Cold and wet, but hardly miserable

Last night, I went to the Jazz Festival to see the Nikki Yanofsky concert. First off, I have to admit that I mostly veer towards listening to rock and punk music, although I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for musicals (I don’t think that I’ll ever be able to admit out loud that I enjoy the music from Mamma Mia!, although it is entirely ABBA), and that I tend to dismiss jazz as “not being my style.” That said, I have to say that I enjoyed last night’s concert a lot, and even found myself singing along to the songs on more than one occasion. That last one could probably be attributed to the small quantity of beer that I was drinking clashing with my susceptibility to alcohol. Then again, I may have just been enjoying myself that much (to the likely displeasure of everyone standing near me, since I’m a terrible singer).

The only reason that I didn’t have an even better time was because of the rain. Not only did it feel like it was raining bullets, but it kept going on and off, like someone who feels indecisive about whether to turn the lights on or to just leave them off and ends up burning out the bulbs because he keeps flipping the switch every couple of seconds. In any case, everyone just pulled out their umbrellas or put on their rain coats and dealt with it until the end of the concert, which was impressive. A fun experience overall, but I personally could have gone without getting that drenched, and I sincerely hope that the next time will be considerable drier.

Whoops, almost forgot about this…

I just remembered a hilarious video that my brother made with his friends for an English project a few months ago, and I have decided to share it with everyone who reads this blog. I know that that translates to something like 3 people at the moment, but that’s not the point. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as3Hw9aZv1s

Movie Review: Public Enemies

I just saw the new Michael Mann movie Public Enemies today, and I have to admit that while it wasn’t the revolutionary true crime movie that I had been hoping for, it was still a pretty interesting movie that most people would enjoy nonetheless. Based on the book of the same title by Bryan Burroughs, the film follows the criminal career of the legendary bank robber John Dillinger (played by the always excellent Johnny Depp, who bears an eerie resemblance to the robber) between 1933 and 1934 and his conflict with FBI Special Agent Melvin Purvis (played here by Christian Bale). While the original book focuses on other famous criminals as well, including Bonnie and Clyde, the movie zeroes in on Dillinger’s exploits, although there are scenes with others, such as Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd and “Baby Face” Nelson, which prove to be of at least some importance to the plot, and manages to avoid using romantic portrayals of many historical figures. The movie is around 2 and a half hours long, and can feel a little slow at some points as a result. Mann makes up for this by making all of the action scenes very intense and using plenty of dry humor. It can also get a little difficult to follow what is happening onscreen due to the occasional use of a handheld camera, making some scenes very shaky (literally). Overall, though, I liked Public Enemies. It manages to adhere to the source material, and thus, by extension, actual history. Nobody is shown as being absolutely good or evil, but instead as being more on a sliding gray scale of morality. If you like crime movies, historical movies, or anything with Johnny Depp or Christian Bale in it, you should go see the movie as soon as you can, since you’ll be sure to enjoy it. Also, those of you who saw Watchmen earlier this year should keep their eyes open for an actor from that movie playing a small but important role in this one in a way that is 100% historically accurate.