You never thought this day would come...

Initially I was going to write a more serious post about heroes. Then I remembered that my brian brain is running at about 65% capacity today, so I opted to do something I've been meaning to do for a very long time now:

Resurrect The Stuff of the Week!

Thus, without further adieu ado (I did that one on purpose, unlike the above), here it is.

Movie of the Week: The Adventures of Robin Hood. An Errol Flynn classic from 1938, this movie is horribly dated. I say "horribly dated" because the acting and storytelling is so far removed from what we expect from period action dramas today, not because I think it's a horrible movie. It's very funny, and often unintentionally so. Eric Wolfgang Korngold's music is dated also, but in the same way that one would say that Tchaikovsky is dated — you can tell it's from a specific era, but that certainly doesn't make it bad. One other thing: Disney very clearly drew a lot of inspiration from this version.

Soundtrack of the Week: Mr. Holland's Opus by Michael Kamen. It's a pity that Kamen died so young, because he was a talented composer. He knew how to write compelling, moving, and very accessible orchestral music. Mr. Holland's Opus is just that. "Cole's Tune" is a stunningly beautiful, lyrical melody; "Marking Homework" is a wonderful piano concerto-style piece that weaves in all sorts of references to classical music (Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Grieg's "In The Hall of the Mountain King" both make cameo appearances), and the finale, "An American Symphony," is a wonderful, triumphant orchestral-rock blending of the score's major themes. I have yet to be able to listen to this track without getting tears in my eyes. If you can find the original soundtrack CD (the one that contains Kamen's score, not the song album), definitely go for it. An alternative option would be to pick up Kamen's The New Moon in the Old Moon's Arms, a 40-minute tone poem inspired by the Ancient Pueblo Peoples (Anasazi) of the American Southwest. It's well worth the purchase, and it includes a 17-minute version of the "American Symphony" from Mr. Holland's Opus.

Novel of the Week: I'm reading The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett, and while it's a mostly enjoyable fantasy novel, I don't think it's quite Novel of the Week material. It runs into several fantasy cliches, such as the innately talented young man who has daddy issues as a result of his mother's death and consequently heads off into the wide and scary world to find out how to kill the demons who come out at night and kill the humans. There's also the restless young woman with mommy issues who realizes that that her lifelong dream of getting married and making tons of babies won't be all it's cracked up to be and consequently finds the inner strength to defy her mother and convention and become a talented but Healer (and yes, like the hero, she had an innate talent all along). Give the heroes a few modern ideas about God, the Universe, and Everything, make a few thinly-veiled jabs at divine providence, and add a tribe of noble-yet-barbaric desert warriors (who are not always so noble after all, and who have religious sects who will kill each other over disputes about which level of hell certain demons reside in, oh, and they're repressive to women too)... perhaps you get the idea. Oh, and they have mines that produce metals, coal, and salt, all at once. I should add the caveat that I have not finished the book yet, so there may be some surprises that will change my mind. But right now I'm not sure I'll pick up the sequel (which is available) or the threequel (which is not yet published) to see where the story finally ends up.

TV Show of the Week: The Wire. It's been on my Netflix list for a while, and I finally got around to watching it. I'm about halfway through the first season, and it's pretty captivating stuff. Very well-drawn characters who are at once sympathetic and repulsive (some more so than others) in stuck in ridiculously difficult and complicated situations. I really like the slow-burn storytelling; I much prefer TV shows that follow a season-long story arc to ones that are primarily episodic. It's a crime show, so it's full of cops, robbers, drugs, violence, profanity, sex, and nudity, most of which make sense in context, although sometimes they go overboard — so if you make a point of avoiding any or all of those elements, this is a show that you should avoid. At the same time, it feels like the real world — and although the part world that these characters are stuck in is not the same part of the world that I'm in, it's not all that far away. If you want to read a good review, try this one. It's one of the reasons I first took an interest in the show.

Wine of the Week: Campo Viejo Rioja Crianza (2007 vintage). I'm not a wine expert, or snob, or aficionado, so I can't really tell you much about it. But I like it.

Good News of the Week: We have a piano (thanks to a family in our church) and the piano tuner is coming Monday!

Related Bad News of the Week: Piano tuners are stinking expensive and, unfortunately, quite necessary.

Related Good News of the Week: This. I've already ordered it. I'm a little bummed that it won't be here until early- to mid-March (it was originally slated for release this week), but that will give me some time to get my fingers in a little better shape. I don't imagine most of those pieces are going to be easy.

Well, that's it for now. Let me know if you read this; it may determine whether this blog is raised back to life or succumbs to a fatal lack of care and dies the death.