May Movie Preview 2013

E: When did May becomes the best summer movie month?  Because the popcorn epics you long to see?  They’re in May. Those hot documentaries you want to see to impress your hipster friends?  They’re all in May.  The sequels?  May.  May May May May May.

M: Well, given that Star Wars opened in May in 1977, I think it’s been a while.

E: Yes, but it’s not just one movie.  It’s at least one every weekend, for five weekends in a row.  It’s awesome.

M: As for the “hot documentaries,” as you well know I have little interest in seeing anything to impress any hipsters, friend or foe. I’ll see the documentary if it’s interesting to me.

C: Yeah, hot documentaries seems like a contradiction in terms. And there are some good movies coming in June too. But May is starting off with a bang!

LBD Addiction: Still So Hard To Say Goodbye

E: If you and I were at a party together, chances are good the talk would turn to books and movies and TV (let’s face it, if we’re at the same party, that’s going to happen) as well as adaptations of books into movies and TV.  That’s my idea of a nerdy good time, and happily it’s not an uncommon occurrence. And so if you and I were standing together in a friend’s kitchen at this hypothetical party, I would probably say to you what I’ve said many times on this blog – that when I really love a book it takes multiple viewings of the film adaptation before I can even appreciate the work for what it is, because my mind is so busy reconstructing and reordering the original.

You probably know the kind of adjustment process I mean.  For instance, Faramir wasn’t supposed to be tempted by the ring, and how many years later does that sin against his nature rankle?  If I decide to read all the Song of Ice and Fire novels before the current season of Game of Thrones finishes airing, will the show be as much shocking fun if I know what’s coming?  Also, why do the muttations look like hopped-up pit bulls instead of tribute-flavored wolves, do you think – is that for distance from Twilight’s werewolves, and does it really matter? Holy cow, do you realize that the 2005 version totally relocated the moment when the leads fall in love from Pemberley to the ballroom at Netherfield?  That’s blasphemy!  Heck, I still can’t figure out whether The Hobbit was a good movie or not and it’s been how many months?

But strangely enough, that trouble with adaptation turned out to be the greatest gift of the lately completed Pride and Prejudice modernization, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which I loved unreservedly and mourn in the same fashion.  What made them so wonderful, in some ways, was the previously unknown-to-me miracle of book-to-web-series translation.  Twice a week (sometimes more, O blessed months of January and February!) I received an perfect bite-sized portion of one of my favorite novels updated as a modern vlog, easily accessed online so I could watch again and again, so I could break down the beats and the sentences and decide how I felt about them.  I wasn’t struggling under the weighty challenge of figuring out the whole adaptation at once.  With each unfolding petal, there was anticipation, there was the chance to debate, there was room to appreciate (or disapprove) the choices the creative team made.  And because it’s a modernization as well as an adaptation, the possibilities for wonderful surprises seemed even larger. Somehow, it was more thrilling that I knew generally what was coming, and could speculate endlessly on the precise details.

In short, it was heaven. I think it is my new favorite mode of adaptation.

Oscar 2013 Postmortem: Who Won, and How I Did

E: I have to tell you, I feel pretty damn great about that.  Especially after the nominations proved so fiendishly difficult, I’m feeling pretty satisfied.  And exhausted, because I was too excited to sleep last night – but mostly just happy.  I was a bit dubious about Seth McFarlane, but in the end, I thought he was pretty terrific.  Oh, sure, his monologue went on to long, but the song and dance numbers were fantastic (Charlize Theron and Channing Tatum!  Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe!  Alex Wong! the L.A. Gay Mens Chorus singing about boobs!), the sock puppets killed it, and way more of his jokes made me laugh than groan. Let’s talk Oscar!

Oscar Talk: Anna Karenina, The Sessions and Paranorman

E: Two weeks from the big night, friends, and the movies I have left to see tend to be smaller ones.  Fewer nominations, or less important ones.  That doesn’t mean they’re not worth your time, however. I’ll try to go as light on spoilers as possible.

Villainy, Slut-Shaming, and the Art of Adaptation in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

E: Our faithful readers might recall from last week that at least two of the three Quibbling Siblings have fallen under the spell of the marvelous, the delightful, the charming Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a modern transmedia — vlog (mockuvloggery?), Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. — retelling of our beloved Pride and Prejudice.

C: If you read our Pride and Prejudice at 200 post, you’ve already heard some of our praise of this nifty series, so after E gets a little more of it out of her system (though, judging by her frequent emails to me on the subject, there may be an endless supply) we’re planning to tackle a little critical analysis of the latest developments in this unusual adaptation.

E: Web series, how do we love thee?  So many ways.  For taking the costumes out of one of our favorite costume dramas, and then explicitly playing costume theater?  For this alone I could love you.  But happily for the rest of the (not so nerdy) world, the show has myriad other charms.

C: Very attractive actors, for instance.

E: (Fans self)  Why, whatever do you mean?   You don’t mean Bing, do you?  On the less shallow side, the characters are goofy, fun, flawed and endearing and engaging, and they learn from their mistakes.  And for devoted fans of Austen’s work, it’s never less than a pleasure to speculate over how the great Jane’s words will be adapted.

C: And episodes that average 3-5 minutes in length. Perfect for a quick, pretty work break!

E: Exactly. The ideal reward for hard work, even upon re-watching.  But what does this have to do with villainy and slut-shaming, you ask?  Just at this moment we’ve reached the defining point in any modernization of this story: Lydia and Wickham’s stalled elopement.  What to do with a drama that centers around the devastation of premarital sex when its mere mention no longer makes virtuous maidens flush in shame?  You can take away the side bangs and ball gowns easily enough, but how do you make Lydia’s undoing a horror? Just what is the modern equivalent?

“My ‘undoing’? Excuse me?”

C: LDB teased us at New Year’s with a trip to Vegas where Lydia and Wickham met up on the strip. I did think it was possible they were going to go with a runaway marriage after all — which doesn’t have at all the same weight of scandal, but which certainly wouldn’t register as a brilliant life choice to the family of a ne’er-do-well just-turned-21-year-old girl.

E: I knew that wasn’t bad enough. After all, they could just get it annulled, Britney-style. No, as Charlotte Lu might put it… I totally called it.