Jane Eyre

According to Wikipedia, there have been 15 movie versions of Jane Eyre before the latest take on this classic Charlotte Bronte novel. There really didn't seem to be a need for another version but this addition with Mia Wasikowska as Jane and Michael Fassbender as Rochester manages to make this well known tale fresh. I love Mia Wasikowska (she was especially brilliant as Sophie, the tormented teenager in In Treatment)and she makes a great Jane, waifish with a direct and intense gaze. Fassbender as Rochester is good too, even funny in parts although a little too handsome for the part. This Jane Eyre seems scary and suspensful too -- there are moments when you start -- I even let out a gasp at one point. And, my least favorite part of the novel, when Jane is at Lowood School is happily short. So the 16th Jane Eyre is a worthy addition.

Definitely, Maybe

Romantic Comedies have so much potential to be good and so often go astray, that I have kinda given up on them (In an earlier blog I wrote about the modern preponderance of slacker-striver types of romantic comedies that have added to my disappointment in this genre). So when my friend Ruth insisted that Definitely, Maybe, the recent attempt at romance with Ryan Reynolds, was better than most, I thought I would give it a try. And yeah, it was alright. It had a suspenseful plot and the final happy couple did seem right for each other. The romantic comedy conventions (find each other in a cute way, face an obstacle, overcome said obstacle) made sense and did not seemed forced. There was even a nice bit having to do with the novel Jane Eyre that was fresh. It wasn't another movie-potential-gone-terribly-wrong like in 27 dresses; however, it still succumbed to over the top attempts at humour that are just painful to watch, such as when school children were raving at their parents after they received a sex-ed lesson at school. One reason to watch is Rachel Weisz who is so interesting to watch that you wish she were in the movie more.