I was 13 years-old when the movie Dead Again came out in theaters, and subsequently when (my now) 18 year-old crush on Kenneth Branagh began. He was my first intense actor crush, and at that point he would been have somewhere around 30 or 31, which is where I am now. I LOVED the movie, and went to see it multiple times in the theater. I fell in love with the character of Roman Strauss, and with the mystery surrounding the seemingly doomed-past-lives-romance that forms the basis for the movie. I remember a photo that I treasured of Branagh, from a magazine. He was sitting in a throne looking very handsome and brooding. I had that one of my wall.
My crush remained pretty intense for a few years. Like all matters of the heart, it would change as I changed. Hamlet was a favorite of mine, and to this day I tend to watch pretty much any movie that he's a part of. BUT, my recent experience with the BBC series Wallander has brought my crush back in a big way. I can't pinpoint why exactly. All I can say with certainty is that this series is excellent. I really enjoyed all three episodes, and recommend it to anyone who likes crime stories set in Scandinavia. Of course, there IS the fact that no one in the series speaks with a Swedish accent. Mostly British. But then most of the written words that appear in the series are in Swedish??? I don't know what better way the producers could have have handled this. It didn't bother me as much as make me giggle.
