I finished knitting this pair of socks not long before Christmas and put them in with my Mum's gift; something to wear on cold winter evenings.
As anticipated, I had a crazy week and consequently had very little down time- and when I did, I was too tired to concentrate on much. So, since I have no review completely done, I thought I'd show a few more Christmas presents I gave... I finished knitting this pair of socks not long before Christmas and put them in with my Mum's gift; something to wear on cold winter evenings. All of my siblings and I exchange names for Christmas, as I've mentioned before, and bring our gifts to give at our big family New Years' get together. This is fortunate, because I wasn't finished this wall hanging for my the sister and her family whose name I got, until a couple of days before the first of January. I had earlier finished sewing pillowcases for all of their kids (they have nine)- here's the pile, ready for wrapping. They're enthusiastic boardgame players, so I got them this as well: I got this movie as part of my Dad's gift; not a western, which is his favourite genre, but close enough: a film set during the Revolutionary War, which has a big shoot-up as a finale. Drums Along The Mohawk (1939) is based on the 1936 novel of the same name and stars Henry Fonda as Gilbert Martin, an American settler who marries Lana, the daughter of a wealthy man, and takes her to live on his remote farm in upstate New York. Life is hard though with the help of their neighbours they are beginning to prosper, but revolution is coming and they will all be swept up in it. I actually saw this film a few months ago, and was pleasantly surprised by it. It's a John Ford picture so I assumed that it would be well done, but Henry Fonda has never been one of my favourite actors and I was frankly sceptical about the ability of Claudette Colbert to creditably pull off the part as a frontier wife. But she's actually not half bad in the role, though they really should have laid off the makeup and plucked eyebrows. The movie itself is pretty good, and gets extra points for having Edna May Oliver in it, doing what she does best: being a feisty, crotchety old woman with a heart of gold.
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We had our big family get together on New Years Day and exchanged our family gifts. Part of my gift was this book, one from Wodehouse's Blandings series: I was pleased to get it; I haven't actually read that many of the Blandings stories though I do own the first book in the series: I haven't started the new book yet, but according to the blurb on the back cover, someone tries to kidnap the Empress of Blandings (Lord Emsworth's prizewinning pig)... this should prove interesting. And funny. Related Posts: Happy New Year! I'm back from a few days away visiting family and am returning to work today. It's shaping up to be an insane week, so I thought I'd try to get this review out really quickly. I managed over the course of the last week or so to see all of the new season of Jack Ryan, which wasn't too hard since it's only 8 episodes, but what with all the travelling around and spending nights away, did take longer than it otherwise would have. As you may recall- or not- I quite enjoyed the first series of Jack Ryan but was disappointed in the second one. And considering the absolute race to the bottom which so many new shows/series seem determined to participate in- Rings of Power, anyone? (speaking of which, I'm still working on that review; it's a slog)-my expectations for the third season were not high. So I was actually pleasantly surprised to find myself having a good time watching Series 3. This time Jack finds himself facing off with everyone's favourite villains of the hour- the Russians. Ironically, this was all written and filmed before Putin's incursion into Ukraine so the series deals with a fictional potential conflict between Russia and the Czech Republic. In it, a shady cabal of Russian and Czech politicians and military leaders are working to cause a number of violent and militant acts of aggression/ terror in order to (spoilers) frame the Americans and cause unrest, perhaps open conflict, between the two countries with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the current Russian leader. The cabal find him too moderate; they want to put in a hardline leader who will return Russia to its former Soviet Union... uh... glory. Which I must say is a pretty charitable portrayal of Russian leadership, considering that everyone knows that Putin would like nothing better to return his country to its halcyon days when he was a young whippersnapper in the KGB. I've no doubt that, if filmed post-Ukraine invasion, this plot would have been written a bit differently. But this is an observation, not a complaint. There's a lot going on here, but basically Ryan has had intel that the baddies have resurrected an old experimental nuclear bomb program which had been shut down about 50 years ago, and have constructed a warhead to be detonated in the Cech Republic, pinning the blame on the Americans and Czech Prime Minister (it's complicated) and causing an international incident. Tensions are already high because a Russian official has been assassinated on Czech soil for reasons unknown- except to the baddies, of course. Jack spends most of the run time trying to stop the bomb from being built and, when that fails, trying to keep the conspirators from detonating it. Meanwhile, the CIA head back in Washington is out of touch and in denial, more afraid that Ryan is going to cause an incident with his investigations than of a maybe real, maybe fictional old Russian bomb. His scepticism is furthered by the fact that most of Jack's information is coming from a notoriously ruthless old Russian army officer who claims he wants to help stop the cabal, but could just as easily be setting them all up; there's no way of knowing for sure where his loyalties actually lie. Anyway, the CIA head orders Ryan to be recalled from the field, causing Jack to go on the run, aided and abetted by Greer, his immediate boss Elizabeth Wright, and some other allies, both old and new. Thinking back over the course of all three seasons, I'd have to say that three is actually the strongest one. Series One was quite good, but it was hampered by one storyline- about the drone operator- which was dumb and went nowhere. Also, the romance between Jack and Cathy developed too quickly and then became tied to the plot in a pretty unbelievable coincidence. But still an impressive, if occasionally unfocussed, opening to the show. Season Two was... less impressive. It was almost completely disconnected from the first series; entire important plot points- including the Jack/Cathy relationship- had without explanation or even mention, disappeared. The stakes were much less high than in the first series, and then the writers ticked me off by being dishonest about the government of Venezuela, pretending that they have a right wing government instead of a left wing one. They just didn't want to portray the truth: that socialist policies caused the economic collapse of that country, and the totalitarian government baddies are actually leftists. So, as mentioned, I was somewhat sceptical about Series 3. But I was pleasantly surprised: the story stayed focussed, not straying off into unrelated storylines and silly romances. Every different plotline is important to the overall story. Also, other than a rather sympathetic portrayal of the fictional Russian president, there's no attempt to portray these guys, and Soviet history as anything other than what they are. And even the easy treatment of the Russian leader is somewhat undercut when, at the end, he ruthlessly disposes of all of his enemies/rivals. The working relationship between Ryan and Greer continues to be a highlight of this show, and it has- pleasingly- grown and changed. They are no longer adversarial in any way: sure, they like to give each other a hard time, but they trust each other implicitly and will back each others' play without question, though not without comment. They don't share the screen as much this season; Jack is on the run, in the field working the case, most of the time, while Greer is working from the other, more diplomatic side of things; he used to be stationed in Russia and knows- or knows of- most of the key players. A new addition to the cast was Elizabeth Wright, Ryan's new boss, and she's actually a pretty good character. Ambitious, with her eye on the top job in the Agency, she's at first reluctant to back Ryan up as he seems likely to explode his own career and probably take his handlers down with him. But her sense of duty is stronger than her quest for advancement and she's soon completely on board with helping Greer keep Jack on the case and off the grid. Also, by-the-by, it's refreshing to see a female character who is strong and competent without the writers having her improbably karate-chopping her way through dozens of men three times her size. I mean, I don't expect the action in shows/movies to be completely realistic, but come now... in any case, it's always nice when someone realizes that there are other ways to be strong; it doesn't happen nearly enough. One inspired decision which was made was to bring back the character of Mike November, who was the CIA Venezuela station chief in season 2; it's not his fault that it was a bit of a stinker. He's now an independent contractor, with friends in high- and low- places. Jack goes to him for help as he's cut off from any CIA aid, and November agrees to join the mission, his resources and connections proving invaluable. He's a great character and effortlessly steals almost every scene he's in. So all in all, series three is a very strong outing for Jack Ryan; the plot is tense and focussed, the stakes are high, and all of the characters work. If I have one complaint, it's that the analyst side of Jack really has taken a back seat in the last two series; he's pretty much straight up field agent now, and any analysing he's doing is frequently being shouted into his phone as he runs away from/chases after, bad- or in some cases, good- guys, and dodges bullets. There's a lot of chasing going on here... some of the plot reminded me a bit of the plot in the Jack Ryan film from 2002- The Sum of All Fears (Ryan played by Ben Affleck) in which a rogue Austrian terrorist tries to spark a nuclear war between the States and Russia. And in the final episode, there's a stand-off between a Russian naval warship and an American one which has the distinct feel of The Hunt For Red October about it, which was interesting. To sum up, I really enjoyed watching Jack Ryan- Series III, and would definitely recommend it. Related Posts: |
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