Love actually - 2003

I honestly can’t understand why this film is so famous, and why it i rated so much on IMDB, after 15 years it’s 7.6? Why? What did they see? Sure, there are a lot of famous faces, which is what makes it bearable, and a couple of stories are nice, but for me it doesn’t deserve more than a 5. Which is a total disaster!!! A film with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman and many others and they managed to make it so boring and unsatisfying at the end. So disappointed. I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece, but maybe something romantic, given the title. 

It tells the stories of various couples:

---David is the new Prime Minister and Natalie works for him. As they meet she’s so nervous she starts swearing a lot. It seems like he’s immediately gripped. She’s nice and beautiful, and it’s obvious that he likes her a lot. He asks her about herself, she says she just came out of a relationship, with a moron who said she’s too fat, and David says “being the prime minister, I could just have him murdered” - “thank you sir I’ll think about it” :lol: that was the funniest thing of this movie. When he sees the US president too close to her, he changes his politics turning against him at a press conference (becoming the hero of the nation, and although I’m glad he took away the president annoying smirk, I don’t think impulsive actions are the right way to go in politics).

Feeling that he’s getting too attached, he asks Annie to find her another position. There’s an embarrassing dance scene where he dances around like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, only Cruise was 20 back then. I’m not saying he danced badly, only that a 43 y-o man, even if he wasn’t the prime minister, could keep those activities in his own room.

When he reads a few random Christmas cards, he finds Natalie’s: she tells him “I’m actually yours, love Natalie” ... just because this is a movie she finds love, in real life she’d get something different. Anyway, he takes a car and goes to her neighbourhood knocking on every door until he finds her. He goes with her to a children’s play where he meets his sister Karen, who says to Natalie “twenty years ago you’d have been his type” or something like that, then he kisses Natalie in front of the whole audience. 

---Jamie finds out that his girlfriend is cheating with his brother. He leaves and goes to France to write his new mystery book. Aurelia, a Portuguese girl, comes to work as a maid. They understand nothing of what the other says. That’s the nicest part. How they can tell out loud what they think, looking the other in the eye, because they know the other doesn’t understand. A pity that the ending was lame. When they separated because he goes back to England for Christmas, they couldn’t speak one word of the other’s language, Jamie actually spoke three words in Italian :-p maybe a couple of those could be Portuguese too, but not the third for sure :-p He spends a week tops learning Portuguese, then he goes back to France. A lot of people follow him while he goes to the restaurant where she works as a waitress and he asks her to marry him in what he thinks are understandable Portuguese words, she agrees and they kiss and people clap. 

---Sarah has been in love with Karl for months, never able to say a word, until finally at a party he invites her to dance, drives her home... they jump on each other and then the phone rings! She has a retarded brother and she never misses his calls, so she answers both times and agrees to go see him. Karl asked her not to answer the second time but she does, and their night ends like that. She goes to visit her brother. Later on, Karl simply wishes her a merry Christmas, and she spends it with her brother. 

---Harry and Karen are married with two children. She loves to listen to Joni Mitchell, she says she loves it and “true love lasts a lifetime”.  At work, a girl is very obviously trying to seduce him. At the party, Karen sees him dancing with her, she knows she’s trouble right away :’(  After a while, he gives in and when he goes Christmas shopping with Karen he buys a gold necklace for her. Karen sees the box in his pocket, but then she receives a cd... (when she hides to cry I wanted to slap his face so hard! the f.ing idiot!) . At the children’s play Karen asks him what would he do in her position, wait around to find out if it’s just a necklace, or a necklace and sex or a necklace and love, would he stay to find out? She tells him that he made a mockery of her life :(

---Colin is unbearable, he can’t get a girl because he’s an annoying loser/idiot but he thinks it’s the girls’ fault so he goes to America sure that they’ll drop at his feet simply hearing his accent... and the stupidest things of all happens, as he arrives three girls jump on him :-/ come on :-/ and then he ends up with the fourth :-/ I don’t know many American girls, I’ve personally known only one which doesn’t make a majority, but however they are, I’d be offended if I was them. 

---Daniel lost his wife recently, the funeral is right at the beginning of the film, and he’s left with her son who shuts himself up in his room. Nobody grieves here, little Sam soon tells him that he’s in love with a girl in his school but she doesn’t know he exists. He suddenly makes a choice: learn an instrument so at the children’s play she’ll notice him because girls like musicians... and in three weeks top he becomes a drummer. I guess they all think that being a drummer is the easiest thing, I wonder what drummers think about this. 

When Sam is sad because Joanna will go back to America, Daniel says “we need Kate, we need Leo and we need them now” and they watch Titanic together. 

The girl, Joanna, is about to leave right after the play, so Daniel tells Sam that he should tell her how he feels, so they drive to the airport, Sam avoid security and runs after her. She gives him a kiss on the cheek and leaves. Yeah, victory.

At the play, Daniel met Carol, the mother of a child in Sam’s school, and they liked each other.

---Billy Mack is an old singer. He made a new single “Christmas is all around me”. He keeps saying the single is crap, and much much more, but his agent Joe keeps promoting the single and eventually it becomes Christmas number one. Billy is invited to a party at Elton’s place, but he leaves to spend Christmas with Joe who was alone, telling him “you turned out to be the fucking love of my life”, and they get drunk watching porn together. 

---John and Judy are body double in erotic scenes. They keep talking while shooting naked, faking love scenes, and they get to like each other. Right before Christmas, he walks her home and is all hesitant, he’d like to kiss her but then she kisses him saying “all I want for Christmas is you”. When they attend the children’s play and are asked how did they meet, they both go “ehm...” which was cute. They are the second funny thing of the film. That’s it, there isn’t a third.

---Peter and Juliet get married. Mark is Peter’s friend. He never talks to her and everybody thinks he doesn’t like her. When she insists on seeing the video of the wedding, and it’s all her from beginning to her, she understands that he actually ‘likes’ her. At Christmas, he shows up at her door. Luckily she answers it, they never contemplated the possibility that Peter might answer the door.... anyway, he has her read his confession of love then she gives him a light kiss on the lips and goes back inside. He goes away saying that that’s enough. 

After that, there’s one last scene that’s supposed to wrap everything up: 

one month later, at the airport, all the characters meet, some are coming back and others are here to greet them. 

Karen and her children are there for Harry and they go home together, but she still has a sad face of course, but it looks like they’re trying to move on.

Peter, Juliet and Mark are there for Jamie and Aurelia who got married already. 

Joanna comes back and Sam is there for her, and Daniel is with Carol (wow, I mean, I don’t want people to be sad or anything, but to find someone new after a month, and being together with her two months after your wife’s funeral... )

John and Judy got married too. Colin comes back with the fourth girl and her sister. Will the two of them go around kissing every English man they meet? I mean, this is London...

David comes back and Natalie jumps on him (literally) in front of all the cameras. 

Cast : 

Emma Thompson - Karen

Martin Freeman - John

Alan Rickman - Harry

Liam Neeson - Daniel

Colin Firth - Jamie

Hugh Grant - prime minister

Laura Linney - Sarah

Joanna Page - Judy

Bill Nighy - Billy Mack

Keira Knightley - Juliet

Andrew Lincoln - Mark

Chiwetel Ejiofor - Peter

Rowan Atkinson - the guy selling the necklace

Billy Bob Thornton - US president

Nina Sosanya - Annie

Rodrigo Santoro - Karl

Lucia Moniz - Aurelia

Martine McCutcheon - Natalie

Gregor Fisher - Joe

Thomas Sangster - young Sam

Olivia Olson - young Joanna

Claudia Schiffer - Carol

January Jones, Elisha Cuthbert, Ivana Milicevic and Shannon Elizabeth - four American girls who fall into Colin’s arms, who knows why. Denise Richards is another American girl just like them, only maybe not with Colin, but then, who knows.

And and Dec playing themselves. (Why the usual joke ‘who’s Ant and who’s Dec? Do people really confuse them? How is that possible? They work together but they’re very different and they call each other by name, so it’s not difficult to guess, I mean, I know it! Dec is cuter and has a kindlier face)

ITA love actually-l’amore davvero

ムーンライト・シャドウ Moonlight shadow by Banana Yoshimoto

This is a short story that can be found at the end of the book Kitchen. There’s a big dose of supernatural to accept here, and of course the theme of loss. 

Satsuki’s boyfriend died in a car accident. She loved him, and to keep on living is so difficult now, but she tries. She goes running every day, to the bridge where they used to meet. She runs to keep living and let out what she has inside, but at the same time she goes to the bridge that binds her to him. She’s young, after all, and this feeling is very understandable and right. She keeps thinking of him, but at the same time tries to go on living.

She meets a strange girl, and something about her reaches Satsuki who feels close to her. Urara is her name. When Urara calls her at home, she explains that she only has to think that she wants to know something and she simply realises that she knows it, just like that. 

It’s classic Yoshimoto here, when Satsuki thinks that since Urara said that so naturally, she simply thought “after all, why not?” and accepted it just like that. 

They meet again, and Urara tells her to go to that bridge with her at a specific time, that something extraordinary will happen. 

Satsuki goes. Urara tells her that every hundred years it’s possible to see someone who died, if the circumstances are right, if the thoughts of the deceased link with those of the person missing them, or something like that. 

Satsuki sees Hitoshi. They both cry. She thinks she would like to go with him, he sort of frowns because of course he doesn’t want that. He soon goes away, but this time at least they get the chance to ‘say’ goodbye, something they didn’t have before. She feels she has to be strong, she has to go on with her life, but she feels better someone, and thanks him because when he went away he waved her goodbye, he waved many, many times...

(which is grazie di avermi salutato agitando la mano molte, molte volte - I just want to remember this)

It’s a little thing but it’s also so very important. He couldn’t speak, but she got to see him one last time and she got to say goodbye, in a way. 

There is also a sort of side story, even if this is a short story:

when Hitoshi died, his brother’s girlfriend Yumiko was in the car with him and died too. Now Hiiragi has lost his brother and his girlfriend. 

He’s presented like a peculiar character. He reacts in a different way. He likes talking to Satsuki because she’s mourning for his brother, they share the same pain, and all that. What other people can’t understand, is the fact that he goes to school wearing Yumiko’s uniform. He doesn’t care about what people say when they see him in a girl’s uniform. He wears it to feel closer to Yumiko. It was all so sudden and unexpected, that it’s difficult for everyone to deal with it, and everyone has his own way. There isn’t a right way or a wrong way, there is only the way that works for ‘you’, whatever that is.

Sooner or later, he will stop wearing it and will start to move on. Not forgetting her, but simply going on living.

キッチン Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

I liked it back then and I still do. Not love, because her books don’t give me that kind of strong emotions, and yet I liked it and I’d recommend it to anyone, because this is something else. It’s a peculiar thing, Yoshimoto at her best. It’s a tragic story, full of deaths and sadness and bad things and bad people, like all her books for that matter, but you never really “feel” the real intensity of the tragedy because her tone is so soft, so matter-of-fact, so down-to-earth even when she speaks of strange things, you just keep reading, the same way we all keep living. Which is more or less her moral, in want of a better word. There is death but there is life, you lose someone but you can find someone. Her characters are often peculiar but at the same time they are rather ordinary, like well, like real people. 

About Kitchen, the first page is very famous, when she says “there isn’t a place in the world that I like more than the kitchen. It doesn’t matter where or how it is, as long as it’s a kitchen, a place where you can cook food, I feel good.” and so on (or something like that, I read it in Italian of course).

It’s Mikage Sakurai thinking that. She’s the protagonist. She lost her parents when she was a child and was raised by her grandparents. She lost her grandpa when she was around twelve and was left with only her grandma, who died right before the beginning of the book. We meet her lying in the kitchen, not eating, not living, feeling so lonely after losing her, now she has nobody else in the world. 

At the funeral, she meets Yuichi Tanabe, he goes to her school but they never interacted much. He’s sad for her grandma’s death, they met each other from time to time (in the shops I think, maybe buying flowers, I think, I’m not sure I remember this already). He’s a reserved guy, with something sad about him. Soon Yuichi tells her to go live with him. Not as a couple, of course, but simply so she won’t be alone. He lives with his mother Eriko. She accepts, and is blown away by Eriko’s beauty and her joie-de-vivre. She can’t believe it when Yuichi tells her that Eriko used to be his father. He only loved one woman, and when she died he was left with a son. He reasoned that he better be a mother for him, and that anyway he wouldn’t love another woman again, so he changed sex and became Eriko. Yuichi very simply tells her that he calls her ‘mom’ because how could you call someone like that ‘dad’? She looks like a beautiful woman, with her hair, dresses and heels. And a very loving and lovable mom at that. She works in a club (a gay bar or a night club or something like that), and Mikage starts living with them. She feels comfortable, they don’t expect her to get well in a day, they let her go through it her own way, they simply give her a home and some company.

She stays with them a few months, and the first part of the book ends. 

Second part: at the beginning of Autumn she leaves, at the end of Autumn Yuichi calls her to tell her that Eriko was killed. There was a guy stalking her, and when he found out that she had been a man he felt I-don’t-know-what and killed her. (Unfortunately the world is full of these weak, pathetic monsters who feel powerful only with a weapon :’(  )

It’s now Winter. Mikage has found a position working for a cook. She goes to spend a day with him, and right away a girl goes to her workplace to make a big scene saying she should let him be :-/ (the usual sad story all over the world, girls/women fighting each other over men, when will they finally wake up and realise that women should help each other? )

A friend of Eriko tells her that Yuichi sort of ran away, shut himself in some hotel to be alone. She has to go away with the cook, a trip to study other type of food or something, they go to Izu although I don’t know where that is. 

One night, she goes out because she’s hungry and eats something delicious. She’s struck by the thought that he would like it, and she goes all the way to him in a taxi with some take-away food. 

When she gets there, she has to climb to his room because the doors are closed (this was the bit I liked less, the fact that it’s basically luck that she got to his room after all, but she ‘sensed’ that that was his room so she tried...)

They eat together then she goes back to her group. 

When the trip ends, he calls her in her hotel, she tells him that she’ll be back the next day, and he says that he’ll come meet her and take her home. It ends like that. 

You see, there isn’t much ‘story’, there is no action, but there’s a lot of feelings and meaning. She lost her family but she found a new one. A part of her life ended, but she made a new one for herself. The story with Yuichi is not one of passion but it’s not less important for that. It’s a story of understanding, of sense of belonging, of family.

Il commissario Montalbano - Un diario del '43

A 1043 diary. I liked this one. It had again a nice plot, various angles, a complex story. It’s not exactly difficult to find out ‘who did it’, actually that’s the easiest part but also, in a way, the less interesting, and one keeps following the story looking for the real reason, for the real explanation of what happened in 1943, for the real identity of all the characters involved, victim included. 

So, I really liked this one. 

Another thing that stands out is that they finally acknowledged the death of their doctor Pasquano, the forensic pathologist of this series. This one was the third movie without him, if I’m not mistaken, but it might be the fourth. In the last series they said he was busy elsewhere but the actor had already died. I appreciated that. This season, they said in the last movie that he was on vacation, quite weird since he (the character) had never before taken a day’s leave, and in this episode they said that he died, and the wife said that he had been ill for some time, there was the funeral and they mourned him eating cannoli together (I remember the episode when Montalbano stole one or two from his office..) and I liked that. It was well done, a dutiful goodbye. Even if I’ve heard that this one might be the last episode of this series, it was still a good thing to remember him like this. 

On to the story:

When some old site is demolished, a diary of 1943 is found. Nicolò Zito brings it to Montalbano after reading it. It was written by Carlo, a young man, basically a boy, 15 years old or little more. He had been raised believing in the ideals of fascism and Mussolini, and didn’t like how the war was ending, and he was planning something tragic using granades that a certain T. had procured for him... but then the diary ended without a finale, without explaining what he did. 

Montalbano meets John, whose real name when he lived in Italy was Giovanni Zucconi. He ended up in Texas (I don’t exactly remember why, right now, they say it at the beginning and I’ve forgotten already) and married a girl there. He planned to come back to Sicily with her, but then a lawyer informed him that his parents had died in a car accident and he had no more reasons to leave America. Now he’s alone, so he came to see Sicily one last time. 

The episode’s ‘real case’ starts with the death of Todaro, an old man. Shot with a IIWW gun. Montalbano starts thinking it might be connected to the diary, but of course also follows the usual motives, questioning the family.

He had an estranged son, that he pushed away after a tragic incident. His older brother died after saving his life, and his father could never accept it. The old man also has a granddaughter who now runs his company. There’s the maid, who speaks of many girls in and out of the house because the old man wanted to scare her making her think that he wanted to replace her but he wouldn’t really di it (she thinks) and also of a girl that took him away in her car once... There’s the fact that Todaro wanted to donate 10 million euros ( !! ) to the church, to atone for some terrible thing he did in the past, but the bishop told him that he should talk about it with his family first ( !!!!! really?? humph, for real?? yeah sure... ). 

Montalbano also wonders if Todaro might be the T. that procured the grenades. He finds out that something did happen back in 1943, there was an ‘accident’ and four American soldiers died, along with five Italian prisoners - brought along by the Americans to help in the work (I think they were getting rid of the many explosives or something?).

Carlo had a sweetheart, Anita, but she died ten years ago and Montalbano can only talk to her granddaughter who knows nothing about what happened so long ago, grandma never talked about it.

 And now, the conclusion :

Montalbano becomes suspicious when he learns that the granddaughter lied about her alibis, and called an employee so that he would confirm it; also, she’s now working with her uncle, who was never allowed in the company when his father was alive, but they say they didn’t kill him for the donation money that would have bankrupted them; what she did was to ask for her uncle’s help and he knew how to convince the old man, talking to him about his lost son’s love for the company, and they did convince him. 

Montalbano asks Zito to talk about Carlo on tv, looking for information, and a woman shows up saying that she knows him, that Carlo saved her life. Years ago she was an addict, and he helped her and also found her a job afterwards. After the war, he entered a monastery becoming a friar.

Talking about Carlo and Anita, Livia suggests the idea that maybe she wrote a diary too, and indeed she did, and the granddaughter finds him in her stuff. In this diary, they learn the conclusion of the story: poor Anita was raped by a group of American soldiers, and when Carlo learned about it he wanted to avenge her and to kill them, so that’s why he did what he did. She pleaded with him, tried to stop him, but to no avail. 

Montalbano finds him and asks him about his story, and then asks the question that has bothered him the whole episode: is T. actually Todaro? Answer: no, it’s not.

The Zuccotti family had a house and some land, and someone made a lot of money out of it, while the son was far away and knew nothing. Todaro was the one who sabotaged the couple’s car causing the accident in which they died. 

John went to him, talked with him about what he did. Todaro told him that he got a lot of money for what he did, but it never brought him any good: he lost a son, pushed away the other, his granddaughter grew up alone and hardened like him, there’s no joy in his life and he has never forgotten his sin. Now, he gives John a gun, and John shoots him dead.

Montalbano talks to John, and out of compassion lets him have one more day of freedom so he can watch the patron saint’s parade of St George (how to say in English festa di S. Giorgio o festa patronale? mah). The next day, no surprise here, the old man is found dead, he shot himself in the head.  

Maigret in Montmartre - 2017

When young woman Arlette is found dead, Maigret feels bad because she had gone to the police for help but he wasn’t able to get her to trust and confide in him. He says, “I’m the one responsible, but I’m going to find the man who killed her”. 

She worked at Fred’s club; he’s a real pig, but his wife Rosa stays with him because she’s grateful that he never asked anything about anyone’s past (good for him, because it seemed to me like he was one of those stupid men that actually need their wife - he says something about that - and yet constantly risks losing her because he’s an idiot - other than a disgusting pig). This is why Rosa keeps giving girls on the run a job and a safe place, although she “can’t protect them from everything” , meaning her molesting husband. 

Arlette grew up with very shitty relations and people around, poor thing.

When Lapointe sees Arlette’s body, he goes OMG but Maigret didn’t seem to notice.... later he’s almost in tears and Janvier only asks “what’s up?”... I mean, detectives huh? :-/

A countess was killed first. Maigret asks for his wife’s help, “you’re a very clever woman” :-)

Grasshopper sold Maigret to the killer; he’s not killed of course, but taken away from the club. Fred is killed, Rosa is tied up. Marie saw the count’s cruelty, and with the countess they threw him out the window. Oskar saw it and blackmailed them and turned her into a prostitute. The countess paid him but when she was out of money she moved to Paris, with a new ID card for Marie. Rosa tried to stop the killer, stabbed him, and saw him. He killed Arlette because she wouldn’t go back to him. Lapointe kills the murderer. 

At the end, we see that Mrs Maigret obviously didn’t burn his letters; she told him she did because she was crossed that he didn’t show up at the marriage rehearsal, or very late I don’t know, but of course she didn’t. Come on, she couldn’t have. 

ITA Maigret al Picratt’s

旋风少女 Whirlwind girl series 1

I can't understand how this thing can have good reviews. Yes, it has YangYang in it, but that's the only good thing about it, the only thing that helped me bear it till the end, other than my stubbornness since I don't like leaving series unfinished. He more or less plays his usual character, the great guy who talks little but is so good in everything he does.
The worst thing about it is the female protagonist, the character I mean, not the actress. The Qi BaiCao character, to me, is almost unbearable. Yes, she's good hearted, but she's a pouting child really, and she also keeps crying from the first episode to the last, I couldn't bear it anymore, anything happens: she cries a river... I mean, get a hold of yourself! Also, I found her attitude really annoying when she was like, without him I won't go on... this series is full of people going out of their way to help her, and she's like 'yeah, let's throw all that away without a second thought, who cares...' :-/
In this series not two but three characters fall in love with her at the same time! Come on, really? And she chooses one because she thinks that he gave her a particular gift, not knowing it wasn't him? Really?
Other characters:
--RuoBai (YangYang) is her taekwondo instructor. He pushes her to work hard and do better, and he secretly helps her in any possible way without ever telling her, this selfless guy. He has health problems, but instead of taking care of his heart (literally, he has heart-problems) he keeps training her because she won't go on alone, risking his own life so she can win a championship... ehm... I mean, I understand the 'keep fighting' philosophy so dear to Asian writers, I often admire than, but in this case it's different: did he think she would cherish that trophy after his death?
--TingHao is the arrogant rich guy. Luckily he turned out to be a decent human being after all, but I still don't like arrogant rich guys.
--ChuYuan, well, at the beginning he seems such a nice sweet guy, but as the story goes on... honestly I wanted to smack his face more than once. I was specially annoyed at his behaviour towards TingYi who always thought they loved each other, and well, he let her think that. He should have told her very very clearly that he only thought of her as a sister, and he should have made it clear soon. This kind of behaviour, is it really kindness, or is it cowardice? Not doing anything is much easier, no doubt, but it's shameful.
The episodes:
1
Ten years ago it was said that a man used drugs to win a championship, and since then he's the disgrace of his town, the children throw stones at him (wow, good parenting at its peak, children throwing stones at people :-/), his own daughter keeps away from him, everybody accuses him and insults him, all but BaiCao who was rescued by him when she was little and always stayed by his side. She's part of a gym (this is the town of taekwondo, there are gyms everywhere) but she doesn't really train with them because of him. When they banish her, he tells her to go away too because he thinks that being near him is bad for her, and her good friend XiaoYing takes her home.
Her shifu's name is Qu XiangNan
2
She brings food for her shifu, missing him and thinking about him and his teachings a lot. (Is XiaoYing's house attached to their gym?) The other guys in training don't want her. Xiu Da challenges her but she refuses because her shifu taught her that taekwondo can't be used for revenge... so she stays put lost in her thoughts and doesn't dodge when he kicks her and hits her in the head. She goes down and Chu Yan helps her, carries her to his home and medicates her. Xiu Da is about to be kicked out of school so BaiCao intervenes saying that he did warn her first.
3
Some Korean students of Yuan Wu Dao come visiting, also the little brat Jim MinZhu (the daughter of Jim YiShan from the first episode). She's very young but very strong and beats three students then insults them all talking again of Qu XiangNan, so BaiCao of course accepts her challenge, and she wins. She meets Chu Yan again.
Her shifu comes begging the school to accept her in , so she can fulfill her dream and compete, but she refuses to call anyone else shifu because to her it means dad. When he faints, he's taken to a hospital. Too many years of drinking, now he needs rest.
4
BaiCao cooks for her shifu - and when she fell asleep RuoBai put a cover on her and helped with the cooking - but he's already gone, he left a letter saying that she must work hard and when she'll compete he'll come cheering for her, so she starts training with them; there is only one place for girls though, so she must defeat XiuQin first. The institute competition goes on as expected and it's all between them now. She's very strong but she has no defence.
5
Fang TingHao in introduced, the world champion, and he wants to fight ChuYan.
Everyone's mean at BaiCao saying that she cheated, and RuoBai chooses XiuQin for the competition.  She cries (what a surprise) that she won and can't understand why. TinYi fights her easily to show her that she's not so good and she feels very low. She doesn't want to see ChuYan, so he talks to RuoBai about her, but he's still angry at him for quitting taekwondo. RuoBai talks to her, tells her not to give up and she goes back. She finds a book on taekwondo's moves, then she meets TingHao who likes her (which makes it three... )
6
She keeps practising and following the book's advises
7
At the competition, BaiCao leads the cheerleaders to cheer for all the athletes of their gym, and they cheer for XiuQin too and they all win, and it's peace all around.
She tries to read her opponents but it works only with XiaoYing because she knows her well, and not on others. BaiCao starts thinking that she likes ChuYan.
TingHao pretends that she kicked him and hurt him and says she must buy him a meal then he pays the expensive bill and they run, but she insists on paying so at last he admits that he paid already. She gives him all her money and goes away, saying she'll pay the rest (he took the money!!! he lied to her because she never hurt him, he made her feel guilty about it, he played her making her eat with him while worrying all the time because she believed that she had to pay such expensive meal and then making her believe that they were escaping without paying (basically stealing) , and then, he takes her money?!?!?!? what an arrogant jerk - it's easy not to dwell on such trivial matters, when you have plenty of money :-/ )
8
She's mad of course, thinks he humiliated her with her money, which is true. He tries to give it back (only tries, not very sincerely, it would have been enough to explain to her that she didn't owe him anything...) but then he gives her advice and she changes her attitude.
ChuYan treats her bruises but TingYi is jealous and tells her to stop pretending to be hurt to see him.
So she won't go anymore.
An important coach is attending, and they are all excited. TingHao challenges ChuYan again.
XiuQin is hit by a car so BaiCao has to replace her in the championship - who would have thought, what a surprise!.. :-/
9
A bad start, but then she wins. XiaoYing thinks that she likes ChuYan so she calls him to see her and they work together at the noodle shop and TingHao sees them.
10
TingHao goes singing for her outside her practice and gives her flowers and also a flower-petals shower and he asks her to be his girlfriend, but she rejects him.
BaiCao wins again. GuangYa is having a hard time, nobody cheers for her and she's very disheartened, so BaiCao go cheer for her and RuoBai approves so all the girls go too (otherwise they wouldn't have?? ); she wins and they talk.
TingHao lies saying that he knows where her shifu is but offer her to train with him instead.
11
Angrier than ever she cries saying that she hates him and runs out. XiaoYing wants to make big cheerleading hands overnight and has YiFeng help her so he has no sleep and he loses....
12
They go to a karaoke bar to celebrate going into the semifinal and play the marshmallow game (rollingeyes) than she falls asleep and RuoBai carries her home.
TingYi and ChuYan have dinner together, TingHao sees them and gets angry and hits him then she stops him and yells at him. She confesses her love to ChuYan.
The big coach is Qu XiangNan's dead wife's sister, and she hates him.
The next match will be BaiCao against TingYi.
13
YiFeng loses.
ChuYan encourages her and gives her a strawberry rubberband, he says he watches all her matches and puts it on her hair.
TingYi versus BaiCao (and we're back at the first minutes of the first episodes). TingYi is angry that ChuYan gave the band to her. Her shifu runs to watch the match. When she falls she sees him and get up. ChuYan arrives too; she keeps at it, until TingYi hits her head again hard, and all the three guys rung at her, and her shifu too, but RuoBai gets to her and holds her...
She recovers at ChuYan's home and her shifu is there proud of her. She lost but he agree to not going away
14
RuoBai lost badly to TingHao. Since ChuYan left them, they've never beaten the other team, and now RuoBai won't train them anymore. He talks to BaiCao, tells her that he wanted to bring back glory to SongBai but failed...
BaiCao keeps at it, cleaning and practicing, and XiaoYing leads them to cheer him up.
TingHao go threaten ChuYan that if he doesn't accept his challenge and fight him, he won't allow coach Shen to take any SongBai athlete. SongBai is angry and refuses, they are all upset, she's a crybaby. ChuYan keeps defending him to BaiCao. He wants to go but he without attacking. BaiCao goes there earlier to challenge TianHao.
15
He refuses to fight because she's a girl, so instead they have tests. She wins so ChuYan doesn't have to fight him. RuoBai and YiFeng are chosen, but not BaiCao, so he wants to let her have his place
ChuYan tells BaiCao that he's going to America for a year to find a way to help TingHao's mom, and TingYi wants to go with him, even after he says she's like a sister to him. BaiCao buys an expensive pen for him and leaves it outside the door so TingYi finds it (rollingeyes)
16
BaiCao hurries to the airport to say goodbye but she misses him, but meets TingYi who acts mean and lies to her, saying that he only cares for her as an athlete, that he asked her to go with him and also to give the pen back.
RuoBai, YiFeng and BaiCao and all the other best athletes start training with coach Shen.
Two years later, GuanYa is training with them too because Shen is her aunt, and there's also XiaoYing. BaiCao becomes a champion. RuoBai does a lot for her, and XiaoYin is still in love with him.
17
XiaoYin learns now that RuoBai doesn't like soup, and that all the ones she brought, YiFeng had those. RuoBai is very concerned about BaiCao; there's a city competition and only one place, it's her or TingYi. He pays for everything, trains with her all the time, it's all for her...
TingHao takes her out and has people do her hair and makeup, gives her new clothes, it's a complete makeover, like a poor little child in an old story. Then he introduces her to his family as his girlfriend, most of all to his grandfather and then tells her to make it true and train with him, but she's all "I believe in RuoBai" and he hears.

Rainbow's End by Martha Grimes

I liked it, it’s a bit long but enjoyable enough and with some interesting characters. It’s the first of her books I’ve ever read, and while reading it I felt I should have looked at her bibliography and started from the first, because there were hints of past cases and of characters I probably should have known already, but luckily she didn’t spoil them for me by saying too much. 

I’m glad that Grimes didn’t fill up pages with long, useless (for me) descriptions. She filled them with dialogues, characters (lots of them) and characters’ thoughts. I can bare that, it makes one ‘feel’ them more. The story is an odd one in the way that almost to the end they keep saying that there is a case but they’re not sure because they have nothing to go on with. There are three dead women in England, in three different places. Angela Hope from Santa Fe fell to her death. Helen ‘Nell’ Hawes and Frances Hamilton apparently died of natural causes... DCI Rush investigated Hope but he has a very small part in it. The many characters are: Melrose Plant, aristocratic who gave up his title, his friends Diane Demornay, Marshall Trueblood and Agatha Ardry, in small but recurrent roles :-p hanging around at the Jack&Hammer pub, and Vivian.  Richard Jury, superintendent, and Sergeant Wiggins. Brian Macalvie, divisional commander. Lady Jenny Kennington, met ten years ago at another investigation. Jury and Macalvie talk at the Rainbow’s End pub. Miss Fludd, new entry in town, Melrose is taken by her. Lady Cray was a friend of Fanny. Carole-Anne is Jury’s neighbour. The Cripps (Alice, Petey the victim, little Robespierre, Amy, Aurora, and who knows who else), lots of poor children and their parents Ellie and Ash, and also Beatrice Slocum, secretly a painter and secretly smarter than she lets known; her boyfriend Gabriel ‘Gabe’ Merchant who stays with them because he lost his flat, Bea is just over for tea. Annie Landis, a friend of Nell’s, sick and sad that her son’t gone out with friends. Macalvie: “you wouldn’t happen to have a cuppa, would you?” and she transformed, “she was an Englishwoman after all; first and foremost she could produce a cup of tea” :-)

She told them that the address book they found was not Nell’s because made of leather and “you’d be better off not trying to force the facts to fit your theory” and “wouldn’t it be more sensible to accept the obvious?” : Jury tried not to laugh, Macalvie looked at her in admiration. 

The Pelican pub is where they talk to her son Jimmy. 

Jury goes to Santa Fe, and makes a pact with a girl, ‘Des’ Desdemona, at the airport, to stop smoking. 

Melrose visits Wiggins at the hospital, and sends him flowers from any person he can think of, but forgetting one from himself. He visits the museum where Hamilton died, and Lady Cray, and the Cripps (Spanky is another one?), and he takes Beatrice to a French café. 

In Santa Fe, Jury visits Angela’s workplace, he talks to Sukie Bartholomew who has a shop near hers, Malcolm Corey, half-painter half-wanna-be-serious-actor, scientist Dr Nils Anders who studies the light, Dolores Schell the pharmacist cousin, Mary Dark Hope the 13-year-old sister and her coyote Sunny. He talks to waitress Patsy who remembers them , the women, and he talks to Malcolm’s agent Benny Betts, then to Mary and Nils again... 

Melrose sent a fax at the Blue Parrot pub. He talks to Macalvie then to his friend Polly in  Little bourne and he finally finds Jenny (as per Jury’s request). He visits the Cripps again (is Gloria another one?)... 

Finally, after 500 pages, they realise that all the women smoked, and they were killed by nicotine poison. Angela got poisoned nicotine patches from Dolly and probably gave some to her friends. Jury ‘finally’ realises that Mary is in danger because he told her that Nils is fond of her more than Angela. Mary always suspected her, and so she went to her pharmacy at night to look around, but Dolly came with a gun. Sunny helps her (awww), and Dolly is arrested (who saved Mary? Jack presumably? or Nils? it’s not really clear..) . 

Jury is going crazy not knowing anything about Jenny. Melrose faxed him “She is found!” and nothing more, but he works it out himself and goes there, to find Jenny and Melrose smiling and talking and he becomes jealous with no reasons, and after a few words with them he goes back to London. Upset, he can’t stay in the office and he drives around, ending at the Old Sarum where he meets Trevor, the one who found Angela, and they talk about giving up smoking and Desdemona at the airport, and this makes them talk about Othello, and Trevor says “she never had a chance, did Desdemona. Jealousy, that’s what” and “just goes to show”

And the very last words of the book are:

-Jury was smiling. “Just goes to show”.

The end.... Well, at least he realises he was jealous: going away like that was a very stupid thing to do....

The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman

Not something I’d want to read again, but I was surprised, a nice fantasy story rather catching; I mean, the first few pages were boring, but sticking to it for a while I started to find it interesting. The fact that the protagonist was a twelve-year-old girl made me worry for a while that I might find it “too” childish to bear, but it progressed well into a real story that I liked. To be clear, it is a story for kids, but it was nice nonetheless. 

There wasn’t a lot of magic, a pity really, I love magic, fantasy stories should always have magic, but it had a little bit, just enough to make the protagonist Alexa able to talk to animals. 

My only problem with the whole thing is : Warvold and the convicts. It’s not really nice to brand people  as criminals, I mean physically brand, for real, specially all in the same way, I mean there is a difference between killing a child or stealing a sandwich, but they would all have the same mark on their skin. Also, the way they speak of the whole matter (well, she speaks, the one who narrates the story is an older Alexa), as if they don’t matter, as if Warvold was something magnificent, some kind of god, and there was nothing wrong in treating people like that. 

Details:

Warvold was a traveller and an adventurer until he decided to settle down. He persuaded other people to go live in a place some people considered dangerous. He settled in a valley that became the city of Lunenburg and so many others joined him that there was no room for more. The city of Ainsworth filled up too, and he built another town, Bridewell, all in the Land of Elyon. To be protected from the dangers outside he decided to build a big wall all around the three towns and also the roads that connected them, and also the towns of Turlock and Lathbury - actually I’m not sure that Ainsworth is walled too... anyway, there is a map at the beginning of the book.

He made a deal with Ainsworth and they gave him 300 convicts to build the walls and after ten years he brought them back, minus a few that had died. Now we meet him plus James Daley mayor of Lathbury and his daughter Alexa; Ganesh the mayor of Turlock (the one who said ‘it’s so dry around here the trees are bribing the dogs’ :-p ); Warvold’s son Nicolas, who managed the affairs in Lunenburg (Alexa’s mom manages those in Lathbury). Warvold’s wife Renny died. 

We also meet : Grayson, the guardian of Bridewell’s library; Pervis Kotcher, head of the guards, who hates Alexa because senses that ‘she’s trouble’, since she’s always trying to find a way outside the wall; Silas Hardy, someone they met on the road, becomes Daley’s personal deliveryman. In the library there are also two cats, Sam and Pepper, but she can’t talk to them, she can’t always talk to animals, only when she goes out and finds a sort of mystical stone, and that stone gives her the ability to talk to animals but only while she stays in the wild, not in the city. 

She meets Darius the wolf, who has been divided from his family when they built the wall, because there is only a small passage, too small for a big wolf, but Alexa is small enough. From a tunnel, she hears some convicts speak of a plan to invade Bridewell: they were not put back in prison, they were let loose. They are all “branded with a C for criminals”, and their leader Sebastian is a traitor in Bridewell. Alexa tells nobody and starts investigating. When Pervis is arrested, and time starts running out, she tells him everything, then she tells her father (leaving out that she talks to animals, smart move), so they can plan a way to protect the city. Warvold hid in a book Sebastian’s identity: Ganesh: of course. 

It turns out that only 57 convicts actually attack the city, they are the only ones that are still alive. Yipes and Darius save her from Ganesh, and Yipes goes to call her dad for her. 

The convicts gets divided, 20 to Lunenburg, 20 to Turlock and 17 to Lathbury, some of them were rehabilitated. The walls around the roads were torn down, left only around Bridewell. Alexa can’t understand the animals anymore, and also Yipes because he went to the civilised city looking for her father, and thus lost the gift. He still lives out there by the river though. The cats are dead, they were evil :-/

Agatha Christie's Marple: the pale horse

2011. Not bad, not great but not too bad, considering this was never one of my favourite stories.  

It starts with Miss Marple listening to Macbeth on the radio. 

We see father Patrick Gorman taking a dying woman’s confession, he sends his notes to Miss Marple for safekeeping. She reads it in the morning, and right after that she reads in a newspaper that he’s been murdered. She’s very sad by the news because he was a very good man. “Goodness doesn’t seem to count for very much anymore. It’s an unforgiving world and the city is a long way from country life” says the inspector. 

At the Pale Horse Inn three women perform a ceremony against someone as if they were witches and in a few days that certain person dies. Actually the only murderer is Osbourne, he goes to the house of these people and plants there something poisoned, like a cream, a lotion, some means to have the skin slowly absorb the poison day by day. 

The episode wasn’t bad, but the whole thing with Mr Venables was nonsense. Marple suspected Osbourne because he described the man too well, because he had seen him once... it seemed like a load of nonsense; he only said he saw a scar near the eye when he lighted a match the night of Father Gorman’s murder, which is not “describing too well”; that man was always, constantly at the Pale Horse Inn and yet he only saw him once, casually, not even knowing he was in a wheelchair? Did he never go there, to check things out? Ok I suppose it could be, nobody knew him there, still, described “too well” ? :-/

The story in detail:

Mrs Davis was a market researcher, employed by Osbourne who used her findings to find out what his victims used, so he could substitute something with a poisoned replica. She put together the names of dead people and realised something was off, and for it she got poisoned herself.

She spoke to father Gorman before dying and he sent his letter to Miss Marple before he was murdered. Marple went to the police with the letter, then she went to see the room where Mrs Davis had lived, and she was let in no problem, even left alone in the room, although she clearly was no officer and no relative either. Other times, I guess. 

She opened the wardrobe and saw a note in a shoe. The policemen presumably searched the room, the inspector said they did, but didn’t see something that the sharp old lady saw with a glimpse, after a few seconds... anyway, that’s where she finds the Pale Horse Inn name. She goes there and she sees that all those dead people had been guests at the Inn.. why is that, one might wonder. They didn’t need to be. It’s the people who wished them dead that had to go to the Inn for the witches ceremony, not the victims. Doesn’t make much sense..

Anyway, Marple calls Osbourne to take a good look at Mr Venables, only to play with us :-/

Both Ginger and Mark were there for her same reason: someone had died and they were curious.

The ep was nice enough and well done enough, but the ending kind of lost it a bit here and there, didn’t it? Osbourne was always precise, yet he put Marple’s cream bottle back to front so she could notice and avoid the poison. The whole ending was also pointless because he could have been arrested before, there was no need for those tricks, which served the only purpose of inducing him to plant false evidence in Mr Venables’ house. Personally, I thought to pass for someone he wasn’t to gain access into Ginger’s home and to put there some poisoned stuff was rather more significant, and the whole ending was pointless. 

I liked the casting and the acting and the places, and the kiss at the end when Mark touched Ginger’s face while Marple was leaving, and he kissed her, although I didn’t like how long they stayed on it, sort of ruining the sweetness of it (not entirely, but almost); I didn’t like the expression he made after killing father Gorman, and the things I mentioned before. 

I liked Ginger and Collins, Grey was interesting and captivating. Osbourne was rather interesting too, what a shame for that disappointing scene, still overall a good job. 

Miss Marple-Julia McKenzie

Gorman-Nicholas Parsons

Paul Osbourne-J J Feild

Inspector Lejeune-Neil Pearson

Mark Easterbrook-Jonathan Cake

Mr Venables-Nigel Planer

Mrs Grey-Pauline Collins

Ginger Corrigan-Amy Manson

ITA un cavallo per la strega

The magnificent 7 - 2016

Well, shoot me but I liked it. It seemed a bit weird at first, this diverse cast, but I read on wiki the director Fuqua saying that back then there were black cowboys and Asian workers and everything, so if that's true maybe the unnatural decision was made in the past when they always chose an all-white and usually all-male cast to play the heroes, and not now.
Anyway, being used to the old western, it seemed strange at first, but it stayed with me for... maybe even a couple of seconds I don't know, then I was like, "who cares, Denzel Washington: always a pleasure", and that was it. After that, the rest was easily accepted and welcomed.
It had a few things in common with the old one, of course, other than the basic plot I mean, but it was more modern obviously; still, the soul was the same I think. I like the old one a lot, but I don't think that means I must dislike any remake, there can be two good movies on the same story, I don't see why not, no need to force a "which one was better" at all cost. The era and the actors, everything's different, so I'm ok with both.
I liked that there was one good with knives, and one with psychological problems, like in the old one. I was glad that this time there was no annoying kid, I guess here he was replaced by the Comanche guy, but I liked him alright.
Faraday fought till the end, and already wounded he sacrificed himself to destroy the machine gun brought by Bogue. Maybe he knew his injury was already something he couldn't survive, anyway his attempt was a suicidal mission, it was obvious he couldn't get out of it alive, but at least he completed what he wanted to do and destroyed it.
Goodnight at the last moment decided he wasn't strong enough to face another battle and ran away, but came back during the fight. He died along with his friend Billy, after shooting a lot of enemies to help Faraday reach his destination, they were killed by the machine gun.
Horn was killed too. Only Chisolm, Vasquez and Red Harvest came out of it alive.
I liked the Emma character too: she was nice, she was emotional, maybe unprepared for what killing a man actually entails but she went through with it till the end because she had no options. The actress was really good too, she got to me earlier on, when her husband talked back to Bogue and she had that look on her face, without a word she conveyed the message, what are you doing, you'll get killed, the terror she felt for what she feared could happen, and indeed happened.
She could shoot well enough, because 'she had a father too', and I liked that too.
So yes, I liked it, it was well done and well played. Sure, it seemed a bit awkward that nobody would have anything to say about trusting their lives to a Comanche, for example, but I'm glad it went this way, I really had no desire for internal conflicts. Instead, I appreciated the moments when the seven got each other's back, the moments that showed Billy and Goodnight's friendship, when Horn and Red Harvest went eating (or drinking,whatever) together, when Vasquez got mad because someone had shot Faraday...
Actually Faraday is the only one that looked a bit forced, maybe, too much of a modern guy, I don't know how to explain it.

The basic plot is the same: a village of poor, pacific people gets in real trouble when a cruel greedy man wants their land, wants to buy it for nothing, wants them to work as slaves in his gold mines, and kills without blinking anyone who opposes him. When Emma's husband is killed along with other man, only because he dared talk back to evil Bogue, she's determined to find a way to oppose Bogue at all cost. With a friend, she goes looking for help. She finds it when she meets Sam Chisolm, a sort of bounty-hunter, a US Marshal according to wiki, I don't remember all his references he mentioned. Anyway, he's official. He accepts after hearing Bogue's name, and finds other men for the job. The first is Josh Faraday, who has no money but a few troubles, and spends a lot of time gambling at cards. Then Vasquez who has a bounty on his head, and they sort of make a deal (like, take this job with me and I won't ever look for you in the future); Goodnight, who fought in the Confederate army and still has nightmares about the war, and his good friend Billy, an Asian man extremely good with knives. Also, Jack Horn, a hunter of some kind, and a Comanche warrior they meet on the way.
As they reach the village, they kill all the sheriff's men, all paid by Bogue, and let the sheriff go to inform his boss so that he'll come personally, like Chisolm wants. The sheriff will be killed by Bogue himself, this is what happens when you work with such elements.
They only have a week to prepare. They try to teach the locals how to shoot and fight, they use guerrilla tactics and some dynamite they took at one of Bogue's mine, after freeing the workers there.
After this, it's time for the long showdown. Bogue comes with lots and lots of men. They fight with all they've got, the seven and the locals, and eventually they win. It only remains for Chisolm to revenge on Bogue who, we learn now, destroyed his village, killed his sisters and many others, and almost killed him. Lost in his pain and hate he doesn't notice that Bogue has a hidden weapon, but luckily for him Emma shoots the guy in time to save him. Those who survived can now go back to their lives. The locals have their village back, and the surviving three of the seven go away together.

Chisolm-Denzel Washington
Emma-Haley Bennett
Faraday-Chris Pratt
Goodnight-Ethan Hawke
Horn-Vincent D'Onofrio
Billy-Byung-Hun Lee
Vasquez-Manuel Garcia-Rulfo
Red Harvest-Martin Sensmeier
Bogue-Peter Sarsgaard

Dear Brigitte - 1965

It wasn’t bad, mainly because I always liked James Stewart, although to be honest he looks a bit old for this role. He was 57 and his character had a 18-y-o daughter and a 8-y-o son, plus hearing his wife talking it seems like they married young, like right out of university or something... anyway, it was nice, a simple little movie, but nothing special, nothing I’d like to watch again.

Stewart plays Robert Leaf who is a professor, a poet, a lover of the arts, any arts, and a hater of the science, any science. He is very absent-minded, which I supposed is to add to his artistic-poetic-aura, and one day is world is put upside down when he discovers, not only that his son has no artistic talent whatsoever, but even that he is a maths genius. He’s only eight, but all of a sudden he becomes a prodigy. When his teacher tells them he wants to keep it a secret, he doesn’t like it at all, they even take him to a doctor, who is very surprised when Erasmus tells him that he doesn’t care about maths at all, he’s only interested in Brigitte Bardot :-p ,  but his ability comes out anyway when Erasmus points out, to a bank director, that their count was wrong. Now everyone’s interested in him. Leaf fights against it, while his daughter tries to take advantage of the situation. Leaf rejects her idea of selling t-shirts, but he knows nothing about her friends taking advantage of his ability to make winning bets on horses. Until they are found out. He’s angry and asks the girl and her friend about it. Erasmus shows him how he does it (they give him all the statistics and he chooses one). 

The guy says he only wants to earn enough money to marry her, Leaf asks ‘a few millions?’ and the girl ‘Oh one is enough for me’ :lol:

It’s still not clear to me if it’s ok to do it or not, is it legal or isn’t it? Why was there an officer to talk to him at the university? 

Erasmus always asks for money every time, and he spends it all on stamps: he keeps writing to Brigitte Bardot... he writes to her every night :-p

Leaf resigned, and doesn’t even know that they have no more money, even promises his vain daughter to buy her a new dress (did they try to explain to her that there’s no money?).

Erasmus gives him the money he earned to buy the dress, and then father and son go to buy the dress without the girl... when was that ever a good idea?

He meets another professor or something who lost his job, and together they plan something to ‘promote the arts’ using of course Erasmus to make money... betting on horses... they start with ten dollars and soon have thousands.. 

Suddenly Erasmus receives a letter from France! It’s in French so he asks his dad to read it to him. She writes that she loved all his letters and asks him to go to her to meet. He wants to go, but his father thinks it’s too far away. The professor/doctor or whatever gets angry when Erasmus refuses to give him another horse until he can go see BB, but then he apologises and tells them that they can take the money from their ‘foundation’ to take the boy to Paris; after all if he stops they have no way to go on... so Leaf takes the boy to Paris. They meet her, and it turns out that she knows his poems... she gives them chocolate, they take a picture, (Leaf is astonished by such technology as a polaroid...) and she gives him a puppy, and kisses him on both cheeks, then they go back.

A lieutenant comes to tell Leaf that the man he thought was their accountant is actually been arrested. Leaf pretends to know nothing with the doctor, and Erasmus says fromage because he keeps thinking of BB saying cheese when they took the picture, and the doctor bets all the money they had, and then Erasmus says he didn’t choose any horse this time (guess he suddenly ‘woke up’ from his daydreams), but what do you know, somehow that horse wins anyway. The doctor takes all the money alone, planning to go away with a girl, and he’s about to be arrested but Leaf knew about him and involved the university in the foundation, so they take the money instead. 

The end... just like that.  

ITA Erasmo il lentigginoso

The living daylights - 1987

The least known of all the Bond movies... well, Timothy Dalton may not be as charming as Sean Connery or Roger Moore, but besides that it’s not really all that different from the old Bond movies. There are all the usual ingredients: the silly action scenes, the explosions, the chases, Q and his gadgets, the useless blond girl, the fantasy that every female on the planet would fall to his feet and beg for his time, yeah sure, keep believing that , as well as the usual luck of the hero, since the only reason he makes it is once again because he’s lucky and the bad guys are not as much as him. 

He’s ordered to help a Russian general escape to the UK to collaborate with them; he’s told there will be snipers trying to stop him, but he sees a pretty girl, a musician, and doesn’t kill her, only stops her.

He says it’s not because she’s pretty but because he saw she was not an expert sniper and got curious about her. The general seems frightened of everything, making you wonder how he became a Russian general... he tells Bond’s superiors that someone they know, general Pushkin, is planning something bad, I think he says that Pushkin wants to kill all their assets, then the place is attacked by a Russian assassin. The only good thing was that the other 00-agent actually put up a good fight, but of course he lost. The Russian guy managed alone to put the whole place in chaos and bring general Koskov away with him, alive...  the security here was stupidly easy to fool, I must say. 

His superiors want to kill Pushkin because of what Koskov said, but Bond is against it. He wants to investigate the girl, Kara, he finds her and learns that she thinks Koskov is some kind of benefactor, her good friend or something, apparently he even gave her a Stradivari cello.... he takes her away, they chase him, and he destroys a police car using lasers (good thing it was a tall car, had he used that on a lower one he would have cut the people inside...), the car has a bazooka to blow up a camion, simply assuming there was nobody inside or not caring, he cuts the ice with the wheel rims so that the bad guys’ car sinks in the water, his car also have skis, and nails that come out of the wheels to speed up on the ice, and a rocket button to increase his speed and jump over...  

Koskov never really betrayed, he is working with Whitaker, a guy obsessed with war and toy soldiers and stuff, and they deal in arms and drugs, and stuff like that. It’s them who are killing the 00-agents one by one, to force them to kill Pushkin. 

When another one is killed, Bond goes to talk to Pushkin (using his woman as a distraction, rather un-gentlemanly I’d say, then he pretends to kill Pushkin in front of people because he says that as long as he’s alive they won’t find out what Koskov wants. 

She calls Koskov who lies to her about Bond and she believes him, she drugs Bond and Koskov comes to take him away, both of them actually. They take him away alive, she regrets what she did and starts helping him. Koskov hands both of them over to the Russian police, Bond frees himself and she’s all “we’re free!!!” and he’s like “we are in a Russian base in the middle of Afghanistan...”, the only funny scene in the movie, but it cracked me up :lol:

They also free the only other prisoner there, who turns out to be a leader of the mujahidin group that is fighting against the Russian, so he helps them afterwards. 

Bond’s big plan is to leave her there and go fight alone his battle, which doesn’t seem to me a very brilliant idea, to leave a Russian girl in the middle of a group of male soldiers fighting against the Russians, for soooo many reasons... anyway, she won’t let him go away alone and follows, and they help too, and Bond plans to blow up a plane full of drugs using a bomb, but then Koskov sees him and he can’t get out so he flies the plane. She wants to go with him, takes a jeep and drives it inside the plane... better to stop the bomb now, but the assassin got in too and they fight. Bond left Kara to pilot the plane, and for some reason she takes matters in her own hands, who knows what she wanted to do, but she almost gets Bond killed when she opens the back of the plane. The two guys fight, Bond wins (the guy got hold of his foot but Bond cut his shoelaces and the other falls down); all the drugs flew out but not the sack with the bomb, but he stops it with two seconds to spare....

There’s a scene where Bond throws said bomb down onto a bridge to help the mujahidin rebels, I think, but it was painful to see that bridge fall down, not many months after our very own bridge here went down....

They lose fuel, the plane’s engines stop, they are going down, so they launch themselves out in the jeep, landing very easily as if it was nothing. He goes to Whitaker, still playing with his toy soldiers, but rather serious in his own way, he gets out of it thanks to his usual luck, then Pushkin arrests Koskov.  It’s all over now. 

Kara is playing, doing a concert, and the mujahidin leader comes to greet her like old friends, but she leaves them to go to her dressing room where Bond is hiding, and there’s the usual kissing and Bond-like finale. 

These action movies do not age too well, watching it now, specially for the first time, it is rather boring.

ITA 007- Zona pericolo

Hazzard - 2005

I didn’t like it ... Well, there were all the characters of the series, there was the car which is the main character of course, there was the narrating voice, there was the usual ‘lost sheep/over conversation, the shootings, the chases, the jumps with the car... and yet it was boring and waaaaaay too stupid. The main problem were the Duke cousins and the huge amount of stupidity. Bo acted like he was constantly high on something, Luke was a playboy as silly as his cousin... the scene when they pretended to be Japanese scientists and the young guy believed them only because they had the nameplates was really too much, indeed. The fact that Bo doesn’t know what coins or cities are in Japan is just a little detail among this silliness. Beats me why he called a bald policeman ‘Yul Brinner’, does he think that’s an insult? ‘cause it’s not, you know....  ok I know, some guys always make fun of bald men... as if having hair makes them automatically more handsome than the others, how stupid that is...

Back to the movie, I also didn’t like all the speeding without watching the road... Rosco was more bad than clumsy, Enos was there only to reveal everything to Daisy after she shows up in a bikini, and Boss.... well Boss Hogg was played by Burt Reynolds... I mean, really? That almost made me support the villain, come on, what does he have to do with Boss Hogg???

The plot is this: Boss Hogg wants to turn the Hazzard County into a coal mine, so he takes the Dukes farm and plans to divert everybody’s attention so that nobody will show up in court to oppose his idea. Of course nobody would have known anything about it, and his plan would have maybe worked, if he hadn’t taken the Duke’s farm so far in advance, making them curious as to the why....

Basically, the only good thing of this movie was the car, the general Lee is always the general, but the rest was 👎 

Luke-Johnny Knoxville

Bo-Seann William Scott

Boss-Burt Reynolds

Daisy-Jessica Simpson

Cooter-David Koechner

Pauline-Lynda Carter

Fantastic beasts and where to find them - 2016

I liked it. It was really nice. I didn’t fall in love with Newt, I must admit I simply accepted him but could feel very little for him. But I liked the fantastic beasts, and the story, and Queenie, and yes, Jacob. The first scene with Jacob, I was very doubtful, he’s not exactly handsome, sorry, and seemed rather boring, plus there was the obvious and overused expedient of swapping-cases, since Jacob and Newt had identical suitcases. That was so obvious, so predictable, but later I excused them; they needed a way to bring Jacob back in, and I accepted that because I came to like this character, the way he looked at the fantastic things around him, that look or marvel was endearing, and I started to like him :-) So often in this kind of situation the stranger would start yelling ‘what’s that?’ and would keep screaming and being very annoying, but he didn’t, he watched with marvelled eyes and was like ‘yeah, sure’ towards everything he saw :-)

I was never very fond of Tina, I could only tolerate her because after all she was a good person like Newt, but I liked her sister Queeny :-) I don’t always like such flirty characters, but she was one of my favs here, she was sweet and nice, I liked how she moved, her gestures were like ethereal, her hands moved in a charming way, everything about this character was lovely. She could read minds, but it wasn’t annoying like sometimes it can be, it was nice :-) 

Newt comes to America to free a giant fantastic beats (a kind of gryphon?) and maybe also to look for other animals, he studies them and protects them. One animals breaks loose in a bank because it  loves shiny things (this creatures, whatever it’s called, was lots of fun, I loved it :lol: ), and there he meets Jacob who wanted a loan to open a bakery but they denied it to him. Tina wants to arrest him for violating American wizardry rules, because they have strict rules about hiding from no-mag people, but she’s not well seen in her department, she was actually expelled or something, so nobody really pays her much attention, specially since there is no proof since he exchanged cases and instead of animals he has cakes now. When they find Jacob who has been attacked by another animal, after he opened the case, Tina takes both to her home. Newt takes Jacob inside his case (I have a question, how can the case move around when they are in it??). 

Newt shows him the many creatures inside, he even has an obscurus, without a human body. Jacob doesn’t want to sneak away after the girls were so nice to him :-) but he doesn’t want to be obliviated, so he goes with Newt to help him retrieve the animals. (To catch the little thief he destroyed a shop, it was painful to see that beautiful chandelier falling down...). I liked Newt’s motto, “worrying means you suffer twice”, quite right actually :-D Tina catches up with them once they catch a huge beast. She brings them back, inside the case, to a magical congress, after a man running for senator (I think) was killed by an obscurus (or obscurial? I’ll have to read the book...). Newt (who is the little brother of a war hero, thrown out of Hogwarts because of an accident with a beast), and is worried when they take his case, worried about the creatures more than about himself. Newt and Tina, and Jacob, are put in prison. Apparently obscurus are created when some people try to suppress their magical powers and sometimes create one who takes control and can hurt people, eventually killing the host too, usually very young. Graves works for the mag police or something, and sentences both to death. Queeny senses about it, she saves Jacob first from being obliviated, then she retrieves the case with his help. Newt’s creatures help him escape, and of course he takes Tina with him. They reunite with Queeny, who has them all enter the case and then she walks out of there. 

They look for the other escaped animals. Graves meanwhile has been asking troubled guy Credence to find a specific child, with an obscurus inside, and bring him to him. Credence, like many other children, has been adopted by an evil woman of the worst kind, those preaching against evil like she preaches against witches, but at one point she goes too far: she’s always been evil and Credence never rebelled when she beat him, but maybe now he’s afraid she’ll take it out on little girl Modesty, because finally we see an obscurus killing her. We still don’t know it’s him, they planned it for long time to make us believe it was the little girl, but what matters is that the evil woman is finally killed, thank you obscurus. Newt and the other three catch the snake-like creature (who changes size to fit into the available space of whatever it finds) and also the ape-like creatures that was like babysitting it. Those are the last animals, put back into the case. I loved how Jacob looked comfortable in there surrounded by those animals now, while Tina looked around in wonder :-) 

Newt was once in love with a Lestrange girl, apparently, Neeta? Leeta? 

Graves thinks it’s Modesty too, he thought Credence was a wizard with no magic or something, but now he shows some, breaking down walls when the guy finds Modesty. Credence becomes angry, he really thought before, that Graves was his friend, that he cared about him but he doesn’t, he only wanted the obscurus. Now he unleashes the obscurus’ power breaking havoc in the city. Graves chases him like a precious thing he wants to own and control; Newt and Tina go after it to ‘save him’ instead. The human police try to shoot it, because that’s the only thing humans know how to do; the battle ends up in the subway, with Graves trying to get Credence on his side, and Newt and Tina trying to help him take control of that power and stop. The magical President comes with all her men and kill the obscurial and Credence together (when she says it, I hear obscurial, when everyone else says it, I hear obscurus...). Graves is angry that they killed him, she orders him to be arrested, he attacks them, Newt stops him with the help of his creatures, Tina takes his wand, and Graves reveals his real face, he’s actually Grindelwald (which explains why we hadn’t seen him until now). He says “do you think you can hold me?” then they take him away. Now the president thinks their community has been exposed and there’s nothing they can do, but Newt frees the huge fantastic bird and gives him the thing used to obliviate, and it takes it to the sky, making it rain upon the whole city (what about people inside houses?). 

Wizards walk around to make things alright again, all the things destroyed , the streets, the buildings, they put everything right again, then it’s time for Jacob to be obliviated too. He understands, and walks willingly under the rain after saying goodbye. They are sad to lose him; and his goodbye to them, his goodbyes with Queenie, are the touching moment of the movie, the only one that actually brought me tears. They were very cute and touching, and the actors good. 

(Can mag-people be obliterate by the rain as well? Why is Queenie using an ‘umbrella’ ? Just to cover her hair from the rain?)

Jacob forgets everything and goes back to work in a factory; Newt purposefully bumps into him to exchange their cases, giving him one filled with the snake-like-creatures’ eggs, very much valuable (pure silver or something?) so he can use them to get a loan, or directly sell them to open his bakery :-)

Newt has to take a ship to England, to take the case out of New York as ordered by the President, but he sort of promises to come back to see her and bring her his book when finished.

Jacob’s bakery is going quite well, and he makes his break and pastries in the creatures’ shapes, not knowing himself where those ideas come from, and Queenie comes in and smiles at him...  :-)

The end :-) 

Well, the law says that he had to be obliterated because there can’t be no-mag witnesses around, but in theory the law also says that mag people can’t be friends with no-mags.... I guess she just doesn’t care, and as long as nobody spies on her... :-)

Newt Scamander-Eddie Redmayne

Graves - Colin Farrell

Tina - Katherine Waterston

Jacob Kowalski - Dan Fogler

Queenie - Alison Sudol

Credence - Ezra Miller

Henry Shaw Sr - Jon Voight

Grindelwald - Johnny Depp

ITA - animali fantastici e dove trovarli

炼爱 love test - 2016

What a terrible movie, really awful. It’s badly written, badly acted, badly shot, it’s really hard to find something good about it, if forced I can only think of the roses and the red dress. The scenes go all over the place, the man is despicable to her most of the time, the woman is either sobbing uncontrollably or sleeping, only after an hour of movie the plot is explained, but it’s still awful. 

We see a man and a woman after their wedding. She’s all happy but he immediately starts treating her badly, insulting her and humiliating her while she sticks to him with adoring attitude repeating that he loves her...  when they finally explains what happened in his past to make him act like that, we learn that:

his older brother was in love with her and asked her to go to his house or he’ll kill himself. She doesn’t love him and has already tried to reject him before, but after hearing that she says she’ll go to talk face to face, but while she’s running there, a car has an accident trying to avoid her who crossed the street running. They don't know each other, but the man is her now-husband. She takes him to the hospital. She tries calling to explain why she’ll be late, but nobody answers. He's already jumped off the roof, so now both his brother and her best friend, in love with the guy, blame her entirely. 

Her husband hates her but also loves her after all, so he keeps a picture of his brother in their bedroom to remind himself, and then asks for a divorce. She wants to explain, but doesn’t tell him because she thinks that knowing he indirectly caused his brother’s death would be too much to bear. 

So she signs the divorce papers and then cuts her wrist. He comes home to get the document, and sees for the first time the gift she had been trying to give him for some time: his watch, the one that got broken when he had that accident, and he was told by the doctor that the girl that was with him had taken it to be repaired (so why did she wait so long before giving it to him? who knows).

He finally understands and goes to her and rushes to the hospital. His brother had been in a coma for like three years, I think, and now wakes up and explains that he had depression, that it wasn’t her fault if he jumped off a building to kill himself... 

... I mean, it's not like it would have been her fault anyway, is it??!?

And just like that, everything’s behind them and they get married again...  

Terrible, really awful. 

Also:

Why is it that the picture of his brother is that of a baby? He didn’t want her to recognise him? Why? 

Most importantly, why in this kind of stories people always revenge without knowing a thing of what happened? I know that when the pain is too much one would do anything rather than face it, and to put blame on someone else is a way as good as any other, but as time passes, they should at least try to find out if they are hating the right person, for the right reason... to dedicate one’s own life to revenge simply because you ‘think’ that things went in a certain way is simply stupid. And evil. A simple ‘sorry, I misunderstood’ can’t be enough.