Paulo Seabra

For some reason I tend to dislike most things when I first discover them. It's often true for books, music, TV shows, and of course, movies. It's a weird thing but it's true. Although in this case, I might give myself a pass because The Exorcist is, to say the least, a strange movie. When it was first released it was a complete and utter cultural shock. People would feel consumed by a kind of morbid curiosity, they'd form huge lines to get into the theater, and some would even find ways to sneak in despite their age, something which, in the seventies, wasn't all that difficult. And after all that, they'd walk back out in utter shock... Some would even have panic attacks, they'd throw up or faint, they'd describe the scarier scenes and their voices would shake when mentioning the tiny details. I for one can't say my initial reaction was at all similar to that, and though a lot of people report some bizarre coincidences taking place when watching the ...

People who love one of these stories tend to either really love, or at times really hate, the other. I guess it's just one of those sports teams kind of thing. Anecdotally, I'd say that there are more fans of Berserk who delved into A Song of Ice and Fire rather than the other way around, perhaps because the former, while universally beloved amongst manga fans, didn't quite achieve the same level of international fame throughout its ongoing run and adaptations, whereas Game of Thrones was a colossal hit. In any case, and being a fan of both, the comparisons between them got me thinking, and when going through the main themes within each story, I've found quite a few similarities which, if anything, are fun to point out. Before even getting into the stories themselves we can find some interesting meta stuff in that both stories began quite a while ago, Berserk in 1989 and Ice and Fire in 1996, both born into a certain medium, manga and novels respectively, but they...

We've all seen the videos – all that stuff that goes on in farms and slaughterhouses, the hunts, the bullfighting arenas, or even just random people doing what they feel like for whatever reason. The first two tend to be just everyday people doing their jobs with exactly the same numbness and boredom as the rest of us. The other two seem to be people doing what they consider to be their craft or art as part of their upbringing or culture. And the last one, much more befuddling, appears to be composed of people who have some kind of strange obsession with cruelty. While that last instance seems to be the worst one, it's still the case that the vast majority of us become quite upset when witnessing any kind of animal cruelty, be it in a picture, a video or even a scene in a movie. We cry, we turn away, we become nauseous, and so on. Interestingly enough, we find it funny when the bullfighter gets the horns, and in monster movies, we feel more sorry for the dog than for any of the...

Well, a few things to get out of the way before I begin. First, the episode I'm gonna talk about, that you probably already guessed from the picture, isn't considered the best. Indeed, the episode I liked most is currently ranked seventh on IMDB. Second, I only watched the show up to the third season, which obviously means I haven't watched all the episodes to know for sure that this is the best one. Third and last, this article comes more or less in continuity with another which I previously wrote, also not very laudatory of the show, which you can, if you want to, read here. The episode I wanna talk about in this article is [303]  Shut Up and Dance. The first thing I found interesting about this episode is that, in a show about very futuristic technology, it has no futuristic technology. As far as I can remember, all gadgets featured therein are real and currently available. So without the usual tech gimmick, what does the episode hinge on? Well, the theme here is black...

You heard it all by now – Game of Thrones sucked. Everyone and their aunt-girlfriend has talked about it. I won't go into too much detail about it but suffice it to say that I agree with the majority opinions, namely that the show was rushed, that every ounce of logic went out the window so as to give way to cool shots, that characters stopped making any sense, that everything the show was built on was totally forgotten, such as the political intrigue, the house allegiances, old oaths and rivalries, all that and then some. On a positive note, the dragon CGI was an ace. But was it enough to save the show? No, not really. Cool vistas, even very cool ones, only get you so far. If the story isn't any good then the charm of the visuals just wanes with each subsequent viewing. For example, as a huge fan of the first four seasons, I still often find myself rewatching random dialogue scenes from those episodes, just for the smart characters and the political complexity. But on my seco...

Estou a ler Marcel Proust pela segunda vez... Há quem diga que é comum da parte dos seus leitores iniciarem uma segunda leitura logo após a tortura que é a primeira. Quanto a mim posso dizer que seja esse o caso. Quando li este primeiro volume pela primeira vez decidi que não tinha interesse em ler os outros seis, mas depois mudei de ideias e li-os. Mas li quase como que só para poder dizer ter lido. Então o objetivo seria não mais pensar no livro mas isso afigurou-se estranhamente impossível. Surgia uma crescente curiosidade em ler sínteses ou resumos e ficava-me sempre aquela surpresa depois de ler sobre um acontecimento do qual já não tinha memória. Por isso é que me proponho agora a uma segunda e muito, muito mais demorada leitura, para que possa compreender o livro pelo menos o suficiente para dizer qualquer coisa interessante sobre ele. Em relação ao título deste artigo, do qual planeio fazer uma série, decidi usar o termo que usei porque nenhum outro me pareceu mais correto. Nã...