I haven't felt excited over something for a long time. When I heard the new Madonna album, Confessions on a Dancefloor, particularly 'Future Lovers' and 'I Love New York', I felt excited. It was when she sang :

"Put away your past
Love will never last
If you're holding on
To a dream that's gone
There's no love like the future love"

I've been feeling kinda 'dead' recently. Nothing excites me anymore. Not work, not even music and movies. I must be experiencing a rut or something. Right now I want to just get out of it. And that Madonna song really got me feeling good! It was an upbeat mix of house and disco. Music buyers can be assured with this album. Clubbers in Europe may have, at one time or another, danced to the record minus the vocals.
Album producer Stuart Price tested the songs during his DJ stints in clubs just to see the reaction. The most well-received songs are now in the Confessions album. Cool.

'I Love New York' is like a crazy little ditty which may soon be used by New York to promote the city.
"I hate cities, but I love New York," she sings. "New York is no place for pussies to scream."
"Los Angeles is for people who sleep, London and Paris? Baby you can keep."
*****************************************



ANOTHER thing that has got me excited is 'Brokeback Mountain'. It's tha latest movie to be directed by Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Sense and Sensibility). I hear people are no longer calling it a 'gay cowboy movie'. They're calling it a 'love story'. You can take that, and all the hoopla surrounding THAT wedding in Kuching recently, to the highway baby!

Hit the road, Jack! And don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more...

Heath Ledger said he had to mature as an actor just to play the role. The outcome, critics say, was worth it. Ledger's portrayal of the love-struck Ennis del Mar is his most powerful to date. Ditto for Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays the other dude.

Newsweek maagzine wrote how both actors faced cynicism upon accepting their roles in Brokeback. Ok lah, straight actors playing gay roles. OK. In a film which has gay sex scenes which are "fierce and full-blooded". Bloody hell. It's always an issue, right?...when straight dudes have to 'play it gay'. In the end, an actor has to act. He or she must inhabit the role. So really, Hollywood, what's the big deal? If the very gay Ian Mckellan can play straight guys then what's wrong with Ledger, Gyllenhaal, Hanks and The Rock playing gay. There is no issue in this, especially if you are an actor. At the end of the day, it's not about portraying homosexuality. It's about playing a human being, which is a much more complex thing than making gay sex look believable.

I have not seen the movie. So I'm leaving my judgement of the film for later.