#algerian rugs | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

heavensquill · 2 years

Text

Romione Week 2021 Day 1 - Moments in Time - Flustered Under The Stars

My first ever Tumblr post is proudly written for @romioneweek 2021. Thanks to @folk-melody for hosting and please enjoy the story below. Also a massive thank you to @accio-broom for agreeing to beta my work. Apologies if Tumblr messes with the formatting, I don't know what I'm doing. You can also check out the story on FFN/AO3 Flustered Under the Stars

The sun was beginning to set on Ottery St. Catchpole. A small marquee, tucked away in the corner of the Burrow garden, was filled with a ravenous crowd preparing for a late dinner. As the golden hour tinged the apple tree leaves a rosy orange, a bushy-haired witch stepped out onto the grassy knoll, her feet bare as the blades of grass slid between her toes. Staring out into the vast open fields beyond the garden walls, she breathed in the now cool summer air, grateful for the improvement over the blistering heat from that morning.

Hermione Granger had been at the Burrow for almost a month, and already, it felt like home. Its magical characteristics were unique and so Weasley-esque. Yet somehow, whilst preparing for Bill and Fleur’s upcoming nuptials, she, Harry, and even the Delacour’s had slotted right in as if they had belonged.

Just as the sun dipped further behind the towering and asymmetrical house, a tall, ginger-haired wizard stepped out into the garden. Ron, laden with a stack of bowls under one of his muscular arms, walked towards the marquee. The other was outstretched and gripping his wand as he levitated several steaming roast chickens ahead of him.

“Easy there, Hermione. Hot stuff, coming through,“ he called, flashing her a lopsided smirk and wink.

The aromatic smells of the roasted chickens invaded her nostrils as he drew closer to her position. Memories of the Algerian bazaars she had once visited in France with her parents came flooding back to her. The richness of saffron, the rugged strength of cumin, and the woody undertones of cardamom all left her stomach begging to be gratified. However, another decadent smell lingered in the air, independent of Molly’s fabulous chickens, one that Hermione knew all too well.

Ron. Her Ron. Well, not hers exactly. But now that he had stopped dating Lavender, she no longer felt a tug of guilt from her possessiveness over him.

The tantalising smell of Ron wafted through the air and left her feeling dizzy. His body wash and shampoo made from the green apples that grew in the Burrow orchard, combined with green tea extract, formed his signature aroma wherever he went. This scent, coupled with the lopsided smirks, usually reserved only for her, were enough to make her weak at the knees.

She turned to watch him as he strolled past her into the marquee, unperturbed by the assortment of bowls and roast chickens he was carrying. Her eyes dipped down to catch a glimpse of his firm buttocks, clinging to the navy slacks he wore as they accentuated their roundness. All too soon, the warmth from that morning had returned with a vengeance. With her face heating up and beads of sweat beginning to form across her forehead, she tore her eyes away from his bum and rushed out further into the garden.

Trying in desperation to regain her composure, she looked up at the darkening sky, its orange hue doing nothing to douse the desire within her. Nor did it do anything to push aside the mental image of a tall, flaming haired wizard. With a huff of frustration, she pulled out her wand, opting to channel her feelings into her spell work—something she had done regularly last year at Hogwarts.

Finding herself beaming at the memory of him, his family, and his home, she whispered, “Expecto Patronum.“

A shimmering burst of light erupted from the end of her wand in the form of an otter. For the next few minutes, she stood watching as it swam around the garden with endless energy, her heart expanding when thinking of the memories that birthed it. Too engrossed in the antics of her otter Patronus, she was unaware of someone else within her presence. She gave a start as he laid a gentle hand to the small of her back before drawing her in towards his larger frame. Electricity crackled through her body, the source of which radiated from the patch of skin where he had made contact.

“Professor Potter sure taught us well during the Umbridge year,“ Ron remarked as he watched her otter swim over their heads.

She turned to face him, ready to retort, but only managed a weak squeak as he engulfed her senses once more. His tone was playful, and his scent intoxicating. When he turned his gaze down towards her, a smile played on his lips at the sight of her. Drawn to him, she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him. The increased contact caused her pulse to race and her breathing to intensify.

She had succumbed to the look of him, the sound of his voice, his electric touch, and his intoxicating smell. All that remained was to get a taste of him.

That final thought was a step too far. Hermione snapped her eyes open and disentangled herself from his grasp. Without a second glance, she raced back into the marquee to take her seat at the dinner table, leaving Ron to watch her with a smug look of amusement on his face.

---

Dinner with thirteen other people was always destined to be a cramped affair. Sandwiched between Gabrielle Delacour and Ron, Hermione struggled to manoeuvre her cutlery as she constantly found her elbows knocking with the ginger-haired man beside her.

The starter course was all it took before her previously flustered state caught up with her. From the moment he had re-entered the marquee and dashed over to grab the seat beside her, he had been polite and attentive to her needs. The voracious version of him that she knew from her previous visits to the Burrow, as well as six years of Hogwarts, was now replaced by a newer, more refined Ron.

Where the old Ron would have dived straight in to pile his own plate and talked with his mouth full, this newer version offered her the first bowl of soup. Later, he had waited until he had swallowed his food before asking her how hers had tasted.

Thrown off by this unusual behaviour, she hastily took another mouthful of the hot soup and spluttered as it seared her throat.

“Wow, careful there. It’s still hot,“ Ron advised, rubbing her back.

His touch sent shivers throughout her body as she fought to stay in control. Mentally cursing herself, Hermione reached across the table to grab a napkin, only to find her elbow connecting with his once more. She yanked her arm back, and it collided with something hard beside her. There was a shattering of glass followed by a yelp of shock. Hermione turned in her seat to see Gabrielle staring daggers at her.

She had knocked over a jug of pumpkin juice straight into the poor girl’s lap.

“I’m—I’m so sorry, Gabrielle,“ she cried. “Let me fix that for you.“

She reached out for her wand on the table beside her before Ron’s large hand stilled her movement.

“Allow me.“

Holding his wand aloft, he gave it two lazy flicks. The first caused the broken shards of glass to fly up from the table and piece themselves back together, leaving behind a perfectly repaired jug. The second mopped up the stains of pumpkin juice from both the tablecloth and Gabrielle’s dress, returning them to their former pearly whites.

“Merci, Ronald,“ giggled Gabrielle, batting her eyelashes at him.

Smiling in return, Ron replied, “You’re welcome.“

A sudden bubbling of rage formed in the pit of Hermione’s stomach at the interaction between the French teenager and ginger-haired moron on either side of her. Shoving his hand away from hers, she picked up her spoon and swirled the soup around in her bowl with more force than she had intended. The contents sloshed up the sides of the bowl and splattered onto her lap.

There were two sharp intakes of breath from the opposite side of the table, and she snapped her head up to see Harry and Ginny both wearing identical looks of pity on their faces.

“Are you okay?“ they both mouthed.

“I’m fine!“ Hermione snapped, trying and failing to keep her voice down.

“What’s got into you?“ Harry asked.

Before she could answer him, Ron spoke up to reclaim her attention, “Try this corn fritter. It’s delicious.“ He held a fork up to her mouth, waiting for her to take the offered bite.

There was another intake of breath from Harry and Ginny, who watched open-mouthed as Ron, for probably the first time ever, offered someone food from his own fork. Her heart was now thundering in her chest. This couldn’t be happening. Who was he, and what had he done with the real Ron Weasley?

Realising she hadn’t yet taken the bite, Hermione looked up at him to find him staring at her expectantly.

“Try it,“ he requested, wiggling the fork in front of her.

Realising she had no choice but to accept, she leant forward and took the mouthful of food on offer. There was a smattering of laughter as Fred and George Weasley had joined Harry and Ginny in observing the humiliating interaction.

Feeling the tears start to form around her eyes, she averted her gaze and mumbled, “Thanks,“ to Ron and stared deep into her bowl of soup.

---

Things went from bad to worse once everyone had started on the main courses—the roast chickens. Now that the sun had set, the cool summer air had since turned harsh and chilly. Despite Arthur having cast a heating charm within the marquee, the warmth it generated kept dissipating due to the open marquee flaps.

Fourteen people trying to eat soup at the cramped table had been hard enough. But the prospect of cutting up pieces of roast chicken and vegetables seemed downright impossible. Up and down the table, Hermione could hear the hurried apologies as people knocked elbows trying to load their plates.

“Hermione, do you want some green beans?“ Ron asked.

“Yes, please.“

Holding out her trembling plate to him, Hermione was astounded when he stood up out of his seat and walked to the other end of the table to ask Charlie to hand him the tureen of green beans. She stared, open-mouthed, as he carried it back to his seat before loading a pile onto her plate.

“Th—thank you,“ she croaked.

“Ron, mate, can you pass those potatoes beside you?“ Harry asked.

“I noticed you’ve got functioning arms and legs, Potter,“ Ron snapped at him. “Get your own bleeding potatoes because these are mine.“

He then piled most of the potatoes from the bowl beside him onto his plate before sliding it with the remaining few over to Harry. He then dived straight into devouring his food.

Harry looked from Ron to Hermione and back again, eyeing the pair with a look of suspicion. With a loud huff at the sight of his pitiful portion of potatoes, Hermione heard him mumble under his breath, “Loves her more than he loves me.“

Choosing to ignore his irritable comment, she turned her attention back to dinner. She had just finished loading her chicken onto her plate when a sharp gust of wind from the flap of the marquee entrance passed over her. It was like she had been plunged into an icy bucket of water, and she gave an involuntary shudder as goosebumps erupted over her exposed skin.

Seeming to spot her shivering from the cold, Ron turned to her with a look of concern.

“Are you cold?“ he asked. “Here, wear this.“

He gave another lazy flick of his wand and waited. Unsure of the exact spell he had used, Hermione looked around for something she could wear. Unable to find anything suitable, she turned to him, ready to chastise him for his shoddy spell work.

“That wasn’t a very—“

Expecting to see an embarrassed looking Ron, she instead turned to find him peering at her with a look of smugness. Without breaking eye contact, he thrust out a hand as a trademark woollen Weasley jumper zoomed into it. It was a deep maroon in colour, with a bright yellow “R“ emblazoned on the front.

With another lopsided smirk, Ron took the jumper and draped it over her shoulders. The effect was so immediate that she thought it had to have been magic. The warmth she felt as it enveloped her was unlike any other she had experienced before. It seemed to emanate from the very fabric of the jumper itself, each strand of wool radiating heat.

Before she could thank him, he reached out and rubbed the sides of her shoulders in an attempt to warm her up even further. His touch was magnificent and caused her skin to flare up. Losing control of herself, she closed her eyes and let out an involuntary moan.

Several gasps from those around her made her eyes fling open. As she peered around the dinner table at the shocked faces, comprehension dawned on her. She had moaned at Ron’s touch. Deciding she needed to get away from him, she attempted to stand up and leave the table. Unfortunately, due to the cramped nature of the marquee, she ended up planting her elbow into a gravy boat.

Fred, George, and Charlie all guffawed at the mishap. Harry and Ron looked sympathetic, whilst Gabrielle seemed to revel in the accident. Feeling humiliated and embarrassed, she remained seated and planned to wallow in self-pity for the remainder of the dinner.

---

As the main course started to dwindle, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Breaking out of her reverie, she looked up behind her to see Ginny standing there, a sympathetic yet knowing look upon her face.

“Mum asked us to bring a few extra things out from the kitchen for dessert,“ she declared.

Grateful for the opportunity to get away, Hermione excused herself from the table and walked out of the marquee with Ginny at her side. The pair walked towards the big oak tree at the bottom of the garden.

“What was all that, Hermione?“ Ginny demanded.

“Nothing,“ she lied, but the tremble of her voice gave her away.

“Was it Ron? I notice he’s been different with you lately.“

Ginny had hit the nail on the head, and with that, Hermione lost all her resolve.

“Everyone was looking at me, Ginny! I am a grown, adult, young woman, and I moaned at the dinner table when he touched me. In front of your parents!“

“Grown, adult, young woman?“ Ginny giggled. “He really has got you wound up.“

Stamping her foot into the grass, Hermione glared at Ginny for mocking her usage of words.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. After Lavender, I thought we would just go back to being friends, and I was okay with that.“

“But?“

“But I want more. I want to be with Ron,“ Hermione concluded with a heaving sob.

“So go be with him.“

“I can’t!“

“Why not?“ Ginny huffed.

“What if he doesn’t want me?“ she choked.

“If you want Ron, you can have him. He clearly wants you too,“ Ginny declared before clapping a hand to her mouth as she peered over Hermione’s shoulder, her eyes widening in surprise.

“She’s right,“ Ron said, stepping up behind her.

With her heart thundering, Hermione spun on her heels and turned to face him. For the first time that evening, he was no longer his cocky and confident self. Despite looming over her with his impressive height, he appeared to slump as he eyed her with trepidation, his nerves evident on his freckled face.

“What’s that, Mum? More bowls for dessert? I’m on it,“ Ginny yelled out into the night before shooting Hermione a look of encouragement and darting off to the house.

Panicking and not trusting herself to function around him, Hermione followed Ginny back towards the house. She only made it several paces before his strong hand reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back.

“What have I done wrong?“ he pleaded.

Saying nothing, she instead gazed up into the night sky, willing for a miracle that would dissipate her flustered state. The Devon countryside was amplified in its beauty by a distinct lack of light pollution. Thousands of shimmering stars decorated the skyline for miles around, and she quickly found herself getting lost in their beauty.

Only when his soft voice begged, “Please, Hermione,“ for her attention did she look at him.

His sparkling blue eyes were glistening with moisture as he studied her with an intensity she had never experienced before. Biting her lip and willing herself to have the strength to do what needed to be done, she stepped in towards him. As if on instinct, his arms opened up to welcome her into his chest. Locked in an embrace, they turned together to look up at the starry sky.

For several minutes, they stood and watched, the moonlight looming over them, spotlighting them amongst the greenery. Neither said nor did anything to break the moment, both just basking in the presence of the other.

“You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve been perfect,“ Hermione whispered into his chest eventually.

There was a streak of light above them as a shooting star darted across the vast night sky, creating a momentary blip of hope in the cool night air. Remembering the old Muggle superstitions she learnt as a child, she scrunched up her eyes, ignored all arguments of rationality and made a wish upon the shooting star.

Opening her eyes to look up at him, she asked, “Why me?“

He appeared taken aback by the sudden change in conversation but soon regained his composure. Hermione watched as he reached out a trembling hand and cupped her face, the warmth from the tips of his fingers burning at her skin.

“Because I’ve loved you for Merlin knows how long, and it took the mess from last year for me to realise it,“ he admitted. “I’m sick of pretending that you’re just a friend because Hermione, you are so, so much more than that.“

He took a moment to compose himself before taking her hands in his and declaring, “I love you, Hermione Granger, and I do want you. I’ve always wanted you, and I will always want you.“

Years later, Hermione would argue that it was a coincidence, but for now, she was more than happy to believe her wish upon that star had worked. Leaning forward on the tips of her toes, she placed a delicate kiss on Ron’s lips. His shock was evident for only the briefest of seconds before he deepened the kiss and swept her off her feet.

There was a sudden barrage of hooting and hollering as everyone from the marquee celebrated their kiss. Fred, George, and Charlie exchanged money as if collecting on some sort of bet. Harry, Molly, and Fleur looked to be crying tears of joy whilst being consoled by Bill, Arthur, and Ginny. And even the Delacour’s were clapping and cheering at the spectacle.

Looking drunk and giddy, Ron placed his forehead to hers and whispered, “I wanted to show you how serious I was before you freaked out. But if you come back to the marquee with me, I may even share my dessert with you.“

As he gently returned her to her feet, comprehension of his words washed over her. The things he was prepared to do for her. No longer flustered, standing in the arms of Ron under the starlit sky, Hermione knew she had found her home.

“I’m going to hold you to that,“ she warned him with a playful swat on the arm. “Lead the way, Ron.“

Hand in hand, they walked under the canopy of stars towards a new moment in time.

#romione #romioneweek2021 #fanfic #hermione granger #ron weasley #ron x hermione #harry potter

61 notes · View notes

pregnantseinfeld · 3 years

Quote

The French were still hopelessly slugging it out in Indo-China when I first arrived in France, and I was living in Paris when Dien Bien Phu fell. The Algerian rug-sellers and peanut vendors on the streets of Paris then had obviously not the remotest connection with this most crucial of the French reverses; and yet the attitude of the police, which had always been menacing, began to be yet more snide and vindictive. This puzzled me at first, but it shouldn't have. This is the way people react to the loss of empire—for the loss of an empire also implies a radical revision of the individual identity—and I was to see this over and over again, not only in France.

James Baldwin, No Name in the Street 1972

151 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

Old: M. Night Shyamalan’s Twist Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/3kKtl2y

Contains spoilers for Old.

Old is the new chiller from director and screenwriter M. Night Shyamalan who is very well known for his twisty plots and rug pull endings. Fans who go to the cinema for that will not be disappointed.

Inspired by the graphic novel Sandcastle, by Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters, Old sees a family on a dream holiday get taken to a secluded private beach which they discover is causing them to age very rapidly. But how? And why?

Well, that’s not revealed until the end of the movie. Here we break down what happens and what it all means.

Who Dies in Old?

In short: everyone except Trent and Maddox, the now grown children of the family we begin our journey with. But characters die in different ways and that’s significant. Old is thematically MASSIVE. It essentially attempts to sum up the entire human experience in one movie, indicating a variety of ways a life could go – with twists and turns of course.

Rufus Sewell’s Charles is a doctor with racist tendencies and his rapid dementia sees him become violent. He murders rapper Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre), tries to kill Guy (Gael García Bernal), and eventually is killed himself by Prisca (Vicky Krieps), who stabs him with a rusty implement giving him super-rapid blood poisoning. His mother has already died of what seems to be a heart condition at the start of the movie.

His wife Crystal’s (Abbey Lee) calcium deficiency causes the most horrific deterioration scene in the whole movie; her bones crunch and become contorted into hideous and unnatural shapes as they crack and then heal too quickly. It’s a medical condition, sure, but there’s an implicit judgement of Crystal in the background. The beautiful, much-younger wife of Charles is positioned as being overly fond of her looks and as she starts to age and her body lets her down, she hides in a cave in the darkness rather than be with other people.

Crystal’s daughter Kara goes from being a little kid to a teenager, is pregnant, and immediately loses the baby (harrowing). Later she tries to climb her way to freedom but falls to her death.

This is a doomed family: a disjointed group who essentially all die horribly and alone, as opposed to the family we meet at the start. Mum Prisca is thinking of divorcing Dad Guy; she’s been having an affair, but both parents love their children fiercely and ultimately love each other too.

Only Prisca and Guy are given a ‘good death’ – they live out the minutes of their lives together. The couple reunite and solve their differences, row with each other and their children but eventually make peace with themselves. Though she has lost the hearing in one ear and his vision is severely impaired, they sit together on the beach at the end of their all too short lives and agree there is nowhere they would rather be than together.

Third couple Jarin (Ken Leung) and Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) have narratively significant deaths. Jarin attempts to rescue the group by swimming around the coast, but despite being a strong swimmer he doesn’t survive. This death emphasizes that the group has tried everything and can’t escape. Meanwhile Patricia dies of an epileptic episode. This becomes very significant later in the movie when we understand the drugs she’s been given have prevented an episode from happening for 16 years (more on this later).

What’s the deal with the rapper?

The first people at the island are a famous rapper (according to young Maddox) with the stage name Mid-Sized Sedan (real name Kevin) and the woman he is with. She has taken a swim (naked) and later washes up dead, sparking the first wave of conflict on the beach as racist Charles immediately accuses Kevin of murdering the woman.

As a catalyst this works narratively and comes loosely from the graphic novel Sandcastle though in Sandcastle the man is an Algerian Jeweler rather than a Black rapper.

Movies

How The Empty Man Became the Ring Video of Streaming

By Kirsten Howard

We do wonder though, why, when his companion swam out into the sea he wouldn’t have been a bit more bothered about that and wouldn’t have asked the others for help as soon as they arrived? Also her body doesn’t appear to be especially decomposed when she washes up (while she decomposes very rapidly once on the beach).

Any thoughts about what’s going on here? Let us know in the comments.

So what is actually going on with the beach?

Electromagnetic material surrounding the beach is causing cells to age incredibly quickly – at the rate of around a year every half an hour. The kids are still growing so their aging is more obvious than the adult characters. The adults don’t get grey hair, according to a throwaway line, because hair and cells are dead and so aren’t affected – the same reasoning why they don’t all suddenly have very long hair and fingernails.

Though the film has a strong existential and allegorical angle there is actually, in theory, a real world solution – as in, the answer is ‘science’ and not ‘magic.’ This is why there are no fish in the water on the beach, and why it’s significant that when Trent and Maddox emerge from the other side of the coral they suddenly see a school of fish. The explanation for why they can’t just leave the way they came is that reversing the rate of aging very quickly causes an enormous shock to the system (like resurfacing too fast from deep sea diving), which causes them to black out before they can get anywhere.

So why on earth has the holiday resort actively decided to send people – and these people specifically – to suffer a horrific fate on the beach?

Turns out the resort is really an incredibly elaborate front for a pharmaceutical company…

What does the pharmaceutical company want and why?

This pharmaceutical agency discovers the beach and sees the potential for whole-of-life medical trials to be carried out in just over a day. In theory these trials mean vital medicines can be tested incredibly rapidly for efficacy and also for side effects. Okay, not terribly reliably – medical trials don’t tend to involve observing patients from a distance with no actual lab tests and checks, and the beach is hardly a real-life adjacent or controlled environment. But this is the logic.

Candidates are selected who are having treatment for various specific conditions already. Prisca has a tumor which she thinks is benign, and it’s through her that her family is selected. Others on the beach with them also turn out to have conditions.

The facility has arranged all of the families’ travel and accommodation and taken their passports away from them – there (supposedly) is no evidence that they even left home, which is how the pharma is able to carry out its plans without being caught.

The system is flawed (it’s obviously massively morally flawed and also doesn’t hold up to medical scrutiny either since it’s hardly a meaningful test when it’s on individuals whose bodies don’t behave at all like regular people, but we digress…). One of the employees points out how unsound it is to put test subjects with neurological disorders in with those with conditions that do not affect the mind. Charles killing Mid-Sized Sedan and stabbing others rather interferes with the results.

On arrival guests are given specially mixed cocktails supposedly based on their preferences and dietary requirements – these cocktails are drugged with whichever experimental new treatment the lab wants to test.

Another possible hitch: surely treatments aren’t usually one dose and then you’re done for your entire lifetime? But different rules apply here, hence the children needing to eat lots of food to account for their changes in body mass but the grown ups who stay at roughly the same weight don’t have the same issue.

When the twist is finally revealed, we learn that the events we have been watching are part of trial number 43, and the team are celebrating a victory – the epilepsy drug given to Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) is a success and stopped her from having a seizure for 16 years. (Just as well Charles didn’t murder her first.)

How do Trent and Maddox finally escape?

For a time it actually looks like they haven’t escaped. M. Night Shyamalan’s nefarious surveiller who has been watching the island the whole time is convinced the two have drowned.

Movies

Jordan Peele Calls ‘Nope’ on His Next Horror Movie

By David Crow

Thank goodness, though, that they have not. While we know countless families before them have died on the island, it still would have been almost too unpleasant not to spare these two. For a start we’ve been with them the whole movie, they’re our focal characters and all of the different actors who play the two as they grow keep us hooked. But these are all children – 11 and six at the start, who’s lives really are being stolen from them. They are not sick. They are not instrumental in progressing medical research. No fancy drugged cocktails for the kids, they are literally collateral damage – loose ends to be tied up. Kara has plummeted to her death but the now grown up Maddox and Trent (Amon Elliot and Embeth Davidtz) are the last hope.

And it turns out to be another child that is their salvation. Trent remembers that he never translated the note that his young pal Idlib (Kailen Jude) gave him in their special code. With frankly nothing more pressing to do than await his death, adult Trent decides to take a look. The amazing Idlib has given him a clue about his uncle not liking the coral. Turns out the tunnel of coral provides the sort of casing it requires for them to be able to get away from the force of the beach without immediately blacking out.

What about the diary?

The diary left by a previous islander is key to the ending of the movie, avoiding having to waste the audience’s time with police incredulity.

Back at the resort having escaped the beach, the now grown Trent spots a man he’d met when he was six and playing the (narratively handy) game ‘what’s your name, and what is your occupation?’ This guy, he remembers, is a cop.

The diary documents all the things learned by another victim of the beach and the families that were there during that trial. It documents the names of everyone on the beach, as well as the things this person – who, like Trent and Maddox, was a child when they arrived – learned during their last days. The cop is able to quickly cross reference and find that everyone on the list is a missing person, missing at the same time.

Maddox and Trent get their happy ending (kind of) – they are able to expose the dodgy pharma company, prevent any further victims, and are airlifted away after saying a sad and grateful farewell to Idlib, who is very much still a child.

We do need this ending. The film as a whole is incredibly bleak, and giving these two a chance to save the day is a tonic. Old is careful not to present this ending as too cheerful though. In the flight away from the resort Trent talks about contacting his aunt and when asked about his reaction he replies:

“How would you feel if a 50-year-old man called and said he was your six-year-old nephew?”

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

They are free and they are alive, but what will happen to Trent and Maddox now is a different story.

Old is out now in cinemas.

The post Old: M. Night Shyamalan’s Twist Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

2 notes · View notes

mercurygray · 3 years

Note

SORRY IM LATE BUT I HAVE A PROMPT

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” for Buck and Frankie!

Okay, more of a soft Sunday prompt at this point, but I’m rolling this in with another prompt for B&F -

MERC!! Hope you're having a lovely day 💖 what about "sitting on the porch and watching thunderstorms" with Buck and Frankie??

It only made sense that on the day they had plans it would be raining.

Not a nice, soft, English rain, either, the kind you can put up an umbrella against and suffer through, but a great, torrential terror of a storm, one that threatened to blow away half the camp and drown the other half, which was why Lieutenant Buck Compton was standing on the carpet in the entryway of Tortworth Castle, dripping onto the rug while his date tried to reason with him.

"Come on," Buck said, grinning and giving his mackintosh a little shake to get some of the water loose. "Where's your sense of adventure? The horse isn't going to mind a little rain."

They'd made plans a week ago to drive out to Salisbury with a picnic to see the prehistoric chalk horse, but in this weather, the thought of lunch on an open hillside seemed...less than ideal, though the damp seemed to be having no effect whatsoever on her date's enthusiasm. Frankie looked at him with crossed arms and a pressed smile, shivering a little even in her slacks and sweater. "Buck, my sense of adventure's as well developed as the next girl's, but so is my common sense. I don't need to be driving around in the rain courting a cold - and neither do you!"

"Well, you're no fun," Buck responded, though his smile still suggested otherwise. "So just what are we supposed to do with this picnic hamper? We stay here much longer and someone else is gonna steal it."

Frankie stared at it a moment, running through her options as a couple of her fellow nurses descended the stairs and went, laughing, into the library, eyeing Buck with frank interest. It's not the hamper I'm worried about - if we stay here much longer I'm afraid someone else is going to steal my date.

She'd been looking forward to being away from everything for a few hours, from her coworkers and her supply lists and now this blasted rain was spoiling all her plans. Just what was a girl supposed to do to get away?

She took a breath, her mind finally made up. "Follow me."

It wasn't quite the day they'd planned, sitting on deck chairs under the eaves of the covered gallery that linked the old part of the house with the new and watching the rain drum down on the lawn below. But they were outside, and they were alone, and in the moment, that was enough for Frankie.

"Well, you sure know how to throw a party, Lieutenant Horgan," Buck said, waiting patiently in his chair while Frankie unwrapped a sandwich onto a plate. "Is this real Tunesian sand on these chairs, or Algerian?"

Frankie made a face and passed him his food. "Bold of you to assume these came with us," she replied, settling back with her own sandwich and watching the rain. "I don't know what they told you, Lieutenant Compton, but I was on a working holiday in North Africa and we didn't have time for picnics." She took a sip of her wine, the bottle slightly chilled after its ride in the jeep. "No, these came out of the attic here at the castle. We had a deep dive when we first arrived, moving some furniture upstairs."

Buck scoffed. "The attic! In a place like this? Taking your life in your hands there, aren't you? Ghosts and all that?"

Frankie stared, willing herself not to roll her eyes. She'd taken her life in her hands more than once in this war, jumping out of landing craft and driving trucks along blacked out roads, sleeping along hillsides while shells screamed overhead. If she was afraid of creaky ladders and dust sheets after the things she'd seen, she didn't deserve to call herself a nurse. But he wasn't ready for those stories - at least not yet. She merely smiled, scoffing it off. "Come on, Lieutenant," she shot back, grinning. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

#i have written a thing #buck and frankie #buck compton #frankie horgan #1940s girl gang #mercurygraypresents

10 notes · View notes

mydearalgeria · 5 years

Photo

Algerian Rugs from Ghardaïa.

@xodarap66

#algerie #algeria #carpets #amazigh #amazighcarpets #northafrica #maghreb #mydearalgeria #mzab #ghardaia #amazighalgeria

1K notes · View notes

dweemeister · 4 years

Photo

Best Live Action Short Film Nominees for the 92nd Academy Awards (2020, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

Since 2013 on this blog, I have been reviewing the Oscar-nominated short films for the respective Academy Awards ceremony. Normally, the Oscars are held on the last Sunday in February and we, the moviegoing public, are given more than a few weeks to seek out the nominated films. Not this year, as the ceremony was held at the earliest date ever (it reverts back to its usual starting date, the last Sunday in February, for the next two years starting in 2021).

There’s already been a winner in this category, but nevertheless here are the five nominated films for Best Live Action Short Film. Congratulations to Tunisia for two of the five entries, but all these shorts reflect the cinematic democracy that are the short film categories.

A Sister (2018, Belgium)

Also known by its original French title, Une soeur, A Sister is directed by Delphine Girard. It is the only piece among its fellow nominees that could be envisioned only as a short film. As such, its sixteen-minute runtime requires succinctness, the filmmaking as tightly wound as a clock. Late at night, a woman named Alie (Selma Alaoui) is sitting in the passenger seat asking the man (Guillaume Duhesme) for a cell phone so she can call her sister. We hear the first few seconds of this phone call. The screen cuts to black; next, we see a bustling room with numerous people gazing into computer screens, speaking to various people over headsets. We soon realize that Alie is dialing for an emergency call center. She is being kidnapped, and does not recognize the highway they are driving on. The operator (Veerle Baetens), confused by Alie’s coded language at first, eventually intuits what exactly is going on.

Alie and the operator exercise caution during these precarious minutes, as A Sister unravels in its teeth-grinding escalation of tension. Girard notes that the inspiration for A Sister came when she heard of a story of a young American woman calling 911, pretending that she was calling her sister – “it was the story of building a story of empathy and sorority that inspired [Girard].” Through meticulous research about protocols during emergency services calls that included interviews with said operators (who also made suggestions about draft screenplays), A Sister accomplishes a dramatic urgency that films with similar goals but last far longer never reach. The clever chronological edit in the film’s opening minutes contribute to that escalation; so too the decision to shoot from the backseat, obscuring Alie’s face to make the audience rely almost entirely on vocal delivery to understand her desperation and his paranoia (although the darkness of the surroundings can leave audiences confused in the opening minutes about who or what we are looking at). Not a second of A Sister is a wasted one.

My rating: 9/10

Brotherhood (2018, Tunisia/Canada/Qatar/Sweden)

Having made its rounds across the international film festival circuit, Meryam Joobeur’s Brotherhood is an international cross-stitch of a short film serving as an expression of Joobeur’s Tunisian roots. The film’s tragic outcome and dour tone throughout make is akin to Greek drama, where the ending feels predetermined and the characters – in what makes them essential – barely evolve. In a coastal, rural Tunisian town, a married couple and their two youngest sons make their living as sheep farmers. The landscape is rugged, their lives simple. One day, the eldest son – who has been missing for more than a year – returns home. With him is his teenage wife, wearing a full niqab, pregnant, and instantly attracting suspicion from the father. The eldest son and his wife met in Syria, where the former joined the so-called Islamic State (referred to by everyone else in the family by its acronym, Daesh – considered an insult to those affiliated with ISIS) out of desperation to flee his implicitly abusive father.

Brotherhood is indulgent in its languor, sometimes hanging onto certain shots well beyond necessary. Long cuts are welcome in cinema to allow the audience to meditate about what has just occurred; their emotional and philosophical implementation in Brotherhood is inconsistent. A constant use of close-ups and the film’s 4:3 screen aspect ratio reflect each parents’ stubbornness that their opinions about their situation is correct, that the eldest son’s belief that he is morally unblemished (he professes not to have killed, nor having been an accessory to killing another). The near-complete use of natural lighting - the overcast skies, the orange hues of older electric lights – lends the film authenticity. Joobeur, a Montreal-based filmmaker, has stated that she made Brotherhood to reclaim the humanity that the Muslim world has lost to the West since 9/11. From the red hair of the brothers, the ambiguity of the eldest son’s time in Syria, to the dramatic irony that closes the film, Brotherhood always challenges those views that Joobeur wishes to reclaim.

My rating: 7.5/10

The Neighbors’ Window (2019)

Marshall Curry is principally a documentary feature producer (2005′s Street Fight, 2017′s A Night in the Garden). The Neighbors’ Window, which he directed, is only his third narrative short film and, unfortunately, the final product is indicative of that – he has directed a handful of documentary features and shorts, but the techniques and lessons learned there are not always congruent to narrative short films. Here, mother Alli (Maria Dizzia) and father Jacob (Greg Keller) are New Yorkers with young children (early grade school and preschool age) who have settled into what they both feel has become a monotonous lifestyle. One evening, they see through their apartment window that, across the street, a younger couple have just taken up residence. Without pulling down any blinds and in their erotic euphoria, the younger couple start unpackaging (and this has nothing to do with moving boxes). Like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window (1954) but without the murder, Jacob and especially Alli will occasionally peer into their new neighbors’ apartment to voyeuristically observe.

The Neighbors’ Window has little to say beyond its assertion the grass is always greener on the other side – it pains me to have written such a cliché. Other than basic editing, this is a film devoid of any aesthetic experimentation or narrative interest. The film’s plot twist, inspired by a true story heard on the podcast Love + Radio, is not strengthened by the lackluster acting. The supposed emotional catharsis that should emerge in the film’s final moments is simplistic – redeemed neither by said acting or the film’s questionable screenplay. It is, at worst, tasteless. The premise of The Neighbors’ Window is indeed worthy of cinematic treatment – perhaps even as a feature – but Curry is not up to the task.

My rating: 6/10

Saria (2019)

It is a fine line between politically-tinged narrative/documentary filmmaking and agitprop. Bryan Buckley’s Saria, a dramatization of the events that led to the deaths of 41 girls between fourteen and seventeen years old in a 2017 Guatemala orphanage fire, almost becomes exactly that. Saria (Estefanía Tellez) and her elder sister Ximena (Gabriela Ramírez) are orphans at the La Asunción Safe Home. It is a safe home only in name, as Saria, Ximena, and the many other girls housed in the orphanage are victims of staff abuse or human trafficking. Saria and Ximena dream of a life far from the girls’ dormitory at the orphanage, and there have been mumblings about a joint plan between the boys and girls at the orphanage to cause a diversion in order to begin an escape, en masse, on foot, to the United States. Given that Saria is based on a tragedy, there is only one resolution possible.

However, despite being confined to that horrific ending, the film endows its two central characters with distinct personalities and aspiration to the extent that it can. In its twenty-two minutes, Saria not only depicts the squalor and prison-like conditions of the safe home, but the desperate humanity of its subjects – as if taking a page from Italian neorealism, this film has orphaned children playing orphaned children, but the direction and writing behind their performances can be frustrating. Saria is somewhat hampered by its editing, as the emotional impact of the escape scene to the film’s final minutes feel rushed. The film’s pre-closing credits reveal – that Saria is indeed based on actual events and no one has ever been held accountable for the deaths of the forty-one girls – is harmed because of the film’s prosaic editing.

My rating: 8/10

Nefta Football Club (2018, Tunisia/France/Algeria)

On its face, Yves Piat’s Nefta Football Club – another transnational production set in Tunisia – has all the hallmarks of a film that spirals into a disastrous conclusion. Yet what instead transpires is a witty comedy that mostly adopts the point of view of its two child protagonists. Near the Tunisian-Algerian border, Mohamed (Eltayef Dhaoui) and Abdallah (Mohamed Ali Ayari) are soccer-obsessed brothers bickering over who is the best player in the world: Lionel Messi or Riyad Mahrez (personally, I have never heard Mahrez in that conversation, but noting that he is Algerian and almost certainly the greatest Middle Eastern or North African player in history, this sounds like a realistic conversation). While heading home, the boys encounter a donkey wearing headphones and carrying bags of white powder. They take the “laundry detergent” home for their mother, with the intention to sell the rest to their neighbors. Somewhere in the desert, two men are waiting for their delivery donkey to arrive.

Don’t worry, those two men will never have a clue whatever became of their delivery. Piat came up with the idea for Nefta Football Club while recalling childhood memories of him and his friend sneaking out of their house at night, finding white powders that they believed to be illicit materials, and dumping all of this into a body of water. Nefta Football Club showcases a loving, hilarious relationship between elder and younger brother, as well as the perspective divides of the eldest brother’s teenage calculation and the younger brother’s innocence. Their life station is never fully explored, nor is it ignored by Piat. Piat’s screenplay – based on believable misunderstandings that are based on the characters’ personalities – is well-executed, as evidenced by its fantastic final punchline.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb ratings. Half-points are always rounded down.

From previous years: 85th Academy Awards (2013), 87th (2015), 88th (2016), 89th (2017), 90th (2018), and 91st (2019).

#A Sister #Brotherhood #The Neighbors' Window #Saria #Nefta Football Club #Delphine Girard #Meryam Joobeur #Marshall Curry #Bryan Buckley #Yves Piat #92nd Academy Awards #Oscars #My Movie Odyssey

2 notes · View notes