Burning through Season 2 of Metalocalypse There have been around three or four really kickass episodes but overall this series does not do much for me. The voice acting is very annoying especially William Murderface and he's given a fuckload of things to say. The good episodes are the one where they try to learn the blues, the one with the fat kid and the one about fashion. Everything else I wouldn't want to see more than once.

Am four stories in to The Devil and Sherlock Holmes a collection of essays by journalist David Grann. This is a fairly engrossing collection of narratives about people in weird circumstances or just plain weird people and the sort of things they end up doing. So far I've read about the mysterious death of one of the world's foremost experts on Sherlock Holmes, a Texan falsely implicated in the murder of his family, a master of disguise who frequently masquerades as a teenage boy, an amnesia afflicted fireman who believes the only reason he survived 9/11 was because he was ran away from and not into the building and probably the most fascinating - a Polish nihilist called Bala who served a prison term after a detective noted startling similarities between a book he'd written called Amok and an unsolved murder. If I have a problem with this, it is with Grann's writing which is kinda obvious and simplistic. Some of the stories, especially the one about the Texan could have been trimmed and were full of repetitive fluff that was right of Reader's Digest. Still the bizarreness of these stories really cannot be denied and they make for compelling reading in spite of Grann's shortcomings.

This Doctor Who tv series is from 2005 onwards? And how are seasons 1-4?

The Lady Vanishes

sabman wrote:
This Doctor Who tv series is from 2005 onwards? And how are seasons 1-4?

What happened was, in 2005 they relaunched Doctor Who with a new Doctor, the 9th one. They called that the Series 1. The next three series had another guy playing the doctor. This one is the eleventh doctor and the show is now headed by a new guy Moffat and has given this a nice little push in terms of quality. The previous two doctors were decent to occasionally great, but Matt Smith is proving to be awesome - second only to the mighty Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor.

Saw a Telugu potboiler called Magadheera starring Chiranjeevi's son who is presented as yet another "I can do the singing and dancing and fighting" star. Reincarnation seems to be a recurrent theme in big Telugu blockbusters. Movie goes on for too long with a really sluggish first half but has some entertaining CGI and kickass exaggerated action sequences especially one where the hero as a medieval warrior takes on a hundred enemies at once. Good campy fun in its good parts.

Finished The Drawing of Dark by Tim Powers. A very well written book about Austria's last stand against a Turkish invasion which turns out to be a class of cultures and civilizations that's far deeper than anyone could have imagined. It's an amazing mix of updated Arthurian legend, ass kicking action, wry humour and moments of great poignancy. Quite brilliant overall and one of the best in the very likable Fantasy Masterworks series.

Lust, Caution (Ang Lee) - A young amateur actress in Japan occupied China becomes part of a militant revolutionary group and agrees to seduce a high-ranking official into dropping his guard and setting him up for assassination. As expected complications develop. A mostly brilliantly executed slow-burning emotional cat and mouse game, with revelatory performances from newcomer actress Wei Tang and the formidable Tony Leung. But despite what Ang Lee may say, the explicit sadism-tinged sex scenes seem to me as much of an unnecessary and distasteful edition as the rape scene poor Sir Peter Cushing had to enact in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed.

David Lean's film adaptation of Oliver Twist was a fast-paced and engaging experience with awesome sets, beautiful camerawork and some kickass evil performances, especially Alec Guinness as Fagin.

Blond Blue Eyes, a made for TV Dutch documentary on their biggest film star ever, Rutger Hauer. I guess you need to be a fan of the man and have seen some of the shit he's been in to appreciate this documentary but Hauer comes across as a very honest star. Making no apologies for the crap he's starred in over the years and at the same time never really deriding them. Very cool documentary and I think I'm a bigger fan after watching this. Absolutely no mention about Blade Runner but most of his other significant movies get at least a mention.

which are his other significant movies? I only know the awesome Blind Fury, I think.

Saw Tam thriller Kaakha Kaakha for er...work related reasons and wish I hadn't. Surya is good as an asskicking cop and there are some good fight sequences but what felt like over one hour of the film was devoted to some bullshit right out of a Marvel movie: a long and tedious romance. This essentially crippled the pace of the film. Would have been great at 80 minutes. Was actually 150 plus.

Restarted watching Arrested Development after thousands of unrelated people recommended this. And I really gotta say I can't see why this series is received with so much enthusiasm. It's okay. A few notches better than Californication, a couple of funny gags every once in a while but otherwise very very by the numbers. There's too much reliance on the "You went shopping?! Again!?" kinda jokes. Anyway I'm told Season 2 is where it really picks up and since all my favourite TV shows are off air, its a good thing to watch while having a quick lunch or something.

Metalocalypse began to pick up midway through Season 2 with a liberal application of caveats. The voice acting still blows chunks: Murderface and some asshole clown who sounds like a retarded version of towelie (who is pretty fucking intolerable waste of a character to start with - the sort of lazy asshole writing that will appeal only to bottom of the barrel, LCD stoners) created with the express intention of making you punch yourself in the head till you go deaf. Almost every episode this character appears in is a write off since they give up on any attempt at doing or saying anything funny and just have this stuttering piece of shit running around shrieking about cocaine. I dread meeting the people who find this funny - they are probably the most depraved perverse creatures alive. But on the positive side, the show has started getting a lot more ambitious with animation and some of the dialogue writing has really improved.

ravenus wrote:
which are his other significant movies? I only know the awesome Blind Fury, I think.

To appreciate his acting chops I guess you have to see Soldier of Orange, Turkish Delight and Legend of the Holy Drinker which is the best movie he was ever in and probably also the performance of a lifetime but for more Blind Fury like ass kicking I'd suggest any of his movies from the 80s starting with The Hitcher which you've probably seen and is one of the most sadistic movies ever made without too much on screen violence, then there's Split Second and Salute of the Jugger both of which are solid dystopian movies, Wanted: Dead or Alive is just kick ass action and he's done a couple of fantasies, Ladyhawke and Flesh+Blood both of which are good fun. Also, The Osterman Weekend which was a Robert Ludlum book but given the Sam Peckinpah treatment with John Hurt and Dennis Hopper for company and it's held up really well and probably tied for third place after Hitcher and Split Second. Although I saw most of these movies when I was a lot younger and you need to be a fan of the whole 80s action thing to like these movies I guess.

HathyaSaiBaba wrote:
Saw Tam thriller Kaakha Kaakha for er...work related reasons and wish I hadn't. Surya is good as an asskicking cop and there are some good fight sequences but what felt like over one hour of the film was devoted to some bullshit right out of a Marvel movie: a long and tedious romance. This essentially crippled the pace of the film. Would have been great at 80 minutes. Was actually 150 plus.




well if it is an article on Gautam Menon, I hope you don't have to watch Minnale :P

Currently reading Carl Sagan & his wife, Ann Druyan's book, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. Excellent popular science book (though it tends to gets slightly heavy at times) which gives you the whole deal about the evolution of man - all the evidence that man knows (or thinks he knows) about his origin is presented in an interesting, elegant manner keeping in mind the constraints of the scientific method. Tidbits, quotes and general eccentricities about eminent scientists and how they came about presenting their ideas are thrown in here and there. For example, here's a cool Charles Darwin quote: "I remember wondering why every gentleman did not become an ornithologist." Heh.