Forgive me, but I’m about to make a foray into politics. I know, religion last post, politics this one – I promise I won’t do it too often. Well, religion perhaps, but politics… ok, I take it back, no promises. I may need to add politics to the ‘things I’d like to be geekier about’ list.
Anyway, Australia has a Federal election this week. Due to the distressing lack of differentiation between the major parties* – except perhaps on internet speed – I have been following it in a desultory fashion. What has struck me and, recently, a number of other people, is how unlike themselves Julia Gillard and Tony Abbot are being.
I had been working on an interesting, witty, intellectual and thought-provoking post around this theme using The West Wing episode ‘Let Bartlet be Bartlet.’ Unfortunately this guy beat me to it, which at least saves me some work and gives me a chance of posting this before the election. It also got a mention here a bit later. Any credit owed there, chaps?
I disagree with Tim-with-the-very-long-surname on the similarities in the US election – there were some, but he stretches a few points. I was also going to say that Obama should probably buy Jimmy Smits lunch some time, but on doing some Google homework I discovered several conspiracy theories out there, most of them a few years older than this post. For the record, I don’t think either Abbot or Gillard or Obama are anywhere near Jed Bartlet, what with him being fictional and all. What might influence my vote is footage of any (or all) of them arguing with God in a cathedral. In Latin. Go on, I dare you.
Getting back to the focus on Julia, the nominally-left candidate, (I hear Bob Brown laughing somewhere) and who she really is, I’m afraid Tony Abbot has been sadly neglected. Where’s the 'let Tony be Tony' campaign? Yes, he says stupid things, but you know what? So do most of us. He’s demonstrated in the last few weeks that he can restrain himself when necessary, which means he could probably survive a UN conference without committing us to nuclear war. (Oh, goodness, I feel like a cricket commentator talking about Sehwag’s skill when he’s on 99.) I know I’m odd, but I think the ‘real’ Tony has some appeal as well. Not to 18 year olds, or some journalists, but, you know, the rest of us. Abbot is trying quite hard to be the nominally-right candidate, but why not just head out and be the right candidate? Not all the way, (sorry Dave) but there’s plenty of space over there on the right without running into anything too radical. We have money, Tony, we know you need to cut the budget. We have values, we’re happy for you to tell us yours – if you can ever manage to get quoted properly. We’d probably like 1Gbps downloads, but we wonder who will pay for that. I’m not a fan of the whole ‘let’s find an island and lock up those 700 people each year desperately trying to escape terrible lives who might steal jobs from the, umm, hundreds of thousands of unemployed.’ I’m also not a fan of cutting immigration – we need people – but that’s something where I’d like to find out what Tony actually thinks. I like Tony Abbot – you might’ve noticed – but I am still undecided on some of his colleagues. I also like Julia Gillard. I reckon we could bond over stories about aunts asking us when we're going to find the right bloke, or settle down, or have babies.
The ultimate point of this post (there is one, and it’s not how depressingly unoriginal my ideas are) is that This Annoys Me. ‘This’ being Julia-not-being-Julia, the impressive Tony-not-being-Tony for several weeks, and then the new Julia-being-slightly-more-like-Julia-but-not-too-much. (We’re all happy about the voice coach, Julia, trust me.) These two have both been attack dogs for their parties. We know these people - we’ve seen their teeth, their unattractive slobber, the wounds (and/or bodies) left behind. In this last week of campaigning, we’ve seen their least flattering photographs. Are there really that few of us capable of remembering their previous behaviour, or of googling it? Do either party really think that we’ll believe the shallow templates of a prime minister they’ve tried to superimpose over these two real, complex, interesting people? Do either party really believe that the relentless negative ads with deep, sinister soundtracks will disguise their lack of policy?
Maybe they do. Maybe what I’m really grumpy about is that I don’t have a viable alternative.
(*this comment may be a sneaky ploy to generate comments, given my extensive market research and target audience.)
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
An Introduction to Cricket, Shakespeare and the Bible. (A Series in Fourteen Parts)
This originated as the first post of a quite ambitious series, but then got so involved that it evolved into the introduction, and the now-even-more-ambitious series starts next time. With impeccable timing, I’m starting a series on my love of cricket just as my team has been historically humbled by Pakistan. In England, at that, possibly to ensure I get the maximum amount of grief from my English acquaintances. And a few Indian folk, never ones to miss an opportunity. But, as usual, I digress.
Following some email conversations several months ago, I was idly wondering how I could prove to someone (the ACB? torturers? my logically-trained sister?) that what I feel for cricket is not merely ‘like,’ or ‘fanatical like,’ or even ‘potentially pathological obsession,’ but is in fact love. My four years of undergraduate Arts training sprang to the fore, or, more realistically, ambled by on the way to Tav and pointed out that I needed to do some research and define my terms. Here follows an account of my extensive research on the important topic of like vs love, a prequel to testing the hypothesis that I do actually love cricket. The team are doing their level best to test the attachment out there in the real world, so I thought I’d work through the issue in theory.
According to Wordcount, love is the 384th most used word, just after economic (rather sad, really) and before means. (The word after this is upon, so according to Wordcount ‘love means upon’ – make of that what you will.) Like is 67th, which didn’t help one of my starting premises that we use love more than like. Moving on to google, a simple search for love turns up 1.81m results (I have no comments on their quality or suitability for viewing by children – or adults, for that matter) while like gets 3.27m. That premise is therefore officially dead.
What persists is a further premise that we use the word love when we could say like, or (even better) enjoy, appreciate, take pleasure in, am happy upon/with/about/in/beside etc etc. Love is sometimes used for emphasis, but google agrees with me that love is employed a little too often, returning roughly 2.4m results for ‘love overused,’ most of which seem to involve a phrase along the lines of ‘the word love is overused these days / today / nowadays.’* To give this some context, a search for ‘like love’ returns 364m results – like can mean a lot of things, not to mention its use on Facebook, google, You Tube et al to indicate approval. ‘Like vs love’ returns 204m, most of which seem to be discussions on how to tell if you simply like someone or do in fact love them.
The difference between the two is much debated - to quote the Shakespearean classic, 10 Things I Hate About You:
I have some Skechers which I am attached to, but if pressed, would happily admit I don’t love. Having never owned a Prada backpack, I can’t comment on that particular criteria, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t love it either. I might say I loved it in casual conversation, but it wouldn’t show up in any serious list of things I love. For all I’m trying to find out if cricket would be there, most of the 'things' on that list would be people.
So, extensive research covered, I need a definition of love to test my hypothesis on. When in doubt, go back to first principles: the OED, Shakespeare, and the Bible. The OED has several definitions of love, one of which is “a great interest and pleasure in something,” but where’s the fun in that? That’s barely even one post to prove my point: “I have great interest in and take pleasure from cricket, therefore I love it.” Heck, it’s scarcely a paragraph. I’m going for something more rounded.
While Shakespeare deals with the subject at length in several genres, he doesn’t give us a reliable definition of what love is.** Complexity does not lend itself to consistency. He comes closest in Sonnet 116 which contains negative definitions: “Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds” and “Love's not Time's fool” - but I’m all about positivity. Not so much about academic rigour or consistency, as you may have gathered.*** The sonnet does say that love “is an ever-fixéd mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark”, and I’ll come back to that at some point in the series.
This is a pretty good start, but I’d like more to work with; if I’m going get fourteen posts out of this subject, it's clear I need to go to the Bible. Yes, fourteen, although I reserve the right, ala The Wheel of Time, to extend the series if necessary. Or reduce it, for any reason deemed acceptable by The Management. If it’s any comfort, future posts might be shorter than this one and at my current rate it will take me more than a year to finish the series. That’s a long time in cricket.
The Bible, conveniently, has a lot to say about love. God is love, for starters, but proving that God = love = cricket is a little beyond even me. (Mind you, that would make going to the cricket on a Sunday a sacramental event, and I could take time off to go to Tests for religious reasons… hmm.) Amongst it all is a whole chapter on what love IS, and it’s quite definite. So, risking my immortal soul, excommunication, or at the very least some narky comments and suggestions that I attend theology classes, I am going to work my way through 1 Corinthians 13 and test my love of cricket against it, hopefully proving in the process that I love cricket in the, err, Biblical sense. (Ahem.) Please bear in mind that this may be one of those wholesome family stories where I learn some important lessons along the way and turn out to be completely wrong, since, all evidence to the contrary, I really don't know what I'll end up concluding.
* Is this true? A question for another day, or another blog, but for all I know, the Ancient Greeks wandered around all, y’know, “I totally love what you’ve done with your hair!” and “Are those Athenian leather? Oh. My. Gods. I love them!” Or: “Oh I love, love, love Sophocles: have you seen his latest? So much gore - totally classic!” The Greeks may have sounded like the great Jane Austen work Clueless – you heard it here first.
** Thousands of academics would disagree, but then they would turn around and disagree with each other about what he meant, thereby proving my point. If he’d defined it, they wouldn’t be arguing. Well, some of them would argue on principle, but not thousands of them.
*** I’mstealing borrowing Rohan’s idea of acknowledging my shortcomings at the beginning of the series and thereby giving myself an out for the rest of it. I haven’t framed it as a disclaimer, per se, but you get the gist.
Following some email conversations several months ago, I was idly wondering how I could prove to someone (the ACB? torturers? my logically-trained sister?) that what I feel for cricket is not merely ‘like,’ or ‘fanatical like,’ or even ‘potentially pathological obsession,’ but is in fact love. My four years of undergraduate Arts training sprang to the fore, or, more realistically, ambled by on the way to Tav and pointed out that I needed to do some research and define my terms. Here follows an account of my extensive research on the important topic of like vs love, a prequel to testing the hypothesis that I do actually love cricket. The team are doing their level best to test the attachment out there in the real world, so I thought I’d work through the issue in theory.
According to Wordcount, love is the 384th most used word, just after economic (rather sad, really) and before means. (The word after this is upon, so according to Wordcount ‘love means upon’ – make of that what you will.) Like is 67th, which didn’t help one of my starting premises that we use love more than like. Moving on to google, a simple search for love turns up 1.81m results (I have no comments on their quality or suitability for viewing by children – or adults, for that matter) while like gets 3.27m. That premise is therefore officially dead.
What persists is a further premise that we use the word love when we could say like, or (even better) enjoy, appreciate, take pleasure in, am happy upon/with/about/in/beside etc etc. Love is sometimes used for emphasis, but google agrees with me that love is employed a little too often, returning roughly 2.4m results for ‘love overused,’ most of which seem to involve a phrase along the lines of ‘the word love is overused these days / today / nowadays.’* To give this some context, a search for ‘like love’ returns 364m results – like can mean a lot of things, not to mention its use on Facebook, google, You Tube et al to indicate approval. ‘Like vs love’ returns 204m, most of which seem to be discussions on how to tell if you simply like someone or do in fact love them.
The difference between the two is much debated - to quote the Shakespearean classic, 10 Things I Hate About You:
"See, there’s a difference between like and love. Because I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpack."
"But I love my Skechers."
"That’s because you don’t have a Prada backpack."
I have some Skechers which I am attached to, but if pressed, would happily admit I don’t love. Having never owned a Prada backpack, I can’t comment on that particular criteria, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t love it either. I might say I loved it in casual conversation, but it wouldn’t show up in any serious list of things I love. For all I’m trying to find out if cricket would be there, most of the 'things' on that list would be people.
So, extensive research covered, I need a definition of love to test my hypothesis on. When in doubt, go back to first principles: the OED, Shakespeare, and the Bible. The OED has several definitions of love, one of which is “a great interest and pleasure in something,” but where’s the fun in that? That’s barely even one post to prove my point: “I have great interest in and take pleasure from cricket, therefore I love it.” Heck, it’s scarcely a paragraph. I’m going for something more rounded.
While Shakespeare deals with the subject at length in several genres, he doesn’t give us a reliable definition of what love is.** Complexity does not lend itself to consistency. He comes closest in Sonnet 116 which contains negative definitions: “Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds” and “Love's not Time's fool” - but I’m all about positivity. Not so much about academic rigour or consistency, as you may have gathered.*** The sonnet does say that love “is an ever-fixéd mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark”, and I’ll come back to that at some point in the series.
This is a pretty good start, but I’d like more to work with; if I’m going get fourteen posts out of this subject, it's clear I need to go to the Bible. Yes, fourteen, although I reserve the right, ala The Wheel of Time, to extend the series if necessary. Or reduce it, for any reason deemed acceptable by The Management. If it’s any comfort, future posts might be shorter than this one and at my current rate it will take me more than a year to finish the series. That’s a long time in cricket.
The Bible, conveniently, has a lot to say about love. God is love, for starters, but proving that God = love = cricket is a little beyond even me. (Mind you, that would make going to the cricket on a Sunday a sacramental event, and I could take time off to go to Tests for religious reasons… hmm.) Amongst it all is a whole chapter on what love IS, and it’s quite definite. So, risking my immortal soul, excommunication, or at the very least some narky comments and suggestions that I attend theology classes, I am going to work my way through 1 Corinthians 13 and test my love of cricket against it, hopefully proving in the process that I love cricket in the, err, Biblical sense. (Ahem.) Please bear in mind that this may be one of those wholesome family stories where I learn some important lessons along the way and turn out to be completely wrong, since, all evidence to the contrary, I really don't know what I'll end up concluding.
* Is this true? A question for another day, or another blog, but for all I know, the Ancient Greeks wandered around all, y’know, “I totally love what you’ve done with your hair!” and “Are those Athenian leather? Oh. My. Gods. I love them!” Or: “Oh I love, love, love Sophocles: have you seen his latest? So much gore - totally classic!” The Greeks may have sounded like the great Jane Austen work Clueless – you heard it here first.
** Thousands of academics would disagree, but then they would turn around and disagree with each other about what he meant, thereby proving my point. If he’d defined it, they wouldn’t be arguing. Well, some of them would argue on principle, but not thousands of them.
*** I’m
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Very Long Review: Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring.
2010 intro:
This was originally written when it first came out - the very night I saw it. So any issues with this post are because I was young(er), and I accept no responsibility. I realise there could be context problems if you haven't read the books or watched the movies eighteen times, in which case I suggest you go do that, and then come back and read it.
Mostly original review:
Warning #1: Long. Really long. For an email (2010 edit: blog post) anyway. But it was 11pm, and I had no one at home awake to debrief me, so I just had to write it all down. Also I have a BA (Hons) English, so this is my instinctive reaction. Discuss. Compare and contrast.
Warning #2: Contains spoilers – some film spoilers, so if you have read the books but haven’t yet seen the film and would like to find your own things to pick on, don’t read this. Yet. Not so many story spoilers … well, some. So perhaps you should also wait if you haven’t read the book and haven’t seen the film yet. Also, go read the book already!!
Right. Well, I loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it. (where is that line from, anyway?) I felt extremely deprived at the end of the movie knowing that I have to wait twelve months for The Two Towers and then ANOTHER twelve months for Return of the King. Who decided that anyway? Still, I did see a Star Wars: Episode II trailer and that comes out in May… *sigh* that will have to do. Silly title or no silly title. Anyway, FOTR.
This great love I have for FOTR is not an unqualified love. (ahhh… sighs the audience. I knew it was too good to last.) So this is less a review (technically speaking) as some of the little things I liked, and some I didn’t but that I can live with. At least until my ego boundaries snap back into place.
I was interested by the different possibilities available in using a different medium. Some points which Tolkien had to state were able to be hinted at, and vice versa. Mind you, I think a lot of the things which Tolkien foreshadowed could also have been foreshadowed in the film rather than stated outright. Dumbing down, I think. Still, there was some mystery left.
I was quite happy with the casting. I know Liv and Cate were somewhat controversial but elven beauty is supposed to be otherworldly, and I’m not a guy, so the fact that I can’t really see either of them as being the Spring and Autumn of female beauty doesn’t bother me so much. I thought Cate acted well, particularly in the scene where Frodo offers her the Ring. (Niggle #1: you could hear her footsteps. It is a basic law of fantasy that you can’t hear elves, especially not when they’re walking in their own wood, for goodness sake. I’m not even going to go into how noisy the hobbits were).
Liv… well, my concerns are not so much with Liv as with Arwen, and her rampant cannibalism of several minor characters. Not to mention stealing scenes from other main characters. We all know it should have been Frodo who called on the river at the Ford. What was with her incantations anyway? This isn’t Harry Potter, kids. And then there is the arcing up of the whole romance thing with Aragorn. Dude, I think we might have understood the romance without the gratuitous kissing-and-swearing-to-one-another scene. And she should have given him an emerald. In Lothlorien. Indirectly, too, not just handing it over. Its one of Aragorn’s symbols for goodness sake, not some wussy brooch with pearls or whatever in it. I always, always liked Tolkien’s sublety with these two. I thought it suited both the characters and the story, and emphasised how much both had sacrificed for duty and honour. But in the film… pffft. “Quick, there’s not enough romance and there’s no kissing…” well, we can’t have that now can we?
I do wonder whether Arwen’s increased presence is a form of affirmative action. When I re-read FOTR recently (so I could be picky enough to notice the lack of emeralds and so forth) I did notice the dearth of female characters. Without Arwen, we would only have had a brief glimpse of Rosie (she wouldn’t have had any lines, either) and Galadriel. I suppose it keeps things a little simpler, too. Why have random elves coming in and out when you only need one or two? Very Shakespearean – minimise the number of actors necessary as much as possible. I don’t really have a problem with that - this is just a movie; one version of a story that probably won’t ever be adequately captured by a film. Or nine films for that matter.
Going back to Aragorn and the emerald, I also missed The Sword that was Broken, and the mystery concerning Strider / Aragorn’s identity and his royalty. The Sword should have been reforged in Rivendell, and I’m sure we don’t find out that Aragorn is royal for a while yet. I did think Aragorn was well played. Nice casting. Verrrrry nice casting… (ahh, says the audience… so that’s why you didn’t like Arwen! No, that’s not it. At all. Completely different.)
While we’re on casting and so forth … Elijah Wood. I feel a little sad for him, because he is going to have to do some really impressive work for me to not see him as Frodo from now on. He was so good – the change in Frodo from the opening scene to the closing scene – wow. His love for the Shire, the burden of the Ring, the burden of loneliness… nicely done. Some people (girls) I’ve spoken to are elf groupies (Legolas) but I have to say I was pretty impressed with Elijah. Elves are just alien, man. Nice hair though.
Frodo did seem to lose a few of his more active scenes. But then he also lost some of his ‘doing stupid things’ (i.e. wandering into barrows) scenes as well. I thought this balanced out to convey how unlikely a hero he was. Quick poll: in the scene in Rivendell just before Frodo volunteers, the Ring? or Sauron? whispers to him and I’m wondering if this is a suggestion that part of his motive for volunteering is to hang on to the Ring? Anyone?
Boromir was a very impressive match to my own mental images. The other main characters were well done too. Gandalf, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gimli … tick. Good job boys. I thought Elrond was a little too grumpy… he was supposed to be distant, not grouchy. On the other hand, the Lothlorien elves weren’t grumpy enough, and I’m sure the Rivendell elves sang more.
Some of the Saruman storyline irked me also: Saruman taking direct orders from Sauron… don’t remember that bit, I must say. And the palantirs turn up in The Two Towers, not Fellowship. Sheesh. Let alone Saruman bringing down the mountain… it was just a nasty mountain OK? Not everything in the book is caused by the bad guys.
While I’m being picky, why stop? Not that this is in any way a definitive list – although I’m sure someone has written one. What happened to the hobbits already living in Bree? The assorted minor characters in the Shire who helped them escape? The barrows? (While we’re on the barrows, my brother pointed out that without the barrow scene the hobbits didn’t have swords. Director: OK, they’re about to face the Riders. Hang on, they don’t have swords. Quick, new scene: ‘Aragorn gives the hobbits swords.’ Phew, that was close. NOT.) Tom Bombadil? I wanted to see Tom. I know, I know, it went for three hours as it was, and like I already said, compressing some characters made it flow more smoothly as a film.
Finally, Aragorn’s last line - ‘Let’s hunt some orc!’ I laughed out loud. Why not just get Gandalf to say ‘I’ll be back!’ And the Uruk’hai ‘All your base are belong to us.’ Please. Aragorn (when he spoke) was very articulate in the books.
Hmm, actually, was that line ‘let’s hunt some orc?’ Perhaps it was just ‘let’s hunt orc.’ Or ‘let’s go hunt orc.’ Perhaps I’d better go see it again... just to make sure, you understand.
Footnotes:
For Princess Bride fans: several times when Frodo was asked for the Ring I had a mental image of an elderly bishop; “Have you … the Wing?”
For Robert Jordan / Wheel of Time fans: The WoT books all begin “The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.” Galadriel finished the intro with a similar line about history fading to legend, and forgetting things that should not be forgotten. Chicken or the egg? But let’s not look too closely at the WoT / LOTR similarities, hey? That’s a whole other topic.
This was originally written when it first came out - the very night I saw it. So any issues with this post are because I was young(er), and I accept no responsibility. I realise there could be context problems if you haven't read the books or watched the movies eighteen times, in which case I suggest you go do that, and then come back and read it.
Mostly original review:
Warning #1: Long. Really long. For an email (2010 edit: blog post) anyway. But it was 11pm, and I had no one at home awake to debrief me, so I just had to write it all down. Also I have a BA (Hons) English, so this is my instinctive reaction. Discuss. Compare and contrast.
Warning #2: Contains spoilers – some film spoilers, so if you have read the books but haven’t yet seen the film and would like to find your own things to pick on, don’t read this. Yet. Not so many story spoilers … well, some. So perhaps you should also wait if you haven’t read the book and haven’t seen the film yet. Also, go read the book already!!
Right. Well, I loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it. (where is that line from, anyway?) I felt extremely deprived at the end of the movie knowing that I have to wait twelve months for The Two Towers and then ANOTHER twelve months for Return of the King. Who decided that anyway? Still, I did see a Star Wars: Episode II trailer and that comes out in May… *sigh* that will have to do. Silly title or no silly title. Anyway, FOTR.
This great love I have for FOTR is not an unqualified love. (ahhh… sighs the audience. I knew it was too good to last.) So this is less a review (technically speaking) as some of the little things I liked, and some I didn’t but that I can live with. At least until my ego boundaries snap back into place.
I was interested by the different possibilities available in using a different medium. Some points which Tolkien had to state were able to be hinted at, and vice versa. Mind you, I think a lot of the things which Tolkien foreshadowed could also have been foreshadowed in the film rather than stated outright. Dumbing down, I think. Still, there was some mystery left.
I was quite happy with the casting. I know Liv and Cate were somewhat controversial but elven beauty is supposed to be otherworldly, and I’m not a guy, so the fact that I can’t really see either of them as being the Spring and Autumn of female beauty doesn’t bother me so much. I thought Cate acted well, particularly in the scene where Frodo offers her the Ring. (Niggle #1: you could hear her footsteps. It is a basic law of fantasy that you can’t hear elves, especially not when they’re walking in their own wood, for goodness sake. I’m not even going to go into how noisy the hobbits were).
Liv… well, my concerns are not so much with Liv as with Arwen, and her rampant cannibalism of several minor characters. Not to mention stealing scenes from other main characters. We all know it should have been Frodo who called on the river at the Ford. What was with her incantations anyway? This isn’t Harry Potter, kids. And then there is the arcing up of the whole romance thing with Aragorn. Dude, I think we might have understood the romance without the gratuitous kissing-and-swearing-to-one-another scene. And she should have given him an emerald. In Lothlorien. Indirectly, too, not just handing it over. Its one of Aragorn’s symbols for goodness sake, not some wussy brooch with pearls or whatever in it. I always, always liked Tolkien’s sublety with these two. I thought it suited both the characters and the story, and emphasised how much both had sacrificed for duty and honour. But in the film… pffft. “Quick, there’s not enough romance and there’s no kissing…” well, we can’t have that now can we?
I do wonder whether Arwen’s increased presence is a form of affirmative action. When I re-read FOTR recently (so I could be picky enough to notice the lack of emeralds and so forth) I did notice the dearth of female characters. Without Arwen, we would only have had a brief glimpse of Rosie (she wouldn’t have had any lines, either) and Galadriel. I suppose it keeps things a little simpler, too. Why have random elves coming in and out when you only need one or two? Very Shakespearean – minimise the number of actors necessary as much as possible. I don’t really have a problem with that - this is just a movie; one version of a story that probably won’t ever be adequately captured by a film. Or nine films for that matter.
Going back to Aragorn and the emerald, I also missed The Sword that was Broken, and the mystery concerning Strider / Aragorn’s identity and his royalty. The Sword should have been reforged in Rivendell, and I’m sure we don’t find out that Aragorn is royal for a while yet. I did think Aragorn was well played. Nice casting. Verrrrry nice casting… (ahh, says the audience… so that’s why you didn’t like Arwen! No, that’s not it. At all. Completely different.)
While we’re on casting and so forth … Elijah Wood. I feel a little sad for him, because he is going to have to do some really impressive work for me to not see him as Frodo from now on. He was so good – the change in Frodo from the opening scene to the closing scene – wow. His love for the Shire, the burden of the Ring, the burden of loneliness… nicely done. Some people (girls) I’ve spoken to are elf groupies (Legolas) but I have to say I was pretty impressed with Elijah. Elves are just alien, man. Nice hair though.
Frodo did seem to lose a few of his more active scenes. But then he also lost some of his ‘doing stupid things’ (i.e. wandering into barrows) scenes as well. I thought this balanced out to convey how unlikely a hero he was. Quick poll: in the scene in Rivendell just before Frodo volunteers, the Ring? or Sauron? whispers to him and I’m wondering if this is a suggestion that part of his motive for volunteering is to hang on to the Ring? Anyone?
Boromir was a very impressive match to my own mental images. The other main characters were well done too. Gandalf, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gimli … tick. Good job boys. I thought Elrond was a little too grumpy… he was supposed to be distant, not grouchy. On the other hand, the Lothlorien elves weren’t grumpy enough, and I’m sure the Rivendell elves sang more.
Some of the Saruman storyline irked me also: Saruman taking direct orders from Sauron… don’t remember that bit, I must say. And the palantirs turn up in The Two Towers, not Fellowship. Sheesh. Let alone Saruman bringing down the mountain… it was just a nasty mountain OK? Not everything in the book is caused by the bad guys.
While I’m being picky, why stop? Not that this is in any way a definitive list – although I’m sure someone has written one. What happened to the hobbits already living in Bree? The assorted minor characters in the Shire who helped them escape? The barrows? (While we’re on the barrows, my brother pointed out that without the barrow scene the hobbits didn’t have swords. Director: OK, they’re about to face the Riders. Hang on, they don’t have swords. Quick, new scene: ‘Aragorn gives the hobbits swords.’ Phew, that was close. NOT.) Tom Bombadil? I wanted to see Tom. I know, I know, it went for three hours as it was, and like I already said, compressing some characters made it flow more smoothly as a film.
Finally, Aragorn’s last line - ‘Let’s hunt some orc!’ I laughed out loud. Why not just get Gandalf to say ‘I’ll be back!’ And the Uruk’hai ‘All your base are belong to us.’ Please. Aragorn (when he spoke) was very articulate in the books.
Hmm, actually, was that line ‘let’s hunt some orc?’ Perhaps it was just ‘let’s hunt orc.’ Or ‘let’s go hunt orc.’ Perhaps I’d better go see it again... just to make sure, you understand.
Footnotes:
For Princess Bride fans: several times when Frodo was asked for the Ring I had a mental image of an elderly bishop; “Have you … the Wing?”
For Robert Jordan / Wheel of Time fans: The WoT books all begin “The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.” Galadriel finished the intro with a similar line about history fading to legend, and forgetting things that should not be forgotten. Chicken or the egg? But let’s not look too closely at the WoT / LOTR similarities, hey? That’s a whole other topic.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Vale Amy.
One of my favourite bloggers, Amy S, is dead.
http://amy-cricket.blogspot.com/
Amy wrote well, had a quirky, occasionally dark sense of humour, posted amazing volumes of information (reading about her life, I think she must have got very little sleep!) and had that rare trifecta: she loved cricket, had some idea of what she was talking about *and* she could write about it. From discussions in comments and the odd email exchange, she also followed AFL and had a keen interest in politics, which is where she ended up working.
A smart, funny, sports-loving woman working in our government; I wonder what she would have done.
http://amy-cricket.blogspot.com/
Amy wrote well, had a quirky, occasionally dark sense of humour, posted amazing volumes of information (reading about her life, I think she must have got very little sleep!) and had that rare trifecta: she loved cricket, had some idea of what she was talking about *and* she could write about it. From discussions in comments and the odd email exchange, she also followed AFL and had a keen interest in politics, which is where she ended up working.
A smart, funny, sports-loving woman working in our government; I wonder what she would have done.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Late night post: a review of A Little Night Music.
I won't talk about cricket much right now, although at some point I would like to. I can at least say I was at Lord's for an historic match. It's unfortunate that it was English history and not Australian history. Three matches to go, though, so all is not lost, just a 75 year old record. And I did have a lot of fun, just not as much as I would've if we'd won.
As part of my recovery, I went to see "A Little Night Music" in Leicester Square.
I had mixed up the nights and turned up a night early, and not only did the theatre staff find me a seat, it was better than the one I had booked. One of the pluses of travelling alone is that you are easier to seat at short notice.
A Little Night Music (ALNM) is a Sondheim musical, so it has beautiful music, (all in waltz time, and several pieces are waltzes) a plot, dialogue and lyrics which are clever, funny, sharp, cynical and touching; sometimes all at once. At first I thought it might in fact be a little too cynical and sharp for someone wandering the world on her own, thinking about the meaning of life and having just seen her team lose the cricket. But then again, I like Sondheim precisely because his musicals aren't necessarily light and bubbly, but acknowledge the dark and twisty undercurrrents of life. It is still a musical so there is more light than shade, and I ended up coming out on that high you get from seeing a great story very well done... well, I get a high from that, anyway.
Having spent the last week in Oxford discussing, among other things, staging, dialogue, use of the body in conveying meaning, pauses, blocking, interpretation (etc etc ... and on, and on....) I was watching these things with a semi-critical eye and I still loved it. Silence and pauses were used to great effect, (rare in a musical) and the delivery of dialogue, whether in prose or in song, was very well done. Not necessarily the greatest singers in the world, but I understand a number of these songs were written with that in mind, so it would seem that Sondheim was more concerned with acting ability in some characters. There is an opening song where three characters sing individual pieces and merges into a three part harmony about 'now,' 'soon,' 'later': beautiful harmonies and the lyrics layer each other and add depth to each other.
You can tell I enjoyed it because I have the urge to write about it! Another feature of ALNM is it has a kind of chorus; five characters who introduce, observe, comment from the sidelines in song. Interestingly, "Henry V" has a chorus, usually done as one person. We attempted to see it in Oxford but only saw the first act and a half before a rain delay. The director had divided the chorus into four parts, which didn't work well as they were trying to establish seperate characters from something written for one. Watching ALNM, I could see how it could have been done; how these five people worked together as a group character, but still had identities and just-hinted-at back stories which wove throughout the main drama.
I appreciated both Sondheim's words and music (which I will be finding for my iPod) and in this particular production (a smaller one) I also appreciated the direction and acting. A minimalist set, but it was used well and a number of props filled it out, so it wasn't bare bones. The odd bit of singing let them down a little, but for me this was outweighed by the excellence of everything else.
As part of my recovery, I went to see "A Little Night Music" in Leicester Square.
I had mixed up the nights and turned up a night early, and not only did the theatre staff find me a seat, it was better than the one I had booked. One of the pluses of travelling alone is that you are easier to seat at short notice.
A Little Night Music (ALNM) is a Sondheim musical, so it has beautiful music, (all in waltz time, and several pieces are waltzes) a plot, dialogue and lyrics which are clever, funny, sharp, cynical and touching; sometimes all at once. At first I thought it might in fact be a little too cynical and sharp for someone wandering the world on her own, thinking about the meaning of life and having just seen her team lose the cricket. But then again, I like Sondheim precisely because his musicals aren't necessarily light and bubbly, but acknowledge the dark and twisty undercurrrents of life. It is still a musical so there is more light than shade, and I ended up coming out on that high you get from seeing a great story very well done... well, I get a high from that, anyway.
Having spent the last week in Oxford discussing, among other things, staging, dialogue, use of the body in conveying meaning, pauses, blocking, interpretation (etc etc ... and on, and on....) I was watching these things with a semi-critical eye and I still loved it. Silence and pauses were used to great effect, (rare in a musical) and the delivery of dialogue, whether in prose or in song, was very well done. Not necessarily the greatest singers in the world, but I understand a number of these songs were written with that in mind, so it would seem that Sondheim was more concerned with acting ability in some characters. There is an opening song where three characters sing individual pieces and merges into a three part harmony about 'now,' 'soon,' 'later': beautiful harmonies and the lyrics layer each other and add depth to each other.
You can tell I enjoyed it because I have the urge to write about it! Another feature of ALNM is it has a kind of chorus; five characters who introduce, observe, comment from the sidelines in song. Interestingly, "Henry V" has a chorus, usually done as one person. We attempted to see it in Oxford but only saw the first act and a half before a rain delay. The director had divided the chorus into four parts, which didn't work well as they were trying to establish seperate characters from something written for one. Watching ALNM, I could see how it could have been done; how these five people worked together as a group character, but still had identities and just-hinted-at back stories which wove throughout the main drama.
I appreciated both Sondheim's words and music (which I will be finding for my iPod) and in this particular production (a smaller one) I also appreciated the direction and acting. A minimalist set, but it was used well and a number of props filled it out, so it wasn't bare bones. The odd bit of singing let them down a little, but for me this was outweighed by the excellence of everything else.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
First Tolkien reference ...
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
I went to Wonderland today...
Well, the garden that served as part of the inspiration for 'Alice in Wonderland.' Today I did a tour of Christ Church, the college in which I am staying. It has a rich and varied history, including the connections with Alice - I saw the little door, the Cheshire Cat's tree and a most marvellous gnarled old tree which our guide believes partly inspired the Jabberwocky. Sadly, I did not have my camera with me, but I am doing the garden and meadow tour tomorrow, so will remember it then.
I am really, really enjoying my time here; I'd like to say "I love Oxford" but apart from a couple of pubs and a walking tour yesterday, I have mostly been in Christ Church so I should really say "I love Christ Church." The Oxford Experience (the official name of the summer school) is great. There are a range of people here - lots of people from the US, lots of retirees - but my new drinking buddies include a NY state attorney and a retired BHP exec who lives in Queensland. What we have in common is that we're all interested in *stuff* and quite happy to talk about anything and everything, and also quite happy to give our opinions! We have really interesting discussions over lunch and dinner about all topics under the sun, although as we all get into our courses, I think we are getting a little more focussed on our pet subjects. Loving my Shakespeare group; we have some *hilarious* times, particularly where people who haven't necessarily studied Shakespeare before start to appreciate how down to earth he really was... i.e. we explain how many dirty jokes there are in the text. We're going to see Henry V tonight and spent some time on it today; we read bits of it aloud and do various exercises to bring it alive in different ways.
Also Christ Church is just a beautiful setting; I've put up a couple of pictures which don't really capture it - one is crooked for starters! The crooked one is Tom Quad, which is where we enter and leave the college. The other is the main wing of Pec, where I'm staying, although in the left wing. For all its external grandeur, inside it is very much college accommodation.
My favourite, favourite experience so far has been coming 'home' after a night out. (See pubs aforementioned!) The main gates are shut, but there is a tiny, ancient wooden door set into them, for which we have a key. The first night we came in with the very last dregs of sunlight (sunset is around 10pm-ish), and last night there was a little moonlight. The door closes behind us and we come out into the quad, the buildings lit by moonlight with clouds rushing behind them. It's quiet, the quad is deserted, the moon is out, the last rays of the setting sun are lighting the clouds behind the spire, the stone is glowing slightly... it is an absolutely magic moment.
Both nights I've stopped and looked at it, and thought, well, even if rest of the trip is terrible, and despite Australia bloody not winning on Sunday, the whole thing was worth it for this. We'd better win at Lords, though, it's one of the few trump cards I've been able to play against the various Englishmen I've been discussing cricket with.
So, all in all, awesome so far and it is only Tuesday... a week is not enough, really. There are various people here who come for two or three or even all five weeks, and a very large number of people who come every year, or as often as they can. They are mostly from Europe or the US though.
All the non-Harry Potter fans can leave now - one of the things they do love telling you about here is which bits of Harry Potter were filmed where. Interestingly, the dining hall, which was a major inspiration for the dining hall in the films, did not actually have any filming in it. This is because they were here during term and the students needed to eat! The other interesting thing is how many of the people here for the course love Harry Potter. There are a few anti-Harry snobs, but the vast majority of people I've spoken to love it. I seem to be a in a very small minority who enjoy it but don't love it. Various bits of Tom Quad and the dining hall staircase were used in the films, and I have to say it does all feel slightly familiar. I think this is also due to it being from a similar period to bits of Bath, and no doubt inspiration for various other fantasy / medieval epics and the setting for about 800 films.
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