At the movies

January 8, 2020

More, more, more! How d’you like it?

More Richard goodies today and this old disco song springs to mind…

There really is a song for everything, isn’t there?

Anyway, the morning in Richard-news started out nicely with fellow fan Young Veloce translating a Korean article where the South-Korean director Jo Sung-hee speaks about Richard who filmed with him last year.

Yes, this very much sounds like the Richard we have come to know. And best thing yet? Young-Veloce got a shout out from The Armitage himself for this! I bet she’s really excited about that. ๐Ÿ˜Š

Next up, Servetus referenced an interview with Ciaran Hinds about Uncle Vanya here. I took screenshots of the section where he speaks about the play. It does pique my curiosity and I’m really excited that Hinds and Toby Jones are in this play as well.

CH interview 01CH interview 02CH interview 03CH interview 04

Servetus also dug up an interview with Conor McPherson, the paywright who has adapted Uncle Vanya. Again, I made screenshots of where Vanya is referenced:

The Stage UV 01The Stage UV 02

I suppose the adaptation won’t stray too much from the original but I have never seen the original (and can barely remember reading it), so I have nothing to compare it to.

And last, but not least, Amazing Grace on Twitter unearted another interview, this time in a publication called “Psychologies Magazine”.

Richard lives on a monthly cycle? Is that why so many women feel an affinitity with him? ๐Ÿ˜‰ Sorry to relate this to Anne with an E again, but it makes me think of when Anne gets her first period and her freaking out over her cycle (the funniest bit and the part I thought of starts at 1 minute 30 seconds into this video)…

Guess cycles are not just a female thing anymore. Or maybe he’s secretly a werewolf? Hmm, now that is an intriguing thought… Ties back nicely to his Wolverine audioplays (which I still haven’t listened to).

RA Wolverine

I also get that Richard is all about peace and love and ‘let’s just get along’. So am I, I totally am a peacemaker type and a see-all-sides-to-everything kind of person, but goodness, does he come off a bit wishy-washy and preachy here, or is it just me? Maybe that has something to do with the type of magazine (it’s a mindfulness magazine, after all) and the kind of interview this was?ย  Oh well, at least we learned about the cycle thing and what he thinks about damaging truths. Knowing that makes me curious about what he’d think of the movie The Farewell, which I thought was really good when I saw it a while back. It’s all about not telling someone a damaging truth…

Is Richard Armitage secretly Chinese? I wonder…

December 5, 2019

Miss Fisher is back!

I love the Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (yeah, made loads of videos for that too a couple of years ago here) but sadly it was discontinued after 3 seasons (what is UP with cool shows I love like this one and Anne with an E being canceled after 3 seasons?!?). A crowdfunder came which I too supported at the time and lo and behold, we have a new Miss Fisher movie coming! As one of the crowdfunders, I have received e-mail updates about the movie production while it was ongoing and now the project is finally finished and ready to show.

MissFisherCryptofTearsMF-movie-01

So far it will air in cinemas only in Australia in February 2020 but I read a while back that it will also become available on streaming services, I think also only in Australia at first. The trailer in this article is alas geoblocked, so not viewable outside Australia (unless you use a VPN which I’m not using right now), but I saw a teaser trailer for it a few months ago in my e-mail crowdfunder alerts, which is also up on Twitter:

The synopis (taken from Wikipedia) is: “After freeing a young Bedouin girl from her unjust imprisonment in Jerusalem, Phryne Fisher begins to unravel a decade-old mystery concerning priceless emeralds, ancient curses and the truth behind the suspicious disappearance of Shirin’s forgotten tribe.”

This was filmed in Morocco, nowhere actually near Jerusalem, so it’ll be nice to see what they made of Jerusalem in this movie.

A few days ago there was a cast and crew screening for the movie:

And today I see a little Q&A with Nathan Page who stars as Jack Robinson on the show (scroll through the images in the Instagram post to see the Q&A):

He hints there could be two more movies after this one if this one is received well. I’m curious! I wonder when the rest of the world outside of Australia can see this. Maybe on Netflix again? Time will tell. In any case, I’m excited that it’s happened. Now all I need is a little patience to actually get to watch this myself…

October 27, 2019

Let’s go fly a kite

So, I have no inspiration whatsoever to do anything with kites for the newest Mach Was challenge. I briefly thought about posting about the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, a book I absolutely loved when I read it a long time ago but it was a painful book to read as well. I have never been able to watch the movie of the same name, because I already found the book so painful and didn’t want to put myself through that in film. Now I see that Nell has written about the book for this challenge and Herba has written about the movie for this challenge. That lets me off the hook which is good in a way, because it’s been so long since I have read the book, I’m not sure I could have written anything sensible about it.

The only other kite thing I could think of is the kite flying in Mary Poppins! There is reference to kite flying a few times in the movie, if I recall correctly, but especially the end scene springs to mind when they sing that catchy tune.

That in turn reminds me of a scene in the movie Saving Mr Banks. The movie is about the author of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers (played by the excellent Emma Thompson), going to Hollywood where Disney is working on making the movie and can only do so with the approval of Travers. She is not happy with the Hollywood treatment of her story, and never quite will be, but she does thaw somewhat when she hears the kite song played in rehearsals for the first time.

Apparently when the Saving Mr Banks movie was released there was also a little “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” flashmob singalong in Leicester Square.

I haven’t seen Mary Poppins Returns yet (this post is now a reminder that I maybe should) but apparently she returns in that movie bringing along the kite that the Banks family had flown!

Yep, I now have the kite song firmly planted in my head, probably for the rest of my Sunday. It’s always good to be smiling on a Sunday, isn’t it? I think I’m off for a little walk in the beautiful autumn woods this afternoon, for as long as my dizziness will let me. Without a kite, though, as it would only get caught in the trees.ย  Have a beautiful Sunday!

September 18, 2019

Fangirling more Richard @TIFF!

Finally, a week and a half after the fact, I am getting around to my more-fangirling-Richard-Armitage-at-TIFF post. I already fangirled a bit here, but more delights of Richard at the Toronto Film Festival came in after that and I’ve been clicking and saving images like mad. As always, you can click on the smaller images in this post to enlarge them.

There was an extra image I hadn’t seen yet of Richard in his first TIFF outfit. I didn’t think the yellow did anything for him but I was looking at his face mostly anyhow.

Then came pics or Richard in a second purple suit, my fave suit of the suits I saw him wear there.

I loved the background in this picture and the way Rich leans against that wall with hands in pockets.

RA TIFF c 2019-02a

Nobody puts Richard in a corner? Yeah, littleย Dirty Dancing reference there, but apparently he does corners well!

TORONTO, ONTARIO – SEPTEMBER 08: Actor Richard Armitage from the film ‘My Zoe’ poses for a portrait during the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival at Intercontinental Hotel on September 08, 2019 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Contour by Getty Images)

Even Julie Delpy joined him in his corner. That smile in this following picture reminds me of the selfie-smiles he tweets out that always look a little off to me. Maybe it’s the way he looks into the camera?

RA TIFF c 2019-06

There was more posing with Julie:

Richard Armitage, Julie Delpy

Portraits with a dark background:

Portraits with a light background:

Portrait seduction is complete!

There were some images of an interview with Julie:

And final funky pics infront of a mirror. I really liked that solo one.

There’s a video interview: https://deadline.com/video/my-zoe-julie-delpy-interview-video-toronto/ and some screenshots from that:

Fellow fan Cyn over in Twitter was at TIFF and shared this video interview after the screening of My Zoe which, beware, contains spoilers:

And this video about the ending of the movie, which also contains spoilers!

Also this image:

Just before I wanted to hit post, I saw this video pop by which has Richard and Julie sitting on that couch as in the interview pics above, the Variety interview: https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/sports/my-zoe-variety-studio-at-tiff/vi-AAHrcIq

Couldn’t resist, took ‘a few’ screenshots:

And last but not least, these shots from the My Zoe movie (source) showed up:

RA My Zoe 02RA My Zoe 01

Oh man, Richard holding his movie daughter like that does all the right things to my heart! I’m really curious to see this movie.

All in all, not such a bad haul, right? ๐Ÿ™‚

MTA: I just found the whole video of the Q&A after the screening. I’ve only watched bits and pieces but beware, there are major spoilers here!

August 1, 2019

The good things in life

Let me start with the bad things in life. Specifically Boris Johnson as new prime minister of the UK and a Burqa-ban which has come into effect today in The Netherlands are upsetting me and so, for my own sanity, I keep my news intake to a minimum right now. Instead, I try to focus on the good things in life. For instance: my summer holiday started on Wednesday, the technique of using baking powder to clean my two pairs ofย  Birkenstock slippers sorta worked (I walk on them all day every day in the summer, I kid you not), today Mr Esther, my daughter and I will go on a day trip to a city near the German border, and tomorrow I am going to meet my ex-coworker’s two week old baby girl! When we exchanged chat messages earlier this week, she said she was very low on bibs for the baby, so I got her these (that 5th item is a shirt and not a bib)…

baby gifts

It’s always good to focus on babies over politics. ๐Ÿ™‚

What also makes me happy is the new Picard trailer. I think I have watched it 10 times already. I love Jean-Luc Picard (and Patrick Stewart as well) and I so very much wish for leaders like him in the real world!

I can hardly wait for this in 2020!

Next up: as I love Roman Holiday so very much, I had to watch last weekend’s Hallmark movie Rome in Love, which was about an unknown actress getting ready to film a Roman Holiday remake and she herself falls in love with an American journalist in Rome. Kinda meta, I know. I watched the movie, it was OK, but had nowhere near the charm of Roman Holiday, which I just needed to watch again for the zillionth time. That movie is always the best pick-me-up movie! It got me back to zipping through some Audrey Hepburn movies again and boy was she good and gorgeous! The last movie she did was a small role as an angel in the Steven Spielberg movie Always. I re-watched her scenes in that and was struck by this image of her in the movie at one point…

vlcsnap-2019-07-31-18h55m32s011

The humanity and kindness in her face in that sunset light is just breathtaking.

And there are more goodies to be focused on! On Guylty’s blog the other day she was asking about ‘other gods’ we like besides Richard. In the comments section I mentioned the other (male) gods present in folders on my computer…

I have several side attractions: Colin Firth, Gregory Peck, Hugh Jackman, but I also have some David Bowie, Keanu Reeves, Pierce Brosnan, Simon Baker, James Stewart, Lucas Bryant (yeah, not known), Richard Chamberlain and Viggo Mortensen folders. However those folders are tiny compared to my Richard Armitage folder. Just did a check, I think the largest folder after Richard is Colin Firth with some 400 items. Richardโ€™s folder has 3000 itemsโ€ฆ ๐Ÿ™‚

This triggered me to check out what my more recent actor-crush, Lucas Bryant, has been up to. He’s been pretty quiet of late, not many new roles to speak of, but I did find out that he’s been doing a few M.A.R.V.E.L. Agents of Shield episodes recently. I don’t watch that show but have watched (parts of) the 3 episodes he’s in last night and boy, did he look fine! The camera sure does like him in close-up.

vlcsnap-2019-08-01-00h44m47s212

Last but not least, I watched the newest Suits episode this morning (season 9, episode 3) and in it there was a Louis Litt dream sequence which was so funny! Louis is a judge and a lawyer in that dream and the jury turns out to be made up out of 12 Harveys!

vlcsnap-2019-08-01-09h42m17s874

Gabriel Macht, who plays Harvey on Suits, directed this episode and I wonder if this court scene was the funniest thing he has ever directed and how much fun did he have embodying those 12 Harveys? The eye-scratching middle finger and the one where he holds a cat like that (cats are Louis’s obsession, not Harvey’s!) are the highlights for me. All of Louis’s insecurities, especially with regards to Harvey, are on display here and that just cracks me up. Rick Hoffman as Louis remains a highlight of this show. Oh heck, here’s the whole scene…

I’m so glad there are also so many joys in this world. ๐Ÿ™‚