Leaderboard

Hey guys n gals. Hope your Labor Day was festive and fun. We spent the holiday weekend in Santo domingo with a few of Manny's new men who provided their expert services. His new guy is scarecrow and his dick never gets soft. He is a fuck machine and takes GREAT PRIDE in feeding you his long thick dick. Mannys next guy is COCO. this guy is amazing and has a dick like a surfboard. If your nips are sensitive like mine then COCO is who you need to hire. Omg. He sucked my nipples and sent me straight to heaven. My soul left my body because of the intense please I felt from him sucking my nipples Hes very intuitive because the more I moaned, the better he sucked. He actually pulled me to the edge of the bed, fucked me missionary style, and sucked my nipples while I jacked off and had a SCREAMING ORGASM. It was AMAZING!! ALSO, ask manny about 6'5. This guy is tall, friendly and has a HARD HUGE DICK. I will post the pics in the members only page. Remember when arriving and leaving the DR you have to complete the e-ticket. Do it at home the night before you travel and screenshot the qrc code. Complete it before you leave your hotel when leaving the dr because there was mass confusion when we arrived to SDQ. They will not let you advance to the security line if it isn't done and the internet at the airport was weak when we arrived so complete the e-ticket before you leave your residence in the DR and screenshot the qrc code. Manny also has a doctor who will come to you to administer your covid test and have the results within an hour. Have fun!!!! Be safe and suck as many dicks as you can

Earlier this year Hungary passed its anti LGBTQ education bill that bans the depiction or promotion of homosexuality and gender change among under-18s. Many have lambasted the President who promoted the bill and the European Parliament has condemned it. Surely no protest was more symbolic and seen by so many around the world than a short appearance by the 4-time Formula 1 world champion driver, Sebastian Vettel. F1 - along with its more junior ranks of F2 and F3 - directly and indirectly employs many tens of thousands of people and is one of the world's most watched sports seen in almost every country. It has never been associated with the LGBTQ movement. Even as stars in other sports have started to come out, only one has come out it this most macho of sports even though there are a few remaining in the closet - and that happened 30 years ago! Present and former F! drivers are seemingly a totally heterosexual bunch. Sebastian Vettel certainly fits that profile as a happily married straight man with kids. But at the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix held ten days ago, Vettel singled himself out as a champion of gay rights. During the pre-race national anthem line-up, he sported a simple Pride shirt with the message "Same Love". During the race, his shoes and helmet were adorned with the rainbow colours. No other driver joined him, although to be fair that is almost certainly because he did tell them beforehand and did not want to make a fuss. He knew the TV cameras would pick up on his shoes, shirt and helmet and linger long over them. As indeed they did. And the world saw it. The race stewards were not happy, though, and he received a warning for not removing the short when asked to. Photo: Rex/The Sun "It doesn't matter your skin colour, it doesn't matter your background, it doesn't matter where you come from, it doesn't matter who you fall in love with. In the end, you just want equal treatment for everybody . . . "I was surprised it was so much of a big deal," Vettel admits. "Ideally, there wouldn't be any reaction because it's just normal. "There are countries still arguing about whether gay marriage should be legal or not legal. I think there's enough marriage for all of us, you know. It makes no difference to straight people whether gay people are allowed to get married or not, but it makes a huge difference to gay people to be able to get married like everyone else. "So yeah, I was surprised - but it shows that there's still so much that needs to be done." https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/58453220

sun rises and sets the same like everywhere, if Thai people eat so wayward tourist will find something to eat. Unobstructed view toward Wat Arun and lack of crowds in Grand Palace may be an attraction itself. For me only deterrent are entry requirements , not what's may be on the ground there. But world is slowly coming to senses , so will Thailand one day

I just read that Pitch from Love of Siam is the executive producer of Yearbook

shortly we will have saying ' you can take ladyboy out of bakery but you can't take bakery out of ladyboy"

I can see them all now in their little 'pinnys' standing outside Pook Bar on Soi 6 trying to sell cookies to passing punters ....... 🤣

Also for fans of Dune who may want to re-read it before the premiere, it is one of the only books I've re-read repeatedly and each time I got something more out of it. I especially enjoyed the latest time where I was part of an online book club, these videos are the discussions and they are very in-depth:

Hmm, very interesting but I wonder which version this is. I guess it implies it's the theatrical cut, because it keeps calling it David Lynch's. I personally prefer the "Alan Smithee" (/Dino De Laurentiis) cut. Lynch's is chopped up to be confusing on purpose... aka Lynchian. De Laurentiis put a lot of great stuff back in and several years ago a new version of this cut came out where the effects (mostly blue eyes in added footage) were completed and also had some of that special material, I believe. If you truly love 1984 Dune 4 hours of it is better than 2, right? Yes, it has the clunky opening narration, but they didn't have to hand out instructional lobby cards with it...

Thanks for the heads up!! Good that Pitch is doing well... I think there are plans for a new Season of Yearbook. But I hope it is better than Season 1.

I certainly salute Bryan Ruby. But I do think there is a difference between a gay man deciding to come out and a very straight man identifying with and bringing to world attention his support for the LGBTQ community, even though he himself is not gay. Yet both advance the LGBTQ cause since both are role models.

At least they identified obstacles correctly, first step in right direction

From The Thaiger Tourism officials push for resumption of Russia flights in last quarter The Tourism Authority of Thailand says it’s essential that commercial flights between Russia and Thailand be allowed to resume during the last quarter of the year. However, under Thailand’s emergency decree, international flights can only operate as semi-commercial, with limited seat capacity. Khanittha Phanworawat from the TAT’s Moscow office says this means the Russian aviation authority is still not allowing flights to Thailand. The Bangkok Post reports that while there is some demand for Thailand in the Russian market, the lack of direct flights to places like Phuket is proving an obstacle. Further exacerbating the situation is Aeroflot’s decision to suspend flights to Bangkok until October 31 in order to avoid flying over Afghanistan’s airspace. Khanittha says that if international air travel could resume between Russia and Thailand, Russian tour operators are prepared to operate charter flights within a month. Russia has recently resumed flights to 56 other countries, including destinations popular with Russian tourists, where there are fewer restrictions and lower costs, compared to Thailand. During 2019, Thailand welcomed 1.48 Russian tourists, generating nearly 103 billion baht. Nearly 700,000 of them came in the last quarter of the year. During 2020, the number of Russian visitors plummeted by over 60%. Next year, the TAT hopes to lure 500,000 – 700,000 Russians. Following the Thai government’s decision to approve the Sputnik V vaccine for tourists entering Thailand, Khanittha says around 100 Russians a day have applied for a Certificate of Entry. She says most are return visitors to Phuket, favouring destinations with no mandatory quarantine. However, she says the additional costs associated with travelling to Thailand at the moment risk being a deterrent, including payment for multiple PCR tests and Covid-19 insurance. https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/tourism/tourism-officials-push-for-resumption-of-russia-flights-in-last-quarter

From AFP / BP Mass Covid testing launched in Bangkok's biggest slum For families struggling to survive on $150 a month in Bangkok's biggest slum, coronavirus swab tests are a luxury that few can afford. The Klong Toey slum, where an estimated 100,000 people live packed into tiny, overcrowded dwellings, has been a major concern as the country battles the third wave of the pandemic. Now the Bangkok Community Help Foundation, a charity, has launched a mass testing drive to try to identify cases and help stop Klong Toey from becoming a reservoir that reinfects the whole city. The foundation said the programme -- linked to guaranteed hospital beds for positive cases -- was long overdue. Almost 1,000 people have been swabbed in recent days, it said, with close to 50 coming back positive. "There are many people living in very tight and confined spaces. In many cases people are living with 10 people in a house... of maybe 20 square metres, which means if one has Covid, the rest have it," foundation co-founder Friso Poldervaart told AFP. "It's usually the case that if people (test positive), they get given a home isolation kit. The issue is here that they cannot home-isolate." Rice donations, mangosteen juice and a free lunch were among incentives the charity used to encourage hesitant residents to undergo a swab test. Continues with photo https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2178483/mass-covid-testing-launched-in-bangkoks-biggest-slum

This is also an opportunity to celebrate Bryan Ruby who becomes the only active pro baseball player to be out as gay. From USA Today Bryan Ruby first started to realize he was different at 14 years old. That's when the hiding began. Along with the darkness. He found emotional refuge in two different parts of his identity. He's a professional baseball player, a member of the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, which makes him much closer to a journeyman than a major-leaguer. And he's a country music songwriter, having written two songs that reached the charts, plus countless ballads in his notebook. Yet it's Ruby's hidden part of his identity that he now believes can have the biggest impact, partially because it's so foreign to the worlds of baseball and country music. Ruby is a gay man, the only active professional baseball player at any level to be publicly out. "I kept thinking about the little 14-year-old me, who was scared because I'm a baseball player who loved country music," Ruby, 25, told USA TODAY Sports. "Those are worlds where people like me are told they can't belong. I'm not a hot-shot prospect. But today, you can't find a single active baseball player who is out publicly. I want to help create a world where future generations of baseball players don't have to sacrifice authenticity or who they really are to play the game they love." His coming out follows a summer in which Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib and Nashville Predators prospect Luke Prokop also came out as gay. After years of no actively out players in men's professional sports, now there are three. Playing the guitar in his bedroom in recent months, with posters of Dierks Bentley and Cal Ripken Jr. hanging in the background, Ruby sang a song he's co-written that seems especially relevant given his purpose behind coming out. "If that white line ever gets lonely, if the nights get a little too cold, if it don't work out, if you have your doubts, you've got a place to go." Ruby's goal is clear: to help others who are forced to hide their identity, too. "Being closeted for basically 10 years, it was a struggle the whole time," he said. "I used to hate myself. Hate how I felt. I'd ask why am I feeling this way?" "I kept having people tell me, 'Be very cautious of who you tell' or 'They don't need to know your personal life.' The best way to describe the hiding as an athlete is like you're running with a weighted vest on," he said. "It's on all day and you can't take it off. I've been gradually taking that weight off." Continues with photos and video https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2021/09/02/bryan-ruby-only-active-professional-baseball-player-out-gay/8244571002/

More History of Dune Looking Back at All the Utterly Disastrous Attempts to Adapt Dune By The Editors Dune(s). The recent news that Denis Villeneuve, the Oscar-nominated director of Arrival, will helm a big-screen adaptation of Dune is a good-news-bad-news proposition. The good news: Villeneuve has an excellent track record. The bad news: Dune, the 1965 science-fiction novel by Frank Herbert, has long intrigued talented directors, only to leave their dreams in tatters. In the past 50 years, no less than Ridley Scott, David Lynch, and Alejandro Jodorowsky have taken runs at the sprawling novel, with disappointing, and occasionally catastrophic, results. Here, we present a time line of the pitfalls, near bankruptcies, and premature deaths that have greeted those foolhardy enough to tackle it. 1965: Frank Herbert writes Dune, an award-winning epic about interstellar factions feuding over a precious “spice.” 1971: Film producer Arthur P. Jacobs, responsible for the Planet of the Apes film series, acquires the film rights to Dune. 1973: Jacobs dies at age 51. Illustration: Chris Foss 1973: The Dune film rights are acquired by a group of French film producers on behalf of Alejandro Jodorowsky, the director of cult hit El Topo. Jodorowsky tries to enlist, among others, Pink Floyd, Orson Welles, and Salvador Dalí as collaborators, but his ambitious project fails. 1976: Producer Dino De Laurentiis, who produced Fellini’s La Strada and Barbarella, acquires Dune’s film rights. 1977: Star Wars becomes a national phenomenon, stoking a market for space epics. 1979: De Laurentiis hires Ridley Scott, fresh from the success of Alien, as his director. “Dune would be a step very, very strongly in the direction of Star Wars,” Scott says. But when his brother Frank dies unexpectedly, Scott drops out. He goes on to direct Blade Runner instead. Sting in David Lynch’s Dune. Photo: Universal Pictures/Photofest 1981: De Laurentiis approaches David Lynch, director of The Elephant Man, to adapt Dune. Lynch accepts, turning down a concurrent offer to direct The Return of the Jedi. 1983: Principal photography on Dune begins in Mexico. The film features then-unknown Kyle MacLachlan and Sting. The soundtrack is by the ’80s band Toto, known for the hit song “Africa.” 1984: Lynch’s Dune is released and is a theatrical disaster. Costing $45 million, it grosses $31 million and is savaged by critics; Roger Ebert calls it the worst movie of the year. Writer Harlan Ellison later says, “It was a book that shouldn’t have been shot. It was a script that couldn’t have been written. It was a directorial job that was beyond anyone’s doing … and yet the film was made.” 1986: Dune author Frank Herbert dies. 1986: Stung by his experience, Lynch retreats to small-scale filmmaking, reuniting Dune stars Kyle MacLachlan and Dean Stockwell in Blue Velvet, which turns out to be a career-making masterpiece. 1988: As was common with movies at the time, an even longer, three-hour version of Lynch’s Dune is recut for TV. A clumsy prologue is added that uses concept art from the film. Lynch disavows this version, forcing producers to attach the pseudonymous “Alan Smithee” as the director’s credit. Lynch also removes his name from the writing credit, replacing it with “Judas Booth.” 1996: The film rights are acquired by Richard P. Rubinstein, who produced Dawn of the Dead and Pet Sematary. 2000: A Rubinstein-produced TV-mini-series version of Dune airs on the Sci-Fi Channel to generally good reviews. It wins two Emmys. 2007: A group of Spanish students releases a four-minute trailer for a fan-made version of Dune that was seven years in the making. The trailer is removed from YouTube at the request of the Herbert estate, and the film is never released. 2008: Paramount attempts to set up a new adaptation of the novel. Peter Berg and Pierre Morel (Taken) are attached as directors, but after four years the project is abandoned. 2013: Jodorowsky’s Dune, a documentary about that filmmaker’s early attempt to make Dune, premieres at the Cannes Film Festival to excellent reviews. Ironically, Jodorowsky’s Dune is, to date, the most critically successful film associated with Dune. 2016: Legendary Films acquires the film and TV rights to Dune. 2016: Denis Villeneuve releases Arrival, which earns an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. In interviews, he says, “Dune is my world.” 2017: Villeneuve is hired to direct a new adaptation of Dune. *This article appears in the March 6, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.

I'm anxious to see the original again now released in 4k with lots of interviews and features before seeing the new one. Entertainment » Movies Review: David Lynch's Unfairly Maligned 'Dune' Arrives in Show-Stopping 4K from Arrow Films by Sam Cohen EDGE Media Network Contributor Tuesday Sep 7, 2021 Of all the intellectual properties that Hollywood has gone to for financial wealth, Frank Herbert's "Dune" might be the among the most impossible to successfully adapt. Across all the miniseries and film adaptations of the popular science-fiction tome, David Lynch's 1984 attempt stands out as the most successful, albeit still hobbled by the vastness of Herbert's prose, among other things. Even with that said, it's a sprawling technological feat for its time, and is more distinct than most of the blockbuster slop we get served up. The film is even able to match the spirituality of the novel, as Lynch was, and still is, adept at charting the interior life of characters as it corresponds with their consciousness. Arrow Films brings David Lynch's "Dune" to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray with a limited-edition release that pulls out all the stops for the unfairly maligned epic. "Dune" arrives here in 4K with Dolby Vision HDR, source from a 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative. The result is incredible, with a beautiful presentation offering a very film-like appearance, with nice notes of naturals film grain. One might think the upgraded resolution would show the seams of the special effects — many of which have naturally dated — but the deeper contrast and detail only accentuates the film's great artistry. "Dune" follows the journey of Paul Atreides (Kyle MacLachlan), the son of a powerful noble at war over the desert planet Arrakis. Arrakis is the source of spice, a drug-like substance that heightens enlightenment and allows for faster, deeper space travel. "Dune" has an all-star cast, including a handful of frequent Lynch collaborators, famous international performers, and even a music superstar, Sting! If we are to take Lynch's filmography as a series of dreams being realized through filmmaking, then "Dune" may be the only work that escapes Lynch's grasp. Although the film is clearly hobbled by lack of depth on the universe as a whole, frequently needing to summarize in voiceover things there simply wasn't enough time or money to include otherwise, the story fails to grasp the ecological and sociological threads that the novel so richly depicts. Actress Virginia Madsen has even noted that she was signed on for multiple films, but that was dependent on the financial success of the first entry. Unfortunately, the box office numbers didn't support an argument for continuing the franchise. As for special features, Arrow has attached a generous list of archival and newly-produced features that you could spend hours watching. The interviews with make-up effects artist Giannette de Rossi and production coordinator Golda Offenheim specifically round out this stellar release with insightful anecdotes about the massive, and sometimes unwieldy, production. Lynch himself has told people he doesn't want to talk about the film anymore, as it recalls a dream not fully realized for him. No matter what you think about David Lynch's attempt at adapting Frank Herbert's sprawling saga of novels, Arrow Films has produced an incredible home entertainment release that rewards those who look back upon the maligned 1984 sci-fi epic. Other special features include: • 60-page perfect-bound book featuring new writing on the film by Andrew Nette, Christian McCrea, and Charlie Brigden • Large fold-out double-sided poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Dániel Taylor • Six double-sided, postcard-sized lobby card reproductions • Limited edition packaging with reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Dániel Taylor • Brand new audio commentary by film historian Paul M. Sammon • Brand new audio commentary by Mike White of The Projection Booth podcast • "Impressions of Dune" — a 2003 documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with star Kyle MacLachlan, producer Raffaella de Laurentiis, cinematographer Freddie Francis, editor Antony Gibbs and many others • "Designing Dune" — a 2005 featurette looking back at the work of production designer Anthony Masters • "Dune FX" — a 2005 featurette exploring the special effects in the film • "Dune Models & Miniatures" — a 2005 featurette focusing on the model effects in the film • "Dune Costumes" — a 2005 featurette looking at the elaborate costume designs seen in the film • Eleven deleted scenes from the film, with a 2005 introduction by Raffaella de Laurentiis • "Destination Dune" — a 1983 featurette originally produced to promote the film at conventions and publicity events • Theatrical trailers and TV spots • Extensive image galleries, including hundreds of still photos • "The Sleeper Must Awaken: Making Dune" — a brand new feature-length documentary by Ballyhoo Motion Pictures exploring the making of the film, featuring dozens of new and archive interviews with cast and crew • "Beyond Imagination: Merchandising Dune" — a brand new featurette exploring the merchandise created to promote the film, featuring toy collector/producer Brian Sillman ("The Toys That Made Us") • "Prophecy Fulfilled: Scoring Dune" — a brand new featurette on the film's music score, featuring interviews with Toto guitarist Steve Lukather, Toto keyboardist Steve Porcaro, and film music historian Tim Greiving • Archival interview with star Paul Smith, filmed in 2008 • Archival interview with make-up effects artist Christopher Tucker "Dune" is now available on 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray from Arrow Films.

Here i am reading the title hoping that vettel came out as gay lol i guess i can keep dreaming.

7 project I watched episode 2 today and liked it better than first. Not BL in this episode but few familiar faces from other BL series (Yaht, Earth, Sammy)

From Pattaya Mail By Warapun Jaikusol Pattaya’s women-of-the-second-category are learning how to stay home and bake cookies. The Sisters Foundation launched its second round of vocational training courses for LGBTQ people who want to be bakers. The project began in April, funded by a 370,000-baht grant from the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations-affiliated group that provides services and advice concerning migration to governments and migrants, including internally displaced persons, refugees, and migrant workers. Some of those participating in Sisters’ bakery classes are LGBTQ migrants from neighboring countries. Project coordinator Rawitcha Sakpreechakul said the training is aimed at former transgender entertainers who were put out of work by the coronavirus pandemic. The current class has 13 students who work in groups no larger than five people, in line with Covid-19 restrictions, and use kitchens provided by the foundation, although the instructor teaches remotely. Classes cover easy-to-make items using simple tools suitable for beginners. Coming out of the ovens are butter cookies, brownies, cupcakes, macaroons, cheesecakes and more. The chefs then sell the baked goods to generate income. Continues with photos https://www.pattayamail.com/news/pattayas-ladyboys-staying-home-baking-cookies-370870

I agree the last episode of The Yearbook is very disappointing and the end of the series is not understandable at all. Regarding Bite Me I really like the main actor Mark Siwat Jumlongkul he's such adorable ...

My Phuket Sandbox Experience A true horrors story LOL

Mask porn? haha

Thanks for the stories, guys! 👍 Especially nice to hear about leaders who put their citizens' lives first. I've been really lucky living in a semi-rural area where most of my social and volunteer activities have been outdoors. My local friends and I are of an age that got us early vaccinations. Plus wearing a mask isn't a big problem, so I haven't been under all the stress that some folks have. Most of my city friends have hunkered down, even though they've been vaccinated. While we'd all like this behind us, nobody I know has been out demonstrating against restrictions, or vaccines, or masks. I wish I understood better what motivates people to get so worked up about taking precautions that are meant to keep them healthier, along with their friends, families, and colleagues. Especially when they get so angry, it makes me wonder if someone is winding them up or if it's a regular part of who they are. If I had to choose between marching around yelling and waving a sign or taking a hike, it would be an easy choice.

The initial reviews out of Venice are that it is quite stunning. I'm hopeful. I loved that book as a kid. Previous efforts failed pretty badly (though Sting as sexy bad boy was not a bad consolation).

Review: Dune’s Day: New $165 Mil Take on Sci-Fi Classic with Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac is Stunning, Granular, Moody, Artful ■Movies by Roger Friedman - September 3, 2021 12:45 pm 0 1789 Ah, “Dune.” It seems like yesterday that David Lynch gave us the hoary epic adaptation of Frank Herbert’s landmark sci-fi novel. Kyle MacLachlan headed up a very eclectic and weird cast, even for 1984, that featured a legend (Jose Ferrer), a rock star (Sting), and a sitcom actor from “Rhoda” (Kenneth McMillan). Here’s the thing about the old “Dune” from 1984. When you watch it now, you see it had a lot of heart but looks really dated. It’s like watching a rerun of “Lost in Space.” Made eight years after “Star Wars,” the OG “Dune” looks like it came from the 60s now, before special effects were perfected. So let’s remake it, someone said. With a new cast, lots of Big Deal actors, starring teen sensation Timothee Chalamet, famous for his love of peaches in “Call Me By Your Name.” His Paul is much younger looking that MacLachlan’s and degrees more androgynous. But he captures the screen like James Dean or a young Leo DiCaprio with his tousled hair and aquiline nose. He is the Conflicted Young Man of the 2020s. As for Sting, his one of a kind 1984 “Dune” character, Feyd, was not recast for the update (I’m actually surprised they didn’t go for Adam Levine). And a main male character, Dr. Kynes, played by Max von Sydow the first time around, is now a Black woman in the the form of the excellent Sharon Duncan Brewster. The rest of the cast is formidable: Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin. I clapped when Stephen McKinley Henderson came on screen, and we get really nice work from Javier Bardem, Charlotte Rampling, and especially Stellan Skarsgard. Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista are there as signposts for fans of certain kinds of blockbusters. Denis Villeneuve is our director this time. He made “Arrival” and tends to create cold atmospheres. His “Dune” is the opposite of Lynch’s, methodical and cerebral, set against pastels and smoke and long stretches of moodiness. It’s a two and a half hour movie so for an hour or so, that’s all fine and beautiful and you’re really invested in the idea that this time, something might happen while the main cast, living in space way in the future, can find “spice” — a rare commodity — on the desert planet. But you know, there was a book, and we’re still following it. (Although in today’s press conference Josh Brolin admitted he never read it, and I doubt much of the cast did, either.) So whatever the “spice” is, it doesn’t actually add spice to an often bland meal. Chalamet’s Paul is trained by his father to take over the quest to colonize the dreary sandworm plagued planet of Arrakis, get past the shifting sands of its deserts, and spice things up. Like Hamlet and Luke Skywalker before him, Paul wrestles with this idea, but once his dad — Oscar Isaac is indelible as Leto, the movie hinges on his performance — is out of the picture, Paul sticks close to his mom (Ferguson) and remains ambivalent to say the least. Now wait: the first “Dune” movie was two hours long, and didn’t require a sequel. This one is labeled”Part One” up front, and comes in at 2:35. Plus, MacLachlan had a romantic thing going with Sean Young as Chani. (She was hot stuff in 1984.) Chani now is played by Zendaya, who doesn’t speak much until the end of the movie. (At today’s press conference she conceded not having met most of the cast after doing just a couple of days’ work.) What jumps out in Villeneuve’s saga is the production. Every bit of it is Oscar worthy, from set design to costumes to lighting, make up, etc. Cinematographer Grieg Fraser has outdone himself from frame to frame, set piece to set piece, creating jaw dropping pieces of art that are impressionistic, sensational, and other worldly. Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner 2049” brought an Oscar to Roger Deakins, and this may be the case here as well. This year has been big on production excellence– look at “Cruella,” for example. We’ve got crafts people at the top of their respective games. Fraser isn’t alone on “Dune.” Hans Zimmer’s music just pounds away, creating lots of tension with melody. My only grievance is that hardly anyone in this film ever smiles. While the first half feels like “Star Wars” in sand, you remember all the fun of the George Lucas movie, the minor characters, the interplay. Everyone in “Dune” is grimly serious. You kind of wish someone would shake Paul’s hand with a joy buzzer, pull a snake out of a can, sit down on a whoopie cushion. I mean, they are looking for spice, aren’t they? They need a hot chili pepper in their recipe. Still, new “Dune” should be a smash hit. It’s a big old epic, the kind we need right now, to sweep us away from viruses, hurricanes, and wars in real life. Put on a mask, get a tub of popcorn, and kick back. We need a break. This is it.

done can't say I liked it much, perhaps because I did not like character of Ozone and I 'm not much of fan of Earth, actor playing him. Hope next 6 episodes with different actions and characters will be more to my grumbled liking Did not manage to watch Bite Me yet but trailer looks very appetizing

thank you 7 project was my project for tonight, now with your recommendation enforced

2 promising BL series started this week, I watched the first episodes and must say I'm impressed . 7 project Bite Me

Yearbook the series almost finished with last episode due coming week. Teary but not sentimental and actually tells about rare but real , not invented, problem some couple may face. Even frequent repetitions of scenes have their purpose and I found them not annoying. Box of Kleenexes and big towel ready for last part but short interview with actors playing main characters at end of episode 7 makes me feeling that it may not finish as bad as expected so far. Kleenexes can be used for something else after all

This is one of those feel-good posts - well it is for me. I guess we all have moments of self-doubt, when we question our abilities, judgement, even our sanity, And then we read of people like the man reported here and realise that the the world is filled with people even more stupid and less sane than ourselves, It's kinda reassuring in an odd way!

That very well might happen if that new MU variant makes it into Thailand. So far it hasn't, but I think it is inevitable that sooner or later it will. If that happens, and since what I'm reading says the current vaccines are rather ineffective against it, don't be surprised if all the most difficult of the previous restrictions are right back in place again - possibly including border closings. I hope everyone planning a holiday in Thailand makes damned sure about what is going on in Thailand before packing bags and booking flights and hotels. This is no time to allow wishful thinking and/or your crotch to make your travel plans. You better be very certain about the reality of what to expect.