The Not-So-Humble Opinion

Herakles

2010-07-11T00:35:00.000-07:00

Greek myths are something that I have loved since I was 7 when I saw the Disney classic Hercules. Since then, I've been introduced to alot of others like Perseus, Theseus, Daedalus & Icarus, the list goes on. But Hercules has always been my number one favorite and as with King Arthur, I have created in my head a collection of movies about Hercules & his labours. I've called it Herakles: the Strongest Man in the World. I don't yet know what I'll call the movies themselves, If you guys think of anything, please comment. But again, as with King Arthur, I do have the cast ready. They're all Greek so you may not know some of them, but they are quite popular there. So here they are:

Herakles: Sakis Rouvas

Megara: Maria Menounos

Alcmene: Ava Fabian

Zeus: Michael Constantine

Hera: Zoe Laskari

Apollo: George Charalambous

Artemis: Maria Nafpliotou

Charon: Panos Mihalopolous

Hades: Costas Mandylor

Persephone: Zeta Makripoulia

Antaeus: Michael Chicklis

Pholus: Tolis Voskopoulos

Chiron: Memos Mpegnis

Minos: Paul Cavonis

Perseus: Constantine Maroulis

Iolus: Dimitris Liakopoulos

Eurystheus: Yannis Anastassakis

Augeus: Thaao Penghlis

Diomedes: George Spartels

Atlas: Nikos Xanthopoulos

Hippolyta: Clio Danae Othoneou

King Arthur

2010-07-10T03:31:00.000-07:00

King Arthur is arguably the greatest character in all of English literature. The entire mythology of a man who pulls a sword out of a stone and anvil to become king of all England is a truly epic story and one which deserves a good movie to be made about it. I know that many movies have been made but they all suck; I, for example, hated the fact that in the 2004 version Antoine Fuqua turned Guinevere, who I always pictured as a delicate English rose, into a down - and - dirty young warrior woman with a bow and arrow. So, I have begun to create my own version in my head which hopefully some great director will make one day, an ensemble action/romance quadrilogy. Set in the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome, the Once & Future King, named after each of the four parts in the book by T.H. White. I won't give you all the details because I haven't got that far yet, but it's pretty close to the books. Here's the cast:

King Arthur: Rufus Sewell

Lady Guinevere: Romola Garai

Merlin: Sir Anthony Hopkins

Sir Lancelot: Richard Armitage

Sir Galahad: William Moseley

Sir Ector: Brian Blessed

Sir Kay: Tim Roth

Sir Pellinore: Bernard Hill

Sir Percival: Orlando Bloom

Sir Bors: Jeremy Irons

Sir Bedivere: Alan Rickman

Sir Lucan: Kenneth Branagh

Sir Gawain: Ben Barnes

Sir Gareth: Charlie Cox

Sir Agravaine: Tom Felton

Sir Mordred: Robert Pattinson

Morgana: Catherine Zeta - Jones

Morgause: Kate Beckinsale

Nimue, Lady of the Lake: Rachel Weisz

King Uther: Ray Winstone

Lady Igrayne: Keira Knightley

Leodegrance: Richard Briers

Duke of Cornwall: Nigel Terry

King Lot of Orkney: Robert Carlyle

Something That Makes Me Really Angry.

2008-11-14T23:45:00.000-08:00

I have lived on this Earth for nigh on 19 years & in that time, I have seen ignorant bastards who know NOTHING about people like myself (that is people with physical or intellectual disabilities) talk to such people like they would a 5 year - old child. Now, before I start ranting about how much this angers me, I think people should know why it does: I have a physical disability, albeit in a very minor form, called Spina Bifida, which basically means that my spinal chord was not fully formed when I was discharged from my mothers womb. Along with that, I also have something called Hydrocephalus, which means I had to have something called a cerebral shunt put into my head to stop it filling up with water. But I digress. There is this young man in the special unit at my school, and a few months ago, I saw a group of "people" taking advantage of his disability by asking him if he was gay, this is a guy who doesn't even know that there are two meanings to the word "gay", he thought they were asking him if he was happy, so he said he was, as he normally is and this bunch of black - humored losers fell over laughing. This is just one of many examples where "normal" people take advantage of a disabled person's mental state for they're own entertainment & it enrages me. The very idea that there are people like this in the world is just one of the many examples of how ill - educated people are about this topic. There seems to be this consensus that disabled people are retarded & cannot think for themselves, but if they merely watch them do what I have seen them do, they will realize that this is a lie of gargantuan proportions. Disabled people have brains in their heads & they know how to use them, even if they have Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Autism or Epilepsy, there are some who can't even speak, yet still have ways of communicating with everybody around them. So for you people out there who find enjoyment out of using a disabled person's mental state for your own entertainment, you should be ashamed of yourselves, Collectively, disabled people are more intelligent than you will ever be. I hope I've been able to teach someone something about people with disabilities with this message. Peace.

Follow up of TDK

2008-11-07T18:35:00.000-08:00

I haven't made anything new since August with my little rant about the paparazzi, so I thought, since I'm doing sweet B.A at home at the moment, I'd make a little follow up on my Dark Knight blog. All of you have, no doubt, either heard or started the rumors flying around cyberspace that Johnny Depp would be playing the Riddler, along with Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Penguin & Angelina Jolie as Catwoman. I, for one hope that two of these rumors are true, because in the absence of Michelle Pffeifer, I think Angelina Jolie, having already received blessing from 60's Catwoman Julie Newmar, would be the purrfect (pardon the pun) Catwoman. And Philip Seymour Hoffman, though the only thing I've seen of him is as George Willis Jr. in Al Pacino's Oscar- winning Scent of a Woman, has been very positively reviewed by most of my family and, Hell, if Danny DeVito can do it... you know what I'm saying? But now we come to the rumor of Johnny Depp as the Riddler, I really hope this is not the case. I really don't think Johnny Depp is that kind of actor because he normally plays dark & gothic characters e.g. Ichabod Crane & Edward Scissorhands, but the Riddler is not dark & gothic, he's an underachieving scientist who is driven insane when Bruce Wayne, his hero and obsession, refuses to fund his little brain manipulation experiments. With that in mind, I see of two actors who could bring justice to Edward Nygma: David Hyde Pierce, best known for his role as Dr. Niles Crane in the comedy series Frasier, or Elijah Wood, who has proven his worth as a brilliant actor through his role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and has since played roles like a vampire in the 2006 hit Paris Je t'aimes, the cannibalistic Kevin in Robert Rodriguez's Sin City and the ethnically challenged lab technician in Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. but I digress. I think one of those two men would whack the Riddler out of the ballpark as Heath Ledger did the Joker and the movie itself would be better for it. Peace.

The Paparazzi - Do We Really Need Them?

2008-08-22T21:18:00.000-07:00

No, we don't. We just like having them around because they are our one - way tickets into the lives of those we see on TV or hear on the radio. But why is a celebrity's life so damn interesting? they are only different from us "normal people" because they are rich & the jobs that make them rich also greatly entertain the rest of us. The paparazzi have been a thorn in the side of Hollywood since the birth of the gossip magazine & quite frankly, I'm amazed at the amount of tolerance that celebrities have with them because if I were in Hollywood right now and they were taking pictures of me and my family all the time, I would get a big, fat machine gun and set about the business of systematically shooting every paparazzo within my range. I mean, I'm not famous in any way but I still see the hell that celebrities go through at the hands of the paparazzi & what the paparazzi clamor to get from celebrities every day. Baby bump shots, baby shots, shots from between a woman's legs etc. The paparazzi have even been mostly responsible for the death of one of the people they seem most interested in, Princess Diana of Wales (R.I.P) because they were tailing her, driving very dangerously, doing anything they could think of to get a shot of her. One of the best examples of tabloid invasion is Michael Jackson. He has gone from the King of Pop to becoming the world's most famous sideshow after they pried & poked into the most personal aspects of his life which they had no right to do, from his liberal amounts of surgery to his child molestation trials, which, BTW, where only filed because greedy people wanted to get hold of his money. In conclusion, what I'm trying desperately to get through to anyone interested enough to read my blogs is that the lives of celebrities are very rarely, if ever, any of our business. The paparazzi have been invading the lives of celebrities from Elvis Presley to Laurence Olivier & they're all sick of it. Celebrities are HUMAN BEINGS & therefore no different from us.

The Dark Knight

2008-08-01T03:18:00.000-07:00

Lights go out at at the Bondi Junction cinema, everyone is silent & there is an anticipation in the air the likes of which I have not felt since Lord of the Rings. The packed cinema is on the edge of their seats because they all know they are about to witness the last & greatest performance of one of Australia's finest young actors. That is exactly what we got as my brother, his girlfriend & myself sat in that cinema. The opening bank heist scene in the Dark Knight signaled the start of a performance that was unlike anything else Heath Ledger (may he rest in peace) had ever done.

And everyone else in the cast delivered very well too, from Maggie Gyllenhaal, replacing Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes; to Sir Michael Caine, once again reprising his role as Wayne Manor's trusty butler; to Aaron Eckhart, stepping in to fill the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent A.K.A Two - Face. I find it very reassuring that the Batman franchise has been put in Christopher Nolan's safe hands as opposed to other, more recent incarnations (Joel Schumacher, anyone?). & the only question remains: Will Mr. Nolan continue his noble work & make more movies of the Caped Crusader? because if he does, then I, for one, hope that the Riddler, Penguin & Catwoman will all feature in those movies. But if he decides to abandon his labors & have other directors pick up where he left off, then what will that director do with the torch that has been passed to him? All Batman fans will wait with baited breath, but, for now, let me finish off this little story by saying that the Dark Knight is the greatest comic book movie I have EVER SEEN!

2008-07-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

20 Books You Should Read Before You Die:

1. Beowulf (in Anglo - Saxon with translations)

2. Le Morte D'arthur by Thomas Malory

3. Complete Works of William Shakespeare

4. Lord of the Rings by John R. R. Tolkien

5. Dracula by Bram Stoker

6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

7. Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

8. Le Fantome De l'Opera by Gaston Leroux

9. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

10. Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales

11. Andersen Fairy Tales

12. Complete Works of Charles Perrault

13. 1001 Arabian Nights

14. Iliad & Odessy by Homer

15 Aesop's Fables

16. Chronicles of Narnia by Clive S. Lewis

17. Harry Potter by Joan K. Rowling

18 Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

19. the 3 Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

20. Power of One by Bryce Courtney

Walt Disney: the Rise & Fall of Childrens Entertainment

2008-04-21T23:46:00.000-07:00

Walt Disney is the greatest of children's entertainers.

Beginning everything he has ever achieved with a round-eared mouse in 1928 who we have all come to love, the Walt Disney Company has since made many illustrious pictures, both animated and live-action, which have been loved by the young and young-at-heart for decades.

I have always loved every animated film ever made by Walt Disney, and I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. My favorite Disney movie is Sleeping Beauty (1957) mostly because of the FANTASTIC villain, the self - proclaimed Mistress of All Evil, Maleficent. The villain is normally my favorite character in any Disney movie, but that's just because I'm a sucker for dark, Gothic stuff.

Now, as much as I would like to say that the rest of the Disney company is just as flawless, it must be said that Disney is also guilty of producing the worst movie of all time.

High School Musical.

This is a movie with nothing to offer anyone except a cast completely bereft of any kind of talent, including Zac Efron, who I would pay dearly to punch in the face; and a TERRIBLE plot which reveals nothing about real high school but what the American Christian Right would have children believe about it. In the real world kids bring weapons to school, they join cliques, they have unprotected sex & they take drugs; In this pandering rubbish bin, they take out almost all reality of high school and replace it with a happy little fantasyland of choreographed dance routines with basketballs and seriously crap songs. People who like this movie (there are people who do, believe it or not) call it a modern adaptation of Romeo & Juliet, that was already made in 1996 and kicks more ass than Bruce Lee; This is just a musical version of Full House in a high school and it SUCKS. If you're not going to make a realistic portrayal of American high school, you should never make a movie about it. Peace.

Hallelujah

2008-04-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

I've never been a huge fan of cover versions, but without a doubt, my least favorite cover version ever is Jeff Buckley's pitiful rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Buckley turned this passionate religious classic into a sappy under produced love song. Cohen's version has him backed by an enormous choir and band, while Buckley's version only has him with an electric guitar, which makes it much less impressive. I mean, I'm not a religious person in the slightest and I will admit Buckley has a much better set of pipes than Cohen, but seriously, in some cases, bigger is better.

Beowulf

2008-04-21T03:21:00.000-07:00

Beowulf is the best movie I have seen in the last seven years.

Yes, i have seen all 3 movies in the L.O.T.R trilogy and I still think Beowulf wipes the floor with all of them.

With a cast that includes a knight(Hopkins), the most beautiful woman on Earth (Jolie) and a man who has possibly the most diverse acting repertoire of any actor I have EVER SEEN!!(Malkovich), plus the abnormal directing talents of Robert Zemeckis, it is pure movie gold.

The thing that really set the seal on this one for me was the fact that Grendel's (Crispin Glover's) script was entirely in Anglo - Saxon, which is a truly beautiful language and one which I, myself, love & am starting to very slowly learn e.g modor, meaning mother.