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When Sharp sky fell back to India, a new idea was formed with the captured DARKWATER technology. Sharp Sky techs combined with new techs from India created a light-weight, durable and highly advanced type of helmet design. Only a select few of elite operatives were selected to test this new technology. It worked brilliantly. Passing field tests in both extreme cold and hot weather conditions. Unfortunately, this tech is still limited and only select units are able to utilize it in the field.
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This shows a group shot of all Sharp Sky divisions including the newest Sharp Sky Tactical Force (middle).
For the Purge.
Hoy es uno de esos días en los que te despiertas y reflexionas sin llegar a conclusiones coherentes.
De esos en los que la vida te pone la zancadilla, pero te das cuenta de que te puedes levantar, soplarte en las rodillas y cogerte de la mano de quien está a tu lado.
De los que no puedes estar triste, porque sabes que tienes familia y muchos amigos que te quieren.
De esos en los que te das cuenta del valor de tantas cosas, que no debes dejar que la melancolía te invada.
Hoy es de esos días en los que o aprendes a relativizar o te sientes como un girasol muerto...
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iPhone XR
© Todos los derechos reservados. Por favor, no use esta imagen en su web, blogs u otros medios sin mi permiso explícito.
© All rights reserved. Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission.
© Tous droits réservés. S.V.P ne pas utiliser cette photo sur un site web, blog ou tout autre média sans ma permission explicite.
Taken in our back garden this is our resident female Blackbird who will quite happily take sultanas from my hand. Her mate is not quite as bold however and hides in the bushes until the coast is clear!
[EDIT] Since uploading this photo I have had a chance to re-examine it and have come to the conclusion that this may not be our female but possibly one of her chicks! The white markings below the beak and around the throat along with the yellow eye rings are more consistent with a juvenile male rather than an adult female. Whatever, this bird is equally at ease feeding from the hand!
The photography is the art of lights and its the difference. You consciously try to compose the reality with stillness within.
#LightisLife. #Nature #Subject
Prince Jarius of Loreos stormed into the agreed-upon meeting place, fuming at the lack of support in the latest battle. The Loreesi had gone forward with the attack, expecting reinforcements from their Lenfald and Garheim allies, but had been mowed down and slaughtered when none came to their aid against the heathen foe.
He strode up to Lord Triphian and Jhirian Eindrik. He pierced their eyes with his flaming gaze. "How is it that the Loreesi must fight alone, while their allies bask in the shade?! I lost 300 of my best knights, while you all relax!"
The Lenfel Lord, replied hotly "I remember nothing about being asked to help thee fight this battle! And If you had brought more soldiers, you wouldn’t have to beg for our help so often!"
The now-infuriated prince unsheathed his sword in a flash, and it would have come to blows but for Jhirian Eindrik. Silent until this moment, he boomed "Now this is insupportable! Stay thine arm, desert prince, for you are among equals!"
Piqued, Lord Triphian yelped "I can defend mine own self, thou over-bearded Garhim!"
Jhirian Eindrik did not reply, but turned a deep shade of purple and sent the Lenfel leader a smoldering glare.
Enraged, Jarius charged from camp and ordered all the remaining Loreesi troops to immediately depart from the magic isles...
The attempted purge was over as soon as it had begun.
Now more serious problems have arisen... war looms once again on the horizon of Roawia.
________________________________
LCCers, feel free to partake in the friendly "Discussion" Trash talk.
But be nice, it's like a game after all. ;)
"واحتج الآلاف في لندن على مقتل الصحفية شيرين أبو عاقلة "زهرة فلسطين
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B'tselem have all reached the conclusion that Israel is an apartheid state.
On Saturday 14 May, thousands assembled in London, both to commemorate the Nakba and also to protest the murder by the Israeli Army of the veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh ("the daughter of Palestine"), while she was covering one of many recent raids by the Israeli occupation forces on Wednesday 11 May, against the West Bank town of Jenin.
SHIREEN ABU AKLEH'S MURDER
"And if they ask you about Palestine, tell them:
In it there is a martyr,
nursed by a martyr,
photographed by a martyr,
sent off by a martyr,
and prayed for by a martyr"
( Mahmoud Darwish)
Initially, Israeli authorities insisted that she had been killed by Palestinian gunmen, but on the ground examination of the video used to support this claim by the leading Israeli human rights NGO B'Tselem, clearly demonstrated that it was taken far from the location where Shireen had been shot dead in the face, despite the fact that she was wearing a flack jacket and helmet, both clearkly marked 'Press.' Other Journalists who were present at the scene also testified that it was Israeli soldiers who fired the lethal shots, and that there was no clash as was first claimed, a claim which was also echoed by the mainstream media in Britain and the United States.
Her murder came just days after the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) and the International Federation of Journalists had filed an official complaint at the Hague against Israel for 'the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists,' with an estimate of fifty having been killed in the last twenty years according to PJS records.
Palestinian anger mounted on Friday 13 May, when Israeli police attacked the mourners in East Jerusalem with batons as they exited St. Joseph's Hospital with the coffin on the way to a local church. Al Jazeera's live video coverage and the testimony of witnesses all seemed to indicate that the attack was entirely unprovoked, with no evidence of 'stone throwing' as suggested by Israeli authorities.
Even had there been any such incident, the police action was entirely disproportionate, smashing a window of the hearse to remove a Palestine flag and her coffin was momentarily dropped as the police attacked even the pallbearers. As the assault was broadcast live around the world, it seemed to be yet further evidence of the complete impunity Israel believes it has, due to the almost unconditional support it receives from the United States, Britain and other Western nations. Diplomatic statements of concern are the most severe sanction the West ever imposes.
In a pathetic response to a question raised in parliament, Amanda Milling, Minister of State for Asia and the Middle East, explained that she had 'publicly expressed my sadness upon hearing the news of the tragic death of veteran Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, and called for a thorough investigation... The safety of journalists across the globe is vital and they must be protected when carrying out their critical work.' It seems Israel will once again escape any meaningful consequence for its actions.
However, it's not just that the United Kingdom turns a blind eye to Israeli violence - it also actively supports it.
Israeli pilots are routinely invited to the UK to train alongside the RAF, while the British and Israeli navies also routinely engage in joint exercises, all at a time when Israel's air force regularly attacks civilian infrastructure in Gaza (including Al Jazeera's offices in May 2021) killing 64 civilians since 2010 and when Israel's navy operates to blockade Gaza, where as a consequence one third of essential drugs are unavailable, 54% of the population are food insecure and 95% of the population have no access to safe drinking water.
www.stopwar.org.uk/article/how-the-uk-military-supports-i...
ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-warship-docks-in-israel-s...
www.un.org/unispal/humanitarian-situation-in-the-gaza-str....
www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/gaza-strip
Israel's largest arms company, Elbit Systems, also continues to run subsidiaries within the UK, and the UK continues to supply Israel with crucial military equipment, particularly for aircraft and radar systems.
caat.org.uk/data/countries/israel/
declassifieduk.org/why-were-trying-to-shut-down-israels-a...
COMMEMORATION OF THE NAKBA
Palestine solidarity demonstrations to commemorate the Nakba are held annually in London, usually on the Saturday before Nakba Day (15 May), the commemoration of the forced expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes by Israel, which accelerated following the declaration of establishment of the state of Israel on 14 May 1948.
Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion had informed his political and military colleagues that an Israeli state in which Jews made up only 60 per cent of the population was not viable. As Israeli historian Ilan Pappe points out, the obvious implication was that "the fewer Palestinians in a Jewish state the better."
www.versobooks.com/blogs/3809-the-nakba-and-the-ethnic-cl...
The Nakba had already started as early as November 1947 as British forces. which controlled the Palestine mandate, withdrew to the Port of Haifa leaving Jewish paramilitary groups to control the remaining areas. By May 1948 300,000 Arab residents of the areas within Palestine designated to become Israel had already been expelled, including many Arab residents Jaffa, Safad, Beisan, Acre and Western Jerusalem. That amounted to nearly two out of every five Arabs living on what would be Israel's side of the demarcation line. Most of the remainder were forced out of their homes in the subsequent months.
Israel's military ethnically cleansed some 530 Palestinian towns and villages, destroying almost all the mosques and many of the houses and committing appalling crimes against those Palestinians who had chosen to remain despite the threat of violence. It is estimated that some 15,000 Palestinians were murdered.
www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/5/23/the-nakba-did-not-st...
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Merops apiaster
El abejaruco europeo o abejaruco común (Merops apiaster) es una especie de ave coraciforme de la familia Meropidae que
vive en Eurasia y África.
Se caracteriza por la policromía de su plumaje. Mide entre 25 y 29 cm de largo, y una envergadura alar entre 36 y 40 cm. Pesa entre 50 y 70 gr. Ave inconfundible por la multitud de colores que presenta: pecho azul, vientre verdoso, cabeza canela, cuello amarillo y la lista negra que adorna su ojo, pico típico de insectívoro, largo, fino y algo curvo.
En el año 1890 el naturalista Edward Wright realizó un estudio sobre la coloración de esta ave,5 llegando a la conclusión de que todos los colores excepto el rojo estaban presentes en su plumaje, el rojo no estaba presente en su plumaje pero sí en el iris de los ojos de los ejemplares adultos.
Su voz es un "priurr" o un "riiuup". Viven entre 5 y 10 años.
Descrito por Linneo en 1758 como Merops apiaster. Es una especie monotípica, es decir, sin subespecies reconocidas.
Alimentación
Posee un agudo sentido de la vista que le permite distinguir una abeja a aproximadamente veinte metros.[cita requerida] Suele escrudiñar los alrededores desde una atalaya sobre la que se posa en busca de insectos. Cuando divisa alguno que pasa cerca, se lanza sobre el y lo
pinza con el pico.
Sus presas preferidas son sobre todo abejas, pero no le desagrada ningún otro insecto volador: mariposas, libélulas, tábanos, avispas y abejorros. A estos últimos, una vez pinzados con el pico, los mata y después los golpea hasta que el aguijón se desprende para poderlos engullir.
Distribución y hábitat
Es un ave migratoria que cría en Europa, el norte de África y el oeste de Asia y que se desplaza al África subsahariana en invierno. Está presente en la península ibérica en época estival, desde finales de marzo y hasta finales de septiembre. No está presente en alta montaña por encima de los 1.500 m .
Existen teorías de que es una especie de origen tropical,[cita requerida] debido sobre todo a la variedad de colorido, puesto que las aves de las zonas templadas presentan coloraciones más discretas adaptadas a una función de camuflaje, con algunas excepciones como el martín pescador, la urraca o la oropéndola. Esto habría sido posible gracias a su facilidad para colonizar nuevos territorios como cortes en el terreno de vías ferroviarias, carreteras, autovías, etc.
Vive en zonas abiertas: cultivos, pastizales, con vegetación dispersa; que tengan cortados en las que pueda anidar.
Comportamiento
Es un ave gregaria y sociable. Suele posarse a descansar en los cables de tendido eléctrico, casi nunca en el suelo. Posee un vuelo acrobático, con aleteos rápidos y planeos.
Reproducción
Nidifica en los taludes del curso medio de los ríos y muy comúnmente en los taludes y terraplenes de las carreteras. Horada un agujero en la pendiente, de trayectoria oblicua de unos 20-30 grados respecto de la horizontal, que puede llegar a los 2 metros de longitud. Al final de dicho agujero acondiciona una pequeña cámara donde pone de 4 a 6 huevos blancos directamente en el suelo y que incuba entre 19 y 21 días.
Cinders couldn’t help herself. She posed. The princess asked if she was happy. Even an evil stepsister shouldn’t need to lie. The truth was she was happy being girly. She wanted to wear that dress in the corner. Still not the biggest fan of bright pink and wasn’t all that sure about the mice having full access. Wouldn’t bunnies make more sense? Princess told me there’s great power in being girly. That got my attention. Fluttering eyes, swaying hips. Don’t even need to say a word. It’s like discovering you have super powers and the first benefit is simply being happy. Still a little annoyed. Feel like I lost this battle if it ever was one. But if you can’t beat them, join them right? And honestly can’t wait to see what happens next! First thing the apron comes off. Next? I’m thinking animal!🐇🐆.
Conclusion after the storm: a few planters fell over. According to the storm warning, the end of the world should have awaited us. How good that the weathermen were wrong. Sweep up a little tomorrow, buy a new plant and the traces are already gone
'Nazi Billionaires' - Cover art
Corruption and cover ups by - and later inability to dole out consequences to - wealthy &/or powerful liars and sociopaths. Some consequences... and draw your own conclusions. Some people have never had to deal with them.
A relentless story brought forward into the current day by an accidental witness.
All this plus fabulous cover art.
Well worth reading. A sample:
"Naturally, most Germans were none too keen on judging their own compatriots, who were being tried for crimes and political convictions that many of those sitting in judgement had participated in themselves. Nor did the millions of defendants feel particularly inclined to tell the truth about their Nazi sympathies or their transgressions during the war. Countless crimes and secrets remained buried." [p. 213]
[Nazi Billionaires_Cover art_IMG_20220830_160642]
COUSIN PADDINGTON: “So you see Paddy, with not many planes flying around the world, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d better just stay here, even when they do increase frequency.”
PADDY: “Oh that is good news, Cousin Paddington. I can’t wait to te…”
SCOUT: *Wheeling pram.* “Sssshhhhhh!” *Puts paw to mouth.* “You’ll wake my baby!”
PADDY: “You’re what, Scout?” *Looks at pram Scout is wheeling.*
SCOUT: “My baby, Paddy!” *Points to small teddy in the pram. “And I’ll thank you not to call my charge a what. He’s a whom. It’s Caramel Teddy, thank you very much. And today I am Nanny Scout, thank you!”
COUSIN PADDINGTON: “Oh, so today you are playing at being a nanny, Scout… er… I mean Nanny Scout?”
SCOUT: “That’s right Cousin Paddington.” *Nods affirmatively.*
PADDY: “And why are you wearing your yellow cape, Nanny Scout?”
SCOUT: “Well, all good nannies need a cape, Paddy. Just look at Mary Poppins! She had a very fetching blue and red cape.”
COUSIN PADDINGTON: “That’s true Paddy.”
SCOUT: “Oh!” *Looks at Caramel Teddy.* “Now my baby is awake with all your loud chatter.”
PADDY: “Our loud chatter, Nanny Scout? You’ve been ch…”
SCOUT: “Sssshhhhhh!” *Puts paw to mouth.* “Baby is saying something to me. What’s that, Caramel Bear?”
PADDY, SCOUT and COUSIN PADDINGTON: *Lean over the pram to listen.*
PADDY: “I can’t hear anything.”
SCOUT: “And that’s why you aren’t a nanny, Paddy! I can hear him perfectly.”
COUSIN PADDINGTON: “I must confess, Nanny Scout, that I can’t hear anything either.”
PADDY: “What does he say, Nanny Scout?”
SCOUT: “My baby says that now he is awake he has a grumbly tummy.”
COUSIN PADDINGTON: “Well, did you bring a bottle of milk for him?”
SCOUT: “No I didn’t, Cousin Paddington. However, he says he doesn’t want any milk.”
PADDY: “Well, what does he want, Nanny Scout?”
SCOUT: *Looks longingly at bowl of Easter Eggs next to Paddy.* “He wants a chocolate Easter Egg, Paddy.” *Walks over and takes an Easter Egg from the bowl.* “And come to think of it, I have a grumbly tummy too, so I’d better have one as well.” *Selects a second chocolate Easter Egg.* “Thank you Paddy and Cousin Paddington.” *Puts Easter Eggs in the pram.* “Goodbye!” *Wheels pram away.*
PADDY and COUSIN PADDINGTON: “Goodbye Nanny Scout.” *Look bewilderingly at one another.*
My bears Paddy and Scout have made very good friends with two bears in Holland called Peter and Oleg (www.flickr.com/photos/40262251@N03/galleries/721577154558...) and their Mummy (Marian Kloon (on and off)) . Peter and Scout are very similar and have become best friends. Peter recently found a pram in the doll house that he lives in and it was just the perfect size for his teddy bear. (You can see the picture here www.flickr.com/photos/66094586@N06/51111796504/in/datepos..., or in the first comment below). Scout has decided to follow suit, with his own agenda about Easter Eggs in mind.
This beautiful nursery tea set is made by the Shell China company in the 1910s. It features six cups, saucers (not all the set is being used today) as well as a teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl, all gilt and featuring different nursery rhymes including: "See Saw Margery Daw", "Jack and Jill", "This Little Pig Went to Market", "Taffy was a Welshman", "Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross", "Little Jack Horner", “Pat-A-Cake, Pat-A-Cake”, "Old Mother Goose", "Little Miss Muffett" and "I Saw a Ship a Sailing" amongst others. It is the prequel set to the Shell China nursery and faerie tale tea sets I have from the 1920s and 1930s. The designs are very Edwardian and the set is made up of smaller pieces. I also came across a large, adult sized sugar bowl with the same "Taffy was a Welshman" pattern from an unknown maker on EBay, which is what the Easter Eggs are contained in. There are also doll (bear) sized tea spoons which are sterling silver salt spoons.
The blue and white metal pram and the teddy are 1:12 size miniatures from my miniatures collection. The pram is made of metal with a retractable hood made of fabric and decorated with lace. The teddy has reticulated arms and legs and is beautifully made. Both are made in England and come from a specialist 1:12 miniature dollhouse stockist in the United Kingdom.
My Paddington Bear came to live with me in London when I was two years old (many, many years ago). He was hand made by my Great Aunt and he has a chocolate coloured felt hat, the brim of which had to be pinned up by a safety pin to stop it getting in his eyes. The collar of his mackintosh is made of the same felt. He wears wellington boots made from the same red leather used to make the toggles on his mackintosh.
He has travelled with me across the world and he and I have had many adventures together over the years. He is a very precious member of my small family.
Scout was a gift to Paddy from my friend. He is a Fair Trade Bear hand knitted in Africa. His name comes from the shop my friend found him in: Scout House. He tells me that life was very different where he came from, and Paddy is helping introduce him to many new experiences. Scout catches on quickly, and has proven to be a cheeky, but very lovable member of our closely knit family.
Travelling all the way from London, Cousin Paddington was caught in transit thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, so it looks like he is stopping with us for a long while. That makes me happy, as the more I look into his happy, smiling face, the more attached I am becoming to him. This seems to be a good thing, as it now appears that Cousin Paddington has decided to make our home his forever home!
Scout's pretty yellow and white cape has been kindly knitted by a close friend's mother-in-law especially for him. I even had to measurements so that it would fit nicely. It is based on a Jacobean Puss in Boots design.
EXPLORED!!! Highest position: 51 on Sunday, January 3, 2010
This is, of course, my last upload for this year.
Time to draw some conclusions...
I'm gonna be pretty wordy here, I really want to share with you my impressions of the moment; my 'occasional' followers can skip this section and go to my usual shooting details and description!
First of all, 2009 has been, without a doubt, the explosion of my SERIOUS love for visual arts.
I realized I need a stronger knowledge about art and photography. I'm trying to read as much as I can, to broaden my culture. I made a commitment to stop caring that much about gear and spending useless time on photographic forums, serious books provide far more valuable informations.
I'm also trying to learn more and more from the Masters, having increased their 'number', too.
I'm a lot more into subtleties than before, I spend much more time thinking the shot than actually wonder around shooting.
As for my personal life, 2009 made me really stronger. I fully recovered from an important love story which ended.
This recovery made me realize how much strong I am and how much I can give to other people.
Then I fell in love again, and when I look back it's easy to see that those moments of deep pain are now so distant and far, and things are going much better than before.
Those deep changes in life are useful: they let you realize your point of view can dramatically change, much faster than you can imagine.
Now, some 2010 NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS!!! (random order)
1) More stability with work. I want to get a full time occupation and sign an official contract;
2) No laziness: I have to keep up the good work with my body I started last May - June;
3a) No intellectual laziness: Stop wasting time on the Internet (Flickr is NOT wasting time; useless forums, facebook etc.. are);
3b) No intellectual laziness: Read more (Novels, Art books, essays, etc);
4) Attend more art exhibitions;
5) Buy a full-frame camera (is it a resolution?!?);
6) Travel a lot;
Last but not least:
I really want to thank you, my dear Flickr friends. When I write this I really mean it; without you I wouldn't be here;
your constant feedback, comments, faves, notes, helped me immensely.
Many of your artworks truly inspired me, made me struggle to get better and better and open my eyes in many directions.
THANK YOU!!!!
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Una piccola eccezione per la fine del 2009... la descrizione in italiano!!!
Mi scuso con tutti i miei contatti e con i visitatori occasionali per le mancate traduzioni passate;
come ho scritto anche nel profilo la traduzione completa diventerebbe impegnativa;
Questo è il mio ultimo upload per il 2009, ed a corredo voglio inserire alcune riflessioni.
Il 2009 è stato certamente l'anno che ha segnato l'inizio del mio interesse dilagante per le arti visive.
Mi sono reso conto di quanto debba approfondire la mia conoscenza relativa sia alla storia dell'arte in generale che, più nello specifico, alla fotografia.
Mi sto applicando per leggere moltissimo, cercando di evitare di sprecare tempo girovagando in Internet senza una meta.
Cerco di trarre ispirazione dai Maestri, che, con il passare del tempo, stanno aumentando decisamente in numero!
Passando ad aspetti più personali, il 2009 mi ha reso senza dubbio più forte; mi sono completamente ripreso dalla fine di una storia molto importante, e ciò mi ha fatto intendere quanto forte sia davvero e quanto abbia da dare agli altri.
Ora, quando guardo indietro, è facile rendermi conto di come quei momenti di sofferenza siano lontani e quanto adesso le cose funzionino meglio di prima.
Certi cambiamenti radicali nella vita sono senza dubbio utili: permettono infatti di renderti conto di come il tuo punto di vista, i tuoi riferimenti possano mutare in un battito di ciglia.
Ed ora, qualche buon proposito per il 2010!!! (Ordine casuale)
1) Più stabilità lavorativa. Voglio un impiego a tempo pieno;
2) No alla pigrizia: Voglio continuare l'ottimo lavoro con il mio fisico iniziato prima dell'estate;
3a) No alla pigrizia intellettuale: Non sprecare tempo su Internet;
3b) No alla pigrizia intellettuale: Leggere di più;
4) Visitare più mostre;
5) Acquistare una full-frame;
6) Viaggiare molto.
Ultimo, ma non meno impoartante:
Voglio ringrazionare di cuore tutti voi, miei amici di Flickr. Senza di voi non sarei qui; i vostri commenti, le critiche, le preferite, mi hanno aiutato moltissimo.
I vostri lavori mi hanno ispirato, fornendomi motivazione per migliorarmi e mi hanno aperto gli occhi in molto nuove direzioni: GRAZIE!!!
Details
- CANON 400d, EF-S 10-22 @ 10mm, f/10, 1/50s, ISO 100.
- Tripod
The shot
Shot not far from where I live.
The Processing
Photoshop:
- Created 5 Overlay layers to adjust light
- Multiplied the sky and added a gradient mask
- Added a Level layer to improve contrast
- Created a Color-Balance adjustment layer to warm things up
- Improved microcontrast with Unsharp Mask
- Resized
- Sharpened (SS + More Accurate, rocks only)
- Framing and signature.
Take a look at it, LARGE on Black :
@ You all
Comments, faves and critiques are always welcomed!
It is time to wish you, your families and your loved ones the best 2010 you could ever imagine.
Luca
-Won't you sit down?
-I can't. I don't want to wrinkle my skirt.
-Oh! You're going out?
-I have to. The liquor cabinet is empty.
-Yeah...I noticed that... I'll come with you then.
-I say the more the merrier!
-hahaha!
Some structures have overwhelming compositional opinions of their own, like these repeating arches at Fort Point, San Francisco.
Portfolio | Prints | Blog | Newsletter
“I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it.”~ Rosalia de Castro
(better if you click on the photo and view it on black.)
At the conclusion of the WW&F Museum's February, 2023 "Steam & Sleighs" event, and with all of the passenger equipment safely put away in the barn, the crew of Locomotive #9 brings her south on the main line, headed for Stall #1 in the Sheepscot Shop building. Outside, her fire will be dropped and she'll be brought inside for the night. Fortunately, the days of completely dropping fires before bringing the locomotive indoors are numbered. The practice has been in effect for years, to preclude the possibility of a fire, as the shop building was never built to store hot locomotives. That will all be changing in 2023, as the museum completes its new roundhouse, which is still under construction. The roundhouse will have a concrete floor, fire suppression precautions and smoke jacks in the roof. It is designed from the ground up as a facility in which locomotives can be steamed up and stored hot.
Stardate 56,872
Timecode 3:53
Operator: 871
Transcript excerpt follows:
Command, this is patrol unit 37 in orbit of the Moon of the planet called Earth. Confirming deployment of an SSRV to locate and assess the source of the reported distress call. I will provide status updates as they are available. Over.
...
Command, this is unit 37. Surface operators have found the source of the distress signal. Operator 542 reports that the subject is a male earth feline, orange in color, that identifies itself as 'Comrade Fluffy' Surface operators have secured the subject and report that he is doing well and asking for tuna.
We're bringing Fluffy home! Over.
***
Well, All's Well that Ends Well, right?
Febrovery 2016 whew!
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I have a month's worth of sleep to catch up on :)
Thanks to those who faved and commented, or even just stopped by for a peek! And welcome aboard to the 50+ new followers added this month. I hope I can continue to post things that you find interesting!
Did you like the Saga of Comrade Fluffy? Should I do more like it?
Art has long been controversial, that is to say disliked by some viewers, for a wide variety of reasons.
Disputes as to whether or not to classify something as a work of art are referred to as classificatory disputes about art.
Making judgments of value requires a basis for criticism. At the simplest level, a way to determine whether the impact of the object on the senses meets the criteria to be considered art is whether it is perceived to be attractive or repulsive.
Though perception is always coloured by experience, and is necessarily subjective, it is commonly understood that what is not somehow aesthetically satisfying cannot be art.
However, "good" art is not always or even regularly aesthetically appealing to a majority of viewers. In other words, an artist's prime motivation need not be the pursuit of the aesthetic.
Also, art often depicts terrible images made for social, moral, or thought-provoking reasons.
My conclusion? I, at last, know what I like and what I do NOT like… I think I enjoyed the architecture more than most of the paintings, LOL, great for some more creative photography, yes a complete break from the ‘usual’.
Willem Vermandere at the Roger Raveel museum. Roger Raveel was a Belgian painter whose work is often associated with pop art because of its depiction of everyday objects.
Thanks, M, (*_*)
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"VIDEO KILLED THE RADO STAR?"
Well, just about, I'm a tad knackered at the moment!
G’day, I’ve been a wee bit quiet for the past few weeks as I reviewed movies at this year’s 2007 Melbourne (Australia) International Film Festival. I broadcast the reviews over about two and a half hours all up on my show, Zero-G: Science Fiction, Fantasy & Historical Radio, on 3RRR FM. (rrr.org.au)
The above picture is the sign on the Erwin Rado Theatre at 211 Johnson Street, Fitzroy, where the MIFF has its headquarters. The building's nothing much to look at from outside, really! But the sign...well, THAT has character!
Below the MIFF offices, the theatre, named after the director of the Film Festival from 1957 - 1983, has a charming old 69 seat cinema that can screen 16mm and 35mm film as well as DVD, LaserDisc, VHS, Data and MiniDV.
The MIFF’s access to the theatre expired at the end of 2007 and, ideally, it really should have its own dedicated screening facility, as other major city’s film festivals have. Still, the office itself has now moved to a more central location in Melbourne, which is handy!
To find out more about the MIFF go here:
www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/
Anyway, I thought I’d post some of reviews here, inspired by films that I particularly enjoyed at this year’s event.
The full transcripts can be found at:
-AACHI & SSIPAK-
SOUTH KOREA
This continuously violent South Korean animated adult feature presents a future where human excrement is an energy source. Citizens have a monitoring chip attached to their arses and particularly productive individuals are rewarded with addictive drug laced munchies called Juicy Bars.
I shit you not.
The story begins with a roadwarrior highway battle as the swarming blue mutant Diaper Gang (!) attempts to truckjack a cargo of Juicy Bars, only to encounter a devastatingly lethal cyborg enforcer who makes Judge Dredd look like a human rights campaigner.
Headshot bodies fall at a rate that would impress Aeon Flux and Samurai Jack combined as the repressive government, assorted roving bands of bandits and con men, including the title characters Aachi and Ssipak (pronounced ‘she-pock’) along with a feisty would-be actress, all compete for the Juicy Bars.
Given the outrageous level of mayhem and the giggling concept that lies at the, er, bottom of the plot, it’s hardly worth noting that the animators cheerfully raid pop culture for many sequences, including the films Aliens and Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom. The latter is extensively overmined for one tunnel chase set up.
The animation is quite stylistically vigorous while the off the wall social commentary reminds me a little of the kind of thing that animator Ralph Bakshi attempted in his Fritz The Cat days, well before the likes of South Park and its shock-anime kin. There’s also something to be said for the biting political satire that runs through the narrative, which results in the government and gang leader being merely two opposite sides of the same ruthless coin.
People with kids could have pointless fun banning them from seeing this film, but apparently MTV’s thinking of doing a telly series based on it anyway, so, futile or what?
Subtle it isn’t, but it is a species of wicked fun that will gather bums on seats!
Director Joe Bum-jin
2006/90mins
-A FEW DAYS IN SEPTEMBER-
ITALY/FRANCE/PORTUGAL
The first film directed by screenwriter Santiago Amigorena, A Few Days In September
(Quelques Jours en Septembre), is a laid back but quite charming French spy thriller that makes espionage a family affair...and a realistically bickering family at that.
Elliot, mostly alluded to or played as an off screen voiceover by Nick Nolte until near the film’s conclusion, is an ex-CIA agent with knowledge about the upcoming 911 attacks. He hopes to trade the information for a stake that will enable him to reunite and live with his biological daughter and step-son, legacies of two seperate cover identity marriages in France and the U.S.
Much sought after by various factions, Elliot entrusts his grown up children, Orlando (Sara Forestier) and David (British actor Tom Riley) to the capable care of Irène, a cool, experienced French secret agent who used to be Elliot’s colleague. The potentially overwhelming meta-story takes a back seat to the character relationships, which makes a nice change to the usual breathless adventures that would normally puff up this kind of story into a by-the-numbers action thriller.
Juliette Binoche brings marvelous, stylish depth to her role as world wise spy Irène, providing a wryly sophisticated setting for her charges’ inevitable romance. (What IS it with the French anyway? After Irène’s arm is injured she turns up wearing a chic scarf as a sling, but of course!) Always gorgeous, the actress pitches the character as being adept enough at her deadly trade so that she can afford to enjoy herself while she works. Forestier is all sharp edged, angry eyed angst as she works through father/daughter issues while Riley nervously cooks (his character worked in a restaurant) for the two formidable women who have abruptly complicated his life with their Amazonian expertise with firearms. I also very much enjoyed the arch Franco/American banter between Orlando and David.
Seeking Elliot through the medium of his children is William Pound, a whacko ‘wet work’ assassin who has a penchant for poetry, drives a florist’s delivery van and has a mobile phone plagued by the world’s most annoying ringtone. Pound’s character is tightly wound by John Turturro, who played one of the convicts in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and also an equally obsessive relative of the title character in the television series Monk.
A Few Days In September benefits from first rate cinematography, including some playful soft focus shots that whimsically render Venice and Paris, cheekily explained by Irène’s habit of removing her glasses to ‘see things differently’. There’s also a cracking good shot through the dark framed doorway of a Venetian Chapel which reminded me of a signature frame from a John Ford Western, only instead of Mesas and sagebrush we get the Venice Lagoon and a passing ocean liner.
Although this film lingers perhaps a little too lovingly on the wrangling entanglements of its main characters I still found it pleasant and rewardable viewing. Amigorena certainly knows how to inject off-beat life into his characters.
Director/Screenwriter Santiago Amigorena
2006/115 mins
-BUG-
USA
When down on her luck small town waitress Agnes White (played by Ashley Judd) invites eccentric drifter Peter Evans into her seedy motel room she receives much more than she bug-aned for!
Director William Friedkin (The Exorcist, & The French Connection) gets almost unbearably psychological in this cross genre movie that wisely adds no excess fat to the one set, pressure cooker Tracy Lett’s play that it’s adapted from. As the two main characters’ relationship slowly emerges from a far too tightly spun chrysalis the film builds to one of the most intensely wound paranoic conclusions seen on screen.
Michael Shannon is gauntly convincing as Evans, a role that he pioneered in the original stage play and intially at least, reminds me a little of a young Steve McQueen or perhaps, Joachim Phoenix. Harry Connick Junior has a supporting part in the film as Agne’s ex-convict, ex-husband.
Bug’s maddeningly paced escalating tension is supported by an appropriately chittering score, composed by Brian Tyler, who also gave us soundtracks for the films Constantine, Bubba Ho-Tep, the Children of Dune miniseries, as well as episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise and the upcoming Aliens Versus Predator 2: Survival Of The Fittest. Speaking of Star Trek, Ashley Judd also played Ensign Robin Lefler in Star Trek: Next Generation.
Bug is a film that creeps up on you and by its final scuttling rush will definitely get under your skin...one way or another.
Director- William Friedkin
Screenwriter-Tracy Letts
2006/101mins
-EL TOPO-
(MEXICO)
El Topo (“The Mole”) was director Alejandro Jodorowsky's third film. The infamous Mexican allergorically surreal Eastern/Western is presented at the festival in a very fine new restoration (a bit of a shock for those used to seeing it in its customary raddled grindhouse/cult prints!) along with its natural companion piece, The Holy Mountain.
This comprehensively startling but compelling film begins, not unlike the Lone Wolf And Cub Samurai series, with the black clad, flute playing gunslinger El Topo (played by the director himself) riding across the wastelands in company with a taciturn child companion. After a blood drenched encounter with drunkenly bestial bandits El Topo replaces the boy with a seductively manipulative woman who urges him to become the greatest shootist in the world by seeking out and defeating four master gunfighters.
As with the wuxia martial arts films that this story frequently references the quest for the masters proves dangerous, difficult, baffling and wonderous.
The gunslinger’s odyssey to achieve enlightment and mastery is populated with exotic encounters and inventive, symbolically charged imagery. Deflating balloons signal the start of duels, capering outlaws with shoe fetishes rape feminised sand paintings and carve bananas with sabres, civilised townsfolk prove more depraved and debauched than the wasteland bandits, herds of rabbits mysteriously die at El Topo’s feet, incestuously deformed trogalytes living in oil drums tunnel to escape their underground prison, and live bullets are caught and deflected by butterfly nets.
This visual melange is supported by Jodorowskys and Nacho Méndezs evocative music which, by turns soothing or jarring, echoes across the many desert based sequences and permeates the locations, which frequently read more like artistic installations than sets grounded in any kind of mundane reality. In fact, there is a timeless anachronistic feel to the desert that makes you question whether this is nominally a period Western or indeed set in some kind of post-apocalyptic Stephen King future.
El Topo is rendered even stranger by its renowned mid-film gear change, one of several enigmatic transformations that can be interpreted as Buddhist inspired reincarnations of the title character.
Just imagine what might have been if Jodorowsky had pulled off his mid-70s adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune, with its intended cast of Salvidor Dali as the Emperor, Mick Jagger playing Feyd Rautha and Orson Welles as Baron Harkonnen? As it is the Acid Western tradition at least got another outing in Jim Jarmusch's more recent film, Dead Man, which, for all its many remarkable charms, by comparison to El Topo is cast into monochrome shade.
A bizarre chimera even by Zero-G's notoriously unhinged standards El Topo is a cult classic given gloriously grotesque new life by its own recent transfiguring restoration.
Director/Screenwriter Alejandro Jodorowsky
1971/125mins
-FIDO-
Canada/USA
Fido fiendishly expands upon the gag featured in Shaun of the Dead (amongst other films) that zombies could be domesticated to perform simple tasks. Zombies helping in the kitchen? Uh-oh, better make sure they keep those rotting fingers are kept hygenically away from food preparation surfaces with a pair of crisp, clean white cotton gloves....
In an alternate 1950s the all encompassing ZomCom, which apparently helped win the Zombie War, protects and serves the walled small towns of America. Now, we all know that the only reason to provide zombies with clever electronic control collars is so that the gadgets can malfunction; cue zombie outbreak! It’s the slyly subversive juxtaposition of wholesome mom and apple-pie Leave It To Beaver sitcom with Zombie killing procedural that lends this consistently bemusing film a wicked Addams Family style where Pop naturally reads Death Magazine and scenes shot in cars are filmed using good old fashioned rear screen projection.
Not that we’re talking Black and White telly, nosirree Bob! Fido is filmed in full, glorious technicolour, complete with ginormous finned automobiles, two toned shoes and compliant Stepford housewives who wait at the front door for their patriarchal hubbies to take the martini from their submissive, manicured hands. Happily, Carrie Anne-Moss in one of the main roles, as Helen Robinson, is more of a buddingly feisty Desperate Housewife after the armed and dangerous example of Bree Hodge. (From The Matrix to a zombie packed Pleasantville is indeed an ironic career path!) It’s not long before Helen kicks over the domestic traces following the example of her young son, Timmy (knowingly played by the intriguingly named K’Sun Ray) and his new pet zombie, the Fido of the title, embodied by Billy Connolly. Connolly plays the long suffering Fido with toothy glee, moaning and groaning and lurching in the throes of what could easily double as a hangover of fatally heroic proportions.
Keep an eye out (easy to do in a zombie film) for Dylan Baker, as the nervously cheerful Bill Robinson. Baker has had the sleeper part of Doctor Curt Connors in the Spider-Man films and, as comic book fans anticipate, should eventually get to mutate into the super-villain, The Lizard.
Fido is my genre pic of the Festival, in the tradition of another year’s shambling B-schlock spoof, The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra. I ask you, how can I not enjoy sinking my teeth into a film where a pet zombie is addressed with a line like: “What’s that Fido? Timmy’s in trouble?”
It’s enough to make Lassie dig her way out of her grave!
Director- Andrew Currie
Screenwriters- Robert Chomiak, Andrew Currie, Dennis Heaton
2006/91mins
-HANSEL & GRETEL-
GERMANY
If you go down to the woods today.....you’d better take your copy of the Brothers Grimm Cookbook For Baking Independent Elderly Female Cannibal Sorceresses.
German director Anne Wild and screenwriter Peter Schwindt settle for a straightforward retelling of the classic rural ‘stranger danger’ story wherein the devious Gretel proves the most resourceful of two deliberately lost children who end up on the menu of the obligatory member of the local Guild of Almagamated Wicked Witches & Confectioners.
Deliberately lost? How do you think the kids got to be wandering around in Blair Witchburg in the first place? Sometimes tactfully omitted from modern retellings of this familiar story is the neglected element of child abandonment, a practice forced upon starving families in situations of plague, famine, wars and other social upheavals. In this case, it’s the pragmatic step-mother who pushes her more sentimental but nontheless compliant woodcutter husband into cutting loose the kids.
In early versions of the story it’s usually just the natural mother who suggests jettisoning the offspring...a much more useful cautionary tale for parents to use as and Awful Threat when disciplining naughty anklebiters.
Leaving aside observations about how Hansel and Gretel underlines the historical distrust of skilled single women of independent means this is actually a moderately creepily staged film. The woods are suitably threatening, and the witch herself, though certainly not up to Buffy The Vampire Slayer standards is a reasonably nasty albeit dimwitted piece of work...
I never can figure out quite why witchy poo needed to go Hannibal Lector on kiddies when she was capable of whipping up enough food to fatten a small army, not to mention all that square footage of gingerbread real estate. Let’s just assume it’s an alternative lifestyle choice, along the lines of supergenius Wile. E. Coyote yearning after Roadrunner drumsticks in spite of the fact that he had enough credit to order truckloads of expensive gadgets from the ACME Corporation.
(On the subject of ghoulish folks developing a fondness for ‘long pig’ just what DID those darling children do with the oven fired witch after they fried her arse?)
We all know how this ends, after making off with the witch’s portable property the kids, in a remarkable act of forgiveness, share their taxfree windfall with their deadbeat dad...though their step mother has obligingly dropped dead in the meanwhile.
Hmm, did anyone actually see step-mama and Ms Witch in the same room at the same time?
Don’t expect a Post-Modern fractured fairytale from Hansel and Gretel and you won’t be led astray by what’s essentially a traditionally told, moderately unsettling film.
Director- Anne Wild
Screenwriter- Peter Schwindt
2006/76mins
-THE HOLY MOUNTAIN-
MEXICO
If you thought Alejandro Jodorowsky’s third film, El Topo, was weird...well, no caca Sherlock!
Wait until you get a load of this....
His next surreally allegorical outing, 1973’s The Holy Mountain, scales even more whackily experimental heights. Like El Topo, The Holy Mountain has also been recently, lovingly restored, all the better to trip out on the eye bulging psychedelic imagery!
Again, as with El Topo, the nominal protagonist is on a messianic quest to achieve enlightment. Even more ironically symbolic in this case since the central thief character bears a strong and exploitable resemblance to the traditional representation of Jesus Christ.
Horácio Salinas plays the hapless thief, leaving Jodorowsky himself the catalytic role of a tower dwelling alchemist who charges him to accompany seven influential but materialistic powerbrokers to Lotus Island where they will achieve eternal life once they have climbed the eponymous Holy Mountain.
Initially the dialogue is thin on the ground but soon ramps up to cheerfully inexplicable levels where a line like “hypersexed brown native vampires” can pass without comment or indeed comprehension. Politics, art, sexuality, and filmmaking, amongst many other subjects, all cop a satirical hiding in this extraordinary film which relies heavily upon fantasy imagery drawn from tarot cards, astrology and religion.
Just listing a few of the oddball ideas gives you an idea of the unique scope of Jorodowsky’s fevered imagination.
Two women are ‘cleansed’ of clothing, make-up, jewellery, false nails, and hair by a black robed priest who himself has ebony varnished fingernails. A screaming man lies covered in tarantulas...no big acting stretch there! The Invasion of Mexico is renacted by lizards dressed in Mezoamerican costumes battling frogs wearing Conquistador armour and missionary robes. (I have my doubts about this sequence, it sure looks like the poor frogs are really being blown up by explosives?) A mulitple amputee writes cryptic messages in the dirt with a severed animal leg. Parading prostitutes turn out to be just as holy as priests. Roman soldiers cast the thief in plaster and create a line of life-sized crucifiction merchandise. Art factory paint coated nude backsides stamp out images on a production line while live body painted nudes are built into installations so they can be fondled by gallery patrons. Gas masked soldiers attend dances and machine guns and hand grenades are painted in rainbow colours. Spartan like warriors pursue a cunning plan to emasculate 1000 heroes to create a shrine of 1000 testicles....and nevermind what they did with the other 1000! Eviscerated victims spill chicken guts....and I mean they literally pull chickens from their wounds’ while Liederhosen wearing Teutonics trip on drugs and strongmen are able to turn intangible and teleport through entire mountains.
Distantly reminiscent of Fellini’s Satyricon, and to some extent Roma, The Holy Mountain also boasts the most startling Orgasmatron machine since the erotic cult film Barbarella, in the form of a Giant mechanical vagina that’s manipulated like a theramin.... well, if a theramin was played by a giant dildo!
Is it any surprise, really, in the wake of the cult success of El Topo, that The Holy Mountain’s producer Allen Klein also managed The Beatles and that those fans of all things psychedelic, John Lennon and Yoko Ono helped fund the movie?
Landmark or landfill experimental film? The Holy Mountain remains an obvious precursor to movies like Eraserhead, The Cremaster Cycle, and The Qatsi Trilogy.
Climb it at your own peril. (You know you want to!)
Director/Screenwriter Alejandro Jodorowsky
1973/114mins
-lLS-
France
Clementine (Olivia Bonamy) and Lucas (Michael Cohen) live happily in pastoral rural isolation in a rundown chalet in the Romanian woods, until one night they are attacked by....THEM! No, not by lurching giant ants from a 1950s horror film but by...well, that would be telling. Some horror films take their time building suspense but Moreau and Palud’s shiversome first feature nails you straight to the wall and keeps you hanging there for the economical just-over-an-hour’s running time. And I do mean ‘running’.
The adept direction and unrelating pace set within the atmospheric confines of the old chalet (a dream of a location to create nightmares in) is ramped up by genuinely unnerving sound effects design, an evocatively tense soundtrack, solid if necessarilly Spartan performances by the two leads, and the teasing revelation of the nature of the besiegers.
There’s nothing particularly new about the ingredients stirred into this terrifying mix. In fact, you could, after the credits have rolled and the lights come up again, sit back and tick off the horror cliches one by one, starting with the usually tiresome pronouncement, “Based On A True Story”. Commentators seem uncertain about the veracity of that, but in this case it adds to the overall feel of unease that permeates the ending of this film. I found myself thinking, “Y’know, I can see how that could actually happen....brrrr!”
Ils...it took me a while to realise that the title is merely the French word for “Them”... is one of the most disturbing horror films I’ve seen in some time, and all without buckets of blood or lashings of sickly inventive torture porn. With its efficient minimalist approach it’s very close in tone to the best of the New Wave of Japanese horror that burst upon the West several years ago now.
Directors/ Screenwriters- David Moreau and Xavier Palud
2006/70 mins
-ISLAND OF LOST SOULS-
DENMARK
A big budget supernatural fantasy for young adults that's part Spielberg, part Lucas, with an added dash of Harry Potter, but which ultimately wears its ample CGI well to create an enjoyable and in a few places reasonably scary film.
When two children move to a quiet country town the last thing they expect to find is a haunted island plagued by a supernatural confluence of kidnapped souls. When a young girl taps into the mystic mayhem it results in her brother being possessed by the spirit of a centuries dead member of an ancient order of sorcerous crimefighters.
The film's young actors are capable and ‘self possessed’ in the face of some quite formidable magical opposition, including a new and nasty take on that familiar player from Central Horror Casting, the living Scarecrow, along with a necromancer who could be brother to both Nosferatu and the Star Wars Emperor, right down to the cadaverous features and handy ability to cast Sith lightning from his fingies! I especialy liked the offbeat character of the trainspotting psychic investigator who inevitably comes to the kid’s aid in their hour of dire peril.
A fun little romp that’s no longer than it should be at an economical 100 minutes.
Director- Nikolaj Arcel
Screenwriter- Ramsus Heisterberg
2007/100mins
Sessions
Sun, 12th of August, 1:00 PM
ACMI
-KHADAK-
Belgium/Germany/The Netherlands
Bagi, played by Batzul Khayankhyarvaa, is a young nomad, who, along with his family are wrenched from their nomadic existence by the Mongolian government who want to consolidate people in towns, villages and cities as the fledgling democracy gears up to enter the 21st century’s global economy. After rescuing Zolzaya (Tsetsegee Byamba), a beautiful female coal thief, Bagi boldly goes where nomad has gone before on a shamanistic quest that culminates in fantastical revelations about Mongolia’s future relation with the environment.
Khadak is underpinned by a hypnotically compelling narrative fascination with magic realism that often contrasts the shabby reality of the concrete high rises with the colourfully organic traditional nomadic traditional yurt dwellings.
The film overflows with powerful imagery, including a simple but effective camera roll that causes an iconistic prayer-scarf draped tree to turn upside down as the land itself is inverted by mineral exploitation and pollution. A deserted town, in reality an abandoned former Soviet barracks, stands in for one potential future. Tractors, used to haul the disassembled yurts, are started and allowed to run aimlessly free across the steppes as the government agents burn the nomads’ links to their former lifestyle behind them.
Khadak doesn’t always offer too nostalgic a view of the nomadic struggle; many of the former rural folk cheerfully adapt to their new circumstances and some seem to pragmatically thrive, especially Bagi’s mother, who ends up running heavy machinery at the coal mine where immense draglines swing with saurian grace across the screen.
The film’s reverberating score resonates across the wind blown, echoing steppes, giving way to some moments of pure musical bliss, especially when some of the newly urbanised young people get together for astonishing ‘jam’ sessions.
Both lyrical and hard edged Khadak is a film, like Martin Scorsese’s Kundan, whose exotic sights and sounds will be welcome guests in my yurt for as long as they choose to stay.
Directors/Screenwriters- Peter Brosens, Jessica Hope Woodworth
2006/105mins
-LAST WINTER, THE-
USA/Iceland
It’s damn cold in Northern Alaska but not cold enough, as tough but soft centered Ron Perlman’s advance oil drilling preparation crew discover when they set out to re-open an isolated test drilling site that may be viable in the face of looming energy shortages. The arctic circle tundra is thawing rapidly, unleashing the kind of environmental horror movie that used to be in vogue back in the 1970s and which is all too timely now as global warming makes its presence felt in the real world.
Perlman, as usual, is excellent, giving the kind of inflected performance that graced Hellboy, Cronos, City Of Lost Children and his impressive work in the television fantasy series Beauty & The Beast. The ensemble players are also deftly sketched in, often in a low key fashion that adds realism.
Director Larry Fessenden successfully follows up and even references in one brief bit of dialogue, Wendigo, one of his earlier, not entirely disimilar horror outings. As with some other genre films in this year’s festival the horror elements are timeless; from the simmering sexual and tensions and hostility between the boffins and the bluecollars to the classic scenario of the besieged ice station. The latter is a character in itself, in the ‘Thingy’ tradition of both Howard Hawks and John Carpenter’s seperate adaptations of John W. Campbell’s seminal very Cold War science fiction novella, Who Goes There? Best possible use is made of this stunning location, as the screen often becomes an overwhelmingly vast white or dark canvas to trap and diminish the hapless blue collar workers.
Crystal clear sound design helps ‘sell’ the visuals and the impressive CGI special effects are first rate, without ever detracting from the practical drama of the sheer dangers of living and working in such an extreme environment.
The Last Winter is a cunningly ambiguous chiller that cleverly maintains a plausible alternative explanation for the film’s lethal events up to and possibly including the final admirably restrained frame which begs teasingly to be opened out into a wider shot but leaves the audience wanting more, leaving room for a possible but unecessary sequel.
Oil be back!
Director- Larry Fessenden
Screenwriters- Larry Fessenden, Robert Leaver
2006/107mins
-MEN AT WORK-
IRAN
A carload of Iranian buddies on their way down the mountains from a skiing holiday stop for a toilet break at a precipitous roadside layover and discover a monolithic rock
that just HAS to be tumbled down the slopes.
If you’re a bloke, you automatically know how it is.
If you’re a woman, equally, you KNOW how we are!
An amusing exploration of male bonding and stubborness this happily crazy film is guaranteed to contain no sociopolitical allegory whatsoever (really!) and the Iranian writer/director has asked that the U.S please refrain from invading his leg of the Axis of Evil until he has finished his next project.
Director/Screenwriter- Mani Haghighi
2006/75mins
-SEVERANCE-
UK
When completely politically incorrect arms merchant Palisade Defence rewards its crack Euro Sales division with a team-building weeked in the woods of Eastern Europe the mismatched but archtypal bickering office workers soon find that they’re not quite the ‘gun’ group that they thought they were.
Yes, the comparison of choice is The Office meets Deliverance and that’s fair enough because what makes this movie so gormlessly funny is the inept Brits Abroad schtick combined with an equally knowing, wickedly timed take on the horror slasher genre that puts most inept Hollywood fun with fear spoofs to more shame than ever. The only time this film ever really fumbles is when it takes the horror too seriously, which is not all that frequently, though more noticably and perhaps inevitably, in the apocalyptic last reel.
Oddly, Severence’s particularly grungy baddies who get to fold, spindle and mutilate our heroic twonks remind me very much of the “Stalkers” from the recent popular video game, which itself references the Tarkovsky film and the less well known science fiction novel that classic is itself based on, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic.
The heavyweight British ensemble cast is a real corker here, and one of the most enjoyable in the festival films I’ve seen this year, including at least one former Bond villain (Toby Stephens who was Gustav Graves in Die Another Day) and the always wetly amusing Tim McInnerny who plays to his well known Blackadder type (He was both Lord Percy and Captain Darling) as the incompetent boss of the Palisade’s party.
I won’t be the last reviewer to note that Eastern Europe has become destination of choice for horror filmmakers of late. Attracted by threatening woodlands, abandoned buildings and low cost production facilities the exotic locales also perhaps wallow in a degree of smug and possibly premature Western superiority in the wake of the economic collapse of former Eastern Bloc foes. For the moment, these once hard to access countries are providing filmmakers with a place to set their stories ‘beyond the glow of the streetlights’. Again, as with other festival genre films, Severence does benefit from a marvelously decrepit Old Dark house of a location.
Severence is laced with joyfully understated sight gags, dialogue to listen for, and a good deal of well meaning irony regarding corporate responsibility. The icing on the cake is a musical score that fiddles with both ominous gypsy curses, pop tunes and even riffs off We’ll Meet Again as featured in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, to which black comedy there’s more than one reference.
Severance gives awful new meaning to the term, “You’e fired!”
Director- Christopher Smith
Screenwriters- James Moran, Christopher Smith
2006/90mins
-STILL LIFE-
HONG KONG/CHINA
An intimate but involving look at the disapora of displaced persons produced by China's Three Gorges Dam mega-engineering project as seen through the eyes of two people.
In the first part of the film coal miner Han Sanming (played by Sanming Han) returns after 16 years absence to his former home town of Fengjie, only to find its 2000 years of history submerged beneath the waters of the dam. Taking a temporary job in demolition, he searches for news of his ex wife, whom he hasn’t seen for 16 years.
Still Life never wanders far from the dominating horizontal visuals of the mighty Yangtze River and the monolithic concrete and steel dam. The apocalyptic rubble of the yet-to-be flooded part of the town forms another powerful metaphor, a full stop to the flow of linear time represented by the River, which itself has been given pause by the immense project.
It’s a hard life for Han, though undoubtedly far less dangerous than the notoriously hazardous Chinese coal mining industry, and it provides some extraordinary imagery.
Men in supposedly protective suits with sanitising back pack sprayers wander through gutted homes. Friends are made amongst workmates to the jaunty ringtones of their mobile phones as they exchange numbers...a socialising ritual that later prompts one of the film’s most poignant moments when a mobile ‘s unanswered ringing signals a tragic accident. Condemned buildings collapse with tired grace in the distant background as they receive explosive coup de grâces.
The second half of the film segues into another quest for closure, as Nurse Shen Hong (Tao Zhao) journeys to the town looking for her own estranged husband.
Again, the dam is another defining presence in the story, providing a backdrop for the final resolution of Shen Hong’s search.
One baffling scene (and I’d welcome any light that anyone can shed on this!) sees Shen staring at a large monument in the distance. It appears to be a Chinese alphabetical character, rendered in concrete. As she turns away, rocket motors ignite at its base and the whole giant structure lifts off into the skies. I assume this is some kind of reference to the recent successes of the Chinese manned space programme but am not sure as to why it’s relevant to the story? Unless it’s just a bit of triumphalism? Or indeed, because Shen does ignore the startling sight, perhaps it’s meant to be ironic? Enquiring minds need to know!
Actually, the overall philosophical conclusion drawn at the end of Still Life does read a little bit like some kind of inspirational tract to me....but that may just reflect my own bias, or again it could be ironic, and I won’t spoil the ending by going further into detail. (Well, cross cultural puzzles have always attracted me to World Cinema!)
Still Life is a beautifully visualised, thoughtful film with a measured pace that aptly reflects the larger elements that form the canvas that its smaller, but no less important, human dramas are played out against.
Director/Screenwriter- Jia Zhang-ke
2006/108mins
-THE WAR TAPES-
USA
Rather than be 'embedded' in a U.S military unit in Iraq filmmaker Deborah Scranton chose to give cameras to three National Guardsmen to record their own experiences deployed with Charlie Company, 3rd of the 172nd New Hampshire Mountain Infantry. Scranton provided additional remote directorial aid via text messaging and email to the three soldiers, Sgts. Stephen Pink and Zack Bazzi, and Specialist Michael Moriarty, whose stories were chosen from an overall pool of 1000 hours of footage.
The soldiers’ personal and professional accounts are sobering and revelatory and never less than enlightening.
Though it does this remarkably cohesive documentary something of a disservice to cherry pick material out of its sturdily engineered overall context it’s necessary to give some idea of the range of material included in the film.
We see several ambush eye views of the destructive force of roadside Improvised Explosive Devices which, though initiated and responded to with varying degrees of control by both combatant forces, usually result in chaos and confusion, death and destruction, for bystanders. One soldier matter-of-factly tours a vast graveyard of combat lossed vehicles, shattered and gutted by I.E.Ds, casting in an increasingly ironic light President Bush’s triumphantly naive 2003 announcement that “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended...”
The complexity of night operations are mirrored in the silvered eyed stare of soldiers seen through the eerie but tactically invaluable lenses of night vision equipment , rendering one formation of troops strikingly like a formation of stolid Terracotta Warriors. The detached professionalism of the soldiers understandably falters when a night time convoy kills a woman who was then struck repeatedly by each truck in turn.
The irony of soldiers and hired civilians (drivers and security guards) risking and losing their lives to protect re-supply cargos of, for example, cheese for hamburgers, is not lost on the troopers who wonder loudly if the complex and highly profitable logistical tail is wagging the policy dog? In fact, they’re refreshingly unguarded in their speculations about what they see, from their perspective as boots on the ground, as the reasons behind the ongoing war. Their observations are pithy, and to the point...or, rather, multiple points, as the individual opinions cover the entire spectrum of current controversy, from oil driven conspiracy to patriotic war on terror.
Soldiers will always enthusiastically relish the opportunity to grouse about their lot, reserving special venom for the shortcomings of their equipment, training, rations and orders. One complaint amongst many was that these soldiers received little or no cultural instruction to help prepare them for operating in the Iraq theatre, which ommission makes it hard to both know the enemy or understand your friends. Even a simple misunderstanding over a commonly used hand gesture for ‘Stop’ can, in the local environment, be fatally mistaken for ‘Hello!”
The fact that the Iraq conflict is, in reality, fought amongst peoples homes rather than some spiffily titled combat theatre, warzone or neutrally termed area of operations is thoughtfully underlined by frequent segues to the soldiers’ American homes, either when the troops have returned or during their absence. Surface impressions notwithstanding there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of difference between U.S and Iraqi civilians; folks, it seems, are alike all over. Stateside sequences touch upon the complicated effects that the deployment had on civilian family members, the problems of post traumatic stress disorder suffered by the veterans, and the more obvious physical injuries. For example, one of the soldiers has carpal tunnel syndrome in his hands, the result of vibration transmitted through the grips of his vehicle mounted machine gun on patrol. He also has to cope with back pain from wearing body armour in a confined space.
Crammed with ‘real time’ feedback from ongoing conflict The War Tapes makes a provocative companion piece with the 2005 documentary Gunner Palace. For balance I would also add to the recommended viewing list: Control Room (2004), Baghdad ER (2006), and My Country, My Country (2006)
Director- Deborah Scranton
2006/97mins
-WELCOME TO NOLLYWOOD-
USA/NIGERIA
Never heard of the Nigerian film industry? This inspiringly cheeky doco will rectify that and should be seen by all budding filmmakers seeking new ways to practice their art.
Something like 2400 movies per year are produced in Nigeria, making it the third most prolific film industry in the world. Film? Well, that’s a nostalgically generic term to describe the Nigerians’ enthusiastic bypassing of conventional film stock and its complex and expensive infrastructure in favour of digital video distributed directly and cheaply at local marketplaces on DVD or VCD.
The 300 or so Nigerian directors have an already rich tradition of oral storytelling to draw upon, and have embraced multiple genres usually lensing them through an action adventure filter, which has fostered a support industry of movie fight Action Camps where actors can learn the stunt fight business. Although one director claims “We don’t do science fiction” Nollywood nevertheless loves fantasy, especially religious based melodramas with plenty of demons and angels, sorcererors and witches.
Period films set in Nigeria often have a luridly portrayed but understandably anti-slavery element, which alongside with the witchcraft angle concerns some commentators who argue that focusing on these aspects promotes stereotypes.
A visit to the set of a film grounded in the recent Liberian war shows the Nigerian director, who at least partly funded the movie himself, putting his actors through boot camps to learn how to fill out their soldierly roles, including veteran advisors from both sides of the original conflict. The actors go through production hell but ironically are brought low by a botched contract with the caterers...
Nollywood; not entirely different from Hollywood!
Director- Jamie Meltzer
2007/58mins
-U-
FRANCE
A lyrical French animated feature with fluidly drawn artwork and an equally languid, but elegant plot as a Princess Mona is faced with choosing between new love and a beloved friend, who happens to be a unicorn. The charming, anthropomorphic animal cast could have been drawn by Dr Seuss, and the story is a souffle of flirtatious love with a playful musical topping.
Directors- Grégoire Solotareff, Serge Elissalde
Screenwriter- Grégoire Solotareff
2006/71mins
Por los datos de hora que he puesto en el título, sacamos la conclusión de lo rápido que se produce. Esto no siempre es así, debemos tener en cuenta que las tomé a mediados de Octubre y que hacía calor pero no tanto como podría hacerlo en meses anteriores.
Ya ha liberado las alas y las patas, podemos observar que se trata de un macho y que sigue aspirando con la boca totalmente abierta. Le falta poco para abandonar totalmente la exuvia, se servirá de las patas sobre la pared.
Aquí elegí este formato. La pared es vertical, viré la cámara.
En la balsa que llamo el Puerto. Villena (Alicante) España
By the time data that I have put in the title, we draw the conclusion of how fast it occurs. This is not always the case, we must bear in mind that I took them in mid-October and that it was hot but not as hot as I could have done in previous months.
It has already released the wings and legs, we can see that it is a male and that it is still sucking with its mouth wide open. He needs little to completely abandon the exuvia, he will use the legs on the wall.
Here I chose this format. The wall is vertical, I turned the camera.
In the raft that I call the Port. Villena (Alicante) Spain
Peter: "GWEN UR AN AGWENGER THATS SOO COOL WILL YOU MARRY ME?"
Gwen: "HECK YA AND YOU CAN CALL ME HUMAN SCARLET TORCHWITCH"
Uncle Charles (Ben) Xavier: I pronounce you HUSBAND AND FRIGGIN' WIFE WOOT WOOT"
Nick Fury: Peter, I'm here to recruit you to the AGwengers Initiative. We have a HUGE problem in CANADA with HOWARD THE DUCK"
Peter: "Well, that honeymoon will have to wait, Human Scarlet TorchWitch. AGwengers, ASSEMBLE!"
The End.
This double helping of salmon rosa "Boscabel" concludes my little mini-series of roses from our garden. You seem to have enjoyed them so some might well appear again in future, you never know. Truth is, I can't help myself.
Now yesterday's mystery object was in fact a brass garden hose adaptor and tap connector, though which you were peering. I suppose, If you know me, it had to be something connected, pun intended, with the garden. The clue was the visible plant in the centre ... :-))
i've come to the conclusion that anyone who can pull off a shot such as this has serious skill.
by "such as this" i mean the kind of picture that gives the impression of a real emotional moment... when it in fact isn't truly really there.
anyone who has the ability to make the viewer feel this really is an actual tiny important slice of life. essentially the goal here is to make you as viewer feel you are getting a "sneak" peak into my life (or whoever is the subject in the photo).
that said, i think this is a decent picture. but i've seen better. people who have this odd ability to shoot pictures just laying under their window and have it turn out fucking awesome every single time. i suppose being a hot chick usually helps ... but there is more to it than that. (i think?)
i actually find these types of shots where I am aiming for something both tangible and "simple" to ironically be the most difficult to do. just laying on a bed and snapping a shot of me in "thought" i find more challenging than doing a 1 minute exposure night shot incorporating moving cars, moon light, and street lights while trying to sit still in the middle of a busy city street (along with my 5 hour post-edit). how does that make sense?
in fact the more complex the picture, the easier for me to create. typically i go for dramatic or conceptual or even quirky. these are the elements that come naturally to me.
what kind of pictures come more natural to you? and ... is it important for you to "push the envelope" to come up different types of shots that aren't typically your cup of tea? personally i find deviating from my comfort zone to eventually come up with desirable results to be of utmost importance for both my photo hobby... and with everything i am faced with in life.
the shot at hand? me laying on my bed looking down at all the god damn laundry i still had to do that day (aka worst chore on earth)
Number: CT-8421
Nickname: Sourpatch
Rank: 3rd Regiment Sergeant
///Log Entry///
“This whole temple gave me the creeps! Everywhere I turned there was some type of branch or leaf swinging at me! It scared me since I heard the rumors that this staff we’re going to destroy has the power to take control of people. The boys and I were walking through it all when we heard loud screams come from deeper within the temple. We immediately ran toward the holler to see what terrible thing was happening, and sure enough we found two troopers laying against the wall. I asked what their numbers were, and sure enough they were apart of the rescue squad. Needless to say I was skeptical about the two of them since we hadn’t heard any transmissions from the squad at all since the last one. I thought maybe they were already consumed by the staff. They told us there was something lurking through the temple that took the other members of their squad. I believed them until the trooper said that statues came alive and attacked them and pulled the men away, but they never found their bodies. We made our way toward the last known location of the staff, and sure enough it was still there. The area was old and worn out, but still quite clean. The only thing that seemed to be wrong with the structure was a small hole above. We quickly unpacked the explosives, but then, THE STATUES CAME ALIVE! They grabbed hold of a member of the rescue squad and I couldn’t believe my eyes! He was turning to stone! The trooper froze and was consumed by the other statues. I told everyone else to make their way to the top of the temple and get away from the blast area. I had to set the charge before the staff took control of us all. I felt a pull drawing me closer to it, as almost as if I would become the most powerful being in the universe! The statues now cut off my escape through the hole in the ceiling so I took a skeleton lying beside and chucked it at the statues and sure enough I made a hole big enough to jetpack through. I blew the charge shortly after and everyone made it out alright, except for that one squad member, CT-7940. Now CT-9449 had no squad to return to, so with request I accepted him into our team. He did one fine job keeping focused and staying on task. 9449 will be a valuable addition to the team!
Objective Status: Complete
///Log End///
That’s it! I have come to a conclusion that I have to make me a box to go in the trunk of my van…it’s a must. I need boots, umbrella, chauffeur :-), rags, bags, tripod….ya da-ya da…anything I can think that I might need when I am out.
You see I have been on the hunt for a sunflower this week. I found some out and about today with a friend…let me tell you ..it was a baaaad day to stop..Between dodging the storm clouds of rain, the bees, the mud, the big ditch, me only having only flip flops on…goodness, I was lucky to have gotten the few shots that I did. The good news is….I will be back. Let’s just hope they are not all wilted away before I can. I can tell that they are heading down hill.
BUT HEY...my very FIRST sunflower...yippy. Have a good night friends! Andrea
sooc, slight crop
I love my garden path. When I had the lawn reseeded some weeks ago, they asked if I wanted to do away with the stepping stones. I shrieked!! They may be somewhat out of fashion these days, but I love them. So here they stay.
If you're wondering about the grass, it's 15% white clover, 85% fescue -- still patchy, but it's getting there!
If your first language is not English, you may not know the idiom “to lead someone down the garden path” (or more commonly in the UK “up the garden path”). It means to deceive somebody – to tell them a story that leads them to a false (but beneficial to you) conclusion.
For We're Here - Paths….
Put some zing into your 365! Join We're Here!
Following conclusion of strike action, Stagecoach in Hull had a shake up of route offerings across the city at the start of November, with circulars most notably pulled from the network.
The biggest cuts have come in the form of frequency reductions too, with no routes offering a frequency greater than every 20 minutes during the day, which is a major scale back on the pre-strike offering.
The service 3 saw a curtailment, with Orchard Park Tesco to Interchange retained as the number 3 whilst East Hull's segment of the route was moved to the return of service number 13 (previously Orchard Park to Interchange via North Point, Saltshouse Road and Holderness Road before withdrawal in 2019).
The 13 offers an every 20 minute link between Interchange, Holderness Road, Preston Road, Greatfield and Bilton Grange.
The 13 does offer the best evening service across Stagecoach routes in the city though, with an every 30 minute offering available until 11:30pm from Interchange. Service 3 does however suffer, going back to hourly in the evening after initially receiving an every 30 minute service before the strike.
Seen here passing McDonalds on Holderness Road is Enviro 400 MMC 10747, on service 13 to Bilton Grange despite the drivers' lack of blind attention.
Before changing ends and heading to the east side of the Cambria yard, 3872 is cleaned from the drifts battled earlier in the afternoon.
With this photo, I close out my Cambria Subdivision project, for now. While I certainty failed at getting every single grade crossing and every single angle imaginable, my hope is that I accomplished to convey the general feel of winter railroading on the Cambria Subdivision through these 18 photos (wow, I typically post fewer than 18 photos in a year). While I am concluding this project for now, I hope I have the opporuntity in the future to add more shots in varying seasons.
And some final closing words. I've had the great pleasure of being a member of this community of railroad photographers on Flickr. My inspiration for this small project came from this community after discovering many deep bodies of work that have faithfully documented all sorts of subjects. To many, not every individual shot in these collections would be considered a "banger". But to me, when you zoom out and look at the work as a whole, those shots are essential in conveying what that place, railroad, or subdivision is all about; otherwise, it would simply be a highlights reel.
In total, these collections inspired me to at least try and do something similar in my little slice of this community. Whether or not I achieved this is up to you. But if I can inspire even a single fan, in the sea of people who see this railroad as overshot, to take a little interest in the Cambria Sub or to at least attempt building their own small body of work, then my mission is accomplished.
So that's it.
Now I've rounded out my Cambria Subdivision Album to a whopping 20 photos. Guess that's it from me for the rest of the year!