Month: June 2016

WARCRAFT

Warcraft , swordfight

Lothar is a knight who has sacrificed everything to keep the Kingdom safe.

Warcraft, half-blood

Garona Halforcen, a strong-willed half-orc survivor caught between the Alliance and the Horde.

WARCRAFT

By Marlene Ardoin

“Warcraft” combines every beautiful stroke of fantasy as it tells a tale of how two perfectly evolved people use their strengths to bring peace and sustainability to the world. Think of “Lord of the Rings”, “Harry Potter” and the Bible intertwined with each other.

From “Lord of the Rings”, “Warcraft” gives us a (spoiler alert) protector wizard type, who becomes corrupted.

From “Harry Potter”, we have magicians who use magic to extract the life force from one being for another, leaving death and destruction in the wake. Also, we are shown parents who are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the survival of their child. Love is a major theme.

These characters weigh the greatest good in their decision making. For example, a king is willing to sacrifice himself for the future peace and survival of his kingdom.

From the Bible, we have a mother who sets her baby adrift in a stream, swaddled in a basket, just like Moses.

“Warcraft” also reminds me of the Prince Valiant series. The humans depicted are very medieval and handy with swords. Even when confronted with the mighty Orcs, who are three times their strength and size, they fight with fearless honor, just like David and Goliath.

And, fantasy is not true fantasy without beautiful, strong women. Paula Patton as Garona, who is half human and half Orc, teaches us compassion and tolerance for those not like us.

What I love about fantasy is its ability to present touchy topics that are too painful to look at in any other way. Likewise, we get to try out different emotions like courage and honor.

Warcraft opened with $26 million in North America and $280.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $306.5 million, against a budget of $160 million. It was China’s biggest two-day box-office premiere ever, opening with $156 million. What is it that other countries see that we do not?

6/20/16 # Warcraft

MAGGIE’S PLAN

Guy wants to capture the moment with Maggie.

John and Maggie communicate, sort of.

MAGGIE’S PLAN

By Marlene Ardoin

“Maggie’s Plan” is about the complex world of modern sexual politics, which is getting more and more complex as we speak.

Greta Gerwig stars as Maggie, who is beginning to feel her biological clock ticking, with no soul mate in sight. She insists on love, but no one has matched her expectations, so far.

Maggie has managed to get a good education, and she has launched a career that she can feel good about, helping others get their product ideas off the ground. One of her clients has developed a doll that reveals the internal organs. We see Maggie helping her client make the presentation for financing.

With warnings, yet support from friends, Maggie decides to move forward with giving birth on her own. And, she is very meticulous about finding a gene donor who matches all her criteria. She appears to be far more motivated towards having a baby, than towards finding a mate.

Her perfect match is a pickle entrepreneur, Guy (Travis Fimmel), who studied mathematics just for the love of it, and who enjoys ice skating. Maggie likes his pickles, his philosophy, his ice skating, and his excellent health, but does not take his offer to just have the baby naturally. She wants him to put his semen in a jar.

Maggie is wary of intimate relations, and for good reason. As the story progresses, she meets an unhappy married man, John (Ethan Hawke), who is married to a successful writer, Georgette, played by Julianne Moore.

John has chosen Georgette, because he also wants to be a writer, and Georgette, has chosen him, because her biological clock was ticking. Two children later, he does not feel supported enough by Georgette. I really hate to make this analogy, but it appears that John is living off both women, in return for his sperm.

Emotional naiveté, vulnerability and just plain letting down her guard steers Maggie’s plan way off course.

She is not one to just settle in the wrong groove. Maggie’s solution is brutally honest, yet compassionate. It is hard admitting that she has made a mistake, but Maggie’s final plan involves getting out of that mistake with the highest good for all concerned. This film is well worth the time.

6/8/2016 # Maggie’s Plan

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

Love and Friendship - Lady Susan Lady Susan (Kate Beckinsale)

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

By Marlene Ardoin

“Love and Friendship” reveals a decidedly unromantic side of Jane Austen as she reveals the ferocious ego of “Lady Susan,” whose only virtue is her penchant for neglect.

We find that Lady Susan (Kate Beckinsale) has just been widowed and has a daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark), tucked away in a boarding school somewhere.

I say that Lady Susan’s virtue is neglect, because her neglect is probably what saved the temperament of her daughter. Austen does have such women in her novels, but rarely as the main character. “Lady Susan” was written when Austen was 18 (around 1794) and was not published until after her death.

Lady Susan also has a special genius for manipulation. She is very attractive for a woman with a marriageable daughter, and she knows it. Her best line in the film is “too old to manage, and too young to die.” She is referring to men, but she could also be referring to herself.

I understand how such a woman during that time period could be created. She is a beggar, who seeks to be supported by others. During that era, men were the providers, property holders and the decision makers.

Lady Susan, on the other hand, is too intelligent to be managed. She prefers to set goals. Neither men, nor other women, can defend themselves against her intellect and cunning stratagems.

I also noted a slight resemblance of one of the suiters to Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy, but that is where the resemblance ends. Tom Bennett as Sir James Martin is not a Mr. Darcy. Pride and gullibility are not the same qualities.

The ending to his film will leave you with your mouth wide open in “I didn’t see that coming” expression. Lady Susan maneuvers affairs with two younger men, Lord Manwaring, and Reginald De Courcy, yet somehow, her daughter does end up married to a suitable mate, and so does she.

6/7/2016 # Love and Friendship