DVDs:
Bride and Prejudice: A Bollywood take on Austen’s Pride and Prejudice with lots of dancing and singing. Austen is a perfect fit for an Indian make over, and I think I prefer it to the monsterification which is the latest trend for Austen’s work. It’s a definite improvement on the Joe Wright – Keira Knightley flick which took it’s self far too seriously.
Valentine’s Day: Slightly embarrassed by this rental. It was bad, so very bad. But I was in need of a chick flick, and I thought it would be passable but it was a pure mortgage flick for all concerned. The tangled love lives of a bunch of pretty LA inhabitants as they celebrate or mourn their way through Valentine’s Day. It’s only saving grace was the 3 minutes of screen time that Bradley Cooper was given.
Stephen Fry in America (2 discs): A couple of years ago Stephen Fry drove a London cab through all 50 states and made a documentary about it. I was actually disappointed by the documentary – there were some interesting bits (like at the Body Farm). But in comparison to Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations gastro-travel docs it came off as slow and dullish.
The Big Bang Theory: Season 1 (3 discs) We’ve completely fallen down the Sheldon et al rabbit hole (or should that be black hole?). Love ’em all, and their quarky quirks. I started dipping into TBBT this year. Then thought we should go back to the beginning not that it really matters as you can dip in and out but it’s fun seeing how all the characters developed and their adventures. (Planning on doing a longer post as it has become apparent that I have married Sheldon-lite.)
Castle: Season 2 (1 disc) Again this is series I started watching this year, and have gone back to watch the first and now second season. On the surface it’s a fairly standard police procedural but it has Nathan Fillion on full charm offensive. What can I say?
Instants:
TV: The Good Guys (pilot episode), Top Shot (season 2 – 13 episodes) & The Glades (season 1 – 13 episodes)
Let’s skip over The Good Guys, and concentrate on the total awesomeness of The Glades and Top Shot. I have a soft spot for police procedurals especially quirky ones that aren’t too forumalic. The Glades fits that bill. Jim Longworth (Matt Passmore) is a Chicago cop who is forced to relocate to a different police force after an unfortunate run in with his boss and he choices Florida for the good weather, and golf. Matt Passmore is so charming as Longworth it is delight to watch him solve crimes, and flirt with Callie (Kiele Sanchez) the nurse slash medical student slash single mother slash jailhouse wife. I’m not quite sure how Callie manages to juggle everything but she is not annoying and you find yourself rooting for her and Jim to get together. What I like the most about Callie is that she doesn’t whine. One of the reasons I stopped watching Nip/Tuck was that Joely Richardson’s character Julia McNamara drove me mad with her constant moaning about wanting to go back to medical school (amongst the many other things she moaned about), not doing anything about it, and then when she takes a pre-med class she ends up dropping out and goes back to moaning. Ugh.
I know that a reality TV show centered around gunman-ship is not everyone’s cup of tea but Top Shot it is one of the few skills-based reality show competitions. It’s really interesting as you learn about the history of different weapons and see the contestants pushed to their limits with difficult challenges. Generally the contestants are fairly respectful of each other there is bickering, and some plotting but you are saved drunken hot-tub antics.
Films: A Private Function, Possession, Maybe Baby, You Again, Weather Girl & I Capture The Castle
I’ve seen A Private Function many times over the years, and couldn’t resist this dry comedy of social climbing in the small northern town when I spied it on Netflix Instant. Possession is again a film I’ve many times – there is something about Aaron Eckhart and Gwynnie Paltrow as academics on the hunt for missing historical letters that I find charming. The Da Vinci Code this is not but a gentle romantic story unfolds with our academics, and the subject of their obsession.
Maybe Baby is a Brit infertility rom-com. Despite a strong cast the premise is as bad as it sounds. You Again is an awful awful rom-com and it makes you want to stage an intervention for Veronica Mars. What went wrong? Why does she get no decent roles? Weather Girl on the other hand is a quiet indie flick that went straight to Netflix Instant (I think). It’s slow in parts and overly earnest in others but a refreshing change from all the crappy rom-coms chocked full of stars doing mortgage flicks.
I Capture The Castle is one of my favorite books, and I love the film adaptation as well. An eccentric family living in a crumbling castle in the 1930s, and the cast is so good: Bill Nighy, Romola Garai, Rose Byrne and Tara Fitzgerald. Love it!
Stats for August: DVDs (8) & Instants (33)
Lost In Footnotes 