great characters – Page 4 – Late to the Theater

Penny Dreadful: Loves and Thoughts on Showtime’s Amazing Victorian Horror Mishmash

Penny Dreadful is intended for a mature audience and it feels like it; I’m not talking about violence or (giggles) BOOBIES, I’m talking about a show that doesn’t insult its viewers or abuse their trust. You won’t find a show that makes you fall in love with a character only to throw them away for no reason, although characters do die. Penny Dreadful may not take itself too seriously, but it takes its viewers seriously and for that I appreciate it all the more.

[This is a spoiler-free entry for Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, Seasons 1 and 2]

My best friend recommended I check out Penny Dreadful about a year ago. On a whim, I bought the dvds, thinking that if I didn’t like it I could give it to someone who did – and I was a gigantic fool for thinking that.

The very first episode drew me in – a rare thing these days since it usually takes me until the 3rd episode to really get interested in a show. With most series that’s how long it takes the crew and cast to get their feet under them and really start moving things alone. A show like PD, which only has 10 episodes in a season (and is expensive to make, I mean the COSTUMES! The SETS!), doesn’t have the luxury of a few “throwaway” episodes and has to be gripping from start to finish. It caught me just a few minutes in and hasn’t let go yet!

The show has so much going for it, it would take about 10k words to really get into why people should be watching it, but here are just a few moments and thoughts on why I am enjoying it so much. I shall keep them spoiler-free!

The Characters

It’s a testament to the amazing actors that I literally CAN NOT pick a favorite character. I love them all!

As an English lit nerd, I love that some of the classics of Victorian horror/science fiction literature have been assembled on screen in such lush detail and surroundings. As history nerd, I love that certain problematic aspects of the Victorian age are addressed and explored, sometimes in the background and sometimes in the fore – slavery, imperialism, Native American genocide are all discussed and inform the world in which the characters live [NOTE: while the issues are touched on, they are not the focus of the show; this is a show about hot people doing interesting things in amazing costumes on amazing sets as they explore the darkness within the human soul vs. the darkness of actual supernatural evil].

Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), is an invented character but she combines many of the common Victorian female tropes even as she challenges them. I like to think she’s based on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, or Oscar Wilde’s mother. She’s intelligent, outspoken, and has a rapier wit. She hangs out with a bunch of dudes in a time when a man and a woman being alone in a room for more than five seconds could bring ruination on a woman’s good name. She also deals with some of the pain in the ass prejudices women had to put up with at the time – such as being dismissed as being ‘hysterical’ and dealing with mental problems. Green makes Vanessa the center of every scene with her animated face and occasional moments of pinpoint comic timing – and when she has one of her many dark moments, then you’d best plug in the nightlight and break out a blankie because it’s getting SCARY up in here.

This moment in the second season is ABSOLUTE MAGIC.

Ethan Chandler, played by Josh Hartnett, is another delightful explosion of tropes. An American, he is a walking lesson of the existential guilt most modern Americans feel about the ‘let’s settle this land and pretend the people already living here aren’t really people and MANIFEST DESTINY FTW GUYS’ problem. Ethan was in the military and assisted in the extermination of tribes (a difficult thing to accept about his character I admit), and now works as a sharpshooter for a Wild West show when he isn’t diddling starstruck chicks whom he forgets the moment he leaves town. He’s busily drinking himself to oblivion when Vanessa approaches him in the first episode. Hartnett is the kind of actor who can make folding laundry watchable – which is funny because when he first came on the scene back in the early 2000s I thought of him as another pretty boy who’d be in a bunch of romances and then fade away. The more fool me – it’s clear that he was studying at the McConaghey School of Enlightenment and I am terrible and judgmental.

Dear Mr. Hartnett - You Are Awesome, Forgive Me for Being a Judgmental Idiot — Dear Mr. Hartnett – You Are Awesome, Forgive Me for Being a Judgmental Idiot, Wuv, Jen!

Sir Malcolm Murray is another delightful deconstruction; played to the hilt by the glorious Timothy Dalton, Murray divides his time between exploring Africa, being a shitty father, and being a shitty husband. He’s the engine that drives the story of the first season, and he’s powered by enough self-importance and unshakeable firmness of character that he could make a lord-shaped hole in a brick wall. Of course his demons come home to haunt him, but watching Dalton chew scenery is one of my favorite pastimes and he plays the character beautifully. Much of the first season revolves around his attempts to find his daughter Mina (and if you know anything about Victorian literature, yes, it’s THAT Mina).

“Feel Free to Lose Yourself in My Eyes… Or My Beard… Either way you’ll be warm.”

We also have Victor Frankenstein, played by Harry Treadaway with staring, glassy-eyed perfection. It’s hard to bring something new to such an old, familiar character, but Treadaway makes every movement and thought riveting. His Frankenstein is a species of unusual optimist, at once deeply cynical about religion while incredibly naive about human relationships, to the point of denial–fitting for a man who only believes what he can physically quantify.

GOSH. I am running out of raving room! And I haven’t even covered Billie Piper (MAGIC as Brona the Irish prostitute), Reeve Carney as Dorian Gray, Rory Kinnear as… well, I don’t want to spoil it. His entrance is QUITE…ripping? *upper crust English laughter*

There’s a moment in the very first episode that caught me, and I’ll share it here because it’s such an elegant hook and I don’t think it really counts as a spoiler.

Vanessa and Sir Malcolm employ Ethan as a hired gun to guard them down in a vampire’s den. A fight breaks out, and a vampire barrels across the room toward one of the men, intent on gutting them. With no gun or weapon, Vanessa steps in and gets in his face with absolute self-assuredness. Armed with nothing more than glower power and disapproving Victorian schoolmarmishness, she has the stopping power of a Desert Eagle and the vampire is frozen in place. She’s no damsel in distress, and I love her for it. Sure, she’s in danger at times, but so are the other characters and I love what a weird family of beloved misfits they become.

Penny Dreadful is intended for a mature audience and it feels like it; I’m not talking about violence or *giggles* BOOBIES, I’m talking about a show that doesn’t insult its viewers or abuse their trust. You won’t find a show that makes you fall in love with a character only to throw them away for no reason–, although characters do die. Penny Dreadful may not take itself too seriously, but it takes its viewers seriously and for that I appreciate it all the more.

Penny Dreadful is available on DVD and on Showtime. The 2nd season just ended but the show’s been renewed for a third. Check it out if you like your horror served hot and with some dashedly witty dialogue!

Have *you* seen Penny Dreadful? What did you think?

Spotlight: Character Actor Glenn Fleshler (True Detective, Hannibal)

I fully recognize that Mr. Fleshler is not the characters he portrays, and as an artist has a wide range, bags of charisma, and probably a very vivid imagination. I expect he is also highly professional. I am also confident that were I ever to meet him in real life I would go through a 5-minute decompression thought process of “GGRAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!” before I could have a normal conversation with him. I wonder if this is something he and other brilliant character actors get all the time?

“Character actors! Who gives a f*ck if we’re fat?” – Patton Oswalt, quoting Brian Dennehy

*Spoilers for True Detective, Season 1; Hannibal, Season 3*

(This post will contain some pretty dark content – trigger warning for entertainment that involves harming children and mentally handicapped people – Proceed with caution!)

Forgive my hyperbole, but character actors must be some of the most patient, most compassionate people on the planet.

I say that because last year, I watched HBO’s amazing inaugural season of True Detective. It is magnificent, incredible, it’s filmmaking greatness, from the production value to the performances to the characterizations. It’s just the bees’ knees and the kitten’s britches, and it is ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR EVERYONE because of the disturbing content. Seriously, I was disturbed for weeks after I shotgunned it over a period of 3 days.

One thing I couldn’t get out of my head was character actor Glenn Fleshler’s portrayal of the villain.

Just a Deeply Troubled Man Painting a School

There’s a moment when the TD villain, a back-country inbred janitor with a scarred face, unusual size and strength, and a penchant for molesting and murdering little girls, relaxes at home. He watches some TV, which he responds to in a variety of voices (Fleshler’s voice has an amazing range and ability to mimic), then he has sex with his possibly mentally handicapped sister-wife, while still doing the voices.

As you can imagine, this totally put me in the mood for a July 4th barbecue where I would be surrounded by my (now ex) boyfriend’s coworkers, most of whom we didn’t know and whom I realized I had nothing in common with after trying to chat with them for over two hours. I was ready to party, and by party I mean have some kind of existential nervous breakdown.

SERIOUSLY I AM FINE NICE TO MEET YOU WHERE THAT BEER AT? — SERIOUSLY I AM FINE NICE TO MEET YOU WHERE THAT BEER AT LET US PARTY!!!!!!

Anyway, I’m all right now and going to pick up the Season 1 DVD soon and watch it again since I am mentally more prepared. I haven’t watched Season 2 yet since I don’t have HBO but I’m curious if it’ll cause the same kind of spiritual collapse as the first season. Time will tell!

I just need to take my hat off to Mr. Fleshler’s performance. I did start to wonder what it must be like to be an actor pursuing your dream in a nontraditional career full of gambles, where you get contacted about a part and find out it’s this sort of thing.

A friend of mine is a talent coordinator for a voice talent agency and I asked her about that the other day at a party. She said they try to handle it very professionally, even a little obtusely.

The Correct Way to Handle It:

“Hi! We have a part we think you’d be interested in. It’s very out there and we think you’re creative and talented enough to make it work. Interested?”

The Incorrect Way to Handle It:

We have this part we think you would be perfect for, we need someone deeply offputting to play a child molester who ritually murders his victims, is into incest in a big sloppy way, and will make the viewer lose all faith in humanity. Nothing about this guy is human and he should give everyone the willies, if not make them want to burn their television set with cleansing fire. Interested?

Mr. Fleshler is currently playing the character of Cordelle on season 3 of Hannibal, acting as Mason Verger’s caregiver. I cannot think of a more perfect role for him. I recognized the voice before the face, and by “recognized” I mean “fell into terrified crisis.”

I cannot wait to see what else the future holds for him and I wish him all the best with his career! He will certainly go far!

OooooOOOoooOOOOO!!!

If this does go through I’ll be curious to see how he does. I really liked his portrayal of Howard Stark, and he certainly has charisma. But, and this is a dumb thing to fixate on: Jesse has blue eyes. It’s not a major plot detail, although there are moments where it’s mentioned, and I think some characters compare him to Elvis.

Dominic Cooper possibly starring as Jesse Custer?

INTERESTING.

WE SHALL SEE. But lots of luck to Mr. Cooper if he does portray Jesse – those are some big boots and white jeans* to fill.

The OTHER news is that Lucy Griffiths, of BBC’S Robin Hood, will be cast as “Emily, a no-nonsense single mother.” That is a character invented for the show and I don’t know how I feel about that. I guess we shall see! I liked her in RH and she grew on me in Constantine for the little bit she was on the show. Good luck to her, too!

*Gotta have the white jeans. It’s a thing.

Preacher Casting!

Preacher is not a graphic novel for everyone, but I would have said the same about Walking Dead and that blew up like marshmallows in a microwave – I know kindergarten teachers who are rabid fans. Hopefully this show will have the same appeal while sticking to the storylines.

Cassidy has been found!

Joseph Gilgun Cast As Cassidy

Preacher's Hard-Drinking Irish Vampire Cassidy Has Been Found

The site tells me I might remember him as Rudy from Misfits. I don’t know who Rudy is or what the Misfits are but he has the right face for it!

Also, Ruth Negga has been cast as Tulip.

And Ian Colletti as Arseface.

I find myself distressingly out of the loop with these actors – I have no idea who any of them are!

I am so happy this show’s getting made, and on AMC no less, so they won’t shy from some of the…errmm… edgier content in the stories. There’s so much to look forward to – I can’t wait to see who they get for Starr!

And although it’s looking like my dreams of seeing Woody Harrelson as Jody won’t be realized, I am curious to see who they do get to play that role.

Preacher is not a graphic novel for everyone, but I would have said the same about Walking Dead and that blew up like marshmallows in a microwave – I know kindergarten teachers who are rabid fans. Hopefully this show will have the same appeal while sticking to the storylines.

Breakdown: Jesse Custer (the ubiquitous Preacher, not yet cast) has lost his faith and is drinking himself to oblivion while preaching in a small, shithole town in Texas when a strange entity takes up residence in his body. The entity is a creature of limitless power that gives Custer the Word of God, allowing him to command people to do his bidding. However, Custer is conflicted about this power and only uses it in moments of great need – such as defending the love of his life, Tulip, or his drunken reprobate best friend, Irish Vampire Cassidy. Jesse sets out on a quest, with his friends in tow, to understand this power, and ultimately to force God to answer for the faults in His creation. Along the way he encounters a vast, international organization that controls the nations of the world and is bent on bringing about the apocalypse; a couple serial killers and inbred hicks; the KKK; a voodoo priest; an old cowboy; his father’s past as a Vietnam veteran; and a rejected astronaut who has written his life’s message on the earth since he was denied his shot at the stars.

The series was printed in the 90s and is a CLASSIC of modern graphic novels. It deals with so much and is such a uniquely American story.

I CANNOT WAIT! 😀

What I Have Learned Post: 5 Movies to Get You Through a Breakup

[NOTE: This is not an angry, bitter post, so if you were worried about being dragged down into despair and being spattered with someone’s bile, don’t! I’ll do my best to be my usual, mildly amusing and daft self!]

Ahhhh, breakups.

The short of it is, they suck. And any helpful article you can google will tell you that things will hurt for a while, you’ll feel all the things, time will pass, and then suddenly you’ll realize you’re all right again. Life will go on, and you will meet someone new. It’s all part of the magical journey of life!

But in that process, one of the steps is kind of huge– momentous even– when you are going through it. Time will pass. It’s an understatement kind of like ‘beer is a popular beverage’ or ‘people sometimes disagree about religious matters.’

During that passage of time, you will need to face certain temptations, such as stalking your ex on Facebook (it’s a bad idea, trust me; just LET THEM GO!), drinking, doing drugs or self-medicating to escape the pain, banging anything that moves in a misguided attempt to reassert yourself or spite your ex, or withdrawing and wallowing in complete misery. These are all parts of the process of grieving a relationship’s end, but it’s important not to lose yourself in your grieving, and to occupy yourself in as many positive ways as you can. And what better distraction exists than watching films?

So without further ado, here is a small list of films ideal for viewing after a breakup! Hopefully they will help you as much as they helped me! NOTE: normally there is no order to my lists, but tonight these are ranked in order from least to best, with best being #1. Enjoy!

5. Silence of the Lambs – I know! Weird and random, right? But hear me out – it’s a classic, its central relationship is platonic, and it encourages the main character to do some deep soul searching in the dark corners of her heart – the kind that often occur after we are crushed by a breakup. It’s a powerful story whose central character, Clarice Starling, appeals to the viewer regardless of gender. At times both breathless and nailbiting, the hours will just fly off the clock!

It's good to see you again, Clarice. Let us continue our complex and somewhat platonic relationship. — It’s good to see you again, Clarice. Let us continue our complex and somewhat platonic relationship.

4. Charlie’s Angels – Either of them. It’s absolute girl-power fluff about friends and fashion and having a good time. If you’re unfamiliar, here‘s a review I wrote a few years ago. Not to be taken with any seriousness whatsoever. Really, it’s just a lot of fun noise, stunts, costumes, and makeup.

Although there is a relationship in this one, it just drives home at the end of the day that friends are more important than significant others.

I could barely tell you what the plot was, but still love this movie

3. To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar – Another unsung classic, this one is about putting others ahead of yourself and your needs, a good thing to remember when you’re sinking into a pit of despair after a breakup. Get out! Do something for someone else! Enjoy your hobbies and live life to the fullest! At the very least, the adventures of Noxxeema, Vida, and Chichi taking a cross country trip and chasing their dreams of entering a beauty pageant might encourage you to chase a dream or two of your own: take that trip you’ve always talked about! Write that novel! Start your own food truck! You’ve got time and energy now, so get out there and do something with it!

And remember... let good thoughts be your sword, and shield! — And remember… let good thoughts be your sword, and shield!

2. The Secret of NIMH – Mrs. Brisby had to deal with some serious shit. A widower, her little fieldmouse’s world was full of dangers, and yet to protect her family she risked life and limb, again and again. Sure, there’s a slight flirtation with Justin, the Captain of the Guard, and he does cheer her on at times, but ultimately she’s the one who gets things done. Note – this classic film bears only a passing resemblance to the book it is based on, so if you’re familiar with the book but not the film, be prepared for some changes. A LOT of changes. Also, there is apparently a remake in the works, and while I am usually optimistic in these cases, this doesn’t really fill me with confidence.

1. Elizabeth – Her Majesty had to learn some lessons about love – the HARD WAY. She starts out the film young, relatively innocent and trusting, and by the end has had to make some hard choices – just like us after a breakup. However, while our decisions might be things like which friends to delete from our Facebook feeds or who gets what dvd sets, her decisions were things like ‘have the conspirators who sought to undermine my authority put to death.’ It certainly put my problems into perspective. True, there is a romantic subplot, but that story is a crucial lesson that Elizabeth learns by the end: that she must put something much bigger than her own happiness at stake. At the very least, this most dramatic and heartrending film will keep you busy for a few hours. Watch it for the wigs, and for Geoffrey Rush as Walsingham, Elizabeth’s spymaster.

So that’s it! Hopefully there’s something on this list to help you. These are some films I watched that cheered me up and helped me remember about the bigger world out there, so if you’re feeling down, hopefully a few hours with a great film will cheer you up. It always does for me, but sometimes making the choice on what to watch would get me bogged down forever.

Good luck, and hang in there!