Back again for another highly opinionated — some might even say downright cranky — look at the week in fantasy. You’ve been warned!

I ADMIT, I’M KINDA OBSESSED WITH WILD THINGS

In my review of Where the Wild Things Are (a movie I pretty much hated), I talked about how perplexed I was that anyone could love such a muddled mess of a movie. “Appreciate” it for the visuals and for being “different”? Sure. But “love” it? That’s hard for me to wrap my head around.

And yet some critics are rhapsodizing. It’s currently at 67% on RottenTomatoes.com (which I think is actually pretty bad given that this is the kind of film critics love to love: an edgy, esoteric film adaptation of a beloved children’s book by a wildly acclaimed “auteur” director).

Then I remind myself how subjective art always is. If, as a writer, I’m ever discouraged by a bad review of something I’ve personally written, I console myself by going to Amazon.com and reading the user reviews — and seeing that every book ever written, no matter how beloved, has someone who thinks it’s a piece of s***. Don’t believe me? Go look. Someone calls The Hobbit, for example, “the worst book ever written.”

People are different, that’s all.

I’m reminded that writers and artists are all very different whenever I teach creative writing (which I’ve done at both the high school and college level).

Some writers approach the craft of writing from a love of words and language. Some filmmakers, meanwhile, see making movies as being about the manipulation of images and visuals.

My approach, on the other hand, has always been that words (in books) and visuals (in movies) are merely tools that artists use to tell a story. For me, story (and character, which should be an expression of story, and vice-versa) is everything. If there’s no story, there’s no point, at least in a full-length work.

But for many writers and filmmakers, “story” is an afterthought, at best. That’s how Where the Wild Things Are seemed to me. It was almost solely about the visuals, and the director’s esoteric “point.”

Worse, some people confuse “structure” and “dramatic conflict” with “formula” and “cliche,” but they’re very different things. I hate formula, but I love structure. In fact, I think a well-crafted dramatic structure — where the ending is inevitable, yet completely unexpected — is one of the most beautiful things a human being can ever create. It’s literally my religion — my personal glimpse at the divine.

And that’s probably waaaaaaay more than you wanted to know about my philosophy of writing!

STOP GIVING FANTASY ENTHUSIASTS A BAD NAME!

So CodingHorror.com has a fascinating look at the evolving ads for the online fantasy game Evony (something I’ve written about before). Here are their first four ads in succession:

Now check out their latest ad (no joke):

Here’s some of CodingHorror’s very trenchant commentary:

Evony, thanks for showing us what it means to take advertising on the internet to the absolute rock bottom … then dig a sub-basement under that, and keep on digging until you reach the white-hot molten core of the Earth. I’ve always wondered what that would be like. I guess now I know.

Could! Not! Agree! More! Read the rest.

MORE PROOF THE WORLD HAS GONE INSANE FOR VAMPIRES

So there’s this pretty good children’s book called Cirque Du Freak, part of something called The Saga of Darin Shan. It’s the story of how this kid falls in with a mysterious traveling circus which includes, yes, some vampires. Soon the kid is embroiled in this conflict between rival vampire factions and must even decide whether he wants to become a vampire himself.

There’s a movie version coming out next Friday, which is based on the first three books in the series. The first trailers for it emphasized the interesting, complicated set-up, and hinted at the vampire plot.

But the closer we get to the release date, and with the insane break-out success of Twilight and now The Vampire Diaries, the studio is suddenly dropping all pretense that it’s about anything other than “a kid becomes a vampire!” The original title, Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is fast becoming, simply, The Vampire’s Assistant.

Check out the latest trailer:

Can’t blame em at all. People are currently gaga for vampires. But it’s interesting, no?

THE TINDER BOX TAKES ON THE IDIOT BOX

On Sunday, HGTV presents its Halloween Block Party, which offers us three potential “block party” designs: “The Haunted Mansion,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Since I live for both Halloween and home design, I am so there! (Sunday, 8 PM, HGTV).

Also on Sunday, The Simpsons offers us their twentieth Treehouse of Horror (Sunday, 8 PM, Fox). I’ve seen it and, as usual, it’s a cut-above their usual episodes, with parodies of Hitchcock and Strangers on a Train (pretty funny), 28 Days Later (hilarious), and Sweeney Todd (not that funny, but gutsy of them since most people won’t get any of the references…but then most people won’t get the earlier Hitchcock references either!). (Sunday, 8 PM, Fox)

THE TINDER BOX AT THE BOX OFFICE

Well, you all already know what I thought of Where the Wild Things Are.

Out on DVD this week is a movie I thought was flat-out terrific, Drag Me to Hell (here’s my review). Also out is Blood: The Last Vampire. (Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing these movies (or any other media!) through these links.)

Well, this week’s flame has sputtered out, but join me again next week when I promise I won’t be nearly so cranky.

Oh, who am I kidding?!

• Sadly, fantasy legend David Eddings, author of the Belgariad books and many others, died last Tuesday at age 77.

• Wow, this article on The Lord of the Rings‘ Liv Tyler is among the stupidest celebrity puff pieces I’ve ever read. Sample: “She seems more in control - even of her sexuality, which used to spill out like its own force field, just like those soap suds she wallowed in while washing the car in that famous scene from the movie One Night at McCool’s.”

• What, is it a requirement that women, in fantasy films or otherwise, be written about in the most insipid, superficial way possible? This time it’s Emma Watson.

• And since I’m on a tear about sexism in fantasy, take a look at these ridiculous ads for Evony (right), an online game. And before some straight guy says, “What’s the big deal?” try to imagine seeing the leering, breathless male equivalent every time you log on, and how that might make you feel a little … unwelcome and/or dehumanized in the genre of fantasy.

• A new version of Heavy Metal — the 1981 animated head-trip (that, yes, was sometimes also pretty sexist) — has been kicking around Hollywood for a while now, but now that James Cameron has come on board as a producer, its prospects look much better. Cameron, Zack Synder (300, Watchmen), Kevin Eastman (Teenage Ninja Turtles), and David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) are slated to direct segments in the anthology.

• Frequent fantasy director Tim Burton is getting an exhibition of his artwork at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. I’m curious to know how much Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas will be featured, given the dispute surrounding his actual contributions to the film; director Harry Selnick has said, “It’s as though he [Burton] laid the egg, and I sat on it and hatched it. He wasn’t involved in a hands-on way, but his hand is in it. It was my job to make it look like ‘a Tim Burton film,’ which is not so different from my own films … I don’t want to take away from Tim, but he was not in San Francisco when we made [the film]. He came up five times over two years, and spent no more than eight or ten days in total.”

• Natalie Portman is joining James Franco and Danny McBride  in Your Highness, now filming. It sounds a little like Judd Apatow gone medieval: two brothers, one heroic and one a lazy stoner-type, must rescue a damsel in distress, though in a nod to modern sensibilities, Portman, the damsel in distress, is described as a “warrior princess.” Reportedly, it’s also a satire/homage to fantasy films of the 80s like Clash of the Titans, Krull and The Dark Crystal.