A Shade of Purple

Don't you wish you were in a movie?

Cecelia did. And she almost found true love too.

Who would have thought a work of Woody Allen within these blogs regarding science fiction movies? And yet here it is. The film called Purple Rose of Cairo which was made in 1985.

It's a beautiful movie. But it's got a checkered history with me since it's taken me nearly a quarter of a century to finally get around to watching it. And it is a pure delight from start to finish.

I wish I would have seen it sooner.

However, there might be some films I would not have enjoyed as a teenager. I have been a long time fan of Allan and his works since I was thirteen years old. When I was a teenager, I would have gone for his funnier films such as the Sleeper.

But Purple Rose of Cairo might have a maturity about it not appealing to me when I was younger. Now I'm older, wiser, maybe a little more cranky, but I'm seeing movies in a different light. For me, Purple Rose really hits it on the head.

Allan wrote and directed the film. But it's one of the few movies at the time that he wasn't in front of the camera. I can see why. You'll need a younger, more handsome man that Allan wouldn’t be capable of doing. So the role of the dashing hero was given to Jeff Daniels who did a very nice job bringing the part to life.

The story revolves a Cecilia played by Mia Farrow who works as a waitress in New Jersey during the depression era in the nineteen thirties. She has a hard time with work as her boss hassles her, and lives in a very abusive marriage where she is the constant victim of her husband's rages. So she goes to a place where she could leave reality for a short while.

So where do people go during the depression era to get away for a short while? The movies. And this is what Cecilia did.

With rather funny results.

The so called minor character Tom Baxter is an archaeologist in Egypt in a film within a film called Purple Rose of Cairo. But after repeated viewings, Cecilia sees Tom Baxter split off from the actual movie and steps into her life as a true romantic, a lively hero type who falls in love with her. So he is a character in a story who becomes part of the real world. Our own world. Marred, ugly, confused. Not light and dark as Baxter’s world would be.

There are a lot of very funny scenes in the movie. Not an outrageous comedy. But the funny material really works well here. And so we are introduced to an unusual love triangle involving Cecilia, her husband and the fictional character who wants to steal her heart to his world of make-believe.

There are a lot of nice touches in the film.

I really love the one line when someone says regarding the fictional character coming to life: “Well, anything can happen in New Jersey!”

So now we have established the science fiction elements of the story with this throwaway line. It works very well.

You can clearly see the black and white movie was produced by RKO Radio Pictures which was known for making many, many movies during this period including the famous original King Kong classic. (Which would have come out a few years earlier). In a way, Purple Rose gives a historical flavor to the movie by bringing RKO Pictures into this.

Allen is the master as writing many characters conversing at once. It is like going to a family reunion and getting involved with a heated debate over nothing. Maybe you might get into a fight with an aunt you hate. Or a cousin. Same thing here. The first scene where Baxter leaves the film and steps into the real world is very funny. The characters in the movie starts to argue with themselves. And then they start to argue with the real people in the audience!

The fight scene between Baxter and Cecelia’s husband is priceless.

So is the tap dancing scene when the one guy tossed aside his role as the restaurant greeter in the black and white film and did his little shtick.

But the real heart of the story is the main characters who makes a lot of tough choices. Most particularly Cecilia. You want for her to leave the real world and live in the fantasy with her movie idol. The ending is very heartbreaking because of the choice she makes. And that she forced herself to live in misery of the real world instead of living a sham that would be fantasy.

It is just wishful thinking to be whisked away into a different world where you would have no problems or hardships.

But she chose reality over illusion.

Yet she still goes to the movies in the very ending hoping to find that piece of perfection in her life while she watches a Fred Astaire movie dancing the night away in a seemingly impossible perfect world. And she slips deeper into her own private misery that you could only feel sorry for her. And for many other lovers who find themselves trapped in a relationship they do not want to be in.

Why did it take me so long to see this movie?

I don't know why.

But I'm glad I saw it.

More Doctor Who

There's always been the one constant in the Doctor Who series apart from the time traveling police box which moves like silent thunder through the universe.

The companion. It is the one hook that remains unchanged throughout the series' history. There is always the companion.

More importantly, the Doctor Who series is never really about the Doctor himself.

But it is always about the point of view of the companion who runs along with the Doctor on his travels. This helps for the audience to associate with the stories better.

And it isn't getting any better than the outstanding companion found in Amy Pond played wonderfully by Karen Gillan.

Ah yes, Karen Gillan.

She stands on her own feet in this episode. She is brusque, opinionated, warm and very kindhearted woman, and Scottish! She remains our anchor in the series. She is our life guard and the holds us by our very hand while pulling us into the very intricate matters of the story.

Seeing her in this episode reminds one of “Alice in Wonderland” as she strolls around with just her nightgown on, going down her own rabbit hole of fantasy and wild dreams coming true.

And it is the companion, Amy Pond, who happens to make the final decision, this moral conflict, which haunts the Doctor when they learn that the ship is being carried forth by a space whale that being forced to move the city through space.

She is beautiful and is camera friendly with her face. She has ravishing nest of red hair blooming like strawberry fields, also lovely, big, eyes which are fantastic to see on the screen... and you can see the many different moods which she captures in her more emotional moments. The series is very lucky to have her. And she figures it out in the end of the story, not the Doctor.

The Doctor Who series is riding high on the success of its initial story last week gaining very good ratings. Now it carries forth with a much slower, yet equally fascinating episode “The Beast Below” written by Steven Moffat.

The first ten or so minutes established the mood of the story along with the characters and setting showing the excellent penmanship of the current writer who has a firm grasp on science fiction ideas. We are already invited to a city that is the last of England floating through space on a very dangerous journey to find salvation for the human colony.

There are great signs of influences made by the Dark City which still remains one of my all time favorite films ever. But there is also many steady themes from Moffat which spills into forthcoming stories.

Much of this star whale idea strikes me as if the author himself is dabbling in the Native American culture with the giant tortoise carrying the world on its shoulders. And how the Indians believer that every thing from trees to animals carries souls within.

Much like the space whale, a very lonely, sad soul carrying the weight of the world on its own. Amy saves the creature before the Doctor decides on giving it a humane death by convincing him that the space whale loves humanity and is willing to carry it through the outer reaches of the universe. On its own accord.

It's a very nice, touching moment. And this is where the companion saves the day. It gives Karen Gillan some very good acting chops to serve up a lovely scene when she says the space whale is the last of its kind... and recognizes the same beauty in the Doctor who is also the last of his own people.

But the episode pulls at no stops. The wooden creatures fitted in booths, like the ones you see in carnivals, are strange beings themselves. You see these wooden people sitting in booths with three different expressions: Smiling, Not So Smiling and Downright Angry.

These Smileys, as they are referred to as, are pretty frightening looking creatures and I'm glad to see that Moffat is bringing more horror elements into the stories reminding me of the wonderful old horror stories from the Tom Baker days of Doctor Who. Not terribly scary. But the Hide-Behind-Your-Sofa kind of scare that gives children a fun side to the stories.

I also like the character of Liz 10 acted by the very good Sophie Okonedo. She has a very action oriented style which brings the show to a higher pace while holding her own with a very interesting character playing the Queen of England... the gun-toting girl who carries an authoritative voice. She plays a double sided role as she wears a mask, much like in V for Vendetta comics, while trying to solve the mystery of the floating city. And you find that her character is far more complex than originally accepted.

Yes, there is a reason why she is called Liz 10.

I found the episode to be very appropriate for being the second show of the season. There is a certain strangeness to it that is appealing while you discover more and more imaginative concepts created by Stephen Moffat. The current headlining writer Moffat is going to be penning six stories for this season... already bring a great mixed bag of ideas and concepts that is breaking new ground. I am in love with the Doctor Who series again.

The themes are all still weaving through the stories... the Doctor is trying to get Amy back to her wedding day, the mysterious cracks that are appearing in time and space and the Doctor being the last of the Time Lords. These are essential themes. And they are the building blocks of the forthcoming series.

I also must say that the Doctor seems to be able to accept that he is the last of his own people without growing so bitter about it. And yet, with the excellent acting of Matt Smith, the Doctor is still a wounded man inside. He is still carrying the weight of pain inside him as he carries the memory of his own people.

But now there is still some hope for him not to be feeling so alone. He has Amy Pond now. And the girl will take care of him just as the Doctor will take care of her. And this becomes the very center of the story for “The Beast Below”: their relationship they have together. The episode does end with Amy being whisked away again by the Doctor without going to her wedding as she will soon confront the greatest of the Doctor's foes.

The Daleks.

I'm already waiting for the next episode.

What? A New Doctor Who?

What can I say?

It's a great joy seeing the Doctor Who series coming around again to the television screens after a while.

Never mind Easter. I want my Doctor Who.

And I got it. In more ways than one.

There's a new actor fitting himself into the lead role, and he brings with it a bristling charm and youthful appearance as Matt Smith slips into the part with ease. The wonderful thing about a series like Doctor Who is the ability to change the actor in the lead role while still being able to tell the story of a time traveling meddler.

Smith brings all his acting experience he has at the age of twenty-six, the youngest actor to be taking the mantle for the series. He plays it as if he is an older man in a very youthful body. There's a great enthusiasm being unleashed in his performance.

The opening shot of the episode “The Eleventh Hour” is going out in a blaze of glory. It's a wonderful scene filled with action. Having just regenerated into a new body, the Doctor must now contend with his time traveling machine crashing to earth... and in the middle of London.

It's great to see them messing around with stuff like this which brings the new actor right slap in the middle of things.

But the beauty of the story, the very center of a heartfelt tale, is in the newfound companion who befriends the Doctor when he crashes in her back yard. It is like a tale of the dashing, young hero, her knight in shining armor coming to take her away from the boredom of life. She is Amelia Pond, a very young girl of age ten. She is the first human the Doctor sees in his new form.

And it's a very touching moment.

Amelia Pond is a little redhead girl who has found her hero. And she says to him when he climbs back into his time machine, “Can I come with you?”

The Doctor promises to come back to her in five minutes.

It becomes twelve years instead.

And Amelia Pond is now all grown up played by the wonderful Karen Gillan, a little girl who has become resentful of her hero. She has become disappointed in her wonderful, dashing knight. It sets up a great conflict between them as the Doctor must convince her that he is the very same man of her childhood memories.

Not only that, the earth is in danger as a creature called Prisoner Zero is on the loose, and the very status of the world is threatened by an alien race who act as a prison warden keeping the prisoner in line. But the menacing creature is hiding itself along with the human race. And the Doctor has just twenty minutes to save the world.

It's a real tough break for the new Doctor Who.

Leave it to three time Hugo award winning writer Stephen Moffatt who pulls no punches with his introducing story of the new round of episodes. “The Eleventh Hour” is filled with so many heart warming moments... and it is the little things that makes up this story and sets it apart from the previous run of stories. “The Eleventh Hour” has so much style to it, clever gimmicks and a wild imagination. Thanks to Moffatt.

I love how one scene shows what is going on in the Doctor's mind. It's a simple technique involving stop action photography. And yet there is a great style to it all. You really get inside his head this time and it's very cool to see his point of view.

Karen Gillan is brilliant as Amelia Pond who is feisty, very sharp tongue girl, a very strong woman capable of making her own decisions. They may not be always the right decisions. But she sticks to her decisions especially when she shoves the Doctor's necktie into a locked car door so she could tear an answer out of him. It's a great scene.

What I also did like about this particular episode is the references of the previous shows in the old Doctor Who series. I remember seeing one reporter saying at the premiere showing of “The Eleventh Hour” regarding the lead actor: “He has pretty big shoes to fill... replacing David Tennant.”

But there are at least nine other actors who came before him.

The nice thing is the gentle nod to these other actors who make up the show's composite history, the montage of its long years on television. So Moffatt was writing this show with giving his nod to all those who came into its history. And now Matt Smith is the eleventh actor to be playing the part.

It's pure fun to see the show. There's a new lead writer, a new lead actor and new lead actress. There's a new feeling about it all. The show always experiences an anxiety from the audiences whenever there is a new actor stepping into the part. People get worried. Will it suck the bean bag? Will it be any good?

You don't have to worry about any of that.

The show is in very good hands.

Trust me on this.

And trust the new Doctor.

So this is really only a taste of things to come for the forthcoming Doctor Who series this time around with thirteen episodes produced. So I could only imagine the greatness approaching in another fine period of Doctor Who history.

Some people might not like it. They're missing out on the fun. For me, I'm very happy for the series to continue the tradition of Saturday night entertainment. And it's like I'm being dragged again by the Doctor himself into another round of adventures.

In a way, the Doctor is everyone's hero. I'm very excited. So should you.