(via The F Word Blog)
Liking Sarah Haskins may be a cliché but there are fine reasons: she is observant, endearing and funny.
More: weddings, yogurt and suffrage.
“I’m a form of punctuation that signifies an aside.”
“Say more stuff I generically relate to.”
Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.
Kate Bush, Phil Collins, Pete Townshend, Midge Ure and…
At 3.29 you can see why she is bit more covered up at the Secret Policeman’s Third Ball…
From the Prince’s Trust Rock Gala (1982)
Awesome - well Kate is - the drumming is metronomic and the bassist has such 80s hair. Thanks a lot David!
From The Secret Policeman’s Third Ball (1987).
Mad Men “Ladies Room”
Another good episode although the series doesn’t seem as subtle as I expected it to be: gay Sal still grates and January Jones is being asked to wear her unhappiness like a badge.
I’m a little surprised that on the cusp of the sixties that a woman would be expected to get over the death of her mother in a mere three months though apparently this is what Betty ought to have done.
Don’s purchase of a watch for Betty seemed the height of crassness but that’s par for the course at Sterling Cooper. I’m interested that ad men are being portrayed as boorish oafs who say out loud and often how little they know or care about women (and indeed anything else) in an industry that is supposed to understand how people tick in an effort to sell them something.
I’m not keen on Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes’ name in Vertigo (1958)) - she hasn’t interested me yet.
I can’t wait for Peggy to tell Joan where to shove it. I assume that will happen in the future - it had better! I like Peggy a lot more in this episode - except for the inexplicable Pete fixation - she is now more clearly our character to root for.
Andy and I wondered if Paul (based entirely on the Twilight Zone reference) was going to be the only nice man in the office but he turned out to be a “nice guy(R)” instead.
I thought this moment was hilarious:
Observations on Mad Men “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”
I am practically unspoiled regarding Mad Men and so I thought I would blog my random thoughts regarding each episode as we watch them.
The first episode was promising though I do have a major problem straightaway in that it is going to have to be about more than advertising to maintain my interest past the first few episodes. The problem with Studio 60 was that it was about a sketch show and after three interminable episodes I just could not bring myself to care about the characters agonising over its weekly production (although it was Dave Mason’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” at the end of the third episode that really sealed the deal).
It looked authentic although there perhaps wasn’t the right amount of fug that so much smoking would have produced and certainly the stripper looked like her body was all hers.
The closeted gay man was rather laughably overdone: it was so obvious as soon as he produced the drawing of his neighbour. The other executives seemed more realistic and except for a bit of toning down of the overt sexism they could be modern characters.
I hope that Joan (Christina Kendricks) is actually a Saffron like character - subverting from within rather than genuinely believing it all.
I assumed that Peggy was going to be the character we were naturally going to root for. The nice girl who was not going to succumb to the societal norms of the time. Instead she did take creepy Pete into her room after being rejected by Don.
I liked Rachel - mainly because she was the most modern woman in the programme - which brings me to the accusations of misogyny and sexism I do know that Mad Men has been accused of. My first reaction is that I don’t think the sexism (misogyny is far too strong a word) and the other isms have been presented in a Life on Mars way which, far too often for me, felt like it relished being as sexist and racist as it could. I think, so far, Mad Men, is trying to show how it was in many workplaces.
Don is intriguing: he already seems well-rounded and I want to know how his relations with the women in his life proceed. I guessed very belatedly that he was married.
Vincent Kartheiser as Pete looks so young and also a bit like Christopher Walken and I hope we are never supposed to like him.
I think Rachel’s line about hard it is to be a man may be the most significant line of the series.
I felt a bit uncomfortable watching it because it was so sexist and that made me fiddle with my toes a lot.
As a first episode/pilot, I liked it more than Damages or Heroes or Studio 60 or Ugly Betty or Battlestar Galactica so I am hopeful for the next few programmes. However, I loved the first episode of Pushing Daisies and I eventually gave that up.
Simple things make nice things: butter, sugar, flour, oats, lemon and syrup. All organic and/or Fairtrade (except the syrup which is Tate & Lyle and even they are moving over to Fairtrade).
Liverpool in the winter of 1946 taken by Edward Chambré Hardman. This looks like a painting.
Stardust
What a gem. I bought the DVD on a whim (Play and their damn sales) and after half an hour we all agreed that we were enjoying this very much. I was very disappointed afterwards to read so much negativity about it.
Yes, the three witches are obsessed with their looks and the attainment of perpetual youth which is a stereotype. Yes, all the bad women are ugly which is another stereotype. Yes, our heroine is a beautiful blonde which is yet another stereotype. Yes, the heroine can only shine when her heart is not broken which means the witch can only be defeated through a man’s love. All these factors sound bad but take the last point – our hero is unable to beat the witch by any means except by the accident of giving his heart to the heroine.
The princes are so greedy and power-hungry that they all get themselves killed in their attempts to attain the throne. They don’t care at all about each other.
The hero as one commentator said in the comments of the Body Impolitic blog is a “thick as a brick” and has to be turned into a mouse (a funny looking mouse, mind you, ok, a rodent of some sort) before he realises that the woman whom he is trying to impress isn’t worthy. He spends a significant part of the finale cowering with his mother behind a cabinet (for so long that Adam started urging him to do something). When he does stand up to Lamia, he can only do under the protection of the snowdrop and he stills fails to beat her.
A lot of criticism is aimed at Claire Danes and while I suppose it does irk that she is an American keeping a Brit out of work - well that hardly happens the other way does it? Her character does moan a bit but she was tumbled from the sky, did hurt her leg and did get kidnapped by a lad that called her mother so I think she was justified in a bit of whinging.
Una is a clever character – she totally manages her own escape from captivity even though she has to wait eighteen years to do so.
Anyway, it is funny, exciting, intricately but lucidly plotted, has a great cast and I want to watch it again – right now - even though it’s not perfect, I am bored of clearly shallow women being the objects of desire – it reflects badly on women and men. I would have liked a twist in the bore that is primogeniture to see the first born child actually become monarch but since it is a fairy tale, I’ll let that slide.
More disturbing (and it does surprise me that few commentators have mentioned it) was the threat of rape to Yvaine from Captain Shakespeare. You can argue that she knew she was in no danger, the captain’s mate knew she was in no danger and quite probably the rest of the pirates knew she wasn’t in danger (which makes their macho posturing a little more distressing because a nod, a wink and a hurghhh to rape isn’t, oddly enough, manly) but we, the audience, didn’t know she was in no danger.
It has also been compared to The Princess Bride and, quite frankly, if someone wants to aim a gender gun at that, please do.
And finally, goats and chariots are funny:
