Black Holes and Revelations, A Stellar Muse Album [review by starlight] Our hopes and expectations/Black holes and revelations I am in no way qualified to review music. Sure, I've been listening to the stuff for the greater part of 22 years, but I am not a musician. I can't comment on the subtleties and complexities of texture, or the talent required to compose and play these songs. But I've been wanting to discuss Black Holes and Revelations on my blog for some time. It has some very interesting speculative aspects to it, and I'd like to recommend this record to anyone who likes new prog rock... or just music at all.
Far away/This ship is taking me far away Far away from the memories Of the people who care /if I live or die "Starlight" is about chasing after something important, even if it means leaving everything else behind. "Take a Bow" is another interesting song on this album, which has an overarching theme of revolution. Everyone's favourite song, thanks to Guitar Hero 3, is "Knights of Cydonia". The Magical, Sublime, Aweful, Fantastical, Mysterious Night Circus! by Erin Morgenstern[Review Time] Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern has received nothing but praise since its September of 2011 release. I'm not going to go against the grain much here. If you have been searching for more magic since the first time you ever picked up The Hobbit and have been having a hard time finding it, wading through second rate Fantasy re-hashings of the same story over and over, The Night Circus is what you were wishing for all these years.
If Tolkien's fading magic made you sad and made you long for a world where the magic wasn't waning but waxing and found in abundance around every corner, The Night Circus is the perfect read for you. Every last word is just plain magical. You are put in the position of a Reveur, or dreamer: one who has fallen in love with the magical circus. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Get Over LOST [review and musing time] It may have taken about seven months since the airing of the Season Finale, but I have finally come to terms with the unresolved mysteries left in its wake.
All over the internet you easily find blogs, forums and sites listing the many questions that went unanswered, despite the fact that the Lost team made the choice to end the series early and wrap everything up well, instead of dragging it out. After reading one such list, and considering my own response to the finale upon its airing, I felt that maybe the answers were better left unsaid, and here's why... This is a show that actually got a chance to complete its original vision. This interests me because many of my favourite books and tv shows have gone unfinished for one reason or another.
I'm happy with Lost because they ended it exactly how they intended to in the beginning. I prefer to have these questions go unanswered. Sherlock Holmes and the Unaired Pilot. Sherlock is a consulting detective who lives at 221B Baker Street in modern day London. He's a mass-texter with an addiction to nicotine patches, because "It's impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days", and he solves crime using what he calls The Science of Deduction on his personal website. Translating a myth like that of detective Sherlock Holmes into modern life is a very dangerous task.
If you're going to take the most beloved of crime fiction stories and translate it to a contemporary setting, you had better do a damn good job of it. Everyone knows that you should never mess with a classic, and Sherlock Holmes has come to be a great literary figure period, not just the greatest of formula detective fiction. Luckily, BBC's Sherlock has the production value, writing and pitch-perfect cast to keep the show from being an utter disaster. Casting Martin Freeman (as Doctor Watson) and Benedict Cumberbatch (as Holmes) was probably the first step to success. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter... of course [review by starlight] "You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think we don’t recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble?
Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself plainly when you have need of him. How else could you produce that particular Patronus? Prongs rode again last night. " I want to start out by saying that on the first read-through, Prisoner of Azkaban was my favourite. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I can't really choose an all-time favourite, but I remember reading the third book for the first time at age of 10 and being completely swept off my feet by Rowling's story telling. Her style is to use wit and humour to tell an imaginative story, despite it's somewhat played-out premise. An example of her brilliant storytelling, and the writing style to accompany it, is the first chapter of the first book: The Boy Who Lived in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
"Most mysterious. Mr. And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters... The World's End (2013): The Cornetto's Conclusion? Edgar Wright may not have been the only director to release an apocalyptic film during the universal sigh of relief from having survived 2012, but he's probably the one for which we had the highest expectations. We have a very high opinion of the first two members of the Cornetto Trilogy, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but reviews of the last Cornetto flick have been nothing if not mixed. The plot is as ridiculous as it sounds: Five high school buddies return to their hometown to finish the Golden Mile, a pub-crawl challenge involving 12 charmingly British-sounding small town pubs, culminating in the World's End pub. Partway through the drinking gauntlet, they uncover an apocalyptic secret too good to spoil in a review, and (here's what makes it problematically ridiculous) decide that they must continue their boozing in order to stay under the radar and survive.
Cornetto similarities: All three Cornetto movies involve a comical sequence of fence hopping in series. Saw The Avengers. It was okay. [Review Time] If you haven't seen The Avengers yet, you must be completely immune to hype. Give yourself a pat on the shoulder. But to be fair, it is entertaining and worth the watch, especially if you're interested in witnessing a curious film trend I've been noticing lately that's pretty much formula for The Avengers.
The trend is this: the beginning is smart, suspenseful, and witty, with a somewhat interesting story. For the end, you can just turn your brain right off. And people love it. We start out with characters who have interesting backstories to divulge, some weighty threats and the hilarious jokes you knew would be there the second you found out this would be directed and written by Joss Whedon. What bothered many critics wasn't even a concern to me. I was led to believe that half of the movie would be the Avengers fighting each other (and when you say fighting with relation to Super Heroes, you think actual, physical fighting). There will be spoilers from here on in. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I can't even begin to describe how much I enjoyed the pilot of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — but I did manage to put into words how much I disliked The Avengers. The disparity between quality and hype is at its greatest with The Avengers.
Some will argue that other contenders include Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, but the IMDb ratings don't lie: Inception has an has an 8.8, making it number 16 of the greatest films of all time (if only for mass appeal), Dark Knight Rises has an 8.6 (number 57), and The Avengers has a measly 8.2, and sits at number 168. But we can all agree to give this award to Avatar (7.9) and quit bickering. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., on the other hand, hasn't created -that- much hype so far (I guess with Thor 2 coming and Avengers 2 on the radar, the fanboys are well sated) and is head and shoulders above the quality of The Avengers, at least in the first episode.
I'm excited about the cast so far. They definitely tried for Whedonesque humor. When a (beloved?) So you think Star Wars is Science Fiction, do you? Could Star Wars Really be Fantasy? If it looks like science fiction, is that the end of the story? Is the entire genre of sci-fi really only defined by the presence of props like spaceships, robots and laser-gun technology? By intergalactic travel and alien life forms?
The genre of sci-fi is a bit more complicated than you might think and is commonly misinterpreted, even by authors such as Margaret Atwood, who said one of her novels is not science fiction because “It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians. " I would like to argue that the elements Atwood is talking about are central to aesthetic, not genre. But why would I call Star Wars fantasy? Here are some good reasons: 1. Sci-fi and fantasy are so similar that they go under one umbrella genre called Speculative Fiction. Star Wars takes place “A long, long time ago.” 2. Magic gets called a lot of things in the world of Fantasy.
The Force doesn’t even look like technology. 3. Captain Vidal stars as the Wicked Witch [review by starlight] Pan’s Labyrinth is an incredibly brutal film that will make you feel the harshness of the world, particularly because of the contrast with a beautiful fantasy. There is a realist story intertwined with a fantastic one, where the world of the adults is dark, cruel and without any justice, and Ofelia, as a child, is able to access a just and beautiful world if she overcomes dangerous obstacles.
Her part of the story is the Fairy Tale. Captain Vidal is the bad guy for both the realist of the Spanish Civil War and the fairy tale of Ofelia’s quest. His character really gets the idea across that there is no cosmic justice. The fairy-tale archetype that Vidal exemplifies can exert irrational cruelty in a fantasy story – wicked witches poison princesses and that’s just how it is. Vidal commits acts of senseless, irrational and merciless violence. Why we love Christopher Nolan's Inception [review by starlight] Inception: It's the action packed heist movie with the best of special effects, taking place inside the psyche.
It's Leonardo DiCaprio all intense and grown up. It's Ellen Page - who doesn't love that short little Canadian? It's the incredible and memorable Hans Zimmer score that blends perfectly with the world of the dream. We also love anything to do with psychology. I claimed once before that the writing in Inception was sub-par. Fantasy or Sci-Fi Christopher Nolan's The Prestige? "Now you're looking for the secret. But you won't find it because of course, you're not really looking. You don't really want to work it out. You want to be fooled. " I feel like this quote really sums up what the movie was about. While some people argue that Angier's final version of The Transported Man was a cop-out, I think they are missing the point of the film. Allow me to take a moment to state that this article will be chalk full of spoilers - so please just watch this great Nolan film if you want some excellent food for thought, and come back to read up on my take afterwards.
This is not a movie you want spoiled! "The secret impresses no one. Beyond being strictly a horrifying concept, Tesla's machine is the only unknown at the end of the film; the only loose end trick that we didn't figure out when we're just dying to know how it's done. "You never understood, why we did this. Three Steps to Enjoying Oz The Great and Powerful.
James Franco is Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs. That is, the Wizard of Oz. Trippy as it would be for Dorothy to turn up, her house having landed on a lady with real nice heals, and be asked, "Are you a good witch, or a bad witch? " I think Oscar Diggs gets it even worse. Imagine waking up in a land that's named after you; yeah, this place is called Oz.
There's also the fact that Oscar Diggs, the tricksy magician, is expected to be able to kill the Wicked Witch who's been tormenting his land, because there's one of those nifty prophecies. Luckily we have three beautiful witches to feast our eyes on through the entire production. Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz play the witches of Oz, and play with Oz's heart, and are probably the biggest reason Oz the Great and Powerful has grossed $283 million worldwide, other than Happy Meal toy promotion.
Or better yet: How will you make sure you will like it? Step 1: Remember Magic 25 Seats for Orphans: Wheel of Time: The Series Everyone Wanted to End. Ever read a book that you just did not want to end? Of course you have. Ever read 11,916 pages of a series that began two decades ago, that had its most vehement fans calling for the end to come since around 1992? We've been calling for Tarmon Gaidon for years now, and it’s finally here, and there’s never been anything like it. A Memory of Light, like books 8 through 13 of the series, debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list, which means that millions of readers made it through all 14 books, and millions of readers were ready to turn that final page. The series dragged on.
At least so I thought. What I have seen from A Memory of Light thus far is that while all of our friends and dearly beloved had to stay alive to make it to the Final Battle, that protection is wearing thin. Again, I haven’t finished reading, so don’t take the following as spoilers. But I don’t even want my top four most disliked characters to die. I'll let you know when I'm done reading. Brandon Sanderson: Sanderson's First Law.
Introduction I like magic systems. That’s probably evident to those of you who have read my work. A solid, interesting and innovative system of magic in a book is something that really appeals to me. True, characters are what make a story narratively powerful—but magic is a large part of what makes the fantasy genre distinctive. For a while now, I’ve been working on various theories regarding magic systems. I’d like to approach the concept of magic in several different essays, each detailing one of the ‘laws’ I’ve developed to explain what I think makes good magic systems. The Law Sanderson’s First Law of Magics: An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic. When I applied to be on the programming of my very first Worldcon (following my sale of Elantris, but before the book was actually released) I saw that they were doing a “How does the magic work?”
It my very first panel at the convention. “Well,” I said. Game of Thrones 3x02 Promo "Dark Wings, Dark Words" Game of Thrones Season 3 Premiere: Valar Dohaeris. The Fifth of December. Free and Open on The Fifth of December. [Once Upon a Time]in Wonderland. Journey to Neverland [once upon a time] Should you watch the Once Upon a Time pilot on ABC?[Review Time] The Heart of the Truest Believer — Some Thoughts [once upon a time] The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.