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Two darn pessimistic opinion columns from <I>The Sporting News</I>: <A HREF="http://www.sportingnews.com/voices/ken_rosenthal/20020819.html"><U> Ken Rosenthal</U></A> climbs on the "Bud Must Go" bandwagon, and his presence is welcome; the rest of us have been waiting for him. Meanwhile, <A HREF="http://www.sportingnews.com/voices/dave_kindred/20020819.html"<U>Dave Kindred</U></A> is very worried the owners will really try to shut things down for a year. Doesn't <I>anybody</I> involved in the game understand? They lost a pile of money the last time there was a job action; they will lose much, <I>much</I> more this time around. None of the other major sports make the fans suffer through this kind of crap. Only baseball. The union is obstinate and management is clueless. Lethal combination.
Meanwhile, pro football and college football are just around the corner. (In fact, the first college I-A game is this Thursday.) I will freely admit I could not possibly prognosticate college football unless I spent a lot more time following the individual teams. (Baseball may give me that chance this year, of course.) I am hoping, however, to write up some football predictions in two weeks, as well as do week-by-week picks against the spread, just for the fun of it.
Karen's been too busy with school to help out on a <I>Possession</I> review, so I'll put down something down and dirty here, and will add her comments later.
<lj-cut text="Possession review"><I>Possession</I>, in book form, has been around for 12 years, and won the 1990 Booker Prize (the British equivalent of either the American National Book Award or literary Pulitzer) for its author, A.S. Byatt. The film version had been awaiting release for nearly that long, or so it seems -- Karen had expected it would be out last year. It's finally emerged, albeit in limited release, and while not completely faithful to the book (according to Karen), it's still palatable to its fans.
At the center of the story are two modern-day scholars, reserved Brit Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), researching the life of her great-great-aunt (or something like that), little-known 19th-century poet Christabel LaMotte, and scruffy American Roland Mitchell (Aaron Eckhardt), who is studying famous poet Randolph Henry Ash. Mitchell has operated under the assumption that Ash was faithful to his wife, who bore him no children, and all his love poems were written to her. Stumbling upon a few of Ash's letters, he has reason to believe Ash carried on an affair with LaMotte, who was believed to only have met with Ash once at a reading -- and was also thought to be a lesbian. Enlisting a skeptical Bailey, the two delve into research on the two poets, trying to stay a step ahead of two other scholars who hope to lay claim to the discovery themselves.
If it doesn't sound exciting, well, it's not an action flick. (There is one 20-second action sequence, but no explosions or other special effects.) The relationship between LaMotte and Ash is shown in flashback, with Jennifer Ehle and Jeremy Northam in the roles of the love-crossed poets. Meanwhile, a blossoming relationship between Bailey and Mitchell is complicated by her reluctance to let herself go and his admission that he's had a tough time in past relationships. (In the book, he already has a live-in lover; this isn't the case in the film, making his protestations hard to understand.)
It's not really a chick flick; it's a literary flick, one where the main characters are all attracted to one another on the basis of the sexiest organ, the brain. (Of course, it doesn't hurt that both Eckhart and Paltrow are outrageously attractive, I suppose.) The jumps back and forth between stories aren't hard to track; only the names of the secondary characters slip one's mind. And, of course, the photography (and the British locations, both from the 19th century and modern day) are magnificent. The one way I noticed the film had taken forever to put together is in Paltrow's ever-changing coloring -- she looks as if she's put in some tanning salon time at the strangest moments, which indicates a few reshoots.
Karen will be interested in the DVD -- there are numerous scenes from the book that apparently were cut. At an hour and forty-five minutes, it's a smart movie without being a weeper. Note: this is in limited release, so it may be hard to find in smaller markets.</lj-cut>
Meanwhile, pro football and college football are just around the corner. (In fact, the first college I-A game is this Thursday.) I will freely admit I could not possibly prognosticate college football unless I spent a lot more time following the individual teams. (Baseball may give me that chance this year, of course.) I am hoping, however, to write up some football predictions in two weeks, as well as do week-by-week picks against the spread, just for the fun of it.
Karen's been too busy with school to help out on a <I>Possession</I> review, so I'll put down something down and dirty here, and will add her comments later.
<lj-cut text="Possession review"><I>Possession</I>, in book form, has been around for 12 years, and won the 1990 Booker Prize (the British equivalent of either the American National Book Award or literary Pulitzer) for its author, A.S. Byatt. The film version had been awaiting release for nearly that long, or so it seems -- Karen had expected it would be out last year. It's finally emerged, albeit in limited release, and while not completely faithful to the book (according to Karen), it's still palatable to its fans.
At the center of the story are two modern-day scholars, reserved Brit Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow), researching the life of her great-great-aunt (or something like that), little-known 19th-century poet Christabel LaMotte, and scruffy American Roland Mitchell (Aaron Eckhardt), who is studying famous poet Randolph Henry Ash. Mitchell has operated under the assumption that Ash was faithful to his wife, who bore him no children, and all his love poems were written to her. Stumbling upon a few of Ash's letters, he has reason to believe Ash carried on an affair with LaMotte, who was believed to only have met with Ash once at a reading -- and was also thought to be a lesbian. Enlisting a skeptical Bailey, the two delve into research on the two poets, trying to stay a step ahead of two other scholars who hope to lay claim to the discovery themselves.
If it doesn't sound exciting, well, it's not an action flick. (There is one 20-second action sequence, but no explosions or other special effects.) The relationship between LaMotte and Ash is shown in flashback, with Jennifer Ehle and Jeremy Northam in the roles of the love-crossed poets. Meanwhile, a blossoming relationship between Bailey and Mitchell is complicated by her reluctance to let herself go and his admission that he's had a tough time in past relationships. (In the book, he already has a live-in lover; this isn't the case in the film, making his protestations hard to understand.)
It's not really a chick flick; it's a literary flick, one where the main characters are all attracted to one another on the basis of the sexiest organ, the brain. (Of course, it doesn't hurt that both Eckhart and Paltrow are outrageously attractive, I suppose.) The jumps back and forth between stories aren't hard to track; only the names of the secondary characters slip one's mind. And, of course, the photography (and the British locations, both from the 19th century and modern day) are magnificent. The one way I noticed the film had taken forever to put together is in Paltrow's ever-changing coloring -- she looks as if she's put in some tanning salon time at the strangest moments, which indicates a few reshoots.
Karen will be interested in the DVD -- there are numerous scenes from the book that apparently were cut. At an hour and forty-five minutes, it's a smart movie without being a weeper. Note: this is in limited release, so it may be hard to find in smaller markets.</lj-cut>
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