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7.12.08

In Brief: Advent II

LinksHere is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.

  • You may remember me lamenting that we had Vittorio Grigolo in Lucrezia Borgia last month, when Giuseppe Filianoti had been originally announced. It turns out that Filianoti's vocal problems are worse than we feared. [Parterre Box]

  • "Classical music is broccoli." Mmm, I love broccoli. [Jeremy Denk]

  • Elliott Carter will turn 100 on December 11. Matthew Guerrieri interviewed him for the Boston Globe. [Soho the Dog]

  • Steve Hicken has some thoughts on Carter's music from a composer's point of view. [Listen.]

  • Krystian Zimerman also has a birthday this week -- check out the YouTube footage of the 18-year-old Zimerman playing in the Chopin Competition. [Jessica Duchen]

  • Surely I am not the only person to have found The Dark Knight a mediocre movie at best? The script was a dog, Christian Bale's ridiculous Batman whisper really grated on me by the end, and much of a top-notch cast (Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman especially) was squandered. Heath Ledger was a good actor, but sympathy for him seems to have clouded many people's judgment. Now The Dark Knight may surpass the U.S. box office record of Titanic, company that only confirms my low opinion. [Reel Fanatic]

2 comments:

Mark Barry said...

Never surpass the TV Batman! And the latest Bond (all that dialog) they've taken away all the humor.

Anonymous said...

You're not the only person. I thought it was over-loud, confused and confusing (I wonder how much they lopped off in editing), and frankly just trying too hard. Batman was bland, but Heath Ledger was quite good. But the film never really got going, and the ending was weak. It's up there on my list of disappointments along with Gladiators. Thankfully I've never had to endure Titanic.