fueling my unrealistic expectations of life?

I mentioned in another post that I had been very naughty and ordered three DVDs from Amazon - adaptations of two Austens and one Bronte. They arrived on Saturday and I have been enjoying them so much for the last week. I am such a dork, and I live in fantasyland - but I LOVE it!!

Persuasion is my favourite Jane Austen novel and so it was always going to be difficult to find the perfect film adaptation. I thought the actress who played Anne Elliot was quite a strange choice (although Captain Wentworth was dreamy), and I really disliked how they tried to use both endings - a bit inelegant really. (Jane Austen wrote one ending to this novel, scrapped it and wrote a second one, which is much better.) Still, overall I thought it was lovely. Some of the characters were very well cast, especially Sir Walter Elliot and Captain Wentworth. It was beautifully filmed. A lot of adaptations of this book have been a bit awkward because the book includes a lot of inner thoughts which are difficult to show on film, but this adaptation dealt with them very well. By the end of the movie I was thoroughly enjoying myself. :)
Northanger Abbey is high up there in my favourite Austen stories too. And this adaptation was almost perfect. I watched about half an hour of it and then started all over again because I just loved it so much and wanted to savour it! JJ Feild as Henry Tilney almost lived up to his character, who is in my opinion the most attractive Austen hero. Felicity Jones as Catherine Morland was almost exactly as I imagine her, very naive, very charming, very sweet. My one problem with it moved a bit too quickly through a few scenes at the abbey which are some of my favourites in the book. But with limited time, et cetera, I can understand why they chose those parts to shorten. All in all, it is a very pretty and lighthearted movie, which is SO good to see at this point of time when all these Austen movies are coming out full of heaving bosoms and melancholy music, which is just not how they are written, in my opinion.

Finally, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. This 2006 adaptation showed on TV in New Zealand last year and I adored it, so finally got round to getting the DVD. It was TOTALLY worth it. I have been waiting for a good production of Jane Eyre for so long. Every other one I have seen has had huge problems with it. My initial objections to this were that Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson are a little too good-looking to play Rochester and Jane. But by the end I so did not care! They were absolutely wonderful in it. I have a HUGE crush on Toby Stephens now. Goody, another male actor almost twice my age to salivate over.

So - I recommend ALL of these DVDs. No disappointment.