Keeper of the Caius (See, 'cause it's pronounced, "Keys", and it's...)

Flying above Heathrow,
Never dreaming of the time or my dwindling cash flow
-Sloan, "The Great Wall"

I still have no idea how I came to be here. I mean, I'm sure it has something to do with filling out paperwork, boarding an airplane, etc., but I cannot yet fathom the fact that I am here, among the halls where Watson and Crick first met, where Douglas Adams, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman and Hugh Laurie practiced comedy in Footlights, and where Stephen Hawking studied and publishes. Every step I take is a mind-bending experience, and I pray that it never fails to hit me anew with each passing day.

Wow, all of that sounds terribly haughty to me now, but it's true. This is all too incredible to believe.

I flew in on the redeye and arrived Monday morning, and I quickly set about settling in. The accomodations are nice. I had visions of some minimal, Spartan niche that they'd tuck us away in for some reason, but it's not like that at all. Some of the people who arrived early have said that their rooms are much nicer than the hotels that they stayed in before the program started.

We all had tea together the first day, and dinner a few hours after that. I was immediately struck by the temper of the group. It seems that every time you go on a study abroad, or a camp somewhere, or what have you, there's always at absolute least on person who can't stand it, who wants to go home to their boyfriend or girlfriend, who spends every waking hour on a cellphone with their family at $1 a minute. There's no-one here with that disposition. There's no-one here with anything but an eagerness to learn what there is to learn, see what there is to see, and to form friendships as fast and as heartily as they can. Also, fun. There is a spot of that.

I want to write so badly about all of the plans that we have, but I'd rather write about them after they've happened, so I won't do it yet. Instead, I'll report that I have had one session in each of my classes so far, and I couldn't be more excited. I am in a class on Shakespeare in performance, taught by Dr. Paul Hartle, who has been teaching at Cambridge thirty years, and teaching Shakespeare at Cambridge twenty years. He also has the most deliciously extensive Shakespeare DVD collection you could imagine. We're delving into Othello right now, and we've been discussing, among other things, race and casting throughout history, and Dr. Hartle seems, for sheer love of the subject, to have stowed away every actor from Paul Robeson to Laurence Fishburne to a very uncomfortable Anthony Hopkins. His knowledge and enthusiasm are limitless, and the class is an absolute joy.

I am also taking a course on James Joyce's Ulysses, wherein I fear that I may be in over my head, but enthusiasm presses me onward nonetheless. It may prove more educational to me overall, just because of my level of ignorance about Joyce. All in all, I couldn't be happier or more ready to delve into things than I am now.

Movie Adaptations from People Who Should Have Known Better: Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich

Here, for the sake of keeping everything together should anyone ever take an interest in my writing, is an article that I wrote for the blog Written (R)evolutions, where I may well become a regular contributor. The article is as follows:

I don't know if this will become a regular feature or if it's just a whim, but here is a catalog of film adaptations (all books this time, but why limit ourselves, eh?) that never should have happened. This week, we feature two actors who definitely should have known better, the esteemed Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich.

I have nothing against Jeremy Irons or John Malkovich. Both are highly accomplished actors, worthy of the praise that they receive and probably then some. The aim of this article is not to denigrate Irons or Malkovich, but rather to point out a few moments at which they could have made better use of their respective talents.

John Malkovich: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2006)

This film took a great book and radio serial and absolutely gutted it. Now, I'm not complaining about the parts that they added. In fact, I thought that John Malkovich's role in the film (as a political opponent to Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Galaxy) was brilliant. What a lot of people don't realize is that Adams actually wrote that bit in just a few days before his untimely death. Adams wrote in all of the new scenes, for the deliberate purpose of making sure that the movie flatly contradicted the books, radio serial, TV show, and records. He loved to ensure, at every possible turn, that his fans couldn't construct any sort of canon. He had a field day with it. No, that's not what made this movie terrible.

I want to make it known that I understand how difficult it must be to take a book whose strength was its narrative style and translate that into a film. I also want to say that visually, it was great. The Vogons were spectacular, and Marvin, though definitely unorthodox, didn't look bad at all.

The problem was the script editing that took place after Adams's death. I actually didn't know about the editing at the time that I saw the film, but when I heard about it later, it made sense. They said that they tightened up the script and that they enhanced the love story. When they said that they "tightened up the script" they meant that they slaughtered the dialogue. I don't know how many times in that movie that they built right up to my favorite lines and then didn't deliver. I can offer no explanation for this. The dialogue in the book is some of the most witty ever written, but they would leave the entire set-up to a joke and then leave out the line that everything was leading up to. The punchlines were missing, almost every last one of them. What was left was a broken, battered, husk of what could have been a spectacular film.

I can only surmise that Malkovich saw "Douglas Adams movie" and signed on before he took the time to read the script.

Jeremy Irons: The Time Machine (2002)

This was the second film adaptation of the book, as envisioned by H.G. Wells's grandson. I must confess that I have not read the original novella, although I am almost certain that I've got it lying around here somewhere. I do know, however, that the original work was by and large a social statement, an examination of a future society contrasted with our own, that was made all the more poignant by having the entire thing set amongst the ruins of London.

The film is much more of an adventure tale, although it does delve into modern science-fiction themes. For instance, the issue of paradoxes in time travel is brought up in a very interesting way. Granted, the paradox is brought up because the entire first half of the film was original plot, having nothing to do with the original novella.

The ill-advised aspect of the film, then, is not so much anything to do with the film itself so much as the decision to use the name The Time Machine to label/brand the movie.

Jeremy Irons role in the film was that of the Uber-Morloch, a giant creature that was controlling the feeble remains of humanity telepathically, in an interesting spin on one of the few parts of the movie that actually occur in the book. Unfortunately, this involved turning Jeremy Irons into a decidedly ridiculous creature with a brain running down the length of his spine. This was actually my first knowledgeable encounter with Mr. Irons work, and I have to admit that I was perplexed. People had told me he was sexy. Evidently people were into brain-spines.

All things considered, it's a passable film, but one that had precious little to do with H.G. Wells's The Time Machine. On the one hand, it did bring a fair amount of depth to a wide range of classic science fiction topics, such as the paradoxes involved with time travel, that only sprang to light after Wells's time or even due to Wells's influence. Because it does handle those topics with relative maturity (at least, that's what my memory tells me), I can sort of dig it. On the other hand, brain-spines. Perhaps Mr. Irons, like Mr. Malkovich, was sold on the title of the film and signed on without looking at what he was getting into, or perhaps he was sold on the more intriguing qualities of the script. This role demands far less speculation than the others.

Of course, this is not the extent of Mr. Irons's work, nor of Mr. Malkovich's. Indeed, they have appeared in many other poorly-conceived book-to-film adaptations, sometimes doing so together. Let's take a look at a couple of these.

The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)

Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich teamed up for a film that may not be innately terrible, but...okay, yes it is. It's not the worst movie ever, but it's not good. I have to confess, though, that my biggest problem with the movie is a personal one. You see, as far as I can tell, the chief sin here is casting Leonardo DiCaprio in two prominent roles in the film as both Leonardo DiCaprio, the King of France, and his long-lost twin brother Leonardo DiCaprio, who turns out to be long-lost because King Leonardo DiCaprio put an iron mask on his face and tossed him in the Bastille, an ordeal from which he emerges several years later, surprisingly well-groomed.

Now, Leo has since atoned for his sins, but you have to remember that this came out just a couple of short years after Titanic, before the girls had really gotten over Leo, and I was in Junior High and resentful. You see, Leonardo DiCaprio had, in my mind, taken something precious from me: every single woman on the face of the Earth. Titanic came out in 1996, which was roughly the year that the other guys started catching on to what I already knew. Women are pretty great. Also, that was the year that the women in our class started to become noticeable. And by "started to become noticeable" I mean that they all turned into goddesses overnight.

As Dave Barry put it, "they all showed up at school one day suddenly two feet taller and with breasts and God knows what else." But, the women weren't interested in me. They weren't interested in any small-town Arkansas schoolboys. They were, down to the last one of them, interested solely in Leonardo DiCaprio. It's a wonder that anybody dated anybody that year. I sure as hell didn't date anybody that year, and I blamed Leo.

Never mind that I was a vaguely potato-shaped blob with glasses three inches thick who didn't know how to talk to anyone under thirty, it was all Leo's fault. The best part of this movie was watching Leonardo DiCaprio seal Leonardo DiCaprio's face in the iron mask, and I'm not even sure if that really happened or if I just imagined it.

This has turned out to have way less to do with Malkovich or Irons than I intended, and I am going to move on immediately for the sake of us all.

Eragon (2006)

This film is easily the worst on the list, and possible the lowest point in the career of Malkovich or Irons or, in fact, anyone in Hollywood ever. Jeremy Irons plays the role of Brom, who is basically Obi-Wan Kenobi, and John Malkovich plays the evil Galbatorix, whose Gallic name sticks out laughably throughout the entire movie. To give you a sample of the writing, I found the following sample of the opening narration, which is provided by Jeremy Irons himself:

JEREMY IRONS: There was a time when the fierce and beautiful land of Alagaësia was ruled by men astride mighty dragons. To protect and serve was their mission, and for thousands of years, the people prospered. But the riders grew arrogant, and began to fight among themselves for power."

To protect and serve? Really? First red flag, ten seconds into the movie. The author may have been thirteen when he wrote the book, but the screenwriter has to be eight years old, tops.

JEREMY IRONS: Sensing their weakness, a young rider named Galbatorix betrayed them, and in a single bloody battle, believed he had killed them all, riders and dragons alike. Since then, our land has been ruled by Galbatorix. He crushed all rebellion, including the freedom fighters known as the Varden."

Why does this sound familiar? Oh, yeah. "A pupil of mine, before he turned to evil, helped the Empire to hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father."

Oh, but it continues:

JEREMY IRONS: Those that survived fled to the mountains. There, they hoped for a miracle that might even their odds against the king. Our story begins one night, as Arya, an ally of the Varden, rides for her life, carrying a stone stolen from the king himself."

This is all that I could find on IMDB, but I think I remember the rest of it.

JEREMY IRONS: The stone was important to Galbatorix, and its importance to Galbatorix was the reason that Arya, the Varden warrior who was of the Varden, had stolen it from the king himself. Galbatorix wanted the stone back, and so he sent out his finest warriors, and so Arya was riding for her life, carrying the stone that was the thing that was wanted by the King. Above all things, the King longed for his stone.

JOHN MALKOVICH: I want my stone.

JEREMY IRONS: He wanted his stone. And so he had sent out his warriors to chase Arya, who had the stone, because she had stolen it from the King.

The movie then segues to two teenage boys flirting in a barn. With swords. I commented on it and my sister told me that they were cousins, like that somehow made it better instead of worse.

In addition, this is Joss Stone's motion picture debut. That fact should tell you everything you need to know about the movie by itself.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why these two distinguished actors would collaborate on such a mind-bendingly terrible film.

Perhaps they wanted an opportunity to work together again, having enjoyed each others' company on the set of Man in the Iron Mask. Unfortunately, that theory has a hole in it. One of those two actors would have to agree to the movie for the other actor to see it as an opportunity to work with the other one. One of these men, of his own free will, agreed to star in Eragon. Maybe whichever one went in first is an alcoholic, and was incredibly drunk when he agreed to do the role.

Maybe he was strapped for cash and needed to appear in a blockbuster so that he could support himself while acting in other, good movies that were bound to make less money. Maybe he's strapped for cash because of alcoholism. I don't know. Nothing that my feeble imagination can come up with will adequately explain this course of action, and I'm wearing myself out by even trying to do so.

I don't want to write about movies anymore.