Scalydemon wrote in Former Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:Noob question:

What does the word acaeum mean?

Thanks,
Scaly

That's because it isn't a word... we made it up.  Hopefully, it conjures images of "lyceum", which is an ancient library.  More deviously, it happens to fall alphabetically before "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons", so on those web directories that are organized alphabetically, The Acaeum will be near the top.  That is, of course, unless they alphabetize "The"....

Scalydemon wrote in Former Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:What does the word acaeum mean?

Kingofpain89 wrote in Former Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:

benjoshua wrote in Former Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:I saw World War Z this afternoon.  I liked it overall, but it pales compared to Iron Man 3 and Into Darkness.

So far, for me anyway, the summer movie season has really been a bit on the lackluster side.  I thought Iron Man 3 was good but it didn't come close to the greatness of the first Iron Man movie.  Oblivion was a nice sci-fi flick but it was mindnumbingly predictable.  Star Trek: Into Darkness was a step back for the franchise in my opinion.  I thought the first movie, even with its glaring flaws, was entertaining and a lot of fun.  Into Darkness was poorly written and a bit ridiculous.  Of all the things they could have done with a clean slate/alternate timeline Star Trek movie and they simply rehash one of the original movies and just change up some of the plot points.  More evidence that Hollywood has run out of good ideas.  :?

But today I went to see Man of Steel with a friend.  I had been looking forward to this movie ever since the announcement that it was being made and I'm not even a Superman fan.  Even with all the hype and the negativity surrounding the casting of Henry Cavill and director Zach Snyder, I still had hopes that it would be a good movie.  Even after the negative reviews by the media and the split reviews by a lot of moviegoers I still had hopes that it would be good.

It wasn't a good movie.

It was flat out epic.

Yeah I know someone will tell me I am out of my mind and that its a good thing I don't get paid to be a movie critic.  But Man of Steel did something for me that most movies nowadays aren't capable of doing: Make the viewer care about the characters.  First of all I thought the casting was near perfect.  Henry Cavill, while perhaps not the perfect person to play the part of Kal-El did an amazing job of portraying emotions that just simply weren't there for Brandon Routh in Superman Returns.  Michael Shannon was incredible as Zod and even though he was a monumental bastard and you wanted to hate him, I found myself feeling pity for him at the end of the movie.  Amy Adams was fantastic as Lois Lane and made the previous two actresses pale in comparison.  Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner were brilliant even though they weren't on screen all that long.

The way they did the flashbacks from the present day to the key points in Clark's past were not at all confusing or mired the story in any way for me but some critics and fans didnt care for it.  The action scenes were good, somewhat insane with all the destruction and CGI, but much more fun and exciting that anything done in just about any previous superhero/sci-fi film including Avengers.  I didnt mind the lack of humor that muddled up the original Superman and Superman Returns.

But the most important factor for me was the emotional connection I made with this movie.  I can count on two hands how many movies have made me feel genuine emotion during and after seeing a film.  Man of Steel was one of them and it was a roller coaster ride through the majority of the film.  No I didnt tear up or anything like that but I've read how a lot of people did during a couple of specific scenes and I understand where they are coming from.

It's so good I'm going to go watch it again tomorrow.  :D