Like most girls, I have a thing for men who can sing. I love finding out that actors I like are also fantastic singers. Here are a few of my favorite actors/singers.
1. Anthony Stewart Head He played Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm the kind of girl who doesn't even get involved in the Angel vs. Spike war, because of course the librarian is hotter than either of them! The musical episode of Buffy shows that not only is Giles the most attractive, he also has the best singing voice.
2. Matthew Broderick When I saw Inspector Gadget in the theater in 1999, I had no idea who Matthew Broderick was. What I did know was that those were the sweetest brown eyes I had ever seen in all my 12 years of life. I was the only little girl I knew who had a crush on Inspector Gadget. It was because of this that I discovered Ferris Bueller's Day Off and one of my favorite movies, War Games. Of course I was thrilled when The Producers came out and I discovered just how well he can sing. (I never did see his version of The Music Man for some reason.)
3. Ewan McGregor Ewan McGregor is a "bad boy" type. I don't like bad boys, generally. However, I do like bright eyes, infectious grins, and beautiful voices. Ewan McGregor has all of these. He is also the only good reason to watch Star Wars Episode I again, and that's saying something. (Ok, so Liam Neeson is another good reason...) He's also rather breathtaking in Moulin Rouge.
4. James Marsden This one is a new discovery for me. I first saw him in X-Men and thought he was very handsome, but didn't really think anything of him beyond that. That's not very surprising, though, since he didn't do a whole lot. But then I found out that he has a fantastic singing voice. And now? Well, he just looks that much more handsome.
I was inspired to do this by DeeDee Baldwin's wonderful Austenbook! And as she pointed out, the news feed should actually go in reverse, but this makes for easier reading.
Here is my review of the new Harry Potter trailer for The Half-Blood Prince. The trailer is embedded at the end of this post, or you can download a high-quality version here.
My overall reaction to the trailer was extremely positive. (Unlike my reaction to the new Star Trek trailer, but that‘s a different story.) However, the very first line spoken by Harry was pretty ridiculous. Dumbledore says, “You are, of course, wondering why I brought you here tonight.” Harry replies, “Actually, sir, after all these years I just sort of go with it.” What? Where did that come from? Yes, I realize it’s an attempt at humor, but I really don’t think it was in-character at all. Harry would never say that.
Next we see Harry and DumbledoreApparate, although the next scene that they show is clearly out of order because we see Dumbledore leaning on Harry after Harry had Apparated the two of them back to Hogwarts. (Though technically they should have gone to Hogsmeade first, but I understand they cut it for time.)
Professor Slughornisn’t quite what I imagined, but I still think that Jim Broadbent was a great choice and I’m sure he’ll do very well. In the scene in his classroom we see Hermione’s hair looking very different from the previous movies. At first I thought, “What, are they finally making her hair bushy? Isn’t it a bit late for that now?” Later we see her with normal hair again, so maybe it was just the steam from the cauldron making her hair frizzier. Who knows.
Next is the scene where Ron is head-over-heels for Romilda Vane because of the love potion. Of course all the Rupert (Ron) fangirls think he was brilliant in this scene, but I’ve heard that some people found it kind of dumb. I personally enjoyed the dialogue and thought the delivery and timing were pretty spot-on. So I definitely didn’t think the scene was dumb, but unfortunately I can’t say that I find either Rupert or Dan (Harry) to be “brilliant.”
Next we see Luna in her spectrespecs. Ok, so the effects for the spectrespecs was slightly cheesy, but I didn’t really care because I absolutely adore Luna. I’m tempted to call Evanna Lynch brilliant for her flawless portrayal, but if you’ve seen any interviews with her you know that she practically is Luna, so I’m not sure how much actual acting is involved.
Ok, what is it with all the head-smacking in these movies? Last time it was Snape smacking Ron and Harry, and now we have Hermione smacking Harry with what appears to be a folded-up newspaper page. I am personally at a loss to know why the filmmakers are apparently obsessed with this form of comedy, but oh well. I thought Harry’s response to the smack made a much more amusing moment than the smack itself.
The most amusing (not in a good way) scene of the trailer is a short clip of Hermione crying, wearing what looks exactly like a Gryffindor fan t-shirt that you could buy online. Seriously. It doesn’t look anything like what you would ever see a Hogwarts student wearing. It looks like a freaking fan shirt. Is this a ploy to sell more merchandise? I think so.
I’m really interested to know how they handle the whole Harry/Ginny thing, since we get basically zero lead-in in any of the previous movies. It’s only in the last one that they figured out they needed to give her more screen time. Hopefully they’ll get it right.
The island in the cave with the Inferi does not look like I expected. Rather more treacherous with all the crystal-looking things sticking up all over the place. Still, I have confidence that it’s going to be an amazing scene. Just thinking about it makes me want to go re-read the book.
In fact, the whole trailer makes me want to go re-read the book, and I’m taking that as a very good sign. It means that so far it looks like they’re going to properly capture the spirit of it, which is really all I can ask at this point.
I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but I had a long discussion with the guy sitting next to me at work about religion. I work as a video game tester, so there is just row after row of people testing games, and conversations aren’t exactly private. The guy I was talking to is interested in learning about different religions, but doesn’t know which one he wants to follow.
I thought it was really cool that we had this big long public discussion where I was able to talk about why Christianity is different from all other religions, some of the reasons why we can know it’s true, and various theological points that he had questions about. Apparently he’s had a lot of negative encounters with Christians, such as judgmental and condemning churches and people whose whole explanation as to why they believed in Jesus was “because I do” or “because I was raised with it.”
I was able to hold my own quite well during the conversation and came up with intelligent responses to his questions. I think I was able to provide him with a really positive example of a Christian who knows what they believe and why they believe it.
It was a really wonderful experience to be able to be an ambassador for Christ like that. God has really been preparing me for this situation and hopefully similar situations in the future. Being used as a witness for God has given me even more of a hunger for his word, and I’m going to continue to pray that he will use me to accomplish his will.
I went to my first Harvest Crusade today! It was wonderful! It's late right now and I'm tired, so instead of trying to write a full report, I'll just make a few random observations.
1. Greg Laurie is awesome. 2. Leeland's "Tears of the Saints" is beautiful and never fails to make me teary. 3. I really need to get a Marty Goetz CD.
On to the pictures!
Waiting in line.
In the stadium with David's mom.
Pastor Greg speaking.
The best part: 3,704 people came forward to accept Jesus tonight! (The total for all three nights is 11,084!)
I used to see Jesus and what (relatively) little I knew of the Bible through the filter of my own experience and culture without even knowing it. It would never have occurred to me that it might be good to learn about Jewish history and culture. After all, what's the use of that in the here and now, right?
However, at that point my knowledge of God's word was somewhat less than intimate. I had heard sermons all my life and had memorized some verses for Sunday school, but that was basically it. Now I'm only about a month away from finishing my first full reading of the New Testament. (And then I can't wait to get started on the Old Testament!) I like topical messages in church as much as the next person, but it just doesn't replace actually reading the Bible all the way through in order. For me, reading it through makes it less about what I want to get out of a particular passage and more about what the author is really saying. When you're looking at it from this perspective, it becomes obvious that the more you know about the history and culture that the Bible deals with, the deeper your understanding of God's word will be.
In his book The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey says, "Alone of all people in history, [Jesus] had the privilege of choosing where and when to be born, and he chose a pious Jewish family living in a backwater protectorate of a pagan empire. I can no more understand Jesus apart from his Jewishness than I can understand Gandhi apart from his Indianness. I need to go back, way back, and picture Jesus as a first-century Jew with a phylactery on his wrist and Palestinian dust on his sandals."
In addition to the fact that understanding the Jewishness of Jesus will lead me to a better understanding of Jesus himself, my interest in this subject is also inspired by what the Bible says about Gentiles being "grafted in" with the people of Israel to receive God's promise to Abraham and his children.
Romans 11:17 (NLT) "some of these branches from Abraham’s tree—-some of the people of Israel—-have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree."
I like how this site puts it: "The words ‘Grafted In’ memorialize the affirmation of our true identity as a people, Jew and Gentile, securely rooted in the finished work of Yeshua HaMashiach. If you believe in Yeshua, you are Grafted In!"
I even got a new necklace because I'm looking forward to learning more about these things.
