Vanity Fair

Watching a movie made from a book instead of reading the book is a little like reading Cliff Notes, isn't it? After trying to read Vanity Fair umpteen times, I rented the movie this week and it wasn't bad. Not really a chick flick, not really a Masterpiece Theater rip-off, it was a fun few hours with Reese Witherspoon. I don't think you can forget for a second that she is a Hollywood star instead of a nineteenth century adventuress, but no matter. She looks good, the sets look good, the costumes look good, and the screenplay is a pretty good adaptation of a "classic"novel updated for the screen. And it is much better than Gwynneth Paltrow as Emma.

And James Purefoy as Rawdon Crawley is hot, hot, hot. I see from IMDb that he was in Rome as Marc Antony, gotta check that out.