#french-belgian movies

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Lucky Luke and Jolly Jumper - Daisy Town (1971)

[zippocreed501]

...images from the lost continent of cult films, b-movies and celluloid dreamscapes

Bandes dessinées: A selection of French and Belgian comicbook adaptations

Tintin and the Golden Fleece (1961) Lucky Luke (1991) Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar (1999) Michel Vaillant (2003) Blueberry (2004) Largo Winch (2008) The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010) Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

[celluloidrainbow]

JE, TU, IL, ELLE (1974) dir. Chantal Akerman For more than a month, eating only powered sugar, Julie tries to deal with a breakup: she paints her room twice, removes the furniture, writes and rewrites a letter to her lover, clarifying all she had said. Once her sugar is gone, she leaves self-imposed isolation to embark on a road trip that leads to lonely love affairs with a male truck driver and the former girlfriend who started it all. (link in title)

[illustraction]

Le SAMOURAI (1967) - ALAIN DELON MOVIE POSTERS (Part 20/20)

We conclude this short retrospective of ALAIN DELON's filmed with his masterpiece Le samourai, his first movie out of 3 directed by Jean-Pierre Melville (see parts 11 and 16).

Above are the ALL original movie posters from Japan as well as from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the US (click on each image for details)

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville Actors: Alain Delon, Nathalie Delon, Francois Perier

ALL OUR ALAIN DELON POSTERS ARE HERE

If you like this entry, check the other 19 parts of this week’s Blog as well as our Blog Archives

All our NEW POSTERS are here All our ON SALE posters are here

The posters above courtesy of ILLUSTRACTION GALLERY

[apicturespeaks]

From the East, Chantal Akerman

[niche-cinema-enjoyer]

Infiniti

France, 2022

The strange death of Anthony Kurz

There is panic on Earth when suddenly there is complete silence. The ISS space station is no longer communicating. All that is known is that there had been a collision with a space transporter shortly beforehand. Otherwise, the ground crew has no further information.

The only clue to the status of the ISS crew is found in the most bizarre form in Kazakhstan. There, Kazakh policeman Isaak (Daniyar Alshinov) stumbles across what is probably the strangest corpse he has ever seen: The dead man's head is missing, but he appears to be completely covered in a layer of wax. And the strangest thing is that this man, identified as Anthony Kurz, was actually supposed to be on the ISS.

Kurz's colleague, astronaut Anna Zarathi (Céline Sallette), can’t believe any of this. She was close to Kurz and insists that the body cannot be his. According to her, Kurz and his team should still be alive. And it is her job to help them. But their superiors are anything but prepared to launch a rescue mission.

To get to the bottom of the strange death and the whereabouts of the ISS crew, Anna and Isaak team up to investigate themselves. As they do so, the questions they have to ask themselves become increasingly unreal. Finally, one of them is posed in all its absurdity and needs to be answered: What if the dead man is actually Anthony Kurz - but who is also still in space and alive?

[thesnakeandthemoon]

The Lost Boys (2023)

dir. by Zeno Graton

[coppercookie]

The smurfs and the magic flute (1976)

Wow what a misleading title. A salesman sells a flute to Peewit, the court jester but the flute magically forces anyone who hears it to dance. Eventually the flute is stolen by a bad guy who uses it to steal all the money. So Peewit and his friend Johan must take it back. They find a wizard to teleport them to the world of smurfs so they could get their help.

So yeah the smurfs don't appear until half way through the movie and their point in the movie is really contrived. Why couldn't Johan and Peewit just plug their ears that would have been so much easier. I'm not really a fan of the smurfs so I'm not too upset of their absence but this is just a pure marketing ploy.

The amount of padding in this is insane, it gets to the point where Johan and Peewit and just sitting there bored waiting for the smurfs to do something. The songs in this are pretty grating as well since the characters are meant to be bad singers. Having these sorts of jokes completely fall flat because they actually subject the audience to the bad singing.

I wouldn't watch this movie even if you're a smurf fan you'd probably hate it.

The list

[moviesandmania]

SATURN BOWLING (2022) Reviews of dark, serial killer noir thriller - trailer and Sept 29th release

Saturn Bowling is a 2022 French-Belgian dark serial killer noir thriller about a series of murders that ensue around a bowling alley. Directed by Patricia Mazuy from a screenplay co-written with Yves Thomas. The movie stars Arieh Worthalter, Achille Reggiani, Y-Lan Lucas, Leïla Muse, Frédéric van den Driessche, Olivier Faliez, Elisa Hartel, Emmanuel Matte, Nicolas Lepy, Frédérique Renda, Denis…

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Asterix the Gaul (1967)

[dweemeister]

NOTE: Thanks goes to the 2024 Animation is Film Festival in Los Angeles for their screening of Flow this last October.

Flow (2024, Latvia/Belgium/France)

In modern animated movies, audiences expect that any animals that show up to be as sassy as the big-name actor that invariably portrays them. The idea of depicting animals in de-anthropomorphized ways or having them express only animalistic wants and needs have, for decades, been out of fashion (if they ever were). To portray animals in nature, as they are or might be, is not a concern to the major American animation studios. But it is the concern in Gints Zilbalodis’ feature film, Flow (Straume in the original Latvian). Produced by a patchwork of Latvian, Belgian, French, and other studios across the European Union, this is Zilbalodis’ second feature, after Away (2019). Animation in Europe, with Comcast-owned Illumination (France) and maybe Aardman (United Kingdom) as exceptions, remains a thoroughly unprofitable and infeasible venture without the collaboration of partner studios across the continent and subsidies from various E.U. governments.

Through the animals found in Flow – and especially the black cat via whom we experience the film’s narrative – Zilbalodis relates to the audience how difficult and, ultimately, rewarding it can be in learning how to trust and work with others. That trust, in turn, enriches one’s own life. The animals of Flow embody these themes while remaining simply animals. Other the occasional anthropomorphized behavior, the cat and their companions (no names, no genders) are what you expect them to be. There is refreshingly zero dialogue in Flow (excitedly, that makes it two fantastic no-dialogue animated films for me this year), allowing for a rare instance in which a 2020s film can easily cut across geographic, linguistic, and age barriers. Speaking of age barriers, Flow dissolves any notion that animation is simply a children’s medium. This is a film that a viewer of any age can enjoy; children and adults will both take something very different away from one of the most remarkable animated features of the year.

Nature has reclaimed the ruined vestiges of humanity – present nowhere in a waterlogged world. On a forested hilltop in a wooden cottage lives a black cat, surrounded by wooden carvings of cats and an enormous statue of a cat that looms over the residence. The cat has just had a testy exchange with several dogs and is resting one evening when they notice that the water is rising dangerously fast. Sprinting to the largest cat statue, the cat notices that water is fast consuming almost all of the land as far as their eyes can see. In a stroke of good fortune, the cat hops onto a passing boat just as the statue becomes completely engulfed in water. Already sailing this new high sea is a well-mannered capybara, who we find out has already learned how to steer the boat. On this journey of survival, the cat and capybara will pick up other passengers: a towering secretary bird, a kleptomaniac lemur, and a Labrador Retriever who always wants to play, no matter the situation. Our central quintet will encounter other animals along their travels: those who wish to be left alone, others who might want to join them on this journey without destination, and others who help in their own way.

Key to immersing oneself into Flow’s measured pace is to not look for answers where the film has none. When Flow made its North American West Coast premiere at the Animation is Film Festival in Los Angeles, Zilbalodis claimed he “did not care to explain” the exact reasons for humanity’s complete absence from Earth. Without exposition, Flow is, at a basic level, a depiction of animals contending with the whims of nature. Beyond this, the film is ripe for interpretation – one could even argue that the narrative of Flow itself exists only for its own sake. There are several hints that the dramatic water level rises have been occurring for some time, and only now is it reaching the elevation where it concerns the cat. The closing minutes of Flow leave the fates of each character ambiguous. Credit to Zilbalodis and co-screenwriter and co-producer Matiss Kaza for trusting the audience’s intelligence here.

Between those moments, each of the animals – the cat, the capybara, the secretary bird, the lemur, the Labrador Retriever – all grow, to different extents, to cast aside their selfishness and to assist the others in the boat. As long as they travel together, their lives are inextricably tied to that of the group. Because the cat is the film’s main character, the cat’s personal growth is most apparent. Aloof early on, implicitly used to some sort of indulgent lifestyle, and clearly annoyed by the nonsense of the lemur and the Labrador Retriever, the cat learns to fend for themself, to not depend on the odd bit of charity from the capybara or the secretary bird for food. In a colorful montage where the cat teaches themself to hunt while swimming, it initially appears that the cat will catch the fish just for one. Who would blame the cat after eating only a few bananas on this voyage? Instead, in respect to the secretary bird ��� who alternates with the capybara in steering the boat and who defended the cat earlier in the film from harm – the cat shares some of the aquatic bounty with them, as well as the Labrador Retriever.

There are perilous scenes that more dramatically depict the growth of each of our central quintet. In the sum of Flow’s dramatic and its quotidian moments, all of the animals – separated from others of their own species who might better understand them, with only a few feet of wooden planks separating them utter desolation – embrace the things that are essential. Eventually, they set aside their pride, material desires, and perhaps their own wellbeing to ensure the safety of the others. All of this is shown through their actions, in ways that will be understandable to audiences across cultures and time. Flow is a deceptively simple film when examining it solely through its story. Its complexities appear when one understands how difficult it is for a group of different-minded individuals to come to a mutual understanding for their own survival, let alone members of different animal species.

Made for less than $4 million in 2024’s USD (for contemporary comparison, The Wild Robot cost $78 million, Inside Out 2 at $200 million), Flow contains animation that belies its fractional budget. Animated using the open-source tool Blender, Zilbalodis’ team had to use some shortcuts in animating. The backgrounds, lush as they appear, are not always as detailed as they seem to be. If a scene does not have the animals move into the recesses of the background, Zilbalodis and his animators choose to leave the foliage as a blur, giving an impression of depth where there is none (see: draw distances of vistas in open-world video games as a counterexample). One can even glimpse a faint brushstroke among the trees and stone columns that dot the landscape – imperfections that remain in the film intentionally. The human infrastructure – or what remains of it – that appears is similarly not as detailed as one might think at first. The architectural styles seen within make no geographic sense, ranging from vaguely Venetian to Himalayan.

The human attention and processing power of Flow’s animation instead goes into its character animation and water effects – the latter was the responsibility of exactly two animators. So too the incredible sound design by Gurwal Coïc-Gallas (2017’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, 2023’s Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds). Flow’s character animation and its animal acting is the animated marvel of this production. Zilbalodis, who had a cat himself during his secondary school years, based the cat’s behavior on that cat. In interviews, Zilbalodis has described his film as, “not… copying nature, [but] interpreting it and creating a performance.” Granted, each of the animals in Flow behaves how you might expect them to in nature. But, like its spiritual predecessors in Bambi (1942) and Watership Down (1978), Flow necessarily injects a level of anthropomorphizing. Nevertheless, Flow – even with some humanizing (especially in some of the facial expressions) of the animals – feels as shorn of anthropomorphizing as one could expect in an animated movie. Too often in major animation studio films, there is a slickness and rubbery texture to character and background animation that, after a few minutes, loses its personality. Flow, in its imperfections and attentive animal acting, might be CGI-animated, but its craft always feels human.

Like his first film Away, Gints Zilbalodis does much of the work beyond directing and cowriting. Zilbalodis is also co-producer, cinematographer, editor, art director, and co-composer (along with Rihards Zaļupe). During the production of Flow, Zilbalodis also learned, like the animals in this film, to learn how to ask for help and to be a better collaborator. Zilbalodis, who also composed the music for Away, had to call in Rihards Zaļupe because he was having difficulty in directing the emotional contours of Flow’s score. Like the score to Away, Flow’s score is largely an ambient experience, with few melodic throughlines – this is a score meant only to accompany the film, not to help in the storytelling. Zaļupe, a professional composer, brought in a full orchestra to help Zilbalodis – gifting the film rapturous cues such as “Flow Away”. Other times, such as when the animals enter the Venetian-like city, Zilbalodis and Zaļupe’s score crescendos and layers the orchestra, only for no apparent reason on-screen and within the score itself. Zilbalodis was correct in calling in a professional composer to assist him on the music, but this is a score of someone who needs to learn that a film score can be more than just textural.

Gints Zilbalodis has noted that Flow was not truly influenced by cinema or any other works of art (other than maybe the comedic timing of silent film stars like Buster Keaton). It is a film that comes almost purely from dreams, sometimes adopting the logic of dreams. Too many modern filmmakers, forgetting that cinema is principally a visual medium, over-rely on dialogue to move a story or characterizations forward. Flow is a necessary reminder that, in film, visual storytelling comes before anything else – not the dialogue, nor messaging. It is a remarkable sophomore directorial effort from Zilbalodis – one that elevates his standing beyond animation diehards. Flow is also a breathtaking statement of animation’s power, its primordial closeness to the dawn of cinema, and what one can achieve when we genuinely try to understand the plights of others.

My rating: 9/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[celluloidrainbow]

LES RENDEZ-VOUS D'ANNA (1978) dir. Chantal Akerman Anna, a detached and diffident director, arrives in Germany to show her latest film; she checks into a hotel, invites a stranger to her bed, and abruptly tells him to leave. He asks her to a birthday lunch with his mother and daughter; she goes. Afterward, in Cologne, she meets an old friend, a Polish Jew and war refugee. In Brussels, she spends the night at a hotel with her mother, whom she rarely sees. On the train, a stranger tells his story. Last, it's home to Paris, where her lover Daniel picks her up and they go to a hotel. Throughout, people make personal revelations to her, and Anna listens with little affect. Although it was 30 years ago, the war seems ever present. (link in title)

[illustraction]

MY NAME IS NOBODY / A GENIUS TWO FRIENDS AND A DUPE (1973-1975) - SPAGHETTI & OTHER RECIPES' WESTERNS (Part 2/10)

While the Spaghetti Western genre is often associated with violence and dark heroes, its popularity spawned a sub genre, i.e. the Comedy Westerns led by Terence Hill with the Trinity series (see Part 10) and culminating with the Sergio Leone produced My Name Is Nobody in 1973 followed by its lesser sequel A Genius Two Friends And A Dupe in 1975.

Above are posters from Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, the US and ex-Yugosalvia (click on each image for details).

Director: Tonino Valerii, Damiano Damiani Actors: Terence Hill, Henry Fonda, Robert Charlebois, Patrick McGoohan, Klaus Kinski, Miou-Miou

ALL OUR SPAGHETTI WESTERN MOVIE POSTERS ARE HERE

If you like this entry, check the other 9 parts of this week’s Blog as well as our Blog Archives

All our NEW POSTERS are here All our ON SALE posters are here

The posters above courtesy of ILLUSTRACTION GALLERY

[funnypages]

In 2025, Tintin is entering the public domain in the US

The character of Tintin, of The Adventures of Tintin, one of my favorite comics from when I was a kid, is entering the public domain in 2025 (in the US) so I'm rereading the series and thought I'd give some history on the comic, as I dont know how well known he is among younger Americans

Who is Tintin?

Tintin, created 1929 by Belgian cartoonist Hergé (real name Georges Prosper Remi), is an ambiguously young investigative reporter and amateur detective who travels the world investigating criminal networks, hunting for treasure, exploring far away places, and solving mysteries. His enemies include crime bosses, foreign dictators, drug smugglers, human traffickers, and sorcerers. Hergé wrote 23 Tintin Adventures (as well as a partially finished 24th story published a few years after his death) from 1929-1976.

Tintin's allies and recurring cast include (L-R in bottom image): Professor Cuthbert Calculus (Tryphon Tournesol in OG French) a hard of hearing but brilliant scientist, Captain Haddock a foul mouthed alchololic ships captain (and Tintin's closest friend), Snowy (Milou) his smarter than normal dog, Detectives Thomson and Thompson (Dupont et Dupond) bumbling identical twin detectives, and Bianca Castafiore an Italian opera singer who Tintin often bumps into on his travels

Tintin and Spielberg

I would say most Americans, particularly younger ones, if they have heard of Tintin, it is from the 2011 CGI Spielberg movie

The story goes that Spielberg, after the first Indiana Jones movie came out, was on vacation in Europe and was confused about why so many European reviews (positively) compared Indiana Jones to "Tintin." He then read some of the comics, fell in love with them, and go in contact with Hergé, who he discovered was a big fan of his work. This led to an agreement that Spielberg would be the one to adapt his comics into a movie.

Tintin and Racism

Where should I start? So we need to address the elephant in the room about Tintin. Several of the early stories are quit racist, although I will give some more context about them

The most infamous Tintin story is the 2nd one, Tintin in the Congo, involves Tintin going to the 1930s Belgian Congo and encountering indigenous people there. It is just as bad as you would expect (although I have seen some articles from Congolese people, that it is so bad it wraps around to being hilarious, but of course YMMV). In addition the series as a whole does have some problematic portrayals of POC, I would say the worst being Indigenous Americans and Arab/Middle Easterners

That being said, I will give Hergé credit and say that you do see his views evolve over the 60 years he was writing these stories, and he does make a significant shift early on. The 5th Tintin story The Blue Lotus, involves Tintin going to 1930s Shanghai. Hergé knew basically nothing about China and had previously had some very steyoticpal Asian characters in earlier stories, but on the advice of a friend, he decided to get in contact with several Chinese students studying at universities in Brussels. There he met sculptor Zhang Chongren, who became a life long friend of Hergé and educated him on issues of imperialism in China. The end result is The Blue Lotus is (for 1936) a surprisingly nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of China and its people, with the main villains being Japanese and European imperialists, and Zhang even inspiring a character Chang Chong-Chen, who is a recurring character across the whole series.

After this point I would make an argument that you see a much better shift in Hergé's depictions of POC. They are still often of their time, but if you compare them to his earlier stories they are significantly more nuanced and sympathetic. Two examples of this are

The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun - stories 13-14, that call out and criticize Western archeologists looting Indigenous American artifacts

The Castafiore Emerald - story 21, that has a significant subplot involving a local Roma community, with the characters being disgusted at how they are treated by local people and cops and how they are scapegoated for the central crime of the story. Its honestly a portrayal that would be considered pretty progressive for 2025 Belgium, let alone 1961.

What would I like to see in new Tintin stories?

So it's worth noting that A) Tintin is only in the public domain in the US and B) only characters that appear in the original 1929 comic (i.e. Tintin and Snowy) are entering PD; Haddock, Calculus, and the others wouldn't enter till later.

However here are a few ideas for future Tintin stories I would like to see

Remake the first 2 stories - The first two Tintin stories - Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo - are not good. Not just story wise but they lack the art style and tone of the series as a whole. I would like to see the two stories remade with better sensibilities and tone constant to the rest of the series.

Who Dun Its and Ghost Stories - Go full Agatha Cristie/Scooby Doo and have Tintin solving mysteries and debunking stuff.

Adventure Archeologist - There is a reason why people have made the Indiana Jones/Tintin connection. Some of the best Tintin stories involve him going on treasure hunts and honestly all 5 of the IJ movies could be Tintin stories with some tweaks. Have Tintin go on adventures to find Atlantis, El Dorado, Noah's Ark, and Excalibur.

Lovecraftian Horror - Artist Murray Groat did some great covers years back of Tintin/Lovecraft stories and yeah, I want this. You could easily make At the Mountains of Madness a Tintin story.

[chacolatepocky]

Twisted wonderland nationality headcanons

BTW NONE OF THIS IS CANON I DON'T THINK AND IT'S ALL MY OPINION FEEL FREE TO AGREE OR DISAGREE JUST DON'T HATE ON ME 💔💔💔💔💔

Heartslabyul:

Riddle rosehearts: British

Trey clover: British

Cater diamond: American

Deuce spade: British

Ace trappola: British

__________________________________________

Savanaclaw:

Leona kingscholar: Kenyan

Ruggie bucchi: Kenyan

Jack howl: American

__________________________________________

Octavinelle:

Azul ashengrotto: Danish

Jade leech: Danish

Floyd Leech: Danish

__________________________________________

Scarabia:

Kalim Al asim: Moroccan

Jamil viper: Moroccan

__________________________________________

Pomfiore:

Vil Schonenheit: German

Rook hunt: Ivory coast

Epel felmier: Sámi / Finnish

__________________________________________

Ignihyde:

Idia shroud: Greek

Ortho shroud: Greek

__________________________________________

Diasomnia:

Malleus Draconia: French

Lilia vanrouge: French

Silver: French

Sebek zigvolt: French

__________________________________________

Staff:

Crewel: British

Trein: French

Vargas: Italian

Crowley: French

__________________________________________

other characters:

Neige: Belgian / French

Chenya: British

Rollo: French

__________________________________________

Now for brief explanations:

I hc Most of heartslabyul as British because of Alice in wonderland (Set in Britain) and most of the characters are from the Queendom of roses. I Hc Cater as American because it just fits tbh.

I hc Leona and Ruggie from Kenya because that (allegedly) where the lion king is set in. I hc Jack as american because it fits (x2)

I hc all of octavinelle as Danish because of the little mermaid statue in Copenhagen and the little mermaid movie itself is set in Denmark.

i hc Scarabia as Moroccan because Aladdin is set in a Arabian country (Not said which one specifically) but i chose Morocco because it just felt like it fit.

I hc Vil as German because 1( The evil queen is German 2( Schonenheit is a German name. I hc Rook from ivory Coast because he's canonically from sunset Savanna but I wanted to choose a African country that speaks French as the main language so I picked that. I Hc Epel as Sámi, because I saw a post about how his hometown models a lot after Sámi culture, I hc that he is Sámi from Finland.

I feel like ignihyde is very self explanatory, Idia is based off Hades (Greek god of the underworld) and the Isle of woe resembles Greece

I hc Diasomnia is French only because Sleeping beauty takes place in france.

I hc Neige as Belgian mostly because He's supposed to be snow White (German princess) but his name is in French, And Belgiums main three languages are German, French and dutch.

I hc Crewel as British because he's from the Queendom of roses

I hc Trein as French because it feels right idk

I hc Vargas as Italian because Vargas is a Italian last name (i think)

I hc Crowley as French because im pretty sure he's a fae and probably from briar valley

The others are pretty explanatory I think...?

[gwendolynlerman]

An Ordinary Day in my Polyglot Life

Disclaimer: I'm not writing this post to brag, just because I love languages, and I'm very happy to live in a multilingual environment 😊.

As a Spaniard living in Belgium, I have contact with at least six languages every day:

My native Spanish, which I use with most of my colleagues (I work in a Spanish company) and friends (I need to diversify my friendships, I know, I'm trying) and when I text with/call my family and friends back in Spain.

English, which I use at work and with colleagues who are not native Spanish speakers, although some speak/understand Spanish.

French, which I use outside of work in my daily life, like when I go to the store or the gym.

Italian, because 40% of my colleagues are Italian (50% are Spanish, and there are a few people of other nationalities, such as two Belgians, an Irishwoman, and a Pole). I don't speak Italian with them, but I hear it and understand it.

Basque, because my company is based in Navarre, one of the two Basque-speaking regions of Spain. I don't understand or speak any Basque, but many of my Spanish colleagues are Basque or Navarrese and speak Basque to each other. I'm always amazed at how they switch languages in the middle of a sentence, and I go from understanding everything to not understanding a word (of course, they don't do this when they're talking to me or other non-Basque-speaking colleagues).

Flemish, because it's the other official language in Brussels. I don't speak Flemish (or Dutch), but thanks to my knowledge of English and German, I can understand it when I see it written and sometimes when I hear it in public transportation announcements.

Of course, I also study my target languages, Russian and Mandarin.

I have private Russian lessons twice a week because I want to take the ТРКИ-II [Test of Russian as a Foreign Language B2 (TORFL-II)] by the end of this year. I also listen to podcasts and watch movies, TV shows, and videos in Russian. By the way, I'm looking for recommendations of Russian-speaking Instagram accounts that are not specifically aimed at learners, but at native speakers, so if you have any, please write them in the comments :) I'm interested in culture, language, and linguistics, as well as politics—although the latter is of course a sensitive topic these days, and I want to avoid Kremlin propaganda 😅.

I'm currently working on maintaining my Mandarin level until I'm fluent enough in Russian to study it actively. My study routine consists of doing one lesson on Mango Languages, completing ten hànzì units on Duolingo (I've already finished the tree and pinyin practice, and Duolingo is especially helpful in helping me remember how to write the characters, which I don't do otherwise), and studying 20 words on Knowt, a flashcard app (I do this for Russian as well).