Mansfield Park- a movie (or two)

Mansfield Park
 
A book, a classic literature made into a movie. Actually some have tried to film that famous book from Jane Austen. Most known versions are from the BBC, but also there is a Hollywood version. 
Let's take a look at to different versions.
One is from the BBC and the last they made with Billy Piper (Dr. Who) in 2007 and the other one is the lates Hollywood production.
Both are very nice to watch but slightly differnt. 
BBC use to be very near to the book and this time too. 
Hollywood changed the story a bit and put it into a more soft color. 
 
So to start with the BBC, Billy Piper plays very well, and the young Lady she will become as it is the story from Jane Austen, that a little girl will move into the house of the family of her mother, because she can't afford herself taking care of that child. The little girl is coming into a richer family and so she is outcast from the first moment and has to deal with herself and the new situation and a room under the roof. This girl grows but people keep reminding her status as it is lower then theirs. Except the son of the family, he likes her from the beginning and so they become friends. As it is know from Jane Austen, it is also a story about England and the life they live, the things they do and how they act. A critical view but in the same time full with hope, but before the hope can rise to the full, they have to be some drama or better ups and downs and love is also part of it. For this girl is secretly in love with this guy but he has an eye to another women and needs time to see... her.
So the BBC is taking the lines very pure and Billy Piper matches her part very well as all the others too, though I am a bit unpleased about the BBC version, because somehow they tried to much and as they act easy, the play itself is missing this easyness in some way. 

The Hollywood version on the other hand, has a more romantic key note and did some changing in the story, although the color of the story is clear the same. The actors matching all their part and I found them very pleasent too. I found this version very sweet and warm and matching in every part, thought it is not completly like the book.
But this is Hollywood and so we've got a charming version, which is less critical about the lifestyle of that time and the woman is allowed to be strong but not that strong like in the BBC version. 
 
So both versions are very recommanable, though I prefer after all the Hollywood version, but I guess you'll have to find out which version will be your favorite.
 

                                          Love & Light 

The Lorax - a movie

Now again about a film I saw. Actually I saw this movie when I had a long flight.
So just tried it and was not really surprised but neither mad about it.
The movie is a bout a young boy, growing up in a world which seems to be nice and good and everything just is good. He then tried to find out what it is behind this holy world, after he did something for a girl. 
So he climbed the walls and came back. Of course he could not be hidden for to long with his secret, but he doesn't give up going back to where the other world is. A world behind the wall. A very different world and there he meet the Lorax. A figured who once played a game which went wrong. 
The boy want's to know why and so he is not giving up asking. The adventure begins.

It's a fantasy film, a film for children and grown ups. It's easy, nice, funny and even creamy. Why? Well watch it and you'll understand. 
True, this movie is not that special, but worth it's time. Like a sweet thing you can eat. 
It's very hollywood, but not to corny. More a warm story.
So something for the afternoon, or lazy tea time. 
Something to sitt and watch with the whole family.
Something to get a smile.
And something to remember that there is always a chance to start anew, to begin again, to change what went wrong.
Which you a happy hour and...

LOVE & LIGHT

A Christmas Carol- Nr.3

And here is my third recommendation for your holidays. 
A story about a boy named Sebastian who is running away from members of his school who try to bullying him. He has not a big luck with this and one day while he is running away from them again, he tries to hide in a store. This store is a book store and there he will find a book, the book the movie has his name from. 
The never ending story.
First he is hiding in his school under the roof and then he starts reading, not knowing that this will change his live in every way. The adventures he has to take part, the help he has to give and the friends he will make and slowly he also will understand how strong he can be. 
This is an exciting story, with turns and tears, with laughters and fears and after all with a lot of love and joy. But I should let you know that hollywood made three parts, so.... take only the first, that's made after the book, the other parts are not only weaker, they are also just made up from hollywood.
So get on- meet Sebastian, Adrian and the big turtle, meet the dragons and the princess in her tower. 

Love & Light

Dangerous Game- a movie

A film by Abel Ferrara. Surely not his most known film. Actually I think most of you will never heard of it. The movie came out in the 1990tis and was not played in many cinemas.
Is the film that bad? No, actually not. 
What is the film about? 
O.k. This movie is about a man, a film director who makes a movie with two main actors. 
These two main actors, a man and a woman have been a couple, more or lesson and play a couple in the story of the movie.  
A couple on a point of no return, because the women became religious and the man stayed where they have started. He still is on drugs and alcohol and Rock'n Roll. So they try to figure out how to do now. As it is, the man can't understand his wife and wants everything back as it was. 
Harvey Keitel plays the director and the film shows how he struggles to finish it, because the man who plays a drug addicted husband is on drugs itself. Then the wife playing actress on one hand tries to stay with him together, on the other hand she is separating from him and takes her own life and that means she does not know, not really know what to do. She is unsure, but plays the game in film business. 
Then as this is not enough she sleeps with the director, which will be the fall of his own marriage. 
So this movie shows the life and fiction couples and a film in a film, but also it shows the dark side of the film business and celebrity live. 
Abel Ferrara uses the elements of drama, uses the fact that pictures can also show different between film and film reality of the movie and he uses fiction and ties a knot with all the stories he is telling, but such a knot that the real actors have more and more the problem to find the difference between their own life and the roles they play. Then the words the actors use are clearly though as a critic to Hollywood. 
The movie itself is more a silence talking. Going from the slow start to the big drama at the end, although the drama is to find already on the way.
What more to say? The actress who plays the women in an anti Hollywood movie is Madonna. 
Most of you will now think she is a bad actress, but actually she is not that bad, neither a very good one, but her problem was always she herself, she was always to big as a star the most time for her roles. 
Yes, the first two or three minutes you may still think this is a women putting in a movie. That women! But then you will see, that she fades as Madonna and the longer the movie goes the more you forget who is playing this religious wife. 
When the end of the film had arrived and you start to read the names, you just think: "What?, How!?". 
So once again I will recommend to try a movie you maybe never thought of watching.

LOVE & LIGHT

Room 1408/ Zimmer 1408- a movie

Zimmer 1408 ist ein aus dem Jahr 2007 kommender Thriller und Horrorfilm, mystisch angehaucht und sehr, sehr unter die Haut gehend. John Cusack spielt darin einen Schriftsteller, der getrennt von seiner Frau lebt und mehrere Bücher nach dem Tod seiner Tochter über übernatürliche Phänomene schrieb und dabei die Phänomene jedes Mal entlarvt. 

Nun will er sich im Hotel Delphin in das Zimmer 1408 begeben, denn dort sind schon 56 Hotelgäste zu Tode gekommen und trotz der eindringlichen Warnung des Hotelmanagers, das niemand in diesem Zimmer länger als eine Stunde überlebt habe, zieht er hinein. 
Er selbst glaubt das diese Warnung nur gespielt seien und ist sich sicher Erklärungen ganz natürlicher Art zu finden. 
Anfänglich scheint es nur die "Banalität des Bösen" zu sein, wie er selber in sein mitgebrachtes Diktiergerät spricht, doch dann, nach einem Blick aus dem Fenster, merkt er das etwas tatsächlich nicht stimmt. Düster und düsterer, mit eindringlicher, doch kaum aufdringlicher musikalischer Begleitung beginnt das Spiel mit den Nerven und auch der Zuschauer fängt an, seinen Atem zu beschleunigen, den Puls nach oben zu fahren. 
Anfänglich versucht sich der Protagonist noch alles als Scherz oder Zufall zu erklären, der Zuschauer aber ahnt bereits das dem nicht so ist, weiss aber auch noch nicht mehr, geschweige denn das er ahnt, was oder wer dahinter steckt.
Der Countdown zeigt sich an, doch unser Schriftsteller ist im Gegensatz zu uns noch lange nicht überzeugt und wir, wir bangen bereits mit langsam schlackernden Knien. 
Erst die Konfrontation mit den Ängsten, unseren und seinen macht aus dem Verdacht, ernst und wir ahnen, hier steckt noch viel mehr dahinter, als wir vermutet hatten.
Fliehen ist jetzt zu spät und die Schnitte werden immer schneller, mit Rückblenden, welche Hintergründe zum Schriftsteller erzählen, wird das Kaleidoskop immer bunter, düsterer und hoffnungsloser. Zugleich überschlagen sich die Ereignisse und die Frage, was ist Traum, was Realität ist für unseren Protagonisten, als auch für den Zuschauer kaum noch zu beantworten und hält die Spannung konstant aufrecht, denn auch wenn die Farbe wieder heller, freundlicher werden, die Schnitte ruhiger, so wird man das Gefühl nicht los, etwas übersehen zu haben.
Hier folgt die Regie einer Tradition die viel mit Kopfkino arbeitet, mit Musik und Worten. Was ich persönlich noch viel Nervenzerfetzender empfinde als Splatter, Blut und Knochenbrüche, Gewalt und offensichtliche Grausamkeiten. 
Eine sehr gute Kameraführung, tolles Schauspiel und eine Story die geradewegs unter die Haut geht, gepaart mit einem Ambiente das keine Wünsche offen lässt, was auch für die musikalische Untermalung gilt, macht diesen Film zu einem wahren Genuss mit Gruselfaktor.
Jedoch wie in jedem guten Horrormovie gibt es einen scheinbaren Ausweg, der genommen werden kann, doch was tatsächlich passiert....  
Nun seht es euch an und seid gewarnt, dieser Film bleibt hängen. 
Länger als Euch lieb sein könnte.

LOVE & LIGHT

Is the Model World going to far?

Not long a go I saw a documentation about finding new model girls in Russia.

What I saw was kind of strange and on the other side a thing I no longer wonder about.

Let's look around, doesn't the models become younger and younger? Thinner and thinner?

How can this be nice? How can this be happen?

We see, still, see thin models on the catwalk, after all the talking about that there should be a change, but why is the change not really comin'?

Well first you must know it is more easy to sew a dress for a model without curves and then the Designers had to create 4 Seasons now... two more than in the past. So not much time to do and it should be sheep to made, but still expensive to sell.

With all the plastic surgeries it is not so hard to show some breast which seems to be a curvy girl must have but also the thin... sometimes... The most are flat, but also very young.. so not really finished in their physical development.

The dream of being rich, or being a super model still is alive, but the truth is-it's a lot of work, not that much money and a short time to have a carrier like this.

And then there are those who started so young, even not knowing them self.

So young, that they are blinded by the light of money, not lookin' what the contract is or what they must offer.

Back to the documentation. The Model -Scout was a woman who once was a young girl, looking for a job as a model, because the dream of coming out of a little village, poor and no hope of a rich live, but knowing out there is so much to buy, to see, to marry...etc.

This girl have had a little success and then changed to be a scout- decided to be free, her own master and live in her own time. So far this sounds god and she actually has a lot of money to live in a house in the USA.

The girls who tries to be the same like her years later don't know that, they all think:" I wanna be a star, a big model.. wanna be rich". So they go to these scouts, who travel every year for new and young girls and spending all the money they have to reach them, to get to be a superstar.

If the lucky once got a job in Asia, they gonna move from home, alone, flying the first time- and yet alone and arriving a country they never where before, which language they can't speak and NO ONE is waiting for them! Alone and with the first frustration they try to find the place to stay... in China or Japan 'cos the girls never work in Russia. What a start into the live of adults, not even being 14 years old. The most girls are actually only 13 or have had the 14. birthday.

But all girls must say when they go to a casting that they are 15 or 16 years old...it's because under the age of 15 they are officially not allowed to work, but we know the model business is all but true...it's a big lie. Why do they want the models so young? First because of the contracts... this is really a shame for all those people who work with the girls there and here- just to remind you all the "next big super model shows" have contracts with a lot of rules which are against the law. Anyway...

They want the girls young because of the sexuality. A virgin must it be, to sell Sex. And because the girls can have children more and more earlier, the models have to be younger then ever... and then they are thin and easy to lie too.... You know, the contracts guarantee an income of 8000 Dollar a year... which is very much for the girls. But many times they get cheated... 'cos they can make pics from them and sell them without telling the girls, and so they think.. bad luck got no job.... and then the contracts can change in every way so they can send the girls back and tell them they had to pay 2000 Dollar when they home to the agency. The parents seems never to read the contracts and most time they are not able to read them so they believe what those scouts tell them... in lovely words and so did the women too.

She seems not too get it or seems to hide it from herself, that the girls are lost, need help and really a good advise, but it's her money and so she is going on telling like this is something which not exist... but then she says:"oh sometimes the girls work as Escorts or hookers, but that is not her responsible...". She is talkin' with the girls as they where happy and all is going fine.. she should know better, 'cos she told the same story about her being a young girl without any help in a foreign world.

But back to our own homes.... The press has already written about the Shows "Next Super Model" and the contracts, but the success is going on and the parents are signing the contracts without askin' or even reading it through. Seems that the warnin' is never going to those who should know about it.

Also all the talkin' of the computer work on the pics... the girls never look like this. Thin yes, but never so lovely... so much make over... no wonder that the boys and girls today have a badder a lower self-confidence than the generation before them. Seems that they are only allowed to be thin as able or they get thick.

Isn't this scary?

Last year I saw a promotional poster of a big store where the models where so thin, that even the make over did not make them more than "a hungry something" and this is what they tell the kids is beauty...!

Should we be lucky that sport is becoming more important again? That the schools are starting to think about the right food?

Yes I am but also I think we should talk about that with our children more and earlier in their age. And yes the Stars should talk more and more often about the truth of makin' over.

But will a money horny Heidi Klum do this. A women who lies in her Show about the truth of the Model World even knowing that non of her girls will be a super model, not if they stay in her world and the contracts they have signed?

So- is the Model World - the business with girls gone too far? Yes far to long did it went and what can we do? How to stop it, when even press warnin' does not help? Is it enough to talk in schools and at home about this crazy world? I hope so.. I hope this will be more a talkin' and a beginning of real changing... but maybe also to tell the designers to change the use of model type?!.

Well on Facebook many have started to post pics which shows thin visus "naturally" women and hopefully men too in the future.. (cos I never saw so much thin boys walkin' around...) and those pics always says no to thin, or super thin or question the reality we seem to have...

So this was my blog for today... hungry? Yeah me too... :-)

LOVE & LIGHT

the thing with the Ideal

Today i'm gonna write about the Ideal of beauty...

The Ideal of beauty of man... how a human being should look like...

Well, somehow the thinkin' about this thing has changed in the last 100 years in a way I am not sure if it is really good.

To go straight to the goal...

today the most think they should look like the ideal. The most seem to think they have to do everything to look like the ideal... well once people understood that an ideal is unreachable...

but today everyone seems to think that it is actually possible with all the plastic surgery and beauty products.

Well, people in the past knew that an ideal was something which shows the times idea of what is beauty and what do they think is the ideal...

They knew it was not to reach and never thought about reaching it, because it was an ideal, just an idea, just a thing which comes out of a discussion, of a meeting of painters, philosophers and thinkers. It has nothing to do with the reality. They knew that and so the Ideal changes in time. Think about Rubens, Michelangelo, the beauty of the plastic David, or the things we found of the stone age... all different, all just ideas of what is the ideal but never what you have to be. Yes they tried to be beauty and did a lot to make them self nice, but it was kind of buy nice clothes, have nice jewelry and show the inside out... the inner beauty of a man, of yourself... how much money you have, how much good you are in bed and kinda like this.

But today, we not only have one ideal, it also changes quickly and we have for everything an ideal.. like Barbie, Models like Heidi Klum or Naomi, for each fetish group the ideal fetish guy or girl... or some kinda star seems to be it... an ideal for black people, white or asian...

Isn't it confusing? And why do so many try to be like it? We'll never will look like a Barbie, how much you try, it is not possible.. but why should you... ?! You have a beauty...inside and outside, it's just to find it and bring it out and show it... no matter what the ideal is, because the ideal is just an idea, nothing we will ever be..just remember that....

At my work I meet a lot of people and I always find some beauty and if it's just a hidden beauty.. I see it. I think we all should learn again to see it.

Look in the face of someone, or search for some nice details in the hands or other parts of the body or how a man moves... or is it the smile or a blink of an eye... or maybe the strand of hair that swirls itself.

If you try this, you always can see some beauty, no matter if it is a child, a father, an old lady or the foreign and strange stranger next to you... and when you'll find it... smile.. just smile....

:-)

LOVE & LIGHT