"My mother told me to be wary of fauns."
Just got back from seeing Pan's Labyrinth with some friends.
I...wow. That was just...wow.
If anyone wants to discuss it further in the comments they can but for now, in brief and without any spoilers:
As far as fairy tales (and I mean real fairy tales here, the kind you get in the good old books that haven't yet been cleaned up trivialized) go, that was absolutely perfect. It was surreal and otherworldly and, yes, quite creepy as all hell at some junctions. The pacing and story quality was just exactly what you would expect from a classic story of a girl on a magic quest.
The story itself was well-told, both the "fantasy" and "real" elements, and all the major players are figures colored with very real layers of ambiguity (raise your hand if you seriously didn't trust the faun until the very end; I know I sure didn't).
I got out of the movie and was stunned by what time it was, because I was completely lost in the story while I watching it. It just didn't seem like that much time had really passed.
Visually the movie was stunning, and there were plenty of recognizable fairy tale archetypes throughout to keep the story moving. And, yes, this movie could do scary, or at least I sure thought so. The second task in particular had me freaking out pretty badly, from the point where it was made clear just what kind of a creature that thing was onward.
And some of the more graphic scenes...well, I'm kind of squeamish, so I almost thought they could have gone a little bit "less is more" at some points, but I am fully aware that that may just be me. The, uh, stitching part for example (if you've seen the movie, you know exactly what I mean) had me going "cut away, oh god, cut away already" after a certain point.
Overall, I give it a solid A-, and that's mainly because of the clear concession that this is obviously not a movie for everyone. I think I'll be getting it when it comes out in DVD.
And now, for something completely different: recently, I've gotten into the habit of drinking skim milk instead of 2% at the campus cafeteria because they tend to be out 2% more often than not. Well, it hasn't really bothered me, so I've been considering just going ahead and making it a permanant switch-over.
So I'm just asking out of the curiosity that maybe some of you guys will be better informed than I am: is it true that skim is healthier for you? What makes the real difference, exactly?
I...wow. That was just...wow.
If anyone wants to discuss it further in the comments they can but for now, in brief and without any spoilers:
As far as fairy tales (and I mean real fairy tales here, the kind you get in the good old books that haven't yet been cleaned up trivialized) go, that was absolutely perfect. It was surreal and otherworldly and, yes, quite creepy as all hell at some junctions. The pacing and story quality was just exactly what you would expect from a classic story of a girl on a magic quest.
The story itself was well-told, both the "fantasy" and "real" elements, and all the major players are figures colored with very real layers of ambiguity (raise your hand if you seriously didn't trust the faun until the very end; I know I sure didn't).
I got out of the movie and was stunned by what time it was, because I was completely lost in the story while I watching it. It just didn't seem like that much time had really passed.
Visually the movie was stunning, and there were plenty of recognizable fairy tale archetypes throughout to keep the story moving. And, yes, this movie could do scary, or at least I sure thought so. The second task in particular had me freaking out pretty badly, from the point where it was made clear just what kind of a creature that thing was onward.
And some of the more graphic scenes...well, I'm kind of squeamish, so I almost thought they could have gone a little bit "less is more" at some points, but I am fully aware that that may just be me. The, uh, stitching part for example (if you've seen the movie, you know exactly what I mean) had me going "cut away, oh god, cut away already" after a certain point.
Overall, I give it a solid A-, and that's mainly because of the clear concession that this is obviously not a movie for everyone. I think I'll be getting it when it comes out in DVD.
And now, for something completely different: recently, I've gotten into the habit of drinking skim milk instead of 2% at the campus cafeteria because they tend to be out 2% more often than not. Well, it hasn't really bothered me, so I've been considering just going ahead and making it a permanant switch-over.
So I'm just asking out of the curiosity that maybe some of you guys will be better informed than I am: is it true that skim is healthier for you? What makes the real difference, exactly?