Watching/Reading
Watching: Finished the LOTR extended edition last night. Still very good and I think the extended edition (while butt-numbingly long) does benefit a lot from most of the additions. I still think we need less Gimli-based humour but there you go.
Currently on my to-watch list:
* Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
* Spirited Away
* House of Flying Daggers
* Closer
* The Others
* Solaris
* Team America - World Police
* Garden State
* Napoleon Dynamite
In approximately that order.
Reading: Working my way through the second trilogy by Robin Hobb - “The Liveship Traders” - which is generally very good. There’s rather too much reliance on politics for the plot and some of the characters change unconvincingly (an annoying brat whose only concern is petty rivalries and romance suddenly turns into a mature young lady who sacrifices herself for the good of the family, for no apparent reason). However, overall it’s really fun, there’s a good bit of pain and suffering for added spice and it ties into her earlier trilogy (the Assassin’s Apprentice etc). Apparently the third trilogy develops the same world and backstory so I’m looking forward to that.
Inbetween the two trilogies I’m trying to find something good and non sci-fi/fantasy. I’m considering White Teeth which is allegedly very good, and Jonathan Strange (which is tending towards the fantasy, but there you go) - alas, only available in hardback at the moment.