So I've watched The Borgias 84,000 times since I discovered it a few months ago. I'm still obsessed with that show. I love it. But I'm beginning to get to that point when I can repeat every episode verbatim, so I went in search of a new series to start.
 |
| Once Upon a Time airs on ABC. |
Basically the deal is Emma Swan had a baby when she was a teenager that she gave up for adoption. One day, her given up son, Henry, now about 10-ish years old, shows up begging for her help. He takes her back to his hometown of Storybrooke, Maine where his mother, Regina, is the Mayor.
The thing about Storybrooke is, as Henry is so eager to tell Emma, is that everyone in the town is a fairy tale character, and they don't realize it.
Regina, Henry's adoptive mother and the towns Mayor, is the Evil Queen from Snow White. She has the entire town under a spell and is in serious cahoots with Rumpelstiltskin, played by Robert Carlyle. I'm not sure who's worse, at this point.
The thing I like the most about this show is how imaginative it is and how the fairy tales I grew up with intermingle with each other. I also love watching Ginnifer Goodwin turn in a stellar performance as Snow White/Mary Margaret Blanchard. She is so stinking cute with her little pixie haircut, and all her costumes are right up my alley.
FUN FACT: Ginnifer Goodwin, who is Snow White on this show, and Josh Dallas, who plays her Prince Charming, fell in love on set and got married in real life!! They just had a son! She literally married Prince Charming.
Emma Swan comes into play in the fairy tale world as the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming that they banished into the real world when she was born to save her from the Evil Queen. Slowly Emma helps the residents of Storybrooke remember who they were, and what their stories were.
I really have enjoyed what I've seen of this show, and as soon as I have sufficiently gotten over the loss of Jamie Dornan, who played the Sheriff of Storybrooke/The Huntsman from Snow White, I will continue on my journey.
If you have a really active imagination, like I do, or just love fairy tales, this show is wonderful!
The next show I became enthralled with was a little gem called Carnivale (pronounced Carni-Vahl). I remember wanting to see this show when I was a teenager, but we didn't have HBO, so I was unable to. Amazon Instant recently added this to it's library and I immediately sat down to watch it, and didn't move for nearly 3 days.
 |
| Both seasons now available on Amazon Instant Vide |
There remains a small glimmer of hope that maybe, possibly, perhaps one day a company like Netflix or Amazon Instant might be able to produce a third season of this show. And if that's the case, I'm first in line with my own bag of popcorn to watch.
I don't even know where to start to tell you about this show. So much goes on and there are so many details. There are two story lines that run parallel to one another, set in the 1930's during the Dust Bowl. In the first story line we meet Ben Hawkins (brilliantly portrayed by Nick Stahl), who's mother has just died from dust pneumonia. A traveling carnival comes across Ben as he's burying his mother, and takes him in as a roustie (roustabout, hired hand). The carnivale is run by the never seen Management and a little person named Samson. There's also a psychic named Appolonia and her daughter, Sofie (Clea DuVall), the bearded lady Lila and her mentalist lover Lodz, the snake handler Ruthie, as well as the cootch dancing Dreifuss family (which includes Meat Loaf's daughter, Amanda Aday, in the early episodes of season 1), and a whole host of other characters, including leader of the rousites, former Major League baseball star Clayton Jones, known as "Jonesy." He's probably my favorite character, he's such a good guy. He got knee-capped by the Mob after refusing the throw a game in their favor. He hobbles around with a leather knee brace on the outside of his pants leg, but that doesn't slow him down at all, he's a force to be reckoned with when you mess with something or someone he loves. Tim DeKay is absolutely adorable as Jonesy.
In the second story line we meet Brother Justin Crowe (the incomparable Clancy Brown) and his sister Iris (Amy Madigan). Brother Justin is a Methodist minister who suddenly begins having visions about opening a mission in Chinatown. A supporting character in Brother Justin and Iris' story is Reverend Norman Balthus, their mentor, played exquisitely by the late Ralph Waite. His character suffers a stroke late in season 1 and is confined to a wheelchair, unable to speak, in season 2. He acts nearly everyone else off the screen with his facial expressions and the looks he gets in his eyes. Job well done, sir. Job well done.
Carnivale is your basic good vs. evil story. You'd think that Brother Justin, the preacher, would be the good, but you'd be wrong. He is a satanic avatar hellbent on the destruction of the world. Ben is a healer and an angelic avatar, if you will. Ben and Justin dance around each other, and their epic showdown for 23 episodes and finally have it out in the 24th. There is the search for Ben's father, Henry Scudder, a disastrous trip to a ghost town called Babylon, love affairs, fires, rival carnivals, visions, secrets, lies, deaths, resurrections, miracles and more twists and turns than a winding country back road all packed into two all-consuming seasons.
If you like American Horror Story, chances are you will like this show. It still, to this day, has a devout following, of which I now find myself in the midst of. It's a little dark in places, kind of scary here and there... but over all it's a very good show. There is some bad language and nudity (it's HBO, what are you expecting?). The nudity is centered around the cootch show and the Dreifuss women, just as a heads up, I mean, that's what a cootch show is peeps.
So now, after 3 days of non-stop watching this show, I'm faced with having to carry on with my life after the explosive series finale, and all the insane things that happened. I don't know how to just move on after something like that! ;)
 |
| Naomi Watts stars as the late Diana, Princess of Wales |
Naomi Watts gives it a solid try as Princess Diana. She's a wonderful, talented actress, but I think the character of Diana, Princess of Wales is a toughie in general, for even the most experienced or talented of actresses. While she gave it her best effort to give us that "Diana Look," like what's on the poster, you know, the through the lashes look that Diana gave so often, it looked unnatural for her, and made it seems as though she was trying too hard. Her accent was fine, but Naomi Watts is wonderful at accents. The thing that always gets me about Diana movies is the hair. They never get the hair right. It's too feathery too late in her life, most of the time. Too much the way she styled it in the 80's into the 90's. Towards the end of the life, her hair was less feathery, less fluffy. It was sleeker, more defined., They showed bits of Naomi as Diana during the Martin Basheer interview, the famous interview that caused Buckingham Palace to implode... I felt like I personally could have mimicked it better.
That's what it was. To me, it felt like Naomi Watts what trying to just mimic Princess Diana, instead of really getting in, digging her heels into the part and becoming the Princess.
This film tells the story of the late princess' affair with an Indian heart surgeon named Dr. Hasnat Khan, played by Naveen Andrews, the only bright spot in this movie for me. I knew very little about this relationship before seeing the film, but apparently he was "her great love." I don't know. I guess I never gave it much though. I always assumed that Dodi Fayed was the great love, but this film plays him off as a rebound, the guy Diana went to to get back at Hasnat for breaking off their relationship. You can never be 100% sure with what's the actual truth about Princess Diana, there are so many stories and contradicting opinions. It even shows Diana setting up a photographer while she was on her vacation with Dodi, making sure that Hasnat saw the images of her with Dodi on his yacht. All those supposedly intrusive photos of her last vacation with Dodi, in this film, were played as a set up by the princess herself.
Here's my thing... movies about public figures, especially ones as famous at the late princess, are hard to pull of right. This movie was touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it left me flat. An actress as well known as Naomi Watts falling flat on her face trying too hard was not something I enjoyed watching.
What I did enjoy was Naveen Andrews. Perhaps it's because I didn't have a picture in my head of how the real Hasnat Khan was during that time. I didn't have something for him to live up to, you know what I'm saying. Right? He made me believe he was in love with Diana, truly. The way Naomi Watts played Diana.... she played her almost as desperate, which could be true, depending on which story you listen to. It was almost like she saw him, picked him out of a crowd and made him her project. Anything to feel loved. We all know that Princess Diana had issues with that, -not feeling loved- but this movie made it seem as though Diana saw Hasnat, an attractive, successful man, decided to make him her project and the next day was wanting to marry him. Naveen Andrews had me in tears at the end of the movie when he finds out about Diana's death. I was shocked that I was crying during a film I disliked as much as Diana, but after the credits rolled I realized it was the emotion I felt coming off of Naveen Andrews causing me to tear up.
The only movie in this area that I think gets it right is The Queen with Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II. I don't know what the difference is. Is it the material? The writing? What time frame the film is set? A film about the death of the Princess (not a lifetime movie, I mean) might be worth a watch, but it will never happen. Is it the acting? Helen Mirren is an amazing actress, but so is Naomi Watts-- most of the time. The direction of the film? I don't know where Diana went wrong, but to me, it did.
I may watch it again, just to see Naveen Andrews be amazing.
I wonder if, when actresses like Naomi Watts sign on for roles like this, if they're expecting it to be their shining Academy Award winning moment? Did Lindsey Lohan think she was a shoe-in for Emmy's and Golden Globe's when she played Elizabeth Taylor (horrifically)? I certainly hope Naomi Watts didn't come onto this project thinking that she was going to blow all the competition out of the water, because she certainly did not.
If you're on the fence about watching this movie, go ahead and give it a look. Naveen Andrew's performance is wonderful. And it is fun seeing Naomi Watts in all of those iconic Diana dresses.
 |
| Starring Brian d'Arcy James and Sutton Foster as Shrek and Princess Fiona |
Ok, so we're 7 years old. Whatever, we don't care. We are obsessed. You can find this little lovely on Netflix.
I decided to watch this one night back in February while I was giving crotcheting a scarf. I know, random. But I did.
Instantly I loved it. Aaron was asleep, but I went and woke him up to get him to watch it with me. It's so stinking cute.
If you liked Shrek, the movie, which, lets face it, most of us adults did, you will love this.
Shrek the Musical ran on Broadway for a year, from 2008 to 2009. It then did a tour of the US in 2010 and in 2011 the West End revamped the musical for their audiences. It is unclear when, exactly this version was filmed, but it was during the original run of the US Broadway show.
Brian d'Arcy James plays Shrek, the iconic green ogre. He does the part justice, let me tell you. His accent is spot on, his acting is hilarious and his singing is beyond amazing. He has a stellar voice.
Blowing me away as Princess Fiona is Sutton Foster. I'd never heard of her before this, but she.is.phenominal. She is hilarious, she can sing, she can dance, she has perfect comedic timing. We love her so much we are tossing around the idea of naming a daughter (if that ever happens) Sutton.
Daniel Breaker totally lives up to Eddie Murphy as Donkey. He is HILARIOUS! His singing voice is fantastic and his comedic timing, like Sutton Fosters, is spot on.
Lord Faarquad is played by Christopher Sieber. The tall actor performs the entire show on his knees. Yes. He breaks the 4th wall on a regular basis, and hilarious every time he does. For example, when he rides up to Princess Fiona, to save her from Shrek and take her back to the Duloc to marry him, he's riding an obviously fake horse. To stop the horse he says "Whoa, plastic horse." And it's hilarious! His musical numbers are show stopping.
The supporting cast of fairy tale creature is dead on. Pinocchio sounds exactly like the Pinocchio from the movie version, as does the Gingerbread Man.
I'm a sucker for catchy musical tunes, and this show has them in spades.
My second favorite song in the production is "I Know It's Today," which is sung by Princess Fiona at 3 different stages in her life in the tower. She sings about reading the fairy tales and waiting for it to happen to her in real life, just knowing it's today that it will happen for her. 8,423 days later, it still hasn't happened. By the end of the song she's a bit frantic. Sutton Foster's voice is amazing.
My favorite song is "Who I'd Be." This song tugs at my heartstrings so bad. Donkey asks Shrek who he'd be if he wasn't an ogre. Originally Shrek says nobody, but after some prodding, Shrek sings about being a hero, or a viking, a poet, or a prince charming. Princess Fiona, now changed into an ogre as it's after sunset, comes into the background singing a refrain of "I Know It's Today." Donkey chimes in turning the song into a stellar trio, sending chills up my spine every single time. It's another one of those instances where this feeds my imagination. I tear up every time. The lighting is beautiful during this song as well. You just don't know until you see it. The way their three voices blend is simply magical.
There are the funny songs, like "The Ballad of Faarquad," and "Donkey Pot Pie," sung by the dragon to Donkey. Don't forget about the two show stoppers that the Fairy Tale Creatures sing "Story of my Life" and "Freak Flag." Shrek and Fiona also stand off against each others suffering in "I Think I Got You Beat," which has some fabulous harmony.
The best part is they end the show with "I'm a Believer!"
This is just all around good fun for kids, or us kid like adults. Before you watch anything else I've mentioned, go watch this. It'll make your day.
So yeah, that's the wide array of what I'm watching. It's a bit all over the place, ain't it? Oh well, I like what I like, even if it makes no sense how or why!
Thanks for hanging out with me for another What I'm Watching!
No comments:
Post a Comment