In Theaters: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is probably not a great film. It has a number of flaws, and signs of compromises made in the name of box office appeal. But there's something remarkable about it. It's often beautiful, meditative, and disarmingly sincere. It really isn't much of an adaptation of the short story and at many times seems to drift away from the very premise, but since fidelity to the source material and actual quality are two completely separate things, the worst that happens is the film gets a little unfocused. It has all the signs of the familiar Oscar-bait feel good picture, but its true atmosphere is more relaxed. And there's the very real danger that the conventional elements of the film, as well as its nature as an adaptation, will overshadow its very real and very odd strengths.

Frasierquest 5.16: Beware of Greeks

Daphne: I'd like to venture an opinion here.  I know this doesn't exactly concern me, but I feel very strongly about this. I like zither music, and I always have!

[She goes to her room.  Silence for a moment.]

Frasier: And we're back!
(From KACL780.net)

Sitcoms introduce us to families and groups of friends, but inevitably they leave people out. It's a fair bet that if a show runs long enough, we're going to meet long lost cousins who didn't exist before because the writers didn't need them to exist. "Beware of Greeks" basically posits an entire bough of the Crane family tree who we've never seen, all to get Patti LuPone to do a Greek accent and threaten people with violence. It's a silly contrivance and the whole episode is basically an odd excursion into a parallel universe, but it is amusing enough for the duration.

In Theaters: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

It's hard to separate one's feelings about The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug from one's opinion on Peter Jackson and company's entire approach to the trilogy. Much more than the Lord of the Rings films, this is a radical rehaul of the source material, expanding upon it in such a way that the focus and tone fundamentally changes. There are downsides to this approach, on display in Desolation of Smaug as in the first film; an inevitable sense of bloat, a story that feels stretched and oddly contorted, characters getting lost in the cutaways. But even if the whole thing comes off a little indulgent and undisciplined, there's still a lot to be entertained by, from elven cities and dark foreboding secrets to a terrifying dragon with the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch. It's just a little bit tighter and better focused than its predecessor as well, and its changes to the source material start to pay off in interesting ways.

Doctor Who at 50: The Sword of Orion

While the Big Finish Audios have frequently played with the boundaries of the traditional Doctor Who story, both in order to better serve the audio medium and experiment with storytelling in general, they're still aiming for the same basic giddy thrill that the TV show inspires. "The Sword of Orion" gives us a traditional Cyberman story, a siege by a relentless force of silver giants with overtones of cosmic war that are never fully defined. The story has a few rough patches, which might be explained by excessive adherence to tradition, but the results are suitably atmospheric, and it's good to see McGann's Doctor face off against some classic villains.

Doctor Who at 50: The Day of the Doctor

Wrestling fans have a term called "marking out". A "mark", historically, was someone who thought pro wrestling was real and unscripted. Nowadays everyone knows how things are set up (except for the kids), and those of us who still watch do so without any illusions. But once in a great while, things are so well put together and so convincingly played that some instinctive part of you forgets it's all a show. For a brief period you are the mark.

"The Day of the Doctor" got me to mark out just a bit, and because of that I can't be as objective as I'd like in reviewing it. Part of it is that the 50th anniversary special did something I had kind of been hoping the series would do, so I have to separate out my fannish satisfaction at seeing things go The Way They Ought To. But it is rare for something to work so well that I stop thinking about how well it's working and start thinking about whether the good guys will win this time. "Day of the Doctor" accomplishes something special, and it's worth looking into how.

Needless to say there will be spoilers.

Doctor Who At 50: The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964)

Doctor Who survived because of the Daleks. True, it reinvented itself many times over and insinuated itself as a British institution, but before any of that, the only reason the show made it past year one is that audiences went crazy over a bunch of genocidal salt shakers. When the show's second season began, a sequel to "The Daleks" was inevitable, but Terry Nation commendably improves on his own work to deliver one of the best stories of William Hartnell's run, a postapocalyptic epic which cements the Daleks as classic villains.

Doctor Who at 50: Storm Warning

One sour note in Doctor Who's long history is that Paul McGann's star turn as the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 TV movie was essentially a one-off (at least until very recently)- when the show finally did return, it was nine years later and time for a new Doctor.  Even the film's harshest critics tended to have nothing but praise for McGann's performance, and it took the fellows at Big Finish to let us see (or hear) what he was capable of in the long term. Storm Warning marked McGann's debut with the BF audio series, and it's still one of the best jumping on points they have, an adventure that not only tells a thrilling story and introduces a new companion, but shows off just what a Doctor Who story can be without the constraints of a visual effects budget.