Follow up of TDK

I haven't made anything new since August with my little rant about the paparazzi, so I thought, since I'm doing sweet B.A at home at the moment,  I'd make a little follow up on my Dark Knight blog. All of you have, no doubt, either heard or started the rumors flying around cyberspace that Johnny Depp would be playing the Riddler, along with Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Penguin & Angelina Jolie as Catwoman. I, for one hope that two of these rumors are true, because in the absence of Michelle Pffeifer, I think Angelina Jolie, having already received blessing from 60's Catwoman Julie Newmar, would be the purrfect (pardon the pun) Catwoman. And Philip Seymour Hoffman, though the only thing I've seen of him is as George Willis Jr. in Al Pacino's Oscar- winning Scent of a Woman,  has been very positively reviewed by most of my family and, Hell, if Danny DeVito can do it... you know what I'm saying? But now we come to the rumor of Johnny Depp as the Riddler, I really hope this is not the case. I really don't think Johnny Depp is that kind of actor because he normally plays dark & gothic characters e.g. Ichabod Crane & Edward Scissorhands, but the Riddler is not dark & gothic, he's an underachieving scientist who is driven insane when Bruce Wayne, his hero and obsession, refuses to fund his little brain manipulation experiments. With that in mind, I see of two actors who could bring justice to Edward Nygma: David Hyde Pierce, best known for his role as Dr. Niles Crane in the comedy series Frasier, or Elijah Wood, who has proven his worth as a brilliant actor through his role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and has since played roles like a vampire in the 2006 hit Paris Je t'aimes, the cannibalistic Kevin in Robert Rodriguez's Sin City and the ethnically challenged lab technician in Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. but I digress. I think one of those two men would whack the Riddler out of the ballpark as Heath Ledger did the Joker and the movie itself would be better for it. Peace.

The Paparazzi - Do We Really Need Them?

No, we don't. We just like having them around because they are our one - way tickets into the lives of those we see on TV or hear on the radio. But why is a celebrity's life so damn interesting? they are only different from us "normal people" because they are rich & the jobs that make them rich also greatly entertain the rest of us. The paparazzi have been a thorn in the side of Hollywood since the birth of the gossip magazine & quite frankly, I'm amazed at the amount of tolerance that celebrities have with them because if I were in Hollywood right now and they were taking pictures of me and my family all the time, I would get a big, fat machine gun  and set about the business of  systematically shooting every paparazzo within my range. I mean, I'm not famous in any way but I still see the hell that celebrities go through at the hands of the paparazzi & what the paparazzi clamor to get from celebrities every day. Baby bump shots, baby shots, shots from between a woman's legs etc. The paparazzi have even been mostly responsible for the death of one of the people they seem most interested in, Princess Diana of Wales (R.I.P) because they were tailing her, driving very dangerously, doing anything they could think of to get a shot of her. One of the best examples of tabloid invasion is Michael Jackson. He has gone from the King of Pop to becoming the world's most famous sideshow after they pried & poked into the most personal aspects of his life which they had no right to do, from his liberal amounts of surgery to his child molestation trials, which, BTW, where only filed because greedy people wanted to get hold of his money. In conclusion, what I'm trying desperately to get through to anyone interested enough to read my blogs is that the lives of celebrities are very rarely, if ever, any of our business. The paparazzi  have been invading the lives of celebrities from Elvis Presley to Laurence Olivier & they're all sick of it. Celebrities are HUMAN BEINGS & therefore no different from us.

The Dark Knight

Lights go out at at the Bondi Junction cinema, everyone is silent & there is an anticipation in the air the likes of which I have not felt since Lord of the Rings. The packed cinema is on the edge of  their seats because they all know they are about to witness the last & greatest performance of one of Australia's finest young actors. That is exactly what we got as my brother, his girlfriend & myself sat in that cinema. The opening bank heist scene in the Dark Knight signaled the start of a performance that was unlike anything else Heath Ledger (may he rest in peace) had ever done. 

And everyone else in the cast delivered very well too, from Maggie Gyllenhaal, replacing Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes; to Sir Michael Caine, once again reprising his role as Wayne Manor's trusty butler; to Aaron Eckhart, stepping in to fill the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent A.K.A Two - Face. I find it very reassuring that the Batman franchise has been put in Christopher Nolan's safe hands as opposed to other, more recent incarnations (Joel Schumacher, anyone?). & the only question remains: Will Mr. Nolan continue his noble work & make more movies of the Caped Crusader? because if he does, then I, for one, hope that the Riddler, Penguin & Catwoman will all feature in those movies. But if he decides to abandon his labors & have other directors pick up where he left off, then what will that director do with the torch that has been passed to him? All Batman fans will wait with baited breath, but, for now, let me finish off this little story by saying that the Dark Knight is the greatest comic book movie I have EVER SEEN!

20 Books You Should Read Before You Die:

1. Beowulf (in Anglo - Saxon with translations)

2. Le Morte D'arthur by Thomas Malory

3. Complete Works of William Shakespeare

4. Lord of the Rings by John R. R. Tolkien

5. Dracula by Bram Stoker

6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

7. Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

8. Le Fantome De l'Opera by Gaston Leroux

9. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

10. Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales

11. Andersen Fairy Tales

12. Complete Works of Charles Perrault

13. 1001 Arabian Nights

14. Iliad & Odessy by Homer

15 Aesop's Fables

16. Chronicles of Narnia by Clive S. Lewis

17. Harry Potter by Joan K. Rowling

18 Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

19. the 3 Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

20. Power of One by Bryce Courtney  

Hallelujah

I've never been a huge fan of cover versions, but without a doubt, my least favorite cover version ever is Jeff Buckley's pitiful rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Buckley  turned this passionate religious classic into a sappy under produced love song. Cohen's version has him backed by an enormous choir and band, while Buckley's version only has him with an electric guitar, which makes it much less impressive. I mean, I'm not a religious person in the slightest and I will admit Buckley has a much better set of pipes than Cohen, but seriously, in some cases, bigger is better.

Beowulf

Beowulf is the best movie I have seen in the last seven years. 

Yes, i have seen all 3 movies in the L.O.T.R trilogy and I still think Beowulf wipes the floor with all of them. 

With a cast that includes a knight(Hopkins), the most beautiful woman on Earth (Jolie) and a man who has possibly the most diverse acting repertoire of any actor I have EVER SEEN!!(Malkovich), plus the abnormal directing talents of Robert Zemeckis, it is pure movie gold.

The thing that really set the seal on this one for me was the fact that Grendel's (Crispin Glover's) script was entirely in Anglo - Saxon, which is a truly beautiful language and one which I, myself, love & am starting to very slowly learn e.g modor, meaning mother.