Okay, first of all, why is this movie in 3D? I’m satisfied watching Leo’s hair in 2D, thank you very much. The first poster is pretty gutsy, though. We barely see Leo’s face, it’s all about Carey Mulligan.
Tobey Maguire as Nick -the narrator – Carraway.
Mulligan looks perfect as Daisy. I’m not so sold on Leo as Gatsby, he’s too obviously and visibly intense.
Ahhh, happy days. Watch out, they won’t last long.
Had a really crappy day today. Checked my email one last time before leaving the office, found an email from my dad with this picture:
ROFL!!!!! The third otter-BC is my favorite, but really, they’re all awesome. I was chuckling all the way through rush-hour traffic. Thanks, dad! I have to ask my father later since when he’s been visiting LOLCAT sites, hehe.
A poem needs understanding through the senses
The point of diving in the lake, is not immediately to swim to the shore
But to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water
You do not work the lake out, it is an experience beyond thought
Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul, to accept mystery
~ John Keats in Bright Star (2009)
In honor of World Poetry Day, Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish reciting Keats’ poems in the movie Bright Star.
La Belle Dame San Merci
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone,
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone,
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.
She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes,
With kisses four.
And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall’
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Ode to A Nightingale
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draft of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toil me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
Obviously with any work of art, there is a separation between the work, and the author. But this poem made me think of John Keats the man, and the circumstances of his life the most. “Where but to think is to be full of sorrow, and leaden-eyed despairs”. “for many a time, I have been in love with easeful Death.” It’s hard not to feel that those lines especially are personal.
Bright Star
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors
No — yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever — or else swoon to death.
New trailer. Looks like Renly has ditched the Knight of Flowers for a woman.
Character featurettes. Robb Stark, the King in the North. Hmm, doesn’t look like Robb is fighting for the Iron Throne, he just wants whoever is sitting on the throne to relinquish power over the North. Mother-son conflict coming up. Dude, seriously? You’re not going to go rescue your sisters?!
Jon Snow. I’m kinda meh on this character, and the whole Night’s Watch thing.
Daenerys Targaryen. So the magic dragon babies can’t help her yet, since they’re still small, heh.
Joffrey Baratheon . Hey, what do you know, another mother-son conflict.
How scary do you have to be in real life that someone freaking out and hallucinating while on drugs would see you as your regular self?
I understand how Park’s drugged mind would go to the Mr and Mrs Rabbit for Chase and Adams (“they flirt a lot”), and House would just look like House because he’s disturbing enough in reality that there’s no way her hallucination can top that. But Taub? What was that about?
Wilson: He isn’t your father either. I’m sorry.
House: You know what that means?
Wilson: Your mom’s a slut?
House: That, and … she’s not as boring as I thought she was.
So, the guy House thought is his biological father is not his biological father after all. Amazing how quickly that guy turned into a jerk after finding out House might be his son. I’m starting to think House got some of his deviousness from his mother. The “opps, I might have given my son’s best friend the wrong impression that I’m sick so my son will stop avoiding me” is classic.
Adams is sort of the opposite of Cameron when it comes to judging the patients. Cameron usually starts off being overly-sympathetic to the patient, but as she finds out more and more about the patient’s personal life, switches over into judgmental, disapproving mode. With Adams, the judgmental mode comes first, before switching into understanding, if not necessarily sympathy. You know what would be great, though? If House writers would stop making the female doctors the only ones with inappropriate interests in the patient’s personal life.
I was stuck in traffic this morning, and for some reason started thinking of this song. Haven’t listen to it for ages, but I was suddenly hearing that last verse in my head over and over again.
Videotape (Radiohead)
When I’m at the pearly gates
This’ll be on my videotape
My videotape
My videotape
When Mephistopheles is just beneath
And he’s reaching up to grab me
This is one for the good days
And I have it all here
In red blue green
In red blue green
You are my center when I spin away
Out of control on videotape
On videotape
This is my way of saying goodbye
Because I can’t do it face to face
So I’m talking to you after it’s too late from my videotape
No matter what happens now
I won’t be afraid
Because I know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen
This is the version I like best – Thom Yorke alone on piano. The lyrics is slightly different than the album version.
It’s Batman versus Spiderman versus The Avengers this summer. I was pretty certain The Dark Knight Rises would win this battle easily (dollar-wise), but the buzz for The Avengers seems pretty strong lately. The sheer number of characters in The Avengers can cut both ways – either it would attract more audience (hey, if you’re not a fan of Iron Man, there’s always Captain America, or Hulk, or Thor), or some people might be turned off by the shorter screentime for their favorite character. I don’t think The Amazing Spider-Man really stands a chance. From the trailer, it’s looking like a moody, angst-ridden high school movie. That’s what the Twilight movies are for, right? I’m not really interested in teenage angst in my superhero movies, thank you very much! And the tone seems uneven as well, the trailer starts off serious and moody, but then goes almost fun and games at the fairground. I’m thinking that it would be better to commit one way or the other. Either go full-on dark and disturbing like Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, or keep it light, fun and with a sense of levity, like the Iron Man movies.
The Avengers (opens May 4th in the US)
The Amazing Spider-Man (opens July 3rd in the US)
The Dark Knight Rises (opens July 20th in the US)
Another movie I’m really looking forward to is The Hobbit. I missed the trailer when it came out, but it looks awesome! But hey, wait, don’t try to distract me with Martin Freeman and the pretty, pretty shire – what the heck is Galadriel doing touching Gandalf’s hair and exchanging meaningful glances with him??!! Where did this come from?
“I can just go running off into the blue. I am a Baggins of Bag End”.
Hey, it’s that guy from Spooks (Richard Armitage) as Thorin.
But seriously, if I had not check the cast list, I probably wouldn’t have recognized him. Here’s Armitage as MI5 officer Lucas North in Spooks (no, not the older gentleman, the other one, heh).
Oh come on!! I know the show is desperate to make Alicia and Kalinda BFF again (don’t get me wrong, I want that too), but they don’t have to do it by slut-shaming Alicia. What Alicia did is NOT the equivalent to Kalinda’s action. Sleeping with somebody’s less-than-a-year boyfriend is NOT the same as sleeping with somebody’s husband of fifteen years. Not to mention Tammy had moved to London at the time, making the status of her relationship with Will ambiguous, while Alicia was still right there making dinners for Peter when Kalinda slept with him. Bleghh, I hate this storyline, and Tammy blaming Alicia over her break-up with Will, but playing nicey-nicey with Will. Hey, Alicia didn’t force Will to sleep with her, you know. At least when Alicia went ballistic over Kalinda-Peter, she went ballistic on BOTH of them.
I don’t understand why Alicia wants to buy her old house. I thought the musical montage at the ebnd of last week’s episode, with Alicia walking through the house and finally breaking down, was supposed to be an indication that she’s no longer holding on too memories of the past. Why go back? Why buy a house she can’t really afford? And how will this affect the divorce, the fact that Alicia just bought a 2 million dollars house? Or is she not getting a divorce anymore? Does looking back to the past include patching things up with Peter, too?
“Now I’m not going to do anything so dramatic as to ask who was it, but I will say this. If you have an issue with the way we’re running this firm, you come to me. You do not stab Will in the back, you do not lie to the disciplinary board.”
I’m loving the Will being suspended plot for the sheer entertainment value. Between Eli, David Lee and Julius, I’d say Julius is the only one who is behaving in a semi grown-up manner. Yes, he was plotting to take Will’s place too, but in his case, it seems like he DOES deserve it, considering he’s the one taking most of Will’s case load. Eli’s approval of, and David Lee’s objection to Alicia getting a raise are obviously motivated by personal reasons and bias, but Julius’ consideration is based on Alicia’s work.
Louis Canning is starting to grate as a recurring character. It’s almost the same every time he turns up – he pretends to be nice to Alicia, he has some trick up his sleeves that may or may not involves manipulating people with his illness, he offers Alicia a job and talks about his firm being more family-friendly and ethical than Lockhart-Gardner, he loses the case to Alicia but then reveals than opps!, actually he won after all because there’s a bigger picture that Alicia completely missed. The only difference this time is Alicia played him to get the raise from Diane. The writers need to find a different way to use Canning on the show, or lose the character altogether.
Tammy is right, Will does look great. There’s just something about the suit-no-tie look.
Finally finished John le Carre’s The Constant Gardener. Not on par with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or Smiley’s People, but not bad for a le Carre’s book not starring George Smiley. What I will remember most years later about the story probably won’t be the perfidy of the phrmaceutical company at the heart of the novel’s plot, but Justin Quayle’s doubts and uncertainties about his wife, and his guilt about those doubts and uncertainties after her death.
“And you didn’t know anything about the great crime,” Lesley resumed, unwilling to be persuaded. “Nothing. What it was about, who the victims and the main players were. They kept it all from you. Bluhm and Tessa together, and you stuck out there in the cold.”
“I gave them their distance,” Justin confirmed doggedly.
“I just don’t see how you could survive like that,” Lesley insists, putting down her notebook and opening her hands. “Apart, but together – the way you describe it – it’s like – not being on speaking terms – worse.”
We didn’t survive,” Justin reminds her simply. “Tessa’s dead.”
Increased my Henry James’ count to a grand total of three with The Wings of the Dove (the other two are, predictably, The Portrait of a Lady and The Turn of the Screw). I saw the movie version starring Helena Bonham Carter years ago as a teenager and was not impressed with the story – a bunch of scheming, unpleasant people taking advantage of a wimpy sick woman, I thought. Maybe the book is just so much better, maybe it’s also partly a function of age, but I have a lot more sympathy for these people now, especially Kate Croy. She knows she’s lost Merton to Milly, he will never forget her now, and whatever she ends up deciding about Milly’s money is beside the point.
Strange it was for him then that she stood in his own rooms doing it, while, with an intensity now beyond any that had ever made his breath come slow, he waited for her act. “There’s but one thing that can save you from my choice.”
“From your choice of my surrender to you?”
“Yes”- and she gave a nod at the long envelope on the table -“your surrender of that.”
“What is it then?”
“Your word of honour that you’re not in love with her memory.”
“Oh – her memory!”
“Ah” – she made a high gesture – “don’t speak of it as if you couldn’t be. i could in your place; and you’re one for whom it will do. Her memory’s your love. You WANT no other.”
He heard her out in stillness, watching her face but not moving. Then he only said: “I’ll marry you, mind you, in an hour.”
“As we were?”
“As we were.”
But she turned to the door, and her headshake was now the end. “We shall never be again as we were!”
Reread Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage (it’s been years). I’m definitely Team Miss Marple and NOT Team Hercule Poirot, heh. I’ve forgotten what a condescending a** Miss Marple’s nephew Raymond West is.
Currently reading David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. I was really excited about this when it came out, but was waiting for the paperback version, and then completely forgot about it! I’m only about a hundred pages in, so far so good, historical fiction is not my favorite genre, but Mitchell has a way of making things come alive as if they are happening right this instance.
‘It is not even Miss Aibagawa after whom you lust, in truth. It is the genus, “The Oriental Women” who so infatuates you. Yes, yes, the mysterious eyes, the camellias in her hair, what you perceive as meekness. How many hundreds of you besotted white men have I seen mired in the same syrupy hole?’
‘You are wrong, for once, Doctor. There’s no -‘
‘Naturally, I am wrong: Domburger‘s adoration for his Pearl of the East is based on chivalry: behold the disfigured damsel, spurned by her own race! Behold our Occidental Knight, who alone divines her inner beauty!’
verityjes 