Coming to an End

The holidays are slowly coming to a close, and it's been such an absolutely perfect holiday season that I'm a bit reluctant to let it end. Michael had the past three days off, and we've spent every minute of those three days celebrating. We slept in until 10 every morning, and took afternoon naps two of the three days.

Over the course of the vacation, we've seen four movies, which is unusual for us these days. We hadn't been to a movie in the theater since last summer. It's been a complete luxury to have the time to go to movies!

We highly recommend Elizabeth: The Golden Age as a great sequel to the first Elizabeth movie: the acting is superb, the costumes and sets are exquisite, and the script continues to closely follow the book I Elizabeth (and theoretically, history as well).

We both enjoyed The Golden Compass for its visual effects, although Michael, having read the book before we went, was a bit disappointed with their handling of the story. I, not having previously read the book, didn't know how much had been omitted or changed for the purposed of the film portrayal, and I was able to get caught up in the story. I'd recommend seeing the movie before reading the book, as I found it enhanced my enjoyment of the book when I got around to reading it last weekend. Doing it the other way around was slightly irritating for Michael and my sister Hope.

We have very mixed feelings about Sweeney Todd. On one hand, Tim Burton's vision of the story is incredible to watch: it's the perfect musical for him to choose to direct. The costumes and sets are incredible and the acting is very good. However, the singing (especially on the past of the major characters) is weak. As much as I love Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, they're not trained singers, and as a result a lot of the show's songs had to be cut down to compromise for their voices. The only really good singer in the show is the young actor playing Toby. The actress playing Joanna appears to have been cast for her looks. I wish Burton had cast a few more really talented singers in some of the smaller parts to compensate for the stars' lack of singing ability. Additionally, while we both knew the show was going to be violent, the violence seemed a bit more gratuitous that it needed to be, and the element of dark comedy that pervades the stage version was entirely absent. Depp's Todd is brooding to the point he's frighteningly malevolent, which detracted some from our enjoyment of the show.

We ended our holiday movie-fest on a very high note with National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which we encourage everyone to go and see. It's worth it (if for nothing else) for the Disney short film that begins the picture. How long has it been since you saw a movie that began with a short? And this is a good short: Goofy learning to set up a home entertainment center. The movie itself is an action-packed roller coaster that glides from one impossible situation to the next, with witty banter and lots of laughs in addition to the action. It's not the brainiest movie out there, but it's well written, and we both agree it's the most fun of the movies we've seen this holiday season.

I don't head back to work until next week, but I did spend most of the day today making notes on my Career Link students and writing a letter to the teacher who will replace me there, so that whomever he or she is, he or she will not be entirely overwhelmed at first. I have some initial planning to do for my new job too, of course, and I will be spending much of the weekend working on that.

Michael should be home soon from his first day back to work, and we're expecting our friend Rick to visit for dinner this evening, so the holidays aren't entirely at a close yet. We still have some Christmas money from Grandpa Don (my dad's father) to spend, whenever we feel like braving the mall for a bit of shopping. Still, it's a bit sad for the vacation to be ending.