I’m contemplating signing up for another Citizen’s Police Academy program this summer. There’s one starting up at the end of the month nearby — it would be a smaller police department, which might be interesting. Haven’t decided yet, but I have the application form, at least.
A very sultry weekend. Threatened rain a few times, but not much materialized. Windows are blurry with condensation and walking outside is like wading through sauna air. It feels like all I need to do is add a drop of water to the mix and the rain will all come crystallizing out.
Watched part of the Black Hawks/Flyers game last night. I think it was 5-2 when I checked out. Chicago seems to have found its second wind.
We saw a couple of movies this weekend. First up was Young Victoria, starring Emily Blunt. It tells the story of her ascension to the throne from a year or so before until about a year after. Her mother was under the influence of a guy who wanted Victoria to sign over her power to a regent until she was 24, but Victoria had the wherewithal to withstand his duress. Her German cousin, Prince Albert, becomes at first her friend and confident and eventually her husband and the love of her life. He died at an early age, and Victoria seemed to pine for him the rest of her life. Blunt is excellent as a mischievous and strong-willed young queen, and the story is interesting, although it suffers from the same problem as any other biopic that limits itself to a certain period–it runs out of steam at the end when there’s no monumental event to mark the conclusion of this story. Roll the text to explain what happened for the next sixty years.
Then we watched Dear John, based on the Nicholas Sparks novel. The film has some interesting subplots that you don’t get from the trailers that have to do with juvenile and adult autism. However, once the real (and very understandable) Dear John letter goes out, the movie sort of collapses on itself. If it weren’t Amanda Seyfried, the female character could easily have vanished from the story at that point and it could have been completely about the soldier dealing with the loss and the jolt of patriotism caused by 9/11. It just becomes a tangled mess after that.
I’m about 150 pages into The Passage by Justin Cronin, who is a professor of creative writing at Houston’s Rice University. That means I’m about 1/5 of the way through — it’s a heavy book, even in galley, and I wish I had it on my Kindle instead. Cronin is a fine writer, and he’s laying the groundwork for his main cast of characters very well. It’s taking a while to get them all together, or at least into whatever positions they need to be for the rest of the action to take place. I’ve been scrupulously avoiding reviews and articles about the book because I want to experience it with as little forecasting as possible. So far, so good.
I posted my review of Drink the Tea by Thomas Kaufman last night.
Just one episode of Breaking Bad left. Who knows what the repercussions of the final minute or so of this week’s episode will be. As Jesse plodded across the street, I thought: geez, could you have parked any further away? My lighter side notes with amusement that Walt, Jr. will probably end up having to use his mother’s car, sticky brakes and all, for his driver’s test. The notion of Skyler looking up money laundering on Wikipedia was pretty amusing, as was Marie’s solution to Hank’s recalcitrance. The PI’s story was gripping–I’ve liked that character from his first appearance. And what to make of Jesse, standing up to Gustavo like that. Takes some cojones. Walt’s reaction at first: “Murder is not part of your 12-step program.” However, Walt doesn’t see anything wrong with a former addict working in a drug factory.
This week on Doctor Who:
Well, for starters, it had Bill Nighy in it, so 4/5 out of the gate. Nice banter between his museum curator and the Doctor, with the Doctor quickly recognizing his predilection toward rambling, and their exchange of compliments over bow ties. I got a huge kick out of the fact that the actor playing Van Gogh had a Scottish accent, and when he heard Amy speak he asked her if she was from Holland, too. The monster was a bit daft (looked like a space chicken in the end), and I was a bit concerned by the episode’s structure, in that it seemed that everything was sorted at the 2/3 mark. However, there were some terrifically funny bits (Is this how time normally passes? Reeeeeallly slowly. In the right order.) and some extraordinarily touching moments (including the one where Van Gogh saw Amy crying when she didn’t realize it).
I’m never quite sure where the Doctor stands on weapons, though. Guns are definitely out, but he doesn’t mind poking at things with very sharp sticks. I suppose there has to be an alien in every episode–is that true?–but I can’t help wondering what this one might have been like without the creature. If instead the Doctor had just decided to show Vincent what his reputation was going to be like. Make it purely a character piece. Ah, well. I wonder if next week’s “The Lodger” has anything to do with Hitchcock?
