West London Girl

What to watch

July
30

It’s about smart people testing each other

Orange Is the New Black scooped 12 Primetime Emmy Award nominations this month. Hot Danish isn’t interested in it no matter how much I try to sell it to him (‘It’s as dark as Breaking Bad’). Forget the show’s wit and grit, its tackling of class and race issues and its questioning of the role of the correctional system (one in 37 Americans will be locked up at some point in their lifetime) — the only guys I know who enjoy the series cite the lesbian scenes as the reason for watching it. It’s too much about female psychology, according to HD.

Suits is the series that has both sexes hooked despite the lack of action, comedy, known star and writer. It’s about smart people testing each other (personally, I couldn’t get into it). Yet, if you ask a woman what she likes about the show, she’ll likely name-check good-looking Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht).

It’s perhaps no surprise that the first trailer for Fifty Shades of Grey has become the most watched movie preview of the year in less than a week, notching up more than 36.4 million views.

The trailer gives a first look at Calvin Klein model turned actor Jamie Dornan in the role of Christian Grey, a billionaire with an appetite for S&M, and Dakota Johnson as the shy college student Anastasia Steele.

But will it be a hit?

Suits’ ‘emphasis on fashion, grooming, vocabulary, and possessions isn’t superficial,’ as journalist Matt Zoller Seitz put it. ‘All of these characters realize that to study a person’s surface is to intuit their depths.’

We might not give much away when asked why we like a particular series/film, but sex is always the answer.