Norse mythology is my second favourite after Greek, though it's tougher to follow up because the Vikings weren't as fond of writing down their stories as the Greeks were. Norse mythology is wonderfully creative there's Yggdrasil (the world tree), Bifrost (the rainbow bridge), the Aesir (one group of gods), the Vanir (another), the nine worlds and more it's exciting to read about and I'm disappointed there's not more artwork of it. It's wonderfully gritty too with numerous stories of war e.g the Aesir-Vanir War and the gloomy Ragnarok, which is unsurprising given the Vikings were a noteable people of war and conquering.
As it is I'm trying to read more fiction based on Norse myth, and am currently working my way through Jodie Forrest's trilogy which follows Tomas the Rhymer a poet and bard thrust into a dangerous adventure when a beautiful elf queen compells him to seek out the ravens of Odin Hugunn and Muninn (Thought and Memory) for her because the elf world is shrinking and the elves are finding it harder to travel about, a fate which may be linked to Asgard. I'm currently on the second book The Elves Prophecy: The Book of Being and I would thoroughly recommend this series for any fans of Norse mythology.
Linking up with Norse mythology I just watched the movie Thor, based of the Marvel comic series (of which I know next to nothing), they seem to be going all out with Marvel these days when it comes to Hollywood. I imagine this is probably the closest we will get to a lavish and expensive Hollywood production based around Norse myth and for all its comic book style and ties it was wonderful. The cast was great, the CGI was a wonderful treat, Asgard looked fantastic, the realm of the frost giants Jötunheimr was sufficiently dark, cold and creepy and there was a nice blend of action and humour.
Chris Hemsworth was brilliant as Thor, he shows a nice mix of arrogance, humour and affection in the character portraying his transformation from selfish, act first think later, brash god to a more sensible caring god who's still tough but more selfless. Sir Anthony Hopkins made a good Odin, though I didn't like his character much but the best was definitely Tom Hiddleston as my favourite character Loki. I think his Loki was sufficiently close to the myths showing a sympathetic villain, he jumped between spite, madness and jealousy in a believable way now quite verging into an OTT villain.
Natalie Portman who I do love seemed rather pointless though, I think Sif would have made a much better leading lady, she is Thor's wife in myth after all, but hey I've never read the comics. The frost giants were also something out of Avatar rather than giants but they were decent enough.
Overall I loved it and I'll definitely be getting it on dvd. I would definitely give it a solid 8/10, it does a good job of keeping you gripped especially with the amazing CGI, the cast are great and the plot, though highly predictable, is decent enough.
Friday 29 April 2011
Friday 22 April 2011
Dracula
As a vampire fanatic it's no surprise that I love one of the originals- Dracula! I have the book, the sequel and all but one of the Christopher Lee movies (getting it soon) and I have every intention of getting the Bela Lugosi version and the Anno Dracula series (they're being re-released on Sir Christopher Lee's birthday incidentally) and of course I have the Hellsing series (manga, anime and OVA). As a fanatic I am doing my best to see all the adaptations that there are for better or worse and just recently I watched the 1979 version starring Frank Langella based on a stage adaptation.
This, like so many Dracula films, is nothing like the book, Mina is the daughter of Professor Van Helsing and is turned into a vampire halfway through instead of Lucy and Lucy is the leading lady and the daughter of Dr. Seward rather than Seward being a suitor. The characters of Quincey Morris, Arthur Holmwood and the brides are omitted and Dracula is killed by being yanked up through a boat by a hook into the sunlight (although the ending seems rather ambigious as his cloak is seen deliberately floating away with a large piece of it pointing downwards as if the silhouette of a person and Lucy smiles when she sees it). There are other differences too but I'll not list them all. The most accurate Dracula fim is of course Bram Stoker's Dracula directed by Francis Ford Coppola though it too has errors (mainly bad accents).
This is one of the best movies I've seen, for all its inaccuracies as a stand alone film it's a pretty good flick. Frank Langella is an amazing actor who has a strong on-screen presence, he presents an intense Dracula who also manages to be one of the sexiest portrayals of the infamous vampire, it's not hard to imagine why Lucy fell for him. Complete with wonderful gothic imagery (I absolutely loved Dracula's home when he invited Lucy for dinner, it's just so gothic and decadent) and a great cast (Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing, Donald Pleasence as Dr. Seward and Kate Nelligan as Lucy) it's a beautiful underrated film.
It mixes sex appeal and horror flawlessly with no need for the nudity of later films or the guts and gore of modern day horrors and it manages to keep you hooked from start to finish with enough action to stop you from drifting off.
I think the creepy zombie like vampire Mina inspired Sadie Frost's disturbing vampire Lucy in FFC's version. For those of you who are fans of vampire flicks I would highly recommend this, it's just a great film.
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Tuesday 19 April 2011
Red Riding Hood Movie- SPOILERS
So I finally got round to seeing it the other day and my feelings about it are mixed to say the least. I'll be honest with all the slating it received and the poor Twilight-esq trailers I was not expecting much to begin with but I still had to see it because it is Red Riding Hood.
First off let's get the Twilight comparisons out of the way. Catherine Hardwicke's name appears 3 times in the opening credits as if we didn't already know she was involved from the trailers, I don't know whose responsible but this woman is not as Oscar rated director she does not deserve these constant mentionings and she does not need her name plastered all over the movie, especially not since it's her name that's hurt this film as all the Twilight haters are all too eager to slam it because she directed Twilight. I will agree with others that she was the wrong choice to direct this because sadly there is too much of the Twilight element in there, although let's face it, Twilight is by no means original and this idea of the supernatural combined with teenagers' fascination with sex, allegories for sex and so forth is far from new, Twilight did not invent it despite what some of its fans seem to think.
This movie could have been a lot darker but it's aimed at a young adult audience so alas the violence and sexual references are tame at best (not that I'm bothered about the lack of sex, hey True Blood has enough for us all and too many horror films rely on sex appeal), it's not a horror movie and it never will be, which in a way is tragic because it had such potential.
The panning of the long forests, the idea of a love triangle and a werewolf, it's all in this and it's all in Twilight but as stated, Twilight did not invent this so I don't think it's fair to slate Red Riding Hood for following the same formula. Still it could have maybe been a bit more original with the love triangle nonsense.
Okay let's deal with what's wrong with this movie first apart from the shovelling of Catherine Hardwicke down our throats. It may not have advertised itself as historical, indeed it's distinctly a fantasy movie, but when you set yourself in a medieval village you should probably strive for some sort of accuracy but instead we have Hollywood's usual version of historical complete with flawless make-up and hair gel (the t.v series Rome did it best by trying to break away from the Hollywood version going with a more realistic gritty version), the hair gel was especially an annoyance.
Next the cast, some were good, some were bad, I've never been particularly convinced by Amanda Seyfried, especially after an awful fake look of woe in Dear John and desperately poor acting in Chloe, but I've nothing against her nonethless, she's not bad as Valerie but she's not great either, there is no passion between her and either of her male stars, there's never any real surprise in her eyes when she finds out she's betrothed, her sister is dead or who the werewolf is, and no grief either. She just seems rather apathetic really and she's far from convincing when trying to trick the werewolf into seeing her 'gift' in her basket (a scene that did not fit in at all). Shiloh Fernandez really is just there to look good, all he's capable of is broody looks that might be angry, they might be sad or they might be wistful, it's impossible to tell. There is no depth to his character (probably not his fault though) and he's rather wooden, and there is no on-screen chemistry with him and Amanda. I don't know if he is a good actor in general but in this he is nothing short of forgettable. Plus it's hard to tell if he's meant to be some sort of forbidden bad boy or not and if that is the case he's just too much of a pretty boy to believably be portraying a badass. Max Irons, the other member of the love triangle, does put in a little more effort to be the noble Henry who is always so forthright and good but again he's wooden and there is zero passion between him and Amanda despite his supposed love for her. Gary Oldman is OTT but it's probably intentional, he could have been so much more but just seems the archetypical maniac whose naive, sexist, insanely religious and thinks he's a knowitall and of course suffers his downfall in an ironic manner.
The characters are mostly forgettable, wooden, shallow and hard to care about. Valerie shows no emotion when she finds out she's engaged, she barely protests and when her 'true love' seems to flaunt himself with another girl she thinks a somewhat lesbian dance is the key to winning him back. Never mind the totally unnecessary beginning of the movie with Valerie the rabbit killer, is there a darkness in her? Apparently not because the ambigious ending has her waiting loyally for Peter still, good until the end. I mean what was the point of the rabbit killing? To have a shock, to give Valerie depth? Pointless since it was never developed upon.
Peter and Henry are empty leads and personally, from what little we do gather about them, Henry proves the better catch, he's just generally a nice guy whereas Peter is a hot headed prat. Henry loves Valerie enough to let her go, Peter loves her enough by trying to make her jealous by going with her friend. Peter is just a prick as far as I'm concerned but of course she has to get with him because anything else would be breaking away from the norm, he's the poor woodcutter after all (woodcutter, I mean if you couldn't already tell they were going to get together his profession says it all, makes it obvious he's going to try and rescue her too). Having her go with Henry would at least have given the film a potentially refreshing hint of originality.
Father Solomon is alright but he's just a villain in disguise and you can tell he's going to be that from the moment he arrives to save him and for all his personal experience with werewolves he still wasn't smart enough to keep his hand from one's mouth nor does he consider that if the werewolf is connected to Valerie maybe containing everyone connected to her might have been smart rather than trying to sacrifice her.
The plot is heavily flawed from the pointless bunny killing scene at the start to the vague ending which seems in the future but it's hard to say because she hasn't aged one bit, though she has moved. I mean if everyone thought the werewolf had a connection to Valerie, as mentioned, locking up her nearest and dearest might have led them to the werewolf quicker. Then there's the fact that despite living with this foe for at least two generations somehow the villagers have no idea what it is until Father Solomon shows up because for some reason they have never seen it until now when we get full shots of it in its mediocre CGI glory. They don't even know what a werewolf is, they think it's an ordinary wolf near the start, seriously how could they be that simple? It's not logical. And as for who the werewolf is, seriously, none of his family members ever noticed his absence during the full moon or the blood moon? Also, they mentioned the werewolf's connection to the full moon thus bringing up the familiar idea that the werewolf only changes under a full moon but when the moon is red that's when it can change people but presumably it should still have to be full? Nope, apparently the blood moon is a several day exception for transformation (alright I'll except arguments that a moon can look full for more than a day and that a true full moon doesn't even last the night).
Overall this movie isn't terrible but it's not fantastic either, it's distinctly average, the kind of movie you could happily watch on t.v but probably don't want to pay the cinema cost for. I'll admit I had a hard time guessing who the werewolf was but thinking about it logically it's no surprise that it's the only cast member from Twilight (had to groan at that one). To me the movie is more like Sleepy Hollow than Twilight with the sleepy old time village wrecked by a supernatural killer scenario along with the outsider coming to help, the love triangle (okay slight in Sleepy Hollow) and the whodunnit guessing game but Sleepy Hollow just does it so much better. Sleepy Hollow throws itself into its gothic atmosphere (bless you Tim Burton), it does not shy away from gore it does not dick about with stilted sexual tension to bring in the throngs of teenagers it has a lot more humour and a much better blend of humour and horror and ultimately it is a satisfying horror movie.
Frankly it is what it is and it was never going to do well with its unfair connection to Twilight, people had this movie slated before they even saw it. It has good scenery and it is watchable and it does have some connections to the original fairytale (including the infamous 'Grandmama what big eyes you have' etc). It cannot hold a candle to Company of Wolves however and personally I'm still holding out for the Joseph Bat movie though this film has probably ruined its chances of getting made.
Saturday 16 April 2011
Alice and Red
Hmm I notice I haven't really blogged much about Little Red Riding Hood or Alice in Wonderland despite them being my two big interests, and certainly the themes of my blog. I guess it's because there are so many other blogs out there that have it covered, some of which I read. From a blog all about Alice in Wonderland merchandise to ones that cover all fairytales and then general websites with numerous helpful essays, book lists and more telling you all about the history and meaning of these tales, never mind the books that you can easily find for this too.
For my part when it comes to Alice in Wonderland, the best book for finding out the meaning behind the quirks, characters, quotes and imagery of both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass is 'The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass: The definite Edition. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland an Through the Looking-Glass', which has a complete edition of both novels with numerous sidenotes detailing everything from where the Cheshire Cat comes from and why he disappears to what the Jabberywocky is. It's excellent for learning more about Alice in Wonderland if Google hasn't served you enough and it's readily available in two editions on Amazon.
For Little Red Riding Hood there are several novels, most are expensive, but they are becoming more available with the recent movie release, I have some in my waiting list but I have not read any yet. Some include 'Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of A Fairy Tale' by Catherine Orenstein and 'Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook' by Alan Dundes.
When it comes to other versions of the two they are many including games, books and movies. With Alice in Wonderland, American McGee's Alice is one of the best, it's a dark, gothic horror version with double meanings for the characters (noted best in the accompaning booklet) and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it and await the sequel 'Alice: Madness Returns'.
When it comes to alternate novels, I've only read the first of The Looking Glass Wars series by Frank Beddor and it didn't thrill me enough to want to read the sequel Seeing Redd, perhaps because it is too much the child's novel for me, I don't particularly like the love interest Dodge Anders and I did not consider the book particularly memorable. Wikipedia offers an extensive list of other novel adaptions connected to or inspired by Alice in Wonderland (along with comics, manga and film) but I have never felt a real desire to pursue any of them, I guess I'm thoroughly satisfied with the original or rather none have caught my interest.
Comic book wise the extensive series by Zenescope are brief, bloody and quite brilliant, though definitely aimed at men, though as a female I found I could still enjoy them. Starting with 'Return to Wonderland' then 'Beyond Wonderland' and finally 'Escape From Wonderland' with 'Tales of Wonderland' offering back stories to the characters. It follows Alice's daughter Carroll 'Calie' Ann as Wonderland drags her into its mad world.
Manga wise I've only read Heart no kuni no Alice, also known as Alice in the Country of Hearts, Alice gets taken to Wonderland by Peter White where she has to involve herself with the people of Wonderland and the events taking place there if she wants to go home. It's very much oriented at girls with the typical pretty boys who instantly fall in love with the heroine. Many of the characters are psychotic and the plot is somewhat directionless and yet it's quite a good adaptation even the characters do drift quite a bit from their original forms. It's certainly different and not to be taken seriously.
Television wise go for Alice by the Syfy channel, earlier reviewed here and movie wise, Disney does it best with its original 1951 animated film and Tim Burton's 2010 not quite a sequel. I would also thoroughly recommend the 1999 version with Martin Short, Whoopi Goldberg and Christopher Lloyd amongst others.
When it comes to Little Red Riding Hood, the only game I'm aware of is American McGee's, which isn't out yet. Comic book wise Zenescope again, with their Grimm Fairy Tales, which has Little Red's tale in the first edition, and their latest Grimm Myths and Legends series, which further expands upon this.
Book wise I've got them all to read, including 'Sisters Red' by Jackson Pearce and Low Red Moon by Ivy Devlin. Of course there's also The Bloody Chamber collection of short stories by the fantastic Angel Carter, which includes 'The Werewolf, The Company of Wolves, and Wolf-Alice' the latter of which has a little bit of Alice in Wonderland there too.
Film wise The Company of Wolves is the best, it's haunting, gothic and full of symbolism headed by a great cast including Angela Lansbury and Stephen Rea. Apart from that and the latest Hollywood blockbuster I can only think of The Brothers Grimm in 2005 with Heath Ledger and Matt Damon and includes Little Red, the wolf and the famous 'big eyes' line, and of course Trick r Treat (2009) with Anna Paquin dressed as Little Red for Halloween, followed by a pretty good werewolf segment.
Friday 1 April 2011
The Darker Vampires of Fiction
My two favourite vampire films are Interview with the Vampire (1994) and the lesser known The Addiction (1995).
Interview with the Vampire is based on the amazing book by Anne Rice, directed by Neil Jordan it stars Tom Cruise (in a fantastic performance), Brad Pitt, Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunst, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea and Thandie Newton (in a small role). Though the film differed in many ways from the book it still captured its dark, depressing atmosphere and proved to be a beautifully acted, memorable flick. Tom Cruise was perfect as the brat Lestat and Brad Pitt did a brilliant job capturing Louis' morose attitude.
It's a dark tale with much horror and sorrow and the expected gore. Anne Rice resurrected vampires giving them a new popular appearance as beautiful moody beings who are deeply troubled by their existence and often loathe it. I love all her novels but I think this, the first of them, will always stand out the most. The movie introduced me to the books, which helped my love for vampires rapidly grow and I think to some extent I will always picture them as these self-loathing immortals.
It certainly has more depth than Twilight and succeeds where the books grossly failed by properly conveying loss and heartache (Twilight went for that terrible copout, happy ever after ending for all in Breaking Dawn), it's far more realistic with its decadent nature.
The film, jumping between the present and 1790 onwards, comes across as a period piece at times and despite lacking the moderness of the latest vampire films and series that people have so closely embraced, I feel it can still be related to and will never be dated.
For those of you who do not already, Interview with the Vampire tells the story of Louis as he accounts his 200 year existence to the reporter Daniel Malloy, telling of his transformation into a vampire by the psychotic Lestat and their attempts to have an undead family with the young, deadly and somewhat insane Claudia (an amazing performance by Kirsten Dunst, she really needs to do darker roles again) who Lestat sires to keep Louis with him.
At the time it was an original novel and film, changing vampires from the Hammer monsters into beings much more like the people they used to be with a depth only ever glimpsed in vampires before (Dracula in the novel did have some emotions). They are still murderous monsters but humans can be killers too, and it certainly brings the ties between vampires and humans a lot closer.
The Addiction is a black and white indie flick directed by Abel Ferrara (King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral) based on a screenplay by Nicholas St John, who I've heard is a religious man, which certainly explains a lot of this film. It can and has been interpreted in numerous ways, some say it's a metaphor about drug addicts, others say it's about HIV and AIDs and others say it's a metaphor for religious conversion. Personally I think all three could and do apply.
The Addiction follows Kathleen 'Kathy' Conklin (played by an underrated Lili Taylor) a philosophy student who is attacked one day in an alleyway by Casanova (Annabella Sciorra) who changes her into a vampire. Kathy experiences a metamorphosis both physically and mentally questioning everything around her as she loses the ability to care about her classes or friends, feeling nothing as she gives into her urge for blood.
It's a bold artistic flick, helped along in its dark atmosphere by images of war victims. Christopher Walken is only in it briefly and its a wonderful, memorable role as the cruel vampire Peina who tries to give Kathy some quick lessons, scolding her for her constant killings as she is drawing attention to herself.
The film is brief and the ending ambigious but it is still one of the best vampire films out there, though it is not for fans of Twilight, Underworld, True Blood or Vampire Diaries lacking the romance, sex, action and budget. It does prove that films do not need a budget to be good and that vampires are sometimes better off betrayed as the cold killers they originally were.
I won't deny that some of the psychological debates between Kathy and her friend Jean (played by Edie Falco of Sopranos fame) weren't beyond me, though I know the references, I was never a philosophy student but many of their quotes were relevant to the film and offered more depth to it.
It might be nice to imagine it in colour and with a bigger budget but personally I think that would probably take a lot away from the film and much of its depth would probably be replaced with cheap shocks and gore for horror appeal and probably with sex too as that seems to be the ongoing theme with vampire films and series these days (not that I'm against that, I especially love True Blood) but I feel The Addiction stands out when others don't.
Check out this site Walken Works, for an excellent review of The Addiction.
True Blood owes much to Anita Blake after all, Twilight is very similar to The Vampire Diaries and this ongoing theme of teen angst mixed with tame vampires is growing sour. Personally though I do own all the novels in the Twilight series and I have seen and enjoyed all the movies I will never consider it a vampire series. As I have argued before I think the Cullens would have been better suited as being some other fantastical creatures, like the modern day fairies in fiction, or something similar. They are not vampires, certainly vampires are fictional creatures and authors are entitled to their own versions and interpretations but I think there has to be some limits before all lore is lost and you're left with something which is nothing close to a vampire.
Interview with the Vampire is based on the amazing book by Anne Rice, directed by Neil Jordan it stars Tom Cruise (in a fantastic performance), Brad Pitt, Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunst, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea and Thandie Newton (in a small role). Though the film differed in many ways from the book it still captured its dark, depressing atmosphere and proved to be a beautifully acted, memorable flick. Tom Cruise was perfect as the brat Lestat and Brad Pitt did a brilliant job capturing Louis' morose attitude.
It's a dark tale with much horror and sorrow and the expected gore. Anne Rice resurrected vampires giving them a new popular appearance as beautiful moody beings who are deeply troubled by their existence and often loathe it. I love all her novels but I think this, the first of them, will always stand out the most. The movie introduced me to the books, which helped my love for vampires rapidly grow and I think to some extent I will always picture them as these self-loathing immortals.
It certainly has more depth than Twilight and succeeds where the books grossly failed by properly conveying loss and heartache (Twilight went for that terrible copout, happy ever after ending for all in Breaking Dawn), it's far more realistic with its decadent nature.
The film, jumping between the present and 1790 onwards, comes across as a period piece at times and despite lacking the moderness of the latest vampire films and series that people have so closely embraced, I feel it can still be related to and will never be dated.
For those of you who do not already, Interview with the Vampire tells the story of Louis as he accounts his 200 year existence to the reporter Daniel Malloy, telling of his transformation into a vampire by the psychotic Lestat and their attempts to have an undead family with the young, deadly and somewhat insane Claudia (an amazing performance by Kirsten Dunst, she really needs to do darker roles again) who Lestat sires to keep Louis with him.
At the time it was an original novel and film, changing vampires from the Hammer monsters into beings much more like the people they used to be with a depth only ever glimpsed in vampires before (Dracula in the novel did have some emotions). They are still murderous monsters but humans can be killers too, and it certainly brings the ties between vampires and humans a lot closer.
The Addiction is a black and white indie flick directed by Abel Ferrara (King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral) based on a screenplay by Nicholas St John, who I've heard is a religious man, which certainly explains a lot of this film. It can and has been interpreted in numerous ways, some say it's a metaphor about drug addicts, others say it's about HIV and AIDs and others say it's a metaphor for religious conversion. Personally I think all three could and do apply.
The Addiction follows Kathleen 'Kathy' Conklin (played by an underrated Lili Taylor) a philosophy student who is attacked one day in an alleyway by Casanova (Annabella Sciorra) who changes her into a vampire. Kathy experiences a metamorphosis both physically and mentally questioning everything around her as she loses the ability to care about her classes or friends, feeling nothing as she gives into her urge for blood.
It's a bold artistic flick, helped along in its dark atmosphere by images of war victims. Christopher Walken is only in it briefly and its a wonderful, memorable role as the cruel vampire Peina who tries to give Kathy some quick lessons, scolding her for her constant killings as she is drawing attention to herself.
The film is brief and the ending ambigious but it is still one of the best vampire films out there, though it is not for fans of Twilight, Underworld, True Blood or Vampire Diaries lacking the romance, sex, action and budget. It does prove that films do not need a budget to be good and that vampires are sometimes better off betrayed as the cold killers they originally were.
I won't deny that some of the psychological debates between Kathy and her friend Jean (played by Edie Falco of Sopranos fame) weren't beyond me, though I know the references, I was never a philosophy student but many of their quotes were relevant to the film and offered more depth to it.
It might be nice to imagine it in colour and with a bigger budget but personally I think that would probably take a lot away from the film and much of its depth would probably be replaced with cheap shocks and gore for horror appeal and probably with sex too as that seems to be the ongoing theme with vampire films and series these days (not that I'm against that, I especially love True Blood) but I feel The Addiction stands out when others don't.
Check out this site Walken Works, for an excellent review of The Addiction.
True Blood owes much to Anita Blake after all, Twilight is very similar to The Vampire Diaries and this ongoing theme of teen angst mixed with tame vampires is growing sour. Personally though I do own all the novels in the Twilight series and I have seen and enjoyed all the movies I will never consider it a vampire series. As I have argued before I think the Cullens would have been better suited as being some other fantastical creatures, like the modern day fairies in fiction, or something similar. They are not vampires, certainly vampires are fictional creatures and authors are entitled to their own versions and interpretations but I think there has to be some limits before all lore is lost and you're left with something which is nothing close to a vampire.
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