[SIZE="3"]FYI --[/SIZE]

The finalists in the Best Novel category of this year's Prometheus
Award, for the best pro-freedom novel of 2006 are:
* Empire, by Orson Scott Card (TOR Books)
* The Ghost Brigades, by John Scalzi (TOR Books)
* Glasshouse, Charles Stross (Penguin Group)
* Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge (TOR Books)
* Harbingers, by F. Paul Wilson (FORGE)

[SIZE="3"]I don't see Harbingers as particularly libertarian (in its protagonist, yes, but not much else), and I already have 4 Promethei, so I'll be happy to see a more deserving title win.[/SIZE]

Phillip Seymour Hoffman is co-artistic director of a theatre group called LABrynth, and they are in residence at The Public Theater in New York. The group works on 5 plays per year, and Hoffman stars in one of the five.

"Jack Goes Boating" was the play he chose this year. What a disappointment. The play was dull, pedantic, revealed nothing and went nowhere. I've never seen Hoffman turn in a poor performance....until last night. Oh my. He played a rather simple-minded guy who's never had a relationship, who loves one single reggae song and plays it endlessly on his Walkman (yes, a tape), and is trying to tame his limp blond locks into Rasta-type curls. But he's not a Rasta, he tells his friend, though they smoke pot at every opportunity.

There were 4 players, two men and two women, all members of LABrynth. The women were particularly weak, and the other man gave a relatively good performance. They were a couple in a relationship and Hoffman (Jack) who is attempting to begin a relationship with the other, quite odd, woman.

It was the set design and lighting that were the stars. We visited the couple's living room, a hospital room, a subway platform, the women's workplace, the front seat of a limo, the odd woman's bedroom, a lake with a rowboat (Jack does go boating), and most inventively, a pool where Jack learns how to swim. It's great fun to see how all those disparate places can be created simply with lights, fabric and some wood. Really cool.

Hoffman's character is simple, but it's possible to play a simple man with depth and breadth. That didn't happen last night. I was perplexed by his line readings, which sounded like just that. He read his lines in the same singsong fashion, always as if asking a question.

At the intermission, I heard comments from the audience about the banality of the play.

You see, the play IS the thing. Theater (and movies, too) begin with the written word. If the vehicle is weak, there is only so far the director and cast can go. This play was uninteresting and dealt with characters about whom I didn't give a fig. Feh!

I don't think the director did well by his actors, and I wonder if the actors weren't angry with each other last night, at least two of them.

All in all, a disappointing evening, though I was sitting so close that I got to see up Hoffman's nose. Now that's CLOSE! :eek:

Today I saw Zwartboek(aka:Black Book) in a theatre, and it was really amazing movie. "Zwartboek" was as good as "Schindler's List" and "The Pianist". The Main character is a Jewish woman.

The time is WW II. Rachel Steinn is a Jewish singer forced to flee her home. After she escaped, she sets up a new identity for herself to avoid being captured and killed by the Germans. Then Rachel joins the resistance and infiltrated to a Nazi stronghold for spy. But.....

I assure this is the best Verhoeven's movie. Oh, you don't like "Showgirl" or "Starship Troopers", so you don't like his movies? Forget about it! "Zwartboek" is not like them. This movie is about love and hate, faith and treachery, good and evil. It had not emotional moments like "Schindler's List" and "The Pianist", but the movie had some good suspense and thrilling moments and even a little bit of humor. But this is not entertainment movie. Some scenes were bloody gory and brutal and violent. Nevertheless I couldn't shut my eyes.

Carice van Houten as Rachel were excellent! For her you should check this movie. Her acting, her attractiveness, her singing, her everything.




[SIZE="3"]<><><><><><><><><>Minor Spoiler<><><><><><><><><>[/SIZE]






Chocolate. It's saved her! You wanna know that reason? Then check this movie.

Tonight, at last I saw "Invasion of The Body Snatchers"(1956) on a used videotape. As I said "at last", I've never seen this before until now. But of course I saw remake version of 1978 and 1993. I liked 1978 version (Donald Sutherland). When I first saw the 1978 version on TV, it freaked me out. Especially, Donald Sutherland's last scream.....that was shocking to me.

But now, I like original version. It's 51 years ago, nevertheless it annoyed me. Kevin McCarthy's dialogues were persuasive. "They're here already! You're next! You're next, You're next..." :eek:

1993 version had some creepy moments, but it was not scary at all. Second remake is not fresh anymore. But, surprisingly somebody's making third remake with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. The title is "The Invasion". Hmm....should I call it "re-re-re-make"?

Which version do you like?

Like Glaeken, I too have been lurking around the site waiting (almost 7 weeks) to be added to the forum. A lot of the questions and comments that I have had have been answered or posted by others during the wait, so I would like to take this opportunity to say Hi to you all from down here in the Great State of Texas!

Oh, man....*sigh*.....Worst thing happened. Who the hell is gonna make to Remake version of Escape From New York? Somebody STOP them!!! :mad:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/comme...yid=407380

Gerard Butler is Snake? Gimme a break!!! Snake Prisken is Kurt Russell!

I'm sorry to ranting...but, I can't stand a lot of crap remake movies.


What do you think about this?

Hello all, I am pleased to finally be able to post in here; I have been trying to register for several weeks now, and all that time I have been lurking around, reading the threads and getting to learn what a few of you are like. I'm a big Repairman Jack fan and a big fan of The Keep and Nightworld, and really pleased to finally be able to post.

I don't know if any of you have already seen this (I posted it on the Frappr account) but I thought it a nice way to say hello would be to show you all a little doodle I did of Glaeken.

I'm looking forward to reading the next RJ book, and talking to you all about it!

Just a note -- we've gotten about half of our Virgin hardcover shipment so far, and have sent out copies to the first batch of people who ordered (who didn't request personalized copies).

We hope to have the rest of the copies any day now, and for those waiting for inscriptions, we plan on driving down to Paul within a week or 2 of getting the copies.

Sorry for the delay, but everyone will have their copies shortly. A lot of you WILL have your copies within 2-3 days from us, particularly if you ordered early from us.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/ebayISAP.dll?View...0101802238

The link is for an ARC of Bloodline available on Ebay.

First, let me say this is not a dubbed movie. The Host is mainly in Korean but, since it has U.S. involvement dealing with the monster, some English is spoken.

Second, this is a story of a family bureaucratized (if this isn't a word, it should be) by the Korean gov't which is being bureaucratized by the U.S. The family is made up of an older brother who sleeps alot and has a young child, a drunken university grad who can't find a job ("I helped make this country democratized and it won't give me a job"), the sister who excells in archery but whose flaw is that she's a perfectionist, thus never winning the gold medal because her time-clock runs out (yes, her bow and arrow play a relatively important part in the end), and the hapless father trying to hold his family together.

Third, this is the story of a mutated water creature. This is no movie where you see the shadowy creature throughout and then see it full front at the finale. No, you see the creature full-on from beginning to end. We get to know this creature full well. (Creature courtesy of the folks who brought you King Kong, so there).

Fourth, the creature captures the sleepy brother's young daughter to feed on later. The family unites to rescue the girl.

Fifth, the final battle between the family and the creature is awesome.

This is all I can give you without spoilers. So go see it. It's a family drama, a satiric comedy, and a friggin' good monster movie.

AC