"Anne of Green Gables" vs. "Anne with an E"

I'm binge-watching the PBS Wonderworks/Disney mini-series version of Anne of Green Gables. Megan Follows, Colleen Dewhurst, and Richard Farnsworth were brilliant and the series was faithful to the book. It is the definitive version and truly perfect. There was never a need to remake the Lucy Maud Montgomery, who was by the way a pastor's wife. That matters in the telling of this story. 

For me, binging the original was a kind of way to flush the last few episodes of  "Anne with an E" out of my head. Once again, Big Hollywood has found a way to gay-up a lovely book with a Christian theme. I was so disappointed in "Anne with an E" from Netflix. they eliminated the pastor and his wife, they added gay characters and made Anne a budding militant feminist with a shrill temper. I don't think I can bear to see Mrs. Montgomery's work butchered by a lot of social engineering feminazis. 

 

While Lucy Montgomery was something of a progressive for her time, I'm pretty sure her progressivism was tucked safely in amongst her Christian values and principles. In some ways the Netflix Anne is rather closer to the Anne of the books, which actually gave me hope for the story. Unfortunately, the story very quickly veered off course into one of those social justice indoctrination pieces. It was sad because the director started off well.

Fortunately, PBS was respectful and the three editions of the story they produced were beautiful. My kids used to pile up for a weekend and we'd all binge watch the series on VHS. It was one of those rare films in which the parents and the kids all cry and laugh at the same places. 

 

Micah and Meg used to binge watch it by themselves sometimes. A couple of times Meg would pile up with her old man and watch it. She used to pick on me when I'd tear up over stuff. I couldn't help it though. It's so seldom that in a movie you see actual kindness and decency portrayed so well. When Matthew tells Marilla they should keep Anne even though she might not be of use to them, but because they "might do some good for her," my mushy old heart takes a joyful little leap. Of such moments, I believe, are our steps toward heaven made up.

My VHS tapes are growing fuzzy from being many times played and from being 25 years old. I'm going to look for the DVD versions and add them to my odd collection of films. Meanwhile, Anne and Gilbert (Jonathan Crombie) have walked off across the field together having settled their old feud. I never get tired of watching two people find each other in forgiveness. The tape is done rewinding now and I need to cue up the sequel and get a fresh hankie. This one's kinda soggy.

Thank you PBS and Wondework for such a beautiful and uplifting set of movies. And thank you, Megan, Colleen, Richard, and Jonathan for creating such wonderful characters.

© 2018 by Tom King

The Frisco Kid

I don't buy a lot of movies anymore, but this one I had to add to my collection. The critics didn't much like it. They complained that the humor was too "ethnic". It was Jewish humor which treated Jewish culture kindly so, of course, Hollywood's leftists wouldn't like it. There wasn't much cursing in it. There weren't any major gay characters and it treated religion with respect.

If you've never seen it, it's my favorite Gene Wilder film and a gem of a Harrison Ford performance that makes him one of my favorite actors. The movie is gently funny. There's nothing harsh about it. Wilder plays a young Jewish rabbi from Poland crossing pre-Civil War America to get to his new synagogue in San Francisco. A trusting soul, he falls in with thieves who take his money and abandon him along the road. He runs into a string of kindly characters, Amish farmers, wild Indians, railroad workers of various nationalities, a nice horsie, some overly friendly raccoons and a prairie chicken who is quite reluctant to stay for dinner. He teaches Native Americans how Jews dance and disrupts the silence of a Catholic monastery. When he finally meets a kindly bank robber (Ford) who helps him find his way to San Francisco. Along the way he inadvertently robs a bank. At the next town he sends the money back to the bank to Ford's immense frustration.

Wilder's tenacity is irresistible.   The movie has a happy and very satisfying ending. Wilder's simple goodness will make you tear up in places and plays a perfect counterpoint to Ford's impatient, if confused cowboy. It's one of those movies you're glad you spent some time with. It's not on any of the major streaming services, but you can rent it on Youtube and Amazon.

If you're like me, you need a gentle couple of hours with some likeable people once in a while. This movie gives you that. I give this movie my highest rating - three pineapples.

Tom King

© 2018

"A Wrinkle in Time" Falls Flat on Oprah's Face

The Disney movie version of one of my favorite childhood books "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L' Engle debuted this weekend. It was given the Disney treatment (not the Walt Disney, but the post Uncle Walt version). Then Oprah got hold of it. When they were done, all the Bible verses and Christian themes were stripped out of it so that it's barely recognizable as the original book. They had to wait 10 years after L' Engle's death to butcher her masterpiece, but they managed to do it.

It made less than half what they hoped over the weekend. And after the critics gave it less than enthusiastic reviews and word got around the Christian community about the heart being cut out of it, they'll be lucky to break even on it.

Disney's AWIT gets a raspberry for cutting the
beating heart out of L'Engle's book.

The screenwriter argues that Madeleine L'Engle wanted to express all the ideas in the film but couldn't do it in the book way back in those ancient and unenlightened days, so she chose to use Christian themes. She assures us that this is how the author would have done it if she'd been more progressively enlightened and less dependent on religion.

L'Engle could not be reached for comment. Disney and Oprah waited till she was safely dead and could no longer object to the brutalization of her lovely little Newberry Award winning book.

© 2018 by Tom King

Hobson's Choice

Filmed in an ethereal crisp black and white by David Lean, Hobson’s Choice is a beautiful little gem of a movie. A Hobson's Choice refers to a choice that's not really a choice. The film stars Charles Laughton as the pompous Henry Horatio Hobson, the often inebriated owner of a bootshop in late Victorian norther England. Brenda De Banzie, an English stage actress, plays Hobson's proto-feminist daughter, Maggie, a feisty and independent woman of nearly 30, who already runs Henry's shop in place of her late mother.

When Hobson in a fit of stinginess refuses to pay settlements so his younger daughters can marry, elder daughter Maggie decides to find her own husband and make her own future with Hobson's best bootsmith, Will Mossop (played by John Mills).  Oh it's a head to head battle of wills alright between the crusty old patriarch and his bumptious daughter and you can guess who wins. The film weaves a delightful tale in which the blustery Hobson gets his comeuppance in fine fashion as Maggie proves her worth and Will Mossop rises up on his haunches and becomes his own man. It's a beautiful piece of story-telling by David Lean and one of my top ten favorite movies. It's also one of Prunella Scales first film roles as younger sister Vicki. You may remember Prunella from her turn as Mrs. Basil Fawlty in the British TV series Fawlty Towers.

This is a lovely little move, a gentle comedy that softly pokes fun at the British class system. The wedding night scene is absolutely the sweetest thing you'll ever see. I watch this film once every year. It makes me happy.

Three pineapples to this wonderful bit of film-making.

Tom King © 2018


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Oddball

This pleasant little Aussie movie is based on a true story about an eccentric chicken farmer, who owns an unruly hound named Oddball. The movie is based on a true story. Foxes have begun swimming over to a small island penguin sanctuary and killing off the penguins. Oddball is such a wild child that he's banned from even going into the town. But our chicken farmer and his granddaughter discover that Oddball has a thing for penguins and with a little training they teach him to protect his penguin friends from the foxes.

It's a lovely story and even more heart-warming because it's a true story. Dog lovers will definitely love this movie. There's no cursing, no nudity and no gratuitous sex or violence. It's one of those movies that's just downright pleasant. 

Also Alan Tudyk who played Wash on Firefly makes an appearance in the movie. It's good to see him playing a nice guy again.

This one gets three pineapples from me for a very pleasant couple of hours and because I'm a bit of an oddball myself and like the title!


It's available free right now on Amazon Prime.

Tom King  © 2018