cinematic corner.

I don't drive. If I did, there would be thousands of causalities. Oh My God. What If I drove over an animal? But I enjoy sitting in the car, while someone who knows what they are doing is driving. It's so relaxing. You have music on and you see all those places and people through the window. It's especially amazing at night.

Watching Drive is a bit like that, except you are sitting in front of the screen watching the movie. But it completely captures the vibe - the film has an amazing style, but the style never hides the substance. Drive is one of those movies that are destined to become a classic - it's the kind of story that is both intriguing and entertaining. And all of that because of the protagonist.

We only know him as Driver. He is a mysterious figure, of whom we know nothing about other than for the fact that he is an excellent driver and he keeps to himself. Driver's path crosses with that of Irene, his innocent, lovely neighbor played by brilliantly cast Carey Mulligan. He falls for her, but it is the kind of love story that you sense can never reach happy ending. Whether it's because of Driver's past or his personality - we can't know for sure.

This sense of continuous mystery works very well and it's especially admirable because even though we don't know much about the protagonist, we root for him. He is a violent guy, but he wants to protect innocent woman and her child, easily blending in the role of a true hero, selfless person that doesn't want anything for himself other than the knowledge Irene and her child are safe from any harm.

The movie, beautifully directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, has the most amazing soundtrack. I'm not a music expert so I don't really know the right term here but it sounds like smooth pop from the 80's with a touch of electro. The sensual sounds and simple, but memorable, lyrics aided by great cinematography and elegant editing really establish amazing atmosphere of the movie.

Though I'm not that into Ryan Gosling and I really don't think of him as someone who is a strong guy, he actually plays menacing and violent Driver very well. It's something about his eyes and the confidence - when he threatens the people in the movie you are completely convinced he would carry out those threats, without second though.

Review of the movie - HERE / Scene of the Week - HERE

Visual Parallels Drive/Taxi Driver - HERE

PREVIOUS MOVIES OF THE MONTH:

This week's episode of Game of Thrones wasn't quite the ride as thrilling as last week's, but we did get plenty of amazing things including one of the most breathtaking shots in the whole series and a shocking death, for book readers and non book readers alike. Unfortunately, we also get to see Sam and Bran.

The first scene of the episode was Sam trying (and failing) to start a fire to keep Gilly and her newborn son warm. Gilly instructs him how to do it properly, since Sam is good for nothing. The whole scene had only one purpose - to show us the dagger Sam found during the Battle in the Fist of the First Men. Also, I do not want to sound insensitive, but Sam is the Hugo of Westeros. No food anywhere, yet he keeps getting...bigger.

In the boring town aka Bran and company, Meera and Osha are having a catfight about the proper ways to skin a rabbit. Wow, truly riveting stuff here. Bran tries to reconcile them telling them their ways of skinning rabbits are both fine. Love Actually Kid is dreaming at this point and suddenly he starts convulsing, as if he had a seizure. Meera runs to him and explains to startled group, including Rickon who appears to only have the lines that are questions, that he is experiencing visions and that those are the side effects. Jojen awakes and tells Bran he saw Jon Snow, surrounded by enemies.

Oh, Love Actually Kid. You know nothing. Jon Snow is not surrounded by enemies, in fact he is riding of the high of finally getting laid. Him and Ygritte are smiling and talking, Ygritte mentions "that thing he did with his tongue" again, Jon blushes... again, really powerful stuff here. Ygritte also gives him the pair of the crappiest snow shoes I've seen in my entire life. They are preparing for the climb - the wildings will attempt to climb the wall to run away from the White Walkers. Curiously, Mance Ryder is absent during all of this. Last we saw him, he was promising to light "the biggest fire the North has ever seen". Is he...as bad at this as Sam is? Is he trying to figure out how much wood is...too much?

Back in Tortureville, the boy is still tormenting Theon. As Theon had betrayed Robb Stark I do not feel bad for him. I really don't. Truth be told, I wish they would just drop that story right in Episode 4 when we saw the boy lead Theon back to the dungeon. But we have this scene and then guessing by the promo, another one in the next episode. While the next episode is written by George R.R. Martin himself and he may use this opportunity to actually show us something that was only hinted at (this is going to be horrible), as great as this week's scene was, it was a bit of the waste of time.

Either the writers don't think non book readers can guess who is torturing Theon so they are throwing hints (each one more blatant than the last) or it's just their fondness of showing torture. Well, here we got some good old fashioned flaying skin off the little finger move from the boy. Iwan Rheon's acting was really terrific here and they truly found the right person to bring his character to life. I like that we see how much he loves mind games. But perhaps this should be used later on.

Meanwhile, in Riverlands, Arya is learning how to use a bow While she is doing that, she is reciting the names of the people she wants to kill. I always love it when she does that. Arya notices a group of riders approaching. In front of them is Melisandre. Her and Thoros exchange several lines in truly beautiful Valyrian and Melisandre is brought before Beric. When she remarks that it is impossible that Thoros brought him back 6 times, for he is a man without power, Thoros tells her the tale of him losing his faith and the day he brought Beric back for the first time.

Melisandre tells them there is someone she wants from them. It turns out that this person is Gendry. Melisandre pays Beric and Thoros in gold to Arya's disgust who remarks how they are doing it for the gold, not for their god. Thoros explains that they need weapons to fight, which costs money, so they are doing it for both reasons. Meanwhile Melisandre tells Gendry that he will make "the kings rise and fall". Oh, God. I really hope it means we are getting that leeches scene.

Melisandre appearing in Riverlands and taking Gendry is completely new - Gendry has been merged with another character from the books - Edric Storm. It's really a brilliant and quite elegant move on writers' part. We also got amazing moment because of this - Arya and Melisandre.

As I mentioned before, one of my favorite things in the novels are prophecies. We finally got some of that and more - we even got a hint to something beyond the written word as the writers gave us a hint to something that has not happened yet. And the scene was incredible. Arya confronts Melisandre who looks startled when she sees her. She looks in her face and says "Brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes -- eyes you'll shut forever." This is some really brilliant foreshadowing - in one line, three different clues. After that Melisandre gives Arya a slight smile and says they will meet again. Pay attention to the music that was playing in that scene - when is the last time we heard it? If you know it, you may guess one of the things Melisandre was referring to.

Meanwhile, in genius town, Robb Stark is welcoming Frey emissaries. They tell him they are prepared to forgive him for...how do I put this? Banging the nurse, marrying her and screwing over their family. Robb is of course very courteous and charming, knowing that he needs Freys for his brilliant plan to take Casterly Rock to succeed (is that the word that I'm looking for?). The Freys want apology. They also want Harrenhal. Why the hell does everyone want Harrenal? Yes, it's the biggest castle but it's a pile of rocks and dead bodies. And it's pretty well known fact that it is cursed.

Anyways, these terms are met with approval from Robb, Edmure,Blackfish and silent Catelyn. And then they hear the third condition - the Freys want Edmure to marry the Frey girl, as Robb was supposed to do (I'm willing to bet right here and now that Roslin Frey is hundred times prettier than Talisa). Edmure, little bitch that he is, throws a hissy fit, rambling on about having the right to chose his own wife. For fuck sake. I'll never understand that. Wars are happening. People are getting killed. You will get an ally and an army but instead of marrying some girl you really only need to sleep with once 1) you simply must bang the first woman you see (Robb) 2) you act as if it was the worst thing in the world (Edmure).

In some sublime lines Blackfish yells at Edmure and Robb asks him to do this, because they really need Freys. He reminds Edmure about the ~~gigantic failure~~ mill and that he should repay for this. Blackfish saying "remember that heroic engagement?" to Edmure was the funniest part of the episode. Edmure finally agrees to marry Roslin Frey, making it officially the season of the wedding talk on Game of Thrones..

Meanwhile, the wildings are climbing up the wall, with Tormund, Orell, Jon and Ygritte in one group. Suddenly they lose the grip and Jon and Ygritte start falling. Orell wants to use this opportunity to kill Jon, whom he doesn't trust, but here comes a twist - Jon does something that is actually useful and rescues Ygritte and himself.

In King's Landing, Tywin and Olenna are talking about the new marriage plans for ser Loras. Olenna is not happy about Loras marrying Cersei. The scene was pure gold as both of those don't take any shit and hold no punches - Olenna went as far as to ask Tywin if he had any homosexual adventures and to bringing up the issue of Cersei sleeping with her brother. Tywin had the upper hand though - if Olenna doesn't agree to Loras marrying Cersei, he will name him one of the Kingsguard - and they can't marry or inherit anything. Olenna breaks Tywin's quill indicating she is agreeing to marriage.

Misery loves company. Tywin screwed Tyrion and Cersei over so bad, they are talking again, forced to work together. Tyrion flat out asks Cersei if she gave the order to kill him during the battle of Blackwater. Cersei stays silent. Tyrion deduces that it means Joffrey did that, as Tyrion is the only one who tells him what he is (well he is several things, to be completely honest - an idiot, a coward, a sadist...take your pick). In the books nothing is stated explicitly, but everything points out to the fact Cersei wasn't the one behind the assassination attempts.

Tyrion and Cersei are wondering what to do in their situation. He remarks that Sansais probably getting the worst deal but Loras will know true misery with Cersei by his side. They wonder where Jaime is and Tyrion says there is no doubt Jaime will kill ser Loras when he finds out his beloved sister is marrying him.

What they don't know is that currently Jaime can't even cut his meat. We move to Harrenhal where Jaime and Brienne, wearing pink dress, are dining with Lord Bolton. This is one of the most amazingly written chapters in the books. At this point we should wonder about something, but we don't. We don't, because everything happens so fast, it's impossible to truly wonder about why it's all happening. Though the scene was very short - and perhaps that is because if it went on longer in TV you would start to wonder - it was very well done.

In the books Jaime remarks how that pink dress makes Brienne look even uglier. Well, not only does Gwendoline Christie look pretty in it, it turns out that unlike in the books the dress is a great fit - so I assume they had different, gigantic woman there before Brienne? Other than this little detail the scene was beautifully written and I loved that bit when Brienne stuck her fork in Jaime's meat to help him curve it, which was a compassionate and caring gesture yet Brienne did it in a way that screamed "I'm so mad that I care about you".

In the scene Roose Bolton makes sure Jaime won't implicate him in his amputation. Roose plans to sent Jaime to King's Landing, as payment for the crimes of his men. But here comes trouble - Bolton says Brienne is a traitor and she is staying in Harrenhal. Jaime tries to protest but Bolton shuts him up. As weird as it sounds, Brienne was only safe when the Kingslayer was on her side. And now he must leave her behind....

Another little thing I loved here - at one point Brienne grabs a knife and Jaime grabs her hand to prevent her from doing anything. Ahhh.

Back in King's Landing, Sansa is having a nice little chat with Loras, who truth be told looks worse and worse with each season and wasn't anything special to begin with. Loras might have as well have a rainbow flag on his shoulders in this scene, it was written in such a way. Sansa is obviously oblivious to anything odd and she just smiles and laughs, so very happy.

Then we see her trying out a gown for Joffrey and Margaery's wedding. We did see Sophie Turner in her corset in this scene which was....odd. Let me explain. The scene could have just as easily be something else, yet the writers chose to do that, preventing Sansa from taking off her dress only because Tyrion entered the room. People have trouble with many things in the show but for me that one was very noticeable cheap and tantalizing maneuver. Also - isn't she seventeen? Really HBO?

Anyways, Tyrion is there to tell Sansa the happy news that she won't be leaving King's Landing with ser Loras. She will instead marry Tyrion and stay in King's Landing, not only a prisoner to Lannisters - a wife of one of them. We don't actually see him tell her. Tyrion says "This is awkward" and we cut away.

There was something else with Sansa and Shae - right before Tyrion walked in, Sansa actually asked Shae if she thinks she is going to be able to invite her family for the wedding. Robb Stark would be proud of his sister's brilliance. Sure, Sansa. Let's invite your mother and your bother who are in open rebellion, your bothers who are missing and your sister who is God knows where to the wedding, where you will marry a man who joined Tywin Lannister in a battle.

This is the episode that made two things very clear - Littlefinger is a dangerous man and Joffrey is still a monster. In fact he is getting worse fast. Both those epiphanies required a very bloody, very saddening sacrifice.

As Littlefinger and Varys are having one of their classic conversations, Littlefinger reveals to Varys that he knows Ros has been spying on him on his behest. Varys was supposed to protect her...and I'm afraid this episode and what Littlefinger was able to do made him look like a useless, helpless fool.

We see Joffrey, looking very pleased holding a crossbow. We hear Littlefinger tell Varys that he gave Ros to "daring friend who wanted to try something new". And then, the horror. Joffrey leaves his crossbow and camera shows us Ros - strapped to the bed post, with quarrels all over her body, including the groin and one in the chest - the one that I'm sure was the last one to be fired.

This is really terrible on multiple levels. I really liked Ros. She was a good person. I don't care she wasn't in the books - she represented few different characters. And I found it interesting how in addition to highborn lady from Winterfell (Sansa) we also saw how one that was lowborn is trying to survive. Plus to die like this, killed by Joffrey, scared, tortured and alone. Awful.

Also one must wonder about Tyrion. This is all about TV series since so many of the scenes in King's Landing are invented - but he was the one who sent Joffrey prostitutes in season 2. Of course, he didn't know he will abuse them. But he did sent them, provided him with them. Then there is Margaery, stirring Joffrey talking about how exciting it must be to kill something. Obviously, the blame is not on them but without those two moments Joffrey's madness could have chosen different path.

So Ros is dead and Shae lives on. Dammit.

Anyways, as Littlefinger continues his speech we also see Sansa, crying and observing him leave to Eyrie on a ship. Had she gone with Littlefinger she wouldn't have to marry Tyrion and now it's too late. Of course Sansa doesn't know that Littlefinger is fucking crazy, not to mention evil.

The episode ends with the wildings reaching the top of the wall. It's an extremely breathtaking scene - Ygritte and Jon stand up and look at the side of the wall Westeros is on. They are speechless. They start to kiss and the camera slowly pans out, revealing the beautiful sight.

Next episode is called The Bear and The Maiden Fair. It is written by George R.R. Martin, for the very first time in the series, and it will feature Robb sex scene and my single favorite moment of the entire book series.
PREVIOUS RECAPS:

(spoilers)

For the last few years director Steven Soderbergh was growing increasingly disenchanted with Hollywood. He finally decided to retire and Side Effects is his second to last movie - that title belongs to Behind the Candelabra, HBO produced film that actually found its way to this years' Cannes competition. Soderbergh's disenchantment definitely shows - Side Effects is one of his dullest and most uninspired movies.

In fact, the more I read about the film, the more I think retirement, or at least a long break, may be a good idea for Soderbergh. Some of the ideas he had during the production of this movie - such as casting Justin Timberlake in the role that ultimately went to Channing Tatum (which to be honest is only a little better) or casting Lindsey Lohan as lead - are bizarre and disturbing.

Emily (Rooney Mara) is a strange young woman. She seems sad, off, lost. She is about to greet her husband back home, who spent four years in prison for insider trading. When he is released, Emily doesn't seem much happier. She goes to the parking lot, she starts a car and she drives her car into a wall. In the hospital she meets Dr Jonathan who agrees not to put her under observation if she begins therapy with him. She starts taking a drug - Ablixa - which is supposed to be make her happy. Instead Emily starts to sleep walk, behave strangely and soon other side effects follow...

I assure you this synopsis is much more interesting and coherent than the movie itself. Side Effects is riddled with so many problems, it's hard to figure out which is the biggest one. My choice would be the lack of focus. Soderbergh really doesn't know what he wants to do with this story. Is it a thriller about side effects of the drugs? Is it a thriller about a young, lost woman? Is it a thriller about a shrink caught up in conspiracy? There is a movie out there, a good movie, but Soderbergh doesn't appear to have skills to pull it off anymore. Either that or he was so bored by the very plot of this one, he didn't even try.

The film gives up on having a clear protagonist for the sake of a dumb twist in even dumber murder mystery. So instead of following just Emily, the film shifts focused from her to Jonathan after she kills her husband and says she doesn't remember doing that. Is it a side effects to the drugs Jonathan prescribed her or is she lying? Did she plan the whole thing or is it a tragic side effect?

Another issue is that I really didn't care - Emily has personality of a potato, her husband is equally bland, Emily's old shrink played by Catherine Zeta Jones (who is, by the way, aging horribly) acts and looks like cartoon villain and Jonathan's wife is an utter and complete bitch. Jonathan is the only likable person in this whole mess, but that doesn't make him into interesting character.

The whole murder plot is as ridiculous as it is boring to unfold - so let me get this straight - Emily and her doctor/lover Victoria hoped that the will earn money claiming Ablixa causes side effects (there was talk about stock exchange or something, I really didn't care but I got the gist). The claim to this side effects existed only because Emily killed her husband. She killed him because she hoped without him "things will be different" after visiting him every week for four years when he was in prison? Really?

The film makes the claim that Emily is sane and she knows what she is doing but I wouldn't say that. For me someone who kills her husband simply because she hopes things will be better is a psychopath. She manipulates everyone in the movie and does so with no remorse. Again, I don't think the writer thought of that, considering how half-assed this whole story was.

Apparently Soderbergh said his biggest influence on this movie was Fatal Attraction. Well, then I must bring his apparent lack of skills again - Adrien Lyne knows how to make certain scenes erotic. Soderbergh, used to know it (Out of Sight, Solaris) but here he completely fails. Rooney Mara and Catherine Zeta Jones actually make out in this film and there is no heat, no spark, no desire. I couldn't believe it was shot by the same person who gave us tub scene between J.Lo and Clooney.

As usual with his movies, the film is very stylish. The cinematography and editing are very skillful and elegant, but the raw style and serious tone mixed with something that was supposed to be erotic and sensual really don't go well. It doesn't help that the characters seem so one dimensional. Everything looks polished, sterile, instead of passionate and dirty. Murder! Sex! Betrayal! You can't talk about those things and keeping things so neat and clean.

The film is only watchable because of the way it looks, sounds (Thomas Newman score was better than this movie deserves) and because of the dedicated cast. Tatum and Zeta Jones do what they can with the material, which really doesn't require them to do all that much. What is it with Soderbergh and Tatum anyways? I wouldn't say the man can't act but it's almost as if he was his muse.

Mara and Law are very good in their roles. Mara, who is a very talented actress, really deserves better material though, considering she even did full frontal here. That said she is utterly convincing as cold and detached Emily. It is Law however who completely steals the show as Jonathan, managing to actually create something of slightly complex character in the movie filled with cliches.

I'm not sure why I'm so surprised this movie was average. Soderbergh haven't made a great movie in years. The fact that Side Effects is boring and forgettable could be forgiven. But the fact that it was lazy and made by someone who appeared not to have any interest in it? Absolutely not.

Side Effects (2013, 106 min)
Plot: Emily Taylor, despite being reunited with her husband from prison, becomes severely depressed with emotional episodes and suicide attempts. Her psychiatrist, Jonathan Banks, after conferring with her previous doctor, eventually prescribes an experimental new medication called Ablixa. The plot thickens when the drug starts having unexpected side effects on Emily.
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Scott Z. Burns
Stars: Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum, Jude Law

RELATED POSTS:

Well my week was...not good. It was a nightmare. Turns out my professor doesn't have the time to read my dissertation so I still don't know whether it's good or not. He told me he will get back to me so it's not cool as he is unpredictable and I'm literally checking my inbox 100 times a day. Plus he is not the most pleasant person so if he doesn't like my paper it will be hellish as I really don't know how to make it better. Hopefully he will go easy on me and I'll defend it in June because I really just want it to be over. Haven't been this stressed out in years. At least with the bar exam if you learn and know stuff - you pass. Here it is kinda arbitrary and I hate the shit out of that.

I've actually started learning for the bar exam this week. It's not awful yet as I started with criminal procedure which is the easiest one, since I like it. Also if I don't get in this year, that's not so bad. I'll probably be exhausted by the time I'll actually take the exam anyway and the perspective of 26 more months of this is not something I'm eager to start. I'm always law school graduate so I can find a place to do some legal training. No hurry. I don't get my hopes up, so there is only room for good surprises, not bitter disappointments. And it's still 5 months to the exam.

Thank God for Game of Thrones. The only time I forget about all of this mess is the one hour when I watch it on Sunday. Then I'm not here. I'm in motherfucking Westeros.

I changed my avatars to Lady Melisandre. Khaleesi's continuous rejection of Jorah and the fact she is about to turn into a dumbass was one of the reasons. Also Melisandre rocks.

We didn't get Robb sex scene on Sunday but it's coming up in new episode, so HAPPINESS. Also it will feature my favorite scene from the series - yes! There is like 80% chance I'll explode when I see that.

I wonder how they will handle Tywin scolding Joffrey scene. Yep, Tywin hates whores but the fact Joff used one as a target practice will probably be the reason for the "sharp lesson".

Also there is potentially a very unpleasant Theon scene coming up as Martin, who wrote the episode, will probably use this opportunity to clear some things out.

The most exciting thing this week were the news that Richard Madden is going to be Prince Charming in that Cinderella movie where Cate Blanchett is going to be evil stepmother. Can you imagine him doing all those romantic, fairytale things? I need to get a verbal confirmation from one of my friends that they will go with me to see it. Someone needs to call the ambulance when I pass out.

So let me get this straight - not only is Jenna-Louise Coleman insanely beautiful but she also gets to date him? And do things to his body and face? This is now the very definition of "not fair".

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau made a surprise appearance in recent SNL.

Lammies. I made it pretty clear that I'm not exactly thrilled about them but the fact I lost Best Design again, to the same blog, and this time by 1 vote is actually comical. Thank you to 35 people who voted for me, I appreciate it.

Parks and Rec finale was awesome. Ron is going to be a baby daddy! Oh God, can you imagine that?! He is going to teach that child his Swanson pyramid.

I thought Gustav was spoiled. Then I saw The Big Bang Theory where Raj actually has a stroller for his Yorkie, Cinnamon. I think there are still some levels left to accomplish there.

I finally saw Hannibal. It's good but it's not that great. Hugh Dancy's character is extremely annoying. It follows murder of the week pattern which is such a big cliche. It's just an example of how they want to drag out the reveal of Hannibal being a murderer for many seasons and they have absolutely no idea how to do so, without resorting to usual tricks. Mikkelsen is really good in his role but sometimes it's hard to understand what he is saying because of his accent. The visual side of the series is pretty awesome and I'm quite shocked about the level of gore - it airs on NBC and I didn't think they can actually show such things. That angels thing with people and their skin made to look like wings was crazy.

Mia Wasikowska and Olivia Williams joined the cast of new David Cronenberg movie Maps to the Stars. Williams will play his manipulative mother, and Wasikowska her disfigured, schizophrenic, fame-obsessed daughter. Sounds great.

First teaser for Gravity was released and it's a bit hectic. I mean what the movie is going to be about? Sandra Bullock just floating in space?

Let's talk about that MET gala for a second. Oh, my God. Have you seen Sarah Jessica Parker? You can print that and use it to scare kids. Horrific. I really like Anne Hathaway's new hair color and that dress, as much as it pains me to say so. Cara Delavigne's dress was fantastic too. And our Khaleesi! So gorgeous! That earring was amazing. I liked Emmy Rossum's dress and make up as well as Florence Welch's outfit that looked kinda like something out of Game of Thrones.

This week I saw new Iron Man movie. I liked it, it was fun. I didn't like it as much as the second movie, though, which is my favorite out of trilogy. I just loved Sam Rockwell, Pepper and Tony arguing and Black Widow's long red locks. But third part was entertaining, I'll post the review next week.

There is new David Bowie video with Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard. This is so awesome.

So last week I had a close encounter with giant hedgehog and 20 boars. This week my friend texted me that a pack of wolves was seen in my town's woods. Oh My God...am I actually...in Westeros? Is one of them The Young Wolf? 'Cause that would really turn things around for me.

links:

MettelRay appreciates Mr. Beard. So much hotness in this post.
Ruth shares Lana Del Rey's amazing Young and Beautiful from The Great Gatsby soundtrack
Chris reviews Ruby Starks, which has been on my watchlist for a while now
Elena and Brittani both praise Trance
Alex reviews Mud which I'm looking forward to seeing
m.brown liked charming Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

RELATED POSTS:

What is this saying? "It's always calm before the storm"? Well, apparently in season 3 of Game of Thrones things have to get really lame before they become great. Or at least I'm hoping it's the explanation for the quality and the content of the latest episode. The Bear and the Maiden Fair, the episode that was written - for the third time in series's run - by George R.R. Martin is unfortunately the worst episode of the season.

It's nowhere near the quality of previous episodes written by Martin - The Pointy End and Blackwater, which is actually the single best episode of any TV series I've seen. That said, there where many times when my blood turned cold while watching the episode. Also I fist bumped the air twice and screamed "YES!". At 3 AM. I'm going to get evicted, aren't I?

First time was obviously when we saw glorious nudity from Richard Madden. HBO, you complete me. We got quite sensual sex scene between Robb and Talisa and it's nice to see a sex scene in the show that is not vulgar and cheap. Robb got up (YES!) and started staring and the maps again as Talisa started writing to her mother. There is a popular theory out there that Talisa is a spy and I found it quite odd how much emphasis there was on her writing the letter in Valyrian, the language Robb cannot understand.

Talisa informs Robb that she is pregnant. I always thought Martin has sadistic tendencies, but making Talisa pregnant in the show is a confirmation that he is indeed a sadist. In the books there was no Talisa - she was Jeyne Westerling and Robb married her, which caused the Frey allegiance to fall. It was only speculated that she was pregnant. Martin stating it here, the absence of Grey Wind scenes...I'm sure book readers, particularly after watching the promos for this season can see where all of this is heading. A sadist that man is.

The scene was proceeded by wet Robb again, as the wedding party heading to The Twins was caught in the rain. Oh, yeah. Cat threw several ugly looks at Talisa and some mean comments about Walder Frey were said. Also apparently the talk of "wet shit" turns Robb on.

Another moment which I loved and cheered during was when Tyrion gave Shae a golden chain. In the books the Hand of the King wears a chain, which was replaced with the pin in the show. That chain will be very important later on and I really liked Martin introducing it to fix some things that the writers on the show threw off the right course. That scene was actually pretty great and Shae wasn't too annoying. She is still hurt about Tyrion marrying Sansa and she is heartbroken because she knows she is only "his whore".

After Tyrion announced the plans for him and Sansa, they are both looking for advice from their friends. Tyrion hangs out with Bronn, who was absent for several episodes so it's great to see him again. Bronn doesn't understand what the big problem is as Sansa is not much younger from the girls Tyrion had (in the books she is thirteen, Sophie Turner who plays her is seventeen). Sansa is also receiving encouraging counsel from Margaery.

I really loved that scene. Not only they hinted at Margaery's knowledge about sex, which is also a clever hint for the future but I really liked someone saying nice things about Tyrion. "He is far from the worst Lannister, wouldn't you say?". Exactly. Sansa should be happy. Especially that Tyrion promised her mother that the girls will be returned when Jaime is sent back. And Tyrion is a good man, while Loras is a freaking pussy.

Another thing that worked extremely well were Daenerys scenes. She reached Yunkai, another slave city, that we only saw from the far, but it was really amazing. Emissary is sent to talk to her and there Dany was really bad ass. We finally got to see closer look at all the dragons and the CGI was very impressive. I loved the moment when she threw them a piece of meat and they started fighting over it.

In the books, Daenerys is called "the most beautiful woman in the world" and it's easy to believe in a scene like this one. Emilia Clarke looked really amazing and I loved the dress she was wearing. Dany was very poised and focused in that scene as she informed the emissary of her demands - to free every slave in Yunkai. If they don't do it, the city will face the same fate as Astapor.

Emissary is obviously appalled and he informs her that Yunkai has "powerful friends". He brought Dany gold hoping that it would be enough for her to leave but Dany takes one look at his slaves and decides she has to attack. Her dragons start acting angry and the scared emissary leaves the gold behind. This is far from being over.

Drogon was really pissed off in this scene, especially after emissary threatened Dany. No wonder seven kingdoms bowed to dragons once. They were really terrifying in this scene.

Even an idiot like Joffrey knows dragons are not a laughing matter. He summons Tywin to speak with him. He wonders what the hell is up with the Small Council meetings being moved to the Hand's Tower. Tywin walks up the stairs, stands before terrified Joffrey and tells him that they can arrange to have him carried there if he wants to attend.

Tywin Lannister is the man that everyone should fear. Charles Dance exudes such confidence and that scene is a good example of that. Joffrey may be the one sitting on the throne, but it's Tywin who controls the realm. I wonder why he isn't more concerned about dragons. I was scared shitless of Drogon this episode.

We got plenty of Ygritte and Jon this episode. They are now in Westeros and they are heading to Castle Black to attack it. After getting laid Jon is getting his freak on, talking about how he would like to see Ygritte in silk dress and tear it off her. Damn it, get you shit together Starks! Robb is banging the nurse, Jon is fantasizing about wilding girl and Sansa is worried how to do it with Tyrion. Are you kidding me? Your fucking home is burning, your siblings are missing and THIS is what you are doing?

Anyways, Orell is still pissed off about Jon being in their group. Also he is interested in Ygritte who only has eyes for Jon. Lots of drama on the road. Jon informs Ygritte that six times the wildings wanted to defeat the northmen and six times they failed. Ygritte is convinced this time they will win.

We got short Arya moment, who is mad at the Brotherhood for giving up Gendry to Melisandre. She tells them they are liars and she escapes. Then, she is captured by none other than the Hound. He just can't escape the fate of hanging out with the Stark girls, can he?

We saw Bran and more dreams nonsense, this time with Osha yelling at Love Actually kid for filling Bran's head with strange ideas. She also tells a story of her lover who came back as wight. Meanwhile, in Harrenhal, Jaime exchange several lines with Roose Bolton before leaving. I was very glad they kept that conversation as it will give birth to one of the series' most famous and haunting lines.

There was really awesome moment with Gendry and Melisandre. They are heading on the ship to Dragonstone, through the Blackwater Bay. Because of them taking that route we got to see breathtaking shot of the Bay with all the destroyed ships from the battle.

In the scene Melisandre informs Gendry that he is Robert Baratheon's bastard. That was an amazing moment. The way Melisandre broke the news and Ramin Djawadi's epic music playing in the background made it into really powerful moment. Mel also tells Gendry that there is power in King's blood....

What nearly buried the episode for me was Theon scene. That was just embarrassing to watch. Martin essentially took 10 minutes of screen time, two naked chicks and made us watch it, just to confirm something. In the books it was hinted Theon was castrated by the boy (for fuck sake reveal who he is already, I'm tired of tip-toeing around non-book readers). Two chicks start pleasuring him, the boy appears, cuts his dick off, end of scene. That was ridiculous.

But it's not the worst part of the episode. They completely butchered my favorite scene in the book series. I liked the addition of the goodbye moment between Brienne and Jaime when she says "Goodbye, ser Jaime" and he is all teary eyed. But everything that came later? The writers should be ashamed of themselves.

I can't blame Martin for that fiasco, as that sequence was moved from later episode. If they fuck up Episode 9 as much as they fucked up this, it will be beyond forgiveness. I hope they know that.

In the books after leaving Harrenhal, Jaime had a dream. He dreamed of Casterly Rock and that the canals beneath it were filled with the people he disappointed, including Brienne, whom he saw naked and in chains. He woke up and he told the men that were with him that he has to go back. In the show we got yet another useless look at Jaime's stump,, him having essentially the same conversation as few episodes back with Qyburn and him deciding to go back after hearing Lord Selwyn's ransom was declined by Locke, because he believes he has all those sapphires.

Sapphires that Jaime talked about. So instead of just coming back because it's the right thing to do, Jaime goes back because he feels guilt for the lie he told. What the hell is that bullshit. And then it got even worse.

In the book this was my single favorite moment because upon seeing Brienne with that wooden sword against a huge bear in the pit Jaime committed the single most heroic act in the books. He leaped into the pit, jumped in front of her, unarmed, without his sword hand. Sure, he could assume that the men with him will start shooting at the bear, but he couldn't know it for sure. And in that moment when he leaped in that pit, it was all about saving Brienne.

In the book he found a piece of jaw bone and stabbed the bear with it, he forced it to move around to tire him. He actually fought it. Only then the men started shooting. In the show he jumps in and they start shooting immediately. He gives Brienne a boost and then he grabs her hand. One arrow was shot. No bone was found. And all of that lasted maybe a minute. That was fucking disappointing.

And the wost thing is the lack of my favorite lines. There were four amazing lines they could have used easily and NONE of them was used. Instead of having that Qyburn conversation they could have just showed Jaime waking up, all sweaty and worried and telling the men they have to go back. Then, when he rescues her and she asks why, he could have said "I dreamed of you".

Another amazing line was "Brienne! Her name is Brienne!". I cannot believe they didn't use it, considering how just two episodes back they had Jaime scream "Jaime! My name is Jaime!". We didn't get Jaime asking Brienne if she was a maiden - "Oh, good. I only rescue maidens" and finally no "You want her? Go and get her". We got Locke rambling on about the gold instead. WHAT?

Now, I'm no expert but it seems to me all of that could have been done. And why was that scene so short? There are even some shots used in the trailers we didn't get to see here. Did someone who moved the scene from latter episode screwed up the editing?

I'm not saying it was a bad scene, but it was much too short and comparing to the book scene it was anticlimatic. But from what I understand, non-book readers liked it. The scene was actually the final moment of the episode. And it was nowhere near as epic as the music we heard in those final moments and over the end titles - Ramin Djawadi stunning instrumental rendition of Rains of Castamere.

Only three episodes left. This Sunday - a wedding, a warrrior and a wight.
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I LOVE YOU HBO!!!!

But seriously, what a shame the person holding a camera didn't faint during the second gif moment. The camera would get lower...had I been there that would totally happen.

Why did he put on a robe? That's sexist. Talisa is naked the whole scene and Robb was not. That was just a terrible injustice done to me.

I hate Talisa. She is just too damn lucky.

Let me take a moment to remember what I was going to write. Those gifs above are quite distracting.

Oh, yes. You would think that my favorite book moment would translate into my favorite TV series moment? Well, no luck there. But I have big hopes for the final scene of the season even though it will most likely be insanely frightening.

I've been listening to the closing music to the latest episode, which was Rains of Castamere, on repeat for most of the week. Why do I do those things to myself?

Game of Thrones facebook recaps are the funniest part of my week.

If I read one more post claiming Purple Wedding is this season I'm going to punch the wall.

Apparently no one was cast as Jinglebell. Are you kidding me? I want to hear the bells!

So freaking excited about Stephen Dillane finally being in next episode. Please God let the leeches scene happen.

This gif on the right is one of the best things ever.

There's going to be two week hiatus between Episode 8 and Episode 9. During that time I'll give season 3 recap treatment to the reason for the hiatus and the best episode of the series (and not just GoT) - Blackwater.

Lately I've been discussing the event Episode 9 will revolve around with a bunch of people and it's just fascinating because a lot of us, me included, actually added some disturbing images in our memory. It's like when people claimed they saw Rosemary's baby in the crib. This is such an amazingly written, atmospheric chapter. I think the whole of Game of Thrones relies on how they will handle that. This is the biggest thing to happen and one that some of us were waiting for years. Not because we want it to happen. But because in all of our masochism, we want to be paralyzed with fear and heartbreak. And because it will make for fucking incredible sequence.

I know I was supposed to publish my Iron Man 3 review this week but I've been learning criminal procedure this whole week and I'm exhausted. The only reason I'm even writing this post now is so I could have Richard Madden's ass on my blog.

I don't really care about this year's Cannes festival but both Florence Welch and Lana Del Rey are there which is wonderful.

Nicole Kidman looked incredible on the premiere. So cool Christoph Waltz is in the jury as well.

I don't want to see The Great Gatsby but all of those Old Sport memes make me think this may be a truly hilarious unintentional comedy. I'll probably catch it on DVD, though, since I don't feel like wasting my money and time on that now.

I really hope I will defend my dissertation by the time June is over because my head is now in chronic pain. I just want it to be over and never have to look at this place again. Also I need to attach the copy of my diploma to my bar exam application and I need it before July. What's worse is that I need to include my CV. What the hell am I supposed to write there? Proud Jaime and Brienne shipper?

The new trailer for Pacific Rim is absolutely spectacular.

Last three episodes of Elementary were great. That picture of Natalie Dormer as Irene Adler is just breathtaking. She did such a tremendous job in the finale - she is now my favorite Irene Adler. There was an amazing twist in the finale, one that I see a lot of people have trouble with, but I absolutely loved it.

Yesterday series finale of The Office happened. It's actually one of my favorite shows, well up until the point Carrel left, but James Spader was hilarious in season 8. I caught up with the recent episodes this week and I absolutely loved that montage Jim showed Pam while we saw him talk with Dwight and Dwight finally realized he loves Angela. Angela shouting to Dwight "who the f---k drives like that?!" and him saying he loves her was jut incredible. The finale itself was quite sweet but it wasn't the greatest. Stay tuned for the very special Farewell to The Office post tomorrow.

The Big Bang Theory finale was really fun. Raj can finally talk to women without booze!

Gustav has a new, summer haircut:

links:

I lost count of how many LammiesFogs has won...is it 8? Anyways everyone should head over there and congratulate him on his much deserved wins. Let's just put a veil of silence on the answer to the question how many Lammies Cinematic Corner won, shall we?
But the biggest event in the blogosphere for me was obviously the fact that my favorite movie blog - Two Dollar Cinema - celebrated its second birthday! YEY!!
Brittani made an awesome list of bad guys that she loves. Her number 1 would be my number 1 as well. Oh, Tywin. I should hate you for what you are about to do... so how come I love you so much?
Eric chose his 10 favorite tracks by the band I love - The National
Josh, Keith, Ruth and Rorschach Reviews made posts about The Great Gatsby. Courtney wrote a piece with her defense of the movie.
Chris reviews terrific Winter's Bone
In celebration of Mother's Day Stephanie shared the list of 12 memorable movie moms
Katy and ckckred shared their picks for Top 10 favorite The Office episodes. Katy also shared her favorite The Office moments.

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On Thursday, after 9 years, The Office reached its finale. The show that was originally inspired by British comedy series with Ricky Gervais was one of the most well known and popular series in the world. I watched every single episode of it, often times more than once. The first 7 seasons, the ones that still had Steve Carrel in it, had some of the funniest moments I've seen on TV.

In season 8 the show took a steep drop in quality. Carrel left and new cast members joined in. Unfortunately among them was Katherine Tate, who was quite simply the most annoying addition to any series I watched. I haven't seen her other work but she was so painfully unfunny here and her character was so irritating every time she was on screen I wanted someone to punch her in the face.

Fortunately there was still hilarious James Spader around. His character was very amusing and I loved his lines. Even when the humour wasn't sophisticated I laughed like an idiot, especially this one time when he walked in and puked in the trash can.

A lot of people were doing their top 10 lists honoring the show this week, choosing their 10 favorite episodes. I don't think I could do that. There are just too many amazing episodes with incredible moments. For me what was really amazing in the show is that sometimes there could have been a very short scene that was so funny it was enough to make the episode memorable.

The series also had amazing supporting characters, they were all so colorful and fun, like Creed who was always very mysterious and clearly has done a lot of awful things no one knows about. He would come in when they were playing murder game in the office and upon hearing that they are looking for the suspect he would run to his car. Also the running joke of him always confusing people always made me laugh.

Then there was Kevin who was always a joy to watch. That moment he brought chili to work and it got spilled all over the carpet and he was desperately tying to clean it? Classic.

And of course Stanley. He was always so serious and bored about everything around which only made the moments he laughed - like when Andy tried to put condom on a pencil or Scott's Tots situation - even funnier. I also loved him throwing the looks to camera like when Jan sang "Son of the preacher man" during the baby shower.

Then there was of course Jan, who was completely batshit. The Dinner Party episode where we got a look on how she and Michael lived was completely insane and hilarious. One of the best episodes really, Michael ranting about three vasectomies never fails to make me laugh.

The show also had the best proposal scenes. Jim proposing to Pam in the rain and Michael proposing to Holly were incredibly beautiful scenes. The show has did such a good build up for the audience to root for the characters to be together and those culminating moments were just precious. In the second to last episode of the show Dwight finally proposed to Angela which also made for a nice moment.

Pam and Jim are actually up there with the most famous TV couples next to Ross and Rachel. I never liked Pam that much but John Krasinski's acting as Jim really sold the romance story to me. There was just so much conviction and honesty in his portrayal of Jim's feelings for Pam.

Over the course of the show we had two lovely montages highlighting charming moments of Jim and Pam's relationship. One was back in season 6, to Travis's Sing and another was in the second to last episode to Snow Patrol's Open your Eyes. They were both absolutely lovely.

Another couple I always shipped was Dwight and Angela and I was so happy It was their wedding that was featured in the finale.

I also adored all the random acts of friendship and kindness between the characters. Dwight hugging Pam and Michael always caring so much about his employees made for such sweet moments. It was always Carrel's ability to be both the clown and the genuinely good person that made his Michael Scott such a great character.

He actually placed 4th on my all time favorite characters list. Michael always getting the words wrong, thinking he is better at things than he was and his terrible taste in women brought all of us watching so much laughter. My favorite moments were often those where nobody would stop Michael's train of thought and he just kept talking - like when he was convinced the office was cursed and was wondering what animal they could possibly sacrifice.

But the most hilarious thing in the show was by far Michael's hatred for HR Toby. Michael remarks to him were just hysterical - You are the silent killer, go back to the annex. / You are a waste of life and you should just give up. / Of all the idiots, in all the villages, you stand alone, my friend.

The episodes focusing on the hatred Michael had for Toby were often the best -like classic season 4 finale Goodbye, Toby when Toby was leaving for Costa Rica which incidentally meant it will be one of the happiest days in Michael's life, or Frame Toby when Toby came back and Michael was determined to get rid of him.

Another thing that made the show even more amusing was the mockumentary format where the characters often looked at the camera and we got those interview snippets of them commenting on things happening in the office. My favorite were always Dwight's interviews - I caught Jim talking to himself several times today. What a loser! Get a friend, loser! / I've given up hoping for Michael to do the right thing, the decent thing or even the comprehensible thing.

There were some characters I didn't like - Andy, played by incredibly irritating Ed Helms or Ryan, who was such a douchebag. But mostly the people in the office were likable even Karen, played by Rashida Jones, who just can't escape playing the boring character in ensemble filled with interesting ones.

For me the show took too much of a drop in quality to be considered one of the greatest. The recent episodes were good but it's just not enough to make up for some of the truly embarrassing decisions made over the years - Will Ferrel's painfully unfunny appearance, the turtle being glued together, pretty much every time Helms would sing. None of those, combined, being worse than Katherine Tate.

The finale was quite good, but it's far from being one of the best. I was very glad to see Michael Scott, though. A lot of people seem mad that he didn't really do much, just talked with the people there and behaved ordinary. Michael has a wife who loves him and kids now. He doesn't need to be clown anymore. Now he is just a good person.

One last thing I have to mention are the guest stars - Amy Adams in season 1 and 2, Kathy Bates who was just hilarious in season 6 and 7, Amy Ryan who was charming and perfect choice for her character and obviously - Idris Elba.

Everything is better with Idris Elba.

When the writers stay close to the books, great things happen. New episode, Second Sons, was definitely a step up from last week's disappointing episode. We got fewer storylines here, but each of them had a nice pay-off, a lot of great acting and yes, even shy glimpses of hope. I saw a lot of people complain about the lack of great scenes with Peter Dinklage this season. Well, I guess they are all happy now.

The centerpiece of the episode was Tyrion's wedding to Sansa. I was disappointed with the lack of scene where Tyrion tells Sansa they are going to be married - instead the scene abruptly cut off when we saw it few episodes back. But we got a nice scene here instead - right before the wedding Tyrion talks to Sansa alone and swears never to hurt her.

Then we get to see Great Sept again as the wedding guests start to arrive. And here came the highlight of the episode for me. Margaery took Cersei's arm and told her soon they will be sisters. Cersei is obviously appalled but doesn't show it yet. And here we finally get to understand the meaning of the song Rains of Castamere, from which the next episode takes title from.

Cersei tells Margaery the story. Once upon a time there was House Reyne. They were the second most powerful family, right after Lannisters, much as Tyrells are now. Cersei says how tempting it must be to be on the second place and know that you need to take one more step to have the power. So Lord Reyne rebelled against Tywin's father. And young Tywin led the Lannister army and crushed the rebellion.

But he didn't stop there. Every man, woman and child in Reyne family was executed. Every single one. Their rotting corpses were hanged outside Casterly Rock all summer to remind the people of the power and the crushing revenge the Lannisters are capable of. More precisely - Tywin Lannister. Whenever the song is heard it reminds the people to be afraid of him. He is capable of exterminating the entire house, annihilating entire families.

It was a great place to explain the meaning of the song, considering that everyone's favorite Tyrion is forced to do something this episode - marry Sansa - because his father wants it to happen. He cannot defy him. Because he is afraid of Tywin and for good reason too. It's a bit of a shame the song itself wasn't played here - it was featured numerous times during the show but as important as non-book readers knowledge of the song's story is, they should also be very familiar with its melody and lyrics.

Soon Sansa appears on the stairs and stands there, confused as to what to do next. Joffrey walks to her explaining to her that since her father is dead, Joffrey is the one who is giving her away as "the father of the realm". Someone punch him. Please.

Sansa walks slowly, passing Bronn who gives her a nod, Margaery who offers encouraging smile and Tywin and Cersei in all their smugness and glory. I was very glad the cloak scene was kept. It's a lovely ritual where the father takes bride's cloak with the color of her house off her shoulders and then groom clothes her in the cloak with the color of his house.

In the book the situation played a bit differently. Here Joffrey, spitefully, took the stool from Tyrion so he would be so much smaller than Sansa. Tyrion doesn't know how to clothe Sansa, since he can't reach, so he asks her to kneel and he is finally able to put the cloak on her. In the books Tyrion tugs at her dress and Sansa stubbornly refuses to kneel, forcing Tyrion to stand on the back of the fool to finally finish the ritual. After she tuns around and sees how embarrassed he is she feels terrible.

The relationship between Sansa and Tyrion is a bit more amicable in the TV series. Sansa even smiles at him before the ceremony. Some things stay the same and the most important one too - the fact that Tyrion gets absolutely fucking smashed during the party afterwards.

Peter Dinklage was absolutely brilliant in this episode. I'm not sure if he wasn't a bit drunk - to recreate the mumbling and the stumbling this accuretely, it was very realistic. Drunk Tyrion was absolutely hilarious - I burst out laughing when he spilled wine on himself and started to wipe his face with table cloth, next to mortified Sansa.

As Tyrion grows increasingly more drunk, Olenna tries to figure out the family ties between Lannisters and Tyrells, since very soon Loras is marrying Cersei and Margaery is marrying precious Joffrey. Loras, bored and angry, gets up and attempts to form some sort of bond with his future wife. Cersei quickly shoots him down, not interested in him, or any bonds with Tyrells. I was quite shocked Loras was still there. If I were him I'd run as far as I could.

Meanwhile, Sansa leaves Tyrion to dance with the guests and she is approached by Joffrey who threatens to rape her after his uncle passes out. At the same time Tywin reminds Tyrion how important it is for him to have a child with Sansa and Tyrion is becoming more and more angry.

Finally he has enough and as Joffrey is calling for them to begin the bedding ritual, Tyrion says there will be no bedding. Joffrey says he commands it and then Tyrion takes out his knife, stabs the table with it and yells to Joffrey that if he insists "he will be fucking his own bride with the wooden cock". The entire room falls silent as Joffrey becomes enraged. Tywin intervenes remarking that Tyrion is drunk and he clearly didn't mean to threaten the king.

Sansa and Tyrion leave to consummate their marriage. In the books the whole scene was much more uncomfortable as Sansa actually undressed, as did Tyrion and we got pretty detailed description of his manhood. It actually happens a lot in the books, leading most to joke that they would be able to draw Tyrion's dick from memory. Anyways, only after all of that Tyrion tells Sansa that he won't force her to anything and the two just go to sleep.

Here as Tyrion witnesses Sansa dutifully disrobe he tells her that his father can't force him to do this. He also tells her that he won't share her bed until she asks him to. When Sansa asks what if she never wants that, Tyrion makes a joke saying that now his watch has started, referring to the celibacy of the men who guard the wall.

Meanwhile, in Daenerys's storyline we meet Second Sons - mercenary company, the said "powerful friends" of Yunkai. Daenerys tells the three captains of the 2,000 army that she would like them to fight for her, which will be highly profitable for them if they agree. Their leader, Mero, is particularly gross and he keeps making crude comments about Dany. Jorah is seething and when Mero leaves, Dany tells Barristan that comes the battle, Mero should be the first one to be killed.

Then we see a scene with the three of them plotting to kill Daenerys. It is Daario who is supposed to do the deed. As Dany bathes with the help of Missandai - which is only the second most tantalizing thing about the scene as Emilia Clarke is naked for the first time since season 1 - Daario sneaks in. He has a bag with him and he reveals to Daenerys that he killed the two other captains and the bag contains their severed heads.

He tells her that he wants to fight for her, because of her beauty. I shit you not, that is actually what he says. He is actually improvement over the book Daario, as there he was ridiculously flamboyant and had a blue beard. Plus in Dany's POV chapters we had to endure her fantasizing about him. This is why Dany is now becoming one of the dumbest characters in the series. She has Jorah in the form of Iain Glenn there and she wants to bang this dude? Targaryens always danced close to the madness.

In Dragonstone, Melisandre arrives with Gendry. Stannis meets them and Gendry is sent to his chamber after Melisandre tells the servants to find him clothes and give him food. Stannis asks why is she being kind to Gendry if she means to sacrifice him and Melisandre tells him that it is better if the lamb doesn't see the blade.

Stannis goes to the dungeons to talk to Davos. Davos is there, learning to read after receiving encouragement from Shireen few episodes back. The fact he knows how to read now will be very important soon, I imagine in the finale. Stannis tells Davos that he will free him if he promises never to attempt to kill Melisandre again. Davos agrees.

They talk a little more and Davos tells him that he knows why Stannis is freeing him. He wants Davos to convince him that sacrificing the boy is the wrong thing to do. Stannis seems very puzzled and conflicted about the whole thing but he tells Davos there is no denying that Melisandre's god is real after the miracles she performed in his name. And the Lord of Light demands the sacrifice.

Melisandre is seducing Gendry, who is very intoxicated by the wine, comfort and her beauty. As they have sex Melisandre ties him to the bed and attaches three leeches to his body. One was attached to his penis and I have to say that it was....dick move on Melisandre's part. I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. Davos and Stannis walk in, see Melisandre do all of that funky shit, all naked. The look onStannis's face was priceless. As the leeches take blood Melisandre takes them off Gendry and hands over the bowl to Stannis.

Stannis throws them in the fire, one by one, saying the words - "The usurper, Robb Stark. The usurper, Balon Greyjoy. The usurper, Joffrey Baratheon"...

We got to see a little bit of Arya this episode. She is holding a gigantic rock over The Hound's head. He tells her he will give her one chance to kill him, but if she fails - he will cut off both of her hands. Arya decides not to try. Then we see them on the horse and Arya is convinced The Hound is taking her back to King's Landing.

He tells her that she couldn't be more wrong - they are heading to The Twins, for Arya's uncle wedding. Robb and Catelyn will be there and The Hound is hoping they will pay him when he delivers their beloved Arya back to them. Arya smiles, thinking about how close she is to her mother and brother.

The climax of the episode was the much anticipated Sam the Slayer scene. I was convinced we will see a certain wight here, but I was wrong, they are either saving that for the finale or season 4. What we did get here was the actual White Walker (long time, no see) he was heading for Gilly's child. The whole scene was very suspenseful as Gilly and Sam were alone in the cabin and they heard hundreds of ravens outside. When Sam emerged from the cabin the ravens fell silent as White Walker appeared in the woods.

While I maintain the whole make up of White Walkers is really not scary, what is freaky about them is their slow, decisive movement. Nothing can hurt them, so this particular Walker just approaches Sam slowly, grabs his sword and it shatters. And when I say nothing can hurt them...well, that's not true. Sam stabs the Walker with dragonglass dagger he found during the battle, in his last attempt to save Gilly and her child and the Walker shatters into pieces.

Sam takes Gilly's hand and they run, as the ravens fly next to them. Now in the book the dragonglass dagger either shattered or was too cold (don't remember, don't care) to pick up - that is why Sam just left it there.

Thanks to American Memorial Day weekend HBO is inflicting a new and exciting form of torture. ON THE ENTIRE WORLD. 2-week long hiatus for all of us. BEFORE THE MOST IMPORTANT EPISODE OF THE ENTIRE SERIES. Can I induce coma on myself somehow? So I wake up in 14 days? Because if I imagine that one particular event, the event that led the creators to want to adapt the series on screen in the first place, one more time I'll go insane. I can't keep doing that to myself.

The next episode is entitled The Rains of Castamere. I have to congratulate HBO at the way they made that promo so completely misleading and underwhelming. This may be the most genius thing they did all season. Apart from showing Richard Madden's ass. Obviously.
PREVIOUS RECAPS:

If I were Cersei Lannister, life would be so easy. Her ability to diss people and not give a fuck is wonderful.

What a terrible week. Still no progress with the dissertation. This is unbelievable. I didn't have to put up with such crap at my University for 5 years and now, on the finish line, it's absolute madness. It's like my life was written by George R.R.Martin - things are looking up, no, no, hold on, here comes the feces pit for you to fall in. The exams were just one day, this is continuous madness. I just want it to be over. My mother is taking me shopping this Saturday because she is freaked out. It's like in Paranormal Activity down here - I sit in front of the screen refreshing my inbox to check if I have any messages about that. I'm going batshit, thank you collage. My apologies for the lack of updates on the blog, I'm a mess at the moment.

To make matters worse because of Memorial Day weekend, HBO has postponed new episode of Game of Thrones for next Sunday. So in my time of crisis I was deprived of my one hour of escapism. And Robb wasn't in latest episode. Not even naked Robb - no Robb at all. WORST fucking WEEK EVER.

That said I understand why they want as many people as possible watching that episode as it airs. You do not want that one spoiled, trust me. I've been faking out people a lot this week - telling them all kinds of shit that is not going to happen to make them more shocked and surprised. Oh, God. I hope I won't kill anyone this way. I was nearly rendered catatonic when I read that chapter.

I really love when people get creative with the screencaps and stills from new episodes. That one of Sansa featured above is really lovely.

I'm fairly certain every person watching the recent episode hoped Tyrion will kill Joffrey. This week's facebook recap pointed out some things that made Joff such a tremendous asshole:

People keep complaining about the nudity in leeches scene but I won't complain about the scene that featured naked Carice van Houten. And to all of you Joe Dempsie fangirls - it was horrible how they teased you and moved the camera away.

There was this whole drama when someone claiming to see the episode before it aired spread fake spoilers on imdb. Most of them sounded ridiculous but a lot of people believed that it was actually true and they are part of the new episode. It got to the point where actual writer for the show intervened and said the spoilers were fake on WinterisComing. So let me get his straight - some troll posts fake spoilers and gets attention from the writer and I, by posting the gif of Richard Madden's ass, make people actually want to watch the show and I get nothing?

Liam Cunnigham, Carice van Houten and Maisie Williams visited Amsterdam for the opening of Game of Thrones exhibiion. So cute!

I've been playing with Gustav a lot this week. He is such a joyful and carefree creature. You know what? I wish I were a Yorkie. Cersei Lannister of Yorkies.

The most shocking thing I read all week was about the upcoming season of Arrested Development. And unfortunately, it's not good news. Apparently it was impossible to get all the actors on the set at the same time so...some scenes, actually half of new season, was made on green-screen. Actors shot their scenes separately and they were digitally put together. This is insane. I was excited about this season but this just sounds like a terrible idea especially since the show always had such great chemistry between cast.

Another thing I did was finishing season 5 of True Blood. What happened to this show? This season was ridiculous. I can't decide what was dumber - the vampires being high seeing some sort of vampire god, Sam and Luna infiltrating the Authority as mice and flies or this whole hunting supernatural beings in Obama masks plot. The only thing that kept me watching, was, as usual, Pam. And Lafayette. I love his lines. That said when Luna turned into Sam and started freaking out in front of Andy I laughed so hard when he said "I hate this goddamn town". The poster for season 6 is pretty cool. I hope they will kill off Bill. They messed up his character beyond repair.

Other people who had bad week were, if the reports from Cannes are to be believed, Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling. Apparently a lot of people booed Only God Forgives. The reviews are not very favorable either. Still, indiewire said it's like watching 90-minute illustration for Cliff Martinez's track and that sounds awesome to me.

links:

Pete shares his Game of Thrones hit list and MettelRay reviews first book of the series
m.brown wasn't the biggest fan of Iron Man 3, but I am a big fan of his review of the movie
Alex shared a lot of brilliant lists this week but my favorite was his list of movies people are surprised he loves
Ruth shared lovely post about her love for Superman
Chris reviews Before Sunset and Before Sunrise
Fogs asks about your favorite movie bromance

RELATED POSTS:

Iron Man 3 was supposed to be the end of the trilogy ."Supposed to be" because now I hear they are planning on doing more movies. Whether it's true or not, the third part focusing on the adventures of Tony Stark is an entertaining summer blockbuster, but for me it was the weakest part of the trilogy. There was just a little too much silliness here and the villain weren't as menacing as he should be to provide the strong sense of danger.

After the events we saw in Avengers, Tony is experiencing panic attacks, being confused and scared of everything that lies beyond what he thought he knew. He cannot sleep, he cannot fully devote himself to Pepper and in the middle of his angst issues, the new enemy resurfaces. He is called Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) and he is a terrorist who is orchestrating attacks on massive scale. Tony's friend and security chef Happy (Jon Favreau) is injured during one of such attacks.

To make matters worse, a handsome and brilliant Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce, who has clearly abandoned any ambition) shows up and he is interested in Pepper. He is like Tony - without all the baggage. There is also a mysterious substance - Extremis - that causes people to turn into radiating energy packs. It looks more ridiculous than it sounds.

It may sound odd but as cool as Avengers was, it now poses a big issue for stand alone movies set in Marvel universe. The whole time I was watching Iron Man 3 I kept wondering - where the hell are the Avengers? Why aren't they helping Stark? Sure, it would cost the studio a lot of money to bring them here, but come on, they can't really reference the movie directly here and expect people to let their absence slide, especially without a single attempt to explain it.

Then there is the villain. I'm not familiar with the comic books but from what I gathered those who are were quite pissed off by the way Mandarin was handled here. I enjoyed the twist that came with his character - it was quite hilarious and it wasn't half as ridiculous as the other threat Stark was facing which was these people with red glowing eyes. Whenever they appeared I felt as if I was watching a bad episode of Supernatural.

Movies based on comic books require some suspension of disbelief but the above problems were really hard to take even in a movie like this one. It also felt somewhat anticlimactic for the final movie (?). The ending was nice, but I don't think I caught the reference there - what was that thing attached to Tony's car? What am I missing?

The third act of the movie, as pretty much every single summer blockbuster's, was unnecessarily bombastic and loud. There were some great moments of humour thrown in there but I really could have dealt without the cliches such as the bad guy is not really dead and comes back and the girl is not really dead and she is fine.

The worst cliche in the movie was definitely the vice president/his daughter moment. I really expected more from the guy who wrote Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. That was just eye-rolling inducing lazy and uninspired writing. I did not however have a problem with the little kid who was helping Stark. It may have been old trick, but it was entertaining to watch.

I'm quite puzzled about the character of Maya Hansen. Why cast incredibly talented Rebecca Hall if she only has several scenes in the movie? Her talent was really wasted in this film and she deserves much better. If she was the main villain in the movie, the film would be far more interesting.

As riddled as it is with problems, the film was still very entertaining. Robert Downey Jr is one of the most amazing and charismatic actors working today and he is practically having the easiest job in the world playing - or should I say - being Tony Stark. Still, even if it's Downey just being Downey, it's so fun to witness. His quick wit, great looks and magnetism are always a treat.

The film was written by Shane Black who collaborated with Downey before on terrific and very clever Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and some of Black's strengths were put to good use here. The banter between Downey and Cheadle is infinitely better here than in second movie and I really adored the cute moments between Tony Stark and the kid that helps him out. Downey is so damn charming you love him even when he calls a small child a pussy.

I must also hand it over to Black - he makes really kick ass Christmas movies. This is his fourth action movie set at Christmas time after Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I'm genuinely shocked he didn't make Die Hard.

The film's most amazing action scene is definitely the destruction of Tony's mansion. It's actually one of the most incredible houses I've ever seen in movies so it was terrible to see it destroyed. The scene was really well made and I loved how Tony ordered the suit to head for Pepper instead of him, to protect her.

My favorite running joke in this one was Happy's adoration for Downton Abbey. It's one of my favorite shows so it was so cool see it featured here. Apparently there is more than meets the eye to the joke - it was done because of the suggestion of Jon Favreau, who is a big fan of the British series. He also felt the show would parallel the unrevealed back story that Happy is in love with Pepper but does not come between her and Tony out of respect for his boss, a theme that also exists in Downton Abbey.

Iron Man 2 is still my favorite film in the trilogy. It's an unpopular opinion and I realize that, but I genuinely adored the previous movie. Sam Rockwell goofing around, Tony and Pepper always fighting, kick ass red haired Black Widow and Rourke's batshit villain were so fun to watch it made all the shortcomings irrelevant in my eyes.

Iron Man 3 is fun and witty but it is troubling how many cliches and uninspired ideas made its way here, especially with 8 people responsible for the plot of the movie, if imdb credits are to be believed. It's a good movie but many times it seemed to me that those who wrote it didn't give it their best and chose the lazy resolutions instead.

Iron Man 3
(2013, 130 min)
Plot: When Tony Stark's world is torn apart by a formidable terrorist called the Mandarin, he starts an odyssey of rebuilding and retribution.
Director: Shane Black
Writers: Drew Pearce (screenplay), Shane Black (screenplay)
Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce and Rebecca Hall

RELATED POSTS:

What's the worst thing that can happen during Game of Thrones season? Hiatus. We are dealing with one now. There was no new episode last night, thanks to Memorial Day weekend. I thought it may be a good opportunity to give the season 3 recap treatment to the series single best episode. Blackwater.

Curiously, Blackwater is the reason for this year's hiatus. Last year the episode aired on Memorial Day weekend anyways and the ratings took a drop. Who the hell goes to the movies or does anything else on the evening new Game of Thrones airs?

The episode is the biggest one of the show so far. Scripted by George R.R. Martin himself and directed by Neil Marshal who brought us terrific The Descent, Blackwater takes place, uncharacteristically for the show, in only one location - King's Landing. Stannis Baratheon's fleet is entering Blackwater Bay and siege of the city is the next step, while the defense is going to be led by none other than everyone's favorite Tyrion Lannister.

The whole season the events in King's Landing were building up to this moment. Cersei ordered the pyromancers to create wildfire - the substance similar to napalm, deadly and burning everything it comes in contact with. When Tyrion discovered her plans he decided to continue the manufacturing process since this is pretty much all he has to use in attempt to save the city.

The episode is very condensed but there is still a lot of moving back and forth, between Davos, Cersei, Sansa and Tyrion. Cersei meets with Pycelle who brings her poison she requested. Cersei intends to poison herself and her youngest and most innocent child Tommen, in case the city falls, so they wouldn't have to face terrible deaths as traitors.

Then Cersei and all the noble ladies are hiding in Maegor's Holdfast, the safest place in King's Landing. Sansa, being valuable prisoner, is there too, along with Shae. These scenes were really great as Sansa's naivety and idealism are crushed with Cersei's cold and detached attitude. Cersei keeps drinking, Sansa keeps praying and both know they may die this very night.

Before the battle there are two really great moments - we have a scene with Varys and Tyrion,. Conleth Hill is only in this one scene this episode, but he is truly wonderful. His lines throughout season 2 were magnificent and so was the case here - "I believe you are the only man who can stop him". Varys's words only add to the necessity of Tyrion having to stop Stannis - Stannis has Melisandre by his side, the red priestess and dark magic. The person who has dark magic on their side influencing the Iron Throne is a horrifying idea to Varys.

Another great moment is the goodbye scene between Bronn and Tyrion. Their friendship was quite possibly the most entertaining aspect of season 2 and Bronn casually saying "don't get killed" was really terrific. He may just be scum and a sellsword but he cares about Tyrion and doesn't want to see him killed.

Then Tyrion says a quiet goodbye Shae, since they are hiding their relationship and Sansa is ordered to say goodbye to Joffrey who makes her kiss his sword. Sansa foolishly mentions how people say Robb is fearless in battle and always fights along with his men and Joffrey remarks that one day she will lick her brother's blood of his sword.

Sophie Turner was really terrific in this episode - she truly captured Sansa's sweet nature but I was even more impressed with her darker scenes like the moments with The Hound where she confidently but fearfully says "You won't hurt me" and when she tells Shae that Joffrey will survive because the worst ones always do. Sansa, surrounded by sadness and fear, still holds on to her innocence. It's a sad irony that despite her trusting nature she is too scared to trust those who could help her - in this case The Hound.

The most astonishing moment of the episode and one of the most epic things I saw on TV is obviously the moment when Wildfire is lit. The build up to this scene is incredible, largely thanks to the great score by Ramin Djawadi and superb editing. We cut back and forth between Tyrion talking about giving a signal and Davos on Stannis's ship. Suddenly both sides spot one ship from the king's fleet heading in Stannis direction.

Joffrey gets anxious asking why is there only one ship. The pyromancer appears behind Tyrion. Davos notices that there is only one ship, sees that there is no one on board and then sees that the ship is leaking wildfire. He screams for everyone to steer clear but there is only so much they can do.

Tyrion throws a torch from the wall, giving Bronn the signal to shoot one flaming arrow. Bronn does just that, the music stops and the arrow hits wildfire, lighting it. In reality it was obviously a mesh up of CGI and real explosions but the magnitude of this scene and the explosion is amazing. When you are watching it, you don't think about how it was made, you are just in awe.

I really like the reactions on everyone's faces when the explosion happens. It's a true testimony to the talent of actors, since all of that was done in post production and they essentially had to react to what they were imagining in their heads.

The battle is very exciting too, as unsurprisingly Joffrey chickens out and leaves Tyrion to lead the defense. It is going well and the men are even chanting "Half-man!" but then more of Stannis troops start attacking. And then the most shocking thing of the episode occurs - one of the King's guard slashes Tyrion's face and attempts to kill him, as Tyrion's squire kills him and then embraces Tyrion as he lies on the ground.

In the books Tyrion lost three quarters of his nose in this attack, but seeing how it would make make up artists and Peter Dinklage's work even harder in future seasons I really don't mind them changing it and giving Tyrion a scar instead.

My favorite moment of the episode is its amazing ending. I always root for the Starks but the ending sequence for Blackwater was so superbly directed, written and acted out you simply can't deny its power. I think it's the only episode when I actually cheered for the Lannisters, because what I saw on the screen was so amazingly moving and badass at the same time.

In the ending we see Cersei sitting on the throne with Tommen. She tells him the tale of the lion cub and animals that bow to him. As Cersei's voice starts breaking and we see she is holding a bottle of poison in her hand, we are also seeing the scenes from the battle, where Tyrion is lying on he ground, injured, and sees horsemen approaching Stannis's men.

As Cersei promises her son that she will keep him safe and he almost drinks the poison, the door opens. We see Loras Tyrell and other men who fought the battle. Everything moved so fast I didn't even register that Loras is fighting with the Lannisters so when Tywin Lannister entered the throne room I was as shocked as Cersei was.

She says "father!" drops the bottle with poison and Tywin announces that they won the battle. How the hell did Lena Headey miss nomination (and win!) during Emmys is beyond me. There are a lot of actors who truly make book characters their own in the show, but Lena adds so much to Cersei. She is incredibly evil in the books but Headey's convincing vulnerability and care for her children in her portrayal make her into truly interesting and complex character.

Charles Dance is so damn amazing as Tywin Lannister it's really hard to hate him. We know he is a ruthless man who led the sack of King's Landing during Robert's rebellion. We know one of his most fierce knights is repugnant The Mountain. We know what he ordered to do to Tyrion's first wife. Yet when he announced that the battle is over, you cannot help but cheer.

Another thing worth noting is the end credits song - instead of usual instrumental track here we've got the beautiful rendition of Rains of Castamere by The National, which only adds to the cinematic feeling of the entire episode. The song, which as you know is the Lannister song, is also sang by Bronn in the tavern near the beginning of the episode.

Blackwater is a remarkable episode because of the flawless acting and wonderful direction, but also because of its epic scale and emotional impact it carries with it. We root for people we are not supposed to be rooting for. Who is the bad guy? Stannis? He has the best claim to the throne. Tyrion? He is just defending his city or more precisely himself and Shae. Tywin? He is rescuing his family.

It's also amazing because of the dedication people involved in the production had - shooting during nighttime, for weeks, in terrible conditions. Though, to be honest, if I got a chance to work on this show I'd probably agree to stand in manure for months, that's how much I love it.

One of my favorite quotes about the episode is by Ed Cumming, who wrote in his review for The Telegraph that the episode is "an emerald inferno, as lethal as it was beautiful to watch."

It has become a tradition that the 9th episode of the season brings with it a big, important event the whole season is revealed to revolve around. In the first season we got Ned's execution which started the Northern rebellion. In season 2, Blackwater battle which led to Stannis and Tyrion both losing a lot, in a different way, and Lannisters triumphing. Again. What will be the big event of season 3? 6 more days for all of you to find out.

Below you can watch fascinating documentary about the making of the episode:

I'm not the biggest Steven Soderbergh's fan but I'll hand it to the guy - he has his own style. I enjoyed quite a lot of his movies, with Solaris sitting firmly in my top 20 of all time for a decade now. When Soderbergh announced his retirement plans and that Behind the Candelabra will be his last movie I did feel that cinema is losing something. His films are quite unique, elegant, subtle and interesting.

But as I watched Side Effects and now HBO's produced movie based on the love affair between Liberace and Scott Thorson, I kept thinking that Soderbergh really can use a break. The truth is that he hasn't made truly great movie, at least for me, in years. His recent movies aren't terrible but they are utterly forgettable. So imagine my surprise when, deprived of new Game of Thrones episode last Sunday night, I sat down to watch much hyped Behind the Candelabra only to discover it is just as forgettable as Soderbergh's recent movies. If not more so.

The film tells the story of famous pianist and showman Liberace (Michael Douglas) and his relationship with much younger Scott Thorson (Matt Damon). We see Liberace perform on stage, audiences adoring him, him meeting Scott and proposing that Scott stays by his side as "his companion". Scott agrees and Liberace slowly starts controlling his life without Thorson putting much of a fight. There are smiles, joys, screams, tears and glitter. Unfortunately, the film itself is quite lifeless.

I may not always love Soderbergh's movies but I always thought he is the guy who can put an interesting spin on a genre - Solaris is not a typical science fiction film, Haywire puts a woman in the centre of kick ass scenes and shows her defeating bigger guys and Magic Mike is much too intelligent for a movie about male strippers. Yet Behind the Candelabra is nothing but formulaic biopic with cheesy ending on top of stale 2 hours.

While it is great that the movie doesn't take sides, despite being based on Thorson's book, at times I almost wish it did. Things get creepy here. Intensely creepy. For example - after talking in jacuzzi Scott and Liberace put on their robes. Then Scott is staring through the window. Liberace approaches him, startling him and telling him that they can share a bed and he won't touch him.

And then the next scene is Scott awaking, seeing Liberace with a smile on his face while he is giving Scott a hand job...Now, I can understand how someone with Scott's issues - he was raised in various foster homes, never really had a place in his life - could cling on to someone who reaches out. But that scene was just creepy. And I don't feel like Scott's personality, nature and needs nor Matt Damon's performance gave the audience enough to be left with more than one question - why the hell doesn't he run away?

Because the characters aren't well established it's really hard to care or even begin to understand all of that when it comes to their actions. Scott meets Liberace, he gives him money and gifts and Scott is prepared to do everything in return. To be completely honest neither of these two guys came off as likable to me, or even that interesting.

Based on that movie Liberace comes off as typical aging star obsessed with youth and appearance, afraid of loneliness. He actually seduced a teenager - as Scott was only seventeen when they met and Liberace was 40 years his senior. But age issue is not something I want to get into here, because it is not for me to decide where the line lies. Scott comes off as someone who is either so bland he doesn't care about his own identity or someone more cold than Liberace (who dispensed of his lovers when he grew tired of them, simply moving on to someone younger) - there was no passion in anything he did. He kept telling Liberace he was bisexual, it seemed that he was ashamed of his sexuality. Either it was supposed to be that or Damon just failed. He tried but neither does he carry this performance well nor does Soderbergh manage to direct him well enough.

Another huge problem was the cosmetic surgery issue. After some time Liberace actually asks his plastic surgeon to do surgeries on Scott to make him...look more like young Liberace. Scott is present in the room at the time of request and he just sits there. He doesn't protest, he doesn't do anything. Just sits there. It was beyond ridiculous.

I'm sure that is what actually happened as Thorson himself wrote the book the film is based on. But the movie didn't sell it to me. It didn't convince me. I didn't feel for Scott because I didn't have much reason to. Should I even feel for Scott? The goal of this movie remains unknown for me. Was it just about telling the story? If so, why this story?

My disenchantment with the movie grew the more I read about the actual people behind the story. Scott Thorson was actually a witness in Eddie Nash's trial - Nash and John Holmes, the porn actor and their criminal activities could make for far better movie than this (I have not seen Wonderland, which is apparently based on Holmes's life). Hell, the characters in Boogie Nights were based on these two.

And what about Dr Jack Startz? That's a fascinating character. Rob Lowe's caricature look and eerie way of playing him was actually the most memorable part of the movie for me. Lowe was creepy, but creepy in a good way, not like that scene I mentioned before. Creepy in "let's explore that darkness" kind of way.

I'd much rather see a movie about Startz. He was a famous plastic surgeon, but he was sloppy and unethical. He injected liquid silicone into his patients' faces. He botched many surgeries, silicone migrated, disfiguring the people he operated on. This is like straight from horror stories. The film left a bit of information about his incompetence - after Liberace's face lift he couldn't close his eyes completely.

While I did enjoy the effort of everyone involved, the film just lacked courage. The story is bold but the movie is not. It doesn't explore the issues that are presented here - the weird father/son/lover dynamics between two central figures, the question of one's identity, the pursuit of youth. It doesn't create characters interesting enough to make you think about those issues after seeing the film.

While the actors do a good job I can't say I was exactly in awe about anyone here. Damon didn't show anything that you wouldn't see in any other love-gone-bad-let's-do-drugs flick, Douglas was reduced to caricature through most of the movie and didn't really get to show much heart and charisma and Lowe...well, there was very little of him here.

The cinematography was very good. I really liked how the shots were composed, especially when Scott's life was falling apart. The details were all very fascinating and you definitely felt as if you were right there, in extravagant house in the 70's. Shame the movie itself was so ordinary and uninspired.

Apparently major theatrical studios didn't want to produce the movie because it was "too gay". To be completely honest, while it was odd seeing sex scenes here - because of the age difference between characters and actors - I don't think the film is more graphic than recent famous movies about homosexuals. But then it hit me - all of those big movies about gay people - Brokeback Mountain, A Single Man, The Hours - are about people rejecting who they are. Here, though Liberace is hiding the fact he is gay, he never rejects it. Is Hollywood only comfortable with self-loathing gays?

I really enjoy HBO movies, but this one is one of the most forgettable out of those that I've seen. It's not as amazing as Grey Gardens, it doesn't have a single performance that comes close to Al Pacino in You Don't Know Jack, it's not as memorable as Temple Gardin and not as amazing in every way as Mildred Pierce. Soderbergh was supposed to go with a bang but all he gets from me is an unimpressed shrug.

Behind the Candelabra
(2013, 118 min)
Plot: Based on the autobiographical novel, the tempestuous 6-year relationship between Liberace and his (much younger) lover, Scott Thorson, is recounted.
Director:Steven Soderbergh
Writers:Richard LaGravenese (screenplay), Alex Thorleifson (book)
Stars: Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Rob Lowe

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Track: Your Friends Ain't Gonna Leave with You

Artist: Cliff Martinez

Movie: Spring Breakers

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Well my week was a slight improvement over the shitstorm of last one. My dissertation finally got approved. If nothing fucks up I'm gonna defend it next Friday so keep your fingers crossed!

I've been learning criminal procedure for hours each day. It's actually not going horribly as surprisingly I haven't forgotten everything. My mother is coming with me to the university on the big day. Maybe she will flirt with my professor or something cause seriously I need all the help I can get. We are bringing Gustav with us too.

Still the most important thing is obviously this Sunday's upcoming episode of Game of Thrones. Oh my God. It's finally here. I'm so not ready for this. I'm just not emotionally prepared at all. This is the single most anticipated event of the year for me. I sincerely hope everyone remained unspoiled and will survive it. I cannot freaking believe in 2 days I will actually see it in the show. I read that chapter so many times, it was incredible. I've got my wine and tissues ready. Also if you don't want to get spoiled you may wanna skip next week's Rambling Friday because it's going to be a very special post about this very special event.

I actually started having nightmares about it again. One of them was that they didn't show what will make this episode so unforgettable. And then Henry Cavill as Superman showed up. I'd say I'm going insane but I think I have crossed that bridge long time ago.

Sunday was tough. No new Game of Thrones. It was unnatural. I almost wept.

Season 3 soundtrack is being released next Tuesday. This is fucking fantastic, since this is pretty much all I'm listening to and I know the first two soundtracks by heart.

All of those Man of Steel promos are actually making me excited for the movie. Amy Adams is so lucky!

In other really frustrating newsFassyhas been seen hanging out with Bradley Cooper and some random chick in London. I have nothing.

I didn't have the time to see new season of Arrested Development, but people seem obsessed with it, watching the whole season at once. I'm probably going to do that next weekend if everything goes well.

I mentioned Amy Adams before - check her out on the set of American Hustle. OH MY GOD.

Blue is the Warmest Color won Palme d'or during Cannes festival. The film looks really interesting and as a big fan of Lea Seydoux I can't wait to see it.

Speaking of Lea, first picture of the new Beauty and the Beast adaptation was released. She plays the beauty and Vincent Cassell plays the beast. The photo looks a bit odd, but the film is being made by the same dude who did Brotherhood of the Wolves, so at the very least I'm hoping it will be really creepy and visually stunning.

I can't stop laughing at the first picture of Fassy and McAvoy from the set of X-Men Days of the Future Past

links:

Gorgeous and amazing Lena Headey is French Toast Sunday's Babe of the Week
Mark reviews Detatchment
Alex reviews The Great Gatsby and Nostra and Keith write about Moulin Rouge!
In our time of need, Brittani published a special Game of Thrones post
Ruth got a chance to finally check out The Cabin in the Woods
Alex and Steven review Behind the Candelabra
Chris wrote about terrific We Need to Talk about Kevin
m.brown reviews The Help

Few weeks ago this happened on tumblr:

This week this happened:

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It is here. The dreaded and anticipated Red Wedding has happened and we are left with all our anger and grief. I'd be at loss to think of a sequence that I consider more cruel or more shocking. George R.R. Martin books were filled with prophecies and signs written in a way that as I reached that chapter I still didn't know what will happen. And then everything fell into place.

Before I discuss a sequence that made me so deeply shocked when I read it in the book and so horrified I had nightmares about it, I need to discuss two other storylines that we saw in this episode.

In Queenscrown, Bran and Rickon are hiding, while storm is approaching. Meanwhile, at the same place Jon is gathering with the wildings. There is an old man there and wildings want to kill him so he wouldn't warn the Night's Watch about them approaching. They tell Jon to kill him but he can't and Ygritte shoots the man with the arrow. The wildings want to kill Jon and at the same time Bran is warging into Hodor to make him stop shouting. Then he successfully warges into Summer and Shaggy who help Jon and attack the wildings. Jon kills Orell who before dying warges into an eagle and attacks Jon. He manages to escape, though and Ygritte looks angry and shocked that he abandoned her. The Stark kids were almost reunited here.

But soon after that Bran and Rickon separate - Rickon is going with Osha and Bran will travel with Reeds. It was a touching little scene and it was great to see Rickon finally doing something.

Meanwhile in Yunkai, Jorah, Grey Worm and Daario sneak into city and the battle begins. Daenerys awaits them and then they arrive - Jorah informs her that they won and Daenerys asks about Daario. The look onJorah's face was horrible - you could actually see his heart breaking. At this point the only thing that can make me root for Dany again is if she flies on Drogon to The Twins and fries Walder Frey.

Arya and The Hound are approaching The Twins for the wedding. Arya is soon to be reunited with her family. On their way Hound wants to kill a traveler but Arya stops him. Then they talk a little and Arya tells him she knows he is afraid of fire. She also tells him one day she will kill him. Then she looks at the Twins again, where her brother and mother are.

At the Twins Robb, Catelyn, Talisa, Edmure and Blackfish are welcomed by Walder Frey, his wife and his many children. They eat bread and salt - sealing the guest right. The guest right is a sacred thing - once you ate the bread and tasted the salt the host can't do any harm to the guests or he will be cursed.

Walder looks at Talisa and makes several gross and perverted remarks but Robb and Catelyn try to act polite and gracious. At the wedding ceremony we finally see Edmure's bride - Roslin. They chose just perfect actress as she looked exactly how Martin described her. She is actually very pretty unlike the other Freys and Edmure is very pleased as Walder Frey and Robb exchange glances.

I really liked how the wedding and part of the reception was so light in tone. Blackfish exchanging looks with Frey women, the happy music, Catelyn looking relaxed. Then...then the horror came.

Catelyn sits next to Roose Bolton and they talk a little. Meanwhile Robb and Talisa talk about their unborn child and Talisa says she wants to name him Eddard, after Robb's father. Well, fuck my life this just made everything so much worse. The two kiss and Catelyn, who is standing next to them, looks very happy seeing her son's happiness...

As Arya is outside the Twins, inside Walder calls for bedding ceremony. Roslin and Edmure are carried away. We shift focus to Catelyn who notices that one of the Freys is locking the door. Then the musicians in the gallery start playing The Rains of Castamere...The look on Catelyn's face was hands down my favorite moment of the episode. It was literally how I imagined that moment to play out.

We see the cage Grey Wind is locked in outside. He is howling and scratching the door, sensing the danger Robb is in. Inside the Twins Walder Frey says that he never gave Robb a wedding gift. One of the Freys approaches smiling and unsuspecting Talisa and stabs her repeatedly in the stomach. The musicians start shooting and the quarrels pierce Robb and one reaches Cat who falls on the floor.

Outside Arya is next to Grey Wind's cage. Suddenly she sees men coming out of Twins and brutally slit the throats of northmen. Then they shoot Grey Wind and horrified Arya sees him die. That was just..heart wrenching.

Inside the slaughter continues as Robb is crawling towards stabbed Talisa and as Freys are slitting the throats of everyone in the room. Robb looks at dead Talisa, at her bloodied body, at his dead unborn child. You could actually see the will to live leave him at this moment. Richard Madden was fantastic here.

The Hound grabs Arya and tells her they are too late. The slaughter continues. Catelyn sees Walder's young wife hiding under the table and grabs her. She holds a knife to her throat and says she will kill her unless they let Robb go. Robb looks at her and says "mother" clearly not wanting to go on. Catelyn is devastated. She yells to Walder that Robb is her son, her first son....

Suddenly Roose Bolton appears and says "The Lannisters send their regards". He stabs Robb and he falls on the floor, dead, next to Talisa. Catelyn lets out devastating scream and slits the girl's throat. Then she is standing there, emotionless, grief-stricken, catatonic. One of the Freys comes from behind her and slits her throat.

There are several changes from the book made in the show, most of which I am fine with. I'd prefer if the whole sequence was done faithfully to the book, but it's not the perfect world, isn't it? One of the alterations was the lack of significant northmen in the sequence. There was no introductions to them in the show, so for TV audience they were all random while when you read the book you were affected by all those men, faithful to Robb, dying in their futile attempts to rescue their king.

Another alteration is obviously Talisa. Since it was said she is pregnant in the show I just knew she will die here and die in such a way. The showrunners had to compensate the emotional impact somehow, since the connection between Grey Wind and Robb was so poorly portrayed. So while Grey Wind still dies, which is horrible, the audience can also be shaken by Robb witnessing his pregnant wife stabbed in the stomach.

In the books one of the most iconic lines is Roose' Jaime Lannister sends his regards', altered here to "The Lannisters send their regards". While the line was fantastic I can certainly understand why it was changed as some of the audience might have incorrectly thought Jaime had a hand in planning the massacre.

Two things which I certainly missed - first one being Jinglebell. He was Walder's grandson who was mentally challenged and because of that he was a fool in The Twins. He had jester costume, with those bells attached to the hat and sleeves. In a number of prophecies it was noted that bells were the saddest sound for it was actually him that Cat dragged out from under the table and swore to kill. I was horrified by all of that. This poor boy, hiding under the table, scared while Cat grabs his hair and holds a knife to his throat after which she starts sawing on it, till she reaches the bone.

In the show it was altered and the point remained just the same - Cat going so desperate, so furious, so horrified she is willing to kill innocent person, though to be perfectly honest it didn't seem like the girl was completely clueless to what was being planned there. She threatens Walder's young wife instead and kills her. I suppose showing mentally challenged person killed in such manner would be were HBO draws the line so I understand the change. But I still missed the bells.

And the final thing I'm sad about - the most gruesome and horrifying image of the very massacre was Cat clawing her own face. When she saw Robb die and killed Jinglebell she started scratching her own face, deep beneath the skin, tearing off flesh. Then she saw the blood run down her arms and she started to laugh. In the final moments when someone grabbed her hair her final thought was "don't cut my hair, Ned loves my hair". She has gone so completely insane that she believed someone was going to cut her hair and she forgot her husband was dead thinking he will be sad about that.

In the show we got catatonic, paralyzed reaction which also worked effectively. But the image of Cat with red and white tears flowing together was so iconic to me, I have to note that I don't understand why at least a part of that wasn't kept here. That said the look on Michelle Fairley's face was haunting. The look of someone who has witnessed something so awful, their soul looks like it just died. Fairley was outstanding here and managed to beat Lena Headey's work in Blackwater as my favorite female performance of the series.

We got nods to the book despite changes - the part where Catelyn sees the chain mail under the shirt and slaps the one wearing it was kept and I was so happy that Cat got to slap Roose Bolton in the series. There are several hugely shocking events in The Storm of Swords and Red Wedding is just the start of them. Unfortunately we will have to wait for the rest until next season when King's Landing will be the stage of many twists and turns.

Red Wedding is still the most devastating of book events. It's not just Stark tragedy - it's the tragedy of the whole North. Most of the important houses had someone there at the Twins, attending the wedding. Each family lost someone. Not only did Robb die, his soldiers, his forces were slaughtered and scattered ending the Northern rebellion. The Young Wolf, Stark hope for justice - dead.

But perhaps the most shocking thing here and the reason for which I thought "they can't possibly kill them" when I was reading the book is the guest right aspect of it all. The Freys slaughtered their guests, under their roof. This is why the whole realm is shocked by Red Wedding. Guest right is something that is absolutely sacred and those who break it bring the wrath of gods upon them.

It's not over. The main architect of Red Wedding is yet to be revealed but I'm fairly certain you can guess who it was (“Some wars are won with swords others with quills and ravens."). Unfortunately for us the most gruesome part of Red Wedding hasn't been shown yet and as that part was filmed I suspect we will see it in the finale.

This Sunday - season finale entitled Mhysa (Mother). I hope I'm correct in my assumptions for what I think will be the final scene of the season. Because we truly need hope.
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It is my great pleasure to announce that as of today I'm officially a law school graduate with the master's degree. I defended my dissertation today and got an A. An A! Me getting an A during law school is as rare as a unicorn crapping rainbows.

For the love of God If you watch Game of Thrones and don't know what happens in recent episode/haven't seen it yet leave this blog now.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's weep.

“Nothing will happen to you. Nothing. I could not stand it. They took Ned, and your sweet brothers. Sansa is married, Arya is lost, my father’s dead … if anything befell you, I would go mad, Robb. You are all I have left. You are all the north has left.”

“I am not dead yet, Mother.”

Bear with me because I've got A LOT to say.

Watching Catelyndie was actually much worse than Robb. Cat was one of my favorite characters - she was fierce, proud and loving. And as much as people like to say she started the war, it's not really true is it? Also let's make a list, shall we:

Cat told Ned not to go to King's Landing. He went to King's Landing and he died.
Cat was sceptical about Joffrey. Sansa fell for him anyways and he made her life a living hell.
Cat told Robb not to trust a Greyjoy. Robb trusted a Greyjoy and now Winterfell is burnt to the ground.
Cat told Robb not to marry the nurse. Robb married the nurse and now they are all dead.
Cat told Robb Walder Frey is dangerous and he shouldn't cross him. Robb crossed him and now they are all dead.
Cat told Robb to trust Grey Wind's warnings. Robb didn't trust him and now they are all dead.
Cat told Robb not to kill Karstark. Robb killed Karstark and yes, indeed, now they are all dead.

For fuck sake. Listen to your wives/mothers people.

The response to the episode was fucking overwhelming. People who don't even watch the show and just know a bit about it couldn't believe the shit that happened. Most people probably did what I did and just got drunk on Sunday night. Still I wept like an idiot and I knew for a year what will happen. For most of the Monday I couldn't even log onto my favorite GoT forums because of the traffic which broke the servers. Also there are those "I can't believe they stabbed a pregnant woman in the belly" comments. Oh dear. The most gruesome aspect of Red Wedding awaits us in finale so I wonder what people will do. Rip their eyeballs out?

Also there are people yelling "I will never watch Game of Thrones again!". Excuse me, if anyone has the right to complain it's me. I will never see Robb Stark's bare ass again.

Facebook recap is priceless again.

Let's not forget that Michelle Fairley is a treasure.

This Tuesday soundtrack for season 3 was released. Hands down the best soundtrack yet. I've been listening to track Mhysa non stop this week. So amazing. I'll bet it's played in final scene.

I only want three things in the finale. I'm sure it will be awesome but what I want to see is that gruesome thing I keep referring to on screen. It's too iconic for them not to use that. I would also like to see Joffrey get slapped. He wasn't slapped at all this season. That little bitch is running around shooting whores with a crossbow. Finally what I'm really looking forward to is the last 10 seconds of the episode. It always ends with cliffhanger and last season's cliffhanger was kinda lame, never mind the fact that those White Walkers didn't really do anything in season 3. But if this one will be what I think it will be - AWESOME, especially with Mhysa playing in the background.

I love Conan O'Brien. His is the only talk show I watch. I love him even more because he is a fan of the show and he is catching up with the books. This week he had amazing guests - Lena Headey and George R.R Martin.

The first guest was Nick Offerman, God I love it how often he is on that show. He is amazing and now I love him even more because he is a GoT fan! Lena was supercute. I love that she has a crush on on Ron Swanson. She also hinted at something brilliantly during her answer regarding saying goodbye to her cast friends.

Martin is such a nice guy. He seems like genuinely polite person yet I always laugh when I see those comments "why is fat man doing talk shows instead of writing a book?!". He actually said here that he is writing pretty fast. Winds of Winter is supposed to be 1,500 pages long and it's only second to last book, so seriously, good luck to show runners with that.

All right, tonight I'm seeing Stoker and then it's party time!

links

MettelRay reviews second book in A Song of Ice and Fire series - A Clash of Kings
Steven wrote a review for fantastic Killer Joe
Keith shares his list of 5 phenomenal movies with George Clooney
Stephanie reviews Mud
Alex wrote about Noah Emmerich for his In Character series
Chris reviews fantatic Skin I Live in
Nostra looks at the many faces of Mila Kunis
m.brown reviews amazing The Impossible

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Unusual. That is the first word that comes to mind when thinking about Stoker. The film is unlike anything I've seen recently - the director Chan-wook Park has very unusual, vivid style and his movies always feel like stepping in a very weird and creepy dream. Stoker is his English language debut and the film blends between usual Park's style and this new component which is the story that is much more approachable than any other told in Park's movies yet at the same time it's very hard to understand what drives the characters and guess what lies ahead.

The film follows teenage India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska), strange, quiet girl who has just lost her father whom she loved a lot. India lives in an old, big house with her mother - fragile and beautiful Evelyn (fantastic Nicole Kidman). During her father's funeral India notices someone watching her from the distance. That person turns out to be her father's brother - mysterious uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode).

Stoker is an odd combination - it is a mixture of coming of age movie, Lolita-like tale and origin story of a disturbed killer. The film's script isn't particularly strong - it was written by Wentworth Miller, yes the same Wentworth Miller who starred in Prison Break. The story has a lot of shortcomings - in the pursuit of creepy ambiance and paying homages to a bunch of other movies something is lost here - logic, emotions, the reasons why.

There is Jackie Weaver's character - India's aunt who arrives with a lot of questions and warnings. She comes over for dinner and before she leaves she gives India a note with her number and plea for India to call her. Why not just speak to India? While it did provided a cool montage and very effective phone booth scene it really lacked the proper reasoning, as did a lot of things in the movie. But what the film lacks in story was compensated with exquisite direction.

Park's movies aren't always easy to understand - plenty of times when I watched his films I had this feeling of uneasiness and confusion at the tiniest scenes because I didn't understand what they were supposed to mean. Even in his Thirst, which is my favorite movie of his, there were all of those enigmatic, symbolic tidbits thrown in that took some time to decipher. With Stoker more often than not I felt the mystery and weird moments were more of script's flaws than intentional maneuvers, but they were still interesting.

From the strange relationship between Charlie and the housekeeper through spider creeping up India's leg to India's behaviour and personality you are at loss watching this film a whole bunch of times but it's interesting enough for you to try and figure out why the events unfold the way they do. That is the movie's strength - the characters may seem cold but you still want to understand them and get to the bottom of all of this.

Stoker puts a lot of emphasis on details that either symbolize something or will become important later on - India's shoes, the belt, the birthday gifts, the ice cream. There is something hiding behind each of those things and the mystery surrounding India's shoes in particular was cleared up in a very effective scene that symbolized her becoming an adult.

The film centers around India's fascination with her uncle. She didn't even know he existed and now he is staying in her house. Charlie traveled around the world - or so India was told - and is quite sophisticated and very mysterious. He clearly takes an interest in India - he watches her, follows her, gives her weird looks. India isn't as much afraid as she is annoyed at the disturbance in her home. She is also very curious.

India is extremely attracted to Charlie - there is even an amazing piano scene where they both play and at one point India seems to achieve climax solely because of Charlie being next to her and them playing so perfectly together. It's not so much sexual as it is India literally achieving ecstasy when she finds someone a lot like her who also fascinates her at the same time.

This is also what drives Charlie's obsession towards her - the feeling that they are the same. The thing is, though, and it's ultimately the reasoning behind most of the events in the movie, that certain kind of people, in case of those characters - sociopaths - aren't really meant to be with someone else. They are meant to be on their own. India who was told how to hunt by her father early in her life understands who she is much better than Charlie.

The film has interesting ideas, mostly the concept that certain traits, inflictions and instincts are hidden in bloodlines. I don't believe that the child of someone who is evil will be evil too but the way the movie presents the idea of "hunter gene" or whatever else to call it is fascinating. India's father knew she may want to kill in the future so he tried to control her instincts by taking her hunting. I would not be surprised if Miller turned out to be a fan of Dexter.

Despite Charlie and India having same instincts they are different in crucial ways - India's father was loving and caring and her mother, though behaving like sedated beauty queen who tries to have everything in control, cares about her daughter. India may not feel much but she is not pure evil. At least not yet.

Mia Wasikowska was a prefect choice for India. She is an extremely talented young actress and she was mesmerizing in Jane Eyre. Her India is very interesting to watch as you never know what is going on in her head and what she will do next. She is kinda like the teenage version of sadder, more delicate Wednesday Adams. While Wasikowska was great here, originally India was supposed to be played by Carey Mulligan, which would certainly be interesting.

Matthew Good did an amazing job in the movie. He was cast after Colin Firth dropped out and to be perfectly honest I just can't envision Firth playing a character like that. Another choices that were considered were James Franco and Michael Fassbender. The former would be a disaster but the latter? As much as Goode is a good looking man, Fassbender has this incredible sinister magnetism about him.

Still, Goode was great and he really made Charlie into a fascinating character. The way he carries himself certainly attracts attention and he can be both interesting and frightening at various parts of the movie. It was not an easy role considering some of the steamier scenes with India but Goode really played it well without hitting false notes. There are also scenes were we see vulnerable Charlie which were very well acted.

I really liked the direction the movie took in the end as after the big reveal I really hated Charlie, given the thing that he has done revealed in the flashback. Also considering all the hints and India's hunting hobby it was the only way to end this movie. On the other hand as well made as the ending was I felt it needed a bit more of a punch.

I have to mention Nicole Kidman's performance - she was simply amazing here. She only has about 20-30 minutes of screen time but she is unforgettable. She added so much to her character - fear, sadness, longing. Her Evelyn is aging beauty who is horribly alone. She loses her husband, her daughter is cold, her life is empty. You can see that Evelyn is extremely fragile from the beginning. So fragile it really looks like anything could push her over the edge of sanity.

Evelyn is such a tragic figure - she reminded me a lot of Blanche Dubois - the way she kept talking about silly little things with girlish smile yet you could see the emptiness in her eyes. I felt so terrible for her character and it actually made me dislike India. I watched the movie because the story was interesting but as for India I didn't root for her as I found her constant rejection of her mother incredibly cruel.

It's hard to ignore the obvious nods to Shadow of a Doubt and Bram Stoker's Dracula. I only wish they were more sinister than they turn out to be. Take for instance the dinner scene where India eats the whole meal Charlie prepared and he doesn't take a bite. Park's explanation was that he wanted to show that Charlie is different species, just like Dracula who never eats anything. It just seems a bit lazy and not thought through.

Just like in Dracula, we are dealing with bond between people that is as strange as it is strong. Dracula spent years loving one woman and finding her in someone else, reincarnated and here we have Charlie who no doubt sees the copy of himself in India and watches over her, writes to her, sends her things. It's a very strange bond as he is both her mentor and final obstacle to overcome.

The film is beautifully realized and the cinematography is mesmerizing. Each shot looks like a very surreal, perfectly framed painting. Often times the character is on the edge of the frame giving us the opportunity to focus on the detailed surroundings. The editing is something that is not easy to get use to here - it's fast, abrupt, there are many cuts between takes and there is a number of montages that move very quickly so you can't take your eyes off screen even for a second.

What adds a lot to the movie is splendid music composed by Clint Mansell. He is one of my favorite composers and his work here is fantastic - seductive, eerie, mysterious. There is also a beautiful piano piece by Philip Glass as well as perfectly placed "Summer wine".

I can't help but think that perhaps it was a mistake for Park to be the director here. While he handled the story very well and his style of film making is very unique I feel someone whose style is calmer and more reflective would be better suited here. The film flies through shots and events so fast there is no room for the camera - and the viewer' mind - to linger at anything which is quite exhausting.

Stoker has a number of noticeable flaws but it's also one of those movies that you should see more than once. There are many mysteries here and a lot of room for interpretation. Its visual beauty is certainly something to keep marveling at as well. If you are a fan of Park you will definitely like his one as his style is in each frame of the movie.

Stoker (2013, 99 min)
Plot: After India's father dies, her Uncle Charlie, who she never knew existed, comes to live with her and her unstable mother. She comes to suspect this mysterious, charming man has ulterior motives and becomes increasingly infatuated with him.
Director: Chan-wook Park
Writers:Wentworth Miller, Erin Cressida Wilson (contributing writer)
Stars: Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode

RELATED POSTS:

They've made a huge mistake. That is the first thought I had after seeing the finale to season 3 of Game of Thrones. I usually defend the writers but I don't know what they were thinking - Mhysa contains some of the worst decisions they have made in the show so far. To illustrate how much of a wasted opportunity that finale was - before seeing it, I'd say season 3 is the best season of the show so far. After seeing it, season 1 still holds that honor.

This has been the worst season finale of the show so far. Last year's finale was quite disappointing, mostly because of the weak House of Undying scene but the amount of time wasting, filler scenes in Mhysa is just astounding. Had I not read the books I'd be merely disappointed. Since I did read them I'm actually angry because they could have made this episode into the best finale yet and they screwed up pretty much every scene.

In the opening of the episode Roose Bolton appears as if he was dramatic chipmunk and looks at the slaughter in front of the Twins. There is a number of problems with the opening sequence. In the books the most gruesome aspect of Red Wedding was what happened to Robb and Catelyn's bodies. Robb's head was cut off and the Freys sewed Grey Wind's head on its place. They seated the corpse on the throne, nailed wooden crown to the wolf's head (in the books Robb wore the crown) and chanted "King in the North!" mockingly.

As for Catelyn - you saw her father's funeral this season - Tullys have fish in their sigil and after they die they are rested in the boat which is set on the river. The Freys threw naked Catelyn into the river as a mockery of that ritual. And what do we have in the show?

We did get to see what was done to Robb. Unfortunately, Arya saw it too. Robb's body was tied to a horse and Grey Wind's head was on a pole that was rooted in Robb's headless corpse. It looked horrific and terrible and we still got the Freys chanting "King in the North". That said, that scene felt incredibly rushed - the whole massacre, the whole mockery - it was so quick they didn't give it a chance to properly sink in. I usually defend show again exploitation claims but to do all of that and use it in such botched, terribly paced scene is inexcusable. The photo of the monstrosity is actually much more horrifying than the actual scene because while looking at it you have the time to properly understand what was done here. I cannot believe they went to the trouble of actually doing that only to feature it in such a brief scene. Having the opening show that on the throne with camera zooming in would have been far more effective and haunting and it would have made an unforgettable scene.

(x)

I hoped they would give some explanation to what happened to Robb's head. It wasn't mentioned in the books and I find it so saddening that the Young Wolf's remains are rotting somewhere instead of being in the crypts of Winterfell, where they belong.

As for Catelyn? We didn't see anything. Nothing. They completely skipped what was done to her. I'm not going to explain why it's one of the dumbest decisions show runners made because I don't want to spoil anything but at that point of the episode I thought to myself, oh boy this is not off to a good start. Also let's not forget they have been ignoring Catelyn this whole season which is one of the other reasons I'm placing season 1 above this one.

To give you a point of reference of how rushed the scene was - people don't seem to be shocked or enraged, even though what was done to Robb's body is a nightmarish and gruesome thing, the worst thing done so far. Instead people are complaining about how anti climatic the finale was, and rightfully so.

The scene however was actually one of the highlights of the episode and this is only thanks to Maisie Williams and Rory McCann. The direction and writing were fucking terrible here but the looks on their faces...amazing. We saw Arya, our brave strong Arya, completely crushed. The Hound was horrified when he saw what was done to Arya's brother. You could really see the shock on his face and I loved how he protectively and sympathetically took Arya away from there as fast as he could.

Another thing that I cannot wrap my mind around is that Ramin Djawadi gave them a perfect opportunity to create incredible opening and ending - tracks "Dark Wings, Dark Words" and "Mhysa" have the same choir - the first one could have been used in opening and the latter in the ending and they should have focused on a certain event that happened after Red Wedding. Showing the full tragedy of what was done to the Starks and ending the episode with a ray of hope is such a great idea, supported by Djawadi's work, I cannot help but think that they actually wanted to do it this way but for some dumb reason they didn't.

Another popular complain about show is how it's all talking, no action. Well there you have it - the haters finally have a perfect evidence for their claim in this episode. Sam and Gilly, Davos and Gendry, Cersei and Tyrion and worst of all Shae and Varys. Out of all the fantastic scenes they could have used not one of them made it into the finale for the sake of those invented scenes that really didn't add anything to the show.

The showrunners are obviously saving all the great stuff for season 4. The problem is that after Red Wedding they really should have given people more to hold on to. 10 months of waiting and they gave the people completely anticlimatic finale without 2 scenes that could have injected hope and sense of justice into the fans' hearts. The truth is that the second part of Storm of Swords has more than enough of great events to provide a terrific season so what they've done here by giving us scraps and saving the meat for next year is just ridiculous.

Oh and Sansa and Tyrion. What the FUCK. We have silly scene with Tyrion and Sansa joking around. Then Tyrion walks into their room and sees Sansa crying, obviously having found out about Red Wedding. That's it. Did they really think that this is better than having book scene where Tyrion tell Sansa himself, Sansa courteously excusing herself and going to the room where she cried while Tyrion stood by the door, helpless, knowing he can't do anything for her? Wow. What a terrific idea that was.

That said, there was one good King's Landing scene which is (wink wink) the closest to the book scene in the episode - Joffrey being happy about Robb being dead and suggesting that he should serve his head on a plate to Sansa during his wedding. Everyone is outraged and Tywin provokes Joffrey who in response tells him that he "hid under the Rock when his father was fighting the war". The looks on every one's faces when Joff said that were priceless.

Another scene I liked was the added scene with Walder Frey and Roose Bolton gloating after they "won". The story was preceded by Bran's tale of a cook who made the king eat his own son in a pie and was cursed because he slaughtered a guest beneath his roof. The scene cut to Walder which suggests the gods will take vengeance, but then again, without a certain moment as a final shot of the season it rings hallow.

The scene with Bolton led to the reveal of who Theon's torturer was. Well it gives me great pleasure that I can finally stop calling him "boy". The boy is in fact Roose's bastard son - Ramsey. He has a scene with Theon in the finale where he gives Theon a new name - "Reek". The origins of the name are infinitely better in the book, but comparing to the amount of other screw ups in the finale I'm not even mad about that one.

We got pretty good scene with Balon Greyjoy and Theon's sister Yara. Ramsey sent them Theon's cut off penis in the box and a message that if Greyjoys won't retreat their forces he will send them more boxes with more of Theon. Balon isn't inclined to give a fuck to Yara's dismay who tells him she will assembly 50 greatest killers and sail to retake Dreadfort and bring her brother home. Her speech about it was great and I really like her character now though that plan is only a tad less moronic than Robb wanting to take Casterly Rock.

What else happened - Sam met with Bran and recognized him as Jon's brother. Unfortunately, Bran has a brilliant idea to go North while Sam heads to Castle Black. Come to think of it, have the Starks not been so stupid they probably would have crossed paths a bunch of times at that point in the story. Sam takes Gilly to Castle Black and he sends a letter describing how he saw White Walkers and asks for help.

That letter is read by Davos, good thing too, as Stannis is pissed off since Davos released Gendry before Stannis and Melisandre had a chance to sacrifice him. For the first time in the series, at least for me, the writers' ridiculous bias towards Dany and dislike towards Stannis was not only evident but ruined the episode even more. Stannis is acting like a little bitch - Davos you are going to jail! Davos I sentence you to die! Davos you can live since Melisandre says so! Jesus Christ. Anyways Stannis, Melisandre and Davos will now try to create the army and aid the Night's Watch.

And that scene wasn't even the worst part of the episode. I'm truly torn between the scene where Ygritte keeps shooting Jon after he leaves her - I was really expecting for her to shoot him in the ass and the horse to throw him in that puddle, since that would be the only thing more ridiculous than that sequence - and the scene with Jaime.

I'm usually fine with the writers altering what happens in the book, but to have Jaime come back to King's Landing now instead after Joff's wedding is just unbelievable. It poses huge problems in the future but I would have been fine with it if him coming back would pay off with a great scene. Oh my God, are you ready? Get this - Jaime comes back, goes to Cersei's room. She is seating on a bed. He is standing few feet behind her, says "Cersei" and she turns around and looks at him. END OF SCENE.

I'd comment but I just can't find the words.

Thank God for Arya. We got truly terrific scene where her and Hound are passing next to Frey soldiers talking about decapitating Robb and sewing the wolf's head on his body. Wordlessly Hound allows Arya to jump off the horse. Arya approaches the soldiers, she is acting all innocent and telling them that she is hungry and she has money. She shows them the Braavos coin she got from Jaqen and she drops it.

When the soldier who claimed was the one who sewed the head to Robb's body, tries to pick up the coin, Arya starts stabbing him repeatedly. The other soldiers move towards her, but Hound jumps in to protect her and kills them all. That was such a terrific scene and Hound is at his best when he is helping the Starks. I hope he will be their ally in the future.

The very ending is where things still could have been saved. Considering Mhysa tack, the very title of the episode- Mhysa (Mother) - and all the little tidbits thrown in this season I was sitting in utter disbelief when right afterDany's scene the end credits rolled. I just couldn't believe that happened. The show has this tradition, well not anymore it doesn't, where the last episode ends with something magical and shocking. They had the opportunity for the biggest, most shocking cliffhanger yet and they fucked up so bad I cannot even find the words to describe just how disappointed I am.

So instead of a great final scene that would get people to anticipate 4th season with passion and eagerness, Dany's Mhysa scene was the conclusion to the finale. It is a nice scene and I don't think it was as awful and cheesy as many people think but come on, this is the scene that ends the season? The season should end with a punch not this. The writers don't seem to grasp the idea that not everyone is rooting for Daenerys. Hyping her up, year after year, is just setting non-book readers up for major let down because her storyline in book 5 is as bad as this finale episode was.

Dany and her entourage are standing in front of he gates waiting for the slaves to emerge. When they do, Missandai tells them that Daenerys is the one who they owe their freedom to. Dany says some sappy stuff about their freedom being their own and the slaves start changing "Mhysa", calling her their mother who brought them freedom. Dany walks into the crowd and the people carry her on their shoulders.

Then we got a truly awful zoom out moment when we saw the crowd with Dany in the centre and dragons flying around. I cannot imagine worse thing as the ending shot of the season. With finale that was that lackluster and boring I can safely say that season four premiere will be incredible in comparison. On the other hand since they did not use the proper ending scene* here, who knows?

* I'm referring to the event that happened 3 days after Red Wedding we are told about in the epilogue of Storm of Swords . It didn't take book readers 10 months to get there and it shouldn't be required of TV audience to wait 10 months for the big reveal.

PREVIOUS RECAPS:

I'm still disgusted about the finale of Game of Thrones. How the hell can you call an episode Mhysa and not feature Mother Merciless in it? And if you don't know the book - for the love of God, don't google that phrase. I cannot believe I have to wait another season for this. But her eyes were the most terrible thing. Her eyes saw him, and they hated. What pisses me off the most is that the track Mhysa would actually be perfect for the scene - fuck me, there is even this little gong in the end of it! Let me show you my expression during Dany surfing on slaves ending by using one of he many priceless "Edmure is horrified" gifs ------------------------------------------------------------------->

Me realizing that it's over when end credits came up:

Seriously 4 AM and I'm staring at the end credits and then staring at my glass of wine thinking that was either really how the episode ended or I'm just really, really drunk.

Unfortunately, it was the former.

The majority of people hated the episode and that ending - I'm quite stunned that instead of complaining how awfully executed that ending was people complain...about racism? Really? Just because people who Dany frees have darker skin than she does? Really? It's Essos and she is a Targaryen. Oh, will you look at that - I seem to have reached the end of my argument.

Well, at least Varys was as always entertaining. And Joffrey. The looks on everyone's faces when he offended Tywin were shouting "Damn, son. You just took a shit with your clothes on".

That episode was just loaded with hilarious stuff. Sam telling Maester Aemon who is BLIND "it's not what it LOOKS like" and telling Bran he can stop the White Walkers. I'm sure they are just shitting themselves - watch out! A girl, a cripple, Love Actually kid and HODOR are coming to stop you!

Emmy submissions for Game of Thrones were sent and they blow. Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke are actually there. Really? Really?! Maisie Williams is not there. What the hell is going on? She deserves the actual award for going from hope to horror so beautifully and painfully - in that single scene she is better than Harington in 30 episodes so far. Combined. And why is Jack Gleeson not there? He is just fantastic. Is there a TV character more hated than Joffrey right now?

I just want to see Michelle Fairley and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau nominated. And for once Mad Men not winning because the fact it wins every year is ridiculous.

Michelle Fairley is going to guest star on Suits. I guess I need to catch up on that show then. I only made it through two episodes. There are certain things I can buy - dragons? zombies? shadow assassins coming out of vagina? All right. Happy, carefree lawyers? I'm sorry - WHAT?!

Game of Thrones actually won its first award for season 3 - Critics Choice Award for Best Drama, a tie with Breaking Bad. YEY.

So someone on reddit asked their father to remember the names of Game of Thrones characters. This is freaking hilarious. And then there is priceless facebook recap of the finale.

Let's gather around and adore Lena Headey:

Apparently Man of Steel is not very good. It's approaching rotten rating on RT as I type those words. Can't say that I'm surprised considered it is Zack Snyder's movie. Hell, I'm still shocked someone gave him the director's job after Sucker Punch. I'm still going to see it. I mean it has Henry Cavill in it.

There's been an actual shitload of trailers this week - I'm just gonna mention those I actually watched - first trailer for 300 sequel - which looks so absolutely terrible. The only way I'm seeing that is if Lena and Eva Green have some crazy lesbian sex scene together. We also got first trailer for that Naomi Watts movie where she plays princess Diana. It doesn't look good. And why is Sayid there?

Obviously the most important trailer is Desolation of Smaug teaser with Lee Pace and Richard Armitage eye-fucking each other. Is it December already?

links:

Eric reviews highly anticipated Before Midnight
Ruth celebrates 4 years of blogging and SDG celebrates second blog anniversary!
French Toast Sunday's Babe of the Week is gorgeous Henry Cavill
asrap.virtuoso reviews Man of Steel
Fogs asks about everyone's favorite Dystopian films
Keith reviews wonderful Take Shelter
Alex wrote a review for World War Z
Brittani wrote a fantastic recap for the last episode of Game of Thrones this season
In the next edition of his awesome In Character series, Alex features wonderful Tom Wilkinson
Jack wrote a wonderful appreciation post for Natalie Portman's birthday
Chris reviews Let the Right one in

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Richard Madden

June 18, 1986 (Elderslie, Renfrewshire, Scotland, UK)

Hey, remember 3 weeks ago when Robb was still alive and we still had hope? If his storyline taught us anything it's: never bang a nurse. And if you absolutely have to - for the love of God, don't marry her.

Seriously, though, today on the occasion of Richard Madden's 27th birthday I've been continuing my frantic art making for tumblr meme and I realized it's unbelievable how much I'm going to miss him and his on-screen mother Michelle Fairley on the show. Though because of the writers ridiculous bias towards Daenerys, Robb and Catelyn didn't get enough of screen time, it's mostly because of Madden and Fairley that it was impossible not to want good things to happen for the Starks.

Madden made for a really convincing hero - even though we never saw Robb in the battle I've never questioned the fact he was capable of winning every single one. He was a bit of a boy, a bit of a man and he was all honor and bravery - well, with one slip regarding honor which meant his doom in the end. But the best scenes he had were those when he was truly a king - mighty, brave and confident, which gave us all the feeling he is immortal and undefeated. And then the show runners laughed while George R.R. Martin probably ate popcorn.

I adored his scenes with Michelle Fairley in which Robb acted like a boy, because that was all he knew, but whenever his mother questioned his decisions he reminded her he was her king as well as her son, if only with one fierce look. To think Jon Snow outlived him. Oh, God. We are doomed.

I think Madden did really good job showing Robb grow up - from carefree boy in Winterfell who laughed during feast and interrupted Arya when she was throwing food at Sansa to the king who had to order executions, kill men and make difficult decisions. Yet even after he became the King in the North (in one of the show's most powerful moments) we still saw glimpses of that boy - when he yelled "mother!" with such joy and relief whenever he saw Catelyn after long time of being apart and whenever he smiled, which happened all too rare after he took over the duty of avenging his father.

While I always thought Madden was doing remarkably well with the material that was given to him, his last episode really showed the extent of his talent - I was sure Fairley would steal the show with ease but the look of utter hopelessness in his eyes when Robb saw dead Talisa was just shuddering. A lot of how effective the sequence of Red Wedding was lies in its execution but it would have never worked without these actors really making us feel like they were really mother and son - and Fairley and Madden achieved that, through 3 seasons of smiles, loving looks, difficult conversations, hugs, tears of joy and screams of agony.

In his last word to his mother when Robb says "mother", as he did several times in the past, it hurts so much - we don't really see the King dying and with him the hope for the Starks dying as well, we see the boy pleading for his mother to give up and let him go, because he doesn't have the strength to fight anymore.

It's insane to me how horrible the death of Robb played out on screen - I knew about Red Wedding, I read the chapter many times yet seeing Catelyn watch him fall on the floor was the most painful Thrones has ever been.

This is getting dark fast so let me just say I'm genuinely shocked at HBO's cruelty - they finally showed us Madden's bare ass in episode 7, only to have him killed in episode 9.

Richard Madden was born and raised in Scotland and was in several TV series prior to being cast on Thrones - Hope Springs and Sirens. Madden is dating Jenna-Louise Coleman. Let's just state the obvious here - if these two have a child it will be a superbaby.

I'm definitely going to miss him on Thrones but I'm glad he has many projects happening right now - including A Promise, where he is starring alongside Alan Rickman and Rebecca Hall and Cinderella where he is so appropriately cast as Prince Charming.

I'm much more excited about Maleficent (if it stays clear out of nauseatingly sweet and fake-looking visuals known from Alice in Wonderland and Oz: The Great and Powerful I think it will be great) but whatever happens, Cinderella still features Cate Blanchett as evil stepmother so that's amazing.

I'm not so sure about Lily James being Cinderella - having seen her in Downton Abbey, season 3 I can safely say she really lacks looks and talent even for a role like that. Holliday Grainger was recently cast as one of the evil stepsisters - now she at least is beautiful so it's a shame she will not be playing the lead in this one.

After all, a Prince like that deserves the finest Cinderella.

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