Life Is Fun Blog

Last night I went to an advanced screening of the French movie, Le Concert.

Le Concert is a 2009 film by Radu Mihaileanu with Mélanie Laurent and Miou-Miou. It has won the Best Original Score and Best Sound awards at César Awards 2010.

What a wonderful, feel-good movie!  It amazed me how the DIrector was able to so seamlessly combine the genres of comedy and drama without getting bogged down in the politics of Communist Russia in the early 1980s.

For two hours I was in another world -- which in my opinion -- is the mark of a great movie. I must admit that I just adore well made movies on the subject of ‘music’.  Le Concert scored 10/10 from me. I’m going to add it to my film library as a reference in film-making -- which is one of my interests.

Hope you get to see the film.

I’ve included some information and interesting links below.

Plot Summary
(YouTube)

“A film by Radu Mihaileanu (Live and Become, Train of Life.) Starring Alexei Guskov, Melanie Laurent, Dmitry Nazarov and Miou Miou

During the Brezhnev era, Andrei Filipov was a prodigy -- the greatest conductor in the Soviet Union and he directed the famous Bolshoi Orchestra. But after refusing to expel his Jewish musicians, including his best friend Sacha, he was fired at the height of his glory. Thirty years later, he is still working at the Bolshoi, but as a cleaner.

When Andrei intercepts a fax from the Theatre du Chatelet inviting the Bolshoi Orchestra to Paris, he comes up with a crazy idea: hell gather up his old musician friends (now working rag-tag jobs), head to Paris and pretend to be the famed orchestra to play Tchaikovsky’s “Violin Concerto. The long-awaited dream to deliver one final performance!

Opening at #1 at the French cinema box-office, The Concert is pure entertainment a warm-hearted, joyous story filled with great wit and humanity. The stirring finale set against Tchaikovskys Concerto is simply magnificent.”

Le Concert -- Interview de Radu Mihaileanu (Director)

The music work which has a central role in the film and is played during the final scene is the Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 by Tchaikovsky.

Technorati Tags: Best original score, Best sound, Cesar Awards, film review, Le Concert, music, Paris, Radu Mihaileanu, Russia, Tchaikovsky.

Filed under: entertainment, media, music, reviews on April 26th, 2010 | Comments Off

Early this year I bought a Macbook after using a PC for 10 years as part of my corporate work.  Years ago I started off using a Mac but went over to the PC platform – as mentioned.

I love the ease of the Macbook.  So many surprise thoughtful additions – such as being able to create a basic website and pages and ftp to your site, photo album, etc.

Well Mac addicts have now fallen in love with the latest release from Apple – the iPad.  It seems that it is perfect for travellers – one of the great features being the long life of the battery.

Source

If you would like to learn more about the iPad – click here to get the latest iPad information from a keen new user perspective.

Paul is running a 30 day diary reporting on his experiences using the iPad. You can also read an iPad media report here.

Paul is a friend of Ed Dale who is famous for the Thirty Day Challenge annual event to teach wannabe internet entrepreneurs how to make their first dollar online.  Though I read just today that Ed and his team are phasing out 30DC for something even better this year.

He writes, ” The Thirty Day Challenge as you know and love is going away forever. During this month we will start to reveal what will take it’s place. As radical an idea as the 30dc was… This year everything changes and during April we will explain WHY we are changing the 30dc.”

So stay posted … it will no doubt be cutting edge.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Ed Dale, iPad, review, Thirty Day Challenge

Filed under: lifestyle, media, topical on April 13th, 2010 | Comments Off

Australian Open 2010 draw: a snapshot

The draw for Australian Open 2010 was held at Melbourne Park on Friday morning, with tennis legend John McEnroe and Serbian star Ana Ivanovic taking part in the official draw ceremony. Players schedule

Federer Avoids Del Potro, Murray in Australian Open Tennis Draw

Top-seeded Roger Federer will start his pursuit of a fourth Australian Open tennis title against 36th-ranked Igor Andreev, while women’s defending champion Serena Williams will meet unseeded Urszula Radwanska.   Read the full article here

Technorati Tags: Andy Murray, Australian Open tennis, Roger Federer, Serena Williams

Filed under: activities, media on January 15th, 2010 | Comments Off

It’s great to see tennis extraordinaire, Roger Federer, finally take the winner’s trophy at Roland Garros (Paris) yesterday.

http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/index.html

Technorati Tags: French Open, grand slam, Roger Federer, Roland Garros, tennis

Filed under: activities, media on June 7th, 2009 | Comments Off

Seeing movies is a great way to chill and relax.  Of course opinions about what’s good or bad vary enormously – as you can see when you read the two customer reviews excerpted below – discovered as I was searching for new release DVDs.

I LOL reading the first review – though I doubt the writer intended it to be humorous!

What do you think?

Review 1  (excerpts)
“This is probably the most miscast movie in the history of cinema. The plot of the movie was as thin as toilet paper which is what this DVD should have been packaged in because it is s***! I can’t give away the ending of the film because I didn’t see it. I was on hold with a suicide hotline.”

Review 2 (excerpts)
“If you want a ‘pick me up’, then this is your film. Breathtaking ocean views in the filming sequence. We bought it since we will watch it again and again.”

Makes you wonder why would we ever worry about negative feedback as it’s so subjective.

Technorati Tags: movie review

Filed under: entertainment on April 12th, 2009 | 1 Comment »