Music Review: Simon and Garfunkel: Bookends

 Simon and Garfunkel: Bookends, produced by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel and Roy Halee, Columbia Records, 1968.  All songs were written by Paul Simon.

This is the fourth studio album from Simon and Garfunkel after Wednesday Morning 3 a.m., Sounds of Silence and Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme.  It was nominated for best album.  "Mrs. Robinson" did win best record.  Most of this album seems to be experimental and didn't work.  However Mrs. Robinson from the movie The Graduate is an excellent song. The other song of this caliber is "America."  "A Hazy Shade of Winter" is also pretty fun.  "Old Friends" is pretty unique in that it uses an orchestra with building intensity.  

Animated Movie Review: ***^ Hoodwinked (2005)

 Hoodwinked is a retelling of the classic Red Riding Hood Story from the perspectives of Red (Anne Hathaway), Granny (Glen Close), The Woodsman (Jim Belushi) and the Wolf (Patrick Warburton).  They are telling the story to the detective, Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers).  Everyone has their own secrets which aren't part of the original story.  Grandma is over a cookie/bakery store, but spends her time playing.  She likes adventure.  Wolf is a reporter investigating the goodie bandit.  Red resents delivering Grandma's cookies.  And Woodsman is an aspiring actor who works on a food truck.  The bandit is not any of them, but a bad bunny, Boingo (Andy Dick).  Lots of animated adventure and fun and being saved from impossible danger.  Sometimes what we see isn't always what is so.  

Sandra Bullock Movie Review: *** Love Potion Number 9 (1992)

 This is a movie based on a song.  The song was made popular in 1963 by The Searchers.  Paul (Tate Donovan) works with animals developing products.  He is down on his luck in terms of girls, but a gypsy Madame Rose (Anne Bancroft) sells some love potion number 8, which makes everyone of the opposite sex love you and the same sex hate you.  He works with Dianne (Sandra Bullock) and together they develop an aerosol of the potion which will render them irresistible to the opposite sex for four hours.  And so they each have a good time.  Dianne has a prince falling for her, and Paul does his own "research."  However they more and more fall for each other.  Dianne's regular fling, Gary (Dale Midkiff) shows up.  When Paul realizes he loves Dianne and discovers Gary is using the potion on her, he has to win her back.  And this is where love potion number 9 comes in.

A funny movie in it comedic way.  There is lots of en chasing woman who succumb to the potion.  Marisa (Mary Mara) uses the potion to rob people, and over uses it so everyone is after her.  

Sandra Bullock Movie Review: ***^All About Steve (2009)

 Mary Horowitz focuses totally on her job of make crosswords to the point she does not have a life.  She lives with her parents (Howard Hesseman and Beth Grant).  They have set her up with a blind date, and when he, Steve (Bradley Cooper) turns out to be handsome she takes him down as quickly as they get in the car.  He says it would be nice to travel together, and when she writes a crossword obsessing about Steve, she gets fired.  He is a new cameraman and so she decides to be with him, and follows the news crew of Steve, Hartman (Thomas Haden Church) and Angus (Ken Jeong).  She is obsessed with Steve, and he doesn't want her around.  Hartman eggs the relationship on and lets Mary know where they will be next.  Mary makes a couple friends, Howard (DJ Qualls) and Elizabeth (Katy Mixon).  They survive a tornado together, but the car is worse for wear.  The next news story is a mine collapse, and some deaf children have fallen in.  Mary arrives after the rescue, but falls in herself.  In this event Mary discovers she is fine by herself, and rescues herself, a child that was missed, and Hartman who dived in to save everyone.  They all grow in degrees, Hartman, Steve and Mary.  Mary now has some true friends rather than an obsession.  

Sandra Bullock is again very good.  She seems to blossom, and is now acting like a "normal" person.  

Science Fiction Movie Review: ** 2010 Space Odyssey: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

 Dr. Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider) is back to space to rescue Discovery and the HAL computer (Douglas Rain).  He is joined by Dr. Walter Curnow (John Lithgow) and Dr. R. Chandra (Bob Balaban).  The meet Dr. Tanya Kurbik (Helen Mirren) on a Russian space craft.  Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) from 2001 meets them as a star child and warns them they have to leave because something is about to happen.  They are able to revive HAL and discover he broke because he had been asked to lie.  HAL sacrifices itself so the crew can escape aboard the Russian Space craft.  Jupiter explodes and turns into a small sun.

This movie is only slightly better than 2001 but the story is still confusing in my brain.  The thing it keeps that was nice in the first movie is the music.  It is very dramatic.  

Movie Review: *** Fair Game (2010)

 This movie tells the real life story of Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) whose CIA career was destroyed when the Bush administration leaked her identity to the press.  This was after her husband, Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) published an Op-ed in the New York Times saying he had traveled to chad, Africa and found no evidence of their shipping uranium to Iraq.  This had been used as part of the basis for going to war.  The book is based on books by Plame and Wilson about this incident.  Nobody in the administration was convicted of releasing the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.  Scooter Libby (David Andrews) was convicted of perjury and obstruction.  His sentence was commuted by Bush and then pardoned by Trump.

Makes you wonder if George H.W. Bush was a good president or not.  And if war in Iraq was justified.  People's lives were in danger as a result of Plame's identity being revealed.  

Music Review: Traditional Songs of Singing Cultures

 Traditional Songs of Singing Cultures: A World Sampler by Patricia Shehan Campbell, Sue Williamson and Pierre Perron, Warner Brothers Publication, 1996.

This C.D. comes with a book which includes the english translation for all of the songs.  20 countries are selected to be represented, Canada, Netherlands, Japan, Taiwan, Austria, United States England to name a few.  With only 20 countries selected fr inclusion there is of course a lot of music no represented.  It includes a couple of my favorites.  From Englan there is "Billy Boy."  From United States there is "Simple Things."  The themes of the songs are very varied from singing of birds and ducks, to singing of children, knife sharpening and traveling.  The book and C.D. go nicely together.  The book includes information on the different cultures.

I have always enjoyed learning of different cultures and music is one way to do so.  Some of the songs sing of traditional dances as well.