Sorry Russell Crowe.....

I took myself to the movies this morning to see Les Miserables. I am always a bit concerned about going to see films of which I have heard good reviews. Inevitably, I am disappointed. Perhaps my standards are too high? Whatever. This post isn't about me. It's about Russell Crowe.

First though let's talk about the good things. Anne Hathaway has finally delivered a film performance I can praise because let's face it The Devil Wears Prada was too long, very boring and extremely superficial and the less said about The Princess Diaries the better. Her singing was impressive as Fantine and she did the part justice. Of course Hugh Jackman was outstanding as Valjean. Did we expect anything less? If you have seen him in Oklahoma (which let's face it you may not have) you would know the man can sing. Here he is perfect in every way. Amanda Seyfried is fine as Cosette, the most boring part perhaps but she manages to convey some substance. Eddie Redmayne (?) is excellent as Marius. I was genuinely moved by Empty Chairs and Empty Tables. This chap can sing and act. Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen are fine comic relief as the Thenardiers. I expected a little more from them. At points I felt like they may have been phoning it in, but they got away with it as the comic foils all the same. The sets and costume were fabulous. The new song, Suddenly fitted seamlessly into the score. Unfortunately though Russell Crowe is dreadful miscast. That is, Crowe can sing but with the high standard surrounding him he fails to bring any sense of power to Javert and that is what is needed. Everyone else tromps all over him and (spoilers) when he falls into the Seine at the end all I thought was "meh" where it should have been a major moment in the plot. Also, he totally failed to do justice to Stars - one of the treasures in the many wonderful songs in Les Mis.
This is what it should sound like: I imagine there are a lot of excellent theatre actors who are currently despairing at Crowe's casting. It leaves a big hole in what otherwise is a great movie version of Les Miserables.

so that was Christmas

Christmas is done and dusted for another year. I got lots of lovely green gifts including a complete set of bathroom towels etc, a cute green purse, a green spotty mug, some green tea and new cushions for my lounge. Non green gifts included a scratchie ( I did not win anything), pins and a pincushion and these fabulous earrings.

Those of you who are aware of my penchant for silver filigree jewellery will understand my joy at receiving these from my grandmother. What she didn't know is that I chose and bought them myself and then gave them to my mother to give to her to give to me. My Dad was totally convinced by my delight at unwrapping the gift. I didn't win that Year 12 Theatre prize for nothing. We ate, we drank, we were relatively merry and then we all ran out of puff by about three o'clock. From then on it was napping. I got a headache so took some panadol and had a lie on the bed in the aircon. After my parents took my grandmother home we rallied a little, ate some leftovers (cold lamb and roast potatoes!) and then I further inducted my mother into the ways of the new iPad. I left her sitting in the lounge with a look of glee as she made her way through the levels of Angry Birds. I should probably say something profound here about the meaning of Christmas and suchlike but I'm a little bit tired. I'll let John Lennon say it for me.

Christmas Countdown: the Christmas Eve version

And here we are at Christmas Eve. In an effort to have a Christmas event without my grandmother, for the last few years I have my parents and sister for dinner on Christmas Eve. It's not a big foodie event. It's just a moment before tomorrow when we can have some family time. Soon I will make some salads and a trifle. I will also have to clear the dining table of all sewing paraphernalia but that can wait until much later. For our entertainment I think I will find some Xmas episodes of TV shows for us to watch. Yep, forget the carolling around the piano. We're a TV watching family from way back. Traditions! I checked through last year's Christmas Countdown and it seems I restrained myself and did not include my favourite ever Christmas song. Apologies if you saw my tweet from a few nights ago. I make no excuses for loving this song. That's correct. I am unashamed and for once, not being ironic. If that's too much for you enjoy my number one choice from last year. Such Fun! I adore Rockwiz Christmas Specials. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Countdown: the PICK A KEY version

Christmas Countdown: the nativity scene from days of yore version

Inspired by @georgianoakes twit pic of her childhood handmade nativity scene I present to you this. Behold its wonder for it is a nativity scene made some 33 years ago when I was in Year 2 at West Bundaberg State School. It has been the pride and joy of the Davis family Christmas decorations for every year since. (Excepting the years when my brother refused to let my mother get it out the cupboard because it was too crappy). I can still remember the joy of making it. I was especially attentive to making the angel's hair a beautiful brown with my felt pens. She also got the glitter (now much faded) on her gown. I still have trouble telling the difference between the three wise men, Joseph and the shepherd so you are excused if you have the same problem. The sheep is covered in real 1980s cotton wool and held on with Clag glue. And you will notice at the back of the manger (ice block box from the tuckshop) there is a "window" of cellophane. I think you're supposed to shine a torch back there to provide some light. So put away your fancy schmancy Christmas decorations and enjoy the delights of children's craft from days of yore (yore being 1980).

Christmas Countdown: the gravy version

Here's one of the best songs about Christmas. Ever. (thanks for the reminder 612 ABC Brisbane)

Christmas Countdown: the feats of strength version

What's Christmas Countdown without a little bit of Festivus. Classic.

Christmas Countdown: The Mel and Judy version

Oh Judy and Mel.

Christmas Countdown: the Christmas earrings version

Every year I swear that I will not be caught up in Christmas fashions. But what did we see yesterday dear readers? That's correct. A CHRISTMAS SKIRT. Where does it end? Here. With these Christmas earrings that I bought yesterday. I'm sure they're quite tacky but I bought them anyway and I will most likely wear them every day from now until Christmas. Damn it I'm wearing them as I write this post. Because if you can't wear festive jewellery in late December then when can you wear it?

Yes we all wear glasses

The first two weeks of July also happen to have been the first two weeks of the teaching term here. They have whipped by in a flurry of Moodling frustration, parts of speech, sentence structure, emails and discussion forum posts and replies. The only thing that kept me going last week was the knowledge that by Friday there would only be 10 weeks left in the term. What a dreadful attitude!

Still, there have been some highlights. One was the whirlwind trip to Brisbane last weekend to see Flight of the Conchords. It was a Davis sibling excursion to the Entertainment Centre. We had pretty good seats on the floor about 30 rows back. This meant we could actually see the Conchords without having to rely on the big screens. Pity the people at the back. Anyway, it was excellent and much better than the review of their Sydney show in The Australian might lead you to believe. Here we are before it started. We're smiling because we're happy to be there and we made it through giant traffic snarl to get there.

Yes we all wear glasses.  We're nerds.

My only disappointment was the gigantic crowd at the merchandise counter which meant we could not get anywhere near anything. That, and the delight of the hopelessly huge traffic jam that greeted us on the way out as well. Driving in Brisbane is less than lovely.

Anyway, here's one of my favourite songs that they didn't play. Enjoy.

Acceptable: 7/10 for discipline

Last night I went to my parents for dinner and because I've been working with my lovely group on our proposal for a local history cultural heritage collection I asked about a photo I remember seeing in an album of my grandma's. My dear mum went and dug it out. It's a photo of my mum as a toddler at her grandparents' farm at Apple Tree Creek. The family are all sitting on a wooden sled kind of thing, that is being pulled by a big draught horse. After my Grandpa died, and my Grandma moved to a retirement village my Mum cleaned out all their photos and bits and pieces. I was horrified to see what my Grandma had done to her old photos from when she was young...for some reason she had cut them out of their original photo albums so there are all these weird shaped pieces of cardboard with photos still stuck on both sides. We found a photo of my Grandma going to her debutante ball in the late 1930s. She was quite glamorous! We also found all my Grandpa's war documentation, including the will he had to write in 1939. He had also kept some amazingly grotesque cards from his Sunday School teacher, a photo of himself at 15 with his premiership winning football team (most likely in Childers) and some photos of himself walking along the main street of Childers in a very dashing striped jacket and slicked back hair. There were photos of his beloved cars. Until the day he died he took immaculate care of his cars. (I would be an immense disappointment to him in this regard I fear). And there was also a photo of another woman who, family history has it, he was close to marrying, before he met my Grandma. The other woman looks very jolly. (I'll leave it at that I think). We also found my Grandma's high school reports from Bundy High from 1936 and 1937 as well as her workbooks from teacher's training college and the inspector's reports from when she was teaching. It seems like at teacher's training college she spent most of her time preparing an anthology of poetry in her finest penmanship. And her inspector's reports all said the same thing. Acceptable. 7/10 for discipline.

Wendy gets involved in exciting things: the crowd sourcing post

So I was working away on my Collections Management assignment, doing some research and reading about crowd sourcing in libraries when I got totally distracted and inspired. I follow Amanda Palmer on twitter. For weeks and weeks I had been watching her tweets and retweets her kick-starter project roll by. Sure I'd taken notice but I hadn't been compelled to actually bother to take part in it. Then all the stuff about libraries employing crowd sourcing techniques to take them into the 21st century suddenly took hold and before I knew it I had created a kick-starter account, made a contribution and tweeted it out to the world. I also sent Amanda Palmer a message explaining the reason for my contribution. What she will make of it I have no idea. Anyway, then soon after my tweet the excellent @misspoppysmith urged me to go to possible to support what you see below. And I did. Without hesitation. What's all this got to do with anything. I'm not quite sure yet. But I'll keep thinking about it. What I do think is that we are on the cusp (or perhaps in the middle) of a change to the way the arts in all their amazing forms operate in our culture. Participation, engagement, involvement - all these things are forces that will hold our communities together when elsewhere it seems to be fracturing. If I can play a small part in that then that must be good.

Let's go fly a kite

A couple of weekends ago I made the trek to Brisbane to see Mary Poppins. Not in person obviously. She's a fictional character. Rather, this was the musical. Much lauded. Much praised. I had been told by many people that I would "love" it. So I was looking forward to seeing it but I was also a little hesitant. You know when Margaret and David give a movie five stars and then you and see it and think "meh...3 and a half from me actually". What I'm saying is that when someone tells me I'm going to love something I always start to worry. WHAT IF I DON'T LOVE IT AS MUCH AS I'M SUPPOSED TO? WHAT ABOUT THAT? So, what did I think about the Poppinses? Well, spectacular chorus numbers. Excellent and impressive special effects. The set was wonderful. The leads were good. I was particularly impressed that the guy from So You think You Can Dance who played Bert actually could dance...Really Well! I even got a lump in my throat when Mary Poppins "flew" out across the audience at the end. Shush...that's not a spoiler...we all know she leaves. So it was very good. But there were things that weren't quite right. For one, the balance between the orchestra and the singers was a little out. Brass...I'm sorry...you were too loud. And the girl playing Jane got a bit shrieky at times in her microphone. And I just didn't love Simon Burke as Mr Banks. Perhaps it was the part? I'm not sure. And I didn't love the "new" songs. As a child my parents had a limited record collection. One of the LPs (showing my age here) was the original cast recording from the Disney movie with Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke. Now I know his accent still remains unforgivable as the cockney Bert but I loved the suffragette songs of Mrs Banks. Why was she suddenly made into a wannabe actress in the stage version? Are we not able to cope with a little bit of lightweight feminism in a musical? I found this a strange choice. Also, the letter that Jane and Michael sing before Mary Poppins arrive was way too fast. I like it slower and more thoughtful as in the film. Now, I understand that translating a film to the stage means there will be differences, certain things are not possible (dancing animated penguins for instance) but for the life of me the thing that bugged me the most was that they didn't finish with Let's Go Fly a Kite. It's my favourite moment in the film. It's the perfect ending as the family go out into the street and everyone lives happily ever after even without Mary Poppins. Why chuck it in the middle in some half-hearted fashion? It just wasn't quite right either. And then I realised...because I had listened to the original soundtrack so often, because I have watched the film so many times, perhaps it's not possible for me to fully embrace the stage show in the same way as say, a young child today who hasn't had the original version ingrained into their brain. That's okay. I still liked it. I just didn't LOVE it.

I'm betting on the Dickens

We waved goodbye to January and welcomed in what I think is the worst month of the year - February. Why so bad? It's stinky hot here in sub-tropical Queensland and it's too short. Suddenly I seem to be running out of time on everything. This year it was made worse by having to go back to work after my lovely holiday. Within I day I had a yucky headache that lasted for three days. In the post-restructure of our area madness I was still doing half my old role, helping with another role that isn't mine at all, and trying to find time for my new role. Perhaps it is needless to say I wasn't particularly happy. I can only cross my fingers and hope that this week will be better, with less swearing and less bringing work home every night. Still I found time to squeeze in some telly. Thank you wonderful ABC for screening Doctor Who every night. These early David Tennant episodes are fantastic (much better than the Matt Smith/Ponds stuff of late in my opinion). Homeland has also been a highlight so far. Claire Danes is excellent, as are the rest of the cast. I am very much looking forward to tonight's episode. And last night, I laughed out loud at Graham Norton. I have forgiven the ABC for letting this show go to Channel Ten. If I record it and watch it an hour later I can avoid the annoying ad breaks. Goodness knows we all want to do that. I am determined to keep reading some fiction this year. My Kindle is still one of my favourite things in the whole world. Last week I bought the complete Dickens and started on Bleak House. Then, like a silly billy I started reading The Help as well. So now I have two books on the go at once which is never good because invariably one will be left unread. I'm betting on the Dickens. We shall see.

Thinking about the Muppets

On Sunday I went to see The Muppets. Being a Generation X child who was six years old in 1979 when the first film was released I had high expectations. I had been following the stream of trailers leading up to the film's official release. I had been sad when I realised it would be at least a week before I could get to a cinema to see the movie. I had heard that Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords was doing the music. I am a big FOTC fan so that was okay by me. I had spent much of my childhood watching the television series. I quite like Jason Segal and Amy Adams. So here's my verdict after a few days of mulling the whole thing over in my mind. I enjoyed it but I won't go to see it again. There were lots of lovely moments, there was fun, there were winks to the audience, the songs were good although they sounded like FOTC songs rather than Muppet songs, there were great choices of cameos, Chris Cooper made an admirable villain. This was all very well and good. But for me, it didn't "feel" like a Muppet movie. While I think the love of the Muppets that ran through the narrative was genuine, it was for me, too nostalgic. It relied on Muppet history so much that there was a sense that there was no moving forward. It was treading the fine line of when good postmodernism goes bad. And although it asked the question as to why the Muppets might have been forgotten with their yesteryear vaudevillian charms, it didn't quite recapture the tone of the Jim Henson glory days, thus providing its own answer. Perhaps Frank Oz was wise not to be involved. Perhaps he realised that there was no going back. My reaction to the movie was different to my sister's. She is 12 years younger than me. She didn't spend her childhood watching the tv show, or listening to the original movie soundtrack over and over and over on the cassette player in the car. She doesn't like it when I sing Rainbow Connection in my faux opera voice. She doesn't know the joke about the fork in the road. She doesn't have the same relationship with the Muppets that I do. We are of different generations. Many of our pop culture references are the same but in terms of Muppets we seem to be different. I vaguely remember reading once someone (it may have been Neil Finn) saying that the music you love when you are 25 stays with you for life. The same might be true for the pop culture of your childhood. It stays with you in a way that is unlike anything else that follows. And I think this explains my reaction to The Muppets. I didn't not like it. I appreciated the effort and the sincerity that had gone into it's production, but when the nuances of the voices of Fozzie, Miss Piggy, Kermit and Rowlf (to name a few) jar, when you find yourself wishing you were watching the original Rainbow Connection, not a do-over, you realise that you are pining for the original experience, but by the same token there is no way you can recapture that moment.

What should I read first?

Hooray for me! I made it to 100 posts in 2011. As I wrote yesterday I resolve to do much better in 2012. I mean look at the years before that. I must have done nothing else but blog. I blame twitter actually which has gradually taken a much bigger part in my online activity. So the goal this year is to find a balance between the two. New Year's Eve was suspiciously quiet in my neighbourhood. Usually there is at least one party on the go that I can hear. But last night - nothing at all. I felt extremely noisy because I was watching the television until I went to bed at 10:30. I watched Graham Norton who I enjoy immensely. He interviewed Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law about their new Sherlock Holmes film. I didn't mind the first one but after seeing the Benedict Cumberbatch/Martin Freeman Sherlock I much prefer it and am waiting for the new episodes. Then I FINALLY finished the biography of Steve Jobs. What can I tell you about it? It was very long and detailed. He was a man of contradictions who probably should have got some proper treatment for his cancer earlier. Although they may not have made any difference in the long term. We will never know. What I do know is that it has given me a whole new perspective on my iPhone, iPad and MacBook in terms of their design and operation. Anyway, I was glad to finish it before the start of 2012 because I had been plugging away at it for some time. I wonder what my first book of the New Year should be? It is the Year of Reading after all.

Once.....

I missed a fair few good movies during the first decade of this century. It was a combination of being consumed by a PhD and living in a regional centre that isn't great at getting the more independent releases. This is why I was very happy to see Once was on Monday night on one of those extra channels. I recorded it (because I can't seem to watch anything with ads in it anymore) and sat down to watch it last night. I had heard about it of course but nothing prepared for the simple beauty of the story, the understated, natural performances of the two leads, and the amazingly heartbreaking songs. I could see the ending coming (and I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it) but it was quietly devastating. This was a true romance of a film. So when I finished it and found that Four Weddings and a Funeral was on the normal telly, the contrast was absolutely ridiculous. Here's one of the songs from Once.

tatty decorations, watermelon salad and marinated lamb

Christmas this year was a quiet affair with just me, my parents, my sister and my 90 year old Grandmother. We skyped my brother and sister-in-law in Brisbane, and will see my uncle, aunt and cousin tomorrow. So the actual day was the smallest celebration for many years. It was also the first time in years we didn't have to blast the air-conditioning all day. The weather was relatively pleasant and breezy for summer. My Dad wore his special red Santa shirt. And once again my Mum had put out this work of art - a nativity scene that I made when I was in Grade 2. It's survived quite well don't you think?

Of course the angel is supposed to sit on top of the manger and Mum has confused Joseph with some of the three wise men. One day I will buy her a nice nativity scene....perhaps one that isn't coloured in with felt pen and has a sheep that doesn't have cotton wool glued to it's back. Or maybe I'll force her to keep using this one. We actually do a kind of swap with tatty Christmas decorations. She sighs and keeps dragging out the nativity scene and I let her keep this freakish blue-eyed animated Santa. I hate it with a passion.

Anyway, I got a new dinner set (white), some lovely earrings and a bracelet, a new beach towel and this piece of nostalgia from my childhood.

The food highlight was the butterfly marinated lamb that my Dad cooked on the Weber and the watermelon, feta and olive salad that I made based on the wonderful 2paw's recipe. So good it was, that I'm making it again tomorrow for 2nd Christmas.

Christmas Countdown day 25

One of my absolute favourite Rockwiz moments from a previous Christmas special. Last night's Christmas special was excellent also. If you didn't watch it I highly recommend you catch up with SBS on demand. Thus endeth Wendy's Christmas Countdown for 2011.

Christmas Countdown day 24

(it stops abruptly but you get the idea)