Category: TV & Music

Quote of the day:

Man standing in a kitchen, next to a pan of potatoes boiling. “When you’re boiling vegetables, only use enough water to keep them covered. The same applies when taking a bath.”

Powergen advert on TV at the moment

MmmMmmm I love LAL. Their first album, Corners, was one of the top-played album out of anything I own for a few years…

Now, I’ve discovered their latest album, thanks to Pearl blogging about it! Still can’t give a thorough review yet, as I haven’t even listened to the full album once… Listening to music at work really doesn’t do a new album justice, so I’ll have to give it a few listens then I’ll comment.

But for the moment, the mood it puts me in is great for focussing on work that needs to be done.

Talking of focus… back to work!

Update 05/01/05: This album’s great, just like Corners, it’s the amazingly glowing and peaceful mood the music puts me into that makes me listen to it repeatedly. I wish I knew more about LAL, as their website doesn’t say a huge amount.

Support Canadian artists, get the album!

I’m really enjoying listening to Natasha Bedingfield’s album. Normally, I wouldn’t admit to liking pop stuff, but this album’s such a good mood album!

The two main radio singles so far, “These Words” and “Unwritten” are really catchy and promote the think-for-yourself say-what-you-have-to-say attitude. Then there’s the rockin’ Pink-style songs “If you’re gonna…” and “I’m A Bomb” are fun tunes for getting ready to go out, bouncing around the apartment…

So yep, a good fresh fun album, not something I’d mull over for a long time because the quality of lyrics and music are kind of spread thin, but they’re spread pretty evenly at least!

Cause I’m looking for a guard dog, not buyin’ a chihuahua!

Ok, I got to grips with the idea that someone was going to make a movie interpretation of the Phantom of the Opera, probably causing irreparable emotional damage to anyone who loved the original musical. But that someone, however talented, imagined making a movie version of RENT makes my skin crawl! It’s blasphemy!

Granted, it’ll be directed by Chris Colombus, of Harry Potter fame, but he also created the horrors known as the Home Alone movies. Hopefully, he has repented for his sins and will stay on the right path with RENT. Interestingly enough, the original RENT cast started doing the show in 1996, and now, nearly 10 years later and 10 years older, they’re getting ready to jump on stage to make a movie version. They must be, well, getting on a bit, no? They probably are the best people to play the roles as far as depth of character, and as we all know, Hollywood makeup can make anyone look as young or old as we like.

Anyways, no need to get my knickers in a bunch over whether it’ll be good or bad, it’s only just gone into production and might not even make it to the screens. In the meantime, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the situation. What’s everyone else’s gut feeling on this?

I’ve been itching to blog about the show from the minute I got out of it! Miss Saigon was AMAZING!

To answer my sisters’ first question: All singers had great voices!

Chris had the most effortless smooth voice, making anyone else I’ve ever heard performing that song pale in comparison. Kim had a slightly too edgy voice, but overall, the emotions in her voice gave me shivers the whole way through. The scene where she finds Ellen in the hotel room where she expects to find Chris was amazing, I was bordering on tears!

The one role that surprised me was the Engineer – I somehow didn’t realize how big and colourful the role was! The tiny man (Jon Jon Briones – Original London Cast) made a big impression. The American Dream was a bit of a weird number, with a highly unnecessary animation on a screen in the background of the Statue of Liberty becoming a hot woman, followed by the engineer unclassily humping a dollar sign. But I guess it is meant to be overblown, showing how he conceives America.

So, fantastic show, I recommend it to absolutely everyone. It’s dramatic, not tacky or cheesy, with a touch of history. Mmmm still gives me shivers just to think of it!

Unfortunately, this photo isn’t from our show. It wasn’t really possible to take photos during the show… So this is Lea Salonga, Goddess of dramatic broadway roles, in an earlier tour of Miss Saigon.

On a side note, I *will* murder anyone who shows up at a show with a box of individually wrapped chocolates! I wanted to punch the people behind me who were uuuuunwrraaaaappping them sloooooowly making more noise than anything! Argh, will people never learn!?

Here are the only three decent photos of last night… One of Andrew wearing the silly moustache we got in a Christmas cracker at Beefeater where we ate before the show, one of me laughing after I lost the same moustache (my nose isn’t big enough!) and finally… a sneaked photo of Kim with another girl before Dju Vui Vai, her wedding ceremony. Unfortunately it’s the only one that came out semi-well…

I don’t know why, but I’ll post this in English, even though those who would recognize the show I’m about to bring up will all be French speaking. I guess I just want to share with everyone…

La Course Destination Monde was more than a tv show when I was young, it was one of my biggest dreams. From the age of 12 or 13 to when the show ended just as I turned 18, I don’t think I missed a single show. At 16, I ordered the pack they send to potential candidates, even though I was at least 2 years too young to participate. I just read it, mentally filling in all the fields, answering the questions about travelling ambitions and dreams.

Of course, something came in the way of my ultimate quest to be on the show. Simple and painful – The show was taken off the air the season I turned 18. The SRC (French CBC) couldn’t afford to keep the show going for reasons that escaped me at that age. I would assume a lot had to do with budget. It happened around the same time the CBC’s general quality of programming started spiraling down, but that’s another whole can o’ beans…

What I’m left now is good memories of scrambling for paper and pen when I found the email addresses of contestants, getting an email from Antoine Laprise, first from Egypt and a few weeks later, from Kazakhstan.

And I’m left with an interesting piece of folded paper that has never left my wallet all these years. I think it probably dates back to 1994. It’s the end-of-season Gala video by Hugo Latulippe, something that touched me at the time… Being 13, his words described exactly how and why I wanted to travel. J’sais pas pourquoi mais je m’en rappelle encore presque par coeur…

La Terre plantée dans le coeur

Partir, partir parce qu’on poursuit tous des idées mythiques. Partir par pur souci esthétique. Partir parce que c’est important de savoir. Partir parce que c’est rock n roll. Partir sur les traces de nos rêves. Partir, mais partir pour revenir.

[…] Revenir, revenir plein de soleil et d’espoir d’ailleurs parce qu’on a compris que d’un point de vue logistique, on s’auto-suffit, mais qu’émotivement, pas du tout. Revenir parce que ça fait du bien. Revenir parce qu’on en a assez de s’immiscer dans la vie des autres et qu’on veut entendre l’avis des nôtres. Revenir et ne jamais oublier la guerre, la misère, la haine, les blessures. Revenir pour ne plus jamais s’incliner devant autre chose qu’une montagne, un arbre, une rivière, un sourire. Revenir et prendre le parti des enfants, des baleines, des aurores boréales et des odeurs de printemps. Revenir après 40 décollages, 97 contrôles douaniers, 567 repas, 192 collé sur mes loups, 62 interviews, 6 ou 7 sanglots, 3165 éclats de rire, une vingtaine de p’tits films et une conviction. Si les p’tits culs de Karashi peuvent sourire à manger de la marde. Si les petits soudanais peuvent danser l’estomac plein de sable. Si un palestinien peut oublier le meurtre de sa mère au nom de la paix, j’vois pas pourquoi moi, j’aurais pas confiance jusqu’à la fin du monde. J’vois pas pourquoi moi, j’sourirais pas jusqu’à la fin des temps.

Revenir, persuadé que la seule chose au monde qui compte vraiment, c’est d’avoir un coeur pour revenir. Revenir, de l’humanité plein la tête. Revenir, la Terre plantée dans le coeur. Revenir, mais revenir pour repartir.

Ce soir, c’est fini et ma tête tourne, mais la Terre tourne. Salut!

– “J’étais l’océan, je voulais seulement toucher ton pied”

Last night, I watched the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and what can I say? What a weird movie!

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.

The “Being John Malkovich” mood throughout the movie was just creepy. I’d say the plot makes from little to no sense until halfway through the story. I might watch it again simply to understand the timeline of events.

Readers on IMDB gave it an 8.2/10 rating, which is very high in comparison to the average ratings on there. Overall though, I think I would recommend seeing it, but only when in the mood for something a bit bizarre.

No, this isn’t the beginning of a rant! Don’t run away!

It’s the end of the series for Musicality and Dog only knows why I haven’t blogged about it instead of ranting about the 1970s Office, which was bound to fail.

Musicality has a bit of a Pop Idol (or any other * Idol) flavour to it at the beginning. It developed into a serious boot camp for amateur Broadway babies later on.

Towards the end, the five lucky spring chickens were in London’s West End, rehearsing to take over the top roles in Chicago for a single night.

Now, I know I’m a day late, but thanks to Sky Plus, I recorded last night’s final, and I watched it tonight. And I’ll watch it again. And again. And again.

Me. West End. Ticket to see Chicago soon? Yeah I think so. Mass email to my coworkers to find another musical addict? Yeah I think so!

I’m speechless (which is a bit crap when trying to blog, isn’t it??) about how good Rebecca turned out as a Roxie. Caroline was simply fantastic as Velma, a role that involves a lot of dancing. I WISH I was even 5% as good as they are dance-wise. As far as the voice goes, I’ve got an inkling any of us four Séguin girls could play the girls’ roles. But then, dance-wise, we’d crash and burn. Or I would, anyways. Maybe my sisters have some incredible dance skills I’m not aware of!

The boys were fantastic, and even though sweet boy Matthew’s voice weakened at one or two points during the show, he succeeded impressively well in the role of Billy Flynn. He went from shy to slick in a few weeks. I’m a bit of a shy one as well on stage, and having had to step into the shoes of toreador Escamillo when I was 18, I found taking over a big-attitude role a real challenge. Warren reminds me of my old old friend Emmanuelle, Broadway running in their veins, looking as natural as ever on stage.

I think Musicality should definitely come back for a second stronger series. They deserve more budget to produce a more polished series, but if they pick another recent and somewhat-commercial musical, it could be a very popular second child!

Give ’em the old razzle dazzle…