Tomorrow I start back at work after the school holidays. This Easter/Autumn/first term break always goes way too quickly. I have achieved some things I set out to do and enjoyed time with my family, but as usual there are always the unfinished things that linger. Tomorrow I will have forgotten them and if they are important, I will squeeze them in during the term at some stage or else they will be there waiting for me in June, when the next holidays begin.
Films during the Easter 07 holidays
The film ‘300′ was based on a graphic novel. I found that interesting as I brought a pile home from the school library to read. I haven’t made much progress with them. There is an interesting one on Chinese Myths that I will use with the year 7’s for Imperial China topic. Getting back to the film though, I really enjoyed it. It was a great heroic, action film.
Children of Men was a futuristic look at a bleak reality where no more children can be born. It was a really well done film and is one of the best I’ve seen lately. Great characters, particularly Jasper, played by Michael Caine.
I finally saw The Prestige on DVD these holidays. I have been longing to see it and will watch it again because it was great. I wanted to see it because of my long term facination with David Bowie and Tesla. It was also a good story with an interesting outcome.
I partially viewed the DVDs The Guardian and Memoirs of a Geisha I couldn’t really get into ‘The Guardian’, even though I am a big fan of Kevin Costner usually. Andy loved it though. ‘Memoirs’ was ok but I kept getting interupted and only really partially saw it after restarting it three times and now I can’t be bothered with it. Not meant to be!
The real dissappointment for the holidays was the Australian film Boytown. It was corny and terrible. I guess it was the subject matter of a boy band that killed it. I usually enjoy Glenn Robbins and Mick Molloy, but think this movie was pushing it a lot of the time.
Kazakhstan and ‘The Zahir’
I have to admit, I had barely heard of Kazakhstan before Borat the film came along. I haven’t seen Borat and I don’t imagine I will. It doesn’t sound like my kind of entertainment. I have noticed though that I have been noticing this place more and more in the streams of information that pass by me.
I have recently read a book that was in part set in Kazakhstan called ‘The Zahir’ by Paolo Coelho. I totally enjoyed the book. It was about relationships. I love Paolo Coelho’s books and have read all bar about three of them. I am contemplating rereading some of them actually because they have so much in them. This latest read was about obsession and love and I enjoyed reading it. There is more I want to learn about it and I have given a lot of thought to many of the ideas in the book.
I recently read this article on one of my favourite blogs:Inhabitat:Norman Foster’s Entertainment Centre in Kazakhstan