"Once Upon a Time." My family has been watching this series from its start last season. We keep waiting for it to go from pleasant diversion to can't-miss status, but I don't think it's going to get there.
The show is fun in that it's different from most everything else on television right now. It's not a police procedural or a a reality show, not sci-fi or based on superheroes.
It's about fairy tale characters who seep into reality, and real people who find themselves in fantasy lands. There are characters from Snow White and various Grimm fairy tales and other chldren's stories, as well, such as Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. Since the show is on the Disney-owned ABC, I sometimes get the sense that whole thing is about marketing various Disney properties.
The fantasy/reality premise obviously offers up lots of possibilities, but, unfortunately, the plots seem somewhat rambling. I'm getting the sense the creators are playing around, not really knowing where they want to go. And, hence, the show is getting a little confused and aimless, too.
"Once" shares some production staff who worked on "Lost," and there's some of the same feel to this show, particularly in the shifts between reality and the fantasy and between past and present.
Even though the last season of "Lost" clearly showed that the creators didn't know where they were going or how to satisfyingly end the series, it always seemed like they did. You got sucked in, awaiting big payoffs that, frustratingly, never came. But it was fun following along.
With "Once," you never really get sucked in. At least I don't. There are fun ideas and some fun characters -- especially the great Robert Carlyle as Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin, who seriously needs to play the Joker or the Riddler in a Batman movie someday -- but they just don't grab me like those on "Lost" did. I feel much the same way about "Once" as I do "Revolution," another "Lost"-associated show, which I reviewed here last week.
My family is invested in "Once." My son likes it, so I'll likely hang in there. But I really hope it finds a compelling direction soon.
-----
"The BFG" by Roald Dahl. Here's a much more satisfying take on fantasy-meets-reality. My wife and I just finished reading this brilliant, funny story with our 9-year-old daughter, who loved it.
It's pretty straight-forward: Giants are real and are regularly eating small children all over the world. It's been going on for years, but humans don't know about it because they never see the giants. The kids just go missing. Until one child, a British girl named Sophie, spots a nice, non-kid-eating giant she dubs the BFG: Big Friendly Giant.
Through the BFG, Sophie learns what's been going on and vows to put a stop to it, enlisting the help of the Queen of England and the Royal Armed Forces to do so.
It's great, surreal fun. Dahl, in his usual fashion, didn't write down to kids, making the prospect of child-eating giants as gross and fearsome as it would be in reality, but also somehow darkly funny.
The BFG and the other giants speak in a jumbly wordplay that is fun to read aloud and hilarious to kids. The illustrations by Quentin Blake are funny and charming, too. I love that he draws the Queen to actually look like, you know, the real Queen!
Even if you don't have a kid to read it to, it's a fun book.
-----
Pearl Django. My wife and I had a chance to see this Seattle quartet the other day and walked away dazzled and delighted.
The name is a joke, a reference to a much-better-known group from the band's home base. But the Django part -- in tribute to the great gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt -- is for real.
With accordion, violin and two guitars -- one pumping out the generally rapid rhythms, the other skittering melodically over the top -- the group captures the romantic sounds of Reinhardt's 1920s-30s Paris. The repertoire includes tunes Django made famous, along with other jazz standards and some originals.
I'm a longtime Django fan, but hadn't heard this group's take on his music. It was fabulous to see and hear them in action.
-----
The English Beat - Complete Beat. I've been enjoying this collection of, which includes all three of the Beat's studio albums, plus a double CD of rarities and live cuts.
I played the heck out of the Beat's LPs back in my high school and college years and it's great to hear their music sounding nice and clear again. They were a spectacular group, mixing post-punk pop with ska and rock steady. Their music is insistent and sometimes political, but always melodic.
There are great songs scattered throughout this set: "Mirror in the Bathroom," the anti-Thatcher "Stand Down Margaret," "Doors of Your Heart," their takes on "Tears of a Clown" and "Can't Get Used to Losing You," "I Confess" and the closest they ever came to a U.S. hit, "Save it for Later."
Most of the tracks hold up just fine and are unbranded by oppressive 1980s production. A thick booklet does a nice job of detailing the band's too-short history. The band split up 1983, with former members forming new groups General Public and Fine Young Cannibals, both of which were more successful on these shores.
Beat fans should note that the group's albums have each been released separately in expanded form over in the U.K. Those versions are spendier and include some additional extras, including videos. I went with the U.S. box because it's cheaper and includes all the tunes I really want, anyway.
One day he brought this painting to my house. We were out in the garden, it was a summer's day. And he didn't want to disturb us, I think we were filming or something. So he left this picture of Magritte. It was an apple - and he just left it on the dining room table and he went. It just had written across it "Au revoir", on this beautiful green apple. And I tought that was like a great thing to do. He knew I'd love it and he knew I'd want it and I'd pay him later. So it was like wow! What a great conceptual thing to do, you know.
