Titanic: Going There

This April marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

I'm quite sure this is why the 1997 movie is being re-released right now in 3D, and why I've seen Titanic-related books and such as well.

What I'm talking about today has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the film. I don't particularly love it or hate it. It is what it is. It had special effects that were ground-breaking. It struck an emotional nerve with millions and broke box-office records. No matter your feelings about it, that film is a piece of history.

I recall a huge fervor in my (then) neighborhood when the movie came out. In particular, I heard a lot of murmurs about how it had bad, bad content and shouldn't have gotten a PG-13 rating. People were divided into those who oh, so loved the movie and saw it fourteen times in the theater, and others who, I must admit, seemed a bit self-righteous about not seeing the "evil" film.

The bad, evil content included a predictable one: upper female frontal nudity. Yes, some said, it's technically in an artistic scene, but it's a straight-on shot of a woman's chest. (Insert horrified gasps.)

Other content that made it inappropriate for "good" people to view included lots of violence, graphic deaths and more.

I reserved judgment. Maybe it was totally inappropriate nudity. Maybe not. Sometimes films have violence I don't want to be exposed to, graphic deaths I don't want in my head. Maybe these people were over-reacting. Maybe not.

I'd decide for myself some day. But for the moment, the issue was moot, because I had a toddler and an infant, neither of whom I felt comfortable leaving with a sitter. Date night almost always meant take-out and a video in the basement, often with the kids at our feet. If I saw any new release that year, it would have been a Disney matinee.

Two issues surrounding the neighborhood discussion still linger in my mind:

1) The Evil Fiance

A neighbor said she saw the film and wasn't so much offended by the art scene (although she didn't approve of that, either), but she was offended instead by the fiance's behavior. I asked what he did.

Neighbor: He's mean, controlling, and violent.

Me: Oh, so he's the hero? His behavior is acceptable in the movie?

(That was the obvious explanation. If we're supposed to cheer for a jerk, I don't want to see it.)

Neighbor: Oh, no. He's the villain.

Me: O_o

I believed then, and I do now, that a story, whether in a film or a book, can teach better than almost any tool. Just because something is portrayed in a story doesn't mean the creator is saying it's acceptable; in many cases, the portrayal is the reverse: a condemnation of that very behavior.

In this movie, we see Cal being a jerk. He treats the woman he's supposed to cherish in a bad way and does a lot of other bad things. We know he's a bad guy.

Ergo, cruelty to women is bad.

If fiction showed only good things and good people and happy events, there would be no stories, no exploration of ideas or problem solving, no understanding compassion or people who aren't us.

I was quite sure I wouldn't have a problem with the villain's actions. He's the villain. He's supposed to be bad.

What about the other big thing?

The Nudity

This issue was put into perspective when my mother told me about a conversation she'd had with some women. They'd raved over movies like Dr. Zhivago and Bridges of Madison County, about how romantic they were.

My mother stayed quiet, being the only one there who didn't like either movie and couldn't see how glorifying adultery (the topic of both movies) was "romantic."

They moved on to discuss the buzz around, of course, Titanic.

Did they like it? Was it romantic?

They hated it. It was totally inappropriate and evil. Why? Because of the art scene with the woman's chest. But the scene in the sex scene in the car? Romantic, just like the other movies. These were middle-aged, Mormon women.

Mom: O_o

I don't know if she said anything in the moment, but she told me her thoughts about it, and I couldn't have agreed more:

Since when is the human body evil, but extra-marital sex is good?

Better mention that nudity thing to Michelangelo. Whoa, that evil Sistine Chapel . . .

This isn't to say that I necessarily think the art scene needed to be there or whatever, but I do think the scene became a scapegoat. Some people saw it and promptly stopped thinking for themselves. They weren't thinking about real values, about what's right or wrong. They were reacting, almost Puritanically (the body is evil!), about what made them uncomfortable.

One of the biggest ironies to me is that these women (the ones I talked to and the ones Mom talked to) were all Mormon. Yet our doctrine celebrates the body as something you must have to attain eternal glory. It's not something bad and dirty.

We believe in reserving sex for marriage.

Yet these women flip-flopped the two concepts completely.

Somehow old-fashioned beliefs creep in anyway and make people squeamish. I get that. I also get that I have less squeamishness thanks to the fact that I lived in Finland for three years, where the body is viewed very pragmatically. Also, Mom's a Finn, so before and after our Finland years, in our family, the body just wasn't a big deal. (We weren't walking around naked or anything, but if you asked about something, you'd get a direct answer, no blushing.)

My kids are older now. I have daughters. Teaching them these things is a challenge. I see how easy it is to try to teach something like honoring and respecting your body enough to dress modestly, and have the value eventually twisted into something that makes them ashamed of their bodies instead. It's something I don't have answers to, but I'm working on.

A final note:

If you plan to see Titanic in theaters with this new release, whether for the first time or again, I recommend not doing so when you're nervous.

We made that mistake by watching it on video two years after its release, when we had two toddlers and an infant, on New Year's Eve of 1999 . . . while bracing ourselves for Y2K.

Motherhood: Rocking It Out

There's a reason my children know all about Ed Grimley, Footloose, Anne of Green Gables, and so many other parts that make up the mother they know and love.

(It brings me no end of joy that my two oldest daughters adore Hitchcock. Hitchcock! I could sing!)

I show them older (as in 80s) TV shows, movies, and even YouTube clips under the guise of "educating" them so they'll be culturally literate. It's proven helpful for them when watching other shows or reading books and they get the inside joke, when none of their friends did, all because two months ago, Mom showed them whatever movie was referenced.

Totally rocks. (Kinda makes me look cool in their eyes, which doesn't hurt.)

And in some ways, it's made a difference with school: they see the point of studying Greek mythology and other subjects, because those things are referenced all the time in other things, and to "get" them, you have to know the original source.

My kids' first contact with musical indoctrination was with ABBA. I believe they all heard ABBA Gold in the womb. Recently my 9th grader had a teacher who offered a prize for any student who could name the song he was about to play on CD.

Within a couple of bars, my son's hand shot up. No one else had a clue, but he knew immediately not only that the group singing was ABBA, but that the song was "Voulez Vous." Had there been a piano in the classroom, he could have played it from memory (not even almost kidding).

He won the prize. (See, son? Cultural literacy totally pays off. Also, put your nose back into that geography textbook.)

The classic rock group Journey was their next big musical experience. It came in the form of Max singing "Lights" on Jillybean's blog. (GO NOW to listen to it. SERIOUSLY. NOW. SO WORTH IT. Then come back.)

To have my kids fully appreciate Max's rendition, however, they had to know the original first: Steve Perry. Trusty YouTube did the job. We found a video there with Journey performing "Lights" and Steve Perry crooning out his classic tenor soul.

Since then, my kids have been Journey fans. They were amazed to realize that a lot of songs they recognize are, yep, Journey songs. Somehow they missed the fact that on and off for their entire lives, Journey's Greatest Hits CD has been playing in the minivan.

They noticed that Randy on American Idol talked about being in the band. Then Glee made "Don't Stop Believin'" a return hit. And suddenly Journey was everywhere. My kids love, love, love Journey.

And then . . . the other day, my 5th grader came home from school ready to pass out with excitement.

One of her teachers had told the class about the time she had a backstage pass to a music group that she was sure the students had never heard of: Journey. Mrs. Miller had even gotten to talk with the lead singer, this great guy with beautiful long hair named Steve Perry.

My daughter gasped. She cried out that she knew who Steve Perry was, but Mrs. Miller didn't hear. Instead, she continued her story about what she and Steve had talked about, blissfully unaware that one student was sitting in her seat, frightfully near hyperventilation.

"Steve Perry, Mom!" my daughter practically yelled when she got home. "Mrs. Miller got to talk to STEVE PERRY!"

Moments like this make me realize that you know, I'm doing okay on this motherhood thing. My kids are learning the really important stuff.

Ahem.

Dinner Discussion and Ratings

When the young 'uns were tiny, having dinner table conversation didn't really happen. I often felt like the mom in The Christmas Story who never got a warm bite to eat because she was constantly helping all the little people with their dinner.

And let's face it: infants and toddlers really don't have much to discuss.

Now that the kids are older, things are a-changin', and dinner table discussion is one of them. I'm enjoying it. One of the more interesting discussions to crop up of late: movie and video game ratings.

It started because one of my daughters had been planning her birthday party for about, oh, two months. (I had to hold her back from delivering the invitations two weeks early. She'd been that obsessed.) Part of the event included a video. Originally she wanted something "scary," which in her vocabulary meant Hitchcock (I'm so proud).

But then she realized that not all her 10-year-old friends would appreciate Hitchcock. (Wise girl.) So she started researching online. (Scary how good she is at it.) She loves Robin Williams from things like Flubber. So she found another movie he's in and asked if it would be okay for them to watch: License to Wed. Immediately, I nixed it. No, I told her, that would not be appropriate for the party.

(What I thought was, With all the adult content in that movie, if I were stupid enough to let you watch it, your friends' parents would all flog me, and for good reason.)

She found a site that rates movies based on content and appropriateness for age ranges (how she found it, I'll never know; I'll have to ask her what it was, because it sounded really awesome), and discovered a cute little movie that was a great fit: clean and perfect for her age range.

So at dinner we got talking about movies and ratings. She mentioned that some of her friends' parents won't let them see PG-13 movies until they're actually 13. That's fine, I said. That's their rule. But I did wonder silently if the rule also meant that they're allowed to see any PG-13 movie at that age.

Which wouldn't be okay in my book.

My kids (only one of which is older than 13) have seen a few PG-13 movies. Each one is hand-picked by Mom and Dad. There are PG-13 movies I don't want them to EVER see (but when they're adults, that's their choice, and it'll be out of my hands.) And there are some that I'll let them see when they're a little younger than 13 but can handle the suspense or the content or whatever.

But the point of our discussion is that the ratings are a suggested guideline, that they're someone's opinion, and that we shouldn't take them as our only source to make a decision.

We talked about my son's video games as another example. He has the entire Zelda series. I've lost track, but I think there are four games. The first three have the typical kiddie rating. The last one is rated T ("Teen," basically, the equivalent of PG-13). Zelda is very much a fairytale fantasy game. You're a little elf-like creature, using your sword to hit open stones for gems to use as money. You fight evil monsters and the like. Good fairies help you along the way. Good and evil are very differentiated, and good wins.

It didn't worry me that the last one was rated T. Just like certain elements automatically give a film a PG-13 or R-rating, any blood automatically gives a video game a T-rating. My son has won the game twice and still hasn't found the blood. But apparently, it's in there somewhere. Hence, the T rating.

But then there's the game Medal of Honor, based on WWII, and directed like a movie by Steven Spielberg. (Which frankly blows my mind. What was he thinking, especially after making Schindler's List?). The graphics are intensely realistic. You're a soldier with a gun, killing other real-looking people. You shoot someone's limb off, and then they bleed and fall down and groan as they die. It's like a real-life movie you're in, blowing up people.

You're not in there rescuing prisoners from concentration camps or taking back cities. It's battles and rampant destruction. It's a far cry from the pretend, light-hearted world of Zelda.

And here's the other big thing: players of Medal of Honor don't (and frankly, can't) have the same mindset as real WWII soldiers did, knowing that they're fighting Hitler's regime and possibly trying to save the world, that they're fighting for home and family and freedom and their very lives.

That's what World War II was about. This game is about randomly killing people in a very realistic setting. And that's not okay with me.

Yet both the last Zelda game and this one have the same rating.

Explain that to me, because it makes no sense.

Medal of Honor will never, ever, enter my house. Yet if I based all my decisions purely on ratings, either both games or neither would be under my roof.

Two final thoughts:

While living in Finland, we (obviously) used the Finnish rating system as our guideline for picking movies.

Since non-sexual nudity is really a non-issue in Europe, we ended up renting a couple of movies that had the equivalent of a G-rating there but an R-rating here. A couple of others might have been PG there but R here.

One of those G-rated videos was rented by my father for a Family Home Evening. I still giggle when I think of that: the mission president renting an R-rated movie for his family. Hahaha! (But it was G over there! It was! And the nudity was seriously like 1/4 of a second long and totally non-sexual.)

I learned quickly upon returning to the States to check a video's rating before mentioning that I'd seen the film so I wouldn't freak-out my friends. Ratings are very much in the eye of the beholder.

The final thing I'll mention I still find a bit disturbing: Disney's Pocahontas was rated, as were all Disney animated movies at one point, G. We'll not discuss the lameness of the movie and its historical inaccuracy.

What specifically bothered me rating-wise is that at one point, a white man shoots an American Indian at point-blank range with a rifle, and the Indian falls down and dies. Pocahontas falls to her knees, and all the characters, including the shooter, are upset by the incident. This isn't "fantasy violence" like you'd see on the Roadrunner cartoons or Bugs Bunny, you know, someone running off a cliff and staying in the air a moment before they fall, or getting whacked on the head with a hammer and we all laugh. This was an actual rifle shooting an actual man and killing him.

If it weren't animated, it would have gotten at least a PG rating. If should have gotten a PG rating. Why didn't it? Because it was Disney and it was animated. And let's not forget that John Smith nearly gets his head cracked open by a rock. Is that really G material?

Granted, that was back in 1995. I was thrilled the first time I saw an animated movie get a PG rating. (I'm not remembering what it was called right now . . . it was something about a junkyard robot . . . and it came out before Shrek.)

Seeing a PG rating on an animated movie told me that the ratings board was finally cluing in: just because something is drawn doesn't mean the content won't impact the audience.

The discussion with my kids was awesome. They were getting it. Let's just say that this dinner table talk thing is getting fun. As much as I freak out about my kids aging, they're sure at a fun stage right now.

Random Claims to Fame

I happen to have some friends and acquaintances from years gone by who ended up doing cool "famousy" things in the entertainment industry. It's reached a rather annoying level for family members when I watch LDS movies, because I yell out, "I was in a play with her!" or, "I went to high school with him!" or I start telling a story about so-and-so.

Just for the total gee whiz of it, here's a list of some of people I have connections with--my random claims to fame.

Tayva Patch
She pulled my hair on stage. Rather, she pulled my wig. I was Rapunzel and she was the Baker's Wife in Into the Woods. 

We had a separate wig piece clothes-pinned to the wig that she'd pull off in one scene. Each night before I climbed my tower, I clipped it on. Before one show as we got dressed, she said, "Thanks so much for having the hair piece there. I keep wondering what I'd do if it wasn't."

Of course, Murphy's Law kicked in. That very night, the piece FELL OFF the clothespin as I climbed the tower. I had no idea. I dropped the long wig. She searched for the piece, looked up at me in a panic and whispered, "It's not here!" I whispered back, "Yes, it is!" She ended up ripping a wad of actual wig strands and using that for the rest of the play. Cute.

Every performance after that, I held onto the extra wig piece until I dropped the whole wig. That way, if it fell off the clothespin, it would land on stage. Of course, we never did have another malfunction.

Tayva has appeared in several LDS films, including Brigham City as the FBI agent and The Hometeachers as Sissy, the trashy RV lady (I almost didn't recognize her in that one). But most people probably know her best as Lucy Mack Smith from the new Joseph Smith movie. You can see her in costume from that film. The picture came out tiny. I hope you can click on it to enlarge. If not, go here.

Mindy B. Young
I knew her as Mindy Berry when we were in a youth theater production of Joseph and, the following summer, in Fiddler together. In the former, she played Potiphar's wife. She was good at that role.

So good that when the director found out that a Seventy (one of our church's upper leaders) would be in the audience, she swore the rest of the cast to secrecy. Mindy wouldn't be seductive enough if she knew he was watching!

You might recognize Mindy from her role as Sister North, the funny, loud lady in Baptists at Our Barbecue. She's very calm-looking in this picture. Very unlike her character in the movie. 



David Nibley

I graduated a year behind him from the same high school. Then his best friend married my little sister. (I know! We're practically related!) You'd probably know him from his starring role in The Best Two Years and as Alvin in the Joseph Smith movie. Thanks to my connections, I was able to snag him as the entertainment for the 2008 LDStorymakers conference, where he did a great stand-up routine.

He's also in a scene from High School Musical 2 (when the scouts take Zac's character to dinner). I went up a few coolness points in my daughters' eyes when I pointed out Dave and said I knew him. Check out his website. He's got some awesome stuff on it.
 


Emmelyn Thayer

Yet another person from the Joseph Smith movie. I've known Emmie for more years than I'll admit to. Our fathers have been friends as professors and fishing buddies even longer. I wrote about her before on this post where I described some of her early theatrics. She's one talented actress, let me tell you.

Some readers will recognize her as Mary Fielding (Hyrum's wife) from the Joseph Smith movie. Em is absolutely gorgeous (visit her website to see her in her glory), but I'm putting an image here where she's in that more recognizable role even though this picture  doesn't do her justice. Apparently, some of the footage of her as Mary Fielding was used in the movie Emma. Oh, and Em's blog is awesome.


Maureen . . . 

Dang. I think that was her name, but I'm forgetting. She appears in The Hometeachers as the home teachee lady with the dog, and she has an English accent. I can't find her on IMDB. She played Jack's Mother in our production of Into the Woods until she had to pull out halfway through due to some reason I don't recall and another lady replaced her.

Kurk Davidson
He was "my" (Rapunzel's) prince, from Into the Woods. He's very talented, but I have to say that it was odd playing opposite someone who could have almost been my father. I was 18, while he was in his thirties somewhere. He went on to become an understudy for Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

Christopher Holmes
Until I decided to do this post, I didn't know for sure whether our Pharaoh from Joseph had gone on to big things, although I was pretty darn sure he had, because at 17 he already had an amazing voice and had been involved with the Utah Opera Company. 

Once at a cast hangout, I heard him sing "Stars" from Les Mis when someone just asked him to do it on a lark. I about fell over. A Google search later turned up that yes, indeed, Chris has made a name for himself in the opera world.

Heather Brown
She's a little sister to one of my many thespian high school buddies, and plays Mary in the most current Church movie about the birth of Christ. A lot of footage from that is also used in the film Testaments: One Fold, One Shepherd and images of it are on pass-along cards showing the holy family. I didn't realize it was her when I first saw the film (I hadn't seen Heather since she was in junior high, probably), but when her sister mentioned Heather as having the role, I had a V-8 moment. Duh. Yes, it most definitely is her. 

Couldn't find a picture--sorry. (But you might have the DVD at home. Check it out!)

Backstage secret: After the initial filming, they had her come back for a few more shots. By then, she'd gotten braces, so for all those parts, her mouth is closed and covering her teeth. She does a lot of closed-lipped smiling, and that's why; of course Mary didn't have braces!

Derryl Yeager

I took jazz classes from him and even performed at a recital a few feet away from him while he danced with our class. No pressure . . . actually, lots of pressure. I fell out of a turn, I was so freaked.

He's performed on Broadway and in film (most notably the "My, you are big," guy in Girls Just Want to Have Fun), but LDS people will most likely recognize him from another film. It took me years to see him in that role and take him seriously, because I couldn't get the Derryl I knew out of my head. (Watch his movements. You can totally tell he's a dancer.)

I'm probably missing someone, but that's the basic list of some of the people I've crossed paths with. It's kinda fun to have even small connections to them.

Winners #1, Questions #3

First, the today's giveaway winners.

Selected by using Random.org:

1) The 2 oz. bottle of "Tabitha" perfume, donated by Karlene of Urban Botanics, goes to Mindi at The Battraws!

2) The cookbook by Luisa of Novembrance, Comfortably Yum: Food for Body and Spirit goes to Sandra of Sandra's Dance!

3) And Sherrie Shepherd's pre-release CD, Solitude goes to Cheryl at Happy Meets Crazy!


Congratulations, everyone!

Stay tuned for more winners tomorrow! (You do have all 13 entries you're entitled to, right? Check the giveaway post to see how to get them all!)


Now for more reader questions:

AmandaD asked: What other LDS authors do enjoy reading?

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are some I enjoy:

LDS Market:
Michele Paige Holmes (Counting Stars)
Josi S. Kilpack (Her Good Name and others)
H.B. Moore (Abinadi)
Julie Wright (My Not-So-Fairytale Life)
N. C. Allen (Isabell Webb: Legend of the Jewel)
Robison Wells (The Counterfeit)
Sandra Grey (Traitor)
Angela Hallstrom (Bound on Earth)

And from the national market:
Janette Rallison (All's Fair in Love, War, and High School)
Brandon Sanderson (The Mistborn series)
Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game)
Jessica Day George (Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow)


I could go on, but that's a pretty good start. :)


AmandaD also asked: What are your favorite movies?

Much Ado about Nothing, A Knight's Tale, and some of the old Hitchcock greats like Charade and Wait until Dark. I also love old musicals like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and The Slipper and the Rose.

JustRandi asked: If you could write and be successful in any genre, would you choose a different one?

Ideally, I'd love to write in three or four genres. My next book is a slight genre switch, going from historical romance to contemporary women's fiction. I have really enjoyed writing historical fiction, but some day it would be fun to branch out into murder mysteries or young adult fantasies.

She also asked: When your husband isn't coming home for dinner, do you still cook?
Rarely. The kids are old enough now to cook a bit themselves, so I let them have at it with pancakes or macaroni and cheese.

QueenMemory asked several questions:

Who is your favorite actor?
One of my favorites was Heath Ledger (hence A Knight's Tale being in my list of top movies). I also love Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, and Kenneth Brannaugh.

What is your favorite family activity?
I love a good family game night. The few times we've gone camping or have just gone up the canyon for a campfire and dinner have been awesome too.

How did you meet your husband?
We were cha-cha partners on one of BYU's summer ballroom teams. I wrote all about it here.

Who is your favorite fan?
My mom. I love how everywhere she goes, she brags about me and my books, even in the most obscure places. She's bragged in the streets of Jerusalem and at a health food store in Helsinki. It's awesome.

Do you teach knitting?
Not unless you're my eleven-year-old daughter, and even then, it's a frustrating experience!

Luisa asked:
Have you gotten fan mail? If so, how have you handled it?
I get some, but not tons. I try to answer every letter or e-mail I get. I also keep them all. Writers tends to swing between great self-confidence and absolute despair so often that I need to read something positive when I'm feeling like I'm kidding myself.


Amelia's questions:

What was the process of getting your first book published?
Lots of writing, submitting, getting rejected, networking, getting critiqued, and not giving up. Part II and Part III of my Writing Journey series cover most of the story of my first book.

How do you handle criticism from an editor/publisher?
I've been in a critique group for over nine years, so I've got a pretty thick skin. I will say it's easier to take criticism from my group (since I know and trust them implicitly, thanks to our long history together) than others, but my editors have always been great too.

As a writer, you have to reach the point where you know in your heart that criticism from editors is not a personal attack. In my experience, it's always been aimed at improving the work. How could I not welcome that? I may not agree with everything, but I don't get upset over suggestions and criticism, and we always find common ground. I've been very lucky with the editors I've had; they're both excellent at what they do.

Who are your favorite authors?
Aside from the LDS writers I listed above, of course there's L. M. Montgomery. I also love Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Harper Lee, C. S. Lewis, and John Steinbeck.

And for the record, I despise Faulkner.


Today's tour stop:
Novembrance

Feelin' Like Christmas

The Christmas spirit is starting to find its way into my heart . . . finally. I'm having a hard time grasping that the time is here again (where did the year go?!). To make matter worse, I'm nowhere near done with the shopping and all that. (Is it just me, or does having Thanksgiving so close to the end of November totally throw a wrench into things? I lost a week!)

We sat the kids down a few days ago and wrote down every Christmas-y thing we wanted to be sure to do this year. Then we plugged them all into the calendar. We have very few blank days; we'll be busy! I have a feeling we'll have a ball getting them all done.

The first item that made it onto the list is a family tradition inspired by my dad.

I grew up listening to Christmas carols on his old reel-to-reel player: Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra. You know, the classic goodies.

Because of those songs, I grew up with a simple belief: Christmas ain't Christmas without Bing.

Hubby discovered this early on in our marriage, so our first Christmas, he bought me a Bing Crosby Christmas CD. It was a day of much rejoicing in the land.

We generally listen to Bing as we decorate the tree, but he makes another annual appearance as well: We always, always watch White Christmas.

I feared for a while that my kids wouldn't enjoy the show. Like most classics, it lacks the action-packed excitement of today's offerings. But somehow they've been bit by the Bing bug. They each have their favorite parts (although one scene that makes everyone's list is the guys' version of "Sisters." Gets me every time.)

Another landmark of the season: We're finally getting our tree tomorrow. We've been putting it off for a very good reason. First off, it's our "real" tree year, and I don't want it dying too soon. (The real vs. fake saga a story in and of itself . . .)

Second, several packages have been making their way from Finland, bearing the one thing I wanted to bring home from our trip but couldn't very well find in September when we visited: traditional Finnish Christmas decorations.

Mom hunted down some of the most beautiful straw ornaments and shipped them over. I can't wait to get them on the tree now! We've even got a wreath, a window hanging, and three traditional Finnish straw goats. All handmade, all gorgeous.

If our tree has those ornaments on it and so looks like many of the trees I had growing up and I have Bing's voice wafting through the house, it'll really feel like Christmas!

Remember to enter the drawing here! I'll pick the winners Tuesday morning.

Thanksgiving with the Apes

Since hubby's family generally went up to Idaho to visit both sets of grandparents for Thanksgiving, and since Christmas tended to be a bigger deal for my family, that that's how we split up the two holidays the year we got married.

November, 1994: The day before Thanksgiving, we leave our little apartment (complete with puke green appliances, aqua sculpted carpet in the living room and rust-orange shag in the bedroom) and headed for Shelley, Idaho.

We spend the night at Grandma Lyon's house with the rest of my hubby's family. I wake up bright and early Thursday morning, determined to have a good Thanksgiving with my new in-laws and to not miss my own family too much.

Grandma has cable. In our little apartment back in Provo, we have rabbit ears letting us view a total of one channel (we watched a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation that year), and the rest of the family is pretty stoked about the cable too, so the TV is on a lot.

We end up watching Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall in Planet of the Apes. Odd show, but I'm always up for a classic, so I hunker down to watch.

When the movie ends, the next one in the series, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, comes on. Turns out the station is running an Apes movie marathon. (There are something like NINE of them . . . bet you didn't know that.)

Everyone's in the front room watching the movies. And I'm wondering, At what point will someone start with the Thanksgiving feast? I wait for a cue, like my mother-in-law going into the kitchen, whereon I'd follow and help her with the meal. But no one's been in the kitchen since breakfast. And I'm not smelling a turkey.

Hmm, I think. Maybe they eat the feast later in day than I'm used to?

The third (or maybe the fourth) movie comes on. I imagine my family eating their Thanksgiving meal several hours to the south of me. Still no turkey in the oven, no potatoes getting peeled. No stuffing or gravy or anything like that. Nothing.

Confused, I finally lean in to my new husband and ask the burning question. "Shouldn't we be getting the Thanksgiving meal ready? It's getting kinda late."

"Oh, no. Not today," he says, as if it's the most natural thing in the world. He returns to the movie. My mind is racing. Are my days off? Is it not Thursday? I determine that no, it is Thursday.

I lean back in. "But it's Thanksgiving."

"The Lyon Thanksgiving is on Friday," he says then returns to Roddy in his ape costume as if he'd just said something totally normal, while my brain was swirling. Um . . . what?

I probe further to get a full explanation.

Turns out that since both sets of grandparents lived on opposite sides of Shelley, my in-laws split up the Thanksgiving holiday. The Jensen meal was always on Thanksgiving Day, while the Lyon meal was always the day after.

That year the Jensens were spending the holiday in Boise with one of their other daughters. But since the Lyon meal is always on Friday, they kept it there. That way all the other Lyon cousins wouldn't have to be told to come earlier. It was just easier to keep up the tradition of holding Thanksgiving . . . not on Thanksgiving.

Everyone saw this as normal. No one saw any reason to explain this to the new daughter-in-law.

At the time, I sat there thinking, "Wait. You mean I could have been with my family today and come up here for your family's meal tomorrow too?!"

I felt like the only ape in the room, the one person not getting that it didn't matter when you ate the pumpkin pie as long as you ate it. To me, it did matter. It was either Thanksgiving or it wasn't. Celebrating on a different day would be like ringing in the New Year on January second. It didn't really count.

Years later, I get it: the point isn't so much the meal or the day as much as it is gathering as a family, feeling thanks, and all that comes with it.

So it's all rather funny to me now to remember how I sat there staring at hairy apes talking to one another, confused for hours on end and trying to figure out why there was no turkey in the oven.

To this day, no one in the Lyon family understands why I thought this was even little bit odd.

And to this day, I can't see or hear anything about Planet of the Apes without a chuckle.

We Heart Seinfeld

Apparently, I'm making unexpected progress in my efforts to raise children who are aware of cultural references and appreciate many of the same things I do.

I've mentioned my efforts here, here, and most recently, here.

Up to this point, I've focused primarily on movies, but apparently, my influence has rubbed off in other areas.

As evidenced by #4. The other day, she looked at her older sister, wagged her chubby little finger, and declared,

"No soup for you!"

Then she giggled uproariously.

I think this is a good thing.

Farworld Book Winner

As promised, today I get to give away an Advance Reader Copy of J. Scott Savage's Farworld: Water Keep, which is coming out in September.

A moment ago, I printed out all the names of the commenters on the last post, folded them up, and threw them in a bowl. My girls fought over who got to pick the name out, but eventually peace reigned, and we have a winner:

Congratulations to PIANOPLAYER!

Hope you enjoy it!

Be sure to e-mail me your mailing address (annette at annettelyon dot com) right away so I can pass it along to the powers that be. (If I don't hear from you by Wednesday, I'll draw another name.)

Now for a couple of random things:

1) Children have a way of making everything new again. On the Fourth of July evening as we lit fireworks with some cousins, I sat in a chair like the old person I'm feeling like. My youngest came up beside me and leaned in, gazing at the fountain of sparks. "Oh, Mommy," she said. "It's beautiful." And she was right. I've seen street fireworks so many times (and usually spend the time worrying because hubby and his brothers are pyros--their definition of a "good" firework is one that is nothing but ashes when you're done with it, so they pimp out the ones from the store). It took my little girl pointing out a simple beauty for me to notice it.

2) I'm trying to decide whether to work on my WIP right now or be lazy and watch my NetFlix DVD that's been sitting around the house for WAY too long. I'm a bit achy and tired today, so the movie (an old classic that I haven't watched in ages) is sounding really good about now. I'll probably watch it, even if I end up folding laundry while I do it to assuage any guilt for not getting anything else done.

3) Coming soon: The "A Closer Look" Meme that Tristi tagged me for. I have all the pictures now but haven't gotten them onto the computer yet. Scary meme.

Orcs Don't Go Bump in the Night

When he was about eight, my son went to see The Two Towers with his dad. Some people thought we were completely nuts to let a child so young see it. He'd surely get nightmares, they said. It was way too intense for a third grader. But we knew our son.

Some time before, we'd gotten The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD. As I left for a commitment that night, my husband started watching it. I was a bit concerned about the scariness level for the kids, but he promised that he'd turn it off if our son showed any signs of anxiety. The girls weren't interested anyway, so they wouldn't be watching.

When I returned that night, I discovered that not only had my little guy not been terrified by the Orcs (creatures that quite frankly freaked me out in the theater), but that he had watched the movie on his feet, jumping off the couch and pretending to slash Orcs right along with Aragon. I should have known; ever since he could hold anything relatively narrow and long, he'd been pretending to sword fight. The drive must be on the Y chromosome or something.

(Toy store store employees were horrified when we tried buying him a toy sword. What kind of psycho parents were we?! I'm sorry, but a hollow, plastic light saber doesn't do as much damage as a metal butter knife.)

He loved the movie. What about nightmares? None. At all.

A few weeks later, our 3-year-old daughter got a Disney Nintendo game starring Mickey Mouse. The game, intended for preschoolers, had cheery music a cute graphics. Typical Disney. The player was to go through the magical world and gather up the pieces of a broken mirror and put it back together again, because a ghost had broken it. That's about as much as I remember about it. All of the kids played the game, including our son as he helped his younger sisters figure it out.

Within days, he began having regular nightmares . . . about the Disney ghost in his closet.

Somehow the animated ghost terrified him and seemed real, whereas the bloodied Orcs remained firmly in his fantasy imagination. Go figure.

He wasn't allowed to play the Mickey Mouse game anymore, but he was allowed to see The Two Towers. Again, no nightmares.

The only person who got a start was my husband, who, on the way home from the theater, heard our son whisper from the backseat in a perfect imitation: "My precious . . ." who then laughed his head off when Dad jumped.

2, 3, Cha-Cha-Cha

My partner on the university summer ballroom team almost didn’t ask me out.

We’d spent every morning for a good chunk of the summer dancing together. I’d gone out once with another guy on the team—a boy that, while nice enough, didn’t exactly impress when he went on about how desperate he was to get married.

Over the course of the summer, my partner and I became great friends, and yeah, we flirted a bit. But I kept talking about how I was going to serve a mission, and he took me seriously on that.

I don’t remember the first time I saw him, but I do remember the first impression I had of him. It was early in the summer before we had assigned partners and instead the guys rotated between the girls every few minutes. He was my last partner of the day, and I remember thinking, Wow, this guy can really lead, and we work well together. We both finagled things so we’d end up assigned together, and we had a ball all summer long.

During that time, the film Strictly Ballroom came to theaters. I thought it would be a great excuse to hang out—ballroom is what we did, right? It wouldn’t necessarily be a date . . . I was going on a mission, remember. And I insisted that I didn’t like him like him, although when my friends asked about him, I had a hard time sticking to the story . . . . and not blushing.

He and I made plans to see Strictly Ballroom, but then it left the theater before we had the chance. Here was this guy who wasn’t afraid of a smart girl with a scholarship (big points in my book), who could quote Shakespeare for crying out loud, and who had the warmest chocolate-brown eyes ever, and my one excuse for seeing him off the dance floor had fallen through.

Dang. Now what?

Fortunately, he decided that we should still see a movie, so we went to Sleepless in Seattle. Best first date ever. No awkwardness at all. We already had inside jokes and plenty to talk about. It did take him awhile to stop looking for me four inches taller than I really was, because he was used to my silver Latin-heels-enhanced height. That first date turned into many more.

He proposed on my birthday, and the following spring, we were married. It’s been fourteen years now, and each has been better than the last. Today we work together better than we did in our fancy dancing shoes and costumes.

Happy anniversary to my life-long dance partner.

I love you more!

Indoctrinating the Younguns

My mother did it for me over twenty years ago, and I'm doing it to my kids, with no apologies.

When I was around 10, and lasting for several years thereafter, Mom made a point of renting videos as a means to creating culturally-literate children. The great part was that in addition to getting a great education, we also had a ball seeing terrific classic films together.

Now when I run across fellow Gen-Xers who haven't seen these gems, I have to remind myself that not everyone had such a great learning experience from their parents in their early teens.

I plan to show my kids all the same great shows Mom shared with me, but at this point, my kids are still a little too young to appreciate the likes of Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca, or The Philadelphia Story. Ditto with some of the Hitchcock greats (my personal favorites: Charade and Wait until Dark). My son might be able to sit through something along the lines of The Dirty Dozen, being as there's a lot of guns and fighting in it. And I've toyed with showing them Some Like It Hot, since that's downright hysterical. Even the youngest might be able to get some of it.

But until they're mature enough to appreciate the older greats (with a few exceptions, like Mary Poppins and Chitty, Chitty, Bang-Bang), I'm indoctrinating them with the classics from my youth. We've gone with The Private Eyes, an 80s film starring the inimitable Tim Conway and Don Knotts. A few of the others they've watched include blockbusters like E.T., Big, Newsies, and most recently, Footloose.

(Side note on that one: I've known forever that Footloose was filmed in Utah, but now that I'm an adult—and am far more familiar with Utah County than I used to be—it was a ball watching it and recognizing actual locations. It was also fun to see one of "our" missionaries from the time my parents presided over the mission in Finland. He was an extra in the movie before he served. I had to jump off the couch, rewind the DVD, and point out Elder Sperry to the kids. We caught sight of him two or three times.)

Next up is Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which I saw over and over again at the Movies 8 dollar theater with my good buddies, twins Denise and Melinda. We saw a lot of movies together that year. (We also smuggled pounds and pounds of penny candy from ShopKo into the theater. Good times.)

Movies on my to-be-watched list: Ghostbusters, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and The Muppets Take Manhattan. I regularly come up with more to add. That way I can make sure my kids get a taste of the cultural icons I grew up with.

One great thing about all this is that we're having a ton of fun watching these movies together. Each brings back all kinds of great memories for me.

Another benefit: The kids are starting to "get" references in TV shows and movies that refer to things they recently saw because I showed it to them. They're also understanding better why Mom and Dad laugh at parts of the Shrek trilogy and other movies that they don't grasp: Oh! Those lines are references to other shows! It's like a light bulb going off in their heads.

Just the other day, my daughter was home sick. We ended up snuggling on the couch together as we caught an episode of Leave It to Beaver. I didn't expect her to watch the whole thing, but my culturally-literate side kicked in, and I insisted she watch a few minutes of it. That way when she heard mentions of "The Beav" or "June Cleaver" on other shows, she'd know what it meant.

Lo and behold, that very night while watching a DVD, we heard a reference to Leave It to Beaver. She was a bit tickled to be the only kid in the family who had a reference for the line.

So thanks, Mom, for yet one more thing!

Oh, Yeah? Watch Me.

Yesterday my husband turned on a show he thought I might enjoy: Fiddler on the Roof.

He was right; ever since I performed in a community theater version of the play in my teens, I’ve loved that show. The fact that I grew up with a mother fascinated by all things Jewish probably helped.

Watching the film again brought back a flood of memories and emotions connected to the production I was in, the vast majority positive (the touching Sabbath scene, the practical jokes the cast pulled on each other, the fatherly friendship that our Tevye brought to the youth in the cast), and a few negative things as well.

I remembered the audition process, and the never-ending call backs in particular. In the end, several of my close friends were cast in leading roles. I was cast as a towns woman, one of the mamas. I became the choreographer’s assistant and helped teach some of the dance numbers.

I also used my dancing skills during the particularly poignant "Chavala" scene, where I danced in silhouette as Chava while Tevye sang the sad and somewhat tragic "Little Bird" number. I think that was one of my favorite parts of the entire show. I loved to dance, and such an emotional moment on stage allowed me to connect to the audience. Dancing was my element.

Aside from that, my role was limited. I had a total of one line. I was assigned two sweet little kids to be my children, and I found myself growing attached to them in a maternal way even though I was only eighteen at the time.

Likely the most memorable moment for me came when, prior to the opening of the show, both of sets of the double-cast daughters were supposed to perform the "Matchmaker" song at a city festival to advertise the upcoming run.

One of the Hodels didn’t show, and even though I didn’t know the dance number, the director asked me to step in last minute for the performance.

Nervous wouldn’t begin to describe how I felt. My voice was shaky, and I was unsure what I was doing, but muddled through, trying to remember what I had seen in rehearsals.

As we left the stage, the director came over and put her arm around me. She was an extremely talented lady, and well-meaning, I’m sure. I doubt she intended to wound me when she said, "When I was your age, I was just like you. I could act, and I could dance, but I just couldn’t sing."

Stunned, I just stood there, floored. I didn’t know what to say. I don’t know if I said anything at all.

What I do remember was trying my best to hold back tears until I got home.

I knew that my friends—those insanely musical people I’ve talked about in previous posts—had more ability than I did. Okay, a lot more ability than I had. They were musical freaks of nature. But to have someone tell me flat out that I simply couldn’t sing? At all?

Okay, then. Thank you for your support . . .

Halfway through the run, one of the Hodels started showing up late and otherwise causing the director grief, and I heard the director admit that she wished she had cast me in the role. Which of course made no sense, because I couldn’t sing. But I was punctual.

When Fiddler ended, rumors surfaced that the director’s next play would be Into the Woods, which is essentially an operetta: almost the entire show is sung. I remember sitting in a car heading home after hearing the news, determined that I would show our director and make it into the cast. I beefed up my efforts with my voice teacher, practicing harder than ever before.

Auditions arrived the following summer, and I made it to call backs. At one point, the director went to the back of the room and asked an assistant to point to each of the actresses randomly to sing the melody that Rapunzel does frequently during the show—a tune that begins at a high b-flat.

Since Rapunzel sings as often offstage as on—and the first time you are introduced to her is by her voice when she’s offstage—it’s safe to say that her voice is important. The director didn’t want to be swayed by what she saw; she wanted to judge solely on the sound.

She covered her eyes and listened as one by one, each of us sang the part. Then she consulted with her assistant as to which ones she liked best and who they were.

I was cast as Rapunzel.

If you know the play, you’re surely aware that Rapunzel isn’t a big role. She’s not even almost a lead. But she has to be able to sing, and sing high.

I almost cackled with glee at the irony.

Oh, so I can’t sing? I thought.

My joy was increased when some of those friends who were born with an instrument one hand a score in the other (and arrived singing) came to see the show. One friend who came with them reported that when they first heard me from off stage, their jaws dropped. "That’s Annette?!"

Tee hee.

So it was with a bit of pain—and a bit of triumph—that I watched Fiddler yesterday. The cut that director made to my heart still stings a bit.

But there’s also the stubborn side of me that always comes back with, "Oh, yeah? Watch me."

It’s that part of me that is largely responsible for my success in publishing. I’d get yet another rejection, file it away, and think, "Oh, yeah? Watch me."

I made it into Rapunzel’s tower, and, eventually, I made it into print.

I got a little revenge with my first book, Lost without You; I used Into the Woods for part of the story and described the audition scene, including the part with Rapunzel’s tune and how difficult it was. I made sure my poor heroine, as much as I loved her, couldn’t hit the high b-flat.

I can’t hit it anymore, either.

But I did, once upon a time, when I proved to the director that she couldn’t write me off.

A&E P&P

The delightful Luisa and I see eye-to-eye on so many things (among them: knitting is soothing to the soul, LM Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott should be canonized, and food is GOOD).

We also both love Jane Austen, and of course, Pride and Prejudice. (Really, show me a sane woman who doesn’t?)

Many film versions of P&P exist. And here is where our opinions diverge: I much prefer the A&E (which stands for Arts & Entertainment). It's also known as the 6-hour version, although the purist in me has to point out that it's really 5 hours (it was aired originally in 6, 50-minute episodes). While I live and die by this version, Luisa champions the more recent Kiera Knightly adaptation.

I find it interesting that neither of us holds any other version dear to our hearts, including the black and white one with Sir Laurence Olivier.

So today Luisa and I are joint blogging on the same . . ish . . topic, explaining to our somewhat joint readership why we espouse the P&P versions we do.

There have been something like nine different film versions of the story, and I’ve seen several of them. While they all have elements I like, my hands-down favorite is the A&E version.

This post could have become a novel for as much as I could have written about the awesomeness that is the A&E P&P, but this (granted, exceedingly long) post will have to suffice:


Mr. Darcy
He’s one of the most layered, complicated characters in literary history. As such, it takes a highly skilled actor to portray the layers instead of making Darcy look flat and hard to “get” instead of a real, complex human being. For me, even the amazingly talented Sir Laurence Olivier couldn’t quite him pin down believably.

While Darcy changes over the course of the story (as all good heroes do), he doesn’t change from one pole to the other, as he’s sometimes portrayed. He’s essentially the same man, but a better, more understanding version. And when’s he’s being snooty and hoity-toity, there’s still more going on inside him.

This is where Colin Firth rocks. I have seen the A&E version I don’t know how many times, and he never disappoints. You can see in his eyes, his manner, his voice—in everything he does (and much of it is subtle)—that there’s more going on here than just snubbing a girl from a lower class. His performance is so much more than constipated-looking facial expressions.

He’s conflicted. He’s proud. He’s going against everything he’s been taught, and by golly, he’s going to fight against those feelings. Yet he has a tender spot in that heart thanks to his little sister. Also thanks to her, he’s fiercely loyal and a fighter. Firth portrays every one of these qualities with apparent ease, making us feel that he is Darcy. Such a textured performance is a beauty to behold.


Lizzy
I love that Jennifer Ehle as Lizzy is pretty but not drop-dead Hollywood gorgeous. Her performance makes Lizzy real and down to earth. Her personality comes through so clearly that again, it’s hard to believe that she’s NOT Elizabeth Bennett. The performance has a lot of depth as well. Her anger at the proposal scene is a controlled simmer, not an explosive one, which would have been easier to perform, I’m sure. But this way it’s a more powerful moment. Her eyes are so expressive that you sometimes feel as if you could read her soul.

That’s good acting.

And if I’m being perfectly honest, I also love Jennifer Ehle in this role because she reminds me so much of my good friend Em, who is also an actress. I thought I was the only one who saw the resemblance, but when I mentioned it to some of our mutual friends, they agreed—and Em herself recently said that she’s had casting directors say that she reminds them of Jennifer Ehle.


The Bennetts
The entire family is wonderfully put together, almost as if they had stepped off Austen’s pages. (If I could have changed one thing, it would be to make Jane a bit prettier, since she’s supposed to be the prettiest of them all.) But from Mr. Bennett who puts up with his wife and silly daughters—and depends on Lizzy to be the sensible one, to the flighty little sisters (don’t you just want to smack Lydia sometimes?), their performances are en pointe. Even Mrs. Bennett (someone else you’d like to smack many times), is spot-on in her obnoxiousness. She’s delightfully melodramatic, the center of her household.

Mr. Bennett brings me back to the concept of layers. He’s supposed to be well-meaning and a good husband who sticks by his silly wife. BUT . . . he’s still not polished and upper class material. Without realizing it, he still says things and behaves in a way that can be seen as lower class or silly, just like the rest of his family. This causes Lizzy embarrassment, even though she adores her father otherwise.

I have yet to find another P&P version where Mr. Bennett shows all these layers as the A&E one. Instead, he’s sometimes portrayed as distant and above the rest of the family or he’s a sweet, doting father who behaves precisely as a gentleman would. Neither option gives what I think is a proper portrayal of his character, especially the last one: If he’s such a classy guy, it begs the question, why would he have EVER married Mrs. Bennett? He’d be much too smart for that.

And then there’s Mr. Collins, who gives me the creeps in a delightful sort of slimy way as he devotes his heart to his patron, Lady Catherine, and behaves as the horrendously misdirected cousin of the Bennett sisters. You almost feel like you need a bath after watching him. Or at least you want to wash his hair.


The Sound
Now I’m venturing into the technical side of things. The sound in the A&E version is clear, which may sound like a simple thing, but a good portion of the story has music in the background (such as all those balls they attend), yet the music isn’t overwhelming and never upstages the dialogue or what’s going on. The score is pretty as well.


Historical Accuracy
For a historical writer like myself, this is more important than it might be for a lot of viewers. It doesn’t take much to throw me out of the story and remember that people in contemporary times put a movie together and that it’s all pretend. If I’m watching a historical film and I see a wrong hairdo or style of dress, the fantasy is—*poof*—gone.

That never happens for a moment with the A&E version. I get to happily pretend I’m watching something from the first decade of the 1800s, with nothing to lurch me out of that fantasy.

Another accuracy issue that is nonexistent in the A&E version is the accents. Since the entire cast is British, I don’t have to cringe when an American comes on stage who can’t pull off sounding British.


The Screenplay
Brilliant. That’s all there is to it. The book is comprised mostly of long scenes with people sitting around talking to one another. Fun to read, but hardly exciting to watch. Adapting the story to film while being true to the text, making it interesting to watch, make sense, and have a natural flow to it all, takes skill.

The fact that the A&E version is significantly longer than the others gives it a definite advantage in the flow department. It’s much easier to show and explain some of the subtle plotlines when you have five hours instead of half that, so you can rely on a conversation instead of a single line to get a point across—which someone unfamiliar with the story might miss.

Which is what inevitably happens when you don’t have the time to devote to clarification. I’ve been with people watching other versions—people unfamiliar with the storyline (can you believe that such people still exist in the world? I know!)—and they get confused. Hold on—where are we now? Why did she just say that? What did he mean? Wait—who’s that? You never get that with the A&E version. The screenplay flows seamlessly from one major plot point to the next.

In the few places the screenplay deviates from the book, it does so flawlessly. For example, there’s a scene where Darcy practices sword fighting in a desperate attempt to distract himself from his growing feelings for Lizzy and banish the heat of his love for her. The first time I saw the film, that brief scene fit so perfectly into the story and the characters’ inner workings that it didn’t occur to me until much later—when a friend pointed it out—that the moment doesn’t exist in the book.

Such deviations are few and far between, and every one of them is relevant and true to the original. The screenplay doesn’t take liberties, changing locations or scenes from the book willy-nilly for the sake of upping the visual “romantic” factor. It relies on the story, the characters, and the dialogue to do all that. And it succeeds in spades.


The Cinematography
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. There are moments where I feel as if I’m right there in the English countryside. The locations they used to shoot this film are grand and gorgeous. Pemberly and its grounds alone would be a dream to visit. Lady Catherine’s mansion is wonderfully gaudy, Collins’ new home properly humble, and so on. When Lizzy reads Darcy’s letter, she does so as she takes a walk across rolling green hills. Every bit is a feast for the eyes.


Chemistry
This is a tough one for actors to pull off if they don’t have it naturally. But in the A&E version, Lizzy and Darcy have plenty of chemistry. The flip side of that chemistry is the fire they have when they fight. Fireworks go off—like that great proposal scene where she nearly bites his head off.

One of my favorite moments of chemistry is the scene at Lady Catherine’s where Lizzy is singing and Darcy gazes at her. Let’s just say there’s chemistry in loads. You can almost feel Lizzy going weak in the knees.


Wow—this is a very long post. I could go and on, talking about P&P for days (and at times, probably have . . .). Be sure to pop on over to Luisa’s blog today to read about her favorite version and why she loves it. I know I’m looking forward to it.