Tag Archives: Love Actually

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Game of Thrones: S7E1 – Dragonstone

Game of Thrones is back! And so are my recaps! Some ground rules for those of you new to these recaps of mine. I started out as someone who didn’t read the books. And because there are so many characters, many of who look alike, I’ve given a lot of them nicknames to keep them straight. Despite years of watching (and rewatching this show), and now having now read the books, I still find myself using my nicknames. It doesn’t help that the break between seasons was long enough for me to forget some of the lesser characters names. But enough about that, on with the recap!

Previously on Game of Thrones: Cersei killed everyone. Seriously, everyone. RIP Queen Low Cut. Your reign was cut as short as your tops.

The episode starts off with Walder Frey and I’m immediately confused. Didn’t Arya kill him? Ohhhh, wait, this is Arya isn’t it. My favorite part of Arya’s speech was when she said, “Leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe.” Arya strikes me a big Training Day fan. King Kong doesn’t have shit on Arya. Ooooh and she smiled aas she walked out of the room. Arya has basically cemented herself as the most bad ass character on Game of Thrones.

As a side note, I love when actors have to play two roles at the same time. David Bradley does a great job playing Arya playing Walder. It reminds me of Nicholas Cage and John Travolta in Face Off. 

I love watching the credits during the first episode of the new season. It’s like a game of “spot the new stuff.” Old Town is definitely new in the credits, right? I had no idea what that place was. I assumed it was Dany’s new HQ, but realized later in the episode it’s where Sam is hanging out.

The episode starts out with a long shot of a snowy field. It’s like minutes and minutes of “Hey look. It’s winter.” The Night King slowly rides towards the camera. Maybe it’s that I just saw the Bill Viola Electronic Renaissance exhibit in Florence, but this shot reminded me a lot of Viola’s The Crossing. That’s right, sometimes I go highbrow.

He’s followed by his Night Lieutentants on horseback, followed by a horde of walking dead. This march seems like an accidental tribute to Dawn of the Dead director George A. Romero, who passed away the same day this episode aired. RIP George A. Romero.

We cut to Bran, who is being dragged through the snow by Frog Girl. This is shot very much like Luke entering Jabba’s Palace in Return of the Jedi. Jon’s pals aren’t sure if they believe it’s really Brandon Stark until Bran pulls some Miss Cleo voodoo on them and tells them about themselves from stuff he’s seen when he’s the raven. It’s weird. Ugh. Bran is easily my the least favorite Stark. Bran at the Wall. Wow, the Wall is covered in white. Winter is here.

Jon’s holding a meeting. He wants dragon glass. And he wants women to fight as well. This is met with some resistance. Look guys, the future is female. Jon wants the Free Folk to defend Eastwatch By The Sea. Readbeard has a great line where he says, “Looks like we’re the night’s watch now.” I love you, Redbeard.

We see the first rift between Sansa and Jon. Sansa wants the anyone who sided with Ramsey stripped of their lands. Jon’s being a little more forgiving. Hey guys, maybe not in front of the whole assembly? Meanwhile, Littlefinger is all Kermit drinking Lipton tea watching this go down.

Jon calls on Lord Umber and Alys Karstark. They’re the heirs of their family lands and people. They’re also kids! Jon doesn’t care. He asks for their loyalty, and these kids whip out their swords and pledge it to him.

Sansa warns Jon not be dumb like Ned and Robb. She makes a line about them both losing their heads that’s both literal and figurative. Remember when Sansa was the worst? So much has changed over the years! Despite their disagreement, Sansa thinks Jon’s a good leader and good at ruling. Jon gets a raven from Cersei demanding he comes to King’s Landing to bend a knee. Jon’s like “Whatever. She’s 1,000 miles away and I’ve got a Night King to worry about.” Sansa warns him not to underestimate the new queen.

Down in King’s Landing, Cersei is overseeing Michelangelo as he paints the Westerosi version of the Sistine Chapel. It’s a map of her kingdom. When Jaime enters the room, Michelangelo takes his leave to go work on his statue of David. Cersei points out on the map where all their enemies are. TL; DR: their enemies are in every direction. Wait, Cersei still blames Tyrion for Joffrey’s death? She never figured out it was really Princess Low Cut’s grandma. Huh, I didn’t realize that. Jaime gets in some good points, saying “Right now, we look like the losing side.” When Cersei says she’s Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Jaime counters with “Three kingdoms at best.”

Euron pays a visit. He looks like he should be the new lead singer of Drive Shaft. Is everyone dressed in black? Even the Mountain has a new black armor. I get Cersei and Jaime being dressed in black; they’re mourning. But even the king’s queen’s guard? Their armor wasn’t black after Joffrey’s death. Is this because of that giant “accident” that caused everyone in Baelor’s Sept to die at the end of last season? #610insidejob #cerseididit

Euron proposes to Cersei, but she turns him down. He says he’s going to return for her with a priceless gift. Priceless gift? Who’s Euron hunting? Tyrion?

Sam at the library is the library in Oldtown. Oh wow, this is some montage. R Kelly interns have it better than Sam. This is literally the shittiest montage ever. Someone please make a gif of this sam montage. I want Sam’s gagging noise as my new ringtone.

Sam wants access to the forbidden section of the library. While one of the maesters does believe his story about seeing White Walkers, he still won’t give Sam access to the forbidden section. The old maester says “The Wall has stood through it all,” which immediately makes me think The Wall is going to crumble by the end of this episode.

Brienne and Redbeard are my favorite couple on this whole show. Ever. I would totally watch a Brienne and Tormund sitcom.

tormund brienne love actually

What! Ed Sheeran! Holy shit! Forget what I said. I’m now shipping Arya and Ed. The soldiers are surprisingly good to Arya. It disarms her. Arya’s like “I really want to kill you guys but you’re being really nice to me.” Even in Westeros, Ed Sheeran makes all the white girls panties drop.

Throwback to the time I was a Lannister

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I’m hoping for a TSwizzle cameo next week.

Sup

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The Hound and Robin Hood. They ride up to the house where Arya left The Hound. Stopping by the house where he knifed that guy and left him for dead over some silver is bringing up bad memories for The Hound. I like that The Hound finally has a heart. The Hound looks into the flames. He’s asked what he sees. He does not see Sirius Black. He has a vision in the flame. The dead are going to pour through Eastwatch by the Sea. The Hound stays up late burying the people he killed. He even says he’s sorry they’re dead and they deserve better. Awww, good Hound. Good Hound.

Big up @maisie_williams

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Sam is reading his book from the forbidden section. He reads that there is a mountain of dragon glass under Dragonstone. He writes Jon. Well, now we know how Dany and Jon are going to meet.

First time @itsbennyblanco has seen an episode, here’s his review

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Sam is walking down a hall. A zombified hand bolts out of a window at him. The person on the other end of that lepor hand speaks. It’s Friend Zone! He asks about Dany. Sam’s all, “can you put that gross hand back in your room, please?”

Dany lands at Dragonstone. She’s also in black. As are Tyrion and all of Dany’s men too. The only people not in black in this episode are at the Citadel. And the Eunuch. He’s in brown. What’s with black being the new hot color in all of Westeros?

Dany takes Dragonstone. “Finally! The Khaleesi has returned to Westoros!” With everyone gathered around an old war map, she asks, “Shall we begin?” I smell what the Khaleesi is cooking.

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Game of Thrones – S4E5 – First of His Name – Recap

green ranger iron throne

The episode opens with Princess Low Cut giving Tomlin eyes in the throne room. She’s totally tit-blocked by Cersei. The two of them talk about Joffrey. It’s interesting how honest Cersei is about Joffrey here. I don’t remember her ever voicing that Joffrey was a monster before this. Cersei praises Tomlin and offers the prospect of marriage to Tomlin to Princess Low Cut, who does a great job of sounding interested but not too interested. Princess Low Cut already sounds like part of the family when she says to Cersei, “I hardly know what to call you, sister or mother.” Oh, those Lannisters…

Dany finds out about Joffrey’s death. Beardy has acquired about 70 ships for her. Smooth. Friend Zone rains on the “Let’s sack King’s Landing” parade by bringing up that the cities they’ve liberated in Slaver’s Bay have fallen out of their hands. “I will do what queens do. I will rule.” That’s two for two with scenes ending on awesome lines.

Sansa and Littlefinger are walking the narrow path that leads to Aunt Crazy’s house.  When they reach the front door, the look on Sansa’s face says, “I’ve made a huge mistake.” Amazingly, Aunt Crazy is not breastfeeding when they walk in. Cousin Crazy is only snuggling against her. Awww…gross. Cousin Crazy walks with a weird limp. Don’t breastfeed your kid until he’s 10, ladies. Pro tip: don’t give Cousin Crazy nice gifts. He’ll just throw it out his “moon door.” It’s not as gross as it sounds, but still, that kid isn’t getting anything more than a paper airplane from me.

ive-made-a-huge-mistake

Aunt Crazy wants Littlefinger’s littlefinger in a bad way. When Littlefinger suggests they take it slow, Aunt Crazy goes into crazy detail about how Littlefinger talked her into killing her own husband. Geez…Littlefinger has killed more people than cancer. He kisses her to get her to shut up. Aunt Crazy calls in a priest and lets him know that she’s going to be loud in bed tonight.

And just like Babe Ruth, Aunt Crazy called her shot. Sansa gets to try in vain to fall asleep to her aunt’s sex moans. Most of her family has been killed, and she was threatened with death by her once future husband, but I really feel like this is the lowest point Sansa’s sunk these four seasons.

Cersei and Tywin are meeting. They go over Tomlin and Princess Low Cut’s wedding. Tywin gets the best line in the scene with “You don’t need to make formal alliances with people you trust.” Tywin also reveals that the crown is way underwater on all the refi they did with the Iron Bank.

At her campsite with the Hound, Arya is going through her rosary of people she wants to put in the ground. The Hound tells her to shut up, but then lets her go on since she only has one name left. But for some reason, he’s surprised to hear his own name as the final name. His face was kind of like, “Say what now?”

Aunt Crazy acts suspiciously normal, so it makes sense that when she does go crazy in this scene, she’s goes full crazy on Sansa. She thinks Sansa is sleeping with Littlefinger. Sansa does her best to convince Aunt Crazy that she’s not sleeping with her aunt’s new husband. I hated Sansa in season 1, but I’ve grown to like her and hope she gets out of this castle okay. Aunt Crazy can take a short walk out the moon door though. Aunt Crazy’s mood swings remind me of Norma on Bates Motel, but without Vera Farmigia’s sexiness. So it’s just the crazy. That’s not a good combo. Aunt Crazy calms down just in time to let Sansa know she’ll be marrying her breast feeding cousin Robin as soon as Tyrion is executed.

Some advice for Sansa...

My advice to Sansa…

On the road with Brienne and Pod. Pod’s not really good at the whole horse riding thing. These two are the perfect buddy cop comedy of Westeros.

The Hound wakes up from his nap and freaks when Arya isn’t there. He finds her practicing her swordplay nearby and flips. He’s not a fan of her technique. Angry Arya is often the best part of an episode. This episode is no exception. The Hound challenges her to show off her stuff on him. Arya doesn’t even hesitate to stab the Hound in the gut. Unfortunately for Arya, the Hounds armor beats Needle’s point the way rock beats scissors.

scissors

Next time, throw paper.

The Hound is nice enough to give Needle back after bloodying Arya’s lip and sending her to the ground.

Cersei meets up with Sexy Wil Wheaton. I could see these two getting it on if he was more Cersei’s type, you know, a blood relative. Princess Low Cut has nothing on the Prince of Dorn when it comes to low cut shirts. The dude dresses like J Lo. Cersei takes the best line in this scene with, “Everywhere in the world, they hurt little girls.” There’s a lot of best lines in this episode. Amazingly, none of them have come from Bronn so far, but he’s nowhere to be found.

Back at the Brienne and Pod show, Pod is burning a freshly hunted rabbit. Like really burning it. It’s on fire because he forgot to skin it first. For some reason I thought Pod was a good cook. I now realize that I think I was maybe confusing him with Peeta from The Hunger Games. That doesn’t make much sense, but that’s the only reason I can think of for thinking he was a good cook. Also, whatever happened to that kid that used to hang out with Arya after she fled King’s Landing? That’s not Pod, right? For some reason, I keep thinking that guy and Pod are the same person. When Pod reveals that he put a spear through the back of a man’s head to save Tyrion’s life, his status with Brienne  takes a turn for the better. I love these two.

Up north, it’s snowing at Kraster’s Keep. The Six Fingered Man is either doing some spy work or he’s really into watching rough sex. Or maybe it’s a little of column A, a little of column B. He finds the shack where Brann and company are being kept.  The kid from Love, Actually hints that he and his sister won’t be in many more episodes.  Then his hand catches fire, but only in his mind.

Owen from Torchwood is ready to rape Love, Actually‘s sister in front of everyone. Love, Actually tries to bargain with him, offering Owen a look into his future. “Torchwood’s not coming back…ever” Owen’s not happy with this news. Love, Actually tells Owen that Owen is going to die just time time for Jon and the rest of the Night’s Watch to start their attack. While Jon fights, the Six Fingered Man goes in Brann’s shack, ready to kidnap him. Brann does his possession thing and takes over Hodor’s body. The Six Fingered Man never stood a chance. Hodor choke slams the Six Fingered Man’s lifeless body into the snow. Brann calls for Jon, but Love, Actually talks Brann out of it, saying that Jon would never let Brann continue his journey.

It’s Snow vs. Owen! Jon has one big sword. Owen has two little ones What’s fun about Game of Thrones is that these fights really can go either way. No one is safe on the show. Owen fights dirty, but one of Kraster’s daughter-wives distracts Owen just long enough for Jon to put a sword through the back  of his throat and out his mouth. That has to be a weird feeling, seeing a new metal tongue coming out of your mouth right before you die.

One mutineer survived Jon’s attack on Kraster’s Keep. Unfortunately for him, Hodor freed Jon’s dire wolf on his way out of town and Ghost is hungry. Update: no mutineer’s survived Jon’s attack on Kraster’s Keep. Jon reunites with Ghost and tries to get Kraster’s daughter-wives to come back to Castle Black with them. The ladies decide to go out and make it on their own though, doing it their way, Laverne and Shirley style.

laverne-and-shirley

The episode ends with Kraster’s Keep burning to the ground.

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At The Theater #11: The Ghost Writer

Maybe it’s just me, but if the guy I’m replacing on a writing job died of suicide or homicide, I’d just as soon hold out for the next job. But that’s why I’m involved in so few murder mysteries. Thankfully The Ghost, Ewan McGregor’s unnamed character in The Ghost Writer, doesn’t have the same danger sense that I do, because The Ghost makes for a very entertaining thriller.

“I’m hear about a writing job. What? Oh the flaming skull aids in the rewrite process. I have references.”

The Ghost is tasked with rewriting the autobiography of Adam Lang, played by Pierce Brosnan. I’m not sure why they didn’t just name Lang Tony Blair. Come on, who are we trying to kid? Prime Minister who is often seen as being in the pocket of the US government? Brought his country into a war in the Middle East because Uncle Sam said so? Maybe they didn’t want to risk a lawsuit by Tony Blair, and Bony Tlair is too hard to pronounce. But Adam Lang is even more Tony Blair than The Other Minister from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince combined with Hugh Grant’s Prime Minister in Love, Actually.

Little Known Fact: This dance scene was choreographed by Tony Blair.

As soon as The Ghost arrives at Lang’s New England compound, the shit hits the fan: Lang is accused of war crimes, his wife heavily implies he’s having an affair with his secretary, and Lang doesn’t seem to be giving out factually correct answers to The Ghost’s questions.

Wrong Ghost

In the movie, Lang is possibly cheating on his wife, played by Oliva Williams, with his secretary, played by Kim Cattrall. You have to give credit to where credit it due on this one. You really have to try hard to make Kim Cattrall seem like a more viable sexual partner over Olivia Williams. But if you put Oliva Williams in enough dumpy outfits while giving her a sour enough disposition, it works. Speaking of Kim Cattrall, can someone explain to me her accent in this movie? Is this her doing British? It didn’t sound like her usual Samantha from Sex in the City voice; it just sounded weird.

My only problem with The Ghost Writer is that it’s a very slow build in a long movie, clocking in at 2:08. Overall it’s a good movie, but for a while there it seems that The Ghost is just spinning his wheels. This effectively shows the stonewalling he’s getting from his subject, but it really slows things down. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked this movie and think you should see it.

By the end of movie, you will be questioning who didn’t have a part in the conspiracy that’s jeopardizing The Ghost’s life. And I mean everybody: Lang, Lang’s wife, Lang’s mistress, the lady who made sandwiches for The Ghost each day, the guy who sold me popcorn in the lobby. Everybody.