After the awkwardness of The Sword and the Sorcerer, it felt good to watch one of my favourite fantasy movies, namely Hero. (Granted, it’s more of a historically based wu xia movie, really, but seeing as its pretty much based on a myth and not on what the historian in me would call history, and [...]
Archive for April, 2008
The Sword and the Sorcerer
The Sword and the Sorcerer is one of the many fantasy movies produced in the early 1980s, most of which have in common that they are so full of cheese and plot-holes you might think they’re Swiss.
In this particular case, the plot revolves around the kingdom of Eh Dan (Edain, anyone? Or Eng Land?), peaceably [...]
Comforting
“The Rock is attached to play the villain, a likable enough actor who was seems genetically designed specifically to be in comic book movies. It’s not a bad role, either. If you take away almost everything ridiculous that doesn’t work about Captain Marvel, you have his antithesis and mortal enemy, Black Adam. Not to worry, [...]
Some things I suspect I believe to be true
About eighteen months ago now, I realised I’m a materialist; I believe that everything in this world is matter, that there is no such thing as spirit, that what others might perceive as “spirit” can be explained materially. And for some thirteen, fourteen months, my Christian flatmate Håvard has challenged me on this.
To him there [...]
Almost Famous
Almost Famous has been described as doing for the 70s what Rock Star did for the 80s. Do I believe this description is an accurate one? Perhaps. What I do believe is that it’s a great movie.
Supposedly, Almost Famous is based on writer/director Cameron Crowe’s own experiences as a Rolling Stones journalist. In it he [...]
Rock Star
Rock Star is the movie about the young Chris (Mark Wahlberg), who idolates the Heavy Metal band Steel Dragon and sings in a Steel Dragon tribute band (from whence the immortal comment “We’re not a cover band, we’re a tribute band!” arises). The first half or so of the movie portrays Chris’ day to day [...]
Superhero Movie
Rather out of the blue, I ended up seeing Superhero Movie with a friend last night. And man, am I sorry. But I’ll get back to that. First, a plot synopsis.
Rick Riker is Peter Parker, only more (exaggeratedly) so and with more unmotivated and unfun slapstick accidents happening to him. He is in love with [...]
Angelic Revelation
One of the reasons why I haven’t been much active online lately, is that I spend most of my evenings watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with one or more of my flatmates. We started about a year ago, when one of them asked me to show him a really fun Buffy episode. I chose “Hush”, [...]
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks.
464 pages, paperback.
1984.
In 1811, a sect of Egyptian sorcerors set out to open the gates to the Ancient Egyptian realm of the dead in order to call back the old gods, vanquish Christianity, and resurrect magic. They failed, horribly, yet something happened that night.
1983: An American college teacher and literary scholar, who has [...]
Inspiration strikes from the weirdest skies…
So, we’re doing syntax in the English linguistics course I’m taking, and in today’s lecture, we went through the various ways of determining whether or not a string of words is a phrase or not — a mildly put important part of the whole syntax bit. One of the examples the lecturer used was the [...]
Angel: After the Fall, issues 3-5
I’ve been doing a lot of nothing lately. In fact, I’ve been doing so much nothing that I’ven’t even read the last three (or four, now, I guess) issues of After the Fall. Luckily, I was able to rectify this last night, and man, am I glad I did.
As frustrating as it is to read [...]
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