strange and random happenstance

Every once in awhile you stumble on a miniseries that gives you a new perspective on an actor you love, like Hugh Bonneville's villainous turn in Daniel Deronda which I talked about last week. And every once in awhile you stumble on a miniseries where you fall in love with an actor previously unknown to you. But the rarest of the rare is when both these events happen within the same miniseries, and that's what happened when I first watched The Way We Live Now. Let's tackle a returning favorite first, David Suchet. David Suchet plays the indomitable Augustus Melmotte, a wealthy foreigner taking in interest in British Rail. Everybody knows Suchet as Poirot. I mean it's not just a role, he IS Poirot and I will fight anyone who disagrees. If you've watched any of the interviews or documentaries with him that often air on PBS it's amazing how unlike Poirot he is. He becomes the character created by Agatha Christie. Which is why his completely submerging himself into the roll of Melmotte shouldn't be a surprise, but it is. I mean I even saw him in The Importance of Being Earnest as Lady Bracknell and he was her! But I'd never searched out films or shows with him starring other than Poirot so The Way We Live Now opened my eyes to his range, his professionalism, and how I definitely need more of him in my life, hence my going to see The Importance of Being Earnest. And speaking of someone welcome in my life at ANY time, let's talk Matthew Macfadyen. Matthew Macfadyen plays Sir Felix Carbury, who is wooing Augustus Melmotte's daughter in a vain attempt to right his family's financial problems. Nowadays everyone knows Matthew as Mr. Darcy opposite Keira Knightly. Keep in mind that film was four years away from happening when I first watched The Way We Live Now. So I hunted up everything I could that Matthew starred in, which wasn't much at the time! Even Spooks was a year away! But thankfully there was Enigma, Murder Rooms, Wuthering Heights, the one with him having no lines, and maybe it's best to skip Maybe Baby. I was enamored of this English John Cusack as my friend Jess dubbed him. To this day I will watch him in anything! Though there are a few that I wish I could forget. Looking at you Any Human Heart!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Daniel Deronda, David Suchet, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Hugh Bonneville, Matthew MacFadyen, Murder Rooms, Poirot, Pride and Prejudice, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Way We Live Now, Wuthering Heights

On one level Daniel Deronda is all about the love triangle where there girl I was rooting for gets the guy despite not having the killer wardrobe the other girl does. I mean it, the clothes are top notch! On another level it's about making fun of Jamie Bamber's facial hair. I mean seriously, I can NOT look at him as Hans and not burst out laughing. I just wonder what would have become of Battlestar Galactica had he taken this look with him to that show later the same year. OK, now I can't stop laughing again. I should also stop googling images of him as Hans because this isn't helping things. At all. OK, it's making me happy, so perhaps I should continue. If you want to have a good laugh google "Daniel Deronda Jamie Bamber" and have yourself a gander and a giggle. Curtailing my mirth, most importantly this miniseries is about the acting range of Hugh Bonneville. His turn as Henleigh Grandcourt is nothing short of pure villainy. The first time I watched it I was enraptured by Hugh Bonneville, and yes, I feel obliged to use his full name in this review to not confuse him with the other Hugh in this adaptation, Hugh Dancy, who is also perfectly cast if you were wondering. Hugh Bonneville in recent years has cemented his teddy bear persona with his portrayal of Robert Crawley on Downton Abbey. He's a bit befuddled, but he gets there in the end and is the best dad a girl could hope for. He doubled down on this by helming the Paddington Bear franchise. Prior to Daniel Deronda he was also the teddy bear, the devoted husband in The Cazalets, the oblivious Mr. Rushworth in the version of Mansfield Park I fail to acknowledge, and of course most notably, Bernie, the bumbling friend of Hugh Grant, dammit another HUGH has snuck into this review, in Notting Hill. So Hugh Bonneville is almost always playing to his strengths here, which makes Daniel Deronda so amazing. He is an out and out brute and you don't for one second deny that this is who he is! He became the character and he is the driving force of this miniseries. This isn't Hugh Bonneville anymore, this is Grandcourt! A villain to watch out for and an actor to admire.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Battlestar Galactica, Daniel Deronda, Downton Abbey, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Hugh Bonneville, Hugh Dancy, Hugh Grant, Jamie Bamber, Mansfield Park, Notting Hill, Paddington Bear, The Cazalets, Villain

The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella
Published by: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Publication Date: April 25th, 2006
Format: Paperback, 400 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Samantha Sweeting is on track to be the newest and youngest partner at the law firm of Carter Spink. She's given everything since she was twelve to keep on track with this path for her life and she's about to succeed. On the day of the big partnership announcement in the clutter of her desk she finds something that could ruin everything. Instead of doing the right thing she just walks away. She ends up on a train and gets off in the middle of the country not even knowing where she is. Drunk, tired, and delusional, she stumbles into the house of Trish and Eddie Geiger where they are holding interviews for a new domestic. At first Samantha doesn't realize what is going on and just goes alone with their assumption, but when she realizes that this is a job interview, one that isn't going well, well her need to succeed rears it's ugly head and she ends up getting the job as the Geiger's housekeeper.

Samantha, a girl who doesn't clean, doesn't know how to cook, can't even find out how to turn on her own oven, has just taken a job where she knows nothing and where in a week she is not even making her hourly rate at Carter Spink. If it wasn't for the gorgeous gardener Nathaniel and his mother helping Samantaha out she doesn't know what she would do. But Samantha is smart, some might say a genius, and it doesn't take her long to conquer this new world she's run away to. When her old world comes knocking will she want to stay in this new happy and peaceful life she's stumbled into or go back to the career track that has been her lifelong goal. She knows which one her mother and colleagues want her to choose.

While being a fan of the chick lit genre there was a part of me that never really bothered to seek out new authors. I preferred to have new books and authors to come to me as if by osmosis. Some sort of magical power whereby they caught my eye and bam, instant attraction... now that I think of this, there's some disturbing parallels to my love life... so now's the perfect time to mention Hugh Dancy. I have been in love with Hugh Dancy for over a decade now ever since Daniel Deronda. Because of this love I have seen a plethora of bad movies, the top three being Ella Enchanted, Arthur, and Elizabeth I, with Elizabeth I taking the crown for horridness. My love for him meant that I was intrigued by this movie he was going to be in called Confessions of a Shopaholic. Upon seeing that it was based on a book, away to Barnes and Noble I went, picking up the tie-in edition, which sadly didn't have Hugh on the cover... seriously, know your audience publishers!

I enjoyed Confessions of a Shopaholic enough to pick up the next few books in the series and a few of Kinsella's other books published under her real name, Madeleine Wickham, as well as her Kinsella pen name. I was never really blown away by her writing and as the Shopaholic series continued I became more and more angry with Becky Bloomwood and her never changing consumption habits. You'd think after six books she'd mature a little, but no. Every big revelation at the end of one of the books is followed by a quick slid into old habits by the start of the next. This lead to me not picking up any of the other Kinsella books I had lying around the house. One of the reasons I decided to do a Chick Lit themed month on my blog was so that I would finally pick up books I had bought that were creating a large backlog to my "to be read" pile. So I finally pick up The Undomestic Goddess. I should have never judged Kinsella on Becky Bloomwood! She created such a wonderful, relateable, fresh, and funny heroine in Samantha Sweeting, that I forgive that other alliterative heroine of hers for her flaws. Kinsella has been wrongly judged by me and I admit that perhaps Kinsella just doesn't excel in series and that stand-alones is where she shines. This book shone and made a bleak weekend fun.

I connected to Samantha on so many levels, but what really got me was her work ethic. Samantha's work ethic is 100% 24/7. There is no give, there is no outside life, there is the job, and only the job. Samantha is lucky in that until the events that unfold in the book she has never had a crash or come down. We live in a culture where to succeed means that you work too hard, you are literally willing to kill yourself to make it to the top. There is quite literally no off switch, no balance, no break. This is so me it's kind of scary. I'm the person who believes that doing anything less then the best you can do is unacceptable. There is nothing below first place, which will preferably leave those in second and third in the dust. In downtime between classes while in school I'd compare anti anxiety meds and stress induced ticks with fellow sufferers. If I was working on a job I'd work 24/7 until it was done. What is 9-5, that is absurd, there are so many hours in the day that are being unutilised with this way of thinking. But as Samantha comes to learn, this isn't a life.

I've had a harder time teaching myself this as well. It wasn't a mistake that flipped my switch off but my own body betrayed me. First there were some rashes, hive like bug bites, then I had a "lovely" nervous tick in my eye, seriously, don't discount how annoying these are till you have one. If I pushed myself too far on a project my body took to giving me a lovely cold after I was done because my body was so wrung out, and in one memorable case pneumonia. I have forced myself to change. I refuse to work on the weekends, where previously I didn't believe they even existed, just call me the Dowager Countess of Grantham. I try to spend more time with friends and have a book club. I have changed. Yes, I do backslide a little, but I have not backslide in Becky Bloomwood style. And from now on, Samanatha Sweeting is my role model for finding that balance in my life. As much as I hate the phrase, she found her bliss.

One of the things I kept thinking about as I was reading this book was how would this look from a women's lib standpoint. A high profile career woman basically goes back to the kitchen. Even if at first she doesn't know what to do in that kitchen, the fact that she's basically going from breadwinner to homemaker is a big change and could be construed as a step backwards. I like that when Samantha's secret comes out that the newspaper reporters who are hounding her bring up this exact argument, making me glad Sophie Kinsella was obviously aware of this statement she was making or, as I like to think, subverting. Yes, you could say this is all retro thinking, but think of the genre we are in. Chick Lit is a genre that is a touchstone for today's women. This genre gives us a mirror to our lives while also incorporating an element of wish fulfillment. Who wouldn't want to leave the stress behind and find themselves a nice gardener? But there's an empowering message in Chick Lit as well, it shows women working out the problems of their lives, it shows women, flaws and all. So I look at Samantha and don't see a women stepping into the role her female ancestors would have accepted as their lot in life, I see Samantha choosing the life that's right for her. Women can be whatever they want to be, a partner in a law firm, a housekeeper, a mother, the possibilities are endless, and Samantha has made her choice and I hope I've chosen as wisely as her.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Becky Bloomwood, Chick Lit, Daniel Deronda, Dowager Countess of Grantham, Elizabeth I, Ella Enchanted, Hugh Dancy, Lawyer, Samantha Sweeting, Shopaholic, Sophie Kinsella, The Undomestic Goddess

In honor of the new BBC adaptation of Emma that's finally airing stateside, I thought my ever fun to do actor spotlights should be Austen centric, concentrating on some of the couples of Highbury. Without further ado I bring you the actress playing the mischievous matchmaker herself....

Name: Romola Garai

First Impression: As the heart-breaker, Gwendolen Harleth, who gets more then she bargained for from a domineering Hugh Bonneville in Daniel Deronda.

Lasting Impression: Vanity Fair with Reese Witherspoon. Now I'm not saying I'm endorsing this movie or even liking it, I just thought that Romola was magnificently cast and then the director didn't even get the point of the book... there is NO HEROINE! You can't make Becky redeemable because she's being played by Reese! Directors and their radical ideas... get the best cast possible and then ruin it. Just watch the Andrew Davies version, it's very close to perfection.

What else you've seen them in: From smaller roles in BBC productions she's been working her way up in the film world. Though I've loved her since first seeing Daniel Deronda she probably didn't get more well known till Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights or get the critical acclaim she deserved till Atonement, but she's always at the top of her game. I loved her in As You Like It and the new Emma adaptation.

Can't believe it's them: She has to dance with Mister Collins from P&P in I Capture the Castle... ewwww, David Bamber, creepy, icky. I actually felt slightly unclean after this scene.

Wish they hadn't: Atonement... I know, I know, people love it and she got lots of critical acclaim, I just couldn't stand it. I was either wanting to feed Keira Knightly or counting the holes on the ceiling. They stretched it out and made it an unbearable bore, plus overly predictable. Just panning shots of the beach do not a good WWII drama make, pick any episode of Foyle's War and it captured it better than this snooze fest.

Bio: Keep an eye on her, she's going to be huge one day... perhaps quite soon. Also I'm really looking forward to Glorious 39, the new Stephen Poliakoff film that she's starring in with a who's who of Brits, from David Tennant to Christopher Lee! Plus the last lead of a Poliakoff... could that be a little lady by the name of Emily Blunt? And as a total random aside... I want her archery dress from Daniel Deronda.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 5 comments  

Labels: Andrew Davies, As You Like It, Atonement, Daniel Deronda, Dirty Dancing, Emma Spotlight, Glorious 39, Highbury, Hugh Bonneville, I Capture the Castle, Reese Withersppon, Romola Garai, Vanity Fair

Now to Letty's better half... or is that the other way around? Geoff has to brood about it a bit and be conflicted as to what's good for him. Maybe he'll write a poem...

Name: Jamie Bamber

Dream Character Casting for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Geoffrey Pinchingdale-Snipe

First Impression: Daniel Deronda, I think... or it could have been Hornblower, I was watching both around the same time, and he's cute and little in both, one looking more like a goat with the little beard. Plus in both he's eclipsed by either Hugh or Ioan, so you don't notice him so much at first.

Why they'd be the perfect actor for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: He's so good at doing hot and tormented, just look at his portrayal of Apollo on BSG!

Lasting Impression: Battlestar Galactica made me stop referring to him as Archie, such a funny name, yet with such a tragic end... Funnily enough I remember I was pissed I had to go to Chicago in the middle of watching his final episode so I had to wait two days to find out what happened!

What else you've seen them in: From starting out as minor or supporting characters in a slew of BBC miniseries from Lady Audley's Secret to Poirot to Daniel Deronda to Hornblower, when he was cast as Lee Adama in Battlestar Galactica he acquired a major fan following. Just try to find his early pictures in a google search! You mainly find his naked Peta shoot or the towel scene from BSG... you all know the one!

Can't believe it's them: Scarlet Pimpernel! Full posterior shot, who knew it would start a trend? Plus the episode after his untimely death has a young James Callis, aka Baltar from BSG.

Wish they hadn't: Gone fat for Battlestar... ok, ok, it was makeup, but hard to shake the image. In all seriousness... Cold Case, so tacky to go from big series regular to guest star on bad Sunday night procedural in the same week, tied with Lady Audeley's Secret, which was beyond boring, but wait, he was also on Ghost Whisperer... gosh, too many to choose from. Jamie, stop doing lame cameos, unless it's a Joss Whedon show and he wants you to fight Helo.

Bio: Lets hope he keeps doing great television, currently a regular on the British version of Law & Order, he really needs another ensemble show to shine... or perhaps it's time for him to step up to leading man... I know many who would follow Captain Apollo... it has such a nice ring to it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 1:28 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Apollo, Baltar, BSG, Daniel Deronda, Geoff, Hornblower, James Callis, Jamie Bamber, Joss Whedon, Lauren Willig, Pink Carnation Spotlight, Poirot, Scarlet Pimpernel

Hugh Bonneville is that most perfect of British actors, whatever he is in he is bound to be perfect. From the bumbling broker in Notting Hill to the duplicitous Grandcourt in Daniel Deronda, he is divine. Also let us not forget he did appear in the series finale of Vicar of Dibley, trying to woo Geraldine away from Richard Armitage. But his best work has been with Andrew Davies (if we are willing to ignore Richard Curtis for awhile, which everyone should every now and then, he sometimes gets a bit too preachy, Girl in the Cafe...hello!) Though I also want to omit the Davies Doctor Zhivago from this list, he was in it for five minutes and as Bill Paterson, one of the fellow stars said, Zhivago should not have been redone. So back on track I await with baited breath the arrival of that most anticipated of DVDs, Hugh Bonneville staring in the Andrew Davies adaptation of Diary of a Nobody! Exciting news indeed, especially if, like me, you've been waiting since 2007 to see it. My copy is already on it's way from Acorn Media (I was willing to pay the extra $10 so I didn't have to wait till August) so the review should be forthcoming. Until then, check out his website to get some other fabulous watching in! Also look for him later this year staring with David Tennant in Glorious 39 by Stephen Poliakoff.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 2:51 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Andrew Davies, Daniel Deronda, David Tennant, Hugh Bonneville, Notting Hill, Richard Armitage, Vicar of Dibley

A new Emma Woodhouse is on the way in the guise of Romola Garai (from the exquisite Daniel Deronda). The new 4 part series will air in England sometime this fall, so it should be stateside by next Spring. The cast also includes Michael Gambon as Mr. Woodhouse, Christina Cole (most known stateside for Hex) and Johnny Lee Miller as Mr. Knightly. Lets hope Mr. Miller's return to Austen is NOTHING like the abysmal Mansfield Park he stared in. But there are high hopes, it is being adapted by the production team that is responsible for the most recent Jane Eyre dramatization.


Get set to return to Cranford! Set for this Christmas the two part holiday episode has the whole cast returning (well those still alive by the end of the series), as well as Septimus, who will finally appear (can you image Lady Ludlow's joy!?!) Jonathan Pryce and Celia Imrie have also joined the cast. To view the official BBC Press release go here.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 4:14 PM 2 comments  

Labels: BBC Miniseries, Cranford, Daniel Deronda, Emma, Emma Woodhouse, Jane Eyre, Johnny Lee Miller, Mansfield Park, Michael Gambon, Mr. Knightly, Romola Garai