Spinsters and Lunatics: The Comeback Issue (June 2008)

Dearest Spinsters,

Writing to you today, I feel a bit like David Tennant in the first episode of Doctor Who: Season Two. The world is in imminent peril (as usual), Rose and Mickey and even Prime Minister Harriet Jones have all been transported onto the asteroid ship of the invading Sycorax (the latest reptilian terror to haunt the heavens), and just when all hope seems lost, the doors of the TARDIS swing inward and the little heretofore unconscious and perfectly unhelpful Doctor emerges in his borrowed jim-jams and chirps, "Did you miss me?"

Right, so I didn't exactly spend the last year two years in a regeneration phase (more's the pity - it was retail management!), and I don't have a sonic screwdriver to zap away all the badness plaguing the lives of Spinsters the world over, but I too have big brown eyes and can be endearingly cheeky at times, and Lord knows, I'd probably look great in a hamster trench coat and brown pinstripes.

The point being: Spinsters the world over have languished for nearly two years without guidance. Lovely new OBAs have risen up at every turn, and according to the esteemed New York Times, there are more of us unmarrieds out there (languishing after said OBAs, no doubt) than ever before. So let's not waste any more time, shall we?

Glad to be back with you,
Your belovèd Editor,
Elisabeth R. Jurchen
galateabyron@yahoo.com

P.S. Since we've cultivated a few new members (and, sadly, lost a considerable handful to matrimony) over the past two years, I've incorporated a few new features to aid the uninitiated in navigating our lovely realm - and to make life that much more fun for those of you who've been here all along.

Or, a Brief History of British On-Screen Accomplishments Over the Past Many Moons. Just to get ya caught up. (Cuz if I didn't tell ya'll what to watch, read, and listen to, you'd all be standing lost and helpless in the middle of a Best Buy somewhere, right? )

I would like to commence this "year"-in-review, however, with a bit of chat about something entirely different: the brilliant (and, for my part at least, wholly unanticipated) series ShakespeaRetold. (Wait a bit - let's clarify. I knew it was out there, natch - how can you not when sexier-than-hell James McAvoy is involved??? - but I hadn't the ghost of a suspicion that it was coming to BBC America till Odes told me the week before!) Benedick and Beatrice as feuding co-anchors of a small news programme? Macbeth as a sexier-than-hell young Scottish chef in a three-star restaurant - with prophetic bin men for witches? Sharon Small as Queen of the Fairies and a shrewish Shirley Henderson wedding an impoverished earl - in drag (complete with fishnets) - to advance her Parliamentary career? This is "daefinitely" NOT your father's Shakespeare - but if you're anything like me (and, c'mon: why else would you be here?J), you can't help but appreciate these fantastic new adaptations.

The series opens with Much Ado About Nothing, starring Damian Lewis (SOAMES!!! of Forsyte Saga fame) and Sarah Parish as the feuding lovers and a veritably angelic Billie Piper as weathergirl Hero - and quickly proved beyond all doubt that the Bard could write a chick flick just as frothy as anything the Ephrons churn out. The comic bits are so superb that the tragic moments kinda smack ya upside the head - but it makes for a much more believable tale. (I mean, really: would you be so quick to take back the man who called you a slut at the altar?)

Installment Two is the darker-than-dark Macbeth, à la Scottish Gourmet Restaurant, with James "Sex in a Kilt" McAvoy (sorry - he got married in ‘06 and I'm having a bit of a time letting go) in the title role and Keeley "Eyes as Big as Her Head" Hawes as his Lady. The intensity of these young lead actors is astounding, such that you sit stock-still through the entirety of the film in a combination of horror and perverse fascination...and of course, it doesn't hurt that James runs about shirtless in leather trousers now and again and even - to the delight of Glaswegian-loving Spinsters worldwide - bursts into song within the first ten minutes of the film, earning him forevermore the moniker of "Baby Gerry" - or, if you're Odie, "Jimminy Butler." (I'm serious. Dark and scruffy, green eyes, great singing voice, propensity to flip his r's - and about 6 inches less height. What part of that doesn't say "pocket-sized for your convenience"???) There's also a meaningful wee sequence about squid, and the requisite 80 million deaths, and finally Richard Armitage (a.k.a. Macduff) does in our tormented little chef in a bit of a mind-bending climax.

Thirdly, we have A Midsummer Night's Dream at a hippie resort - not my favorite episode, sadly (it's hard to beat the ethereal splendor of the '99 film version), but I'll take any opportunity to see Sharon Small looking pretty. (Imagine how Lynley would react if his stroppy little sergeant arrived on the scene looking like that!) And how often do you get to see William Ash (Mad about Mambo's samba-dancing wannabe footballer) and Rupert Evans (Daniela Denby-Ashe's pretty fugitive brother in North & South) fight over a worthless teenybopper? (Heck with the teenybopper: how often do you get to see two cutish Extreme "O"s in the same frame?!?)

Fourth and finally, there's The Taming of the Shrew, with Shirley Henderson as a truly terrifying Kate opposite a quirky, cross-dressing Rufus Sewell, which is especially priceless for anyone who saw and loved the couple as Charles II and his little Portuguese queen in The Last King. They're not nearly as adorable here - impossible when the leading lady is ready to flay the leading man at any given moment - but Rufus doesn't sleep with half so many women, let alone Helen "High Fury" McCrory, and the ending (triplets!) is rather sweet.

And now we move along to perhaps the most anticipated television event of the decade: the return of Richard Sharpe (Sean Bean) via the BBC America exclusive premiere of Sharpe's Challenge. (Go on, get it out of your system. You know you want to say something snide, albeit gently teasing, about the "challenges" an aging Sharpe might face. Candace and I invented an entire series about it: Sharpe's Dentures, Sharpe's Walker, Sharpe's Bedpan...) I must confess, my knowledge of previous Sharpes comes primarily from seeing the video collection at the Crookston Public Library (not renting, just seeingJ) in my grade school days and a hasty viewing of two episodes (Sharpe's Rifles, for a solid introduction to the characters and setting, and Sharpe's Sword, for a happy glimpse of Jumpin' Jimmy Purefoy, the illegitimate half-twin of Sean's illegitimate brother Tweet), so I am perhaps not the best judge of these things, but I thought this episode a fitting (one hopes, not final) installment in a rollicking good series. Sharpe's rifleman pal Harper (Daragh O'Malley) is back, as is the orchestral electric guitar, which is really all ya need to call a movie a Sharpe, but for those of you less easily impressed, you get a lively change of scenery, along with some gorgeous costuming, as this mission brings Sharpe into the turbulent - and sometimes terrifying - heart of Rajasthan, India. You also get former Bond villain Toby Stephens (*ahem* I mean, Stoby Tephens) as the mildly psychotic puppetmaster sleeping with the Maharajah's manipulative regent/concubine, but unfortunately there's no great love interest for Sharpe himself - who, by the bye, is as sexy as ever - this round. His encounters with both the imperiled general's daughter and said concubine are fleeting at best, but in a piece this complicated and epic, it's not surprising something had to go. (Disappointing, to be sure, but not surprising.)

And as we're talking serial British dramas, where better to go next than the wonderful fifth and fair-to-middling sixth seasons of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries? In the first intense episode, "In Divine Proportion," Havers recovers from her shotgun injury (season three's cliffhanger conclusion) only to join Lynley on a case pursuing - you guessed it! - a shotgun-wielding murderer. Gratuitous tactile moments are imminent - as are sightings of delicious Richard Armitage as the victim's lover - in this chilling story of village life and vigilante murder. (The first I've been uncomfortable watching alone, by the bye.) There's some genuinely scary stuff, but the last ten minutes' interaction between Lynley and Havers is soooo worth the shivers!

Episodes 2 and 3 are decent, albeit not near as enjoyable thanks to new, overblown blondes throwing themselves at our estranged, expert horseman of a Detective Inspector, but the final episode of this series, "The Word of God," is lovely. Whilst piecing together a tangled case of illegal immigrants, black-market kidney sales, and an ancient copy of the Koran, Lynley *shudders* attempts a relationship with one of said overblown blondes, only to come crawling to a certain stroppy Detective Sergeant after a disastrous attempt at a liaison. The subsequent conversation between Lynley and Havers - in her flat at midnight - was enough to propel any ‘shipping fan through the dry months till season six's premiere on PBS, but unfortunately, said new season proved to be slightly less satisfying than its predecessors - though the fallout from season five's cliffhanger was intriguing, to be sure.

Perhaps it's simply the less-than-plausible, screw-you-Elizabeth-George approach that the Lynley writers have taken the past two seasons. (Not that I especially love Ms. George or the canon which some die-hard reader/viewers demand - ugly Havers!!! blond Lynley!!! And who the hell is Deborah?!? - but it does bear mentioning that the episodes adapted from her books were considerably more compelling than these newer, freelance jobs.) In any case, season six opens with Havers (man, I need to stop writing fanfic! My fingers are preconditioned to type LYNLEY and HAVERS in all caps, by way of preceding dialogue!) working apart from Lynley - with an extremely pregnant female Detective Inspector who abruptly goes on leave, putting everyone's favorite redhead in the role of - wait for it - Acting Detective Inspector. *snorts* Not that I don't love Havers dearly and agree that the Met unforgivably overlooks her abilities, but...Acting Detective Inspector?! I guess we could always attribute it to her gorgeous new look (seen right) - I mean, the Met must be paying her more if suddenly she has much better-fitting and (dare I say?) cute casual clothing, right?

Ah, I'll stop kvetching. The sixth season isn't terrible, though Helen does come back - and as a different actress to boot (do British directors really not comprehend the concept of continuity?) - but a couple of the stories aren't too bad. "One Guilty Deed" (episode 2) is so amusing that someone made a YouTube video of the Lynley/Havers moments - though I still don't buy the fact that, if a madwoman hit Havers in the head with a rock and left her in a marsh to drown, all Lynley would do is come find her, pull her out of the mud and say "Hurry up, sergeant! To hell with your concussion! There's a murderess to catch!" (Okay, so that's not an exact transcription, but you get the drift.) And there's a very clever episode with Sam West (and about bloody time too! His dad was on Lynley years ago!) as a human rights lawyer with a penchant for rock climbing and, shall we say, tragically bad luck in love. As for the final episode...let's just say, it could've been handled better. Elizabeth George handled the concept a hundred times better. I handled a remarkably similar plot device in the aforementioned fanfic a thousand times better. Maybe that's why the Beeb is cancelling Lynley. Ah well...spinoff time!

(Necessary sidenote: I really shouldn't have mentioned this in such an offhand manner, but BBC really is axing Lynley. There's at least one online petition that I know of, urging them to reconsider, and I've done my bit and signed it, for whatever that's worth. If Lynley means enough to you that your summers wouldn't be complete without Lynley/Havers moments, check it out at:

http://start-a-petition.com/showPetition.asp?p=saveinspectorlynleymysteries#s

Let's see, where does this leave us in TV Land...? Ah yes, the new Jane Eyre - this one inspired by the notion that Mr. Rochester should be hot. I'm not kidding. Take this moment to get the giggles out of your system because you KNOW what I'm talking about. Ciaran Hinds. William Hurt. Brooding and imposing they may be, but physically enticing to a barely-out-of-puberty heroine, however unloved?! Hardly. And that's why we're so pleased that Toby Stephens came to town.

Toby has the sort of upper-class good looks (he's McGonagall's son, after all!) that render a man posh on sight, and not unattractively, either. Cast him opposite Ruth Wilson, a porcelain newcomer who is half grown-up Lucy Pevensie (seriously! Georgie Henley plays young Jane at the start of the film!) and half Sharon Small, and you get tummy-tingling chemistry and an overall fantastic film - the sort that truly doesn't feel alive unless the hero and heroine are on screen together. Theirs is a richer, darker, more passionate story - or maybe it's just the first Jane Eyre adaptation that doesn't make you feel sick inside with a dissipated, past-his-sell-by-date Rochester leering broodily after a fresh-faced, albeit much-maligned, Miss in Her Teens. And I tell ya: it makes me want to see a young Nathaniel Parker in Wide Sargasso Sea like none other.

But lest you think this past year was all murder and morbidity, allow me to introduce you to Jonas Armstrong and his band of merry upstarts from the BBC original series Robin Hood. They face murder and morbidity aplenty, albeit with freshly scrubbed faces that could grace any Clearasil ad and no more than a teaspoon of testosterone between them. That particular hormone, darlings, is reserved for baddie Guy of Gisborne, played by none other than the tall/dark/handsome Richard Armitage (immortalized two years ago by his breakthrough role in North & South). Though, to be entirely fair, Lady Marian appears to have a respectable measure of said hormone as well.

There's an excruciating lack of historical context, and one acerbic observer noted that the lads' costumes appeared to come from the Sherwood Forest GAP. There's not much room for subtle acting, and don't even get me started on the flamboyant foibles of Keith Allen as the utterly un-sexy Sheriff of Nottingham. But for all that, it's watch-worthy, if for no other reason than Gisborne's painfully unrequited attachment to Marian. To say nothing of the fact that most of the boys are rather easy on the eyes. (P.S. If you're all very good girls indeed, at the end of this column I'll give you a link to the best fan trailer I've ever seen - for Robin Hood: Season Two! Longer beards, anachronistic costumes, and close-ups: what more could a girl ask for? )

And speaking of easy on the eyes (or we were, till I decided to go all teenybopper/Odie and bring in YouTube), we come to the last - and perhaps, the best - of our 2006-07 (oh, never mind!) Brit screen imports: David Tennant as the wildly adorable tenth Doctor Who in The Complete Second Series. If you're still a Doctor Who virgin, David's the perfect one to lose it to - and I'm not one for sexual analogies so you'd best sit up and take note! Christopher Eccleston (the Ninth Doctor, seen in the previous series) had the personality to draw in the average female, but David is the whole package: a glorious head-ful of flyaway dark hair (such a reprieve after Eccleston's lack thereof!); a quirky, perpetually animated countenance; dark eyes to be lost in; the occasional deliberate lilt into his native Scottish accent; and of course, a taupe hamster-pelt trench coat over a brown pinstriped suit. Barcelona, baby!

Of course, David is really only half of what makes this particular series so lovable - his other half being, of course, erstwhile shopgirl Rose Tyler, played by the beautiful Billie Piper, whose innocent, unflinching devotion to the two-hearted Time Lord is anything but fleeting. These two are the Barbie and Ken of the Spinster set (or more correctly, of our children, if ever we - perish the thought - deigned to marriage and childbirth): pristinely lovely, always perfectly turned out, and so damned cute that it just about makes ya sick - except they're so heart-wrenchingly ADORABLE that you could never be sick at the sight of them. My hardcore romantic sis compares them to a pair of second graders playing with pencil boxes, and if you watch David and Billie for half a minute, you're bound to agree. Their relationship is utterly void of sexual tension, and gratuitous tactile moments are nil because they're always touching in some adorably innocent manner - usually hugging in the middle of some public thoroughfare or other. It should be cheesy, but it's not - just sweet, and, perhaps expectedly, bittersweet in turns. Suffice it to say, the Doctor has a new companion in season three, and the means of his parting from Rose can hardly be expected to be joyous. (Rumor has it, however, that Rose will be back, albeit for the sum total of three episodes at the end of Season 4, and we've already been given two teaser glimpses of her in the series thus far. Does anyone else want to squee right now or is it just me?)

FILM: Because you're still not tired of your Editor's tongue-in-cheek recommendations, are ya? That's a very good thing indeed, for without me, you wouldn't know half the wonders that await you in a viewing of Stardust, Becoming Jane, The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, or, God save us, Transformers. (You would know all - and perhaps more besides - of the wonders in Harry Potter and the OotP, however, which is why I've chosen not to address it in this column - to say nothing of needing our space for much more important things!)

We begin, because Odie says I hafta, with none of the aforementioned but in fact The Last Legion, a dying-Rome-birthing-Brittania-age film based on the truly curious theory that perhaps Excalibur was around for quite a few years indeed before little Arthur got hold of it. As in, commissioned and wielded by Julius Caesar quite a few years previously and carrying with it a noble destiny of imperial proportions.

Well, in (said) theory, it might've been a decent film. Odie and I are still shaking our heads trying to pinpoint what went wrong. Maybe it needed to be a bit grittier, more brutal? Fewer elements of cheeseball ‘80s fantasy (I am the mighty Vortgyn! I wheeze through my skeletal bronze mask and wish I could've been Richard Roxburgh in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, cuz at least he was only grotesque half the time!) drawn in from left-field? Perhaps. I personally suspect it's more to do with the fact that you have Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth in the immortal '95 P and P miniseries), Elizabeth Bennett (Aishwaraya Rai in Bride & Prejudice), and Mr. Wickham (Rupert Friend in the ball-less - and I ain't talkin' about a lack of dancing! - '05 P&P remake), all on the same screen - but no love triangle. I mean, if you're going to go to the trouble to bring together three particular leads (okay, quasi-leads) from three relatively recent adaptations of the same novel: how could you not throw them all together in some delightfully tangled romantic mélange? let alone, make Lizzie an exotic warrior maiden, Darcy a grizzled general rapidly sailing past his prime, Wickham a - dare I say it? - beefy Bloom in a Brutus crop, and the emperor they endeavor with each breath to protect a disarmingly adorable boy-king (that's Thomas Sangster, the golden-haired, startlingly dark-eyed boy from Love Actually and just about any other film featuring a younger version of its hero/villain/sidekick), who somehow manages to convey more stamina in the merest gaze than Rupert in his cleverest fight sequence. (I'm sure there was one...)

Well, now we've got that out of the way, I can skip sprightly-ly on my way to more delightful Britfests, like the happened-upon-by-sheer-accident The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. Now I must admit, I've yet to read the Susan Cooper novel (I checked out the lot of them in grade school and somehow Mum ended up being the one to read ‘em under her stationary hair dryer for hours at a time), so when this film flickered past my peripheral vision, I didn't think too much about it. The hero was a 15-year-old spiky-haired American boy, for cryin' out loud; what was there to draw me in?

As it happens, a night in Seward with nothing to do. Mum and I had a free evening and little enough to fill it with, so we rang up the Rivoli Theatre to see what was cooking, and as luck would have it, their prime-time show was The Seeker. As we are pretty decent fans of most tween fantasy, and the poster was dominated by a strange hot man on a white horse, we figured it would be worth a go.

And indeed it was. Whether or not the film is faithful to the text, ah, that you'll have to ask of another (unless you want to wait till this particular book hits the top of my reading list), but if you want to know if it's a great piece of cinema, the answer is a resounding "yes!" (Even with the unanticipated deluge of snakes that scared the crap out of me!) The setting (an expat American family in an English village at Christmastime) and plot (cataclysmic good vs. evil stuff, complete with brief forays through time) could hardly be more perfect, to say nothing of the über-villain who faces down our hero. That would be Christopher Eccleston (remember the Ninth Doctor? all quirky and hairless??), complete with wind-whipped dark hair (hell, I'm happy he had hair at all!), black feathers, and a billowing cloak. Right, so he's the harbinger of ultimate evil and darkness that covers the earth (not to mention the gross darkness that covers the people), but he also has a truly ironic alter ego that you really must see for yourselves. (Really! An interviewer gave it away in one article and made him mad!) He even puts in an appearance at church on Christmas and sings hymns with his aged mother - in and amongst slipping through time (not like he's had any experience doing that before!) and attempting to annihilate our hero, natch.

From there we progress to a film which might've been unforgivably dull (and, I daresay, quease-invoking) indeed had it not been for the presence of its singularly salivate-ory leading man. Becoming Jane has the sort of premise that tends to appeal to us Spinsters in general: the story behind the story! Who did the Paragon of Virtue really meet/love/sleep with? (Okay, I invented that last for dramatic effect...but really: who knows for certain what happened in that stagecoach?) This kind of story, however far-fetched, is compelling indeed - literary fanfic, if you will - but what enticed me far more than the notion of Jane Austen's secret love was the actor portraying the lover in question.

Before I wax poetical and at indecent length about James McAvoy in a cravat and hessians, however, I needs must rant a bit about the choice of leading lady. Anne Hathaway may be serendipitously named and she played a great makeover victim in The Princess Diaries, but this generation's Gwyneth Paltrow she is not. Julia Roberts - perhaps. The lifelong star of every rom-com and chick flick to cross the radar? Naturally. But the immortal Englishwoman who penned some of the greatest love stories ever told?? I think not! Anytime Anne attempted to express emotion her imposed accent crept to the decibel of a whine, and there was something decidedly skinny-American-playing-dress-up-in-order-to-snog-hot-Scotsman about her entire performance. While the critics raved about her doe eyes and strawberry lips, my gut gave ever more frequent wrenches and longed for someone - anyone! - more genuine to carry off the performance. Ruth Wilson, Keeley Hawes, Daniela Denby-Ashe - I could've borne even Keira Knightley in a pinch, I think, and that is saying a great deal from me. The role of Jane required a British girl, and no matter how endearing Anne was fancied to be, no matter how carefully she refined her speech, she lacked those subtle airs and graces that make a British heroine a British heroine. Did she give the best performance of which she was capable? Undoubtedly. But I fear the casting director might have chosen more obscurely (I mean, come on! Sean Bean and Nathaniel Parker both have daughters!) for the good of the film and future Austen fans the world over.

All right, the rant being finished, let us segue to raves. The score of this film is exquisite, and the director could have chosen no better man to swagger about to it than the exquisite, inimitable James McAvoy. J (Wow, that really was saccharine. Can you tell there's a trickle of drool at the corner of my mouth?) Truth be told, however, the score is exquisite - one of the best of the year - and James makes a most convincing - not to mention utterly gorgeous - Regency man. For a man of his *ahem* vertical limitations, he cuts quite a fine figure - i'faith, he seems born to wear the cravat, coat and waistcoat, though some of you baser fans may declare he looks best in nothing at all (i.e., following the cricket match). As Tom Lefroy he veritably smolders across the screen, no matter what (or how much) he's wearing, such that the film seems to grind to a standstill at his every absence - and flare to vibrant life upon his return. When he meets Jane and her brother in the woods following their estrangement in London, I confess, I didn't care who was playing Jane in that moment - I just wanted it to be me!

Having taken a moment to staunch my salivary glands, I wish to progress now to what, save for some big-budget flick populated by robots inspired by Japanese toys, might have been my favorite movie of the year. Stardust is an adaptation of the Neil Gaiman novel of the same name, and as I love Gaiman's MirrorMask (which, sadly, never was a novel) with a combination of breathless fascination and abandoned hysteria and have a peculiar penchant for adaptations, I resolved to read, mark, and learn the novel within days of the film's opening, then to view the film as speedily as possible so as to provide an informed and proper review.

As regards the book, it makes a curious and rather addictive read that is delicate and brutal in turns, and after Kids-in-Mind-ing to ensure that particular elements of the story were not to make it onto the big screen, I packed up the latest Stephanie Meyer (I was alternating Eclipse and Stardust at the time; it was a maddening weekend in which little sleep was had) and tucked in for the afternoon at Lincoln's Grand Theatre.

Five minutes in (i.e., following the needless Gandalfian narration about astronomers in Victorian England), Ben Barnes spoke his first, immortal line - "Yes." - my heart skipped a beat, and it was all over. (Granted, my heart skipped a beat for highly specific reasons which will be discussed in much greater detail in a subsequent paragraph, but for the moment, assume that I was enraptured by the story.) I barely noticed Sienna Miller - that is, I noticed her just enough to decide that, anachronistic though she was in every fiber of her being, her personality matched the character's startlingly well - I sighed over Nathaniel Parker and lamented that he had been demoted to the role of "compassionate father of the leading man," Mark Strong was almost hot, and Clare Danes so resembles a younger Gwyneth Paltrow in her Brit-film glory days that I daresay she made a passable Yvaine, if at times not quite so ethereal as I would've wished and at others inanely over-much so (but hey, you can't blame her for the light effects). Charlie Cox in the role of Tristan (Tristran, you idiots! TristRan! Why can't people ever figure out where to put the second "r"?!? Even Charlie himself snuck it in a couple times!!) I'm still working on, though he did fit rather well my imaginings of a dowdy and largely incompetent Victorian boy wandering the faery woods in his bowler hat. And while TristRan does undergo something of a transformation in his literary journey which of course necessitates some lengthening of the hair, a makeover sequence with a transvestite pirate it was not. Becoming a swashbuckler who wants real bad to be Orlando Bloom, or even just Nathaniel Parker's legitimate son, it was not. But he does look awful cute with the shoulder-length hair and tailed coat of ivory linen; in fact, I'd go so far as to call it one of the cleverest and most flattering pieces of costumery I've seen this age. (Give me time, loves. Give me time.)

What stunned and impressed me the most about this film, however (oh right - the musical score! That's glorious too!!), was Ben Barnes' brief performance as young Dunstan Thorn. As I mentioned in the preceding paragraph, at his first line - nay, his first word! - of dialogue, my heart literally skipped a beat, a phenomenon I have not experienced in time out of mind (and surely never for such a pleasant reason!), and while Ben's physical beauty is appreciable indeed - one friend even compared him to a young Johnny Depp with his large, liquid eyes, fine cheekbones, and sweeping dark hair (y'all have seen a Caspian trailer, yeah?) - what startled my heart into skipping ahead a moment was his spot-on similarity to Nathaniel Parker. I don't refer merely to his looks, though Ben is, quite simply, the best young Lynley I've ever come across (and I've been trying mentally to cast the fanfic for two years now!J); his entire performance has a careful - albeit simultaneously effortless - resemblance to that of the actor he mirrors. He speaks, gestures, even (according to Odie) utilizes a stance so like Nat's as to be uncanny. But you won't catch it if the first film you've even seen Nat in is Stardust; you have to be a Lynley fan or otherwise obsessed to the point that you might actually spot a man on the street because of his Parker eyes, or Parker stance, or the Parkerian wrinkling of his nose when he gets angry (hi Christian!). While I'm sure that Ben's looks contribute hugely to this similarity (have you seen his side profile as Dunstan?!), the studied echo of Nat's mannerisms is what makes him heart-stopping to a true Spinster.

And finally we come to what would seem an utterly out-of-character film choice for a strange little bookworm who likes period costume and all things British - or perhaps not. I grew up with my very own Transformer, you see - at two inches tall and faintly turtle-shaped, I think he was officially designated a Minibot - called Cosmos (pronounced "coz - moz", of courseJ), and while I had no childhood hankerings to possess Omega Supreme (he was top of Odie's Christmas list back in the day), I understood the authority and significance of that red and blue semi called Optimus Prime and demonstrated, I think, the proper obeisance. Henceforth, when Odie informed me that Tranformers was being made into a live-action film and Peter Cullen (the once/future/thine adorable true and only Optimus Prime) was reprising his voiceover role, I truly was the happiest of men.

To be fair, the film does have everything a Spinster classic requires: a clever storyline, a soaring musical score ("patriotic" is music maestro Odie's summation), and a hot guy. (Okay, so it's supposed to be a hot British guy, but we're making the exception for Shia LaBoeuf because Your Editor fancies him and he does resemble a certain James McAvoy at the strangest moments.J) Not to mention, this story retains some elements of a heroic epic: climactic battles of good vs. evil, deadly journeys and tragic losses, and, of course, an inspiring leader who speaks with the voice of God and wields a sword - and just happens to spend his odd hours cruising the highways in the form of a semi.

And as a visual presentation, Transformers really does kick ass - if you'll pardon the expression. The special effects are incredible - could they have made this film even five years ago? I doubt it - and the entire production demonstrates a meticulous attention to detail. One of my favorite demonstrations of such detail takes place during Sam's first encounter with Optimus Prime: the Autobot leader lightly touches his own forehead and it makes the sound of metal on metal. Did the editors have to simulate that sound? Perhaps not, but was the film better - and I daresay, more believable in its suspension of disbelief - for it? Heck yeah!

Perhaps not unexpectedly, what really stole my heart in this film was Bumblebee - the cheeky, non-verbally outspoken yellow Camaro sent to protect Sam (LaBoeuf), with his life if need be. This affection is due in small part to Odie seeing the movie first and telling me that Bumblee was like Philip, my beloved ramshackle red Corsica, who - I have no doubt - would protect my life at the expense of his own if need be. Even without this connection, however, I suspect Bumblebee's charms would have spoken for themselves. It's tough not to adore a car who is in one moment a dingy yellow hot rod with his own notions of how to kick-start his owner's love life (it's all about the ‘80s ballads, baby!) and in the next a formidable robotic entity that can beat the crap out of the rogue-police-car-turned-Decepticon, despite being possessed of the cutest face you ever did see, characterized by big glowing blue eyes and a round little mouth. And if that weren't enough, he's the only ‘bot of any sort that can't speak, save for little mechanical groans and sighs (and the occasional song from the radio) - which makes for a couple of wrenching sequences when he is captured by government baddies and later badly injured.

If you watch Transformers for no other reason (because you are my girls and you will, you know, one way or anotherJ), watch it to see your childhood action figures spring into magnificent, larger-than-life proportion. Watch it for the sequence when the Autobots descend to Earth like fiery asteroids, spurring chaos in the streets that would seem more at home in a disaster flick, only the accompanying musical score is so poignant and majestic that you know, subliminally, perhaps, that this is the beginning of something great and glorious, not devastation and despair. Watch it for the moment when Ironhide emerges from the pool to the richest, sweetest male chorale you've heard since Robert Shaw died. Watch it for the nondescript Autobot quietly morphing into a red and blue semi - and then keep watching for the moment after, when said semi/Autobot pulls out of the fog and darkness at the head of his comrades to the strains of the patriotic main theme and methodically transforms into the grandest incarnation you can possibly imagine.

Transformers executive producer and Hasbro president Brian Goldner has been alternately mocked and applauded for saying: "About 75 percent of all men have had a major Transformers experience in their lives. And that's true almost the world over." While I agree that he may have padded his statistic somewhat (see "the world over"), I also feel that he neglected a large faction of the population, i.e., women, who had Minibots in the same Tupperware tote as their Princess of Power figures (whether they wanted them or not!), and knew which little holographic decal meant Autobots and which Decepticons; who remembered, at least by hearsay, that Optimus Prime had once died, and who knew, as surely as the sun will rise in the east, that no cover would ever duplicate the thrill of Lion's rendition of the theme song from the 1986 movie.

MUSIC:

Well, I mean, since we're already talking about it...why not? As you might already have guessed, my musical recommendations for our duration apart appear to *ahem* parallel most of my film recommendations, beginning with the incredible Transformers score by Steve Jablonsky. The curious thing is - and I didn't realize this till very recently, since Odie downloaded and burned our copies via iTunes with nary a hitch - in the beginning, there wasn't meant to be an original score CD for this film at all, just a "songtrack" of angsty young men's music from or "inspired by" the film, like so many other action flicks. But here's the kicker: the fans created an online petition that drew thousands of signatures and voila! Quite possibly the most incredible soundtrack of 2007 might never have existed - leastways, not in a form conducive to casual listening - had it not been for the demand of a few plucky fans. (Hmm...I know it's after the fact, but do you think it would work for Klaus Badelt's Equilibrium?)

I mentioned a few of my favorite moments in the score in the preceding film review, and the tracks which correlate to them are "Autobots," "Arrival to Earth" (that's asteroids, patriotic poignancy, and the men's chorale), and "The All Spark," which features an echo of what I take to be Bumblebee's theme (based on the fact that it first appears in the track titled, um, "Bumblebee"): an evocative minor melody played on strings, not brass, lending it an almost Celtic feel. The Decepticon music isn't terrible either, but I wholeheartedly disagree with (and, frankly, would be happy to kick in the head of) the Amazon reviewer (even though she's an Elisabeth too - the shame of it all!) who declares the Autobot themes to be wimpy and mournful and the Decepticons' aggressive and overall more impressive. People like that, you wonder if they love America - or even Jesus.

My second musical pick of the duration, surprise surprise, is the soundtrack from Stardust. (Amazon puts the composer as Ilan Eshkeri; Odie swears up and down that iTunes attributes it to Andy Brown. Take your pick; I've never before heard of either of those.) While much of the darkness and indeed, the sweetness, of the story itself was lost in the transition from page to screen, the music absolutely refuses to be as inane as the corresponding onscreen moments - and even manages to be quite exquisite on more than one occasion. Though the majority of the tracks are freakishly short (three minutes or less in most cases), the composer, whoever he is, packs some beautiful elements into nearly every beat of this score; one only wishes that some bits could have gone on even a few seconds longer. "Septimus," for example, a vast track of dark riders racing across hills (and, I might add, one of my favorite musical themes), is a 1 minute 22 second flash in the pan. In contrast, other tracks, such as "Shooting Star" - a score piece startlingly evocative of its on-screen subject matter - sweep you along as surely as they did in the film itself, with nary an omission or abrupt leap to another track along the way. Other favorites include "The Mouse" (truly as soft and adorable musically as Tristan is in his new form), "Flying Vessel" (the man-makeover montage, so there is a bit of jolly swashbuckling involved, though it also features a lovely waltz with distant flutes, to Odie's delight), "Lamia's Lair" (if Charlie Cox was indeed a man and could run like one in slow motion, this is what it would sound like), and "Tristan & Yvaine" (which, without sounding like the Shire theme from Lord of the Rings, sounds about as much like "This is My Father's World" as does that theme, albeit with sighing strings instead of a flute). Of all these, however, my favorite would have to be the penultimate track, "Coronation." While I hesitate to spoil its corresponding scene for any of you daft lassies who haven't yet seen the film, this song would make a fanTABulous processional, such that Odie and I fight constantly over who gets to use it in her (mythical) future wedding and have even determined that you can sing "Lift High the Cross" to its melody if one is insistent upon including that hymn in one's proceedings. J

My final soundtrack pic from the past year (and don't worry; there aren't many non-soundtrack ones to hear about!) simply must be Becoming Jane by Adrian Johnston. This soundtrack is a veritable dream of Regency England, quite in the same vein as previous Austenian scores by Rachel Portman and Patrick Doyle - never obtrusive, just elegant and sweeping and so lovely, but not so unremarkable that you might forget that you're not listening to NPR and try to change the station. My favorite inclusions are the dance tunes from the Basingstoke assembly and Lady Gresham's ball; it doesn't look like they're on the official soundtrack sold at Amazon, so buy yours on iTunes today! J The six-song set is a spontaneous Playford dance party waiting to happen; just add cravats and hessians and somebody who knows how to coordinate your dancers!

And now, lest you think I live in a cinema with only Odie's iPod for company (hmm...not a bad idea, that!), allow me to present my cross-genre recommendations of...female Britpop! (Hey, it is a departure! They're a whole shelf away from my soundtracks!) The first of these is not a new album at all, simply new to me, and that is Imogen Heap's Speak for Yourself. I bought this album on the basis of Imogen's appearance on the soundtrack to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and her country of origin (um, yeah, she would be English J), as well as on the strength of a couple of song samples, and I haven't looked back since - though I was a bit startled to discover how pervasive her music has become. (You hear it in malls a lot, not to mention the odd chick flick - she's all over The Holiday - but no one ever knows who she is.)

If life was a movie, this album could quite easily be the soundtrack, and it wouldn't be your average elementary chick flick, either - though many of the songs are quite conducive to montages, such as the delightful "Goodnight and Go," and I've selected the chorus of "The Walk" as the theme song for Son of Lynley. (Now we just need to persuade the BBC to hire me to screenwrite and produce! Hmm...What was it I was saying earlier about fans making things happen...?) Another song I quite like is "Hide and Seek," which was featured on the 2007 Grammy Nominees album to accompany her nomination for Best New Artist. It's apparently been used on all kinds of shows, promos, and parodies, but I love its rich, albeit digitally manipulated, vocals, and, like of all her songs that I've heard so far, profound lyrics.

And speaking of profound lyrics, what better segue into a discussion of Natasha Bedingfield's '07 release, N.B.? (I haven't made up my mind whether or not to purchase Pocketful of Sunshine yet, as there are some duplicate tracks from N.B., but I'll probably cave before too long. She is my future sister-in-law, after all - not to mention, the author of our mission statement.) Okay, so the subject matter may not be entirely profound, but Natasha - in fact, both Bedingfields - have an amazing ability to lyricize everyday conflicts in, shall we say, a profound or, at the very least, terribly clever manner. (I know, I know; there really is no way to make "I Wanna Have Your Babies" not inane, and if it were anyone else I would be making the Pud puking noises right now. But it's Natasha, so it has cute little turns of phrase like "In my head there's a slot machine / And I'm bettin' you're the one of all my hopes and dreams" and "Trust me, it would scare you / If you knew what was going on in my brain / Trust me, it would scare you / That I've picked out the church, all the schools, all the names".) Both Bedingfields are particularly eloquent at discussing matters of love, albeit in words that any laywoman can understand, and Natasha is top of her game on N.B. My personal favorites include "How Do You Do" (It opens with the line: "If it's weird for girls to give guys flowers / Then maybe that's a reason to"! Ha! If Natasha Bedingfield, gorgeous blonde songstress, endorses such behavior, I'm not a freak!!!), "Soulmate" (it's quite poignant and unSpinsterlike in its content, but I see it as a great track for a Lynley/Havers fan video), and "Pirate Bones" (this is classic Bedingfield lyricism in action, utilizing the phrase "if I forfeit my soul..."), though "Tricky Angel" has a great groove and always makes me think of Malachi on Hex. Go figure.

What I'm working on:

Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp sings!)...The Complete Jane Austen on Masterpiece Theatre...
The Vicar of Dibley: A Wholly Holy Happy Ending...Penelope...The Final Inquiry...Bollywood Queen...

To Tie You Over in the Meantime:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxHwER44hL4