Virtual Birthday Party, Day 2

[wiseheart]

Dear all,

Day 1 of the party has been a great success: 170 comments on 2 pages so far. As agreed, I hereby kick off the second day, so that we won't lose everything like last year, should LJ crash our party again.

Threads of interest can still be commented on, but I ask you to start any new threads here from now on

And now: on with the party!!!

Comments

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

The Pride & Prejudice film with Matthew Macfadyen (so not Darcy), Keira Knightley (so not Elizabeth) and all the farmyard scenes. I'm not an enormous fan of the Colin Firth version, but it was waaaay better.

Not to mention the recent Jane Eyre film with Mia Wasikowska. I don't think any film/tv version of the novel has entirely worked for me, and it did have one or two good points, but oh god the lack of chemistry between Jane & Rochester was just sad. And the casting has meant that the formerly-bijou-but-high-quality JE fandom is being overrun with Rochester/some character from the Austen biopic. I hate hate hate it when actor pairings acquire such a following that the characters from all their films get paired willy-nilly.

Oh, and the new Sherlock Holmes films with Robert Downey, Jr. We bought the DVD of the first film & turned it off in disgust by mutual agreement after the first 20 minutes. I've never seen anything to beat the old Granada television version with Jeremy Brett.

[sammydragoncat]

The problem with redoing Pride & Prejudice as a feature length movie is that you loose too much of the story - and the BBC has made so many versions as a mini-series, a shortened version is just lacking.

I haven't seen the most recent version of Jane Eyre yet, but you are right - the chemistry between Jane & Rochester is essential, if it's not there, than what's the point.

I can't stand the new Sherlock Holmes films either - I really wanted to like them, but it's just not right. I loved the old Granada version with Jeremy Brett.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

If you shorten P&P too much you're in danger of turning it into a generic love story, which it isn't. And, more generally, I hate the way the recent crop of Austen adaptations have abandoned the original dialogue. The new Emma, in particular, was terribly marred by bits of dialogue that were utterly un-Austen, mixed in with bits snagged semi-directly from the book, in a horribly jarring fashion.

The new Jane Eyre had far more chemistry between Jane & Rivers (an excellent Jamie Bell); in fact, the whole Rivers section was foregrounded. It made for an interesting AU, but it really wasn't Jane Eyre.

And I don't understand what they were aiming for with the new Sherlock Holmes. It seemed to turn Holmes into generic action hero -- I can see there are elements of physicality in the original that it's fair to foreground, but I like the disembodied brain archetype & there are plenty of other action heroes around.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the new Sherlock Holmes movies, but Elementary is abysmal. A female Watson could have been interesting, but the way they did it was so boring I didn't even manage to sit through Season 1.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Elementary; I've been wondering whether to give it a try.

One of the things I thought when I first saw the Sherlock pilot was that they missed a trick in not making Watson female. (But then I got to like Freeman in the role very much.) It was a shame with Sherlock that they didn't present any positive women, other than as very minor characters, until they decided to develop Molly into that niche.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I do love Mrs Hudson, though. And I belong to the minority that actually likes Sergeant Sally Donovan.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Donovan could have been so much more sympathetic & interesting. I don't really know what they were aiming for there.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Neither did they, at least that was my impression. He could have been an interesting adversary to Sherlock, without being actually evil, because, let's face it, every self-respecting cop would hate the man's guts. *g*