Happy Thanksgiving!

From me and President Bartlet

Jersey night

I saw Jersey Boys last night and I really quite enjoyed it. It was acted well, sung great, and had an interesting concept (the story [or part of the story] of the Four Seasons as told from each perspective). The theater was packed by an enthusiastic crowd, and I had a really fun time. I highly recommend it.

Having said that, I'm not sure whether it's the time of show that'll linger with me. I didn't find much of the story emotionally resonant. The story had it all--humor, the Mob, romance, divorce, the works. There was one moment that was sad--SPOILER, I guess--Frankie Valli’s daughter dies, but since so little time was spent on Frankie’s marriage, much less his children, I couldn’t get too upset by it. He seemed sad, and that made me sad, but that’s about it. I found the relationship among the members of the group interesting, and wound up liking all of them…but that's about it.

Not helping was my complete inability to figure out when things were happening. I don't think we were once given a date for when the action was taking place. It moves through decades, but you couldn't tell how much time was passing from one scene to the next. For example, in the beginning, we see Frankie and he's referred to as a kid; I think they say he's 16, but I could be making that up. And then in the next scene, he's married. Wha? At one point, they mention the Beatles, but that's really the only reference to timeframe--and since the Beatles were around from 1964 to 1970, that didn't particularly help. It was a relief to hit Wikipedia this morning and get a timeline. Mind you, that also made me realize why they weren't too specific in the play; they fudged around with the dates a bit, not surprisingly.

I do feel the need to go out and buy a Four Seasons album now. It's interesting that they did largely overlap with the Beatles--the Four Seasons peaked from 1962 to 1970--but it's so weird to think of these two totally different sounds both being so popular at the same time. One of the characters mentions that their audiences were different; I'll have to ask my parents whether they liked the Four Seasons, because I know they weren't huge Beatles fans in the 1960s. (Sigh. Oh, Mom and Dad.)

I did really enjoy the choreography. I loved, loved, loved watching them move as they sang. It was just so fun! I mean, watch this (skip to about 2:05 for the moving):

Neat, right? I'm a sucker for even basic choreography. Here's the London cast:

And now I'm intrigued to see it in London, just to hear the British Jersey accents. Similar to how I want to see Hairspray over there, for similar reasons. (Also, to just see Hairspray. I'm totally in love with that show.) Anyway, I particularly like the little double foot stamp they do during "Walk Like a Man."

(Hmm, it looks like YouTube has quite a few of the London cast. Awesome!)

So now I have "Walk Like a Man" in my head, which is cool. Also cool? That it's Jersey. They took their name from a bowling alley in Union County, which is my county, yo. I should warn any parents not to bring their small children. There's some lewdness and quite a bit of swearing…

...though I'm quite sure I don't know what that sign means.

Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside

My two favorite new shows this season are Glee and Community. I'm kind of in love with both of them. (And am kind of in love with Matthew Morrison and Joel McHale, respectively, but that's not really pertinent to this discussion.) You can't really compare them--Glee is an hourlong drama/comedy/musical; Community is a sitcom. Both take place in a school setting (high school and community college, respectively), but that's about it.

I keep seeing Glee being referred to as happy and feel-good and that sort of thing, which I find interesting, because it's really not. I mean, sure, it has the cast performing musical numbers, but it's not like they're all "Single Ladies" and "Sweet Caroline" (though, sometimes they are!). Sometimes, just like in musical theater, it's people expressing heartache and pain and confusion through song. The characters are dealing with fertility issues and being outcasts and unrequited love and sexuality and acceptance--and not always in funny ways that involve getting Slushees thrown at them. (Though sometimes there are airborn Slushees.) It's a show that on the outside is fun and happy...but is a LOT darker on the inside. Like any show about high school, if you dig just a little, you see the conflict. This is a show full of characters who really are not happy people.

Then you have Community. It stars Joel McHale, so anyone familiar with The Soup automatically views it as having a level of snark and cynicism. It's about a disgraced lawyer and doesn't really go into much depth (why exactly is he at a community college?) and there's a lot of banter and put-downs and that sort of thing. And it's a LOT more of a feel-good show than Glee. It's full of characters who care about each other and go out of their way to help the others out. Sure, they have problems too, but when I look into these people's futures, I see a lot less pain that what I see if I think about how the lives of the Glee folks may go.

Though I have to admit that very little cheers me up as much as watching Matt Morrison do "Bust a Move" or "Gold Digger."

Ah, Netflix, how well you know me

I haven't been on Netflix a ton lately and just noticed that they changed the categories of their suggestions from generic ("Comedy") to more specific. So what are my top five categories? Let's see...

1. Witty Comedies (recommending Easy Virtue and The Apartment)
2. Goofy TV Shows (Flight of the Conchords, SpongeBob Goes Prehistoric)
3. Critically Acclaimed Feel-Good Movies (Almost Famous, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)
4. Romantic Movies Featuring a Strong Female Lead (P.S. I Love You, Elizabeth: The Golden Age)
5. Violent Independent Movies (Requiem for a Dream, Pulp Fiction)

I particularly like the contrast between the last two categories.