LITTLE WOMEN

"The day will come when you wish you had done a little evil to do a greater good!"--Kingdom of Heaven

Publisher: "If the main character is a girl, make sure that she is married by the end.  Or dead.  Either way"--Little Women

Thursday I saw Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (for the second time) at the History Meetup screening.  Despite being on a smaller screen, it definitely improves with second viewing--the extra hour in the director's cut was very valuable.  I recall it had some intelligence, but this time I noticed it was very intelligent and well-cast.  Eva Green was gorgeous, though I had to wonder how the Queen of a city as sunny as Jerusalem kept her skin so pale. (She should play an 18th-century lady, like Marisa Berenson in Barry Lyndon!)

Saturday one of my Meetups was going to eat at the Mandarin Restaurant near Finch & Dufferin.  I got there, but the event had been cancelled because of snowy weather.  Oh well, I ate there anyway and it was a fun adventure getting there and back. (First time I've gone as far north on the Spadina line as Finch West--someday I'll have to visit my old York University campus again!) The Mandarin salad bar is slipping: they no longer have shredded carrots and corn.

Sunday we had lunch with Puitak and Gordon at King Noodle for the Chinese New Year's.  My singing group did that song, "Something to sing about, this land of hours." (I remember how in Grade 5 we had the Canadian geography textbook titled This Land of Hours, then we used the same textbook in Grade 8!  Just like using the same French textbook in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades...)

Tonight we finally saw Greta Gerwig's Little Women at the Scotiabank. (I had to move it from the Varsity at the last minute because the screening time there had changed.) It takes a highly unconventional, non-linear narrative approach, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't read Louisa May Alcott's book or at least seen an earlier adaptation, unless you like confusion. It was hard for me to get into, but about an hour into it something clicked, and I was watching a wonderful movie!  It even brought me to tears at times.  

It was a handsome production, but believably so, not like some movies where the beauty of the sets and costumes distracts from the story.  There were a lot of superb moments, like when Marmee is preparing a package for a soldier fighting in the Civil War and impulsively adds her own scarf! (Some people are more good than wise...) In that mother role, Laura Dern reminded me why she's one of my favorite actresses!  I also liked Chris Cooper's cameo as the rich neighbour.

Half a dozen people came to the event. We talked about the movie afterward at a bubble tea restaurant where I ordered a pretty good kumquat lemonade with coconut pudding topping.  There were trailers for a live-action Mulan and a new version of Jane Austen's Emma, and we may go to see both of them!