"I Kill Giants": Just Shoot Me

I have had the misfortune of seeing I Kill Giants (2017).  It was one of several dreary choices that my relatives offered.  The cover shows a girl with a battle axe facing a giant, with an evocation of Harry Potter.  Naturally one expects a rollicking adventure with trolls, goblins, and magic swords, perhaps set in a fantasy world on the other side of the looking glass.

By the time I realized the depth of deception in that cover, it was too late: the movie was playing, and I couldn't say "let's watch something else!" or leave.  I had to bury my head in my cell phone for two annoying hours.

See, there aren't any giants, nor magical battle-axes.  A girl named Barbara (Madison Wolfe), who is much younger than the cover art suggests. is crazy.  She has created a whole elaborate mythology in her mind: a giant invasion is immanent, heralded by ghostly harbingers, and only the Chosen One (guess who?) can save the world.

And above all, don't go near the room at the top of the stairs.  The most horrible, most frightening thing imaginable lives there.

If only there were a teensy bit of ambiguity, the slightest possibility that maybe, just maybe, the giants are real. After all, no one believed Alice about Wonderland or Dorothy about Oz, either.

 But no, the movie all but screams at us from Scene #1: "THERE ARE NO GIANTS!  THIS GIRL IS CRAZY!  THE ONLY WAY SHE CAN GET BETTER IS TO GIVE UP THESE FANTASIES!"

Barbara isn't even a sympathetic crazy person, someone nice, caring. for instance. She rejects everyone who tries to reach out to her with a snarky comment: "Sorry, I don't have time for idiots like you!  I'm busy trying to save the world!"

Actually, she's trying to destroy death.  The giants represent death.  The horrible, frightening thing at the top of the stairs is Barbara's mother, who is dying amid iv bags and drawn curtains.

That big reveal was broadcast in scene #1, too.

When Barbara finally meets a giant, it turns out to be as interested in restoring her to sanity as people in the real world.  It delivers a long speech about how everyone eventually dies, and we should cherish each moment as a wonderful gift rather than worrying about the end.  Then there's a smarmy song, and Barbara is ready to finally visit Mom on her death bed.

So basically Bridge to Terabinthia, without the cute boy.

The only thing I liked about this movie was the girl power.  Barbara doesn't get a boyfriend.  Actually, there virtually no boys or men around at all.  Instead, a girl name Sophie makes a number of overtures of friendship.  Although rebuffed, she tries again and again, with the zeal of the smitten.  Finally, in one of the ending scenes (I forget which -- there are so many, they just keep ending the movie over and over), the two girls walk off hand in hand.  Lesbian subtext!







Here's the only boys: Art Parkinson in one scene as Barbara's clod of a brother.

And Noel Clarke (not nude) in one scene as the sympathetic psychologist's husband, who is holding their newborn baby.  Barbara snarkily tells them, "She's going to die."

Yeah, sure, in about 80 years.  But we should savor every moment, right?

Except for the moments wasted on this horrible movie.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to look at Noel Clarke's penis.

The Windsors: Royal Gossip and Beefcake

I rather like The Windsors (2016-).  It's raunchy and silly, but endearing, an exaggeration of the foibles of the British royal family, told as a soap opera.

The central figures, Wills and Kate (Hugh Skinner, Louise Ford), are rather nice, except Wills doesn't want to be king.  The problem is, Wills doesn't know how the outside world works, like you have to pay for things and open doors for yourself.

Hugh Skinner is attractive, in a square-jawed fairy-tale prince way.   He's done a lot of British tv, including Our Zoo, W1A (About the inner workings of the BBC), and Poldark  

He's played a gay character at least once, in the stage version of American Psycho.

Harry (Richard Goulding) is a good-natured dolt, mega-stupid, working at odd jobs like apprentice window washer.  He's in love with Kate's sister Pippa (Morgana Robinson), who is trying to weasel her way into becoming queen by seducing Wills or Harry or both.

Richard Goulding is primarily a stage actor, performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company beginning in 2007. He played Prince Harry in the stage play King Charles III, which was adapted into a 2017 tv movie.

Charles (Harry Enfield) is obsessed with "being king first," while his wife Camilla (Hadyn Gwynne) is a scheming soap opera villain, trying to sabotage the lives of his children.

Meanwhile Fergie (Katy Wix), persona non grata since her divorce, schemes to get back into the family.  Her daughters Eugenie and Beatrice (Ellie White, Celeste Dring) are forced to get jobs ("I couldn't stand the 12-3 Tuesday-Thursday rat race!).   Prince Edward (Matthew Cottle, seen here with his son Devon) keeps trying to make a few quid at odd jobs.

Meanwhile the ghosts of past kings keep appearing to offer Wills advice.  Look for "anarchist drag performer" Dickie Beau as the gay James I.  Otherwise not a lot of gay references, but the beefcake is ample.