Word: austens
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...scenes. While Scott’s attempt to get meta with the reality television show subplot is obnoxious, Walken, in typical form, gives a hilarious cameo. The screenplay can be quite strong and very funny, but beats its jokes to death—the career-resuscitating turn from Brian Austen Green of “90210” is constantly greeted with some permutation of: “Is that the guy from 90210? He has not aged well...
...classic intellectual who sometimes speaks in antiquated constructions—“I shall not comment,” he says repeatedly—Harper is an avid reader and active member of the Jane Austen Society of North America...
Like its source, this Pride and Prejudice makes spectators care about the fates of some very silly and shallow people, endowing them with no heroism but great vulnerability and charm. Pownall, 47, has plucked out the essentials from Austen. There is the tug-of-war wedlock of the middle-aged Bennets, she (Marge Redmond) a worrier and a conniver, he (Richard Kiley) a detached and almost enigmatic amateur scholar. There is the frustrating courtship dance between the Bennets' clever, winsome daughter Elizabeth (Jane Kaczmarek) and the rich Mr. Darcy (Peter Gallagher), both too proud to recognize the inevitability of their...
...teaching the inexhaustible lesson that appearances are deceiving. The actors understand that the essence of being stylish is ease and zest, not straining for artificial mannerisms. Pownall (also author of Master Class) merges the wry, knowing voice of the novel's narrator with the character of Mr. Bennett, whom Austen describes as "a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humor, reserve and caprice." That fusion provides a moral center, and Kiley gives perhaps his finest performance since Man of La Mancha as a father who really does know best. --W.A.H...
...passion might be changed: an ear might be nibbled, for example, or the nape of a neck nuzzled. Actual kissing may have to be handled by the special-effects department: an artful illusion. Producers may lie around the pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel, smoking cigars, reading Jane Austen and Henry James, looking for a hot love scene. --By Lance Morrow