Дневной дозор

I have to admit there were bits I liked about Day Watch and bits that I didn't. Overall I was rather unsatisfied on leaving the cinema. Don't get me wrong, I liked the film and they managed to maintain much of the ambience of Night Watch. It's just there is a technique to telling a story that I really don't like, but since it involves a fundamental part of the resolution of the movie I shall write it in white in a white box so as not to spoil people. I still think Zavulon (the King of Darkness) continues to be one of the coolest Dark Lords around – until he loses his cool that is. He continues his manipulations par excellance from the first movie. I was absolutely jealous of his ability to tango (at his wedding with Alicia) – great choreography. And I adore the fact that he and Gesser (the Lord of Light) keep ending up having "friendly" conversations with each other. If one is currently in a truce with one's opponent one might as well be civil about it. You constantly get the feeling that in the chess game between the Light and Dark Gesser is outmatched (which is true) and just relying on the fact that "Good always triumphs in the end." [While there was a hint of the traditional flaws of Evil in the conclusion of the "wedding subplot," it seemed to have little effect on the overall conflict.] I suspect that a lot of this movie ended up on the cutting room floor in order to reduce its overall running time, leaving it rather disjointed in places. Then again, I admit that I was constantly being distracted by attempting to read the russian signs (which considering that I have to transliterate the cryllic alpabet into the greek alphabet and then into the latin alphabet means I definitely lack a certain fluency). But at least I am starting to remember a little bit of spoken russian. Then again there is some good (if slightly surreal) cinema coming out of russia these days (and if it is nor directly surreal it's usually a James Bond style action movie starring the russians, which is surreal in it's own way). ( spoilers within ) It will be interesting to see what happens in the third film, although a number of people who saw the film are lamenting with me the fact that the next film will be produced by Hollywood. Hopefully it won't lose the fundamental Russian character that suits the genre so well. And maelorin will be happy to know that a song from his favourite Ukranian band (Verka Serdyuchka) was playing during the party scene.

the postman cometh

Just received my copies of Colosseum, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, and Caylus. [Maybe I should have looked at other letters of the alphabet too...] I must say that a good bit of the fun in getting a new boardgame is punching out the pieces, although this is rather expensive fun compared with, say, popping the bubbles of bubble wrap. ( A preliminary look at the games... )