Ahira's Hangar

I've never seen The Ghost and the Darkness. But if it's one of your favorites, I might check it out...

The last few days I've had Waking Life spinning in my DVD player. Watched the movie, then watched it again with the director's commentary, then a third time with commentary by the animation crew. I had already watched the movie once last year, but I never got around to the commentary tracks until now. This is a beautiful gem of a movie, made by Richard Linklater who I think is one of the best independent filmmakers around.

Putting it crudely, Waking Life is basically about a guy who wanders around, and meets all kinds of people along the way who have a lot of things to say about...life, the universe and everything. The question is: is it all really happening or is the guy just dreaming it? Or maybe the question doesn't really matter...

I''ll warn you straight up that some scenes in Ghost and the Darkness are gross. I use them as bathroom and/or getting a drink of water breaks. The Ghost and The Darkness are the names of two man eating lions. The British were building a railroad in east Africa in the late 1800's, and two male lions decided that the railroad camps were their personal pantries. They ate (if I remember correctly) somewhere between 150 and 200 people. The movie is based on the memoir of the military engineer in charge of building the bridge over the river gorge at Tsavo, where the lions operated. He was the one who had to track down and try to kill the lions - while they were tracking down and trying to kill him. Great adventure story.

Incidentally, if you ever want to visit the two actual lions, they have been stuffed and mounted and are on display at the Field Museum in Chicago. The real ones do not have the gorgeous manes that the lions used in the movie have. The movie lions are actually fully maned and beautiful lions from a zoo in Canada! The real life ones are manleess and scruffy looking.

They had originally wanted to film the movie with fake lions, but the movie looked fake, so they used well trained actual lions in the parts of The Ghost and The Darkness. Some of the scenes with the lions throwing around the humans and playing with them like house cats playing with mice are rather disturbing (as are the killing/eating scenes).

Oh, and while the real life events took place in east Africa (I cannot recall if it was Kenya or Tanzania), the film was shot in South Africa. It is absolutely gorgeous.

I had no idea about that bit of history. Okay, I will search out that movie.

The Field Museum site with info about the real lions. It turns out that it was in Kenya (I could not remember if it was in Kenya or Tanzania), and they ate somewhere around 140 people in about nine months.

If you look at the pics, you will see that the lions they cast in the movie are much healthier and beautiful looking than the real guys, who were scarred up and scruffy.

Zoo meals must be be healthier than eating humans.

There was some sort of epidemic amongst their normal prey animals in the years preceeding the attacks, so the scientists think that might have had something to do with their unusual dietary choices.

Hahaha, I actually wrote a long article on the story once...it doesn't exist online anymore, but I might have a soft-copy somewhere.

--A

Nims Island, a very cute children's movie starring Abigail Breslin as a little girl living on a remote Pacific island with her father and Jodie Foster as a very neurotic adventure writer afraid to leave her apartment in the US. When Nim's father goes missing in his boat during a storm, Nim asks the writer for help via email The writer is certainly not the rugged adventure hero she writes about, but perhaps has more courage than she herself thinks...

Since I loved the TV series, I thought I would give Sex and the City a try. Those fashion sequences and all of the product placement for ridiculously overpriced designer stuff was awful. I liked the Miranda/Steve storyline, and it was as good and meaningful as a storyline they would have had on the show. As was the Smith/Jones storyline, if it had had a bit more time to be developed. They did not have enough of Charlotte and especially her husband - I have a huge crush on Harry and consider him a near perfect romantic hero. As for the Carrie...well, I have never really warmed up to Mr. Big, so 'nuff said.

We watched Mongol tonight, and it was the sort of historical epic I did not think that they made anymore. I think some people might consider it a bit slow paced, but I really liked it, as did my husband. Now I need to run to the library to see if they have any biographies of Ghenghis Khan, because his life looks absolutely fascinating. And it was a gorgeous movie - breath taking cinemography,

Glad you liked Mongol, Duchess. It's been recommended to me for my role playing in Pantheon, since my character's followers are nomadic. But since I had heard nothing else about it, I haven't looked for it yet.

Have not heard the Mongolian kind, but a few years ago I heard Inuit throat singers live in concert with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Quite an extraordinary sound throat singing makes.

Haven't watched it yet, but I've purchased Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho - a newly remastered 2-disc edition. A perfect Halloween movie. (I had already seen Psycho on TV. This is the first time I have it on DVD.)

Bought the Police's Certifiable DVD/CD set and just finished watching the concert and the documentary feature, which was shot by Jordan Copeland - how many relatives does Stewart Copeland have working for the band??

The Buenos Aires concert was a good show (well, obviously, or they wouldn't have released it) with some interesting reinterpretations of their songs. The documentary showed the three guys to be just as wry and irreverent as they were all those years ago. This release is a nice treat for those of us who could not attend any of the band's reunion tour stops.

This week I have managed to watch eight of the ten episodes of Band of Brothers in honor of Veterans Day. I think the kids will be giving Iron Man quite a workout this weekend.

We have had an expanded edition Lord of the Rings marathon lately. Great stuff.

Today I also watched The Queen with Helen Mirren. It was a low key very well made movie, and I could see why it was up for so many awards.