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Whee! Saw Troy, which was fairly godawful as predicted, but still crazy fun, as it provided unpreceedented volumes of substance for mockery. And with boring special effects-heavy and/or epic movies, it’s fun to play “So is that CG, a matte painting, or a miniature?,” so I stayed entertained. I did this for parts of Van Helsing, too. :D

So, um. Spoilers.

Things that were obnoxious:

  • Gods, what gods?

  • Cassandra? Who?

  • The Iliad? Was that what we’re basing this movie on? Guh, I haven’t even read the poem and I was wincing. Dude, this wasn’t Troy, it was Achilles: The Movie!

  • Menelaeus killed? Wha?

  • Ten years? Huh?

  • The most godawful day-for-night since Nosferatu.

  • It violated the “hate” rule. Near the beginning of the movie, Agamemnon says something like “Of all the men favored by the gods, I hate him the most,” yet I’ve observed that in nearly all movies in which one character says they hate another character, we’re supposed to like the object of the “hate”. For example, Jurassic Park’s John Hammond says of Ian Malcom “I really really hate that man.” Yet Brad Pitt’s Achilles is entirely unlikeable. I thought of other examples in the theatre as I sat, bored in the first five minutes of action, but I can’t remember at the moment.

  • Gratuitous skin shots. It’s like “let’s see how much of Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom we can show without actually showing their genitals!” I really didn’t need to see that.

  • Delayed acknowledgement of Andromache. I’ve always felt that in big battle movies and such, if someone’s name isn’t said, then they’re not important enough to be recognized as a character. The scenes with Hector, Andromache, and Astynax came off as flat, because Hector wasn’t granting Andromache and Astynax character recognition. Andromache’s name wasn’t said until the very end, and Astynax’s name was never said at all.

  • PICK. A. SIDE. Are we supposed to be happy or sad that Troy has fallen?

  • Um… is it just me or is the music for the sack of Troy the EXACT SAME MUSIC as Haldir’s death?

    Things that were neat:

  • The CG wasn’t painfully bad. It was actually quite nice.

  • They pronounced “Andromache” right! I wonder if they consulted the same UPenn source we did… UPenn is quite an authority in that area.

  • HAHAHAHAHA Aneas is such a dork!

  • The men are so hairless! This is very funny.

  • Mum says Brad Pitt said in an interview that he thinks this movie will make guys-in-skirts trendy. That would be so wonderful. I wish that were possible. The world needs more kilts, while we’re at it.

  • Did anyone else see the name “Hermione” on the map at the beginning? Yeah, I laughed. In fact, one of Helen’s daughters with Menelaeus is named Hermione. Of course, JKR named her after the Hermione in Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale,” but it was still keen.

    I’ll post pics from dinner tonight (and all the others Chungy and Ashley requested) tomorrow morning. Msleepy. Oh– and Mimi, here is Tanja’s “The Iliad: The Anime” that I was giggling over at dinner.

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    I just realized how hilarious my trip to New York with Rebecca and Tanja is going to be, regarding the time change. I live in Dallas, aka GMT-6. New York is GMT-5. Rebecca lives in Alaska, which is GMT-9. Tanja lives in Sweden, which is GMT+1. One girl will be 4 hours off in one direction, and the other will be 6 hours off in the other. I will be laughing at them.

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    *laughs* I love it! Only in the new millenium! Adoration and eternal respect for whoever came up with Fan the Vote. It’s a LiveJournal Community for volunteer fannish services (including art) for pledges to the Kerry Campaign and MoveOn.org! It’s only been around for three days, yet the group’s creator reports that as of early this afternoon, the community has raised approximately $1700 for the Kerry campaign and $156 for MoveOn. GUH.

    Edit: And Art the Vote, too! And VoteWorks!

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    Is anyone in town to see Troy with me? Rachel M? Maybe the Daisies can see it with me tomorrow afternoon, after school? Ashley? Mimi? Tori? And Chungy, you’re coming home sometime soon, right? So does that mean Rachel B will be home soon, too?

    After school, Cinemark 17 has showings at 4:45, 5:30, 7:00, 7:45, 8:30, 9:30, 10:30, 11:15. And actually, I should probably change that period to a question mark so that every sentence in this post will end in a question mark… shouldn’t I? XD

    When does everyone get back in town?

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    Blogger Stats!

    On Blogger Since December 2000

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    The Cult of Lincoln is spiralling out of control! Mwaha.

    So last night I saw Connie and Carla, which was very cute. It’s about two female dinner-theatre performers that witness a murder and go undercover as male drag queens to hide from the killers. It was written by (and stars) Nia Vardalos, the woman who wrote and starred in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” Go see it and spread the love, as it’s flying very much under the radar.

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    Apologies if those subscribing to the CoL LJ RSS feed (wow, gotta love all those acronyms!) got spammed. The blame lies with the new Blogger, as it apparently assigned new URLs to the last bunch of posts, which resulted in doubleposting up the wazoo.

    Now I know what M was talking about yesterday! I told her about abeybaby, and she marvelled at the spam. I thought she was just referring to my habits of moderate to heavy posting frequency. Apparently not.

    So the buck is firmly passed to Blogger, but with love, because some of the new features are really quite neat. I’ll get used to the new layout eventually. I just miss the “post” without publishing option. Ah well, I guess the “preview” makes up for it.

    I really, really, really need a new layout.