California Catchup, Part I
Dec. 23rd, 2003 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tirinianThings Worth Reviewing:
Die Mommie Die: Movie. Seen Last Tuesday. A fun campy tribute to a bunch of 50's movies, including Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, All About Eve, and Sunset Boulevard(that I recognized, I'm sure there were more). With a nice gay spin, which was definitely bonus points from me. Probably only a decent movie if you're not enjoying the camp/gay/tribute angles, but decent even without an appreciation for that, I think. Since I enjoyed that part, lives 8 out of 10 days of game.
Return of the King: Movie. Seen Last Wednesday. Brilliant. I could pick nits about not being the same as the book, but it captured the heart of the story as a movie brilliantly. (It was missing one scene between Frodo and Gollum that I've always thought of as important, but oh well. The whole Frodo/Gollum/Sam triangle is redone in various ways, which mostly worked, and maybe the scene that's missing doesn't fit into the redone triangle as well.) A fitting end to the trilogy, and will make a wonderful, seamless 12 hour+ movie of the whole story, if I ever manage to sit down and watch the whole thing as a unit. Lives 10 out of 10 days of game, and gets the Master Nomination.
DaVinci Code: Book. Read over the last couple of weeks. Very similar in style to Angels and Demons, so if you liked that, you'll like this. I find Dan Brown actually strains my suspension of disbelief by trying too hard to claim that it could be a story in the real world, if that makes sense (in Angels and Demons it was more focused on the "science" parts, here, it's more focused on the "no, really, secret society that's lived through hundreds of years"!), but when I can ignore that bit, it's a fun read. And I solved one of the puzzles before he told us the answer, and that was good. :-) Lives 7 out of 10 days of game.
Age of Mythology: Board Game. Played Sunday night, with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
catinhat and the Rocket Scientist. Not terrible, but too random for the amount of time it takes, I think. I was especially unhappy with the distribution of victory points (each player assigns a victory point to each of four possible ways to win them at the start of each turn, but they're mostly all collected at the end of the game) and the combat system (each unit rolls N dice for 6's, the unit who gets more sixes kills the other - *darn* random). And it although it takes hours, it doesn't seem to have enough combats for the randomness to balance out well, it's more "whoever gets lucky at the end wins." Oh well. I could be convinced to play again, but would try to get something else played, instead. Lives 4 out of 10 days of game.
More updates from the last week coming soon, as I continue unwinding in CA.
Die Mommie Die: Movie. Seen Last Tuesday. A fun campy tribute to a bunch of 50's movies, including Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, All About Eve, and Sunset Boulevard(that I recognized, I'm sure there were more). With a nice gay spin, which was definitely bonus points from me. Probably only a decent movie if you're not enjoying the camp/gay/tribute angles, but decent even without an appreciation for that, I think. Since I enjoyed that part, lives 8 out of 10 days of game.
Return of the King: Movie. Seen Last Wednesday. Brilliant. I could pick nits about not being the same as the book, but it captured the heart of the story as a movie brilliantly. (It was missing one scene between Frodo and Gollum that I've always thought of as important, but oh well. The whole Frodo/Gollum/Sam triangle is redone in various ways, which mostly worked, and maybe the scene that's missing doesn't fit into the redone triangle as well.) A fitting end to the trilogy, and will make a wonderful, seamless 12 hour+ movie of the whole story, if I ever manage to sit down and watch the whole thing as a unit. Lives 10 out of 10 days of game, and gets the Master Nomination.
DaVinci Code: Book. Read over the last couple of weeks. Very similar in style to Angels and Demons, so if you liked that, you'll like this. I find Dan Brown actually strains my suspension of disbelief by trying too hard to claim that it could be a story in the real world, if that makes sense (in Angels and Demons it was more focused on the "science" parts, here, it's more focused on the "no, really, secret society that's lived through hundreds of years"!), but when I can ignore that bit, it's a fun read. And I solved one of the puzzles before he told us the answer, and that was good. :-) Lives 7 out of 10 days of game.
Age of Mythology: Board Game. Played Sunday night, with
catinhat and the Rocket Scientist. Not terrible, but too random for the amount of time it takes, I think. I was especially unhappy with the distribution of victory points (each player assigns a victory point to each of four possible ways to win them at the start of each turn, but they're mostly all collected at the end of the game) and the combat system (each unit rolls N dice for 6's, the unit who gets more sixes kills the other - *darn* random). And it although it takes hours, it doesn't seem to have enough combats for the randomness to balance out well, it's more "whoever gets lucky at the end wins." Oh well. I could be convinced to play again, but would try to get something else played, instead. Lives 4 out of 10 days of game.More updates from the last week coming soon, as I continue unwinding in CA.
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Date: 2003-12-23 12:05 pm (UTC)DaVinci Code: Dan Brown is a one-trick pony. In fact, I would bet lots of money that DVC wrote itself while he was doing research for A&D. They're pretty much the same book with different sets of data. Not that I didn't enjoy both of them immensely.
Frodo and Gollum
Date: 2003-12-24 11:24 am (UTC)The first is when they initially run into Gollum, Frodo makes him swear on the Ring to obey and not hurt Frodo. In the second one, on the slopes of Mount Doom, Frodo (or maybe the Ring itself, it's not quite clear) orders/prophecies that if Gollum touches him again, he'll throw himself into the fires of the Mountain.
I've always thought that second scene is important because Frodo *fails*. He can't destroy the Ring, in the end. The scene with Gollum makes it either advanced planning from Frodo, or Evil defeating itself (depending on if it's Frodo or the Ring talking) that lets the good guys win, instead of blind luck.