Blogging and ballet...

So there's a blogger out there (actually, in Seattle) called Breakup Babe who has just signed a book contract with Random House on the basis of her weblog. I think that is pretty cool. I guess it is sort of like a real-life Bridget Jones. I don't know if her book will be excerpts from her weblog or whether she will be writing new material - but "good for her" I say. Here's her weblog if you are interested: http://breakupbabe.blogspot.com/.

Went to the ballet last night. Romeo & Juliet. I liked it very much, but very little of my enjoyment has anything to do with it being ballet. I love the story. The music by Prokofiev is great. The stage sets were incredible. And the whole imagery of Romeo & Juliet is captivating. But the actual dancing didn't exactly blow my skirt up, as they say. If I am being honest I must say that ballet does not inspire me. Clearly it is incredibly difficult requiring tremendous strength, skill, and dedication. The problem, for me anyway, is that it should look better than it does - taking into account all that hard work. I'm sure that for ballet afficionados last night's dance performance was spectacular and that the story of Romeo & Juliet is incidental and just a framework about which the ballet can be built, but that is not the case with me. I even found in some instances that the dancing actually detracted from my enjoyment of the evening. I feel like I am revealing my uncouthness, but at least I am not saying ballet is rubbish or that I hate it... because that is not true. And at least I am not saying I liked it when actually I didn't - which would be even worse than trashing it. Nope, ballet is just not my bag, baby.

Latest news...

Items to report:

• The Incredibles was good. It was a bit different from previous Pixar films in that it was more of an action/adventure than a comedy (although there were decent helpings of comedy too). It took me a while to adjust to the style shift but once I did, I was hooked.
  
• Halo 2 has been out on the Xbox for nearly 2 weeks now. It has received a lot of hype and I think that it lives up to most of it. The online play is excellent although it seems that virtually every other player out there is better than me.
  
• Liverpool FC has had a terrible run of form and luck this past week or so. All of the team's top goal-scorers are injured, which is a ridiculous case of bad luck. And the team has lost its last two matches: 0-2 away to Middlesbrough at the weekend and 0-1 away to Monaco in the Champions League last night.
  
• We have a massive weekend coming up. On Saturday Andy is organising and hosting the second Annual Games Championship (AGC) a day-long multi-discipline video gaming competition, which everyone is thoroughly looking forward to.
  
• Then on Sunday we will be having Thanksgiving dinner at our house. Thanksgiving was by far my favourite holiday in America and so we have imported it to England. We can't have Thursday off so Sunday seemed like the natural alternative. We did the same thing last year and it was a great success.
  
• Tomorrow night we are going to see the ballet version of Romeo & Juliet in Bristol. The performance has been getting great reviews in the national press so I have quite high hopes. I'm not really a ballet fan, but this is supposed to be as good as it gets.
  

Beyond the edge of reason...

A group of us went to see "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" on Tuesday night. After the bad things I had said (and blogged) about it I thought I needed to give it a chance to prove me wrong.

Unfortunately, I thought it was poor. Not as funny as the first, no longer an original concept, recycled jokes, contrived set-pieces. I think its biggest crime though was to make Bridget Jones so self-obsessed as to make her un-lovable. Where in the first movie I was rooting for her, here I was not fussed whether she ended up with Mark Darcy or not. Maybe because it was all so predictable that the final outcome was never really in doubt. It had some funny moments and Hugh Grant is definitely good in the bad-boy role but overall it suffered from the fact that it was clear from the beginning that Working Title's only motivation was making money.

There are plans afoot to see "The Incredibles" this weekend. Now that is a movie I am definitely looking forward to.

Someone else's movie review...

What follows is an excerpt from the review of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by film critic Anthony Quinn from today's Independent newspaper. Although I have not seen the movie, the review pretty much confirms everything I had managed to gather from seeing the previews. It also excellently sums up what I generally think about run-of-the-mill movie sequels.

"At some point you have to ask: how little are the fans prepared to settle for? Will it matter to them that there's a public fisticuffs between Darcy and Cleaver virtually identical to the first movie? That Bridget's three "friends", Jude, Shazza and Tom, have absolutely no life during their few dismal scenes? That a breathless cab ride figures at the finale, as it does in almost every movie Richard Curtis touches? I'm afraid it probably won't. Nor will it bother the folk at Working Title once the queues start forming. All the same, this is a pretty tawdry product, and it hasn't even the virtue of novelty any more. Throughout one senses a desperation to please, to seek the easiest laughs and the quickest payoffs."

You can read the entire review here:

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/film/reviews/story.jsp?story=581862

Murders and 1-0 away wins...

Last Saturday, for Halloween, we participated in a murder mystery evening at Rachael's new flat. Set in the Hollywood scene of the 1950s, we all came dressed in various movie-related garb. I was a matinee idol who was filming an Arabian movie... I was very Lawrence-ish. Andy was Robin Hood, Griff was a badly dressed director, Paul was dressed as a sheriff (for the western he was starring in), Rachael was in Japanese-stylee, Marla, Becky, Fi & Louise were all sort of dolled up, 50s style.

It was a great evening. Louise was the eventual killer. I nearly guessed correctly but changed my accusation at the last second.

Last night we went out for a meal and a movie to celebrate Mum's birthday. We went to Thai Balcony, which is a lovely place. I had Stir Fry Chicken with Chili, Garlic and Basil. Unfortunately, there was no Chili... so a bit of a dissappointment for me. Everyone else loved their food though. We then went to see Finding Neverland at the cinema. It is a very good film. Touching, funny, emotional with great performances - especially from Johnny Depp. It's not really my sort of film... but very good nevertheless.

Also last night, Liverpool beat Deportivo la Coruña 0-1 in the UEFA Champions League. It's a great away win that really helps Liverpool's chances of advancing to the next stage of the competition. The goal was an own-goal by Deportivo, but apparently the Liverpool performance was excellent. Good news indeed.