Check the chemistry.

I have to take Jane Eyre back today. I think the librarian will have to pry it from my cold dead fingers. My only consolation is Amazon.com.

The SSLP came over and watched with me - thank God. I needed to share it with someone who understands both the lure of this novel, as well as the workings of my brain. She never mocks my fixations, mainly because they usually suit her tastes. She's a fan of Jane. Years ago I coerced her into reading this novel just as I'm currently forcing Auntie Sister. I sent it to her as a Christmas present out of nowhere. She loved it. Of course.

While we were watching 2006, she said right off the bat that Toby Stephens was too handsome to be Rochester. I pointed out that he's handsome to us - we're 21st century women. Whoooaaaman. We like the rugged, earthy, physical, sensual/sexual male, because we want to have sex. A lot. The Victorians had different ideas about sex and what was attractive. First of all, I don't think you were supposed to admit that you liked sex - if you did, it was a one-way ticket to the insane asylum. Secondly, I think that you weren't supposed to be drawn to men who were dead-sexy because then you'd be admitting that you like sex. They idealized prettier men. The Grecian profile.

I found a couple of essays here and here to scratch the surface of these issues. They're a good start.

I need a library - I need resources! I need to get away from this computer for five minutes and feel the sky over my head. I'm starting to feel like a mushroom. And nobody likes mushrooms.

Ladies and gentlemen, Bernie Mac:



Good night.

So far, this is my favorite tune from Beck's latest offering.

Also, for your listening pleasure, song two from Extraordinary Machine.



I love the twist at the end.

I'm looking into a critical study of Jane Eyre because of complaints I read in Amazon's user comments about "too much kissing" in the 2006 version. I thought there was just enough and could remember off the top of my pretty little head at least four textual instances where Rochester and Jane slide lips. Jane also kisses Bessie, and Helen Burns, and possibly even Aunt Reed during their final confrontation (I'm in the midst of a re-read to confirm that). I'm interested in looking at other novels of the time to investigate how much overt kissage they include.

On a musical note (yes, I did that on purpose) I can't stop playing this CD:

Tracks 2 and 4 especially. This album's a recurring problem. Previously obsessed, I stacked up a nice little video collection. These two are my faves. Oh Sailor and It's Not About Love. Who can resist slutty, seasick Fiona or the full-bodied lip-syncer?

I keep hearing a little voice in my head telling me to play other music. The only album I can subvert my attention to is Beck's Modern Guilt. Pappa-san gave it to me for my birthday because, in my house, Beck wears the pants.

Let's travel back in time. It's just days after my twelfth birthday and I'm in a car, being moved away to a new, hot locale. While I was packing for the move, I found a book, an old classic that had been given to me that I'd kept but hadn't read yet. I was hooked from the first syllable, and I've been hooked ever since. It's a little story called Jane Eyre.

In all those years, I've loved this book as though it were a part of my body that I cannot fully function without - like a lung, or an aorta.

I've finally found a film version that lives up to my love. All other versions have been dead to me for some time now - I'd lost hope that anyone would ever successfully adapt the story to my liking. Masterpiece Theater put together a beautiful production circa 2006, and I'm in. I'm all in, baby. In fact, Auntie Sister had to warn me to "get off her nut sac" (her words, I would never say that b/c my wit is not biting enough to think of it) because I found out that she's never read it, never seen a version of it, and I'm appalled and must share it with her. So I keep bringing it up. And bringing it up. And bringing it up.

She'll read it. I know she'll read it. And then she'll see 2006 and love it. I know she'll love it.

I watched the original 3:10 to Yuma.

Naturally, I had to see this one because I effing adored the remake. A true rarity for me - I don't usually care for Westerns (too setting-oriented and setting has always escaped me as both a writer and an observer). Because of the newer edition, I have developed a Crowe-crush. I also got obsessed with anything to do with it. Including the 1957 go-round.

Back to that - because of the original, I have a new thing for Glenn Ford.

Yes, I'm aware he's dead. I don't care. I have a crush on Cary Grant too. I'm okay with myself.

The thing about Ford (in this movie anyway, I was previously a Glenn-virgin) is all the stuff he didn't say. He lets silence do the work. So when he does speak, it has resonance. And the love scene with the young lady in the bar is so sexy it's simply unbearable to watch in my particular condition.

I also worked really hard to pay attention to setting to see how they used it and how it affected the story. (Mainly because Joss Whedon, my TV-on-DVD hero, once stated that Westerns are all about vast, open space). In 1957, instead of spending most of the story in travel, they spent a good amount of time in the hotel room waiting for the clock to strike 3. The restrictions of the setting made an act as simple as opening a window rife with tension.

It was neat too, how the farmer used everything around him, even his prisoner, to maneuver through the town to get to the train. (In 2007 they work as a team to get through the town - Crowe makes it very clear that he's helping farmer Bale out.)

Shadows were an interesting focus in this film as well. A great contrast against the bright desert landscape. They also used shadows to get around censorship issues. (One of my fave pasttimes is watching Frank Capra movies to see how he keeps his stories all sexed up even with the censors breathing down his neck: he was a master at visual metaphor and creative problem solving.)

The conclusions are vastly different, even though both films make the relationship the focus. I'm trying to decide which version I liked better, though the scales are weighing heavily for 2007. It all makes me want to study the conventions of Westerns (both in film and literature) because I'm interested to find out if the storytelling methods have changed because of the differences in the decades.

I am drawn to Nancy Botwin’s character for another reason. She misses red flags, or is so trusting, she might possibly just tell herself that it’s all in her head. This fascinates me, more as a concern than as an appreciation for the particular trait.

Example: She’s at a dinner table with the DEA agent who, in an astonishingly brief incubation period, decides he’s so in love with her that he’s willing to risk his drug enforcement career to preserve her drug dealing career. He admits that he’s known about her job since the day after he met her because he looked her up. He investigated her.

Eeeww. First of all, he’s not attractive enough for me to consider allowing this sort of behavior. Second of all, how is this not screaming “Obsessive stalker! Corrupt agent! Get out now!”

Buuuut, Nancy has some things working against her – she’s recently widowed, and it sounded as though her dead husband was the one major relationship/dating experience she had before she got married. On top of which, they were married at least 15 years or so. Believe it or not, being away from dating behavior for that long really leaves you a little bit stupid.

Also, she’s drunk when the d-bag makes the statement. And she’s reeling from the knowledge that she’s gotten herself wrapped up with a DEA dude who actually knows what she does. So of course, she might sidestep some issues just to save her sweet little bedunkadunk.

It’s all hard for me to swallow, though, because my hope is that as I get older, more and more I will see right through the bs. At least more often than I did when I was a fresh young lass entering the world of men. So I don’t like to see mature women, fictional or otherwise, falling for it.

This entry all takes us back to a previous fixation of mine. When I finally watched The Departed I got stuck on it for a few weeks, not only due to the incredible acting esp. in the hands of Matty Damon and Leo DiCaprio, but the feminine love interest – well, her story line was muddled at best. I just didn’t buy her. I couldn't get this movie out of my head b/c I was trying to figure her out.

She’s a thirty-something woman, a professional counselor – you actually see her cringe at the red flags that she’s getting from Damon’s character, and yet she still soldiers on into a bad relationship. I don’t get that. She should know better, just based on her occupation.

Then, she suddenly gets pregnant, and she is so pregnant that she can tell him the gender when she’s telling him the good news. Which puts her at approximately 16-20 weeks. Then she walks away from the bad guy at the funeral, who’s asking, “what about the baby?” My question exactly. She was too far along to have an abortion, if she was far enough along to know the gender. So, Mr. Scorsese - what about the baby? But I digress.