Word: tassel
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Crane's name was his frame: a gangly galoot and, when he fell for buxom Katrina Van Tassel, an easy prey for the burly lads of Sleepy Hollow. In Burton's revision and Depp's incarnation, Crane is a Manhattan constable sent upriver to solve a murder; predating Poe's Auguste Dupin by several decades, he is America's first detective. He is also a troubled soul, carrying literal scars from childhood and memories that roil his sleep. So handsome, so haunted, he proves irresistible to this Katrina (Christina Ricci). Yet Depp bumbles and stumbles, just like the old Ichabod...
...revenge for having lost his own --or so goes the rumor in town. When lanky, schoolteaching Ichabod Crane comes to town, alienating the locals with his intellectual pretentiousness, he scoffs at the legend and further ruffles burly townsman Brom Bones' feathers by flirting with his girlfriend, Katrina Van Tassel. Riding home after being rebuffed by Katrina at a quilting party one night, Ichabod begins to take the town's superstition more seriously when he hears the clippety-clop of a following horse. His fears getting the best of him, he is eventually reduced to a quivering coward racing...
...endearing. And while he tries his hardest to temper his hunkiness by acting nevous and jumpy (which definitely elicits some giggles), Johnny can't help but be adorable. Depp's appeal creates a new dimension for Ichabod's character, allowing him to have a romantic relationship with Katrina Van Tassel (Christina Ricci), though she rejects him in the book...
...Created and catapulted to significance in this version, Lady Van Tassel, Katrina's stepmother, is played by Miranda Richardson. Marrying Van Tassel after nursing Katrina's real mother until her death, Lady Van Tassel yields a new twist to the plot. Richardson, for most of the movie, gives a fair, airy performance, but her final scene is beyond awful. Her monologue summing up the plot may be intentionally trite, but regardless, its a poor anticlimax. It destroys all the magic built up in the suspenseful buildup towards the conclusion. Aside from this last disaster Richardson is tolerable, providing a cool...
...filled with recognizable faces, even if they are paler and chubbier than usual. Brom Bones is played by Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers). Jeffrey Jones, who played the principal in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, is the town Reverend; Michael Gambon, the famous British theater actor, is Baltus Van Tassel...