Glee Project: Duets

I've gotten hooked on The Glee Project, a reality show in which performers compete for a 7 episode role on Glee. There are a lot of talented young people out there. A couple weeks ago they paired off and did duets. These were my favorites:





As far as that episode's backstage dynamics, I thought it was quite endearing and refreshing that Cameron reacted so strongly about Lindsay kissing him. It was real. Nice to see that a guy, an attractive young guy, thinks seriously about these matters.

Tonight's episode focuses on Sexuality. Should be good.

I'll weigh in on my hopes for tomorrow's eliminations. I hope Cameron stays and I wouldn't mind if Alex left. He's narcissistic. I've warmed up to Lindsay, who's got a terrific voice, but Glee's got a surfeit of pretty girls. I hope Hannah stays. I like both Damien and Sam, but I have a feeling Sam will go soon unless he reveals more of his personality. I don't have a sense of who he is.

North and South

The scene above takes place in the first half of North and South. This couple just seems like oil and water, right. Considering how they first met when Margaret sees Mr. Thornton yelling and about to thrash one of his workers, this is something of an improvement.

The genre requires that halfway through the story the main characters be x, yet these two do seem like they'll never get together.

North and South lacks the romance of great architecture or lovely gardens one expects in a British series. No one seems allowed to wear a cheerful color in Milton. That actually works in this story; it's the point of difference that hooked me. Margaret wasn't the most beautiful woman. She couldn't be a model, but that also works in the favor of the story as you believe that she'd be down to earth and would befriend factory workers.



I expected a "two star" pretty good experience, but the more I think of it, the more I like North and South and the more I'd like to read the novel. I'd give this three and a half stars.

A Musical

Seems there's a musical version of North and South. Who knew?

North and South

I’m half way through the four episodes of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South produced by the BBC. Darker than Downton Abbey or an Austen adaptation, North and South is set in a mill town in northern England during the Industrial Revolution. Margaret Hale moves with her parents from the countryside in the south because her father, a vicar, won’t sign a paper stating he believes in the Common Prayer. So they’re uprooted to the sooty, depressing North.

They encounter Mr. Thornton, a strict factory owner, takes lessons from Mr. Hale. Margeret befriends a working class family, headed by a union organizer, preferring them to the snooty Thorntons. The series provides great visuals of work in the factories with cotton floating through the air like snow that chokes and sickens the workers. Though philosophic and ethical adversaries Mr. Thornton admires Margaret and proposes to her. He’s flatly refused. It’s not hard to guess how that relationship will fare, but I am intrigued and wonder about the workers.

It’s a fascinating drama capturing life in the Industrial Revolution.

Gaskell wrote the lighter Cranston, which I read and reviewed last fall.

More - Lisa Ono

Downton Abbey

Think Sense and Sensibility meets Upstairs Downstairs and you can imagine Masterpiece Theater's Downton Abbey. Set before WWI, the heir to a magnificent estate dies when the Titanic sinks. Currently, a family with three daughters of marriageable age and no sons lives in the castle. The plan had been for the oldest daughter Mary, who's a bit wild or spirited, to marry the former heir.

Enter Matthew, the third cousin who really doesn't care to take over Downton Abbey. During the course of the seven episodes of season one, we see Matthew and his mother establish themselves in the village, often in conflict with the current occupants of the house.

OF equal interest is the lives of the servants, led by a dignified butler Mr. Carson who needs to keep a close on on some of the less scrupulous members of the staff.

There's plenty of honor, dignity, backbiting, and intrigue. Oh, as for the romance, the mother and father have a sweet relationship which did start with an attraction for Mrs. Grantham's fortune. Both the family and the servants have budding romance in their midst, but no one is lucky in love.

Season two should be broadcast in the winter of 2012.

Husbands and Wives

Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives, is witty and fresh, though it was made in 1992. It's fresher than his recent films that I've seen (N.B. I haven't yet seen Midnight in Paris, and many have said that's good.) With a great cast including Judy Davis, Sydney Pollack, Mia Farrow, Liam Nielsen, Juliette Lewis and Allen, Husbands and Wives begins with Allen's two friends announcing they're divorcing after 15 years. As the plot develops, all the characters question marriage, their wants and needs, their partner's personalities and ticks, with various degrees of accuracy as the bungle along searching for authentic relationships. Allen plays a writing teacher who, surprise, surprise, falls for the most promising student in his college writing class.

Rather than dealing with the beginning of a romance, this film chronicles the end of two marriages, I won't reveal who reunites and who doesn't. This is part of life and should be explored intelligently in film. I think because Allen's able to show the couples being so real and open with each other, it's all the more sad that the relationships fail.

The film was absorbing so it wasn't till the end, where thoughts of Allen's own choices in his marriage with Farrow, diverted my attention. Guess that's bound to happen. Still it's a well acted film with a natural plot rhythm (i.e. not glaringly influenced by Syd Field et al's formula). This film stands the sands of time.

If I ever sell a script

If this romantic comedy, I'm working on gets made, I'd love Lisa Ono to sing on the soundtrack.

Seems "En vie en rose" has an English version, not an English translation.

A Walk with Jane Austen

As an Austen fan inspired by Bridget's recent reading of Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion A Walk with Jane Austen: A Journey into Adventure, Love, and Faith,I had to grab this off the new books shelf at the library. Lori Smith embarks of a month long trip to England and chronicles the experience from the first week at a class in Oxford to her rambling through the countryside where Jane lived or traveled. All the while Smith ponders how Jane's writings, books and letters, shed light on her own life as she ruminates over her own single status, the possibilities of a relationship with a charming man she met in Oxford, and all her foibles and desires.

I didn't notice the word Faith in the title. The idea of adventure called to me. Yet the faith (Christian) aspects interested me. She humbly examines and explains how her faith has changed and how she has uncertainties about the hows and whys of things yet she still believes. Her fairness when writing about a tough period working at a Christian non-profit that had a lot of bad office politics and difficult, disrespectful supervisors showed someone one able to tell the truth and take the high road at the same time.
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I liked that Smith was sincere and fair in expressing her feelings throughout the book. She's going through a tough time, full of uncertainty and weakness. She's had health problems but doesn't know the cause (she does learn that a year later). She's worried and keeping her weaknesses at bay is a fight. Unlike say Eat, Pray, Love the story doesn't end with the expected bow. Not everything is tied up. I'll leave it at that. I think the honesty and willingness to accept difficulty and imperfection with matruity make this all the more worth reading.

Here's an interview with Lori Smith.