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We saw two movies last night: ‘King Kong’ and ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’.

Kong, directed by Jackson (“Lord of the Rings”), is a spectacular movie with amazing effects but does not come over as being a movie about ‘Kong’. Too frequently, I had this feeling that portions of the movie had nothing to do with ‘Kong’ but more with Jackson’s obsession with visual effects. Cute large bugs and dinosaurs notwithstanding, the movie did not make sense: too much effects, little storyline. You can figure this one out yourself: measure up the time dedicated to Kong in New York and the time spent on everything before that.

Disclaimer: I fell asleep during ‘Geisha’, so everything I say here is ‘hearsay’ (great choice of words there too). Luckily, I fell asleep at the end, so I saw all the regular stars I’ve become accosted to, the ones from ‘Crouching tiger’ and ‘Hero’ (Hero, once again, is magic! (Previously at xsamplex)). The storyline is good but I noticed some things were out of place: I could generally tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese people (yes, you can tell the difference) which made me wonder about this movie particularly knowing the violent history between these two -uh- rivalling nations. Looking up IMDB afterwards, I read that some people weren’t happy about that either (Chinese actors playing Japanese people):

The film was banned in China because Chinese actresses play Japanese geisha. The national film board and the Office for the Administration of Radio, Film and Television claimed that it was banned because the storyline is “too sensitive”.

What would Spielberg do?

In my teenage High School years, English classes included audio tests/exams: The teacher played a 15 minute tape featuring people talking or rather discussing in English about specific topics. Most of the tapes were probably taken (or recorded) from original BBC broadcasts and many of them featured clear English spoken conversations. At the end of the tape, the students were handed out sheets with questions about that particular tape.

The first few years of English, I was terribly bad at these tests, and so were other class mates. Clearly, these tests weren’t popular and I remember at one stage, after the whole class appeared to have performed badly, that students suggested to drop these kind of tests. That was before, I (and Alfons) suddenly started to excel in these tests: years of listening (American) music slowly started to pay back. I’m sure the teachers would have disapproved of the music we listened to those days.

Which brings me to today’s radio: I’ve become used to listening to CBC’s Radio One broadcasts and have particulary become a fan of the half-hour segment that’s called ‘The Current’ (MP3/300K+). Fan is probably too much of a word, however, it’s definitely thanks to both the catchy intro tune and the clear spoken language of the show’s host, Anna Maria Tremonti. I can’t stand, for example, the voices of other hosts at other local radiostations, just because they don’t speak clear enough. Or maybe, it’s because some voices are made for radio, and some of them are not.

Update: You can listen to past shows of the Current over at the Current’s Archive (Real Player required).

While most in the ‘blogosphere’ will probably concentrate on Google’s latest bombshell (Calendar), a couple of remarks about not so related stuff:

Congrats to the Deuville Ice Hockey rink (Salmon River) for making it to the next round in CBC’s Kraft Hockeyville 2006.

Frequently, the Daily Truro News features big ads about copyrights and that you as a reader are not allowed to take anything from their paper without proper permissions or payments (‘You can go to jail for that!’). The other day, I was a kind of surprised to see a piece of Wikipedia in your paper, properly sourced and quoted. You didn’t pay for that, nor did you actually get a written permission for publishing that particular Gouda cheese quote, did you?

Two shows I noticed today on TV: Canada’s Worst Handyman and American Inventor. How low can it go. I actually thought that Canada’s Worst Handyman was a great spoof on ‘reality shows’: one of the starring ladies reminded of a typical Cathy Jones act. Only minutes later I became aware that this was an actual reality show. I won’t waste words on ‘American Inventor’.

I finished the ‘DaVinci Code’ in approximately 6 hours. Curious about the buzz, I decided to buy a copy this afternoon and settled for a reading marathon. What gives (without revealing too much of the content)?

While the story is interesting, it’s not particularly unique: many people and books have claimed the close relationship between Jesus and his companions and particularly the Church’s influence on historical events and religions. Some people may be surprised by the details Dan Brown offers when discussing the many adopted pagan rituals, but this is basically old news to me.

So, I’m not sure what the buzz is about this book: it’s nothing more than a good thriller with (what I think) predictable twists and simple puzzles (easily solvable). I also noticed that most chapters span only a couple of pages.

To summarize: A good read, sure. Brilliant? Meh.