Today is the anniversary of the death of John Lennon, murdered on 8 December 1980.
The whole world was shocked by that inexplicable murder.
Today we want to remember him as a great singer who has become legend.
John Lennon
Category: slight digressions
“The Crown” season four
The award-winning series “The Crown” Season Four, has been heavily criticized by the royals of England : they accuse producers of the hit Netflix drama of presenting fiction as facts.
The controversial fourth season is based on the events of the royal family’s life between 1979 and 1990, and focuses especially on the turbulent relationship between Prince Charles and Princess Diana, played by Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin.
Prince William thinks that both of his parents have been presented in a false and simplistic manner and he thinks this is deeply unfair, especially since many of the things that are narrated do not represent reality.
Moreover Charles is described, since the beginning of the engagement with the young Diana Spencer, in his extramarital affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.
Congratulations to the cast composed by top-level actors, but do you know that even Emma, a while ago, played the part of the Queen?
She played the part of the monarch in Walking the dogs, a touching comedy drama based on the events happened in 1982, when an intruder climbed up the garden walls of Buckingham palace and broke into Queen Elizabeth’s bedroom while her footman was out walking the dogs.
Emma also played the role of the red-haired monarch Queen Elizabeth I in the sitcom Upstart Crow Christmas Special.
She looks totally unrecognisable!
Christopher Reeve
Today marks the 16th anniversary of Christopher Reeve’s death. We honor him with a clip from the movie “The remains of the day”, shot two years before Reeve’s accident.
“I have to say this: you are, all of you, amateurs and International affairs should never be run by gentlemen amateurs. Do you have an idea of what sort of a place the world is becoming all around you?”.
Sophie Thompson
Let’s get to know Sophie, Emma’s younger sister.
Sophie Thompson is best known for characterful roles in theatre and on screen. She started on Four weddings and a funeral, Persuasion, Emma, Eat pray love, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and so on.
She said she was a shy girl but having grown up with theatre she realized that that was her true calling.
“My family has an innate sense of joy and absurdity about being alive and having the opportunity to enjoy this world that we are in” she affirmed.
Away from acting, Sophie and Emma broke a court injunction while filming a baking competition on a fracking site, protesting with some Greenpeace activists and peacefully occupying the land, despite demonstrators being banned from that place.
The two sisters are very close and have never been in competition.
I hope someday they make a movie together, that would be great!
Learn English with Gill
I’d like to introduce you to a very interesting youtube channel where you can learn English thanks to Gill’s lessons. Gill is an amazing teacher, she is nice and professional and she explains very clearly and thanks to her you can learn the right pronunciation of British English.
I had studied English at school and university but I have to admit that I could perfect my pronunciation by watching the videos of Emma Thompson, whose pronunciation is simply perfect.
Gill’s lessons instead help me refresh my memory on grammar.
If you are not a native English speaker and want to follow the interviews with Emma without subtitles, hurry to learn English!
TIFF Tribute Actor award
Congrats to the wonderful Anthony Hopkins who received the TIFF Tribute Actor awards.
The gala was held virtually due to COVID-19.
“This award is yours,” Hopkins told first responders and front-line workers. He stars in The Father, a drama film directed by Florian Zeller in which he plays an old man who is losing his mind. The film also stars Olivia Colman, playing Anthony ‘s daugther who has to face her father’s mental deterioration.
Anthony Hopkins is astonishing. In a recent interview, when Emma was asked why it’s so good to act with Hopkins, she answered “He watches and listens and he’s completely without defenses or any internal systems that might get in the way. He’s not protecting himself. You know that you can do anything and what will come back from him has nothing to do with the actor and everything to do with the part. He’s remarkable in that way”.
For me Hopkins/Thompson remains the most close-knit couple of the cinema.
Kate Winslet regrets over working with Allen and Polanski
Kate Winslet, who appeared in Polanski’s Carnage in 2011 and in Allen’s Wonder Wheel in 2017, in a Vanity Fair interview admitted “I have to take responsibility for the fact that I worked with them both. I can’t turn back the clock. It’s like, what the fuck was I doing working with Woody Allen and Roman Polanski? It’s unbelievable to me now how those men were held in such high regard, so widely in the film industry and for as long as they were. It’s fucking disgraceful”.
She is struggling with regrets over working with Allen and Polanski, both accused of sexual misconduct with minors.
Kate was Emma’s partner in the movie Sense and sensibility in which they played the roles of two sisters.
The cry of nature
Yesterday the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Living Planet Report 2020 sounds the alarm for global biodiversity, showing an average 68% decline in animal population sizes tracked over 46 years (1970-2016).
It reports that this catastrophic decline is largely due to the environmental destruction caused by humans.
We can no longer ignore this alarm cry from nature, we must take responsibility for the environment and the animals that are threatened with extinction because of our irresponsible behaviour!
Emma Thompson has always been sensitive to environmental issues, she is a Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion activist and in 2015 she participated in the official campaign video to inspire people with the message to act and use their power to change climate change.
Tilda Swinton honored by the Venice Film Festival
British actor Tilda Swinton has been honored by the 2020 Venice Film Festival with Golden Lion for career achievement.
During her acceptance speech the actress referred to Venice as “the most venerable and majestic film festival on Earth” and then she said “It’s so great to see those cruise ships gone” referring to the battle of the environmentalists against the passage of the polluting great ships in the lagoon of Venice.
Unexpectedly the Rai Tv censored this part of the speech not including it in the Italian subtitles, but I’m convinced that she decided to say it at the last moment, therefore the direction was not in possession of that part of the speech.
Some things are good to keep hidden to the last to avoid that someone prevents us from expressing our point of view on a very important issue.
Emma Thompson, who recently became citizen of Venice, has always fought against the shameful income of cruise ships in Venice.
Emma speaks Italian against the cruise ships in Venice.
“Sto con i cittadini di Venezia perché il ritorno delle maxi navi è impensabile”.
“I’m with the citizens of Venice because the return of the maxi ships is unthinkable”.
I love Emma Thompson 