Reading And Watching Joyously

 At first I wasn't sure if I was going to finish this book, the style of writing didn't flow easily for me and it felt like it was a bit of an effort to read. I came back to it after a couple of weeks and was quickly swept up in the story - I really enjoyed seeing a well known history told from a different point of view, focusing on the humanity of Jesus and giving an incredible glimpse into the world of Galilee and Egypt in the early 1st century AD. It was also a wonderfully feminist text, exploring the idea of ways women can have a voice even if their culture makes it difficult.

 Caitlin and I watched this during the week on a day where we had no motivation and wanted something fairly mindless and fun to watch. It delivered exactly what we were after, with a slight variation in the basic dance movie theme but nothing that involved too much thinking. It was enjoyable, not too unbelievable (although we had a couple of complaints - I felt the timeline was inconsistent, there wasn't enough time for the main characters grades to get really bad and then recover again, and Caitlin was concerned at the speed at which the romantic relationship developed given the (undisclosed) age difference, and she noticed that they didn't bother to flesh out the personalities of a couple of the characters) and quite a feel good movie all around. The girls were excited to see Liza Koshy in the cast - a YouTuber they used to watch. The dancing was good, the music was good, it was fun to watch.

I have always loved this movie since I saw it at the movie theatre when it came out. I thought it was brilliant then and I think the same thing every time I see it. I love that even though I've seen it possibly a dozen times, I still feel the tension and the worry every time as Romeo fails to receive the message from the priest and so makes his fatal decision. I'd been wanting to watch it with Caitlin for years and she was finally in the mood for it. We watched it with subtitles which helped with some of the trickier language. She hadn't realised that the dialogue was all from the original play, she was impressed. I felt a bit like I was showing off a well known location to her, and I was worried that it wouldn't hold up - we laughed at a lot of it and pulled it to bits like we tend to do but it was still excellent, and she enjoyed it. I love the soundtrack and I've listened to it recently but forgotten how well it fits into the movie. Still a favourite.

I loved this book so much! It was sent to me by the library in my box and I had never heard of it. It looked interesting, a teen paranormal mystery - I was only a couple of chapters in before I just wanted to sit and read it all day. Fairies and forbidden romance are my favourite combination of topics (not fairies like Tinkerbell, but mythological fairies (Faeries, Seelie) and that's what this book had. AND it was set in Australia which I hadn't encountered before - an Australian setting for a fantasy novel. It was scary at times and often exciting. The first person narrative gave a good insight into the fear and determination and confusion of the main character, she was a very believable 17 year old. There were a couple of moments that didn't quite flow, as if the story had changed a bit and an edit had been missed, but it didn't detract from the story. Halfway through I realised that it is the first book in a series, which means there's more to come - I can't ...

 I have never seen The Bodyguard - I didn't like Kevin Costner when I was younger and had little interest in watching his movies. I felt like watching it tonight, after hearing 'I will Always Love You' a few times recently, and knowing that I often do like things now that I didn't in the past. I really enjoyed it. Kevin Costner was actually really good (I don't mind him now), and Whitney Houston was as well. I liked the music, the storyline flowed well, the characters all seemed quite believable. It was quite scary in parts, I hadn't expected that, and although it didn't make me cry like I thought it would, I liked the ending.