The Writer's Poke

This is the 4th movie version of Jane Eyre that I've watched this month. Zeffirelli does what most of the other screenwriters adapting this novel tend to do... skip quickly through the early chapters, get to the meat of the story, and then at the end, end quickly.  I don't mind that the film skips most of Jane Eyre's childhood. Perhaps Charlotte Bronte should have skipped that part as well. Maybe she should have started the novel with Jane entering Rochester's life as governance.  The romance. That's what people are paying to see.  William Hurt. I liked his performance as Rochester. Some reviewers suggested that he and Charlotte Gainsbourg didn't have any chemistry. I disagree. First, Rochester and Jane Eyre: Are they really supposed to have oodles of "real chemistry"? They from different social classes, and let's face it, they really have nothing in common. But when she saves him from the first fire, and he professes his debt to her, the camera cl...

How do Monsters learn how to be Monsters? They go to college, of course. In Monsters Inc. (2001), I think we just assume that Monsters intuitively know how to be scary, or they have internships and on-the-job training through simulator training sessions, and so on. The prequel, however, develops the idea that Monsters receive more formal academic training. In fact, going to school to learn how to scare is a very prestigious field -- maybe like going to school to become a lawyer or doctor -- and not everyone that begins the program will finish.  Both Mike (Billy Crystal) and Sully (John Goodman) fail the program. Mike is book smart, but he's never going to be scary. Sully is naturally scary, but he's not book smart. They apparently meet as freshman, and I point this out solely for the continuity error (in Monsters Inc., Mike mentions that Sully has been jealous of him since 4th grade).  When Mike and Sully are dropped from the program, they have one chance at redemption: They, ...

What produces more power? Screams or laughter? It's an odd question, but the answer is laughter, and it changes the way that the Monsters in this universe operate. No longer do they work to scare human children; rather, the less scary monsters work to entertain them and make them laugh.  At the beginning of the film, for example, we see monsters working in pairs. Sully (John Goodman) scares, and Mike (Billy Crystal) takes care of the canisters, orders the doors, and write up the reports. Once laughter replaces screams as the Monsters' renewable resource, one assumes that the jobs Mike and Sully perform are reversed. But is Sully very good at paperwork? (Not that Mike was the best, but...) I like this film. It's funny that at the beginning the Monsters are just as scared of human children (and maybe more so) as the children are of them. Monsters have the belief that children are "toxic" and deadly. In fact, entire contamination crews exist just in the event that a ...

How could a Bogart/Hurston/Capote/Lorre movie not be an immediate winner?  I'm sure I've seen this one before (I checked, and I did about 10 years ago), but like a lot of movies I've previously watched, if I wasn't writing a review and trying to remember what I thought, I completely forgot almost everything about any previous viewing.  My copy of the film is not restored -- although on the cover it claims to be. That's the first thing I noticed. I put the DVD in, and it just immediately starts to play the movie. I take a quick look at the reviews for the film, and I see that quite a few people comment that it was "made on the fly" without a real script, and that Hurston made it just to have an excuse to drink and smoke with Bogart. All of that seems rather dismissive, and the non-restored quality reinforces the idea that no one on the film side thinks it's a classic worth the effort to maintain.  Then some of Bogart's early lines. He does seem to b...

  Too simple? Jonathan Jr. (Robert Cummings) is set to marry, but his father is dying and wants to meet his son's fiancée. He can't find her, assumes his father will be dead by morning, and substitutes the hatcheck girl, Anne (Deanna Durbin).  For whatever reason, Jonathan Sr. (Charles Laughton) doesn't die. Maybe Anne revitalizes him. But anyway, you know from the beginning that Jr. and Anne will end up together. His fiancée is never depicted as a bad woman, and if they were engaged to be married, you assume she and Jr. loved each other. I guess the only "bad" thing about her was that she's attached to her mother, which would, I grant, make the honeymoon awkward.  Laughton is fun as the old man, but this is a romantic comedy with little real comedy. If you wanted to push the limits of the plot, why not have Sr. fall in love with Anne? She does teach him to dance, after all, but the movie never goes there. All we're left with is the idea that maybe Sr. dec...

The world might have been at War in 1944, but Hollywood was still cranking out the movies, including this singing Romantic Comedy.  This month I've been going through Deanna Durbin films. Most can be classified as "cookie cutter" and "light entertainment," which is not to say they're not somewhat enjoyable to watch... but this film had me smiling almost all of the way through. Great comedy, great use of technicolor -- maybe the best technicolor film I've ever seen, or at least the best one I've seen in quite some time.  Basic plot: Caroline (Deanna Durbin) is a senator's daughter -- so, rich and privileged. She's in love with a military man, Lt. Robert Latham (Robert Latham), but he's just a social climber, previously in love with the daughter of another senator, until that senator lost reelection.  Actually, I think that's a little harsh. Latham might actually love her, too, but that Caroline is a sitting senator's daughter is ju...