Watching 'The Brothers Grimm' to get a good screenshot of the carriage used in that film as it is sometimes shared with the claim that it is a genuine Victorian carriage in stead of one designed by specifically by Guy Hendrix Dyas for this film.
What a lovely film it is.
Just look at this gorgeous sweetness.
And of course it's all a fairytale sort of fantasy history so there's no real need to pay attention to historical accuracy.
Mind you, even though this isn't the middle ages, we have someone emptying a bucket from a window into a street.
Don't people realise how silly this is?
No matter what era, even in the rain, anyone, ever, would get angry if they walked underneath that.
It is so nice to watch a fairytale film by Terry Gilliam, for once I don't have to care about things that aren't historically correct, it's all nonsense, glorious, beautiful nonsense.
I'm not quite sure if this outfit is accurate.... ;)
Fantastic.
Ah the glorious Sir Jonathan Pryce!
Just a few of Napoleon's most trusted advisors.
Oh how I laughed ;)
Spoiler alert;
Peter Stormare looking spiffy!
Mackenzie Crook, Heath Ledger and the lovely Richard Ridings!
The cast in this film is amazing.
See, that's why you don't want muddy streets.
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RIP Maria Augustina Norberta (Ria) van Dijk, who died yesterday.
AKA "air rifle Ria" because of her habit of shooting at the photo rifle booth at fairs since 1936.
It was quite something back then but it's also just great to see our world change through these pictures.
🧵
Girls shooting rifles and being good at it was quite a thing in her part of the world back then, in her own way she was breaking barriers.
Not just by shooting but also by going her own way and running a drugstore in stead of just working in one.
1938
As Ria shoots, year after year, and wins, year after year, every bullseye gets her a photo to take home, showing not just her achievement but also her friends and random members of the public behind her.
This is Josef Menšík, the last owner and knight of Strakonicku castle in Dobrš who tried to stop a convoy of German tanks while wearing a suit of armour and seated on a horse when they tried to cross into Czechoslovakia in 1938.
Thread.
Menšík didn't like the modern world very much.
In 1911 he bought the neglected Dobrš castle in Strakonicku and renovated it.
He collected lots of old things and started living according to the values he attributed to Medieval knights.
He even had a suit of armour made in France.
Local school classes were invited to visit the castle and see his huge collection and learn about history.
Josef became a bit of a local celebrity.
Although I'm not that into fashion as a subject, the topic of this documentary sounded too good to ignore: The dramatic change of fashion in Europe during the middle ages.
I'm not too excited about the beginning, Visigoths being depicted as replacing elegance with poverty and barbarism.
They don't say 'dark ages', but you can hear they wanted to.
Game review!
Recently I was given a copy of the game 'War Mongrels' to check out, thanks developers!
The game is a strategy WW2 game that takes place on the Eastern Front but you get to play deserters, resistance members, secret agents, etc.
If you're old, like me, it will remind you of the classic 'Commandos' which I loved and more recently 'Partisans'.
You get this top view of cities, prisons, etc. and you then have to use the different abilities of the agents you get to control to solve problems.
Spoilers ahead;
The thing that makes this game different from Commandos and most other WW2 games is the subject.
You start with two German deserters at the east front and you get to witness the most gruesome parts of the war that many games shy away from.
The Germans organised many dog inspections, dogs big enough for "war work" were confiscated.
People were told they would be guard dogs but many were probably just send into mine fields.
So the dogs had to be big and heavy.
Some of these photos were taken secretly.
Thanks to the dog tax Germans knew exactly who owned a dog.
To save their canine friends (good) people tried all sorts of tricks to fool the Germans, like (temporarily) swapping their dog for a smaller one or sending it to the countryside and say it ran off or died.