After struggling endlessly to read traditional textual books, I decided, for sake of my mental health, to stop, even though I was in the middle of a fantasy trilogy, which to me is no big loss since I didn’t really care about the characters, the setting, or whatnot, and the books will probably never be adapated to feature film, anyway. From now on, I’ll only be reading books that have been adapted into film or will be adapted into film, are part of series I genuinely care about and love (like Star Wars), graphic novels, comics, nonfiction books that aren’t puff pieces or hatchet jobs or in any fashion political or antireligious, and so forth. Decluttering my life in this regard has actually been mildly therapeutic, surprisingly.
I may have heard of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows before seventh grade before I read the actual book, given its intelligent animal cast. After reading it, it remained one of my all-time favorite pieces of literature, mildly influential upon my written word. Numerous adaptations have spawned since the dawn of film and television (most on the latter), with Disney being among the earliest studios to take a crack at it by combining it with their interpretation of Washington Irving’s completely unrelated short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Among the more contemporary (sort of) adaptations is the 1995 British animated television film produced by the TVC (Television Cartoons) in London (likely defunct since nothing has come out of the studio since 2001). It opens with a live-action sequence where a Victorian woman begins to tell her children the tale, which quickly morphs into a full-fledged animated film. The story proper starts with Mole, disillusioned with spring cleaning, emerging from his underground home to meet and befriend Ratty (just called Rat in this adaptation), with both having a picnic with another river inhabitant, Otter, and his young pup, Portly.
Then they join the wealthy Mr. Toad, who takes them on a trip with his gypsy caravan, but the amphibian hastily develops a fascination with motor vehicles when one causes his carriage to crash. The following spring, Ratty, Mole, and their friend, Mr. Badger, attempt to dissuade their amphibian friend from his obsessions, but he steals and crashes a car, earning a score-long prison sentence. He ultimately escapes with the help of the jailer’s daughter, encountering various tribulations before reuniting with his companions and taking back Toad Hall when weasels seize it.
Overall, I enjoyed this adaptation, though I can’t wholly attest to its faithfulness to the source material (but it seems to do so, at least in my memory). The bookends of the Victorian woman telling her children the story seem unnecessary. However, I liked the various costumes of the animal characters, Otter in particular, and the animation was pleasant. I would gladly reread the book were I to get the time and watch its other adaptations, probably excluding the live-action ones since most seem to star humans that look nothing like the animals they allegedly play. Regardless, I don’t regret watching this film and would recommend it.
The first entry of author J.A. Andrews’ The Keeper Chronicles fantasy series opens with the protagonist, the “Deeper” Alaric, riding through the wilderness on his trustworthy horse Beast, his destination the stronghold of the order to which he belongs, the franchise’s eponymous Keepers. Alaric seeks an antidote to his wife Evangeline’s poisoning, during which she is in magical stasis. He believes a mystical artifact known as the Wellstone holds the key to healing his beloved, with the long-deceased Kordan, a Keeper and wicked sorcerer, potentially holding further clues in one of his old logs.
Alaric bands with the dwarf Douglon, the elf Ayda, the old sorcerer Wizendorenfurderfur the Wondrous (Gustav for short), and a young man named Brandson to seek the Wellstone. Douglon has issues with his cousin Patlon; their rivalry gets a sizeable focus later in the novel. The party travels to Bone Valley, where they encounter a dragon with whom Ayda attempts communication to ward off. Revelations abound regarding Ayda’s backstory, a betrayal, and consequential quest to stop the resurrection of Mallon, a ruthless Shade Seeker with the title of “Rivor” who disappeared eight years before the book’s events.
Overall, despite the negative first impression given by the glaring error in the book’s opening sentence (though mercifully, such oversights aren’t endemic through the novel), I found the first The Keeper Chronicles book to be enjoyable, given the relatively straightforward, linear narrative, unpredictable revelations and twists, and coherent backstory. However, many names are unoriginal, like “Queensland,” and titles like “Rivor” are unusual. Vagueness occasionally abounds as well, with a poor initial explanation of whether King Horgoth is a dwarf or human, not to mention unclear uses of pronouns and phrases like “the gem.” Regardless, I enjoyed this book and will continue reading the series.
I have now filled three hundred-page composition notebooks and a two-hundred-page composition notebook with what I had originally intended to be a rewritten prologue to my original furry fantasy novel. I had bought another two-hundred-page comp notebook in anticipation of this, and I’ll begin the next leg of my story tomorrow.
This 1993 fantasy comedy stars Bill Murray as a snarky, cynical weatherman tasked with covering the annual Groundhog Day festival in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, who becomes entrapped in a time loop that makes him relive the day endlessly. As he does so, he accustoms himself to the various situations in town that recur and discovers that he can make some good of his apparent supernatural situation. The film melds comedy and philosophy well, having some religious allegory and qualifying as iconic, the title and holiday becoming synonymous with unpleasant and repetitive situations. Some of the technology dates it to the first half of the 1990s, but it’s still a bucket-list movie.
Rewatched the Amazon Prime television adaptation of Robert Jordan and later Brandon Sanderson’s Wheel of Time saga once the second season came out. It’s a great alternative to reading the admittedly verbose novels, and is a beautiful series, although some character depictions are a bit off; for instance, the Ogier are way bigger in the books, and Loial is barely bigger than the human characters. The second season mainly focuses on the search for the Horn of Valere, which I remember from the books. I’ll continue watching this.
A prequel to Game of Thrones by about two centuries, focusing on the events leading to the throne succession war known as the “Dance of the Dragons”. Pretty much on par with GoT in terms of narrative and content, and definitely only for mature audiences given its adult content, and I’ll gladly watch on once the second season has run.
There are some good secrets and backstory regarding Albus Dumbledore and his family, and the film’s visual direction is gorgeous like in its predecessors, but the change of actor for Gellert Grindelwald is sort of jarring and doesn’t have any in-universe explanation. Regardless, I am somewhat disappointed the Fantastic Beasts films are probably over for the time since it flopped financially.
The first Fantastic Beasts sequel focuses on magizoologist Newt Scamander as he joins then-Hogwarts-Headmaster Albus Dumbledore (back in 1927) to chase down escaped dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald as he tries to amass a pure-blood wizarding army in a more-divided wizarding world. The visual direction and continuity nods to the Harry Potter books and movies are good, along with some decent twists, but the film doesn’t actually have a lot to do with the eponymous “crimes” of the titular sorcerer, and his motivations at points are actually just, given his foretelling of the Second World War among Muggles, for instance.
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