Thursday 22 December 2016

Ranking the Films I Saw in 2016

Well, I decided to list the new films I watched in 2016, and realised I have seen enough films this year to make a top 10. Literally, I've seen 10 films. So, let’s have a look back at 2016 in the cinema.

10. X Men: Apocalypse

Meh, X men by numbers. Overblown and tedious.

9. Trolls

Dreamworks by numbers, but cute and fun enough that I was able to like it. I liked the animation style, and the songs were nicely done. The velcro-like animation style is an unusual and distinctive look for the film, and its message on the relationship between happiness and sadness works as a (less skilfully done) inversion of "Inside Out".

8. Ghostbusters

Formulaic and middle of the road really, but so much fun - my friends and I had a blast watching it for a film night the other week. The main cast are genuinely fun together, and the final act is spectacular, colourful, and utterful gorgeous to look at. Jerks on the internet need to get over themselves.

7. Finding Dory

A Pixar's greatest hits montage with a slightly overblown ending keeps this from being a Pixar Classic, but it's still their best film this side of Toy Story 3 (which this plot borrows a lot from, basically being another prison break story) that isn't "Inside Out". And it's incredibly funny moving in its best bits, plus baby Dory is the cutest thing ever.

6. Captain America: Civil War

Undeniably one of the better Marvel movies, with well done action, plotting, and character work. They've finally made a movie Spiderman where Spiderman and Peter Parker both work (and somehow, I'm excited for yet another Spiderman reboot as a result). Left me a bit cold, though, as most Marvel movies do - it's incredibly efficient, but feels, like all Marvel films, like another part of the production line, and that doesn't do it for me any more.

5. Rogue One

Disney successfully make another good "Star Wars" movie, and it's nice to see them break the "Hero's Journey" mould, instead intelligently and successfully exploring the politics behind the forming of the rebel alliance. The cinematography was gorgeous (probably the best Star Wars has had), the action great, the fanservice was handled tastefuly, and the central concept was quite a clever take on an odd plot point from the original trilogy (not wanting to spoil too much). The characters were distinctive enough, and produced some wonderful funny moments. And yet, I felt slightly at a remove from it: I was never as attached to the plucky group of rebels as I felt I was supposed to be, so the ending wasn’t as devastating as it needed to be to put this up there with the best films of the year. Still a very good film, though, and it leaves me hopeful that Disney can keep this run of form going all the way through to episode Nine.

4. Deadpool

This was just great fun, and serves as the perfect filmic interpretation of the much loved comic book character: it’s a part Ryan Reynolds was born to play. While it follows the basic structure of most superhero origin stories, its fourth wall breaking, self awareness, R Rating, and sense of fun give it an oddball weirdness that successfully distinguishes it from its peers.

3. Moana

This was really rather beautiful. In its structure, the story reminded me lot of my first-placed film, but that’s no bad thing: it’s a story type that genuinely works. The animation was beautiful, Lin Manuel Miranda’s soundtrack is gorgeous, and Moana might just be the best of this new generation of Disney princess movies. The source material comes from a different culture, there’s not a hint of romance between the male and female lead, which is a nice change for a princess movie, and it’s always nice to have a non white Disney Princess: that feels important in 2016. And Moana’s a great character: flawed, but brave, and kind, and she’s given a ton of agency throughout the film. This was a real breath of fresh air.

2. Zootopia

Intelligent commentary on racial politics in an animated Disney movie, something that feels like an exorcism of the studio’s past sins, and in the context of 2016, a genuinely important piece of storytelling. But it feels like it will last beyond that immediate context: the plot is an intelligent and fun detective caper, the world is fascinating and immersive, and the characters are wonderful and easy to get attached to. Great stuff, this was a very good year for Disney.

1. Kubo and the Two Strings


Wow. Just wow. This movie left me utterly speechless: it mixed spellbinding fantasy, poetic themes and storytelling, beautiful animation, and an incredibly moving conclusion to create the perfect movie. The story follows a simple enough hero’s journey formula, but the way said story unfolds manages to surprise and delight, making the moments where it hits the expected beats feel genuinely fresh. Frankly, the knowledge that it probably won’t do well at awards ceremonies leaves me rather devastated. There wasn’t another movie in 2016 that managed to make me feel quite like this one, and for that, it deservedly takes the top spot on this list.

Wednesday 7 December 2016

Moffat Era Rewatch: Notes on "The Husbands of River Song"

·      I’ll put my stake in the ground on this one. This is the best River Song story. Not necessarily the best story to feature River Song (although it’s a very good one), but the best use of her character in the show.
·      The central brilliance comes in the way the episode uses the conceit of River not recognising the Doctor to basically make this a backdoor pilot for "The Diary of River Song": this isn’t a story where River arrives in one of the Doctor’s adventures, but where the Doctor stumbles into one of River’s adventures. We've always had hints of her adventures without the Doctor in her previous episodes, but it's nice to fill the last gap in her story by actually showing us one of those adventures in full and it's bigger, madder, and slightly more amoral than any of the Doctor's adventures. Great fun.
·      The episode also cleverly finds a good reason for the Doctor coincidentally bumping into River: she’s looking for time travel, so tracks him down so that she can ask for his help or steal his TARDIS, which is why the Doctor’s around to get mixed up with the surgeon. It’s a nice way to cover a potential bit of wishy washy plotting in a way that actually serves the story.
·      And because he has ended up in one of her adventures, the Doctor basically plays the role of River’s companion. She confronts Hydroflax with a big “I’m the Woman Who’s Gonna steal it back” speech about the Halassi Diamond, she takes his hand to lead him when they are running from Hydroflax’s rogue body, and, best of all, the Doctor gets the chance to do the “bigger on the inside” reaction to the TARDIS takes the Doctor by the hand when running from danger, possibly the best of Moffat’s twists on the concept.
·      But there’s a serious side to this fun concept: the Doctor sees what River is like when he’s not around, and in his own words, can’t approve of any of it. At first this is played for comedic effect, as the Doctor sees her many marriages that don’t involve him. And in spite of being played for farce, it’s actually quite a sensitive take on their polyamorous relationship, something that had been hinted at before, but is only explicitly shown here. The Doctor is clearly a little jealous, but doesn’t act betrayed, mostly just feeling a little awkward that he has to watch her snogging Ramone, and slightly incredulous that she married Hydroflax. His little “down girl!” when she flirts with Ramone at the end of the episode is playful, not jealous or possessive (and thank goodness for that, that would have been ugly to watch): he’s clearly fine with her seeing other people. This is further evidenced by the scene where they try to salvage the crashing spaceship, and they both matter of factly acknowledge the other’s ridiculous list of celebrity marriages: it generates humour out of the situation without sneering at the concept of a polyamorous relationship. In fact, the episode treats it as a sensible way for River and the Doctor to make their highly unusual relationship work. But after the initial jokes that lightheartedly explore this polyamourous relationship, the episode then takes on a more serious tone, as the Doctor realises the disturbing morality of River’s adventures: her wilfully casual attitude towards murdering Hydroflax, and lack of concern for whether the diamond returns to the Halassi standing out.
·      The story builds on this serious turn from the moment the Doctor and River discuss the fact that her diary (I love the Oscar Wilde reference with the “one always needs something sensational to read” quote) is almost full, and the Doctor sees not just how she conducts her own adventures, but how she talks about him personally when she’s not around. Once again, this thread starts with comedy, such as the the “damsel” codename and the joke that he’s never noticed her stealing the TARDIS before, but then builds to more serious tone. River describes falling in love as “the easiest lie you can tell a man. They’ll believe any story they’re the hero of”, a quote that plays with the fact that the Doctor isn’t the hero of this episode, so can see what River might actually think of him without the bias of thinking he is. Except she’s hiding her feelings, both because of insecurity and also because her love for the Doctor probably isn’t something she wants to talk about to random strangers. She’s being understandably guarded about her feelings, but it’s clear the Doctor worries she might be genuine: he’s been given a different perspective on their relationship through the lens of a story where he isn’t the hero. I also love the Doctor’s face when he says “he sounds horrible” after River points out that the Doctor is the kind of man who would know how many pages she would need: it’s as if he only just realised that, yes, that’s exactly why he gave her that specific diary. In this episode, he sees what River really thinks of her relationship with him, and is confronted with the mistakes he’s made over the course their marriage, with the fact he has hurt her by not being clear about his feelings, and by the way he has handled the chronologically messed up nature of their relationship.
·      This exploration of the Doctor learning about River’s hidden insecurities about his feelings towards her culminates in her “you don’t expect a sunset to admire you back” speech (one of Alex Kingston’s finest moments on the show). River isn’t hiding her feelings about the Doctor with an insecure pretense he doesn’t matter to her, but unashamedly acknowledging that she loves him, even though she is clearly convinced he doesn’t love her (which, as with the “sounds horrible” exchange, says volumes about her insecurities regarding the Doctor’s feelings towards her). But River’s fears are answered with possibly the best “Hello Sweetie” ever. In many ways, the scene serves a metatextual purpose, as well as an in story one. It’s Moffat’s impassioned argument against the line of thinking that claims falling in love is something the Doctor shouldn’t do, expressed through River’s insecurities about her relationship with the Doctor: she cites the arguments many fans have claimed applies to romance in Doctor Who, that it’s too “small” and “ordinary” for the Doctor. Moffat’s response is the Doctor’s visible love for River in that “Hello Sweetie”. The Doctor absolutely is in love with River enough to find himself standing in it with her, and love isn’t too small and ordinary for him, as there is nothing small and ordinary about love.
·      The episode’s final scene is also centered on this issue as the Singing Towers of Darillium are used as a metaphor for the Doctor and River’s relationship, nicely tying this long teased part of the Doctor and River’s story into the episode’s themes surrounding the previously unaddressed side of the Doctor and River’s relationship. “They’re ignoring me” says River of the towers, though she’s really talking about the Doctor, who does seem to be ignoring River, talking about the harmonizing of the wind in the towers, just as he talks about the planets to avoid the emotionally weighty conversation with Clara in “Mummy on the Orient Express”: but he’s actually building to a conclusion where he shows that he has been listening, and is trying to put his love for River into words: when he needs it the most, there is always a Song.

·      Beautifully setting up the mix of heartbreak and redemption in the final scene. For me, it's one of the most powerful messages in the show. The Doctor shows that he has learned from his experience in the series nine finale, admitting that everything ends, and nothing can last forever, only for River to respond by pointing out that "Happily ever after doesn't mean forever, it just means time. A little time", a wise and actually quite subversive take on the fairytale themes that have run through the Moffat era. River critiques the Doctor by pointing out that things don’t have to be forever to be worthwhile, that knowing things don’t last means we should make the most of the time we have, instead of worrying about their inevitable end, an idea the Doctor has yet to fully grasp, evidenced by his grim attitude to accepting that everything ends. And then, as River predicted, the Doctor smiles his smug smile when all hope is lost, and saves the day with a night that lasts twenty-four years. The picture of the words "And they lived happily ever after" fading out to become "And they lived happily" before further fading out to “happily” would have been a lovely note to end the Moffat era on (much as I'm looking forward to series 10 and Moffat's remaining Christmas specials). It's a low key, unobtrusive way to say a reassuring goodbye, which I hope Moffat takes when he actually leaves the show, just as he meant to when this was intended to be his final script. It doesn't matter that good times come to an end. Just that they were lived well, and happily.

Monday 5 December 2016

Moffat Era Rewatch: Notes on "Hell Bent"

·      I actually find "Hell Bent" more interesting (not necessarily better, but more interesting) than "Heaven Sent", which I also loved, and was masterfully put together, but worked as you'd expect a Moffat puzzle box to work (the first time I saw the burnt hand in the pre credits, I thought "That'll probably turn out to be the Doctor"). By contrast, I found it much trickier to figure out what this episode was doing, but once it became clear, I was delighted. Rejecting the epic for the personal is a Moffat era theme I rather love, and I think it's one that's done particularly well here, unfolding slowly but methodically over the course of three acts.
·      For the first act, we get the "Gallifreyan western" pastiche, that is genuinely fun, but also seems to be setting up the epic plot where the Doctor becomes the hybrid who stands in Gallifrey's ruins. However, there are hints that the plot is going in a different direction. When discussing the portentous prophecy with the Time Lords, the Doctor asks “What colour is it?”, and when the general cannot answer his question, he says “See, prophecies, they never tell you anything useful”: in this story, the stereotypical “Epic” plot, with its vague prophecies and ridiculous stakes, is something to be deconstructed and poked fun at.
·      The Doctor’s quote about prophecies also reflects the general attitude towards the deep continuity that forms the episode’s backdrop, but not its content. Whenever continuity related questions, big or small, come up: it deliberately resists definition, offering potential answers but no explicit confirmation. Which of Missy’s statements in “The Magician’s Apprentice” was a lie? How did the Time Lords escape the bubble universe? Is the Doctor really half human? Who or what is the Hybrid? The point is that the the answers to these questions don’t matter: they would be empty signifiers or continuity points filled in with no real meaning, part of a story designed to tick boxes without saying anything meaningful.
·      The Second act starts when Clara is taken out of her Time stream, ostensibly to help with the hybrid. We spend most of it in the matrix, with the episode's turning point coming midway through the act when Clara learns that the Doctor was just bluffing about the Hybrid to get a chance to save Clara. The epic return to Gallifrey/ Hybrid arc was only ever a Macguffin, the bait in a classic Moffat bait and switch. The real story of the season was about the Doctor and Clara’s friendship, about its joys and pitfalls. Which makes sense: the hybrid was just a word that got repeated a handful of times, but the Doctor’s fear of losing Clara, Clara’s discomfort with his paternalism, and their love for one another, have been major, plot driving themes in multiple episodes this season. And here we begin to address the implications of the Doctor’s actions, in particular Clara’s horror at what the Doctor went through to save her. The lead up and pay off to Clara realising how long Twelve was in the confession dial is beautifully done. The way he tries to evade answering the question, as if he knows Clara's not going to like what he's done, but also the way he says "What do you think? You", as if it's the most obvious thing in the world: he really can't contemplate a world where he wouldn't go through that to save Clara. It's one of the few scenes in Doctor Who that genuinely has me in tears, every time. The act ends with the Doctor and Clara stealing a TARDIS and running away, rejecting the epic plot completely.
·      The final act is set at the end of the universe, with Me and Clara critiquing the Doctor’s paternalism and inability to face endings: a critique of his behavior at the end of both Donna and Amy’s stories (Donna’s ending in particular, which I’m really glad of, because that mind wipe didn’t do her character justice). And this critique is explored through a valuable lesson in the importance of consent in interpersonal relationships. – the Doctor acknowledges the way he’s wiped his companions’ memories before (telepathically wiping Donna’s mind) isn’t perfect, explicitly saying he’s tried to find a “painless” way to do this, but fails to recognise, or at least to openly acknowledge, the real issues inherent in his previous approach. He tells Me that he is going to let Clara know what he intends to do, but until Me talks to him, he repeatedly evades Clara’s questions when she asks what the neural block is for. He’s so certain he knows what’s best for Clara, and that she doesn’t, that he doesn’t want to ask her what she wants when deep down, he knows she won’t consent. It requires Clara’s impassioned defence of the importance of her memories, and her showing him how alike they are, to get him to recognise his  error, so that when they agree to use the neural block Russian roulette style, it’s as equals, who have mutually consented to its use. This equal status is reflected in the dialogue  and camera framing, that mirrors the onscreen positioning of Clara and the Doctor, and has the two characters echoing each other’s lines. Ultimately, the neural block’s use does not come from the Doctor’s Paternalism, that assumes his superior judgement over the people close to him, but from a shared decision made between two equals who recognise that this approach is best for both of them.
·      The final act also sees the Doctor and Clara realize that they have to leave one another, and is an effective extension of Clara’s desire to end her story on her terms in “Face the Raven”. Which leads to the reasons I don’t think this episode cheapens Clara’s death: firstly, she’ll still die on Trap Street. Secondly, this episode extends the themes of that episode, critiquing the Doctor’s flagrant failure to follow Clara’s request that he doesn’t insult her memory by hurting himself and others, and with her further insisting that she is allowed to keep her past, her story, in tact. That’s so very Clara, and I love that this story is so aware of the importance of her agency in her departure.
·      Clara and the Doctor’s separation is ultimately rooted in the story’s acknowledgment of the increasingly co-dependent side to the Doctor and Clara’s friendship. He rejects the codes he lives by, the identity of the Doctor, and Clara’s request that he won’t try to take revenge, putting himself through hell to do so, before putting time and space at risk, in his words “for fear of losing [Clara]”. Rigsy’s painting plays into this thread of the episode nicely. As he finishes his story, the Doctor says he is still looking for Clara, but at the end of the episode, he realises he has found Clara, and told her the story of their time together. In telling this story, and having Clara comment on it while he does so (“you killed a man. You don’t seem the type”) the Doctor has had time to reflect on his time with Clara, and recognise that he needs to move on: knowing that she is having adventures in her own TARDIS is enough. Once again, art is key to the resolution of a Moffat era storyline: just as the Doctor saved Gallifrey by freezing it like the 3D paintings, he is able to move away from Clara by seeing a painting that enables him to fully understand the nature of his friendship with her.
·      And the episode’s use of the diner scenes as a framing device is expertly handled: our understanding of what is going on changes as our understanding of what the episode is doing changes. At first, Jenna Coleman seems to be playing a Clara echo, who the Doctor is recounting the tale of his epic return to Gallifrey to. Then, she seems to be playing a mind-wiped Clara, who the Doctor is visiting because of nostalgia, or to check she’s safe and well. Then we finally realize that the Doctor is the one who got his memory wiped, not Clara, and that he is searching for her. And the episode really is worth rewatching with this knowledge: those scenes work beautifully when you know what’s really going on. The way Capaldi plays “Stories are where memories go when they’re forgotten” is particularly notable here: the sadness with which Peter Capaldi plays the line takes on a whole new meaning when you watch knowing the Doctor’s fate. And the line brings together the key Moffat era themes of memories and stories, suggesting that in many ways, they are the same things: narratives we create to make sense of our lives, and the place of the people in them.

·      And then, out of all of this, we get the first outright hopeful and optimistic companion departure from the new series, one that asserts that Clara can be a Doctor in her own right, and rejects the notion that she was any less important to the show than the Doctor. This episode represents the culmination of the show’s portrayal of Clara as a Doctor-like figure, forming a response to the disappointment that bleeds through Clara’s “why can’t I be like you?” from “Face the Raven”. Steven Moffat’s answer is that she can: being a Doctor, as has been carefully shown throughout this season, is an ideal you fill, and over her time on the show, Clara has shown herself to be more than capable of living up to that ideal. And just to confirm this, we get one last set of the Doctor maxims that have been a motif throughout this season: “Run like hell, because you always need to. Laugh at everything because it’s always funny. Never be cruel and never be cowardly, and if you are, always make amends”. Unlike the rules presented in “The Girl Who Died” or “Heaven Sent”, these are not examples of the ways the Doctor outsmarts his enemies, but a reminder of the morality that makes him the Doctor. They are the Doctor’s final reminder to Clara of the rules to follow to live up to the idealistic hero he sometimes manages to be, so that those moral imperatives form her own Doctor like story. And so she finds herself with an origin story that very much resembles the Doctor’s: running away from the Time Lords in a broken TARDIS with a companion who isn’t quite as human as she seems, ultimately set to return to “Gallifrey… the long way round”. As it became apparent that Clara was drifting away from a human life, and becoming more Doctor-like, many fans formed a line of thinking similar to the Doctor’s in “Under the Lake”: “there’s only room for one of me” he said, and fandom seemed to think the same way in the lead up to and throughout series nine. The line of thought was that Clara was never leaving the Doctor for an ordinary human life, so her desire to be like the Doctor would have to lead to her death, that there were no other options. And that, really, would have been the problem with ending Clara’s story with her death in “Face the Raven”. Not that it would have been a fridging: Sarah Dollard deftly avoided that, but that there would have been a lingering sense that her death was a hubristic narrative punishment, that it would have been confirmation that an intelligent, brave, egotistical, and kind young woman can never be like the Doctor (certainly that seemed to be the subconscious implication behind much of fandom’s thinking). There’s both a tinge of sexism, and a limited attitude to storytelling options, to that line of thought. The resolution “Hell Bent” employs is, therefore, brilliant. Clara doesn’t return to her human life, or die, because those were never her only options. Instead, she leaves the narrative of Doctor Who to begin her own story, where she can be a mythic figure with equal narrative status to the Doctor, going on an infinity of adventures in a single heartbeat.