ep 1 - Last man standing - Ziva is in Marocco, doing Jessica Rabbit in a blue dress when a bomb goes off and she's injured. Four months have passed.
Gibbs is with agents Langer, Lee and a certain Keating. 126 days exactly, Abby has been counting :-) She's seen Tim but not Tony and Ziva, and gives Gibbs two weeks top to get them back :lol: Sweet Abby :-)
We see Ziva's father, she's fine. Now we learn why Leon broke up the team: because one of the three new agents of Gibbs is a traitor, and Leon needed McGee and Ziva to help him too. Lee's past relationship with Palmer comes out. They stopped it a few months ago, and with this the moment I saw Langer dead I knew the spy was Lee. It had to be.
ep 2 - Agent afloat - Rocky Carroll is the name of the actor playing the new director, now appearing in the opening credits.
Ziva and Gibbs go aboard Tony's ship for an investigation, to find out who took the place of a sailor after having killed both him and his wife. After that, he comes back, reassigned to DC.
ep 3 - Capitol offence - McGee stole and ate Abby's cupcake that Abby had bought for her :-)
Senator Kylie who was at Desert Storm with Gibbs tries to fool him, but he can't! And his wife made the kind of obvious mistake that we always get in shows like Murder,she wrote. She said: "Pat would never shoot a woman in the back" and I thought: how can she know she was shot in the back? Gibbs corfirmed at the end that the detail was never released.
ep 4 - Heartland - The team goes to stillwater, Pennsylvania, where Gibbs was born! Gibbs hasn't been there since summer '76, and now we meet his father Jackson 'Jack' Gibbs, selling groceries in his store, and they have a difficult relationship. They hadn't spoken to each other since Shannon and Kelly's funeral, when he brought a date. We see Gibbs as a teenager, fighting with guys. Gibbs helps in the shop, and tries to go on with the investigation Dad's way first: kindly...
He seems still a teenager around him :-p then when their car blows up they do it Gibbs' way :-)
How cute was Gibbs all smiling when he was driving his shiny car!
The case: truth is, a guy could never believe his wife and sent two men to kill Ethan, but he was wrong, she had been telling the truth, and Ethan's still alive, his friend died though.
"everyone needs a code to live by": a girl said this to him when he left Stillwater: she was Shannon, and that's why he has "his rules". Now Gibbs comes home driving his yellow car :-)
ep 5 - Nine lives - Gibbs in investigating the deaths and torture of two Marine and he collides with Fornell's investigation to bring down a boss. Fornell made a mistake, didn't see the truth, and now three men are dead and his witness will be sentenced for murder.
ep 6 - Murder 2.0 - Tony: "I have standards, Ziva, otherwise I'd be dating you" :lol:
Someone is killing people posting the videos of the murders and communicating with Gibbs. Abby:"I've never been so scared in my whole life. Except when my stalker-ex tried to kill me. And when my insane assistant Chip had me at knifepoint. And when McGee's crazy fan put a gun to my head at the..." - McGee:"we got it Abs" :lol:
I like that at the end they say that for the media the killer's name will remain unknown, but I find this also very unlikely, much more unlikely than anything else they've done. They should never become so famous, Media do a terrible service sometimes.
ep 7 - Collateral damage - The team works on a robbery at a bank in Quantico with a murder, and Dwayne Wilson , a new recruit, is assigned to help them.
I loved Abby arranging her thoughts, it was like she was going to her MindPalace, although I guess she would call it something else :lol:
Dwayne is alright, he's like a little, nice version of Gibbs :lol: I liked his move with the car :-)
ep 8 - Cloak - Gibbs orchestrates a whole plan to find out if Lee has any accomplices. He's sure she's the mole now, not poor Langer, but doesn't know who else is in on it. Tony and Ziva didn't like not being told the truth. Abby was part of the plan too; once caught, Lee says she had to, because they have her daughter and threaten to kill her, so they let her go, but Gibbs is with her.
ep 9 - Dagger - Tony's CaryGrant's voice and his normal voice are the same, he's not good in his impressions :lol:
Amanda counted her prison days with ketchup, the brave little girl :-)
They work to find Lee's daughter and catch the big spies. I understand Lee's position, and doesn't matter if Amanda is not her daughter, just the sister her parents adopted and she raised. It doesn't matter. The real point was finally made by Gibbs twenty minutes in this episode: she should have gone to Gibbs immediately, before killing two innocents men (btw, two? Langer and who else?)
I knew she had to die at the end, as soon as the little girl was safe, but I never dreamt of this, that Gibbs would shoot her to kill the bad guy that was holding her as a shield!
ep 10 - Road kill - "sorry Ziva we don't talk of the fight club" :lol: This never gets old :lol
A guy from a secret (is there any other kind?) fight club is killed because he was blackmailing people.
ep 11 - Silent night - Tony: "close your mouth Ziva, he's married" :lol: ok, I'll do it too.
Tony's Christmas tradition, to watch "it's a wonderful life"! Oh I love it too :-)
A man supposedly dead for years is alive and suspected of murder; detective Justin Kemp, Metro Homocide, just wants to arrest him and close the case, but it wasn't him. Gibbs will bring him back to his daughter. Ducky, who signed the death certificate, also talks with Abby of the sixpence Christmas tradition :-)
Ducky's mother lives in a new home with nurses. Abby leaves a red kiss on Gibbs' cheek under the mistletoe. At the end, Quinn gives Gibbs a drawing of all the six faces of the team:beautiful. After that, Gibbs calls his dad to say Merry Christmas.
ep 12 - Caged - The body of a dead lieutenant is found, and Gibbs already knows who did it. Eleven years ago he arrested Celia for two other murders, so now McGee goes to prison to get her confession on this one too. There's a rebellion while he's in there, and McGee has to figure out the killer of a guard. A woman with only a year left killed him because he was raping her daughter, but Celia confesses in her place, and McGee becomes a little tougher after the experience.
ep 13 - Broken bird - Ducky and Palmer are discussing because Jimmy missed a class, apparently :lol:
A sailor is killed, and it seems very easy, the girl is in their custody, when another woman picks up the murder weapon and assaults Ducky! Only his hand is badly stabbed. That woman accuses Ducky of being a war criminal, saying he killed her civilian brother. Ducky won't defend himself, he turns himself in to the Afghani Ambassador, surrendering. He actually killed him, out of pity because David was repeatedly tortured for no reason. Ducky will learn the reason: Mr Pain was torturing him through David! Mr Pain wanted to break Ducky, and he did. Bastard! Ducky is the purest soul here, so happy when he saw the bird iin his house had not died and now was flying away.. "it was only stunned", he's so sweet.
Gibbs: "you're forgiven"
Ducky: "for the crime, Jethro, for the act there is no forgiveness"
Only at the end, alone with Dr Jordan Hampton, he lets himself cry.
I like her, I was really glad to see her here with Ducky :-)
ep 14 - Love and war - A psycho had a man killed so to get back together with his daughter.. I knew it for as soon as I saw the guy.
Tony pretended to be a girl on the internet, and McGee was very interested until Ziva told him the truth. Tony felt so guilty he gave him his 40dollars back and even the last slice of pizza!
ep 15 - Deliverance - Someone is arming street gangs, and Gibbs finds his security number written on the scene, written by the son of the woman that 18 years ago saved his life in Colombia, and now Gibbs helps him, the boy who became a Marine because of what his mother had told him about Gibbs :-)
ep 16 - Bounce - A murder case, and Tony is in charge because it was his case: the suspect in fact was convicted by Tony for theft but he was innocent. Gibbs is kind of amused by this, of working for Tony and he calls him Boss :lol: I love Gibbs.
He even joins the theorising and quotes ex-wives's favourite lines and movies :-) Gibbs tells him that yes, three years ago he screwed up but now he's making it right "and me proud. You've been doing one hell of a job, Anthony" Wow, this is something :-) Coming from Gibbs :-)
At the end, Tony says "Bourbon, boat, basement. I get it" :lol: Now he understands :-)
ep 17 - South by Southwest - Wow, I liked Tony's deep voice :-)
A Ncis man trying to reach Abby is shot, and they find an assassin killed him and tried to kill Gibbs, Tony and a witness but failed. Uranium is involved.
Tony thought he was about to inherit money while truth is, he owns the real heir 10.000 plus 20 years interests.
ep 18 - Knockout - Leon Vance is conducting an investigation without Gibbs because a friend has been killed. Tony finally notices that Gibbs hasn't smacked any of them on the back of their heads lately. True. And a few minutes later he gets smacked twice! Oh Tony...
Again, Tony and Ziva no, please!
Now, what does this end mean? That Leon's story of why he didn't go on Marine active duty was fake, it really was his now dead friend to have that eye surgery.. so what, Leon never was a Marine? No, it's not possible, then what?
ep 19 -
lunedì 29 giugno 2015
mercoledì 24 giugno 2015
NCIS season 5
ep 1 - Bury your dead - It goes on from where we stopped in season 4. He's in a car with them, and Jenny already knew about that father-daughter relationship. When his car explodes, Ziva and the others are worried sick, more like sad to the heart. It was all a deeply undercover mission planned by Jenny, but Mr Benoit knew about Tony not being teacher DiNardo but Agent DiNozzo. Abby says there's no way Jenny's father's dead, but she can't accept the idea that her father took the bribe, so she still believes LaGrenouille killed him, and at the end we see him dead, hidden under water. Jeanne has disappeared.
I was sorry about this whole thing, I liked Tony being in love with her.
ep 2 - Family - Ziva insists on telling Tony to let his feeling for Jeanne go, and when he reminds her of Roy, she says he crossed the line! Unbelievable. What's up with her? I really hope they're not making her in love with Tony, that would be so wrong!! And she wants him to apologies! And he does! Ok, I know she cares about him, but going to him saying ' you shouldn't have fallen in love with her, forget her ' ! is not the way to help!
Sometimes I wonder at Abby's work, to think that the other shows need so many people to do her work, and here they just have Abby's doing everything! She knows her tests, her chemical stuff, a lot about computer and hacking, she knows about cars and everything about mechanics...
At the end we see a letter from Jeanne: "I'm not coming back. You need to choose" ... come on, what is that? You don't do that to someone you love. Of course, she wasn't sure he loved her any more, she wasn't sure he ever loved her, probably, given the circumstances, but to ask him to leave his whole life behind... isn't that a bit too much?
ep 3 - Ex-file - The dead Marine is in an Army base, so Colonel Mann is in charge here.. and a witness is the third ex-wife of Gibbs.. so the colonel interviews her :lol: McGee is jealous because Abby seems to get along well with the tech expert sent to her from DIA, until he turns out to be the murderer :-) Mann finds a tape with Shannon and Kelly's voices on it.
ep 4 - Identity crisis - A good episode, with Ducky stumbling on a murder, and all his anger for the previous doctor's mistake vanishing as soon as he sees the doctor's an attractive woman :-)
A young girl, Fbi agent, makes Fornell angry than asks for Ziva's advice, and does pretty well in the end. Gibbs going to Fornell's office :-) I really liked them working together again, I love them together, and their joint "interrogation" was brilliant and lovely. "you made a big mistake. You tried to shoot our agents" because the guy has taken the Fbi agent's gun to shoot at Ziva, before the girl showed him why she's called "Fbi Special Agent" :-)
ep 5 - Leap of faith - Gibbs convinced a suicidal Lt on a roof top to come talk to him but he got shot and fell off the roof. Abby received a job offers, but apparently she receives a lot of them, but never considers them because they're a family and she doesn't want to leave.
They work with agent Nikki, a sort of Ocd person.
ep 6 - Chimera - Abby wanted them to join her: Brainmatter, her friends' band, have a show that night, but they can't, because a man is dead.
Top secret research vessel Usns Chimera. McGee summons well enough this episode: Pirates that weren't really pirates were actually Russians sailors who were on a covert mission to steal a Navy research ship that wasn't actually a Navy research ship in order to get back nuclear weapons that we thought they didn't think we had retrieved.
This was a sort of spooky episode, but I didn't really like it very much.
ep 7 - Requiem - What a big start before the credits! Great. Tony running and shooting and throwing himself under water where Gibbs is trapped in a car with a girl. Tony takes them both out and tries to save them, but it'd appear they drowned! Then after the credits we see the beginning of the story, 24 hours earlier. A girl, Maddie Tyler came to see Gibbs, and apparently she was Kelly's best friend! So of course Gibbs helps her getting rid of her stalker. How does this girl speak? I can't understand half the words she says!
Maddie also tells him that she and Kelly buried a time capsule in his backyard, and he retrieves it.
Oh the life of a Marine. If I had cried that way my father wouldn't have left me! But he has to! Maddie is taken but he saves her, and Tony saves them both. At the end Gibbs doesn't open the box, he buries it again with a smile. I'm so glad she was really a good girl, did nothing wrong :-) It would be nice to see Gibbs and Maddie again :-)
ep 8 - Designated target - An admiral is killed with the taxi-driver, who was actually the "designated target".
I can't believe McGee is letting a relatively strange girl clear his credit-card! Come on! I don't like this.
I liked the wife of Thomas Zuri, and I mean Sayda not the other one. Sorry it ended this way but I sure understand.
ep 9 - Lost & found - Ncis casually finds an abducted kid, who wasn't really abducted, because he lives with his father who was framed by a killer-cop but is actually a good man and his new wife, a Navy Lt. Gibbs put things right for the little DiNozzo :-)
ep 10 - Corporal punishment - A troubled Marine breaks out of hospital. They catch him but it looks like he was experimented upon : "someone turned Damon Werth into Captain America"-thanks McGee. So at the end what? He drugged himself, so he could be a Marine? Ziva was sweet on him, sorry it ended that way.
ep 11 - Tribes - Ziva is watching Double Indemnity for the third time! She says she follows a film-study :lol:
Special Agent Langer, Fbi: Tony"what an ass", Ziva "yes indeed" :lol:
Well, another AlQaeda-themed episode..
ep 12 - Stakeout - Tony and McGee are on a stakeout, and Ziva is with Gibbs. It involves an important radar stolen and a guy killed, which also involves Metro Police. Ziva and Tony are dealing with their pranks and Ducky is acting strangely.
ep 13 - Dog tags - McGee is attacked by a dog suspected of having murdered a man, but Abby gets so attached to the dog she names him Jethro and refuses to give him back. After they clear the dog's position, Abby wants Tim to take him, because she can't keep it at her home.
ep 14 - Internal affairs - Ncis is under investigations after Fbi found LaGrenouille's body: he had been murdered, but we kinda knew this. Fornell interviews all of them one by one, and then McGee works from Gibbs basement using his computer and printer :lol: Apparently Jeanne said she saw Tony killing her father. A lie, of course, and when they meet Tony tells her it was all a lie between them... why did he? That's not true.
At the very end they imply that Jenny shot him but only Gibbs knows..
ep 15 - In the zone - Tony and Nikki go to Baghdad to investigate a murder, and I tell you, Ziva's jealousy is really annoying. I don't know where they want to go with this. If they keep it up, I'll have to research the internet, because if they end up "romantically involved" I'll stop watching it. I hope it doesn't happen too soon because I already bought season 6! Come on, that would be so absurd and wrong!
Nikki has a tough past: her brother is in a coma, injured right there in Baghdad. She gives boy Jameel a computer for his sister.
ep 16 - Recoil - While undercover, Ziva meets and kills a serial killer during a struggle, but he didn't work alone and Tony thinks it might be the guy from the bar Ziva slept with. I hope this is just concern and not jealousy, because it looks like jealousy and I'm getting more and more annoyed with it.
She was right, he had nothing to do with it :-)
ep 17 - About face - Palmer is so shocked after being shot at, he can't remember anything useful, but he can't get it out of his head and at the end he helps catching him.
Bah, I'm not very fond of Palmer.
ep 18 - Judgement day part one and two. Jenny realizes that a mistake she made many years ago has come back to haunt her: a collegue has died already, and she knows that she's next, and then Gibbs. She asks for Mike Franks' help, but he can't protect her and she dies, after putting up one hell of a fight, although we don't see it. Mike couldn't protect her, but he comes now to protect Gibbs, shooting the woman who was about to get her revenge over him. At the end, new director Leon breaks up the team.
Abby was very touching here, and after all we had been warned about something like this. We knew Jenny was sick, so we were prepared, even if it happened a different way.
I didn't like the implications of Tony's speech about being inevitable for a man and a woman to get together after spending so much time together. I really hope they won't make Ziva and Tony a couple! I don't like this, it's so annoying that in every show partners must necessarily fall in love, come on, always! Why can't people like, respect and admire each other without being sexually attracted?
Annoying.
I was sorry about this whole thing, I liked Tony being in love with her.
ep 2 - Family - Ziva insists on telling Tony to let his feeling for Jeanne go, and when he reminds her of Roy, she says he crossed the line! Unbelievable. What's up with her? I really hope they're not making her in love with Tony, that would be so wrong!! And she wants him to apologies! And he does! Ok, I know she cares about him, but going to him saying ' you shouldn't have fallen in love with her, forget her ' ! is not the way to help!
Sometimes I wonder at Abby's work, to think that the other shows need so many people to do her work, and here they just have Abby's doing everything! She knows her tests, her chemical stuff, a lot about computer and hacking, she knows about cars and everything about mechanics...
At the end we see a letter from Jeanne: "I'm not coming back. You need to choose" ... come on, what is that? You don't do that to someone you love. Of course, she wasn't sure he loved her any more, she wasn't sure he ever loved her, probably, given the circumstances, but to ask him to leave his whole life behind... isn't that a bit too much?
ep 3 - Ex-file - The dead Marine is in an Army base, so Colonel Mann is in charge here.. and a witness is the third ex-wife of Gibbs.. so the colonel interviews her :lol: McGee is jealous because Abby seems to get along well with the tech expert sent to her from DIA, until he turns out to be the murderer :-) Mann finds a tape with Shannon and Kelly's voices on it.
ep 4 - Identity crisis - A good episode, with Ducky stumbling on a murder, and all his anger for the previous doctor's mistake vanishing as soon as he sees the doctor's an attractive woman :-)
A young girl, Fbi agent, makes Fornell angry than asks for Ziva's advice, and does pretty well in the end. Gibbs going to Fornell's office :-) I really liked them working together again, I love them together, and their joint "interrogation" was brilliant and lovely. "you made a big mistake. You tried to shoot our agents" because the guy has taken the Fbi agent's gun to shoot at Ziva, before the girl showed him why she's called "Fbi Special Agent" :-)
ep 5 - Leap of faith - Gibbs convinced a suicidal Lt on a roof top to come talk to him but he got shot and fell off the roof. Abby received a job offers, but apparently she receives a lot of them, but never considers them because they're a family and she doesn't want to leave.
They work with agent Nikki, a sort of Ocd person.
ep 6 - Chimera - Abby wanted them to join her: Brainmatter, her friends' band, have a show that night, but they can't, because a man is dead.
Top secret research vessel Usns Chimera. McGee summons well enough this episode: Pirates that weren't really pirates were actually Russians sailors who were on a covert mission to steal a Navy research ship that wasn't actually a Navy research ship in order to get back nuclear weapons that we thought they didn't think we had retrieved.
This was a sort of spooky episode, but I didn't really like it very much.
ep 7 - Requiem - What a big start before the credits! Great. Tony running and shooting and throwing himself under water where Gibbs is trapped in a car with a girl. Tony takes them both out and tries to save them, but it'd appear they drowned! Then after the credits we see the beginning of the story, 24 hours earlier. A girl, Maddie Tyler came to see Gibbs, and apparently she was Kelly's best friend! So of course Gibbs helps her getting rid of her stalker. How does this girl speak? I can't understand half the words she says!
Maddie also tells him that she and Kelly buried a time capsule in his backyard, and he retrieves it.
Oh the life of a Marine. If I had cried that way my father wouldn't have left me! But he has to! Maddie is taken but he saves her, and Tony saves them both. At the end Gibbs doesn't open the box, he buries it again with a smile. I'm so glad she was really a good girl, did nothing wrong :-) It would be nice to see Gibbs and Maddie again :-)
ep 8 - Designated target - An admiral is killed with the taxi-driver, who was actually the "designated target".
I can't believe McGee is letting a relatively strange girl clear his credit-card! Come on! I don't like this.
I liked the wife of Thomas Zuri, and I mean Sayda not the other one. Sorry it ended this way but I sure understand.
ep 9 - Lost & found - Ncis casually finds an abducted kid, who wasn't really abducted, because he lives with his father who was framed by a killer-cop but is actually a good man and his new wife, a Navy Lt. Gibbs put things right for the little DiNozzo :-)
ep 10 - Corporal punishment - A troubled Marine breaks out of hospital. They catch him but it looks like he was experimented upon : "someone turned Damon Werth into Captain America"-thanks McGee. So at the end what? He drugged himself, so he could be a Marine? Ziva was sweet on him, sorry it ended that way.
ep 11 - Tribes - Ziva is watching Double Indemnity for the third time! She says she follows a film-study :lol:
Special Agent Langer, Fbi: Tony"what an ass", Ziva "yes indeed" :lol:
Well, another AlQaeda-themed episode..
ep 12 - Stakeout - Tony and McGee are on a stakeout, and Ziva is with Gibbs. It involves an important radar stolen and a guy killed, which also involves Metro Police. Ziva and Tony are dealing with their pranks and Ducky is acting strangely.
ep 13 - Dog tags - McGee is attacked by a dog suspected of having murdered a man, but Abby gets so attached to the dog she names him Jethro and refuses to give him back. After they clear the dog's position, Abby wants Tim to take him, because she can't keep it at her home.
ep 14 - Internal affairs - Ncis is under investigations after Fbi found LaGrenouille's body: he had been murdered, but we kinda knew this. Fornell interviews all of them one by one, and then McGee works from Gibbs basement using his computer and printer :lol: Apparently Jeanne said she saw Tony killing her father. A lie, of course, and when they meet Tony tells her it was all a lie between them... why did he? That's not true.
At the very end they imply that Jenny shot him but only Gibbs knows..
ep 15 - In the zone - Tony and Nikki go to Baghdad to investigate a murder, and I tell you, Ziva's jealousy is really annoying. I don't know where they want to go with this. If they keep it up, I'll have to research the internet, because if they end up "romantically involved" I'll stop watching it. I hope it doesn't happen too soon because I already bought season 6! Come on, that would be so absurd and wrong!
Nikki has a tough past: her brother is in a coma, injured right there in Baghdad. She gives boy Jameel a computer for his sister.
ep 16 - Recoil - While undercover, Ziva meets and kills a serial killer during a struggle, but he didn't work alone and Tony thinks it might be the guy from the bar Ziva slept with. I hope this is just concern and not jealousy, because it looks like jealousy and I'm getting more and more annoyed with it.
She was right, he had nothing to do with it :-)
ep 17 - About face - Palmer is so shocked after being shot at, he can't remember anything useful, but he can't get it out of his head and at the end he helps catching him.
Bah, I'm not very fond of Palmer.
ep 18 - Judgement day part one and two. Jenny realizes that a mistake she made many years ago has come back to haunt her: a collegue has died already, and she knows that she's next, and then Gibbs. She asks for Mike Franks' help, but he can't protect her and she dies, after putting up one hell of a fight, although we don't see it. Mike couldn't protect her, but he comes now to protect Gibbs, shooting the woman who was about to get her revenge over him. At the end, new director Leon breaks up the team.
Abby was very touching here, and after all we had been warned about something like this. We knew Jenny was sick, so we were prepared, even if it happened a different way.
I didn't like the implications of Tony's speech about being inevitable for a man and a woman to get together after spending so much time together. I really hope they won't make Ziva and Tony a couple! I don't like this, it's so annoying that in every show partners must necessarily fall in love, come on, always! Why can't people like, respect and admire each other without being sexually attracted?
Annoying.
domenica 21 giugno 2015
At Bertram's hotel by Agatha Christie
It's a nice book, not my favourite but it has many nice points. The way the Bertram Hotel is described, is one. She gives a very suggestive image of it, I could actually see it and feel its atmosphere. It doesn't often happen to me, because usually descriptions pass over me like raindrops, and I barely notice them, very rarely remember them.
Miss Marple finds herself there because her nephew Raymond West and his wife had decided to give her a gift, and she herself had chosen the Bertram hotel. Miss Marple is older here, Raymond is already married and she has pain in her bones, gets easily tired and can't walk for long.
She chooses that hotel in London after hearing from a friend that it was still open, the same hotel she had been to when she was a girl. This was the loveliest bit of the book, to hear her remember when she was just a young girl and was at that hotel with her mother. She remembers that she had fallen for a 'very unsuitable young man' but back then there had been her mother to promptly put an end to that story, and although now she appreciates her mother's wisdom, she also remembers that she had cried herself to sleep for at least a week! How lovely, dear old Miss Marple was once a passionate girl who cried for love..
The case was different from the usual, because the police was investigating a series of robberies, happening everywhere, banks, trains, every time successfully. Chief inspector Fred Davy, called father Davy by some of his older colleagues, thing that I did not like at all, I thought it was annoying and useless, anyway, he starts suspecting the Bertram Hotel, for some reason, and when inspector Campbell is brought there by a minor investigation, he goes along to take a look.
They ask about canon Pennyfather (this is the name in the Italian book I read, although it sounds a bit strange to me, Pennyfeather would have sound nicer somehow). The old clergyman has vanished, but nobody seems to be too much worried because he was always very forgetful and could have easily gone to the wrong place, and forgot to send note of where he was, whatever.
There are many characters in this book. Guests of the Bertram Hotel are Lady Bess Sedgwick, a very adventurous woman; Elvira Blake, the daughter she has not seen in years who has no idea that she's there too; Colonel Luscombe, a judge and also legal guardian of the girl; Miss Marple's acquaintance lady Selina Hazy among many others.
Other characters are Bridget, Elvira's best friend, always helping each other telling all kind of lies to get free to do what they want. Michael Gorman, working at the hotel's door, an old love of Bess.
Ladislaus Malinowski, a young man with a passion for fast cars, he was a world champion too, and now is a friend of Bess and Elvira's love interest. There are also all the people working at the hotel, from Rose to Henry, from Miss Gorringe to the director, and others.
Miss Marple sees Elvira with Ladislaus, and how she looks at him. It's clear to her that the girl is in love, and wishes someone would take better care of Elvira, like her own mother took care of her when she was young. Ladislaus is clearly not good company! I did not like him at all.
Canon Pennyfather is later found with no memory of what happened, knowing only what a couple had told him, that he had had an accident, while actually he had been knocked unconscious by someone in his hotel room.
The whole mystery was something like the hotel being the base for all the robberies, where actors would pose as notorious people to confuse potential witnesses, although this didn't seem to me a great plan.. why would they walk every day in the hotel making themselves look like someone else? It had sense only to mask themselves during the robberies..
Anyway, Miss Marple too starts suspecting something's wrong at the hotel, because she says it's too good to be true, and that one cannot stay anchored to the past, but must go on with the times, and that it all seemed faked after a while.
Chief Davy starts having great consideration of her opinion, and asks for her help. Miss Marple actually has a very little role, here, although important. It's Davy doing all the investigation and revealing at the end that it was Bess the head of the robberies. She was about to deny it, but then all of a sudden confessed everything, even the murder of Micky Gorman, and ran away to her car, driving at such speed to kill herself when she crashed. Both Davy and Miss Marple were witnesses to her confession, but both of them know that she was no killer. It was actually Elvira. The girl was madly in love with Ladislaus, but knew very well that he would not have married her had her been poor, and so when she found out that her mother Bess had been married to Gorman since she was young she was scared of losing her inheritance. Bess had not known about it, thinking it just a joke, and had gone on marrying three or four times , one of which was with Elvira's father. Now in a year's time Elvira was to inherit a lot of money, but what if that old marriage was to be made public? It would invalidate her mother's other marriages, including the one with her father. To prevent this, Elvira had killed Gorman herself.
The sadness of this.
Now Miss Marple asks Davy if he'll let her get away with it. Knowing that her mother had died after confessing, Elvira adds nothing to it, willing to accept her sacrifice to save herself, but Davy tells Miss Marple that no, he won't accept it, he won't permit it. The book ends with Miss Marple saying May God have mercy on her soul.
So what, will Davy be able to prove that Elvira did it? How? It doesn't seem easy at all. Honestly I didn't like this ending much.
Side note, there is mention of a mysterious Mr Robinson when Davy goes to him to have an information otherwise very hard to obtain. Mr Robinson however was able to tell him the answer in a matter of minutes.
Ita: Miss Marple al Bertram Hotel
Miss Marple finds herself there because her nephew Raymond West and his wife had decided to give her a gift, and she herself had chosen the Bertram hotel. Miss Marple is older here, Raymond is already married and she has pain in her bones, gets easily tired and can't walk for long.
She chooses that hotel in London after hearing from a friend that it was still open, the same hotel she had been to when she was a girl. This was the loveliest bit of the book, to hear her remember when she was just a young girl and was at that hotel with her mother. She remembers that she had fallen for a 'very unsuitable young man' but back then there had been her mother to promptly put an end to that story, and although now she appreciates her mother's wisdom, she also remembers that she had cried herself to sleep for at least a week! How lovely, dear old Miss Marple was once a passionate girl who cried for love..
The case was different from the usual, because the police was investigating a series of robberies, happening everywhere, banks, trains, every time successfully. Chief inspector Fred Davy, called father Davy by some of his older colleagues, thing that I did not like at all, I thought it was annoying and useless, anyway, he starts suspecting the Bertram Hotel, for some reason, and when inspector Campbell is brought there by a minor investigation, he goes along to take a look.
They ask about canon Pennyfather (this is the name in the Italian book I read, although it sounds a bit strange to me, Pennyfeather would have sound nicer somehow). The old clergyman has vanished, but nobody seems to be too much worried because he was always very forgetful and could have easily gone to the wrong place, and forgot to send note of where he was, whatever.
There are many characters in this book. Guests of the Bertram Hotel are Lady Bess Sedgwick, a very adventurous woman; Elvira Blake, the daughter she has not seen in years who has no idea that she's there too; Colonel Luscombe, a judge and also legal guardian of the girl; Miss Marple's acquaintance lady Selina Hazy among many others.
Other characters are Bridget, Elvira's best friend, always helping each other telling all kind of lies to get free to do what they want. Michael Gorman, working at the hotel's door, an old love of Bess.
Ladislaus Malinowski, a young man with a passion for fast cars, he was a world champion too, and now is a friend of Bess and Elvira's love interest. There are also all the people working at the hotel, from Rose to Henry, from Miss Gorringe to the director, and others.
Miss Marple sees Elvira with Ladislaus, and how she looks at him. It's clear to her that the girl is in love, and wishes someone would take better care of Elvira, like her own mother took care of her when she was young. Ladislaus is clearly not good company! I did not like him at all.
Canon Pennyfather is later found with no memory of what happened, knowing only what a couple had told him, that he had had an accident, while actually he had been knocked unconscious by someone in his hotel room.
The whole mystery was something like the hotel being the base for all the robberies, where actors would pose as notorious people to confuse potential witnesses, although this didn't seem to me a great plan.. why would they walk every day in the hotel making themselves look like someone else? It had sense only to mask themselves during the robberies..
Anyway, Miss Marple too starts suspecting something's wrong at the hotel, because she says it's too good to be true, and that one cannot stay anchored to the past, but must go on with the times, and that it all seemed faked after a while.
Chief Davy starts having great consideration of her opinion, and asks for her help. Miss Marple actually has a very little role, here, although important. It's Davy doing all the investigation and revealing at the end that it was Bess the head of the robberies. She was about to deny it, but then all of a sudden confessed everything, even the murder of Micky Gorman, and ran away to her car, driving at such speed to kill herself when she crashed. Both Davy and Miss Marple were witnesses to her confession, but both of them know that she was no killer. It was actually Elvira. The girl was madly in love with Ladislaus, but knew very well that he would not have married her had her been poor, and so when she found out that her mother Bess had been married to Gorman since she was young she was scared of losing her inheritance. Bess had not known about it, thinking it just a joke, and had gone on marrying three or four times , one of which was with Elvira's father. Now in a year's time Elvira was to inherit a lot of money, but what if that old marriage was to be made public? It would invalidate her mother's other marriages, including the one with her father. To prevent this, Elvira had killed Gorman herself.
The sadness of this.
Now Miss Marple asks Davy if he'll let her get away with it. Knowing that her mother had died after confessing, Elvira adds nothing to it, willing to accept her sacrifice to save herself, but Davy tells Miss Marple that no, he won't accept it, he won't permit it. The book ends with Miss Marple saying May God have mercy on her soul.
So what, will Davy be able to prove that Elvira did it? How? It doesn't seem easy at all. Honestly I didn't like this ending much.
Side note, there is mention of a mysterious Mr Robinson when Davy goes to him to have an information otherwise very hard to obtain. Mr Robinson however was able to tell him the answer in a matter of minutes.
Ita: Miss Marple al Bertram Hotel
Towards zero by Agatha Christie
I remember when I was a young girl, how I loved this book! I thought it was mysterious and romantic... but years go by, and now I do like it, yes, but not quite as much, I admit.
Lady Camilla Tressilian is a nice old lady living alone with cousin Mary Aldin. The rich woman and Mary go along very well, and every summer Lady Tressilian invites her heir Nevile Strange to stay with her. Nevile always goes, and this time he will bring his second wife along, Kay. At the same time, his first wife Audrey will be present as well. Complicated situation, but he insists that it'll be okay, that they will all be friends.
Family friend Thomas Royde comes to visit. He was once very much in love with Audrey, and now that she's free he plans to propose to her.
Things are pretty awkward, though, because Kay is jealous of Audrey, thinking she might want to get back with Nevile, and is furious when she thinks that Nevile is putting Audrey before her, like when he said if anyone wanted to read the magazine he had, and Audrey and Kay said yes at the same time, and it was very awkward, and Audrey even told him to give it to his wife, that it was okay, but Nevile gave it to Audrey all the same, and Kay was furious.
Lady Tressilian was very fond of Audrey, and could never accept that second wife of his, so different from her. Kay was a modern, lively girl, but Audrey had class. I liked Audrey as well, but I did not dislike Kay, after all she had good reasons to be jealous, everybody felt that situation was weird and uncomfortable.
With them there is also Ted Latimer, old friend of Kay, forever in love with her.
One day Lady Tressilian is found dead, murdered, and detective Battle comes to investigate. I loved that looking at the crime scene he was like "why do I keep thinking at Hercule Poirot?" and later realized it was because there was something out of order, the kind of thing that immediately hurt Poirot's sense of symmetry and order. Battle also described him, when a policeman referred to him as a "funny man", that Poirot was not funny at all, he was a dangerous man, like a cobra :lol:
Since all the clues lead so ridiculously towards Nevile, Battle is brought to think that someone might be trying to make him look guilty, and starts thinking that maybe Audrey had old anger since he left her for Kay... but then friend Thomas comes to her aid, revealing to the superintendent that it wasn't Nevile. It was Audrey's decision. She left Nevile to go away with Thomas' brother, now dead. Thomas makes Battle understand that Audrey had no reason of feeling resentment towards Nevile, on the contrary, apparently he took on himself the blame of their separation to do the noble thing...
At that point Battle starts reversing his solution of the case, because now it wouldn't be Audrey resenting Nevile, but Nevile resenting Audrey for their separation. Battle is much happier with this solution, because there was something in Audrey that reminded him of his own daughter, who had accepted the blame for a theft she had not committed, because somehow the pressure had led her to confess a crime she had not committed.
Yet it would have been very difficult to prove it, if a man, a complete stranger to the family, had not come with solid proof against him, saying he saw him.
This man was Angus McWhirter, whose story was told at the beginning of the movie. He had lost everything, his job because he refused to lie for his boss. Angus valued truth so much that he didn't compromise it to please his superior, and was fired. One day, months ago, Angus had tried to kill himself, but had been saved. At the hospital, he had resented his rescuers, feeling that he had not wanted to be saved, but now he must admit that he has no will of trying it again.
He goes to the same place, just to have a look around, and one day he sees Audrey running, desperate, maybe intending to kill herself.. Angus stopped her, talked to her. She told him she was afraid, and he swore he would have helped her.
Audrey could no more resist the pressure and was even glad to confess and get it over with, but Angus came to Battle saying that night he saw Nevile outside with a rope.. it had been a complicated plan, but through a series of bizarre circumstances, Angus had come to know a few facts that allowed him to deduce what must have happened. Truth is, he never saw Nevile, it was a dark night with rain, he couldn't have seen him from where he was, but he said it anyway. He lied. The man who had lost so much because he would not tell a lie for his boss, now had told one.
After Battle obtained a confession from Nevile, and Audrey was definitely free of any charges, she went to him. She asked him why he lied for her. He told her "I have great respect for the truth but I found out there are things worth more" - "for example?" - "you"
The title is explained by another guest of Lady Tressilian, an old judge her friend, who spoke of how crimes grow slowly, a lot of facts converging towards the same point, until, at zero hour, they all resulted in a crime.
Ita: Verso l'ora zero
Lady Camilla Tressilian is a nice old lady living alone with cousin Mary Aldin. The rich woman and Mary go along very well, and every summer Lady Tressilian invites her heir Nevile Strange to stay with her. Nevile always goes, and this time he will bring his second wife along, Kay. At the same time, his first wife Audrey will be present as well. Complicated situation, but he insists that it'll be okay, that they will all be friends.
Family friend Thomas Royde comes to visit. He was once very much in love with Audrey, and now that she's free he plans to propose to her.
Things are pretty awkward, though, because Kay is jealous of Audrey, thinking she might want to get back with Nevile, and is furious when she thinks that Nevile is putting Audrey before her, like when he said if anyone wanted to read the magazine he had, and Audrey and Kay said yes at the same time, and it was very awkward, and Audrey even told him to give it to his wife, that it was okay, but Nevile gave it to Audrey all the same, and Kay was furious.
Lady Tressilian was very fond of Audrey, and could never accept that second wife of his, so different from her. Kay was a modern, lively girl, but Audrey had class. I liked Audrey as well, but I did not dislike Kay, after all she had good reasons to be jealous, everybody felt that situation was weird and uncomfortable.
With them there is also Ted Latimer, old friend of Kay, forever in love with her.
One day Lady Tressilian is found dead, murdered, and detective Battle comes to investigate. I loved that looking at the crime scene he was like "why do I keep thinking at Hercule Poirot?" and later realized it was because there was something out of order, the kind of thing that immediately hurt Poirot's sense of symmetry and order. Battle also described him, when a policeman referred to him as a "funny man", that Poirot was not funny at all, he was a dangerous man, like a cobra :lol:
Since all the clues lead so ridiculously towards Nevile, Battle is brought to think that someone might be trying to make him look guilty, and starts thinking that maybe Audrey had old anger since he left her for Kay... but then friend Thomas comes to her aid, revealing to the superintendent that it wasn't Nevile. It was Audrey's decision. She left Nevile to go away with Thomas' brother, now dead. Thomas makes Battle understand that Audrey had no reason of feeling resentment towards Nevile, on the contrary, apparently he took on himself the blame of their separation to do the noble thing...
At that point Battle starts reversing his solution of the case, because now it wouldn't be Audrey resenting Nevile, but Nevile resenting Audrey for their separation. Battle is much happier with this solution, because there was something in Audrey that reminded him of his own daughter, who had accepted the blame for a theft she had not committed, because somehow the pressure had led her to confess a crime she had not committed.
Yet it would have been very difficult to prove it, if a man, a complete stranger to the family, had not come with solid proof against him, saying he saw him.
This man was Angus McWhirter, whose story was told at the beginning of the movie. He had lost everything, his job because he refused to lie for his boss. Angus valued truth so much that he didn't compromise it to please his superior, and was fired. One day, months ago, Angus had tried to kill himself, but had been saved. At the hospital, he had resented his rescuers, feeling that he had not wanted to be saved, but now he must admit that he has no will of trying it again.
He goes to the same place, just to have a look around, and one day he sees Audrey running, desperate, maybe intending to kill herself.. Angus stopped her, talked to her. She told him she was afraid, and he swore he would have helped her.
Audrey could no more resist the pressure and was even glad to confess and get it over with, but Angus came to Battle saying that night he saw Nevile outside with a rope.. it had been a complicated plan, but through a series of bizarre circumstances, Angus had come to know a few facts that allowed him to deduce what must have happened. Truth is, he never saw Nevile, it was a dark night with rain, he couldn't have seen him from where he was, but he said it anyway. He lied. The man who had lost so much because he would not tell a lie for his boss, now had told one.
After Battle obtained a confession from Nevile, and Audrey was definitely free of any charges, she went to him. She asked him why he lied for her. He told her "I have great respect for the truth but I found out there are things worth more" - "for example?" - "you"
The title is explained by another guest of Lady Tressilian, an old judge her friend, who spoke of how crimes grow slowly, a lot of facts converging towards the same point, until, at zero hour, they all resulted in a crime.
Ita: Verso l'ora zero
A pocket full of rye by Agatha Christie
It's good enough, not the best, but still a nice Christie book. A man is poisoned and in his pocket they find... guess what? Rye, yes. The title refers to this, yes.
The police investigates the whole family, but later there are other deaths. It'll be when a maid is murdered that Miss Marple will come knocking at the house door offering help, because the girl in question came from her village and even worked for her for some time. Luckily there's a good detective who understands right away that she's not a silly old lady but on the contrary she could actually help. And she does, of course.
At the end she presents him with her solution of the case, although without proof, then she goes home where she finds a letter that should have been arrived many days before but got delivered at the wrong house. The maid sent it asking for her advice, telling her the same story she had imagined, exactly like she told the detective, even adding a picture, which would work as proof, if needed. So now we know for sure that the murderer won't get away with it.
After reading it, Miss Marple goes through different kind of emotions: first sadness, for the poor girl that, who knows, maybe could have been saved if she had received the letter in time, then anger for the evil person that killed her after having manipulated her in doing what he wanted her to, and finally pride and satisfaction because he'll pay for what he did!
Ita: Polvere negli occhi
The police investigates the whole family, but later there are other deaths. It'll be when a maid is murdered that Miss Marple will come knocking at the house door offering help, because the girl in question came from her village and even worked for her for some time. Luckily there's a good detective who understands right away that she's not a silly old lady but on the contrary she could actually help. And she does, of course.
At the end she presents him with her solution of the case, although without proof, then she goes home where she finds a letter that should have been arrived many days before but got delivered at the wrong house. The maid sent it asking for her advice, telling her the same story she had imagined, exactly like she told the detective, even adding a picture, which would work as proof, if needed. So now we know for sure that the murderer won't get away with it.
After reading it, Miss Marple goes through different kind of emotions: first sadness, for the poor girl that, who knows, maybe could have been saved if she had received the letter in time, then anger for the evil person that killed her after having manipulated her in doing what he wanted her to, and finally pride and satisfaction because he'll pay for what he did!
Ita: Polvere negli occhi
sabato 20 giugno 2015
Sparkling cyanide by Agatha Christie
Beautiful, very very nice, I liked it a lot. It doesn't happen often when there is no Poirot :-)
It starts with six people remembering facts that happened a year before, all of them thinking of Rosemary Barton that killed herself on the day of her birthday.
1 - Iris Marle is her younger sister, still under age because she's now 18. Was she jealous of her sister? Rosemary was very beautiful, full of admirers, and also very rich after a friend of her mother left her everything he had. Iris was always second, always in her shadow. Did she love her anyway? Or was she jealous because Rosemary was loved, she had everything while Iris was always in her shadow?
2 - Ruth Lessing is George's secretary, always perfect, so very efficient and intelligent. She was 23 when she started working with him, and she was 29 when last year George sent her to deal with the Viktor Drake problem, a charming little criminal always asking for money. She remembers that and thinks Yes, that's how it started, with that meeting with a man about to leave the next day. The Ruth that came back to the office was not the same that had gone out a few hours before. Why did you send me to meet that man? Can't you see how have I changed? Can't you see I'm dangerous? That one can not know what I might do at anytime?
Ruth hated Rosemary, she realized that without her she would have married George and they would have been happy together.
3 - Anthony Browne had for some time a crush for beautiful Rosemary, but then she discovered that his real name was actually Tony Morelli and that he had been to prison... Viktor had told her. Anthony tried to scare her , to make her understand that she was not to tell anyone about it, that some people would have stopped at nothing to hush her.
4 - Stephen Farraday was a young politician with a very promising carrier. Cold and ambitious, but also surprisingly shy. He had worked all his life to pursue the goal to become someone. When he had met Lady Sandra Hayle, shy as he was, daughter of the count of Kidderminster, he courted her, married her, and found in her the perfect partner he had thought she would be. Sandra was intelligent and always supported him and his work. When he met Rosemary, he felt all the passion and the desire a kid feels when he first falls in love. Stephen had never really been in love before, and this sentiment surprised him, and sent him off balance. He was obsessed with her and they became lovers, but after a few months he regained his self control and realized he had been a fool, risking everything he had for a flirt. Rosemary was a silly woman, and a possessive one. She loved him and was tired of the pretence. She told him they needed to be together forever, to get married! Stephen was terrified of what she might do, if Rosemary had talked about their affair his carrier would have been over, and if Sandra had known about it she would have left him. He could lose everything, he could lose Sandra... and all of a sudden he realized that this would have been more painful than anything else. No, he could not lose Sandra, everything but not that!
5 - Sandra Farraday loved him very much but had never shown to him how much because she thought he didn't really love her. She thought he only admired her, that he was fond of her, but she never knew how strong were his real feelings. What she knew about was his love-affair with Rosemary. She had always known, but was hoping it would end soon and he would come back to her. Sandra knew Rosemary had nothing to offer him other than her beauty, but got really scared of losing him.
6 - George Barton was Rosemary's husband. He knew she never really loved him, that she had married him because she wanted a quiet life with a man she knew adored her. George also knew that Rosemary was very fond of him, but from time to time that would not be enough for her, and she would find little stories to fill the passion that was missing. He had always accepted that, because he knew it would end, he knew that she would always come back to him. However, one day he found a letter and discovered that she was in a more serious relationship than he thought, and a ferocious jealousy got over him. He was afraid she would run away with her lover.
George now lives with Iris, still underage, and Lucilla Drake, some relative of Rosemary's mother, I think, I don't remember their connection actually. Anyway, Lucilla was Viktor's mother, and as a mother she thought he was a good boy with bad companies, and always worried about him and gave him money every time he asked for it.
During her birthday party one year ago, apparently Rosemary had taken cyonide in her drink and had died instantly. Months later George received two anonymous letters, saying that she had not committed suicide, that she had been murdered. He believes it, and starts thinking about it obsessively. He tries to investigate by himself, realizing it could only have been someone present at the party that evening. At the end he plans a birthday party for Iris: same restaurant, same guests. He wanted to find out who did it by the means of some trap, but at the end of the evening he too died of cyonide in his drink!Poisoned! The police starts thinking that maybe Rosemary was really killed one year ago, and George was killed because he had gone too close to the truth.
Stephen and Sandra now talk more to each other, they confess how much they love each other, and when questioned by the police he absolutely denied that she ever knew about Rosemary. Had she known about it, Stephen wouldn't have had a real motive anymore, but if she didn't know than he could have killed her to avoid it been known... yet Stephen doesn't want them to think she might have had a motive herself, he wants to protect her! Stephen that was so cold and rational, and now realizes how little, how helpless and lost he feels without her. Together they have strength and courage, but alone he is lost.. awww
Colonel Race works with inspector Kemp in the investigation. It's revealed that Anthony was actually one of the good guys, undercover for some police investigation concerning sabotages. He has fallen in love with Iris, so now he feels very compelled to discover the truth to clear her position.
He realizes that Iris was the intended victim, but she accidentally sat on the wrong seat, after the dance, because when her purse had fallen on the floor a waiter had put it back on the table... but not in the exact place. Going back to her table she had sat where her purse was, and George had sat next to her without thinking. They wanted to kill her for the money, of course, because after Rosemary's death, all the money went to her. It was all Ruth and Viktor's plan. The two letters had been written by Ruth so she could plan another 'suicide' without being suspected. She knew George would have talked about them with her, and she was behind all his big plan.
I don't know if such theatre was really necessary, they could have planned something at home.. but maybe they thought this way nobody could have suspected them.
First half of the book, it turned out any of them could have had a motive, but things became clear only when a sort-of witness came forward. That night George had left an empty seat he had planned to have an actress occupy it. A young actress that looked a lot like Rosemary had been hired by him to come to the restaurant and sit down at their table. She never came because someone phoned her that it had been called off... but we know it wasn't George, he was waiting for her, than who else could ever know about her? Only one person, the one person he told everything to. Only when the actress told her story I thought "Ruth!" because she was the only one that could have known about it.
It turns out that Viktor charmed her and didn't really go away when she said he had.
It's true, Agatha never said he had gone, he only said that 'Ruth said he had gone'. Oh dear Agatha. :-)
Agatha also makes her characters joke many times about "what usually happens in books while in real life it is very different" :lol:
I love this book, and I love how Agatha so often put a bit of romantic stories in her books. Here there is one of her best love stories, although it is almost a side note.
There is a new love story happening: the love between Anthony and Iris is at its start here, they are the most important characters, we might say, and the book ends with them together, and yet their story is not so involving as the one between the Farraday. Yes, they were already married, and yet their love is beautiful, their story is gripping. They're romantic and sweet. He loved her both with his head and his heart and she was crazy about him.
I love the bit when someone (Anthony? Race? not sure, someone) says that they are always "the Farradays", that nobody thinks of them as Stephen and Sandra, but always as the Farradays, as if they were a unique entity :-)
I loved those two, and was very happy that they were both innocent :-) that they stayed by each other till the end, never giving up on their love.
Ita: Giorno dei morti
It starts with six people remembering facts that happened a year before, all of them thinking of Rosemary Barton that killed herself on the day of her birthday.
1 - Iris Marle is her younger sister, still under age because she's now 18. Was she jealous of her sister? Rosemary was very beautiful, full of admirers, and also very rich after a friend of her mother left her everything he had. Iris was always second, always in her shadow. Did she love her anyway? Or was she jealous because Rosemary was loved, she had everything while Iris was always in her shadow?
2 - Ruth Lessing is George's secretary, always perfect, so very efficient and intelligent. She was 23 when she started working with him, and she was 29 when last year George sent her to deal with the Viktor Drake problem, a charming little criminal always asking for money. She remembers that and thinks Yes, that's how it started, with that meeting with a man about to leave the next day. The Ruth that came back to the office was not the same that had gone out a few hours before. Why did you send me to meet that man? Can't you see how have I changed? Can't you see I'm dangerous? That one can not know what I might do at anytime?
Ruth hated Rosemary, she realized that without her she would have married George and they would have been happy together.
3 - Anthony Browne had for some time a crush for beautiful Rosemary, but then she discovered that his real name was actually Tony Morelli and that he had been to prison... Viktor had told her. Anthony tried to scare her , to make her understand that she was not to tell anyone about it, that some people would have stopped at nothing to hush her.
4 - Stephen Farraday was a young politician with a very promising carrier. Cold and ambitious, but also surprisingly shy. He had worked all his life to pursue the goal to become someone. When he had met Lady Sandra Hayle, shy as he was, daughter of the count of Kidderminster, he courted her, married her, and found in her the perfect partner he had thought she would be. Sandra was intelligent and always supported him and his work. When he met Rosemary, he felt all the passion and the desire a kid feels when he first falls in love. Stephen had never really been in love before, and this sentiment surprised him, and sent him off balance. He was obsessed with her and they became lovers, but after a few months he regained his self control and realized he had been a fool, risking everything he had for a flirt. Rosemary was a silly woman, and a possessive one. She loved him and was tired of the pretence. She told him they needed to be together forever, to get married! Stephen was terrified of what she might do, if Rosemary had talked about their affair his carrier would have been over, and if Sandra had known about it she would have left him. He could lose everything, he could lose Sandra... and all of a sudden he realized that this would have been more painful than anything else. No, he could not lose Sandra, everything but not that!
5 - Sandra Farraday loved him very much but had never shown to him how much because she thought he didn't really love her. She thought he only admired her, that he was fond of her, but she never knew how strong were his real feelings. What she knew about was his love-affair with Rosemary. She had always known, but was hoping it would end soon and he would come back to her. Sandra knew Rosemary had nothing to offer him other than her beauty, but got really scared of losing him.
6 - George Barton was Rosemary's husband. He knew she never really loved him, that she had married him because she wanted a quiet life with a man she knew adored her. George also knew that Rosemary was very fond of him, but from time to time that would not be enough for her, and she would find little stories to fill the passion that was missing. He had always accepted that, because he knew it would end, he knew that she would always come back to him. However, one day he found a letter and discovered that she was in a more serious relationship than he thought, and a ferocious jealousy got over him. He was afraid she would run away with her lover.
George now lives with Iris, still underage, and Lucilla Drake, some relative of Rosemary's mother, I think, I don't remember their connection actually. Anyway, Lucilla was Viktor's mother, and as a mother she thought he was a good boy with bad companies, and always worried about him and gave him money every time he asked for it.
During her birthday party one year ago, apparently Rosemary had taken cyonide in her drink and had died instantly. Months later George received two anonymous letters, saying that she had not committed suicide, that she had been murdered. He believes it, and starts thinking about it obsessively. He tries to investigate by himself, realizing it could only have been someone present at the party that evening. At the end he plans a birthday party for Iris: same restaurant, same guests. He wanted to find out who did it by the means of some trap, but at the end of the evening he too died of cyonide in his drink!Poisoned! The police starts thinking that maybe Rosemary was really killed one year ago, and George was killed because he had gone too close to the truth.
Stephen and Sandra now talk more to each other, they confess how much they love each other, and when questioned by the police he absolutely denied that she ever knew about Rosemary. Had she known about it, Stephen wouldn't have had a real motive anymore, but if she didn't know than he could have killed her to avoid it been known... yet Stephen doesn't want them to think she might have had a motive herself, he wants to protect her! Stephen that was so cold and rational, and now realizes how little, how helpless and lost he feels without her. Together they have strength and courage, but alone he is lost.. awww
Colonel Race works with inspector Kemp in the investigation. It's revealed that Anthony was actually one of the good guys, undercover for some police investigation concerning sabotages. He has fallen in love with Iris, so now he feels very compelled to discover the truth to clear her position.
He realizes that Iris was the intended victim, but she accidentally sat on the wrong seat, after the dance, because when her purse had fallen on the floor a waiter had put it back on the table... but not in the exact place. Going back to her table she had sat where her purse was, and George had sat next to her without thinking. They wanted to kill her for the money, of course, because after Rosemary's death, all the money went to her. It was all Ruth and Viktor's plan. The two letters had been written by Ruth so she could plan another 'suicide' without being suspected. She knew George would have talked about them with her, and she was behind all his big plan.
I don't know if such theatre was really necessary, they could have planned something at home.. but maybe they thought this way nobody could have suspected them.
First half of the book, it turned out any of them could have had a motive, but things became clear only when a sort-of witness came forward. That night George had left an empty seat he had planned to have an actress occupy it. A young actress that looked a lot like Rosemary had been hired by him to come to the restaurant and sit down at their table. She never came because someone phoned her that it had been called off... but we know it wasn't George, he was waiting for her, than who else could ever know about her? Only one person, the one person he told everything to. Only when the actress told her story I thought "Ruth!" because she was the only one that could have known about it.
It turns out that Viktor charmed her and didn't really go away when she said he had.
It's true, Agatha never said he had gone, he only said that 'Ruth said he had gone'. Oh dear Agatha. :-)
Agatha also makes her characters joke many times about "what usually happens in books while in real life it is very different" :lol:
I love this book, and I love how Agatha so often put a bit of romantic stories in her books. Here there is one of her best love stories, although it is almost a side note.
There is a new love story happening: the love between Anthony and Iris is at its start here, they are the most important characters, we might say, and the book ends with them together, and yet their story is not so involving as the one between the Farraday. Yes, they were already married, and yet their love is beautiful, their story is gripping. They're romantic and sweet. He loved her both with his head and his heart and she was crazy about him.
I love the bit when someone (Anthony? Race? not sure, someone) says that they are always "the Farradays", that nobody thinks of them as Stephen and Sandra, but always as the Farradays, as if they were a unique entity :-)
I loved those two, and was very happy that they were both innocent :-) that they stayed by each other till the end, never giving up on their love.
Ita: Giorno dei morti
martedì 16 giugno 2015
Corpse bride - 2005
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp together, which is always a good thing. It's stop motion animation, like "Nightmare before Christmas".
Like every animated movie it has songs, but I'm not very fond of them. They're not bad, no, they're good, good music, they're nice songs, but they stopped the story.. sometimes a song is a good thing, sometimes it isn't, and usually it's more appreciated by children than adults. In a movie like Frozen they are okay, they serve the purpose of involving you in the sentiments of the characters, but here I could have lived without them. The The skeletons singing? No, thank you, boring.
It starts introducing us with Mr and Mrs Van Dort: he's a rich merchant and they plan to have their only son married to the daughter of Lord and Lady Everglot to go up in society. The two have never met, but as soon as that happens a connection sparks, they like each other, but at the wedding rehearsal shy Victor is so nervous he can't pronounce his vows correctly so the priest gets angry and sends him away, to come back when he'll be ready to say them properly. The big voice of Christopher Lee rumbles at him "learn your vows!".
Victor is now in love with Victoria and wants to marry her, so he walks practicing his speech in the woods, and while doing so he places the ring on what he thinks to be a simple tree root, but as he does so the ground shakes and the corpse of a bride comes out thinking herself married to him.
Well, Victor did say: "oh Victoria she must think I'm such a fool, this day couldn't get any worse" and everyone knows you should never say this!
Emily, with the voice of always great Helena Bonham-Carter, has a sad past: she had fallen in love with a young man, but her family disapproved, so the two lovers planned to elope together, but instead when they were alone he killed her and stole her precious family jewels. Now she believes that Victor married her by putting that ring on her finger, but she will find out that he's in love with another woman.
Since Victor is not coming back, the Everglot change their plans and marry Victoria to Lord Barkis, thinking him full of money, but Lord Barkis is very disappointed when after the marriage he learns that Victoria has no money at all, and that the only reason she married him is to avoid her family to be ruined. Knowing of her marriage, Victor is so sad he promises Emily to drink a poison and marry her properly, and stay with her forever, both dead. However, while he's about to do just that, Emily sees Victoria watching them and stops him, realizing this is all wrong, and places Victor's hand on Victoria's. At this point, evil Lord Barkis comes in with the intent of ruining it for them, claiming Victoria as his wife, and challenging Victor. Emily gets between the two to save Victor, and recognizes in Lord Barkis the man that killed her. Barkin thinks he has won now, ruining the happiness of the two young people, and wonders how much pain can feel a corpse, and drinks to their unhappiness, not knowing that in that drink there is only poison. As he drinks, he dies, so Victoria is free again. Victor feels he made a promise to Emily but she tells him that he set her free, and she'll do the same for him. Emily goes up in butterflies, and Victor is free to live happily with his beloved Victoria.
Notable lines: in the land of the dead, someone says: "why go upstairs when people are dying to get here?!?"
The sadness when Victor exclaims "I would never marry you" to poor Emily.
Emily saying "my dreams were stolen from me" , reason why she doesn't want now to destroy Victor and Victoria's love dream.
I like the stop motion, I love Johnny Depp's voice , here so shy and akward and sweet. I love Helena Bonham Carter.
This is what I liked most of it.
Other voices were Emily Watson/Victoria, Joanna Lumley/Mrs Everglot, Albert Finney/Mr Everglot, Richard E. Grant/Lord Barkis, and Deep Roy and Danny Elfman.
Ita: La sposa cadavere
Like every animated movie it has songs, but I'm not very fond of them. They're not bad, no, they're good, good music, they're nice songs, but they stopped the story.. sometimes a song is a good thing, sometimes it isn't, and usually it's more appreciated by children than adults. In a movie like Frozen they are okay, they serve the purpose of involving you in the sentiments of the characters, but here I could have lived without them. The The skeletons singing? No, thank you, boring.
It starts introducing us with Mr and Mrs Van Dort: he's a rich merchant and they plan to have their only son married to the daughter of Lord and Lady Everglot to go up in society. The two have never met, but as soon as that happens a connection sparks, they like each other, but at the wedding rehearsal shy Victor is so nervous he can't pronounce his vows correctly so the priest gets angry and sends him away, to come back when he'll be ready to say them properly. The big voice of Christopher Lee rumbles at him "learn your vows!".
Victor is now in love with Victoria and wants to marry her, so he walks practicing his speech in the woods, and while doing so he places the ring on what he thinks to be a simple tree root, but as he does so the ground shakes and the corpse of a bride comes out thinking herself married to him.
Well, Victor did say: "oh Victoria she must think I'm such a fool, this day couldn't get any worse" and everyone knows you should never say this!
Emily, with the voice of always great Helena Bonham-Carter, has a sad past: she had fallen in love with a young man, but her family disapproved, so the two lovers planned to elope together, but instead when they were alone he killed her and stole her precious family jewels. Now she believes that Victor married her by putting that ring on her finger, but she will find out that he's in love with another woman.
Since Victor is not coming back, the Everglot change their plans and marry Victoria to Lord Barkis, thinking him full of money, but Lord Barkis is very disappointed when after the marriage he learns that Victoria has no money at all, and that the only reason she married him is to avoid her family to be ruined. Knowing of her marriage, Victor is so sad he promises Emily to drink a poison and marry her properly, and stay with her forever, both dead. However, while he's about to do just that, Emily sees Victoria watching them and stops him, realizing this is all wrong, and places Victor's hand on Victoria's. At this point, evil Lord Barkis comes in with the intent of ruining it for them, claiming Victoria as his wife, and challenging Victor. Emily gets between the two to save Victor, and recognizes in Lord Barkis the man that killed her. Barkin thinks he has won now, ruining the happiness of the two young people, and wonders how much pain can feel a corpse, and drinks to their unhappiness, not knowing that in that drink there is only poison. As he drinks, he dies, so Victoria is free again. Victor feels he made a promise to Emily but she tells him that he set her free, and she'll do the same for him. Emily goes up in butterflies, and Victor is free to live happily with his beloved Victoria.
Notable lines: in the land of the dead, someone says: "why go upstairs when people are dying to get here?!?"
The sadness when Victor exclaims "I would never marry you" to poor Emily.
Emily saying "my dreams were stolen from me" , reason why she doesn't want now to destroy Victor and Victoria's love dream.
I like the stop motion, I love Johnny Depp's voice , here so shy and akward and sweet. I love Helena Bonham Carter.
This is what I liked most of it.
Other voices were Emily Watson/Victoria, Joanna Lumley/Mrs Everglot, Albert Finney/Mr Everglot, Richard E. Grant/Lord Barkis, and Deep Roy and Danny Elfman.
Ita: La sposa cadavere
Poirot series 9: Death on the Nile
I remember when I first read the book, I loved it so much I actually never forgot it, never forgot who did it and why, which is quite extraordinary for me and my bad memory. I remember I loved their love story, so passionate, and most of all the character of Jacqueline, and the way she attracted Poirot’s attention, and talked with him, and how he was concerned, and maybe that is the reason why this is one of the series’ episodes I like less, because they couldn’t catch it right, there wasn’t what I loved so much.
Jacqueline de Bellefort did not win my heart, her beloved Simon Doyle was quite plain, although I must admit he was a bit plain in the book too, I think. Sure, rich Lynette was pretty much how she had to be, beautiful but not very nice, and Emily Blunt played her well. Also, here too there are little things that differ from the book, and I can’t explain to myself why they would do it.
One for all, when Rosalie kisses Tim he says something to make her understand she’s got it wrong with him. It could be that he’s gay, sure, but then what is that strange attitude of his mother, and the way she calls him back into their cabin.. if they had not said it clearly, that she was his mother, I would have thought there was a sex relationship between the two.
I loved Poirot as usual, that I did, because I really like how David Suchet plays it.
I also liked a lot the american girl Cornelia, played by Daisy Donovan.
Even though David Soul’s name was in the opening credit, with that beard I did not recognize him as Mr Pennington, and knew it only when I saw the ending titles.
It was a good film, well done and who kept enough of Christie’s spirit, right to the ending and Poirot’s admission that yes, she knew about the second gun and maybe he could have prevented it, but he didn’t because after all it’s better this way. Jacqueline and Simon would have been killed, executed, so why stop them from killing themselves while they are together?
There were a few lines that caught my attention:
Point: has life been unfair to you mademoiselle?
Rosalie: you’ve met my mother!
lol
and
Point: love is not everything
Jacqueline: oh but it is. It is. You must know that monsieur Poirot. Surely you understand.
Point: it is terrible, mademoiselle, all that i have missed in life.
Poirot series 10: cards on the table
I like it. I know purists of books would probably hate it, or at least be really upset with how greatly they changed this story. I don’t know why they did it, but it is very different in many many ways. There are, of course, a few points that are the same: who dies, and who killed him. At least this was left the same…
I don’t know what came into them when they decided to do this film/episode, and why they changed so much. They left out my dear Superintendent Battle and introduced Wheeler instead, probably so they could suspect him as well, maybe, who knows.
They also changed important things about the past of the four characters. I’ll explain:
Shaitana is a rich, odd man who invites to his house four people that have something to do with murder from the right side, which are Poirot, Battle, a colonel and our very dear Ariadne Oliver, the famous crime novel writer. He also invites four people that he believes have committed murder and got away with it. Young Anne Meredith, Major Despard, Mrs Lorrimer and Doctor Roberts.
Spoilers for whoever might ever read this but mostly for future me.
In this film they imply that the four of them plus Wheeler are the only ones that could have done it. Major Despard did shoot a man, but for a good cause after the latter had taken some drug that caused him to go berserk on his wife, so Despard saved her by shooting him. I do think, though, that a man who knows how to shoot, from such a short distance, might have maybe just wounded him, without having to kill him…?
Mrs Lorrimer did kill her first husband years ago because she wanted to marry someone else. Her second husband died of a bad heart one year later, what she calls “poetic justice”. The first husband was Anne’s father, and Anne saw her mother push him down the stairs killing him, and left the house and never saw her mother again until now. Yet at the end she hugs her, apparently forgetting/forgiving the past… I wonder if that’s something you could ever forgive. I understand she’s her mother but still…
Anne is a thief, and when she was working for an elderly woman she was found out stealing. The old woman then died of poisoning, of an accident, but Poirot reveals that it was her best friend Rhoda who killed her to make Anne believe it was her fault and keep her always with her. When Rhoda tries to kill Anne, Major Despard comes and throws himself into the lake (not before removing his shoes, his jacket and his vest, of course, the girls just have to wait..) and saves Anne first because he rather fancies her, then goes back for Rhoda but doesn’t find her. She’s dead somewhere . Doctor Roberts killed Mrs Craddock because she had found out that he was her husband’s lover, and was sick of it, but still went to him for her injections before her trip to Egypt… so he contaminated the needle, and days later in Egypt she met Shaitana and told him everything: not sure here how she could be so certain that the doctor was responsible. I mean, he was, but how could she know?
Wheeler never committed a murder, but he’s a married man who had a relationship with Shaitana (I guess it was with him, otherwise he wouldn’t have been the one making the picture) and now Poirot gives him as a gift the pictures he has found.
It seems to me that this film is not very gentle with homosexuality, is it? Not so much in the reaction of Mrs Craddock, she had a right to be angry since it was her husband after all, but it’s all the rest. It’s the embarrassment of everyone when Poirot reveals that the Doctor had a relationship with Mr Craddock, and it’s also the attitude of Poirot with Wheeler at the end. I know this is not set in our days, and things were very different then, and yet this is not what happened in the book, now, is it? So they deliberately wrote this motive. Why?
It would also appear from this version that Shaitana was wrong about one of his guests, because Anne never killed anyone, Rhoda did… while Anne appears like a pure, fragile girl with a difficult past… and yet a thief who has always stolen in her life…
After all this, why did I start saying that I liked it? Well, simply because: I always love David Suchet’s Poirot, he’s the real thing, the only one that ever did the “real” Poirot, he’s perfect.
I love Zoe Wanamaker as Ariadne Oliver, so great, and perfect in her role as much as Suchet.
These two are the main reasons, yes. I also liked very much Lesley Manville who played Mrs Lorrimer. She was great.
I find it a bit sad, somehow, that Alexander Siddig who played Shaitana changed his name. I mean, I remember him from ST-DS9 and he was Siddig El Fadil back then, but he changed it to the easier Alexander Siddig. I read somewhere that he changed it because people couldn’t pronounce it before… really? Seriously? Come on, if people could pronounce Schwarzenegger what was so difficult about Fadil???
Morning glory - 2010
I just watched it for the first time, and I liked it a lot, I was sorry when it ended! Oh I'm glad they're still doing nice comedies :-) Well, actually they made it five years ago, it's true, but still... it seemed to me like these last few years there were no more nice comedies around. Maybe there are a lot that I haven't seen, yet, that's true, I can but hope :-) but this was a real, nice comedy like they used to do them :-) It stars Becky/Rachel McAdams who accepts a job as executive producers to work at the morning show Daybreak, a show that has been running for many years now but that lately has seen its rating going miserably down. She accepts the challenge, determined to bring it to new glory, but it's not as easy at it might seem. She has to fire the co-host, she really had to, so now she must find a new one, and she chooses old, serious journalist Mike Pomeray/Harrison Ford. He didn't want to do it because he thought a simple morning show was not worth him. Still, he has to because she took his contract and cleared to him that if he refuses the job he might get fired and he would have to give up two years worth of money from the channel.
This is just the start of her troubles, because although he accepted, he has no intention of doing light news suitable for a morning show. He constantly fights with co-host Colleen/Diane Keaton. This is her show, and she loves it, and she's very happy to finally have a producer who takes it seriously and really wants to do something with it. Becky is doing all she can to avoid the show being cancelled. Her boss Jerry/Jeff Goldblum makes it clear that the ratings are too low and it's being decided to cancel it in six weeks. Becky won't give up, and tries everything to improve the ratings enough to make the show go on. Colleen is totally up for it, and accepts any new role with enthusiasm, but Mike is more difficult. After a sensational serious news service he did, Becky thinks something might be changing, she thinks they might have established a new relationship.
Her love-interest Adam/Patrick Wilson, who has worked with Mike in the past, has many doubts about this, and thinks she should accepts the new, big offer that's been offered to her, but now Becky sees her morning show like a family and wants to stay there, sure that she'll have a new, fantastic working relationship with Mike, a man she had always admired since she used to watch him on tv with her father. Unfortunately Adam was right in having doubts, because Mike doesn't seem to have changed at all. She yells to him that she had really been thinking of refusing the best offer that had ever come to her to stay at Daybreak, crying, then accepts the interview with the people of Todaynews (or at least I think this was the name of the show that was offered to her). Colleen is deeply angry at Mike for ruining it all for everybody there, who had finally found a producer who cared, who was good at it, and who had changed the show for the better, like she always dreamt of, and now could go away because of him! So of course Mike wants to stop her: what can he do since he's live on air and she's sitting with her new potential employers? He runs to find eggs and stuff to make an omelette right there, on air, just the kind of thing that a morning show does and that he always refused to do. Becky sees it on tv and she's shocked, and quite touched too, and when Adam calls her telling her that he (Mike) won't ask her again, she understands this is his way of asking her to stay and she runs out, and keeps running on her pink heels until she reaches the show and watches him tasting his famous omelette :-)
This is the start of a new, surprising friendship :-)
The show ends with Becky happy with Adam, going on with "her" show. It's also shown Mike entering his dressing room with a blonde lady, but it's not shown who she is, so I assume it's not someone known to us, and certainly not Colleen, and that the scene is there only to show that Mike is , let me say, back to active life and enjoying it, instead of his old lonely self.
I'm saying this because one of the nice things about this film is that although there is a love story in it, it's not the main story, and really is useful only to show what kind of person Becky is. Usually this kind of films would bring up a relationship between the two co-hosts or even better between the two people fighting the most, but I'm glad to say that this doesn't happen here, and that the main relationship is between Mike and Becky, yes, but it goes from a merely business one to a surprising friendship, that surprises and enriches both of them :-)
I really liked it, I think the length of this proves it :-) Becky is a nice character, full of optimism and passion for her work; Colleen is a lovely character enthusiast of the new show they're making, and Mike, well, Mike is a most unpleasant, grumpy man with a I'm-better-than-all-of-you attitude, who slowly is won over by Becky's passion, seeing himself in her, and regretting his present loneliness at the end he doesn't want to lose her. :-) I love their relationship, because for once the most important one is their friendship, not her love story. Sometimes movies' love-stories can be so boring and predictable, and friendship is usually so underrated, while in real life true friendship or good working relationships are the really hard ones to find, much more difficult than find love. Oh everybody says they have friends, but so often they simply talk of people you go out with, to have a beer and chat, but they're not always real friendships, real relationships. They're just acquaintances. Not always of course, sometimes you're lucky and you do have real friends, but I still believe that true friendship is not so common, and nice good working relationships are even more rare and difficult.
It's a combination of all these things that made me like this film so much, I guess. The fact that I find Diane Keaton so charming and pleasant, that Becky was so optimist and passionate, that Harrison Ford reminded me a bit of when he did Working Girl :-) The fact that it also had Jeff Goldblum in it was a really appreciated plus :-)
In Italy: Il buongiorno del mattino
Edit (25 February 2016)
I just rewatched it on tv, and I loved it as I did first time. I really love it. I love Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams was a perfect choice, and the main relationship of the movie, the one between Becky and Mike is adorable. I'm still so happy and amazed that they kept that relationship as the main one of the show, thank you, it makes everything more precious. So nice, I even loved the scene with her running back to the show, usually I don't like that kind of things, so unreal and boring but not here, in this movie to see her running on her high-heels pink shoes was funny and sweet, because she ran back to a job she loves, to a co-worker she wants to keep working with, to a life she loves instead of going for the ambition-choice. I will never get tired of this movie.
This is just the start of her troubles, because although he accepted, he has no intention of doing light news suitable for a morning show. He constantly fights with co-host Colleen/Diane Keaton. This is her show, and she loves it, and she's very happy to finally have a producer who takes it seriously and really wants to do something with it. Becky is doing all she can to avoid the show being cancelled. Her boss Jerry/Jeff Goldblum makes it clear that the ratings are too low and it's being decided to cancel it in six weeks. Becky won't give up, and tries everything to improve the ratings enough to make the show go on. Colleen is totally up for it, and accepts any new role with enthusiasm, but Mike is more difficult. After a sensational serious news service he did, Becky thinks something might be changing, she thinks they might have established a new relationship.
Her love-interest Adam/Patrick Wilson, who has worked with Mike in the past, has many doubts about this, and thinks she should accepts the new, big offer that's been offered to her, but now Becky sees her morning show like a family and wants to stay there, sure that she'll have a new, fantastic working relationship with Mike, a man she had always admired since she used to watch him on tv with her father. Unfortunately Adam was right in having doubts, because Mike doesn't seem to have changed at all. She yells to him that she had really been thinking of refusing the best offer that had ever come to her to stay at Daybreak, crying, then accepts the interview with the people of Todaynews (or at least I think this was the name of the show that was offered to her). Colleen is deeply angry at Mike for ruining it all for everybody there, who had finally found a producer who cared, who was good at it, and who had changed the show for the better, like she always dreamt of, and now could go away because of him! So of course Mike wants to stop her: what can he do since he's live on air and she's sitting with her new potential employers? He runs to find eggs and stuff to make an omelette right there, on air, just the kind of thing that a morning show does and that he always refused to do. Becky sees it on tv and she's shocked, and quite touched too, and when Adam calls her telling her that he (Mike) won't ask her again, she understands this is his way of asking her to stay and she runs out, and keeps running on her pink heels until she reaches the show and watches him tasting his famous omelette :-)
This is the start of a new, surprising friendship :-)
The show ends with Becky happy with Adam, going on with "her" show. It's also shown Mike entering his dressing room with a blonde lady, but it's not shown who she is, so I assume it's not someone known to us, and certainly not Colleen, and that the scene is there only to show that Mike is , let me say, back to active life and enjoying it, instead of his old lonely self.
I'm saying this because one of the nice things about this film is that although there is a love story in it, it's not the main story, and really is useful only to show what kind of person Becky is. Usually this kind of films would bring up a relationship between the two co-hosts or even better between the two people fighting the most, but I'm glad to say that this doesn't happen here, and that the main relationship is between Mike and Becky, yes, but it goes from a merely business one to a surprising friendship, that surprises and enriches both of them :-)
I really liked it, I think the length of this proves it :-) Becky is a nice character, full of optimism and passion for her work; Colleen is a lovely character enthusiast of the new show they're making, and Mike, well, Mike is a most unpleasant, grumpy man with a I'm-better-than-all-of-you attitude, who slowly is won over by Becky's passion, seeing himself in her, and regretting his present loneliness at the end he doesn't want to lose her. :-) I love their relationship, because for once the most important one is their friendship, not her love story. Sometimes movies' love-stories can be so boring and predictable, and friendship is usually so underrated, while in real life true friendship or good working relationships are the really hard ones to find, much more difficult than find love. Oh everybody says they have friends, but so often they simply talk of people you go out with, to have a beer and chat, but they're not always real friendships, real relationships. They're just acquaintances. Not always of course, sometimes you're lucky and you do have real friends, but I still believe that true friendship is not so common, and nice good working relationships are even more rare and difficult.
It's a combination of all these things that made me like this film so much, I guess. The fact that I find Diane Keaton so charming and pleasant, that Becky was so optimist and passionate, that Harrison Ford reminded me a bit of when he did Working Girl :-) The fact that it also had Jeff Goldblum in it was a really appreciated plus :-)
In Italy: Il buongiorno del mattino
Edit (25 February 2016)
I just rewatched it on tv, and I loved it as I did first time. I really love it. I love Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams was a perfect choice, and the main relationship of the movie, the one between Becky and Mike is adorable. I'm still so happy and amazed that they kept that relationship as the main one of the show, thank you, it makes everything more precious. So nice, I even loved the scene with her running back to the show, usually I don't like that kind of things, so unreal and boring but not here, in this movie to see her running on her high-heels pink shoes was funny and sweet, because she ran back to a job she loves, to a co-worker she wants to keep working with, to a life she loves instead of going for the ambition-choice. I will never get tired of this movie.
sabato 13 giugno 2015
The X files - 1998
They've made a film, and here it is, a long long episode of the x-files. Here they deal with a strange, probably extraterrestrial virus, very very dangerous, that they say they've never seen before, but we have, right? I seem to remember that Krychek or however his name was spelled, had this virus in him, once, when he was contained somewhere and his eyes had turned black because this sort of black slime had gotten into him... something like that.
Anyway, let's move on. The FBI is searching a building for a bomb, and I'm pretty sure I know that agent on the roof but can't quite point out where I saw him.. some series, for sure...
For some reason Mulder doesn't help the other agents, instead he breaks protocol and involves Scully in searching a completely different building despite the fact that she doesn't agree with him and protests as usual. Now, it's not clear to me why he wants to check this exact building here: we're in Dallas, and when finally Mulder finds the bomb (accidentally) and they call the rest of the Fbi agents, they don't arrive on foot. They drive here. Which means that Mulder is not a few feet away. The two building may very well be one opposite the other, but not so close after all. Why did he check this one in particular? Are these two the only buildings in Dallas??
Anyway, the man in charge Michaud arrives. Mulder:"can you defuse it?" Michaud:"yes, I can" but when everybody else is outside he doesn't even try, he just sits there waiting for it to explode.
At the hearing to clear what the two of them were doing there, they say that five people died in the explosion: Michaud plus three firemen and a boy, but I know from the beginning of the film that a boy fell into a cave and was taken by that slime/virus and three firemen gone down there to get him never came back on their own.
The Fbi needs someone to blame for the explosion, and Scully's on the line of fire. Skinner (yeayyyyy Skinner! I loved Skinner so much, he had so little screen time! They should have made him more involved! Always!) talks to Mulder and as usually he goes all 'she doesn't deserve this, it's my fault, I broke protocol, she didn't want to' and blah blah blah. He's always been like this, he breaks every protocol, drags her into it and then she gets in trouble. When she comes out, she says that if they decides to transfer her she might quit, because her heart isn't in it as it once was..
Mulder meets Dr Alvin Kurzweil who tells him that it was all some kind of cover up, that those 4 bodies were already dead, and that in Dallas they blew up that building to cover up their deaths that had a very different cause. The 22-years-veteran was a patriot and let it go off voluntarily.
Now, two things. As usual, Mulder never gets anywhere without the deep-throat of the moment, he always needs someone to tip him in the right direction, and one other thing: is he really saying that it was all planned, to blow up a building to cover up the deaths of 4 people whose bodies, by the way, have not been blown up at all, not before not now, because they are still there waiting for Mulder and Scully to sneak in and take a look? They planned to blow up a building full of people ? And Michaud the patriot was in on it? They informed him? Why? Because he had to know, otherwise he would have tried to defuse it. This means that he was willing to kill all the people in the building? They're not dead because Scully evacuated it, but the Fbi had been searching another building, so nobody would have gone out of this one. Honestly, they didn't think it through, it makes no sense at all, since the body are still intact. What kind of cover-up is that? They should have simply said that they died from something else! I mean, they've already hidden the bodies and falsified the reports, what use could all those deaths have??
Scully examines a body and says it was an infection unknown to her, but very very fast.
All the big men reunite in a meeting, worried because the virus has mutated: they've been used for this project of repopulation, but want to go along to buy time to find the vaccine they've been working on this whole time.
At Scully's next hearing, they don't care about new evidence; they want to stop Mulder by taking away what's most important to him. Scully gets transferred to Salt Lake City, Utah, effective immediately, so she gives Skinner a letter of resignation.
Mulder: you can't quit now, Scully.
Scully: I can, Mulder. I debated whether or not to tell you in person.
M: we are close to something here, we're on the verge
S: you're on the verge, Mulder. Please don't do this to me
M: after what you saw last night, after all you've seen, you just walk away?
S:I have. I did. It's done
M:I need you on this one
S:you don't need me Mulder, you never have, I just held you back. I gotta go.
he goes after her because if you care that's what you do.
M:if you wanna tell yourself that so you can quit with a clear conscience you can, but you're wrong
S:why did they assigned me to you in the first place, Mulder? To debunk your work, to rain you in, to shut you down
M:but you saved me! As difficult and frustrating as it's been sometimes, your god-damned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over. You kept me honest. You made me a whole person. I owe you everything. Scully, you owe me nothing. I don't know if I wanna do this alone. I don't even know if I can. And if I quit now, they win.
I've always liked Gillian Anderson a lot, but I have to admit, I'm not too fond of David Duchovny as an actor, I don't like how he talks that's the problem, nothing else really, but his voice is not convincing to me. I mean, this speech should have made me go awww but I was nothing like that, more like Are you sure? You wanna check the script again? You sound like you're finding it difficult to remember it all, or something like that. Anyway, back to Scully.
it takes her about ten seconds but finally she goes in for a big hug.
They're about to kiss when she's stung by one of the bees they discovered earlier. Mulder has a face as if saying What excuse now? but immediately she's infected and he calls an ambulance, but his call has been intercepted somehow and when the ambulance takes her away, instead of telling Murder what hospital are they taking her to, the driver shoots him.
Waking up at a hospital, his three friends and Skinner help him get out unnoticed. He goes looking for Kurzweil but instead he finds the English man. He gives Mulder the cure for Scully and her location, and tells him about the virus. It is extraterrestrial but they know very little about it, "except that it was the original inhabitant of this planet. A virus is a colonizing force that cannot be defeated. Until Dallas we believed the virus would simply control us, the mass infection would make us a slave race. Imagine our surprise when they began to gestate. My group has been working cooperatively with the alien colonists, facilitating programs like the one you saw to give us access to the virus in the hope that we might be able secretly to develop a cure" , he tells him that his father gave up Samantha to make her a hybrid human-alien so she would survive, he tells him that now that he's told him everything he'll be killed, and lets him go, then he's killed. Well, he entered the car and the car exploded, so...
Mulder goes to Antarctica to find her, injects her with the cure and they both escape, but she's weak and doesn't see the spaceship above them.
At the end it is all covered up again. Scully told everything at her last hearing , but with no effect.
M:they'll never believe you, not unless your story can be programmed, categorized or easily referenced
S:then we'll go over their heads
M:no, no. How many times have we been here before Scully? Right here, so close to the truth, and now with what we've seen and what we know, to be right back at the beginning with nothing
S:this is different, Mulder
M:no, it isn't. You were right to wanna quit. You're right to want to leave me, you should get as far away from me as you can. I'm not gonna watch you die Scully because of some hollow or personal cause of mine. Go be a doctor. Go be a doctor while you still can
S:I can't. I won't. Mulder, I'll be a doctor but my work is here with you now. That virus that I was exposed to, whatever it is, it has a cure, you held it in your hand. How many other lives can we save? Look, if I quit now, they win
they look at each other, then go away hand in hand.
We learn from a message the smoking-man received that the x-files have been reopened. Why is not known, on whose order is not known. It seems to me a bit strange that they would reopen it now, I don't see the logic here, and probably the authors couldn't see it either since they didn't give any.
End, now with the credits.
Agent Fox Mulder - David Duchovny
Agent Dana Scully - Gillian Anderson
just agent, now? no special?
The cigarette-smoking man - William B. Davis
Kurtzweil - Martin Landau
Assistant Director Walter Skinner - Mitch Pileggi (yeayyy)
The Lone Gunmen:
- Langly - Dean Haglund
- Byers - Bruce Harwood
- Frohike - Tom Braidwood
FBI agent on roof - T.W. King
that's who he was! He was in love with Prue in Charmed! That's it!
Michaud - Terry O'Quinn
Anyway, let's move on. The FBI is searching a building for a bomb, and I'm pretty sure I know that agent on the roof but can't quite point out where I saw him.. some series, for sure...
For some reason Mulder doesn't help the other agents, instead he breaks protocol and involves Scully in searching a completely different building despite the fact that she doesn't agree with him and protests as usual. Now, it's not clear to me why he wants to check this exact building here: we're in Dallas, and when finally Mulder finds the bomb (accidentally) and they call the rest of the Fbi agents, they don't arrive on foot. They drive here. Which means that Mulder is not a few feet away. The two building may very well be one opposite the other, but not so close after all. Why did he check this one in particular? Are these two the only buildings in Dallas??
Anyway, the man in charge Michaud arrives. Mulder:"can you defuse it?" Michaud:"yes, I can" but when everybody else is outside he doesn't even try, he just sits there waiting for it to explode.
At the hearing to clear what the two of them were doing there, they say that five people died in the explosion: Michaud plus three firemen and a boy, but I know from the beginning of the film that a boy fell into a cave and was taken by that slime/virus and three firemen gone down there to get him never came back on their own.
The Fbi needs someone to blame for the explosion, and Scully's on the line of fire. Skinner (yeayyyyy Skinner! I loved Skinner so much, he had so little screen time! They should have made him more involved! Always!) talks to Mulder and as usually he goes all 'she doesn't deserve this, it's my fault, I broke protocol, she didn't want to' and blah blah blah. He's always been like this, he breaks every protocol, drags her into it and then she gets in trouble. When she comes out, she says that if they decides to transfer her she might quit, because her heart isn't in it as it once was..
Mulder meets Dr Alvin Kurzweil who tells him that it was all some kind of cover up, that those 4 bodies were already dead, and that in Dallas they blew up that building to cover up their deaths that had a very different cause. The 22-years-veteran was a patriot and let it go off voluntarily.
Now, two things. As usual, Mulder never gets anywhere without the deep-throat of the moment, he always needs someone to tip him in the right direction, and one other thing: is he really saying that it was all planned, to blow up a building to cover up the deaths of 4 people whose bodies, by the way, have not been blown up at all, not before not now, because they are still there waiting for Mulder and Scully to sneak in and take a look? They planned to blow up a building full of people ? And Michaud the patriot was in on it? They informed him? Why? Because he had to know, otherwise he would have tried to defuse it. This means that he was willing to kill all the people in the building? They're not dead because Scully evacuated it, but the Fbi had been searching another building, so nobody would have gone out of this one. Honestly, they didn't think it through, it makes no sense at all, since the body are still intact. What kind of cover-up is that? They should have simply said that they died from something else! I mean, they've already hidden the bodies and falsified the reports, what use could all those deaths have??
Scully examines a body and says it was an infection unknown to her, but very very fast.
All the big men reunite in a meeting, worried because the virus has mutated: they've been used for this project of repopulation, but want to go along to buy time to find the vaccine they've been working on this whole time.
At Scully's next hearing, they don't care about new evidence; they want to stop Mulder by taking away what's most important to him. Scully gets transferred to Salt Lake City, Utah, effective immediately, so she gives Skinner a letter of resignation.
Mulder: you can't quit now, Scully.
Scully: I can, Mulder. I debated whether or not to tell you in person.
M: we are close to something here, we're on the verge
S: you're on the verge, Mulder. Please don't do this to me
M: after what you saw last night, after all you've seen, you just walk away?
S:I have. I did. It's done
M:I need you on this one
S:you don't need me Mulder, you never have, I just held you back. I gotta go.
he goes after her because if you care that's what you do.
M:if you wanna tell yourself that so you can quit with a clear conscience you can, but you're wrong
S:why did they assigned me to you in the first place, Mulder? To debunk your work, to rain you in, to shut you down
M:but you saved me! As difficult and frustrating as it's been sometimes, your god-damned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over. You kept me honest. You made me a whole person. I owe you everything. Scully, you owe me nothing. I don't know if I wanna do this alone. I don't even know if I can. And if I quit now, they win.
I've always liked Gillian Anderson a lot, but I have to admit, I'm not too fond of David Duchovny as an actor, I don't like how he talks that's the problem, nothing else really, but his voice is not convincing to me. I mean, this speech should have made me go awww but I was nothing like that, more like Are you sure? You wanna check the script again? You sound like you're finding it difficult to remember it all, or something like that. Anyway, back to Scully.
it takes her about ten seconds but finally she goes in for a big hug.
They're about to kiss when she's stung by one of the bees they discovered earlier. Mulder has a face as if saying What excuse now? but immediately she's infected and he calls an ambulance, but his call has been intercepted somehow and when the ambulance takes her away, instead of telling Murder what hospital are they taking her to, the driver shoots him.
Waking up at a hospital, his three friends and Skinner help him get out unnoticed. He goes looking for Kurzweil but instead he finds the English man. He gives Mulder the cure for Scully and her location, and tells him about the virus. It is extraterrestrial but they know very little about it, "except that it was the original inhabitant of this planet. A virus is a colonizing force that cannot be defeated. Until Dallas we believed the virus would simply control us, the mass infection would make us a slave race. Imagine our surprise when they began to gestate. My group has been working cooperatively with the alien colonists, facilitating programs like the one you saw to give us access to the virus in the hope that we might be able secretly to develop a cure" , he tells him that his father gave up Samantha to make her a hybrid human-alien so she would survive, he tells him that now that he's told him everything he'll be killed, and lets him go, then he's killed. Well, he entered the car and the car exploded, so...
Mulder goes to Antarctica to find her, injects her with the cure and they both escape, but she's weak and doesn't see the spaceship above them.
At the end it is all covered up again. Scully told everything at her last hearing , but with no effect.
M:they'll never believe you, not unless your story can be programmed, categorized or easily referenced
S:then we'll go over their heads
M:no, no. How many times have we been here before Scully? Right here, so close to the truth, and now with what we've seen and what we know, to be right back at the beginning with nothing
S:this is different, Mulder
M:no, it isn't. You were right to wanna quit. You're right to want to leave me, you should get as far away from me as you can. I'm not gonna watch you die Scully because of some hollow or personal cause of mine. Go be a doctor. Go be a doctor while you still can
S:I can't. I won't. Mulder, I'll be a doctor but my work is here with you now. That virus that I was exposed to, whatever it is, it has a cure, you held it in your hand. How many other lives can we save? Look, if I quit now, they win
they look at each other, then go away hand in hand.
We learn from a message the smoking-man received that the x-files have been reopened. Why is not known, on whose order is not known. It seems to me a bit strange that they would reopen it now, I don't see the logic here, and probably the authors couldn't see it either since they didn't give any.
End, now with the credits.
Agent Fox Mulder - David Duchovny
Agent Dana Scully - Gillian Anderson
just agent, now? no special?
The cigarette-smoking man - William B. Davis
Kurtzweil - Martin Landau
Assistant Director Walter Skinner - Mitch Pileggi (yeayyy)
The Lone Gunmen:
- Langly - Dean Haglund
- Byers - Bruce Harwood
- Frohike - Tom Braidwood
FBI agent on roof - T.W. King
that's who he was! He was in love with Prue in Charmed! That's it!
Michaud - Terry O'Quinn
Sense and sensibility - 1995
Oh do I love this film! I had not seen it in years, maybe ten years I dare say, and I was not sure of what I would have felt now, rewatching it, but now I know. I felt exactly the same love, sigh and tears as the first time. I loved the same things and, if possible, I was even more swept away by it now than I was back then. Oh the emotions, and the great acting! Emma Thompson is so so great here, one of her best performances. Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant were good, Hugh Laurie had a smaller part but of significance, and Alan Rickman was fantastic, it moved my heart from the first time to see the emotions on his face! and his voice! and the love for her so evident!
It differs from the book but don't be mad at me if I say that yes, it does, but for the good. They changed what modern-me could never like about it and made it right!
It starts with the same old story that only males inherit, because the fortune goes from father to son, not from father to daughter, it's the law... How stupid and unfair.
So now we have Mr Dashwood dying and he has only one son, but also three daughters from his second wife, and he makes his son John promise that he'll look after them. John's wife Fanny talks him out of it, so the 3000 he wanted to give them go down tragically quick and he decides for much, much less! So the second Mrs Dashwood has now to leave her own house because it is now John's.
Now, Fanny's really really unpleasant, but I really don't think that John is good and she's bad. It's not that simple. What I think is that he's just like her, plus a bit of a coward, so he's greedy as she is, and happily jumps at the chance to keep everything.
Mrs Dashwood has three daughters: Elinor (according to the credits, but to me it sounded more like Helena), Marianne and little Margareth. When Fanny's brother Edward comes to visit, immediately he looks different from her: shy, kind, simple. Elinor and Edward are alike in many ways. You can see how she appreciates his kindness, his way with Margareth. Mrs Dashwood understands something is happening and talks about it to Fanny, who makes it clear that if ever Edward were to marry below him he would he disinherited. Hastily Fanny plots to send Edward to London, to divide them. The Dashwood women move to a nice cottage given to them by some relative, a cousin of some sort I think. Not sure if they have to pay for it, but in any case, even if they have to, it's the best offer they've managed to find, a generous one. Mrs Jennings and his son.. well, son-in-law, I seem to remember, John, are nice people and very loud ones. Marianne plays the piano and sings for them, and at that moment a friend of John's comes in: it's Colonel Brandon, who is immediately gripped by Marianne's voice and beauty. It's a beautiful scene, when he stares at her oblivious of anything else. Of course she's very young, and he's not so much, so she doesn't fancy him at all. It seemed impossible to me when I saw this the first time, but thinking about it it's kinda understandable, if we base it on the actors age different which is 29 years...
One day she hurts her ankle running while it was raining, and young handsome Willoughby who lives nearby comes to her rescue and brings her home in his arms. Done! She's already madly in love with him, of course. He's young and cute and strong and he just saved her, more or less, so he's the one she thinks about constantly from now on. Poor Colonel Brandon sees that, but wants only her happiness, the adorable man. Elinor is a bit worried for her because Marianne makes no secret of her feelings, not with him not with anyone, but Marianne despises her sister's coldness and thinks that the most important thing in life and in love is the passion!
One day, after asking to talk to her in private, instead of proposing he says he must go away to London, looking rather guilty, and Marianne is desperate!
When Mrs Jennings propose to take Elinor , Marianne and Lucy Steele, relative of some kind, to London, their mother agrees, Marianne is ecstatic, thinking only of seeing Willoughby again, but Elinor is not happy because Lucy just told her that she has been secretly engaged to Edward for the last five years! I didn't like this Lucy one bit, and I'm not sure of her sincerity at all, although it could be possible.. anyway, as soon as they're in London Marianne writes to Willoughby to let him know she's in town. Not sure how they addressed their letters in those times, though. She gives it to a servant to deliver, but how can he know where to find him? Willoughby didn't give her his address before leaving her, now, did he?
Anyway, she writes and writes again, but no answers from him. Finally they go to a party: Elinor meets Fanny with her other brother Robert: not very cute and kinda slimy, if that's the right word. He seems interested in Lucy because he asks her to dance, and when her party is leaving he offers to take her home himself so she could stay longer... good, isn't it? :-)
Marianne sees Willoughby and yells his name, and walks to him with everybody's watching! She immediately notice something's wrong with him, but he's evasive to her questions and hurries to leave to another room. Following him, the two sisters see him in the company of a young lady who looks like money from hair to toes. Marianne is taken away and later on after writing him again she will receive a letter from him saying she must have misunderstood his friendship, so sorry, and he also sends back her letters and hairs. She's heartbroken, but still thinks nobody can understand her, specially not her cold sister. When Elinor bursts out about her broken heart is a touching moment. I know when a film is right the moment I share the same emotion, at the same moment, in the same way. As she said that I had tears in my eyes and I looked just like Marianne.
Actually, I'm not 100% sure that Elinor's outburst happens at this moment, after that letter from Willoughby. Maybe it was just before the party, since she could actually speak...
Still heartbroken, Marianne takes a long walk, not caring about the rain or the wind, to look at Willoughby's house. Elinor is very worried, and Colonel Brandon goes looking for her. He comes back with her in his arms, both soaked wet, just like Willoughby did once, only poor Brandon is panting like hell because he was so worried it looks like he ran all the way.
Elinor asks Mr Palmer to call a doctor because she looks very ill. The doctor too looks worried! One of my favs moments is now, with Colonel Brandon so very worried, when he says: "what can I do?" and of course Elinor tells him he's already done a lot, but he goes "give me an occupation or I shall run mad" which might seem like a normal thing, nothing so special, maybe, but said by Alan Rickman always has its effect on me :-)
Elinor is desperate and cries at Marianne's bed praying her to try, and to not leave her. When morning comes, Marianne wakes up and calls her sister. Elinor calls the doctor who takes her pulse... and smiles, no need for words, that smile says it all :-)
Colonel Brandon is back bringing her mother who rushes to her bed. A thing that touches me is that when they come Elinor runs to her to tell her that Marianne's going to make it and to hug her... and it seems to me like she needed it so much, always doing the big sister, the responsible one, and all that, but even her needs her mom's hug from time to time...
The colonel is going away , to leave the family alone, but Marianne calls him to say thank you! Good! Poor colonel, she never appreciated him enough!
Now that all's well, he often visits them at their cottage, and reads for her. That was important for her at the beginning of the movie when they met Edward and she kept criticizing the way he read because she thought it was not adeguate. Surely now she could not find nothing against Brandon's voice, could she? No, in fact she was sorry when he stopped to go away :-) This is the big big change compared to the book, because in the book Marianne married him because she had to, and learned to love him with time. She was given to him for all he had done for them, but here in the film they spend time together, to give her time to know him better and grow fond of him before the marriage !
Better, isn't it?
Now, it would all be good if not for poor Elinor's heart in pieces because they heard news that Mr Ferrars married Lucy. One day, Marianne is playing the piano that the colonel sent her as a gift (he's very rich) when a horseman approaches: Edward. They receive him kindly, of course, and inquire about "Mrs Ferrars" because of politeness. To the general embarrassment he answers about his mother, so Mrs Dashwood tries to be more explicit asking him about "Mrs Edward Ferrars" and now it's him who looks a bit taken aback. "You haven't heard?" well no, we had not, no. So he explains that Lucy married Robert, his brother, it's not clearly known if really for love or because Edward had been disinherited (well, he had been because he wanted to keep his word and marry her, actually..) anyway she's "Mrs Robert Ferrars" now!
Elinor stands up : "so... you're not married?" - "No" - and she loses it. Emma Thompson was so amazing here, simply amazing. Elinor bursts out crying, simply can't stop, after so many days of repressing her feelings and her love and believing it to be impossible and over and now this!
Her family goes quickly out to leave them alone while he talks over her crying because it was clear that she wasn't likely to stop too soon. He tells her he thought she only thought of him as a friend, but now that he's free he's decided to let her know anyway that he loves her.. awww :-) So happy for Elinor :-)
At the end both sisters marry the man they love :-) Good :-)
Can't really explain why, but I never liked much the final scene when just-married Brandon throws money into the air for the people to take. I understand he's rich, and so happy, and it can be a good thing for the people, but there are other ways, this throwing-scene never agreed with me.
It differs from the book but don't be mad at me if I say that yes, it does, but for the good. They changed what modern-me could never like about it and made it right!
It starts with the same old story that only males inherit, because the fortune goes from father to son, not from father to daughter, it's the law... How stupid and unfair.
So now we have Mr Dashwood dying and he has only one son, but also three daughters from his second wife, and he makes his son John promise that he'll look after them. John's wife Fanny talks him out of it, so the 3000 he wanted to give them go down tragically quick and he decides for much, much less! So the second Mrs Dashwood has now to leave her own house because it is now John's.
Now, Fanny's really really unpleasant, but I really don't think that John is good and she's bad. It's not that simple. What I think is that he's just like her, plus a bit of a coward, so he's greedy as she is, and happily jumps at the chance to keep everything.
Mrs Dashwood has three daughters: Elinor (according to the credits, but to me it sounded more like Helena), Marianne and little Margareth. When Fanny's brother Edward comes to visit, immediately he looks different from her: shy, kind, simple. Elinor and Edward are alike in many ways. You can see how she appreciates his kindness, his way with Margareth. Mrs Dashwood understands something is happening and talks about it to Fanny, who makes it clear that if ever Edward were to marry below him he would he disinherited. Hastily Fanny plots to send Edward to London, to divide them. The Dashwood women move to a nice cottage given to them by some relative, a cousin of some sort I think. Not sure if they have to pay for it, but in any case, even if they have to, it's the best offer they've managed to find, a generous one. Mrs Jennings and his son.. well, son-in-law, I seem to remember, John, are nice people and very loud ones. Marianne plays the piano and sings for them, and at that moment a friend of John's comes in: it's Colonel Brandon, who is immediately gripped by Marianne's voice and beauty. It's a beautiful scene, when he stares at her oblivious of anything else. Of course she's very young, and he's not so much, so she doesn't fancy him at all. It seemed impossible to me when I saw this the first time, but thinking about it it's kinda understandable, if we base it on the actors age different which is 29 years...
One day she hurts her ankle running while it was raining, and young handsome Willoughby who lives nearby comes to her rescue and brings her home in his arms. Done! She's already madly in love with him, of course. He's young and cute and strong and he just saved her, more or less, so he's the one she thinks about constantly from now on. Poor Colonel Brandon sees that, but wants only her happiness, the adorable man. Elinor is a bit worried for her because Marianne makes no secret of her feelings, not with him not with anyone, but Marianne despises her sister's coldness and thinks that the most important thing in life and in love is the passion!
One day, after asking to talk to her in private, instead of proposing he says he must go away to London, looking rather guilty, and Marianne is desperate!
When Mrs Jennings propose to take Elinor , Marianne and Lucy Steele, relative of some kind, to London, their mother agrees, Marianne is ecstatic, thinking only of seeing Willoughby again, but Elinor is not happy because Lucy just told her that she has been secretly engaged to Edward for the last five years! I didn't like this Lucy one bit, and I'm not sure of her sincerity at all, although it could be possible.. anyway, as soon as they're in London Marianne writes to Willoughby to let him know she's in town. Not sure how they addressed their letters in those times, though. She gives it to a servant to deliver, but how can he know where to find him? Willoughby didn't give her his address before leaving her, now, did he?
Anyway, she writes and writes again, but no answers from him. Finally they go to a party: Elinor meets Fanny with her other brother Robert: not very cute and kinda slimy, if that's the right word. He seems interested in Lucy because he asks her to dance, and when her party is leaving he offers to take her home himself so she could stay longer... good, isn't it? :-)
Marianne sees Willoughby and yells his name, and walks to him with everybody's watching! She immediately notice something's wrong with him, but he's evasive to her questions and hurries to leave to another room. Following him, the two sisters see him in the company of a young lady who looks like money from hair to toes. Marianne is taken away and later on after writing him again she will receive a letter from him saying she must have misunderstood his friendship, so sorry, and he also sends back her letters and hairs. She's heartbroken, but still thinks nobody can understand her, specially not her cold sister. When Elinor bursts out about her broken heart is a touching moment. I know when a film is right the moment I share the same emotion, at the same moment, in the same way. As she said that I had tears in my eyes and I looked just like Marianne.
Actually, I'm not 100% sure that Elinor's outburst happens at this moment, after that letter from Willoughby. Maybe it was just before the party, since she could actually speak...
Still heartbroken, Marianne takes a long walk, not caring about the rain or the wind, to look at Willoughby's house. Elinor is very worried, and Colonel Brandon goes looking for her. He comes back with her in his arms, both soaked wet, just like Willoughby did once, only poor Brandon is panting like hell because he was so worried it looks like he ran all the way.
Elinor asks Mr Palmer to call a doctor because she looks very ill. The doctor too looks worried! One of my favs moments is now, with Colonel Brandon so very worried, when he says: "what can I do?" and of course Elinor tells him he's already done a lot, but he goes "give me an occupation or I shall run mad" which might seem like a normal thing, nothing so special, maybe, but said by Alan Rickman always has its effect on me :-)
Elinor is desperate and cries at Marianne's bed praying her to try, and to not leave her. When morning comes, Marianne wakes up and calls her sister. Elinor calls the doctor who takes her pulse... and smiles, no need for words, that smile says it all :-)
Colonel Brandon is back bringing her mother who rushes to her bed. A thing that touches me is that when they come Elinor runs to her to tell her that Marianne's going to make it and to hug her... and it seems to me like she needed it so much, always doing the big sister, the responsible one, and all that, but even her needs her mom's hug from time to time...
The colonel is going away , to leave the family alone, but Marianne calls him to say thank you! Good! Poor colonel, she never appreciated him enough!
Now that all's well, he often visits them at their cottage, and reads for her. That was important for her at the beginning of the movie when they met Edward and she kept criticizing the way he read because she thought it was not adeguate. Surely now she could not find nothing against Brandon's voice, could she? No, in fact she was sorry when he stopped to go away :-) This is the big big change compared to the book, because in the book Marianne married him because she had to, and learned to love him with time. She was given to him for all he had done for them, but here in the film they spend time together, to give her time to know him better and grow fond of him before the marriage !
Better, isn't it?
Now, it would all be good if not for poor Elinor's heart in pieces because they heard news that Mr Ferrars married Lucy. One day, Marianne is playing the piano that the colonel sent her as a gift (he's very rich) when a horseman approaches: Edward. They receive him kindly, of course, and inquire about "Mrs Ferrars" because of politeness. To the general embarrassment he answers about his mother, so Mrs Dashwood tries to be more explicit asking him about "Mrs Edward Ferrars" and now it's him who looks a bit taken aback. "You haven't heard?" well no, we had not, no. So he explains that Lucy married Robert, his brother, it's not clearly known if really for love or because Edward had been disinherited (well, he had been because he wanted to keep his word and marry her, actually..) anyway she's "Mrs Robert Ferrars" now!
Elinor stands up : "so... you're not married?" - "No" - and she loses it. Emma Thompson was so amazing here, simply amazing. Elinor bursts out crying, simply can't stop, after so many days of repressing her feelings and her love and believing it to be impossible and over and now this!
Her family goes quickly out to leave them alone while he talks over her crying because it was clear that she wasn't likely to stop too soon. He tells her he thought she only thought of him as a friend, but now that he's free he's decided to let her know anyway that he loves her.. awww :-) So happy for Elinor :-)
At the end both sisters marry the man they love :-) Good :-)
Can't really explain why, but I never liked much the final scene when just-married Brandon throws money into the air for the people to take. I understand he's rich, and so happy, and it can be a good thing for the people, but there are other ways, this throwing-scene never agreed with me.
Ice skating and Isu World Figure Skating 2015 and more
I just saw Javier Fernandez win the world competition. I love ice-skating, a lot. Unfortunately I didn't see the other competitions, but they always show it when I'm at work. My favourite among the men is without any doubt Yuzuru Hanyu, I just love his style. He's so, so light, when he skates. I love the harmony and his figure while he skates. I think he's a wonderful skater, but I admit this time the second place was enough for him. I heard he's not been well, so he practised very little and all that, so it is explained. I usually am not crazy about Fernandez, nor I am now, but he did a great, better performance here.
Denis Ten was third, and that also is ok. I didn't like him first couple of times I saw him, but lately I do. He was more automatic before, now he feels it more. Well, that's what it looks like, at least. I'm just a viewer, no expert at all.
Cup of China November 2015 -
Rika Hongo's Riverdance was beautiful, her dress was beautiful, she was great. Her riverdance steps were adorable, and she's so young, she has a great career ahead if she's already so good!
Congratulations on her second place.
Mao Asada, I like her so much, very graceful on the ice, she always lands so lightly, couldn't believe it when I saw she fell once and failed two jumps. I was so sorry, her Madame Butterfly was so beautiful. I mean, even her fall was graceful, her grace comes from within, doesn't it?
Congratulations on her first place.
Anna Cappellini and Luca La Notte were great, she had a beautiful dress, congratulations on the first place!
Fernandez, I know he's a champion, but I don't know why I don't like him, I can't understand it myself by I'm not fond of his skating, although I can see how good he is.
Han Yan, I liked his Romeo and Juliet program.
Boyang Jin, is this really his debut?? Wow, he's very good.
Skate Canada 2015
So sorry I didn't see Hanyu, I'll try to find it on the internet . I did see Patrick Chan, though, so I'm not surprised that he won, because his program was wonderful.
Trophée Bompard 2015 - they only did the short program. I saw the debut of 25y.o. Roberta Rodeghiero in her pretty woman short, very nice, she came third-58.81. I also saw Juia Lipniskaja-65.63 and Gracie Gold-73.32. For the ice-dance I saw Stepanova-Bukin-60.64 (pretty dress), Coomes-Buckland-58.34, Hubbel-Donohue64.45, Gilles-Poirier-63.94 and their pretty dance on the Beatles music, it was very nice, I liked it.
Pairs, I saw Canadians Julianne Seguin-Charlie Bilodeau-64.95, Russians Tatiana Volosozhar-Maxim Trankov-74.50, in a pretty green dress, always great these two, I like them and this Bollywood program. French Vanessa James-Morgan Cipres65.75 were good, Italians Nicole Della Monica-Matteo Guarise-64.08, Russians Tarasova-Morozov-62.32 and Chinese Cheng Peng-Hao Zhang-64.10 that I have always called the giant and the little girl; she fell, she always does, poor thing.
Cup of Russia 2015-Isu Grand Prix Rostelecom cup
Ladies: I saw Canada:Alaine Chartrand-67.38, Italy:Roberta Rodeghiero-56.85, same pretty woman short but not as good as she was in France, Russia:Evgenia Medvedeva-67.03, she fell but went on pretty well, Usa:Polina Edmunds-65.29, sorry I didn't see her because I was making dinner, because I heard the commentators were enthusiastic. Japan:Rika Hongo-63.45, 19y.o., in a pretty green dress, Cirque du soleil music, I liked it. Russia:Elena Radionova-71.79.
Dance: Monko-Khaliavin-59.03, Italy:Charlene Guignard-Marco Fabbri-60.58 not perfect but good enough, I didn't like them once but they're getting better. Italy:Anna Cappellini-Luca La Notte-67.82 were very good, she had a very pretty dress. Good. Canada:Kaitlyn Weaver-Andrew Poje-69.49 with their Waltz, beautiful, elegant and fast like a good waltz should be. Great.
Men:I saw Ivan Righini, Ross Miner-85.36, I liked him, Takahiko Kozuka-69.61 for Japan with the strange choice of a spanish music. Israel:Alexei Bychenko fell down-67.46; Russia:Adian Pitkeev-87.54, only 17 y.o., who was good, great jumps. Usa:Adam Rippon, Canada:Nam Nguyen-70.78, Russia:Sergei Voronov-84.17, Spain:Javier Fernandez-86.99, only second this time.
Pairs:Canada:Bell-Swiegers, Russia: Zabijako-Enbert-60.77, Italy:Marchei-Otarek-62.43 (I still don't know why he's not skating with Berton anymore, she left out of the blue?why?), Canada:Moore-Towers-Marinaro; China:Peng-Zhang-68.10, as usual she was not happy of her performance, she should learn to relax.
Denis Ten was third, and that also is ok. I didn't like him first couple of times I saw him, but lately I do. He was more automatic before, now he feels it more. Well, that's what it looks like, at least. I'm just a viewer, no expert at all.
Cup of China November 2015 -
Rika Hongo's Riverdance was beautiful, her dress was beautiful, she was great. Her riverdance steps were adorable, and she's so young, she has a great career ahead if she's already so good!
Congratulations on her second place.
Mao Asada, I like her so much, very graceful on the ice, she always lands so lightly, couldn't believe it when I saw she fell once and failed two jumps. I was so sorry, her Madame Butterfly was so beautiful. I mean, even her fall was graceful, her grace comes from within, doesn't it?
Congratulations on her first place.
Anna Cappellini and Luca La Notte were great, she had a beautiful dress, congratulations on the first place!
Fernandez, I know he's a champion, but I don't know why I don't like him, I can't understand it myself by I'm not fond of his skating, although I can see how good he is.
Han Yan, I liked his Romeo and Juliet program.
Boyang Jin, is this really his debut?? Wow, he's very good.
Skate Canada 2015
So sorry I didn't see Hanyu, I'll try to find it on the internet . I did see Patrick Chan, though, so I'm not surprised that he won, because his program was wonderful.
Trophée Bompard 2015 - they only did the short program. I saw the debut of 25y.o. Roberta Rodeghiero in her pretty woman short, very nice, she came third-58.81. I also saw Juia Lipniskaja-65.63 and Gracie Gold-73.32. For the ice-dance I saw Stepanova-Bukin-60.64 (pretty dress), Coomes-Buckland-58.34, Hubbel-Donohue64.45, Gilles-Poirier-63.94 and their pretty dance on the Beatles music, it was very nice, I liked it.
Pairs, I saw Canadians Julianne Seguin-Charlie Bilodeau-64.95, Russians Tatiana Volosozhar-Maxim Trankov-74.50, in a pretty green dress, always great these two, I like them and this Bollywood program. French Vanessa James-Morgan Cipres65.75 were good, Italians Nicole Della Monica-Matteo Guarise-64.08, Russians Tarasova-Morozov-62.32 and Chinese Cheng Peng-Hao Zhang-64.10 that I have always called the giant and the little girl; she fell, she always does, poor thing.
Cup of Russia 2015-Isu Grand Prix Rostelecom cup
Ladies: I saw Canada:Alaine Chartrand-67.38, Italy:Roberta Rodeghiero-56.85, same pretty woman short but not as good as she was in France, Russia:Evgenia Medvedeva-67.03, she fell but went on pretty well, Usa:Polina Edmunds-65.29, sorry I didn't see her because I was making dinner, because I heard the commentators were enthusiastic. Japan:Rika Hongo-63.45, 19y.o., in a pretty green dress, Cirque du soleil music, I liked it. Russia:Elena Radionova-71.79.
Dance: Monko-Khaliavin-59.03, Italy:Charlene Guignard-Marco Fabbri-60.58 not perfect but good enough, I didn't like them once but they're getting better. Italy:Anna Cappellini-Luca La Notte-67.82 were very good, she had a very pretty dress. Good. Canada:Kaitlyn Weaver-Andrew Poje-69.49 with their Waltz, beautiful, elegant and fast like a good waltz should be. Great.
Men:I saw Ivan Righini, Ross Miner-85.36, I liked him, Takahiko Kozuka-69.61 for Japan with the strange choice of a spanish music. Israel:Alexei Bychenko fell down-67.46; Russia:Adian Pitkeev-87.54, only 17 y.o., who was good, great jumps. Usa:Adam Rippon, Canada:Nam Nguyen-70.78, Russia:Sergei Voronov-84.17, Spain:Javier Fernandez-86.99, only second this time.
Pairs:Canada:Bell-Swiegers, Russia: Zabijako-Enbert-60.77, Italy:Marchei-Otarek-62.43 (I still don't know why he's not skating with Berton anymore, she left out of the blue?why?), Canada:Moore-Towers-Marinaro; China:Peng-Zhang-68.10, as usual she was not happy of her performance, she should learn to relax.
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