Posted 11:48 pm by Jukka
This blog has migrated to http://www.livejournal.com/users/nitessine/

Updates will continue over there as usual.

Posted 10:52 pm by Jukka
Well, I watched King Arthur. I reasoned it'd be better to see it on the big screen than get a DVD, because the only thing that was gonna be good in it would be the fight scenes.

Boy, was I wrong. I now seriously want that DVD.

Mostly because considering the stuff they put in the movie, I really want to see what was so crappy it had to be cut out.

Now, don't get me wrong. This isn't the worst movie ever. Not even all that close, actually. It's still bad, though. This is, however, without a doubt, the one movie which most deserves my undying contempt.

I can live with historical inaccuracies in movies. I loved The Last Samurai. However, what I loathe is being lied to. The ad campaign, not to mention the movie's intro sequence, spelled out that this was to be the true, historical account. Not even "based on a true story", but the truth.

The truth, my ass.

What does this movie have in common with history? There were men in history, and there are men in the movie.

What does this movie have in common with the myth? Names, and like the myth, the movie tends to take short cuts when it comes to logic.

What does this movie have to do with a good movie? Keira Knightley was in Pirates of the Caribbean, which was a good movie. Beyond that, fuck all.

Ironically, King Arthur has even more historical inaccuracies and outright falsehoods than most movies with less lofty claims, to a degree that there is no possible historical time period when the events could have taken place. Then there's all those little things like the Saxons trying to shoot the knights (an unknown concept at a time when infantry dominated the battlefield) with their short bows, which are out of range, then later whipping out crossbows, which would have an effective range many times that of a 5th century shortbow... Of course, I can understand the Saxons not remembering they carried these powerful weapons, since they didn't enter widespread use in European warfare until the 9th century, and even then they came from Italy.

The stirrup, as used by the knights of Arthur, incidentally, came to use around the same time, and was first introduced to England by William the Conqueror, in 1066. The Picts, not known for their siegecraft, utilised a trebuchet, a weapon roughly 700 years ahead of its time here. The catapult had already been invented at the time, though, but its firing mechanism is quite different.

Then there are the knights themselves... Sarmatians, apparently, a people who used to live around what is now Iran. They also called themselves Rus, who were a completely different people (either Slavs or Swedes, depending on who you listen), and didn't show up on the stage of history until 9th century AD... Sarmatians also were never conquered by the Romans, but actually kicked Roman ass in Pannonia.

And as if this complete mess, passed off as truth, were not heinous enough, the movie lacks any other merits. Mostly wooden acting (especially from Owen [Arthur] and Portman [Guinevere]), logical errors like the issue of Saxon archery, glaringly sloppy directing (is that gate open or closed? Decide, already!), badly choreographed fight scenes with the quaking camera that we've learned to hate, and more than one instance where a scene is artificially toned down to get a PG-13 rating (When you hit a guy, there's gonna be blood! And when you perform a coup de grace with a heavy slashing blade, you don't slice open the man's throat, you cut off his fucking head!), and the inexplicable inclusion of Sir Dagonet in the story. The man was a fool, a jester, and a minor character. Why not just call him Percival instead, and at least get the name recognition?

Mark my words... this movie shall be marked down in the annals of moviemaking as the worst treatment of the Once and Future King and his Knights of the Round Table in history.

Over and out.

Posted 1:11 am by Jukka
Went to see Vares on Tuesday, after a history lecture. I'm fairly sure the professor is a geek, by the way.

Vares was a good movie. To those of you not "in the know" (i.e., foreign devils), it's a crime movie about a private eye, based on a novel by Reijo Mäki. It was predictable, and hit every single cliché and genre convention. But it did it with style, and I'm not saying this just because of my convinction that no movie that has a hired killer named Tetsuo can suck. The pair of assassins, a parody of Vince and Jules from Pulp Fiction kinda reminded me of myself and the freakshow I hang out with, in that they kept likening themselves to movie characters, much the same way that we stat ourselves up in roleplaying games. And occasionally liken ourselves to movie characters. Right down to assigning ourselves theme songs. Mine is Frank Sinatra's "My Way".

Speaking of statting ourselves up... I must've gained a level recently. In May, during our bar excursion with other hopeful history students, I acted as Risto's cohort, but now, he was most definitely my follower. I must have a high Leadership score, or something.

In other news, I have found the most pitiful LP ever. It's the Finnish Eurovision contest record from 1965. That is, the contest which determined which bad performer we sent to... wherever that parade of crap was held that year. And it only has the second to fifth standings. It even lacks the winner. It boggles the mind.

Posted 1:14 am by Jukka
I guess it'd be too difficult to get into a daily update rate. *Shrug* I'll settle for whimsical.

So... The history lessons of the open university have begun. In the first class, me and Risto came to the conclusion there is at least one gamer geek amongst the other students there, out of three obvious candidates. I got me some cool presentation topics, too. Out of a random assortment, I got "The Cultures of China and Japan and Their Interaction" and "The Background and Consequences of the Thirty Years War". With alternatives like "The Collapse of the Class System", I think I got dealt a pretty good hand, especially since I have a solid foundation of knowledge in my two subjects, and get to use the word 'defenestration'. And I figure I can slip in 'tsujigiri', too.

Also got a job at my grandmother's architect firm. It includes stuff like filing papers, filing some more papers, filing a bit more papers, and that's about it. The pay is good enough, though, and it gives me something to do apart from loafing around aimlessly.

It also gives me disposable income to throw in the general direction of central Helsinki, the land where gaming and book stores lie. I have now finally acquired all the common miniatures from the Harbinger set of D&D Miniatures. Yay me. I've actually come to the conclusion that all D&D Miniatures in Finland are concentrated in the hands of some dozen individuals, three of whom work for the gaming store, one of whom is me, two of whom are Living Greyhawk DMs and one of whom is The White Sorcerer.

Speaking of Living Greyhawk, we had a twelve-hour session this past Sunday, running through Mad God's Key and Lance of Osson. Xaylen Ambedor, my wizard, is now 2nd-level, and on his way to greatness. Lance of Osson, a Splintered Sun metaregional, is a great adventure, just so you know. If you have an opportunity to play, TAKE IT.

Posted 10:33 am by Jukka
Last night, yet another gathering of Iiro's Salon. I wonder if we have a prestige class or something. With special abilities like Freak Out the Mundanes and free weapon proficiency with something weird like nunchaku, bokken, fencing sword, bo stick, sai, and boffer or latex sword. And knife, naturally, but all Finns get knife proficiency free. Phear the Marttiini.

The purpose of this post was mostly to illustrate that there is a reason this blog is called what it is, and to act as a camouflage for yet another strange online quiz result.

I am ashamed. Wil Wheaton is cool, but Wesley Crusher is not.

Posted 10:00 am by Jukka
Yesterday, the Japanese Anime and Samurai Movie Week began. It's something they arranged with the Japanese embassy, the Japan Foundation (whatever that might be), and Andorra, an elderly movie theatre that, to my understanding, isn't used to show movies anymore, except in special situations like this.

My primary objective was to see the second movie of the night, Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. I never did, because the first movie, Captain Harlock in Arcadia, went well over its allotted time slot and by the time we got out of there, the line to see Yojimbo seemed considerably larger than the theatre could hold. But it was okay, since Captain Harlock in Arcadia rocked. Despite having an... eh, stylised plot, with holes large enough to drive Death Star through, it was very, very good. I can but recommend it, if you ever get an opportunity to watch it.

I'll be probably skipping the next week of movies there, except for Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress next Sunday. It oughta be good, if Lucas ripped it off for Star Wars...

Posted 6:09 am by Jukka
Gotta love the university. The open university entrance applications came and went, I got in to study history. And I got a list of books I need for the courses. Basic history has four titles on the list. The first two are standard fare: one book on world history, another on Finnish history. Easy to find and quite affordable, even though, peculiarly, one of them hadn't been revised for 16 years. USSR still stands strong. In hindsight, this was an omen of the future.

The other two titles were both map collections. First, an atlas of Finnish history. Printed in 1949, no reprints since. Riiiiiight. The second one was printed in 1965 according to the slip of paper we were given, but this can't be verified since it wasn't in the book database of Akateeminen Kirjakauppa. That's kinda like the equivalent of Barnes & Noble for you Americans. Oh, and did I mention it was in German? In short, I am fairly sure we have professors at the university who are younger than their textbooks. I know that a sizeable portion of the university buildings are younger than these. The Domus Academica dormitories, where I am headed to play some Living Greyhawk in two weeks, were only built in the 1970s.

Still haven't gotten around to taking the car to be repaired. The strange noises have died down, too.