tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45230120804926543762024-03-16T22:49:17.404-05:00Elegance of FashionPeriod Dramas, Sewing, and more!Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.comBlogger766125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-38944719906879648312014-09-12T10:00:00.000-05:002014-09-12T10:00:02.134-05:00Review: Jane Eyre (2006)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DVD Box Art</td></tr>
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I know, the last review I did was for <a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/2014/07/review-jane-eyre-2011.html">Jane Eyre (2011)</a> (granted, a long time ago), so you're getting two Jane Eyre reviews in a row. But I had been curious about this version despite its content issues. This one was not available on Netflix, but it was uploaded on YouTube, so I watched it there. This would be Jane Eyre Version #5 that I've seen, so I have plenty of other adaptations to compare to, which can be both a good and a bad thing. On the upside, there is plenty to compare to and any unique aspects of this miniseries would be easily recognizable. The bad side: I already have ideas on how adaptations of Jane Eyre should be (but not that's ever stopped me before). From reading around on other period drama blogs, the impression I had of this version before viewing it all the way through was that the major objection to this version was the content, but that the rest was pretty good, so I tried to keep an eye out for scenes that might have content issues (which did detract from my enjoyment of the miniseries, to be honest) but at the same time watch and see how this adaptation presented the story.<br />
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<b>Synopsis</b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">(Synopsis taken from my review of <a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/2013/03/review-jane-eyre-1983.html">Jane Eyre (1983)</a> )</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">Young Jane Eyre, an orphan, lives with her rich but cruel Aunt, Mrs. Reed and her cousins at Gateshead Hall until Mrs. Reed sends her away to Lowood School to be educated and be rid of her. Ten years after receiving an education and without connections, Jane becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall to young Adele Varens, the ward of Thornfield's master, Mr. Edward Rochester. Thornfield itself holds many secrets and Mr. Rochester is very mysterious and strange, but Jane eventually falls in love with him.</span><br />
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<b>Characters</b><br />
There are a couple of familiar period drama faces in Jane Eyre:<br />
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<tr><td><b>Actor/Actress</b></td><td><b>Character</b></td><td><b>Also Seen In</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>Toby Stephens</td><td>Mr. Rochester</td><td>Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996) as Gilbert Markham</td></tr>
<tr><td>Aiden McArdle</td><td>John Eshton</td><td>Mr. Selfridge as Lord Loxley</td></tr>
<tr><td>Pam Ferris</td><td>Grace Poole</td><td>Little Dorrit (2008) as Mrs. General</td></tr>
<tr><td>Francesca Annis</td><td>Lady Ingram</td><td>Wives and Daughters (1999) as Hyacinth Gibson</td></tr>
<tr><td>Christina Cole</td><td>Blanche Ingram</td><td>Emma (2009) as Mrs. Elton</td></tr>
<tr><td>Georgia King</td><td>Rosamond Oliver</td><td>Little Dorrit (2008) as Pet Meagles</td></tr>
<tr><td>Georgie Henley</td><td>Young Jane Eyre</td><td>Chronicles of Narnia as Lucy Pevensie</td></tr>
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And an interesting fact: Toby Stephens is actually the son of Maggie Smith, known throughout the period drama world for various roles (and wow! does he look like his mother!).<br />
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Overall, this is a fairly accurate adaptation of the novel, though it does have it's quirks. The section of the story about Lowood is fairly short, and if you didn't know the story, you might not even know who Helen Burns, Jane's friend at Lowood, is from watching this miniseries. The bulk of the story is focused on Jane's time at Thornfield and her relationship with Mr. Rochester, which would make sense since the bulk of the novel itself focuses on the same thing. There is more time devoted to the part of the story where Jane stays with the Rivers Family(though some details have been changed); many adaptations of Jane Eyre rush through this portion of the novel, so it was nice to see a version that devoted a decent amount of time to that part of the novel.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xC2TVyeUZsw/VBJvICn2_KI/AAAAAAAAFCU/_4fUf_Uvz-M/s1600/janeeyre2006-jane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xC2TVyeUZsw/VBJvICn2_KI/AAAAAAAAFCU/_4fUf_Uvz-M/s1600/janeeyre2006-jane.jpg" height="178" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ruth Wilson as Jane Eyre</td></tr>
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I had some mixed feelings about Ruth Wilson's Jane (though probably more positive than negative). She did a pretty good job as Jane except for a couple of "extra" things that were completely out of character. On the plus side, she wasn't too quiet (unlike Mia Wasikowska's Jane); though Jane is supposed to be a timid character and probably should have some quietness about her, there is that strong nature in the character that doesn't completely make her a quiet mouse. Ruth Wilson did this pretty well; she didn't seem like she was afraid to speak up. However, there are some negatives about Ruth Wilson's Jane, though this could be the script/directors/etc.; for one thing, there were some things that the Jane in the book would never have done (I'll get into that part in more detail soon). This version also doesn't really show Jane's religious side; in the book, her moral decision making was based upon God and her beliefs, but this version doesn't really get into it much. Aside from those reservations, however, Ruth Wilson was a good Jane overall.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Toby Stephens as Mr. Rochester</td></tr>
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Was Toby Stephens a decent Mr. Rochester? Yes, he was pretty decent. He still annoyed me at times (I didn't care for his voice), but he was still pretty good. But was he the perfect Mr. Rochester? No. Yes, his teasing nature was present with Jane, (although at the same time, it was very obvious from the start that he preferred her to everyone else; though this would explain Jane's pain seeing him giving attention to Blanche Ingram). At the same time, I found him to be a little too gruff for a gentleman. Okay, yes, Mr. Rochester is supposed to be a little rough and abrupt, but at the same time, there was this "too-gruff-even-for-a-gentleman" feel to him. His voice was very rough and raspy a lot of the time, which was the opposite of what I thought of Mr. Rochester's voice would have been. He would also make some suggestive comments to Jane which I thought pushed the limit of what a Victorian man would talk about (in detail, mind you) with a lady. So while I have some criticisms of his portrayal of Mr. Rochester, I still think Toby Stephens did a good job overall.<br />
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Now, for the chemistry between Jane and Mr. Rochester. It was there and it wasn't badly done, but sometimes it was a little too over-the-top. Granted in some ways it wasn't as bad as the numerous kissing scenes in Jane Eyre (2011) (which did get to be ridiculous), but it did push the limit for a story in the Victorian Era. As I mentioned before, Mr. Rochester does make some suggestive comments to Jane, but aside from that, there were a couple of scenes in which they acted in ways that a Victorian couple probably wouldn't have acted. For example, I don't believe the Jane Eyre in the book would have <u>ever</u> allowed Mr. Rochester in her room <b>Spoiler</b> (and especially after the discovery of Bertha) <b>End of Spoiler</b> no matter the persuasion -- no respectable Victorian lady would have -- let alone the particulars of the scene (which, by the way, nothing happened, but it almost could have been something had Jane been slightly weaker). Their chemistry in this version of Jane Eyre was probably the most modern I've seen in an adaptation of Jane Eyre.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Gk0uT3aN8UI/VBJvIesJ4eI/AAAAAAAAFB4/2XlyGkX4N0I/s1600/janeeyre2006-blanche.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Gk0uT3aN8UI/VBJvIesJ4eI/AAAAAAAAFB4/2XlyGkX4N0I/s1600/janeeyre2006-blanche.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christina Cole as Blanche Ingram</td></tr>
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Ah yes, we have yet another blonde Blanche Ingram (who in the book is supposed to have dark hair), although this really didn't bother me all that much (it never really does: it's just something I notice). Christina Cole is usually cast in these types of roles (snobby, usually rich, young ladies who are looking for a husband), so it's no surprise that if she was cast in any adaptation of Jane Eyre that she would be cast as Blanche Ingram. Probably out of all the Blanche Ingrams, I think Christina Cole did the best job (but then again, she is very good at the role).<br />
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<b>Spoiler </b>A part of the story that is often left out of adaptations (or only briefly shown) is the Rosamund Oliver/St. John relationship. I liked how we got to see Miss Oliver more in this version and how she was interested in St. John and how St. John explains why he doesn't want to marry her even though they love each other. It gives insight into St. John's character and makes his proposal to Jane more expected and understandable. When other adaptations leave out this part, it can make St. John's proposal seem unexpected and random, but in this adaptation, you can see that he was looking for a good missionary wife from the start, which Jane was more qualified for than Miss Oliver. Obviously, this isn't the most important part of the story, but it's a nice feature that helps explain St. John's character. <b>End of Spoiler</b><br />
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<b>Scenery</b><br />
The scenery was pretty much what you would expect from a BBC period drama. The colors were nice, but they weren't so bright that it wouldn't fit in with the serious story line (basically, you're not going to find the colors you would see in a Jane Austen adaptation in this miniseries, but they were still nice). Most of the plot takes place at Thornfield Hall, so we get to see a good deal of the grounds and house used.<br />
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<b>Costumes</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DYCPD0B-Qvc/VBJvIAkCExI/AAAAAAAAFB0/dswRL4f9bqU/s1600/janeeyre2006-celinecostume.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DYCPD0B-Qvc/VBJvIAkCExI/AAAAAAAAFB0/dswRL4f9bqU/s1600/janeeyre2006-celinecostume.jpg" height="200" width="148" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An example of Regency Dress in Jane Eyre;<br />notice the Regency hair.</td></tr>
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While the story does take place in the 1840s/1850s, there are a couple of flashback scenes that show costumes from the Regency Era. The infamous sleeveless Regency dress makes an appearance (you know, the one worn by Miss Grey in Sense and Sensibility (2008) ), but considering it was worn on Celine Varens, a French entertainer, and considering the French tended to be a little more risque than the English, I would let it slide. <b>Spoiler </b>Bertha Mason is shown to be wearing Regency fashions, which, given that fashions would reach the New World slowly, would place the Mason/Rochester wedding sometime in the late Regency (maybe even the early 1820s?). <b>End of Spoiler</b> But anyways!<br />
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Jane, in a break from what other Janes have worn in other versions of Jane Eyre, wears grey rather than black. In fact, I don't think she ever wears black. However, in the novel:<br />
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<i>...however, I repaired to my room, and, with Mrs. Fairfax’s aid, replaced my black stuff dress by one of black silk; the best and the only additional one I had, except one of light grey, which, in my Lowood notions of the toilette, I thought too fine to be worn, except on first-rate occasions. (Chapter 13)</i></blockquote>
This would explain why the other versions of Jane Eyre had Jane wearing black, but I wonder why this one had Jane wearing grey instead of black if the Jane in the book found that her grey dress was too fancy to be worn on any occasion. Could it be a emphasis on her passionate nature? Maybe. But it was different from the original novel.<br />
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When the Ingrams come, so come the fancy dresses. All provide a contrast to the plain dresses that Jane wears. While Lady Ingram wears more darker, matronly colors, daughter Blanche is always shown in colorful and well-trimmed dresses. Though the Ingrams are looking to marry into money, they are still of a high rank where they need to dress nicely.<br />
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<b>Overall: </b>3/5<br />
It's a decent version of Jane Eyre and, for the most part, stays close to the story. However, there were some things added that didn't need to be there, especially some that turned a PG story into more of a PG-13 story. I would probably say that for the best accuracy to the story, you should probably watch the 1983 version, but if you want a more recent version that's fairly close to the story, this is a good alternative. This version is long enough so that you get a better feel for the characters than if you would watching a movie version and for the most part, everything is done well. The only bad thing about this miniseries is some of the content, but as long as you know where to skip, you can enjoy a PG-rated miniseries fairly easily with some good acting and mostly accurate story-telling.<br />
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So, this version is infamous for its content (and content that really didn't need to be there). I'll do my best to relate the parts of this miniseries that you should avoid. Generally speaking, Jane Eyre stays in the PG rating area, but this version went well into TV-14/PG-13 territory. One scene in particular made me think I was watching Shakespeare in Love (an R-rated movie: I don't recommend it). But anyways, each episode of this miniseries has at least one scene that you might want to skip. There's one scene in Episode 1 that is a Mr. Rochester flashback about Adele's mother, Celine (it's fairly mild, though, and nothing explicit). There's the ouija board scene in Episode 2 -- not necessary at all and definitely not in the book, but it's bearable. Towards the end of Episode 3, there's another Rochester Flashback <b>Spoiler </b>involving his wife, Bertha<b> End of Spoiler</b>; the one part of this scene was, I thought, was pushing the line for even a TV-14 rating. The last episode had two Jane flashbacks back to Thornfield with Mr. Rochester pleading with her to stay; these scenes were a bit uncomfortable (and also Jane would never have allowed it to happen in her room); nothing comes of the scene, but it is still a bit uncomfortable. If you avoid those scenes, you can enjoy a PG version of Jane Eyre (which is roughly where it should be).<br />
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Jane Eyre is available on DVD. It is made up of four episodes for a total of 202 minutes.</div>
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Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-72633895311451126222014-07-29T18:04:00.001-05:002014-07-29T18:04:42.344-05:00New Meme: Bad Luck EdithSo, I've come up with a new meme...<br />
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You've all seen the "Bad Luck Brian" memes, right? You know, where it's a school picture gone wrong and how nothing goes right for this kid?<br />
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Well, I've taken this meme in a whole new direction...in a period drama direction...specifically to Downton Abbey.<br />
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Brace yourselves: who on Downton is known for having the worst luck ever? Lady Edith Crawley. Yes, poor Edith cannot seem to catch a break, and rumor has it that things will not be getting better for her in Series 5. So, with Photoshop and a little bit of time, I have created:<br />
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Bad Luck Edith</div>
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Now, keep in mind, this is all meant in good fun and an observation that poor Edith cannot catch a break. Granted, I'm not a very big fan of Edith, but I don't dislike her as much as I did in the first series. But nevertheless, I have taken the liberty of creating some examples of "Bad Luck Edith". <b>Beware: some spoilers ahead</b><br />
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So, all in good fun for us Downton Abbey fans who are eagerly waiting for Series 5. Edith, you might have some rough times ahead, but you will be forever remembered in this meme.<br />
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<i>Feel free to make your own contributions (and if you want, share them here). I just ask that you give a reference to <a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/">Elegance of Fashion</a> when you do and to try to keep it clean. Thanks! :-)</i><br />
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<strong> God Bless,</strong>
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<img alt="God Bless, Miss Elizabeth Bennet" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UuJBrvZzRBg/Tfo70osn1aI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/94dOgOekfR8/newsig.jpg" width="400px" />Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-46836031946438085612014-07-20T10:16:00.001-05:002014-07-20T10:16:17.913-05:00Jane Austen Giveaway at Old-Fashioned Charm!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My dear blogging friend, Miss Laurie of Old-Fashioned Charm, is holding <a href="http://old-fashionedcharm.blogspot.com/2014/07/big-jane-austen-book-giveaway.html">a giveaway</a> that is sure to please all of you! Miss Laurie will be giving away some of her Jane Austen related books to her fellow Janeites to love for years to come. There are six books in total:<br />
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All very good books in good condition! You can enter in this giveaway up to five times and you even get a first and second choice for the books.</div>
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This will be my first giveaway and I am very excited! So, what are you all waiting for? Head over Old-Fashioned Charm and <a href="http://old-fashionedcharm.blogspot.com/2014/07/big-jane-austen-book-giveaway.html">enter the giveaway</a>!</div>
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<strong> God Bless,</strong>
<br />
<img alt="God Bless, Miss Elizabeth Bennet" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UuJBrvZzRBg/Tfo70osn1aI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/94dOgOekfR8/newsig.jpg" width="400px" />Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-64281558629003058932014-07-09T10:00:00.000-05:002014-07-09T10:00:06.062-05:00Review: Jane Eyre (2011)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518UU+5EmkL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518UU+5EmkL.jpg" height="320" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DVD Box Art</td></tr>
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Ah, Netflix. What would I do without you? I was a bit curious about the "new" version of <i>Jane Eyre </i>for some time, but I didn't really want to go out and buy it or rent it. For one thing, <i>Jane Eyre</i> isn't my favorite story, and plus the PG-13 rating put me off (mostly because I thought, "What on earth could they put in there for a PG-13 rating?", but more on that later). I hadn't heard great things about this adaptation, but I hadn't heard anything really bad either (in other words, I hadn't heard of people absolutely raving about it, but I didn't hear much of anything bad either). With this being my fourth version of <i>Jane Eyre</i> that I've seen all the way through and having read the book years ago, I'm fairly familiar with the story line and did have some preconceived notions on how the story should pan out. That being said, here is my review of it.<br />
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<b>Synopsis</b><br />
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After nearly collapsing, Jane Eyre (assuming the name Jane Elliot) is taken in by the Rivers family and nursed back to health. As the Rivers family learns about her harsh childhood and education at Lowood School, Jane reflects on her time at Thornfield Hall,how she fell in love with its owner, Mr. Rochester, and how she came into the care of the River family.<br />
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<b>Story/Characters</b><br />
There are quite a few members of the cast from various period dramas. Some of them, however, do not have a whole lot of screen time (in fact, if I hadn't looked at IMDB for some of these, I wouldn't have known about them).<br />
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<tr><td><b>Actor/Actress</b></td><td><b>Character</b></td><td><b>Also Seen In</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>Mia Wasikowska</td><td>Jane Eyre</td><td>Alice in Wonderland (2010) as Alice Kingsleigh</td></tr>
<tr><td>Jamie Bell</td><td>St. John Rivers</td><td>Nicholas Nickleby (2002) as Smike</td></tr>
<tr><td>Holliday Grainger</td><td>Diana Rivers</td><td>Great Expectations (2012) as Estella</td></tr>
<tr><td>Tamzin Merchant</td><td>Mary Rivers</td><td>Pride and Prejudice (2005) as Georgiana Darcy</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sally Hawkins</td><td>Mrs. Reed</td><td>Persuasion (2007) as Anne Elliot</td></tr>
<tr><td>Freya Wilson</td><td>Eliza Reed</td><td>Mr. Selfridge as Violette Selfridge</td></tr>
<tr><td>Judi Dench</td><td>Mrs. Fairfax</td><td>Cranford (2007) as Miss Matty Jenkyns</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5t7mmqNRrMI/U7x0AOgJZPI/AAAAAAAAE-w/8ErJA12-31o/s1600/janeeyre2011-janebeginning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5t7mmqNRrMI/U7x0AOgJZPI/AAAAAAAAE-w/8ErJA12-31o/s1600/janeeyre2011-janebeginning.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Opening Scene: Jane's Flight from Thornfield</td></tr>
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The way this version of <i>Jane Eyre</i> is told isn't linear like how the story is usually told. The film starts with Jane fleeing Thornfield and being taken in by the Rivers family with most of the story told through flashbacks. I was worried that the story was going to keep bouncing back and forth between the past and present (which would have added confusion), but luckily there were only a few flashbacks and the last flashback (which is the bulk of the story) was the longest and uninterrupted. It was an interesting take on the story, although a bit unusual since the book actually starts at Jane's childhood at Lowood. I neither loved or hated this way of telling the story, but it was a unique way of telling the story.<br />
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I think the film's biggest problem was the time constraint. <i>Jane Eyre</i> is roughly five hundred pages (give or take by different editions) which has been condensed to two hours. Two hours may even be too short for some Jane Austen books that are much shorter than <i>Jane Eyre</i>. Granted, some films tell the story in two hours and still do a decent job of it, but in this movie everything felt rushed. Jane's time at Lowood and her romance with Mr. Rochester went by very quickly and it felt like there wasn't enough time to fully develop the story. Another thing I noticed is that if you are familiar with the book, you can also tell where some scenes were merged together. For example, in the book (and other adaptations), Jane leaving the drawing room and being confronted by Mr. Rochester about her being depressed was a different scene from the scene where Mr. Mason arrives at Thornfield, but here they were merged together in one scene. If you are new to the story, you probably wouldn't notice so much, but if you did, you'll definitely notice differences like that.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eUKxt3mRPDg/U7xz_tMXMOI/AAAAAAAAE-I/0125Z5GpOnE/s1600/janeeyre2011-jane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eUKxt3mRPDg/U7xz_tMXMOI/AAAAAAAAE-I/0125Z5GpOnE/s1600/janeeyre2011-jane.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre</td></tr>
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But now onto the review of the characters.<br />
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I wasn't incredibly fond of Mia Wasikowska's Jane. She was too quiet. No, literally. I had to flip to captions halfway through the movie. I'm not entirely sure if it was a audio problem or a Mia Wasikowska problem (although I was able to hear the rest of the cast with little/no trouble, and she was quiet in Alice in Wonderland). I suppose Jane could have been very soft spoken, but I usually picture her as having a regular voice but just not saying a whole lot. But besides that, she seemed like an okay Jane, but nothing made her stand out from other actresses who had played the role. She had all the right components of the Jane in the book: the strong morality, the proper governess, her feelings towards Mr. Rochester; however, there wasn't anything special in her performance to set her apart from other actresses. I think other actresses simply did a better job with the role than she did.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qgRY4um8WKw/U7x0ACfcYxI/AAAAAAAAE-g/c_MehFCAHfQ/s1600/janeeyre2011-mrr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qgRY4um8WKw/U7x0ACfcYxI/AAAAAAAAE-g/c_MehFCAHfQ/s1600/janeeyre2011-mrr.jpg" height="174" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"So, do you come to this estate often?" (Not a quote from the<br />movie, I swear!)<br />Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester.</td></tr>
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So, Mr. Rochester is my least favorite hero in all of literature/period dramas, so there was little chance that I was going to be all that fond of him in this movie (although from my review of the <a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/2013/03/review-jane-eyre-1983.html">1983 version</a>, I gave Timothy Dalton props for doing an accurate Mr. Rochester despite my not liking him). Michael Fassbender already had that going against him, but in the end, I ruled against his Mr. Rochester. I thought he was little too flirty to be Mr. Rochester (in that one scene, he put a flower into Jane hair and fixed it -- bearing in mind that they weren't even engaged yet). I mean, isn't he supposed to be rough and cold a good part of the time? Heck, Jane thought that she was nothing to him until he proposed to her. With this Mr. Rochester, there shouldn't be any surprise to Jane that he was interested in her. Would she have even believed that he was even interested in Blanche Ingram? And besides that, he wasn't gruff and rude like Mr. Rochester was supposed to be: this guy was way too nice. Newcomers to the story would rather wonder why I dislike this character so much: that's because the actual character is more of a jerk. So while Michael Fassbender's Mr. Rochester was maybe more likable, he was off from the actual character.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oTQ0DPZBGUY/U7x0Aa7x68I/AAAAAAAAE-k/2A7xv6YJLLM/s1600/janeeyre2011-rivers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oTQ0DPZBGUY/U7x0Aa7x68I/AAAAAAAAE-k/2A7xv6YJLLM/s1600/janeeyre2011-rivers.jpg" height="210" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Rivers Family</td></tr>
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The Rivers family was portrayed okay and I liked them, except for the fact that there is no mention of their being Jane's cousins. Wasn't the fact that they were her cousins the reason Jane split up her inheritance? Instead, Jane is (unofficially) adopted into their family as a sister, which seemed a bit awkward and sudden to me. It would have made more sense just to mention that they were Jane cousins; it would take like, what? a minute tops? And then everything would have made more sense. But other than that, they were okay. St. John was likable (okay, I know you're not supposed to particularly like him, but still), and I almost wish Jane had married him: he's certainly more stable than Mr. Rochester. Diana and Mary Rivers seemed like pleasant people and immediately take to Jane, but they don't play a big part in the story, so we don't see much of them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W9Yrqk8ilko/U7x1PfCk9GI/AAAAAAAAE-4/nBW5FHi3zqk/s1600/janeeyre2011-mrsreed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W9Yrqk8ilko/U7x1PfCk9GI/AAAAAAAAE-4/nBW5FHi3zqk/s1600/janeeyre2011-mrsreed.jpg" height="183" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sally Hawkins as Mrs. Reed</td></tr>
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There were some familiar period drama greats cast in smaller roles (namely Judi Dench and Sally Hawkins, who period drama fans will recognize from <i>Cranford </i>and <i>Persuasion</i> (2007) respectively). While I do like both actresses, I think the roles that they were placed in weren't great fits for them. Judi Dench did a good job as Mrs. Fairfax, but why would you cast a great like Judi Dench in such a small role? I don't know what else she could have done in this <i>Jane Eyre</i>, but in my opinion, it was a waste of a great actress. That would be like casting Colin Firth to be man in shop for <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>: he's capable of so much more. And Sally Hawkins just wasn't right for the role of cruel Mrs. Reed. Granted, in this version Mrs. Reed might even invoke your pity, but still, it was like watching <i>Persuasion</i>'s Anne Elliot trying to be mean -- it doesn't work. Maybe she could have been more suited to a part like Miss Temple (who was left out of this film), but definitely not Mrs. Reed.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2e5j3UPbQ9I/U7xz_tpZP6I/AAAAAAAAE-Y/DqtTTXVfZBY/s1600/janeeyre2011-ending.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2e5j3UPbQ9I/U7xz_tpZP6I/AAAAAAAAE-Y/DqtTTXVfZBY/s1600/janeeyre2011-ending.jpeg" height="173" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The last scene of the movie</td></tr>
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I had a big issue with the ending. Granted, most versions of <i>Jane Eyre</i> don't spend a whole lot of time about what happens after the wedding (<b>Spoiler </b>Mr. Rochester gaining his eyesight in one eye to see his first child, St. John going off to India<b> End of Spoiler</b>), but all the versions of Jane Eyre that I've seen had decent endings...except this one. <b>Spoiler </b>Instead of "Reader, I married him," pretty much what happens is Jane goes back to Mr. Rochester and they hug and kiss and she says for him to awaken from his dream... and credits. No mention of a wedding. No mention about how he didn't want a nurse. Nothing. <b>End of Spoiler</b> I felt cheated. Just an incredibly rushed, lazy, and abrupt ending. I can't help but feeling that if they didn't have so many kissing scenes (a couple of which didn't even make sense -- Rochester suddenly appearing at Jane's school (given to her by the Rivers), but then it turned out to be St. John?), they could have had a decent ending. Or maybe instead of it being a two-hour movie, it could have been a two-hour-and-fifteen-minutes movie.<br />
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<b>Scenery</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_jkimixhM1o/U7x0A3xFYpI/AAAAAAAAE-o/LZei0aPp4mU/s1600/janeeyre2011-scenery.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_jkimixhM1o/U7x0A3xFYpI/AAAAAAAAE-o/LZei0aPp4mU/s1600/janeeyre2011-scenery.png" height="174" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One does not simply walk into Mordor.</td></tr>
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I did take some issue with the opening scene. Bearing in mind that I'm an American and never been to England, but is it just me or did the opening scene look like it was filmed in Australia or Mordor (for all you <i>Lord of the Rings</i> fans out there)? Seriously, the grass looked so yellow and then the sky turned red and it almost felt like I was looking at a volcano. I know there was probably some artistic license taken, but I usually picture England as being grey overall for a serious story line, but some of the color preserved.<br />
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But anyways. The scenery was okay, but nothing very spectacular. Some scenes did have some nice colors in them, which is more than I would expect from a story as serious as Jane Eyre. Lowood was appropriate bleak looking and grim. Thornfield: mysterious and Gothic looking, which would be appropriate. The Rivers' home, very nice and comfortable, though not rich. Decent scenes and sets, but nothing special.</div>
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<b>Costumes</b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wct4Ka25bZY/U7xz_uAtEFI/AAAAAAAAE-M/fIyHx14TEYo/s1600/janeeyre2011-costumes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wct4Ka25bZY/U7xz_uAtEFI/AAAAAAAAE-M/fIyHx14TEYo/s1600/janeeyre2011-costumes.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mr. Rochester and Blanche Ingram</td></tr>
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The costuming in this film was done very well. You could see the passage of time just by looking at the costumes. In the scenes from Jane's childhood at Gateshead, you can see that the year would have been sometime in the 1830s due to the big sleeves on Mrs. Reed's dress. But in the more later scenes, you can see the fashions were much more 1840s. Jane was always dressed in either black or grey for a good part of the story, but she did have a brown dress later on which, although fancier than she used to wear, was still fairly plain. The Reeds were always dressed fancy; even in mourning they had their finery on. The Ingrams were decked out in their finery all the time: curls, fancy dresses, etc. I noticed in this version of <i>Jane Eyre</i> that there were more scenes that showed Victorian undergarments more which might interest someone interested in historical fashion.<br />
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<b>Overall</b>: 2/5<br />
As an adaptation of <i>Jane Eyre</i>, this was probably one of the worst adaptations I've seen, but as a period drama, it's not entirely bad. I didn't entirely dislike it (in fact, I think I'm more displeased with the sudden ending than anything else), but because it deviated from the book enough, it just wasn't a great adaptation of <i>Jane Eyre</i>. I know, I know. A lot of film adaptations of novels get cut down, changed, and what not (*cough*<i>Sense and Sensibility</i> 1995*cough*), but I think other films have handled it better than this film did. Plus, <i>Jane Eyre</i> isn't a story you can easily convert to a two hour movie, though I thought the 1996 version with William Hurt did a better job of condensing the story (which, ironically enough, was shorter), and it was closer to the original story than this version. And the excessive kissing and unnecessary nude image of this film version don't help the situation. Probably the best thing in this movie was the costuming: of all the Jane Eyre adaptations I've seen, the costuming was probably the best in this movie. But that was probably the only thing it did really well. The rest of the film was a mediocre job. My review probably sounds harsher than I actually feel about this movie, but still, it had faults. This might be one of those movies where you probably should watch it and judge for yourself. I was irked by a couple of things where other people might not be irked by so much.<br />
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The film is rated PG-13 for some thematic elements including a nude image and brief violent content. The film could have easily been PG if it weren't for Jane examining a nude painting in great detail. There is a brief glimpse of it when Mrs. Fairfax is showing Jane to her room upon her arrival at Thornfield, but a later scene shows Jane going up to the picture as the camera slowly pans across it. A highly unnecessary scene, but there are worse scenes in period dramas. There is also some violence: Jane is hit by her cousin at Gateshead, the girls at Lowood school are physically punished, and there is blood in one scene at Thornfield (those who've read the book know why). There was also a scene where Mr. Rochester was in a state of undress (Jane looks away and nothing is shown).<br />
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Jane Eyre is available on DVD and Blu-Ray. It is rated PG-13 and has a runtime of 120 minutes.</div>
Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-52705241332248788032014-06-27T10:00:00.000-05:002014-06-27T10:00:01.722-05:00Jane Austen and Clergymen (Or When Assumptions Are Made in High School English)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RtQ7KTcQSPQ/U6ynMgEQfaI/AAAAAAAAE9k/LJhmJHKzEE0/s1600/mrcollins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RtQ7KTcQSPQ/U6ynMgEQfaI/AAAAAAAAE9k/LJhmJHKzEE0/s1600/mrcollins.jpg" height="320" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mr. Collins in the 1995 miniseries of <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>.</td></tr>
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It's been a long time since doing a post like this. I've been in a bit of a state of writer's block (and suggestions for posts are welcome!), but then this popped into my head and I thought it would make a great post!<br />
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So, one day, I recalled my junior year British Literature class in high school. We were reading <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> (something which I had already done, so I needn't worry -- I aced all my pop quizzes with little trouble) and we came upon the subject of Mr. Collins and how, interestingly enough, Jane Austen's own father was a clergyman. One of the students remarked that because of the representation of clergymen in Mr. Collins, Jane Austen must not have had a very good opinion of the profession.<br />
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I didn't say anything.<br />
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I probably could have. Should I have? Maybe. But nevertheless, I didn't. How could someone make an assumption on Jane Austen's opinion of clergymen based upon <u>one</u> character in <u>one</u> of her books? That would be like throwing out a notebook because of of the pages is ripped, right?<br />
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<u>Clerical Observations</u><br />
While we can't ask Jane herself what her opinion of clergymen was exactly, we can speculate what it could be. If you delve into Jane Austen's life a little bit, you will find that she was close to her father (a clergyman), attended Church regularly, and even wrote prayers. From this information, we can deduce that she was religious and followed the teachings of the Anglican Church, something that probably wouldn't happen if she didn't respect her father or his occupation. And through her father, she probably would have seen plenty of his colleagues (other clergymen) and, as she did with everyone, observed their behaviors, both good and bad. It's possible these good and bad observations made it into her books as various characters who are apart of the clergy.<br />
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<u>Clergymen in Austen's Novels</u><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-66zSMkGqzJ4/U6ynNEOXzQI/AAAAAAAAE9o/G8IVelUAQR0/s1600/mrelton.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-66zSMkGqzJ4/U6ynNEOXzQI/AAAAAAAAE9o/G8IVelUAQR0/s1600/mrelton.JPG" height="175" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mr Elton in the 2009 miniseries of <i>Emma</i>.</td></tr>
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Now, if we go beyond <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, Jane had other clergymen characters in her other books. Aside from Mr. Collins in <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, there is Mr. Elton from <i>Emma</i>, Dr. Grant and Edmund Bertram from <i>Mansfield Park</i>, Henry Tilney from <i>Northanger Abbey</i>, and aspiring clergyman Edward Ferrars from <i>Sense and Sensibility</i>. If you are familiar with Jane's other works, you will see that Mr. Collins isn't the only "bad" clergyman in the list:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Mr. Elton is a fortune hunter and spiteful. He certainly isn't friendly with Emma after she rejected his marriage proposal, and let's not forget at the Highbury ball when purposely and obviously snubbed Harriet Smith for a dance as a way to humiliate both Harriet and Emma; not the actions of a gentleman to be sure.</li>
<li>Dr. Grant is glutton (ironically, one of the seven deadly sins) who argues with his wife a lot (leaving his half-sister-in-law, Mary Crawford, to gain a bad opinion of clergymen altogether). </li>
</ul>
So, certainly, any fan of Jane Austen cannot claim that Mr. Collins was a fluke and that he was the only "bad" clergyman in all of Jane Austen's novels because he certainly was not. But never fear: there are also "good" clergymen in Jane Austen's novels who are often ignored.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nHiuf03KtpA/U6ynMge2oBI/AAAAAAAAE9w/UA7vg7GiAuQ/s1600/henrytilney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nHiuf03KtpA/U6ynMge2oBI/AAAAAAAAE9w/UA7vg7GiAuQ/s1600/henrytilney.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Henry Tilney in the 2007 TV Movie <i>Northanger Abbey</i></td></tr>
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<ul>
<li>Edmund Bertram, despite his faults and the fact that he tends to be an unpopular hero, is a decent, moral, and honorable man. He was kind to his cousin, Fanny, when she first came to Mansfield Park when no one else was. </li>
<li>Henry Tilney has a good sense of humor, was witty and a good brother, and is kind to Catherine. </li>
<li>And Edward Ferrars, despite his faults as well, was still an honorable man. Even though he fell in love with Elinor and was no longer in love with Lucy Steele, he still kept his promise to Lucy. Even though he wasn't a clergyman until the epilogue, I'm going to include him in this list.</li>
</ul>
So, while there are some "bad" clergymen in Jane Austen's books, she does include a fair amount of "good clergymen" as well. What Jane Austen gave us was a wide range of clergymen: some to show what a clergyman should be and others to show what a clergyman should not be.<br />
<br />
<u>How Did We Get Here?</u><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jY027Nh-yGw/U6ynM35-1pI/AAAAAAAAE9g/thE_A0JVc3I/s1600/mrcollinswave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jY027Nh-yGw/U6ynM35-1pI/AAAAAAAAE9g/thE_A0JVc3I/s1600/mrcollinswave.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Mr. Collins Wave</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So how did this perception of Jane Austen and clergymen come about? My opinion is that it's due to the Austen books that are popular. Look at Jane's most popular books: <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, <i>Emma</i>, and <i>Persuasion</i> (although <i>Sense and Sensibility</i> might also tie with <i>Persuasion</i>). <i>Persuasion</i> doesn't really have prominent characters that are clergymen (I almost want to say Captain Wentworth's brother and Charles Hayter were clergymen, but I'm not entirely sure -- but either way, they weren't big enough characters to form a decent opinion on). So, focusing on the top two popular Austen books -- <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> and <i>Emma</i>. Both Pride and Prejudice and Emma feature prominent characters who are clergymen that fall short of what a clergyman should be. The average reader/watcher of Jane Austen doesn't usually know about Henry Tilney or Edmund Bertram because the average reader/watcher has either not read or not heard of <i>Northanger Abbey</i> or <i>Mansfield Park</i>. And although there's Edward Ferrars is in <i>Sense and Sensibility</i>, another popular Austen novel, he isn't a clergyman for most of the book and his aspirations to the clergy are a small detail that, at the very least, movie watchers don't usually pick up on.<br />
<br />
<b>What do you think? Do you think the popularity of Pride and Prejudice and Emma are what leads casual Jane Austen fans to think Jane had a low opinion of clergymen? Or is there another issue? Have you noticed similar sentiments about Jane Austen's view of clergymen? Leave comments!</b><br />
<hr />
<strong> God Bless,</strong>
<br />
<img alt="God Bless, Miss Elizabeth Bennet" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UuJBrvZzRBg/Tfo70osn1aI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/94dOgOekfR8/newsig.jpg" width="400px" />Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-451948426340412812014-06-18T10:24:00.000-05:002014-06-18T10:24:22.716-05:00Review: The Paradise -- Series 2 (2013)Okay, so I watched Series 2 of <i>The Paradise</i> after I finished watching the first series and intended to review the second series almost right after watching it. Then school happened (like I've said before, it was a brutal semester), so this review got pushed aside along with everything else. But here it is! As you might have noticed, Series 2 has not been released in America yet, but I caught it online and watched it. I really liked Series 1 and, since there was the wedding cliffhanger at the end, I was curious to see what was going to happen next. So, when I found Series 2 online, I simply couldn't resist! So, I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to see what happened immediately when Katherine got jilted at the altar... Or what Lord Glendenning said to Moray about the whole thing... But still! The story continued and there was more drama to come!<br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">Note: This review will contain spoilers from Series 1. If you do not want to read about Series 1 spoilers, I suggest watching Series 1 before reading this review. Here is my review for <a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/2014/01/review-paradise-series-1-2012.html">Series 1</a> if you are interested.</i><br />
<br />
<b>Synopsis<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91QcjHkxUZL._SL1500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91QcjHkxUZL._SL1500_.jpg" height="320" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Region 2 DVD Box Art</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</b><br />
After being stripped of his store and sent away to Paris, Mr. Moray returns to The Paradise as a manager determined to buy his store back. The Paradise is now owned by Tom Weston, a former soldier and the new husband of Moray's ex-fiancee, Katherine (née Glendenning), who inherited the store from her father who has, since Series 1, passed on. Meanwhile, Denise and Moray have become engaged and are working together to win The Paradise back. However, this proves to be difficult as Tom Weston is not a man to be trifled with.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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<b>Characters</b><br />
Not all of the characters returned for Series 2 of <i>The Paradise</i> and a couple of them leave mid-way through Series 2. Lord Glendenning does not return due to the fact that his character died. Shop girl Pauline does not return (which is never explained why; she simply disappeared) and is replaced by Suzy, a new shop girl with similar characteristics. While Edmund Lovett and Miss Audrey are there for half of the series, they <b>Spoiler </b>get married in the middle of the series and<b> End of Spoiler</b> leave the show. New characters are introduced into the show, but in my opinion, they paled in comparison to the old characters. But anyways! There are some familiar period drama faces in this series of The Paradise.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" border="1" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; width: 500px;"><tbody>
<tr><td><b>Actor/Actress</b></td><td><b>Character</b></td><td><b>Also Seen In</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>Ben Daniels</td><td>Tom Weston</td><td>Lark Rise to Candleford as Mr. Rushton</td></tr>
<tr><td>Peter Wight</td><td>Edmund Lovett</td><td>Lark Rise to Candleford as Old Amos, Persuasion (2007) as Admiral Croft</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sarah Lancashire</td><td>Miss Audrey</td><td>Lark Rise to Candleford as Adult Laura Timmins (narration)</td></tr>
<tr><td>Adrian Scarborough</td><td>Fenton</td><td><i>Upstairs, Downstairs</i> as Mr. Pritchard</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PP2jJdJTrko/U6Gtt7ybN3I/AAAAAAAAE8w/jgyB2fbjhIQ/s1600/denisemoray.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PP2jJdJTrko/U6Gtt7ybN3I/AAAAAAAAE8w/jgyB2fbjhIQ/s1600/denisemoray.jpg" height="225" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Denise and Moray</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The love story between Denise and Moray continues. Instead of a "will they, won't they" plot that was going on in the last series, their story shifts to a "they will, but there will be plenty of road blocks in the way" kind of story. I found that as the series went on, Denise and Moray became more and more annoying, which was a little sad because I liked both characters well enough in the previous series. I swear, each scene they were in together, they were either kissing/sweet talking to each other (which, believe me, gets old quickly) or they had some sort of argument and nearly break up. It seemed like the focus of their relationship was more on love and not on the fact that they are both passionate about The Paradise and want to work together to improve it. I mean, sure, there needs to be love in the relationship, but the latter part that brought them together was, comparatively speaking, underplayed in this series. I also found it very odd that Mrs. Moray, Moray first wife who died, is never mentioned and the giant portrait of her is no longer in Moray's office (which when Katherine tried to take it down last series, Mr. Jonas told her not to do it). So what happened to Moray between the series? Why, when he was in such deep mourning in Series 1 would he suddenly forget his first wife in the next series? Wouldn't it have been a little more realistic if he, at least, MENTIONED his first wife?<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-coRBz4C3YAA/U6Gtu4-ThOI/AAAAAAAAE9E/uCxGagynDok/s1600/katherineweston.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-coRBz4C3YAA/U6Gtu4-ThOI/AAAAAAAAE9E/uCxGagynDok/s1600/katherineweston.jpg" height="320" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The new Mr. and Mrs. Weston</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Katherine becomes more sympathetic in this series. In the previous series, we see her being very conniving and manipulative. She was a character where she looked pretty and her clothes were fabulous, but the character was not one that you would like. As you watch this series, you may think differently about Katherine. She has greatly improved since the first series. Since being jilted at the altar in the finale of Series 1, Katherine has married Tom Weston, who mistreats her and is, perhaps, more manipulative and conniving than she ever was. We now see her as being more vulnerable (maybe partially due to being jilted at the altar), sympathetic, and even likable. And her relationship with her new stepdaughter, Flora, is simply a sweet story line and only makes her more likable. Now, after all the manipulation that she did in the previous series, is it possible that she deserves her current situation? You could argue it. But nevertheless, I do feel sorry for her and sympathize with her situation.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r3_0wrK-j4U/U6Gtu32TArI/AAAAAAAAE88/qzBvlZsblyQ/s1600/weston.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r3_0wrK-j4U/U6Gtu32TArI/AAAAAAAAE88/qzBvlZsblyQ/s1600/weston.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tom Weston, new owner of The Paradise</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The villain for this series was Tom Weston, Katherine's husband, who is trying to keep The Paradise away from Moray because of his previous relationship with his wife. On the one hand, yes, you can see why Tom Weston and Moray never got along (Moray was Katherine's ex-fiancee after all), but a lot of time he goes out of his way to make Moray's life miserable for no reason. <b>Spoiler </b>I mean, sure, later in the series, he would have a valid excuse when Moray purposely toys with Katherine's feelings for him, but he was even mean to Moray before that happened. But then does Tom Weston even love Katherine? He was setting his eyes on salesgirl Clara.<b> End of Spoiler</b> There almost seems to be no redeeming characteristics for this man as he is even cruel to his daughter, Flora. From keeping her away from her stepmother (who she actually loves like a mother) to essentially calling her stupid, Tom Weston's good nature doesn't even come out with his interactions with his daughter. There is a little back story about his time in the army, but I found that those details were insufficient to justify his cruelty.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mqc1_-j6adQ/U6GtvISlikI/AAAAAAAAE9I/iOXTSrzHqlk/s1600/clemence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mqc1_-j6adQ/U6GtvISlikI/AAAAAAAAE9I/iOXTSrzHqlk/s1600/clemence.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clemence entering The Paradise</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The addition to the cast that I found the most annoying (and keep in mind, this character was only in two episodes) was Moray's previous business partner, Clemence Romanis. She just seemed really out of place for the whole setting and there really wasn't much of a purpose to her. It seemed like she was just there to be shocking to the English, Victorian characters and that was it. Sure, you could argue that she encouraged Denise's ambitions, but the whole character ended up flopping in my opinion. I've seen this happen with a couple of period dramas: they bring in a character whose purpose is to be edgy and shocking (if not to us in the modern era, then to those in the time period of the story). It almost never works out.<br />
<br />
<b>Scenery</b><br />
The scenery remains much the same as the previous series. Tom Weston and Katherine make their home at Katherine's childhood home that she inherited from her father when he passed away, so even their home is much the same as it was in Series 1. Some minor changes to the store were made (it does have a new owner, after all), but The Paradise is much like it was last series.<br />
<br />
<b>Costumes</b><br />
The costumes continue to be beautiful, but there isn't much variation from the previous series, which took place sometime in the early 1870s. If we assume that the story takes place about two or three years after Series 1, then the year would be at least 1872 or 1873, which means that the fashions didn't really change all that much. Denise does get some new outfits <b>Spoiler </b>when she replaces Miss Audrey and becomes head of ladieswear<b> End of Spoiler</b> but that's roughly about it (her clothes were still nice, by the way). Katherine reused quite a few of her dresses from the previous series, which seems odd since she is rich and would have money to buy new dresses.<br />
<br />
<b>Overall:</b> 4/5<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pi3fiDEg5GA/U6GttyQkIPI/AAAAAAAAE8s/z1d_Ehi_AVc/s1600/denisemorayfight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pi3fiDEg5GA/U6GttyQkIPI/AAAAAAAAE8s/z1d_Ehi_AVc/s1600/denisemorayfight.jpg" height="199" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uh oh, I sense another argument coming on.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This series of <i>The Paradise</i> (as with many period dramas) was not as good as the first series, but still worth a watch. If you're looking for all new costuming and scenery, you'll probably disappointed on that score since neither has changed very much since Series 1, but the storyline continues to be interesting and provides new plot twists.While I did miss some of the characters that departed the show and while I did think the replacement characters paled in comparison, the replacement characters were decent enough. Moray and Denise do become a little more annoying in this series: the "will they, won't they" plot from the previous series worked better for them (dare I say that their budding romance should have been dragged out for two series like what <i>Downton Abbey</i> did?); instead it was "will they make goo-goo eyes at each other? Or will they fight again?" But still, it's worth a watch.<br />
<br />
For the most part, the content remains around TV-PG. There was a very unnecessary bit between Clemence and Denise (which, I will repeat myself, really didn't need to be in there as it provided nothing to the plot). Some parts of Clemence's past come up; (thankfully) there weren't any flashbacks, only her telling about her past. Tom Weston is a bit of a philanderer (if he wasn't enough of a jerk as it was), but there are no accompanying scenes, merely some implications. The new cook at The Paradise is a little suggestive and whose neckline is a bit low.<br />
<br />
<i>The Paradise</i>: Series 2 has not aired yet in America, but I suspect it will air sometime later this year. Series 2 is made up of eight 1-hour long episodes.<br />
<br />
<b>Overall:</b> 4/5<br />
So, I liked <i>The Paradise</i> and I do recommend it to period drama fans and historical costume fans, but taking into account both series (and the fact that it's been a long time since I first viewed it), it's not my absolute, top favorite period drama series. That's not to say I don't like it: on the contrary, I really enjoyed watching it. But on my list of favorite period dramas, this would actually fall fairly low on the list because there are other period dramas that I simply like better. It was still good, but there were other period dramas out there that just outshine it. While I had to really warm up to <i>Mr. Selfridge</i>, after watching Series 2 of it, I think <i>Mr. Selfridge</i> displaced <i>The Paradise</i> on my list of favorite period dramas (of course, I still remember that Series 1 of <i>Mr. Selfridge</i> wasn't anything to brag about, so I'm not saying that <i>Mr. Selfridge</i> was perfect either). But even though this section might sound a little negative, still, watch <i>The Paradise</i>; it is a good period drama that you may greatly enjoy.<br />
<br />
<b>Now, about <i>The Paradise</i>'s cancellation</b>, which has received some publicity in the period drama world. Was I upset about <i>The Paradise</i> being cancelled? A little bit, yes. I would have enjoyed watching another series. Will I accept it being cancelled? Yes. Even though I liked The Paradise and even though I would have continued to watch it if more series were produced, I'm okay with it being cancelled. It ended in an okay spot: no major cliffhangers or anything like that -- maybe not the greatest spot since there were some minor loose threads, but it ended decently enough. Now, do I support the effort to bring <i>The Paradise</i> back? Why not? I'd keep watching it. But if the effort failed, I wouldn't be heartbroken. I wasn't exactly thrilled with the directions that Denise and Moray's relationship was taking, but I would still be curious to see how it panned out in the end. But leaving it as it is might be a good thing in the end. It would be a shame for a third series to be made and have it ruin the entire show.Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-28384481279622113002014-05-27T14:15:00.000-05:002014-05-30T15:15:07.664-05:00Review: Mr. Selfridge -- Series 2 (2014)When I watched <a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-mr-selfridge-series-1-2013.html"><i>Mr. Selfridge</i></a> a year ago, I was not all that fond of it. I said that I was going to watch the next series because Series 1 ended on a cliffhanger and I wanted to know what happened next, but I didn't have high hopes for it. It was a lackluster show in which I could relate to none of the characters and where nearly all the characters had loose morals. But when this year came and I didn't hear any word on the new series, I was wondering if it was still going? But then PBS announced it and after Downton Abbey ran its course (which I still watched even though I had already seen it), I watched Series 2 of Mr. Selfridge as it aired on PBS. Were my suspicions correct? Or was I pleasantly surprised? Well, read on and find out!<br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">Note: This review will contain spoilers from Series 1. If you do not want to read about Series 1 spoilers, I suggest watching Series 1 before reading this review. Here is my review for <a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-mr-selfridge-series-1-2013.html">Series 1</a> if you are interested.</i><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Synopsis<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81W4MUX5dXL._SL1500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81W4MUX5dXL._SL1500_.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DVD Box Art</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</b><br />
After living in America for five years after leaving England, Rose Selfridge returns to London for the fifth anniversary of Selfridge's. While Harry tries to reconcile with his wife, Rose still resents his philandering and keeps her distance from him. Meanwhile, Rose has befriended Delphine Day, the owner of a night club with a scandalous past (of which she writes about publicly). Meanwhile, Agnes Towler returns to Selfridge's as head of departmental displays after training in Paris and develops a rivalry with Mr. Thackeray, the new head of fashion. Lady Mae Loxley's life is turned upside down with the arrival of her husband, Lord Loxley, who has taken a sudden interest in parliament. All of this is occurring with World War I in the near future, and Selfridge's sees the toll of the war on the store.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
<b>Characters</b><br />
While some characters did not return from Series 1, Series 2 does see the entrance of more characters, some of which are better than those from Series 1 that left. And, of course, there are a couple of familiar period drama faces.<br />
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<table align="center" border="1" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; width: 500px;"><tbody>
<tr><td><b>Actor/Actress</b></td><td><b>Character</b></td><td><b>Also Seen In</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>Ron Cook</td><td>Mr. Crabb</td><td>Little Dorrit (2008) as Mr. Chivery</td></tr>
<tr><td>Frances O'Connor</td><td>Rose Selfridge</td><td>The Importance of Being Earnest as Gwendolen Fairfax</td></tr>
<tr><td>Polly Walker</td><td>Delphine Day</td><td>Emma (1996) as Jane Fairfax</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div>
Nearly every character in this series of Mr. Selfridge was greatly improved upon from the previous series. I have always said that the first series of a period drama series tended to be the best and any series after is almost never as good. Mr. Selfridge is definitely an exception. Each character became more three dimensional and easier to relate to. Hey, you may even like the characters now despite their faults. Even characters that you might have disliked in Series 1 you may come to like in Series 2.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-daCs9xqmBJ4/U3vTCm9KkqI/AAAAAAAAE74/JKfpWhDydeU/s1600/selfridgefamily.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-daCs9xqmBJ4/U3vTCm9KkqI/AAAAAAAAE74/JKfpWhDydeU/s1600/selfridgefamily.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Selfridge Family</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I grew to like Harry in this series a lot more than the last. While it is apparent that he was still philandering at the time of Rose's arrival, once she arrives, he tries to make it right between him and her. He puts an end to his philandering and tries to repair the damage he has done to their marriage. While Rose is very angry with him and doesn't trust him, they do work through their troubles and their marriage becomes strong again. Their marriage was an interesting dimension to the storyline and I grew to like both Harry and Rose even more for it. <b>Spoiler </b>I was worried about Rose, and with good reason. According to Wikipedia, the real Rose Selfridge died in 1918, which would mean that Rose would have to die fairly soon. Just as I thought, Rose was revealed to be dying of "lung congestion" (which I'm assuming is pneumonia since that was what the real Rose Selfridge died of). The scene in which she tells Harry is very heart wrenching; he wanted to get the best doctors to help her, but she knew that it wouldn't do any good. I'm very sorry to see Rose go because I did like the character, and I worry about what they are going to do with Harry's character in the next series because the really Mr. Selfridge's life spiraled out of control after Rose (and eventually his mother) died. I will say this: they dealt with Rose's eventual departure a lot better than Downton Abbey dealt with their character departures.<b> End of Spoiler </b>Harry also continues to work on Selfridge's even when World War I is in progress. Though a good part of the public is convinced that Harry will return to America, he is devoted to the war effort from London and even risks his own reputation to help the war effort.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vatXi8oeN0U/U3vTBaxVR0I/AAAAAAAAE8E/0oltDIFDZC0/s1600/delphine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vatXi8oeN0U/U3vTBaxVR0I/AAAAAAAAE8E/0oltDIFDZC0/s1600/delphine.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Delphine (left in red and green) bringing actresses in to<br />
Selfridges to buy things</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Rose becomes fast friends with nightclub owner, Delphine Day. Delphine uses her scandalous past to promote her nightclub. From the beginning, I never liked Delphine. Aside from the fact that she flaunts her scandalous past (which really should be a red flag, especially with Harry), she was always <b>WAY</b> too eager to help Harry with the store. It was very apparent early on that she had designs on Harry (which caused some worry in me because Harry was so determined to make everything right with Rose, but at the same time, he is weak). <b>Spoiler </b>Luckily, Lady Mae warns Harry not to trust her, and when Delphine attempts to move in on Harry, he remains faithful to his wife.<b> End of Spoiler</b> In comparison to Ellen Love from last series, Delphine was a better character to replace Ellen Love with; not that I liked Ellen Love at all (which, I didn't), but Delphine was less annoying (not to mention the omission of musical numbers).<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Tv9XIqVIOw0/U3vTBeyRglI/AAAAAAAAE7o/KeWpkFCsK4Y/s1600/maeandloxley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Tv9XIqVIOw0/U3vTBeyRglI/AAAAAAAAE7o/KeWpkFCsK4Y/s1600/maeandloxley.jpg" height="193" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lord Loxley and Lady Mae</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Lady Mae becomes a much more sympathetic character in this series. Her husband, Lord Loxley, wasn't in the first series, so you had to wonder why Mae took up the life she did. But with the arrival of her husband, we learn how much of a jerk he is, and while I cannot condone her lifestyle, I can kind of see why she does what she does. It is revealed that she married Loxley for his money and power with the thought that she could manage him and have a place in society, but now she realizes what a mistake she made. Lord Loxley is violent towards her and it is revealed that the only reason he took an interest in parliament was to profit from the impending war. Lady Mae is forced to vouch for her husband to Harry (something she later regrets) in order to protect herself from him. <b>Spoiler </b>This damages her friendship with the Selfridges, but when Harry learns about why she vouched for Loxley, he agrees to help her. Although, when Loxley is arrested, Lady Mae appears as if she will return to her former lifestyle, but that's another series for another year!<b> End of Spoiler</b><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PQeA3LCRZJU/U3vTBWspDKI/AAAAAAAAE7g/q5vBfUw-EYk/s1600/agneshenri.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PQeA3LCRZJU/U3vTBWspDKI/AAAAAAAAE7g/q5vBfUw-EYk/s1600/agneshenri.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Henri and Agnes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Agnes's story continues and she becomes the head of departmental displays. She goes through the worry over her brother, George, going off to fight in the war, and the existing love triangle with Henri Leclair (Harry's friend) and Victor Colleano (head of the Palm Court restaurant in Selfridge's). I'll give you a non-spoiler spoiler (if that makes any sense), but the love triangle does get resolved by the end of the series (yay!). But even watching this series, I still don't like Victor all that much; I just can't trust him -- there's something slimy about him that I don't like (even ignoring his involvement in Lady Mae's life). I preferred Henri for Agnes, though he had his moments too <b>Spoiler </b>(and let's not forget his run-in with the law, though he was innocent)<b> End of Spoiler</b>, I still preferred him and Agnes together. I did like Agnes better in this series than the last (not that I didn't like Agnes in the last series, I was just disappointed with her towards the end of the first series).<br />
<br />
The weakest story line, in my opinion, is the Miss Mardle/Mr. Grove/Florian (a Belgian Refugee that Miss Mardle takes in) storyline. (Just a warning, this next paragraph will have <b>Spoilers</b>, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum) If you recall from last series, Miss Mardle broke it off with Mr. Grove (who were in a Jane Eyre/Mr. Rochester-esque relationship that had been going on for years and years) after Mr. Grove announced that he was going to marry shop girl Doris so he could have a family (though he still wanted to continue seeing Miss Mardle). Confusing enough? Okay. So, five years later, Miss Mardle inherits a big house and a decent fortune from her brother and can afford to quit her job and never work again. Mr. Grove, of course, regrets not marrying Miss Mardle at this point (surprise, surprise) and is consumed with worry over his family and the pending war. Meanwhile, Miss Mardle decides to take Agnes in (who shouldn't be left alone while her brother is fighting in the war) and Florian (a Belgian refugee whose presence in the house could cause scandal). Mr. Grove is concerned that Florian will fall in love with Miss Mardle, to which Miss Mardle is all, "Don't be ridiculous!" But then (why is this even happening?) Florian tells her that he fell in love with her! And then there's the whole Miss Mardle fighting for feelings for the young man, but eventually admits her feelings to him. I mean, was I the only one saying, "She's too old for you!"? Wouldn't it be more realistic if Florian fell in love with Agnes? (I'm not saying that he couldn't fall in love with Miss Mardle, but rather it's less realistic). I'm certain that this storyline will be doomed in the upcoming series. It's just too weird (for me at least). She's like, what? 50? And he's like...maybe 20? Even with an older man and a younger woman, the age difference is too big. I'm hoping this isn't going to be a big focus next series...<br />
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<b>Scenery</b><br />
Still great! The store still plays a dominant role in the series, and while it still looks like the Selfridge's we were introduced to in Series 1, it still looks different enough to show that time has progressed. The displays are more prominent in the story line due to the rivalry between Agnes and Mr. Thackeray. The Selfridge house looks much the same as it always did, but still looks nice. We see more of Lady Mae's home since her home life becomes more of a focus point. A new location for the story is Delphine's, Delphine Day's night club. It's always dark/candlelit and noisy inside of Delphine's, which would go with the fact that it is a night club. Miss Mardle inherits a house from her brother that she finds too big for her, so she decides to take in a Belgian refugee and Agnes after George goes off to fight in the war. The house does appear to be big (which is emphasized early on when Miss Mardle is eating in the huge dining room alone), but we only get to see a few of the rooms in it.<br />
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<b>Costumes</b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RB6enNbIBws/U3vTCdd5J7I/AAAAAAAAE70/ZUNms3Jom0U/s1600/roseladymarysdress.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RB6enNbIBws/U3vTCdd5J7I/AAAAAAAAE70/ZUNms3Jom0U/s1600/roseladymarysdress.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rose in Lady Mary's Dress</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And still great! I question some of the accuracy of some of the styles, but I still liked the costumes. The costumes went from the Late Edwardian fashions of the previous series to more teens era fashion (both pre-WWI and WWI fashions, though, honestly, both looked a lot alike). Rose has a lot of very nice dresses in this series (and she stole Lady Mary's dress from Downton Abbey!). Lady Mae continues to be the best dressed in the series, sporting plenty of fur coats and nice day and evening wear. Her hair is a lot more normal than the previous series (which looked as if her hat was just floating on top of her head and nothing like I had ever seen before for the era).<br />
<br />
Although, can we talk about the women's hairstyles in this series for a minute? Didn't it seem like a number of the main female characters had bangs and hair that almost looked like they bobbed it? Rose and Lady Mae had nearly the exact same hairstyle. I'll grant that it doesn't look that outlandish/unrealistic for the era (though a little too fluffy from hairstyles I've seen from the era), but it just seems odd that they would be dressing their hair almost the exact same way. And then I also noticed some of the shop girls had "victory rolls" hairstyles (see the picture below), which I think is more associated with World War II and not WWI.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VHvXARg1EIQ/U3vTDK6zMZI/AAAAAAAAE78/ExPczmbQUa0/s1600/shopgirls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VHvXARg1EIQ/U3vTDK6zMZI/AAAAAAAAE78/ExPczmbQUa0/s1600/shopgirls.jpg" height="201" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shop Girls' Attire</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The shop girls have the same dress that they had at the beginning of the series all the way to the end. It is different from their Series 1 dresses, but there wasn't any variation for the work clothes. Agnes had the same black dress with a collar poking out (which did look nice, by the way), and Kitty had a white shirtwaist with a black jumper (which also looked nice), but that was all they wore to work... Every...single...day. (okay, so there might have been a different outfit occasionally, but just go with me on this; it looked like their wardrobe was severely limited) It wasn't like the girls all had a specific uniform that they had to wear (which would explain the lack of variety), but my impression was that they could wear something that met the requirements of the store. So I would expect that maybe they might have a couple of dresses, not just the same one, to wear to work. But, then again, I'm not an expert on shop girls of the early 1900s, so I could be mistaken.<br />
<br />
<b>Overall:</b> 4/5<br />
I wasn't sure how I was going to like Series 2, but wow, was it an improvement on the previous series! This is one of those shows that gets better as the series progresses (like <i>Upstairs, Downstairs</i>). Nearly all of the characters showed more depth than the previous series and were considerably more likable. The ridiculous philandering of the previous series by various characters were just about nonexistent (a reference might be made here or there to previous incidents, however, but other than that there wasn't much new... unless you count the Miss Mardle/Florian bit). I find myself pleasantly surprised by this series and would say that even if you have to stomach Series 1, Series 2 was pretty good.<br />
<br />
Unlike the previous series, there were a lot less scenes to skip. There is really only one I can think of at the beginning of episode 9 (which was less graphic than skipped scenes from Series 1), but other than that and some suggestive dialogue, this series is a lot less TV-14 and a lot more TV-PG. Either Andrew Davies was less involved in the creation of episodes or he really toned it down, but either way it was an improvement!<br />
<br />
Mr. Selfridge is available on DVD and Blu-Ray. This series is made up of ten 1-hour long episodes.</div>
Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-81524870409683106912014-05-19T11:00:00.000-05:002014-05-20T16:49:30.847-05:00Review: Austenland (2013)Is Austenland strictly a period drama? No: it takes place in today's time. But is it like a modern movie like we've all seen before? Not quite: there's a lot of dress up and talk about Regency times. Austenland is in a weird state of limbo: not quite a period drama, but not modern enough for a regular movie. So why am I reviewing it? Well, it does have a lot to do with Jane Austen and Regency times even though it doesn't take place in the Regency Era.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/912I78NeihL._SL1500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/912I78NeihL._SL1500_.jpg" height="320" width="235" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DVD Box Art</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>Synopsis</b><br />
Jane Hayes, a single, thirty-something American woman who is obsessed with Pride and Prejudice, spends all her savings to take a trip to Austenland, a resort devoted to Jane Austen and the Regency era to find the perfect Regency gentleman. Becoming Miss Jane Erstwhile, an orphan of no fortune (due to the bronze package she purchased), Jane begins to butt heads with Mr. Henry Nobley, an arrogant man of good fortune, befriends Miss Elizabeth Charming (another American at the resort), and falls in love with groundskeeper Martin. Throughout her trip, Jane realizes that life in Regency England isn't all that she hoped it was.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><b><br />Characters</b><br />
There were a couple of familiar faces in <i>Austenland</i>, but not a whole lot.<br />
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<table align="center" border="1" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; width: 500px;"><tbody>
<tr><td><b>Actor/Actress</b></td><td><b>Character</b></td><td><b>Also Seen In</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>J.J. Field</td><td>Henry Nobley</td><td>Northanger Abbey (2007) as Henry Tilney</td></tr>
<tr><td>Georgia King</td><td>Lady Amelia Heartwright</td><td>Little Dorrit (2008) as Pet Meagles</td></tr>
<tr><td>Jane Seymour</td><td>Mrs. Wattlesbrook</td><td>The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982) as Marguerite Blakeney</td></tr>
<tr><td>Rupert Vansittart</td><td>Mr. Wattlesbrook</td><td>Pride and Prejudice (1995) as Mr. Hurst</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vXAw72GO3F4/U3KYpOymsXI/AAAAAAAAE7I/XFXpSzLORY8/s1600/janehayes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vXAw72GO3F4/U3KYpOymsXI/AAAAAAAAE7I/XFXpSzLORY8/s1600/janehayes.jpg" height="181" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jane Hayes sitting with Mr. Wattlesbrook</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The entire story we see through the eyes of Jane Hayes, a huge Jane Austen fan, having decorated her apartment as a shrine to <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, watches <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> religiously (the 1995 miniseries, of course) and even has a cardboard cutout of Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy. While I do admire her admiration for <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> (which, as you all know, is my favorite of Jane Austen's books), I get the sense out of her that she is more of a fan of <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> and not necessarily Jane Austen. I have to question whether she had read any other Jane Austen book: she doesn't make reference to any other Jane Austen book -- only <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>. To me, it would have been funnier if there were more references to Jane Austen's other books instead of going out of their way to make awful <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> jokes.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iohr7MQslUI/U3KYpM6QNdI/AAAAAAAAE68/AM2sezNdt-w/s1600/misscharming.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iohr7MQslUI/U3KYpM6QNdI/AAAAAAAAE68/AM2sezNdt-w/s1600/misscharming.png" height="134" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miss Elizabeth Charming</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Miss Elizabeth Charming is another American guest at Austenland. She befriends Jane early in the movie, and although she is kind to Jane, she was one of the most annoying characters in this movie. She is an airhead who is also loud and vulgar. I simply couldn't stand her. It wasn't even like she was naive and innocent, which isn't necessarily annoying: she was just simply loud, vulgar, and annoying. What she was doing at Austenland in the first place, I cannot even fathom. I'm not even sure what her purpose was to the whole plot: she didn't really add much to it except of saying something that would have been completely inappropriate in Regency England. It was like she was put in there as an attempt to be funny without it actually being funny.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m9G0S9Ka_PU/U3KYpPIx_4I/AAAAAAAAE6w/ov5tQV3dXJ0/s1600/mrswattlesbrook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m9G0S9Ka_PU/U3KYpPIx_4I/AAAAAAAAE6w/ov5tQV3dXJ0/s1600/mrswattlesbrook.jpg" height="181" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mrs. Wattlesbrook</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Jane Seymour played the strict owner of Austenland, Mrs. Wattlesbrook, who strives to keep Austenland as accurate to the Regency Era as possible. Her character can be seen as reminiscent of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. It was nice to see Jane Seymour, but I think she could have done a lot better. Seriously, she was in such classic period dramas as <i>The Scarlet Pimpernel</i> and <i>Somewhere in Time</i>... and now she is in a B-rated Jane Austen parody? Something's just not right with that. I would say as far as Jane Seymour is concerned, she did the best she could with what she was given.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MfrX0KrSnaU/U3KYpsihylI/AAAAAAAAE64/FQSiP3PF7qM/s1600/nobleyandmartin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MfrX0KrSnaU/U3KYpsihylI/AAAAAAAAE64/FQSiP3PF7qM/s1600/nobleyandmartin.jpg" height="232" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Martin (left) and Henry Nobley (right)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Then there's the whole direct reference to Pride and Prejudice with Henry Nobley as a Mr. Darcy character and Martin as a Wickham character. Henry Nobley starts out as a very dislikable character who Jane initially dislikes, but (as you might have guessed) she eventually falls in love with. Martin starts out as a character who Jane falls in love with almost instantly, but (yep, you guessed it) turns out to be a jerk. To me, the whole thing felt really cliched -- like they were trying too hard to make yet another <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> reference. Now, did I like the character of Henry Nobely and dislike the character of Martin? Yes, but I think part of my liking Henry Nobely was because he was played by J.J. Field who was Henry Tilney in the 2007 version of Northanger Abbey (Okay, the rest of his character was okay too). This was a major part of the plot, but to me, it just fell entirely flat.<br />
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<b>Scenery</b><br />
The "real world" scenes weren't much to speak of (considering the bulk of the film takes place in Austenland), but the Austenland scenes were very pretty! The house of Austenland was big and nicely decorated -- worthy of a regular Jane Austen adaptation. The grounds -- lovely to behold. This was definitely one of the high points of the movie.<br />
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<b>Costumes</b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n-2MVGJNb-8/U3KYqFBzoLI/AAAAAAAAE7A/TUUBUlgVx5Y/s1600/sleevelessballgown.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n-2MVGJNb-8/U3KYqFBzoLI/AAAAAAAAE7A/TUUBUlgVx5Y/s1600/sleevelessballgown.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The infamous sleeveless dress!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So, even though this is a modern movie, I will only be discussing the Regency fashions of the film (that is, after all, why I am reviewing this film). Well, on the one hand, most of the costumes are very nice. Jane's tended to be very plain and were usually dark since her character in Austenland is a poor orphan; even though she didn't have the best costumes, they still fit her persona. Miss Elizabeth Charming had on very elaborate and colorful clothes, but almost always low cut. Henry Nobely was always dressed the Regency gentleman. But on the other hand, a few of the costumes were outside the Regency Era. The first costume of Mrs. Wattlesbrook looked more appropriate for an 1820s setting due to the lower waistline and excessive trimmings (and she was supposed to be accurate! Tsk, tsk!), but hey! you could argue that that dress was late Regency. Martin was dressed in an earlier, rougher costume, but as a servant, he can more easily get away with it. And then, the infamous sleeveless Regency ball gown worn in Sense and Sensibility (2008) made an appearance. It was worn not by someone who would risk daring gowns like Miss Charming, but rather it was worn by... Jane. Now, granted, at that point in the movie, she had become more daring, but I still don't think a gown like that would have been allowed by Miss Wattlesbrook, but then again, she did wear an 1820s gown.<br />
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<b>Overall:</b> 1/5<br />
This movie had a lot of potential to be funny, but it simply wasn't all that funny. The humor was mostly cheesy jokes about <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> (that weren't very good), and Jane Austen's other books are forgotten about (with the exception of that small excerpt from <i>Emma</i>). The movie/park should have been more appropriately called <i>Pride and Prejudice Land</i> and not <i>Austenland</i> since the other Austen books weren't even mentioned. The humor was also heavily based on Miss Elizabeth Charming's inappropriate remarks (for the Regency era) and for her air-headed-ness. For a comedy, there wasn't enough solid humor in the movie. I haven't read the book, so there is a chance this movie doesn't do the book justice, but as a movie, this was just horrid and, I'm sure, would make Jane Austen herself shudder at the sight of it.<br />
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This movie doesn't have any particular scenes to skip (or if there are, they only last a couple of seconds), but there are suggestive comments scattered throughout the movie. There is one scene where Jane is nearly attacked late in the evening, but is rescued. There is some mild swearing, but nothing too extreme.<br />
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Lost in Austen is available on DVD. It runs for 97 minutes and is rated PG-13 for suggestive content and innuendo.Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-21478098865755405562014-05-07T10:00:00.000-05:002014-05-13T16:03:08.714-05:00I'm Back and Starting Afresh!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KW-910A73is/U2QbKwx5dkI/AAAAAAAAE6Q/9Acn_QepNS0/s1600/pride04_0243.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KW-910A73is/U2QbKwx5dkI/AAAAAAAAE6Q/9Acn_QepNS0/s1600/pride04_0243.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>"Lady Catherine was so severe about the only right way to place gowns, that I couldn't sleep,
and I'm determined to start afresh!" -- Maria Lucas (Pride and Prejudice 1995)</i><br />
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Hello Readers!<br />
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I'm Back!<br />
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Let me first apologize for not posting anything up here for a couple of months (has it really been since February?). I know I was going to try to keep up with my blog and my school work. This semester has been very difficult and stressful which caused me to drop out of the blogging world for a while. It has been the cause of changing up my major a little bit. I will no longer be a Computer Science/Accounting double major, but will now be a Computer Science major with Accounting and Business Administration as a double minor. I never like changing my plans, so I'm a little sad about changing up my major, but I think in the end, it will be a lot less stressful for me and will still give me a decent degree when I do graduate.<br />
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But anyways, what does this mean for Elegance of Fashion? Well, since this semester is over (yay!), I'll be back to posting the way I used to. I will have more free time to watch period dramas, write about period dramas, and maybe even work on screen-capping period dramas and creating new banners.<br />
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For one thing, I said that I was going to change up the layout every so often (like monthly or bi-monthly). This layout has been up for months. So, one of the first things I'm going to do is decide on a new layout. I have a theme in mind, but if you want to suggest anything, leave a comment.<br />
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And also, I do believe a tournament is long over due! I would like to start up another tournament. Melody a long time ago commented that another Hero Tournament would be nice, so that's the route that I'm thinking about. But, as always, I'm open to suggestions, so again, comment a suggestion!<br />
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I think that's about it for now. It might take a little bit of time to get everything back to order, but I will be working on getting things back to the way they were.<br />
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It's great to be back!<br />
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<strong> God Bless,</strong>
<br />
<img alt="God Bless, Miss Elizabeth Bennet" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UuJBrvZzRBg/Tfo70osn1aI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/94dOgOekfR8/newsig.jpg" width="400px" />Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-1164700480066422762014-02-19T11:00:00.000-06:002014-02-19T11:00:06.954-06:00Review: The Monuments Men (2014)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-42epve-vTE0/UwJcFdjDOJI/AAAAAAAAE5c/L6fsKucIE5k/s1600/monumentsmenposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-42epve-vTE0/UwJcFdjDOJI/AAAAAAAAE5c/L6fsKucIE5k/s1600/monumentsmenposter.jpg" height="320" width="201" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Movie Poster</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So, I'm doing reviews on and off lately. School has gotten pretty hectic lately, so there are some weeks where I don't have much time to watch/write anything, so just bear with me for a little while. But this week, I do have a review for you all.<br />
<br />
A week or so ago, my parents and I got to see <i>The Monuments Men</i>, which is about how the Nazis stole precious art from various places around Europe. It seemed interesting and since we all like history and were looking for something to do over the weekend, my parents and I went to see it. I was surprised to see that Bill Murray was in this movie, considering he tends to do comedic roles, but I also saw that Hugh Bonneville was in this movie as well, so I looked forward to his acting.<br />
<br />
<b>Synopsis</b><br />
Set towards the end of WWII, <i>The Monuments Men</i> follows a group of civilian men that accompanies the Allied forces to Europe. Their mission: to recover pieces of art that have been stolen by the Nazis to fill Hitler's intended Fuehrer Museum. Their goal is to preserve the culture and history that has been built up in Europe over centuries from destruction from the war and to collect the pieces and return them to their rightful owners before the Nazi destroy them.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><b>Characters</b><br />
The movie does contain recognizable actors, but they are mostly actors from Hollywood movies and not necessarily from period dramas.<br />
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<tr><td><b>Actor/Actress</b></td><td><b>Character</b></td><td><b>Also Seen In</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>George Clooney</td><td>Lt. Frank Stokes</td><td>Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? as Everett McGill</td></tr>
<tr><td>Matt Damon</td><td>Lt. James Granger</td><td>(Various Movies)</td></tr>
<tr><td>Bill Murray</td><td>Sgt. Richard Campbell</td><td>Ghostbusters as Dr. Peter Venkman</td></tr>
<tr><td>John Goodman</td><td>Sgt. Walter Garfield</td><td>Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? as Big Dan Teague</td></tr>
<tr><td>Hugh Bonneville</td><td>Major Donald Jeffries</td><td>Downton Abbey as Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham</td></tr>
<tr><td>Cate Blanchett</td><td>Claire Simone</td><td>The Lord of the Rings Trilogy as Galadriel</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The story mainly follows the seven men who are in the group called The Monuments Men. These older gentlemen (four Americans, but one Englishman, one Frenchman, and one German) are curators, art experts, museum directors, and historians who are accepted into the military and undergo basic training to prepare themselves for the mission. There was great chemistry among the whole cast and they worked really well together. I loved this little exchange:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6Wo9grhujy0/UwJcE3QeJEI/AAAAAAAAE5Q/NPUbLzcM9qM/s1600/monumentmine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6Wo9grhujy0/UwJcE3QeJEI/AAAAAAAAE5Q/NPUbLzcM9qM/s1600/monumentmine.jpg" height="190" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Landmine Scene</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Lt. Frank Stokes:</b> What have you got?<br />
<b>James Granger:</b> Stop, stop. I seem to have stepped on a land mine.<br />
<b>Lt. Frank Stokes:</b> Why would you do something like that?<br />
<b>James Granger:</b> It was a slow day.<br />
[the others walk up]<br />
<b>Sgt. Walter Garfield:</b> What have you got?<br />
<b>Lt. Frank Stokes:</b> The Lieutenant here seems to have found himself on top of an unexploded mine.<br />
<b>Sgt. Walter Garfield:</b> Why would you do that?</blockquote>
As you can see, while the time period and theme of this movie was serious, there was still enough humor in the film to keep the film from being too dark.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G6ODR3EHpU8/UwJcErQ8YHI/AAAAAAAAE5U/yMSyJ5q4bls/s1600/george-clooney-assembles-a-ragtag-team-to-save-art-from-nazis-in-new-monuments-men-trailer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G6ODR3EHpU8/UwJcErQ8YHI/AAAAAAAAE5U/yMSyJ5q4bls/s1600/george-clooney-assembles-a-ragtag-team-to-save-art-from-nazis-in-new-monuments-men-trailer.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lt. Granger (Left) and Lt. Stokes (Right)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The "leaders" of the group were Lt. Stokes and Lt. Granger. They were the two characters that received the most screen time. While there was some elements of comedy with both of their characters (for example, Lt. Granger's very poor French and French characters telling him to stop speaking French since he was butchering the language), they were still serious characters. There was almost a romance leading up to Lt. Granger (who is married) and Claire Simone, a spy for the resistance. <b>Slight Spoiler </b>If they had proceeded any further with it, I would have lost respect for Lt. Granger, but luckily, he remained true to his wife. <b>End of Spoiler</b> But you don't usually watch a war movie for the romance, so that part played a very small role.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-77aOnA1GxG0/UwJcD6dcDjI/AAAAAAAAE40/Oo2ur22JpAE/s1600/Monuments_Men_Damon_Character-0957e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-77aOnA1GxG0/UwJcD6dcDjI/AAAAAAAAE40/Oo2ur22JpAE/s1600/Monuments_Men_Damon_Character-0957e.jpg" height="125" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Claire (Right) showing Lt. Granger some pieces of art</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Claire was a decent character in her own right. Acting as a secretary for all the stolen art, she is also a spy whose brother was working for the resistance before being killed. She was reluctant to help the Monuments Men because she was worried that they would steal the art from the Nazis for themselves, but she does agree to help them when she is sure that they want to return the art to their original owners.<br />
<div>
<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3DEjx44bE0Q/UwJcE7jFhCI/AAAAAAAAE5M/H88wNy7Zc0Y/s1600/monuments-men-still-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3DEjx44bE0Q/UwJcE7jFhCI/AAAAAAAAE5M/H88wNy7Zc0Y/s1600/monuments-men-still-1.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Major Jefferies (Middle) walking with Lt. Granger <br />
and Lt. Stokes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Probably my favorite character in <i>The Monuments Men</i> was Major Jeffries (yes, probably because he's Robert from <i>Downton Abbey</i>). Major Jeffries was a character who had gotten in trouble with the law but was bailed out through the intersession of his father, who has some status in English society. Since, he has felt guilty over the incident and wanted to help as a way to atone, Major Jeffries joined the Monuments Men to help them recover the stolen art, particularly the Michelangelo's Madonna and Child in Bruges. Hugh Bonneville did a great job with the role <b>Spoiler </b>and I was upset when he died half-way through the movie.<b> End of Spoiler</b> I wish they had more scenes with him, but still, he was a good addition to the movie</div>
<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bSOsvkJOgJ0/UwJcD9ZY-yI/AAAAAAAAE5A/ciZDJI0fvAU/s1600/bill-murray-monuments-men.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bSOsvkJOgJ0/UwJcD9ZY-yI/AAAAAAAAE5A/ciZDJI0fvAU/s1600/bill-murray-monuments-men.jpg" height="160" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sargent Campbell (Left) and Private Savitz (Right)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There was a humorous pairing between Private Preston Savitz and Sargent Richard Campbell. Though Bill Murray, a comedian, was cast in a more serious movie/role, he still got enough of his humor into the part without it being inappropriate for the tone of the movie. At the beginning of the film, the two men would verbally jab each other back and fourth to the point where you thought that they (or, at the very least, Private Savitz) hated each other. But as they worked together, you begin to realize that they jab each other like friends would jab each other: they didn't really mean it, but it was something they did as friends. By the end of the movie, they give each other a hug after the war ended and you can fully see that they had become friends throughout the whole thing.<br />
<div>
<br />
<b>Scenery</b><br />
I wasn't expecting a whole lot of scenery in this movie; I was expecting a lot of scenes in army tents where planning was to be done, maybe some museums... but was I wrong! While there are quite a few scenes in the army camps and there is an occasional museum, there is also a chance of seeing the sites around Europe, whether in the country or the city (and let's not forget churches where some of the art was before it was stolen). Some of the places had the scars of war on them (damaged buildings, dust, etc.), but there were other scenes that took place in places less affected by the war (such as some places in the city, and especially the country).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zWL5JZtYHoE/UwJcD2VtxmI/AAAAAAAAE48/pSy3Am6NaTw/s1600/The-Monuments-Men-35725_002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zWL5JZtYHoE/UwJcD2VtxmI/AAAAAAAAE48/pSy3Am6NaTw/s1600/The-Monuments-Men-35725_002.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Claire in the nicest dress she had in the whole movie</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Costumes</b><br />
The costuming isn't really much to speak of, but you don't usually watch a war movie for the costuming. Most of the costumes were either military uniforms or suits from the 1940s era. The character with the most costuming was probably Claire Simone. She was very plainly dressed throughout the entire movie, but she did have one nice dress (pictured here).<br />
<br />
<b>Music</b><br />
The music reminded me almost of the style John Williams composes in, but upon further research, I found out it wasn't John Williams who composed the music. It was Alexandre Desplat, who composed the music for <i>The King's Speech</i>. Some of the songs reminded me of music that you would expect from older war movies: not very dark, but a bit light with whistling.<br />
<br />
<b>Overall:</b> 4/5<br />
I don't got to the theater much anymore (let's face it, the quality of movies has gone down considerably in recent years), but this movie is definitely an exception. The bad reviews that this movie has been given were, I feel, unjustly given (unless people were looking for a blood and guts movie and didn't get it so they were upset). This is a really good movie that is almost like the way that they used to make movies... you know, back when movies were good. It's based on a true story, so while some things in it might have been artistic license, I still feel like I learned a little more history by viewing this movie. There was humor to keep the story from being too dark, but there wasn't too much to be inappropriate. So, in short, if you want to go to the theaters anytime soon, I recommend this movie. I wouldn't say that I was blown away by this movie, but I did enjoy it greatly and was glad that I saw it.<br />
<br />
The film is rated PG-13 for some images of war violence and historical smoking. While there is quite a bit of smoking in the movie (as many people during WWII smoked), the war violence part I thought was an exaggeration. There were a couple people who got shot, but there was no excessive blood (the blood that I remember can be seen on the fabric of the person shot) and no guts. There is quite a bit of language (the "s" word was used an awful lot, but no "f" words), and I would have thought that that was the reason the movie was PG-13. If there weren't as many swears in the movie, I would have said the movie was PG instead of PG-13. Aside from the swearing, don't worry about the PG-13 rating.<br />
<br />
<i>The Monuments Men</i> is in theaters now. It is rated PG-13 and runs for 118 minutes.</div>
</div>
</div>
Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-604563158991036752014-01-13T13:00:00.000-06:002014-01-13T14:14:29.559-06:00Review: The Paradise -- Series 1 (2012)On the similar path as Mr. Selfridge, <i>The Paradise</i> is another show about a store that came out around the same time as Mr. Selfridge. I've seen around the period drama blogging world that people who have seen both <i>Mr. Selfridge</i> and <i>The Paradise</i> usually prefer one over the other. While I did enjoy the business aspect of <i>Mr. Selfridge</i>, it simply wasn't the best period drama I've seen since the main character was hard to sympathize with (<a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-mr-selfridge-series-1-2013.html">here's my review of Mr. Selfridge if you're interested</a>). Was there a chance that I could prefer <i>The Paradise</i> over<i> Mr. Selfridge</i>? Yes, and I proceeded to find out a couple of weeks ago.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FitEQCFfL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FitEQCFfL.jpg" width="328" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DVD Box Art</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Synopsis</b><br />
Denise Lovett arrives at her uncle's drapery shop looking for work. When her uncle, Edmund Lovett, cannot give her work, Denise seeks out a position at The Paradise, the growing department store across the street, much to the chagrin of her uncle who thinks that The Paradise is driving small businesses into bankruptcy. Denise earns a position in the ladies' wear department and immediately excels at her job and shines in the eye of her employer, Mr. Moray, a man with a troubled past.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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<b>Characters</b><br />
I'm suspicious: it's as if they took the cast of <i>Lark Rise to Candleford</i> and put them in a new period drama... Okay, not the entire cast. But most of the cast members that I recognized in <i>The Paradise</i> were from <i>Lark Rise to Candleford</i>. There were actors in there from other period dramas, but the majority of other period drama actors were from <i>Lark Rise to Candleford</i>.<br />
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<tr><td><b>Actor/Actress</b></td><td><b>Character</b></td><td><b>Also Seen In</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>Matthew McNulty</td><td>Dudley</td><td>Lark Rise to Candleford as Fisher Bloom</td></tr>
<tr><td>Peter Wight</td><td>Edmund Lovett</td><td>Lark Rise to Candleford as Old Amos, Persuasion (2007) as Admiral Croft</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sarah Lancashire</td><td>Miss Audrey</td><td>Lark Rise to Candleford as Adult Laura Timmins (narration)</td></tr>
<tr><td>Ruby Bentall</td><td>Pauline</td><td>Lark Rise to Candleford as Minnie Mude</td></tr>
<tr><td>Arthur Darville</td><td>Bradley Burroughs</td><td>Little Dorrit (2008) as Tip Dorrit</td></tr>
<tr><td>David Bamber</td><td>Charles Chisholm</td><td>Pride and Prejudice (1995) as Mr. Collins</td></tr>
<tr><td>Olivia Hallinan</td><td>Jocelin Brookmire</td><td>Lark Rise to Candleford as Laura Timmins</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
See what I mean? Besides having a chunk of the cast from <i>Lark Rise to Candleford</i> in <i>The Paradise</i>, it also has a similar feel as <i>Lark Rise to Candleford</i>. Sure, <i>The Paradise</i> can be more serious at times, but many of the characters in The Paradise have a similar counterpart in <i>Lark Rise to Candleford</i>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nAjZ7r5KFcU/UtMDJlcayHI/AAAAAAAAE3g/HTxaXrIvDdE/s1600/deniselovett.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nAjZ7r5KFcU/UtMDJlcayHI/AAAAAAAAE3g/HTxaXrIvDdE/s1600/deniselovett.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Denise (center) wearing a dress her uncle, Edmund Lovett (left)<br />
made for her.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Let's start with Denise since she is the main character. In a way, Denise is similar to Laura Timmins in <i>Lark Rise to Candleford</i>: she comes from the country to the city (or in Laura's case, the town of Candleford) to learn a new job. Denise, however, has more of a mind for business and for looking for ways to make The Paradise better. She is a likable character who is bright, innocent, and hard working (again, much like what Laura was like at the beginning of <i>Lark Rise to Candleford</i>). It was very enjoyable to watch her thinking up new ideas for The Paradise, and I felt bad for her when Miss Audrey told her to have no more ideas. Sure, Denise would occasionally make a mistake, but she was able to think of a way out of her first mistake. For the most part, Denise had good ideas; she will definitely go far at The Paradise.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IPk9aZpPq9U/UtMDMP7PHuI/AAAAAAAAE3o/3uhtVsmpDAU/s1600/missaudrey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="161" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IPk9aZpPq9U/UtMDMP7PHuI/AAAAAAAAE3o/3uhtVsmpDAU/s1600/missaudrey.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Miss Audrey</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Miss Audrey, head of ladies' wear and Denise's supervisor, is similar to Dorcas Lane in<i> Lark Rise to Candleford</i>, except that I liked Dorcas a lot more than Miss Audrey. Miss Audrey grated on my nerves a bit. I know that she is head of the department and has to keep order, but the fact that she puts down Denise's attempts to shine didn't sit well with me. <b>Spoiler</b> As it turned out, Miss Audrey was threaten by Denise because Denise was young and had the ability to run the department well while Miss Audrey was getting older. So, she was putting Denise down in order to maintain her job security. <b>End of Spoiler</b> She does exhibit a caring side towards the end of the series which does soften her character from the strict exterior. Despite her personality flaws, she does make an excellent head of ladies' wear.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4SFGoPUqhtQ/UtMDNBaOuMI/AAAAAAAAE34/MBZHX5NAuF4/s1600/paulinesamarthur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4SFGoPUqhtQ/UtMDNBaOuMI/AAAAAAAAE34/MBZHX5NAuF4/s1600/paulinesamarthur.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pauline, Sam, and Arthur</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There are also the other staff members at The Paradise that are an interesting addition to the show. The main staff members that we see are shopgirls Clara and Pauline, Sam (a salesclerk), and Arthur (a messenger boy who was born at The Paradise back when it was called Emerson's). Pauline is the most likable out of the other shopgirls. She isn't the best shopgirl in the store (she is a bit clumsy... kind of like Minnie in<i> Lark Rise to Candleford</i>, but then again, they are played by the same actress), but she is a sweet character who is hard not to like. Then there's Clara, who was constantly looking out only for her best interests. She is immediately threatened by Denise and tries to make things hard for her at The Paradise. She is a very competitive shopgirl that will stop at nothing to make commission. Her past does reveal why she behaves the way that she does, so she can be a sympathetic character. Sam is the personable, salesclerk that attempts to flirt with Denise early in the series; though she turns him down, they remain good friends. He is a humorous character who knows how to talk to customers.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Isz4xfX4DRw/UtMDMyp-f2I/AAAAAAAAE4I/8UQacOotxdE/s1600/katherinemoraydudley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="207" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Isz4xfX4DRw/UtMDMyp-f2I/AAAAAAAAE4I/8UQacOotxdE/s1600/katherinemoraydudley.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dudley (left) congratulating Katherine Glendenning<br />
and Moray</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A major part of the story is about Mr. Moray and is courtship to Katherine Glendenning, daughter or Lord Glendenning, a banker who is a backer for The Paradise. Moray is a widower who is living with guilt over his wife's death. Though despite that guilt, he is a charismatic entrepreneur that is always thinking about new ideas to push The Paradise forward. From the start of the series, it is very apparent that he has a fondness for Denise and throughout the series go to her for new ideas to bring more customers into The Paradise. The story does turn into a love triangle <b>Spoiler </b>when Moray and Denise fall in love all the while Moray was pre-engaged to Katherine<b> End of Spoiler</b>, but then what period drama would be complete without some form of love triangle?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VoLQcLbIfl8/UtMDJmFE9zI/AAAAAAAAE3c/8tba0RDEGSw/s1600/katherineglendenning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VoLQcLbIfl8/UtMDJmFE9zI/AAAAAAAAE3c/8tba0RDEGSw/s1600/katherineglendenning.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Katherine Glendenning</td></tr>
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Katherine is a character who can be a sympathetic character at the beginning of the story, but then she becomes an outright jealous character that you were surprised you even remotely liked. At the beginning of the series, she wanted to marry Moray because she loved him, but her father didn't approve of him. Moray was also reluctant to get involved with an engagement because he felt guilty over his wife's death. Katherine wanted Moray to get over his wife, but Moray still had so much guilt. Then she started seeing another man and tried to break it off with Moray: okay until you find out that she only saw the second guy to toy with Moray to make him jealous. <b>Spoiler </b>Then when they finally do get engaged and Moray realizes that he loves Denise and wants to end the engagement, Katherine attempts to force him to marry her by threatening Denise. By the end when Moray jilts her at the altar, you don't really feel all that sorry for her.<b> End of Spoiler</b> And she doesn't even just toy with Moray: she will use anyone if it's to her advantage and then drop them when they are no longer useful to her.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Njph6JdVXho/UtMDNDTcCxI/AAAAAAAAE38/DKdbeBMFB70/s1600/paradisestore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Njph6JdVXho/UtMDNDTcCxI/AAAAAAAAE38/DKdbeBMFB70/s1600/paradisestore.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside The Paradise</td></tr>
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<b>Scenery</b><br />
One of the things that BBC does well is that they have great scenery in their period dramas. <i>The Paradise</i> is no exception. Though The Paradise is located in the city, there are some scenes that take place in the country since the Glendennings live on a country estate (after all, it wouldn't be a period drama without at least one country estate). Most of the scenes take place in or around The Paradise store. The inside of the store is very colorful and bright where the customers are. There are also some scenes that take place where the staff eats and sleeps in The Paradise's building: those areas aren't as nicely decorated as the store itself, however, but are kept up well and shows that Mr. Moray does care about his employees.<br />
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<b>Costuming</b><br />
I've gone back and forth on what era the story is supposed to take place in based on costuming. Since bustles are used by the customers of The Paradise, the story would have taken place either between 1869 and 1876 or between 1883 and 1890. Now, since the fashionable ladies' skirts are trained and the day dresses don't have the high, stiff neckline that was popular in the 1880s, I'm more inclined to believe the story takes place between 1869 to 1876. The only thing that confuses me on that is that the shopgirls' uniforms and Miss Audrey's dress has a very high neckline, but since the fashionable ladies' dresses are more accurate to the popular fashions of the period, I'm going to go with their dresses than the shopgirls dresses in picking the time period. But anyways, the costumes in The Paradise are very nicely done! There is a range of costume richness: there are wealthy ladies costumes as well as working ladies costumes, all of which are nicely done.<br />
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Out of all of the characters in the show, Katherine Glendenning is the best dressed in the show. Since she (or rather her father) is wealthy, she can afford to dress in the latest fashions. Her clothes are reportedly not from The Paradise, but rather are from her personal seamstress (she mostly just goes to The Paradise to see Moray).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OTNNE2b1LLs/UtMDN-br9FI/AAAAAAAAE4E/Azk4Mqeutbk/s1600/shopuniforms.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OTNNE2b1LLs/UtMDN-br9FI/AAAAAAAAE4E/Azk4Mqeutbk/s1600/shopuniforms.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Denise and Clara in their shopgirl uniforms</td></tr>
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The shopgirls have two sets of clothes: their uniform, which is a high necked dress with a little brocade jacket over it, and their personal wardrobe, which seems to reflect the popular fashions of the day but with cheaper material than the fashionable ladies (like cotton dresses rather than silk). Their personal wardrobes come out in the evening when the shopgirls go out to the pub to have a drink (by the way, I was astonished at how much those girls would go out drinking, but I digress). Clara's personal wardrobe was quite low cut at times, however, which I wasn't sure how accurate that would have been (since she doesn't make a lot of money, she would probably only have day wear to wear in the evening, and her tops would show more than I would have thought for Victorian day wear).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UV6Vx-wacyY/UtMDJEIftaI/AAAAAAAAE3U/9aDLOfdPUyM/s1600/burroughs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="186" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UV6Vx-wacyY/UtMDJEIftaI/AAAAAAAAE3U/9aDLOfdPUyM/s1600/burroughs.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Burroughs, what are you wearing?</td></tr>
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The business men tended to wear the same things: suit, vest, trousers, a hat for going outside. There is a distinction made when Burroughs, a barber who Moray bought a shop off of, becomes a junior partner in the business. Burroughs wanted to wear a suit like all the successful businessmen, so he got himself a suit. I know plaid was popular at some point during the Victorian Era, but a distinction was made with Moray and his business partner, Dudley, wearing solid color clothes (which looked nice and professional), and Burroughs (looking rather like a used car salesman) wearing a loud plaid suit. It was probably to show something about his character, but it did draw my attention.<br />
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<b>Overall:</b> 4.5/5<br />
This is a great start to a wonderful series! And it's safe to say that I preferred <i>The Paradise</i> over <i>Mr. Selfridge</i>. While <i>Mr. Selfridge</i> had more unexpected twists and turns, it was harder to like the characters (well, for me at least). In <i>The Paradise</i>, it was easy to find a set of characters that I liked while still having an interesting story line. The costumes are lively and fun to look at, and the scenery is something not to be overlooked. This series has kind of a cliffhanger ending, but it still feels complete (<b>Spoiler </b>the series sends with Moray and Denise in an embrace while Katherine puts on her wedding veil and is about to leave her home to marry Moray, presumably to be jilted at the altar<b> End of Spoiler</b>). If you are a fan of <i>Lark Rise to Candleford</i>, I would definitely recommend that you check out <i>The Paradise</i>; in fact, Bill Gallagher, the creator of this show, also worked on <i>Lark Rise to Candleford</i> as a writer and producer, which could explain the similar feel. Even if you haven't seen <i>Lark Rise to Candleford</i>, I would still say check out this show. It's definitely a good period drama.<br />
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Most questionable content in this show is pretty minimal and is mostly implied. There are some implications between two unmarried people, the girl telling one of the girls bluntly while the man used more veiled language when mentioning it to another man. There are some excessive kissing scenes that are a little uncomfortable, but aren't horribly inappropriate. A man drowns and another man has flashbacks about it. Some of the ladies bodices are low cut. That's about it for content. I would say the show is TV-PG as a personal opinion.<br />
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<i>The Paradise</i> is available on both Blu-Ray and DVD. The eight episodes in this series are 60 minutes long each.Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-68011488475725339982014-01-06T10:00:00.000-06:002014-01-06T20:52:49.652-06:00Review: Downton Abbey -- Series 4 (2013)Okay, I confess! I have already seen Downton Abbey: Series 4! This review might be coming a little early to all my readers here in America (since Downton's fourth series aired yesterday, I think?), but I'll take care about spoiler warnings.<br />
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But anyways, after last series's finale with the untimely death of Matthew in a car crash, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this series. I knew Downton Abbey wasn't going to be as good as it was previously, but maybe it was going to be better than I expected. I spent all of last year saying that I would be surprised if Downton was going to last past this fourth series, but with the commission of the show's fifth series, I was proven wrong. But what did I think of this series? I had mixed feelings about it to say the least, but it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. This series exhibited a lot of changes to the show to lead it in a new direction. There were plenty of changes that occurred in this series, and I only commented on the major ones. If you would like to know my opinion on a change that I didn't comment on, leave me a comment and I'll answer it!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91QL0Ap0VcL._SL1500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91QL0Ap0VcL._SL1500_.jpg" height="400" width="273" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DVD Box Art</td></tr>
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Note: This review may contain spoilers from <a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/2011/03/review-downton-abbey-series-1.html" style="color: #6699cc; text-decoration: none;">Series 1</a>, <a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/2012/02/review-downton-abbey-series-2-2011.html" style="color: #6699cc; text-decoration: none;">Series 2</a>, and <a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/2013/02/review-downton-abbey-series-3-2012.html">Series 3</a> of Downton Abbey without warning. If you have not seen a previous series, you may not want to read this review at this time. I have reviewed the previous series if you would like to read the reviews.</i><br />
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<b>Synopsis</b><br />
Six months after the tragic death of her husband Matthew Crawley, Lady Mary continues to mourn the sudden loss of her husband. Matthew's estate is called into question since he did not leave a will, leaving Lord Grantham to look over Downton by himself while he allows Mary to mourn. The rest of the Crawley try to bring Mary out of her mourning. Tom Branson continues to raise his daughter, baby Sybbie, at Downton, but questions whether he belongs at Downton. Lady Rose takes up residence at Downton while her parents are in India.<br />
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<b>Characters</b><br />
This series sees the absence of old characters that departed from the show, but also the introduction of new characters and new (and some familiar) faces.<br />
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<tr><td><b>Actor/Actress</b></td><td><b>Character</b></td><td><b>Also Seen In</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>Hugh Bonneville</td><td>Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham</td><td>Daniel Deronda as Mr. Grandcourt</td></tr>
<tr><td>Jim Carter</td><td>Charles Carson</td><td>Cranford as Captain Brown</td></tr>
<tr><td>Brendan Coyle</td><td>John Bates</td><td>Lark Rise to Candleford as Robert Timmins</td></tr>
<tr><td>Michelle Dockery</td><td>Lady Mary Crawley</td><td>Return to Cranford as Erminia Whyte</td></tr>
<tr><td>Joanne Froggatt</td><td>Anna Bates</td><td>Robin Hood (2009) as Kate</td></tr>
<tr><td>Maggie Smith</td><td>Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham</td><td>Becoming Jane as Lady Gresham</td></tr>
<tr><td>Harriet Walter</td><td>Lady Shackleton</td><td>Sense and Sensibility (1995) as Fanny Dashwood</td></tr>
<tr><td>Penelope Wilton</td><td>Isobel Crawley</td><td>Wives and Daughters as Mrs. Hamley</td></tr>
<tr><td>Allen Leech</td><td>Tom Branson</td><td>From Time to Time as Fred Boggis</td></tr>
<tr><td>Joanna David</td><td>Duchess of Yeovil</td><td>Pride and Prejudice (1995) as Mrs. Gardiner</td></tr>
<tr><td>Samantha Bond</td><td>Lady Rosamund Painswick</td><td>Emma (1997) as Mrs. Weston</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x10aMQs9sPQ/UsYnHPFd0xI/AAAAAAAAE24/NO-CfGoiarM/s1600/downton-s4-mary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x10aMQs9sPQ/UsYnHPFd0xI/AAAAAAAAE24/NO-CfGoiarM/s320/downton-s4-mary.jpg" height="172" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lady Mary post mourning</td></tr>
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Mary used to be one of my favorite characters in the show. I still like Mary, but it seems like she is less of a three dimensional character now. First of all, it seemed like she didn't mourn Matthew long enough. It was six months and everyone was telling her she needed to get over it (with the exception of Robert) (they couldn't give her a year?). And then a couple of episodes after that, she was kissing Lord Gillingham all the while saying that she isn't over Matthew? They told us Mary would take her time mourning Matthew! If you look at Upstairs, Downstairs (the older series, and this is a <b>Upstairs, Downstairs Spoiler</b>) Richard Bellamy took nearly two series to get remarried after Lady Marjorie died, and you know what? I accepted his new wife when he did get married; I even liked her. Though I watched Upstairs, Downstairs in a shorter period of time than people watching it as it aired, I still felt there was enough time for Richard to mourn before seriously looking for a wife again. <b>End of Upstairs, Downstairs Spoiler </b>With Downton Abbey, Mary's mourning was too quick, if not for her (which I do think it was too quick for her), then too quick for the audience. By the end of the series, she's stringing along three potential suitors (Lord Gillingham, an old family friend, Charles Blake, an estate surveyor, and Evelyn Napier from Series 1), none of which I feel all that great about (though Evelyn Napier does the best with me). And the Christmas special, she was especially one dimensional: it was more stringing Charles Blake and Lord Gillingham along, and then she admits that she has been stringing her potential suitors along, but it looks like she is going to continue to do it. For a character that was a major central focus of the show, she became awfully one dimensional.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZGz3YLVKJEY/UsYnHOSo8EI/AAAAAAAAE28/IpD3kS4WWgk/s1600/downton-s4-violetisobel.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZGz3YLVKJEY/UsYnHOSo8EI/AAAAAAAAE28/IpD3kS4WWgk/s320/downton-s4-violetisobel.png" height="186" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isobel walking with Violet</td></tr>
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Violet was severely underplayed during this series. With the past three series she had plenty of witty lines that you could quote and constantly repost to Facebook or repin on Pinterest, she didn't have any memorable witty lines this series. Sure, there were some quotes that did get posted to Facebook, but they were absolutely pale compared to her previous one-liners. I don't know if they are slowly easing her out of the show, but it was almost as if she were to leave the show, she wouldn't affect the show very much. It's unfortunate because she is one of the most beloved characters on the show. My fear is that she is being slowly eased out of the show. Really, she is a great potential that is being wasted in this series.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZAiUw9udPdA/UsYnEJmcRoI/AAAAAAAAE2Y/52d0DYYHCGY/s1600/downton-s4-edith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZAiUw9udPdA/UsYnEJmcRoI/AAAAAAAAE2Y/52d0DYYHCGY/s320/downton-s4-edith.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edith sitting with Michael Gregson</td></tr>
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Then there's Edith. Edith has come a long way from the beginning of the series, but I'm still not a big fan of her's either. She continues to see her newspaper editor, Michael Gregson, despite the fact that he is still married (all this screams a little too much like Jane Eyre, except Jane's morality stopped her from pursuing anything further with Mr. Rochester). I would have thought that Edith would be more careful than she had been (and especially having been warned by Matthew in the finale last year to break off the relationship). Oh Edith, Edith, Edith... What are we going to do with you? She can be more of a sympathetic character in this series, but at the same time, I wonder at some of the choices she makes. <b>Spoiler </b>I do applaud her that when she becomes pregnant, she does keep her child.<b> End of Spoiler</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nfTDcUKOFFM/UsYnHoL4VMI/AAAAAAAAE20/o_o-xpoa9oQ/s1600/downton-s4-rose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nfTDcUKOFFM/UsYnHoL4VMI/AAAAAAAAE20/o_o-xpoa9oQ/s200/downton-s4-rose.jpg" height="200" width="145" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lady Rose at her coming out.</td></tr>
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And then there's Lady Rose. Rose now has a more permanent place at Downton, Cora being her guardian while Rose's parents are in India (with O'Brien I might add, but more on that later). I didn't like her when she first entered the show last series... and I'm still not sure about her this series. Do I hate her? No. But do I like her? No. My guess is that she was brought in last series as a replacement for Lady Sybil; if that is the case, she is a poor substitute for Sybil. While Sybil was rebellious, there was a sweetness about her that you couldn't help but like her; she truly wanted to help people and if that meant rebelling, so be it. With Rose, she is rebellious for rebellion's sake... or better still, to anger her mother. She is probably one of my least liked characters in the show, though she doesn't cross the line to where I hate her.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QZ9ddNBCa74/UsYnDvrEDzI/AAAAAAAAE2c/Yx2kHKAG2l8/s1600/downton-s4-corarobert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QZ9ddNBCa74/UsYnDvrEDzI/AAAAAAAAE2c/Yx2kHKAG2l8/s320/downton-s4-corarobert.jpg" height="202" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cora and Robert on Robert's return from America</td></tr>
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I thought Robert was going to have a bigger role in this series, and at the beginning of the series there was evidence to support this (for instance, I thought that Robert was going to put up more of a fight to Mary's getting involved with the estate). But as the series went on, to me Robert seemed like another minor character -- taking a back seat to everything else that was going on. In fact, the last episode of the regular series, he was away in America until the last couple of minutes where he returns to Downton. Cora had more of a role in this series with the multiple departures of lady's maids.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TpdcDALQjAo/UsYnDT02i-I/AAAAAAAAE2U/12pkIoWFbjo/s1600/downton-s4-baxter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TpdcDALQjAo/UsYnDT02i-I/AAAAAAAAE2U/12pkIoWFbjo/s320/downton-s4-baxter.jpg" height="177" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The lady's maids of Downton. Anna with Baxter.</td></tr>
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Speaking of Cora's lady's maids, it's revealed almost right away that Cora's lady's maid, O'Brien, has left to work for Lady Flintshire (Lady Rose's mother), prompting Cora to hire another lady's maid. Enter Edna Braithwaithe from last year's Christmas special who had designs on Tom Branson. Edna is still dislikable and up to no good and preys upon Branson. Luckily, she doesn't last long: four episodes into the series, she was gone. Good riddance! But Cora just can't seem to find decent lady's maids! But then enter Baxter, Cora's (permanent?) lady's maid. Baxter is a quiet character who is being blackmailed by Thomas (she has to report everything that she sees to him, like a spy) because he can ruin her. It is apparent quickly that she doesn't want to help Thomas. Mr. Molesley, who is now a footman after losing his valet's job, befriends Baxter and encourages her to stand up to Thomas. Though there are still many unanswered questions about Baxter, I have high hopes for her. I'm also curious to know what her back story is.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tKoh33h69i8/UsYnF6aVEII/AAAAAAAAE2k/vZ7bUpB4rWc/s1600/downton-s4-annabates.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tKoh33h69i8/UsYnF6aVEII/AAAAAAAAE2k/vZ7bUpB4rWc/s320/downton-s4-annabates.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Bates</td></tr>
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Anna and Bates take up a pretty major focus in this series, and I grew tired of the whole Anna/Bates storyline back in Series 2. Why do they keep focusing on Anna and Bates? They seriously need to back off with these two. But despite all that, I did feel sympathy for Anna in her story. This part of the subplot <b>Spoiler </b>which really started when Anna was attacked by Lord Gillingham's valet, Green,<b> End of Spoiler</b> caused a major uproar in the U.K. when it aired, and rightfully so. I'm sorry that the show went in this direction: the plot didn't need to go in this direction and, though Downton can be more PG-13 at times, it was something that was unexpected from Downton. The Anna/Bates plotline took a dark turn with this event thrown in. You might not look at Bates the same way again <b>Spoiler </b>since it looks as if he extracted revenge from Green<b> End of Spoiler</b>.<br />
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<b>Scenery</b><br />
As with the previous series, the scenery continues to be one of the highlights of the show. Compared with the other series, this series has more places that are shown. Lady Rosamund's home is explored more in this series because Edith goes up to London to visit Michael Gregson quite a bit (though there is a question of where the Crawley's London house went). Dance halls are also more involved in this series because Rose likes to go dancing. And in the Christmas special (which does not take place during Christmas), Buckingham Palace is present<br />
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<b>Costumes</b><br />
The costuming continues to be great, but since I'm not a fan of 1920s fashions, they didn't leave much of an imprint on me. Lady Mary continues to have great dresses, but she seemed to come out of mourning quickly (she was only in mourning for the first episode). Lady Edith's costuming should win an award for "Most Improved": Edith looks a lot better during the fourth series than she did at the beginning of the show. While Edith looks better than she did, some of her outfits were misses with me; there were a lot of them I was like, "Edith, what are you wearing?" Rose does have a lot of nice dresses that are colorful and youthful. I would almost say that her costuming was just as good as Mary's.<br />
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<b>Overall:</b> 3/5<br />
Was this series as bad as I thought it was going to be? No. Was it better than last series? No. Would it have been better if Matthew (and maybe Sybil) had been in this series? Yes. The major focuses of the show that made Downton Abbey popular are gone and so the show had to be taken in a new direction. At this point, I would say it would have been better if they had stopped at the third series and finished everything off nicely. I'm sorry: Downton's former glory just isn't there anymore and I suspect it isn't coming back. It's still renewed for a fifth series, so I'll continue to watch Downton, but I don't see it lasting beyond Series 5. (Of course, I said the same thing last year).<br />
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The major questionable content lies in the third episode of the series <b>Spoiler </b>where Anna is attacked by Green<b> End of Spoiler</b>. I was expecting the scene to be a lot more graphic than it was from what I saw people on Facebook saying, but it can nevertheless be disturbing. There is some scandal talked about concerning Edith and Michael Gregson. There are also some suggestive implications that result in pregnancy <b>Spoiler </b>one of which turns out to be false<b> End of Spoiler</b>.<br />
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Downton Abbey is airing on PBS now, but will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray on January 28th. There are eight episodes and a Christmas special included in this series.Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-4942639405141855022013-12-25T10:00:00.000-06:002013-12-25T10:00:03.341-06:00Merry Christmas!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://johneaves.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/nativity-baby-jesus-christmas-2008-christmas-2806967-1000-5581.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="http://johneaves.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/nativity-baby-jesus-christmas-2008-christmas-2806967-1000-5581.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope everyone has a blessed Christmas!</div>
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<strong> God Bless,</strong>
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<img alt="God Bless, Miss Elizabeth Bennet" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UuJBrvZzRBg/Tfo70osn1aI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/94dOgOekfR8/newsig.jpg" width="400px" />Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-21440043649220273462013-12-09T10:30:00.000-06:002013-12-17T21:24:04.205-06:00Review: The Christmas Candle (2013)Woo! I'm finally back to reviewing! I'm sorry for this (many) months hiatus. Hopefully now, I'll be back to doing reviews more consistently. I have plenty of period dramas that I want to watch, so this will hopefully be the first in a long line of new reviews.<br />
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But anyways. I've heard a lot about The Christmas Candle lately, it being the Christmas season and all. I had heard that people seeing the movie (not the critics, however) liked the movie, that the costumes were good, and that it was an overall good, Christian movie. My parents and I went to see it in a theater that was playing it (which which had to do a little bit of driving to since it was only released in selected theaters) and we all watched it together one Sunday afternoon, which happened to be the first day of Advent.<br />
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<b>Synopsis</b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nGp8EODn9t0/Up4SHrL93XI/AAAAAAAAE0s/0XfUw9aMupo/s1600/christmascandleboxart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nGp8EODn9t0/Up4SHrL93XI/AAAAAAAAE0s/0XfUw9aMupo/s320/christmascandleboxart.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Promotional Picure</td></tr>
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When Gladbury's minister dies, Lady Camdon of Gladbury invites and persuades a young minister, David Richmond, to fill the position. Upon arriving in Gladbury, David learns of the Christmas Candle story: every twenty-five years, an angel blesses one candle (The Christmas Candle) which is given to one person who is granted a miracle. When David arrives and tries to modernize the town of Gladbury and disprove the story of the Christmas Candle, much to the chagrin of the townspeople, the Christmas Candle goes missing.<br />
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<b>Characters</b><br />
I was expecting more familiar faces in this period drama, but there were a couple of familiar period drama faces in The Christmas Candle.<br />
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<tr><td><b>Actor/Actress</b></td><td><b>Character</b></td><td><b>Also Seen In</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>Hans Matheson</td><td>David Richmond</td><td>Les Miserables (1998) as Marius</td></tr>
<tr><td>Samantha Barks</td><td>Emily Barstow</td><td>Les Miserables (2011) as Eponine</td></tr>
<tr><td>Lesley Manville</td><td>Bea Haddington</td><td>Cranford (2007) as Mrs. Rose</td></tr>
<tr><td>Sylvester McCoy</td><td>Edward Haddington</td><td>Doctor Who as the Seventh Doctor</td></tr>
<tr><td>Barbara Flynn</td><td>Lady Camdon</td><td>Cranford (2007) as Mrs. Jamieson, He Knew He Was Right as Mrs. French, various period dramas</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The Christmas Candle also features the acting debut of Susan Boyle who became famous after her performance on Britain's Got Talent. She played Eleanor Hopewell, the wife of the church's caretaker.<br />
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While watching The Christmas Candle, I felt like the characters and overall feeling were very similar to Cranford (and not just because two actresses from Cranford were in this movie). The movie had an overall warm feeling to it, but it was not without serious moments (like Cranford). The characters in the story had their problems (like all of us do), but they were a hopeful set of characters who could find joy in their lives.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Yuz1DJJv1Pc/Up4eCalHfEI/AAAAAAAAE1M/X34-xTn21PI/s1600/christmascandledavid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Yuz1DJJv1Pc/Up4eCalHfEI/AAAAAAAAE1M/X34-xTn21PI/s320/christmascandledavid.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David Richmond played by Hans Matheson</td></tr>
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I'm still not quite sure what to make of David Richmond. His heart was in the right place (he started out helping the Salvation Army and when he came to Gladbury, he wanted to help the people make their miracles), but at the same time, he wanted to force Gladbury to modernize. It was a shock to everyone and it certainly didn't help him. <b>Spoiler </b>I did feel bad for him when he said that his wife and daughter died of consumption, which was why he didn't want to help Mr. Barstow right away when he had consumption.<b> End of Spoiler</b>. I suppose you grow a little attached to his character, but he isn't a favorite character of mine.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2UwTPGustec/Up4eE1XWBaI/AAAAAAAAE1g/TBGUKyJ5i0o/s1600/christmascandleemily.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2UwTPGustec/Up4eE1XWBaI/AAAAAAAAE1g/TBGUKyJ5i0o/s320/christmascandleemily.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emily Barstow played by Samantha Barks</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Emily Barstow I wasn't sure that I was going to like. She was spunky and an interesting character, but I thought she was a little annoying at times. She fell away from the church and was touting how she believes in "common sense" and how she doesn't believe in miracles. Luckily, she does soften as the story goes on <b>Spoiler </b>and even comes back to the church<b> End of Spoiler</b>. I think I liked her young cousin, Charlie, better. Charlie loves scripture and wanted to become a minister, but he has been unable to talk since his parents died. David tries to help him loosen his tongue with mouth exercises to get him to speak <b>Spoiler </b>but it isn't until the end of the movie that Charlie does speak<b> End of Spoiler</b>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nxo2Igi6ezQ/Up4eCFFY7jI/AAAAAAAAE1E/TQ6TyCpVYTc/s1600/christmascandlehaddingtons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nxo2Igi6ezQ/Up4eCFFY7jI/AAAAAAAAE1E/TQ6TyCpVYTc/s320/christmascandlehaddingtons.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edward Haddington making candles and Bea Haddington<br />
behind him looking on.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Edward and Bea Haddington run the candle shop that the angel visits to bless the Christmas Candle. At times they were a bit scheming (at one point or another, one of them suggests that they keep the Christmas Candle for themselves to bring their son back to the family), but they were still a likable couple. It is early in the story that they lose the Christmas Candle by accident and decide to give everyone in the town a candle and tell them to light it and pray (they didn't say that it was the Christmas Candle, but they lead everyone to believe they had it). But still, they were a likable, sympathetic couple. <b>Spoiler </b>My favorite part with them was at the end of the story when they find out that they have a grandson by a girl, Ruth, who was abandoned by their son. They decide to care for both Ruth and her child, who she names after her father, Edward (which also happens to be the name of Mr. Haddington)!<b> End of Spoiler</b><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o10l4fV1mxU/Up4eDbZjGpI/AAAAAAAAE1U/okKwrHafxkA/s1600/christmascandleladycamdon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o10l4fV1mxU/Up4eDbZjGpI/AAAAAAAAE1U/okKwrHafxkA/s1600/christmascandleladycamdon.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barbara Flynn as Lady Camdon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It's simply not a period drama without Barbara Flynn! (Okay, yes there are period dramas without Barbara Flynn in them, but just humor me a little). Barbara Flynn played Lady Camdon, who convinces David to come to Gladbury. Unlike Barbara Flynn's usual roles, which feature snooty ladies, Lady Camdon is kind and caring. When David has major doubts throughout the storyline, he goes to Lady Camdon who gives him some advice. Barbara Flynn did a very good job of acting in The Christmas Candle and I'm happy to see her in a new period drama.<br />
<b>Scenery</b><br />
Another period drama with excellent scenery! Though the story takes place in the winter time, there were still plenty of lovely scenes around. Unlike a lot of stories that take place in the winter, there were plenty of scenes were there was not snow on the ground, despite the story taking place in Advent. I think that it made it more realistic: I don't know about where all of you live, but where I am, sometimes the Christmas season comes and there is no snow on the ground for quite some time. Don't worry, the snow does come eventually, but not for awhile.<br />
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<b>Costumes</b><br />
One of the things that people love about this movie is the costumes, and I would have to agree. The costumes in here were very lovely! There was a good mixture of middle class/upper class attire and lower class attire, so there is a wide range of costumes in this film. Though the movie takes place in 1890, the fashions were very late 1880s; this is probably due to the fact that Gladbury is a country town, so the latest fashions from London (mutton sleeves, no bustle, shirtwaists, etc.) probably didn't make it to the country until later. From what I understand, the person who did the costuming for Lark Rise to Candleford did the costuming for this movie -- you can tell that both sets of costumes were similar.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I6jlK9PDJaM/Up4eDLDZOAI/AAAAAAAAE1Y/4oxgexQE-DQ/s1600/christmascandlesusanboyle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I6jlK9PDJaM/Up4eDLDZOAI/AAAAAAAAE1Y/4oxgexQE-DQ/s320/christmascandlesusanboyle.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Susan Boyle as Eleanor Hopewell. Mr and Mrs. Hopewell<br />
are caretakers of the church.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Music</b><br />
The highlight of the music is Susan Boyle's singing. She did a wonderful job singing. But aside from Susan Boyle, the movie did have some nice music. While there were some Christmas carols, there weren't that many of them; in fact, the songs that Susan Boyle did sing were not Christmas carols, but (I think) were new songs. To the disappointment of some fans of Les Miserables, Samantha Barks does not have any singing numbers.<br />
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<b>Overall:</b> 3.5/5<br />
I thought it was a good movie and I'm not sorry that I watched it, but I probably won't be seeing it again in the near future. It was a sweet movie and is great around Christmas time, but it's just not one of those movies that you see over and over again. Still, I don't understand why critics dislike the movie so much; sure, it wasn't the best movie ever, but it was a decent movie. Maybe it's because this movie is an actual family friendly movie which is boring to them. But I'm just speculating here. The acting was good, the storyline was sweet, the costuming great. This is a worthy period drama.<br />
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The film is rated PG for mild thematic events. I would consider this to be a family friendly movie. There might be a couple of scenes that might be considered frightening. There is a light fixture malfunction that causes a fire in the church. One person dies. Another person has consumption and is very sick <b>Spoiler </b>(don't worry, he doesn't die, but makes a full recovery. Not sure how accurate that is, but hey.)<b> End of Spoiler</b>. A character has a child out of wedlock and the father abandoned them (<b>Spoiler</b> However the paternal grandparents compassionately take both mother and child in <b>End of Spoiler</b>).<br />
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The Christmas Candle is playing in selected theaters now. It runs for 100 minutes.Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-28912889454063305602013-12-02T13:54:00.000-06:002013-12-02T13:54:49.247-06:00The New Layout! *Cue Fanfare*; Layout Version: Elizabeth BennetAs promised, the new layout has arrived! This layout will probably stay up for a month or two (haven't decided which yet). I think this layout came out pretty well. So, allow me to begin the tour.<br />
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This month's theme is Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. I thought that since my pen name is Miss Elizabeth Bennet, I thought it was a good choice for the monthly/bimonthly theme. The header features multiple shots of Lizzy in Pride and Prejudice (1995), and the background is a forest background to match. I will be updating the Facebook header very soon so that it matches the blog's header.<br />
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Another big thing you will notice is that I cut out the right sidebar and kept the left sidebar. Unless there is a tournament, there will only be one sidebar. One of the major things you will notice is the lack of other blog buttons. Don't worry: I haven't gotten rid of them. I created a separate page called <a href="http://elegance-of-fashion.blogspot.com/p/recommended-blogs.html">Visit These Blogs!</a> that has my recommended blogs<br />
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In the future, I'm hoping to create a "Blogger of the Month" widget on the sidebar, but I still need to work out the details. The idea is to give a random blogger some face time on my sidebar and then refer to the rest of the blog buttons on that page.<br />
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Oh! And I have a matching button! You can find this button on the sidebar and on the Blog Buttons page.</div>
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That's pretty much the layout changes I've made. It was mostly getting rid of extras that weren't useful anymore and putting up a new banner and background. I'd love you feedback on the new layout. And if you have any suggestions now, please feel free to comment on them. If they don't make it into this layout, they could very well go into the next layout! </div>
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<br />
<hr />
<strong> God Bless,</strong>
<br />
<img alt="God Bless, Miss Elizabeth Bennet" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UuJBrvZzRBg/Tfo70osn1aI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/94dOgOekfR8/newsig.jpg" width="400px" />Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-53489875228195447662013-11-26T12:00:00.000-06:002013-11-26T12:00:02.834-06:00So, where am I now with the new layout? (Yes, a date has been set!)Hey everyone!<br />
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I haven't posted in over a week! I thought it would be a good time to update all of you. I've been doing quite a bit of work behind the scenes for the new layout. For the most part, it's going pretty well. In fact I think I am ready to set the date for when I will put up the new layout.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
First, the major part of the layout: I've completed the blog header and the background! I think it turned out very nicely and I think you all will like it. And I also made a little button to go with the banner!<br />
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I've decided that because I want to still do polls, tournaments, other things that require a side bar, headers, etc., I will stay with the basic layout template that I have now and not go with the dynamic template. So, in saying that, I've started to clean up the current layout that I have now. I've gone through the links that I have up on the sidebar and weeded out the links that no longer work. I also simplified the social media links: now, they're little icons that you can click on and it will take you to Elegance of Fashion's page on that site.<br />
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I also took out that recent posts widget that I had up there. It wasn't doing anything for the blog and probably made the page load slower.<br />
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Now for the sidebars themselves. I had wondered whether or not I should have just one sidebar or keep both. I think I'm going to do something a little crazy here and say that I will keep just one sidebar. If at some time I need a second sidebar (like a tournament comes around), I can always put it up. It will be like that fold-up table you keep in the basement of your house that you bring out for Thanksgiving when there are more people in your house.<br />
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But now for the date of the unveiling. I'm going to set the date of the new layout as Monday, December 2nd. On that day, I will put up the new banner and background and any other changes that I have planned.<br />
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<strong> God Bless,</strong>
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<img alt="God Bless, Miss Elizabeth Bennet" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UuJBrvZzRBg/Tfo70osn1aI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/94dOgOekfR8/newsig.jpg" width="400px" />Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-51289018186611918142013-11-14T12:01:00.002-06:002013-11-14T12:02:10.117-06:00Header Poll Results and Progress on New LookSo for starter's, the poll is now closed at the side bar. Thank you for voting and helping to decide about the header. But now, for the results. So between a multi-themed banner and a monthly banner, you all preferred...<br />
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<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 354px;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="answerText" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 12px; overflow: hidden; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 2px; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><div style="overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis;" title="One multi-themed banner that is changed once a year">
One multi-themed banner that is changed once a year</div>
</td><td style="margin-top: 2px; padding-top: 2px;"><div style="position: relative; z-index: 0;">
<div class="resultText" style="border: 1px solid rgb(51, 102, 153); color: #b7b7b7; font-size: 12px; padding-top: 2px; white-space: nowrap;" title="One multi-themed banner that is changed once a year">
6 (31%)</div>
<div class="resultBar" style="background-color: #336699; border: none; font-size: 12px; left: 0px; margin-bottom: 1px; margin-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px; padding-top: 1px; position: absolute; top: 0px; white-space: nowrap; width: 17.96875px; z-index: -1;" title="One multi-themed banner that is changed once a year">
</div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td class="answerText" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 12px; overflow: hidden; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 2px; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><div style="overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis;" title="Monthly/Bi-monthly banners that have a specific theme">
Monthly/Bi-monthly banners that have a specific theme</div>
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<div class="resultText" style="border: 1px solid rgb(51, 102, 153); color: #b7b7b7; font-size: 12px; padding-top: 2px; white-space: nowrap;" title="Monthly/Bi-monthly banners that have a specific theme">
12 (63%)</div>
<div class="resultBar" style="background-color: #336699; border: none; font-size: 12px; left: 0px; margin-bottom: 1px; margin-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px; padding-top: 1px; position: absolute; top: 0px; white-space: nowrap; width: 36.53125px; z-index: -1;" title="Monthly/Bi-monthly banners that have a specific theme">
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</td></tr>
<tr><td class="answerText" style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 12px; overflow: hidden; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 2px; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><div style="overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis;" title="No Preference">
No Preference</div>
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<div class="resultText" style="border: 1px solid rgb(51, 102, 153); color: #b7b7b7; font-size: 12px; padding-top: 2px; white-space: nowrap;" title="No Preference">
3 (15%)</div>
<div class="resultBar" style="background-color: #336699; border: none; font-size: 12px; left: 0px; margin-bottom: 1px; margin-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px; padding-top: 1px; position: absolute; top: 0px; white-space: nowrap; width: 8.6875px; z-index: -1;" title="No Preference">
</div>
<div>
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a monthly banner! So that is what I will try to do from now on: changing up the banner either every month or every two months.<br />
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But now for the progress on the new look.</div>
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While I do know some web development (I did take two courses on it), I don't think I'm ready to code my own template for blogger; analyzing the current layout code would be a big feat since there are over 2,000 lines of code. So what does that leave me with? Templates, of course! I've been looking around at templates and I do want to try something new.<br />
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I thought about doing a dynamic template. It was new; it looked cool. But then I realized that I would have to give up headers (I created a test blog and noticed that I could not use a picture as a header). I do want to keep the header and there were other features in the dynamic template that I wasn't very fond of, so the dynamic template is out.<br />
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So it looks like I'm going to basically use a similar design as before. The original design worked out very well and people haven't complained about it, so I'll probably use a similar template but apply a new background/header to it and clean up the side bars. I'm still debating whether or not I want to keep both sidebars or just one sidebar, so if you have any comments on that, feel free to leave a comment.<br />
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And if you scroll down to the bottom of Elegance of Fashion, you will notice that I cleaned up my labels! There's still quite a few labels (after all, there are over 700 posts on Elegance of Fashion), but they are under a lot more control now than they were before.<br />
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So as I work on redesigning my blog, I'll keep you all updated as to how it's going.<br />
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Hope your week has been going well!<br />
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<strong> God Bless,</strong>
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<img alt="God Bless, Miss Elizabeth Bennet" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UuJBrvZzRBg/Tfo70osn1aI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/94dOgOekfR8/newsig.jpg" width="400px" /></div>
Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-20499628706019946222013-11-07T11:50:00.000-06:002013-11-07T11:50:10.932-06:00Of Posts and LabelsDue to a bit of a Blogger mix-up, some of the posts on Elegance of Fashion might be a tad mixed up with very old posts suddenly being pushed to the front. This is probably a product of my organizing the labels, so bear with me as I restore some order to the labels. Sorry if this makes looking for recent posts a little confusing.<br />
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<strong> God Bless,</strong>
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<img alt="God Bless, Miss Elizabeth Bennet" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UuJBrvZzRBg/Tfo70osn1aI/AAAAAAAAA9Y/94dOgOekfR8/newsig.jpg" width="400px" />Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-49448046360472225392013-11-07T11:18:00.000-06:002013-11-08T12:47:46.019-06:00Mrs. Hursts Blue Morning GownOne of my least favorite gowns in <em>Pride and Prejudice</em>, Mrs. Hurst seems to wear this gown a lot. I don't have a picture of the back of this dress, but you can assume that the back is basically a typical Regency dress back.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BC616jA4Ul4/TdDGkWeb_6I/AAAAAAAAAuc/-91noxtOLqQ/s1600/PPRE-219.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181px" j8="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BC616jA4Ul4/TdDGkWeb_6I/AAAAAAAAAuc/-91noxtOLqQ/s320/PPRE-219.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div>
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<em>Front</em>: The fabric of the dress is light blue with a silver fancy diamond pattern. There are six buttons in the front, but these buttons appear to be decorations. This dress is also accessorized with a lace collar, lace shawl/fichu, and mob cap.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m3V2f567dCE/TdDGmPR-QII/AAAAAAAAAug/AjVGF5TBeos/s1600/PPRE-599.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181px" j8="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m3V2f567dCE/TdDGmPR-QII/AAAAAAAAAug/AjVGF5TBeos/s320/PPRE-599.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div>
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<em>Front/Partial Side View</em>: There's a slight puff to the long sleeve. You can also see a full picture of the lace shawl/fichu.</div>
Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-20387608590198158732013-11-07T11:10:00.000-06:002013-11-07T11:10:42.222-06:00Jane Bennet's Blue Spencers<div align="center">
There are two spencers featured here. I decided to put them into one post because they were so similar and there were only slight differences between them. Like Elizabeth's spencers, Jane's spencers are always paired with a white dress.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TUzvJun32RI/AAAAAAAAAYA/PjaFVTwoB_I/s1600/PPRE-032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="181" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TUzvJun32RI/AAAAAAAAAYA/PjaFVTwoB_I/s320/PPRE-032.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Spencer #1 Full View</em>: There are two buttons at the bottom of the spencer that close the spencer.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TUzvLMJ2lWI/AAAAAAAAAYE/51-w-O7pqSI/s1600/PPRE-033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="181" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TUzvLMJ2lWI/AAAAAAAAAYE/51-w-O7pqSI/s320/PPRE-033.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Spencer #1 Front/Side View</em>: There seem to be decorative buttons on the sleeve with triangular shapes going from the button to the sleeve.</div>
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<em>Spencer #2 Front View</em>: Slight differences: instead of only two buttons at the bottom for closure, there appear to be three buttons at the bottom <em>and</em> two more buttons above them.</div>
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<em>Spencer #2 Side View</em>: Here appears to be the same spencer as #1 sans buttons at the sides.</div>
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I didn't have any pictures of the back view, but I would assume that the back would be the standard Regency back.</div>
Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-26891748841461711812013-11-07T11:09:00.002-06:002013-11-07T11:09:36.738-06:00Assorted Chemisettes and Kerchiefs/Fichus<div align="center">
Throughout <em>Pride and Prejudice</em>, some characters wear either chemisettes or kerchiefs (fichus). Chemisettes and fichus were worn both for modesty and warmth. They would be tucked into the bodice.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TU0BuhfXJ9I/AAAAAAAAAYQ/iGSUIxzsd-I/s1600/PPRE-029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="181" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TU0BuhfXJ9I/AAAAAAAAAYQ/iGSUIxzsd-I/s320/PPRE-029.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Mrs. Bennet's chemisette</em>: Lots of frills</div>
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<em>Kitty and Lydia's chemisettes</em>: Kitty has the chemisette with lots of frills while Lydia has a collar chemisette. I remembered seeing a <em>Simplicity </em>pattern that had a chemisette similar to Lydia's, but I think it's unavailable now. You might have to look at E-bay or other pattern websites.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TU0BwaGbAdI/AAAAAAAAAYU/LieGelJQ9uk/s1600/PPRE-581.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="181" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TU0BwaGbAdI/AAAAAAAAAYU/LieGelJQ9uk/s320/PPRE-581.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Mrs. Gardiner's chemisette</em>: Not as many frills as Mrs. Bennet's.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TU0DjrSibTI/AAAAAAAAAYY/A0Oh0Ozkgso/s1600/PPRE-112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="181" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TU0DjrSibTI/AAAAAAAAAYY/A0Oh0Ozkgso/s320/PPRE-112.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<em>Elizabeth's and Jane's Kerchiefs/Fichus</em>: I wasn't sure what to call them exactly. They are in the shape of fichus, but fichus are usually tucked into the bodice. Pretty much it's a triangular piece of fabric that you can tie as shown. They look like their decorated with some white embroidery on white tulle or some sort of veil fabric.</div>
Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-9479892262742715462013-11-07T11:09:00.001-06:002013-11-07T11:09:19.575-06:00Kitty Bennet's Purple SpencerKitty must only really have one spencer. This is the only spencer that I have seen her in. If you watched the 2007 version of <em>Persuasion</em>, this spencer may look familiar.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TVC9xvJPbeI/AAAAAAAAAaE/raPZUNM4RVs/s1600/PPRE-527.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="181" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TVC9xvJPbeI/AAAAAAAAAaE/raPZUNM4RVs/s320/PPRE-527.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Front View</em>: Really, there are only two fabric colors: a purpleish, greyish color (would it be called a light puce?) and a darker purple. The collar and cuffs done in this dark purple appear to be velvet or velour.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TVDBB7s_bGI/AAAAAAAAAaI/l4z0YGTPqQc/s1600/PPRE-536.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="181" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TVDBB7s_bGI/AAAAAAAAAaI/l4z0YGTPqQc/s320/PPRE-536.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<em></em><em>Close-up of Front View</em>: There appear to be two darts on Kitty's spencer.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TVC9v-TWLsI/AAAAAAAAAaA/T77fiY4Sy6I/s1600/PPRE-529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="181" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_W6kMXsEuuqc/TVC9v-TWLsI/AAAAAAAAAaA/T77fiY4Sy6I/s320/PPRE-529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Partial Side View</em>: Just a side view. You get a closer view of the black buttons.<br />
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<em>Back View</em>: To me, it looks like the back is one piece, not the typical Regency back with a couple of pieces. </div>
Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-71445185172731798752013-11-07T11:09:00.000-06:002013-11-07T11:09:12.527-06:00Kitty and Lydia Bennet's Red CapeKitty and Lydia have the same exact red cape. In fact, there isn't a scene where one wears it and the other doesn't; they always wear them together. They also wear their usual spencers underneath (notice a little bit of Kitty's purple spencer and Lydia's patterned spencer).<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3kvwTyKZe9w/TVSX6CbsD6I/AAAAAAAAAbs/F58-CldMunY/s1600/PPRE-305.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="181" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3kvwTyKZe9w/TVSX6CbsD6I/AAAAAAAAAbs/F58-CldMunY/s320/PPRE-305.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Front View</em>: Both capes are red and are secured with a two ribbons that are tied together in a bow. There is a hood on both...</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IuzjktajLrE/TVSX8LzlVBI/AAAAAAAAAbw/PbYcKWsSt5E/s1600/PPRE-306.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="181" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IuzjktajLrE/TVSX8LzlVBI/AAAAAAAAAbw/PbYcKWsSt5E/s320/PPRE-306.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em>Back View</em>:<em> </em>And here's the hood! The hood is gathered at the edge. It appears that the hood is a rather large one, probably so the wearer could have their bonnet on and be fully covered by the hood.</div>
Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-65759582170986391762013-11-07T10:54:00.000-06:002013-11-08T12:47:46.026-06:00Jane Bennet's Pink Summer GownThis dress is seen on Jane when the weather is warm outside. <br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VdEoaoB54B4/TdDIK2RlgSI/AAAAAAAAAuk/TuGWM1A8xpI/s1600/PPRE-1131.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181px" j8="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VdEoaoB54B4/TdDIK2RlgSI/AAAAAAAAAuk/TuGWM1A8xpI/s320/PPRE-1131.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div>
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<em>Full Front View</em>: The bodice is V-necked and has a darker pink trim around the neck line and waist line. The trim along the neck line criss-crosses. The bottom of the dress is a darker pink then the rest of the dress.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EDVUU9CwUio/TdDIM6kWHDI/AAAAAAAAAuo/tR0wpED0Fw0/s1600/PPRE-1133.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181px" j8="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EDVUU9CwUio/TdDIM6kWHDI/AAAAAAAAAuo/tR0wpED0Fw0/s320/PPRE-1133.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div>
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<em>Front View</em>: You can see more detail in the trim on the bodice. There is also a decorate (but smaller than the neckline trim) trim along the bottom of the sleeve. There is also a puff to the sleeve.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LFTx5WTYVq4/TdDIOt77DoI/AAAAAAAAAus/CUmkP46-waI/s1600/PPRE-1129.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181px" j8="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LFTx5WTYVq4/TdDIOt77DoI/AAAAAAAAAus/CUmkP46-waI/s320/PPRE-1129.jpg" width="320px" /></a></div>
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<em>Back View</em>: Sorry the picture isn't the best. The pink trim along the waistline continues in the back of the dress.</div>
Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4523012080492654376.post-89076368841358629652013-11-07T10:51:00.001-06:002013-11-07T10:51:52.000-06:00Assorted Lace CapsLace caps were worn by married women or old maids. They came in a variety of styles. <em>Pride and Prejudice </em>features a lot of different lace cap styles. There appear to be three kinds of lace caps in <em>Pride and Prejudice</em>: the lace caps that you see commonly, the mobcap, and the draped cap.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">Lace Caps</span></strong></div>
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<em>Mrs. Bennet's Lace Cap</em>: Who could forget Mrs. Bennet's lace cap? It just suits her so well! It seems to be made out of some kind of sheer material. Something that appears to be a little pink flower sits right in the middle of the edge of the cap.</div>
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<em>Charlotte's Lace Cap</em>: Charlotte<em> </em>would wear a lace cap before she was married only when going outside in her bonnet (more on that later). But, since she married Mr. Collins, she always wears the lace cap except for some evenings at Rosings. It's a fairly plain lace cap: no ribbons or flowers. There is a little bit of lace with a design, but overall, it's a very plain cap.</div>
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<em>Mrs. Philips's Lace Cap</em>: Mrs. Philip's lace cap is decorated very similarly to Mrs. Bennet's. There is a little pink ribbon in the center of the edge. There does seem to be more veiling on her cap then Mrs. Bennet's.</div>
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<strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">Mobcaps</span></strong></div>
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<em>Mrs. Hurst's Mobcap</em>: Mobcaps were kind of like the lace caps above, but lace caps were a little lighter. They weren't as popular in the Regency era as they had been earlier. Mrs. Hurst has her mobcap trimmed with pink ribbons and ruffles.</div>
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<strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">Draped Cap</span></strong></div>
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<em>Lady Catherine's Draped Cap</em>: Lady Catherine has the draped cap, which I read at this <a href="http://www.austentation.com/history/caps.html">link</a> was kind of like a skirt placed on top of the head. There was a band of fabric that supported the draped fabric that ran down the sides and back. Lady Catherine's draped cap does have fancy veiling, but it's not as decorated as you would think, since she is rich and we would assume that she would want fancy decorations.</div>
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<em>Caps under Bonnets</em>: Of course, some women wore lace caps under their bonnets. You can see here that Mrs. Gardiner and Charlotte both wear lace caps under their bonnets. This picture of Charlotte was from when before she was married; perhaps because she was twenty seven, she thought that she wasn't going to get married?</div>
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I used this source to find out information about lace caps: <a href="http://www.janeausten.co.uk/magazine/page.ihtml?pid=299&step=4">here</a>. If you want to read further, you can try there.</div>
Miss Elizabeth Bennethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02019249086339232260noreply@blogger.com2