Wow. Been a while since I've done one of these, hasn't it?

Probably the most recognizable spaghetti western directed by that other guy named Sergio )(Corbucci rather than Leone) who made his name in this particular genre, Django is a movie that has something of a reputation amongst b-movie enthusiasts and exploitation film lovers. And truthfully, one does come away with the impression that the movie itself is bit overshadowed and oversold by that reputation. The film is crudely made, it's low budget screamingly obvious from the first scenes to the closing credit, and its minimalist script devotes too much time to spinning its wheels, stalling time, as if it just remembered the big confrontation with the villain should wait until the end of the movie. It also lacks the operatic granduer and slow burning intensity that one would find in something like the Dollars Trilogy or Once Upon A Time In The West.

And yet despite all this, there's something oddly compelling about Django. Franco Nero's grim hero is strangely endearing, a genuine good guy under all the dirt and grime and Corbucci packs the story with plenty of entertaining, comic book-style theatrics, including. Even more interesting is just how bleak Corbucci's portrayl of the Post-Civil War west is. Django feels more like it takes a scavenger infested post-apocalyptic wasteland out of The Road Warrior than any actual period in American history. Funerary imagery abounds, from Django dragging his own coffin with him wherever he goes (and seemingly considering himself a ghost) to the climatic showdown taking place in a cemetary as the film's villain mockingly performs last rights. The town that serves as the film's setting appears to be in an advanced state of decay itself, barely populated enough to be considered a ghost and seemingly being swallowed by the mire of its muddy streets. By film's end, it's pretty much abandoned. This even extends to the hero, whose victory over the villain can't be described as a triumphant one and is more of a case that he's simply the last one standing. Even among spaghetti westerns, Django stands out as as being particularly grim.

Nothing really major going on with me at the moment. A couple of job interviews that looked promising sadly didn't seem to pan out. My sister tried to set me up to design a website for a work associate of hers but oh hey, the guy didn't send me the info I needed, changed his story, saying that he lost the info, then said he never had it and when I called him about what he wanted to do, he told me to put everything on hold and wait until he called me back. That's been over a week ago, so it looks like this is a wash as well. Bleh.

On the upside, The Avengers rocked. And I can't tell you how happy the big cameo made me. Yeah, if you've seen the movie, you know the one I'm talking about. The one that nobody expected...

Yep...Harry Dean Stanton.

...but Christ Almighty, I wish my family would quit recommending me to people who need work done on their website on the grounds that I (barely) ran a website for about a year in college TEN YEARS AGO. It was a shitty little geocities (or something) site that was little more than text on a black background. Recommending me to work on a company website based on THAT is like suggesting I can design a skyscraper because I built a pillow fort when I was a kid.

I just wish they would get over this notion that I'm some sort of goddamn expert with computer because I took some classes in college. (Especially since I've realized a long time ago that I majored in the wrong goddamn subject.) I'm not. I'm not even the one eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. In the end, all I'm going be able to do is let them down.

It's just frustrating.

Needed to get that off my chest.

...just to make sure that I've got every possible outlet for posting embarassing things on the internet covered, I set up a tumblr account today, to go along with this live journal, my twitter feed and my facebook account.

All in all, it's a pretty good adaptation of the book, with some perfect casting choices but there were some things about that bugged me.

For starters, the changes to Dany and Khal Drogo's relationship. They've pretty much removed any characterization Drogo had beyond "big, scary barbarian dude" and let's not even get started on their first sex scene... Jeez. If one wanted to, you could read some pretty heinous shit into their relationship as depicted in TV series, like "Stockholm Syndrome" or "Hey ladies! In an abusive relationship? Well, just learn how to fuck the way your man wants to and things will turn out all right!" Not good, tv guys.

That said, they added in a scene where Drogo straight up Italian neckties a dude. That I'm all for.

Another thing: Why the hell is Littlefinger the one telling Sansa how The Hound got his scars? Why the hell is anybody but the Hound the one telling that? Just a huge mistake there.

Then there's the big battle scene from the end of the book. Remember the big battle from the end of the book where all those crazy hillmen are hacking up people left and right and even Tyrion gets a supremely badass moment where he kills an enemy's horse by head butting it with a spiked helment? Awesome scene.

...in the show it takes place entirely off-screen.

That alone would have been pretty disappointing but at least understandable. It was pretty obvious that there were some pretty serious limitations, budget-wise (for example: In the book, the Others are creepy ice wraiths. In the show...uh...zombie Conan.) and it's commendable that they were able to pull off what they did with they had.

No, see the problem is how they set up the battle happening off-screen: The battle begins, with Tyrion leading the charge, ready to kick some ass...when he gets swallowed up by the charging throng, accidently bonked on the head and is unconcious for the duration of the battle.

Now, c'mon guys. That's just freakin' stupid.

Still. A good start for the show and I'm really looking forward to the second season. That shit just bothered me is all. Hell, the whole thing was worth it for the scene where Tyrion slaps the holy ghost out of Joffery thrice in a row. Even when listening to the commentary, I had to rewind that scene three or four times. Obligatory link to this.

This post brought to you by the Italics command.

In 1938, J.R.R. Tolkien was arranging to get THE HOBBIT translated and distributed into Germany. Before the deal went through, the publisher required that Tolkien provide evidence of his "Aryan decent." In response, Tolkien wrote the following letter:

25 July 1938
20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and

remain yours faithfully,

J. R. R. Tolkien

The letter above was one of two possible replies that Tolkien forwarded along to his publisher, the other being more delicately worded. It's unknown which of the two his publisher passed along.

I'm probably the only person in the world who's going to say this but I found FEAST II & III to be a major disappointment.

Here I was, all excited, because hey, they made not one, but TWO terribly cheeseball looking monster movies RIGHT IN MY HOMETOWN. I figured I'd get a kick out of seeing that. Oh, if only I knew.

Basically, they had an idea for one movie and decided to stretch it out to two, which shows nobody learned anything from The Matrix or Pirates of the Carribean sequels. As a result for Part II, we get endlessly dragged out scenes of horrible people being horrible to each other, with very little monster action and no resolution to anything. Meanwhile, part 3 is basically an extended third act that's padded out by throwing in whatever stupid random crap they could come up with. The results are so surreal that when it was over I was actually having trouble convincing myself I had actually seen half the crap that went on in it. On top of that, it even manages to retroactively make part 2 worse by having shit go down in the first five minutes that renders all the crap we had to put up with in part 2 completely pointless.

Look, I realize the original Feast was on a different side of the planet away from anything resembling "good," but I sorta liked it. Yes, it had some majorly unlikable characters and thought people flailing around screaming and saying "fuck" a bunch was inherently funny. But at the same time, it was genuinely unpredictable and had a rather nice little mean streak running through it. With the sequels, it's like the lesson the filmmakers took away was from the first was "Everyone liked the asshole characters and monsters puking on everything! Let's ramp that shit up to eleven for the sequels!"

Yick. When I returned these flicks to library, I was tempted to tell the librarian, "Please God, don't ever let anyone else rent these. For their own sake..."

It'd be nice if every attempt I made at writing fiction didn't devolve into near constant hair pulling frustration as I teeter on the edge of a tear-filled breakdown...all while trying to get the opening paragraph written.

Sigh...

I ignored at first as it looked pretty much like someone was trying to do 300: The Series but after hearing positive word of mouth from people I trusted, I decided to give it a try.

( Because it gets a bit NSFW )

...but can I just say that I am utterly underwhelmed by everything I've seen from The Avengers?

Visually, nothing has wowed me. It looks like every other blandly competent, made by a committee superhero movie we've been seeing in the past couple of years. That shot of the camera panning around the Avengers as they stand in a circle is less "money shot" and more "Oooo, we have just enough money in the budget to do a dolly shot."

Even by Whedon's standard, the dialogue is obnoxiously "cute." ("If we can't save the Earth, then we'll AVENGE IT!" *coughs up something disgusting.*) In fact, a good chunk of the dialogue in the trailers ranges from weak to absolutely awful.

There's doesn't seem to be any real scope to it and action looks very generic and way too clean. Thrill! ...as all the big action shots seem to be taking place on the same city block! Can you stand the excitement of Thor and Captain America fighting...in a place that looks like my friggin' backyard! Hey! There's cars exploding and flipping over! You've never seen THAT in an action movie! A movie featuring "Earth Mightiest Heroes" should feel like there's some major, world threatening stakes to it. Instead, it's "Oh look, another supervillain attack on a generic big city."

And furthermore, none of the trailers give you any idea what the story is or why you should care. It's just "OH HEY LOOK! HERE'S THAT GUY WHO WAS IN THAT MOVIE THAT YOU LIKED! HE'S BACK IN A MOVIE WITH THAT OTHER GUY WHO WAS IN THAT OTHER MOVIE YOU LIKED! PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE FACT WE CAN'T KEEP AN ACTOR IN THE ROLE OF THE HULK FROM MOVIE TO MOVIE! WHAT'S THE STORY? WHO CARES! IT'S PEOPLE WHO WERE IN OTHER MOVIES NOW IN THE SAME MOVIE! WOO HOO!" I'm not one to agree with CHUD.com that often, they pretty much nailed it that rather than selling it on ideas: Who the characters are, what their conflict is...etc. they're just throwing a bunch of fanboy porn on the screen.

Sorry, I just don't get why people are peeing themselves in excitement over what looks like another thoroughly generic superhero movie.