Shrek forever after - 2010

I don’t like the premise, but Shrek is still Shrek so it manages to be entertaining and sweet.

The premise is very very annoying because it is the usual ‘the male now has got a family and he misses his old lonely and empty life because he could play at being alpha and could choose freely to do all the superficial things he wanted, instead of spending time with the people that now love him and admire him’ kind of thing. Of course conveniently forgetting how upset all that used to make him once.

Yes, because now that Shrek has not only a wife but three toddlers, nobody is scared of him anymore - it used to annoy him that people thought of him as a monster, now he says he misses it…

Every day thte two of them have to take care of their children and have a home full of chaos - so different from the silent, empty home he once had. Now he has to think of things like the birthday party for his one-year-old children in a place full of friends who like him and admire him, instead of screaming in his face or taking out the pitchforks to kill him. The horror! Poor him! :-/ 

Anyway, the film in details:

It starts with the story book: since Fiona had already been in that tower for years - I wonder what did she eat? - her parents became desperate and went to the “Crone’s nest carriage park - abandon all hope ye who enter here” , a place full of witches and black cats, but also where Rumpelstiltskin lives. Harold and Lillian were so desperate they were ready to make a deal with him: he’ll put an end to Fiona’s curse and in  return they sign their kingdom over to him… a terrible deal and they knew it, but the life of their daughter was more important - once again, it wasn’t a life-threatening curse! They could have just accepted their daughter’s night look…

They didn’t accept it though, so they were ready to sign the deal - even knowing he’s evil and deceitful - but right before the king signed the contract, news reached them that Fiona had been saved! “True love’s kiss led to marriage and ogre babies” but Rumpel got nothing and now nobody seems to need his deals.

Pinocchio, who appears to work in a bookstore, throws him out.

The sign at Shrek’s home now has the addition of three small ogre faces, and the house is full of toys and laughter; they need to change the children’s nappies and clean them, every day. Just like every mother had to do, for centuries. The thing is that Shrek never did anything really, when he was single, and now he has to. 

Donkey and his children come to play, Puss-in-boots tells everyone their story - well, they could ask him to change story from time to time - and everyone is happy. Fiona wishes on a shooting star “that every day could be like this one” because she’s happy and she knows it.

The “star tours chariot” shows tourists where he lives, “the lovable lug that showed us you don’t have to change your undies to change the world!”. Every day the children wake them up with shrieking and laughter, needing to be fed. 

Shrek misses the old days..

Now they travel riding their she-dragon and get to “far far away” much quicker. People ask Shrek to sign their pitchforks and roar for their children - and people being people they’re also rude and oblivious when they say things like “you used to be so fierce” and “when you were a real ogre”.

Pinocchio sings at the party, the three pigs eat the cake - and also ‘thet other cakes’ and the cupcakes, the lollipops too, and Shrek can’t stand the chaos anymore. Instead of telling Fiona that he needs some air because he’s feeling poorly, he roars, punches the new cake and storms out. Fiona tries to tell him that he “has everything” and just can’t see it, but Shrek calls home a “roadside attraction”, says “I used to be an ogre, now I’m just a jolly green joke” and when she tries to say that maybe it’s not a bad thing that he’s not the ogre he used to be, he says she can’t understand because she’s not a real ogre, that all he wants “is for things to go back to the way they used to be”, when he could do what he wanted, before he rescued her! He walks away after that and Rumpelstiltskin heard their words…

He offers Shrek an eyeball-tiny cocktail, and gets him to sign a contract: one day to feel like an ogre again, “to be feared and hated” like “the good old days” in exchange for a small, tiny thing, one day out of Shrek’s life, his past, a day when he was a baby and can’t even remember…

Shrek tells him to take any one of those, he doesn’t care. He signs, and enjoys some time scaring the life out of people and cats, and feeling on top of the world. He’s happy to see wanted signs with his face again, much less to see many wanted signs with Fiona’s face on it. 

His home is not a home anymore, witches hunt him and Donkey doesn’t know him, he now works for the witches.

The witches fly on brooms, so they get close to Far far away quickly. The big sign is in ruins, the streets are full of shouting people and gambling men - Gingy the gingerbread man fights against animal biscuits using a lollipop as weapon.

Rumpel lives in the palace with the witches and ‘almost’ makes a deal with “balsa boy” Pinocchio when Shrek is brought in. Rumpel explains: he took the day Shrek was born, so he never ended Fiona’s curse and her desperate parents made a deal to have their problems disappear, and they themselves disappeared. Fiona eventually got out of the tower by herself, but she’s still cursed. Shrek escapes on a broom taking Donkey with him.

Wolfie wears an apron and serves Rumpel, changing his wigs.

Donkey runs away from him in fear, but comes close when he sees Shrek cry, thinking of his children. Donkey explains to him that there is always an “exit clause”, even if it can’t be his name anymore now that everybody knows Rumpel’s name.

The clause is well hidden, only found folding the contract a certain way. Of course it is true love’s kiss: “according to fairy tale law, if not fully satisfied, true love’s kiss will render this contract null and void”

Shrek checks the towen in the dragon’s keep, and one wall is full of chalk sign meaning she was there a long long time. Donkey finds “a stack fo freshly made waffles in the middle of the forest” and can’t resist a taste: it was of course a trap and he falls down a hole. Shrek follows him.

Shrek meets the Ogre Resistance who “fight for freedom and ogres everywhere” and stops them from eating Donkey.

Their leader is Fiona: axe-holding, red-hair loose, very determined.

She values her personal space. He tries to explain but does it very very badly. He goes to her tent with a gift basket and meets Cat who is obese and without boots.

Shrek’s coupon for a free kiss doesn’t work, and he does not receive a “quick kiss goodbye” instead she throws him out.

Rumpel hires the pied piper who can turn a switch in his flute and choose to affect rats or witches or ogres or other. Rumpel melts a witch with purified water. BTW, why was Wolfie never a villain???

Shrek and Fiona train together and laugh, they have “a moment” and even the cat can see there was a spark inside her heart, so he wants to help him.

Cat and Donkey are fast-friends with jokes like cat-astrophe and ri-donkey-lous. 

Shrek tells Fiona things he knows about her, but this second ‘moment’ is ruined by the piper. The ogres ambush didn’t go as planned because there wasn’t Rumpel in the carriage, but the piper.

All ogres start dancing, by force, so Cat and Donkey carry Shrek and Fiona away from the music. Shrek keeps insisting so Fiona kisses him and nothing changes, because she doesn’t love him right now and also doesn’t believe in that stuff: “true love didn’t get me out of that tower, I did, I saved myself” because her true love never came, and if he says he’s her true love then “where were you when I needed you?”

Rumpel promises a reward, the deal of a lifetime, to whoever brings him Shrek.

Finally Shrek realizes that his life was perfect. When Gingy tries to capture him, Shrek learns of the deal - before Cat eats Gingy. Shrek turns himself in (Pinocchio brought Geppetto in chains and painted green).

Shrek’s “everything he wants” is for all ogres to be free, but he wasn’t specific, and since Fiona is not all ogre she isn’t freed.

   — lol when the ogres outside tell Donkey of all the ugly, nasty witches inside, they shout “hey! We can hear you!” - “Sorry!” :lol:

Rumpel sets the dragon against Shrek and Fiona, but working together they put it in chains. The ogres came to free them with Donkey and Cat and they win, but then Shrek starts glowing, time is almost up and he’s about to disappear: “you know what the best part of today was? I got the chance to fall in love with you all over again” awww so she kisses him. The kiss worked this time, and Shrek finds himself back at his kids’ party, when he roared and people clapped, right before he ruined the cake and stormed out.

This time he hugs Fiona, hugs his kids, and then he makes trumpet noises with his nose, as the other ogres did.

And they did indeed live happily ever after.

Princess Fiona is Cameron Diaz

Puss-in-boots is Antonio Banderas

Queen is Julie Andrews

King is John Cleese

Shrek was Mike Myers

Donkey was Eddie Murphy

Among Shrek’s books there is: 

Fiona of Troy - Shrek and the beanstalk - A midsummer night’s Shrek - Puss in boots - the donkey of Seville - the ugly Shreklings - Gingerella - Moby Shrek - the taming of the Shrek

It’s I’m a believer again, and they’re all out at Shrek’s swamp celebrating. Rumpel is in a cage, the piper and the witches are not. There are all the names during the song, and when they move to producer and the rest, they show scenes from the first Shrek onwards.

P.s. The muffin man made Gingy cowboy pants.

The ogre babies are called Farkle, Fergus and Felicia.

Why is it that Fiona appeared first wearing a shirt, a skirt and boots, but when she lifted Rumpel saying Victory is ours the shirt was longer like a dress and she was wearing Daisy Duck’s shoes, probably with heels?

Also, the things he knows about her: the curse’s exact words, “I know you sing so beautifully that birds explode” and “I know that when you sign your name you put a heart over the i, and I know that you sleep by candlelight because every time you close your eyes you’re afraid you’re gonna wake up back in that tower”.

“Did you grow up locked away in a dragon’s keep? Did you live all alone in a miserable tower? Did you cry yourself to sleep every night waiting for a true love that never came?”

Great Fiona! Because love is great, and if you find love, that’s great, but in the meantime don’t stay put and just wait until your life passes by, do something for yourself, and save yourself :)

ITA Shrek e vissero felici e contenti - l’ultimo capitolo

Shrek the third - 2007

Prince Charming now sort of works as an actor, he acts in pubs while people eat, ‘recreating’ his ‘epic rescue’ of the princess and his fight with the ogre, but people laugh at him and he’s angry, he doesn’t even have his own dressing room, he put a table and mirror in the alley outside. 

Shrek and Fiona are in far, far away to help “filling in for the king and queen” and Cat acts as secretary. A poor man has to be knighted by him, and it sure hurts; he has to perform the launching of a ship, but he destroys it. The king isn’t feeling well, but he isn’t getting better, so he tells Shrek that he and Fiona “are next in line for the throne” and “there is only one remaining heir”= Arthur.

The king dies and the kingdom is mourning, there’s a huge frog-king statue to remember him by. 

Charming goes to the pub where all villains gather and does a speech on how unfair their fate was, how those in far far away did them wrong and now time has come for them… and they join him: Hook, the witches, Mabel the ugly stepsister, the evil queen, everyone.

Donkey says goodbye to his she-dragon and his four babies - Coco, Peanut ,Bananas and a fourth - Cat does too, to every she-cat around, and they leave on a ship with Shrek to go look for cousin Arthur.

Fiona can’t let him go without knowing, so she yells that she’s pregnant. Shrek is totally terrified of this, of being a father. He has nightmares about it, is scared of ruining the kid’s life.

They arrive at Worcestershire, a sort of high-school, of huge boarding school, and they find Arthur, who is not the school champion - that’s Lancelot - but the poor kid that always gets bullied. 

Shrek is asked to the Homecoming ball… kids…

Shrek finds Arthur Pendragon and tells him he’s the new king of far far away, that he’s the only heir, and Arthur does a victory speech to the school before going with Shrek.

At Fiona’s baby shower, there’s her mom, Cinderella, SnowWhite, she-dragon, sleeping Beauty - can’t miss her, she’s sleeping - the other ugly stepsister and Rapunzel, and for some reason there’s also Pinocchio, the pigs, the wolf and Gingy.

Snow gifts her one of the dwarves as a “live-in babysitter”. 

The villains arrive on the brooms with the witches, the evil trees cause trouble, there’s some pillaging, a cyclop taking the stamps away from the letters…

She-dragon is stopped with a metal net, and the girls hide.

Shrek tells Artie that the king asked for him personally, and tries to paint a lovely picture, but Cat and Donkey’s words scare him a bit, and he wants to go away, so they fight and break the wheel, and they crash the ship. Artie wants nothing to do with Shrek now, who has no idea how to deal with teenagers.

He tries talking in a gibberish way, then they find a house/hut/cave/whatever.

Artie: “I’vec been kidnapped by a monster who’s trying to relate to me!”

Merlin lives here, he was the “school’s magic teacher until he had his nervous breakdown”, now “retired to the tranquility of nature”. 

Shrek asks for direction to far far away, and then he has a fight with Artie about going there; Merlin could help, “but since you’re in the midst of a self destructive rage spiral, it would be karmically irresponsible”.

Before he helps, he wants Shrek and the others to “take the journey to your soul”= they need to look into the “Fire of Truth”, which looks like bonfire, and say what they see. This way we learn that Artie’s father left him, “dumped” him at that school, and Artie never heard from him again. Artie thinks he’s not worth anything because even his dad left him, just like Shrek believed himself to be a monster because everybody else said so, until he learned to ignore what they said and “just trust who you are”.

He’s also scared of fatherhood because he too had a terrible father: “He tried to eat me. He used to give me a bath in barbecue sauce and put me to bed with an apple in my mouth.”

The girls walk at the light of the torches until they manage to get outside the castle… and Rapunzel leads them all to Charming, the traitorous wannabe-queen. 

When Shrek and the others wake up, there’s Hook and some others there to kill them and take Shrek to “King Charming”. Shrek wins, of course; Merlin at first refuses to help, so Artie plays the crying card and Merlin accepts to magic them all back.

Donkey is now in Cat’s body and vice versa. Merlin did say there might be side effects.

Cat’s big eyes tactic doesn’t work now in Donkey’s body.

They enter the castle and they’re caught, so Shrek uses cruel words to make Arthur go away.

Shrek is in chains. Donkey and Cat are thrown in a cell with all the girls. 

Donkey (in Cat’s body) explains that they were “bibbity-boppity-booped by the magic man”.

Beauty, Snow and Cindy simply sit and wait “to be rescued”, and the Queen takes offence at Snow’s comment on her being just an old lady, so she breaks down walls with her head, and they get out ready to fight - Snow has a tattoo of Dopey’s name inside a heart.

Charming is setting up his play, where he intends to really kill Shrek. It’s called “Happily ever after after all.”

Shrek’s warden is the cyclop, all tenderness because he has his daughter with him: “who would have thought a monster like me deserved something as special as you?”  :-) They’re so cute :-)

At the outside gate, guarded by the evil trees, Snow sings to call to her all birds and animals around, and then she unleashes them on the trees/guards, and they all go in. Cat and Donkey have to explain to Artie that Shrek saved him, protected him, so he helps too.

Shrek is brought on stage in chains, but people laugh at Shrek’s jokes more than they ‘admire’ his performance. 

She-dragon, Pinocchio and the gang arrive to disrupt the play, then all the girls appear in fighting stance.

Still, it’s not over because Charming isn’t alone, and all the villains his ally come to trap them.

Artie comes now with a speech, asking them if they really want to be villains forever, that they don’t have to be, and many of them did have other dreams, so they put the weapons down.

It was not a bad speech after all: “a good friend of mine once told me that just because people treat you like a villain, or an ogre, or just some loser, it doesn’t mean you are one. The thing that matters most is what you think of yourself ” but at this point he got a bit carried away, after all he’s just a kid and probably believes it: “if there’s something you really want, or someone you really wanna be, then the only person standing in your way is you”.

Charming fights Shrek and loses, and Artie chooses to accept the crown and be king.

When they see Merlin, Cat asks “senor Hocusy-Pocusy, the time has come to rectify some wrongs!”

They’re magicked back to the right bodies, but they have each other’s tail.

We see Shrek and Fiona at home, with three baby ogres, playing with Cat - poor cat…

There’s also Donkey and his “Dronkies”.  A big happy family.

During the ending credits, there’s Cat, Donkey and the babies dancing or toddling around, or generally making a mess.

ITA shrek terzo - credo

Shrek 2 - 2004

It starts with a book, like the first one. “Once upon a time in a kingdom far far away the king and queen were blessed with a beautiful baby girl and throughout the land everyone was happy until the sun went down and they saw that their daughter was curse with a frigtful enchantment that took hold each and every night. Desperate, they sought the help of a fairy godmother who had the lock the young princess away in a tower, there to await the kiss of the handsome prince Charming” … and we see him, “traveling for many days and nights”, going to the dragon’s keep, “for he was the bravest and most handsome in all the land and it was destiny that his kiss would break the dreaded curse” … only when he gets there he finds the wolf reading “pork illustrated” and is told that Fiona is on her honeymoon.

We see Shrek and Fiona at “Hansel’s honeymoon hideaway”, they shave together, they scare Red Riding Hood and have a picnic with the basket she leaves behind. They have fun on the beach - although Fiona is not amused with a red-headed mermaid kissing her husband - Fiona’s ring is made and flies on her finger like the Lotr ring on Frodo, they escape the pitchfork together, they kiss like Spiderman, they trap fairies to get a romantic light for their baths, and they add a female-ogre face on his “beware” sign outside their house. 

Donkey is there waiting for them and doesn’t want to go “home to Dragon” because “she’s been all moody and stuff lately”.

Shrek and Fiona would like to be alone, but there’s also a messenger with fanfare and all: the message is: “dearest princess Fiona, you are hereby summoned to the  kingdom of far, far away for a royal ball in celebration of your marriage, at which time the king will bestow his royal blessing upon you and your… uh, Prince Charming. Lovee, the king and queen of far far away, aka mom and dad”.

Needless to say, the king will not be too happy about that blessing when he sees Shrek.

Shrek can very well guess how it will go, but Fiona insists because they are, after all, her parents. Of course they have to go.

It’s indeed far far away, 700 miles far away, so it’s a long journey even in their horse driven onion carriage.

Finally the “welcome to far far away” sign, and also the big sign on the hill, like Hollywood.

It looks like a rich city, a shop is called Versarchery.

Shrek’s “we are definitely not in the swamp anymore” reminds us of Oz. Rapunzel’s tower has a wall before it and a gate with her name, and when they get to the palace not just her parents but everyone is there to greet them. Then everyone gasps and a baby wails. Neither Shrek or the King Harold like this situation. The dinner is very awkward and Donkey doesn’t help. Both man and ogre choke when mom Lillian mentions children and then they have a word fight without reserve. It hurts Fiona who goes to her room, where the fairy godmother goes to her to help her with make up and a new dress and everything Fiona ‘needs’ to get her prince, and is quite shocked to meet her husband instead.

Fact is, she had a deal with king Harold, she did something for him (we’ll learn at the end that he’s actually a frog) and in exchange her son Prince Charming had to marry Fiona, so now the king goes to a shady pub to have Shrek “taken care of”, and the only one who will accept to take on an ogre is Puss-in-boots. 

The king lures Shrek out pretending they’d go hunting together, then Cat attacks him but has to stop to cough a hairball. Shrek picks him up but lets him go, so now Cat swears on his honor that he is “obliged to accompany you until I have saved your life as you have spared mine”.

Shrek feels down hearing that the king hired Cat, so he goes to the fairy godmother’s cottage where she sells her potions. She’s not nice, saying that “ogres don’t live happily ever after”, as all fairy stories do not include ogres.

So they fake leaving and instead sneak into the potion storeroom. Shrek sends Cat to look for something useful and he grabs one named “happily ever after”, that says “beauty divine”.

They escape when all other potions fall down.

Shrek is convinced that Fiona is unhappy, he’s found her diary of before she was sent to the tower - so she wasn’t sent immediately, but only since she became eligible - and it was all about Prince Charming and Mrs Prince Charming, so he wants to change for her.

Both Shrek and Donkey drink it and one becomes a beautiful white stallion, and the other seems to be a gorgeous man, judging on the three girls hoping to have him.

It’s certainly a new experience to enter town and be greeted with smiles and friendly greetings.

At the castle, Fiona is a slim princess again, and thinks Charming is Shrek - well, because he said he was, it’s their plan.

Fairy godmother gives king Harold a potion for Fiona, so she’ll love the first man she kisses.

Fiona does not like Charming, even if she thinks him to be Shrek - because he acts like himself, like Charming, and not like Shrek. She wants her old Shrek back.

Shrek was all about letting her go and be happy without him but then he heard about the potion so now he wants to stop them from kissing.

I do not like the fairy godmother’s musical numbers, no.

Shrek and friends are arrested, but since it aired on tv his other friends learn about it and hurry there to save him - the whole gang, wolf, pigs, mices, Pinocchio and Gingy.

He goes to Drury Lane to ask the muffin man to make him a huge, gigantic gingerbread man - Mongo - with which Shrek assaults the castle. The guards try with catapults and cauldrons but can’t stop Mongo, at least not before Shrek manages to pass them.

Once inside the castle, Cat stays behind to stop the guards, so Shrek can run on, to Fiona. 

He repays his debt, and this is the iconic scene of his big cat eyes that make everyone go awww so they lower their guard and Cat can attack.

This is so relatable to all cat lovers :lol:

Shrek arrives yelling, and all the friends together try to take godmother’s wand (Pinocchio was a real boy for a few seconds) ; she tells Charming to kiss Fiona because she’s taken the potion, but after he kisses her nothing changes.

The king jumps in front of Shrek to protect him from her, not sure why she got zapped and what it really did, is she forever gone?

Frog-king gives them his apology and his blessing, and Fiona refuses to kiss Shrek to make the potion stuck, she wants to “live happily ever after with the ogre I married”.

They both turn back to being green ogres and then they all sing and dance.

Then Donkey suddenly remembers her dragon and feels down until she arrives, and she has babies.

They now have three or four half-donkey-half-dragon children. :-)

I’m glad that Shrek raised more than once the little detail that these loving parents ‘locked her in a tower’. 

This movie is all about this scene: “you love being an ogre!” - “I know, but I love Fiona more”.

Shrek - 2001

 I remember when it came out, it was like a storm because it was a first, it was different and funny, and also very romantic, a real success; it was sarcastic and full of movie references, like when the princess suddenly acted like Trinity from Matrix. I loved it too.

I love the Italian version even more, to be honest, and it goes for all 4 movies of course, though I must say I like the female voices a lot.

Also, there could be lots of things to talk about here, I mean, two parents locked away her daughter where nobody could ever see her because… she did not look like a princess beauty??? We see in the film that her personality does not change, she does not become aggressive or anything dangerous, she simply looks like an ogre, and so she was locked away for years??? See the bad message here? See what this society does? Because that’s what it teaches us still, that we must be thin and pretty to be accepted into society.

It says a lot that nobody back then mentioned this little detail, it seemed normal. Also that she liked Shrek because a random male could be excused from looking like that, but not a girl and a princess too! Also, she liked him, loved him, and yet she didn’t think that he could break her curse because… why? Because he’s not a real knight? Not a prince?

This is what our superficial society is.

It starts like many other animated movies, like a fairytale with its book and its “once upon a time”: “there was a lovely princess but she had an enchantment opon her of a fearful sort, which could only be broken by love’s first kiss. She was locked away in a castle guarded by a terrible fire breathing dragon Many brave knights ha attempted to free her from this dreadful prison but none prevailed. She waited in the dragon’s keep, in the highest room of the tallest tower, for her true love and true love’s first kiss”… and at this point Shrek laughs at this, says “like that’s ever gonna happen” and flushes his toilet.

The film’s atmosphere is set :lol:

We see where he lives, his swamp and his house .He has a mud shower and paints a “beware ogre” sign to keep everyone away. People try to kill him with pitchforks, torches and stuff, but run away terrified.

There’s a reward for fairytale creatures, so Geppetto turns Pinocchio in, sad, who is taken away as a “possessed toy”; Peter Pan turns Trilli in, a man the three pigs, and a woman has a talking donkey.

Donkey escapes, hides behind Shrek and basically never leaves him.

Shrek doesn’t want him around, he likes his solitude, his “privacy”, but many others appear at his home: the three blind mices, the seven dwarves with the “dead broad” SnowWhite, the wold in gran’s night clothes, Pinocchio and every fairy tale creature that escaped from the “designated resettlement facility”. 

There’s witches, bears, fairies, a unicorn and there’s even a pied piper in red clothes playing for the rats.

Pinocchio says they’ve been “forced to come here”, to escape Lord Farquaad’s orders.

Shrek doesn’t want these “fairy tale things” to stay, so he walks to Duloc to talk to this Lord and get them to go away. Donkey goes too to show him the way.

This Lord is a short, red-wearing man who thinks he’s perfect and that “that fairy tale trash” is “poisoning” his “perfect world”.

He tortures the Gingerbread man by dunking him into milk to find out where they are hiding; his guards find the Magic Mirror - which is like interactive tv - and it suggests marrying a princess to become a king.

He has the choice of three bachelorettes: Cinderella is “a mentally abused shut-in from a kingdom far, far away”, and “her hobbies include cooking and cleaning for her two evil sisters”. SnowWhite is “a cape-wearing girl from theland of fancy;although she lives with seven other men, she’s not easy, just kiss her dead, frozen lips and find out what a live wire she is”. The third, Fiona, is “a fiery redhead from a dragon-guarded castle surrounded by hot boiling lava!”

He chooses Fiona, and a tournament will decide who will go and save Fiona for him.

(Well, had he chosen one of the other two, there would be no dragon to defeat…)

When Shrek appears and Lord Farquaad sets all knights on him, he easily defeats them - also with wrestling moves. Shrek is named champion and sent to free Fiona, in exchange for his swamp. 

It’s a long walk.

Donkey accidentally charms the she-dragon with his words. Shrek shakes Fiona to wake her up, and it’s all very different from what she was expecting. They can escape the dragon by putting a huge chandelier attached to a chain on her neck, lilke a collar and a leash.

Poor dragon, if Shrek had done things the proper way like Fiona wanted, she’d be dead now :-(

Fiona really thought things would go like a fairytale and is quite put out to see he’s an ogre, so he picks her up and onto his shoulder to carry her. She insists to stop for the night. Donkey and Shrek talk about how he wants to be alone because the world “seems to  have a problem” with him, because he’s an ogre and as soon as anyone sees him they yell and judge him before they even know him.

When Fiona sings with the birds, she goes so high-pitched that a bird explodes. She cooks the now three orphaned eggs and when Shrek belches, she does it too. It’s not how a princess is expected to be, so she says “you shouldn’t judge people before you get to know them” and when Robin Hood and his merry men try to “rescue her” from the ogre, she goes all martial arts on them, very Trinity from Matrix style, impressing Shrek a lot.

The rest of the walk goes better and they start liking each other, so when they see Duloc in the distance, she insists on camping for the night with an excuse. He cooks weedrats for her and she finds it delicious. Donkey finds out her secret, the curse she’s under since she was a little girl, every night her body changes and she becomes an ogre.

She’s upset because a princess is meant to look beautiful, she says “who could ever love a beast so hideous and ugly? Princess and ugly do’t go together, that’s why I can’t stay here with Shrek”

She still thinks, at this point, that she needs to marry this Lord Farquaad to break the curse: “my only chance to live happily ever after is to marry my true love”… does she even hear the words she says? *sigh* 

She even makes Donkey promise to keep her secret. Shrek hears her words and thinks she was speaking of him, so he goes and got Farquaad to come. She was ready to tell him the truth but the idiot goes “I heard every word and who could love a hideous, ugly beast?” So she believes he really heard every word and is now upset about her curse and could not like her like that.

Shrek’s a jerk with Donkey too, insults him and sends him away. 

The lonely dragon and the now lonely donkey meet again.

Good friend Donkey goes back to Shrek and they talk, and Donkey reveals Fiona was not talking about him, so tehy rush to see her before the wedding, flying on the dragon. Shrek misses the ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ moment, there were already pronounced married; Shrek only comes before they can kiss. It is revealed that he’s in love so sh waits for sunset - seconds away - to show Shrek her secret. Farquaad goes crazy and the dragon eats him. 

Shrek kisses Fiona and she’s all surrounded by light, like the beast becoming back a prince, but of course here it’s the other way around, because if Shrek’s her true love, then love’s true form is that: she’s an ogre 24/7 now.

They get married and both creatures and people are there for them.

The ‘Shrek’ book ends with “and they lived ugly ever after”… 

The curse is “by night one way, by day another, this shall be the norm, until you find true love’s first kiss and then take love’s true form”

I think Fiona never stopped to consider the words ‘true love’ because she talks about it as if it was a marriage arranged against her will: “I can’t just marry whoever I want” … and why not? If he’s your true love, aren’t you supposed to love him?

They don’t have much consideration for animals here, because after the poor bird, they inflate a toad and a snake to carry around as balloons from the luna park. 

I don’t understand this fascination with Gingy, this “run run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread man” is like a nursery rhyme or is it part of some bigger story? I see Farquaad cut his legs, and at the en we see he got one leg reattached with sugar.

It also appears someone woke SnowWhite up because at the wedding she’s dancing - and failing to catch the bouquet, she-dragon gets it.

Duloc people appear very well behaved, because they follow the big signs very well: “revered silence” and no one speaks, “applause” and they all clap, and even “laugh” and they do.

At the wedding, Gingy dances with the little bride on the cake, the three pigs breakdance and Cinderella does the Macarena.

Also, I knew nothing of the old English nursery rhyme about the Muffin man, but the scene was done so well that somehow I loved the scene even though I could not catch the reference: “do you know the muffin  man? The muffin man? The muffin man! Yes, I know the muffin man, who lives on Drury Lane”.

A funny scene was when the mirror was being sassy so Lorrd F. calls Thelonius’ name, and this all-covered individual takes out a hand mirror and smashes it, as a warning to the Magic Mirror :lol:

Duloc was indeed a beautiful place, but Lord F.’s face on every souvenir to sell was really :-/

But, that information kiosk that welcomes them as they arrive is adorable, It’s a lovely idea, especially for the picture at the end, great souvenir :lol:

Lord F. is like every politician/powerful man in the world: “some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make” and “it’s rude enough being alive when no one wants you…”

Finally, because it’s due a mention, the finale: “I’m supposed to be beautiful” - “but you are beautiful!”

テンダンス - 10Dance - 2025

 I sort of liked it, but also no. All about the dance was entertaining and sensual and elegant, but the feelings were not there, I had to guess but did not feel whatever it was that I should be feeling, especially towards the end, I mean I got it, yes, but thinking about it after the end… while watching it I had no clue why he said he couldn’t be with him, or if they’d been together at all other than that one kiss, or what had happened to him that he felt that way… and the ending felt more like a public coming out that had no real reason to be there, that the admission of feelings that it was, the letting himself feel, the letting go, being more loose and open.

The conclusion is that I would not watch it again, but I’m left with how sexy Machida is :lol:

The ending is very very important in a film, and this one was disappointing. What does this ending even mean???

It’s a great movie if you care more about the dance, though.

I say here that I know nothing about the manga Google says it’s taken from, so no comparisons at all. 

This movie is done well enough meaning it has good light, cool costumes, good acting, good pacing, but then all of a sudden: boom, a half finale that is neither here nor there, it felt like someone suddently looked at the clock and yelled ‘it’s late, we’ve got to close up’ and so they did, in such a hurry it feels like they skipped stuff in between to let us know what the hell is going on.

Sugiki and Fusako are ballroom dancers while Suzuki and Aki go for latino dances. Both couples are National Champions in Japan, but Sugiki is very annoyed that he’s never won globally; his technique is very good, sure, but even his British mentor tells him how love is important. He is so cold, manipulative, commading, inflexible and relentless in his practicing and striving to be the best, but he never lets himself go and love. His girlfriend left him because she wanted to win and she knew she wouldn’t with him and she was right, she’s won a lot with her new partner.

Now he wants to compete in the 10dance competition: 5 ballroom and 5 latino dances, so he asks Suzuki to help each other. 

The two couples start meeting to teach each other their own styles. Sugiki can really get under Suzuki’s skin, Suzuki  can’t stop thinking about him now. They get close and Sugiki speaks a bit about himself, about how he’s treated Fusako badly on some occasions because he wants to win, about how he’s not the waltz gentleman, more of a grim reapeer, and Suzuki only says ‘lame’, which is probably far far nicer than what Sugiki thinks of himself.

Something comes over him, he wants, so he runs after Suzuki and they kiss and it’s a good scene, mixed with passion and dancing.

They all go to Blackpool for the world competition: Sugiki is second once again, and then for whatever reason he does a dance with Liana… and they smile and they look so fond, to me it felt like ‘even if we move on there will always be a place for you in my heart for what we shared’, maybe I’m imagining things but that’s what those smiles told me, and it was lovely.

But then Sugiki leaves Suzuki… if they were even together, in the movie it feels like it’s been a day since they kissed… because he says he can’t be with him because it will destroy him, which I guess now it means that Suzuki breaks into that cold armor and makes him feel things he’s scared of, and then he says they’ll never really become one and this I don’t know if it’s because they can’t dance together or what… I don’t know.

Suzuki feels heartbroken but Aki finds him, tells him they can do so much more, that he can go as far as he wants.. and he hugs her like the beloved friend that she is, and they keep at it. Six months later they go to the Asian cup. Sugiki is there as guest, but when he should come with Fusako for the demonstration, he comes out alone and goes to ask Suzuki to dance with him. And they do dance together, the five ballroom dances with Sugiki leading and then the latino dances wheere he dances the woman steps, and they laugh and smile… (quite a long demonstration that was)

Then they dance together the Viennese waltz with all the other couples, and here I so loved to see that Aki is dancing with Fusako! They were watching them with a smile before but now they don’t stay out, they dance together. 

While the others keep dancing, they stop, look at each other, they kiss… and then Sugiki says they’ll see each other at the 10dance competition and they walk away in different directions… does this mean that they’ll ‘only’ see each other at the competition or will they start seeing each other outside the competitions as well? Are they a couple or not?

I mean, I get it that he’smore loose now, is more accepting of ‘feelings’, but where do they stand exactly?

What does it mean that last sentence? I’m not too fond of this ending, I feel suspended in limbo. 

Suzuki is Ryoma Takeuchi

Sugiki is Keita Machida - so handsome

The craft - 1996

Not too bad, for a teen movie. For girls.

plot.

Sarah moves to a new place with her dad and stepmom Jenny. She meets cute Chris who likes to play with girls, and they go out once, but the next day he lies telling everyone they had sex. 

Three girls approach her, Chris called them witches.

Bonnie saw her in class balancing a pencil on its very pointy point, making a hole in her desk, so they think she might be good to join their group, they need a fourth, like the four element, to invoke the powers of Manon, not a God but the ultimate power. 

They’re all troubled girls: Rochele is treated badly by a popular girl because she’s black, Bonnie’s back is covered in burn scars, and Nancy never had a dad, her mom now has a man as unpleasant as sometimes violent. 

Sarah is scared by her powers, and has always been, and also marked by the death of her mother, giving birth to her. She tried to kill herself once, she has scars on her wrists.

Now she feels like she might have found her place, a sisterhood. They invoke Manon and get powers, and it works; Sarah asked that people like her, most of all Chris, and he does, but it’s a spell, not real, he doesn’t understand it but it consumes him until he almost forces himself on her but she managed to run away.

Rochelle’s tormentor keeps losing her blonde hair; Bonnie’s skin is immaculate and her attitude changes completely, no more reserved and sweet.

Nancy’s mom’s man dies of a heart attack after she yells at him to not touch her mom, and they get his insurance money. Then when Sarah tells them what happened with Chris, Nancy goes to him but not exactly for the reason everyone thought, maybe. She comes onto him but he rejects her becaused his spelled mind can only think of Sarah, plus they already had a story once and he’s not interested in that again. So, she morphs into Sarah and they kiss, and when Sarah sees them Nancy goes crazy, saying he treats girls badly and it’s not enough to say sorry, so she makes him fly out the window and fall to his death.

The three girls are all high on power, and Sarah wants out but they won’t let her. 

When they lie and make her believe that her dad and Jenny died, and show up at her house threatening her life, she realizes she has no choice but to invoke Manon’s power by herself. Both the girls and the woman at the magic shop always told her she’s the real thing, a natural at magic, so she does it and she gets it, and she stops them.

Nancy goes totally crazy. Sarah binds her from harming others or herself, so she’s now locked up as insane. Bonnie and Rochelle lose their powers, but Sarah doesn’t. Not that it matters much, though, since she move again to another city and they stay here.

The end.

Sarah is the stereotype of ‘running like a girl’, with both arms wide open, for whatever reason.

Sarah is Robin Tunney  (yes, Lisbon from the Mentalist when she was a teen)

Nancy is Fairuza Balk

Bonnie is Neve Campbell

Rochelle is Rachel True

Chris is Skeet Ulrich

ITA giovani streghe

Back to the future part 3 - 1990

Love love love :-) I’ve always loved this one and I find I still love it now.

It starts right after the second movie, so just after Doc from 1955 sent Marty back to the future, which was how it went the first movie. But now, Marty reappears on foot behind him and explains what happened. Doc struggles to believe him but Marty has the letter that Doc sent him from 1885, at the end of part 2. After going back in time, Doc hid the Delorean so now they find it and plan to use it to send Marty, once again, back to 1985. One problem: Copernico, lovely dog that he is, finds Doc’s grave: apparently he was shot and killed in 1885, just a week after he wrote the letter, over a matter of 80$ by Buford Tannen.

So of course now Marty has to do something about that.

Marty wants to go there - well, then - and bring him back alive. Doc repairs the car and gives him what he thinks are right clothes for the 19th century… only the boots don’t fit. 

He sets the car to September 2, 1885. He arrives in the middle of a chase: the cavalry chasing Indians.

He hides the car in a cave - like Doc told him to - and lets them pass. He takes the pictures he brought and the boots, then he sees that there’s a bear in the cave and starts running, throwing away the boots to better run, then he falls and hits his head. He wakes up at the ‘McFly farm’, to Maggie McFly, to he calls himself since he can’t give his real name. Maggie’s husband is Seamus. Her little baby is William, the first McFly born in America.

Seamus asks: “exactly how is it that you came to be way out here without a horse, or boots, or a hat?” - “well, my ca… horse broke down, and… and a bear ate my boots, and I guess I just forgot my hat” - Maggie: “how could you forget a thing like your hat?”

Seamus wants to help him, but it’s still a long walk to Hill Valley. It’s easy to find Doc, but he finds Buford first. He calls him Mad Dog an makes him angry. Marty runs, they catch him with a lasso and are about to hang him when Doc saves him.

They want to leave and go back to 1985 of course. Doc should meet the new schoolteacher, but when he hears her name - Clayton, Clara, as in the ‘beloved Clara’ written on his grave - he chooses not to go. But then Marty tells him that he “tore a hole in the gas tank”, thinking it’s no big problem, but it is, the engine still needs gasoline, so they try pulling the car with horses but only reach 24 mph. They try the strongest whiskey, then finally they think of the train.

I’ve always loved the “you’re not thinking fourth-dimensionally!” - “right, I have a real problem with that”.

While they’re planning it, a woman cries for help so ‘Doc to the rescue’, he saves her life and meets Clara, and it’s love at fist sight for them both.

She also likes science, and he is “a student of all sciences”.

Now there will be no “Clayton Ravine” since she didn’t fall into it.

They attend the festival and Doc dances with Clara - because ‘Doc can dance’ - and Marty shows off his shooting skills that he learned at Disneyland.

Buford comes to bother Doc and Clara during their valzer ‘Clementine’, and he’s about to shoot Doc when Marty sees and throws a pie-plate/frisbies. 

Now Buford challenges Marty, and as usual when people say that he’s a coward they can get him to do anything… so they arrange it for Monday morning…

Good Seamus and Maggie tell him of his brother, poor Martin, who got killed because he got himself in trouble because he didn’t want people to think he was a coward.

Doc and Clara talk and look at the stars… *sigh* … and he quotes Verne and she also knows From the Earth to the moon by Jules Verne.

Doc comes home in the morning all happy, but the discussion is inevitable. Doc tells Marty that he wants to stay because he’s in love with Clara, but Marty convinces him that the right thing to do, the rational one, is to go back to his own time… so Emmett goes to say goodbye, but she obviousy thinks he just played her ad doesn’t want to see her anymore. I mean, the truth is rather bizarre…

He stays awake all night, and when Marty comes to get him, Doc drinks his whiskey… just the one and he’s out. While they revive him, Buford arrives. Marty refuses to duel, but while he’s going out the back with Doc, they’re caught. Doc is now in their hands, so Marty comes out. He gets shot but doesn’t di because he saw “fistful of dollars” in BBTTF part 2 - Biff was watching it - and he copied Eastwood’s character’s tactics.

Marty now knocks him out and rides away with Doc. The catch the train, stop it, and prepare to use it.

Clara is looking for him, after hearing a man say how heartbroken Doc was, and then she sees his model with time machine written on it, so she goes too.

She’s really tough, this Clara, absolutely adorable and magnificent ^_^

At the end the locomotive is about to explode so Marty gives Doc his hoverboard - from BTTF part 2 - and he uses it to take Clara in his arms and fly away. 

Marty gets back to 1985 alone.

His family is ok, and so is Jennifer. While they’re driving, Needles challenges Marty to a race, Jennifer doesn’t want him to, but this time Marty has learned his lesson and doesn’t do it. Good thing too because he would have crashed into a Rolls Royce ruining his future.

Then Doc appears on a flying train ,with a steam engine. He’s already been to the future, and has two kids with Clara. Poor little kid, his older brother got named  Jules and he got stuck with Verne… :-‘(

 He explains to Jennifer why her fax’s words disappeared - again, that she took in BTTF 2 - because their future is not written yet, so they better create a good one for themselves.

Marty is Michael J. Fox

Emmett Brown is Christopher Lloyd  (Doc)

Clara Clayton is Mary Steenburgen

Lorraine/Maggie is Lea Thompson

Jennifer is Elisabeth Shue

P.s. I’ve read complaints on the internet, like: why didn’t Doc remember that he’d be killed in 1885 and simply avoid getting killed? Doc from 1955 knew and yet when Marty sees Doc in 1885 he doesn’t know about it, or even about the clothes Doc from 1955 gave him.

Well, we can’t really say that at the end of BTTF 1 he ‘remembered’ anything… as far as we know he put the letter away and only read it in 1985, it does fit with the character, you know, telling himself he shouldn’t read it but then doing it when the time had come because it was important. Of course the right time would be when he would start hearing about the clock being repaired, as in the flyer that Marty showed 1955-Doc, which would mean he remembered…

So, my best guess is this:

The quantum mechanics, the time physics, it’s all a big ball of wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff that I don’t fully understand, and neither do you.

A different matter is the car.

There is now, in 1885, Marty’s car in the cave and Doc’s car in the mine, but Doc’s car must stay there because Marty will use it to get from 1955 to 1885, and Marty’s car comes back with him so after 1955 there will be no hidden car in both places.

But, the real question is: could they put Doc’s car’s gas tank into Marty’s car? Because 1955-Doc could have repaired it, right? On this one, I only reply that they probably didn’t think about it ^_^ since they didn’t discuss the matter at all. Because there are reasons why they wouldn’t do it: maybe Doc’s car tank was out of gasoline too, so even if they exchanged the broken tank with a good one they would have nothing to fill it with, or maybe it’s simply that you don’t take the tank out of the car while it’s full… the fact is, they didn’t even discuss it for a second, so they didn’t even think about it.

Still, it doesn’t bother me all that much, I still love this movie with all my heart.

BUT, remember that the letter in part 1 did not change the future because nobody had seen Doc dead, only shot, but 1955-Doc learned about him going to 1885 and being killed only after it happened, and it was written down, it could not be prevented any other way without creating a paradox. After all, knowing that someone will shoot you in the back can save you how? Never stepping foot outside your house ever again? Or never going to 1885 at all? Then Marty would not gave gone to 1955-Doc and he wouldn’t have known in the first place… wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey… and they could not use Doc’s car because Marty found it like that and it could not be changed… wibbly…..

ITA Ritorno al futuro parte III

Life or something like it - 2002

Yeuch. The only decent things were the two scenes with prophet Jack. The rest was absolutely terrible. 

First the plot and then the acting. 

Let’s see the plot.

A woman is selfish and cold and without feelings because she wants a career and when she’s offered the chance of her life, the job of her dreams, she wants it… and yet for decades we’ve seen movies with families forced to move because the husband/father got a better job somewhere else, and there was nothing wrong with that, with the children having to leave friends and change school, with the wife having to leave her job and her old life to follow him, that was ok, but since this character here is a woman, how dare she think of a job elsewhere when her man is here! How very dare she!

Then there’s the acting.

Jolie gave the worst performance of her life, probably, it was almost unbearable to watch, she spent the whole time making pouty lips or batting her eyelashes never even trying to give this character a soul. Not like she had a lot to go on with, to be honest, everything was terrible.

She had blonde hair that did not suit her at all in order to give her a bimbo look, because this Lanie only thinks of her career and when she thinks she’s going to die she calls her boyfriend Cal in the middle of the night and complains he doesn’t support her because he wants to sleep and not chat.

Her love/hate relataionship with cameraman Pete is boring and doesn’t really communicate any feelings. The scene where she gets drunk and goes live wearing a hoodie and singing Satisfaction with the workers on strike felt pathetic to me. 

Prophet Jack is a homeless man who sees things, and everything he says becomes true. He told Lanie, who was interviewing him for the news, that sh’d die on Thursday. It was rather annoying that they never told us what day it was - or at least I didn’t hear it - but anyway it was a week’s time at the most. She becomes more and more agitated as his other predictions come true; this is what causes her to get drunk and appear on tv dressed far from her usual perfect self and singing out loud.

Bad scenes, really bad.

She had been bickering a lot with cameraman Pete, since they had a one night stand they’ve been provoking and antagonising each other. Now he tries to help her, to show her how to enjoy life. She meets his son, who is the reason why he’ll never change city for work, to stay near him. So when Lanie gets a job in New York he doesn’t go with her and accuses her of always putting her career first.

Lanie does one interview, which I suppose should be heartfelt and fenomenal but is not, and that’s it, she wants to go home.

New York’s life is dangerous, though, and she gets in the middle of a police operation or something, she’s hit by accident and sort of dies for a moment, before the doctors revive her. There’s the obvious confession between Lanie and Pete loving each other, and they’ll stay together happily ever after.

The idea wouldn’t be bad if done correctly though.

Lanie is Angelina Jolie

Pete is Edward Burns

Prophet Jack is Tony Shalhoub (yeah, Monk)

Cal is Christian Kane

ITA Una vita quasi perfetta

Wonka - 2023

One time is enough. It’s a good film, but it’s for children. The songs are nice, the choreography is really nice, and the actors are all good, all of them, and this Calah Lane as the girl Noodle was really good.

Olivia Colman as Mrs Scrubbit is also wow because she can pull off being at the same time a caricature and a real person, both repulsive and her usual charming. Paterson Joseph as the villain was also a good choice, I liked him. 

Still, if you’re not a child this story makes less sense than the chocolate factory where everything being magical is accepted beforehand, it’s a given, already like that, but here Wonka doesn’t have a single sovereign (that’s the whole plot, he’s broke) and he needed it to find a place to sleep, and yet he needs neither money or time to build an entire shop out of ‘ruins’ or to keep making chocolate -especially given the quantity needed to fill the shop. 

Because of this, his whole follow-your-dream propaganda loses strength.

Plot: 

Willy Wonka lost his mom when he was a child and she used to make him chocolate when she could, so eh grew up with nothing else on his mind, only to learn about chocolate and to open a big shop. He comes to London (well, I say that but I’m not sure it’s ever specified where they are…) and gives away his 10 coins in a day so he thinks of sleeping on a bench despite the cold. A man says he’ll give him a place to stay, and Mrs Scrubbit gives him a ‘contract’ to sign: the deal is that he’ll pay 1 coin the next day to pay for the room.

Noodle works there; she warns him to read it all but he can’t read and he signs it anyway.

The next day he shows people his chocolate, but is interrupted by Slugworth and his two associates, they own the three big chocolate shops at the Galéries Gourmet but they don’t want any competition. They taste his chocolate and lie saying it’s the worst ever, and call the police on him for selling in the street so all he earned is confiscated. He only has one coin to pay Scrubbit, but now he learns what the contract said: everything is an extra, the stairs, the water, the sheets, the soap… so he now owes her 10.000! Since he doesn’t have it, he’s put to work in her laundry, where four other people suffer his same fate.

Willy plans a way for Noodle to smuggle him outside and he enters the zoo to get the milk of a giraffe, he needs it for his chocolate, but then the chief of police hits him to make him stop selling chocolate.

Wonka promises Noodle that he’ll sell his exquisiet chocolate and pay off their debt and get a better life, but Abacus can already guess the rest, and he explains why: he knows of the “chocolate cartel” who keep the good chocolate hidden away and use it to bribe the chief. They store it in liquid form “in a secret vault deep beneath the cathedral, guarded round the clock by a corrupt cleric and 500 chocoholic monks”.

They always get rid of any possible competition and keep their prices high so the poor can’t afford it.

Pipere tells him about the city’s “storm drains” that he can use to hide quickly, so he starts giving (selling?) chocolate in the streets and hiding when the policemen come.

Meanwhile Noodle teaches him to read.

Eventually the chief understands about the storm drains and spies on them.

Next, somehow Noodle has the ke to the empty place he dreamed of using for his shop, and all of a sudden he has a beautiful shop full of Wonka’s wonders, and they sell well, until it turns out that it’s been poisoned: people grow hairs and turn bright colours. The angry people burn the place down.

The cartel shows up to tell Wonka that if he sails away and stops making chocolate, they’ll pay off all of their debts. He has no choice but to accept; Mrs Scrubbit lets everyone go but not Noodle. Slugworth paid her not to free Noodle, but to keep her enslaved and hidden.

Slugworth shook Wonka’s hand so hard that his ring left a very clean mark. Wonka saw Noodle’s ring around her neck, the only thing left of her family, and it was very similar - yes, because Noodle belongs to the Slugworth family. Slugworth’s brother died leaving him the only heir… but there was a daughter, so he took her from the mother and abandoned her with Mrs Scrubbit, telling poor mom that she died.

Worried for her, Wonka comes back, frees Noodle from the coop she had been locked in, and with their friends plan to expose the cartel’s corruption by finding the “green ledger” with the real records of their deals.

Working all together, they infiltrate the cathedral and reach down below and find the ledger, but are found out. They’re left to drown in chocolate, but Lofty the Oompa-loompa helps them.

They get out and give the other, nice policeman the ledger, so they’re all arressted, chief included.

Wonka and friends let loose all their chocolate, filling up the square’s fountain, so the cartel doesn’t have anything to bribe their way out.

Noodle can finally hug her mom because they found all D. Smith in the city, all 106 of them, and they found her: Dorothy works and lives in the library, which is so nice because Noodle dreamed of having books to read :-)

Lofty is about to go back to Loompaland but Willy offers him a place with him in his factory, as head of “the tasting department” so he stays.

The end… but as the credits roll, Lofty shows us how all our friends found their way back in the world and Scrubbit got arrested together with Bleachers.

Noodle has the best lines too: “the greedy beat the needy, Willy” and then after they sang and danced toegther: “I kinda forgot to be sad”

Willy Wonka is Timothée Chalamet

Noodle is Calah Lane

Officer Affable is Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

Bleacher is Tom Davis

Mrs Scrubbit is Olivia Colman

Slugworth is Paterson Joseph

Prodnose is Matt Lucas

Chief of police is Keegan-Michael Key

Abacus Crunch is Jim Carter (the accountant)

Lottie Bell is Rakhee Thakrar (she answers phones)

Piper Benz is Natasha Rothwell (plumber?)

Larry Chucklesworth is Rich Fulcher (the comedian)

Mamma is Sally Hawkins

Father Julius is Rowan Atkinson

Lofty the OompaLoompa is Hugh Grant  

    Loty was the name he said the others called him because he waas taller than the others, but at the end he admits that it is not true, at all, he’s a bit shorter than average, I’m not actually sure about his name now…

Christine - 1983

Arnie is a 17 year-old kid, he has only one friend, he is scared of bullies because he is bullied. Of course.

He also thinks he’s ugly. One day his friend Dennis is driving him around when he sees a car for sale and is immediately enchanted, he likes it so much he buys it right away. The owner George says it’s called Christine.

It needs repairs so Arnie keeps it in a garage where he can work on it every day, and slowly he changes. Since he got Christine he started changing, acting differently, losing the glasses, being more confident and outspoken, but also making his mom despairs. Dennis never sees him anymore.

He dates the prettiest girl in school, but leigh is soon annoyed, saying that he cares more about his car than about her. So Christine locks her in and almost chokes her, until she can unlock the door and a man helps her breathe. Christine’s odometer is going backwards, like she’s getting younger.

He drives her home, trying to keep the relationship, and Christine is jealous, I guess, because it won’t start until he reassures her that nothing has changed and calls her baby.

Arnie keeps fighting with his mother, and when he storms out with Christine, his mother tells Dennis that Christine’s previous owner “died in it, of carbon monoxide poisoning” so Dennis goes to ask George about his brother.

Dennis learns that not only the guy died in the car, but his baby girl choken in it and still the guy loved his car more than anything, it was the only thing he loved. His wife died in it too, poisoned like him. George tells Dennis that he forced his brother to get rid of the car, but some time later the car ‘came back’.

Arnie is still with leigh; four bullies wreck the car (and Christine lets them…?). Arnie is hurt and fihts with Leigh and his parents for ‘her’. He ‘hugs’ Christine: “we’ll show those shitters what we can do” because tehy “can’t hurt us anymore, not if we work together”.

Christine kills one bully. Arnie tells a cop that Leigh is not his girlfriend. Christine kills the other three bullies, ‘she’ sets fire to their garage and gas station. Then it crushes a man who dare sit inside.

It’s been four months, and Leigh tells Dennis that it’s the car! Dennis tries talking to Arnie. 

Arnie talks about love, but he doesn’t mean Leigh, he means Christine, nobody can come between him and Christine.

Dennis uses a screwdriver to write ‘Darnells tonight’ into Christine, and that night he prepares to face it with Leigh. The plan is to lock it inside the garage and trash it with a bulldozer, I think.

“What if he doesn’t come?” - Dennis: “Christine will”

Unfortunately Christine is already there, waiting, and it really wants to kill Leigh. Dennis covers her with the bulldozer so Christine can’t get at her.

It’s a battle, Dennis thinks he trashed ‘her’ but it repairs itself, so at the end he has to drive over it back and forth until it’s a wreckage. 

Arnie dies, he was inside the car and when Christine crashed trying to get at Leigh, Arnie got thrown out, killed by glass in his belly. A last caress at Christine and he dies.

Christine’s lights go out, but it’s not over, Christine starts againn and is after Leigh again, and won’t stop until they wreck it completely.

At the end it’s just a square of wrecked metal, the cop calls them heroes, but a small bit of metal moves…

ITA Christine la macchina infernale

Charlie’s angels - 2019

Well, worse than the previous one in vibes, but better as an action-spy movie (but all with girls, I don’t know how much that counts for you…)

It’s very much about girl-power.

The plot is:

Elena has developed Calisto, a power source that can do a lot like an almost sentient computer but it can also kill, so she wants to work on it some more to fix it. Her boss Fleming objects, and presents it to their funder Brok ready for the market.

John Bosley has worked for the Townsend Agency for 40 years, bringing it outside California, opening lots of branches around. He has found and trained lots of ‘Angels’, and every branch has a Bosley, or Boz.

Bosley retires and blond-Bosley - ex-angel Rebecca - takes his place.

Angel Ingrid gives Elena the Agency card, but while she’s talking to Edgar-Bosley they’re attacked and he dies :-(

Elena plus angel Sabina and new angel Jane - ex Mi6 - work with blond-Bosley to retrieve what’s left of her research, but Calisto has been stolen.

They find Fleming who’s about to sell it to Johnny, who is acting for someone else - *mystery*

But when Johnny asks him to demonstrate how it works by killing someone, Fleming can’t do it, he probably doesn’t know how, so the assassin Hodak kills him.

When blond-Bosley disappears, they - well, Sabina - think she’s a traitor. There’s an explosion, Elena is taken away by John Bosley after he shot blond-Bosley.

Of course she had a vest and now she comes back to them with the truth, she was onto him already.

Now John Bosley wants the activation codes passed to him, he’s working with Hodak. Brok thinks he’s working for him because he’s rich and thinks he can do and own whatever-whoever, but he’s wrong.

Elena tricks him into believing she activated it into killing mode, but later she says she programed itto “light up and make noises”… and yet it said it had given John Bosley access… :-/ the thing she could program into it without a keyboard and without speaking and without time…

All the girls come to the rescue. Jane kills Hodak, avenging Edgar. Blond-Bosley confronts John Bosley who knocks her out in a jiff, but e’s not alone. All of a sudden all men fall down, put to sleep by the girls around them - they were at Brok’s big party.

It turns out they’re all Angels. 

Johnny is with blond-Bosley now. John is upset because he wanted the Agency: “I was pushed out”.

Blond-Bosley replies: “you thought you made us.We made you”

Elena is offered to go to California and train to become an anegl - training that lasts… a very short time… - and she becomes one of them.

We don’t see Charlie’s face of course, but we see that now it’s a woman.

They’re all women, go girls!

“Bosley” is a rank in the organization, like a lieutenant… but it’s also John’s real surname I think, so he was the first and then it became a rank when they needed ‘more of him’? They might want to change it now…

Sabina Wilson is Kristen Stewart

Elena Houghlin is Naomi Scott

Jane Kano is Ella Balinska

Boz is Elizabeth Banks

John Bosley is Patrick Stewart

Edgar Bosley is Djimon Hounsou

Alexander Brok s Sam Chaflin

Hodak is Jonathan Tucker

Peter Fleming is Nat Faxon

Johnny Smith is Chris Pang

Saint is Luis Gerardo Méndez

Langston is Noah Centineo

Kelly Garrett is Jaclyn Smith

Driving instructor is Danica Patrick

Flight instructor is Ronda Rousey

Charlie’s Angels: Full throttle - 2003

It’s not a spy movie.It’s an action movie for girls, is what it is. Boys can watch it to enjoy three beautiful girls in high heels and short dresses, but other than that, it feels a girls movie.

It’s not bad if you like the three girls, which I do. It has good music and it’s funny to see all the changes of look, meaning the hairstyles and hair colors… but really, it’s all about watching pretty girls in high heels 

:-/ I could stand it because I like the three actresses and I liked the three characters and how real friends they were. That was the nice part.

The beginning is so over the top that I’ve no words, it makes mission impossible look like everyday stuff, and kinda ruins it, it’s really too much.

Not only the obligatory scene wehre our unarmed heroes never get hit by the bad guy’s automatic weapons, but first they jump off a cliff with a guy (Ray Carter) who already had fractured ribs, but then they drive a tank off a dam and what-not, it’s so absurd it isn’t even funny.

We have Natalie, the fun-loving, animal caring blond girl, Alex the studious one, ex gymnastic champion, and Dylan the crazy one who loved wrestling and driving.

Now to the actual case:

The “Federal witness protection program” is protected by a program called Halo, Hidden Alis list operation. The list is encrypted on two titanium rings and “when the two rings are read together, their  codes unlock each other”.

“The head of the Uss marshal service was wearing one” but it got taken from him in Mongolia, “The head of security for the justice department, William Rose Bailey” had the second. 

Their job is to retrieve the rings before the list is sold… (really? So they assume that the bad guys have both rings and therefore have the list, and want the rings back before they’re sold? Couldn’t they get the list out of the rings? You know, like on paper or computer files, both options allowing the chance to have copies?)

Anyway, they get the rings back and give them to Carter.

Dylan was once in the program herself becauses she got her then-boyfriend  Seamus O’Grady in prison for murder. It’sbeen eight years and he’s out now, and on a path of revenge against her and whoever testified against him. 

Carter is actually the one selling the list now, he needed the second. 

Seamus told Helen/Dylan he’ll kill her girl friends so she leaves.

Alex’s dad thought she was a surgeon or something, then Jason tells him about Charlie… but in a way it’s not clear that she fights, it sounds more like prostitution the way he speaks about it.

Carter is killed by Madison Lee, an ex angel. Seeing her they act surprised at first - not sure why, it seemed pretty obvious - and the next moment they say they all knew it all along.

Madison shoots all three - Dylan’s back after talking to Kelly. They survive because of a tiny but effective bulletproof vest, and get all the bad guys/buyers arrested.

Seamus goes after them but gets killed.

After a big fight they kill Madison and go to Jason’s big night.

Alex’s dad is still confused, and set on the wrong impression.

Pete and Natalie get a puppy.

Natalie is Cameron Diaz

Alex is Lucy Liu

Dylan is Drew Barrymore

Ray Carter is Robert Patrick

Madison Lee is Demi Moore

Max is Shia LaBeouf

Jason is Matt LeBlanc

Pete is Luke Wilson

Thin Man is Crispin Glover

Seamus O’Grady is Justin Theroux

Mr Munday is John Cleese

Alan Caufield is Eric Bogosian  (the dead guy)

Mother superior is Carrie Fisher

ITA Charlie’s angels più che mai

Hot pursuit - 2015

It was nice entertainment, I like both actresses so that helped.

My fav scene was when Daniella had the phone because Cooper was driving and it went out the car, she lost it, and she went: “something bad happened to the phone” in a ooops tone of voice, she didn’t want to admit it was her fault :lol:

Cooper has been in a police car since she was born, so of course she became a cop herself. 

When Cortez is arrested, a big Mafia boss or something, she’s called to protect one of the witness. Deputy Jackson is to escort Mr Riva, but for his wife they need a woman, so Cooper. She’s not having a great career since she put a drunk boy on fire with a taser. This is an important step for her.

Once at the Riva house, bad people show up and kill Riva and Jackson. She must protect the widow now. She calls for reinforcements but they arrive “too early”, they were two of the men who attacked them. So they escape again, but on the tv they say that it was her fault, that she killed her partner, so now they’re fugitives. 

These two women are complete opposites. 

Daniella keeps dragging around her suitcase because it’s full of shoes covered in diamonds and stuff, that case is worth millions. 

They have to escape a lot, crazy rides, until Daniella goes away with two of her men, who work for her who wants to kill Cortez because he killed her brother. Once alone, Cooper goes back to her police station where her boss apparently believes her and the two bad cops are arrested.

Now it’s no more Cooper’s case, but she can’t stop thinking about it, so she gets in, disguised as a boy, to Cortez big party. Cooper finds her boss there, and now it makes sense, doesn’t it? So Cooper knocks the man down, stops Daniella and arrests Cortez. But, he was about to shoot again so Copper kills him.

Riva is rather piqued, she wanted to do it herself!

Anyway, three months later she’s finally famous not because she f*cked up but because she killed Cortez. Riva was in jail these three months for obstructing justice.

Now that she’s out, Cooper goes to see her out and gives her back some of the shoes she did not turn in as evidence. And now she wears heels because not being short is more important that being able to run, for a cop… and she has a boyfriend now, that guy that helped her while she was on the run, sort of.

Daniella Riva is Sofia Vergara

Cooper is Reese Witherspoon

Captain Emmett is John Carroll Lunch

During the ending credits there’s a gag reel.

ITA fuga in tacchi a spillo

Pacific rim - 2013

It was ok to watch once, entertaining enough, but seeing it once is enough. It’s not really an ‘aliens’ movie, it’s more a robot movie, big, huge robots like old Japanese heroes to defend the world. In a way, I saw too little of the robots. I wanted to see more scenes of robots fighting aliens, and ssibly clear scenes where I can actually see something. That’s what I want from this kind of movie but there wasn’t much of that. A bit, yeah, but not ‘really’ good. I saw more of the ugly aliens and a lot more of people talking or yelling.

Plot:

In a few words: aliens invaded our world, we built robots to fight them. Things go down for years until someone chooses to risk it all, a final showdown to stop them forever.

I’ll add details, but I’ll say there’s the jerk that will redeem himself by dying a hero, there’s the obligatory girl to show the world this production is not misogynist and no other reason, there’s a lot of yelling from the two scientists in an attempt to provide comedy, I guess :-/  there’s The Speech because there has to be a big speech in these movies; in a way there’s everything you’d expect from it, but I’d just like them to make a clear decision on what to focus on.

Now details:

At first aliens “entered our world” from “deep beneath the Pacific Ocean”. The Breach is basically “a portal between dimension”. Only one came through and it was enough to cause many many deaths. And then it happened again and again. Four attacks and who knows how many deaths later, people realized “this was not gonna stop”. 

Wow.

So the world acted together “for the sake of the greater good” and “the Jaeger program was born”. 

They built huge robots that were to be controlled by two people. They’d go inside and they’d need to interface with each other and the Jaeger. A neural connection. A mind-meld. Finally, after months, they started winning and winning, “so Jaeger pilots turned into rock stars, danger turned into propaganda, Kaijus into toys” because this is the society we have. So believable.

After seven years, brothers Yancy and Raleigh Becket pilot the Jaeger called Gipsy Danger. This time, they lose and Yancy dies while they were still connected. The Kaijus started adapting, learning, evolving, and the Jaegers kept losing. Raleigh left.

Five years of losing and the world’s powers decided to stop the program. “We will authorize you to take all remaining Jaegers to the last battle station, Hong Kong”, and that’s it.

Funds for eight more months and no more.

To protect people, huge ‘walls of life’ are built, metal walls ‘deemed unbreachable’, yeah, sure.

Raleigh goes around working on these walls when Marshal finds him. “I’ve spent the last six months activating everything I can get my hands on”, because he knows things are bad and still thinks the Jaegers are the answer. He wants Raleigh to pilot his old one, also because “all the other Mark 3 pilots are dead”. Raleigh is not eager to have another mind-meld but Marshal is sure the world is ending, so “where would you rather die? Here, or in a Jaeger?”

He agrees, of course, and meets Mako Mori, “one of our brightest”, who wants to be a pilot but Marshal is worried about her emotional state. Of course, she’s a girl…

Her story is rather dragged and takes too long: when she was a little girl, a Kaiju destroyed everything and everyone around her until a Jaeger stopped it, and Marshal was the pilot, so he raised her. Now she follows him, not out of obedience but out of respect.

There are two scientits, Dr Gottlieb who works with numbers and predictions, and Dr Newton Geiszler who works with Kaiju parts, studying their anatomy and stuff. Not caring that he was told not to do it, he “drifts” with a piece of recovered Kaiju brain. 

Truth is, this mad scientist is what went different this time around, he saved the world.

The “Resistance”, as Marshal calls them, sees a new-gen Jaeger with three pilots, triplets, the Wei Tang brothers; Sasha and Aleksis Kaidanovsky pilot another one - no word on their relationship, they could be brother and sister or married, who knows. All we’re told is that “they can get us anything”.

Hercules Hansen knew Raleigh already and they respect each other. His co-pilot and son Chuck does not and says out loud what he thinks: that he’s “dead weight”, that Raleigh will slow him down, “he’s a has-been” and of course since there’s a girl the b..ch word appears just because, but cocky as he is, he loses the fist-fight with Raleigh that follows.

The plan is to go “for the Breach”: Hansen’s Jaeger will carry a “2400 pound thermonuclear warhead” and two other Jaegers are to protect it so they can do it. Gottlieb’s numbers tell him the number of Kaijus will increase and this “increase traffic will force the Breach to stabilize and remain open long enough to get the device through and collapse its structure”.

Mako doesn’t think Raleigh is the right choice because he never follows protocols and takes dangerous risks and yet she’ll be more than happy to pilot together…

Newt does it and is sure these clones are not “just following some sort of animalistic urge”, they’re attacking “under orders”. Newt says that these beings are “colonists”, “they overtake worlds, they just consume them and then they move on to the next, and they’ve been here before in sort of a trial run. It was the dinosaurs”

But back then it was not the right atmosphere for them, too clean, so “they waited it out, and now with ozone depletion, and carbon monoxide, polluted waters, well, we’ve practically terraformed it for them”. He says: “the first wave, that was just the hounds, their sole purpose was to aim for the populated areas and to take out the vermin. Us. The second wave, that is the exterminators, and they will finish the job and hten the new tenants will take possession”.

To know more he’d need “a fresh Kaiju brain” to drift with again, so Marshal sends him looking for Hannibal Chau who runs a black market that deals with Kaiju parts, all their remains are used for something.

… well, I would have thought the government would take those bodies to study them and make every possible experiment they could think of, instead they’re just cut to pieces and sold…

Mako’s first try as a pilot does not go well, she gets lost in the memory of the terrified little girl. Raleigh says that trust is necessary and their drift was strong, but he also had the baggage of his brother’s thoughts and feelings when he died.

The Jaegers are brought onto the various battlefields by being lifted and carried by helicopters… which honestly looks silly, makes them look like toys, dolls moved around, and also looks kinda impossible, I’m no scientist but the Jaegers are huge and must be really heavy, too heavy for eight helicopters to carry around. Yeah, one might say: special metal so the robots are not all that heavy, and also special helicopters ultra mega strong, but still.

Next battle goes badly because the Kaiju has a new weapon and it blasts the “Jaegers’ electrical circuits”, they lose the Hong Kong brothers and the two Russians. The Hansen are saved by Raleigh and Mako because their old Jaeger is not digital like the new ones, “Gipsy’s analog, nuclear”.

Newt finds Hannibal and is there when two Kaijus attack Hong Kong city. Newt: “there’s never been two before” and Hannibal is the one to explain what we’re all wondering: “maybe that’s because nobody ever drifted with one before, eh? Genius! When Jaeger pilots drift, it’s a two-way street”. The connection is set “Both ways! A hive mentality, you said! Maybe those Kaiju are trying to find you” so he tries to hide but they find him… still the battle is won thanks to Gipsy, and Newt waits for Hannibal’s men to find him a brain.

This one Kaiju was pregnant, though, and a ‘little one’ comes out trying to attack, but it gets strangled by the ombelical cord - what about them being clones? Or just the first ones and not these?

It manages to swallow Hannibal before dying… he’ll cut his way out over the ending credits.

Newt and Gottlieb drift together with the baby Kaiju, and understand that the Jaegers need to take a Kaiju with them to get through the Breach. 

Dad’s injured so Chuck goes with Marshal who is dying of radiation poisoning and driting again could kill him, but “not getting into one would kill us all”. He makes his Big Speech “today we are canceling the Apocalypse!”. Marshal calls Chuck “an egotistical jerk with daddy issues” but they drift ok. Newt takes a helicopter to come warn them (!)

Unlike Chuck, Marshal is one who thinks and wonders why the Kaijus stop attacking as they near the Breach. Gottlieb was right and a third Kaiju comes out, and it’s somehow easy for them all to know it’s a “category 5”, despite it being “the first ever”.

Now, it’s not clear to me why, but for some reason Striker can’t go on so Marshal and Chuck blow up their bomb taking out the Kaiju they have while Gipsy finishes the mission because they are “a walking nuclear reactor”. Gipsy takes “the Kaiju carcass” and head for the Breach. They go down. Short on oxygen, Mako leaves first in a pod while Raleigh sets the explosion manually before ejecting his own pod. 

I liked his words to Mako: “I can finish this alone, all I have to do is fall. Anyone can fall”. 

It works, the Breach collapses, and helicopters fly to retrieve the pods from the ocean. They both make it of course, and they hug in relief, and there’s no inappropriate kiss, good.

Hercules is now Marshal, “the Breach is sealed” and it’s over.

Nice last scene, forehead to forehead, relief that it’s over, cute picture as well.

Raleigh is Charlie Hunnam

Pentecost (Marshal) is Idris Elba

Mako is Rinko Kikuchi

Gottlieb is Burn Gorman

Newton is Charlie Day

Herc Hansen is Max Martini

Chuck is Rob Kazinsky

Hannibal Chau is Ron Perlman

Young Mako is Mana Ashida - who I liked very much

P.s. Kaiju means Giant Beast, Jaeger means Hunter, they put it on the screen themselves for us…