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Showing posts from October, 2010

Just Watched: Robin Hood

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Just Watched: Robin Hood Do not be fooled.  This film is not about Robin Hood.  It has borrowed a few names and the setting but other than that it's a much different story. I don't mind people reinventing a classic but it's not usually a good plan to start out by eviscerating the beast and then hanging a plot into the limp carcass.  I was not a big fan of Antoine Fuqua's King Arthur but at least that reinvention went whole-hog and changed everything. In this version we have Robin (who is not actually Robin),  returning to England and dishing out social justice, not in the classic mode of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor but rather by championing a Magna Carta like document his father had written.   I'll admit this Robin's actions are more morally grounded but that's not the ticket I bought when I sat down to see this film and it certainly doesn't make for an improved story. However, it wasn't until the climatic battle at the en

Fuck Sony Entertainment - Sid der Liedermacher

I'm not mad at Sony and my German is not good enough to explain why Sid is but it's a catchy tune. How I found this is a whole other story.

Just Read: The Soldier Son Trilogy

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The Soldier Son Trilogy by Robin Hobb  This was a very unusual series of novels.  Though ostensibly a 'fantasy novel' there's little in the way of traditional fantasy going on here.  There is magic but people don't so much control it as much as it controls them. The novels take place in a land reminiscent of the early colonial Americas and the antagonists culturally bear a strong resemblance to native Americans.   The hero is the second son of a colonial noble family and by tradition is destined to be the 'Soldier Son' who pursues a military career in the colonial wars.  Things, of course, don't go as planned. Mostly this is a novel of culture clashes.  At times it's deliciously deviant in the way it contrasts the sexual and gluttonous behaviors of the natives against the more rigid lifestyles of the colonials.  At other times it is excruciatingly painful as the hero is buffeted with indignation after indignation.  It's a very thin veil ove

This Guy Must be an Engineer