April - 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters, #121: Pezzo the Peddler

Joe Pace

Apr 30, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters, #121: Pezzo the Peddler

Esphyr Slobodkina's Caps for Sale is an absolute classic of children's literature. The illustrations are stylized and bright, the writing is brisk and poetic. Anyone with kids knows this one. I practically memorized this book reading it to our guys (as did they - Bobby had all the lines to this one committed to memory before he was three). And why not? It's got monkeys and a guy who can balance seventeen hats on his head and walk down the street. He belongs in a circus (and g

Favorite Fictional Characters, #120: Daniel Miller

Joe Pace

Apr 29, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters

Favorite Fictional Characters, #120: Daniel Miller

I've always been a big fan of the 1991 Albert Brooks comedy Defending Your Life. It's a sardonic, witty, even bittersweet take on what comes next. There have been other fictional representations depicting the afterlife as a bureaucracy (including an unpublished novel of my own, inspired in part by this film), but the fresh approach here is the legal context, the requirement that new arrivals must prove themselves worthy of moving on to the next plane of existence by virtue of

Favorite Fictional Characters, #119: Beetlejuice

Joe Pace

Apr 28, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters

Favorite Fictional Characters, #119: Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice is a strange film, but then it's a Tim Burton film, so what else would you expect? Michael Keaton is at the peak of his weird, subversive self as the titular mischievous pervert (though Burton originally wanted Rat Packer Sammy Davis, Jr. for the part), a fast-talking, libidinous ghoul bent on causing trouble and marrying Winona Ryder. Burton cuts loose in the role, and the resulting mess is both funny and confusing. The movie drags when he's not onscreen, despite

Favorite Fictional Characters, #118: Holly Golightly

Joe Pace

Apr 27, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters

Favorite Fictional Characters, #118: Holly Golightly

For our purposes here, I'm talking about the Holly from the 1961 Blake Edwards film version of Breakfast at Tiffany's, not the Holly from Truman Capote's novella. I've never read the Capote - I'm afraid of an experience similar to my reading of Malamud's original novel The Natural. These books, while superior in almost every way to the movies they inspired, lack the happy endings insisted upon by Hollywood. Not that I mind a bleaker literary narrative - I am a George RR Marti

Favorite Fictional Characters, #117: J.R. Ewing

Joe Pace

Apr 26, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters

Favorite Fictional Characters, #117: J.R. Ewing

There are a lot of heroes on this list, plenty of paragons of virtue and honor. There are also plenty of scoundrels, rogues, and villains. I'm partial to scoundrels, both as a consumer and amateur creator of fiction. Whether protagonists or antagonists, pro-social or sociopathic, their flaws are so much more human and so much more interesting than bloodless saints. As Billy Joel sang, the sinners are much more fun. One of my favorites, hence his place on this list, is J.R. Ew

Favorite Fictional Characters, #116: Mr. Incredible

Joe Pace

Apr 25, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters

Favorite Fictional Characters, #116: Mr. Incredible

Bob Parr was really good at his job, and he loved doing it. He had all the attention and accolades he could want, a sense of purpose, adversaries who challenged his superhuman abilities, and the love of an equally heroic woman. As Mr. Incredible, Bob Parr was living the dream. And then it all got taken away from him. Everything he worked for and lived for was denied him, and instead he was shunted into a world of meaningless cubicle paper-shuffling, dreary domesticity, and wo

Favorite Fictional Characters, #115: Hannibal Lecter

Joe Pace

Apr 24, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters

Favorite Fictional Characters, #115: Hannibal Lecter

Confession: I've never read any of the Harris novels. I've never seen the movies other than Silence of the Lambs. Some might hear that and wonder how I can claim him as a favorite character and not want to consume all of his appearances on page and screen. It's simple. In the film version of Silence, Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Lecter is so chilling, so upsetting, so perfect, that I don't want to ruin it. Avoiding the other iterations is preservative, like watching Empire S

Favorite Fictional Characters, #114: Pee-Wee Herman

Joe Pace

Apr 23, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters

Favorite Fictional Characters, #114: Pee-Wee Herman

There are some weird things in this world, make no mistake. And one of the weirdest is the frenetic, bizarre man-child Pee-Wee Herman. The fact that he exists is strange enough, inhabiting a world ostensibly for children of sensory overload, anthropomorphic household objects, and blatant sexual innuendo. Pee-Wee is a freakshow. His Saturday morning program, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, sandblasted the senses of my generation with cacophony, clashing colors, and the plotless wandering

Favorite Fictional Characters, #113: Kingpin

Joe Pace

Apr 22, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters

Favorite Fictional Characters, #113: Kingpin

If you haven't watched the first two seasons of Daredevil on Netflix, do yourself a favor, block off 24 hours in the near future and get to it. I've always regarded ol' hornhead as a minor player in the Marvel Universe, a poor man's Spider-Man mixed with a poor man's Batman. I just never paid much attention to the character, and the comics I read from his series always felt repetitive and dull. The horrific Ben Affleck film version was the worst kind of superhero drivel, blan

Favorite Fictional Characters, #112: Jamie Buchman

Joe Pace

Apr 21, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters

Favorite Fictional Characters, #112: Jamie Buchman

I'll admit it: I enjoyed Mad About You. Sure, it's fairly standard sitcom fare, and its depiction of complex affection between a young married couple came at an awkward spot between the earnest family fables of the 1980s (The Cosby Show, Family Ties) and the snarky insult comedy of the 1990s (Friends, Seinfeld). It was a good vehicle for Paul Reiser's hand-wringing self-deprecation, but even more so for Helen Hunt's neurotic Jamie Buchman. The Buchmans, Paul and Jamie, were v

Favorite Fictional Characters, #111: Jules Winnfield

Joe Pace

Apr 20, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters

Favorite Fictional Characters, #111: Jules Winnfield

I'm honestly not sure which came first, Samuel L. Jackson or Jules Winnfield. The actor and character are so virtually indistinguishable that it seems every role Jackson plays is a variation on his iconic troubled hit man from Pulp Fiction. The film itself is a brilliant work, perhaps Tarantino's best, and includes fantastic performances from a rejuvenated Travolta, a sultry Uma Thurman, a harried Bruce Willis, and a looming Ving Rhames (not to mention hilarious cameo bits by

Favorite Fictional Characters, #110: Starscream

Joe Pace

Apr 19, 2016

Favorite Fictional Characters

Favorite Fictional Characters, #110: Starscream

Yeah, I was a big Transformers guy back in the mid-1980s. The original toy line and the cartoon culminating in the groundbreaking 1986 animated movie were high culture for ten-year-old me. I loved Optimus Prime like everyone else, but for me Megatron fell short as an antagonist. A bit too much cardboard-cutout, tin-plated (literally) tyrant, a bit too much central-casting megalomaniac. For me, the far more compelling Decepticon was Starscream. The guy was a total weasel, in t

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