strange and random happenstance

If you are looking for something to fill the gaping hole left between seasons of The Gilded Age this isn't where you should be looking. And yes, a lot of it just falls on the scope scale. The Gilded Age has a budget of roughly $15 million an episode and this, this did not. The average Hallmark movie has a budget around $2 million. So you can see there's a steep divide. And I went into this with an open mind. I knew to lower my expectations. That this was just the first movie adapting Alyssa Maxwell's Newport books and I should enjoy this delightful series getting exposure, but so many WTF moments kept pulling me out of the narrative. Which means let's talk letterpress. Our heroine, Emma Vanderbilt-Cross, works at a newspaper. Newspapers in 1895 means letterpress. But just slapping a press in a room with a cabinet does not a proper newspaper make. The entire newspaper seems to be run out of one office with an old guy in the corner with a small platen press... Which is actually impossible given the printed newspaper we are shown. Also don't get me started on how slow he sets the type. Did the writers of this know there used to be competitions among newspapers to see who had the fastest typesetters? Because our friend here would come in last. But the vagaries and lack of knowledge regarding printing is, in my experience, quite common. Don't get me started on the Heidelberg Windmill fiasco in Without a Clue! So let's tackle those issues that other people might actually notice. Just look to the inferior fabrics that the dresses are made of. Seriously, is that poor girl wearing a repurposed eighties prom dress for her coming out? And I mean 1980s not 1880s. It's sure pink and shiny enough. Molly Ringwald would approve. Also the costumes are all so ill-fitting and could they just stop randomly adding lace to cover up imperfections. I'd rather see the imperfections than that much lace. But the biggest sin of all is that this was filmed in Canada. "The Breakers" was previously home to Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. And yes, that at least means it's opulent enough, but it's not Newport enough. The thing is we're dealing with two different coasts and therefore two very different architectural styles. Newport is very gilded, as the title of it's most famous show indicates. The rooms in the homes look like they belong in museums with all that gilt. Whereas Vancouver Island, home to Hatley Castle, is all western lumber and oil barron wealth, so the look leans more towards wood with an occasional node to the arts and crafts movement when not just showcasing the lumber. In other words, nothing like the actual homes in Newport. And I just could not suspend my disbelief. You're probably saying, yes, we get it, the production quality annoyed you, what about the plot? Well, our heroine is too dumb to live. She never stays around to listen to people's answers and just hares off. She spent days looking for the servant Mason and she finds him and just wanders off without getting a single answer!?! Um, if you want to write for a newspaper perhaps actually follow through? At least her half brother looks enough like a young Michael Sheen that when she inevitably dies from doing something stupid he can take over the show and I'll be "content" with that.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alyssa Maxwell, And the Emmy Goes To, Costumes, Gilded Newport Mysteries, Hallmark, Letterpress, Michael Sheen, Molly Ringwald, Murder at the Breakers, Newport, The Gilded Age, Vancouver, Without a Clue, X-Mansion

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Published by: Max Press
Publication Date: 1811
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Elinor is pragmatic about the death of their father. They have lost their home and they will find a new one and carry on. Her younger sister Marianne has opted for another approach, misery exponentially increased by any dear memory of her father and the beloved house they all shared. Their mother is perfectly happy wallowing with Marianne while watching her step-son and his odious wife Fanny destroy Norland Park, that is until that odious Fanny insinuates that Elinor isn't good enough for her brother Edward and Mrs. Dashwood can not remove them fast enough from Norland Park. Thanks to kind relations they are able to leave the odious behind and settle at Barton Cottage, part of Barton Park were Mrs. Dashwood's cousin Sir John Middleton resides. There they have a new social circle of relatives and friends and Marianne is drawn to one in particular, Willoughby. Willoughy is the same in all her sensibilities and they are soon as thick as thieves and their engagement is expected to be announced daily, much to Colonel Brandon's dismay. Yet the announcement never comes and Willoughby takes off to London and they hear no more from him. So when Sir John's mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings, invites the two girls to accompany her to London Marianne jumps at the chance. But London will be a proving ground for the young girls hearts. Will either of them find a happily ever after or are their hearts destined to be forever broken by their first loves?

It seems odd to me that in a high school that actually had a good English department where I read many classics I never read any Jane Austen. By the friends I made through various bizarre and arcane clubs I was introduced to her via the Colin Firth miniseries in February of my senior year. This was on my level, being more into films than books at the tender age of seventeen, it was the perfect bridge from one art form to another. At that time I was adamant that I wasn't going to college in the fall, and I in fact didn't, but that doesn't mean I was averse to learning and reading and I took it upon myself that summer to acquaint myself with the classics, many of which had been made into films starring Emma Thompson. She was a powerful bridge to Austen and also to Forster, though the most powerful of all was anything to do with Monty Python. The summer of 1996 was spent on my side porch reading classics I never thought I would ever pick up. Though it was to Austen I felt the most visceral a connection. Sense and Sensibility was the first book of hers that I read and I remember towards the end reading it in my bedroom because of the copious sobbing that accompanied my reading. When Edward arrived at Barton cottage to declare his freedom and his desire to marry Elinor, I just sat in my window sobbing. I never knew a book could do this to me. I was forever converted to Austen and through her I found the love of classics that my family always wished for me.

Do to what is happening in my life at the moment I've been feeling old. Which might account for why I noticed the characters ages so much on this reading of Sense and Sensibility. When I first read this book I was the same age as Marianne is for most of the story so I could feel a kinship with her and totally identify to being that age, even if I like to think of myself more as Elinor. As I've grown older I've still felt that kinship, that connection, but never internalized the ages of the characters as a did on that first reading. Marianne and Elinor are young, Colonel Brandon and Mrs. Dashwood are old. Or so I've always thought. For the first time ever I noticed their ages. The flannel waistcoat wearing Colonel is 35 and Mrs. Dashwood is about 40. Which gave me an "oh dear" moment. I am OLDER than Colonel Brandon who was thought too old for love and closing in fast on Mrs. Dashwood. Yes, I could say that obviously people married younger in Regency times because the life expectancy was shorter, but I literally have friends I went to high school with with kids in college. If my life had taken an entirely different and unexpected route I am old enough to have an Elinor and Marianne and Margaret of my own! So needless to say I felt myself on this realization seeing things more from the "elderly" point of view. Oh, Colonel Brandon, you are a youngin...

Comparing Sense and Sensibility to Austen's other work is interesting in that despite having a plethora of female characters to root for she usually has one heroine, an Emma or a Lizzy, yet here she has two. Given that one is so reserved and the other so melodramatic it's as if she's split her heroine in half. Yes, we could analyze that her book originally necessitated two leads because it was written in epistolary fashion before being dramatically changed in the edits, but I think it's more fascinating to look at this in the classical sense, as in Plato's Symposium. Mary Shelley was strongly influenced by Aristophanes' myth of primal man being cut in two necessitating two beings that need each other because they originally were one when writing Frankenstein. Who's to say that Austen wasn't as well. Some reviewers note that as the book progresses Austen isn't sure which personality aspect she wants to win the day. Should Elinor and her logic or Marianne and her emotion get the HEA? I don't see this. I think that while yes, Elinor's ending might be more satisfying, they both get the endings that Austen intended all along. But what's more important is that each learns valuable lessons from the other, who they need. Marianne needs some of Elinor's grounding, while Elinor needs to not bury her emotions so deep. If they were one we'd have the perfect heroine. But perfect heroines are overrated, I need mine with some flaws so I can root for them.

But just having people to root for isn't nearly as fun as having someone to root against. Lucy Steele is that person. What's interesting is that each time I read this book I get a different take on Lucy. Obviously you can't NOT hate her, she's keeping Elinor and Edward from their HEA. But there's so many different faces to Lucy, the fake friend, the gold digger, the manipulator. She's ambitious and jealous and won't take no for an answer. I mean just the way she controls Elinor with her confession of her secret attachment to Edward! Gaw, she should die for that. Oh, let me destroy all your faith in the man you love AND make you suffer in silence because you're such a good person you'd never tell another soul! And then as a parting blow, let her think I married Edward and not his brother, ta! Yet for all that one thing that Edward and Elinor always remarked on didn't seem that much of an issue to me, and that is Lucy's lack of an education. Yes, it meant she was limited, but it wasn't until this reading that I really caught how stupid she is. Her speech is grammatically incorrect and her overuse of the word "was" is just annoying and wrong. I think the reason this had never struck me before is that if you haven't read Austen, well, it's kind of like Shakespeare in that you have to get into the groove of the writing style. So obviously when I first read it I wouldn't have picked up on it. All the other readings, well, I wasn't the grammar Nazi I am now. So this time? Oh Lucy, I hate you for a whole slew of new reasons.

Yet the character that I hate the most is Willoughby. And this is a hate that has grown over time. I remember when I first saw Emma Thompson's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility I felt cheated that she didn't keep the scene where he "redeems" himself. He really wasn't that bad in my mind. Now I can see why she didn't, he doesn't deserve ANY redemption. The reason is all in his seduction of Eliza. Reading this book for the first time at 17 an unwanted pregnancy didn't seem that horrific. In fact, they were kind of popularized by movies like For Keeps? Interesting fact, it was filmed here in Madison, Wisconsin. OK, Molly Ringwald and her ironically Darcy named heroine aside, I just didn't think it was a big deal having a baby. Because I didn't understand Regency England. Colonel Brandon's ward having a baby out of wedlock is the worst thing that could happen to any woman. To be seduced and left with a parting gift that would arrive nine months later is the most vile thing I man can do, especially to a well bred woman, and even more especially when he could have just paid a prostitute. It was the game of destroying her that made if more fun, no matter what he said after the fact about her TOTALLY having his address, because he could have made it right! Once discovered by his benefactress he could have married Eliza and made everything right in the world. Instead he marries an heiress and regrets not marrying Marianne and never gives another thought to Eliza. He deserves NO FORGIVENESS! NONE AT ALL! If this book has one flaw it's that Austen feels a little bad for him. She wrote him that way, she can't now apologize for it!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aging, Bicentenary Ball, Colin Firth, E.M. Forster, Emma Thompson, Frankenstein, Heroine, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Molly Ringwald, Monty Python, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Willoughby

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Published by: Max Press
Publication Date: 1811
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Elinor is pragmatic about the death of their father. They have lost their home and they will find a new one and carry on. Her younger sister Marianne has opted for another approach, misery exponentially increased by any dear memory of her father and the beloved house they all shared. Their mother is perfectly happy wallowing with Marianne while watching her step-son and his odious wife Fanny destroy Norland Park, that is until that odious Fanny insinuates that Elinor isn't good enough for her brother Edward and Mrs. Dashwood can not remove them fast enough from Norland Park. Thanks to kind relations they are able to leave the odious behind and settle at Barton Cottage, part of Barton Park were Mrs. Dashwood's cousin Sir John Middleton resides. There they have a new social circle of relatives and friends and Marianne is drawn to one in particular, Willoughby. Willoughy is the same in all her sensibilities and they are soon as thick as thieves and their engagement is expected to be announced daily, much to Colonel Brandon's dismay. Yet the announcement never comes and Willoughby takes off to London and they hear no more from him. So when Sir John's mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings, invites the two girls to accompany her to London Marianne jumps at the chance. But London will be a proving ground for the young girls hearts. Will either of them find a happily ever after or are their hearts destined to be forever broken by their first loves?

It seems odd to me that in a high school that actually had a good English department where I read many classics I never read any Jane Austen. By the friends I made through various bizarre and arcane clubs I was introduced to her via the Colin Firth miniseries in February of my senior year. This was on my level, being more into films than books at the tender age of seventeen, it was the perfect bridge from one art form to another. At that time I was adamant that I wasn't going to college in the fall, and I in fact didn't, but that doesn't mean I was averse to learning and reading and I took it upon myself that summer to acquaint myself with the classics, many of which had been made into films starring Emma Thompson. She was a powerful bridge to Austen and also to Forster, though the most powerful of all was anything to do with Monty Python. The summer of 1996 was spent on my side porch reading classics I never thought I would ever pick up. Though it was to Austen I felt the most visceral a connection. Sense and Sensibility was the first book of hers that I read and I remember towards the end reading it in my bedroom because of the copious sobbing that accompanied my reading. When Edward arrived at Barton cottage to declare his freedom and his desire to marry Elinor, I just sat in my window sobbing. I never knew a book could do this to me. I was forever converted to Austen and through her I found the love of classics that my family always wished for me.

Do to what is happening in my life at the moment I've been feeling old. Which might account for why I noticed the characters ages so much on this reading of Sense and Sensibility. When I first read this book I was the same age as Marianne is for most of the story so I could feel a kinship with her and totally identify to being that age, even if I like to think of myself more as Elinor. As I've grown older I've still felt that kinship, that connection, but never internalized the ages of the characters as a did on that first reading. Marianne and Elinor are young, Colonel Brandon and Mrs. Dashwood are old. Or so I've always thought. For the first time ever I noticed their ages. The flannel waistcoat wearing Colonel is 35 and Mrs. Dashwood is about 40. Which gave me an "oh dear" moment. I am OLDER than Colonel Brandon who was thought too old for love and closing in fast on Mrs. Dashwood. Yes, I could say that obviously people married younger in Regency times because the life expectancy was shorter, but I literally have friends I went to high school with with kids in college. If my life had taken an entirely different and unexpected route I am old enough to have an Elinor and Marianne and Margaret of my own! So needless to say I felt myself on this realization seeing things more from the "elderly" point of view. Oh, Colonel Brandon, you are a youngin...

Comparing Sense and Sensibility to Austen's other work is interesting in that despite having a plethora of female characters to root for she usually has one heroine, an Emma or a Lizzy, yet here she has two. Given that one is so reserved and the other so melodramatic it's as if she's split her heroine in half. Yes, we could analyze that her book originally necessitated two leads because it was written in epistolary fashion before being dramatically changed in the edits, but I think it's more fascinating to look at this in the classical sense, as in Plato's Symposium. Mary Shelley was strongly influenced by Aristophanes' myth of primal man being cut in two necessitating two beings that need each other because they originally were one when writing Frankenstein. Who's to say that Austen wasn't as well. Some reviewers note that as the book progresses Austen isn't sure which personality aspect she wants to win the day. Should Elinor and her logic or Marianne and her emotion get the HEA? I don't see this. I think that while yes, Elinor's ending might be more satisfying, they both get the endings that Austen intended all along. But what's more important is that each learns valuable lessons from the other, who they need. Marianne needs some of Elinor's grounding, while Elinor needs to not bury her emotions so deep. If they were one we'd have the perfect heroine. But perfect heroines are overrated, I need mine with some flaws so I can root for them.

But just having people to root for isn't nearly as fun as having someone to root against. Lucy Steele is that person. What's interesting is that each time I read this book I get a different take on Lucy. Obviously you can't NOT hate her, she's keeping Elinor and Edward from their HEA. But there's so many different faces to Lucy, the fake friend, the gold digger, the manipulator. She's ambitious and jealous and won't take no for an answer. I mean just the way she controls Elinor with her confession of her secret attachment to Edward! Gaw, she should die for that. Oh, let me destroy all your faith in the man you love AND make you suffer in silence because you're such a good person you'd never tell another soul! And then as a parting blow, let her think I married Edward and not his brother, ta! Yet for all that one thing that Edward and Elinor always remarked on didn't seem that much of an issue to me, and that is Lucy's lack of an education. Yes, it meant she was limited, but it wasn't until this reading that I really caught how stupid she is. Her speech is grammatically incorrect and her overuse of the word "was" is just annoying and wrong. I think the reason this had never struck me before is that if you haven't read Austen, well, it's kind of like Shakespeare in that you have to get into the groove of the writing style. So obviously when I first read it I wouldn't have picked up on it. All the other readings, well, I wasn't the grammar Nazi I am now. So this time? Oh Lucy, I hate you for a whole slew of new reasons.

Yet the character that I hate the most is Willoughby. And this is a hate that has grown over time. I remember when I first saw Emma Thompson's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility I felt cheated that she didn't keep the scene where he "redeems" himself. He really wasn't that bad in my mind. Now I can see why she didn't, he doesn't deserve ANY redemption. The reason is all in his seduction of Eliza. Reading this book for the first time at 17 an unwanted pregnancy didn't seem that horrific. In fact, they were kind of popularized by movies like For Keeps? Interesting fact, it was filmed here in Madison, Wisconsin. OK, Molly Ringwald and her ironically Darcy named heroine aside, I just didn't think it was a big deal having a baby. Because I didn't understand Regency England. Colonel Brandon's ward having a baby out of wedlock is the worst thing that could happen to any woman. To be seduced and left with a parting gift that would arrive nine months later is the most vile thing I man can do, especially to a well bred woman, and even more especially when he could have just paid a prostitute. It was the game of destroying her that made if more fun, no matter what he said after the fact about her TOTALLY having his address, because he could have made it right! Once discovered by his benefactress he could have married Eliza and made everything right in the world. Instead he marries an heiress and regrets not marrying Marianne and never gives another thought to Eliza. He deserves NO FORGIVENESS! NONE AT ALL! If this book has one flaw it's that Austen feels a little bad for him. She wrote him that way, she can't now apologize for it!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aging, Bicentenary Ball, Colin Firth, E.M. Forster, Emma Thompson, Frankenstein, Heroine, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Molly Ringwald, Monty Python, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Willoughby

Under the Dome by Stephen King
Published by: Scribner
Publication Date: November 10th, 2009
Format: Kindle, 1092 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

One fall day a dome mysteriously appears around the town of Chester's Mill, Maine. No one knows how or why. Over the preceding week tensions rise and the death toll mounts. Jim Rennie, the local second selectman with a Napoleon complex has spent his life constrained somewhat by the laws of the United States. It hasn't stopped him creating the biggest Meth empire in all of North America, but it has stopped him instituting martial law and making himself the town's benevolent dictator. The arrival of the dome is a dream come true. With his megalomania unconstrained, he orchestrates the events in Chester's Mill like a gifted composer. With Rennie working against the rest of the town trying and praying to be released, will the situation stay firmly under his control, or will his sins come to claim his so that he will be eating at the Lord's table by dinnertime?

Back in 2009 when this book came out I was super excited. I had just gotten a Kindle for my birthday back in August and I viewed this book as made for my Kindle. I mean, the book is over a thousand pages and could easily kill someone, even in paperback form. So a Kindle purchase it was. And there it sat. It's easier to neglect books on your Kindle then on your bookshelves because they aren't staring at you every day. It sat as a little electronic file in a little folder that says "Stephen King" that, as time went on, got pushed further and further back because of my Kindle's ludicrous need to keep files in order of when they were last opened verses the logical alphabet! Also, you know what, while I like that the Kindle has ease and access to out of print books, it just somehow has never drawn me in as much as a real book.

Flash forward to 2013 and summer's hottest new TV series, Under the Dome. Yep, before I even got to reading it it has become a TV series. I have always loved Stephen King TV series and special television events. They are tacky and over the top and above all fun in that guilty TV viewing way. So, seeing as I had a feeling I wouldn't pick up the book in the near future I started watching the show and got hooked. It's never going to be a favorite show or even one I will necessarily ever watch again, but, it is fun. When I heard it was picked up for a second season I realized that, what was fun and over the top, would leave me hanging and therefore invariably piss me off. I had read enough about the show and Stephen King's involvement to know that the show was going to drastically vary from the book, all with Stephen King's blessing, but knowing that it was to go beyond this summer I felt I needed some closure. I knew the book is a different ending so I figured, what the hell, I'll pick it up, finally, get some closure but not be spoiled at the same time. It was win win in my mind. And so I read the book, all thousand plus pages of it, and now I'm left with an odd sensation. The book didn't give me any closure and now I'm more pissed then ever that the show won't end this year.

The first thing I would like to say that this book taught me is that I would not survive under the dome. I don't keep enough food stockpiled. I have no weapons, no generator, no propane or batteries... I would be one of the first to die. But seeing as the death rate was insanely high in this book at least I would be one of the many not one of the few. Previous to this King book I had only read two of his other works, Misery and The Shining. Both these books have small, intimate casts with people isolated from society. The other end of the spectrum is books like Under the Dome and The Stand, which was a favorite miniseries of mine due to Corin "Parker Lewis" Nemec and Molly Ringwald, I mean seriously, the John Hughes girl all grown up and in a Stephen King miniseries, how could you not love this tack? Watching and reading are two different things though and the cast of Under the Dome was so large I just knew vaguely who they were, there were the "bad cops" and the "good cops," who can remember their names, I didn't, and then people in general categories based on where they usually where, like the "hospital people" and the "newspaper people." Also, when you have this many people, having a Ginny and a Gina both and the hospital, thank you Stephen King for giving me a headache. Add to that the fact that even the good guys were pretty unlikable, and well, who am I rooting for? Because personally, I think just having Junior Rennie and his posse (which is so Malfoy's posse from Slytherin) set loose on the town would have been funny and ended the book a lot earlier.

But let me get to the crux of my problem with the book, which wasn't the overtly hypocritical religiosity or the fact that I think the dome should have isolated them more like on the television show. I shall warn you that right now I'm going to give away the ending, because, let's face it, I was able to guess the ending five minutes in and it's not that shocking. Yes folks, it's aliens! Why? We don't know. This is a total cop out. At least explain something about it more then, "oh, they thought we were ants and it would be fun." Excuse me? They did it because they could? Well at least tell me more about the dome's properties? Like was the dome causing all these people to commit suicide? Because some of the animals were and, well, we are animals, so was that something the dome did or was it just based on people taking the easy way out? Explain! Also, you know, we've spent, a thousand pages with these people, maybe a few lines of how they handled life after they got out of the dome please? Now that you killed Benny did Joe and Norrie get together because she no longer had to choose? Anything Stephen, anything? Nope... ok. Guess I'll go sit in a fug over here. And by the way, having Jack Reacher show up was lame and a Lost reference, really? You should be better then this Stephen King.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aliens, Chester's Mill, Corin Nemic, Jack Reacher, Jim Rennie, Kindle, Lost, Miniseries, Misery, Molly Ringwald, Slytherin, Stephen King, The Shining, The Stand, Under the Dome