Pass the popcorn

With Ben being stuck on the sofa for the last four days, we have watched a lot of movies. A LOT of movies. Mostly they've been movies Ben wants to watch, so I found myself checking out "Dodge Ball," "Harry Potter," and some other stuff I wouldn't (and didn't) watch. But I also tried to find some that both of us could enjoy so that he wasn't just lying there watching movies by himself all this time: "Prime" and "Murderball" fit into this category. Then there was the issue of the new Keira Knightley "Pride and Prejudice." We both were sort of interested, but also cautiously optimistic as we own the BBC miniseries on DVD at our house. And we worship it. Okay, I worship it. Ben merely likes it.

"You need to watch [the new one]," my Mom -- also a huge P&P book and miniseries fan -- told me a few months ago. "It's okay, except the acting is only okay, the dialog has been changed (for what possible reason would this need to happen?), the hairdos are all wrong, and the ending is like waaaay cheesy."

Sounded like a heartfelt endorsement to me.

"Pride and Prejudice" is a great story, which would explain why the new movie isn't thaaat bad. It wasn't edited too horribly, seeing whereas the book is very difficult to cram into a two-hour Hollywood romance. But I guess I just think the miniseries length makes for a much better screenplay.

Basically, the problem with the new movie is that the old miniseries is just perfect. The actors in the new movie weren't that bad, but no individual character that I can think of was portrayed better than he or she was in the miniseries, leading me of course to wonder what the point even was.

And OH MY GOD was my mother right about the ending. Did everyone in production one day smoke a bunch of crack and decide: "I know! We should end the movie by having Mr. and Mrs. Darcy sitting on some sort of platform and have Mr. Darcy repeatedly kiss Elizabeth all over the face like a deranged woodpecker saying, "Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy" over and over again like an equally deranged parrot?

So I've watched it. Now I never have to watch it again, right? I have to say, if I want to watch the story in a two-hour Hollywood format again, I'll bust out "Bridget Jones' Diary," for many reasons -- not the least of which is that they didn't mess up Darcy. If you know what I mean. And I think you do.