Epinions Recent Reviews for munkus

Bumpattabumpah

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 09:57:07 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Phaic Tan- Sunstroke on a Shoestring is the follow up to the monstrously successful M
olvania-
A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry, by the legendary Australian comic trio of Santo Cilauro, Rob Stitch and Tom...

Land of Nokia and...um... gee

Wed, 24 May 2006 02:52:41 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Ah, Finland. Home of Nokia. I think. And Volvo? No, that's Swedish. Um, actually, gee. I don't know what comes from Finland. Vodka! And it has a Thousand Lakes, apparently. It was with this pioneering spirit of curiousity that I picked up this little...

Bang that Woodblock

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 04:21:58 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - John Adams, probably America's most prolific living composer, is often referred to alternately as a post-modernist or post-minimalist. The former is irritatingly vague, whereas the latter carries a hangover from the two bars repeated over seven hours a...

Tick Tock, Tick Tock

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 08:48:05 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - At age 27, the already established composer Maurice Ravel went to all 14 performances of Debussy's landmark opera Pelleas et Melisande. The influence of Debussy on the younger composer as been well traced, yet the most obvious influence of the...

I Sing in Search of a Plot, OOM-PAH, OOM-PAH PAH

Sat, 1 Apr 2006 00:50:10 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos came after he was flushed with success (and funds) from his masterpiece Der Rosenkavalier. Together with Hofmannsthal, he hunted for his next project. Two of the three possibilities (the third would become a...

Ridin' the Red Kangaroo

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 02:51:17 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Qantas is an interesting airline, one of the oldest and (as Rain Man fans will remember) one of the safest in the world. It was founded in 1927, and has never had a fatal accident since the dawn of the Jet Age in the 1960s. It is one of the...

Sid Meier's Civilization IV for PC: Addictive in All the Right Places

Sat, 4 Feb 2006 08:50:38 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - The Civilisation franchise has been one of the most enduring in computer gaming, even turning its own catchphrase with 'just one more turn'. In Civilisation IV, the newest and much anticipated release, you play 6,000 years of human history in just...

Keeping Mum: And to think, I always thought murder could've been exciting.

Wed, 1 Feb 2006 10:16:48 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Let me get one thing straight. In my next life I want to have to comic timing and presence of Dame Maggie Smith. Now that we've got that out of the way, I do wish she'd do some better films. In the little English hamlet of Little Wallop, the Reverend...

Beer's no doubt a gift from heaven...

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:12:35 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Smetana's The Bartered Bride is a happily festive and rustically jolly opera, set in nineteenth century Bohemia and is the earliest Eastern European opera still regularly performed. It had a complicated gestation, originally having its 1866...

Mary Poppins: No Spoonfuls of Sugar Needed

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 04:55:17 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - In my line of work, I have to see a lot of theatre. Thanks to We Will Rock You, Mamma Mia and, worst of all, Saturday Night Fever I can no longer listen to Queen, Abba and the BeeGees without having an overwhelming urge to ram a fork...

I Wanna Be A Director

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 03:41:48 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - When I first heard that T
he
Producers, one of my favourite musicals of recent years, was being given the big screen treatment at I was excited. Then a little dismayed, then a little sleepy. One of the biggest...

Fun and Games in Sunny Seville

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 08:44:36 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Legend has it that Rossini, always a cyclonic worker, wrote his greatest masterpiece, The Barber of Seville in under three weeks. He was a consummate recycler of music, so this would have helped, and he didn't write his own recitative, which...

Fun and Games and the Hotel Golden Lily.

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 07:27:42 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Written to celebrate the coronation of Charles X, Il Viaggio a Reims was then put into storage by Rossini because he wanted to re-use much of it for his next comic opera- La comte d'Ory. Because it was written for a distinct occasion (name...

Toot Your Flute, Tamino

Thu, 5 Jan 2006 10:50:51 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - The Magic Flute is a strange work. Undoubtedly it is some of Mozart's most wonderful, and most charming, music. Musical treat spills after musical treat. But the story is a bit of a funny old thing. The commission was for a singspiel (a...

He Sells Alternate Realities By The Seashore.

Wed, 28 Dec 2005 21:25:19 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Haruki Murakami's latest novel, translated from the Japanese original, is Kafka on the Shore, an intoxicating and hypnotic book which concerns two parallel odyessies. The first is of a 15 year old runaway, Kafka Tamura and the second of a 60 year...

Mrs. Henderson Presents: The Bob and Judi Show

Wed, 28 Dec 2005 05:33:33 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Let's be clear from the start. Mrs Henderson Presents is the Bob Hoskins (who co-produced) and Dame Judi Dench show. They're such a pleasure to watch and enjoy their outstanding dramatic (and comedic) abilities neatly gloss over any weakness in...

Roll Over, Beethoven

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 22:10:29 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - When New York oboist Blair Tindall published Mozart in the Jungle, quite a few feathers were ruffled. This hard-biting memoir not just crossed the line, but lurched across it, vomiting. The rarefied museum piece that is classical music in 2005 was...

The One With the Witty Analysis and Brilliant Glossary.

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 19:51:54 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Here is a book that in the context of discussing the great Berg psycho-drama, very probably one of the darkest operas ever written, Wozzeck, as such: The Drum Major is making a pass at Marie. Ain't I fine? Ain't I sexy? says he just feel me...

The Beer is So Cheap. Tremendous!

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 10:33:51 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Beach Life is a combined project of Deep Red (responsible for the surprisingly addictive Monopoly Tycoon and the not so great V
ega$
Tycoon) and Eidos, and was my latest fixation in my prolonged state of...

When The Lady's Too Fat To Sing

Wed, 2 Nov 2005 10:09:40 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Manuela Hoelterhoff is a former opera supernumerary (the lowest of the low onstage- they're paid a pittance for the glory of silently sharing the stage to fill out the crowd scenes), but is more known for her Pulitzer-winning achievements as a critic for...

A Smooth Ride Through Bumpy Places

Wed, 2 Nov 2005 06:13:23 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Eric Campbell, a foreign correspondent for Australia's ABC, had the misfortune to be at the vanguard of the US' recent and continuing adventures in Iraq. His new cameraman, Paul Moran, was the first foreign journalist killed in Iraq (it was his body...

Pitch Perfect

Wed, 2 Nov 2005 05:04:31 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Cecilia Bartoli is one of the rare singers who has not only completely enchanted the masses but has won over the opera snobs in the same stroke. She has pulled off this astounding feat by being very careful with her bookings- no more than fifty or sixty...

Not Quite the Jackpot

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 02:43:52 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - In my current state of unemployment, I have been struggling to keep myself amused. I've played some old classics on my laptop to pass the time, such as Civilisation II and the Age of Empires franchise. I hit up the old...

A Three Course Stravinsky Choral Diet

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 03:20:00 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - Robert Craft was Stravinsky's assistant, biographer and general musical secretary. As such he is generally held to be the guardian of authenticity in Stravinsky's works through a seemingly endless stream of recordings, essays and publications. It is a...

Ali-a-average-a

Wed, 5 Oct 2005 00:53:07 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author munkus - I made a one way Economy trip from N
ice
to R
ome-
AZ343 departing Nice at 1110 and arriving in Rome at 1220. During the summer schedule Alitalia operates three return daily flights...