As an antidote to the reality of life in the capital and in our cities I watched the fourth Shrek film Shrek Forever After. This is an animated series about the adventures of an ogre with the voices of Mike Myers as Shrek, Eddie Murphy as the Donkey, Cameron Diaz as his wife Princess Fiona, Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots and in this film Julie Andrew as, the mother and John Cleese as the father of the Princess with Ryan Seacrest as Butter Pants father!
In this film Shrek has become bored with family life and that the population of Far Far Away Land and longs to be feared as he once was as an Ogre. The altercation between Shrek his wife and family is observed by the evil Rumpel of Rumpelstiltskin who is still resentful that it was the efforts of Shrek which prevented him taking over the Far Far away Land as her parents were prepared to sign away their kingdom to him if he saved their daughter. As Shrek goes off to try and reclaim his sense of being an Ogre he is befriended and tricked into signing a document which gives Rumpel a day, any day of his choosing from his life to date in exchange for a day of being a feared ogre once more.
It is only after signing that he realises the day being surrendered is his birthday so that in effect he is yielding the rest of his life as it has been and he finds himself for 24 hours as an ogre free to express himself in a land with Rumpel and a horde of witches all out of Oz-Somewhere over the Rainbow, running the country in which the Ogres are either slaves or living underground literally as a movement led by the Princess who in these circumstances has no knowledge of Shrek or their relationship and family in the other dimension.
Shrek discovering the trick that was played on him by Rumpel then learns that there only one thing which can stop him disappearing from existence during the day of being an ogre that is for the Princess to give him a kiss, but with the catch that she must be in love with him. After various incidents in which Shrek surrenders himself to ensure the release of captured ogres and Princess Fiona is also captured and are to be fed to a dragon, but their friends come to their aid and as consequence Fiona kisses Shrek and he returns to the present with Fiona and the children unaware of what has happened. The film features a long tailpiece with various scenes as the fullest details of the characters, the voices; the technical workers are listed slowly. It is one of the longest end pieces I have witnessed.
In contrast to this divertissement an episode of Inspector Lynley on Sunday (ITV) was not just well written and acted but carried a punch at the end which placed the drama among the memorable. That I did not immediately remember is an indication of my life long memory problem even though it is four to five years since it was first shown at the end of the penultimate series of four programmes.
At one level the programme is a traditional who dunnit and why murder mystery. A photographer is murdered in an alleyway and we the viewers know he was suspicious that someone was stalking him before being shot in the leg and then shown face to face enabling the deduction that the killer wanted the subject to know who he was. We learn that the murdered man had a former life as a war photographer who had been to Bosnia and then had changed his general behaviour and become a paparazzi journalist. Something had led to the change.
What proved to be a diversion is that the journalist had been in contact with the Editor of a Tabloid who was buying pictures which she was not using. It is then revealed the two had a relationship before her marriage to the owner of the Newspaper. She denies the relationship had become current as does her husband. However it is established that he had arranged for the man’s flat to be bugged and found out that the relationship had been re-established thus giving him motive for the killing.
The photographer had brought with back from Bosnia a young girl who he had set up in a flat which she shared with a female friend. The programme does not explain how he was able to do this. The now independently living young woman is having a relationship with the best friend of the murdered man and the two men had fallen out because of this relationship with the Bosnian young woman who has become pregnant, There is also the development that the driver of the newspaper owner/husband eventually admits that the previous evening the owner had stopped the vehicle and gone over and had a fight with the murdered man. What struck the alert viewer but was not immediately brought out in the programme is that the driver had a central European accent.
What then emerges is that in Bosnia the photographer had come across the young girl as her family were being murdered and that the leader of the murdering group was a local policeman and neighbour, who had come to England, married an English girl and had become the driver of the Media Mogul through limousine rental business. The murdered man had recognised the Bosnian policeman and made a visit to his home. He had then arranged to meet his friend at a pub near to where he had been killed with a view to acquiring a gun go protect himself and the girl although why this was necessary and why the development was not immediately reported to the police and other appropriate authorities is also not explained
The series involves Inspector Lynley (Nathaniel Parker) who has an upper class public school background and married to a psychologist police profiler, Helen (Catherine Russell). They have become estranged with the wife working overseas. She has returned and they have agreed they want to live together as a couple again and she helps to establish contact with the Bosnian young woman who had disappeared in fear for her life. The young woman is persuaded to identify the driver as the former policeman but in the absence of corroborative evidence and with a an expensive lawyer appointed, funded by the newspaper mogul, the former Bosnian policeman walks and the girl runs out of the police station to confront the man drawing the gun that the murdered man had acquired. When the former Bosnian policeman taunts her, the girl unintentionally kills Lynley’s wife who was trying to talk to the young woman out of ruining her life by using the weapon. His wife dies and the series ends with her funeral and the Lynley returning to the favourite spot on Hampstead Heath overlooking London. Throughout the series Lynley is assisted by a wrong police woman of working class background. Sergeant Havers; and she has followed him and sits on the same bench in silence, saying that she is therefore available when needed.
Another relax a little film was the 1954 Western film Arrow in the Dust. Sterling Hayden plays military trooper who assumes the role of a commanding officer when encounters a wagon train under attack from Indians despite the presence of a military escort where men have been killed and wounded. He takes command and at first alienates one of the attractive young women moving west with her wagon to start a new life. Also in the train is a group of men with three wagons who get drunk and annoy the women and are constantly having to be told to get in line.
During the journey he gains the respect of the men by his tactics and also that of the young woman, but problems persist with the men running the three wagons. One of the wagons turns out to be full of cheap whisky obviously intended for selling to the Indians which Hayden insists they leave behind so that the Indians get drunk and give them more time to reach the only pass through the territory where they have a chance of getting through, especially after discovering that there are two tribes of Indians chasing them, including one who has not interfered with Wagon trains in the past. They eventually find out that one of the wagon contains the latest repeating riffle which were to also be sold to the Indians and which the two tribes had joined forces to take and share less they be sold to the advantage of one tribe over the other. When the wagon is pushed over a mountain top against the Indians they realise they have lost the point of their efforts and leave.
The young woman has found out as had the Indian Scout that Hayden is not who he has pretended to be although the man had died and beforehand asked him to assume his identity and the role. There is also an issue about which he is wanted by the military for questioning so his intention had been to leave the wagon train once the crisis is over and make his way elsewhere. However because of the love relationship that has developed he decides to stay with the wagon even when the only other officer in the escort, and who he has sent ahead for help, returns with the men from nearest military settlement in the knowledge of who he really is. However because of the way he has got them through their ordeal the officer says he will not only speaks up for Hayden but asks him to lead the men into the town and military settlement. It is heart warming B picture Saturday morning children’s picture show stuff.
I watched the last episode of Merlin on Sky record which was even more ridiculous than the Wikipedia notes suggested. Merlin first on his own and then with the help of the husband of Guinevere manages to survive against hordes of the men which his half sister, Morgan, has organised. Arthur survives but his champion is mortally wounded leaving the way open for an official relationship with the widow. Arthur then appears to accept the story that the plot against him was organised entirely by the nun without the knowledge of his half sister despite the fact she has arrived to take over Camelot and make herself the Queen. She sacrifices the nun to gain her own survival but as predicted Arthur proclaims that she and her castle are outside the protection of his new Kingdom and she disguises herself as Guinevere to spend the night with him and hav become pregnant. Merlin meanwhile proves that he is a waste of space unable to predict or prevent any of the development consumed with angst and self loathing at his role in life. At least Spartacus remains honest sex and blood rubbish.
Spartacus having come to its bloody climax the makers decided to produce a six episode prequel although as yet after two episodes it has nothing to do with Spartacus as such but concerns how Batiatus, the owner of Gladiator school- the ludus, and his wife, Oenomaus - the Doctore (Trainer,) Crixus, Barca and others Gladiators came to the fore. The action centres on the attempt of Batiatus to gain recognition for his training centre taking over from his father by getting his champions to fight in important contests, with the obstacle the owner of a another training centre in the town who has the patronage of the Magistrate. He has one champion called Gannicus who is a friend of the former champion who has been allowed to marry a slave girl in the household and whose situation is respected.
Crixus is purchased for his potentialities as a gladiator from his rival. However in return the rival with the patronage of the Magistrate insists that Batiatus sells him the champion to fight in a prestigious contest. When Batiatus refuses he is severely beaten up at the conclusion of the first episode and in the second when a prestigious Quintillus Varis arrives in town to arrange for the rival of Batiatus to provide him with a champion gladiator, Batiatus develops a plan to gain his revenge. First he arranges for his gladiators in disguise to beat up the rival but to leave him alive and humiliated. It is not clear why the man is allowed to live. Then with the help of a female friend of his wife, the two women way lay Varis as he arrives in the city and take him to the ludus villa when they ply him with drink and drugs after he has witnessed a contest between the champion and Crixus. Crixus performs better than is expected and is allowed to live.
A sub plot involves the decision of Batiatus to pension off his Doctore and replace him by Oenomaus. However the man is so incensed by what is going on that he picks a fight with Oenomaus who is forced to kill him. Expecting to be punished he is therefore surprised when he is told that he is to take the position and will not return to the arena. He longs to inform his wife and Batiatus says she will return to him when she has finished her duties as a slave in the household.
Meantime Gannicus has been summoned to the presence of Varis after the visitor has become drunk with wine and drugs. The expectation is that the gladiator will have sexual relations with the man who is gay or bisexual but instead he asks for an exhibition for the gladiator to have sex with the slave girl wife of his best friend- the man now appointed the Doctore. The two have no alternative but to participate and afterwards Batiatus suggests that they keep quiet at what they were asked to do as Gannicus has been selected to appear on the forthcoming arena event in the main billing contest representing the Ludus of Batiatus. The trio have a future if the two remain silent.
It all is pointless unless one enjoys gratuitous vivid blood shedding, nudity, sex and earthy language. Presumably this is the kind of programme the kids on the street are stealing the I pads, I phone and flat screen TV’s to watch.
So I go back to the Wall to Wall coverage of the fourth night of rioting unable to go to bed immediately to sleep knowing I will wake in the morning not in the mood or condition to go for the exercise swim or to watch the cricket especially if the weather is poor. I forgot to play to the Euro lottery and eat too much
In this film Shrek has become bored with family life and that the population of Far Far Away Land and longs to be feared as he once was as an Ogre. The altercation between Shrek his wife and family is observed by the evil Rumpel of Rumpelstiltskin who is still resentful that it was the efforts of Shrek which prevented him taking over the Far Far away Land as her parents were prepared to sign away their kingdom to him if he saved their daughter. As Shrek goes off to try and reclaim his sense of being an Ogre he is befriended and tricked into signing a document which gives Rumpel a day, any day of his choosing from his life to date in exchange for a day of being a feared ogre once more.
It is only after signing that he realises the day being surrendered is his birthday so that in effect he is yielding the rest of his life as it has been and he finds himself for 24 hours as an ogre free to express himself in a land with Rumpel and a horde of witches all out of Oz-Somewhere over the Rainbow, running the country in which the Ogres are either slaves or living underground literally as a movement led by the Princess who in these circumstances has no knowledge of Shrek or their relationship and family in the other dimension.
Shrek discovering the trick that was played on him by Rumpel then learns that there only one thing which can stop him disappearing from existence during the day of being an ogre that is for the Princess to give him a kiss, but with the catch that she must be in love with him. After various incidents in which Shrek surrenders himself to ensure the release of captured ogres and Princess Fiona is also captured and are to be fed to a dragon, but their friends come to their aid and as consequence Fiona kisses Shrek and he returns to the present with Fiona and the children unaware of what has happened. The film features a long tailpiece with various scenes as the fullest details of the characters, the voices; the technical workers are listed slowly. It is one of the longest end pieces I have witnessed.
In contrast to this divertissement an episode of Inspector Lynley on Sunday (ITV) was not just well written and acted but carried a punch at the end which placed the drama among the memorable. That I did not immediately remember is an indication of my life long memory problem even though it is four to five years since it was first shown at the end of the penultimate series of four programmes.
At one level the programme is a traditional who dunnit and why murder mystery. A photographer is murdered in an alleyway and we the viewers know he was suspicious that someone was stalking him before being shot in the leg and then shown face to face enabling the deduction that the killer wanted the subject to know who he was. We learn that the murdered man had a former life as a war photographer who had been to Bosnia and then had changed his general behaviour and become a paparazzi journalist. Something had led to the change.
What proved to be a diversion is that the journalist had been in contact with the Editor of a Tabloid who was buying pictures which she was not using. It is then revealed the two had a relationship before her marriage to the owner of the Newspaper. She denies the relationship had become current as does her husband. However it is established that he had arranged for the man’s flat to be bugged and found out that the relationship had been re-established thus giving him motive for the killing.
The photographer had brought with back from Bosnia a young girl who he had set up in a flat which she shared with a female friend. The programme does not explain how he was able to do this. The now independently living young woman is having a relationship with the best friend of the murdered man and the two men had fallen out because of this relationship with the Bosnian young woman who has become pregnant, There is also the development that the driver of the newspaper owner/husband eventually admits that the previous evening the owner had stopped the vehicle and gone over and had a fight with the murdered man. What struck the alert viewer but was not immediately brought out in the programme is that the driver had a central European accent.
What then emerges is that in Bosnia the photographer had come across the young girl as her family were being murdered and that the leader of the murdering group was a local policeman and neighbour, who had come to England, married an English girl and had become the driver of the Media Mogul through limousine rental business. The murdered man had recognised the Bosnian policeman and made a visit to his home. He had then arranged to meet his friend at a pub near to where he had been killed with a view to acquiring a gun go protect himself and the girl although why this was necessary and why the development was not immediately reported to the police and other appropriate authorities is also not explained
The series involves Inspector Lynley (Nathaniel Parker) who has an upper class public school background and married to a psychologist police profiler, Helen (Catherine Russell). They have become estranged with the wife working overseas. She has returned and they have agreed they want to live together as a couple again and she helps to establish contact with the Bosnian young woman who had disappeared in fear for her life. The young woman is persuaded to identify the driver as the former policeman but in the absence of corroborative evidence and with a an expensive lawyer appointed, funded by the newspaper mogul, the former Bosnian policeman walks and the girl runs out of the police station to confront the man drawing the gun that the murdered man had acquired. When the former Bosnian policeman taunts her, the girl unintentionally kills Lynley’s wife who was trying to talk to the young woman out of ruining her life by using the weapon. His wife dies and the series ends with her funeral and the Lynley returning to the favourite spot on Hampstead Heath overlooking London. Throughout the series Lynley is assisted by a wrong police woman of working class background. Sergeant Havers; and she has followed him and sits on the same bench in silence, saying that she is therefore available when needed.
Another relax a little film was the 1954 Western film Arrow in the Dust. Sterling Hayden plays military trooper who assumes the role of a commanding officer when encounters a wagon train under attack from Indians despite the presence of a military escort where men have been killed and wounded. He takes command and at first alienates one of the attractive young women moving west with her wagon to start a new life. Also in the train is a group of men with three wagons who get drunk and annoy the women and are constantly having to be told to get in line.
During the journey he gains the respect of the men by his tactics and also that of the young woman, but problems persist with the men running the three wagons. One of the wagons turns out to be full of cheap whisky obviously intended for selling to the Indians which Hayden insists they leave behind so that the Indians get drunk and give them more time to reach the only pass through the territory where they have a chance of getting through, especially after discovering that there are two tribes of Indians chasing them, including one who has not interfered with Wagon trains in the past. They eventually find out that one of the wagon contains the latest repeating riffle which were to also be sold to the Indians and which the two tribes had joined forces to take and share less they be sold to the advantage of one tribe over the other. When the wagon is pushed over a mountain top against the Indians they realise they have lost the point of their efforts and leave.
The young woman has found out as had the Indian Scout that Hayden is not who he has pretended to be although the man had died and beforehand asked him to assume his identity and the role. There is also an issue about which he is wanted by the military for questioning so his intention had been to leave the wagon train once the crisis is over and make his way elsewhere. However because of the love relationship that has developed he decides to stay with the wagon even when the only other officer in the escort, and who he has sent ahead for help, returns with the men from nearest military settlement in the knowledge of who he really is. However because of the way he has got them through their ordeal the officer says he will not only speaks up for Hayden but asks him to lead the men into the town and military settlement. It is heart warming B picture Saturday morning children’s picture show stuff.
I watched the last episode of Merlin on Sky record which was even more ridiculous than the Wikipedia notes suggested. Merlin first on his own and then with the help of the husband of Guinevere manages to survive against hordes of the men which his half sister, Morgan, has organised. Arthur survives but his champion is mortally wounded leaving the way open for an official relationship with the widow. Arthur then appears to accept the story that the plot against him was organised entirely by the nun without the knowledge of his half sister despite the fact she has arrived to take over Camelot and make herself the Queen. She sacrifices the nun to gain her own survival but as predicted Arthur proclaims that she and her castle are outside the protection of his new Kingdom and she disguises herself as Guinevere to spend the night with him and hav become pregnant. Merlin meanwhile proves that he is a waste of space unable to predict or prevent any of the development consumed with angst and self loathing at his role in life. At least Spartacus remains honest sex and blood rubbish.
Spartacus having come to its bloody climax the makers decided to produce a six episode prequel although as yet after two episodes it has nothing to do with Spartacus as such but concerns how Batiatus, the owner of Gladiator school- the ludus, and his wife, Oenomaus - the Doctore (Trainer,) Crixus, Barca and others Gladiators came to the fore. The action centres on the attempt of Batiatus to gain recognition for his training centre taking over from his father by getting his champions to fight in important contests, with the obstacle the owner of a another training centre in the town who has the patronage of the Magistrate. He has one champion called Gannicus who is a friend of the former champion who has been allowed to marry a slave girl in the household and whose situation is respected.
Crixus is purchased for his potentialities as a gladiator from his rival. However in return the rival with the patronage of the Magistrate insists that Batiatus sells him the champion to fight in a prestigious contest. When Batiatus refuses he is severely beaten up at the conclusion of the first episode and in the second when a prestigious Quintillus Varis arrives in town to arrange for the rival of Batiatus to provide him with a champion gladiator, Batiatus develops a plan to gain his revenge. First he arranges for his gladiators in disguise to beat up the rival but to leave him alive and humiliated. It is not clear why the man is allowed to live. Then with the help of a female friend of his wife, the two women way lay Varis as he arrives in the city and take him to the ludus villa when they ply him with drink and drugs after he has witnessed a contest between the champion and Crixus. Crixus performs better than is expected and is allowed to live.
A sub plot involves the decision of Batiatus to pension off his Doctore and replace him by Oenomaus. However the man is so incensed by what is going on that he picks a fight with Oenomaus who is forced to kill him. Expecting to be punished he is therefore surprised when he is told that he is to take the position and will not return to the arena. He longs to inform his wife and Batiatus says she will return to him when she has finished her duties as a slave in the household.
Meantime Gannicus has been summoned to the presence of Varis after the visitor has become drunk with wine and drugs. The expectation is that the gladiator will have sexual relations with the man who is gay or bisexual but instead he asks for an exhibition for the gladiator to have sex with the slave girl wife of his best friend- the man now appointed the Doctore. The two have no alternative but to participate and afterwards Batiatus suggests that they keep quiet at what they were asked to do as Gannicus has been selected to appear on the forthcoming arena event in the main billing contest representing the Ludus of Batiatus. The trio have a future if the two remain silent.
It all is pointless unless one enjoys gratuitous vivid blood shedding, nudity, sex and earthy language. Presumably this is the kind of programme the kids on the street are stealing the I pads, I phone and flat screen TV’s to watch.
So I go back to the Wall to Wall coverage of the fourth night of rioting unable to go to bed immediately to sleep knowing I will wake in the morning not in the mood or condition to go for the exercise swim or to watch the cricket especially if the weather is poor. I forgot to play to the Euro lottery and eat too much
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