venerdì 23 marzo 2007

Why the world do/doesn't need Smallville.

Why the world needs Smallville:
  • because the Man of Steel is still the Man of Steel;
  • because there's Allison Mack. I adore Allison Mack;
  • because Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor gives several enjoyable performances. It's not easy being compared with Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey and not coming off with all broken bones. We can forget John Shea with a smile, in the end;
  • because Tom Welling is not so bad;
  • because the red kryptonite is really, really, really cool;

Why the world doesn't need Smallville:
  • because the directing is absolutely kind of amatorial; every dialogue is introduced by a character close to the camera and another character that, besides tha fact he's entered in someone else's house without being saw or heard (nobody lock doors in Smallville), appears behind him, like in an Argentinian telenovela;
  • because Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) is as stunning beatiful, as horrendously useless. She's probably been for 70-90 times the "damsel in peril": Lana, are you dumb?? Everything is a possible minion to you! Stay at home, damnit! (Let's not talk about the dozen of episodes when she's got temporary super-powers...)
  • because the French-witch storyline in the 4th season was Charmed with different characters;
  • beacuse Tom Welling is not so bad, but now it's more thirty years old than sixteen...
  • because we won't ever see Bruce Wayne or Wonderwoman. The closer we get to it it's the Justice-not-so-League-without-Batman-and-Wonderwoman -aka-Superman-and-his-SuperFriends.

domenica 18 marzo 2007

Argonautica: Fall of Every Dream

Longtime have passed since the heroic time of Homer, almost eight hundred years. The Hellenistic world saw tha rise and fall of the freedom of the Greek cities-states, the rise and fall of Alexander the Great and, with him, the rise and fall of the dream of a single man that can change the world.
In this age (III century b.C.), a librarian called Apollonius Rhodius wrote the Argonautica.

What is this stuff about?
First, you must know that the greek mithology cover an arc of three-four generations. Yes, like the DC Comics. And, like the DC Comics, every generation has its crossover. The "War of Troy" is the big third gen's crossover. The Voyage of the Argonauts is the big second gen's crossover. In it, we can find some of the fathers of the heroes of Iliadyssea, with some big guns like Heracles, Peleos, Telamon, Castor and Pollux. And, of course Medea.

But the most important innovation of the poem is the deconstruction of the hero: thousands of years before Miller and Moore, Apollonius Rhodius ask himself if these super-strong, super-fast, super-smart men were actually super-men.
And, if they aren't, why?
He depicts Herakles as an egoistic, arrogant e over-growth guy, who can barely control his own power, quite not as Kevin Sorbo's character. He also give way to the grief and leave his companions not long after the begin of the journey.
Jason, the protagonist, is not a hero, at all: he cries, he doesn't have a clear plan for the mission, he is later reduced to deceive a girl to accomplish his goal.
Because neither the super-strenght (Herakles), nor the super-speed (Peleos), nor the super-boxing-ability (Pollux), nor the super-tongue (Jason) make you a hero; only your mind, your heart and your ideals, can make you a true hero.

Apollonius was a modern man: he didn't believe in fables, but he wished to.

venerdì 9 marzo 2007

First Fists of the Fitful Firths


I've always hated blogs.

There's no logical reasons, it's kinda a factual prejudice: bloggers are people who aren't able to set up a website; bloggers are people who believe to be bigger, or smarter, or more interesting than they actually are; the most read italian blog is made by a chronic conspiracy-theorist; to not talk about the thousands of thousands of boring teens with their trifles.

I don't want to be like them. Or, in better words, I don't want to feel like them.

Why am I writing a blog, then?


First of all, keep clear in your mind that I'm writing for me. You are not an high priorioty, at all.
I believe that within a fist of years, it shall be interesting to me reading what I was artistically thinking. For example, I would like to have written a blog in the lycaeum's years; in three years we (me and my friends) crossed the entire story of european literature, theathre and philosophy.
But, this doesn't mean that I won't be polite to whom will read the blog. Politeness doesn't mean fan-service (may I use this word despite I haven't "fans" yet?).
Like the kingian definition of a non-commercial writer, It's just that I won't write what I may think you want, I'll write what I (think I) want.

In second place, I must get some practice with my english, so if I make grammatical or synthaxical mistakes, correct me without any minimal mercy. Because a good english is necessary; in my opinion, a person must know three languages: his own mother tongue, for easily arguible reasons; english, beacuse is the only global language (French and Chinese have to learn it, too); latin, beacuse it has been the global language for fifteen centuries (it can be applied also on the ancient greek, but it's more difficult to learn, and it dosn't use our alphabet).


But, like Zero infamously said in Megaman X4, what am I "fighting for" (better: "fooOOooOOrrrh...")? What shall you read in this blog?

I will talk about my interests, my thoughts about art: literature (of the last thirty-one centuries), cinematography (of the last hundred and a fist of years) videoludic (of the last... ok, I'll stop), music (I will write less about that, because i'm not very well up in that subject), philosophy and some other things more. But I don't aim to be encycopledicly complete; the other site that I write on (in italian, this time) already aims to be the most exhaustive critic (not cryptic) source about one matter (videoludica, in this example). One try at one time is enough.
By the way, you can infer the next two topics by the two images I've posted in this message.

Why?
Because, as Seneca said "
O quam contempta res est homo, nisi supra humana surrexerit".

And, I think you wanna raise. I do.

Let's just try.

Oh, I am such an abstent-minded, I was forgetting the most important thing in an opening: savoury biscuits.