Sunday, June 22, 2014

TV and Movie Title Mash-Ups

So, over at the Absolute Write Watercooler, someone started a thread entitled "Cross-Over Episodes That Should Never Happen" (or something like that). It's rather similar to the Hollywood Game Night game called "Movie Mash-Ups". I participated and came up with the following. If you belong to the Watercooler you should check out the other ones too.

One of the FBI's Most Wanted gets himself incarcerated at a minimum security women's prison to help a female inmate catch international terrorists:

Orange is the New Black List


A young werewolf makes a killing in the stock market but descends into drug-abuse and crime:

Teen Wolf of Wall Street


A cross-dressing princess raises dragons in a medieval world of magic and violence:

The Crying Game of Thrones


A gay pianist and his volatile lover attempt to survive after the Rapture:

Left Behind the Candelabra


Criminal insects infest organized crime in New Jersey:

Boardwalk Empire of the Ants (Eh, they can't all be great!)


A corrupt Politician returns to college and joins a rowdy frat:

Animal House of Cards


Two uber-cool seventies cops help a young girl dying of cancer:

The Fault in Our Starsky and Hutch


A ridiculously sexy but remarkably depressed ad man tries to make a life for him and his disabled friend:

Of Mice and Mad Men

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Review: A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

A High Wind in JamaicaA High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

THERE BE SPOILERS HERE!

I have a sort of vague recollection of seeing this film as a child, one that mingles an irresolute fondness and repulsion. The book, reading it now as an adult and many years distant from the type of audience for which it was constructed, left me rather "Meh."

I think that technically there was a lot of craft involved here, and that the distant, pedantic third POV was supposed to somehow cleverly juxtapose with the series of portentous events to comment on the way the world is viewed by children. Unfortunately, it just left me feeling uninvolved and ultimately uninterested.

Lots of things happen: children in Jamaica survive an earthquake (possibly?) and a hurricane, but then are sent back to England to attend boarding school. Their ship is held up by pirates and the children inadvertently end up with the brigands. One of the children dies in a fall. An elder girl appears to become a consort to the first mate. Another ship is hijacked and another girl, Emily, kills that ship's captain. But none of it appears to have much effect on the participants, especially the children themselves, who blissfully adapt and live in their own little world, while the adults around them suffer enormously.

Maybe if there were an afterward that had Emily as an adult trying to remember the events...perhaps with a feeling that mingled fondness and repulsion. That, I might have connected with.



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