Explosions, Plot holes Abound in The Three Musketeers... but it's kind of okay

Last Friday, The Three Musketeers premiered in movie theaters around the country.  This is the twenty-first live action film adaptation of Alexander Dumas' action adventure novel and takes a steam punk approach to the story.  So far, reception has been less than enthusiastic, with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 27%.  Yikes.

I knew when I decided to go see The Three Musketeers that it wasn't going to be a masterpiece.  I fully expected it to be absolutely ridiculous, silly, and full of explosions.  (And as my friends from high school liked to say, the number of plot holes in a film is directly proportional to the number of explosions, a theory we created after seeing The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

If you are capable of accepting this from the beginning, then the movie will be pretty enjoyable.  First of all, you've got plenty of eye candy, including Matthew Macfayden, who played the dreamy Mr. Darcy is the 2005 remake of Pride & Prejudice.  Unfortunately, Orlando Bloom is less than attractive with his pompadour hair do and dangling earring.  Such a shame.  (I still think he's drool-worthy as Will Turner, so sue me).  There is also Luke Evans, who is not actually Orlando Bloom, as I believed for the entirety of the film.  (Seriously, the whole film I sat there thinking, "What is the significance of the fact that Bloom is playing two characters? Are they supposed to be related?  Is this some sort of Man in the Iron Mask subplot type of thing?")

If you're not into guys, then of course there's Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element).  Oh, and for younger audiences, the guy from Percy Jackson plays D'Artagnan.

There's also a lot of sword play, much of it absolutely ridiculous, unrealistic and capable of making any fencer cringe. Did I mention the explosions?  And air ships -- which explode.  Sadly, the airships are not as awesome as the one in Stardust, but it'd be pretty difficult to upstage a flying ship that catches electricity.

The subplot about the King and the Queen struggling to display their mutual affections for each other was actually kind of adorable.

What were the plot holes, you ask?  Watch out, we're sailing into Spoiler Territory here.  You may want to turn back if you haven't seen the movie yet.

Is it okay to use "they" when referring to one person?

For as long as I've been writing, the answer has been, "No."  English teachers would mark up essays, saying my pronouns didn't agree.  When editing copy, it's always been an important thing to catch - and something I'd catch frequently (even in my own work).  It's also always been very frustrating to fix.

"His or her" sounds so incredibly awkward and clumsy, especially if you need to use it more than once in a paragraph, or even in a sentence.  It trips up the flow of the language.  Other alternatives, like "one," sound equally awkward and overly formal.

"They" was never satisfying to use, glaring on the page (or screen) just waiting to be circled by my teachers' red pens.  But hey - I start sentences with "but," and dangle prepositions, so really, what's the harm in using 'they'?

Apparently nothing, according to Merriam-Webster Associate Editor Emily Brewster in this video about "The Awkward Case of His or Her."

Now that we've got that cleared up, can we talk about punctuation rules for quotation marks and how they make no sense?

Modern Day Fairy Tale Adventure

At this time, three years ago, I was sleeping peacefully at the youth hostel after a long day of touring castles.  (Because it would have been 2:46 am).  That day just might have been my favorite day ever.  Although it's tough to decide, all those days at Wroxton were pretty awesome.

Linderhof *

With crisp fall air and clear blue skies, the morning of 19 Oktober 2008 began extra-awesome, despite how early we had to get up.  We climbed aboard a bus for a two hour journey to the edge of the Alps, to our first stop: Schloss Linderhof (Linderhof Palace). This castle was built by Ludwig II, commonly known as the "Marchenkonig," or "Fairytale King," due to his construction project Neuschwannstein Castle... but we'll get there in a moment.  The bus dropped us off in by a quaint little shop, and we hiked a short path through the tall, thin alpine trees, a mix of fall oranges against the rising mountain backdrop (which would inspire the setting for my senior writing project).

Finally, we reached the castle, and snapped a few pictures of the beautiful courtyard and fountain.  It sounds almost silly to say, but there really was this majestic, regal quality to the place.  Sure, you would expect a castle to be "regal," but there was something a little more to it in this one.  Perhaps it was the detail on the columns, or the gold balustrade on the balcony.  Inside, the tour took us through rooms with the most intricate ceiling designs I have ever seen, some even incorporating relief artwork on the walls.  In the gift shop, I bought a notebook for the sole reason that I had to take notes about the inspiring atmosphere.

Look at me clinging for my life on
the Marienbrucke *

Our next stop was the small town Oberammergau, famous for their Passion Play.  I had just enough time to buy some wood carving souvenirs for my family before we all climbed back into the bus for our final road stop: Schloss Neuschwannstein.

Some backstory: I took German in high school, and we actually learned about Neuschwanstein in class and read about the mysterious death of King Ludwig II.  I can't remember if I actually remembered this at the time -- I think it all sounded familiar, and when they started talking about King Ludwig II, everything clicked.  Neuschwanstein is a very well known castle and inspired Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle and Disneyworld's Cinderella Castle.

Neuschwanstein Castle just might be my favorite place in the entire world.  The bus dropped us off at the bottom of the mountain, close to Hohenschwangau, the yellow castle at the bottom notable for its swan figurehead.  After passing Bavaria's trademark maypole, we began our long hike up the mountain.  Neuschwanstein sits perched on the top of a rugged hill, and sections of the walls are even carved into the stone on the mountain. Tours of the castle are scheduled, and we arrived a little bit too early, so we continued up the path towards the Marienbrucke (Marie's Bridge).

The Perilous Cliffs of the Marienbrucke
(picture by böhringer friedrich)

Now, anyone knows me knows I am terrified of heights.  The Marienbrucke is ridiculously, perilously high.  Beyond nosebleed high.  And another thing - you can see through the floor.  Yep.  That said, the view of Neuschwanstein from the bridge is absolutely breathtaking.  As terrifying as it was, I'm glad that I went.  (Plus, the Marienbrucke was a major inspiration for a key plot device in my senior writing project, which I have continued to work on since graduating.)

The castle itself was actually incomplete on the inside - King Ludwig II died before it could be finished.  The rooms that were finished were, naturally, of a beauty you would expect to find in any fairy tale fantasy.  The "Marchenkonig" mainly designed his last castle based as an homage to Richard Wagner.  To capture the fairy tale, medieval element, Neuschwanstein was built in the Romanesque Style.

If you're going to southern Germany, definitely take a trip to see these castles.  In fact, if you're planning on going to Germany at all, plan to go to Bavaria so you can see these castles.  One day, when I actually have money, I'm going back.

*Unless otherwise specified, pictures were taken by my travel partner.

Catch Up

Wow.  It's really been more than a month?  Absolutely crazy.  During that time, I've been adjusting to my new job, searching for and then leasing an apartment, and furnishing said apartment.  That last part is still a work in progress.

There's a lot of stuff you need to take care of when you move to a new state, and I actually have been putting it off for too long.  For example, I need to get a new license, change my plates, get a library card, register my dog, and a whole slew of other things that I can't remember off the top of my head.  I better start a checklist.

As busy as I've been, there's simply been no time for fun travel trips, unless you count a million trips to Ikea as travel.  I have driven back and forth between Jersey and Virginia, taking trips back to Jersey about every two weeks.  This will be the first weekend that I'm finally breaking that pattern (having last gone to Jersey two weeks ago).  I feel far too acquainted with I-95, particularly 495, on which I spent over an hour on my last trip just to cover a mere 10 miles.  I don't know why, but DC traffic is just absolutely terrible.

I've been slowly acquainting myself with the area, and hopefully once my boyfriend joins me (in about a week), I'll start having time to go out, and maybe even go into the city!   I'm very excited about this, although I heard recently that the Brickskeller Inn actually closed... I was really looking forward to returning there after our trip last year.  Oh well.

Tonight's TAR Episode is Less than Legendary

Another disappointing episode of The Amazing Race aired tonight.  Overall, I've found season 19 to be a bit of a yawn.  The show has fallen into a formulaic rut that's just been kind of boring.  There's no drama between teams - although we have seem a lot of alliances and helping, especially this past episode (Snowboarders & Adventurers, and then a lot of teams offered help to the twins who were struggling with the Beach Preparation task.)

Everything has just seemed very formulaic so far.  Get clue.  Go to air port.  Every one is put on the same playing field. Nothing exciting happens at airport.  Arrive at destination. Read clue.  Go through the motions.  Yawn.

Plus, this is Leg 4, and we still haven't left that Oceania - Indochina region.  I just checked The Amazing Race page on wikipedia and discovered we'll be in Thailand for the next two legs.  Great.  I feel like the past few seasons of TAR have spent a lot of time in that area.  It's getting old.  Admittedly, I am not exactly interested in that area of the world (more interested in Europe, Mediterranean, Africa areas) so these episodes don't exactly draw me in in the first place.

Hopefully it will start to pick up soon.

And I still insist that Neil Patrick Harris needs to go on the show.  Because it would be Legendary.