A happy 2010 to one and all. Have a great and safe evening.
You know all those things they say happen only once in a blue moon? Well, tonight’s the night that they all happen. Beware.
Next interesting date: February 1st, 2010. Why? because in the US, it’s a palindromic date: 01 02 20 10. In the UK, it’s January 2nd that’s palindromic.
We went to see Sherlock Holmes a couple of days ago. A decent movie, lovely to behold. I felt myself bristling against some of the liberties they took with Holmes and, to a lesser extent, with Watson. Lestrade was almost perfectly true to Doyle. The scenery was visually stunning. I especially liked the Tower Bridge. I thought Robert Downey, Jr. mumbled a little, making some of his lines hard to understand. On the whole it was a fairly good film. Loved the Irish music, too, especially the Dubliners.
Yesterday we saw Blind Side. Sandra Bullock is really good in this film. The story itself is almost devoid of dramatic tension. They try to inject some with the incident with the NCAA investigation and the one instance where Big Mike vanishes, but for all intents and purposes, once Bullock’s character sets her mind on her goal, it rolls out pretty much without complication. Even her own kids don’t rebel or object in the least to the new status quo. I smiled at the irony of a woman who is such a socialite but at the same time a Taco Bell heiress of sorts. Kathy Bates brings a little humor to the story, but her “confession” felt a tad forced.
I don’t think I mentioned The Hangover, which we saw a week or so ago. It had its moments. Wasn’t as over the top or raunchy as I expected it to be, which isn’t a bad thing as I don’t tend to go in for that sort of film. A few bits were brilliant, some clever, and a fair number missed the target, but on the whole it was okay. I think the concept could have been made much, much funnier, though.
Finished reading The Unbearable Lightness of Scones by Alexander McCall Smith and moving into The Double Comfort Safari Club, also by AMS. Also reading Sleepless by Charlie Huston. An interesting concept but the book’s structure is a little confusing, at least in the early going. I also finished Don Quixote, finally. Glad to have read it, and was a bit surprised by how mean-spirited it could be at times, especially with poor Sancho Panza being “sentenced” to lashings and pinchings and slaps, on a whim. At least he figured out a way to get around the lashings.
