The Dead Gay Man: Burn This and Tom at the Farm

Choose your beefy, brooding blue-collar man
grieving his dead gay brother carefully.

When news broke that tickets were on sale for Burn This, a revival of a sexy, intense 1987 Lanford Wilson play starring Adam Driver and Keri Russell, I felt deeply envious of people who lived in or near New York. Those lucky people would be able to see film director favorite Adam Driver on the stage, where he started racking up accolades the moment he graduated from Julliard in 2009! They would get a preview of the chemistry between Kylo Ren and the new character played by Russell in Star Wars: Episode IX! Why couldn't I be like those fortunate ones? Then I remembered that planes were a thing.

So a month later I was in New York, in the Hudson Theatre, terrified that at the last minute they would announce that Driver had the flu or something. But that didn't happen, and the show began! Then a different thought came to mind. "Wait a second. Is this Tom at the Farm?"

A dream come true. That carpet, though.

Tom at the Farm, or Tom à la ferme, is a 2011 play by Quebecois playwright Michel Marc Bouchard. I was introduced to the play back in 2015 through Xavier Dolan's film adaptation. I eventually read the English translation, but found that it's a work where staging is really integral. (For this post, I'll mostly be going off of the Dolan film.)

I'm not suggesting plagiarism or anything like that. But let me explain: 

When Burn This starts, Robbie, the dance partner of Manhattan woman Anna, has died in an accident along with his boyfriend. Anna relates how she showed up at his funeral to discover her friend's conservative New Jersey family didn't know he was gay. They assumed/insisted that she was his girlfriend, and she found herself roped into spending the night at the family's house. Soon, she finds herself in a passionate yet ill-advised relationship with her deceased friend's volatile older brother, Pale, who knows his brother was gay and looks eerily like him.

When Tom at the Farm starts, Guy, the boyfriend of Montreal man Tom, has died in an accident. Tom shows up at the funeral to discover his boyfriend's conservative rural Quebec family didn't know he was gay. They assume/insist that a female co-worker, Sarah, was his girlfriend, and Tom finds himself roped into getting Sarah to come to the family's house. Tom finds himself in a passionate yet ill-advised relationship with his deceased boyfriend's volatile older brother, Francis, who knows his brother was gay and looks eerily like him.

Both stories also have creepy dying animals (butterflies, cows), gay men in advertising, dancing, a hit 1980s song ("I'm on Fire" for Burn This, "Sunglasses at Night" for the Tom at the Farm movie), and a very important handwritten note on a scrap of paper.

Pierre-Ives Cardinal (Francis) and Xavier Dolan (Tom) in Tom at the Farm

What interests me about the parallels is that Tom at the Farm feels like it took the basic situation (cosmopolitan gay man dies, more "traditional" family is in denial about his sexuality, woman pressured into posing as his girlfriend) and re-centered on the gay characters, even bringing one back from the dead.

Gay characters in Burn This are important, but on the periphery from the main action. When the play starts, boyfriends Robbie and Dominic are already dead and buried. Larry, roommate to Anna and the late Robbie, is an important and scene-stealing character, but very much of the "sassy gay friend" trope. That he doesn't come off as too cartoonish in 2019 is due to Wilson's thoughtful writing and Brandon Uranowitz's performance. (In an interview, Uranowitz describes the part as "a dream role" and not in need of "modernizing.") Still, it's hard not to notice that Larry's function is mostly to provide humor and assist the heterosexual romance between Anna and Pale.

In Tom at the Farm (at least in the movie version), the analogous Pale/Anna tryst between Francis, the dead man's older brother, and Sarah, the co-worker who has to pretend to be the dead man's girlfriend, does occur, but as a quickie in a truck. The main focus is on the relationship between Tom and Francis. And whoo boy, what a relationship it is. The Anna and Pale relationship is a series of unstable, drunken, grief-fueled hookups, but is still miles healthier than what Tom and Francis get up to. While Pale, a sleep-deprived coke addict, is unpredictable and aggressive, Francis is downright sadistic and dangerous. No one is threatened with being thrown in a pit of dead cows in Burn This!

The Hudson Theatre

I don't know if Bouchard and/or Dolan were inspired by Wilson's play at all (I couldn't find any reference to this online), but the similarities in the stories at their bases are striking. Even if there is no connection, the contrasts between the two are so fascinating to me because they show how different storytellers can take one scenario and change it so much depending on whom they decide the protagonist is, which facet they choose to look through.

Burn This was 100% worth the weekend trip across the country. Seeing Driver act onstage was just as electrifying as I'd hoped. I was expecting his vulnerability and energy, but was surprised by his flawless comedic timing (maybe because I've never watched Girls?). The aforementioned Uranowitz was hilarious. David Furr, as Anna's wealthy screenwriter boyfriend Burton, brought an approachable humanity to the role. Russell didn't seem as natural onstage as her three Broadway-vet castmates, but she was still deeply affecting and has time to get more comfortable (the show is still in previews and officially opens April 16, running through July 14). 

Image info:
Header image: promo image for Burn This, screenshot of Tom at the Farm
Pic of program: mine
Tom at the Farm screenshot
Pic of Hudson Theatre: mine

Favorites of 2018 (and 2017)

L to R, top to bottom: Annihilation, Antony & Cleopatra,
Pelleas & Melisandre, Burning

Putting together "best of" lists in these times can feel frivolous, and last year I never got beyond a perfunctory list of my favorites. 2018 was a blur of more awfulness and protests, plus getting out the vote and progress in the Mueller investigation. It was also a damn fine year for cinema, and I got the list together. Here are my favorites in various categories (and 2017's picks at the end).

Movies

L to R, top to bottom: Blindspotting, Hereditary,
Burning, The Favourite, Annihilation,
The Death of Stalin

Annihilation: This movie reminded me of Under the Skin in several ways, including the audience's love-it-or-hate-it reaction. I loved it, but there was a lot of weird laughter at dramatic moments in my screening. Great special effects, and I preferred this contemplative, ambiguous film to director Alex Garland's debut, Ex Machina.

Blindspotting: With Black Panther, Sorry to Bother You, and Blindspotting, 2018 was a big cinematic year for Oakland. Directed by Carlos López Estrada and written by and starring Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, tonal roller coaster Blindspotting looks at a contemporary, gentrifying Oakland and police violence.

The Death of Stalin: I watched this movie twice this year. Once in theaters, and then again after Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Totalitarianism is a cancer, but the way its aggrandizement and increasingly ludicrous untruths inevitably paint its loyalists into corners is ripe for satire. How else to capture the whiplash of absurdities and atrocities?

Hereditary: As in other A24 horror movie The Witch, a teenager must deal with not only a malevolent supernatural entity, but with guilt, grief, and the weight of the family's blame in the aftermath of a tragedy. Toni Collette and Ann Dowd are powerhouses.

The Favourite: I went into this expecting to be wowed by Olivia Colman, and was even more wowed than anticipated. Yorgos Lanthimos takes a historic event (Britain's withdrawal from the War of the Spanish Succession) and gives us a tightly wound story of politics, power plays, chronic illness, abusive relationships, and Mad Max: Fury Road's Nux in elaborate 18th Century finery.

Burning: Based on a short story by Haruki Murakami, this slow burn by Chang-dong Lee is a master class in cinematography and tension. It's also very much of the zeitgeist. In Burning, Seoul's underemployed millennials live in cramped, dark studios or their parents' houses and compete in the marginal gig economy while their 1-percenter peers lounge in the tony Gangnam neighborhood Psy made world-famous a few years back. The three lead actors (Ah-in Yoo, Steven Yeun, and Jong-seo Jun) are excellent.

Books (I read in 2018, not necessarily published in 2018)

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz: This twisty post-Reichenbach Falls Sherlock Holmes novel deals with whether or not math professor/crime lord James Moriarty survived that incident. Includes my new favorite Moriarty origin story. (Fans of this sort of thing might also want to check out Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles by Kim Newman.)

Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda: Drifters, runaways, and cultists populate this contemporary Southern California noir.

The Charm Buyers by Lillian Howan: One of the highlights of 2018 was reading at Lit Crawl, an annual evening of literary readings across San Francisco's Mission District. After my group's reading, a few of us ended up at a reading where Lillian Howan read a short story so powerful that I had to look her up and order her novel. In The Charm Buyers, Marc Antoine Chen, a member of the Chinese Hakka community in Tahiti, has a loving extended family and is the heir to a fortune in black pearl cultivation. But Marc seems determined not to make life easy for himself, shunning his father's business in favor of his own illegal operations and falling for first his cousin and then an older French woman. When his cousin falls ill, Marc must decide whether or not to potentially sacrifice everything for her.

The Yonahlosse Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani: Just squeaking in under the wire (I devoured this book over the holidays) is this Depression-set page-turner about a Florida teenager sent away to a remote girls' boarding school after a mysterious, scandalizing incident. Horses + a narrator who's a prickly but engaging addition to the "coming of age" genre.

TV

The Good Place and Kid Gorgeous at Radio City

While the movies I loved this year often starkly confronted our current times, I looked for laughs and comfort in other media. This year I finally started watching (and quickly got caught up on) The Good Place, which, despite being about death and Hell, is a warm blanket and cup of tea of a show. Honestly, few things have helped me with my anxiety as much as William Jackson Harper's Chidi.

John Mulaney's special Kid Gorgeous at Radio City is his best so far and a welcome respite as we try to deal with the horse loose in this hospital. Plus, there's a solid intro of Art Deco porn if you're into that.

Theater

The dancers of Fury

Pelleas & Melisandre: I attended all three of West Edge Opera's summer productions, and this Debussy opera directed by Keturah Stickann was my favorite with its lush, sensuous sets and costumes. For 2019, I'm most looking forward to Elkhanah Pulitzer's take on The Threepenny Opera!

Fury: A ballet based on Mad Max: Fury Road? It works!

Antony & Cleopatra: A National Theatre Live production with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo as Shakespeare's hot mess couple? Yes, please! I bought this ticket impulsively on a Bad News day (I don't even remember which one), but it was well worth the drive to the Lark Theater in Larkspur.

Other

Randy Rainbow: Another year of the Trump Administration, another year of Randy Rainbow keeping us sane! Throughout the lows and lower lows of 2018, Randy was there with timely song parodies. My personal favorite this year was his Gilbert and Sullivan take on "a very stable genius," but other topics included Rudy Giuliani joining Trump's legal team and the ever-intensifying Mueller investigation. Can't wait to see him live with my mom in 2019!



And 2017:

Theater:
SF Ballet Frankenstein
SF Ballet Salome
Cyrano de Bergerac - Livermore Shakespeare
La Traviata - SF Opera
Girls of the Golden West - SF Opera

Books:
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
The Decameron by Boccaccio

Movies:
The Florida Project
Paterson
Call Me By Your Name

An Enigma in Chrome: Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson

"You'll do well in the First Order, Phasma."

"Is that a whole book about that one character?" a guy in line behind me at the bookstore asked as I handed Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson to the cashier.

One could argue whether his surprise was warranted or not. Despite the fact that Phasma was a visual standout in Star Wars: the Force Awakens - decked out in a chrome version of the iconic stormtrooper armor, played by 6'3" Gwendoline Christie - the character was a bit player. On the other hand, the choice to have an entire novel written about such a character feels like a throwback to the stories of the Star Wars Expanded Universe (now called Legends), where no character's appearance was too fleeting to merit a detailed backstory.

Still, Phasma has become a somewhat controversial character. Many fans compared her popularity with that of Boba Fett's - another character with a badass design, but with few badass feats actually accomplished on screen. Furthermore, Phasma came off as a bit of a coward - when Finn and Han order her at gunpoint to lower Starkiller Base's shields, she acquiesces rather than risk her life, leading to Starkiller's destruction. Especially considering the lack of a villainess in the Star Wars films, the character seemed like a missed opportunity.

But having read Dawson's novel, Phasma acting differently on Starkiller now seems inconceivable. Instead of ignoring that future action (Phasma is a prequel), Dawson plunges into the heart of it. While lots of stories deal with the aftermath of a moment of cowardice (the 2014 Swedish film Force Majeure, the 2011 German film The Loneliest Planet, Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series of novels, etc), Dawson looks at what lead to it. By the time the novel is finished, Phasma lowering Starkiller's shields with a blaster pointed to her head is no longer evidence of weakness, but evidence of terrifying ruthlessness.

Her life, or the glory of the First Order? No question for Phasma.

Phasma opens with peppy, adorkable-ish (if you like that sort of thing) Resistance spy Vi Moradi's capture by the First Order. Once on the Resurgent-class Star Destroyer Absolution, she's taken to an off-the-record interrogation by Cardinal: a captain with solid red stormtrooper armor. Cardinal has one goal: to learn enough about Phasma to take her down. Vi has just left Phasma's home planet, Parnassos, on a mission to learn the same thing. Vi's narration of this information to Cardinal makes up most of the novel.

Before becoming Captain Phasma of the First Order, Phasma was part of a tribe called the Scyre in a blighted, toxic area of Parnassos, a planet that has suffered an apocalyptic event. The Scyre don't know the specifics of the disaster that happened generations earlier, but they doggedly eke out a living in their harsh coastal territory. Phasma and her brother Keldo rule the clan jointly, but there are cracks in their partnership: Phasma wants to expand their territory, while Keldo is satisfied with what they have.

Phasma's brother Keldo

That simmering conflict reaches a boiling point when First Order General Brendol Hux (father of future General Armitage Hux) and a few stormtroopers crash land on Parnassos. Imperious but diplomatic Brendol wows the clan with his stories of the First Order and how its medicine and technology can benefit them...if they help him back to his crashed ship. When Keldo refuses, Phasma rounds up some of her most trusted warriors and undertakes the task herself, abandoning the Scyre.

I've seen several readers compare Phasma to Mad Max: Fury Road, and Phasma, Brendol, and co.'s mad dash across the Parnassos wasteland warrants that. That isn't to say Dawson copies - her barren dystopia is its own place with a well thought-out history. As the group contends with the unforgiving environment and unpredictable encounters, Brendol and Phasma become closer and more conspiratorial. Soon, Phasma's followers wonder if they ever knew her at all.

Cardinal

Back on the Absolution, Cardinal must decide what to do with the information Vi has given him. He is loyal to the First Order, and he has good reasons: he was an orphan starving on Jakku (yes, Jakku!) before being taken in by the late Brendol Hux. He trains the children the First Order, um, "finds," and truly loves his young charges. With Cardinal, Dawson has given us an empathetic, moving look at "the other side" that might not be so "other" (I thought of David Schwarz's recent great essay, Burden of Empire: The Complex Relationship Between Star Wars and Fascism a lot while reading Cardinal's parts).

This novel is a must-read for those wanting to learn more about the mysterious First Order. The parts with Brendol and Armitage Hux build upon what we learned of them in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath: Empire's End (we even get insight into their different interior decorating aesthetics!). I feel particularly vindicated in my long-held assumption that the First Order is a lot like the school car in Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer, and Dawson throws in some Brave New World as well. There's still so much more to learn, however, that I hope will be revealed in The Last Jedi.

And thanks to Dawson, Phasma is now another reason I'm excited for The Last Jedi. I can't wait to see if Phasma's co-commanders, Armitage Hux and Kylo Ren, will learn the truth of what happened on Starkiller. If so, what will this cold-blooded killer do to continue her sole mission: keeping herself alive?

They've had better days. Sort of. A lot of their days have sucked.

Image info:

Header image and Finn & Phasma: StarWars.com
Keldo and Cardinal: promotional posters by James Zapata
Beleaguered First Order leadership: Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair 

Favorites of 2016

Ed Ruscha at the de Young, Seonna Hong at Hashimoto Contemporary,
Yuri on Ice, All My Puny Sorrows, The Makropulos Case 

It's no secret that 2016 wasn't great. But here are the pieces of art and entertainment, from an ice skating anime to paintings in Milan, that I loved in this crazy year. 

Books

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews: One of my favorite books and one of my favorite movies this year are about suicide, but both in an oddly hopeful way. In All My Puny Sorrows, two middle-aged Mennonite sisters - struggling writer Yolandi and renowned pianist Elfreida - grapple with Elfreida's suicidal ideation and their family's long history of mental illness. This sounds like a dreary premise, but Toews's novel is full of warmth, humor, and fierce love. In a highlight, Yolandi furiously gives her sister the kind of defense most depressed people long for, but never get.

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood: As a The Tempest superfan, I was excited for Margaret Atwood's novel take on the Shakespeare play. The resulting work, Hag-Seed, is inventive and entertaining (if not terribly deep). When a smarmy board member removes egotistical but dedicated Felix from his role as artistic director of a theatre festival, Felix goes into hiding. But when he finds a job teaching Shakespeare to inmates at a local prison, he realizes how he could have his revenge.

Bloodline by Claudia Gray: Set seven-ish years before Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this eerily topical Star Wars novel captures, from Senator Leia Organa's point of view, the political tensions and escalating disasters that make way for the rise of the First Order.

Imperial Radch Trilogy by Ann Leckie: A spaceship trapped in a human body teams up with a drug-addicted former colleague in a quest for revenge: this is the story Ann Leckie tells in three beautiful page-turners. The trilogy is a masterclass in world-building; a breath-taking tour of imaginary planets, space stations, and cultures. Characters like measured, compassionate, quietly determined Breq; the sometimes heroic, sometimes a hot mess Seivarden; and zany, endlessly curious Translator Zeiat become quick favorites.

After dutifully carrying out a devastating order she wishes she hadn't and then losing her omniscience in a betrayal, former spaceship artificial intelligence system Breq tirelessly plots a course that will take her to the evil leader of the empire she once served. Along the way she gains companions and rights various social justice wrongs. The vision Leckie presents of a compassionate, justice-focused way of governing is enticing and needed, but her didactic impulse can get distracting as the trilogy continues (even on the climactic brink of a potentially existence-ending war, a lot of time and energy is devoted to browbeating an emotionally unstable character over a microaggression, for example).

Older Books I Read or Re-Read

Grace Marks (L), the subject of Atwood's novel

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: One of Atwood's finest, Alias Grace is based on real murders that happened near Toronto in 1843. Told by various narrators, newspaper clippings, and even some poetry, Atwood imagines the build-up to the crimes; the lengthy aftermath; and most importantly, the precarious and complicated lives of female servants.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: I revisited this classic on a whim, and got a little obsessed. (Bonus: on Halloween, I scored a reduced price ticket to San Francisco Ballet's forthcoming production of a ballet based on the novel!)

The Debacle (Le Debacle) by Emile Zola: Something I'm writing has required me to do a lot of research on the Franco-Prussian War, which lead to Zola's The Debacle. Because of this research I already knew the novel's ending, but I got so invested in the characters involved that I hoped I had misread it. I hadn't. :( The translation I read, by Leonard Tancock, was distracting (he makes the French peasants talk like English cockneys for some reason, like with them saying "tuppence" and everything), but the story of two Frances represented by two men who form an unlikely friendship on the battlefield is still powerful.

Zofloya by Charlotte Dacre and The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole: I read Zofloya for the Venetian setting when gearing up for a trip to Venice, and had no idea going in just how bonkers the 1806 Gothic novel would be. It is very bonkers, with murders, affairs, magic, kidnappings, and lovers clasping each other on top of a mountain while lightning flashes around them. But then I went back to what is considered the first Gothic novel, the 1764 The Castle of Otranto, which starts with a teenager getting killed on his wedding day by a giant flying helmet. That definitely takes the bonkers gold. Reading these made me better understand Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, her 1817 novel in which a teenage heroine who devours these types of books sees Gothic drama in everything around her.

Movies

Arrival

Swiss Army Man: This bizarre, gross-out indie about a depressed man and a corpse is also deeply affecting.

Moonlight: "That shit was perfect," announced a man behind me when the end credits started to roll. It's hard to argue with that assessment of Barry Jenkins's reflective portrait in three acts of a gay boy growing to manhood in Miami's mix of drugs, danger, and beauty.

Arrival: I was a bigger mess during this movie than in 50/50, The Fault in Our Stars, or Liz in September, and cancer wasn't even mentioned. I cried at the beginning of the movie. I cried in the middle of the movie. I cried at the end of the movie. This film about a linguist hired to communicate with recently landed, cephalopod-like aliens is based on the Ted Chiang short story, "The Story of Your Life," and I'd suggest avoiding spoilers.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople: New Zealand director Taika Waititi, unlike many people, presumably had a good 2016. Not only was he filming Thor: Ragnarok, a hopefully lighter addition to the increasingly bogged-down MCU, but his adventure-comedy Hunt for the Wilderpeople was released. When it looks like Ricky - a city-raised foster kid who has finally found home at a rural farm - will be returned to the system, he and his cantankerous foster parent go on the run in the New Zealand bush.

Midnight Special: I am going to be totally honest and admit that I 100% saw this because Adam Driver is in it. He plays an awkward, studious government agent who is tracking down a boy, Alton, rumored to have strange powers. Also looking for the boy are representatives from the cult in which Alton was raised. Michael Shannon and Kirsten Dunst are Alton's parents, and chameleonic Joel Edgerton is a friend helping them flee. Like other artsy sci-fi films Arrival and Under the Skin, Midnight Special spends long moments lingering on its Earthen landscapes, in this case the American South at night. The shots of headlight-filled highways and glowing gas stations reminded me a lot of the Ed Ruscha show held at the de Young this year (below).

TV

Yuri on Ice: I'm not a big TV watcher, but I watched my usual stuff this year: South Park, Gotham, Drunk History, hours of HGTV in the background, etc. But what completely captured my heart (and judging my twitter feed, the hearts of girls from Japan to Mexico)? Ice skating anime Yuri on Ice.

Theater

Morfydd Clark and Janet McTeer in Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Donmar Warehouse: Josie Rourke and the Donmar Warehouse are British national treasures we're sometimes allowed access to via National Theatre Live. I loved Rourke's take on Coriolanus a few years back, and her production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's 1782 novel, was another stunner. (The show eventually made it to Broadway, but I saw it via telecast at the Lark Theater in Larkspur.) My favorite aspect of this production was how Rourke made use of what we know but the characters and Laclos did not: that in just a few years, the upper class's lives of luxurious boredom and bored excess would be upended by the French Revolution. As the play progresses, the sumptuous set is stripped bare, mirroring the protagonists' pretense and foretelling the storm to come. 

Much Ado About Nothing - Cal Shakes: This gender-bending, cater-waiter take on one of my favorite Shakespeare plays worked marvelously. 

King Lear - PacRep: I had no idea what to expect when my family decided to see some local theater while on a trip to Monterey, and was blown away by the caliber of acting and set design in this King Lear. 

The Makropulos Case - San Francisco Opera: The image of Nadja Michael in a Pierrot costume was enough to get me through the door for this 1926 Czech opera about a 300-year-old superstar looking to further extend her life. Michael's charisma makes the piece work, but I also truly touched by the story of the jaded diva and the everyday people who have been embroiled in a generations-long legal conflict partly of her making. 

Art

Detail from Seonna Hong's "Brotherhood of Men"

Musee Massena - Charlotte Salomon: Vie? Ou theatre?: The Musee Massena in Nice, France, celebrated the work of a young artist who once sought refuge nearby from Nazism.

Palazzo Reale - Simbolismo: When my sister and I stopped in Milan for the night on our way from Nice to Venice, we didn't do much research beforehand and didn't know what to expect. Along with the Duomo and finding the perfect duck umbrella, this exhibition of the beauty, weirdness, and sometimes gaudiness of the Symbolism movement was a highlight.

Fine Arts Museums San Francisco - Ed Ruscha and the Great American West & Wild West: Plains to the Pacific: The de Young's Ruscha show focused on the artist's work capturing both the sprawl and emptiness of the American Southwest. Its sister exhibition at the Legion of Honor was a clear-eyed survey of the West through many artists.

Hashimoto Contemporary - Seonna Hong, In Our Nature: I was immediately taken by Hong's intriguing images of youths exploring minimalist landscapes in pinks, greens, and grays. I even ended up buying a 2.5 x 2.5" painting - an addition to my tiny collection of tiny original art.

Ancillary Mercy, Swiss Army Man, Bloodline,
Moonlight, Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Previous Favorites:
Favorites of 2015
Favorites of 2014


Images:
Header and footer collages made in LiveCollage
Grace Marks: Murderpedia 
Les Liaisons Dangereuses: photo by Johann Persson
Seonna Hong: my photo of Hong's painting "Brotherhood of Men"

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders

Tonight I saw a Batman movie in theaters, which has not been a rare outing for me in 2016. The year started out with the messy, grimdark Batman v Superman; progressed with the messier, grimdarker, but at least Hamill-ful Batman: The Killing Joke; and then sighed and continued with the messiest Hot Topic mess, Suicide Squad. But despite the third time not being a charm, DC went forth (get it?) with yet another theatrical release.

Turning away from the grimy and the lurid, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders harkens back to the 1960s TV show. In Batman: The Killing Joke, the Joker paralyzes Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, strips her, photographs her, and then shows those photographs to her father, Commissioner Gordon, whom he has also stripped and imprisoned in an X-rated roller-coaster, all so that he can convince Batman to kill him. In the 60s Batman TV show, Joker rigs the high school milk machine to dispense money instead of milk, thus robbing Gotham's youth of their passion for hard and honest work, because why be a productive citizen when you can just get money from the milk machine? (Dick Grayson/Robin, of course, is not tempted by this corrupting teat.)

Nice try, commies!

The wholesome zaniness was a boon for great thespians wanting to have a scene-chewing blast in the Rogues Gallery. Eartha Kitt prowled as Catwoman, Burgess Meredith chortled as the Penguin, and barely-in-the-closet Cesar Romero and Frank Gorshin got to be as flamboyant as they pleased with the Joker and the Riddler. However, Adam West and Burt Ward, the painfully earnest Batman and Robin, had a much harder time with the show's legacy.

Fortunately, they both seem to have reconciled with their preppy, do-gooding characters, and reunited as Batman and Robin (along with one of three Catwomen, Julie Newmar) to lend their voices for this animated feature, directed by animation veteran Rick Morales.

Fans who have been disappointed by past 2016 Batman movies might ask, "Do I really want to invest my time into this again?" That's a fair question, so first ask yourself these questions:

• Would I be in hysterics (of the good kind) if the movie opened with Dick doing ballet?
• Do I think deep down that what the Joker really needs is a guitar-gun that shoots paper streamers?
• If Batman were to travel to space, would his spacesuit's helmet having adorable bat ears be important to me? 

If you answered "yes" to all of the above, there's a good chance you'll enjoy this.

Note the seatbelts. They're villains, not uncouth monsters.

And yes, space is involved, but surprisingly, it's not even the climax! The self-aware yet gleeful craziness just keeps coming long after our heroes and villains have fought in the International Space Station. The film's not completely perfect - it is very silly, Newmar clearly struggled with the voicework, and some won't like the adherence to retro gender stuff. But it's darn good fun, and definitely the best Batman movie I saw this year. It was also the only one I saw in a nearly empty theater, but this has been marketed mostly for home viewing. Hopefully the nostalgia factor and yearning for some fun Batman will win over burned-out Batfans.





Image info:
Serious Robin: Batman wikia
Extremely safe driving in a Jokermobile: SciFiNow

Swiss Army Man: It's Always Ourselves We Find in the Sea

My saddle's waiting, come and jump on it

Swiss Army Man, the feature film debut of Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, directors of music videos like Turn Down For What), sounds like a movie created on a dare: a man on a deserted island is saved by riding a fart-powered corpse. In that regard, it feels like it could have similar origins to Kevin Smith's Tusk, which came from a joke about a man demanding his roommate dress up and act as a walrus.

Tusk stayed in the throwback-horror genre, and while interesting in its own way, was not terribly deep or successful. Swiss Army Man could have played it safe (as safe as a farting corpse movie could be) by either staying in the gross-out comedy genre or going for a clinically detached symbolist interpretation. Instead, Daniels refuse to shy from either puerile humor or art, and they make something funny and beautiful in the process.

Response has certainly been mixed (walk-outs at Sundance were reported). I particularly enjoyed Onur Tukel's comic-format review (spoilers!). I didn't come to quite the same conclusions as he did, but it's a thoughtful, thought-provoking piece. Interestingly, despite his deep reading and admiration of the film, Tukel decides he didn't like it. I felt the same way about Yorgos Lanthimos's The Lobster - appreciation of its daring and art, but little actual affection. On the contrary, like the conqueror worm, Swiss Army Man has chewed and nuzzled its way into my heart.

Cannes aftermath

Daniels open the film with a shot of the ocean. Soon we see floating pieces of trash bearing desperate messages: someone has had a boating accident. On a very small, uninhabitable island we find Paul Dano's disheveled, sunburnt Hank preparing to hang himself from the mouth of a cave. He hums a song to steady himself, but is distracted by the sudden appearance a body (Daniel Radcliffe) washed up on shore.

Startled, Hank falls from the cooler/gallows he's standing on, but manages to break the noose in his determination to reach the man, whom he hopes is still alive. He's not. A rumbling gives Hank hope, but it turns out to just be gas the bloated body is expelling. "That's funny," Hank sighs before taking the dead man's belt to use as a replacement noose. But before Hank can hang himself (again), the body, continuing to fart wildly, shows off a neat trick: it can propel itself in the water. Hank runs down the beach and - using the broken noose as a lasso - triumphantly rides the corpse out to sea.

Hank wakes up on a Pacific Northwest shore and goes off in search of civilization, carrying the body on his back (Dano apparently did actually carry Radcliffe through much of the film) and sometimes talking to it. To his alarm, it starts talking back. Hank names his new friend Manny and tells him about life, sex, pop culture, his deceased mother, his distant father, and his crush (using hikers' garbage to make educational props) as they look for home. Along the way, it becomes clear how lonely and unsure of himself Hank has been. And Manny's abilities continue to develop and surprise (for example, his penis works as a compass). Will the duo be ready to rejoin civilization by the time they make it back, and will they want to?

A bed of clover...and poop

Dano's and Radcliffe's performances are masterful, funny, and affecting, and Daniels capture the Pacific Northwest's coastline and redwoods in all their glory. Andy Hull and Robert McDowell's powerful, infectious score is a critical part of the movie. If the Oscars refuse to consider Dano's work in the farting corpse movie, they should at least acknowledge that score.

The Atlantic's David Sims is being fair when he writes in his otherwise glowing review that, "The downside of [the story] is that this is an indie film recycling an age-old indie trope - that of the introverted, lonely white dude, unlucky in love and pining for a silent woman who isn’t afforded similar agency by the plot." As Mary Elizabeth Winstead was pursued by an awkward Michael Cera in Scott Pilgrim, here she's pursued by an awkward Paul Dano. In that, it does feel annoyingly familiar and twee. I mean, look at these fucking hipsters who directed it.

That said, I saw a lot of myself in Dano's Hank. Like, a lot. Like...maybe despite being completely romance-adverse, I've seen someone on the bus and imagined our courtship, proposal, and wedding even though that might not be what I actually want out of life. I've never dressed up as a bus crush and made out with a corpse, though. I swear.

I swear

My Interpretation (Spoilers!)

I read the movie as a twist on the "life before your eyes" concept. I think Hank's opening suicide attempt was successful. When he first finds Manny, he tells the body that he had hoped when he died he would see the life he wished he had - full of music, friends, parties, and a lover. With Manny filling multiple roles, Hank gets to see all of that.

The final part of the movie, when Hank and Manny stumble into the backyard of a freaked-out Sarah (Hank's bus and instagram crush) and are soon besieged by law enforcement, the media, and Hank's father, confused me on the first viewing. Having thought about the film and seen it a second time, I think this part is Hank finally accepting himself and his reality.

He's been fantasizing about getting a second chance to talk to Sarah on the bus and having that interaction blossom into romance. But he finally realizes that even if he did get a second chance with Sarah...she's perfectly happy with her husband and child and would understandably be majorly creeped out by some stranger obsessing over her instagram photos. He realizes he wasn't really in love with Sarah, but that he wanted her happy life. He realizes that and accepts it, just as he realizes that even though he'll never have the connection he wants with his father, his father still loves him. Hank's acceptance of himself (symbolized by him admitting, with relief and delight, to farting in front of the crowd) gives him a final moment of peace as he dies.

Maybe that's what the Daniels meant, or maybe not, but that's what I saw in the movie. To close on the closing lines from e.e. cummings' "maggie and milly and molly and may,"

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea




Image sources: 
Paul Dano riding Daniel Radcliffe like a water pony
A day at the beach
Sleepy Daniel Radcliffe
On the bus

Dream Cast - Frankenstein

TFW your dad is the sullen youth in your relationship

Just over a week ago, on a Thursday, I was getting ready to go to work. Having just finished Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice trilogy, I needed a new read for my commute. I grabbed my high school paperback of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein off the shelf. I'd been thinking about re-reading it for years, and recent Byronic research for something I'm writing and the fact that my sister watched and related to me the awful James McAvoy Victor Frankenstein movie made the novel fresh in my mind.

By complete coincidence (or was it - ominous music) that day, June 16, is the day some astronomers think Shelley first dreamed up the basis for her story.

From my vague remembrances of the book, I knew it was different than our popular conception of the Frankenstein story, but I had forgotten just how different it was. There's no castle, no Igor. Victor Frankenstein makes his first monster in his apartment at university and his second, unfinished monster in a crude hut in the remote Orkney Islands.

I had also forgotten (or just couldn't appreciate at the time) just how great the novel is. It's groundbreaking, compelling, thoughtful, and ambitious. Boris Karloff's monster is rooted in our pop culture, and Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein will always be a favorite of mine, but I found myself wishing for an adaptation more faithful to Shelley's vision. Not only in theme and message, but in the 18th century setting and the powerful landscapes she describes in Switzerland, Germany, and Scotland.

Like I did with Wuthering Heights, I spent a lot of free time picking out my dream cast for my dream Frankenstein miniseries. Here are the fruits of my imagined labors:

Robert Walton - Nicholas Hoult

Who is Robert Walton? Good question! Walton is our narrator narrating other characters' narrations, much like Lockwood (who?) in Wuthering Heights. I didn't cast Lockwood in my Wuthering Heights dream cast because nobody cares about Lockwood, but I'll shrug and go to bat for Walton.

Frankenstein is actually an epistolary novel, a series of letters Walton sends to his beloved sister. He's setting off on a dangerous quest to find a shipping route through the North Pole, and is so excited! But, he tells his sister, although surrounded by men, he's sad not to have a special guy friend whose eyes he can gaze into as he reveals his feelings. :( Fortunately, one almost immediately shows up on an ice flow! This Elsa-sent buddy is none other than Victor Frankenstein, who eventually tells Walton his story. Later, Frankenstein's monster will also get the chance to unload on Walton.

Why use an actor like Nicholas Hoult for this comparatively small role? Because I think it's important to see how Walton is hearing Victor's story and what lessons he takes away from his encounter with the Monster. Although he's been somewhat blinded by his affection for Victor, does his meeting with the Monster alter his opinions? Walton doesn't put any of those final thoughts on paper, so it would be up to the actor's face to communicate Walton's mind. Any wide-eyed young actor could be slotted in this spot, but someone like Hoult could add depth.

Victor Frankenstein - Paul Dano

One thing that stood out to me about Frankenstein, when re-reading, is just how feckless Victor Frankenstein is. He's not exactly a man of action. Yes, when he discovers the secret to life, he passionately and manically works on his creature, but when it isn't what he wanted, he decides his best course of action is...avoidance. He literally just abandons his new, awake, conscious creation on the table and goes to bed. When the confused, lonely monster finds him in his bedroom, he sleeps outside and waits for the thing to leave his apartment.

This response isn't out of character for him. We've already seen him shrug off communication with the people he loves most in the world simply because it's not what he wants at the moment. Later, when a servant in his household is falsely accused of the murder of his little brother - a murder he knows his Monster has committed - he half-heartedly argues for her innocence without implicating himself in any way. When the Monster demands that Victor make him a companion, promising he'll take his new friend far from human civilization and live a vegan life in South America, Victor agrees...and then procrastinates for a year on the project while worrying about it the whole time.

Yet despite the fact that this entire disaster - which all of Victor's loved ones end up paying for with their lives - is literally of Victor's making, the depths of his despair do provoke pity. Dano could handle the range of this character - from fevered curiosity to sullen passivity to mental breakdowns - without campiness.

Frankenstein's Monster - Richard Armitage

While a green-skinned, boxy-skulled Frankenstein's Monster has become the popular image, Mary Shelley describes a creature who was supposed to be handsome - ravishing black hair, good teeth - but comes off as horrifying due to his outlandish size, runny eyes, and yellowish skin that clearly belongs to a cadaver. With some special effects (makeup, Andy Serkising, or both), naturally handsome Armitage could pull off this unsettling mix of greatness and ugliness. Also, while the Monster is usually depicted as inarticulate and lumbering, Shelley's monster has superhuman speed and grace.

The differences between the original Monster and the pop culture Monster aren't just visual. Shelley's is intellectual and complex. Just two years after his "birth," he's not only able to speak, but is a clever, erudite man who can talk circles around the sniveling Victor. His capacity to do good seems greater than Victor's, yet he is the one who chooses to murder again and again - not Victor. Like his creator, he is excellent at rationalizing his actions to himself and identifies with fallen angel Lucifer from Milton's Paradise Lost. I'd love for an adaptation to show the tragedy and humanity of this iconic creature.

Elizabeth Lavenza - Lea Seydoux

The orphaned daughter of Italian nobility, Elizabeth is adopted from an impoverished foster family by the Frankensteins as their "niece" and betrothed to Victor when they are both small children. It's an odd arrangement (like, don't do this today), but she loves her family and they love her. She keeps the family going after Mrs. Frankenstein's death and passionately advocates for the falsely accused Justine.

As with Justine (below), Elizabeth's virtue and strength make Victor's selfishness all the more visible. It would be all too easy in an adaptation to make this character a wilting violet doormat of a victim, which is why I'd want an actress of Leydoux's mettle to take the role (and be backed with a great writer and director, since this is my dream).

Henry Clerval - Sebastian Armesto 

Victor and Elizabeth grow up with their best friend, the less financially fortunate but romantically minded Henry Clerval. Happy, generous Henry loves stories about knights and heroes as a child. When he finally attains his dream of going to university to study Asian languages, he puts it off for a year without a thought to tend to Victor, who has suffered a nervous breakdown. Henry is sweet and oblivious, happily prancing across Europe on a road trip with Victor, who gloomily frets and collects body parts.

When thinking of whom I would cast as this character, I couldn't help but remember how - in a matter of moments - Armesto made hapless, puppy-eyed Lieutenant Mitaka memorable in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Sadly, Frankenstein's Monster will finish what Kylo Ren started. :( 

Justine Moritz - Morfydd Clark

Justine, a young woman scorned by her mother and brought into the Frankenstein family as a servant, becomes an early victim of the Monster when he frames her for murder and she is sentenced to death. Her grief and bewilderment is heartbreaking, and it would be easy to make this minor character a one-note victim. However, her ultimate courage in the face of death is in contrast to Victor's continued cowardliness. I'd trust Clark, from Love & Friendship and Josie Rourke's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, to show both innocence and strength.

De Lacey Family

After being abandoned by Victor and chased by terrified villagers, the Monster hides out near a cottage. The inhabitants are the De Lacey family, and Shelley gives them a rich backstory. They are an aristocratic French family living in exile in the German countryside, and they consist of the blind patriarch, daughter Agatha, son Felix, and Felix's Arab-Turkish fiancee Safie. Despite suffering hardships that have left them in poverty, they are a loving, kind, musically gifted group. By spying on them for a year, the Monster learns how to speak, how to read, and the basics of human history. He comes to love the family and desperately wants to be accepted by them. Alas, his introduction to them goes horribly wrong, and he is rejected out of fear again.

I'd cast grizzled, stately Hugo Weaving as De Lacey; Adele Exarchopoulous and Jamie Bell as his two dutiful children; and Mandahla Rose as joyful Safie.

Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein - Ralph Fiennes and Sheryl Lee

Mr. Frankenstein is a loving father who is distraught as he watches his oldest child descend into depression and then more severe mental illness. He's at a loss to determine the cause (no one suspects their child has learned the secret of sparking life and used it to make an eight-foot-tall creature that keeps killing people), but he doesn't give up on his son. At one point he has to travel from Switzerland to Ireland to pick up a hysterical Victor from a small-town prison, and he's completely supportive the whole time.

Even though Sheryl Lee's scene in Winter's Bone was brief, I was drawn to her warmth. I can see the Twin Peaks star as the matriarch of this adventurous, welcoming family. Given all that happens, it's probably a blessing this character dies of scarlet fever before everything goes to hell.


Image info:
Header image: Richard Armitage in Robin Hood, Paul Dano in War & Peace
All actor headshots: IMDB

Bloodline by Claudia Gray: a Star Wars Novel

I needed this. 

Semi-official Star Wars holiday May 4th (May the Fourth be with you) was celebrated in its earliest hours by me by reading. I bought Claudia Gray's Bloodline on May 3rd, the day it came out, and read it in more or less one sitting. I started the book on the bus ride home, went straight from the bus stop to bed to read, and stayed in bed until finished. Clearly I was quite swept up!

Ok, I did pause to check the news; the big story was that Ted Cruz had dropped out of the race and the GOP was in chaos, which was a little surreal considering the book's material.

Now that I've had some time to reflect on this political thriller centered on Princess/Senator/General Leia Organa and its drastic reframing of the perceived pre-The Force Awakens timeline, I have some vaguely organized thoughts.

Warning: everything beyond "basic summary" is 100% spoilers.

Basic Summary

The government the Rebellion risked everything for has created a few decades of peace, but since the illness and retirement of leader Mon Motha, it has descended into indulgence, inaction, and partisan politics. It seems impossible to find a system of government that can continuously serve everyone well - just like real life!

Middle-aged Senator Leia Organa is disillusioned and plans to quit. But before she leaves government, she agrees to investigate a lead about a possible new crime boss. Soon she realizes that this new organization goes far beyond gambling and racketeering. Leia must assemble a team of her own staff and across-the-aisle allies to identify and stop this new threat - all while being haunted by memories of her villainous birth father, Darth Vader, and her noble adopted father, Bail Organa.

The novel by Claudia Gray takes ideas and guidelines from Lucasfilm creative executive Pablo Hidalgo and his team, senior editor Jennifer Heddle, and upcoming Episode VIII director Rian Johnson.

Spoilers ahead!

Politics and Characters

Leia: Gray has received lots of kudos for her characterization of Leia, and with good reason. Leia in Bloodline is a character we don't see often: a middle-aged, female action hero. She's tough, caring, but tired - she's been working for the good of the galaxy since her teen years, and has persevered in spite of multiple, devastating losses. Gray truly puts the destruction of Alderaan in its horrific context. She also makes clear how and why Leia and Luke share such different feelings regarding their late birth father, Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker.

And Gray's take on the infamous "slave Leia" scene and Jabba the Hutt's death is amazing. It involves the nickname "Huttslayer" and the space version of "the weird part of YouTube."

The Senate: The politics in Bloodline are very on-point and believable. Reading about the partisan gridlock in the first few pages immediately brought John Boehner's teary face to mind, but the two "factions," the Centrists and Populists, aren't exactly carbon copies of America's Republicans and Democrats. The Centrists, while more Republican in nature (they love the military industrial complex and the death penalty), also want a strong central government. Meanwhile the Populists, although liberal, have more of a Republican "states' rights" stance.

Ransolm Casterfo: The snazzily dressed young Centrist and collector of Imperial artifacts strikes up a rivalry - and then friendship - with mature Populist Leia. While they never cross into "affair" territory, certain scenes had "Mrs. Robinson" playing in my head - especially their late-night video chat when Leia's in her housecoat and Ransolm's in his sweaty gym clothes. Hot damn. But seriously, although Ransolm was apparently cut from The Force Awakens, Gray has made him a breakout character here.

Here's to you, Senator Organa.

Lady Carise: Royalty-obsessed senator Lady Carise Sindian is gradually revealed to be the book's true villain, but even Leia doesn't know how far her scheming goes. A Centrist, Carise goads Ransolm into publicly revealing that Leia's father is Darth Vader (a fact not even Leia's son Ben knew), then has Ransolm disposed of. We learn that she is the senate contact for the First Order, the shadowy organization rising from the ashes of the Empire.

Will we eventually see Carise in the movies? Ben/Kylo Ren working alongside her biggest political enemy would definitely be another twist of the knife for Leia.

Korrie: Did you care about Korr Sella, the politician we saw two seconds of in The Force Awakens right when General Hux of the First Order blows up Hosnian Prime? Well, now you've gotten to know her as an optimistic teen intern. And she's dead. :(

Everyone is dead: And guess who else is dead by The Force Awakens? Pretty much everyone new you met in this book! The only pilots we see in both Bloodline and The Force Awakens are old-timer Nien Nunb and newbie "Snap" Wexley, so it seems safe to say that terminally ill Greer and wet-behind-the-ears Joph are both dead following some sort of The Fault in Our Star Wars romance. 

Unless scapegoated senator Ransolm escaped the death penalty he himself signed into law, he's dead too. Also gone with Hosnian Prime: all of Leia's politician friends and the statue of Bail Organa she was so proud of.

Dammit, Hux!

Timeline

Bloodline, which is set 6-7 years before The Force Awakens, really shook up the timeline fans had generally assumed from the small hints the movie gave us. Here are the biggest revelations.

The marriage: Han and Leia are living apart, but still married and in love in Bloodline. So when they reunite in The Force Awakens, they haven't actually been separated for too long. Leia stating in the film that she lost both Han and Ben when she sent Ben away had audiences thinking their relationship had gone south much earlier.

Nobody likes you when you're 23: Most surprising to me was that at around age 23, Ben Solo is still Ben Solo - not Kylo Ren. We know Snoke has been "watching" Ben since birth, and most had assumed Ben had left his family for Snoke and led the second Jedi massacre in his teens. But no, in his early twenties, he's still safely with Uncle Luke - either because he actually came to like living with Luke, is waiting to betray Luke on Snoke's orders, or is under some sort of space conservatorship like a space Britney Spears.

Han and Leia asked me to babysit. Said they'd be back by 10.

What's in a name: That Ben has possibly been under Luke's guardianship from childhood (the script, novelization, and YA novelization of The Force Awakens all mention that the first time Han sees Ben grown up is on Starkiller) all the way to young adulthood got me thinking about his name. In the now-scrapped "Expanded Universe," Luke (and Mara Jade) had a son, Ben Skywalker, so it was surprising when that name was given in this new story to Han and Leia's son (who is basically Jacen Solo from the EU). Maybe the name Ben reflects that Luke has raised him?

Sorry, Crylo: Because really, Han and Leia have pretty much moved on from Ben by Bloodline. It's unclear when exactly things went wrong (we learn that Ben was once a happy, normal child with friends), but at some point Leia and Han decided that they "couldn't" parent Ben, sent him to Luke, and filled the hole by mentoring other kids (politics-minded youth for Leia, young pilots for Han). Communication with their son is sporadic, and they rarely discuss him even with each other. He's with Luke, and that's that.

If you see our son...ask him what his name is again.

The Jedi: There's zero mention of the Jedi Order we learned Luke created and Kylo Ren destroyed in The Force Awakens. We know Luke and Ben are traveling during Bloodline, but they seem to be on their own. Has Luke not started his new Jedi academy yet?

New possible order of events: Ben learns from the damn news that his grandpa was Darth Vader, freaks out because he links his parents' fear of his powers and sending him away with his heritage (he's not wrong), runs away from Luke to Snoke, becomes Kylo Ren, and returns briefly to destroy Luke's new Jedi school. And meanwhile, Rey...

Rey: We get nada on Rey, which actually tells us a lot about Rey. This book throws a huge wrench in the "Rey is Luke's daughter" idea. Pablo Hidalgo has confirmed on twitter that Rey has been on Jakku for awhile during Bloodline, so she wasn't brought there in the aftermath of the Jedi massacre and wasn't even ever at Luke's Jedi academy. Unless Rey is a daughter Luke doesn't know about, she's someone else's kid.

Although we now know (I think?) nothing like this speculated scene by Jenny Dolfen ever happened, it's still frickin' gorgeous.

TFW your parents don't want you and you learn your grandpa was evil from
space twitter but then Andy Serkis gives you your dead grandpa's head and
puts you in mangement. 

So, those are my thoughts and speculations. We only have to wait until December 2017 to maybe find out the answers to our questions! >:(

My childhood music box with two childhood treasures it stores
Not pictured: plastic horse with missing tail, Ben

Image info:
Note: promotional material
Ackbar: StarWars.com
Leia: Wookieepedia
Korrie: Wookieepedia
Luke: Geek
Leia and Han: Disneyexaminer
Knights of Ren: ScreenRant
Leia and Han on lovely fairy music box: my own pic