Luís

Why the fuck is Don Murphy always involved in comic book adaptations? This will be his third now, and I believe he's also producing Iron Man and Transformers...

... FUCK!

That's a fucking lovely cover, isn't it?

I feel your pain, Chris; a lot of the characters' logic and decisions seemed too artificial, just to conform to the original trilogy.

Christian, I'm not so easily convinced :icon_evil:

Truth is, I couldn't care less! I just wish people wouldn't try so hard to justify what's clearly a plot hole; I believe in 'Jedi' Luke and Leia state they're talking about their 'real' mother and not Leia's adoptived one. But then I've also read the one where Leia's very strong with the Force and remembers the brief moments she was with her dying mother and that's what she's talking about with Luke in 'Jedi'

See, trying too hard :glare:

Pretty good

Heights does it for me! Can't stand high places, otherwise I feel myself losing ballance and get chills all over my body

A lot of my favourite 'emotional' music comes from movie composers. I don't know, I think there's something inherently emotional about soundtracks. Ennio Morricone, Angelo Badalamenti, Vangelis, Gustavo Santaollala, Luís Bacalov, Philip Glass, for instance. You can't get more emotional stuff than the score for The Hours.

Yeah, read about that theory too, but I'm not convinced; or perhaps I don't want to believe Anakin was deliberately created by Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious who discovered a way to create life out of nothing, a la homunculi. I think it's already fantastic that Darth Sidious planned his uberplan for 10 years; now his machinations would go back to the conception of Anakin? Next we'll take the 'Matrix' route and say the Siths invented the whole 'the chosen who'll bring ballance' prophecy... I don't know, it could be worth another trioogy... not! :icon_evil:

Watched it today after classes, and was thoroughly impressed. Enjoyed it a lot more than the other previous, although that's hardly a difficult task. An improvement on the acting - McGregor and Christenseen, anyway - and some of the emotional scenes actually work. Three things I thought were done very well: 1) Anakin's conversion into the dark side: I din't find it rushed or inconsistent; 2) an Oedipus Rex subplot: Anakin sees his own dark future and trying to avoid it, causes it; 3) the scope of Darth Sidious' plan becomes visible: a masterplan ten years in the making, manipulating both sides, sacrificing agents, putting his own life in danger, etc. And the way he gets rid of the Jedi is so nicely done; the 'order 66' across the galaxy made for a heartbreaking moment for me. I don't know if this is blasphemous to say, but I don't think I've seen such a brilliant evil mastermind since Grant Morrison's Cassandra Nova!

The special effects are top-notch, of course, the action scenes will probably set a new standard for this type of movies. The lightsabre duels were all outstanding with a few exceptions - didn't buy a lot into General Griveous as a threat, and Count Dooku was finished off too quickly. Obi-Wan's and Anakin's battle was long and entertaining (loved the theme playing during it) but what really shone was Yoda in action against stormtroopers, imperial guards and Darth Sidious.

Lots of corny scenes - Padme's death for instance, the whole 'she's dying out of grief' is stupid; and isn't Leia supposed to have memories of her anyway? I could have done without Darth Vader's 'NOOOOOOOO' cry; the scene was so nicely built, a better reaction would have made it perfect. A lot of stuff could have been so much better...

... oh well, it was good fun.

Watched Once Upon A Time In The West. It's pretty good, very different in pacing from The Good, The Bag And The Ugly, but I didn't find it as satisfying. Morricone's score is perfect as usual, especially the track playing in the final shoot-out - can't get it out of my mind. Bronson, Robards and Cardinale are all good. Henry Fonda's introduction is brilliant, shooting the kid down. But it's a bit exhausting at times, really too slow at times.

Also this last week had a look at Polanski's The Tenant, re-watched Patton and The Magnificent Seven (watched it on the same day as Leone's picture; the contrast between the two westerns couldn't be bigger: one's a traditional, preachy movie, the other's completely unpredictable and violent!) Blade Runner and The Godfather: Part III just to remind myself how great the other two movies are.

I doubt it's misinformation.

The whole change in the plot is just streamlining the story for mass audience consumption. The changes make it more universal - everyone loves to hate Nazis and will immediately sympathise with a Nazi killer - and avoid casting moral dillemas on the viewer: who wants to feel bad for liking a terrorist? It's all to make the cinematic experience easier to digest. Basically, it's Hollywood being Hollywood.

Pretty cool covers! This guy's definitely Vertigo material.

Finally watched Der Untergang! I had been eagerly waiting for it premiere here. It met my expectations. Bruno Ganz's performance was really as good as word of mouth said it was, fucking out of this world. He wasn't playing Hitler, he was Hitler!

And very enthralling movie, too; at 150 minutes it didn't drag a single time.

Ah, Marvel, that was so cruel! Of all the European monarchs, Carlos is one of the few I sympathise with. He isn't always fucking up with lots of scandals like Charles and his pot-smoking, Nazi son

Spain, so the USA blame the king for the Spanish troop withdraw? I always thought that decision fell under Zapatero's powers as PM, since he made it clear the soldiers would leave as soon as he got elected. Care to clarify this doubt for me?

So it'll obviously reach $200m worldwide...

... least successful movies have seen sequels...

The fiancee story struck me as very Bergmanesque, with the depression and nightmares

It sounds interesting, J. Are you having fun writing them?

How did Derek Raymond influence Ellis on 'Haunted?' And who is DR by the way?

Glad this is over. I'm for euthanasia, in case you're wondering; and for me a case of being brain-dead is reason enough for a husband to decide to put an end to his wife's 'life.'

But I thought this was grotesquely handled. They just let her starve to death... supposedly she can't feel anything anymore, but still I found it inhuman, it's a complete lack of respect for her body. Couldn't a quick lethal injection just do the trick? It has to slowly wither away instead.

This is disturbingly amazing!

Hope the baby gets well. If he survives, he'll have a hell of a story to tell his friends one day.

Dove was smashed by a wall? That must be one of the weirdest superhero deaths I know...

It's Karma, baby! Jason Todd comes back, someone else must bite the dust! but NOT BLUE BETTLE! Ted was so fucking great and funny; his chemistry with Booster Gold is what made Giffen's JLA so fucking fun to read!

And now Max shot him!? How the fuck did that happen? What was his motive anyway?

DC is getting so pointlessly grim...

Well, if everyone was thinking it was Jason Todd all along, then this arc must have been poorly written. I wasn't even following this, by coincidence I just read this comic's review at fourthrail.com a few hours ago, but even I managed to conclude it was Jason... supposedly it was to be bigger than the 'Hush' revelation, and I thought 'ah, only Jason could top that crap!"

This was really unnecessary: Jason's death always served as a nice emotional crutch for Batman, one of his rare mistakes that tortures his mind... gone for the sake of a cheap thrill.

That's pretty cool, J!

Could you give us a brief synopsis of the stuff you've written so far?

Supposedly, my real name is Luís.

In the old forum it was L. M. Rosa, which is basically the initials of my first two names, plys my surname.

In the hurry to sign in when I finally returned to the forum, I simply typed Luís.

Been thinking of returning to the old nick, though... I'm very nostalgic!

There's a stream near my building. A bunch of ducks mysteriously showed up in it a few years ago and began nesting there.

It's nice to see the ducklings all over the stream with the female duck keeping an eye on them.

Sometimes I stand on the bridge watching them for a good deal of time: it's very relaxing.

Ah, sorry for arriving late for your anniversary, Selkie! Happy late birthday, baby

My ex-girlfriend ate my birthday cake before I got a chance to have a piece one year.

That's more cruelty than I ever imagined a human being capable of

I've been having whole crappy months lately: reading great books recently, had the best grades of my life last semmester, feeling physically great too, but I've been feeling pretty depressed and burdened since last November, getting up and feeling tired as though I didn't have any sleep, and perceiving other little disturbances in my usual routine.

Hey, J!

Jung's fascination with magic, mythology, alchemy, magical symbols and weird phenomena is scattered all across his work (what I've read, at least) but I can't give you a specific title. The Science of Mythology, whic he co-wrote with C. Kerenyi, is to my knowledge Jung at his most specific, but it deals very little with actual occult.

Jung's fucking great! He's even written a book on the UFO phenomena, aptly called Flying Saucers, analysing it from a psychological point of view, and which I strongly recommned.

I'm on Easter vacations; lots of time to watch movies lately:

The Incredibles, outstanding, beautiful movie that made me love superheroes again! Why can't they always be so funny like this? I would love a sequel so much! And the joke with the capes

The Motorcycle Diaries, of which I was expecting a lot more. A very traditional movie, but Rodrigo de la Serna was oustanding as Che's pal, Alberto Granado. Ah, and I loved George Drexler's song!

The Hours: tried to read the book once, in Portuguese, hated it. Now I watched the movie and was just blown away by everything! The editing, Pihilip Glass's beautiful score, cinematography, art direction, the screenplay. Kidman's performance was overrated, but Julianne Moore was brilliant, and Meryl Streep and Ed Harris were the cherry on the top.

The Boxer, not Jim Sheridan's best effort, but I've alwasy been fond of this movie. The chemistry between Day-Lewis and Emma Thompson is so good.

Plus, finally got Dead Poets Society on DVD at last! I love this movie so much!