Seen on the silver screen: You didn't see that coming. Or did you?

I've got this file saved for a while and forgotten to publish. And the next part is almost ready. Ups...

I love the cinemas. Not a big suprise, but these dark rooms, where nothing distracts you and screen just sucks you right into another world and for few hours you live different life: plot evil plans, make billions of dollars, save the day, breathe the court manners, treat presentce of magic as obvious thing... it's addictive for me.
Watching movies at home doesn't come anywhere near that experience. There are always those intrusive thoughts like "Hey! If I put laundry in the washing machine now, maybe I'll be able to wear that Loki t-shirt tomorrow!" or "I really should be productive/studing/socializing/cleaning/doing something with my life" and whole atmosphere is gone. But cinema, oh cinema! it is a temple of film, place designed to watch, appreciate and live the film. And I honestly don't mind going there alone. Only bad productions require good company to survive and quite possibly even przemienic traumatic przezycie into an entertaining one. So, yeah, I go to cinema a lot and mostly wish I was able to see every single feature, but since I do have something poorly resembling life (and a cold) this is what I managed to catch last week:

Child 44 was supposed to be a critic against soviet system - russia banned the film as historicaly unaccurate and in my country it's known under the title "System". Except something went wrong and that political system is ironically similar to a gigantic  American corrporation in certain type of thrillers.

We get a story of a rightous man with astonishing  moral clearity and good life, who because of a vicious colleague is on the horns of a dilemma of losing everything or sacrificing his beloved wife. Having nothing left they decide to commit themselves to solve a case of children murdering, become country's most wanted and occasionally fight, so that something was happening. The system is represented by an evil guy, everybody trying to save their assed (writing reports to look better rather than be accurate is quite common action) and somebody sometimes commenting on harshness of conditions of a situation - to be clear, folks and even men with good social position should be tremendously afraid of speaking their mind and the film does not show it at all. Quite the opposite. Not to mention, that the idea of a child raised in pro-Soviet surroundings, an active security officer having almost crystally clean conscience, however with purpose of making the character likeable, is simply ridiculous and makes whole hard to be taken seriously.

 The realtionship between Raisa and Leo may be the most interesting part of the story. Motif of a hero who's in love with his wife, and yet her being with him only because she didn't have another choice is quite unusual. Shame Noomi Repace's acting wasn't nowhere close to dazzling

The other pointless thing is speaking with Russian accent. Speaking English with Russian accent. I've never understood this manner and instead of enhance the feeling that the film is set in Russia and concerns its citizens, it slows down the dynamic of expression and the whole action (dragging every word takes some time) and may give an impression that some characters are sluggish, because, let's face it, no common Russian would such clearly accent every word, especially not in a great distress.

I expected more from this production, and yet the only satisfying thing is Tom Hardy.

Bathsheba even her free time spends like a land owner should

Far from the Madding Crowd - BBC's period drama is something I have need to watch from time to time. For the beautiful pictures and dresses. This one, based on Thomas Hardy's novel, is about a woman who above anything else wanted to be independent in times it wasn't so easy (here: Victorian England) and three completely different man who declared their wish to marry her. Three kinds of love: young - full of passion and desire, loyal - based on trust and understanding, blind - coming from an elder man who could ensure her wellbeing. Charming little thing, great as a pause after stressful week.

We all know that even such mass of cyborgs isn't a threat for the Avengers

Avengers: The Age of Ultron (SPOILERS!)
So, I admit I had a great time during the screening, but then I came back come and read a few negative opinions and with broken heart agreed with most of them:
- Yes, they ignored a massive part of threads from previous productions and made this one like between the first Avengers movie there was nothing. Sadly also including not small character development of Tony Stark. And big come back of S.H.I.E.L.D. after what they've left us with in Winter Soldier is, to say the leas,t confusing,
- Yes, some jokes and punchlines were not funny and felt enforced,
- Yes, it was humongously pompous, although I think I got used to it and don't mind it anymore,
- Yes, it felt like too much, when they tried to satisfy fans of any superhero that already appeared in the universe, introduce new ones, add a love affair AND remind that Ragnarok and Civil War are coming, no wonder there was not much time to properly write the Twins and their motives
- Yes, Ultron didn't get a chance to become truly evil, there wasn't one second we would feel he's a real threat to humanity . Nothing about him made him stuck in my mind, just another metal villain trying to destroy the Earth
- Yes, there was no on-screen chemistry between Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo. I dont't have vision of a particular partner for Black Widow, but in the Marvel cinematic universe this ship must sink down,
- And yes, the possibility of interpreting Natasha's words as if the ability to have children was woman's main value shouldn't have place. For me she meant that she's a monster, because of what's been done to her in order to make her a flawless assasin, taking away possibility of barring a child as one of the actions to restrain her from getting any other part of life, any happiness.
Well, to my internal conflict there is only one cure: MCU marathon including Avengers 2. I'll let you know what I think afterwards.


PS Galavant got the second season, what makes me happy. CW is releasing a new musical tv series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but somehow I doubt I'll whatch more than two episodes. What can I say? I am a fantasy girl

Political correctness - censorship or treating people with respect?

Today for something more serious, I present my opinion of political correctness (I know: ouch!).

People tend to use term ”political correctness” so often, it starts to lose its inital meaning and becomes an oncoming, alarming danger to known order and our freedom of expression. Is it our real enemy or are we just afraid of changes?

Maybe it would be useful to explain what political correctness actually means: it i san attitude when we use such language that will not offend the person we talk to. So we have changed a bit the way we speak about people of colour and with various disabilities, and some have impression there is pressure on them to produce sentences that won’t offend absolutely anyone and that there freedom of speech has been violeted, because it is very hard – in many situations nearly impossible – to please everybody with our choice of words, mostly because everybody’s preferences are different. Neil Gaiman proposed that we changed the term ”political correctness” to ”treating people with respect”, which substantially should be the very purpose of existing and promoting the idea of political correctness. This interpretation is much easier for me to apply as a way of thinking. Everybody deserves respect, but that does not mean that their opinions or actions cannot be criticized.

There are three very common motives , compulsorily present in all movie blockbusters, so I am sure you noticed tchem as well:

1. strong woman – pretty and in love with the leading white male character
2. homosexual/trasexual best friend (often blended with funny black guy)
3. that funny black guy/sarcastic bitch

These patterns are so popular, they became stereotypical and watching how many film producers use tchem is frankly frightening.

In this industry appears an universal fear of rage of the most noticeable activist groups. It is understandable nobody wants to be proclaimed as a chauvinist, but it doesn’t justify taking the easy way out and mass producing schematical characters instead of taking the effort of actually writing them as interesting and differentiated human beings.

I came across two main attitudes towards political correctness, but the negative reception seems to significantly dominate. The term makes people imagine that certain manner of filmming is enforeced and therefore creators’ freedom is limited. In fact, many may be afraid to touch controversial topics, but it is – and always has been – matter of the courage of filmmakers and their ability to capably present a sensitive subject. It is worth remembering that somebody always will feel offended – it’s unavoidable, but shouldn’t affect efforts to bring out the picture possibly closest to reality or to bold some meanigful aspects, though it may not be compatible with point of view of many.

The good thing that comes from the phenomen of political correctness is that it develops the feeling in both, creators and audiences, that deversity should be present in productions. That it is important everybody would feel represented in a fictional universum and that choosing a multicultural location as a background for a stroy commit to involve characters of many origins, not only white.

An example of a character, who may be considered as the added to the plot just to fulfill current expectations put on by political correctness is Tauriel form The hobbit trilogy. It is simply impersmissable that the year’s biggest feature does not involve any female (Galadriel appearence was barely episodical, so it’s hard to call her a protagonist of The Hobbit) and in the same time, her character doesn’t bring anything new to representation of women in the cinematography (nor LOTR universum as a matter of fact). But queries like if a black Bond or female Doctor is acceptable have nothing to do with political correctness, just the readiness of fans to walk out on what they are used to, as the characters are completely fictional (and in addition, one is an alien). Different case is Exodus: Gods and Kings telling story of Moses set in ancient Egypt (let’s say it very clearly: pure, ancient Egypt , located in Africa), however all actors playing leading roles and most of the cast are white, which is unthinkable considering that America does not lack actors of the suitable origin and proper casting wouldn’t be a problem. I cannot imagine that somebody thought of Moses and saw Christiane Bale. How??

So, political correctness may be vexing to many, but it shows an important message: racism is not cool and we must fight. Maybe soon we realise that less than censorship it may be more a treatment to show a world closer to the reality and put an end to the exclusion of few in the cinema, and that nothing is black or white, which make life so confusing and movies so needed.

PS In the case of James Bond it's not the matter of black guy playing the famous agent, it is about Idris Elba playing the role for which he perfectly suits - he is a born 007: his manners, looks, class, charm and self confidence. So just finish tallking and let his destiny be fulfilled.

Blame Marvel and sell your soul to the Devil

Do you know that feeling of frustration and being torn inside when you REALLY should be doing supermegaimportant thing due for yesterday, but eating dinner you think that one episode of series you were quite looking for (can Marvel still do something fresh? will Charlie Cox prove himself as a superhero type?) won't hurt and you couldn't be more wrong? Yeah, putting aside watching Daredevil for two days was a torture and if I've just messed up my future I will blame Marvel forever.

I love these glasses. And Charlie. And Matt. And Daredevil. And the show in general.

In recent era of renaissance of comics' adaptations it may seem like we had everything. Retro righteous heroes, genius billionaires, numerous mutants, a quarrel in family of gods, spaceships, dance-offs, epic superhero unions, a slow realisation of  gigantic project of connecting all recent production and creating a coherent universe (DC is trying to keep up, but for now they don't sound even half these impressive), prolific outbreak of tv series which so far failed to share the success of cinema blockbusters and I really can see why. And here comes Daredevil - at the first look we get a blind lawyer(!), who enormously developed his senses and decided to use all of his skills (including the educated lawyer part) to make his neighbourhood a better place and  soon appears that Hell's Kitchen is filled up with more shadows than Gotham, villain completely different than we normally observe (plus we get a look into other angle of his live aside from "doing evil stuff, so we know who's the bad one here"), number of various, good-written characters of differentiated personalities and nationalities (I simply have a weak spot for shows, which contain a dash of foreign languages), hero's agenda that can be watched without yawing, maybe thanks to splitting it into bits and slowly introducing viewers to the past events, an eye-pleasing but not farcical fighting style.

Props for shooting fight scenes in which beating looks dirty and wearing for both of the sides. The biggest advantage of this show for me is how natural the characters seem to be - for the first time I don't perceive comic-based personages as unrealistic. It's a merit of great dialogues and script in general.

Even hero sometimes needs help. When Murdock gets hurt very badly there's somebody to patch him up.

It turns out that while for 2h long screening light, funny and glamorous style works very well, tv series with continues episodes has to develop much deeper insight and consistent characters and adding some darkness without throwing humour out completely. This darker side aspect is probably why Arrow, Flash and Gotham prospected better than Marvel tv series. Well, at least until now, because Daredevil goes into darkness much further - we see scenes containing a high dose of brutality, sometimes so high it makes turn my gaze away from screen. The effect is toughen by the choice of scenery, a lot of action is going on in dark, nasty and narrow streets and corridors and you actually feel how rotten Hell's Kitchen is.

Did I mention how great are the relationships in this show?

I can say that this is what I was waiting for, what I expected from all these productions before and what I had to put on hold for over 40 hours.


Edit: My laptop objects to publish posts. The war is on.
         In the meantime Daredevil's season two has been announced. Yay!

         And if you missed, there's also a trailer of Ant-Man. After success of Daredevil and serious attack of laughter after watching the trailer I am waiting for this movie much more excited.

Galavant! Let's juggle the conventions, sing, fight and love!

If I had to point out the worst enemy of my productivity, that would be stress and, believe me, in last few weeks I've been through enough drama material to make a proper movie, but now spring is coming, toxic people are cut off, I have roof above my head, not to mention a decent Wi-Fi signal. With bright look into future, let me tell you about tv series so positive, that the wind seems to howl cheerful tunes through the window.

Behold one of a kind - Galavant!

Gaaalaavaaaaant!

Series follows the journey of a knight errant and his companions cut into half-hour episodes filled with motives from fairy tales and original musical numbers. At beginning we're introduced with Galavant – a hero of his times, he's handsome (square jaw and perfect hair! cojones out to there*), strong, tough plus any other manly value, and madly in love with beautiful Madalena, who turns out to be a material girl and abducted by evil king, instead of eternal love chooses welfare and power and becomes an actual black character of the story. Galavant with broken heart loses his will to live, abandon hero life style and rot in bed with a pitcher of vine, then on his doorstep appear a princess in distress asking for help, trying to convince him that Madalena still loves him and needs to be rescued, which is a part of a trap for the hero prepared by the king. Nonetheless still being naively in love Galavant take his squire and head out with the princess for their adventure.

Timothy Osmond is faultless, his King Richard is absolutely brilliant - cruel, sissy and a comical master.

Honestly I haven't had this much fun watching anything since a loooong time. It's hilarious, it's brilliant, it's got musical numbers that aren't show stoppers, but carry on the plot, it's laughing at fairy tales schemes, but still is a fairy tale itself, although from time to time there are mentioned real conditions of living in the Middle Ages, they are presented in humorous, a bit Monty Python alike, way. The characters are wonderful, so expressive and replete, that you suddenly find yourself liking them. Well, it's helpful that they all have the screen (and often a song or two) for themselves at least for few minutes, so you get to know them and your heart is stolen not only by the main trio, as well as the evil king, but also his mousy cook, the heartless henchman and many more.

We get a princess worrior AND a female antagonist. How great is that?

The songs are catchy (at lease two days after every release, I'm wandering around room humming the tunes), funny and really well sang. The huge plus of production is that the main cast is composed from actors with musical career, so apart from their good looks, they have very pleasant voices. It has to be mentioned that in charge of composing the music was Alan Menken, who is known for music from Beauty and The Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Tangled, and words are written by Glenn Sleter who's credit for lyrics to most of the songs from Tangled - except here he could allow himself to make jokes that wouldn't suit Disney movies, what only did good for the Galavant.

Back to the casting, although most of the leading roles are played by unknown faces (unless you have better face recognition than me (gosh, I suck at it!) and connected Sid or rather Luke Youngblood with Lee from Harry Potter movies), as the story goes among the others we can spot Hugh Bonneville, Ricky Gervais or Anthony Head. A bit like Easter egg hunt. And there's also the king with his court who cannot be overlooked – Timothy Omundson himself! Last time I saw him playing Cain in Supernatural, quite change of air. On his side Vinnie Jones (shame on me, but I mostly recall him as this face in the background of every production) and Darren Evans (My Mad Fat Dairy).

Because of low tv audience Galavant's season 2 fate is endangered (seems to have more fans in the internet, maybe somebody will look in their direction and kindly notice us). And the first one finishes with cliffhanger, so feel warned!

*They got me. It's catchy. And you won't hear lyrics like these in a ordinary Disney movie.

Farewell, Mr Spock

Leonard Nimoy was present in my life since... well, probably since ever. Although in my environment Star Wars were far more popular than Star Trek, I remember Spock looking at me from tv screen and shop windows in times of my earliest childhood. Back then he was just a weird-looking man, who knew how much important for me he will grow to be?

I didn't grow up surrounded by geek culture, but then the era of internet came and turned my life upside down, and in the first row of the storm was standing Mr Spock, making me curious about space, time travel, aliens and simply other cultures, pushing me to think that the way our minds work, the way we were brought up, the way we react can be so completely different and hard, if not impossible to understand, and yet, giving hope, that nevertheless we can live together, ha! even be friends to each other. 

It is impossible to speak about Leonard Nimoy without thinking about the Volcan, he deserves all credit for creating character so original and real. He didn't just play Spock, he was Spock and still is. No other actor seemed believable in role of Volcan, no wonder Nimoy conquered hearts of fans, along with Star Trek creating one of the most important fanbases in the history with full offer of fanarts, fanfictions, ships and conventions, being a cradle for the ones existing nowadays. Adding that Leonard Nimoy never dissociated himself from the role and mass of fans, although he played in numerous other significant productions (Bonanza, Mission: Impossible, voice of Galavatron, then Prime in Transformers, Fringe, The Simpsons and many other smaller or bigger tv series, plus he directed 3 Men and a Baby, Star Trek III and my beloved, completely wacky Star Trek IV)

and always is mentions as a decent and charismatic man, no one can be surprised that he became a favourite of the internet, and a honorary grandfather to many.

I have to admit, that watching people paying tribute to Leonard Nimoy, to see how many had he touched, makes me feel warm inside. My younger sister makes Vulcan salute instead waving her hand for goodbye and I know that the legacy will be continued and he will be remembered.

Thank you Mr Nimoy. For everything, thank you.

Men in kilts - what more could I want? - Outlander review

Outside the wind is howling, the cold is more and more bitter – nothing better than just wrap yourself in blanket with a cup of hot tea in hand. Just in one of this evenings I came across "Outlander", and it fitted in the moment just perfectly.

 

Promo photo of series. Exceedingly accurate, posters like that don't happen too often.

Don't expect sudden rush of adrenaline - although series do not lack the action, the story course is awfully predictable, add absolutely stunning Scottish sceneries, beautiful music and men in kilts, and you cannot call it dire.

 

A classy couple retaking their honeymoon trip. Wouldn't mind one myself.

It's a story of Claire, who in 1945 goes on the second honeymoon with her long unseen husband Frank to Scotland, land that appears to still be filled with ancient magic and soon the heroine is sent 200 years in past by a pagan sacred stone henge. Undoubtedly life prepared her for such travel: with the experience of combat nurse she could instantly proceed to patch up young, brave and handsome Scotsman; with knowledge of herbalism she could build up her reputation and usefulness in Castle Leoch; and thanks to husband's stories she could set times and reality in which she has found herself, better understand thinking of people she met and adapt herself to the customs of that time.

 

Scotland has a cold weather. Requiers wearing layers, a lot of beautiful layers.

So we begin with beautiful woman torn between young warrior and experienced intellectual, and main antagonist, who happens to be Frank's direct ancestor, man without a whit of conscience. Cliché. And yet it is promoted as Game of Thrones for women. Apart from my personal dislike from such comparisons (it is enough that on cover of every fantasy book we get quote about author continuing Tolkien's legacy) and an overtone that GOT isn't feminine enough, so women need an own version to fully enjoy themselves, it certainly raises standards very high and, unfortunately, Outlander doesn't reach it. I won't argue with its female-oriented target – it is obviously clear: the story is presented from heroine's view and we get to see numerous naked torsos. But the quality of plot and characters complexity is significantly poorer.

 

Scots riding horses. I don't mind.

To put it bluntly some things just don't make any sense. For example, Jaime's personality – he combines so many qualities of ideal man, that they exclude each other. He is a gallant knight in kilt, man with a painful past, once a fighter, than a kicked puppy, cheerful, smooth tongued and attractive, but shy and inexperienced when it comes to sex boy (although, let me tell you, he is a very quick learner).

 

More horses.

Another issue is female representation. Claire is supposed to be a strong woman, what is mostly showed by arguing or showing disapproval about everything, however nobody takes her opinion under consideration and she is tugged like a supine sack of potatoes. 

 

I love almost every piece of clothing Claire puts on! Plus Caitriona Balfe is a model, so everything looks good on her.

I vented my venom, now let's move to pleasant things, because there truly is so much to love. Above all the series is very refined aesthetically. The pictures are beautiful, Scotland is ravishing, costumes and interior décor are amazing – I would steal Claire's wardrobe, music is filled with magic and acting second plan is absolutely brilliant. Special recognition deserves Tobias Menzies for roles of tender Frank and cruel Jonathan Randall known also as Black Jack, but bunch of Scots under lead of Graham McTavish is doing great job as well (and they all have beards! Yes, I'm a fan).

 

One of frames that keep women in front of screens for hours.

To sum up, it is a watchable (very watchable) and a perfect match for moment of relax. It is a decent, unambitious series, releasing woman's imagination (the stereotypical one, so you can easily predict what will happen next, yet you enjoy watching you) and as such it should be treated.

PS "Outlander" is a novel-based production, however as I haven't read Diana Gabaldon's saga I obviously cannot grade its value as an adaptation.

PS 2 As much as I enjoyed watching first season, I don't think I'll decide to resume for second one (thank you spoilers!) in fear the screenwriters will stick to the events from book, which would be... distasteful lightly speaking.

New Year, New Blog. Late as usual.

Hey!

You wouldn't believe how excited and nervous I am about starting blogging, but it's time to ignore my fears and share my opinions. There is so many better blogs about movies and tv series (what makes me appreaciate you, my dear Reader, very much), and knowing that makes me feel even more under pressure, but how could I ever discover if it is thing for me without trying at least once? Maybe there will come the day when I match them. Still, I am very sorry, if it turns up to be an incomprehensible bunkum, and also for my english, but I can promise you, it's only going to improve.

Comments, notices and different opinions are most welcome as long as they don't insult anybody. I'd really enjoy some discussion, because I can talk hours and hours about the matters I'll be bringing up, so don't hesitate to speak to me, and absolutely don't be scared! It's me who has shaky hands every time I click "publish", enough for both of us.

Well, shall we begin?