I just want to say as a fan of True Blood but one who doesn't have access to HBO, I can't wait for this blu-ray version to come out! It is a wonderful series. I saw one episode in a hotel last summer. Yes, I am such a fan of the show, I missed a night out in New York to sit in my hotel room and watch True Blood. If the rest of the series is as as good as the one episode that I managed to see, than I will be very happy with my purchase. I intend to hole up and watch the entire season over one weekend. Can't wait to see what happens to all the characters but especially my favorite characters -- Jessica and Pam!

My rating is on pure speculation but I know I will love it.

I just can't jump on the bandwagon for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." I don't think that Stieg Larsson is much of a writer. His style is competent but undistinguished. I just didn't care about the characters and truth told, I didn't make it past the first hundred pages.

I can't wait to own this DVD and I hope there are many interesting extras. When I first read about King's Speech, I cynically thought that it would be yet another polished British drama, tailor made for award season. On seeing the film, I was surprised how much I was drawn into the story. It is the best kind of historical drama, one in which the historical facts themselves are interesting enough with embellishing the story. The fact that George VI struggled with a stammer is very well known. I was very pleased that someone finally made him the focus of a historical drama. Usually, movies about this generation of the British royal family are concerned with the drama surrounding abdication crisis and it was interesting to see Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson as supporting characters in the drama. Guy Pearce makes a wonderfully weak Edward.

The centerpiece of the movie is Colin Firth's performance as Albert, The Duke of York, known to his family as Bertie and, then with the abdication of Edward VIII, King George VI. The performance lives up to the critical acclaim that Firth has received. Firth's George VI is a vulnerable man driven by a sense of duty but struggling with responsibilities that he, as in his former position as the Duke of York, never expected to have. It is also the story of man struggling with a debilitating stutter and with the painful memories of a strict Victorian upbringing.

Luckily for George VI his married life is much happier. Helena Bonham Carter's stout and brilliantly dressed and marcelled Queen Elizabeth is a warm hearted and kind wife, concerned for her husband, but at ease with all she meets. Riding with Bertie in the back of a car, upset by Mrs. Simpson's snide comments about her plump figure, her husband gently teases her, playfully restoring her good humor - the confirmation of a happy marriage. This too is rooted in reality. The real Elizabeth (later known as the Queen Mother) was very supportive of her husband and the animosity between Mrs. Simpson and Elizabeth is very well known.

I have to mention that I once saw the Queen Mother in person. She was visiting the Ontario Legislature in Ontario and that summer I was working as a library page in the legislature's law library. I remember that she was wearing a beautiful bright turquoise georgette dress and that she had the loveliest complexion and a very warm smile. She seemed to me to be e veryone's ideal grandmother, but also one who also liked her gin. As soon as I saw a publicity still in which Boham Carter tilted her head to one side as the Queen Mother did, I knew she would be wonderful in the role.

The king was also fortunate in his choice of speech therapists. Geoffrey Rush's Lionel Logue, an unorthodox therapist and much worse, as an Australian in England, he is an outsider in the medical community. He is tough his royal patient, demanding to put aside Bertie's social sation, but his methods prove effective enough to help his royal client. This isn't the first speech therapist that the Duke has seen and in a montage, it is fascinating to see how primitive speech therapy was in the thirties. Over time the two men eventually become friends. I liked Rush's performance. I have never seemed him so relaxed and comfortable in a role. In another year he would be guaranteed all the major awards, but unfortunately this year he has to compete with Christian Bale's showier role as a drug addicted ex-boxer in the Boxer.

Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter adapted Shakespeare's Hamlet and set it the world of a blue collar California biker gang, who are called the "Sons of Anarchy." The always wonderful Ron Perlman plays Clay Morrow, the Claudius figure and the leader of the gang and Charlie Hannum is Jackson Teller, his stepson and the Hamlet figure. It seems that Jackson's mother, Gemma, married Clay after her first husband, John Teller, the former gang leader and Jackson's father died under suspicious circumstances. There is no ghost of Hamlet's father except for the hidden manuscript authored by Jackson's father and voiced by Nicolas Guest. The Ophelia figure is Tara, a local doctor and Jackson's high school sweetheart who finds herself involved in the gang.

While this premise is simple, Sons of Anarchy is actually quite complex. We follow the Sons in their often violent criminal activities, rivalries with other gangs and confrontations with the law. There are also domestic dramas -- troubles with women -- their "old ladies" The cast is universally good. Standouts are Katie Sagal (Mrs. Kurt Sutter) as Gemma, the psychologically manipulative mother and Kim Coates as Tig, the gang's psychopathic sargeant of arms.

This excellent show is not broadcast in Canada and I discovered it on blu ray at my local rental place. I found the show so compelling that I purchased it and spend the entire weekend watching it. I just could not stop, it is that compelling. Unfortunately, it has been overlooked by the awards people but it is as good as any show on television. I highly recommend it.

Dull and gross. I went to see it in the theater. The premise is that many famous comedians give their take on this tasteless old vaudeville comedian insider's joke. The highlights are Sarah Silverman's take on the joke but also Bob Saget's. Saget has build a career around playing the nice guy, so to see him work blue is pretty interesting. Nevertheless, I think enough is said when Bob Saget is a highlight. We walked out.

There are quite a few television shows that were canceled before their time, but which live on in our affections and Firefly is just one of these shows. I never watched it when it was on the air but, like so many, I purchased a copy of the blue-ray DVD and was stunned at just how good it was. Like so many science fiction programs, it has its origins in Westerns. A group of dispossessed people (two war vets, a mechanic, a pilot, a prostitute, an outlaw, a fugitive doctor and his sister, and a preacher) take refuge on board Serenity, a firefly class starship. The basis for the story is the westward expansion of the American frontier after the Civil War. Istead of the American west, we are in the frontier of space. Usually episodes concentrate on the crew finding themselves in one tight spot or another and finding or fighting their way out. Over the years it has developed an enthusiastic following of which I am one. Highly recommended.

I'm going to play devil's advocate for this bestseller. After some very high recommendations from my friends, I purchased a copy of Eat Pray Love and brought it with me on my winter cruise. After numerous frustrating attempts to get through the first chapter I just could not finish this book. I found Ms. Gilbert's attitude and her prose to be artificial and self serving. How many of us can just pack-up and uproot ourselves, running away from our commitments? I understand the appeal of the book. It represents the imagined journey of discovery, the one without intrusive airport security, lonely moments in hotels and bad restaurant tables. All while being lead around by tour guides like so many sheep. Soon, I took my copy of Eat Pray Love and tucked it back into my luggage.

Vegan Comfort Food is a good basic cookbook that features accessible recipes for both vegans and non vegans alike. There is a good variety of recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The emphasis is on easy to make comfort food that anyone could make and enjoy. There are several recipes for lasagna, Tex Mex dishes such as burritos and enchaladas, smoothies and different varieties of sandwiches. It would be an excellent cookbook for vegans who are entertaining their non-vegan guests or for beginner vegans.

The T.A.M.I show is a must see for music fans. The film was hidden away in obscurity for years and is thankfully now available now on DVD, I first saw it as special on PBS and was floored. Shot by director Steve Binder and his crew from the Steve Allen show, the T.A.M.I. show is arguably one of the greatest concert films of all time. It features some of the most important acts of the early 1960s rock and R&B. It was filmed in Santa Monica in October of 1964 in a straightfoward way that become the model for later concert film such as Stop Making Sense. The bands were surrounded by a group of of energetic gogo dancers including a young Toni Basil and Teri Garr. One of the pleasures of watching the T.A.M.I show is trying to spot them in the mix. Of particular note among the bands are are an energetic performance by the Beach Boys, Leslie Gore at the height of her career and The Rolling Stones. However, it is James Brown's performace that is often regarded as one of the greatest in music history. I highly recomment it.

Coco Avant Chanel is a charming biographical film about the early life of Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel, tracing her early years from childhood abandoment at a convent, through to her time as a mistress of wealthy men. Coco Avant Chanel would be just an ordinary art house biopic except for the charming performance of the always lovely Audrey Tantou. As expected the look of the movie is wonderful. The costumes are especially well done and I loved the fact that the costume designer gave Chanel's early experiments with her personal style the feel of being handmade and improvised instead of being finished costumes. After all, this movie isn't just about Chanel's early love affairs but also dipictes of the evolution of the personal style of arguably fashion's great innovator. The film richly deserved the Oscar nomination for costume design.