Not Another Happy Ending – Page 2 – FlixChatter Film Blog

Happy almost-weekend peeps! Is it Friday yet? It’s been quite a hectic week at the office, rushing against deadlines and all that, but let’s not talk about work on the blog shall we? I mean this is supposed to be my escape!

I almost forgot doing the LINKS post but there have been some great posts from my fellow bloggers so I simply have to share ’em. Let’s start with lists, as who doesn’t love those?

Josh listed his top 50 films of 2010s so far, which has some awesome picks as well as recommendations.

LOVE this list idea from Chris on discovering new music by watching trailers

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure you’ve watched the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer. Well Keith broke down 5 phenomenal things about it.

Speaking of phenomenal, check out Margaret‘s recap of the latest Game of Thrones‘ episode (5×02)

Oh and have you seen Margaret‘s Black Swan/White Swan blogathon? Well, check out how you can participate and read Andrew‘s pick on the topic.

Speaking of blogathons, Wandering Through The Shelves‘ Weekly Blogathon’s topic is on Superhero Movies. I’m not participating this week, but I did make a list of Top 10 Favorite Scenes from Marvel Superhero Movies back in 2011. If I were to make it now, for sure I’d add a few from the two Captain America movies!

On to reviews…

Steven wrote up about Pink Floyd: The Wall

Stu reviewed Festen (The Celebration), a Danish drama from Thomas Vinterberg

Natalie reviewed Alan Rickman’s directorial debut A Little Chaos, starring his love interest in Sense & Sensibility Kate Winslet!

Last but not least, Michael shone the spotlight on a great opening title sequence: The Wild Bunch

My question of the week is really just an excuse to talk about my new obsession 😉 But hey, it’s my blog so why should talk about things I don’t really want to talk about, right? And frankly, right now my mind’s been preoccupied with one person…

Suffice to say I’ve been bingeing on all things Stanley Weber… but it’s even more agonizing as there are so few of his work out there. Much like most of my crushes in the past, Stanley did a lot of stage work in his hometown Paris. Oh what I would give to see him LIVE in the flesh in Anna Christie with Mélanie Thierry.

In any case, in between MSPIFF and other screenings, I’ve been sneaking time to watch Not Another Happy Ending and the StudioCanal’s BORGIA: Faith and Fear, both are on Netflix if you’re so inclined to check ’em out. Ladies be warned, you just might soon be obsessing over this c’est magnifique Frenchman 😉

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Speaking of BORGIA, I simply have to include this insightful post from a historian comparing the two shows on the infamous Borgia family: StudioCanal’s BORGIA: Faith & Fear & Showtime’s The Borgias. This is the blog author’s conclusion: “Showtime’s series is more approachable and easier to understand, but Borgia: Faith and Fear much more interesting, in my opinion, and also more valuable. The Borgias thrills and entertains, but Borgia: Faith and Fear also succeeds in showing the audience how terrible things were in the Renaissance, and how much progress we’ve made.”

So tell me… what’s been your shameless TV/movie indulgences of late? Come on, fess up!

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I thought I’d take a bit of a break from MSPIFF to give you a bit of a rundown of how last week’s been going so far, which is perhaps one of my favorite weeks so far in terms of movie-viewing.

Just occurred to me that three films I saw in the past week might very well end up in my Top 10 list of the year! [happy dance]

— FlixChatter (@FlixChatter) April 17, 2015

In case you’re wondering what those three movies are… well, I’ve reviewed two of them: Clouds of Sils Maria, Girlhood and the third one is Ex Machina, which turned out to be even better than I expected.

It’s also cool to have Ex Machina‘s director Alex Garland actually answered my question hours before I saw the screening, thanks to IMDb’s Twitter Q@A using the hashtag #ExMachinaChat.

.@FlixChatter I’m not sure, except I imagined it as man vs man more than man vs machine. The machine is the hero.

— IMDb (@IMDb) April 16, 2015

This is Garland’s directorial debut and it’s certainly one of the best sci-fis dealing with the ‘what does it mean to be human’ theme. Visually it looks cool and the story is genuinely thought-provoking. I’ll review that when MSPIFF is over, but if you haven’t seen it yet, l can’t recommend it enough!

I also saw more episodes of Netflix’s Daredevil, we only have two more episodes to go and the waiting for second season will be agonizing! Man, episode 10 and 11 were especially phenomenal. I love the Nelson vs Murdock one as it showed the back story of how they’ve become friends since becoming room mates in law school. It’s an emotionally-gratifying and revelatory episode whilst the action scene continues to be as phenomenal as ever.

The spirituality aspect of Matt Murdock’s story is intriguing as it’s perhaps the first superhero who’s faith is integral in his role and the show doesn’t shy away from it. I find the dialog between Matt and his priest/personal confidant and their discussion about whether the devil truly walks amongst earth fascinating and insightful in terms of the protagonist’s motivations. Nice to see Claire (Rosario Dawson) making an appearance again in episode 11: The Path of the Righteous. I’ve always found Charlie Cox to be a gorgeous Brit but he looks REALLY good on this show, and he’s clearly worked out a lot for this role, ehm. I LOVE Claire’s comment about seeing Matt shirtless again. Amen to that, sista 😉

Speaking of REALLY gorgeous man… I have a new obsession… some of you on Twitter might’ve noticed it 😉 It happened almost instantly when I saw Not Another Happy Ending precisely two weeks ago and ever since then I have watched that Scottish rom-com over a dozen times, I think that’s a record!

I will have to do a Stanley Weber appreciation post at some point, he’s the first French actor I’ve ever had a massive crush on … as you know I almost always go for the Brits. But the second I beheld his c’est magnifique physique (and THAT irresistible wavy hair!) and heard him speak, I was a goner [le sigh] My penchant for the criminally-underrated AND the unjustifiably-obscure actors continues… why hasn’t Hollywood discover him yet? Come on!!!

Ehm, now that I got that out of the way …. inspired by Margaret’s awesome list post of cinematic/TV gems she saw because of her actor’s crushes, I just might have to do one of my own. One of those gems is definitely this Canal+ production of BORGIA, not to be confused with Showtime’s The Borgias that’s also about the notorious Italian family in the 15th and 16th century. This is the one created by Tom Fontana (Homicide, HBO’s Oz) with John Doman as Rodrigo Borgia.

Stanley plays one of Rodrigo’s son, Juan. I’ve only seen four episodes so far and oh boy, Juan Borgia is one naughty, naughty boy. Basically his character is a psychopath and a sexual predator, which is completely different role from what I’ve seen him in Not Another Happy Ending. The entire BORGIA clan is morally bankrupt all around, and the actors portray them VERY well. The most infamous chapter of the history of the Catholic church certainly made for some fascinating historical drama.