Today on my bus ride home from work, I found myself dreaming of The Silver Chair.
After The Horse and His Boy, it's my favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia. And if all goes well, it will be the fourth of the film adaptations of that series.
Of course, in my dreams Prince Rilian and his enchanted persona, the Black Knight would be played by Richard Armitage.
As we head towards Remembrance Day, I'd like to mention a Canadian series we just started watching on The Movie Network.
ZOS follows 'the absurdist reality of living in a violent Zone of Separation, as well as the real costs to the peacekeepers dropped in to police it.'
A Canadian production, this series features top Canadian talent as well as featuring an international cast in the spirit of United Nations peacekeeping.
join Irish Colm Meaney and Slovenian Larissa Drekonja plus many Canadian actors born in other countries such as Portugal, Latvia and the actual setting for the series, the former Yugoslavia.
This is an extremely gritty series with copious amounts of swearing, blown-off body parts in living colour as well as frank depictions of battle zone prostitution and drug dealing.
It paints a transparent picture of the lunacy faced by so many Canadian peacekeepers who served in Bosnia, only to return home suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was a combination of exposure to gruesome combat conditions as well as the frustrations of trying to serve a mission with contradictory goals and chains of command.
For anyone familiar with the story of Romeo Dallaire and his doomed Rwandan peacekeeping mission, the warning signs of what was to come are woven eerily throughout this series.
Spartacus tells the story of a Roman slave who leads an uprising against the empire. In the first scene, a duel between a consul and Spartacus results in a show of mercy for one who has never shown mercy to others.
The following scene shows how wounded pride can fuel not only personal vendettas, but often lead to full-scale war.
Clyde (Gerard Butler) is distraught when he learns the case will not go to trial - and that a deal has been struck, letting one of the attackers off with only a few years in prison.
He does not go quietly into a grieving future. A decade later, Clyde returns to address the the injustices he has suffered.
He holds Nick (Jamie Foxx) personally responsible, but the entire justice system will feel Clyde's wrath as his devious revenge gets underway.
Detective Dunnigan (Colm Meaney) and Nick attempt to stop Clyde from continuing with his hit list, but Clyde has been planning this for quite some time. Not even the prison walls can contain his calculated fury.
As I mentioned in a previous post over at Popculturedivas, when it comes to Gerry, I'm completely incapable of remaining objective when it comes to reviewing his work. If he's in it, I'm there, baby.
Especially if he's in chains, on his knees and on the edge of sanity.
Of course, Gerry wielding brutal force, intimidating opponents and gazing out with his Scorpio intensity is never discouraged.
More objectively, IMDB users give Law Abiding Citizen a 7.6/10 rating.
For this Thanksgiving, I'd like to share my deep feelings of gratitude to you all through this piece of dance, known as Pryvit.
Pryvit is a Ukrainian dance of welcome, where the honored guests are offered bread, salt and wheat.
Canada has a large Ukrainian population, mainly settled in the prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, with other large populations on the west coast in British Columbia, and in central Canada in Ontario.
When I worked as an usher at the live theatre in Toronto, we had a Ukrainian dance troupe who performed there, and I was so touched by this dance I welled up with tears. If you recall my story of the summer adventure with Russian sailors my sister and I had in 1984, you'll no doubt guess why.
While we were on board the ship, the sailors brought us several loaves of bread from below decks. This was their own food that they were sharing with my sister and me, who could have bought any number of loaves at the store anytime we wanted. I'm certain the stores of a Soviet ship were not quite as plentiful as all that.
So on this Thanksgiving, I'll let these dancers say for me what I hold deep in my heart for you.
After an agony of waiting, BBC's Robin Hood finally began broadcasting across the pond on BBC America and BBC Canada.
I freely admit I've already watched the entire season 3 on You Tube. When it was first broadcast in the UK in the spring, kindly souls uploaded it for those of us who were frothing at the bit to get a look at Sir Guy.
The season 3 uploads disappeared from You Tube as the North American broadcast neared.
But there's nothing like being able to watch the full episode on TV, as opposed to the tiny version in ten-minute segments on You Tube. However, I am eternally grateful to those angels who allowed me to see it when it first aired. *kiss*
Things have gotten a lot darker in Nottingham since our heroes and villains returned from the Holy Land. Gisborne has a lot of mental sorting out to do after taking Lady Marian's life at the end of season 2.
"Frankly, I sort of despise him for what he did," the actor says. "But it's also interesting when a character can start to take responsibility for his actions and have an opinion of himself, almost as if he is stepping outside his body, and that's really what Gisborne does this season: He steps out of his old shell and starts to become somebody new because of that action." - John Crook, No more Mr. Nice Guy
Robin is understandably out for revenge.
The sheriff puts Much through the mill when Prince John demands more tax money.
Guy is not so easily bullied now that he's looked into his own abyss.
Not so easy being sheriff, is it, Vasey?
Robin's band acquires Friar Tuck and villager Kate.
Little John and Allen a Dale soldier on despite their own sorrows.
What becomes of Guy when his father figure turns his back on him? You'll have to catch the next episode to find out.
