Matt Gallant
American Inventor
1.5
2006
2 Seasons • 22 Episodes
Overview
American Inventor was a reality television series based on a competition to be named America's best inventor. It was conceived by UK entrepreneur Peter Jones, who appears on the British version of the somewhat similar programme Dragons' Den, a format originated in Japan where it is owned by Sony. It was produced by Jones alongside Simon Cowell and the producers of American Idol. It premiered on ABC on March 16, 2006. It was organized as a competition between the various Inventors resulting in one overall winner. Janusz Liberkowski, who invented a new type of child safety seat based on the human womb called the Anecia Safety Capsule, was declared the first season's winner in a live episode on May 18, 2006. The second season premiered on June 6, 2007. Firefighter Greg Chavez, who invented a fire suppression system for Christmas Trees called the Guardian Angel, was the winner of the second season, on August 1, 2007. On March 20, 2008, the show's official website was removed, and the series was not included on the 2008 fall schedule, therefore the series was cancelled.
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Reviews
✦ AI-generated review
The Mud on the Hem: Romance in the Real World
I wasn't entirely sure we needed another trip to Longbourn. When Joe Wright’s *Pride & Prejudice* arrived in 2005, the cultural real estate was already heavily occupied by a very famous BBC miniseries, complete with its own iconic wet shirt. Digging into a text this sacred usually results in a museum piece—something stiff and polite, where everyone stands in drawing rooms waiting for their turn to speak. Still, Wright didn’t make a museum piece. He made a movie about a household of people climbing over each other just to breathe. (And frankly, he made the right call by dragging the Georgian era into the dirt a little.)
Look at how the camera moves through the Bennet home in the opening minutes. It does not glide with aristocratic grace; it weaves through slamming doors, giggling sisters, and actual livestock wandering through the yard. There is a lived-in, chaotic noise to this family. The director famously wanted a "muddy hem version" of the period, stripping away the sterile perfection we usually associate with Austen. That grounded reality gives the romance something solid to push against. It also makes the casting of Keira Knightley work better than it perhaps should have. Coming off the glossy machinery of the *Pirates of the Caribbean* films, she brings a feral, restless energy to Elizabeth. She walks like a teenager who has outgrown her house.
Then there is also Mr. Darcy. Matthew Macfadyen’s interpretation is fascinating precisely because he plays the man as deeply uncomfortable in his own skin. Years later, Macfadyen admitted he spent the shoot worried he wasn’t "dishy" enough for the role. That exact insecurity is what makes his performance sing. He is not aloof because he thinks he is superior; he is aloof because he is panicked. The much-discussed "hand flex" scene says everything you need to know about how this movie handles bodies. After assisting Elizabeth into a carriage, Darcy turns away and forcefully stretches his fingers. It is a tiny, involuntary spasm of a man short-circuiting from a touch he wasn't prepared for.
Whether the film’s breathless pacing is a flaw or a feature depends entirely on your patience for compressed storytelling. Sometimes Dario Marianelli’s swooning piano score does a little too much heavy lifting, telling us how to feel before the actors have finished the thought. Still, the emotional math ultimately adds up. Stephen Holden of *The New York Times* wrote that the film "makes you believe in true love, the union of soul mates, happily-ever-after and all the other stuff a romantic comedy promises but so seldom delivers". I think that is right. When Darcy finally walks across that misty field at dawn, his coat flapping open and his posture completely defeated by his own longing, the movie is not just reciting a classic novel. It is capturing the terrifying, disorienting gravity of letting someone else matter.
I wasn't entirely sure we needed another trip to Longbourn. When Joe Wright’s *Pride & Prejudice* arrived in 2005, the cultural real estate was already heavily occupied by a very famous BBC miniseries, complete with its own iconic wet shirt. Digging into a text this sacred usually results in a museum piece—something stiff and polite, where everyone stands in drawing rooms waiting for their turn to speak. Still, Wright didn’t make a museum piece. He made a movie about a household of people climbing over each other just to breathe. (And frankly, he made the right call by dragging the Georgian era into the dirt a little.)
Look at how the camera moves through the Bennet home in the opening minutes. It does not glide with aristocratic grace; it weaves through slamming doors, giggling sisters, and actual livestock wandering through the yard. There is a lived-in, chaotic noise to this family. The director famously wanted a "muddy hem version" of the period, stripping away the sterile perfection we usually associate with Austen. That grounded reality gives the romance something solid to push against. It also makes the casting of Keira Knightley work better than it perhaps should have. Coming off the glossy machinery of the *Pirates of the Caribbean* films, she brings a feral, restless energy to Elizabeth. She walks like a teenager who has outgrown her house.
Then there is also Mr. Darcy. Matthew Macfadyen’s interpretation is fascinating precisely because he plays the man as deeply uncomfortable in his own skin. Years later, Macfadyen admitted he spent the shoot worried he wasn’t "dishy" enough for the role. That exact insecurity is what makes his performance sing. He is not aloof because he thinks he is superior; he is aloof because he is panicked. The much-discussed "hand flex" scene says everything you need to know about how this movie handles bodies. After assisting Elizabeth into a carriage, Darcy turns away and forcefully stretches his fingers. It is a tiny, involuntary spasm of a man short-circuiting from a touch he wasn't prepared for.
Whether the film’s breathless pacing is a flaw or a feature depends entirely on your patience for compressed storytelling. Sometimes Dario Marianelli’s swooning piano score does a little too much heavy lifting, telling us how to feel before the actors have finished the thought. Still, the emotional math ultimately adds up. Stephen Holden of *The New York Times* wrote that the film "makes you believe in true love, the union of soul mates, happily-ever-after and all the other stuff a romantic comedy promises but so seldom delivers". I think that is right. When Darcy finally walks across that misty field at dawn, his coat flapping open and his posture completely defeated by his own longing, the movie is not just reciting a classic novel. It is capturing the terrifying, disorienting gravity of letting someone else matter.