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Last night during knitting, my girlfriend and I watched “Elizabeth”, the one with Cate Blanchett. I’m not much of a history buff, so any of the inconsistencies completely flew over my head. And even with some (quick) research today, I’m still oblivious to the inconsistencies.
I was impressed with the movie. I like how strong Elizabeth was portrayed and Cate Blanchett did a great job. Of course, I think that Cate Blanchett is a spectacular actress anyway. She comes off as one of those actresses that just fully becomes every character she takes on. I knew that Elizabeth was either a) having an affair or just involved in a b) extremely close relationship with Robert Dudley. But in the movie I never see his wife or her scandal causing death. I only heard mention of her very slightly and this causes Elizabeth to shun him. I confess that I spent much of the first half of the movie trying to figure out where I had seen Geoffrey Rush before. Then it clicked after studying his nose. He’s Barbossa! After I solved that mystery, I invested much more of my time in watching the film.
The one thing I was slightly disappointed in is that I read the back of the movie and expected all kinds of thrills and adventure. Then the movie, while it provided thrills & adventure, didn’t seem to live up to the blurb on the back. But I suppose you have to edit some things out because if you were to do a full story of any monarch, it would take a lot of film. That’s probably why they made “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”.
So tonight I think I’m going to rent “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” while I’ve got Elizabeth’s monarchy on the brain, and then since I’m admiring Cate Blanchett’s work, I might pick up “The Aviator”.
Last night I wrapped up “Soul Music” and have nothing but good things to say about it. The character Death is so entertaining! I can fully envision his personality and what this character is like. Even if I had never seen “The Hogfather”, I’d still be able to recreate the same image in my mind. The whole universe that Terry Pratchett has created is amazing.
I absolutely could not stop giggling at the wizards at the Unseen University. Their logic is complete crap and the fact that all of the professors are hesitant (more like terrified) to teach their students just cracks me up.
This is the set up for “Soul Music”. Imp Y Celyn (aka Buddy) has traveled from his home to Ankh Morpork to become a musician. Along the way he meets up with a dwarf and a troll and they make a quick decision to form a band. The Musician’s Guild turn down their application to become musicians because they can’t pay the fee to join the Guild. Destitute, they formulate a plan to play music in secret where the Guild won’t find them. While they are planning, Imp’s harp, a one of a kind and not made to be fixed, is sat on by one of the group and broken. They pick up a guitar at the local music store, which none of them remember having been there, but it must have been, becaue it’s always been there. The guitar takes a special hold on Imp and propels the group into wacky music stardom.
In the meanwhile, Death has become somewhat depressed and goes on his own journey of attempting to forget. As a result, his granddaughter Susan is plucked from her boarding school and put in charge of all things Death related. Her companions are the Death of Rats who has a raven for a translator and Binky, Death’s horse. She becomes wrapped up in her own question of ethics and challenges the way of the world when she learns that Imp is supposed to die.
Throughout the book I caught on to the many references to different artists and songs. For instance:
“Don’t Tread on my New Blue Boots” is Elivs Presley’s “(Don’t Step on My) Blue Suede Shoes”
“Good Gracious Miss Polly” is “Good Golly, Miss Polly”
“Pathway to Paradise” as Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”
Other parts of it that reflect pop culture is when the Dean paints his room black as a result of going to a rock concert. You are immediately reminded of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black”. The entire city goes bananas after hearing Music With Rocks In (the name of Imp’s band). Virtually everyone decides to create their own band and goes to town playing bad music and the wizards start rebelling against their wizardness. The wizards and some of the help start wearing leather pants and jackets and beehive hairdo’s and platform shoes. Basically everybody goes crazy with music on their brain.
I heartily recommend this book because it’s a fun read!
Last fall/winter a girlfriend of mine invited me to sign up on Shelfari. It took me a long time to get all of my books listed on there and I’m constantly forgetting to update it with books I’ve read since then. Online it says I have read/own (they’re pretty much synonymous) totals 143. That doesn’t count the few knitting/crochet books I have or other things that are floating around. Anyhow, if anyone was interested in checking it out and seeing what I’ve read, my profile name is ndscribbler.
This past weekend I started reading “Soul Music” by Terry Pratchett. I’m about a quarter of the way into it and am really enjoying it! I haven’t had much of a chance to really sit down and read it since we’ve been doing the summer thing. Lots of activities to go to!
So far I’ve learned that Death has gone missing (he’s attempting to forget some of his memories) and his granddaughter Susan has been asked to pick up the slack. At the same time, an unlikely trio has formed a band and caused the magicians at the Unseen University to start grooving, but quite badly.
Once I’ve gotten a little further, I’ll post again.
One of my girlfriends received “The Other Boleyn Girl” from Amazon the other day. So she brought it over and I knitted. We both knew that the movie was going to be nothing like the book and tried to keep an open mind about it. But in the end, neither of us were entirely satisfied with the movie.
My main objection to the movie is that it bounced around the plotline a lot. Sure they kept the focus on what Anne Boleyn was trying to do, but all of the other characters just seemed….like their stories weren’t being told properly. When you are making a movie, you need to make sure all of the stories come together or else those characters are completely worthless.
I didn’t so much mind that the movie was scarcely historically correct or failed to follow the book. It impressed me that the girls’ mother actually had more lines that showed her motherly side instead of a hard-edged bitch. Everyone’s love life just seemed out of control. It’s like, Mary’s married, now she’s a mistress, now she’s a mom, oh wait, there’s her husband, now she’s living alone and she’s married again to some guy you see on screen a handful of times and it’s never suggested in the movie that there’s a romantic interest. WTF. The only way I even made the connection was because I had read the book. Then with Anne it was even more haphazard.
I’m definitely going to borrow the movie again and try to watch it and take it for what it’s worth. Because the first time around I couldn’t help but make all of these mental notes about what I didn’t really like about it.
Last night I finished the book “Good Omens” and thought it was amazing. It was everything my husband bragged it would be and more. I found it incredible that two authors came together and wrote this story. You would never guess because it was so seamless.
Easily my two favorite characters are the two angels, Aziraphale and Crowley. I love how they don’t want the world to end because they enjoy it too much. All of the characters were well rounded and totally believable. It was a nice thought that the Anti-Christ isn’t necessarily pure evil and will come into his own on his own despite influences. Like how he was supposed to name his hellhound and then his soul purpose would be whatever his name is. Then Adam goes and names him Dog and he becomes more and more doglike and less hellish. The little nips into Dog’s consciousness were funny too.
There are so many good things about this book. It’s funny and insightful and so enjoyable. On Sunday night I was so close to finishing it and even waited ’til 1 to go to bed. Then I finished it Monday night. You just don’t want to put the book down because it’s so good. I enjoyed the footnotes that were on most of the pages too. I’m definitely going to raid the rest of our bookshelves for more books by both authors!
As you know, I was intending on reading all of my Louise Erdrich books and then piecing together all the ties and stories and how they weave together. Last week I picked up “Love Medicine” and started to read and take notes. But I found myself glossing over the words and chapters. And I think this is what happens when I read and take notes. Instead of taking in the story like I normally do, I begin to see it as a text book. This is probably why I need to re-read my Haruki Murakami books.
Anyway, I found “Good Omens” sitting on our bookshelf and decided to pick it up and give it a try. So far so good. If you don’t know, “Good Omens” is co-written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I honestly didn’t read the back of the book and don’t remember a whole lot about what my husband told me about the book. But from what I’ve read, the book is about the upcoming Apocalypse, the 4 fallen angels who are helping to bring it about, one demon and one angel who are going to work together to keep it from happening because they happen to like Earth and the people, and just silly twists and turns.
My only problem is that with the thousand other things I’ve become addicted to (read largely: knitting), I rarely have time to read anymore! Unless of course it’s while laying out in the hammock in my backyard. And then of course I want to read something trashy and mind-numbing. Who can concentrate on a good book while frying yourself in 80 degree weather? It’s like when I tried to read “Lolita” by the pool in Costa Rica. Didn’t happen and I haven’t picked it back up since then. Well, my knitting project is almost done, so hopefully I’ll get back to reading by tomorrow. Or Wednesday.
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