Underworld Evolution.

The 1st Underworld was a pleasant surprise to me and since it was a direct setup to the sequel, I had to get to see it...
It's now done. :)

The 2 films work more or less as one as the 2nd starts exactly where the 1st one left us...

I thought the 1st one was a bit of a slow starter, with the best bits at the end. Here it starts off really well with a great opening medieval scene. And you get to see good werewolves. Not the kind where you actually only see the head or the upper body in the dark. No here you have full werewolves in the full light (of torches)!
And it carries on nicely with cool fights and monsters and more gore in 15min than the whole 1st one!

It's therefore a bit disappointing that the story loses momentum.
The thing I loved in the 1st one is that it gave you a glimpse of what suggested a rich and complex universe (the vampire society and politics, teh war with the wrewolves...). Unfortunately, in this one as the story develop they just reduce that to a single thread that for me lacked something.

It was still good but it didn't go beyond that...

But anyway, still a good series, still beautifully shot and still entertaining...

SPL.

I finally got round to see this movie that was quite hyped when it came out a few years ago. It was said it was announcing the return of the HK police movie golden age.
And I have to say, it doesn't disappoint.

Following the story of a dying cop that sets out to catch a mob boss at all cost,
the story is not really original in itself. It carries familiar themes of redemption and that you somehow need to become a criminal to catch one. But it's very well told, takes time to develop its characters (in line with Infernal Affairs) and always stays in very dark territories.
It's supported by excellent actors, lead by Samo Hung, Donnie Yen & Simon Yam.
Samo Hung takes an obvious pleasure to portray a truly evil mob boss, not his usual trade.

The fact of having such skilled martial artists as Hung & Yen (and also Wu Jing) also promises some good fights. On that point also the movie delivers. Having been influenced by Ong Bak, Donnie Yen, who choreographed the action, has taken a very brutal and dirty approach. This gives some gritty fight, fast & furious, mixing various styles.

Last but not least, the photography is beautiful, playing with colours and contrasts.

So yeah a excellent movie, happily mixing action & drama, whose quality traces back to the best John Woo's...

Interesting facts.

I did a dummy Google search on something I typed randomly, which turned out to be "nfff".

It returned:
National Fallen Firefighters Foundation
The National Federation of Fish Friers
Naked Freedom Film Festival
NEW FICTION AND FACTS FROM FINLAND

I wouldn't have thought there were so many NFFFs kicking around...

One Night At McCool's

2 words: Liv Tyler.
Another one: hot.
And a last one: fun.

In a way it's a movie to te glory of the dirty pigs all of us men are...
Who could say no to her?

Nothing's changed after this (but nothing ever changes after a movie anyway), but you've laughed and you've seen nice pictures... (T-T)
And you even might have wished you were John Goodman. Kind of.
Good cast, playing a varied bunch of losers, enjoyable script, good dialogues. All good!

To think I have a DVD player... No foutain though. Anyway.

kek

Aucun rapport mais j'adore:
http://blog.zanorg.com/?perm=45

j'aime beaucoup le reste du site aussi (http://blog.zanorg.com/ donc...), avec son Lemming et son vers et son menu qui fait de la musique (j'ai passe 10min a jouer avec)... :)

Roleplay.

Gary Gygax passed away this week, so as a tribute, let's remember those D&D games...
(Thanks Ninoune for the video!! :) )

S1m0ne

The 2nd movie by Andrew Niccol (who did Gattaca 1st and Lord Of War then) goes very well as companion piece to Being John Malkovich.
Both are indeed about recluse and misunderstood characters that use the fame of another to get through to their public.

Except that here, Viktor Taransky (the genius director that is so uncompromising in his vision that nobody go to see his movies) creates the "other one". He then gets caught at his own game, as he's convinced everyone that his Simone is real and the media carries on from there.
"What is real?" and "do you really control what you've created?" are important themes.

The movie has light moments, with the escalation of lies and the overblown interest of people towards a figure that doesn't exist (more ironically: the woman they worship is in fact a man!).
It also holds darker themes, as Viktor close to madness, being taken over by his creation. Brazil (no less!) comes to mind a few times.

Al Pacino's main performance is obviously a stand out, intense and true as usual.
The wonderful photography, with sharp contrasts and colour themes (as with Niccols other 2 movies) help bathe the picture in a very surreal atmosphere, where nothing ever "really" feel real...

From start to finish (up to the last little twist!), this movie rings true in our world, where image rules us all.

A Baby's Perspective on Sleep Training

Specially dedicated to all future and new parents around... :)

-----------------------
OK, here's my situation. My Mummy has had me for almost 7 months. The first few months were great--I cried, she picked me up and fed me, anytime, day or night. Then something happened.
Over the last few weeks, she has been trying to STTN (sleep thru the night). At first, I thought it was just a phase, but it is only getting worse. I've talked to other babies, and it seems like it's pretty common after Mummies have had us for around 6 months.

Here's the thing: these Mummies don't really need to sleep. It's just a habit. Many of them have had some 30 years to sleep--they just don't need it anymore. So I am implementing a plan I call it the Crybaby Shuffle.

It goes like this:
Night 1--cry every 3 hours until you get fed. I know, it's hard. It's hard to see your Mummy upset over your crying. Just keep reminding yourself, it's for her own good.

Night 2--cry every 2 hours until you get fed.

Night 3--every hour.

Most Mummies will start to respond more quickly after about 3 nights. Some Mummies are more alert, and may resist the change longer. These Mummies may stand in your doorway for hours, shhhh-ing. Don't give in. I cannot stress this enough: CONSISTENCY IS KEY!!

If you let her STTN (sleep through the night), just once, she will expect it every night. I KNOW IT'S HARD! But she really does not need the sleep, she is just resisting the change.

If you have an especially alert Mummy, you can stop crying for about 10 minutes, just long enough for her to go back to bed and start to fall asleep. Then cry again. It WILL eventually work. My Mummy once stayed awake for 10 hours straight, so I know she can do it. Last night, I cried every hour. You just have to decide to stick to it and just go for it.

BE CONSISTENT! I cried for any reason I could come up with.
*My sleep sack tickled my foot.
*I felt a wrinkle under the sheet.
*My mobile made a shadow on the wall.
*I burped, and it tasted like pears (I hadn't eaten pears since lunch - what's up with that?)
*The dog said "woof" (I should know. My Mommy reminds me of this about 20 times a day. LOL.)
*Once I cried just because I liked how it sounded when it echoed on the monitor in the other room.
*Too hot, too cold, just right--doesn't matter! Keep crying!!

It took awhile, but it worked. She fed me at 4am. Tomorrow night, my goal is 3:30am.

You need to slowly shorten the interval between feedings in order to reset your Mummies' internal clocks.

P.S. Don't let those rubber things fool you, no matter how long you suck on them, NO milk will come out! Trust me.

Underworld.

I had no expectations on this when I caught it on TV and came out quite happily surprised, so I thought I'd post something about it.

The concept of the war between werewolves and vampires is a good one, with a lot of cool factor attched, but everything I read about Underworld when it came out was that it was nothing really special, so I didn't bother trying to see it.

Anyway now I have I can say that although it's far from perfect, it's not without qualities.
1st and foremost, I enjoyed the story (more elaborate than expected, with a nice twist that changes the pespective on the story) and the background given (the vampire elders, slavery of the lycans, etc).
The movie is also really nice looking, the gothic atmosphere very well rendered and the poses you expect are all there! The actors are not specially good (and haven't heard of any oscars given, so... ;) ), but good looking in the context and therefore appropriate.
Actually 1 standout: Bill Nighy as the @ss-kicking Viktor. One word: Cool. :)

The only let down is really that the action doesn't really delivers. Apart from bits of the final showdown (with Bill Nighy!) it's quite bland, which is a shame really.
Somehow, it's really good looking but not quite so when images are moving. It's far from horrible, but nothing groudbreaking. I think one of the main problem of werewolves movies is to make the werewolves. It's always tricky to make them believable so I guess they couldn't really go all the way in fight scenes, which you could have expected epic, but unfortunately aren't...

But overall it didn't spoilt it for me, so I'll actually try to see the sequel now...