Home helping my parents with the apple harvest this weekend, and when I’m home, I always try to make my family watch a good movie. This weekend, we saw “The Constant Gardner” form 2005. Not too hard talking them into seeing it, as my mother’s a fan of John le Carré, and as there wasn’t [...]
Archive for September, 2006
No cliffhanger solution >:( — BS7×09 “Never Leave Me”
Good episode. Not among the best this far, but neither among the worst. Although it’s possibly the worst of the episodes directly connected to the seaon arc, but that may only be because it was so… partial. I began as a continuation of a previous episode, and ended like the beginning of another, kinda.
Not a [...]
Cliffhanger of the millenium… BS7×08, “Sleeper”
Finally, the plot arc has taken precedence over the monster-of-the-week dominated episodes. And man, what a hold of me that change gave the season!
This episode was in many ways a continuation of episode 7, the review of which I don’t bother to link to, seeing as it’s posted two inches below this post. Very Spike [...]
BS7×07 - “Conversations with dead people”
This may very well be the hook.
Every bloody part of this episode was awesome; the Buffy part was both sad and also funny, at times; the Dawn part was one of the scariest and most creey sequences of scenes I’ve seen in a long time; the Willow part started out sad, but grew more and [...]
Even Steven
Just finished watching “The Martix Reloaded“, and I gotta say that it was way, way, way better than I remembered. It even made me re-evaluate my rating of “The Matrix”…
Like “The Matrix”, “The Matrix Reloaded” was visual perfection. The fight scenes were stunningly chireographed, the actors always looked like the kings of cool (especially when [...]
Political Compass… 3rd time.
Took that political compass test again, and what do you know? I’ve moved both towards the right and towards the authoritarian extreme. In febuary, I ended up at -9.38 on the left-right axis, and at -8.46 on the authoritarian-libertarian axis.
This time, on the other hand, I ended up at -5.38/-6.72. Which probably just goes to [...]
Grimm, indeed…
“The Brothers Grimm“. A mediocre film, which starts off as a horrible thing, but gets better and better. The acting and the dialogue is dubious, the plot is decent, and the effects and scenery is oustanding.
Not much more to say, really, apart from a rating: 5.0/10.
The Curse of the Evil Football Team Jacket — BS7×06
Whoa. As the previous post indicates, the episode preceding this one was one of the most stunning and emotionally breathtaking episodes ever. This one, on the other hand, was perhaps one of the cheesiest episodes I’ve seen in a long, long, long time.
Not that it was completely bereft of uncheesy scenes; one of the opening [...]
“There’s only me” — impressions of BS7×05
One of the best Buffy episodes ever. Character driven, excellent dialogue, a stunning plot, and heartbreaking character moments, two of which brought tears to my eyes.
(Here be spoilers! Or so I believe…)
..
I’m not really sure if I can say much more than this, as my words’ll only ring hollow in my ears. It’ll merely be [...]
Theories in IR: Radicalism — lecture #7
Central topics.
Radical theories are often concerned with the role of states in the international economy. Being based on the works of Marx, they also tend to focus in the preeminence of the economic structure over other spheres of society, both as an object of analysis and as a driving force behind social change. Furthermore, Radicals [...]
Finally! My Antiquity Collection Is Complete!
Today, after looking for Thucydides‘ “The History of the Peloponnesian War” for over a year, I finally found it!
This means that I’ve finally completed my collection of what I consider to be the pearls of Hellas, which in addtition to Thucydides’ masterpiece includes Plato’s “The Republic“, Herodotus‘ “Histories” and and Xenophon’s “The Persian [...]
The Eyecandy Has You…
I just watched “The Matrix” for the first time in four years or so, and damn if it wasn’t as good as I remembered it to be.
Even though I think Keanu Reeves acted like his usual cardboard box self, it was actually fitting for this film. Neo is supposed to be overwhelmed and somewhat in [...]
Theories in IR: Rationalist convergence, the Neo-Neo synthesis — lecture #6
First of all, it may be useful to repeat some of the criticisms raised against Liberalism by Realists.
Primarily, this was a criticism related to the perception of human nature. The Realists see conflict, the Liberalists see harmony. Or perhaps saw would be a better word, as this is a fairly dead debate, the parts having [...]
Theories in IR: Liberalism — Lecture #5
Liberalism is often understood as the opposite, or the adversary, if you will, of Realism.
Topics important to Liberalists.
First of all, Liberalists are concerned with how international institutions simplifies cooperation and historical changes. They’re also preoccupied with studying how transnational relations (international relations in which non-governmental organizations participates) affects the foreign policy of states. Liberalists are [...]
Favourite fantasy authors — an attempted list
All right, an attempt at ranking my favourite fantasy authors, from best to worst.
1. John Ronald Reul Tolkien. As much as I try to hide it, Tolkien is my favourite. His works introduced me to the genre, and his books are still the ones that made the biggest impression on me. Versatile, intelligent and wise.
2. [...]
Jack Sparrow Is A Faggot
(Note: All of my reviews strive after a spoiler-free ideal, but utopia’s a faraway place, so I give no guarantees.)
Joker, one of the main characters of “Full Metal Jacket“, which I saw last night, was played by Matthew Modine, Tonight, I watched “Cutthroat Island“, a pirate flick from 1995, and guess who played the main [...]
Monetary systems and the gold standard — Lecture #4
Why do we believe that paper money has any value? This isn’t a given belief, and neither is it neccesarily true, historically speaking. After WWI, several European economies experienced hyperinflation, and in more recent times we’ve seen the collapse of the monetary systems of Russia and Argentina, amongst others. But let’s start with the beginning, [...]
“Help” — BS7×04
Wow. Just wow.
All the way from Willow’s visit to Tara’s grave to the gathering in the Summers’ living room, this was an awesome episode. The twist on the monster-of-the-week plot was brilliant, the way they mixed Buffy’s dayjob with her Slayerage into a rather unpredictable story. And the precog-girl wasn’t any less good. I kept [...]
Total Martial Madness
Just finished watching Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket“, another awesome film. In my book, this is one of history’s best war movies — along with such titles as “Three Kings“, “The Dirty Dozen” and “All Quiet On The Western Front“.
Like the film I saw yesterday — “City of God” — this is a filmatical and [...]
International investments, transport revolution, and globalization 1850-1914 — lecture #3
(If I do at least one of these things each day, perhaps my conscience can finally have some peace…)
International movements of capital before WWI (1814-1914)
Investments abroad isn’t a new phenomena. Italian city states made investments in France, Germany and other countries during the Renaissance, and Swiss bankiers made investments in Norwegian “industry” so early as [...]
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