Sexy angst-filled period drama
Brideshead Revisited opened in top markets this past Friday. It expands in a couple of days and more of you can take a good hard look at it. It's a reworking of the famous
Evelyn Waugh novel which was already visualized (some would say definitively) as a miniseries in the early 80s. Even if you dig period pieces (and who doesn't love the early 20th century on celluloid?) you might be knocked right out of period and back into your seat in 2008 the second
Matthew Goode (left) unveils his impossibly beautiful body. I don't think they had no-carb diets, body waxing or personal trainers back in the post Edwardian era but don't get me wrong... I'm not complaining about this particular anachronism.
The new
Brideshead Revisited isn't in the same league as the previous milestones of the very specific cinematic subgenre of Stuffy British Boys in Quasi-Romantic Relationships. It's not
Another Country (starring Rupert Everett & Colin Firth) or
Maurice (starring James Wilby & Hugh Grant) but it's got plenty of eye candy if you're into that sort of thing.
I was so distracted by Goode's beauty (and the directors obvious reverence towards the same) that I could barely concentrate on what was being skipped over in the reduced plot. Just about the only other thing that registered (and how!) was the brilliant
Emma Thompson in an against-type role of the controlling devout matriarch of the wealthy Flyte family.
Goode was profiled in this past Sunday's
NY Times Style Magazine which featured several mouth-watering photographs.
You may remember Goode as the upper crust object of Jonathan Rhys Meyers' envy in Woody Allen's
Match Point. One of the unintentional tricks of
Brideshead is that Goode has essentially switched roles for this follow-up. Now Ben Whishaw is playing Goode's privileged rich boy role and Goode himself is in social climbing Rhys Meyers position. When well-heeled Matthew was done ordering his food in a great scene in
Match Point (
previous post) he closed his menu with a delicious flourish. "Num num" he said. I didn't even need to look at the menu after that.
Forget the food, this man's the main course.
Thus ends the 4th season of Hump Day Hotties. It is now officially 'on the bubble'. Film Experience executives will convene this summer to determine whether to cancel or renew for fall. Hump Day Hotties has been a Polysexual Blog Offering.
Season 4 Penélope Cruz, Clara Bow, Shia Labeouf, "Boobs & Abs" Engaged, Savage Grace, Baz Luhrmann, Dennis Quaid, Drew Barrymore, Matthew Barney, Natalie Wood, The Oscar Nominees, Kathleen Turner, Russell Harvard, Carice Van Houten and Helena Bonham Carter
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Season 3 Paul Newman, Anne Hathaway, Rodrigo Santoro, Maggie Smith Season 2 Hot TV, Channing Tatum, James McAvoy, Uma Thurman Season 1 Cillian Murphy, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmanuelle Béart and Lady Tottingon