Post by Akbar Le Grey on Jan 20, 2008 16:16:59 GMT -5
January 13th – January 20th.
Editor-in-Chief: Akbar Le Grey.
Contributors: Libitina, PJ, Linda, Jemima.
Published by 667er Publications, ltd.
A subsidiary of the 667er Group.
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667 has been pretty dead this week. Which isn't too surprising - people are settling back into school, and mid-January is a pretty boring time of year. There have been several noteworthy events that have taken place at 667 this week, though.
Zaid's departure
Several days ago Zaid made a thread in Gruesome Greetings announcing that he was tired of being insulted by a member of 667 and was going to leave. This was met with a great deal of sadness, as Zaid, former moderator of Menacing Miscellaneous, was a well-loved member of 667. Friday was his last day at 667, and while he says he will return in several weeks to check up on 667 and decide whether or not to leave forever, he miss be missed. Zaid, if you're reading this, please reconsider this. ):
Member of the Year voting results:
For the third consecutive year, the Member of the Year contest was held. Member of the Year is one of the most prestigious awards given out at 667, and in order to win, one must win Member of the Month and win the most votes from the general populace of 667. The previous two winners were Gigi for 2005 and Jemima for 2006. Over 50 members participated in the voting this year, and after nearly two weeks of voting, the results are in and we can now proclaim Betsy as member of the year for 2007. Congratulations, Betsy! Besides Betsy, Robert, Dear Dairy, and Cybermystery came in as runners-up.
Dragongirl9397's death
Dragongirl, who appeared at 667 shortly after Tim's arrival and claimed to be his angry ex-girlfriend, has "died" this week. Her mother, who coincidentally happens to have the same poor grammar and punctuation, announced this in Gruesome Greetings, explaining that she had died of a "broken heatr" [sic]. While anyone's death is sad, hers is perhaps less sad than most owing to the fact that her main goal in life seemed to be to irritate 667ers, and many suspect she was not an actual person but simply a poorly-conceived gag account.
Klaus19 is back[/u]
Klaus19, who in 2006 became known for her bad spelling, obsession with PJ and BSam, poems, and pride in being a really cool member, has returned to 667 completely reformed and with perfect spelling. It's good to see her back.
Tim's back with a new personality
Tim, who left at the beginning of the New Year, has recently appeared at 667 again, with none of his original charm. While his origins have always been slightly in confusion, with some suspecting him to be a gag account, these most recent posts don't seem to fit him at all, and some suspect that his account may have been hacked.
- Linda.
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You know how, sometimes, you just get a feeling in yourself that you want to float, fly, evaporate, melt, or levitate away? What causes that? Could it be a song, an image, good deeds done onto you, or just the weather?
Today, for me, it's all four.
The situation determines the emotion. Some days it's bliss. Some days it's anger. Some days grief. Most of the time it could just be boredom; a longing to run away from limbo. Nevertheless, meditating to nirvana is always the way to go, but it's never achieved.
What do you do in a time like this?
I feel like making a snow angel and staring at the sky while the snow slowly settles and buries me.
And then getting up and drinking hot chocolate.
Seeing The Fountain makes me feel like rising up, away from the earth. Tom is in Xibalba, and he tries to reach the end by assuming lotus position in his bubble, and once he does, it's not the end. It's the beginning.
Don't you ever wish one could do that? Don't you ever wish life could be what we feel and what our minds truly see?
Some may say it is.
- Jemima.
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Libitina: Hi.
Fantine: Yeah, hello.
Libitina: I am not really thrilled.
Fantine: And in her eyes, you see nothing.
Libitina: I don't even have any good tips this week. There is nothing.
Fantine: No sign of love behind the tears.
Libitina: This week, Fantine decided to take a trip to France and didn't bother to inform me.
Fantine: The funny thing is that only half of me went. The rest of me is still here!
Libitina: Fantine is originally from France. She used to live in the head of a French baker.
Fantine: French bread is really good.
Libitina: Tip: Eat French bread.
Fantine: Ooh, Libby, creative.
Libitina: Tip: Learn Portuguese.
Fantine: Because it will help you with absolutely nothing in your entire life.
Libitina: Tip: Don't watch Master and Commander.
Fantine: Here's a quick summary, just in case you're on the fence: Men on ships, cannons go kaboom, doctors investigate bugs and birds and human brains, suicide, battlebattleboom, bad-acting captains play the violin, cut limbs off, dead kids thrown overboard, victory for England!
Libitina: Tip: Cubic functions are pretty.
Fantine: I'm Jean Valjean.
Libitina: Tip: To Kill a Mockingbird is a good book. Read it.
Fantine: Also, don't shoot people.
Libitina: Tip: Don't light tissues or paper things on fire.
Fantine: Was it even necessary to say that?
Libitina: Tip: If you are a girl, don't love a gay guy.
Fantine: Don't.
- Libitina.
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Movie of the Week: The Golden Compass
Trailer / IMDb / Rotten Tomatos: 41%
It seems as though I’m overflowing with movies to review. Golden Compass, Wristcutters, and, just yesterday, Juno. I plan on watching Cloverfield very soon and Sweeney Todd comes out next Thursday.
But hey, I bravely plod onwards, reviewing only the best and brightest Hollywood has to offer for you guys. This may seem ironic, given The Golden Compass’ Rotten Tomatoes score, but look, I watched it because I’d read the series and I wanted to see what it was like.
The answer? Not bad. The movie was not bad. The acting wasn’t bad, neither was the music, or the special effects or even the script. Which, as you might have already gathered, is where the problem lies. The movie isn’t bad, but that definitely doesn’t mean it’s good. Just that it’s not craptastic.
Ok, we’ll start off with the good side. Side. Singular. This movie excels in special effects. No, really, they’re pretty good. Amazing, even. The bears, the daemons, the northern lights, the snow, the witches, everything was extremely skilled. The epic end fight was amazing – they decided to add the special effect of daemons exploding into a shower of golden sparks whenever their human died, so there were heaps of little explosions of gold everywhere and it all looked really cool and fantastic and larger-than-life. Then again, with a budget of over 300 million US munny, it’s no wonder everything looks so sparkly and neat.
So that’s all good. Now we come to everything else. It’s not often that I get to critique sub-par movies (I refuse to watch crappy movies, not even for my beloved 667) and yes, I am aware that saying that every movie I watch is bloody brilliant gets quite old really quickly, so I’ll do my best to rip into this one.
The acting, as far as I recall, was pretty average. Hearing the voice of a small child coming from the mouth of a mouse (or bear, for that matter) didn’t really work to well, but I guess that’s probably just because you don’t get too many live-action talking animals around nowadays. Lil’ Lyra did her bit pretty all right, as did Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel. Lee Scoresby, on the other hand, was pretty damn awesome. He was just kickass, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me. By far my favourite character in the movie.
The biggest problem with this movie – as with every single movie derived from a book ever made, ever – is the script. The story. The whole goddamn plot. As always, it’s difficult to cram a 300 page book into a 2 hour movie. There just isn’t time for detail, let alone all of the plot points. For instance; what the hell were the witches all about? I’ve read the series, so I know, but in the movie, the leader mumbles something vague about a prophecy, which apparently is good enough motivation for them to mercilessly slaughter a handful of Mongolian mercenaries at the end of the movie. The Gyptians had more screen time, but even then, they seemed more like strangers that Lyra happened to be travelling with. We saw them, and we saw their motive (rescuing their children) but we didn’t actually get to see anything of the Gyptian identity, or pretty much anything interesting at all about them. They entirely skipped all those fiddly bits that add to everything. To use an analogy, it’s somewhat like making a Harry Potter movie but not having anything magic or wizardly at all unless the plot absolutely dictated it.
There were scenes I thought I would have directed better – which isn’t to say that the directing was bad, simply that I thought some of the scenes didn’t quite match up with what was in the books, for apparently no reason at all. For instance, they changed the character of Lord Asriel from stern uncaring scientist bastard to some bumbling befuddled British scientist (I exaggerate here, but the point remains valid). The scene where the Mongolian mercenaries tackle him to the ground and he says “rReally, can’t we talk about this like gentlemen?” really did it for me. In the book, Lord Asriel was kickass. In the movie, he was a limpet.
I could go on, but it’s getting tiresome. Basically, the movie didn’t expound a lot on anything, really, but this, alas, is the tragedy of movies; loss of detail. On the other hand, since I had read the books I knew what was going on most of the time. The removal of the whole “omgz the church is satan!” thing went down better than I expected. I was quite distressed about that, actually, before I saw the movie. I think it’s an unbelievable crime against humanity that movies have to be bland and non-controversial so that they get funding from rich Hollywood bastards. But that’s the way the world turns, and we’ll have to make do with what we have.
Surprisingly, they kept the story mostly intact; they must have just dubbed the controversial terms over in the last minute. The Church became The Magisterium, Original Sin became “Something wrong that happened a long time ago” and God and his angel cronies became The Authority (I think?). So I guess it’s not as bad as it could have been. It’s all still there, just hidden under a thin layer of scum. At least, it might still be possible for them to film the two sequels without having to change the story into something that resembles Cheaper by the Dozen 3.
But all in all, I enjoyed the movie. Maybe it’s because I went in expecting absolute salsa and was handed something that, while certainly no diamond, was at the very least quite a somewhat shiny rock. The special effects were great, and the overall storyline remained relatively true to the book, except, of course, much more compact. Also, they switched the ending around so that the last scenes would be of an all-out epic battle between pretty much everyone, as opposed to just an epic battle between two huge polar bears (kudos to them for still having that fight end with Iofur’s jaw being bashed off, I half expected them to replace it with the two hugging and making up).
Overall, the most disappointing part was the ending. To hell with spoilers, if you haven’t read the book then you shouldn’t watch this movie anyways. The first book ends with Lord Asriel basically killing Lyra’s childhood friend Roger in order to rip open a hole into another world. I had been wondering about that, since it hardly seemed as PG-13 as the movie was rated, but hey, they circumvented that by simply not including it. I was getting all geared up for it, but then the credits just started rolling with Lyra and her Superfriends just flying away in a balloon. Totally sucked.
So yeah, I enjoyed this movie, but it was pretty average, all things said. I’m not sure whether to rate this a Good or a mere Ok, so I’ll just leave it somewhere between the two. If you haven’t read the books, then don’t bother watching it. If you have, and you’re interested, watch it. I won’t say more than that.
I’ll probably do Wristcutters next week. That or Juno.
Keep an eye out for Dark Knight, which looks freakin’ excellent. See you next week.
-PJ.
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The 667er's Caption Contest
Last week's image:
The winning caption was sent in by Jemima:
"Klaus, Sunny, and Violet: *hopeful gasp* At least we'll have this beautiful home to live in, Mr. Poe!
Mr. Poe *thinking*: ...that bug better not attack me. Oh dear. It's above my lips.... D:"
This week's image:
Send Sixteen (volunteer16) a PM by next Saturday with a caption that you think would fit this picture and it may be posted in next week's edition. Good luck!
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The 667er congratulates Betsy, Member of the Year 2007. Here's to another fantastic year![/b]
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Dear all,
The death of dragongirl, that selfless martyr, is just another symbol of all that’s wrong with this sick, insulated, narcissistic society we’ve created on this website. I am ashamed to belong to this community – the stench of disgrace now reeks whenever I turn to what was once a hallmark, something I felt proud to be a part of.
NOT.
So anyway, happy birthday Songbird. You’re an integral part of this forum, and having spent some time working very closely with you, during the whole debacle, I can testify to the fact that you rawk.
New tim – you suck.
Old tim – the Musings column just seems so not my happiest thing without you.
I MISS ZAID. He added me on MSN the day he was leaving, and his departure has saddened me deeply. We should all endeavour to try to make him reconsider, return and fill that place he’s left a gaping hole.
Before I sign off, I’d just like to commend two people without whom this paper probably would not have made it to 2008 – PJ and Libitina. For weeks now, it seems that even when all is lost, their two articles are bedrocks I can depend on. And this isn’t any substandard churning out of drivel, mind you. They each write extremely well, with wit, creativity and individual styles that make their pieces dazzle, week after week. Thanks guys. You’re fantastic. In that vein, I must also mention another exceedingly dedicated staffer - Sixteen. As is his monumental work on the archives wasn't enough, he's also been running a Caption Contest for quite some time now, judging and providing new and interesting images every week. Three cheers for three awesome 667ers!
By the way, all of you should enter the Caption Contest EVERY WEEK. It's fun, it's educational (somehow. magically) and all the cool kids are doing it. (:
And with that, I’ll be off. Ciao baby! [The Cult=<3]
Peace out,
Akbar.
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