“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
(I’m pretty sure he meant, if you have a garden other people look after and prune and water)
Month: February 2016
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope – Film Review
For all its massive flaws which I wrote plenty about, The Force Awakens did manage to pull me into the Star Wars world, so I’ve decided to revisit the original trilogy, which I haven’t seen in over 15 years. Well, not the “original” trilogy but the one George Lucas updated, which is ironic considering that all that extra CGI crap he added looks really really dated these days. Luckily, the annoying tweaks in this movie are minimal and mostly involve a few fake-looking critters and environments.
The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman – Book Review
I’ve read this book in a bizarre pattern – read the first 50 pages, got distracted and put the book away, decided to start over, re-read the same 50 pages, got distracted again for a shorter period, picked up the book where I left it, then finished the whole thing in a day while staying at home with a cold. It started off in an intriguing enough fashion, but at one point it becomes such an emotional rollercoaster it was simply impossible to put down. It’s not without faults, but it’s a powerful read about love, family and good people making bad decisions.
Artwork in Progress
Eight figures completed, 4.5 to go… unfortunately all four are rather complicated so that’s 4-5 more months, at least. That’s the longest I’ve spent on any of my fabric projects, I’m so taking a long break after this one. I had to start a new sheet as well since the cardboard pieces aren’t large enough. I can’t believe I actually didn’t measure them when I started my very first figure – the yellow one on the left just fits. Phew!
Room – Film Review
This movie had one hell of a harrowing premise: a young woman is imprisoned in a tiny garden shed for seven years, together with her five-year-old son Jack born as a result of her captor’s visits. In order to create some kind of semblance of normality for the boy, she pretends that the 10 square metres they’re trapped in is in fact the entire world, that beyond the walls and the roof window there’s nothing but outer space, that the humans he sees on TV are make-believe.
Quote of the Day
“Time spent with cats is never wasted.”
– Sigmund Freud
The Danish Girl – Film Review
Based on a true story of Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe, one of the first people to undergo sexual reassignment surgery in 1920s, The Danish Girl is unfortunately too wispy, sentimental and suffocatingly conventional to do its subject justice.
Gillian Welch @ Palais Theatre
I had such great time at this concert. Beautiful venue and incredibly enthusiastic audience; I’m used to the Melbourne crowd being reserved, but from the moment Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, her musical partner (and amazing guitarist), walked onstage they got nothing but cheers and rapturous applause throughout the show.
Spotlight – Film Review
It’s rather hard to judge a film like Spotlight. The topic of child abuse and cover-up within the Catholic Church is extremely powerful and arouses strong emotions, and the film boasts an exceptional ensemble cast (Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Stanley Tucci) who all put in good performances. At the same time, there’s nothing particularly exceptional about the way the movie’s made – it has no visual flair and while the characters were solid none of them really grabbed me. To someone who sees visuals and characters as two of the main pleasures of the cinema it’s a serious drawback. Yet one can also argue that the film’s drabness, unfussy cinematography and lack of focus on one particular character works in its favour, grounding it in a way that a more flashy approach wouldn’t and putting the focus back on the larger topic and the process of investigation.
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