Wednesday, November 5
Very, Very Excited
Why, pray tell?
Because in around 7 hours I will be watching The Matrix: Revolutions at the cinema! I am absolutely bursting at the seams with excitement for seeing this film, even if the BBC News review of it isn't particularly brilliant. I don't care! I sat and watched Reloaded again last night, and it blew me away once more. I hadn't seen it since the second time I saw it in the cinema, about 5 months ago, so it was just as fresh as the first time I saw it. And I picked up on a couple of subtleties that I missed out on in the cinema.
Christ, I am sooooo excited.
And speaking of the BBC News website, I came across this page yesterday. It's a daily round-up of the world's media reporting on certain big stories. It's very informative, and enables you to see what (for example) the Israeli newspapers are making of the recent spate of terrorist attacks in Iraq.
Incidentally, I read on that site about how the Chinese government is forcing all but two of the country's newspapers to be free from government financing. In essence, creating a free(ish) press for the country. Government departments are also no longer being forced to subscribe to certain periodicals. Whilst this means that some publishers will go out of business, due to a lack of subsidies, the creation of a free press in China is a huge step forward, and can only be a good thing.
And yes, that was a part of my blog which considered the world at large. Possibly the first of many, possibly not. It depends. If I read a news story which interests me, and I deem worthy of a wider (ahem) audience, I will probably post a reference here. I'm also going to start putting in more links to websites which are relevant to whatever it is that I'm on about, be it news, films, music, books, whatever.
Books-wise (damn my lack of planning a post, and being inspired by some random word to add another paragraph or two), I've almost finished reading Branded, by Alissa Quart. It's about the way in which teens and "tweens" are targeted incredibly aggresively by corporations and brands, and it makes for quite worrying reading. It's not just about brands per se, it also concentrates on the changes that have altered teenagers' lives irrevocably. These include the extreme pressure placed on teenagers (by their parents, peers and themselves) to get into an Ivy League college (it's an American book...), and the lengths to which some teenagers will go to get a place. These colleges are supposedly "branded" (there's the connection, right?), and teenagers aspire to be the brand, or at least to be part of the brand. It's not as good as No Logo, but it is a good read. Go have a gander.
And on that note, I end this sprawling, unstructured and downright random post. Leave me messages!