Netflix Has the Rights to Narnia - God Help Us!

 

Some "somewhat darker" developmental artwork for a Narnia series.

Netflix, it seems, has secured the rights to the "Chronicles of Narnia" several years ago. The notoriously "woke" streaming service has evidently been developing the beloved Christian allegorical children's' book series by Christian apologist C.S. Lewis into a TV series.

They say it's going to be "a little darker" like "Anne With an E". I tried to watch "Anne with an E", but gave up after the second or third character turned out to be gender fluid. It's faithlessness to the book made it an almost unwatchable series that turns a children's book by pastor's wife Lucy Maud Montgomery into a tiresome wokeness lecture and turns Anne and her circle of friends into 19th century progressive reformers. To make it authentic, they should have thrown in something about sterilizing and/or euthanizing the "mentally deficient". That would have fit with the progressive thinking and practice of the day. 

Lucy Maud Montgomery, if she weren't dead and incapable of turning over in her grave, would, alongside CS Lewis, be spinning in her coffin in frustration and fury. I mean for crying out loud. How about simply telling the story the author wrote instead of turning it into a Puritanical Progressive lecture series?

I read updates on Netflix's progress with the development of a Narnia series and as far as I can tell from the article on "What's on Netflix?", there is a distinct chance Netflix Narnia may stray pretty significantly from the Narnia Canon. I mean the original pitch to Netflix talked about how "Netflix would be adapting Narnia into a Universe, positioning the series to go up against the likes of Game of Thrones and the Marvel Cinematic Universe albeit for a more family-orientated audience."

Mark Gordon, who signed on to do "The Silver Chair" dropped the ball and the movie never got made. Douglas Gresham, Lewis' stepson, says he trusts him but so far nothing has been completed. Now Mark Gordon has joined up with Netflix to either do the series as the books are ordered or to do a series of spinoffs based on characters in the envisioned "Narnia Universe" (like the Game of Thrones, Marvel, DC, Lord of the Rings or other "universes").  Either way, nobody is saying for certain.

Narnia fans are rightfully suspicious. Comments about all the character development that could be done with ancillary characters in the Chronicles makes us skeptical that this is a good faith attempt to bring us the stories we love and were denied because Disney and Fox were "uncomfortable with the Christian flavor of the stories. Telling us it would be a "little darker" and include deeper character development makes us nervous. Having got a look at the trailers for Amazon's "Lord of the Rings" universe offerings. the more we see, the more it looks like they didn't really look at the vast mass of Tolkien's stories in "The Simarillion" and all those minutely detailed books and notes he made in preparation to write the "Lord of the Rings".

My complaint in all of this is twofold. First, I like stories to be faithful to the originals. I can't think of a classic novel or story that has been improved by diddling with the story, save the cleaning up of the Grimm's Fairy Tales by Walt Disney. Some of those old fairy tales were kind of grisly. Disney did us a favor there. Unfortunately, after we lost Walt, Disney veered left and gradually began turning movies into lectures on wokeness. Admittedly they did some nice work with such films as Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and Tangled. Frozen was a bit feminist in the way it marginalized male characters, but wasn't terribly in-your-face. Having got away with some mild lectures on progressivism in their films, however, Disney went "woke" and lost $63 billion since the first of the year from people canceling their subscriptions and not watching movies or buying their stuff.

Disney already tried to tone down the Christianity in the Chronicles of Narnia. Liam Neeson, the voice of Aslan even came out in public stating that Aslan "...could be Mohammed or the Buddha." Mark Gordon needs to toss Neeson if he's going to undermine C.S. Lewis' work like that. How he's going to keep faithful to the source material working for WokeFlix I do not know.  If he doesn't and succumbs to pressure to throw in a few gay or trans characters in order to "woke" up the material, he's going to lose more than half his audience. As it was the last couple of Narnia films did their best to disguise the fact that the whole series was about Jesus. Give me a break people. If they don't stop, someone's going to have to do something as good and then keep the progressive left from screwing it up.

Tolkien took a few hits with Lord of the Rings, although he originally did such a good job of disguising his Christianity that folks in this era seem to have missed the message buried in the stories. The Christian themes and the messiah story is just too good to not use it. Even openly progressive J.K. Rowling couldn't resist inserting a messiah story into her Harry Potter series. Just look and you'll find major characters sacrificing themselves to save others. The Jesus story is such an overpowering part of the human meta-narrative, that writers just can't leave it alone. In recent fiction such novels and films such as Dune, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Stranger in a Strange Land, the Matrix, Orson Scott Card's Ender series and, of course, Lord of the Rings. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of stories and novels and films that incorporate messianic themes.

The idea of the epic hero who lays down his life to save the world is like catnip to writers. I think we like to imagine ourselves as the ultimate good guy saving the world with our words, but without the whole messy crucifixion business. Just pray that Netflix doesn't assign Barak and Michelle to produce the Chronicles of Narnia but with ancillary "woke" characters CS Lewis would NOT recognize. Half of them would be sure to be LGBTQROFLMAO and one of the dwarfs would wind up in a romantic relationship with a centaur.

© 2022 by Tom King

A Box of Faith - Christian Film Done Well

 

Beautiful, kindly film, a really lovely piece, A Box of Faith stands out. 

A lot of well-meaning Christian film-makers give it their best shot, but turn out weak when it comes to story. Ham-fisted miracles, trite dialogue, predictable plots and wooden acting tends to be more common than not. Don't get me wrong there are some indie Christian film-makers that are doing some remarkable work, but the genre is about half a century behind modern film-making's level of sophistication. 

This movie isn't sophisticated. It's good! What makes it a standout piece is the beauty of the story. It made me cry. This story proves that writing can carry a film that doesn't have a big budget. The actors aren't Meryl Streep or Tom Hanks, but they do a good job of portraying real people. 

The story follows a teenage girl and her father through the kind of hopeless hard time that we all pray we never have to go through. The prayers are simple and heartfelt and not stilted. The film is not preachy, but genuine. Dior's father, Tim, is arrested for a crime he didn't commit and Dior dodges a social worker in order to stay out of foster care. The girl manages to survive out on her own. Her bag is stolen. She lives by day in a park and sleeps in her dad's storage unit.

You really root for this kid as she hangs on hoping for some kind of miracle. The movie ends on a positive note as all my favorite movies do. Bill Wetherill who plays the girl's father Tim is wonderful. He's a big sweetheart of a guy and you really feel for him. Dior is played by Savannah D. McMahon is perfect as a teenage girl living by her wits on her own. Julie Van Lith is terrific as the social worker charged with Dior's case.

Right now, the film is on Amazon Prime and possibly some other faith friendly streaming services. It's a wonderful movie for a quiet Sabbath afternoon. This one gets three pineapples for a happy ending, for reminding me of Swiss Family Robinson and Castaway type survival stories and for the clever use of the Box of Faith which ties the story together so cleverly.

© 2022 by Tom King

Ginny Weasley – J.K. Rowlings’ Most Daring Character

 

Author’s Note: Many of my Christian friends find Rowlings’ Harry Potter series objectionable because it seems to glorify witchcraft. The use of magic in the series is at least the conjuring style with magic words and formulas rather than the summoning demons and dark forces style of magic. At least the rules of her magic world divide the use of magic by good and evil, right and wrong. Rowling, based on her own comments in various interviews, tries to cast her books as politically correct, but when she is honest about it, she gets in trouble with the cancel culture. Rowling says this book is not a Christian allegory and it is not set in the sort of magical fantasy allegorical worlds that openly Christian authors like JRR Tolkien, John Bunyan, George McDonald and CS Lewis built. But it’s hard to miss that Rowlings’ Harry turns out in the end to be a Messiah figure. Both he and Dumbledore willingly lay down their lives for others. Like John the Baptist, Dumbledore doesn’t come back. Like Jesus, however, Harry does. I think that in tackling the messiah theme, Rowlings could not help herself incorporating Christian themes. Even though not an exact allegory, the series definitely held ancient themes common to Christian literature. The messiah theme repeats itself in literature all down the ages from The Garden of Eden to Christ, to King Arthur to Aslan and Frodo. It echoes in our stories and songs down through the age, because, I believe, it is true. This article came from a discussion by disgruntled Harry Potter fans complaining because Harry didn’t wind up with Hermione. I think Rowlings was exactly right and revealed a great deal of wisdom. Her recent troubles with cancel culture have shown her to be made of sterner stuff than the left thought she was. I felt like I should defend her choice from wrong-headed critics.

J.K. Rowlings, author of the wildly successful Harry Potter series, drew her characters well. Her ability to draw distinct and likeable characters was responsible for most of the seven volume series’ success.  The character that is often cited as the least-liked of all the characters is Harry’s ultimate love interest, his best friend Ron Weasley’s kid sister, Ginny.  I utterly disagree.

Ginny was a wonderful girl. She had her mother's fierce devotion to family and her father's sense of wonder. She was devoted to Harry and wound up being pretty amazing in her own right. Fans of the series, especially female fans often criticize Rowlings for not getting Harry and Hermione together as a couple. Instead they had that rare and improbable male-female friendship that many less insightful readers believe is simply impossible.

Rowlings, however was smarter than that. She could clearly see that  Harry and Hermione would never have worked – they were too much like brother and sister. Heroes in stories need an ally like that, and a sister can be a powerful ally. But a sister is not a suitable mate. Harry and Hermione were both very powerful characters and they needed soul mates who were strong enough to be themselves, without needing to contend with them for dominance. Ginny adored Harry and had a very healthy ego of her own and had few doubts about herself or about Harry for that matter. The same was true with Ron toward Hermione. She always amazed him and he always trusted in her gifts even when she, herself, didn't.  I think Ron and Ginny got that from their father. Mrs. Weasley was always something of an overwhelming character and he was content to let her be so.

Remember that Ron ran away from Harry and Hermione for a time during their hunt for the horcruxes. He had to. It was in a way, too much having to live with the two of them running along at full power. As friends Harry and Hermione could work together and stand the heat, but as mates, I think the addition of a sexual component would have sent them both up in flames the way high-powered actor or politician couples tend to flame out and wind up divorced or worse.

Ginny and Ron got the best characteristics from their parents - stability, devotion and enough fire from their mother to hold their own in Harry and Hermione's considerable shadows. From their father they got that flexibility, good humor and common sense.  It allowed them to provide their more fiery mates a stable rock from which they could spring to even greater heights.

Look at all the people out there who achieve the kind of "greatness" Olivander predicted for Harry. The very best of them have friends like Ron and mates like Ginny.

Margaret Thatcher had Denis
Ronald Reagan had Nancy
Queen Elizabeth had Prince Philip
George W. Bush had Laura
George H.W. Bush had Barbara
JFK had Jackie
Dwight Eisenhower had Mamie
FDR had Eleanor
Harry had Bess
Abe Lincoln had Mary with all her flaws
George Washington had Martha

A recent example of a flawed pairing of two alpha personalities would be Bill and Hillary Clinton. Both were powerful in their own right and as such, they very publicly went up in flames during his administration. Bill still has trouble letting Hillary take center stage as she did when he was president. In her most recent political activities, Bill has hovered like a grim ghost in the background, his past history casting a poisonous cloud over her aspirations.

I think J.K. Rowlings got the pairings exactly right in the Harry Potter saga. Not many authors are brave enough to suggest that that type of relationships between a man and women may be idea! Harry was close friends with Hermione and mate to Ginny and the distinction between those relationships became ever more clear as the series went on. Many people want to believe that two powerful alpha type people can make it together, but the odds are always against them and their relationship will never be quite secure. Like it or not, Harry and Ginny were made for each other and Hermione and Ron were too. From the moment she told him he had dirt on his nose that first day they met on the train to Hogwarts, it was always inevitable they would wind up together. Ron was an amazing young man from the first and his character grew right along. But Hermione's confidence and self-assurance helped to bolster Ron's own confidence. Ron was always confident in Hermione and realized what a treasure she was. Like his father, Ron was devoted to her and quite content to live in the powerful presence of "the brightest witch of her day" without burning up or needing to challenge her position.

That's why J.K. Rowlings sold so many books. She wrote truth, however politically incorrect it might be. People are starved for truth. Some of the things J.K. says outside of the books might be suspect or an attempt to cull favor with the politically correct, but within the books, she got it dead to rights.

A lot of Potter fans complain that Ginny and Harry “suck” as a couple.

Balderdash! They only suck if you're looking for a soap opera and not a happy marriage. They only suck if well-adjusted, happy couples bore you to tears.

It's amazing to me how girls always get irate over the jock or the BMOC (big man on campus) who overlooks the shy, unassuming girl in favor of some tempestuous floozy who only makes his life miserable when the shy girl would have been a devoted supportive companion and helpmate. Then they turn around and complain if there aren't enough fireworks between the couple to pique their prurient interest.

I got news for you, tempestuous relationships tend to wind up in divorce a few years after the movie's happy ending. Having wild passionate sex, contrary to the romantic poets, doesn't fix all that’s wrong with a  bad relationship. It blows it up! Fiery relationships are all well and good for soap operas and movies of the week, but they suck as a foundation for a happy marriage.

JK gave us not one, but two wonderful relationships - Harry and the devoted Ginny and Hermione and the devoted Ron instead of some cliche'd romantic triangle (although we did get a bit of that with Ron on the horcrux hunt even if it was all in Ron's imagination.

Harry Potter was about good vs. evil. It was about making the right choice even if it didn't seem like it was in your best interests. It was about relying on your friends and family instead of trying to go it alone. It was about doing the right thing. Look at the quintessential romantic triangle - Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot. Guinevere was too much of a power in her own right. Arthur was competition. Lancelot was powerful, but he never challenged her for right of place. It cost Arthur his kingdom and almost cost his legacy.

I think Harry came out far better than Arthur did in choosing Ginny. And the Ginny in the books was far more fleshed out than in the movie, although Bonnie Wright's subtle performance in the films revealed all you might want to know about Ginny's character - starting from that first contact in the train station. Bonnie really played Harry's mate to the hilt, even when Harry barely realized she was there.

I hate soap opera - stupid people who shouldn't be together torturing each other. Where is there anything to be gleaned from that besides the whole post-modernist "Life is meaningless and then you die" nonsense?

Why would you want to screw up a heroic tale like the Harry Potter series that way other than because you either have a perverse need to see people make themselves miserable so you don't feel so bad about your own misery or because you have a literary axe to grind and want to show how smart you are and "above all that schmaltzy happy ending stuff".

That's why so many English majors wind up bitter cranky old schoolmarms and never contribute anything meaningful in the way of literature. I'd rather learn from great authors than set myself up as their judge and jury. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. And those who can't even teach become critics.

As River Tam described such persons in Firefly, "Sad little king of a sad little hill."

Many Potter fans complain that Ginny is too “bland”.  I think her character is subtle and subtle is not bland. You want an exciting couple, there's always Voldemort and Bellatrix.

Again, it amazes me that people will complain a couple is bland and get royally furious when the "jock" spurns the "plain" girl for the more exciting one in real life. Maybe you have to be female to understand what these critics are talking about. For me, Ginny was a wonderful character, book and movie. She wasn't flashy or exotically beautiful, but for someone like Harry who was risking his life almost daily, fighting evil wizards and witches, giving up his very life to save others.......Ginny would have been a fresh, uncomplicated breath of fresh air and devoted companion.

You got a glimpse of the stuff Ginny was made of in the final battle, in the kiss she initiated in the room of requirement, in her steadfast devotion to Harry. Harry needed that. Hermione and Harry would have gone up in flames.

In the hero quest, the hero's mate gives him (or her) one of two things - a happily ever after or a tragic ending. Harry and Ginny were right together as were Hermione and Ron; that is, if you wanted them to have that happily ever after.

 

Rowlings was brilliant in putting them together the way she did. And with Harry and Hermione, she perfectly captured that fascinating and rare relationship, a male-female true friendship without sex. Nature provides us with pheremonal cues when two people are not genetically compatible. When you're together you feel like siblings. Anything else just seems wrong.

I've had relationships with women that were like that. My wife has a long-standing relationship with a guy from school that's like that. They even tried dating once and it just didn't feel right to either of them. They're great friends and all, but that's all.

I'm so glad J.K. placed that element in the Potter novels and didn't go for the whole "men and women can never be just friends" malarkey. Remember the scene in the tent where they danced together. It showed how their relationship worked and did so brilliantly. There weren't any sexual overtones in it. It looked like friends comforting one another.

Everything isn't about sex. Fully mature people understand that. Hormonally charged teenagers so seldom do. Both Hermione and Harry matured at a surprisingly young age. Remember how Hermione was always encouraging Harry in his relationships.

And did you catch the scene on the bridge where Hermione said, "At least you accomplished one thing tonight.......Cho couldn't keep her eyes off you." And if you keep your eyes on Ginny in that scene as she is walking along behind him, you'll see this tiny little flinch from Ginny when Hermione says it. She is already carrying a torch for Harry and Harry doesn't yet see it.

The romance between Harry and Ginny is one of my favorites in all of literature. It's not a bonfire, but the kindling of a warm hearth - the sort of fire that lasts a lifetime.

Hermione and Ron have a sparkier relationship, but mostly because Ron lacks the self-confidence to move forward with Hermione. Hermione is in love with Ron long before he has the courage to recognize that he is in love with her. Hermione was ready to close the deal with Ron early on. She loved Ron, not in spite of his flaws, but because of them. To me that's incredibly selfless and what love ought to be.

Ron was afraid to put himself forward with Hermione. It's not that Ron isn't brave; he just doesn't see how someone as brilliant as Hermione could possibly love someone as flawed as he sees himself being. After he becomes separated from Harry and Hermione and Dumbledore's light catcher leads him back, you see a new Ron, filled with a new sense of self-confidence - enough to push his way past Hermione's anger. From then on, they are pair-bonded for life and you can see it in everything they do. That time away was Ron's 40 days in the wilderness just as the time when Harry surrendered to Voldemort and was "killed" was Harry's. Once that job was done, Harry could allow Ginny fully into his life without fearing that being close to him would get her killed.

Rowlings did such a good job with those relationships. The books are very wise and the films captures that quite well. The Harry/Ginny naysayers inevitably make arguments for Harry and Hermione make arguments of the sort junior high school girls for putting together the big jock and the head cheerleader back in the hormone-fueled days of early adolescence. You don't hook up with your sister and Hermione was  always that to Harry. JK was dead on.

The fact that practically everyone wants more of Harry and the gang, is a testament to how brilliantly and truthfully Rowlings drew the characters. I may have to watch the movies again now. Rowlings has given us a wise and truly remarkable body of work that will likely stand the test of time and gets all the pineapples I have. An author that can hold the attention of children and adolescent through not just one thick volume, but seven knows her stuff, so y'all just shut up about Ginny being the wrong gal for Harry.

© 2021 by Tom King

The Hunt for Gollum - Fan Film Takes It to the Next Level

 

Video by Independent Online Cinema on

youtube

I stumbled on this film today while browsing for something to watch that I hadn't seen or didn't want to see. What I found was a done not-for-profit Lord of the Rings fan film "The Hunt for Gollum". The film is very well done; proof that your too can make a movie.

The all volunteer crew and cast spent two years lovingly hand-crafting this tribute to the Lord of the Rings series and an homage to the Peter Jackson films.  The film managed to stay within a doable budget with clever shot angles, brilliant film editing and a talented cast of amateur actors. The film doesn't try to do too much, one of the traps so many fan films fall into. The action covers a single story arc from within the LOTR universe. It chooses its subject well so that it is the story that takes center stage and not the special effects, of which there are few. It's very clever the way they did it.

I have to hand it to the actors who portrayed Strider and Gandalf. They made them believable. Strider's fight scenes with the orcs were very well done. Somebody certainly knew how to choreograph fight scenes! The guys doing the orcs were no slouches either. The big fight scene was worthy of a multi-million dollar special effects blockbuster, albeit as an episode within the film. .

Apparently, gifted amateurs can make a very good film on a very low budget.  All you need is a smart director , talented film editor and enthusiastic volunteer actors with some degree of ability. The love and respect for the material these people had is evident throughout the film. And this was no rogue operation. They had permission of the Tolkien family to make it. And they didn't steal anything from Peter Jackson. Everything is original right down to the music. The 40 minute film is based on appendices and supplemental story material from The Silmarillion and other Tolkien materials.

And surprisingly, given some of the truly cringe-worthy fan films that have come out of late, this fits nicely as a supplemental chapter to the Peter Jackson films. I'm going to grab this one and add it to my digital collection. I don't think the makers will mind. And if you're a LOTR fan, I highly recommend you see this one to complete your viewing of all things Middle Earth.

Great job guys. My hat is off to you. A decade or so ago, George Lucas predicted that in not many years ordinary people would be able to make high quality films with over-the-counter computer and video equipment. The only limitation they would have, Lucas said, was intelligence and artistic sense. Given how well this film came out, not every good filmmaker is working out of Hollywood. Had they chosen to make this a for-profit film, with a little marketing, it might have made a little money. As it is, it's an act of love by fans of JRR Tolkien and Middle-Earth.

Made in 2009, I can't think how I missed "The Hunt for Gollum" for this long. Three pineapples!

© 2020 by Tom King

 

Is " Solo" Maligned by Star Wars Fans Unfairly

I just rewatched "Solo". Star Wars fans set up a howl about that movie. I heard it from the usual prissy Star Wars Fans, It didn't have Harrison Ford in it, but he couldn't have played a young Han Solo anyway. Why is it that movie fans think they should criticize another person's story?

I enjoyed the movie. It was well done. No nudity or strings of f-words. It filled in Solo's backstory and the plot was as intricate as any sci-fi fan could want.I think Ron Howard did a fine job. The folks doing Star Wars these days are taking off in their own directions somewhat, but hey. George wasn't doing anything with it anymore so the story fell to another generation of filmmakers to tell.  Besides, who wants to know how the story ends even before it starts. Sure the feminist and social justice stuff gets sneaked into it - though not as much as with some of the other ones.

What's funny about it all is that so many of these filmmakers are foursquare liberal big government socialists and yet, when they do a film, it's always the big government that is the villain. You'd think they'd notice that, huh?

Only two pineapples though for forgetting to put in something that explains Harrison Ford's chin scar like they did in the Indiana Jones series. Derivative? Maybe. But it would have been fun and I'd always bet on fun!

© 2019 by Tom King

Hold that Ghost - Abbott & Costello

At Halloween each year we cycle through our favorite Halloween Movies. No slasher films included!  I intensely dislike slasher films. I prefer comedy films.  The Halloween films we watch are older films, back when it wasn't necessary to say the f-word every other sentence and comedy was a bit gentler.  Tonight's movie was an Abbott & Costello classic, "Hold That Ghost".

The film is basically a thinly plotted series of Abbot & Costello bits interspersed with Ted Lewis and the Andrews Sisters numbers and some action designed to advance the unlikely plot. The duo inherit a hotel from a gangster named Moose Matson who left the crypt hint that he "kept his money in his head".  The boys and an assortment of travelers including comedian Joan Davis, who does a great job of keeping up with Lou through several delightful sketches.

The two do a chaotic dance number, faint when each thinks the other is dead, and try to keep track of mysterious candles that move around by themselves.

Oh, there's gangsters, hidden treasure, romance and a lively corpse that shows up several times to make Lou faint in a funny fashion.  Several people get slapped, and Lou does his terrified attempts to call his friend Chuck, but can't get anything out except and excited bout of wheezing. It's all brought to a happy ending. The boys open a health resort in Matson's old hotel and the Andrews Sisters are back to sing a Brazilian tune called "Aurora".

It's a fun romp with just enough spookiness to make it fun for Halloween without scaring the wee bairns (or their aged grandparents).

This one gets a full plate of pineapples.

© 2019 by Tom King

The Frisco Kid

I don't buy a lot of movies anymore, but this one I had to add to my collection. The critics didn't much like it. They complained that the humor was too "ethnic". It was Jewish humor which treated Jewish culture kindly so, of course, Hollywood's leftists wouldn't like it. There wasn't much cursing in it. There weren't any major gay characters and it treated religion with respect.

If you've never seen it, it's my favorite Gene Wilder film and a gem of a Harrison Ford performance that makes him one of my favorite actors. The movie is gently funny. There's nothing harsh about it. Wilder plays a young Jewish rabbi from Poland crossing pre-Civil War America to get to his new synagogue in San Francisco. A trusting soul, he falls in with thieves who take his money and abandon him along the road. He runs into a string of kindly characters, Amish farmers, wild Indians, railroad workers of various nationalities, a nice horsie, some overly friendly raccoons and a prairie chicken who is quite reluctant to stay for dinner. He teaches Native Americans how Jews dance and disrupts the silence of a Catholic monastery. When he finally meets a kindly bank robber (Ford) who helps him find his way to San Francisco. Along the way he inadvertently robs a bank. At the next town he sends the money back to the bank to Ford's immense frustration.

Wilder's tenacity is irresistible.   The movie has a happy and very satisfying ending. Wilder's simple goodness will make you tear up in places and plays a perfect counterpoint to Ford's impatient, if confused cowboy. It's one of those movies you're glad you spent some time with. It's not on any of the major streaming services, but you can rent it on Youtube and Amazon.

If you're like me, you need a gentle couple of hours with some likeable people once in a while. This movie gives you that. I give this movie my highest rating - three pineapples.

Tom King

© 2018

"A Wrinkle in Time" Falls Flat on Oprah's Face

The Disney movie version of one of my favorite childhood books "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L' Engle debuted this weekend. It was given the Disney treatment (not the Walt Disney, but the post Uncle Walt version). Then Oprah got hold of it. When they were done, all the Bible verses and Christian themes were stripped out of it so that it's barely recognizable as the original book. They had to wait 10 years after L' Engle's death to butcher her masterpiece, but they managed to do it.

It made less than half what they hoped over the weekend. And after the critics gave it less than enthusiastic reviews and word got around the Christian community about the heart being cut out of it, they'll be lucky to break even on it.

Disney's AWIT gets a raspberry for cutting the
beating heart out of L'Engle's book.

The screenwriter argues that Madeleine L'Engle wanted to express all the ideas in the film but couldn't do it in the book way back in those ancient and unenlightened days, so she chose to use Christian themes. She assures us that this is how the author would have done it if she'd been more progressively enlightened and less dependent on religion.

L'Engle could not be reached for comment. Disney and Oprah waited till she was safely dead and could no longer object to the brutalization of her lovely little Newberry Award winning book.

© 2018 by Tom King

Hobson's Choice

Filmed in an ethereal crisp black and white by David Lean, Hobson’s Choice is a beautiful little gem of a movie. A Hobson's Choice refers to a choice that's not really a choice. The film stars Charles Laughton as the pompous Henry Horatio Hobson, the often inebriated owner of a bootshop in late Victorian norther England. Brenda De Banzie, an English stage actress, plays Hobson's proto-feminist daughter, Maggie, a feisty and independent woman of nearly 30, who already runs Henry's shop in place of her late mother.

When Hobson in a fit of stinginess refuses to pay settlements so his younger daughters can marry, elder daughter Maggie decides to find her own husband and make her own future with Hobson's best bootsmith, Will Mossop (played by John Mills).  Oh it's a head to head battle of wills alright between the crusty old patriarch and his bumptious daughter and you can guess who wins. The film weaves a delightful tale in which the blustery Hobson gets his comeuppance in fine fashion as Maggie proves her worth and Will Mossop rises up on his haunches and becomes his own man. It's a beautiful piece of story-telling by David Lean and one of my top ten favorite movies. It's also one of Prunella Scales first film roles as younger sister Vicki. You may remember Prunella from her turn as Mrs. Basil Fawlty in the British TV series Fawlty Towers.

This is a lovely little move, a gentle comedy that softly pokes fun at the British class system. The wedding night scene is absolutely the sweetest thing you'll ever see. I watch this film once every year. It makes me happy.

Three pineapples to this wonderful bit of film-making.

Tom King © 2018


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Oddball

This pleasant little Aussie movie is based on a true story about an eccentric chicken farmer, who owns an unruly hound named Oddball. The movie is based on a true story. Foxes have begun swimming over to a small island penguin sanctuary and killing off the penguins. Oddball is such a wild child that he's banned from even going into the town. But our chicken farmer and his granddaughter discover that Oddball has a thing for penguins and with a little training they teach him to protect his penguin friends from the foxes.

It's a lovely story and even more heart-warming because it's a true story. Dog lovers will definitely love this movie. There's no cursing, no nudity and no gratuitous sex or violence. It's one of those movies that's just downright pleasant. 

Also Alan Tudyk who played Wash on Firefly makes an appearance in the movie. It's good to see him playing a nice guy again.

This one gets three pineapples from me for a very pleasant couple of hours and because I'm a bit of an oddball myself and like the title!


It's available free right now on Amazon Prime.

Tom King  © 2018

Haunted Honeymoon

The critics hated this movie, calling it "unfunny" and saying even Dom Deluise couldn't rescue it. Well, of course the critics didn't like it. There is no nudity in "Haunted Honeymoon". There are no grisly murders, no zombies, no vampires, and not once does someone use the "f-word" as an adjective.  It's a sweet silly romp with Gene Wilder, his irrepressible wife, Gilda Radner, and Dom Deluise. It's a story within a story possibly within a story and it's one of our favorites.

My wife and I simply love this movie and we watch it every Halloween along with a couple of other great old movies that I'll be reviewing later in the days leading up to the 500th anniversary of the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the chapel door (October 31) and gave the Catholic Church the heebie geebies for the next half a millenium. We are not fans of slasher films and avoid them at all cost. Unfortunately, at Halloween there's hardly anything else, so we watch the same three films every year with three of the funniest people ever - Bob Hope, Abbott & Costello, and Dom Deluise. Who needs to be deliberately frightened? Not this little black duck!

If you're a person who likes your movies clean and fun, this one is for you. It is guilt-free. You don't have to put a bag over your kids' heads even once during the movie. My favorite bit is the dance number with Gilda Radner and Dom Deluise in drag doing a wild version of Ballin' the Jack. The humor is not raunchy or mean and if you can bring yourself to laugh at screwball comedy without the aid of obscenities and bare behinds, you'll enjoy it.

It's a Halloween tradition with the Missus and me. It gets three pineapples from me. I don't care what the critics think!

© 2017 by Tom King

Hacksaw Ridge

Hacksaw Ridge is the incredible true story of Corporal Desmond T. Doss, a mild-mannered Seventh-day Adventist medic who joined up in World War II as a conscientious objector. Doss rejected the label, calling himself a conscientious cooperator.  His stubborn faith is something we don't see much in this world anymore. His exploits as a medic changed the way the Army utilized medics in the Pacific. Doss actually badgered his commander into letting him go out with his unit. Ordinarily stretcher bearers brought the wounded back to the aid station where the medics would treat them. A lot of guys didn't make it back. By going with his unit, Doss was able to save a lot of lives. At first the men in his unit hated Doss and mistreated him trying to force him out. He stood firm and eventually not only won the respect of his fellow soldiers, but they came to consider him their lucky charm, at one point balking at moving forward without Desmond with them.

Three pineapples for this one.

I watched several ignorant critics review the movie who marked it down because Doss's exploits in the movie were unrealistic. The truth is that director Mel Gibson actually toned down Doss's history for the movie because he didn't think people would believe what actually happened. A lot of people didn't believe it anyway. Unlike the movie, Doss continued with his unit after the action on Hacksaw ridge and was wounded by the grenade a couple of days later. After he was wounded, the stretcher bearers taking him to the aid station came under fire. Doss saw other wounded men, rolled off the stretcher and went to treat them. He ordered the stretcher bearers to carry the other wounded to the aid station first. While treating the wounded, Doss was himself wounded in the arm by a sniper, bound it up with a rifle butt and crawled 300 yards to the aid station on his own.

It's a story of faith and courage and patriotism, something a lot of this generation's precious snowflake movie critics just don't get. One of the best war films, if not the best war film I've ever seen. I just wish Gibson had shown the rest of the true story - the bit no one would believe. Unlike the movie depicts, Doss fought on Guam and Leyte before he went to Okinawa, earning two Bronze Stars before he won the Medal of Honor at Hacksaw Ridge. A former Japanese sniper who fought on Hacksaw years later told Doss he'd had the young medic in his sights multiple times that day, but every time he tried to pull the trigger his gun jammed. You kinda have to believe in the supernatural to believe that one. I do. He lost his Bible crawling back to the aid station. Months later, in the hospital, Doss received a package in the mail. It was his Bible. His whole unit had scoured the battlefield, with snipers still taking potshots at them, found his Bible and sent it to him.

His unit was remarkable in and of itself. The 77th division fought alongside a Marine Battalion who were so impressed by the courage of the Army guys, they nicknamed Doss's Division the 77th Marine Battalion, a mark of real respect by the Marines.

Doss was protected by angels. Even toned down, the movie leaves little room for doubt that Doss was protected. I do believe the devil wanted him badly. He didn't get Doss though. He came home and lived to a good old age, though disabled by his wounds.

This movie gets 3 pineapples for staying as close to the truth as any recent movie based on a true story.  Good for you Mel.

© 2017 by Tom King