Netflix Period Drama Gems!

I finally gave in and subscribed to Netflix. I would like to say that although you won't find every title you may be looking for (far from it), there are enough fine choices to keep me busy all winter long. My first indulgence was watching North and South again. I loaned this DVD to a co-worker and have yet to urge it's return. So it was like visiting an old friend to watch one of my fave miniseries (from a fave book) and swoon over Mr. Thornton again. If you haven't seen this one, you must and if you already love it, it is well worth another viewing. It is hard to describe, but just trust me. It's awesome.

My first weekend of Netflix also included I Capture the Castle which is hard to find elsewhere and so I had been meaning to see this for ages. This one is wonderful and only a film not a miniseries. A few hours with Romola Garai and Bill Nighy. What more could you ask?

Speaking of Romola Garai, The Hour is a miniseries about a fictitious newsroom television show on the BBC in the 1950s where the producer is (gasp!) a woman. There is also a great mystery/spy plot going on and of course a romantic liaison or two! This series consists of 6 hour-long episodes for each of two seasons. Bet you can't watch just one!

Mansfield Park 1999. Frances O'Connor and Jonny Lee Miller? Heaven!! I see this one at least once twice three times a year. Mmmmmm.

The Buccaneers is another miniseries that flies under the radar but which deserves a much wider audience. 4 nouveau riche American girls (well, one is South American) can't break into the Victorian New York elite and so go to London for "The Season" and end up marrying into the British aristocracy with mixed results. One of my all time faves.

I like A Room with a View. It is not on my very top list but it is well worth seeing if it has been a while. A bit offbeat but the Italian scenery and the acting is top notch. And Maggie Smith is in prime form as is Helena Bonham Carter.

Little Dorrit is a true masterpiece. Andrew Davies is at his best when adapting Dickens and you couldn't get better acting. It will leave you riveted and your family will wonder why you have stopped cooking and returning phone calls for a week.

George Eliot can get a little unusual sometimes but her Daniel Deronda is amazing, both in novel form as well as in this spot on miniseries. Romola Garai (again! You could have a Romola fest on Netflix) and the ever gorgeous Hugh Dancy. And you have never seen Hugh Bonneville in a role like this. Wow!

Under the Greenwood Tree will give you a lovely little dose of Thomas Hardy's Wessex. Keeley Hawes is adorable. Light and sweet!

The Way We Live Now, a miniseries adaptation of Anthony Trollope's novel (also well worth reading) is a tour de force saga of a Victorian Ponzi scheme. Matthew Macfadyen as the drunken bad boy is reason enough to see this but the story, the acting and the drop dead gorgeous costumes and locations make this one a must see too.

The Damned United is a sports film about Leeds United, a football team (soccer) set in the 1970s and starring Michael Sheen as Brian Clough, the manager of the team. I saw this in our local art house theatre with my husband. Neither of us know anything about British football but both of us enjoyed it thoroughly. I loved the fact that it was set in the 70s, an era I remember well as a child. Oh, the furniture and fashions!

I am thrilled that I can see the latest Jane Eyre on Netflix. If I have the time for a miniseries, I prefer the 2006 miniseries, however this wonderfully made film from 2011 with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender is a great way to spend a few hours. I don't have this one on DVD so I will really enjoy seeing this again for the first time since I saw it in the theatre.

Vanity Fair is another film which is a very pleasant way to spend a few hours. Again I prefer the miniseries (except for the music and cinematography which is much better in this one) but if you only have 2 hours, this one is great. And along with Reese Witherspoon, Romola Garai appears in this one yet again! I have to give a shout out to the novel (Vanity Fair: a novel without a Hero) by William Makepeace Thackeray which stays with me to this day. Watch and then read!

An Education is a trip to 1960s England following the trials of a young, gorgeous and extremely bright woman who gets accepted to Oxford University but who then gets waylaid by an intriguing but dangerous man. This one sucks you into the 60s and keeps you transfixed.

If you have never heard of 7 UP, it is a series of documentaries following a group of 7 year olds of different socio-economic backgrounds in England in 1964 and checking in on them every 7 years thereafter. I admit to being fascinated by this concept, especially living in Canada where we don't have the same kind of class system and private schools are fairly rare even now. Unlike in England, most of us have very similar accents (eh?) whereas in the UK your speech pattern can determine your future to a certain extent (although this seems to finally be changing). Fascinating! I will watch this whole series. I just started the first one and I am hooked!

Other good bets:

Kingdom with Stephen Fry
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding with Felicity Jones
Wings of the Dove with Helena Bonham Carter
The English Patient with Ralph Fiennes and Kristen Scott Thomas
The Last Station with Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer
My Brilliant Career with Judy Davis and Sam Neill
The Importance of Being Earnest with Colin Firth and Rupert Everett
The Young Victoria with Emily Blunt
Dean Spanley with Jeremy Northam and Sam Neill
Anna and the King with Jodie Foster
A Royal Affair with Mads Mikkelsen and Alicia Vikander
Midnight in Paris with Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams
MI5 (Spooks) - the entire series!!
Mr Selfridge
Downton Abbey (1 &2)
Foyles War
Made in Dagenham with Sally Hawkins
Shakespeare in Love
The House of Cards (both British and American versions)
Upstairs Downstairs
Doc Martin
Pirate Radio
Clueless
Tamara Drewe
Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman
Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow
Fawlty Towers
Little Women with Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder
The Winslow Boy with Jeremy Northam and Rebecca Pidgeon


And this is just Netflix Canada. Apparently in the US, you have many more choices and I think Netflix UK is different again. Let me know your Netflix favourites in the comments below. Looks like a good winter to me!

Cheers!

Anna Maxwell Martin- Actor of the Week

Anna Maxwell Martin is a brilliant actor who has starred in some of my absolute favourite films and miniseries. She has both an unusual look and an unusual voice (a slight lisp) which make her easier to recognize in period dress than some of her peers. She makes fun of her lack of cheekbones, but I love the fact that she doesn't look like so many other actresses. Anyway, here is a highlight of her career in period drama.

As Bessie Higgins in North and South, Anna Maxwell Martin stole my heart. She showed us what the life of a poor working girl in Victorian Manchester would have been like (pretty grim at times) and yet made us love Bessie and weep during her final scene. By the way, if you have not seen North and South do so immediately!!!! Richard Armitage is another great reason to watch this miniseries multiple times.

Bleak House was another tour de force for the BBC this time with Anna Maxwell Martin in the lead role. Esther Summerson is a wonderfully complex yet subtle character and Anna let us see what she was feeling with just a fleeting look. OK, now I have to watch this one again too.

In a comic role as Gaoler's Daughter in The Wind in the Willows, Anna said she had a hard time keeping a straight face as she was filming. Apparently Matt Lucas who plays Toad (and is the chubby guy in Little Britain and Gil from Bridesmaids) just kept cracking her up.

I have not seen this but it is now on my list of films to watch. Oh and to one of my readers Olga, this one might be a good quirky comedy to watch with a 10 year old! Has anyone seen this? Can you recommend this one?

As Cassandra Austen in Becoming Jane, she could not have looked more unlike Anne Hathaway who played her sister Jane Austen but they seemed to have a lovely warmth between them which helped to suspend disbelief. Again her sheer talent as an actress ripped my heart out when she got the news of the demise of her fiance. Brava!!!

By the way, how confusing would that have been for the director to have Anna and Anne playing the Austen sisters? But I digress...

In South Riding she got to play the thoroughly modern Sarah Burton, using her native Yorkshire accent. She went after this role as it was filmed in an area of Yorkshire where she used to play on the beach as a child.

I was just OK with this particular miniseries as it was a bit grittier than what I usually enjoy. I should give it another watch at some point and see if I like it better on second viewing.

And of course, her latest stint as Susan Gray in The Bletchley Circle has me on the edge of my seat awaiting the final episode this coming week. Surely ITV will make another series with this wonderful female foursome now that they know how much we all love them (on both sides of the pond)!

Hopefully we will get to see much more of Anna Maxwell Martin in the future. She is known as the young Judi Dench in Britain so hopefully her career will have the same sort of longevity.

Richard Armitage in The Hobbit

For any of you who are aware of my weakness for all things Richard Armitage, (oh my, that deep basso voice!) you will not be surprised to hear that I took The Squire to see The Hobbit this past week. I admit freely to never having read The Hobbit. I think I will read it now however, as I thoroughly enjoyed it. Richard Armitage and the dear Martin Freeman may have something to do with that however.

I admit to some surprise when I heard that my Richard was going to play a dwarf. I mean really, a 6'2" dwarf? Some special effect trickery brings this off (I mean look at the photo above-he is a giant!). And he is the biggest, hunkiest, bravest dwarf of course. But even a very heavy costume and a load of hair cannot conceal this handsome man from the rest of the world now. Hollywood has noticed him. Or his voice at least. And he sings...oh he sings!

Oh, I guess I had better let you know how I liked the film. Ahem, sorry for digressing. Yes, the film is very good. In general, except for the Harry Potter films which I have watched faithfully, fantasy films are not really my cup of tea. I saw none of the Lord of the Rings films. But this one was very enjoyable even to someone not acquainted with the story. The special effects are fairly impressive. The acting is wonderful. The scenery makes you want to jump on a plane for New Zealand immediately.

Some of you may not know that my day job is as an optometrist. Normally, this has nothing to do with my interest in period film. But I do have to weigh in on the 3D, 48 frames-per-second, nausea controversy. First of all, I do not like 3D films. I see the world in 3D every single day. I know what that looks like. And 3D films, particularly this one, in no way resemble real life. In The Hobbit, there is a distinct foreground, and one or two midgrounds and then the background. And then every once in a while, something pops out and dangles above the head of the person in front of you. Hmmmmmm. Not impressed. And many amblyopic  and strabismic patients are paying extra for what they see as a regular 2D film. They cannot see the 3D, but have to wear the glasses anyway.

But on to the blur/nausea controversy. Some are saying that they have to leave the film during the action sequences because of blur and nausea. I can absolutely agree that the action scenes are not enjoyable. However, I don't think it is because of the 3D or the 48fps. I think that the super large screens as well as the quick movement in the foreground especially is just too hard for the human eye to follow. I have seen 2D 24fps films that gave me similar blur but this film may have been a bit worse for whatever reason. I would have thought the 48fps would have reduced this blur in the action sequences. I think to paraphrase The Emporer in the film Amadeus, "My dear fellow, there are in fact only so many things the eye can see in the course of an evening!"

Thank-you, my rant is over. As a side note, I like the large screens and the amazing detail of digital film for slow moving period films. I saw Jane Eyre 2011 in an Ultra AVX theatre and it was amazing! It felt like I was right there with Rochester and Jane by the fire. But there is not much action in Jane Eyre to cause blur or nausea!

And for those of you who would like to see RA without all the hair and make-up, here he is as the wonderful Mr. Thornton in North and South. If you have not seen him in this please do yourself a favour and purchase this DVD for your collection. You are going to want to see it a few times. Trust me.

Brendan Coyle- Actor of the Week

Brendan Coyle

An obvious choice for actor of the week (thanks for the suggestion sis!) is Brendan Coyle, as we have been enjoying him so much recently as Mr. Bates in Downton Abbey. And yet, he has done so much more period drama than just Downton Abbey.

Brendan Coyle as Nicholas Higgins and Richard Armitage as Mr. Thornton in North and South

If you haven't yet seen North and South, then you have a real treat in store for you. Brendan Coyle plays a working man in the North of England, a "hand" in a cotton mill and Richard Armitage plays the sexy Mr. Thornton, a mill owner. There is romance, politics, romance, strife and...romance? OK, Mrs. Gaskell does kill off a few too many of her characters, but otherwise this is the perfect book/miniseries combo.

Claudie Blakely and Brendan Coyle as Emma and Robert Timmins in Lark Rise to Candleford

In Lark Rise to Candleford, Brendan Coyle plays the intelligent but sometimes opinionated and difficult stonemason Robert Timmins. Again, he brings this working class man to life with a tempestuous but loving relationship with his wife Emma, played by the always brilliant Claudie Blakely.

Brendan Coyle as Mr. Bates in Downton Abbey

Brendan Coyle seems quite bewildered by the sex symbol status he has achieved with his Mr. Bates, the valet to the Earl of Grantham. We got attached to his character in the first series as he struggled with his injury from the Boer War and his new position at Downton. Now we are cheering on his romance with Anna. Go Bates!

Brendan Coyle as Manuel Mendoza from The Glass Virgin 1995

Mmmmm...this is one miniseries I have got to get my hands on. Based on a Catherine Cookson book, The Glass Virgin is a 1995 miniseries (1995 again-what a great year for period drama!), IMDb gives this description:

"Set in 1870s England, the story tells of Annabella Lagrange and the terrible secret her wealthy parents have kept from her. When she finally learns the truth, she runs away and eventually finds solace in the company of her family's former groom, a young Irishman with the very Spanish name of Manuel Mendoza. Together they travel the Northumbria countryside from job to job in his horse and caravan, Annabella trapped in limbo between her upper class upbringing which has rejected her, and the working class who are sometimes suspicious of her, only Manuel understanding her situation."

Apparently there are a whole slew of Catherine Cookson's novels which were dramatized in the last 20 years by the BBC. Sounds like another order from Amazon for me!!!!

Lately Brendan has been working on a Victorian thriller called The Raven, "a fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet pursues a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer's stories."    He is also working on a new TV series called Starlings, about a typical working class family in Derbyshire.

Brendan Coyle. Small baby or big hands?

And to leave you with, here is a photo which may give you baby lust (if not Brendan Coyle lust). The infant he is holding is, I believe, the offspring of one of his colleagues on Starlings. And by the way ladies, he is straight and he is single!

Elizabeth Gaskell Poll- Which adaptation is your fave?

Cranford

North & South

Wives and Daughters

Which Elizabeth Gaskell adaptation is your fave?
	Cranford
	North and South
	Wives and Daughters
pollcode.com free polls

Next question is: Which other Mrs. Gaskell novels, novellas or short stories would you like to see the BBC tackle next? I'll start the ball rolling with Mary Barton. It hasn't been done by the Beeb as an adaptation since 1964 so I think it is long overdue.

Please leave your suggestions in the comments below, or just tell us which of the above is the adaptation you have watched the most, or could least afford to be without? This is a tough poll as all 3 are absolutely brilliant!

Richard Armitage- Actor of the Week

Richard Armitage as Mr. John Thornton from North & South

Richard Armitage. Two words which can set the entire period drama community swooning. OK, yours truly is swooning...anyone else here with me? This man's voice is like melted butter. Yum!

Richard Armitage and Mr. Thornton are to the new millennium what Colin Firth and Mr. Darcy were to the 1990s. Be still my beating heart! If for some reason you haven't seen the amazing adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's classic Victorian novel North and South from 2004 you are in for a real treat. If you love it already, maybe you are due to watch it again (or at least watch the brilliant final scene on YouTube!). By the way, this is not the American Civil War saga from the 1980s. The reference is to the industrial North and the agricultural South of England.

Richard Armitage as Harry Kennedy from The Vicar of Dibley

When Dawn French as the Vicar of Dibley had to find herself a love interest for the Christmas/New Years special of 2006/2007 she knew who to ask for. And he is such a good sport that he jumped at it.  Wouldn't you love this adorable accountant to move in down the street? If you have never seen The Vicar of Dibley, make sure you watch some older episodes before you watch the one above.

Richard Armitage as Guy of Gisborne in Robin Hood

If you like your men a little darker and scruffier than the smiling accountant above, perhaps Guy of Gisborne from the recent BBC Robin Hood series is more your style...

Richard Armitage as Lucas North from Spooks

If dark and dangerous is more your style, then the cool spy Lucas North from the wonderful television series Spooks (known as MI5 in North America) may fit the bill. Armitage had to lose weight and learn Russian for this role. His tattooed bod is quite something, but of course it is the acting we are interested in, right? And the acting is brilliant.

Richard Armitage as baddie Heinz Kruger from Captain America

Hollywood thinks of him as a baddie apparently as seen here in Captain America where he plays the thoroughly evil Heinz Kruger.

Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit

And as Dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield (he is a 6'2" Dwarf by the way) he is not exactly looking his usual hunky self. But if it raises his profile in Hollywood, then maybe we get to see more of him!

"You don't need Henry to explain..."

I leave you with a loving glance from John Thornton minus cravat for a change. Mmmmmmm.....Is my bias showing? (Favourite actor!!!)


P.S. Any other roles you particularly liked him in?

P&P Tours- Will take you to filming locations of your fave adaptations!

Longbourn, home of the Bennets, P&P 1995

Imagine, if you will, a tour which takes you to various filming locations of all of your favorite adaptations of Jane Austen novels such as P&P 1995 and S&S 1995.  Imagine attending a Winter Ball at Longborn (pictured to the left) in full Regency dress if you wish.  Then imagine, if you will, a tour group which goes the next step, and takes you to locations of other productions, such as North & South and Cranford.
This brilliant tour company, called very appropriately, P&P Tours, may be your next vacation if this sounds like your cup of tea.
If you want a taste of what they do, here is a link to a video of theirs which struts their stuff.  They do things like visit the lake where Mr. Darcy dived in and gave us the memorable "wet shirt" scene.  They will take you to Netherfield, Meryton and even Rosings and Hunsford Parsonage and combine it with talks from people actually involved in the filming of our favorite adaptations for some interesting personal anecdotes and inside scoops.
Some upcoming events feature not only the Winter Ball and supper at Longborn, but also carriage rides and a visit to the Bath Christmas Fayre.
Have I got your attention yet?  Their "Box of Delights" tour in April features not only a visit to Longborn (P&P 95), but a visit to the Railway Station of the best kiss ever from North & South,

The Kiss from North & South

Helstone, Uppercross from Persuasion, Hollingford and Hamley Hall from Wives & Daughters, Hartfield from Emma 2009 (a favorite of mine, the gorgeous Squerryes Court) and Meryton/Cranford-same place!  They even have a Miss Potter tour of the Lakes District and London in September 2011.
Helen Porter and Maddy Hall run this amazing tour company, but word is they may only operate until 2012, so check it out now if this looks like your cup of tea.
I'll leave you with one more image to tantalize you...

Hartfield, Emma 2009 (Squerryes Court)