What DVDs have you seen recently?

[happy2bretired]

I'm almost to the end of the original series on Netflix and love it. The first two or three episodes were a little odd, but once it hits its stride, it's great.

I agree, the first few weren't as good but I really got hooked on this one. I finished watching all 68 episodes about a week ago and I feel like I've lost some really good friends. The tears were flowing as the final credits played on episode 68,

 

[Lsbcal]

I'm almost to the end of the original series on Netflix and love it. The first two or three episodes were a little odd, but once it hits its stride, it's great.

We have been watch another British series that is about Nannies in 1902 -- I know some people are probably rolling their eyes. We like it and are on disc 3 (out of 3), Berkeley Square produced in 1998.

 

[Ally]

I agree, the first few weren't as good but I really got hooked on this one. I finished watching all 68 episodes about a week ago and I feel like I've lost some really good friends. The tears were flowing as the final credits played on episode 68,

I'm saving the last few for the holiday vacation.

 

[drb391]

if PPV counts (same day as dvd release), saw MIB3 last week. pretty good if you're a fan; little choppy in spots, but an awesome ending

 

[SumDay]

I just bought Seasons 1 & 2 of Downton Abbey. Totally hooked. Also bought it for a friend who will be laid up from surgery. She's hooked too.

And, we never started Homeland, so spent much of this weekend catching up on Season 1 before it goes off our Comcast On Demand on 12/19. We have until 1/22/13 to catch up on Season 2. Again, totally hooked. But it's making me not sleep well. It's very realistic.

 

[Lsbcal]

...(snip)...
And, we never started Homeland, so spent much of this weekend catching up on Season 1 before it goes off our Comcast On Demand on 12/19. We have until 1/22/13 to catch up on Season 2. Again, totally hooked. But it's making me not sleep well. It's very realistic.

I guess we don't have Showtime on our Comcast choices, which is how you apparently get Homeland. We do have it on the top of the Netflix queue but it is strangely showing Expected Availability = Very Long Wait. Don't have a clue what is happening with this one.

 

[Dreamer]

And, we never started Homeland, so spent much of this weekend catching up on Season 1 before it goes off our Comcast On Demand on 12/19. We have until 1/22/13 to catch up on Season 2. Again, totally hooked. But it's making me not sleep well. It's very realistic.

Well, I decided to check out Homeland since you thought it was so good. DH and I watched the first episode and we were hooked. We have been watching a couple of shows every night and we just finished season 1 tonight. We are enjoying it very much.

 

[martyp]

Well, I decided to check out Homeland since you thought it was so good. DH and I watched the first episode and we were hooked. We have been watching a couple of shows every night and we just finished season 1 tonight. We are enjoying it very much.

Thanks. Just found Homeland on Netflix. Something to get hooked on in the new year!

 

[Lsbcal]

Thanks. Just found Homeland on Netflix. Something to get hooked on in the new year!

On our queue this says in red letters "Very long wait". It's been at the top of the queue for some months without any being delivered.

 

[martyp]

On our queue this says in red letters "Very long wait". It's been at the top of the queue for some months without any being delivered.

I had that "Very long wait" problem with the last season of "Boardwalk Empire" but it only took about a month to go away. I don't see that label on my current queue for Homeland but even so, I can wait a couple of months. I've waited this long . . .

 

[Major Tom]

We got a Netflix free trial to be able to watch the three videos that comprise the entire series of Long Way Round, about a motorcycle trip undertaken in 2004 by two friends from the UK. We quite enjoyed the story and the scenery, as it covered many of the areas we will see next summer.

The two friends in the series are movie actors, though I've never seen their films. One was Ewan MacGregor and the other was Charley Bootman. i also read the book about their trip, which was nice.

I was surprised at how limited the Netflix inventory is, though, with very few documentaries and travel stories. It seems mostly to stock comedy and drama fiction rather than the sorts of things we might want to see.

As a Brit, I was well familiar with Ewan MacGregor, but not his friend Charley. Very enjoyable and entertaining documentary. I loved how one of their main discoveries after visiting all these places, some of them quite remote and superficially very different from their homeland, was that the world is a welcoming and mostly safe place, and that people are the same the world over.

Like others have said here, I also wish that the Netflix streaming offering was more diverse. I cancelled my free trial period recently and will not be paying for this service unless the selection improves.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Major Tom, now that we've had opportunity to see their other documentary, Long Way Down, about a ride from John O' Groats to Cape Town, I can also recommend it. Although we were disappointed that Ewan's wife talked herself into a leg of the trip-how annoying would it be to have a woman ruin your dude-fest like that? Thank goodness she only had a minor role/time with them. Ugh! I don't want to watch a romance, for Pete's sake!

And just finished up another gem from the mid-70s, called the Wind and the Lion. Just excellent, with Sean Connery and Candace Bergen. Got it because we so enjoyed Connery in the Man Who Would Be King. Any of you who know these movies have any other similar ones to recommend, from around the same time? Since I was 5 in '75, I must have missed them the first go-round!

Wind and the Lion was about a Berber pirate in Morocco who kidnapped an American woman and kids in order to draw attention to the selling out of his country to foreigners. Great sword battles!

 

[Major Tom]

Major Tom, now that we've had opportunity to see their other documentary, Long Way Down, about a ride from John O' Groats to Cape Town, I can also recommend it. Although we were disappointed that Ewan's wife talked herself into a leg of the trip-how annoying would it be to have a woman ruin your dude-fest like that? Thank goodness she only had a minor role/time with them. Ugh! I don't want to watch a romance, for Pete's sake!

And just finished up another gem from the mid-70s, called the Wind and the Lion. Just excellent, with Sean Connery and Candace Bergen. Got it because we so enjoyed Connery in the Man Who Would Be King. Any of you who know these movies have any other similar ones to recommend, from around the same time? Since I was 5 in '75, I must have missed them the first go-round!

Wind and the Lion was about a Berber pirate in Morocco who kidnapped an American woman and kids in order to draw attention to the selling out of his country to foreigners. Great sword battles!

Sarah - I didn't know about Long Way Down. I enjoyed Long Way Round so much, that I think it will be a must see. Thanks for the tip - I love it when there's something I really want to see - I get a bit short on ideas sometimes.

Interesting about Ewan's wife - I'm keen to see how she affects the dynamics of the lad's trip!

 

[Sarah in SC]

Glad to give the tip-we were sad to see the journey end. And having never been keen to visit Africa, I found it suddenly much more compelling after seeing the scenery during their trip.
I love travel stories!

 

[kyounge1956]

It wasn't on DVD, but I just watched most of the original series of Roots, and Roots, The Next Generation, which was rebroadcast Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Making good use of our new Netflix membership, we rented Around the World in 80 Days, the 1956 movie with David Niven and a host of cameos by the most famous movie stars of the time. I'd never seen it and what fun it was to watch! Based on Jules Verne's book of the same name, it is about a wager for a man, Phileas Fogg, to make it all the way around the world in only 80 days, in Victorian times. Wonderful dialogue, fantastic costumes, clean humor, and a great suspenseful story.
Tell me again why new movies can't be this good? They've all got to be angst-ridden social statements, ugh!

 

[Nemo2]

Around the World in 80 Days

Saw the movie when it first came out......loved Passepartout, played by Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes, AKA Cantinflas.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Saw the movie when it first came out......loved Passepartout, played by Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes, AKA Cantinflas.

Yes! I'd of course never heard of him, but loved this! The bullfighting scene was awesome...and his dancing!

 

[Lsbcal]

Recently we watched The Woman in White and really enjoyed it:

Staying at the family's country estate with her pretty half-sister Laura (Justine Waddell), plain-Jane Marian (Tara Fitzgerald) is introduced to a society of artists and aristocrats, including the mysterious Count Fosco (Simon Callow). But even more mysterious is the ghostly apparition -- a Laura look-alike cloaked in white -- that roams the grounds at night. Tim Fywell directs this Victorian-era Masterpiece Theatre thriller based on Wilkie Collins's novel.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Found another older gem courtesy of Netflix that we watched last night--
The World's Fastest Indian (2005) - IMDb
Just a great story, about Burn Munro, an old guy from New Zealand who dreamed for 25 years of taking his Indian motorcycle to the Bonneville Salt Flats. Set in the 50's and early 60's, it really captures how no one is ever too old to make their dreams come true. Full of unexpectedly funny lines by Anthony Hopkins. Highly recommended!

Major Tom, we also just finished the first half of Charley Boorman's Race to Dakar, the trip he took in between the two I mentioned earlier, with Ewan MacGregor. Interesting, and pure madness. We'd run into a few Dakar racers in Peru last January, but I don't think I fully understood what they do in that race, regardless of the continent. It is a good story, so far.

 

[timeasterday]

Thanks. Just found Homeland on Netflix. Something to get hooked on in the new year!

That's an awesome show! Right now we are watching Justified from Netfilx. We didn't love it at first but quickly became hooked.

 

[SumDay]

We just finished Homeland as well. Caught up on all episodes in a couple of weeks. WOW! I had a pillow over my face during quite a bit of it.

If you get Palladia on your cable or dish, and you like music, I highly recommend Live from Daryl's House. Daryl Hall (Hall & Oates) hosts current and legendary musicians for a day of jamming and eating and jawing.

So far Jason Mraz, Todd Rundgren and Joe Walsh have been my favorite guests. This week (Thursday night) is Minus the Bear. I'm old, and don't know them (yet) but if Daryl thinks they're good enough to have over to his house, I'll broaden my horizons and give them a try.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Sum, check out the one with Grace Potter. She is a favorite of line and I loved "her" episode at the house.

 

[Lsbcal]

We watched Farewell which you'll probably have to get in DVD format from Netflix. It was really good in my opinion:

In this thinking man's spy thriller, KGB agent Sergei Grigoriev (Emir Kusturica) plans to hand over hard evidence that proves the depth of his agency's penetration of U.S. intelligence, in a one-man crusade to bring down the Soviet empire.

It's a French made movie that has scenes in Paris, Russia and the US. There are English subtitles but we didn't have trouble with that. Some dialog is in English.

The Russian location (I think) filming made this very authentic feeling. The era is the Reagan/Mitterand/Gorbachev one and we see scenes involving the leaders.

 

[Silver]

If you get Palladia on your cable or dish, and you like music, I highly recommend Live from Daryl's House. Daryl Hall (Hall & Oates) hosts current and legendary musicians for a day of jamming and eating and jawing.

So far Jason Mraz, Todd Rundgren and Joe Walsh have been my favorite guests. This week (Thursday night) is Minus the Bear. I'm old, and don't know them (yet) but if Daryl thinks they're good enough to have over to his house, I'll broaden my horizons and give them a try.

+1

Episode #23 with Todd Rundgren is my favorite, and the more recent one at his home in Hawaii is also great, #40.

I also really enjoyed Nick Waterhouse(#58) and was amazed at the vocals of the female member of Company of Thieves. She has an amazing voice.(#15)