Tag Archives: movie

The Weekend Guess #26

While I’m at the MPS again, I present to you the twenty sixth instalment of the Weekend Guess.

Eine Gedankenblase mit dem Schriftzug "The Weekend Guess" auf blauem Grund und in einem braunen Rahmen

What is the Weekend Guess?

Up to three riddles formulated by me that are puns and wordplays on the answer itself I put on here for my readers to answer.

Why am I doing this?

For no apparent reason, just because I consider the idea to be funny.

What are the questions about?

Everything I can think of I guess, so far it has been song titles and bands that you have to figure out, but now I’ve changed it to movies.

What is your part in this?

You can try to figure out my riddles and see if you can manage to get behind them and understand what I am describing.

What is in it for you?

So far: Nothing, but the knowledge that you managed to unlock one of my silly riddles.

Let’s start with the twenty sixth set of questions

I am looking for the title of this movie (Hint: I’m looking for one of the many adaptations, but only giving me the main part of the title would be all right):

A legendary archer vastly skilled in robbery.

Leave your guesses in the comments below and I can see if my questions are too easy or to hard to figure out. I will give the correct answer with the next instalment.

Have fun figuring it out! 🙂

Solution for last weeks Weekend Guess:

Hook

This time DarkFairy guessed it correctly, so congratulations!

PoiSonPaiNter

The Weekend Guess #25

After 24 Weekend Guesses for Music I present to you the twenty fifth instalment with a new topic.

What is the Weekend Guess?

Up to three riddles formulated by me that are puns and wordplays on the answer itself I put on here for my readers to answer.

Why am I doing this?

For no apparent reason, just because I consider the idea to be funny.

What are the questions about?

Everything I can think of I guess, so far it has been song titles and bands that you have to figure out, but now I’ve changed it to movies.

What is your part in this?

You can try to figure out my riddles and see if you can manage to get behind them and understand what I am describing.

What is in it for you?

So far: Nothing, but the knowledge that you managed to unlock one of my silly riddles.

Let’s start with the twenty fifth set of questions

I am looking for the title of this movie:

The hand accessory of a famous, ageless pirate captain.

Leave your guesses in the comments below and I can see if my questions are too easy or to hard to figure out. I will give the correct answer with the next instalment.
Have fun figuring it out! 🙂

Solution for last weeks Weekend Guess:

#1 Avantasia – Dying for an Angel
#2 Cameleon Circuit – Still not Ginger
#3 Schandmaul – Der letzte Tanz

No one really tried guessing them, so I can’t congratulate anyone.

PoiSonPaiNter

So much for me not writing anything until June…
I am really good at keeping up with my own predictions…
But after spontaneously attending the advanced showing of X-Men: Days of Future Past yesterday, I can’t help myself giving an on time review for it – and yes it will contain Spoilers.

What is it about?

Official Poster

DoFP is a continuation of both X-Men: First Class and X-Men: The Last Stand and starts off in a dystopian future where specifically programmed robots hunt down mutants and humans who are helping them (or are capable of one day having a mutant offspring). In their hunt the so-called Sentinels have destroyed the Earth quite thoroughly and to stop this war from ever happening the remaining X-Men think up a clever plan: Stop the whole thing from ever getting started.
To accomplish this the prominently featured Wolverine‘s mind is sent back in time into his younger self’s body to help a lost Charles Xavier to find shape-shifter Mystique and stop her from killing Bolivar Trask, the mastermind behind the Sentinels.

The watching experience

As I hadn’t decided on going to the cinema until Tuesday I wasn’t sure if I’d actually be able to get a ticket, but I wasn’t surprised to find the cinema hall only half empty either. Though I did expect the people attending an advanced viewing to look a bit more nerdy – though there were a few examples of that. Some of them seemed more like they just wanted to see the next movie of the franchise and picked the date out of schedule reasons, but I digress.
The good thing about watching something in the cinema is that you can see the reaction of other viewers straight away and there were a couple quite interesting ones.
Two of them were due to the mutant Quicksilver.
When they had shown how his fast movements seem to him and how he could defeat their enemies in mere seconds nearly the whole hall was laughing at the scurrility of the slow/fast motion sequence and his slight editions to the movement of certain objects and persons.
The second reaction was way before that scene when his mother announced him as „Peter“. Several murmurs rose up as those who know the franchise from outside the cinema noticed the wrongness of the name. Though I do have to admit that while I was confused at the name I simply couldn’t remember what it truly was. It is by the way „Pietro“ as I now know again. I am not sure if this „mistake“ will be the same in the English version of the movie, as again I’ve only seen the dubbed version. If you know more, let me know in the comments below. (Apparently as Wikipedia has been changed now, the English version is also „Peter“.)
The third reaction was towards the end of the movie at the conclusion of the time travel and the imminent annihilation of the future mutants. When it was finally concluded you could hear a deep exhale in the hall as someone had indeed been holding their breath.
Like with so many movies recently was this one in 3D again.
Apart from quite interesting glass-destructions and some other good scenes, the thing I remembered most was a 3D close up of – I believe it was his – Wolverine’s nose and the utter confusion of why someone would want a nose sticking out of the screen like that…
And again you could see who has watched a couple of Marvel movies in the past, as not that many people left the hall before the post-credit scene.

The characters

As is the case with all the X-Men movies this one again had a great ensemble cast of different mutants and humans. With the past and future present throughout the story we also have the chance to not just see Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart reprise their roles as Magneto and Professor X respectively, but also see Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy continue the younger portrayal of the characters.
Ever since the „original“ X-Men triology – especially The Last Stand, even though a lot of fans despise it – and X-Men: Evolutions did Magneto become one of my favourite characters of the franchise. Despite his silly hat and his very, very dark views on things is he one of the most incredibly portrayed mutants. I mean: He ripped out the friggin‘ Golden Gate Bridge to build a passage to an island…
In this one his younger self is tearing out a football stadium to create a wall to close them off from spectators. But his powers aren’t the only thing I find fascinating about him. Even if it is a dark and twisted view on things he follows his own path and motivates others to follow in his way. I guess he is just one of those characters that I like because they kind of live in a grey area (a bit like Mephisto, but different as Magneto at least tries to change things for his kind for the better, though he uses some rather unfriendly methods). Needless to say both McKellen and Fassbender again did a great jobs at bringing across the arrogance, determination and vulnerability that are so…Magneto.
Xavier in the originals – and in this one too – is mostly the mentor figure that seems like he just knows everything – maybe he does or at least knows which mind to look into for the information -, while his younger self already has this know-it-all air about him he is far less self-confident. The events of First Class leave him crippled, not just physically, but also mentally as one student after the other left his school and his childhood friend turned her back on him. When we meet him in DoFP he is broken and resorted to alcohol and a medicament that keeps him walking but blocks his abilities and it is Wolverines task to show him that there is still hope. As much as I like Fassbenders outbursts and McKellens speeches, do I have to admit that McAvoy did a great job at portraying this shattered version of a otherwise powerful character, even if he looks like he is about to cry in most of the close ups.
With actress Jennifer Lawrence‘ rising fame Mystique seems to become the new Wolverine. More screen time, more incredibly choreographed fights and I also heard rumours of a spin-off. As clear as it is from the beginning that her actions are what causes the Sentinel program to be launched, as unclear is it why she actually wants to do just that. We see that she finds autopsy files of the mutants she and Magneto went off with after First Class (which was ten years before the current storyline! I still can’t get my head around that) and you assume that they became quite close in the time before they were used as lap rats by Bolivar Trask, but why she sets out for a personal vendetta still isn’t said openly. Assuming they go by comic book history and she had a thing with Azazel (*cough*aka baby aka Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler *cough*) it would make a little more sense why a formerly good natured person becomes a cold blooded murderer, but I kind of doubt that. She still had some highly impressive stunts and I am just stunned by the abilities of Lawrence and her stunt double.
Originally it was Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat who was sent back in time to change it, for movie reasons they however changed this to her being the one with the abilities to sent back Wolverine/Logan who’s mind would be the only one strong enough to endure such a long journey. In a way he does he not do much to change things and seems to be more of a tag-along than anything else. This might be due to restraints of the time travel, but I guess also because of his claws that are still bones instead of Adamantium and you could really see how he enjoyed that Magneto wasn’t able to Metal-bend him. 😀 As I said Logan did not really feel like a main character this time, which was quite a nice change.
Another tag-along was Beast or Hank McCoy who seems like he isn’t good for anything beside providing meds for Xavier, quarrelling with Magneto and looking longingly at Raven. The young version is such a sweet guy that it is quite a pity he struggles so much with what he is, but as we all know he will turn out to be quite a badass blue ape thing. 😀
The mutant I was most curious about seeing was Quicksilver or Pietro Maximoff, as he is not just portrayed in this movie, but will also have a role in Avengers: Age of Ultron (not the same actor mind you). Even though he was funny, he was a bid too childish for my liking and of course there was his strange hair and outfit that looked like a wig and and terrible fashion sense. As it is known to X-Men fans Pietro is the son of Magneto and even if the mention of his sister (Scarlet Witch) was cut out we still get a comment that his „Mum knew a mutant who also could manipulate metal“. 😀 In short: He wasn’t as bad as I expected he’d be.
Honorary mentions go to the X-Men from the future as they kind of died a lot in the few scenes we had with them. While the first time was a „No!“-moment (in regards to Shawn Ashmores‚ Bobby Drake/Iceman, whom we have known from two movies, being decapitated) for me, the second time was more of a „Shit now it’s final“-moment as I roughly remembered that even though Kitty could change the events in the past, the future was still unchanged.

General Opinion

X-Men: Days of Future Past has a thrilling music score that accompanies visually interesting/stunning scenes and offers a great/incredible cast. It also includes well made nods to the other movies and does something pretty cool with the conclusion – and this is probably a major spoiler: With Wolverines return to his actual time line and the actual success of the whole time travel thing the events of The Last Stand are retconned and the characters who had died in that Sequel are alive again. Meaning: We get cameos from Famke Janssen and James Marsden (Jean Grey and Cyclops), but also a view on Rogue (Anna Paquin) and the „old“ Beast (Kelsey Grammer) at the end of the movie.
Already when the credits rolled down I would have liked to watch it again, though not for the price they made me pay…

Stuff I’d like to add

The German additional name of the movie is by the way „Zukunft ist Vergangenheit„, which roughly translates to „Future is Past“ and I think it has as much of a different ring to it as „The Dark World“ and „The Dark Kingdom“ had for Thor.
The post-credit scene was rather cryptic and I believe it hinted at X-Men: Apocalypse (seeing as a worshipped being just build a pyramid without moving that much of a muscle), but the person who did that looked more like a woman that the rather masculine version I remember from the Cartoons. If the next piece in the franchise is indeed Apocalypse than I guess it will be interesting if they will continue with the new cast (McAvoy and Fassbender) or the renewed cast (Stewart and McKellen).
When I got the link from Wikipedia for the poster, the plot was quite interestingly phrased:

„In the dystopian future of 2023, The X-Men go back in time to save the world from the abomination that is X-men: Origins Wolverine.“

Why it did indeed have some major issues, I wouldn’t call the first Wolverine spinn-off an abomination and not that much had been changed with Wolverine’s Origin as the stuff portrayed in that movie was still about to happen to his younger self (see bone claws). If it saved us from anything then from the awful deaths and de-mutations from The Last Stand.
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the poster belongs to its rightful owner.

Thor: Movie vs. Myth

The topic of this post is an assignment I got from The Extremis Reviews to see if my work is good enough for me to become a guest author for their page. I’m curious how that will work out, but as usual I do not put too much hope into it.
Regardless of me getting „the job“ or not, I already had thought about writing about Norse Mythology a bit more than the few mentions I had so far. Therefore I also see this as possibility for me to start my work on it properly.

As I mentioned in my review for Thor: The Dark World was I sceptical about the Thor-film in regards to its adaptations of the myths. I already knew a few things about the myths when I first heard about the film/the characters and the more I learned about both the myths and the Marvel-version, the more I was reluctant to actually try it. The way they portray characters and their relationships with each other seemed so wrong to me that I had a hard time grasping my head around it.

So with this post I want to show you some of the major differences between the adaptations of the myths in Marvels Cinematic Universe’s „Thor“ (and its follow-up films) and Norse Mythology itself. Please do keep in mind that I am not an expert on this matter and most of this is recited by memory, so if you see any mistakes you are more than welcome to inform me about them.

What confused me the most when I started watching the first Thor film were the

Family relationships;

especially Loki being Thor’s brother.

Deep down in the back of my mind something practically ranted at me: „He is not the brother. He wasn’t the brother. Was he?“ until I took my Laptop and looked it up.
Needles to say my nagging mind was indeed correct: According to Norse Mythology Loki is NOT the brother of Thor, but instead the blood brother (meaning no blood relationship whatsoever) of Odin, as Loki otherwise would not have been allowed to stay in Asgard due to being a giant. Though he does share some rather funny adventures with the God of Thunder (including for example cross-dressing, but covering that would stray too far away from the topic).

Another strange change are Thor and Sif, which in the original are married, while in the Marvel universe they are but friends. They fight alongside each other with Sif having a crush on him and Thor simply ignoring it and swooning over the „mortal“ Jane Foster. In the comics I believe Sif even becomes a Valkyrie, which would make any proper relationship quite impossible (in the myths they are the ones picking up the fallen warriors that are granted access to Valhalla, their „heaven“).

Not mentioned at all in the films, so far, are other family members of Thor and Loki.

As far as I know Thor has at least two brother’s (Baldr and Hodur) that play a major role on the way to Ragnarök (the Twilight of the Gods, the end of everything that is known). From a bit of research I know that Baldr has an appearance in the comics, but I believe the films will shelve Ragnarök for quite some time to cover other stories before that.

On Loki’s side there are the other pieces missing that are to bring about the end: The monster babies. 🙂
Jörmungandr (a gigantic serpent, large enough to circle the world entirely – and Thor’s arch enemy), Fenrir (an enormous wolf and the one said to kill Odin) and Hel(a – half young and beautiful woman, half rotten corpse and mistress of Helheim/Niflheim, the realm of the deceased that were not allowed to enter Valhalla, whose inhabitants she will lead into the fight against the Aesir at her fathers‘ side) the children of Loki and the giantess Angrboda that are very badly treated in the myths and do not appear in the films or stories of Marvel. Though Hel(a) is mentioned and shown in some of the cartoon versions and even called Loki’s daughter, though no mentioning of her mother or her brothers at all (there also are a wolf called Fenrir and a serpent, but it is not clear if they are in any way related to Loki and/or Marvels versions of them).
And let’s not forget his other two children with his Aesir-wife Sigyn (who is actually depicted in some of the comics and cartoons) that are used for his punishment shortly before Ragnarök (and I better not get into details about this right now, as it is quite nasty).

Origins:

As we already are talking about Loki’s children: Did you know that the eight-legged horse Odin is riding into battle (you can see it when he arrives in Jotunheim to rescue Thor and the others in the first film) is supposed to be Loki’s offspring? And did you also know that he is the mother?
Regardless if you answered these questions with yes or no, it is indeed the case that there is a story in the Norse Mythology about how the wall of Asgard was build and how Loki was forced to trick the horse of the builder into running off so that the builder (who was a giant in disguise) could not finish his work in time. As he had disguised himself as a white mare the God of Mischief returned several months after the ordeal with a foal, Sleipnir, that he then gave to Odin. Speaking of disguises: You think Loki’s illusions are fun? In the real stories he occasionally turns himself into all kind of things including a fish and several different women. 😉

If you think Sleipnir’s heritage is strange then let me tell you what is „wrong“ about Loki’s: In the myths Loki is not just depicted as the God of Mischief, but also as the God of Fire, due to him being a Fire Giant (Loki or Locke even means something like flame if I’m not mistaken) and yes, Marvel turned this around and made him a Frost Giant. Though they turned around something way more hilarious as well.
You remember the king of the Frost Giants, Laufey, who is said to be Loki’s father? Well, in the myths „Laufey“ is the name of Loki’s mother …

Though not a person the origin of Thor’s hammer Mjolnir differs in the stories as well. In Marvel it is said that the hammer was forged in a dying dwarf star from one of the strongest metals in the universe – incidentally the same as Captain America‘s shield, explaining the blast they emit when they collide in The Avengers. The only thing that coincides with the myths, however, is the word „dwarf“.
Mjolnir was forged by a dwarf – or dwarve, as the fantasy version is referred to – that got himself into a bet with Loki when the god had badmouthed the dwarves abilities to forge proper weaponry. While the dwarve worked on the hammer another one was trying to keep the flames steady. As he, however, was distracted by a fly (*cough*Loki*cough*) he failed at his task and the handle of the hammer ended up being rather short. Due to this Loki saw himself the victor, but the Aesir still preferred the dwarves work over the work Loki had presented them. As the dwarve could not get Loki’s head as he had demanded (cutting off the head without doing the same with the neck proofed difficulty) he instead stitched up the lips of the lying god. Though none of this is portrayed in the Marvel universe, which is rather unfortunate.

What is however portrayed in Marvel and not in the myths are the Warriors Three. I don’t remember something like them existing in the stories as the most frequent companion Thor had on his adventures was Loki.

Appearance

It is normal to change the appearance of characters to fit a different audience, but some decision might be true to the Marvel version, but are still quite different from the Norse one.

So even though Jamie Alexander is a beautiful woman it is indeed unfortunate that she is not depicted with Norse-Sif’s golden hair that resulted from one of Loki’s many mischiefs (and is made of real gold). Other changed hair colours include Thor (red) and Loki (occasionally blond) themselves.

The strangest change however is Heimdal and a former fellow student of mine even declared that she stopped watching the first film as soon as she saw him. It is highly unlikely that someone of Idris Elbas skin-colour would have found his way into Norse Mythology; as Loki’s arch enemy nonetheless. (This is in no way meant offensive and I think Elba does a pretty good job as Asgards gate keeper. It just doesn’t really fit with what the myths tell us.)

But as she so nicely put it: At least Odin has only one eye.

The Nine realms

As I wrote in the review: I do like how they described Yggdrasil, the World Tree, and its connection to the other realms. A nice scientific explanation.
In the myths it is an actual tree that connects the different realms with his roots, trunk and branches. Deep down underneath the World Tree lie the dark realms, like Helheim. Where the trunk stands Midgard stretches on and high above the branches lies Asgard, home of the Aesir. The other realms lie somewhere as well, but I can’t really remember where exactly, sorry.
The difference in this is simply put: No science, actual tree and rainbow.

As you might have noticed I referred to the (main, as there are others too) inhabitants of Asgard as Aesir instead of Asgardians as Marvel calls them. The latter sounds more like simply referring to the alien-species that lives in Asgard than for what it is used to describe in the myths (alien super-human vs. actual god) and it just feels better to use it when talking about them.

Characters Reasoning

In the myths it is quite understandable why Loki turns against the Aesir (you only have to look at how they treat him and his children). In Marvel he is depicted more as a jealous, greedy prat than actually having reason to behave the way he does.

This however is not really a difference like the others, but I felt like it was worth mentioning.

The few things above are probably only barely scratching the surface of all the differences between Marvel’s version and the original, but I hope I could give you at least a small overview of them. I am also sorry that I didn’t get into too much detail with some of them, as that would have been too Off Topic.

Anyway, I am off to Berlin again for a long weekend and a Van Canto concert and am already curious what kind of replies will await me on my return.

PoiSonPaiNter

Thor: The Dark World

This time a quite on time review about Thor: The Dark World as I have just watched it in the cinema.

But before I start I’d like to say: Back in 2011 I refused to watch the Thor movie, due to my dislike for Marvels approach on the myths. I only did it because someone in The Forum claimed it would be essential for understanding The Avengers, which I’d really wanted to see. So I borrowed a copy of the DVD from Iron Eve and watched it the day before we went into the cinema.

And what can I say?

Looking at it as just a movie it was pretty entertaining.
I only had to not think about it as Marvels (crippled) version of the Norse Mythology, (otherwise I’d be pretty much like the comic artist Humon in this comic).

For the Marvel Cinematic Universe to move on they had to continue with stories about the supposedly demi-gods of Space-Asgard.
So one kind of had to at least watch it to see if there is any major link from this towards the next Avenger movie.
My reasons for actually watching it in the theater were kind of weak …

#1 Christopher Eccleston plays the villain: As I probably won’t get to see „The Day of the Doctor“ I at least wanted to see „my“ Doctor on the big screen.
#2 Tom Hiddleston reprises his role as Loki: Apart from the fact, that Hiddleston is a brilliant actor, the character is pretty fun, but more to that later.

So much for my motivation to see this movie … *cough*

But what’s the movie about?

(If you can’t guess from the meaningful trailer)

Unsurprisingly Thor: The Dark World or Thor 2 is the continuation of the events of Thor and The Avengers. The nine realms went into chaos after the Byfrost (The Rainbow Bridge of Asgard, that is used for travelling between realms) was destroyed and Thor and his Warriors Three and the Lady Sif have to sort it out after it was repaired, while Loki is put into prison underneath the palace. All the while life on Earth continues and we meet Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis and Dr. Eric Selvig again, trying to cope with live after everything that had happened. While doing that Jane discover an anomaly and is transferred to a different realm where she accidentally re-awakens an old power source called the Aether, which then inhabits her.

With it the Dark Elve Malekith awakens as well, striving to get a hold of it. Long before the current events his kind has battled Odins father Bor to gain control over it. He wanted to return the universe into the state of darkness it was before the light and the realms were created and for that he needed the Aether and a special constellation of all the realms, the so called convergence, when all realms are within a straight line, which is coincidentally close by.

So all the hammer-wielding hero needs to do to save the day: Free the imprisoned brother, save the girl and stop the elve.

The watching experience

As I don’t really have much time the upcoming weeks I spontaneously decided to go this week. Eve would have accompanied me, but didn’t get my message in time so I went on my own, which had the only downside that I couldn’t discuss it right away with someone. But that’s beside the point.

The movie was in 3D, again, but it could have worked just as well without it. Some scenes were nice to look at, but most of it was nothing special.
Additionally, it was pretty weird to read the 3D-subtitles used for the Elvish.

Which brings me to the point that you could at least hear Ecclestons voice throughout those scenes, while everything else was dubbed. The German dub is quite well done though, especially Peter Lontzek, the voice actor of Hiddleston in all three movies, does a great job as he manages to capture quite a bit of the original portrayal of the character.

Other than that it was not surprising how empty the cinema was (roughly 20 people), even though the movie had only started a week ago. Even less surprising was the number of men compared to women, the movie is after all aimed more at men and as by now most people knew that there always comes a scene after the credits quite a few waited for it.

The characters

Let’s start this part with Thor, so I am done with that. And yes, I don’t like him. But that has nothing to do with Hemsworths way of portraying him, which he does quite well, and more with the fact that I generally don’t like main characters. What we see of him throughout the three movies is just not enough to make him remotely likable for me. At one point in the story my brain even shortly went into a sing-song of „Thor is being clobbered, Thor is being clobbered“ before I told it to stop and quietly enjoy the scene. Still this movie had some nice scenes that made him a bit less shallow and a bit deeper, but those were more thanks to his interaction with Loki.
Also his movie relationship with Jane is just plain weird. I mean: They knew each other for like three days, from what I’ve read about the comics, this whole things makes a bit more sense, but movie-wise it’s far too rushed. But I better stop right here before I get completely Off Topic. Again: This is my dislike for the characters, NOT the actors. They still do a pretty good job.

Loki on the other hand is a completely different matter. For a semi-side character he is shown to have quite an emotional depth, though that might come from Hiddlestons portrayal of him, which I think is utterly brilliant. You kind of can see all the suffering he is put through, yet he still manages to surprise the audience with his actions. Apart from that do I simply like this kind of character and I already rambled enough about it in my post about Faust’s Mephisto – which also was my first encounter with a character of this kind. I also drifted into the topic again when I introduced our devilish character from the book I’m co-writing – and yes he is based on Mephisto not Loki.

As mentioned above my other reason for watching this movie was Christopher Eccleston playing Malekith the Dark Elve. Apart from the fact that I imagine Dark Elves to not be blond and pale, he had far too little screen time, but what little he had was quite interesting. You couldn’t completely understand his reasoning as the movie kind of rushed through that part and as Icewolf put it so nicely: One could ask if he exchanged his brain with a wet bread roll during his sleep as he simply tried to do the same thing again after his first failure. Only this time getting into trouble with the offspring of those that had defeated him the first time.
And it was fun to see him attack London, a city that Eccleston had saved as The Doctor before. 😀
By the way: Is the English version of his name pronounced with „th“? They kind of dropped the „h“ in German.

In this movie they tried to include the side characters a bit more.
We learn a bit about Hogun. We see a bit more of what Sif thinks about/feels for Thor. We learn how protective everyone is about him, with a quite funny queue-joke. And we learn that even though Zachary Levi replaced Josh Dallas it didn’t really make a difference. Though I buy the philandering Fandral a bit more from Levi.
What we also learn is that Dr. Selvig apparently didn’t take Lokis mind control as well as Hawkeye, but judging from the post credit scene of Thor the „god“ might have stayed with him a little longer than the Chitauri invasion. All of this resulting in quite some hilarious scenes. Another unintentionally funny scene was when Jane tried to date someone, who is none other than Chris O’Dowd, known as Roy from The IT Crowd, which was quite a nice surprise as I hadn’t expected him to be part of the movie.

One of the visually most beautiful scenes concerned Frigga, the (adopted) mother of Thor and Loki. We learn a bit more about her and her relationship with her husband and son(s). I don’t know how much Joss Whedon(, who is said to have re-written some of the scenes) had a say in those scenes but it looked pretty much like his writing …

All in all the characters gained a bit more colour throughout this movie, though Darcy still is pretty much only a comic-relief character.
And even Hugin and Munin, Odins ravens, had a proper cameo this time. 😀
And speaking of cameos: Stan Lee’s was pretty fun again, too.

General opinion

The movie again was fun to watch. It had pretty great humor and action, but also conveyed some parts with much emotions. It all felt a bit rushed at times (e.g. the Frigga scene) and was mostly carried forward through character interaction, but I can live with that. I don’t mind seeing it again this time with the original voices, as that is always a bit different.

However, I still prefer the Myth-version of the characters and stories. Marvel does well in creating a world that makes sense on its own, but it still has this weird aftertaste of wrongness. Especially as Marvel leaves out all the fun: The Horse, the Cross-dressing and the Monster Babies. 😀

Stuff I’d like to add

Apparently the movie was released in Germany/Europe before it was broadcasted in the States. Which doesn’t happen that often and quite surprised me upon finding out.

And „The Dark World“ is a „Kingdom“ in the German version, for whatever reason.

They also had a funny advertisement before the movie:
They showed a trailer for Call of Duty and started with a shot if a satellite called „Odin“ and who was the narrator? Odin >_< (Or at least his German voice actor.)

PoiSonPaiNter

Rise of the Guardians

I know the movie was released some time ago in 2012, but as I already have a habit of posting stuff way later then when they happened, I thought I might as well write a bit about this as I just re-watched it and felt like sharing my thoughts.

I first read about the movie on the deviantArt page of the artist Johane Matte (aka rufftoon) that was involved in its creation. To celebrate the release of the Trailer she posted a series of cartoons that introduced one of the characters she had been working on, a character that was only eyes in the shadows of a closet at first, but then fully visible in the conclusion when the trailer was finally out and he could take revenge on another character that had previously mocked him about not being allowed into the light – which was by the way Zhao from Avatar – The Last Airbender.
This in combination with the trailer made me curious about the movie. It looked like a fun family movie. As a result I asked Iron Eve if she wanted to accompany me into the cinema as soon as I knew when the movie would hit the German theaters.

But what’s the movie about?

(Might be that there are still people who haven’t watched it)

The Rise of the Guardians is an Animation Movie by Dreamworks Animation and is about the Guardians of Childhood: Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the Sandman protecting the children of Earth with a strong hand … wait … no, that last one was nearly a line from Avantasia’s song „The Tower„. Let’s try again: Those four were chosen by The Man in the Moon to protect the children from any danger. Each of them protecting a certain aspect of childhood: Dreams, Hopes, Memories and Wonders. But of course something does in fact endanger these things: The Fear created by the Bogeyman. He had been weakened over the centuries and now tries to regain the powers he had throughout the dark ages, because all mystical beings can only exist as long as people believe in them. And no one really believes in the Bogeyman anymore. Therefore – much to the dislike of the Guardians – he tries to make children believe in him through turning their dreams into nightmares and stopping their belief in the Guardians to weaken them instead. With the help of a newly appointed and still not so happy about it Guardian – Jack Frost – they try to fight off the new threat and protect the last believer, the boy Jamie, at all cost. But Jack first has to decide which side he choses, as no one ever truly believed in him before.

The watching experience

As I mentioned I watched the movie in the cinema for the first time and as it nowadays is a must-have to show everything in 3D it was also only shown as such.
I have to say I am not a fan of this trend. On the one hand it is pretty annoying to wear the 3D glasses above your actual glasses and on the other hand do 3D movies have the tendencies to either only include short sequences where it is nearly a waste to use it at all or use it in sequences that are that fast that you get dizzy while watching it. Well, at least we have a 3D-capable theater by now and did not have to watch the 3D material in a 2D cinema…(I had that when I watched „The Last Airbender“ and it made some scenes even worse…)
Instead of doing either of it RotG did use the 3D effects quite nicely for the dream- and the nightmare-sand and general movement and perspectives. I kind of think it makes more sense to use these effects in an already animated movie than in a real-people movie, where you can’t actually get the same experience.
Other than that was it also interesting to see when we laughed and when the actual children laughed about certain jokes. It is always fun to be in a children’s movie as a semi-adult. 😀
As we watched it in German we also had the German synchronization and I think it was quite well done, especially now that I’ve watched the original version. The voices are quite similar and even the translation was quite on spot. Though they did change the calling name of the Tooth Fairy from Tooth to Fairy (Fee), they probably just didn’t want the characters to shout „Zahn“ all the time. 😉
Other than that: North (Santa) also has the Russian accent, Bunnymund (Easterbunny) calls everyone a mate (though in the Berlin-way: „Keule“), Sandy (Sandman) doesn’t speak at all. Oh, and Pitch (Bogeyman) is voiced by Son Goku (Dragonball Z), but he can pull off the tragic villain as good as the universe savior. 😀
I really liked that Sandy communicated only through sand-pictures and the Baby-Tooths only through whistling instead of actual talking.

The characters

What I liked about the characters of this movie, is that all of them have enough quirks and antics to not seem as „perfect“ as protagonist in movies often tend to be. It is rare for me, but I don’t think that I really do NOT like any of the characters, especially none of the main cast. (I will probably cover this at some point in time with a separate post)
Maybe it’s because of these things:
North changes from childish to Warrior in seconds.
Bunny is the big and bossy Australian *cough* kangaroo *cough*, that can also be adorably cute.
Tooth is all business, but quite obsessive when it comes to teeth and children.
Sandy slightly silly, but the secret badass of the four.
Jack, the childish prankster that just wants to be seen.
Pitch, the „bad boy“ that just wants children to remember him.
And the kids, that are just kids being silly kids. 😀

As I already have a tendency to like villains I couldn’t help myself but to be taken in by Pitch Black as well…
Apart from sympathy for his chosen colour I felt pity for him at the end of the movie. All he did was trying to regain the powers he had held centuries ago and that allowed him to be seen by people – and not just children. Of course his way was by far not the nicest – or even the cleverest – but he probably just didn’t knew what else he should do to change his demise. There are much scarier things in this world than the Bogeyman, but I’ll come to that later. What also made me like him more were rufftoons comics about his past that can be found in her gallery here. Incredible comics that partly show a different back story than the official one portrayed in special comics and other stuff from Dreamworks and of course the books by William Joyce (The Guardians of Childhood).

The Sandy-toy facing in a weird direction

After that I think it would be a tie between North with his weird jokes, the yetis and the elves, Bunnymund and his walking eggs and of course Sandy, though he might even be on par with Pitch. I even have the McDonalds figurine of Sandy standing/lying in my book shelf. 😀 (Eve got Bunny by the way). Though the magnet used to move him is weird. It always gets stuck when he is nearly facing the holding thing, but it’s a fun toy nonetheless. 🙂

Jack and Tooth, though I do not dislike them and they do have some nice scenes, are just a bit too plain to be among my favourites.

Among the kids I consider Cupcakes to be the funniest. Typical bully turned friend, but still fun, just as much as Monty, the kid with glasses, whose reactions were sometimes hilarious … 😀

It is also great that you can see why the characters act the way they do. Common sense makes you understand the competitiveness between Bunny and North, Christmas is after all the much more celebrated holiday. But you also can understand why both Jack and Pitch strife for being believed in. I think it must be one of the worst feelings to see all these people around you and knowing that they cannot see you in return. It is already awful to be ignored as normal person, but as personification of an aspect of life (Fear, Frost) it must be even worse. At least in our cases others would bump into us, instead of walking right through you.

General opinion

The Rise of the Guardians is a great movie. It has just the right amount of silliness and seriousness needed to portray an important message: Without belief in Wonders, without Hope, Dreams and good Memories there would only be Fear in children and children are our future that we must protect at all cost.
It also shows that even though children do not believe in the Bogeyman himself anymore, there is still enough Fear for him to still exist. Sure what people fear has greatly changed throughout mankind’s history, but it is still there and I could write a whole post about that alone – in fact I once wrote quite a long article about it, maybe I’ll translate it one day.

The movie has some really precious scenes and well portrayed characters.
Angry Sandy, not-believed in Easter Bunny, silly Elves and annoyed Yetis and all that wrapped in great animations (though a bit edged at times).
They also do well with playing with the viewers emotions.
When I first watched it, I didn’t really know what I should feel, when the scene moved on to the next big thing after the previous one had just happened.
You could argue that the movie therefore is a bit rushed, but I’d still say it was the pace needed to properly tell the story – even though the characters themselves did not really get time to process things or have much time for development, but you could say the movie portrays a war and you don’t really have much time in those either.

Regardless of the fact that it is a children’s movie does it have the potential and the ability to capture an older audience with its charms and jokes as well. Awws and laughter could also be heard from adults as much as from children, though not as loudly. 😉

Simply put: I really enjoyed the movie and I gladly bought the DVD, to watch it again whenever I feel like it. Even though some scenes don’t work as much as they used to during the first time watching, as you know what will happen later on. 😉
And I am curious about the books and comics accompanying it, but it’s always quite annoying to buy something in a different currency as I am not sure whether they are even available in Germany. But maybe will I get my hands on them anyway sometime. 🙂

Stuff I’d like to add

For those who didn’t know: „Mare“ is an old word for a female horse, so Nightmare basically means Night-horse and do you remember what shape the Nightmares had? 😉 It is a bit more complicated than that, seeing that the word derives from a creature called „Nachtmahr“ in German that sometimes was portrayed in the shape of a horses head, but that’ll get too off-topic.

What also is too off-topic but what I still would like to add is a bit about my experiences with these characters/guardians in my childhood.
So you can look forward to that some time in the future. 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

Weekend of Horrors 2011

To get me back into the writing mood for the several festival and concert reviews I still owe you, I thought I’ll write a bit about an event that transpired some years ago, to get back into the flow after my long break due to said festivals and traveling. Don’t worry you’ll get the reports and reviews later.

Of hidden Hotels and changed plans

This event was a convention, my very first ever at that and it wasn’t about Anime and Manga – which would have been the more likely thing to happen. No, it was a Horror-convention called the “Weekend of Horrors” (WoH) in Bottrop Germany.
The WoH claims to be the biggest convention for its genre in Europe and provides its visitors with tons of Horror-movie actors, merchandise and other stuff a Horror-movie fan would like to have.
Back in 2011 someone from the Marketing of the convention wrote a post in The Forum (the one I’ve mentioned so many times >_<) and it sounded interesting, especially as The Other – a pretty cool Horror-Punk band – where scheduled to play there. When I mentioned it to the colleague of mine – whom I’ll be calling “Black Kat” from now on – she found it interesting as well and we started to look into getting there.
It was in the middle of my semester back then so Kat had to come to Hamburg for me to be able to pick her up and on her way there she send me a pretty hilarious SMS about her status:

“No failure in the course of operation, no suicidal sheep on the tracks and no megalomaniac persons that are hopping in front of the train.”
(And yes, I still have it as I’m far too lazy to delete the old stuff, if I don’t need to.)

Anyway, after I’ve picked her up at the train station we made our way to Bottrop, which took us quite a while, as the motorway down there always has quite a bunch of construction sites and stuff.
So when we arrived we looked for a parking lot and our Hotel. We soon found both, though the lot seemed to be for short parking only and the hotel was quite hidden in the boulevard.

Our Hotel entrance hidden between different stores

Our Hotel entrance hidden between different clothing stores

Anyway, all the days before, we eagerly waited for the program to be released, but only after we arrived did we get a chance to look at it.
And to find out that the convention was already over for the day, as we had arrived more or less late (5-6pm and yes, already closed…).
What we also had noticed was that there would be a town’s fair right beside our Hotel…with horrible Schlager music (I won’t go into more detail here, just look it up if you want to know more, sorry)…so staying was not an option.
So we had to make some different plans for the evening.
We ran a search for Gothic or Metal bars, clubs etc. on the Internet and what we found was the Cage Club/Drachenlager (Dragon’s Lair) in Bottrop
On our arrival we had asked the receptionist for bus directions to the convention side, as we stayed a few towns/villages away from Bottrop and after figuring out which bus we would need to take and when, we made our way for it.
After searching for it and asking Kats „personal road atlas“ (aka her boyfriend) we even managed to find it.
As this trip was filled with mishearings we ended up creating the term “Keksboxen” (Cookieboxing) for the kind of dancing we saw on the dance floor that night. (The others were about freezers and tan somehow…)
It describes the way some people dance to quite electric Gothic music – which would be EBM and stuff if I’m not mistaken – it looks as if they are kickboxing against an invisible foe. And yes kick was misheard as “Keks” (cookie)…but we preferred the other term and still use it. 😀
Anyway, we stayed quite a while that evening, had a good time drinking and talking and when we returned to the Hotel the fair was already closed, so no disturbing music while trying to sleep.

Convention time!

As I said before I wasn’t sure whether my car was ok to be parked where it stood, so after waking up I stumbled down and checked again to find out, the place was free for parking at the weekend…
When I walked back I saw a coffee shop and asked Kat whether she’d like something from it. So I went back, again, waited for the thing to open and got us something to drink before the breakfast buffet of the hotel was opened. And let me tell you: I’m horrible at carrying full tea cups on saucers up the stairs…

The stamps we got for the days we've been at the comnvention

The stamps we got for the days we’ve been at the convention

Well, after we got ready for the day we went off to Bottrop again.
When we arrived at the convention we had a wonderful discussion with the employees as we only had a print out of a mail that said that we bought the tickets, as they weren’t able to properly deliver them in time – just as they weren’t able to release a program in time… Let’s just say: At the end we even got the card for Friday and the stamp for the day. 😉

The convention itself was in an hall-thing and housed several meters full of DVD stands, well, basically each hall was stuffed with DVD booths, one ending into the other. Other than that were there booths for costume articles, one or two for jewellery, games, merchandise, an exhibition of Alien-masks and of course the autograph alley. I don’t know what it is like on big conventions but paying 5 Euro for one mere autograph and even more for a photo session felt pretty much like a rip off…
Across from their alley was the stand of The Incredible Blood Brothers and when we told the younger – looking – one of them that we had missed their show the day before he gave us a little show of what they did. He simply put a spoon and a nail into his nose and one of us hat to pull it out…
Afterwards he even gave us an autograph, for free. 😉
When we later returned and his brother was there we also got his. 😀
(By the way: As I mentioned in my Wacken 2012 Review, I even saw the brothers again walking around in the mud. 😉 )

The Spidey Bathrooms

I think we also chatted with the guys from the gaming booth and I might even have tried one of the games, but I can’t remember…too many zombie stuff anyway…
Ahh zombies! They had a zombie-walk! With the high amount of three zombies, but one of them was quite funny as he walked into a pole and did other ridiculous things and a zombie couple that looked more ridiculous than frightening…
Also more cuddly than frightening were the two Werewolfs that ran around the convention and with whom we even made photos.
And of course the decorations: Spider webs in the bathrooms, for example, to get the people into the right mood. Very Scary >_<

That evening was also the one were The Other would play, so we eagerly waited for that. The concert was pretty great, but having an indoor concert at about 16 o’clock with about 150 people was a really weird experience as well. It was my second concert of them, but with a friend a concert becomes way more funny. And if the band is giving out jelly eyes…well it gets messy, but fun nonetheless 😀
Before the concert we talked to a guy that just stood there and found out that he was the friend of the zombie-guy 😀 It also took them about the same amount of time to get there from – I think it was – Sweden as we did from Hamburg…it’s always sad to hear things like that…
There also was this other guy, weirdly dancing in the front the stage, wearing ear plugs – not quite Keksboxing, but close to it. We weren’t quite sure if he knew where he was though…
But the weirdest thing about this concert was when we left the darkened hall and walked into the brightness of the afternoon sun…
Bright daylight after a Horror Punk concert, just as weird as their Midday concert at Wacken 2010…
Oh, and the convention ended that day after the concert. Really obvious decision to end a day of a Horror convention around 17 o’clock. Remember the bright sunlight I mentioned? Absolutely understandable…[/sarcasm]

The result of eating Jelly Eyes….or rather being fed them…

On our way out of the hall we continued to talk to the zombie-guys friend, before they departed and we were stuck with an even weirder fellow. He was somehow keen on making his own Horror movies, meeting his stars and he talked a lot about smoking, and I don’t mean regular cigarettes…To get rid of him we decided to return to the hotel before returning to the club again later.
The only good thing about the fair was that we could get some food on our way „home“.
The second evening in the club wasn’t as fun as the night before. Even the other people we chatted with didn’t make it better, but it might have been the music that wasn’t as good as the day before.

Lady bugs and trains can make for scary stories…

Sunday was the last day of the convention and we only had one point left on our list: A reading session with Boris Koch and Michael Tillmann.
The day before I had talked to them at their book booth where they sold copies of a Anthology (Gothic – Dark Stories) that I had read some years ago – though I had to wait for the next day to actually get it alongside two others (Gothic – Darker Stories, Ein Gänsekiel aus Schwermetall [A Goose Quill made of Heavy Metal], all of them Anthologies). While talking I also mentioned The Forum and asked them whether they would like to participate in a reading circle for one of their books. They seemed interested and I handed them a book mark with the URL.
Their reading session was then in the cafeteria of the building, only separated from it through a more or less thick, black curtain. So you heard the rustling and dulled noises from outside.
It still was fun as we were the only two attending their session and they read some quite interesting stories. I will never look at lady bugs the same way…will you after reading the summary below?
Boris read a story about a man that obsessively collected lady bugs to gain their „luck“:

To collect the luck the man ripped off the lady bugs‘ legs and wings and put their black bodies into bottles, jars and everything he could get a hold of. And it worked. He got riches, he got beautiful women and everything else he desired. When he died old and satisfied after a long and prosper life his coffin was led into the ground and crushed the last lady bug. Not long afterwards, the world ended.

And this is only the short version of it…
Let’s just say: It was weird to be the only ones there, but it was still fun. 🙂
(Besides we later did have a reading circle for Boris‘ „Der Königsschlüssel“ (The King’s Key). 🙂 )

With that ended an interesting convention and we returned to the hotel to watch one of the movies I’ve acquired. Which was obviously a Horror movie and an adaptation of one of the most disturbing books I own – and read: Clive Barker’s „The Books of Blood“ and its story: The Midnight Meat Train. A story that makes you reconsider taking the New York subway at night…
Well, watching this resulted in two funny things.
The first one being that when Ted Raimi appeared on screen I said: „Ha, we’ve seen that guy today!“ 😀
The other transpired after the movie:

It was warm in the room and we opened up some of the windows, but after getting ready for bed we soon closed them again as there were roof overhangs before them.
When every light was turned off, I saw a shimmer below the door and asked Kat whether she locked the door. She confidently replied with yes. Not three seconds had passed and she got up again to check the door. 😀

We weren’t afraid. No. We just did not want make the same mistakes all those people in the movies make. 😉

Final words

The next morning we had to get up far too early as I had to attend some lessons. Several traffic jams in Hamburg cause me to miss half of the first one…

Have a look at a building nearby the convention side for the closure....

Have a look at a building near the convention side for the closure….

But regardless of all the negative stuff I’ve mentioned throughout the text we still had a great weekend, that we wouldn’t mind repeating one day.
It was weird to have the Convention end so early and the only scary things being „shock“ moments during the movie and our own imagination, but it was still fun.

And mind you: All the above was in 2011. They had plenty of time and chances to work on all the things I’ve mentioned. I can’t say how it is “today”, all I know is how it was back then. By now they also changed locations (they are now in Oberhausen), so maybe they manage to stay open longer than before. Who knows…

And as The Other and some more bands were announced to play this year it has become interesting again and Kat and I shortly discussed attending again.
We’ll see if we actually do it or pass again.
Probably the later as they will also play at the Hell Nights that we at least have in mind to attend in November.

Stay scared 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

Crossing Over: Chapter 6

As this has been on Fanfiction.net for quite some time now: Chapter 6 of Crossing Over my Bleach-Naruto-Crossover Fanfiction that I started to write to improve my English skills. If you haven’t already read it you can start here with the Prologue (or click the link above for the Fanfiction.net pages of the story).

With chapter 6 the second „main“ character of this Fic – at least from the tags I used on the Fanfiction side – entered the stage: Abarai Renji from Bleach. (The other one being: Gaara from Naruto.)

And just like in the previous post about this Fanfic I’ll tell you which music I listened to while writing/editing. An as back there: The songs do not necessarily fit the storyline and you might want to read the chapter beforehand to know to which part I’m referring to. 😉

I listened to „Fade to black“ by Sonata Arctica their Metallica cover song for Rukia’s part. Which is kind of funny as the Rukia-centered Bleach movie is also called by that title. I am not really sure whether I was aware of that when I first started writing the raw version of her part.
The movie is by the way quite interesting. You not only see more of Rukia’s (possible/non-canon) past in Rukongai, but also see how people are effected by the influence of the enemies. I think I should re-watch the movie some day and maybe write something about it and the other Bleach movies.
However, for Rangiku’s part I used HammerFall’s „I Believe“ and beside hinting at my last post about concerts for a little review of a Hammerfall concert I’ve been on last year,there is not much to say about it. Other than you should give both songs a try. 😉

When I couldn’t properly write a chapter for quite some time I added this little sneak preview on Fanfiction.net:

While Rangiku tries to fill her two moronic colleagues in on what had happened, Byakuya reaches a part of the forest where he can sense a familiar Reaitsu and is finally reunited with his beloved sister.

At the point I wrote that I did not see any sign of time that I might have been able to spend on what I have so far as chapter. I wanted to let my readers know that I needed quite some time longer on finishing this story.

By now this problem has changed a bit as I am currently waiting for the results of an important exam and can’t really do anything else – beside working and stuff.
Therefore I might find some time and motivation to continue with the editing of the remaining chapters.

What I have so far for the next chapter is not satisfying…it contains the ideas I had for it, put the way it is portrayed is not what I wanted to show with it…
Just as I am not satisfied with the length of this post…put I’m probably just bugged by it because of the length and more or less importance of my other posts…

Anyway, throughout the last semester I at least managed to change one tiny part of the next chapter.
But it’s still not what I would like it to be.
Therefore I need some more time and see if I manage to get it right this time.

We’ll see what I can do about it.

PoiSonPaiNter

On the Road: Through a bit of Germany 2012

Some weeks ago, when my largest vacation this year drew near I thought about what to do in those two weeks.
A fellow student of mine suggested to have a look around Denmark, but that was unfortunately crossed out due to lack of money and time.
While contemplating the whole Denmark thing I also thought about travelling some places in good ol‘ Germany and asked people I knew, who would be available in the time of my journey. With this knowledge I created a route that took me through half of Germany from Sunday to Sunday. I kind of felt like a Traveling Salesman planning it…

Schawarma, a slice of Monster-Pizza and a Church in between

Anyway, my journey started on July 15th in Berlin (B).
Throughout the day Artok (I’ll be using nicknames for this) took me around Germany’s capital city. More or less through the not so wealthy parts of it. We went from Lichtenberg to Neukölln and further.
Along the way we passed a food store that sold Schawarma…
What can I say?
Having watched The Avengers I simply had to try it…
I kind of wonder how many people had the exact same idea after leaving the cinema that was just across the store. XD
And I now can totally understand why the Avengers did not say a word when they ate it, as it just gets more and more while you eat.
I had a version with chicken meat, a lot of it, and some vegetables and sauce. It had a quite interesting taste, though it was rather dry…
Later I heard, that there are versions with potatoes, yet mine had none. 🙁

Moving on we passed a quite interesting church.
It had both old and new elements in its architecture – not as much as some other churches, but still interesting to look at:

The Church in Berlin

As well as an „funny“ inscription above its doorway coming from Luke 24:29:

„Stay with us, for it is nearly evening“.

That kind of foreshadows the end that is depicted in the bible (in this case) and other old stuff, like the Edda or the Maya calendar and stuff…
Okay, it also stands for the time Jesus returned to his followers and they wanted to make him stay, but I consider my interpretation a bit more funnier…

Anyway, we later went into the Görlitzer Park that was rather pretty seeing its surroundings.
It had large stones and stone blocks lined up to create some kind of stairway that ended into a pool of sand. (We entered from above and had a good view over the whole thing) According to Artok it even used to hold water that dripped down the stairs. It was nice to sit there and talk the time away.
By the way, they had a Café there and the hot chocolate they sold was really tasty.

The evening I spent at Liathano’s place. She would have accompanied us throughout the day, if she hadn’t had to learn for her final exams, which she by now managed to write and hopefully pass.
For dinner she made pizza and as she is a vegetarian it was a pizza void of any meat. It was tasty, yet she called it a „Monster-Pizza“, because she „ruined“ the mixture for the dough. It was like 5 cm thick, but it was tasty.
It was covered with read beans, white mushrooms, maize and (on 2/3rds of it) onions and of course tomato sauce and cheese.

While I stayed there I had the chance to read some short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. „The Tell-Tale Heart„, „The Mask of the Red death“ and „The Black Cat„. Very interesting stories, especially the „death“ one. I would really like to see a cinematic approach on that.
Just earlier this week I received a Mail advertising the comic version of the last two by Gris Grimly that is now available in German.

Don’t trust Google, go sightseeing instead

From Berlin I drove to Frankfurt (Main) (C) and I tell you, do not trust Google on how much time you need for that distance!
It told me it would take 5 1/2 hours, it took me about 6-7 (excluding breaks, a diverted road through Belitz and me driving towards Frankfurt (Oder) for 11 km…)…
Finally arriving there to drop of my passengers, I made the last kilometres towards „Unyx“‚ place, where I stayed till Thursday.

On Tuesday she took me to the Senckenberg museum in Frankfurt. It was her forth time there this year and I really hope she still had fun showing me around. They had like everything. From dinosaur skeletons, over a whole floor of mounted animals and birds, towards the remainder of the animal version of the „Body Worlds“ exhibition. It was really interesting. Though probably not for Unyx‘ dogs which had to stay in the car and as we had them with us to take out for a walk in the city…
We later drove a bit out of the town to let them run in the fields as an apology.

Now I nearly forgot to mention the „Hilton bug“ or rather the enormous Hilton Hotel at the Frankfurter plane station that looked like a gigantic bug with really funny legs, as they were constructed to look like those plane entrance tunnels. It kind of looked like a bug to me.
Besides that does the inner city of Frankfurt look rather modern. All kinds of round shapes and stuff. It looks really amazing more like a glimpse into the future than something made in our time.

In the evening she usually takes her dogs into the house, so she did this time as well. While she restraint the still rather bubbly youngsters (5 months old) their mother could run free. And she likes to pose as a lap dog. Being a fully grown Belgian Shepherd Dog this is not really comfortable if you are the one providing the lap…
She looked pretty huge when she came up to me, but she was nice to me at least and only licked my glasses and trampled on me. XD

The next day we went to participate in a guided tour through Mainz. We learned about the importance of the Rhein in its history and the reasons why Mainz has a town hall with lattice-windows and no sign saying what it is.
Our last station before we left the tour was the dome.
A quite nice dome with a funny history:
Right on the day it was supposed to be opened for public usage, well, it burnt down…

The dome was festively decorated and a lot of candles had been lit, as it was rather dark in it due to having only some small windows. The decorations hung low into the room and it didn’t take the lit candles long to ignite them. As the architecture of the whole thing wasn’t too clever either the fire couldn’t pass up towards the high arched roof usually seen in old churches and extinguish, as this had a flat roof, that was made of wood. This in turn resulted in the rebuilt of the whole thing and probably some humiliation for the archbishop.

This kind of reminded me of Ken Follet’s „The Pillars of the Earth“ (Though I only know the movie version starring Matthew Macfadyen, Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, Hayley Atwell and the German actress Natalia Wörner), where the cathedral that is built throughout the story burns down as well, shortly before being finished.

What was created after the fire was still a rather dark inner room that later had additional windows and walls added to it. It is kind of a mixture between the different epochs. One guy who recreated one of the towers, who once was insulted by his co-architects for trying to use the original style of what he rebuilt rather than the style used at that time, is now greatly thanked by the restorers who are trying to do just that these days.

Afterwards we’ve been in a Medival Torture Museum in Rüdesheim.
The most interesting about this, was that the navigation system guided us through the Rhein, or rather on a route to a ferry above it. The second time this happened to me this year. XD
The museum itself was…hmm…nothing special and somewhat half-heartedly done in comparison to other museums of this kind, like the one in Penzlin just around the corner from my home. That one is a place where the tortures had actually happened and in combination with the „Burgfest“ („Castle feast“) or the feast for the „Walpurgisnacht“ and its music and the people in medieval clothes, the visit becomes rather memorable.

In the evening Unyx showed me Frankfurt by night. The later it got the harder it was for me to keep my eyes open until a succumbed into a nap on our way back … I know what it’s like to drive while your passenger(s) sleep(s), I’m terribly sorry…

The breathtaking Dome and the evil Comic Book Shop

Next stop was Köln (Cologne) (D) for the day. I visited the one, who inspired me to listen to Metal. I think I owe him quite a lot for that. =D
We visited the dome, which is even more breathtaking than the one in Mainz…heck that thing leaves you practically speechless…

Inside the Dome in Cologne

The Organ in the dome

Whereas I couldn’t decide what to take a picture of in Mainz (though in retrospective I know what I should have taken a picture of), I this time took some in Köln.
But pictures and words can’t really describe how amazing the architectural work here is…
If you ever have a chance to do so: Take a walk through those halls!

Aside from that – and I’m not really able to describe the dome any further, just go look at it yourself – quite close to the dome is a museum for Roman archaeological excavations. They had some quite interesting finds outside their exhibition rooms:

Typical Roman Shoes

Diverting from the dry topics of history we went to a Comic store, where I kind of bought a lot of stuff…
I now am certain that Comic stores are just as evil as Book stores: They never let you get out without having bought something.
Were Frankfurt was fascinating in its sense of architecture, Köln was intimidating due to its high buildings. Coming from a small city that is something completely different than what I’m used to. I kind of wonder how it will be if I ever manage to visit a huge city like New York…

Unknown host

For the night I drove to Bochum (E), where Feuerflügel had asked a friend of hers to provide a couch for me, but forgot to tell me what the guys name was.
So I stood in front of the house not knowing which bell I would have to ring …

When I finally got the note what his name is and brought my stuff upstairs we went to the Tavern „Zu den vier Winden„. It was a real nice evening seeing and talking to Feuerflügel and Mila again. Drinking some tasty mead (honeywine in the flavours: currant, strawberry and some other I forgot) and eating some delicious „Flammkuchen“ I wish I could have stayed longer, but Murphy was against us so I had to depart a day earlier to Kassel (F), as I originally had planned.

Poodles, Music and Art

But it wasn’t too bad. I’ve already been there two years ago for a whole week, where we explored like about every available interesting museum in and out of town. XD
Having some time left on us Nazgul and I went to the Comic Galerie, yes another Comic store and yes I bought something again…
I am now the proud owner of a quite funny „Nichtlustig„- Shirt. Nichtlustig („Notfunny“) has „Death“ among its characters and Death has a Poodle (remember my comments on poodles regarding Mephisto? 😉 ) and the Shirt simply shows Death holding the Poodle, saying:

„Nothing against the Poodle of Death“.

Ironically, I wore it some days ago when I accompanied my Mum to the hospital …
I mean even sick people have to understand a joke right? I hope so …

Anyway, later that evening we went with a friend of Nazguls to an alternative „disco“ called „Savoy„. What can I say? We nearly were their only guests that day.
So after the guys had some beer we went on to the „Musik Theater“ or „MT“. There were some more people around and the music wasn’t too bad that day either – at least in the Dark Area
Again I had some tasty mead, this time hemp(?) aroma (called Thor’s Tears, having a rather odd green colour…) and old fashioned cherry mead or „Viking’s blood“.

The worst of that day was, that I had to leave my car behind because of my „Don’t drink and drive“-policy…
We had to walk back to Nazgul’s place for nearly an hour and my baby stood there all night by himself and nearly the whole next day … 🙁

When Nazgul finally got up on Saturday (I had finished nearly two comics by then) we went to see some of the free exhibits of the dOCUMENTA (13) in the Karlsaue.
They were mostly weird and I don’t think I got at least half of them …

I don’t really know what an artist wants to tell me if he or she hangs up tons of gourds and puppets in a tree above stuff that looks like a makeshift camp….or another hanging up boats and nets in a tree above a camper and a shack full of random garbage like newspapers or old bicycles…or someone putting a stone into a tree … though that one looked rather fascinating due to its location:

The Stone-Tree in the Karlsaue

Just as fascinating was the location of a Ferris wheel behind the Orangerie:

Ferris wheel in the Orangerie

That one left us contemplating whether it be possible to create a Ferris wheel that actually goes through a building. It would probably be more like a roller coaster than a Ferris wheel though …

Later that evening we met up with some more of Nazgul’s friends before we again went off to the MT.
This time for an event in the Dark Area called „Feuertanz“ (Firedance) where they played some medieval (German) metal like Schandmaul, In Extremo, Letzte Instanz and so forth, but also some other stuff in that direction. Its been again a quite funny evening, especially when one of his friend and me sang the refrain of Schandmauls „Das Tuch“ together; or the Dove-Lady that used to move her head when she danced in the way a pigeon moves its when it walks…we just had to look at her, look at each other and started laughing…
Nearly as funny as the Dark Noir parties in Neubrandenburg. 😉

Home Sweet Home

Last Sunday I (finally?) made my way home. Taking passengers from Kassel to Hamburg and from Hamburg to Greifswald even caused my refuel-bills for the trip to even out completely.

All in all it was an interesting, yet exhausting, experience that I would like to repeat some day. Hopefully with new destinations added to it, though there are still places to be explored in the „old“ ones.
Thanks goes to everyone who made this trip possible, the ones who provided me with a place to stay, entertainment and/or interesting conversations.
Its been a great time and a wonderful vacation.
Looking forward to see you guys again some day!

Follow the whole route here: Google Maps

PoiSonPaiNter

Dark Shadows

The latest Burton-Depp-Movie that had been released over here.

A movie based on the homonymous TV series/soap opera about the last descendants of the Collins family. A family that came from Liverpool into the „New World“ to settle down and even managed to built their own town, thanks to their successful fishing company.

Or rather the last descendants and one of the very first Collins. Namely: Barnabas Collins. A Vampire-turned man imprisoned into a metal coffin for nearly 200 years by the woman he had rejected. He ends up in the 1970s version of their town Collinsport and has to experience things like cars, asphalt, television, hippies, McDonalds and the nearly ruined remains of his family.

After he had been buried „alive“ the witch, who had caused the death of his parents and his beloved and basically the demise of the Collins-family, took over the business and established her own fishing company. When Barnabas learns about this he gives his all to return his family to its former glory.
And that’s what the movie is basically about.
And of course the family-intern problems.
And the love triangle vampire-witch-reincarnated human.
And stuff.

Additional to Depp and Bonham Carter, we this time also have Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green and former „Nightmare on Elmstreet“ Jack Earle Haley (unfortunately I only know him as Rorschach from „Watchmen“ so far…) and „Eli Stone“ Jonny Lee Miller.
Not that bad of a cast. Actually quite a good one.
Did a good job portraying those extraordinary characters.

In the following I will refrain from judging the movie.
I will not say whether it is good or bad.
I’ll simply stick with the word: bizarre.
And there will be spoilers, so you might stop reading if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

Why do I call this movie bizarre?

For once it kind of lacks the coherences Burton’s movies usually have.
The characters were roughly portrait and not really developed, but what you saw them doing was rather weird every now and then.
This might be due to people knowing them already because of the series.
Which I’ve never even took a glimpse opon…as the old version wasn’t released in Germany and the remake was broadcasted when I was far too young to watch, let alone understand it …

For example the daughter. During nearly the whole movie she looks/walks/dances like she is constantly high on whoever-knows-what.
Only during the finale she is seen with some kind of emotions – even if it is just „rage“.
When she turned into a Werwolf …
Yup, they got the Vampire first and even a wolfie …
Usually this would have been at least hinted beforehand, but this time it wasn’t or I simply missed it.

Or when the boy found Barnabas in the coffin, the thick metal coffin mind you, he just opened it. As if it was no big deal … And he somehow also managed to undo 5 to 10 centimeter thick steel chains … how ever he did that … was probably his ghost mom …

One of the oddest scenes however, was the „sex“-scene, where Barnabas and Angelique ruined her office while kissing and slamming each other from one side of the room to the other … everything else was off-screen. There was no real need to display this in my opinion.

In contradiction to the above mentioned things there where quite some funny scenes when Barnabas dealt with the „modern“ world.
A joke that I had heard or read of beforehand was when he found the McDonalds sign and mistook it for the symbol for „Mephistopheles„. Funny how I just wrote about him. 😀
I also chuckled when he sorrowfully told the hippies that he would have to kill them.
Or when he ripped out the backside of the TV station to force the tiny woman out of it.
And so forth…

Anyway, this movie has good and bad things, both dealt with in quite unusual ways.
Though we are used to this in Burton’s work, this time he approached it differently.
He created a bizarre movie, that was not always completely coherent, yet held rather humorous elements.
It even had quite a decent ending, till the cliff shot of both Barnabas and Victoria came along.
I liked the line, where the woman said, that they would do what they always had done: Survive.

I kind of doubt the aging over here was wisely chosen, however. I don’t think 12+ kids would understand some of the things I mentioned and the other things I didn’t.

Regardless of everything I said so far the movie is definitely worth watching.
But the expectations shouldn’t be too high.
It’s not your „average“ Burton.
It’s different.
It’s bizarre.

PoiSonPaiNter