Just watched this movie and surprisingly it wasn't that bad. Somewhat reminiscent of Splinter and similar stuff only about different deviations.
The main character has a high-paying job, new giant house and an exemplary family with loving wife and an unnaturally quiet little kid (LOL).
All of that is nearly taken away when he becomes subject of sick passion of a temporary replacement co-worker. The gal goes to really great lengths to get him and the personages are surprisingly stupid to not ask for anyone's assistance at first.
Performances are good. The story more or less holds you in place, I was bored only a tiny bit in the middle (while everyone was being stupid). The protagonist is somewhat SharonStone-ish but the wife is tough as well, so you get an extensive girls fight in the finale. With the happy end of course (not for everyone).
What's interesting is how it portrays the delusion which is not so rare to encounter. I had a similar experience, took the
police to get the guy away. Of course he wasn't so inventive and only
broke a couple of bushes in front of my house but I was scared as hell when
he wouldn't leave. Police offered to let him go as the small fine wasn't a big measure but I went for it anyway as it allowed to step up the measures in case he came again (he never did). So this MC was stupid to not report a stalking or
harrassment the first time but I guess it takes a burn to start being
cautious.
Curious how the theme keeps popping up for me - Stalker series, then this movie... and I had to deal with that kind of deviation
twice in the last year. The second time I was already smarter, saw it earlier and cut it harder. They guy still kept calling me for three weeks in series of 5 calls in a row after 1.5 dates despite the blacklist giving him the "busy" signal every time. And that was a quiet one, the first guy called me like 70 times in an hour non-stop!
What can I tell you? If you see any signs of behaviour similar to that gal in this movie (like not reading your "go away" signs and even direct words), remember one thing which is kind of implied but never pronounced in this
movie: NEVER TRY TO REASON WITH THEM! Just cut it off and never speak
another word, do not even repeat the "Go away and never come back" coz they'll still misinterpret it, the
way you can see in here. These are no jokes.
So here, I might even leave it as educational regarding such kind of mental bug.
[IMDB]
Looking what to watch after Intelligence I ran into some site with recommendations and after a few links came upon this wonderful show - Torchwood that blew my mind!
First of all, it is sci-fi, action, team-work, everything I like. But it's also much more than that. I found the series completely unusual in many way, perhaps because it is British, but hey! I've seen Bugs and it was OK yet far from this one. So I will so far assume it is Welsh, not English, as they note many times, and it was originally developed by BBC Cymru/Whales (4th season made by BBC World in USA 2 years after the 3rd one, but that's a separate story).
So, what do we have so unusual here?
Some secondary characters smoke (not the main but nevertheless noticeable).
Main hero (Captain Jack Harkness - in the middle above) - is gay, or, rather bi, but we're shown only the gay part and I must say it was uncomfortable to watch at first but you get used to it, especially with such kind of a charmer.
Main characters die. Counting death is not as straightforward in this show, we are left with 3 of 5 by the end of season 2 and 2 of five at the end of season 3. The American story had to be a bit more conventional and I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing - I'm glad to see them alive but it definitely lost its depth.
It's dramatic. I mean, every episode contains some kind of tragedy for one or more of the main characters for 2 traditional season (1 story per episode). So, feelings and coping take an important part in the story, which is unusual but very enriching for an action show. I mean, you see people with feelings, not just tin figurines with a set of personal "rules".
It's hearty. You get an awful lot of feelings for what one could've expect from a British-made show. I don't know, may be it's English/Welsh thing but the one man from there I ever met in my life was as frozen as the traditional Londoner image. And they change each other with those feelings. Which is the unrealistic but very refreshing part - I mean who gets to show or see so much real feelings expressed in real life nowadays?
It's complicated. You get many questions without right answers - a realistic thing,
something to relate to, to think about: what would you have done in their place? And the most excellent is that some answers are far from what is traditionally considered right (that's the main difference from the most of this market made by Americans where there is always a way to do it right).
Yet it's light. You aren't left with hard feelings after tragedies despite all the tears in the process or perhaps thanks to them. They get through and accept it is they way it is. At least Gwen does it like any other person normally could: rages, grieves, takes actions she believes in or accepts it and emerges enriched like we all should.
It's inspiring. This is not so unique but very rare lately. A certain uniqueness is in combination with "no right answers" or "no making it right" stories. So it inspires you that life goes on despite that. Mainly thanks to Jack Harkness who just doesn't carry any emotional luggage with him (or
he'd sure loose his mind in the centuries he lived). He just gets done what needs to be done and that inspires you to do it. Action taken - no regrets, it's pointless. There might be tears, a few good
words or a punch to get to work, if needed, but he gets them and us
through it. He's their sun and he acts like one professionally, his spirit never fails or gives up.
It's crazy. Not a unique quality either but they bring it on the large scale almost approaching later Farscape, whose fans should appreciate this brilliant reference: No, I really enjoy seeing people doing crazy stuff, unbound by conventional opinion! I mean when thanks to this they get some useful things done, not just to defy common sense :)
It tells about different types of love! That is really something I haven't seen a lot anywhere on screen but here it's like a regular thing to describe. You have silent love, gay love, pleasure sex, love-hate, spiritual love, familial love and none of it really interferes with each other! Kinda really broadens your views on the matter. Well, it's a particular cherry on top for me :)
A weird way I came about the Intelligence series: read some reviews on Extant, which were all as bad as my opinion (pretty dull for the big names in it), and someone reproached CBS for replacing with it a series they didn't name but defined in a way that caught my attention. After some research I concluded they were talking about Intelligence with Josh Holloway.
I must tell you at once I am not of the latter's fans, I didn't even watch LOST, although they guy is close to my type, but not quite it, yet pleasing they eye indeed. However the kind of action series about a super-agent is definitely my type of show, unless the main hero is really ugly which is not the case, as we have established ;).
And the show did not disappoint from the genre point of view, even disregarding some really stupid medical and technical mistakes. (Mind you, I was comparing it to Extant where they persisted to find the fetus under the belly-button).
At least it has the main things I always appreciated in this type of shows besides the obvious mystery chase, dynamic plot and cool fights: the team spirit, dedication and commitment + likeable characters, humour and OK special effects (once again unlike Extant - I am not very picky in this regard and generally their effects were cool but the metal net with LED lights as MRI scanner device is the kind of ridiculous which jerks you out of the fictional world into wondering about makers' imagination).
I mean this is a good classic show (unlike Extant with its unclear ambitions once again). Honestly, I didn't even think they make this kind of shows any more. The world has obviously changed into darker moods and it reflects upon entertainment - it becomes less considerate and more cynical. Even my beloved Continuum, much improved in season 3, lost the charm of utter trust between heroes.
But at least it has action whereas Extant leaves me like WHF is a sci-fi drama? Not a proper drama as the circumstances are far from anyone's real life, nor a proper science fiction focusing on hypothetical futuristic problems usually connected with the present reality as well. Plus while having an adventure premise, it is action-ish only if you count one-two serious events per episode which is ridiculous comparing to the very Intelligence, where each episode hosts a story probably equivalent to the entire season of this overblown shame on the world-famous sci-fi maître.
This said, I won't be sorry to see Extant go, moreover, I would be glad if I only could hope a better series will come in its stead. But the fact that Intelligence didn't get picked up for the next season leaves me pessimistic. Is there really no audience for this good old nice kind of shows with heroes, loyalty, real action and stuff? Or is it just makers' laziness and budget economy, including on writers, trying to feed us what's easier to make with little efforts for big money on famous names and nothing more?
Now onto the brighter things - the Intelligence series itself. I'm going to do some analysis and probably spoilers below.
The light of day has shown that the cat was long since dead judging by the look of his fur.
I couldn't find a friendly hand to help me get him down and as you can see it's pretty high for me to be able to handle this on my own. So I guess it will be city services on Monday. Can't really leave him hanging there, can we? Although people don't even see it but it will start to smell... Not to say I deeply feel for the poor thing having found its end in such a strange way.
First I thought it's asleep but it wasn't moving at all while the tail seemed to be slightly swinging in the wind and for this it has to be completely relaxed which I never saw to actually happen on cats...
If it's dead I wonder how it happened so weirdly: he seems to have his neck stuck between branches but wouldn't he be meowing non-stop for hours or days so someone would notice before starving? And if happened faster, did it freeze overnight when it was cold or could a cat break himself a neck trying to break free?..
Terrible picture anyway, especially if it's dead there on the tree, right in the middle of Odessa, in a pretty crowdy place - Tiraspolska str, right above the end stop of tram 10.
Anyway, I still have some hopes it was just asleep - cats sometimes exercise exquisite balance tricks. Will check on him tomorrow (it's near where I live, one street up the corner).
Yesterday while talking to a friend over the phone I suddenly remembered our movie studio holds a festival of Irish movies - IrishFest - these days and we agreed to go see one today.
32A
As the program stated, it was about young girls obsessed with their growing breasts but it was actually more interesting and kind than that.The brightest moments were with the most powerful music - something with refrain "I'm a woman" in the beginning when the main character wears her bra for the first time, and the other one very funny with western kind of music when a hero walks into a saloon full of enemies, only it was the last girl from the company walking into a shop to buy her first bra. 32A is the size.
I also particularly liked the way the main character overcame her humiliation with first attempt at dating with work in her home and caring about two younger siblings while her mom was in the hospital for a light operation, and it shows how it made her grow up internally.
They got another movie after that which was a comedy and I decided to stay although my friend had to go for a preset appointment.
That was kind of a black comedy but really funny and ending well, I liked it. It also got action so it was pretty energizing.
But the main challenge was lying ahead of me! I saw they're having next a
FRANCOPHONE SHORTIES NIGHT!!!
A real all-nighter of short movies! As I graduated in French and haven't been touching this language for a while, I had to stay!
I have to say that the room wasn't packed at all for any of them but still, strangely, there was more public for the night than for previous shows and they were all very young people, also for some reason all particularly small in size, like a gathering of pixies, but that could be just my perception...
Anyway, there were 35 movies in the program but this day they added another half a dozen or so, therefore the movie night was prolonged from 22:30 to 6am till something like 8am. I can't really say for sure because I left at the end, about 7:40.
I have to say the collection was rather terrible! First of all, ~35 of 42 movies were dealing with death or killing in one way or another!
The African pack was really depressive and we've got enough of our own problems in Ukraine to be really touched by theirs. I mean, this can impress European public comparing to their safe and provided life, but we are struggling for a piece of bread here every day too, a whole nation, thank god we don't have to do this with arms, but still - no, thank you.
And when it didn't deal with socio-political situation, it was still about death in one way or another, really gloomy, and senseless deaths for more, 100% of African pack, except, perhaps, Les princes noirs de Saint-Germain des Prés where it was rather about how the black indulge in France in harmless ways; it was also nice to recognize the suburb where I lived with a friend for a couple of months.
Romanian pack was a wee bit better - not so gloomy, thank god, but also not touching for our public, I believe. They just depicted something so routine, close to our reality, that I think it could probably only touch outsiders, which can explain their prix at festivals, but to me it made no sense whatsoever. I mean, if they were giving some special outlook on those problems or something, may be, but no, it was just pieces from life without start or end.
Canadian, French and Swiss packs were mostly more entertaining although also contained quite a few pieces bordering on horror, based on real events for more! Like that one about a woman who didn't give out a young drug dealer who beat and shot her trying to rob her shot because her son would have been her age if he didn't die. Or the Romanian one where a bunch of kids have beaten and raped two adults, stole their car and left them on the beach, unclear dead or alive. And the other French one about a lady in regression who believed she was 9 such a poor child with a doll, who, as it turned out, killed her whole family setting the house on fire while hiding in the fridge where her parents kept her in childhood - away from harming others. That kind of things! Not very pleasant at all.
But I want to talk about the few good pieces I liked.
One theme was repeated even two times - about how one person can take the place of the other and nobody notices. One at the end was La délogeuse where it's rather a particular case and in first place makes think about how little happiness there is and how little attention there is in a conventional marriage. But the first one really took it to the global level, so as everyone should think about themselves or how they feel - as if they're leaving someone else's life, not their own! The name is Dans leur peau.
I did like a couple of shorts about death. Toute ma vie in five minutes turns your way of looking at death in more ways than one. I did not remember the name of the other one, unfortunately, but it was an animation about a woman trying to deal with the death of her beloved husband, how she despaired, went to the cemetery, even tried to kill herself, feeling him around (or rather a memory of him) but the wind didn't let her jump off the cliff, so she rolled and then she went mad and she danced and then the sun rose and she was free.
The one that really touched the audience for laugh and interaction was a Belgian animation Dji vou veu volti. Those were the only lyrics in a song that a funny lover-guy was singing to a princess. It contained the ridiculousness of how sometimes we try to mean too much by those only words and then how many stupid things we can hide behind the love, and it ended badly (death again) but somehow inspiring because the song lived on. And when they started to point out the syllables of those lyrics with a dancing dot like a karaoke, in the corner of the end titles, the public did start to sing!
But my absolute winner, the only real and uncontestable chef-d'oeuvre of that whole hight was Next Floor by Denis Villeneuve from Canada. It's about consumer society. Very laconic, bright, meaningful and cutting-edge, performed really brilliantly like a samurai's stroke! I'm really upset I can't find it anywhere to share with friends but here's a preview trailer:
During that time I had to eat two times at the local cafe, drank 5 cups of coffee-tea, a glass of bier and a bottle of water. I also had to stretch my legs once every couple of hours too.
By 7:20 everyone who still stayed was really tired and asked to let us go after a more or less mood-leveling Swiss pack, but they started to show on top some Armenian animations based on their famous painters. I sat through the first antiutopian one out of sheer stubborness coz I knew the program had to be nearing the end, but when the next one started about a concentration camp, I just said enough and left.
And it was a beautiful walk by empty Sunday early morning streets under the warming sun which shone just enough for me to get home ;)
I can't say those movies were worth all that time, but I had other useful things to occupy myself with, like: trying to keep my body relaxed (to avoid pains and falling asleep), watching people and their masks, distancing myself internally from the movies I'm watching, keeping a certain inner state of my own permanently in background of it all - pretty busy, as you see A pleasant discovery certainly was that I now feel absolutely OK on my own in public. Nice!
OK, it's late and I'm pretty off myself from a home works busy day but I have to spill this out, just so I don't blow
So we've got a few new pictures of the Flan signing today by Titine062:
and a few of lovely photos with fans - done a lot of good hugging it seems
Last two look almost like twins, aren't they?
Plus this And that:
The report was relayed via #CMJF hash-tag, so one more you can read it directly. Twitter doesn't serve anything older than 48 hours it seems. So here's the feed I took from FlanInfo as it seemed easier to edit and contained all the main stuff thanks to his retweets (all pictures already above):
Answer about Joe opinion on #SGU at #Collectomania RT @gairwyn: http://tl.gd/1j21fc @FlanInfo That was halfway through the convo but he asked me whether we got it in the UK and if I liked it. I'm not a fan of SGU yet but I was trying to be polite b/c it's part of the franchise and I'm giving it a go. He looked up at me, frowned and I don't know how to describe it...but yeah, he sounded a wee bit indignant. I suppose it's b/c SGA and SGU are that different. I don't know, I think you had to be there to get the effect b/c it's hard to describe his expression and tone now! Sorry! Thanks for sharing!about 5 hours ago via TweetDeck
RT @gairwyn: ... Joe Flanigan doesn't like SGU. It made me laugh when he told me y/day - the way he said it! // How he said it? Share pls!about 5 hours ago via TweetDeck
Joe's a sweetheart! RT @ukaduka: he was lovely :) he said bye to me and my mate when he was leaving! [tho] we hadn't said anything to him!<3about 8 hours ago via TweetDeck
FlanInfo RT @karenford1: actually he can't stand puppets,, he made a comment about the asguard that creeped him out // Thx4remind! Coulrophobia it is about 14 hours ago via TweetDeck
And finally, a very informative report from Friday when nobody expected to see the Flan at Collectomania by oparu I'll quote just in case, because this one is an info treasure!
Joe Flanigan, thespian and feminist
So, it's Friday and kind of dead at the con. People are selling things but none of the actors are really here. Except Joe Flanigan. Who is QUEUELESS. So I pay and I get to walk right up to him. He does a fake British accent, gloriously badly. We talk Minnesota briefly because he wil be there next week.
He talks a bit about the show. They have pictures of him and that girl from s5 that wasn't Torri. I tell him I just got to see Torri's play. He goes into this great and lovely tangent about how Torri is prettier in person. On camera she's hot, but in person? She's just sexy. (this is awesome).
Then he goes into a whole thing about how evil the producers were. Joe loves the cast, but wow was he snarky about the producers. Many people, starting with Torri were fucked on the show according to Joe.
Who is awesome. Really really gorgeous. Thinner than I expected, rantier too. He really does have skinny little legs, and they're great.
He thinks female actresses are just screwed. They get used for their looks and even though they get better with age, they don't lead movies. Only Meryl Streep does. And he just thinks it's unfair. Wow. Good for him!! He seems like a powerful, together very business savvy man who knows the game he's in. Great presence. Really distracting eyes. ;). Also the hair.
He went on for a good half an hour and kissed my cheek for being such a good listener. I uh wow. Gah! Really cool guy.
Wow, what a day! And I'm done for now. May be for a long time or for good - need to get my mother's apartment ready for renting out and this seems quite a job in itself!
.jpg)
A pleasant discovery certainly was that I now feel absolutely OK on my own in public. Nice!
![[info]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_u8eurLaEf3elakiPDm-oCe7qbQ_nRzA7g_Cvz89nCXPX9JdF4suh9QK-l8i6mS_m3BVd3ZuPZkjrB_Ipm44u1bQFY7Jaw9A_6-wlCNplVC=s0-d){kind=small}