The Great British Baking Show

In the words of Angelica Skyler, “I’m about to change your life.” (That was Hamilton reference for those less hip.) Any-who. I discovered this gem of a show on Netflix sometime last year, and I was instantly addicted.

Hostesses Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, with Judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. Photo courtesy of KCTS 9.

There was something about it that was calming to me, for some reason. Maybe it was the quirky music playing in the background or the wonderful hosts that kept everyone calm and laughing or their accents. Oh! I almost forgot about the images of sheep, bunnies, ducks and landscapes that act as intros into a new segment. I will never know for sure.

The Great British Baking Show starts each season off with 12 bakers, and they are subjected to a series of challenges based off the theme of the week. The three rounds are the signature bake, the technical challenge and the showstopper challenge

Hostesses Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc.

I do know, however, that this show is wonderful. It’s wholesome, entertaining and educational. I think Paul Hollywood is a bit mean and cocky, but he does help them to grow. I love Mary Berry. I mean come on! Her name is Mary BERRY; how can you not love her. She has so much baking knowledge, and has an air of grandmotherly love that makes you (as a viewer) believe she truly wants them to succeed.

*No Spoilers*, but there have been some highly controversial eliminations throughout episodes and even winners. I promise that you winner get way more invested than you ever intended. You have been warned.

Watching all of these episodes, I now have all of these ideas that I’m going to start baking my own bread, and baking all of these things. I bought most of the ingredients, but have yet to try anything special. I’ll keep you posted if and when that happens!

New Hosts Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig, alongside Paul Hollywood and New Judge Prue Leith. Photo courtesy of BT TV.

Honestly, I was disappointed with the last two seasons after The Great British Baking Show left the BBC. Sue, Mel and Mary Berry made the decision to stay loyal to the BBC, and did not make the move. In come two new hosts and a new judge. It just wasn’t the same. The cooking was as it always was, but to me it just wasn’t as authentic.

The bakers went through the 3 challenges, listed above, across two days. I always thought it was interesting that every person onscreen wore the same outfit both days. I am assuming that was for continuity and gives the editor freedom to use all the footage without question. One blunder in “The Beginnings”, there was a metallic deer on the wall, and it never failed to be right behind Mel when she was speaking. It made me giggle for sure.

Winner Nadiya Hussain. Photo courtesy of the BBC.

So much could be said about this show, but I’ll leave you with this:

There are plenty of tears and an abundant amount of triumphs. It’s pretty simple, The Great British Baking Show is a treasure in this crazy world we live in. This show will transport you to the great white tent and keep you entertained for hours!

If you do watch it, let me know what you think!

**CLICK to see the trailer.

10 Binge-worthy TV Shows on Netflix

If you’re like me, you have a bit of a problem trying to find something to watch on Netflix. I usually spend more time looking for shows or movies than I do actually watching something. So I’m going to help you out a little bit. Below are the 10 shows on Netflix that I tend to gravitate toward. Happy watching!

Friday Night Lights – Friday Night Lights follows high school football coach, Eric Taylor, and his team the Dillon Panthers as they navigate life and football in a Texas town that only cares about two things: football and winning.

 

One Tree Hill – Half brothers, Nathan and Lucas Scott have a rivalry off of the court, but when basketball, friends, and family get in the way, they must reevaluate their situation in order to move forward.

 

Gilmore Girls – Set in a storybook Connecticut town populated by an eclectic mix of dreamers, artists and everyday folk, this multi-generational drama about family and friendship centers around Lorelai Gilmore and her daughter, Rory.

Army Wives – American drama television series that follows the lives of four army wives, one army husband, and their families.

 

 

Pretty Little Liars – Four friends band together against an anonymous foe who threatens to reveal their darkest secrets, while unraveling the mystery of the murder of their best friend.

Orange is the New Black – The story of Piper Chapman, a woman in her thirties who is sentenced to fifteen months in prison after being convicted of a decade-old crime of transporting money to her drug-dealing girlfriend.

 

13 Reasons Why – Follows teenager Clay Jensen, in his quest to uncover the story behind his classmate and crush, Hannah, and her decision to end her life.

 

Friends – Follows the personal and professional lives of six 20 to 30-something-year-old friends living in Manhattan.

 

Grey’s Anatomy – The medical drama series focuses on a group of doctors at a hospital in Seattle, including several who began their careers at the facility as interns.

 

 

The Vampire Diaries – A teenage girl from Mystic Falls is torn between two vampire brothers, who are quite the opposite.

 

“What do they want? Where are they from?” | Arrival

When you hear the term “Sci-Fi” you think about people turning in zombies or aliens trying to kill the American race or Star Wars / Star Trek. I must admit, I am not the biggest fan of this genre. I’ll watch it for entertainment, but it’s not one I tend to gravitate toward. I think that’s why I waited to see Arrival so late in the game. 

Yes, Arrival is about aliens and 12 Heptipods in which they are housed. But it is so much more than that. It’s about time. How were perceive time, how we use our time, and how time affects our decisions.

We first meet Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a linguist and professor, in one of her classes. She is interrupted by the cell phones of her students telling them about the curious ships that had touched down all over the world. The day they arrived an uproar began. Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) is tasked with finding a team of experts that can help figure out the questions “what do they want? where are they from?”. He recruits Louise as well as mathematician, Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). They, however, are not the first experts that have tried to figure it out.

Every 18 hours a door in the “shell” (that’s what they are calling the ship) opens, but is only open for 2 hours. The team, dressed in hazmat suits and microphone helmets are then lifted into the shell. The first trip into the shell for Louise and Ian don’t go quite as planned. They both get extremely sick and shaky with little to no progress to show for it.

Louise isn’t going to give up that easily. She takes a dry erase board with her on the next trip in order to see if their reading function is better than their speaking.

Just when she thinks it’s not going to work, she takes off all of her protective gear so they can see here and interact with her on a more personal level. She walks up to the glass and places her hand over it. The alien does the same. They then get their first of many symbols in which the aliens convey words and  phrases.However, it’s not as simple as that. The words have to be taught to them slowly. Sentences have to be shown based on the structures. This takes months, and Louise starts to feel some side effects. She starts having visions of what the times seems like flashbacks of this little girl. The aliens, which we now know as Abbott and Castello, have started to do their purpose by showing Louise the way.

Like I said it’s not easy. There are 12 Heptipods. That means 12 different countries forced to work together. But once one of them gets spooked, one by one they go radio silent with the other countries. This forces Louise and Ian to have to work harder in order to save both the Human Race as well as the aliens. We find out later that one of the reasons the aliens came is so that Louise can share their language with the world.

This film is by far one of the best told stories I have ever seen. It pieces together scenes from the past, the present and the future with ease. The story flows seamlessly through the dimensions and it doesn’t take you out of the underlying story. The breathtaking writing, editing and cinematography should get high praise, and Amy Adams is just perfect in this role.

It is a visual, intellectual and beautiful masterpiece, even if it has the Sci-Fi genre attached to it. Even if you aren’t big into aliens and what not, please go rent this film. You will not regret it.

After you’ve seen it and want to read a little more about the ending, and how the story line flows, read this article on ScreenRant by Jared Canifield is really good.

*Click the film title at the top to view the trailer.*

 

“I never met anyone that got away with anything, ever.” | Hell or High Water

Hell or High Water is a story about two brothers that decide to rob a series of banks in order to pay off the ample amount of debt they inherited when their mother passed away.

Ben Foster and Chris Pine in Hell or High Water.

Toby (Chris Pine), is a divorced father who wants to make a better life for his family. His sons were left the family land in their grandmother’s will, but come to find out, the bank wants to foreclose on the property. Toby then comes up with a plan to rob 3 or 4 banks without maximum exposure and a limited amount of risk. That’s where his brother Tanner (Ben Foster) comes in. Tanner is an ex convict with a very happy trigger finger and lives for causing trouble.

The plan is simple. Rob several branches of Texas Midlands Band, the bank in which the reverse mortgage is being held, early in the morning when there aren’t any customers. They are to only take loose cash and only bills 20 dollars and under. They get what they can and take the money the get to a casino to cash it for chips and reverse it for a check made out to the bank. (Money from a casino is untraceable.) Despite everything going relatively smooth, Tanner takes unplanned unnecessary risks which infuriates Toby because he is messing with the lively-hood of his sons.

Their robberies don’t go as under the radar as they’d hoped. Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham) are the two Texas Rangers who are assigned to look into the cases. Hamilton is about to retire from the force, and wants one more good “hunt” before he gives it all up. Which explains why he is relentless to catch these boys. Hamilton is good at his job, and very good at poking fun at his partner Alberto. After he interviews a few of the people they encountered during their tirade; he is able to predict their next move.

This is when things start to go south for Toby and Tanner. They veer from the plan, no thanks to Tanner, and are forced to improvise after one of the banks they are trying to hit is closed. Their shift takes them to a Texas Midlands bank at lunch time with a whole bunch of people standing in line. Of course, we’re in Texas so everyone in the bank has as gun which means an unfortunate shoot out starts as they are about to leave the bank. They left three people shot/dead and Toby hit in the side, but they are forced on a wild chase followed by cars of locals trying to take them down, as well as the Texas Rangers.

I won’t tell you how it ends so I’ll just stop here, and you’ll have to watch it for yourselves. (It’s available for rent at Redbox now.) But I will say the acting was great for the script that they had. Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine were the gems of this film. Pine was subtle yet completely engrossed in the character that he made me believe that what he had to do was right. Jeff Bridges was comical and brilliant as only Jeff Bridges can be.

I also thought it was filmed extremely well. The tone of the film was captured in the beautiful wide shots of landscapes and close ups that captured each character. The sepia -esque color of each shot made the film look rustic like it should in a poor Texas town.

I will say though that this film was definitely not my favorite. (There always seems to be one.) Because it didn’t really hold my attention like an Oscar nominated film should. It didn’t seem to me to have a climax. They had to rob the banks to get money, they got the money, got chased a little bit and happily ever after. Maybe if I watched it again I would have a different feeling, but who knows. Watch it and tell me what you think.

*Click the movie title to watch the trailer.*

“Every time we try to get ahead, they move the finish line” | Hidden Figures

By Rilwan Balogun

I think what I love most about movies is that it takes you to another place. Another world. Another era. Sunday afternoon, I was in Hampton, Virginia in 1963. Before I got into the time machine, that is movies, I had to get there. Anywhere I live, there has to be a theater at least 10 minutes away but I live in walking distance to one now. Walking into the theater, it was about 6 minutes before the movie started and surprisingly it was packed for a matinee.

Hopper Stone/20th Century Fox

The crowd was a mixture of young and old, black and white. I was going to see Hidden Figures, the movie about the role African American women played in NASA. A story I never knew. Nor, did much of America. Anyway back to the theater. I was expecting to walk into one of those smaller rooms where they put a smaller movie. I also expected to be in a room of people that looked like me, black. Surprisingly with joy, I was wrong. The room was as a mixture as the lobby was. Young, old, black, and white were all in the same theater as I of learning the history of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe).

Dorthy Vaughn, Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson the real “human computers”. Bob Nye/NASA/Donaldson Collection/Smith Collection/GADO/Getty Image.

The movie opens to a little girl counting as she kicks a rock down a gravel road. We then are taken to a room where that little girl’s parents are being told just how bright and gifted she is. The story moves ahead to that little girl who now is an adult, Katherine Goble Johnson, working at NASA with a group of colored women known as “computers”. The movie is based on the true story of these women and how they got John Glenn to rotate around the world. I don’t what to ruin the movie for anyone who will see it but I want to share a few scenes that really stood out to me.

“You can probably get to the moon and back with this (access card) but not to the bathroom.”

I expected Taraji P. Henson, to be nominated for an Academy Award for this one scene. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the exact moment where you probably felt goosebumps. Grabbed the person next to you and felt as your eyes swelt with tears. I say that because I felt all of these emotions and did most of them, except grabbing the hands of my neighbor, but in this scene I wanted to. I wanted me and the white older woman sitting next to me to share this moment, like in the movies.

Janelle, Taraji and Octavia in Hidden Figures. Hopper Stone/20th Century Fox

There’s a scene in the movie where the three leads are dancing in the living room after a few drinks. It was odd because it reminds me of an Apple commercial, which Henson is also a part of along with Kerry Washington and Mary J. Blige. It was simply, what they call it, #BlackGirlMagic, same as this movie.

Speaking about music. You can tell Pharrell was the composer on most of the music. Every song had a purpose. Every beat and genre of tune was used for a mission. The soundtrack put me in the ‘60s. I’m surprised it too wasn’t nominated by the Academy for best score.

Before I had to leave the time machine of movies, I had that feeling. The feeling in your throat just before the tears roll down your face. That’s how I felt watching this movie. Learning about the role African American women played in NASA. I wonder how many people of color and women will watch this movie and say, “I too can do that,” I’m grateful they are no longer hidden but I wish we saw them sooner.

 

**Click the Hidden Figures link at the top to view the trailer!

Award Season!

It’s upon us Ladies and Gentlemen! The Golden Globes were two weeks ago , the SAG Awards are tonight and The Oscars are at the end of February. Get excited because I know I am! I have always loved award season, for some reason it makes me giddy like a kid in a candy store. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that each year, a new group of actors, a new list of films, and a wide variety of contributors are honored for doing something that they love. (Which is a rarity these days.)

I am also that little kid in the candy store because I still have the hope that one day, I will be able to sit among those same people as a part of a passion project of mine. There is always hope I guess.

Anyway, last year when I started this blog I decided that I was going to watch every single Best Picture nominee and write a review on them. What made me want to do this is because for some reason the films nominated aren’t widely distributed to theaters and aren’t seen by most people. This is largely in part due to the subject matter and small scale of these incredible films.

This year Rilwan and I (and maybe a few friends) are going to do it all over for you with this new crop of films. We have divided up the films; some of them we’ll both see and possibly write about because we both want to them all. We both have different views on some films subjects because no two people usually watch the same film the same way.

Below is a list of the films we will be reviewing:

Photo courtesy of @TheAcademy . 

We hope you enjoy our comments on each film, and feel free to leave your own comments. We are always up for a good film discussion!

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is the next installment from the mind of J.K. Rowling. When I first heard about the film I was super excited. I mean how could you not be excited? It’s about the wizarding world way before Harry Potter. However, once the trailer came out, I was a bit nervous about how well it was going to be executed, but boy was I wrong! This film is hilarious and thrilling and heartbreaking. It is everything one could hope for in a J.K. Rowling production.

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is about Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) a wizard traveling to New York in the 1920s. The story however, is in the case he carries with him. It houses an array of mythical creatures that are entirely foreign to the wizards and the Magical Congress of the United States of America.

Newt’s first major encounter in New York with Mary Lou Barebone an “activist” that believes all magical people are dangerous and should be executed like the witches during the Salem Witch Trials. While listening to Mary Lou’s speech an Niffler escapes from his case. (Niffler’s are extremely cute and are attracted to shiny objects.) He gets out in a bank of all things, and the Niffler goes crazy with all of the coins and jewels that are housed there.

That’s when we meet aspiring baker Jacob Kowalski (Dan Folger) a No-Maj (or muggle) that just wants to get a loan for his own store-front bakery. But unfortunately for Jacob and fortunately for the viewers, he gets swept into the middle of the magical world when his case is accidentally swapped with Newt’s.

During the scuffle with the Niffler, we see Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterson) an auror trying to get back on the good side of President Seraphina Picquery (Carmen Ejogo), but of course that doesn’t happen because the cases have been swapped. Jacob, however, doesn’t know anything about the magic or really anything that has just happened to him, and heads home. He them opens the case and a handful of creatures escape. That’s the moment the real adventure begins because it forces Newt, Jacob, Tina and Queenie to make sure they all get back.

There are so many twists and turns in the film that it would be impossible to keep this post small. So I’ll just leave you with this, as much as I love Eddie Redmayne (and he is fantastic in this as well as everything else he is in), Dan Folger stole the show for me. He is funny and undeniably human, and of course he gets to experience a world no muggle gets to!

Be sure to go see this film, and meet some of the adorable (and creepy) mythical creatures of the wizarding world!

Netflix’s Amanda Knox Documentary | Foxy Noxy

by: Rilwan Balogun

I remember seeing clips about the American girl who was claimed of killing an English women overseas. When this happened I was 11 and wasn’t entirely focused on the news at that time but I do remember it being a big deal. Since then I never looked into the case.

First, this documentary is stunning. The scenic views of Italy, you would think it was an ad from the country’s tourism industry. Incredibly beautiful shot. Even the prison was gorgeous.

This doc was present by three central voices. The prosecutor. The reporter. The suspects. Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollectio talks us through their recounts of what happened and lead up to the murder of Meredith Kercher. The reporter, Nick Pisa, was kind of the audience’s vessel through the case. He talked about his thoughts on every and about the media circus this case drew in. Giuliano Mignini, the prosecutor on this case, told us the point of view from the police.

There was a moment in the doc when Knox was telling us the moment when her mom came and visited her in jail and the directors, Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn, did a perfect thing they just kept the shot on her as she wept about having her mother see her in prison.

“…at a certain point a police officer slapped me behind the head and was like ‘remember’ and slapped me again and said ‘remember get your brain straight.’ And then I broke.”

There were moments where the reporter, Pisa, kind of made some insensitive remarks on the case. He talked about how if at the time you searched Knox they found a picture of her with a displayed machine gun and her smiling. They did the same on Sollectio and they found a picture of him dressed as a mummy. The used both pictures on the front page of a newspaper.

As a reporter, it was interesting for me to hear his accounts of the case. He mostly talked about how he was glad he was there to cover it. I imagine he talks about the case quite frequently. As anyone would if they had a front row to a global story.

If you’ve seen The Jinx, Making a Murder, or even OJ: Made in America, this is something you’ll want to watch. It’s a telling of a famous case with the real players. Unlike, The Jinx, there isn’t a big reveal at the end of the the hour and 32 minute documentary that you probably don’t already know after a quick Wikipedia read on Knox. But what will keep you is the emotions. Towards the end, not going to spoil anything, there is footage of when Italy’s Supreme Court made a decision. It was an interesting scene to see what she does and who she talks to, for me at least.

Final questions:

1. Everyone claims their innocents, but who killed Meredith?
2. Why did Knox and Sollectio at one point turn on one another?

How To Get Away With Murder

Season 3, episode 2 | There Are Worse Things Than Murder

By: Rilwan Balogun

There will be spoilers. If you have not seen the most recent episode of HTGAWM turn away now. Trust me you would rather watch it than read it. Once you watch it come back and give us your thoughts.

I’m going to start backwards and work my way to the start of the episode.

Viola Davis as Annalise Keating in HTGAWM. (Photo courtesy of ABC)

The show ends with Annalise (Viola Davis) being hailed away in handcuffs for what I am assuming for arson to her own home. Each season we find out about a murder, who killed them, and why it happened. Well, I think, and the way the story is playing it, the writers want us to think that Connor (Jack Falahee) is the one that dies. But before you fall for this trap, remember they want an OMG! Moment and I don’t think it’s Connor.

Charlie Weber as Frank Delfino. (Photo courtesy of ABC)

Before Annalise is handcuffed, the show goes to the flashback scenes and it’s of Michaela (Aja Naomi King) call for Frank (Charlie Weber) to return after doing some terrible things. Annalise, alluded that he was in a psychiatric hospital. What is Frank’s goal? What is he trying to do? This storyline is what I am more interested in than any other. The relationship between Annalise and Frank has always been an issue. From him playing a reason for the loss of her child. Then working for Annalise. Finally, Annalise’s husband, Sam (Tom Verica), had Frank to kill his mistress.

Why hasn’t the university just let Annalise go? Her husband was murdered, she took a case that involved someone’s death, and now the signs all around the case with her as a murder! Remember, the scene where the board of trustees were going to suspend her and then she just said, “No.” Clearly, she is embarrassed and doesn’t want to lose this clinic that she has to beg for but didn’t want. If she was no longer at the university, what would happen? Image is everything to Annalise and if she isn’t at her job where she’s the best, what else does Annalise have?

Jack Falahee as Connor Walsh. (Photo courtesy of ABC)

In this episode we watched Connor win a case everyone thought was dead in the water. But more importantly, he told his client that he help murder Sam, Annalise’s husband, and it seemed that it helped clear his conscious or took the weight off a bit. From the beginning of the series, the entire murder has always weighed heavier on him more so than anyone else. While the weight of holding on to a murder was suppressed for Connor. It came with a whammy of emotions when he and Oliver finally broke up.

Final questions:

1. Will Michaela and Asher make it official and date?
2. Why does Laurel have to go visit her dad?
3. I feel bad for saying it but what will happen to Wes? He is in a good place and we’ve never seen him this happen since episode 1.

 

*Click on the title of the episode to see the promo*

Welcome to The Team!

Hey everybody!

Long time no write. Sorry about that, but it has been crazy busy around here. (I’ll get into that more later.) I have some fantastic news for you though.. I am adding a new writer/reviewer to the Rummaging Around Town Team!

Please welcome Rilwan Balogun!

Rilwan is a multimedia journalist with WILX-TV where he covers Lansing and Mid-Michigan. He is a proud graduate of the University of Tennessee where he majored in Journalism and Electronic Media and minored in Political Science and Cinema Studies. Rilwan was part of the prestigious News21 investigative reporting project out of Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, he along with students across the country covered stories on marijuana in the United States.

He has some fantastic opinions about film, TV and documentaries. I can’t wait for you all to read some of his writings. I believe one is coming very soon!