Seldon's Blog

"ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE" (2007) Review

Nine years after the release of 1998's "ELIZABETH", director Shekhar Kapur returned to direct a sequel called, "ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE". Like the 1998 movie, it stars Cate Blanchett as England's "Virgin Queen" and Geoffrey Rush as the sovereign's most trusted spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. The movie covers a period during Elizabeth I's reign in which she had faced the double threat of Philip II of Spain (Jordi Mollà) and Mary, Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton). The movie also features a romantic triangle for Elizabeth that features Clive Owen as Walter Raleigh, famous poet and explorer (and the Queen's object of desire) and Abbie Cornish as one of Elizabeth's ladies-in-waitng and Raleigh's future wife, Bess Throckmorton. ( Read more... )

Below is an article about the British dish known as Mince Pie: ( Read more... )

THE MEANING OF COLORS

Several years ago, I came across an old website about Wiccan practices and meanings. I was surprised to discover that even before the advent of Wicca in the early 20th century, Pagan worshipers associated colors with certain meanings. And those meanings turned out to be quite different than many people would today assume. ( Read more... )

Below is a list of my favorite period drama television series. Since this list consists only of television series, there are no miniseries or television movies on this list: ( Read more... )

"THE SEA HAWK" (1940) Review

If anyone has ever read Rafael Sabatini’s 1915 novel, "The Sea Hawk", he or she has clearly seen that the so-called 1940 film adaptation with the same title . . . is not the same story. I have never read Sabatini’s novel. But I have a friend who has. And according to him, the 1924 silent film adaptation bore a closer resemblance to the novel. ( Read more... )

Here is a look at a series of episodes about the history of food, mainly in Britain: ( Read more... )