The rites themselves have changed in practice if not in spirit, and the movie rekindles enough of its ancestor’s spirit that it’s hard to imagine a better result. What more were all the naysayers expecting?

This article is filed under Best Movies, Death, Great Britain, Horror, Movies, Mystery, Mythology, Religion, Satire, The Fourth Wall, Thrillers.

Obsessed with the idea of apocalypse, the child whose world is on the verge of unwinding takes comfort in the fantastic tales of sea serpents and ravenous wolves, tortured demi-gods and Yggdrasil—the tree that holds the world in its branches. The thin child finds a way to live in these stories, which vividly reflect the terrors, uncertainties, and vicissitudes of life in a way that both “the sweet, cotton-wool meek and mild” Jesus and “the barbaric sacrificial gloating” Old Testament deity fail to do.

This article is filed under Books, Fiction Reviews, Mythology.

For those who have not been scared off by now, I think we could all use a stiff drink before tuning in next summer for Season 5. Which I know I will. Season 4 had a few too many stops, starts, and jerky turns, but True Blood seized its bloodthirsty mojo back at the finish line.

This article is filed under Death, Horror, Mystery, Mythology, Phobias, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Television, The Fourth Wall, Thrillers.

The idea of hunting mythical trolls with the technological advantages of modern storm chasing and large game management is a clever one. The development and execution of the story, however, fall flat in one sequence after another. Thomas, Kalle, and Johanna are students roving the breathtaking Norwegian countryside in search of a bold, incisive scoop for their documentary on bear poaching. Instead, they meet up with a gruff, mysterious character named Hans, who is after something else entirely.

This article is filed under Movies, Movies & TV, Mythology.

Borne on the crest of the wind, I hear already the lamentation of women. Women whose dates have dragged them, possibly by the hair, to the late summer picture show. By now many of you know that Lionsgate will soon release a new film entitled Conan The Barbarian. Most of you will recall a cult classic by the same name from 1982, which was the breakout role of a certain Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This article is filed under Best Books, Best Movies, Graphic Novels, Movies, Mythology, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Short Stories, The Fourth Wall.

A cleverly rendered fantasy world has the power to make us believe astounding things, and to transport us to places we may never have imagined ourselves. In the history of film there have been countless attempts to take real-world places and performers outside the realm of what has been seen before, and into far-off lands where the amazing, the terrifying, and the marvelous lurk around every corner.

This article is filed under Art, Best Movies, Horror, Humor, Japan, Literary Themes, Movies, Mythology, Science Fiction and Fantasy, The Fourth Wall.

I asked them why they, unannounced, wished to meet with the director and they told me that they had just discovered Noah’s ark in Turkey. As I had met a few others along the way conning people with this ark stuff I asked to see the proof. He immediately pulled out a black and white photo showing what looked like a rock cliff and asked, ‘What do you see?’ I looked at it closely and replied, ‘All I can see is that someone took a ballpoint pen and drew a photo of a ship on the rock face’. They replied, in that charming Tennessee accent, ‘Well, it’s a bit hard to see so we’all took a ball point pen and highlighted it for ‘y’all.’

This article is filed under Anthropology, Archeology, History, Mythology, Non-Fiction Reviews, Religion.

Some films were meant to be viewed in three dimensions, but this one wasn’t. Clash of the Titans was not made for 3D, but converted after filming. Director Leterrier says, “The conversion to 3D adds incredible depth to each scene, enhancing the story and providing an all-encompassing ‘Clash’ experience.” That’s debatable: seeing this movie, audiences may wonder for the first time if Avatar (which also starred Worthington) changed cinema for the better or for the worse.

This article is filed under Movies, Movies & TV, Mythology.

‘Can there have been any more inspiring vision this century than that of the Earth from space?’ exclaimed Lovelock, looking back. ‘We saw for the first time what a gem of a planet we live on. The astronauts who saw the whole Earth from Apollo 8 gave us an icon that has become as powerful as the scimitar or the cross.’

This article is filed under Environment, Mythology, Non-Fiction Reviews, Philosophy, Science.

Some say that the story of the Kingdom of Fanes is an epic that goes back to the Bronze Age in the Dolomites. How could such a story come down to us? No one in those parts knew writing, three thousand years ago or more. We don’t even know what languages people spoke then in the Dolomites. And what kind of kingdom could that have been?

This article is filed under History, Italy, Mythology, Non-Fiction Reviews.

“In waking we tend to think The Dream vanishes, evaporates in daylight like morning dew on grass. But it doesn’t. The unsettling Matrix-esque truth here is that we all live in world-simulations, pretty much all of the time. The brain isn’t out in the world; it’s locked in a dark box in your head. Patterns of information ting against our senses and get routed into the brain for model assembly. One of the core insights of the science of perception is our models of the world are heavily interpreted—our own expectations and cultural mores and personal history shape “The Real,” so that in some ways our personal little submarines move through an ocean of our own making.”

This article is filed under Mythology, Non-Fiction Reviews, Psychology.

In Alem’s world-view, one might expect to see objects morph into people, animals writhe in henna tattoos, and stones grant bearers restoration or doom. There are no rules of physics in this vision of Mecca and the city springs up like a character itself, imbued with its own sacred significance.

This article is filed under Fiction Reviews, Mythology, Saudi Arabia.

By the time we come to T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway in the 1920’s, we find a hero characteristic of the period of entre les deux guerres: he is either passive and/or maimed in his masculinity; that is, fatally in his (phallic) heroism.

This article is filed under Literary Themes, Mythology, Non-Fiction Reviews.