Anyone Who Hasn’t Seen Scott Pilgrim Is Missing Out.

I love this shot.

When you look at sci-fi stories like Star Wars, especially, there's so much more to it than just the technology. It comes back to this idea of "the Force" which I think is based on a lot of Eastern philosophy and religious ideas of "you can either be on the dark side or the light side". It's kind of that Yin and Yang sort of look at energy as a whole. Star Wars has a second meaning to it.

I mean, George Lucas himself even admitted that Star Wars was an allegory for the Vietnam War, especially around Nixon trying to get reelected. He even mentions that democracies aren’t taken, they're given away. Though I also know that he also borrowed significantly from the legends of King Arthur.

I think there's a lot of meaning in sci-fi in general. It's a way to comment on our reality and our current situation through another lens. I think that's the beauty of sci-fi in general. It's also why I think the most recent Star Wars movies got negative reviews, because they were trying to tell Star Wars stories and not real-life stories.

It's a great reflection tool. If Star Wars is about Vietnam, then Dune is about the Middle East. Because Arrakis the planet = Iraq. Spice is the resource, oil is the resource. At the core of it, I think that's the whole point.

A scene from Studio Ghibli's most timeless, underrated masterpiece....

It's worth mentioning that Miyazaki has a personal affinity with pigs. He often draws himself as a pig and even created a whole film starring a man turned pig, "Porco Rosso" (I love it. The end.).

EL OMBLIGO DE LA LUNA (Animated Short Film, 2023. Gobelins)

Mythic stories fall into several categories. There are sagas, epics, and fantasy stories called "märchen." These stories depend on something difficult for us to conceive these days: Simplicity or the "Logic of the Fairy Tale." In other words: things are just what they are, because that’s just the way they are.

These stories frequently examine or teach a moral lesson, exalting it or exposing a particular flaw. If the story is a parable or doctrinal, one of its goals is to delineate the characters as "types" in order to illustrate this basic lesson, characters which make the story whole and who are also contained by it. The lives of these "types" can and must have links with the past and the future but their role ends with the story.

In a magic story, the flow is more important than the logic. Man invented monsters to explain the entire universe (Norse and Greek mythology, for example). Once man began to live in an organized way, with a "social contract," an abyss was opened up between his instincts and his thoughts, and monsters started to REPRESENT another universe altogether: man's inner universe. The pagan prefigures the social and offers us a glimpse of the deepest reaches of man's soul, articulating a primordial, savage universe, populated by elves, fauns, ogres, faeries, trolls, and demons.

A Dictionary of Symbols by J. E. Cirlot.

An essential piece of literature.

This is a book that can help you interpret paintings, cipher and decipher art, and view the world in a different light.

BBC News

Tutankhamun's knife was 'made from meteorite iron'

A dagger entombed alongside the mummy of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun was made with iron that came from a meteorite, researchers say.

In other news: King Tut's knife was likely forged from alien metals, scientist say.

Really like the costumes on these guys (designed by the great Sid and Marty Krofft).

The official movie poster for "Fire and Ice" (1983 film directed by Ralph Bakshi) by fantasy artist Frank Frazetta.

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander.

The Chronicles of Prydain is a masterful book series full of magic and chills (The Horned King and Annuvin).

Give it a try!

Flesh and Blood (stylized as Flesh+Blood) by Paul Verhoeven.

Verhoeven's first English-language film.

15th century brutality, superstition and politics, Verhoeven style.

This film wasn't a smash hit, probably owing to it being outrageously dirty (and its immensely depressing depiction of 15th century life), but it was critically acclaimed.

Inspired Berserk creator Kentaro Miura.