So, I'm reading Stephen King's Duma Key right now and on page 360 I get to this passage where the narrator is visiting an old woman in her room and she's got a print of Edward Hopper's Eleven AM above her bed. King describes it as "an archetype of loneliness waiting patiently at the window for some change, any change." Then, two pages later, he says this:
Over her head, the loneliest girl in the world sat in a chair and looked out the window forever, face hidden by the fall of her hair, naked but for a pair of shoes.
This is a cheat post because it's been so long since I watched these that I don't remember enough to do a bona fide review. It'll have to suffice to say that the Masterpiece mini-series benefits from having more time to unfold its story and a Colonel Brandon who looks and sounds like a young Liam Neeson. Combine those two things together and you get a much more convincing Marianne-Brandon romance at the end than Ang Lee provides in the 1995 version.
To the Masterpiece version's detriment though, Willoughby is a total sap and while I still buy that Marianne falls for him - silly twit that she is - I don't like him myself.
My favorite version is still Ang Lee's. My wife is too distracted by Hugh Grant's personal life to like him as Edward Ferrars, but I think he's charming. And speaking of Hughs, Hugh Laurie's grumpy Mr. Palmer may seem like a foretaste of Gregory House at first, but there's nobility in the character here that borders on heroic. You don't get that in the Masterpiece version where Palmer is just downright rude.
Greg Wise's Willoughby is a manly man and exactly the kind of fellow that Marianne ought to fall for if only he had better character. Lee makes the Marianne-Willoughby romance more tragic by teasing that - under other circumstances - it might have worked out. You never trust Masterpiece's simpering Willoughby and are always rooting for Marianne to wise up, so when she finally learns the truth there's a lack of empathy for her and more of an "I told you so." In Lee's version you feel much worse for her.
Fanny Dashwood is also a lot more fun in Lee's version, but that's balanced by Mrs. Dashwood's being more useful and interesting in the Masterpiece version. In Lee's take, Mrs. Dashwood never quite stops complaining about their reduced circumstances. Masterpiece's Mrs. Dashwood better rises to the situation and I like her more for it. But, back to Lee's favor is his version of Lucy Steele who seems much more conniving and drama-hungry (and so, fun) than Masterpiece's.
The biggest difference between the two versions though is in Elinor. Maybe it's because the Masterpiece version has more time to fill, so we get a deeper look at Elinor in it, but I don't think it's an advantage to see her lose it emotionally a couple of times before the big scene at the end. In Lee's version, Elinor holds it together for the entire movie. We cansee that she's distraught a couple of times (thanks to unbelievably great acting by Emma Thompson) and she admits as much to Marianne, but there's always a reason for her to hide her feelings. And so, in that amazing, moving, final scene where she just lets everything out that she's been penning up for the entire movie - losing her home, almost losing her sister, thinking she's lost Edward - her emotion erupts all over you and you can't help but nearly lose it yourself. At least I can't.
Unfortunately - though that scene in Masterpiece is still very good - it doesn't equal the impact of Lee's.
The Masterpiece version gets four out of five wailing Elinors.
We're going to be in Wisconsin next week and I'm not sure what the Internet situation will be. I've got posts scheduled to go automatically, so there'll still be new content every day, but if I'm not responding to emails and comments, that's why.
Remember how upset people got when Playboy ran a Wonder Woman-themed pictorial? I wonder what they'd think of this. (No nekkidness, but still probably not safe for work.)
Giant Robot Jellyfish
Tell you what. Slap some lasers on it and I'll take twelve.
Namely: write ups on underappreciated DC characters like the Grim Ghost (who'd be much more interesting if he still called himself the Gay Ghost), G.I. Robot (it's all there in the name, pal), and the dino-kicking, poison-blooded Green Man. Gorilla Grodd's there too, making me fantasize about what a cool comic it would be to have him fight the Green Man, G.I. Robot, and the Gay Ghost.
Did Millar bait-and-switch the Wanted movie?
Trying to head off potential complaints that Wanted is no longer a superhero story like the comic it's supposedly based on, Top Cow spokesman Mel Caylo explains that the movie is actually based on Wanted's original concept; not the comic that was produced from it.
"What many people don't know is that Wanted was optioned before the series was concluded ... At that time, Mark had an idea based around a society of assassins that worked underground or behind the scenes, and that's what the producers bought. Mark then decided to go in the direction that Earth was once populated by superheroes, but they have been vanquished, ... and supervillains now run the Earth [in] five major cabals that run the whole world."
Before the series was "concluded?" It sounds to me like it was optioned before the series was started. I'm not saying that Millar was necessarily unethical because I don't know what kind of communication went on with the filmmakers as he was changing his mind. I am saying though that I'm way more excited about the movie than I am about ever reading the comic.
Billy Batson and the Legend of Shazam
Speaking of movies' being faithful to comics, Peter Segal (Get Smart) reassures fans that he's going to keep the Shazam movie as faithful to the original comics as he can.
"You have to please the original fans, but also make it survive on its own for people who might not be familiar with the series," Segal said. "So we try to do both, and that's constantly the balancing act. But I think the underlying similarity between adapting Shazam and adapting Get Smart is you have to love the source material, you have to embrace it. You can't look at it as a fixer-upper."
I talk about 'em every time the word "convention" gets brought up. Now you can get to know them a bit yourself thanks to this Comics Bulletin interview.
Chuck news
Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development) will be joining the cast of Chuck next season as a Buy More efficiency expert. That promises some really funny moments, but in the meantime, you can catch up on Season 1 when it's released on DVD September 16.
Kiera?
The Keira Knightley 2009 Calendar is already available for pre-order. I wonder if misspelling her name will cost them any sales.
I've got lots of David's drawings I've been meaning to scan and share. This was at the top of the pile.
My six-year-old son and I have been watching Batman: The Animated Series on DVD lately. Kinda makes the week-long wait between episodes of The Spectacular Spider-Man more bearable.
He likes to do a couple of things with the shows he loves. One: he likes to "play" them. He picks his favorite character to be, then he asks me who I want to be, then we figure out who my wife is going to be (or ask her, if she's around). After watching Batman, David's usually Man-Bat, I'm Killer Croc, and Diane is Poison Ivy. We're a merry little band of thieves and murderers around our house.
The other thing David likes to do is draw. He's never wanted to "be" Two-Face, but he was pretty fascinated with the character after we watched the two-part Two-Face episode. Hence this drawing. He says he's not really happy with it, but I'm pretty pleased. Definitely not his best work, but it's his most recent so I figured I'd start with it.
Just for kicks, here's Bruce Timm's Animated Series version:
