No One (S6x08)

Airdate: 12 June 2016

Written by: David Benioff & D. B. Weiss Directed by: Mark Mylod

Running Time: 50 minutes

Game of Thrones’ hold on global popular culture in the mid-2010s was demonstrated in myriad ways. One of its more spectacular, and perhaps unexpected, legacies was its ability to seed the internet’s vernacular, transforming specific lines of dialogue into ubiquitous memes and phrases. No One, the eighth episode of the show’s sixth season, serves as a prime example of this latter phenomenon. While not amongst the season’s most explosive instalments, it is the wellspring of a line that would detach itself from its context and enter the common lexicon: “I chose violence.” This episode, directed by Mark Mylod, functions largely as a tableau of simmering political intrigues and character moments, a necessary but often plodding connective tissue between more seismic events. Its success is uneven, salvaged by a few brutally efficient action set-pieces and the culmination of one young protagonist’s long, dark journey.

The episode’s most immediately memorable moment is, without doubt, Cersei Lannister’s defiant stand in the Red Keep. The political crisis in King’s Landing reaches a new pitch as the High Sparrow, having thoroughly co-opted the young King Tommen, flexes his authority by sending a Faith Militant delegation led by Lancel Lannister to summon Cersei to the Great Sept of Baelor. Cersei, with the zombified Mountain a silent monolith at her side, refuses with icy calm. When Lancel warns that her refusal will lead to violence, Lena Headey delivers the line with chilling, matter-of-fact finality: “I chose violence.” The subsequent graphic decapitation of a zealot by the Mountain is visceral and shocking, a quota of graphic killing delivered with blunt force. Cersei’s smirk and her invitation for the High Septon to visit her “any time” is a magnificent display of bravado, yet it is undercut by the scene’s true consequence: Tommen, now a puppet, subsequently announces the abolition of trial by combat, directly thwarting Cersei’s planned use of her champion. The sequence feels somewhat contrived—a dramatic showdown designed primarily to gift the audience a killer line and a gory payoff—yet its cultural impact is undeniable. The phrase “I chose violence” morphed, slightly altered into the meme format “waking up and choosing violence,” perfectly capturing a mindset of deliberate, chaotic provocation. For all the scene’s narrative convenience, it left a strong, lingering impression.

Elsewhere in Westeros, the pacing is decidedly more sedate. In the Riverlands, two parallel stories unfold with varying degrees of satisfaction. Sandor Clegane’s campaign of vengeance against the Brotherhood Without Banners provides the episode’s first major action beat. His brutal dispatch of four men with an axe is swift, savage, and darkly humorous, a well-choreographed piece that reminds us of the Hound’s lethal prowess. The subsequent negotiation beneath the gallows, where he learns Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr had already sentenced the true perpetrators to death, adds a layer of moral ambiguity. Sandor’s reluctant participation in the executions and Thoros’s offer for him to join the Brotherhood is a quiet character beat that works, hinting at a potential redemption arc far more nuanced than mere vengeance.

The resolution of the Riverrun siege, however, is where the episode’s political manoeuvring shines. Brienne of Tarth’s mission for Sansa Stark leads her to Jaime Lannister’s camp, where she proposes a sensible deal: the castle surrenders to the Lannisters, but its garrison is allowed to march north to join the Starks. The tragedy lies in the stubborn honour of Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, whose refusal to yield his family home forces Jaime to employ a more cunning, and deeply personal, stratagem. By threatening the life of Edmure Tully’s infant son, Jaime coerces the broken lord to order the surrender, a move that is both pragmatically brilliant and morally repugnant. The Blackfish’s choice to die fighting rather than flee is a fitting end for the character, while the silent, distant wave Jaime gives Brienne as she rows away is one of the episode’s most poignant moments—a wordless acknowledgment of respect and a farewell to a simpler version of his honour. This storyline feels complete and emotionally resonant, a testament to the strength of the series when it focuses on the complicated legacy of war and family.

Across the Narrow Sea, the narrative stalls. In Meereen, the episode attempts to depict a fragile stability. Varys departs for Westeros on a vague mission to secure allies for Daenerys’s eventual invasion, a move noted by critics as a sensible step but one that highlights the plot’s holding pattern. What follows is a sequence that has been widely criticised for its tonal missteps and narrative stagnation. Tyrion, left in charge, tries to foster camaraderie by sharing wine and jokes with Grey Worm and Missandei. The scene is meant to humanise these often-stoic characters, but it drags, with the humour falling notably flat. This calm is shattered by the arrival of the slavers’ fleet from Astapor and Yunkai, a stunning CGI spectacle that is, unfortunately, all too brief. The Masters, having cynically used Tyrion’s compromise to regroup, launch their attack, forcing the Unsullied to retreat to the Great Pyramid. The tension is undercut, however, by the almost immediate, anti-climactic return of Daenerys on Drogon. Her arrival is a deus ex machina that resolves nothing in the moment, merely setting the stage for the battle proper in the next episode.

In stark contrast, the Braavos storyline provides the episode’s most compelling and coherent arc. Injured and desperate, Arya Stark finds refuge with Lady Crane, the actress whose life she saved. Their interaction is a quiet, human interlude, with Crane nursing Arya back to health and offering her a place in her travelling troupe—a tantalising glimpse of a normal life Arya must ultimately refuse. The predictability of Lady Crane’s fate—the kind-hearted helper in a Faceless Man narrative is almost always marked for death—is a minor flaw. Nevertheless, the subsequent chase through the streets of Braavos is a masterfully executed set-piece. Director Mark Mylod compensates for the episode’s broader lack of intensity with this thrilling sequence, where Arya uses the skills honed during her blindness to turn the tables on the Waif. The final confrontation in the dark room is wisely kept off-camera, a clever and practical choice that emphasises sound and suggestion over explicit combat. The satisfying twist comes at the House of Black and White, where Arya presents the Waif’s face to Jaqen H’ghar and declares, “My name is Arya Stark of Winterfell, and I’m going home.” It is a triumphant, long-awaited moment that effectively concludes her Braavosi apprenticeship and stands as the best part of the episode, elevating it above the preceding instalment

Ultimately, No One is an episode of transitions and preparations. Its pacing is deliberate to a fault, with large sections feeling like narrative marking time. Mark Mylod’s direction ensures it is never boring, strategically deploying violent action (Clegane’s axe work, the Mountain’s decapitation) and a superb chase sequence to maintain momentum. The production values remain high, from the practical drawbridge at Riverrun to the impressive, if fleeting, CGI of the slaver fleet. Yet, the core criticism holds: too many plots, particularly in Meereen, feel stuck in a rut, awaiting the return of a central character to inject purpose. The episode’s lasting cultural contribution, however, is indisputable. In Cersei Lannister’s cold, premeditated declaration, it gifted the internet a phrase that would outlive the series itself—a fitting tribute for a show that so often chose narrative violence over comfortable resolution.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

==

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The Broken Man (S6x07)

Airdate: 5 June 2016

Written by: Bryan Cogman Directed by: Mark Mylod

Running Time: 50 minutes

By the sixth season of Game of Thrones, the tell-tale signs of creative fatigue were becoming difficult to ignore. The most glaring structural symptom was the decision, from Season 7 onward, to truncate the episode count, abandoning the established ten-episode format that had defined the series’ sprawling narrative pace. This contraction hinted at a paucity of substantive plot, a scramble to reach pre-determined endpoints rather than nurture organic story. Season 6, therefore, us the last gasp of the old structure, and within it, episodes like The Broken Man serve as stark evidence of why that structure was doomed. It functions precisely as the kind of filler episode one might expect from a more conventional, pre-prestige television drama—a placeholder composed largely of exposition and predictable, wheel-spinning vignettes, desperately trying to muster momentum for the grand conflicts to come.

The episode’s most touted moment is its cold open, which resolves a two-year cliff-hanger with deliberate anti-climax. Season 4 concluded with Sandor ‘the Hound’ Clegane left for dead by Arya Stark, his fate a subject of fervent fan debate. The series’ habit of avoiding on-screen deaths for certain characters (Stannis Baratheon being a prime example) fuelled speculation that the Hound lived. The Broken Man confirms this with the rhythmic thud of an axe. We find him in the Riverlands, part of an idyllic, pacifist commune led by Brother Ray (Ian McShane), a septon. Their exposition-heavy dialogue efficiently establishes Ray’s backstory: a former soldier turned to peace after his own atrocities, now offering the Hound a path to atonement. It is a classic narrative setup, and therein lies its fundamental flaw. The entire arc is a transparent, morality-play trope: the introduction of a ‘too-good-to-be-true’ sanctuary in the grim world of Westeros exists solely to be violently destroyed, thereby justifying the protagonist’s return to his old, violent ways. The trio of horsemen from the Brotherhood Without Banners, hinting religious rivalry, serve as cartoonish heralds of this inevitable doom. When the Hound returns to find the commune slaughtered, Ray included, his decision to take up an axe is not a compelling character turn but a foregone conclusion. The storyline is less about the Hound’s internal struggle and more a lazy narrative mechanism to re-introduce a popular fighter into the fray, its emotional beats rendered hollow by their utter predictability.

This theme of predictable stagnation permeates the other narrative threads. At Riverrun, Jaime Lannister’s arrival to oversee the siege feels like a bureaucratic exercise. The incompetence of Lothar Frey and Walder Rivers is a cheap gag, and Jaime’s assumption of command lacks tension. His parley with the Blackfish is a textbook example of static dialogue where both parties simply restate their immutable positions—the Blackfish boasting his walls can hold for two years, Jaime failing to achieve diplomatic solution. Nothing is advanced, no nuance revealed; it is pure procedural marking of time. Similarly, in King’s Landing, the revelation that Margaery Tyrell is merely play-acting her piety for the High Sparrow is a twist so widely anticipated by the audience that it lands with a dull thud. The ensuing, reluctant re-alliance between Olenna and Cersei is born not of compelling political intrigue, but of narrative necessity, two formidable actresses going through motions the script has already dictated.

The Northern plotline, while injecting a dose of energy, underscores the season’s logistical awkwardness. Jon Snow and Sansa’s rallying of the wildlings succeeds, but their attempt to galvanise the Northern lords is a parade of feeble excuses and cowardice, save for one glorious exception: Lady Lyanna Mormont. Played with scintillating ferocity by the then-unknown Bella Ramsay, the ten-year-old Lady of Bear Island is a bolt of lightning in a murky sky. Her verbal evisceration of the craven lords is the episode’s sole moment of genuine, unscripted-feeling vigour. Yet, the narrative immediately undercuts this by having her commit only sixty-two soldiers, a comically minuscule number that highlights the contrivance of the Stark army’s weakness. Jon’s decision to march on Winterfell regardless feels less like desperate heroism and more like a writer forcing a climactic battle despite having deliberately starved the protagonists of resources.

Elsewhere, the plot meanders with a sense of contractual obligation. Yara and Theon’s scene in a Volantis brothel is a perfunctory nod to HBO’s trademark ‘sexposition.’ While it efficiently establishes their plan to sail for Meereen and Yara’s sexuality—as she enthusiastically enjoys the company of topless prostitutes—it feels grafted from the earlier, more gratuitous seasons, a stale attempt to spice up a purely logistical dialogue. In Braavos, Arya Stark’s storyline reaches a nadir of convoluted inertia. Her stabbing by the Waif is presented as a shocking cliff-hanger, but it is a neat, manufactured crisis. Given the established rules of the Faceless Men and the show’s proven reluctance to kill its core adolescent protagonists, the audience is left not fearing for her life, but merely wondering about the mechanics of her inevitable survival. The injury, like the Hound’s commune, exists only to trigger a return to a previous state—in this case, Arya the vengeful fighter, not Arya the ascetic assassin.

Written by Bryan Cogman, the series’ so-called “bible” keeper, The Broken Man epitomises the weaknesses of a writer deeply versed in lore but struggling with momentum. The episode is a catalogue of conversations where characters explain their intentions or reiterate their dilemmas, mistaking exposition for development. The guest casting further highlights its filler quality. Ian McShane, a magnetic presence who built a late-career television legacy on shows like Deadwood, is wasted in a role that amounts to a glorified cameo, his character a mere philosophical prop to be destroyed. For aficionados of British comedy, the brief, nearly unnoticeable appearance of Tim McInnerny, a Blackadder alumni, as Lord Robett Glover is a similarly squandered opportunity, a nod that signifies nothing.

In the end, The Broken Man is an episode that wears its function plainly: it is a bridge, and a rickety one at that. It moves pieces on the board with mechanical efficiency, relying on worn-out tropes and predictable violence to simulate depth. Its most lasting contribution is not any narrative shift, but the introduction of Bella Ramsay, an actor whose sheer force of personality momentarily pierces the fog of exposition. For a series that once redefined television with its ruthless unpredictability and dense political weave, this episode feels like a surrender to convention.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

==

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As I have mentioned before Deadwood is one of those series that a lot of people hold in very high regard and yet I have tried on a number of occasions to watch it, but simply lost interest and put it on the back burner, only to not really be all that enthusiastic about turning it back on and just walking away from it. I had the DVD box set for season 1 and loaned it to someone and simply forgot that I had done so. This has happened with a lot of my DVD's and these days, I don't even have very many DVD's and the only DVD player that I have is inside my Playstation - which I never use for that and actually rarely use at all.

[src](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Deadwood_a_l.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1)

I finished season 1 of Deadwood last night and as one would expect, they wrapped up a lot of things that they had been working of for the 11 hours of episodes that came before it. I feel like they did a pretty good job of character establishment and some of the storylines seem like they are just getting started, which I am sure was the intention.

There will be spoilers ahead, although I will try to limit this as much as possible.

So far, I would say almost all of what we have seen on screen was a 12-hour establishing of characters and an establishment of what the real "bread and butter" of these characters are going to be in season 2. There were not a great many things that got moving and resolved in Season 1 and if they were they were kind of issues that were meant to bring on more important happenings probably in season 2.

One of the major things that the entire show kind of revolves around, is where is it that the main character (if there is one) Al Swearengen and whether or not he is a good guy, or a bad guy. This role is brilliantly played by Ian McShane and to me anyway, is one of the roles that he is likely best known for.

This guy can be a tyrant, but also can be a savior. He has a shady past that he spends a lot of time and murders several people over keeping hidden, but at the same time he does some very generous things, some of which are completely selfless, for the benefit of the entire city. One of the main instances of this happening is when he identifies an issue with smallpox appearing in the camp, then spends vast amounts of his own resources obtaining a vaccine and then distributing it for free.

Later, he also forms a government of sorts including various positions inside that local government like mayor and sheriff, yet he never so much as even suggests that he should hold any of those roles. We do kind of figure out that he doesn't actually need to be any of these things because he is so influential and powerful in the camp/town that he realizes the real power doesn't come from titles or positions, but in the influence that one already holds outside of these official positions. Despite the fact that at least up to this point he holds no official titles, nobody really feels as though they can pull anything over on him.

Then we look over at the other main character Seth Bullock who is played by Timothy Olyphant.

[src](https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/timothy-olyphant-looking-intense-as-seth-bullock-in-deadwood.jpg?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop)

Olyphant, the actor, is one of those faces that when you see him, you think to yourself "I know this guy from somewhere but am not sure what it is." Well, it is probably Deadwood or Justified, both of which were quite popular series. It's funny to me that in both he played some sort of moral law-enforcement type although in Deadwood he doesn't really want this position so much as he takes it on after others do such a poor job of it.

These two characters are considered the central ones in the story and while I do think that Olyphant does a good job as Seth, he is completely overshadowed by the epic performance of Ian McShane.

Other characters are interesting but they are outside characters who do play some part in the overall story, but you can tell that they are headed at some point in the future, to some sort of fitting end.

E. B. Farnum is played really well by William Sanderson, and much like many other people in this series, he is one of those faces that you probably almost recognize. E.B. is a sniveling snake and comes across as a coward who is trying to sneak his way into wealthy and influence by riding the coattails of people that are more talented and charismatic. He annoys others more than he actually demands respect, and Sanderson' portrayal of this sort of person is spot on. I knew a couple of people in my real life that were like this, and Sanderson really does a good job of playing a total pussy who thinks they are in a position of power. When the time comes to elect a mayor, he nominates himself and nobody contests. He takes this as a sign of respect and admiration by the others but it is actually because the truly influential and powerful people in the camp don't give a damn about titles.

There are a ton of supporting roles and some of them come and go a lot quicker than you would expect and I feel as though this is done in a sort of shocking way that is meant to keep the viewers always guessing about who could die in the next episode.

[src](https://i0.wp.com/bamfstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/DeadwoodBill-CL2a-ShirtVest.jpg?ssl=1)

Wild Bill Hickock is introduced as a major and central character only to have himself get rather unceremoniously murdered in a very quick scene that I guess if you know more about frontier history than I do, you would have seen coming. In our real world, this real person was genuinely murdered by being shot in the back while playing poker. I guess it is my fault for not knowing about that, but I do recall hearing about aces and eights being the "dead man's hand."

Other side characters that appear of great importance such as the preacher were pretty fantastic and at first glance you don't really understand their purpose in the overall story.

[src](https://unaffiliatedcritic.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Ray-McKinnon-in-DEADWOOD-1x11-Jewels-Boot-is-Made-for-Walking.jpg)

The preacher is tolerated by the camp's inhabitants because well, because he is a holy man. But he becomes very ill and starts to kind of annoy people with his prophetic ways. He is seriously suffering and eventually Al Swearengen puts him out of his misery not because he is annoying him, but because he can see that his life is simply one of pain and very little other purpose. It is an act of mercy that makes us feel that perhaps Al is a good guy at heart, but also ruthless when something gets in his way.

Al has a soft side when it comes to a lot of things and I think this is a major point of the entire first season. He is established as a ruthless murderer early on, but as the season goes on there are several things that happen to show that he has a very humanistic side and is empathetic to the plight of others, he just doesn't allow himself to show it very often.

As Season 1 concludes, there are many characters that are kind of pushed aside and forgotten, and there are others that are being pushed towards the "main stage" if you will. There is a rather obvious showdown brewing between Al and his main Saloon competitor Cy Tolliver, which is a character that is loosely based on a real person as well.

[src](https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cy-tolliver-powers-booth-deadwood-featured.jpg)

Although they are kind of easing into it, you can tell that this person is going to become more and more of a thorn in the side of Al as time goes on, and while I do not have any proof of this and have avoided future spoilers myself, I can see his death being something that happens eventually. You can't just open a competing saloon across the road from Al Swearengen and not have trouble come your way eventually.

If you found that to be filled with spoilers I did in fact warn you at multiple times before you got to this point. I did try to keep them at a minimum.

I do think this series is better than average but I have to be honest and say that I don't really think that this is as outstanding of a series as history would have us believe. At the time of its release in the early 2000's I would imagine it was just amazing to see given the scope of it, but by my own standards and I suppose the reduced attention span of today's people (including me) things do move awful slow in this. We have gone through 12 hours already and honestly, not a great deal has actually happened.

I suppose from an artistic standpoint this is actually better. They are doing to a "show don't tell" approach as far as things are concerned and thus far, unless I completely missed something because I was zoning out, there hasn't been ANY narration of any sort yet, which it actually quite refreshing to see.

I have heard from friends that season 2 is where things get truly entertaining, and I will start on that today.

source: imdb

Netflix's Fear Street Part One: 1994 is the first movie of a trilogy or rather one big movie cut into three parts since they were released in the same year. It was based from the great R.L. Stine's book series (although a lot of things changed in the movie). Watching this movie I thought about Stranger Things not just because of Sadie Sink but because it has a lot of 1990s nostalgia.

Plot Summary

He looks like the slasher from Scream. source: imdb

The story takes place in the cursed town of Shadyside. It's a town plagued by tragedy, violence and bad luck for centuries. The main character was Deena Johnson, a teenager who struggles with a recent breakup from her girlfriend Sam Fraser who moved to Sunnyvale, a town the complete opposite of Shadyside since it enjoys endless prosperity.

After a strange accident involving Sam, a series of scary events begins. Deena and her friends soon found out that an old witch named Sarah Fier may be the cause for the horrors in Shadyside for generations. As killers from the town's past emerge and start hunting them, the group must uncover the truth behind the curse before they become its next victims.

Analysis and Recommendation

At first, the feels like a classic teen slasher inspired by movies such as Scream, but it soon becomes a supernatural mystery with deep lore like R.L. Stine's writings. The movie has nostalgia with 1994 setting and a soundtrack of songs from the era. The music helps create a sense of nostalgia. The scary parts and creative kills will satisfy horror fans of slasher movies.

Despite being based on a young adult book series, Fear Street 1994 is violent. I was drawn more to solving the mystery surrounding Sarah Fier. It was intriguing and kept me to finish the whole series.

Fans of the original book may not like the big changes on Sarah Fier but I would like to think it's another plot that R.L. Stine could have taken in the books. I read the original book series and I thought, the movie was a great adaptation/alternate story. The story wasn't bad, it's just different from the book.

I highly recommend Fear Street Part One: 1994 and the rest of the series to horror enthusiasts looking for a fun and mysterious movie. The film's violence and intriguing mystery make it one of Netflix's most enjoyable horror movies.

SPANISH

Hoy quiero hablarles de la bella novela Naranjas dulces, de Néstor Caballero. Confieso que la leí dos veces, ya que fue un verdadero placer viajar a través de la voz de Ezequiel Martínez, "Nené". Nuestro niño protagonista posee una gran creatividad y mucha imaginación, quien a lo largo de la historia nos pasea por un tobogán de emociones que van desde la risa y la nostalgia, hasta el terror del peligro.

La fantasía y la realidad se conjugan en esta obra, llevando al lector a vivir junto a Nené, desde su perspectiva inocente, la compleja realidad de un país, Venezuela, en los años 60. Es allí donde nos presenta sus habilidades extraordinarias: su capacidad de hablar el idioma mosca, o sus "piernas de helicóptero". También conocemos el amor de su primera infancia: su querida Elsy Cristancho, la niña que olía a jabón azul y que, para él, es la más linda del mundo. A su alrededor se teje una red de personajes entrañables y singulares: una mamá hospitalizada, un abuelo poeta, un padre sargento, un amigo guerrillero y una hermana que se comunica con los jupiterianos.

Si lees la contraportada de este libro, notarás que la descripción te promete que, si devoras las primeras líneas de Naranjas dulces, ya no la podrás soltarla. Es una gran verdad y puedo dar fe de ello: sus 643 páginas se leen con absoluto gusto. Cuando estás por terminar, te embarga una profunda nostalgia, tal cual como cuando viajas a un lugar que te encanta y no quieres irte porque sabes que el paseo está llegando a su fin.

Les confieso que con este libro hasta lloré, porque la historia te mueve fibra por fibra. Es una delicia dejarse atrapar bajo los encantos de este niño que se toma la mitad de una pastilla azul para evitar que su pierna se convierta en helicóptero. Y por tal motivo le doy 100/100 a esta hermosa novela.

Néstor Caballero es un destacado autor venezolano nacido en Aragua de Barcelona en 1951. Reconocido dramaturgo y columnista de opinión, cuenta con más 19 obras de teatro editadas, consolidándose como una de las voces literarias más originales de nuestro país.

Para comprender la magnitud de este creador, cabe destacar que su impecable pluma y trayectoria artística lo han hecho merecedor de los galardones más importantes dentro y fuera de Venezuela, entre los que destacan:

• Premio Nacional de Cultura (Mención Teatro 2010-2012), el máximo reconocimiento a la trayectoria artística en el país.

• Premio UNESCO de Dramaturgia (1984) y reconocimiento del Instituto Internacional del Teatro (ITI-París).

• Premio Nacional de Cine al Mejor Guion (2000) por la aclamada película Huelepega.

• Premio de Dramaturgia del Nuevo Grupo (1978) con su obra El Rey de los Araguatos.

• Premio Nacional de Dramaturgia César Rengifo (1981).

• Premio Juana Sujo de Dramaturgia (1991).

• Premio de Dramaturgia Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho (1995) por su obra Toñito.

• Múltiples Premios Municipales de Dramaturgia (Distrito Federal y Distrito Sucre) por obras emblemáticas como Los taxistas también tienen su corazoncito y Se llama Simón.

• Condecorado con la Orden Francisco de Miranda, la Orden Diego de Losada y la Orden José Antonio Anzoátegui en su Primera Clase, en reconocimiento a su invaluable labor cultural y docente.

Fuentes Imágenes Foto de mi libro tomada con mi Redmi note 9t He utilizado Google Traductor*

Rating: 100/100

Originally posted through scrobble.life/books.

Weekend At Bernie’s Is One Of The Most Ridiculous And Entertaining Comedies Ever Made. With A Simple Idea, Great Chemistry, And A Completely Wild Story, It Became A Cult Classic That Still Gets Remembered Today. It Remains A Fun Late Eighties And Nineties Favorite That Never Stops Being Funny.

Some movies are remembered because they are serious masterpieces, and some are remembered because they are just pure fun. Weekend At Bernie’s definitely falls into the second category. Released in 1989, the film became a cult favorite and has continued to entertain audiences for decades because of its strange concept and unforgettable comedy.

The movie was directed by Ted Kotcheff, who brought a unique style to the film. Instead of making the story feel completely ridiculous, Kotcheff leaned into the absurdity and allowed the humor to come from the situation. The result is a comedy that knows exactly how silly it is and fully commits to it.

The film stars Andrew McCarthy as Richard Parker and Jonathan Silverman as Richard’s friend Larry Wilson. The two young employees are looking for a better life and a chance to move up at their company. Their chemistry is one of the biggest reasons the movie works because their reactions make the unbelievable situation even funnier.

Terry Kiser plays Bernie Lomax, the company executive whose death sets the entire story in motion. Kiser’s performance is one of the most memorable parts of the movie because he somehow turns a character who barely speaks into one of the most recognizable comedy characters of the era.

The plot begins when Richard and Larry discover financial information that reveals Bernie has been involved in illegal activities. Bernie invites them to his beach house for the weekend, planning to have them killed before they can expose him. Instead, Bernie ends up dead himself, leaving the two friends stuck in the strangest situation imaginable.

Trying to avoid being blamed for Bernie’s death, Richard and Larry decide to pretend that Bernie is still alive. What follows is a series of ridiculous situations where they have to carry his body around while everyone around them believes he is simply enjoying the weekend.

The entire premise sounds like it should not work, but that is exactly why it became so memorable. The comedy comes from the commitment of the actors and the escalating situations. Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman play the confusion and panic perfectly, while Terry Kiser’s physical comedy carries many of the movie’s funniest moments.

One of the reasons Weekend At Bernie’s has lasted is because it is not trying to be something it isn’t. It is not a complicated comedy with a deep message. It is a goofy, over the top movie designed to make people laugh, and sometimes that is exactly what makes a film memorable.

The movie also captures a very specific late eighties and early nineties comedy style. The beach setting, the fashion, the soundtrack, and the overall atmosphere make it feel like a time capsule from that era. That nostalgic feeling is a big part of its charm.

While critics were mixed on the movie when it was first released, audiences embraced it and helped turn it into a cult classic. The simple premise became one of those ideas people remembered years later because there really was nothing else quite like it.

For me, Weekend At Bernie’s is a great film because it understands the power of a funny concept and commits fully to the joke. The cast has great chemistry, Ted Kotcheff’s direction keeps the madness moving, and the story delivers exactly what it promises.

Decades later, Weekend At Bernie’s remains one of those movies that people still talk about and revisit. It may be silly, unrealistic, and completely ridiculous, but that is also why it works. It is a true cult classic that represents the fun side of comedy from that era.

To contemporary audiences accustomed to rigid genre boundaries, it may seem peculiar that a film featuring graphic nudity, scatological humour, and a scene in which Satan defecates corrupt monks could win the top prize at a major international film festival. Yet, the early 1970s were a uniquely tumultuous period in cinema, where the walls separating arthouse ambition from commercial exploitation were remarkably porous. The Sexual Revolution, unfolding on screen as much as in society, created a market hungry for transgressive content, and few filmmakers navigated this terrain with as much ideological fervour and artistic contradiction as the Italian poet-philosopher Pier Paolo Pasolini. His 1971 adaptation of Boccaccio’s Il Decamerone became an unexpected box-office sensation in Italy, spawning a low-budget exploitation subgenre – the “decamerotici” – which used medieval and Renaissance literature as a flimsy pretext for sex and bawdry. Pasolini, ever the iconoclast, promptly exploited his own success with what can be seen as its spiritual sequel: his 1972 adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. A film of wild tonal swings, from charming ribaldry to grim brutality, it is a fascinating, flawed monument to a brief moment of cinematic anarchy.

Chaucer’s seminal work had inspired artists for centuries, including Powell and Pressburger’s whimsical, WW2 propaganda piece A Canterbury Tale (1944). Pasolini’s version, arriving nearly three decades later, is a far more literal, if radically selective, adaptation. Mirroring the anthology structure of The Decameron, the film uses the framing device of pilgrims travelling from London to Canterbury, with Chaucer himself (played by Pasolini in a silent, scribbling cameo) recording their stories. From Chaucer’s twenty-four tales, Pasolini selects just eight, and his criteria for selection are glaringly apparent: almost every segment is laden with nudity – male and female – implicit but graphic sexual activity, and a relentless focus on bodily functions. This is not a faithful translation of the text’s breadth but a deliberate curatorial act, focusing exclusively on tales of desire, greed, and hypocrisy, filtered through Pasolini’s unique blend of Marxist critique and earthy sensuality.

As with any anthology, the quality is profoundly uneven. The film’s highlights are those that embrace its farcical, comedic potential. The “Merchant’s Tale,” featuring the formidable Welsh character actor Hugh Griffith as the foolish, elderly Sir January, is a deft piece of comedy. Griffith’s performance, all bluster and blindness, perfectly contrasts with the youthful sensuality of Josephine Chaplin’s May, who conducts an affair with the squire Damian (Oscar Fochetti) under her husband’s very nose – and literally in his garden. The humour here is broad but effective, rooted in character and the timeless comedy of cuckoldry. Similarly, “The Cook’s Tale” on occasion provides a burst of anarchic energy, with Pasolini’s muse and lover Ninetto Davoli playing the dissolute apprentice Perkin. In a deliberately anachronistic and bizarrely charming experiment, Davoli mimics the mannerisms and costume of Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp, turning the segment into a piece of medieval slapstick. It feels entirely disconnected from the rest of the film, yet its playful absurdity is a welcome respite.

However, the film’s tonal balance is frequently shattered by segments of startling darkness and grotesquerie. The depiction of a homosexual affair in one tale culminates not in comedy but in horrific tragedy: the man, caught in flagranti delicto and unable to bribe the authorities, is burned at the stake for sodomy. The scene is presented with a stark, brutal matter-of-factness that feels tonally alien to the surrounding ribaldry. This dissonance peaks in the film’s notorious finale, an adaptation of “The Friar’s Tale” set in Hell. Here, Pasolini abandons narrative for a grotesque pageant of devils tormenting corrupt clergy, culminating in the image of Satan (a giant, demonic figure) defecating a continuous stream of monks from his anus. While intended as a scatological satire on ecclesiastical greed, the sequence feels shockingly crude and gratuitous, a piece of visual outrage that seems designed purely for provocation. It leaves a sour, nihilistic aftertaste that undermines the more life-affirming vulgarity of earlier segments.

Other flaws stem from pacing and editorial choices. The segment featuring Laura Betti as the Wife of Bath, while thematically central to Pasolini’s celebration of carnal knowledge, drags and feels overlong. Furthermore, the production was reportedly fraught with personal difficulty for Pasolini, stemming from the collapse of his relationship with Ninetto Davoli, who left him to marry a woman. This personal turmoil may have impacted the final edit; many scenes were shot but cut to reduce runtime for commercial distribution, and these are now lost. The resulting film can feel both baggy and truncated, with abrupt transitions and a lack of rhythmic cohesion that The Decameron, for all its roughness, managed more adeptly.

Despite these artistic inconsistencies, the film was a resounding commercial success, outperforming even Il Decamerone. A public reveling in the new permissiveness flocked to see it, while many left-wing critics, perhaps wishfully, interpreted its carnival of medieval debauchery as a pointed ideological critique of bourgeois society and repressive traditions. This reading was enthusiastically embraced at the 1972 Berlin International Film Festival, where the film’s premiere was a smash and it was awarded the Golden Bear – a testament less to its cohesive artistry than to its transgressive energy aligning perfectly with the counter-cultural spirit of the era. Pasolini would complete his “Trilogy of Life” with Arabian Nights (1974), but The Canterbury Tales remains its most chaotic and contentious entry.

Ultimately, Pasolini’s The Canterbury Tales is a film of compelling contradictions. Its irreverence possesses a certain charm for cinephiles nostalgic for a time when cinematic rules were in flux. There is genuine vitality in its best comedic moments and in its unapologetic, almost joyous, depiction of the body. Yet, as a coherent cinematic work, it is severely hampered by erratic editing, wild tonal discrepancies, and a tendency to substitute shock for substance. Pasolini’s ambition to celebrate the primal, pre-capitalist life force of Chaucer’s world often gets lost amidst sequences that feel merely crude or cruel. Consequently, it cannot be wholeheartedly recommended as a “proper” piece of cinema on par with his greatest works. Instead, it stands as a fascinating historical curiosity: a bold, messy, and deeply flawed artifact from the brief window where arthouse intellectualism and exploitation cinema met in a bewildering, and occasionally brilliant, collision.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

==

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Tyle się dzieje, że dopiero zasiadam do małej recki filmu obejrzanego z dziećmi na ścianie podczas długiego czerwcowego weekendu.
A podobał mi się ten film zaiste bardzo i nie omieszkam wam go tu polecić.

So much has been happening that I'm just now sitting down to review the film I watched with the kids on the wall during the long June weekend. I really enjoyed this film and can't wait to recommend it to you here.

Historia jest prosta i ściskająca za serce: dwóch braci, wychowywanych przez matkę i ojczyma, wspominają ojca, który w wyniku choroby zmarł, zanim narodził się młodszy z nich. Smutek, tęsknota za tym, co utracone, ciepłe wspomnienia - a to osadzone w fantastycznym świecie pełnym elfów i dziwnych stworów.

The story is simple and heartbreaking: two brothers, raised by their mother and stepfather, remember their father, who died of illness before the younger brother was born. Sadness, longing for what was lost, warm memories – all set in a fantasy world full of elves and strange creatures.

Z okazji urodzin młodszego syna niespodziewanie mama przypomina sobie, że ma schowany na strych prezent od taty, który ten przekazał na łożu śmierci z życzeniem, aby ten dostał go na 16te urodziny.
Prezentem okazuje się być magiczna różdżka i stare zaklęcie, które na jeden dzień może przywrócić do życia tatę.

On her younger son's birthday, his mother suddenly remembers that she has a gift hidden in the attic from his father, a gift he gave on his deathbed, with the wish that he receive it on his 16th birthday. The gift turns out to be a magic wand and an old spell that can bring his father back to life for a day.

Wszystko spoko, ale coś poszło nie tak... "o kurczę, połowa starego!".

Everything was fine, but something went wrong... "Oh crap, half the old one!"

Bracia ruszają więc z misją, aby w ciągu doby naprawić czar i mieć szansę na spotkanie z całym starym. A że baśniowa opowieść jest osadzona mocno w czarodziejskim świecie, a starszy brat jest fanem gier RPG... to możecie się domyślić, że zabawa będzie wyśmienita.

So the brothers set out on a mission to repair the spell within 24 hours and have a chance to meet the old man. And since the fairy tale is firmly rooted in the wizarding world, and the older brother is a fan of RPGs... you can guess the fun will be fantastic.

I tak właśnie było: fantastycznie, zabawnie i bardzo wzruszająco <3

And that's exactly what it was: fantastic, funny and very touching <3

_pics:
filmweb.pl,
_disneyplus.com

Opis filmu Naprzód / Onward Movie Description /

Janko i Bogdan, dwóch nastoletnich braci elfów postanawia zbadać, czy magia wciąż istnieje. Chłopcy otrzymują na 16. urodziny Janka zaklęcie, dzięki któremu będą mogli przywołać do życia swojego nieżyjącego tatę. Uda się im to jednak tylko połowicznie... Bracia mają 24 godziny, aby odnaleźć drugie pół ojca! Aby zaklęcie zadziałało w pełni będą musieli odszukać mapę Manticory, legendarnej, nieustraszonej wojowniczki.

Janko and Bogdan, two teenage elf brothers, decide to investigate whether magic still exists. For Janko's 16th birthday, the boys receive a spell that will allow them to bring their dead father back to life. However, they will only be partially successful... The brothers have 24 hours to find their other half! For the spell to take full effect, they will have to find the map of Manticora, the legendary, fearless warrior.

Y bueno, gente, esto ha sido todo por el post de hoy, espero que les haya gustado. Muchas gracias como siempre por apoyar mi trabajo, le doy la bienvenida a los nuevos lectores, les quiero mucho a todos, les envío un abrazo y ya nos encontraremos en otro post

La imagen de portada y despedida la realicé en Canva.

The King of Pop

The prospect of a sequel to a grand cinematic classic is, with very few exceptions, met with profound scepticism by hardcore cinephiles and the general audience alike. This instinctive aversion is born from bitter experience; the history of cinema is littered with unsuccessful, often cynical exploitations of revered originals by studios eager to milk a beloved property. The announcement of a follow-up to Stanley Kubrick’s legendary horror masterpiece The Shining (1980) was therefore viewed with particular dread. Yet, against the odds, Doctor Sleep—the 2019 film written and directed by Mike Flanagan—manages to be a surprising and largely successful piece of work. While it predictably fails to surpass its immortal predecessor, and while a fundamental lack of originality remains its most significant flaw, it is a thoughtful, atmospheric, and often gripping horror drama that deserves far more credit than it initially received.

The film’s very legitimacy stems primarily from its direct connection to Stephen King’s original literary universe. King, arguably America’s most successful living literary author, was famously and vocally displeased with Kubrick’s adaptation, which took substantial liberties with his 1977 novel. Apart from a more faithful 1997 television miniseries, King’s own canonical continuation arrived in 2013 with the novel Doctor Sleep, a direct sequel to his 1977 book. Flanagan’s film is an adaptation of this sequel, granting it an authorial blessing that Kubrick’s film never had. This connection to King’s text provided Flanagan with a unique, if daunting, mandate: to bridge the chasm between King’s populist, character-driven supernatural horror and Kubrick’s cold, enigmatic, and visually iconic auteurist vision.

Doctor Sleep is structurally divided into four chapters. It opens in the 1980s, with a young Danny Torrance (Roger Dale Floyd) and his mother Wendy (Alex Essoe) attempting to rebuild their lives in Florida after the traumatic events at the Overlook Hotel. Danny remains haunted by the hotel’s predatory ghosts, who covet his potent psychic “shine.” He is guided by the benevolent spirit of the late chef Dick Hallorann (Carl Lumbly), who teaches him to mentally trap these apparitions in “boxes,” a coping mechanism that forms the psychological core of the adult Danny’s character. The narrative then jumps three decades to 2011, introducing a broken, alcoholic Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor). Drifting into a small New Hampshire town, he is befriended by Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis), who secures him a job at a hospice and guides him towards Alcoholics Anonymous. Over eight years, Dan finds sobriety and purpose, using his shine to comfort the dying, earning the nickname “Doctor Sleep.”

His peaceful existence converges with two other powerful psychics: Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), a prodigiously gifted teenage telepath from the same town, and Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), the charismatic leader of The True Knot. This nomadic, cult-like coven are psychic vampires who feed on “steam”—the torturously extracted essence emitted by those with the shine as they die. After The Knot murder a young boy, Bradley Trevor (Jacob Tremblay), Abra psychically witnesses the atrocity, inadvertently drawing Rose’s predatory attention. Recognising Abra’s immense power, Rose targets her for consumption, forcing Abra to seek out Dan as a mentor and protector. Their ensuing conflict culminates in a final, inevitable showdown at the now-derelict Overlook Hotel, where Dan must literally and figuratively confront the ghosts of his past.

Flanagan, a horror specialist renowned for his work on series like The Haunting of Hill House, was hired to rewrite an initial adaptation by Akiva Goldsman. He approached the project with the explicit and near-impossible goal of reconciling King’s literary vision with Kubrick’s cinematic one. That he succeeds even partially is a testament to his skill as a craftsman and his clear reverence for both source materials. Doctor Sleep is most notable for using Kubrick’s film as its primary stylistic and iconographic template. Composer The Newton Brothers weave recognisable motifs from Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind’s original score into their soundtrack, while Flanagan and his production team meticulously reconstruct the Overlook Hotel sets for the film’s finale. This is not a lazy pastiche but a painstaking recreation, evoking Kubrick’s perfectionist touch with every shot is meticulously composed and perfectly framed.

Wisely, Flanagan avoids the modern temptation of using stock footage or digital trickery to de-age or insert actors. Instead, his casting is a deliberate exercise in evocative resemblance. Roger Dale Floyd, Alex Essoe, Carl Lumbly, and Henry Thomas (who plays a spectral version of Jack Torrance) are cast for their physical and tonal likeness to Danny Lloyd, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, and Jack Nicholson. This approach creates a powerful, uncanny sense of continuity, grounding the film’s more fantastical elements in a tangible cinematic history. It stands in stark contrast to, for example, the CGI-driven homage to The Shining in Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, which was a brief, playful digital recreation. Flanagan’s method is one of physical, almost archaeological, restoration.

Yet, for all its Kubrickian homage, Doctor Sleep is also determined to be a Stephen King story. Flanagan diligently incorporates King’s favoured milieu of blue-collar Americana, painting a dread-filled atmosphere across a vast, country-sized canvas. He retains the cold, precise directorial style but populates it with a strikingly original set of antagonists. The True Knot are a fascinating creation—a hippie-like coven of immortal vagrants, presented as a kind of demented Manson Family. They are not merely monsters; they are a potent allegory. In an era of generational strife, they can easily be interpreted as a commentary on youth-obsessed Baby Boomers, eternally stuck in the past and selfishly sucking the life force—the future—from younger generations to sustain their own prolonged existence. This sociological subtext gives the film a resonance that pure supernatural horror often lacks.

Flanagan’s direction is assured, particularly in sequences depicting psychic phenomena. Rose’s nocturnal, astral-projection hunt for Abra is a standout—a chilling game of cat-and-mouse conducted across vast distances in a shimmering, non-corporeal realm. The film also does not shy away from the explicit content inherent in its premise. The violence is brutal and unflinching, most notoriously in the murder of Bradley Trevor, and there is a matter-of-factness to occasional nudity that feels more European than typical Hollywood horror. This commitment to the grim reality of its world is commendable.

Where the film stumbles, however, is in its human core. Rebecca Ferguson is an absolute revelation as Rose the Hat, delivering a complex, charismatic, and near-iconic performance. She is a villain who is deeply disturbing precisely because she is so relatable—joyful, sensual, and fiercely protective of her “family,” even as she commits unspeakable atrocities. She effortlessly outshines everyone else on screen. By comparison, Ewan McGregor’s Dan Torrance is competent but bland, a passive reactor rather than a dynamic protagonist. Kyliegh Curran’s Abra is similarly adequate but lacks the depth to make her preternatural wisdom truly compelling. The more intriguing work comes from the supporting cast within The Knot. Carel Struycken (The Giant from Twin Peaks) brings a haunting, silent gravitas as the ancient Grandpa Flick. Zahn McClarnon is magnetic as Crow Daddy, Rose’s fiercely loyal second-in-command, and Emily Alyn Lind is wonderfully creepy as Snakebite Andi, a teenage psychopath seduced by the promise of eternal youth.

The film’s pacing has been a point of contention for many critics. With a theatrical cut already substantial at 152 minutes, and the Director’s Cut stretching to a daunting three hours, Doctor Sleep often feels less like a feature film and more like a compressed miniseries. Yet, as history has shown—from the 1990 It miniseries to Flanagan’s own Netflix successes—this longer format is often better suited to adapting King’s textured character work. The extended runtime allows for quieter moments of recovery and connection, though it also exposes narrative loose ends. Subplots, such as Dan’s, ultimately tragic, one night stand with a drug-addicted woman, feel underdeveloped and abruptly discarded. Flanagan proves he can handle visceral action in a short, brutal gunfight scene, but the film’s heart lies in its slow-burn psychological dread, which not all viewers will have the patience for.

Ultimately, Doctor Sleep was an ambitious film that became a commercial flop. This can be attributed to a perfect storm of ill-timed release in November 2019 (just months before the pandemic shuttered cinemas), its excessive length deterring casual viewers, and a fundamental hostility from a segment of Kubrick purists for whom any tampering with the master’s work is sacrilege. The film was, in many ways, marketed to the very audience most predisposed to reject it.

Doctor Sleep is a very good film that labours under an impossible burden. It is a thoughtful, well-crafted, and often profoundly chilling sequel that performs a remarkable high-wire act, paying dutiful homage to Kubrick’s icy aesthetic while channelling King’s warm, humanistic horror. Its ensemble cast, led by the magnificent Rebecca Ferguson, brings King’s grotesque creations to vivid life, and Flanagan’s direction is confident and atmospheric. Yet, for all its qualities, it cannot escape its ultimately derivative nature. It is a commentary on, and an extension of, a classic, but it never transcends its source to become a classic in its own right.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

==

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