Tag Archives: review

09/16/12

The Best and the Worst of King Arthur movies

I’m bumping this post because I’ve just discovered that a new King Arthur movie is in the works.  Now, King Arthur always provides good fodder for story-telling, but I’m not so sure about this: http://moviehole.net/201257625men-in-tights-writer-turns-his-attention-to-spoofing-king-arthur

The title of the article says it all, but here’s a quote:  ”J.D Shapiro wordsmith of “Robin Hood : Men in Tights”, will take the Mickey out of the Knights of the Roundtable in a future feature …  In 524 AD, Arthur Lol Pendragon went to Camelot. One thousand, four hundred and eighty five years later this footage was found. What it reveals is both shocking and more shocking. We have discovered that, out of all the legendary tales told about King Arthur and his knights… not one of them got it right.”.

I think I’m terrified …

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While we’re on the subject of King Arthur, which of course, we always are, except when we’re talking about Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, I thought we could talk movies.   Since I’ve ranted about the King Arthurs I don’t like to read about or watch (http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/the-fictional-king-arthur-rant/), how many King Arthur movie depictions have there actually been?  And how many have been done well?

Here’s the list from Wikipedia of straightforward King Arthur movies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_Arthurian_legend

I’ve seen very few of them, as it turns out.  In reading the list, I realized that I found that the movie I liked best was the 2004 King Arthur version where he’s Roman.  The history was bad, and it was a vehicle for Keira Knightly to fight a battle wearing next to nothing, but . . . I still kind of liked it.  The fact that Modred and Morgan le Fay were entirely absent may have had something to do with it.

I tried to watch First Knight when it came out, and then quite recently on Netflix.  I couldn’t cope with it, though normally I’ll watch Sean Connery in anything.  This is the ‘classic’ tale (meaning French) to which I object the most.  Everyone dies in the end.

I can’t believe Quest for Camelot is on this list.  My kids liked it.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court has it’s own category, as it deserves, further down on the web page.  I remember liking it as a kid.  If you haven’t read the book by Mark Twain, you’re missing out.

Colin Firth is apparently in The Last Legion, which has a score of 16% on Rotten Tomatoes.  I’m requesting it from Netflix, because, honestly, with that description how could I not?

Excalibur is also the ‘classic’ tale with the even worse addition of Mordred as Morgana’s and Arthur’s son.  Horrible.

Painfully, I watched Avalon High.  It does have Castle’s daughter, Alexis, as the cheating girlfriend.

Don’t get me started on Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  My son made me change one of the descriptions in Cold my Heart because it was too close to a line from the movie and he couldn’t read it without laughing.  It’s ruined everything :)

I’d love to know how many of these movies you all have seen–and what you thought?

As a side note, this is my favorite King Arthur book:

Avalon by Stephen Lawhead.   There are thousands of books about King Arthur, but this is one of the few that was actually fun.  Hint–he doesn’t die in the end   Publisher’s Weekly liked it too:  “In this rousing postcript to Lawhead’s bardic Pendragon Cycle (Taliesin, Merlin, Arthur, Pendragon, Grail), such a monstrous evil stalks near-future Britain that an ancient Welsh prophecy will be fulfilled: the Thames will reverse its course, Avalon will rise again from the cold gray sea and Arthur will return. A series of Royals so rotten that the Brits can’t wait to dump the whole stinking lot enables scheming Prime Minister Waring to creep trick by political dirty trick toward Magna Carta II, the abolition of the monarchy. Far in the Highlands, though, former career officer James Arthur Stuart feels destiny stir within him. He is Arthur, come again to exalt Britain and its grand old values:  goodness, compassion, mercy, charity and justice. Accompanied by his enigmatic adviser Embries, his boon drinking buddy Calum McKay and the lissome Jenny, James struggles to come into his own, proving his mettle against modern monsters: skinheads armed with pit bulls, the fickle hydra of the press and the redheaded “total dish” Moira, Arthur’s old witchy nemesis who destroyed Camelot. By the time James ousts Moira’s insidiously treacherous buffalo-wing- and pizza-chomping politicos, Lawhead makes even aristocracy-phobes want to stand up at the skirl of the pipes and cheer on the eternal virtues James represents. In revisiting nearly every romantic Arthurian clich? and playing off snappy contemporary derring-do against the powerful shining glimpses of the historical Arthur he created, Lawhead pulls off a genuinely moving parable of good and evil.”

03/13/12

Kingdom of Heaven (movie review)

Since any movie with swords garners my immediate attention, Kingdom of Heaven was on the top of my list to see when it came out a few years ago.  Starring Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, and Liam Neeson, and directed by Ridley Scott, what could go wrong?

Confession:  I love this movie.  That doesn’t mean it deserves five stars, because it doesn’t.  Maybe 4 on a good day, but I still love it.  I love the character of Balian (played by Bloom), I’ll watch Jeremy Irons in anything, even slumming in Eragon, and all the medieval crusade material makes my mouth water.

That said, the history is terrible, and for the purposes of this blog, that’s what I’m going to talk about.

First, the good:  The Kingdom of Jerusalem did have a King Baldwin who gained the throne as a young man and suffered from leprosy.  He did have a sister named Sibylla.  She married William of Montferrat, who died a year later, leaving her a son, Baldwin V.  This is alluded to in the Director’s Cut of Kingdom of Heaven, which I recommend for clearing up some oddities in the screen version of the movie.

Then things kind of fall apart for accuracy.  Sibylla was in line to the throne with a co-heiress, Isabella, the daughter of her father’s second wife, Maria Comnena.  Sibylla married Guy de Lusignon (as in the movie) whom Baldwin favored to take the throne until he removed him from the line in 1183.  He then crowned Sibylla’s son, Baldwin, as his co-ruler, passing over Sibylla’s rights, and “went so far as to offer the overlordship of the kingdom to the kings of France and England.”  (The Crusades, Jonathan Riley-Smith, 2005:101).

Then Baldwin IV died in August of 1185, after which Baldwin V (Sibylla’s son) also died, in August 1186.

Saladin invaded in 1187.  “Just before it occurred, the political crisis came to a head.  After Baldwin V’s death . . . Raymond of Tripoli, the regent-elect, lord of Galilee through marriage and leader of the claimant Isabella’s partisans, was persuaded to go to Tiberias while the little king’s body was sent to Jerusalem in the care of the Templars.  Acre and Beirut were seized in Sibylla’s name, while she and her knights hurried to Jerusalem, where they were joined by Reynald of Chatillon, the lord of Transjordan.  Sibylla, who also had the support of the master of the Templars and the patriarch, was crowned in the Church of the Holy Spulchre and she herself then crowned her husband, Guy of Lusignan.”  (Riley-Smith p. 109).

Here is where it gets (more) complicated, especially in light of the movie.  Raymond of Tripoli had already made a treaty with Saladin in April 1187 (as was his right as regent) and allowed a Muslim reconnaissance force to enter Galilee.  At the same time, Guy sent a mission to the same place, led by Balian of Ibelin, who was the second husband of Maria Comnena (Isabella’s mother, Sibylla’s step-mother).   “Despite Raymond’s warning to stay behind the walls of the castle of ‘Afula until the Muslim troops had left the area, the Templars and Hospitallers rashly attacked them and were cut to pieces” (Riley-Smith p. 110).

As in the movie, Reynald de Chatillon was incredibly aggressive towards the Muslims and attacked a caravan traveling from Cairo to Damascus, engendering Saladin’s ire and caused him to marshal one of the largest armies every put together:  30,000 men.

The Christians managed to put together an army of 20,000 to counter him at Tiberias.  They camped 6 miles away from the city.  When Raymond of Tripoli recommended that Guy not move his troops and let Tiberias fall, Guy ignored him.  They ended up surrounded, far from water, at the ‘Horn of Hattin’.  Guy was captured, along with the True Cross, which was “paraded through Damascus fixed upside down on a lance” (Riley-Smith p. 111).

Balian and Raymond of Tripoli escaped.

Saladin stormed through Palestine and Syria, finally taking Jerusalem on 2 October 1187, after a two week seige countered by Balian who “had taken charge of its defense . . . [he] resorted to the knighting of all noble boys over sixteen years of age and thirty burgesses” (Riley-Smith p. 111).

So, sadly, no blacksmith-turned-knight in this story.  Still.  4 stars :)

09/13/11

Darkiss Reads reviews The Pendragon’s Quest!

The folks over at Darkiss Reads have posted a wonderful review for The Pendragon’s Quest:

“Sarah Woodbury outdoes herself with “The Pendragon’s Quest”, which I thought was impossible because the first book was so good. I was wrong, this book surpasses the first as the author brings us deeper into Cade’s world and those of his companions. Again I was caught up in the brotherhood of warriors whose mettle was tested time and time again in battle. The story explores and adds more depth to the Characters of Cade’s most trusted Knights; Dafydd, Hywel and Goronwy whose loyalty to King and country could cost them their lives.

We see the true meaning of courage and the will to never surrender flow from the pages of this novel. We see the love grow and strengthen between Cade and Rhiann along with the respect they have for each other and their vulnerably in their need for each other. And last but not least Taliesin who in this story has his own demons to fight, as Cade journeys with him to a place where only few have gone before in search of something that was lost. The author also introduces two new female characters which add depth to certain characters. These subplots within the story all weave together beautifully at the end.

. . . The novel is extremely well written, and Sarah Woodbury is a true Bard in every sense of the world. Her storytelling ability and true to life battle scenes puts her right up there as one of my favorite authors. The cover artwork for her book is amazing and just helps fuel the imagination as the story unfolds as myth and legend come to life. I give this book 5 stars.”

Please see their web page for the rest of the review:  http://www.darkissreads.com/2011/09/pendragons-quest-last-pendragon-saga-by.html

For links to buy it:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/84562

Also available at Amazon and Amazon UK

Along with the complete saga as a bundle at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/87852

and Amazon and Amazon UK

04/28/11

DarkissReads reviews The Last Pendragon

I hadn’t known they were going to review The Last Pendragon but am delighted they did!

From the review:  “Sarah Woodbury weaves a tale of Myth and Magic in “The Last Pendragon: A Story of Dark Age Wales.” The author brings together the Arthurian and Welsh myths, while adding her own style to this story. As a lover of historical fiction and fantasy genres, I quickly found myself immersed into the story that contains a bit of both. We see Cade the last of the Pendragon line trying to take hold of his destiny as King. The theme is non traditional and sets it self apart from most Arthurian legends and stories. . . .  I found myself getting caught up in the feelings of brotherhood, loyalty, friendship and the longing of love, all while facing the knowledge that they might not make it in the end. I could not put this book down and read every chance I had, even losing sleep to finish the story . . . ”

To read the rest of the review, please see:  http://www.darkissreads.com/2011/04/last-pendragon-story-of-dark-age-wales.html

Please download The Last Pendragon at:

Smashwords:  http://smashwords.com/b/25340  

Amazon.com:  HERE  

Amazon UK:  HERE    

Barnesandnoble.com:  HERE

Apple Ibooks:  The Last Pendragon

I’ve also made a paper copy available at Amazon.com here:  The Last Pendragon

04/14/11

The Fictional King Arthur (rant)

Yes, I have some issues with King Arthur as a fictional character.  And the new series on STARZ called Camelot does absolutely nothing to help:

King Arthur, as usually written, comes off as either as a flat character, someone whom the author employs as a backdrop to explore the personalities of other characters (Merlin, Guinevere, Lancelot), or as unheroic and human, tripped up in the end by the overwhelming burden of his imperfections. Arthur is either a pawn, buffeted by the winds of fate, or so flawed, one has to ask how he was remembered as a hero in the first place.  In the Camelot series, at least the bit I’ve watched, it is inexplicable that Merlin would come to him as the hero (in a totally deserted castle) and expect anything good to happen.

There is a simple reason for this: it is very hard to synchronize the different aspects of Arthur’s story into a complete whole because the essential, heroic element of Arthur’s story—his defeat of the Saxons for a generation—has been grafted, at both the beginning and the end, to a romantic tale told for reasons having more to do with the medieval authors who were telling the story, and the time in which they were living, than with Arthur. In so doing, his character is incomplete and inexplicable, one who reacts instead of acts, and who never has a say in his own destiny.

Instead, it is Merlin who is the active character. It is he who sets the whole plot in motion, whose behavior acts at times like a ‘get out of jail free card’ for Arthur, who manipulates everybody else, but who is powerless to stop Arthur’s downfall in the end.  In the classic Norman/French tale, it is through Merlin’s actions at the beginning of the story that Arthur becomes high king, and because of Merlin’s abandonment at the end of the story that (in rapid succession), Arthur loses his wife, his best friend, his son, and his life.

In the Welsh tales, on the other hand, Arthur is nearly super-human.  He may have a few flaws, yes, but he is a ‘hero’ in the classic sense.  He takes his men to the Underworld and back again, he finds the 13 treasures of Britain, and he rescues his friends and relations from danger and death.   It is these tales, however, that are rarely told in modern fiction.  Why is that?  Why do authors have an easier time grafting sorcery (of the Merlin and Morgane kind) onto a tale of the gritty, Dark Age Arthur than the mythology that is far older and ‘authentic’ for the period in which Arthur actually lived?

As one of my grad school professors once said, ‘the English have a lot to answer for’ :)   As posted here (http://tinyurl.com/673mxrh), there are other reasons Camelot is a mess too.  Too bad.