O Tessa, wherefore art thou Tessa?

I BEGAN THIS DAY not knowing what to write. They say in writing, the blank page is the scariest of all demons. That has never been my problem, give me a blank page and a subject and I can whack out 4000 words about nothing easy.  It wasn't that I was scared, my problem was I had this  crawling sensation in the back of my head,  I knew exactly what it was I wanted to write. I rejected the idea out of hand, I didn't  want to write that!  I took my dog for a walk, hoping that I'd come up with a brilliant  new idea.  Nothing came. I knew sooner or later I had to write something, after all I’m a writer and writing is what I do.  

      I have what you might call a confession to make.  I don’t know whether to chalk it up to happenstance, coincidence, or foul chance. These are the kinds of things that only happen to me. I mean what are the chances?  I could get struck by lightning twice and still not have another swipe at such a foul turn of events.
     Growing up; my brother David and I would play marathon sessions of Monopoly. I remember one game in particular. I was winning; David was on the ropes, down to one property, Boardwalk with hotels.  A wounded beast is the most dangerous foe, but I was sitting pretty, I knew it was only a matter of time before I crushed him. All that changed when I landed on Boardwalk. It took all my cash reserves, I was forced to mortgaged all my available minor properties and hand over the two-thousand dollars rent. My railroads were gone, my utilities in hock.  I tried to convince myself that this represented only a minor set-back; I still had hotels on the reds and the greens. I was cash poor but I was still winning; it was only a matter of time. What I hadn’t counted on, was that I had rolled doubles, which means you get a second turn. This normally is a good thing, however in Monopoly, in the late stages of the game, strategically, this is a bad thing, the more turns you take, the more opportunity you have to land on the other guy's property.  I wasn't worried, I was free and clear, nothing but undeveloped purple, light blue and orange.  I rolled the dice with smug confidence, not knowing just how bad my luck was.  The dice came  up three. One, two, three, pass GO, collect two-hundred dollars, all right so far. Three landed me on CHANCE . . . no worries, maybe I'd win a $10  second prize in a breauty contest. I drew my card and in an instant I knew I was ruined!  ADVANCE TO BOARDWALK.

     What sort of evil karma must I possess to bring me to such ruination?  In one throw of the dice, I was bankrupt! There was no way I could come up with two-thousand dollars a second time.  As strange as it might seem, this was a life changing moment for me. It was in that moment I had an epiphany of sorts. That’s a long story and quite the round about way to make my point.  This is why I never play the lottery or go to the casino.  At just ten-years-old and I knew in that moment I was forever cursed with abysmal bad luck. 

    *Sigh* This was bound to come out sooner or later, so I might as well be upfront about it. I still can’t quite believe it myself. Just what is this post all about?  I'll tell you, Dakota's new movie,  NOW IS GOOD (2012).  Dakota Fanning  plays a girl dying of leukemia who compiles a list of things she'd like to do before passing away. Topping the list is her desire to lose her virginity . . . alright so far.  Okay, here comes  the bombshell, are you sitting down? The name of Dakota’s character is Tessa Scott! Could this be any worse? What am I supposed to say? How am I supposed to respond? To make matters worse, Dakota has her hair cut short and she looks like a boy! I guess it could be worse; her name could be Tessa Claiborne.

     In 2006 I began work on what was to become my first novel,  RUFF STUFF.  A story about a  private investigator Lea Swift and her sometime tumultuous relationship with  her grandfather, a war criminal, a Nazi hunter who also turns out to be a shape shifter. These stories represented   just a  compilation of tales of my past characters from previous role-playing games turned into a novel.
      In '07 I began work on a new novel, an origial  novel about a subject I was passionate about. A story I wanted to tell. Set against the backdrop of nineteenth century British imperialism, TESSA CLAIBORNE tells the story of a young Welsh girl who escapes poverty and indentured servitude. Tessa disguises herself as a boy joins the army, where she finds herself in Africa, inexplicably intertwined in some of the greatest colonial battles in history. Tessa Claiborne is an historical novel, a hero’s journey about love, loss and ultimate redemption.

     Well, that's all I got to say about that. It's impossible to know whether to call it foul coincidence or cruel happenstance! You can be the judge yourself who came first, Tessa Scott or Tessa Claiborne.  Here's the link to my web page  TESSA CLAIBORNE.COM   Where you can watch the book trailer. You can read my a preliminary draft of my novel on Wordpress @  TESSA CLAIBORNE the novel .

MAN ON FIRE

MAN ON FIRE (2004)─In Mexico City, a former CIA assassin swears vengeance on those who committed an unspeakable atrocity against the little girl he was sworn to protect. Directed by Tony Scott from the novel by A.J. Quinnell, screenplay by Brian Heigeland. Man on Fire stars Denzel Washington, Christopher Walken and Dakota Fanning.

 

     After a wave of kidnappings sweeps through Mexico City, there is a growing sense of panic among the wealthier citizens, especially parents. In one six-day period, there are twenty-four abductions, leading many to hire bodyguards for their children. With this back story established, we first meet John Creasy (Washington), a burned-out ex-CIA operative, who has given up on life. Creasy’s friend Rayburn (Walken) convinces him to give it one last try and come to Mexico City to be a bodyguard for nine-year-old Pita Ramos (Fanning), daughter of a wealthy industrialist. At first Creasy rejects the idea out-of-hand, he’s not interested in being antibody's bodyguard, least of all to a little girl. After some convincing, he accepts the assignment. At first Creasy keeps his distance, barely tolerating the precocious child and her pestering questions about his dark past. But slowly, Pita works her wiles and begins to chip away at his rough façade The two learn to trust and the pair become bona fied friends, there exist a genuine chemistry, a bond between the little blonde white girl and the damaged black man with a deadly 9mm Glock. For Creasy, his new found relationship is redemption, then in one catastrophic instant his friend, his charge, Pita is kidnapped.

     I recently watched a broadcast of Man on Fire on Spike TV, I hadn’t seen this movie in five years and everything that I ever loved about Dakota Fanning suddenly came flooding back. What an absolutely wonderful performance. Dakota was at the height of her prowess, after a disastrous turn in the god-awful Cat in the Hat (2003) Dakota was back, a vulnerable wispy mercurial waif, with baby teeth intact. I don’t know if he knows it or not, but Tony Scott needs to get down on his knees and thank God that he cast Dakota Fanning in this movie! Dakota is awesome, she more than holds her own against the venerable Washington and even steals the show.

 

     Man on Fire is not an easy movie to like, it’s also a hard movie not to like. This is not what you call a perfect film, principally due to Tony Scott’s penchant for schizophrenic direction and head-ache inducing herky-jerky camera work. Man on Fire fails mostly in part as an action movie owing to its fragmented construction. When the movie works it works well.  One thing that does work well is Harry Gregson-Williams’ south-of-the-border Spanish guitar score is enhanced by soundtrack splashes of Chopin, Debussy, and even the Linda Ronstadt classic 1977 country-rock version of “Blue Bayou.”

       Man on Fire is really three movies in one. The first third of the movie is your basic introduction, the “set-up.” We are introduced to Denzel Washington’s character the hired bodyguard of little Dakota Fanning. This is the best part of the movie, the unfolding relationship between the little girl and the assassin. To Tony Scott’s credit, he takes time to develop this relationship, there’s no 30 second montage of Dakota and Washington frolicking on the beach and then *bang* you’re dead . . . 30 seconds is not enough time to invest in the characters and Scott understands this. No, the movie devotes some serious screen time to develop the quiet and intimate relationship between the gruff assassin and the little girl.  Washington and Fanning are wonderful together and establish a screen rapport that reaches the level of Hepburn and Bogart.  This sets the stage for the tragedy yet to unfold.  I personally, really enjoyed the Dakota sequences; the scenes with Dakota and Denzel are so good and so strong that I caught myself wishing the entire movie was about their relationship. Seriously folks, not since Ryan and Tatum O’Neal have I seen a movie about a relationship between an adult man and a 9-year-old girl that was this good.

 

     Sadly, the Washington-Fanning relationship was less than a third of the move. The second act of the film is about Pita’s kidnapping and Creasy’s obsession to exact revenge on her abductors. It's in this second act that the movie goes haywire. You tend to feel, with all the camera tricks, captions with a mind of their own, and jerky, over-the-top direction that the director was trying to obscure the fact that he didn’t know how to tell the story in this part of the movie. Scott calls attention to himself much too often his advant-guarde directing style. The middle part of the film lapses into cliché. I thought I was watching Charles Bronson in “Death Wish,”  about a character hell-bent on seeking revenge.  This only serves to drag the movie down. The third act of the film is more of a mix of the first two parts. There are some good moments, and some not so good, when it works, it works well, and when it doesn’t, it doesn’t work at all.         

    One of my favorite Dakota Fanning stories is a classic. Dakota is invited to appear on the TONIGHT SHOW with Jay Leno. Dakota’s comedic talents are greatly underrated. She told this story . . . On a day trip to the Aztec pyramids during the filming of Man on Fire. Dakota and her family, including her grandmother Mary Jane, took a bus tour to visit the ancient sites. Apparently, Mary Jane is very talkative. All during the time the tour guide was trying to explain some of the more important aspects of the ruins; Mary Jane kept up a constant chatter. Finally, in frustration the Mexican guide turned to Mary Jane and said (in his not-too-good-English):

“Mary Jane, if you would just shut-up a little, you can hear the jaguars.”

     Dakota tells it better than I─

Man on Fire (2004) ** ½

      

    

    

THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON

“♪♪ Who do you call when your windshield’s busted? ♪♪” Trisha sang softly.
“♪♪1-555-54-GIANT. ♪♪”

THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM  GORDON by Stephen King © 1999 Scribner. When  ten-year-old Trisha McFarland gets lost in the woods, she has only a boiled egg, a tuna fish sandwich and her Sony Walkman for comfort. She is a huge fan of Tom Gordon, a relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, so she listens to the games and he becomes an imaginary character in her mind. I found this book to be a thoroughly enjoyable read and I highly recommended it. Since I pictured Dakota in my mind as the little girl Trisha McFarland, it was a little bit like having a new Dakota film playing in my head. The novel is part spook story and part survival story, with the baseball subtext woven into the fabric of the narrative so cleverly that the imaginary Tom Gordon becomes an integral character. As Trisha becomes more lost and her deprivation becomes more severe, the little girl’s misery descends from tears into abject terror―baseball itself becomes a metaphor for Trisha’s very survival. TOM GORDON is really a lot less of a scare novel than it is a coming-of-age story similar to King’s Stand by me.

     I should preface all my comments by stating emphatically there is no movie there never was any movie and all comments made here are merely the musings and reminiscence of the wishful author.

     In the spring of 2004 there was a substantial rumor that Dakota Fanning was going to be cast in a movie called The Girl who loved Tom Gordon. At first I was horrified, Stephen King, didn’t he write ghost stories and movies about teen-age proms drenched in buckets of blood? Besides, what an absolutely clunky, unmanageable title, I had serious flashbacks to the ‘70’s and another clunky title, The Little Girl who lived down the Lane. There was the cool poster with the little girl beside the grave and spade, it was all spooky. Unfortunately, for Jodie Foster the movie tanked.

     As far as The Girl who loved Tom Gordon, it’s a quick read and comes in at slim 260 pages. The baseball theme is incorporated so seamlessly, so exquisitely that to separate the two would be impossible. I was instantly transported back to my glorious baseball youth: “THE ROAR OF ’84.” The year the Detroit Tigers won the World Series. I truly do remember the power and glory of Milt Wilcox, Alan Trammel and Jack Morris. Who could forget Kirk Gibson’s climatic home run? Baseball has that effect on people. After reading the book, all my childhood baseball enthusiasm came flooding back to me. Stephen King has somehow transformed baseball into the perfect metaphor for Trisha McFarland’s survival. I don’t know how he does it. I guess that’s what great writing is all about. A little girl lost in the woods all of a sudden comes down to a three and two pitch in the bottom of the ninth. I’ve read In to Thin Air, a great survival story if there ever was one. The Girl who loved Tom Gordon  is not so much a great survival story as it is a great baseball story. I’m not a big fan of George Romero. Maybe he’s matured. Maybe this is his own personal coming-of-age picture after reading the book, after reading the book I could think of no other title better than The Girl who loved Tom Gordon.

     The Girl who loved Tom Gordon represents one of the greatest could have been, what if, casting missed opportunities in movie history. Dakota would have been absolutely perfect for the part. At the time, Dakota was ten-years-old, exactly the same age as Trisha the girl in the book. The part of Trisha is very physical, and the scares mostly psychological. Since a great deal of the story’s narrative takes place inside the girl’s head, it was a chance for Dakota to flex her considerable narration skills. Little girl as action hero?  If you think about it, how often are ten-year-old girls really allowed to be brave? Certainly not Penny Robinson, every time a shambling bush monster appeared out of the woodwork all she ever did was scream, run away and fall down. I think that's what I like most about this story, Trisha McFarland is brave. The part of Trisha requires Dakota to hike, climb, and sing. “♪♪ 1-800 GIANT ♪♪” and get slathered in mud (you got to love a girl covered in mud)! Aside from the imaginary Tom Gordon, Trisha McFarland is principally the only other character in the novel. The whole weight of the film was to be on Dakota’s shoulders. I think she’s could have done well in this part.

     There was some controversy about the part. Trisha does indeed resort to some profanity during her ordeal lost in the woods. The obscenities come first during the middle act of the narrative when things for our heroine have gone from bad to worse (what could possibly be worse?) Trisha looses her shoe in the mud, and is desperate to retrieve it. The cursing is well within the context of the story and comes not without moral compunctions. Trisha stands up, still holding the rescued sneaker in her hand, and looked ahead.

“Oh fuck!,” Trisha croaked. It was the first time in her life she had said that
 particular world out loud . . .

     I consider the ramifications of the fact that our ten-year-old Dakota was going to have to use some very naughty words in her screen portrayal of Trisha McFarland. However I feel within the context of the story the dialogue is well justified and not gratuitous. This is not a case of the use of profanity for profanity sake. Trisha is essentially a very good girl. Under normal circumstances she would never talk that way, but Trisha’s circumstances are anything but normal and her use of bad language is used by King to illustrate the profound depth of her decent into misery and despair. The cursing comes at a time when Trisha comes to the full realization of the dire straight in which she finds herself.

     We will never know why this project failed. I suspect that perhaps the director was wrong, George Romero. When it was announced that Dakota was pulling out of the project, the movie remained with out a Trisha and ultimately was never filmed.  I’ve always felt this to be one of the great missed opportunities in movie history.  It is still a great story, a great book and I sincerely hope it is made one day, sadly, just not with Dakota.

(Let me organize a few pitchforks and torches) . . .

WAR OF THE WORLDS

WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005) Not what you might call a great movie.  My expectations entering the theater were extremely high and my anticipation was nearly insatiable. My trepidation was equally inconsolable. I felt really nervous for the success of this picture. After suffering a string of less than sterling movies over the past three years ranging from unmitigated failures of Cat in the Hat (2003) to Hide and Seek (2005), I felt desperate. Dakota really needed this movie. I knew that Dakota had done her best, but I felt she was being sabotaged at every twist and turn by idiot directors, producers, and worst of all co-stars. Case in point: Tom Cruise’s crazy romantic antics coupled with his spooky Scientology hokum. I felt that Tom had done the promotion of WOTW a huge disservice by creating a spectacle that shifted the focus of media away from the movie and on to Tom Cruise jumping on the couch.

     Dakota herself has never failed to deliver; she always managed to elevate what ever project she is attached to from what amounts to mediocre hack, to something special. I don’t think the poor girl knows she is surrounded by idiots. However it is enough to say that a couple of Dak’s past movies have missed the mark. I felt this WOTW was a make or break affair. If WOTW tanked, well . . . I wasn’t really prepared to contemplate failure.

     This is a movie doesn’t fool around, after a brief introduction to Ray the worlds shortest Newark dock worker, dead-beat-dad with the automobile engine in his living room. The action starts. Dakota is absolutely adorable on her arrival with her little zebra backpack and toy horsies. The visibly real-life pregnant Miranda Otto does well establishing the good and caring mom vs. the motor-head New Jersey Dad. Then the lightning comes and it is truly terrifying. At first amused by the spectacle, Ray beckons Rachel outdoors to view the unnatural phenomenon. Dakota delivers a chilling understated line: “I want to go inside.” She is convincing as a girl who wants to be with her dad but instantly recognizes that this is scary stuff. The lightning it turns out is only a precursor to further death and destruction as a massive electro-magnetic pulse renders (most) electronic devices useless.

     The Martians are truly terrifying, with their monstrous walking-machines, flailing tentacles and fog-horn calls of destruction that seem oddly mono-syllabically reminiscent of the five-note melody of universal harmony from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. Instead this time the sound is malevolent: “I am going to kill you.”
      So what about Dakota? Dakota is absolutely superb. Who can resist a girl covered in mud? She doesn’t have a lot of time in the opening moments to establish character but she does the most with what precious few seconds she has. When she orders humus from the health food store or when initially she balks at getting into a strange car I could hear echoes of her suburban perfect I’ve-finally-married-up mother: “Whose car is this? Whose car is this?”
     Dakota manages to covey terror so convincingly it’s almost painful to watch. The sheer terror and confusion created when Ray tells her to wait by a tree while he goes to confront her brother. The kindly misguide couple who try so hard to abduct her for her own well being and half-realizing that he’s loosing his daughter but absolutely certain that he will loose his son. The total terror of Ray knowing that he can’t save both children at the same time and having to choose who to save. This is one of the movies most powerful scenes. Then there are the quiet scenes of terror when Dak wipes the spider from her face. The quiet, sweaty close-ups of her with a blindfold, while she knows full well her dad is going to kill the strange man who is up to this point has been their benefactor. Soon enough Dak is confronted with the hideous mechanical eye of the alien and she emits what has to be a modern classic movie scream to rival Janet Leigh in the shower. So good, infact she was ask to re-inact it on the TODAY show!
     I don’t have nearly as many problems with the ending as many of the movie critics to review this movie before me. I really can’t say that I liked the ending or it was satisfying in the same way that the last line of MASTER AND COMMANDER was perfect: “After all Steven, it is a flightless bird . . .”  I really can’t say I hated the ending. It was pretty much the way the book ended and the 1953 movie ended. The Martians die of the flu. It could have been more poignant, I think I might have like it to be a little bit more pan-dramatic, and as this was WAR OF THE WORLDS. Instead, Steven Spielberg chose to keep it intimate, one family’s reunion. Sure it was sappy, but I don’t go to the movies to leave feeling bad.

  

     H.G. Wells, an Englishman, a founding father of modern science fiction writing was considered in his day a left-wing radical who wrote his 1898 novel of Martian invasion as an indictment of English imperialism. Ironically, Orson Wells chose to update this theme for his 1938 audience as a warning of the coming of Nazis. Again in the 1953 movie, the bad guys were harbingers of the Russians and the Cold War. Spielberg has followed his predecessors and once again updated this theme when Dakota ask: “Is it the terrorist?”


WAR OF THE WORLDS  (2005) ** ½

UPTOWN GIRLS

UPTOWN GIRLS (2003) It doesn’t seem possible that eight years have gone by since Dakota made this movie. Uptown Girls was the first movie Dakota made after becoming what you might call a bona fide movie star. It was the first movie she made that I waited for in anticipation, stood in line, and bought my ticket solely on the basis that it was a “Dakota Fanning movie.”
     My road to Dakota Fanning “fandom” was one fraught with happenstance, luck and fate. I saw my very first Dakota Fanning movie quite by accident, sometime in 2001. These were the days before Netflix and DVDs, on the weekends I would walk up to the local video store and rent a movie. By chance I picked up I am Sam (2001), a movie I rented on the basis of the strength of the two stars Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer. A story about a retarded man and his struggle to retain custody of his six-year-old daughter. I remember enjoying the movie, at the time I distinctly remember thinking to myself, How absolutely utterly adorable the little Blonde girl was who played Lucy. Cute little girls come and go and I simply can not be preoccupied with every cute little girl that ever graced the screen. Needless to say this particular cute little girl was quickly forgotten. As was my custom back then, I lent the movie to my mother.    

     I never gave the movie or that little girl a second thought.  All that changed in the fall of 2002 when a  then fledgling Sci-Fi channel presented an original mini-series Taken, produced by Stephen Spielburg, something about alien abduction. I took no notice and didn’t even watch it.  That was until Mother said to me, “Have you been watching Taken?” I said no.  Mom said to me, “I think you should, you’ll like it,  I think you might be pleasantly surprised . . .” I didn’t know it at the time, but Mom wasn’t talking about the movie.  It must be the “Norman Bates” in me, but I set my VCR and dutifully recorded Taken and settled in to watch the movie. I was immediately captivated. Not just by the intriguing science fiction tale which was excellent, but what really caught my attention was the narration. There was this voice, a lilting sing-song Southern voice. It was the voice of a child, a voice that was familiar. At first I was baffled and the Sci-Fi network did nothing to untangle my intrigue. I had heard this voice before of that much I was convinced. But for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I was so suddenly drawn into the narrative of this story by this unseen narrator. It wasn’t until episode seven, "Dropping the dishes,"  that I suddenly had a face to put to that voice. Remember the adorable little blonde girl from I am Sam?  It was of course Dakota Fanning, and I was at once completely captivated. Here was an eight-year-old girl who totally carried this made-for-TV movie. This was a fresh face, a new talent as sassy and precocious as Tatum O’Neal or Jodie Foster . . . I had waited twenty-five years to discover such a girl!  So believe me when I say,  I don’t make such comparisons lightly.
     Uptown girls, directed by Boaz Yakins, from a script by Allison Jacobs. Stars Brittany Murphy as Molly Gunn, the feckless freewheeling daughter of a deceased rock legend, who is forced to get a job after her manager steals all her money. Molly takes a job as nanny for precocious enfant terrible Ray (Dakota Fanning), the oft ignored daughter of a music executive. Molly inadvertently learns what it means to be an adult while teaching Ray how to be a child.

     Dakota was just nine-years-old back then and she reminds us of why we love her so much. She is super cute, with baby teeth intact. Precocious to a fault, a 29-year-old woman in the body of a nine-year-old. Dakota is a funny girl, a natural comic with a “rubber face,” and impeccable timing. She excels at the art of the dead-pan delivery, “Swinging door” was perhaps the funniest line in the whole movie. I wish Dakota made more comedies, she could easily be the next Lucille Ball.


Uptown Girls (2003) ** ½