Dir. Ken Burns In the past few years it has become popular to lob grenades at Shelby Foote, whose three-volume history of the Civil War remains the most enjoyable and readable compendium on the war that I’ve ever come across. The flaws are there, certainly, and I’m preparing some projectiles myself. Foote’s primary interests are… Read More The Civil War (1990)
Dir. Charles Sturridge. Starring Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, Laurence Olivier (My thoughts on the preceding episode are here.) There’s no doubt that of the eleven Brideshead episodes, this is the worst one with a bullet, and yet without it the first half of the miniseries would collapse. Over the course of this episode, Sebastian’s family and their… Read More Brideshead Revisited S1E2, “Home and Abroad”
Dir. Charles Sturridge. Starring Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, John Gielgud Brideshead Revisited meanders a little while before getting started. Its first episode is an hour and forty minute jaunt which begins with Charles Ryder (Irons), officer in the British Army, alone and pensive. I’ve always felt loneliest when people have to tell me that I am, in… Read More Brideshead Revisited S1E1, “Et in Arcadia Ego”
It’s another edition of the B&B B&B, but based on the number of topics we give airtime to, it’s more like three. In our first segment, we discuss TV: The Book, the marvelous Sepinwall/Zoller Seitz joint which gives an authoritative and super readable rundown of great American television. Matt: I was pleasantly surprised by where… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 26: British Miniseries and the Worth of Clive Owen
Seeing Things Secondhand 