The man from uncle :: fashion style action!

If you're looking for something to do this May long weekend (Canada), you may want to consider The Man from Uncle.

What a pleasant surprise it was to watch  a remake of the 60s television series  Man from Uncle.

Typically, I'm not into the "action" film genre but this movie packed a punch with these things I enjoyed:

• A cast of beautiful people: they were very cool
• Fabulous fashions 
• Style galore: the set, the stars, the fashions
• A throwback from the 60s vibe and styles

BACKGROUND:

Set during the height of the Cold War, KGB Agent Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) is sent to capture Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander), the daughter of a former Nazi scientist who previous worked for the US. However, before Kuryakin can reach her, smouldering CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) gets there first. The next day, they’re both notified that they need to work together as it comes to light that Teller’s father has been forced to work for a billionaire diabolical genius who’s building a new type of atomic bomb. (COURTESY of Stylex)

CHARACTERS:

Napolean Solo

Henry Cavill looked familiar to me so I had to dig a little to recall where I had seen him last: VOILA!  the latest Superman flicks.

Henry is going to continue to climb on the manly meter.  He has style and substance as Napolean Solo with his dreamy presence crafted by Director Guy Ritchie  and cowritten with Lionel Wigram.

Illya Kuryakin

Armie Hammer has been on the film radar with movies The Social Network (2010), Mirror Mirror (2012) and The Lone Ranger (2013).  He may not be ultra smooth with his Russian accent, but he doesn't make just make his co-star character (Telly) swoon.  My guess is the young ladies are going to keep Armie on their "hunk" radar.

GabyTeller

Alicia Vikander has been flittering across our screens in notables such as The Danish Girl and A Royal Affair

I was particularly gaga over her styles and the chemistry between her and Armie Hammer -- kiss her already!!

Victoria Vinciguerra
Elizabeth Debicki commanded the screen as femme fatale villainous character Victoria.   We can't quite hate because her magnificent style.  We've seen her before alongside Leo in The Great Gatsby (2013) and one of my noted favorites Everest (2015).

Victoria captivated this fashionista with the eye-popping style, makeup and hair.

Waverly
Hugh Grant has been a fan favorite since his popularity rose in the 1990s with such memorable films as Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and Bridget Jones Diary (2001).  Safe to say fans have forgiven him for his past digressions as he solidly portrays CIA commander, Waverly.

FASHION
To drool over. Even Vogue took notice of the outstanding looks, fashions, hair, makeup.

SET
The mood of the film was arresting because of the brilliant set design.  The backdrops were incredible, they complement the action and scenes and styles.  From dark alleys to elegant hotels,  Architectural Digest  gave it a nod with a feature on the production design:  

A cast-iron public restroom is the setting for meeting between CIA and KGB

Even a casual meeting was surrounded by artful decor. 

Solo’s West Berlin apartment is a colorful contrast to the other dark interiors.

The historic architecture of Rome: the Spanish Steps and Teatro di Marcello.

The bygone era of the Cold War 

The Grand Hotel Plaza. 

The interiors of the aerospace facility were shot on a soundstage

MUSIC:

I discovered some new favorite music from great artists from the 1960s.  Many will be strikingly familiar (think Michael Buble and the Blues Brothers).  Have a listen:

Solomon Burke:  "Cry to me"

Solomon Burke:  "Everybody needs someone to love"

Nina Simon: "Feelin Good"

Roberta Flack:  "Compared to What"

REVIEWS:

The reviews from critics could have been a lot better, in my opinion.  It only goes to show you that often the critics are not in sync with the audience who were far more entertained.  I think more will agree with me after they watch it.  (p.s. I did go and add my own 4.7 stars at Rotten Tomatoes) 

Critic reviews

Though the pic is solidly made, its elegant vintage flavor simply doesn't feel modern enough to cut through the tough summer competition. Full review

Peter Debruge·Variety

Note to millennials: No one stops to text or take a selfie. You've been warned. Full review

Peter Travers·Rolling Stone

Though I strive to set aside all prejudices when the lights go down, I had a hunch that The Man From U.N.C.L.E. would be excruciating. Well, it turns out to be absolutely delightful. Full review

David Edelstein·Vulture

If stylish spy thrillers are your thing, look no further – Guy Ritchie is back with his reboot of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. – a tongue-in-cheek and highly polished take on the '60s television series.                                                                                                     Stylex

TOMATOMETER 

67%

Average Rating: 6.2/10

Reviews Counted: 228

Fresh: 152

Rotten: 76

Critics Consensus: The Man from U.N.C.L.E. tries to distract from an unremarkable story with charismatic stars and fizzy set pieces, adding up to an uneven action thriller with just enough style to overcome its lack of substance.

AUDIENCE SCORE 

74%

liked it

Average Rating: 3.7/5

User Ratings: 45,429

  |  Roger Ebert.com 

Print Page

The period spy thriller “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” is only intermittently engaging and amusing, and those portions of the movie that succeed are also frustrating. Because they’re cushioned by enervated, conceptually befuddled, and sometimes outright indifferent stuff.

TRAILERS:
Take a test spin by visiting Warner Bros. dedicated site to view the trailers to tempt you more.  Or just get to it.  It currently is available "On Demand" from Telus.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - Official Trailer 1

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - Official Trailer 2

Cause for embarrassment Calgary?

Calgary::photo by ?? Please reach out to insert name~or remove if requested)

I went a strolling on social media and ended up on reddit.com as I do more and more these days.  Before, it was "Mashable" whom I sponged from to feed my mental energy.  Needing to gain information and reshare it if it stays on my worthiness meter via +optioneerJM @optioneerJM as would be the most common spots I would stay for longer than a visual eye scan.

Never have I ever felt so ignited by a story that seem to pop out like a sore thumb among optimism over Fort McMurry's recovery and unified neighborly goodwill as @thecanadianredcross has been able to triumph over devastation.

Then tonight truth reared its ugly head.  We're not perfect.  We have a lot more to learn from humanity.  If this post on reddit.com were any indication:

Help with harassment from neighbor (self.Calgary)

submitted 7 hours ago by Thor-away90

Hi r/calgary,

For the past few years my mom, sis, and I have been dealing with our next door neighbour. He made it very clear to us that he believed that we did not belong in his neighborhood.

One time, My sister had a friend come and pick her up at the house and he came out and called her a bitch and slammed on her windows because he had an issue with the music. I came out to mediate and he said to me "there is no way someone who looks like that lives around here."

He continued to verbally assault me so I told him that I would be calling the police. His response was that he was a retired firefighter who worked with the calgary police and that he had no problem with me doing so.

I did not call the police. (I should have, i know.)

During the next 6 months he was unwilling to open his door and communicate with us. He chose a different route instead. Numerous 311 bylaw complaints. Grass complaints in the spring/summer and snow complaints in the winter. He has even made complaints that arent real ( idling in my own car in my own parking space (a friend of mine is an avid smoker and my mom wont let him smoke in the house. )

Once when we were sitting there smoking, he came out and took a photo of my friend's license plate. I asked him what his problem was, and he hurried into his house and wouldnt tell me what his poblem with us THIS TIME, was. So I finally called the police.

When the police came they went to speak with him first. When the officer came to speak to me his advice to me was to bake him a cake. Try to mediate the issue. I told him that I had tried to, but he wasnt open to communication. The officer then said to me, "I own my home too, so I understand his concerns with renters bringing down his property value."

Honestly, I've never felt more hopeless in my life. I feel like Im being bullied in my own home. Ive been advised that I could file a harassement complaint but since most of the harassement is in the form of 311 complaints, and not actual verbal harassment, that not much would be done.

We just got another one today and it was hard to see my mom cry while she was telling the bylaw officer how attacked she felt. What my mom didn't tell me until today, was the fact that even our landlord feels like we are being attacked because of racial prejudice.

Is there anything we could do to get this arrogant asshole off our backs? I dont want to retaliate and I dont want to move away.

Edit:

Could we take legal action?

Do instances like these help our case?

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Judge+orders+neighbourhood+fight+Fort+McMurray/10086182/story.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/04/16/red-deer-neighbour-bullying_n_9709212.html

Where more empathy than I can say I have ever experienced before, forced me to use my god given gift of empathy and being able to write.  A blogger, slowly emerging.  I have the ability to write and share what is usually right in our world, but every once and a while there lies a story that convinces me that there is a lot more work to be done to make ours a better world.  

These were my comments ::

I'm sorry to hear, to my dismay, all the harassment you and your family have had to endure. This doesn't sound like a "Calgarian" ... REF: Calgarians are nice people, mostly from other places, joined in community for the betterment of society, our kids, our homes. For some, Calgary is a short stop or a visit, to others it is our home. How dare someone within our city be allowed to keep doing this. Why haven't any of the news media caught on to this story? Like @CBC whom we have tended to rely on for credible stories catching the heart of our citizens. (Someone is asleep at the news roundup workstation ~ is that from apathy?) 

Words like anti-neighbour, racial intolerance, hostility, harassment, bullying are not common here. Well, for the optimistic many. Who made a little City on the prairies grow up, deal with hardship, economic downturn, yet be more optimistic, positive with pulsing vibe. A beat of a nation, the core of its wealth, and friendship to the world as Olympic representatives, ambassadors to the world during 10 days each summer (called: The Calgary Stampede).

The first time I ever came to reddit.com was because I wanted to learn more about an upstart politician who appeared to have become our mayor. An unlikely cast member thrown among the mainly white oil tycoons - Nenshi, or Naheed most of his new friends and supporters say.

How can Naheed Nenshi not take heed from this plea? Oh, probably because his purple dinosaurs are flaked out, zoned out, without a drum to beat. They should know that there is more going on in Calgary except Nenshi and still support and give others a break.

I realize there are links to this story from The Edmonton Journal and ever-reliable Huffington Post. (Which I dislike the name because it is synonymous with a name, not a vibe, not a beat like "Mashable").

I apologize for my rant, except that this should have a lot more attention! It really shouldn't even have to happen, it should be so objectionable behaviour that its existence would be shunned.

I then realized that the only thing we've heard about from Nenshi is going to have to start fund raising to pay back our City over a legal battle, not whatsoever related to Calgary business.

We must really be asleep at the wheel as citizens to let this one slide in and slide out.  Are we beaten down by oil prices slashing jobs, tired out by the energy required to restore Fort McMurry to the workhorse it has always been?  

Or we're all so caught up in the atmosphere of good neighborly spirit that the ugliest of events slip outside our sphere?

Are the media so enamored of Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton theatrics that they have been distracted to what is happening at home?

Or, it most likely is from Canadian corporations centralizing operations, which in turn churns out most of the news stories?  The CBC, The CTV, The Global (plural) in our world are only equipped, manned, technologically able to cope with central Canada and Prime Ministerial stories?  Are the attennaes only set for only a few goings on by a very few?

I always look surprised because I am ~Naheed Nenshi 

courtesy of CBC.ca News 

How dumb does he think we are?  Trying to recover from this averted political disaster, he acts like its back to Mr. Feel Good Mayorship again on his Facebook Page:  

Naheed Nenshi shared City of Calgary – Your Local Government's post.

May 11 at 9:09am · 

Neighbour Day is coming! Once again, The City is waiving fees if you want to book a public green space or block a street for a block party. Deadline to apply for a permit is May 27. See you on Neighbour Day!

No, I didn't sit idly by:

Jeannette Marshall Are you wagging the dog at us?http://calgarymayor.ca/.../city-pays-legal-fees-in-wenzel... ... quit looking so damn surprised that you scammed us

SOURCE:  Our city mayor's home page front story:  http://calgarymayor.ca/stories/city-pays-legal-fees-in-wenzel-v-nenshi-case-fundraising-to-begin-to-reimburse

Sadly, according to Google, his comedic dumbness over-shadowed even that story:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/nenshi-uber-responds-1.3550585

If you say, you do:  "Uber CEO is a dick" ~Naheed Nenshi (Courtesy of CBC.ca) 

I agree this story is alarming for our peace popping eye opener like this:

Border Officers seize guns at Alberta borders:

Courtesy of The Calgary Herald  <click here for link 

Embrace Friday the 13th as if it means only the #bestofeverything

Yes, you got it :: today is Friday the 13th and you had better not have been belly aching about bad luck, this or that.  Have a listen to this swan song that came out in 1980 from the Talking Heads that pokes fun and demystifies complaining and inspires us to get a move on if we want what we want:

Once in a lifetime
Is pretty startling.  It is a resonating message that today, May 13, 2016, is once in a lifetime.  You will not have another chance to relive it.  So make it worth a story worth telling.

I was fiddling around with my camera app on my laptop and decided to ignore it and just get down to writing, darn it.

I am all showered and made up to head out and meet my husband as we drop our inherited car off to have new tires put on.

Inherited?  Well, it's part of the 50s inheritance plan :: It's when you cosign a car loan and your daughter decides to head out to make her mark in the world, leaving you with the loan so you start driving it.

Now you may get the reason why I have the gadget to the right with cars called "Pump this ride".  It is my expressive rebellion on taking responsibility over want.  

I realized that I really don't post many pictures of myself so I did a couple of selfies to show that I'm not short on attitude, just in height.

My husband is already texting me to see if I've left - we're meeting in an hour and 15 for darn's sake - my way of gaining control over my life is being late more often than not.  That's from a gal who was meticulous about being on time, so much so that I was always 20 minutes early for everything and had to fight the boredom of waiting.

So I'll write about the favorite makeup used today later on.  The texts are coming speedily and if I want to meet my husband after work again, I'd better disprove his "always late" label for me (which wouldn't be far from the truth).

Remember to make today, your BEST day ever!!

xo

A culture of work ethic and optimism

Any smart employer or start up would be smart to consider an Inbetweener (1960-65) for hire.  Just take a look at what The New York Times said dispelling the myth that older workers are less productive and generally are weighing down the economy.

I agree with their observation.  Why?  Simply because I’m an older worker and I was hatched when there was a lot going on.  In fact, the first cold war, economic downturn not experienced since the 1920s depression.  There is a strong likelihood that my parents were children of the Great Depression, and raised me to be able to cope with such an event.

Think about it, the next recession to hit occurred just as I was graduating from high school, completed college, ready to get started with optimism and a strong work ethic bestowed by my parents.

Employers are missing the key element that brings the younguns the right example and proper expectations to reality.  We were born to be responsible, accountable and soldiers of work.

 

This same group that is debated also worked through the optimism that emerged in the late 1980s.  Some of the greatest discoveries and technological wonders impacted the world just as we were getting started.  There were no fancy training courses or charts to reference, we simply had to have a “can do” attitude to survive.  If we survived the prolific foreclosures of that era, unscathed, it was likely because we capitalized on others’ misfortune and scraped our pennies together to buy our first house.  Our aging parents were perplexed as to why were were putting home ownership before having children.

Not really surprising, looking back.  Almost anyone could have a child, but mostly everyone was uncertain whether the economy and opportunities were going to get any worse.  So we had to seize the moment and dive in.

 

 

We were fueled by the fear of not wanting to have to face what our parents’ childhood did, nor did we want to be victim of what was circulating around us:  doom and gloom.  Not just economically either.  There was a cold war going on.

I watch CNN’s series on the 80s and it sometimes makes me wonder if I was asleep during this period?  However, the biggest news stories of the day did register on my radar.  Yet I was simply too busy buckling down and working to keep from drowning from economic disaster.

 

One could take a look at that period and extrapolate a culture of survivorship, strong work ethic and ingenuity that came along with that era.   We weren’t afraid to start at the bottom and work our way up from the bottom.  So different from the sense of entitlement expounding today.

So, if I happen to be surrounded by Millennials, they should be so lucky.  Anyone in their 50s, born of the 80s careers, has an element of work ethic and the right attitude that an employer should want to sprinkle into their workforce.

 

Today’s employers think they’re pretty nifty to use technology to prove who is producing and who should be perished to the unemployment line.  Metrics have displaced instinct and doing what is right for their business and their customers.  Why, because they have strengths that are likely not acknowledged, never mind recognized:

1. They know how to get it done right the first time – slower does not mean stupid.
2. Speed and agility is aligned with accuracy – what happens when it’s done wrong?
3. They have pride in their work and are often overlooked because employers want to fast track the younger workers to ensure that they are cultivated to perform.
4. Beauty is often disassociated with age.  When there are so many beautiful people that are aging and setting strong examples for the youth.
5. They avoid sitting around feeling sorry for themselves because they were not brought up to think that way.
6. They were taught that if things aren’t going your way, it means you have to work harder.

Can you think of other attributes that the aging workforce contributes?  I certainly can think of at least a dozen more.  But I’m more excited to write this commentary and send it out into the universe to capture others that agree and stop the downward spiral of misinterpreting value that should be embraced, not shuffled off into obscurity.

 

Then again, there are some of us that write a Blog to expel our wisdom to the masses.  To head off mistakes that surely are happening from this mistaken philosophy.  There are simply so many of us that began our careers at the worst time in decades, until recently, that can be learned from, not banished.  We’re survivors, we’re really smart, and we have the “can do” attitude that no metric or test can uncover.