A movie marathon.

 BIL and Husband had been chatting about a movie, actually a miniseries. "Pillars of the Earth". It sounded good, so he sent it to us, and we had a marathon... Over 2 days. 

The general story is based on the time period when King Stephen and Queen Maud were fighting for control of England.  The opening had a burning ship, and it never slowed down from there.  I think it was about 7-8 hours.  

It was a good story, a young man has a ring, his Mom is declared a witch, a stone mason and his family are traveling so he can find work, good priest, evil priest, totally disgusting Mom with her rapist evil knight son, a young man wanting to be a knight, the two royals, of course, and several women who are strong and make their way through a "man's world". I am sure I missed somebody, but there were quite a few people!

The costumes were very good. The acting was excellent. Eddie Redmayne is as cute as ever.

But...

The movie could have been at least a couple hours shorter with all the EXTREMELY violent and graphic fight scenes. Now, I realize they were in the 1100's and things weren't nice-nice, but the effort they took took show spraying blood, mangled bodies, and and general chaos was... Well, some was needed to show it was war, but I really didn't feel the whole way thing needed to be shown in blood soaked Technicolor every time they showed the knights. 

The sex was gratuitous, to my mind, too. Guess I prefer a little mystery.  There was no mystery, if anything it was a how to manual! And with rather annoying regularity.  Okay, x likes y, do we have to see the repeated pumping action to prove it? Yes, there wasn't much in the way of privacy during that time, but Geez Louise, it seemed like a lot of sex, but some of it was just... There. Not to move the plot, just because. 

The focus was on building a cathedral. It was so beautiful, I had to look it up. I was rather amazed to learn that it was a mashup and computer generated from 2 actual cathedrals, but the one they were "building" along with the town they were in, doesn't exist, except in the movie! And they were good about showing time passage with characters hair, the size of the building, children. 

It's based on a book. I'm not sure I will get it, it is like Game of Thrones type gore, and that got to be a bit much to read through... 

Maybe I am a bit prudish, but a good story like those can use sex, war, hate and love as spice, but like spice, you don't want it to be the whole meal...