Five on Friday: Alternative Xmas

Put the X in Xmas! Tired of the kid friendly films? And you’ve already watched Hans Gruber fall this season? Here’s five holiday films that won’t overload the saccharine and might just give you a reason to smile.

THE THIN MAN: Thinly veiled portrait of Hammett and Hellman’s own hijinks. If you don’t love Myrna Loy and William Powell after this you have no soul!

THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER: Speaking of thinly veiled, allegedly a portrait of the cantankerous Alexander Woolcott with the fabulous Bette Davis and a great cast.

THE APARTMENT: Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine, romance without schmaltz.

BRAZIL: We’re all in this together. You might want to get used to the world of this film; we’re hurtling toward it.

IN BRUGES: Maybe you like to go on holiday abroad (while you still can). Martin McDonogh and the boys want you to have a real good time. If you like darkness, guilt and violence, this is the film for you, assuming you’ve already enjoyed THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT which I said I wasn’t going to bring up this time because I always mention it.

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Foxy Friday: Kathryn ‘Kit’ Marlowe

Top Five Medieval(ish) Movies

The Lion in Winter

What’s not to love? Katharine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole, Nigel Terry, Timothy Dalton, and the debut of Anthony Hopkins, a real medieval castle and a whole lot of family drama – and not just any family! Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the most powerful women to ever live, going toe-to-toe with her second husband Henry II over which of their sons will become king. Bonus: the poignant evocation of the overlooked middle child, Geoffrey (sob!).

Anchoress

A gorgeous film that shows exactly why a medieval teen girl might decide to become an anchoress, which means being walled into the side of a church. Sounds mad, right? But to know that you wouldn’t be forced to work in the fields or to marry a man much older than you – plus everyone suddenly thinks your important and holy. Bonus: Christopher Eccleston is the priest.

Hrafninn Flygur/The Raven Flies

This is an Icelandic film; director Hrafn Gunnlaugsson wanted to use the Viking sagas to create a set of films that had the appeal of a spaghetti western. The film succeeds in the same fun sense of adventure. It doesn’t borrow directly from any one saga but uses familiar tropes of revenge, masculine one-upsmanship, the conflict between the Norse gods followers and Christians, and the divided loyalties of former slaves who become wives. Bonus: Icelandic horses are awesome albeit tiny and who knew there were Vatican ninjas?

Kristen Lavransdatter

Directed by the legendary Liv Ullman, this sumptuous film captures a good sense of how disruptive modern notions of love would be in the Middle Ages. Kristen’s mother offers a realistic picture of the reality of marriage as something one grew into when there were no other options. The film shows how the convent was really just as much a girls school as any modern one, with the same furtive conversations about sex and religion. Bonus: it’s so beautiful!

The Wife of Bath

This is a bit of a cheat: it’s a modernisation of Chaucer’s tale but it’s just so good (all the films in this BBC series range from good to extraordinary). Julie Walters plays the wife as an aging soap star who falls for a younger man after he joins the show. She’s larger than life and bawdy as they come, just like the original. The main story is the Prologue and her many marriages, while the plot of the soap borrows from the Tale (which is quite clever! Well done, Sally Wainwright). Bonus: Bill Nighy!

I could name a lot more but these will get you started.

Kathryn ‘Kit’ Marlowe is a writer of historical fiction, often with a good bit of humour. There are those who say she’s secretly an English professor who writes under other names. You can find her on Facebook, too. Her lovely author portrait was created by the fabulous artist S. L. Johnson.

Foxy Friday : Kate Jones

Please send your Foxy Friday recommendations to submissions@foxspirit. co.uk, now over to Kate.

For 2015, I’ve resolved to review and recommend more works of fiction with diverse casts which feature issues of diversity as character notes rather than plot points. I want to see these characters starring in gripping stories which don’t necessarily revolve around their experiences of being a person of colour, a non-heterosexual, a transgendered person or someone struggling with illness. For my Foxy Friday, I’ve chosen five works that are gloriously entertaining which also provide a platform for characters who don’t fit in and aren’t necessarily trying to. Here’s my celebration of the misfits, the geeks, the sex workers, the BDSM community, the people of colour, the working classes, the chronically ill, the injured, the disenfranchised women, the old folk and my hope for everyone who may have struggled to find a story with a central protagonist who is just like them.

Fantasy Novel

Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey

Give me this over any 50 shades book any day! A wonderful and complicated political intrigue, set in a world where sex work is considered an honourable career choice. So refreshing to read a fantasy book set in a world where women can enjoy power within sex, where their right to say ‘no’ is sacred and their wish to enjoy physical pleasure is not shamed. If you are looking for a book which respects diversity in sexual taste and also tells a compelling story, this one is for you.

Kushiel's_Dart

Short Story

Chivalry by Neil Gaiman

I love old tales and legends, myths that have endured and seeped into our consciousness. In this story, I loved the idea that they are still here, not strange and distant but part of our own small worlds of charity shops, families and daily life. This story reminds me that the fantastical can be part our everyday lives, and that our everyday lives can be improved for their accidental brushes against it. It also reminds me that not all heroines are necessarily young and beautiful, although they may still remember the days when they once were.

Fantasy Novella

Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold

#WeNeedDiverseBooks and this one is a great starter! Cordelia Vorkosigan, plunged by marriage into an archaic, socially divided world, struggles to fit into her new home. She faces prejudiced behaviours which are new to her, including sexism, homophobia, institutional class bias, poverty and ableism. With help from a misfit band of social outcasts, Cordelia defies these social rules and restrictions, a course of action which culminates in a covert mission to rescue her infant son during a revolution and change the world for all future generations of Barrayarans.

Barrayar

TV Series

Spaced

Priot to becoming megastars with epic geek credentials, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost starred Spaced. With only two series, each containing six half-hour epsiodes, you could watch the lot in an afternoon. Meet Tim and Daisy, two artistically inclined and utterly hapless twenty-somethings, who along with their diverse cast of friends and acquaintances are trying to avoid growing up. Each episode is a miniture jewel, littered with delicious geeky references to sci-fi, fantasy, horror and all things cult and classic. If you’re a young geek who hasn’t figured out where life is going yet – watch Spaced, and know that you’re not alone.

Film

Attack The Block

Forget the army, forget the police – it’s up to a South London gang of teenage hoods to save their neighbourhood from an alien menace. Clueless but determined, lead by Moses (John Boyega, now confirmed for a lead role in Star Wars VII), the gang aim to defend their territory with a little help from a nurse, a couple of drug dealers and some teenage girls. Attack The Block is a raucous comedy, but also touches on more serious issues, such as racism, crime, child neglect, poverty and distrust of the police, alongside positive ideals such as honour, bravery and loyalty.

attack