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Call the Midwife (DVD)
by oioiyou
Ok slight obsession at the moment but I have been captivated by Jennifer Worths book Call the Midwife (book #2 is going down a bit slower but still rather enjoyable). I caught the end of the Christmas episode on the television over the holidays which was great. I had been really fearful that the characters wouldn't be as I'd pictured ... them or that it would ruin the book in my mind. Luckily the characters in the Christmas episode were perfect and left me wanting for more. An advert caught my attention, it mentioned a second series coming to the BBC so I knew I absolutely had to get my hands on the first series. My husband found that the BBC shop website was having a big sale and ordered the DVDs for me (6.99 and free delivery).
Cast:
Jessica Raine plays the part of Nurse Jenny Lee. Jessica looks exactly as I pictured Jenny Lee to look. I have not seen her in anything before though "The Woman in Black" is on my must watch list and she is apparently in that.
Pam Ferris was cast to the role of Sister Evanangelina whom I adore. She is a nun with a rude streak which makes me love her character. Sister Evangelina is short-tempered and snappy but at the very same time she's warm, witty and approachable. A hard part to play I would imagine.
Sister Monica Joan is taken on by actress Judy Parfitt. I remember her playing the Queen in Ever After so it's fun to see her take on the role of a nun with a few loose screws.
Looking on the web at the list of movies Jenny Agutter has been in makes me realise I have seen her a number of times over the years but I couldn't have told you that moments before my search. She has a kind motherly face that suits the role of head nun at Nonnatus House.
Fred is one I had to look twice at before realising who played him. Fred is the handy man, a little rough around the edges and usually covered in dirt from fixing or mending something. It took me some time but is suddenly came to me ... It's Minty from Eastenders (Cliff Parisi)! I don't watch Eastenders myself but my mother always did so I knew who he was.
This one I wasn't sure of at first but it is very clear to me now that there is no better person than Miranda Hart for the part of Chummy. She plays a serious character beautifully. Chummy as a character is a larger young lady of a wealthy background who joins the team. She is the character I spoke of in my review of the book who was aided in learning to ride a bicycle by a small boy from the area.
There are other fabulous supporting characters that help to make this series relate to the book but far too many to list them all and aside form a few hair colours I had imagined differently they are all well represented.
Plot and extra information:
For those who haven't read my book review (shame on you! he he he) the story of this series comes from the books written by Jennifer Worth about her experiences being a midwife during the 1950's in London's Docklands. "Call the Midwife achieved very high ratings in its first series, making it the most successful new drama series on BBC One since 2001" and series 2 is on it's way.
Nonnatus House itself is a pseudonym used in the book and series taken from St Raymund Nonnatus, the patron saint of midwives, obstetricians, pregnant women, childbirth and newborns. Many names were changed for the book but if I knew their real names they probably wouldn't suit them to me!
The 1950's is shown through the series so perfectly. The sets, props, medical utensils, uniforms and every day clothes are very true to the time as far as I can tell. I do enjoy stepping back in time. Seems the series has come at a good time .... Most of my friends are vintage inspired or mental depending on which one you are speaking to.
I have laughed, cried and been on the edge of my seat even though from reading the book I know what happens!
(C) oioiyou 2013
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Charley Says... Vol 1 & 2 More than 280 live and animated classics (DVD)
by hogsflesh
This double DVD set is less than £7 on amazon. Inexplicably, the image at the top of this page is of Bob Marley. The DVD I am reviewing does not look like that.
This is a set of more than 250 public information films from days gone by. They don't make them anymore, the kind of gently paternalistic attitude that led to their ... creation having been done away with years ago. Most of them warn us not to do silly things like leave our houses unlocked or play with matches or whatever. An awful lot of them are aimed at children, including the title series, in which a judgemental cat named Charley saves his young owner from drowning, molestation and all kinds of other nastiness. But there's a very wide range covered on the disks, from using handkerchiefs properly to preparing for nuclear war.
The 1970s nuclear ones are a bit weird. I'm not sure if they were ever actually shown publically (the lack of information about context is a little frustrating in this set). Apart from the 'duck and cover' message parodied in South Park, the oddest thing about them is the assumption that everyone has something called a 'fallout room' in their house. Is this a feature of the 70s that no one talks about anymore? Slade albums, fondue sets, and domestic fallout shelters? Or were we all going to be instructed to build them if things had looked like they were going to go wrong?
In an entertaining change of tone, a film about how to dispose of dead bodies during a nuclear war is followed by Basil Brush telling us about the dangers of paddling out to sea on a lilo. And that's followed by Lonely Water, an amazingly creepy little film in which the grim reaper (voiced by Donald Pleasence) hangs around waiting for children to drown. The last child is saved by his friends ('Sensible children!' curses Pleasence. 'I've no power over them'). The grim reaper vanishes, leaving only his cloak, Ben Kenobi-style. It looks like the kids are going to use the cloak to dry to boy they've just saved - it would have been brilliant if they'd done so and he'd transformed into a new grim reaper, in classic cycle-begins-anew style. Still, I guess it was a public information film, not a horror movie.
It's amazing the number of things they were worried about us doing. Dip your headlights. Only use the hard shoulder in emergencies. Don't use cross-ply and radial tires in combination. Shut your windows. Turn off heaters when you go to bed. Always let someone know if you change your plans when sailing. Don't put rugs on freshly polished floors (surely the most random of all the films; I wonder what hideous rug and polish related injury prompted it). The films are both touching, in their desire to prevent harm from befalling us, and rather insulting in that some of their messages are incredibly obvious.
One recurring theme has two children - always a boy and a girl - trying to lure another child off to have a picnic with them. The tempted child can't get mummy's attention to tell her, so he doesn't go. Then, when mummy finds out later that he's been good and not gone, she rewards him with a picnic with her instead. This one happens about three times, including to Charley and the boy. Who were these children constantly trying to lure good boys and girls away to go on 'picnics'? There are levels of meaning here that I can't quite unpick - we've all seen The Wicker Man, right?
Another recurring fear is rabies! By crikey, the Brits were scared of rabies in the 70s and 80s. Why aren't we anymore? Have they stamped it out or something? The best anti-rabies ad has a melancholy looking black lab wandering around the suburbs, constantly spurned by fearful residents, like some hideous inversion of the Littlest Hobo. Thanks to the blameless labrador, dog and cat shows are cancelled. (Cat shows? Are there such things? Why are they never televised? Is it because cats are inherently boring? Clearly yes.)
One of my favourites is the Scottish one that shows drunkards lolling around the streets. 'A pretty girl, pretty drunk, is not so pretty,' a voiceover informs us. Quite aside from that being a debatable point - if a chap is also drinking then he is unlikely to notice the degeneration of his lady friend, and the popular 'beer goggles' phenomenon might even make her seem more attractive - what is the message we're being fed here? That women shouldn't drink? That they should stop home washing kilts and making haggis, or whatever Scottish ladies do in the eyes of London-based government information filmmakers? Why not apply the same message to men, perhaps focusing on the effect on sexual potency of necking 20 pints of beer?
Roughly half of the first disk is animated, including some Welsh squirrels with a poor grasp of road safety and a lot of Arthur Lowe voiceovers. There's a very annoying cartoon couple, Joe and Petunia, who feature in several adverts behaving appallingly badly, or just really stupidly. Unusually, they die in their last appearance as the buffoonish husband fails to check his tires properly (perhaps they were a fatal mix of radial and cross-ply). The most famous of the cartoon ones are the Charley Says series. The best of these are where poor Charley himself comes a-cropper, including a hilarious one where he manages to pour scalding hot water over himself, apparently putting one of his own eyes out in the process.
The other half features actors or celebrities. Rolf Harris wanted us to learn to swim, Jimmy Saville wanted us to wear seatbelts. Lots of different celebrities got angry about kids not crossing the road properly (Alvin Stardust was particularly insulting to the children in question). The most famous is the green Cross Code man, played by Dave Prowse, who was more famous as Darth Vader. Notably, the earlier adverts featuring Prowse dub him with an RP actor, but later he gets to do a couple himself, with his strong West Country accented voice. Some of the celebrities can't seem to quite decide whether they're trying to be funny or serious (Jon Pertwee for instance), but it's all quite sweet. You can't imagine many of today's celebs doing this kind of thing, and I say we've lost something as a society as a result. Various people who became famous in the future turn up in early appearances in these films, too, including Gillian Taylforth (not, sadly, in a film about inappropriate use of the hard shoulder); and PC Dave Quinnan from The Bill.
Both these disks were released separately, and disk 2 was obviously released after the success of disk one. Consequently, it's not nearly as much fun - they'd obviously used most of the good stuff on the first disk. We get a lot of tedious road safety and saving energy stuff. There are a few decent ones, like the guy who look just like Donald Sutherland running over a little girl, perhaps in revenge for Don't Look Now. And there's a funny one which implies that people in Northern Ireland all drive around wearing blindfolds. I assume this is a metaphor. But on the whole, disk 1 is more engaging. Still, it's hard to imagine this being much cheaper, and at last you'll come away from the whole set with an enhanced appreciation for safety.
It is probably best not to try to watch all these in one sitting, unless you are very, very high. They're a bit samey, and might end up making you paranoid about whether you've left the gas fire on, or put a rug on a freshly polished floor, or whatever. They'll also make you realise that, whatever vague childhood memories you may have, Basil Brush was actually intensely irritating. There's nothing genuinely unpleasant here, although a couple of the rabies ads are a bit sinister. Certainly it doesn't include the legendary farm safety video that traumatised a generation of rural youths.
But it's nice that these films were made at all, and nice that they're collected here for us to enjoy. They're a throwback to a past in which the state was an avuncular presence that seemed to want what was best for us, rather than an aloof Roman emperor who made us fight to the death for its amusement. Well worth checking out.
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Charmed - The Complete Season 1 (DVD)
by SmoothCriminal
Today's television and film market is saturated with all things previously confined to the realms of niche science-fiction and fantasy programmes, with vampires, werewolves, demons - you name it - now ubiquitous in popular culture. However, many forget that the supernatural renaissance really began in the late 90s, as the WB aired Buffy ... the Vampire Slayer and Charmed simultaneously, bringing fantasy-influenced teen drama to the mainstream. While the former remains my favourite television show of all time, I have always been sceptical about watching Charmed. However, with persevered nagging from a friend, I have finally given it a shot, purchasing the first season on DVD - and surprisingly enough, I have had a pleasant treat.
The series is based on the simple premise that three sisters living in modern day San Fransisco have suddenly discovered they possess supernatural powers. Prue (Shannen Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Combs) and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano) discover that they form the 'Power of Three' - a trio of powerful witches destined to protect the lives of 'innocents' needing protection. However, their revered power, means that they have also become targets for warlocks and demons, who wish to steal their power and bring into the hands of evil.
The show is without a doubt one of the 'fluffiest' in the genre, which of course can be a pretty damning criticism. However, the appeal for Charmed is that it never takes itself too seriously, or tries to stretch itself to be something its not. It's easy, thoroughly enjoyable viewing that is at times a little camp, a little ridiculously but unfailingly entertaining. The showrunners interweave each 'demon of the week' with romantic sub-plots and the career woes of each sister, as they struggle to balance their ordinary lives with their rather extraordinary callings. This keeps the atmosphere for the most part, light, and definitely gives the show a broad appeal - is it is rather difficult to pigeon hole into one single genre.
Having watched reruns of many episodes of later seasons, the first season really has its appeal in the fact that it retains a slightly gothic tone in both the filming and the plots. The set design and lighting, mean that even if the effects can look a little cheap, the sets always look high-quality, and add a slightly sinister edge to the show at times. Later seasons tended to shy away from more serious storytelling and thus, this gothic edge to the show was lost in favour of what skimpy costumes, the attractive leading ladies could be forced to wear each week.
The first season is enjoyable in the sense that for the most part, plots are self-contained in episodes. These 'stand-alones' mean that you can just dip into the boxset, and move through it at a leisurely pace, without having to keep a mental note of developments in the story arc. In a first season, where you are still establishing characters and the tone of the show, I feel this is a particularly strong format to take. There are enough continuous threads in the season though to keep you hooked, and wanting to know what happens next - particularly the two compelling 'will-they-or-won't-they' relationships between Piper and Leo, and Prue and Andy. This fixation on romance is perhaps part of why Charmed has gained a 'fluff' reputation.
The picture quality in the set is a little grainy, as there is little you can do to a show that was shot in the late 90s, before the HD revolution. The set retails around the £10 mark, which for 22 episodes, is a really good price. As there are eight seasons, if you are a fan of the show, investing in the complete series may be a good move, although surprisingly does not manage to save you much money as it seems to come to about the same price as buying each season individually.
Season One of Charmed is a great start to the show, it finds its niche in the science-fiction spectrum is a light and fun show that has broad appeal to all ages and genders. If you are looking for a series with grit and intricate storylines, then this isn't for you. However, if you have watched Charmed before and want to relieve the show for nostalgia, this is a must buy. I had never paid much attention to the show before, but now I am hooked - and while it may seem out of place next to dark and critically acclaimed shows such as the Sopranos, Dexter and Game of Thrones on my DVD shelf, it is an unfalteringly enjoyable series that provides fun escapism.
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