Coraline (2009)

 "Giraffes don't just fall from the sky, Miriam."

Let's quickly deal with the elephant in the room: there's the controversy about Neil Gaiman, it's all rather unpleasant and I'll not be going into it here. Libel laws exist, my watching this film in the way I did (perfectly legally, I must emphasise) directed no money to the writer concerned, and a film is the creation of more than a writer alone.

There can be no denying, though, that this film happens to be a wonderful little Halloween treat. Much of it is charming. The use of a parallel world evokes Lewis Carroll as well as a much older faerie tradition. The animation is glorious, clever and creative while still doing its job of narrating an entertaining story. And yet...

What really makes this brilliant is how, despite its inevitable happy ending, it really leans into the darkness of fairy tales. The very concept of a parallel world, with an Other Mother and Other Father, that is much more fun that drab reality with vaguely neglectful, busy parents... but, as ever with faerie, with a terrible price. The very thought of having one's eyes replaced by buttons is... brr!

There's more, of course. Standout performances by (who else?) French and Saunders. The matter-of-fact treatment of a talking cat. The cleverness with which it all unfolds. But this is, above all, a perfect dark little fairytale for Halloween. 

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)

 "Now, that's the way a cigarette should taste..."

This is, seen one way, a typical Tarantino film. It has his signature cinema-literate metatextuality (there’s an extended riff towards the end on spaghetti westerns and the whole Italian B movie industry, which I much enjoy), his narratives within narratives, his sense of controlled irony, his non-linear narratives and his deliberately ambiguous elements- did Cliff kill his wife or not, as many seem to think? He seems a decent man, but people are complicated.

And yet, in another sense, this is a real outlier in that it is not an action film at all but a serious drama with big themes- how one responds to the approach of middle ag;  male friendship and how it develops when the two men are not of equal status, with one living in a Hollywood mansion and the other in a trailer; how, in 1969, the era of Westerns and war films is slowly ebbing away towards an era of auteurs, hippies and changing values. It’s a film that uses footage cleverly to show us all the different sides of 1969, with Tarantino’s usual visual wit, and has a similarly evocative soundtrack, as his films invariably do.

This is not really a film about the Manson “family”, despite Margot Robbie’s splendid turn as Sharon Tate: it’s appropriate that Charles Manson himself only appears briefly and is told to go away. His “family” are shown as shallow, duplicitous petty criminals, manipulating a blind old man with dementia to get a place to stay- and, arguably, raping him. It’s fitting that Tarantino should do as he did in Inglourious Basterds and have history pan out differently and far more pleasingly.

This film is superbly shot, superbly made, and full of both heart and complexity. It may well be Tarantino’s masterpiece.

Fifty Shades Freed (2018)

"So why do you defy me?"

"Because I can!"

 This is only the second film I've seen that was made in 2018. Right now it seems very possible that it may ultimately end up being the worst. It's that bad. In fact, Mrs Llamastrangler has just described it to me as being akin to "a disappointing fart. I concur.

So what is so deeply disappointing about this, the third in a series of films that, it's now clear, are all pants? Well, many of the same things. Let’s face the horrors, shall we?

Christian and Ana get married in a posh ceremony and then they do that bizarre and rather rude thing where they leave the ceremony that everyone had made such an effort to attend to drive off, cold sober, to a honeymoon by montage in Paris and the French Riviera. We get a few scenes reminding us what a control freak Christian is, presumably meant at least partly to humanise him, but in fact just making him look like a controlling twat. Some arson at home by nasty old Jack draws them both home early where married life begins properly.

Christian has an extraordinarily childish reaction to the inevitable conversation about kids but, well, why on Earth did they not have this conversation before trying the knot like all sensible people do? And, frankly, I don’t care about Christian’s poorly defined mother issues- he’s a billionaire. Why is parenthood an issue where money isn’t? Then there’s that ridiculous throwing of his toys out of the pram because Ana prefers to use her maiden name professionally, as that’s how she’s already known, which seems rather sensible. He seems to think he’s entitled to expect his wife to take his surname, which is frankly a load of misogynist bollocks. Yes, Mrs Llamastrangler ended up taking my surname, but it was entirely her decision and I made it very clear that I didn’t feel entitled to any such thing and, frankly, in her position wouldn’t have done the same. For a bloke to simply expect it to happen is a bit of a warning sign.

But then he does the other thing that emotionally abusive partners do, and buys her stuff, namely a new home to her tastes. It’s good to see Ana asserting herself against the flirtatious architect, but she’s very much living a life circumscribed by Christian, with him even controlling what she hears about the danger to her from Jack. There are disturbing hints of gaslighting here, and when she deviates from his plan to guarantee her safety by- heaven forbid- having a few drinks with her best friend. This leads to a bit of a kerfuffle with Jack and, more disturbingly, with Christian having another massive sulk because Ana has the temerity to show a little bit of independence. And so what could have been a rather erotic little kinky scene of him teasing and denying her just turns outvtonbevhom throwing a strop like a complete and utter child. But then none of the sexy scenes are sexy, and none of the kink is allowed to be just kink.

Incidentally, one of the many things that ruins this awful film is the constant use of unlistenable, badly produced, horrible chart pop which, with all its autotuned awfulness,  actively subtracts atmosphere and sexiness from every scene. The only decent bit of music in the whole film is Grey playing Macca’s “Maybe I’m Amazed”, which isn’t saying much.

Anyway, Christian’s reaction when Ana tells him she’s pregnant is utterly pathetic, and the perfect reason to leave him. He reacts like a proper child, sulks and confides in Mrs Robinson; no wonder Ana is disgusted. Yes, it’s wrong to spring a pregnancy on a man without his consent, but accidents are accidents, and any woman has an absolute choice on whether to keep her baby; making her get rid if it is just as immoral as being one of those anti-abortion zealots. And none of this matters much, anyway, if money isn’t an issue- why not just have the child? Bringing up kids is fun.

So we end up with a bit of climatic action between Ana and nasty old Hack, and she ends up still trapped in what she sees as a healthy relationship with Christian, and thinking the fact he’s into BDSM (she isn’t, not really, so it’s disturbing that he’s foisting it on her, and controlling how she perceives it) means he can get away with controlling her without her informed consent. She ends the trilogy still trapped in a relationship with this controlling man-child, and that is truly tragic. Poor Ana. But far more tragic is the thought that this film may give many people the idea that BDSM makes this kind of behaviour ok.

The Cat in the Hat (2003)

"Can't I have some rules?""

"No chewing tobacco!"

Lots of people don't like this film. This is mainly because they have fond childhood memories of the original work by Dr Seuss and don't like the more adult and naughty tone of this film. I can sort of see their point, and won't necessarily put this film at the top of the pile of films to show my little girl. However, I've never read any Dr Seuss and came to this with no preconceptions, just wanting to see a bit of comedy starring Mike Myers. And you know what? On those terms, this film is pretty good, and the naughty bits are among the best.

Mike Myers is great, naturally, and perfect for this version of the Cat, but the real revelation is the young Dakota Fanning as the strait-laced Sally in a perfectly judged deadpan comic performance for one so young. The direction and look of the film is perfectly stylised and coloured, with absolutely no concession to realism.

There may be no subtext other than the rather obvious one about properly balancing fun and responsibility, but there's nothing didactic in how the message is conveyed, and much naughty and mildly sweary fun is had in the meantime, with songs and all. Why, we even get a bizarre cover of the Beatles' "Getting Better", albeit without Paul McCartney's dodgy lyric about domestic abuse.

Don't be put off by the critics; this is an enjoyable comedy. Just don't necessarily assume it's for very young children!

The Runaways (2010)

"This isn't about women's lib, kitties- this is about women's libido."

We're all guilty of seeing rock history in terms of a fixed canon of work divorced from its social context, and I can be as guilty as anyone. This has become more acute by this new age we live in, with music of all styles and all eras available at the touch of a screen. But the social context is key to the music, and The Runaways reminds us of that.

The Runaways may have pioneered women with guitars and begat Joan Jett and Lita Ford, but they were not some kind of proto-feminist precursor to Bikini Kill (fantastic band, incidentally) or Daisy Chainsaw. No; they were a manufactured band, manufactured by a creepy bloke set on sexualising these disturbingly young girls for the male gaze. It's disturbing watching this in the UK of 2014, remembering how young these girls were, with Operation Yewtree providing us with endless reminders of what used to go on in the 1970s. It's incredible to think that the band were all so young, yet they went on tour under the supervision of a much older man and were exposed to all of the drugs of the era in a way which surely wouldn't happen now. The golden age of rock may be over, and that may be a bad thing, but there are certainly upsides.

The quirky Dakota Fanning is superb as Cherie Currie and the show here although it's worth noting, after the tragedy that was Twilight, that Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett can actually act. We begin much earlier in the decade, as the young Cherie dares to openly show her love of David Bowie, whose androgyny as Ziggy Stardust was far more transgressive then than it is now. The rock club she visits is just a rock club; there are, as yet, no sub-genres to speak of. Disturbingly we hear Gary Glitter, and there's a disturbingly relevant subtext that probably wasn't intended.

The band is put together by Kim Fowley for entirely cynical, money-making purposes and he does not seem, given the hostile nature of their early gigs, to give a flying fig about the girls' welfare. Certainly he seems to care not a jot about Cherie's issues with her family. How much this reflects what really happened I cannot say, but the events portrayed are certainly a good argument for the urgent necessity of punk at this point.

Cherie and Joan are sympathetically portrayed, although Lita Ford is shown to be quite the bitch of legend. But the band are largely shown to be at the mercy of events, subject to forces beyond their control in a whirlwind of touring, media ("These chicks can actually play!" says one patronising headline) and rock 'n' roll excess. In this age of major labels, cocaine and, in the words of Black Sabbath, killing yourself to live, the amount of agency wielded by any band, let alone one made up of teenage girls, is questionable.

The much-needed arrival of punk is symbolically portrayed by Joan making herself a Sex Pistols t-shirt to the sound of "Pretty Vacant". Cherie is about due a bit of rebellion, bullied and overworked by Kim; is this rock 'n' roll? There is a definite message to the film in which rock 'n' roll is firmly equated with the raw capitalism of the New Right, a plausible message in a world where the Rolling Stones are actually all card-carrying Thatcherites. Sexualised pictures are taken of Cherie- a teenage girl, let us remember- while she is drugged and incapable. Feminism is here bound up with class politics, with rock stars as the downtrodden working class in gilded cages and Kim as the Gradgrind of the age.

Joan is, of course, the strong one, but a tour of Japan in which privacy is non-existent is the end of the road for a drug-frizzled Cherie; the fans breaking through the window are a rather crude metaphor for her breakdown. It's back to reality but not, ultimately, back to the band, and Cherie has to adjust back to the banality and drudgery of everyday life. We end with a sweetly awkward conversation on a radio phone-in between Cherie and a now-famous Joan Jett, showing us that the natural selection of rock 'n' roll lets some rise and others fall. This is an extraordinary film.

The War of the Worlds (2005)

"Trees are funny!"

I have a rule. Never do I blog a sequel before it's predecessor and never do I blog a remake- if I blog remakes at all; I have a big prejudice against them- before the original. Never mind the obvious stylistic nods to the 1953 George Pal film; this is at heart another version of the original novel. Indeed, we open and with Morgan Freeman speaking H.G. Wells' words, and the ending, from a time when Natural Selection was a relatively new thing, is retained in this updated film, set in modern America.

Steven Spielberg and War of the Worlds was always going to be a neat fit, and the film certainly looks great. Sadly, it stars Tom Cruise, but it's nice to see a suitably weird performance from a young Dakota  Fanning, one of my wife's favourite performers. 

The opening section, introducing Sal, his kids Robbie (studying French colonialism in Algeria, appropriately as the original novel was based on the idea of the British Empire feeling what it was like to be colonised) and young Rachel, goes on too long with the stuff about custody of the kids, something which could have been established much more economically; we want Martians!

The spectacle never ceases to amazed but, sadly, there's a reason why Tom Cruise was a has-been by 2005. Everything looks fantastic and there are some nice touches- the Martians ride the lightning to their machines- and the family themes sentiment is even, by Spielberg standards, not overdone. This is a good film, but could have been great with a different star.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012)

"I remember how to undress myself."

"Yeah, but I do it so much better."

It's been a while, but it's time I finished off everyone's favourite vampires-and-fundamentalist-Christian-sexual-morality franchise. Fortunately, this time there's more of the former and less of the latter, as our two main protagonists are now married and all that, but we still have a lack of charisma or sexual chemistry from both of our leads which continues to bedevil these films.

We begin as Bella awakes and gets very maternally protective about her ridiculously named baby daughter, insisting that Jacob, imprinting or no imprinting, stays away. She spends some months acclimatising both to her new family and her new life as a vampire. Oh, and she gets to have sex. Because apparently it's moral, and in no way completely failing to take the relationship seriously, to refrain from sex before marriage. After all, it's not as though the pill has been around for fifty years or anything.

Still, after a few months of undead Mormonism there are stirrings of an actual plot stirring, even if this plot amounts to "the Volturi mistakenly believe that baby Renesmee is one of these nasty immortal children, and want to kill both her and the family without bothering to check first." This is very silly, but admittedly we do get a superficially exciting film to watch.

Bella is now strong, unable to tire, able to have vigorous sex but tempted by human blood, which is probably some sort of metaphor for sin or something. Thing is, though, I lie her even less than before. She and her new family are so haughty and superior, her new husband remains a wanker as always, and unforgivably she plans to cut all ties from Charlie, her father, who gave so much for her. Notably it is Jacob, and not her or one of her in-laws, who  stops this happening. But things are still not explained to Charlie, who does not "need to know" about his own family. This leaves a really bad taste in the mouth. So does the sense of Carlisle's vampire family as being elite and super-rich, part of the 1%. I note that Bella and Edward are just given a house by the family, many of whom do not seem to have to work for a living.

There are good things about his film: Michael Sheen is a great baddie, for example. But is it me who is a little perturbed that the baddies are all decadent Europeans with British accents, while our heroes are all wholesome, Fox News watching, Republican voting New World types, including a veteran of the American War of Independence to hammer home the point? The reads like a defence of Christian American family values against those evil liberal Europeans who threaten those family values. I'm on the Volturi's side. Go Aro.

The end is a nice bit of deception, I suppose, with lots of people dung in what turns out to be a dream sequence shown by Alice to Aro. Everyone agrees to be friends and there's a bit more romantic blah between Bella and Edward. Uuuurgh. I'm glad the Twiglet films are over now.

Hide and Seek (2005)

“I don’t wanna play with Charlie any more!”

There are two points to make before I begin. One, this film is based around one massive great big revelation so, y’ know, THERE BE SPOILERS. Two, this is the ninety-third film I’ve reviewed for this blog but only the first to feature Robert de Niro. How on Earth did that happen?

De Niro gives an extraordinary performance in a role which absolutely requires one. Like a certain part in The Usual Suspects which I shan’t spoil for those of you who haven’t seen it, it requires two performances in one. De Niro has to convince as David, the well-meaning bereaved father who’s trying to do the right thing, and as Charlie. The film structures itself around the revelation well; I, for one, didn’t guess, and was shocked. I have my doubts about basing a film so thoroughly around one big twist, if you guess the twist, the film is ruined for you. That wasn’t the case for me, though, and like all good twists I felt that the clues had been there.

The film moulds itself well around the twist, even to the point of having a character, Mr Haskins, who exists only to fulfil the role of red herring, almost to the point of parody. Aside from De Niro, though, the standout performance is from a very young Dakota Fanning, who fulfils the trope of the creepy kid with aplomb.  

The climax, in which De Niro, as Charlie, chases his daughter through the house with an axe, may be clichéd, but it was the only place to go after the revelation. And the final scene, in which one of Emily’s drawings seems to suggest that she too may have multiple personality disorder (Hollywood thriller version) is delicious.

It’s weird seeing this so soon after Drop Dead Fred; for a while, it appears as though we’re getting a very different spin on the concept of imaginary friends! It isn’t quite up there with the best, relying as it does on that one big twist, but it’s a good film nonetheless, and De Niro is superb.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

“I’m tired of this. From now on I’m Switzerland, ok?”

This film is much like its predecessor; better written, shot and acted than the first, but based around a disturbing and dangerous piece of socially conservative ideology, namely the whole “no sex before marriage thing”, which is a reckless and immoral thing to tell the young girls at whom this series of films is aimed.

The early scenes include a lot of talk about marriage, including a line where Bella describes it as an “institution”. Let’s make on thing clear; it is no such thing. A marriage is a declaration of love and commitment between people, whether gay or straight. It’s private. It should NOT be an “institution”, regulated by the state. It’s usually those on the right who want to privatise things, but I say we should privatise marriage. The state has no right to impose itself on something so private. I hate it when right-wing politicians talk about stuff like tax breaks for married couples; this is Stalinist social engineering.

Don’t worry: I’m off my soapbox now. I still hate that controlling wanker Edward though. Yay for Charlie and his much-needed offer of pepper spray! This film essentially picks up most of the pre-existing plot threads and puts them in the context of Bella’s high school graduation. Edward’s behaviour towards Bella looks more and more disturbingly controlling (NOT kinky, whatever Fifty Shades of Grey may have been based on: this is just straightforward emotional manipulation shading into abuse). As Jacob rightly says, he lies to her. It’s looking depressingly certain that Bella is doomed to fall under Edward’s creepy spell, though. Jake is jealous, but the whole force of the narrative is against him. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t have a massive fight for the position of alpha male, but there can only be one winner.

I really don’t like the scene in which Edward warns Bella that sex with him would be a dangerous, violent thing. The subtext is that sex is scary, bad, and to be avoided except for the strict purpose of begetting children from within wedlock. Bollocks. Nor do I like Rosalie- she dreamed of the sort of life that social conservatives approve of for women until becoming a vampire (for which read pre-marital sex) ruined her life forever. This is dangerous stuff. Stephenie Meyer may seem cool, and put Muse in every one of the movies somewhere, but the ideology she’s peddling is deeply, deeply dangerous.

Bella explicitly declares herself to be a virgin. Edward declares himself to be “old school”. Patriarchy, much? I may be burdened with a Y chromosome, but the Twilight films are really, really awakening my inner feminist. Sadly, though, we end with their wedding being arranged. This is NOT a happy ending.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)

“You can’t trust vampires. Trust me.”

Well, this is much better. Still narrowing my eyes somewhat at the socially conservative subtext, but this film has drama in it, and tension, and actual stuff happening, which makes for a much better viewing experience. Also, the direction is better. And there’s none of that horrible, dull, washed out picture quality that still plagued the first film. All that said, Bella is still as wet as the English Channel and I still reckon Edward is a right bastard, which I suspect is not the effect intended.

Still, this is much better. I like the way that both vampires and werewolves (on which the spotlight now falls) are explained in terms of Native American mythology, which adds a nice bit of cultural tension, although I’m in no position to judge the way that the culture has been depicted. We have a love triangle set up, with Bella torn between Jacob (whom I like) and Edward (whom I don’t). Jacob is cool, a nice guy, and interested in Bella for who she is, while Edward is none of those things as he’s far too busy brooding over things like how he envies those who have the option of suicide. Lovely.

There’s some cool vampirey stuff, though. I love the concept of the Volturi- arrogant, legalistic, cultured Italian vampires. The scene where Bella gets a paper cut and tempts Jasper to go after her blood may be the biggest vampire cliché ever, but it’s fun. But there are some strong religious overtones: Carlisle, for example, wants to be goof “even if I’m damned regardless”. There are theological overtones to the whole concept of vampirism as depicted here. The vampires believe that their very state condemns them to Hell, literally, because of what they are, and this is why Edward doesn’t want to make Bella into a vampire.

If we look at this through the prism of this being a metaphor for sex, though, it becomes disturbing. Are we being told that those of us who have committed fornication are doomed to go to Hell? Is Stephenie Meyer one of those right-wing Christians from red state America who confuses morality with consensual sex? I’m no Christian, but  seem to recall that Jesus spent an awful lot of time talking about the evils of poverty and that his main comment on sex was to refuse to condemn some prostitutes. Just saying.

Anyway, Edward, being a broody, selfish twat, dumps Bella. Good for her. His entire vampire family have to bugger off and adopt new identities as, being ageless, they can arouse suspicion by stating in one place too long. Certain questions arise from this, though: for example, how can Carlisle get a social security number so he can practise as a doctor? How does the whole bureaucracy thing work? Probably best not to think too hard about such things.

Jacob spends a lot of time topless once he joins the pack, which my girlfriend rather likes for some reason. He’s a nice guy, with hinterland but none of Edward’s Byronic arsedness. The wolf pack consists of some rather bad CGI, unfortunately, b ut this bit is rather good drama. They’re basically good guys, but with the potential to lash out in rage and, as the character of Emily rather literally shows us, this is a rather clunky metaphor for men and their capacity for sudden domestic violence.

Bella has essentially been dumped by both Edward and Jacob by the end of the film, so she becomes an adrenaline junkie, as you do. At one point it looks as though Edward may bugger off to Italy and commit suicide, but Bella eventually stops him. Meh. It would have been cool if he’d died, stupidly, just like Romeo, by committing suicide in Italy because he mistakenly thought his lover was dead but, sadly, it’s not to be. And yes, the various Romeo and Juliet references throughout the film are not exactly subtle.

The ending I don’t like at all: Bella has to wait until graduation before Edward makes her a vampire (i.e. takes her virginity). And he has a precondition: she has to marry him first. I REALLY don’t like what’s being said here. Kids, if you’re reading this, do NOT marry anyone before you know whether you’re sexually compatible with them first, because sex is really, really, emotionally important. It’s a central, bonding thing to any relationship. Marriage before sex is stupid, reckless and immoral.

Still, that was much better than the first film.

Twilight (2008)

“You’re my own personal brand of heroin.”

Aha! Bet you didn’t expect me to start reviewing the Twiglet saga, did you? Let’s face it; I’m a thirty-five year old man- not exactly the target audience. The chances of my ever reading the novels are vanishingly low. All the same, though, I’m curious about the recent trend in popular culture for vampires to be portrayed as sexy, evil yet redeemable bad boys in an interesting takeover of a previously male-dominated genre by female authors writing for a female audience. The sexual subtext was always there, of course- it’s certainly there in Dracula- but these days we have whole subsections in bookshops called “Gothic Romance”. That’s an interesting cultural shift, and certainly not something I’m going to knock. More catering to female tastes, and more female writers, are a good thing generally, and much needed. Consider just how male-dominated is script writing in general.

All the same, though, I’ve heard some potentially troubling things about Stephanie Meyer; her books are said to promote the dangerous and irresponsible idea of refraining from sex before marriage. If true, this is a disgrace. We should not be telling young people that relationships matter so little that you needn’t bother to find out if you’re sexually compatible with someone before marrying them. Yes, once upon a time it may have been impossible to do this without risking pregnancy, but not these days. Decent contraception exists. And regarding contraception, incidentally, there are two sorts of people: those who support sex education in schools and those who support teenage pregnancy. Social conservatism is NOT entitled to any sort of moral high ground: it is profoundly damaging, misogynistic and immoral.

Er, yes. So what about the actual film? Well, for a start, it’s not very well directed. The look of the film, in particular, is ill-judged, with muted colours and a very washed-out look simply giving the film an appearance of dullness. The performances are generally a bit blah and, given that the same actors give much better performances in the later films (yes, I’m a bit behind in my blogging), it’s also tempting to ascribe that to poor notes from the director.

Otherwise, though, there’s much to like. I love the awkwardness of Bella’s relationship with her decent but awkward father, and the refreshingly nuanced and n on-clichéd description of American high school life. Bella’s likeable enough, I suppose, although a bit more quirkiness of personality would have been nice. The problem, though, is that I can’t stand Edward. He’s arrogant, creepy (spying on someone, while they’re sleeping, in their bedroom, is psychopathic and stalkery behaviour), and entirely devoid of charm, humour, or personality. I’m well aware that Fifty Shades of Grey derived from Twiglet fanfic, and that Grey is supposed to be based on Edward, but I don’t see anything kinky about Edward- where’s the playfulness, the sexual imagination, the excitement? My reading of the character is that he’s dangerous, self-obsessed and narcissistic. I simply cannot invest in the idea that the female lead should become romantically involved with the male lead. That’s a fairly big problem.

Jacob, on the other hand, is a much nicer guy, but let’s save him for later films. Edward’s family are cool, too, especially Alice. But these are secondary characters. The film suffers hugely from its lack of a sympathetic male protagonist, the long, dull, pieces of exposition, and the lack of wit or humour of any kinds. The scenes with baddie vampires, in particular, just make me pine for the witty scripting of Joss Whedon, who wrote vampires much, much better.

(Incidentally, sorry about the lack of recent posts on Buffy and Angel. Fact is, since I’ve moved in with my lovely girlfriend I’d rather spend time with her, and that means watching things together. It would be silly to just ask her to start watching Buffy and Angel from some random point mid-season. Don’t worry, though: things have slowed down, not stopped. I’ll plough on, but expect only occasional posts.)

The vampire backstory is a bit straightforward and, well, insipid (vampire “vegetarians”?), but that’s fine- this is primarily a romance. But the dodgy subtext I’d heard about seems to rear its ugly head near the end: Edward doesn’t want to make Bella into a vampire in what feels suspiciously like a metaphor for extra-marital sex. I’ll be watching the subsequent films with narrowed eyes.