Two Recs and Tomorrow When the War Began
A couple of TTOI fanfic recs:
Life During Wartime by Aramley.
The improbable friendship of CJ Cregg and Malcolm Tucker.
Somebody has finally written a West Wing/Thick of It crossover (I cannot believe this his not happened sooner, considering TTOI is really the TWW's evil British cousin, although I suppose it is hard to reconcile the two show's completely opposite world views) and I really can't think of two characters that I'd more rather have interact, after all, CJ and Malcolm do technically have the same job. Anyway, it's wonderful, the two of them are perfectly in character and there's something delightful to reading about the West Wing characters' reactions to, well, Malcolm.
Uncertain Sideways Street ( Part One and Part Two) by grenadine
During the election, Nicola Murray hits a wall.
It's Nicola fighting a losing battle and refusing to give up, this time not in her role as a Cabinet Minister, but in her role as an MP for her constituency seat. The show never explores the fact that Nicola has a constituency, which makes this fic fascinating. It's wonderful portrait of Nicola (have I mentioned how much I love her lately?), gorgeously written and grenadine writes the best Nicola and Malcolm scenes, capturing their dysfunctional relationship which defies classification.
I was dragged to see Tomorrow When the War Began last night. I'm not sure how well known the books are outside of Australia and New Zealand, but when I was a teen, they were huge. In them a bunch of Aussie teenagers go camping, only to return to find that Australia has been invaded by an unidentified country, so they become guerilla fighters (the majority of the books in the series were written pre-9/11, btw). So yes, war, morality and also a strong female protagonist in the form of Ellie (John Marsden, the author, was one of my favourites as a teen because his books nearly always had complex female protagonists).
It's been a very long time since I've gone to see a movie with such low expectations, in fact I don't think I've ever gone to see a movie with such low expectations. The advertising seemed more appropriate for The Expendables than for a movie about loss of innocence and the morality in war - characters doing power v's and big explosions behind them.
This is a book series that means a lot to me. I discovered them when I was twelve and they were my first 'adult' YA novels I'd ever read - gritty, realistic, with violence, sex and death. So going into this movie, the question was, has some screenwriter and director taken something from my teenager years and basically crapped all over my fond memories? And just how badly?
I was surprised, I actually enjoyed it. It's quite good. The casting agents had done their jobs well, and the cast was quite strong. I was particularly impressed with the casting of Robyn, who just looked so very, very young (Robyn was my favourite and, just, without spoiling the later books...oh, Robyn *sob*).
It's also got the tension just right. It's not the action scenes that make his movie (although there is a very impressive car chase), it the scenes where the teens are trying hide. The story is very loyal to the book. There are a few issues with the character having their base characteristics exaggerated. They go over the top a bit with Fi's naivety and Robyn's religious conviction, and Chris is portrayed as much more of a stoner than I remember.
What really lets the movie down is the dialogue. The scenes of the teens just talking about normal stuff are not bad, but instead of trusting the audience to get that it's about loss of innocence, or relying on the cast and symbolism to get them message across, instead the audience is subjected ham-fisted speeches about the theme, which are just so stilted and out of place that a lot of the audience laughed (although, it was that kind of audience).
There's also the problem that things that happen in the book that you forgive, seem to much more unrealistic in the movies. In the books the soldiers are a real threat, in the movie, Star Wars storm troopers have better aim and apparently the soldiers don't communicate with each other.
Oh, and the final shot is just terrible.
What I was also looking out for in this film was how they handled the race issue. In the books, the invading country is never identified, the soldiers never described. I've been told it's obvious they were Asian, but I never picked that up that up when reading the books. Of course, filming the books, they have to cast the nameless soldiers - and sure enough, is an Asian force that's invaded Australia.
Particularly when you consider the hot-button issue of the very recent Australian election was immigration and asylum seekers, it's just...not good. At least Lee is still Vietnamese (and Homer is still Greek, for that matter). And it's so rare that this only second movie I have ever seen in which the Asian guy is the main love interest (they other is Megashark vs Giant Octopus, by they way).
(Also, I had a little 'oh hell, yeah' moment when the camera lingered on a mural in the main street that had two aboriginal people, the film-makers at least seem to remember that this is not the first time that Australia has been invaded.)
Still, I'm hesitantly sold. I'm rooting for this series. The film is very flawed, but not irredeemably so, and it's now way nearly as bad as the posters would lead a person who has read the books to believe, and I'm for movie series' with female protagonist that are not Sex and the City or Twilight. But it really needs better advertising.
Life During Wartime by Aramley.
The improbable friendship of CJ Cregg and Malcolm Tucker.
Somebody has finally written a West Wing/Thick of It crossover (I cannot believe this his not happened sooner, considering TTOI is really the TWW's evil British cousin, although I suppose it is hard to reconcile the two show's completely opposite world views) and I really can't think of two characters that I'd more rather have interact, after all, CJ and Malcolm do technically have the same job. Anyway, it's wonderful, the two of them are perfectly in character and there's something delightful to reading about the West Wing characters' reactions to, well, Malcolm.
Uncertain Sideways Street ( Part One and Part Two) by grenadine
During the election, Nicola Murray hits a wall.
It's Nicola fighting a losing battle and refusing to give up, this time not in her role as a Cabinet Minister, but in her role as an MP for her constituency seat. The show never explores the fact that Nicola has a constituency, which makes this fic fascinating. It's wonderful portrait of Nicola (have I mentioned how much I love her lately?), gorgeously written and grenadine writes the best Nicola and Malcolm scenes, capturing their dysfunctional relationship which defies classification.
I was dragged to see Tomorrow When the War Began last night. I'm not sure how well known the books are outside of Australia and New Zealand, but when I was a teen, they were huge. In them a bunch of Aussie teenagers go camping, only to return to find that Australia has been invaded by an unidentified country, so they become guerilla fighters (the majority of the books in the series were written pre-9/11, btw). So yes, war, morality and also a strong female protagonist in the form of Ellie (John Marsden, the author, was one of my favourites as a teen because his books nearly always had complex female protagonists).
It's been a very long time since I've gone to see a movie with such low expectations, in fact I don't think I've ever gone to see a movie with such low expectations. The advertising seemed more appropriate for The Expendables than for a movie about loss of innocence and the morality in war - characters doing power v's and big explosions behind them.
This is a book series that means a lot to me. I discovered them when I was twelve and they were my first 'adult' YA novels I'd ever read - gritty, realistic, with violence, sex and death. So going into this movie, the question was, has some screenwriter and director taken something from my teenager years and basically crapped all over my fond memories? And just how badly?
I was surprised, I actually enjoyed it. It's quite good. The casting agents had done their jobs well, and the cast was quite strong. I was particularly impressed with the casting of Robyn, who just looked so very, very young (Robyn was my favourite and, just, without spoiling the later books...oh, Robyn *sob*).
It's also got the tension just right. It's not the action scenes that make his movie (although there is a very impressive car chase), it the scenes where the teens are trying hide. The story is very loyal to the book. There are a few issues with the character having their base characteristics exaggerated. They go over the top a bit with Fi's naivety and Robyn's religious conviction, and Chris is portrayed as much more of a stoner than I remember.
What really lets the movie down is the dialogue. The scenes of the teens just talking about normal stuff are not bad, but instead of trusting the audience to get that it's about loss of innocence, or relying on the cast and symbolism to get them message across, instead the audience is subjected ham-fisted speeches about the theme, which are just so stilted and out of place that a lot of the audience laughed (although, it was that kind of audience).
There's also the problem that things that happen in the book that you forgive, seem to much more unrealistic in the movies. In the books the soldiers are a real threat, in the movie, Star Wars storm troopers have better aim and apparently the soldiers don't communicate with each other.
Oh, and the final shot is just terrible.
What I was also looking out for in this film was how they handled the race issue. In the books, the invading country is never identified, the soldiers never described. I've been told it's obvious they were Asian, but I never picked that up that up when reading the books. Of course, filming the books, they have to cast the nameless soldiers - and sure enough, is an Asian force that's invaded Australia.
Particularly when you consider the hot-button issue of the very recent Australian election was immigration and asylum seekers, it's just...not good. At least Lee is still Vietnamese (and Homer is still Greek, for that matter). And it's so rare that this only second movie I have ever seen in which the Asian guy is the main love interest (they other is Megashark vs Giant Octopus, by they way).
(Also, I had a little 'oh hell, yeah' moment when the camera lingered on a mural in the main street that had two aboriginal people, the film-makers at least seem to remember that this is not the first time that Australia has been invaded.)
Still, I'm hesitantly sold. I'm rooting for this series. The film is very flawed, but not irredeemably so, and it's now way nearly as bad as the posters would lead a person who has read the books to believe, and I'm for movie series' with female protagonist that are not Sex and the City or Twilight. But it really needs better advertising.