Movies Monthly: January

In January, some of our favorite series came back after the Christmas break. Besides, Sherlock appeared with the newest season, which was in our opinion the best of all.

A new season of Death in Paradise (detective story series) started. DI Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) seems to be a more interesting character than the DI of the very first Death in Paradise season. Officer Dwayne Myers (Danny John-Jules) is quite a funny person, he adds a lot of humor to the series.

Brand new BBC series have begun this year:

• Vera - a detective story, the most interesting one. 

Vera (Brenda Bethlyn) is a middle-aged female detective, sharp minded, determined and very friendly as well. She addresses everybody 'Love'. Although she looks very soft, more like not a very well-groomed housewife, than a bright policewoman who she actually is, she speaks her mind when it is needed. Being successful at her work, Vera seems not to cope very well with her loneliness - lonely personal life.

• Black Books (comedy) - silly but entertaining.

• Murder in Suburbia - just another detective story series about two young lady detectives.

Other series which we found interesting:

• Six (war, action, history, drama) - 2017

• The Story of God with Morgan Freeman (documentary)  

The new season was a bit different than the previous one. Mr. Freeman did not travel to all the places on Earth showed in the 3 episodes. There were other persons instead of him as well. I wish there had been more episodes of the documentary series.

• Secrets of the Six Wives (documentary) - interesting facts and the history showed from a different angle - the king Henry VIII's wives perspective. We learned new things about the queens' life stories and all the history matters showed from their point of view.

Most interesting movies of January

• The Saint Meets the Tiger - 1943

• The Saint's Vacation - 1941

You think you know something but you actually do not. We thought The Saint series made in the 60s was the original one - meaning the idea and the main character. It appeared there had been quite a few, made much earlier movies about Simon Templar - an early version of James Bond. They were based on the novels by Leslie Charteris - which we had never heard about.

According to us, the worst of those Saint movies was The Saint Strikes Back, which was supposed to be created under the supervision of the book character author. The plot of that story was very weak and not so interesting and humorous as the ones mentioned above.

Anyway, we watched all the old and original The Saint films (1938-1943). The very first one - The Saint in New York, was quite different to all the ones which followed it. It was more like a gangster movie not just a story about a wealthy dandy.

• State and Main - (comedy), 2000. Some truths showed in the movie seem to be always current.

• Lucy - (SF) 2014 - quite an intriguing story about a woman who was able to use 100% of her brain.

• Lone Survivor - (war) 2014 - we watched the movie (based on the real story/book Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team by Marcus Luttrell) when it was released in 2014. Since we read the second book written by the same author, we just wanted to remind ourselves the Lone Survivor.

• Windtalkers - (war/WW2), 2002, with Nicolas Cage - a very interesting movie showing the participation of Navajo Marines in the war. I had not known that the Navajo language was used during WW2 as an unbreakable code/radio cipher.

• The Man Who Knew Too Much - (thriller), 1956 - a classic by Alfred Hitchcock, with Doris day and her song 'Que Cera'.

• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (musical), 1964 - a French & German production, great soundtrack, and main music theme.

• To Be or Not to Be - (comedy),1942 - a funny story of a Polish theater troupe involved in an anti-spy plot. The comedy is set in Warsaw occupied by Nazis (WW2). This original story and the film were much better and funnier than a remake made in 1983.