What I Watched Yesterday

With Charlie hiding in disgrace most of the day and evening, Pandora sleeping off the latest battle, and MB off golfing and disappearing to his parents, I watched some *serious* TV yesterday.

First up I watched 5ive Days to Midnight; all five episodes back to back (thank god for Sky+!). Starring Timothy Hutton (who's only claim to fame in my book is that he is the son of Jim Hutton - the DREAMY Ellery Queen of the 70's!) and Randy Quaid (left); one of the most under-utilised gifted actors of his generation - overshadowed by his younger better looking brother Dennis.
JT Neumeyer finds a strange briefcase with police documents detailing his own death, in five days time. Can JT unravel the mystery (and the origin of the mysterious briefcase) before the clock runs down?
This was rather good, and I wouldn't sniff at the opportunity of having it on DVD. Randy was superb, as ever, and Timothy put in a sterling performance as the tortured JT. Kudos to Gage Golightly (there's a name for Hollywood, if ever I heard one!) as his daughter, Jessie.
She was sparkling and honest in her performance.
But, as ever, it was Randy who stole the show - illustrating that, although he had fun playing morons (Christmas Vacation etc), Quaid Major is a cracking actor!!
(Of course, I already knew that - one of my fave films is an independent called 'Roomates' about living with AIDS and he is OUSTANDING in that!)

The other thing I watched yesterday was Bride and Prejudice starring the utterly gorgeous Naveen Andrews (left). Of course, people may know him better from Lost, but he is not Iraqi - he is a British Indian.
This is a Bollywood musical based (loosely, very loosely!) on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Mrs. Bakshi is eager to find suitable husbands for her four unmarried daughters. When the rich single gentlemen Balraj and Darcy come to visit, the Bakshis have high hopes, though circumstance and boorish opinions threaten to get in the way of romance.
They even fit in Wickham, Mr Collins (Kholi Sahib!) and the awful Mrs Darcy :-)
It was a popcorn movie (although I hate popcorn!), and it was good fun. Colourful, noisy, beautiful women, handsome men - typical Bollywood. And boy! is that Aishwarya Rai beautiful!
I could even follow the Austen original - although Wickham appeared romantically out of the waves at Goa!

Fun, fun, fun.... :-)

Popcorn Movie (definition): A movie which based on its merits of proper story-telling techniques, unique style and believable characters, would fail on all counts. A Popcorn Movie is a film that allows you to turn off your brain before viewing, crunch down on plenty of nachos and popcorn without having to worry about missing any relevant dialogue, and revel in its lunacy of plot, excessive action sequences and shallow objectives. It is NOT a film to take seriously.

oh and btw - Happy Birthday to the indescribably gifted Denzel Washington and also to the Queen of UK cinema, Dame Maggie Smith!

cq