My Thoughts on Emma

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had watched the 2009 version of Emma, which I loved.

So I thought that I should go and watch the 1996 version with Gwyneth Paltrow, since it was available to me via Netflix, but mostly because I am a hopeless romantic and needed my romance fix.

So I went and watched it...

You would have thought me a movie critic! I had a piece of paper in front of me and I was writing notes about what I liked and how they compared with the other version.

And these are my findings (please note that these are of my own opinion) :

SPOILERS!!!! Do not go further if you have not seen the two versions of Emma and wish to do so at some time in your life.

 

In regards to characters, I liked the 2009 version better. I loved the costumes and the hairstyles more. There was nothing wrong with the 1996 version, but Paltrow did not seem to have enough hair on her head at times.

                 

 

Overall, the casting was great and they each had great actors!

 

What I did like was the difference in certain scenes. But my favorite scene was the dance!

 

In many of the period dramas that I have seen, it is usually at a dance were we see a character realize that they love the other person, are interested in the other person, or allow the viewer to realize that maybe it is those two characters that will end up together. I liked the 1996 version, but not for its dance. I liked the conversation between Emma and Mr. Knightley. She said that if he would ask her to dance then she would and it would be okay, since they were not brother and sister, and Mr. Knightley replies after she has left that "Indeed we are not." This gives you the notion that he likes her. The 2009 version is the version I liked more. The talk before was nice because Emma says, "Your secret is out.", and Mr. Knightley has a deer in the headlights look. Sweet! But I loved the dance! It was beautiful!

Deer in the headlights! Of course, until she says that his secret about being an excellent dancer is out. Oh that...

 

 

The dance was beautiful and I could keep on watching it. Plus, I loved how after Emma confronts Mr. Knightley about marrying Jane Fairfax and he has returned to his house he remembers the dance, it is that moment that the viewer realizes that he likes her. So they both have their sweet moments.

 

So all in all, I have realized that everyone else can have Mr. Darcy, I want Mr. Knightley! Someone who will continue to stand by me even after I make a mistake and will correct me if needed, but most importantly, he will be my friend.

Summer Update!

Another summer update!

I have finished Merlin and the ending was bittersweet, but it was still good. 

So I have also finished Supernatural, or at least all that Netflix has allowed me to finish. Netflix, I need you to update! I need to see season 8! (That rhymed!)

Well, because of this setback, I decided to watch some period dramas. I watched North and South, Mansfield Park (BBC), Mansfield Park (2007), and Emma (2009). Just lovely. *sighs*

I loved all of them (except Mansfield Park (BBC) ) . My dad said that I was born in the wrong century and should have been born in the 1800's. I agree! I think I  would have loved to live during that time. 

North and South is about a girl who is from the south and the countryside and goes to the industrial north and it is there that she meets a Mr. Thornton who runs a cotton mill. It is a great story!

Mansfield park is about Fanny Price and how she is sent to live with her cousins and her cousin Edmund befriends her when no one else would, and how she grows up into a woman. In the 2007 version, I found the ending ADORABLE! The BBC version I did not care for, at all. I usually love any of the BBC's renditions of the classics, but for some reason I just could not stand watching it and just skipped ahead to the ending to see if the ending was the same as the 2007 version that I had just watched. (It was not.)  So watch the 2007 movie, plus it saves time instead of having to watch six hours, you only watch an hour and a forty minutes. 

Emma is AMAZING! I couldn't find it on Netflix, so I found it on YouTube with Italian subtitles, which I got over since I really wanted to see it. Emma is an upper class woman that has a nice life and decides to match-make her friends. In the process she makes friends, causes trouble, and tries to find out her friends love lives and her own. This has made me want to go to the library and read the book. 

If you never seen any of the aforementioned period dramas, I highly suggest you do. Except for the Mansfield Park (BBC), of course.


P.S. Please know that if the BBC version of Mansfield Park is your favorite, I am not in any way saying that you should stop watching it. I am merely stating, that in my own opinion, I did not care for it as much as I did the other version.  

Tattoo Time!

I got a tattoo!

Not really! I drew it on myself with eyeliner, and then when it started to fade, I went over it with pen. 

It was a beautiful butterfly! (I just pictured the caterpillar from A Bug's Life)

I was looking for ways to make a temporary tattoo, but they required special paper and I was too lazy to leave the couch and I was too miserly to go pay for the paper, so I just decided to freehand it on myself.

The next step in the process was finding what design I wanted. This is an important decision because it was going to be on me for 2-3 days. 

 

So I went online and did some research on things that I love. So I  looked up Tangled, Roman designs, sun, moon, stars, and Celtic designs.

 

So I found these...

  

 

But then I found this...

 

 

LOVED IT! So I started to draw it on my wrist and realized that I had drawn it too big. Thankfully it was only eyeliner. Imagine if it had been an actual tattoo! O.O So I just wiped it off and then I decided to copy the butterfly. And voilà, I had a tattoo!

 

I also told my brother I would draw something on him. Here are his ideas.  

 

    

 

 

The butterfly and the phoenix would be for me. I thought the seahorse was adorable, but my brother is quite weird and I can see him wanting it.

 

Well... my tattoo has faded and you can barely see the butterfly, so what should I draw next? Hmm...

I Am Still Alive!

Wow... it has been a month!

Sorry about that! I guess I just fell off the face of the planet.

But I wasn't floating around in space, I was actually being a productive individual. Yay me! I could have sat around all day and slept in until noon and woken up when I felt like it or when I had to go to work. But NO! I thought to myself... Self, you need to get up and do something! So I did!

Now... I may have been productive, but that does not mean what I did was necessarily a productive activity or benefited my health... so... just thought I would have a disclaimer in here.


1. I started drawing again and they are adorable, if I do say so myself. I would put some of them up here, but I have yet to take pictures of my pictures, so maybe a little later.

2. I read a couple of books. Because of school, I am always unable to read the books I want, so I love summer for the one reason that I get to catch up on all the books that I wanted to read. I read The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks at the beginning of the summer. It was cute and I liked it. I recently read Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay, which is about this American journalist in Paris who has to write about the roundup of Jews in Paris by French policemen, and along the way learns about a girl named Sarah and her story during the roundup. It was a great book and there were points where I would close it and stare at it and think about life.

Sidenote: I think it is kind of funny when books make me gasp or make me sigh out loud, or I will mentally yell at the characters, or sometimes I will do it verbally, or I will shut the book, because I am afraid for what is about to happen next. I mean, I know that the book is not real, but for that moment that I am reading it is real and those moments of awkwardness, excitement, or sadness really get to me.

3. I went camping with my family and I had a lot of fun, like always. We played in the river and had a water war with water guns, in which my policy was that I will not fire unless you provoke me. Many people felt my revenge.

While there I read Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs. This is the first book in the series that inspired the show Bones. It was really good and I really liked it. There was a lot of scientific lingo, but thankfully I had taken an anatomy class, so I knew some of the things that were mentioned. The one thing I did not like was that because the setting is based in Montreal, the characters are constantly talking in French. I mean the book is in English, but there would be points where the characters would be talking or they would see a sign and they would read it in French. I don't know French! The author was pretty good about translating it afterward, but only for the single words, not the phrases. So I sort of had to guess at what the phrase meant, but overall it didn't take away from the book.

I got rid of my farmer's tan, of which I am extremely glad. Now my upper arms are the same color as my lower arms and my thighs actually have color. Yay!

4. Netflix! They updated the shows, and Merlin was updated! I am so happy! It's the last season, and I heard that it is sad, but I don't care, I need to finish it. I have also been watching Supernatural and I really like that show too. Plus, I somehow convinced my whole family to watch Sherlock with me and this was their reaction.

                                               
With me, of course, being Edna Mode.

So you see, I was productive in good ways and bad.