Too much fun...
Jul. 31st, 2011 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearLots more things to review!
The Naming of the Beasts by Mike Carey:
This is the fifth in the Felix Castor series, and things have very much come to a head. The main focus in this book is the background arc plot from the previous four, involving Castor attempting to free his best friend from the clutches of a demon which has been possessing him for over three years. It's another riproaring tale, with a greater appearance from the shadowy MOU, an agency experimenting on supernatural creatures, much like the one Riley worked for in Buffy. All the staples of Castor novels are there - grouchy cops and tenuous allies to cajole and appease, varying levels of threat from more than one direction, much Castor-whumping, and too much exposition loaded in towards the end. The structure of the climax is slightly different, though, with Carey interspersing the mammoth exposition with scenes from the action-packed end fight, rather than doing one and then the other. I'm not sure if this is an improvement, but it's still all good. My only real gripe is that there isn't enough of an aftermath. After tracking Castor's attempts to exorcise the demon through five books, I would have liked to see more of his freed friend afterwards, rather than just a couple of lines about him getting back together with his girlfriend. This would seem like a sensible place to end the series, so it'll be interesting to see if Carey continues with Castor or starts something new.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged):
This was a fun night out with good friends in North London, though the venue wasn't ideal - it took place in the front room of a pub, which was very warm and rather crowded. The show was pretty good overall, with some very funny bits and some not so funny bits. It apparently missed out various sections from the original version, though I didn't notice as I don't remember ever seeing it before, even though I have been assured I have.
And, yes, I went to see Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead at the Haymarket for a third time! It was different yet again, since things went unexpectedly awry for poor Guildenstern. He corpsed in the middle of the "reason must prevail" speech and then, when he tried to whop off his belt to make a barrier for Hamlet, the buckle came off in his hand and he had to spend the rest of the play hitching up his jeans very five minutes. I was also even closer to the stage again - this time perhaps a little too close, as it was hard to take in the whole scene, so I was forced to focus only on one character at a time. It was still awesome, though, and I loved every minute of it.
Then, yesterday, Dave took in a cinema double bill of Arrietty and Captain America, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Arrietty was a rare specimen for Japanese anime, in my experience. It was subdued and gentle, a truly lovely film on every level. The art was gorgeous, the characters were appealing, the story was sweet, and the moments of danger were relatively low key. It could have been dull in other hands, but in fact it was enchanting.
Captain America also hit exactly the right tone for what otherwise could have been as terrible as some of the other recent Marvel efforts. Chris Evans shrugged off his usual comic smugness to give us an endearingly earnest Steve Rogers with just the right amount of humour to save him from being boring. Hugo Weaving successfully trod the line between sinister and caricature as the bad guy, and the supporting characters made a really good team to stop the focus being too much on the central hero. Even better, it's given me a character to be interested in for the upcoming Avengers, as I think it'll be interesting to see Rogers interact with the smarmy irreverence of Tony Stark and the nonsensical beefcake that is Thor.
The Naming of the Beasts by Mike Carey:
This is the fifth in the Felix Castor series, and things have very much come to a head. The main focus in this book is the background arc plot from the previous four, involving Castor attempting to free his best friend from the clutches of a demon which has been possessing him for over three years. It's another riproaring tale, with a greater appearance from the shadowy MOU, an agency experimenting on supernatural creatures, much like the one Riley worked for in Buffy. All the staples of Castor novels are there - grouchy cops and tenuous allies to cajole and appease, varying levels of threat from more than one direction, much Castor-whumping, and too much exposition loaded in towards the end. The structure of the climax is slightly different, though, with Carey interspersing the mammoth exposition with scenes from the action-packed end fight, rather than doing one and then the other. I'm not sure if this is an improvement, but it's still all good. My only real gripe is that there isn't enough of an aftermath. After tracking Castor's attempts to exorcise the demon through five books, I would have liked to see more of his freed friend afterwards, rather than just a couple of lines about him getting back together with his girlfriend. This would seem like a sensible place to end the series, so it'll be interesting to see if Carey continues with Castor or starts something new.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged):
This was a fun night out with good friends in North London, though the venue wasn't ideal - it took place in the front room of a pub, which was very warm and rather crowded. The show was pretty good overall, with some very funny bits and some not so funny bits. It apparently missed out various sections from the original version, though I didn't notice as I don't remember ever seeing it before, even though I have been assured I have.
And, yes, I went to see Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead at the Haymarket for a third time! It was different yet again, since things went unexpectedly awry for poor Guildenstern. He corpsed in the middle of the "reason must prevail" speech and then, when he tried to whop off his belt to make a barrier for Hamlet, the buckle came off in his hand and he had to spend the rest of the play hitching up his jeans very five minutes. I was also even closer to the stage again - this time perhaps a little too close, as it was hard to take in the whole scene, so I was forced to focus only on one character at a time. It was still awesome, though, and I loved every minute of it.
Then, yesterday, Dave took in a cinema double bill of Arrietty and Captain America, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Arrietty was a rare specimen for Japanese anime, in my experience. It was subdued and gentle, a truly lovely film on every level. The art was gorgeous, the characters were appealing, the story was sweet, and the moments of danger were relatively low key. It could have been dull in other hands, but in fact it was enchanting.
Captain America also hit exactly the right tone for what otherwise could have been as terrible as some of the other recent Marvel efforts. Chris Evans shrugged off his usual comic smugness to give us an endearingly earnest Steve Rogers with just the right amount of humour to save him from being boring. Hugo Weaving successfully trod the line between sinister and caricature as the bad guy, and the supporting characters made a really good team to stop the focus being too much on the central hero. Even better, it's given me a character to be interested in for the upcoming Avengers, as I think it'll be interesting to see Rogers interact with the smarmy irreverence of Tony Stark and the nonsensical beefcake that is Thor.
