Theatre review: An Inspector Calls

For a change of scenery, Andrea and I went to watch a production of the J.B. Priestley play, An Inspector Calls, as directed by Stephen Daldry. A thought-provoking psychological thriller with socialist themes, the play examines the roles that people have with respect to the welfare of others.

The play takes place in England prior to WWI and opens with the juxtapositioning of ragged street kids in the rain against a dinner party in the house of a wealthy industrialist, Mr. Birling. Present at the dinner ar Birling's wife, Sybil, their son, Eric, their daughter, Sheila, and Gerald Croft, the son of a baronet. The party is celebrating the engagement of Sheila to Gerald, which Birling crowns with a speech to his son and guest about the need to take care of their dependents (oh, the irony!). The party is disrupted by the arrival of Inspector Goole, who has come to question them about the seemingly unrelated suicide of a girl, Eva Smith. Under the probing questions of the Inspector, we see that each person had a role in Eva's downfall and eventual suicide. But things change...and you start to question the reliability and identity of the Inspector...

This is a psychological thriller in the best noir sense. The set and entrance of the Inspector is pure noir, all dark shadows and weird lighting, smoke and a character wearing a trench coat and hat! As to the Birling family and Gerald, you feel in turn outrage, disgust and pity at the callous actions towards the girl and the consequences. This is definitely a production that plays upon your intellect, emotions and moral sense, however, I felt at times that the script was a bit repetitive in the attempt to reinforce its message of social responsibility to others. Perhaps the most interesting aspect was when the Inspector is revealed to nor be all he appears, the characters most concerned about status and scandal are willing to atttempt to return to the time pre-Inspector, despite the (literal) fall of the house of Birling. Possibly a case of the younger generation learning from and paying for the mistakes of their forebears?

The acting is impressive, completely necessary in a play like this. The way each actor managed to portray their character's distess at the line of arguing by becoming red-faced, bog eyed, and have that vein pop out on their forehead...very convincing. Perhaps the best was that of Sandra Duncan playing Sybil Birling - her actions of contempt towards the Inspecter and their heated exchanges, her complete unrepentence of her actions towards Eva to her distraught behaviour when she realises what her actions mean. Never was so more conveyed in the lifting of an eyebrow, the sweeping of a dress, or a skewed wig! The character of Gerald is perhaps the most interesting, because despite what appears to have been genuine affection towards Eva and remorse about his actions, he is all too happy to revert to the foppish man he was before. Seriously, the actor under questioning became sweaty, discomfited and looked like he was going to burst into tears at some points, but later he's laughing and rejoicing just as maniacally as the others.

Despite my enjoyment of the play, I will say its not perfect. As stated, the moralising can be somewhat heavy-handed. The departure of the inspector 30 minutes before the end produced a kind of strange anti-climactic feeling followed by the calling into question of his and Eva's identity and the motivation his actions and for the play as a whole. This made me feel kind of ripped off at the time - that it was a huge cop-out to what had been an intersting story. Luckily the ending rocked. The denouement produced a real shock in me and left me and Andrea talking about it long into our post-show dinner at Florentino. (They make such good mashed potatoes and desserts.)

7.5-8/10

Dumb conversations I've had in the last few days

Hey mally, you look nice today.
Really? Cos I didn't do anything different.
I think it's cos you're wearing pants.

What's the best way to get from Uni to Springvale?
Take the South-eastern there.
But traffic at this time of day...it's gonna be crap. Do you think taking the Eastern all the way would be quicker?
No, cos you've got to take Springvale Rd. all the way down. The SE is a hypotenuse
WHAT?!
You know, Pythagorean geometry.
You geek, I know what a hypotenuse is. I just can't believe you worked it into a normal conversation.

Well I can see I was really needed to help you guys set up the [Ikea] couch.
Yeah, you got caught up in a [insert surname here] furniture assembly storm.
Your presence and comments really inspired us along.

Art masterpieces in jigsaw form

I received this jigsaw over 2 years ago from my ex and due to the negative feelings I had towards him I never started it. On Friday I was looking at the ones for sale in Myer when I realised "What am I doing buying one for $50 when I have a perfectly good 1000 piece jigsaw at home?"

And so I went home and spent the rest of the night working on it.

Then I worked on it on Saturday.

And again on Sunday when I happily completed it.

So! Now I present to you Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel ceiling.


I could write a whole art historical analysis of this, commenting on the appearance of Adam vs. God, the angels, the ignudi, the acorns...but I won't cos I don't think you guys want to hear about it.

Big ol' fat rain

Something to add to the list of things I love - the sound of Fat Rain.

You know what I mean. The type of rain that falls so hard that when it hits the concrete you can see them bounce. I love it. I especially love it when it signals the end of a hot dry spell and the cool change comes in *sigh*.

I don't like it when it combines with the hot weather to create humidity though, that's yucky.

Movie Review: Casanova

What can I say? It's a Venetian farce. If you're looking for a deep analysis of Casanova's motive or even life, this movie wasn't it. It's an enjoyable piece of fluff that won't make you think too hard about what's going on.

Casanova (Heath Ledger) is under the protection of the Doge, but after debauching some nuns, he's on his last warning. The Doge instructs him to marry otherwise he can no longer protect him against the Inquisition - after all, Venice remains a republic so long as Rome allows it. Sienna Miller is Francesca Bruni, a feminist who delivers lectures at the university in male drag. Her family is impoverished, and their survival is dependent upon her marrying a Genose lard merchant, Oliver Platt. Her family palazzo is directly across the canal from the girl whom her younger brother pines over...the same girl Casanova decides to marry. When her brother issues a challenge to Casanova, being the superior swordsperson, Francesca fights on his behalf and thus the Great Lover and the Great Feminist meet...

The acting is pretty good: Ledger's mumbling from Brokeback is turned into a lazy drawl that you can believe would belong to someone so cocksure, Miller doesn't really look like a man but acquits herself well, and Jeremy Irons as the head inquisitor uses that great voice to excellent effect. But the role of the movie must go to Oliver Platt. Surely, he is a brave man to let himself into a role that involves being tied to a rack semi-naked and covered in mint jelly. But the real star is Venice itself. *sigh* The maze of alleyways, the canals, the light, the gondolas...I swear, one of the scenes was filmed in the awesome courtyard of the post office where I bought some francobollo (postage stamps).

Like I said, its a piece of enjoyable fluff. The movie is full of mistaken identity, swordfights, chases, lucky escapes, jolly people and growling villains. It's not something that should tax your mind so much and there's a happy if somewhat unbelievable ending. But hey! When your topic is someone who's lived such a full life as Casanova (who worked variously as a secretary, librarian, author, military officer, and guy who ran the lottery) you can't really expect a drama now!

7/10

Movie review: Date Movie

Hmmm....on one hand, I was really disappointed in this movie, but on the other hand I have no one to blame but myself. In general, I have really liked films from the *spoof movie* genre despite the high *miss* rate on the *hit-or-miss* scale. Some hits from this genre include the Naked Gun movies, Scary Movie I (and maybe III), and the best one, Not Another Teen Movie. Date Movie unfortunately falls in with Scary Movie II.

I know this probably means I think too much, but part of the reason why the *hit* movies work is because they pick maybe one or two specific films to take off and then insert allusions to other films. In comparison, Date Movie just throws in EVERYTHING from anything that may be classified as a date movie within the last 10 years meaning that there are a lot of 2 minute references to other movies or relatively recent gossip news items that might have nothing to do with the plot. The only consistent thing throughout it is that Alyson Hannigan and Grant the lead male character (I dont know who the actor is) are dating and wish to get married. There's a lot of sexual innuendo which isn't even amusing, much less funny. While Teen Movie had the foreign girl walking around naked and spoofed the kissing scene from Cruel Intentions, this movie had an old woman tongue kissing a cat, and the same cat having sex with a mummified corpse in a take off of Meet the Parents. That aint funny. Ultimately a lof of the jokes that might be amusing last faa-a-a-a-ar too long - like showing us the perceived sexiness of Sophie Monk, Grant's ex-fiancee.

Things that I remember being *spoofed* in this include
Bridget Jones' Diary
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Hitch
Kill Bill
When Harry Met Sally
Mr & Mrs Smith
King Kong
An Affair to Remember/Sleepless in Seattle
Pretty Woman
Meet the Parents/Meet the Fockers
Napoleon Dynamite
The Wedding Crashers
My Best Friend's Wedding
Pimp my Ride
The Bachelor tv series
Michael Jackson
Paris Hilton burger ad
Hugh Grant movies
Harajuku girls (Alyson Hannigan's sister in this is Japanese)
The Wedding Planner
- I'm sure there's more but I can't think of them.

There were bits that I genuinely laughed in - e.g. when Sophie and Grant are recounting how they met each other while he was a prostitute and she was the rich woman buying him, Pretty Woman style, and when we meet the Housekeeper Grant lost his virginity to. Anyway, after walking out I thought it was a passable 5/10 while Andrea gave it a 7/10, but since then I think it's gone down a bit in both our minds.
4/10

Oh yeah....

I forgot to post this highly amusing comment that Andrea said about me:

"You'd make a really good dictator."

I think I was really flattered to hear that compliment (she said it was a compliment), so I kinda wondered what it would be like to be a dictator...I think it looks like I'd enjoy it very much!
(For those who don't get it, I'm imagining myself as Stalin. The guy next to me is Lenin.)
heheheh

Anyway, I'll be reviewing Date Movie, The Matrix, and possibly Casanova if I get to see it this week. Toodles!

My Sunday, 19/2/06

I was going to try and write about something intelligent, but Roy talked me into writing this instead.


Well, it started quite early - around midnight I think I walked out of the Westin Hotel after partaking in a pot of Chai tea. I suspect, however, that the soy milk I requested was in fact normal milk - I had a some stomach discomfort later *blush*. Andrea and I walked around the city, visiting various 7-11s as she had no groceries and wanted food that would not require the use of either cutlery or crockery.

We made it back to her place at around 1am and proceeded to talk about what we could do until we felt sleepy. Since she'd already sold her tv and couch, we decided to watch dvds on her laptop. Our choices: The Matrix (I *heart* the Matrix - should review it), and the dance scenes from You Got Served. Yes, two highly different movies. Man, as a movie, Served really sucks. I also showed Andrea Yellow Fever and we both agreed - IT'S SOOOO TRUE!!!!! I dunno what time they ended, but we ended up going to bed around 5:45am. That's right, QUARTER to SIX in the MORNING. After a lovely dream (*sigh* - gotta find a way to end my singledom) I woke up at midday to take apart Andrea's bookshelf to Alan could take it to his new home. Blah blah blah, after showering etc, we went out for lunch, did some shopping including more groceries for Andrea, then we reconvened to her place.

After picking up my clothes and saying goodbye, I walked to Treasury Gardens to meet up with Christina, Kaho and a bunch of others for takoyaki and okonomiyaki at the Osaka Festival. After seeing how long the queue for the food was, I got myself a helium balloon and followed the others back to the city. After our disappointment, we decided to stop by Stonegrill for some stonegrilled meat and equilibrium was reinstalled to our jap food meters :)

Kaho gave me a lift home and I'm not happily watching the speedskating. Yay, lets hope for falls!

Yellow Fever

Hilarious. I hope this works.

The Winter Olympics

I've been meaning to write this entry since it started. Man, I love the Winter Olympics in a way that I don't love the Summer ones. I think it's because the danger factor of the sports in winter is exponentially higher compared to summer, and the sports are just a helluva lot more wacky.

Take Biathlon for instance: There's nothing like skiing around and shooting things. Or ski jump - just throwing yourself off a mountain. Or anything that involves the word *freestyle*. Roy and I had a long argument about which sport was more dangerous - luge or skeleton. Roy argued that luge was more dangerous because you can't see what's coming toward you. I said it was skeleton because you go down headfirst - so you CAN see what's coming. Either way, I don't think it really matters, just watching everyone crash on the evening round-up...it satisfies my desire to see crashes. And where else can you see relatively skinny ppl with crazy quad muscles like hams, but in the speed skating? I love downhill skiing, despite being utterly crap at it. By watching it on tv, I can almost feel the freezing burning wind on my cheeks and the slippy feeling without aggravating my crappy ankle and knees.

And they guys who compete in it! You get the whole gamut to choose from. Feminine looking guys with eyeline in the figure skating comp, to the kinda scary ones in the ice hockey. Watching the podium chairs for the Men's Freestyle Moguls - it was like watching musical chairs that featured only really good-looking guys with pale skin, pink cheeks, and bright hair. I kinda wish I was that girl handing the flowers to Dale Begg-Smith. A male friend who shall remain nameless conceded to me that Begg-Smith is pretty good looking. Surely that's saying something!

Winding down, winding up

As the days gradually get shorter and summer draws to a close, my days alternate between either living as a slob devoid of responsibility - answering only to personal hygiene and food, or furiously trying to get everything up to date before I head back to uni to pursue another three years (minimum) of higher education.

It's been a good start to 2006 so far, the only blackspot seems to be my continual (faa-aa-ar into the distance) singledom. But hey, its far better to hold out for quality than to jump for any old crappy sausage. (Euuuuuuw, bad mental image.)

Anyway, I have a feeling that this will be a good year. Not an easy year, but ultimately a good one, lessons will be learnt, tasks will be completed, meets lots of new people, be a little bit more smart financially, and I'll move further along the road to where I want to be.

The year is winding up again - 2 months down, people! 10 left to go ;)

St. Valentines Day

Ahh....Valentine's Day. Glory to those attached to a significant other, agony for lonely hearts. For my third Valentine in a row, I chose to host a small party for some of my other single friends whereby we sat around eating sweet things and watched dvds. I wanted to watch Kill Bill 1, but instead we watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which, I think, was more fitting. Despite my previous skill at orchestrating hook-ups (hi Mandy & Jon!), there were none tonight, not that I was expecting anything to happen anyway.

It could have been a horrible day like last year where I was working in a florist delivering flowers, or awkward like the year before when I was negotiating a breakup (such convenient timing), today was comfy and nice. Thanks to those who came: Mandy for sending me a long-stemmed red rose - so romantic! - and Carmie for giving me a flower made out of chupa-chups! Cam for the great present of ice cream, and of course Roy, for taking the effort to drive a-a-a-a-a-all the way from your place to here.

Things I wanted to be when I was younger than I am now

(I was inspired to make this list while reading another person's blog)
In no particular order, just things I remember wanting to be and an explanation if I know why...

Roadrunner (he always won!)
Supergirl (she was a girl with superpowers, as opposed to Superman cos I'm not a boy)
A Conductor (oddly enough, I always seemed to be conducting Beethoven's 5th)
Police officer (they got uniforms and were allowed to stand in the middle of traffic and handle guns!)
Cardiac surgeon (after dissected my first heart - man, that's a declaration I regret making!)
Artist (always liked drawing and painting)
Author (always liked writing)
Opera singer (always liked the sound of opera)
Actor (the money top actors make is not proportional to the work they do. Who wouldn't want loads of cash?)
A trophy wife (Living in Paris, near Parc Monceau)
Princess (just like my name)
Ninja (they're cool)
Goddess (hey, why not?)
Fashion designer (I like clothes, but I hate a lot of modern fashion. Solution - design your own)
Librarian (I like books)
Anyone with a sword (swords are cool)
10 goal-handicapped polo player (thank you, Jilly Cooper)
Vampire (thank you, Anne Rice)
and finally...
Nobel-prizewinning scientist (you've got to have a goal of some sort :-P)

Friday night bendering

Last night I went bendering with Lydia, Cameron, and a whole bunch of other people at various points in the night. The theme was *Friday night, Asian night* and it went a little like this...

1. Me, Lydia and Cam at Shanghai Camy Dumpling for dinner consisting of 1 plate of steamed dumplings, 1 plate of fried dumplings, and hot chicken noodles. Man, that place has an awesome customer turnover, the customers no doubt prompted to go when the staff remove their plates - the ultimate hint to leave.

2. Manchuria for 2 vodka cranberry and a gin and tonic (cumulative standard drink count 3). I think there was a Deloitte afterworks drink going on because this place was the busiest I've ever seen it. I kinda like it when its less full (still got a booth, though) yet I understand that unless it gets more ppl in it probably won't last for long, dammit. Ran into Dee and Bo-mi here, then picked up a friend of Cam's who works for Deloitte (can't remember his name).

Before the next place, we detoured to while Cam's friend bought Hungry Jack's for his dinner (mmm, nutritious). I purchased some Breadtop Green Tea and Red Bean buns for later munching.

3. Double Happiness. Always crowded, we four managed to grab ourselves some seats plus another stool to serve as our drinks table. Here I ran into Ian, Justin, Shan and Francis who were also out on the town while Mandy and then Queenie joined up with us. I had a g&t, Lychee cocktail, tequila shot, Lychee martini and champagne (10). The staff should be aware by now, Cam broke all the shot glasses by sweeping them to the side so he could put down the champagne and bucket. Then, nice and mature friends that we are, me and Cam started flicking water from the champagne bucket at each other, until he took it to another level by throwing iceblocks at me. I took my revenge by throwing some blocks down his shirt hehehe....I then spent the rest of the night trying to avoid his retaliation.

Swung by KFC for some dinner for Queenie (poor girl works so hard)

4. Robot. Here we picked up Sampson, Lani and her bf, and Martin. Here I had a samidare and a vodka cran again (13). At this point, I was still a jovial drunk, but after a few minutes at

5. Golden Monkey, I had 1/2 a vodka and grenadine and was suddenly changed into an angry drunk. I'm therefore assuming that 13 standard drinks is my limit if you want to keep me happy, unless of course you'd prefer to be conversing with angry mally.

Truly a memorable night.

Clay - the Warrior/Minstrel

I stayed up all Tuesday night reading a book. And when I say all night, I mean I started the book at midnight and I finished it at 8:30am - that's right. I didn't sleep. The book was Bitten by Kelley Armstrong. It's told from a first person perspective - Elena, the heroine who happens to be a werewolf. I won't give away the story but essentially its very violent, lots of fluffy animals and gross humans are killed and has some weird werewolf outdoor sex. I was going to write an extensive review of this book, but having read something about it on the net, I've decided to analyse the hero - Clay a werewolf who completely embraces his wolf side. On the flipside of the Madonna/Whore complex that women attribute to men, the ideal man (and romance hero) is the Warrior/Minstrel that women want - big tough guys who exhibit signs of sensitivity and Clay is an almost perfect example.

Clay is psychotic. And I don't mean he has scary thoughts - he really is crazy. He killed his first opponent via dismemberment at the age of 17 and has no qualms in killing anyone who threatens the werewolf Pack. At the point in the novel he has such a fearsome reputation that when people see Elena they become wary because they know Clay can't be too far away. He is a complete Warrior - someone who will fight cleanly, fight dirty, fight anyway if it will give him the outcome he wants. But at the same time, there's more to him than the crazy guy who'll torture someone and then break their neck without blinking an eye.

He's also a Minstrel type - Elena and Clay meet at a uni where he was lecturing on anthropology and she was a student. After hearing that Elena never had a Christmas with all the trimmings, he spends weeks researching the topic so that he can give her one. He discloses his difficult youth and background to her (although omits his wolf-ness which causes friction later). When the novel begins, the two have been estranged for about a year, but it is implied that for every day she is gone, Clay waits for Elena to return at the gates the Pack estate.

He's by no means perfect - I'd probably have the same hangups as Elena if the person I loved *conveniently* forgot to mention he's a supernatural monster, and said monster then goes on to do some pretty unforgivable things. But he's one of the more interesting characters I've come across in a while.

Movie review: Brokeback Mountain

Two teenagers meet for the first time when they seek a job which requires them to be with each other for months on end. Awkward around each other at first, their isolation forces them to become co-dependent, developing into friendship, until one night they get drunk and end up sleeping together. Horrified by their actions, the next morning they deny their actions, but find themselves inexorably falling in love despite their stations in life forcing them to never be together. Their idyllic time in isolation ends and each goes their separate ways, meeting and marrying other people. Yet their continual feeling for the other can't or won't be denied, and for the next 20 years the two continue a love affair, periodically meeting up to re-create their teenage autumn-winter together, equally as a way to escape the pressures of their day-to-day life and also to be with their soulmate.

And that is the plot of Brokeback Mountain.

You know that if one of the protagonists was a woman, there wouldn't be a fuss about this being a *gay cowboy* movie or jokes like *Brokebutt Mountain.* It would be compared to other stories that involve love denied/thwarted and all that stuff, and would join the pantheon of other 'classic' love stories like Romeo and Juliet, An Affair to Remember, The English Patient, Innocence, or even Titanic. Yet at the same time, if the movie wasn't about two men in love, I wonder if it would have affected me as much. IMO, because the movie is about two men, it changes a topic that seems so mundane - an illicit love affair - into a movie that raises thoughts about the motivation behind love - why do we fall for who we do, what would we do to be near the one we love, and ultimately, regret from repressing love and missed opportunities. That's not to say that these other movies didn't address these issues, but perhaps by changing it to two males, it makes more apparent issues that may not seem obvious in a hetero affair.

1. The start of hetero teenage love may be chalked up to infatuation, loneliness, lust, or boredom. Watching Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes get it on seems a lot more obvious than why Heath and Jake fall in love (pretty as they may be).
2. Likewise, the motivation continued mature love affair seems pretty straightforward to the audience when you're Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes (The End of the Affair) compared to Heath with a bad 70s haircut and Jake with a moustache.
3. Divorce may have been a stigma in the late 60s/early 70s, but if after your divorce you chose to shack up with another woman, that may have raised a few eyebrows but it wouldn't put your life in peril - a genuine reason why you wouldn't get together with someone you love who loves you back.
4. By making the protagonists two men, it reinforces that all avenues are closed. If they were women, they could probably have gotten away with living together as spinsters. But as men in that day, age, and environment? Hell no it was never gonna happen.

Ultimately, while this is a love story, I think it's a story about regret. Almost immediately afterwards, I compared Brokeback to The Shawshank Redemption and was told I was making a really big call. I contemplated why I said that and came to this conclusion - while Shawshank is about how hope can keep you alive in even the most dire situation, Brokeback is the opposite side of the coin. The trappings of happiness (Jake marries a woman whose father runs a successful company and thus he pulls himself out of poverty, Heath remains poor but has a wife and two daughters adore him) and a beautiful environment mean little when you're living a life full of regret for missed opportunities and dreams due to fears about failure or expectations of what you are supposed to become....expectations from family/friends/society. Hope may keep you alive, but continued regret crushes the soul. After watching this, I begin to feel a bit more understanding for Prince Charles and Camilla.

The acting in this movie is sheer powerhouse. I can't imagine it would be easy to act as if you're falling in love with a member of your own sex, but Heath and Jake make it so believable. You being to feel for the characters: Their joy when they're together, Heath's depression with his poverty, Jake's frustration with his disrespectful in-laws, fear and anger when they realise people know their secret. Perhaps their best is when after four years of separation, their complete giddiness at seeing each other again leads to taking a genuine embrace and kiss in broad daylight. But Michelle Williams is the one you really need to keep an eye on. In her first scene at their wedding, Heath seems uncomfy (and we know why), but Michelle seems hopeful, if a little bit simple. She has genuine affection for her husband that becomes confusion, shock, frustration, world-weariness, and finally anger at her lot in life. The expression on her face when she sees Jake and Heath kiss, rather than quickly pull away, she stands and watches for a nearly a minute, her stupefaction as what she's seeing registers but she can't comprehend it, her silent withdrawal into their apartment and inane question "Texans don't drink coffee?" to Heath when he tells her he and Jake are heading out fishing immediately. After their divorce and an uncomfortable Thanksgiving with her new husband, she releases all her rage and humiliation - you're at once fearful that she'll let out Heath's secret but at the same time, sympathetic to her grief.

There are a few scenes of kissing and implied sex, with only one *full* scene, which would be the initial 'tent scene.' You're left with no illusions as to what who's doing to whom but at the same time its an almost completely dark shot so its possibly the least graphic sex scene since the cursory one in KOH. Online reviews have questioned the necessity of the scene, that it was unrealistic etc. But I pose this question - in an age where sex is considered integral to love, where nasal spray technology is spouted over the radio to help guys give their ladies extended pleasure and stop the flop, would it be widely accepted that their love was complete and mutual if all it consisted of was longing glances? Would you believe that it would have lasted 20 years if all they had was a hug every few years? Was the scene in Monster's Ball really necessary? I don't know, but the two scenes are essentially same: Two people, drunk, due to their environment their relationship is considered unacceptable, have a spontaneous moment that acts as an outletting of emotion. Replace one of them with a girl in Brokeback and it wouldn't raise too many eyebrows.

If there's something I found ridiculous about the movie, its that the actors only show the passing of time by the changing of hair. They may be in their late 30s/early 40s by the end of the movie, but apart from some crowsfeet around Heath's eyes, the leads look as dewy as the first scenes they appear in. Also, I know rural folk aren't exactly known for being articulate and eloquence with beautiful diction, but sometimes the mumbling got so that I couldn't understand what was being said. That said, Brokeback Mountain is not the movie for you if you are sure in your convictions that homosexual love/sex is disgusting and unnatural. As much as we can debate whether this movie has a pro-gay agenda, whatever, the messages that come from this story would probably not be as strong if one of the leads were female. The movie does trade a bit on its topic - it is highly thought provoking, but it requires that you at least be sympathetic to the situation they are in.

I don't know if Brokeback Mountain is a perfect movie, but it's definitely a thought provoking one, that keeps you occupied over its 144 minute running time. And considering that this movie has kept me thinking for a days after its viewing, running over and over again in my head what various things mean (what I've written here is only a fraction of what I've discussed with others), I'd say this movie is definitely worth the buzz it's garnered.
9/10

Man, I'm a bad sibling

My sister is in HK and I didn't even know it.

I also watched Brokeback Mountain last night - it might be a while before the review is up because it was very thought provoking. I need to get everything into order before I can get writing!

Gianlorenzo Bernini

I was re-organising some of my books (hence the last post), when I came across a little book I bought from a church in Rome on the topic of Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), the great Baroque sculpter and architect (and to a lesser extent, painter) . Considering that Bernini was the artist who has had the greatest effect on Rome and The Vatican (he designed the colonnade in St. Peter's Sq), it's surprising to think that he'd been out of favour until relatively recently. This was probably due to the works being constructed in a way so as to elicit visceral *WOW!* responses from the viewer, meaning that a lot of them have overt emotions, such as St. Longinus (St. Peter's - above). This photo doesn't really do it justice, but when you're standing right in front of Longinus and the light hits it just so, you get a sense of action from the way the sculpture has his head thrown back and arms stretched out...there's a real moment of awe.

Recognised as a child prodigy, he produced four masterpieces, Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius, The Rape of Proserpine, Apollo and Daphne, and David before the age of 30. All of these sculptures are at the Galleria Borghese (left - you're not allowed to take photos inside), and while there's some debate about whether their positioning in their respective rooms alters the meaning of the works, their *wow* factor can't be denied. Take a care to walk around them slowly and examine the finer details that show how great Bernini was at making marble look like fingers digging into soft flesh (Proserpine), or his ability to carve the stone so finely that you can see light shining through it (Apollo). I can't remember how much I paid to get into the Galleria Borghese, but I DO remember it was kind of troublesome because they limit the number of ppl who can be inside at a given time so you have to book a time rather than just show up. Regardless, I think the gallery is worth it because it's chock-full of fantastic art - there's about 5 Caravaggios, a few Titians and a great Raphael painting.

Perhaps Bernini's most famous work is The Cornaro Chapel featuring the sculpture The Ecstasy of St. Teresa (Santa Maria della Vittoria - right). The chapel was commissioned during one of the few times when Bernini was out of papal favour, so the church of Santa Maria is kind of small and dark and unassuming. There's a bit of a shock when you walk inside and see to the left a chapel with a huge sculpture in the middle and riotiously colourful marble. Bernini liked to play with the lighting of his sculptures to maximise the effect, and although the lighting of Teresa has been kinda wrecked by the installation of electric lights, you can still see the glow that you get from the golden bars (there's a hidden window just above them) reflecting onto the faces of the angel and Teresa. The angel is all round cheeks and curls, while the saint with her half-closed eyes and open mouth looks like she's had the best gelati ever. And then when you look up, you see the troemp l'oeil painting of heavenly light, angels and clouds billowing into the chapel - its fantastic. (The painting was from a design of Bernini's but executed by a collaborator. His name eludes me right now).

There are some other great works from Bernini such as his bust of Pope Innocent X (Galleria Doria-Pamphilj - get the audio tour, Prince Jonathan has a really sexy voice) and the Fountain of the Four Rivers (Piazza Navona - there's a famous gelati shop nearby!) that must be seen. But there are two particular works of his that you can see for free in Rome showing that while Bernini excelled at producing the big showpieces, his works could also be whimsical. In the Piazza di Spagna near the Spanish steps is a fountain where the centrepiece is a sunken boat (above left). Apparently the fountain site had a problem with water pressure, and the idea of a sunken boat was a solution to having a centrepiece that would have water coming out if it - hehehehe. And in the Piazza della Minerva, a little elephant supports a genuine Egyptian obelisk (right). That elephant is so cute, if it wasnt 350 years old I would have given its head a little rub.

My Books

I have a lot. I go on a book binge approximately twice a year when Reader's Feast have their bi-annual 20% credit week, although sometimes if I catch one of Dymock's 20% off everything days I also tend to go a bit nuts then. This often results in my purchasing about $100 worth of books per shopping expedition or approximately 10-12 books per year, although I think 2005 was a bumper year where I bought about 15.

The books I buy generally fall into the following categories:
Art
Medical/Scientific interest
Romance fiction
Literature/General fiction
European History
*Buzz* books
and the occasional random topic purchase, normally a request from a sibling (e.g. Melvin Bragg's The Adventure of English).

This often means that some of the books I buy end up only partially or never read, but I can't stop buying more. Every six months, there's always more books that sound interesting that I want to have rather than wait and borrow from the library. My little luxury :-)

Alicia Keys - special request topic from Justin Shuen

Alicia Keys. Such fantastic talent, amazing brains, and quite lovely to boot. I was lucky enough to catch her concert two years ago, after her second album The Diary of Alicia Keys was released and it was a great show (I didn't know she could dance!). So lets delve into the background of her and her music.

Born in 1981, she's sold over 20 million albums and singles worldwide and won 9 Grammys (so far). Keys was raised in Hells Kitchen, New York, primarily by her mother as her parents separated when she was young. She began playing piano when she was seven, learning classical music, and attended the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan, from where she graduated as valedictorian. Some problems with various record companies ensued when they tried to turn her into another Jennifer Lopez (good lord!). Keys prevailed and eventually released her debut album Songs in A Minor in 2001, an RnB/soul flavoured album that also reflected her classical roots. Her follow up

The first single from Songs in A Minor, was Fallin' is based on the bassline from a Chopin piano composition (I can't remember the title) and since then has been a favourite of Idol competition performers the world over. The lyrics are a lament on a relationship that produces confused and mixed feelings, varying between happy times and conflict, but that for all the pain the relationship brings, she's never loved someone as she loved the guy. This was linked to a somewhat fitting film clip where Keys travels to a prison where her bf is incarcerated.

Her follow up album The Diary of Alicia Keys (2003) contained the awesome single If I Ain't Got You which also became a duet with Usher (to pair with the duet My Boo on his Confessions album). Another Idol favourite, the song denounces the material trappings that are associated with happiness and love, declaring that theyre all meaningless without the other person. All together now, awwwww.

And so Alicia Keys, I tip my hat to you.
Justin, if this isnt enough, may I suggest wikipedia or her one of the many fansites online.

This is fun

if you like celebrity gossip and you like art.

http://galleryoftheabsurd.typepad.com/

This site combines the two!

Special request shout-out!

HI JON!!!!
FROM MELBOURNE TO LONDON, HELLOOoooOOOoooo THERE!!!
(Mandy says :-P)