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Daily Archives: June 4, 2012

Tea and Thor, the though guy who changed.

04 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by Floreva in Entertainemt, Movies, Writing

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Tags

hero, screenwriting, Tea, Thor

It’s 4 pm, and at this moment, I need a cup of tea.

Coffee is more a morning affair, a routine to fuel my lack of energy to sit at my table (my desk, or an anonymous table in a coffee house or at the library), get to what I have to do, figure out how the things must develop onstage (for the musical project I am currently working on), finish the work, retrieve the scene where I left it (for the techno-thriller), having allowed  the hero to breathe a little more before throwing him into an unbearable dilemma, when I switched the laptop the night before.

The perfect cuppa is better enjoyed with an episode of a great TV series, after 8 pm, when I am not out.

I am addicted to tea and telly paired together (well, not the telly, rather the TV series on the telly). While busy with my favorite vice,  I can’t help but analyse the product I am served.

I suppose it’s what everyone suffering from the same disorder does : We shell the tricks of the screenplay, anticipating moves of the action or of some characters, expecting them to react in a particular way. I like it when I have a right guess, I feel the screenwriter has done his job properly, by having followed the rules and that the director has done a good job too with the clues, letting the audience to recall them on time and find the path to enlightenment.  I like when the series is so cleverly crafted that if leaves me puzzled or amazed. It’s highly enjoyable when this feeling lasts a bit more and makes one smile. It’s always better when the trick/twist end/resolution is cleverly chiseled and not set on a short fuse.

For instance, I felt quite disappointed with “Thor”. But not with “Pirates, band of misfits” that I saw last Sunday.

Ok, so…Thor.

Thor is a nice guy. He is about the become king of Asgard.Check. Strong, big, handsome, chiseled 6-pack, charming smile, his father is proud of him. He is the hero. The hero is a though guy (with loads of special FX, too much), he wants war. Check. Special FX. Check. Special FX again. Cheeeeeeck.

Thor has a jealous brother, Loki (Nemesis character), conspiring against him. Check. But he is shot-tempered (Thor, not Loki. well, Loki too). This is his main drawback (coupled with an unquenchable thirst for revenge upon the people of Frost Giants). The Frost Giants interrupt and try to steal a casket, followed by Thor and his friends (reflection characters). Battle takes place.

(Special effects,I, II, III, IV)

Odin is terribly disappointed. His father, the king of Gods (all this is inspired by Norske tales and the marvel comics) banishes him from the Scandinavian Olympus and the brother is seeking to seize the throne after this banishment. Check.

Special effects.

Thor is a shallow, smooth character inside, a little guilty on the edges (well not that much) when he learns that his father is dying. Loki has layers that add depth to his dilemma (his is the adopted son of Odin, an offspring of a killed Frost Giant Chef).

Special effects.

Later, Thor faces the dilemma : inner motivation : striking back, showing he is not that short-tempered and he can change and become king . Outer motivation : to regain his father’s esteem and redeem his right to the throne (and regain his immortality and his powers). Check. Check. Check. Special FX.

On Earth, he meets Natalie Portman, the pretty scientist (she embodies both (a little) the reflection character and the romance character). She lives and work in a RV, with her assistant and a tutelary personification of the father (= authority, credibility, etc).

Special effects.Special effects.Special effects.Special effects.

Thor is accustomed to be served by servants, right? He does not know how to clean a table, cook an egg (furthermore in a kitchen on our planet, he is a God from Above the Clouds), or understand why it’s important to be polite to others, right? (Special effeeeeeeects)

He must face a dilemma : he must understand that making war is bad bad bad. He should be torn between his blossoming attraction for Natalie and his duty and his anger to show his father that he has all rights to seek revenge over the people from the icy world, right? Especially when his brother comes down to whisper the song of  war and brute force to crush them and regain his throne, right?  His brother wants to use those feelings to destroy Thor forever, and seeks to excite his appetite for blood and fight. The audience expects to see the dilemma plastered all over his blond face, his hands twisted with remorse and regret and duty and courage and anger…

It must, it should, it needs to last some minutes, and could be shown in several micro-scenes, inserted in the flow of the linear construction of the timeline, even in parallel actions, to add tension and thrill and build the suspense.

But not Thor. He does not give a toss to our expectation of tension, thrill, or supense.  He has his magic hammer (well, ok, ok, it is still stuck in a mud bed, with all the FBI, CIA, whatever agency agents all around sent to observe the unknown device, and the rain is pouring, and it’s night and it’s thunderstrom everywhere, and Thor escapes the security to retrieve his hammer and he  meets Natalie again and….), his blond suntan skin and his surfer hair, he is tough (remember?) AND he has changed.

We know that because he said so, while piling the eggs sunny-side-up into Natalie’s plate, a tea towel thrown over his shoulder, with a nice apron and a perfectly peaceful gaze at his bro, Loki, who just can’t believe his ears (just as the audience, BTW, this was dumbfounding, I daresay).

“WHAT? No war? what about your anger, and your will for revenge? And regaining your hammer and its power and your powers? Those people are our ENNEMY from the beginning of time, blablabla…” (he tries really hard to shake the king-to-be-banished-but-not-really-and-already-forgiven-by-Daddy). Special effects.

But no. It’s written in the script, so there goes Thor  : “I HAVE C-H-A-N-G-E-D, nanana… No war. Peace and love, bro. “

Can you believe that? What happened to the screenwriter? Why frustrating the audience like that? There are rules, in the good book of screenwriting rules.

See? Special effects can’t be all. And I need a tea. Tea and Thor, the guy who changed. Not the perfect match. Too bad, it was promising, even the second seeing is frustrating.

So long, though guy.

Floreva, TVseries addict forever.

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Ordinary week ?

04 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by Floreva in This world we live in, Writing

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Tags

friends, gardening, hope, Jankelevitch, My world, ordinary week, Our world, Plato, poem, recycling, Socrates, soldiers, war cemetery, wedding, Your world

It’s been an ordinary week. For me, for friends. For most. Work, entertainment, family, gatherings, thoughts on our western way of living, news from far away, recycling,  harvesting tomatoes in the garden, switching on green power as much as possible…. Ordinary week of an ordinary citizen of the world in an ordinary city of the western world.

Saturday : wedding day (not mine).

At the Arboretum, in the woods. Reception took place in a residential district of town. 

Sunday : writing, misc., gardening and later, dinner with friends.

I gave to the host a poem I had written for him, inspired by a precise fact of his family history, and the hostess (his beautiful girlfriend) was given a bouquet of roses.

The cocktail Planteur I was served was one of the best I have ever tasted, made with old Rum from Martinique and honey from the grandfather’s beehives. Wonderful evening.

Monday : Memorial Day in the USA. Some rare places open, otherwise everything is closed.

A day to honor all American soldiers who have died in service.

(Gettysburg American Civil War Memorial).

My Flag stood outside the house. There is Remembrance day, or the 11th of November. Another occasion to honor the the simple soldier does not seem redundant, so hereby I pay my respects to all those beings, men and women who lost their lives in service, or as casualties of war.

The same cemetery before the Second World War

(Neuville St Vaast, German cemetery WWI. Photo ante WWII) Photo: Zinsel

I remember the war cemeteries I visited in Normandy and in the Somme.  I remember them in Besançon, Bretteville-sur-Laize, Saint-Avold, Colleville-sur-Mer, Bayeux, La Cambe, St Mihiel, Vimy, Loos, Douaumont, Ypres and Vladslo, Gettysburg, Ayette, Bapaume, Bray -sur-Somme,  Florence, Delville, Fricourt, Thiépval, Neuville-Saint-Vaast …

I remember the battlefields in Scotland, England, France, Belgium, America, Germany, Poland, Italy, India… There are so many I have not seen yet.

Recycling and gardening most of the day. A stroll on the bayou, fresh air.

Tuesday : working on the musical project .

My proof-reader came over for lunch and chat about our work (my writing , her reading my prose).

Wednesday : can’t remember.

Working on some corrected material probably. Oh, yes. Saw one ep. of “Damage”, a series with Glen Close. Liked it. Took steps in going more green, tried (again) the raw cooking.

Thursday : Alert for dangerous storms and lightening.

Water was pouring. Good for the plants and the water reservoirs. Had to cancel an appointment.  I read comments on the newly elected  French President in the papers. Skyped with my family members. Took a shot of caffeine with my fave Dinosaur (he’s on a diet, no sugar for him).

While sipping my coffee, I remembered a sentence I read on a sticker on a car : “Fight stupidization”. Nice quote. Then I felt cynical : Ok, but how? By educating people? And who wants to fight stupidization? That’s an odd job. Don’t we all want to be educated, not in the perspective to change mentalities, but to get a higher-paid job, to be able to buy stuff ? More and more stuff to stuff our closets and our shallow conversations and our empty minds and brain and hearts?

Friday :

I worked on corrections again on the techno-thrilller, wrote a poem about some oddities of life.

Later in the afternoon, met a friend at the “Beach” (a pool that looks like a resort, with sand and a lake), enjoyed the sun, a nice chat, a nice friendship, before welcoming friends for a typical Jura (French with wine) meal. Uber wonderful evening with great people.

Over that period of time, naturally, extraordinary things happened too, don’t get me wrong.

The constant flow of bad news brings the world closer. And frustrating enough, the impossibility to escape the role of dismayed witness. The Houla massacre, the crash of the plane in Lagos, the news (not new yet, dated April 19th) of another discovery of a little girl (hours old) under a tree in Gurgaon, abandoned after the  birth because she is a girl. Such a behavior is epidemic in Asia. Sex-ratio birth is unbalanced there, in India and in China. And because this violence against women and girls  has not come to an end YET (I am above anger, although this is more than revolting) , the gap deepens between number of boy birth and number of girl birth. They are lacking 10 millions girls. The deficit of girls in Asia leads now to raids in the neighboring countries to kidnap baby girls.

You read correctly.

Is is still possible that we are witnessing such stupidity and deshumanization of  mankind, in the 21st  century? After all the atrocities or proven stupidities of the past decades? After the Red Khmers, multiple wars, deadly diseases provoked/spread by stupid behaviours, uber-liberalism and reign of finance, communism, various dictatorships, hazardous childbirth policies, genetic modification of plants, overexploitation of natural resources, pollution of water, soils and air? After all those systems or concepts that have proven their limits and their inaccuracy for the sake of Earthbound livings?

 Along with Cicero, I ask thy, Earthling : Cui bono? (For whose benefit is it?)

When will “influent” people realise that money is not edible? That our brains need to be used  with intelligence? What are we waiting for? Is mankind waiting for the last leaf to drop from the last tree to start changing its behaviour?

Who said we live in a safer world? (Have you noticed? The cynical in me is back, and is seeking to become a permanent lodger).

Let’s hope HOPE HOPE that humans have not ENTIRELY lost their common sense.

But still, is there any reason why we should not think  massive stupidization of humanity is not knocking at the door?

Is the artist now still in charge of denouncing the system and the perversion of the soul by materialism and absence of ethics? Or has he also chosen money over purity?

Let’s nurture our minds, and our common sense. Let’s read Plato, Socrates, Kant, Lévi-Strauss (the anthropologist and ethnologist, not the founder of a pants company), Jankelevitch, Proust, the Good Book and more poetry…

And let’s have another bar of emergency chocolate.

Another ordinary week  awaits us…Full of surprises, fears, stupidity, intelligence maybe, act of generosity, virtues not yet defunct, and so much more. Whose side are you on?

Wishing mankind all the best not to speed up its decadence…

Floreva, very disappointed and cynical tonight, but still full of HOPE. 

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