Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in alobear's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Sunday, February 7th, 2010
4:56 pm	Youth In Revolt review Chalk up another one in the "success" column for this year's more adventurous cinema-going - I thoroughly enjoyed Youth In Revolt, and probably wouldn't have gone to see it without my new plan to try more films.  It's rather bizarre in places, and I totally diagree with pretty much everything the protagonist did and wanted, but somehow it just worked, probably because Michael Cera is so appealing that you can't help rooting for him even when he's being idiotic. His "supplementary personality" stole the show, in a very Fight Club kind of way, but I also absolutely loved Vijay, the desperately earnest schoolfriend who seemed to have swallowed a dictionary in the best possible way: Vijay: We can take my grandmother's car. Nick: Will she be okay with that? Vijay: She's currently in the hospital connected to life support machinery, so permission isn't a salient issue. I was going to say there were lots of laugh-out-loud moments in the film, but that gives the wrong impression about what kind of humour it was.  What I should say is that there were lots of moments that made *me* laugh out loud, which will give anyone who knows my usual attitude to film humour pause for thought. Oddly, I'm not sure who I'd recommend the film to, though - it's the kind of American teen movie where the kids really don't talk like kids, but in a good way (think Juno, maybe).  It unexpectedly worked for me, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will work for others. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 6th, 2010
1:40 pm	Skulduggery Pleasant and Lord John Grey reviews Skulduggery Pleasant, the title character in the book by Derek Landy, is a magically animated skeleton, who investigates magic-related crimes, with the help of his sidekick, 12 year old Stephanie Edgeley, aka Valkyrie Cain.  To begin with, the book was a bit clunky, taking a while to find its feet and get all its exposition out of the way, but the characters are very appealing and the plot was action-packed once it got going.  It was, however, surprisingly violent, and I'm not sure the throwaway comments about the consequences of this violence really counterbalanced it.  Still, there are far more violent things out there aimed at kids, with not nearly as much of a moral compass, so who am I to judge?  Skulduggery himself makes for a great hero - dry, sarcastic and a lot of fun, but with a streak of tragic rage just to keep him interesting - and Stephanie is a very sympathetic heroine, keeping the story grounded and providing a solid centre.  I definitely plan to read more of these. My latest audiobook, finished at the gym this morning, was Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade by Diana Gabaldon.  It wasn't as good as the previous Lord John book I listened to, being too focused on his relationship with Percy and not focused enough on a coherent plot.  There were various story threads that ran throughout the book, most of which were connected together in some fashion, but it all seemed a bit scattershot, and much less of a solid mystery story than the previous one.  Still, Jeff Woodman's rich tones brought the characters to life beautifully (I could listen to him read the phone book and find it enjoyable), and Lord John himself was still an appealing hero.  I have more of his stories on my ipod, and will listen to them all in time, but I think a different style of book and reading is in order in the meantime. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
11:40 pm	The Princess and The Frog review It was interesting to see a new film done in the traditional animation style, and I was glad not to have to make a decision whether to watch it in 3D with Dave or in 2D on my own.  The Princess and The Frog was classic Disney from start to finish - not in the same league as Aladdin or Tarzan, but thoroughly enjoyable. (Comment on this)
Monday, February 1st, 2010
7:31 pm	Up In The Air and Paradox reviews I enjoyed Up In The Air - it was entertaining, thought-provoking, well made and performed.  However, it did fall back on the age-old idea that you need to find the right relationship to make you happy.  While I am very much a believer that the right relationship can increase your happiness, I also believe that people can be happy on their own, and also that they need to be happy on their own before they can really be happy with someone else.  So, it was a shame that the single lifestyle was yet again presented as lacking.  Still, I was delighted with the film's spectacular avoidance of a classic romantic cliche, which I had been fearing from the start and was sidestepped very neatly. Paradox by John Meaney, on the other hand, turned into a bit of an incomprehensible slog for the last 150 pages, which was a shame as I had been rather enjoying it up until then.  The background and set up of the story were very entertaining - it was just the overly complex and techno-babble-ridden plot that derailed my motivation. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
9:27 pm	January reviews What with the return to full-time working and every weekend in January away or busy, reviews have dropped down the list of "things to do when I have a moment to spare".  So, I have a few stacked up: Exam - film two in my "going to see things I normally wouldn't even though they look good" plan was much more successful than film one.  There was nothing that freaked me out (much), and it turned out to be a taut and interesting thriller.  Certain aspects of it (the background to the company, for instance) took me by surprise, I was in reasonable suspense all the way through as to what would happen next, and the conclusion was relatively satisfying.  Viewers who spend more of a film trying to work things out than I do may well figure out some of the surprises where I didn't, but I still think it's worth watching. The Canterbury Tales - prologue, knight, miller - reading "Who's Afraid of Jane Austen?" made me want to re-read The Canterbury Tales, so I took it down off the shelf and added it to my pile.  Rather than reading it all the way through, I'm sampling tales in between other books, and thoroughly enjoying it.  My Middle English is still good enough not to struggle with the vocabulary (though I do cheat in some instances as my edition has some of the tougher translations in the margin) and Chaucer's style is very entertaining.  The descriptions of the characters in the prologue are largely genius, the Knight's Tale was far less dull than I'd remembered, and the Miller's gives a refreshing change of tone from courtly love to fart gags.  The best thing is, there's plenty left to come! Silas Marner - a Christmas present from my Amazon wish list, I approached my third George Eliot with some trepidation.  I really enjoyed Middlemarch, though it was a little overlong and a bit dense in places, but The Mill On The Floss ended on such a downer that I really wished I hadn't started it.  Luckily, Silas Marner turned out to be light, short, and thoroughly pleasing - a lovely story about interesting and likeable characters, and with a very satisfying ending.  A joy to read. The Philosopher And The Wolf - another Christmas present from my wish list, and a much more recent addition, being a recommendation from Prospect a few months ago.  This tells the true story of the relationship between Mark Rowlands, a philosphy lecturer, and Brenin, the wolf he buys as a cub.  Interspersed between the highly entertaining and often affecting anecdotes about their life together are chapters of quite challenging philosophy, inspired by the author's experiences with the wolf.  It made my brain hurt in places, but in a good way, and the wolf stood out as a very strong and appealing character. (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
4:56 pm	Who's Afraid of Jane Austen? review Many thanks to lareinemisere for this book by Henry Hitchings, which has provided interest and stimulation to several people over the last few days. ( Cut due to length and possible over-indulgence in pretentious reminiscences... ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
4:08 pm	Arabian Nights review Last Christmas, vampadvocate and fishbang gave me a year's RSC membership as a present, and my first newsletter advertised a performance of Arabian Nights in Stratford-upon-Avon.  It wasn't due to be on until late in 2009 and extended into early 2010, so I decided to book tickets as a joint birthday present for cholten99 and quintus_marcius.  The show was last night, and was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Any excuse to go to Stratford is a good one in my book, as I love the place, but the play turned out to be highly entertaining as well, which is always a bonus.  The large cast each took multiple parts in the portrayal of Scheherazade's stories, of which six were told, along with the surrounding narrative.  There was humour, action, dance, some wonderful puppetry and a wealth of visual delights - very well structured and performed. (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
10:25 am	Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake ( Cut to spare people who aren't interested in me raving at length about how good this is... ) (Comment on this)
10:08 am	The Poisonwood Bible review I have two reviews to write today, and unfortunately this one is going to suffer because I'm going to put most of my effort into the second one.  This one is just a warm-up! The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, was a Christmas present, and my first book read in 2010. It tells the story of a Baptist missionary who takes his family to the Congo in the 1960s.  Each section starts with a chapter from the point of view of the wife, followed by alternating chapters by each of their four daughters.  It's significantly the best book I've read in quite a while - beautifully written, with each narrator having a distinct and interesting personality and perspective.  Seeing the events of their lives from several points of view is fascinating, humorous and heartbreaking by turns, and there is no sense of redundant repetition as the story unfolds.   In fact, I think the narrative lost a great deal once the sisters went their separate ways and we only got to see their perspective of their own path, rather than everyone's view of the same thing.  As the gaps in time between the chapters got longer, the cohesiveness of the story deteriorated as well, but it was still really interesting to find out what happened to all of them later in life. I would definitely recommend this book - it's extremely enjoyable and very involving. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
9:20 pm	Daybreakers review ( Ever so slightly spoilery... ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 10th, 2010
8:38 pm	Sleeping Beauty The Moscow City Ballet had a tough task in performing Sleeping Beauty in Chichester yesterday afternoon, since the stage was obviously rather smaller than they were used to.  This was evident in the way they looked over their shoulders nervously whenever they had to move backwards, and the way they progressively foreshortened their strides when completing diagonal runs towards the front of the stage.  I don't think the surface was entirely ideal, either, as I've never heard a ballet company make so much noise! Still, they did a pretty good job, overall, and I really enjoyed the show. A couple of the fairies were a bit ungainly, and the dancer playing Sleeping Beauty had distractingly pronounced calf muscles, but the standard was generally good, and it was clear they were making some effort, despite the small (and not completely full) venue. The male dancer playing Maleficent was excellent, performing difficult moves in what must have been a very heavy and cumbersome costume.  He put by far the most personality into his dancing, and stole every scene he was in.  It's a shame that the traditional sequence of (completely irrelevant to the plot) second tier solo dances meant the story part of the second half was very truncated, as I had hoped there would be a fight scene between the prince and Maleficent's minions.  As it was, her ultimate defeat was quite abrupt and seemed too easy. However, the highlight of the show was definitely the prince, who was in a different league to the rest of the company.  He was incredibly graceful and utterly confident, as well as very light on his feet - I only heard him land twice on his highest leaps, whereas the female corps sounded like a herd of elephants.  His solo dances were very impressive and he brought Sleeping Beauty up to his level by directing her very skilfully when they danced together - as always with male ballet stars, I thought it was a shame that he was reduced to acting as her scaffolding during those scenes. Ballet dancers have a tendency to milk the applause, taking multiple bows at the end of every scene - the audience ran out of steam before the dancers left the stage in most cases, but the prince's applause always outlasted his presence, and deservedly so. A bright, colourful, very entertaining show, with a stand-out performance at its centre. (Comment on this)
4:20 pm	Humour test I was particularly interested in this meme, as there are an awful lot of things labelled comedy that I don't find funny at all. I got: the Prankster (33% dark, 31% spontaneous, 11% vulgar) your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | LIGHT Your humor has an intellectual, even conceptual slant to it. You're not pretentious, but you're not into what some would call 'low humor' either. You'll laugh at a good dirty joke, but you definitely prefer something clever to something moist. You probably like well-thought-out pranks and/or spoofs and it's highly likely you've tried one of these things yourself. In a lot of ways, yours is the most entertaining type of humor because it's smart without being mean-spirited. .......... It's pretty much exactly right - though I don't think the title is appropriate at all.  "Smart without being mean-spirited" is spot on - and I only like pranks if the victim is likely to find them as funny as everyone else. I'm happy to be categorised as "clean and complex" though! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
6:12 pm	T minus 18 hours and counting... My last day of freedom is nearly over. Tomorrow, I rejoin the world of gainful employment. Currently, my most overwhelming feeling about this fact is abject terror. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 4th, 2010
3:24 pm	First reviews of 2010 ( A play, two films and a TV series ) (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
3:48 pm	Final Review Stats for 2009 Below are the total review stats for 2009 Positive book reviews: 52 (71%) Negative book reviews: 21 (29%) Positive film/TV reviews: 38 (76%) Negative film/TV reviews: 12 (24%) Positive live entertainment reviews: 16 (80%) Negative live entertainment reviews: 4 (20%) Positive audiobook reviews: 5 (100%) Negative audiobook reviews: 0 (0%) Total number of reviews: 148 Total positive: 111 (75%) Total negative: 37 (25%) Fewer reviews overall than last year - I blame unemployment for the significant drop in number of books read (I just don't seem to read when I'm hanging around at home - bring back commuting!), plus the fact that I think I'm generally reading longer books, as well. Otherwise, the same percentage of positive versus negative reviews overall - which shows I'm at least consistent at judging whether or not I'll enjoy something, and for the most part I get it right! (Comment on this)
1:08 pm	Last reviews of the year... Went to see Sherlock Holmes at the cinema last night. At last! Revenge of the slash fanfic writer!! My inevitable identification of the tiniest presence of homoerotic undertones in film and TV is consistently (and rightly) mocked and derided. But, with Sherlock Holmes, I have proof from the director and stars that it was all entirely deliberate! Mwahahahahah! Anyway, putting aside that issue, I had three problems with the film: Robert Downey Jnr mumbled terribly in places (particularly at the start) and it was often difficult to make out what he said. Considering the depth they went into to describe the damage that could be done by a few blows to the bad guys, I was disappointed in the lack of physical consequences when one of the good guys was injured. It was good to see Holmes' sense of guilt, but that was rather undermined by Watson happily pulling him out of the river and fighting large assailants only a few hours later. I have to confess I didn't realise this myself - but getting from the Houses of Parliament to Tower Bridge in about five minutes on foot is rather impressive, considering they're over three miles apart. Still, overall, I found the film very enjoyable. It was much cleverer than I had expected, I thought the two main actors worked well together, and there were several amusing moments. Good holiday fare. Holiday reading: Dork Tower - first three collections - generally entertaining with some very funny moments, though I never enjoy the frustration of two characters utterly failing to get together when they're perfect for each other. Calvin & Hobbes - There's Treasure Everywhere - very cute and very funny as long as you don't think too hard about it. Otherwise, it turns into the rather sad story of a little boy, whose only friend is a stuffed tiger he imagines beating him up most of the time. Hunter: The Reckoning - I'm not very familiar with White Wolf's World of Darkness, so it was interesting to come at it from the Hunter point of view, and I really enjoyed the fact that most of the book is made up of extended sections of fiction, or game background as if written by characters. However, it does seem rather a doom-laden roleplaying game, since the humans are completely outclassed by every type of adversary, so I can't see PCs lasting very long in a campaign. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
4:17 pm	The Book and the Brotherhood review This is the second Iris Murdoch book I've read, and I found it quite troubling. I didn't like the characters, the plot, or the style - and yet I continued to read it every day for over two weeks and at no point considered giving up. I'm really not sure why. It must have engaged me on some level to keep me reading, and my reaction when the only character I remotely liked was killed (in a ridiculously stupid but somehow horribly inevitable fashion) was much more intense than I expected. I think I was attracted to the theme of people clutching desperately at the glorious past of their time at university, to the extent that they can't accept change in the people they knew back then, or in any way let go or move forward or appreciate what there is in the present to fulfil them. I guess, reading about such people, I was very glad not to be one of them. Still, to get through 600 pages, it must have been more than that, and it's my inability to pinpoint what was good about the book that I find troubling. I don't like it when my literary appreciation skills desert me, as they seem to have done some time ago. I don't seek out Iris Murdoch, but I'm glad that people keep giving me her books, as I evidently get something out of them, even if it's not simple, uncomplicated enjoyment - and I think it's important to be challenged by what you read on occasion. I just wish I could articulate my response more clearly and eloquently! (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
7:58 pm	Avatar review - no spoilers Avatar is a James Cameron blockbuster - you get out of it what you put in. If you sit back and sneer at it, you will experience the most predictable and derivative pile of rubbish you have seen in quite some time. If, on the other hand, you throw yourself into it wholeheartedly, it will sweep you away to another world. It is exceedingly pretty, and Mr Cameron really knows how to entertain - if you let him. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
1:53 pm	Avenue Q and Without a Trace It goes without saying that I thoroughly enjoyed my third viewing of Avenue Q last night, though we almost missed it altogether, thanks to complete lack of observation. Luckily, one of the people going with us noticed that it said 5pm on the tickets, not 7:30pm as we had automatically assumed, and so the trip was saved! We also thought that Google maps had directed us to the wrong theatre, and nearly went off on a panicked aimless wander round the West End, only to discover it was actually at the next door theatre, only 50 yards away. Not a great day for organisation or navigation on my part, but it luckily all worked out in the end. In other audio-visual entertainment news, Dave and I have been working our way through Without A Trace from the beginning and largely enjoying it. Episodes almost exclusively follow the same pattern - someone disappears, the FBI guys look for them and eventually figure out what happened to them, sometimes finding them alive, sometimes not. Recently, though, they did an entire episode from the point of view of a missing boy's parents, and it proved an entirely different experience. Staying with the parents for the whole time, and only seeing the agents either from a distance or when they came to speak to the parents, suddenly changed those familiar characters into complete strangers and left us, as the viewers, as lost and frustrated as the family members, who were largely kept in the dark on the investigative front. It also added a great deal more emotional impact to the story, as we shared the parents' pain and anxiety, rather than viewing the case with the more clinical eyes of the agents. It was really effective and brilliantly done, but I was very glad that it turned out to be one of the happier stories. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
11:30 am	Speaking in Tongues review Last night, Dave and I went to see a play called Speaking In Tongues. We had no idea what to expect, as we had booked the tickets purely on the basis of John Simm being in it and, over 12 hours later, I'm still not sure what I think about the play. It was clever and interesting, with good performances, but I'm not sure that I actually enjoyed it, because I think it was actually too clever for its own good. I spent most of the performance appreciating its structure and how the various strands connected together, and very little time connecting with any of the characters or investing any emotion in the story. Still, technically speaking, and presentation-wise, it was excellent. (Comment on this)