A Little Bronte Delight

That's one of the first screencaps from the upcoming Jane Eyre, to be released in 2011. It stars Mia Wasikowska as Jane, and the ubiquitous Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester. Though I'm not as enamored with Michael Fassbender as some people (*cough, everyone on the freaking internet) he supposedly oozes sexual charisma, so that's.......goood. I just hope this adaptation will be as passionate as the book. The most misguided complaint about Jane Eyre is that it's a boringly reserved cautionary tale.

Jane's entire personality is led by passion (and modulated by morality). Jane Eyre is very much the proper sister of Wuthering Heights, with the same underlying veins of passion and contrariness. Austen may have had a tongue-in-cheek attitude towards social norms, but the Bronte sisters outright rejected them. To be fair, the world Charlotte and Emily inhabited was of a more primal, desperate nature than Jane Austen's. They were probably more engaged with battling (and ultimately losing to) consumption, illness, scarcity, and the other many diverse ways of dying before the age of thirty, and overall weren't too bothered about observing societal norms. Jane Eyre has much less action than Wuthering Heights, but I think it's just as fierce and impassioned.

Jane Eyre has become my go-to book this summer, for some reason. Every time I'm bored, I just rife through the book again, rereading passages and discovering new details. And what I found is that the book is surprisingly hilarious, especially Jane's exchanges with Mr. Rochester. Rochester is the scandal-slut of the pair, so readers always end up reading his monologues more intently, but Jane's answers are equally fascinating, IMO, for their eloquence and unconventionality. Like Cathy Earnshaw, she's simply immune to standard notions of romance. The morning after she and Rochester get engaged, she tells him semi-sarcastically:

"I suppose your love will effervesce in six months or less. I have observed in books written by men, that period assigned as the furthest to which a husband's ardour extends."

Basically, I see Jane as how Elizabeth Bennet would have turned out if she'd also been orphaned, abused, and impoverished from an early age. Her attitudes and movements are restricted by her circumstances, but the entire point of her oft-emphasized plainness is that within that plainness is a rare, smart, and feisty gal. She's not, as people often think of her (or actresses always play her) doddering or severe. In one of Mr. Rochester's swooningly observant Jane-analyses, he tells her that "you looked thoughtful; not despondent. You were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had little hope and actual pleasure.....I saw that you had a social heart; it was the tedium of your life that made you mournful".

Other released screencap - dying to see Fassbender in full Rochester soon!

More instances: the month lapsing between their engagement and marriage is rife with erotic tension. Jane teases and vexes Mr. Rochester to keep him at arm's length, provoking a kind of sexual frustration on Mr. Rochester's part and forcing him to physically vent through "pressure, pinches, and tweaks of the ear." Rawrrrr, right? In what is my opinion one of the more sexy-tense scenes in the novel, Mr Rochester approaches Jane after he gets aroused (I interpreted as) singing a lover's song, and he comes at her "face kindled and eye flashing" and is about to - what? Pounce? Embrace? Indecent physical foreplay? - something of a physical nature, before a fearful Jane saves the day by breathlessly diverting him with one of her witty questions.

Too often, Jane is portrayed in movies as a Mary-Sue type, as a girl who is outshined by Rochester until he loses his arm, eye, and becomes fitting to be her partner-in-loserish-ness. The spark, the genuine chemistry and fire of their courtship are always left out. That's the point of their romance. He meets a girl whose passion, intellect, and stimulation transcends their social boundaries and surpasses the courtly reserve of everyone else (and whose gamine frame he happens to find weirdly attractive).

People don't realize that Jane's more than just Rochester's foil; she's his equal, just as provocative and saucy. If the film adaptation realized the spirit of the novel, it would be an absolute firecracker. I can only hope that they didn't get Fassbender in order to compensate for the screen heroine's dullness, rather than to upgrade both characters.

I want an adaptation that portrays Jane the way Mr. Rochester sees her, not the way society sees her, not a plain square who manages to hook a guy with a schoolmarm fetish - but rather, a manic pixie dream girl in Gothic orphan mode, whose independence and total self-assuredness has a weird implicit charisma of its own. One that shows exactly why Jane is such an exciting prospect to Rochester, not just because romancing her is a cool "fuck you" to society, but because Rochester is sincerely enchanted by her - by the "strange, unearthly" air about her, the "soft excitement in her aspect", her "glowing eye", "curious hesitation", and mannerisms that are "piquant" "aerial" "frail" , the "soul of fire". The curious smile that is endlessly fascinating to Rochester for its "sagacious grace, inexplicable uncanny turn of countenance", on the whole, a "wild, shy, provoking". The complex and tumultuous spirt roiling beneath her plain face needs to be illuminated and worshipped by the camera the way Abbie Cornish was in Bright Star, so that the audience can understand Rochester's enchantment, and agree with his assessment of Jane as an "elf", a "witch", a "minx".

Let's hope this is the one.

A Very Tarantino Dream

I had a dream last night about Quentin Tarantino (!). We were sitting together and collaborating for his next movie. Ideas were spinning out of his head faster than I could process them, though at point I told him it reeked in comparison to Pulp Fiction. "And you want to make the protagonist have a dead wife?" I said scornfully. "That's so Christopher Nolan."

"Nolan is a silly director," he muttered, still writing feverishly. "In my hands it'll will be instant auteur material." I nodded, very impressed. Then I opened my mouth again to ask him what he thought of Bright Star - I always strongly associate Tarantino with Bright Star, since one of the biggest surprises of 2009 was hearing that Tarantino was a strong fan, and even wrote Jane Campion a letter detailing his appreciation for the movie. Sadly, my dream zoomed into another dimension before I could ask the question.

+ =

Night Symphony

Used, from left to right: The Great Gatsby, Whistler's "Nocturne in Black and Gold", Georgia O'Keefe, Protestant Cementery in Rome, Woody Allen's Manhattan, Hopper's "Nighthawks", Van Gogh, unknown, Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, Van Gogh, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mulholland Drive, unknown, and O'Keefe for the rest.

"Christ on a Cracker, Where Do You Get Off?"

It's ridiculous how much Mad Men is making me laugh these days. True Blood is totally forgettable and unworthy of full attention for an hour each week, with the exception of its usual excellent guest actors (Alcide, Debbie during the all-out bitch smackdown, Russell) and because of Eric, obviously. On the other hand, I am determined to fully integrate "Christ on a cracker" into my cache of phrases.

Barring the Date

It's official. The weekend of Dec. 10-12 is fully booked for me. Don't text, call, email, or Facebook me, unless it's to discuss the occupations of said weekend.

Coming out all on the same date (Dec. 10); three favorite hotties - namely Johnny Depp in The Tourist, Skandar Keynes (aka Edmund) in the third installment of the Narnia series, and the David O. Russell smackdown, featuring my ex-beloved Christian Bale.

I seriously hope Depp has his mojo back on for the Tourist. Any variation of his Agent Sands character from Once Upon a Time in Mexico will do. The Youtube bastards took the "Shoot the Cook" sequence from the movie down, so I can't post any clip as proof of his undiluted brilliance in that movie. As for Angelina Jolie, who is unfortunately costarring in the drama, I could seriously care less. She's in the same league of acting as Leonardo Dicaprio - whatever spark or force of persona that propelled them to fame have long been sucked dry by some rancid combination of complacency and slowly-revealed mediocrity. Nowadays, when I watch either of them act, I don't see a character, only a succession of gestures; some dramatic eyebrow chewing, loud meltdowns, furrowed intensity. He really enjoys grimacing and she really enjoys smirking over her shoulder. A bit more hollering inserted if they're really gunning for that Oscar nom.

As for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I profess to having a thing for Skandar Keynes, who plays Edmund. He was so excellent and stealthy in the second movie. Fun trivia: Skandar's a descendant of Charles Darwin and four million other famous people.

I have mixed feelings about The Fighter - word out is that everyone involved in the movie is on their A-game, but Bale has again lost a drastic amount of weight for the role - I saw a few pictures and he looked ghastly, frankly. I can't stand it. It impressed me a lot when I was a fledging fan - "he's so dedicated!" but weight fluctuation is just an acting gimmick. I think Daniel Day Lewis had an excellent quote, where he - the ultimate shapeshifter - said that hardcore preparation for a role, such as losing weight or gaining a beard, etc. etc., was only dressing on the salad - the character still stems from within. Ultimately, exterior changes are overrated. Plus, it just doesn't make sense to be losing weight if you're going to be playing a boxer, even if the real-life boxer was a lightweight. Plus, I'm sure that these weight regimes affects his brain cells, and we all know that the best actors are also the smartest.

I do hope there will be trailers out for The Wahlberg and The Depp soon, though.

The Rebirth of the Rom-Com?

One of the main laments I've been hearing about Tinseltown is that bad flicks like Twilight and Mamma Mia! have been proving that women have an equal capacity to men when it comes to breaking the box office, but this wonderful widely acknowledged discovery came about the same time that movie journalists were announcing the death of the romantic comedy.

In fact, it was made official, several times over. Everyone, from the formidable James Wolcott and feisty Maureen Dowd (of Vanity Fair and the New York Times, respectively, for god's sake!) blamed Sex and the City 2 as the "final nail in the coffin of women's cult films". That must hurt.

James Wolcott feebly mentioned the possibility of Eat Pray Love reviving the genre. In the opinion of yours truly who saw it over the weekend, that movie is no genre lifesaver, but the movies in the previews shown before Eat Pray Love might be....

"How Do You Know"

Paul Rudd is still Perfect. I've never seen a James L Brooks movie, but I did some quickie research and Brooks feels a little like a quasi-kind-of-Terrence Malick of romantic dramadies so I have high expectations for this one.

"You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger"

I'm not sure Woody Allen counts. Especially hearing the tepid word-of-mouth coming out of Cannes. But he is Woody Allen and all that so here's an honorary trailer:

Funny.

"Morning Glory"

My heart sank the moment I saw Rachel McAdams looking like Jennifer Garner's doppelganger in the cliched power-chick businesswear. It rose again as the trailer continued - hilarious Harrison Ford! A rare appearance by Jeff Goldblum! The romance reduced to an actual subplot! Might this be called progress? Even if Rachel McAdams does look a little demented at times in the trailer. I mean, just look at that shot....

"Love and Other Drugs"

I mean, it is Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal, both of whom have a semblance of integrity and ambition. Yes, AH did appear in that awful Valentine Day movie that tried to pass itself off as the spunky American cousin of Love Actually, but at least Anne had only small role...I'm not sure because I refused to see the movie. Valentine's Day was one of three movies I heard my classmates actually discuss throughout the entire goddamn year, the two other films being Avatar and you-know-what.

Are screenwriters and studios alike responding to the vacuum of decent romantic comedies? My fingers are crossed. Not really. I've never crossed my fingers in real life. But you know what I mean.

**Update: Forgot to include this one - the much-buzzed about Sundance documentary, though most doubt that it's a legitimate documentary. With the inclusion of Facebook as a main plot device and hinted themes like online psychology, it's shaping up to be a kind of zeitgeist for our age. I'm terribly interested.

"Catfish"

Virtually Magnificent

It's been like, three months since I've seen it. Which means another revisit to....

Scott and Tessa's 2009-2010 free dance, performed to Mahler's Symphony No. 5 (Adagietto).

To further assure us of their shittiness, NBC not only censored all other website hosting the Olympic videos, but took aforementioned videos off, replacing them with silly "ARE YOU READY" promos of London 2012. As if anyone actually cares about London 2012 yet!

So I had to refer to the non-Olympic performances, all of which are spectacular even if they don't quite measure up to the simply inimitable magic of the Vancouver version. One of my favorites is the Mahler at Skate Canada, because the camera is close-up, giving the audience a larger scope of their faces and Scott's wonderful physical charisma. The Skate Canada version is also not as refined, which in my opinion allows the spirit of the dance to come through - Scott and Tessa are literally quite breathless in their duo of timeless love.

"Exhaling a long, sensual breath across the ice" - the New York Times loves them too.

As I've noticed in their other dances, the choreography never quite holds up in the middle, probably because Scott and Tessa have to insert all those foot-sequences, or whatever those dancing requirements are called, but the ending lifts - the ending itself - are flawless.

Scott is pretty emotionally overwhelmed at the end, as he always is for the Mahler - it's a bit embarrassing, almost like catching him with his pants down, because in interviews he comes across as your regular charming jock - mischievous and wry and boyish, incorrigibly mugging the camera as Tessa looks on like a fondly older sister. But as fellow skater Ben Agosto said of Scott, he's a fantastic actor. On the ice he slips into a different mode of character, imbuing the persona of whoever he's supposed to be in the dance. And Tessa's just...Tessa, her mood as unfaltering as her routine. The only time I've seen her let go was during the Umbrellas of Cherbourg dance at Worlds, which led a few people to conclude that she and Scott were dating at the time, otherwise she would have never looked "so in love". To which I can only think, unlikely, but I hope so.

Mahler at the "Grand Prix" - smoother, better quality (both dance-wise and video-wise) but more dazzling?

P.S. Unrelated and tangential, though somewhat figure-skating related. I just got into a fight on youtube with someone who said that everyone who thinks the lovely and talented Johnny Weir is gay is just stereotyping and "labeling". ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME? This is in the same exact category as the time when I came across someone on IMDB who spent about twenty pages of a thread trying to convince people that Orlando Bloom was the best actor of his generation.

Fanpeople

Argument with a person over The Hours today. I said that I loved the ending scene and that last shot of Nicole Kidman sliding into her watery grave (made beautiful by the cinematography and Philip Glass' score) but that it was melodramatic and pretentious; she said it was not. Just that. "It's not". Personally, I think that she confused emotional resonance with quality. That kind of reaction just bothers me, frankly. You can acknowledge that something that reponds to your inner needs and desires can also be a piece of trash, subjectively speaking. The aesthetically pleasing can also be devoid of any real meaning. There's merit in both viewpoints. That's what separates the despicable fanperson from the thinking and the aware.

*By fanperson, I mean anyone who vouches for a pop culture subject to such an extreme degree that he/she refuses to acknowledge even a differing opinion that is less than fervently positive.

**Thought more about this after seeing Eat Pray Love over the weekend - it was a pretty meh adaptation, but I saw quite a few people crying whenever Julia Roberts' Liz was depicted struggling with her failed marriage and breakups, which pretty much proves my point. They would have cried at any movie that reminded them of all the painful breakups they went through - that doesn't automatically render the movie great in its own right.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiise! For Elaine Stritch

Since all the decent seats for "A Little Night Music" have been taken for the next month or so, I'll relegate myself to goggling at Elaine Stritch's wardrobe instead. I wonder if she's been in a "who wore it best?" column with Diane Keaton. Diane Keaton wore those tuxedos in her thirties, she really wore them, but only on on the sheer virtues of youth and beauty. Now she just looks bat-crazy. Elaine Stritch, on the other hand, demonstrates how to keep rockin' 'em at 84.

Leopard hats are sassy and appropriate.

Dandy AND chic? Is it possible?

Along with all the other aging gals in Hollywood, Elaine Stritch proves that aging is by no means an excuse to retire your shine or sense of fabulosity. She, Meryl Streep, Betty White, Helen Mirren, and more keep the rest of us looking forward to growing old. Or at least, lessens our dread. C'mon, aging has perks! People excuse you any sassiness when you're old, and you can wear brooches and oversized pearls without looking contrived.

I could post pictures of Meryl and Helen as well, but commoners don't have aging portraits locked up faraway in the attic of a country manor, or the safe of a Manhattan penthouse. So let's stick to Elaine.

Compared to a "fashionista" 60 years younger. That's what I'm talking about! And MK/Ashley, that kind of outfit makes it clear that you have not ever done a day's worth of serious work in your life.

Below: screencaps from her recurring episodes on 30 Rock Talk about brilliant zingers! Any actress playing Colleen needs to convince the audience that the only person Alec Baldwin's Jack Donaghy has ever feared is his mother. Elaine nails it every time - the way she raises hell every time she comes on is nothing less than divine. Judging from the pictures, she wears her own wardrobe on the show.

Note to self: Fur muffs are very good on old people.

I've saved the best for last. I admit it, really. The entire point of this post is that some day I can dig back through the archives of this blog and be reminded to invest in riding boots. I want to wear this entire ensemble. She is really making me the dig the crisp, smart equestrian look.

Spring Awakening

Continuing on the Broadway preoccupation: Spring Awakening.

A few years ago, a friend instructed me to find a nice musical to watch on a celebratory night. I flipped through the newspaper ads until my eye fell upon a simple poster, featuring a boy and a girl lying together. Or more precisely, the girl on her back, dress piling erotically to reveal an inch of leg as the boy bent over her, clearly in the process of unbuttoning her top. The faces were half-hidden and her gray schoolgirl stockings only left more to the imagination. The title of the show was Spring Awakening.

I went online and brought two tickets.

What can I say? It was superb advertising. After all. the tension before the plunge is always the most compelling part. Furthermore, we'd been informed that the two actors would actually stimulate sex onstage during the show. Live. Are you telling me that you would have picked "Mamma Mia!" instead?

Cut to: A year later, when I'm listening to the soundtrack nearly every other day. The less said about the story and characters, the better. But the music was something I had never heard on Broadway. Sure, the lyrics are provocative, probably the main attraction to an agonizing pre-teen. But what's outstanding is the rock-balladic nature of the tunes, performed with rollicking gusto and more range of feeling than I've heard anywhere else by the SA cast, all of whom were under 25.

Featured: "Mama Who Bore Me" (my friend's favorite), "The Bitch of Living", "Totally Fucked".

And let's not forget that Spring Awakening's original cast featured a pre-Glee Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff, and the ever-winsome John Gallagher Jr (his hedge-haired character Moritz is probably the second-best aspect of the show). In a way, Spring Awakening has become the Rent of my generation. There are some I know who refuse to acknowledge Lea Michele as anyone else except "the original Wendla". And Jonathan Groff was the only reason I started watching Glee in the first place, because may the gods strike me before I miss a Spring Awakening reunion on national TV. I've already signed the Facebook petition to have John Gallagher Jr guest star next.

Favorites: "Word of Your Body" "Touch Me" "I Don't Do Sadness/Blue Rain"

John Gallagher Jr. after winning a Tony for the role of Moritz, and giving one of the rapid and "awww"-inducing winning speeches in recent history. Jonathan Groff was also nominated, but not Lea Michele.

Other famous poster says everything about the musical you need to know.

I'm so going to look back at these shots in the future and cry. They're positively ethereal.

Suck it, Newsweek.

Don't be frustrated, Johnny! This is all leading to a Tony and a passionate fanbase.

Hanschen (Jonathan B Wright) and Ernst (Gideon Glick) in the one of the funnier and sexier scenes of SA

Anna Kendrick Nails Sondheim and Cabaret

Can't believe I haven't posted these vids of Anna Kendrick before.

A few months ago, I went all biography on Anna Kendrick in the wake of her Up-In-The-Air-Oscar breakout, and found - curiously - videos of her singing. Apparently she's in that Anne Hathaway way. Anna Kendrick started her acting career on Broadway (yay, stage origins!) at the age of eleven or something crazy precocious. A Tony nomination followed; so did performing at Carnegie Hall shows like "My Favorite Leading Ladies" alongside legends like Elaine Stritch and Bernadette Peters.

Anna sang "Life Upon the Wicked Stage" with the ladies from "Cabaret". She wears pigtails. She's the lead performer. As it turns out, she is a phenomenal stage actress. I could not stop watching the video.

Thank goodness for these little side recommendations, because it led me to the Other Great video of Anna Kendrick singing "Lades Who Lunch" from the movie Camp (2003). Again, the quality of her singing and acting just bowled me over. There's something very sharp and confident about her movements - it's calculated, but executed with wonderful aplomb.

IMO, the best video comment is also the most insightful. For me, It's always great to hear praise from an area expertise, and user "SuttaBro" is clearly adept in the study of musical theatricality:

"This performance absolutely stuns me. Sondheim in general is NEVER easy to sing and yet here you have a girl who is about 30 years too young to be playing this role, and she absolutely nails it. The tone of her voice, the facial expressions, the attitude - she completely captures the emotional mood of the song. I am beyond impressed."

Nails it. We have schmucky musicals like Nine starring fake-singer-actors, while real singers like Anna Kendrick fly under the radar? I am fully ready to see a musical adaptation starring Anne Hathaway and Anna Kendrick. Yessir, I am.