Maremagnum

[FrisianDude]

That movie is, in fact, one of the best movies ever.

 

[NikeBG]

Chance to defend yourself ?You are joking,right?Inquisiton was the tool of catholic church against "enemies of the pope".You were guilty before you even try to defend yourself."Fight against heretics" was only the excuse for killing,looting and collecting more wealth.

I'm not so sure about that. I remember reading some statistics recently about what a small percentage of the trials of the inquisiton actually ended with an execution. It was pretty small, not more than 10%, probably even less (can't remember where I read it though, so I can't check). And most of those executions were in one relative period, somewhen during the Enlightenment, IIRC.


Edit: Oooooh, shiny armour!

 

[Витез]

I don't get it, what's so terrible about the Inquisiton?

Good question, considering other lawgiving (mostly your lord decided about your faith all by himself), at least you had a chance to defend yourself.

Chance to defend yourself ?You are joking,right?Inquisiton was the tool of catholic church against "enemies of the pope".You were guilty before you even try to defend yourself."Fight against heretics" was only the excuse for killing,looting and collecting more wealth.

Dude, I was kidding.
For God's sake, I have even put a link to History of the World - Part 1 - scene with inquisition.
It's a COMEDY film by Mel Brooks, so I was not serious. 

I know,but I replied on Shikaka's post.It looks to me,like he was serious.
Cheers !

 

[MihailoSRB]

Wow, I just got used to my new beardy avatar, when it was removed from the net.
This was the first time I didn't saved it to my PC, and then uploaded it here, but rather copied the link directly here.
And now, of course, I can't find that pic again. What a bummer... 

PS
I'm sure that a lot of you thought that I have written something about Gadaffi's death, when you saw a new message in Maremagnum.

Oooooh, shiny armour!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79k3lSRwMKs
The second armor, for the win.

 

[erik_3e]

Ok so I wasent sure where to ask for help and this is the only place where I actualy know that (atleast 1) spaniard hangs out.

So I was watching the movies REC and REC2 and I whant to find the woman who is the reporter in the movies fan site but I culdent find a fan site when looking but I only got english sites about her so I was wondering if any spanish wold like to help me find her fansite or if you know where one can find it.

Oh and her real name is "Manuela Velasco", damn I tell you DAMN!

 

[MihailoSRB]

Ok so I wasent sure where to ask for help and this is the only place where I actualy know that (atleast 1) spaniard hangs out.
So I was watching the movies REC and REC2 and I whant to find the woman who is the reporter in the movies fan site but I culdent find a fan site when looking but I only got english sites about her so I was wondering if any spanish wold like to help me find her fansite or if you know where one can find it.
Oh and her real name is "Manuela Velasco", damn I tell you DAMN!

I think my best friend liked her official fan page on Facebook.
I would send a link to you, but I do not have a FB profile.
However, I clearly remember the name of the group - Manuela Velasco (Oficial).
I remember it because I told my friend how they made a mistake and wrote ''official'' with 1 letter F,
but he told me that it's probably the Spanish equivalent to the word ''official''. 

Btw, pretty actress, reminds me a lot on Cate Beckinsale.

 

[NikeBG]

It is Easter Weekend! The Great holiday of Christendom! Be healthy and Be good!​

Le Christ est ressuscité des morts!                                                                                                            
Christ is risen from the dead!                                                                                    
Christus ist auferstanden!                                             
¡Cristo ha resucitado!                                                                                                      
Hristos Anesti!                                                                                                         
Krisztus feltámadott!                                                                                                         
Chrystus zmartwychwstan jest!                                                                                                         
Jezis Kristus vstal z mrtvych!                                                                                                        
Krishti u ngjall!                                                                                          
Mesih yükseldiği!                                                                                        
Христос Воскресе из мертвых!                                                                                        
Христос воскресе из мертвих, смертию смерт поправ, и сущим во гробйех, живот даровав!                                                          

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExPxiibKoMk&feature=relmfu​

Воистина воскресе!

 

[PrinceCantemir]

Hristos a înviat! Adevărat a înviat!

 

[NikeBG]

* May be that is why macedonians claim to possess the Cleopatra's burial place .

And why we (or at least some people here) claim that the Egyptian goddess Bastet is buried in Strandzha (which itself is nothing when compared to the similar case with Tsarichina and its "yellow monkey, first life on Earth").

* And what do you think about the "Old bulgarians", still present as solid families nowadays? I mean persons of darker appearance, mistaken gipsies, that have come here even before coumans and tatars?

Hmm, I'm not sure which ones do you mean. The Gagauz (I've heard some of them claim to be old Bulgars/Proto-Bulgarians)? Otherwise, darker Bulgarians are to be expected (heck, even my uncle looked quite dark, and generally my mother's side, although we're 100% Shops), considering we, although we're in quite a melting pot, are generally rather Mediterranean.

* And about this CoA of yours "a different race", it is impressive. I don't recognize any christian heraldry elements though... My german is poor, I wonder if someone won't read there something suggesting referrals to Volga-Kama All I can understand is "...kINGDOM BULGARIA...OF THE NOBLE? HOUSE ..." and that after some event smth happened to the kingdom/house.

I don't know, really. This is heraldika-bg's page where I got it from and it doesn't explain the text (but the site deals only with Danubian Bulgaria, and I doubt Volga Bulgaria had any kind of heraldry in the first place (even Danubian one barely has any)). From what I can read, it says something like (sorry, don't have Umlauts): "Koenigreich Bulgaria / so ben 80... (?) dem loeblichen Hauss Osterreich zugehoe(ren)... hat nachfolgende Bistumb gehabt." I presume it's part of the Austrian titulature from the Austro-Hungarian period, considering since 1202 the Hungarian king also styled himself as "king of Bulgaria" and respectively used his own kind of Bulgarian CoAs as well.
Edit: Asked a German friend of mine for translation: "Dem löblichen Haus Österreich zugehö[rig] means "belonging to the laudable house of Austria", hat nachfolgende Bistumb gehabt probably means "had owned the following Bishopric""
Btw, this is the site of heraldika-bg (I think I've posted it before), if quapitty or anyone else is interested.

 

[quapitty]

Btw, this is the site of heraldika-bg (I think I've posted it before), if quapitty or anyone else is interested.

I am - thanks a lot!
Dem löblichen Nike sei Dank!

 

[MihailoSRB]

Yesterday, believe it or not, I have watched the film Gladiator (2000) for the first time in my life.
For 12 years, many of my friends and colegues were saying to me: ''You like books, films and games abot Medieval and Classical Ancient history - then you must watch Gladiator, it's the best, it's amazing, it's fantastic...'' and similar things.
I didn't really had a reason for not seing it in 12 years, since it was released - I just didn't have a chance to watch it.
Funny thing. I watched all sort of crap, known and unknown (I even watched Citizen Kane recently to see why is it called ''one of the greatest''), but somehow I always missed to watch the Gladiator.
I finally wanted to see it last year, but then I saw another Ridley Scott's epic - the Kingdom of Heaven - and I was dissapointed, so that may be the case why I again passed on the Gladiator, until now.
So, I got a hold of Director's Cut. Saw it, and it was... OK.
It's weird actually, there was a massive amount of things that bugged me in this film, I even facepalmed myself once.
So many things that I didn't like, yet somehow, I couldn't dislike this film, in the end.
I'm a sucker for classical good vs. evil stories. Here we had our hero, and our villain. And although our hero died, he was victorious.
And the film was visually beautiful.
So yes, after all that hype, a solid OK from me, maybe even a ''rating'' of GOOD.
Although I haven't actually named any of the massive amount of things that bugged me, I will only do that if a die-hard fan of Gladiator responds to this post.
In the end, I enjoyed it, but I don't really know why that film has so much of a cult following.
It's certainly not a masterpiece in my book.

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

I have never liked Gladiator that much. And since people seem to adore it, I came to hate it a bit more every time someone said or wrote it was a great film.

It's not. The characters are bland and boring, the story is the same story as always, told a million times, and the historical ambientation sucks balls.

It's very simple, and at some points it bored me. Even the first time. Of course, Kingdom of Heaven is also boring, also bland and also badly ambientated, but at least in the director's cut the characters are given more depth, the ambientation is better and there's this mystical, magical backyard that I always enjoy, even if it's absurd and it's just shallow mysticism.

But Gladiator is incredibly overrated. Just because it has cool battles and nice pitfights doesn't mean it's a good film.

I'll rant about another one: Spartacus. Yes, the new 300-like series.

The characters are BORING. And I don't use caps lightly. BORING. The plot, erratic; the "conspiracies", absurd; the ambientation, terrible; the narrative... well, it's not flowing naturally. Either we're five episodes at the same place, or tens of things happen at the same time. Even the battles are lame and ridiculous. This guys are going to battle without any kind of armour or even leather protection, just for the sake of showing off abds and biceps and look cool? And they are slashing through chainmail and plate armour? No **** these gladiators are defeating the Romans being only 50, theuy're damn Supermen!

You can tell they are making up conflict just to leave it there in case they do another season, they're making it all along the way. The characters are so boring and bland that I don't give a damn of what happens to them. Half a season looking for some guy's girl and the main plot frozen only to realise I never knew she was taken in the first place, and that I really didn't care.

Which brings me to another thing: popular rating in series and movies. In my country we use this magnificent Argentinian website called Cuevana.com to see streaming movies without time limit in original sound (usually, English). There, people can rate the episodes and the films.

Some people have good criteria. Most of them don't. Besides rating low a movie just because the pluig-in didn't work (it wasn't the movie's fault in the first place), they just go and rate everything five stars. The most lousy film, the worst episode, five stars. Spartacus has a good rating because many people don't care about anything, they go for the gore, swallow everything they are given even if it's the most absurd, shallow and cliché show ever, and rate it five stars.

It doesn't say much of "the people" in general.

***

For example: people are eager for new truths and revelations. When they watch a documentary about conspiracies and hidden stuff, they go bananas and start feeling like they belong to an elite of people who know (now) how the world really works, and morover, they have someone to blame for all troubles in the world.

Let's check this famous documentary, Zeitgeist:

http://www.cuevana.tv/#!/peliculas/3124/zeitgeist-moving-forward

It's all bull****, from the first word to the last. Half truths, well chosen words and complete shameless lies. And still, some people will defend it to the death because it's what makes them feel special, and since they don't have much criteria, they trust the data and the facts explained in the video are true. they don't know about economy, they never met anyone with power or fortune. They don't know how the world works. I don't know either, but neither do these guys who "run the big scheme and try to enslave us all".

I, for one, love conspiracies, I love them. But I know most conspiracies don't work because people usually talk too much and make too many mistakes. I like that, it's how I know the US government is not hiding aliens in the Area 51. Governments are not made of unbreakable, godly-willed people who would die for the cause, it's made of people like all of us. People who like to impress the friends and who tell many things to couples and parents. So many Wikileaks cables and leaks, and damn, still nothing on secret 11-S inside job evidences, or alien-related stuff...

I'm not saying it can't be. But it is highly, highly unlikely.

****

Sorry, that's considerably longer than I planned, but it's written now, so I'll leave it as it is. Back to historical films:


There's even another thing from historical films that drives me mad.

TROUSERS. TROUSERS EVERYWHERE.

Gauls used trousers; hosemen used trousers, and not always, but then they started to use culottes, until the XVIIth Century. But in Hollywood, everyone wears goddamn trousers.

 

[NikeBG]

I first saw Gladiator when it was released in the cinemas (my mother still worked there, so it was free) and I quite liked it. Of course, I was still a kid then and had next to no knowledge of history (especially Roman one), so that was certainly a plus. When I look at it now, I think that as a movie it's good, as a historical movie not so good (just so I don't say it's quite bad), but what makes it "great" for me is the one thing that's always very important in the making of a great movie for me - music. Gladiator's soundtrack is certainly quite good (Hans Zimmer is, after all, one of the big names in his genre) and recognizable and that's an absolute requirement for the success of a "great movie", IMO. I mean, just try imagining Gladiator, or better yet - The Lord of the Rings, with some other, bland music! For a movie to gain a "greatness" status, you absolutely need great music, even if the movie isn't "the greatest ever". And that's the strongest part of Gladiator, IMO, and one of the main reasons why it's so popular (note that popularity is often taken for "greatness"). Besides the general appeal of watching some fighting in an arena, of course.

It doesn't say much of "the people" in general.

"In general" being the key phrase here (at least in my opinion). There was an interesting BBC documentary that I watched two winters ago, which is called "The century of the self". It deals with the development of the consumerist thinking in the last century and the first episode included one of the first steps in that direction, by a nephew of Sigmund Freud who realised how easily manipulatable people are, especially in groups. Basically, the bigger the mob, the dumber its members act. So there's no wonder that when we talk about people as a whole, we're all rather hopeless. And, yeah, I'm rather a pessimist for the future of humanity, though there's still some hope left in me nevertheless...

I, for one, love conspiracies, I love them. But I know most conspiracies don't work because people usually talk too much and make too many mistakes.

I like conspiracies too. Unfortunately (or rather - fortunately), when I hear/read the most far-fetched of them, I always keep thinking "Ok, so you've got this super-secret knowledge, which you've somehow got from the grasp of this world-controlling elite, and yet you walk around freely, distributing your message, undermining the foundations of that elite and they can't even arrange a suitable "accident" to happen to you?! Yeah, right, I sure am scared by them now, you've convinced me..."


Edit: Btw, look what I just found, as "a celebration" of a sort for the next patch (make sure to press the CC for the English subs)!

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

"I'll kill them all! All of them!" xD

 

[MihailoSRB]

I have never liked Gladiator that much. And since people seem to adore it, I came to hate it a bit more every time someone said or wrote it was a great film.
It's not. The characters are bland and boring, the story is the same story as always, told a million times, and the historical ambientation sucks balls.
It's very simple, and at some points it bored me. Even the first time. Of course, Kingdom of Heaven is also boring, also bland and also badly ambientated, but at least in the director's cut the characters are given more depth, the ambientation is better and there's this mystical, magical backyard that I always enjoy, even if it's absurd and it's just shallow mysticism.
But Gladiator is incredibly overrated. Just because it has cool battles and nice pitfights doesn't mean it's a good film.

Aside from many nitpicking elements I didn't like, I believe that the main problem lies in the scale of the story.
Are we supposed to believe that a Roman general, who was thought dead, returned as a gladiator and got his revenge in 1 on 1 combat with the EMPEROR OF ROME!? And further giving us (viewers) a ''hope'' that Rome would be a republic again, after the events of the movie, because it was Maximus' last wish?
Yea, right! 
They could have made for Russel Crowe's nemesis to be a Roman general or some other high-ranking Roman noble, so that he fights him in the arena, and gets his revenge or something. It would have been more beliveable. Yes, I know Commodus was an emperor-gladiator, but how he was put in the story pisses me of.
I said in my previous post that I like a simple story good vs. evil, but having historical figures who may have not been so ''evil'' and making them cartoon villains is silly.
And nothing of that wouldn't bother me so much if Ridley Scott always markets his films as ''incredibly historically accurate''.

I'll rant about another one: Spartacus. Yes, the new 300-like series.
The characters are BORING. And I don't use caps lightly. BORING. The plot, erratic; the "conspiracies", absurd; the ambientation, terrible; the narrative... well, it's not flowing naturally. Either we're five episodes at the same place, or tens of things happen at the same time. Even the battles are lame and ridiculous. This guys are going to battle without any kind of armour or even leather protection, just for the sake of showing off abds and biceps and look cool? And they are slashing through chainmail and plate armour? No **** these gladiators are defeating the Romans being only 50, theuy're damn Supermen!
You can tell they are making up conflict just to leave it there in case they do another season, they're making it all along the way. The characters are so boring and bland that I don't give a damn of what happens to them. Half a season looking for some guy's girl and the main plot frozen only to realise I never knew she was taken in the first place, and that I really didn't care.

I only watched the first 2 episodes - and than I stopped, for various reasons, some of which you already covered.
I mean, our ''hero'' kills a guy in battle and yells: ''FU*K YEAH!!!''.
Really? ''Fu*k yeah!''? Wow, let's americanise the ancient people, shall we?

There's even another thing from historical films that drives me mad.
TROUSERS. TROUSERS EVERYWHERE.
Gauls used trousers; hosemen used trousers, and not always, but then they started to use culottes, until the XVIIth Century. But in Hollywood, everyone wears goddamn trousers.

And what about the helmets? Or better yet, the lack of helmets?
In 80% of the films concerning the ancient warfare, our heroes refuse to wear head protection - arguably the most important piece of armour.
If you get hit in the arms, body, or feet, you have a larger chance to survive than being struck in the head.
So why don't they wear helmets? Because we wouldn't see the pretty faces of the actors, that's why.
Even when the actors wear a helmet, they usually loose it early in the battle...
Actually, the helmets are not the only thing bothering me - I hate the battle cliches.
- Strong and independent female warriors
- Ballet-like swordfighting (which looks nice, but is clearly coreographed)
- Fighting without a shield (when using a one-handed weapon)
- Lack of armour/body protection to make our hero look cool
- Ability of 1 man to tirelessly slay ''hundreds'' of enemies
- Ability of 1 man to kill off several or more opponents, because his opponents do not charge on him together, but attack him one by one
- Having children fight like adults
- Many more...

 

[NikeBG]

"I'll kill them all! All of them!" xD

Yeah, it was kinda funny how the Roman-slayer, a second Krum in dreadfulness (and probably even more hated by the Byzantines), almost whines like a baby there. The crusaders are also kinda funny - they remind me a bit of the ones from the old Alexander Nevsky movie, the Soviet one.


Edit: Btw, I see Khan Asparuh's (that 1981 movie with the huge Byzantine army) been uploaded as well: 1 - Phanagoria, 2 - The migration and 3 - A land forever.

 

[Komnenos]

As this is an off-topic I may dare:

Ludogorets FC has just won the Bulgarian Cup! Best wishes for my native football team!​

 

[NikeBG]

Dear goodness, I didn't even know which town Ludogorets is from (heck, I don't think I had even heard of it; btw, weren't you from Varna?). And now they not only rocketed from B group straight to the top of A group, but they even won the cup and yesterday the championship! Congrats! Can't wait to see "Ludogorets took the CL cup" in the news!

Oh, and happy 24th of May, Day of the Bulgarian education and culture and Slavic literature!

 

[MihailoSRB]

A question for NikeBG or Komnenos (or maybe someone else who knows):
This is the image from Osprey's ''Hungary, and the Fall of Eastern Europe'':

Spoiler

As you can see, it shows a Serbian Knight, a Serbian Auxillary, and a Bulgarian Auxillary (scouting for enviroment, because he clearly wishes to steal the Serb's horse).
I wanna know:
1. Is the long sleeve on Bulgarian Auxillary historical?
2. If it is historical, then what is the purpose of that sleeve?
3. Why is Bulgarian represented as a blond man, thus deviating from the stereotype of Bulgarians being dark-haired and tanned?

 

[NikeBG]

1. I've heard it is, but can't give a definite answer myself.
2. I don't remember the explanation of the guy who posted about it.
3. Actually, he looks more like red-haired/-bearded to me.
4. The Serbian auxilia is, btw, also Bulgarian.