Monday, June 28, 2010

Caption contest: time to vote!

Cranford

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed!! I said I'd pick the six entries I liked the best, but I've ended up including them all - they were all too good. ;-)

~~~~~

1. Mad Cow Disease - The Beginning.

2. "Yeah, I dress my human. She seems to need it."

3. Cow: it's not my fault she has no life companions. . .

4. Cow Fashion show, Winner gets to pose for the next "Chik-fil-a" Calendar.

5. "This cow is like a daughter to me!"

6. Mrs. Forrester: "What's the matter, Bessie dearest?" Bessie (to herself): "Those buttercups - they look soo delicious! Oh! If only I could talk human!!"

7. Mrs. Forrester: "At least I don't look like my cow!"

8. Mrs. Forrester: "...And we've been happily married ever since!"

9. "She's a little too big for the baby carriage, so I have to walk her around on a rope."

~~~~~

Vote ahead! See the right-hand side of screen to vote for your favourites. You may choose more than one entry. Voting closes on 2nd July 4:00 am, AEST (whatever time that may be in whatever part of the world you're in!).

Saturday, June 26, 2010

LITTLE DORRIT ON TV IN AUS!!!!

Finally!!! (Do excuse my extravagant use of exclamation marks. . . Miss Matty would be shocked! ;-)

Little Dorrit

The BBC's Little Dorrit will be ON TV in Australia THIS SUNDAY NIGHT (June 27th) - ABC1 at 8:35pm - and for the following three Sunday nights. Don't miss it! It's my second-favourite Dickens adaptation of all time - in other words, it is very, very, good! I wouldn't recommend it for young viewers, however - teens and up would be the appropriate audience. For a Christian review of Little Dorrit, head on over to Charity's Place.

Edit: Little Dorrit got rave reviews from Fairfax Media's "The Guide", lauded as one of the "shows of the year", and "a masterpiece"! I'll second that! ;-) 

Friday, June 25, 2010

Friday caption contest!

A lot of other bloggers have been having caption contests lately. I thought it would be fun to have one here at Ribbons of Light.

Each week (hopefully every Friday), I'll post a picture. Then it will be your turn to think up the funniest, wittiest caption you can. Entries will be open for all of Friday and Saturday (Australian time, LOL! Probably Thursday evening - early Saturday morning in America). After entries close, I'll pick the six captions that make me laugh the most. :-) Then I'll create a poll for those six, and you can vote for whichever caption you thought was the best. Winner is announced the next Friday, at which point there will also be a new picture to post captions for! Make sense? I hope I wasn't too confusing. . .

Now, lets get started! This week's picture. . .

Cranford
Mrs. Forrester (Julia McKenzie) and her "Bessie Dearest" :-)

Thursday, June 24, 2010

"I declare. . ."

P&P 2005

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."

~Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter XI of Volume I

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Regency World Awards

P&P 2005

I guess I'm a bit out of the loop right now, when it comes to all things Austen, because I hadn't released that voting was now open for the Jane Austen's Regency World Awards! There's still time if you haven't voted yet (I hadn't until five minutes ago!) - voting closes on June 30th.

Click HERE to vote.

Gandalf goes to the World Cup

In light of the current controversy over the vuvuzelas being used by soccer/football fans over in South Africa, I thought this was just too funny. . . I simply had to share it with you all! :-)


Edit: and I just found this video, too. . .

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Aussie readers - costume drama DVD sale @ Target

Cranford
Quick, race to your nearest Target store! 

The sale runs from 17th June - 7th July. Click here to browse the catalogue. 

Some of the titles that may be of interest:

The Jane Austen Collection DVD set
Lark Rise to Candleford
Tess of the D'Urbervilles 2008
Pride and Prejudice 1995 remastered edition
Miss Austen Regrets
Jane Eyre 2006
Middlemarch 1994
Cranford
Wives and Daughters
North and South
Love in a Cold Climate
Clarissa 1990 [incidentally, the most depressing miniseries I've ever watched!]
The Barchester Chronicles
Persuasion 2007
Lorna Doone 2000

+Numerous others

I'll try to resist the urge to splurge. :P

Voyage of the Dawn Treader Trailer!!!!

Yay!! It's finally here! :-D Forgive my fangirly semi-hysteria. . . 

(Once again, you might want to pause my blog music before watching. . .)




First thoughts:

*THIS LOOKS SO COOL!! I can't wait to see the movie!! Hehe. . .

*There have definitely been a few plot tweaks.

*The Dawn Treader itself looks stunning, and I love how they've visualised the landscapes (especially near the end of the trailer, the sea of lilies and the wall of water) and interiors from the book.

*We don't really see much of Caspian or Eustace - guess they're saving that for a surprise.

*LOL at the bit (at 1:42) where Eustace says "This place just gets weirder and weirder!" :-D Eustace is one of my favourite Narnia characters - I hope they retain a lot of his best lines from the book!

*The dufflepuds look pretty awesome, too.

*Lucy (Georgie Henley) is so grown up!!

*In the few hours since this was released, I have watched it about 10 times. . . and the more I see it, the more I like it! :-)

*Man, how I am going to survive until December 10th????!!!!  

~~~~~

Your thoughts???

Monday, June 14, 2010

Update on Disney's Rapunzel movie. . .

I don't know if any of you remember, but I posted about this waaaayyy back in December 2008! Well, just to give you a quick update. . .

The title has changed from "Rapunzel Unbraided" to "Tangled". Here's the plot outline:

The long-haired Princess Rapunzel has spent her entire life in a tower, but when she falls in love with a bandit who was passing by she must venture into the outside world for the first time to find him

And the trailer has been released! To be honest, I'm very disappointed with it, and I don't think I'm going to like this film nearly as much as I thought I would. It looks like it will be a silly, mildly funny and entertaining flick at best. Oh well. . . 

Here's the trailer: (you might want to pause my blog music first. . .)

And you can view several new film stills at IMDb.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Top 15 Literary Adaptations: #13

Well, well, well. After a six-month hiatus, I am finally getting back to my Top 15 (non-Austen, non-Dickens) Literary Adaptations series. One of the reasons for my procrastination here (boy, am I good at procrastinating - just ask anyone from my family!) has been indecision as to the order in which to put the movies in this series. Already, I've mucked things up - in hindsight, I should have put Pollyanna at #14 The Inheritance at #15, The Railway Children at #13. . . but maybe I should stop fumbling around and just get on with the review already! :P It's been long enough coming!

~No. 13 - Pollyanna~

Pollyanna 2002
Amanda Burton as Aunt Polly, Georgina Terry as Pollyanna

Shortly after finishing the wonderful 2000 adaptation of The Railway Children, the same director and production team set about making a screen version of another beloved children's classic - Eleanor H. Porter's Pollyanna. It first aired in the UK in early 2003, and about a year later in the US.

Pollyanna 2002

Writing plot summaries is boring, so this time I'm going to cheat and borrow the synopsis from the Masterpiece Theatre Pollyanna page:

Pollyanna 2002
Pollyanna Whittier goes to live with her wealthy but bitter aunt after the tragic death of her father. Pollyanna shares a game her father taught her -- the 'Glad Game' -- in which everyone can find a silver lining in even the darkest cloud, and her sunny nature, good humor and determination to look on the bright side of life prove to have an astonishing effect on those around her.

Pollyanna 2002
Pollyanna and Jimmy Bean (Ben Thornton)

With the help of her orphaned friend, Jimmy Bean, she casts her spell on the grumpiest townsfolk of Beldingsville -- including the cynical shut-in Mrs. Snow, the morose millionaire Mr. Pendleton and the enigmatic Dr. Chilton. And Pollyanna masterminds the romance between her Aunt's maid, Nancy, and the handyman, Tim. It is only Aunt Polly, who cannot bring herself to embrace Pollyanna's innocence and joy.

Pollyanna 2002

But all is not straightforward in Pollyanna's war against pessimism, since she must overcome a personal tragedy that threatens to banish "glad" from her vocabulary forever.
Pollyanna 2002

It's a delightful family film. If you love other children's classics such as Anne of Green Gables, The Railway Children, or Heidi, you'll enjoy this. Georgina Terry does very well as the young heroine, and all of the grown-up actors are good, too, especially Amanda Burton as Aunt Polly. Period drama lovers will spot several familiar faces - including Kenneth Cranham, David Bamber, and the always-lovely Pam Ferris. 

Pollyanna 2002
Mrs. Snow (Pam Ferris), right

It's so rare to come across a children's film like this these days - gentle, quiet, warm, something you'd be happy to watch over and over with children or younger siblings. My three littlest sisters love this - it's one of my two-year-old sister's favourite movies! :-) But it will keep older viewers entertained, too - it's a very well-made production, the acting is uniformly good, and the script is funny and engaging. A movie for viewers of all ages to enjoy.

Pollyanna 2002

It will also bring a sense of nostalgia to anyone who read the book as a little girl. I read Pollyanna so many years ago now that I unfortunately can't compare the book with the movie. By all accounts, however, this is one of more faithful versions of Pollyanna around (much moreso than the 1960s Hayley Mills version, for instance). Probably the only major change from the book is the change of setting - from New England in America, to the "real" England across the Atlantic.

Pollyanna 2002

I'm going to go a bit off-topic here so please bear with me: I think it's sad that the majority of young girls today seem to be missing out on so many of the classic girls books from the late-18th to early-19th centuries - books like Pollyanna, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women. . . in fact, most of the books listed here. Of course I don't expect that all little girls are going to be rabid bookworms like I was, but still. . . 

Pollyanna 2002
Nancy (Kate Ashfield)

I can think of two reasons for the current dearth of readers of these books: 1.) people (including young girls) just don't read as much as they used to, and 2.) classics like those mentioned above - detailing the lives of young heroines living in a much simpler, more innocent age - are deemed increasingly irrelevant to today's generation of preteen girls.

Little girls are being forced to grow up so quickly these days. 12 is the new 18 - that is, if being 18 is supposed to entail dressing in tight-fitting, skimpy clothes, and being overly concerned about clothes, personal appearance, and boys (I would argue that it doesn't). Through so many pressures and influences - encompassing the culture, the media, and their peers - little girls are being robbed of their girlhood. 

Pollyanna 2002

Girls like myself who have been homeschooled and raised in a protected, nourishing environment, usually manage to avoid being subjected to most of this (young ladies, we have so much for which to be thankful to our parents!). Ever noticed how most homeschoolers tend to be bookworms? :-) Partly thanks to the emphasis on good literature within most homeschool circles, a lot of homeschooled children develop an appreciation for good books from an early age.

Pollyanna 2002

Whoops, I didn't realise my little soliloquy had grown to over 3 paragraphs! What all of this boils down to is: I'm sad that a generation of girls are growing up without knowing any of the books that I knew and loved as a little girl. They'll be all the poorer for not having known Anne Shirley or Laura Ingalls or Pollyanna Whittier. That's not to say it's the girls' fault - I think most of the blame lies with their parents and others responsible for their education (and when I say education, I don't just mean "school").

And this was supposed to be a short, simple movie review, haha! Well, if you have any thoughts to share on this issue, please leave a comment.

Pollyanna 2002
Kenneth Cranham as Mr. Pendleton

Getting back to the proper subject of this post: you can watch Pollyanna on Youtube (just search for "Pollyanna Part 1"), but the audio is very poor quality. I'd encourage you to get it on DVD, especially if there are any little girls in your life with whom you could share it. :-)

Pollyanna 2002

More info:

Official Masterpiece Theatre page

IMDb page

Charity's Place review

Buy from Amazon US or Amazon UK (or try eBay! that's where I got my copy ;-)

Monday, June 7, 2010

A week of Alma-Tadema: Day VII

In honour of the recent beginning of summer for all of my Northern-Hemisphere readers. :-)

Thursday, June 3, 2010

A week of Alma-Tadema: Day IV

Alma-Tadema

Incidentally, the light in this picture - and the sea, the sky, and forested hill in the background - remind of Australia. The foreground doesn't look very "Aussie", but the landscape does!

Top 5 things you can do to irk a Janeite

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1. Spell Austen with an I - Austin.

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2. Refer to Jane Austen as a Victorian. ("Jane was NOT a Victorian, she died YEARS before Victoria was BORN!!")

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The worst Austen adaptation ever?

3. Dismiss all of Austen's works after seeing one bad movie adaptation. ("Never, EVER, judge a book by it's movie!")

Mansfield Park 1999
If you think this is all there is to Austen. . .

4. Dismiss all of Austen's novels on the basis that "nothing happens" in them. ("Nothing happens in them, yet everything that matters happens in them!")

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5. Use the first line of Pride and Prejudice to open an article, news piece, or advertisement. It has long ceased to be funny or original.

~~~~~

Do you have any suggestions to add to the list?

Brontësaurus!



Have any of you seen this vid??

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

A week of Alma-Tadema: Day III

Alma-Tadema

The Drawing Room at Towsend House

What a beautiful room! The richness of the colours, textures, and patterns. . .

Raising Homemakers

I am excited to share with you the new website, RaisingHomemakers.com! This looks like it will be a wonderful resource for anyone passionate about homemaking - not just wives and mothers, but daughters and younger women, too. They're hosting a giveaway to celebrate the launch of the site (which is partly why I'm posting this, hehe!), so head on over and have a look. There are several ways you can enter the giveaway.