Friday Favourites: movies and TV series (Curly Traveller)

I love watching movies and TV series! Luckily there is so much quality entertainment available nowadays; wow.

Living in two worlds though -Singapore and the Netherlands- plus some serious traveling on the side, means that we don’t watch a lot of television. Why not? Well, providers are not that flexible, so subscriptions that you can expand and minimize easily per month, depending on where you are…nah, not really possible. That means that we have the most basic TV packages everywhere: booooooring!Even if our preferred series would be in our basic packages, we could probably catch episode 3, 7, 8, 12 and have to miss the rest, due to our traveling.

Besides, isn’t it much nicer to watch what you want to see when you want to see it?

Now I know that many people know all about (illegally or not) downloading movies from the web, but we are not that savvy. Also nowadays there is Netflix. But that is not available in every country. Another issue that we have is that watching foreign movies and series without dutch subtitles can be quite tiring and difficult. Mind you, our english is fine. But actors, or at least their characters, often speak slang, they mumble, etcetera, making it hard for a non-native english speaker to follow the dialogues. And then I’m not even talking about Scandinavian series. Obviously we need subtitles for that!

So what’s our preferred way of watching movies and series? We order the DVD’s online (e.g. via Bol.com) in the Netherlands, so that we have them with dutch subtitles. We bring them with us to Singapore, or in our suitcase when traveling, and when we feel for it, we cuddle up on the couch for some serious binge-watching! This way we see a lot of quality series and movies.

Let me share some of my favorites with you:

1. Breaking Bad

Everything about this series is brilliant. From the intro/leader, to the story lines, to the acting, the music and the imagery. One of, if not THE, best series ever made!!! A must-see. Violent, dark, but also with humor in all of that. And that song that Gale sings while nurturing his plants; I downloaded it right away!

Here is that scene with the song:

2. The Big C

Four seasons, about a woman with cancer. A ‘heavy’ theme, but there is so much humor in this! Great acting too. Original story lines and pretty unconventional for an american series.

I love Laura Linney; she is such a great actrice!

3. Weeds

Eight seasons! There are the weirdest scenes and characters and the acting is very good. In a couple of seasons it got a bit too crazy and too much for my taste. Messy, you could say. And main character Nancy becomes a bit less lovable every season, or is that just me? Still, very open about sex, drugs and other taboos, which is refreshing in american series. I just saw the final season and I had to laugh a lot. So I definitely recommend it.

4. Treme

A mosaic story about a number of people in New Orleans after Katrina. Very good and natural acting. But the star of the series is the city of New Orleans itself. With all it’s characteristics: food, music (lots of music!), and Mardi Grass. Many cameos of musicians who play themselves. Really interesting, entertaining and swinging.

Here is a trailer:

5. Wallander

There are the books, the scandinavian Tv series and the Britsh Tv version. Although the British series with Kenneth Brannighan is good too, I prefer the scandinavian one. The acting is superb, the stories are told in a not too fast pace and there is a lot of time for the characters to unfold.

A short interview with the actor who plays Wallander so brilliantly:

6. Borgen

This series about Danish politics, parliament and the prime minister is so intelligent. The story, the acting; never expected to find politics this exciting and entertaining!