Did Dakota Johnson show her boobs? Then why would I waste two hours of my life? ‘Course, I’m not an Austen aficionado, and without at least one naked lesbian pillow fight, it’s unlikely to hold my interest.
Of course, I also tried to subject myself to Apple’s version of “Macbeth,” only to rediscover my distaste for Shakespeare. No car chases. No homoerotic undertones. No half-hearted orgiastic banquets. No graphic beheadings.
Plus the sex is AWFUL.
Anyway, this feral writer is still awaiting a movie in which Charlize Theron beds a willing victim and, just before he climaxes, she rips his heart out and consumes it. 😝
There are like a million things I want to say, but the first (two ... and a half?) are confessions:
1) To my deficit and moral fault, I've never actually read any Austen.
2) To my credit, I've never polluted my impressions with any movie renditions. I want to read the books first.
1.5) I've a significant library of Austen's works on my Kindle. Turns out that being dead for ~200 years means your books are out of copyright. So it is on the list of things to do.
Breaking the fourth wall -- that will work for Deadpool (and probably "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" (yeah, there really is such a book)) -- but nothing else.
I genuinely and viscerally relate to the outrage at having a story butchered. I could ultimately have forgiven Ridley Scott for "Blade Runner" if the latter had at least been a half-assed decent story. But quite aside from the fact that Scott mutilated Philip K. Dick's "Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep?", the story he told was an abomination. All Scott wanted to do was show off how clever he was with a camera, meanwhile the characters are, without exception, slack-jawed buffoons and the holes in the narrative are so grotesque a blind man could navigate the Ever Green through them while whistling Beethoven's 9th backwards.
Eight years to go from an Ordinary Seaman to Captain is a trifle unbelievable, but in that world not impossible for someone with native talent and energy.
But what this really reminded me of was the economist Thomas Piketty's use of Austen, Balzac, and other period authors to talk about the economic situation and expectations in a period where even bad statistics were completely lacking. These writers were very popular in their own day, and so the images of the society they lived in did not in any way jar with their readers. Piketty's argument is that we can legitimately treat these stories as an accurate representation of the expectations people entertained at the time.
Oh, speaking of cheap -- and altogether unforgivable -- writer's stunts: I was getting increasingly invested in what was otherwise a good Western mini-series. Spoilers like a MoFo, I'm talking about 1883. I am aggressively, savagely, NOT recommending it. Even though I like the actors and, even as a straight man, want to have Sam Elliot's love child.
But the show's narrator is the "coming of age" daughter. OK, that works. Except that when you get to the end, it turns out that THE DAUGHTER IS DEAD. And no, the others are not reading these words from her diary, or some such thing. She's just fucking dead, killed on the way to Wyoming. I knew better than to stoop to something that cheep when I was 18. These fuckwipes are paid "professionals," pulling a cheap stunt that any person who ever showed up for the first day of a 100 level English class would know better than to pull. It was all I could do not to throw my streaming device across the yard.
"The degustation of an Austen novel is best done in layers, like eating a fresh croissant. First, the burnished shell shatters against your teeth, yielding to its tender bready insides and flaky crumb, notes of butter and yeast and just a hint of sugar melting across the tongue. Second, the sigh of blissful contentment."
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh, Gares, you slay me! I laughed so hard, I think I pulled a muscle in my face. I’m so glad you exist. At least there’s someone out there who gets as sputtery and het up as I do about gross malfeasances committed by storytellers. We take this shit very seriously. It’s part of our country’s cultural heritage. That’s no small thing.
You MUST read Austen. Start with P&P, then Emma, then S&S, then Persuasion.
I will (read Austen). I've gone back and read Dickens, Melville, shit that was shit-shovelled down my gullet when I was in school, and hated every word ... then. Right now I'm reading again for the first time "The Great Gatsby"; no surprise, it is really good. "Moby Dick" was funny as hell (the cook lecturing the sharks about making so much noise while eating?) When I finish GG, P&P will be next among the fiction writings in the "Current Reading" folder of my Kindle.
And Ridley Scott is only a *purported* storyteller. Mostly he's just a narcissist with a camera and a budget.
Communist Soviet Union back in the 1960's did a massive (and pretty faithful, from what I know) multi-part, absolutely MASSIVE (I mean, they basically refought the battle of Borodino in its entirety) "mini" series of W&P that is now free for the viewing on Youtube. I saw some considerable part of this when it hit US broadcast TV (and yeah, they played it. You weren't born yet.) I don't recall the details, but I can still vividly recall how I was completely gobsmacked and enraptured by the whole thing. Doesn't mean you have to like it, and the me today might rather have a root canal w/o novacaine if I tried to watch it again.
But I do mean to watch it again, and the whole thing is now freely available on YouTube.
I saw someone say you have to go into this movie as if it's an original and not an adaptation. But I already know it's an adaptation...of my favorite Austen book. I can't just forget that. I really don't think I'll be able to watch this one and I give you kudos for doing the work for me and confirming that I should stay away.
One of my favorite youtubers is The Critical Drinker, not because he's a foul-mouthed guttersnipe (like me), but because he started as a fiction writer, and turned film critic; mostly because he is really interested in story over... stupid.
This particular offering seems to offer stupid in the form of a costume drama... and Branagh's "Henry V" is totally badass.
I've only ever read "Sense and Sensibility," but I remember it being full of sharp insights and funny as hell. I do intend to read more Austen, including "Persuasion," it's just that the list of books to read one day is endless. I have no doubt that your take on this adaptation is accurate. I love Dakota Johnson, thought that she was great in last year's "Lost Daughter," but she was misused in this movie, just as were the other cast. And speaking of the other cast I understand your opposition to the inclusion of people of color in these roles. I do believe that the creators of these movies and series have the best intentions. They are attempting to redress the virtual erasure of POC from Hollywood movies for most of it's existence. It's a lovely intention. And sometimes it can even be buzzy and novel to see iconic characters portrayed by non-White actors. However, especially as a Black person, I'd much prefer to see more creative projects featuring POC that are either based on actual POC, or that were created specifically for them. I too am uncomfortable with the likes of "Bridgerton," featuring POC in historical roles that are wholly fictional in a misguided attempt to right historical wrongs; indeed I've never watched an episode because of this and likely never will. No, what I'd like to see is the trend continue of giving more POC, LGBTQ people, and women more opportunities in front of and behind the camera, in projects based on characters like them, or in new projects intended to specifically to feature them. This to me is a much better and less problematic way to promote diversity and provide opportunities to those who have been denied them.
Did Dakota Johnson show her boobs? Then why would I waste two hours of my life? ‘Course, I’m not an Austen aficionado, and without at least one naked lesbian pillow fight, it’s unlikely to hold my interest.
Of course, I also tried to subject myself to Apple’s version of “Macbeth,” only to rediscover my distaste for Shakespeare. No car chases. No homoerotic undertones. No half-hearted orgiastic banquets. No graphic beheadings.
Plus the sex is AWFUL.
Anyway, this feral writer is still awaiting a movie in which Charlize Theron beds a willing victim and, just before he climaxes, she rips his heart out and consumes it. 😝
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Okay, but who gets his heart ripped out? Can I bet the one to cast that?
Your story, your choice. 😝
Oh, yeah: "(most of us are half-feral and reeking of bourbon)"
Rum thank you.
LOL!!!!
@Gary - I'm using that phrase for f-ing ever
There are like a million things I want to say, but the first (two ... and a half?) are confessions:
1) To my deficit and moral fault, I've never actually read any Austen.
2) To my credit, I've never polluted my impressions with any movie renditions. I want to read the books first.
1.5) I've a significant library of Austen's works on my Kindle. Turns out that being dead for ~200 years means your books are out of copyright. So it is on the list of things to do.
Breaking the fourth wall -- that will work for Deadpool (and probably "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" (yeah, there really is such a book)) -- but nothing else.
I genuinely and viscerally relate to the outrage at having a story butchered. I could ultimately have forgiven Ridley Scott for "Blade Runner" if the latter had at least been a half-assed decent story. But quite aside from the fact that Scott mutilated Philip K. Dick's "Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep?", the story he told was an abomination. All Scott wanted to do was show off how clever he was with a camera, meanwhile the characters are, without exception, slack-jawed buffoons and the holes in the narrative are so grotesque a blind man could navigate the Ever Green through them while whistling Beethoven's 9th backwards.
Eight years to go from an Ordinary Seaman to Captain is a trifle unbelievable, but in that world not impossible for someone with native talent and energy.
But what this really reminded me of was the economist Thomas Piketty's use of Austen, Balzac, and other period authors to talk about the economic situation and expectations in a period where even bad statistics were completely lacking. These writers were very popular in their own day, and so the images of the society they lived in did not in any way jar with their readers. Piketty's argument is that we can legitimately treat these stories as an accurate representation of the expectations people entertained at the time.
Oh, speaking of cheap -- and altogether unforgivable -- writer's stunts: I was getting increasingly invested in what was otherwise a good Western mini-series. Spoilers like a MoFo, I'm talking about 1883. I am aggressively, savagely, NOT recommending it. Even though I like the actors and, even as a straight man, want to have Sam Elliot's love child.
But the show's narrator is the "coming of age" daughter. OK, that works. Except that when you get to the end, it turns out that THE DAUGHTER IS DEAD. And no, the others are not reading these words from her diary, or some such thing. She's just fucking dead, killed on the way to Wyoming. I knew better than to stoop to something that cheep when I was 18. These fuckwipes are paid "professionals," pulling a cheap stunt that any person who ever showed up for the first day of a 100 level English class would know better than to pull. It was all I could do not to throw my streaming device across the yard.
"The degustation of an Austen novel is best done in layers, like eating a fresh croissant. First, the burnished shell shatters against your teeth, yielding to its tender bready insides and flaky crumb, notes of butter and yeast and just a hint of sugar melting across the tongue. Second, the sigh of blissful contentment."
Pardon me while I go have some, er, "me" time ...
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh, Gares, you slay me! I laughed so hard, I think I pulled a muscle in my face. I’m so glad you exist. At least there’s someone out there who gets as sputtery and het up as I do about gross malfeasances committed by storytellers. We take this shit very seriously. It’s part of our country’s cultural heritage. That’s no small thing.
You MUST read Austen. Start with P&P, then Emma, then S&S, then Persuasion.
You won’t regret it.
I will (read Austen). I've gone back and read Dickens, Melville, shit that was shit-shovelled down my gullet when I was in school, and hated every word ... then. Right now I'm reading again for the first time "The Great Gatsby"; no surprise, it is really good. "Moby Dick" was funny as hell (the cook lecturing the sharks about making so much noise while eating?) When I finish GG, P&P will be next among the fiction writings in the "Current Reading" folder of my Kindle.
And Ridley Scott is only a *purported* storyteller. Mostly he's just a narcissist with a camera and a budget.
Hollywood is lousy with men who have a camera and a budget. Or did I mean to say Hollywood was just lousy?
GG is fabulous. Worth a re-read. It’s War and Peace I’ve never managed to get through.
Well, speaking of movies ...
Communist Soviet Union back in the 1960's did a massive (and pretty faithful, from what I know) multi-part, absolutely MASSIVE (I mean, they basically refought the battle of Borodino in its entirety) "mini" series of W&P that is now free for the viewing on Youtube. I saw some considerable part of this when it hit US broadcast TV (and yeah, they played it. You weren't born yet.) I don't recall the details, but I can still vividly recall how I was completely gobsmacked and enraptured by the whole thing. Doesn't mean you have to like it, and the me today might rather have a root canal w/o novacaine if I tried to watch it again.
But I do mean to watch it again, and the whole thing is now freely available on YouTube.
Part One: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIij-KQ0jYU
I completely agree with you! Very disappointing. I couldn’t make it through…
I’m so glad it wasn’t just me! Someone sent me another scathing review of Persuasion, and I think we have a consensus opinion going.
I saw someone say you have to go into this movie as if it's an original and not an adaptation. But I already know it's an adaptation...of my favorite Austen book. I can't just forget that. I really don't think I'll be able to watch this one and I give you kudos for doing the work for me and confirming that I should stay away.
One of my favorite youtubers is The Critical Drinker, not because he's a foul-mouthed guttersnipe (like me), but because he started as a fiction writer, and turned film critic; mostly because he is really interested in story over... stupid.
This particular offering seems to offer stupid in the form of a costume drama... and Branagh's "Henry V" is totally badass.
There. I said it.
I've only ever read "Sense and Sensibility," but I remember it being full of sharp insights and funny as hell. I do intend to read more Austen, including "Persuasion," it's just that the list of books to read one day is endless. I have no doubt that your take on this adaptation is accurate. I love Dakota Johnson, thought that she was great in last year's "Lost Daughter," but she was misused in this movie, just as were the other cast. And speaking of the other cast I understand your opposition to the inclusion of people of color in these roles. I do believe that the creators of these movies and series have the best intentions. They are attempting to redress the virtual erasure of POC from Hollywood movies for most of it's existence. It's a lovely intention. And sometimes it can even be buzzy and novel to see iconic characters portrayed by non-White actors. However, especially as a Black person, I'd much prefer to see more creative projects featuring POC that are either based on actual POC, or that were created specifically for them. I too am uncomfortable with the likes of "Bridgerton," featuring POC in historical roles that are wholly fictional in a misguided attempt to right historical wrongs; indeed I've never watched an episode because of this and likely never will. No, what I'd like to see is the trend continue of giving more POC, LGBTQ people, and women more opportunities in front of and behind the camera, in projects based on characters like them, or in new projects intended to specifically to feature them. This to me is a much better and less problematic way to promote diversity and provide opportunities to those who have been denied them.