Démodé

historical costume projects & resources

New Movie Reviews

I’ve finally gotten organized enough to write some long overdue movie reviews (and had some time to actually watch movies, too!). Reviews are up for Moliere; Cranford and The Shadow in the North; A Room With a View (2007 miniseries version); Ballet Shoes and Lilies. In other movie news… last weekend we recorded a new Frock Flicks podcast for the Mira Nair Vanity Fair — I’ll link to it when Trystan posts it. And I am watching Lost in Austen (currently being broadcast in the UK), about a modern day woman who ends up in Pride & Prejudice, and altho the costumes are semi-bad and the lead’s refusal to wear her hair in a period style is DRIVING ME CRAZY – I am totally loving it!

I think it’s because I expected it to tell the P&P story with interjections of, “oooo modern girl being ‘modern’ and shocking!” — and while it’s doing this, she is also having an unexpected effect on the story (screwing things up, really, but I’m interested to see what else she’ll screw up and how it’ll get resolved). Also, I’m liking how they are focusing on showing bits that AREN’T told in the novel (and how characters are different when seen “for real” rather than as written, rather than simply reenacting the novel’s scenes).

3 thoughts on “New Movie Reviews

  1. Agree with your Moliere assessment–I liked it but found it slow. I loved Carnford, but I have learned that any Elizabeth Gaskell-penned story requires a certain level of detachment to watch, because she is the embodiment of sentamentalist writing of the period. Great clothes, though. And, I also hated the remake of RWAV with the heat of many suns. I was scratching my head through the whole thing thinking: “YOu found it necessary to remake this why?” It just goes to prove Andrew Davies has his limits…

  2. I admit, I liked the Moliere movie. True, I hated the fact how, according to the filmmakers, Moliere’s plays had somehow been “derived” from his life’s story (if there is one thing I am NOT ignorant about one of my all-time favorite playwrights), but I did like some of the cheesy humor. Maybe I have been seeing way too many inaccurate/inauthentic period movies and am just getting way too used to it.

  3. I always love your movie reviews!

    But how can it be that you haven’t reviewed the 1985 series North and South? It’s the Civil War Tv series #1!
    (And, lots of Civil War costuming from the 1980s to laugh and marvel at! 😉 )

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