When last night a leak from Canadian fans of Thrones came through that they've got to see the episode early and there was no epilogue of book 3 in it, I thought to myself, well, that's it then. For the first time I didn't stay up all night to watch the episode. Maybe it's because I had the whole day to process the unbelievable decision of not ending the season with the best possible cliffhanger before I saw the episode, but to me it seems that The Children, as much as it is a slap across the face for us book readers at times, is one fine episode of the show.

But then again with the lack of that epilogue and somehow rushed big scene of Tyrion the glory, the 'holy shit', the 'oh, that was awesome' talk is reserved for the sequence which I feared won't get the love it deserves after it wasn't featured in episode 9 ending. For the sequence I have waited months for. For the sequence that finally makes people say 'Ok, Stannis is awesome'.
Another thing is that there is one thing in this whole God forsaken world that tames my anger.

And it's scruffy Stephen Dillane being badass and saving the day.

But before we get to that - the episode opens where the last one ended. Jon Snow is going on his big Ninja/James Bond let's assassinate Mance adventure. He walks into woods in some pretty awesomely shot sequence and he is captured by the wildlings. He tells Mance he wants to negotiate.
They go into the tent and talk a little, they also raise a toast to dearly departed Ygritte. Mance tells Jon he knows how weak the forces on the Wall are and that he will attack them again. Suddenly the trumpets are heard outside and my heart is about to fly from my chest.

Jon and Mance go outside. Nobody knows what the fuck is happening. We see amazing aerial shots and close shots of a massive army of riders approaching, that were easily more epic than this whole damn battle episode last week. That was the most epic thing I've seen on Thrones to date. The riders carry banners..banners of a stag and burning heart...
The army crashes into wildlings from two sides in an awesome aerial shot again, as the camera spins around confused Jon. The riders cut through wildlings and suddenly out of the smoke, as the music reaches the climax and - as I have reached mine - it is Stannis who emerges. Not just Stannis. Stannis on a horse. Stannis in an armor.Stannis with an almighty scruff going on.

Oh I prayed night and day for you to return, my King!
That was the sequence I was so pissed off about for not being featured in last episode. Especially that it was an opening to this one - it seems to me this could have easily been placed in last episode as a triumphant ending for Stannis at last.

I'm also stunned people didn't see it coming. I'm so glad. The element of surprise is huge here - I would have liked we got an explanation scene about what happened and what was his decision making process with Stannis famous, awesome and unintentionally hilarious 'If it wasn't for my Hand I might have not come at all' line, but there is still time for that next season, I guess.
Anyways, Stannis, who hauled ass to the Wall so bad to rescue the realm from the wildling foe (which earns him a name 'The King who still cared" in the books) and didn't even have the time to shave (inhuman fangirl noises) arrives looking like a freaking GQ model with Davos on one side and massive army on another - though it's still need to be pointed out that it's less than 100,000 men which wildlings had - he simply beat them because HE IS SO GOOD and his men fight fiercely for him. And so the Dragonstone and Wall storylines are merged.

Stannis and Davos get off their horses - in, I kid you not, synchronized move, and begin approaching Jon and Mance. Some random dude runs towards Stannis to hurt him but Stannis' rider just kills him. Stannis keeps walking unmoved and unimpressed. Oh, how I love you.
Davos introduces Stannis and Mance tells him that this isn't his land and he is underdressed for the weather. Can you believe he actually suggested Stannis should have more clothes on?

Stannis the Mannis asks Mance if he is the leader of wildlings and basically insists he kneels as he should surrender. Mance refuses. Stannis says he is not here to slaughter beaten dogs (I giggled like a lunatic while crying with joy, it's been 5 goddamn weeks since I saw him). Then attention goes to Jon, while Harington gets mad props from me for, you know, not exploding from being in his presence.

When asked what's the man of the Night's Watch is doing there Jon explains he came to negotiate. Davos throws his usual 'this is Stannis Baratheon the king' line and Jon says he knows who he is. He tells him he is Jon Snow, Ned Stark's son. He tells Stannis that his father died for him.
Stannis' eyes flicker and he tells Jon that his father was an honorable man. He asks Jon what would his father do with Mance and Jon says his father would show mercy and imprison him. Stannis agrees. Jon also tells Stannis to burn the dead.

And so one my favorite things in the books - Stannis and Jon bitchfest on the wall begins. Even if Stannis didn't kill anything in this scene and there was no chant (in the book Stannis' men chant his name), man did I love it. My number one scene in the show right now. Did you see how happy my King was? That he has his sass and confidence back on? Oh, yeeees.
Meanwhile, in King's Landing Pycelle and Qyburn argue how to treat The Mountain who has been poisoned, as Oberyn's spear was dipped in one, ensuring that even if Oberyn lost Mountain goes down too.

Pycelle leaves as Qyburn stats suggestion some weird ass stuff but Cersei stays. Qyburn suggests he is gonna do some controversial things but Cersei is game for that, sensing this dude is a psycho so she is finally getting a new best friend. Qyburn will do something that will make Mountain not only alive but also stronger. And so the set up for his gross experiments in season 5 is completed.
In the next scene which was a first major WTF of the episode for us book readers Cersei is talking to Tywin telling him that she will not marry ser Loras and she will not leave Tommen all by himself so that Margaery could have him. In a moment that never happened in the books Cersei tells Tywin that she has been sleeping with Jaime and Tywin goes to his happy place so that he wouldn't hear it.

Then in yet another risky and somewhat blasphemous scene Cersei goes to Jaime and seduces him. And Jaime, who at this point is supposed to be an honorable guy basically throws the White Book off the table and bangs her on that table. I don't what's going on and I don't want to know. But Lena Headey was fantastic.
In Meereen, Dany is having some more chats with her people. A man comes over telling her it was better for him when he was a a slave.Dany allows him to write a contract with his master and Barristan warns her it's a dangerous precedent. Another man comes over and reveals to her that Drogon killed his child - he unveils a cloth and there it is, human skeleton.

Daenerys is devastated. Apparently Drogon fled (correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't he part of that scene in the books and that's when he escaped?). Daenerys decides to lead her other two dragons to the catacombs. As they eat, in a wonderful change from the book where it was random Unsullied who did the deed, Daenerys herself puts chains on her children.
She turns and starts walking away as they roar in fear and heartbreak. That was a truly moving and saddening scene. I felt a I was watching some cute puppies being abandoned. I know I was complaining about Emilia Clarke a lot this year, and rightfully so, but this was really great acting from her. She conveyed a horrible heartbreak she felt, her, the Breaker of Chains, over imprisoning her own children.

Ramin Djawadi's wonderful track Breaker of Chains accompanied the scene and it was really powerful. I'm glad the show didn't try to stick to the pattern of having Dany's scenes near the end of the finale, though given what our final scene was this year this wouldn't be so bad.
At the Wall a funeral is held for those who have fallen. Stannis is there, posing for magazines watching respectfully and glancing at his wife Selyse and adorable daughter Shireen who came with him to the Wall. Prayer circle for another awkward family dinner next season this time involving Jon. And Sam. And Stannis annihilating them with his eyes declaring that meat is, yet again, off.

Maester Targaryen delivers a lovely speech about Wallers who died protecting the realm and people who will not even know their names. Jon sets the fire to the dead and we see that Melisandre is staring at him, clearly having found another one she likes to ride to salvation.
Jon visits Tormund who is now a prisoner. We find out Stannis ordered everyone to get help with the wounds and injuries, even the wildlings. Tormund tells Jon to bury Ygritte in the real North.

In a beautiful scene Jon does just that. We see a gorgeous shot of Ygritte's body and Jon throwing a torch on the pyre and walking away with tears in his eyes. Again, let me just say - Kit Harington was truly wonderful this whole season.
Now to the part of the episode where 1. thought I dropped acid 2. thought I'm actually hallucinating because my brain overheated when I saw Stannis, we arrive to Bran's storyline. Bran, Hodor, Summer, Meera and Jojen reach the mysterious tree we saw in Bran's vision. Suddenly, and I'm serious here, Pirates of the Caribbean looking skeletons rise from the snow and attack them.

I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I think in the books the characters are attacked by wights, like the ones in the very first scene of the series but what was happening here was just...madness.
Bran warges Hodor and he fights them off while Meera is really badass trying to fight them off sick Jojen. Summer wrecks havoc too. Unfortunately one of them stabs Jojen. Now this was a real WTF moment as Jojen may or may not be dead in the books and what was done (or not) to him in the books is very disturbing so it seems like an opportunity wasted at killing cute Love Actually kid like that.

Anyways, The Children of he Forest appear. It's a different species, kinda like humans but not really like them. They were described as smaller than men with nut-brown skin, dappled like a deer's with paler spots. They had large ears that could hear things that no man could hear.They usually had large eyes, great golden cat's eyes. They have vertical, slit-like pupils;. A few had green or red eyes; these had the gift of greensight and were known as greenseers.Their hands had only three fingers and a thumb, with sharp black claws instead of nails.
So imagine my surprise when they showed up, actually sorry, just one showed up and it's basically a regular child. But it gets worse. Leaf, as this is what this child is called leads them into a cave. And then Bran finally meets the dude who followed him around in the form of three-eyed raven - Bloodraven.

They hyped Bloodraven and Children of the Forest so much and man, was that underwhelming. A pale child and an old dude who looks like he was climbing the tree and got stuck in that. Anyways, there will be more visions in Bran's future. Raven tells Bran that he will never be able to walk...but he will fly.
Then it turns out the Hound and Arya just left the Gate of the Eyrie after finding out Lysa is dead. Brienne and Podrick run into Arya. Brienne and Arya have a short nice scene together where they talk about swords and their fathers teaching them how to fight. The Hound shows up and Podrick recognizes him.

Brienne tells Arya that she pledged to her mother she will keep her safe. She asks her to go with her. The Hound sees Brienne's sword and tthinks she is paid off by Lannisters. A crazy fight scene between Brienne and The Hound occurs.
That is something that never happened in the books. Brienne is truly invincible isn't she? There is no one who can beat her. After they fight for a while Brienne bites off Hound's ear and throws him off the cliff. When she finds Podrick it turns out that Arya escaped.

I'm torn on this scene - on one hand I always wanted two badass ladies Arya and Brienne to meet. But I wanted for them to stay together. Also it's now a bit odd that Brienne was face to face with two of Catelyn's daughters (she didn't meet any of them in the books so far) and just allowed them to run away. But the scene was really very well made and it was shot and choreographed in a fantastic way.
We find out Arya is merely hiding. She finds mortally injured Hound. He asks her to give him the gift of mercy, kill him to end his suffering. Arya is silent. He then starts to provoke her, saying things to get her mad and kill him but Arya walks away.

This is one of the reasons I don't really like Arya - I don't understand her. She sometimes seems more evil than she should be. The Hound took care of her and she abandoned him for no reason. And about Brienne - Arya could have joined her mother's knight, someone you can see from the first sight is a good person and she just run away.
We move to King's Landing. Jaime visits Tyrion and let's him out of his cell. He tells him that Varys is waiting for him to help him board the ship. The two hug and Jaime kisses Tyrion cheek. As lovely as it was in the show, there is something major that was changed but first I'll recap the scenes and then talk about changes.

Tyrion decides to take a little detour and ends up in the Tower of the Hand. He approaches the bed and sees there is a woman lying on it. As he walks closer and closer the woman moves and awakes, clearly joyful and well rested and says 'Tywin...my lion'. It's his love, his Shae who is clearly fucking his own father.
Tyrion gives her shocked, heartbroken, angry look. Shae grabs the knife, Tyrion jumps on top of her and twists a chain around her neck and begins strangling her. We are treated to fantastic shot from the far. Tyrion kills her and says 'sorry' in a detached, manic kind of way.

Tyrion notices a crossbow on the wall. He takes it and makes his way to the privy, where he finds his father. Tyrion, clearly in a shock, is set on killing Tywin. Tywin doesn't seem to appreciate the danger very much but unlike in the book he is kind to Tyrion. In a puzzling development Tyrion tells him he loved Shae and Tywin calls her a whore, causing Tyrion to shoot his own father and kill him.
Now, I think the scenes played well. As a fan fiction inspired by book events which really didn't need no changing. The key here? Tyrion's wife. Tysha. I'd understand not including any mentions about her if she wasn't mentioned in the show at all - but who can forget Tyrion's story about a whore whom he married which was later forced by Tywin to service entire garrison of Lannister men as Tyrion was forced to watch - again forced by Tywin, as a punishment for him marrying her? She was also mentioned in season 3 and referenced to by mere looks between Lannister brothers in season 4.

The thing is that Tysha is the catalyst for all three scenes - with Jaime, with Shae and with Tywin. In Jaime scene, in the book Jaime reveals his lie - Tywin forced Jaime to tell Tyrion Tysha was a whore, in reality she was just some girl that loved Tyrion that Tywin deemed unworthy of being married to a Lannister. Heartbroken Tyrion cuts all the ties with Jaime after he releases him from his cell, yelling that he did kill Joffrey and that Jaime is a fool who doesn't see what a whore Cersei is.
His entire relationship with Shae is basically possible because his emotional scars because of Tysha. That's why he is so hurt by Shae. The show made a puzzling decision of having them be in love but then having Shae do what she did in the books, where she was just a lying whore trying to survive. I was really hoping the show will shed some light on how and when did she started sleeping with Tywin.

There is a rumour in the books that one of the Hands build a special tunnel to smuggle whores in. People suspect it's Tywin. I suppose the whole point is that he was a hypocrite - who hated his son for indulging himself but he himself did that too. There are also some psychological implications of basically making your son's whore your own.

The Shae murder is essentially the same in the show except they had Shae go for a knife which is causing quite an outrage as in the books what Tyrion did was straight up murder and here she was going to fight back. Yes, the white washing of Tyrion is going on, but it never bothered me as I thought Dinklage completely nailed the darkness in his character in his scenes this episode.

And finally Tywin. In the book Tyrion asks Tywin about Tysha. He asks him what happened with her. Tywin responds he sent her away, Tyrion asks where and Tywin uses his iconic line, the final straw that causes Tyrion to kill him - 'Wherever whores go". In the book the trigger is not Shae, some lying slut, it's the woman Tyrion loved, his first love who loved him back and who suffered because of his father. The biggest symbol of his father's oppression on his life and his disapproval of Tyrion's every step and every breath.
As much as I liked the way the scenes played out I just don't understand why they would change that. Do showrunners really have so little faith in non book readers? A line of dialogue in a scene with Tywin and Jaime would refresh their memory as for who Tysha was. Another thing - and that is something that was left out of the scene - when Tywin gets shot he gets shot above groin and the impact causes his bowels to loosen and his shit goes everywhere.

Tyrion's last thought in the chapter is 'in the end Lord Tywin Lannister didn't shit gold".
Tyrion leaves his dead father and finds Varys who locks him in a crate that gets taken to a ship. In a change from book events Varys takes one last look at the Red Keep and decides to go with Tyrion.

Before I discuss the last scene - I always tought Charles Dance was the best chosen actor for the part. He WAS Tywin Lannister. It's amazing that he made this man seem admirable, when essentially Tywin was a mass murderer and war criminal. Who can forget his fatherly scenes with Arya in season 2, his delightful banter with lady Olenna or the way he always commanded the scene.


We ended the finale with Arya boarding the ship to Braavos. While it was not as bad as the last year's finale ending, it was still a disappointment. While I understand that including the epilogue of book 3 would be a shock so big all the other scenes in the episode would pale in comparison, not to throw a dynamite that will get people insanely hyped for next season is just a mistake especially since it was the best moment for that scene.
MASSIVE BOOK SPOILERS Lady Stoneheart. It's the single biggest plot twist in the books. Not only was she foreshadowed a great deal over the last two years - this year lady Catelyn was mentioned in 8 out of 10 episodes - but her character is connected to Jaime and Brienne in what seems to be a plot that could not be changed.

So far the excuses I've seen are - 1. She is not important in the books - how can she not be? Do we really think Martin would bring someone back from the dead if they weren't important 2. Having her resurrection cheapens Jon's inevitable resurrections - if she is merely pushed in time because of reason 3. that will be two resurrections closer to each other than they would be if she was featured now 3. there are not enough shocks for next season and they are saving her - problem is that 2 years after RW is just too long. Not to mention all the Unsullied that will continue to get spoiled.
As usual the director Alex Graves cannot seem to shut up and gives his opinions - not only is Graves, misinformed reducing her to a 'zombie' but also he just comes off straight up disrespectful towards all of us book readers who have been waiting to see her. It seems more and more evident to me that D&D seem to be writing for themselves - not for book readers and certainly not with respect for book readers.

While as scarce as his scenes were I did thought Stannis' scenes were major improvement this year but crap like this - trolling book readers with hints and then not showing the scene actually hurts the show (I'm convinced had they have her as final scene, the show would top 10mln with next year premiere), hurts he narrative and just makes D&D look like mad douche bags who don't seem to comprehend that people have certain expectations. Graves trying to turn the blame around on those who had expectations while him and show runners themselves hyped the episode to infinity deserves as hard of a kick in the balls as Brienne served to the Hound.END OF SPOILERS
Overall, I still consider season 1 to be my favorite and I don't think it's a coincidence that it is, since it followed the book so faithfully. While this episode and The Mountain and the Viper along with Mockingbird were wonderful and season 4 had a number of great sequences the straying from the books is catching up to the show.

Benioff and Weiss are not Martin, their bias and their insistence their way is the better way to show the events is slowly making everyone disappointed. I think they need to think really long about the flaws of the show because if they took the best book and turned it into anything less than best season (and season 3 and 4 are not on par with for example season 1 consistency), what on Earth will they do next year?

PREVIOUS SEASON 4 RECAPS:

Let's not even pretend there's anything else I'd like to talk about this week other than the One True King, shall we?

All hail Stannis of the house Baratheon, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm, Warrior of the Light, the King who Still Cared and part time motherfucking model.

oh, sweet Jesus. The synchronized dismount. Someone is running to kill Stannis? Who cares. Horses literally target threat to Stannis and run it down.The swag continues. 

SWAG RATING 100/100 WESTEROS GQ THE KING AND HIS HAND HOW WE SAVED RAVEN LOCKS AND THE REALM WHILE LOOKING FAB

and all those memes...'a wild Stannis appears'. They finally see, they finally see what I see!!!

*inhuman fangirl noises intensify and dolphins can actually hear and understand me right now*

 There has been such sense of unity in fandom this week. And so many hilarious things came from that:

 This is really awkward. I have about 10 Lady Stoneheart graphics which I can't reblog on tumblr because for the second year in the row they didn't reveal her when now it was actually the time in the book to reveal her and it's a spoiler to just post fanart of her. I'm sure tons of non book readers were spoiled already - there is a new fanart showing her on tumblr and I think it's closing in on 50,000 notes.

I wait every year for her and I'm always left HANGING.

I really don't know what to even compare it to. I guess we, who don't claim that reveal is cheesy (if you do get the fuck away from my blog) feel as if Fight Club ended before the twist was revealed. What was going to make everyone's mind explode as much as my ovaries did during Stannis scene was either cut or postponed which effectively means it's a another year of waiting. Out of all the things I really want to see adapted this is it.

SPOILERSFor me LS has to be in not because of vengeance but because of her part in Brienne's story. I do suppose it's possible for the writers to come up with some lame alteration even though the oath is already in the show - after all Tysha was mentioned too and we know how this played out...END OF SPOILERS I do love the outrage, it is so deserved. The showrunners have to be aware of it, right? Basically every single fan post mentions how they omitted that twist and I've never seen the fanbase this angry. Half of the topics about the finale ventured to the discussion on this issue. I cannot believe that according to Alex Graves, the director of the finale and someone who has no understanding of the books whatsoever, the inclusion of that was not even the part of conversation for season 4. How in the hell do you get off not even talking about it and then dare give out interviews saying 'everything from book 3 is in the season 3 and 4' when it's obviously just a gross lie, considering where they ended Jon story this year. It's just incomprehensible and I seriously hope the HBO executives will put these people on a short, short leash because they deprived the show of a fucking dynamite going off this year. We know that after the Jaime/Cersei rape scene outrage alterations were made to the remaining episodes, cutting down on violent sex scenes. Let's hope this time fans will be heard too.

I have no respect for Lena Headey. She trolled the fanbase, posting a picture on instagram that was quite clearly a hint that we will see it on the show and then tried to back from that in a pathetic 'I was drunk, this wasn't meant to be a hint' way on Kimmel show. We also had Alex Graves with his comments this week. The lack of professionalism and respect for fanbase among some of the people involved in the show is simply disgusting. 

There is one person who is always lovely in interviews and that is Kit Harington. Here are his thoughts on Stannis, Melisandre and Jon interacting with Team Dreagonsone. "I've been a huge fan of all of their works, but especially Stephen's". Oh, Kit you precious baby.

I finally got Stannis promo pics. Everything is so beautiful and everything is Stannis. And when I say everything I mean the headers, the desktop images and pretty much my entire tumblr now. We shall all be like Shireen on that gif on the right.

There was a new interview with Liam Cunnigham this week and he had this to say about Stephen - “Oh, and his acting choices. I’ll give you an example. When I got back from Blackwater and I was on the rock and burnt to bits, we rehearsed that scene. And this is a man I’ve been breaking my back for for a long time. His first line was, “I thought you were dead.” And most actors, they’d stand up and there’d be a moment of recognition, that one of the family had returned. Stephen decides he’ll sit down, with his back to me, and he just looked over his shoulder for a moment when he says, “I thought you were dead.” He gave me nothing! That was really brave, because most would go for sympathy or emotion, but Stephen has no desire to be liked. He just doesn’t give a fuck! But for me, it’s brilliant for the scene! Because that’s how my character feels, like, “Is that all I’m going to get?!” It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing we have, that power shift. Stephen’s a joy, a joy”.

I really hope Stephen is gonna have some fun next year - he was just stuck in such depressing scenes for 3 years and now hopefully Kit's puppy face will make them fun for him. Also the fact that bitches in the realm are gonna respect him now.

I also hope people will randomly begin shouting 'Stannis! Stannis!' when they see him, throw rose petals at him on the street and bring babies to him for a blessing.

This is what awaits us in season 5:

Oh, this is gonna be a laugh riot. Kit interacting with Stephen. Puppy eyes and Stannis motherfucking Baratheon. Oh, My. God. 'His Grace is growing fond of you'<3333

It would be insane of me if I started the countdown now. Insane...

I held Storm’s End against the power of the Reach for a year, and took Dragonstone from the Targaryens. I smashed Mance Rayder at the Wall, though he had twenty times my numbers. TELL ME, TURNCLOAK, WHAT BATTLES HAS THE BASTARD OF BOLTON WON THAT I SHOULD FEAR HIM?

9 MONTHS 9 MONTHS

Alex lists 39 things he loves about The Silence of the Lambs

m.brown reviews Mystic River

Brittani recaps Game of Thrones finale The Children

MettelRay writes about season 4 of Game of Thrones

Courtney reviews Under the Skin

For Father's Day Ruth chooses some great movie dads

Fisti shares visual reviews of Jane Campion's films

Having seen screencaps from Savage Grace, in which Stephen is naked...this is one accurate meme.

RELATED POSTS:

I was very much looking forward to this movie when I first heard that they are planning on making a film from the perspective of Maleficent, one of the most iconic villains in cinematic history. Unfortunately, after the first trailers showed up it seemed pretty obvious that the film will be yet another cash grab from Disney - just like Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman and Oz - the Great and Powerful filled with useless 3D, atrocious to look at color palette, half assed script and a bunch of random, CGI creatures which are practically indistinguishable from each other when it comes to those four movies.

And I was right - Maleficent is like a movie that Disney executives assumed people will go and see because of the character and Angelina Jolie anyways, so why even bother giving it a decent script and honest effort? It doesn't look like this madness is gonna end soon seeing how one by one these movies earn money and are getting sequels, though luckily for us, none of those was actually released yet.
Maleficent is also yet another movie where the pain that drives the protagonist to the dark side is caused by a complete asshole who hurts her. It's one thing for this to be basically a rip off from Oz, it's another that male character who betrays the heroine is so underwritten they might as well put a card saying 'someone stole her wings' out there and the result would be exactly the same.

The story has a potential but almost none of it is explored - the story of Maleficent's broken heart is perhaps the most glaring example as in the latter part of the film it's not mentioned at all, even in the main confrontation near the end. Sharlto Copley (who is basically one bad performance away from getting kicked off from Hollywood at that point), who plays the older version of the boy who betrayed Maleficent, is so hopelessly lost in the web of absurdity that it's almost laughable to witness.
It's a shame that part of the story wasn't treated with more investment and creativity, as Angelina Jolie's powerful scene in which she discovers the terrible betrayal done to her character really deserved better background. It would also make for far more interesting third act had that story been treated better. When you watch the finale to the film, it's almost like they are missing someone yelling 'OK, faster, let's get it over with!' on that set.

The film's plot points - Maleficent ruling her forest, the King's insanity and the relationships between many characters are so underdeveloped I feel like Disney people should personally apologize to actors involved and to the audience. It's as if the only part of the film they focused on getting right is the relationship between Maleficent and Aurora and I feel this one only worked because of Jolie's efforts and excellent chemistry between her and Elle Fanning.
Jolie's performance is so wonderful that it's a reason enough to see that film - she is just incredible even given the limitations of the script. Everything in this movie seems uninspired except for her work - she nails all the little things about her character and shows an amazing spectrum of emotions - naivety, pride, hurt, concern and ultimately - love.

She does something remarkable here and that is that her work is engaging and strong throughout - she is excellent both while playing the mistress of all evil, particularly in a chilling scene in which she curses Aurora and in the film's lovely moments where we see that she really starts caring for the princess, culminating in beautiful confession of love near the end of the movie.
Jolie also gets to show off her comedy skills in film's cute and charming moments. She really is the heart and soul of the movie and her performance as well as the actress' dedication truly deserved a far better movie. Her work makes the movie worth watching but also makes everything else pale in comparison.

Elle Fanning's Aurora doesn't really get much to do but I appreciated how the film made her very charming and that prevented the character from being boring. She does have lovely chemistry with Jolie and together they make the mother/daughter-like bond very believable and touching. In fact in those moments between them the film reaches its peak and almost makes you forget how mediocre everything else is.
For every thing Maleficent gets right, it gets something wrong. The three fairies, played by Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and Lesley Manville, which I imagine were supposed to provide comic relief, are just annoying and unnecessary. I assume small children may like this but this leads me to another issue with that 3D, fuchsia, teal re-imagining you people will pay money to see anyways policy from Disney.

The problem is that neither of those films works completely for either adults or kids. They are all too simplistic and occasionally silly for mature audiences not to get annoyed with (and this is coming from someone who almost fell off the chair during condom joke in Neighbors, but come on, really, flour fight?) and they are too dark for kids - from floating human heads in Alice in Wonderland to Jolie's soul crashing howl and not so subtle rape metaphor in Maleficent.

Another thing - the faux feminist agenda Disney is shoving everywhere lately. Look, I think the necessity of equality of sexes is something that should be yelled about from the rooftops because that equality, and I speak from experience, does not actually exist in the real world. Men get preferential treatment everywhere and it's not right. But when the opposite is done in cinema, it's not exactly helping anything.

In those movies it's not equality. Women are good, strong, fierce and men are basically castrated. Either they are bland and boring (Prince), stupid, cruel and crazy (King) or they are just kind of there because nobody cared enough to figure out what to do with them (Maleficent's raven helper). And it's in every movie Disney makes lately. There are no interesting male characters there, so effectively when we then find out that the heroine falls in love with one in the end it just makes no sense.
Perhaps the writers were aware of how inept they are and that a connection between strong female character and strong male character would require some good, subtle writing. A character like Jolie's Maleficent wouldn't be weakened by strong male character in the frame, in fact in terms of this story pairing her with one would work beautifully coming full circle to her finally finding someone she can trust and someone worthy of her.

The visuals in the movie are your typical Disney live action stuff, but there are few really creative things here - Maleficent is given beautiful wings and the scenes in which she flies are really impressive. While it's all kind of disjointed with the movie never really determining whether she is some sort of feral guardian of the forest or avenging angel of nature, the visuals alone are very nice.

Overall, the film won't appeal to either adults or to kids but Angelina Jolie's dedicated performance makes it worth seeing. Both her and the character deserved much better.

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 Queen Elizabethpaid a visit to the set of Game of Thrones in Northern Ireland. She met the cast - Maisie, Sophie, Kit, Rose, Conleth. Lena was also there as were the showrunners proving they will let just about anyone meet her.

First of all, let's just look at Kit's face and laugh.

Second of all, he is barely taller than the Queen. Oh, this is adorable. He is just staring at her in third gif. And Rose keeps laughing. Why the hell did you kill her off, she is lovely :/ Can you imagine how happy Kit must be he doesn't need to be standing right next to Sophie? She's a giant.

And finally why are my favorite 2 cast members, Michelle and Stephen never there for big things like that? Michelle has given like dozen of Thrones interviews lately and her character is dead. Stephen is the king! He should be on that throne! Move away Queen Elizabeth you shouldn't be even looking that that! THAT'S NOT YOURS!!!

No, seriously. Does he live in a cave? A lighthouse? A castle shaped out of clouds in Heaven and he descends to grace us mere humans with his presence once every few months so our ovaries could explode and so that we can slip out of sanity by making gifs and edits out of the same interviews over and over and over again? You can't just save the realm, say you wanted to be a fireman when you were little (aww!) and disappear for 9 (!) months.

Still not over Stannis' hotness in finale

Seriously, though - 'chains', 'kneel'....what the fuck. I legit think they were trying to end me with that scene. 

I've been doing Season 4 challenge, you can check it out here.

Ladies and Gentlemen - Pedro Pascal

This is from The Playlist's article on 20 best shows this year - "the show’s reached a remarkable level of consistency, with Benioff and Weiss continuing to doing a remarkable job of adapting George R.R. Martin’s texts to screen while often improving on them".

What are the people working for The Playlist smoking and where can I get some of that? What is that consistency you speak of? Cause that died with Ned back in season 1. 

George R.R. Martin gave us some new hints towards what will happen in next book - some of you got very excited about me recently wondering about certain two characters meeting...well....:)

Apparently there are going to be marriages, deaths and betrayals. Wow, George. Such thrilling info. It's like me saying well, this Friday there's gonna be wine and movies.

I just want Stannis to live and kill those Bolton fucks. And hopefully George getting the revenge for the butchering of his story going on in the TV series and for example putting Stoneheart on the Throne or making her super crucial by killing dozens of main characters.

Yeah I'm just gonna put that picture of Stannis here to stay calm through the  following rant. Well not exactly calm just...content.

Major news sites are now reporting the interview with certain someone conducted by EW hack based on rumors from director calling this character a 'zombie'as the confirmation for the show omitting Lady Stoneheart. Until I see season 5 I'm not treating anything as confirmation.

Can someone tell me what happened to the media? Shouldn’t it be 'above all confirm first' before making statements in your articles? And what happened to people respecting their jobs? Because while David Benioff and Dan Weiss are at least silent on the matter - not spreading false rumors, unfounded 'confirmations' and just insulting the fans - we have a source for the show working for major site acting on rumors. What's worse is that more serious sites are treating this as official news.

This is really serious, though. If they don't include her not even naked Stannis would make it up for me.

*closes eyes* *naked Stephen in Savage Grave flashbacks* *wonders about it for 30 minutes* *makes pros and cons list* *training montage music plays in the background*

Maybe...maybe it would. 

But no, no, no I waited so long, goddammit! 

As I said - this is really serious, guys.

Please sign this even if you don't watch the show, I'll love you forever.

My article on the issue from yesterday is rapidly becoming one of the most popular posts on my site. I'm very proud of it. I'm also proud I managed to make just one crude reference. But it's hard to forget about Dany's big event in ADWD, isn't it? Also funny thing - each year after season ends I put this little teaser for next season on the sidebar. I made one alluding to Stoneheart for this year. Well, how the hell am I supposed to include it now?

There's one good thing about this outrage and it's how hilarious - and accurate - Lady Stoneheart tag on tumblr is: 

"Lady Stoneheart is too absurd for the show."….did we watch the same episode?????? JOJEN REED WAS KILLED BY FROZEN GROUND SKELETONS?????"

 "But I am quickly running out of optimism. Those dumb as fuck show runners, oh my god." 

"One of the best things I’ve heard about the whole Lady Stoneheart debacle is that “if she had a lesbian scene in front of littlefinger we would have seen her in the show by now” and I think that says a lot"

"I agree. Lady Stoneheart is too absurd for a show where frozen skeletons fight magic fireball-shooting elf children."

My entire tumblr is basically a shrine for her right now - constantly reblogging the comments of other disappointed fans and I swear to God I'll reblog this petition every single day

Moving on - my new thing is adding Stannis gifs to tumblr posts about Kit Harington. I give you...JONNIS:

 For weeks now I've been saying 'I'm gonna see Firelight this Friday evening'. Firelight is a movie with Stephen where stuff like this happens. I heard of things happening in there. I'm in Dillane fandom and this movie is like what they tell newcomers to see when they ask for other things with him to watch. I've never seen it because it may actually kill me. But I had a long week at work and I just want to see him. I nearly didn't make it during Fugitive Pieces and that scene where he is basically being sex God. In case I will suddenly stop live tweeting this movie tonight it means that I'm gone from this world but I left this Earth very happy.

Oh yeah I got my paycheck today so it's one of those days I get to think about my life and how much easier it would be if I had no goals and no soul. I should have gone to private practice. They earn so much money there. Yes, they are soulless vultures who, upon seeing an accident run to the injured to leave their business cards (that's a true story), but man is working for government making you underpaid. Oh, well, at least I get to increase alimony for small children.

Moving on, let's talk weekend distractions. Considering how reluctant I am towards big changes in the books I loved and the fact I did love Under the Skin, the novel, I'm getting a bit worried about watching the movie during the weekend. Hopefully I'll still end up liking it.

Word is that McConaughey won't be in that Magic Mike sequel because he is worth a lot of money now so he doesn't need to do...anything, really. Pay him the money, for fuck's sake!

Look, Dillane is 33 years older than me and I'd climb that like a tree. But 47 years gap between Dakota Fanning and Kevin Klinein this is just really disturbing.

I saw 22 Jump Street. I literally laughed twice and both times it was in relation to the same thing - captain's reaction to something and then Tatum's reaction to captain's misery. Also Jonah Hilllooks awful. My God he really should stick to being chubby, he looks 20 years older than he is - and not in a good way.

 Here's the picture of Charlize Theron in this new Mad Max movie. It's probably going to suck but it's definitely going to be better than that comedy she did lately that failed in every way imaginable

Gary Oldman said some stuff this week that got a lot of heat. To be fair he is not wrong about some of the things he said, people are hypocrites. Awards also don't really matter, especially Globes. He then I think unnecessarily issued an apology. I didn't think he was being racist in what he said, he just used a language that was quite inappropriate given that the things he was talking about were already, shall we say risky. I wonder who is gonna be the main subject of controversy next week.

Anna and Ruth have a fancast for Mansfield Park

MettelRay reviews 22 Jump Street

Nika chooses 10 best drama episodes this year

If, like me, you don't want to put yourself through the misery of watching True Blood but are curious what's happening in this trainwreck check out Brittani's recap

Alex reviews The Rover

Elina writes about the nightmare of year's past - The Counselor

Anna shares 5 things she loves about Pulp Fiction

m.brown reviews enchanting Her

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Two movies that are perhaps not well known but they remain some of the most unique films I've seen. Both quite difficult and similar - not just when it comes to the disturbed heroine but also the way we are shown her life on screen.

Both films follow very odd young women - in Lars Von Trier's only watchable movie Melancholia it's Justine, crippled by depression. In Sleeping Beauty, it's strange Lucy who takes a job as a sex worker - a very special one - she is being paid to drink tea that renders her completely unconscious for men to grope her (but never penetrate) as she sleeps naked.
These two girls don't belong. They aren't the way everyone else seems to be - they are very often singled out in the middle of the frame with no one else next to them, yet they look so exposed and fragile, with Justine - roots coming out of the ground to grab her, with Lucy, her all pale and naked - barely able to walk as the drugs begin to take effect.

We see many scenes in which we are shown just how different they are from everyone - Justine actually enjoying the fact that the World is about to end, because she has given up on it a long time ago and her chaotic existence was always seen as strange and odd. In the face of the inevitable it makes her the only calm person in the story - while her well adjusted sister falls into panic, Justine is all serenity. With Lucy we see her nonchalantly burning the money she earned for what she did. If it's not the money then why does she do it? Because it has no meaning for her, just as job, marriage and life itself don't mean much to Justine.
There is an older woman in the movie, in case of Justine her suffocating mother and in case of Lucy her employer. You get a feeling these two were exactly like their counterparts earlier on in their lives. The film never gives you much hope that Justine and Lucy will get off that destructive road and it's reflected in the bitterness of these women.

We also see scenes of Justine and Lucy picking fruit - with Lucy even dropping them on the floor of the car - just as life, youth and time are all slipping away through her fingers, with her on some level being aware of this. Justine is also often shown around nature - as wild and puzzling as she is. She is even shown lying naked on the ground staring at the planet that's about to destroy everything. But Justine is not scared. She is waiting.

There are men in their lives, with Justine it's her husband that's there for her but she doesn't really want him around. He doesn't understand her, nobody does. With Lucy it's her dying alcoholic friend, who seems to be the only friend she has, but he has very little time left.

We repeatedly see the characters on the bed, either sleeping or refusing to get up, or spending their time in solitude - with Justine refusing to do anything as her depression begins to worsen and with Lucy not really caring about anything - lying on the floor at work, burning money as she needs them to pay the rent, not really talking to anyone.
The film ends with two of the heroines breaking down - Justine crying as she realizes that everything is going to disappear in the matter of seconds and Lucy almost dying and screaming in horror, realizing that she could just as easily be dead at the moment. In the face of something this irreversible they feel fear for the first time.

The whole movie the characters are sleepwalking through life and they seem to become awake in the end, but only Lucy will be given a chance to change. It's hard to imagine she will, though, as her ways are as deadly as the doom coming for Justine and everyone else.

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Firelight, oh my God!

I made a gifset (obviously) and those aren't even all the moments when I thought I was going to die while watching this. In a good way.

Here are some of my thoughts about the movie. Sophie Marceau seriously sounded like she was simultaneously dying and blacking out and seeing God...while...you know.

The whole thing was just so seriously...*dolphin communication possible one more time because of inhuman fangirl noises that I'm making* Stephen played this guy whose wife was catatonic and bedridden and he wanted an heir so he paid Sophie Marceau and he had sex with her (mental note - dream job) and she gave birth (mental note - not dream job) and then years later she managed to find him (because well, obviously...just this good, you can't let that get away) and became a governess for the kid. And at first he was like no but then they started doing it again HOW AM I ALIVE AFTER SEEING THIS?!

It was like watching Stannis who has magical sexual powers and he is trying to suppress them but then they are unleashed.

At one point he was swimming naked but when he got out they showed him through window that was all foggy. That was a dick move. 

No, actually it wasn't and that's my complaint.

Lovely movie though, it was like Jane Austen's stories with all that hand touching and gazing and stuff but there were actual love scenes too *makes incoherent noises* *cries because it's so much to handle*

So I finally made that gifset I wanted to make highlighting Stannis' titles, ah Protector of the Realm. I also finished season 4 challenge. I think now I'm just gonna do the set of Stephen being adorable in The Tunnel. Don't judge me, I'm only human.

As part of the challenge I made 10 funniest scenes of the season gifset. I still don't know what the hell were they thinking with Jaime running like that. It's beyond hilarious. Also there are 3 Davos/Stannis scenes on my list. They should have their own spinoff show!

4th of July is today! You all should see John Adams! Because of reasons! Important reasons!:

Adorable ser Davos and the president of Stannis Baratheon fanclub Liam Cunninghamwent to yet another exhibition for Game of Thrones, this time in Sydney.  As much as I love Liam just ONCE I wish Stephen would go to those exhibition promo things so we could get Stannis on the Iron Throne.  

Why doesn't he do the interviews more often? It's impossible for someone this magnetic to be shy, dammit. Kit Harington is gonna disappear off the face of the planet once they start shooting their scenes for next season and Stephen stares him down for any longer than in that finale. Amazingly he can look even more like lost puppy than we thought:

Again - this is going to be like watching a lion rape a sheep*.

I completely forgot about Comic Con. The showrunners for GoT will be there. Little miss 'can't stop trolling and drinkin' Lena Headey will be thee. I only hope any Stoneheart questions will get 'no comment' answer because otherwise we are in for yet another shitstorm and I can't take this anymore.

 I know I was supposed to see Under the Skin last weekend but between sleeping for - luxuriously - more than 4h (the amount of sleep I get on week day, this is me at work) and Firelight the weekend got away from me. This one may not be better in terms of movie watching.

Stuff I've seen this week - random moments of Stephen in The Tunnel and entire Firelight. Stuff I was supposed to see and didn't - any of Vikings, Orange is the New Black, Masters of Sex, Orphan Black or The Fall - haven't seen a single episode of either of those shows, The Leftovers pilot, shitload of movies. Can you tell I'm a bit busy and/or tired?

Seriously this is getting ridiculous. It's halfway through 2014 and I think I didn't even see 10 movies released this year.

So here is the picture of Thor with his baby. I'm not sure whether I should be going 'aww' or be horrified at the way he holds that kid.

My little season 5 teaser on the sidebar should just shout NO ONE IS THIS STUPID TO REMOVE THAT, KEEP THE HOPE ALIVE as you highlight it, shouldn't it? 

Angry lesbians. Let me elaborate:

I'd love to know where all the hits on myBlue is the Warmest Color review are coming from because the amount of ridiculous comments and psycho rants calling the movie porn I'm getting there lately is simply astounding. Let me help you with something - I do not give a flying fuck what someone who leaves me a comment signed as anonymous thinks especially if it's some rant about sex scenes or the director or your personal life experiences. This review is 7 months old so really you may as well just whisper your thoughts to the dead hobo.

I find it hysterical that this is the most popular of my old reviews and all those people are writing how terrible the sex scenes are yet they probably found that review in the first place by googling key words to find images from those scenes.

Apparently...we're getting flying hookers in Sin City 2?

Tom Cruise is 52 years old. That's crazy. Maybe scientologists are on to something after all cause he looks freakishly young and he has all that energy. If I attempted to do 1/5 of what he does in his recent movies I'd die.

New Foxcatcherteaser is out and it's super intense and creepy

They are really hyping Tatum and based on that teaser footage I am not surprised. I just hope they won't split the votes and push Tatum to lead category - Carrel is someone I really like - he is one of the very few actors that made me laugh till I cried (repeatedly in The Office) and moved me so much that I cried (that end of the world movie I always forget the title of). Tatum I'm not crazy about but he looks great here and he was very good in both Jump Streets and Magic Mike even though, btw he is completely not my type. Not just that he is too young, he kinda looks like a guy who just walks in and you know, murders you.

The poster is far less impressive, though, although everything beats that awful first picture of Superman from this upcoming, Zack Snyder-directed fiasco. Did they actually....photoshop Henry Cavill?

Fisti updates his Oscar predictions

Alex lists 15 unreliable narrators in cinema

Alex also joins lovely Chicks with Accents for their new podcast where they discuss their favorite movies with women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. They discuss so many awesome movies like Black Swan, The Piano Teacher, Repulsion and The Hours and lovely Nikhat praises Stephen!

Ruth shares some Toby Stephens love (and the fangirl love is the purest love, people) and asks about your favorite movies in June

Brittani celebrates 5th bloganniversary!

m.brown reviews 21 Jump Street, or as I call it, the one that's actually funny

MettelRay and Nika write about The Leftovers pilot

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There's really fun blogathon going on Dell on Movies. It's about letting your readers know what beloved movie you hated and what hated movie you loved.


Here are the rules:

 1. Pick one movie that "everyone" loves (the more iconic, the better). That movie must have a score of at least 80% on rottentomatoes.com. Tell us why you hate it. 

 2. Pick one movie that "everyone" hates (the more notorious, the better). That movie must have a score of less than 30% on rottentomatoes.com. Tell us why you love it. 

3. Include the tomato meter scores of both movies.

Well, I had plenty to choose from for either of the categories. I actually had really good time with Twilight movies and nearly fell asleep during Hunger Games. I couldn't even rewatch Inception, not even Stephen Dillane rescued Zero Dark Thrtyy for me and man was I underwhelmed by 12 Years a Slave. I'm no saying these are bad films, I'm just saying I don't get the praise.

As for the movies I loved, Sleeping Beauty, about which I wrote recently, holds 49% on RT.  I'm pretty sure there are several others like that, but generally my bigger problem is watching the movie people are raving about and thinking 'Seriously? People actually liked this?'.

But I chose two examples that immediately came to mind:

Movie I hated:
Never before in my life had I actually bought coffee in the cinema before. Twice. But that was a necessity as I seriously thought I'm gonna slip into a coma I'll never wake up from because of this movie. Jesus F Christ was that movie boring.

Trees. Water. Sky. Grass. Sean Penn in elevators. Jessica Chastain wandering around. More trees. More sky. Dinosaurs.

Brad Pitt actually rescued the movie from being a complete disaster and played an interesting character and was very convincing. But other than that, this was a torture to sit through. If you paid me money I'd not see it again.

Ron Swanson once said: "I think it's pointless for a human to paint scenes of nature when they could just go outside and stand in it."

Yep.

Movie I loved:
I was a bit shocked to see the score for this one., Sure it's not the greatest movie, but it's very fun in a campy kind of way and Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are both really cute in this.

It's also one of the better movies out there about witches and sisterhood - Bullock and Kidman have lovely chemistry together. Not only is the movie entertaining, it has great music, great romance and great story. Plus it has Goran Visnjic and Aidan Quinn and they are very easy on the eyes. What's not to like?

*a chilling line from new Gone Girl trailer, as well as the perfect description of my Fridays with movies featuring Stephen.

I'm gonna be watching Deja Vu tonight. This is what, apparently, happens in it:

I just...I just.... *noises*

Can you sense them? The inappropriate drunken live tweets that are coming tonight? Oh, yes.

He's a bit young in this one, though. 40? I like Stephen the most at 50.

Fine. 55.

Fine. Season 4 finale. 

Oh, what? He's like extremely fine wine, that's what I'm saying.

Men are such bastards. They just get better looking. I'm gonna be like, decomposed and eaten by dogs when I'm 58. For a decade. Or two. Hell, three, if things at work won't slow down.

YES:

All of this aside (though it is essentially true), never ever forgive the Stephen wears a coat during sex scene moment.

Man, I hope Martin hauls ass, releases the new book before season 6 and Stannis kills some of the Boltons in Winds of Winter. But then again there is a good chance it won't be on TV because you know, Missandai and Grey Worm romance! Super crucial! I also hope Stoneheart ends up on the Iron Throne just to troll D&D.

Also apparently this happened. These hacks didn't shoot it. Ladies, we should seriously riot, am I right? !I'm not into him but I will, as a sign of solidarity.

There's this cool making of CGI on Thrones video which was obviously made into a gifset by someone. I feel you should see my tags because I don't think you realize just how far gone I am:

I had a very tiring week. This is now two shit weeks in a row. 'There will be less cases during holidays'. Well lucky me that less doesn't mean more complicated. Oh, wait, it does. This is seriously me Monday to Friday getting home from work ------------------>

I literally walk into the office and sit in silence for several minutes because of the pile on my desk, not even knowing what to do first.

....and it is a heatwave right now - God, I hate summer - so it was really awful. 

But I got to see a movie this week, which actually didn't feature Stephen in any capacity, so that's a miracle and more on that later.

So...the Emmys....

Let me get this straight - Lena Headey (who for the record did give my favorite female performance this year on GoT) got nominated this year for what wasn't even her best work in the show (season 2) but last year Michelle Fairley didn't get in for one of the finest performances I've seen in my life? What the fuck?

Only the Emmys can nominate a show 20 times in 1 year and omit the person who deserved the nomination the most. Pedro was perfect.

But I'm so so happy for Ramin Djawadi's score getting nominated for the first time (what the fuck with that too?!). His work is one of the 3 consistently superb things on the show (other two being Fairley's acting and Dillane's hotness)

When I saw this - "Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series – David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (“The Children”)" - I laughed for 5 minutes. Yes, they're such good writers! No glaring holes, no horrible omissions, no elf children with fireworks! Seriously,  there were FOUR Tysha mentions.

Super happy for Angela Bassett being nominated - she was the best thing about last AHS, William H. Macy for Shameless, Gary Cole for Veep, and Idris and Matt. Why is Michael Sheen always snubbed everywhere? Emmy Rossum too.

Game of Thrones Comic Con panelwas announced and Gwendoline and Pedro will be there! Nikolaj is scheduled to appear too, I predict some awesome exchanges between him and Gwen.

This is what Mads Mikkelsen did this week:

Hot guys surrounded by smoke are like a thing lately.

As great as the new Gone Girl trailer is and as much as I like the casting of Ben Affleck in this movie, this is just hysterical and very accurate.

My gifset which is hugely unpopular so far is something I'm proud of. Because fuck you, distorted effects and the color of blood and I finally learned how to make words look pretty on gifs.

Other than this trailer all the other ones I saw this week were shit - why are people calling Unbroken a sure thing in the Oscar race? It looks awful.  Then there is this trailer for Wild which looks pretty bad too. Then there was Exodus trailer. So Disney is trying to rewrite famous fairytales to earn more cash and releases shit movies and now there is a trend to dig into religion too? It's Scott. I don't have any faith in him left after *vomits* Counsellor.

Lena Headey is vacationing with someone I'd equal parts want to 1. be 2. hug 3. be adopted by - Michelle Fairley (here they are, hugging) and also Conleth Hill who plays Varys and Sibel Kekillii who was Shae in Ibiza. They are all being super lovely and taking pictures as well as partying with mortal people not GoT gods like themselves aka fans of the show SPOILERLet's hope Lena gets her rumors straight this time. Though if they fucking make stone hearts together I'm gonna explode. Fingers crossed that the reason for everyone being there together is also because Michelle is not really out of the cast and her and Lena are catching up before big promo tour in s5.END OF SPOILER

I wish Stephen vacationed in Ibiza.

Shirtless.

Anyways...

Check out adorable pictures of Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix on the set of new Woody Alllen's movie. 

Speaking of pictures, my God, DiCaprio really let himself go, didn't he?

Colin Farrellis rumored to be in True Detective season 2. I did not see this coming, as he is Irish. I though it's gonna be all Americans in the main roles again

I started watching Vikings. It's pretty good so far. All I can say after 3 episodes - Lagertha, you are banging the wrong brother, girl.

So the movie that I finally saw is Under the Skin. I will review it sometime this month and I'm doing my artwork for entire review this time, not just the coloring but a lot of photoshop fun time, here's a little taste:

Now I just have to vent about one thing. You know how I can watch any shit, terrible shit but when it comes to animals and babies I break? Seriously, I've seen autopsies of grown ups and I was fine, but boom I read about a child crying because his/hers parents are getting divorced and I can't take it. So get this - there is a scene in the movie where the dog goes into water, it is implied he is drowning, mother goes after him and then the father and they leave the baby alone on the beach. They drown and then in another scene we see the baby at night closer to the shore, still crying and screaming and being terrified and at one point trying to stand up and failing and looking so lost. 15 seconds that moment took. 15 seconds and it was just horrific.

 I had to fucking pause that movie for 5 minutes then. It was so distressing. The idea of that poor child being frightened because the parents weren't there was just too much. You know he was going to die there, scared and alone. 

I hope someone hugged the baby for a long time after that scene was made. 

I thought the movie was very good but this scene took from it - in the book the same idea - that these aliens have no empathy - here they just walked past the baby and left it - didn't need such drastic measures. Well, in the book they did castrate men. Grown men. But a crying baby left to die to get you to understand that? I'm still distressed. Not to mention it's kinda made it impossible for me to feel for Johansson's character, unlike in the book.

Seriously that was so awful to witness.

Stephen better be all kinds of shirtless in that movie I'm about to see.

Josh shares his halfway of 2014 awards

Alex features the great Chazz Palminteri in his in Character series

Ruth shares 5 for Fifth for June

Mariah chooses sci-fi most annoying characters

Fisti reviews Under the Skin

m.brown and Brittani review Enemy

Had over to  Courtney's On the Screen Reviews to welcome new blogger, Derek!

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 (spoilers!)

Let me preface this by saying that I did like the movie a lot. Unfortunately, since I am familiar with book material there's going to be a lot of 'oh, what could have been!' talk here.

It's been a year, more or less, since I read Michel Faber's terrific novel Under the Skin. Since I don't have much time to read fiction, I don't spend my time with books that often. The main reason I usually do is because there is a movie in the works based on the novel and it sounds amazing. So what happens is I read the book, I love it and then I see the movie. And it's not the right way to go. At all.

There are some books that are unfilmable and Under the Skin is most definitely one of them. I cannot agree with people saying that Jonathan Glazer proved those who say it's impossible to adapt the novel wrong. He didn't. Under the Skin may share most of main plot points with the book, but it's not really an adaptation. It's more a film inspired by the book, illustration of its atmosphere, but one that isn't sharing most of the substance with the source material.

Ironically, as well as this movie works as a stand alone science fiction film, there is a great tragedy in Glazer making this movie the way he did - the best thing about the novel was how thought provoking it was. Because this movie was made it's very unlikely we will get another adaptation any time soon, that would actually focus on what was the most shocking and affecting part of the novel - the reason for the protagonist's quest and forcing you to step into her shoes (that is if you aren't vegetarian).
Much like Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, Under the Skin focuses on just one theme from the rich and complex novel and what it does, mostly, is capture the atmosphere of the story as a whole. The film focuses on the search of identity of the protagonist, nameless alien who appears completely numb to the people around her. She drives around luring men to her car and then leads them to her apartment where they....

Exactly, what happens there?

In the book Isserley (which is her name) was sent to Earth to collect men. They were then castrated and fattened in pens and slaughtered like pigs - their meat is a delicacy on Isserley's home planet. The movie cleverly managed to capture the essence of the mood surrounding those scenes - by showing us one of the victims witnessing horrifying fate of the previous one, with its insides sucked into the void, leaving a hollow skin suit. Then we saw meat being send in some sort of red signal, which most likely went completely unnoticed by non book readers, but for those familiar with the novel was a nice little nod.
And that's essentially what bugged me about the movie - it's a nod, not a depiction - you have the atmosphere but it doesn't work as well without all the substance and all the background story. In the book in the most chilling scene Isserley sees one of the mutilated men write the word MERCY on the ground and small acts of kindness among the doomed men towards each other. In the film the equivalent of that is the new victim touching the hand of the other. It's not nearly as powerful, moving or affecting, it's just the abstract reading of the novel which really doesn't work this well. As impossible some of the aspects of the book would be to translate on the screen (mainly the look of the aliens), I wish they would have stayed closer to the novel in depicting the victims' fate.

Still, for those unfamiliar with the book story this worked. But where the film truly fails is in portraying the search for herself of the protagonist. In the book Isserley was mutilated to look like a human - half of her body was hacked off (you can see the depiction of her alien race here). Her vagina is basically a hollow replica and it doesn't work. In the book we have her discover gradually that she is just an imitation who will never be completely human, never really become a woman and ever truly belong, in the film we get Scarlet Johansson shine a light on her privates. Literally. With a lamp.

The switch from her doing what she does to becoming more human is clumsily portrayed in the movie. The whole story with deformed man and her freeing him is quite incomprehensible. Glazer had something there, in place - showing her desensitized reaction to baby on the beach and then children being present in many scenes. But he didn't focus on that. He went with the other story and I for one didn't understood any of protagonist motivation here. It's a shame too, as Isserley does notice the children around her in the movie and Glazer really could have used that horrific beach scene as the point of her transformation, given how it's the most powerful moment of the movie.


I think he completely misunderstood the novel - the reason for Isserley becoming more human and appreciating our race is her witnessing the small things, the potential in humanity, the fact that we have intelligence, the fact that we can be kind. It's not an oddity, a deformed man, the outsider of human race that moves her, it's her own discovery of what it means to be human as a species.

The baby scene is another issue - in the book, as far as I can recall, Isserley saw a dead animal on the beach. Here the baby's story is so horrific and exaggerated it completely prevented me from feeling for her character. She is almost raped and then burned alive in the end. But why should I care? Humans as species care for the young of other species - if you saw a small puppy, alone, you'd help him. She doesn't do that. That's monstrous. That shows her species has no empathy. While it was also true in the novel, the scene with the baby is so shocking it goes far and beyond what one can endure and forgive, leaving no chance for you to feel for this creature.

Because of that scene I was left completely cold. In the book watching Isserley slowly becoming more human, having all those doubts, feeling satisfaction at seeing a man mutilated after another man almost raped her - that all made her a rich character, sometimes even a very innocent one when she was discovering things for the first time. So when in the end she commits suicide because she is injured and trapped and - she cannot be discovered, taken to the hospital for tests, because of who she is - it makes you feel for her unlike in the movie.
Another issue - in the books and I think in general with these alien stories - it is so frightening because these creatures are so much smarter than we are. Isserley never does really stupid things and if she does she recognizes them as such being mad at herself - that's the book. In the movie we see her fall asleep alone in the woods. Just what kind of an idiot is she, exactly? She saw that men are dangerous, previously in the movie, when they were trying to break into her van. Glazer wants to make us feel for her as if she was a child - but he previously shows her doing terrible things and witnessing things that should make her know better than to place herself in certain situations. That's a contradiction and one of the things that makes the second part of the movie so much weaker than the first.

The film, while it fails as the adaptation of the book story almost completely, does something admirable and that is capturing the scenes from the novel in the form of shots, music and overall mood of scenes - the ending of the novel has Isserley rejoice at the fact she would be one with the nature in death - in the film you have wonderful long shot in the end of her ashes flying up to the sky. It's a scene so surreal and well made that it almost makes you forget the last 30 minutes leading up to it were not on par with the rest of the film.

While the film fails to show you her strong connection to the nature, it's amazing how far one shot can go - and that is the image of sleeping Isserley merged with the image of the forest. The whole visual side of the film is not only magnificent but sometimes it actually helps to communicate big parts of the story and that takes a lot of talent and skill.
While the film was very disappointing as an adaptation (I don't think it even has the right to use the words 'based on', they should have gone with 'inspired by') it's a mesmerizing piece of standalone science fiction - it's such a voyeuristic adventure, where we basically follow this strange creature every step of the way. We see her arrive, adapt and die. And while it didn't make me feel anything it was a splendid cinematic experience.

Perhaps the film leaving me so cold fits this story and the way it was shown - in a surreal, detached, very minimalistic way. Much like the heroine we are forced to experience this hollow, strange world and sometimes react to it in a matter as puzzled as her own. Even the very beginning doesn't make you feel, it just forces you to watch - in astonishing sequence we see what we can only assume is the creation of the protagonist's eye.

There is actually a great focus on her eyes here, almost suggesting this is the thing that makes her experience our world the most - in a puzzling sequence, a person who I can only refer to as her supervisor, stares into her eyes as if looking for a clue that perhaps she adapted too much and it's time for her to go.

I appreciate that Glazer added all those small mysteries and odd little moments, further distinguishing this piece from the source novel. He also completely altered the look of the alien in the end, while again, the book ending worked better, it was a curious irony in the movie that Isserley died a lot like her own victims - helpless and in horrific circumstances.

While direction and cinematography are incredible the main two stars of the movie are Scarlett Johansson and Mica Levi. Johansson is perfectly cast and it's not because she is beautiful. For me - she isn't. I think she is a very attractive woman but her face is not proportional nor is it particularly striking, which is perfect because Isserley was modeled after the magazine pictures of women - she is made into what men desire and it's often noted by the hitchhikers that she is quite odd looking. Judging from the response to this movie, and I'm not sure whether it's Scarlett's voice, the way she moves or her body - men would follow her into that car even if she told them what would happen to them. Even if she told them the book version, probably. It's something about her. She is the perfect bait.

This is definitely Johansson's best work, on par with Her. She is just so convincing as someone who is trying to imitate a human being. The quick changes on her face - from fake smile to the look of annoyance as it becomes clear this particular man won't follow her, to the look of complete confusion at the sight of her own blood, her performance is amazing. She switches effortlessly from being childlike in one scene to her being a cold predator in the other.
The last 40 minutes of the movie is much worse than the first half, mostly because of the weak script failing to portray the protagonist's reasons and feelings but Johansson is still bringing in her A game. I also have to note how courageous that performance is - it's not even about the lack of lines (the film is so gripping, though, you don't even notice how little dialogue there is) or her having all those nude scenes. It's about how dangerous it was to film.

The men she picks up were not actors. The film was shot often with the use of hidden cameras with Johansson basically driving around talking to strangers. That she wasn't recognized is a miracle, but there is also a profound sense of relief the petite actress wasn't attacked at any point of the filming. I only hope she had a bodyguard nearby at all times.

As tremendous as the visual side and her performance is, the glue that holds it all together is Mica Levi's haunting, otherworldly score which really pulls you right in the creepy atmosphere of the story. It is by far the finest, most detailed work by composer I heard in a very long time and without it the movie wouldn't work half as well.

As much as I wish the film would follow the novel more closely, which would most likely result in a terrific piece of science fiction and horror, Under the Skin is certainly a unique experience carried by Johansson's fearless performance and the atmosphere that you won't be able to forget for quite a while after seeing the film. Unlike the novel it doesn't make you think - but it makes you experience the story on some sort of surreal, subconscious, primal level. And that's way more than most movies do nowadays.

 *screams into pillow* *soils herself*

I mean if that gif in the middle isn't eyefucking than I don't know what eyefucking is.

Deja Vu was not a very good movie but Stephen got to do a lot of stuff in it - as you can see above (that car scene was so cute *screams into pillow some more*) and in this gifset I made, risking my life further. Seriously...HOW DARE YOU SIR?!

Tonight it's gonna be The Greatest Game Ever Played where Stephen plays golf and is wearing that.

I can't. I can't.

You guys remember my borderline psychotic beautiful and loving Stannis in ever ep gifset series? Well, now it's time for The Tunnel. Bonjour!

A month after the most beautiful thing in the history of time happened HBO released another promo pic. YEY.

 Jeremy Podeswa who directed terrific Fugitive Pieces with Stephen is directing two episodes of season 5 of Thrones! PLEASE LET IT MEAN MORE STANNIS!!!!

Also Fugitive Pieces had that scene. Can we just have a little taste of that on Thrones? Pleeeeaseeeeee. 

There's always so much eye candy for girls here, so here's something for you boys. Margot Robbie with a puppy:

Game of Thrones Comic Con panel will be moderated by Craig Ferguson! This is gonna be awesome!

Keisha Castle-Hughes, Oscar nominee for Whale Rider, is rumored to have joined the cast as Nymeria Sand, one of Oberyn's daughters. I hope she is playing Obara instead. Fuck it, let's be blunt - Nymeria is beautiful and Hughes is not. If they insist on having THREE Sand Snakes can they at least cast them right? Why are the men on this show continuously better looking than their book counterparts and women are the other way around? Wait, am I actually complaining about this? Nevermind then.

Sean Bean misses the show and while sharing his thoughts on how he could return (since the writing is a clusterfuck it does seem we are getting flashbacks now after four years of 'we are never doing flashbacks talk', all hail the Emmy nominated writing!) he also spoiled what is probably 1. the most obvious 2. the most important mystery of the series. I'd personally love to see his cameo during Cersei's pivotal scene next season when she actually thinks she sees Ned Stark among others she wronged.

Sienna Guillory is basically finished. To those of you who don't know who she is, because well, why would you, she is an actress who stared in several supporting roles and I doubt she gets asked for autographs on the street. Anyways, here she is insulting Tom Hiddleston's fangirls, and I can't believe someone actually defended her awful tweet. Here's another tweet she send out after which I don't think anyone attempted to put a positive spin on her words. She is coming off as a jealous co-star who sees all that adoration Tom gets when she gets none so she tries to have a bit of their attention herself. And her even tweeting about her own children in the same tweet is beyond distasteful.Cherry on top? Criticizing high heel wearing girls while she herself is a former model.

If there is one group of people you do not want to piss off, it's Tom Hiddleston's fanbase. Time and time again they have proved to rule the Internet - their numbers are strong, they are loud and they are not forgetful. 

Remember that scene in Luther where the goddess of all things Alice told her she will kill her and eat her? Just so on point here. What's really mesmerizing here is not how rude and disrespectful Guillory was - people do that all the time. It's her stupidity. When she will be promoting the movie she will have to watch her back every step of the way. Who knows, maybe someone throws high heels at her. I hope so - not even because of her generalizing and offending entire fanbase, but because, hell, bitch, who are you to tell people what to wear? Who are you to tell me what to do or what to think? Nobody, that's who.

My outrage is kinda connected to the fact that I discovered what makes my job less tiring - spending money I get from it. Shopping spree. Half of the stuff I bought is kinda slutty, but in my defense it's a million degrees outside. I wore this low cut top today and the guy tripped and almost fell upon seeing me. I've still got it. The judges don't care either, they are wearing summer dresses over there. Ah, what a fun place to work.

So something happened with American Horror Story: Freakshow marketing this week and I'm not sure whether it's more embarrassing or hilarious.

What happened? The first teaser showed up online, you know, one of those cryptic teasers that don't feature the cast and just show abstract stuff related to new season. I managed to make a gifset before it was taken down:

Why was it taken down? First the network claimed it was fanmade, but then it was took down due to copyright infringement which makes everyone think it was simply prematurely released by someone. Hell, I even saw a rumour Taissa Farmiga leaked it. This is a mess.

Check out the first pictures from Avengers: Age of Ultron. My favorite Dillane fandom blogs post a lot of James Spader too (whom I adore, I just don't find him handsome or physically hot in any way, but man, did he carry The Office's 8th season all by himself just being his awesome self) and I can tell ladies will be disappointed. See, times like these I feel Thrones could be worse for Stannis fans. If they had him in a helmet or something. In every scene. Just thinking about it scares me because these people are unpredictable and who knows what they will do.

Damn, ScarJo's hair. She has such pretty red hair in those movies. Seeing her always makes me want to dye mine. Also I hope they gave Elizabeth Olsen more than 1 outfit.

I saw Edge of Tomorrow. It was fun but I think its massively overrated here in blogosphere. Still, good movie, Emily Blunt was impossibly badass (she is becoming such a terrific sci-fi star with this and Looper and playing such tough characters) but the show was stolen by Tom Cruise's dying screams - those were some of the funniest things I've heard in my life. And it's always nice to see Noah Taylor (never forgive D&D for the way they killed off Locke) - he was so cute here! Also fun connection that he also explained the inexplicable to Cruise over a decade ago in one of my favorites Vanilla Sky.

So here is another horrific picture of Leonardo Dicaprio. Can somebody stage an intervention?

 On occasion of Magic in the Moonlight first reviews showing up online, people go again with those ‘25 year old woman dating a 53 year old man?!’threads everywhere. I’d hit 58. Hard. and I'm technically not yet 25.

Also it’s Mark Darcy you ignorant fools. Why can't society just piss off and let grown ups do what they want with other grown ups?  And why do people think that everyone should find the same people attractive or interesting? I wouldn't touch Ryan Gosling with the end of the mop but I'm not judging people who would want to have hundreds of his babies.

Lovely Emmy Rossum shared the picture of Gallaghers from the new season of Shameless which is currently filming. This is overshadowed by the absolutely awful news that Jeffrey Dean Morgan who appeared in the finale of last season to mine, and I guess many other women, delight is not coming back and he was replaced with Dermot Mulroney. Well, this sucks. All we wanted was for Fiona to bang the actual man for once and see Jeffrey's ass and apparently neither one of those things is happening.

Brittani shares what happened on True Blood last week

Sofia looks at the gorgeous videos of Lana Del Rey from Ultraviolence 

MettelRay chooses her picks for Against the Crowd blogathon and I fully agree with her choices. And the reasoning behind them. 

  I have no idea what Boyhood is, but Alex and everyone else seems to be raving about it.

Ruth features the wonderful music of Alexandre Desplat

Keith reviews Snowpiercer

m.brown reviews Non Stop

Fisti chooses his supporting wins for 2013

RELATED POSTS:

Awesome Fisti from a Fistful of Films passed this to me and my assignment is to get from Jason Statham to Michael Haneke in 6 steps or less, as part of Nostra's blogathon

Here are the rules-  get ready to test your knowledge of actors/movies and directors with the six degrees of separation blogathon. You will get two names of either actors/actresses/directors or movies and what you will have to do is make a link between them in a maximum of six steps.




1. First of all, Jason Statham is so freaking hot. But in addition to that, he also starred in my third favorite movie of all time - Snatch, alongside hilarious Brad Pitt.




2. Brad Pitt also starred in awesome Burn After Reading which also featured George Clooney and these two shared a scene in a quite mindblowing manner.





3. George Clooney was in Up in the Air, where his love interest was played by Vera Farmiga









4. Vera was also in The Departed which featured Leonardo DiCaprio 










5. Leonardo Dicaprio was in J.Edgar where Naomi Watts was, much like him, also wasting her time.







6. Naomi Watts starred in Michael Haneke Funny Games





So many of you already took part in this blogathon, but there's the most knowledgeable movie blogger out there - Alex - who didn't, so I'm passing this to him.

And the goal is to get from Michael Haneke to, surprise, surprise, Stephen Dillane!

 (spoilers)

Over at the amazing filmexperience there is a wonderful series going on called 'Hit me with your best shot' where you get to choose your single favorite shot from the assigned movie and write the reason why you chose it.

Well for my first ever post participating I'm in a luck as even with the amazing amount of stunning shots in Under the Skin there is one that was truly the best one there.

As someone who read the novel the shot of the protagonist's ashes rising up in the air and mixing with snow was one of those moments in the movie where I felt Glazer was cleverly translating the novel into the language of film.

While Under the Skin the movie is a little bit like if you took out the whole novel and was left with merely the intriguing cover of it in your hands in terms of successfully adapting it on screen, it is quite the experience. While the film went overboard with making the protagonist unlikable (I had no sympathy for her after the baby scene) its last minutes were very moving because just like the final words in the book they are frighteningly and beautifully universal.

In the book the protagonist feels the biggest connection to our world in nature. She is fascinated with it and she feels comforted by it. Perhaps the most striking shot of the movie and the header of this blog, the shot of her juxtaposed over the shot of the forest -  was Glazer's attempt at capturing the comfort nature gives her in a single shot. While if there was ever a shot to look more beautiful to do that I'd fail in trying to find it, I feel in terms of visuals capturing the novel it is only the one of her ashes flying above that succeeded to translate.

After the protagonist is injured and trapped in the car in the book events, she pushes the button and makes it explode so that humans wouldn't discover her alien body. She takes comfort in the fact she will become one with the world, finally become a part of it, her particles mixing with everything around her, with the trees and water she liked so much. In death succeeding, what she failed to accomplish in life.

While in the movie Glazer quite inexplicably twists the events of the novel and has the protagonist assassinated, the thought is very much the same because of that lovely lingering shot of her body burning - but not coming off as horrific - her lying on the ground, her ashes rising up among the tall trees and flying high above the Earth. Unlike the rest of the movie it's not frantic, strange or disturbing. It's beautiful.

It's a tranquility of the shot and how long it lasts that really sells this moment and is such a moment of saddening relief after the creepy experience of entire movie. And after all, we will all share the fate this peculiar alien faced in the end. The peace of this scene is what lingers on.

At one point this week I found myself gifing Stephen in The Tunnel and drinking chocolate milk. I'm not even sorry. My God look at all that adorableness above. And that's just from two episodes.

'Fifi Croissant'.*giggling* *sobbing* *giggling* *sobbing*

He also pets a dog and runs around with his children.

How dare you, sir.

So I make a gifset of Foxcatcher. No one cares. I make the gifset of Stephen touching himself, BAM!! notes come pouring in within first few minutes. I love you tumblr followers <33 

Stephen is apparently riding a train to London a lot, people keep tweeting saying they saw him there. Did HBO marketing people tell him he'll have to promote Thrones this year and he is preemptively on the run? Has he...started to walk the Earth? Is he in need of food and shelter? *protective excited noises*

I have yet to finish The Greatest Game Ever Played so look for my live tweets in few hours. Shia Labeouf is in it too but I managed to stand worse for far, far less, so I'm optimistic.

I saw Fargoand it was so dope you guys.

It's seriously the best show of the year - it was more fun than True Detective and let's not even comment on GoT season 4 shall we? 

The cast was great and the show was both thrilling and hilarious, it was like not mentally scaring Twin Peaks. Billy Bob Thorton as evil hitman who has to pretend to be a goofy minister to fool the cops in one scene was so funny I almost cried:

Amazing.

The only two flaws - the dog dies and the protagonist is so mean spirited, she was supposed to be sweet and innocent but there was something so mean about her. Colin Hanks was charming enough for both of them, though. Also Martin Freeman's way of talking was adorable - I almost laughed when he kept saying 'oh, jeez!' in between savagely bashing his wife's head in with a hammer.

Also everyone is in the show - Bilbo, Derek Shephard's wife, Saul Goodman, Chandler's creepy roommate, Keith Carradine. Everyone.

Meanwhile in the world of dumb starlets, Blake Lively reigns supreme this week with this Vouge interview. She is launching her lifestyle website whatever that is and saying things like this - "People want things with meaning. I know that because I want that. This space doesn’t exist, so I’m creating it." and talking about her perfect wedding and eating lamb or some crap in fancy restaurant.

I'm sure we can expect the same level of insanity and disconnect from real world from her as we do get from Gwyneth shitting rainbows and wiping herself with vegetarian unicorns Paltrow. 

It's like these women are Jasmine from Blue Jasmine but with much worse sense of style, zero class and just so much stupidity. Yuck.

Emmy Rossum despite being a young actress is just so lovely and each week I love her more and more. And I feel so bad for her. First snubbed of Emmy nomination and now deprived of touching Jeffrey Dean Morgan on her show. 

It's as if I went to work one day and, I don't know, they took my coffee away from me. This is quite literally the only thing keeping me awake there. Although the hospital is like right outside so there's sirens every 5 minutes. And we do get bomb threats quite often. Did I mention my job is just so full of chillaxing?

There's a Yorkie with Emmy on that picture but he has nothing on Gustav, who is the recent star of my gifsets. So far I only managed to catch him on camera once - he is way too fast unless he is eating:

That dental stick was three times bigger when I left the room to get the camera by the way.

Look what happened on tumblr. I've gotta say it's so lovely to see people actually give credit. I cannot even count the times this was stolen from my blog.

So I've been reading about the real story behind Foxcatcher this week and up until then I thought that the person you know what happens to is Tatum but now it looks like Tatum is like the person observing all of this which is a very interesting approach. The film looks so insanely creepy - I mean Steve Carrel looks like a sketch of a rapist in this movie. I don't know if you guys saw the 6-minute standing ovation video from Cannes but it's great, everyone's reaction is so cute in it. I'm gonna be rooting for Carrel this Oscar season - he is such a good actor and Michael Scott is one of my all time fav characters after all.

It's heading to TIFF and all those big festivals are coming up, so I'm looking forward to reading the reviews for this one and Gone Girl, I finally finished the book and it was amazing, I actually loved the controversial ending and I hope even with all the changes the film stays close to it. I think the reveal made the book 10x more interesting.

Another creepy movie is Nigthcrawler with super skinny Jake Gyllenhaal and its poster is awesome. I'm getting such strong 80-90's vibe from it and that's always great.

 Another movie which looks very interesting is the horror body snatchers film Honeymoon starring adorable and very talented Rose Leslie from Game of Thrones. Here's the first trailer.

Apparently there’s a movie with insanely dashing Matthew Goode and equally dashing Benedict Cumberbatch in it. I’m safe but I think 90% of womankind will die upon seeing this. Me? No, I like my men looking homeless and riding trains.

Hey speaking of ladies, you're gonna enjoy this picture of Pedro Pascal with Oscar Issac. I don't know what's happening but I think everyone should be grateful this photo exist. 

Comic Con is happening right now which means 1. me being sad I'm not there 2. but not too sad because Stephen is not there 3. tons of good stuff showing up online. 

My second main man McConaughey is there along with Christopher Nolan. They showed new trailer for Interstellar - you can read the description

here. The trailer will reportedly show up online next week.

 GoT panel is today UPDATE - here is the blooper reel that just aired - and the show is strongly represented - I cannot wait for the panel to show up online and I'm hoping for some adorable banter between Nikolaj and Gwendoline. Nikolaj is already there with Natalie Dormer and they are both being completely adorable.

Stoneheart GoT SPOILERSMichelle Fairley joined ABC's Resurrection. END OF SPOILERS I mean...seriously.

Jesus F Christ, even other networks are laughing at HBO.

People go again with how this is yet another bad sign but come on, actors do multiple shows all the time. Hell, even Stephen emerged from his cave long enough to do both Hunted and The Tunnel, and that was after he already joined GoT.

The point here is the gigantic irony of what happened. Is anyone else laughing hysterically through tears right now?

 The writing on Thrones is so lame now that actors literally need to migrate to other shows and networks to play their parts. Seriously this whole thing...I just read what Michelle role on new show is - the mother that comes back to life - and I almost hope GoT showrunners intended to bring her back and now she fucked them over like this because they really deserve it. And why would she like to play the same character on two shows?

These dumb as fuck showrunners, oh my God.

Meanwhile, in the land of no showering and no shaving, Leonardo DiCaprio continues to scare the crap out of everyone, this time actually emerging from his house and going for a swim. He is like a male version of Mavis Gary now, isn't he? McConaughey should come over with his Oscar and let him pet it. And you know, bring some good weed with him.

On the other side of the spectrum we have perfection - Chris Pratt has been everywhere this week being fabulous and promoting Guardians of the Galaxy, which looks crazy fun. Here he is braiding intern's hair in the middle of the interview. This guy is amazing!

I couldn't do a braid like that if I had 6 eyes and 10 hands. I can barely use hair brush.

 My thoughts of Fifty Shades of Grey trailer? Well, first of all it looks ridiculous. Second of all Jaime Dornan who is kinda handsome with facial hair looks like he is in his teenage years clean shaven. So...eww.

Last but not least here are the new posters this week. Personally, I think nothing beats that Nymphomaniac poster. Director's Cut! What will it be? 30 minutes of worst dick shots ever instead of 1?

Anna reviews Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Ruth lists best movies of the year so far

Fisti shares his favorite shot from Under the Skin

Alex lists shortest long movies

Candice lists some of the awfulness of Fifty Shades of Grey trailer

Brittani has an inspired pick for Women in Film blogathon

Mariah pinpoints some flaws of Comic Con

Nostra looks at the many faces of the lovely Rebecca Hall

m.brown reviews Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

RELATED POSTS:

John Hitchcock, over at Hichcock's World. is running a very fun blogathon focusing on the women in cinema.

Here are the rules:

1. The female character in question should have qualities that make her strong. That doesn't necessarily mean better than the guys, just well-written; we're trying to promote equality here, not reverse misogyny.
2. Unlike my previous blogathon, I'm going to be a bit stricter here and say that each entry should only focus on one character. However, if you like you can write multiple entries examining different characters.
3. If you can, do try to find less obvious choices. There are a few that I can expect are likely to get picked: Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, etc. If you decide to write about any the "obvious" choices, I encourage you to at least try and find something new to say about them.
4. You are allowed to pick characters from any film from genre or time period you like.

I had a big of a problem here because when I hear the words strong female characters I immediately think of TV characters - Catelyn Stark, Atia of the Julii, Fiona  Gallagher, Alice Morgan- it seems that every single show out there nowadays has at least one fierce lady in the mix and that's wonderful.

So when it comes to fierce female characters in movies I decided to go with one character I don't think I wrote a great deal about, as some of the strong female characters where featured on my favorite characters list and she was not there. It's Elizabeth Shaw from Prometheus, played by Noomi Rapace who was my choice for best female performance back in 2013.

While Elizabeth shares some qualities with Ellen Ripley, she is sufficiently different from her while at the same time being a worthy successor to the legendary heroine. Elizabeth has the best kind of strength - one that comes from overcoming her weaknesses. She is not some superhuman entity that doesn't experience fear or sadness. She feels deeply and she keeps going in spite of being frightened, hurt or discouraged.

Elizabeth is an idealist and scientist, determined to find those who created us - the Engineers - she is fascinated with the origins of life and a very interesting aspect of all of this is the fact she herself cannot have children. Scott throws in a cruel twist in which Elizabeth is impregnated by aliens and is forced to perform self operation to extract the fetus. It's the movie's best moment, one that is equally horrific and impressive. Many would be tempted to throw in crazy twist in which Elizabeth cares for her 'baby' (as it was in the film's original script) but the film wisely chose the different path, showing that Elizabeth knows right from wrong even in the face of inexplicable.

What adds to the whole quest of the character is Elizabeth's spirituality - she believes, yet she is a scientist. She thinks there is still some supernatural force out there. In spite of everything she sees, not only does she not lose her faith, she also doesn't lose her hope. She keeps going, even after everything that has happened to her.

Shaw is given the film's best scenes and these are the moments when we see just how strong this woman is - the moment in which she is trying to put herself together after what happened while shaking is incredible. We also get to see her vulnerability when she talks about her infertility and her  joy when she discovers the cave paintings in the beginning of the movie. Her character is such human, such interesting mixture of courage and weakness, fear and hope, persistence and exhaustion.

While the film have been criticized for its characters - Theron playing a 'dull' person or the biologists being stupid - I felt the character of Elizabeth was just fascinating. She is human, but she is extraordinary because of her qualities - curiosity, bravery, persistence. She doesn't give up, she continues to go after what she wants. With each month I find it less and less likely that we will see the sequel to the movie, but I'm hoping it gets made and Rapace yet again brings Elizabeth to life.

 I imagine those are the faces Stephen was making after he found out the news from Comic Con. Extremely good news for his fans and 'oh crap I have to do more of that now?' news for him.

So remember how I was supposed to watch a movie after last RF was posted?

Yeah why can't I just sit down and watch Stephen play golf in tight pants, why does something must always be happening?

What happened was Game of Thrones panel on Comic Con was on and WiC livetweeted it. And I had a breakdown. No, no. I only have two stages - rage and joy. 

Let me just show you the tweets. The joyful ones, that is:

If you are not following me on twitter you are missing out. Especially if you are studying psychiatry. What an epic paper you could write about me. I'm fairly certain there are at least 5 things legitimately wrong with me. Ah, well.

I imagine Stephen is not happy about those news. So much snow. Another battle. Dealing with these northern disrespectful folk and Jon Snow. Stephen just wants to ride the trains. Well, tough it out. 3 years we waited. 3 long, excruciating, fan fic filled, Grey Worm's phantom cock, brothel filler, frustrating years. 

You'll do this sir and you'll like it. 

And hopefully at some point you'll be shirtless. 

This

is so accurate. 

I'm at such crisis - on one hand the showrunners are misogynistic pigs who just keep putting their fan fiction in the scripts instead of respecting the source material - it's very possible that what I imagine is the favorite female character of feminists - Arianne Martell - was cut from the show. On another they finally must have reached 'OK someone will kill us if we keep this shit up' point and decided they should feature Stannis more. Well about fucking time.

Bottom line is - more Stannis. YEY. This is me right now ----->

There was a lot of news about the show coming from that panel.

Alexander Siddig casting as Doran Martell was announced during the Con and it is great. He is such a fan favorite, there are dozens of fanart depicting him as Doran. It's nice we are getting actual character in Dorne and not just a bunch of half naked or just naked chicks and what I imagine will be Bronn and Jaime drinking, bonding and fucking a lot. Probably not each other but at that point of the show, who knows. When in Dorne...

Jonathan Pryce who played Keira Knightley's adorable dad in Pirates of the Caribbean movies joined the cast as High Sparrow, a very interesting character in Cersei's arc. This is gonna be great.

I'm sad about the recast of Myrcella. Aimee Richardson is so pretty. Look what she did after they sacked her. I can already sense the new girl will be terrible just from this casting video. Also it's so heartless to recast a person just before their character finally gets a lot of scenes.

It looks like George R.R. Martin has had it enough of showrunners at last. He made that comment at the panel and now it turns out he is not writing an episode for the show, something he did once for each season, because he 'is busy writing the book'. This is such a funny excuse considering that he is the master of procrastinating and no way that's a real reason. Good for George for distancing himself from that fan fiction, though it's real bad news for us, given that when he was writing the episode things wouldn't go spectacularly off track at least in one ep a season.

 Apparently Sansa will use 'sexuality' to manipulate people next season. Can someone please kill her off? Catelyn is looking down (up? in a different show? on a different network?) on you, ashamed.

As much as I despise the showrunners, that cast is just the best:

But then Kit said that and I yelled at him in tumblr tags:

The fuck Kit, in season 3 you had a butt double because your ankle was hurt. An ANKLE.

You are supposed to be bringing that equality to the show, now go and explain to Stephen how him riding shirtless in the cold would show just how badass Stannis is!

Everyone is already in Belfast for the filming of season 5, but no one took a picture of Stephen yet. I'm starting to think because he is a divine entity it's actually impossible to snap a photo of him behind the scenes. It wouldn't show and the camera would explode anyways.

Comic Con was filled with so much awesome I'm not even sure where to start. How about that hilarious Batman/Superman panel which was apparently 10 minutes long and the teaser was just Batman in his armor? Also look at the faces Affleck is making, this is hilarious:

Avengers: Age of Ultron panel went very well. The first footage from the movie was shown and it got standing ovation not just from the audience but even from the cast who stood up and cheered. God bless these lovely people. Apparently the teaser showed the confrontation between Scarlett Witch and Black Widow. Oh my.

Ladies and gentlemen Robert Downey Jr:

 Samuel L. Jackson:

But this moment right here wins the Con:

How adorable are they?

Also you've really gotta love Paul Rudd. He said that he is Comic Con virgin and he is having his cherry popped to which Michael Douglas, who is apparently also in the Ant Man movie, said I popped a lot of cherries.

But not even them or even Stephen golfing, can win with the single most epic thing that I've seen in weeks:

This is not for a movie, this is just him.

Run, Leo. Be free.

The best part of this Bieber/Bloom fight? DiCaprio was there too.

We had a whole bunch of trailers released this week:

Interstellartrailer is just gorgeous and so powerful. I love that shot of Jessica Chastain so much that I made it into a new header for the blog, which now strikes me as premature as I'm gonna have to change it for Gone Girl header I already made and it gets released sooner than Nolan's new film. Well, I'm just gonna keep it here for a month or so. Anyways I also made a gifset with the trailer's most wonderful quote.

Mad Max: Fury Roadtrailer is actually kind of cool.

There is also a new trailer for Birdman which makes it look like a really great film. Can't wait for that one.

Meanwhile, Into the Woodslooks terrible.

The trailer for The Hobbit - Battle of Five Armieswas also released and it looks so bad. Not only is this movie unnecessary, and I bet it will be just as boring as the other two, the CGI looks awful! It would look badly animated if it was an animate movie, but it's not, it features actual actors. Why does everyone look as if they were rendered in photoshop and sharpened at least 10 times?

First footage from Crimson Peak was shown and apparently it's super creepy. It ends with Mia Wasikowska on the bed and then scary looking skeleton hand grabs her. Can we please not have that in every single horror movie out there? 

Back to Stephen because I have to. I'm continuing to make The Tunnel gifs. Then I think I'm gonna gif every single part of John Adams he was in. What's gonna happen when I run out of things to gif? :(

Oh God the winking. Oh God.

Unacceptable. I added that Rachel gif because that was literally my reaction to seeing it.

I finally saw The Greatest Game Ever Played. It was cute, but the moment I saw it was made by Disney I went 'ohh' because that meant no nudity. Still, so hot. All those close ups. My God. Please stop. No, don't stop.

Shia Labouf played the lead and he was actually not bad.The movie was as eventful as golf movie could be and boy did they try everything to make it interesting. It was pretty decent though, real adorable story too.

I also saw Non-Stop which was not adorable. At all. It was beyond ridiculous. But there are few things in the world more amusing than unhinged Liam Neeson randomly punching people in their throats.

Fisti reviews hilarious Winter's Tale

Katy saw Se7en for the very first time

Eric reviews Mystic River

Anna writes about Under the Skin

Josh and Brittani review Begin Again

Alex looks at the films of Roman Polanski

m.brown reviews 22 Jump Street and his Pizza Hut story will scar you for life

Jack shares his most anticipaed movies and performances for the rest of the year

RELATED POSTS:

I rarely review older movies here on the site. When I make an exception and do so, it's either because I really like the movie or because it's very underseen and I want to spread the word about it. Fugitive Pieces is a wonderful example of both of these reasons.

I continuously find gems like that while going through an actor's filmoghraphy - with Michael Sheen I found one of my all time favorite films - Dirty Filthy Love and with Alan Rickman excellent Dark Harbor. With Lee Pace I discovered Soldier's Girl- a film that I think should be mandatory to watch by every single human being. Nowadays I'm watching as many things as I can with Stephen Dillane - and I found this gem.
Based on the novel of the same title, Fugitive Pieces follows Jakob Beer. When he was a little boy he managed to escape from his house after the Nazis killed his parents and took his sister Bella (Nina Dobrev) away. He was found by Athos (Rade Serbedzija) who took him in and kept him safe, taking him first to Greece and then to Toronto.

Jakob grows up to be a sweet and a gentle man, but his demons and nightmares still haunt him. He can't forget about his sister and he searches for information about her and other people lost during the war, eventually writing a book about his experiences. His search for peace and happiness is difficult and even the marriage to lively Alex (Rosamund Pike) doesn't seem to help. (and before you guys even think of commenting on the pairing, just read this)
I've seen a number of films about Holocaust but very few of those focusing on the lives of people who managed to survive it. It's such an interesting topic - how do you keep on living, being handed this great gift of being alive and having escaped but also remembering all of those who didn't?  How do you handle the pain, the nightmares and irrational guilt? How do you manage to forget for long enough to start a new life?

Jakob cannot let go of the way things were and the way they could have been - he keeps thinking of what happened to his sister, he keeps obsessing over it, which in the end traps him in his sadness and doesn't allow many people to connect with him enough to ease his heartache. His wife tries to understand him but she can't - she has too much light inside her and his darkness is buried too deep for him to let her in.
I'm writing about this movie because 1. I really want people to see it 2. Stephen Dillane's performances deserve praise in every thing he does and he is just amazing here 3. Jeremy Podeswa, the director of the film, is directing 2 episodes for next season of Game of Thrones so hopefully this means Stephen's character will finally be given scenes worthy of his talent 4. I think it's a good idea to check out the movie to see Pike's performance as intelligent, elegant and unhappy wife just weeks before Gone Girl hits the cinemas.

Pike plays a character very much like the reader first sees Amy Dunne - a little spoiled, a little too lively, at first glance superficial. This is how Jakob sees her in spite of all her beauty and all her good intentions to make him happy and help him. She has an incredible scene in which her character finds her husband's notes and she finds out what he really thinks about her.
The time they spend together is not given a lot screentime but it's handled so well - Jakob is not writing those things about her out of spite - he appreciates her but he recognizes she will never be able to help him. And she reacts in the only way there is when she finds out her love isn't enough - feeling hurt, betrayed and rejected. It all felt so real and so painful.

Pike's performance just like almost everyone here has something under surface - some actors here appear only briefly but the characters they are playing are so rich you can just feel all of those emotions and you have a feeling their past, while nowhere near as painful as Jakob's was, still hides many secrets and shadows.
But they are all satellites orbiting around Stephen Dillane, who yet again plays such a good and sweet man his heartache makes everything so much more painful to witness. Dillane can play flawed men, dangerous men, villains even, but for some reason it's when he plays people like Jakob, Leonard Woolf or Thomas Jefferson that his performances radiate with the most emotion and beauty. Maybe it's because in life, and by extension - in movies, there are so few good men out there.

Is it something about his kind smile or gentle eyes that makes his characters' tragedies so difficult to bear? Or is it that those characters have so much good in them but something stops them from achieving happiness? Whether it's a painful past, an unhappy wife or family tragedy, Dillane usually needs only few scenes to show the extent of his characters' pain (or just one look on his face, as was the case in stunning train station scene in The Hours). And here he is the lead so he is given much more to do and that's something that should be happening more often in projects he appears in.
What I really liked about the performance was a small but noticeable way in which he indicated passage of time - when his character is younger he is more naive and thinks things will work out with his first wife, then when he meets another woman he is a bit more restraint but still hopeful - hope is what prevails in the movie and what keeps so many of the characters going.

After I saw the movie I made a comment that it was like watching Atonement only without the horrific ending. Well, what a morbid surprise to find out that the book it was based on had Jakob die along with his pregnant wife in a car accident shortly after he finally found the happiness. That's just horrible. There is such thing as too much tragedy and I'm very glad that it was changed for the movie because the final scenes and lines of the film are really beautiful and uplifting.
The film is by no means flawless - sometimes it feels like there are too many characters and some stories are given too much screen time at the cost of what I felt could be developed a bit better - but the actors bring the best in material and the story itself is so incredible it's enough to keep you watching.

If you like movies about flawed characters that end in uplifting way and bring in hope with them - watch this one.

PS: I really shouldn't end a review of such a serious movie with this but I feel that I have to given how we are constantly witnessing ridiculous sex scenes with no tenderness, no chemistry and no real sense of romance in movies nowadays - ladies, this movie has one of the most beautiful love scenes I've ever seen. Seriously, watch it.

 (all the spoilers are written in light font, to read them highlight the text)

"When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. The shape of it, to begin with. The very first time I saw her, it was the back of the head I saw, and there was something lovely about it, the angles of it. Like a shiny, hard corn kernel or a riverbed fossil. She had what the Victorians would call a finely shaped head. You could imagine the skull quite easily. I’d know her head anywhere. And what’s inside it. 

I think of that, too: her mind. Her brain, all those coils, and her thoughts shuttling through those coils like fast, frantic centipedes. Like a child, I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy? The question I’ve asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: 

What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?"

- the opening lines of Gone Girl

Almost exactly a year ago I made this post about The Counselor, which turned out to be a massive pile of shit and even managed to make Michael Fassbender look horribly unattractive. Now I'm anticipating yet another movie and since I've just recently read the book and I'm too tired to come up with anything else to post, let's talk about Gone Girl.

Why have I brought up The  Counselor? Because back then I was also familiar with the source material before seeing the film - I read the script by Cormac McCarthy and what was not all bad on paper turned into one huge embarrassment of a movie. It doesn't look like it's gonna be the case with Gone Girl which has far, far superior story and the director behind it. Also, unlike with The Counselor, I think the Oscar buzz for this movie may actually amount to something. Because if Rosamund Pike is given anything less than a flood of nominations and wins then either she or Fincher screwed up. To play a character like THAT and not do her justice would be criminal.
The book is written in a quite a challenging way - a husband, Nick Dunne, discovers his wife is gone. The next chapter is a diary entry of his missing wife, Amy, detailing the past events of their relationship. Then we move to Nick again, then to diary, then Nick, diary and so on, until a bit later than halfway through there is change in narrative, one that may be a challenge to show on screen.

How will they do this? So much of the story dynamics, especially the 3rd act, which as thought provoking as it is, works solely because of those detailed inner monologues we are privy to read. How will it translate to screen? We get to read these people thoughts so I think we may be in for some lengthy voice over from Amy, but with Nick? We may rely on his face letting us know what he is thinking and hopefully Affleck is game for that. I feel this is his last chance to stop being ridiculed as an actor.
But in the meantime, here are the most awesome things to look forward to:

The score
yet again composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. While I'm not the biggest fan of this kind of music - the one that goes with the movie but is almost impossible to listen to outside of it, I'm sure that they'll do a great job and hopefully there will be at least one memorable track again, as was the case with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The cast
despite a lot of eye brows being raised when the choices for the characters were announced, the casting is actually brilliant. Ben Affleck's Nick is described as the guy whose face you want to punch. Just look at him. Neil Patrick Harris is a wonderful choice for his creepy, posh character and Emily Ratajkowski's Andie was described as 'an alien fuck doll of a girl' in the book. Accurate is accurate. Hell, even Tyler Perry looks like the right choice for confident and brilliant lawyer defending Nick. Then there's a completely unknown to me Carrie Coon who is going to play a wonderful character of Nick Dunne's twin sister. And Pike? That is a fantastic choice.
How misleading the trailers are
we haven't seen a single glimpse of the story's biggest twists and turns in either of the trailers. Not even a glimpse of the scene that the twists take place in. Hell, they are even sneaking in red herrings there. Short of horrible posters, the marketing is brilliant.

The script is written by the author of the book
the worst thing to say about adaptation is that the choices made by those adapting it are nowhere near as great or even coherent as the choices made by the author of the source material nor are they justified (*coughs* Game of Thrones *coughs*). Fortunately, here it's the author of the book herself writing the script.
The changes
while I do think the book is incredible - but not flawless, the third act is quite sloppy and the whole Jeff/Greta subplot is incredibly boring and insulting to the character involved, I'm excited to see if Flynn will take this opportunity to develop some story arcs and scenes some more, mostly the book's controversial ending which ends in quite an open way. Something is said and you just know one day, maybe even this day, there will be consequences to this.

It's David Fincher's film
Need I say more?
The scavenger hunt
this is such a clever plot device - Amy goes missing on the day of hers and Nick's 5th anniversary. Just like she did every previous year, she prepared a quest for him before she was gone - 5 clues, each being a new message for him, new riddle to solve based on their past experiences. It's such a fun and clever way to keep Nick looking for Amy and clues, instead of just waiting for the cops. It also has several mysteries and revelations attached to it.

The twists and the turns
There have been surprises in The Girl with the dragon Tattoo but not since Fight Club had Fincher had an opportunity to drop a plot twist this massive on the audience. It's actually a series of plot twists that come one after one but the one in particular is just mind blowing.   When I think of the story I actually can't stop thinking of one of my favorite movies SPOILERS I can just hear Walter Sobchack say this fucking bitch, this fucking whore, she kidnapped herself!END OF SPOILERS There's also a box that includes something creepy. Hm....where did we see that before?

The character of Amy Elliot Dunne
I truly think Rosamund Pike was born to play that role. She is very pretty but there is something not quite right - her eyes sometimes looking very cold, her smile not quite sincere. As Amy she may have a chance to play everything - every single emotion there is. It's a little bit like Betty and Diane from Mulholland Drive and what is my favorite performance of all time - Naomi Watts' work as these two sides of one coin - there are so many versions of Amy and only one of them is real. Having seen Pike as unhappy wife in Fugitive Pieces, cheerful, charming and elegant girl in An Education (a performance that should have been Oscar nominated) and naive, loving blonde in love in Pride and Prejudice, I have no doubt that this will the role of the year. Pike is someone who can look stunning and at other times mousy. She can look incredibly innocent in one moment and sinister, dead inside, dangerous in another. She is Amy.

SPOILERS

Rosamund Pike, photographed by David Fincher for W magazine

Amy is such a complex character and as I read the book I had all those different emotions towards her - contempt, pity, admiration. I found myself agreeing with her and being impressed - if my partner cheated on me, let alone when I was in my late 30s and he had an affair with a young girl and I had an opportunity to do what Amy did, I'd do that, no hesitation. Hell, that situation where he blows off their anniversary and gets drunk and then says ;'fuck you' to her? I'd throw the piece of shit's clothes off the balcony and kicked him out. But then I was also repulsed by her - by her lying that her father molested her just so she could manipulate Desi more and with her actually abusing herself with wine bottle every day to make it look like she was raped. That was disturbing,. Framing your asshole husband for disrespecting you? Nah, I can get that. This stuff? That's just plain monstrous.

I hope Amy's remarks and thoughts, especially her 'Cool girl' monologue and her utter contempt for most people (all people?) in her life will be in the movie. I found myself agreeing with a lot of her thoughts - about how pregnant women are wrong in feeling superior to others, about how each man basically just wants a woman who lets him do anything he wants. I was also a bit shocked she didn't do anything to Andie. I'm gonna sound like a disturbed person, but it's the truth - I'd go after her.
Amy is such a fascinating character - Molotov cocktail of brilliance, narcissism, being disturbed beyond imagination, displaying constant need for praise, approval, admiration, but also someone who is always wanting more and is chronically unhappy. Her brilliance makes her admirable, but all the other stuff thrown in turns her into pure evil. Fascinating evil, but the kind of evil that really creeps you out, sends shivers down your spine, makes you wince when it touches you.END OF SPOILERS

Rooney Mara was just splendid in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Her Lisbeth is an amazing character. She is an avenging angel, she is unique, she is one of a kind. But Amy? There are thousands of Amys out there, just not quite on her level. SPOILERSBut Amy Dunne's brilliance and patience singles her out. In a horribly, horribly unsettling kind of way.END OF SPOILERS

The film opens in early October and has its world premiere on the opening night of New York film festival. It's just a perfect material for Fincher - the kind of thing that might have been written just for him to direct. And I'm thrilled that after years of being underrated Rosamund Pike is going to have her big break at last.

* I do apologize for porny title. I tried to work in the title of the movie I'm watching tonight and it sounded even worse, believe me

 I saw The Shooting of Thomas Hunrdalllast Friday. Look at that. Look how sad. Is it too much to ask for him be in, I don't know, a romantic comedy? So I don't have to sit through so much tragedy for some wonderful....visual side? See this is why McConaughey is a hero to womankind. You want to just sit back and look at that man in some silly movies? Take your pick, there are dozens of them. 

On the bright side I have 44 Inch Chest to watch tonight which features Stephen as a criminal in the suit and that's the next best thing. First one being him in the armor. Wait, there's the naked option. So the criminal thing is the third best thing then. I've said too much.

What I meant was a 'bad boy' thing.

Shut up, Sati.

There was also some smiling in The Shooting...so at least that's something. Ah.

I even managed to make a pervy gifset out of that movie. Where there is will...well, you know how it goes. Can I be that glove? I want to be that glove! But primarily I want to be the bunny from Perfect Sense.

This gifset happened and I haven't been able to locate my ovaries ever since I saw it.

There it goes, another proof that Chris Pratt is the best:

Regarding Leo DiCaprio, I can't believe there are more pictures. But oh, there are.

 Clearly Leo's "do not give a fuck" way of living life is something that we all should consider. He looks super happy.

This whole Ruffalo/Rudd Comic Con situation is also a gift that keeps on giving. 

 Have you guys seen the newGone Girl posters? They're fucking terrible! How can they have such a good story and, I imagine, a good movie and let this be their marketing? What has happened to movie posters lately? They used to be something I'd actually buy and hang in my room now everything looks so bland and generic.

As I was googling Gone Girl set images hoping to get a glimpse at the things trailer didn't spoil, I found those cute pictures of Rosamund on the set:

And look what she is holding -  it's another one of Gillian Flynn's novels, Sharp Objects. I think it's so cool that in addition to - I assume - reading the novel the movie is based on she also decided to read author's other books. I'm currently reading Dark Places and it's also excellent

They are already done shooting an adaptation of this one and let me tell you, the casting is laughable. The main character who is 31-years old, tiny (which is important; she is very short and this is to suggest what she has been through kinda trapped her in this permanent helpless child mode) and blue eyed is played by....39-year old, tall as fuck Charlize Theron. Theron is a great actress but she played the part of a disheveled woman so many times before. Amy Adams was originally cast and it's such a shame she dropped out. Hell, this could have been her big Oscar win.

The rest of the cast is the same level of ridiculous - Christina Hendricks plays the unattractive mother who didn't have anyone to help her. Can you imagine? If Christina Hendricks walks down the street I assume men are willing to give her their souls let alone carry her groceries or give her few bucks. It gets worse - she was originally cast as a stripper. And they changed it. To Drea de Matteo. I really like Drea but a) had Hendricks played a stripper I'm pretty sure unicorns would start appearing in our world b) casting Drea as a stripper is....let's just say not an inspired choice. Also there's this whole thing about her character being sweet looking when she was a little girl and Hendricks has such an angelic face. This is just...a messed up casting.

And then there is this little twit Chloe Moretz as adolescent seductress. No. for the love of God, NO. Fortunately Tye Sheridan and Corey Stoll (as Ben) are very well cast. It seems the movie will be pushed to next year, so far there is only one still out with Theron looking like she does in most of her indie films. A shame because the story is amazing - Theron plays Libby who 25 years ago survived a massacre in her house - when, as she testified as little girl, her brother Ben brutally killed her two young sisters and their mother. And now after all these years she starts believing he may be innocent. The book is constructed so well - it's Libby chapter and then Ben's and their mother's chapters, set on the day of the massacre, and yet somehow it all creates linear narrative because what Libby finds out in present day we get more details in following chapters from the past.

Still, I prefer Gone Girl, it was just so brilliantly constructed and far more psychologically complex.

Gustav news! Every day before I go to work I tell my mother not to spoil him. And every day I found out he got several treats and slept on my bed. On MY pillow. Today he got a new toy too. But within an hour this happened (also he has a new haircut):

 This is what always happens with his toys - he bites them until they stop squeaking - but the funniest part is that this week he started taking his ADD medication. Yep. Canine ADD. Welcome to my life. Where canine ADD happens.

He is just too lively and he has trouble breathing because of that, so the vet gave us some mild medication. It's some kind of syrup so I tried to fool him and dipped a carrot in it. 15 minutes of begging and him licking it off my finger and he finally ate the dose. Now there's a better way - hide it under his dinner.

The vet also suggest we get him...a therapist. Hey, remember that episode of South Park where Cartman was out of control and his mom got him all those TV nannies and one of them ended up in psychiatric hospital smearing her feces on the walls? 'Cause when I heard her suggestion this was the image I had in my head.

He's actually watching TV on the second one. I'm not kidding.

I rewatched Jackie Brown. It's such an under appreciated movie, I think it may be Tarantino's most mature work to date. Also it's such a lovely romance story arc, I think the best one there ever was in Tarantino's movies, platonic just like in Pulp Fiction, between Jackie and Max. And Robert DeNiro is just hilarious in it.

 I also saw Winter Soldier again. I didn't like it any better than the first time, it's a nice movie, but I just prefer the ones with Thor or Tony Stark. That said this one actually had an interesting villain, I loved how they didn't made Captain America and Black Widow into a romantic couple but instead they made them good friends and Anthony Mackie was absolutely hilarious!

I saw Guardians of the Galaxy which was tons of fun. I wouldn't rate this movie 9 or 10 as many do but it was certainly entertaining and refreshing. I couldn't believe that Rocket was voiced by Cooper. It sounded nothing like his whiny self, it's hilarious how he sounded most badass while voicing this furry guy.

 Richard Madden and Pedro Pascal attended Tampa Bay Comic Con. To be honest I don't have any idea who they are talking about nor do I care. But this is just so adorable.

Here's the first picture of Amy Adams in Tim Burton's Big Eyes. Unfortunately, the first reviews of the movie are less than favorable so who knows maybe this picture is actually better than the movie.

I have absolutely no interest in this new Hunger Games movie, but the poster with Elizabeth Banks' character is really cool.I'm still gonna need to see this movie anyways, because of Natalie Dormer and Gwendoline Christie.

What is this I hear about Shailene Woodley getting Oscar Buzz for The Fault in our Stars (is that the title?)? Is that legit?!

I've made another gifset from Interstellarfeaturing that gorgeous poem Michael Caine is reciting in the trailer. That movie will make everyone cry like a little bitch. 

I have never seen a single episode of Doctor Who but I'm definitely tuning in this season. It's like it's sci-fi Malcolm Tucker.

There's a cutout of Richard Madden as Prince Charming in Cinderella. You need to see it. Trust me, you need to.

The Focused Filmographer and Elina review Guardians of the Galaxy

m.brown reviews The Grand Budapest Hotel

Alex writes about documentaries about Roman Polanski' court case and there is a good discussion going on in comment section too. It's also Alex's birthday today so go wish him happy birthday!

Brittani, a fellow blogger who also read Under the Skin, reviews the movie

Fisti writes about Wild Things

Katy writes about her anticipation for Interstellar

Ruth shares her favorite songs from Bond movies

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It's always so cool when things go well for an actor you root for - with Guardians of the Galaxy killing it at the box office everyone is noticing its leading man - Chris Pratt. I am a huge fan of Parks and Recreation, a fantastic show that is still watched by too few and really, everyone should be watching it, where Pratt plays hilarious character of Andy Dwyer. I'm just so happy for him finally having a proper big break into the movie world.

Chris was born on June 21st 1979 (I'm kinda shocked to find out he is not younger, he has such an infectious, youthful energy) in Virginia. His first roles include flicks called Cursed Part 2 and Strangers with Candy, so it wasn't always easy at the beginning. Chris went on to appear on popular series Everwood and The O.C. but it's Parks and Rec that was his big break into getting recognized and finally having a shot at big roles.

And then things went quickly - Chris appeared in a film that was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture for three consecutive years: Moneyball, Zero Dark Thirty and Her. Then it was off to Guardians of the Galaxy with the studio taking quite the risk and casting someone who never carried a movie as lead in a gigantic summer blockbuster.

Next it's a lead role in another big movie - Jurassic World - and then Chris is rumored to star in Knight Rider. While he may not have the greatest acting talent I would be at loss to think of an actor who people would like so much unanimously - Emma Stone, perhaps? All those movie stars these days either come off smug or disjointed from reality with their weird food, pretentious websites and acting like they aren't even human just a different species filled with contempt for ordinary people. And here comes a guy, a regular good guy, who is down to earth and charismatic enough you can sit back and enjoy watching a space movie and actually care about the character he is playing because of how damn likable he is.


And that's what makes Chris Pratt someone to root for and someone to enjoy on screen - he seems like a genuinely kind person, a good husband (to actress Anna Faris) and father and someone who is a lot of fun and has distance to himself. He is a movie star in the making without  being fake, pompous or smug. When he is being nice on talk shows you don't feel he is just doing it for the show - he actually seems sincere and humble. These are the kinds of actors I love - if someone is a great actor and an asshole I probably won't be a fan. But someone who may not be winning Oscar for his performances and isn't hailed as next Pacino, DeNiro or whatever but is genuinely appreciative of his fans and success? That is the kind of person I cheer for.