Crystal Clear

Millie, I explained everything via PM, and am now currently starting a re-watch (3 hours late )


Okay will stay in here to post thoughts as I watch -


EDIT: 5 minutes in, a Xmas sing-song around the piano


Laurie just smiled at Jo as he drove past


I adore Amy as a child


Laurie's first talk with Jo and he's so nervous and giddy "Were you born there?"


Eric Stoltz as John Brooke, absolutely charming


Amy in tears, telling her family the nasty teacher struck her


"Mr Davis says it's as useless to educate a women as it was to educate a family cat" ...Wow.


"If you hit and humiliate a child, the only lesson you will learn is to hit and humiliate."


"Mr Lawrence, one doesn't shout at ladies as if they were cattle." Ever the gentleman, Mr Brooke


Jo trying to ease Laurie into the group and he suddenly pops out from the cupboard


Jo trying to ruin Brooke and Meg's date Shush, Jo!


Amy burned the manuscript Jo is furious and right so!


...Cue to 5 minutes later, Amy falls through ice and all is forgiven.


"Do you love Laurie more than you love me?"


"Tonight, Miss March will have as many conquests as she likes" She only wants Mr Brooke!


Laurie saving Meg from boredom


"I wish I could go." "I wish you could,too" ah, these two soul-mates


Jo sold her hair!!!!!!!!! "Are you thinking about father?" "My hair" Yep


"I feel so strange" NOOOOOO the beginning of Beth's illness


"I don't want to die. I've never even been kissed" ... Can I point out how cringe-inducing it is that really young Amy is using Scarlet Fever and Beth's illness to try and awkwardly flirt with Laurie?


"I promise to kiss you before you die" very non-subtle foreshadowing


Mrs March back to look after her daughter Rubbing her feet, trying remedies to prove the doctor wrong


Beth's doing better! (False hope?)


Piano scene, in tears at how good Claire Danes' emotional acting is


Jo's elation over father returning ruined by news of Meg's engagement


"Four years later" random time jump everyone looks the same except Amy Hello Samantha Mathis


"When I imagine myself in that life, I can think of only one thing that would make me happy." Time to turn the movie off!!! Nobody wants the scene to end the way it does Laurie wants Jo forever!!


THAT kiss Jo liked it, twas obvious


"You can't even propose without quarrelling" Jo and Laurie, the original Han and Leia


"Teddy I'm not fashionable enough for London, you need someone who's elegant and refined-" "I want you." I love him correcting her on what he WANTS rather than being dictated by her


Laurie is breaking my heart with this speech


I love that the first person Jo went to in tears about Laurie was beth.


Amy comes in to boast Aunt March has invited her to Europe, making Jo feel worse


Mixed views on Gabriel Byrne as the German professor


Mocks Jo's story and then invites her to the opera. Basically, "I hate your ideas but will you go out with me?"


Frederick using the opera story to make a move on Jo feels really awkward to me


They're literally shoving it on our faces that Laurie's only pursuing Amy because he's jealous of Fred Vaughn having a connection to the March family


"Why don't you reform me?" Well, that was embarrassing, Laurie.


"Just as I have always known that I should be part of the March family" throwing it in our faces again Also, Laurie acts so miserable and cocky with Jo.


"I do not wish to be loved for my family" Hmm. Marry Fred Vaughn, then.


Every time Jo asks Frederick about her writing, he keeps telling her where she's going wrong. Do people really find this appealing?


Beth's condition has worsened


"Why does everyone want to go away?... I know I shall be homesick for you. Even in heaven." THAT SPEECH.


"Please come home to us, Teddy dear. Your faithful, Jo" - HE MISSED IT, NOOOOO


John Brooke is still adorable "never two at once, right?"


Jo thinks Laurie is back for her


Frederick basically just told Jo he'll only take up the job offer at the school if she's not married to somebody else....


The End Will post answers to the Re-Watch questions in the other thread

Mi||iê Måë

I'll reform you Laurie!

Just popping in quick, making a cup a tea then back to my book. Less than 100 pages!

Will reply in more detail later!

Love your use of emotions though!

Crystal Clear

Millie my re-watch :has finished Popping over to the re-watch thread


Will say one thing: my thoughts on the Amy-Laurie-Jo-Professor haven't improved. To me, it's still as uncomfortable as it was when I first watched it.

Mi||iê Måë

He’s not a bad person, I just don’t like him with Jo.

Crystal Clear

I've tried and tried to improve my opinion on it, but the scenes where Jo goes to London and strikes up a relationship with Frederick just feels like a different movie I couldn't get into it.


Plus, I was missing screen-time for Beth and Meg. The whole thing switched to Jo in London and Amy in Europe and the dynamics just felt off to me

Mi||iê Måë

Yeah it was a dowdy match but makes me wonder what Louisa May Alcott was thinking or what happened to her personally in there life when writing that cause the shift.

Because most writers write what they know.

EDIT:

Modernized version, not sure how I feel about that.

Crystal Clear

I feel as if Maycott cared less about who Jo would be romantically paired with, and just wanted to go for the shock factor by tearing Jo and Laurie apart.


... The kid from High School Musical... As Laurie...

Hmm.


Do not like the look of that I don't feel as if I can relate it to the same story. Put it in a modern setting and it just seems like any other romantic drama.

The only time a change in time period worked for me, as a remake, was Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet

Mi||iê Måë

Never really thought of that way but very true!

I never watched HSM and have no intentions too.

Don't like the modernization of it.

Crystal Clear

I honestly think Louisa May Alcott saw Jo as an independent, as opposed to the public thinking that she wanted her to be with the Professor. Her bond with Laurie shone fight brighter to me than any other of her dynamics with men.



It makes me cringe that HSM is considered a great musical trilogy of the last decade I suppose there wasn't much else out, but when you compare it to the classics? Not even close.


It doesn't look right in a modern setting, I totally agree I think that's what's great about the 1994 movie. The effort to make it look as based in the time period as possible makes the story come alive. Laurie and John Brooke are both true gentlemen of that era.

Mi||iê Måë

Agree with you about HSM, not to insult anyone who are fans, but it's for a certain age group/generation and it just doesn't appeal to me.

I can't picture classics modernized, period, it just doesn't work for me.

Crystal Clear

The only re-modernizing of a classic literary story I felt translated well, was Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. I felt that was a risk which paid off even if some critics hated it.


Taking a story such as LITTLE WOMEN out of the time period in which it's set, loses the point altogether. The time period plays a huge part in the characters' decision-making, because it was all about the time in which women led restricted lives.

Mi||iê Måë

I so agree. There's a certain aesthetic you need to have when modernizing something.

Crystal Clear

Yep and I feel it goes against the point of the story to take it away from that time period, because the story heavily focused on young marriages and women being expected to marry well, for the sake of heirs.

Put that in a modern setting, and it doesn't make much sense at all.

sourburst

That adaptation of Romeo + Juliet was so far off the original and yet so good?!

Crystal Clear

Yes, my exact opinion


I was surprised that they got away with using Shakespearean language in such a casual, modern way. I know for a fact that a lot of English professors hated it.