill and tree.  Hostile natives, roving bands of outlaws, and bounty hunters are only the most obvious dangers.  Yet there's a palpable sense of wonder that colors the film, an almost magical realist approach to the way this world is presented.  The visuals gradually become more and more stylized as the movie goes on, leading up to one of the most visually striking shootout sequences I've seen in a long time.  There are some uneven tonal and pacing issues in the early going, but that climax on the picture perfect golden prairie is absolutely magnificent.

I'm still not convinced that "Slow West" is the best title for this film.  It's fairly brisk and runs a lean 84 minutes.  However, its charms did build on me gradually and incrementally.  It revealed itself eventually to be quite a different film than I had originally anticipated.  And it made me wish for more westerns like this one.
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"Kumiko" and the True Story

When I first read the description of "Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter," I got a little upset.  "Kumiko" is based on the story of Takako Konishi, a Japanese woman who mysteriously died in Minnesota in 2001 after wandering around the Minneapolis area for several days, speaking little English.  A story circulated that she had been trying to recover the buried money depicted in the Coens' brothers film "Fargo," but this turned out to be a misunderstanding she had with a local policeman.  Konishi was depressed from her breakup with an American businessman, who she'd visited the area with before, and likely committed suicide as a result.  Paul Berczeller cleared everything up in his 2003 documentary about Konishi's final days, "This is a True Story."  But now here came "Kumiko," which appeared from the trailers to be a deliberate attempt to cash in on the fictional, sensationalized story.  "Fargo," despite famously declaring that it was based on a true story, wasn't.  "Kumiko" isn't based on a true story either, but on a mistaken interpretation of real-life events.  I felt indignant that the filmmakers seemed to be obfuscating what actually happened, whether intentionally or not.  The notion rankled me something fierce.

Crucially, however, "Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter" isn't about Takako Konishi and never pretends to be.  It's about that curious treasure-seeking figure from the urban legend that was created before we learned Konishi's circumstances.  What kind of person would believe that "Fargo" was a documentary and that it pointed to a real hidden fortune?  What kind of person would travel halfway around the globe in search of it?  I was expecting "Kumiko" to be some kind of pulpy genre film featuring a plucky, exotic heroine.  Instead, it's a melancholy portrait of a young woman slowly losing her grip on reality.  Kumiko (Rinko Kikuchi) lives a solitary existence in Tokyo, working as an Office Lady, and quickly aging out of the position.  Everyone agrees that she ought to get married and have a family, but this doesn't interest Kumiko.  Instead, she obsessively watches and rewatches an old "Fargo" VHS tape that she found secreted away at the seashore, and comes to believe the story is real.  She starts making maps based on the information from the movie and preparing for the journey ahead.  And when her situation becomes unbearable, and the opportunity presents itself, Kumiko goes to Minnesota to begin her great treasure hunt.

The very particular, delicate mood created by the Zellner brothers is what allows "Kumiko" to walk that thin line between tragedy and uplifting adventure, to reconcile a fantasy of a woman that didn't exist and the harshness of a real woman's death.  The carefully constructed environments and Rinko Kikuchi's performance are extraordinary to take in.  Much of the film is spent in near-silence as we follow Kumiko through her daily routines, on her early excursions, and finally to the frozen Midwest.  We experience the world as she does, always throwing up obstacles and challenges in her path, full of people who don't understand her on both sides of the ocean.  She never says much, and much of her behavior remains a mystery, but we see Kumiko's resourcefulness and her daring, her little moments of triumph and heartbreak.  She's eccentric, but rarely confused.  The rest of the world simply doesn't understand things the way she does.

I especially admire how the Zellners make Minnesota and its inhabitants feel so foreign to the viewer.  Perhaps they go a little overboard with the colorful dialogue, which pokes gentle fun at some of the folks Kumiko encounters along the way.  However, this America is clearly the America of "Paris, Texas," and "Stoszek," a strange, evocative land that it's very easy to become lost in.  Kumiko transforms into a fairy tale figure as the film goes on, with more than a few visuals echoing "Little Red Riding Hood."  There's also the way that "Kumiko" is self aware of its own relationships to "Fargo" and to Takako Konishi.  The false "Fargo" notice screen, claiming "This is a true story" appears repeatedly in "Kumiko," perhaps helping to convince our heroine that the lost money is real.  But if Kumiko doesn't resemble Konishi the way that "Fargo" doesn't resemble true events - well, who's to say that in her universe, in her reality, the money isn't real?

"Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter" doesn't do right by Takako Konishi, but it does right by Kumiko.  And now, along with the "Fargo" television series, it's a wonderful example of media building on other media in unconventional, transformative ways.  I got so much more than I bargained for with this film, and a good reminder that what's real and what's true are often entirely different things.
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"Community," Year Six

Here we are, at what I'm pretty sure is the end of the road for "Community."  I admit I put off watching the final Yahoo! funded and presented season for much longer than I should have, but once I went and watched the first episode, I quickly marathoned the rest.  I was afraid that the show was going to be horribly diminished in some way because of its transition to a web platform.  Instead, aside from a few cast changes, "Community" is largely the same as it always was, thought more hyper-focused on Jeff and Abed.  And this season is actually better and more cohesive than the last one that aired on NBC.

First, some thoughts on the cast changes.  Yvette Nicole Brown's Shirley got a brief goodbye and Jonathan Banks' Hickey did not, which was regrettable but clearly necessary.  Much more time is devoted to introducing familiar character actors Paget Brewster and Keith David to the group, and very successfully for new additions arriving so late in the show's run.  Brewster's Frankie is an administrative consultant hired by the Dean to essentially be a competent adult watching out for Greendale's interests in a way that he can't.  Keith David's Elroy shows up a bit later as a programming guru fallen on hard times, who becomes Greendale's primary IT guy.  They're both nicely delineated as very imperfect adults, who aren't going through the same growing pains as the core cast, and thus very much supporting players in the same way that the Dean is.  Also, note that the group is now comprised of more teachers and admin figures than students.

The writing is back on track, with most episodes in the vein of the school-centric, character-centric first season.  The study group has transitioned to the Save Greendale Committee fully, and Jeff's status as a teacher is firmly cemented, so the show can put all the worries about graduation dates and classes mostly behind it.  There are very few wild high concept episodes, though paintball does get trotted out one last time.  References and running jokes have been pruned, but there is a lot of meta - Abed's penchant for using pop culture as a crutch is simplified to making observations on the group like it's a television show, leading to a fantastic finale episode where everybody pitches ideas for Season 7.  Dan Harmon and company have fun acknowledging the show's format, cast, and platform changes where they can.

More vitally, however, it felt like the characters are themselves again, after the fourth season without Dan Harmon, and the extremely rushed, extremely compromised fifth season that left a lot of loose ends.  Britta and Jeff both get great episodes examining their current dissatisfaction with their lives from new angles.  Chang is still a trainwreck, but used better than he has been in ages. Ditto Annie, who at least gets a great closing scene for her character.  We learn enough about Frankie and Elroy to help us connect to them, and if this is the only season where they appear, it's still enough that I'll miss them.  As for Abed, I wish we got more of him this year because there's so much of his journey that feels like it happened off screen.

All and all, season six had the usual ups and downs.  There were some episodes, like the one about grifting and the one with the robot convicts that didn't work, but they still felt of a piece with the rest of the season.  And there were some big highlights, like Abed's epic science-fiction Z-movie, Garrett getting married, and Dean Pelton trying out the role of token homosexual.  It's fascinating how the entire premise of "Community" has been almost completely upended now, but it feels closer in spirit to its earliest episodes than it has in ages.  I think it has to do with the writers embracing the show's instability instead of trying to hide it.  "Community" never got over the departure of Donald Glover, but at the same time the constant reinventions have kept it from sliding into complacency or over-indulgence.  

The best example is this season's epic tags.  The format and length of "Community" didn't change much in the move to Yahoo!, with the exception of the show's closing credit segments, which just kept getting longer and wilder as the season went on.  The tags were always a highlight, but this year they exploded.  My favorite was Shirley's new NBC detective show with Stephen Weber, though the cybercrimes kid and the man who bought Dean Pelton's giant hand statue were up there.  And how fitting was it for the show to end on that meta-tastic "Community" board game ad?

Six seasons done.  Now settle in for the long wait for the movie.

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The Magic of "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell"

I'm more convinced than ever that the best way to adapt many novels for the screen is to adapt them as miniseries or very short limited series.  "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell," originally an 800 page fantasy novel by Susanna Clarke, benefits tremendously from being presented in seven one-hour installments.  This allows the series to unfold the way the book did, to slowly build from a light 19th century comedy of manners to a rip-roaring adventure story in the final acts.  The early installments are also almost totally about Mr. Norrell, as Jonathan Strange didn't appear until a quarter of the way through the book.  A film version would have had to compress the timeline and excise the more satirical, humorous elements.  A longer series would have been in constant danger of losing momentum and running out of material.  BBC going the miniseries route here was the best possible choice.

 

But enough about the format.  "Jonathan Strange" charts the careers of the two main characters, who become magicians in an alternate version of Regency England, where the practice of magic has been dormant for three hundred years.  Fussy, book-hoarding Gilbert Norrell (Eddie Marsan) gets the ball rolling, by moving to London in order to make himself useful in the war efforts against Napoleon and thus bring new respectability to English magic.  Norrell's abilities come from lengthy study of his beloved books.  However Jonathan Strange (Bertie Carvel), a younger, dashing gentleman who soon arrives as England's second "practical magician," is largely the product of natural talent.  He and Norrell ally themselves, but find that they don't see eye to eye in many important respects.  Their relationship is further strained by the lurking presence of a strange, white-haired Gentleman (Marc Warren), who helped Norrell revive Lady Pole, (Alice Englert), the wife of a prominent minister, and has now taken an interest in Strange's wife, Arabella (Charlotte Riley).

 

The BBC spared no expense, and as a result "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" looks absolutely fantastic. The period sets, the elaborate costuming, and the displays of CGI-aided magic are great fun.  Magic is used with restraint, however.  The series is driven primarily by terrific character work bringing to life Norrell's stubborn efforts to enforce his particular ideologies, Strange developing his own opinions on magic, and the clandestine plotting of the eerie Gentleman.  Marsan and Carvel are both at their best and lead a strong ensemble cast.  Several of the most memorable performances come in the smaller roles: Norrell's manservant Childermass (Enzo Cilenti), a butler of the Pole household, Stephen (Ariyon Bakare), who falls under the Gentleman's influence, and the comical opportunist Drawlight (Vincent Franklin), who quickly attaches himself to Norrell when he arrives in London.  I especially appreciated the greater emphasis placed on the two major women of the piece, Arabella and Lady Pole, who are more active and outspoken than they were in the novel, to the series' benefit.

 

I think that fans of the book will be pleased, though they'll more likely to notice the series' weaker spots. There are some pacing issues that crop up in the last few episodes.  This easily could have been nine or ten installments, and the fireworks of the finale are all jammed into a very short span.  Various developments involving the Gentleman's machinations are also spelled out much more explicitly, lessening the air of mystery and intrigue.  There's a noticeably slickness to the production - nearly all the primary creative talents are recent "Doctor Who" alums - that mark it as being filmed for television.  As lovely as the production design is, you could never mistake this for a feature film.  Also, I felt that the miniseries left things slightly too open-ended, perhaps anticipating a sequel.  It's a pity Susanna Clarke hasn't finished hers yet.  

 

These are very small issues, though, in an impressive, faithful adaptation of a well-loved fantasy novel.  I enjoyed it thoroughly from start to finish, and I hope that Hollywood can look to this as an example of how to handle other adaptations of similarly difficult source material in the future.  And I can think of about a dozen other books that I'd love for the BBC to tackle next.   

 

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The Holy Grail Post, Part 2

Continued from yesterday's post of Holy Grail projects I'd love to see...

 

"The Pillowman" - Martin McDonagh's 2003 play about a writer of horrific children's stories standing accused of murder, quietly captured my imagination when it came to Broadway, and never really let go.  The black, black humor, the fascinating exploration of storytelling, and the twisted original fairy tales really appealed to me.  Because of the extreme nature of the material, this would be a hard sell as a film, but it wouldn't be a particularly costly project.  Most of the action takes place in a single room, and there are a lot of options for dramatizing the protagonist's stories.  I'd like to see some independent animators like the Brothers Quay or Michel Ocelot involved, though that would mean a much more complicated and lengthy production.

 

McDonagh has become a writer/director of feature films in recent years, responsible for "In Bruges" and "Seven Psychopaths."  Unfortunately, he's expressly ruled out revisiting his older work, preferring to create new stories for his movies.  However, he's stated no opinion on others taking a crack at his back catalogue. I can think of several directors who would be able to balance "The Pillowman's" acts of graphic violence with its childish whimsy and creepy jaunts into the fantastic. The play veers close enough to horror that the goremeisters might be interested in putting something together, but at the same time it's probably far too talky and cerebral to appeal to the usual genre fans.  I suspect that "The Pillowman" would never work onscreen as well as it does on the stage.  But I'd still love to see somebody try.

 

Snow Crash - Of the cyberpunk classics that have yet to be adapted, I think that "Snow Crash" is one of the biggest long shots because of its sprawling, freewheeling story and difficult core concepts.  Still, pizza delivery badass Hiro Protagonist is far too magnificent a character to never reach mass audiences in some form, and the novel's satire just gets closer and closer to reality every day as the internet continues to take over our lives.  I've dreamed of seeing the opening pizza delivery sequence fully dramatized, along with the full glory of the Metaverse and the franchise-dominated shopping mall of a world that the characters inhabit.  I have no idea what it would look like - but Terry Gilliam or Luc Besson or someody out there does.  And I really want to see it. 

 

Vincenzo Natali, of "Cube" fame, has been leading the charge to adapt "Snow Crash," "Neuromancer," and other science-fiction favorites, but has run into no shortage of pitfalls.  He's convinced that "Snow Crash" can only be done as a series rather than a film, and he's probably right.  However, I don't see the "Snow Crash" universe being done justice on a TV budget.  In addition to all the usual dystopian spectacle, a lot of the fun of the book is in the wild, almost cartoonish level of action.  This is also a rare science-fiction property with a black hero (technically half-black and half-Korean Hiro), and it would be a monumental shame for a role like this not to be given the highest visibility possible.  I'm convinced there are the pieces of great movie here somewhere, though it may take a genius to get them all to fit.

 

Paradise Lost - The idea of the epic struggle between God and the Devil playing out on biggest celestial canvas that Hollywood can provide holds plenty of appeal for me, but I can't quite wrap my head around it actually happening.  Yet, more than one director has already tried to make this a reality, the latest being Alex Proyas in 2011, who actually got to the casting stage before the plug was pulled.  The concept art looked pretty keen.  I have a fascination with depictions of Old Testament Christian mythology, which can be fertile ground for weird and wonderful spectacle, like Darren Aronofsky's "Noah."  "Paradise Lost" offers that in abundance.  Angels and demons, heaven and hell - and of course one of the greatest literary characters of all time at the forefront: Milton's Lucifer.

 

The trouble is, of course, that whenever you have any kind of media based on the Bible, the politics of the Christian faith inevitably get in the way of the art.  It often feels like there's no room for anything in mainstream film except the safest, blandest, and most insular Christian pablum.  Milton's poem is old enough and revered enough that a straight adaptation probably wouldn't kick up too much controversy, but there's still a risk involved.  And a big Hollywood film dramatizing war in the heavens would already require a significant financial commitment.  The potential returns are also huge, which is why Proyas's project got as far along as it did, but I can certainly understand why the people in charge balked when they did.  The subject matter is still a tempting one, and there's still a good possibility this could happen one day. 

  

Domu  - This one came across my radar about fifteen years ago, through AICN.  "Domu" is a Japanese graphic novel written by Katsuhiro Otomo, best know for "Akira," about a psychic old man who terrorizes the inhabitants of a massive apartment complex.  And frankly, "Domu" is a much better candidate for a film adaptation that "Akira."  The concepts are simpler, the characters more universal, and the potential for jawdropping spectacle is about on par.  I especially enjoy the villain, a senile old codger who is childishly vindictive, but escapes notice because of his age and stature.  It would also be very easy to transplant the story from a Japanese setting to a Western one.  Similar films like "Dark City," "Chronicle," and "Looper" have all been well-received here.

 

Guillermo Del Toro had his eye on turning "Domu" into a feature fifteen years ago, but ran into trouble when trying to acquire the rights.  Katsuhiro Otomo himself is reportedly working on a version, and there were reports of test-footage being shown to investors back in 2013.  Alas, no news on the project has surfaced since.  I'm iffy on Otomo directing this himself, since his live-action work hasn't been nearly as good as his animated films, but on the other hand nobody knows the material better.  Frankly, there are a lot of directors who could do "Domu" justice, and in the age of CGI-aided disaster porn there's no better time for the manga to be adapted.  I think this has a very good chance of reaching the big screen eventually, once a few hurdles are properly cleared.

 

Repent, Harlequin! - "1984" -esque dystopian stories have gone out of style, replaced by the more audience-friendly fables of adolescent rebellion like "Hunger Games" and its imitators.  Nearly all of the famous ones like "Brave New World" and "Harrison Bergeron" have been adapted in one form or another anyway.  One exception, however, is "'Repent Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," Harlan Ellison's short story about a glum future society obsessed with everything running on time.  The hero, the Harlequin, is considered terribly dangerous for causing disruptions to the schedule with silly pranks.  I've wanted to see his jellybean operation brought to life in some form since I first read the story in high school.  "Jelly for God's sake beans!"

 

There has always been one significant barrier to any kind of adaptation, and his name is Harlan Ellison.  The notoriously litigious Ellison is fiercely protective of his work, knows how to hold a grudge, and his ire is a mighty thing to behold.  He was ready to go after the Andrew Niccol film "In Time" a few years ago for having superficial similarities to "Repent Harlequin!" before he even saw the picture. He has been involved in some notable science-fiction media, though, like "Star Trek," "The New Twilight Zone" and "Babylon 5," on his own strict terms.  And last year, after decades of saying no to everybody, he granted "Babylon 5" creator J. Michael Straczynski the rights to "Repent Harlequin!" out of the blue, which is a huge step toward a film or TV version being made someday.  Probably not for a long while yet, but someday. 

 

"Creature Tech" - Here's another one from AICN.  Back in 2008, Drew McWeeny posted a gushing review of Doug TenNapel's "Creature Tech" graphic novel, about a scientist who finds himself bonded to an alien symbiote, and struggles with questions of faith, identity, and his place in the universe. I went out and bought the book on the strength of that review and loved it.  This would absolutely make for a great live action science-fiction comedy in the same vein as "Men in Black" or "Guardians of the Galaxy."  FOX apparently acquired the rights some time ago.  However, "Creature Tech" has some tricky material, particularly the hero's crisis of faith.  I love the thoughtful conservative Christian voice that TenNapel brings to his work - and yes, I know about his homophobic side.  I'm still struggling with that, but at the same time his talent is undeniable.

 

Whether his work is palatable to the mainstream, however, is another matter.  Faith-based films and splashy genre blockbusters have mostly been cordoned off into their own spaces, with the exception of a few old-fashioned Bible epics rolled out around the holidays.  "Creature Tech" is definitely not one of these.  It's a high energy action movie romp full of cartoony aliens, silly situations, and nerdy, nerdy dialogue.  More importantly, it has a big heart and a sense of wonder that I more commonly associate with PIXAR films.  And it's unabashedly Christian, using religious concepts and imagery in ways that would probably make some people, both believers and non-believers, a little uncomfortable.  Not a big problem if this were an indie project, but "Creature Tech" is a property that needs a big budget to adapt properly.  It's probably better if it just remains a weird, wonderful comic.

 

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The Holy Grail Post, Part 1

I'm still a little stunned that "Ender's Game" actually became a real movie last year, after decades of rumors and dead ends.  It wasn't a very good movie, but it was undeniably "Ender's Game."  And many of the other projects once thought to be impossible and untenable have reached the big screen screen in some form or another over recently - "Cloud Atlas," "Watchmen," "Life of Pi," "Days of Future Past," and even Kerouac's "On the Road" - which was pretty good - and "Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" - which was not.  With the "Preacher" TV pilot in the bag, and the announcement that "The Killing Joke" is getting an animated adaptation, what were once thought to be "Holy Grail" projects are coming our way fast and furious. 

 

Of course, there are plenty of big ones left.  "Neuromancer," "Blood Meridian" and "Confederacy of Dunces" are still in development hell and probably always will be.  "Dark Tower" and "Foundation" projects are inching ahead, but they've been inching ahead for years now.  Still, I think they have a much better chance to be made in 2015 than they would have twenty years ago, thanks to the new affordability of CGI effects, and the increased appetite for genre content from a wide range of new content producers.  So I think this is a good time to revamp my own personal list of "Holy Grail" properties.  What are the stories that I'd be the most excited to see become a movie or television/web series today?

 

First, the caveats.  The list below does not cover the specific projects tied to a particular director, so we can leave off James Cameron's "Battle Angel Alita," Terry Gilliam's "Man Who Killed Don Quixote," Satoshi Kon's "Dream Machine," John Milius's "King Conan," and the long lists of projects that Steven Spielberg and Guillermo Del Toro are attached to.  I'm focusing on the source material here, where my excitement doesn't depend so heavily on the people adapting it.  Also, I'm limiting the selections to material than hasn't been adapted yet, or at least not very recently and not to their full potential.  So as much as I'd like to see others tackle the "Dark is Rising" and "His Dark Materials" series, I think they both need to wait a bit for the recent Hollywood misfires to be forgotten before somebody tries again.

 

"The Sandman" - Neil Gaiman's got a long list of development hell occupants like "Good Omens" and "American Gods."  However, the oldest and most difficult project associated with him is still his fantasy series "The Sandman," which unfolded over the course of 70-odd issues of a comic book series aimed at grown-ups.  Highly literary, conforming to no easy template of good vs. evil conflict, and full of fantastic concepts, the series quickly attracted a devoted readership.  It's still hugely influential and remains one of the most first titles recommended to dispell the notion that comic books are only for children.  Since the '90s there have been attempts to make a film version, but I think "Sandman" stands a much better chance of getting a worthwhile adaptation now.

 

For one thing, "Sandman" would work better as a series than as a stand-alone film.  At heart it's a character study of it's central protagonist, Morpheus the Lord of Dreams, who has more in common with Don Draper than he does with Tony Stark.  A film version certainly could work, though, and would benefit from the serialized nature of modern comic-book movies, which are often told over multiple installments.  You could make a trilogy from the "Preludes and Nocturnes," "Season of the Mists" and "Kindly Ones" storylines.  Or throw in "Doll's House" and "Brief Lives" if you want to extend it.  And then spin off an anthology series for the dozens and dozens of side characters and peripheral tales contained in "Sandman."  There's a massive amount of material here that could sustain an entire universe by itself.  Fox's new "Lucifer" series is based on a "Sandman" spinoff, so we're seeing bits of it being adapted already.  Fingers crossed that Joseph Gordon-Levitt or someone else gets "Sandman" made soon..

 

"The Last Unicorn" - The 1982 animated film is a cult classic, and plans for a live action version attracted a lot of attention after the success of "The Lord of the Rings."  Alas, the company holding the rights to Peter S. Beagle's book never raised the funds to actually do anything with them, and I believe that the rights are currently in limbo.  "The Last Unicorn" is a long shot for a major adaptation anyhow, since it doesn't fit the Hollywood blockbuster template well at all.  High fantasy never really did come back into vogue after the boom in the '80s.  Superficially similar modern films like "Stardust" have flopped.  Moreover, "The Last Unicorn" is very melancholy and contemplative, without much by way of action or thrills.  I always found its poignant depictions of characters touched by loss and regret to be what set it apart from other fantasy tales, but that also makes it a less appealing property for the big studios.

 

On the other hand, I can easily see a smaller, more intimate live action version of this story being made with minimal CGI.  You'd need an old school fantasist like Terry Gilliam or Michael Gondry involved, but the scope of "The Last Unicorn" is small enough that it would be manageable as an independent feature.  The best case scenario I can think of is an auteur far outside Hollywood taking this up as a passion project, making use of the new effects technology to introduce it to a new generation, while preserving its quieter, more thoughtful nature.  While ther interest is certainly there, a studio film would likely require far too many compromises to be worth the trouble.  Meanwhile, a new stage version is currently in the works, and Beagle wrote a brief sequel story a few years ago.

 

"Neon Genesis Evangelion"  - There are a lot of anime that I'd love to see adapted for live action in some fashion.  Realistically, it's the popular science-fiction adventure stories like "Cowboy Bebop" and "Attack on Titan" that are most likely to make that leap.  "Neon Genesis Evangelion" is at the top of my list because it has some concepts that would provide such a great opportunity for visual spectacle.  "Pacific Rim" has established that skyscraper-sized mecha can work in live action, and it borrowed more than a few of its Jaegar design elements straight from "Evangelion."  However, "Pacific Rim" lacked the apocalyptic setting, the screwed up teenage characters, and the utterly terrifying antagonists - the Angels.

 

There are a lot of big hurdles here.  Any sort of decent film version would be massively expensive, and though the "Evangelion" fanbase is famously devoted, it's not very large.  The seminal 1996 series gained a lot of fans in the West, and has been very influential over the years, but it's not popular on the same scale as something like "Pokemon."  The source material has a lot of problematic and controversial content, though I think it could survive shedding the most troubling bits.  The twisted pieces of Judeo-Christian mythology, filtered through depressed creator Hideaki Anno, make for some awesomely strange and disturbing visuals, but will probably be too much for domestic audiences.  The anime franchise remains alive and well after nearly twenty years, though, and we've all seen that nifty WETA concept art.  This is somebody's dream project just waiting it happen. 

 

Prydain Chronicles - I'm genuinely surprised that nobody has made another attempt at adapting Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books after "The Black Cauldron" became one of the Walt Disney Studios' most infamous animated bombs in the '80s.  The book series is in the same sword-and-sorcery vein as Narnia and Middle Earth, and remains very beloved by its fans. It features lots of memorable characters, fun villains, and fantastical adventuring - all very straightforward, family-friendly, and easily accessible.  On the other hand, maybe I should be grateful that it has escaped Hollywood's notice long enough to take advantage of the current trends in adapting this kind of material.  Prydain has five books, following a strong core cast through different stages of their lives, and would make for a great serialized film or television series.     

 

It's not clear whether Disney still has the rights to the Prydain books, but they're in the best position to make another attempt to get them right.  There are enough fantasy elements that you'd need a decent sized budget to be faithful to the books, and Disney knows how to market to kids like nobody else.  Its competitors are more in need of the content though, with major young adult fantasy franchises like "Hobbit" and "Hunger Games" either complete or nearly there.  The biggest hurdle for Prydain is its age - the series was written in the '60s, and may be a little too straightforward for the current generation of kids.  But good grief, if they managed to bring "John Carter" and a new "Lone Ranger" to the screen, Prydain should be a piece of cake.

 

This post got terribly long when I wasn't looking.  Part 2 and the rest of the list tomorrow.

 

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