New Moon ('Twilight' sequel, book summary)

In Edward's absence, Bella got emotionally imbalanced and psychologically disturbed, hearing what she called as 'velvety, beautiful voice' in her head. She could not believe that he had decided to leave, compelling Bella to be oblivious about him 'as if he did not exist', thinking that was the best to get her off perils. Edward wouldn't give in to her request of being changed into a vampire to keep them eternally inseparable. It shook Bella off her normal senses, getting cold without conscious effort at fortifying blocks of truth to a conclusion that he didn't like her after all.

The moment that Victoria was hunting Bella to avenge her mate (James) down Forks and La Push raised some levels of hysteria though which was rather less significant to lifelessness at Edward's while of inexistence. So came Jacob Black's rescue with Sam Uley to lead the pack, of werewolves, slaying Laurent and keeping an eye and ready claw on the rest of his coven for Bella's safety, sealed in away even from the slightest threat. Jacob underwent intense struggle on the process of revealing his true identity before which, he and Bella had some nice things to share like the motorcycle adventure, where Jacob truly came in handy on her secret deprivation. Upon discovering that he was a werewolf and it was his pack that saved her life from Laurent's assault, Bella did not have second thoughts of wholeheartedly accepting him, as a friend worth of lifetime trust.

This, however, was not sufficient to release her from delusions of Edward talking to her mind whenever she got near danger. Bella often revisited the forest that once sheltered the Cullens and decided to jump off the cliff one time to dare sorts of hell close by, believing strongly that, that was the only way to keep hearing Edward's warning voice. Even as she drowned in the black currents, her feelings were safe from anxiety as if every fear were instantly washed off upon such vivacious hints that clamored 'Edward did exist'. Up to that point, she was spared.

It went too abrupt that Edward didn't take note of those details carefully, with a sweeping assumption that Bella committed suicide yet missing the puzzle piece that Charlie meant to be gone for Harry Clearwater's funeral, one very unexpected phone call. Hurriedly so, Edward consulted the 'Volturi' with the solid intention of ceasing to live without her. But the Volturi wanted to keep him (for his special talents) and would not grant his death wish, so he opted to just expose himself under broad daylight to burn away. When Bella learned about it through Angela, she didn't waste a second and flew off, at all cost. She stood by Edward at the nick of time, dragging him away from the sun's wide view until the next thing they realized was dealing with the inviolable Aro (of the Volturi) whose mad curiosity about Edward's unique decision as a vampire stared red at Bella with cunning inquisition on which his cohorts kept attentive watch. At the slip of fortune, he was mad convinced by what Alice had forethought to be Bella's later conversion on account immortality. Soon, they three were escorted out of the Volturi's chambers and gathered with the rest of the Cullens.

In their privacy, Bella and Edward paid each other debts of explanation they'd grown thirsty of when the spatial difference was at the remotest it could get, breaking to the faintest of touch.

Back to Bella's place where the infuriated Charlie, having had enough, had lain on a serious anticipation, Bella and Edward came across Jacob midway down the nearby forest, stopping at a distance assuredly buffered from his zone. The men's calculating, concentrated gazes didn't flicker as they shifted colors and brief utterances held the air stung with a founding edge of future crises between what used to be 'legends'. Bella understood that she was the major subject of it all when Jacob implied it at reminding Edward that when a vampire bites a human in the land they were bound to protect, the truce would be over. At this, he nodded to settle so that they could leave before tendencies blurted out of control.

Bella was mad at the same time filled with compassion to the point of regret for Jacob, having chosen Edward to be with. She had promised to get back to him one day with remarks in the hope of patching up their friendship which he would have thought betrayed.

Bella brought the Cullens to vote over her transformation. On the contrary, Edward wanted to keep her soul intact and not abolish her rights of humanity. Where this opposition led was what the third sequel (Eclipse) was looking forward to answer.

Come Back, Little Sheba (a 1952-classic film review/summary)

No wonder why Come Back, Little Sheba has since garnered timeless warmth of acceptance for one of William Inge’s classical masterpieces brought across into 3-D life via a package of stunning performances by Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster as Lola and Doc Delaney, respectively. Back in the days when much of Hollywood productions of the 50’s were building up ‘icons’ on a dramatic scale, rare were motion pictures which possessed capabilities real enough to be didactic and pragmatically relevant to the societal consciousness as this one. Lain on a typical domestic backdrop, present days for the Delaneys had been annexed by atmospheric tension in Doc’s tragic coping with his AA status which particularly was aggravated by the instance Marie Buckholder (Terry Moore), an undergraduate majoring in photography, moved in to lodge with the couple.

Doc had for sometime been off the intoxicating habit alongside Lola’s laborious dedication to stabilize their two-decade precarious marriage, helping Doc overcome dreadful upshot of his past addictive drinking, while she struggled to maintain composure around her daily chores. As a wife who had prematurely married Mr. Delaney and had gone stretched out through the strained years with a wretched spouse on the edge, Lola illustrated a woman who (despite her wasted countenance) was unyielding. Notwithstanding dejection, she had pushed her outlook wide and forward each day with constant spirit of understanding and earnest sociability the neighborhood was drawn to help level back with empathy.

It had almost sailed on smoothly for Doc’s management having celebrated a year away from the bottles when the arrival of Marie commenced another topsy-turvy, not literally by her behavior but by the physical bubbly charm she seemed to alarm Doc with, and which there were no duly affordable means for her to know then. Weak Doc, enabled by meager pride, obviously would not ring the household, bleaching the stain of malice out on his own wash. Jealousy toward Marie’s arrogant boyfriend Turk Fisher (Richard Jaeckel) consumed him as well that the unpleasant past memories easily subdued Doc. Culpably looking back at the losses, at a childless family miserably founded on an untimely wedlock in their aggressive youth, turned out readily provocative for Doc to engender mistreatment any moment from here. He went nearly incessant at reckoning such analogies with intensity that led his sensual advancements worsen the foreseeable episodes he only could scarcely resist at this stage.

Lola, on the other hand, busily counted upon the form of oblivion in her knowledge, that which aimed at best control of a positive character. On regular occasions, she tuned in to a low- frequency radio soul-search program, soothing enough to put her in trance and shake off the lingering emotional disturbances. Being tough as keeping such level of calm required creativity to achieve for Lola in which she deepened appreciation for music the way she recollected on the healthy side of the past when their youthful romance was still passionate. She took on esteem to radiate for her husband the groovy reminiscing, exhibiting so much hope at convincing Doc to somehow drive their hackneyed lifestyle into a corner.

The title figuratively supplied merits at the heart of the matter, symbolically connoting ‘lost’ and ‘come back’ further than Sheba’s disappearance. Prior to film watch, detailing forethought with the title made it appear childishly sought after, masked so much as it sounded, only to discover that there amply was more to the main action than the shallow conjecture temptingly drawn in advance. Lola’s longing for the family’s lost dog (Sheba) in her nightmare was, in reality, directly proportional to imploring Doc to ‘come back’ or reconstruct both him and the original state of the couple’s deteriorating affection for each other which to Lola was very dear like what the word ‘little’ implicitly held.

Caught in the middle of hope and his opposite wicked urge, Doc soon found himself getting knocked down by his losing of sane judgment. Uncontrollably out of hand, he meant to batter his wife one evening he got home highly inebriated. While throwing fits of accusations upon Lola’s scruples, the freaking latter staked her passage out, escaping Doc’s burdening rage. She phoned some close friends of theirs to hold out for a settling response and luckily enough, there were available ones (from Doc’s workplace) right in time for the rescue.

Centralized on Lola’s palpable consistency, the issue’s resolve spiraled in on her means to retrieve every lost piece which bitterly caused them pain and regret. Lola had stayed humble and proactive in order to earn continuous respect and support of their class. In the end in deed, Doc was back to Lola who had not the sparsest grief over his shortfall. Back too was the routine of everyday (like when the movie ended at breakfast scene) with nothing special except optimistic days ahead and unconditional love sure to compensate for the former deficits. Most of all, the conflict proved unique at not prompting any arguments to fill the air even as moods had been fairly realistic.

No part of Shirley Booth’s acting fell out of place, just adequate to be inwardly gratifying and Lancaster’s portrayal of a weakling equally untouched exaggeration like the very Delaneys mirrored their souls at the time. Come Back, Little Sheba relatively identified itself with Charles Brackett’s The Lost Weekend (1945) in the manner social epidemic of alcoholism or AA culture was critically addressed by showing how women have traditionally contributed an indispensable attribute of leading enfeebled men and partnerships from failure to conquest.

I Dreamed of Africa (a film review/summary)

Africa’s mystery has always haunted life’s journey for Kuki Gallman since she was a child and mostly after the horrible car tragedy which yielded all (passengers on board) except her to demise. Little did Kuki’s dreaming know that reality would give birth to her co-existence with Africa and which was going to turn the major point in her life and its truthful meaning. Any viewer would say it’s truly worth the ‘big screen’ to have constructive critic that touches people with insights and purpose at depth, thus.

Kim Basinger’s superb acting was commended through not only the Best Actress title bestowed by Oscar awards but Kuki herself too who liked Basinger’s portrayal of the main role in the film I dreamed of Africa, an attempt to showcase Gallman’s true life story. Only she expressed slight discontent on the film’s scripting thereby saying “The film is a film. But the book was the real story” –in reference to her autobiography which presently has over twenty translations.

When Kuki considered her husband’s (Paolo) idea of emigrating to Northern Kenya with her son (Emanuele), it never seemed right at first. Kuki had to hugely adapt to the omnipresent annoyances made by the ever-dynamic wildlife around and the unusually hunting neighborhood. Her initial reactions (at least as projected in the film) would explain how she least expected the circumstances that followed. Living her definition of simplicity under domestic confines (from her earlier perspective of African life while in the homeland of origin) had amounted to some misunderstanding with Paolo who, in contrary to the mundane, had gotten accustomed to the African culture of everyday survival, or means that were almost ritual. Paolo’s adventuresome character may be perceived as one of real African descent who chose to wander off the range, where wild jeopardy lurked freely than the worse of his own possibilities, to keep complacent with a dying ecological balance outside the fold. Emanuele, likewise, became tied up with his love for reptiles which outgrew his mother’s disapproval in the long run, as he expressed serious interest in herpetology.

Later on, Kuki saw through it learning that no matter how hard she tried to keep things under her best control or resist the flow, the nature of that environment stayed responsive with its own course, still in accordance with its unique set of laws, humanities might take forever to unravel. Kuki at the time had grown a heart filled with concerns beyond her own, giving substantial involvement to the new community which her family had come to love. Since then she had been supportive of her husband’s campaign against poaching of elephants and rhinos in Somalia for which, they especially hired a private squad of thirty rovers for seizure of poachers. This initiated Kuki’s lifelong passion for wildlife conservation, with a constant source of inspiration at having both Paolo and Emanuele who were profoundly involved with the animals and the land where they possessed a 100,000-acre cattle ranch in Ol Ari Nyiro.

Something to be discerned about the immensity of Africa’s way with nature had founded stronger roots on Kuki’s ideals after the two separate tragedies. Her husband died of a vehicular mishap on his way home with a crib, supposedly meant for their unborn daughter, and her son’s death three years after when Emanuele’s hand held loose of a viper that bit him at the instant he was extracting its venom to prepare a serum. It must have been more than too much to bear especially that they were the primary reasons she’d live through the continental ordeal they had altogether started. Nevertheless, she moved on in their honor, devoting the rest of her life to protecting the environment of Kenya with undiminished fervor.

I dreamed of Africa’s overall impact is suggestive of a woman’s spirit against the toughest odds as empowered by her continuing engagement to understand the vast ‘wild’ enabling her further aspiration of heeding its call for harmony to suffuse over its beauty through interdependent efforts of love toward nature. Gallman’s character through Basinger occurs enlightening enough that it directs guide to selfless traits a family must hold in great value and the individualistic essence of responsible stewardship for environmental protection.