Up, close and personal

I've been pretty busy since my last entry, being the only prominent event in my life since them a weekend trip to Bremen (Germany), where the weather was so cold that I had to double my underwear. I did nothing much in Xmas either, mostly playing PS2. January so far has consisted of reading Going Postal and Thump! (from Pratchett) and starting with Straczynki's Night of the Demons, plus watching Crusade, Supernatural and 24 (season 2). I expect things get better shortly, or I'll need a change of air ...

Yep. Morocco. My first time in Africa, as well. I went there with some friends via plane to Melilla (BTW, how expensive can such a flight be!) and rented a car to do a round trip. The itinerary was -more or less erratically- Nador-Fez-Volubilis-Meknes-Fez-Azrou-Taza-Debdou: basically, the north.

North Morocco is quite similar in landscapes to Andalusia. The best part to visit would be the west, where the ancient cities are. It would also be better to rent the car in Spain and cross via Ferry, as it is cheaper and leaves you in the interesting bit of the country, but they would not rent us a car for Morocco. Which I fully understand after seeing how they drive.

A warning to the traveller. In popular places, you will not be able to be left alone by the local "guides", guys who pursue you all the time, move you around the medina -whether you like it or not- and try to make you buy at their relatives' shops. They are unavoidable, so better pick one and go with it. But try your best to set your own pace even if it means forgetting about manners. The must sees are the mosques, the tanneries and the zocos.

Volubilis turned out to be an interesting surprise: a full roman village in the middle of the mountains. The conservation of the place was not too good, but they had the most amazing color mosaics almost everywhere! Too bad I did not had Augmented Reality googles to check how it was in the past. Not even an illustration in the ruins, either.

Food was mostly okay, but water was obviously not.

I'm back from my yearly weekend in Madrid (I hope to go back soon, though, many things to do, many things to do ...) Basically, I did the same I do every year, some shopping, walk the city, meet some friends and go to the theater. This year I watched Mamma Mia. I like musicals very much so it was only to be expected that I liked this one. However, it was better than I thought (not the best I've seen, though, but enjoyable, nevertheless). The only black point: translations of the songs to spanish was not that good, but it possibly could not have been done better. On the good side, the lead singer, Nina, has an amazing voice. She overacted a bit, but it did not matter. The best, though, were her friends, Marta Valverde and Paula Sebastian. Both women were amazing and extremely funny, not only in their renderings of Chiquitita, Dancing Queen, Take a chance on me, does your mother know and, of course, where they sing as Donna and the Dynamos, but practically every time they appeared on stage. Looking forward to their future works!



Mamma mia! in spanish

I watched this movie last wednesday and I liked it a lot. Visually, it is amazing how they can get such results without virtual reality. I particularly loved the butterfly effect at the end ('m not telling in case I spoil it for potential viewers). Emily manages to look fragile, scary and funny, while Victor is mostly unsure. Plus the rest of the characters are so well (er) characterized that they do not even have to open their mouths to realize what their personalities are. I also loved the fact that the land of the dead is far more colored than the Victorian UK. The storytelling leaves that bittersweet sensation afterwards that is so typical in Burton's movies, like Big Fish. The story seems to be based in a 16th Century Jewish folk tale, but it is definitely very Burton-like. The corpse bride reminds me of a Nightmare Before Xmas in the clash of different worlds implied in the plot, but it is far more serious and, in general, less crazy. Still, I can not decide which one I like more ...

Plus I'm seriously considering to re-watch Wallace and Grommit unless something comes fast on-screen. BTW, Helena Bonham Carter seems to be at ease with animation!

The brothers Grimm: Quite nice, well paced, fun and a bit stranger than Terry Gilliam has us used to, but nevertheless enjoyed the ride. The Grimms are a couple of con-artists that acquired some fame as ghost-hunters. However, luck goes tough when they have to face the very real danger of the mirror witch, who is kidnapping the kids of a small german village. I'd have given more lines to Monica Bellucci, noone like her to play the evil queen, but I liked the film.

Wallace & Gromitt: Shiny. Loved the rabbits and enjoyed the faces Gromitt put all the time. The giant vegetables were cool as well and I loved the homages to the Universal horror movies.

The dark: Not bad, but not that good either. A typical ghost story that drinks of welsh folk tales. Atmosphere and actors are okay (BTW, where did Maria Bello come from? She is everywhere these days!) Could have been better, but the storyline has many cracks. Sean Bean does not do much in the film and Paul Anderson only plays producer (as in the infamous Resident Evil 2).

Nothing particular this week, so I thought I'd upload an sketch instead. Yep, still stuck to Firefly ...

But not as good as the first by far. Swordfight is less thrilling and slower, characters are less defined and the bad guys are boring and histrionic. The final battle was dissappointing. No real plot, also. Do I have to tell you I did not like it? Save your 1.5 hours for something better ...

Even though the only Flockhart's performance I've liked thus far was Futurama's "When Aliens Attacks", I liked Darkness too much to not go watch Balaguerò Fragile. The film focuses on a children hospital, about to be abandoned, where only 8 kids remain because of room problems in the central one. Something in there is also trying to keep them inside, though. Callista is a nurse who lost a patient because of negligence and had a bad time trying to get over it. This is her very first job after the events and the hospital being haunted does not help much. However, she makes a friend in a sick, orphan kid who seems to know all about Charlotte, whomever is behind the strange phenomena. Curiously, this is not exactly a horror film. I liked Darkness better, but this one is okay, I guess.

So what did I do with my time this weekend? Dinner with friends ... check, scuba diving with lobsters ... check, lunch at seaside ... check. And, of course, travelling to Sitges to watch Serenity. I did not bring my browncoat, though, it was still hot :)


Guess where I am?

The arrival was ok and we had this big, big poster of the movie with River unleashed at the door. We had to wait there to enter, but things went pretty fluid and we had the chance to meet the big, bad shark. It's the 30th anniversary of Jaws, after all.


This is such a quiet and peaceful place ...

Then, we had to go through the tipically boring talks of organizers and producers before, finally, Whedon, Fillion and Glau walked the corridor. I was lucky enough to be at the corridor end of the first row, so I even watched Whedon jokingly pushing Fillion when they climbed the stairs (too bad he did not fell, I was just behind :P)


I was soooo slow ...

Unluckily, they only had 5 minutes talk and neither Fillion, nor Glau said anything. Maybe they had some activity with the journalists later, but we had no access to that. Finally, we managed to watch the film.

Serenity is pretty much what was expected: a brightly written story with shiny dialogues and good acting. The plot is well tied up and could be a closing to the series (though, of course, most of us expect it is not), plus it includes most whedonesque tricks to keep you holding your breath until very much the end of the story. It would have fit well in the series, though, as Firefly had film quality. The cast did well, even though usually cheerful Kaylee was a bit out of character, all touchy and gloomy (she explains pretty explicitly why after 5 minutes, much to the captain regret) and ditto for Inara, who spends most of her screen time scared and out of control (of course, that was to be expected, given the plot). The rest are their usual selves. Plus River is not used in excess. Not much to comment in order to avoid spoilers to people who have not seen the film. What are you waiting for, though? :D


The big event

I watched this movie last sunday and liked it a lot. Sceptic as I am with horror movies lately, this one is basically like Dog Soldiers, a well constructed, simple and grounded flick. It focuses on a group of friends adicted to risk sports who decide to explore a cave together. The idea is to keep it easy, but the cave is not as simple as it should be and there is something more in the depth with them. This is the most I can say without spoiling the argument for people interested in watching the film, I'm afraid. More details in here

Plus Josh Whedon's Serenity is on the screen since friday!! I'll have to wait to watch this one, but not for long. Got tickets for the screening in Sitges next Sunday :)

Only 8 days to go ...


River Tam


Zoe Warren

Ok, so I was planning to dive, but the sea did not agree. And the second option to go deep was ...




The karst at Sorbas!
Never mind that I've never been in a cave, because of the three path options (easy, medium, hard), only the hard one was available that afternoon. We did ask how hard it was, but I'm afraid the guide did not believe us when we said we might not be fit enough.

And, at the very beginning of the cave, the guide points out an ill looking entrance and a shallow opening in the ground and asks "which one do you prefer, the difficult or the die-hard one?" and everybody points at the ground. And there I was, believing all the time it was a joke ...




...but this is actually my entry point. Hard to believe I could move through that.

But this is what you get for risking your physical integrity in a reckless way: a crystal cave! Plus I only damaged my left knee and even kept strength to reach the car later :)

If you ever go to Almeria, pay the karst a visit.

Busy lately, so only 2 :(
On stranger tides (Tim Powers), a quite strange pirate story with voodoo and magic all mixed up. As usual, Powers blends the action with real historic characters like Blackbeard, Ponce de Leon or quite less known Ann Bonny (main character in one of Zoe -never read anything from this woman if you and I have any likeness- Valdes' books) and gives a magical explanation to some events (like the earthquake that erased Port Royal from the planet). Part of it looks like Monkey Island, in a more serious style. Not amazing, but okay.
Ilion (Dan Simmons). I dunno why I read this one. I have read Simmon's Hyperion 4-books saga and I did not like it at all until I read the last one. As usual, Simmons makes it impossible to understand at all what is happening and develops 3 or 4 apparently unconnected threads that are too brainy for me, with all those references to Shakespeare and such. Plus, I'm afraid I'm bond to read the next one :(

... but since I have to use planes, I'm doomed.

And there was I at Fiumiccino Airport, thinking that, for the first time in my life, I was not having delays neither in the go or return trip. Because, of course, they did not warn about it until it was time to move into a plane. One hour estimation. And when people protested, they seemed to be surprised and said something like "just one hour?". Yep, it could have been two or three days, go ahead, it's just MY time.

Of course, ALITALIA stands for: Always Late In Take-off All Luggage in Alger ...

So how do you make 2.5 equal to 5? Just take an Alitalia plane, kids!

I just found this pic in my hard drive from a trip to Mexico DF. Does not look like I'm at the Museum or Archaeology, does it? In fact, I was not even alone in the picture, but that is Photoshop 4U ...

So the summer is over and I did not really do much, or maybe I did, but I'll leave that for the time when I've got pictures available :P

For starters, a brief review of movies I watched this summer:

Sin City: cool, very much like the comic, panel by panel. In fact, exactly like the comic, which might be good, or not, depending on who you ask. I spent a good time. Half the people in the cinema walked away at the middle of the film, though. Too much violence for your average neighbour (unless you live in Malaga, that is).

The skeleton key: a flick on voodoo ... sorry, hoodoo. A young woman arrives to an ancient southern house to take care of the owner, who stopped speaking some months ago. Now, the house seems to be enchanted, but she does not believe in ghosts ... yet. Much more predictable that the script writer thought, but nice, anyway. Kate Hudson played okay and the environment was well captured.

The island: did not like it much. It was so obvious that you could state how it would go from the very first minute. I should have known when I realized in horror (too late) that it was directed by that Armageddon and Pearl Harbor guy. Anyway, I went there to see Ewan McGregor and that I did.

Plus I watched on DVD the two Bourne films. Quite good, both of them. Not so original, though, if you've read Van Hamme and Vance's XIII for the last decade or so, but fun to watch, anyway.

And now in buffer, Charlie and the chocolate factory, Dark Waters, Mr and Mrs Smith, and the Nightwatch!

See ya around!