strange and random happenstance

OK, I know with what I'm about to admit everyone is going to be shocked, but until this miniseries I had not heard of or watched the original movie adaptation of Rumer Godden's book that is a classic starring Deborah Kerr. Black Narcissus won Oscars and accolades when it was released in 1947, eerily on the day that would be my birthday come the seventies. So, putting aside my lack of a complete film education, what it meant was I was going into this series fresh. In fact I saw an ad only a day before it aired and it was being touted as Diana Rigg's last appearance, that is until Edgar Wright admits defeat and releases Last Night in Soho to streaming, so I said, let's see what this Black Narcissus is all about! Also I have probably rightly pissed off Edgar Wright now by not knowing this movie and saying that movie theaters are dead and streaming is the only safe option in this day and age. Oh well, I'm still looking forward to Last Night in Soho... So this version of Black Narcissus, compared to no other, was a wonderful little idyll of nuns trying to do good against all odds in a very haunted place. I mean this miniseries just oozed Gothic vibes, it was delicious! I constantly love how the building blocks of what is considered Gothic can be changed time and time again to create a whole new slant that you'd never think of. Nuns tend to align themselves more with the horror genre, and to tackle their desires and damnation in a human and real way within the Gothic sphere felt fresh to me, and again note I haven't seen the original film. Though the driving force of the three episode miniseries is Sister Ruth and her going more and more off the rails in this remote location. I don't know if you're supposed to hate Sister Ruth and long for her corruption and death, but I totally did. Her obsession with the male caretaker, Mr. Dean, and her delusions about Mr. Dean and Sister Clodagh make her more and more unstable and I loved every minute of it. I think this was all enhanced by the performace of Aisling Franciosi as Sister Ruth. I knew I knew her from somewhere and wherever that was I hated her in that. Turns out it was The Fall, the Gillian Anderson/Jamie Dornan show, which is, in my mind, the most overrated piece of shit I have ever watched. It is easily one of the worst shows I've ever seen and wish I could forget I ever saw it. Anyway, Aisling was the shitty teenager in love with the father of the kids she babysat and who knew he was a killer and was all OK with that. So yeah, I liked seeing her suffer in this. But does that say more about me or Black Narcissus?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aisling Franciosi, And the Emmy Goes To, Black Narcissus, Diana Rigg, Edgar Wright, Gillian Anderson, Gothic, Jamie Dornan, Last Night in Soho, Mr. Dean, Nuns, Rumer Godden, Sister Clodagh, Sister Ruth, The Fall

If you've only seen the Gillian Anderson adaptation of Bleak House you might think with the star power of the late Dame Diana Rigg playing the role of Lady Honoria Dedlock in this older adaptation she would be equally the star that Gillian Anderson was. You'd be wrong. This version showcases all the characters more evenly than the Andrew Davies adaptation. Yes, there are omissions here and there, there's nary a Turveydrop in sight, but it makes the interpretation different enough that you can enjoy both equally. The highlight of this version being that Bleak House has become the William Guppy show. Jonathan Moore as William Guppy is the Steve 'The Hair' Harrington of Dickensian London! I always thought Burn Gorman was a good casting choice in the Andrew Davies adaptation because he kind of looks like a fish, a true guppy if you will... But now I know who the real Guppy is, Jonathan Moore. There was such joy in watching his smarm. He took each and every scene he was in to the next level, which is impressive in that he witnesses the spontaneous human combustion of Krook in the most magnificent eighties horror film way that literally anyone could have made the scene work. If there was music it could have been an eighties music video it was that epic. Yet he made it even better. But one of the best scenes is Esther's rejection of his proposal of marriage. AKA the proposal of epic failure. It was staged in such a way that it stretched out the awkwardness. Esther sits down in front of the hearth. This hearth has a bench-like seat that extends the entire length of the room. So every time Guppy moves in for the romantic gesture, Esther slides further away from him. Perfect. Comic. Timing. Of course, this being Bleak House, it's not all laughs, this adaptation wanted to make sure you knew that Dickensian London was all about mud, mud, mud, and then some more mud. Then factor in the rain and the fog and I'm actually surprised that the street sets didn't claim any victims from the cast and crew. And oh, this cast! Denholm Elliott, Peter Vaughn, and the aforementioned Dame Diana Rigg! And Esther as she should have been, not Anna Maxwell Martin but Suzanne Burden! As my Dad pointed out when Diana Rigg as Lady Dedlock and Peter Vaughn as Tulkinghorn spare, sometimes it's just an honor to get to watch two magnificent actors at the top of their game go at it. I couldn't agree more.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Andrew Davies, Bleak House, Burn Gorman, Charles Dickens, Denholm Elliott, Diana Rigg, Dickensian, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Gillian Anderson, Lady Dedlock, Peter Vaughn, Steve Harrington, William Guppy

The Gillian Anderson version of Bleak House first aired as I was just getting back into Masterpiece. It's not that I'd taken time out from the show per se, it's just that life, combined with school meant that several seasons of Masterpiece were seen by me after the fact when my friend Jess would tell me to rent a specific show from Netflix. Yes, this was when Netflix was still only discs you sent away for. So I'd often spend the summer vacation watching the notable shows that had aired on Masterpiece earlier in the year and had now been released on DVD. The other reason I got back into Masterpiece was perfect timing. I could never watch the eight o'clock broadcast because other family members had the television at the time and for some reason our second PBS station decided to re-air that night's episode of Masterpiece starting around midnight. That meant I could finally curl up with my cat and be assured we wouldn't be accused of co-opting the television. So I settled in to watch Bleak House. The fifteen episode miniseries actually aired as eight on Masterpiece, so for eight weeks I was there for all the twists, turns, and explosive reveals of the people connected to the Jarndyce v Jarndyce case. And I kind of found it meh. I wasn't good at following the plot from week to week and just kind of forgot about it. Until I made a list of suggested viewings for a friend of my mom's and well, Nancy was VERY mad I didn't like Bleak House. Apparently it was her favorite. Therefore I had to give it another try. And yet she wouldn't give Poldark a second try!?! Just saying... So I sat down and watched all of Bleak House over three nights and you know what? I really liked it. I knew what was going to happen more or less so I was able to take joy in the characters, which is what this adaptation is all about. SHAKE ME UP JUDY! Also, Bleak House works better, in my mind, binged. Watching it over too long a period of time doesn't work. We are no longer in the age when we had to wait months for Dickens to actually write the next chapter, so why wait? That's right, why wait? Go watch Bleak House today. All of it! 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Binge, Bleak House, Cats, Charles Dickens, DVD, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Gillian Anderson, Jarndyce v Jarndyce, Masterpiece, Miniseries, Netflix, PBS, Phil Davis, Poldark, School, Shake Me Up Judy

Great Expectations
Based on the book by Charles Dickens
Release Date: December 27th, 2011
Starring: Ray Winstone, Paul Rhys, Gillian Anderson, Vanessa Kirby, Douglas Booth, David Suchet, Jack Roth, Shaun Dooley, Mark Addy, Claire Rushbrook, Harry Lloyd, Perdita Weeks, Susan Lynch
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Even if you haven't read Great Expectations, I'm sure you know about Miss Havisham. The slightly dotty jilted bride still in her wedding gown years and years later. She's part of the collective subconscious, there is not a time I didn't know who she was. Also, a bit embarrassing to say, but I haven't read Great Expectations. I've read all about Miss Havisham's exploits with Thursday Next does that count? No... I didn't really think it did. So my first big foray into the world of Pip and Miss Havisham was actually during a very devote, slightly stalkeresque phase in my life when I had to watch everything Ioan Gruffudd was in. Yes, this even led to me watching quite a few crappy movies, 102 Dalmatians... Shooters... Very Annie Mary... I could go on, but I won't. Just watch some Forsyte Saga and Hornblower and you'll get your Ioan fix. Anyway, in the days before I had a DVD player, I was able to get an old VHS copy of Great Expectations with Ioan from the library. It felt very flat to me. All the characters, especially Pip, where very unlikable. I found Russell Baker's intros far more interesting, where he discussed the populist uprising of fellow authors which changed the ending, even if the original was more true to the story. So when the BBC announced the new production with Gillian Anderson I was excited. Firstly I was hoping for something that would capture me more and make me interested in the story. Also I was keen to see which ending they chose, even though rumors where that an entirely new ending had been written.

This production kind of let me down on almost every account. Mainly, the ending was the actual ending! Well, the actual Dickens re-written ending that is commonly held as the "true" ending. What the... oh well, at least it's Dickens and not some weird tangental ending that can't be possible with what came before, I'm looking at you Andrew Davies, you and your Wives and Daughters! Pip has humble beginnings and gets ideas above his station when he starts to visit Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter, Estella. Eventually he gets a great bequest of money and he thinks it's Miss Havisham's master plan to bring him and Estella together, only to find out he was totally wrong. Not surprising that this is a short three-parter when looking at the simplicity of plot compared to say Little Dorrit or Bleak House.

Pip is played by an Ambercrombie and Fitch Robert Pattison wannabe whose acting is so bland the only way his ascension from blacksmith to gentleman is able to be measured is by how tall his hat gets. His accent is never modulated from rich to poor and instead relies on brooding looks and high cheekbones. When you have other characters making fun of a non-existent accent it brings the production down, show not say people. Coupled with Estella, they make the blandest of couples who you couldn't really care if they get their happily ever after or not. I was kind of rooting for the bleaker ending from early on, just so that maybe these two could show something other than their remarkable ability to act like statues. As you can see, the main problem was that the two youth leads are dull as ditch water and when surround by a superb cast made up of some of the best British actors today, they don't just look dull, they kind of become a black hole of suckiness.

The wealth of well acted supporting roles is the only thing that makes this dull version worth watching. The cast is peopled with everyone from David Suchet to Ray Winstone, all nailing it. Claire Rushbrook, whom is most known for a guest appearance on Doctor Who and being in Spice World, just brings it as Pip's evil older sister. I never knew she had that much bile in her, seeing as I've seen her in two rather benign and nice roles. Mark Addy as the uncle, Mr Pumblechook, was hilarious, and proves that he should only be allowed to play slightly drunk men who yearn for greatness, ie, his recent turn as Robert Baratheon on Games of Thrones. Notable is one of Addy's Thrones co-stars, Harry Lloyd, as Pocket, who happens to be Dickens' own great-great-great-grandson. He not only embodies an actual Dickensian presence, but he was born to play this role being both funny, lovable and romantic. I just hope he gets more and more great roles in the future. Also, a menacing award has to go out to Jack Roth, who turns out to be the son of Tim Roth, proving the creepy baddie is an inheritable trait.

Let me finally get to the one actor this whole shebang revolves around. Gillian Anderson. Many thought that she was too young and too pretty to play the role, but after watching it, I don't think you're likely to go, "oh, she did look lovely as she burned to death." Gillian Anderson is very odd as Miss Havesham, with a little girl voice and an almost china doll appearance. As other reviewers have said, she gives the appearance that she has never grown up. She is bat-shit-crazy incarnate. If there was an award for best wacko, she'd win. Also, her little touches, like the worrying of the hand with the wound was spot on. Yet, in the end, she was too small a presence. She was like a nervous mouse skittering around. Her and everyone else could just not rise above being hampered with two dull leads. Such a shame...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Andrew Davies, Charles Dickens, David Suchet, Game of Thrones, Gillian Anderson, Great Expectations, Harry Lloyd, Ioan Gruffudd, Miss Havisham, Russell Baker, Thursday Next

Most people know Dickens before they know Dickens. That sentence does seem like a tongue twister, yet it relates to the basic fact that people know of his stories and his characters long before they ever hear his name. Miss Havisham works as a secondary character in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books because people know of the slightly off lady dressed in her wedding gown as if it where widows weeds even if they haven't read Great Expectations. Dickens's stories have a universality to them. You know the stories, and most of us know them through the medium of film.

I was very young when I first discovered Dickens, again, that name meant nothing to me, what meant something to me was Mickey's Christmas Carol. I remember watching it on tv and being enraptured by it. This was so much better than any other Christmas special on tv. Mickey had Snoopy beaten by a mile. Scrooge was mean and sad and so many things, and awesomely a duck! Also, for the first time I can ever think of, Goofy wasn't just totally lame. As Marley's Ghost, he was actually a little scary, in particular with the door knocker scene. This aired long before such a thing as a VCR existed in my family, so it was something I looked forward to every Christmas. I even remember dreaming about it. This was almost as good as Christmas itself.

Dickens got me at that young age. Over the years I have watched many an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, from plays where my 6th grade teacher's brother was in the production, a production I might add that cast everyone by if they could fit the costumes because they didn't have the money to replace any of them, to Muppets to Bill Murray, to bad animation to Captain Picard to Blackadder. I have watched them all hoping to find the same joy. But none have come up to the wide eyed childish joy of Mickey Mouse. I'm sure my father would be appalled that I chose a Duck over George C. Scott, so I should probably mention that at this juncture. Love live the Duck!

While I connected to a cartoon from the 1980s, Dickens's works have been adapted continuously for the screen since the invention of cinema. Many of his works were adopted for the stage during his own lifetime and as early as 1913 the first film version of his work appeared with The Pickwick Papers. Today there are a least two hundred motion pictures and tv adaptations based on his works. So for the bicentenary, the first question on everyone's lips was, what adaptations will be made? Well, besides the dueling Miss Havishams, for my money, I think Gillian Anderson might be able to beat Helena Bonham Carter in a fight, we had an adaptation of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, as well as the biopic staring Ralph Fiennes slated for early 2013, missing the centenary there Ralph. While not as heavy as in past years, Dickens is a major tent pole for the BBC with its previous star studded adaptations, Bleak House being the most raved about.

Yet, as Ralph Fiennes shows, we have even gone beyond just dramatizing Dickens's works, we are now dramatizing the man himself. Simon Callow has gained a bit of notoriety playing Dickens, much like Hal Holbrook and Mark Twain. Callow has not only played Dickens several times on stage and screen, notably on Doctor Who, in my mind, he has also written a book on Dickens, because Dickens transcends all boundaries of media. Dickens will continue to live on through many mediums, besides the written word. Now is the time to gather your family together, sit back and watch a few Dickensian adaptations, to capture that perfect holiday mood. Might I interest you in a Duck as the protagonist?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Blackadder, Dickensian, Doctor Who, Edwin Drood, Gillian Anderson, Great Expectations, Jasper Fforde, Mickey's Christmas Carol, Miss Havisham, Muppets, Simon Callow, Thursday Next

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows: Flavia De Luce Mystery 4 by Alan Bradley
Published by: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: November 1st, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Challenge: Mystery and Suspense 2011
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy
Christmas is coming to Buckshaw. Which means Santa and presents and a film crew. The De Luce's, ever in financial ruin, have rented the house out to a film crew so that they can afford such things as Christmas and food. Flavia, for the moment, is more concerned with the arrival of Santa, because with her cunningly devised experiment she will prove to her sisters once and for all that Santa is real! All that was needed was to whip up a little birdlime, which is a no-brainer to the chemically inclined Flavia. The arrival of the film crew does prove a fun distraction till the long awaited results of Christmas Eve, especially when the star of the film is revealed to be none other than Phyllis Wyvern, the most famous film actoress of the day. Phyllis brings along the requisite entourage of hangers on who make such good suspects, from the leading man to the disaffected lady's maid to the dictatorial director and the haughty costumes mistress. Throw in a blizzard, a bizarre accident to one of the films roustabouts and a charity performance for the church's roof with all the villager's of Bishop's Lacey descending on the house and you have the perfect setting for a nice cozy country house murder. Because, there will be a murder. And if there's one group of people who like to keep secrets, it's those in film who have spent their lives being other people and trying to hid what they really are.  And if there's one person who is good at uncovering secrets, it's Flavia De Luce.

The fourth installment of Bradley's Flavia De Luce stories is perhaps the best yet, despite my holding a great fondness in my heart for The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag with the Porson Puppet Show. The country house whodunit is a classic of the mystery genre, and while the previous installments have veered towards this style with the insular little community of Bishop's Lacey, it is nowhere near as perfect as a snow bound Buckshaw. Buckshaw with all it's hidden doors and snow topped heights and forbidden rooms is not just a perfect setting for a period film, but perfect for murderous intentions.

Each book has had their enigmatic stranger that becomes the focal point of Flavia's world, and Phyllis Wyvern is wonderful. An aging actress that still has the chops to pull off a teenage Juliet and capture the audiences devotion, even after she's slapped a lighting assistant who happens to be a local. An actress who nightly carries out her own version of Sunset Boulevard watching her old films and keeping everyone in the heated wing of the house awake till the wee hours. But far away in the unheated wing Flavia is not bothered by this and more fascinated by Phyllis's love of the macabre... having heard all about the Bonepenny incident and subscribing to all the murderous periodicals. I picture Phyllis as Gillian Anderson. She has the smallness of frame, the timeless beauty and with all that X-Files work, the macabre would suit her just fine. I in fact wonder if Alan felt the same because shortly after mentioning her appearance there are multiple references to Bleak House, which is what revitalized Gillian's career. Perhaps it was just felicitous, but I would love to see Buckshaw brought to the screen, and Gillian would be perfect.

What Bradley gives us more than a festive little cozy is a glimpse into a bygone age. A time when villages where villages, when great families could go back generations in a house but be unable to keep the roof up. Where vicars where there to bring everyone together, where films where a special occasion and where little girls could go about their way, even if their way was with dangerous chemicals and poisons and pipettes.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 2011 Reading Challenge, Alan Bradley, Bleak House, Buckshaw, Flavia De Luce, Gillian Anderson, I am Half-Sick of Shadows, Rupert Porson, Sunset Boulevard, X-Files