I came home Tuesday to a new edition of Flow on the door mat as well as next season’s theater catalog. After the first run through, I was on 9 shows I wanted to see.
My Uncle’s birthday was Wednesday so went there in the afternoon.
Then Thursday I had planned to go see The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared after work, but it rained so much I decided against it. Instead I went to the Bruna at the train station and bought books (including The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman). Once home, I watched The Normal Heart (I had recorded it when it premiered on HBO Sunday).
It’s a movie, after the play of the same name, about the beginning of the AIDS crisis in New York City in the early 80’s. Main character is the, gay, writer Ned Weeks. As more and more people around him get ‘gay cancer’ and die from it, he notices that mainstream medicine and the government choose to look the other way. He and his friends form Gay Men’s Health Crisis, an advocacy group to raise awareness and money and help those affected and afflicted by the disease. Ned favours a more aggressive, vocal approach which conflicts with the more diplomatic way the rest of his friends choose. Meanwhile, in his personal life, he falls in love with journalist Felix. The two start a relationship, but then Felix gets AIDS as well.
It is a difficult movie to watch. It is raw and deep and open, quite literally like a festering wound. It is beautiful, intensely fragile and strong at the same time. Watching it left me devastated and in pieces. I will be watching it again, and I will definitely be buying the blu ray when it’s released. And I only buy blu rays of movies I really, really, love.
Saturday: Lounging on the bed with Milo 🙂
The Normal Heart stars Mark Ruffalo as Ned, Matt Bomer as Felix and has, among other, Jim Parsons, Julia Roberts, Jonathan Groff and Alfred Molina in it.
Friday I went to the cinema with Kim to see Maleficent. I liked the movie. The visuals were very pretty, and the back story they gave for Maleficent was nice. The acting was okay to good. Angelina Jolie was good, as was the guy playing her lackey. But the dude playing the king sported the most awful fake Scottish accent. And later on, in a scene at his castle, all of a sudden mid-scene half the men there acquired the same horrible accent… And the ending felt rather rushed.
Back home, I went through the the theater catalog again. Got it down to 7… But am talking with Mom about going to see War Horse in January…
Saturday I played a lot of Warcraft, and I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It’s a lovely, lovely book. It tells the story of a little boy who meets the people who live at the end of the lane, the Hempstocks. And there is something odd about this family. There are no men, and they have an ocean in the garden. And then an old evil manages to enter this world, and he needs the Hempstocks to survive. It has magic and supernatural stuff and all those things you find under the veneer of modern day life (well, modern day sixties life). It is definitely a recommended read.
Also, the new birthday calendar I ordered to hang in the downstairs toilet came. Unfortunately packed, but very, very, pretty 🙂