Culture Surfing

HUMBUG DEEZ: Ghost of Christmas Present (from left, performed by Jim Carrey) chides his charge Ebenezer Scrooge (also performed by Carrey) in A Christmas Carol.

GENRE: CGI holiday drama

THE PITCH: Disney gives Charles Dickens’ classic holiday tale an animated makeover. Miserly Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is visited by ghosts who show him glimpses of his past, present and future in efforts to save his soul before Christmas.

MONEY SHOTS: It’s hard to pull away from the visual effects each of the ghosts utilize to show Scrooge various moments in time. Ghost of Christmas Past (Carrey) uses slingshot-ish flight sequences to take Scrooge to parts of his past. Ghost of Christmas Present (Carrey, again) hurls luminescent golden beads that turn the floor and walls translucent for he and Scrooge to spy on the present. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (yup, you guessed it … Carrey) uses ebon shadows to transport and frighten Scrooge back on to a righteous path.

Continue Reading “Hollywood Product: A Christmas Carol“

(Photo Courtesy Walt Disney Pictures)

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Is Charles Dickens the new Leonardo Da Vinci?

Da Vinci — artist, inventor and literal Renaissance man — made a big comeback in 2003 with the novel The Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown used a familiar manhunt plot as a framework on which to hang breathless details of religious conspiracies, centuries-old gossip, and rumors of telltale images hidden in Da Vinci’s masterpieces. The Da Vinci Code launched a trend of similar historical-excavation thrillers with titles such as The Templar Legacy.

Six years later, authors are changing up Brown’s formula by shifting from cultural icons to literature’s most notorious unsolved mysteries. Dickens, arguably the English language’s most popular and esteemed novelist, is getting what could be called the Da Vinci treatment. Certainly the author of Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol casts a long shadow. In recent years, his influence has turned up in the work of journalistic fiction writer Tom Wolfe, leftist sci-fi author China Miéville, and HBO’s cop series “The Wire.”

Two novelists, working independently, have released books within weeks of each other that hit on one of fiction’s most enduring questions: What is The Mystery of Edwin Drood?

Continue reading “A tale of two Dickens”

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