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RL and movies
Jul. 1st, 2005 10:19 pmI grabbed a good friend last night and dragged her off to a late night movie double bill. First we saw War of the Worlds and then Batman Begins. Boy am I glad we watched them in that order. WotW was utterly creepy and made a lasting impression (especially to me, since I am a mother of two). I was glad that we had the rather mediocre Batman on top to obliterate the unsettling effect of watching aliens massacre everything that moves (and if you think that's spoilery, I can only say puh-leaze). I have always been an avid fan of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, relishing Richard Burton's booming voice, and the power of the narrative (and I wish I could trade in my LPs for the CDs, because the CDs are frightfully expensive). IMHO the new movie is an excellent variant on the story, and Tom Cruise gives a fine performance. From what I hear he's a total asshat, but I find him utterly pleasing to look at, especially when he looks 'normal', and I liked all the movies he made in the past few years. I haven't seen Vanilla Sky yet. I guess I have to.
As for Batman Begins, well, Christian Bale looks attractive when scruffed up, but in his Batman gear? Not so much. The movie had a few nice ideas and a wonderful Michael Caine (but then I always like Alfred), but the editing was abysimal, the lighting crap, the script too formulaic and Liam Neeson attractive but underchallenged. With all the money the film makers had and the able cast, they still only managed to make a mediocre movie.
The trailer for Fantastic Four looked like crap. And Jessica Alba should be lynched by a horde of outraged brunettes for blonding up. Frankly, it looks wrong for her. But the King Kong preview? Da-yum. That looked utterly fantastic. *bounce*
After four hours of sleep my friend and I had to get up, and a little bit later we were off to Wolfenbüttel, a neighboring town, to run a five hour workshop on short prose and characterisation. The first hour was bumpy, but after that the students slowly warmed to our tag team style. Some of the students wrote very promising stories and it was a very satisfying morning.
This afternoon we spent watching Kenneth Branagh's Henry V - and I finally understood why the name and face of Christian Bale had always been familiar: he played the young boy in Henry V, the banner bearer. I also confess that I finally realized that underneath all the make up Falstaff was played by Robbie Coltrane, and that Bardolph was actually played by the same actor who plays Hero's father in Much Ado. That tells me that it's been way too long since I watched Henry V last. And boy, it's still a damn fine movie!
Watched the 1954 version of Sabrina with the kids today. They loved it (although they complained about the lack of color). Toyah in particular is a real sap. She loooves love stories.
I missed doing my morning pages two days in a row. Will now do today's pages. Better late than never. Then I'm off to bed. Hubby takes the kids to play chess tomorrow. Yay! That means I have the whole morning to myself. Maybe I'll work on Four Fear.
As for Batman Begins, well, Christian Bale looks attractive when scruffed up, but in his Batman gear? Not so much. The movie had a few nice ideas and a wonderful Michael Caine (but then I always like Alfred), but the editing was abysimal, the lighting crap, the script too formulaic and Liam Neeson attractive but underchallenged. With all the money the film makers had and the able cast, they still only managed to make a mediocre movie.
The trailer for Fantastic Four looked like crap. And Jessica Alba should be lynched by a horde of outraged brunettes for blonding up. Frankly, it looks wrong for her. But the King Kong preview? Da-yum. That looked utterly fantastic. *bounce*
After four hours of sleep my friend and I had to get up, and a little bit later we were off to Wolfenbüttel, a neighboring town, to run a five hour workshop on short prose and characterisation. The first hour was bumpy, but after that the students slowly warmed to our tag team style. Some of the students wrote very promising stories and it was a very satisfying morning.
This afternoon we spent watching Kenneth Branagh's Henry V - and I finally understood why the name and face of Christian Bale had always been familiar: he played the young boy in Henry V, the banner bearer. I also confess that I finally realized that underneath all the make up Falstaff was played by Robbie Coltrane, and that Bardolph was actually played by the same actor who plays Hero's father in Much Ado. That tells me that it's been way too long since I watched Henry V last. And boy, it's still a damn fine movie!
Watched the 1954 version of Sabrina with the kids today. They loved it (although they complained about the lack of color). Toyah in particular is a real sap. She loooves love stories.
I missed doing my morning pages two days in a row. Will now do today's pages. Better late than never. Then I'm off to bed. Hubby takes the kids to play chess tomorrow. Yay! That means I have the whole morning to myself. Maybe I'll work on Four Fear.
