To Rome With Love: Farce and Fantasy in Italy

Woody Allen's romp through Europe has now brought him to The Eternal City, with an all-star cast of Americans and Italians stumbling through a series of ridiculous and comic mishaps in Roma.

To Rome with Love features four separate stories, with no connecting thread apart from the fact that they're all based in Rome. In one tale, Allen and Judy Davis play an American couple who are meeting their daughter's Italian fiance for the first time. Allen, a former opera director, hears his daughter's prospective father-in-law singing a glorious aria in the shower and decides that he must showcase this man's talent, even against the wishes of his horrified family. In another story, Roberto Benigni plays an ordinary family man who works as a clerk but wakes up one day to discover that he has become inexplicably famous and is dogged everywhere by the paparazzi. What follows is an amusing treatise on the culture of being famous for being famous, and the fleeting nature of this undeserved fame.

A third story features a naive Italian couple who have arrived in Rome for their honeymoon and are promptly separated due to unforseen circumstances. The new bride faces temptation when she arrives at a film set featuring some of her favorite Italian actors, including a particularly amorous leading man, while the new groom has to deal with a prostitute (played by Allen's latest muse, Penelope Cruz) who mistakenly arrives in his hotel room and has to pretend to be his wife when his relatives see them in a compromising position. The fourth and final story follows Alec Baldwin, playing an architect named John who is vacationing in Rome and runs into Jack (Jesse Eisenberg), a student who lives in the same house where John lived as a student 30 years ago. Jack invites him home, and John proceeds to become a mentor to the hapless Jack, who is living with his girlfriend Sally (Greta Gerwig), but is fascinated with her visiting best friend, Monica (played by Ellen Page, in a hysterical role as an extremely pretentious and narcissistic actress).

These disparate anecdotes are equally funny and inane. Each story has its own neurotic Woody Allen character, whether it's Jesse Eisenberg, Alessandro Tiberi as the worried Italian newlywed, Roberto Benigni, or Allen himself. And each tale features a series of observations about life, people, and the complexities of human relationships. It's a hodgepodge of observations made throughout Allen's movies, but they're still universal and hysterical. There's also a nice helping of farce and over-the-top screwball antics that keep you in stitches even as you consider the absurdity of what you're watching.

Unlike Allen's other European movies, To Rome With Love doesn't evoke the same fascination with the film's locale. Match Point was a classy British enterprise, Midnight in Paris was laced with French attitudes, Vicky Cristina Barcelona had a distinctly Spanish sensibility. Almost one-half of the dialogue in To Rome With Love is conducted in Italian, but it feels like a movie that could have taken place anywhere. Rome has nothing to do with the plot apart from supplying the language. But perhaps that is Allen's greatest observation about humanity. Whether you're in Rome, Paris, or the Upper East Side, people are still having the same ridiculous conversations and getting into ridiculous situations.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Spidey's Back!

When The Amazing Spider-Man came out this summer, everyone had something to say about how unnecessary it was. Rebooting the franchise when the last Spider-Man movie (Spider-Man 3) came out a mere 5 years ago in 2007 certainly seemed silly. But people forget that Batman Begins came out just 8 years after the last Batman & Robin movie, and that worked out just fine for Christopher Nolan and Christan Bale. The Amazing Spider-Man is no Batman Begins, but it's a serviceable reboot nonetheless.

The best thing about any reboot is getting a brand new cast that brings a fresh perspective to an aging franchise. By the time Spider-Man 3 came around, Tobey Maguire was no longer embodying the best of Peter Parker. So it is refreshing to have Andrew Garfield step in as Spidey. He brings a different energy to the character of Peter Parker - he's still a bullied nerd, but rather than silently putting up with it, this incarnation puts up more of a fight. Even before he's bitten by that infamous spider, Peter is standing up to bullies and trying to fight his own battles, albeit unsuccessfully. The old Spider-Man was a bit of a schlub who only became heroic once he had superpowers. This Spider-Man is already a hero - he just needs the superpowers to get stuff done.

Another difference from prior movies is the love interest. Instead of red-headed Mary Jane Watson, we get blonde Gwen Stacy, whose father happens to be a NYPD police captain. Gwen is played by the always-delightful Emma Stone, who gives us a 21st century version of a superhero's girlfriend. Gwen and Peter share a witty and delightful chemistry that makes it clear that they're a couple on an equal footing. Interestingly, Peter reveals his identity to Gwen pretty early on in their relationship, thereby lightening the traditional superhero burden of being the only one harboring a massive secret. For her part, Gwen is no hapless heroine just waiting to be rescued every five minutes. Instead, she works with Peter, trying to help him chase down the villainous Dr. Connors, and illustrates that she can be intelligent and resourceful even if she lacks a superpower.

The movie's plot is pretty standard, and the origin story isn't revamped in any particularly ingenious way. We get a little more of Peter's family history, and there's some mystery surrounding his father's experiments, but otherwise we all know the story about how Peter Parker became Spider-Man. Rhys Ifans plays a serviceable villain with some complexity to him since he isn't completely evil. And I imagine the movie looked pretty stunning on the big screen. Spider-Man's flights through the city are exhilarating and fun, and even though I saw it on a small screen, I could appreciate the grand scale of the action. Garfield's movements are expertly choreographed and there are many shots that feel like a page right out of the comic books.

The Amazing Spider-Man is a typical superhero movie, but it is elevated by the excellence of its cast. Andrew Garfield has successfully put a new spin on a classic character and turned him into a hero in the true sense of the word.

Safety Not Guaranteed: Time Traveling, Indie Style

One of the perks of a trip to Europe is that all the summer movies you missed are available as in-flight entertainment. Therefore, this week the blog will cover a bunch of movies I watched on planes, most of which are now available on DVD so you won't have to wait to check them out for yourself.

First up, Safety Not Guaranteed. The movie stars Aubrey Plaza (from the ever-joyful Parks & Recreation), Jake Johnson (from New Girl), and Mark Duplass (one half of the Duplass brothers who wrote and directed the brilliant Jeff, Who Lives At Home). It is a small indie comedy, heavy emphasis on "small" and "indie." Plaza plays Darius Britt, a bored intern at a Seattle magazine who teams up with Jeff Schwensen (Johnson), one of the magazine's writers, to do an investigative piece about a weird classified ad in the newspaper. The ad reads as follows:
 
"Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. Safety not guaranteed."

Intrigued by this oddball advertisement, Darius, Jeff, and nerdy Indian intern, Arnau (Karan Soni), set off to track down the writer of the ad. He turns out to be Kenneth Calloway (Duplass), a man who works in a grocery store and seems just as weird as his ad would suggest. After Jeff unsuccessfully attempts to interview him, Darius taps into her inner weirdo and establishes a rapport with this paranoid time traveler. Eventually, Kenneth decides that she would be a worthy companion for his time traveling mission. He has no idea Darius works for a newspaper, so Jeff and Arnau have to keep out of the way while Darius worms her way into Kenneth's life and attempts to figure out what is wrong with him. I can't go into much more detail because this is a short movie and anything further would just give the whole thing away. Suffice to say, there are a few amusing sideplots featuring Jeff and Arnau's exploits, a burgeoning love story between Darius and Kenneth, and increasing confusion about whether Kenneth actually is crazy.

Despite the outlandish plot, Safety Not Guaranteed is a very quiet movie. There are some funny moments, some sweet moments, some exciting moments, but mostly it's just a strange 80-minute exercise in storytelling. The tone is vague and unpredictable and I certainly didn't anticipate the final scene. For the most part, you have no idea where this movie is going, and then when you get there, you don't know what to think. Like most indies, the ending is ambiguous and rather unfulfilling, because after devoting so much time to character development, you have no idea what happened to the characters.

This is a so-so movie, neither a masterpiece nor a dud, and in fact, perfect for watching on a plane. Watch it if you need a distraction for an hour and a half, but if you're looking for something genuinely meaningful, look elsewhere.

The Woman Who Died A Lot: Let the Literary Hijinks Ensue

The moment I started reading The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, I knew I had found my new favorite author. I later discovered he won the Wodehouse Prize for comic literature in 2004; given my love for P.G. Wodehouse, that was just the icing on the cake. The Woman Who Died A Lot is the seventh book in the Thursday Next series that began with The Eyre Affair. Given the sprawling and inventive nature of the plot, there is nothing I can tell you about this book without telling you to start from the beginning with The Eyre Affair.

The series follows Thursday Next, a woman who works as a Literary Detective in an alternate version of England where people are obsessed with literature to the point that gang warfare breaks out between Marlowe and Shakespeare enthusiasts. In The Eyre Affair, our intrepid heroine uses her uncle's invention of a Prose Portal to enter into books. She ends up chasing a criminal through the world of Jane Eyre, leading to unforeseen and hilarious consequences. The next book in the series, Lost in a Good Book, really gets the ball rolling once Thursday learns how to read herself into books and becomes a member of JurisFiction, the police force within the BookWorld that ensures books and readers are given their proper due. Trained by Great Expectations' Miss Havisham, Thursday has to figure out how things work in the BookWorld while simultaneously dealing with vengeful criminals and the shadowy Goliath Corporation.

Apart from all the literary allusions and cameos from beloved characters in classic literature, there are subplots involving the time-travelling ChronoGuard police force, Thursday's ever-complicated family life, genetically engineered dodos, and a myriad of other mind-bending notions that will keep you on your toes. Throughout, Fforde indulges in some of the wittiest wordplay you could hope to find in modern literature, and every page has a line that is destined to become your favorite. It can be something as simple as a hermit stating that his dinner tonight is a gruel sandwich without the bread, which just struck me as a gloriously silly throw-away line. Every chapter begins with an excerpt from a fake book, like Thursday Next's biography or a treatise on some aspect of the BookWorld, and all these elements mesh together to create a fully-realized and utterly three-dimensional fantasy world that is a sheer delight for any literature lover.

The Woman Who Died A Lot is a wonderful addition to the series, featuring a more battle-worn Thursday who is nearing retirement but still has to deal with the machinations of the scheming mnemonomorph (i.e. memory manipulator), Aornis Hades, as well as an impending smiting from a newly-revealed deity, and a series of fake Thursdays who have to be killed repeatedly. Although the novel concerns itself almost exclusively with Thursday's world than the BookWorld, it is still just as brilliant and funny as any other book in the series. The series is slated to be an octology, so the next book will signal the end of Thursday Next. Until then, however, you have seven glorious books to catch up on. 

English Vinglish: A Housewife On A Mission

The day after I watched Barfi!, I watched English Vinglish and was reminded that Bollywood can still make fantastic movies. The movie is written and directed by a woman, Gauri Shinde, and stars Sridevi in her first movie since 1997. Clearly Bollywood is answering my pleas for more women in cinema, and doing so with panache.

Sridevi plays Shashi, a Maharashtrian housewife who runs a small business selling ladoos (Indian sweets) to people in her neighborhood. Her kids and husband all speak English, but she doesn't since she was educated at a Hindi-medium school. Various incidents make her feel less-respected and ridiculed by her family - her daughter is clearly embarrassed that she can't speak English, and her husband doesn't think her ladoo business is particularly praiseworthy. Then her sister calls from New York and asks her to help with preparations for her niece's wedding. After much cajoling, Shashi is persuaded to make the terrifying trip to America all by herself.

Once she lands in New York, Shashi feels further overwhelmed and unhappy that she doesn't know the language. A brutal incident in a coffee shop leads her to make a call to the NY Language Center, which promises English fluency in 4 weeks. Keeping the secret from her family, Shashi successfully makes the trek into Manhattan and enrolls in the class that will change her life.

Obviously her fellow students represent an amusing cast of characters, including a Mexican nanny, a Pakistani cab driver, a South Indian IT guy, a French chef, a Chinese hairstylist, and a quiet African man. Their teacher is the flamboyant David, who quickly gets them to delve right into the language, and Shashi proves to be an adept pupil. Her ladoo business, so quickly dismissed by her family, earns her the title of "entrepreneur" from David, and for the first time in her life she feels like she has achievements to boast about. Her younger niece spots her getting out of class one day but promises to keep her secret and supplies her with DVDs to further her English progress. And meanwhile, the French chef, Laurent (played by French actor Mehdi Nebbou, who gives a marvellously understated performance) is falling in love with Shashi, who remains oblivious to his tentative overtures. 

English Vinglish is incredibly funny and zips along its two-hour runtime. Shashi's transformation from mousy housewife to a woman brimming with self-confidence is a wonder to behold and Sridevi delivers a very moving and affecting performance. The cast of characters in the English class are hilarious - they initially fall into certain foreign stereotypes but are so good-natured and charming that they really come into their own. The movie embraces everyone, and no one is deemed the villain of the piece. Instead, it's just a funny, warm tale about human foibles and the importance of loving yourself. I can't recommend it highly enough. 

Barfi!: Bollywood Attempts To Go Hollywood

Barfi! is India's entry for the Oscars this year. And judging from the trailers and general buzz, I imagined it would be worth watching. Unfortunately, instead of being an excellent Bollywood movie, it is just a mediocre attempt to be a Hollywood one.

Set mostly in 1970s Darjeeling, the film follows Barfi, a deaf-mute man (played astonishingly well by Ranbir Kapoor) who is the town prankster and seems to be perpetually on the run from the police. One day he runs into Shruti Ghosh (Ileana D'Cruz), an engaged woman due to be married in three months, and falls for her. The feeling is mutual, though she won't admit it right away, and the two become fast friends. However, when push comes to shove, Shruti can't give up everything for Barfi, so she gets married and moves away to Kolkata. Meanwhile, Barfi's father is seriously ill and requires expensive treatment. Desperate to scrape up the cash, Barfi tries a variety of schemes, including robbing a bank, but finally hits upon the idea of kidnapping Jhilmil Chatterjee. Barfi's father worked for the Chatterjees as a chauffeur, so Barfi and Jhilmil are childhood friends. Also, Jhilmil is severely autistic (portrayed with a great deal of restraint and sensitivity by Priyanka Chopra), which makes kidnapping her a somewhat difficult enterprise.

That might seem like enough story to be getting on with, but there are all manner of unnecessary complications, including the decision to tell this entire story through a series of flashbacks and flashforwards that make it impossible to keep the timeline straight. I spent most of my time being extremely confused as to which flashback I was currently watching and sorting out what events had already unfolded or were about to transpire. At two and a half hours, the movie is entirely too long; it has a strong finish, but by the time you get there, you're too exasperated to care.

However, the movie does have a wonderful aesthetic. Every frame is suffused with light and color, with Darjeeling looking like something out of a fairytale. And the acting is phenomenal, with Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra playing their differently-abled characters with nuance and understanding. It seems like writer-director Anurag Basu got carried away by the look and feel of the movie and in typical Bollywood fashion decided that more is better. Ergo the convoluted plot, neverending chases sequences through the beautiful streets and fields of Darjeeling, and countless nods to the work of Chaplin or Keaton in the silent-movie era. The movie's soundtrack is delightful and essential to a movie with so little dialogue, but the fact that it is a complete rip-off of the Amelie soundtrack cannot be denied. There's enough variation to hopefully avoid a lawsuit (let's hope the Oscar committee sees it that way at least) and I was willing to let it slide until a typewriter was incorporated into the background score in such a blatant copy of "Pas Si Simple" that I had to protest.

Barfi!'s selection as an Oscar entry is a very obvious ploy to cater to Oscar tastes. Every cynic knows that an actor has a good shot at winning an Academy Award if they're playing a disabled person, a real-life figure, or a Nazi. Throw in the fact that the silent film, The Artist, won Best Picture last year, and you can see why Bollywood thought Barfi! would be a shoo-in. I can't deny the acting is Oscar-worthy, but the execution certainly isn't. So next year, I hope Bollywood decides to laud a movie that features not only great performances but also realizes that the true art of moviemaking lies in telling a great story.

Argo: Political Crises & Covert Ops

The Oscar onslaught is ramping up and Argo is the current source of awards buzz. This is Ben Affleck's third film as director (he is also the lead actor) and offers definitive proof that the man knows what he's doing behind the camera.

Argo is "based on a declassified true story" and demonstrates that a real spy story can often be wilder than fiction. The movie begins in 1979 and the opening scenes quickly educate the audience on the lead-up to the Iranian revolution, setting the stage for the storming of the American embassy in Tehran and ensuing hostage crisis. Most people know about the unfortunate Americans held hostage at the embassy for more than a year, but Argo's focus is on six Americans who escaped and took refuge at the Canadian ambassador's house. Once Washington gets word of the situation, the State Department must come up with a plan to exfiltrate these six Americans without rousing the suspicions of the Iranians.

Affleck plays Tony Mendez, the CIA's exfiltration expert, and he realizes the State Department has no clue what it's doing. Their proposals are ridiculous, so he counters with a proposal that is so crazy it just might work. Using the CIA's contacts with a makeup artist in Hollywood, Mendez creates a fake production company based around a script for a terrible sci-fi movie called Argo. This allows for a great deal of hilarious insight into showbusiness and how simple it is to bankroll a fake movie that's bound to be a flop. The movie is supposed to take place in Middle Eastern landscapes and will allow Mendez to enter Iran under the pretense of scouting filming locations. Once in Iran, he can meet the six Americans, furnish them with Canadian passports and fake identities that make them a part of his fake film crew, and get them on a plane out of Iran.

As Mendez's boss explains to the State Department, their only options are bad options, and this is "the best bad plan" the CIA can offer. So Mendez sets off for Iran, and a pulse-pounding thriller ensues. The six Americans are understandably wary, and adopting a new identity over the course of two days seems crazy for people with no CIA training. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and the stakes are too high to not give this extraordinary scheme a chance. Although the film's conclusion is inevitable, you fervently follow the action, wondering how on earth these people are going to pull off this insane mission. And the film ends with an interesting look at the diplomatic repercussions of the incident, as well as giving some much overdue acknowledgment to the people involved.

Argo is tightly-scripted, fast-paced, funny, dramatic, and edge-of-your-seat fantastic. The production design and cinematography is impeccable, steeped in a late 70's aesthetic down to the use of the old Warner Brothers logo as the film begins. The cast is a dream team of TV and film fa Overall, this is a brilliant movie, and the fact that it is based on a true story only cements its brilliance.

Parade's End: Domestic Strife & World War

There is one word that can be used to describe the HBO/BBC miniseries Parade's End: lush. Set in Edwardian England as World War I descends upon Europe, it features a bewildering parade of wealthy socialites, earnest soldiers, greedy social-climbers, and idealistic ingenues. While some are laughing in their lavish estates, others are struggling to stay alive in filthy trenches. And sociopolitical machinations abound, from the movements of soldiers and generals to the movements of husbands and wives. The incomparable playwright Tom Stoppard has whittled down a tetralogy of novels by Ford Madox Ford into this five-episode miniseries that is steeped in beauty, humor, and Englishness.

At the center of this vast story is Christopher Tietjens (Benedict Cumberbatch doing some of his best work to date), a remarkably intelligent statistician who holds a staunch view of what it means to be an Englishman of standing when most of his fellows have rejected such antiquated notions. The stiff upper lip, upright posture, and plummy accent tell you all you need to know about this man. He is tricked into marrying a dazzling socialite, Sylvia Satterthwaite (the amazing Rebbeca Hall), who is pregnant, but perhaps not with his child. Their marriage is intolerable, but Tietjens believes it is his duty to carry on the facade. Sylvia has no such compunction and carries on affairs with multiple men, even running away with one just to see how much grief she can cause Christopher. Their relationship is twisted and brutal, and no one quite understands it, not even the two of them.

Enter Valentine Wannop (the beguiling Adelaide Clemens), a young suffragette who crosses paths with Christopher and seems to be his soulmate. The two share an instant connection, and as Valentine later puts it, their every word to each other is like a "declaration of love." While their relationship remains purely chaste, rumors abound about the pair, and Sylvia finds herself getting jealous. Then World War I arrives, Christopher is whisked away into battle, and romantic entanglements are (very) temporarily set aside.

The war scenes are grim yet tinged with characteristic wry British humor. There are bluff generals, alcoholic colonels, tea and sandwiches in the middle of a bombing, and a competition over writing a sonnet in two minutes and then translating it into Latin hexameter in three and a half; class divides do not falter just because one is at war. However, Tietjens cannot benefit from his elite background owing to various black marks against his name courtesy of his wife's former lovers. He is a decent man, intelligent and brave, and he refuses to kowtow to societal pressures. Instead, he is fixated on doing his duty and seeing his way through this ghastly war.

What I've described is a mere sliver of what ensues in the five episodes of this miniseries. The story follows several characters whose fortunes rise and fall through the years, and the cast is made up of British stalwarts like Rupert Everett, Miranda Richardson, Janet McTeer, Rufus Sewell, and more. The central love triangle between Christopher, Sylvia, and Valentine is both epic and intimate and will keep you on tenterhooks until the finale. Parade's End is a very human and engaging account of this moment in history, and is nothing short of a television masterpiece.

The series concluded its run on the BBC in September and will be available on DVD later this month. It is slated to air on HBO in 2013, so you have something to look forward to if you'd rather wait. I already predict it will add multiple awards to HBO's ever-expanding collection. 

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Whimsical Villainy

It is no secret that I love Joss Whedon, writer of genius TV fare like Firefly, Buffy, and Dollhouse, or genius movies like Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers. Well, during the 2007-2008 Writers Guild Strike, Whedon concocted a weird and wonderful little project called Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. And on Tuesday night, you'll have the chance to watch the whole thing (it's only 45 minutes) on the CW Network.

Dr. Horrible was a web series consisting of 3 acts or episodes that were released online for free on certain dates and later sold on iTunes (where they are still available). The hero, Dr. Horrible, is actually a villain. Played by the superb Neil Patrick Harris, he is an evil scientist who is trying to gain access into an elite group of supervillains known as the Evil League of Evil. He records all his thoughts and plans on a video blog, and these musings often take musical form. Ergo the title. His nemesis is Captain Hammer (the charming Nathan Fillion), who is a brawny braggart who always manages to foil Dr. Horrible's villainy and make him look ridiculous. However, Dr. Horrible has come up with a new plan involving a freeze-ray that will hopefully wreak havoc and get him the supervillain status he so craves.

However, a complication arises in the form of Penny (Felicia Day, from the amazing web series, The Guild), a girl that Dr. Horrible has fallen in love with. She catches Captain Hammer's eye, leading to an escalation of tensions among the two rivals. Dr. Horrible angrily sings about his dashed hopes, Captain Hammer masterfully roars about how great he is, while Penny happily warbles away about her simple life, unaware of all the trouble that is brewing.

The soundtrack is amazing, with catchy songs that will worm their way into your brain and stay there. And if that wasn't enough, the team behind the series created a behind-the-scenes commentary for the DVD release, done entirely in song. It is funny and just as catchy as anything in the actual series. But be warned, as amusing as the premise of Dr. Horrible is, it has a great deal of heart and heartbreak, in trademark Whedon fashion. And in case you forgot, this brilliant story takes place in the same amount of time as a single episode of television.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog caused quite a stir upon its release because it made more than enough money to justify this unusual business model. If the show gets a ratings boost on the CW on Tuesday night, it will be further justification that this online model can be a source of enormous creativity and high-quality television. So tune in for this piece of Whedon magic and prepare yourselves for an unusual and spectacular treat. A sequel is already in the works and you need to get on board.

I've Got Your Number: Romance Via Texting

I have already used this blog to wax rhapsodic about the novels of Sophie Kinsella. So it should come as no surprise that it's time for me to do so yet again. The NYPL kindly took me off the hold list for the e-book version of her most recent novel, I've Got Your Number, and I devoured it. Apart from the annoyance of having to click back and forth among the amusing footnotes (which is the only trouble I've had with the e-book format so far), it was a thoroughly delightful read.

The plot of any Kinsella novel can be summarized as follows: thoroughly lovable yet insecure heroine, who may or may not be involved with successful but horrible man who does not appreciate her true worth, runs into Darcy-esque dark-haired wealthy businessman and initially misjudges him for being cold and calculating misanthrope, only to discover he is in fact a romantic knight with heart of gold. The fact that this basic storyline remains unaltered among all of Kinsella's novels might suggest that they are predictable and boring fare. But you would be wrong. What makes each of her novels stand out are the worlds and circumstances that the heroine and her hero inhabit. Every novel presents a brand new wacky and inventive situation and a series of seemingly insurmountable obstacles that will, of course, be surmounted. Just because you know how this will all end, it doesn't mean you have any clue how you're going to get there.

This novel's heroine is Poppy Wyatt, a physiotherapist who is engaged to Magnus Tavish, a handsome academic who deals with symbology (this might be a dig at Robert Langdon). Poppy loves her job, loves Magnus, and is furiously planning for her wedding that is just 10 days away. For a variety of reasons, she desperately needs a phone, since her own has been stolen and replacing it would take too long. She spies a phone that someone has thrown in a trashcan, which she claims for her own since "possession is nine-tenths of the law." Turns out it belonged to the PA of a top executive, a man named Sam Roxton. Enter our hero. Sam needs the phone because it contains vital e-mails and business information but Poppy pleads with him and promises to forward every single message. Sam doesn't like it, but helpless in the face of Poppy's desperate defiance, he reluctantly agrees. And thus begins our tale.

This is a romance conducted almost exclusively via text. Poppy can't help herself from reading Sam's company emails and gradually pieces together a portrait of this mysterious man whose phone she has hijacked. While Kinsella's novels always follow a first-person narrative from the heroine's perspective, this is the first time I was aware of how much that influences my perception of the various characters. I trusted Poppy's every instinct and critique of Sam, and it was with a start that I realized (as she did) that he has a private e-mail inbox that would paint a very different portrait of him.

The novel features multiple intertwining plot lines, including corporate espionage, Sam's relationship with his fiancée and his father, Poppy's struggles with confrontation and her in-laws, and the impending wedding. It is all resolved beautifully at the end and might be the first time that a smiley face in a text is an indication of true love. I've Got Your Number is hilarious and entertaining, so whip out your phones and order a copy today. 

Call the Midwife: Brits Birthing Babies

After the resounding stateside success of Downton Abbey, PBS is hoping that Call the Midwife will be its next breakout British hit. The first of six episodes aired last Sunday, and if that pilot is any indication, I've found my new British addiction.

Set in London's East End in the 1950s, the show follows a group of midwives and nuns who work at Nunnatus House, a nursing convent. The central heroine is Jenny Lee (the fantastically likable Jessica Raine), a recently qualified midwife who has had a decent English upbringing and is overwhelmed to discover the poverty and less than ideal living conditions of East London. The first episode follows her foray into this brave new world. To begin with, she has no idea she has signed up to live and work in a convent and has to get over the initial shock of being greeted by a scattered nun. But she quickly warms up to the kind, hardworking sisters as well as her fellow midwives and sets off to be of use in the community.

One of Jenny's first patients is a Spanish woman who is pregnant with her 25th child (this is her 23rd pregnancy since she had two sets of twins, but really, that doesn't make it any less mind-boggling). Her house is teeming with children and family dinner consists of eating straight from the pot because plates are a hassle. Her eldest daughter is the only one who speaks Spanish and can communicate with her. Even the woman's English husband, who is very much in love with his wife (as evidenced by the 24 kids), has never bothered to learn any Spanish, a fact which bewilders the already overwhelmed Jenny.

There are other patients who are cantankerous and rude, others who are young and grateful, and Jenny's interactions with this broad swath of hitherto unknown humanity are wonderful to behold. There are also typically British shout-outs to the great work of the National Health Service that is trying to ensure that even the poorest women receive adequate care. And throughout Jenny Lee is learning to do her job and bring all these babies into the world. This show is not necessarily for the faint of heart - midwifery is a messy business and you might learn more than you wanted about the not-so miraculous nature of giving birth. The streets of 1950's East London appear to be teeming with babies, and Jenny and her colleagues would be delighted if they knew that the 60s would bring the pill and blessed birth control. But for now, they face an exhausting and interminable job.

The series is based on the memoirs of real-life midwife Jennifer Worth. Apparently Worth wrote them in response to a call for someone to "do for midwifery what James Herriot did for vets." Call the Midwife is certainly offering a glimpse into a less well-known profession, and I think it's essential viewing in the US, where midwives are not as prominent and respected as they are in the UK and elsewhere. It is also a wonderful period piece, taking us away from the glamour and gentility of Downton Abbey and exposing the grimy day-to-day life of the English working class. So watch the first episode on the PBS website and tune in Sunday night for the next installment. It is sure to be entertaining, heartwarming, funny, tragic, and human.

Premium Rush: Pedestrians Beware

Fifteen minutes into Premium Rush, I wasn't sure I wanted to continue with this movie and its interminable bike riding. Half an hour later, I was glad I was still watching.

The always energetic and engaging Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Wilee, a daredevil bike messenger racing through the streets of Manhattan to deliver packages. He can instantly map out bike routes that minimize the damage to pedestrians and passing vehicles, which is a useful ability since he rides a bike that is stripped of gears or brakes. The action of Premium Rush takes place over the course of a single afternoon when Wilee is commissioned to deliver an envelope to Chinatown. He gets the envelope from Nima (Jamie Chung), but before he can set off on his bike, a man named Bobby Monday (the always menacing Michael Shannon) claims that the delivery is a mistake and he needs the envelope back. Luckily Wilee realizes this is a trick and races away on his bike. Cue the first spectacular car chase as Monday chases Wilee through all manner of street and foot traffic. Along the way, a NYPD bike officer tries to arrest Wilee for riding recklessly, but the hapless man can't hope to catch Wilee while he's on two wheels.

I can't tell you much more - you should really find out the rest for yourself. Suffice to say, there's a very good reason why Wilee can't expect any help from the police. He then tries to return the package to Nima, but when he finds out what the envelope contains and what that means to her, he heroically resumes the quest to deliver it. The contents of that envelope are explained gradually and make a pretty interesting plot point. And of course, there are many more chases in store, some involving Wilee's girlfriend and fellow bike messenger Dania Ramirez, who has her own reasons for wanting to help with this delivery.

The sheer athleticism on display makes Premium Rush a pulse-pounding action thriller. Michael Shannon is a superb villain, while Gordon-Levitt, Ramirez, and Wole Parks (who plays Wilee's rival, Manny) are amazing to watch. You can't tell when the stuntmen are taking over for these actors, which is a testament to how professionally they are handling these bikes. The chases have been expertly choreographed through the streets, pavements, and alleys of Manhattan for maximum cinematic impact that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Seek out Premium Rush - the movie's title fully delivers on its promise.