Lost in Austen

I was so thrilled when I learned of Lost in Austen, the BBC miniseries. I mean who more than I, a devoted Jane Austen fan, would enjoy a fantasy trip to the world of Pride and Prejudice. Oh the possibilities, you could befriend the beloved Elizabeth, or tell off some vile character like Mrs. Bennet, Lady Catherine, or Mr. Collins. And indeed the 4 part miniseries indulges many of these fantasies; it thrusts 21st century Amanda Price into the Regency world where she navigates her way around ridiculous situations and the tried and true problems of time travel.
However, somewhere along the way this fantasy trip falls flat. Maybe it is because it tries to do too much. And more importantly it lacks what is best about Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth (she’s been catapulted to the future in place of Price’s character). The story goes too far and then doesn't offer explanations for many goofy plot turns. Why, for example, is Darcy taken to the future and then back in regency England and then forgets all about it? Also, Amanda Price doesn’t seem to have a central goal in the miniseries. She tries to manipulate the events in the story based on her knowledge of the novel and puts herself into a number of circumstances for comical reasons, but she never achieves her stated goal: to try to preserve the novel’s outcomes.
And the Darcy isn’t very good. That’s always the problem with any remake of Pride and Prejudice. Who can compete with Colin Firth’s version? (although I thought Matthew MacFadyen who was just seen BBC’s Little Dorrit, was a good Darcy) . One good point of the movie was the Mr. Wickam played by Tom Riley -- I liked the twist taken with his character and the clever way it was shown that our prejudices may have been wrong about him – plus the actor was much more interesting to look at than Darcy.
Overall, I thought, bummer, I wish it could have been better. But maybe there’s hope, and BBC will put Amanda Price into Persuasion where she will interact with Anne Elliot and tell off Anne’s awful sister Elizabeth.

Hodge Podge 2

Death at a Funeral is a very silly British comedy with a host of well-known British actors. If you are a fan of the Masterpiece Theater-type movies, you've seen all of these actors at one time or another. The lead characters Matthew MacFadyen (Darcy in the most recent Pride and Prejudice) and Rupert Graves (The Forsyte Saga) are brothers whose father just died, and they argue about who is going to pay for it and try to manage the kooky guests that come to the funeral. It's not a great movie, but it's pretty funny at times, and it gets better as the movie goes on.

Last night I was going to go to bed at a reasonable hour when I ran across the 1958 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. Somehow, I had never seen this movie before last night, and never really wanted to, but last night it hooked me in. At first I thought cheesy and overly dramatic -- I am not really a fan of Tennessee Williams plays --they seem so overwrought--but after 10 minutes or so I became so mesmerized by both Newman and Taylor that I had to watch it until the end and stayed up until 1:30 AM. If you've never seen it, it's worth a try.



Bend it Like Beckham stars Parmainder Nagra from ER who plays the adorable Jess, a girl whose Pakistani culture conflicts with her dream of playing competitive soccer. This is another good movie for girls like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It's just nice to see a wholesome movie such as this one where girls are all about kickin' butt on the soccer field. The movie also stars Keira Knightly as Jess' very young boyish-looking team mate. The soccer coach and love interest is played by Jonathan Rhys-Myers, who I last saw in The Tudors, and he does his usual smoldering thing, but in this early version of him, he seemed kinda sissified (is that a word?)

Favorite Movies

I wanted this blog to be lists and then I try to make these definitive lists of my favorite movies, and I become stymied. Some movies I love some movies so much for about two months or so and then two years later I can’t remember why I liked it. I think a favorite movie needs to last in your mind and stay meaningful to you. So they are not only meaningful to you at the time, they hang on and insist you see them again and again. Some movies that I feel that way to me are listed below. More will come to me later, by the way.
Gigi 1958 (I don’t know why)
Broadcast News 1987
Ordinary People 1980
Reds 1981
The Princess Bride, 1987
Pride and Prejudice (A&E version) 1996
You Can Count on Me 2000

What is one of your favorite movies?