A HUGE fan of Helena Bonham Carter, Colin Firth AND Aussie-actor Geoffrey Rush, I was compelled to see this latest in a series of British period pieces concerning pre-WWII Britain and the ascention of King George VI, also known as Prince Albert. His older brother, David, assumed the throne after their father's death. David later stepped down to marry the now infamous, twice-divorced American, Wallace Simpson, leaving Albert in charge.

Geoffrey Rush, a proud Australian playing the role of another proud Australian, was one of the film's producers (smart man). Todd Hooper directed with David Seidler as the writer who provided the brilliant material for those great actors involved to create what is now widely recognized as a superb visual story.

Receiving twelve Academy Award nominations, The King's Speech manages to paint one of the wealthiest royal men in history as a sympathetic figure worthy of the (common) audience's attentions--and there's close to $122,000,000 in gross sales to prove it. With a $15-million budget, the film has made more than 100-times its cost...and with very good reason indeed.

Simply put, this film is impeccable. See it in theatres or die a fool.

On the humbled Housel-scale, The King's Speech ranks an unprecedented 10+/10.

2011 may be the year that Hollywood begins to make movies again....

If you're a fan of BBC's Being Human, which ran it's second season in summer 2010, then you might want to invest--out of pure curiosity--in SyFy's "Americanized" adaptation of a show about three room-mates in their 20's: a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost.

The irony is, the show is made in Canada.

The SyFy version is set in the Boston-area; the werewolf and vampire, Josh and Aidan, are both nurses at the fictional Suffolk County Hospital (the city of Boston is in Suffolk County, Massachusetts). Why Boston? Perhaps a tribute to Nancy Holzner's 2009 debut urban fantasy Deadtown....

Josh is the Americanized George--Jewish with a lesbian sister (c'mon...Jessica Stein anyone???) and a nurse with Aidan, the Americanized "Mitchell," at the hospital. "Aidan" is named after the actor who plays "Mitchell" in the original series, Aidan Turner. The actor playing "Aidan" is Sam Witwer; Sam Huntington plays "Josh"; and Meaghan Rath plays "Sally," Annie's counterpart. 

It was all very odd--seeing the "Americanized" version, including the patronizing reference to Twilight. For lack of a better supernatural show amidst the reckless primetime comedy-attempts these days, it's watchable. A bit long in the tooth (if you will), Being Human SyFy is not on par with the original series. But the production of an "Americanized" adaptation of a BBC show already popular in America is not the fault of the writers, the director(s), or the actors.

However, it was a thrill to see Satan, I mean, Mark Pellegrino, who played Satan on Supernatural (returning with a new episode on CW F-1/28, 9pm EST!) as Bishop (Herrick on BBC)--Aidan's maker. 

I wish there was more to say--Sam Witwer clearly is into his role as Aidan and the other Sam is very much shooting for the awkward yet kind, conscientious George. It's too early to comment on Sally. 

On the Housel-scale, this a 6/10...so far. It's early. 

And a PS to this post: It's February 6th and I just rewatched the third episode--things are looking up for our own little 21st century version of a supernatural "Three's Company"....keep up the good work, kids! 
 

It's taken me more than a few days to sit down and write this review. Why? I hate to say it--I really do--but I was less than impressed with this latest effort by writers and co-producers (and childhood friends), Rogen and Goldberg.  The French director, Michel Gondry, best known for his work in films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind andThe Science of Sleep, was at the helm--so you know the direction was flawless, and it was. What wasn't so flawless was the writing (sorry, fellas...).

Seth Rogen plays only one character: himself. He no more fit the rich playboy profile of Britt Reid than I would. He was his usual stoner-self with moments of forced "authentic" expression, like when he storms off to the main house after his father's death, demanding the leaf in his coffee (you'll have to see the movie to know why he makes such a demand).

Everyone is jumping on the superhero train; as I predicted several years ago, the time of the vampire is sadly on the wane--welcome back, caped-crusaders and superheroes alike. And who wouldn't want to cash in? Especially two "GenMe" guys with their fingers on the pulse of a three-decade long generation. Jean Twenge would rejoice. But those of us looking for meatier superhero-tales that showcase the intricacies of the human condition...not so much.

You know what I did find impressive? "Kato" aka Jay Chou.

Chou, born in Taiwan and newly 32 (his birthday was January 18th) is a multi-talented producer, song-writer, musician, actor, AND novelist (his first book debuted in 2004), who totally and 100% completely STOLE THE SHOW! It was a great move to put Chou in the role of Kato; he plays a perfect foil to Rogen's sloppy, spoiled character. Ironic that Chou's teacher never thought he'd be a good actor--seems like Chou is good at everything he does. Wish I could say the same for Rogen.

The cinematography by John Schwartzman was awesome. 'Nough said.

Perhaps this was the fault of the director--but it could have been mandated in the script (placing the blame squarely on Rogen and Goldberg)--but about half-way through the film, I wondered if Michael Bay was the director....

Relying on explosions and violence, the film isn't helped by making Cameron Diaz the pinnacle of Reid and Kato's heterosexual matrix. Diaz plays "Lenore," a 36-year old hard-nosed reporter applying for a simple secretarial position at The Sentinal, the newspaper independently owned and run by Reid after his father's death.

Two words: Yeah, right.

Diaz, my junior by one-month and one-year, is not exactly 36...and though a truly beautiful woman with a rockin' surfer's bod, facially, looks even older on screen. The problem came in with making Diaz the believable love interest of two guys who look barely 30. Diaz is a spunky, fun-loving California girl--to put her in this role would have made great sense if she was still the same age as in the 1997 romantic comedy, My Best Friend's Wedding.

The open-ending of the film suggests a sequel to this latest adaptation of the original 1930's radio show created by Fran Striker and George W. Trendell--which celebrates it's 75th anniversary of the first airing at the end of this month.

On the Housel-scale, this movie ranks a 7/10, out of respect for director Gondry and worthy performances by Tom Wilkinson, Edward James Olmos, Christoph Waltz, James Franco (cameo), and of course, Jay Chou.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, I love you guys--I really do--but you need to shake it up a bit. I'm available for script consultations anytime...turn that first week's $58-million gross into $120-million...let me know!  ;)

No, "chic" doesn't seem to go with "Urban Fantasy," but in fact, Urban Fantasy has indeed become, well...chic. Among the more popularized storylines you'll find Charlaine Harris's original Sookie Stackhouse novels, adapted by Alan Ball for HBO as True Blood, Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga--heading into it's fourth movie installment (of five) in the franchise for fall 2011--and of course, comics like Marvel's X-Men--which really preceded the Urban Fantasy movement by decades, though the first work of fiction credited as Urban Fantasy was Emma Bull's 1987 novel, War of the Oaks.

So what is Urban Fantasy???  Essentially, Urban Fantasy is where fiction and reality meet--usually in the pages of a fictional book, graphic novel, comic, or on the silver screen. Take a city, any city, like Boston, for example--and someone like Nancy Holzner can turn it into a supernatural playground full of shape-shifters, zombies, and of course, werewolves in her 2009 debut novel Deadtown. Emma Bull's War of the Oaks does something similar to Minneapolis. Kelly Gay's 2009 The Better Part of Darkness makes Atlanta the crossroads of all things supernatural. Mike Raicht and Brian Smith take on "The Dark" in their new graphic novel series, The Stuff of Legend, where reality and fiction meet in Brooklyn. And of course, we all know how worlds created by Harris, Meyer and Rowling spill out into places like New Orleans, Seattle and London. Humans exist in Urban Fantasy, but so does the supernatural--the two struggling to co-exist in an urban setting. 

What's not to love!

Is there truly any human being who doesn't wonder, what if? Maybe you're taking a walk in the woods and you feel like you're being watched, but no one is there but you and the trees. Of course, in Urban Fantasy, those trees might be alive...especially if you happen to live in a major city.... Or maybe some kind of faery-folk inhabit the woods where you're walking--their eyes piercing your intuitive shield to the point where, though you hear nothing and see no one, you keep turning around...just in case. 

But why now, in the sense of "now" being the last 20 or so years?  

Well, in fact, Urban Fantasy has roots in things like ancient Greek and Roman mythology--just a few hundred years before Christ's birth, Romans were celebrating holidays honoring the "gods," like Saturn. It was a time when, humans and the supernatural DID co-exist--when gods like Zeus came down from the heavens to have affairs with human women, producing demi-god children, like Hercules.

Time magazine called it the "God Gene." Psychologist Carl Jung called it the "Collective Unconscious." And scholar Joseph Campbell called it the "Hero's Journey." And yet there are others that call it "Faith." Whatever you call it, human beings have an innate sense of something greater than themselves...and throughout history, time, space, transcending cultures, geography and theology--we have all looked for that greatness. But what happens when science and technology have removed much of the mystery from our world? God may exist, but so do black holes, so does dark matter, and so do the tiniest sub-atomic particles.

Fiction has become the new religion of the 21st century. And Urban Fantasy brings us our new gods. 

No matter what you believe, or don't believe, know that there is more in Heaven and Earth than dreamt of in our philosophies....



*To learn more about Urban Fantasy, follow @UF_Chat on Twitter every Saturday at 3pm Pacific Standard Time or read any of the books, graphic novels or comics mentioned here.