I want to comment on the 1990 Béatrice Dalle movie A Woman's Revenge (La vengeance d'une femme) that I was able to watch on T.V. at M4UFree.tv by using one of the browser apps that I have downloaded into our Android TV Box.
There is a closed captioning (CC) option on the video screen allowing quite large English subtitles.
As for the actual movie ... what a loser! I absolutely do NOT recommend ever bothering with this flop.
It primarily involved two women lamenting over the death of one of their husbands a year or so earlier. IMDb incorrectly claims that "Suzy, a beautiful woman, is coming back to Paris to attend the funeral of her lover, a married man."
Béatrice Dalle had the role of Suzy; and Suzy only learned of former lover André's long past death after she travels to Paris to stay in the hotel where she had originally gotten involved with André and his wife Cécile.
Cécile inexplicably shows up within a day or so of Suzy taking occupancy of the hotel room.
The whole movie was largely pointless, unrealistic, and often senseless 'back-and-forth' as each woman would lambaste the other with supposedly insightful analysis that seemed to me to be ridiculously contrived, yet each woman as victim of said recurring analysis would emote her devastation at each new revelation from the other.
It was sheer hogwash.
And this incessant portrayal of André as some sort of paragon neither woman seemed able to be emotionally free of was sheer ludicrousness. It developed that he likely committed suicide by driving into a tree while apparently in Suzy's neck of the woods at some point after she left him and Cécile (I got the impression that Suzy and Cécile also engaged in sexual activity with one another).
All three of the characters were clearly deeply disturbed mentally, and the back-and-forth eviscerating between the two women when they met again in Paris was just too phony to even begin to believe, for it evidently took place over quite a number of days. The movie freely advanced its various scenes in terms of time passage, and often it was only due to a character's change of clothing that one understood that another time jump had taken place.
I had thought that at least there would be some nudity, but there was none. Any sexual activity was simply implied.
Look, no one carries on the amount of commiserating and accusatory discourse that these two idiot women engaged in, each actually philosophizing their nonsense. The movie was simply a showcase for the script writers to see how psychologically profound they might be able to make themselves seem. The whole thing should have been a stage play ─ not a movie.
In the end, one of the women actually kills herself with a handgun, having managed to be so deeply overcome by the other's preposterously devastating analysis of how baseless a human being she intrinsically was.
C'mon. Get real.
Like I already said, only someone mentally ill who was already verging on suicide could possible be this affected by another person's blathering. A sounder mind would simply declare that she had endured enough of the other woman, and leave and be entirely done with her.
The bickering between the two was beyond bewildering ─ who would possibly continue with it for days on end when neither of the women had each other in their normal lives? Why put up with it? They had simply gotten involved in the relatively distant past due to André, the adulterous husband of Cécile ─ the protracted love affair had run its course, and then Suzy finally left to be done with him even though she loved the guy.
Somehow, this farce of a movie managed to exceed two hours! And no, I did not sit and watch it all in one viewing ─ I took three separate days to get through the movie.
I have been trying to find other very early Béatrice Dalle movies, but had to give up on locating anything for On a volé Charlie Spencer ! (1986); Chimère (1989); and Les bois noirs (1989).
Likewise, I have been trying to locate online sources for the earliest of French actress Marina Vlady's movies, but have thus far had no luck with her first two: Summer Storm (1949) and Due sorelle amano (1950).
There really are huge limits to what older foreign movies are available online. It should not matter than they are foreign language films ─ one would think that cinephiles of each foreign language would have as much vested interest in making an enduring available record their own country's movies as do we English-speakers of our movies.
Apparently that is not happening.
But enough of this topic.
Since my younger brother managed to arrive home yesterday evening prior to the 9:30 p.m. deadline that I had in place for him, I sat up and watched an episode of just one of the T.V. series that we follow in common ─ i.e., Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
I had an early a.m. Surrey / Delta walk planned for overnight, but it was still past 11 p.m. before I was to bed ─ and with my cellphone alarm set for 2:30 a.m., no less. As yet, my wife had still not returned from wherever it was that she went that afternoon.
When my alarm sounded, it pulled me from needed sleep. I did rise with applied vigour, but I was most reluctant about doing so. My eldest stepson was still up, but he retired before I was yet ready to leave my bedroom.
At latest, it was 2:43 a.m. once I had set off under a primarily overcast night sky, and I could feel the vaguest spittings of rain initially. All was fortunately dry, however.
It took me some while to overcome my grogginess, and I did find myself weaving a little unsteadily at times as I walked.
My projected rectangular route was ultimately to have 92nd and 99th Avenues on two of its sides, and 116th and 132nd Streets on the other two sides. Supposedly that 'perfect' rectangle should total 5.75 miles in total, but I lost my way in Delta and might well have topped six miles by the time I was finally back home, at which point it was several minutes after 5 a.m.
Regardless, my rectangle as expressed above would have had its approximate centre at the 9550 block of 124th Street as displayed on this Google Map.
The major learning experience I had apart from getting somewhat lost was hiking 99th Avenue into Delta and coming to a dead end. This Google Map shows where I left Surrey at Scott Road and crossed into Delta, and I kept following 99th Avenue to its dead end.
Unbeknownst to me, this was where there was a Tom Hopkins Ravine Park, which was essentially a small protected forest. You can see a trail marked on the map at the end of 99th Avenue, but the trail right there was actually an unlit steep series of descending steps that were working their way down to a bridge over Delta Creek, and then ascending up the other side.
This is a description of that park:
Tom Hopkins Ravine Park includes over 1 km of Delta Creek, with a protected area of over 6.5 hectares (16 acres) of sensitive ecosystem.
Most of the park is forest and inaccessible due to the sensitivity of the ravine ecosystem, but you'll find a number of natural area trails in the west section of the park. Access trails from 98A or 99 Avenue. You'll also find a pedestrian bridge crossing Delta Creek from 98A Avenue. Don't stray from the trails, as the ravine can be steep and upwards of 25 meters deep in places.
Tom Hopkins Ravine Park is one of the oldest park sites in the City, with acquisition of parkland dating back to 1919. A considerable amount of additional land was acquired and dedicated to the City through the 1920's and 1930's.
I not only had never before been to the park, but I had never before even heard of it.
And so in my ignorance and in the hope that I would reach a continuation of 99th Avenue at the other side, in the deep dark of the forest cover I began descending the confusing stairs, holding onto the rail and often just carefully placing one foot onto a lower step and then bringing the other foot onto the same step before taking the next one.
I found these photos of the stairs leading down and then up at the other side of the creek ─ I don't of course know which stairs were which, for I never saw them clearly in the dark, and never had any idea how much farther the stairs were going to be taking me:
That last photo is apparently the bridge over the creek.
Can you imagine negotiating this route in the tree-canopied dark when you have never been there before, and had no idea what you were getting into nor how far it might be going?
Keep in mind that I am 72 years old.
Undoubtedly, traversing this park to a next road expended a considerable amount of my walking time.
By the way, I believe that those photos were taken by a chap named Hnin Kyaw.
When I emerged to the other side of the park, I now do not know if I came upon 99th Avenue again, or if it was 98A Avenue ─ that latter does seem more likely ─ see this Google Map.
I followed whichever avenue it was to 116th Street, and then turned left. I followed 116th Avenue to 94th Avenue (Google Map), and then made the mistake of turning left onto it in the belief that I could reach Scott Road (120th Street) ─ on the map, my "left" was to the right as you view that intersection, for I was walking 'down' 116th Street from the map's perspective. Tom Hopkins Ravine Park was well beyond the top of that map.
Alas, making that turn onto 94th Avenue led to me doing all manner of meandering until eventually I arrived at 92nd Avenue ─ originally, I had only intended to walk as far as 94th Avenue. (In that meandering, I was to have to negotiate my way past a skunk.)
Anyway, henceforth I am unlikely to be ranging into Delta again on my night walks.
I got back to bed a little after 5:30 a.m., and remained there for just over three hours before rising for the morning. My brother was already up and watching T.V., but I did not go downstairs to join him until a little after 9 a.m.
My brother was to be leaving well ahead of 11 a.m. to pick up his girlfriend Bev and drive her to a medical appointment, so we only had time to watch one video this morning. I selected a June 5 upload by Liberty Coalition Canada to Rumble that was over an hour in duration (1:09:34): Barbara Kay: How Trans Activism is Destroying Women,Children, and Sport.
On this episode of Open Mike, Mike [Thiessen] is joined by columnist and author Barbara Kay to discuss her latest book Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial is Destroying Sport (http://www.unsporting.com).I very much enjoyed that interview of Barbary Kay ─ the lady is both personable and sharp. She gave Pastor Micheal Thiessen an idea for a future podcast that I do very much hope he takes advantage of ─ and before too long.
My early evening is upon me, so I wish to be finished with this post ─ my eyes are very much suffering. Early this afternoon when I had sought a nap, I was nicely into it when my cellphone rang with what was no doubt a 'spam' call. It terminated and ruined my nap, for it takes me a long while to fall asleep, and I did not feel I could spend the additional time trying to find my way back into slumberland.
I have of late taken to leaving my cellphone in a different room, but somehow I forget to do so this afternoon.
I wish that I had young eyes ─ hell, a young body!
By the way, following this morning's hike, a naked weigh-in racked me up as being ─ at most ─ 190 pounds at a height of not quite five feet and 11 inches.
I should also mention that my wife had to work a full day today at the Thai restaurant where she is employed part-time, so she got herself up this morning around 9:50 a.m. to begin readying for her day and the rather long drive to get to the restaurant, which opens at 11 a.m.
I will close here for today.
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