Hulk Vs [2009]

Or two for the price of one:

Hulk Vs is a 2009 direct-to-video animated film from Marvel Animation and Lionsgate, featuring the Incredible Hulk in two short film battles, one against Wolverine, the other against Thor.

Keep reading the Wiki entry here, or the IMDb one here.
Oh, and of course, this is the Hulk Vs. hub at Marvel.com.

I seriously liked the Wolverine one better, despite [or because?] of its shorter duration. Amusing.

Coraline [2009]

This is the second feat I explore in the recently acclaimed Cool New Way of selecting films, as I first got fascinated with Coraline's soundtrack and then decided to watch it. And sorry I feel not, as this is exactly the sort of tale that I am currently open to ingesting:

The mescaline-trip-tinged Coraline is like Pan’s Labyrinth without the self-serious pretense to prestige. Director Henry Selick’s first return to stop motion animation in 13 years (and his first full non-Monkeybone movie without Tim Burton’s guiding hand) centers on the title character, a little girl bored both by her relocation to a baroque, off-the-map manor and her inattentive parents, who won’t indulge her adventurous spirit. Serendipitously, she discovers a small, wallpapered-over door in her gray, unfurnished living room; though bricked-up by day, by night it leads to an other-dimensional Wonderland, opening onto a rabbit-hole-ish portal, a fleshy touch-tunnel reminiscent of the birth canal. It’s as though she’s crawling back into the womb...

Keep tuning in to the Cinepinion review on top, or taste a different take here.

Skiing in Bucharest

Down with the Sickness

No, not the Disturbed tune.
Nor the Richard Cheese and the Lounge against the Machine remake.
I'm the one who's been ill, unable to leave the house or manage any of my plans for that matter. Frustrating. Seriously.
Instead, I did the only thing I was able to do: watching films. So here are some overviews - in chronological order [where chronological refers to the order in which I've seen them, fyi]:

1. Be Kind Rewind [2008]:

In his previous two fiction films, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep, Michel Gondry indulged his taste for whimsy and invention by setting his films inside the imaginarium that is the human mind; Be Kind Rewind, on the other hand, is set in the idealistic world of the cinema, on strips of magnetic tape, where a person can be made to disappear with just a little bit of creative on-camera editing and day turns to night with just the flip of a switch.
As with the other two films, Be Kind Rewind is also set, sometimes, in the real world, in the urban blight of Passaic, NJ; Gondry finds his pathos in the tragic disconnect between life and invention.

Keep reading this very well written appraisal on the Cinepinion blog.

2. Dirty Pretty Things [2002]:

Tagline: Some things are too dangerous to keep secret.
Plot: An illegal Nigerian immigrant discovers the unpalatable side of London life.

[from the IMDb film's page above]
This was a film recommended by our e-course coordinator on the week themed 'Smuggling and trafficking in human beings' - to give you an idea of how it reached me. I did however get most impressed with Sophie Okonedo's performance - whose contrasting part in Hotel Rwanda I had only seen weeks before.

3. Transsiberian [2008]:

Tagline: Arrive on time.
Plot: A Trans-Siberian train journey from China to Moscow becomes a thrilling chase of deception and murder when an American couple encounters a mysterious pair of fellow travelers.

[from the IMDb film's page above]
Titling this review ''Transsiberian' a thrill ride' is certainly most appropriate for defining the film's pace in simple words. That adrenaline surely did get pumped up!

4. Million Dollar Baby [2004]: this one doesn't really require any further introduction, does it?! Yes, it's only now that I've seen it.

aaand.. 5. The Secret Life of Words [2005]:

Plot: A hearing impaired factory worker gives up her first holiday in years and instead travels out to an oil rig, where she cares for a man suffering from severe burns.

[from the IMDb film's page above]
There's been a tight competition between this film and the one preceding it as to which one is more of a drama, and -though possibly with a margin of error- this one could be the winner. But then, I wasn't really in the mood to see 2 dramas in only one day - bummer!

And this sums it up for the day.

Panteão Nacional: part ii

In 1966, during the government of the Dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, the Church of Santa Engrácia was turned into a National Pantheon. The personalities buried here include the Presidents of the Republic Manuel de Arriaga, Teófilo Braga, Sidónio Pais and Óscar Carmona, Presidential candidate Humberto Delgado, writers João de Deus, Almeida Garrett, Guerra Junqueiro and Aquilino Ribeiro and fado singer Amália Rodrigues. There are cenotaphs to Luís de Camões, Pedro Álvares Cabral, Afonso de Albuquerque, Nuno Álvares Pereira, Vasco da Gama and Henry the Navigator.

[from here]
... and this is how I've learnt of Humberto Delgado:

Although initially a staunch supporter of the right-wing dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar, and the youngest general in Portuguese history, his passage as a Military Attaché and Aeronautic Attaché to the Portuguese Embassy in Washington, D.C. in 1952 pushed him into the defence of democratic ideals, and inspired him to run as a candidate to the Portuguese presidency in 1958.
In a famous interview on 10 May 1958, in the Chave d'Ouro café, when asked what would be his attitude towards Salazar, he made one of the most famous quotations of Portuguese politics: Obviamente, demito-o! (Obviously, I'll sack him!).
His outspoken attitude earned him the epithet of General sem Medo (Fearless General).
He was nevertheless credited with only around 25% of the votes in the highly rigged presidential elections of 1958, despite the consensual opinion that he was the true winner and some evidence of ballots filled with votes for the regime candidate by the secret police.
He was expelled from the Portuguese military, and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy before going into exile. [...]
In 1964, he founded the Portuguese National Liberation Front in Rome. [...]
Delgado and his Brazilian secretary, Arajaryr Moreira de Campos, would be murdered on 13 February 1965, after being attracted to an ambush by the regime's secret police (PIDE) near the border town of Olivenza, when trying to enter Portugal clandestinely. The official version was that he was killed in self defense, but he was not even armed when he was shot, and his secretary was strangled. Their bodies would only be found some two months later, near the Spanish village of Villanueva del Fresno. [...]
In 1990, Humberto Delgado was posthumously promoted to Marshal of the Portuguese Air Force - being the only person to hold this rank -, his name was given to an Avenue in Lisbon and his body was moved to the National Pantheon, in Lisbon. The significance of this gesture is that some former Portuguese Presidents are there.

[from here.]
Why write all of these here?
Because I found it to be representative of respectfulness, in its widest understanding, and because I found it impressive: certain errors may be [even if only marginally] corrected posthumously, from what it appears. And this has the potential of being a lesson for many, individuals and peoples alike.
[Photos from my flickr.]

One Glorious Sunday Morning We Visited Panteão Nacional in Lisbon

The Church of Santa Engrácia is a 17th century monument of the city of Lisbon, in Portugal. In the 20th century the church has been converted into the National Pantheon (Panteão Nacional), in which important Portuguese personalities are buried. It is located in the neighbourhood of Alfama, close to another important Lisbon monument, the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora. [...]
The first church dedicated to the Saint was sponsored by Princess Maria, daughter of King Manuel I, around 1568. In 1681, building of the current church began after previous structures collapsed. The author of the new design was João Antunes, royal architect and one of the most important baroque architects of Portugal.
Building work proceeded from 1682 through 1712, when the architect died. King John V lost interest in the church, concentrating his resources in the gigantic Convent of Mafra. The church was left unfinished until the 20th century, so that Obras de Santa Engrácia (lit. Saint Engrácia's works) has become a Portuguese synonym for long unfinished works. Eventually a dome was added, whereupon the church was reinaugurated in 1966.

Excerpt from the Wiki entry: here.
More shots as taken by me: here.

The Ticking

As the word spread, I decided to give graphic novels a go.
This was the 1st try:

Renee French, The Ticking (Top Shelf Productions, 2005)
I am sure there is someone out there-- in fact, I am sure there are a lot of some-ones out there-- who can read through The Ticking a few times and tell you all sorts of things about the subtext, the symbolism, and all sorts of other under-the-surface stuff about this book. I am not one of them. I'm just here to tell you that The Ticking is one of the flat-out oddest productions I have encountered in the universe of graphic literature.
Edison Steelhead's mother dies in childbirth. His father sees that Edison has inherited his own deformities, and sets about trying to get Edison plastic surgery to make him look more normal. Edison himself isn't sure about all this, and flees from the necessity of these confrontations into his career as an aspiring artist. Edison's father then brings home a sister for Edison-- Patrice, a chimpanzee, and Edison and Patrice begin down the road to sibling-hood, one not smooth at the best of times. And that's just the beginning. Things get odder from there.
This is a book both amusing (how amusing you will find it depends largely on your capacity for appreciation of black humour) and horrifying, often in the same panel. French's panorama is the world of the deformed, but [...] French approaches her subjects with a warmth and humour that translates to the audience's ability to better relate to the book's subjects-- always a wonderful thing.
If the book has a problem, it's that it could have been longer. French's impressionist style is wonderful, and the holes that are left are done with an obvious sense of planning, but I'd still have liked to see a little more of... well, everything. The relationship between Patrice and Edison's father in particular stands out as not quite covered enough, but the Patrice-and-Edison scenes, some of the best in this always-strong book, are too few.

As reviewed on Amazon.
To my agreement, the "Unbearable, but beautiful" title of the review made for a very appropriate choice.

What's been said here recently

Click on image to enlarge by redirecting. :)

993 days, 335 sent & 322 received cards later

I dare make a note on Postcrossing:
Firstly, because it brightens up my days, even more so recently!
Secondly, cause I'm not really certain why, but Postcrossing seems to have become of interest only marginally in Romania [current country of residence :)], with merely 200 users. Now, I'm not really sure why things are so, but I think they can change :)
So here's a briefing:

About Postcrossing
What is Postcrossing?

In short: the objective of Postcrossing is to allow people to exchange postcards via mail (real mail, not email) with random postcrossers from around the world. Oh, and it is absolutely free, meaning, if you send a postcard, you will receive one back from another random user (and sometimes, another one from the person you wrote to).

How does Postcrossing work?

It goes like this:

1. You register yourself on the website. You will need to provide your postal address so that you can receive postcards.
2. You request to send a postcard. An address is displayed along with the member's profile. This address will be accompanied by a Postcard ID - a unique code that identifies your postcard.
3. Choose a postcard, write something nice on it along with the assigned Postcard ID, and mail it to the address you were given.
4. Wait, wait, wait. :-)
5. Hoorray! The card arrives to its destination and is registered by the user! Now you too will receive a postcard!

For more details, please check the About section. If you still have questions, give us a shout!

Need I add that Postcrossing's been keeping me company over almost 1000 days and 3 countries now? ... and that it's been created from scratch by my good Portuguese friend Paulo? :)
So get them postcards rollin'!

Nude, Mona Lisa-Like Painting Surfaces

In the Discovery News here.

[Re-]Tracing the Templars' Passage

Castelo de Almourol: Almourol Castle

Tomar: part ii

The gridded streets of the old town converge on the central Praça da República.

Here stands an elegant seventeenth-century town hall, a ring of houses of the same period and the church of São João Baptista, remarkable for its octagonal belfry, elaborate Manueline doorway and six religious panels attributed to Gregório Lopes, one of the finest artists to emerge from the so-called "Portuguese School" of the sixteenth century.

Nearby is an excellently preserved fifteenth-century synagogue*, now the Museu Luso-Hebraico Abraham Zacuto, named after the Spanish astronomer, Abraham Zacuto, who prepared navigational aids for Vasco da Gama. Its stark interior, with plain vaults supported by four slender columns, houses a collection of thirteenth- to fourteenth-century Hebraic inscriptions, but the interest lies more in its very survival in a town dominated for so long by crusading Christian Defenders of the Faith. In 1496 Dom Manuel followed the example of the Catholic Kings of Spain and ordered the conversion or expulsion of all Portuguese Jews. The synagogue at Tomar was one of the very few to survive so far south

* and the very first I have visited, which makes it much more special.

Lastly, one more town image deserves to be added for the mere reason that it's unvisited, slightly remote and generally a pleasure to the eye: the out-of-the-city-centre church of St. Maria dos Olivais - next to which archaeological works are still in progress.

Out of town, the highlight is the stunning seventeenth-century Aqueduto Pegões, built to supply the convent with water.

Walking to this place was the best choice for a Saturday morning and, oh boy, that was definitely worth! Here's why: the very first aqueduct I got to climb on, and enough to get me feeling the wind's breeze instilling a sense of ... well, take-off!
To sum it up, this was a great place to spend the 50h we've dedicated and possibly a place to return. A reminder is however useful: bring along some extra memory for the photos - it'll be missed!
Once again, guiding lines picked up from here.
And, once again, extra photos are located here.

Tomar: part i

The Convento de Cristo at Tomar, 34km east of Fátima, is an artistic tour de force which entwines the most outstanding military, religious and imperial strands in the history of Portugal. The Order of the Knights Templar* and their successors, the Order of Christ, established their headquarters here and successive Grand Masters employed experts in Romanesque, Manueline and Renaissance architecture to embellish and expand the convent in a manner worthy of their power, prestige and wealth.
In addition, Tomar is a handsome small town in its own right, well worth a couple of days of slow exploration. Built on a simple grid plan, it is split in two by the Rio Nabão, with almost everything of interest on the west bank. Here, Tomar's old quarters preserve much of their traditional charm, with whitewashed, terraced cottages lining narrow cobbled streets that frame the convent above.

* See Dom Gualdim Pais (1118 – 1195), founder of the Castle of Tomar in 1160, here.

This is what my Rough Guide told me, and yes, the tingly sensation of excitement was prompt to arrive whilst embarking the train;
the great wheather, the friendliness of the locals and the affordable prices have all been happiness-inducing factors and, for things to get even better, the city seemed to have a rather small density of tourists per square km, giving the photo-freak in me plenty of space and time to collect them images:
Unfortunately, the Charola of the Knights Templar [the 'sacred heart of the whole complex, also known as the Rotunda or Templars' Apse'] constituted the subject of repairs at the time of our visit, so I couldn't even glance at it, let alone photograph it.
Nonetheless, I could catch the ex libris of the place, the Manueline style window (left, below), as well as the old cloister (right, below), as you may note:

Whilst writing these notes, selecting only a few images seems almost wrong and definitely difficult, as I keep focusing and being absorbed by the Convent and its many thought/admiration-enticing details, despite it not having been my intention;







... that's only because of its grand and overwhelming architecture and level of detail, which doesn't allow the easy passage to other features of the city; here's my only solution: Tomar will have a second dedicated post.

For (a few) more images, take a look here.

The Mellow Extended Weekend in the Algarve

The Atlantic sometimes makes all senseless things sensible; or it just washes them away, wave after wave, carved out again and again..

Retrospectively: Óbidos | Lizzo Day 310

[This long-overdue tale pertains to a trip undertaken back in a November Saturday, to a place known as Óbidos.]
As we were supposed to get the train to meet D.&T., the time to be spent at the station helped the useful purchase of a children's book on the topic; as it turned out, this included an audiobook, which very much speeded up the passage of time in the car, on the way to our destination:Unfortunately, I can't exactly upload the cd's contents, as this might oversimplify the tale's perspective; still, I can share some of the story behind:

Óbidos is known as the "Wedding City" and was the traditional bridal gift of the kings of Portugal to their queens, a custom started in 1282 by Don Dinis and Dona Isabel. It is a very small town, completely enclosed by lofty walls, and although much was rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake, Óbidos retains a medieval feel: cobbled alleys, withewashed houses framed with bright blue and yellow borders, and steep stairecaseswinding up to the exposed ramparts for distant views. 500 years ago, when Peniche was an island, the sea also reached the foot of the ridge on which Óbidos stands and boats were moored below its walls. However, by the 15th century the sea had retreated, leaving a fertile green plain and the distant Lagoa de Óbidos with its narrow, shallow entrance to the sea.

[as put by my Rough Guide to Portugal, p. 185]
Let me demonstrate:
Other than the royal tradition and the views, we've come to learn that this is a place famous for its chocolate Festivals and its ginjinha em copos de chocolate [chocolate-cups-cherry]:

...and such was a perfect late autumn's Saturday (:

P.S. Oh, and Here's the Castle, in case you were wondering about that lil' detail..

P.S.: how did the cultures [inter-]dialogue?

Ján Figel’, European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, announced on 25 September the winners in the “Cultures on my street” photo competition, organised by the European Commission as part of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008. More than 2,000 entries were received in response to the invitation to portray the theme of intercultural dialogue.

[from here]
This was chosen as the jury's 1st prize:

It's artistically-pleasurable & funny, in my view, but does it really pertain to Intercultural Dialogue?...

P.P.S. The adjacent description provides one with the following:

A jumble of shoes, tools, religious ornaments and Elvis posters provides the crowded setting for a tradesman and the locals who often meet in his workshop. “Freddy's shop is a meeting place for friends, locals and even the occasional tourist! I was intrigued by this man's 'cultural' vision: the juxtaposition of religious icons next to those of pop stars”, says Smith. According to Professor Chris Wainright, the UK photographer and academic, and chairman of the jury, “intimacy, multi layering of meaning and elegant mood and composition” were what convinced the jury of the merit of this picture.

photography & sustainable development

Mr. Yann Arthus-Bertrand - (French photographer and) author of the "Earth from Above" exhibition - gets involved with the concept of sustainable development by chairing GoodPlanet.org and by addressing schoolchildren as one of the main audiences.

In my opinion, there's quite a bit of added value to flicking through the outcomes, even if only as a set of visual stimulants. Enjoy!

[copyright here]

sugar human rights

Everyone is entitled to a standard of life which should insure one's and one's family their health and well being.