Um... Sure

I have a mildly addictive and obsessive personality (I know right?! It came as a surprise to us all). When I really like something; music, movie, tv show, people, inanimate objects that make me look good (please see: new aviator sunglasses, leopard print coat, tartan skirt). I think about them a lot. I think about them while I'm driving, while I'm cooking, while I'm sitting in airports trying desperately hard to look nonchalant and coming off as 'creepy'. I find ways of incorporating them into my daily life as much as possible. I'll listen to the 'Juno' soundtrack incessantly for weeks or start throwing in catchphrases that someone I've taken a shine to happens to use, or start adopting Crispin Glover mannerisms without even realising it. When I'm at work and not talking to anyone about anything of any importance (I've decided that this is the best strategy. The less my colleagues know about me the better. I like saving some of the crazy for assorted members of my friends and family rather than wasting it all in an environment I'm beginning to loathe more and more) my obsessions tend to manifest themselves by me occasionally happening to idly (side note: 'idly' is one of my favourite words ever. It takes a really long time to say considering it's got so few letters and you have to kind of put some effort in to pronounce it even though it's meaning conveys the opposite. I'm a big fan of anything that contains a mass of contradictions; please also see: myself, Amy Winehouse, Journey fans) be drifting onto the intraweb to allow myself to think about it some more.

Thus, Mad Men found itself being typed into the search box of imdb this afternoon. This is something that, for me, started off as just some really classy television. The writing is elegant and sharp but what gives it its strength were the things that weren't being said; the characters are given amply opportunity to breathe and simply exist. We see long establishing shots of them just sat around thinking pensively. Or staring at themselves in a mirror and telling you everything you need about their thoughts and feelings with just a look. The setting of a 1960's also appealed given my love of retro fashions and analysing social change.

However, the further I get embroiled into to it, the more I realise that this isn't just a microscope on a period of history that influenced the world as we know it in labyrinthine and far-reaching ways. This is concentrating on what it is to exist in a world in which you don't quite fit, with both men and women being forced to adapt to personas that clearly don't feel right or comfortable for them; "to see the whole world laid out in front of you the way other people live it... and feel out of place [and] disconnected from it". It's not just 'this is the way the world was', it's 'this is the way the world still kind of is'. I don't even think it's making any pronouncements about how things were better or worse then than they are now. This is about people coping with what it is to be people and that's as relevant as ever.

So, I hope that all goes some way to explaining as to why they felt the need to offer the following recommendations to any Mad Men fans:




















The best thing about this is that I actually do enjoy all the movies it's suggesting (barring King Kong which is lame on levels heretofore unrealised). However, I have a feeling I might be one of only a handful of people that does enjoy 'The Believer' (a brutal tale of a young man becoming embroiled in a neo-Nazi group to deal with his disgust at his own Jewish identity) as much as 'The Muppets Take Manhattan' (clearly not about that). It's a supremely select group of individuals they've decided Mad Men fans are each of whom (they've obviously assumed) have a wildly differing range of tastes ('I purty much only watch Mad Men 'cus I likes to see talky-pictures with Manhattan in it', 'Well, since you ask my dear, I enjoy Mad Men because I, quite literally, adore 'mad men'') but, I guess in my case at least, they've got it spot-on.