Seen & heard: May 2012

Seen...

1. I watched Crazy Stupid Love for the first time last weekend and really enjoyed it.  Although somewhat slow to get going, it more than makes up for it towards the end.  One scene had me crying with laughter; watch out for the backyard confrontation.  It's a glossy and ultimately rather fluffy rom-com, but with a superior cast including Emma Stone, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling and Steve Carrell (reprising every role he's ever played, as a put-upon schmuck), it's definitely worth 2 hours of your time.

2. I've only just discovered E4's latest US import, Happy Endings, just as the series is coming to a close.  Doh.  Following the usual post-Friends set-up of three guys and three girls, it's silly but enjoyable (and definitely superior to the execrable 2 Broke Girls, which seems to think casual racism + a laugh track = comic gold).

3. How Beautiful The Ordinary is a lovely YA collection of short stories on the theme of LGBT identity.  I especially enjoyed Julie Ann Peters' First Time, a present tense, dual narrative retelling of a teenage lesbian couple's first sexual encounter, which certainly took me back to the uncertain fumblings of my youth.  The closing tale, The Silk Road Runs Through Tupperneck N.H by Gregory Maguire is not exactly a 'short' story at nearly 100 pages long, and kept me gripped long past my bedtime.  With sympathetic and realistically flawed characters, I found it incredibly moving and it's prompted me to take a look at some of Maguire's other work (which includes Wicked, on which the hit musical is based).

Heard...

1. I know I bang on about Karima Francis a lot, but she really is that good.  I had a great time at her gig in Nottingham last night.  Her single, Wherever I Go (not my favourite of her new material, it has to be said, but still amazing), has been getting some radio airplay and I am keeping everything crossed that this is the year she breaks through.  She deserves to be huge (and it'll be nice to say that I saw her back when...).

2. Not so much 'heard' as 'looking forward to hearing', but I'm excited about the new Beach House album.  So far I've resisted listening to it on Spotify (my laptop speakers are bust and make everything sound terrible), instead waiting until I can make a trip to indie record store Rockaboom in Leicester.