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Heh. The church I went to was pentacostal. They didn't actually make women do anything. Just suggested to the youth to dress modestly.

It wasn't a big deal. And I did see some ladies with the top of their bosom showing.  And I confess, I thought it was lovely.

Could it possibly be the case that these Teens-4-Christ are followers of a Protestant Christian faith but just don't realise it because they're lacking any kind of historical awareness? Or have I just got it a bit wrong?


Nope you're pretty much right there. A lot of the fundamentalist (whatever that means, since a lot of so called fundamentalists belief's aren't that fundamental to the actual Bible), pentacostals , and other evangelical churches are classed broadly as protestant. There are differences between them (thank goodness) but they supposedly share the belief that the just shall live by faith, that you can speak to God directly without an intermidiary and you don't require a priest for absolution.

A lot of those beliefs are actually very good in fact, but then you get those bigotted 'fundamentalists' (note the quotes) who are judgemental and bigotted and give the rest a bad name.

When I used to go to Church they taught the girls to dress modestly (although much of them dressed pretty much how they wanted but they mostly kept their cleavage covered.) Part of the reason was to keep men from lustfull thoughts about them an chances of fornicating etc.  

However, no matter how a woman dresses, when a man rapes a woman, the only one guilty is that man. Period. Its not like men have a homing device fitted to their John Thomas is it? They've got self control regardless how randy they feel.

I've been watching Lost season 3 these last 3 days and it really does have quite a DT feel to it. Not the story matter of course but the idea of the Island giving what is needed etc.

As for Halle Berry playing Susanah, she's got the right look, and I've often thought she'd be good for the Odetta Holmes persona, but I'm not so sure about the other characters (Detta Walker and Susannah). She's good at the polite soft spoken thing but I'm not sure of her scope for the other roles.  I've heard she was good in Monster's Ball though so I could be wrong. (Did she play the big green blob?  Sorry bad joke.)

Personally I think Gina Torres would be good in the role. (If you can't place her, she played http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoe_Washburne">Zoe in Firefly and Serenity.) She can do the sweet soft spoken thing but she can portray an edge to here roles too that would be ideal for Susannah.

By the time this comes out (let face it it'll likely be a couple of years at least yet)I think both of them would be pushing it a bit age wise (for playing the role of Susannah I mean). I hope they give a new up and coming actress a chance though.

As for George Cloony as Roland as that website suggested....

Please... no....

I agree concerning the way the Dark Tower villains were built up. I had hoped for more too.

The very end I did like though. The very end I mean, although the bit with the Crimson King in the Tower was a bit questionable. I didn't mind the use of Patrick, but this weird santa clause relying on technology to fight Roland when he's supposed to be a hugely powerful entitiy who can kill with a thought?

I figure he must have lost much of his power due to events in the book, and Black House, or maybe the Tower is exerting some kind of dampening field for his magic... but it was a bit of a let down just the same. And Walter... well it was suitably horrific but way too soon.

And as a whole I loved the series.

Concerning the film of the Shining, it's a great film but you don't get the sense of character progression, (or rather 'degression' would be more apt) of Jack that you do in the book.

Story spoilers ahead for book and film:
I.e. in the book he is a recovering alcoholic but basically an ordinary decent man with a dark side which came out when he drank.  

The influence of the house essentially causes him to turn mean as time goes on, ending in the results of the finale of the book. Jack Nicholson's portrayal of Jack always seemed somehow rather dark from the start so his ending isn't really a surprise.

However, as a basic horror story, Kubrick's Shining is excellent, one of the few horror films which truly gave me the creeps. I.e. it's different from King's book but both have their pros and cons.

As for the series, I only saw a bit of it, so I can't really comment on the quality as a whole. It seemed closer to Kings book though, particularly the journey of Jack. The ending is probably the lightest of all three versions though. As far as Jack's character is concerned, I mean.

Also another one that hasn't been mentioned here yet is Ring. The book shits all over the movie, i mean the novel is actually quite freaky wheras the movie is well.. Pop trash basically, with heaps of stuff needlessly changed around.


I found the film the more scary of the two. For example that stuff where the dead girl comes out of the TV set is really chilling stuff. but the book was interesting and complete particularly in combining mystery with horror.  And as you say very freaky I assume you're referring to what we find out about the ... 'girl'...

As for the film I never entirely got into it although I've sat through it a couple of times. I'm not sure why... I think there are a lot of drawn out sequences where the film seems to meander along and I found my mind wandering. Either that or I was just tired when I watched it. Interestingly those kind of sequences are often interesting reading in a book, but boring in film translation... if that makes sense. I'm referring to those sequences between the chilling moments of course.

I hope they show it again on TV soon though as I'd like to give it a proper go.

I am referring to the original Japanese film. I haven't seen the American version, and I don't feel enclined to. It might be a great film for all I know, but I'm just not keen on the idea of American remakes of foreign (to them) cinema. Or series.

Generally the books of a story are better than the films. Some exceptions I would list would be:

Blade Runner.
It was simpler than the book "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep", but for me the book was a little too weird. Not that I don't like some strangness, but I found Blade Runner more palatable. With the new scenes in Director's Cut it also incorporated some of the questions of the book but in a more subtle way.

Shawshanke Redemption.
Actually this cuts very close as it is very very similar to Kings novella. This might be because with adaptions of short stories, the films often end up expanding on the story rather than summarising, like when a film comes from a novel. There was just something about the film adaption though.. and the happy ending although to be fair, King's ambiguous ending worked in it's own way too.

Um... can't think of anything else off-hand, but I think there are others.

Looks interesting. I saw an advertisement for this. I didn't realise they were going to move it to the 80s and continue the time travel theme though, I figured it was a spin-off based entirely on the 'guv'nor' character. I assume the original guy won't appear in it even though- End of series Life On Mars spoilers: he went back to the 70s in the end.

She doesn't look like she's aged that much considering how long it's been! I didn't even know they were doing another X-filed movie until I came across this thread minutes ago.

As for the series, it was a favourite of mine at the time but I got a bit tired of it in the later seasons. I wasn't that keen on the last episode either.

I actually didn't mind he film though.

Two hands! I saw that some while back. I thought he was in it but I couldn't remember the films name.

Interesting film, quite original in it's own way. Has some intersting surreal moments where Heath Ledger's dead brother (ironically) acts as narrator.

I didn't realise he was the guy who was playing the Joker in batman. I've seen him in the clips before hand but I just didn't put the two together if that makes sense.

As for the religious fanatics, let me say, I was brought up in a Christian household, and those guys give Christians a bad name. In fact I'm not sure I would even class them as true Christians as true Christianity is concerned with forgiveness and love (in the giving, treat others how you'd like to be treated sense, not in a sugary or sexual sense.) not hatred. In fact hatred should be the complete antithesis of Christianity.

True, Christianity is generally anti homosexuality, and my Church (or rather former Church as I'm not fully practicing any more) were no exception, but that deosn't mean they would advocate hatemongering and bringing hurt to the families of the deceased. Even if he was gay (and he wasn't he was playing a role) they wouldn't advocate that.

I like the Beano style pictures on that site.

It is stated it the timeline section that the police worked under the Judges, but then the Judges completely replaced them. That could explain the appearance of police in earlier stories, although I would have thought that the change over would have happened a good deal earlier.

The double logo is redundant, that's for sure, but I'm not fussed about it.

Redundancy can be a good thing in terms of advertising the mag. I'm not sure how sales are doing. Whenever I go into W H Smith I see a number of Marvel comics but rarely any 2000 AD or Judge Dredd. Whether that's a bad thing or not I'm not sure (i.e. are they not there because they aren't stocked, or is it because they're snapped up quickly?)  Doesn't really affect me as I subscribe to 2000 AD (not the other one though).

Curious thing is a couple of months ago I saw a whole bunch of Judge Dredds in the shop. I haven't seen any since though. My local comic store seems to have back issues, but I've yet to see anything uptodate. Marvel and DC though, they've got by the chockload. (Chockload? Did I invent a new word there?)

Just read it an hour or so ago.
Minor spoilers, but this is a spoilers thread. Still, I won't give much away since some won't get this until Wednesday; usual spoiler tags where I the line is a bit thing...


Dredd- Nice story progression and some genuine mystery here. I like how most of the citzens of Mega City 1 can't spel propurlie... ..yet PJ Maybe somehow still turned it into a trademark.

Shakara- Again, like last week not just the basic hack and slash that we had previously. Interesting to see that Shakara, for all it's/his homicidal tenacity (wow!) does have an ethical code of a sort...

Kingdom- Not an over lot of action this prog, but that's a good thing otherwise it could get one dimensional. Adding a little bit of foreshadowing and mystery too, that things in this idyllic farming community might not be entirely what they seem. Intersting gag about the old man going to a farm somewhere, a bit of reversal between man and dog there.  Assuming that's what it meant!

Stickleback:  I'm really liking this! I like the characters, the old setting and the mixture of Victorian gangsters and mysticism. And a whole twist concerning the jewel that I haven't come across before!

Strontium Dog: I like the mix of SF with western bar antics but it feels a bit been-there-seen-that, even though I haven't read much Strontium Dog. Still good fun though, and if I see this as the weakest part of the prog, it's only comparatively so.

Just because SD doesn't mention Mega-Cities on Earth doesn't mean they're not there, especially when the SD stories mostly are set off Earth. I recall that some cities/nations/regions are mentioned in the final colour episodes of Final Solution, but I don't remember any contrdictions.

Fair enough. As I said I'm a relative newcomer to 2000 AD (I started a bit before they finished off origins, bought as back issues.)

Not sure what you mean by two atomic wars. Do you man the Great Atom War of 2070 begun by Booth and the Great War of 2150? No contradition here, given the dates.
I think so. The first being the  nuclear war that created the cursed Earth and the resulting mutants in the Judge Dredd stories and the second being the war with the strontium fall-out which created Johnny Alpha and the other  mutants of those stories. Again fair point concerning the dates.

I guess the main problem really is that there is little reference to the events of Judge Dredd in the SD story lines, but then again that doesn't mean they didn't happen as you point out.