Pride and Prejudice (2005)

I read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen when I was about 13 or 14 and that was when I started to pick up my interest in other Jane Austen’s novels such as Sense and Sensibilty which coincidently made into movie by Ang Lee. It won an Oscar for Best Picture in 1995.

I have watched the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice in DVD that I loaned from the British Council Library few years back. The mini serie was absolutely flawless and with due respect to Jane Austen, every detail of the book is transfered into the 6-part mini series and it starred none other than Colin Firth as dashing Mr. Darcy and that catapulted him as one of the famous faces of England. The latest Pride movie, directed by Joe Wright, I can safely say that it’s not bad. In fact, the casting of Keira Knightley, a young up and coming British actress is just perfect. No doubt she’s playing one of the most celebrated character in English literary but she did it just as good as Jennifer Ehle did in the BBC version. In fact, she’s nominated for an Oscar for that role. Not bad for a 20-year-old. Matthew Macfayden’s great as Mr. Darcy as well.

Frankly speaking, I prefer the book itself to the movie. I prefer to visualise it all in my head sometimes when I’m down or something. It’s actually soothing to read the book. Maybe I’ll get it one of these days.

Lets get back to the movie. Okay…the story’s actually all about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. They sort of hated each other in the beginning when Darcy said “she’s not handsome enough to tempt me…”. “She” of course refers to Elizabeth and naturally, she’s pretty pissed when she heard that remark but she took it at her stride and vow not to set her sight on him. Meanwhile, her elder sister, Jane has caught the eye of Mr. Charles Bingley, one of the eligible bachelor in the country. He is said to have 5,000 pound a year. His sister and his best friend, Darcy does not approve his choice of future bride as she’s not wealthy enough to match their standards.

If I were to really elaborate this story, it would take ages. So, if you really wanna know what happen to the romance of Elizabeth and Darcy, you might as well pick up a copy of the book from your nearest book store and read it for yourself. Who knows, you might even enjoy it.

p.s: I hate the ending though…I feel that it should be longer…a double wedding would be good…oops…have I given out the story?

The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger (Novel)

The Devil Wears Prada is all about the evil boss from hell and her unfortunate employee. It’s like a metaphor where the devil represents Miranda Priestly and her victim, Andrea Sachs. You see, Andrea’s a graduate from Brown who majors in journalism. She wants to write but than again she can’t find a proper job that requires her to write and so she landed on a job as a personal assistant for Miranda Priestly, a so-called prominent figure in fashion in Runway. Well, Runway is a fashion magazine in case you don’t know. Along the way, she met Eduardo and James who are both eccentric in their own ways. Not to mention, Emily another of Miranda’s personal assistant.

Part of Andrea’s job is to fullfill every Miranda requests no matter how ridiculous it can be and it certainly has nothing to do with writing or whatsoever. There was once she has to fetch Miranda’s pet dog from the vet to its home. She even has to do Miranda’s laundry which Miranda gladly pile near Andrea’s table. No matter how ridiculous Miranda’s requests are, somehow she managed to fullfill it with the help of Emily of course. She even have to get two advance copies of the new Harry Potter book for her twins before it hit the stores. Crazy. If my boss were to call me in the middle of the night, I would have quit immediately, but not Andrea. She continued working in Runway with hopes that she might get promoted like all the girls before her and maybe even get to write for The New Yorker. Yeah right. A job every girl would die for. Nuts.

Her hectic work life strains her relationship with her boyfriend, Alex and her friendship with her best friend, Lily. Not to mention her family. She has to cancel every date with Alex just to satisfy every Miranda’s ridiculous requests. Even when Lily found a new apartment that both of them can live in, she’s not there with her. As the story progresses, we realise that Lily may be alcoholic. She’s probably stressed out due to her Ph.D studies and Andrea’s not there for her. The one day, Alex decided to take a break from their relationship. More like breakup. Still, Andrea continues to be Miranda’s slave. She even flirted with Christian, the best-selling author while she’s still on a relationship with Alex.

Then one day, Andrea has to fly to Paris to accompany Miranda to fashion shows and parties since Emily’s down with mono and can’t make it. In the process, she miss the chance of seeing her nephew, Isaac. While she’s there, Lily’s involved in an accident and it was pretty serious. In fact the doctor said that she was lucky to be alive. Alive she may be, she’ll have to face the consequences since her alcohol level was very high at that time and she still took the wheel. Still, Andrea refuse to go home for the sake of her best friend who was in the hospital.

Finally when Miranda commanded Andrea to get her twins’ passports renew as soon as possible although it’s impossible, she finally decided to quit and fly back home to be with her family and friend. While she’s out of job, she wrote a 2000-word piece and send it to various women magazines and as luck have it, her piece caught the eye of a certain Seventeen editor and wa la, she got 3000 bucks for it. Better still, the editor have contacts in The New Yorker and so, Andrea’s life is back on track.

Well, this novel is okay for me and you can catch the movie adaptation in cinemas soon starring Anne Hathaway as Andrea Sachs and the one and only Meryl Streep as the boss from hell, Miranda Priestley.

The Da Vinci Code (Movie)

Watching The Da Vinci Code on the big screen is probably not the same as reading the novel itself. I have to admit that the novel’s way more exciting than the movie. Even my dad was on the verge of falling asleep when we were in the theater. The feeling is just not the same as when I read the novel. There wasn’t any rush or excitement present. What that I have seen on the big screen is pretty much what I have imagine in my head as I read the novel by Dan Brown.

Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou are great as the lead character, Robert Langdon, a Harvard Symbologist and Sophie Neveau, a cryptologist respectively. I heard that Sir Ian McKellen received rave reviews as Sir Leigh Teabing in the film. I’m not too sure about that but the press people at Caines Film Festival claimed that he is the best actor in this film. All I can say now is that the casts are just perfect.

The story begins when we see Robert Langdon in Paris on official business. He delivered a lecture on Symbolisms until a French police officer, Bezu Fache arrived. He was escorted to the Louvre Museum where an elderly curator had been murdered and his body position was rather odd. To make things worse, the dead curator, who happenned to be Sophie’s grandfather wrote Robert’s name on the floor with his blood. Well, when Sophie told him about that, they tried to escape from the police. Sophie tried to get Langdon to the American Embassy where he can’t be arrested but alas, the attempt was infutile. They have to run and figure out what her grandfather’s message really was.

At last, they have no choice but to trust Sir Leigh Teabing, an old friend of Langdon who is a British living in France. Teabing is what you call an expert in matters of the Holy Grail. He claimed that Jesus in fact is just a normal human just like the rest of us and that he was married to Mary Magdalene and produced a baby whom they named Sara. He also added that Jesus’ bloodline still exists today and is hidden by this secret society called The Priory of Scion. Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci himself were in it. Teabing wanted to prove it to the world so badly that he’s willing to kill.

Langdon managed to solve the puzzle and well, Sophie Neveau is the only living descendent of Jesus Christ on earth…

The Omen

I’m not too sure on how to describe The Omen. Horrifying? Freaky? Religious? Well, maybe a combination of religious and horrific? Whatever it may be, I won’t say that it’s horrifying. It just made me realise that the world may come to an end someday if something is not done about corruption, pollution, you know what I mean.

Damien, the son of the devil (i’m not really comfortable to use the word satan here) whose mother is really a wolf is raised by the American ambassador in England and his wife as their own. Robert Thorn, the ambassador is made to believe that his biological son died in his wife’s womb and the priest in charge at that time suggested to him that he take Damien as his own and that his wife does not have to know about it. As said earlier, his wife, Katherine Thorn knew nothing about it and continued to care for Damien until Damien started to behave oddly. His first nanny hanged herself from the top of the building on his birthday party. She looked for a new nanny but sure enough, no one takes up the job. Mrs Baylock then got the job. What Robert and Katherine does not know is that Mrs. Baylock is really a devil’s worshipper or some sort. She’s the one who assisted Damien in killing Kathy in the end. Well, she did tried to kill Robert didn’t she?

Father Brennan who knew about the matter tried to convince Robert that Damien’s not his son but like all fathers, Robert refused to believe all that thinking that it was all just a hoax. Didn’t he realised that when they were nearing the church, Damien was behaving rather oddly and he began to attack Kathy, I wonder. It all proved only one thing: Damien is the devil’s spawn. What else could it be? Come on, Father Brennan died and so does Keith, the photographer didn’t they?

When Robert finally realise that Damien’s really a devil’s son he tried to kill him off the way the priest instructed but alas, he ended up dead as well.