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Op Verhaal Komen. Moderne Sagen en Geruchten uit Vlaanderen

With his most recent book, Stefaan Top has published an impressive collection of modern legends and rumours that were collected among Flemish youngsters. This book is the sixth and last part of the author’s legend collection Op Verhaal Komen. The previous five parts dealt with traditional legends recorded in the five Flemish provinces.

Top enthusiastically reassures the reader that storytelling is still alive today. Just like their traditional counterparts, modern legends voice the fears, frustrations, and obsessions of their narrators. What distinguishes modern legends from traditional ones is primarily their contemporary setting and modern themes. The author pays attention to classical problems such as terminology and definitions associated with modern legends. Regarding terminology, Top presents an elaborate inventory of nineteen Dutch names for modern legends, forty English, eleven German, and four French ones. He also discusses the content, presentation, sources, and circulation of these legends.

Whereas the roots of collecting and recording traditional folk narratives lie in Europe, the first scientific studies of contemporary legends come from the United States of the 1940s and 1950s. Later on, Europe caught up, which the author shows by a non-exhaustive overview of publications on this subject. In 1982 Top attended the first international contemporary legend conference in Sheffield. Since then he has pursued this fascinating subject in his educational activities at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. This book presents the striking results of fieldwork during which university students questioned hundreds of pupils in youth groups and secondary schools about their knowledge of modern legends. In his foreword to this book, the Minister of Youth and Culture praises the author’s ability to render the oral discourse of adolescents with great precision.

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Double Indemnity. Film Review

The shadows look more ominous than ever in this remastered print of one of Hollywood’s first films noirs. Fred MacMurray plays against type as Walter Neff, an insurance salesman who falls for a client’s wife and gets snared in a scheme to kill the husband. Barbara Stanwyck thickly applies both the femme and the fatale, and Edward G. Robinson is superb as Neff’s suspicious boss. This was second of four pairings for MacMurray and Stanwyck, and definitely the best. Extras on the two-disc set tend toward the scholarly, with a documentary and two commentaries. (Fun fact: Director Billy Wilder had to take a bathroom break every 15 minutes while writing the screenplay because he and co-writer Raymond Chandler couldn’t stand each other.) The second disc includes a faithful 1973 television remake starring Richard Crenna.

You can buy the film here

Startrek and science fiction

I was disappointed when star trek enterprise came to a sudden end. The 3rd season was interesting.. inspite of of the first and second seasons which were lackluster in their performance.
The fourth season was boring. There wasn’t anything interesting… after the Xindi encounter is settled. Having been a trekkie for quite a long time., I’d say that Enterprise was the least popular of all series… except for the arc like third season.. where captain archer and his crew.. track down the aliens ( the xindi) who are going to destroy earth…. after a group of interdimensional species show the xindi. that earth is going to destroy their home world in 400 years.. With the help of a time traveller, Archer ( scott bakula) goes to the future.. where the federation of planets engage the interdimesional beings.. and… tries to convince the…. xindi.. that earth is not going to attack them.. After a lot of drama.. earth “befriends” the aliens in the delphic expanse… which is 2000 light years from earth…

Some of my favorite episodes in Enterprise are:
Carbon creek, Proving ground, The Communicator, Future Tense, First flight, Similitude, Azati prime

The startrek original series is one of the best scifi TV series ever… with interesting theories… or ideas.. Some of my favorite episodes are:

The enemy within, The changeling, Plato’s stepchildren, Squire of gothos, The arena , The omega glory, Where no man has gone before, Mirror Mirror, By any other name, All our yesterdays, Return to tomorrow, Amok Time

Science fiction is an interesting thing.. I think that science.. fiction.. serves as an inspiration for us.. to achieve or invent new things.. although I dont expect rockets which can go at warp speed.. we might disover the secrets of nature in time….. which might help the human civilization to become sophisticated. We might ask questions.. which we would have never thought of asking.. before or after we find any answers in nature..

RV. Film Review

If you’re looking for an updated “National Lampoon’s Vacation” for middle school-aged kids, and you’re not afraid of a predictable plot and potty humor, “RV” is the film for you. It’s the story of a suburban family, including a clueless but lovable dad (Robin Williams), on a “family time” road trip in - you guessed it - a recreational vehicle. Even for fans of Williams’s over-the-top “Mrs. Doubtfire” fare, “RV” delivers only a handful of laughs. A flat character and even flatter lines hardly allow the comedian to be himself (except for the opening tickle-monster scene). Those who prefer more subtle comedy than exploding sewage lines and rabid raccoons will likewise be disappointed. Extras: Details of the many toilet scenes are included in the appropriately named gag reel.

You can buy the film here

To Kill a Mockingbird

The No. 1 movie hero, according to the American Film Institute, possesses no superpowers, doesn’t wield a lightsaber or mow down the enemy while shouting nifty catch-phrases. In fact, he’s a lawyer, played by Gregory Peck. The Oscar winner brings a deep decency to the role of Atticus Finch, who takes on the case of a black man accused of raping a white woman in 1930s Alabama. The film unfurls through the eyes of Finch’s daughter, Scout, and everything about it, from the opening credits to Robert Duvall in his first screen role, is exceptional. It’s almost as good as Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The set boasts plenty of extras, which tend to become repetitive. But “A Conversation With Gregory Peck” and the documentary “Fearful Symmetry” are both good.

You can buy this film here

DVD review: Multiple homicide, double standard

If you’ve never seen a movie where the character walks backwards towards the edge of the frame only to be surprised by someone standing behind them, “House of Wax,” now out on DVD from Warner Home Video, may seem like cutting-edge cinema. Of course you would still have to sit through 45 minutes of lazy exposition designed to make characters with the depth of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog seem lifelike before their inevitable waxing. For, you know, contrast.

Paris Hilton getting killed is really the only thing they’ve got here, and the filmmakers know it. I found myself checking my watch all the way past the hour mark waiting for her to get it. The casting of Hilton, an “actress” totally untroubled by talent or good taste, goes to one of the central weaknesses of this film.

Good horror flicks scare by inverting the norms of reality and violating the boundaries of safety that society establishes. Thus, actually frightening films like “Psycho,” John Carpenter’s first “Halloween,” “Rosemary’s Baby” or “28 Days Later” really work on their audiences deep down. The realest thing “House of Wax” has going for it is real heiress Hilton “playing” a dumb teen, surrounded by a bunch of other dumb teens who have all kinds of fancy toys (like a Cadillac pick-up truck) that few grown-ups could afford. Call it aspirational horror. A better movie might successfully find a consumerist parable in the killing of these cardboard dummies, but director Jaume ColletSerra is no George Romero, and this is definitely no “Dawn of The Dead.”

Watching “House of Wax” got me to thinking (surprisingly enough). How is it that a film with zero redeeming qualities other than copious gore and gruesome violence can get an R rating from the MPAA and something like Atom Egoyan’s “Where The Truth Lies” or the Ewan McGregor starrer “Young Adam” gets slapped with NC17s for some semi-explicit sex?

The Sting. Film Review

Audiences must have left theaters in 1973 chortling at the audacious twists of this tale of a grifter (Robert Redford) out for revenge after his partner is murdered.

Unfortunately, in the past 30 years, con-men and trick endings have become such cliches that the movie has lost its power to surprise. Even when Redford is leaping over rooftops, The Sting feels lethargic.

An impressive supporting cast (Ray Walston, Eileen Brennan, Robert Shaw) and great direction help make up for this. And Paul Newman is a loopy delight as Henry Gondorff: The twinkle in his blue eyes when he signals that the con is on remains undimmed by time. There are three making-of documentaries with interviews with Newman, Redford, et al., but these are more self-congratulatory than informative.

Still Steamed

You need to stop shilling for Steam. The reason is simple: Try [to] get customer support when you cannot connect. Steam has no customer support, and if it doesn’t work…you are out of tuck. You have no options. Not a one. So take the Steam challenge and see if you can get help.

I suspect that the reason is that Steam hates their customers and, with Half-Life being such an amazing game, they can afford to lose 10 percent and still be happy. Plus, the huge savings [from] not having to employ a bunch of [foreigners] to provide bad customer support.

So be a pal and write the truth: Steam still sucks. I find I can connect about one third of the time. And now I hate myself for looking forward to the next episode [of Half-Life 2]. So thanks to Steam for ruining my gaming experience.

Rein It In

In the October issue. Mark Rein blames Intel for the proliferation of moderately powered computers that “suck for playing decent games,” Nonsense. Decent games don’t necessarily need high-end rigs. Didn’t Mr. Rein consider that the problem lies with publishers constantly focusing on games with bleeding-edge graphics?

You don’t need cutting-edge graphics - or even 3D graphics - for great gameplay. Any longtime gamer knows that. Instead of repeatedly selling us more of the same with fancy new window dressing that requires a graphics card upgrade, why not create something original that puts the gameplay before the eye candy?

Farmer and the Cow

A farmer was in a bar drinking and looking all depressed.

His friend asked him why he was looking depressed and he replied, “Some things you just can’t explain. This morning I was outside milking. As soon as the bucket was full the cow kicked it down with his left foot so I tied up his left to a pole.
I began to fill up the bucket again and he kicked it down with his right foot, so I tied his right to a pole too.

As soon as I finished milkin’ him again he knocked down the bucket with his with his tail and I took off my belt and tied up his tail with my belt.

As I was tying up his tail, my pants dropped down, then my wife came out and well, trust me, some things you just can’t explain!