Fables: A New Look At Old Tales

Bill Willingham's Fables is the story of the fairy tale characters we read about growing up (or I guess it would be more accurate to say we watched their Disneyfied stories growing up) populating a small village in New York City. For centuries, characters like Snow White, her sister Rose Red, Prince Charming, Beauty, the Beast, and Pinnochio have lived in our "mundane" world after they were forced to flee from their Homelands by a despotic dictator. Known only as The Adversary, he raised an army of vicious mythical creatures like goblins, trolls, and dragons, as well as a group of highly trained animate wooden soldiers and began taking over the various lands of the different stories. Many parallels are made to Hitler and World War II, such as when, on the annual remembrance day, King Cole, the mayor of Fabletown (one of the two homes for the refugee Fables) reminds them all that the takeover is partly their own fault. When the first few lands started to fall to The Adversary (including Narnia), most people in other lands paid no attention because their own lands were safe for the time being.

The Fables have been forced to live out their immortal lives either in Fabletown or the Farm in upstate New York. The Fables believe that discovery by normal humans (referred to as mundies, short for mundane) would be catastrophic, and any Fable that cannot pass for human (including giants, tiny people, and sentient animals) is required to live at the Farm. The earliest exiled Fables arrived in Fabletown around the time the American colonies were being settled, so by the time the series begins, they are all well-acquainted with the mundy world. The first few stories are about various goings-on in Fabletown and at the Farm. So why is this series worth reading if it is just about Sleeping Beauty and Little Boy Blue in the real world? Well, partly because these characters are more "real" than they'd like to admit.

Most of us are only acquainted with the Disney versions of these characters, so it is quite a shock to see Prince Charming as a womanizer or Jack Horner (who is the embodiment of nearly every Jack from fairy tales) as a con man. Pinnochio, who has been alive for centuries, has mentally aged into a grown man, but retains the body of a child. And the Frog Prince... um, better leave that one unspoiled. These characters are much closer to who they were when they were originally conceived; the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson had much darker characters in their stories than Disney wants us to remember, and the characters of Fables are a breath of fresh air for those of us who know that fairy tales are not only for kids (see: the works of Neil Gaiman and Guillermo del Toro).

The stories in Fables are based on real life problems, such as Bigby Wolf (the Big Bad Wolf) trying to solve a murder, or Prince Charming running for Mayor, but there are two things that complicate matters. First, magic and immortality play a role (characters that are popular are harder to kill than more obscure characters, so a murdered Fable can be resurrected if there is a resurgence in their popluartiy in the mundane world), and second, the Fables must do everything in such a way so as not to be discovered by the rest of the world.

There is also the conflict in the Homelands that becomes an issue in later issues, which certainly makes the second problem listed above hard to achieve.

Up next: the tale...

The Sandman: What Dreams May Come

One reason that I find describing the actual plot of Sandman difficult is that it is very much a character study. There are many great character-based stories that I enjoy that can be easily summarized; Buffy is about a girl who has been chosen to combat vampires and demons, American Beauty is about a man's midlife crisis/reawakening, and LOST is about a group of people marooned on a tropical island. Granted, I am eliminating all of the nuance and why the plots are what they are, but it is possible to encapsulate those stories into a brief sentence. Gaiman describes the plot this way: The lord of dreams learns he must change or die, and makes his choice. Unlike the plot descriptions I listed, which can be divined from a brief trailer, one would not realize that Sandman's plot had anything to do with change until it was over.

Though each story arc has its own self-contained storyline, the whole doesn't come together until near the end. Y: The Last Man, another Vertigo series with a planned ending, had self-contained story arcs, but from the beginning, there was a clear goal for Yorick Brown to achieve. With The Sandman, Dream is not striving towards anything in general. He is going about his duties, and confronts various obstacles along the way. Dream has enemies, but he doesn't have an arch-villain like Lex Luthor. In fact, the beings that cause him the most trouble do not attack him for personal reasons. And, as I said in the last post, humans tend to drive the story more than Dream or any of the Endless.

The Sandman does have an overall plot, but, like a good dream, it is fragmented by various stories that only fully make sense once they are looked at as a whole. Most of the long story arcs take place in the present, while most of the one-shot stories take place in the past. Dream says things and meets with people in the present, and these things seem strange until we see a scene from the past that explains it. In the first storyline, there is a segment where Dream is in Hell to reclaim his sigil, and while there, he runs into a soul who begs for forgiveness. This is meaningless until we learn of his history with Dream. Speaking of Dream's time in Hell, the theme of that issue is Hope, and though the idea of hope is reiterated again in the series (Despair reminds us that dreams are hopes, and that she is jealous of her brother because she is a creature of nothing but despair), the illustration of the power of hopes and dreams in that issue is incredible. Going back to the past/present stories, there are also times when recurring characters in stories taking place in the past come back in the present to set off major events.

Like most of Gaiman's work, fantasy and reality are expertly integrated. In the waking world, there are immortals and gods who walk the Earth, but they are not nearly as powerful as we imagine them to be. Only in dreams do they have that kind of power. There are a few times when things get slightly more fantastic in reality than they otherwise would be, but that is partially because the series initially took place in the DC universe, then slowly shifted into its own once Vertigo stopped being a part of mainstream DC continuity. Plenty of "weird shit" (as one character refers to it) happens in the waking world, but not everyone who experiences the weird shit ends up believing that the weird shit actually happened. Sometimes, they convince themselves that it was just a dream. But, as Dream says early on, it is NEVER just a dream.

Up next: Legends...

The Sandman: The Heart of the Dreaming

Without mortal living beings, there would be no Endless. If there were no beings who could dream, or desire, or die, Dream, Desire, and Death would have no purpose. And so, many of the story arcs feature Dream as a co-protagonist, while humans in the waking world take on equally important roles.

One of the best examples is A Game of You, a story which takes place about halfway through the series. A young woman in New York realizes that the fairy tale land she dreamed of as a child is coming back to reclaim her. The world exists in the Dreaming (Dream's realm) because she imagined it, and it is being taken over by a malevolent nightmare creature. The beings that inhabit it, who were her imaginary friends when she was a little girl, send an envoy to the waking world in order to bring her back in an attempt to save it. Had she not imagined the Land (that is the name of her imaginary world), there would be no story.

That brings me to one aspect of the Dreaming that I enjoyed very much. In Dream's castle is a library that contains every book ever imagined. And by that, I mean every book EVER conceived, whether it got published, written, or never left the mind of the author (in the Dreaming, I am a published author). Dream has the power to create nightmares that never existed in the waking world, but the Dreaming is filled with things that reflect our imaginations. For example, the gates of the castle are guarded by mythological creatures that never really existed, but they are creatures we are familiar with because we imagined them.

Some humans are powerful enough to have drastic effects on the Dreaming itself. Two characters are introduced in the second story arc, The Doll's House, that each can have profound effects on Dream and the Dreaming (I don't want to go too far into who they are or what they can do in an effort to not spoil anything). We are the dreamers and we are the creators of myth and story.

Up next: A midsummer night's Dream...

The Sandman: Endless Entertainment

How do I begin? As I said, The Sandman represents not only the work that made Neil Gaiman into Neil Gaiman, but it is also regarded as one of the best and most important comic book series of all time. For about seven years (is that somehow symbolic?), Gaiman told the story of Dream, the third sibling of the Endless, seven beings who had dominion over various states of being. Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium made up a wonderfully dysfunctional family that has been around since the universe was here. The are older than the oldest god and will be here until the last sentient being in the universe is gone. (**NOTE: Although I will not be discussing plot in this post, I will be talking about things that can be construed as spoilers, so be careful**) They rule over their dominions believing that they are in control of their aspects, when the very opposite may be true. They are extremely powerful, but like other higher powers in Gaiman's worlds, they exist to serve those they control.

This first post will focus on the Endless because I think that they are a wonderful concept. For one thing, I tend to agree with Gaiman on the nature of higher beings; gods are created by men, not the other way around. We needed ways to explain the unexplainable, so we created deities more powerful than ourselves and worshipped our ideas. Gods are at the height of their power when they are actively and widely worshipped, and they do not die until they are finally forgotten. But the time between being worshipped and being forgotten can last many years. However, things like desire, destruction, and (especially) death will never be forgotten. We may not worship the Endless, but we are obsessed with them because we cannot escape them. Death is an inevitability that nearly everyone fears and some wish to overcome. In fact, the series begins when a magician in the early 20th century tries to do just that (his mistaken result sets off the events of the series, but more on that in a later post). Dreams and delirium are the obsessions of psychiatrists who seek to understand the human mind. We all dream, and often wonder what the images and experiences mean. As for delirium, I believe that no one is ever completely sane, and while some people may be crazier than others, sanity is relative. As for desire and despair, I have to admit that Gaiman is a genius making them twins. These are both very powerful emotions that can often go together. Unfulfilled desires often lead to despair, and because desire is often not based on reality (intense crushes tend to cause the person who has them to view the object of their desire as more ideal than the person truly is). Destiny is a little trickier, but there are certainly people who believe that everything is fated. I think one of the reasons Destiny had to be included was because he is in many ways the anti-Dream; one is the lord of everything that was, is, and ever will be, while the other's dominion is what never was, isn't, and never will be. And destruction is inevitable; whether it is intended or not, nothing new can be created without the old being destroyed.

And that is as good a segway as any into the idea of the Endless as "lords of opposites", as Destruction says. The Endless states are so powerful that they literally define their opposites. As I said above, destruction often leads to creation. We define life by looking at death; we do what we can while we are here because we know it will end one day. Desire often leads to hatred and repulsion, especially when despair gets involved. And dreams can define reality. In the series, an early issue suggests that this is literally true; Dream tells a cat that if enough beings dream the same dream, reality will reflect those dreams. But in our reality, the truth isn't far off. Before anything can happen in the waking world, someone must have thought about it. Someone must have dreamed it. Martin Luther King had a dream. It may not have been fully realized yet, but we are certainly getting closer to seeing it become reality (just look at our next president!) because enough people believe in it.

But aside from how well-conceived the Endless are, I think I enjoy them so much because they are also well-written. Especially Death. Unlike most representations of Death, Gaiman's Death is perky, cheery, optimistic, and cute. No one in the entire series values life more than Death. She is arguably the most popular character from the series, and is certainly one of my favorites. For a while, she was definitely my favorite character from the series, but I have to admit that Delirium really grew on my in the final issues. Part of it has to do with the fact that I met someone who has become a very close friend, and Delirium reminds me of her a bit. This is nothing but a compliment; the best qualities of Delirium are at times reflected in this person (and there are other things as well), and it made me smile reading these final issues, seeing as how Delirium grows from a relatively weak and timid character into a competent one.

Still, I think that Death will forever be my favorite Endless, if for no other reason than she exemplifies the opposing nature of them so well. In what other story involving a personification of Death are you going to hear it discussing Disney's film version of Mary Poppins and trying to explain the meaning of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?! This panel made me laugh out loud when I saw it:

I know that this post made it sound like this book is about nothing more than the adventures of the Endless, but that is not true. In fact, the opposite is true. The Endless exist to serve humans, despite what a few of them wish to think. The Sandman is about life and storytelling, and the stories belong to humanity. Therefore, while the Endless generally and Dream in particular are the protagonists, the events would not happen nor would they have any importance if it weren't for the humans involved.

Up next: Dream a little dream of me...

Watchmen: Legal Troubles

I try to keep my posts fairly neutral when it comes to politics and stuff like that. The Other Worlds exists to showcase films, television shows, and books to people who may be unfamiliar with them. Furthermore, there are plenty of other people on the internets who have been putting their two cents in on this subject, and normally, I wouldn't feel like it was my business throwing mine in as well. However, I have a perspective on the whole issue that I have not yet seen in any other entries, so I thought that I would share.

For those of you who don't know, there has been a legal battle regarding the movie rights to Watchmen. 20th Century Fox acquired the film rights the comic book many years ago, but never made the movie. I do not pretend to know why. Maybe they tried and never got a script they liked (unlikely though, because they could have an awful script, and people would still turn up to see it). I'm not sure exactly when Fox got the rights, but it has been at least 15 years. Anyway, Warner Brothers finally made the movie themselves (they likely have some kind of rights to the property, because Warners owns DC Comics, which published Watchmen). And then, with about half a year until the film was to be released, Fox sued Warner Brothers for their copyright interest in the film. A few days ago, this happened: a federal judge ruled for Fox. Fox now has some distribution rights, and will likely use them to earn a shit-ton of money from the movie's box office receipts. Even though they did absolutely no work.

As many of you know, I am currently in law school, and I recently completed my first semester. One concept we learned about was laches. Basically, laches prevents someone with a legitimate interest in something from making a legal claim for that interest if they allow too much time to pass. The example given in my handy dandy legal dictionary goes something like this (certain details have been changed for comic effect):

Let's say someone owns a piece of property. We'll call him Rupert. Along comes a builder. We'll call him Zach. Zach believes that he has the right to construct a building on Rupert's property. Rupert says nothing. Zach completes the building and wants to rent out the space to a group of watch makers. Rupert sues for ownership of the land and demands all revenue from the watch makers. According to my dictionary, there are not one, but TWO reasons why Rupert should shove his claim up his ass. First, he knew of the construction, and waited until it would benefit him, and second, he will benefit at Zach's expense. Keep in mind that I am just a lowly first year law student, and there is likely much more at play, but this laches arguments seems pretty solid to me.



Up next: Enter Sandman...

The Fantastic, The Mundane, and The Real

At long last, I have finished Neil Gaiman's magnum opus, The Sandman. The comic is considered one of the greatest in history, usually ranked behind only Alan Moore's Watchmen on the lists of best and most important comic series. I promised that I would do a series on it once I finished, and I am very excited to begin. The Sandman is about life and the importance of stories, and while I don't think it has "changed my life", it has certainly made me think about storytelling and certain aspects of humanity differently.

While thinking of Gaiman's style of mixing the fantastic with the mundane, my thoughts wandered to Fables, a current comic book by Bill Willingham, which is published under DC's vertigo imprint, which was partially created by Gaiman with Sandman. The very nature of Fables combines magic and mundane, as it follows exiled fairy tale characters who must live out their lives in our world after a cruel dictator came to power in their Homelands. Most critics claim that Fables is the best comic in production right now, and it is very hard to argue that. Some have even claimed that it could be as good as Sandman (to that I say that is like comparing apples and oranges because the two books are very different once you get past the whole "fantasy and reality" similarity).

Finally, I want to begin with a brief post on Watchmen. I will probably wait until the movie is released to do a series on Watchmen itself (you know, for one post on comparisons and such), but a certain thing happened the other day that I believe merits discussion.

Up next: Taking the law into your own hands...

Pushing Daisies: Predictions

In my last post on Pushing Daisies, I meant to make some predictions about what could have been had the show gone on, because Bryan Fuller has said that he had a definite planned ending for the story of Ned and Chuck. I know that it won't do much good, since it will be nothing but speculation that will likely never be (dis)proven, but it's fun, I guess. But first, I don't know why I didn't figure out who the masked man was in "The Norwegians", but I'm kinda glad I didn't, because I was blown away by the reveal at the end. **SPOILER ALERT** Ned's father briefly showed up in the Pie Hole in the season premiere, and the reintroduction of Ned's half-brothers has led us to believe that Ned's father will make a reappearance sometime this season, but I was not expecting it like that. I had a hard time believing that Charles Charles was the masked man who saved Ned and Olive, but I couldn't think of anyone else who it could be. So now, the questions are these: why did Ned's dad have to conceal his identity from Ned (aside from any obvious explanation of Ned would resent him)? Why did he need to wear gloves when he touched Ned? And why is he back now (or has he been silently lurking in the shadows for longer than we've realized)?

Anyway, I have often wondered whether the people Ned touches and leaves alive can ever die again of natural causes. Digby is still alive, which leads me to believe that only a second touch from Ned can re-dead the people (I am still not sure if the people Ned touches can be killed through methods that would kill a normal person, such as being shot or stabbed; I'm inclined to think no, because many people brought back are in pretty messed up conditions). So I imagined an ending where Ned is very old, and Chuck is still young and beautiful. This ending has a few possibilities. One has me imagining Ned touching Chuck while on his deathbed, so they are reunited in death. Another sees Ned dying without touching Chuck again, and when Chuck kisses Ned's dead body, she learns that the touch only works if Ned is alive, and she is doomed to be alone forever. As you can see, I am very sadistic when it comes to fictional characters. This is a dark story (in spite of the bright colors), and I feel something like the above ideas would fit it well. But now, we'll probably never know Fuller's intentions. Oh well.

Up next: More great stuff...

Dexter: Dear Daddy Dexter

So another season of Dexter has come to a close. I never really thought about covering it as it was going on because I was forced to watch in short, sporadic bursts. I didn't even see the first episode until six had already aired. I don't get Showtime, so I would have to go back to my parents' house to watch when I had time throughout the semester. With the first semester done, I took a short trip to finish the last three episodes of the season today, and while this was not the best season of the show, there were certainly some great moments. There were also a few things I wish had been cleared up and a few things I wished had happened, but what oh well.

This season was about two things: first, Dexter had to learn to reaccept his father after losing faith in Harry in Season 2. Dexter also had to discover why he would always be alone. These two ideas were certainly intertwined, but I believe they can be viewed separately. Last year, Dexter's perfect father turned out to be not-so-perfect after all when Dexter learned that Harry was having an affair with Dexter's biological mother, which may have led to her death. Dex also learned that Harry committed suicide when he accidentally walked in on Dexter carving up one of his victims. In response to this, Dexter vowed to recreate Harry's code to be more in line with what Dexter thought it should be, not what a dead dishonest man believed it should be. The early episodes saw Dexter strangle a child molester without any preparation and consider killing a defense attorney who had never killed anyone herself, but was responsible for keeping killers out of jail. But the biggest change in his life was when he accidentally killed someone in the heat of the moment. When Dexter went to kill a murderous drug dealer, he found that someone else was there. The drug dealer got away, and Dexter had to kill in order to avoid being killed himself. This event put Dexter on his other path of the season, in which he learned (again) why he will always be alone.

The man Dexter killed was the brother of Assistant District Attorney Miguel Prado, a rising star with a reputation for being tough on crime (little did anyone know just how tough he really was...). During the investigation into Prado's brother's death, Prado and Dexter became friends, even though Dexter couldn't quite understand why. People like Angel and Masouka have considered Dexter a friend throughout the series, but Dexter always tolerated them. He feigned friendship, but there was nothing more to the way Dexter felt about them. But with Prado, Dexter actually found himself liking his company. It didn't hurt that when Prado discovered Dexter after he succeeded in killing the drug dealer, Prado THANKED Dexter for killing the man Prado believed was responsible for his brother's death. The two of them eventually became partners in vigliante justice, and Dexter taught Prado the tricks of the trade and the code. And the whole time, Prado was all too eager to learn.

Sadly, Dexter was forced to remember lesson he learned with his brother, the Ice Truck Killer, and Lilah. His brother, Lilah, and Prado all accepted Dexter for the monster he was, but that was because they themselves were monstrous. The Ice Truck Killer had a compulsion to kill, and he took the lives of innocents, something Dexter does not accept. Lilah was obsessive, and would do anything to keep Dexter, even if it meant ruining the lives of some and ending the lives of others. And Prado wanted to do what Dexter did out of a deranged sense of justice. Dexter kills to satisfy an urge, and makes himself feel better by rationalizing that his victims deserve it. Prado kills people he believes are guilty, and guilt doesn't necessarily mean that his victims fit Harry's code.

There are still a few things I am confused about. For one thing, why did Prado take the effort to earn Dexter's trust through the shirt (you'll know what I mean when you watch the season) only to give Dex a shirt with cow's blood. First of all, why did Prado feel the need to con Dexter? How could he know that Dexter would teach him his secrets (or that he even had such secrets)? And he knew that Dexter is a blood spatter analyst! How could he not figure that if something were to go wrong, Dexter would see through the ruse? And why didn't Prado ever suspect that Dexter was the Bay Harbor Butcher? He clearly knew about the case and knew that the Butcher was in Dexter's department, based on comments he made to LaGuerta, and he likely knew that there were a few things in the case that didn't add up. Speaking of the Butcher, I was really hoping that LaGuerta was going to be conducting an off-the-books investigation into who the Butcher really was because she had proof that it clearly wasn't Doakes. Anyway, this was still an entertaining season.

Up next: Another TV update...

Pushing Daisies: The Future?

So, all season, Pushing Daisies has been building up long story arcs that have been extremely captivating. Last year, most episodes were fairly stand-alone. Viewers had to watch each week to keep up with the characters' lives, but most stories were self-contained. The show did try to introduce a recurring story (Molly Shannon's salt-water taffy seller was supposed to be involved in a multi-episode arc dealing with her murder of the health inspector, but the writers' strike cut that short). The show was great, but I would have liked a little more overarching stories aside from the Ned/Chuck relationship (not that it wasn't great, because it was). Well, this year, my wish was granted. Then ABC cancelled the fucking show. Ugh.

This year, the show set up the return of Ned's father and the search for Emerson Cod's daughter in the first episode. From out of Ned's dad story, we were introduced to Ned's young half brothers and Dwight Dixon, who quickly became my new favorite character. I like to think that, had the show gone on, Dwight would have returned somehow, because he was far too compelling to leave buried in Chuck's dad's grave. Speaking of which, the end of last night's episode, "The Legend of Merle McQuoddy", set up one hell of a plot line. Chuck tricking Ned into not redeading her dad was great, but now that the half-decomposed man with a grudge against Ned is on the loose, things will likely get very interesting for the Pie Hole crew (or, at least, they would had the show gone on). Oh, and Olive as a junior PI was frickin' priceless. Speaking of Olive, we will be cheated out of her songs, which are always a pleasure:



Bryan Fuller has said that he is in talks to make a comic book continuation, and is hopeful of a movie, but right now, I'm kind of pessimisstic about the movie, which I would infinitely prefer over a comic (a comic could do things with visuals that a movie could not, but the actors breathe life into the characters, and their absense in the comic would truly be felt). Also, there have been reports that Fuller is reshooting the final episode to make it more final. In one sense, I guess this is good because we won't be left with as many loose ends, but there was obviously so much more that Fuller wanted to cover, and I doubt he'll be able to do what he envisioned by reshooting one episode. Oh well. It has been great while its lasted, and I'm sure the final four episodes will continue to be great. But there was so much more that was yet to be seen.

Up next: Finals are almost over, so plan for new ideas soon...

The Shawshank Redemption: The Power of Hope

I remember how I once tried to convince a friend to watch this movie. I told him it was based on a Stephen King novella, and he absolutely refused to watch, believing it to be a horror film. It took me almost an hour to convince him that this was anything but, and at the film's end, he was happy that I wore him down because he, like many people I know, came to see this as one of the finest movies ever made. The Shawshank Redemption is set in a prison, but is a story of friendship, morality, and most importantly, hope. The prisoners are, for the most part, good (enough) men while the guards are corrupt and brutal. The deranged prisoners are hated among the rest of the population, and while the incarcerated men are mostly guilty of the crimes they have been imprisoned for, they look out for each other and act more like war buddies in a POW camp than hardened criminals who have to survive prison.

Tim Robbins' Andy Dufresne is a quiet and meek man who has been accused of killing his wife and her lover. He had the motive and definitely contemplated it, but he continually asserted his innocence throughout his trial. He was convicted and sent to Shawshank prison, a punishment the judge found particularly gruesome. When he arrived, he was met by vicious guards, a judgmental and corrupt warden, and a pack of prisoners who spent their time trying to corner Andy in order to rape him. A man like Andy should barely have lasted five minutes in such a hellhole. But there was also Red, played by Morgan Freeman, a likeable convict who was everyone's friend in the prison because he knew how to get things from the outside. Some people wanted cigarettes, while Andy used Red to get him a rock hammer to further his geology hobby while behind bars. Andy and Red became friends, and Andy eventually was welcomed into Red's group of strangely lovable prisoners.

In order to maintain his sanity, Andy took up projects while at Shawshank, which included petitioning the governor to give him funds to improve the prison library, tutoring a young convict who never graduated high school, and, eventually, becoming a crooked accountant at the, um, behest of the warden. Andy pointed out the irony that he was an honest banker in his real life, and that he had to go to prison to become a crook. These projects gave Andy hope that he could still live a somewhat normal life, even behind bars. Red, who narrates the film, often pointed out that Andy never truly became one of the prisoners. The film examined what a life in prison could do to a man, which was most tragically illustrated through the elderly Brooks, who likely made one bad decision in his youth and spent the rest of his life paying for it.

Meanwhile, as we saw the goodness that could exist in the hearts of prisoners, we watched how the appointed watchmen of the prisoners committed crimes far worse than anything Andy or his fellow convicts had ever done. On Andy's first night in Shawshank, the Captain of the Guard beat a man to death for crying. Captain Hadley never passed up an opportunity to show the inmates of Shawshank who held the power; on one occassion, Hadley nearly threw Andy off of a roof for making a comment that Hadley misinterpreted. Warden Norton silently condoned this behavior, and became a man worthy of incarceration himself when he created a scheme that forced the prisoners to act as slave labor for local construction projects. He didn't have to pay his "workers", and was able to underbid every local contractor (that is unless the contractors paid him off to let them get desperately needed work).

I can't delve too deeply into the film's message about the beauty and necessity of hope without giving away the ending (though I think the filmmakers took the path of stating that the journey is more important that the conclusion because of the way the promotional materials pretty much gave away the ending). Basically, the film looked at how the lack of hope made the experience in prison so awful for some, how clinging to hope could make things worse for others, and how acting on hope could make all the difference for the rest.

Speaking of hope,

Up next: Almost hopeless...

Pushing Daisies: A Love Song

I know that I've already addressed the cancellation of Pushing Daisies, but after tonight's incredible episode, the reality of the situation became all the more painful. The show has always excelled at simultaneously tickling the funny bone and tugging the heart strings, and tonight was one of the best episodes yet.

Note: Some spoilers...

The Dwight Dixon story line has successfully captivated me, and though I am sad to see its end, I know that there is still more to learn about this mysterious man. Chuck's little deception will certainly help shed some light on that subject... and will cause a lot of tension between her and Ned. Watching Chuck deal with her own guilt was hard enough, but watching how Ned will react will be something else entirely. Also, was I the only one who thought that the death in exchange for breaking the 60 second rule was going to be Lily?

The other story followed Ned and Olive at a baking competition, and we were treated to a Wonderfalls crossover, a disturbing reanimated body (extra crispy), and some great Olive moments. I love Ned and Chuck and the things they do to be together (they have found a great way to sleep in the same bed), but I can't help but feel for Olive (let's just say that I feel her pain, which made this episode a little tough tonight). After all, who could not love her after this:



I can't believe there are only 5 episodes left. I still remember the huge marketing push that ABC did before the season began (there are still a few ads on the trains and buses around the city), and how much hope it gave me for a full-length season and a long lasting show. Sadly, Bryan Fuller will once again be given the shaft and will be sent back to Heroes (another sinking ship, though that is for quality reasons). Well, at least what we got was incredible. There will probably be a few more posts as the remaining episodes air.

Edit: There are two videos because the second adds a little context. I can't get rid of the original video I posted though (which is why in the Eternal Sunshine post, the one trailer is posted twice).

Up next: Hope springs eternal...

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: The Sun Is Shining

Did you think I forgot about this? Wow, way to start off with a really bad pun. Anyway, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a philosophical science fiction tale disguised as a romantic comedy (I'm serious, many reviews have labeled it as a romantic comedy despite the fact that calling it a comedy is a complete stretch of the term, and the film contains absolutely zero tenets of the romantic comedy). And I want to warn you now that while I try to keep my personal life out of my posts, one of the reasons I've been thinking about this movie recently is that, currently, I am of the mindset that love fucking sucks.

This isn't Jim Carrey's first dramatic role (I think that was The Truman Show), but of all the ones I've seen, it is far and away his best. He plays Joel, a shy, timid, and soft-spoken man who, for no reason at all, decides to skip work one day and go to the beach... in the middle of winter. The only other person there is a woman with blue hair (it's colored hair; she is not a blue-haired old lady), and he runs into her in a few places throughout the day, before she finally introduces herself to him on the train home. She is Clementine, and she is Joel's total opposite. She is loud, socially aggressive, and speaks her mind. The pair begin a relationship and they look like they are meant to be together forever.

Things turn sour, though, and a few days before Valentine's Day, Joel tries to patch things up between them, only to find that Clementine doesn't seem to know him at all. He learns that she went to a clinic called Lacuna, which uses a special device to erase memories of traumatic events and situations. Clementine had her relationship with Joel erased, and this causes Joel to decide to have the same thing done to himself.

Most of the movie takes place in Joel's mind, as the memories slowly get erased. We see Clementine become fuzzy and landscapes disappear as Joel's subconscious awaits the peace of mind that will come from no longer remembering this emotionally abusive relationship. But then a memory is brought up that is not only good, it is wonderful. Joel and Clementine were not meant to be, but they had more than a few nearly perfect moments. They truly did love each other, but they couldn't make it work. When they were good together, though, they were very good. Joel begins to realize that losing his memories of Clementine mean losing all the good times he had with her as well. Joel's mind soon tries to fight the process and save his remaining memories of Clementine.



The movie examines the worth of our memories, and lets viewers read into the idea as deeply or as shallowly as they want. To some, this is nothing more than a tragic love story, but there is so much more going on below the surface. The idea that we could remove painful and traumatic memories sounds like a good idea at first, but the movie points out how dangerous it can be without ever explicitly stating the idea. For one thing, it is likely that, especially with lost loved ones, there would be plenty of good memories entwined with the bad. There is a shot of a woman in the clinic who is going to get the memory of her dead dog erased. Sure, losing a pet (let alone losing a loved one) hurts like hell when it happens, but to erase their death also erases their life, and all the good times you had together.



But more importantly, our memories make up who we are. We learn from our mistakes, and become stronger when we deal with pain. We know what to do and what not to do based on what we have done, and our experiences shape our lives. Eternal Sunshine certainly showed us the consequences of having memories erased, but two deleted scenes from the film really hammered the point home:

(SPOILER ALERT)

Mary the Lacuna receptionist had her memory of her affair with her boss erased, but what was removed from the film told us that she also removed the memory of having an abortion. Without these memories, she once again made passes at her married boss.

And the original ending showed us Joel and Clementine repeatedly falling in love, ending badly, erasing themselves, and repeating.

This movie is very layered, but it is an incredible experience if you are willing to think along with it. The only caveat is that it is extremely depressing; this isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but if you are not in the mood for this movie, it will knock the spirit out of you. But as I said, it is an incredible work of filmmaking and will have you rethinking the pain in your life.

Up next: Eternal flame...