Ballet

So I won tickets to go and see the ballet and it was last night. When I was in middle school/ highschool my dad's work sponsered the ballet and so for a couple years we got season tickets in the fourth row. It was amazing, I got to see so many ballets: Swan Lake, Cinderella, Tameing of the Shrew etc. it was so cool and especially getting to sit in the fourth row. When they have fog on stage, after it drifts off the stage it goes out into the audience, into the fourth row. Fake fog smells a bit weird.
I guess my love of dance started with taking ballet when I was little, til I was in third grade and I quit cause it was too girly. But I still loved dancing, in middle school my best friend was still in ballet and with her and under some sort of delusion, I tried out for the Nutcracker. I didn't make it of course but it was still a fairly cool experience. I've dabbled in dance since then but mostly I like dancing through my living room, or whatever open space is available. I've come to terms with my not being a real dancer but I love to watch it, almost any kind of dance that's done well.
The ballet last night was a bunch of shorter and more contemporary pieces but it was great. There's something very beautiful about the movement of dancers, of the control and discipline they have over their bodies and the blur of white limbs through a dark background. I love it, dancers are artists, but I couldn't help thinking as I watched, that art is different. I can do a painting or drawing and make the final product by myself, but dance and other art forms are group efforts. There is choreography, which is unfathomable to me, as is composing music, I can plan pictures but I can't hold on to whole dances or works of music. Dancers quite often look better together than alone, they must be in sync with each other, they must have complete trust in their partners and fellow dancers as they can hold their lives as they lift and toss. When I have the means I believe that I will do what I can to frequent the ballet. Degas did many paintings and drawings of dancers, last night I understood why.

Okay onto movies
The Importance of Being Earnest: I love this movie, which is also a play by Oscar Wilde. I love Wild's works they are so wonderfully witty and satirical. I think this movie is excellent and has a wonderful cast: Judy Dench, Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon. It is a very funny movie.
North and South: This movie is a mini series based off of Elizabeth Gaskill's book by the same title. I haven't read the book but I hope to soon. I like this movie, it's a bit like Pride and Prejudice in plot but I think it goes deeper into both pride and prejudice. The North and South are those of England around the beginning of the industrial revolution. It made me think about people and different points of view. I very much liked it.
The Charge of The Light Brigade: This is an old movie with Errol Flynn, and typical of his movies. This movie is about a historical event, one about England's glorious days of being an empire, which I'm not terribly familiar. This movie is about military actions in India and that general area. I have to say that I did not love this movie, I thought is was well made etc. but I disagree strongly with the events that took place and about revenge. I don't know how to tell this without giving away crucial plot so be warned. There was a massacre of mostly women and children and to avenge that 600 men, the Light Brigade, went into almost certian death to kill the man responsible. It made me sick to think of it, of course it was horrible what happened, but 600 men for one man hardly seems worth it, it just seems to me like more needless death.
Sargent York: This is another war movie, but where I hated Charge of the Light Brigade, I loved this one. I like this movie because it was not really a glorification of war, the main character didn't want to go to the war, but once he made his decision to go, he did the best he could and in doing so he found himself a hero.
Lost Horizion: I loved this movie, it was based off a book by the same title and I now want to read it. In this movie a group of people find themselves in Shangri-La and begin to adjust to how different things are there. I highly recommend it. An interesting point about the movie, apparently over the years it was cut down and the version I got was a restoration, they found the whole soundtrack of the movie and all but 7 minutes of the film. Because of this though there are some parts that are just stills with sound, others high quality and still others are fairly low quality.
Gunga Din: I haven't read the famous poem but I quite liked this movie. I loved the friendship between the three Sargent. I decided that the resemblance between Douglass Fairbanks Jr. and Carey Ewles is uncanny and that this is one of my favorite roles I've seen Carey Grant in. Carey Grant was wonderful at comedy and this movie proves it to a T. I think this role also works because it's not the typical Grant role of someone suave and debonair, I think it's more like the background that Archie Leach had before he became Carey Grant.