These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things #1: Black Butler

favourite things

I promise I won’t sing about it, though…

This is the first in a new series of blog posts on a few of my favourite things, suggested by Kate Stradling. (Actually, she suggested a W.R.’s Reading Recommendations list but I decided to get clever with it). Also, I decided to recommend a movie first ‘cos I’m annoying like that and I’ve been wanting to watch this particular movie again for the last week.

I’m not blog-savvy enough to give it its own page with a scrolling feed of posts, so if you’re looking for the series from this point on, simply search for or click on the category These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things. Maybe one day I’ll have a proper website… 

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Screenshot (45)

Kuroshitsuji or Black Butler (Live Action Movie)

I’m pretty sure I’ve already raved a bit about Black Butler on this blog, and those of you who’ve watched movies with me are in no doubt about my attitude toward this movie. Which is actually a bit ironic, because when I watched it for the first time, even wasn’t certain of my attitude toward it. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, in the best possible way, so it took me a while to sort out my feelings for it.

Black Butler is a live action movie (real actors) that is based upon an anime series of the same title. In the series is a demonic butler, Sebastian, who has made a bargain with his master: namely, that in recompense for assisting his master to exact revenge upon his enemies, Sebastian will at that time consume his master’s blackened soul. The movie has the same premise and the same butler, but there (as far as I know, having only researched and never watched the series) the similarities end. A few of the same characters recur–but only a few–and the series’ young male protagonist, Ceil Phantomhive, is replaced by young girl-pretending-to-be-boy, Shiori Genpo. The storyline, moreover, while having the same basic premise as the series, has it’s own distinct plot.

Black butler

The first thing I’ll say in regards to this movie is that I don’t like anime. I’ve tried to, because there are some cool storylines and intriguing setups in anime, not to mention fantastic characters. I tried SO HARD. But I really, really don’t like anime (excepting only Appleseed, which is 20 kinds of brilliant). I hate the tiny outfits and the tinier voices. I hate having to squint at the screen until I figure out whether this particular androgynous character is male or female. I SO MUCH HATE the protracted gurgles and delayed gasps. I hate the fact that the female characters almost always have girlish faces and womanly, buxom bodies. Having said all that, I’m really not sure why I decided to download Black Butler from iTunes.

I think it’s because despite all the things anime does wrong, it does some things really well. Black Butler took all the things anime does well and did them far better. Then it took the irritating things that anime does and did them very well. The over-exaggerated characters and closeup shots that irritate me in anime and manga worked so very well in Black Butler. The absurd, dramatic situations were served up with eclat and verve, and managed to totally work. When I watched Black Butler, it seemed like all the expectations I’d ever had of anime and manga had been thoroughly satisfied–and then some. I found myself thinking: ‘This. This is what anime was meant to be.’ It was like seeing the beautiful big sister of the awkward little kid next door.

Added to all this is the fact that Black Butler has ALL THE FEELSBuy it. Buy it now. Watch it again and again, the way I do.

Shelved beside: The Fall, Alice (2009 miniseries), City Of Lost Children, and The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-sec.

(You thought this was going to be a real, detailed review, didn’t you? Sorry. Nope.)

Confessions: I’m A Hoarder

I’m a hoarder.

But before you go thinking Hoarders and Hoarders: Buried Alive (or even chocolates and other sweet things–okay, okay, maybe I do hoard those) I’m not talking the type of hoarding that piles magazines, newspapers, dvds and other miscellany on any surface available. I mean, it is possible that I could be said to hoard books. And probably DVDs, too. And I’m starting to lose where I was going with this ‘cos it looks like I am that kind of hoarder after all.

That’s normal, right?

Right.

No, I’m the kind of hoarder who clutches delightful feels and gorgeous imaginary friends to myself with a compulsion bordering upon obsession. This means that when I get toward the end of a favourite tv show or book series, I slow waaaaaaay down. I take my time reading/watching them, savouring each episode or book. And quite often I tend to stop reading/watching altogether.

There are still five or six episodes of one of my favourite tv shows, Leverage, that I haven’t yet seen. This, despite the fact that the final season aired a year or two ago. I’ve just gotten to that stage with The A-Team too (it’s all Murdock’s fault, he’s just so wonderfully, hilariously, delightfully mad) and I’ve had the second book in the Hitch-hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series for about three weeks now before reading it. It’s taken me this long to start reading it, not because I didn’t like the first, but because I really enjoyed it.

I’m also hoarding about six of Steven Brust’s books that I’ve owned for a couple years but haven’t read; and there are about four Terry Pratchett books that I still haven’t read. I love these guys. I haven’t been able to bring myself to read these books yet because I can only read them once. It helps immensely that all of these shows and books that I’ve just mentioned can be read/watched again and again without diminishing enjoyment. It’s just that the first read-through/watch is different, yanno?

I’m a hopeless case. I know it. But when that perfect rainy day comes ’round, when I’ve got the perfect meal and the perfect drink set up, I’ll be ready to go. I’ve got saved up episodes of Leverage, The A-Team, and Psych; and I’ve got hoarded books by my favourite authors to read. The only problem will be knowing which one to pick first.

What do you guys hoard? Anything cool? (And if anyone hoards lizards, can you send me a moniter lizard? I’ve always wanted one of those).

The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty

I saw Walter Mitty first when he was the golden-haired Danny Kaye. He won my heart with his over-the-top imagination (‘A mere scratch, sir, a mere scratch! Set the bone myself!’) and his typically Danny Kaye comedy routines. Virginia Mayo plays his sometimes exasperated but always fond love interest, who is responsible for getting him into trouble to start with and who accompanies him to the bitter end.

Danny Kaye Walter Mitty

 

In this particular version are murder! mayhem! and spies! Because, yanno- murder, mayhem, spies! There’s the dead body in the car. There’s the little black book with Secret Information. There’s the overbearing mother that Walter lives with. There’s the dotty girlfriend. And of course, there are the men who are trying to kill Walter. It doesn’t take long for Walter to realise that as much as he loves daydreaming about adventure, the real thing is entirely terrifying.

What I loved about this version:

  1. The screwball comedy. Some of the best of the 40s.

  2. Danny Kaye’s comedy routines, worked brilliantly into his everyday life, and his larger-than-life daydreams.

  3. The hopeful, thoughtful outlook of the entire film.

  4. The fantastic wackiness to it all. And Virginia Mayo so calm and sedate through the madness, trotting in on her elegant high-heels to rescue Danny and push him on again.

 

I was understandably nervous when the new Secret Life of Walter Mitty was announced. I loved the old version so much that I couldn’t see the new one even coming close to being as good. I thought it might be passable, and decided to give it a go.

In the new version, Walter is a Negative Asset handler for Life! magazine. His job is in jeopardy as Life! magazine goes through the transition from physical to digital, downsizing its human resources as it does so. His new boss treats him with scorn and extreme disrespect, he’s in love with the new girl, Cheryl (who doesn’t seem to know he exists), and his dating profile on e-harmony (set up for the express purpose of ‘meeting’ Cheryl) is plain boring, because he’s never been anywhere/done anything interesting. Instead, Walter day-dreams in gorgeous HD.

In this particular version there are no spies or jewels or black books. Instead, there is a missing negative, the quintessential expression of Life! magazine that is meant to star on the cover of the very last issue. And to find this missing negative, Walter has to track down the photographer who took it, using only a series of moderately unhelpful surrounding negatives. The search for Sean O’Connell, who seems everything that Walter would love to be (adventurous, physically able, rakish, and casually cosmopolitan) occupies a large part of this movie. Walter is pushed out of his comfort zone, encouraged by Cheryl (in daydreams as well as in real life) to keep searching and leaping into the unknown, and finds himself stronger and wilder than he ever believed possible.

Things I loved about this version:

  1. The use of blue throughout to indicate Walter’s static state, and the likewise eyecatching use of red to indicate life, the seizing of opportunity, and adventure. Visually amazing.

  2. Walter’s realisation that his constant daydreaming (even in the presence of his dream girl!) is stopping him from achieving all that he could be.

  3. The sheer bombasticity of Walter’s imagination, in all its glorious HD ridiculousness.

  4. The point when you realise that as much as Walter admires Sean O’Connell (the wild man, the adventurer, the romantic), Sean O’Connell respects him.

  5. The fact that the plot didn’t make the mistake of ‘Trying To Save The Magazine’. The end was inevitable, graceful, and integral to the storyline.

 

To conclude: I never thought there would be a point in my life when I would say that the remake of a movie exceeds the original. But I’m saying it now. Ben Stiller’s Walter Mitty has all the outrageous imagination that Danny Kaye’s Walter Mitty ever had, but where Danny Kaye’s WM is light and frothy and fun, Ben Stiller’s WM is rich, layered, and intensely satisfying. The more I watch it, the better I love it.

Ben Stiller as Walter Mitty

Ben Stiller as Walter Mitty

Happy watching, guys.