Prices, verbs and men in skirts
Those of you who actually read this thing know that I now use Movable Type for my blogging software. Basically this means I downloaded the script and changed some variables and now when I visit a certain URL I can just type something in (e.g. this entry) and it shows up at etoiline.com. Amazing! I used to use Greymatter, which does the same thing, but it had fewer add-ons and a little less flexibility, so during the server snafu of February I decided to switch over to MT. This is version 2.something or other, and MT kept saying how they would introduce a new version with some features that I would like to have, so I've held off on trying to modify (read: hack) the code to get what I want. But Six Apart (the company that distributes MT) announced recently that while they would offer a free version of MT 3, it carries certain licensing restrictions, namely it can only have one author and a max of 3 (or 5, don't remember) blogs. Well, this sounds silly to me. I actually fit into that category, because even though I plan on having many different blogs here, they're all under the etoiline.com name, so according to them that's alright. And as I'm the only author, I've got no problem with that. I just wish they would lower their prices. I was thinking about upgrading and now I probably won't, seeing as I'm doing fine without a 'currently listening' section after each post anyway. It just bugs me that things I like, i.e. MT, YaBB forums (I used to use YaBB (CGI base) for my forum until the server change, when I got YaBBSE, which is php based, but about two weeks after I installed it I realized they were no longer supporting my version and were changing over to a totally new script) are moving to the paid version. Ah well.
Read about the french guy who supposedly wrote a book (223 pages) without verbs. Weird.'Fictitious' author publishes the first book without verbs
And now what you've all been waiting for, I'm sure: my review of Troy, or what I can remember about it, anyway.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed Troy. And as much as I said in the beginning that I probably wouldn't go see it again, I bet I will end up seeing it one more time...if only to see more of Orlando. Silly, I realize. Alas it's not quite what I'd hoped, but it was still a good movie. The battle scenes were terrific, if sometimes a little contrived or unbelievable. There was decent acting from most of the actors, some pretty bad accents, and some very cringe-worthy moments. Sometimes those moments were needed; that's the way Homer wrote them. Of course, there's a whole bunch of people who died and shouldn't have (and vice versa) and there are no gods and they eliminated quite a lot of the history of the war...but me the non-purist didn't care all that much.
I will say that this is not James Horner's best score. It crescendos in odd spots and sometimes it just didn't fit with the picture...then again, when you think about the fact that the score was written only about two months before the movie opens...It's a shame we didn't get to hear Gabriel Yared's original score. I don't know if I would have liked it any better (but I certainly like the current end credits song better than Yared's) but I bet something written over the course of filming the movie probably fit the film more. And Mr. Horner didn't write a Paris and Helen theme
This will go on my I-want-this-dvd list, but it's not on par with LotR. Then again, what can be? The Post-Dispatch critic gave it 2.5/4 stars. I'd probably have to go with the 3/5 star rating. I'm a terrible critic because I like seeing a movie twice before I make judgement: once to just enjoy and the second (or more
) to make criticism.
Of course, I could just say that men in skirts make up for any shortcomings. Orlando is FINE! Even when he's playing a nincompoop. And damn you cameraman, why couldn't you have panned down just a little bit more?
I would say go see it. But don't get the big soda
