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Evil, Evolution and Entertainment
Dec. 29th, 2017 02:00 pmThe Christmas Family Book Club book was Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, which I had read before but not for a long time. I still found it compelling and suspenseful, even knowing the answer to the mystery, and it provided a interesting discussion at book club. I did feel the tension of the climax and conclusion was diluted by it switching to written accounts of the events rather than a direct narrative, but it's a very well-written tale, with tons of great language use and imagery.
We had one new game at Christmas - which I had thought was an expansion to Village, but turned out to be a standalone game in its own right. My Village gives each player their own village mat to maintain, rather than competing with the other players on the main board. The village roles are similar and the spending of time still leaves to villager deaths, but otherwise it's quite a different game. I've never liked the original Village and never felt I've really got the hang of it. With this version, however, I clicked into understanding all the mechanics really quickly, thoroughly enjoyed both games we played, and actually won both times (though the first time was tied). There are tons of different ways to play, so there's lots of replayability. What I particularly like about it, though, is that there is always something useful you can do, and you can wait until it's your turn to decide on your actions, rather than planning way ahead and then getting frustrated when your chosen action is blocked.
We did also have a very brief and very silly Santa vs Reindeer race with wind-up toys from our crackers speeding across a racetrack on the back of the cracker box. My Reindeer was fouled my the Santa in the next lane veering into him and knocking him entirely off the track. Only one toy actually made it across the line, which gave a clear winner, and it was a very entertaining ten seconds of fun.
Yesterday, I utilised some Christmas cinema vouchers to take in an excellent double bill entirely for free! Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was thoroughly entertaining all the way through, and I haven't laughed out loud that much in ages. It's the most consistently enjoyable film I can remember seeing in quite some time. The opening section introduced the teenage characters securely enough that I could visualise them in their game avatars even after they had been transported into the game. This was aided by excellent against-type acting by Karen Gillan, Dwayne Johnson and particularly Jack Black. The latter could easily have gone over the top being the vapid, self-obsessed valley girl, but he pitched it just right to be really funny without going too far. And, in fact I thought Bethany had the best emotional arc of the whole film, so she/he was by far my favourite character. It was supremely silly, but also very clever, and pretty exciting. Great fun, highly recommended.
My second film was The Greatest Showman, which perhaps lacked depth, but was again highly enjoyable overall. It made a token effort towards messages of accepting people as who they are and not over-reaching yourself, but mostly it was a circus show about a circus show. The consequences of the bad things that happened were glossed over and rectified very quickly and easily, and everyone was back singing and dancing in no time. I gave myself over to it and found the music and performances uplifting and joyous. The choreography was really excellent, and everyone looked like they were having an absolute blast. Slight, but spectacular.
We had one new game at Christmas - which I had thought was an expansion to Village, but turned out to be a standalone game in its own right. My Village gives each player their own village mat to maintain, rather than competing with the other players on the main board. The village roles are similar and the spending of time still leaves to villager deaths, but otherwise it's quite a different game. I've never liked the original Village and never felt I've really got the hang of it. With this version, however, I clicked into understanding all the mechanics really quickly, thoroughly enjoyed both games we played, and actually won both times (though the first time was tied). There are tons of different ways to play, so there's lots of replayability. What I particularly like about it, though, is that there is always something useful you can do, and you can wait until it's your turn to decide on your actions, rather than planning way ahead and then getting frustrated when your chosen action is blocked.
We did also have a very brief and very silly Santa vs Reindeer race with wind-up toys from our crackers speeding across a racetrack on the back of the cracker box. My Reindeer was fouled my the Santa in the next lane veering into him and knocking him entirely off the track. Only one toy actually made it across the line, which gave a clear winner, and it was a very entertaining ten seconds of fun.
Yesterday, I utilised some Christmas cinema vouchers to take in an excellent double bill entirely for free! Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was thoroughly entertaining all the way through, and I haven't laughed out loud that much in ages. It's the most consistently enjoyable film I can remember seeing in quite some time. The opening section introduced the teenage characters securely enough that I could visualise them in their game avatars even after they had been transported into the game. This was aided by excellent against-type acting by Karen Gillan, Dwayne Johnson and particularly Jack Black. The latter could easily have gone over the top being the vapid, self-obsessed valley girl, but he pitched it just right to be really funny without going too far. And, in fact I thought Bethany had the best emotional arc of the whole film, so she/he was by far my favourite character. It was supremely silly, but also very clever, and pretty exciting. Great fun, highly recommended.
My second film was The Greatest Showman, which perhaps lacked depth, but was again highly enjoyable overall. It made a token effort towards messages of accepting people as who they are and not over-reaching yourself, but mostly it was a circus show about a circus show. The consequences of the bad things that happened were glossed over and rectified very quickly and easily, and everyone was back singing and dancing in no time. I gave myself over to it and found the music and performances uplifting and joyous. The choreography was really excellent, and everyone looked like they were having an absolute blast. Slight, but spectacular.
