(This post is book-related as the movies I’ve watched have mostly been book adaptations.)
Anyway, I thought my internet provider was going to start limiting my monthly usage to an unreasonably and ridiculously low amount (5 GB – are you kidding?) in January, so in December I started my own Netflix Net-a-thon and started watching as much stuff as I could ‘instantly’ online. It’s unlimited through Netflix but of course not necessarily through your internet provider. I keep going to my provider’s site to see if they’ve implemented the limit, but they haven’t yet so I keep on expanding my ‘instant’ watching. Let me tell you, I’ve watched some gems!
Where to start? How about:
Bleak House by Charles Dickens – 450 minutes – A+
by Charles Dickens – 450 minutes – A+Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell – 375 minutes – A
by Elizabeth Gaskell – 375 minutes – AThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte – 159 minutes – A
by Anne Bronte – 159 minutes – AWhere Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster – 112 minutes – B
by E.M. Forster – 112 minutes – BOur Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens – 351 minutes – A-
by Charles Dickens – 351 minutes – A-I really adored all of these, but especially Bleak House. Excellent! Where Angels Fear to Tread just felt like it had an abrupt ending, but perhaps it’s because the other ones I viewed were so long and well-developed.
I also viewed two Japanese language films because I’m doing the Japanese Literature Challenge. I love foreign films. I started watching them when my kids were small and would be noisy playing whenever my husband and I would rent DVDs. The kids could be as loud as they wanted to when we were watching the subtitles! I truly hate dubbing. I want to hear the original language of the film. I don’t mind sub-titles at all. Hearing the original language is part of what makes foreign films so wonderful.
The two I viewed:
After Life -118 minutes – A
Last Life in the Universe – 103 minutes – B+
-118 minutes – A
– 103 minutes – B+In After Life, after they die, people go to what looks like an abandoned school of sorts and they get to choose one memory of their lives to be re-enacted. This is a slow, but beautiful movie. I’m just the geeky sort to love slow, thoughtful movies, though, so I loved it.
In Last Life in the Universe, a Japanese neat-freak librarian is living in Bangkok and is constantly thinking of committing suicide. After a tragic event, he meets a Thai girl who is a total slob. Opposite attract, though, right? Very weird but interesting movie. It would have received an ‘A’ except there was quite a bit of bad language. In Japanese, Thai, and English.
I’m really having fun with these and will probably be watching more. I’ll keep you posted with any interesting titles.
This was Canadian author Marie-Claire Blais’s first book. It was published in 1959 and translated from the French by Daphne Marlatt in 1960. Blais was a winner of the French language Governor General’s award in 1996 for Soifs.
