pride and prejudice. BBC mini-series and 1995 film.

since this is a blog about my library use, i decided i can blog about DVDs I check out from the delano branch. i am sure if francie nolan could check out movies, she would have.

so after reading "pride and prejudice", my colin firth obsession caused me to request the DVD. and i will say, oh so glad that i did. simply for the bath scene. (sorry if this post reads like a "the scarlet letter" book report from "easy a". lol)

but seriously BBC did an excellent job with their adaption. every character looked just as i had imagined. though at the risk of sounding shallow, they could have cast a prettier jane. but i read her mom played jane in the 67 bbc production so that is sweet. also found it funny that anna chancellor missed out on firth twice (she was his fiancée in "what a girl wants". lol)

mrs. bennet was perfect. her voice was so annoying which matched her annoying character. i really felt bad for mr. bennet for having to be married to her. and she was seriously too much for me, playing proud mother to lydia after being bed-ridden by her scandal. also it was horrible how she was okay with her brother footing the bill for lydia's marriage. such poor manners! alison steadman did well because i disliked mrs. bennet equally in both the book and on the small screen.

the only thing that i disliked was the double wedding at the end. that was way too cheesy for my taste.

i also checked out the 2005 movie with keira knightly. which i did not like at all. i will say that i thought keira knightly did well as elizabeth. i actually liked her more than jennifer ehle (ps doesn't ehle remind you of meryl steep?). there was a boldness and fierceness that knightly embodied that ehle didn't. but that is where the praise stops. also i could have done without knightly smiling in this movie, it was not cute.

their darcy was attractive but he was no colin firth. and he butchered the proposal scene. his delivery was too fast paced. and the whole rain did not add dramatic flair, it's was only excessive. another bad scene was the dancing scene when it cuts to jane and darcy alone in the room then it cut backs. there could have been a better way of displaying their attraction. and shame on the writer/adapter for not including a line about elizabeth's "fine dark eyes"! i also missed miss bingley's teasing of his admiration for those eyes. they could have cut that scene of elizabeth spinning after finding out charlotte was engaged to make room for those lines. also they could have left that last scene on the cutting room floor. way too cheesy, i actually preferred the double wedding ending!

last but not least, i missed crispin bohman-carter's voice!

pride and prejudice and zombies. jane austen and seth grahame-smith.

this book has been on my bookshelves for a couple of years. i attempted to read it before but couldn't focus because my mind was constantly wondering how much of jane's original work was in it. (i hadn't read "pride and prejudice" at the time). so i put the book down and picked it up after i read the original. (ps there are some spoilers in this post.)

initially, i was impressed with grahame-smith's giving zombies killings and burnings as the reason for the militia being stationed in meryton. austen had them there just for kitty and lydia's amusement and i guess to introduce the wicked wickham.

when reading the original, i couldn't stomach wickham and lydia's return to netherfield after their marriage. lydia was so obnoxious and wickham a phony. i absolutely hated lydia; showing off her ring, taking jane's spot, and talks of helping her sisters marry (i will start a list of characters i dislike and lydia will be number 1). we all knew wickham was a sleazeball cos he had a gambling problem, but lydia was horrible simply by nature. i was upset with austen for not giving them an unhappy ending (i mean darcy did need a labor of love and sorting out lydia and wickham was a challenge). and i guess wickham having to spend the rest of his life with lydia is punishment enough. but i needed more . . .

so i absolutely loved it when grahame-smith had darcy give wickham a good ass whooping in his version. in my eyes justice (or karma) was served when wickham ending up an impotent cripple and lydia having to spend the rest of her life with him. those twos got the ending their horrible scandal deserved.

i also enjoyed the showdown between lady catherine and elizabeth. though i would have been happier if she "finished her", to steal a phrase from mortal kombat. but lady catherine did get her just desserts in austen's version.

at first i didn't like the charlotte-turns-into-a-zombie storyline. it was too far fetch that no one noticed her change. however her marriage to mr. collins made sense given her illness and his oblivion to life would have caused him not to notice. so given that text, her illness made sense. though it was sad she had to die.

i will say that i could have done without all of the ball and intercourse jokes. i mean it was clever cos they were words austen used but grahame-smith gave them their modern slang definitions. but it was out of place, i was too frat-boy humor for my tastes.

it was a fun read. and a nice twist on everyone's beloved classic. so check it out, but don't expect too much. it is still a great work but that is because he didn't butcher austen's story and kept majority of the story intact.

ps i would love to see a movie adaptation but then colin firth may be too old to be karate-chopping zombies.

pride and prejudice. jane austen. (56)

before i start, this is not the bookcover i checked out. the one i checked out was old, blue and plain. i choose this cover because it shows my newest obsession thanks to "pride and prejudice" . . . colin firth.

i have to say that at first i didn't care for "pride and prejudice." maybe i was blinded by my pride, there were times when i found darcy's and elizabeth's conversation hard to follow, were they flirting with each other?!?!
or maybe i was unjustly prejudice against it, the brönte sisters didn't win me over with their "great" romances, so jane austen didn't stand a chance. i wasn't completely invested in elizabeth and darcy's romance, maybe because i knew it would sort out from. so my anticipation resulted in impatience and so the book moved too slowly for me. i mean it was like get on with it already. and stop with the weird stares, darcy!

however, like elizabeth's feelings toward darcy did a 180. so did mine. i read "pride and prejudice and zombies" immediately after and found mr. darcy, oh so more romantic on my second reading. (the zombies didn't help, but the re-reading of austen's text did.) then i checked out the BBC mini-series and of course after watching colin firth in that bathtub and diving into the lake, i was smitten, with firth and "pride and prejudice".

that lake scene is not in the book. but it sure is in the mini-series. and i mean he doesn't even get close to naked but watching him walk around wet afterward, sure is sexy!

prior to reading the book, i had never seen the mini-series, only knew colin firth played darcy. yet as i read, i visualized firth as darcy, even more random it was firth as mark darcy from bridget jones' fame that i actually imagined.

nonetheless, it resulted in me being obsessed with colin firth afterward. the embarrassing kind of obsessed. i.e.:

a. watching "what a girl wants" (yes, starring amanda bynes) not only once but twice (abc family and MTV randomly aired it)
b. watching "love actually" (it's the only firth film i own) and fast forwarding to watch his scenes
c. watching the mini-series twice in 1 week (i wanted to get my viewing worth before returning it to the library)
d. buying "fever pitch" on ebay (i had no idea it existed until i amazoned "colin firth dvd", okay maybe amazoning "colin firth dvd" is the embarrassing part)
e. borrowing "a single man" from friend (though this isn't that bad)
f. buying the pride and prejudice BBC companion novel cos he was on cover
g. buying "the king's speech" book cos he was on the cover (in my defense it was only $1)
h. contemplating buying the episode where he proposes in the mini-series so i can have it on my kindle to watch whenever i want

sad, i know. i realize that i am not actually in love with the colin firth but it's the lloyd dobler effect that chuck klostermann writes about in "sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs". (women love john cusack because we are in love with his character lloyd dobler from "say anything".) colin firth has the mr. darcy effect. and i know, he is 20 years my senior and happily married with a family but in a perfect world, we would have a "lost in translation" friendship. we'd meet in some hotel bar (maybe at the four seasons), i'd take him karaoke-ing (in k-town) and wear a pink wig. we'd end the night at some random taco truck and when we'd part, he'd whisper something in my ear that only i could hear and would never share with anyone . . . okay, i'll add:

i. making up fantasy about hanging out with him in LA ala "lost in translation"

oh and i have to share one last "pride and prejudice" purchase! this adorable tank that i got at uniqueLA. i was a little tipsy when i bought it and had this longest discussion about "pride and prejudice", colin firth, the bbc version, the keira knightly version and the zombie novel. ps this doesn't get a letter cos its not embarrassing.

sorry i know this a book blog, so some thoughts on the actual book. i had seen bits and pieces of "becoming jane" so got that storyline confused with the book. but i guess if austen wrote about her life than this makes sense. i now want to read her memoir.

this too was on flavorpill's 30 before 30. though i am not sure if it would make my list. i did admire elizabeth for her boldness and unconventionality; not accepting mr. collins' proposal, standing up to lady catherine (at dinners and the proposal inquiry) and of course landing darcy. and she does have a great cinderella story, a girl without strong social relations marrying a man having ten thousand a year! and it is a reasonable love story. although i love romances (and romantic comedies), i am also very skeptical of them. (i have also never been in love so that is probably where my doubts spring from.) however, with this romance, elizabeth's love for darcy grew throughout the book so their love was "real" because it wasn't based on an instant attraction but something that strengthen as elizabeth learned more about the real darcy. (though austen still has a place for love at first sight with jane and mr. bingsley). so i take that back. maybe it will make my 30. i need to read more of her works to decide.

ps i also hated how lydia and wickham were saved from their mess. but will get to that in my "pride and prejudice and zombies" entry.