Weekend Pop Culture consumption
I can't say that I had the best of weekends. Apart from attending a 3 year old's birthday party, and indulging in the usual sweet treats, as well as doing some much needed admin work (PC back-ups, document filing), I pretty much spent the entire weekend alone with my thoughts - which are, unsurprisingly, quite low at the moment. Of all the weekends where I needed company, where I just needed to be felt wanted by someone, the bf was working the ENTIRE time. *Grumble, grumble, cry a bit*
So I filled the hollowness as best I could...
In terms of Gaming I played a bit of World of WarCraft, but most of the time I was the only guild member online, and I'm very bored with solo questing. I did finally earn enough tokens though to buy my Warlock her Brewfest outfit, before the annual in-game festival ended. Proust!
As for Reading, I've got a fair way into The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, the collected adventures of the grim Puritan avenger, written by pulp fiction master Robert E. Howard - long before he came up with the idea for Conan.
This illustrated collection of short stories, fragments and poems truly is a lot of fun. Every story is infused with the dark supernatural. Be warned though that you have to enjoy constant exposure to archetypes, as opposed to fully developed, realistic characters, and you have to have a lot of stamina when it comes to repeatedly reading descriptions of long, menacing shadows, blood-red sunsets and stars that glint like menacing skulls in the blackness.
Kane's adventures in Africa are especially enjoyable as Howard's depiction of the continent, and its inhabitants, is dark, bestial and down right racist. It's a kind of amusing political incorrectness that you only really find in adventure authors born in the 1800s or early Twentieth Century. I keep thinking of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
The hilarious thing is that many of Howard's most evil "blacks" are described in a way that immediately brings Julius Malema, enfant terrible of South African politics, to mind - bulky, stupid, piggy eyed and with a big mouth that's always flapping as he gets more aggressive.
I'm really looking forward to the Solomon Kane film now, and I hope it's successful enough to spawn a whole trilogy. I can only imagine the controversy that will be triggered by a film version of Kane's African exploits.
In terms of Film Watching I stumbled across the second half of Taxi Driver on Sunday evening. I love that film, but I wonder if I'm the only one who ever imagines that if Batman were real, he would be unstable nobody Travis Bickle; not the more socially acceptable form of a suave billionaire kitted out with the latest technology.
I'm also embarrassed to admit I really kind of enjoyed romantic comedy, Made of Honor. It stars McDreamy himself, Patrick Dempsey, as a debonair womaniser, Tom, who realises he's actually in love with his female best friend, Hannah (Michelle Monaghan). Thing is, just as he realises this, Hannah gets engaged to the perfect man... and asks Tom to help her with the wedding planning as her maid of honour.
What I quite liked about the film was that it was a romance from the guy perspective, for a change, and it was more sweet and subtle than overtly silly. Then again, maybe I'm just an overemotional sap at the moment.
Finally, there was the shockingly bad sci-fi action flick Babylon A.D. The difficulties of making this Vin Diesel film were well publicised at the time of its much delayed release, with the director (Mathieu Kassovitz) lashing out against the studio for meddling with his "vision." And really, the film is a nonsensical disaster that ends abruptly after 90 minutes of throwing disparate ideas and images at the audience.
And this is a movie with an impressive supporting cast that includes Michelle Yeoh, Mark Strong, Charlotte Rampling, Gerard Depardieu and Lambert Wilson. I'm beginning to formulate a theory that any English language film with Wilson is to be avoided. The Matrix 2 and 3, Sahara, Catwoman and now Babylon A.D... the poor guy is a turkey magnet.
So I filled the hollowness as best I could...
In terms of Gaming I played a bit of World of WarCraft, but most of the time I was the only guild member online, and I'm very bored with solo questing. I did finally earn enough tokens though to buy my Warlock her Brewfest outfit, before the annual in-game festival ended. Proust!
As for Reading, I've got a fair way into The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, the collected adventures of the grim Puritan avenger, written by pulp fiction master Robert E. Howard - long before he came up with the idea for Conan.
This illustrated collection of short stories, fragments and poems truly is a lot of fun. Every story is infused with the dark supernatural. Be warned though that you have to enjoy constant exposure to archetypes, as opposed to fully developed, realistic characters, and you have to have a lot of stamina when it comes to repeatedly reading descriptions of long, menacing shadows, blood-red sunsets and stars that glint like menacing skulls in the blackness.
Kane's adventures in Africa are especially enjoyable as Howard's depiction of the continent, and its inhabitants, is dark, bestial and down right racist. It's a kind of amusing political incorrectness that you only really find in adventure authors born in the 1800s or early Twentieth Century. I keep thinking of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
The hilarious thing is that many of Howard's most evil "blacks" are described in a way that immediately brings Julius Malema, enfant terrible of South African politics, to mind - bulky, stupid, piggy eyed and with a big mouth that's always flapping as he gets more aggressive.
I'm really looking forward to the Solomon Kane film now, and I hope it's successful enough to spawn a whole trilogy. I can only imagine the controversy that will be triggered by a film version of Kane's African exploits.
In terms of Film Watching I stumbled across the second half of Taxi Driver on Sunday evening. I love that film, but I wonder if I'm the only one who ever imagines that if Batman were real, he would be unstable nobody Travis Bickle; not the more socially acceptable form of a suave billionaire kitted out with the latest technology.
I'm also embarrassed to admit I really kind of enjoyed romantic comedy, Made of Honor. It stars McDreamy himself, Patrick Dempsey, as a debonair womaniser, Tom, who realises he's actually in love with his female best friend, Hannah (Michelle Monaghan). Thing is, just as he realises this, Hannah gets engaged to the perfect man... and asks Tom to help her with the wedding planning as her maid of honour.
What I quite liked about the film was that it was a romance from the guy perspective, for a change, and it was more sweet and subtle than overtly silly. Then again, maybe I'm just an overemotional sap at the moment.
Finally, there was the shockingly bad sci-fi action flick Babylon A.D. The difficulties of making this Vin Diesel film were well publicised at the time of its much delayed release, with the director (Mathieu Kassovitz) lashing out against the studio for meddling with his "vision." And really, the film is a nonsensical disaster that ends abruptly after 90 minutes of throwing disparate ideas and images at the audience.
And this is a movie with an impressive supporting cast that includes Michelle Yeoh, Mark Strong, Charlotte Rampling, Gerard Depardieu and Lambert Wilson. I'm beginning to formulate a theory that any English language film with Wilson is to be avoided. The Matrix 2 and 3, Sahara, Catwoman and now Babylon A.D... the poor guy is a turkey magnet.
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