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May. 5th, 2008 @ 03:31 pm The Phantom Project: The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Tony Richardson
Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Flyleaf - I Can Feel You All Around Me
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Wow. This version is different. Really, really different.


The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Tony Richardson, 1990
Starring Charles Dance, Teri Polo, and Adam Storke
Grade: C+

My relationship with this film was off to a rocky start quite literally out of the box. I'm trying to do my best to penny-pinch in this project, since there's so very much material to find/buy/cover, so in this particular case I had bought the Korean import DVD because it was less expensive. Of course, this means I can't read anything on the cover, but that's what IMDB is for, right? The cover certainly has the looming visage of Charles Dance on it, but when I opened it up to put it in the player, imagine my consternation to discover that the inside insert and disc art were actually those of the Darwin Knight musical DVD. Whoa, back that train up. I was very upset, especially since I already shelled out for the Knight musical and I didn't need two copies. With a heavy, sinking heart, I put it in the player to make sure, and what should greet me at the menu screen but the logos for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical version of Phantom. Whaaaat? And then, after all that misdirection and confusion, it turned out that the film on the disc really was the Richardson/Dance movie after all.

Those wacky Koreans. Like I don't manage to confuse myself enough most days without their help.

( Different can be good. )

In the end, this is a tragedy, and has almost no elements of horror. All of the "evil" elements of the original novel have been removed, even the hideous face, and that weakens the plot irreparably. I care much less about a nice guy getting killed because of a misunderstanding than I do about a man who must struggle with his own personal demons and achieve personal redemption against all odds. They're fundamentally different stories.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Apr. 27th, 2008 @ 07:18 pm The Phantom Project: The Phantom of Hollywood, directed by Gene Levitt
Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Eimear Quinn - The Voice
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Brace yourselves for a trainwreck of nostalgia. Seriously. It's like nostalgia went off the rails and mowed down some spectators.


The Phantom of Hollywood, directed by Gene Levitt, 1974
Starring Jack Cassidy, Skye Aubrey, & Peter Haskall
Grade: D

First of all, don't expect to go pick this one up at your corner DVD emporium. Not only was it never released on DVD, it wasn't even released on VHS--the best you can do is find someone who has recorded the film from one of its television runs. And the number of people who actually recorded this is a very small one, owing to the fact that it is... er, well, not really any good. At all.

You see, this film is trying to do something very specific, which does not include anything particularly reminiscent of anything that Leroux was trying to do in his novel. The resulting conflict of interests was apparently so distracting that the filmmakers forgot many of the laws of physics and most of the laws of suspension of disbelief.

( Who knew that medieval weaponry was so damned ineffective? )

The Phantom in this film, ultimately, is not a representative of any of the concepts Leroux's Erik stood for, but rather a representative of old Hollywood. When he says feverishly of the great actors he watched, "I was all of them!", he means it. When he seems almost physically wounded by the destruction of the old sets, it's because he is; the fact that his lair is almost literally caving in with every smashed building and bulldozed plot is a direct correlation of the fact that he, and old Hollywood by extension, is being destroyed. The long shot as he falls from the bridge to his death is paused and interspersed with scenes of the recent destruction of the edifices and props of Lot 2, which is a little bit heavy-handed but definitely gets the point across (i.e., that the Phantom's death is inevitably linked with the death of the old Hollywood conventions).

So if you've got a hankering to learn a little bit about the way old-timey movies were done or to feel that cathartic little tug of misplaced nostalgia, go for it, but if you're looking for anything resembling Leroux's original work (or, indeed, resembling any kind of good storytelling and less than ridiculous execution), seek elsewhere. Quest on.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Apr. 23rd, 2008 @ 04:54 pm The Phantom Project: Phantom by Susan Kay (Part 2)
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Current Music: Spring Awakening - Totally Fucked
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And, part two of the Kay-extravaganza, featuring yet more of the same. My friends, you have no idea how tired I am now.

( The hits just keep on coming! )

So, to recap the metaphorical situation: Erik marries his mother and sires his father, while Christine marries her father and gives birth to her grandfather, and Raoul ends up fathering the child of his wife's father. That, ladies and gentlemen, is metaphorical incest on an epic scale.

Kay's characters are interesting, engaging, relatable, eminently real and amazingly fleshed out. She has done an incredible job of taking characters that were little more than archetypes and metaphorical markers and making them human, without sacrificing any of their representational significance (and, in many cases, adding more). She explains too much; her characters and their actions speak for themselves, and the reader doesn't need to have them think the whole thing out in black and white terms to understand that. There's no faith in the cognition skills of the reader, and I wish there were; but even with the tendency to over-explicate, Kay demonstrates an in-depth understanding of Leroux's original work and an ability to embroider and expand upon it in such a way as to bring something more of her own to the table. That understanding is a rare commodity in Phantom literature, apparently.

Kay Gets It. If only she were more willing to trust that maybe we, too, get it, I would have almost nothing to complain about in this novel.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Apr. 23rd, 2008 @ 04:52 pm The Phantom Project: Phantom by Susan Kay (Part 1)
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Current Music: Spring Awakening - The Dark I Know Well
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This review took forever, but that's because there was so very, very much material to cover. Seriously. My wrist cramped on my notes more times than I can relate.


Phantom by Susan Kay, 1990
Grade: A

So here we finally are, with the grandmother of all fan-published Phantom fiction. Kay wasn't the first to write derivative fiction based on Leroux's work, but she was the first to do so with enough skill and resonance to elevate the exercise suddenly from the realm of "fanfiction" into that of literature deserving of its own examination and consideration. Many fans and followers of this particular literary niche consider Kay's novel so definitive and admirable in quality that they put it on a pedestal of equal authority to Leroux's original.

I'm rather glad I liked it. I didn't really want to be beaten to death by hordes of angry readers.

Even in discussing this review in a preliminary fashion, I've already had objections about the grade, specifically about its lack of a + there. While I thought this was a well-written, thoughtful, expressive and emotionally moving rendition of the story, I did not think it was higher than a solid A grade. Something has to really blow me away to arrive at A+ status, and while this novel was good--even great in some places--it was not stupendous. Calm down, people. Let me finish the review before you get after me with the tar and pitchforks.

( Research and romanticism, with a healthy dash of psychology. )

This is part one of this review; like the Webber review before it, it is too hoss for LJ to contain, and I had to break it up into two separate posts.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Apr. 11th, 2008 @ 06:23 pm The Phantom Project: The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Dwight H. Little
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Current Music: Triniti - Glen of Imaal
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All right, I tackled my first modern horror movie and survived. Anyone that doesn't bring me cookies will be shot on sight.


The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Dwight H. Little, 1989
Starring Robert Englund, Jill Schoelen & Alex Hyde-White
Grade: B+

Holy shit, you mean I liked it, too? This world is full of strange and wondrous occurrences.

You see, I hate horror movies. Not in the oh, ha ha, that was so scary, let's go get ice cream kind of a way. In the way that I'm traumatized for weeks and can never be alone anywhere ever again and cried when I had to watch Ringu for a film class ([info]crazy80sdiva was with me on that one) and had to be physically restrained to make it all the way through 13 Ghosts (thanks a lot, [info]johnnydeath... asshat) and was actually so physically ill during Hostel that I had to go outside and sit on the floor on my porch with my head between my knees to keep from throwing up all over everyone and then passing out (Jon is my hero for awkwardly patting my back and trying to make conversation while I was catatonic). In the way that even seeing trailers for horror movies makes me panic and demand in increasingly hysterical tones that John fast forward RIGHT NOW, even if we're in a movie theatre at the time. I don't do well with horror movies; there's a disconnect between the part of my brain that sees terrifying things and the part that should be reminding me that they aren't real.

And, of course, this is Robert Englund of A Nightmare on Elm Street fame, so I was prepared to be a very sad panda for a very long time after watching this. I was rescued by the fact that the horror element of this film had been severely over-hyped (it's Robert Englund... who would have guessed that it wasn't that bad?), so that it turned out to be an experience I could, at least, survive with most of my sanity intact. Don't get me wrong; it was still scary, and it definitely had plenty of moments that made me say, "Oh oh oh oh OH OH NO NO STOP IT," while thrashing in my seat on the couch, but I made it through and even managed about three hours of sleep afterward. Eventually.

( In which we re-enact the story of Faust and confirm that, yes, it is still a really bad idea to volunteer for eternal damnation. )

Why did I like this so much when it was scary, gory, and completely failed to bring across the ideas of redemption or love as a positive force? Because the settings were evocative and gripping, the acting was amazing (Robert Englund! Who knew?), and pretty much everything in the film has some form of higher symbolism, keeping it interesting no matter what else is going on (eeeeugh). It may not be Leroux's original story, but it's an engaging and thought-provoking one, and thoroughly enjoyable.

I know. I'm as surprised as you are.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Apr. 8th, 2008 @ 03:02 pm The Phantom Project: The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Al Guest & Jean Mathieson
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Current Music: Andy M. Stewart & Manus Lunny - Brid Og ni Mhaille
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This review is a journey, wherein I try to figure out my opinion. I'm already not so great with films; I'm almost hopeless with animated niche films from 1980's Ireland.


The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Al Guest & Jean Mathieson, 1987
Starring Alden Grennel, Daniel Reardon, and Collette Proctor
Grade: B

This film polarizes its audience. On one side, you have people who love it unrelentingly because it is without a doubt the closest adaptation to Leroux's original novel that you will find in film to date; and on the other side, you have people who don't want to believe that animation and voice acting this flawed were ever inflicted on the general public. For 1987, it's nothing mind-blowing, but it's pretty standard for a small production studio (Disney this is not); they didn't have computer rendering or a team of fifty animators working on character designs. Instead, they had seven animating guys and about that number more painting backgrounds. Ah, the olden days. I'm inclined to cut Emerald City Productions some slack here; my love of old, moldy things is well-documented, and I've never had much patience for the argument that things with less-than-stellar graphics or technology aren't enjoyable. I prefered the puppets of the original Star Wars to the computer-generated critters of the later ones, for example (for an example of something chock-full of amazing computer graphics and special effects but also chock-full of failure, see Dragon Wars). Back off my nineties video games and step off my crappy Rankin/Bass-style animation.

( The most faithful adaptations always turn up in the most unexpected of places. )

This was not a successful interpretation at all. The animation style was mostly eclipsed by big name studios like Disney and Don Bluth, and the sets were too creepy and intense for many children besides. Erik, as a non-traditional villain, was confusing to many, and even with all the cuts and sped-up pacing, there just wasn't enough action in Leroux's story to keep many children entertained. It was quickly relegated to the bargain video bin, never to be searched out again except by devoted fans of the story (and, apparently, me). Which is a shame, because it's exactly the kind of weird, interesting animation that I loved as a kid, and at least it has a good message for children--you can't force other people to do what you want them to, and selflessness is far preferable to selfishness.

I wish I could grade it higher (it's really, really not A material), but for a film that finally keeps that greatest theme of the original novel--personal growth and redemption for Erik, who finally finds love and in doing so must let it go in order to retain his newfound humanity--and for a serious amount of effort and an obvious respect for the source material, I'm happy to place it at a B.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Apr. 6th, 2008 @ 12:38 am The Phantom Project: Phantom of the Mall, directed by Richard Friedman
Current Mood: loltastic
Current Music: The Pirate Queen - I Dismiss You
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Behold, ladies and gentlemen! We have our first failing grade!


Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge, directed by Richard Friedman, 1988
Starring Derek Rydall, Kari Whitman, and Rob Estes
Grade: F

Oh, man. Check out that gorgeous cover image. Can't you tell it's going to be a hit? (Note that Pauly Shore and Morgan Fairchild get top billing over the leads [I suspect that Rob Estes may have requested anonymity on this one]. This is because they were the only people in this movie who went on to have careers [unless you count the female lead's career as a Playboy Playmate]. Which tells you a lot right at the outset, doesn't it?)

There was no recourse to failing this movie. It had to be done. It has no redeeming traits, really. And yet, I am not filled with righteous ire as I am with many a failing film; probably, this is because I am still chortling too hard at the sheer ridiculousness of it all to be angry. I'm sort of lovingly resigned to it, as though it were a somewhat not-bright child that I was watching mash the same square block into the circular hole over and over and over again. Really, really bad? Oh, yes. But somehow still kind of entertaining? In an awful way, again, yes!

I seriously spent the entire movie saying, "How can this not be a parody?" until John finally told me to shut up.

( Follow me to a world where logic no longer applies, and anything is possible if you're a total nutcase. )

At the end of the movie, I was turning to put away my notes, when I stopped and squealed (probably more loudly than was appropriate), "Oh, my god, what is this song? They wrote a song for this?" And, lo and behold: they did. The song is by The Vandals and is called "Is There a Phantom in the Mall?", and I have provided it here so that you can have a little aural slice of this movie. Go on. You know you'll hate yourself if you don't listen to it. You'll wonder forever.

Somehow, I am just not instilled with the intended fear of vents.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Apr. 2nd, 2008 @ 10:05 am The Phantom Project: The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Robert Markowitz
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Current Music: Gin Blossoms - Till I Hear It From You
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The masses have spoken (for future reference, the masses apparently comprise 12 people. Good to know), and they said to keep on posting these reviews here. To you, those people who voted against this, I make a pledge to try to keep the LJ-cuts reasonable to avoid exploding your friends-lists as much as possible.

The headaches I had finding this movie, you would not believe--but it was so very, very worth it. Hurrah!


The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Robert Markowitz, 1983
Starring Maximilian Schnell, Jane Seymour, and Michael York
Grade: B

This rash of positive grades recently startles even me. When did I become so kind and lovable? It's probably some kind of a calm before the storm, and I'll hit something so tooth-grindingly bad in the next week that previous D reviews will seem like candy-coated visits to the fair.

Beware, if you're trying to find a copy of this to watch (and you should, but it's understandable if you don't): this is ridiculously difficult to find. As a made-for-TV movie in the 1980's, it was largely ignored and only released on region 2 DVD in Germany, of all places (where, apparently, it was much more popular). I had to have a friend of mine in Bavaria (thanks, Elle!) hunt it down, buy it, and then make me a region 1 copy so I could even sneak a peek at it. The quality of my copy wasn't great, therefore, but damn if I didn't enjoy it anyway.

Apparently, everyone hates this movie. Its reviews on IMDB are certainly perfectly dreadful. So, once again, I'm forced to conclude that I'm right and everyone else is wrong. Obviously.

( Incredible acting (from some), impressive symbolic cohesion, and the most obvious example of story evolution I've seen yet. )

What I found the most riveting, despite all the excellent things going on here, was that this film, in particular, shows the clearest progression through the trends we've been seeing in films up to this point. The sleazy date-rapist Baron is obviously a later form of D'Arcy from the 1962 Fisher/Lom production (and Swan from the 1976 de Palma/Finley), while Michael's role as director is just a short hop from Hunter's as producer in the same film, and the Phantom's final demise is almost identical, down to the final shot of the mask. The mute, murderous Lajos is a direct import of Ivan, the mute murderer from the 1962 film, and Michael's dogged insistence on ferreting out the Phantom recalls Raoul's role as a policeman in the 1943 Lubin/Rains film, but other choices--the performance of Faust, the use of a hat to hide the Phantom's head more fully, the Phantom's make-up, and much of the dialogue in the final lair scene--are directly pulled from the 1925 Julian/Chaney film and from Leroux's novel itself. Even the Hungarian washer-women cleaning the stage have been altered and stolen from the trio of lost-and-found ladies that seem so determined to give Hunter a hard time in the 1962 film. Sherman Yellen, the writer for this film, clearly did his homework and did it well; no popular version of the story prior to this one has been neglected, and elements of each have been carefully selected to give the film as much resonance and oomph as possible.

Even more exciting than being able to see where this film is coming from, however, is being able to see where it's going. Several conventions are first introduced here that will become staples for later versions, most notably Webber's celebrated musical. This is the first time, for example, that we see the Phantom leaving single roses and notes for the cast, or that we see the Carlotta character using an old-fashioned bottle of throat spray, or that the Raoul character hatches a plan to use "Christine" as bait to trap the Phantom, all of which will become part of the plot in Webber's musical and the many versions that it will spawn. Being able to see the progression with such clarity is wildly exciting, at least for me, and there was more than a little bouncing and squealing going on in my apartment throughout the course of this movie.

I've been working on this review for so long that my left contact lens just popped out and is lost somewhere on my desk, making typing this very difficult.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Mar. 27th, 2008 @ 01:01 pm The Phantom Project: The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Terence Fisher
Current Mood: indifferent
Current Music: Lakme - The Flower Duet
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Movie madness time again, kids. Today, we delve into the depths of classic British horror, and discover that, like pretty much everything else, it fails to impress me.


The Phantom of the Opera, directed by Terence Fisher, 1962
Starring Herbert Lom, Heather Sears, and Edward de Souza
Grade: B-

Let me not be overly harsh: as horror movies go, especially the older ones, this was actually quite good. I certainly enjoyed it, and I definitely wasn't bored. The acting was hit or miss depending on the character (Sears I could have taken or left, but Lom was dynamite), but the music was ravishing. Fisher certainly knew what he was doing. The main reason this falls short is that it fails to retain the core themes of the Phantom story, which a retelling really ought to do if it wants to have the same resonance. This version is an interesting story in its own right, however, and deserves a good viewing.

And let me just note to others that might be trying to find it--this is really hard to find, man. You would think that it would be easier to get hold of than the 1943 version, but no. It's only available on DVD if you want to buy the entire collection of Hammer horror films (which is fine if you also have a hankering for Brides of Dracula or Kiss of the Vampire, but which was not an overly exciting prospect for me personally).

( There's no great redemption via love plot, but you'll still feel really sorry for the poor guy. )

I really wish I had watched this movie in its proper chronological place, because it so beautifully ties together the films preceding and following it. It's clearly heavily modeled on the preceding Lubin/Rains film; it borrows the composer-whose-work-was-stolen-and-who-was-then-scarred-by-acid-when-attempting-to-rectify-this background for the Phantom, as well as taking the slightly unpleasant police inspector/second Raoul character from the Lubin production and turning him into the entirely unpleasant D'Arcy. This dynamic of two men competing for Christine's affections, one heroic and one dastardly, will then be carried on to the 1974 de Palma film, in which D'Arcy has transcended just being a slimeball and has become the downright demonic Swan, now a facet of the Phantom character himself, and de Palma's Phantom's record-press accident is almost exactly the same as Fisher's Phantom's tragedy at the printer's. This is what I get for watching things out of order (never mind that I couldn't find this film until now); but even so, the parallels and growth seem clear. I can't speak for the 1980's films until I see them, but this looks like a definite trend that was lost when Webber's musical version of the film restored some of these mutations to something closer to their original, Leroux-generated forms.

So why does this happen, exactly? For a few reasons, I think, most having to do with human nature and the ability of film creators to recognize and exploit it. For the first few film versions of the story, the Phantom is irrevocably set into his original role as the villain (pitiable, in some cases, but still definitely the bad guy) in a horror story; as such, he was transformed from a somewhat demented man into a somewhat human-like monster, the better to allow audiences to share in Christine's terror and root for Raoul's heroic rescue. The sympathy for the character's plight is there, but it is downplayed. Later, as sheer terror went out of vogue for films and the audience was looking for a more intricate, personal plot, the introduction of an additional character helped to give the viewers something else to focus on--the meat of the film involves the mystery and the relationship between Christine and her suitors, and moves the Phantom to more of a secondary role as the antagonist to an already established dynamic. This shift away from fear and toward personal relationships allows for more sympathy for the title character, and his backstory is changed accordingly to make him the wronged party--still a villain who behaves inappropriately and must be vanquished, but one whose actions have an understandable and sympathetic origin for the audience. By the time we hit the middle of the twentieth century, cultural movements throughout the Western world promoting tolerance and freedom of expression lead the filmmakers to make the Phantom more sympathetic yet, until he is almost completely blameless and merely a victim of the misbehavior of others. The pendulum will swing back in the eighties, when horror movies become big again and the audience wants a truly evil villain to scare their pants off, but that's still to come.

A side note: I was wracking my brains trying to figure out where I'd seen Edward de Souza's name before, when I realized that he was in The Golden Compass just recently, as one of the chancellors. Half a century and still rocking the acting business!

If you get a chance to see this, take a look when you get a closeup of the Phantom's mask--it's crudely-sewn leather, and looks very familiar to fans of more modern horror films. Can we say precursor-ancestor?

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Mar. 22nd, 2008 @ 10:31 am The Phantom Project: Phantom of the Opera by Ken Hill
Current Mood: peaceful
Current Music: Phantom of the Opera - Epilogue (While Floating High Above)
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This one really should have been done before some others (cough, cough, Webber), but due to problems with me being in the US and the soundtrack being in New Zealand, it wasn't. But now we have surmounted the trial of a long-distance musical relationship, so I can bring you my opinions on it (which are vitally important to the eventual cessation of hostilities in the Middle East and also to solving world hunger and curing cancer).


Phantom of the Opera by Ken Hill, 1984
Grade: A

This musical has a scandalous and indignant history when it comes to Phantom materials. As the story goes, Ken Hill wrote and put this on starting in the late seventies (it was later rewritten and put back on in 1984; hence the date), and it was reasonably successful--enough that some dudes by the names of Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber happened to come see it. Supposedly, they told Hill afterward that they really liked it and wanted to discuss doing a joint revamp of the piece for the big stages... but somehow, somewhere, they wandered off and wrote a completely different one instead. And never called, even after that nice dinner. The cads. Not being one to nurse a grudge, Hill has expressed some disappointment and sadness for this snubbing, but generally seems unconcerned with the whole affair (his fans are indignant on his behalf instead, as his original musical is almost completely eclipsed by the much larger, more spectacular one). Predictably, fans of Webber's musical almost universally hate this one (when they're aware of its existence, which is seldom) while fans of Hill's generally think Webber's is overdone and grandiose.

( Satire, effective terror, and some gay guys calling one another names. )

You can have a lot of fun mocking the text of the musical scenes that occur in the opera house with the wide cast of bumbling opera singers and stagehands; much of it is frankly ridiculous, which Hill has stated was his intent. He is quoted as saying in an interview:
"During the period that the play is set, the age of grand French opera, some of the words got translated by some Victorian hacks, and you got some rather silly words to sing. I tried to recreate that. I tried to make the lyrics sound like bad Victorian translations of what were not very good operas in the first place. It's a bit subtle."
In which case it is rather silly to expect the lyrics of the opera house pieces to make much sense. They're part of the parody, so it's entirely reasonable for them to be silly beyond all expectation.

It's interesting to note that Sarah Brightman was actually invited to play the role of Christine in the original production by Hill, but she turned it down before going on to originate Christine in the Webber version two years later (in fairness, she was married to Webber, not Hill, which one would assume influenced her a wee bit). Still, one has to wonder what it would have sounded like with a less operatic singer in the role. I think I prefer this turn of events--these are some heavy-duty arias, and required a heavy-duty, polished operatic soprano.

As a cranky, overly-thorough beeyotch, this musical irks my sense of completeness by being almost impossible to entirely pin down. The 1976 version with an original score by Ian Armit has completely vanished into the recesses of time, as it was never recorded and hasn't been performed in decades (presumably the composers and various other people have scores somewhere, but, strangely, they have not yet arrived at my front door to ask me to peruse them). Adding insult to injury, one of the numbers in the show--"Love Has Flown, Never Returning"--was replaced by a new one called "All of My Dreams Faded Suddenly", which has never been recorded and which continues to elude me. It's not fair, man. It's not fair.

Despite my whinging, however, this is a great show. It's often called the "fun" version of Phantom, and I have to agree: far from bogging the show down in kitsch, the dichotomy between the campy silliness of the opera house and the menacing beauty of the underground only enhances each realm by comparison. It's a very clever handling of the story, and underrated; the operatic score may turn off modern theatre-goers who aren't prepared for it, but it enhances the story and brings the piece into the time period in a way few other versions have.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Mar. 16th, 2008 @ 09:49 pm The Phantom Project: Comfort the Lonely Light by Gary A. Braunbeck
Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Luca Turilli's Dreamquest - Virus
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An aside, before I kick off here: I know a lot of you guys aren't interested in my wonky review project, and it probably annoys you when I have so many spammed together like this. The good news is that A) This is the last short story, meaning that most reviews after this will take me several days as I have to read/review more material, and B) I'm intentionally pressing on quickly here because I want to be done with these damn short stories. Regularly scheduled updates on the life of Anne will resume as early as tomorrow (a sneak peek!: Anne woke up, showered, went to work, came home tired, played some WoW, fell asleep! WILL SHE WAKE UP AGAIN TOMORROW? Stay tuned).


"Comfort the Lonely Light" by Gary A. Braunbeck, 1989
From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg, 1989
Grade: B

Ah... the last short story. It's been a journey, hasn't it? This anthology was more bipolar than any person I know, and that's saying a lot, isn't it?

Gary A. Braunbeck is a well-established fiction writer, particularly in the horror oeuvre; he's been nominated for many a Stoker award and won an IHG for some of his short fiction. Interestingly enough, he's also apparently a good friend and fellow of J. N. Williamson, whose story "Too Hideous to be Played" I reviewed earlier in this project (I didn't think much of it, as I recall, but that doesn't mean he's not probably a damn fine writer). In short, Braunbeck knows what he's doing, which is always nice to see (just wait, dear readers, until we get into the realm of self- or vanity-published books. My tears will flow like a river).

First of all, the introductory poetry for this story is gorgeous. I liked it so much that I was motivated to go find out who Edith Sitwell was and why I hadn't heard of her in college English courses. She turned out to be both awesome and quite an excellent writer, and I'm very excited that I discovered her through reading this story. I'll reproduce the snippet below, so you can share my delight:

( Some love for Edith (and Braunbeck, too!). )

A few things seemed like stretches of reality even in context--for example, I can't really think of very many people I know who would stop and have a protracted conversation with a street person who called them by the wrong name and appeared to be somewhat insane--but on the whole there weren't any details that made me squirm too much. The language almost crossed the line into overdone a few times; it seemed to me that Braunbeck has a certain lyrical style that he was attempting to keep under wraps while he wrote in a more realistic setting, so where it reared its head (such as in the description of Andy's house as saying about him, "Here is a son, the sum of his family's parts. This is not a great man, but a good one. He is not a poet, a leader or a visionary, but you will find yourself decently treated in this place, for it belongs to a decent man."--that's some lovely descriptive voice right there, but it didn't always mesh with the rest of the narrative, making it seem uneven). But those are relatively minor whines in a story that was overall quite good. It didn't knock my socks off, but then again, I like my socks. They keep my feet toasty. There's nothing wrong with a nice little story that takes you somewhere else for a while.

It also reminded me of Neil Gaiman's character Mad Hettie, whom I love. Anything that transforms Christine into Mad Hettie so ably is okay by me.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Mar. 14th, 2008 @ 01:32 pm The Phantom Project: The Grotto by Thomas Millstead
Current Mood: rushed
Current Music: Moby - Extreme Ways
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If it looks like I'm racing through the last of these short stories so I can move on to something else... it's probably because I am. Not that some of these haven't been good, but I'm hungering to check out something different after spending so long in short story land.

Also, because stories like this make me a little sad inside, and I'm naively hoping the next thing will be better.


"The Grotto" by Thomas Millstead, 1989
From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg, 1989
Grade: D+

So many stories dealing with the Phantom are founded upon the dreaded what-if principle. I know, I know... we all have those moments. We think, "What if the characters from the Phantom had been on the Titanic when it sank?" or, "What if the Phantom was secretly gay and sleeping with the managers?" (Actual examples from stories, not my own musings.) But the average person thinks that little what-if, has a good chuckle over it, and goes on their merry way without giving it much more thought. Writers can often make use of the what-if principle--for example, "What if humans were able to make contact with alien life?" is one of the driving what-ifs behind the modern science fiction genre. This is the good kind of what-if.

However, there also exists the bad kind of what-if. Like, "What if the Phantom of the Opera ran away after Leroux's novel and moved into a prehistoric cave beneath the Pyrennes and kidnapped another opera singer only she was much prettier and nicer than that dumb Christine and she stayed to help him write his opera which was going to be the best thing ever and he kidnapped some wandering archeologists so he would have an audience and they made the primordial music of earth even though he really ought to be dead for a lot of reasons?" This is not a good what-if. It is a what-if that makes literature, as a genre, sad.

( The Phantom as primordial shaman of doom. )

How cool could this have been if it had been done as a completely reinvented retelling instead of just a reprise? A primeval Phantom, the last vestige of an ancient race or a powerful creature beyond our scope of understanding, living in the bowels of the earth? So cool! It could have been so awesome! But then... then, it wasn't, and I was very, very disappointed. There was no point to this little story; it had some lovely imagery, but no morals, no themes, no story, and no purpose. It was just a what-if, and a what-if doesn't make a story by itself. You have to add a plot.

Also: "labyrinthian" is not a word. I believe you're reaching for "labyrinthine". So close, yet so far away!

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Mar. 13th, 2008 @ 09:56 am The Phantom Project: The Unmasking by Steve Rasnic Tem
Current Mood: freaked out
Current Music: Shinedown - Save Me
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Unexpected realism asserts itself, with extremely awful results. But awful in the good way.


"The Unmasking" by Steve Rasnic Tem, 1989
From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg
Grade: B+

This story is a new beast, as far as this project goes. The few contemporaries I've so far encountered have been retellings (sometimes without even the sense God gave little grey snails). This, however, is an interesting contemporary tale of some completely different people who happen to have a purely mental connection to the Phantom story. And, odd as that sounds (and good heavens, I can think of so many ways for it to go wrong), it works much, much better than most contemporary retellings because it doesn't try to force characters and situations to conform to a society that has evolved in the century since the original story was written.

This is also the first story I've encountered that is identifiably based almost exclusively on the 1925 Julian/Chaney film; though a few places could be glimmers of Leroux influence, the vast majority of it is undeniably focused on Chaney's skeletal, piteous portrayal of the Phantom. It may be inappropriate for me to find that somewhat exciting--I'm pretty sure it's just a knee-jerk reaction to my annoyance at the oversaturation of the literature with Webber's musical--but then again, it's fairly legitimate to be excited that someone's taking a different direction.

( Not for the faint of heart: this one is brutal. )

I really, really wanted to give this story an A, but it fell just short of the mark because of the ending. Specifically, that there was no ending; the last thing we see is Andrew begging Chelsea to finish what he's started and her screaming her poor fool head off. I like a good cliffhanger ending now and then, especially when done correctly, and I can see why Tem chose to end the story there: his points had been made, and the final, horrific images had practically seared them into the reader's mind, leaving us to sort, traumatized, through the implications of the story. But I felt that there needed to be more--in fact, being the pushy bitch that I am, I demanded that there be more. I understood Andrew's insanity, but I wanted to see the aftermath. That's where the final point of the story comes: where the character is either redeemed and exonerated, or damned. Tem denies us that, probably assuming that the outcome is obvious. And it is, to a certain extent, but I wanted to see it; I wanted Tem to finish his metaphor and show us the hopelessness of the Phantom/Andrew's pitiful desires and derangements. Denying us the conclusion to the story he had set in motion was like refusing to have sex after an hour of foreplay.

It's interesting that this story was next on the bill just after John and I had watched the entire first season run of Dexter, which deals with many of the same themes and ideas.

Amusingly, I saw the name Andrew and instantly thought, "Please, please, please don't let this be a story where Sir Lloyd Webber is actually a character. Please. Fate couldn't be that cruel." I should have had more faith. I can only excuse myself by saying that reading all the dreck has lowered my expectations to a shocking degree.

In conclusion, my face really hurts now.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Mar. 10th, 2008 @ 11:55 am The Phantom Project: Dark Angel by Gary Alan Ruse
Current Mood: reluctant
Current Music: Loreena McKennitt - Cymbeline
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Prepare to descend with me, ladies and gentlemen, into the Twilight Inanity Zone.


"Dark Angel" by Gary Alan Ruse, 1989
From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg, 1989
Grade: D-

Ah... my friends, I can tell you're gathering around, drawn like vultures to the sweet carrion smell of a D- grade. Don't pretend you don't prefer the bad reviews. I probably would. It's entertaining to watch me rant on like a deranged, grammar-obsessed madwoman. This story was saved from total failure by the fact that Ruse, bless his deluded little heart, does know how to properly construct a sentence in the English language. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't know what to do with it afterward, but we all have our failings.

( The Phantom of the Opera meets The Bourne Identity meets When People Who Are Too Stupid To Live Attack. )

Then there's some more awfulness and some more things that failed, but frankly, I am tired now. One musical key is not enough to save this story from being utterly mired in bullshit from a very large, retentive bull. It avoided the dreaded F by the hair on its chinny chin chin.

This is like some sadistic person playing with my emotions. First: some god-awful crap. Then: Time-Tracker! Then: Dark Angel! Watch Anne's brain explode and her twitches bloom into full-blown bipolar disorder!

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Mar. 6th, 2008 @ 02:57 pm The Phantom Project: Time-Tracker by Barry N. Malzberg (Part 2)
Current Mood: enlightened
Current Music: Hinder - How Long
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Corollary to my original post on this story, because I read it again (I told you, this one was hard) and came up with yet another possiblity for its baffling circuity.

As I was thinking about the repeated initials O.P. and how I had assumed they stood for either opus, which is commonly abbreviated as Op., or for opera, the thunderbolt of enlightenment struck from above and made me smack myself right in the forehead. Occam would be disappointed to realize that the simplest possibility for those initials never even occurred to me at all: Opera Phantom.

If the narrator is referring to the Phantom himself each time he refers to the Participant/Partaker/Partner, and each of the characters shares his initials, what exactly does that suggest? By making each of the characters analogous to the Phantom himself, as well as giving all references and side notes to him, Malzberg manages to pull off an amazing feat: he turns one character into countless more. In this light, it makes perfect sense that the characters are interchangable in the repeating play: they are all the Phantom, each one a reflection or creation of his own psyche.

The entire story, therefore, may be seen as a journey through the Phantom's memories--a continual recursive loop in which he relives the moments of his greatest triumph and defeat over and over and over, each time changing his characters but never the scene itself. The story exists only in the Phantom's mind, his own private, eternal performance. The unseen master of the opera house has, at last, complete control over the people and performances of his theatre--if only in his mind, and at this point, who is to say that is not just as powerful? The image conjured up is of the Phantom alone in his subterranean warren, deranged beyond interaction with the world above, existing only for his remembered, unfolding drama, trapped--voluntarily or otherwise--in a single moment of time for the rest of his life.

All of this, then, begs the question: if each reiteration of the story is only a fantasy of his own mind, a kind of resurgent dream, then what proof is there that the original story ever happened at all? Did the Phantom ever love and kidnap a beautiful girl, earning his redemption by setting her free, or did he only dream the entire episode in his cracked and fevered mind, playing it over and over until it is his only reality?

I think I was dancing around this idea all the way through the first few readings, not quite able to grasp it. I feel like I got it right this time.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Mar. 5th, 2008 @ 10:13 am The Phantom Project: Time-Tracker by Barry N. Malzberg
Current Mood: refreshed
Current Music: Rufus Wainwright - Hallelujah
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I am bowled over. The likelihood that I can adequately describe or analyze this story for a third party is lower than usual, and I can without reservations encourage every one of you to find it and read it for yourselves. It is amazing.


"Time-Tracker" by Barry N. Malzberg, 1989
From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg
Grade: A+

Barry N. Malzberg is an old warhorse of the science fiction community, one who has garnered significant critical praise and who is widely regarded as a brilliant writer whose works are by and large inaccessible to the general public. These things are all true. This story is an excellent example of Malzberg's style, in that it's incredibly beautiful, ineffably effortless, and totally incomprehensible upon first read. I read it three times, something I almost never do, because it demanded it. I'm still not really sure I grasp it entirely.

( A masterpiece of circular motifs and melodic prose. )

I am exhausted after all that religious analysis. You can see what I mean about the complexity of this one--I read it three times and I still have a nagging suspicion that I'm missing something important. I'll probably read it again before I go on to the next one. My faith in literature, the writing profession, and humanity in general is restored: this little gem of a story, buried in an anthology full of self-indulgent emo tripe, is art.

All five feet and two inches of me stand at attention and salute you, Malzberg. Your skill is amazing, and I hope someday to have even a whimper of your talent. I am beyond impressed.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Mar. 4th, 2008 @ 10:14 am The Phantom Project: The Light of Her Smile by Karen Haber
Current Mood: cynical
Current Music: Emilie Autumn - Thank God I'm Pretty
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Is everybody ready for an oh hell damn uncomfortable ride? At least I can't say Haber didn't work in the Greek mythology. Oi.


"The Light of Her Smile" by Karen Haber, 1989
From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg
Grade: D+

I actually read this the very same day I wrote the review for "Marian's Song", but you might notice that I seem to have not written a review for it for a week anyway. This is because I really needed time to process and figure out what, exactly, to say about it. It tried to do a lot of things, and failed at most of them; it tried to take chances and be edgy, and didn't quite make it. Things started out promisingly, got bogged down in boredom and poor writing, and then took a sharp detour down Trying To Make Things Socially Relevant Alley, with a side trip to the Land of Extreme Squickiness. The whole thing finally crashed facedown in the Swamps of Missing the Point, so despite what could have been a really interesting premise, I was forced to both grade the story poorly and spend the rest of the evening saying things like, "GOD," and, "UGH," for no reason and confusing my poor boyfriend.

Let us recap, so that you, too, can share in the sadness that is this story.

( Warning: this story is rated R for things that will make you sad about humanity as a whole. But they don't show anything, so you're probably cool. )

Again, this can be done in literature. It can be done so well. But why is it being done here? What, exactly, is the point? Is it that the world sucks and people are mean? Honey, so many more talented authors have made that point in a myriad of eye-bleeding ways. Is it that all artists are evil, and/or that evil fuels art? Again, not only was that point made so badly as to be almost unrecognizable, but it's hardly original. Is it that the price of success is immorality? Meet any literature written in the past century. There are no surviving themes from the original story, much less the most central ones of maturity and redemption.

MY point (yes! I do have one!) is not that the point is unoriginal (after all, how many truly original points are left to make in literature?), but that I can't figure out what it is. The options are nebulous and poorly presented at best, and none of them are really very appealing. If you want to write a story about the poignancy of sorrow and heartbreak and the evils of pedophilia, I am behind that 100%, but write one that has some meaning to it. Don't just say, "Look, there are bad people in the world and it sucks and people are damaged!" We already KNOW that. We are citizens of planet earth. I suppose a case could be made for the position that this is a horror story, and a psychological horror story at that, but I think my feelings are best summed up in the following quote from Neil Gaiman's Sandman:

"You disappoint me... A nightmare created to be the darkness and the fear of darkness in every human heart. A dark mirror, made to reflect everything about itself that humanity will not confront. But... what have you given them? Nothing. You've told them there are bad people out there. And they've known that all along."

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Feb. 28th, 2008 @ 01:32 pm The Phantom Project: Marian's Song by James Kisner
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Sweeney Todd - Ladies In Their Sensitivities
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Ask and you shall receive, ladies and gents. After I bitched some more about the last story, lo! One turned up that I didn't hate! In fact, it was pretty darn good! Huzzah!


"Marian's Song" by James Kisner, 1989
From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg, 1989
Grade: A-

When my notes on a story are full of question marks, it means one of two things: either the story was so bad at explaining itself and staying consistent that I was hopelessly lost, or it was so thought-provoking that I was always racing ahead to try to guess where the author was going. In this case, it was happily the latter; if someone had been telling the story out loud, they would have had to hit me with a rolled-up newspaper to shut me up with all the, "Oh, does that mean that then?" "Are you going to hit this point later?" "Does that go back to that earlier part?"

( Ecstasy, agony, and the eternal music of the spheres. )

All in all, Kisner has created an extremely engaging and thought-provoking horror story that not only follows Leroux's original novel, but builds upon it. He's obviously done his research, and given the reader an interesting new viewpoint on the mortal/supernatural conflict that is so often central to the Phantom's character.

If only it weren't buried in the middle of an anthology full of crap, eh?

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Feb. 19th, 2008 @ 10:55 am The Phantom Project: The Final Threshold by K. Marie Ramsland
Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On
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"The Final Threshold" by K. Marie Ramsland, 1989
From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg, 1989
Grade: C+

Ah, another short story. It feels like we've been in short story land forever, doesn't it? Hold onto your hats: there are still seven more left. I pray that some of them will transcend the mediocrity that plagues this poor anthology like a case of the shingles.

Incidentally, I noticed when reading this that I appear to be instantly biased against anything that doesn't use the original Leroux novel as its source material. This little story is mainly Webber-based, and even though I love Webber's version more than little cinnamon dumplings, it rubs me the wrong way to see someone base a derivative off a derivative. That's just personal bitchiness, I presume; I mean, the whole point of this project is looking at iteration after derivation after revision of the same story by a bunch of different people. I suppose what I want is for an author to give it enough of a "differentness" to make it stand out--I want the author to give the characters enough life and interest that I don't just yawn all the way through and point out all the trappings of whatever version spawned it.

( Anyway, on with the show. )

What Ramsland has done here would be referred to by many dreamy fans of the Webber musical as a nasty, dirty, low-down no-good trick: the story has been set up as a fluffy piece of feel-good fanfiction, and then at the last minute suddenly metamorphosed into horror and hideousness. The story effectively puts us into Meg's shoes; when the comforting world of her expectations and illusions is ripped away, it is ripped away from us as well. The wool is pulled over our eyes without us ever knowing it, so that we are as shocked and appalled as Meg is by the final moment. Ramsland manages to make her audience as naive as her heroine for a few short pages before brutally punting them back out into reality. For this reason, the story makes a startling leap up to C+, away from the dreaded land of the Ds (it doesn't get any higher because I really think this could have been done a lot better, but the attempt at least merits recognition).

The horror, as I said, is very effective, but there is of course absolutely no whimper of redemption or the struggle between good and evil left in this little story. It's all evil, which triumphs and then lives in its squalor. There's a place for that, and in a lot of stories I love it, but here? Ramsland paints a very effective picture, but misses the point of the original novel entirely.

There's no pleasing me in this bitchy mood. On to slaughter the next short.

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Project.)
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Feb. 3rd, 2008 @ 02:03 pm The Phantom Project: Too Hideous to be Played by J. N. Williamson
Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Evans Blue - In a Red Dress and Alone
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"Too Hideous to be Played" by J. N. Williamson, 1989
From Phantoms, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Rosalind M. Greenberg, 1989
Grade: D+

I'm really of two minds about this. The first mind says that it contains some beautifully poetic imagery and some evocative ideas, and that there are aspects of it that I love, love, love to death. The second mind is shrieking that it doesn't make any goddamn sense, doesn't bother with proper story construction, and also, wtf? Seriously? Wtf? So you can see my dilemma, and the reasoning behind