Strawberries and Misogyny
So many things to post about and so little time. I ought to be vacuuming right now.
Last Saturday my sis, her kids, saralinda and her baby & I went to a local orchard to pick our own strawberries. It was great fun, with cuteness aplenty.
Moira picks berries:
Ian and Anna pat a sheep.
Anna: *whackwhackwhack*
Me: "No, Anna!! Gentle! Gentle!"
Anna: "Sheep is beyootiful! I kiss it?"
And Anna poses in front of my favorite grouping of signs:
What's an olde-fashioned New England farm store without pesto?
That was Saturday. Liz arrived Sunday evening and left yesterday morning, after a visit jam-packed with excitement. There was much eating of fresh seafood (on her part), cooking with strawberries (shortcake, smoothies, muffins...), Youtube-surfing ("Jammed" episodes of The Office, Mulder/Scully fanvids, the Veggie Tales "Belly Button" video, etc etc), kayaking, country walking, and movie-watching.
We've done a number of L.M. Montgomery-related activities together over the years (like visiting P.E.I. after college) so I made a point of waiting for Liz to rent that 1975 BBC Anne of Avonlea I heard about a few months ago. We watched that Tuesday night and... WOW.
Top Three Bad Things About This Movie:
1) British people doing Canadian accents involves... droppin' all the "g"s?
2) Gilbert asks Anne to "be his lady".
3) Movie ends with the line "No, it looks like grass."
Top Three Great Things About This Movie:
1) Gilbert, though nothing to write home about, is not unattractive.
2) When Jonas Blake tells Phillippa Gordon he 'doesn't suppose she'd agree if he asked her to be his wife' she responds that she's made it a rule never to respond to marriage proposals couched in the subjunctive!
3) Charlie Sloane puts his hand on Anne's tush.
It really is a terrible production. So bad it's hilarious? YES. Marilla can't act to save her life, and resembles a frog. Paul Irving resembles a mole. (They could have done Wind in the Willows!) Diana and Fred make out in the grass. The only kiss Anne receives is from Roy Gardner. Patty's Place looks like a condominium. (From the outside. From the inside, it looks suspiciously like a sound stage.) Everybody speaks with a Southern twang, except for Dora who can't hide her British accent. Liz commented that Davy looked just like a young Uriah Heep. Looked him up afterwards and found out he is Uriah Heep (in the Dan Radcliffe David Copperfield).
The first time Gilbert proposes to Anne, he tells her he knows she's waiting for her knight in shining armor, but that he's going to be a doctor - and a doctor is like a knight, battling pain and disease. And that every knight needs a lady, to - among other things - help clean his castle. I don't know whether to take some comfort from the word "help"... or to skip straight to canonizing the screenwriter for proving to everyone who calls L.M.M. anti-feminist just what anti-feminism REALLY sounds like! Seriously, what were they thinking? And the ending scene, when Anne hears Gilbert is dying and rushes to his bedside, only to find he's recovering after all, she goes to the window and describes the sunrise to him. She remarks that the light is shining on the dew and he asks if the grass looks like golden thread with pearls on it or something. She answers: "No. It looks like grass." Then she lays her head near his on the pillow and they look at each other and the movie is OVER! Like that! It was so ridiculous, Liz and I were in stitches for ten full minutes. I guess it's meant to show that by choosing Gilbert over Roy she's chosen a prosaic view of life over romanticism? I feel the urge to write an essay come upon me...
Thank God there's a good version, or this really would be a travesty. As it is, it's just bloody hilarious - especially if one skims through for the "shipping" scenes. Though I do wish someone would make a real movie of AoA and AotI, one that's good AND true to the books. I'd specially love to see Anne's Redmond years in a high-quality movie. There's just so much goodness there.
Yesterday evening, when we got home from seeing tinuviellen at the hospital, seven of my relatives had arrived for the weekend. Tomorrow is the family reunion at our house. Yipes!
Last Saturday my sis, her kids, saralinda and her baby & I went to a local orchard to pick our own strawberries. It was great fun, with cuteness aplenty.
Moira picks berries:
Ian and Anna pat a sheep.
Anna: *whackwhackwhack*
Me: "No, Anna!! Gentle! Gentle!"
Anna: "Sheep is beyootiful! I kiss it?"
And Anna poses in front of my favorite grouping of signs:
What's an olde-fashioned New England farm store without pesto?
That was Saturday. Liz arrived Sunday evening and left yesterday morning, after a visit jam-packed with excitement. There was much eating of fresh seafood (on her part), cooking with strawberries (shortcake, smoothies, muffins...), Youtube-surfing ("Jammed" episodes of The Office, Mulder/Scully fanvids, the Veggie Tales "Belly Button" video, etc etc), kayaking, country walking, and movie-watching.
We've done a number of L.M. Montgomery-related activities together over the years (like visiting P.E.I. after college) so I made a point of waiting for Liz to rent that 1975 BBC Anne of Avonlea I heard about a few months ago. We watched that Tuesday night and... WOW.
Top Three Bad Things About This Movie:
1) British people doing Canadian accents involves... droppin' all the "g"s?
2) Gilbert asks Anne to "be his lady".
3) Movie ends with the line "No, it looks like grass."
Top Three Great Things About This Movie:
1) Gilbert, though nothing to write home about, is not unattractive.
2) When Jonas Blake tells Phillippa Gordon he 'doesn't suppose she'd agree if he asked her to be his wife' she responds that she's made it a rule never to respond to marriage proposals couched in the subjunctive!
3) Charlie Sloane puts his hand on Anne's tush.
It really is a terrible production. So bad it's hilarious? YES. Marilla can't act to save her life, and resembles a frog. Paul Irving resembles a mole. (They could have done Wind in the Willows!) Diana and Fred make out in the grass. The only kiss Anne receives is from Roy Gardner. Patty's Place looks like a condominium. (From the outside. From the inside, it looks suspiciously like a sound stage.) Everybody speaks with a Southern twang, except for Dora who can't hide her British accent. Liz commented that Davy looked just like a young Uriah Heep. Looked him up afterwards and found out he is Uriah Heep (in the Dan Radcliffe David Copperfield).
The first time Gilbert proposes to Anne, he tells her he knows she's waiting for her knight in shining armor, but that he's going to be a doctor - and a doctor is like a knight, battling pain and disease. And that every knight needs a lady, to - among other things - help clean his castle. I don't know whether to take some comfort from the word "help"... or to skip straight to canonizing the screenwriter for proving to everyone who calls L.M.M. anti-feminist just what anti-feminism REALLY sounds like! Seriously, what were they thinking? And the ending scene, when Anne hears Gilbert is dying and rushes to his bedside, only to find he's recovering after all, she goes to the window and describes the sunrise to him. She remarks that the light is shining on the dew and he asks if the grass looks like golden thread with pearls on it or something. She answers: "No. It looks like grass." Then she lays her head near his on the pillow and they look at each other and the movie is OVER! Like that! It was so ridiculous, Liz and I were in stitches for ten full minutes. I guess it's meant to show that by choosing Gilbert over Roy she's chosen a prosaic view of life over romanticism? I feel the urge to write an essay come upon me...
Thank God there's a good version, or this really would be a travesty. As it is, it's just bloody hilarious - especially if one skims through for the "shipping" scenes. Though I do wish someone would make a real movie of AoA and AotI, one that's good AND true to the books. I'd specially love to see Anne's Redmond years in a high-quality movie. There's just so much goodness there.
Yesterday evening, when we got home from seeing tinuviellen at the hospital, seven of my relatives had arrived for the weekend. Tomorrow is the family reunion at our house. Yipes!