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Death becomes her: A Brief List Of Everyone Who Died @finborough

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For a natural process, death is not a topic that comes up naturally for people. We ask how people are doing but expect the response to be “I’m great”, not “I’m not dead yet”. And so for the main character in A Brief List of Everyone Who Died, Graciela has a death issue. Starting with when she was five and found out only after the matter that her parents had her beloved dog euthanised. So Graciela decides that nobody she loves will die from then on. And so this piece becomes a fruitless attempt at how she spends her life trying to avoid death while it is all around her. It’s currently having its world premiere  at the Finborough Theatre . As the play title suggests, it is a brief list of life moments where death and life intervene for the main character, from the passing of relatives, cancer, suicides, accidents and the loss of parents. Playwright Jacob Marx Rice plots the critical moments of the lives of these characters through their passing or the passing of those around them. Howeve

Film: Babel


Babel, originally uploaded by stef_install.

Thursday evening I caught Babel. All three hours of it. Sitting there for that long you run through various thoughts such as, "can this drag on for any longer?" or "why is nobody wearing makeup?" "how much blood can Cate loose?". It aims to be a sprawling global story connecting everyone through a single moment but it really boils down to depressing and pretentious story. I can see why Americans may take to it as it is full of angst about Americas place in the world, but it is seriously undermined by really poor characterisations and a never ending stream of unbelievable events.

Not all the actors have much to do in this flick either. Before Cate gets shot she just looks sullen and Brad Pitt looks very old and dusty throughout most of the film. If there was a makeup artist present, you wouldn't know it.

It all seemed a bit depressing, but I left the movie feeling that the central message of the film was that there is hope in the world as long as there is a mute Japanese girl out there somewhere who is willing to show off her snatch. I think there is something in that for all of us. Well at least for those who don't mind the showgrounds looking a bit bushy...

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