The Week in Entertainment

Film: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Well, it didn't violate the spirit like the first one (riding Talking Horses!) and I didn't see the second one, but for this one they decided they needed a wholly unnecessary quest-and-evil-to-be-conquered, which caused them to rearrange the book. Quite a bit. Plus turn Aslan into a deus ex machina (losing the whole power of the restoration of Eustace scene in the process), plus... my god. The White Witch? Still? Plus they mucked up the ending, though I suppose they were closing the Caspian-personal-growth arc... Plus - WTF? "Jill Pole has dropped in for a visit"?? Jill and Eustace couldn't stand each other until after he had been to Narnia. I doubt I'll watch another unless a friend who's sat through something for me wants to. On the other hand, The King's Speech is totally, utterly brilliant. Not a false note. Riveting. You really need to see that one.

DVD: A set of "rarities" of Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet with Reginald Owen (1933), The Speckled Band (1931) with an infant Raymond Massey (his Holmes ran a detective bureau with girl secretaries!!!!), and three with Arthur Wontner and Ian Fleming(!) as Watson - The Sign of Four (1934), The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (19355), and Murder at the Baskervilles (1937). (That last one was based on "Silver Blaze" but they were visiting Sir Henry twenty years later.)Also an Anglo-German The Deadly Necklace, with Christopher Lee, speaking English, and the most of rest of the cast dubbed from German... They were all pretty interesting in one way or another.

TV: Very little. The Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's broadcast, and an old Will Rogers film called Doctor Bull, and most of Pride of the Yankees, which I have never manage to see all of. Missed the beginning of it this time - came in when Lou was walking into the locker room for the first time.

Read: A number of short stories by Anthony Trollope ("An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids", "The Mistletoe Bough", "The Man Who Kept His Money in a Box", "The Courtship of Susan Bell". Bulgakov's The Fateful Eggs (Роковые яйца). It's very funny, and funnier if you're familiar with the Soviet period - all the publications called Red Something - the guy who works for "Красный огонек", "Красный перец", "Красный журнал", "Красный прожектор" и газеты "Красная вечерняя газета" ("Red Flame", "Red Pepper", "Red Magazine", "Red Spotlight" and the newspaper "Red Evening News"); the local "Красный боец" ("Red Warrior"); the Tver paper "Красный Париж" ("Red Paris"); and not forgetting the influential сатирического журнала "Красный ворон", издания ГПУ (satirical magazine "Red Raven", a GPU publication). The last is the funniest, bearing in mind that the GPU was part of the NKVD - forerunner of the KGB (it's amazing that thing ever got published, just amazing). The guy in charge of the chicken state farm «Совхоз "Красный луч"», (State Farm "Red Beam") who can't tell chicken eggs from snake eggs... . (By the way, it's available online in Russian here and in English here.)