Snick's Thoughtful Spot: 2012/01

14 January 2012

Ellie's First Opera

Jack and the Beanstalk wasn't exactly the fairie story of old, but this little opera troupe put together a great little gig for kids in only two days, which I found very impressive. Despite Elle's extreme grumpiness for getting up at an absurd 9am on a Saturday no less, she became quite keen on this "Beanstalk" situation. The organisers wisely called all kids who wished to see up front and three rather long rows of very big eyes took in all the excitement. I thought it was decently comparable in quality to her first puppet show in Angel (London) almost exactly one year ago, which made me very happy. The adults were noisy and paranoid, but then the parental hand to hand combat that nearly ensued in Angel's Li'l Theatre didn't happen either, leaving me with the rather strong belief that parents are generally nuts when it comes to their kids regardless of the cultural, religious, or ethnic background.

Elle's grand contribution was to walk up to the stage steps and point to the Giant's shoes to indicate they were untied. Her rather high levels of OCD behaviour was demonstrated in the most public way possible. She also felt the necessity to go up and sit next to the announcer/organiser who was waiting to go up and close the show. She wasn't annoying though, and that was the huge relief to the rather rigid-backed parents with a stricken look of terror sitting in the middle of the audience. We have discovered that her unabashed lack of fear can cause...problems.

The end of the "mini-opera" was a photo session where the idea was to stand between the princess and the Giant, but it would seem that was not her plan. Cute all the same though, tucked under the arm of rather large baritone where she was not inclined to leave and seemed unclear as to the purpose of the cameras ... which... is a bit of a first since posing for camera's is a favourite pastime for her :)

2011 Movie Review

A friend and I made a pact to watch only new movies for 2011 ... well, that didn't exactly stick but I was very surprised with the amount of 'new' movies I watched given the intentional goal to do so. As such, I plan to do it again this year. Something that is fun is going back and thinking about how those movies impacted you. Below are all the movies that I very proudly have taken the time to watch. My life does not have a lot of time available to watch films, so while I realise that this list isn't exactly comprehensive compared to many, it's especially long for me given that I had to break down and watch my film series for background noise while I work. These series usually involve English mystery such as Midsomer Murders or Law & Order (Criminal Intent and SVU) with a smattering of sci-fi such as the billionth run of Firefly, Bab5 or even DS9.

Beside each movie listed below starting with January 2011 includes what I remember, which can be really amusing since I don't have a great memory for movies.

Silverado - a Western, I think

All that Jazz - some sort of tragic 70s Broadway that put me to sleep

Tron (cinema) - lots of very cool graphics and storyline

The Day the Earth Stood Still - apocalyptic

Big Fish - really interesting perspective of storytelling

The Assassination of Jesse James - the assassination of Jesse James

Million Dollar Baby - horrible and wonderful film that is about ethical dilemma

Brokeback Mountain - ummmm, I'm not really sure how I felt, actually

End Game - I have zero memory of this

Three Kings - remember liking it; refugees or gold? Mmmm

The Day After Tomorrow - yet another apocalyptic film

The Hurt Locker - a reminder that some of us are best at something; otherwise depressing

Jumper - fun teleportation sci fi

2012 - guess what! ANOTHER apocalyptic film. Noah's Ark spin off was interesting

Walk the Line - definitely a pencil in the eye, unless of course you're mad about Johnny Cash

Just Cause - a completely unexpected twist that made an otherwise dull movie memorable

Invictus - fascinating view into South African issues during Mandela's time (as leader)

The Secret Life of Bees - /really/ depressing

The History of the World: Part 1 - absolutely hysterical

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - meh; interesting perspective

Zombieland - totally funny and worth owning

Lost Boys - a classic that I missed somehow, but has now been rectified

Legion - really loved everything about this film - apocalyptic supernatural

Ladyhawke - long, but a nice classic fantasy film

Fierce Creatures - I haven't stopped laughing - must own

Thor (cinema) - they did so much better than I expected - I was terrified of mega cheese

The Dilemma - so painfully stupid and horrible, biggest pencil in the eye ever

Priest ( cinema) - LOVED this post-apocalyptic supernatural

X-men: First Class (cinema) - absolutely awesome (except for Angel...that was messed up)

Pirates 4 - Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom...oh, and Penelope Cruz. Apparently stuff happened.

Ghosts of Machu Picchu: Nova - trying to dip into documentaries - learned a lot

The Dark Ages - more documentary - I feel asleep

Solomon & Sheba: Biography - I'm not so great at paying attention to documentaries

Brain Candy - funny, sort of - lots of mockery

Inspector General - way out of my comfort zone, but found this mid-century comedy amusing

Maverick - awesome western comedy

Miyazaki's Spirited Away - excellent anime, worth owning

Pandorum - new Adam and Eve via cryogenic disaster

Hudson Hawk - very funny - not really something I expected from Bruce Willis

Moneyball - it kept my attention the whole time as a baseball movie, which is impressive

Brewseter's Millions - absolutely funny watching somebody get sick of money

Johnny Mnemonic - a really good cyberpunk movie that is sparking my interest in cyberpunk

Starship Troopers - interesting futuristic military action with aliens

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (cinema) - loved this as much as the first - they are creating the movies in the spirit of the original style of the actual books

My major takeaways include a new interest in cyberpunk (reading Neuromancer now) and that while I really dislike apocalyptic films, I completely adore /supernatural/ apocalyptic films. I also need to watch more anime. Avoiding drama seems to be a good thing for me, although I wouldn't have figured that without reviewing this list and realising how bored I was with the drama style films.