More of the same: [ii]

this time, ads.

Plot: "Seven warriors come together to protect a village from a diabolical General." [2005]

In the mid-1600s, the Manchurians have taken over sovereignty of China and established the Qing Dynasty. While nationalistic sentiments start brewing within the martial artists' community (Jianghu), the Qing government immediately imposes a Martial Arts Ban (禁武令), forbidding the common people to practice martial arts. This is a means of maintaining law and order, as well as provide the Qing government with sufficient reason to put down any potential rebellion by nationalist martial artists. Fire-Wind, a military officer who formerly served the fallen Ming Dynasty, sees the new law as an opportunity for himself to make fortune by assisting the government in executing the law. Greedy, cruel and immoral, Fire-Wind ravages northwest China, killing thousands of martial artists as well as innocent civilians with his army. His next goal is to attack the final frontier Martial Village (武莊), which, as its name suggests, is a home to a number of martial artists.

Taken from the "Seven Swords" Wiki entry: here.

[a Reminder:] June 26th marked the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking

R.I.P. MJ

I've seen Oradea in May & this is how it looked like

If curious for more, this is the place to take a look.
It's yet-another-flickr account, as the other one is running out of space... [wink-wink] ...
so should you be curious about potential birthday presents, a Flickr Pro account makes up for a good option. :)

Where Europe Ends

About the movie
“Where Europe Ends” is a 50 minutes documentary produced by Romanian Academic Society and Mrakonia Film, with the support of Black Sea Trust and Friederich Ebert Stiftung, on the consequences of EU enlargement on the border areas of EU adjoining countries Moldova and Ukraine.
The DVD comes together with a policy report. You can contact us for a promotional copy.

From here.

More of the same:

Simon still very much rocked in last night's Big Nothing [2006]:

Big Nothing is a black comedy/neo-noir film directed by Jean-Baptiste Andrea starring David Schwimmer and Simon Pegg. It was released in December 2006, and had its premiere at Cardiff Film Festival in November 2006.
Big Nothing was filmed on the Isle of Man and in Wales at Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan and at Caerwent and other areas of Monmouthshire. Other scenes were at Squamish, British Columbia, Canada.

Tagline: "A comedy that gets away with murder."
And so it is.
A preview here:

Lá-ú-rí, Lá-ú-rí!!

Lauri Tähkä & Elonkerjuu: official band site [why in Finnish, of course!]
I wanna go to these guys' show. Whenever.
Seriously.

Simon said... many lines, and I decided to write his name down here :)

Simon Pegg, that is.
True, it was only a reference to Hot Fuzz when I first saw Simon on the screen, but given the lack of time constraints, I had decided to deepen my understanding of his work :)
So these have been the week's choices:

Tagline: "Love. Commitment. Responsibility. There's nothing he can't run away from." [2007]
Run Fatboy Run's IMDb entry might not do the film enough justice, so I'd recommend the Wiki entry instead.

Tagline: "Brace yourselves, America." [2008]
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People didn't get a very high IMDb score either, but Simon's performance was quite good and the Brits got it.

Any final words? - Well,.. go Simon!

On the Road

It's been really difficult to make a note of this, perhaps much more difficult than for most other recent reads; though having finished On the Road back in March, my thoughts on it have been scattered and at times contradictory, possibly related to my own varying perception over the randomness or possible meaningfulness of every day's streams of life..
It's for this reason that I'll have to redirect you to the thoughts of others.

So here's an opinion [not my own]:

When it was published in 1957, On the Road fascinated America with its seemingly aimless outcasts seeking thrills across the continent. It is the autobiographical account of Jack Kerouac's life in the late 1940s. Kerouac was recognized as the father of the Beat Generation with the publication of his novel. The Beat literary movement actually started with a small group of bohemians living in New York City during the mid-1940s. The group included Kerouac, poet Allen Ginsberg, and professional eccentric William Burroughs. The men were trying to define a "New Vision" in literature, and they discussed and criticized various works of literature and theories of writing.

... which you can keep reading here.

And here's an other:

Critics like Millstein stressed the spiritual qualities of Kerouac's novel. Millstein wrote that the "frenzied pursuit of every possible sensory impression" by the various characters in the novel are "excesses made to serve a spiritual purpose, the purpose of an affirmation still unfocused, still to be defined, unsystematic." In other words, the characters are on a quest for belief in something, anything. Ralph Gleason, in Saturday Review, touched on the search for affirmation and spiritual dimension of the novel when he denied that On the Road is a "beat" novel [...]

... and you can read this review here.

39 minutes after the middle of the night...

I recalled a childhood favourite: Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego - file types incompatible w/ my Ubuntu but maybe you're curious.. here's the Wiki entry.

[old news:] The Times Top 200 Artists of the 20th Century to Now

on Times Online: here.

Nude, Mona Lisa-Like Painting Surfaces

In the Discovery News here.

Tagline: "Sometimes life brings some strange surprises." [2005]

In the end, none of the mysteries posed by the film are resolved.

Read about Bill Murray's "Broken Flowers" experience on the IMDb here or, should you prefer it, on Wiki here.

Tagline: "How would you handle the most awesome responsibility in the universe?" [2003]

Read about "Bruce Almighty" on the IMDb here or, should you prefer it, on Wiki here.
As far as I was concerned, a good enough Friday night companion with some help from the red wine on the side.

Freedom for All!! [..or at least the illusion of it]

.. starting with Myself. Today.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: an Intro

Aldous Huxley v. George Orwell - black & white cartoon teaser here: 2 minutes guaranteed to have been well spent!

Consider this

Green parties celebrating their success in last week's European Parliament election are gearing up for a fight over nuclear power.
The coalition of green parties, who are unanimous in their anti-nuclear position, increased their presence in the European Parliament from 5.5% to 7.1% (52 seats). Although not enough to force any changes, science-policy experts anticipate a major battle on the issue in the next legislature.
The European Parliament does not currently have the power to legislate on energy production in the European Union's 27 member states. But if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified later this year by the remaining few member states that have not yet signed up, parliament's power will extend into new areas. "If the Lisbon treaty is approved, it will give the European Union responsibility for energy security," says Ulrike Lunacek, who is president of the European Green Party and a newly elected member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Austria. "We will use this opportunity to make a stand in the European Parliament against nuclear power," she told Nature.

Brought to you by NatureNews, as Green boost in European elections may trigger nuclear fight.

Ad of the Day [again]

Ad of the Day

Marian texted me, I watched : Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium [2007]

Tagline: "You have to believe it to see it."
Curious?
Here's MMWE's IMDb's plot summary;
which is accidentally the same site where I found the photo on the side.

And here the much more thorough Wiki entry, packed with some extra facts, such as the fact that the film had been inspiring enough for a novelization to be released.

Marian, thanks for this rather vivid pseudo-morale boost incarnation! :)

Today: World Environment Day

The theme for WED 2009 is 'Your Planet Needs You - UNite to Combat Climate Change'. It reflects the urgency for nations to agree on a new deal at the crucial climate convention meeting in Copenhagen some 180 days later in the year, and the links with overcoming poverty and improved management of forests.
WED 2009’s host is Mexico which reflects the growing role of the Latin American country in the fight against climate change, including its growing participation in the carbon markets.
Mexico is also a leading partner in UNEP's Billion Tree Campaign. The country, with the support of its President and people, has spearheaded the pledging and planting of some 25 per cent of the trees under the campaign. Accounting for around 1.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the country is demonstrating its commitment to climate change on several fronts.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon states that the WED celebration will “further underline Mexico's determination to manage natural resources and deal with the most demanding challenge of the 21st century – climate change.”

[from here]

Tagline: "One word can change everything." [2008]

Read about "Yes Man" on the IMDb here or, should you prefer it, on Wiki here.
As it made L. happy, it was good enough for me.

To remeber = [v. intr.] To have or use the power of memory

The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 culminating in the Tiananmen Square massacre (referred to in Chinese as the June 4 Incident, to avoid confusion with two other Tiananmen Square protests) were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China (PRC) beginning on April 14. Led mainly by students and intellectuals, the protests occurred in a year that saw the collapse of a number of communist governments around the world.
The protests were sparked by the death of pro-market, pro-democracy and anti-corruption official, Hu Yaobang, whom protesters wanted to mourn. By the eve of Hu's funeral, 1,000,000 people had gathered on the Tiananmen square. The protests lacked a unified cause or leadership; participants included disillusioned Communist Party members and Trotskyists as well as free market reformers, who were generally against the government's authoritarianism and voiced calls for economic change and democratic reform within the structure of the government. The demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square, in Beijing, but large-scale protests also occurred in cities throughout China, including Shanghai, which remained peaceful throughout the protests.
The movement lasted seven weeks, from Hu's death on April 15 until tanks cleared Tiananmen Square on June 4. In Beijing, the resulting military response to the protesters by the PRC government left many civilians dead or severely injured. The number of deaths is not known and many different estimates exist. There were early reports of Chinese Red Cross sources giving a figure of 2,600 deaths, but the Chinese Red Cross has denied ever doing so. The official Chinese government figure is 241 dead, including soldiers, and 7,000 wounded.
Following the violence, the government conducted widespread arrests to suppress protesters and their supporters, cracked down on other protests around China, banned the foreign press from the country and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the PRC press. Members of the Party who had publicly sympathized with the protesters were purged, with several high-ranking members placed under house arrest, such as General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. The violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square protest caused widespread international condemnation of the PRC government.

From Wikipedia: Tiananmen Square protests of 1989

The Squid and the Whale [2005]

In 1986, In Brooklyn, New York, the dysfunctional family of pseudo intellectuals composed by the university professor Bernard and the prominent writer Joan split. Bernard is a selfish, cheap and jealous decadent writer that rationalizes every attitude in his family and life and does not accept "philistines" - people that do not read books or watch movies, while the unfaithful Joan is growing as a writer and has no problems with "philistines". Their sons, the teenager Walt and the boy Frank, feel the separation and take side: Walt stays with Bernard, and Frank with Joan, and both are affected with abnormal behaviors. Frank drinks booze and smears with sperm the books in the library and a locker in the dress room of his school. The messed-up and insecure Walt uses Roger Water's song "Hey You" in a festival as if it was of his own, and breaks with his girlfriend Sophie. Meanwhile Joan has an affair with Frank's tennis teacher Ivan and Bernard with his student Lili. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The patriarch (Jeff Daniels) of an eccentric Brooklyn family claims to once have been a great novelist, but he has settled into a teaching job. When his wife (Laura Linney) discovers a writing talent of her own, jealousy divides the family, leaving two teenage sons to forge new relationships with their parents. Linney's character begins dating her younger son's tennis coach. Meanwhile, Daniels' character has an affair with the student his older son is pursuing. Written by craig47

[as per the IMDb]
Here's the trailer:

[Re-]Tracing the Templars' Passage

Castelo de Almourol: Almourol Castle

The Answer to Yesterday's Curiosity:

More people must die in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button than throughout an average explode-‘em-up Hollywood picture. And that’s saying something. Infused with death and obsessed with mortality, the film is ostensibly about the passage of time as it relates to the ephemerality of life. “Babies are born, people die,” the title hero (Brad Pitt) says, and that’s the gist of the movie. It opens with a short parable about a blind clockmaker and his backwards-ticking timepiece that sweetly demonstrates the painfulness of time’s irreversibility. It then spends over two irreversible hours examining that theme more closely. [...]
Fincher maintains the fantasy’s credibility largely by divorcing the film from history. Though the film is framed by Blanchett’s daughter reading Button’s diary to her deathbed-bound mother—vaguely reminiscent of Edward Scissorhands’ frame—while Hurricane Katrina approaches their New Orleans hospital, the movie doesn’t hit very many real life touchstones, keeping us steeped in the film’s impossible logic. The Great Depression goes unmentioned, WWII is only briefly acknowledged (because otherwise the Senior Matinee Crowd won’t help build sufficient Oscar buzz), and the ‘60s are established with a spaceship launch (gorgeous!) and the Beatles on television (dangerously Gumpy). The Katrina frame actually turns out to be meaningful, although it doubles as one of the ways that Roth frequently tries to draw a comparison between Benjamin’s otherness and that of the African-American community, to an effect somewhere between offensive and laughable. Button was born on Armistice Day, the end of that generation’s greatest slaughter, and his love dies on hurricane touchdown, arguably this generation’s greatest disaster (hitherto). Although the final shot seems like the filmmakers may have simply exploited the tragedy to find a visual expression for The Floodwaters of Time, this is, after all, a movie about death. So shouldn’t it end with a whole hell of a lot of it?

Chosen & laid down thanks to Cinepinion's review.