Excessively Diverted

#Shakesyear continues as Beau and Sammi discuss the early 80's answer to Romeo & Juliet, Valley Girl! This movie won our hearts by featuring an incredibly young Nicholas Cage at his most adorable, the incredible face acting of Deborah Foreman, and one of the greatest movie soundtracks of all time. Valley Girl was directed by Martha Coolidge, who also directed Material Girls, featured on our very first episode (but we won't hold that against her). 

Beau and Sammi kick off #Shakesyear with a double-header viewing of Taming of the Shrew and it's contemporary counterpart, 10 Things I Hate About You. While Beau shares ex-boyfriend horror stories, Sammi can't say enough about the beauty of Heath Ledger.  Be sure to follow the show on its BRAND NEW twitter feed! We want to hear from you! What movies are you hoping to hear us talk about?  Podcast art by Salty Said Sweetly 

Beau and Sammi return to discuss the movie chosen by our Rational Creatures contest winner, Crystal A, and they announce what's next for the future of the show. 

Author Tamsen Parker joins Beau to discuss her vibrant new retelling of Emma, If I Loved You Less. They discuss what still makes Emma such a compelling character 200 years later, writing books our parents can read, and how baked goods are shorthand for love. Join us for this one, it's simply delicious.  You can find Tamsen on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to name a few.  New Podcast Art from Salty Said Sweetly. 

Sammi and Beau go on the road to meet Jessamyn Leigh, one of the awesome women behind the new webseries-in-development, Rational Creatures. That's right, someone is FINALLY modernizing Persuasion! And it will be a diverse, inclusive adaptation! It is literally everything we've been asking for since the beginning of the show. Listen close for details on the contest, and make sure you donate, visit, and follow over at the Rational Creatures Seed and Spark page. 

Beau and Sammi are back for an unusual outing. One very important detail to know before listening: You will need to have 2005's Pride and Prejudice queued up to watch while listening to this episode. Join us as we sigh over the loveliness of the English countryside, lived-in Longbourn, and Matthew Macfadyen. If you're tuning in for 2 hours of Keira Knightley snark, we've got bad news for you...

Stepping into Sammi's shoes as co-host/special guest this episode is the lovely and talented Adam Roche from the wonderful podcasts The Secret History of Hollywood and Attaboy, Clarence!  Join Beau and Adam as they discuss the 1940 adaptation of 'Pride and Prejudice,' a zany romcom with carriage races, pudding faces, and all the arrow euphemisms you can shake a stick at. Here the only thing bigger than the sleeves are the bonnets, Darcy seems to have a split personality, and Lady Catherine is a force for good. 

Sammi and Beau discuss Emma Approved part 2, weird Jams, appropriate office attire, and how everyone needs to stop trying to be Harriet's dad. 

Sammi and Beau discuss the coming hiatus, Season 3, and the future of Excessively Diverted. 

Sammi and Beau return to Pemberley Digital for Bernie Su's take on Emma, Emma Approved.Not just a lifestyle coach/matchmaker, Emma Woodhouse is a savvy business woman and personal brand, along with her business partner Alex Knightley and adorable assistant Harriet Smith, Emma is determined to be the face of Lifestyle Excellence (whatever that means?) So grab your tablets, your Kate Spade binders and your structured blazers and join us for Emma Approved, part 1 of 2. 

This week Sammi and Beau are joined by superstar podcaster Gena Radcliffe of the show Kill By Kill to discuss Whit Stillman's 2016 comedic masterpiece 'Love & Friendship,' based on the novella 'Lady Susan.' While Love & Friendship is not a modern adaptation, it is probably Austen's most subversive surviving work, and the scheming Lady Susan is played to absolute perfection by Kate Beckinsale with support from the marvelous Chloe Sevigny. 

Sammi and Beau are Bollywood bound once more for this Tamil adaptation of Sense & Sensibility. While it took a few minutes to acclimate to this movie, we found it incredibly charming with well drawn characters, humor, lots of entertaining musical numbers, and plenty of sweetness. These might be the best versions of Elinor and Marianne in any modern adaptation that we've seen! As an additional bonus, this movie features a cat wedding, so this definitely checked all of our boxes. 

A slightly intoxicated Sammi and Beau are joined by returning guest Karolinn and first-time guest Brian to discuss the 2015 Straight outta Salt Lake City series Austentatious, which asks "what would happen if the Dashwood sisters, Emma Woodhouse, and Elizabeth Bennet were all single career gals who lived on a series of sound stages? There is little here to recommend the series, from creepy, miscast, and poorly adapted characters to cheap sets and some rampant misogyny. If you were considering watching this, our advice would be "don't."  Warning to listeners, this might be our most profanity-riddled episode yet. 

Beau and Sammi road trip to the Oregon coast where they get the rare opportunity to play 'Marrying Mr. Darcy' with Award-Winning author Linda Beutler and previous guest Karolinn Fiscaletti. 

Karen M. Cox joins Beau to talk about her new novella, The Journey Home and her 1970's Emma-inspired extravaganza, I Could Write A Book. Karen convinces Beau to give Knightley a second chance, which is a miracle unto itself. 

This week we are joined by BOTH of the amazing ladies of Drunk Austen to talk about Hallmark's rather sanitized version of Teri Wilson's book 'Unleashing Mr. Darcy.' We unravel a vast conspiracy of money laundering and sex dungeon in the D.C. private school system, but mostly because we were kind of bored and hangry.     

Sammi and Beau close out the last chapter of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries with some real emotional highs and lows. As things start to stray into the dangerously cute zone for Lizzie and Darcy, news from home sends Lizzie rushing back, leaving all uncertain. Lydia gets a terrible shock and the Bennet Sisters rely on each other to cope and heal. Charlotte brings good news and Lizzie gets the best sort of birthday surprise. And in the end, the future looks very bright indeed.   

A lot of big events happening in between a *whole lot of filler* in these episodes. Jane gets real, Lizzie screws up big time, and Darcy plays along. 

In this whirlwind episode, Sammi and Beau are introduced to George Wickham, Catherine de Bourgh (and her little dog too), Fitz Williams, and finally, FINALLY the show introduces our William Darcy in the most dramatic possible way. Stay tuned at the end for a discussion on sexism from the literary fiction community, it's a real barn-burner. 

As the events of the show begin to follow Pride & Prejudice more closely, In this block of episodes the girls go to VidCon and have a long sojourn at Netherfield. We meet the astonishingly beautiful Lee siblings, Bing and Caroline. We also get introduced to the adorably emo cousin Mary and the unexpectedly entertaining Ricky Collins.