Finally Fall

Fall is almost here (Hip Hip Hooray!) and that means the fall television season is starting.  I don't have cable for a couple of reasons so I'm limited to the tradition network's selection of shows.  Here are some of the new and returning shows I'm looking forward to:

Sherlock (PBS) and Elementary (CBS).  I was never a Sherlock Holmes fan.  I never read any of the books and the only Sherlock Holmes movie I saw was the Robert Downey Jr. one (and I wasn't that impressed).  But last year Masterpiece Mystery aired Sherlock and I was hooked!  In this very modern-day telling Sherlock is pompous and knows it.  It's witty and suspenseful with great writring and acting.  Now I'm looking forward to Elementary as well.  This Sherlock just got out of rehab and his Watson is a woman.  And the creators have promised there will never be a romance between this Sherlock and Watston.

Glee (FOX).  I admit I've been a Gleek from the beginning but this season premier didn't really do anything for me.  A bunch of characters were graduating seniors last season and I missed them (although we've been told they will be back at some point).  And the two new main characters were rather dull.  The best part of the season premier was guest star Kate Hudson as a alcoholic washed-up NYADA dance teacher who used to work on Broadway.  Hope this show improves as the weeks go on.

Downton Abbey (PBS).  I am a SUCKER for British period piece dramas and this one totally fit the bill.  If for nothing else than the wickedly witty lines from Maggie Smith.

Once Upon a Time (ABC).  Last year two "fairy tale" drama debuted and for me this one was the clear winner.  If you were a fan of Lost, the same people are behind Once and you'll notice.  It's a mix of fairy tale characters in present time and past "fairy tale" time.  It had a great cliff hanger last season so I'm looking forward to where things will go from there.

Raising Hope (FOX).  There are a lot of good half-hour comedies out there but this one is really quirky and funny.  The story is about a young man who becomes a single father (the mother was a serial killer who ending up in jail and SPOILER ALERT supposedly got hit by a bus at the end of last season) but the stars of the show are the parents (Martha Plimpton and Garret Dillahunt) and  dementialy challenged Maw Maw (Cloris Lecchman). 

So let the viewing begin....

Book List - August 2012

27. Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness. This is the second book in the Discovery of Witches trilogy. This fantasy is the continuing story of witch Diana and vampire Matthew. You definitely need to read the first book to understand all the intricate characters and plot twist. It does get gruesome at times but a good read.

28. Where We Belong by Emily Giffin. I read almost the entire book in one four hour sitting waiting for my car at the mechanics. It's the story of a women who, 18 years earlier at the age of 18, gave up her daughter for adoption. The daughter finds here and she now has to own up to her decisions. It's a story that's been told before (and probably will be told again) but also a good read.

29. The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner.  If you know anything about this author you'll know that this book reflects some of her recent experiences and is also more like her first few books.  A young single woman tried to make it as a Hollywood TV writer with her grandmother in tow.  It's another good Weiner book.

30. What the Nanny Saw by Fiona Neill.  A young college student goes to work as a nanny for an upper-class finance family in London two years before the market tanked in 2008.  Lots of finance terminology but interesting characters.

Bronze Medalist With Heart of Gold

The summer Olympics are over. The top winning athletes are now seen on TV talk shows and cereal boxes. All their hard work paid off and the payday begins. I’m sure everyone who competed at the Olympics dreamed of winning a medal, but of course, not everyone can. Many know all their hard work will result in them being able to say they competed at the Olympics (which IS pretty cool).

Zofia Noceti-Klepacka of Poland is a very unique athletes. The 26-year-old windsurfer promised her 5-year-old neighbor Zuzia that if she won a medal she would sell it and give all the proceeds to her Zuzia’s family. Zuzia suffers from cystic fibrosis and has already under gone five operations. Last week Noceti-Klepacka won the bronze medal in women’s RS:X windsurfing (finishing just three seconds ahead of a rival from Finland).

(Side note: how many people knew windsurfing was even an Olympic sport? I didn’t. Other Olympic sports I didn’t know about: hand ball and trampoline.)

Nobody can say how much she’ll get for it, but it sure is a very selfless thing to do. Think about, she probably trained for years, sacrificed a lot and forked out a lot of money for this once in a lifetime opportunity. She got that medal and now she’s willing to part with it to help someone else.

Many athletes would never do that but some have. Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko won the gold medal in boxing at the 1996 Olympics (the first year Ukraine completed at an Olympics). Earlier this year he auctioned off his gold medal, earring $1 million to go to a foundation to help fund children’s sports camps and facilities in the Ukraine (side note: the anonymous winner returned the medal to Klitschko after the auction). U.S. swimmer Anthony Ervin won the gold in the 50 meter freestyle at the 2000 Sydney Games. He put his gold medal on eBay and donated the over $17,000 he got to victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami. And Polish swimmer Otylia Jedrzejczak donated the $80,000 from selling the gold medal she earned at the 2004 Athens Olympics in the 200 meter butterfly to a Polish charity that helps kids with leukemia.

“I don’t need the medal to remember,” Jedrzejczak was quoted. “I know I’m the Olympic champion. That’s in my heart.”

So while some athletes will be raking in the money, others know it’s not all about the money.

Emmy Nominations!

This morning nominations for the Emmy (television) Awards were announced. If’ you’re new to my blog you may not know that I’m sucker for award ceremonies. Every year I watch the Emmys, the Oscars and the Tonys. And even though I don’t get cable, I am aware of the popular shows on cable. And if one looks interesting I try to get DVDs out of the library to watch those shows.

You can see a complete listing of the nominations here:

http://www.emmys.tv/awards/64th-primetime-emmy-awards

I was excited by a couple of things. Mayim Bialik was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Big Bang Theory. Amy Farrah Fowler has some of the best lines on the show and Mayim executes them perfectly. I think she can even outshine Jim Parsons (Sheldon Copper) although the two work really well together. She’s my pick in that category.

I loved that Dot-Marie Jones got nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Coach Shannon Beiste on Glee. She’s probably the underdog in that category but was glad she was noticed.

And I was thrilled to see not one but two Masterpiece (PBS) shows singled out: Downtown Abbey and Sherlock. I am fans of both and was glad to see the shows and the actors nominated (especially Benedict Cumberbatch for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie).

I think there has been shift in television over the last few years. Categories like Outstanding Drama Series are dominated by cable shows (six out of seven). HBO, Showtime and AMC are producing better dramas than ABC, CBS and NBC. The exception, of course, is PBS which, in my opinion, has been producing great dramas for years but they are just now getting noticed.

Book List - July 2012

23. Cottage at Glass Beach by Heather Barbieri - This is a novel about a wife and mother of two girls who escape to an island off the coast of Maine after her polititian husband is caught cheating. She called the island home until she was five when her mother disappeared. The desciption of the island and it's inhabitents is great and there are mystical elements to the story but the plot moves pretty slow and the ending is abrupt. Still an enjoyable read.


24 Paris, My Sweet: A Year in the City of Lights (and Dark Chocolate) by Amy Thomas. In 2008 the author of this book got the opportunity of a lifetime, to temporary relocate to Paris for a year. Thomas is a self-proclaimed sweets fanatic and the book revolves almost exclusively around eating everything from bon-bons and cupcakes to macaroons and tarts in Paris (and New York City). Even for a big dessert person like myself I found this book a little to sweet for my taste. Thomas' life (at least during her time in Paris) totally revolves around desserts and based on the author's photo, she somehow doesn't weigh 400 pounds!


25. Witness by Nora Roberts. Yes, another Nora Roberts. This one is a stand-alone book about a 17 year old girl who witnesses a mob murder and has to go into witness protection. Things don't go as planned and most of the book occurs 12 years later. While the story was rather good, the ending was a little too quick and clean for my tastes, like Nora got tired of the story and just wanted to end it.

26. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. A writer friend and work "bestie" gave me this book on writing. Has some good insight.

Book List - June 2012

Books I've read in June.

19. Mr. Darcy's Dream by Elizabeth Aston. I'm a sucker for P&P sequels. This one, the story of Georginia Darcy's daughter Phoebe, was rather dull. The title refers to Mr. Dary's ambition to create a large glass house (greenhouse) at Pemberly. There is a misunderstanding between Phoebe and the man she loves. Much focus is on reputations but it all works out in the end.

20. The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan - This a book about four women who attended their 20th college reunion. The title comes from a type of Who's Who that is printed every five years for Harvard alumni. There is a lot of affairs and deaths but it's main focus is that even the lives of graduates of Harvard don't go the way they're planned.


21. The Last Boyfriend by Nora Roberts. This author's trilogies are great summer reads. Three characters each have their own book to discover love. And there is always a happy ending.


22. The House I Loved by Tatiana de Rosnay. Unfortunately this book had absolutely no plot and as a result was boring. In the 1860s Paris neighborhoods were being distroyed to make room for large bouelvards. One woman, a widow in her 60s, refuses to leave her house and insteads hides in the basement writing leters to her dead husband about what has happened over the last 10 years since he died. The person from People magazine who called the book "mesmerizing" must have also spend hours watching goldfish in a glass bowl.

Heather's Movie Viewing Trivia

(Today’s blog was inspired by questions this week’s Entertainment Weekly asked actress Emma Stone, with my answers.)

The First Movie I Remember Watching
Disney’s Cinderella (1950). Of course, this was a re-release. I remember thinking it took a really long time to drive to the movie theater.

The Movie Character I Wanted to Be
Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald) from Sixteen Candles (1984) because (SPOILER ALERT) she gets really, really cute Jake at the end.

The First R-Rated Drama I Ever Saw
My mom took me to see The Breakfast Club (1985). After the movie, Mom (who had gone to an all-girls Catholic high school in the 50s) said that high school wasn’t really like that. I told her that it was.

The Scariest Movie I Ever Saw
I never got frightened by most horror movies. To me the blood and guts were kind of boring and overall the movies were so stupid they were funny. The one exception was The Blair Witch Project (1999). That movie TOTALLY freaked me out. Haven’t been camping since.

The Last Movie I Bought
The Dark Knight (2008). I thought Heath Leger was brilliant in this movie and totally deserved his Oscar (even thought it was sadly given posthumously).

The Movie Musical I Know Every Word To
No brainer, Grease (1978).

The Movie I Can’t Turn Off When It Comes on the Television
This is a really hard one. Pretty much any movie based on a Jane Austen novel, or stars John Cusack or Colin Firth, or John Hughes movie from the 80s, or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (As Ferris said, Life move’s pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you can miss it.).

The Movie I’ve Seen More Times Than I Can Count
Again, this is really hard. There are so, so many. But if I had to choose just one I’d probably say Real Genius (1985) with Val Kilmer. It's hokey but I still love it.

My First Movie Star Crush
Christopher Atkins but not in Blue Lagoon (I didn’t see that until years after it came out), in The Pirate Movie (1982). This was a cult favorite with my friends and I in high school. If you’ve never seen it, it’s an extremely cheeky 80s version of the musical, The Pirates of Penzance.

The Last Movie That Made Me Cry
I don’t normally cry at movies. I may shed a tear or two but I cannot honestly remember the last time I did that so I’m going to answer this with the movie I cried the most at, Finding Neverland (2004). I was sobbing at the end of the movie when the credits were rolling. I was still sobbing as we left the theater, as we walked through the parking lot and didn’t finish sobbing until we were driving away. So, so sad.

The Movie I’m Always Telling People to See
Sliding Doors (1998) with Gwyneth Paltrow. For a long time I’ve been tired of Hollywood producing so many re-makes of movies and (mostly bad) television shows and movies based on children’s games. This movie has one of the MOST original stories I’ve ever seen. Serious, its super good with a great ending (LOVED the ending)!