Hosting Issues

Of course, I pun. This isn't 'hosting issues' in the internet sense, it's a little bit about the movie of Stephanie Meyer's 'other' story... that one that doesn't feature sparkly, abusive vampires and werewolves that imprint on infants.

When I read The Host, it didn't exactly come with a glowing recommendation but, taking it at face value, one page at a time, I actually kinda enjoyed it (yes - this is a thirtysomething male admitting that he rather enjoyed a piece of writing by Ms. Meyer, polluter of millions of teenage minds with the execrable Twilight series), right up until the final chapter, where it went all typically Meyer creepy.

The reason I liked it can be summed up thusly: It's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but from the point of view of one of the Body Snatchers.

To elaborate... Aliens have invaded and subjugated almost the entire human race, and one of these many-tentacled sparkly worm things (because, come on, it's a Stephanie Meyer book, so something's gonna sparkle!) has been implanted into a recent human detainee in an effort to track down any pockets of resistance she may be aware of. So far, so blah... but these aliens - or 'Souls', as they like to refer to themselves (thus throwing the audience into a great theological debate about the soullessness of humans in this day and age) - have brought the world together. War, famine, disease, greed and advertising - all the great plagues - are gone. People are polite to each other, cooperative, honest... but that's just the thing - they're not human any more.

Frankly, the book barely touched on the burning issues - that of the aliens' naivete, for example, in not understanding that humans, unlike all the other animals they've occupied in their travels across the universe, are fully sentient and, supposedly therefore, fully aware of our self-destructive ways, choosing to continue down that path because of our inherent self-loathing and distrust of others. Instead, it preferred to tread somewhat familiar Meyer territory of a girl in love with two guys... only she's not 'a girl' she's a subjugated human and the parasite that invaded her.

The film, meanwhile, takes us even further from anything genuinely interesting as Science Fiction/Speculative Fiction, preferring to tell us one minute that the aliens didn't change anything, they just 'fixed' it, only to show us little fragments of a world very much changed by their intervention... not least the aliens' fixation on pristine white clothing and mirror-chrome vehicles.

As a novel, The Host was an interesting idea that wasn't fully explored because Meyer doesn't 'get' Sci-Fi and probably has little genuine interest in it, even as a source of income. As a film it was a reasonably entertaining excuse for scoffing popcorn, and a decent enough date movie. William Hurt tried to bring some gravitas to one of Meyer's Mary-Sue (or whatever the male equivalent is) tertiary characters, and Diane Kruger had next to nothing to work with in portraying the Seeker whose host is fighting back (and nothing was said of the host after the removal of the Soul, so the Seeker wasn't quite so sympathetic in the end). Neither were explored in any depth... but then, this is just an adaptation of romantic fluff...

I may as well give honourable mentions to G.I. Joe: Retaliation, long-delayed sequel to 2009's Rise of Cobra, and Oz, The Great and Powerful, prequel to The Wizard of Oz, presenting an alternative to the musical Wicked. The former kills off one of the very few original cast members within the first half hour or so, yet still manages to be a more convincing movie-of-its-subject-matter than either of the first two TransFormers movies. It doesn't feature quite so much high-tech weaponry - which must surely be a blow for Hasbro's movie tie-in toyline... except that the toyline would always be extended beyond what appeared in the movie anyway - but, to be honest, the only real fault was the lack of returning characters, particularly the Baroness, whose tight leather armour is the only reason to get truly excited about a G.I. Joe movie.

The latter movie was basically the usual schmaltz about self-belief being the key to unlocking one's true potential and, in many ways, it came across more like a Tim Burton movie than a Sam Raimi movie. Sure, it had the cameos by the director's brother and Bruce Campbell, but the technicolour wackiness reminded me of Burton's take on Alice in Wonderland. All it was missing was Johnny Depp as Oz.

That said, James Franco did an excellent job, switching convincingly between the brash, blustering showman and the self-doubting con-artist with barely a twitch of his moustache, and Mila Kunis did equally well as the naive 'good' witch, only going overboard after her Snow White moment.

On balance, I think I prefer Wicked as a prequel, if only because it was a tighter story and featured some brilliant songs (this prequel, perhaps criminally, has no musical numbers at all), but I guess the two stories are aimed at rather different audiences.

Spent a while yesterday larking about with my niece, and getting a little frustrated with her attention-seeking ("Stop reading the newspaper!") until being introduced to Chokie, a glove puppet Koala. In the way of all such things, Chokie developed a personality all his own, perched on the end of my arm. Each time Kate tried to tell a joke (invariably ending with a completely bizarre non sequitur), Chokie responded with increasing sarcasm and a whole stream of jokes with actual punchlines, most so far beyond a nearly-four-year-old's diminutive ken, but easily cracking up her mother and our folks. According to my sister, this was the first time Chokie has spoken with an Australian accent (seriously? He's a goddamn Koala!), and she and her husband will now have to work extra hard to bring back Chokie's charming, loveable personality, now that Kate has been introduced to my interpretation.

My work here is done.

Finally caught up with BBC3's In The Flesh this morning, and was absolutely not surprised by how it went. It perhaps didn't go as far as I might have wanted/expected, and some of its metaphorising was, if predictable, not predicted. Plenty of ground was left unexplored, so I suspect another series has been planned... though whether it actually happens in anyone's guess... This is the company that canned The Fades, after all.