Sunday, November 08, 2009

And Now the News: Hooker with a Heart of Gold

Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, & Chanteys



I appreciate a good pirate band at the local Renaissance Festival. I'll even buy their CDs if they're cool enough. But that's not what this is. This is 43 pirate songs by folks like Nick Cave, Lou Reed, and Bryan Ferry. This is something that just went into my Amazon shopping cart.

Asgarda



Not sure how real this is, but it's a story about a Carpathian tribe of modern-day Amazons. And that is the coolest sentence I will type this week. [Boing Boing via Rose and Isabel]

Ghost Town Gallery



Ransom Riggs has a great collection of photos from what's left of the old mining boomtown of Bodie, California. It's spooky and exciting and full of cool history. I wonder if Rosa May, a town whore who died after nursing some men through a pneumonia epidemic, was a distant relation.

20 Movies That are Better Than the Books



There's only one movie on the list that I've also read the book for, so I can't speak to most of the entries. Especially since the write-ups for each don't go into detail about what makes the movies better. But I do agree with that one entry. As much as I enjoyed Tolkien as a teenager, Peter Jackson's movies are an improvement.

Arabian Nights movie

It's doubtful that the new Arabian Nights movie in the works will ever make that list. The description does make it sound pretty lowbrow. Instead of Scheherazade's cleverly saving her own skin with a series of stories, she'll be the damsel-in-distress as an unnamed hero teams up with Sinbad, Aladdin, and the genie to rescue her.

I think that there could be a way of making that plot work on its own terms, but as an adaptation, particularly seen from a feminist viewpoint, that completely sucks.

I had to laugh when /Film described it as "Rob Leifeld’s version of the story," and was further amused (though also slightly horrified) when they noted that that had already been done and linked to the Adventureblog as proof. I still stand by my assertion that Dan Wickline's story in Zenescope's Sinbad series was a lot of fun, but I do get the Leifeld comparison in regards to some of the art.

Christmas is coming

And I totally want this shower. Hint hint. [Brother Cal]

The Return of Futura



Finally, I'm very excited that Sleestak is going to be posting some more Futura comics. As he describes it:
Futura is the story of a secretary kidnapped by aliens in order to provide superior genetic material for their dying race. Futura, however, rebels and escapes her captors, vowing to make her way in the cosmos while fighting to bring down the evil masters of the galaxy.
He's also indexed the links to his first eight entries in the saga, so go get caught up!

3 comments:

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

Have you ever heard Stan Rodgers? He does some great old sea shanties.

Carlos Merino said...

The movie of Lord of the ring better than the book? Well, I may strongly disagree with that daring assessment. Keep in mind all the uncountable details, characters and stories inside the story that are just omitted in the movie or all that things that you just skip if you didn't read the book.

In my opinion if you want to really understand the middle age and that epic story you need to go a little bit deep and read the book. It is richer and in all aspects bigger than the movie. And the most important thing: It will stimulate your imagination better than the movie ever will.

Michael May said...

Cal: I haven't, so thanks for the tip. I'll see what I can find out about him.

Cuacomekiki: I would certainly recommend the books to anyone who enjoyed the movies (though I've learned that not everyone who likes the films also enjoys the novels), but since I've read them several times already, whenever I want to re-experience the story, I typically just rewatch the extended versions.

It's true that the movies leave a lot out (I hate that we'll never get the Old Forest and Tom Bombadil on screen; I also miss the scouring of the Shire at the end), but they add a lot too. I always hated Boromir in the books; Tolkien never successfully redeemed him for me. Peter Jackson and Sean Bean make him a much more sympathetic - and so, more powerful - character.

Same with Faramir. He was okay in the books, but Jackson gives him a genuine story arc that - while not faithful to Tolkien - is, in my opinion, better than the scant attention Tolkien gave him. The same is also true with Arwen.

Having said all that, I'm certainly not getting rid of my copy of the trilogy or anything. I'm rewatching the movies right now and it's already making me itch to re-read the original version.

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