Swordplay, books, and movies

Lately, I've found myself to be more drawn to the past. That's one way I am quite paradoxical; I am drawn to the past and the future. I have no problem with the present, it's when I currently reside, but the romaticism of the past, and the potential of the future, keeps me entertained and inspired.
As you should know by now, I joined the Fencing club at York University. I am looking forward to getting to competition level someday, and hopefully, sooner rather than later. Because of this, and a few other factors, I've been re-reading Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. I also watched Disney's The Three Musketeers and I have mixed feelings about the movie. It's fun, it's fast, it's funny, but while the Cardinal is one of the best parts, he's also the worst. Just the stuff he's able to get away with in that movie astounds me. I mean, he plots the death of the king in the royal courtyard, having an assassin shoot a hole in one of the king's portraits, and no one notices/says anything. The Cardinal waltzes into the queen's bath-chamber, scares her as she's getting dressed, and while she mentions to the king that she thinks he's an evil man, nothing really becomes of it. Also, the movie had no preamble; it just starts and the Cardinal is evil. Oh well, for all that, I still love it. It's got sword play, Oliver Platt, who I love, Charlie Sheen, before he was "winning" and back when he was respectably comedic. Plus, Kiefer Sutherland is always a treat, and Tim Curry just knows how to play a bad guy. Seriously, his laugh is evil, so rich, and so decadent that it makes the movie and makes me forget how whiny Chris O'Donnell is.

Also, I rewatched The Mask of Zorro yesterday. That's another guilty pleasure and I like it for much the same reasons as The Three Musketeers. One of my favourite lines from that movie is when Anthony Hopkins, playing the original Zorro, asks Antonio Banderas, playing the new one, if he knows how to use a sword. The response? "The pointy end goes into the other man."

I plan on watching another Musketeers style movie tomorrow, this one made in 2011 and one I had never heard of. It probably won't live up to the other one, having such great actors and nostalgia on its side, but we'll see.

In the meantime, I plan on continuing the book series, and I'll let you know how the D'Artagnan Romances, as the trilogy is called, plays out.