Johnathan Larson’s acclaimed modern musical began its long off-Broadway run in January 1996 in New York. Based on Puccini’s opera La Boheme, this rock opera tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York’s Lower East Side in the thriving days of the Bohemian East Village, under the shadow of AIDS.
The Coen Bros are remaking the classic Western True Grit. The original starred John Wayne but who’ll give me odds on George Clooney playing the drunken Rooster Cogburn in the update? Johnny Depp is returning to Hunter S. Thompson land with The Rum Diary. Amber Heard, Aaron Eckhart and Richard Jenkins were already announced as co-stars, but now the underated Giovanni Ribisi joins the cast. Depp last took on Thompson’s material for the halfway-up-its-own-arse Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Perhaps Withnail and I‘s director Bruce Robinson can tone town Terry Gilliam‘s vision and create a film that people can actually understand. Bruce Willis walked down the aisle with his girlfriend, Emma Heming, on Saturday in the Carribean, guests included Willis’ ex-wife Demi Moore, her husband Ashton Kutcher and Madonna. How nice! The IT Crowd‘s Chris O’Dowd is likely to play a villain in the upcoming Gulliver’s Travels. Still quite … There’s more
A few things over the last few days have inspired me to end up here. The first were Darren and Lottie’s posts about Lost, the second was an article in yesterday’s Sunday Tribune about the end of Battlestar Galactica which again got me thinking about the nature of modern TV experiences and how they are such a crucial part of the lives of so many of my friends. They are the the subject of pub discussions every time groups of us are out, they are the focus of watercooler chat in work, they appear in blog posts on some of my favourite people’s blogs… but I have a problem. See, I don’t watch TV anymore. Almost ever. And these days that means that sometimes, I may as well be from the dark side of the moon. Before you say it, it’s not as if I’m one of those lot who … There’s more
Major game development is usually a painstaking and long process. Few major games are simple affairs. When I wrote before about the rise of bedroom programmers and I forgot something. Casual games, and flash developers. Long ago there were simple arcade games. Something to play for 5 to 10 minutes. Its relatively fast to make a casual game. So you end up with games based on news items. And in the case of Layoff, the Tilt Factor created game is based on the economic climate. Its really a twisted Bejewelled clone. The aim of the game is to line up three or more employees of the same type by swapping adjacent employees. If you lay off enough employees, (the catch is you can’t get rid of the managers), you become eligible for a bailout (that rearranges the board). Simple, and twisted. Are they any other “turned out quickly games” based … There’s more
I’m right in the thick of it over yonder, but this stopped me in my tracks. On the news last night, all the fuss, delight and marvel at the homecoming (excellent by the way), and then up pops Tommy Bowe, singing Black Velvet Band. Eyes peeled, sharp intake of breath. RPs: is that one of the players? … Singing Black Velvet Band…? MyDad (with a smirk): Yes it is. Excellent, but just bizarre.
I watched the rugby on Saturday. I cried like a little boy. I was with my Dad. We have that Irish son and Father kind of ‘howya’ - ‘grand’ kind of relationship. The normal kind. We cried like little boys. My Mom was with us. While the entire pub screamed at the television my Mam came out with all the great one liners like… that man just hurt the other man…. that’s not fair
So who is the mystery hero artist who managed a coup at the National Gallery on Saturday, sneaking in and displaying their satirical work of our beloved Taoiseach? The unknown renegade artist displayed a portrait of Biffo in all his glory, sitting on the loo with a roll of toilet paper in his hand. It seems that that artists also pulled a fast one in the RHA later on Saturday afternoon by hanging a second nude portrait of Cowen holding only a pair of y-fronts. While the Galleries have been assured that the Gardaí are out in force trying to track down the graphic terrorist the public seem to appreciate the instance of art imitating life, one woman commenting, “Well, at least that is one mess he has been able to clean up.” Image: Via Allan (Not the portrait in question) The caption for the artwork read: “Following a … There’s more
