Entertainment

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Television Thursday – Conversatory

1 Comment Posted on December 18, 2014June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

Snoskred – My Downton Abbey will not play.

The Other Half – What do you mean it won’t play?

Snoskred – It is just freezing up.

The Other Half – Which episode is it?

Snoskred – Season 5, episode 3.

The Other Half – So when you watched it before, didn’t it work then?

Snoskred – This is a new episode. I haven’t seen it before.

The Other Half – What do you mean it is a new episode?

Snoskred – It is a new season.

The Other Half – But I thought that series was finished, or something.

Snoskred – No, it hasn’t finished, it is a new season.

The Other Half – Oh, ok. I’ll go check it out. Season 3, episode 5?

Snoskred – No, season 5 episode 3. I can’t tell you the name of the episode, or what happens in it, the storylines, or what cast members might appear in it, or any other details like that, because I need to *watch* it to know that stuff.

Snoskred thinks to herself..

wait a minute.. I probably *can* say what happens in it.

Upstairs, Mary (Michelle Dockery) is her usual snooty self, men chase her for her affections, and she might get uppity because she knows things about pig farming, or perhaps another subject she has chosen to become an immediate expert in.

Edith (Laura Carmichael) pines for her man who disappeared to Germany, and stalks her daughter that she sneaked off to have secretly and then palmed off onto some poor neighbours.

Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) is annoyed and upset about something miniscule and unimportant, and he fights with Cora Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern) about these things, and she will speak in her soft American accent and make everything better with her words and her smile.

Tom Branson (Allen Leech) will be considering whether he should stay at Downton, or leave, given his wife died many moons ago and that was the thing keeping him there.

Isobel Crawley (Penelope Wilton) will still be mourning Matthew – in a fabulously beaded black number of an evening – who died two season ago. Violet (The amazing Maggie Smith) will make amusing remarks many of which when translated to proper English are actually well thought out and delightfully constructed put downs.

Downstairs, Mr Carson (Jim Carter) is upset about something – perhaps progress of some kind, or a newfangled invention, as he likes things exactly the way they have always been. He will make snarky comments in a snooty voice about this to Mrs Hughes (Phyllis Logan), who will tut tut in her Scottish brogue and dispense witty advice and solutions that Mr Carson will totally ignore.

Mr Barrow (Rob James-Collier) will be pining for an attractive boy, or lurking menacingly in corridors, threatening members of staff who he is blackmailing for various reasons.

Mr Bates (Brendan Coyle) will either be committing murder, in jail for murder, suspected of murder, or under suspicion of some other crime. Mrs Bates (Joanne Froggatt) will be dreadfully upset about what is happening to Mr Bates, though Mrs Hughes or Mrs Patmore will have to drag what is upsetting her out of her, with cups of tea and or careful plots.

Mrs Patmore (Lesley Nicol) will be worried or upset about something. Daisy (Sophie Mcshera) will spend the entire episode trying to find out what Mrs Patmore is worried or upset about.

In addition to the above regular storylines, at least one cast member will stick their nose where they should not, and it will cause repercussions of some kind. There will be conversations held in the presence of the larger cast which are amazingly only heard by the two people having the conversation, even though no whispering is involved.

The reality is, none of that stuff matters. Downton Abbey is eye candy for the fans of period costumes and houses. I’d watch it even if they played the same storyline week after week just in different settings with different outfits.

However, it is NOT Emmy award material. I don’t think it ever has been. I think that is just an excuse for the Americans to invite the British cast to the US to party. :)

(oops! This post published as a surprise to me – obviously it is Thursday and I’ve changed the title to suit. I’ll let it stay and apologise for my scheduling boo boo.)

Annoyed Snoskred, television shows, The Other Half

Update Week

4 Comments Posted on December 15, 2014June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

What I’m Doing – Exercising

There has been a significant addition to my living space. You might remember how it was before – my living space.

I recently got the all clear from the lung specialist to get back into exercise and while I have a elliptical here already, I did not want to start with that. It has been a year since I have done any significant exercise and jumping onto the elliptical right away would be the best way to get myself injured. So I borrowed this treadmill from my parents – it was gathering dust at their place anyway.

I started out easy but within a relatively short time I was walking 5kms a day and I felt like I had to limit myself to that, because I could easily have walked for hours of an evening while watching tv..

This past week, I cranked up the pace a little and it went like this – Sunday 5km – Monday 6km – Tuesday 7km -Wednesday 8km – Thursday 9km – Friday 10km. Over the space of 6 days I walked 45km. By Friday I had a super awesome blister on my right ankle so I took the weekend off from walking, but I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

What I’m Thinking – Positives

River posted some thoughts yesterday which got me thinking.

I try to write positive letters or emails to companies and people fairly regularly and I wonder if maybe this is something which could work as a linkup, maybe once a month or so. I’ll ruminate some more on this and probably launch something in January. It would be a monthly link up thing, I think.

I think it would be something amazing to start a movement of positive feedback. We all are quick to complain when things are wrong, but how many of us send a note to the companies that make products we trust, use daily, and rely on?

The Inlinkz thing I use for the Shoe Sundays is pretty simple to use, and I can leave them open forever, so maybe I’ll do one and see if people want to link up with their positive company feedback, and whether or not they get a response as well.

What I’m Considering – Checking In

I try to visit the blogs I read and leave comments as often as I can however you may have noticed a drop off in my comments lately – first of all, check your spam bin because I might be in there – here’s how to check your spam bin on WordPress, scroll down to please note – and second of all, I was commented out by the end of November.

I’m planning a January visiting blogs spree, and I’m going to try leaving a comment as well as leaving an actual note if possible, via an email address or contact form. This is harder than you might suspect. The amount of people blogging without an email address or contact me form is way higher than it should be. :(

If you are wanting to know how to put your email address out in the open without attracting significant spam, try writing it like this – snoskred {at} gmail {dot} com <-- that one will reach me, by the way.

What I’m Obsessed With – Moonbase Inc

The Other Half was trying to talk me out of playing Candy Crush Saga, which I had only recently tried out and I got stuck on this one level, I can’t beat it no matter what I do. It is *infuriating* which is not what a game should be, in my opinion. :( And it keeps telling me to buy boosts so I can win the level and I flat out refuse to do that.

So he showed me this neat little Moonbase Inc game, which is completely free, you can play on your Android tablet or phone. I have it on both. :) It is that awesome. I would actually pay for this game.

About Snoskred, exercise, Gaming, General Chit-chat, power of positive thought

Goodnight Sons Of Anarchy – WW

1 Comment Posted on December 10, 2014June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

The final episode of Sons of Anarchy aired tonight

television shows, Wordless Wednesday

The Missing – Television Tuesday.

2 Comments Posted on November 25, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

I’m 4 weeks into watching The Missing. In my opinion this is excellent quality television.

The Missing stars James Nesbitt – Aussies will remember him as Adam from Cold Feet – and Frances O Connor – most well known to me as Fanny Price from the 1999 film Mansfield Park – as parents of a child who goes missing. The series also stars Tchéky Karyo as a police detective in the Then, and in the Now, as a retired police detective who is seemingly obsessed with keeping bees.

I read a blog called Unpopcult, where they review and discuss television. The blog is based in the UK which means they often see shows long after they have aired in the USA, and I use their reviews as a way to go back and re-watch things, or as a way to binge watch new shows and keep track via their posts of episodes I have seen, which I did with The Good Wife earlier this year.

Interestingly, neither of the bloggers involved with the blog has watched The Missing because they were put off by the fact that the story involves a missing child. Having watched it, I can safely state this show is about far more than a missing child.

It seems that the show was marketed as “a parents worst nightmare”. I learned a long time ago not to listen to the marketing of tv shows – have you heard an ad for a tv show on your local station recently? They are all awful. They are like parodies of movie trailers.

Sometimes it makes me laugh because I will have already seen the episode they are trying to “sell” and they pick one event and try to make it seem like the show is all about that one “SHOCKING” event and “You Won’t Believe WHAT.. HAPPENS.. NEXT” with foreboding music of doom and scary violins playing in the background..

I know from having seen the episode, that event they are “selling” was maybe 1 minute of the show and then it was never referred to again, and the episode was about something else entirely.

The Missing is truly about how an event can change everyones lives in one moment – there is before X happened, and after X happened. This show is about how events change people.

The show is interestingly put together in a way that is difficult to describe to anyone who has not watched it. The show has two storylines – what happened then, and what is happening now. It is telling two stories at once – though sometimes we know the events of the first story from the now, we do not know the details.

How on earth the cast and crew put this together I have absolutely no idea, because they look totally different in the now to the then. Having done some reading – in particular this blog post – it seems that they filmed all the “now” scenes first, and then all the “then” scenes. Given that information, the cast performances are all the more incredible, because they had not experienced the “then” when filming the “now”.

The subject matter may be difficult but if you can get past that, this is television at its finest with amazing performances from the cast and you absolutely should not miss it.

US readers will find The Missing on Starz – episodes have already aired but you can catch past episodes on On Demand.

Australian viewers will find The Missing on BBC First from November 30th. I do not know if or when it will air on free to air tv here, sadly. BBC no longer has a deal with the ABC, they now have a deal with Foxtel.

UK readers have not much time to catch up on the episodes – there are just two days left to view the first episode online over at BBC One.

Readers who know how to torrent will be able to find this series in their usual places, I expect. :)

NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014, television shows

Secret Snoskred

12 Comments Posted on November 4, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

Share a secret not shared on your blog before

I am a huge Sons of Anarchy fan.

I found the series late – only last year – but I devoured the 6 seasons that existed in a very short space of time, and have been eagerly awaiting season seven which started in September.

The show is dark, which you would probably expect, being about a motorcycle club.

But it is also, in its purest form, a soap opera about a motorcycle club.

Some of the storylines are so soapy, they would not look out of place on The Bold and The Beautiful. But that is part of what makes the show so brilliant.

My favourite character is Tig, played by Kim Coates.

Though of course Jax, played by Charlie Hunnam, is fascinating eye candy to watch.

Do you have a secret to share?

Do you love a TV show that I should add to my must watch list, or do you have a secret to share? Let me know in the comments!

About Snoskred, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014, television shows

Television Tuesday

2 Comments Posted on October 14, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

This may or may not become a regular feature here on the blog. At the moment there is so much great TV playing in my house, I feel like I need a place to talk about it..

Coming up : a few words on Survivor season 29 – The Walking Dead season 5 premiere “No Sanctuary” – Homeland Season 4 – The Good Wife season 6 – Scandal seasons 3 and 4 –

Plus new shows – Madam Secretary & Gracepoint

I tested the read more tag yesterday with the mPress Custom Feed Excerpts plugin and it worked. There aren’t many spoilers but there are one or two, so to avoid spoilers if you have not seen these shows yet, you’ll need to click through to read my thoughts.. Continue reading →

television shows

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

3 Comments Posted on September 5, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

This movie changed my life in enormous and incredible ways and somewhat ironically I spent 6 months of year 11 taking constant Snoskred Days Off from school. I can’t believe I have not written about this movie here already.

If you have not seen this movie you really need to see it, especially right now in this crazy world of mobile phones, the internet, etc. The movie is a comedy but the overall message of the film is summed up in this one line from Ferris –

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

What do I love about this movie?

Ferris

Ferris Bueller is played by Matthew Broderick. Ferris talks directly to the audience, from the very start of the movie. He knows we are there, and he knows we are watching, and his talking to us involves us in what is happening..

Ferris is all seeing and all knowing, omnipresent, talented, not a fan of Isms, has a computer, does NOT have a car and Ferris is pretty upset about that. At the start of the movie Ferris tries on a lot of different outfits while waiting for Cameron to come over and pick him up.

Here are a few of them –

Hard to imagine anyone wearing those sandals could be as cool as Ferris is!

Cameron

Brilliantly played by Alan Ruck, Cameron is a person lost within himself.

He is angry yet scared, needy yet there for Ferris, sick yet completely fine, desperate to please yet wanting to not give a f**k.. pretty much a typical teenager, at least as teenagers were when I was growing up. Cameron has a car, too!

Jeannie

Do you know where she is. Do you know when she’ll be back.
Do you know.. anything.

Jeannie is unfortunate enough to be the sister of Ferris Bueller. She cannot understand why he gets to skip school when she has to go.

Played by Jennifer Grey who just one year later would play the iconic Baby Houseman in Dirty Dancing, Jeannie is full of rage and fun to watch , especially when she ends up in the police station and meets.. well.. a guy. That guy.

Other Characters

Sloane

– played by Mia Sara – is the girlfriend of Ferris Bueller and of course she is pretty fantastic because someone as fantastic as Ferris would not be with someone less fantastic than himself. Ferris has to invent a way to get Sloane out of school so she could be a part of the day off, which leads us to Grace and Ed.

Grace

– is played wonderfully by Edie McClurg who just a year later would be in another John Hughes movie I love called Planes Trains and Automobiles.

Edward Rooney

– did not achieve this position in life by having some snot-nosed punk leave his cheese out in the wind. Ed decides to try and find Ferris and ends up hanging out at the home of Ferris, meeting his dog, and various flower delivery people. Because every man and his dog wants to send Ferris flowers.

There is also a campaign to Save Ferris going on..

The Car

So Cameron has a father, who loves this Ferrari he restored. And to pick Sloane up from school he needs a beautiful car. So, Ferris talks Cameron into taking the car out.

They leave it at a garage with a car care professional. This guy.

Would you leave your Ferrari with this guy? I’m going to go with no, myself. And I would be right, because before Ferris and Co have even walked down the street from the garage, Car Guy and his friend are taking off for destinations unknown in the car.

So during their day out, among other things, Ferris and Co eat pancreas at a snobby restaurant –

Ferris talks to us via the mirror of a pretty amazing looking bathroom –

They visit an Art Gallery –

Ferris gets on a parade float –

They return Cameron to his home which is absolutely gorgeous

Then Ferris drops Sloane home and realises he only has five minutes to get to his place before his parents get home, and he no longer has a car, so he has to run. Which is an awesome sequence.

There is more to this movie but I am not going to spoil it for you. You’ll just have to watch it to get the full story.

The movie was released in Australia on the 21st of August 1986. I was 11 years old. I am not sure when I saw the movie – it was not at the cinema I know that much. It was more likely once it was released on video. Our family was one of the first people to sign up at the newly opened local video store, and we were one of the first families in the street to own a VCR. My Dad was the general manager of the family business which was an electronics store.

Speaking of one of the first, Ferris *was* going to tell a little lie to a radio station while being interviewed in the movie, and this was actually cut into the original trailer and had to be quickly removed from both the trailer and the movie after the Challenger disaster. What was the lie?

I’m the first Chicago area youth to be selected to participate in a space shuttle mission.

The full original script can be seen on IMDB via this link – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Original Script.

When I did see this movie, little nuggets of it stayed with me and inspired me. Most kids taking days off school would want to hang out at video arcades or places where they could have “fun” – for me, fun was learning. The days I took off I would end up at the Museum, the Botanic Gardens if the weather was good, the Art Gallery, the State Library. These places became sanctuaries for me and I still hold a special place for them in my heart..

From the Wikipedia entry for Ferris Buellers Day Off –

According to John Hughes, the scene at the Art Institute of Chicago was “a self-indulgent scene of mine—which was a place of refuge for me, I went there quite a bit, I loved it. I knew all the paintings, the building. This was a chance for me to go back into this building and show the paintings that were my favorite.” The museum had not been shot in, until the producers of the film approached them.

It is pretty amazing that a movie – and a comedy movie at that – managed to communicate this concept of places of refuge to me as a teenager.

If you have not seen this movie, it is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking a copy up. :) Also there is a brilliant commentary track by John Hughes – who is sadly no longer with us – the track is well worth a listen, he tells you a lot about locations, shooting the movie and other fascinating stories. So make sure the movie you buy/rent has the commentary track on it.

Here is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on IMDB.

If you enjoyed this review, you might also enjoy these other reviews.

Pump Up The Volume
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
The Pirate Movie
Chocolat
Shakespeare In Love
Dead Poets Society

Movie Reviews, movies

All Right, I’m Naming Names.

Leave a comment Posted on September 4, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

CHRIS PINE.

You forced me to name names, even though I said I would not when I posted my Shit List post.

These otherwise lovely Dior ads – youtube clip here – with the incredible music, and now Chris Pine is on every single ad break on my pay tv.

Chris Pine, these eyebrows of yours are like a train wreck, I just cannot look away.

And then there is more than one Chris Pine on the screen at once – which set of eyebrows should I look at? How to choose?

Whatever I am doing, I have to stop and watch the entire thing, and ponder the following question.

WTF WITH THE EYEBROWS, CHRIS PINE.

Why are there caterpillars, perching where your eyebrows normally reside?

Especially when the lovely female in the ad has perfectly groomed eyebrows.

I still haven’t forgiven you, Chris Pine, for Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit yet.

I mean I have no freaking clue what the heck happened in that movie, all I could see were the Chris Pine EYEBROWS OF DOOM, and occasionally Keira Knightley. And on the big screen those things are absolutely enormous. It is impossible to escape them.

Clearly you are not completely adverse to eyebrow grooming, or else that would be one heck of a mono caterpillar eyebrow instead of two separate caterpillar eyebrows. So why can’t you continue with the eyebrow grooming and tame those things!

Tidy them up, please, Chris Pine.

These eyebrows might be ok on the small screen.

On the movie screen they are GI-freaking-GANTIC.

You can’t take over from Harrison Ford with these eyebrows, Chris Pine.

Not on my watch!

celebrities, movies, wrong world

This Day Is Still Infamous To Me..

1 Comment Posted on August 29, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

August 29, 2008. That date will forever be stamped in my mind. 6 years ago..

August is a month with a lot of those dates – the 12, my Dad’s birthday. The 16th, the death of Elvis.

Probably the image above has given away what I am talking about. Those are the feet of John “Walnuts” McCain and Sarah Palin, as seen on the day that John McCain announced she was going to be the vice presidential candidate.

Thank the deities, the horrible possibility of that woman being one heartbeat away from the nuclear codes never came to pass.

I am sure one day a woman will be in that position, a woman will even be president. But they will deserve to be there, not be picked just because someone is desperate to shake things up in a campaign, barely vetted or asked any questions before being thrown into the spotlight a mere 2 days after first meeting the presidential candidate.

If you have never seen the movie Game Change which tells the story of how Palin came to be chosen.. the story of the campaign staff trying to prepare her for media interviews and epically failing.. the story of how she pretty much melted down under the fierce spotlight and the pure perfection of Tina Fey portraying her on Saturday Night Live.. the story of how she wanted to give a speech after they lost the election and was firmly rebuffed by campaign staff and when she wouldn’t listen to them, by John McCain himself as no vice presidential candidate gives a speech when they lose..

It is such a great movie that it joins movies like Tootsie, Groundhog Day, Mrs Doubtfire, The Devil Wears Prada, Notting Hill, Pretty Woman, and many others on the quite long list of movies I cannot possibly flick away from – once I stumble on them playing, I’m stuck there watching them until they end.

It has Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin and she is absolutely amazing. even better than the Tina Fey impersonations and Tina Fey looks scarily like a doppelganger of Sarah Palin. It has Ed Harris who is downright unrecognisable as John McCain. It has Sarah Paulson as the long suffering Nicole Wallace, and it has Woody Harrelson as Steve Schmidt.

We’re only just over two years away from the next US election and the long, seemingly never-ending primary season will begin in January 2016. Fingers crossed any memorable dates next time will be for good reasons.

Movie Reviews, movies, Sarah Palin, US Elections, US Politics

Rewatch Breaking Bad

1 Comment Posted on August 28, 2014May 31, 2015 by Snoskred

This is a project I have been meaning to do for over a year now. YAY ME!

Back before the Final 8 episodes of Breaking Bad began, I was a part of a Rewatch Breaking Bad thread on the Whirlpool forums, where I hang out as TarynK.

I started out just noting my favourite lines each episode but eventually things like links to music used in the show, various trivia , links to the official podcasts, stories and sometimes transcribing things said during the podcasts as well as lists of who was on each podcast and various other information was being posted for each episode. These posts were fun – although some hard work was involved – and people seemed to like them.

So I wanted to take the basics of this concept and turn it into a blog, with screenshots, links to music and musicians, info about DVD extras, links to other recaps and discussion of each episode, links to the official podcasts when they begin in Season 2, my random thoughts and various other things.

It does not read like a normal blog because I do not want anyone to get spoiled by reading the post for an episode they have not seen yet – there will be a link to each episode in the sidebar. However if you read by RSS you will get each episode weekly and I am setting them to publish at 8pm Thursday AEST.

I’m committing to one episode a week because putting together these posts is a bit time consuming and I have a lot of other projects on the go at the moment as well.

The first episode has just been published so if you want to join in and re-watch, feel free to venture over to Rewatch Breaking Bad. And here is the link to the pilot episode.

Given that the Breaking Bad team just did a final victory lap of the Emmy Awards, I cannot think of a better time to re-visit one of my all time favourite tv shows. If you have never seen the show but you want to give it a try, one episode a week is not a massive commitment – I did one episode a day last year. :)

Some people binge watch entire seasons in one sitting – you could probably do that with Season One which is 7 episodes long but 2, 3 and 4 are all 13 episodes long. Season 5 is split into 2 8 episode arcs.

If you think this is a great idea and you have your own blog, please share this post with your readers – the more the merrier! ;)

blog housekeeping, television shows