The Week in Entertainment

Live: Wicked. I really enjoyed it - it was a touring company, but they were excellent; the staging was good, and the songs too. Lots of fun - "wicked good"!

DVD: Thanks to Adrian's remarks I dug out "The Romans" and watched it again, along with "The Rescue" which it was packaged with. It's quite a good story and I do like Ian and Barbara - they're very resourceful. They set a high bar for Companions to come. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (Straight from the Heart), with Aishwarya Rai, Salman Khan, and Ajay Devgan, a movie I liked very much indeed. It's very well cast, what Khan in his usual one-note-charmer role and Devgan very subtle, so the ending is satisfying as hell. Main Hoon Na (I'm here now), with Shahrukh Khan, Amrita Rao, and Zayed Khan, a political thriller crossed with rom-com, pretty entertaing. The opening sequence is pretty violent, in a stylized, almost balletic way, which sets up the stakes that lie under all the college stuff, and the final action sequence is pretty, well, theatrical. It was the second SRK movie of the year (2004) to deal with the India-Pakistani conflict, the other being the extremely good Veer-Zaara; two movies could hardly be more different.

TV: The Mentalist - I have to say the summer didn't make me any less tired of this whole Red John and the FBI storyline. The Middle - I like the depth they show us in Axl - very deep and well hidden, but believable. The Neighbors - it's still a one-trick show, but the trick is still amusing. Wallander - the last one was quite good - Kurt is so weary, but it was nice to see him and Linda at the end. (ps: if God knew Jesus would be resurrected, he didn't really "give" his son for us and he's not the best role model for a person who wants to kill his own child).

Read: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (a mix of the old bookstore of mystery and Google) by Robin Sloan, which I enjoyed so much that I got and read his Anabel Scheme which was also very amusing.The Jewels of Paradise, a lovely book about researching an historical mystery by Donna Leon - set in Venice, but not a Brunetti.