A quick recap of my latest forays into the arts and entertainment realms, lest I forget about these things as time goes by:
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A couple of weeks ago I went to the movies to watch “A Outra Margem”, a portuguese film which caught me by surprise for being quite good. The cast and the soundtrack are great and the story, although not terribly original –apart from the main setup, the transvestite part and so on– is interesting enough. I had a real nice time watching it.
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Then, last week, I went to a more mainstream title –“Elizabeth: The golden age”. This one is also an interesting film, but I must confess I didn’t find it as gripping or as satisfying as “A Outra Margem”. A bit too Hollywoody to lend credibility to the story being told, I guess. But even so, I did enjoy it, even if I could just as well have watched it on the telly on a Sunday afternoon. Which I never actually do, but you get the idea;
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Also (and I have to admit this with some reluctance) I’ve finally decided to start watching Kieslowski’s trilogy “Trois Couleurs” (yes, I know, I’m almost 15 years late), which I’ve had on DVD for maybe a couple of years, but which I hadn’t felt up to, until now. I started with “Trois Couleurs: Bleu” and I’m hooked. I’m not sure whether the other two movies will be as good as this one, and in fact I’ve always felt I would like this one better –given what little I know of the plot and the actors–, but I’m looking forward to another quiet evening at home to get to the second one!
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Other than that, on the music front, I’ve been pretty idle lately and the only thing I’ve done that’s noteworthy was to attend Rufus Wainwright’s concert last evening. Now I wasn’t (and still am not) a true connoisseur of his work so I’m not in a position to go deeply into the line-up chosen for this particular show, but what I can say is that he sings exceptionally well, with a range and intonation that could put many performers to shame and a most powerful voice. On the entertainment department (which is a major part of the show), well… I guess you have to like his type of show to fully appreciate it. Me, I wasn’t all that thrilled with his jokes and stories, but I didn’t hate it either. Let’s just say that the music was great, but the show overall was not my cup of tea. Still, I’m glad I went to see him perform live just this once.
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Oh! and I’ve started my NaNoWrimo novel from scratch three time now (which is what you get when you don’t plan and decide on a plot ahead of time) and I’m still making headway into it. Long gone is the chance of making it to 50.000 words by the end of November but then I never really expected to make it anyway, so no great loss there. :-)