October 13th, 2008
I finally started to read Harry Potter & The deathly hallows (in English) last week and it’s just plain evil. Yesterday it got to the point that I went to work later just so I could read a bit more, luckily for me I’m free to plan my hours. I got home late and finished the last 100 pages without blinking (well at least I think I didn’t).
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The book starts off just before Harry’s 17th birthday, when all the protective charms around him will lift. Voldemort is out there and growing stronger and searching for Harry to finish what he started all those years ago.So Harry’s got to get away from the Dudley’s house and will be forced to eventually fight Voldemort in one way or another. Dumbledore gave Harry, Ron & Hermione the task to destroy all horcruxes Voldemort made, to weaken him and so they take up this task without telling it to anyone else.
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The Potter books have grown along with Harry Potter himself, as he aged and went through the years at Hogwarts he became more serious and so did the books. In the beginning there was the death of Harry’s parents and there were tales of others but it was quite distant. But I would say the turning point of grimness came when the Dementors were used as guards for Hogwards. After this, the story became more and more grim. Wizards you got to care about died, wizards which you thought would remain till the end.
And that’s where the books got really strong because if a book can let beloved characters die and strenghten the story with it, it’s good in my eyes (which doesn’t mean that’s necessary to write a good book). Next to that there were so many mysteries that got slowly unravelled and The Deathly Hallows reveals things that you’d never imagined. It ties up all loose ends and finishes up a 7-book series that was one of the best stories I’ve read so far.
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So if you haven’t picked up the last book, or any of the Potter books, go to a store now! The books are surprisingly cheap and well worth it.Â
Read my posts on Deathly Hallows:
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Categories: Books, Guest Post |
Tags: Arjan, Books, deathly hallows, Guest Post, Harry Potter | 3 Comments
August 1st, 2008
I only just got the Stargate Continuum movie from our beloved cousin Larry when Lee asked me if I could review it. Well how could I refuse the rising star of the Aussie Bloggers! So here goes:
When you review anything that’s not all that good you start with kind feedback, so that’s exactly what I’m not gonna do, because Continuum is a good movie! But there are a couple of things that, especially if you watch Continuum a second time, catch your eye. Of course we’re used to funny dialogue but there are a couple of times that they say something where you think to yourself, someone should slap the writer. The other minor point is the drama. I never paid to much attention to it in my decade of Stargate-addiction, but there are a few moments where someone looks back for a last second just to see an explosion and then leave or someone dies in an almost Matrix-kinda-way. Finally there’s the time travelling in the movie..the first couple of seconds you thing …here we go again. But they actually use it in a cool way without the public being left with a been there done that feeling.
So down with the ‘bad’ things, on with the good things. As a soundtrack lover I can’t go around the music, which is in short: the great Stargate music that we’re used to! Even after all those years the Stargate music still gives the same epic feeling to the Stargate universe.
Another thing that still makes me love Stargate is that almost (if not all) all of the cast members since the beginning of the series are still there!
Even when they’re no longer part of the Sg1 team they make great appearances and show you that they have grown as characters but have kept their strong points. Jack’s yawning shows he still has the same lack of respect that I liked from the beginning.
The Goa’ulds have been defeated for the bigger part but guess who makes an appearance: Baal!
Last time we heard, he made tons of clones of himself, SG command hunted them all down, this one should be the last of the Baal’s and with that, the last of the system lords. The Ori were a cool enemy after the Goa’ulds, but I still favour those snake-like critters as the ultimate enemy led by competing evil system lords. And that’s what makes Continuum such a cool movie. It continues (what’s in a name) the original sg1 story with practically the entire SG cast and the enemy we love to hate. Let’s hope there are still some Goa’uld left to fight in the future.
I was a bit of a cynic towards the news that the makers of Stargate were going to make movies until the story dried up after the SG1 series got shut down, but after seeing Continuum I’m positive that we’ll be able to enjoy their movies for a couple of more years at least. Last thing I heard was that it’s almost certain that movie ‘#3′ is coming out! I’m already looking forward to it.
You can follow up with Arjan’s soundtrack obsession at Soundtracks of Whatever or view pictures of him getting threatened by a midget Roman Centurion at Dutchnid. Â If you would like to do a guest spot here on the QYDJ couch drop me a line! Â C’mon you know you want to!!
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March 22nd, 2008
Lee’s note: The following guest post is taken from an email from John of Matterings whom I occasionally exchange long emails regarding the nature of the universe (I say occasionally simply because I quite often take more than my time responding). Over at Matterings John is also collaborating with another friend of Quit Your Day Job Becca from No Smoking in the Skullcave and I urge you all to visit!
Oh and while I’m at it - I forgot to mention that I’ve done a guest post over at Aussie Bloggers about an Australian connection to the X-Men.
I’ve heard people react with mixed feelings to Hellboy.
The first time I showed it to my mother (who’s actually a very cool person to watch movies with) she wasn’t at all sure. After watching it a couple more times on my own (after a healthy pause) and really deciding I liked it, I showed it to her again one evening - and she really liked it the second time.
I don’t know how much difference it makes not having read the comic (which is referenced in the movie anyway, so that a kid meeting him on the roof immediately recognises him from his comics)… but parts of the film felt very much like reading a comic, thanks to the way the shots were framed - the sequence where Hellboy is looking down at the professor’s funeral procession being a prime example.
I guess I’ve grown a fascination with Guillermo Del Toro’s work (especially his fascination with clockwork and mechanisms and stuff - which appears in Hellboy, in Mimic and in the little bit of Kronos I have actually seen, and seems from the trailer to feature in the Hellboy sequel)… I liked his sense of the otherworldly. Although I had mixed feelings (again with the mixed feelings) the first time I saw Mimic, I thought the scene where the heroine confronts a figure in a subway station, only for it to sprout wings, reveal its insect nature, fly down the passage and carry it down the tunnel, was brilliant.
I guess I’d like to see Pan’s Labyrinth (I keep seeing it in some catalogues I get sent and meaning to order it, so I probably will), which everyone says is a very intense film… and he’s just released an intriguing-looking ghost/horror tale (forgot the title, but I saw the poster).
Not seen more than bits of Kronos, but I know it’s been critically acclaimed… So maybe for me there’s a sense of going on a journey into this director’s imagination and seeing what happens when it spends some time with my own.
To be honest, I hadn’t been aware of Del Toro as a particular filmic entity when I first saw Hellboy, that connection has grown stronger since then, but maybe that’s what draws me to the film (as a writer, I often rework stuff, develop it, re-edit, develop it… and so that sense of developing things, watching them grow and change, very much informs how I look at stuff… I think it’s something comics can do particularly well, in a way that the filmic media has only relatively recently cottoned on to).
Also, I love moments in Hellboy, like the scene with the kid on the roof, and the lovely scene where he tells the demons in the Hell dimension to let his girl go… “because for her I’d come over, and then you’ll be sorry.” (plus, I’m a sucker for a big, tentacled monster - especially when fighting them is fun, rather than laden with a hopeless sense of Lovecraftian doom)
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