Happy New Year, 2011!

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy new year 2011!

Andrew Cuomo has been sworn in; we have a new governor in NYS, and he acknowledges that he has a lot to do and he has already started it.

Lina Kulchinksy, lawyer-pastry chef-pretzel maker, branching out to a cart.

The very dangerous and probably illegal but terribly exciting and exotic thing about touring NYC’s tunnels.

On New Year’s Day, the NHL had to push the Winter Classic – the outdoor hockey game with Penguins v. Capitals – until the evening but still in the rain, since the temperature was too warm.  It’s possible that the tv ratings came off well for NBC and the NHL, but I kind of wondered if NBC got lucky, since the bowl games weren’t on that evening and it was otherwise a quiet tv prime time night.  The Capitals won, with the Penguins star Sidney Crosby getting dinged to the ice by the Capitals.

I personally like watching the game since it’s kind of crazy to watch hockey be played outdoors, but to make it a new prime time tradition?  Hard to say.  The stunning effect of hockey outdoors in a baseball or football stadium just looks cooler during the daytime.  But, that’s my two cents on the subject.

Also, the Daily News in the hockey section (can’t find a web version of this) posed the question of whether the NHL might consider having the NY Rangers host a future Winter Classic on New Year’s Day.  Apparently, Yankee Stadium might not be available for such a venture, since they now host a bowl (seriously?  Yes!: the Pinstripe Bowl with Syracuse v. Kansas!  And Syracuse won!).  I mean, that’s  too bad and all (Fenway did host a Winter Classic, but aren’t Bostonians bigger hockey fans than New Yorkers?).  Then again, apparently, the Daily News noted that it’d be even tougher to do a Meadowlands Winter Classic, since the Devils would want to be in on it and the national ratings for a Devils v. Rangers game wouldn’t be hot at all, even on New Year’s Day.  Oh well.  Wishful thinking!

Movies that I saw during the holidays:

Saw “The King’s Speech” at Cobble Hill.  Colin Firth really gets at the feelings and struggles of the stutterer Bertie, a.k.a. Prince Albert, the Duke of York and then George VI, and Geoffrey Rush was great at the speech therapist who had his own imperfections.  Helena Bonham Carter, as Elizabeth, Duchess of York (future Queen Mother to Queen Elizabeth II), was quite good; as Dana Stevens noted on Slate’s Culture Gabfest, Bonham Carter was acting as her old “Merchant Ivory self” rather than her recent career trend acting as crazy costumed woman – see “Alice in Wonderland,” “Sweeney Todd,” the Harry Potter movies, etc.).

The craziness and the banality of the Royal Family really got through; Firth as Bertie, who struggled with the balance of duty and loyalty to his father and his brother and a lot of other baggage – and happiness with his wife and daughters.  Bertie was also admirable for his loyalty to his country – in the face of World War II, he didn’t have actual power, but had to be the face of one of the un-invaded countries in Europe to stand up to Nazi Germany.

Is “The King’s Speech” the Best Picture for the Oscars?  I can’t really say, but it had a lot of stuff going for it, I thought, because Bertie was facing a modern world and the traditional trappings behind it.  There were the emotions, hopes, failings, and humanity in all involved.

Saw “Tangled” at the Park Slope Pavilion.  Even if a little derivative in putting together stuff from “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Little Mermaid,” the movie was sweet and heart-warming, in a great old-fashioned Disney way.  Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi are pretty talented voices actors.  Who knew that Levi (Chuck from “Chuck”) had it in him?  And, it was nice that Rapunzel was no wallflower; she wanted to see the world – and was willing to help everyone else along the way (which it took some time for Flynn Rider to figure out too – talk about a protagonist who was willing to make a sacrifice to do the right thing).

NY Times’ dance critic Alistair Macaulay makes some conclusions from his project of seeing way lots more Nutcrackers than most of us normal folk.

Oh, and Time Out New York on what 2011 things to look forward to checking out.

I hate that the holidays are winding up.  But, let’s see what’s next.