Ralph's Movie Reviews: THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB

Saturday, October 20, 2007

THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB

Drama

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Maria Bello: Jocelyn, a spinster who breeds dogs
Kathy Baker: Bernadette, the founder of the group
Amy Brenneman: Sylvia, recently seperated
Jimmy Smits: her ex-husband Daniel
Maggie Grace: their daughter Allegra
Emily Blunt: Prudie, a young high school French teacher
Marc Blucas: her husband Dean
Hugh Dancy: a sci-fi fan Grigg

REVIEW
It is pretty heavy going having to deal with pithy excerpts such as “Is not general incivility the very essence of love?” and then try to keep up with the rapid-fire views of the six club members as they express their divergent opinions about the quote. It makes my head hurt.

There’s nothing exceptional about the acting nor the story line in general but it does seem to go on forever (just short of two hours) and comes across very much like a soap opera.

CLASSIFICATION

for mature thematic material, sexual content, brief strong language and some drug use.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
Shots from directly in front of Bernadette sitting with the others on the porch have a strong shadow behind her right shoulder. Side-angle shots do not.

1 comment:

Pat Wood said...: One might say that the movie is like a soap opera, but I thoroughly enjoyed the relationships in this movie. I found it made one think about seeing life through someone else's viewpoint and reading books that previously were not considered the type of book that person would read. I found it very thought provoking and would give it at least a 3 star rating.
Patricia Wood; October 30, 2007 at 11:59 AM

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my ratings system

I've always thought that telling too much about a movie or warning someone about a "twist" at the end deprives the person the pleasure of seeing it as it unfolds, so I don’t do it. You may not always agree with my rating of course, but at least it is an unbiased opinion unlike some of the full time professional reviewers who are on the studio’s payroll.

A few movies you won’t see any review from me:

Scary movies: I’m the world’s biggest chicken and just hate getting the crap scared out of me. I can handle an unexpected door slam, that kind of thing, but a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat…not for me. Sorry.
Movies geared to the young teen and pre-teen crowd with dialog comprising mostly of crude remarks, awful jokes and lots of rude, socially unacceptable body noises. "The Spy that Shagged Me" comes to mind. (I wonder if the kids know what the British verb to shag someone really means? They probably do; I bet you it’s the parents who haven’t a clue).
Sometimes Hollywood gets on a roll and they produce a series of movies that are all very much alike. For example movies about the CIA were very popular and so we had The Bourne Identity and Bad Company and The Sum of All Fears. They all had the same basic theme and it becomes repetitive. I will see some, but not all of them.

FYI this is my rating system:

0 stars = Terrible: so bad it’s not worth talking about; in fact, I’d pay you not to go
= Lousy: I actually got up and walked out before the end it was just that bad (no kidding)
= Not so good: thought about walking out but hung in just in case it got better (but it didn’t)
= A so-so good movie: I enjoyed it somewhat but wasn’t all that crazy about it
= A really good movie: I recommend seeing it
= An excellent movie you just got to see! I suggest you put it on your "To Do List" it’s that good.

some favourite websites

For those into it, Nitpickers at

has more movie mistakes than you could ever imagine. My contributions can be seen if you check out the Nitpickers Registry and click on the link Nitpickers Listed by Nitpicker Number, select the group 45,401 - 45,500 and drill down to number 45411. Although I have 56 nitpicks to my credit, some have almost 2,000. You wonder sometimes where they find the time to do it.