My own self

One day when George III was insane he heard that the Americans never had afternoon tea. This made him very obstinate and he invited them all to a compulsory tea-party at Boston; the Americans, however, started by pouring the tea into Boston Harbour and went on pouring things into Boston Harbour until they were quite Independent, thus causing the United States. [...]

The War with the Americans is memorable as being the only war in which the English were ever defeated, and it was unfair because the Americans had the Allies on their side. In some ways the war was really a draw, since England remained top nation and had the Allies afterwards, while the Americans, in memory of George III's madness, still refuse to drink tea and go on pouring anything the English send them to drink into Boston Harbour.

After this the Americans made Wittington President and gave up speaking English and became U.S.A. and Columbia and 100%, etc. This was a Good Thing in the end, as it was a cause of the British Empire, but it prevented America from having any more History.

- 1066 And All That, page 126-127.
By W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman.

There's no truth in the pleads of the damned.

- Liliana Vess, Planeswalker.

Sensemaking I won't comment on, but there has never been any doubt of your ability to cast any event in a light that makes you right.

- Obdormio, about me, at 20:54 April 8th 2009.

Who watches the Watchmen?

I did! I did! And I'd like to go again! May I go again, mom, pleeeeeease?


Yes, I've now seen Watchmen, the movie based off of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' twelve-issue comic from the mid-eighties. As much of what I've read of Moore's work, it is highly dystopian, and very intelligent. As, er, some of what I've read of Moore's work, it's also rather entertaining. It is certainly very challenging. Frequently referred to as the best graphic novel out there, I must admit that Watchmen is among the heavier reads I've encountered, and few "regular" novels can compete with it for complexity.

It is thus no small wonder that the task of making this into a movie has daunted people from doing so for a long, long while. It is also no small wonder that Mr. Moore is outspokenly negative to the mere idea of making a movie out of any of his work. Too bad for him. While I agree that League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a rather heavy departure from the source material, V for Vendetta was among the better adaptations I've ever seen. I thus have no problem with the attempt of adaptation of his work in general, though I do believe that when the creator doesn't want you to, you shouldn't, rights or no rights. Even if the creator is a stuck-up elitist who seems to judge people's worth by their amount and IQ-points over 150 and anarchist sympathies.

Still, all that aside, I agreed, Watchmen couldn't be made into a satisfactory movie. I freely admit, I was wrong. This movie satisfied me. Did it cut out some complexities? Yes, of course. Did it change some details and executions to make it work better on screen? Absolutely. And why shouldn't it?

Before seeing it, the one thing I heard most of all from friends and reviewers was how this movie was alright but too enslaved by staying true to the original book to dare being its own thing and thus achieve greatness. My expectations, then, were neither high nor low.

This seems to have been the way to go, expectation-wise, as I greatly enjoyed it. Mind you, it's been years since I read the book. I could simply be forgetting all the little things that made Moore's work superior to this. But I in all honestly felt that the movie stayed true to the comic, whilst also working as a movie. The pacing, so close to the book's own, was a little off in a movie, sure, but they shifted the weight of the narrative just enough that the pacing wasn't too off. And yes, the regular humans in superhero outfits fight as if they're rather superpowered anyway, and yes, the fightscenes are more flashy than in the book. So what? I mean, the only thing this movie remotely fits into, marketing wise, is the superhero-movie staple. Without scenes like this, anyone seeing the movie without having read the book would be thoroughly disappointed, not getting what they expected at all.

My only real problem with the movie, in fact, other than that the pacing could have been slightly better, was its overly long sex-scenes. Particularly two of them got to the point where you're embarrased as the viewer. That's unfortunate, and hurts the pacing further as well. I'm no prude, I don't mind the nudity and the simulated sex on the screen in front of me. I just mind it when it goes on, and on, and on. Two people moaning is not the world's most interesting thing. Still, it's a minor quibble.

All in all, I really and thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Almost as much as I did V for Vendetta, in fact. V had the combined advantages of a smaller cast and a shorter running time, though, making it feel more intense and work better as a movie to begin with. Considering the much more difficult task set to the filmmaker's on this one, I think they did way better than I could ever have imagined when I heard they were finally making it. The visuals are superb, and even though Dr. Manhattan looks about as fake as I expected crappy special effects rarely bother me. The use of music is simply phenomenal. The plots, characters and dialogue are basically all lifted directly from the book, meaning that while the dialogue sometimes might sound slightly off, it always sounds rather awesome, too, and as for the plots and characters, well, if one didn't like it one wouldn't have liked the book. And I did, very much. What remains then, is the acting. I am a very poor judge of these things, but I thought it was rather well done on the whole. Especially the Comedian and Nite Owl seemed spot-on, but I honestly didn't have a problem with any of the characters.

Also, this movie has Roschach. There has ever been another movie that could make that claim.*


I thought it was nifty. And I want to see it again. The only reason I'm not getting this movie a 9 is because I believe it might get overlong on rewatches, and I need to do them before I award it its final 0.5. For now? A very strong 8.5/10



* (If someone comes running with the 300 Easter Egg now, I'll bite. Seriously. With my teeth.)

Joss Whedon: I find that when you read a script, or rewrite something, or look at something that's been gone over, you can tell, like rings on a tree, by how bad it is, how long it's been in development.

Neil Gaiman: Yes. It really is this thing of executives loving the smell of their own urine and urinating on things. And then more execs come in, and they urinate. And then the next round. By the end, they have this thing which just smells like pee, and nobody likes it.

Joss Whedon: There's really no better way to put it.

- Neil Gaiman and Joss Whedon, September 25th 2005

At first you were just a public prostitute, with a fixed price: quite a high one, too. But very soon Curio intervened and took you off the streets, promoting you, one might say, to wifely status, and making a sound, steady, married woman out of you.

- Marcus Tullius Cicero,
The Second Philippic Against Mark Antony,
translated by Michael Grant for Penguin Books.

At one point you tried to be witty. Heaven knows this did not suit you.

- Marcus Tullius Cicero,
The Second Philippic Against Mark Antony,
translated by Michael Grant for Penguin Books.

...anyone who for some obscure reason would want to read anything I put through my new Twitter-account c'n do so here instead, in the top right box-thing.

The invention and implementation of the train took all of the adventure out of human culture.



Discuss.

I've never been one for sharing personal information online, and I'm not about to start now. However, I've been asked quite strongly today to post something or other in my weblog here, and as I'm not feeling like reviewing anything on my rather long list of stuff to get around to writing posts on, that means it has to be on some whim of my own instead. As I additionally don't have any specific thought, idea, objection or opinion about anything in particular going on these days that would make for a post on its own, that kind of means I just have to give an update of who I am and what I am doing these days. Those of you who could not be less interested, and I'm sure that within the modest confines of this weblog's readership there's a lot of you, well, just don't read behind the cut. Thanks.

Read more...

So, I did really well on the exam that mattered and I thought I did mediocre at. And then I did mediocre at the exam that didn't matter and I was sure I did very well at.


And somehow, I'm thoroughly unhappy about that. Sigh.

The opportunities for amusement grow ever rarer.

- Cotillion,
The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson

I'm currently trying to attend lectures in eight courses, four of which I've actually signed up for. Add to that 1300 pages of rather heavy curriculum on Ancient Egyptian religion as well as another 1300 pages (40 out of which is in bleeding German!) on Roman same, an unwritten 6000-word assignment on the cult and worship of Victoria and an equally unwritten project draft for my Master's thesis, and I'm quite stressed out. All of that is somewhat doable, though.


What really Zaps My Energy is the constant knowledge that I on top of this should be cramming Latin vocabulary and grammar-tables every day, and hardly ever do.


On the bright side, I'm channeling my Need To Remidy My Guilty Conscience By Doing Something Constructive into finally sorting my Magic: The Gathering-cards which have been a complete and unapproachable constant presence of mess on my desktop for three years now. Thinking I've finally reached the collection-size-point where ever colour of magic will need its own folder. Also, yay, they've finally errata'ed all those class-only creatures into having proper creature-types, so now I can sort all the soldiers and knights and clerics and whatnot under Humans. (Every fiber of my being resented a filing system which sorted some cards under "Elves" and some under "Wizards". Shudders.) Hopefully, on a slightly longer-term basis, I will also be able to channel some of this into reading my Stack of Unread Comic Books. However, my stack of unread fiction and non-curricular-nonfiction which I only made some meager progress with this Christmas (better than last year, though!) will probably be on stand-by for now. I just cannot justify sitting down to read anything which isn't about Roman emperor worship or the possibility of an Egyptian pantheism or similar. Sigh.


So, there you have it. This is why I don't seem to have the will to post here lately. That being said, there should at some point, when exactly being very much in the unknown, appear some form of posts on/reviews of the movies Waitress, Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons & Dragons 2: Wrath of the Dragon God and Hocus Pocus. So the silence isn't for lack of topics.

This has been an Utterly Unnecessary Update (also known as a triple-u), you will now return with my permission to your regularly scheduled activities.

DC has a history with this kind of bullshit - they've even made it into a plot-device of its own, horribly abused maybe, but still by now a (sadly) established part of the DC universe. But Marvel has no excuse to start doing this kind of insane retconning. Really. I can get quality comic books elsewhere. From people who actually cares about things like "character development" and, oh, say, "continuity".

I got a C.


And the world's not ended.





What's that about?!

It's probably somehow fitting that the 800th post of this meaningless dribble I call my weblog was a Nietzsche-quote, but don't ask me to explain how, I'm not nearly intelligent or interested enough.


Anyways; yaaay! Party-partehey. Or not. I'm not that fond of parties, so I think that, actually, 'not' sounds by far most tempting.


Much like 500, 700 snuck past me. And it was just a random remark of Terje's that made me even check how many posts I currently had, otherwise, this'd have slipped past me too.


So... quackquack to Terje and tally-ho-bing-bong-soopey to the rest of you, I'm off to spend my time better than by writing my 801st post of babble.



Namely by writing the 802nd! Stay tuned. Or not. It's optional. Much like the titular cake.

If you were on fire, I wouldn't even bother to cross the street to piss on you!

- Ghuda, Prince of the Blood, by Raymond E. Feist

Best strip it's ever had. And it's focused on the character I can't stand. It's almost provocative.