Hugh Jackman: The Man, the Music, the Show

Swoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon.

Mega, ultra, massive swoonage.

People, Hugh Jackman is my favorite living actor.  My #3 favorite actor of all time.  He's very dear to my heart for the roles he chooses, the way he behaves in real life, just his laid-back intensity and evident kindness.  And on Monday, I spent two hours in the same room with him.  And like a million other people, but hey.  We breathed the same air.  His words left his mouth and entered my ears without passing through a screen.  He made me laugh and cry in real-time.

And he sang my favorite song.

MY FAVORITE SONG OF ALL TIME.

Which is not a song from any movie or any musical he was in.  A song I have never connected in any way with him in my mind.  A song I had no even vague thought of, "Maybe he'll sing that tonight" because there was no reason he would.  No way that would ever happen.

He sang "Mack the Knife."  And he sang it the way Bobby Darin sings it.  Like, the whole setting, it was so very much Bobby's swingy, sassy, big-band version.  He even snapped his fingers.  He even did the "Look out, ol' Mackheath is back!" line at the end that is 100% pure Bobby Darin.

I cried.  And bounced.  And reveled.

That was Bobby Darin's signature song.  Hugh Jackman not only knows that song, he clearly knows Bobby Darin's version, and he chose to sing it that way in his concert.

Yup, I'm tearing up all over again.

Someone with a better camera than I am has kindly recorded him singing it and posted it to YouTube, so I can relive my memories of it a little bit, and share with you:

So, um, yeah.  Magical evening.  Especially because I was there with MY BEST FRIEND!!!

 She flew all the way out here to see this show with me, and we had the best time possible.

We had nice seats, not quite centered, but being aslant a little like this let us see eeeeeverything, which was awesome.

I didn't take a ton of photos, which is kind of rare for me, but I knew my phone's camera was too crummy to get any really good pictures, so I chose to just enjoy the moments as they came and not worry too much about trying to capture them.  But I did grab one fairly good shot of him singing "Luck be a Lady," which is from my absolute favorite musical, Guys and Dolls.

Hard to tell in that pic, but he's wearing this snappy black fedora and really selling the song :-)

So, as well as I can remember, these are the songs he sang:

"The Greatest Show" (from The Greatest Showman)
"Come Alive" (from The Greatest Showman)
"Gaston" (from Beauty and the Beast)
"When Somebody Loves You"
"Soliloquy" (from Carousel)
"A Million Dreams" (from The Greatest Showman)
"What Have I Done" (from Les Miserables)
"One Day More" (from Les Miserables)
"I Go to Rio" (from Boy from Oz)
"I Honestly Love You" (from Boy from Oz)
"Don't Cry Out Loud" (from Boy from Oz)
"Quiet, Please, There's a Lady Onstage" (from Boy from Oz)
"Tenterfield Saddler" (from Boy from Oz)
"I Got Rhythm"
"Singin' in the Rain"
"Sing, Sing, Sing"
"Luck be a Lady" (from Guys and Dolls)
"Mack the Knife"
"This is Me" (from The Greatest Showman)
"From Now On" (from The Greatest Showman)
"Once Before I Go" (from Boy from Oz)

I'm not solid on the order of all of those, other than the first three and last two.  Also, someone else sang "I Dreamed a Dream," which is my favorite song from Les Mis, so that was pretty amazing.  And there was a segment with didgeridoos and Aboriginal tribal leaders singing some native Australian such, which was very interesting.  But aside from those two, Hugh sang All The Songs.  So much singing.  So much dancing.  Even a little acting thrown in on songs like "Soliloquy" and "What Have I Done," and he reprised his Peter Allen persona from when he was in Boy from Oz on Broadway years ago.

I came away with this solid bit of knowledge:  Hugh Jackman LOVES to entertain.  Clearly having the time of his life on that stage, holding nothing back, just full-throttle fun times. 

So, um, those are my memories and my pictures and yeah, it was an incredible experience and I'm so glad Cowboy said to me, "You have to go.  We will make this happen."  Thank you, thank you, dear, kind man.

The Four Things Tag

Eva did this on Coffee, Classics, and Craziness and tagged anyone who enjoys rewatching movies.  I ADORE rewatching movies, as you undoubtedly know, so... I consider myself tagged and am filling this out accordingly (with some asides to narrow down the categories a bit).

Four Jobs I’ve Had

Face-painter
Waitress
Cashier
Columnist

Four Things I Don’t (like to) Eat

Boiled potatoes
Baked potatoes
Mashed potatoes
Stewed potatoes

(My reaction to 'taters.)

Four Places I’ve Lived (since I was an adult)

Minnesota
Wisconsin
Connecticut
Virginia

Four of my Favorite Foods

Chocolate
Peanut butter
Pears
Asparagus

(From Pinterest)

Four Movies I’ve Watched More Than Once (with my best friend)

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
The Lone Ranger (2013)
Slow West (2015)
Hamlet (2011)


Four TV Shows I (am currently) Watch(ing)

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D
Leverage
Castle
F Troop

Four Things I’m Looking Forward to This Year (2018)

Publishing my next book, Dancing and Doughnuts
Visiting the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum (I hope)
Seeing my best friend again (someway, somehow)
Cleaning up the giant mess that my bedroom has become


Four Things I Can’t Live Without (besides the obvious things like water and air and food)(and not counting people or God, cuz they're not things)

Books
Movies
Yarn
Cameras


Four Places I’ve Visited (over and over)

Colonial Williamsburg, VA
Mackinac Island, MI
Charleston, SC
The Wisconsin Dells, WI

(A pic I took in Colonial Williamsburg last year.)

Four Pet Peeves (or things that annoy me, anyway)

The number of people who don't differentiate between an opinion and a fact
Lots of Alan Ladd's movies aren't available on DVD
The phrase "try and" -- it's bad grammar and ought to be "try to"
The way the big toenail on my left foot just won't go back to normal after getting ripped off like 2 years ago


Four Things I Wish I Could Do

Fence (with swords, I mean, not put up fences)
Enjoy housecleaning
Eat as much bacon as I want
Decorate really pretty cakes

(From Pinterest)

Four Subjects I Studied at School College

English
History
Literature
Creative Writing


Four Things Near Me Right Now

My Wolverine coffee mug
The Sons of Katie Elder soundtrack on CD
A box of my daughters' nail polishes
My red camera, Francis

There, I finally finished this tag!  Yay!  I hereby tag anyone who loves bacon :-9

Seeing "Hamlet" Live at the American Shakespeare Center

This afternoon, three friends and I gathered in Staunton, VA, to see Hamlet performed live at the Blackfriars Playhouse, home to the American Shakespeare Center.  Two of us had been there before, and two of us were basically dragged there by me because that's the sort of nice friend I am.  Happily, it was a brilliant production, and we all went away happy.  Or, in my case, in a state of blissful ecstasy that I'm still tingling with like six hours after the production ended.

We gave the actors three curtain calls.  That's how good this was.

I have so, so, sooooooo many things I want to say.  And I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get to all of them.  First off, the Blackfriars Playhouse is amazing in and of itself.  It's a recreation of the Blackfriars Theater in London where Shakespeare's plays were performed when he was writing them.  It's a small, intimate theater with gorgeous decor, wonderful acoustics (no microphones for the actors!), and a fun, playful vibe even for serious productions like Hamlet.  It looks like this:

(Source)

That's a view from above the stage, looking toward the audience.  You can see that it does not have zillions of seats, very cozy.  We were in kind of the middle of those seats on the main floor straight out from the stage this afternoon, which let us lock eyes with the actors during their speeches (I may or may not have made one actor smile when they caught me mouthing the lines along with them -- they might have been planning to smile there anyway, I don't know) and feel like we were really just there in the moment.  So cool.

Anyway, they did the play in full-on Elizabethan costuming, which was cool.  I've seen way more productions with non-Elizabethan costumes than with, so it was kind of a treat for me to see them actually wearing doublets and hose and so on.  They had minimal props, just a chair or table now and then when needed, plus lots of nice, shiny daggers and swords, some flowers, a couple skulls, etc.  And the staging was lively, energetic, and sometimes surprising in a good way, like having the Ghost make his final appearance from a trapdoor high above the stage!  That was especially cool.

(Source)

The acting was overall superb.  I'm getting spoiled with amazing productions right now, what with the 2011 film I just reviewed and now this.  Josh Innerst as Hamlet was especially wonderful, just the right mix of inscrutable and relate-able, passionate and cerebral, skeptical and credulous.  Also, he did this very tiny little thing that pleased me to no end:  throughout the bulk of the play, he had very messy hair and an unkempt goatee, like this:

(Source)

But when he returns from his pirate escapade, his hair was combed, his mustache ends were twisted up, and he was altogether kempt and combed and calm.  It was such a little touch, but so exactly the perfect way to physically show the alteration in the character from wild and whirling and uncertain to a man at peace with his fate and his role and his path.  I LOVED that.

I also loved Benjamin Reed as Laertes.  I am, as you may know, horrifyingly picky about how Laertes gets portrayed.  Or, actually, I get horrified by the way he's usually played either as a jerk or as a non-entity.  But if you play Laertes well, he becomes a truly powerful foil for Hamlet and a way for us to understand him from another angle.  And this Laertes, oh my word, you couldn't help but love him.  Devoted to his sister, obedient to his father... and a friend to Hamlet.  My very most favorite moment in the entire production was at the very beginning when Laertes gets permission from Claudius to go back to France, and he says goodbye to the court... and gives Hamlet a farewell manly-man hug.  It's brief, most people probably didn't even see it, but I wanted to just run up on stage and thank everyone in the production for that one tiny moment.

(Source)

I am not even exaggerating when I say that this Laertes is my favorite since Liev Schreiber's in the 2000 film.  The only one I've seen come close.  I would go see this production again, if I could, just for him, even if every other actor and actress was out sick and the roles were filled with understudies.

Then there was Shunte Lofton as Ophelia.  For much of the play, I was just okay with her.  I thought she excelled in her scenes with Polonius and Laertes, but wasn't as fond of her in the nunnery bit.  But then her mad scene, when she handed out flowers, actually moved me to tears.  I can't remember the last time I was moved to tears by that scene.  Maybe never.  So she really wowed me there.

(Source)

Let's see, the rest of the cast.  Allie Babich as Horatio was quite good, very sympathetic and intelligent.  It was neat seeing a woman in the role.  Christopher Seiler was okay as Claudius, maybe a bit too smiling, but I was okay with him.  Jessika Williams was likewise okay as Gertrude -- kind of frosty, but sympathetic.  Tim Sailer was very fun as Polonius, not so much pompous as too loquacious.  I didn't even realize until I read my program when I got home that he doubled as Fortinbras, so he did a great job being very different for both roles.

For the purposes of my Hamlet Comparisons page (which I'm going to revamp soon, just FYI), I would say:

Hamlet: A+
Horatio: A-
Laertes: A+
Ophelia: A
Claudius: B+
Gertrude: B+
Polonius: B+
Overall Production: A

Here's something superduper fun that I just love:  they're doing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead right now too, and everyone in this production is also playing THE SAME ROLES IN THAT!!!  I kind of just really want to go see RAGAD now, though I'm not sure I can make it happen, but that whole idea is just too perfect for words.

Okay, it's midnight, and although I will probably remember a zillion things to say as soon as I post this and go to bed... I've said lots.  I adored this production.  I will be seeing more plays at the ASC, you can count on that.

(I didn't have permission to use any of the photos in this post, I just stole them from the internet.  If the ASC lawyers come after me, the first thing I'll do is... take down the pictures.  What were you thinking?)

Beautiful Books Link-Up: How's the Writing Going?

I spotted this over on Hayden Wand's new blog, Leatherbound, and it looked like so much fun I just have to give it a go myself.  So for the first time, I am linking up with Cait at Paper Fury and Sky at Further Up, Further In for their NaNoWriMo edition of their usual link-up series.

Right now, I'm working on the first draft of my YA western retelling of "Twelve Dancing Princesses," the second story in my Once Upon a Western collection.  I call it Dancing and Doughnuts.

Overall, how is your mental state, and how is your novel going? 

My mental state is currently flurried because my father-in-law is coming to visit us this weekend, we're hosting a pre-Thanksgiving get-together on Saturday, and then next Thursday, we're also having friends and family over for a Thanksgiving meal.  I'm getting over a cold, and yeah... it's been a crazy month.

How's my novel going?  Well... it's only 7,000 words right now.  Now, I wasn't planning to do a full-on Nano this year just because Cowboy says I'm too crabby when I do Nano "for real," so I don't do that anymore.  My goal is 30,000 words or the end of the first draft, whichever comes first.

All of which means I am woefully behind.  But the month is only half over right now, and if I can get some nice long stints in, I could possibly still finish that first draft off.  We shall see.

What’s your first sentence (or paragraph)? 

I’d passed through quite a number of similar towns in the last few weeks. Quiet, a little lazy, dusty, boring. When I reined in by the dingy clapboard building marked ‘Saloon,’ why, I had no reason to think Peabody Crossing would hold any surprises.

Who’s your current favorite character in your novel?

My protag, Jedediah Jones.  He's a Civil War veteran -- he was in the Union cavalry.  Now that the war is over, he's made his way out west and is taking whatever jobs interest him.  He just finished a cattle drive to one of the railroad hubs in Kansas, and decided to see a little of Kansas while he was there.  He's such a sweet, cheerful, intrepid guy that I can't help but love him.

What do you love about your novel so far?

My characters!  Some of them make me laugh and laugh, especially these two boys I haven't gotten to yet, but who are known to the townsfolk as Trouble and More Trouble.  With good reason, I might add!

Have you made any hilarious typos or other mistakes?

Possibly?  None that I've noticed so far...

What is your favorite to write: beginning, middle, or end — and why?

Middle.  The very beginning of a story is often hard for me because I have this great fear that I will screw the whole thing up before it really gets going.  Once I'm in the swing of the story, it goes quickly and merrily, but those first couple of pages are me gingerly feeling my way into the world and the characters and the story's particular flavor, and that's just not as fun.  And sometimes I struggle with endings that satisfy me -- those conclusions can be so important, and I don't want to screw them up either.

And because first drafts are, by nature, going to be rough anyway, those glitches are pointless, and I know that, but... they're there anyway.

What are your writing habits?

Most irregular.  By which I mean that I only write 3 times a week *in a good week* because... I'm a wife, a mom, a homeschooler -- I have a lot of stuff going on.  My three kids are at home with me all the time, and I just can't write fiction with them around, so I have to either wait for them to be in bed, or leave the house to write.  And I do go to Starbucks and write for a couple hours several Saturdays a month, but I can't do that all the time, heh.  After they're in bed, I can get in maybe an hour of writing, maybe an hour and a half if I stay up late.  But that's also the only time I have for watching movies and spending time with Cowboy, which is why I only manage to write about 3 times a week.

Is there a specific snack you eat?

I like to have something warm to drink, either tea or hot chocolate, whichever I'm in the mood for.

Do you listen to music?

Absolutely!  For Dancing and Doughnuts, I'm listening to tons and tons of my beloved Bobby Darin because his music matches the story's bouncy tone so nicely.

What time of day do you write best?

Mornings are absolutely the best for me.  I don't have my brain cluttered up with stuff from the day, I have lots of energy, and I can focus much better.  But I've learned to make myself write at the end of the day too.

Feel free to show us a picture of your writing space!

I just sit on my couch or in the rocking chair if I'm at home -- or at our desktop computer if Cowboy has gone to bed early.  When I'm at Starbucks, I sit wherever I can, just so it's not right next to a window.  I don't like too much glare on my computer screen, gives me a headache.

How private are you about your novel while you’re writing? Do you need a cheer squad or do you work alone (like, ahem, Batman)?

For the last few years, I have been sharing my first drafts with my best friend and writing mentor, Deborah Koren, as I write them.  Pop out a couple pages, share them with her, discuss, move on.  It only works because we 100% trust each other with our babies -- she shares her work with me too that way.  And we are very careful to be only cheerleaders for a first draft, no criticism.  We can point out flaws in the rewrite.

A crazy side effect of sharing our work so instantly and intimately?  We boost each others' creativity levels.  If one of us is writing frequently, the other will pick up on that energy and start writing frequently too.  It's so cool.

(This was us more than 10 years ago.  She's giving me a piggy-back ride,
and I'm laughing so hard, I'm having trouble hanging on.)
(Yes, we've always been this weird.)

The rest of the world, though, doesn't get to see works-in-progress.  Not until much farther on down the line when I need beta readers and so on.

What keeps you writing even when it’s hard?

My incredible stubbornness and refusal to quit just because something is hard.  I mean, giving birth is hard too, but you can't just quit in the middle of it and be like, "Sorry, baby, you have to stay in there."  Baby has to come out.  Book has to get written.

What are your top 3 pieces of writing advice?

I remind myself of these three things often, especially for first drafts:

"If They Ain't Thrown it at Me, They Ain't Got It."

You may have known this, but then again, you might not, so just in case you didn't... Eva (of Coffee, Classics, and Craziness) is at my house right now!!!

And this is Eva, popping in to say that I'm at Hamlette's (of Hamlette's Soliliquy)  house right now for all those who are reading this post on my blog instead of hers.

And yes, we have been drinking coffee, watching classics, and being crazy.  By "crazy," I mean staying up far past my bedtime, of course.  Nothing truly crazy like, I don't know, spending all day walking about seven miles around Washington D.C.

Oh, wait, we did that too.

Maybe I should let Eva write this post -- I'm sleep-deprived and caffeinated, which is never the most coherent state of being for me.

That's very true. *winks*  Last night, we watched a Glenn Ford western and a Combat! episode and we were both pretty crazy, even though we only had hot chocolate then.  We're talking lots and lots of fangirling and general swooning.

Anyway, I feel like I should properly start with the beginning of our visit, instead of just last night.  I got to Hamlette's house on Monday evening - I thought it was later than it was, because for some reason my family and I assumed that Virginia was an hour ahead of Ontario, time zone-wise.  But it turns out I got there with plenty of time to spare.  We talked for over an hour that first evening, and also watched a few minutes of a Combat! Recon (AKA fan convention) so I could see what Conlan Carter and Jack Hogan look like now-ish. (It was taken a few years ago.)

Over an hour?  People, I think we might need to worry about Eva's concept of time.  We talked from 10pm to 12:45am.  "Over an hour" is an understatement :-)

Well, I don't own a watch, so there's that.

So yes, we talked a lot and completely disregarded our careful planning exactly what movies and TV show eps we planned to watch together.  Oops.  We meant to watch The Young Victoria the first night, but nope, just gabbed.

And then yesterday, I played tour guide and led Eva and her pack of siblings (and their mom!) and my 3 kids all over D.C.  Highlight of the entire day was when we got to the area around the Lincoln Memorial where Steve Rogers was jogging in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  One of her little brothers just took off and ran around the whole reflecting pool.  And we all cheered and clapped for him -- such a little hero!

He is!

Last night, we did finally settle down and watch a little of what we'd planned to watch together.  Sort of.  Since we're both big fans (understatement) of Glenn Ford and westerns, I'd been telling Eva she needed to see The Fastest Gun Alive because he's just awesome in it, and I love the townspeople, and yeah.  So we watched that.

And then we had planned to watch some Combat! together, since that show is what brought us together in the first place.  We were going to watch "The Hostages" and "The Walking Wounded," basically her favorite ep and then mine.  But we chucked all plans out the window and watched "A Gift of Hope" instead because it's wonderful.  We spent a lot of time talking about how lame I am for having had an idea for a fanfic story about the guest character in that one and never writing it.  Maybe I'll throw caution to the wind and try to write it for Nanowrimo this year or something.  If a plot presents itself!

Well, I will definitely think about plots you could use for your fanfic.  I'm not clever enough to write Avery, but I could probably (maybe) come up with a good story.

Anyway...it was very difficult to figure out what to watch, even though we had a rough idea of what we wanted to do, because when I got to Hamlette's house, I was rather overwhelmed by the number of amazing movies and TV shows she has on her shelves.  I WANT TO WATCH THEM ALL.  In fact, I took five films to my room last night, but was too tired to even finish one. *sigh*

Which is why we're finishing it today.  I mean, you can't just watch half of a Glenn Ford western.  Would be so wrong.  So yup, we're finishing Cowboy while all the little kids are playing restaurant behind us.  And speaking of cowboys, my own Cowboy just flew back from his business trip, so I'm going to go pick him up, so I'm going to let Eva finish off this post :-)

Thank you. :)  So, yes, these past few days have been very full of Glenn Ford and westerns and general awesomeness.  Including our trip to Washington DC, which was AMAZING.  Throughout so much of our visit there, I felt like Po in Kung Fu Panda - "I've only seen paintings of that painting!"  Only in this case it was the Washington Memorial (!!!!!!!!!!) and the White House (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and the Lincoln Memorial (!!!-okay, you get the idea) and two Smithsonian Museums (American History and Air & Space) and, yes, I loved everything.  There were many Winter Soldier and Night at the Museum jokes made, let me tell you.  My top three favorite exhibits were the LEGIT Star Spangled Banner (I had no idea it was even still around), the whip and fedora that Harrison Ford used/wore in The Last Crusade, and the original model of the USS Enterprise. *all the heart eyes*

Oh!  And I forgot to mention that I read all of Hamlet on the way to Hamlette's house and I loved it and we talked about it more than a little.  Very cool.

Hopefully you got an idea of the fun we've been having together.  Just a little idea. ;) (Oh, and the title of this post comes from the aforementioned C! ep we watched together.  It's one of the coolest lines in the entire show.  For real.)

Well, I'm back from picking Cowboy up at the slug lot, and the movie's over, so I'm thinking some supper might be in order.  Adios!

The Wisteria Writer's Tag (and a Sneak Peek at "Cloaked")

I have borrowed the Wisteria Writer's Tag from Mary Horton at Sunshine and Scribblings because I'm procrastinating it looks like fun.  She didn't add new writing questions of her own, so I'm just answering the ones she answered.  I happen to love wisteria, so couldn't resist this one!  Mary, you didn't actually nominate me, but I shall say Thank You to you anyway, for posting this where I could snurch it :-)

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you.
2. Answer the ten questions asked.
3. Add ten (writing or book related) questions of your own.
4. Nominate people.

1. Which of your writing projects is your favorite and why?

No, but honestly, people think this is an answerable question?  How can I choose one favorite?  Do you know the sorts of sad and lonely and unloved and disappointed looks I'd get from all the others?  I can't choose a favorite.

Now, a favorite character... weirdly, that's easier.  Right now, my favorite is Hauer, a very important person in my Red Riding Hood western, "Cloaked."  I would totally marry him.

(I hope all the questions aren't this hard to answer.)

2. Can you share some snippets from your favorite project? (and no you cannot say no to this IT IS MANDATORY)

But I just said that I don't have a favorite project.  How about I just share a little bit from "Cloaked," which I really ought to be working on instead of doing this tag?  This is the opening paragraph:

The stagecoach was smaller than Mary Rose had expected, more cramped. Two people would only just fit on each wooden bench—if you didn’t know your neighbor well already, you would by the end of the ride, she guessed. And yet, a man had contrived to fall asleep on one of those small seats, the forward-facing one, curled up on his back with his knees in the air, his dusty boots tipped up against the side, heels on the seat. No spurs on his boots to mar the wooden bench, at least. He had his arms crossed over his chest and his stained brown hat settled companionably over his face. Mary Rose wondered if all the rattling and jostling of her entrance would disturb him, but he never stirred. So she sat down across from him, smoothing out the skirt of her brown travelling dress so it would be at least somewhat presentable by the end of her ride.

(1880s traveling dress)

3. What is your favorite tense (past, present, future) and voice (first person, second person, third person, etc) to write in?

I prefer to write in past tense.  Very much so.  For fiction, that is -- sometimes I write movie reviews in present tense because that's fun.  I've written lots of fiction in both first and third person, but second person is really hard to pull off, and I don't think I handle it well, so I don't use it.

4. When is your favorite time to write?

In the morning.  Sometimes I even get to, if I can skip off to Starbucks on a Saturday while Cowboy takes the kids to the grocery store.  But I do most of my writing at night, after my kids are in bed.  Fiction-writing, that is -- I write blog posts at any time of day or night.

5. What is the most unpleasant thing you've put one of your characters through?

Okay, so... I have written and co-written more than 30 stories set in WWII, all fan-fiction for the TV show Combat! -- and the awful truth is that lots of bad stuff happens in war.  LOTS.  I've beaten, shot, stabbed, blown up, burned, and bludgeoned a lot of characters over the years.

I think the worst thing would be a toss-up from when I killed all of Saunders' squad at once in "The Better Part of Valor" and when I convinced Hanley that Saunders was dead in "Lost."  Though the latter was temporary.  I could never kill my beloved Saunders.

(Vic Morrow as Sgt. Saunders on Combat!)

I just realized that this answer totally shows that I consider emotional pain to be worse than physical pain.  It interests me much more, too.

6. Are you a more character-driven writer or a more plot-driven writer?

Character-driven, allllllll the way.  I struggle with plots.  Basically all of my story ideas start out with "Oh, this is a cool character!  I like this person.  Oh, this is another great character!  I like them too."  And then I have to think up a terrible situation, toss them in it, and see what they do.  I'm really bad at plots sometimes -- this is part of why I've fallen in love with writing fairy tale retellings.  The plot is there, I just have to put my own characters in it.

7. Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I'm a plantser.  I have to know the basic beats of my story before I start writing -- where it starts, where it ends, and some of what happens in the middle.  The plot points have to be there or I'll get muddled.  But I cannot plot the whole thing out ahead of time.  I can't outline.  When I do that, it kills the joy and I never actually write the story because all the fun and adventure of discovery is gone.

8. What is your favorite word processing system to write in and why do you like it?

I like Microsoft Word because I'm used to it.

(So I should stop procrastinating, huh?)

9. If you were left on an abandoned island with the last character you wrote about, how would that go for you?

It would go really well if I was stuck there with any of the good guys from "Cloaked."  I'd prefer being stuck there with Hauer, because as I said earlier, I would totally marry him.  And he's skilled at living off the land.  But Mary Rose and I would be good friends, and I think we'd muddle through surviving all right, as she's a great blend of optimism and sensibleness.  I'd be fine with Jubilee too.  As long as I don't get stuck there with my Bad Guy, I'd be fine :-)  I suppose I could just kill and eat him if necessary.

(OH MAN, now I've got him staring at me in aghast horror at the revelation that I would cannibalize him.  Sorry, dude, you'd totally deserve it.)

10. What is your favorite writing resource? (this could be a blog, website, newsletter, writing book, that one pet who listens to all your writerly ramblings, anything basically)

My best friend.  I could not do this without her.  She's my Ideal Reader, my Writing Mentor, my Cattle Prod, and my trustiest of Trusty Scouts.

(She's also really great at braiding my  hair.)

I was not tagged with this, so I'm not going to tag anyone either.  If you're a writer and want to fill this tag out, have at it!

The Writer's Life Tag

I'm snurching this from Mary Horton at Sunshine and Scribblings.  There's an old joke that writers would much rather write and talk about their writing than actually write.  Sad, but sometimes true.  I'm in the throes of rewrites for "Cloaked" and just... needing to blog a bit instead of fix and change and add and subtract stuff today.  So let's have a bit of fun with this tag, shall we?

Write-fuel: What do you eat/drink while writing?  Generally, a warm beverage of some sort.  At home, I'll make a mug of tea or hot chocolate because I'm writing after my kids go to bed, and I can't have much caffeine after about 7pm or I won't sleep.  If I'm writing at Starbucks on a Saturday morning, I'll have a hot mocha of some sort, usually.  Though sometimes a cold something, if it's really hot out.  Once in a while I munch something, but that's useless calories because once I'm writing, I'm not noticing what I'm putting in my mouth all that much, so I try not to nibble while I write.

Write-sounds: What do you listen to while writing?  Bobby Darin and movie soundtracks, mostly.  For "Cloaked," I've been listening to the scores for Shane and The Big Country a lot, but also a bunch of Aaron Copland's western compositions too.

Bobby Darin reading... not something I wrote, alas.

Write-vice: What’s your most debilitating distraction?  My email.  Also, Cowboy, if he's around, because he will pester me with affectionate nonsense.

Write-horror: What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you while writing?  I have been suddenly and deliberately attacked by spiders on several occasions, and that is terrible because I have to stop writing to hunt them down and kill them or else I will not be able to concentrate for fear that they are going to renew their offensive.

Write-joy: What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you while writing, or how do you celebrate small victories?  As I don't know if I can choose a best thing, I will answer the second half.  I celebrate small victories by rejoicing with my best friend over hitting a word count goal or figuring out a plot problem or whatever.  Sometimes I also eat something chocolatey.  When I finish a draft of a major project, I sometimes buy myself a little something, like a book or a DVD or a coffee drink of epic proportions.

Speaking of epic... 

Write-crew: Who do you communicate with or not communicate with while writing?  My best friend is also my writing mentor.  We often write "together" via instant-messenger, by which I mean that we will chat for a few minutes while we each brew tea or hot chocolate and choose the music we're going to listen to, discuss story stuff a bit, and then drift off into our respective imaginary worlds.  We'll pop back now and then to say something or other, and then at the end of our stints, discuss how things went, share what we wrote, etc.  We freely share works-in-progress to encourage each other, help each other get through tough spots, brainstorm solutions to problems, etc.

Write-secret: What’s your writing secret to success or hidden flaw?  My secret to success is probably my stubborn desire to finish things.  I hate leaving a story unfinished.  I've done it, and it bugs me.  That's also my hidden flaw -- sometimes I'm too stubborn to give up on a story that isn't worth my time.

Write-spiration: What always makes you productive?  Nothing.  Nothing always makes me productive.  There are times when I don't write for days.  Or weeks.  And there are times when I sit down to write and spend ninety minutes writing 600 words.  Other times, I write 2,000 words in two hours.  Both of those happened this week.  However, the thing that generally helps me be productive is knowing what happens in the scene I'll be working on before I sit down to write.  If I don't know where it's headed, I waste valuable writing time on thinking and imagining my way through the scene, and I can do that while I'm folding laundry or brushing my teeth, so I should not be leaving it until writing time.

Sometimes, of course, I think I know where a scene is going, and then it doesn't.  Which is what happened the other evening, when my Bad Guy flat-out refused to talk about what I expected him to.  In fact, he wouldn't say anything at all for about twenty minutes, just leaned tantalizingly on a fence and smirked at me.  And then finally said all manner of things I wasn't expecting, didn't really like, and later realized perfectly set up two things later in the story.  Heh.

No, Luke Evans isn't playing my Bad Guy.  But he could.

Write-peeve: What’s one thing writers do (or you do) that’s annoying?  Honestly, I basically never read those blog posts where people interview their characters or share scenes of their WIPs.  They make me shake my head and say, "Why?"  I don't mind chattering endlessly about the process of writing, sharing the giddy joy and the bitter pitfalls, but the things you're writing don't need to be shared with the world willy-nilly until you are finished with them.  Share them with one or two close writing friends, yes, absolutely.  I've already said that I share nearly every sliver of fiction I write with one particular person.  I often also seek feedback from a few other trusted people.  But I don't wave my half-crafted creative shreds around to attract attention, and I don't feel any need to watch others do so.

Write-words: Share one sentence paragraph from a project, past or present.

He was too late to save his men, but he could still take down the monster that had destroyed them. And if he died in the process, so be it. He had failed to do the one thing he was supposed to do: keep his men alive. That knowledge filled him with despair. Despair and rage.

(from "The Better Part of Valor," still one of the best things I've written.)

I'm not tagging anyone, mostly because I wasn't tagged with this myself.  But if you're a writer and want to fill this out, have at it!

Happy Independence Day!

Happy birthday to the land of the free and the home of the brave!

We're having friends and family over for a cookout this evening, and to shoot some fireworks off (if it stops raining), so Cowboy and I have been busy getting some goodies ready.  Here are my two contributions!  Fruit kabobs and a bluebarb pie :-9

I hope my fellow Americans are all having fun celebrating this weekend too!

"The Mark of Zorro" (1974)

At the very end of this movie, when Zorro's true identity is revealed, Captain Esteban (Ricardo Montalban) says, "Inside the peacock, you find a hawk."  That's the perfect way to describe this movie, I think.  Very pretty to look at, but inside it has some substance after all.

This is a 1974 made-for-TV movie that I didn't know existed until about a couple years ago, when Carissa mentioned it in a comment on my review of Johnston McCulley's original Zorro novel, The Mark of Zorro, which was originally published as the serialized adventure story "The Curse of Capistrano."  I finally got to see this for the first time last year, and when I went into that first viewing, I didn't realize that it was shot from a condensed version of the script for the 1940 movie The Mark of Zorro that starred Tyrone Power.  As it so happened, I had just watched the 1940 film a week or so before I watched this for the first time, and not knowing that they'd made it from the same script, I became very annoyed by what I thought was a rip-off of the classic.  They kind of explain that they were using the same script during the opening credits:

Only I didn't quite get that the above meant they took the previous screenplay, trimmed it down to a much zippier 78 minutes from the original, which was a whopping 94 minutes long, and basically filmed a direct remake.  After I finished that first viewing, I looked it up online and discovered that they'd actually used the same script, and most of the same music.  Then I was no longer annoyed that they had "copied" the 1940 version, once I learned they had meant to do so.  So now, when I watched it for a second time, I was completely fine with it!

But enough of this.  Time to discuss the movie.  And yes, this is going to be one of those reviews where I include a zillion screencaps and basically tell you the whole story, but if you don't know how the Zorro story goes by now... it's time you did.  I don't think spoilage is actually an issue in this case, is it?  If it is for you, guess you'd better quit reading here.

It all begins, as you can see above, at a military academy.  A handsome young man, Diego Vega (Frank Langella), is making his farewells because he has to leave his friends in Spain and go home to California.

His friends are not pleased by this.  They like Diego.  He's a cheerful, peaceful fellow, friendly and kind.  Also, he's a really good horseman and swordsman, and they're sorry to see him go.  So he says he'll leave them a little something to remember him by.

And he tosses his sword up so it sticks in a beam in the ceiling.  This is straight out of the 1940 movie, and the spot where I first went, "HEY!  They copied that from the Tyrone Power version!"  Hee.  Yes, they did.

Anyway, he heads home to California, which is a Spanish possession at this time, governed by the cabelleros, wealthy Spanish settlers like the Diego's family, the Vegas.  When Diego arrives, he is very puzzled by the way people behave when he tells them his father is the alcalde (a sort of magistrate and mayor) of Los Angeles.  They freak out, basically.  They stare at him in horror and fear, and scurry to do his bidding.  This is not what he was expecting, not what he was used to when he left California as a boy to attend school in Madrid.

Diego demands to be taken to the alcalde's house, where he stomps around in a magnificently swirly cloak, startled and annoyed to find soldiers all over his childhood home.

In the courtyard, he meets Captain Esteban (Ricardo Montalban), who is also puzzled, amused, and perplexed to hear this young man claim to be the son of the alcalde.

Esteban threatens Diego with his sword, and at that moment, Diego instinctively plays the fool.  He can see things are not as they should be, and instead of drawing his own sword and fighting back, he pretends he doesn't like weapons or fighting, that he is gentle and peaceful to the point of being effeminate.  He clumsily slices open his finger on Esteban's sword tip while pushing it away, and makes a great show of bandaging it up.

And this is one of the places that I feel like this version actually works a little better than the 1940.  Because in the 1940, Diego's adoption of his foppish facade is almost a whim -- I never feel like he thought it out at all.  But here, Langella's Diego has been puzzled and thoughtful for a couple of scenes, and it feels like he's got this half-planned already by the time he encounters Captain Esteban.

Then the mystery of everyone's reactions to him is explained when the alcalde arrives -- he's not Diego's father, he's Don Luis Quintero (Robert Middleton), who has forced Diego's father to retire and taken over his home in Los Angeles.  Diego continues to play the foolish charmer when he's introduced to Quientero, though he turns serious again for a moment.

Why?  He has seen Teresa (Anne Archer), the Quinteros' niece or ward or something... she's their heir, but not their daughter.  I think.  Script is a little fuzzy on that point.  Anyway, she's young and pretty.

Diego says goodbye and goes off to find his parents at their hacienda outside town.  Captain Esteban thinks this popinjay could cause trouble, but Quintero thinks that's highly unlikely.

One of the best parts of this movie is their inclusion of great actors from the age of classic Hollywood.  Ricardo Montalban might be best known today as the original Khan from the Star Trek TV show and movies, but he was highly popular in "Latin Lover" types of roles when he was young (and boy, did he age well!).  Robert Middleton played a lot of "heavies" in lots of old movies and TV shows, but the real casting coups in this are Diego's parents.  They have Gilbert Roland as his father, Don Alejandro Vega:

And Yvonne De Carlo as his mother Isabella:

Yvonne De Carlo's exotic beauty had set pulses racing all through the 1940s and '50s -- you might remember her as Sephora, Moses' wife in The Ten Commandments (1956).  And Gilbert Roland rode to fame as The Cisco Kid in the 1940s, a character rather similar to Zorro in his willingness to find unusual paths to justice in the southwest.  He also appeared in a couple episodes of the Disney Zorro TV show in the 1950s, which I find a neat bit of trivia.

ANYWAY!  Diego's father is heartily displeased with the useless clown his son has become, though his mother embraces him anyway.  Diego learns from his parents all about the terrible abuses the people of Los Angeles are suffering at the hands of Quintero, Esteban, and their flunkies.  That very night, he steals one of the swords from his father's office, determined to set about righting these wrongs however necessary.

And so, he becomes Zorro.  (Just in case you didn't know, zorro is the Spanish word for "fox.")  He acquires a black hat, mask, cape, shirt, pants, gloves, and horse (we have no idea where he got the horse or how he hides all his gear -- at 78 minutes, there's no time to go into such pesky details).  And he goes around wreaking havoc on the big meanies who've been ruining everyone's lives.

And he doesn't waste time mincing words either.

He merrily rides around, robbing the Quinteros...

...stealing tax money the soldiers collect from the peasants, and swooping around with his swishy cape, being altogether devil-may-care and delightful.

There's some very nice scenery in some of the exterior shots too.  I'm sorry my picture quality isn't better for these -- this movie has never been released to DVD, so all I have is a recorded-off-TV copy that's a bit grainy.

But he doesn't stop with redistributing wealth to the poor.  He sneaks right into Quintero's office, via a secret passageway he knows about since, after all, he used to live in that house.

There he extinguishes a candle with his sword (because he can)...

...menaces the alcalde...

...looks dashing and dangerous (except I don't like how his mask's eye holes slant down on the ends because it makes him look sad all the time)...

...and vandalizes the wall before swooping off into the night.

But he doesn't stop there.  Next, he breaks into his own home to confront Captain Esteban, who's there threatening/annoying the Vegas.

Don Alejandro is a little shocked by this intrusion, but he thinks this Zorro guy is pretty cool, nonetheless.

Zorro then threatens Esteban at gunpoint and warns him to quit threatening/annoying the Vegas.

His mom is all, "You look suspiciously familiar."

Zorro has to quick leave before his mom either recognizes him or starts to feel attracted to him.  Ahhh, the dangers of being Zorro!

Anyway, then the Quinteros decide that in order to stop Don Alejandro from hating them, they should get his son Diego to marry their niece/ward/whatever, Teresa.  Teresa has kind of met Zorro already, but she's never formally met Diego -- they just saw each other in the courtyard that first day.  She hears he's handsome and polite and charming, and of course he's rich.  So she's kind of excited about meeting him at a dinner party.

Also excited to see young Diego Vega is Quintero's wife Inez (Louise Sorel).  Although married to the most powerful man in Los Angeles, Inez has a fondness for handsome men.  We get the idea that there's been something going on between her and Captain Esteban prior to this.

Diego totally picks up on Inez's proclivities and plays up to them.  He is as suave and genteel as possible, flattering her and intimating that he's quite attracted to her.  This never quite gets fully developed in this shortened version of the story, and just leaves Diego looking like a womanizing jerk, whereas in the longer 1940 movie, it had bearing on the plot.

Teresa is now much less interested in him.

And I'm only including this screencap because it illustrates so perfectly that the original Zorro story was inspired in part by The Scarlet Pimpernel.  I half expect to Diego to exclaim, "Sink me!" here.

Throughout dinner, Teresa is less-than-amused by Diego.

Inez, on the other hand, is captivated.

But it's not Inez who gets an evening visit from Zorro in her boudoir.  

During that romantic interlude, Zorro tells Teresa the truth -- that he and Diego are one and the same.  And then she's totally okay with him having flirted shamelessly with her aunt/guardian/whatever, falls madly in love with him, and becomes a very happy girl.  Her happiness lasts for about nine minutes, until the next morning when some soldiers attack Fray Felipe, the kindly spiritual leader of Los Angeles and Diego's boyhood mentor.  They rob the church and start beating Fray Felipe, so Teresa runs off to the Vega hacienda to beg Diego to intervene.  I'm mostly including the screencap below because it's the best one I could get of her lovely dress, my favorite of all her outfits.  She's crying and making awful faces, but... it's still a pretty dress.

Don Alejandro is incensed both that the soldiers would dare attack a priest, and that his milksop of a son isn't running off to defend this old family friend.  So Don Alejandro runs off instead, to rally his fellow cabelleros and put a stop to all this.

Diego rushes off, changes into Zorro, avenges Fray Felipe's mistreatment on the soldier who beat him, and then sneaks into Quintero's office again, this time as Diego.  He has a vaguely menacing little chat with Quintero, the best part of which is him sitting in the alcalde's chair looking meditative.

So then Quintero and Esteban have a big argument about how Robert Middleton clearly is the lesser man because he's not willing to wear perilously tight pants like Ricardo Montalban is, and so on.  No, actually they just yell at each other because Zorro keeps outwitting them, and they're both convinced this is the other person's fault.

And then all of a sudden, Don Alejandro and his cronies and pretty much every single citizen of the pueblo arrives and starts attacking the guards.  And Gilbert Roland proves he's pretty spry for a guy going on 70 and climbs right up the gate.

While the soldiers, cabelleros, and townsfolk mix it up outside, Captain Esteban and Zorro square off in the alcalde's office.

Esteban greatly enjoys finally crossing swords with the elusive Zorro.

Zorro's having a pretty fun time of it himself.

They fight all over the room, jumping on furniture, overturning odds and ends, and generally being quite rowdy.

Then Zorro whips off his mask, which is when Esteban utters that phrase I quoted at the beginning:  "Inside the peacock, you find a hawk."

Zorro/Diego doesn't seem to think much of the sentiment, and runs him through.  It's one of the best bits of cinematography in the whole movie -- the rest is pretty pedestrian, but this one shot is very cool:

Esteban falls to the floor, dead, and Zorro/Diego is like, "Well, good riddance, that was fun, whatever."  Or maybe more like, "Huh."  He's kind of hard to read sometimes.  Goes in for the whole inscrutable thing.

Outside, the Quinteros are taken into custody and sent back to Spain in disgrace.  Which gives Inez a chance to show off her outlandishly embroidered jacket to great effect.

Diego's all masked up as Zorro again, and he's very smirky and pleased with himself.

Teresa's pretty pleased with him too.

And then, at the very end, he reveals to his father that he, Zorro, is actually Diego, and so Don Alejandro is pleased with him too.

The biggest difference for me between Tyrone Power and Frank Langella in this role is that I like Power better as Zorro than as Diego, but I like Langella better as Diego than as Zorro.  Does that make any sense?  I also like the Vega family better in this, as they're a bit dull in the 1940.  But overall... I'm glad that if only one of these was going to be available on DVD, it's the 1940, because everybody should see that, while only Zorro afficianados (and Langella fans) need to search this out.

This is my fourth movie watched and reviewed for the Period Drama Challenge!  I showcased a lot of costumes above, and discussed them a little there, so I'm not going to spend more time on them now.

Is this movie family friendly?  Yes, it is.  I would let my kids watch this.  In fact, when we finish watching the Guy Williams Zorro TV show together, we'll probably branch out into this and the 1940 both.  There's a bit of violence, and like I showed above, you do see people get killed, but it's pretty tame and bloodless.  Captain Esteban's pants are VERY tight, however.  And Inez Quintero wears some off-the-shoulder gowns.  But don't be worried about that nighttime boudoir visit I mentioned -- Zorro/Diego leaves after a couple of quick kisses.