All of my costume movie reviews have been moved over to:
FROCK FLICKS – the historical costume movie podcast/blog!
You’ll find all my reviews there, plus many many more posts, podcasts, and new content posting daily.
Looking for a specific set of reviews?
Have you seen Ludwig? It’s really long and a bit tedious, and it’s a bit hard to get into because of the subtitles, but the costumes are SO FREAKING FABULOUS.
Our Mutual Friend is a favorite of mine. It is worth seeing, for these reasons:
Contrasting scenes, showing the amazing contrasts in English life: The Dust Heaps; the Desperate River Life; the Country Poor. Then the barely bearable educated poor life. Then the rich and richer lifestylers. When an “inheritance” arrives, the sunny, airy sets and costumes of the dust heap manager’s new home and ‘family’ are grabbed by the eyes as if eyes could breathe finding visual oxygen — and in the final portions of the production, it is as if real oxygen arrives in the natural beauty of the canal scenes with the characters mutual love and recuperation.
This is a great production. The tension in the story and amongst the characters, their utter unpredictability is unlike any other story I’ve ever seen. The pace of the series seems to me in keeping with the story and the historic period.
The artistic design brought great visual power and beauty to a very human and powerful melodrama. I thank all involved in this production, and Dickens, too, of course.
I hope others will give Our Mutual Friend a try. It gets a 5 from me.
“NORTH AND SOUTH” (2004) is set during the early 1850s.