Did you wake up in the wee hours of the morning to catch the live telecast of the London Olympics opening ceremony last Saturday? I did & I loved the wonderfully ballsy & eccentric take on what must be the most watched opening ceremony in the world. Yes, it wasn't as spectacular as the Beijing Olympics with its incredible pyrotechnics, extravagance & its breathtaking precision in gargantuan scale as so many bemoaned but London, being one of the world's epicenter of pop culture, included so many elements of it [pop culture] with a dash of British humor that made this particular opening ceremony very, very cool in my opinion.
And would you expect anything less from the artistic director Danny Boyle who was the man behind such cult classics as Trainspotting & multi-awarded Slumdog Millionaire? Then throw into the mix a parachuting James Bond & Queen (yes, H.R.H. the Queen!), Mr Bean being hilarious, day dreaming & finishing off with a fart joke, a tribute to Harry Potter with JK Rowling doing a reading & appearance by Lord Voldemort, performances by Arctic Monkeys & Paul McCartney - I'm a very happy girl indeed. Admittedly though, being a lover of old English tales, I would've liked to have seen a sequence of medieval England with kings, queens, knights, courtiers & a dragon or two but in hindsight, that would've looked very out of place in Boyle's creation, but a girl can wish right?
In case you missed the opening ceremony, I found a full-length video of the opening ceremony here (all 4 hours with the athletes parade - Malaysia comes in at 2:23:10 by the way). God bless YouTube. And here's a written review that I found very in line with what I felt. Enjoy!
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