Emma and the yellow room

PBS currently has the first two episodes of Emma posted online.  I took advantage of this to take some screenshots of especially interesting scenes.

I'm drawn to this room. I don't particularly want to decorate my house this way, but there's something about the color scheme and abundance of paintings that attracts me at a deep, soothing level.  

 

This is the dress I would like my seamstress extraordinaire friend to make for me. 

Snow and hobbits

I'm watching the movie Fellowship of the Ring, first in the Lord of the Rings series.  Watching Shakespearean actors gravely imbue Tolkien-esque lines with nuances of meaning is a pleasure.  I can't get enough of Saruman when he says things like "The dwarves delved too deep," or, quite simply, "Shadow and flame."

While a movie can never compete with a book (your imagination is still the richest bed for enlivening a story), being able to hear a beloved story come to life enriches the experience even more.

Whenever it snows, J. and I recite Sean Bean's (Boromir) heartfelt exclamation: "This will be the death of the hobbits!"

Travel plans and the uncanny

Trip preparations for our trip to Great Britain are getting ridiculously uncanny.  First, I decided that we should setup a base camp in Kingussie, Scotland for our time in the Cairngorms.  Then I found out that it was used for some scenes in one of my all-time favorite series, Monarch of the Glen.  Okay, cool, not enough to make me absolutely have to stay in that village should a better location show up, but, still, pretty cool.

Recently, I found out about Lacock Village and decided that we would make that another base camp because I was intrigued by the thought of a village that "remains largely unchanged over the centuries."  Then I found out that it was used in the famous 1995 Pride and Prejudice series (I don't need to mention how much I love that series, too) and some Harry Potter movies (I love Harry Potter, too.)  Now I am definitely making sure that we include this stop in our itinerary!

And today, after some discussion with J. about exploring other mountainous regions of Scotland and settling on Ben Nevis and Glen Coe, I discovered that the village Glencoe was the setting for my all-time favorite shots in the movie Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  And I ABSOLUTELY have to go here!

Really, this is all getting a little...strange.

Beautiful ugly

The muses work in labyrinthine ways, and creativity spirals in and yet out of itself like a nautilus.

I found a poem by Mark Doty that was inspired by Jean Cocteau's film La Belle et la Bete, which was in turn inspired by who knows what version of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast.

He captures that nagging sense of unease over the Beast's transformation into the prince, even as we are all awaiting that pivot point, anxiously waiting to hear Beauty proclaim her love and thus enable the Beast to shed his so-called ugliness and prove himself worthy of her love (...but didn't he already do that?) No one remembers the prince, but the

"...heady onrush
of the transformation...

...the moments
disruptive and lush, before the breaking through

...not to the kingdom itself, where nothing happens,
but the approach to the kingdom:
everything, the coming to love."
(from La Belle et la Bete - read it here)

What do you think?

Something wicked this way comes

Jon and I had the pleasure of watching Coraline in 3D, complete with goofy glasses and a theater full of squirmy kids. It's based on the book by the same name, written by Neil Gaiman, a famous fantasy author. I was never interested in his work until I picked up this book several years ago. Sinister and sometimes creepy, this modern day fairy tale (I mean here a fairy tale like the original fairy tales, not the Disneyfied ones) demonstrates the deep reserves of courage and determination we all have within us.

Reading Coraline, I began to understand for the first time what a fairy tale is. Life rarely goes the way you would like it to, and it's up to you to overcome the obstacles that come your way--sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don't. Fairy tales demonstrate this basic truth in a very dark, but ultimately inspiring way.

The problems of being the weaker sex

Last weekend I watched The Duchess, starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes, two of my favorite thespians.

I think a lot of girls will love the movie for its fashion and crazy hairdos--it's certainly interesting to see how the rich threw their money away. But it reminded me again of why I would never want to travel back in time (besides the knowledge that I would be considered quite dumb because of my hearing loss): women had very little say over their circumstances. They married, and tried to marry well, because that was often the only way to avoid poverty, even if they were born into well-to-do families. Love was usually not a consideration for the matchmakers, only strategic alliances and keeping the family name pure.

The more I learn about the history of marriage, the more I understand the prevalence of affairs among the aristocracy. If you marry a man who is only interested in producing a male heir, and continues his dalliances with his maids, and eventually takes up with your own best friend, in your own house (The Duchesss is based on the life of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire), is it any wonder that you would fall in love with a man (Charles Grey) who actually appears to fancy you too?

What I found touching in the movie: Georgiana gives up Charles Grey to stay with her children (the Duke of Devonshire may have had no problems being a philanderer, but did not want it known that his wife was stepping out on him and told her she would never see her children again if she continued her dalliance with Mr. Grey).

Random observation

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amusing that James Bond, Billy Elliot, and Sabretooth are roughing it in the woods together in the movie Defiance?

Your very own Mr. Darcy

You can purchase the portrait of Mr. Darcy used in the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice.

It's kind of like a high-art version of those heart-throb photos I used to tear out of those teeny-bopper magazines back in middle school.

The way vampires talk

The Twilight craze has hit J.'s school. He overheard two girls discussing the Twilight movie.

One girl, not too keen on the books, asked "Why is the dialogue so corny? Why does Edward talk that way?"

And the other girl, a fanatic, replied,"Well, he just doesn't know any better. He's a vampire--he's not normal, so he doesn't know that's not the way people talk."

The excuse for vampires prone to corny language: they just don't know any better!

What's wrong with you, Indy?

I'm disappointed in the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The older movies had a sense of weight, tangible in the sense of the journey that Indy undertook in each of them, and we went along for the ride. The series was full of action/adventure drama and mystical overtones owing to the various searches for long lost artifacts, but I think it endures because it speaks to the curiosity in all of us, the need to know about something Other (whatever your religion, or lack thereof). Another reason for the popularity of the movies is the sense that we could do what Indy does, that the adventures he embarks on could possibly happen in real life.

This movie is just another action/adventure flick full of ridiculous fight scenes that could not logically happen in real life, and the search for the crystal skull is full of mumbo-jumbo that makes no sense to anyone who hasn't looked into the eyes of the crystal skull and communed with the extraterrestrial being within. Sure, we're all curious to know how ancient people could have achieved what they did without modern technology, but the movie's vague answer, that "Knowledge," granted from the aliens, is the reason (with no further elaboration, other than a character saying "They have gone into the space between spaces."), coupled with the focus on flashy special effects rather than a journey that Indy embarks on, makes for an overall silly movie that should never have stooped so low.

An interesting review over at Books & Culture: Indiana Jones and the Deadly Blather

Movies on the menu today

I've seen two rather dark movies lately that were excellent. One is No Country for Old Men, the other is Eastern Promises.

I went for a long time without seeing No Country for Old Men--it just didn't seem my cup of tea, in spite of the rave reviews it garnered everywhere. Then a good friend of mine from the old library told me to see it, so I did, and was blown away. I have no intention of watching it again--it's not Pride & Prejudice--but it sticks with me still. In the midst of its bleak imagery (the amoral hitman appears to get away, leaving a rampage of blood behind), the good characters shine brightly all the more.

Two things stick with me from that movie: the wife of the dumb and careless ranch-hand. When the hitman shows up in her home near the end of the movie, she refuses to submit to his power, thereby breaking the cycle of violence that he thrives on. The other thing is the sheriff's story of a dream he had, of his father riding ahead of him into the darkness, and how he knew that there would be a fire waiting for him, a lone point of warmth and light in the middle of a dark wilderness.

Eastern Promises is strange. A rather bleak tale of a midwife who comes against the powerful Russian mafia in London, the movie manages to make her small victory quite feasible, in the face of such mindless eye-for-an-eye violence.

My, my how can I forget you?

Mom and I went to see Mamma Mia!

We enjoyed it very much. I think most of the movie's charm came from the location (some gorgeous Mediterranean island) and Meryl Streep. Of course, you can't forget Colin Firth, who will never be able to completely shed his Mr. Darcy stigma.

If only our lives were filled with song and dance numbers...

I mentioned this to Jon. He said nothing, which says a lot.

The briefest movie review you'll find here

The Dark Knight is very good. It actually had a theme that it explored, in the midst of superhero chaos.

Heath Ledger made the Joker his own.

Christian Bale is one of my favorite things.

Daydreaming a book

When my brain started going cross-eyed at the reference desk last week, I allowed myself to daydream a little, to work the snarls out of my thoughts before they turned into a gordian knot and I would end up staring dumbly at patrons asking questions such as: "Do you have any books on cats?"

This is what I did: imagined who would play who in a movie adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke's doorstopper of a book on an alternative history of England in which magic returns in the nineteenth century (think Tolkien meets Austen).

Jonathan Strange, young, impetuous magician -- Christian Bale


Mr Norrell, stodgy magician -- Ian Holm


Gentleman with the thistledown hair, fairy king of Lost Hope -- David Bowie


Arabella Strange, patient wife -- Kate Winslet


Lady Emma Pole, condemned to live half her life (she spends her days in England, her evenings in Faerie) at Lost Hope after Mr Norrell bargains with the Gentleman with the thistledown hair to bring her back to life -- Keira Knightley


John Uskglass, The Raven King, the mysterious father of magic in England -- Johnny Depp


One of the fae, a faerie we meet in Lost Hope whose dress is made up of beetles -- Nicole Kidman

Beowulf

Beowulf is the dumbest movie I have seen in a while.

What little gravitas it may have had was ruined by the animation. They altered the story beyond forgiveness. And why was Grendel's mother wearing high heels?

The patron saint of modern electricity

This is how I imagined Tesla while I read the book The Invention of Everything Else. If you have not seen the movie The Prestige, you should.

Timid mouse

I was not impressed with Mansfield Park, though it was amusing to see Bionic Woman playing Maria Crawford. The engagement scene at the end was rather cute, but that's about it. I think they tried to modernize Fanny Price for the audience, but the result was a confusing character who did nothing but act timid, in spite of her low-cut dresses (which were oddly lower-cut than those of the Bertrams). You couldn't understand how she would stand up to Sir Thomas when he tried to force her to accept Henry's proposal. Oh well.

When all hope is gone

For those of you woefully unaware of the delights that Austen's writing offers, I want to point out that, for the premiere of 'Masterpiece', PBS is putting on an Austen-palooza that runs from now until sometime in April. They've remade several of Austen's books, yet again...but a janeite never tires of these remakes.

Persuasion aired last Sunday. We enjoyed it, even if it was a little rushed. The story was compacted into 1 1/2 hours. One barely had time to appreciate the severity of Fanny's situation before things immediately started looking up again. That was my only complaint. It didn't quite overtake the 1995 version--Ciaran Hinds is a wonderful actor, but, like the 2 most recent Pride & Prejudice movies, I would highly recommend both versions of Persuasion.

Iorek is awesome

The Golden Compass is very good. I think anyone not familiar with the books will wonder what the brouha is over the movie, as there is nary a whiff of any real religious overtones. The typical menacing Catholic-looking evil guys are there, but then this is the standard stereotype to use in the movies for any evil religious-type organization.

The idea of Dust has been neutered. It's all about free will now. Who can possibly find anything wrong with that idea? I find this rather interesting, as free will comes into play a lot in the books, but not in a way that many religious people would like at face value. I say "face value" because once you scratch past the surface to see what Pullman is really getting at, the "aha" moment will come.

The girl who plays the protagonist Lyra is phenomenal. A complete unknown--a schoolgirl plucked from the crowd of thousands of wanna-be Lyras--she holds her own next to Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman. I just realized that my "daemon," the snow leopard, is the same as Lord Asriel's. Those of you familiar with the books will see how odd this is.

The exiled polar bear king Iorek Byrnison alone is worth seeing the movie.

Literature and faith

A friend recently asked me my opinion on a particular book and how it relates to the Christian faith. I plan to give it some thought because I wish to respect the concerns some people have concerning the book, while at the same time respecting the concerns the book itself raises.

This has made me think about the activity of reading itself, always a rather dangerous thing, and the relationship between reading and life. For children, this relation can sometimes be obscured so that the two are interchangeable, and in other cases it can heighten the similarities and differences between the two so that the reader's understanding of life is transformed, or challenged. We hope for the latter, but sometimes welcome the former.

I know that reading helped me while I was growing up, not only in the more mundane function of developing a better understanding of language that I could not hear, but in dealing with the frustrations of a life that I felt was rather unfair, and still feel the effects of. We all have thorns in our sides that we wish to escape, and for me, reading was my form of escape. For children, they tend to want to escape the thorn of not being an adult (funny that we adults long for childhood when we spent all of it wishing we could grow up faster) or something like that. Reading is one way of doing that.

I used to be all for letting a kid read whatever they want. Now I hesitate, since there are clearly some books that children simply are not mature enough to process or understand fully. How do we determine what books should be saved for later, and what are fine to read whenever? Do we seek to protect a child from the "bad" things of life, knowing that they will have to come to terms with them sooner or later?

What about issues of religion or morality? Should we try to protect children from different ways of thinking, or allow them to work through it on their own? These are hard questions to consider, especially for parents who want to raise their children in a particular faith. It is tempting to restrict the reading of any kind of literature that opposes their particular faith, but such control tends to lead to children determined to read such "rebellious" literature.

So what is a parent to do? My personal inclination is to allow children to read a broad range of literature they so desire, making sure the literature falls within their reading/maturity level. How else can we understand why we believe what we believe if those beliefs have not been challenged? God has survived much worse attacks than that of some book advocating atheism.

Having worked at Joseph-Beth and seeing the kinds of books available, I know that I would be more reluctant to let my kid read series like "Gossip Girls," which advocate a selfish, consumerist, back-stabbing way of life than some book in which faeries and goblins roam, or where the protoganist has encountered some devastating life event and questions the purpose of life.

I'm going to get off my soapbox here, since I'm sure only one person is reading this to the end. :)