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Messages - MsCriseyde

721
Games / Re: The Dark Shadows Alphabet Game
« on: January 17, 2007, 07:36:06 AM »
O is for opening coffins, a favorite Collinsport pastime.

722
How do you pronounce Wealhtheow?
Very carefully.  ;D

There's a some variation in how the pronunciations seem to be taught. I've had two Old English profs at two separate schools, and they don't teach the pronunciations quite the same. I pronounce it sort of like Well-thay-ow, but you can't always go by my pronunciation guides because I also have a Southern accent.  ;)

723
Games / Re: The Dark Shadows Alphabet Game
« on: January 17, 2007, 04:14:16 AM »
M is for the old mill that served as Petofi's base of operations in 1897.

724
Games / Re: The Dark Shadows Alphabet Game
« on: January 15, 2007, 10:10:28 PM »
U is for the urge for blood.  :)

725
Games / Re: The Dark Shadows Alphabet Game
« on: January 15, 2007, 09:01:42 PM »
P is for the playroom.

726
Hail, Midnite.  ;D

But I deeply regret watching with my daughter, who will eventually be reading it as (I think) a Senior, but in my defense, I expected some resemblance to the themes in the poem.
Actually, even though they were pretty consistent in their disregard for the real relationships between characters, this adaptation showed more familiarity with some of the themes of the poem than most of the other film versions.

I'm still trying to figure out why they decided that Hrothgar's wife should be named Onela, especially since Onela was a man. I guess it's easier to pronounce than Wealhtheow, and they were definitely tripping over a lot of the pronunciations. There's absolutely no indication of madness on Wealhtheow's part in the poem, but she doesn't have a whole lot of dialogue, so they probably felt they needed to make her more interesting. Most of the film adaptations are pretty consistent about introducing new female characters and inserting some sort of love story that doesn't exists in the poem.

I did like that this version understood the importance of storytelling and of Beowulf as a storyteller, though it's hard to dwell on that for too long in a film without boring people to tears. I also liked that there was some emphasis on the tension when Beowulf arrives among the Danes and has to identify himself. They seemed to be making a concerted effort to demonstrate that heroism is achieved through both words and deeds.

I could've played along with it up until the point when
[spoiler]they reveal that Hrothgar has been sacrificing the children. There is a part of the poem that refers to some type of sacrifices taking place to try to get rid of Grendel, but there's no indication that children were involved or that the sacrifices were being made to the monster rather than to some sort of deity. It's been a while since I took a look at that passage, but I'm not sure it even explicitly states that human sacrifice is involved. Hrothgar may be somewhat of a failure as a king at this point, but he's never paralleled to the monster(s). In the language of the poem, that parallel is actually drawn between Beowulf and Grendel.[/spoiler]
After that, they seem to get pretty far away from the poem.

As for deliciously bad, I'd have to say that the introduction of the crossbow was deliciously bad. I liked how the arrows flamed without ever being lit, and it apparently never had to be reloaded. The architecture was also deliciously bad and all wrong. At times, I thought I was watching Clash of the Titans, especially at the beginning when
[spoiler]Beowulf uses the serpent's reflection in his sword to behead him.[/spoiler]
Can't really complain about the acting. Cross did what he had to do with what he was given.

727
Games / Re: The Dark Shadows Alphabet Game
« on: January 15, 2007, 09:58:30 AM »
L is for lycanthropy.  ;)

728
Am looking forward to hearing if you found anything delicious about it.   :P
I taped it, but I haven't watched it yet. I'll probably get to it tonight. I did flip to it a couple of times while I was watching football, and the makeup on Marina Sirtis was definitely scary in a Mommie Dearest sort of way.  ;D

729
Current Talk '07 I / Re: Petition to Urge SoapNet to Air DS
« on: January 13, 2007, 06:02:27 PM »
On a somewhat related note, NBC Universal Cable (who owns SCI FI) announced yesterday that they plan to launch a new horror and thriller cable network called Chiller. It debuts on March 1. DirecTV has already signed on to carry it. Daily programming will include Friday the 13th, Twin Peaks, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Tales from the Crypt. Feature films will include The Shining, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and The Birds, Sphere, The Stephen King mini-series The Langoliers, Blade Runner, Believe, The Crew and The Unholy.

The press release is here:
http://www.nbcumv.com/release_detail.nbc/nbcuniversalcable-20070112000000-nbcuniversalcable.html

The network's web site will be here:
http://www.chillertv.com/

730
Games / Re: The Dark Shadows Alphabet Game
« on: January 12, 2007, 07:12:46 PM »
I is for insomnia, which seemed to affect practically everyone in Collinsport.

731
As for MsCriseyde, what a rush it must have been for you as a DS fan to walk into the the park at just that moment. How long ago was that anyway?
It was just this past summer. I don't think any of us thought it was a particularly big deal. I was more amazed by how many people came out to watch it.

732
Games / Re: The Dark Shadows Alphabet Game
« on: January 12, 2007, 07:49:31 AM »
Z is for zero, the number of things Victoria Winters understood.  ;D

733
I thought that they might give a quick flash of Thayer but no luck.  His character Jergens was in more than a few scenes. It would have been cool to flashback to when Jergens Announced Rocky's name in the ring.  Who knows, maybe Thayer will be in the next Rocky movie.
Last time we were in New York prior to the Fest, they had an outdoor screening of Rocky in Bryant Park. We happened across the area just as TD was on the screen.

734
Current Talk '07 I / Re: Net flix
« on: January 10, 2007, 04:57:52 PM »
ordered a couple of dvds from Netflix from the ds collection
(of course i started with the arrival of Chris ;D) it was so good to see the show again
but halfway into it the dvds stopped working anyone else have this problem?
Yes, I've had problems with a few damaged DS DVDs from Netflix, and I've had to report them as damaged so that they would send a different copy. Given how many DS DVDs there are, it's not exactly surprising.

735
Since this is in my area, I'd probably wind up watching it at some point regardless of the cast. If it's like every other film adaptation of Beowulf, the burning question will be whether it's deliciously bad or just plain bad.  ;D