Community Reviews

The world has changed so much that some things that happened only a decade ago now seem like a distant and increasingly difficult to comprehend past. One of the best examples is the decision of Daniel Day-Lewis, the English actor and three-time Oscar winner, to simply end his career. That decision coincided with the premiere of Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson's film in which Day-Lewis played the lead role. Day-Lewis's long absence from the big screen was, in fact, not so inexplicable given the English actor's habit of taking multi-year breaks between roles. And for that reason, part of the critical community was somewhat disappointed at the thought that Phantom Thread, a film they were not overly enthusiastic about, could have been Day-Lewis's last. However, given the economic and other parameters that have changed so dramatically of late, only few years later, during dark days of COVID pandemic, it seemed likely that, even if he were to change his mind, Phantom Thread could remain his final film.

In the film, Day-Lewis plays the character of Reynolds Woodcock, a London fashion designer who, in the 1950s, creates expensive dresses for the British and neighbouring countries’ aristocracy. Business is excellent, thanks in large part to his sister Cyril (Leslie Manville), who manages the finances and looks after the support staff, including the models with whom Reynolds tends to have short-lived love affairs. After ending one such affair, in an effort to replenish his creative resources, Reynolds travels to his native village where he meets Alma (Vicky Krieps) in a local restaurant – a pretty waitress whose accent betrays foreign origins. Reynolds falls head over heels in love with her and decides to make her his model and new muse. At first, Alma is delighted with life in the luxurious house, but over time Reynolds's perfectionism and sensitivity come to the fore, as does Alma's unwillingness to cater to his every whim. This begins to affect their romantic relationship, but Alma, before becoming Reynolds's ex-lover, decides to prevent that in a rather bizarre way that could very easily give her romantic idyll a tragic ending.

Day-Lewis's fans may have reason to be sad that Phantom Thread is his last film, but they also have reason to be satisfied because the great actor has delivered yet another masterful performance. As many times before, he immerses himself so thoroughly in the role that it is easy for viewers to forget they are watching Daniel Day-Lewis and instead truly see the character of Reynolds Woodcock. The character is brilliantly acted, offering a very good character study of a middle-aged man who has yet to heal the traumas of his childhood and who still cannot reconcile his professional and private life. Day-Lewis is more than ably partnered by the relatively unknown Luxembourgish actress Vicky Krieps, who very effectively shades between the stereotypes of a femme fatale, a cynical manipulator, and a woman prone to potentially self-destructive outbursts. Lesley Manville also did a very good job; her character is initially presented as extremely antipathetic, only gradually becoming something akin to a voice of reason in this bizarre love story.

However, the top-tier cast was not enough for Paul Thomas Anderson to replicate the successes of his early career. The film suffers from a serious problem with pacing and excessive length, so that certain scenes are truly unnecessary, while others – such as the episode with the arrogant client and her "problematic" tycoon husband – are inserted merely as an obligatory reference to the Holocaust, without which many AMPAS voters could not imagine the Oscars. A disappointing impression also comes from Jonny Greenwood's score, which is of rather uneven quality and gives certain scenes an unnecessary and irritating "artsy-snobbish" charge. Nevertheless, when all is said and done, Phantom Thread is still a solid and more than watchable film, and looked even better in times when we were troubled by far more serious problems than no longer being able to see an artist like Daniel Day-Lewis in new works.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

(Note: The text in the original Croatian version is available here.)

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ InLeo blog https://inleo.io/@drax.leo

LeoDex: https://leodex.io/?ref=drax Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax 1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7 BCH donations: qpvxw0jax79lhmvlgcldkzpqanf03r9cjv8y6gtmk9

Hello film lovers, /Bonjour les cinéphiles,

The seventh season, comprising 10 episodes, has been available on Netflix since mid-March. The series is based on the novels of the same name by Robyn Carr.

La 7e saison, composée de 10 épisodes, est arrivée sur Netflix depuis la mi-mars déjà. Cette série est basée sur les romans éponymes de Robyn Carr.

Source Series poster /Affiche de la série

Synopsis :

The previous season ended with Mel and Jack Sheridan’s wedding.

Jack has almost finished building their house; all that remains is the interior finishing touches, such as fitting the kitchen or adding the decorations.

Things are progressing well, although Mel and Jack still want to have a child and, so far, it hasn’t worked out.

Calvin was found dead at Charmaine’s home, but she has disappeared with her twins. She is therefore under suspicion by the police, but her friend Brie Sheridan doesn’t believe it and is determined to help Inspector Mike find Charmaine and her children as soon as possible.

Lizzy is about to give birth to a baby girl who will be Dr Vernon Mullins’ great-granddaughter. Dr Mullins is facing a suspension from practising medicine, which is causing quite a stir in Virgin River.

La saison précédente se terminait par le mariage de Mel et Jack Sheridan.

Jack a quasi terminé la construction de leur maison, plus que les finitions intérieures avec l'installation de la cuisine, par exemple, ou des décorations.

Cela avance bien, même si Mel et Jack souhaitent toujours avoir un enfant et que, jusqu'ici, ça ne marche pas.

Calvin a été retrouvé mort au domicile de Charmaine, mais celle-ci a disparu avec ses jumeaux. Elle est donc suspectée par la police, mais son amie Brie Sheridan n'y croit pas et veut absolument aider l'inspecteur Mike à retrouver Charmaine et ses enfants, au plus vite.

Lizzy va accoucher d'une petite fille qui sera l'arrière-petite-fille du Dr Vernon Mullins. Celui-ci doit d'ailleurs faire face à une suspension de son droit d'exercer, ce qui perturbe beaucoup de choses à Virgin River.

My opinion and a few facts /Mon avis et petites infos :

It’s a series I quite like. It’s as romantic as you could wish for, sometimes a bit too much, but that’s the author’s style.

What I appreciate, I think, is that everything seems to be going very well in these people’s lives, but, just like in real life, there are plenty of obstacles to overcome, moments of self-doubt, changes of heart, and so on. And often, we wouldn’t be able to overcome and get through all that if we were alone, but with a partner or even with several people supporting us, things immediately get much better.

It actually shows how things really are: on the surface, we want everything to look fine, we put on a smile, but behind the scenes, we sometimes struggle a lot to get what we want, to protect what we have, and tears are often shed.

C'est une série que j'aime bien. C'est romantique à souhait, parfois un peu trop, mais c'est le style de l'auteure.

Ce que j'apprécie, je crois, c'est que tout a l'air d'aller très bien dans la vie de ces gens, mais, comme dans la vie réelle, il y a beaucoup d'obstacles à surmonter, de remises en question, de changements d'avis, etc. et, souvent, on ne pourrait pas surmonter et traverser tout cela si on était seul, mais à deux ou même avec plusieurs personnes qui nous soutiennent, cela va tout de suite beaucoup mieux.

Cela montre, en fait, la réalité des choses : en apparence, on veut que tout semble ok, on affiche un sourire, mais derrière, on rame parfois beaucoup pour obtenir ce que l'on veut, protéger ce que l'on a et les larmes coulent régulièrement.

There are no new cast members, but the original cast are still here:

Alexandra Breckenridge: Melinda ‘Mel’ Monroe Martin Henderson: Jack Sheridan Annette O’Toole: Hope McCrea Tim Matheson: Dr Vernon ‘Doc’ Mullins Colin Lawrence: John ‘Preacher’ Middleton Ben Hollingsworth: Dan Brady Grayson Gurnsey: Ricky Sarah Dugdale: Lizzie Zibby Allen: Brie Sheridan Marco Grazzini: Mike Valenzuela Kai Bradbury: Denny Cutler Kandyse McClure: Kaia Bryant Teryl Rothery: Muriel Gwynyth Walsh: Jo Ellen Elise Gatien: Lark Cody Kearsley: Clay

Season 8 has been commissioned by Netflix and will also consist of 10 episodes.

Enjoy your evenings in front of the telly and see you soon,

Il n'y a pas eu de nouveaux acteurs, mais les anciens sont toujours là :

Alexandra Breckenridge : Melinda « Mel » Monroe Martin Henderson : Jack Sheridan Annette O'Toole : Hope McCrea Tim Matheson : Dr Vernon « Doc » Mullins Colin Lawrence : John « Preacher » Middleton Ben Hollingsworth : Dan Brady Grayson Gurnsey : Ricky Sarah Dugdale : Lizzie Zibby Allen : Brie Sheridan Marco Grazzini : Mike Valenzuela Kai Bradbury : Denny Cutler Kandyse McClure : Kaia Bryant Teryl Rothery : Muriel Gwynyth Walsh : Jo Ellen Elise Gatien : Lark Cody Kearsley : Clay

Une saison 8 a été commandée par Netflix et sera aussi composée de 10 épisodes.

Bonnes soirées-tv et à bientôt,

Florence

Source photo : image Qwant autorisée

I used Deepl Translator to translate French into English

Proud member of the Principality of Bastion

Maidenform (S2x06)

Airdate: 31 August 2008

Written by: Matthew Weiner Directed by: Phil Abraham

Running Time: 48 minutes

When a television series establishes itself as a paragon of consistent quality, each instalment is held to an almost impossibly high standard. A singular episode that fails to reach this elevated bar stands out as a conspicuous blemish. This is the peculiar curse of Maidenform, the sixth episode of Mad Men’s second season. Taken in isolation, it is a competently acted, handsomely produced piece of drama. Yet, measured against the series’ own sterling pedigree it emerges as a frustratingly diffuse and occasionally clumsy endeavour. It is the season’s first significant stumble, a piece that prioritises aesthetic provocation and crammed narrative over the disciplined focus that made the show great.

Written by series creator Matthew Weiner, the episode takes its title from the real-life American lingerie manufacturer, the chief competitor to Playtex. The latter is, within the fiction, a client of Sterling Cooper, thus setting the stage for a narrative ostensibly about the brassiere wars of 1962. The plot is situated in the late May heat around Memorial Day, a contrivance that functions primarily as a flimsy excuse to parade the female cast in various states of undress. This agenda is announced with unsubtle clarity in the opening sequence, which cross-cuts between Betty Draper, Joan Holloway, and Peggy Olson dressing in their underwear. While visually striking, the scene feels less like organic character revelation and more like a deliberate, somewhat cynical calculation to engage the viewer’s gaze—a theme the episode will awkwardly attempt to critique within its own diegesis.

The professional catalyst arrives when Duck Phillips informs Don Draper that Playtex, threatened by Maidenform’s advertising, demands a campaign of equal potency. The creative process that follows yields the episode’s central, and most problematic, conceit. Paul Kinsey, ever the pretentious intellectual, posits that all American women desire to be either the refined, patrician Jackie Kennedy or the voluptuous, sensual Marilyn Monroe. The proposed campaign promises that with the right Playtex bra, a woman can embody both archetypes. This is, of course, a blatant dramatisation of the Madonna-Whore complex, presented with a startling lack of the series’ usual subtlety. The concept reduces the nuanced exploration of female identity that the show often championed into a crude, binary marketing pitch. The subsequent casting call leads to one of the episode’s more gratuitous subplots: Pete Campbell engaging in a joyless tryst with a model (Susie Wright) in a room she shares with her mother. The scene’s conclusion, where their coupling is intercut with a televised documentary of US fighter jets accompanied by solemn religious narration, aims for a resonant irony but lands with a thud of pretentious ‘artiness’, feeling like an unnecessary filler that contributes little to Pete’s arc or the episode’s core themes.

Parallel to this, Peggy’s ongoing struggle for recognition within the masculine fortress of Sterling Cooper reaches a new peak of frustration. Cut out of the Playtex campaign by the ‘boys’, she is advised by Joan to shed her girlish attire and adopt the armour of a woman—to infiltrate their circle through socialisation. The episode’s most effective commentary on gender performance arrives when the Playtex executives, though impressed by the dual-identity ad, decide to pass on the campaign. In a desperate move to salvage the account, the Sterling Cooper men take them to an upscale strip club. In a moment of shocking, calculated audacity, Peggy arrives, transformed in a sultry gown, and boldly plants herself in the lap of a Playtex executive. It’s a powerful, desperate act of assimilation, highlighting the extreme lengths to which a woman must go to be considered ‘one of the guys’ in this world. This storyline succeeds precisely because it engages with the series’ strengths: the quiet agony of professional ambition constrained by gender, and the brutal cost of swapping expected roles.

Elsewhere, the narrative sprawls uncontrollably. Roger Sterling) forces a perfunctory lunch between Don and Duck to mend fences after the American Airlines debacle—a subplot that resolves with predictable, hollow cordiality. More weight is given to Duck’s personal unraveling. A visit from his ex-wife and children leaves him custodial of his son’s dog, Chauncey. The beagle’s sad, loyal eyes become a temporary bulwark against Duck’s overwhelming thirst for alcohol. In a moment of quiet tragedy, he leads the dog out of the office and abandons it on the street, presumably returning to succumb to his addiction. It’s a well-acted vignette, but it feels emotionally and narratively disconnected from the episode’s other threads, a symptom of the instalment’s lack of focus.

This lack of discipline is most glaring in Don Draper’s storyline. Attending a Memorial Day party at the country club with Betty, he departs early to continue his affair with the brash, older Bobbie Barrett. The power dynamics here are intriguing: Don learns Bobbie has adult children, shattering his perception of her, and later, during a sexual encounter, she casually mentions that his prowess is legendary in her social circles. In an instant, Don is revolted. He sees himself reduced to a sexual object, a mirror image of his own predatory behaviour. His response—tying her to the bed under the pretence of kink before coldly departing—is a brutal act of reasserting control by weaponising her expectation of his desire. It’s a compelling idea, but it feels rushed, sandwiched between the party scenes and Betty’s own chaste rejection of an advance from Arthur Case. The episode concludes with Don shaving, staring into the mirror with self-loathing—a potent image, but one that resonates less because the emotional journey to that point has been fragmented.

Matthew Weiner has cited Maidenform as a personal favourite, which may explain certain indulgent details. The name ‘Franklin Reeve’, the man Duck’s ex-wife plans to marry, is a direct homage to Weiner’s college mentor. While a charming insider nod, it underscores an episode that occasionally feels like a creator’s playground rather than a cohesive chapter. Furthermore, the episode’s much-criticised anachronism—the use of The Decemberists’ 2005 song ‘The Infanta’ over the opening montage—is a rare but significant misstep for a series famed for its fastidious period authenticity. It momentarily shatters the carefully constructed illusion of 1962, a year being viewed through rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia and a pivotal moment before the coming storm of social change.

The year was more eventful than 1960, leading to a Season 2 inferior to Season 1 partly because it must engage with iconic images, words and events that define that era. ‘Maidenform’ suffers from this burden, feeling obligated to insert references to Marilyn Monroe’s infamous JFK birthday performance and the Bay of Pigs invasion, the latter via a conversation with the CIA-connected Crab Colson (Matt McKenzie). These feel less like organic historical texture and more like obligatory checkboxes, further contributing to the narrative clutter.

Where the episode truly succeeds is in its visual boldness and its moments of meta-commentary. The Memorial Day party features a fashion show of swimwear; when Betty buys a suit and wishes to swim in it, Don is visibly aghast at the thought of other men seeing his wife. This hypocrisy—the adman who sells desire but cannot stomach his wife being its object—is sharp. It can also be read as the episode’s defensive retort to accusations of its own exploitative content: Look, it seems to say, we are aware of the predatory male gaze, and here is a character who is hypocritically consumed by it. It’s a clever, if somewhat transparent, manoeuvre.

In the end of the day, Maidenform is not a failure. The performances remain superb, and individual scenes crackle with the series’ trademark intelligence. However, it is an episode at war with itself. It tries to be a critique of sexual objectification while luxuriating in imagery that facilitates it; it wants to explore the Jackie/Marilyn dichotomy but does so with uncharacteristic heavy-handedness; it introduces compelling personal crises for Don and Duck but fails to give them the narrative room to breathe. The result is a scattered, often unsatisfying instalment that stands as a testament to what happens when a great show’ ambition outpaces its focus. In a season already grappling with the challenge of following a near-perfect first year, Maidenform is the point where the seams of Mad Men’s impeccable suit become visibly, and disappointingly, frayed.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

==

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ InLeo blog https://inleo.io/@drax.leo

LeoDex: https://leodex.io/?ref=drax InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax 1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7 BCH donations: qpvxw0jax79lhmvlgcldkzpqanf03r9cjv8y6gtmk9

Posted Using INLEO

**

Hola amigos, buenas vibras para todos.

Hello friends, good vibes to all.

Source!

Netflix occasionally releases films that, without much fanfare, quickly become popular and trending. These films are often quite predictable in terms of plot, yet they still manage to captivate viewers by capturing the essence of the terror experienced by the characters, and in this particular case, by the protagonists, the unique nature of the story, and the setting. While there may be several films similar to Apex, I believe it stands out for its distinct development, which is why so many people are talking about it.

Basically, this is a pure action-survival thriller where, obviously, the one who manages to stay alive wins. We have Sasha (Charlize Theron), a woman who lost her husband in a climbing accident and is going through her grief. To cope, she decides to do what she loves most: adrenaline-pumping outdoor activities. For this, she heads to the Australian outback. There she meets several characters, but one stands out: Ben (Taron Egerton), a seemingly friendly guy at first, but who will later reveal his true colors. And who is he? A serial killer with some rather peculiar tastes.

Source!

Source!

Basically, what we see is a cat-and-mouse game in the middle of a mountainous jungle. Ben proposes to Sasha that she be his prey, it's that simple. She'll try to escape, and he, like a guy who apparently knows the place like the back of his hand, will hunt her down. The film is about that: seeing everything this woman goes through to avoid falling into the hands of this psychopath. Why does the film work? First, because it's short, only an hour and a half, which means it doesn't have to drag on unnecessarily and all the action, tension, and suspense are concentrated as much as possible and don't get diluted as so often happens. Second, because I think that for what it is—a simple hunt—it was entertaining. We got chases, climbs, fights, sadism from Ben, and generally good performances from both actors.

Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton were very good here. It's not an Oscar-winning film, but I feel they really got into their roles and gave us a story where the drama and tension were palpable. You could say the plot is sometimes unrealistic because Ben is ridiculously faster than Sasha at times when it comes to getting from point A to point B. He doesn't have a motorcycle to get there that fast, but oh well. It's understandable that the plot had to work that way. All the outdoor scenes were decent; the Norwegian mountain at the beginning and the climb at the end, despite being staged, looked quite realistic. And what wasn't staged also looked cool—not much to complain about in that department.

Source!

Source!

When I say it's predictable, I mean that once you start watching, you know what's going to happen; there's no room for anything different. Even so, the movie manages to keep you watching, and that's where its "success" lies. It's perfect for passing the time. I was expecting something worse, but after seeing the actors and how the plot unfolded, I wasn't too disappointed. Tension, desperation, drama, and action—that's what it has. 6.5/10. Entertaining, but just another one of the bunch at the end of the day. I'll leave the trailer below. Look for it on Netflix, and if you've already seen it, tell me what you thought.

***

Bueno mi gente por hoy es todo, espero que les haya gustado. ¡Un abrazo a todos, nos vemos en la próxima!

Well folks, that's all for today. I hope you enjoyed it. ¡Hugs to everyone, see you next time!

Fuente

Fuente

Fuente

Mangaka Shizumu Watanabe, género acción y sobrenatural, estudio de animación SynergySP.

ENGLISH

Source

Source

Source

Mangaka Shizumu Watanabe, action and supernatural genre, SynergySP animation studio.

Translated Using Deepl

The New Girl (S2x05)

Airdate: 24 August 2008

Written by: Robin Veith Directed by: Jennifer Getzinger

Running Time: 48 minutes

The so-called Golden Age of Television established a peculiar and remarkable artistic principle: the most prestigious dramas excelled at making the mundane utterly compelling. They demonstrated that a show need not rely on car chases, gunfights, or high-stakes melodrama to captivate; instead, the quiet dissection of character in everyday scenarios could yield profound dramatic power. Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men stands as a quintessential exemplar of this school, and its second season episode, The New Girl (Season 2, Episode 5), is a great example pof the form. On its surface, the episode is a slow-burning account of office politics and a mid-summer personal misadventure. Yet, through its meticulously observed details and understated performances, it delivers brilliant character exposition, excavates traumatic pasts, and whispers of the profound social tremors just beginning to ripple through the ostensibly stable world of 1962.

The episode’s title operates on a double entendre. It directly refers to Jane Sigel (Peyton List), the young, college-educated woman recently installed as Don Draper’s secretary. It is high summer in New York, and Jane uses the heat as a pretext for a more casual, revealing wardrobe. The male staff’s attention becomes palpably predatory, a silent, leering audience to her daily performance. This provokes one of the episode’s most fascinating power struggles. Joan Holloway, temporarily covering the role and freshly adorned with an engagement ring, swiftly reasserts her matriarchal authority over the office’s feminine ecosystem. Her chastisement of Jane is not merely about professionalism or decorum; it is a brutal lesson in survival. Joan understands the economy of female sexuality in this world—it is a currency to be strategically deployed, not frivolously spent. By demanding “wholesome” costume choices, she is teaching Jane the first rule: to be taken seriously, a woman must first learn to armour herself against the male gaze she is simultaneously expected to attract.

While Jane goes through this initiation, the episode’s central narrative thrust follows Don Draper into a spiral of recklessness that exposes his profound disquiet. He is being aggressively pursued by Bobbie Barrett, the brash wife of comedian Jimmy Barrett, who is intent on continuing their affair. Under the guise of celebrating her husband’s television deal, she lures Don to the upscale Sardi’s restaurant in the middle of a working day. There, in her most glamorous and seductive attire, she embodies a very different model of female agency from Joan’s—one of overt, transactional sexual power. The encounter turns acutely awkward with the arrival of Rachel Menken and her new husband. This chance meeting is a superb piece of writing, forcing Don and Rachel to confront the ghost of their past, deeply felt affair amidst the banal politeness of a restaurant greeting. The shared, unspoken discomfort highlights the lingering emotional truth beneath Don’s carefully constructed façade.

The plot accelerates from discomfort into outright chaos. Fuelled by alcohol and Bobbie’s proposition of a sexual tryst in the sand at Long Beach, Don agrees to drive them out of the city. Their mutual intoxication leads to a loss of control, a car veering off the road, and minor injuries for both. For Don, the physical bruises are inconsequential compared to the social peril: being charged with drunk driving by local police and lacking the $150 cash for the fine. In a moment of sheer desperation, he makes a phone call that defines one of the series’ most crucial relationships: he calls Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss). Peggy’s response is a quiet triumph. She arrives with her own money, orchestrates a rental car for Don, and takes the battered Bobbie back to her apartment to hide until facial wounds can be concealed. The subsequent scene between the two women is electric. Bobbie, a veteran of managing men in the entertainment business, offers Peggy unsentimental career advice. She should treat men as equals, but use her femininity as a tool. It’s a cynical, pragmatic credo that stands in stark contrast to both Joan’s strategic armour and Jane’s naïve display, presenting a third path of calculated performance.

The aftermath of this night reverberates through Don’s life. He concocts a lie for Betty about side effects from blood pressure medication, a flimsy cover that underscores the growing chasm in their marriage. Back at the office, his arm in a sling, he is subjected to the grotesque spectacle of Jimmy Barrett arriving with Bobbie to personally thank him for the TV show deal. Don’s palpable anxiety—wondering if the comedian knows the truth—is a masterpiece of silent acting from Jon Hamm. The episode’s most significant character beat, however, comes when Don, with immense embarrassment, reimburses Peggy. Her simple, deliberate use of “Don” instead of “Mr. Draper” as she accepts the money is a seismic shift. It is an unspoken acknowledgement of the debt incurred, a move from hierarchical formality to a fraught, intimate parity forged in crisis.

This bond is further rooted in the episode’s harrowing flashbacks, set in 1960. We see Peggy in the aftermath of giving birth, heavily sedated in St. Mary’s hospital, implying a severe post-partum psychotic episode. The portrayal is unflinching and bleak. When Don visits, making awkward inquiries before realising the truth, he is visibly shaken. In a moment of rare, unguarded connection, he unconsciously sees his own traumatic past—the forged identity, the buried pain—mirrored in her experience. His advice, “You must put this behind you,” is less a corporate mantra and more a survival tactic he himself employs daily. This shared secret becomes the bedrock of their unique, enduring alliance, elevating their professional relationship to a level of unspoken understanding no other character shares.

For all its strengths, The New Girl, written by Robin Veith, is not a flawless piece of television. The episode suffers from a slight lack of narrative focus, primarily due to a subplot involving Pete and Trudy Campbell’s attempts to conceive. The storyline, in which Pete must prove his fertility by providing a sperm sample in the office while perusing erotic magazines, feels tonally adrift. Whether period-accurate or not, it plays like a piece of early-21st-century low-brow comedy awkwardly grafted onto the series’ refined aesthetic. Similarly, the bizarre interlude where Freddy Rumsen interrupts Jane and Ken Cosgrove to perform Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik with his trousers zipper is pure, absurdist farce. While it might aim to illustrate the juvenile office culture, it risks undermining the episode’s otherwise nuanced atmosphere with a jarring, cartoonish gag.

In the broader context of Mad Men’s second season, as noted in contemporaneous reviews, 1962 is presented as a year on the cusp. The world is still strong, confident and optimistic, yet the show subtly seeds the coming revolutions in gender, race, and social more. The New Girl encapsulates this perfectly. It is an episode about women navigating a man’s world using vastly different strategies—Jane’s naivety, Joan’s governance, Bobbie’s manipulation, Peggy’s quiet competence. It is about Don Draper, the archetypal self-made man, finding himself literally and metaphorically crashed by the forces of desire and indiscretion he believes he controls. By weaving together the mundane—a secretary’s dress, a traffic fine, an office prank—with moments of deep psychological revelation, the episode affirms Mad Men’s central genius: the greatest dramas often unfold not in war rooms or courtrooms, but in the quiet, charged spaces between people, where the future is being nervously, awkwardly, and irrevocably born.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

==

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ InLeo blog https://inleo.io/@drax.leo

LeoDex: https://leodex.io/?ref=drax InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax 1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7 BCH donations: qpvxw0jax79lhmvlgcldkzpqanf03r9cjv8y6gtmk9

Fuente

Fuente

True Q (S06E06)

Airdate: 26 October 1992

Written by: René Echevarria Directed by: Robert Scheerer

Running Time: 46 minutes

The enduring brilliance and strength of Star Trek: The Next Generation were not immediately apparent at its inception, although, in retrospect, one could have sensed its potential with the arrival of Q in the pilot episode. As the franchise's most iconic recurring character, Q has utilised his unique combination of godlike powers and roguish humour to torment Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D, all while thoroughly entertaining the audience. However, the writers of TNG demonstrated a shrewd understanding that they had to be economical with Q; had he appeared too frequently, much of his mystique would have evaporated, leading to diminished returns—a fate that, to a degree, later befell the Borg. After a conspicuous absence throughout the entirety of the show's fifth season, Q compensated by appearing in two episodes of Season Six, also making his debut in the spin-off series Deep Space Nine. The first of these was True Q, an episode that attempts to explore the nature of the Q Continuum through a human lens, with decidedly mixed results.

The plot begins at Starbase 112, where the USS Enterprise-D is preparing to deliver aid to the inhabitants of Tagra IV, a planet suffering an ecological disaster. A young Starfleet intern, Amanda Rogers (Olivia d'Abo), boards the ship to study botany under the tutelage of Dr. Crusher. It soon transpires that Amanda possesses unusual, reality-altering powers—she can make her pet dogs appear and vanish at will. These abilities become catastrophically apparent to the entire crew when she unconsciously contains a runaway warp core breach, an event that serves as the catalyst for the episode's central conflict.

Q (John de Lancie) promptly arrives, explaining that the warp core incident was his own doing, engineered merely to test whether Amanda harbours Q-like powers. He reveals that Amanda was conceived by two members of the Q Continuum who chose to live as humans, relinquishing their omnipotence. Sent to investigate, Q declares that Amanda, as a human-Q hybrid, could inadvertently destroy the entire galaxy and that he may have to kill her as he did her parent. He admits that the "freak tornado" in Kansas that killed them was his execution. Q offers her a stark choice: join the Q Continuum or continue to live as a human, but with her powers permanently removed. He chillingly notes that her parents were given the same choice but were unable to resist using their abilities, which led to their demise.

Amanda struggles profoundly with this ultimatum, a turmoil compounded by a budding romantic attraction to Commander Riker. The episode devotes significant time to her conversations with Dr. Crusher, who serves as a sympathetic mentor, and to the ethical debates between Picard and Q. In the climax, Amanda makes her choice not through action, using her nascent powers to prevent a catastrophic reactor meltdown on Tagra IV. Having demonstrated her "true Q" nature, she decides to leave the Enterprise and join the Continuum, though she wins a small reprieve to say farewell to her family and friends.

The script by René Echevarria was based on a spec script submitted by Howard Corey, a teenage fan. According to production staff testimonies, the script underwent numerous changes, including the gender of the protagonist—Corey's original version featured a male character. Early drafts reportedly included Wesley Crusher, a teenage romance, and an unwanted pregnancy, elements that were wisely jettisoned. This problematic genesis perhaps explains some of the episode's lingering awkwardness, particularly in the forced romantic subplot.

John de Lancie is, as ever, magnificent in the role. He reportedly appreciated the script as an opportunity to portray a meaner, more sinister version of Q, harkening back to the character's more dangerous early appearances rather than the gentler comic relief he sometimes became. Ironically, de Lancie later expressed dissatisfaction with the final result, though his performance remains a highlight. His delivery of the line, "Jean-Luc, sometimes I think the only reason I come here is to listen to these wonderful speeches of yours," is an instant classic, perfectly encapsulating Q's amused contempt for Picard's earnestness.

The existential choice given to Amanda is simple and comprehensible. The episode benefits a lot by Olivia d'Abo's excellent performance. The English actress, best known for film roles in Conan the Destroyer and Bolero, brings a compelling mixture of vulnerability, intelligence, and warmth to Amanda, creating one of the most attractive and memorable guest characters in the series' history. Her scenes with Gates McFadden's Dr. Crusher are particularly effective, giving Crusher a larger and more substantive role than usual.

The episode is competently directed by Robert Scheerer, who makes good use of colour and manages the pacing adequately. The special effects, particularly the warp core containment and the resolution on Tagra IV, are solid for early-1990s television. Yet, the production is occasionally let down by questionable choices, most notably in wardrobe. Amanda's fantasy sequence with Riker, which dresses them as protagonists from a 19th-century romantic novel, feels like an unnecessary and painfully clichéd visual trope. It undermines the episode's serious themes and serves as a reminder of the series' occasional tonal missteps.

Critically, True Q is a divisive entry. Some reviewers find it a "snoozer" or "among the least" fun of the Q episodes, criticising its familiar plot—reminiscent of the Season One episode Hide and Q—and its contrived central dilemma. Others praise its lovely moral lesson" and the provocative questions it raises about omnipotence and humanity. A significant flaw, often cited, is the narrative convenience that Amanda's powers only manifest upon boarding the Enterprise, a hurdle the audience is asked to overlook.

True Q is a mid-tier Next Generation episode. It is elevated by strong performances from de Lancie and d'Abo, some effective philosophical dialogue, and the reliable presence of Q. However, it is weighed down by a derivative plot, a simplistic central conflict, and occasional lapses into melodrama and cliché. It functions adequately as a vehicle to explore the Q mythology and provides a satisfactory character study, but it lacks the ingenuity, depth, and sheer audacity that characterise the series' very best instalment. It is, ultimately, a competent but unexceptional chapter in the storied saga of the Enterprise-D.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/ InLeo blog https://inleo.io/@drax.leo

LeoDex: https://leodex.io/?ref=drax InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax 1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7 BCH donations: qpvxw0jax79lhmvlgcldkzpqanf03r9cjv8y6gtmk9

Some anime rely on action to create tension.
Zankyou no Terror creates tension through silence, atmosphere, and the feeling that something deeply tragic is unfolding beneath the surface.

Released in 2014 and directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, this psychological thriller combines mystery, social commentary, and emotional storytelling into a haunting experience that stays with you long after the ending.

When I first watched Zankyou no Terror, I expected a suspense story about terrorism.
What I found was something far more human—an anime about pain, isolation, and the desperate desire to be heard.

🧩 Two Boys Against the World

The story begins when two mysterious teenagers, known only as Nine and Twelve, carry out a terrorist attack in Tokyo. But instead of spreading chaos blindly, they leave cryptic riddles for the police and communicate with the world through strange online videos.

Their actions shock society, but behind their calm expressions lies something much deeper than simple destruction.

Who are they really?
And why are they doing this?

🌆 Tokyo as a Stage of Isolation

The anime captures a version of Tokyo that feels cold, distant, and emotionally disconnected. Crowded streets somehow feel empty, reinforcing the loneliness surrounding the characters.

Every scene carries tension—not only because of the mystery, but because of the emotional weight hidden beneath each conversation and decision.

🎼 Music and Atmosphere That Haunt You

The soundtrack by Yoko Kanno is unforgettable. Soft piano melodies, atmospheric vocals, and haunting compositions give the series a dreamlike sadness that perfectly matches its themes.

Combined with beautiful cinematography and deliberate pacing, the anime creates an atmosphere that feels both intimate and unsettling.

💫 A Story About Pain and Connection

Zankyou no Terror is not just about crime or suspense—it’s about people searching for meaning in a world that ignored them. It explores trauma, memory, and the emotional consequences of being treated as disposable.

It’s emotional without being melodramatic, intelligent without feeling cold, and tragic without losing its humanity.

If you enjoy psychological anime with strong atmosphere, emotional depth, and unforgettable music, Zankyou no Terror is absolutely worth experiencing.

Posted Using INLEO

Source

Netflix dropped a shark movie called Thrash that I wasnt too sure to watch but still gave it a try, this was the back to back 7 of the weekend with Apex and Thrash, latter on I find out this movie went through so many name changes before landing on that title that people online were just calling it "the shark movie" and its not that complicated and everything is totally expected and predicatable from the trailer, there was nothing hidden here, no mistery no nothing, it was mostly about the kills tbh. The setup is a Category 5 hurricane named Henry slamming into a small coastal town in South Carolina called Annieville, the local levees break and flood the streets with a literal truckload of animal blood from a meatpacking truck that gets wrecked in the surge, perfect situation of fire and gas in the same place, blood and sharks, then the bull sharks show up for the buffet. Tommy Wirkola directed this and if you know his work from the zombie Nazi movie Dead Snow or the Christmas action thing Violent Night you already know how his brain works, so watching him spend the first hour playing it relatively straight before finally letting the chaos loose is too much to ask and a little frustrating because I thought we were coing to get less drama and more chaos, I mean the drama here was just for decoration. We get Phoebe Dynevor as Lisa, a nine months pregnant woman who gets forced to come into work and then becomes trapped in her electric car while trying to leave town, with floodwater rising around her and bull sharks circling, and Djimon Hounsou shows up as Dr. Dale Edwards, a marine researcher who is also the uncle of Dakota played by Whitney Peak, a teenager who cannot leave the house because her some kind of phobia she has, she decide to remain locked in after losing her mother, and then there are three foster kids stuck with a guardian who thinks a Category 5 hurricane is just bad weather.

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32362890/
• Platform: NETFLIX

What actually works in this movie is Phoebe Dynevor doing everything she can with a role that does not give her much breathing room and she is the kind of performer who sells you on the fear without needing to scream every five seconds, you believe she is scared because the way she carries herself in those flooded scenes feels real in a way that a lot of streaming creature feature movies just do not bother to get right. Djimon Hounsou is Djimon Hounsou period, meaning the man grounds everything he touches and makes you believe in whatever absurd situation the script drops him into, even when he is racing toward town on a boat in the middle of a catastrophic storm to rescue his niece. The bull sharks circling in the dark water during certain sequences are actually decent for a streaming production, the CGI does not embarrass itself the way you expect it to, and the production design of the flooded sets is clever because they built interlocking environments where the water level rises as the story moves forward, removing levels of the buildings to sell the illusion that things are getting worse. There are moments where this thing is clearly trying to be a proper disaster movie and the craft behind those moments is legit enough that you can see what it was aiming for before it gets distracted by all the side drama stories going around.

The second half is where everything starts feeling scattered because the pacing cannot hold together once the movie realizes it needs to make you care about Dakota processing grief for her mother while also delivering Lisa baby and also dealing with sharks and also wrapping up the foster kids situation and also setting up some kind of message about climate and intensifying storms, its just too much going at the same time on a story that really feels short, and none of that gets the time it needs to actually connect or even make you care about it, you still locked in on the sharks and getting people eaten so this is where the movie goes insane action with sharks flying and giving babies birth under water like its nothing. The emotional weight around Dakota dealing with her loss is there in theory but it comes and goes so fast that it barely sticks with you before the next thing is already happening and the choice to spend that much of the screentime trying being serious about the disaster before finally letting the director be himself ends up costing the movie whatever personality it was hiding underneath. You can feel that Sony had something to do with making this thing behave for most of its runtime before it finally gets weird in the end, and that calculation doesnt do it any favors because the first hour is a drag when the person they hired to make this movie is someone who strapped a machine gun to a reindeer and called it a Christmas movie. Latter on I notice that there was a bit of Australian cast doing Southern accents something that also that just happens and it sounds off if you look around and see a small town with couple of red neck kinda scenery but I guess its fine, Im not an expert on accents and not that I care much about it, it does not kill the performances but it is one of those things that sits wrong in your ear every time someone opens their mouth.

Watching this reminded me a lot of Deep Blue Sea, which understood it was ridiculous and committed to that energy without flinching and also Crawl, which I think is the actual better version of this exact movie because Alexandre Aja kept everything focused on one story and one location without losing the thread. Thrash wants to be both of those things and also a serious disaster movie about climate and human survival, and the problem with wanting to be everything is that you end up being a slightly lesser version of each thing instead of really delivering on any of them. Adam McKay produced this through Hyperobject Industries and you can feel his disaster framing fingerprints in the background with the climate references and the storm surge setup but that is more of a tone thing baked into the world than anything that slows the movie down to make a point. The idea of Lisa giving birth inside Dakota flooding house as the structure collapses around her is insane on paper and the kind of sequence that should make this movie not easy to errase just form that scene but it arrives in a movie that spent too long pretending it did not want to be that kind of movie, so the landing feels half earned instead of completely ridiculous in the way it should be, its like the movie suddenly figure out where it was and hit the gas too late and end up been too ridiculous.

#thrash, #netflix, #sharkmovie, #horrorreview, #hurricanehorror, #bullsharks, #phoebedynevor, #djimonhounsou, #tommywirkola, #creaturefeature, #sharkattack, #moviereview, #streamingmovies, #survivalhorror, #southcarolina, #campyhorror, #bloodflood, #gore, #monstermovie, #sharkweek, #fosterkids, #pregnantlady, #cgi, #disastermovie, #sharks

Posted Using INLEO