Trailer Roundup!

It's time for a roundup of a variety of different movie trailers (some older, some new).  So here we go:

• A Scanner Darkly (QuickTime):  An adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name.  While I'm unsure of how to feel about the movie itself (the book was amazing, easily my favourite Dick novel), I love the art style chosen for it.  The story (at least in the novel) is about a bunch of drug addicts, one of whom is an undercover agent sent to spy on the all addicts (including himself), who gradually and not-so-gradually lose all concept of reality.
• Frank Miller's Sin City (QuickTime):  Not much to say about this one other than that they've managed to get the style of the Sin City comics.  Mark this down as an adaptation that actually looks like it might get it right.
• House of Flying Daggers (QuickTime):  I've actually seen this film, but I just stuck the trailer up because it's completely misleading.  If you watch the trailer, you'll get the idea that this is an action flick; you couldn't be more wrong.  It's actually a love story, with bits of action stuck in, and therein lies the problem.  As an action film it's far too slow, and as a love story it's laughably bad and cliched, as well as being far too drawn out (example (spoiler warning): one character receives an obviously fatal wound.  A death scene is shown, and they quite obviously die.  Another character comes along and finds the body, and it turns out that the wounded character isn't actually dead just yet.  Cue another death scene.  Cue another scene lasting 10 minutes or so, at which point it turns out that the dead character still isn't dead.  Cue yet another death scene for this character.)  That's not to say it wasn't without redeeming qualities:  the cinematography was absolutely gorgeous.  It's just that the plot was far too thin for a 2 hour film.
• As should be obvious by now, I tend to be rather critical of films (an ex-girlfriend once told me that it was a miracle if I ever said anything was better than just "ok").  As such, it should come as no surprise that the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trailer (QuickTime) filled me with apprehension.  That being said, the new trailer (ASF) does a lot to help assuage my fears.  There's also a slightly different international version (ASF), which, although not as funny (in my opinion), gains points for using the original BBC series theme over the closing frames.

That's it; nothing more to say, other than that I still can't stand the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (QuickTime) trailer.

The Guest

(From Fifty-One Tales, by Lord Dunsany.  Originally published by Elkin Matthews, London, 1915.)

A young man came into an ornate restaurant at eight o'clock in London.

He was alone, but two places had been laid at the table which was reserved for him. He had chosen the dinner very carefully, by letter a week before.

A waiter asked him about the other guest.

"You probably won't see him till the coffee comes," the young man told him; so he was served alone.

Those at adjacent tables might have noticed the young man continually addressing the empty chair and carrying on a monologue with it throughout his elaborate dinner.

"I think you knew my father," he said to it over the soup.

"I sent for you this evening," he continued, "because I want you to do me a good turn; in fact I must insist on it."

There was nothing eccentric about the man except for this habit of addressing an empty chair, certainly he was eating as good a dinner as any sane man could wish for.

After the Burgundy had been served he became more voluble in his monologue, not that he spoiled his wine by drinking excessively.

"We have several acquaintances in common," he said. "I met King Seti a year ago in Thebes. I think he has altered very little since you knew him. I thought his forehead a little low for a king's. Cheops has left the house that he built for your reception, he must have prepared for you for years and years. I suppose you have seldom been entertained like that. I ordered this dinner over a week ago. I thought then that a lady might have come with me, but as she wouldn't I've asked you. She may not after all be as lovely as Helen of Troy. Was Helen very lovely? Not when you knew her, perhaps. You were lucky in Cleopatra, you must have known her when she was in her prime.

"You never knew the mermaids nor the fairies nor the lovely goddesses of long ago, that's where we have the best of you."

He was silent when the waiters came to his table, but rambled merrily on as soon as they left, still turned to the empty chair.

"You know I saw you here in London only the other day. You were on a motor bus going down Ludgate Hill. It was going much too fast. London is a good place. But I shall be glad enough to leave it. It was in London that I met the lady I that was speaking about. If it hadn't been for London I probably shouldn't have met her, and if it hadn't been for London she probably wouldn't have had so much besides me to amuse her. It cuts both ways."

He paused once to order coffee, gazing earnestly at the waiter and putting a sovereign in his hand. "Don't let it be chicory," said he.

The waiter brought the coffee, and the young man dropped a tabloid of some sort into his cup.

"I don't suppose you come here very often," he went on. "Well, you probably want to be going. I haven't taken you much out of your way, there is plenty for you to do in London."

Then having drunk his coffee he fell on the floor by a foot of the empty chair, and a doctor who was dining in the room bent over him and announced to the anxious manager the visible presence of the young man's guest.

Advance Warning

It would appear that spammers have started using free DNS services (such as DynDNS and No-IP.com) for all their domain name needs.  Normally this wouldn't be an issue, except that it would also appear that someone got a little too enthusiastic with the Master Blacklist, and added a root domain from each: no-ip.org, and ath.cx.

The problem with having these two domains marked as 'blocked' should be immediately obvious to at least one person, and, as such, I've removed them from my list.  Unfortunately, I can't guarantee that they won't be re-added whenever the blacklist plugin decides to do another auto-update of the list.  I know it's not a big concern, as this isn't exactly a high-comment site, but there's still the possibility that some people may be blocked.

Just let me know if that happens.

The Workman

(From Fifty-One Tales, by Lord Dunsany.  Originally published by Elkin Matthews, London, 1915.)

I saw a workman fall with his scaffolding right from the summit of some vast hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a knife and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to try and do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to fall. And I could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile thing, for not only would the man be unrecognizably dead in three seconds, but the very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of his name he had time for was certain to be burnt in a few weeks for firewood.

Then I went home for I had work to do. And all that evening I thought of the man's folly, till the thought hindered me from serious work.

And late that night while I was still at work, the ghost of the workman floated through my wall and stood before me laughing.

I heard no sound until after I spoke to it; but I could see the grey diaphanous form standing before me shuddering with laughter.

I spoke at last and asked what it was laughing at, and then the ghost spoke. It said: "I'm a laughin' at you sittin' and workin' there."

"And why," I asked, "do you laugh at serious work?"

"Why, yer bloomin' life 'ull go by like a wind," he said, "and yer 'ole silly civilization 'ull be tidied up in a few centuries."

Then he fell to laughing again and this time audibly; and, laughing still, faded back through the wall again and into the eternity from which he had come.

The Raft-Builders

(From Fifty-One Tales, by Lord Dunsany.  Originally published by Elkin Matthews, London, 1915.)

All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon doomed ships.

When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile upon Oblivion's sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our names and a phrase or two and little else.

They that write as a trade to please the whim of the day, they are like sailors that work at the rafts only to warm their hands and to distract their thoughts from their certain doom; their rafts go all to pieces before the ship breaks up.

See now Oblivion shimmering all around us, its very tranquility deadlier than tempest. How little all our keels have troubled it. Time in its deeps swims like a monstrous whale; and, like a whale, feeds on the littlest things—small tunes and little unskilled songs of the olden, golden evenings—and anon turneth whale-like to overthrow whole ships.

See now the wreckage of Babylon floating idly, and something there that once was Nineveh; already their kings and queens are in the deeps among the weedy masses of old centuries that hide the sodden bulk of sunken Tyre and make a darkness round Persepolis.

For the rest I dimly see the forms of foundered ships on the sea-floor strewn with crowns.

Our ships were all unseaworthy from the first.

There goes the raft that Homer made for Helen.

Posted by g026r at 00:00 | 1 comment | Most recent by g026r

Train now leaving on Track No. Sex

Ok, so I missed getting an entry up earlier, and this still isn't the one I've had kicking around since January.  (I need to get off my arse and use my scanner for that one.)  However, this is an entry, so in the meantime it will have to do.

This entry is all about a Japanese English book from the 80s called "Porno smallbook speaking, let's go!"  (Although another source has claimed the title actually translates into "Let's translate porno novels!"  The first sounds like it's a literal translation, whilst the latter is probably a more accurate translation of the actual meaning.)  Of course, what the Japanese characters are saying isn't important, as the English itself is hilarious.  So, without further delay, let's go!

For example:  care to know how to say "My wife is weeping with joy over my hardness and enlargement"?  That would be page 4.  Or how about how you compliment a woman on how hairy she is?    That would be page 26.  (However, if you want to comment on how much fat she has, that's page 21.)

The language is also a little on the odd side.  For example, the following are not words you would probably normally use during a romantic moment:  viscous (page  16), and toothsome (page 10).  Also, when the word masher gets used (second definition), you know you're probably doing something wrong (page 6).

However, having said all that, it still is impossible to ready oneself properly for the MSG reference, or the train page.  Seriously:  MSG?  During sex?

Wind And Fog

(From Fifty-One Tales, by Lord Dunsany.  Originally published by Elkin Matthews, London, 1915.)

"Way for us," said the North Wind as he came down the sea on an errand of old Winter.

And he saw before him the grey silent fog that lay along the tides.

"Way for us," said the North Wind, "O ineffectual fog, for I am Winter's leader in his age-old war with the ships. I overwhelm them suddenly in my strength, or drive upon them the huge seafaring bergs. I cross an ocean while you move a mile. There is mourning in inland places when I have met the ships. I drive them upon the rocks and feed the sea. Wherever I appear they bow to our lord the Winter."

And to his arrogant boasting nothing said the fog. Only he rose up slowly and trailed away from the sea and, crawling up long valleys, took refuge among the hills; and night came down and everything was still, and the fog began to mumble in the stillness. And I hear him telling infamously to himself the tale of his horrible spoils. "A hundred and fifteen galleons of old Spain, a certain argosy that went from Tyre, eight fisher-fleets and ninety ships of the line, twelve warships under sail, with their carronades, three hundred and eighty-seven river-craft, forty-two merchantmen that carried spice, thirty yachts, twenty-one battleships of the modern time, nine thousand admirals…." he mumbled and chuckled on, till I suddenly rose and fled from his fearful contamination.