The Fairy Tales Are Back...

 

It is Fall and it is not only the season of golden trees, apple cider, candy corn and wood fires it is also finally the season for new shows and new seasons on Network Televison and all the shows this year seem to be fairytales.... well the shows I watch that is.

 ABC Studio's ONCE UPON A TIME, in its 3rd season is off to the "second star on the right"  and on to Neverland, in search of new story lines, having played out the original concept of fairytale characters stuck in a time and place warp, the first two seasons.
Now, Snow White, Prince Charming and the Evil Queen having other things on their minds have joined forces with Hook and soon the likes of Sleeping Beauty, Milan and well, Robin Hood. Quite a mix of genres, I'd say.
Well, ABC is in kahoots with Disney, so why not, and apparently the brain storming session of possible "mash ups" between beloved characters from the Disney vault could not be contained to just one T.V. show this Fall,  so now we have ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND....

Alice, the Ginny, yup, it's another  lost love....apparently.

 

Over on the CW, it only took one season for its fairy tale series- BEAUTY AND THE BEAST...

 

 

 to have the same problem as ONCE UPON A TIME, the first season's story line, of a somewhat out of control Beast, a.k.a. Vincent,  to help the Beauty, Catherine, a police detective, solve crimes and keep Vincent from the evil scientist who made him. Since that storyline is pretty well  played out, the series has gone for the classic "redo".....Amnesia! New bad guys and well, new Vincent, no longer in the shadows and scared, but now stylish and working for the bad guys, the new improved bad guys. Will Catherine get through to his heart.......again!

 

Not really a fairy tale, but it does have a handsome guy who can shoot a bow and a sexy love is CW ARROW...

 

Okay, of all the shows mentioned so far, though ARROW, based on the comic book from the 1940's, is by far the best, having seemed to put a little bit more "meat" into its storyline and characters. There is still plenty of unanswered questions, especially from the "pre-qual" storyline of Oliver's time on the island. I find myself mad at the writers for how little they give away in the flashbacks and wait anguishly for Thursday when Arrow will be on Hulu Plus, sometims watching it first thing in the morning with my tea. Yup, no access for network TV for me, my hubby wanted to try something different for awhile, no Satellite.

 

Of course I'm still waiting, and annoyed, that at NBC, GRIMM's...

new season will not start until October 25th.  

 

In its 3rd season, there is a little "mash up" going on, no longer is Nick and his team after the monsters from classic European fairytales, nope, now it's...

 

zombies!

Sundays- ONCE UPON A TIME, on ABC

Mondays- BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, on the CW

No fairy tales on Tuesdays- but the new season of SONS OF ANARCHY is on the FX, see my review of past seasons HERE, no endorsements of new season until I see it.

Wednesdays - ARROW, on the CW,

Thursdays- ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND,  on ABC

Fridays- GRIMM on NBC

 

All the above shows can also be watched on their websites or at hulu.com

 

 

 

 

Here's another suggestion, Hollywood: THE PHILADELPHIA STORY



It accorded to me, that if "new material" is too scary for the bankers of Tinsel Town and they will not budge from either squeezing the last bit out of a empty franchise or have to regurgate, a.k.a., remake a rather recent movie, thinking that the second time things might be different. How about going back farther then a few years or a few decades to the golden age of Hollywood Studio films?

Yesterday I was watching theWarners Brothers musical film, 42nd Street..

 

 

An over the top story of the plight of getting a broadway musical off the ground during the Great Depression and the rise of a new star...

 

 

and the falling of another...

 

 

I started to do the math and made in 1933, all the actors, the dancers the crew, well, they are probably all dead or in their 90's!

At first that just creeped me out, watching Busby Berkeley's amazing choreography of spinning dancers with proxide blonde pin curls and tiny costumes doing high kicks and creating a tunnel for the camera...

 

But then I watched THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, starring Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. Made in 1940, the stars are all gone as well, but the story is classic. Hepburn is a East Coast socialite...

 

getting ready for her second marriage, her first was to Grant, that has been in South America for the last two years, but comes back, with a plan to usurp the wedding...

 

that involves Stewart, a writer/reporter for a tabloid that wants the dish on the socialite wedding and has some family blackmail to get it...

 

What follows is classic Grant-esque wizardry, played against Stewarts drawl and Hepburn's ice queen...

 

Here is a story line that is still entertaining seventy three years ago and well, could be redone and be more fresh then what Hollywood is offering right now. Please take my suggestion, or I might write it up myself and go pitch it to someone!

Those Who Can, Should...

Sorry for the whiplash, last post being on the "un-kid" friendly, but so good T.V. series SONS OF ANARCHY and VIKING. Click here for that post on adult entertainment. But this week. my fancy went to animation, really good animation, so after some debate, and some surfing on the internet, my appetite was satisfied with renting TANGLED...

wondering why I just don't  buy the thing, it is that good, the computerized animation, the story, the songs, the action and the actors who voice and inspire the characters.
Like most things, when something is well executed, it is a joy and when something is half done and decisions are made through popularity and what is "trending" a the moment, rather then talent, well it is EPIC...

But getting back to a really good animation movie, that goes past being one just for kids, not a quick for a laugh "potty" joke in it and where seeing it once doesn't satisfy, a mark of a bad movie in my mind. TANGLED is that kind of movie and largely to the talents of, not only Rapunzel, voiced and sung by  Mandy Moore, (ENTOURAGE, GREY'S ANATOMY)...

 

But who entrances me most in TANGLED is...

 

Flynn Ryder, voiced and inspired by Zachary Levi, better known as...

 

Chuck Bartowski

 

 

CHUCK the series, ran on NBC from 2007-2012, Levi playing an over qualified computer geek at the local electronic super store...

 

 

 who happens to also have all of the nations secrets download in his head on accident and becomes a walking computer for a misfit team of spies. Anyone who has watched  CHUCK, knows Levi's talent in the voice and well facial expressions...

so it comes as no surprise he was picked for Disney's 50th animated movie, one that the studio put a lot of effort into to be special.

Right now, TANGLED can only be viewed by renting,
Season One of CHUCK can be viewed on WB.com, the rest of the seasons to rent per episode.

pictures from http://movies.disney.com/tangled
and http://chucktv.net/

TV to Download and Watch, When the Kids Aren't Home...

 

FX Channel's SONS OF ANARCHY and The History Channel's VIKINGS are no DOWNTON ABBEY, but they are well written, engaging, and both are a wild, violent, sexy, adult only ride you can download and watch a whole season over a weekend, just watch them when the kids aren't in the house or quietly under the sheets with ear buds..

 

Amazingly, they both have about the same story line of an upstart young warrior rising through the ranks of a violent, bloody gang to be its leader. SONS OF ANARCHY,  a modern day, gun running motorcycle gang in California's central valley...

 

 

and VIKINGS, well, is set about 1,000 years earlier, but still a gang, with an unbreakable internal code, a reign of terror and  a lot of tough guys who ride...

 

                                    

in boats and pillage and raid the island of Britannia to the west.  

 

Oddly, the main characters, could be the same actor or brothers, but are not...

 

 Charlie Hunnam, plays Jackson Teller in SONS OF ANARCHY

and is from England, yup, he's English and..

 

 Travis Fimmel, who plays Ragnar Lothbrok in VIKINGS, grew up

on a ranch in Australia, you'll believe it when you watch him ride.

 

 

Similarities don't stop there, you need a good women that can "kick ass" right beside you when you are taking over a dynasty...

 

Maggie Siff as Tara on SONS OF ANARCHY...

 

and Katheryn Winnick as Lagertha  on VIKINGS don't let anyone mess with their men and families.

 

Both shows have also come somewhat out of the mind of one man...Michael Hirst meticulously researched Viking history just like he did for his other epic historical dramas...

 

 

 

 and SONS OF ANARCHY is pretty much the brain child of Kurt Sutter...

 

 

 who also plays "Big Otto" in the series, a SOA member serving time and coordinating  the clubs "biz" in the system.

 

In real life, Sutter is married to Katey Sagal who plays SOA's reigning king's "Old Lady"...

 

played by Ron Perlman.

 That's right, Al Bundy's "Old Lady"

 

( MARRIED WITH CHIDLREN) 

 

has hooked up with the Beast...

(BEAUTY AND THE BEAST)

 

VIKINGS reigning king, or Earl is played by Gabriel Byrnes (THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK, LITTLE WOMEN)...

 

His queen is played by Jessalyn Gilsig (GLEE), who can be pretty bad ass when it comes to protecting her children.

 

Of course, everything is relative in VIKINGS and SONS OF ANARCHY. If you are in the "club" you have a family and are protected, as long as you "ain't a rat," or are in prison, there is a nullifying clause for not sleeping with a gang member's "Old Lady" if you are in prison and if the "gods" need you to sleep with another clan's Viking princess well then the marriage bed becomes less sacred.

 

 

 Ragnar and Jax are not "good guys" trying to get out of the "bad guy" life. They are the "best of the bad guy", by far the cleverest and both with debatable moral compasses,  something that is very easy to forget  in each episode, where consistently innocent outsiders suffer and die on their watch. Wrapped up in each episode, I find myself rationalizing  right along with them that they had no other choice and what they did was for the good of their families.

 

Both these series are more "drama" this "historical" but each is so well written, executed with such detail, from filming in the desolate and industrial central valley of California...

 

 

to the gorgeous world created for VIKINGS...

 

 

that they are luscious to watch along with being disturbing and violent.

 

The sixth and new season of SONS OF ANARCHY just started on FX Channel and season 1-4 are available on Netflix and Amazon Prime , season five and six are also available to buy per episode on Amazon.

 

First season of VIKING is only available at the moment through buying per episode on Amazon and new season will be out in 2014. I don't get the History Channel, but the series was so good I actually subscribed to it last year and for $1.99 would get the newest episode in my library the Monday after it aired.

 

photos from...

VIKINGS, The History Channel Official Site 

SONS OF ANARCHY FACEBOOK FAN PAGE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

What to Watch this Weekend: HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON

Here is a suggestion for Hollywood- how about remaking a movie from over fifty years ago that is excellent, an engaging story and well funny, instead of regurgitating a remake of a super hero made less then a decade ago? How about a real hero, how about a US Marine, who gets stranded on a island in the Pacific, with the Japanese swarming and well........ a nun?

 

I have a confession... Robert Mitchum is not my first go to actor from the golden age of big studio run Hollywood. He usually played it rough and brash, a little too bit brash for my preferences of smooth- Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck smooth. 

 

But he did...

 

before they did...

 

and a few other well known movies like EL DORADO, not this one...

 

but this one...

Of course Debra Kerr...

 

 

can do sexy just fine as in the epic and original FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, with Burt Lancaster. But in HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON she plays a nun to Mitchum's Marine...

 

 

 

Who form a sweet enduring bond, even though Mitchum does declare, "Now what is the point of you being a nun, if we are all alone?"

 

 

HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON has action, suspense, romance, good dialogue and isn't as predictable and flat as some of the offerings at the theater these days and since "heaven knows" when Hollywood will start making good movies again, I recommend watching it this weekend, cause how can the scenario of a marine and a nun stranded on a deserted island not be a fun watch.

 

HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON is available on Amazon instant download and by DVD.