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