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Wednesday, April 28
Saturday, April 24
Jane-ite alert!
If there is one thing I love in the world, it is an adaptation of a Jane Austen novel. While at Oxford I read a tutorial of Jane Austen and now consider myself quite the expert (not really, at all). Jane Austen novels are more than just pretty love stories, but also amazing pieces of social commentary. They provide insight into the family in a loving and comfortable way, which is so refreshing in a world where most see the past as a rigid set of rules with no room comfort or laughter. Here are a list of my favorite screen adaptations of Jane Austen novels:
-Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice: As much as Keira Knightley is a witty and natural Lizzie Bennett and Matthew MacFadyen is an incredibly dashing Mr. Darcy (who brings a shyness to Darcy that is not inappropriate, I think), I also like this version the best for several other reasons as well. It is beautifully shot with incredible lighting, and (most importantly) it captures the story's most important points without sacrificing pacing. I personally cannot get through the epic 90s adaptation, despite Colin Firth's Darcy.
-BBC's Sense and Sensibility (2008): This adaptation does have the disadvantage of length, but it is beautifully adapted, shot, and pieced together. The actors and actresses seem the appropriate age, a fact that most adaptations frequently overlook. I do enjoy Emma Thompson as Elinor in the 90s version, but Elinor is supposed to be 18 or 19 years old! I also like that this adaptation shows somethings that are only hinted at in the novel, but I won't tell you what they are!
-Northanger Abbey (2007): When I first read through some of the Austen cannon, I loved Northanger Abbey best. This film adaptation is very pretty, and Carey Mulligan as the horrifying Isabella Thorpe is a delightful turn. Of course, then I went to Oxford and my tutor had to inform me that Mr. Tilney had homosexual undertones. Not that I have a problem with homosexuality, of course, but I can't be dreamy about him then.
When I first read Persuasion, I couldn't stand it. I was a freshman in college and found it very dull and boring. Fast forward to my junior year of college, and I reread it for my tutorial. I absolutely fell in love with it, with Captain Wentworth, and of course Anne Elliot. So much so, that I hesitate to watch any screen adaptations for fear of disappointment.
and, in case anybody wonders, I very much disapprove of this whole Pride and Prejudice and Zombies business. Disapprove entirely.
-Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice: As much as Keira Knightley is a witty and natural Lizzie Bennett and Matthew MacFadyen is an incredibly dashing Mr. Darcy (who brings a shyness to Darcy that is not inappropriate, I think), I also like this version the best for several other reasons as well. It is beautifully shot with incredible lighting, and (most importantly) it captures the story's most important points without sacrificing pacing. I personally cannot get through the epic 90s adaptation, despite Colin Firth's Darcy.
-BBC's Sense and Sensibility (2008): This adaptation does have the disadvantage of length, but it is beautifully adapted, shot, and pieced together. The actors and actresses seem the appropriate age, a fact that most adaptations frequently overlook. I do enjoy Emma Thompson as Elinor in the 90s version, but Elinor is supposed to be 18 or 19 years old! I also like that this adaptation shows somethings that are only hinted at in the novel, but I won't tell you what they are!
-Northanger Abbey (2007): When I first read through some of the Austen cannon, I loved Northanger Abbey best. This film adaptation is very pretty, and Carey Mulligan as the horrifying Isabella Thorpe is a delightful turn. Of course, then I went to Oxford and my tutor had to inform me that Mr. Tilney had homosexual undertones. Not that I have a problem with homosexuality, of course, but I can't be dreamy about him then.
When I first read Persuasion, I couldn't stand it. I was a freshman in college and found it very dull and boring. Fast forward to my junior year of college, and I reread it for my tutorial. I absolutely fell in love with it, with Captain Wentworth, and of course Anne Elliot. So much so, that I hesitate to watch any screen adaptations for fear of disappointment.
and, in case anybody wonders, I very much disapprove of this whole Pride and Prejudice and Zombies business. Disapprove entirely.
Thursday, April 22
Notes on Thursday
Happy Earth Day! I hope people planted trees, ate local food, etc. As I was thinking about what band I wanted to talk about today, I remembered the lovely lovely Frightened Rabbit. Now, I'm not sure that they have some huge connection with earth day (other than being indie and beardy) but singer-guitarist Scott Hutchison is from Scotland. Scotland always seems to rich and green and mysterious in a very earthy way, so . . . there you go!
I first came across Frightened Rabbit last year, around the time I went away to Oxford. Their second full-length album, Midnight Organ Fight came out in April of 2008, but my first listens to it were while soaring over dark oceans and driving past snowy fields. Rather perfect, really. Because Frightened Rabbit's music covers a plethora of emotions--it is at times dance-tastic, sweet, angry, or sorrowful (the sort that makes you want to lie on the floor of your bedroom). Beyond that, Scott Hutchison is an amazing wordsmith, with a gift for phrasing and the ability to put your indescribable emotions into perfect words. Midnight Organ Fight is about the demise of a relationship--in particular, his--and it filled with poignancy, aching realism, and a deceptive sense of mirth in songs with a jaunty keyboard line and jarringly lonely words. According to Wikipedia, it took Scott Hutchison a month to be able to listen to the record after its completion.
On March 9th of this year they came out with a new album, A Winter of Mixed Drinks, which I unfortunately have not been able to purchase beyond a few singles. However, I'm really excited to hear it, and love the songs I'm hearing! They have maintained their flawless combination of indie-pop and folk with rock solid lyrics, and one particularly single, "Nothing like You" is on absolute repeat. I think poor Alonso (my iPod) might be getting a bit tired of it, honestly!
Also <3: "The Twist" "Keep Yourself Warm" "Modern Leaper" "Swim Until You Can't See Land"
I first came across Frightened Rabbit last year, around the time I went away to Oxford. Their second full-length album, Midnight Organ Fight came out in April of 2008, but my first listens to it were while soaring over dark oceans and driving past snowy fields. Rather perfect, really. Because Frightened Rabbit's music covers a plethora of emotions--it is at times dance-tastic, sweet, angry, or sorrowful (the sort that makes you want to lie on the floor of your bedroom). Beyond that, Scott Hutchison is an amazing wordsmith, with a gift for phrasing and the ability to put your indescribable emotions into perfect words. Midnight Organ Fight is about the demise of a relationship--in particular, his--and it filled with poignancy, aching realism, and a deceptive sense of mirth in songs with a jaunty keyboard line and jarringly lonely words. According to Wikipedia, it took Scott Hutchison a month to be able to listen to the record after its completion.
On March 9th of this year they came out with a new album, A Winter of Mixed Drinks, which I unfortunately have not been able to purchase beyond a few singles. However, I'm really excited to hear it, and love the songs I'm hearing! They have maintained their flawless combination of indie-pop and folk with rock solid lyrics, and one particularly single, "Nothing like You" is on absolute repeat. I think poor Alonso (my iPod) might be getting a bit tired of it, honestly!
Also <3: "The Twist" "Keep Yourself Warm" "Modern Leaper" "Swim Until You Can't See Land"
Wednesday, April 21
Languishing in Libraries
Today's post is brought to you by
the letter L!
What words start with L?
LIBRARY LATTE
LATE NIGHTS LAZY
LISTENING (to music and other people's conversations)
the letter L is brought to you by: Englishmuffinshop; Tim Walker for Visual Steak; Sebastian via tumblr; weheartit; weheartit
the letter L!
What words start with L?
LIBRARY LATTE
LATE NIGHTS LAZY
LISTENING (to music and other people's conversations)
the letter L is brought to you by: Englishmuffinshop; Tim Walker for Visual Steak; Sebastian via tumblr; weheartit; weheartit
Thursday, April 15
Music Thursday
Apparently I'm on a blog-posting spree . . . who knew?
Anyways, I thought I'd have a music Thursday, (it's 12:01 am here) starting with an old video via you ain't no picasso of Colin Meloy at a small concert in Australia performing a new Decemberists song called "Springville." In the intro, he's quite witty (and beardy).
side note: My Writers of the American Renaissance professor looks remarkably like Colin Meloy and ACTS remarkably like him, too. Very intelligent, very witty, does that spread out flip-hand-over thing. It's uncanny, and I always get this secret little thrill in class that's like "Colin Meloy is teaching me about Melville/Hawthorne/Thoreau/Emerson/Whitman!"
In other Decemberists news, band members Nate Query, Jenny Conlee, and Chris Funk have started a new kinda-bluegrass-but-not side project called Black Prairie. After listening to about 15 seconds of the 30 second iTunes preview of the first song off the very new first album, Feast of the Hunters' Moon, I bought the whole album. And as a very poor
college student, that's a big deal. It's so new there isn't anything up on youtube, so check out the website! They're playing some shows in the Oregon/California area, and if you can go, you should. And know that I'll be very jealous of you.
photo credit: bluegrassjournal.com; teamclermont.com
Anyways, I thought I'd have a music Thursday, (it's 12:01 am here) starting with an old video via you ain't no picasso of Colin Meloy at a small concert in Australia performing a new Decemberists song called "Springville." In the intro, he's quite witty (and beardy).
side note: My Writers of the American Renaissance professor looks remarkably like Colin Meloy and ACTS remarkably like him, too. Very intelligent, very witty, does that spread out flip-hand-over thing. It's uncanny, and I always get this secret little thrill in class that's like "Colin Meloy is teaching me about Melville/Hawthorne/Thoreau/Emerson/Whitman!"
In other Decemberists news, band members Nate Query, Jenny Conlee, and Chris Funk have started a new kinda-bluegrass-but-not side project called Black Prairie. After listening to about 15 seconds of the 30 second iTunes preview of the first song off the very new first album, Feast of the Hunters' Moon, I bought the whole album. And as a very poor
college student, that's a big deal. It's so new there isn't anything up on youtube, so check out the website! They're playing some shows in the Oregon/California area, and if you can go, you should. And know that I'll be very jealous of you.
photo credit: bluegrassjournal.com; teamclermont.com
Wednesday, April 14
Tuesday, April 13
Post post post
Hello!
I'm posting today from my campus computer lab! Not because my computer is broken or anything dire like that, but because I have a free moment. Whoever said your senior year of college is easy LIED to me! I've been away from the blogosphere for so long because I had a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad 15-page paper to write for my Shakespeare class. It was on Macbeth and Shakespeare's commentary on the Witchcraft Act of 1604, if that doesn't bore anyone to tears. Today was the day to turn it in for revision, and I stayed up until 4 am this morning to finish it . . . . and promptly slept through NOT ONLY my Shakespeare class but the class after that as well. Murphy's law rules my life and God laughs at me.
But anyway, I finally get to post again, which is good because I was starting to get twitchy every time I thought about it.
In personal news (which I so rarely talk about) I went on a great journey to St. Louis to visit my friends from study abroad!! It was so lovely to see them. The weather was spectacular--our friend who's from Boston also came up and she and I had a great time sniffing out where the Starbucks is located on this route they call the Loop! We went to this bar called Blueberry Hill that I highly recommend to anyone and everyone (Chuck Berry plays there once a month!). I wanted to take pictures, but it seems like everyone was a local and I'm still a bit shy about just whipping out my camera whenever I see fit. But the best part of the whole thing, beyond trips to the zoo (where we rather unwillingly learned about the breeding practices of captive Asian Elephants), the famous Arch, etc, was that everything was the same! We weren't just sitting there reminiscing about how wonderful Oxford was and how much we miss it. I mean, we were reminiscing, but mostly we were comparing my Writers of the American Renaissance class to their Melville lectures, talking about books we've read, funny stories about things that have happened to us. We sat in my friend's living room eating home-cooked vegetable biriyani and teasing one another. Realizing that our friendship was real and would last was by far the best part, and I miss them already!
In movie news, it's review time!
I saw The Runaways on Sunday, a film that I've been promoting on here big time! Michael Shannon as band manager Kim Fowley, Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett, and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie. The casting was phenomenal, including the often over looked other girls in the band. Alia Shawkat's performance as "Robin Robins" aka Jackie Fox was blink and you'll miss it, but each moment she's on screen, she fits in perfectly and only accentuates the peice. Scout Taylor-Compton as the foxy Lita Ford was spectacular--it's very brave to play a "bitchy" character as a young actress, particularly in a film that's not your average teen comedy. Stella Maeve gets the most screen time of the lost 3 as drummer Sandie West, the quintessential California girl. She's sweet yet sassy, and for someone I'd only seen in a small role on Gossip Girl, someone to look out for.
Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley makes you want to punch someone. If you don't, you should probably re-evaluate your personality. I'm serious! I mean, that doesn't mean that I didn't like him--his character made me laugh on occasion and I understood why he did some of the things that he did. But his ruthless treatment and promotion of a group of teenage girls and the verbal abuse he flings at Cherie Currie in particular is at times horrifying in its exploitation.
Dakota Fanning has blossomed in this film. She swears, she drinks, she does drugs, she engages in meaningless sex acts . . . . all while managing to bring across a girl that is wounded and lost, trying to stand out from all the rest and fit in with the crowd at the same time. The friendship between Curie and Jett is wonderfully understated. It doesn't morph into this "your friendship saved my soul/Golden Girls" sort of sentimentality but grounds itself in the realism that they become close through a crazy experience and a shared passion. They fight, they hurt each other, and ultimately have to turn their backs on each other because they begin to move in different directions. And this doesn't mean that they'll hate each other for all eternity, it just means that each had to follow her own path.
Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett . . . . she nails it. She has the mannerisms, the voice, the attitude, and all the while infuses it with a femininity that Joan Jett didn't always have. You understood where Jett was coming from, and Stewart really made clear the most important thing: music IS Joan Jett's passion, it's her life (as she states while Cherie leaves the band). It was something she would do anything for, something that she couldn't NOT try to do. I wish I had something that felt like that, sometimes. Overall, excellent film, beautifully shot, made me want to join a rock band. Or at least learn how to play guitar.
I'm posting today from my campus computer lab! Not because my computer is broken or anything dire like that, but because I have a free moment. Whoever said your senior year of college is easy LIED to me! I've been away from the blogosphere for so long because I had a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad 15-page paper to write for my Shakespeare class. It was on Macbeth and Shakespeare's commentary on the Witchcraft Act of 1604, if that doesn't bore anyone to tears. Today was the day to turn it in for revision, and I stayed up until 4 am this morning to finish it . . . . and promptly slept through NOT ONLY my Shakespeare class but the class after that as well. Murphy's law rules my life and God laughs at me.
But anyway, I finally get to post again, which is good because I was starting to get twitchy every time I thought about it.
In personal news (which I so rarely talk about) I went on a great journey to St. Louis to visit my friends from study abroad!! It was so lovely to see them. The weather was spectacular--our friend who's from Boston also came up and she and I had a great time sniffing out where the Starbucks is located on this route they call the Loop! We went to this bar called Blueberry Hill that I highly recommend to anyone and everyone (Chuck Berry plays there once a month!). I wanted to take pictures, but it seems like everyone was a local and I'm still a bit shy about just whipping out my camera whenever I see fit. But the best part of the whole thing, beyond trips to the zoo (where we rather unwillingly learned about the breeding practices of captive Asian Elephants), the famous Arch, etc, was that everything was the same! We weren't just sitting there reminiscing about how wonderful Oxford was and how much we miss it. I mean, we were reminiscing, but mostly we were comparing my Writers of the American Renaissance class to their Melville lectures, talking about books we've read, funny stories about things that have happened to us. We sat in my friend's living room eating home-cooked vegetable biriyani and teasing one another. Realizing that our friendship was real and would last was by far the best part, and I miss them already!
In movie news, it's review time!
I saw The Runaways on Sunday, a film that I've been promoting on here big time! Michael Shannon as band manager Kim Fowley, Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett, and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie. The casting was phenomenal, including the often over looked other girls in the band. Alia Shawkat's performance as "Robin Robins" aka Jackie Fox was blink and you'll miss it, but each moment she's on screen, she fits in perfectly and only accentuates the peice. Scout Taylor-Compton as the foxy Lita Ford was spectacular--it's very brave to play a "bitchy" character as a young actress, particularly in a film that's not your average teen comedy. Stella Maeve gets the most screen time of the lost 3 as drummer Sandie West, the quintessential California girl. She's sweet yet sassy, and for someone I'd only seen in a small role on Gossip Girl, someone to look out for.
Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley makes you want to punch someone. If you don't, you should probably re-evaluate your personality. I'm serious! I mean, that doesn't mean that I didn't like him--his character made me laugh on occasion and I understood why he did some of the things that he did. But his ruthless treatment and promotion of a group of teenage girls and the verbal abuse he flings at Cherie Currie in particular is at times horrifying in its exploitation.
Dakota Fanning has blossomed in this film. She swears, she drinks, she does drugs, she engages in meaningless sex acts . . . . all while managing to bring across a girl that is wounded and lost, trying to stand out from all the rest and fit in with the crowd at the same time. The friendship between Curie and Jett is wonderfully understated. It doesn't morph into this "your friendship saved my soul/Golden Girls" sort of sentimentality but grounds itself in the realism that they become close through a crazy experience and a shared passion. They fight, they hurt each other, and ultimately have to turn their backs on each other because they begin to move in different directions. And this doesn't mean that they'll hate each other for all eternity, it just means that each had to follow her own path.
Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett . . . . she nails it. She has the mannerisms, the voice, the attitude, and all the while infuses it with a femininity that Joan Jett didn't always have. You understood where Jett was coming from, and Stewart really made clear the most important thing: music IS Joan Jett's passion, it's her life (as she states while Cherie leaves the band). It was something she would do anything for, something that she couldn't NOT try to do. I wish I had something that felt like that, sometimes. Overall, excellent film, beautifully shot, made me want to join a rock band. Or at least learn how to play guitar.
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