Neil Gaiman is teaming up with Sharad Devarajan, Sarena Khan, and Sujatha SV to pen an animated feature adaptation of Gaiman’s short story, “Cinnamon.”
Here’s the official synopsis for the project, which is also titled Cinnamon:
Born with pearl eyes that render her blind to the physical world, Cinnamon’s destiny is shaped forever when a mysterious talking tiger appears. Offering to lead her through the wonders and trials of the wild, Cinnamon begins a perilous adventure that will shape her path and test her resolve. She enters a hidden realm where the line between the mundane and the mystical is as thin as a whisper and where the ancient wisdom of India breathes life into a jungle thrumming with secrets.
“I am thrilled to be collaborating with Sharad Devarajan and his exceptional team on Cinnamon,” Gaiman said in a statement to Deadline. “Sharad’s passion for storytelling and his deep understanding of Indian culture and mythology makes him the perfect partner to bring this tale to life. Together, we are crafting a film that will transport audiences to a world of magic, wonder, and eternal truths, a story that celebrates the transformative power of compassion and the resilience of the human spirit. I cannot wait to share this incredible journey with animation fans around the world, old and new.”
“Neil Gaiman is one of the greatest storytellers of our time, if not all time. I am honored to bring his enchanting story of Cinnamon to audiences around the world," added Devarajan. “Inspired by Indian fables, Cinnamon weaves together the timeless theme of dharma as a young princess embarks on a journey of courage and self-discovery. At its core, it explores the universal human experience of the eternal struggle between light and darkness.”
Animator Jeevan J. Kang will direct the feature. Producers are Gaiman and Cat Mithos via The Blank Corporation, and Khan and Kang for Graphic India. The project is still in its early days, so no news on when it will premiere. [end-mark]
Another film set in the Evil Dead universe is in the works. Sam Raimi has given the greenlight to writer-director Francis Galluppi, whose feature debut was this year’s The Last Stop In Yuma County, to develop an original story he brought to the franchise.
“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline, who broke the news. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”
We don’t know much news about this project beyond that it’s happening, though we do know it’s not the only Evil Dead film in the works. Back in February, we found out that an Evil Dead feature helmed by writer-director Sébastien Vaniček is also in development. We also don’t know what that movie is about, really, though it has been described as a spinoff.
These two additions make clear that the Evil Dead franchise is alive and well. It all started, of course, back in 1981 with Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, which starred Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, a guy who finds himself perpetually surrounding by evil dead, who are surprisingly mobile. So far, the franchise has five films and the television series Ash vs. Evil Dead that Campbell starred in as well.
While we don’t know much about Galluppi’s story, the fact that Raimi described it as original suggests that it involves new characters, some of whom may be evil and dead. No news yet on if/when it will make its way to your eyeballs. [end-mark]
Did you ever wonder what happened in Rosemary's apartment before she moved in? I'm guessing you didn't. I'm guessing it was just a perfectly normal New York City apartment until some really weird shit went down. But that's not good enough for our origin-story-and-prequel obsessed era! There must be mysteries and dark forces! And also, somehow, Julia Garner (Ozark, pictured above), who seems very busy already.
Garner is set to star in Apartment 7A, which will air this fall on Paramount+. The summary says, "When a struggling, young dancer (Garner) suffers a devastating injury, she finds herself drawn in by dark forces when a peculiar, well-connected, older couple promises her a shot at fame."
The film is set in 1965 and, yes, somehow Rosemary's apartment is involved. Natalie Erika James (Relic) is directing the film, and co-wrote the script with Christian White and Skylar James. James gets the "screen story" credit, and of course it's all based on Ira Levin's Rosemary’s Baby.
The rest of the cast includes national treasure Dianne Wiest (Edward Scissorhands), Jim Sturgess (One Day), Kevin McNally (The Crown), Marli Siu (Alex Rider), Andrew Buchan (Carnival Row), Rosy McEwen (The Alienist), and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (His Dark Materials).
No premiere date has been announced, but Paramount+'s executive VP of programming, Jeff Grossman, said in a press relesae, “Apartment 7Ais the perfect way to kick off the Halloween season."[end-mark]
The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association has announced the ballot for the 2024 Aurora Awards, which recognize work done by Canadians in 2023. Each category includes the top five nominated works, unless there was a tie for fifth place, in which case additional works are included.
This year's award ceremony, hosted by Mark Leslie Lefebvre and Liz Anderson, will take place at 5 pm EDT on Sunday, August 11th.
Congratulations to all!
Best Novel
Bad Cree, Jessica Johns, HarperCollins Canada
The Marigold, Andrew F. Sullivan, ECW Press
Moon of the Turning Leaves, Waubgeshig Rice, Random House Canada
Silver Nitrate, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Del Rey
The Valkyrie, Kate Heartfield, HarperVoyager
Best Young Adult Novel
The Crystal Key: The Dream Rider Saga, Book 2, Douglas Smith, Spiral Path Books
Flower and Thorn, Rati Mehrotra, Wednesday Books
Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, Cherie Dimaline, Tundra Books
The Grimmer, Naben Ruthnum, ECW Press
The Stars of Mount Quixx, S.M. Beiko, ECW Press
Best Novelette/Novella
Green Fuse Burning, Tiffany Morris, Stelliform Press
I AM AI, Ai Jiang, Shortwave Media
“The Most Strongest Obeah Woman of the World,” Nalo Hopkinson,
Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror, Random House
Pluralities, Avi Silver, Atthis Arts
Untethered Sky, Fonda Lee, Tordotcom
Best Short Story
“At Every Door A Ghost,” Premee Mohamed, Communications Breakdown, MIT Press
“The Dust Bowl Café,” Justin Dill, Augur Magazine, Issue 6.1
“If I Should Fall Behind,” Douglas Smith, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Sept/Oct Issue
“Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont,” P.A. Cornell, Fantasy Magazine, Issue 96
“Sink Your Sorrows to the Sea,” Chandra Fisher, Saltwater Sorrows, Tyche Books
Best Graphic Novel/Comic
Atana and the Firebird, Vivian Zhou, HarperCollins
A Call to Cthulhu, Norm Konyu, Titan Nova
Carson of Venus, Ronn Sutton (artist), Martin Powell (writer), and Maggie Lopez (colourist), webcomic
Cosmic Detective, Jeff Lemire and Matt Kindt, art by David Rubin, Image Comics
It Never Rains, Kari Maaren, webcomic
The Secret of the Ravens, written and illustrated by Joanna Cacao, with lettering by Kyla Aiko, Clarion Books
Wychwood, Ally Rom Colthoff, webcomic
Best Poem/Song
“As a, I want to, so I can,” Kelley Tai, Heartlines Spec, Issue 2, Spring/Summer 2023
When Words Collide, Randy McCharles, chair, Calgary
The Worldshapers Podcast, Edward Willett, online
The CSFFA also recently announced this year's nominees for the CSFFA Hall of Fame. Each year, three people are inducted—and this year's trio will be chosen from the following nominees:
It occurs to me that the cover of this book shows Vetinari as the referee and now I’m trying to remember if I was disappointed that he didn’t actually get to do it.
Summary
At the inn, Glenda runs into Lady Margolotta, but only thinks it’s a woman with her entourage. She scolds her ladyship for being cruel to Nutt and making him feel worthless, only realizing after-the-fact that she’s told off Ladyship herself. Nutt easily shoes the horse and gets them a ride back home. He and Glenda talk, and he admits that he wrote Trev’s poem to Juliet for Glenda, which Glenda can’t think of what to say to, so she begins to cry instead. They both agree to keep their relationship at bay while getting ready for the match, and notice that the city seems amped when they return—there’s been a piece about Nutt in the paper and fights in the streets and the Watch is going to be set up to prevent outbursts around the game. Pepe takes Trev aside and tells him he’s going to have to play and that he’ll have something ready to help him out, just to make sure that he lives long enough to keep Juliet happy. Trev goes to see Carter, who got beat to hell by Andy and a few others yesterday when all the fighting broke out. Trev heads to the Hippo to see practice and finds that Andy’s joined the Ankh-Morpork United team, and it’s looking like Vetinari’s plan to change football might fail.
Bu-bubble Magazine is there to interview Nutt, who gives answers so complex that the journalist gets ushered away by Glenda. Trev tries to explain how bad things are about to get and Glenda suggests that they let Vetinari know about all the trouble. They burst in on a meeting between Vetinari and Lady Margolotta, armed with pie, which Vetinari insists that they leave behind. He also tells them that he’s aware of the dangers of the game, but there’s not much that can be done at this point. Nutt has put the team on a special diet the night before the game, meaning no one gets to eat much more than salad, and they spend the evening wandering the university looking for more food. Pepe comes by to show Trev micromail that he can wear for the game, thought Trev insists he’s not playing. The team convenes the next day and makes it onto the pitch where Sam Vimes tells the group that they’re on their own, and that he’s very displeased that they’ve all chosen to start their own war so soon after he managed to put together the Koom Valley Accord. He leaves the pitch and the game begins, which is told to us from the perspective of William de Worde, reporting for the Times.
The university scores two goals straight away, and Ridcully gives one of them to the opposing team to mess with their heads. On the next play, Ankh-Morpork United deliberately disables the university’s best player, Professor Macarona, necessitating a substitute player: Nutt subs in. Glenda sees another member on United’s side throw a banana onto the field, which the Librarian promptly eats, knocking him out. Trev is supposed to sub in if another player is gone, but he still doesn’t want to because he promised his dead mother, as he keeps telling everyone. Doctor Hix volunteers to revive her so he can get permission, which is roundly dismissed. Pepe knows it’s time to get the whole crowd on their side, so he starts chanting Trev’s surname and the whole stadium picks it up, remembering Dave Likely. Glenda and Juliet already had a jersey made up with Dave’s old number, and so Trev gives in, apologizes to his mum, and gets out on the field. Trev can’t make the shots initially because he’s used to using a tin can, so Dr. Hix gets himself thrown out of the game to give them a little time. Henry, the Archchancellor of Brazeneck who is acting as referee, informs them that he’s moving the game into sudden death and the next goal scored wins.
Glenda realizes that Trev is going to lose until a voice starts speaking to her: It’s Trev’s old tin can in her pocket. She remembers that anything can be the ball and contrives to get the can thrown in when the ball goes off-field. Throwing the tin can out, Trev immediately wipes the field of the opposition and scores the needed final goal to win. The captain of United punches Andy for losing them the game, and Juliet runs onto the field to Trev, the two of them floating into the air as the stadium chants. Andy says it’s magic, but Glenda realizes it’s religion: The god of the game brought their win today. The win is celebrated, Trev tells Juliet that he’ll follow her wherever she goes, and Nutt and Glenda go to see a play together about star-crossed lovers. Andy gets his comeuppance from Pepe. Vetinari and Lady Margolotta are eating dinner when Nutt and Glenda show up to speak to them. Nutt asks Ladyship if he has worth and she agrees that he has and asks him to teach the rest of the orcs. He agrees to and asks Glenda if she will accompany him, and she agrees. Then he asks Vetinari for a golem horse, which the Patrician grants, and they leave. Ridcully goes to see Ponder about a little incident at Brazeneck that they’ll need UU’s help with, and they’re not smug about it at all.
Commentary
We’ve arrived at the point in the Discworld books where every single one of them begins to feel like a potential goodbye. This one even moreso perhaps with the ending litany of You think it’s all over? between each denouement. Nutt’s journey is dealing with thoughts about othering and prejudice, but it’s also an incredibly universal story about how we determine the value of our lives, what measure we should attempt to live up to. Nutt’s initial measure is one born of abuse; Lady Margolotta may have saved Nutt from being treated as less than sentient, but she wasn’t kind to him by any stretch.
And to a certain extent, we have to assume that Margolotta’s coldness is ultimately a projection. After all, she and Vimes are similar (Vetinari has a type): teetotalers who are unhappy with their natures and work very hard to control them. She’s cruel to Nutt because the way she treats him is the way she treats herself, with distrust and hard discipline. It doesn’t make it okay, of course, but it doesn’t come out of nowhere, and I’m curious just how much Vetinari perceives that, given his gentle ribbing of her through the final act.
The romance between Nutt and Glenda is beautiful because they are two people who are good to others, but never think to be good to themselves. And a good, healthy partnership helps with that mismatch in life—reminding us to expect more, encouraging us to seek out better. Trev and Juliet are adorable, but they’re the celebrity couple. Whereas we’ve got Nutt and Glenda doing their own version of Pylades and Orestes' famous I’ll take care of you./It’s rotten work./Not to me. Not if it’s you. with
“It will be a dreadful burden.” “I’ll help!”
That got me slam in the chest. Who needs romantic declarations or poetry after that? And this time, our Cyrano gets what he deserves, with the poem ultimately being read by the person who it was for and understood.
But what of the match? Using William as the cipher through which we experience the game is a stroke of genius in its ability to make reading about the game bearable and even real fun at points. But I think the piece that impresses me the most is the suggestion that Trev can’t win by being Dave Likely’s kid, the way sport narratives often go; he has to win by way of a bit of old world magic, the religious nature of sports devotion, the spirit of Game. It’s not my personal brand of faith, but that excuse, that little cheat, it makes more sense to me from the narrative perspective.
The game itself gets to be fun, but frankly underwhelming as a dramatic climax. The real high point is the final confrontation of Nutt staring down a stadium of people following the game’s end with the soft utterance of “Come on if you think you’re hard enough.” It’s devastating in its confidence. It’s only a threat if you choose to act against him. So smart and deftly done.
As Vetinari says, who needs pies with this kind of happy ending?
Asides and little thoughts
It occurs to me that Lady Margolotta has lost her vampiric accent in this book, which forces me to wonder if it’s an affectation that she puts on for easily unnerved guests (like Vimes), or if she changes her accent to suit the region.
Vetinari suggesting that Drumknott might do better if he happened to “meet a young lady willing to dress up as a manila envelope” is just… sir, you should not be thinking this hard about your assistant’s kinks.
Had to make Ponder the kid who feels the need to point out that when you tell someone to “give 110%” you’re just expanding the percentage that the 100 is.
Aw, Hwel got to write his Romeo and Juliet. There are a lot of touches like that in this book, nods to much earlier stories (like Stanley’s stamp magazine), meant to fill out the world and show you where people are after all this time. Which also lends to the ending-is-near feeling…
Pratchettisms
He nodded at lady Margolotta and oiled his way noiselessly out of the room.
“How can a man live without pasta?” said Bengo. “This is barbaric!”
“Good point, well made,” said Ridcully, dismissing it instantly.
It was a triumph. Whether you won or lost, it was still a triumph.
The rustle of her long-black dress was an audible intoxication as she walked the last few steps towards the orc and stopped.
Okay, next week we start I Shall Wear Midnight. We’ll read Chapters 1-4! [end-mark]
The webtoon I’m the Grim Reaper by Graveweaver is set to get an adaptation. According to Deadline, Sam Raimi (pictured above) has signed on to executive produce the adaptation along with Zainab Azizi and Graveweaver, the latter of whom will also be part of the development process.
On earth there are bad people, and then there are REALLY BAD people. If you’re one of the latter, you don’t just get sent to Hell, you get sent to Hell and get assigned a job collecting the souls of some of the worst people on Earth. Such is the career path of a young woman named Scarlet, who dies and is delivered down to the fiery underworld only to find herself in an entry level position as…The Grim Reaper!
In addition to Raimi, the adaptation also has writers Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken on board to pen the script. The two are best known for their work on 10 Cloverfield Lane, where they share a writing credit with Damien Chazelle. They also wrote the script for John Woo’s upcoming film, The Killer.
No news on when the project will go into production, much less make its way to a screen near you. In the meantime, you can (re)read Dreamweaver’s Webtoon here. [end-mark]
Fresh off of 2023’s Poor Things, actor Emma Stone and writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos have teamed up once again in Kinds of Kindness, a very Yorgos Lanthimos-looking film that is set to premiere at and compete in the Cannes Film Festival this year.
Searchlight Pictures put out a thirty-second teaser to commemorate the Cannes opening, which features Stone copying all of my best dance moves in a parking lot next to a purple car and what appears to be a comatose woman in a wheelchair. What’s going on here? I’ve no idea! The synopsis, however, sheds some light on what the plot—and I use that term loosely—may be:
Kinds of Kindness is a triptych fable, following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.
Lanthimos co-wrote Kinds of Kindness with Efthimis Filippou, who was also his scribe-in-crime for The Lobster, Dogtooth, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. In addition to Stone, the movie stars Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Jesse Plemons, and Hunter Schafer.
Kinds of Kindness is set to premiere in select theaters on June 21, 2024.
Check out the latest teaser trailer below. [end-mark]
Russell Crowe is entering his exorcism era! You might remember his turn as a priest in the 2023 film The Pope’s Exorcist. This year, Crowe is donning the clerical collar once again in The Exorcism, a film from writer-director Joshua John Miller, whose father was in The Exorcist in a memorable role.
“The origins of the film stem from my childhood spent watching my father, Jason Miller, playing the doomed Father Karras flinging himself out a window at the climax of The Exorcist,” Miller said in a statement. “If that wasn’t haunting enough on its own, my dad never shied away from telling me stories of just how ‘cursed’ the movie was: the mysterious fires that plagued the production, the strange deaths, the lifelong injuries—the list went on and on. The lore of any ‘cursed film’ has captivated me ever since.”
As the trailer released today reveals, Crowe plays an actor with a troubled past who is hired to play a priest in a horror production that is supposedly cursed. He’s there with his daughter (Ryan Simpkins), who sees him slipping and goes to get help from a priest played by David Hyde Pierce.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Academy Award-winner Russell Crowe stars as Anthony Miller, a troubled actor who begins to unravel while shooting a supernatural horror film. His estranged daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), wonders if he's slipping back into his past addictions or if there's something more sinister at play.
“With The Exorcism, we wanted to update the possession movie formula (‘Heroic man rescues woman from forces she’s too weak and simple to battle herself!’) for a world where no one group owns goodness and decency over another,” said Miller. “We were gifted with an extraordinary cast and creative team to tell a story about how we’re all vulnerable to darkness, to perpetuating it, if we fail to face our demons.”
In addition to Crowe, Simpkins, and Pierce, the movie stars Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, and Adam Goldberg. It was co-written by Miller and M.A. Fortin and produced by Kevin Williamson, Ben Fast, and Bill Block.
The Exorcism is set to premiere in theaters on June 7, 2024.
One of the longstanding questions in the Star Trek franchise that has been unanswered since it was first asked in 1995 when we saw our first Breen in DS9’s “Indiscretion.” That question, which remained unanswered despite the Breen becoming major players in the Dominion War arc of DS9’s final two seasons, was: What do the Breen actually look like?
Their initial appearance showed them in full-body armor and helmets that covered their entire persons. (They also bore an unfortunate resemblance to the outfit Leia Organa wore in the opening bit of Return of the Jedi.)
Discovery has finally answered that question. In fact, it turns out they answered it a few weeks ago, as L’ak—whose species was unknown to anyone prior to “Mirrors”—is a Breen. The Breen suits have been redesigned to look less Star Wars-y, and when they first undo their helmets, their skin is translucent, not becoming opaque until the helmet’s off for a while.
A large chunk of “Mirrors” is given over to The Secret Origin Of Moll And L’ak, and it’s a story that’s as old as the hills. L’ak is a member of the royal family, but he’s on the outs with his family, given crap customs duties as punishment for being a ne’er-do-well. Moll is a Courier who takes a shine to this disgraced aristocrat, and they fall in love. When she gets a better contract with the Emerald Chain, she urges him to come with her, otherwise they’ll never see each other again. He agrees, but it puts him on the outs with the royal family, who put a contract out on him.
This is why Moll and L’ak are so hot to find the Progenitors’ tech: it’ll enable them to buy L’ak’s freedom from being a Breen fugitive. They can go to the planet in the Gamma Quadrant where Moll has always wanted to go ever since her father promised it.
Credit: CBS / Paramount+
Ah yes, the Cleveland Booker connection. The prior iteration of the Dread Pirate Booker had promised Moll and her mother that they’d be able to retire to a planet in the GQ. (Presumably accessed via the Bajoran Wormhole?) But he never returned home. Moll, of course, hates his guts, which torpedoes Book’s plan to appeal to their mutual relationship with her Dad.
The confrontation takes place on the I.S.S. Enterprise, which is just hilarious. Apaprently there’s a pocket dimension in Tzenkethi space that has a bunch of busted-up ships in it, and it’s where the next piece of the puzzle is hidden. The scientist responsible is a woman named Dr. Cho, who is actually from the Mirror Universe. She and some others crossed over to the mainline universe in the Enterprise before the Terran Empire fell. We know from DS9’s “Crossover” that Spock-with-a-beard rose to the position of emperor and then tried to initiate reforms, which led to the empire being conquered by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. The notion that Cho crossed over and hid the Enterprise in the dimensional pocket is an interesting one.
It also enables Discovery to make use of the Strange New Worlds sets, as the bridge, corridors, and sickbay of the I.S.S. Enterprise are re-dresses of the ones used on the sister show. There’s a lovely moment when Burnham looks with sadness at the science station, as that was “my brother’s” station, though she never saw the Enterprise or encountered the MU Spock in her visit there in Discovery’s first season. (She doesn’t mention that she met Sarek, interestingly enough.) She also finds out that Mirror-Saru—whom she met—was one of the movers and shakers behind getting Cho and the others to safety in the mainline universe, prompting Book to comment that he’s “Action Saru” in any universe…
Burnham and Book find Moll and L’ak on the Enterprise. There are lots of confrontations, shootouts, hand-to-hand combat, and working together, sorta-kinda. In the end, Moll and L’ak still don’t trust Starfleet and are in this to win it, and they escape, while Burnham and Book manage to save the day and salvage the Enterprise. Oh, and they get the next clue/puzzle piece.
(Burnham puts Detmer and Owosekun in charge of bringing the Mirror Enterprise back to Federation HQ, and this is the second time this season that the pair of them have been mentioned but not seen, with this side mission possibly meaning we won’t see them next week, either, which is annoying. Emily Coutts and Oyin Oladejo have done a wonderful job of making these two a compelling pair at the front of the bridge despite scripts that give them almost nothing, and I was hoping to get more, not less, of them in this final season.)
Credit: CBS / Paramount+
Back on Discovery, Rayner is left in charge and he has to enocurage the various science nerds in the senior staff to come up with a way to improve communications with the interior of the pocket dimension and also rescue Book and Burnham. To his credit, he does it well, making sure to get everyone involved. Burnham also is able to communicate her intentions to Rayner by using some Kellerun folklore she read up on. (Yes, Rayner is a Kellerun, one of the two species with really terrible hair from DS9’s “Armageddon Game.” Thankfully, hairstyles have improved among the Kellerun over the last eight centuries…)
Burnham, Rayner, and Stamets’ time-travel adventure last week had one particularly important revelation: the destruction of Federation HQ was accomplished by the Breen—the very people Moll and L’ak want to sell the Progenitor tech to. So now our heroes are even more motivated to stop Moll and L’ak, because they know exactly what will happen if they use the tech to get the Breen royal family off their backs.
I said in my review of the season premiere that Moll and L’ak on the one hand reminded me of other genre Bonnie and Clyde riffs, to wit, Spike and Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Pumpkin and Honey Bunny from Pulp Fiction. But on the other hand, they didn’t quite rise to the level of those other two. The backstory on the pair of them does do some good work in that regard, mostly by showing what’s at stake for L’ak. Moll rescued him from a life he despised, and which he will do whatever’s necessary to never go back to. The source of his love is made abundantly clear in the flashbacks. (Moll’s passion for L’ak is less obvious, but Eve Harlow at least makes the devotion convincing.)
We also get some who-counsels-the-counselor bits, as Culber is having trouble processing what he went through on Trill. Tilly volunteers to be his sounding board, wherein we find out (among other things) that he can’t really talk to Stamets about it. Which is, y’know, bad. But it’s nice to see that having Jinaal occupy his meat suit was something that affected him, and which also dredged up his mixed feelings about dying and being resurrected.
Next week, we’re on to the next puzzle piece, with Moll and L’ak now using an MU medical shuttle to fly around in…[end-mark]
When 28 Days Later first came out, years and years ago, Cillian Murphy was not the well-known name he is now. But the horror sequel series currently in development with original director Danny Boyle and original writer Alex Garland is not taking any chances on its stars. Deadline reports that a powerful trio of actors have signed on: Jodie Comer (Killing Eve), Ralph Fiennes (The Menu, pictured above), and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass).
28 Years Later is a sequel tothe original films, of which there were two: 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. (It is almost enough to make one wonder if the second film in this new trilogy will be 28 Decades Later, and so on.) Nothing is known about the plot, but the producers are already planning ahead: Nia DaCosta (The Marvels) is on board to direct the second film in the trilogy, which will apparently film back-to-back with the first one.
One might, naturally, wonder why a sequel series now, when 28 Weeks Later came out almost twenty years ago (but not yet 28 years). Well, zombies never die—though some people get very testy if you refer to the undead creatures in these films as zombies. Either way, the original was a film about society falling apart after the appearance of a contagious and destructive virus that changed people into rage monsters. Perhaps the filmmakers feel they have something new to say about humanity and rage. Or perhaps they just noticed the infernal, unstoppable, uncountable Walking Dead spinoffs and decided to return to their roots.
No premiere date has been announced for 28 Years Later.[end-mark]
There’s a new documentary on Jim Henson set to start streaming on Disney+ in the near future, and the Ron Howard production has just released its first trailer. In it, we see a lot of footage from Henson’s early years as well as several of his colleagues talking about his boundless imagination.
Here’s the official synopsis for the documentary, which is called Jim Henson Idea Man:
Jim Henson Idea Man takes us into the mind of this singular creative visionary, from his early years puppeteering on local television to the worldwide success of Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and beyond. Featuring unprecedented access to Jim's personal archives, Howard brings us a fascinating and insightful look at a complex man whose boundless imagination inspired the world.
The trailer is a moving one for anyone who has seen and loved one of his creations, whether that be Kermit the Frog or any of the Muppets, the movie Labyrinth, or The Dark Crystal, just to name a few. The project’s access to Henson’s personal files is hinted at in the trailer as well, with images of a young Henson that few have seen before. The trailer also suggests that the documentary will touch on how things changed when Henson’s popularity grew, though it’s not clear how much time will be spent on that versus celebrating his creative mind.
We’ll know for sure when Jim Henson Idea Man starts streaming on Disney+ on May 31, 2024.
The Outlander prequel is coming! Starz has just announced another slew of actors who have joined the cast of Outlander: Blood of My Blood, and some are playing younger versions of characters we’ve seen in the flagship series.
Blood of My Blood centers on the parents of Jamie Fraser (played in Outlander, of course, by Sam Heughan) as well as the parents of Claire Fraser (Catriona Balfe). As such, the series takes place on two timelines: We follow Jamie’s parents, Ellen MacKenzie (Harriet Slater) and Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) in eighteenth-century Scotland, and Claire’s parents, Julia Moriston (Hermione Corfield) and Henry Beauchamp (Jeremy Irvine), in World War I England.
We’ve already got one additional round of casting news earlier this month, and today we have more actors to add to the list. Sally Messham (A Small Light) will be playing a younger version of Mrs. Fitz, Ellen’s maid at Castle Leoch and Murtagh’s aunt. Terence Rae (Black Dog ) is playing another (albeit younger version of) a character we’ve seen before: Arch Bug, who, in the time of the prequel series, is working as a bodyguard to Clan Grant. The Outlander character Jocasta Cameron, played on the original show by Marai Doyle Kennedy, will be played by Sadhbh Malin (Conversations with Friends). Other additions include Ailsa Davidson (Halo), who will be playing Jocasta’s sister Janet MacKenzie and, in the twentieth century, Annabelle Dowler (The Reckoning) joins the cast as Lizbeth, Julia’s boss at the War Department while Harry Eaton (Extraordinary) plays Private Charlton, Henry Beauchamp’s fellow soldier and friend.
The casting news is ramping up on Blood of My Blood just as the eighth and final season of Outlander is in the midst of production. Matthew B. Roberts showruns both series, with Ronald D. Moore and Maril Davis executive producing on both as well.
We don’t know yet when Blood of My Blood will premiere, but the back half of Outlander’s seventh season, eight episodes in total, will come out sometime in November 2024. [end-mark]
Every week, some very good books are published that could be adapted into very good movies. Every day, probably, someone somewhere is writing a screenplay that could make a very interesting film. But in this timeline, we get Space Mountain instead. The latest adaptation—I'm using that word quite loosely—of a Disney theme park ride has been in development for years, apparently (some of us may have been in denial). But now it has a pair of writers: Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec are facing the task of transforming a roller coaster into an epic movie (one presumably intended to start a whole franchise).
Applebaum and Nemec, most recently, were the showrunners for Netflix's generally underwhelming live-action Cowboy Bebop (pictured above); they were also involved in Prime Video's splashy Citadel (Applebaum is one of the creators; Nemec is a producer). They were also among the writers on Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol and the two 2010s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies that starred just a really weird bunch of people (Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Stephen Amell, Alan Ritchson, Laura Linney, Tyler Perry, what?).
And now they're on top of Space Mountain. As The Hollywood Reporter sagely notes, "The ride has no overarching theme nor memorable characters seen in such rides as Pirates of the Caribbean. In fact, Space Mountain in Disneyland has been turned into Hyperspace Mountain and given a Star Wars makeover on occasion. As such, the story is being created whole cloth with the ride acting as inspiration."
Naturally, plot details are top secret. What I remember about one childhood ride on Space Mountain is basically nothing, except that at some point you are in the dark. Which is where we all are when it comes to Disney and its endless rides-into-franchises machine, I guess. [end-mark]
Killer Plots: Five Books Featuring Professional Assassins
Whether you're pursued by hired thugs, trained assassins, or an unhinged killer, fleeing an attempt on your life is one great way to kick off an adventure...
Who has not found themselves faced with fiscal impediments, treacherous associates, and disappointing rulers? Ordinary methods for evading such complications are often time-consuming, expensive, or unpleasant. Over the millennia, discriminating consumers have turned to one method to fix such pesky problems: assassination1.
Assassination and assassins have always been plot catnip for SFF authors. Herewith five works that examine the topic.
The Republic’s independence depends on avoiding conquest by either of the Republic’s more powerful neighbors, the Alliance (dominated by the Master Race) and the Confederation (dominated by the carlis). The last thing Polar City Police Chief Bates needs is for someone to target consular personnel. What he gets is the cooling body of murdered Confederation protocol officer Imbeth ka Gren.
Working out who ordered the hit proves straightforward: the Master Race. Determining who the killer was may be more difficult, as the Master Race used a human cat’s-paw. Time is of the essence; job stress has left the Master Race’s chosen tool quite unhinged, and he is a danger to more than one consular staff member.
Polar City Blues is a demonstration of the old adage that sometimes it isn’t the crime that gets one in hot water so much as the attempt at a cover-up. The assassin is trying to eliminate every potential witness to the original murder; there may be witnesses to these new murders, witnesses who must also be killed. Result: the killer may have to murder the entire Polar City population one person at a time2.
Disgraced necromancer Ward de’Ath is hired by murder victim Celia Carlyle’s grieving family to revive her just long enough for a final farewell. Once resurrected, Celia has other plans: she is determined to find her killer. Celia drafts Ward to keep Celia necromantically animated.
To his increasing alarm, Ward discovers Celia is not some innocent high-born victim. She comes from a family of assassins. Celia is an assassin herself. Her enemies are also experienced killers. Ward’s talents are sufficient to keep Celia alive(ish)… but who is going to keep Ward alive?
Just to clarify, Ward is not disgraced because he is a necromancer. Necromancy is a respected profession. Ward is disgraced because he dabbled in the forbidden art of mundane surgery...
This Joseon Era Korean historical adventure recounts the doings of protagonist Gildong.
If Gildong’s mother had been Minister Hong’s legal wife, Gildong would be ensured a prosperous life as a senior functionary. But he is just the illegitimate son of a maid, and his state-mandated future will be quite humble.
Minster Hong’s wife Chorang fears that Gildong will rebel against his fate. She employs master assassin Teukjae to kill the youngster. Gildong would be doomed—were he not a boy of sterling character, keen insight, scholastic talent, and sorcerous skills.
As you might expect, Gildong is not in fact doomed. If I were to compare him to Western mythical figures, he would be a combination of Robin Hood and Merlin. Those who oppose him end badly.
Foundling Sirscha Ashwyn escaped from a humble life of servitude by apprenticing to Kendara the Shadow, master spy/assassin for the kingdom of Evewyn. In return for being taught skills of combat and stealth, Sirscha carries out Kandara’s orders without question.
What should have been a straightforward career arc of murdering people until she encounters someone even more skilled is complicated when Sirscha’s slain companion Saengo very unexpectedly comes back to life. Sirscha discovers that she is a shaman and Saengo is now her familiar.
This unexpected revelation has many consequences, not least of which is that powerful people now need Sirscha dead.
While Sirscha is a perfectly sensible person who pursues entirely logical courses of action, this cannot be said for those she encounters. There are a surprising number of opponents who, when confronted with Sirscha, think fighting her is a good idea.
It is not a good idea.
An additional complication: Saengo is surprisingly ungrateful for resurrection, given that his only other option is being a corpse.
Princess Solenn is slated to marry Verdanian Prince Rupert; the alliance may save her nigh-defenseless kingdom of Braiz. But Rupert is being targeted by an assassin (something that Solenn knows but dares not explain).
How does she know? Solenn is a Chef, born with enhanced taste and smell. She can tell when food and drink has been poisoned. This talent could be useful to powerful people, who would be happy to put Solenn on their staff—by any means necessary. She cannot reveal her talents without inviting danger.
Solenn tries to protect Rupert without revealing that she is a Chef. Solenn fails to protect the Prince. Her attempts to protect him inadvertently give the impression that Solenn herself was the assassin. An unpleasant death seems certain.
The discovery that an angry god plans an apocalypse is almost a welcome distraction.
Recipes is yet another fantasy set in a secondary-universe monarchy. It does not make a good case for monarchy as an effective system of government. If anything, it argues the opposite. Braiz’s monarchs treat Solenn as the national designated Redshirt, while Rupert’s father, King Caristo, confuses vindictiveness with prudence. At least the people have the gods to turn to…except in this case, the gods seem even less reliable than the monarchs.
Professional assassins being as useful as they are—not least to authors—they appear in many SFF novels. The five works I’ve discussed are only a tiny sample of assassin-focused literature. Feel free to mention the more obvious omissions—yes, yes, even that Pratchett book—in comments below.[end-mark]
I’m limiting myself to professional assassins here. Amateur assassinations are a subject for another day. ↩︎
Once the Polar City population was down to Bates and the killer, it would be pretty easy for Bates to work out who the killer might be. ↩︎
Predictably, I love the original Road House—who wouldn’t love a movie about a bouncer/philosophy student who does lakeside Tai Chi and can rip a man’s throat out with his bare hands? I went into Doug Liman’s Road House reboot with some trepidation, but I realized there are a few ways that the new film bests the original. First of all, its set in Florida, on the fictional Glass Key. The very real Fred the Tree is featured, there’s a scene where an American Crocodile eats a dude, and in this one Dalton lives on a scruffy houseboat instead of in a ridiculously chic lofted barn. But the biggest difference, improbably, concerns an independent bookstore.
I came to the original Road House like a lot of people of my disposition: endless jokes about the film on MST3K. It was the inspiration for the holiday standard “Let’s Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas” and a good thing to know about me is that every single time I hear Crow T. Robot sing “I’ll have to smash your kneecaps if you bastards touch my car” I’m reduced to helpless crying laughter. (I’m finding it hard to type this sentence for that very reason!)
In the world of the Road House reboot, pain still don't hurt, and it is the indie bookstore that is the Regular Saturday Night Thing.
For those who don’t know the original: Patrick Swayze is great. Genuinely great, no snark here, I’m pretty much always sad that he’s gone. He’s great in Road House. He’s great in the pro-abortion feminist classic Dirty Dancing. He’s great in Ghost. And he’s extra great in Donnie Darko, where he became a bit of a hero to young Jake Gyllenhaal—who now, years later, has reinvented one of Swayze's classic roles.
The bullet points of the original Road House have been covered before: he’s a (famous!) bouncer, who travels from town to town cleaning up bars, like if Shane was an AA sponsor. He also did time at NYU studying philosophy, which he defines as “Man’s search for faith, that kind of shit.” That’s not even remotely accurate as a definition of the study of philosophy. Even in movie terms, Indiana Jones got closer with “Archaeology is the search for FACT not truth. If it’s truth you’re interested in, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall. [undergraduate laughter].” It’s closer to say that philosophy is the study of the nature of knowledge and reality—more man’s search for fundamental meaning, for core reality, for some sort of transcendent truth that underlies individual beliefs—i.e., all the stuff faith kind of handwaves away.
Dalton didn’t have any particular concentration during his studies. Presumably then, he was an undergrad and never when on to graduate work. We also know that in the 1970s, he and Wade were cleaning up a bar in Alabama. But since Dalton is working in New York at the start of the film, and his bitchin’ Mercedes has a New York license plate, I’m choosing to posit that he attended NYU in the early to mid ‘80s, shortly before the events of Road House, as a sabbatical from his strenuous work as a cooler.
If I’m right, he might have studied with James Burnham, and used that professor’s conservative text, The Managerial Revolution, as a key in understanding how evil small town real estate king Brad Wesley supervised a group of henchmen, Monster Truck drivers, and his stripper girlfriend to solidify his control over Jasper, Missouri. Or is it possible that Dalton was influenced by Ferdinand Lundberg and his work on exposing American oligarchy—America’s 60 Families and The Rich and the Super-Rich—in his attempt to route Wesley from his iron grip on the town? And of course, most significant would be his study of the work of Thomas Nagel, with papers like “What is it Like to be a Bat?”, and the deep consideration of the mind-body problem—because what is Road House if not a film-length meditation on the mind-body problem? And what is “consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable” but a more academic way of asking “pain don’t hurt”?
Why have I taken us down this philosophical tangent? The fact that Dalton has a philosophy degree is one of the things that makes the original film so special. It’s an interesting, unexpected detail that gives some depth to a character that might have been another 1980s action meathead. I was worried that the reboot would ditch that kind of quirkiness, but instead, it found its own way to add layers.
More than in the original Road House, the reboot tells a larger story of predation. There are people who want to go to the Road House and have a nice night out, people who want to rent paddleboards and have fun in a light surf, people who love the relaxed rhythms and overwhelming nature of Florida. But always there are the others, the guys who get drunk and belligerent and threaten the band, the girls who get too drunk and dance on a table, the jet skiers who swamp the boarders in waves and exhaust, and the real estate developers who want to raze the state’s natural beauty to build resorts for the rich.
As this is an action movie, it has to end in a big explosive blowout fight to the death. In the original, it’s set in motion after the villain burns down an auto repair shop, threatens Dalton’s girl (in a super gross ‘80s “If I can’t have her, no one can” way), and, finally, murders Dalton’s mentor in bouncing, Wade Garrett.
Yeah. The Wade Garrett.
There are explosions and queer-coded henchmen and a dude gets squashed by a taxidermied polar bear.
In many ways, Road House is a perfect film.
The new Road House goes in a different direction; here, the carnage isn’t triggered by a girlfriend or a henchman—it’s because of an indie bookstore.
Credit: Amazon MGM Studios
Glass Books (motto: Get hooked on books!”) isn’t just a bookstore. It’s the gateway to Glass Key, the first thing you see when you get off the Greyhound. When Dalton comes to town, blood still seeping from a recent knife wound, fresh off a suicide attempt, he’s greeted by Charlie, the teen who runs Glass Books with her dad Stephen. She gives Dalton a book about Fred the Tree, a real icon of the Florida Keys. It’s a little indie-pubbed chapbook that Dalton spends the rest of the film reading between skirmishes. Later, he uses the store’s computer to research his villain’s nefarious plot. He lets Charlie open up about her mother, the one who decided Glass Key needed a used bookstore, and about her mother’s death the previous year. (She meets his condolences with: “It happens. Only here it always happens on a beautiful day.”)
In this bright and sunshine-y movie, Glass Books is a dark haven. The walls are covered floor-to-ceiling in bowed, overstuffed shelves, with books about Florida culture prominently displayed by the ancient cash register. Dalton’s visits to the store are his only truly safe moments, and they’re also the site of his very sweet friendship with Charlie. She compares him to a Western hero come to clean up Glass Key and he lets her riff. When she finds a Western pulp paperback, Death at the Double X, starring the “intrepid” Wade Waco, he tells her that he couldn’t tell her whether he’s “intrepid” like the hero or not, but he’s clearly amused, not irritated. There’s no point where he seems annoyed or condescending—he accepts her friendship.
In the original Road House, Dalton went to the auto parts store a lot because bastards kept touching his car. (RIP to various kneecaps.) He had a cordial relationship with the store’s owner, Red, who also turned out to be his love interest’s uncle. But Dalton and Red weren’t really close, and the auto parts store was just one in a series of places that the nefarious Ben Wesley fucked with, to prove that he ruled Jasper, Missouri. A thing he wanted to do for some reason.
In the new Road House, Glass Books has an actual backstory and personality. Charlie obviously sees it as her mom’s legacy. It’s not just a store, and it’s not even a source of reliable income—Charlie’s dad works another job to keep them both afloat. But the store is their connection to their lost wife and mother. We never see their home, because I suspect the bookstore is their real home.
Obviously, the villains clock Dalton’s friendship with Charlie. Instead of Red’s auto shop, it’s the bookstore that burns in the new Road House. Charlie tries to defend the store with her trusty baseball bat, but she and her dad end up in the hospital. (This happens offscreen, presumably to keep the film fun.) Dalton is already on his way out of town when he sees the burned out shell of Glass Books. He pushes past firefighters to stand in the ruin. The rest of the film is one bloody fight after the next, punctuated by the occasional explosion, as he works his way through evil real estate developer Ben Brandt and all of his dickhead henchmen. (Sidenote: between this and the goddamn instant classic Monkey Man, complicated action heroes have learned how to stab properly again, and it fills me with joy?)
The bookstore is the heart of Glass Key: rather than a damsel, or an older mentor figure, or the Concept of Small Town America, or even the bar Dalton was literally hired to protect, the bookstore is what is avenged, and ultimately reborn. Where the original Road House gave us a redemptive ending for Dalton, here his ending is bittersweet (and a springboard for a sequel, of course), but Glass Books and its keepers get an unambiguously triumphant ending.
In the world of the Road House reboot, pain still don't hurt, and it is the indie bookstore that is the Regular Saturday Night Thing.[end-mark]
