Media update
Wow, long time no update - still around, though, and reading lj. In the absence of studying, I seem to have taken up reading books again, which is nice :)
Theatre
Saw Liza's Back! (is Broken), which was a Minnelli tribute show by Trevor Ashley, star of the comedic revues Fat Swan and Little Orphan Tr(Ashley) (quickly renamed after the original title did not go down well). He's a good performer, and the other shows were great fun, but I was wondering whether a rather good Minnelli impersonation was enough to keep me entertained for almost two hours. The answer was no. There was a sizable band - maybe ten people or so - who added class and energy to the show, but this suffered from being a solo performance rather than an ensemble one, and didn't really have a story to speak of, just Ashley-as-Liza telling anecdotes from her past, and singing show tunes.
The other issue here was that while I understand classic show tunes may be a pleasure to sing, I'm middle-aged and jaded and I really, REALLY didn't need to hear anything from The Sound of Music, A Chorus Line or Cats again, and if you want to sing Sondheim, great, but PLEASE, of all the fabulous material, something apart from "Send in the Clowns" and "I'm Still Here" would be nice. Also, breaking up the night with a little Judy Garland was very nice and in keeping with the Minnelli theme, but... "Over the Rainbow" is another of those songs I Didn't Really Need To Hear Another Version Of. It may be just that I was hoping for "The Trolley Song" *g*. I do remember vaguely enjoying the songs from Sunset Boulevard, which I know but haven't actually seen, and that was about it. My friend said he would have been satisfied and enjoyed the evening better if the show had been half its length and ended at interval, and I totally agree. The impersonation and the schtick and bad jokes were fun for a while, but there wasn't anything more substantial there to hold it together.
Also saw the NT Live screening of Richard III with Ralph Fiennes (woo!) - I was so thrilled to at least get to see a filmed version of this. It was good, but not amazing - his performance in Man and Superman blew me away, but this was just another Shakespeare production, really. It may be that I have no great love for this play, or for the histories in general - the first time I saw it was actually the Cumberbatch version, so that's literally all I have to compare it to. The play itself has a handful of great moments, but it's one of those ones I still don't get all the fuss over. Anyway, Richard the III plots to become King of England, kills a few people, and succeeds. I do hope that wasn't a spoiler.
The thing I thought Fiennes did best with the role was create a Richard who was at least a coherent person - that is, I could see that he had a certain overriding character which he retained throughout the play. The main issue I had with Cumberbatch's performance is that he seemed to act each scene separately from the others, so that his entire being was invested in the current scene, even the ones where he's dissembling. Now, I realise in theory Richard could just have a been a very good actor capable of coming up with whatever the occasion requires, but that implicitly plays on the audience having an existing understanding of who he is, rather than presenting both layers to the audience through the performance. I hope that makes sense; I know what I mean, anyway *g*. While his acting was good, I found it difficult to believe his Richard was a whole person rather than a series of them; at least Fiennes gave me a rather businesslike, amoral Richard who methodically does whatever it takes to get his way.
I wasn't sure about the staging at first, but it really grew on me - the play has a startlingly modern opening with the remains of Richard III being unearthed from a large grave-shaped hole in the middle of the carpark. Snippets of reportage are heard as bits of his skeleton are recovered and handed up for examination. I thought this was a bit silly and unnecessary, but then the "grave" returned throughout the play as various characters end up being dispatched and disappear into it. One of Richard's last scenes involved him circling it repeatedly before his eventual demise. The play then closes with a repeat of the opening, where his bones are put on display. I found it really quite a effective idea - score one for arty concepts that actually work. Anyway, Fiennes was entirely competent, if not exceptionally impressive, and while I feel bad about essentially ignoring the rest of the cast, they were... good without being amazing. I really missed Okenedo's fiery Queen Margaret from the BBC series - I knew the doddery old woman (referring to the interpretation, not the actress) was someone famous (Vanessa Redgrave, as it turns out), but I wasn't particularly impressed, sorry.
Movies
Don't Breathe - weirdly enough, I saw this with my mum, who likes thrillers, but had no one to go with, so I thought it'd be fun. Within about thirty seconds of the movie starting I suddenly remembered why I don't usually see this kind of thing, and ended up shutting my eyes a lot of the time and watching a great deal of the rest of it from behind my fingers. My mum was perfectly fine, by the way.
Three young people - two guys, one girl - lead fairly purposeless existences in Detroit, going nowhere (I thought the city shots alone added a great deal of atmosphere). Just for fun, and to get a little bit of cash, they break into people's houses and steal stuff (one of their fathers works for a security agency, so they have illicit access to keys). One day they hear that this blind guy on the edge of town received a hundred thousand dollars in a court judgment a few years back, and it's probably still stashed in his house. He's blind, so how hard can it be? Only it turns out he's a war veteran, and a force to be reckoned with when you're on his turf.
What I really enjoyed about this movie was that it took the time to humanise the young people - they're not "bad" as such, just directionless and lost. But obviously if it was your house they invaded, you wouldn't see it quite that way. Similarly their "victim" is a disabled war vet, and you'd think he'd have the right to protect his territory as best he can. But in protecting your home, how far is too far? He's not exactly a defenceless, innocent victim, either. So aside from the thriller aspect - and it was an excellent roller-coaster ride if you like that kind of thing, there were nicely-drawn characters and an interesting moral dimension that made it a cut above the average. I also really appreciated that there was only one moment of "movie stupidity" that I noticed - you know, "there's a serial killer on the loose and I heard a noise in the garden! Let's investigate!". Meaning that for the most part the characters needed to do the things they did rather than being randomly dumb. People will always complain about endings, but I thought it ended satisfyingly, and that's all I could ask for. I would actually watch this again - maybe now that I know how everything turns out I might be able to watch it without covering my eyes *g*
Books
Presto! (Penn Jilette) - I bought this one through iTunes - couldn't find it at the library, and I didn't think it was one I needed a physical copy of. I'm a big fan of Penn and Teller, but I don't quite know whether I like Jilette or not - he's kind of an asshole, but an entertaining asshole? I don't know. I do totally relate to the jumpy, slightly defensive way he talks/writes, though, like he knows you're judging him, and he wants you to know he knows - I feel like that when I write opinion posts *g*. Anyway, the book is about his massive 100-pound weight loss and How He Did It. Basically, he ate only potatoes for two weeks to reset his taste buds, and is now an unethical vegan who only eats in a daily eight-hour window (I think) and indulges in "rare and appropriate" blow-outs not more than once every two weeks. There, I just saved you from buying the book. What was more interesting to me is probably the glimpses into his life - his family, his relationship with Teller, his work, his opinions. He is a great storyteller, despite the massive amounts of name-dropping, and I enjoyed reading it. Once.
The Lady in the Van (Alan Bennett) - This was recently made into a movie (which I've not yet seen), and it was seeing the trailer that made me want to read it. As its name implies, it's the (true) story of the elderly lady who lived in a van that ended up permanently parked in Bennett's driveway. I would class this book as an extended character study - a portrait of her habits, her appearance, her relationship with Bennett, the neighbourhood, and the world. I don't think it really goes much deeper than that, but it's enough to be fascinating. I did really enjoy Bennett's eye for detail, and that he mostly keeps himself and his parallel middle-class life out of it - she is very much the focus of the memoir, and so she should be. In some ways she lived in terrible conditions, but on the other hand she fiercely maintained her independence and her dignity by doing so - I'd class it as melancholy rather than sad. A very short, easy read - more novella than novel.
Sugarbabe (Holly Hill) - an Australian memoir of a woman's time as a "sugarbabe". Having just broken up with a wealthy (married) boyfriend, and needing money to pay her rent and write her book, Hill (not her real name, although it's out there now) advertised online for a sugar daddy arrangement. This book is an account of the replies she got, the people she met, and how well the arrangements did - or didn't - work out. While the book is "fictionalised" - names changed, elements compressed or altered, it's a thoroughly entertaining read anyway. She does sound like tremendous fun to be around, and is very frank about sex and money. (I believe she went onto a career in erotic fiction, and as a connoisseur of porny fanfic, she at least passes muster *g*). I really enjoyed the Sydney setting of this book - I'm so used to reading as an outsider that it's nice to be intimately familiar (haha) with all the places she describes and get that thrill of recognition. Good fun, although something I think very few people would be able to pull off (...and suddenly everything turns into sexual innuendo). An interesting footnote is that this is the book she ended up writing rather than the book she became a sugarbabe to write *g*
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Natasha Pulley) - I read this due to a rec from flywoman, and it was absolutely worth it. I don't think my summary could do the book justice, so I'll settle for the official one.
London, 1883: Thaniel Steepleton returns to his tiny flat to find a mysterious gold pocket watch on his pillow. When the watch saves his life from a bomb blast that destroys Scotland Yard, Thaniel goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori - a kind, lonely immigrant who sweeps him into a new world of clockwork and music. Although Mori seems harmless at first, a chain of unexpected slips proves that he must be hiding something. Meanwhile, Grace Carrow is sneaking into an Oxford library dressed as a man. A theoretical physicist, she is desperate to prove the existence of the luminiferous ether before her mother can force her to marry. As the lives of these three characters become entwined, events spiral out of control.
What is not to love? There is some serious genre-bending here - it's Victorian magical realism (steampunk) that has a mystery at its heart (who set the bomb?) and also touches on history, science, feminism, travelogue, and romance. And to digress slightly... you know, over the years I've seen the expression "just like fanfic" as a bit of a double-edged sword. It's often used disparagingly, especially in reference to canon, but I think it can have positive connotations, too. To me one of the greatest things about fanfiction is that many of the usual rules of "literature" are up for grabs, leading to some amazingly inventive work. So I'm just going to say that I would bet that the author has read (and/or written) fanfiction in her time, and while this book is firmly "literary", in the sense of meeting all traditional established criteria for a novel, for me it also replicated a lot of the imaginative and emotional feel of first-class fanfic. And I mean that in its most positive sense. Highly recommended.
The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins) - another read prompted by a movie trailer. I suppose I tend to reason that if someone wanted to make it into a movie, it's probably at least a half-decent read *g*. The biggest initial surprise was that it's set in the area around London, because I was sure the trailer I saw was set in the US - and sure enough, it is. They changed it for the purposes of the movie. So the UK setting was a plus for me. A woman catches the train into London every day, past the house in which she used to live with her ex-husband, and makes up stories about the people and things she sees on the way. She's an alcoholic, and prone to blackouts and lost memories. So when a woman in her old neighbourhood goes missing, a woman she's only seen from the train window, she thinks she might know something about her disappearance, but she can't quite remember what it might be.
The story is told from three perspectives, all female - Rachel (the alcoholic "girl on the train"), Megan (the woman who goes missing), and Anna (the new wife of Rachel's ex-husband) and jumps back and forth in time. It's a super-easy read - the kind of thing you can pretty much inhale - and reaches a satisfying resolution. Which is all I really ask for from this kind of book. An enjoyable distraction.
Theatre
Saw Liza's Back! (is Broken), which was a Minnelli tribute show by Trevor Ashley, star of the comedic revues Fat Swan and Little Orphan Tr(Ashley) (quickly renamed after the original title did not go down well). He's a good performer, and the other shows were great fun, but I was wondering whether a rather good Minnelli impersonation was enough to keep me entertained for almost two hours. The answer was no. There was a sizable band - maybe ten people or so - who added class and energy to the show, but this suffered from being a solo performance rather than an ensemble one, and didn't really have a story to speak of, just Ashley-as-Liza telling anecdotes from her past, and singing show tunes.
The other issue here was that while I understand classic show tunes may be a pleasure to sing, I'm middle-aged and jaded and I really, REALLY didn't need to hear anything from The Sound of Music, A Chorus Line or Cats again, and if you want to sing Sondheim, great, but PLEASE, of all the fabulous material, something apart from "Send in the Clowns" and "I'm Still Here" would be nice. Also, breaking up the night with a little Judy Garland was very nice and in keeping with the Minnelli theme, but... "Over the Rainbow" is another of those songs I Didn't Really Need To Hear Another Version Of. It may be just that I was hoping for "The Trolley Song" *g*. I do remember vaguely enjoying the songs from Sunset Boulevard, which I know but haven't actually seen, and that was about it. My friend said he would have been satisfied and enjoyed the evening better if the show had been half its length and ended at interval, and I totally agree. The impersonation and the schtick and bad jokes were fun for a while, but there wasn't anything more substantial there to hold it together.
Also saw the NT Live screening of Richard III with Ralph Fiennes (woo!) - I was so thrilled to at least get to see a filmed version of this. It was good, but not amazing - his performance in Man and Superman blew me away, but this was just another Shakespeare production, really. It may be that I have no great love for this play, or for the histories in general - the first time I saw it was actually the Cumberbatch version, so that's literally all I have to compare it to. The play itself has a handful of great moments, but it's one of those ones I still don't get all the fuss over. Anyway, Richard the III plots to become King of England, kills a few people, and succeeds. I do hope that wasn't a spoiler.
The thing I thought Fiennes did best with the role was create a Richard who was at least a coherent person - that is, I could see that he had a certain overriding character which he retained throughout the play. The main issue I had with Cumberbatch's performance is that he seemed to act each scene separately from the others, so that his entire being was invested in the current scene, even the ones where he's dissembling. Now, I realise in theory Richard could just have a been a very good actor capable of coming up with whatever the occasion requires, but that implicitly plays on the audience having an existing understanding of who he is, rather than presenting both layers to the audience through the performance. I hope that makes sense; I know what I mean, anyway *g*. While his acting was good, I found it difficult to believe his Richard was a whole person rather than a series of them; at least Fiennes gave me a rather businesslike, amoral Richard who methodically does whatever it takes to get his way.
I wasn't sure about the staging at first, but it really grew on me - the play has a startlingly modern opening with the remains of Richard III being unearthed from a large grave-shaped hole in the middle of the carpark. Snippets of reportage are heard as bits of his skeleton are recovered and handed up for examination. I thought this was a bit silly and unnecessary, but then the "grave" returned throughout the play as various characters end up being dispatched and disappear into it. One of Richard's last scenes involved him circling it repeatedly before his eventual demise. The play then closes with a repeat of the opening, where his bones are put on display. I found it really quite a effective idea - score one for arty concepts that actually work. Anyway, Fiennes was entirely competent, if not exceptionally impressive, and while I feel bad about essentially ignoring the rest of the cast, they were... good without being amazing. I really missed Okenedo's fiery Queen Margaret from the BBC series - I knew the doddery old woman (referring to the interpretation, not the actress) was someone famous (Vanessa Redgrave, as it turns out), but I wasn't particularly impressed, sorry.
Movies
Don't Breathe - weirdly enough, I saw this with my mum, who likes thrillers, but had no one to go with, so I thought it'd be fun. Within about thirty seconds of the movie starting I suddenly remembered why I don't usually see this kind of thing, and ended up shutting my eyes a lot of the time and watching a great deal of the rest of it from behind my fingers. My mum was perfectly fine, by the way.
Three young people - two guys, one girl - lead fairly purposeless existences in Detroit, going nowhere (I thought the city shots alone added a great deal of atmosphere). Just for fun, and to get a little bit of cash, they break into people's houses and steal stuff (one of their fathers works for a security agency, so they have illicit access to keys). One day they hear that this blind guy on the edge of town received a hundred thousand dollars in a court judgment a few years back, and it's probably still stashed in his house. He's blind, so how hard can it be? Only it turns out he's a war veteran, and a force to be reckoned with when you're on his turf.
What I really enjoyed about this movie was that it took the time to humanise the young people - they're not "bad" as such, just directionless and lost. But obviously if it was your house they invaded, you wouldn't see it quite that way. Similarly their "victim" is a disabled war vet, and you'd think he'd have the right to protect his territory as best he can. But in protecting your home, how far is too far? He's not exactly a defenceless, innocent victim, either. So aside from the thriller aspect - and it was an excellent roller-coaster ride if you like that kind of thing, there were nicely-drawn characters and an interesting moral dimension that made it a cut above the average. I also really appreciated that there was only one moment of "movie stupidity" that I noticed - you know, "there's a serial killer on the loose and I heard a noise in the garden! Let's investigate!". Meaning that for the most part the characters needed to do the things they did rather than being randomly dumb. People will always complain about endings, but I thought it ended satisfyingly, and that's all I could ask for. I would actually watch this again - maybe now that I know how everything turns out I might be able to watch it without covering my eyes *g*
Books
Presto! (Penn Jilette) - I bought this one through iTunes - couldn't find it at the library, and I didn't think it was one I needed a physical copy of. I'm a big fan of Penn and Teller, but I don't quite know whether I like Jilette or not - he's kind of an asshole, but an entertaining asshole? I don't know. I do totally relate to the jumpy, slightly defensive way he talks/writes, though, like he knows you're judging him, and he wants you to know he knows - I feel like that when I write opinion posts *g*. Anyway, the book is about his massive 100-pound weight loss and How He Did It. Basically, he ate only potatoes for two weeks to reset his taste buds, and is now an unethical vegan who only eats in a daily eight-hour window (I think) and indulges in "rare and appropriate" blow-outs not more than once every two weeks. There, I just saved you from buying the book. What was more interesting to me is probably the glimpses into his life - his family, his relationship with Teller, his work, his opinions. He is a great storyteller, despite the massive amounts of name-dropping, and I enjoyed reading it. Once.
The Lady in the Van (Alan Bennett) - This was recently made into a movie (which I've not yet seen), and it was seeing the trailer that made me want to read it. As its name implies, it's the (true) story of the elderly lady who lived in a van that ended up permanently parked in Bennett's driveway. I would class this book as an extended character study - a portrait of her habits, her appearance, her relationship with Bennett, the neighbourhood, and the world. I don't think it really goes much deeper than that, but it's enough to be fascinating. I did really enjoy Bennett's eye for detail, and that he mostly keeps himself and his parallel middle-class life out of it - she is very much the focus of the memoir, and so she should be. In some ways she lived in terrible conditions, but on the other hand she fiercely maintained her independence and her dignity by doing so - I'd class it as melancholy rather than sad. A very short, easy read - more novella than novel.
Sugarbabe (Holly Hill) - an Australian memoir of a woman's time as a "sugarbabe". Having just broken up with a wealthy (married) boyfriend, and needing money to pay her rent and write her book, Hill (not her real name, although it's out there now) advertised online for a sugar daddy arrangement. This book is an account of the replies she got, the people she met, and how well the arrangements did - or didn't - work out. While the book is "fictionalised" - names changed, elements compressed or altered, it's a thoroughly entertaining read anyway. She does sound like tremendous fun to be around, and is very frank about sex and money. (I believe she went onto a career in erotic fiction, and as a connoisseur of porny fanfic, she at least passes muster *g*). I really enjoyed the Sydney setting of this book - I'm so used to reading as an outsider that it's nice to be intimately familiar (haha) with all the places she describes and get that thrill of recognition. Good fun, although something I think very few people would be able to pull off (...and suddenly everything turns into sexual innuendo). An interesting footnote is that this is the book she ended up writing rather than the book she became a sugarbabe to write *g*
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Natasha Pulley) - I read this due to a rec from flywoman, and it was absolutely worth it. I don't think my summary could do the book justice, so I'll settle for the official one.
London, 1883: Thaniel Steepleton returns to his tiny flat to find a mysterious gold pocket watch on his pillow. When the watch saves his life from a bomb blast that destroys Scotland Yard, Thaniel goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori - a kind, lonely immigrant who sweeps him into a new world of clockwork and music. Although Mori seems harmless at first, a chain of unexpected slips proves that he must be hiding something. Meanwhile, Grace Carrow is sneaking into an Oxford library dressed as a man. A theoretical physicist, she is desperate to prove the existence of the luminiferous ether before her mother can force her to marry. As the lives of these three characters become entwined, events spiral out of control.
What is not to love? There is some serious genre-bending here - it's Victorian magical realism (steampunk) that has a mystery at its heart (who set the bomb?) and also touches on history, science, feminism, travelogue, and romance. And to digress slightly... you know, over the years I've seen the expression "just like fanfic" as a bit of a double-edged sword. It's often used disparagingly, especially in reference to canon, but I think it can have positive connotations, too. To me one of the greatest things about fanfiction is that many of the usual rules of "literature" are up for grabs, leading to some amazingly inventive work. So I'm just going to say that I would bet that the author has read (and/or written) fanfiction in her time, and while this book is firmly "literary", in the sense of meeting all traditional established criteria for a novel, for me it also replicated a lot of the imaginative and emotional feel of first-class fanfic. And I mean that in its most positive sense. Highly recommended.
The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins) - another read prompted by a movie trailer. I suppose I tend to reason that if someone wanted to make it into a movie, it's probably at least a half-decent read *g*. The biggest initial surprise was that it's set in the area around London, because I was sure the trailer I saw was set in the US - and sure enough, it is. They changed it for the purposes of the movie. So the UK setting was a plus for me. A woman catches the train into London every day, past the house in which she used to live with her ex-husband, and makes up stories about the people and things she sees on the way. She's an alcoholic, and prone to blackouts and lost memories. So when a woman in her old neighbourhood goes missing, a woman she's only seen from the train window, she thinks she might know something about her disappearance, but she can't quite remember what it might be.
The story is told from three perspectives, all female - Rachel (the alcoholic "girl on the train"), Megan (the woman who goes missing), and Anna (the new wife of Rachel's ex-husband) and jumps back and forth in time. It's a super-easy read - the kind of thing you can pretty much inhale - and reaches a satisfying resolution. Which is all I really ask for from this kind of book. An enjoyable distraction.