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Oy, ze unfairness!!
Mar. 18th, 2009 10:24 amThe tooth fairy must be laughing her silly head off. No pain before I went to the dentist, but after yesterday's 60 minutes of mining the root canals, the nerves are understandably irritated. Left cheek slightly swollen, hearing in left ear a little impaired. I'll go home around noon, so I can take painkillers and lie down.
At least I got out early of today's meeting -- once a month, Ambassador, Defence, Police and Trade attaché have a working breakfast at the residence, which yours truly, the first secretary and our press&culture person have to participate in as well. It's always deadly boring and completely useless. Anyway, today I decided to have coffee instead of the tea I usually drink at those meetings, and the combination of pain and 1) coffee of almost unearthly disgustingness, 2) smell of boiled eggs from culture person's plate and 3) culture person's rather uncultured masticating-and-swallowing sounds made me feel so sick that I had to excuse myself.
Last night I watched the BBC Sense and Sensibility mini-series (2007 or 2008). Andrew Davies, who did the screenplay for the 6-part Pride and Prejudice, wrote this one as well, and it's really very good. Much closer to the novel, of course, than my all-time favourite movie with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, which I've watched a hundred times. Being so used to seeing the movie makes me a bit unsure of my own judgement of the BBC series. Still, I think that the movie, while it had to leave out certain elements, nevertheless captured the characters much better. In part this is certainly due to the vastly superior acting skills of the movie's cast as opposed to the BBC cast.
It's not only the acting, though.
For example, the characterization of Marianne: In the movie, she plays a mournful tune on the piano, and Eleanor asks her to switch to different piece, because their mother has been crying since breakfast. Marianne obliges, but instead of choosing something less sombre, she plays a funereal march. These 10 or 15 seconds say such a lot about her: her inability and unwillingness to refrain from wallowing in her emotions, her egoistical streak, her stubbornness. The series, which dedicates a lot more screen time to each of the characters, fails to show the viewer such characteristic glimpses.
My love of the movie knows no bounds, but I've always admitted that the age of some of the cast isn't quite right. Alan Rickman, much as I like him, just isn't 35, and the age difference between John and his half-sisters seems too great, as does the difference between Fanny's and Edward/Robert's ages. Age-wise, the series is more credible. Still, Dominic Cooper as Willoughby... I don't want to tread on anybody's toes here, but to me he looks very much like a piglet dressed as a human. Not too believable as anybody's romantic interest, but that's highly subjective of course.
Speaking of Dominic Cooper: I also bought The Duchess on Sunday and am planning to watch it tonight. Ralph Fiennes in period costume... Rrrrrroarrrr!
At least I got out early of today's meeting -- once a month, Ambassador, Defence, Police and Trade attaché have a working breakfast at the residence, which yours truly, the first secretary and our press&culture person have to participate in as well. It's always deadly boring and completely useless. Anyway, today I decided to have coffee instead of the tea I usually drink at those meetings, and the combination of pain and 1) coffee of almost unearthly disgustingness, 2) smell of boiled eggs from culture person's plate and 3) culture person's rather uncultured masticating-and-swallowing sounds made me feel so sick that I had to excuse myself.
Last night I watched the BBC Sense and Sensibility mini-series (2007 or 2008). Andrew Davies, who did the screenplay for the 6-part Pride and Prejudice, wrote this one as well, and it's really very good. Much closer to the novel, of course, than my all-time favourite movie with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, which I've watched a hundred times. Being so used to seeing the movie makes me a bit unsure of my own judgement of the BBC series. Still, I think that the movie, while it had to leave out certain elements, nevertheless captured the characters much better. In part this is certainly due to the vastly superior acting skills of the movie's cast as opposed to the BBC cast.
It's not only the acting, though.
For example, the characterization of Marianne: In the movie, she plays a mournful tune on the piano, and Eleanor asks her to switch to different piece, because their mother has been crying since breakfast. Marianne obliges, but instead of choosing something less sombre, she plays a funereal march. These 10 or 15 seconds say such a lot about her: her inability and unwillingness to refrain from wallowing in her emotions, her egoistical streak, her stubbornness. The series, which dedicates a lot more screen time to each of the characters, fails to show the viewer such characteristic glimpses.
My love of the movie knows no bounds, but I've always admitted that the age of some of the cast isn't quite right. Alan Rickman, much as I like him, just isn't 35, and the age difference between John and his half-sisters seems too great, as does the difference between Fanny's and Edward/Robert's ages. Age-wise, the series is more credible. Still, Dominic Cooper as Willoughby... I don't want to tread on anybody's toes here, but to me he looks very much like a piglet dressed as a human. Not too believable as anybody's romantic interest, but that's highly subjective of course.
Speaking of Dominic Cooper: I also bought The Duchess on Sunday and am planning to watch it tonight. Ralph Fiennes in period costume... Rrrrrroarrrr!
