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kielsa03
Reviews
The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985)
Great clay animation, but story not so good--and not for children!
I just watched this movie for the first time. I remember seeing a preview of it once (probably when it first came out on DVD), and the description sounded interesting. But it really wasn't that great. The only reason I rated it 2 stars instead of 1 is because parts of it were kind of funny.
Unfortunately, most of the movie is best described as either really weird or downright creepy. Instead of focusing on Mark Twain's well-known, well-loved stories like Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Pudd'nhead Wilson, etc., it focuses more on the weird stories he wrote.
This movie had very good clay animation, but that's its best quality. The storyline really isn't very good, and I found myself getting either bored or creeped out for most of it. I wouldn't watch it again, and I definitely would not show it to children--it would probably scare them! If you want something entertaining and fun, skip this movie and just read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn--it'll be a much better use of your time!
When Calls the Heart (2013)
Not bad, but a bit confusing and a little disappointing if you've read the books
As a big Janette Oke fan, I can't help but compare this movie to the Canadian West books, which it's somewhat based on. So here goes...
In the books, which begin in April 1910, Elizabeth Thatcher lives in eastern Canada with her parents, younger sister Julie, and younger brother Matthew. (She has two older sisters who have already left home.) She has already been teaching for a while when her older half-brother Jonathan writes and invites her to come out west to teach. She accepts the offer and initially stays in Calgary with Jon, his wife Mary, and their four children: William, Sarah, Kathleen, and Elizabeth. Mr. Higgins, the man who is to assign Elizabeth to a school, lives in Calgary and tries to convince her to marry him, and when she refuses, he assigns her to a school over 100 miles away. She accepts the position and eventually meets Wynn Delaney, who happens to be a good friend of her brother Jon.
In the movie, which also begins in 1910, the Elizabeth we initially meet is supposed to be Elizabeth Thatcher Delaney's niece. She lives in the east with her parents and younger sister Julie, who is much like the Julie in the book, who is her aunt. Mr. Higgins lives in the east and tries to convince Elizabeth to give him "special favors" in order to get a good teaching position nearby. She refuses, so he gives her a teaching assignment way out west, which she eventually decides to accept.
Young Elizabeth reads her Aunt Elizabeth's diary, which tells about when she went out west to teach school, including how she met Wynn Delaney. The movie goes back and forth between Aunt Elizabeth's story in the past (which must be the late 1800s, unlike in the book) and young Elizabeth's story in the present.
The parts of the movie about Aunt Elizabeth mostly match the story in the book, which I really like. But I wish they wouldn't have left out Jonathan and his family and mixed elements of Aunt Elizabeth's story into young Elizabeth's story. Worst of all, they don't even finish the story of Wynn and Elizabeth, and young Elizabeth's dad tells her that they don't even know what happened to Aunt Elizabeth. In the books Elizabeth stays in touch with her family, even though it's hard because she's sometimes in remote places. Later on, Elizabeth and Wynn move to a more "civilized" area, so by the time any nieces they have are grown up, they're in a place where they can regularly send letters to their relatives.
The Canadian West series is interesting enough to make great movies, but instead of focusing on the great original story, movie makers have created this new niece Elizabeth and focused half the story on her. The ending made me feel like the story was unfinished, which I guess makes sense since this is the beginning of a TV series. I have a feeling the TV series will focus just on young Elizabeth and Edward, but I hope they'll at least finish Wynn and Elizabeth's story. I'll probably check out the series when it comes out, and I'll probably enjoy it.
If you're hoping for a movie adaptation of the book, When Calls the Heart, you're not going to be totally satisfied and will probably be a bit disappointed like I was. But it's still a pretty good story, and it's clean and interesting without bad language, sex scenes, or graphic violence.