Along with A Visit from St. Nicholas, there is no more famous Christmas story than Charles Dickens′ A Christmas Carol. Since it debuted in 1843 it’s been reprinted hundreds of times, made into more than 100 films, and its ghostly lesson trope has been incorporated into dozens of TV series. For England, A Christmas Carolmeant the revival of universal celebration of the holiday of Christmas that would spread across the planet, as well as cementing traditions that continue 178 Christmases later. I want to share an idea for your own cold winter read in the tradition of a very Victorian Christmas in England: borg writer Elizabeth C. Bunce’s latest novel, Cold-Blooded Myrtle, the third book in her Edgar Award-winning mystery series. As reviewed in theWall Street Journal this month, “Younger [Sherlock] Holmes fans (and older ones too) should be charmed by Bunce’s Cold-Blooded Myrtle, the latest entry in her series featuring 12-year-old amateur sleuth Myrtle Hardcastle. In 1893, Myrtle receives a double Christmastime shock: the death, in The Final Problem, of her fictional idol Holmes, and the apparent murder of the proprietor of her town’s mercantile store. Tidings of discomfort, indeed.” It’s chock full of Myrtle’s notations on Christmas traditions, including some little-known oddities from Christmases past.
After a year that saw her helping the constabulary discover the murderer of her neighbor and surviving a botched vacation at seaside where she foiled more than one criminal’s efforts, young Myrtle hopes to have an ordinary Christmas. Her current pursuit is simply finding an appropriate present for her unflappable governess–and frequent partner in solving crime–Miss Ada Judson. But when does anything ever go as planned at Christmas?
One hundred and eighty-five years after Hans Christian Andersen first penned his fairy tale The Little Mermaid, the most famous fish out of water story continues to charm readers of all ages. Countless editions of Andersen’s famous story, along with his other famous works, have been printed and reprinted, and adapted for the small screen and big screen with the latest–a live-action version–coming from Disney by the end of the year, incorporating songs from the studio’s 1989 version. But if you haven’t read the original fairy tale lately–or at all–you may be surprised to learn how much closer the 1984 live-action movie Splash was to the original. With the new film on its way, what better time to revisit the original, and we’ve found an incredible new, lavishly illustrated edition from designers MinaLima that makes a great storybook to read to kids, full of interactive elements. Check out a preview ofThe Little Mermaid and Other Fairy Tales for borg readers below, along with some details of what you’ll find inside, including some important fairy tales everyone, of every age, should know.
If The Muppet Christmas Carol (reviewed five years ago here at borg), is a favorite for your family as it is for many, you may have a new item for your wish list. What many consider the most spirited and faithful adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol on film is also available in a storybook edition. Adapted by Brooke Vitale with illustrations by Luke Flowers, The Muppet Christmas Carol: The Illustrated Holiday Classic features an abridged version of the movie in a large, full-color hardcover edition for kids of all ages.
Check out a look inside the book courtesy of Insight Kids:
With the 1868 novel The Moonstone, author Wilkie Collins created what is widely considered to be the first modern English detective novel, creating the key beats that would thereafter make up the framework for the genre. In his earlier work, the 1859 Gothic “sensational” novel The Woman in White, Collins created a suspense thriller that stands up to rich classics including his contemporary Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and Bleak House, all while steeped in the realities of being a 19th century woman documented a decade earlier by Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre, and later, Daphne du Maurier in Rebecca. The BBC 2018 adaptation ofThe Woman in White, streaming now via Amazon Prime, rises to the top of recent British mystery series, a compelling execution that will keep you guessing until the final scenes. Continue reading →
“The waters speak the truth, that they do. Only now have you lived long enough to know the child that you shall always remain. That which dwells in the heart can never be lost to the spirit.”
Some artists’ works are so brilliant, so evocative, so memorable, and so successful, that whenever they draw, sketch, or paint, it turns heads. One of those artists is Bill Sienkiewicz. His 1980s comic book artwork changed the way comic books are approached by artists and readers, forever. His trademark abstract works and his recurring sketches of people making the news are regular features that can make you happy to open your social media application for the day. Put Sienkiewicz together with a Santa Claus story? It’s as good as it sounds, and it arrives in stores beginning this week.
We’ve seen some incredible work on Christmas stories in the comic book medium before. Take for example the modern Batman opus, 2011’s Batman: Noel by Lee Bermejo (we reviewed it here). Now this year we haveSanta: My Life and Times, An Autobiography, a lavish, updated edition to a 1998 project. It features a holiday story written by Jared Green (and Santa, of course), with vibrant and festive watercolor art, cover to cover, by Sienkiewicz. As are all good storybooks, this is a shiny, over-sized hardcover. You will get lost in the details of every page of art. Marvel at all the wintry critters. Peek inside windows. The beauty of nature’s magic is everywhere. By my count there are not only more than 100 illustrations by Sienkiewicz in this book, there are 100 poster-worthy illustrations.
The storytelling is very Victorian and grand, neither modern nor silly. This is the same voice found in the classic 1823 Clement Clarke Moore holiday staple, A Visit from St. Nicholas(aka ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas). Green’s voice of Santa is like a conversation in a good Dickens hero’s friendly voice. Think Bob Cratchit. This is a deep, rich, well-thought out fantasy. The story spreads pure goodness and joy, the kind you’ll want to read to little kids (or adults, or cats), complete with Dr. Seussian sound effects peppered about. No doubt this is the same Santa that influenced the likes of Mr. Rogers, Bob Ross, Steve Irwin, and Jim Henson. The look and feel matches the spirit of the Rankin/Bass Christmas classics perfectly.
Victoriana meets steampunk and mythology in an upcoming series. With production design that evokes The Golden Compass, Harry Potter, and the gloom of Charles Dickens, Amazon Studios’ new Carnival Row has all the elements of a good fantasy. With two big stars, Cara Delevingne (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets) and Orlando Bloom (The Lord of the Rings), it looks to be the next series to keep an eye on.
At San Diego Comic-Con this week, Amazon Studios’ released two introductions to the series, presented by the two lead actors. The best feature may be the beautiful accompanying music by Nathan Barr, composer of many a horror show. And this has plenty of its own blood and gore. A detective show, a mystery and a fantasy world with its own look despite familiar influences, Carnival Row will be a certain pick to binge-watch next month.
Check out these new previews from SDCC 2019 of Carnival Row:
Family of Humming-birds, completed in six volumes in 1887, was the culmination of a fifty-year career of John Gould, one of the earliest and most renowned ornithologists. A publication of 418 hand-colored illustrations representing all the known species of hummingbirds of the day, it was considered the definitive scientific reference of the era on the subject. The volume also reflected one of the most attractive species of animal that would appeal to some of the world’s most elite collectors, scientists, and educators. With 39 pages of introductory information written by Joel and Laura Oppenheimer, Rizzoli Electa is reprinting the entirety of Gould’s six volumes of prints in the new publication The Family of Hummingbirds: The Complete Prints of John Gould, to be released at the end of this month.
When the HMS Beagle naturalist Charles Darwin returned to England in 1836 from the Galapagos with crates of samples of animal life for scientific study, under special dispensation from the Crown he was allowed to determine which scientists received what families of animals for study, instead of depositing them all with the British Museum as was common practice. For the bird collection, he selected John Gould, a rising star of both avian study, taxidermy, and illustration. Darwin’s theory of the transmutation of species and later his theory on natural selection in part came from findings shared by Gould. The third volume of Darwin’s findings from his exploration included 50 illustrations by Gould’s wife Elizabeth and text written by Gould. Nearly 20 years before Darwin’s landmark text On the Origin of Species, this earlier work provided some of the ground work for the theory of evolution, despite Gould not publicly endorsing Darwin’s theories. After his wife passed away on their expedition to chronicle birds and mammals in Australia, Mr. Gould would continue publishing folios on the birds of the world, ultimately amassing several publications covering birds, as well as other animals, across the globe.
Nearest to Gould’s heart was the fascinating hummingbird, which he referred to as “this family of living gems.” According to the foreword in The Family of Hummingbirds: The Complete Prints of John Gould provided by naturalist and historian Robert McCracken Peck, Family of Humming-birds “represented a family of birds of remarkable grace and beauty that lived in exotic habitats unlikely to be seen even by collectors wealthy enough to afford the book Gould devoted to them.” Artist H.C Richter would expand upon John Gould’s sketches and ideas for plates–Gould would first draw a male and female of each species with a plant native to its habitat, ultimately creating all 360 plates in the book’s first five volumes, released piecemeal via subscriptions ultimately with the recipients to have the completed work formally bound.
That Miller and Lord cut of Solo you were hoping for? You already saw it.
I was always sold on his father, Lawrence Kasdan for writing The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and writing and directing Silverado (and his superb work on non-blockbuster films like Continental Divide and Mumford), but Jonathan Kasdan (who co-wrote the screenplay to Solo: A Star Wars Story with his father) has filled in the remaining gap in what is probably the year’s best home video special features package. That would be the extra features that accompany the home release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, available now. The included features have key deleted scenes, most of which would have served the movie well were they included in the theatrical release (like Han’s fall from the Imperial Navy), and the least of which is plain fun that every Star Wars fan should love (like a snowball fight between Han and Chewbacca)–eight deleted scenes in all. The home release also contains insightful featurettes that demonstrate the love for the saga and the vision, skill, and craftmanship that came together to create the film. But it’s missing an audio commentary. More on that in a minute.
Director Ron Howard, production designer Neil Lamont, special creature effects designer Neal Scanlan, director of photography Bradford Young, and the Kasdans, along with other members of the crew, provide fantastic insight into the influences and experience of creating the movie. The best features include Team Chewie, with interviews and footage of Joonas Suotamo in and out of costume, and Scoundrels, Droids, Creatures and Cards: Welcome to Fort Ypso, where we see the historical art influence on the Sabacc card game scene, and Solo: The Director and Cast Roundtable, a a refreshing and eye-opening look at how Howard and the key actors came together. Also included are short featurettes Kasdan on Kasdan, Remaking the Millennium Falcon, Escape From Corellia, The Train Heist, Becoming a Droid: L3-37, and Into the Maelstrom: The Kessel Run. Across all these, keep an eye out for Tim Nielsen, supervising sound editor and sound designer for Skywalker Sound, whose creativity is the kind of effort that caused Ben Burtt to get the Oscar for his work on the original Star Wars. Watch these features and see why Nielsen and his team should be in the running for Oscar for his work on Solo: A Star Wars Story this year.
Director Ron Howard on the Millennium Falcon set of Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Director Ron Howard, who replaced Christopher Miller and Phil Lord late in production of the film, bent over backwards to treat the departure of the two prior directors with grace and respect, which means he hasn’t discussed much detail about his work on the film. We never thought we’d learn “who contributed what” to the film, but that is where Kasdan’s notes come into play. Released in advance of the home video release this past week, they shed some light on what went on behind the scenes, what could easily be Kasdan’s personal, unrecorded, audio commentary notes–had Lucasfilm included one in the features. From a certain point of view, the inclusion of so many scenes developed by the initial director duo reflect the theme of the saga: Miller and Lord–seemingly two rebels against Lucasfilm/Disney who had a vision for Star Wars and for whatever reason were sidelined–were able to have much of their vision survive in the final cut of the film. Howard’s role seems to have been both Fixer and Closer, in addition to giving his personal touch to certain scenes, something addressed well in the features. Kasdan’s notes (not included with the home release but reproduced below) are the ultimate backstage pass into all the creative minds behind what must have been a difficult film to make (Star Wars plus Star Wars fandom sometimes reflects the Dark Side of the movies all too well).
Arsenic and Old Lace? Truth is often stranger, darker, and more insidious than fiction. Where the classic horror comedy dramaticized the historic use of arsenic as poison via elderberry wine, a routine use of the substance killed an incalculable number of people, probably at least in the tens of thousands, over the course of a little more than a century. Imagine everything around you right now that is printed in the color green is printed with an ink which, if you brush against it, inhale it, touch it, or ingest even a minute amount of it, would kill you violently? A recent scholarly account weaves together a tale of 18th-19th century science and psychology, beauty, style, and design, products liability and corporate greed, political cartoonists and iconic leaders of art history, and a scholarly account of an artform and staple of the arts and crafts movement in the most unlikely of collisions with day-to-day life. Lucinda Dickens Hawksley’s Bitten By Witch Fever: Wallpaper & Arsenic in the Victorian Home is a book about wallpaper. And it could be the most surprising and intriguing book you read this year.
At one level Bitten by Witch Fever could be a useful tool–included in its pages are facsimiles, and thankfully only facsimiles, of 275 color wallpapers from the 19th century. It’s almost unprecedented and an ideal sourcebook for the period, for local or commercial set decorators, or for any artists and designers attempting to recreate in any medium the average household of the day or the most opulent business setting. Yet each of the papers represented was tested by current scientists to include arsenic. Predominantly tied to greens of a century of wallpaper style and taste, ultimately arsenic would be worked by designers into a broad spectrum of the color palette. But mankind has known the harm of arsenic going back to ancient times, right? It’s the complexity of the “Why?” that art and social historian (and Charles Dickens’ great-great-great granddaughter) Hawksley wrestles with in revisiting the use of arsenic in all its forms: as domestic poison, as health tonic, as pigment enhancer, and as murder weapon, and its rise in production with the rise of fashion of decorative wallpaper. But why “witch fever”? That reference in the title was from a comment by apologist William Morris–the arts and crafts movement innovator artiste–who also inherited from his father one of the few mines that produced arsenic. To brush off arsenic safety scaremongers, he had responded, “As to the arsenic scare a greater folly it is hardly possible to imagine: the doctors were bitten as people were bitten by the witch fever.” In part, the realities were fuzzy: many people lived with wallpaper with no ill effects, and yet others sleeping in a closed room with wall-to-wall arsenic coated papers would become violently ill. Hawksley identifies cases of alleged crimes, court cases, alleged murders, and attempts to halt arsenic use. Throughout the 19th century political cartoonists drew cartoons mocking the public’s continuing use of the poison in daily life. Many of these cartoons are also included in the book.
The horrors were real: young siblings die after pulling wallpaper off their walls and licking off the strange flavor. From an ancient Greek physician using arsenic as an antiseptic to Nero using arsenic to murder Britannicus, to Napoleon rumored to have died in exile from arsenic poisoning, to the death of a Swedish king and the Borgias, the history of the substance crosses borders and social strata. A few countries were quick to ban its commercial use, while factories where it was used were slow to address safety issues for workers. In 1775 chemist Carl Scheele’s new green was so vibrant that the real fever was very much public fascination with new, beautiful colors. It was used on walls, but also in flypaper, flocked papers, rodent and insect poison, asthma and eczema cream, as a Victorian aphrodisiac, face creams and soaps, artificial decorative fruits and vegetables, dress fabrics, mail labels, playing cards, all sorts of product packaging, and (gulp) cake icing coloring, candy, and lickable postage stamps.
This one looks like it could be the next holiday classic.
Although he’s had theatrical roles in 2013’s The Fifth Estate, 2014’s A Walk Among the Tombstones, 2016’s Colossal, and this year’s Beauty and the Beast remake, Dan Stevens is better known for his British TV roles like Matthew Crawley throughout the run of Downton Abbey. But the genre world really took notice of Stevens this year when he headlined a new X-Men TV series, playing David Haller, a crazed wielder of superpowers on FX’s new series Legion. His next role takes him back to jolly old England and a character that can’t possibly be more classic and British: Charles Dickens himself.
Although the last time we saw someone play the part of Charles Dickens in a major film it was Gonzo in The Muppet Christmas Carol, Stevens’ off-kilter, frenetic kinetic sense, and quizzical expressions make for an intriguing take on Dickens in the first preview for The Man Who Invented Christmas. Stevens looks like he’s channeling Gene Wilder from Young Frankenstein in one scene from the movie’s first trailer.
And we get to see Academy Award-winning actor and Shakespearean great Christopher Plummer (Twelve Monkeys, Up, Wolf, Dragnet, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Somewhere in Time, Return of the Pink Panther, The Sound of Music) join the likes of Alastair Sim, Albert Finney, Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart, and Bill Murray as Ebenezer Scrooge. This take on Scrooge focuses on Dickens writing the novel A Christmas Carol and getting a spell of writer’s block. And speaking of Finney, the view of the film in the preview looks like a mash-up of style from the comedies Tom Jones and Shakespeare in Love.
Here’s a fun preview for The Man Who Invented Christmas:
Kasdan recollections round out excellent bonus features on Solo: A Star Wars Story home release
That Miller and Lord cut of Solo you were hoping for? You already saw it.
I was always sold on his father, Lawrence Kasdan for writing The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and writing and directing Silverado (and his superb work on non-blockbuster films like Continental Divide and Mumford), but Jonathan Kasdan (who co-wrote the screenplay to Solo: A Star Wars Story with his father) has filled in the remaining gap in what is probably the year’s best home video special features package. That would be the extra features that accompany the home release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, available now. The included features have key deleted scenes, most of which would have served the movie well were they included in the theatrical release (like Han’s fall from the Imperial Navy), and the least of which is plain fun that every Star Wars fan should love (like a snowball fight between Han and Chewbacca)–eight deleted scenes in all. The home release also contains insightful featurettes that demonstrate the love for the saga and the vision, skill, and craftmanship that came together to create the film. But it’s missing an audio commentary. More on that in a minute.
Director Ron Howard, production designer Neil Lamont, special creature effects designer Neal Scanlan, director of photography Bradford Young, and the Kasdans, along with other members of the crew, provide fantastic insight into the influences and experience of creating the movie. The best features include Team Chewie, with interviews and footage of Joonas Suotamo in and out of costume, and Scoundrels, Droids, Creatures and Cards: Welcome to Fort Ypso, where we see the historical art influence on the Sabacc card game scene, and Solo: The Director and Cast Roundtable, a a refreshing and eye-opening look at how Howard and the key actors came together. Also included are short featurettes Kasdan on Kasdan, Remaking the Millennium Falcon, Escape From Corellia, The Train Heist, Becoming a Droid: L3-37, and Into the Maelstrom: The Kessel Run. Across all these, keep an eye out for Tim Nielsen, supervising sound editor and sound designer for Skywalker Sound, whose creativity is the kind of effort that caused Ben Burtt to get the Oscar for his work on the original Star Wars. Watch these features and see why Nielsen and his team should be in the running for Oscar for his work on Solo: A Star Wars Story this year.
Director Ron Howard on the Millennium Falcon set of Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Director Ron Howard, who replaced Christopher Miller and Phil Lord late in production of the film, bent over backwards to treat the departure of the two prior directors with grace and respect, which means he hasn’t discussed much detail about his work on the film. We never thought we’d learn “who contributed what” to the film, but that is where Kasdan’s notes come into play. Released in advance of the home video release this past week, they shed some light on what went on behind the scenes, what could easily be Kasdan’s personal, unrecorded, audio commentary notes–had Lucasfilm included one in the features. From a certain point of view, the inclusion of so many scenes developed by the initial director duo reflect the theme of the saga: Miller and Lord–seemingly two rebels against Lucasfilm/Disney who had a vision for Star Wars and for whatever reason were sidelined–were able to have much of their vision survive in the final cut of the film. Howard’s role seems to have been both Fixer and Closer, in addition to giving his personal touch to certain scenes, something addressed well in the features. Kasdan’s notes (not included with the home release but reproduced below) are the ultimate backstage pass into all the creative minds behind what must have been a difficult film to make (Star Wars plus Star Wars fandom sometimes reflects the Dark Side of the movies all too well).
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