#Catalan Round 2024

[42bakery]

Fuck. I don't like when a rider crashes and can't get up on his own.

And I hate when marshals just ignore them to take care of the bikes and is another rider who goes and check them. Kudous to the riders, but that's not their job

[denimbex1986]

'The dark, rhythmic and disturbing mini-series 'Ripley' (Netflix) is not only one of the most brilliant audiovisual productions of the year 2024. From the audiovisual adaptations of the novel by the great Patricia Highsmith ' The talented Mr. Ripley ', from 1955, is the one that best captures the disturbing essence it contained. With a very remarkable fidelity to the text despite introducing intelligent narrative and conceptual variables. Apart from an exceptional creation of the character of Ripley by Andrew Scott in the antipodes of his predecessors on the big screen. Let's take a walk through the series which is also a game of comparisons.

From time to time, almost without interruption since the 1950s, the prolific work of Texan Patricia Highsmith has been the subject of film adaptations. Just a year after publishing a brilliant, but in danger of going unnoticed, debut, Strangers On a Train (1950), Alfred Hitchcock made a masterful adaptation that catapulted the writer's career thanks to a plot as brilliant as it was disturbing . The talented Mr. Ripley , published in Catalan as L'ingenyós senyor Ripley , was the fourth of the many novels he published and one of the most celebrated. With an already legendary character, the amoral Tom Ripley, to whom he dedicated four more novels.

A formidable character wrapped in a very sophisticated plot: a young swindler of little stature is hired to convince a rich heir marooned in Italy for an unpromising painting vocation, Dickie Greenleaf , to return home, with his dead parents. From the meeting between the two will emerge an ambiguous relationship and an exchange that will gradually become entangled and obscured dramatically. A dense and distressing fog made of lies and immorality. This, plus a delicious Italian setting, made L'ingenious Mr. Ripley screen meat. With two very remarkable cinematographic adaptations that, sharing some coordinates and each with different plot licenses, awarded a very colorful style to Tom Ripley. In Plen soleil , by René Clément , from 1960, the leading role is for a handsome and seductive Alain Delon , an effective archetype on screen but not much related to the sibylline and unsympathetic Ripley of the novel.

For Anthony Minghella 's version from 1999, the actor chosen, after some trial and error with Leonardo DiCaprio , is Matt Damon . The then young and promising actor builds a restrained Ripley, but with a physical appeal that can compete with his co-stars, Jude Law , Dickie, and Gwyneth Paltrow, Marge , the partner of the young heir. In addition, Minghella introduces an element not contemplated in the novel, the character of Meredith , played by Cate Blanchett , necessary for a series of twists that the story takes in the film. Counted and debated, the stellar union of these four emerging talents endowed the film with a charge of beauty and sensuality that also does not appear in the novel. A dream team , by the way, which was completed by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman , a gifted actor who played a much more faithful Freddie Miles - in this case yes - to the one conceived by the writer, a fat, polished and cheeky redhead. And a fundamental secondary in the plot.

Highsmith, indeed, draws young and moderately attractive protagonists, but does not emphasize their beauty. Thus, Marge is described as a beautiful young woman but with rounded shapes, far removed from the stylization of a Paltrow. The book is also very subtle and ambiguous - think of the year of publication - when it addresses topics such as homosexuality, a vein that is much more explored and explicit in the two film versions, even more so in Minghella's, considered a film ahead of its time in queer matters .

Another important point is that the two films, apart from the sensuality, show a bustling and noisy Italy, already fully touristic - the setting corresponds to the 1960s - with a colorful, mirrored, almost postcard-like aesthetic .

The 'noir', expressionist and magnetic version of Zaillian

With these precedents, we come to the portentous miniseries produced, written and directed by Steven Zaillian , one of the reference screenwriters in the industry with bell collaborations for elite directors such as Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, David Fincher or Martin Scorsese . A dizzying resume with Oscars included for the screenplay adapted from Schindler's List and some occasional forays into directing.

Surprisingly produced for a platform like Netflix, focused more on entertainment than artistic excellence - the poor audience data, in fact, reveal the bewilderment that Ripley causes in the viewers -, Zaillian proposes a very more obscure and closer to the film noir of the 40s and 50s. Hence the black and white shooting, with a tenebrist but brilliant photography from an aesthetic point of view. With a source of inspiration in Caravaggio that is not in Highsmith's book and which, in addition to an aesthetic reason, serves, as we will now see, to brilliantly tie together one of the plot threads.

In line with, and in a more approximate way to the original material, the characters act in a much more restrained way than in the previous films. The couple formed by Dickie and Marge — magnificent Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning — show an earthly beauty, no exuberant personal charms displayed. They generate the right empathy. And the big leap is to create a Ripley - Andrew Scott plays an unforgettable role - downright hateful, someone who constantly makes you wish that the series of somersaults and improbable maneuvers he has to do to avoid being caught ( from here, the spoilers ) show at some point a fault, a crack. You desperately want to be caught. He is an anti-empathetic evildoer. With Matt Damon, these things didn't happen.

A dark Ripley, of physical appearance and mediocre treatment, with no apparent talent—a far cry from the attractive creations of Delon and Damon—with a despondent grimace where we should see a smile. Someone you'd say lost grace in childbirth. But terribly smart, because he knows how to incorporate little by little social skills to disguise his amorality and his dark intentions. With a latent and suggested homosexuality, which connects with the subtlety of Highsmith's book.

A text that, with occasional but significant variations, Zaillian follows quite faithfully. First, because, as he has explained in some interviews, the intention was to go to the book to get into the mind of the writer, to make the adaptation that she would presumably make. Apart from this, the serial format also allows details and plot threads of the book to be displayed. And the more generous footage accompanies the lazy, laid-back rhythm, in which every frame, every silence, every pause, has a narrative value, aside from an aesthetic one. A cadence difficult for mass audiences to assimilate. And, despite everything, it is a magnetic, absorbing, abrasive series . The antithesis of boredom.

This cadence, these hours ahead, also have as a narrative consequence that the anxieties and enormous work that Ripley has to do to hide her murders, impersonate Dickie and finally return to her skin are reflected in detail but with the victim's money. All this is not easy. Killing and covering the tracks, neither: the two murders, that of Dickie and that of a Freddie Miles who is about to discover the pie, are laborious, requiring a titanic effort on Ripley's part that Zaillian takes even further than Highsmith had done. They are scenes, moreover, in which a certain black humor crumbles without anything squeaking. This is not easy either.

An industriousness to do evil which, as Áurea Ortiz brilliantly explains , has a symbolism in the permanent presence of the stairs, a metaphor for the difficulty of licit or, in this case, illicit social ascent. The architecture, here, is an element at the service of the rich subtext of the production. Zaillian, moreover, introduces an excellent variant: while in the novel Ripley is fascinated by the painting of Van Gogh , in the series, as has been said, the reference is Caravaggio. And what seems like a clever nod to the aesthetics of the production will also serve narratively for a very important scene in which Ripley must deceive the Italian inspector in charge of the investigation. The immortal Italian painter gives him the idea of ​​generating a dark, gloomy scenography. The beard and fake hair do the rest: the inspector does not realize that the Tom in front of him is the same Tom who had impersonated Dickie in front of him. A key scene that Highsmith solves in the novel in an unconvincing way.

The writer Guillem Frontera said , referring to the television adaptation of his book Sicily without deaths , that the screenwriters had in some cases found better narrative solutions than theirs. It could be the case that we were exposing, but also with regard to the outcome: Zaillian opens a door that the Texan writer did not see or did not want to open. But that makes perfect sense. And what does it have to do with the danger that such a media case, so exposed to the media, could play a trick on Ripley in the form of an untimely published photograph of the real Dickie. The ending suggests that Tom's game may have been exposed. We can conclude the series. Or not: in these things, you never know.

Addendum for cinephiles and seriephiles

It has been said before that Ripley is a tribute to the American film noir of the 40s and 50s. But also to the era of Italian neorealism and subsequent derivatives represented by Antonioni , Rosselini or Fellini himself , to whom he openly pays tribute titling one of the chapters "La dolce vita". Other homages are more subtle: the token presence of John Malkovich in the role of Reeves, Ripley's partner in other novels, is possibly a nod to another of the adaptations of this character's books, The Game of Ripley (2002), by Liliana Cavani , where the actor is the protagonist. If it's not true ...

Otherwise, Zaillian's series, deliberately or not, has parallels with another of the adaptations of the author's books, the version of Carol that Todd Haynes released in 2015, with Cate Blanchet, whom we mentioned before, as the protagonist. Haynes' is a film shot in color and set in New York, but the management of the rhythm, the silences and the looks, the ambiguity and subtlety with which the subject of homosexuality is treated, could well have been a model for Zaillian.

We continue with two casting successes, such as choosing to play the inspector who investigates the case the actor Maurizio Lombardi , Cardinal Assente from The New Pope , Paolo Sorrentino's series which, curiously, has Jude Law and John Malkovich as protagonists. Very briefly: the world is a handkerchief and Lombardi is magnificent, making the character carry more weight even than in the book.

However, one of the most risky and imaginative casting decisions is that of the role of Freddie Miles: if in Anthony Minghella's film, as we have said, there is more fidelity to the original, in the series there is an exponential turn. From the excessive and canonical Philip Seymour Hoffman, we move on to Eliot Paulina Summer , a non-binary person, son of musician Sting and actress Trudie Styler . Also known as Coco Summer , her presence reinforces the ambiguous and mysterious air of the production. Summer's penetrating and perceptive gaze - which also has a function here - is one of the additions of a portentous Ripley in many ways.

And in order not to stretch to infinity we will end with some similarities and changes with the original material. For example, unlike Minghella, who makes Dickie an amateur saxophonist, Zaillian preserves Dickie's artistic vocation in the original story, painting. It makes perfect sense in keeping with the tone of the series. But for probably production reasons, the main setting of the book's Mongibello becomes Atrani. An unimportant detail that does not detract from the fidelity with which this Ripley has followed the lead of Highsmith's magnificent book. If it is not the adaptation that the writer would have made, as Zaillian intended, we can bet that it would be very similar to it.'

[ghanashowbizonline]

Getafe vs Barcelona Preview

  Find out the date of the Barcelona and Getafe match in the first round of the Spanish League 2024, its transmission channels, how to watch the live broadcast, and more. Barcelona will begin the campaign to defend the La Liga title by facing Getafe at the “Coliseum Alfonso Perez” in the first round of La Liga. The Catalan club reassured its supporters of the course of things during the…

[tkmedia]

Pedrosa set to make MotoGP comeback at Misano as KTM wildcard

Pedrosa made his MotoGP debut in 2006 with Honda and raced his entire premier class career with the Japanese marque, winning 36 races and finishing runner-up in the standings on three occasions. The double 250cc world champion and one-time 125cc title winner retired from MotoGP at the end of the 2018 season and took up a role as KTM’s official test rider. Pedrosa’s work as test rider has been instrumental in propelling KTM to the front of the grid in MotoGP, with his efforts baring fruit last year. Brad Binder took KTM’s first ever MotoGP win at the Czech Grand Prix in 2020 just three races into his rookie season, before Miguel Oliveira added a second to its tally at the Styrian GP. Oliveira sealed KTM’s third win in the season finale in Portugal and took its fourth in this year’s Catalan GP. KTM is yet to confirm Pedrosa’s Misano wildcard, but has been hinting at it for some time. As well as Pedrosa, two other wildcards are set to start the San Marino GP, with Honda fielding its test rider Stefan Bradl and Ducati giving Michele Pirro an outing on home soil. Wildcards have been reinstated for the 2021 season after they were scrapped in 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. KTM’s 2021 season has been a mixed affair, with Oliveira and teammate Brad Binder struggling in the early races – its issues largely a result of the softer front tyre allocation Michelin has brought to 2021. But a new chassis introduced for the Italian GP at Mugello, which offered better corner-exit performance and improved the RC16’s front-end issues, with Oliveira – who couldn’t break into the top 10 in the first five rounds – finishing second at Mugello. Winning at Barcelona, Oliveira was second again last time out in Germany while Binder recovered from 13th to take his best result of the season in fourth. Both Binder and Oliveira will remain with the factory KTM squad in 2022, with the former recently signing a new three-year deal to keep him at the marque through to 2024. At Tech 3, Moto2 championship leader Remy Gardner will step up while the second seat remains up for grabs. Gardner’s Moto2 teammate Raul Fernandez had been linked to it, but KTM Motorsport boss Pit Beirer told Motorsport.com last week that the Spaniard had expressed a desire to remain in Moto2 for one more season. 

Dani Pedrosa, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images shares comments Related video Read the full article

[soccernetghana]

Ghana midfielder Thomas Partey named in current Africa's Best XI

[caption id="attachment_780069" align="alignnone" width="990"] Atletico Madrid star Thomas Partey[/caption] Ghana midfielder Thomas Partey has been included in Squawka football Africa best XI following his impressive performance for Atlético Madrid this season. Partey, 26, has emerged as one of Europe’s most complete midfielders this season. With a reported release clause of £42 million, the likes of Arsenal and Manchester United have both been linked with his signature. The midfielder's superb display has not gone unnoticed as he has been named in Africa's best XI by football data collectors, Squawka football. He has been the hub of every Atlético Madrid passing move. Heavily involved in the build-up, he is charged with helping bring his side further up the pitch and consistently moves the ball forward. Partey is joined on the list by André Onana (Cameroon, Ajax) Formed at the Catalan La Masia with which he won the European Youth League 2014, the former student of of Samuel Eto’o academy has recovered the incumbent position in goal for Ajax last season. He became untouchable at the club that has had a hard time in this complicated position. At 22, he is predicted to have great career. Serge Aurier (Ivory Coast, Tottenham) The marauding right-back helped Tottenham Hotspur reach the UEFA Champions League final last season, most notably setting up a goal and contributing to a clean sheet in a 3-0 home win over Borussia Dortmund in the Round of 16. This season Aurier has secured a place as Spurs’ first-choice right-back, starting 17 of their 21 Premier League matches and providing three assists and scoring two goals. Center back Kalidou Koulibaly (Senegal, Napoli) If he is absent from the shortlist of the top 10 players of the year published by the African Confederation, the stopper of the Lions of Teranga and Napoli has been omnipresent by his XXL performance. We still remember how he muzzled the Mbappe-Cavani-Neymar trio of PSG in the Champions League. In the World Cup, he also showed that he has international stature. The double K is simply part of the European elites at his post. A must. Joel Matip (Cameroon, Liverpool) he will have achieved one of the most successful seasons of his globe-trotting career. Arriving in the summer of 2017 in Istanbul, he has grown to become a strong element of the current leader of the Turkish Championship. Excellent player with impressive ease, Manu Da Costa is a player who disappoints little. This is the syndrome of the German sedan, the guy of 1,93m is reliable … With Morocco, he is solid at the back, he reassures. At the 2018 World Cup, he played all three games for his national team. Da Costa should changed an eleventh club, and a ninth country in his career. He is expected in Saudi Arabia this winter. Left back Achraf Hakimi (Morocco, Dortmund) Barred at Real Madrid, Ashraf Hakimi is today one of the most impressive players in the Bundesliga. It took the young Moroccan to be loaned this summer to Borussia Dortmund where he delighted his coach, Lucien Favre. Formed on the right, he plays false-foot as a left-back with the BVB but also as at the World Cup with Morocco where at just 19 years old, he showed a surprising maturity. The one that was launched by Zinedine Zidane at Real Madrid is a very serious candidate for the title of best African under 21 years player. Defensive Midfielder Wilfried Ndidi (Nigeria, Leicester) He is certainly not the most spectacular player of his national team selection or even at Leicester. But in his record, the former defensive midfielder of Genk has also settled in the midfield and his statistics in the Premier League are exceptional, both in terms of tackles and balls recovered. As such, the young Nigerian was named by CAF among the best hopes of the year. At 21, his club has extended his contract until 2024 but they are is not sure they have totally secured their super midfielder. Attacking midfielder Hakim Ziyech (Morocco, Ajax) Another forgotten man on the CAF short-list. However, the attacking midfielder of the Atlas Lions and Ajax entertains in each of his outings. Not only does his shots often fly, but in addition Hakim is one of the most spectacular ball players, a provocator and dribbler unparalleled that we say it will be difficult to keep him long at Ajax. Morocco, he is delighted to have to animate his offensive sector and distill balls to attackers. Right forward Riyad Mahrez (Algeria, Manchester City) A regular on the honor roll. Riyadh Mahrez has once again done the job at high altitude in the Premier League. For his last season with the Foxes, he finished in with (12 goals and 10 assists). After an exceptional cycle in Leicester, he packed his bags this summer for Manchester City signing for € 68 million transfer. Competition is on another level, and the Algerian must prove himself to be indispensable as in the Champions League where he is co-best passer of the group phase. With his national team, he suffered instability before regaining momentum under Djamel Belmadi. His recent double against Togo allowed Algeria to qualify for the next AFCON. Left forward Sadio Mané (Senegal, Liverpool) Hellish, untenable, unstoppable … Sadio Mané was clearly exceptional in 2018. Alongside Salah and Firmino, he took Liverpool in the final of the Champions League where he was the most successful of his team against Real. During this competition, the Senegalese scored 10 goals thus becoming among the best Africans in history over a season. 22nd in the rankings of the FF Ballon d’Or, the Lion of Teranga is in contention to win the title of best African player of the year for 2018. Sadio Mané is still looking for a first title after finishing third in 2016 and in second place in 2017. The Answer will be given on January 8 in Dakar. Striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon, Arsenal) The striker has been the livewire for the Gunners this season, scoring 17 Premier League goals in 26 games in the 2018/19 season. His 3 goals in the UEFA Europa was not enough to help Arsenal remain in the competition as they were knocked out by Greek giants Olympiacos. Striker Mohamed Salah (Egypt, Liverpool) Premier League player and top scorer last season, the Egyptian finished at an honorable 6th place in the ranking of the 2018 Ballon d’Or. Had it not been for his injury caused by Sergio Ramos in the final of the European LDC, his year would certainly have been improved. Present in Russia for the World Cup but very diminished, he could not prevent the sinking of his Pharaohs. We will find him fit for the next AFCON. In the meantime, the man some of whom thought he had slumbered scores goal after goal with Liverpool. No, Mo Salah did not return to the ranks. And he even seems a credible successor to his own title of African Player of the Year won in January 2017. Sadio Mané, Riyad Mahrez, Mohamed Salah and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. 😍

Is this the best AFCON-only XI right now? pic.twitter.com/CqnUGPwI80

— Squawka Football (@Squawka) April 21, 2020 source: https://ghanasoccernet.com/

[42bakery]

Toprak is a fucking smart (and ballsy) rider

[42bakery]

I can't believe that with this new weird format there's no parc fermé for the WSSP300 riders. Give me my parc Fermé

And it also sucks that only the risder on pole get to be interview and it's just 1 question

[42bakery]

Hold on, they confirmed the podium and then when it ended they handed a penalty that send the winner to P13? What was race direction thinking? They could just wait a bit longer and really confirm the podium

[42bakery]

Currently watching WSSP300 Race 1 of the Catalan round, and what the fuck? why the pole sitter is starting in P4? I've lost the plot

[42bakery]

I was going to say look at Yeray's masterclass. From P30 to P11, ut we didn't got a single overtake. Such a shame

[42bakery]

Turkish-Japanese anthem combination is still the best, but I won't complain if the Turkish anthem is followed by the German one

[42bakery]

Toprak Fucking Razgatlıoğlu you are fucking insane for winning with the BMW

[42bakery]

The first time Sam Lowes leads a race since hie got into WSBK - gentle reminder that this is just his second round, (3rd race)

[42bakery]

What the hell happened to Jonnhy to be 11s behind the last rider?

[42bakery]

Wait WSBK riders also got penalized for being naughty?