#also why are film adaptations so obsessed with the brace

[isfjmel-phleg]

In true [Marion] Fairfax style, her [1919] script of The Secret Garden is a model of creepy details and shifty, underhanded dealings. These include Mary's two forays into a bog, and Dr. Craven's plot to poison Colin so that the doctor can inherit the manor. The movie is designed to keep filmgoers in a state of pop-eyed anxiety, but it also gratifies the softhearted by interposing an especially doting Mrs. Sowerby, and by marrying off Colin and Mary, who in this version are not cousins. Fairfax's Mrs. Medlock is a punishing crone who forces Mary to hem towels as a penalty for having helped Colin remove a brace prescribed by the sadistic Dr. Craven. At the end of the picture, the garden is "full of bloom, and happiness reigns"; but an important function of this mysterious walled quadrangle on the grounds of Misselthwaite is to serve as a place of retribution in which the children bury Colin's brace, to even the score with the malevolent medic.

--Sally Sims Stokes, "Painting the Garden: Noel Streatfeild, the Garden as Restorative, and Pre-1950 Dramatizations of The Secret Garden," from In the Garden: Essays in Honor of Frances Hodgson Burnett, edited by Angelica Shirley Carpenter

The first film adaptation of The Secret Garden was made in 1919. It has since been lost, but its script and a summary do still exist, from which Stokes derives the above description. It is interesting how many elements not from the book that are part of this adaptation have continued to be used by later films, such as the villainization of the doctor and Mrs. Medlock, romance between the children, and sensationalized action sequences. Yet unlike many later versions, it includes Mrs. Sowerby in a significant role.

[alexandrawilbraham]

Best of BBC First 2018 with a cheeky look at 2019

By Alexandra Wilbraham

First published in Dutch translation: https://www.bbcbenelux.com/blog/?article=bbc-first-benelux-best-of-18-19

Joy to the world and welcome to our round-up of BBC First’s best of 2018. Prepare to get festive as we celebrate a fantastic year of BBC series. Stick around to the end to find out what amazing new content you can look forward to in 2019.

So, pull on your Christmas jumper, the one you keep stashed away at the back of your wardrobe and pop on a Santa hat. Make yourself hot cocoa, go the whole hog and decorate your beverage with whipped cream, marshmallows and chocolate shavings. Light some cinnamon candles and snuggle up on the sofa as we dive into the pile of presents this year had to give.

In the first month of 2018, the BBC gave to me! Well, it kind of works. January started with fireworks and a new series of Silent Witness. First broadcast in 1996, the series has seen many cast changes over the years. Series 21, however, saw the return of the amazing Emilia Fox as forensic pathologist Dr Nikki Alexander. She and her dedicated team (Liz Carr, Richard Lintern, David Caves) work closely with the London police to solve a slew of mystifying murders. Sometimes the best witness is a dead one.

Travelling back in time, if I can remember where I parked the T.A.R.D.I.S., to London in the early 1960s, we were again joined by the nuns and nurses of Nonnatus House convent. As they provide care to the expectant mothers of London’s East End, they find themselves tested both personally and professionally. Series 7 of Call the Midwife puts a bit of a downer on the festivities as we said goodbye to the beautiful Barbara (Charlotte Ritchie) whose grave, decorated with a red rose and toy carousel, we lingered on in the poignant final moments. However, with sadness comes joy and we saw both new and familiar faces appear at the convent. Leonie Elliot (Black Mirror) joined the cast as Caribbean midwife Lucille Anderson and a return of Nurse Trixie (Helen George) was heavily hinted at.

Guess what, we’re still in January! But we’re off on our first holiday of the year as we join Detective Jack Mooney (Ardal O'Hanlon) on the sun-soaked island of Saint-Marie. Peaceful isn’t it? Sadly not. Because, even in the beautiful Caribbean, crime will always spoil your day. Series 7 of Death in Paradise has Jack rise to the challenge in a bid to impress the commissioner and make his mark on the island. Luckily, he has his team to support him as he has some almost impossible mysteries to uncover.

Wake up! We’re back from our island vacation and straight into February. Before heading back to city life, we get to spend some time in the English countryside, rolling hills dotted with small villages, rural parish churches and large country houses. There is also a fair bit of murder.

Don’t worry though, as series 6 of Father Brown sees Mark Williams (Harry Potter) return as the charming local priest and amateur detective. Although he is at risk from old foe Katherine Corven, who looks for revenge on Father Brown when she is suddenly released from prison. I think we should move on to March and hopefully, we’ll find ourselves in a safer environment.

To sleep, perchance to dream as March arrives with a series completely new to the BBC – Shakespeare and Hathaway: Private Investigators. No, not William and Anne. Although this comedy-drama mystery is filmed in Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon. Two well-known TV faces, Jo Joyner and Mark Benton, star as chatty ex-hairdresser Luella ‘Lu’ Shakespeare and out-of-shape and short-of-money private inspector Frank Hathaway. The highly unlikely and hugely entertaining detecting duo quickly discover that all is not as peaceful as it seems in their picture-perfect theatre town.

Brace yourself. Our next March series drops us straight to the front line of series 3 of Our Girl. We do get to travel internationally, but this is no holiday. Series 3 takes female army medic Georgie (Michelle Keegan) and the tightknit unit of soldiers in 2 Section from a humanitarian mission in Nepal, across Afghanistan and to a Nigerian refugee camp. With the arrival of old flame Elvis (Luke Pasqualino) and new recruit Maisie (Shalom Brune-Franklin) tugging at her sleeve, Georgie must face the highs and lows of army life while also fighting her own personal battles.   As the soldiers face kidnapping and assassination attempts, they have to confront the ultimate battle: head versus heart.

May the merriness be with you. Or rather the conflict, since this family is already in the divorce court before the relationships start crumbling. New family drama The Split follows Hannah Defoe (Nicola Walker), a member of a family who all work as divorce lawyers in the same firm. Following a bitter argument, Hannah takes a new job at a rival firm where she reconnects with the only other man she ever imagined sharing her life with, and her estranged father returns after 30 years. It sounds exhausting but makes for a smashing series.

Ring the bells everyone! The month of June means we are halfway through our TV year. A perfect time for the first Agatha Christie story to be adapted for the BBC by screenwriter Sarah Phelps, who also penned the script for J.K. Rowlings’s A Casual Vacancy. A wealthy philanthropist is murdered and her son Jack dies in prison, accused of her murder. A year later, a mysterious stranger arrives to prove Jack’s innocence. If his story is true, the murderer is still in the family. In one of Christie’s most satisfying stories, the cast presents a host of well-known faces, including Bill Nighy and Anna Chancellor. Murder, plot twists and a fantastic cast. Can it get any better?

It most definitely can! September brings with it the second instalment of Christie magic. Now, how well do you know the person next to you? It’s the question that made Agatha Christie the best-selling novelist of all time. And Then There Were None sports an all-star cast, including Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) and Aidan Turner (Poldark). Ten strangers, each accused of a terrible crime, are lured to an island mansion and quickly find themselves at the mercy of their unknown host. And Then There Were None has seen many adaptations, but this is the first screen version to include Agatha Christie’s original, less cheery, ending.

It’s time for the home stretch everyone! With October we welcome a third Agatha Christie series. In Sarah Phelps’s second Christie adaptation for the BBC, the cast is headed by Toby Jones and Kim Cattrall. Witness for the Prosecution is the perfect Film Noir for a 1920s London. It’s a thrilling two-part drama about the murder of the rich and glamorous Emily French. All evidence points towards her young lover Leonard, but how will the jury decide?

The cold days and Idris Elba go together like bread and butter, or an attractively greying beard and a warm woollen coat. In Series 4, Luther introduces himself very non-dramatically: ‘There are some things you might have heard about me that could be true.’ If that is how Luther introduces himself to his colleagues, you should take care not to become his enemy. After a leave of absence living a reclusive life on the English coast, Luther is back in London on the trail of a cannibalistic killer, while also attempting to uncover the truth behind Alice's apparent death. With trouble following him wherever he goes, the case is fast becoming a test that will push Luther closer to the edge than he’s ever been before.

There we are. 2018 is all wrapped up, but there are more presents under the tree. 2019 is just around the corner and there is so much BBC content to look forward to. Why don’t you have a peek?

In 2019, fans can look forward to Emilia Fox’s 14th outing as Dr Nikki Alexander. Cast members David Caves, Liz Carr and Richard Lintern are also confirmed to return. Although not much is known about the 22nd series, actor Richard Lintern has said the new series will focus on bringing in London more as a character than has been done before.

New year, new Call the Midwife. Harry Potter star Miriam Margolyes, who will always be Professor Sprout to me, joins the cast for the Christmas special and the first episode of series 8. Fenella Woolgar (Victoria & Abdul) and Ella Bruccoleri (Genius: Picasso) move to Poplar as newcomers Hilda and Frances and (yeah!) Helen George returns as Nurse Trixie Franklin.

In series 8 of Death in Paradise, Shyko Amos joins the cast as officer Ruby Patterson. She has, what shall we say, a unique take on crime fighting. From a local radio DJ murdered while live on air to a zookeeper killed by a poisonous dart, Jack and his team definitely have their work cut out.

Welcome back to the beautiful English countryside. Let’s just take some deep breaths of fresh air and ignore Father Brown trapped outside on what is a dark and stormy night, with a murderer on the loose. Don’t bother yourself with the kidnap of Lady Felicia and Mrs McCarthy. I’m sure everything will be fine.

A new adaptation of Victor Hugo's 19th-century classic Les Misérables is packed full of big-name actors and this time none of them has to sing. A brave choice, considering the success of the long-running musical and Oscar-winning Hollywood film. Dominic West will lead the cast as Jean Valjean, with David Oyelowo as the obsessed and villainous policeman Javert. Olivia Colman takes on the role of the abusive Madame Thénardier, while Lily Collins will play Fantine. Adapted by Andrew Davies (War and Peace, House of Cards), the six-part drama will delve deeply into the story of love, revolution and survival, vividly bringing to life the vibrant and engaging characters.

When you manage to book Richard Geer (Chicago, Pretty Woman) in his first major television role for 30 years, you’d better have a story to match. MotherFatherSon is an eight-part original drama created and written by Tom Rob Smith (The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story). The story revolves around the toxic relationships of a mother, a father and, err, I forget the last one. Anyway, Gere plays Max, the owner of one of the world’s most influential media empires. When his son Caden’s (Billy Howle) self-destructive lifestyle spirals out of control, he and his estranged wife Kathryn (Helen McCrory) have very different ideas about how best to support him.

And finally, he might not be sporting Hercule Poirot’s trademark moustache, but John Malkovich as the iconic detective is already heading the list of 2019 must-watch television. Malkovich is joined by a collage of well-known faces, including Ron Weasley, I mean Rupert Grint, as Inspector Crome. 2019 sees the adaptation of the ABC Murders by the incomparable Sarah Phelps. 

Poirot faces a serial killer known only under the alias ABC. Using the British railway network, the killer strikes methodically, leaving behind nothing but a copy of the ABC railway guide. Poirot must find a way to match his nemesis and, in the process, everything about him will be called into question: his authority, his integrity, his past, his identity.

And finally, that’s 2018 dusted off and stored back in the attic. I hope you enjoyed our little excursion through the best of BBC First. With 2019 almost upon us there is so much more amazing BBC content to come. What were your favourite series and moments of 2018? Are you looking forward to a fabulous 2019 on BBC First? I definitely am.

From me and all of us at the BBC a very merry festive season and a happy new year!

Written for BBC First Benelux 

[sophiehunteroctopussyblog]

As Benedict Cumberbatch returns to screens big and small, he tells Craig McLean the secret to building a blockbuster body – and why his Sherlock co-star is wrong to fret about the fans

The last time I met Benedict Cumberbatch he was wearing only a pair of trunks, eating wine gums and worrying about the size of his abs. It was April 2017 and we were on the suburban set of The Child in Time, the first drama from his production company, SunnyMarch. In the lead role as a children’s author overwhelmed by grief following the disappearance of his daughter, Cumberbatch was preparing to shoot a scene in a bathtub – and was painfully aware that his toned torso looked out of place.

Shortly after the five-week shoot, the actor explained, he was due to fly to America to reprise his part as the disarmingly buff, dimension-bending Marvel superhero Doctor Strange. The year before, his stand-alone Doctor Strange movie had taken almost half a billion pounds at the international box office – and when it was announced that the character (also glimpsed briefly in Thor: Ragnarok last autumn) would be making a prominent return in this year’s Avengers: Infinity War there was no question of Cumberbatch returning to the role without first hitting the gym.

By the time we met, the actor’s pre-shoot fitness regime – which he described as “pretty full on… but a mental sorbet” – was well under way; hence those abs.

Fast forward to April 2018 and Cumberbatch – a 41-year-old father of two – is in front of me once again, in a London hotel room, midway through the global press tour for Infinity War. This time, thank God, he is fully clothed (in blue linen, denim and suede), but he’s still eating sweets.

Bulging with stars (Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana and Josh Brolin for starters), the biggest Marvel film to date promises to be a superhero Greatest Hits, featuring all of the Avengers, Spider-Man, Black Panther and the Guardians of the Galaxy. Such is the secrecy surrounding it that I’ve only been shown 25 minutes, all superhero banter and ear-splitting battles against Brolin’s intergalactic villain, Thanos.

Doctor Strange appears to be the main goody, no less. Coiled in his chair, Cumberbatch admits that, after all those hours in the gym, he “bristled” earlier in the day when a journalist commented that his Doctor Strange “wasn’t very brawny”.

“How dare he?” he tuts now in mock-outrage, “Didn’t he see my shirt-off scene? Just hours before we shot it, I was told to do nothing but drink coffee and eat Skittles. ‘What,’ I said, ‘you want to turn me into a trucker?’ But they said it’s about dehydrating – if you have that much of a sugar- and caffeine-hit, the skin ‘shrink-wraps’ round your muscles”. He grins toothily. “And it worked!” He frowns. “I would never advise it, though.”

Still, however Doctor Strange’s physique looks on screen, one place the Oscar-nominated, Harrow-educated star can count on his character having rock-solid abs is on the associated merchandise, from T-shirts to figurines. “It’s the lunch box moment,” says Cumberbatch, wryly.

He tells me about a recent visit to the home of his friend and co-star, Tom Hiddleston (“Hiddlebum”) who has been a member of the Marvel family since 2011 when he appeared as Loki in the first Thor film. “I went into his kitchen and I just said: ‘Holy s---, you’ve been merch’d: you are on the lunch box.’ And he went: ‘I know, it’s great, right?’ And, yes, it is great. It’s also slightly terrifying. I thought: ‘Oh, is that one of the hurdles? Is that a Hiddlebum moment or a McAvoy moment?’” (another peer, James McAvoy, got his “lunch box moment” with the X-Men films). That is: does the actor have to make peace with being turned into a moulded plastic souvenir?

He does, and Cumberbatch evidently has. “It’s terrible but I actually look for kids wearing Marvel gear,” he admits. “And there are very few Doctor Strange lunch boxes or backpacks.” Ten years and 19 movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and with this year’s Black Panther receiving unprecedented critical acclaim – does Cumberbatch think the time for snobbery about superhero movies is over?

If, say, Eddie Redmayne asked him if he should put on cape and tights, would he encourage his friend? “I’d say he’s got his plate quite full with wizardry right now,” he chuckles, referring to Redmayne’s role in J K Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts franchise. “But, yeah, if you really are bored of that, come and join the party!”

With great franchises come great responsibilities, however. Recently, Cumberbatch’s Sherlock co-star, Martin Freeman, grumbled to me about the oppressive level of expectation created by the series’ obsessive fans. “Being in that show, it is a mini-Beatles thing,” the actor who plays Doctor Watson said. “People’s expectations, some of it’s not fun any more. It’s not a thing to be enjoyed…”

Did the fans’ obsession with Sherlock kill the fun for Cumberbatch, too? “Mmm, not really ’cause I didn’t engage with it that much,” he says. “I’m very grateful for the support, but that’s about it.” His attitude is that fan fervour becomes a separate, uncontrollable force, that “it takes on its own thing. But that happens with every franchise or entity like this.”

He pauses, frowns, then continues with what sounds like a bracing criticism of his co-star. “It’s pretty pathetic if that’s all it takes to let you not want to take a grip of your reality. What, because of expectations? I don’t know. I don’t necessarily agree with that. There is a level of it [where] I understand what he means. There’s a level of obsession where [the franchise] becomes theirs even though we’re the ones making it. But I just don’t feel affected by that in the same way, I have to say.”

He is similarly forthright on the subject of Patrick Melrose. In David Nicholls’s forthcoming five-part television drama, adapted from Edward St Aubyn’s autobiographical novels, Cumberbatch plays the lead, a character who, on the page, can appear to be an unlikeable, heroin-taking posho. “Well, your words not mine,” he replies. “I don’t think he’s unlikeable at all. I think he’s fiercely funny, erotic, charming and dangerous. And incredibly, incredibly damaged. So you should feel for him.

"The posh bit? I mean, what, you think people who are sexually abused by their father from the age of five to 10 aren’t worthy of our attention because they’re posh? You need to go back to ethics school, surely. That’s a terribly shaky moral position to hold. So,” he concludes briskly, “I don’t bounce with that.”

Neverthelesss, I suggest, it’s hard to imagine that Melrose’s life – from childhood abuse to the drugs with which he self-medicates to escape his pain – will make easy viewing. “I think at heart it will be a really enjoyable watch,” says Cumberbatch. ���But it’s not for the faint-hearted. It is a story of salvation. But it is blisteringly funny. That’s the real hook for me. Even among the depth-charge moments of abuse, you’re kind of mesmerised by Hugo Weaving’s David Melrose [Patrick’s father], as you are in the books. He’s a really magnetic character.”

While researching the part, Cumberbatch talked to counsellors and former addicts. Was he also able to draw on his own school days? Surely, at Harrow, he wasn’t short of classmates weighed down by their heritage. “Well there was a prince of Jordan, so that brought a level of weirdness. But the more English version? I didn’t get an intro much into that world. I was very privileged to be at Harrow, but there’s not some part of Wiltshire that belongs to the Cumberbatches.

“We have our past – you don’t have to look far to see the slave-owning past, we were part of the whole sugar industry, which is a shocker,” he says of the revelation four years ago that an 18th-century forebear was a Bristolian merchant who established plantations in Barbados. But, no, he didn’t know “Lord and Lady Such and Such”.

His only ennobled classmate was Simon Fraser, whose father and uncle died “tragically close to one another in our last year,” making him the 16th Lord Lovat. “He suddenly became titled, and we didn’t even know. “The point is,” he continues, “weird though it might be [given] the perception of me out there, I had to push some to get to the right level of class for this. And that was a very important part of the process. Because Patrick Melrose is very much a study of class, and the disintegration of the moneyed, landed gentry to cash-poor, still possibly land-rich idiocy. Their hypocritical, cynical, back-stabbing, malicious, ironic unsympathetic behaviour is really exposed with a scalpel in this.”

Speaking of men behaving badly, if things had gone according to plan, we would by now have seen Cumberbatch’s performance as Thomas Edison in the historical epic, The Current War. At one point mooted as an Oscar-contender, the film’s original release was scrapped after its producer Harvey Weinstein (with whom Cumberbatch had previously worked on The Imitation Game) fell spectacularly from grace. Cumberbatch sounds far from disappointed.

“If it takes us not releasing our film for a couple of years just to be rid of that toxicity, I’m fine with that,” he says, adding that he wants “to step back and be as far removed from that influence as possible, both as filmmaker and as human being.”

He recalls being on the Avengers set when the Weinstein story broke. “You could feel people going: ‘This is important and this will change things…’ And that’s terrific,” he says. “But having worked with the man twice…” he exhales heavily. “Lascivious… I wouldn’t want to be married to him… Gaudy in his tastes, for all his often-brilliant film-making ability ...

But did I know that was going on? A systematic abuse of women, happening through bribery, coercion, trying to gain empathy, to physical force and threats, physical and to career? No. No,” he says firmly. “That was the true shock. That this has just literally happened. And it’s  been covered up by an entire body of people through lawsuits and gagging and money – hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to silence victims and survivors.”

He shakes his head, aghast. “That truly was a revelation. I have a film company. Our head of development is a woman. There are two women running the television side of SunnyMarch. Adam [Ackland, his SunnyMarch co-founder] and me are the only men in the office. Countless times I’ve brought up issues of equal pay and billing. And so to realise that this attitude is so deeply culturally ingrained – that was my rude awakening. We have to fight a lot harder.”

That’s toxic masculinity dealt with; now bring on Thanos!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/benedict-cumberbatch-privilege-marvel-muscles-martin-freemans/

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Hypocrite in action. Seems lying is his second nature now. Everthing for the image. What Martin said about Sherlock days ago is pathetic? Riiiiiight!

Sure it was controversial but pathetic?!

For those of you who think there will be another season of Sherlock: Think again!

And BC didn't know about Weinstein's "methods".

Doing a "Meryl Streep" here BC?!

I'm going with Martin here:

[aion-rsa]

Netflix’s Hindi Version of The Girl on the Train Has an Insane New Ending

https://ift.tt/3kCCCHI

Contains major spoilers for The Girl on the Train – novel, 2015 film and 2021 film.

Paula Hawkins’ novel The Girl on the Train was a cultural phenomenon when it was published back in 2015, and a movie adaptation swiftly followed starring Emily Blunt in the lead role. Blunt plays Rachel, a depressed alcoholic who travels to London every day because she’s ashamed to tell her housemate she’s lost her job. Rachel is a blackout drunk obsessed with a couple she sees from the window of the train, but when the young woman goes missing Rachel insinuates herself into the investigation, despite having been seen in the area the night of the disappearance and having no memory of what happened.

It’s a twisty turny tale of abuse and gaslighting as well as a character study of three women whose lives are linked. 

Now Netflix has released a new Hindi adaptation, initially planned for a 2020 release but postponed due to Covid, and it’s a very different beast – not least because of the direction it takes the ending.

Parineeti Chopra plays Mira (the Rachel character) – in this version she was formerly a lawyer, rather than a PR (which will be important later). In a belt and braces move, Mira suffers from anterograde amnesia caused by a car accident. She is also an alcoholic, which doesn’t exactly help the memory loss either. 

Obsessed with a seemingly perfect couple she sees from the train window on her commute to London (yep, this one is set in London unlike the Emily Blunt version), one drunken night Mira follows the young woman into the forest but doesn’t recall what happens next.

Unlike Rachel, Mira is actually a bit of a badass. In this version, the police have a decent amount of circumstantial evidence against her and even move to make an arrest but Mira escapes out the window and calls in a favor from the family member of a former client. Get me a phone, cash, and a gun, she says.

Like in the book, Mira discovers that the missing girl, Nusrat, (Aditi Rao Hydari) wasn’t as happily married as she looked and that she was having an affair. For a good chunk of the movie, it’s entirely plausible that Mira is the killer – in a drunken rage which she accidentally records on her phone, Mira fantasizes about smashing Nusrat’s head in, angry that she is ruining her own marriage.

Read more

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New on Netflix UK March 2021: The Irregulars & Moxie Streaming This Month

By Louisa Mellor

There are plenty of other suspects too, though, including Nusrat’s sex pest dance teacher, a blackmailing private eye, and more than one aggressive and abusive husband. This is less a character study of damaged souls and more a punchy whodunnit, which keeps us guessing right until the end, which deviates far from the book and the previous film adaptation.

Like in the original story, we learn that Mira’s philandering ex-husband Shehkar (Avinash Tiwary) has been gaslighting her for years. She’s a blackout drunk (and an amnesiac!) but she isn’t the violent, offensive brute that he’s been claiming, and she isn’t responsible for him losing his job. 

Though Nusrat was unhappy in her marriage to abusive Anand (Shamaun Ahmed) and was pregnant by someone else, Anand didn’t kill her. Nor did the kindly therapist who was trying to help Nusrat. It turns out the Nusrat’s baby was Shehkar’s, and the night Mira followed Nusrat into “Greenwich Forest” Shehkar was there too and it was him who bashed Mira over the head with a rock and left her there. Nusrat told him of the pregnancy, they fought, and Shehkar strangled Nusrat, leaving her for dead.

But, (massive twist) she wasn’t dead, and here’s where the film diverts far away from the book. It turns out there were two other people in Greenwich Forest that night (a busy night in the old forest). These are the police woman in charge of the case, Inspector Dalbir (Kirti Kulhari), and a private detective named Walter (Richie Lawrie), who was hired by Anand to follow Nusrat. 

Walter’s pictures from the night reveal that, unbelievably, Dalbir killed Nusrat. The daughter of an organized crime boss Mira had sent down (she was a lawyer remember) and who had killed himself in jail, Dalbir had a vendetta against Mira. It was she who crashed the jeep into Mira and Shekhar, causing Mira to lose her baby and get amnesia. It’s Dalbir who later mows down and kills Walter (to prevent him from sharing the evidence with Mira).

Dalbir had been tailing Mira for a time, and followed her into the forest. Finding her unconscious having been hit by Shekhar, Dalbir saw an opportunity to murder her in revenge. But Nusrat, who had just woken up, caught Dalbir trying to off Mira. Dalbir can’t leave a witness, so instead she decides to kill Nusrat and frame Mira for the murder.

Following the trail to Walter’s house (via, at one point, a man who’s job seems to be “standing next to a horse”), Mira solves the crime, and when Dalbir turns up to kill her and destroy the evidence ,a fight ensues and badass Mira ends up shooting Dalbir.

Then there’s a musical montage, a voiceover about a train, and the end.

That’s quite a series of coincidences, it’s true, and an awful lot of trouble to go to (for instance, Dalbir just runs Walter down in the street – might it not have been easier to do that to drunken Mira rather than her more elaborate plan?). But then if you’re going to reboot a celebrated grip-lit mystery, why not wrong-foot the audience right until the end? It’s a bit bonkers, but it kind of works.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The Girl on the Train is available to stream on Netflix now.

The post Netflix’s Hindi Version of The Girl on the Train Has an Insane New Ending appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3qgC2ko

[voresmithing]

Truce: Chapter 15.3

Genji spends two hours sitting on a rock that sticks out a meter above the ocean's surface at high tide, deafening himself with his auditory sensors cranked as high as they will go, until the roaring static of waves crashing against the cliff face behind him obliterates any ability to obsessively run his mind down pathways untaken.

And when that stops working and he begins to hear the nauseating whisper of what if once more, he scales the cliff face and winds his way through the Watchpoint until he stops in front of Hanzo's newly assigned door; a room of his own, with no locks or special supervision. Genji knocks, and sets his fingertips on the thick sheet of steel to catch if his brother is even home.

He hears a grunt, a sigh, a frustrated growl, and a telling lack of response otherwise, not even the sound of nearing footsteps.

Genji impulsively hits the entry panel, hoping to find the door unlocked and his brother in the middle of something private.

With a silent hum the entry slides open millimeters at a time, spilling cold light onto Genji's feet and revealing Hanzo sitting on a cheap single bunk. His pants are bunched up around his thighs, and his calves are lined up neatly on the floor, set to the side while he scowls over the shell of a plastic port encapsuling his right knee and the stump below.

The frown disappears in favor of surprise for a fraction of a second, then returns as soon as Hanzo recognizes his invasive guest.

"Genji!" Barked with that exact, familiar spike of incredulity and ire. It catches him like a hand around phantom lungs every time.

"Ah, oops." Genji murmurs, not needing to fake his chagrin. He had been betting on something a little more risque and thus, to Hanzo, shameful. This immediately strikes him as more personal than a round of self-service, but Genji has no desire to turn back now and be left with the image of his brother's abbreviated legs to churn through the recesses of his mind. So he invites himself into Hanzo's room with a thoughtless shrug and closes the door. "Guess that was rude."

A quiet tch is spat between Hanzo's teeth, and his brother returns to what he was doing as if Genji merely interrupted him fletching his arrows, but the high line of thick shoulders reveals his discomfort.

Which Genji ignores. He folds himself onto the unoccupied space of Hanzo's bed and stares down at the nubby ends of his brother's thighs, thinking around the fact that he had sort of forgotten Hanzo uses prosthetics.

"I figured you'd have locked the door," Genji says, stacking his hands over his raised knee.

"A mistake I won't make twice," Hanzo grumbles, and though his displeasure isn't performative, he makes no suggestion that Genji leave now.

Genji leans forward to get an unshadowed perspective as Hanzo struggles to fit a butter knife under the rim of a donut shaped casing, and notes the skin around it is dark and swollen. "Someone hasn't been taking care of himself. Why are you using a knife?"

"Because when someone kidnapped me in an alleyway they didn't stop at home to get my maintenance kit." Hanzo brusquely jams his weight down on the knife until the hard plastic rim dislodges enough for him to pop it off. "And I was hardly going to be removing any limbs while captured by the enemy."

Genji yanks one of the prosthetics off the floor, turning it over in his hands like if he can see it at the right angle it might make more sense.

It has been a strangely long time since he thought about his brother's leg cartwheeling through the air, drawing loops across his vision in bright blood.

"I heard McCree liked the hair," he says.

Beside him, Hanzo snorts between bracing breathes as he works the casing off his other leg. "You are far more interested in what the cowboy thinks of me than I am."

Genji picks at a pebble that's become lodged in the silicone sole of Hanzo's foot.

"I also heard you're getting pretty greedy."

"I see my employer and brother are bound to be quite the gossips." Hanzo murmurs with a dry humor.

Genji doesn't see a reason to refute that.

"I simply know my value," Hanzo gets the latch on the second leg and peels the unforgiving plastic off of the bruised flesh with a restrained inhale. His stumps have been rounded off to fit into the prosthetics, with a port set deep into the flesh. Currently, a dark groove marks his skin where it had bruised and expanded around the case, and below that lies a thin sheen of grime and sweat that Genji is sure is driving his brother crazy. "There's no reason I should assist Overwatch cheaply, when--" Genji reaches out to touch, finding the end of Hanzo's leg soft and too warm. When he squeezes, Hanzo hisses, and bats his hand away in the next moment. "Stop that."

Genji retreats, hears the sound of waves breaking against jagged stone.

Then he leans off the mattress to set down the leg, and finds that Hanzo, of course, has prepared everything he needs; a bucket filled with water, soap sitting on a rag, an opened bottle of sake, and McCree's old biotic emitter.

Genji folds the cloth over the soap, pulls them and the bucket into easy reach, and says, "Let me help."

Hanzo's mouth pops open, snaps closed, and shrewd eyes rove over Genji's carapace looking for tells he no longer has. Unless the vibration Genji feels quivering out of him is not imagined, and so pronounced his brother can read it, like an anxious code tapped out through his shell.

"I don't need assistance," Hanzo finally responds with a clipped wariness. "What has gotten into you?"

That's probably a good question, Genji admits silently, as he ignores his brother's dismissal and stubbornly moves to drape the rag, warm and soapy, over the end of Hanzo's leg.

And is stopped, first by Hanzo's large hand around his wrist, then by the cloth being pried out of his hands. "Brother," he expects to hear irritation, but instead Hanzo sounds careful and weary. He stretches the rag between his hands and rubs the stain off of his own skin. "I have long since adapted to this. I didn't allow you to join me for your pity."

The light in Hanzo's small room dims slightly, and Genji pulls his hands back, considers letting agitated feet carry him out the door, and instead digs his toes into the sheets and presses back against the wall while he watches Hanzo work.

Silence weighs between them, heavy on lungs he doesn't possess, and Genji lets himself be lulled by Hanzo's slow and methodical movements.

"Are you already having regrets?" Hanzo asks.

There's a quiet clatter behind Genji, as he tenses and his shoulder blades vibrate against the wall. "No? Why would--"

"It's one thing to want reconciliation." Hanzo interrupts when Genji's responses come slow. "And something else to actually want to see my face every day."

"Heh," Genji chuckles, reedy and uneasy. "Let's be honest, Hanzo. Your face has gotten a lot better in ten years."

Hanzo snorts, and swats Genji's knee with a flick of the cloth in his hands.

Genji can't smile, but feels the echo of what it is like to, anyway.

"I don't… get what you're actually asking." Genji admits as he flicks a shuriken out of his wrist and spins the star between his fingertips.

"I'm saying…," there is a pause, and Hanzo digs hard, knuckles turning white while he scrubs his own skin. "We do not need to take this path. I can return to Japan and--"

"No," Genji cuts in. Hanzo's head whips back to him, eyebrows up, and Genji cuts his shuriken through the air. "You aren't going back--"

"You keep saying that," Hanzo growls. "But I am yet to hear what you want from me here."

"I… I want you to work with McCree. With your help he--"

"To what purpose? You do not care about the Koukan-kai."

Genji stops, rolls the shuriken over his fingers, and tries to pick out his next words from amid a rising buzz of uncertainty clogging his senses. "If you're already backing out--"

"I am not the fickle one--"

"Hanzo," there's an electric crack in Genji's voice, sharp, high, mechanical. "Shut the fuck up."

He does, and even with the sour twist to Hanzo's mouth, Genji is surprised.

"Stop interrupting me. I'm not…" Not sure of what he is saying, having for once been given room to say it. Genji shifts his focus to Hanzo's newly renovated hairline and lets the first words he can think of spill out. "I'm not changing my mind, just because you apologized. Just because things are…"

Now he wishes Hanzo would interrupt. But all he does is lift an an eyebrow and wait while Genji pathetically scrabbles for words to express an idea he doesn't know the shape of.

"Just… Just because I don't, don't really know what happens next." He would like to take a deep breath here. "I was serious about you never going back to the Shimada... I can't. And now, neither can you."

The rag, a shade dingier than it had been minutes ago, rests crumpled between Hanzo's fist and thigh.

His brother inhales through his nose, a breath that takes a full ten seconds to get in and out of the body. Part of their training.

"I did not agree to your terms idly," Hanzo responds as he begins to clean the shucked casings with meticulous focus. "I have… I have been reflecting, these past weeks. About how I should have stepped down as leader years ago, but lacked the resolve. If anything, my absence represents the best chance the family has to reform itself."

You had the resolve once, Genji doesn't say, he doesn't like to be reminded of that night either.

"But there is an entire world outside, Genji. Just because you do not want me with them, does not mean you have to want me with you." There's a casual sincerity to Hanzo's voice, as if they are discussing whether or not to go for ramen. He looks more interested in scraping a dirty film off the inside of his fake knee. "We're never going to be whatever brothers we might have been, you know this."

"I'm never going to be anything I might have been."

It comes out sharper than he meant. Reflexive resentment that appears with years of practice. A muscle quivers in Hanzo's throat.

"...Neither will you."

Genji stares down at the shuriken in his hands, tilts it so that its light gleams along the back of his fingers. He continues.

"But… I've been thinking, lately. That being what I am, what I made out of the pieces left, isn't so bad."

The mattress between them creeks, voicing Hanzo's surprise for him as he turns sharply to face Genji.

"I don't know what we do from here, Hanzo." With some effort, Genji drags his focus away from the shuriken and up to his brother's heartfelt expression. Why weren't you ever this vulnerable when we were kids. "But if you take off now, just because things are weird, then we never find out."

Open relief that breaks across Hanzo's hard angles.

"...very well," he says. "Then here I remain."

full fic on ao3

[recentanimenews]

VIZ Licensing News; Ghost in the Shell Reviews

During its Friday afternoon panel at Anime Boston, VIZ media announced a new slate of titles for fall 2017, from Astra: Lost in Space, a sci-fi adventure written by Kenta Shinohara (Sket Dance), to SP x Baby, a josei title penned by Maki Enjoji (Happy Marriage?!). And while both are buzzworthy, I’m even more excited by two other manga joining the VIZ line-up: Junji Ito: Nine Stories, a selection of shorts hand-picked by Ito himself, and Children of the Whales, a shojo fantasy created by Abi Umeda. VIZ also unveiled a handful of digital-first and digital-only offerings that includes The Emperor and I, eIDLIVE, The Promised Neverland, and Tokyo Ghoul [Jack], a full-color prequel to Sui Ishida’s best-selling series.

Of course, Anime Boston wasn’t the only big event this weekend; the live-action Ghost in the Shell movie opened to mediocre reviews, with some critics praising its visuals and action sequences, and others panning the performances and script. The Atlantic‘s David Sims pronounced the movie a “copy of a copy,” arguing that it never captures what was memorable about Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 version. Sims also took issue with the casting:

As a remake of a Japanese film that retains its futuristic setting and most of its characters’ names (but features white actors in the four leading roles), Ghost in the Shell ostensibly had the chance to delve into the tricky politics of identity and how it might evolve in the future. But a third-act twist attempts to confront Johansson’s casting in a way that ends up feeling awkward, misguided, and vaguely insulting to Oshii’s film, summoning the specter of its original protagonist in an effort to explain why the Major’s “shell” might look like the American actress.

In her review for New York Magazine, Emily Yoshida argued that the film’s biggest flaw is that it retains the surface trappings of the original but not its soul. The filmmakers, she observes, are “obsessed with idea that Major ‘Mira’ (Scarlett Johansson) must unlock her true individuality to defeat the system, an extraordinarily American narrative shoddily grafted onto the original story.” She continues:

If Paramount just wanted to do a female-led cyberpunk Bourne Identity, probably nobody would have minded. But to associate a straightforward “Who am I?” action film with a franchise as philosophically noodly as Ghost in the Shell is disingenuous and pointless — you deny existing fans the actual post-self substance of the thing they like, and you alienate newcomers with a weird title and the obligatory skeleton of an existing franchise, which, when it’s not being explored, comes off as needlessly complicated.

One of the most incisive reviews came from Valery Complex at Nerds of Color. As she explains, the film actually whitewashes its heroine in a particularly egregious origin story:

So, not only has the role been whitewashed but they start with a Japanese woman and put her brain in a white body. So what does this say? It says that an Asian actress was an afterthought and that Asian visibility wasn’t valuable enough to carry this through to the end. This is made worse by Daisuke Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano) continuing to speak Japanese to her character at the beginning. Wait, what? I understand many non-Japanese folks can speak Japanese, but since her brain is that of a Japanese woman, she still retains her mother tongue. It’s just on the outside she looks white and is named Mira.

Not everyone panned the film; writing for the Los Angeles Times, for example, Justin Chang acknowledged the “irksome” racial politics while praising the film’s “ravishing” visuals, sentiments echoed by Michael Phillips at the Chicago Tribune. The most glowing appraisal came from Variety‘s Guy Lodge, who bucked the tide of critical approbation to praise Johansson’s performance and argue that the live-action film surpassed the previous anime adaptations. I give the last word to anime scholar Brian Ruh, who states that “the film handles its source material relatively competently, but it really is a victory of visuals over vision,” marred by “monotone” and “wooden” performances.

In other news…

An all-star team of writers and actors tackle the thorny issue of whitewashing Asian characters in Doctor Strange, Ghost in the Shell, and Iron Fist, offering a thoughtful — and powerful — rebuke to Hollywood’s most common justifications for the practice. [Nerds of Color]

The folks at io9 also discuss how Ghost in the Shell “fumbles race and identity.” [io9]

Brace yourself: the next five years brings a tsunami of big-budget, big-screen adaptations of popular manga, from Alita: Battle Angel to Naruto, AKIRA, and (potentially) Attack on Titan. [Los Angeles Times]

Brace yourself again: Netflix just unveiled the first Death Note trailer and it looks… bad. [Variety]

Manga editor Urian Brown takes an in-depth look at Tegami Bachi. [VIZ]

Tokyopop and Disney are producing a manga adaptation of Beauty and the Beast with a novel twist: volume one tells the story from Belle’s perspective, while volume two offers us the Beast’s POV. [Entertainment Weekly]

If you’ve never read From Eroica With Love, Vrai Kaiser’s enthusiastic appreciation of this queer, globe-trotting adventure may inspire you to search eBay for copies. [Anime Feminist]

In her latest doujinshi roundup, Jocelyn Wagner sings the praises of est em’s Love That Does Not Begin, a love story about a merman and a centaur. [Brain vs. Book]

Isabella Stanger profiles Naohiro Kimura, editor-in-chief of the recently launched Hikokimori News, a publication aimed at a generation of young, isolated Japanese adults. [Quartz]

The latest Chatty AF podcast focuses on Japanese adaptations of Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell manga. [Anime Feminist]

As part of its “Pioneers of Moving Comics” exhibition, the Kyoto Manga Museum will screen Japan’s first surviving animated film, Hanawa Hekonai Meitō no Maki (“Story of the Famous Sword of Hekonai Hanawa”). The short, which clocks in at four minutes, debuted in 1917. [Anime News Network]

By: Katherine Dacey