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Red Cliff Pts. 1 and 2

This is one amazing movie(s) that actually lives up to the hype.  A beautiful, sprawling, historical epic that runs for almost 6 hours (if you watch both parts back to back) Red Cliff manages to tell both its story on both the epic scale and a more intimate one without ever dragging.  It is such a staggerly huge movie that there's no way that a mere blog post can review it properly, so I won't even attempt it.  Just check out the trailer, then beg, borrow or steal a copy of both films and watch them.

The Guardian: Metalheads Will Not Be Able To Unite For Heavy Metal As A Religion Census Campaign

So there's this nascent movement in the UK for people to enter their religion as "Heavy Metal" in the upcoming census.  Something similar was done a few years ago, which is why the UK now officially recognize "Jedi" as a religion.  Looks like the uptight, elitist drones at the Graudian are already crapping on the idea....

Metal Hammer » Blog Archive » The Guardian: Metalheads Will Not Be Able To Unite For Heavy Metal As A Religion Census Campaign

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Polish conservatives go after Bible-tearing heavy metal singer

Not that I'm a huge fan of Behemoth, nor do I think that shredding a Bible on stage was particularly necessary thing to do, but the story itself is quite interesting:

Polish conservatives go after Bible-tearing heavy metal singer

Christopher Lee To Release Metal Album

Christopher Lee To Release Metal Album | undercover.com.au, Music, News, Entertainment

From what I've heard so far, Sir Christopher's "symphonic metal" album is heavy on the "sympthonic" and a little light on the "metal", but for gods' sake it's Christopher Lee! Could this possibly be any cooler? Only if Bruce Dicksison was guesting on the album.

Night Of The Demons Trailer

I'm  looking forward to seeing this only because I loved the original.  It was so cheesy that it was fun--I hope that they manage to keep that quality in the remake

Terry Pratchett Challenge 2010: Guards, Guards.

So we're a couple of weeks into the challenge now, and I've finish two books: Lords and Ladies (review upcoming) and Guards, Guards.  Since I'm going to at least try and review in the order that I read them, let's start with Guards, Guards.

This is the frst in the ongoing subseries of Discworld books known as the "Watch "novels.  Unlike the "Lancre" novels and the "Death" novels, the Watch novels sprang forth pretty much fully formed, and although they've evolve to become one of the cornerstones of the Discworld series (as members of The Watch now appear in virtually every Discworld novel set in Ankh Morpock) at the same time has changed the least.

The Night Watch are the joke of Ankh Morpock--sort of the Discworld equivalent  Police Academy.  Under the direction of Captian Vimes, a bitter, alcoholic cynical idealist, the Watch serves as a collecting point for the venal, the lazy, the uneducated and the uncouth--all in the form of Sergeant Colon and Coporal Nobby.  And those are their best qualities! As the story gets underway it's clear that this state of affairs has been going on for quite some time.

All this changes with the arrival of Carrot--the 6' dwarf (by adoption).  Carrot is honest, upright, keen and an eternal optimist--in other words, a real pain in the ass.  In Ankh Morpock terms, he has the life expectancy of a whelk in a grinder.  And yet....somehow Carrot weaves a special magic all his own.  Things that would get anyone else severely insulted before being even more severely killed actually work for Carrot.

This dynamic pretty much exists through all the Watch novels, but this is where it began.

As for the story, it's a very clever little detective story well-disguised as a fantasy novel.  The reason why Guards, Guards works (and it works so well) is because Pratchett approached it as a mystery novel that was funny, rather than a funny novel with a mystery. A dastardly, if unlikely, plot involves a secret society employing a dragon to usurp the Patrician and crown a puppet king on the throne of the City.  I'm not going to give a blow-by-flame account of the plot--suffice to say it not only packs a lot of laughs, but it does manage to elicit genuine suspense throughout.

As mentioned before, the characters are so well written and developed that Pratchett has had to do very little beyong the occasional  tweaking in subsequent novels.  It's not the best Watch Novel, but the distance between it and the best is trifling at most.

For details on the Terry Pratchett Challenge 2010 click on the following link:

Status Quo stars Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt get OBEs in New Year's honours list - mirror.co.uk

Not only are Status Quo woefully under-credited for their influence on the early days of hard rock/heavy metal, but Francis Rossi is a relative (albeit a distant relative), so in the spirit of nepotism it would be churlish of me not to congratulate him and Rick Parfitt on their OBE's.

I know some people have a problem with musicians and actors getting New Year's honours, it should be pointed out that they are receiving the award  not for any wussy "contributions to the arts", but for their long, sustained contributions to charity--something that they've been quietly doing for decades.

Status Quo stars Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt get OBEs in New Year's honours list - mirror.co.uk