“News Flash” Update: Lollipops at Macy’s and the Revolt of TiVo
Amazingly, just after I posted about watching LolliLove, in which a clueless rich couple forms an organization to give out lollipops to the homeless, I myself had a lollipop encounter in the accessories department at Macy’s. Dormouse and I were standing there looking at scarves when a woman came up to us and asked, “Excuse me, would you like a lollipop?” I almost died. It turned out it was part of a Clinique promotion, which seems odd, but at least it’s not posing as charity.
Now for the distressing news: Entertainment Weekly and TiVo have both failed me. EW claimed that last Friday’s “Doctor Who” was the season premiere, but it turned out that the premiere had aired the previous Friday, along with a two-hour between-the-seasons special. That’s three whole hours of David Tennant that I missed! To compound my angst, our TiVo for some reason claimed to be recording “Doctor Who” last Friday, while it was actually recording “Battlestar Galactica.” I accused Porpoise of deliberately trying to sabotage my DT obsession, but he claims innocence, so I guess we’ll have to blame the TiVo. Still, I checked to make sure it was properly set up to record the first installment of last night.
I suppose I should wait until I’ve seen the second half of Casanova before commenting on it, but I have a few things I’d better say while I’m thinking about them. First of all, I forgot that another came out last fall: a big-screen film starring Heath Ledger and Sienna Miller. Don’t know anything about that movie. I suppose I should Netflix it for comparison’s sake, but it doesn’t look that interesting. I admit I’m biased, but I don’t see how Heath Ledger can be as interesting a Casanova as David Tennant. Ledger is good-looking in a more traditional (i.e., hulking, oafish) way and therefore rather boring. Casting someone with Tennant’s quirky good looks means that the actor has to suggest that there’s some appeal to Casanova other than merely the physical.
This appeal, in the BBC Casanova’s case, is his outrageousness and cheekiness, not to mention his undying ardor for the one woman he can’t have (though of course that doesn’t stop him from sleeping with lots of other women). Casanova screenwriter Russell T. Davies (the Welshman also behind many of the recent “Doctor Who” scripts) wanted to make Casanova a more sympathetic figure than he’s often been. Says Davies, “When I sat down to read Casanova’s autobiography – all 12 volumes of it! – I discovered that our modern-day impression of a lascivious, misogynist man is hopelessly wrong. . . . This man genuinely loved women, and respected them with an astonishingly modern mentality. I also discovered that, outside his love life, Casanova was a wonderful, barmy, inventive man. And what a fraud! Like an 18th century Jeffrey Archer, but funny. He wasn’t born an aristocrat, he lied his way into jobs and positions of power with charm and cheek. He’s just irresistible.”
The style of this Casanova is also rather barmy and inventive. Porpoise commented as we watched that it almost felt like an episode of “Doctor Who” (and this was before we looked up Russell T. Davies on IMDB to find out why his name sounded so familiar). It has electronic music here and there, a fast, almost goofy pace, a mix of humor and occasional pathos, and intentional anachronistic flourishes. In fact, the latter made me think of Sofia Coppola’s upcoming film, much of which is set to 80’s music.
Anyway, Casanova is certainly more risqué than most Masterpiece Theatre miniseries, though I suspect it’s been toned down a bit from the BBC original. Still, I would advise parental discretion (meaning: parents, you probably don’t want to see this). It has its merits, though, especially in the portrayal of Casanova and his lady-love Henriette as two low-born posers scrambling to get by any way they can in class-conscious eighteenth-century Venice.
9 comments October 9th, 2006