The week that was #19

It's been a while since I did a catch-all post, but a few things have happened over the last week or so; however, none is really worth devoting a standalone blog post to. So, I felt it was time to resurrect The Week That Was series.

Of course, whether or not there'll be another is wholly dependent on what else goes on – though I know what my next post is going to be: my 2011 Adelaide Fringe preview.

Pete Postlethwaite

A sad thing that happened this week was the passing of legendary actor Pete Postlethwaite, aged 64. The distinctive-looking Englishman appeared in several of my favourite films – Romeo + Juliet (as Friar Lawrence), The Usual Suspects (as Kobayashi) and In the Name of the Father (as Guiseppe Conlon) – as well as numerous others; he was someone I was almost always pleased to see in a film because he always added so much.

Tron: Legacy

As soon as I heard it was finally being made, I knew I wanted to see Tron: Legacy. The original was one of very few films I saw at the cinema as a kid¹, and I remember being completely blown away by it.

Yesterday I got myself to the cinema to see it.

¹My parents weren't exactly cinema enthusiasts, and we lived too far away from my town's cinema for me to get there by myself.

Story

Spoilers ahoy.

Hello, 2011!

Well, it's now 2011. And I'm looking forward to another year of doing what I do: work, theatre and other forms of amusement, and blogging.

Theatre

Big things on the theatre calendar include the 2011 Fringe festival – while the full details won't be out for another couple of weeks yet¹, some great acts have already indicated they'll be coming to town: Amanda Palmer and The Sound & the Fury being two I'll definitely be seeing; no doubt there'll be others of a similar pedigree – fingers crossed for Theater Simple, The Jane Austen Argument and whoever Guy Masterson finds to bring along – to add to that.

And there's plenty more theatre: The State Theatre Company of South Australia season – which I wrote about here – is something else I'm keenly anticipating. Next week I've got the professional production of West Side Story, and in May I'm seeing probably the most-anticipated musical of the last few years, Wicked.

Losing the Ashes

To provide some context: while I watch tennis when it's on, will occasionally check the internet to see how Tottenham Hotspur are doing in the English Premier League, and keep an eye on how Saint Kilda are doing in the AFL, cricket – test cricket in particular – is the only sport I really follow, in the sense that I spend a lot of time not only watching it, but also reading about it and talking about it with other people.

I've played cricket¹, so I've got a good understanding of how it all works – and, given just how esoteric the minutiae of the game is², this is quite significant. I remember most of the terms for field positions, batting strokes and bowling techniques and, having spent a decent part of most of the last thirty or so summers watching the coverage on television, I've observed the ups and downs of the Australian team.

Movie review: Love and Other Drugs

I'm not usually a fan of romantic comedies, but this was one I'd decided I wanted to see – mostly because of my aforementioned fondness for Anne Hathaway.

Oh, and I'm going to talk about the plot – so consider this a spoiler alert.

Not really a romantic comedy

Now, I alluded to it being a romantic comedy and, based on the preview I'd seen, that's what I thought it was going to be. But, as TV Tropes tells us, trailers often lie; while it's being marketed as a romantic comedy, there's a more serious aspect to it.

A formula that doesn't quite work

What I'd interpreted from the preview was that the two lead characters were rival drug reps who started a casual relationship which then turned serious for the guy but not the girl – something along the lines of (500) Days of Summer.