Mixed Bag

Yep...

It's that time of the year again... that time when I swear I'll turn myself into a better human, lose 10 pounds, change jobs, get a life, learn how to speak Javanese (no, not a typo!), stop being obsessed by random sexy men and generally get on with my life.

New Year's Resolutions (yes, a capital "R" gosh!) are what zits are on a prepubescent junior girl's face on her prom night. You tried to get rid of it... tried to hide it and in desperation, hope nobody really notices it anyways because there's nothing you can do about but let Nature take its course.

And so, there y'a all are peeps.

Moving on...

I had been made aware, in the fall of a maybe, possibility of a Prince of Persia movie being in the works by Disney with Jake Gyllenhaal (so Persian... as much as a fat Texan in a anti-guns parade). Wary, I had put these rumors aside and tried to quelch the curiosity and raging demands of my inner POP fan so as not to expose it to cruel deception (Dragonball anybody?).

Alas... the new issue of the series on PS3 has re-awakened these urges and the witty/arrogant/snarky/charming new Prince's allure lured me back to Google and my search bar.

To my utmost disbelief, not only was the project confirmed, it was in post-production with a release date set in the 2010 spring! And had pictures to match! Being at work prevents me from posting them but look around, they're there!

So...

I looked and searched and grew more and more wary. The title is "Prince of Persia - Sands of Time". Ok, cool, I thought, the first title remains my favorite. Although I enjoyed Warrior Within and Two Thrones, nothing beats the young naïveté of our beloved hero. That was quickly shot down by a brief look at the script and synopsis. Firstly, our beloved Prince receives a name! (OMFG run for the hills! He's not SUPPOSED to have a name! He's the Prince! With a capital "P" yes!) and Farah is discarded for another princess although with similar circumstances.

Ok... storyline is somewhat similar, thank Heavens (well the beginning anyway...). The Persian army attacks a city where the Prince picks up the Dagger. The evil Vizir though works for the Persians, not the Indians in this version. The Dagger is filled with Sands, it does rewind time and... that's about as much as could take from the script... honestly, it was so badly written. I hope, oh I hope it was a fake leaked on the web and not original!

A redeeming point for the concept was that the project was to stand on its own from other POPs, just as the new game in the series stands out from the PS2 trilogy. This appears to be the team's main defense against POP hardcore fans who are already slashing away at the project. That could've saved it.... if they hadn't titled it "Sands of Time"!!! Only in the Ubisoft series are the Sands of Time utilized. Not in POP original, not in POP Shadow and Flame nor in POP 3D. So why mess with a good thing?

Well...

Jordan Mechner (the father of POP) was originally hired for the script and afterwards got replaced by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, the man behind "Day After Tomorrow". Disney also hired Mike Newell ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", "Love in the Time of Cholera") to direct and Jerry Bruckheimer ("Pirates of the Caribbean") to produce.

And there is your answer, well part of it. Jerry Bruckheimer; the legend behind Pirates and Armageddon, the monster that raped a great blockbuster and destroyed something that was simply good by making it complicated and pointless... The beast of finances and marketing, the B&L king, make it big, make it sassy, make it dazzle, let's have it garner $50M on its first weekend! Who cares about a good story? It's funny, its nice to look at and the action sequences are cool? Great. Period.

And... why kick Mechner out? He is the epitome of POP!! Take Nachmanoff instead and have his assistant, who enjoyed the games somewhat give him a brief rundown of POP and then let him write a script! Oh, and on a side-note, if the online script I read is actually the real thing, this guy is the most obtuse, imagination-deprived, culture-less author I've ever read! Good thing Word corrects his mistakes!

Quote: "Men come, all in black (like ninjas)."

Like ninjas? Did I stare at a white light for too long? Did my brain lack oxygen briefly? Can you be more descriptive?

'Oh well, I dunno, we could say, like stealthy assassins dressed in back?'
'No no, that's way too descriptive... shorten it.'
'Huh... dark-dressed assassins?'
'No...something that's cooler, that will appeal to the youngsters... what's that thing they like these days?'
'Anime?'
'Yes! That's the name! The japanese are so cool! What's the most obvious thing we could use?'
'Giant mecha?'
'No no, its a persian film!'
'Giant persian mecha?'
'...'
'Cute, scanthly dressed schoolgirls?'
'We already have a sexy princess...'
'Samurai?'
'Close...'
'Ninjas?'
'YES!! Ninjas! That'll do!'

How will the art departement respond to that? By dressing sneaky Persian soldiers as ninjas! In a persian-themed movie!! Ok ok... I'm probably over-reacting but still... *groan* The imagination-deprived continue to baffle me!

So, taking into consideration the info Nachmanoff gets from POP is second hand at best, that he lacks creativity... we get a movie project that starts to stink of a bad try at something good (Dragonball anybody??).

Lastly, the last sad element of the very much already still-born good project is its director. He could save it... right? Newell... well. For those who've seen Harry Potter GOF, you know what I mean. Remove essential parts of the plot and replace them by highly useless CG action sequences, add Jerry Bruckheimer to the mix and a script that doesn't really hold itself up... you get... oh please don't make me say it...

A BAD MOVIE!

I've said it... urg...

Ok, so I haven't said anything yet about our lead role. Well, as far as I'm concerned, Jake Gyllenhaal is a good actor. I liked him in Brokeback Mountain and enjoyed Day After Tomorrow. Zodiac was impressive and Jarhead was just wow. But he looks as Persian as my kitty looks like a parakeet! From what I could see of the production designs, they have done a good job of making him up as the Prince so we'll see if his acting is up to par.

The princess is played by Gemma Arterton, the lady behind Strawberry Fields in James Bond "Quantum of Solace" (the 'death by petroleum' lady) who again, looks about as Indian as my made-in-korea european car.

So, we'll see about that.

Of course, I'm just spazzing over something that isn't even out yet. But what I'm afraid of is a fiasco on the scale of Pirates 3 (heck, stretching it, even 2 was so-so...), Eragon and was is sure to be one, Dragonball. The fact that Disney is backing this project up doesn't help at all. From experience, if they can make it as big, glitzy and flashy as possible, the rest be-damned.

I'll be damned as well if I don't stop hoping for the best.
Miracles happen.

And on a side-note...

High School Musical 3 on Ice was at the Bell Center this week and it puzzled me greatly that although the movie depicts seniors in their last year of high school with all the drama that entails, the average age of attendance at the show was... 7? What is it with kids these days? At 7 I found boys icky, not until at least 14 did I discover the yummy goodness of highschool drama/romance flicks! Aw well... I thought it was ironic.

Oh, and Naruto finally returned to Konoha to kick Pain's emo ass! After all this useless crap, I swear.

Oh, and Bleach continues to be a simmering soup of nothings as the fights rage on. It's been going on so long now, I've forgotten why they were there at all!

Damn Jump for destroying these things!

Ok, enough rambling!

Ciao,

Happy New Year
All the Best

Aaridys
Power corrupts. Knowledge is power. Study hard. Be evil

Humeur: Spazzed
Music: Something on CHOM...

Sagesse ancienne

J'aimerais ajourd'hui,
Vous exprimer, en de belles paroles,
Tous les voeux, les conseils et la sagesse de Noël.

Évoquer les grands penseurs,
Vous faire songer, vous émerveiller, vous épater,
Mais alors que ce jour de Noël vieillit et mature,
J'en arrive à une idée;

Noël chez Wal-Mart,
Noël dans un Shell 24h,
Noël à déblayer les rues de la métropole,
Noël dans la rue, dans un bar, dans une maison seul,
Noël sur le bord de la 15 dans un banc de neige,
Noël en Israël, en Finlande ou au Mexique,
Noël avec la famille, les amis ou juste la blonde,
C'est Noël.

Pour ces raisons, passez de merveilleuses Fêtes.
Que le bonheur, l'amour, l'amitié et, oui...
L'argent,
Vous soient accordés, que la joie remplisse vos coeurs,

Joyeux Noël

Aaridys

Humeur: Paix
Musique: Tchaikovsky "Nutcracker Suite"

Virtue

On the Third Day of Christmas my True Love gave to Me...
Three French Hens...

He had lost his country, his home, his name, his heart, his soul and most of his life. In throwing himself in all manner of dangers, he had hopped to dim than pain, to curb that urge to wallow in despair and self-pity and to simply forget who and what he was.

Instead, he was given everything back. Friends, a life, hope, happiness and love. And for that, he would be ever grateful.



For Éolair of NadMullach, the true knight in all of us.

Aaridys

History

On the Second Day of Christmas my True Love gave to Me...
Two Turtle Doves...

Without him, we would be nothing, we would be words on a page, feelings lost in the mind and heart. The world would not exist, our lives, our adventures, our friends and foes, our heart-aches and joys, death, life, family, love and all would simply be ideas, theories and speculation.

Without him, we would not have been born, but we would not have died either. Suffering, healing, laughing and crying and these thins our reality might not permit, he has given us to experience.

To him, our history.



For our DM, creator and grantor of existences for more years than can be counted, both in real and fantasy worlds.

Aaridys

Devotion

On the First Day of Christmas my True Love gave to Me...
A Patridge in a Pear Tree...

He had never given enough thought to what he was doing, ever. His mind was only filled with the immediate battles and the churning of his heart. His feelings for her, although she had slipped away, not for the taking anymore; graciously, he had stepped away, how it pained him!

But the world was in need of him, of his companions, of all those that were strong and true and brave. Good, in the end, had to prevail and for it, he would lay down his arms, his heart and his life. His soul, last fortress of his existence would be laid bare for judgment.

He would not doubt. He would protect them.



For Cecil, our beloved tank and now dispenser of lives.

Aaridys

CRIKEY!

Well yes...
Last 2 weeks' Twilight obsession has been completely blown out of my mind, replaced by a spankin' new, shiny Australia fad.
Not that my constant stupid fangirl melt-in-a-puddle screech was any indicator I was completely a slave to Hugh Jackman prior to this movie... but it certainly helped quite a bit.


I mean, how can you possibly think of tweeny Robert Pattison when you have this:



Yes my friends, ladies and gents... that is what I call, a Man, with a capital "M" no less.

Uh... Anyhow... So, about the movie itself. Mmm... critics are very much divided about this one. Its either give or take. Baz Luhrmann's new love-child is, in my opinion, a perfect example of "cater-to-a-genre" movie. You'll have to love the style if you want to enjoy the experience.

Australia is an epic "slice-of-life" type, a "Gone With the Wind" type of romance and "Dance with the Wolves" type of adventure.

It's long, no denying that. 2 hours long, it spans almost 4 years worth of history and life. Starting in 1939 when WW2 was on the brink of exploding out of Europe and ending with the bombing of Darwin in northern Australia by Japan in 1942 right after Pearl Harbor, Australia delivers facts in a very raw, in-your-face manner.

It's also very heavy. By that, I mean in content and layers. One one hand, you have Lady Ashley (Kidman), English aristocrat that travels to Australia to convince her husband to sell their ranch there and return home only to discover he was assassinated and that the land is coveted by a cattle king monopolizing the meat market in Northern Australia. In preventing that, she will be assisted by the Drover (Jackman) and a gaggle of other characters, one of them being a half/aboriginal child named Nualla.

Insert here historical and social comment... Through Nualla's character, Luhrmann depicts the "Stolen Generations", an event akin to negro-assimilation elsewhere in the world. Half-caste children were taken away from their families to be "educated" in mission camps.

Through that, you get social comment on life in general in Australia at the time, army attitudes, businessman and cultural interpretations of about anything related to day-to-life events and grander ones on the scale of WW2.

And then, there's all the layering. Australia needs to be looked at twice, even thrice and probably more. Events thumble quickly, characters evolve, time passes and not always for us to see. Fletcher's (Wenham ...native Aussie!) character is something in itself. A broken man, perhaps, but also rutheless, pitiless and very much angry and sad for all his possessions and standing. Now all of this, we need to observe. It is not given for us to wait and receive these deductions thru other channels. They also are not obviously thrust in our faces. And that's only characters, not events.

Like life, Australia needs to be felt, it needs to be deduced, it needs to be observed, it needs to be experienced.

And on to romance... well. What can I say? If you've enjoyed Sissi, Gone with the Wind and love Scarlet O'Hara, you'll love this.

Australia is a romance like none had been made in a decade. It spans years, feelings deep and yet real and genuine. Jackman's delivery was surprising in its subtlety and finesse. Some expressions he showed I had never seen before in such stark honesty. It was a delight to savor. Kidman, which I've always loved, delivers as well. Lady Ashley is endearing, candid, naïve, lonely and lost all in turn and all at the same time. It a feast for the eyes.

The style of course is all very dramatic. It feeds from older genres and older times. The delivery is often exaggerated, the images rich and typical of Luhrmann. If you've seen and enjoyed Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge, you'll understand what I mean. Look only at this (and yes, even though this is a poster, it's an actual movie scene!):



See how she bends underneath his hands? See how he cradles her, strong and protective? They don't make kissing scenes (or even movies..) like that anymore... or maybe I'm just old-fashioned in these things.

What I enjoyed most of Australia (besides Jackman topless covered in water and soap... *groan*) was the sheer span of lives it covers. This is not only about Lady Ashley and the Drover. It's about so many more lives that they touch and that touches them. I've seen in recent romances thta outside their little love bubble, the world barely exists for most protagonists. In Australia, the protagonists exist in the world instead.

I've seen it, I've loved it. Can't wait for the soundtrack (Sir Elton John!)

Aaridys

Humeur: d'la neige... ok, du verglas... câlisse!!
Musique: "You know my Name" Chris Cornell