Tuesday, July 03, 2012

Banana Karenina (fo-fina)

Laura reports that Banana Republic is launching a line of Anna Karenina-themed clothing as a tie-in to the upcoming - and hitherto unknown to us - latest adaptation of the Tolstoi classic. Herewith the trailer:



Laura's coworker asserts that Jude Law and Keira Knightley are two of Hollywood's least liked people. Can someone whose last film experience was not Madagascar 3 (which was actually quite good, by the way) check on that?

Based on this there is no comparison to the 1935 classic with Greta Garbo and Basil Rathbone. I saw that ages ago in high school and remember quite clearly both the elaborate drinking games at the officers' party and Rathbone's tremendous speech (as Karenin) from the top of the stairs casting out Anna. I see that there was also a 1997 version featuring Sean Bean, probably as Anna given his characters' track record (Warning: not for the faint of heart or spoiler-averse):



Herewith the crappy ad copy:
Faux fur on collars, hats and coats fall under the spell of Romantic Russian Imperialism, while richly-textured fabrics in black and dove gray betray the Dior influence.
Yeah, so go to Banana Republic and betray yourself to Dior or whatever. You'll look good on the train or under it!

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