Mid century British travel posters are the best

So cool, so innocently sexy.

Lucy Worsley is my new pretend British intellectual girlfriend

She's just adorable, isn't she.

Grr baby, grrr

Phyllis Logan, aka Mrs. Hughes on Downton Abbey.

Flower of the week

Daisy Haggard.

Sleeping beauty of the week

Raquel Cassidy.

Brunette of the week

Elizabeth Marmur.  Hubba hubba.

Brunette of the week

Emilia Clarke

My latest Brit crush has me feeling like a dirty old man

Shut up. I know technically she's Welsh. And I'm still a dirty old man for crushing on her.

Brunette of the week

The lovely
and highly amusing
Tamsin Grieg.

Hey Saskia Reeves, how much do you love me?

That's it?

Oh well. It'll have to do.

You were born the same year I was and I must say that you've held up a lot better than I have.

A couple of quick reviews

Don't be fooled by the title, the pictures, or the size and shape of this book. It's not a book for young kids, unless they're seriously warped already.

It's just about the most brilliant thing I've ever beheld. The words are few, the illustrations are fantastic, and the story is insane. Insanely good.

I just finished watching the first series of Land Girls on Netflix instant streaming. And yes, it's brilliant as well. It's just the type of production that the BBC does so very freakin' well. It's got fully realized characters, damn good actors who bring them to life admirably, and the story is full of ups and downs that keep you entertained and absorbed.
The plot revolves around four young women sent to live and work on a farm during the early years of World War 2. And yes, there was an actual organization that was called The Women's Land Army, their task was to farm the farms of Britain so that they would not remain fallow while the men went off to war. The 'girls' get into all sorts of interpersonal dramas and they share tragedy and triumph along the way. They're not all angels with lilacs and roses for pubic hair, they all make mistakes, suffer for them, and keep on going. And yes, it's all terribly interesting and engrossing.

The four female leads are very good and very easy on the eyes. After all, they're all British babes who get down and dirty on the farm, in the fields, and behind each others backs. What's not to love? However, as good as the four leads are, the best performances of this series are turned in by the two villains Lady Hoxley and Sgt. Tucker, played by Sophie Ward and Danny Webb respectively. Lady Hoxley is as cold and distant as an iceberg is to a native of the tropics and Webb's unhinged uber patriotic sergeant in home guard is a thing of evil beauty.

I highly recommend this one.

TV reviews

This series is an update/reinventing of the 1970's BBC series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. In this one Martin Clunes plays a middle aged man who's hating his job but can't leave it because of all his financial obligations. He loves his wife, played by Fay Ripley, but he's as bored with their marriage as he is with is job. He indulges in Walter Mitty-esque flights of fancy and fantasy as he tries to cope with the stultifying life he's trapped in.

This series is okay, it's not great but it's not bad either. They made it seem too much like an American sitcom and it suffers because of that. Some of the characters are just caricatures and never rise above two dimensionality. Clunes has done better work elsewhere, as has Ripley. I'm glad I saw this one but I doubt I'll see the second series. But if I do it's because of one thing, Lucy Liemann.

Ms. Liemann plays a woman who works with Perrin. He develops an instant crush on her and they have a fling at having a fling until Perrin calls it off. The idiot.
Liemann is super cute and sexy in this series and in fact I've developed an instant crush on her as well. And I'm glad to say that she's now my imaginary British comedy girlfriend. Is that okay with you Lucy? Being my imaginary British comedy girlfriend? Say nothing, just smile if you're cool with that bit of news:
Hells yes.

In this series Stephen Fry plays an asexual small town attorney who handles all sorts of cases while dealing with all sorts of odd small town people, some of whom he's purported to be related to. He takes all cases, no matter how small or trivial, and he somehow manages to win them all while placating his nutty neighbors.

I found this series a bit twee for my tastes but I can see how others might love it, it's chocked full of the usual eccentric loveable British characters we've come to know over the years. My main problem with the show is Fry himself. He's almost sleep walking through this thing by playing a version of himself. There's no stretch to anything he does or says in this show. He's essentially a straight man who is there to react to all the 'oddballs' in his town of Market Shipborough.

My other problem with this show is that some of the oddball characters are not really odd at all, they're just annoying or worse yet, bland. Hermione Norris as Fry's half sister is super annoying and the guy who plays his brother Simon is perhaps the most boring actor I have ever seen. I wanted both of them to go away and never be seen or heard from again, and that's saying something because I usually love the work Norris turns in.

The bright spots, performance wise, in this show belong to Karl Davies, Phyllidia Law (Emma Thompson's mother), Tony Slattery, and Celia Imrie. I'll admit to having an inappropriate crush on Ms. Law, she's a silver fox.

This show is okay, it's a fun time waster but don't expect great acting, plot lines, or stories.

More reviews

I don't know what it's like to be a minority and to grow up seeing people like me portrayed as buffoons, savages, noble stoic stewards of the earth, or drunks. Most all the people I saw in films and TV shows were the same color as me, so the things they talk about in this film didn't happen to me but I see where they're coming from.

Hollywood has willfully and woefully pigeonholed Native Americans into a few kinds of roles and it's only been since 1990 that things began to change. I grew up thinking all Indians lived in the southwestern USA and that they were either drunk or ready to start a war to take their land back. Then as I grew I saw that in the entertainment industry as a whole they got the same kind of treatment we had given them since the day we, European settlers, got here. This fine documentary tracks the evolution of how Indians are portrayed in Hollywood productions starting with silent film and going up through today. It's a fine film and it tells a much needed side to a heretofore lopsided story. I was glad to see that some of my favorite films featuring Native Americans (Little Big Man, Black Robe, Smoke Signals) were talked about in this documentary.

I highly recommend this one.


Thank gawd for Netflix. Without Netflix instant streaming I never ever would have seen this superb miniseries. It's not one I would have bought on DVD but holy shit am I glad I saw it on Netflix.

This miniseries is a satire on Victorian greed and societal mores. It's centered around a couple of families, the wealthy Melmottes and the struggling Carburys. The Melmottes are led by financial genius Augustus who seeks to win his place in British society by helping others get rich and the Carburys are led by matriarch Lady Carbury who seeks to get her children into marriages with rich partners so she can live the high society life. The problem with Augustus is he's a fraud and the problem with Lady Carbury is she can't see that her son is a feckless cad who's a drunk and a gambling addict. Other characters come in and out of the story and in the end Melmotte is unmasked for the fraud he is and Lady Carbury's kids get what they have coming to them.

This lavish production is rich in fine performances. David Suchet as Augustus Melmotte is chillingly good. Shirley Henderson is balls out great as his spurned in love daughter who ends up winning financially as her father is ruined. Matthew Macfadyen is funny and repulsive as the young cad Felix Carbury. Cheryl Campbell exudes sexiness as the matriarch of the down at their heels Carbury family, her cleavage is among the most magnificent I have ever seen, I'm pretty sure her boobs have their own gravitational pull. Cillian Murphy and Rob Brydon are great as the only honest men in London. Anne-Marie Duff shines as the girl who desperately wants to marry and who almost weds a Jewish banker but in the end is undone by her mercenary greed and religious bigotry. Paloma Baeza is sexy and winsome as the young daughter of the super sexy Lady Carbury. And Helen Schlesinger is funny and sad as the second wife of Augustus Melmotte, most of her performance is done without words so it's all pure reaction and her reactions are priceless.

This mini series is as true today as it was when it was first written. Greed is greed and it ultimately ruins those who worship it. Suchet's Melmotte could just as easily be Mitt Romney, in fact much of his dialogue sounds as if it was written by today's wealth apologists. The people in this mini series get wealthy off moving money around and just like in real life, when they do, they end up screwing working men and woman. For that reason alone I love this mini series, but I also love it because most of the honest characters who see what's going on behind the smokescreen the wealthy 'job creators' throw up are female. It's women who see the damage rich men do and by joining up with a couple of honest men, they bring down the greedy and those that need it, get punished, some get hit with the ultimate punishment.

The only thing I didn't like about this production was Miranda Otto's accent. It grates on my nerves to hear bad southern accents, especially when they come out of the mouths of actors who I usually like. But other than that, I was blown away by this timely topical and very funny satirical send up of Victorian era greed.

Super highly recommended.

Movie review times 2

This 1950 British mystery holds up quite well. The body of a murdered woman is found by a little boy and two detectives piece together the story of her life and final days through interviewing the people who knew her and who interacted with her in her last days. Each person interviewed portrays their relationship with the murder victim differently, it's kind of like a British version of Rashomon.

The performances are all top notch, as is the direction, and the look of the film. If you're one of those philistines who won't watch black and white movies then you're an ass who should stop reading this blog right this minute. The lack of color actually aids in the story because the shadows and grey tones in the film become supporting characters.

Jean Kent and Susan Shaw are impossibly beautiful in this film. They are so glamorous that's it hard to focus on what they are saying when they're onscreen. And young Dirk Bogarde is incredibly handsome in this film as well.

I recommend this one. This film is available on the Criterion Collection on HuluPlus.


A man born in Communist Poland makes it over to the USA and makes it big in the polka music world centered in Pennsylvania. He marries a local beauty and they have two kids and they run a business centered around the polka and Polish gift business. The man, Jan Lewan, keeps his business empire and life afloat by running a Ponzi scheme centered on his entertainment business. When it all comes crashing down and hundreds of people, mainly easily duped senior citizens, lose millions.

This shortish documentary is a fascinating look at the world of polka and the people pf the coal mining areas of Pennsylvania who are huge fans of it. It's also a interesting look at greed, the greed of the Lewans and those they swindled. Jan Lewan eventually went to prison for his crimes but he comes across as someone who still blames others for his misfortune. He takes all of the glory and none of the blame, as does his wife and some of his band members. His wife and some of his old band take the attitude that no one forced anyone to invest in Lewan's scheme and that those who did who lost money were greedy anyway so they deserved what they got in the end, which makes his wife and the band members who espouse that tripe unrepentant assholes worthy of scorn and derision. Lewan went to prison, served 4 years of hard time in a maximum security prison in Delaware and one year in a federal pen. He's out now and he's back in the music business and if he or anyone connected with him asks you to invest in him, run the hell away.

This film proves the old saying that if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

I enjoyed this documentary even though polka music and the old people who love it creep me out. It's on Netflix streaming if you want to check it out.

Two of best TV series I've ever seen

We discovered this Australian gem of a TV show on HuluPlus on our Roku:
It's about a library run by a panic attack prone semi racist/semi homophobic woman and her support staff. Frances O'Brien, played to perfection by my new comedy hero Robyn Butler, is one of those bosses who takes all the credit, none of the blame, and who has a tortuous relationship with almost everyone in her life, including her mother, her daughters (who we never see), her husband, her priest (she's a 'good Catholic'), and her support staff.
Under her 'guidance' the library, The Middleton Interactive Learning Centre, has it's ups and downs, mostly downs. Ex cons, old friends, dodgy patrons, kid vandals, a government minister who wants profits above all else, make life miserable for Frances and her crew.

Ms. Butler breathes so much humanity and life into what could be an otherwise awful character, her layered performance is a thing of beauty and such a pleasure to behold. She does the nearly impossible, she makes a totally unlikeable character loveable. This series was written by Ms. Butler and her husband Wayne Hope, who also plays her husband in the series. I can't say enough good things about this sweetly funny and knowing show. To me, it represents all the best of what TV has to offer, which is why you'll never ever see a show this perfect and good on American TV. Seriously, I'm besotted over Ms. Butler and her magnificent show.

You can see this show on Hulu on your computer and HuluPlus on Roku.

The other TV show I've fallen in love with lately is this one:
On the eve of her marriage to her long time boyfriend Karl, Donna decides that she'd rather be single, footloose, and fancy free like her two friends Karen and Louise. So she dumps Karl and moves in with her friends. Her friends turn out to be an angry sex addict alcoholic (Karen) and a bubbly but socially stunted awkward woman-child (Louise). Donna manipulates Karl and uses him as a crutch as she navigates single life.

This series shines an unflinching and uncomfortable light on these three female characters. Much of the humor of this show comes from the comedy of awkwardness, which was pioneered by Ricky Gervais and Steve Coogan, although this show takes it to new and even more uncomfortable heights. Pulling was written by and stars the lovely Sharon Horgan.

One of the many reasons why I love this show, and The Librarians as well, is that the writers of the shows wrote complex and not flattering parts for themselves, they end up, more often than not, the butt of the jokes and their characters come off looking like idiots most of the time. And that's not something you'd ever see in a mainstream US sitcom, Sarah Silverman here in the USA is the main exception I can think of.

The other thing that endears me to these shows is that they are limited. They only made 12 episodes and one hour long special of Pulling and 20 episodes of The Librarians. The producers of these shows knew when to quit and they both went out on top.

Pulling is available on Netflix streaming and on DVD.

I recommend them both highly.

Brit of the week

Michelle Dockery.

'Never Let Me Go'

Don't let the quote on the front of the DVD box fool you, this film is not just a love story, in fact, it's more of a dystopian sci fi story that has a minor love angle in it. I am not exaggerating when I say Never Let Me Go is one of the finest films I have ever seen. It's in my top ten favorite films of all time and it's going to be quite some time before I see anything that measures up to the level of greatness that this film attains.

Without giving too much of the plot away, the film is about a school where some very special children are being raised. The story centers on three of the children who grow up and out of the school but not out of the life that the school has prepared for them. As you watch the film you wonder why the kids are treated the way they are and why the people outside the school treat and react to them the way they do, and when you finally figure it all out, it all makes perfect sense.

This film is one of the most disquieting, disturbing, unnerving, melancholy (but seriously, don't let those words throw you off from seeing this modern masterpiece), brilliant, touching, and evocative films I have ever seen. Some of the scenes will break your heart, especially the ones where the kids in the school get to spend their 'tokens' on the bumper crop of 'goodies' and when one brave teacher tells the kids what their lives have in store for them, and some of the scenes will creep you out with their banal depiction of life in an alternate parallel time line that could have been ours but thankfully isn't.

The acting by the three leads is stupendous. It's easily the best performance Keira 'Skeletor' Kinghtley has ever turned in. I'm sure I've seen Andrew Garfield in other things but I've never really noticed how good he was in them compared to this. And after turning in many a fine performance in many a film and BBC TV production, Carey Mulligan turns in her most nuanced striking performance ever in this movie. Also good are the always great Charlotte Rampling and as the brave truth telling teacher, Sally Hawkins lights up the screen with her quiet dignity and her refusal to hoodwink the children in her care.

Everything about this film is great, from the script to the art direction to the dystopian retro look to the sure handed direction and editing. I can't say enough good things about this movie. It's one of those movies that will stay with you forever. Do yourself a favor and watch it as soon as you can because it's the finest example of modern film making and great story telling that I've seen in many a year.

DVD reviews

Martin Clunes plays a brilliant socially inept surgeon who has developed a minor phobia about blood so he leaves his successful surgery career behind in order to become the GP of a tiny town in Cornwall. It's a classic 'fish out of water' premise that's done incredibly well. Clunes is fine in his role as Doc Martin and Caroline Catz is not only easy on the eyes, she's super great in her role as the teacher who is also Clunes reluctant love interest.

Caroline Catz, my new imaginary British celebrity girlfriend. Hubba hubba!

The thing I love about this show is that it makes no attempts to make Clunes's character lovable. He is what he is, and what he is is an irascible cranky doctor who has been thrust into a small town full of oddballs and eccentrics. I just finished watching the first series and I can't wait to see it over again. I'm also looking forward to seeing the rest of the series of this fine comedy.

Oh by the way, if you're watching this show on a local PBS station, you're missing part of it because most PBS stations cut this show down to fit in a 30 minute time slot.

Years ago, in the dark ages before I had cable, I saw part of an episode of The Flame Trees of Thika on PBS. I didn't see any of the other episodes but that one part of the one I saw stayed with me. I was mesmerized by it and when I finally this that it was out on DVD I wanted to buy it but I didn't want to pay$30 for it. Then the other day before Giftmas I saw that my local super corporate book mega store had it in sale for half off so I bought it for Sparky. And I have to say that after finally watching the whole thing, I loved it.

It's based on the Elspeth Huxley book of the same name and it's about a Edwardian family's life in Kenya right before World War 1 breaks out. Yes, it's racist at times, the British were horrid racists and classist, but it's a good story full of fine performances by everyone involved. Holly Aird, who plays young Elspeth, is one of the most expressive actors I have ever seen and it doesn't hurt that was as cute as a button when they made this series. Hayley Mills is adorable in this production as well.

I recommend this series because it's a good look at what life was like in colonial Kenya under the British. And it's a good look at the cost of empire to a world super power.


I haven't finished watching the third and final series of Clatterford (if one more person tells me that the name of this show when it airs in Britain is Jam and Jerusalem, I'm going to punch them in the face) but I've seen enough to tell you that I love it and it's possibly the best one yet, with the exception of Maggie Steed's hair do.

Nobody does 'small towns full of eccentrics' shows better than the British and this one if one of the best. Jennifer Saunders is brilliant in this edition of this series, as are Sue Johnston, Dawn French, Pauline McLynn, Suzy Aitchinson, Salima Saxton, and David Mitchell. I'm sad to see that this is the final series of this show because I like these characters so much and because this is the type of show you'd never ever see on youth and tit obsessed American television. Oh well, at least we can watch it over and over since we have all three DVDs.

Brunette of the week

Olivia Williams.

Shake me up Judy!

We just finished watching the 2006 version of the BBC adaption of this Dickens classic:
Holy hell, it's fucking great. No shit, it's one of the best BBC costume dramas ever. For those not familiar with this Dickens story, in a nutshell it's about the insanity of the British legal system during the Victorian era and how social rank and economic class prevented many people from having a life that included love, liberty, and happiness.

The center of the story is Esther Summerson, played by my new imaginary British girlfriend Anna Maxwell Martin.
Ms. Martin radiates warmth and compassion and her portrayal of this selfless Dickens heroine would make even the coldest heart melt.

The most memorable character, a heartless businessman, who pretty much embodies modern business and corporate practices today, is Mr. Smallweed, who is portrayed by Phil Jones, who also starred as Archie in the BBC adaption of one of my favorite books, White Teeth, which co stars my original adopted actor Archie Panjabi.
Jones is Victorian business viciousness at it's worst, and that's what makes him the best.

Turning in a fine icy performance as Lady Dedlock, Gillian Anderson also shines in this miniseries.
Her character is trapped by societal mores and conventions and her longing to be rid of them is palpably portrayed. She's a victim and a beneficiary of circumstance and that conflict is writ large all over her portrayal of Lady Dedlock.

And finally, in a sea of great performances, which include those of current pixie 'It girl' of the moment in British film and TV, Carey Mulligan, and Johnny Vegas, the performance turned in by Burn Gorman as Mr. Guppy is a gem.He's all obsequiousness and cunning, like a great Dickens secondary character should be, and yet he's tragic, funny, and sad as well.

This mini series is 15 episodes long but the story flies by. I highly recommend it. It's hella great.