Criminal minds - season 5

You see how easy it is when you’re not following live? I bought season 5 and 6 on Dvd, and Hotch’s face is on both of them, so no worries, he’ll be just fine, this is proof enough that the Boston Reaper didn’t kill him at the end of last season, and that nobody will at least for a while, but I’d say nobody will ever do it because Criminal minds without Hotchner would not be the same thing.

In my dvds there are only the Italian titles, not the original ones, so I looked them up on the internet

ep 1 - Nameless, faceless

The life of the fifteen year old son of a surgeon is threatened, and the team investigates without Hotch because they can’t find him. It turns out the target was actually Dr Barton, not his son, but Reid saves him and then he’s forced to shoot the unsub, while he just gets a bullet in the leg.

Since they needed  “more eyes”, as Emily puts it, she goes to get Hotch. The door is not locked and his cell phone is inside, but no trace of him. The team must stay focused on the case at hand, so Emily stays alone on Hotch’s case. Only after Reid has closed the case, by shooting the unsub, he tells the others about Hotch. 

Garcia finds him at a hospital, “he’s been stabbed nine times, it’s a miracle he’s alive”. 

They all rush to the hospital and Hotch works out he took Haley’s address, and is worried for her and his son. Emily stays with him while the team plus other people go to Haley’s house. She’s okay, and looks really pretty with her new haircut. She asks about Aaron, really worried. 

They take Haley and super-cutey Jack away, into protective custody, but first Haley goes to see Aaron, and it’s so clear they still love each other. 

 - Karl Kraus said: a weak man has doubts before a decision, a strong man has them afterwards.

ep 2 - Haunted

34 days later Hotch comes back. Morgan is afraid he might have PTSD or that he might be distracted, just like he was worried about Gideon. Reid is still using crutches. 

The new case is of a sick man who assaulted people at a pharmacy. 

Hotch is too harsh and critical, and they all look at him with suspicion. Only Rossi says “we have to trust him”. Well done Rossi! He also says “that’s his call”, trusting his decisions. None of the others does, Morgan specially never truly trusts anyone. Poor Hotch feels so alone now that he can’t reach his son… poor baby, need a hug? :-p I know, he’s not the hug-type, but I tell you he sure needs to be hugged, well and tight. 

The unsub was the son of a serial killer of kids, and now his troubled mind is trying to make sense of his confused memories. 

 - Emily Dickinson wrote: one need not be a chamber to be haunted, one need not be a house. The brain has corridors surpassing material place.

 - There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man. Polybius.

ep 3 - Reckoner

Hotch misses his kid very much. 

The new case: people dead in Commack, Long Island, Rossi’s hometown. He wanted to stay behind but he can’t because Reid has not yet been cleared to fly.

All the victim’s were children’s abusers. Rossi asks for an old friend’s help, but Ray is killed while doing so. 

The team is looking for a planner and the man he pays to kill those people. A judge comes in saying “I believe you’re looking for me”. He went crazy when his wife Emma was killed in an accident. Rossi had known her a few years ago and apparently had an affair with her, and it seems like Ray loved her too. Judge Schuler’s last two victims were the man responsible for Emma’s death and himself. 

The team flies home without catching the hitman. Only on the plane Rossi tells the truth to Hotch. He had met Emma when they were 12, but they never had any affair. 

“I missed a life with Emma because I became obsessed with the chase, with the hunt”, and “we’ll get Foyet, Aaron. You have a family. When all of this is over, what are you gonna do to make sure you’re not a lonely guy wondering why you let the purest thing in your life get away?” and this was for us, to fantasize that Aaron and Haley might get back together, since they sure share a true love it’s a shame to waste.

I’m glad to say that at the end the man that Ray always treated like a son avenges his death by killing the hitman. 

 - Justice without force is powerless. Force without justice is tyrannical. Blaise Pascal.

 - I have always found that mercy bears richer fruit than strict justice. Abraham Lincoln. 

ep 4 - Hopeless

Three guys make home invasions killing everyone brutally and filming the whole thing to rewatch it later. The victims were all brutally beaten to death. Derek personally helps Tamara get through her brother’s death, and Garcia is worried about that. 

They arrest one, but the other two want suicide-by-cop. Hotch goes away first, not wanting to take part in the shooting, then Rossi followed by Prentiss. Rossi tells Derek “you wanna take your shot?”, after Derek critized Hotchner’s behaviour, but he stays. He was a cop and maybe a part of him still feels like a street cop, but maybe he didn’t shoot, we’re not sure about this, it’s not shown clearly. 

At the end Rossi and Emily go to drink with Hotch in his office, while Derek went to Tamara’s house to tell her it was over, just like Garcia predicted.

 - Kingman Brewster Jr said: there is no lasting hope in violence, only temporary relief from hopelessness.

 - William Shakespeare wrote: these violent delights have violent ends.

ep 5 - Cradle to grave

Chief Strauss is there to talk to Hotch.

This Unsub forces his victims to have children, then takes them and kills the mothers. Hotch asks Derek for a preliminary profile and then corrects him. Morgan is all rolling-eyes and sighing, and Reid is all over his map. Derek confronts Hotch, criticizing him, acting all “I don’t have to do this” so Hotch tells him that he never did those things because Hotch himself always did, after the case was closed. “I’ve always followed your orders when they made sense” what is that? That’s not what he should say, Hotch is his team leader, he should always carry out his orders!! At the end Hotch tells Morgan he’s resigning as leader, and wants Morgan to be, but Morgan is against it at first but then accepts and they work it together.

The case: A woman with breast cancer lost her baby, so now she’s abducing and inducing a pregnancy on other girls, and if they give birth to a boy she takes it, if it’s a girl she leaves her at a church and they kill the mother as useless. I can understand how traumatizing her loss must have been, but I can’t really feel sorry for her after the murders-part.

Btw, that couple of grandparents was really great!

Hotchner is not leaving the team, he’s just no more in charge. You know, it’s funny how between the two of them I feel more for Hotch. Derek is beautiful, not simply handsome, and a good person, with a good heart,  but when Hotch smiles my heart bumps…

 - Journalist William D. Tammeus wrote: you don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around and why his parents will always wave back.

ep 6 - The eyes have it

Derek is still seeing Tamara, or maybe he saw her again now, and she gives him a necklace that belonged to her brother. Now Derek is the leader of the team, briefing Chief Strauss and gathering the team, although he refuses to take Hotchner’s office. 

The team is trying to adjust to the new dynamic while they work a case in Oklahoma where people are attacked, killed and their eyes removed. 

Now, maybe I’m much too careful, but I wouldn’t go jogging when it’s already dark, all alone…

Morgan’s position as leader should be a temporary thing, but Rossi questions what will happen when a natural leader like him will be asked to step down..

The unsub is a taxidermist who takes human eyes and puts them into stuffed animals. Hotch gets him, saving the last victim. Derek: “you know you should have waited for back-up”, and Hotch: “would you have?” obviously Derek doesn’t answer because we all know the answer, and Emily smiles; Hotch:”what?” :-) It was nice, and lovely, because now the roles are inverted and Hotch can act like Derek would have, while Derek must act like Hotch always had to. :-)

While they were away, Garcia changed a retiring agent’s office into Derek’s office. It ends with Morgan calling Tamara to accept her offer for a drink… this is not good, it’s a dangerous situation if you ask me…

 - And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. Matthew 5:29.

 - Dwell in peace in the home of your own being, and the Messenger of Death will not be able to touch you. Guru Nanak.

ep 7 - The performer
After a rock concert a fan girl is found dead, with no blood, with two holes with human saliva, as if someone drank her blood… so they talk about vampires and Reid adorably goes: “what’s twilight?” ah Reid, I never liked you as I do now :-) for once be blessed in your ignorance. :lol:

The rock singer performs with a vampire makeup on and the name of Dante, but without makeup he’s quite handsome. :-)

A sick girl very very obsessed with him was convinced by his manager to kill those people for publicity, and it was working, the new album was selling great. What a nice world, is it? People would really buy it out of curiosity or to be able to say “I have it”.

I really like this Paul aka Dante, though, yeah :-)

On the flight back we discover that Rossi was a RatPack fan while Hotch’s favourite record is the White Album by the Beatles. Reid sticks to Beethoven thinking it more “safe”, only because he never saw “a clockwork orange”…

 - In all the darkest pages of the maligned supernatural, there is no more terrible tradition than that of the vampire, or pariah even among demons. Writer Montagne Summers.

 - Writer Cyril Connolly said: better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.

ep  8 - Outfoxed
Reid still walks with the help of one crutch...
The case: families of military men serving oversea are killed. It is similar to that man four years ago who killed families and took the wedding rings. This time it was a woman, though.

I think it's funny how they always warn Garcia: "you're on speaker" so she can behave :lol:
How sad it was when they told captain Downey about his family, so tragic, that a good man should bear such a tragedy.
Karl Arnold, who was a psychology assistant now receives the visit in jail of Hitch and Prentiss. It's amazing, meaning sick and disturbing, that people like him have fans....
Now a little reminder that it's called Mòdena and not Modéna, but it doesn't really matter, on the contrary, I'm glad they know its existence, although maybe they just looked at a map and took a name at random.. :-p
Awww poor Hotch, Foyet keeps torturing him :-(

 - Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else, unless it's an enemy. Albert Einstein.

ep 9 - 100
It's beautiful to see JJ's family together :-) Strauss is interrogating all of them, one by one, asking about Hotch. We can see the flashbacks showing us their chase for Foyet. They found him, but...
Rossi calls Strauss "Erin"... :-p
I agree with Reid, it's always so easy to blame it on someone so to forget all about it...
Marshal Sam Kassmeyer who took care of Hotch's family is tortured by Foyet to get their location.
It'd seem the agent didn't tell him, but Foyet found her using Sam's phone. Sam died, I really hoped he could make it.
It was so intense, poor Sam and then Hotch driving and talking on the phone to Haley who is in the house with little Jack and Foyet who hears everything and talks too much.
Haley knows she's going to die, and tells him to take care of Jack : "Jack needs to know that you weren't always so serious Aaron" Oh Haley, I feel for you.

We all heard the shots on the phone of when Foyet shot Haley... Hotch arrived too late to save her...he found Haley dead, and Foyet in the house, and they fight. Harder, Hotch, harder! He beats him to death... but at least he could save Jack... he runs to the part of the house where is his study, and finds him hiding there. "I need you to work the case with me" and Jack went and hide and Foyet didn't find him... I'm sorry they wrote this end of the story, but I understand why they did it. Foyer's story had gone too far to end it too easily and happily, and also Hotch's situation had been still and uneventful for too long, always at work, alone in an empty house, seeing his son too rarely... where could they go from there? Hotch is not the type for flirts or little adventures, so what? This character is too important, they had to do something with him, and they did. They gave him a son, this way. Really,I mean, to take care of. It's his responsibility now, the only parent. 

 - He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. Friedrich Nietzsche.

 - Poet Haniel Long said: so much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty. 

ep 10 - The slave of duty

It's Haley's funeral . Hotch's speech makes everybody cry, but the team is called in and has to leave. Of course Hotch doesn't go. Chief Strauss goes to his place to tell him that he can retire now with full pension and benefits. Of course Hotch decides to go bak to the team :-)

Reid still uses a crutch...

Aww how adorable is Jack saying "nobody beats daddy!".

Jessica helps Hotch at home, and he seeks her advice on the retirement. She offers to help him with Jack when he's at work. She's Haley's sister, we saw her already. 

The case: it was a parking valet, seeing where they live, getting into their homes, making them dinner, and then killing them. 

 - W.S. Gilbert wrote: it's love that makes the world go round. and if that's true, then the world spun a little faster with Haley in it. Hotch.

 - Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. Oliver Wendell Holmes.

 - What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. Ralph Waldo Emerson.

ep 11 - Retaliation

This episode starts with them catching a guy. Prentiss and a cop are driving him away when they're hit and a man helps the prisoner escape.  This man was a robber in prison, and as soon as he was out he killed a woman and kidnapped his own daughter. They realize that his partner is a good guy who stopped him from killing Emily. He's helping him because this Schrader has kidnapped his family, a wife and two kids. The team kills Schrader, then helps him find his family :-) all alive :-) good :-)

At the end, when Hotch goes to talk to Morgan, he easily steps down, and even offers to keep helping him with the paperwork so he'll have more time for his son. He behaved very well, well done Derek! 

 - It's madness for the sheep to talk peace with a wolf. Thomas Fuller.

 - Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure. Tacitus.

 - Washington Irving said: there is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief, and of unspeakable love.

ep 12 - The uncanny valley
Reid reads at the park, in the company of a guy playing chess by himself. "I used to play with a coworker friend of mine. He was probably the best mind I ever went up against. One day, he just decided that he didn’t  want to play anymore” - “so you gave up too?” - “Just the opposite. I attempted to play through every permutation of moves on a chess board […] the more I played the more I realised that every single match, every single chess game, it’s really just a simple variation on the exact same theme. You know? It’s aggressive-opening, patient mid-game, inevitable checkmate, and I realised why my friend quit. He was tired of repeating the exact same patterns and expecting a different outcome”

aww here he’s talking about Gideon. So nice that they didn’t forget him completely as so often happens in series when an actor leaves.. :-)

The case: girls are abducted and turned into dolls. 

The women were kept alive, in a conscious paralysis. A disturbed woman turned them into dolls, until their body gave up and she had to take another one. Samantha had electroshock treatments when she was ten! Her father runs a mental health facility for troubled young people, then he had her on a serious regiment of anti-psychotic drugs. Talking to the father (played by Jonathan Frakes!) Reid convinces himself that he raped his daughter and other little patients, then gave them toys. Disgusting man. He’s disgusting, sick, I don’t know the words to explain fully how disgusting he is!

He gave his daughter’s dolls to another child. Reid brings them back to Samantha, and they rescue the three latest victims. At the end Reid goes back to play chess with that same guy. 

Garcia is a redhead now :-p

 - Mildred Lisette Norman wrote: anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age, a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.

 - Isaac Asimov wrote: in life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.

ep 13 - Risky business

In Wyoming, teens hang themselves on friday nights, and JJ goes to Hotch with the case. He has doubts, but she convinces him. “we’re not on another case right now..” how come? I mean, they showed us JJ’s office as if it was full of cases to choose from… none of those really required their help? So what, those were just lazy cops hoping they’d go and do their job instead? Or maybe too thick to work it out on their own?

Now, I understand they can’t work on any case also because of financial issues, since their bureau seems to use quite a lot of money, from the private jet to all the rest, but they always said that JJ had so many cases in her office and yet from time to time they are free to go on a personal case… 

Reid: the first few days leading up to a teenager suicide are usually very telling. Their behavior  is transparent. There’s a multitude of indications” 

JJ: “yeah, but the most common don’t exist here. There’s no prior attempts, no period of deep depression, no withdrawal from family members, no spontaneous proclamations of love= sometimes a suicidal person in the days leading up to the act will just blurt out I love you to family. Sort of like a goodbye”

Only on the plane back JJ tells Hotch that when she was 11 her sister told her I love you, gave her her own necklace as a gift and then killed herself. She tells him that with time, it does get better, and one day thinking about her won’t hurt, and here she was talking about his pain for Haley’s death.

Garcia discovers a site the kids visited: the choking game. They think it’s a teenage kid who created it, daring other kids to play the game, and Hotch asks Garcia to talk to him, because he can relate to her more than anybody else. She lost her parents when she was about his age; into goth? really? “I’m not supposed to be anymore but the love is still there”

They relate very well, but he’s a victim too. His father is the mastermind. They catch him and save his son. The sheriff is so grateful, she says thank you to JJ a lot, and then hugs her :-) 

On the plane, Emily is doing a star-puzzle, I think I have it too, with a few others wood puzzles, and Garcia is knitting :-)

 - Life is a game, play it. Life is too precious, do not destroy it. Mother Theresa.

ep 14 - Parasite

A con-man started killing. This man has a family and also many aliases, and is losing it until a cop shoots him. 

 - Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn. C.S.Lewis.

 - If I am what I have and if I lose what I have, who then am I? German psychologist Erich Fromm.

 - Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive. Sir Walter Scott.

ep 15 - Public enemy

Providence, Rhode Island. A man cuts people’s throats open with a knife in public places. 

He kills in places important or historical to the city. He likes the city grief that he causes. He’s the bartender at a cop’s bar.

At the end, we see that Rossi gave a 500 dollars cheque to a victim’s daughter for her communion, and the murderer, put in the same prison as the father that killed his mother, kills him stabbing him repeatedly. 

 - Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy. F. Scott Fitzgerald.

 - William Shakespeare wrote: when a father gives to his son, both laugh. When a son gives to his father, both cry.

ep 16 - Mosley lane

An eight years old girl is abducted at the winter festival. A woman comes to the BAU saying it’s the same offender that eight years ago took her son Charlie. 

“Hope is paralyzing” says Morgan. I remember these same words in that double episode…

Now Charlie is sixteen and this couple calls him David and uses his help to get other children. The horrible woman cremated the dead children, and at the end when Charlie finds out he shoots her to save two young girls. He also took pictures of all the kids that were taken. At the end Charlie says to a couple of parents that their son died protecting the last little girl, and my first thought was that he lied to please them saying them he had died a hero, but then I remembered that in a way yes, he was trying to protect her, but this is awful for the parents, because he was alive only yesterday.

Eight couples will have closure, because their children are dead, but three kids are back with their families. Charlie, the last little girl, and another girl, which is to say the two he saved when he killed the horrible woman.

I really liked Charlie’s mother, and the actress was great. I liked her a lot.

 - Nietzsche wrote: Hope is the worst of evil, for it prolongs the torment of man.

 - Emily Dickinson wrote: hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words and never stops at all.

ep 17 - Solitary man

A truck driver abducts women; he wants to find a new mom to his daughter, because they're placing little Jody in a foster family but he wants her with him. When they find him and he understands he's lost, he kills himself. Luckily an aunt saw the news and came forward to take care of orphan Jody. 
The last woman abducted, Nancy, also the only one to survive, is played by Gabrielle Carteris. I recognized her immediately.

 - Tennessee Williams said: We are all of us sentenced to solitary confinement, inside our own skin, for life
 - Christopher Lasch said: Family is a haven in a heartless world

ep 18 - The fight

San Francisco. Forest Whitaker plays Cooper, the team leader of another BAU team. He believe in a connection between some men found murdered and a father and daughter who will later turn up dead. Cooper's team is not with Hotch at first, because their operation has not been authorized by the Director. We also meet Cooper's team: Jonathan 'prophet' Simms, Mick Rawson, Gina Lasalle. Mick is British and also the sniper.
As soon as they have proof that it's the same man, both teams work together. Cooper is called back by Director Erin but says no and stays.
This episode's psycho has the father he abducts fight some men or he'll kill his daughter. 

This poor father was really touching, poor soul. The girl finally did what I was screaming for her to do: agree to stay with the bad guy to save her father. 

Right after this our heroes find the place and save the father, then they go looking for the daughter. They save her too by killing the man (it seemed at first he had committed suicide, letting himself fall theatrically off the roof in quite a cool scene, but it turned out he was not far off and was about to shoot Emily when Mick the sniper shot him from the opposite roof)
and so the family is reunited :-) The happiest ending you can get on this show :-)
It wasn't bad at all, this team, and I liked this guy Prophet, interesting. Was it a one-time thing or is there a series with them? I don't know how much I'd like it, since so far only one of them got my attention, but who knows. 

 - Mother Teresa said: I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love

ep 19 - Rite of passage

Terlingua, Texas. Someone is killing Mexican immigrants. Sheriff Eva Ruiz is sure that the three head found in her town are not the job of the local cartels. Ten good minutes before the ending we see one of her deputies kill the sheriff :-( I liked her :-( Later he goes and shoots some bad guys and also the cop his partner. Obviously they kill him in the end. He had been killing lots of people, and would have been going on if the sheriff hadn't raise a case. 
Sheriff Ruiz is very impressed by Garcia's help: "if you're looking for a gift to get me one of her would be greatly appreciated" :D and Rossi: "I'm pretty sure they broke the mould" :-D
I love the lightness Garcia brings to the show :-) I liked when Hotch called her and she answered "-My liege" :-) 

 - A lion's work hours are only when he's hungry. Once he's satisfied, the predator and prey live peacefully together. Chuck Jones
 - Many persons have the wrong ideas of what constitutes true happiness. It is not obtained through self gratification but thru fidelity to a worthy purpose. Ellen Keller

ep 20 - ...a thousand words

Tallahassee, Florida. The team's weekend plans are cancelled because of a new case. The only one of them who's not bothered is Reid: "I didn't have any plans" :-)
Reid loses at poker with Prentiss and can't believe it, him being from Las Vegas :-p
A man calls 911 then shoots himself, and it looks like he's himself the serial killer, and the last victim might still be alive, if they find her.
He has the faces of all his victims tattooed on his body. Reid reads his many journals and realizes he had a partner. A young pregnant woman is now hiding the last girl and crying over his death. She dies giving birth right there in her home with the little help of the prisoner girl. Hotch compliments the good detective after saving the girl Rebecca "Becky". 
 - A sincere artist tries to create something which is in itself a living thing. Painter William Dobell
 - Ghandi said: I have seen children successfully surmount the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.
ep 21 - Exit wounds
Franklin, Alaska. There are three people dead in Alaska, and Garcia has to go with them.
There aren't rooms for everyone, so Garcia will stay in Morgan's room and Kevin is jealous :) obviously :p  When both computer and phones lose their signal, Garcia goes out to check and put it back online, and she witnesses a murder, with the man dying in her hands. Morgan takes care of poor Garcia in shock, so much in shock she refuses to answer questions right away, but next day she's back to work. The owner of the Tavern Inn where they are staying is killed, right after they had taken her son into custody. It was a teenage boy; he had started even younger, with animals and then moved on to people. They get him and nobody else gets killed.
Garcia is buying lots of gifts for JJ's son :-) and only one for Kevin :lol: and Prentiss is thinking if dating Mick or not (Cooper's team's Mick).
I love Garcia and Morgan's friendship, it's so precious.
M-It's who you are babygirl, you see the beauty in every thing and everyone no matter where you go. That part of you is never gonna change and I won't let it
G-I don't need you to protect me
M-Tough! I think I'm gonna stay on the job a little while longer
G-Yeah? How much longer?
M-Every day of my life
G-I kind of love you Derek Morgan
M-I kind of love you Penelope Garcia
:-))
 - Nature, in her most dazzling aspects or stupendous parts, is but the background and theatre of the tragedy of man. John Morley
 - Ralph W. Sockman said: nothing is so gentle as real strength
ep 22 - The internet is forever
Reid has a new haircut; Hotch:"did you join a boyband?" :lol:
The Unsub uses social networks to find his victims. Rossi doesn't understand the appeal of these social networks or why some people write every single detail of their lives in there. I agree.
Boise, Ohio. The Unsub has hidden cameras on his victims houses. He broadcasts live his murders. The man somehow sees his own face on them, consciously or not. Someone leaked the profile to the media, journalists asked questions about it, and the Unsub heard it and got angry and killed again, and Garcia didn't have time to track him, but next time she'll help. They catch him because they caught the people who 'followed' him, watching his videos, and also the man that gave him the freezer-room in which to keep the bodies.
 - The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place. George Bernard Shaw
 - The internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had. Eric Schmidt
ep 23 - Our darkest hour
Tim Curry plays the disgusting murderer and Robert Davi is one of the good guys, a detective.
Los Angeles. A man invades homes, rapes and kills in the dark. He has being doing it for 26 years, all over the United States.
Detective Matt Spicer was really a good man, and we sort of get to know him a bit, know that he lost his parents when he was young, and all this made me worry right away. Why else would the writers spend time and words to make us feel for him, other than to carry out their plans for him so that we can feel the loss?
Morgan says he saw his father shot and killed when he was nine.
It turns out that Spicer's parents didn't have a car accident, they were killed by this same Unsub and Spicer was the child he left alive then, and now he's going after Matt's daughter.
Wasn't this sort of a long shot, to say it was all about Spicer? They said the Unsub wanted credit for Spicer's career, having made him into a hero by leaving him alive.. they often start with supposition, anyway, so I guess this one could not be left unchecked, so ok.
Everyone's going to one place, but at the last moment Morgan realizes it's not the right one and instead he drives to Spicer's old house, where it all started, but he can't tell the others because there is no signal, not even a bit.
I've always wondered why they don't turn on the lights of the houses?
Anyway, the unsub has the child, and both child and sister are all "do what he says" so Spicer drops the gun, although Morgan was shouting for him not to. The unsub shoots him dead (I knew it!) and then goes away with the child. End of Season 5.
 - Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote: And out of the darkness came the hands that reach through nature, molding men

Tangled - 2010

I liked the beginning, but not at all the ending. This child who was abducted because her magical hair can give youth and health grows up believing the woman who took her is her mother. She stays confined in the tower because her "mother" tells her that the world outside is dangerous. She's very pretty, with long long hair that she uses in many ways, and one day she meets a thief who is running away, and scared she knocks him down with a frying-pan :lol: Then she hides his treasure, and he agrees to help her to get it back. She wants to see a bit of the world, precisely the lights she sees every year from her window. It's very funny how she's conflicted after having gone out the tower. She had promised her "mother" she wouldn't of course, so she feels very guilty but also very excited. It's the funniest scene of the movie, and for once she acts like a real person, with more than just one side.
Then it's the adventure of the two together, that obviously will fall in love, although it is not very fair because he's the only one she knows, so how can she know that's really love? Anyway, Mother Gothel learns about this, and plans to get in the way, to convince her to come back by having her believe that he doesn't care about her, that he only cares for the treasure. I wasn't very fond of all the adventure and the battle, although it is remarkable that Flynn after being deadly hurt thinks of her first, and cuts her long hair to set her free, because once cut the magic is gone. She would have wanted to use her hair to cure him with the magic, she had made a deal with the witch promising to stay with her forever in exchange for the chance to cure him, but he puts her future first and cuts it.
Without the magic, Mother Gothel has the same fate Dorian Gray had: she gains all at once what she had removed with magic, and she dies. Rapunzel doesn't care, she only cries for Flynn, and one of her  tears falls on him curing him... so what, now her tears are magical? Or just that one?
Anyway, what I really didn't like was that at one moment she hugs her "mother" believing her and feeling love for her, but as soon as she learns the truth, that she was actually the princess and that she's not her real mother, in an instant she turns against her totally. I mean, anger is obvious, but she's not confused about what to do. She turns against her completely, without a second thought, never regretting it, and then when all is ended well she goes to meet her real parents welcoming her new life. Just like that. What about all the years she spent loving Mother Gothel, they don't count at all? Don't misunderstand me, of course she has to go back to her real family, because Gothel was the bad one that never truly loved her but only wanted her for her magic, but still, as far as Rapunzel is concerned, she grew up loving her. How can that sentiment go away without the faintest regret, or sadness? She simply goes back, to live happily with her real parents that she has never even seen before, having her happy ending, her true love with the only man she knows, except a few men, bandits she met in a pub along the way. Wow, that's true love for Disney then. Well, it was until Frozen, that is :-)
Ita: Rapunzel

Guardians of the galaxy

I was surprised, because I liked it a lot. I mean, I usually like movies about super-heroes, if they are well done, and on paper this one seemed a bit too silly for my taste, honestly, but then I watched... and I liked it. Chris Pratt as Peter Quill was okay, although I don't like that they never said a word about what happened to his family after he mysteriously disappeared as a child, as if it only affected him and nobody else, but I know that movies only care about protagonists, and the others don't count.
Gamora was played by Zoe Saldana... what can I say? Nobody can speak ill of my lovely Uhura, even if here she's all blue and a totally different character :-)
Rocket the Raccoon was surprisingly a nice funny character, not ridiculous as I feared. The voice is Bradley Cooper's , and this can't be helped anymore, let's just accept it.
Groot was again surprisingly adorable. A walking tree who only ever said Groot (his name) and apparently has Vin Diesel's voice, who must have had a laugh dubbing him, saying nothing else than Groot all the time :lol: Groot was sweet, the sweetest thing of the whole movie.
I confess, I did not recognize any of the actors under that blue makeup. Imdb tells me that Thanos was Josh Brolin, and I see no reason to doubt it, although I can't confirm it. I like Josh Brolin and I liked Thanos, that's all I know.
I was amazed when I read that Karen Gillian was Nebula, I would have never imagined. No hair, blue skin, badass attitude, I would have never guess she was actually my Amy Pond... sure, they both have a sexy catwalk...
Lee Pace played Ronan , the film's enemy, and again I would have never guessed it, but now I understand why I liked him too.
This film was fun. :-D

A good year - 2006

Nothing special. Not bad either. A nice film, that's all. I'm not sure Russell Crowe was the best choice for this role, honestly. He seemed a bit out of place. He's a good actor, yes, and played his part, but I think this was not his best role.
I'm not fond of this film, I find it a bit boring. Max Skinner (Russell Crowe) is supposed to be a finance genius, but also something of a soulless bastard, to his own admission, but it's never explained to us why he left his uncle and never saw him again, since it seems like as a child he was very fond of him. It's never explained what path brought him so far away, geographically and spiritually.
Fanny (Marion Cotillard) was the best part of the movie, she was a good choice for the part indeed.
Max is determined to sell his uncle's chateau, that he just inherited, and he does, but all of a sudden he has a change of heart and decides to stay. The power of love, I guess, but just the love for Fanny or also the love for his uncle? That wasn't stopping him until a few minutes before.
The story lacks dephs, in my opinion, and I would have seen a different kind of actor for the role of Max.
Ita: Un'ottima annata

The Hobbit - The battle of the five armies

Well, let's just say that in my list of the Tolkien movies, this one would be number 6... it was good, yes, but maybe it was too much of a replay. I admit it, don't hate me, but I was just a little disappointed, because I was not as involved by it as I was with the other movies. I like Martin Freeman/Bilbo, I love Ian McKellen/Gandalf, it was nice to see Cate Blanchett/Galadriel - Hugo Weaving/Elrond and Christopher Lee/Saruman as much as Orlando Bloom/Legolas, although they were not part of the Hobbit story but had the only purpose of linking these films with the LordOfTheRings trilogy. No problem there for me, I like them all, and I liked Evangeline Lilly/Tauriel and her love story with Aidan Turner/Kili, really. I also like Richard Ermitage/Thorin and it was nice to see Ian Holm/old Bilbo, again to further link the two trilogies. Sylvester McCoy/Radagast had a very little role this time, we see one single shot of him coming to the rescue and that's it.
Despite my love for Stephen Fry, I didn't like his role, his master of Laketown was too much a caricature, and the same goes for Ryan Gage/Alfrid, I did not like him at all. He was supposed to be the Wormtongue of the situation, more or less, with a point of politician in him, but I loved Brad Dourif's Wormtongue, totally loved him, although he was a negative character, one of the baddies, we can say. Yet I loved him, and I loved Brad Dourif, he was great. Alfrid was just annoying after a while. Maybe I was supposed to laugh when he goes away with a dress on full of money, but I simply thought it was stupid of Bard to let him go with all that money when his city is ruined and his people have nothing. More importantly, I did not, not at all like Bard. I'm sorry, I don't know why, I have tried to see the hero in him and everything, but Luke Evans seemed so plain to me. I can't help it, I feel nothing from Bard, nothing at all.
Then there's the story: we were left with the dragon let loose from the mountain, and we find he's headed to the city, of course, and is busy setting it on fire while Bard breaks free (he was in jail) and tries to defend the city: brave, yes, but also a bit stupid since they already explained to us that normal arrows do nothing to him... what was he thinking, maybe this time they will kill Smaug, just to please me?? It's up to his son to bring him the big big arrow, only weapon that can penetrate the dragon's skin... so: throws-hits-dragon dead. Wow, just like that? It was easy, why nobody else tried that??
Anyway, the famous dragon was dead before the opening titles... I don't know you but I was a liiiittle disappointed... then there's the same old story: gold and riches drives people crazy and bad, we all know how it works...
Thorin is blinded by it, he turns back on his word, he doubts his own family, he want help those that need it. We have Thorin and his men locked inside the mountain to defend the gold, then the dwarves army that has come to reclaim their mountain, then the humans who have come to seek help after the dragon has destroyed their city, then the elves come ... because their king likes jewels, apparently.
And finally we have the orcs, come at exactly the right time, they should all be thanked honestly, their timing was excellent, considering that dwarves were about to fight against humans and elves. Thank you orcs, nothing is better that a common enemy to unite people. The elves army was really cool, by the way.
Thorin won't leave the mountain and the gold, and here's another stupid thing: the battle is going badly because there are just too many orcs everywhere, but then 13 dwarves join the battle : hooray.
...
I mean, on foot, with a single weapon, it's not like they brought the cavalry.
Anyway, Thorin is the only one that thought of killing the "general" instead of the simple soldiers.
Amazing.
I could scream SPOILERS now, if you want, but if anyone will ever read this should know that these are not reviews, but simply my personal thoughts on what I've watched. As I wrote in the title, I watch a movie and I talk about it. Simply that. Because I like it.
Right now I don't remember the book, because of my well-know bad memory, so I don't remember who lives and who dies in the book. Here, Fili is the first to die, then Kili is killed in front of Tauriel, then Thorin dies, letting Azog kill him to have the chance, once and for all, to kill him.
After Azog is dead... the end, it looks like the battle is over! Just like that, what about all the others? Were ALL the orcs in the city killed? Were ALL the orcs fighting the dwarves killed? Or somehow they magically knew their leader had been killed and fled? It's not clear, not to me at least, if someone knows it please, you're welcome to explain this to me.
The moment Azog is dead, the battle's over. I know I've said this above, but I find it amazing, they don't even show us the battlefield, we don't know how many dwarves survived, if the orcs ran away or if there were no survivors... it seems like it doesn't matter, Azog is dead, Thorin is dead so Bilbo has him to mourn, Kili is dead so Tauriel has him to cry on, and she's touching, poor little thing "if this is love I don't want it, take it from me. Why does it hurt so much?" and Thranduil's simple answer: "because it was real" was somehow special, acknowledging her love and showing that somehow he does know about love and pain.
This was something I did not like at all, it seems like nobody else mattered here but our protagonists, the ones we know and care about... but one of the things that made the LOTR trilogy so special is that  somehow everybody's part seemed as important as the others.
Here it's not like that. Nobody else counts, apparently.
Suddenly, we find ourselves back in the Shire, with Bilbo home again, to find that his town folks believing him dead are taking all his possessions...
That's why I liked this film less than all the others.
One last thing, have I talked about Lee Pace/Thranduil? No, I've left him for last, but not least. I loved him. I like Thranduil and Lee Pace equally, I liked to see Thranduil fighting among the others, I liked how Lee Pace portraided him, how he moved and talked, his voice, everything.

TransSiberian

I didn't like it. Nope. It should be a thriller, but honestly it wasn't clear what kind of a character was Jessie, what side I was supposed to take.
I'll explain. Jessie (Emily Mortimer) and her husband Roy (Woody Harrelson) meet couple Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and Abby (Kate Mara) on the trans-siberian express train. Carlos, Jessie and Abby stop at the same station while Roy stays behind. One morning, Jessie is quite happy to go on a trip alone with Carlos; she's a bit strange, it looks like she finds her husband boring and Carlos exciting and attractive, like she envy his relationship with Abby. She goes with him without telling Abby, to a remote and isolated church, she takes pictures of it and of Carlos, they kiss each other, then she pulls back and he insists. She runs away and he follows her, shouting that she misunderstood him, that he never meant to hurt her of force her. He's behind her, she can't outrun him, so she kills him, and before dying he tells her he wouldn't have hurt her.
The thing was too ambiguous, it wasn't clear what was right or wrong. Was he really a rapist, or had she reacted too much, to the point of killing him? Honestly, watching it she looked more like a murderer than like a victim that defended herself. I didn't think "how do you like that, scumbag?". I just thought : Oh God, she murdered him!
Then she goes back saying nothing to anyone, leaving Abby alone. She pretends to not know anything about Carlos whereabouts, and she meets up again with Roy. They leave again on the trans-siberian train, and they meet Grinko, a Russian detective who asks them a lot of questions about Carlos, telling them he was actually a drug smuggler. Jessie at this point finds out that Carlos had filled her case with matrioskes full of drugs. She tries to get rid of them, but she can't because Gringo is very suspicious and always around. Obviously Jessie tells lots of lies, both to him and her husband who knows nothing of what she did.
Now, the problem is that he really seemed to be in the right, and that she was in the wrong, and it was even annoying that she appeared to get away with it, with murder. Later in the movie though I found out that Grinko was actually a dirty cop, and that he was looking for Carlos because of the drug, to retrieve it for some bad guy he was working for. I saw the way he was torturing poor Abby who really knew nothing about it, and our two heroes can't do anything for her, so they escape leaving her there to suffer.
Another thing that annoyed me was how at the end the police kept remarking what a bad character Carlos was, what a criminal, because by doing so they were legitimating Jessie's actions, enabling her to come out of this story pure and clean. Well, dear Jessie, you're not. I don't like you, never did and never will.
Apparently Kolzak was played by Thomas Kretschmann, but once again I did not recognize him! Incredible how I never recognize him when he plays a different character.

Big Hero 6

Very nice. I mean, Baymax is very nice, the movie is just... nice. First thing first, every poster of the movie showed Baymax together with Hiro, so as soon as I saw his brother Tadashi introducing Baymax to Hiro as his personal project, I instantly thought: Tadashi was not in any poster, so I bet he'll die and Hiro will "inherit" Baymax... and so it happened.
Anyway, Hiro's reactions, his closing himself inside his room, leaving the world and his friends out, then his determination to find out why his invention was not destroyed in the same fire that costed Tadashi his life, his anger after finding out that the bad guy was the same professor Tadashi tried to help, that it was to save him that Tadashi entered that building on fire. All those emotions were right and well described, as it was Hiro's pain.
His friends and their inventions were cool, but the real love was Baymax, so sweet.
The best scene was when Hiro showed his friends how he modified Baymax to make it scarier, a real fighter, and the next moment Baymax is waving his big hand at them, right before letting himself get distracted by a butterfly... :-) Baymax had inside it Tadashi's good soul :-)
Only thing I could say against it is that the end is a bit of a nonsense: why is Baymax acting as it is, saving Hiro at its life's cost, if it had already removed its own "motherboard", the one Tadashi gave it, the one that made it be what it was, willing to do anything to help, to do good.
All in all it's not that important in this film, because when it comes down to it I think we're all happy that it did, because now Baymax can "return" :-D

Mystery woman

"La libreria del mistero" in Italy, is a tv series that I would have liked as a teenager, but now I find it very childish. It's from 2003 but it seems from the 80s. I only saw the first episode, the pilot, where Samantha Kinsey (Kellie Martin) introduces herself and her love for mystery books, and she'll solve her first mystery: how an apparent suicide was actually a murder committed by a policeman. The dead guy was played by Robert Wagner, and the policeman was William R. Moses. This is where it failed me. I would have liked him to become a part of the show, an important figure at Sam's side.
I didn't like the other characters, they were very plain, nothing that made me want to know more about them. The idea was ok, but it was too childish: that car scene was ridiculous: no breaks, down a road, she turns into a field to avoid a truck and the car just stops, just like that, without effort, without a scratch, no problem...
I see no need to watch any more episodes, honestly.

Dumb witness by Agatha Christie

A great book, I love it. Not sure about the title, though. Why dumb witness? For once I prefer the italian title Due mesi dopo: two months later, because that's important.
I like the story, I like everything. The beginning where we get to know our old lady Miss Emily Arundel of Market Basing and the people around her. Miss Minnie Lawson, a maid and a cook are at her service, and then there are her relatives. Theresa and her brother Charles are her dead brother Thomas' daughter and son. Bella is her dead sister Arabella's only daughter, and she's married to greek doctor Tanius. Emily knows very well that the four of them are not visiting her out of love but only to ask her for some money, but one day she has a fight with Charles, and two days later a bad accident happens to her: she falls down the stairs and everybody thinks the dog's responsible, but thinking about it Emily realizes this is impossible and rightly suspects her relatives. She writes a letter to Hercule Poirot but forgets to send it. Shortly afterwords, she dies and her maid finds the letter and decides to post it. It so happens that Poirot receives a letter on June 28 with written on it the date April 17! He is intrigued and takes the case, and nothing changes when he learns that she's dead. On the contrary, this is even more reason to keep investigating, because he suspects she's been murdered. I think this is a great start, very well written, full of interesting characters . Miss Lawson is a simple, not very bright woman who inherits all her lady's money, really a lot. Theresa is a "bad girl" who likes to spend a lot, go out, during, and do all she calls "living". Charles is a nice scoundrel, a little criminal with a charming personality. Bella has little money because her husband lost it, and seems to have no other interest than her children. I liked every character, I liked Theresa's love story with a serious and ambitious young doctor, and also her relationship with Charles. I liked old Miss Peabody, old friend of Emily. The only thing I didn't like is that it is narrated by Hastings, so here and there we're forced to listen , well, read, his ridiculous considerations, always very stupid because he goes by sympathy, most of the time, and always thinks that nobody would ever do those things he considers dishonorable, like listening to doors and such. He's the common man, I know, but still, he bores me.
Fortunately this time he doesn't have many ideas, and I was relieved that he only had one towards the end.
Spoilers!!! For those of you who haven't read it, and also for future me:
The end was clear only after the mirror episode, but I was a little confused when Bella died. If she was the murderer, then what happened to her? Well, it's another one of those cases when a suicide is thought to be the best way to end it avoiding a scandal that would involve not only the family name but also her children.
It's amazing the way in such stories murderers accept defeat and kill themselves...
One last thing: at one point Poirot stops to think at "charming, young Norman Gale, nice Evelyn Howard, kind and lovely dr Sheppard, Knighton so trustworthy"... and I was like: Gale-check Shepard-check Knightong-check Evelyn Howard... no, no idea what book is she from, but I'd better stop reading Christie's books now, at least until I forget that name :-p
Ita: Due mesi dopo

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the sea dragon - Di Renjie: Shen du long wang

China, 2013, di Hark Tsui, with Mark Chao.
Such a crazy film, that when I watched such absurd scenes, it wasn't ridiculous, it was funny :-)
It's a strange story. Bottom line is: a vengeful man wants to annihilate the whole court, and take the power. To do so he uses parasites that he puts in people's tea and in time they will transform into green creatures with scales. His first victim was a young man who made the royal tea. It's a family secret he wouldn't sell, so they poisoned him.
After he was infected they (the evil one and his followers) kept him prisoner to have him make his famous tea, which they later filled with parasites.
Young Dee is the new member of the Da Lisi guards, and is also the Chinese version of Sherlock Holmes, apparently :lol:
He forgets nothing and is extremely intelligent and brilliant.
The evil plan starts going badly when the young tea maker escapes, also freeing a sea monster that will destroy the royal fleet. He goes looking for a young woman, a courtesan, that he loved , requited.  He manages to make her understand who he really is, so she protects him from Dee, and later protects Dee from him because she wants him to calm down and don't hurt innocents people. It was a very nice scene when she threw herself at him, she hugged him saying in a hurry that she'll stay with him forever, no matter of his appearance, but he shouldn't hurt anyone. Very nice.
Analyzing him they realize everything, and they cure him, so at the end the beautiful girl that he'll manage to save, after she had put herself in danger to save him, will happily go away with her almost-totally-cured young tea maker and poet. For once the hero doesn't get the girl: good :-)
In an american film her lover would have died to let the hero console her, or joined the battle to save the girl himself.
I liked her and her lover, their story and their scenes together.
I also liked the Da Lisi Head, although I didn't get his name... sorry.
And I liked the sea monster and the battle. The emperor had a little role, and the empress reminded me of the Queen of Hearts because of her fondness for cutting people's head off :lol:
It was a nice film, not just fighting, floating around in the air, not simply using the sword to fend off flying insects, but also a horse running under water :lol: and the monster was not a disappointment, I liked it :-)

After life - Usa - 2009

I just saw it on tv, and a very strange movie it was... It has Christina Ricci (Anna Taylor) and Liam Neeson (Eliot Deacon) in it, which is a good thing, but the story is very strange. Anna is a complicated girl. One night she has a big fight with her boyfriend: well, if "fight" is the right word, because she does it all. With no reason. She says he's going to break up with her and things like that and runs away, but he really had an engagement ring with him... anyway, she drives away, and she's crying, and there's heavy rain... she "wakes up" elsewhere, and meets funeral director Eliot that tells her she's dead and he has to prepare her body for the funeral that'll happen in three days! Of course she doesn't believe it, but he tells her he has the gift, he can talk to the dead to help the pass on to the afterlife. Her boyfriend Paul (Justin Long) can't accept it , thinking it's all his fault, but Deacon won't let him see the body because he's not family. Paul thinks she's not dead, but can do nothing about it. He will see her only at the funeral, but still not convinced she's dead even after she's been buried, he drives to the cemetery after many many drinks, and the movie ends with him on Deacon's table, dead after a car accident, just like her.
I've read about this movie on the internet, and it said that it's not clear if it is all true or if she's really alive. Well, it shows many ambiguous things, like the fact that she seemed to still have breath, that Deacon injects her with a mysterious drug that he says it's to avoid rigor mortis... all of this is to confuse us, to make us think that maybe she's alive and he's just a psychopath that kills people in this strange, sick way, but let's look at all the other points. She spends three days in a room full of corpses, all of it totally or half naked and it's not full summer yet she's never cold. She was scared when she could not find her heartbeat. She did not eat or drink anything the whole time, and never thought about it. I don't know you, but three days without a single drop of water would not be nice for me. I'm pretty sure I'd think about it, I'd feel a bit thirsty, what do you say?
When she phoned Paul and Deacon caught her and told her he's the only one that can hear her: well, Paul certainly didn't act like he had heard her voice saying "help me", did he?
Nobody else can hear her voice or see her move.
Little detail, I so did not like that the policeman who came to see his dead brother saw her with her head looking up and a moment later with her head looking at her right. So what, the body really moves? I thought Deacon could talk to the soul, or ghost or however you want to call it, but a dead body is a dead body! Let's not talk about the sick perv (the mentioned policeman) who wanted to see the dead girl's naked body, it sickens me.
On one hand I liked this ambiguity, but I think they went too far, as if the body really moved, during that scene with the sick policeman.
The little kid was useless, it had the only purpose of reminding people of the "sixth sense" movie, when it's clear that he has the same "gift" and can see the dead and hear them. Now Eliot is not longer alone, and can teach him how to live with it.
Deacon is an interesting character because he does the same thing for every corpse, trying to convince them to accept their new condition and pass on in peace, but at the same time is disgusted to see  how little they really "lived" their lives, and to witness every time their anger towards him as if he was responsible. It is understandable, but I guess after so many times it becomes tiring.
Oh, let's not forget that when she looked at herself in the mirror she looked cadaveric, and that she never talked when someone else was there, but always moved and talked when alone with Deacon. Most importantly, everyone knew she was dead, the hospital, the police, everybody. It's not like he found her and told the others what he wanted... so she must be dead, this must be the reality. Conclusion, the film has flaws: body moving? tears on a corpse? breath? the strange attitude of Deacon, as if he was afraid anyone could suspect or find out who knows what...
Too much ambiguity.
But it is also a way to reflect on how little some people live their lives when they can, and yet refuse to die, and realize it only when it's too late.
P.s. I could never work among people naked, like actresses or models do. I envy them their money-security, but not this!

D.O.A. - 2006

They made a movie with the characters of the famous videogame. There's more or less everyone, but obviously all the attention is focused on the girls, no surprise there. There's a tournament, D.O.A., a very famous one only invited fighters can take part. 

We find: Tina Armstrong (Jamie Pressly) and her father Bass (Kevin Nash). They are wrestlers, but she wants to prove to the world that she's the real thing, a real fighter. Kasumi (Devon Aoki) wants to find out what happened to her unbeatable brother, gone missing since the last tournament. Ayane (Natassia Malthe) doesn't take part, she goes only to find Kasumi and bring her back/kill her, not sure about this detail, probably to kill her, yeah.

Christie (Holly Valance) is a thief I really know nothing about because she was not in the Doa2 I played years ago. Helena is completely different from what I remembered. She's the daughter of the tournament founder, now dead and with business partner Donovan (Eric Roberts) in his place. Hayabusa (Kane Kosugi) was a big friend of Kasumi's brother, so he helps her. Max (Matthew Marsden) is Christie's lover, and they're both here planning to steal all the money.

Zach (Brian White) is as annoying and as loud as in the game. Hayate-Collin Chou, Bayman-Derek Boyer, Leon-Silvio Simac, Gen Fu-Fang Liu, and Lei Fang-Ying Wang are all present, but they mean nothing, they are pretty much there just to be beaten and to make number.

All the focus is on Christie, Tina, Kasumi and Helena. 

At the end we find out Donovan's evil plan. He had Kasumi's brother prisoner, for the final demonstration: he has recorded on a computer all the best fighters' moves, and now he can download them into his brain like in Matrix, only here it is not permanent. Take away the magical glasses and take away the powers!

The girls become allies against him and the good ones win. Yeah. End.

A silly toy, no doubt about that. Nothing more, it was obvious from the start, but in some strange way not all that bad. The girls went ok after all, and Kasumi was exactly how she was supposed to be. Sad the other fighters counted for so little though.

A silly but enjoyable silliness.

10.0 Earthquake

Such low quality. Really, a very little movie. Not really bad... I mean, it is  bad, but there's worse, if that can be of any consolation.
So, it's the story of a very BIG earthquake in Los Angeles, basically everything down the city is breaking up and it's all falling down. Very little tremors, but serious, and sudden, holes, which are the only special effect we see. A few holes. They must have had a very low budget, for sure.
Now to the characters. We meet Jack (Henry Ian Cusick), about to divorce and with an 18 years old daughter = obviously he'll have to save one or both of them and save his marriage too.
The daughter Nicole (Heather Sossaman) is on a trip with some "friends" and again it is all so obvious that the big bully with no security belt will sooner or later be thrown out of the car, and also that Nicole and the nerd guy Teddy (Joey Luthman) will be the only survivors. Of course. Then there is Gladstone (Jeffrey Jones), a scientist who never stops talking and shouting, and a few others to fill up the movie.
The screenplay is very basic, easy, nothing difficult for any screenwriter. The end was incredible: throughout all the movie they had been saying: stop the machines, stop that fracking activities that are tearing Los Angeles apart! Then they finally get there, and Ritter the bnoss of the company doesn't want to let them in, he wants the work to go on really badly, it seems. Apparently he knows nothing of what is going on in the city.
They all go in anyway and the scientists all of a sudden go: "don't stop it, make it go faster (or whatever, with maximum energy..)" ! and Ritter is all "I did this, it's all my fault, now I must redeem myself by helping the hero save the city. This way, if I go with him, I'll be able to sacrifice my own life so save his, so that he'll go back to his family and get the story its happy ending".
There's very little tremors but a lot of shouting. It certainly is not the film I'll watch again, ever, in my life. I've never seen before any of these actors, but I wish for them that this is not the peak of their career...
After all, it's all quite boring and plain.

Miami vice - 2006

With Colin Farrell as Sonny Crockett, the part that was Don Johnson's, and Jamie Foxx in that which was played by Philip Michael Thomas: Ricardo Tubbs. A Farrell with awful moustaches, by the way.
The film wasn't good for lots of reasons. There were no light moments, no description of the characters, no friendship-moments.
No police work to start, to warm up the audience to these two characters. It immediately starts with the big case, so they go undercover until that's blown up and it all goes down shooting.
End of plot, but with two sex scenes, one each of course, and both useless to the story, but as it often happens, when a film lacks depth, it is full of sex to compensate.
Tubbs was with his wife, and Crockett with a woman that starts off on the criminals side, but he'll end up saving her at the end, probably to make it look like this character actually has a soul.
I tell you, the dance scene showed much more what was going on between them, their feelings, than the sex scene. Totally useless, as I said. If this film had dignity it would resent them.
Also, between Crockett and Tubbs there's only work, nothing to establish that they're friends or that they absolutely trust each other. That's a given. There was nothing to link this film to the old series but their names. The only scene that recalls that style is the silent goodbye at the end, as the series often ended kind of bitterly.
Jamie Foxx was very good as always, but it's not enough to make the film worth of a second view. Personally, I see no reason to watch it again. Ever.

Before sunset - 2004

The sequel of Before sunrise, finally telling us how things went. They had promised each other to meet in a few months, but here he is, Jesse, nine years later, presenting his book around the world, a book about that night they spent together.
Now Jesse is in France, and Celine goes to the bookshop where he is to meet him.
We now find out that she didn't make it, her grandmother she loved so much had died, so she could not go that time, while Jesse was there, waiting for her, feeling hurt and disappointed to not meeting her.
Back then they were young, Celine was only 23, and they had decided to leave it all to Fate, without exchanging any personal data, so obviously they had no way of contacting each other.
Because of this they had not seen or heard about the other in these nine years, and this is exactly what prompted Jesse to write this book, so he could have a chance to find her and ask her where the f.. was she!
The two of them have a coffee together, but they don't want to say goodbye just yet, so they agree to stay together until sunset, when again he'll have to catch a plane home, to America.
Celine is now in a relationship with a man that is almost never present, and all her past relationships were real disasters; Jesse married a nice girl just because she was pregnant, but he knows they're not really in love. Jesse loves his kid very much, but feels no real love for his wife because in his dreams he always meets Celine. Now, nine years later, we see him looking at her talking, with big eyes, and just like in the first film they walk and talk about everything (by the way, they also confirmed to me that they actually had sex that night in the park), really everything goes through their minds, and Jesse feels so well around her that he finds every possible excuse to postpone the goodbye and spend more time with her, he even insists to go see her house and hear her singing one of her own songs: an imbarassing one, let me tell you, that is practically a love confession : "you were everything I dreamt of in life. It was for you just a one night thing but you were much more to me, I just want another try, I just want another night one single night with you, little Jesse, is worth a thousand with anybody. I'll never forget this one night thing, even tomorrow in other arms, my heart will stay yours until I die." Come on, she chose the song herself, and totally confessed her love to him, she declared there and then, it was almost embarassing... well, more than almost actually.
Up until now it was more or less like the first film, nothing more, only it lacked the surprice-factor of the other. Then, right at the end, while she's going on talking, sort-of dancing in her house, with him staring at her from the couch, right here it happens, the miracle, what I always say it's so important in every story, and it's a good ending. A right one.
I found that here, and it made me like this movie much more than the first one. While she's sort-of-dancing, making some kind of impression of an artist I've never heard of, she says to him "baby, you are gonna miss that plane", and he instantly replies: "I know", smiles and keeps looking at her with those eyes as in adoration of her.
Ending titles. Big smile on my face, emotions loose.
Splendid, beautiful, perfect ending. That "I know" said in that way, practically to himself, because this time he's not gonna leave, he won't lose her again, and even if he had always known how much he liked her, now the time has come for him to make a final decision, surrender and be honest with himself. He understands he doesn't want to lose her again, ever again. "I know" and that loving look in his eyes, it was perfect, just perfect. Congrats.

The Brave

It was nice, yes, but really nothing special, for me. I realize Merida was angry , she was being forced to marry a complete stranger so young, but she really behaved like a spoiled child. She publicly disobeyed during the tournament, winning it, so to obtein her own hand and avoid the marriage, but by doing so she risked to throw the kingdom into chaos, because by breaking the tradition she could have caused a war among the four clans.
Like a spoiled child she then ask the witch a spell to change her destiny, and when she gives that cursed pasty to her mother she transforms her into a bear! From now on, it's all Merida trying to save her and make amends for the big trouble she has made.
To be honest, the ending was too easy : the three clan listen to this child telling them they should change things and break the old traditions, and they simply agree. Ridiculous, and dangerous, because it is not that simple to change people's minds. It never is.
Anyway, the nicest scene was at the end, when she cries and admits she made a mistake, and that she wants her mum back, as she was before.
Nice and touching :-)
I add that for once the songs were really nothing special.