Looking for lighter fare

Naturally I watched the Emmys last night--I love award shows and I love television. It's a can't miss. And the opening was just a complete win.



And John Hodgman is also awesome. The show started off well enough; I was hoping for an NPH win, but Eric Stonestreet is great on Modern Family. Jim Parsons is fabulous in Big Bang Theory, so I was psyched for him. I'm not the biggest Sue Sylvester fan, but Jane Lynch gave a fantastic acceptance speech.

As the night went on, though, I realized something. I don't watch dramas on tv. I watched Lost, but it's done. I have the entire second season of The Mentalist on my DVR, and the second half of Flash Forward. I couldn't get into The Good Wife and don't watch House for some unknown reason (yes, I know that Hugh Laurie is fantastic). Breaking Bad? The Wire? Mad Men? Nope, nope, nope. I watched part of the first season of Mad Men, but didn't care enough to keep going.

I could probably get into some of them, but there are a lot that I just can't get motivated for. I can't cope with dark, dark, dark, and it seems like a lot of the dramas on tv these days tend to be very dark. I'm sure these are good shows with great acting, etc. I just think that right now in my life, I prefer entertainment that makes me happy.

We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.

I love living near the AFI Silver. They always have great independent films and rotate through classics. And by that, I mean that they're having an 80s fest. On Saturday, they showed The Breakfast Club, 16 Candles, and Weird Science. I can't resist that much John Hughes, so I went to The Breakfast Club. It was actually really impressive. There's something different about seeing a movie in the theater versus catching it on tv. You pay a lot more attention. Even knowing so much of it by heart, I still found new things.

For one thing, the acting is really impressive. Judd Nelson, particularly, is great, but all of the actors have moments where they shine. Their facial expressions are just dead on. And there are times when you look at these guys, and it's like...They're so young. Which, duh, but it really struck me at times.

There was a fair bit of "Oh, you are such teenagers," which is to be expected. If that weren't there, we wouldn't have related to it back then. (Obviously, as a 6-year-old when it was released, I totally got where they were coming from.) But really, that is how John Hughes related. But, "I think when we grow up, our hearts die"? Please.

What I really noticed was the focus on the characters' virginity. They talk about it a LOT. And though sex was important in high school, I don't think it was that huge a deal to be a virgin. At least, not among people I was friends with. It didn't ring false, really--I could see there being curiousity about Claire, and Brian lying about it also makes sense. But it really stood out to me.

It really stood up to time, I think. It wouldn't have to be changed much if it were made today, I think. I guess a lot of issues really are timeless.

Actually, Yoshi's my favorite

My family knows me pretty well by this point (after all, they've known me for 31 years), so when I told them that I'd be seeing a musical based on a video game, they were like, "Oh. Sounds good."

Super Claudio Bros. follows the story of Claudio and Player #2, his brother Luis. Once again, Claudio has rescued Princess Tangerine from Bruiser. But instead of a musical just riffing on old Nintendo games (which, trust me, there's a lot of that), the show gets into the characters--what's it like to be Player #2? What motivates Bruiser? How is life for Princess Fish (Princess Tangerine's sister)? Luis is really the main character, and his conflicting feelings about his brother are the focus of the show.

It was an incredibly entertaining show, but it wasn't perfect. At times it was hard to hear the actors (who were sans microphones)--the synthesized music sometimes drowned them out (particularly Gia Mora as Princess Tangerine). The music was good for the most part; the lyrics maybe could've used a little work. It actually reminded me of the musical episode of Scrubs; one of the songs made me think of "What's Going to Happen?" from that episode (so that I wound up with that in my head, mostly because I'm more familiar with that song than the music from Super Claudio).

I had high expectations, because the show stars Sam Ludwig (Luis) and Stephen Gregory Smith (Claudio), and I'm a big fan of both of those guys. And they didn't disappoint. The acting all around was very well done. Ludwig has really impressed me since his turn as Tobias in Sweeney Todd and he brought a real depth to this role. Lauren Williams was super fun as Princess Fish. I realized that I had seen her as Little Red in Into the Woods, and ...yes. It totally makes sense. The two characters are similar and she brings a real likability to the role. Matthew A. Anderson as Bruiser was hilarious. And Smith? I can't say anything bad about the guy. He's just a very consistently good singer and actor. I particularly enjoyed his dancing in a number toward the end of the show.

It was such a fun time out. Really, you can't ask for more from a show than fun music, good acting, an incredibly funny script, and nerdy in-jokes.