Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Movie Marathon

It has been MOVIE time at our house and with our new dvd player that gets Netflix online, we have a bunch of instantly watchable movies at our fingertips. Not all of them are great. However, for my birthday I decided to watch all the British films on my list, since I love a period piece film. That plan went awry after the first one.
The story of the 'torrid' romance (no sex, we're above all that) between Fannie Brawne and John Keats, the young poet. It's a sad tearjerker with no suspense since you already know the guy dies at 25. But I loved the costumes and the scenery, which is usually half of what I love about British films.


Then Dave decided to watch with me, so I had to switch out of British mode to something more contemporary, and here we have Shrink with Kevin Spacey. Everyone is miserable and yet we are interested in how they work it all out. Happy ending, so it was worth the time. Not a ringing endorsement but Spacey is always great.
I wish everyone in the movie had eventually shaved. But you can't have everything.

The best movie of the day was The Extra Man with Kevin Kline. Big laughs and totally unpredictable story line. Just darling.
This one uses Kline to the utmost, a real gem. Several memorable lines are heard and I am sure will be reused around here on a daily basis.


On a totally different note, last week we watched the hugely popular Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Subtitles really helped this intricate plot. It was so spellbinding, gruesome and such a good mystery. I loved it, and will soon be watching the second in the series,The Girl who Played with Fire,  also available direct to my dvd player.


The last Brit film was also quite enjoyable, Easy Virtue. I was surprised to see it was a Noel Coward play, originally, and adapted to the screen. The estate was part of the starring cast and everyone was fabulous in it.
Costumes, interiors, landscapes, music...it had it all. And funny too.

So I did have a wonderful birthday, and thanks to all who emailed and commented.
I love you!!!

11 comments:

  1. We are huge movie watchers too.....I've read all three "The Girl With....." books, loved every word. Have seen both movies and unlike the norm......these movies nearly matched up to the books. The second one we viewed using the English dubbed version.....which I preferred to reading subtitles. However, I encourage reading the books first which will make the story much more understandable and frankly more enjoyable.

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  2. Thanks for the movie ideas. We watched the mystery/suspense movie "Ghost Writer" the other night and enjoyed it.

    And a belated Happy Birthday!

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  3. I, too, love Brit movies (well, most of them anyway) but DH can only watch "sparingly" (he has a hearing problem and their accent is difficult for him...even with his hearing aid) so I try to spread them out in our Netflix choices. We are huge movie fans and in the last year we've watched 300 movies!! Does that mean we don't have a life...LOL

    Happy belated Birthday :)

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  4. Anonymous1:05 PM

    Try Clatterford, it is a comedy from BBC, also one you will like is
    The House of Elliott, the costumes are wonderful.

    My husband and I have what we call "mental health" days, turn off the phone and it is movies all day...not often, but still wonderful. Happy New Year!

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  5. Thanks for the reviews.
    I'm making a note for our next venture into watching movies.
    I did read all three of the The Girl Who . . . .
    and now will no doubt look to watch the movies.
    Happy Birthday again !
    Hugs,
    Gerry

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  6. A belated Happy Birthday to you! I'll be celebrating my 54th on New Year's Eve, and movie day (and night) sounds good to me, especially with a dvd player in my sewing room now. Obi the Cat peed on the dvd player (as he does with so many things), so it's a little slow to get moving, but so am I! Happy New Year to you, Dave, and Chumley. :-)

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  7. Anonymous6:50 PM

    Happy belated birthday Melody! Glad to hear it was a good one. :)

    I'd never heard of that Kevin Spacey movie, nor the Kevin Klein one (and we both love Kevin Klein). I'll have to check them out - thanks for the recommendation!

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  8. Bread and Tulips,
    Agata and the Storm,
    Sequins.

    All good and all available for you to watch on netflix.

    Also you would enjoy listening to the audio book of the Steig Larsson books. The narration is EXCELLENT. And you can sew while you listen.

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  9. Doc Martin
    Lovely Still
    Seraphine

    Happy Birthday!

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  10. Thanks, all! I added to my Netflix queue after reading Melody's post; now I have several more to add. I identify with a DH who has trouble with the British accents and gets bored, so I will save these for just me.
    Martha Ginn

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  11. Pretty worthwhile piece of writing, much thanks for the post.

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