Since first seeing the premise of Black Swan I really wanted to see it. With a backdrop of my favorite ballet, it was likely to be a must see regardless, but the reviews have been uniformly excellent so it was a must see NOW.
Went to see it this afternoon and it is, indeed, brilliant. Rarely have I been so glued to the screen for an entire movie. This year I've seen Avatar and Inception - both excellent, but for sheer must-watchativity Black Swan beats them hands down.
And lest you think it's merely and adult Ballet Shoes, it's not. It's a thriller Hitchcock would have been proud of, and scarier than any slasher movie. Not for the faint of heart, it should win Natalie Portman an Oscar.
This has been around for a while, but I thought I'd lob it out there with a few comments.
This is Hans Rosling's 4 minute look at longevity and affluence through the last 200 years. It's a slick way to show how data changes over time. I've seen people quibble over his definitions of wealth and longevity, but he does paint an extraordinary picture in a mere 4 minutes. You can see the impact of the Industrial Revolution, both World Wars, the progress made in the West and the catching up of most of the rest of the world. What's interesting to me are the countries that go against the general trend.
For instance, if you look carefully at around 1939 and you can see a mid-size European country drop to almost zero life expectancy and then bounce back up by the end of the war. I'm guessing that was Poland that got flattened. Then watch China in the late 1950's bounce like a basketball.
Post WW2, Africa (blue dots) was unsurprisingly lagging behind as most colonies just started to become independent about then, but got swept along for a couple of decades with rising world trends, and then it stopped. The rest of the world kept improving, leaving the majority of Africa languishing.
Rosling's point about regions in China having different health and wealth could, of course, apply to any country. New York and West Virginia in the US are quite different, as are Surrey and Tyne & Wear in the UK.
But overall, a fascinating way to look at history. The point is not so much what questions Rosling answers, as much as the ones it provokes us to ask ourselves and dig deeper.
...um, something. If only I could remember what it was. Name's on the tip of my tongue.
Anyway, once again, here's the cast list of a really famous yuletide movie... (hint: it's White Christmas)
Emma Dreaming, Arthur White, Chris Muss, Jess Like-Dee, Juan Swee, Hugh Sterno, Wendy Treetops-Glissen, Anne Chilled-Wren, Liz Anne, "Two Ears" Laybelle, Cindy Snow,
Emma Dreaming, Arthur White, Chris Musswit, Avery Chris, Miss Carr, Dai Wright, Mayor Dazeby, Mary-Anne Bright, Ann May Hall-York-Rhys, Mrs. B. White.
(courtesy of a Goodies annual from way back when...)
As usual at this time of year, the Christmas Carols Gone Wrong get circulated around the intertubes.
The Music Academy trotted out this one again. Audio only. Keep listening, or fast forward to 2:13 for the really great bit.
Many people have commented about how they can't believe someone wouldn't know they were so terrible. And the answer is no, they were not unaware - it's a spoof.
Full story here:
I'm not saying the spoof was a good idea, mind...
UPDATE: Oh, you can even buy it on iTunes. Much like the Portsmouth Sinfonia (see below), a little of this goes a long way.
My favorite version of this great song is still my friend Eileen McIntyre singing it 20+ years ago back in Pennsylvania. Simple arrangement, beautiful voice.
I just happened to be talking with a friend at work on Friday and he mentioned that his son was playing guitar in the band for an English pantomime in a local theater. English panto is an odd sort of thing, but funny as heck and, when well done, very entertaining. Great for kids, too.
So I checked into tickets and Bonnie and I were able to go today. We were going to the 2 pm matinee, but we got a call from the theater to say their power went out, so we ended up at the 7 pm evening performance.
Sadly, there are only two perormances left for which tickets are available - Sunday and Wednesday nights. So, if you're at a loose end, I highly recommend going.
After seeing the new Harry Potter movie this weekend, I'm watching the first movie right now. Daniel Radcliffe was about 11 when it was made (absolutely right for the character), with Rupert Grint a year older and Emma Watson a year younger. They definitely looked their ages, and it's remarkable to look back and see how they've grown up alongside and into their fictional counterparts. In fact, it's amazing that they've been able to stay together and do the full 7 school years/8 movies together and do them all so well.
So Saturday would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, which means he was born roughly 15 years before me. I was just a bit too young to be a true first gen Beatles fan, and I was never that much of a fan of them growing up anyway.
Only in retrospect did I get to appreciate the better stuff they produced. It seemed to me that Lennon and McCartney balanced each other well - Lennon dragged McCartney away from the sappy pop that he wrote on his own, and McCartney balanced the self-indulgent twaddle that Lennon was prone to. Never was that latter more evident than in his mega-hit Imagine. It's probably the most self-indulgent, full of itself pretentious crap ever written.
But hey, happy birthday John, you even get a custom birthday Google logo.
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