Today I put together the sideboard--it took Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and the beginning of Sense and Sensibility. Lots of steps! And heavy. But I enjoy putting things together, provided I'm alone, not rushed, and have familiar movies that I only need to half watch.
Then I sorted all my lunch tupperwares and bentos into the drawers; and cleaned all the random stains off my appliances and carefully placed them along the shelf. They look like they're having an appliance party. (Food processor, blender, bullet, popcorn maker, ice cream maker, crock pot, juicer, and coffee grinder--I use it for flax seeds and nuts.)
I put up one of my cheap plastic shelves to hold all the food Fernando's been bulk buying. It looks ugly, cause I need a smaller unit that will fit into the corner. But for now, order is more important than beauty. If I want to cook and pack lunches, that is.
Then we put the sofa together. It's so comfortable, and such an improvement over Nombly's Sofa. Fernando immediately passed out on it. And later I rented the new Clash of the Titans just so I could enjoy sitting there.
MOVIE
C of the T wasn't very good, but as I'd already heard that I had low expectations and enjoyed it. Nice effects, and I loved the djinny-dudes (so sexy), but they made too many unnecessary changes from the previous version/original myth.
- They tried to make the central battle between humans and the gods; but then they made is sort of Hades vs Zeus, which just confused things. Who's side is Zeus on? Vair weird.
- Greek myths are all about very human type gods--they're jealous, and liars, and competitive etc. They almost completely removed this element, to do the whole "war against humans" thing. Totally took away the spirit of the thing.
- By making it all Hades vs Zeus, the rest of the gods are rarely featured. The old movie had all those great scenes of the gods bickering amongst themselves, and manipulating the humans. This also means the female gods were almost non-existent. In the old movie, Maggie Smith was such a great Thetis, and she was the pivotal god in the plot. And when they tell the story of Medusa, they take all the original gods-jealousy stuff out too. Why? Frankly, the movie felt de-womaned.
- Why remove Andromeda as the love interest? The original trick of having her come along for the quest was a perfect way to build up the romance. I didn't get the point of all this Io stuff.
- Perseus didn't have a very clear guide figure. It was sort of a mix of Io and some warrior dude.
- I liked the idea of Perseus struggling with his half-god identity, trying to reject it. But for it to really work, he should have been super-tempted by his godliness at some point, and have overcome it. Instead it's never much of a struggle.
- The little game pieces! I liked seeing the gods moving all the game pieces around. They did it only a tiny bit.
- One of my biggest complaints is Calibos' character. In the original, he's cruel but also pitiable--in other words, he has a developed character. In this version he's just a cardboard cut out baddie.
- I liked Medusa, though CGI graphics still aren't where they need to be for such a character to look lifelike. Technologically she wasn't much better than her stop-motion predecessor. But I approved the overall look. What I didn't like is that the scene lacked suspense. In the original they pass a LOT of statues of previous visitors, which is really creepy. And there's a lot more silence, and slow pursuit. I don't mind some running around, but the beginning could be have been creeeeepier.
- The two additions I liked: The silly hunter guys. Should have been more the movie! And the Djinn. Orientalist, but hawt. (And the other race-weirdness character--that pro-Hades zealot. He looked like he was supposed to be a Hindu or something.)
- Why does the Kraken look like the Rancor's older brother? Could have based his face on the original.
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| Original Kraken. So cute! |
