vega-37 Reviews

Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning (2008 TV Movie)

Total mess!!!!! SPOILERS

[1/10 · 6 April 2010]

I only had to watch the trailer and I am completely horrified. So, pardon me, but this is not a review of the actual movie because it would be "heaping coals of fire on my head" to watch the actual movie. If you don't know what that expression means, then you, like Kevin Sullivan, have not read the books.

Who knew Anne would have plastic surgery in her dotage?(sorry Barbara, but it's really obvious, and you are not well cast as Anne)

Who knew her father didn't die at the same time her mother did, although it states this clearly in the books.

Who knew Gil would go to war too and DIE (who the hell is Gil? There was no Gil! You mean Gilbert. He was never called Gil, ever...only when Anne cut his name off because she didn't want to be suspected of liking him-DUH)

Why would you make Anne single, what, to spice up the story? Guess what, romance actually can exist in a marriage that lasts for many years. It's right there in the books, but again, you don't appear to be able to read.

Why change something that is already so perfect? LM Montgomery's family should be totally ashamed of themselves for giving this soulless man the chance to take such awful liberties with a cherished gem.

Mr Sullivan, you are the worst kind of filmmaker. You don't GET IT. You don't understand your story and have killed the whole beauty of it. You smelled money and you haven't looked back. And people no longer have the ability to READ so they think the movies you have so badly messed with ARE the stories. I couldn't watch any of them after the second one they were so horrible. This goes for everything Sullivan Home Entertainment has ever done that has been based on poor Maud's books. She would just despise you.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH US? Do the British have to get hold of this to make it work? Do we have to ask the producers of the 1995 (NOT 2005) version of Pride and Prejudice to come and do all of this over and make it work? What a horrendous, shameful, idiotic mess.

The Secret Garden (1993)

This movie is fine but it has very little to do with the real story

[6/10 · 12 April 2008]

The acting is very good, the scenery is lovely, the filming is well done, but where did this story come from? I have just read the book for the first time, and then directly after that watched this film version. What a disappointment! What a modernized mess! (not in the physical things but in the sensibilities) I could make a list of a hundred things they changed that didn't need to be changed. It's as if the filmmaker thought people couldn't understand the subtleties of the actual story and had to hit us over the head with it. Obnoxious!

One example is that instead of the lovely magic that Colin works on his own health by telling himself over and over that he will get well, and by believing it and visualizing it, the magic is portrayed as a weird voodoo thing in the movie.

This is the same problem with the Anne of Green Gables movies. This book was published at the same time, and the dreamy delicate sweetness of the book is gone in the movie version. It's as though the way of seeing the world in the early nineteen hundreds is impossible to bring to the screen, at least in children's movies. (I don't believe it is impossible, but the filmmakers seem to have believed that).

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

Beautiful little movie!

[10/10 · 4 October 2006]

I love this movie! Tom Hanks is great as the single dad, handsome and thoughtful and funny, and Meg Ryan is just adorable-there's no-one like her-and her hair and clothes are beautiful! The mystical aspect of it; finding magic with the one you're meant to be with, and a series of coincidences leading up to meeting that one may be unrealistic, but is still touching and nicely managed in this film.

I didn't like it nearly so much the first time I saw it, but it improves with repeated watching! Rita Wilson's scene where she is talking about "An Affair to Remember" is completely delightful! Rosie O'D is great, so is Bill Pullman, and the kids are both very good. Kind of fun to watch what computers used to look like when Annie is investigating Sam. If you haven't seen it, watch it! I know most everyone has seen it, so if you have seen it, watch it again!

Excess Baggage (1997)

This movie is one of my all-time favourites! Benicio is amazing!

[10/10 · 20 September 2006]

I have watched this movie many times and I am always delighted by something new that I notice each time I watch it, along with the parts that I love every time! Vincent is so funny and weird and unbelievably cute. The banter between him and Uncle Ray is especially hilarious. Even the people who have tiny parts, like the waitress pouring coffee at the motel, the kid who knocks on the door at the motel, and the kid in the gas station store make their parts something a little bit different and great. I recommend watching it more than once if you want to catch everything....look for the "c'mon, c'mon, c'mon" repeats, for example....and Greg's use of the word "Gosh!" (move over Napoleon D!)...

And by the way, Alicia is 21 in this movie and Benicio is 30. Therefore she is "old enough" as he says at the end (for various things), and he is not twice her age as someone in an earlier comment said, although Benicio tends to be mistaken for older than he is.