Minions and Music
Bananaaaaaaaaaa! Thursday I went to see the Minions movie with Ingrid and Nienke. I love Minions đ And to keep in the spirit of things I had a kid’s snack pack to go with it. Tiny packet of popcorn, tiny packet of candy, a capri sun and a tiny toy.
Friday, Gert and I went to the Oosterpoort. A little while ago Gert showed me an announcement for a free concert at the Oosterpoort. It was a graduation performance for the National Master Orchestra Conducting. The two people graduating each conducted two classical pieces played by the North Netherlands Orchestra.
The first candidate was Huba HollĂłköi and he conducted Bela Bartok’s first violin concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet fantasy overture. Then, after the break, Konradin Herzog conducted Dutilleux’s Sur le mĂȘme accord for solo violin and orchestra and Schumann’s Symphony no. 4.
The pieces were really good, but I preferred the works chosen by Herzog.
I love my cinema subscription, three movies in the last two days đ
Yesterday, I met up with Gert after work. Our first movie was Age of Adaline. I’d seen trailers and the combination of immortality, the decor and the fact that the other main part was played by Dutch actor Michiel Huisman triggered my interest. Unfortunately, the movie didn’t quite live up to my expectation. The pacing felt off and the interaction between Adaline and Ellis was awkward at times. More awkward than the story called for. Separately I liked both of Blake Lively and Michiel’s performances and I love the visuals and decor. Harrison Ford was a pleasant surprise as Ellis’ father.
I was pleasantly surprised by the movie, I’ve gotten used to trailers spoiling huge parts of movie plots, or even the entire plot, and here there was a whole extra dimension to the plot not shown in the trailer. I enjoyed the bit with Jarvis and Ultron, when he has just formed; and really enjoyed Vision. I hope he gets to stick around.
After the Avengers we went on to see Tomorrowland (or Project T, as my cinema seems to want to call it…). It’s a bit of an uneven movie. The visuals are stunning and I want so badly to walk around in that city and explore! The intro part takes too long (I even muttered out loud for them to “get on with it”), and then when we get the part where Casey is recruited and runs away, and finds Frank and has to convince Frank, and then they all together have to run away some more and find a way to get to Tomorrowland to fix whatever the fuck is wrong takes very long.
Last week I went to see La Famille BĂ©lier with Gert. I’d seen the trailer among the previews before Wild a week earlier and I was fascinated.
Besides that, she works at the farm, and has school, which is rather far away. Suffice it to say, her days are full, and there’s always something she has to do.
I can imagine these situations can come across as insulting to Deaf people, but I feel they are justified here based on the point of view. It is Paula that we follow, and Paula who is often exasperated by her family’s antics, as teenagers generally are. She doesn’t always want to be the one that has to do this or do that, she wants to do her own things, grow up some. And her parents like to keep their little family as is, safe and home.
During choir practice, the teacher makes them sing songs by Michel Sardou, a French singer-songwriter who’s been singing for about 50 years. He’s not very popular with the younger generation, but a bit of a legend among older ones for his work in the 70s. Reading his Wikipedia page, I’m getting a bit of a Boudewijn de Groot vibe for that period.
The teacher also tells her about a singing competition in Paris. The winner gets to attend a school for talented singers, in Paris. He wants her to enter, and Paula wants to, as well. To get her ready, she practices at her teacher’s house every evening singing Je Vole, also by Michel Sardou. Je Vole is a song wherein a teenager tells his parents that he is about to leave. It’s not fleeing, it’s flying away, without substances, without other influences, the teenager chooses his own path and he begs his parents to accept this.
Her parents come to the recital at school and during the choir performance you can see they don’t really get it. Why would they, they’re all born deaf, they never heard music. They’ll be able to feel vibration, but they can’t feel that from a choir sitting in the audience.
It’s a chasm between them and it scares her mother more. Her father seems more understanding and later, when they’re back home, he asks her to sing for him as he places his hand on her throat. She sings for him, and he seems to see her passion, but ultimately can’t experience it in the same way.
There are some other story lines that are partly shown but get no neat endings, like her father’s mayoral candidature or her brother’s interest in Mathilde, just as life itself keeps going for others when you go a different direction.
I really liked Dev Patel as Deon Wilson. In his free time he’s working on developing the first ever true AI. When he succeeds but is not allowed to use a destroyed chassis to test it, he steals it and is on his way home to insert the AI when he is cornered and stopped by the gang. They take him and the van with materials to their hide out and force him to insert the AI. He reluctantly does so and Chappie comes alive.
Chappie also becomes fully sentient as he realises he has a battery that is running out. When told that the battery can’t be changed and that he will die when it runs out, he becomes sad. He does not want to die. Deon tries to help him deal (picture), but Ninja uses it as a tactic to get him to agree to the heist telling Chappie they can use the money to buy a new body. They practice by stealing cars and Chappie, having seen the neural interface earlier, works on isolating consciousness so it can be transferred.
Chappie makes his way home to the gang, with some stops along the way (picture), and Deon fits him with a new spare arm. Chappie then goes with Ninja and the others to do the heist. A news helicopter catches him while they rob the money truck and the broadcast of a “Scout gone bad” brings even more panic. Both in the public, as well as in Tetravaal, the company Deon works for. The president of Tetravaal authorizes Vincent to use his robot to destroy Chappie. Which is exactly what he wants.
After Chappie, we took a quick detour to the supermarket, and then came back in for The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Another movie featuring Dev Patel as main character. I really liked this movie. It’s an unpretentious feel good movie, and follow-up to 2012’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. In the first movie, Sonny is trying to build up his hotel in India where most guests are elderly and have basically moved in to spend their last years. Now, the hotel is doing really well, so well in fact, that Sonny and one of the residents, co-manager Muriel (a fantastic Maggie Smith), go to the US to ask for financial support from a franchise to open a second hotel. The franchise is interested but not willing to commit just yet so they agree to send out a mystery guest observer to see if it’s worth it.
Once back, Sonny is stressed out and dealing with way too many things on his own. Not only is he waiting for the observer, he also has his own upcoming wedding to worry about. And with how Indian weddings go, this means three parties. Shortly later, two new guests arrive, Mrs Lavinia Beech, who gets the last free room in the hotel, and Mr. Guy Chambers.
Meanwhile, the guests each have their own problems. Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Evelyn (Judi Dench) are very fond of each other but afraid to say it so they keep going in circles and missing each other. Madge is dating two wealthy Indian men and having trouble choosing between them. Norman accidentally takes out a hit on his girlfriend, and is jealous of her other relationships (as they never said they were exclusive) but afraid to say so. And Guy Chambers is interested in Sonny’s mother, who is reluctant to think of a new relationship.
They are led by “Arthur”, their tech genius is “Merlin” and every member has a codename of one of the knights of the round table. This means there’s a set number of agents, and when one dies, the others all put forth a candidate. After an intense testing, process the one remaining candidate gets the job.
Then yesterday, Kim and I went to see Insurgent. It picks up almost immediately after Divergent, only a few days have passed. We meet up with Tris, Four, Caleb and Peter in Amity where they have taken shelter. At first, they seem mostly settled in as they wait for things to happen and make plans. But things are not quite what they seem and before you know it, they’re back on the run, heading into the city with the end goal of killing Jeanine.
Today was a good day, Gert came by to play games. We ended up playing only Carcassonne as Gert had recently bought the Big Box that contains all the expansion. So we played different versions in a row. Regular Carcassonne first, then another game where we added the river, then we added sheep and so on.
