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My movie rec for the day: Flushed Away. I finally saw it a couple of weeks ago. I have liked Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet in several different roles, and I wasn't sure I was prepared to see them as . . . rats. Then there's the brilliant Ian McKellen as The Toad. I endured Finding Nemo, but I didn't actually enjoy that; can someone please tell me how a movie that opens with the death of the mommy fish and 399 babies gets a G rating? Didn't think so. That's all followed by further peril (although I really enjoyed the sharks).
Flushed Away is a movie we really could watch with Small Child without trauma to anyone ("No slugs were harmed in the making of this film"). It's just screamingly funny, in a class with A Dog's Breakfast or above, but a whole lot less disturbing. The take-offs on Toy Story (which we have seen more times than any human being should have to endure). The slugs. The frogs. Did I mention the slugs?
Roddy is a pampered pet rat; when his family goes on vacation, another rat gets in, and Roddy gets . . . flushed away. He meets Rita in the sewers, and she turns out to have problems of her own. Want more? See the movie. (Or go to The IMDb listing for Flushed Away.
And our featured tv show for the day: Slings and Arrows. Okay, so we're only a few eps into season one (of three seasons), but dang, one episode and I was hooked. I should preface this by saying that we love Paul Gross. We only caught Due South when it went into reruns, but the man is a fine actor and amazingly funny. We saw him do Hamlet live on stage at the Stratford (Ontario) Festival. He played Hamlet brilliantly. He did a Hamlet who really was mad, and he was quite convincing. We'd seen Kenneth Brannagh's version not too long before; Paul Gross had a very different take, but we enjoyed both.
We have since seen Men with Brooms (tag line: "A sweeping epic"), a movie about curling, family, friends, and love. That's a slightly sick and very funny movie (hmm--I'm sensing a theme in some of my recs); we caught it on TiVo, but it's certainly worth a rental (don't know if I'd buy it, but we're in danger of being forced out of our home by all our books, DVDs, and old VHS tapes, so we try to buy very little now--right, Brilliant Husband?! Not doing so well on the CD front).
But I digress. If you're a Paul Gross fan, or a Shakespeare fan with a sense of humor (and honestly, if you have no sense of humor, how the frell can you appreciate Shakespeare?), see Slings and Arrows. Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross) is running a small theater about to be closed while the New Burbage Shakespeare Festival goes on without him; he played Hamlet there until he went literally, certifiably mad. But of course complications ensue, and Geoffrey finds himself back in New Burbage and very much involved in the Festival--and the people. See bits of Shakespeare done well! See bits of Shakespeare done really, really badly! See theater people fight! See theater people in love and hate! And much, much more!
NPR did an interview yesterday on Weekend Edition: Saturday with Paul Gross and his co-star and wife, Martha Burns: Link to Audio. Slings and Arrows has shown on The Sundance Channel, but we don't get that, so Brilliant Husband bought me season 1 as a gift. We haven't finished yet, but he found seasons two and three on sale (at Amazon?), and we'll be getting those soon.
Flushed Away is a movie we really could watch with Small Child without trauma to anyone ("No slugs were harmed in the making of this film"). It's just screamingly funny, in a class with A Dog's Breakfast or above, but a whole lot less disturbing. The take-offs on Toy Story (which we have seen more times than any human being should have to endure). The slugs. The frogs. Did I mention the slugs?
Roddy is a pampered pet rat; when his family goes on vacation, another rat gets in, and Roddy gets . . . flushed away. He meets Rita in the sewers, and she turns out to have problems of her own. Want more? See the movie. (Or go to The IMDb listing for Flushed Away.
And our featured tv show for the day: Slings and Arrows. Okay, so we're only a few eps into season one (of three seasons), but dang, one episode and I was hooked. I should preface this by saying that we love Paul Gross. We only caught Due South when it went into reruns, but the man is a fine actor and amazingly funny. We saw him do Hamlet live on stage at the Stratford (Ontario) Festival. He played Hamlet brilliantly. He did a Hamlet who really was mad, and he was quite convincing. We'd seen Kenneth Brannagh's version not too long before; Paul Gross had a very different take, but we enjoyed both.
We have since seen Men with Brooms (tag line: "A sweeping epic"), a movie about curling, family, friends, and love. That's a slightly sick and very funny movie (hmm--I'm sensing a theme in some of my recs); we caught it on TiVo, but it's certainly worth a rental (don't know if I'd buy it, but we're in danger of being forced out of our home by all our books, DVDs, and old VHS tapes, so we try to buy very little now--right, Brilliant Husband?! Not doing so well on the CD front).
But I digress. If you're a Paul Gross fan, or a Shakespeare fan with a sense of humor (and honestly, if you have no sense of humor, how the frell can you appreciate Shakespeare?), see Slings and Arrows. Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross) is running a small theater about to be closed while the New Burbage Shakespeare Festival goes on without him; he played Hamlet there until he went literally, certifiably mad. But of course complications ensue, and Geoffrey finds himself back in New Burbage and very much involved in the Festival--and the people. See bits of Shakespeare done well! See bits of Shakespeare done really, really badly! See theater people fight! See theater people in love and hate! And much, much more!
NPR did an interview yesterday on Weekend Edition: Saturday with Paul Gross and his co-star and wife, Martha Burns: Link to Audio. Slings and Arrows has shown on The Sundance Channel, but we don't get that, so Brilliant Husband bought me season 1 as a gift. We haven't finished yet, but he found seasons two and three on sale (at Amazon?), and we'll be getting those soon.