Kal and I dined at Piscos, whose focus is South American cuisine rather than fish, and had a remarkably good meal. She had a stew with beef and several colors of potatoes, and I had a pork chop with squash and several kinds of cheese. Oo, and the biscuits beforehand were just tremendous. She brought from Maine chocolate-covered blueberries for bootleg concessions.
When we saw the trailer for this before "March of the Penguins," the plan was for at least me to sit in the hindmost row so I could make self-hanging gestures as needed without disturbing anyone. But this weekend I watched the 1995 miniseries and reread large chunks, such as April at Rosings. I don't like that the Langton version skips over Elizabeth's accidentally getting pretty near the truth about Georgianna with Col. Fitzwilliam, and that it doesn't explain why the obviously charming colonel isn't interested in Elizabeth. So I had had sufficient doses of Acceptable to innoculate myself against the possibly Totally Unworthy.
But it was fine! It's not Pride and Prejudice, and that was okay. Mr. Bennet calls Mrs. Bennet "Blossom," in addition to saying wearily that because she wants to tell him something, whether he wants to hear it is immaterial. He stops a much more likeable Mary from playing badly at a ball, but he consoles the sobbing girl afterward. Mary is merely plain and has not practiced that song enough instead of not playing well.
Two things only made me mutter aloud: Mary's saying Miss Bingley's line about conversation instead of dancing being more sensible fits her character; but while Miss Bingley must of course be rude, her saying Bingley's line about that's not resembling a ball doesn't fit. I read somewhere that the British release ends with Mr. Bennet's being quite at leisure for any more young men, and I wish the Usan cut stopped there too, because the "Blue Lagoon" scene with the Emmaish discussion of terms of endearment ("Mrs. Darcy" rather than "Mr. Knightley") was just wrong wrong wrong.
Other things made me scowl, if not flinch or mutter, such as almost all instances of non-Austen dialogue and the Bennets being portrayed as poorer than they are (poorer than the junior Musgroves in "Persuasion"). And Darcy go anywhere with his collar unbuttoned and no cravat? Never (though I do crave the long coat in that straight-off-a-bodice-ripper-cover scene, just as I long for Mr. Bennet's in the Langton) But Judi Dench especially made me happy and all the casting I hadn't steeled myself to ahead of time (Keira Knightley) except Bingley who looked like Peter Pan was suitable. I don't need and didn't expect a slavishly exact cinematization; I wanted, and got, eye candy and fun.