I'll admit it, I am a HUGE Sarah Michelle Gellar fan... mostly because I am, was, and always will be a HUGE Buffy fan. So, when I saw that Ms. SMG was returning to the small screen, I was both excited and optimistic.
Well, imagine my chagrin when the first episode of The Ringer was widely panned by reviewers before I'd even had a chance to see it! Oh, the nightmare! Nonetheless, I determined to give it a shot. So, filled with hesitation, I summoned up The Ringer on my PVR and prepared to be disappointed... ha!
I've often said that low expectations are the key to enjoyment but I really think that I would have liked The Ringer regardless. At first glance, the show seems well cast, with an intriguing story line. The writing may be a bit mediocre but c'mon - it's only the pilot! Watching the 40 minute episode, I kept thinking to myself, what on earth are they all complaining about?
I feel like the show's greatest challenge, and Sarah Michelle Gellar's challenge even 8 years after Buffy, is that her fans will always see her as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Any other role and we are all saying to ourselves, "Why is Buffy Summers in this movie? Shouldn't she be in Sunnydale saving the world?" And unconsciously, we become unnecessarily critical about any work SMG does. But let's face facts - Buffy is over (I refuse to acknowledge the remake) and Sarah Michelle Gellar actually does deserve our attention. Don't believe me? Rent Veronika Decides to Die and get back to me.
Perhaps equally challenging is that the show stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as two characters, twin sisters no less - a cinematic trick that hasn't really been believable since 1961's The Parent Trap. I wish there was a way around this but short of finding actual twins who can both act, we are stuck with this dual-role dilemma. In the end, though, I think the storyline will justify our frustration.
Of course, we are only a week in and pilot episodes are rarely indicative of a show's real potential. Only time will tell where this show will go. In the meantime, I can only hope that the CW (and the overzealous Buffy fans - myself included) will give the show the chance to succeed.
Friday 16 September 2011
Tuesday 9 August 2011
What was the worst book that you were forced to read in High School?
You knew this was coming...
Kate Says:
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The only thing I can say is... SCREW YOU HEMINGWAY, FOR IMPOSING THIS 100 PAGE BOOK OF POETIC GARBAGE ON THE WORLD!!!
Warning: Spoilers - Nothing Happens. The old man hooks a fish who spends the next 96 pages dragging him further and further out to sea. I feel like this is a fine example of Darwinism at work... if your instincts aren't to cut the line and paddle back to shore as soon as you realize the shore is becoming a distant spec on the horizon, then it's probably better for everyone that you don't contribute to the gene pool. I'm sure there was a subtextual message in there about perseverance or some such nonsense but I certainly was too bored to notice or care.
Mel Says:
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
I think I read this in grade 11. Despite being a short novella, it was one of the most painful required readings I ever had. The whole story is a group of townspeople telling a traveler how Ethan Frome became such a miserable old man. Just so the reader knows from the very beginning that this is going to be a horribly depressing story. There was some weird symbolism too, including a cucumber vine and a broken pickle dish.
Anyway, about 20 years ago, Ethan was married to a hypochondriac who prevented him from doing anything with his life except taking care of her. A young women comes to stay with them so she can help look after his 'sick' wife. In a plot twist that will surprise no one, she and Ethan fall in love. For some idiotic reason I can’t remember now, they decide that there’s no way they can just leave his wife and actually be happy. No, they decide to commit suicide together instead. Apparently there's something romantic and tragic about dying with your lover (I blame Shakespeare). It’s the middle of winter, so they attempt this by crashing their sled into a tree. Which does not work out like they’d hoped, because they both survive. Ethan is crippled and his girlfriend is paralyzed below the neck. But now Ethan's wife gets to repay him for all the years he spent looking after her by taking care of him - and the woman he tried to leave her for. And all three of them can all live together in total misery until everyone dies of old age. The end.
Maybe next time I'll tell you what I thought about Romeo and Juliet...
Sara Says:
To be perfectly honest, I hardly even remember reading this book. It certainly didn't make much impression on me, and so while I don't actually dislike the book, it was probably the "worst" assigned reading simply because I don't care about it one way or the other, and I can't remember really hating any books I had to read for HS English. The only thing I remember about Wuthering Heights was lots of gloomy people and gloomy moors, that some character was a misanthropist, and that I got the date of the story wrong on a content quiz by a mere couple of years (curses!). Probably the only really good thing to come out of having to read Wuthering Heights was that around the same time, I discovered Kate Bush, and then found out she wrote a song called Wuthering Heights (way more entertaining than the book, in my opinion), thus beginning another musical love affair in my life. For interested parties, here is the magical famous red dress video: Wuthering, Wuthering, Wuthering Heights.
Sara Says:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
To be perfectly honest, I hardly even remember reading this book. It certainly didn't make much impression on me, and so while I don't actually dislike the book, it was probably the "worst" assigned reading simply because I don't care about it one way or the other, and I can't remember really hating any books I had to read for HS English. The only thing I remember about Wuthering Heights was lots of gloomy people and gloomy moors, that some character was a misanthropist, and that I got the date of the story wrong on a content quiz by a mere couple of years (curses!). Probably the only really good thing to come out of having to read Wuthering Heights was that around the same time, I discovered Kate Bush, and then found out she wrote a song called Wuthering Heights (way more entertaining than the book, in my opinion), thus beginning another musical love affair in my life. For interested parties, here is the magical famous red dress video: Wuthering, Wuthering, Wuthering Heights.
Sunday 7 August 2011
What was the best book that you were forced to read in High School?
Kate says:
Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat
There are a few contenders for the best book that I was forced to read in my high school English class. I loved (and still love) F. Scott Fitzgerald's legendary novel The Great Gatsby. I had read it on my own and fell in love with Mr. Carraway and his collection of eccentric neighbors! BUT then I had to read it for class and being forced to answer a series of short and somewhat irrelevant chapter questions made me resent Fitzgerald's (alleged) use of symbolism. For this reason, The Great Gatsby has been eclipsed in my adolescent memory by Farley Mowat's autobiographical tale Never Cry Wolf.
What makes Never Cry Wolf one of my all time favourites is simply that I never thought that I would love a book about a man traveling to the Arctic to study the habits of wolves. It seemed like a terrible premise for a book (to me anyway). WRONG! The thing that made me fall in love with the story, with Mowat himself, and with the wolves he studied, was the author's never failing ability to depict a situation with clarity and humor. Never Cry Wolf is the only book I was ever assigned that made me laugh and so, it goes down in my personal history books as the best book I was ever forced to read in high school.
Mel says:
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Well, I read The Great Gatsby too, but didn't really like it all that much. Mostly because we over-analyzed the symbolism of every little thing, to the point where I never wanted to talk about that stupid green light again! Although I did love the descriptions of Gatsby's jazz age parties.
But I’m going to go with To Kill A Mockingbird, a novel required for my grade 10 English class. There are other books that stand out in my mind, but this is one of the few that I’ve reread and enjoyed since high school. It isn’t the type of story that I’d typically pick out myself, and I remember thinking that there was no way I was going to like it. I mean, a novel published in 1960 dealing with the impact of racism in the south during the Depression? I expected something outdated, preachy and boring. Instead, I found myself drawn to the vivid descriptions of a hot summer in a small town, the fantastic characters of Atticus and Scout, the mystery of Boo Radley, and a story full of adult concerns told from a child’s point of view. And if you really don’t want to read the book, the movie is good too!
Sara says:
In grade nine, our English teacher read us this book aloud, and while for the sake of time (and probably due to subject matter) he skipped small parts, this book has stayed with me as one of the most influential books I read/was read in high school. I can't think of any book I feel as passionately about reading it now as I did when I first encountered it as a teenager. It's probably not the kind of book I would have chosen for myself when I was fourteen ("English boy in South Africa who becomes a boxer and fights racism? Why aren't there any dragons in it?"), which is why I love it all the more - the characters and story are engaging, it's well written, beautifully paced, and just overall a wonderful coming-of-age story. "First with the head, then with the heart."
(Also, it's a huge cliche, but 1984 by George Orwell is a book I had to read in HS English class and love more than is probably healthy. Yes, it's a depressing dystopian fiction wherein everyone is miserable and afraid all the time, but it's also about learning to appreciate the beauty of small, ordinary things, and that it is possible to find happiness in unexpected places and situations.)
But I’m going to go with To Kill A Mockingbird, a novel required for my grade 10 English class. There are other books that stand out in my mind, but this is one of the few that I’ve reread and enjoyed since high school. It isn’t the type of story that I’d typically pick out myself, and I remember thinking that there was no way I was going to like it. I mean, a novel published in 1960 dealing with the impact of racism in the south during the Depression? I expected something outdated, preachy and boring. Instead, I found myself drawn to the vivid descriptions of a hot summer in a small town, the fantastic characters of Atticus and Scout, the mystery of Boo Radley, and a story full of adult concerns told from a child’s point of view. And if you really don’t want to read the book, the movie is good too!
Sara says:
The Power Of One by Bryce Courtenay
(Also, it's a huge cliche, but 1984 by George Orwell is a book I had to read in HS English class and love more than is probably healthy. Yes, it's a depressing dystopian fiction wherein everyone is miserable and afraid all the time, but it's also about learning to appreciate the beauty of small, ordinary things, and that it is possible to find happiness in unexpected places and situations.)
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