Month: September 2016

Band of Brothers at 15: Before and After 9/11

onecollageFifteen years ago today, September 9, 2001, a documentary-like mini-series tribute to D-Day and to WWII, Band of Brothers, aired its two first episodes. Two days later that same year the world turned upside down. It was very difficult for any entertainment to be very entertaining in the days after September 11, 2001. If there were people who looked at ratings, advertising revenue, critical reviews and other such metrics to gauge the success of a series, chances are that they, like the rest of us, were distracted by other headlines. On this anniversary, I wanted to examine how Band of Brothers was perceived by critics, before and after September 11, 2001.

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Throwback Thursday to Damian Lewis at Time Out London Spy Weekend

The Guardian has recently shared a video of Damian Lewis reading from John le CarrĂ©’s Our Kind of Traitor in celebration of the author’s first memoir The Pigeon Tunnel coming out this week. Thanks to an event I will write about today I know this particular section Damian reads is one of his favorites in the book! So I wonder if Damian himself chose to read that section here. ENJOY!

So in celebration of The Pigeon Tunnel, now available for purchase, I would love to take us all back to a sunny, summer-y London Saturday in May! Time Out London teams up with Studio Canal to bring Londoners a “spy weekend” at Hornsey Town Hall Arts Centre. The weekend includes screenings of some of the popular films based on John le CarrĂ© books, namely The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), the first le CarrĂ© adaptation to the big screen, and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011) as well as of some other classic spy movies like Notorious (1946) and The Third Man (1949) and an exclusive special screening of Our Kind of Traitor followed by a spy-themed party as well as a discussion panel on “Bringing le Carré  to the screen” with The Night Manager producer Stephen Cornwell (John le CarrĂ©’s son), the producer Gail Egan (The Constant Gardener, Our Kind of Traitor) and Our Kind of Traitor director Susanna White plus readings from le CarrĂ©’s work by celebrated fans including one certain ginger. And I am extremely lucky to attend the event!

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Life with Charlie Crews, Season 2: Episodes 19-21

Hey, all!  Holliedazzle here. Labor day has now come and gone, and for me that always felt like the unofficial end of summer.  So, as the summer comes to an end, so does our “Life with Charlie Crews” summer series. We’d like to welcome you all to our season two wrap up!

life

This Tuesday is extra special, as not only are we talking about the last 3 episodes of the entire season, we are ALL talking about them!  Each one of our fabulous contributors is weighing in on these final three episodes. Enjoy!

Damianista:

“I want a peaceful soul. I need a bigger gun.” — Charlie Crews

source: nbc
source: nbc

Last three episodes, other than the two “bad relationship” murders, build to the finale where we find out a lot but still do not have a proper closure. I am thinking out loudly about Season 2 wrap up below and cut some slack to the show runners since they probably did not know NBC would cancel Life and so deliberately left open questions for Season 3. Continue reading “Life with Charlie Crews, Season 2: Episodes 19-21”