April 2011 In Films, Books and Music

Technically there is still half an hour of April left, so I think this is valid, but I'm gonna have to type bloody fast.

Films
I now have a proper film blog, in which I write much lengthier reviews of films that I've watched as soon as I've watched them, but these are a couple that didn't make it on to that blog for tiredness reasons.
Killing Bono - Ben Barnes (Prince Caspian) and Robert Sheehan (Misfits' Nathan) playing Irish brothers. The premise was promising, long before I knew the plot. And I did enjoy it enough to see it twice at the cinema, but it wasn't quite as funny as I'd hoped. To be honest the best parts of it were Barnes's very convincing Irish accent, and Sheehan's flawless comic timing.
As Good As It Gets - I'm going to do a proper review of this on my film blog at some point, because it was one of the absolute best films I've seen in bloody ages. Witty, clever, original and genuinely romantic without being cliche-loaded and cheesy. An example of what movies should be.
Elizabeth - Even though I KNEW the story of Elizabeth I, therefore I KNEW what was going to happen and I KNEW that true stories very rarely end happily, I still found this ultimately depressing. Also, as a history student, there were a few teeth-clenching historical inaccuracies, but why let fact get in the way of a good story?

Music
Another rubbishy month music-wise, but my Amazon ban is now officially over, so let's hope things perk up for the spring...
Honestly, the only new music I've been listening to this month is a mixtape my friend Roz made me, which is basically all the songs she knows I like that I don't already own. She did a damn fine job, actually, with my personal favourites being: 'Friday I'm In Love' - The Cure, 'Just For Tonight' - One Night Only, 'Broken Strings' - James Morrison ft Nelly Furtado, 'Dream Catch Me' - Newton Faulkner and 'Californication' - Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

Books
I know I said I'd be listing more books as of April. I lied. In my defence, it started off well, but once I actually got into my 'Classics Kick', it slowed down for unprecedented reasons...
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson - I was expecting to like this, but I was still shocked about how much I did. It's been ages since I've read a genuinely thrilling thriller, and this was brilliant, with a genuinely original heroine, an intriguing storyline and an edge-of-your-seat writing style. One thing I would complain about, though, is all the completely unnecessary detail the reader is given; we don't need to know which way Blomkvist walked into town, or which shops he went into and what he bought and what quanitities he purchased in. 'Blomkvist went shopping' would have sufficed.
The Catcher In The Rye, by J.D. Salinger - despite this being about a fifth of the size of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, it has so far taken me three times as long to read it. I know you shouldn't, but I was kind of expecting to be blown away by this book, because it's an inspiration for many of my favourite authors and people talk about it all the time. Thus I was very disappointed to find it - frankly - REALLY boring. Nothing actually happens. A whiny teenage boy wanders around New York, defying common sense. The end.

So there we go, a rushed, short, probably typo-ridden blog post that I'll almost certainly change completely when I read it back with an awake brain. But still; eleven minutes left to go. If I could high five myself right now, I totally would.