Game of Thrones Preview (Two Months to go!)

Slightly more than 60 days from its premiere, not so much new can be said about the upcoming adaption of A Game of Thrones from HBO. I'm still very excited about seeing it all come to life and each new picture that we get, each new trailer and glimpse that we catch from the series seems rather promising.

I still believe that a TV series created by HBO must be the best fitting format to the complex stories of intrigue and dozens of characters that make their appearance over the different books. I remember, even when years ago there was no word about an adaption at all, if there were discussions on the matter, an HBO produced series was always the format mentioned as best fitting for the source material. Thus, it's really quite surprising that after five or so years I find myself here, barely two months from the pilot episode to what might be a great adaption of my once favourite books.

I say "once" here because I first read the books in the final years of high school and back then I was completely fascinated with everything. If I read them today, I don't know if I would be quite as amazed. But fact remains, those are really captivating stories and whomever I recommended the books to before always received them very well. So yes, go ahead and read them, they're good books. But maybe be a bit wary because in all the excitement before the airing of the new series I always read things like "best book series ever" and such, which might just not be true for everyone. It's quite different from your usual fantasy book series but there is one thing that A Song of Ice and Fire is extremely good at conveying, one thing that I always remember when I think back to it: The vulnerability of people who have to make their life in an unstable country that is plagued by war, looting and general desolation. If you are just walking down a street, trying to make your way from one village to another you might be murdered just for the clothes on your back or shoes you happen to be wearing. A lot of fantasy stories deal with the fantastical (hence the name) but one thing that A Song of Ice and Fire was good at making you aware of was that danger even lies in the common highway man and not necessarily fantastical beasts.

Another thing I remember is hating a character very much through the first two books and then, when he got his own point of view chapters in the next books, him becoming one of my favourite characters. It might be a little bit cliché but it really isn't an easy feat to pull off. A Song of Ice and Fire keeps surprising you in the strangest ways and that's what makes it worthwhile.

Remains to be seen if the series will be able to do the same for us! As mentioned before, a TV series seems to be the best format for the storytelling because even in the book the story heavily relied on cliffhangers. George R. R. Martin used to write for TV and maybe this is one of the cases where it really shows. Thus, the storytelling of Game of Thrones should offer great potential for a TV adaption of any kind. The richness of the story, filled with great castles, wonderful country sides, a small dash of supernatural beings and exquisite clothes of manifold styles beg for a big budget like HBO might be able to offer. And as far as we can see in the teasers and high resolution stills everything looks very real, refined and beautifully crafted.

Now, of course there have also been some things that I started wondering about. First there is the issue of the book series, and thus the storyline, not being finished and Martin taking his fair time to finish the remaining books to say the least. But with adaptions like True Blood we can see that HBO does take liberties with the source material. While I hope that for the books that were finished they stick as close to the story as the format allows them to (minor adaptions still welcome of course), it might come in handy once they reach territory where no storyline exists yet. This might prove to be a double edged sword and we can only wonder how HBO will handle this. Fact remains, for the first season we have a perfectly crafted storyline that they can follow and even have some minor plots be resolved in the progress of the first season. Well yes, I am not kidding you. There are a lot of loose threads still hanging as of book four and the plots that have been resolved are actually in the minority, which at times is a reason for people to discourage others from even starting to read the books, because that level of unresolved business does feel kind of unsatisfying at times.

Then there is also the objection that the whole project is doomed to fail as it is, since production alone, even if all other things are settled, will take too long for the child actors to still look appropriate for their roles. I am not sure what to think about this, since another big and long filming project springs to mind, being the Harry Potter series. I think they pulled it off satisfyingly enough and since they seem to have aged up the children of A Game of Thrones at least a bit for the adaption it might just work out. Another question of course is the budget and whether HBO and all the actors involved are willing to make such long-term committments. This depends largely on the success of the first season I would guess, so it all remains to be seen. We can speculate on it right now but until at least the pilot airs and ratings are announced it's a bit hard to say anything solid on those matters.

A very personal concern of mine is one character and that is the Hound, Sandor Clegane. To be fair, I have never seen Rory McCann in any other role than the one he played in Hot Fuzz and I doubt that role is in any way representative of his acting style, since it's very much a comedy role with not very many lines at all. One thing that caught my eye (or rather didn't) in previous trailers was that Sandor Clegane didn't have such a noticably burnt face. Granted, I have not seen really high resolution pictures of it before, I have not seen his face in motion and the little glimpses that I caught of him were too short and small to really tell anything. But yet, I hope they did well on his face. Big defining scars always require great make-up and I really hope they do his face justice and not play down his disfigurement, as it happened in the movie adaption of Avatar the Last Airbender. To both Zuko and Sandor the scars are as deep as they are meaningful and they should be visible on their faces. But of course there is more to Sandor's character than just his scars. I guess in the first season we might not see a whole lot of him but yet I hope that in the key moments that are crucial to his character development they will not forget about him and give him a chance to shine and foreshadow his importance. Thus one of the scenes that I'm looking forward to the most is the Tourney of the Hand.

What I have seen so far of Petyr Baelish is amazing! He looks very much like I imagined him and it seems that even though he comes across as a minor character in the first few books, they have not forgotten his importance and give him enough of a presence on the screen so he might get the viewer's attention and maybe even occasionally steal the show. As far as the child actors go, I think they all look great and very appropriate but how they are doing on screen is one of the things that remains to be seen. Especially Maisie Williams who plays Arya has caught my eye. Maybe HBO played off a bit of the fact that Arya is a big fan favourite and released a lot of images of her already, but she looks great and in-character in all of those stills and I am also looking forward to see her on screen. In closing I can say about the cast that I very much hope we will grow to love a lot of different characters, especially played by actors that haven't gotten a chance to really shine before and that HBO will not put too much emphasis on Sean Bean alone as a drawing card for the TV series. I especially count on Peter Dinklage as Tyrion to become a fan favourite, just like his character in the books.

On the one hand, I can not believe that after all these years of waiting we are finally barely two months away from the premiere of the series but on the other hand more than 60 days do seem like a long time. But winter is coming after all, it is only a matter of time. Waiting is at least one of the things that we fans are really good at!

Sex and the City vs. Sex and the City 2

Yes, I freely admit it, I do like the TV series Sex and the City. I know it probably isn't the most sophisticated kind of entertainment around but there is just something about watching the series with your closest friends and eating homemade ice cream. Furthermore, I'm really puzzled that one of the most persistent reactions when I do amit to liking it in front of people of the opposite gender remains to point out the supposed misandry of the series. Excuse me? You can call Sex and the City a number of things (distasteful, stupid, bland, stereotypical and decadent spring to mind) but misandry is most certainly not among them. Of course, men and their actions are occasionally criticised, yet they are only one of many things that is criticised in the series, more prevalent maybe being the fashion choices of people around our four protagonists, their own behaviour and certain sexual kinks that they may come across. In fact, it is often in themselves that the protagonists seek fault and try to find the reason of why their relationship isn't working out, finally blaming themselves more often than not. Now I also wouldn't go as far as saying Sex and the City is openly misogynist, as some people claim, either. Personally I have found that watching Sex and the City is mainly an ambivalent experience.

But I didn't want to write this review about the entirety of the series, in fact I wanted to compare the two movies that have been released after the series ended. Let's get right to the point of it, shall we? I enjoyed Sex and the City 1 very much, enough even to go and watch it at the cinema and buy it on DVD for repeated viewing! But even though I did want to enjoy Sex and the City 2, I was left completely disappointed. I was completely puzzled that the same writers and directors could bring forth such different movie experiences. It felt like a whole other team had been working on the second one. I do think that maybe the underlying difference as to why I liked the first one and didn't like the second one might have been the underlying message in the movies. In the first movie, the underlying message of the main storyline (which is Carrie's wedding being planned, Mr. Big not showing up, her being abandoned and finally in the end marrying after all) is that this wedding turned into a monstrous and exagerated thing, suddenly being more about the form than about the content, being more about the big brandname wedding dress and the sophisticated guest list and all the insignificant things instead of being about two people who want to be together and thus it couldn't work out anymore. When the two people remembered the true reason for getting married they realised they could do it just like that, without a fancy schmancy designer wedding gown or make a spectacle of whom will be invited. So in the end the message goes against that blind materialism, actually identifies it as a reason as to why the pair couldn't get married. In a quite clever way, it doesn't let either part of the pair off the hook and places all the blame on the other person, both made mistakes and had to apologise for them. To me, that is a fairly good message. I also liked the secondary plot lines, one for each character. Samantha struggles with having moved to the other coast and being away from New York and finally has to decide where she really wants to be - with her friends or with her boyfriend. Miranda kicks Steve out when he miserably admits to having cheated on her once and must ask herself whether she wants to end it with him permanently or take the hard path of trying to forgive him eventually. Finally Charlotte is pregnant even though doctors have told her before that this is very unlikely to ever happen and she has to find a way to deal with her worries that anything she might do, such as daily jogging or stress might be bad for the baby. Alright, that last storyline really isn't that exciting and insightful but nevertheless, they are all storylines that dealt with topics that I could relate to at least in some way and they also dealt with them in clever and honest ways.

Overall I did enjoy the first movie a lot and naturally I was excited for the second one. Sadly, it didn't live up to my (admittedly high) expectations. One of the things that I felt was really difficult was getting into "the flow" of the movie because for the most part it just felt as if there was none. The movie starts out with a gay wedding which is funny but extremely stereotypical and nearly the antithesis to the humble cute little wedding that we saw in the movie before that, completely bombastic with swans and glitter and Liza Minelli. After that wedding we get the exposition to the storylines that are going to be pursued through that movie. Charlotte's new baby is constantly bawling and even though she has a nanny available almost 24/7 she feels extremely upset by it. Samantha is starting to feel the onset of menopause. Miranda is frustrated in her job, which leaves her almost no time at all for her family. And finally Carrie and Mr. Big have problems settling into their married life. While she wants to go out and have dinner at glamorous restaurants (at least once in a while) he prefers to stay in, eat take-away food and finally things escalate when he buys a big flatscreen TV "for Carrie" at their anniversary.

Then for some reason our four protagonists fly to Abu Dhabi to take some time off and relax. In perfect imperialist manner they reside at the finest hotel available and each have a personal servant, which takes care of them 24 hours a day if they so instruct them. This was maybe the first thing that made me sort of uncomfortable. A bunch of rich girls fly to the Arab Emirates and live there like princesses. There is even a scene where they drive by a pair of (presumably poor) goat shepherds in a big white Mercedes Benz (if I recall correctly), cheering and waving at them. Am I the only person who finds this highly tasteless? I really don't know. Carrie is also faced with the release of her new book, which gets a bad review but somehow it's hard for the audience to care about such a minor thing, when they are in a country where the gap between rich and poor is so big and yet they are sitting there and living in complete decadence. Of course you could also say the same thing about the episodes that take place in the USA, but in that movie you also have this exoticising orientalist gaze on the foreign country, which makes me uncomfortable, especially in the light of the most recent wars that the USA participated or is participating in. I just didn't feel like "rich girl comes to strange country but look how luxurious everything is!!" was a tasteful depiction of the Middle East at all. To be fair, Carrie also seems to be uncomfortable at the thought of having a servant but it doesn't make up for how gratuitous they make use of the luxury that is offered to them.

I also have to say that the storylines all progress in a kind of bland and stupid way. Samanthas heat flushes and vaginal dryness magically disappear when she encounters some hot guy and Charlotte and Miranda's storylines pretty much peak in a drinking night where they complain (or some may say 'bitch and whine') about how hard they have it in life, Miranda with her job and Charlotte with her unruly child. Carrie runs into Aidan at a bazaar and ends up having dinner with him and kissing him. This is played up to be something hugely dramatic and finally all four protagonists unite to debate whether or not Carrie should tell Mr. Big about this. In the end she does tell him, he doesn't pick her up from the airport, they aren't talking for a bit and then they get together again, Miranda quits her job, Samantha has sex with the new guy and Charlotte occasionally takes some time off and feels more relaxed. The end. Seriously, all of these storylines, compared to the ones that they dealt with in the first movie were just plain stupid and the resolutions that they found weren't very innovative at all.

Then of course you also have the social commentary on gender politics in Abu Dhabi. I think that they meant well but everything comes off as rather hamfisted. It all ends with our four protagonists entering a secret hideout of Arabian women, who throw off their burkas to reveal... the latest fashion collection from New York! See? These women, even though they wear burkas, are just like us! Awww! Yeah, I think they really did mean well, but it just came across as completely stupid. At least to me. Equalling fashion with femininity or even with feminism is rather questionable.

What I enjoyed the most about the first film, which was the dealing with problems of every day life in a believable and intelligent way, was completely absent from the second movie. Moreover, we have a lot of really questionable stuff. I think the way in which the other culture was portrayed in this movie was very insensitive and generally dumb. In the light of recent events I think it's just uncomfortable to watch such a careless depiction of the Middle East on screen. And where the message of the first movie was "less is more" and "content over form" the second movie comes across as the antithesis of this. Thus it wasn't very surprising for me in the end that I didn't like it at all. The first movie was a piece of heartwarming and clever entertainment but my verdict for the second movie is: soulless, materialist and dumb piece of junk.

Yet another Vampire-series? True Blood review

Yet another Vampire-series? Not really. Based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris, True Blood is not quite your average vampire-fare. With movies like Twilight the vampire genre has become extremely mainstream during the last few years. But can new and interesting things be found in a series that deals with the same old motifs?

True Blood does have its original elements, one being that the existence of vampires has now officially been acknowledged by the whole population and the vampires must start their fight for equal rights. Also, rest assured, True Blood's vampires do not sparkle, they have real fangs and they can only leave their dwellings at night. But it is not the vampires from which most of the attraction to this series comes. I found that the theme of the fight for equal rights was very nicely done and something refreshing to see in that context. True Blood takes away some of the mysterious fantasy elements to gain a little bit of realism of what would happen if vampires really came "out of the coffin" in this day and age.

Apart from that True Blood is ripe in blood and sex (although, if you are thrown off my HBO-graphic-level sex scenes, rest assured they get slightly less frequent as the first season progresses) but also offers a dangerous amount of trashiness. I don't think I can ever quite make peace with this aspect of the series, but at least in the first season the trashiness is kept to a minimum. Parts of season two and three were all too overly dramatic and silly for my taste but other aspects balanced that out.

As most series that focus for the most part on the relationship between two lovers, it runs into the same problem after the first season. The couple has found each other... what do they do now? To keep it interesting between the two, obstacles are being thrown into their way on every occasion and thus we are witness to more than one petty, silly fight. This could also be observed in Grey's Anatomy for example. They have finally gotten each other, why must we find reasons for the two of them to fight now? Can't they be happy for once? That is one aspect that does get on the viewer's nerves after a while in True Blood. For some reason the major and minor characters can never get to know a really good person and be happy for a longer period of time.

Another similar aspect takes a bit of the joy of True Blood away as well, this one not a common romance trope but more common to the mystery and horror genre: The beings that are being fought within the series have to get progressively older, mightier and harder to beat. Supernatural followed that scheme ad nauseum, until that series turned from your fun little monster-of-the-week hunt into a would-be epic tale about the apocalypse, angels and demons and shit, alienating a large part of their viewers in the progress. Rest assured, True Blood doesn't quite go down that path as horribly as Supernatural did it, but it does have its tendencies to make the baddies bigger and badder every season.

However, the redeeming qualities of the series still are strong. First of all, the very peculiar setting of the series in Lousiana might appeal to your tastes if you are interested in that area. I started becoming interested in the South when I played Left 4 Dead 2 and I was pleased to find the same landscapes and accent in the series. Just that unusual swampy, rural setting is a joy in itself to behold. Other than that there are the quite progressive themes. Racism among humans doesn't suddenly disappear even though a new altogether inhuman race demanding equal rights appeared out of nowhere. And especially season two deals with the effects of religious fundamentalism in a way that is quite remarkable for an American TV series. Another thing that I just have to mention is that True Blood, while of course focusing on people of slim and athletic build, does also feature characters of a variety of shape and age. There aren't a whole lot of ribs and breast bones staring you straight in the face.

True Blood isn't subtle, it isn't necessarily smart, it can be trashy at times but it does keep you entertained, its characters are engaging and its setting is beautiful and unusual. Give it a go, see if you like it. If you have been looking for new vampire stuff to watch you are probably used to slightly trashy material anyway. Also, did you see? Its opening montage begins with a shot of an axolotl. Isn't that awesome?

Winter is coming... to HBO in 2011! (Game of Thrones preview)

As the year is rapidly drawing to a close (I bet you, next time you look around it will be christmas!), I thought it would be high time to take a look at what exciting things await us in the year of 2011. There is a bunch of new stuff coming out, as well as old beloved series getting a renewal but we will go at it one preview at a time. This one here is about HBO's brand new epic fantasy series A Game of Thrones.



If you are into fantasy literature and have been so inclined for a certain time already it would be a surprise if you weren't familiar with George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire or had at least heard a mention of it at some point while getting recommendations for what to read next. A Song of Ice and Fire is hard to sum up in a few sentences but it starts out as tale set in a world where magic is but a forgotten whisper, where monsters and undead are only the subject of old wives' tales and all dragons have long been slain. The old Targaryen king has been slain by his own guard, his heirs driven away beyond the sea into a strange exotic land. And in the North, beyond the 7000 feet tall wall of ice, unknown things start to stir. Ser Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell receives notice that his friend the king (who some might call usurper) is intending to make him his new advisor after their old mutual friend died under dubious circumstances. Thus the noble Ser Eddard Stark travels south to where his old friend reigns and tries to shine a ray of light into the thick swamp of schemes he finds there.

I started reading A Song of Ice and Fire some time in high school, after I had gotten two recommendations for the same series by two people from different countries. I thought: Hey, maybe there is something to it! And they were right, A Song of Ice and Fire will suck you in pretty quickly, provided you don't have a problem juggling with the names of its many major and minor characters. Rest assured, if you run into difficulties remembering everyone at first, it's nearly impossible to get everything on your first read through. At least one re-read should be recommended, you will suddenly notice so much more stuff that at first didn't make sense.

However, this article is not about the book series. I wouldn't even go as far as saying that A Song of Ice and Fire is the best fantasy book series there is, but it is definitely high up there because I am a picky person when it comes to fantasy. Still, it was apparently good enough to finally pique the interest of HBO and thus, this article is about the adaption that will premiere at HBO in 2011.

I have followed the production of this series from its very beginning, from the time on when there were rumours about the script, when the script was leaked, when the pilot got its greenlight, when the first casting choices were made, when the pilot was shot, when the series got the greenlight from HBO and until now, while they are shooting and new news about minor characters being cast surface quite often. Most of you will probably know what it is like to follow news from the adaption of one of your favourite books. If there is a popular source material loyal fans will be very picky.

But I have to say that everything I have looked at so far (especially the leaked script... if that was real) just looks amazing! You know fans don't say that easily, they always have something to nitpick. But I am truly happy with a lot of the casting choices. I think Sean Bean will make a great Ser Eddard Stark, I am confident Lena Heady as Queen Cersei will be appropriately icy. I am really excited to see Peter Dinklage's (the first casting choice that surfaced, btw) performance as Tyrion Lannister and personally I don't think they could have picked a better Jon Snow than Kit Harington. He looks exactly, one hundred percent like I always imagined Jon. And hopefully this will be an opportunity for Rory McCann to shine and show himself to an international audience beyond saying 'yarp'. I could continue like this for pretty much all of the cast. The only casting choice I ever felt "meh" about was when Tamzin Merchant was cast as Daenerys Targaryen. However, as if to answer to my every wish, her role was recast after the pilot and the scenes were reshot with Emilia Clarke. I am ridiculously happy with this cast. A few big names and familiar faces, along with a lot of fresh new faces that can surprise us all! Seriously, in the department of casting I don't have a single thing that irks me.

Now, of course I will have to watch the first episode at least before judging this series but so far this is a complete thumbs-up from me. We haven't gotten a whole lot of official promotional material yet. Some atmospheric picture of a winter forest, probably taken from the prologue scene from the pilot, which takes place beyond the wall. Some pictures of little Maisie Williams posing with her tiny sword Needle, looking just as if Arya had stepped right out of the page. The highlights are two rather tiny teaser trailers and one little featurette about the series. You can watch them over here: http://winter-is-coming.net/media/videos/ (Incidentally, the Winter is Coming blog has been my primary source of information about this adaption from the very beginning and they are the best). Everything you can see so far looks very polished and high budget. This is what we fans expect from HBO after all.

So, my verdict for this TV series long before the pilot will air is as follows. You all probably know that sometimes when you closely follow news about an adaption of your favourite book or graphic novel that at some point you can sort of tell they are screwing it up. They are changing things that shouldn't be changed or they cut entire characters that are important later on. With Game of Thrones, so far there has been no such nonsense. Nothing! Everything I have seen so far makes it look so very promising. My expectations for this series are really high. This could be something special, something really big that even people who aren't into fantasy will take note of. I really hope HBO will deliver when it does come out but so far, everything really looks spot on and you can take that from a very picky person. And you don't know how long I have waited to see the words "Winter is coming to HBO in 2011"!