An Ideal Husband Part 2

A few posts ago I wrote about Oscar Wilde's play "An Ideal Husband", which is one of my favorite plays, although I have never seen it performed, because it's not that famous. I wanted to see it fleshed out somehow.

So I finally bit the bullet and rented the DVD of "An Ideal Husband", the one with Rupert Everett. I was reluctant to check out this version because I read so many bad reviews of it, but someone told me she liked Rupert Everett's performance as Lord Goring, and that it was a good movie. I suppose it was an OK movie, as long you have not read the play. I suppose Rupert Everett was good, as long as you don't know about Lord Goring. I suppose I should start at the beginning.

There were some good things about this film. The costumes were beautiful, as were the sets. As a production designer and a fan of Victorian fashion, this was a real treat. Some of the performances were very good, especially Kate Blanchett, but then again, she's always good.

Rupert Everett was good too, just as a performance, but not necessarily the way I picture Lord Goring. I liked a couple of parts where he gets philosophical and passionate, and yet still tries to maintain his airhead dandyish facade, even though it's painful, and he needs his friends to listen to him. However, other than that, I think he was miscast. For one thing, Lord Goring is supposed to possess an easy grace and disarming wit that is effortless, and it's pleasantly surprising and sort of thrilling when he turns he turns out to be intelligent and morally upright. It seemed more like he was trying too hard to seem frivolous, and he was sort of brooding. It's hard to put my finger on it, but he didn't seem very Lord Goring-like.

The biggest problem was simply the adaptation. Half the play wasn't in the movie, which is typical, but half the movie wasn't in the play, which is far worse! During the entire second half of the film, one thought kept going through my mind: "Not in the play!" If you took a drink every time a line of dialogue (or even an entire conversation) was not in the play, you wouldn't last halfway through the film, and the first half was relatively faithful. Not only was it annoying to not see most of my favorite lines and exchanges, but some of the changes were to actual themes and plot, and to the characters' motivations. I won't give any spoilers, but let's just say it was very shallow compared to the play, and many of the plot twists toward the end were over-explained, showing the screenwriters' apparent contempt for the audience's intelligence, or else rewritten, showing their apparent contempt for Oscar Wilde.

Steampunk Con!

What's this? What's this? A steampunk con?!?! I guess I know what I'm doing next year. Now I have to figure out how to save money and make costumes for this, Labyrinth of Jareth, and Comicon! What's a girl to do? I better start scrounging up some art supplies extra early - it would be gouche to wear the same outfit to all 3 (although I probably will). I'm so happy!

Man, those are some serious costumes. I'll have to step it up. (Competetive)

The best steam car ever made!

Jay Leno's got a little steampunk in him it seems. Here's his Doble steam car. The video is long, but totally worth it.

update: 5/25/11 The video disappeared so I updated the link. Now you have to watch commercials before the video plays, but it's still very cool.

Steampunk games!

This being National Novel(a) Writing Month, I am writing a steampunk adventure story. Naturally that means I am spending an inordinate amount of time playing video games (as well as looking at airship videos on youtube, reading comics, looking at old photos and other "research"). So I thought it would be time well spent to write about a couple of steampunk games. One of them actually inspires me a great deal when I write my book (it's about flying, you see, among other things) and that is Skygunner for the PS2. Just the opening video for this game makes you feel like you are actually flying! It's just a beautiful game. The story is fair, and the cutscenes are a little flat, but it has wonderful, lovely airships, nice lighting, and very pretty dogfighting. Speaking of dogfighting, this game has a really nice feel to it. Now I am horrible at dogfighting games. This one has a simplified system that some die-hard flying game fans might find boring, but you can also choose a harder, more technical setup. The game has 3 characters with 3 levels of difficulty, and other characters are unlockable. (Actually the 3rd character must be unlocked, but you just have to beat the game with either character and you can play him) It starts out easy and rapidly becomes more difficult, keeping you on your toes. I am still trying to unlock my favorite character, but he's impossible! A nice touch for this game is you can choose English or Japanese.

The other steampunk game I like is Steambot Chronicle, also for PS2. It takes place at the dawn of the electric age, and it is a sandbox style game. It has a pretty good plot, with various endings and such, and you can run around and do all kinds of stuff and customize your robot. I spend a LOT of time painting my robot and putting an umbrella on top and taking the girl characters on picnics. It's also very pretty, particularly the lighting for certain times of day. Just a word of warning, you cannot pick the language on this game - there is only English or Off. Choose Off, because the dub causes internal bleeding and brain damage. It will make you embarrassed to be playing this game, even when no one is there. There is a sequel that looks soooo pretty, but I don't know if it's coming out here. . . .

An Ideal Husband

I just read the play "An Ideal Husband" by Oscar Wilde, and I believe it may be my favorite play! (Aside from "Arms and the Man" and "Arsenic and Old Lace") I have heard people say it is not Wilde's wittiest play, but somehow I don't think it was supposed to be. I wish people wouldn't dismiss him as a silly quote-factory. As "An Ideal Husband" and "Picture of Dorian Gray" reveal, he actually had an interesting view of morality that went far beyond just contradicting society's expectations. His emphasis was on free will, charity, forgiveness, and love, and also what happens when one is denied (or denies oneself) those things. Also on fashion and wittiness. Probably about half of Dorian Gray is descriptions of people's clothes and home furnishings.

Anyway, back to the play. It has the coolest speechifying villain. She's so evil. It also has the most wonderful hero, Lord Goring. He's a dandy who is the shame of his father and is basically idle and frivolous, yet he is pretty much the only character with a real understanding of morality and the guts to act on it. He's also adorable when he plays the airhead. It's actually a very suspensful little play. And it does have it's fair share of witticisms and jabs at Victorian culture, but it's no "Importance of Being Earnest"

Halloween costume.

This Halloween I went as a steampunk vampire hunter. There are more pictures here. I still want to stain the box part so it mathces the round barrel on top. It hangs a little low, but it's kind of heavy. I like how the gun turned out, and the little pipe parts on the side. Now I just need to sharpen some spikes, load up the gattling gun, and start slaying the undead!

This took aout 3 weeks to make, not including the clothing, most of which I already had. I love thrift stores and used building supply yards. It consists mostly of a shoebox, an ice bucket, and a Nerf gun. I took apart a clock, and that provided the dome of plastic, and almost all the small brass bits. It has some sink handles, some soda bottles, and lots of paint. I gotta say, I love Mighty Putty! It is worth the price - I glued a piece of metal to a piece of glass! The next most expensive thing was the spray paint.

The whole idea came from some raffia garlic I found at Michaels. I make Victorian top hats, most of which are very fancy, in all different colors. As soon as I saw the garlic, I thought it should it should go on a hat, and the hat should go on a vampire hunter. If I was avampire hunter in a steampunk setting, I would use holy water in my boilers. Then if vampires tried to climb on my robot (atmomaton) or sneak up on me, I would poof out some steam, and they would get burned twice (once from hot steam and once from the holy water)

NeoClassicicsm

I had a neo-classical dream. I dreamed there was a grove in the forest, with fruit hanging from trees. There were ladies in flowing Greek dresses picking the fruit. (I think this image came from the Mary Cassat mural in the Women's building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition here) In the middle of the grove was a bower of white flowers with a young man reclining on it. He was wearing a pale gray morning coat and top hat. (He looked kind of like Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club.) He said "These are the fruits of knowledge and science". I went into grove and watched them picking fruit, but I noticed that there was something moving among the undergrowth.

There were satyrs who kept trying to take the fruit.

Maybe this is about the misuse of science, or consumerism or something like that. Or maybe I read too much weird stuff before going to bed. . . .