BEST OF 2014: DRAMA SERIES & MOVIES (PART I)

A list of  "2014 Best... "  but  where to start from? I love so many things - which you already know if you have had a look at my blog any time before! Books? Movies? TV drama series? British actors? English Literature? Teaching? Blogging? Travelling to the UK? I'll do my best to be direct and concise and I'll divide my list of "best" into more than one post, ok? Let's start with Drama Series and Movies. 

Best Drama Series

Outlander (Starz)

I can't deny it:  this is my new passionate interest (obsession?)  Reading Diana Gabaldon's book series (I'm on book 4 now), watching the series, learning bits of Gaelic, dreaming of Scotland, following the cast and writers on twitter ... my 2014 has been filled with Outlander emotions.

TIME FOR A GOOD MOVIE - THE RAILWAY MAN (2014)

It is impossible not to think of war these days. Press and TV news keep our minds and hearts in constant worry. Though I usually avoid writing or discussing breaking news or politics here on my blog , today I’m going to tell you about  this beautiful movie I have just seen, with all my heart to the news coming from the several open fighting fronts.

War is no game. War leaves a mark. Eric Lomax , like many other surviving soldiers,  lived haunted by his war memories all his life through, as if war never actually ended in his mind and his heart. The Railway Man, based on Lomax’s autobiography,  will come out in September 2014  here in Italy as “Le due vie del destino”, but it opened theatrically on New Year’s Day in the UK and , in the US,   in April 2014.  It is already available on DVD at amazon.co.uk and,  from August 12,   it will be at amazon.com too.

BOOKS ON SCREEN: 12 YEARS A SLAVE, THE RAILWAYMAN, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

From this autobiographical book, Steve McQueen's major new film starring Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Quvenzhane Wallis. A great, touching story nominated as Best Movie for 2014 Oscars. One of the latest movies I've seen. Good but not as much as I expected. What about reading the book now? I've got it in my to be read soon list, the ebook from amazon kindle store is just a bargain.

Solomon Northup is a free man, living in New York. Then he is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Drugged, beaten, given a new name and transported away from his wife and children to a Louisiana cotton plantation, Solomon will die if he reveals his true identity. This is the searing true story of his twelve years as a slave: the endless brutality, daily humiliations and constant fear, but also the small ways in which he and his fellow men try to survive. Twelve Years a Slave is a unique, unflinching record of slavery from the inside, and the incredible account of one man whose life was ripped from him - and who fought to get it back. "A moving, vital testament to one of slavery's "many thousands gone" who retained his humanity in the bowels of degradation". (Saturday Review). 

"I could not believe that I had never heard of this book. It felt as important as Anne Frank's diary, only published nearly a hundred years before". (Steve McQueen).