One Day Sale: Robin Hood: The Complete Series

Robin Hood: The Complete Series is on sale today only for $41.99 on Amazon. (Royal Wedding Week means BBC set deals in the Gold Box all week.) It's a good price for the first two seasons although I recommend completely ignoring the last season (3rd). This show was the opposite of Merlin which had its best season so far in its third. It's light and silly and fun but it is Robin Hood and we had fun with it until they killed off Marian and made the third season unwatchable. It's no surprise it didn't get a 4th season.

I really, really hope the producers of Merlin have learned from the mistakes of Robin Hood. Both of these series are along the lines of family entertainment like Doctor Who, some scariness and such, but overall clean and suitable for perhaps 8 and older. Actually, I think the Doctor is often the spookiest with the strange aliens walking around in our world. Merlin and Robin Hood are historical fantasy and have an element of disassociation with them accordingly.

 

New Book: My Unfair Godmother by Janette Rallison

 

My Unfair Godmother by Janette Rallison was released last week and is a sequel to last year's My Fair Godmother.

From the publisher:

Tansy Miller has always felt that her divorced father has never had enough time for her. But mistakenly getting caught on the wrong side of the law wasn' texactly how she wanted to get his attention. Enter Chrysanthemum "Chrissy" Everstar, Tansy's fairy in shining, er, high heels. Chrissy is only a fair godmother, of course, so Tansy's three wishes don't exactly go according to plan. And if bringing Robin Hood to the twenty-first century isn't bad enough for Tansy, being transported back to the Middle Ages to deal with Rumpelstiltskin certainly is. She'll need the help of her blended family, her wits, and especially the cute police chief 's son to stop the gold-spinning story from spinning wildly out of control. Janette Rallison pulls out all the stops in this fresh, fun-filled follow-up to the popular My Fair Godmother.

Okay, I haven't seen or read this one and have only been aware of it as a portal keeper to fairy tale related books, but a book that uses Rumpelstiltskin and Robin Hood does interest me. I'll probably have to read this one sooner rather than later. After the next releases for SurLaLune Press are ready, that is....

Robin Hood Trailer (and some Great Big Sea)

While I'm sharing movie trailers today, I'll add in the somewhat disappointing one for Robin Hood. Loving most things fairy tale and folklore, Robin Hood has long been one of my favorite legends.

I'm not saying the film will be disappointing, just that this first trailer pushes none of my buttons, assuring me that I'm not in the primary target audience. Of course, it has almost no dialogue and is mostly full of gritty, violent imagery, rather a thrown together effort. So I'll reserve judgment, just admit to some trepidation. And I am admittedly a character-driven person when it comes to my entertainment choices.

Then again, I can't imagine anything much worse than Kevin Costner's version or the final third season of the recent BBC series starring Jonas Armstrong and Richard Armitage. We enjoyed the first two seasons as reasonable campy fun, but this last season was brutally bad, watched more in fast forward when we bothered to watch it at all. Killing off Maid Marian was a bad mistake among many others...not even adding an interesting Father Tuck helped.



I admit I am most excited about the movie for a reason shared by few. Alan Doyle from Great Big Sea plays Allan A'Dayle in the film. Granted, it's a smaller role, but I'm an unabashed fan and that's enough to woo my interest in the movie, too. Great Big Sea is the one band guaranteed to improve my spirits, make me happy and cause me to bruise my hands from clapping when I see them live. Yes, my left hand was a big purple bruise for days after the last time I saw them.

And in looking up their stuff, I noticed that several of their songs are currently available for free download as MP3s on Amazon. Not sure how long the deals will last, but one really can't argue with free. See:

When I'm Up (I Can't Get Down)

Excursion Around The Bay

Mari Mac (Live)

Feel It Turn (Live)

I love all their work, but one of their most popular is The Hard and the Easy which is all interpretations of older music, not their usual mix of old and new compositions that appear on their other albums. It is one of my favorites although I can't pick a favorite Great Big Sea album for myself.

I foresee a Robin Hood Week on this blog sometime near the release date of the movie.