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Bridget Jones  

post #1 of 35
11/16/04 at 2:28pm
Thread Starter 
Bridget Jones is the role Renee Zellweger was born to play, or so it says in the preview ad. Hmmm, she had to deliberately gain weight and fake an accent so somehow I just don't see that she was born to play this role.

Regis Philbin said he saw the movie and that she was really fat in it, so he didn't understand why these two men would be interested in her. Or something to that effect.
post #2 of 35
11/16/04 at 3:19pm
Regis is a < bleep >. I can't see why any woman would be with him, so I guess it all evens out.

Yeah, Renee is so HUGE in that movie. She looks like an average woman instead of a stick with a ball on top.

I really enjoyed both books when they first came out, but I was disappointed in the movie and it sounds like they have taken this movie even further from the book.

Not that I get to see movies anyway.....
post #3 of 35
11/16/04 at 5:55pm
Thread Starter 
I saw Ray on Sunday!

I want to see this movie but will probably wait for the dvd. She actually did look bigger in it to me than she did in the first one, but I only saw the previews. Other times I have seen Renee Zellweger, like in Chicago, she has looked downright skinny. She looked normal in Jerry McGuire, but I wasn't really paying close attention to her body I guess. I'm just wondering what her natural size is and if she'd even know at this point.

So does anyone who has seen the movie have any opinions? Might as well pretend to be on topic, huh?
post #4 of 35
11/16/04 at 7:32pm
I read both books too - The first book I didn't like all that much but I LOVED the movie. I liked the second book a lot. I'd love to hear from anyone that has seen the movie.
post #5 of 35
11/16/04 at 7:58pm
I didn't read the books. I've listened to the first one on tape and am currently on Tape 1, Side B of the second book. I HIGHLY recommend these books on tape. The narrator is brilliant.

I did just see Bridget Jones' Diary (Numero Uno) recently. I was insanely disappointed. Had Hugh Grant not been in it, I would have hated it.

What really, really bugged me about the movie - other than the fact it was just loosely based on the book - was that Bridget was heavier in the movie than in the book. In the book she topped out around 131 lbs. In the movie, she starts at about that weight. Why does she have to be "fatter" for the movie!?

I'm also very tired of hearing about how fat Ms. Z had to get for the role. Oh, you mean she ate enough things enough times in a row so that you could no longer tell when she'd just eaten a sandwich by the outline on her abdomen? My, what a COW!

The books are so good, so entertaining and endearing and then Skinnywood took a giant dump on it all.

Sigh. Now I have a headache. V. bad.
post #6 of 35
11/17/04 at 4:47pm
I just saw this movie this weekend with some girlfriends...yes, I saw a movie in an actual MOVIE THEATER! Very exciting (so exciting that my response to the movie might have be a little biased ). Anyhow, my friends and I all thought it was a real hoot. We cackled the whole two hours and thoroughly enjoyed it. All in all, a perfect, "fluffy" and entertaining movie for a bunch of women in dire need of a brief respite from their kids!

I haven't read the book(s?), so I can't comment on that aspect.

If nothing else, it's a good opportunity to spend some time admiring Hugh Grant...
post #7 of 35
11/23/04 at 11:15am
the second movie doesn't come anywhere near the first ... she was a bit over the top in this one and it just didn't have it ... we were really disppointed because we loved the first one
post #8 of 35
11/23/04 at 2:10pm
I read the books and they were funny but I only watched half of the first Bridget Jones movie. I found the books better, I just think it was kinda hard to turn a book of hilarious diary entries into a movie. I don't know if I'm going to see the second one or not.
post #9 of 35
11/23/04 at 5:43pm
I'm not too anxious for the second movie. I loved the books, but was a little irritated with the whole weight thing in the first movie. I guess when I read the books I pictured someone who was actually a little chubby? Then all you heard was how she gained SO MUCH weight to do the part, and then I saw her, and in the movie she still looked pretty thin to me. Thin like a normal human being type of thin at least, not the lollipop look that's so popular in movies, but still. I've never met someone IRL who could look like that and be so unsatisfied. Especially htat scene hwere she's running in her panties-I was trying really hard to figure out where she was actually a little big?

I guess if it had been some other movie and the weight wasn't a big deal, I would have been glad to see her looking like that, because I thought she looked wonderful and healthier than usual. But she was supposed to be chubby! Give me a round little belly or something at least!

Ok I'm editing to do something other than bitch. :LOL I thought it was a reasonably good book-to-movie adaptation, better than usual. And I do think she was a good choice for the part, she did a great job I thought with the character. I'll probably see the second movie eventually, and I'll probably think it's cute, it's just not exactly on my list of stuff to do.
post #10 of 35
11/23/04 at 7:34pm
See, I don't think Bridget Jones is supposed to be chubby. In the first book, she is usually 120-something and never bigger than 130-ish. So, really, is that chubby? I thought her obsession with her weight was less about being chubby/fat and had more to do with her feelings of inadequacy when it came to love and being loved. That she hung so much of her self-worth on the number she saw on the scale.

Hollywood made a big deal about her being a "chunk" and still being able to snag a hottie. That irritated me. "Oh, look at this curvy woman. Hugh Grant wants to shag her even though she's A GIGANTIC FATTY!"

I don't know that I articulated this well. Hopefully my meaning comes across.
post #11 of 35
11/23/04 at 8:15pm
I saw the second movie this past weekend. I quite liked it. Of course, I thought I had read the second book until I saw the movie, then decided maybe I hadn't. (Maybe I actually did and it just strayed too much?) The soundtrack was GREAT! I did think she gained more weight for this role, but it bugs me too how everyone makes SUCH a big deal about her weight for these films when she's still rather thin/average for most western women...
post #12 of 35
11/23/04 at 8:39pm
We saw it Friday. It was pretty good, although RZ did seem chubbier than in the first movie. Maybe it just seemed that way because I saw Chicago in between? Not that it matters... It was pretty good. I didn't like it as much as the first movie, though
Annette
post #13 of 35
11/23/04 at 9:31pm
I'll see it just to ogle Colin Firth.
post #14 of 35
11/23/04 at 11:32pm
Is Colin Firth in the second movie? I mean as a character, I know the actor is in it and I was really curious who was going to play Colin Firth since he is in the second book (Colin Firth is in second book as well as Mr Darcy...er..people who haven't read it are going to be confused :LOL)

(Will be V. sad if he is not, that part is hilarious!)
post #15 of 35
11/24/04 at 12:36am
120-130 is 'fat' only if you think that a size 2 is 'normal'. One of the fashion magazines lying around at work had a thing recently where they took pictures of women of different sizes and showed them to guys and asked them what size they thought the woman was. I wanted to barf at the number of guys who thought that a size zero was NORMAL and that a size 8 was fat. When shown a picture of a woman that was a size 8 or 10, one of them said "I usually don't date women that big, but I'm surprised. I thought she would look fatter." NOT!

Oh - and in the first B.J. movie, I think she was 'fat' at a size 8. The only place you noticed that she was bigger than any other movie star was in the scene where she was dressed in the bunny suit and could see she had a bit of 'saddle bag' thighs. But it seemed like they shot it at such an angle that it accentuated it. When they had the scene where Hugh Grant was fooling around with the American woman who called her fat, I was sitting there saying, 'huh?'.
post #16 of 35
11/24/04 at 1:26am
abimommy - "Will be V. sad if he is not" AHAHAHA! V. humorous.

I wondered about that, too. It's confusing listening to the story and keeping the Darcy boys straight. Could that interview have been more hilarious?

Chava - EXACTLY!
post #17 of 35
11/24/04 at 10:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tinybutterfly
I'll see it just to ogle Colin Firth.
post #18 of 35
11/25/04 at 9:41pm
I've just seen the 2nd movie and I must admit I think it not as good as 1st. However the fight scene is very very funny. As a guy, I can tell you that most men aren't that great at fighting, and this fight was the most realistic I've ever seen on screen. Absolutely hilariious, worth it just for that.

I must admit I think the 1st movie is better than the book which I've just read. I read an excellent review in the NY times on the movies and I agree with the reviewer when she says she believes Helen Fielding is cashing in on the loneliness of the single woman in her 30s hunting for a mate. Bridget Jones doesn't appear to have a lot of great personal qualities, and since she is quite overweight, especially in the 2nd movie, (she was attractive in the first movie, but not so much in the 2nd), and a real klux, and rather brainless, it is hard to think why the 2 handsome men are fighting hard over her. We get a clue in the 2nd when it is revealed that she is supposed to be very good in bed! I think the reviewer was saying how Fielding is rather cynically hooking into the great need to be accepted and loved without having any great merits (and thank god for that too), and I think I agree with her.
The screen writer Andrew Davies added a lot of much needed humour and finesse to the films, especially with his fight scenes (well, they were humourous anyhow!).
post #19 of 35
11/26/04 at 5:06am
I love the books, and was really dissapointed in the first movie. I probably would have liked it if I had never read the books, though. The books were so entertaining to me because they were kind of like reading an over-the-top version of what could be any single woman's diary. It was blown out of proportion, but I think that readers could still identify with Bridget in the books and have a laugh, but I think that the movies just went too far over the top for the sake of being funny, and I think that a lot of what makes the characters seem like they could be real people got lost in the movie.
post #20 of 35
11/26/04 at 5:10am
See, I don't think Bridget Jones is lacking in personal qualities. She is quirky, I will give you that, but does everyone need to be thin, suave and deeply intellectual to have handsome men chase her? Loyalty and passion aren't endearing qualities?

Also*, if the men fighting over her are Daniel and Mark Darcy, Bridget isn't the only thing they're fighting over. There is a history with those characters pre-Jones. Beyond that, Daniel is fighting for a woman who he thinks will save him, perhaps even put up with him because of her lack of self-assurance. He also doesn't like not being wanted. Mark Darcy likes Bridget just as she is - something she can't see for herself through her friends and self-help book addiction.

*I haven't finished all of book 2 yet. So if those aren't the two fighting, I apologize for speaking out of turn.
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