Weekend of Watching
Friday night I saw Ender's Game. I enjoyed it. I don't know that it is a favorite or anything, but it was a perfectly pleasant way to spend a few hours. I've read the book, but none of the sequels and felt much the same way about the book as I do about the film: it's OK but I don't think it is massively amazing or anything. Also, if you are interested in the whole "Orson Scott Card, the author of the novel, is a bigoted asshole" controversy, a Mormon (relevant since Card is a Mormon) friend of mine shared this article with me, which I found more interesting and insightful than most of what I've read on it. It is a Muslim man discussing his relationship to the book and Card when he first read Ender's Game and his thoughts and feelings on Card's homophobia, anti-Islamic bigotry, etc. that have come to public attention over the past several years.
Saturday I watched this week's QI. It was a good episode. Tonight I watched this week's Was It Something I Said (the new panel show on Channel 4 hosted by David Mitchell). The actual show here is kind of lame, but it works alright as a platform for the general comedy you get on panel sows. This week's episode rose well above the norm, however, and was kind of fantastic. I couldn't stop laughing and might have scared my roommate.
The highlight of the weekend, however, was the National Theatre 50th Anniversary extravaganza. I watched it with some friends this afternoon / evening and it was brilliant. All the acting was amazing, as expected. The scenes from plays I knew were all fantastic. There were a couple of scenes from plays I don't know where I didn't get as much from the scene without context, but even most of the ones I didn't know I think I got as much as I should have and it was still all great. We watched it streaming but I downloaded it for the iPlayer so I've got that for another month and will probably watch it again at some point in there. There are a million things I could have taken away from it, but I most came out with an urge to watch History Boys again.
For the BBC Radio fans, if you've listened to Copenhagen with Cumberbatch and to Cabin Pressure... Roger Allam did a bit of a Heisenberg speech from Copenhagen so that was odd for me. I couldn't stop thinking "But you're the wrong MJN pilot!" which is rather unfair to Mr. Allam, I admit.
Saturday I watched this week's QI. It was a good episode. Tonight I watched this week's Was It Something I Said (the new panel show on Channel 4 hosted by David Mitchell). The actual show here is kind of lame, but it works alright as a platform for the general comedy you get on panel sows. This week's episode rose well above the norm, however, and was kind of fantastic. I couldn't stop laughing and might have scared my roommate.
The highlight of the weekend, however, was the National Theatre 50th Anniversary extravaganza. I watched it with some friends this afternoon / evening and it was brilliant. All the acting was amazing, as expected. The scenes from plays I knew were all fantastic. There were a couple of scenes from plays I don't know where I didn't get as much from the scene without context, but even most of the ones I didn't know I think I got as much as I should have and it was still all great. We watched it streaming but I downloaded it for the iPlayer so I've got that for another month and will probably watch it again at some point in there. There are a million things I could have taken away from it, but I most came out with an urge to watch History Boys again.
For the BBC Radio fans, if you've listened to Copenhagen with Cumberbatch and to Cabin Pressure... Roger Allam did a bit of a Heisenberg speech from Copenhagen so that was odd for me. I couldn't stop thinking "But you're the wrong MJN pilot!" which is rather unfair to Mr. Allam, I admit.