Streaming Suggestion of the Week #19: How to Steal a Million

Stream what: Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in a heist comedy.

Stream why: It's pretty hard to beat watching the sublime Hepburn run around Paris while verbally sparring with O'Toole.

Stream where: Netflix, Amazon Prime


Read more: Rec. #205, List #28, List #41

Friday Flashback: Rec. #150: Smilla's Sense of Snow

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: In Smilla's Sense of Snow, the eponymous narrator finds herself drawn into the amateur investigation of a young boy's fatal fall from a roof. Smilla is half Greenlander, half Danish. She lives in Copenhagen, still somewhat torn by the two worlds (post-colonial history alert!). Author Peter Høeg tangles up his compelling main character in deceptions, conspiracies, and intrigues, while imbuing the story with the rich detail of an unusual setting.

Comparable to: It's a literary thriller in the vein of Arturo Perez-Reverte, except it's cold here and hot there.

Representative quote: "People hold their lives together by means of the clock. If you make a slight change, something interesting nearly always happens."

You might not like it if: Too quiet. Too contemplative. Too much snow.

How to get it: Borrow, buy, download. There's also the movie adaptation. Lots of snow in that, too.

Connections to other Wreckage: Part of List #4: 7 Mysteries from Authors Who Are Still Alive and List #6: A Few Seasonally Inappropriate Options for the Northern Hemisphere. Also First Sign of Murder #12.

[Originally posted 6/23/11.]

Rec. #386: Price Peterson's Photo Recaps

Typical Lifetime movie

An episode of Penny Dreadful

The Emmys this past weekend

What: Honestly, Price Peterson's photo recaps of television shows I will never watch (Penny Dreadful, American Horror Story, etc.) and events I can't sit through (the Emmys, the Oscars, etc.) might be the best way to consume pop culture these days.

Representative quote: "According to government statistics, roughly 27,000 superhero films are released every weekend."

Bonus representative quote: "Chores, we all gotta do 'em. Dishes, laundry, mowing the lawn, bottle-feeding baby raccoons, scrubbing the bidet, paying bills, carrying corpses out to a mystical tree stump where you incinerate them with your naked body."

How to get it: Price Peterson is a staff writer for TV.com, a website that has much more character than its name. You can find his posts here: http://www.tv.com/news/author/priceiswrong/

Connection to previous Wreckage: These recaps were part of List #21: If I Had the Sort of Job Where I Could Spend Time Doing Things on the Internet, Here Are Some of the Things I Would Spend Time Doing.

Quote from a Fictional Character #79

"My theory is that everyone is a potential murderer."

--- Bruno Anthony,

Strangers on a Train, 1951

(Rec. #166)

(List #30: Nine Hitchcock Films Starring Non-Blondes)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #21: The Reaper

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: In The Reaper, Peter Lovesey spins the traditional British cozy mystery novel on its head, letting a popular and charming (and murderous) parish priest run rampant in the English countryside. Even as the evidence builds against him, parishioners remain steadfast in their devotion to the Reverend Otis Joy. The result is pure, wicked fun.

Comparable to: Have you seen In Bruges? (Yes? Good! No? Oh, check out Rec. #135.) Well, the tone is kind of like that.

Representative quote: "After a wedding rehearsal in the church --- but before rigor mortis set in --- Joy returned to the rectory, his pastoral duties over for the day. He felt as shaky as anyone does with a dead bishop waiting for disposal, but he was in control. He trusted himself not to panic."

You might not like it if: The premise kind of ooks you out.

How to get it: Readily available and easy to spot --- just look for the distinctive green and white Soho Crime covers.



[Originally posted 1/20/11.]

Rec. #385: Pride

What: Brit cinema again does the based-on-a-true-story thing --- U.K. gay activists rally to support striking miners in the mid-'80s.

Take this rainbowy bedrock of social justice, add a crackerjack cast (McNulty as you've never seen him) and this-is-what-happened-to-them end credits, and you've basically got the Platonic ideal of a crowd-pleaser, in the Billy Elliot/Kinky Boots/Full Monty vein. 

Triumphant and a little sad and super fun.

Comparable to: As I said, Billy Elliot, Kinky Boots, Full Monty.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Pride was part of List #47: Some of the Best Movies I Saw in 2014 and List #50: A Personal Wreck Interlude.

Quote from a Fictional Character #78

"I didn't have 'low self-esteem,' I had 'high apathy.'"

--- Lizbet Montgomery,

A Tale of Two Sisters, Anna Maxted, 2006

Friday Flashback: Rec. #292: Gavin & Stacey

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: British television series Gavin & Stacey is far, far cleverer and funnier than it has any right to be. 

Consider the possible strikes against it: 

• the premise has eye-rolling potential (boy from Essex and girl from Wales try to make semi-long-distance relationship work); 
• the writers cast themselves in sidekick roles and often give themselves the best lines; 
• many of the subplots assume that you have an attitude of amused, tolerant condescension toward Wales.

But! The show has an amazing cast and it manages to thread some deadpan raunch through bits that could tip too far sweet. Plus, there's Nessa. Add Nessa to every show ever, please.

Representative quote: "I know the dress is white, right, but who can honestly say, hand on heart, that they're a virgin these days?"

Representative dialogue:
"This reminds me of a very similar situation I was in with my second husband, Clive. I was faced with a dilemma, whether to lie, or not to lie, and I chose to tell the truth."
"And what happened?"
"He died. Firing squad. Terrible way to go, Stace, and I wouldn't like to see it happen to you."

Representative Nessa quote: "Since when have a great rack and an open mind not been a man's type?"

How to get it: Stream it via Hulu or Amazon

Connections to previous Wreckage: Actors from Gavin & Stacey can also be seen in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Rec. #112) and The History Boys (Rec. #115).

Also: Wondering who that new late-night bloke James Corden is? This isn't a bad way to find out.

[Originally posted 5/23/13.]

Rec. #384: The Infatuations

What: A woman gets very involved in the lives of two regularly-observed strangers ... after one of them is killed.

Opening lines: "The last time I saw Miguel Desvern or Deverne was also the last time that his wife, Luisa, saw him, which seemed strange, perhaps unfair, given that she was his wife, while I, on the other hand, was a person he had never met, a woman with whom he had never exchanged so much as a single word."

Representative quotes: See Quote from a Fictional Character #15 and Quote from a Fictional Character #70.

How to get it: Buyable, borrowable, Kindle-able. Like much of Javier Marías's work, it has also been translated from the original Spanish into 42 different languages.

Connection to previous Wreckage: The Infatuations showed up on List #35: A Few of the Best Books I Read in 2013.

Quote from a Fictional Character #77

"Oh, big issues. Liberty. Rights. Justice. Kings died, kingdoms fell. I don't regret the kingdoms --- what sense in borders and nations and patriotism? But I miss the kings."

--- Maude

Harold and Maude, 1971

(Rec. #45)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #239: The Deeper Meaning of Liff

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: The subtitle is: "A Dictionary of Things There Aren't Any Words for Yet." This pretty neatly sums up the concept, which is quite good fun.

Comparable to: The book is co-authored by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, both British comedy writers, so it's rather British-comedy-writer-esque, in an Adams and Lloyd kind of way.

Representative entries:

Abalemma: "The agonizing situation in which there is only one possible decision but you still can't make it."

Ahenny: "The way people stand when examining other people’s bookshelves."

Alcoy: "Wanting to be bullied into having another drink."

Alltami: "The ancient art of being able to balance the hot and cold shower taps."

Aubusson: "The hairstyle a girl adopts for a special occasion which suddenly gives you a sense of what she will look like in twenty years' time."


You might not like it if: Adams and Lloyd assign existing place names to their definitions, and you sort of wish they had invented completely new words. You don't know why, but you just think it might have been better that way, somehow.

How to get it: Buyable, borrowable, Kindle-able

Connections to previous Wreckage: Douglas Adams is represented elsewhere on this blog by The Salmon of Doubt (Rec. #4), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Rec. #42), Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Rec. #162), The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Rec. #198), and Life, the Universe and Everything (Rec. #230).

For a quick view of all of the above, see List #25: Happy Birthday, Douglas Adams

[Originally posted 5/23/12.]

Streaming Suggestion of the Week #18: Better Off Ted

Stream what: It's a snarky workplace comedy with a smart touch of the absurd.

Stream why:
It has storylines like

• The company decides to freeze Phil. 
• The company installs motion sensors that can't detect black people. 
• Lem and Phil reluctantly invite Ted to their Medieval Fight Club.

And it has quotable dialogue like: "The company loves its money. If they could, they'd go to strip clubs and throw naked women at money."

Stream where: Netflix, Amazon Prime

Stream whuh?: The main character's name is Ted. That's why the awful title. The show is so much better than the title, I promise.


Read more: Rec. #147

And: Quote from a Fictional Character #5

Quote from a Fictional Character #76

"She looks like an unlikely adventuress, and yet she's the only person I know who has scuba-dived in the Japanese naval wrecks in Truk Harbor, or once broke a hip jumping out of an airplane ...

"I always like Carolyn Dahlberg better as a concept than as a companion. She makes a person nervous."

--- Luke Planter,

A Few Corrections, Brad Leithauser, 2001

(Rec. #117)