The Critics Were Wrong (Maybe)-Beautician And The Beast (1997)

There are only so many story ideas. It can appear to be easy to combine two different stories and hope that the mingling of  these two distinct stories will work well together. But appearances are sometimes deceiving.

Taking a break from her television role, Fran Drescher starred with Timothy Dalton in 1997’s Beautician And The Beast.

Combining Beauty And The Beast and The King and I, Joy Miller (Drescher) is a New York City Cosmetologist who is thought to be a teacher. She is hired to teach the children of Boris Pochenko (Dalton), the dictator of an Eastern European country.  Her way of educating her students soon reach the ears of not just their father, but the whole country.

The reality of this movie is that Fran Drescher did not step too far from the shadow of Fran Fine when she agreed to play Joy Miller.  Timothy Dalton is an incredible actor who happens to be also incredibly easy on the eyes, but the man who played James Bond, Heathcliff and Edward Rochester is not the man who is on screen for this movie. In short, he is wasted as an actor.

Were the critics wrong? No.

 

Advertisement

Wide Sargasso Sea Book and Movie Review

Fanfiction can be defined as fiction written by a fan of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, movie, etc.

While some might think that this is a new concept with the age of the internet and social media, fanfiction is a much older genre than some might presume.

Wide Sargasso Sea, written in 1966 by Jean Rhys, is a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s literary masterpiece, Jane Eyre.

The novel is the story of Antoinette Cosway, a heiress who is creole by birth and living on a plantation whose glory days are long gone. When she grows up, she is married off an an Englishman, Edward Rochester who removes her from her island home and takes her to his gloomy isolated, Yorkshire estate to live. This is a story about madness, lust, greed and how women cope when they have no power to control their own lives.

The most recent film adaptation of this book was made in 2006 with  Rebecca Hall as Antoinette and Rafe Spall as Edward.

What I enjoy about both the book and movie is that we are introduced to a character whose story we only know one side of. In Jane Eyre, Bertha Rochester is Edward’s secret wife, suffering from madness. Her only companion is a paid servant. In Wide Sargasso Sea, we meet Antoinette and we see the story from her point of view. We see the injustice not just being a woman in that era, but being a woman of mixed race in that era.

I recommend both.

The Museum Of The Moving Image

I think it is pretty safe to say that the visual mediums that are the movies and television have changed our culture forever.

The Museum Of The Moving Images,  located in Astoria, Queens, celebrated the impact that movies and television have had on our culture.

A few blocks from the 36th Ave N/Q  subway station and Steinway Street subway R/M subway station, the museum is housed in the building that once was the  old Kaufman Astoria studios.

This museum has everything that the movie and television loving audience adores. From props to costumes to makeup, memorabilia and sets, this museum is good for the kids and the kids at heart.

It is feast for the eyes and ears.

I highly recommend it.