Barb's Pop Culture Obsession of the Moment

Maybe the tv show is better?

2012-01-20T22:33:00.000-05:00

I never got into Sex and the City. I've seen a few episodes here and there, and I saw the movie. But that's about it. I've never read anything Candace Bushnell has written. So when I was playing around on my library's ebook selection and saw that Lipstick Jungle was available immediately (a rarity, but this is neither the time nor the place), I decided to check it out. I'm always happy to read chick lit, particularly when avoiding reading something a bit heavier (in this case, I should be reading Middlemarch for my book club).

After reading it, I can't say that I feel I've been missing out. In reading some of the reviews, maybe it was the book; a lot of people seemed to find it worse than Bushnell's other books. Part of my problem is that it's a book about rich, powerful, attractive women. Those are not things that I can really relate to. (Other than being a woman.) And Bushnell clearly had a feminist agenda, which is fine, but man, it was incredibly heavy-handed. I don't know Bushnell's story at all, but she doesn't come across as someone who likes men. There were numerous occasions of the characters needing to hear things that could only come from their girlfriends and long rants about how women have to act like men and blah blah blah.

The main problem, though, was with the main characters. The book follows three best friends: Nico (runs a magazine), Victory (fashion designer), and Wendy (head of a movie company). They were basically the same character. I spent the book trying to figure out which story was Wendy's and which was Nico's. It didn't help that Bushnell tends to start chapters and sections of chapter establishing a scene without explicitly stating who's in it (or how much time has passed since the previous chapter/section). When the characters all have the same traits. just sticking someone in a room doesn't differentiate. Of course, even when she did say who it was, I kept getting mixed up. Is Wendy the one having the affair, and Nico the one with the slacker husband?

All in all, it doesn't make me want to run out and read another Bushnell book. If the characters are people I can't really relate to, I at least want their stories to be unique and compelling. This book was neither.

2011 in reivew: Theater

2012-01-02T00:06:00.001-05:00

Parentheses indicate where I saw the show.

The Carpetbagger's Children (Ford's)
Sunset Blvd. (Signature)
Jersey Boys (National tour)
Les Miserables (National tour) (...twice)
Liberty Smith (Ford's)
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Broadway)
Follies (Kennedy Center)
Side by Side by Sondheim (Signature)
Oklahoma! (Arena)
I Capture the Castle (Signature)
Guys & Dolls (Tour)
The Boy Detective Fails (Signature)
Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (Signature)
Parade (Ford's)
Hugh Jackman Back on Broadway (Broadway)
Hairspray (Signature)
A Christmas Carol (Ford's)
A Second Chance (Signature)
You, Nero (Arena)
Pride and Prejudice (Round House)
Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare)

Looking back, Parade was my favorite; Signature's Hairspray was fabulous as well, and of course I loved Les Mis. And I may still be swooning over Hugh Jackman. There aren't any I didn't enjoy; I'm so fortunate that I got to see so many shows last year.

2011 in review: Books

2011-12-31T22:38:00.004-05:00

Asterisk indicates a reread; bold indicates books I particularly enjoyed.

Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hit & Biggest Flop of the Season, 1959-2009 (Filichia)
*Bright Lights, Big Ass (Lancaster)
Wolf Hall (Mantel) (Did Not Finish--p. 277)
*The Lives of Christopher Chant (Wynne Jones)
*Charmed Life (Wynne Jones)
*Witch Week (Wynne Jones)
Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the International Hunt for His Assassin (Sides)
The Stranger Beside Me (Rule)
*Bridget Jones's Diary (Fielding)
*Dogsbody (Wynne Jones)
Fool (Moore) (Audio)
Model Home (Puchner)
Reduced Shakespeare: The Complete Guide for the Attention-Impaired [abridged] (Martin & Tichenor)
Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl (Sturrock)
*The BFG (Dahl)
James and the Giant Peach (Dahl)
*The Twits (Dahl)
*Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Dahl)
*Matilda (Dahl)
Hotel du Lac (Brookner)
The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (Batuman)
*The Eyre Affair (Fforde)
*Lost in a Good Book (Fforde)
*The Well of Lost Plots (Fforde)
*Something Rotten (Fforde)
23 Minutes in Hell (Wiese)
Women, Food, and God (Roth) (DNF--p. 111)
The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln (Larson)
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World (Kidder)
Henry and Clara (Mallon)
Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, & Baseball's Longest Game (Barry)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Skloot)
Intuition (Goodman)
Thursday Next: First Among Sequels (Fforde)
There's Cake In My Future (Gruenenfelder)
A Rather Lovely Inheritance (Belmond)
Stephen Fry in America: Fifty States and the Man Who Set Out to See Them All (Fry)
Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence (James)
My Fair Lazy (Lancaster)
Thirteen Reasons Why (Asher)
Five Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (The Oatmeal)
We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals (Gill)
Suddenly You (Kleypas)
The Amazing Story of The Fantasticks: American's Longest-Running Play (Farber & Viagas)
Pygmalion (Shaw)
A Rather Curious Engagement (Belmond)
The Flight of the Romanovs: A Family Saga (Perry & Pleshakov)
Airhead (Cabot)
Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage (Rowley)
The Archivist (Cooley)
Being Nikki (Cabot)
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (Roach)
Runaway (Cabot)
In the Shadow of No Towers (Spiegelman)
Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties (Brahm)
Spoiled (Cocks & Morgan)
The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Barbery)
If You Were Here (Lancaster)
Rockville Pike (Coll)
The Inconvenient Duchess (Merrill)
In the President's Secret Service (Kessler) (Audio; DNF)
Dispatches From a Public Librarian (Douglas)
The Boy Detective Fails (Meno)
Super Sad True Love Story (Shteyngart)
At Home: A Short History of Private Life (Bryson)
How Did You Get This Number? (Crosley)
Maphead: Charting the Whole Weird World of Geography Wonks (Jennings)
*The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Shaffer & Barrows)
And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank (Oney)
Semi-Sweet: A Novel of Love and Cupcakes (Meaney)
The Baseball: Stunts, Scandals, and Secrets Beneath the Stitches (Hample)
Bossypants (Fey)
A Yank Back to England: The Prodigal Tourist Returns (Lipman)
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) (Kaling)
Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) (Sondheim)
Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife (Prose)

Week of Theater (addendum): Much Ado About Nothing

2011-12-21T19:38:00.002-05:00

I wound up getting a ticket to Much Ado About Nothing at the Shakespeare Theatre for a bit after my week of theater, but "Barb's Month of Theater" didn't seem quite right. Anyway, I love Much Ado. It was actually the first Shakespeare that I saw when not forced to in a classroom. A friend and I randomly rented the Emma Thompson/Kenneth Branagh movie back in high school, and I just fell in love.

Director Ethan McSweeny decided to set the show in 1930s Cuba. I always kind of side-eye updates of Shakespeare; no matter how much the setting might work thematically, the actors are still speaking Shakespeare's language, which is not really how people in Nazi Germany (or wherever) sounded. But I really felt like it worked. Maybe it's that the language of the play itself is more prose-y than a lot of Shakespeare's other plays. The set was gorgeous and the costumes fab. Loved all of it.

My main problems were with the play itself, not any of the acting choices or direction or performance. If you're not familiar with the plot, it tells the story of two couples--Beatrice and Benedick, whose relationship is all about the banter, and Hero and Claudio, the young lovers (i.e., they don't actually talk, just decide that they're in love). Everyone knows that Beatrice and Benedick would be perfect for each other, so their friends convince the couple that the other is in love with the other. Meanwhile, the villain of the piece for no actual reason endeavors to break up Claudio and Hero by having Claudio see a girl who looks like Hero get it on with one of the villain's friends.

I just can't get over how big a jerkhole Claudio is. He immediately believes that it's Hero (although, in fairness, he barely knows her). Instead of confronting her immediately, he decides to wait until the wedding ceremony to publicly shame her. And man, does he! He just goes on and on about how she's a whore. And then he's all joking around later! He totally sucks. And Leonato, Hero's father, isn't much better. After Claudio denounces her (backed up, in fairness, by Don Pedro, a prince), Leonato doesn't believe Hero's protests and joins in the speeches about how Hero is a total slut and has shamed him. Seriously, you just want to get up and smack them around. If I were Hero, after this, I wouldn't want Claudio. Why would I marry a guy so quick to believe the worst of me?

My other problem is the clown of the piece, Dogberry. He's the local constable, who overhears the villain's henchmen discussing the set-up of Hero. I just find him incredibly tiresome. He's the key to resolving the plot, so it's not like you can just cut his scenes; and people do really seem to find them funny. But...I don't know. I could live without the annoying interrogation scene.

That being said, I really enjoyed it. The scene when Benedick overhears Claudio, Leonato, and Don Pedro discuss how much Beatrice loves Benedick was hilarious. Incredibly well-staged, fantastic acting from everyone...just perfect. I honestly couldn't ask for more from that scene.

In close-up pictures, Derek Smith and Kathryn Meisle look a bit older than how I picture Benedick and Beatrice, but I was in the nosebleeds, so it wasn't an issue. But across the board, the acting was great, and the feel of the piece was exactly right.

I confess that I spent a lot of the show wanting to see the David Tennant/Catherine Tate version...and then I found out that I can download it! YAY!!!! And so now I want to watch it, even though I just watched a live production.

Good thing it's such a good play.

Week of Theater: A Christmas Carol

2011-12-10T23:58:00.001-05:00

A few caveats. First, I actually saw this the first time the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Second, I've seen this production before--a few times each the past couple of years. Ford's Theatre does A Christmas Carol every year, and usually does the same production of it for 3 years. Third, I volunteer at Ford's, in the museum and ushering. I can't really be terribly objective about it, because I'm friends with people involved. So.

It's an incredibly enjoyable production. It moves quickly, it blends traditional Christmas songs fairly seamlessly, and uses a lot of Dickens's language. (My favorite line, by far, is "There's more of gravy than of grave about you.") Edward Gero plays a fantastic Scrooge; he's legit threatening to people who ask him for money or wish him merry Christmas. (My other favorite exchange, between a man soliciting donations and Scrooge: "What shall we put you down for?" "Nothing." "You wish to remain anonymous?" "I wish to be left alone.") He manages to balance that well with his more comedic moments.

My main problem with the show is that it's a bit heavy-handed; I think that in it, Scrooge starts to change far too quickly--we see him start to regret things in the beginning of the very first "flashback" of The Ghost of Christmas Past (Felicia Curry, whom I adore). There's also a fairly lengthy dance sequence at Fezziwig's; I'd complain, except that it's fun, and they do need to pad the show a bit; the run time is a touch under 2 hours.

Otherwise...enjoy the cast, enjoy the show. My dad loved it. It's really a can't-miss for entertainment this time of year.

(Which is good. I'm scheduled to usher twice more this month.)

Week of Theater: Pride & Prejudice

2011-12-09T21:01:00.001-05:00

My Pemberley. Not the estate in Derbyshire.

My cats are named Colin and Pemberley. Obviously I love Pride and Prejudice. I'm at the point where I find it incredibly odd when I hear other people say "Pemberley." On the other hand, most people don't refer to Mr. Darcy's estate as "Pem Pem," which is what I usually call my cat. Who is adorable. (See left.)

Anyway, my third show this week was Pride and Prejudice at Round House. The actors playing Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, Kate Cook and Michael Brusasco, recently played the roles for the same director at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Cook was a fantastic Lizzy; honestly, she was all I could hope for in the part. She had the right balance of wit and wisdom, though at times I did feel like she was smiling perhaps a bit too much.

Brusasco...I don't know. I thought he was great in the first act, which ended with--of course--the proposal. I had issues with him in the second act, during which he went from "aloof" to "comically exaggerated." After seeing the show, I read an interview (second article down) in which Brusasco said "I think there's something laughable - laugh-at-able - about Darcy, in a live performance. . . . The audience is given the chance to laugh at his social awkwardness, at his inability to communicate. Some of the things he says, they're just cringe-worthy."

There are certainly times when Darcy's awkwardness can be amusing, but doing a comic take that came straight out of some slapstick bit when Darcy runs into Elizabeth and the Gardiners at Pemberley (...hee) is not right. Darcy is not someone who makes faces or is overtly comical. He might say awkward things; people might say things that are funny about him. But Darcy should never make faces that I expect to see a comic actor making.

Otherwise, the adaptation worked well. The second act felt a bit rushed; we definitely didn't get to spend enough time seeing Elizabeth soften toward Darcy, and everything about the Lydia/Wickham subplot happened far too quickly. (And yet we get a scene with the Gardiners making jokes about the name Lambton? Really?) The show also had a tendency to try to foreshadow things that weren't really necessary. But in general, the flow of the show went very well.

The supporting cast were quite good. Heather Haney, who played Jane, reminded me of Rachel McAdams and had the right qualities of beauty and sweetness. James Konicek is a favorite of mine, and his Mr. Collins was reminiscent of his Benedict Arnold in Liberty Smith. In an amusing way. (He's the comic relief, Michael Brusasco.) Danny Gavigan seemed to try to do some sort of lower class accent for Mr. Wickham, but had the right combination of good lucks and sleaziness.

I usually don't comment much on the set, but this was an interesting one. In the middle of the stage was a square piece that rotated and had doors that opened and could be used to indicate various rooms. But because this piece was so bulky, it required that almost all of the action had to take place front stage, center to be seen. It worked better in theory than in practice, I think, though I can't complain about the location of the action--I was sitting in the second row in the center section.

One is always pickiest about things he or she loves, and so it is with me and P&P. It's a very well-done show, and I can't complain too much about a show in which both Darcy and Lizzy were brought to tears in the second proposal scene. So sweet.

I also want to credit Round House, which focuses on adaptations of literature. It's a fascinating concept. For all that it's hard to adapt books to movies, it's that much harder to adapt books to plays.

Week of Theater: You, Nero

2011-12-07T17:05:00.001-05:00

My second trip to the theater this week brought me to Ancient Rome, under the reign of Nero. You, Nero tells the story of Scribonius (a real name from Roman times, apparently, and played by Jeff McCarthy, whose bio tells us that he is the voice of Michigan J. Frog), a playwright who is commissioned by Nero (Danny Scheie) to write a play about his life. Scribonious decides to use the opportunity to try to turn Nero's life around--stop the random killings, etc.

It's a new comedy from Amy Freed, who was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama (for Freedomland) and is now Arena Stage's playwright in residence. And we're talking broad comedy (e.g., "...eschew." "Gesundheit!"). It was very funny, but it also seemed that at times it didn't quite know what it was going for. The actors frequently addressed the audience directly and a couple of times it seemed like they were encouraging audience participation, but it never quite felt right.

And the end. Oh, the end. Freed admits that she used the play to compare the fall of Rome to our own times and that it's a commentary on how people don't appreciate theater and there isn't any serious entertainment anymore, etc., etc. Which...OK, I get that there are some stupid reality shows out there (do we really need to bring back Fear Factor?), and there certainly a lot of issues going on around the world, but a direct comparison seems a bit heavy-handed. We're not quite at the point of killing each other for sport, no matter what dystopian literature would have us believe. And there's a fair amount of good drama out there--if not on the stage (and I can't comment on that; I pay more attention to musical theater than straight plays), then at least on cable television.

In the lead roles, McCarthy and Scheie were quite good. McCarthy apparently only just stepped into the role last week; he was still on-book for chunks of the play, but for the most part, it wasn't an issue. (There were a few moments in the second act where he had to check his lines and it hurt the flow a touch, but honestly, he did a fab job.) Scheie was excellent as Nero; he portrayed the emperor as both very threatening, but managed to show other facets to his personality. He's also the most comic of the parts. My only quibble is that Nero died at the age of 30; Scheie does not look 30. Or in his 30s. Freed credits Scheie as being her muse, but it would be interesting to see the role played by an age-appropriate actor. There was a sizable ensemble who, for the most part, seemed somewhat superfluous, particularly seeing how a couple actors had multiple roles. The cast didn't need to be as large as it was, though far be it for me to say that fewer actors should be working.

In the end, the show was an enjoyable couple of hours. The show could use some work, but I don't regret spending the money to see it.

Week of Theater: A Second Chance

2011-12-02T23:00:00.001-05:00

As the first of four shows I'm seeing in the next week (and then another on December 17!), I saw A Second Chance at Signature. It's a new musical, the first from writer/lyricist Ted Shen, and tells the story of Dan, a widower, and Jenna, a divorcee. (The couple is played by Brian and Diane Sutherland, married in real life. Always so cute when that happens!) They meet at a party. The piece follows their relationship over the next 7 months.

The show is perfect for the Ark Theatre at Signature, the small, black box space. It's a quiet, intimate piece. The story is an emotional journey, and there aren't any crazy obstacles thrown in the path of their relationship--just the emotional baggage that two middle-aged adults have. Jenna seems perhaps a bit overly reluctant at first, and Diane Sutherland at times acts by way of gestures a bit much, but those are my only qualms with the show.

The show is sung-through, and the songs have a Sondheim quality--and Sondheim himself gets a shout-out at Dan and Jenna's first date, a trip to the Met. However, it was one of those shows where because the music reminded me of something else, I wound up with the music from Merrily We Roll Along in my head, not A Second Chance. I did find myself wishing there was more straight dialogue...but then wondering what the dialogue would be. This is a show of introspection, and that's something that comes from an internal monologue--song. The show doesn't need dialogue, but I found myself missing it. Maybe just to give the two actors a break, though they both had fantastic voices.

I also noticed the same technique that I picked up on in Parade--at the end of a song, the music bled into the next, leaving little opportunity. This happened for the first few songs, and then did allow for applause. But it almost felt intrusive to applaud; in such a small space, it was almost like that would be the illusion.

A Second Chance is a quiet, emotional piece and made for an enjoyable evening. Will it take the theatre world by storm? No. But it's great to see such a good show about a topic that's so rarely explored.

How I didn't change the Twilight trailer

2011-11-03T21:29:00.001-04:00

A while back I went to see Contagion in the theater. My friend and I got to the theater super early, so were just sort of hanging around. We got pulled over by Nielsen to provide input on a trailer. Because I am a total dork, this made me incredibly happy. Yay! I want to affect others' entertainment lives!

On the negative side, the trailer was for the new Twilight movie. I'm now seeing the commercials on tv. I don't think I had much of an effect, in the end. It's probable that I wouldn't have, seeing how I kept answering that I wouldn't go see the movie, no matter what. And that my suggestion for improvement was to have more Michael Sheen in it, because I was pretty sure he was in the movie.

On the positive side, the guy interviewing me said that I had given the best summary of the movie he had heard all day. I'm going to go ahead and take that as a compliment.

Rumblin' and rollin' at Ford's

2011-10-22T23:25:00.000-04:00

I've now seen Parade at Ford's Theatre four times, so I guess it's about time for me to review it. Parade is the true story of the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old girl who worked at a pencil factory in Atlanta, and the trial and lynching of Leo Frank, a Jew from Brooklyn with a college education who was the superintendent of the factory. It's a musical.

One of the things that I really like about the show is that Leo Frank isn't really a sympathetic character, particularly in the first act. He's cold toward his wife, Lucille. He feels alienated from the people surrounding him. He has an air of superiority about him. He does have a song, "How Can I Call This Home?" that gives us his point of view, but...this is also the guy who says, "Oh, not 'Fagin' as in Dickens; 'Phagan' as in 'phalanx'!" It's played for laughs, but...yeah.

I also appreciate that the story has so many layers--anti-Semitism, racism, media sensationalism. I know I'm a total geek, but it makes me happy that I walked away from it wanting to know more, wanting to read more about the Leo Frank case.

The score is impressive. One of the hard things about a story like this (and there are many) is that it's all so somber. The songs usually effectively run into each other, meaning that the audience doesn't feel obligated to applaud a song when it might feel awkward. (And let's face it, there's no good way to applaud a song in which a teenage boy curses the murderer of a girl he liked. It's like in Les Mis, how Javert's Suicide bleeds into "Turning," which bleeds into "Empty Chairs, Empty Tables." You can applaud, but it doesn't feel weird if you don't.)

And the acting. I found James Konicek's Hugh Dorsey, the prosecuting attorney, particularly notable. The way the part is written gives the actor a lot of flexibility. Konicek portrays Dorsey not as some major villain (unlike his comical portrayal of Benedict Arnold in Liberty Smith earlier this year, also at Ford's), but as a man who isn't entirely comfortable with what he's doing. He always goes ahead and makes the wrong choice, but isn't running into the moral dark side with abandon.

One of the most striking moments in the show for me is in the courtroom scene, when some of the girls from the factory testify again Frank. They portray him as a predator, which leads to his song, "Come Up to My Office." I didn't need to be sold on Euan Morton as a fantastic actor (loved him in Chess and the cabaret I saw him do in Baltimore last October), but if I did, this would do it. The cold, detached man we've seen throughout the first act suddenly becomes an aggressive, leering harasser. It's a great number, with a neat little dance in it, and Morton's transformation to and from the character in that song is amazing.

(Side note: I've had the chance to meet Euan Morton a few times, and he's honestly a great guy. It's always nice finding out that an incredibly talented guy who's been nominated for a Tony and an Olivier Award is also a really good person. Who is VERY fond of baked goods.)

The heart of the story is Lucille Frank, played by Jenny Fellner, who's glorious. I love her voice and her passion, and want to acknowledge the costume designer here for a minute. Early in the show, Lucille wears an outfit that kept pinging my brain until I realized it was because it reminded me of an outfit I'd seen in a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt, from the same time period. Kudos!

The show isn't perfect. It leaves you with the impression that the defense didn't do anything. It's very long (though I never found myself bored during it, but 2.5 hours is a LONG time). It has a small cast and many characters play multiple parts, which can be confusing at times.

But it's a powerful, well-acted show that's full of fantastic music.

iTunes as an indicator that I have too many showtunes

2011-10-15T21:57:00.003-04:00

I was listening to iTunes and a song called "The Robbery" popped up...and it was one of three with that title. From, yes, three different musicals: Blood Brothers, Les Miserables, and Oliver.

Do you want to know if you have too many showtunes? Check for things like the number of songs you have called "Overture" (my count: 23) or "Entr'acte" (9) or "Finale" (26). I also have 14 "Prologue"s and 4 "Epilogue"s.

I mean, I guess my "Showtunes" playlist with 1,662 songs (nearly 4 days' worth!) is another good indicator. (And no, I'm not entirely sure if it's up-to-date or whether I caught all the showtunes in my library.)

(Another note: I have 5 songs called "Confrontation," but two are different Les Mis recordings and two are different Jekyll & Hyde [don't judge!] recordings.)

The Boy Detective succeeds...mostly

2011-09-10T00:43:00.000-04:00

One of the many things that's awesome about Signature Theatre is its habit of taking chances. They're opening their current season with not one but two new musicals--and in rep. Last night I saw The Boy Detective Fails, which is the story of Billy Argo, who, with his younger sister and best friend, solved crimes when he was growing up. He went off to college, his sister killed herself, and he wound up in a mental institution for 10 years. The musical is the story of what happens to Billy when he leaves the mental hospital and tries to figure out what drove his sister to suicide.

The best thing about this show, by far, was the cast. Two of my favorite DC actors, Stephen Gregory Smith and Evan Casey, were in it--Smith as Billy Argo and Casey as one of the people Billy sent to prison, among numerous other parts.

(I'm not really sure why Casey keeps getting cast as villains. I saw him in Camelot as Mordred and Little Shop of Horrors as Orin, the dentist. Don't get me wrong--he's fabulous in those parts. But he also does comedy very well and is a cute guy. I want to see him as a non-villain!)

Smith was absolutely fantastic as Billy; he carries the show on his back. He believably portrays both 10-year-old Billy and 30-year-old Billy. His mannerisms are fantastic. He transforms from being stilted to learning to live and interact with the world and the numerous bizarre characters with whom he comes in contact. His emotions just come through on his face and he's incredibly likeable.

I was very impressed with the ensemble. The majority of the cast plays numerous roles throughout the show; some, multiple times. (Evan Casey had to transition from "Generic Townsperson" to "Killer Kowalzavich" and back very quickly quite a few times in the show.) And there are some great harmonies throughout the show that were super impressive. I really didn't feel like there was a weak member of the cast--made more impressive by the fact that almost all of them are also currently in The Hollow.

I wish I were as impressed with the songs and the script. Another nemesis of Billy, Professor Von Golum, has two songs...that seem largely to say the same thing. I loved the two songs with Billy's love interest, Penny--"As Long As You Are Here" and "I Like (The Secret Song)"--but the rest largely made no impression. The show was 2 hours and 20 minutes, and not all of the songs in the show were necessary. I'm sure that there were a LOT more songs that were in there, but not everything in the book has to be in the musical.

And the story...I don't know. The plot itself intrigued me. I got the book the show is based on out of the library because I want to know more. The problem is that I feel like I have a lot of unanswered questions and I want to see if the book provides insight. I feel like the story resolved itself awfully quickly; I'm not entirely sure how the characters wound up where they did. Why did that character make that decision? Does that character think another has actually changed--or is he or she just hoping for the best? Has that character actually changed? I feel like the show would've been better served by taking out one of the Von Golum songs and spending that time fleshing out the end of the show.

Is the show worth seeing? Definitely. The cast is great, the plot and Signature should be rewarded for putting this show on. It could use some tightening, but was still a great way to spend the night.

Snape, Snape, Severus Snape

2011-09-07T20:55:00.002-04:00

Anglophenia, a BBC America blog, did a tournament of favorite British actors. The worst stage for me was when David Tennant went head-to-head with Colin Firth. Just mean. Anyway, the final was between Colin Firth and Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman won.

Look, I love Alan Rickman, but to me, Mr. Darcy > Colonel Brandon. And I can't help but feel that Rickman won with an assist from his turn as Severus Snape. There are a lot of women who are in love with Alan Rickman as Snape. Look, I love Rickman. I think Snape is a fascinating character. And Rickman does a FABULOUS job with Snape. But I just don't understand people who think he's sexy as Snape. Snape, the character, is not sexy. Rickman as Snape is not sexy. I guess the argument is that he's all tortured? Or something? I mean, we don't find out anything sympathetic about him until Prisoner of Azkaban, and that's only that the Marauders were mean to him.

Of course, there are some guys I find sexy that people probably don't. So I shouldn't judge. And he was EXCELLENT in Sense and Sensibility.

And yep, saw him as Firmin on April 13, 1994

2011-08-31T22:55:00.000-04:00

I'm a huge Orioles fan now, but that didn't really happen until the mid-2000s. (You know, when the Orioles were in their heyday.) I liked them before that, but wasn't, you know, a huge fan. I remember when Cal Ripken was about to tie and break Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak back in 1995. Because I was in high school, and because of everything that goes with that, I was all, "Pft. Whatever. I mean, you never hear about people who are in Broadway shows that run forever." Which...OK, you can't really compare them. And I appreciate what Cal did a lot more now than I did then. But still...people don't appreciate casts of long-running shows.

So I was happy to see an article posted by Entertainment Weekly about George Lee Andrews leaving Phantom of the Opera. (The New York Times also has a story, with more information.) He's been with the show from the very beginning, back in 1988. Cal played in 2,632 games consecutively (3,001 games total, not including postseason) (yes, the O's DID make it to the postseason back then); Andrews performed in Phantom 9,382 times. He's been doing that show for over 23 years. First of all, it is amazing that the show's still running. And second...holy crow. He did take some breaks, including 3 months to do Paradise Found in London in 2010. But honestly, it's just amazing.

What's sad is that it wasn't his choice. I can understand wanting new blood, but unless they're totally recasting the show, I don't really get it. Is the guy playing one of the Opera managers really holding back the production? I can't believe it. But at least Andrews seems to have accepted it, and I can only wish him luck in the future. (And it's kind of sweet that the role is being taken over by his son-in-law.)

In any case, I'd say that Andrews's record is as unbreakable as Cal's.

This way!

2011-08-14T21:26:00.003-04:00

My first real theater memory is either when I saw Cats on Broadway when I was 6 or when I saw Bye Bye Birdie at a local high school (community college?) around the same time. (As I recall, they staged "The Telephone Hour" using ladders.)

But one of my earliest is seeing an assembly in elementary school--probably 4th grade--about the high school's production of Guys & Dolls. They showed how the choreography of "Crapshooters Dance" was broken down into counts of 8, the first time I had heard of that. They probably performed some other songs, and definitely gave an overview of the plot. I remember the performance of "Luck Be a Lady" and the blackout cliffhanger at the end.

I don't remember whether we saw the show; I do remember that I watched the movie version with Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando a LOT when I was growing up. It's easily one of my favorite musicals. (And the movie is impressive for how close it stays to the play; so many movie versions change things for no apparent reason.)

Last night I saw a touring company production of Guys & Dolls. I saw the revival back in 1993, and that's the recording I have. Only after seeing the show and getting thrown off by the orchestrations and consequently reading the Wikipedia entry for the show did I find out that it's that revival that changed the orchestrations; what I heard last night was the original sound of the show.

Overall, it was quite enjoyable. Honestly, it's such a great show, it's hard to go wrong. I wasn't blown away by it, though, or by any of the performances. As Sky, Ben Crawford was incredibly charismatic, but every time he sang, I got thrown off; his voice was deeper than I expected, and it was almost operatic. Looking at his credits (which include Booth in Assassins; I mean, talk about the way to my heart), I don't know why this would be the case, but there it is.

Steve Rosen's Nathan Detroit was much more of a schlub, maybe, than I expected (and for some reason, the choreographer had Nathan shooting craps in "Crapshooters Dance," despite the subsequent line about Nathan not participating in the gambling itself, other than taking a piece of each bet). Unfortunately, this impression was made in literally his first moments on the stage. I liked him, but...there seemed something off with the characterization that I can't quite put my finger on.

Megan Sikora as Adelaide and Erin Davie as Sarah were quite good. The Hot Box girls stripped a bit more than I'm used to, and Sikora was directed to sing purposely bad in her two Hot Box numbers for some unknown reason, but both were quite good singers and had the charm and energy to pull off their parts. "If I Were a Bell" was one of the highlights of the show for me.

After doing "Crapshooters Dance" with my tap group this spring, I was totally psyched for the number, but a bit disappointed with the actually choreography. I admit I was comparing it to the movie version (which, OMG, I love so much) and remembering when I saw the show on Broadway--we sat in the 2nd or 3rd row, and I just remember all these guys dancing so hard and holding the pose at the end, panting like crazy, as the audience went nuts. It was still a good dance--the opening sequence, "Runyonland," was also very enjoyable--but I have that dance built up in my head. I think my problem is that a lot of it was only a few dancers moving at a time, instead of the whole ensemble. Less impressive that way, or something.

This seems fairly negative; the reality is that I had a really enjoyable time and thought it was a good production. Not a great one, but the show itself is great. It evens out.

And I still dream that Ford's will do Guys & Dolls one of these seasons. It just seems like a perfect fit. (Not that I'm complaining about them doing 1776 next season!)

Yes, "best ass" and "freshman class" DO rhyme. Good observation.

2011-07-17T00:19:00.004-04:00

I'm reading this young adult book, Thirteen Reasons Why. It's the story of a high school boy listening to tapes made by a girl who committed suicide. It's a very good book--good characters, great plot. I'm about a third of the way through and have no idea where it's going.

I got the book out of the library, which is adding another layer to this experience, because someone who read this before me wrote notes in the margins. She's clearly a teenager, from the comments (and female from the handwriting). And I'm loving seeing her comments. Now I know how the target audience feels about it all.

It seems clear that she wanted other people to read this. I mean, first of all, writing in a library book. But this was hammered home by what I just ran across: She wrote something, and erased it. She'll write that Skye is a cute name, and that she had this "epic hang out" with someone, but she erased that a character who decided to stop wanting to be part of anything sounded kind of like her. And yet, having the entire school calling the main character a slut wasn't that bad--not bad enough to cause the character to kill herself ("I mean, what happened sucks, but life goes on...").

It's intriguing, and I'm looking forward to continuing reading this book with some company.

And yes, I'm bolting the door tonight

2011-07-07T23:37:00.003-04:00

In Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence, Bill James (best known for his work in sabermetrics in baseball) integrates popular crime stories going back more than 200 years with his thoughts on popular crime itself--as a reflection of society, how it influences society, the problems with our judicial and penal systems, motivations of serial killers, what makes certain stories more fascinating than others, what it should take to convict someone of a crime.

He has a very personable way of writing that may turn some readers off, but I largely enjoyed it. My problems with the book were that it's too long and that he blows through so many cases that it's hard to keep up. At the end of the book he'll reference a story from 300 pages earlier; despite having gotten through the book quickly, I can't remember the details. He also sometimes assumes a level of familiarity with some of the larger cases (Sacco and Vanzetti, I'm looking at you) that the reader may not have.

James has a tendency to state things as facts that aren't, and he never fails to let his opinion be known. But his writing is good enough and he generally provides the backup that I don't really mind. His thoughts on the Kennedy assassination (one of the very few discussions of a political crime he gets into) were particularly interesting, as well as his theories on the social cycles of the country in the last 100 years or so.

And if you're interested in reading more about many of the crimes he discusses, James lists the books written particularly about that crime and gives his thoughts on them. And he doesn't hold back. For example, "Fatal Vision was a very successful book that a lot of people like, but the problem with it is that you could edit out 75% of the book without losing a single fact or insight" (p. 305).

I also can't help but be bemused by his rating system of crimes--categorizing it, then numbering its fame. The baseball stat geek crept through a bit.

So if you're interested in true crime, I definitely recommend picking this book up and giving it a go...but be prepared to skim through some bits.

$156.01 of iTunes (and more!)

2011-06-15T17:40:00.002-04:00

I recently finished a large freelance project, and one of the things I did with the money was buy everything on my iTunes wish list. That's $156.01. For that, I got 172 songs--including 7 albums and a lot of songs from Glee. (By "a lot," I mean 47.) (Yes, 47. God help me.) (Interestingly, some are categorized as "pop" and others as "soundtrack." And that's not by songs from shows vs. songs not from shows.) And then I got a bunch of songs that either I ran across randomly or, more likely, I saw when I was looking at my tapes and was like, "OMG I HAVE TO HAVE THAT SONG RIGHT NOW!!!" (I'm also using some of my earnings to get a bunch of tapes converted to CD.)

Want the breakdown?

Albums
Newclear - Euan Morton
So Close - Daniel Boys
Barnum
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
Blood Brothers
1776
The Fantasticks

Glee
Nowadays / Hot Honey Rag [feat. Gwyneth Paltrow]
Don't Go Breaking My Heart
Lucky
Rolling In the Deep [feat. Jonathan Groff]
Like a Prayer (feat. Jonathan Groff)
Happy Days Are Here Again / Get Happy
Jar of Hearts
Marry You
Whatever Happened to Saturday Night?
Sing
I Feel Pretty / Unpretty
The Only Exception
Telephone
Fat Bottomed Girls
Dog Days Are Over
Born This Way
Damn It, Janet
Just the Way You Are
She's Not There
Animal
Silly Love Songs
What I Did for Love
Sway
Don't You Want Me
Friday
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One
Like a Virgin (feat. Jonathan Groff)
Need You Now
Bills, Bills, Bills
Marry You
Start Me Up / Livin' On a Prayer
Forget You [feat. Gwyneth Paltrow]
I've Gotta Be Me
Go Your Own Way
I Know What Boys Like
Empire State of Mind
Dancing Queen
Touch a Touch a Touch a Touch Me
Take Me or Leave Me
One Love
Make 'Em Laugh
Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?
Just the Way You Are
Tik Tok
When I Get You Alone
Firework
Blame It (On the Alcohol)

Random Songs
Two Princes - Spin Doctors (Mmm, it's high school all over again!)
Let's Go to the Mall (From How I Met Your Mother) - Robin Sparkles (YES!!!!)
The Glory of Love - Bette Midler
Zoot Suit Riot - Cherry Poppin' Daddies
Goody Two Shoes - Adam Ant
Shut Up and Dance - Aerosmith
Tubthumping - Chumbawamba
Rock the Casbah - The Clash
Come Out and Play - The Offspring
Fuck You - Cee Lo Green
The Gambler - Kenny Rogers (How did I not already have this song?)
I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - The Proclaimers (Ditto!)
Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps - Mari Wilson (Theme to the British Coupling. This Wish List has been a long time in the making)
I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow
Rock Me Amadeus - Falco
C'est La Vie - Bewitched (I had forgotten this song existed, then stumbled across it in the iTunes store and just about flipped out.)
Mutha (Don't Wanna Go to School Today) - Extreme
Pocketful of Sunshine - Natasha Bedingfield (Thanks, Easy A!)
Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners (No idea how I didn't already have this one.)
88 Lines About 44 Women - The Nails
Be My Yoko Ono - Barenaked Ladies
Soon We'll Be Found - Sia
The Lovers That Never Were - Paul McCartney
Oh My God - P!nk (I first heard this in a YouTube fanvid about David Tennant. Yum.)
How Bout Dem O's - Warning Track Power (A year or two old, but I don't care.)

AND I got Everclear's Songs From an American Movie, Vol. One: Learning How to Smile and No Doubt's "Just a Girl" from Amazon.

Brings a tear to the eye

2011-06-12T01:09:00.005-04:00

I was chatting with another usher last night at Side by Side by Sondheim, discussing various shows. He mentioned seeing Signature's Les Mis and being surprised at the people crying. He was all, "But I guess I remember seeing it for the first time and crying." I told him that even though the number of times I've seen it has reached double digits, I still cry. I didn't mention that sometimes I tear up just listening to a recording of it. Or how I bawled numerous times when watching the 25th anniversary concert.

Some things just have that effect on me. For example, Apollo 13. I watch it every time I run across it on tv. And pretty much every single time, I wind up at least tearing up. It's always the moment when they're waiting for them to emerge after reentry. It's the moment with Lovell's kids, when they think the module burned up. The daughter has tears in her eyes, and looks down a bit, clearly thinking, "My dad is dead--it's real." The son, at school, looks up at the clock, to remember the time it happened. And me? I cry. It's like a switch.

And I can't resist it.

Year after year, older and older

2011-05-24T21:09:00.003-04:00

I went to a "look-in" at the Kennedy Center with the lead cast members of Follies--basically, a discussion. The first half hour, the cast answered questions from the moderator; the second, they answered audience questions. One guy asked Bernadette Peters something like, "If someone isn't familiar with Sondheim, what song do you think would be the best example of him?" Response of the audience: "Oooooh."

Bernadette Peters couldn't answer it. Sondheim, of course, is too elusive. It's crazy when you look at his shows, when you listen to the incredible variety of music he writes. There's the pastiche in Follies, the journey through American songs in Assassins, the classical influence of A Little Night Music...It's crazy.

It reminds me of when I was talking to the two teenage guys in my tap class. I mentioned Sondheim, and they hadn't heard of him. (Maybe because they're European? ...Or teenage boys?) I was trying to think of something they might know, and came up with Sweeney Todd. Which they DID know. But that's the thing about Sondheim--this genius, yet so many of his shows flopped. Have most people heard of him? I don't even know.

One of the actors made a comment in the look-in about Sondheim's songs. There was a discussion about singing his songs on their own, in concerts and so forth. Bernadette Peters said that she wouldn't sing "Send in the Clowns" outside of Night Music, because for her, it's too much part of the story. Another of the actors then pointed out that the great thing about Sondheim is that the songs work both perfectly in the shows...but their lyrics are so universal that a lot of the time, they don't need the show. I knew "Clowns" and "Losing My Mind" and "Broadway Baby" and "Putting It Together" and "Side by Side" before I knew the shows they came from. They mean more now...but they were pretty great before, too.

Between the look-in today and reactions to the show I was reading on message boards, there is a LOT of love for the original production of Follies. Gushing about the music, the staging. People gushing about it affecting them, lingering with them for the 40 years since the show premiered.

It didn't have that effect on me. Of the Sondheim shows I've seen, it's probably my least favorite. Random, extraneous songs; too many characters. There are some really fantastic numbers--really. fantastic. But, it didn't touch me. Maybe I'm still too young for it?

And that's what it comes down to. In trying to decide my favorite Sondheim, it comes down to that emotional connection for me. Emotionally, Company is my favorite; objectively, Sunday in the Park With George probably is. But Bobby is a character I can relate to only too much. "Move On" from Sunday very well may be my favorite song, but I am Bobby. Company is My Sondheim.

(Side note: I totally want to go have drinks with Elaine Paige. She seems fantastic. I feel like she would be awesomely gossipy about everyone in British theatre.)

Hoping for triumph of romanticism over cynicism

2011-05-16T15:16:00.002-04:00

When I studied abroad in England, one of the first things I wanted to do in London was find Dress Circle, a shop in London that specialized in musical theater merchandise. I had ordered things from them already; in those days, before the Internet was as huge as it's become, it was hard to find certain things--for example, Michael Ball CDs in the United States. So I ordered from them. I was on their mailing list. When I finally made it there, it was like Mecca. I couldn't have been happier.

So of course I was bummed to see an article about its fight to stay open. Long gone are the days when every production of a show got a cast recording. And now there's the Internet, the bane of small, specialized shops. The combination is a deadly one.

I can only hope for its survival. I haven't been there in a decade, but it brings me back to my teenage years, when I lived for musical theater. Dress Circle meant a lot to me then. And the thought of it closing is an incredibly sad one.

I love when my interests collide

2011-04-22T20:52:00.004-04:00

Of course I saw The Conspirator. A movie about the Lincoln assassination starring James McAvoy? Yes, please! I quite enjoyed it. I thought it did a great job portraying the events of the night of the assassination accurately. (Except for one major piece: For some reason, they had Booth shoot Lincoln during Harry Hawk's line. This makes no sense; many people know that he shot during the laughs that ensued. The confusion created by this was an important part of the plan.) I learned after seeing it that the American Film Company, who produced it, is all about historical accuracy. I know less about Frederick Aiken, the lawyer who represented Mary Surratt in her trial, and I spent chunks of the movie wondering how much of the script was actually taken from the transcripts of the Surratt trial.

The thing that's gotten me in the reviews of the movie are the comments of its overt politicalness. The choice of the movie--the desire to tell this story at this moment in time--is definitely political. The decision to try the conspirators in a military tribunal, not a civilian court; the use of the war to take away civil liberties--yes, Robert Redford and the AFC knew what they were doing. The subject matter speaks for itself.

But I've read numerous reviews that mention certain details in the movie as being political, like showing the fact that the conspirators were held in jail while wearing hoods makes the movie political. No, it makes the movie accurate. If anything, the movie didn't include enough of how rough the prisoners had it. They wore those hoods almost 24 hours a day. They were only allowed outside when Lewis Powell (I think--it maybe was someone else) tried to kill himself and a doctor basically said, "Hey, you need to let these people out a little." So the prisoners got an hour a day in the yard. Yay?

The movie certainly did its job in making me think. It never takes a firm stand on whether Surratt is guilty or not; the theme of the movie is really, "They should've gotten civilian trials." I will say that it's pretty sympathetic toward her. Now, volunteering at Ford's Theatre, there are certain questions you get a lot, and the relative guilt of Mary Surratt is one of them. My general thought has always been, "Well, she took those guns out to the tavern the day of the assassination; she probably knew about it, and therefore should've said something." (Would she deserve to die for that? Even if we knew 100% that she knew? Another debate.)

But now...I don't know. The arguments about the testimony in the trial resonated with me. I don't know how good those arguments actually are; Aiken, the guy making the arguments, is the movie's hero, so obviously they come off well. Naturally, I need to read more about this to clarify my thoughts.

Overall, the movie is definitely worth your time, even if it's just to stare at dreamy James McAvoy for 2 hours.

Related, I actually attended the premiere for this movie. It was at Ford's and I was lucky enough to asked to usher. So yes, I came into close contact with James McAvoy and Robert Redford and Robin Wright. AND I managed to avoid looking like an idiot. Triumph! I only wish I could've gotten closer to Kevin Kline. Ah well.

Also, I realized that this is the one time that it makes sense to applaud at the end of a movie. The credits rolled, we clapped...and the actors were there! They heard! It made sense to clap! Huzzah!

How to succeed...in life

2011-04-17T18:01:00.004-04:00

There's a lot about Daniel Radcliffe that's impressive. He really seems to have a good head on his shoulders; he gives awesome, amusing interviews; and he really seems to have done a great job thinking about his life post-Potter. Doing Equus, and following it up with the musical comedy How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway...and then a period scary movie, The Woman in Black. Really smart--here's a guy who's obviously thinking long-term. And he has the chops to pull it off. I've been impressed with his work in the Potter movies.

He works in How to Succeed, too. I went up to New York yesterday and caught the matinee. Overall, the show was a lot of fun. There's something incredibly enjoyable about seeing a show with a lot of dancing that makes you feel good (I imagine the current Anything Goes revival is similarly fun--I mean, Sutton Foster!). The show isn't perfect by any means--for one thing, there are a songs that just do not advance the plot ("Coffee Break"? "Paris Original"? Why?). And then there's J. Pierrepont Finch, our "hero". We follow his journey through the ranks of the World Wide Wicket Company, from window washer to the executive boardroom. This is a character we know NOTHING about. Quite literally, all we know is that he's ambitious. He wants to succeed in business. And...that's all. Dude is a blank slate. Of the characters in the show, he's probably the least developed. Which is saying something.

It makes a perfect role for casting a celebrity. Daniel Radcliffe is someone that a majority of the audience already sympathizes with; we walk into the theater rooting for him. And he's clearly having a good time. He doesn't have a strong singing voice, but the role doesn't require one. His American accent is fantastic; late in the show, he has a line about World Wide Wickets being all American, causing the audience to laugh. It actually took me a minute to realize why everyone was laughing. Me: [pause] "Oh yeah! He's British!" I do admit that I kept thinking he should be wearing glasses, and a few of his gestures struck me as very Harry Potter, but that's probably because I've spent, what, 10 years watching him play the same role. It's not that the gestures are Harry Potter; it's that Potter is the only thing I've seen him in. He manages to keep up with the other dancers--I particularly enjoyed the "Old Ivy" sequence and his chipmunk impression. Bottom line: He manages to carry the show.

Naturally, the audience was full of fangirls. The cheers for Radcliffe's entrance were ENORMOUS. I was happy to discover, though, that the audience was that enthusiastic about everything. They gave John Laroquette a similar cheer at his entrance (though I refuse to believe many of them ever saw Night Court), and there was a lot of laughing and applause throughout the show. The screams during the curtain were kind of crazy--but they were coming from an audience that was standing before the curtain call even began. I can't imagine what it must be like for the other actors to be in this show, but if the audience is always that enthusiastic, I bet it's a fun job.

I particularly enjoyed Rose Hemingway making her Broadway debut as Rosemary Pilkington, Ponty's love interest. She was adorable. Tammy Blanchard as Hedy La Rue was not the vamp I expected her to be; honestly, when she made her big entrance, I was like, "What? She's wearing basically the same thing as the rest of the secretaries and doesn't seem that much more endowed than them." Her performance was fine, but...eh. I wasn't blown away. And couldn't really see what made the men fall all over themselves, other than it was in the script.

I also didn't like "A Secretary Is Not a Toy" as much as I do on the 1995 revival recording. I was sad they cut the bit with the men typing, and one of my favorite lines ("A pad is to write in, not spend the night in") was sort of glossed over. I also think I like the "How to Succeed" reprise used in the '95 revival at the top of Act Two more than "Cinderella Darling", which apparently was in the original. It did have tap dancing, though, which I appreciated.

Also appreciated were the adorable boys in the cast. Even the villain--Christopher J. Hanke as Bud Frump--was super cute. It didn't hurt that they were all wearing those early 60's-style suits, and a bunch were in glasses. Sexy!

In general, the staging was great. I loved how "Company Way" was done, incorporating the mail into the choreography in fun ways. (Plus, that's one of my favorite numbers.) And shoving more and more people into the elevator in "It's Been a Long Day" was a great move--playing it for more laughs than I would have thought.

I highly recommend the show. Part of me felt weird about blowing the money in this ticket--like, I should see something serious. Or more out-there, like Book of Mormon. But there are times that you just want to have fun. And this pulled that off.

(You can get a great feel for it through the preview footage, available here.)

Reevaluating Pradon

2011-04-02T23:09:00.003-04:00

A good 10 years ago or so, I became obsessed with the most recent Jesus Christ Superstar, the one recorded for DVD. Glenn Carter was Jesus; Jérôme Pradon was Judas. I found Pradon captivating, but I wasn't blown away by his voice. And by that, I mean that I liked his performance despite his voice. (Witness his performance of "Superstar," which perfectly illustrates my point. The moments that he interacts with Jesus are very layered.)

Recently, I found out that he played Javert in Les Mis in the West End back in the early 2000s. I knew that he had been in the show in France, and he was in the 10th anniversary concert (as one of the students).

(Side note: He was in Assassins in France?! WHAT? What role? Wikipedia, help a girl out! He has the charisma to pull off Booth, but I need this information!)

(Huh. Czolgosz. Interesting.)

I was intrigued immediately. Thank God for YouTube, because I immediately pulled up clips of him in the role. And I was really pleasantly surprised. Here he performs "Javert's Suicide":

I'm impressed. He's not the best Javert I've heard, but he definitely pulls it off. Watching "The Confrontation", I think it's that Javert is much more suited to Pradon's voice than Judas is. Judas is too high; clearly, Pradon excels in a lower register.

It's always fun to find somewhat random actors to follow. Apparently Pradon is currently performing in Mamma Mia, as Sam. It would be interesting to hear him do ABBA.

Behind the chocolate

2011-03-14T22:03:00.002-04:00

For an authorized biography, Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl does a good job of showing both the good and the not-so-good sides of its subject. Even had Dahl not become a bestselling, beloved children's author, his life would have been a fascinating one. Poor in Britain to Norwegian parents, he flew a fighter pilot in the early days of World War II, was a spy in Washington for the remainder, married a famous actress, and helped pioneer medical advances after tragedy struck his own family.

Author Donald Sturrock doesn't hesitate to show the darker Dahl--misanthropic, touchy, hard to work with, grudge-holding, outspoken, prone to picking fights. There were a LOT of times when I felt that Dahl wasn't someone I'd want to know. Sturrock doesn't delve too much into the books and stories themselves, but provides enough information that in reading Dahl's work after this biography, I feel I have new insight into his books.

(Some of that, of course, might be because I'm reading them as a 30-something, not a 10-year-old.)

And it is impressive reading Dahl's stories. The style is just phenomenal. The books read as though he's talking to you. The books are clearly meant for children, and that's the voice of them, but in no way are they condescending. His language, his rhythm, his cadence...it's just so impressive.

Also, dude was a hottie. Seriously, it's no wonder he was seducing women all over the place during WWII. And I NEED to visit his house the next time I'm in England.

I do hear the people. They are, in fact, singing.

2011-03-02T17:47:00.015-05:00

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Les Miserables, Laurence Connor and James Powell restaged the show, and it's this production that's currently on tour. (Amusingly enough, both the new and original productions were playing the West End at the same time. I admit that it'd be kind of cool to see one at a matinee and the other in the evening. I'm not sure if one has closed at this point.) It was this production that I saw Tuesday night.

In case anybody doesn't want to know the details of the new production, I'll keep discussion of that to the end of the entry, and let you know when I'll start on it. However, I pretty much assume everyone knows the story itself. (People die?)

Lawrence Clayton's Valjean didn't blow me away. At all. I don't know if it was an off night, or he's getting the plague that has struck pretty much everyone this winter, or what, but his voice just seemed very weak.

My only other criticism of the cast was would be Chasten Harmon's Eponine. Don't get me wrong--she has a GREAT voice. But hers is a mature voice, and if there's one thing Eponine isn't, it's mature. She just sounded too adult to be this girl suffering through unrequited love. It's not that 30-year-olds DON'T deal with unrequited feelings, it's just that it's expressed completely differently. "On My Own" is the best song EVER...if you're 16. At 32, it makes me cringe. Plus, a lot of the time, it didn't seem like Harmon was that into the role; it was like she was going through the motions, not feeling anything. Sad. Felicia Curry, you remain the best Eponine!

I'm not sure whether I can say anything about Jeremy Hays's performance Enjolras. Here's the thing--his hair is CRAZY. I spent a LOT of time being very distracted by it. I'm sure he sang as well, but HAIR. I do have to give kudos to Joseph Spieldenner's Grantaire--young! cute!--and Justin Scott Brown's Marius. Sounded good, acted well. No Michael Ball, of course.

OK, the new production.

The quotes I've read from the creative team talk about how it's completely different--new orchestration, new direction, new costumes. Well...some new costumes. Javert, Enjolras, Valjean, Fantine...all in the same outfits you're used to seeing. And some new staging. But some old staging. At times it seemed like a totally new production; sometimes it seemed like the same production, with a different backdrop (Fantine enters from stage left, not stage right! Totally new!).

Speaking of, I LOVE the backdrops. I had never noticed, but the old production really didn't have any backgrounds. The designer used some of Victor Hugo's own paintings to make the backdrops and it works fabulously.

However, I don't know about the beginning. Instead of a quarry, the show starts on a prison ship. Official descriptions describe Valjean as a "slave" on the ship. The issue here is that Lawrence Clayton is black. And Javert wandered around carrying chains. The whole thing made me a bit uncomfortable.

Very well done at the beginning was "Les Miserables" being shown on the scrim just after the prologue, as Valjean tears up his ticket of leave. It really shows that that is a prologue; now the real story can begin. I literally got chills.

The whole show was a rougher production than the old. Not rough in the sense of unpolished; rough in the sense of being more violent and sexual than I'm used to. Valjean was looking for a fight before he meets the Bishop of Digne. The students attacked Grantaire during his verse of "Drink With Me." There's a prostitute giving a guy oral during "Lovely Ladies" and a couple having sex--in a few positions, no less--during "Master of the House." I felt for the mother of the two teens sitting next to me.

The show works quite well without the revolving stage. There are more large set pieces that are used to great effect. The only time I really felt the absence of the revolve was during the barricade scenes. That's the one area that I'm really conflicted on; I still don't know how well it works.

Because you can only see one side of the barricade, you only hear Gavroche's death. In some ways, this works; it's how most of the men on the barricade experienced it, and it allows the audience to immediately see their reactions (Grantaire! Love!). However, it loses some of its impact. Similarly, the deaths are done a bit differently; each student gets what I call the "death light"--that bright, pure white light used when someone dies. However, there's so much smoke that it's hard to tell who was who. Enjolras didn't grab the red flag over his head...but he was waving it, which made me wonder whether the flag was just stuck. I kind of hope so. He died, and then, instead of seeing Grantaire run up as I was used to (maybe he did? Like I said, lots of smoke), each student dies in his or her turn. (With some help from explosions, and kudos to those, because it worked very well.)

(It just hit me that this is kind of ironic, that Enjolras and Grantaire are generally the first two to die; in the book, they're literally the last two.)

The lack of a revolve, though, means that things need to move faster. In that instrumental after everyone dies, you get to spend some time seeing the students laying there, the barricade turns, and then there's Enjolras draped over his flag and Gavroche on the ground. This gives time for the barricade to clear and move on. Without the revolve, though, it felt a bit rushed, getting Valjean and Marius into the sewer, the barricade set going off stage, and then Javert running across a cart with Enjolras and Gavroche.

Admittedly, that was kind of a great moment, mostly because of how awesome Andrew Varela's Javert is. I was quite literally in the last row of the theater, but his pause as he stared at Enjolras and Gavroche conveyed everything it needed to. Even so, it lacked the emotional impact of seeing them on the barricade. So I don't know.

I also enjoyed the tweaked "Empty Chairs" and I really appreciated them changing one of the lines on the barricades. Instead of "Everybody stay awake, we must be ready for the fight, for the final fight. Let no one sleep tonight" followed immediately by "Marius, rest"--which has bothered me for YEARS--they changed it. YAY! I don't remember the new lyrics, but I was just glad to hear them.

It's still Les Mis and I still found myself with tears streaming down my cheeks at the end of the show. There's a lot to discuss here--obviously, brevity is NOT my strong point on this topic--but the soul of the show remains firmly in place.

Too much in love (with Joe) to care

2011-02-03T17:19:00.003-05:00

The way people talk about Sunset Blvd, you'd think it was the story of Norma Desmond. After all, she's the one with the big songs ("With One Look," "As If We Never Said Goodbye," "New Ways to Dream"), the role played by big names (Patti LuPone, Glenn Close, Elaine Paige, Betty Buckley), the final curtain call.

The thing is, She's not the most interesting character in the show. Not by far.

The show should belong to Joe Gillis. It's his story--the story of the down-on-his-luck Hollywood writer who winds up being the kept man of an aging silent movie star.

It's an easier role to play--an attractive guy making a lot of snide comments ("Did you say you were a writer?" "That's what it says on my guild card."). But because of those two elements, I'm totally in love with him. Playing Norma requires a delicate balance--there's a mix of vulnerability and manipulation that could easily descend into camp--but for my money, the most fascinating scene of the show is the climactic scene between Joe and Betty Schaefer. That scene belongs to Joe; it's both his downfall and his redemption, and I could listen to that track over and over. The other great scene? Joe's decision at the end of Act I.

I can see Norma being an interesting character to play, but ultimately, I'm really not that interested in her. Which is an issue when you're investing money to see Sunset Blvd., as I did when I saw the Signature production the other night.

I can't complain about the production itself; the cast, the set, the orchestra (20 pieces!) were all fantastic. D.B. Bonds more than made me swoon as Joe ("She read DeMille's horoscope; she read mine..." "Did she read the script?"), Florence Lacey was a better Norma than Glenn Close, whom I saw back on Broadway in 1995. The only casting issue I might have would be that Bonds and Susan Derry, who plays Betty Schaefer, appear too close in age, making his treatment of her seem somewhat odd ("You remind me of me long ago..." "Stop it, you're making me feel old"). (For reference, in the film, William Holden was 32 at time of release; Nancy Olson was 22. And you could see it.)

Bonds, by and large, is a fantastic Joe. The two scenes I mentioned were fabulous; it was subtle, but you can see him make a decision and go for it...and then see his ambivalence about what he's done. For each show I see, I usually have a few moments burned into my memory, and those are it for this show.

I put Norma in the same category as Fantine in Les Mis (though, again, I will admit that it is a complicated role that Lacey pulls off very well!)--necessary, but not particularly interesting to me.

Of course, there are others who feel differently. And by "others," I mean "most people" because God knows the reviews of this show focus on her and are all, "And yeah, Bonds and Ed Dixon [Max von Mayerling] are good, too."

And then there's the woman I sat next to. When this show closes February 13, she will have seen it eight times. God knows that I shouldn't judge; there are plenty of shows that I want to see over and over--I just don't have the means. (This woman is a volunteer, so she's only paying for four of those tickets.) But this show isn't one of them. I'm going back Saturday to usher, but really, there isn't the emotional core to this show that makes me want to come back time and again. I admit that I really wanted to see it more out of curiosity for how Signature would stage than out of a fondness for the music (though I certainly was obsessed in the day; I own the Broadway and London cast recordings). And, of course, Signature didn't disappoint.

But not one of my favorites. You know what someone around here needs to stage? Evita. Get on it, DC theaters.

Synthesis

2011-01-30T22:57:00.002-05:00

I just finished reading Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the International Hunt for His Assassin. This is how history books should be written. It's always amazing when you read a book in which you know the outcome manages to be a real page-turner. I did not want to put this book down. Sides manages to weave together the stories of Eric Galt (a.k.a. James Earl Ray), Martin Luther King Jr., and the FBI in the days leading up to April 4, 1968 flawlessly. In so many books like this, I usually find myself more interested in one of the stories, but that wasn't the case with this book.

And then I discovered that PBS had done an American Experience on this topic: Roads to Memphis. It's basically the same story, exactly--Sides even pops up. But it was fascinating getting to watch the players in action. Particularly moving was the footage of the speech King gave the night before he died. I'm pretty sure I had heard parts of it before, but in context, it's fascinating.

Today I was at the National Museum of American History and went to see the Kinsey Collection, which relates to African American history, and found myself staring at a sign held by marchers just after King's death. As I was leaving after working in the American Presidency exhibit, the program on the Greensboro sit-ins was going on, so I stopped to watch...and wound up singing "On My Way to Freedomland," which I had just heard in Roads to Memphis. It just all came together, and really has piqued my interest in the civil rights movement.

On music and history colliding inappropriately

2011-01-24T18:03:00.003-05:00

On my way to the Metro on Saturday, as I headed downtown to volunteer at Ford's Theatre, I found myself listening to the Beatles Past Masters - Volume 1. Which is how I found myself standing next to the gun that Booth used to kill Abraham Lincoln, dancing slightly to "I'll Get You." The chorus?

"It's not like me to pretend,
But I'll get you in the end,
Yes I will, I'll get you in the end"

Yeah. Disturbing.

Hey, at least I didn't have the children's song "I'm Gonna Catch You" by the Laurie Berkner Band. Super cute, but they chorus of THAT is:

"I'm gonna catch you, you better run
I'm gonna catch you, here I come"

Cute for my 3-year-old niece. Less so when discussing assassination.

It's called acting, Nick. Look it up.

2011-01-17T20:49:00.003-05:00

I was conflicted when I heard that Nick Jonas not only was portraying Marius in Les Mis, but that he'd be part of the 25th anniversary concert. I justified that it wasn't really stunt casting because he had played Gavroche when he was little; plus, he's clearly the talented Jonas Brother (at least, he's the one who writes their music; plus he plays drums AND guitar!) (and probably piano?). (Though it isn't like Les Mis hasn't resorted to stunt casting in the past but LA LA LA I can't hear you.)

Anyway, someone linked to a clip of his performance in a discussion of the British series I'd Do Anything, which followed the search for a Nancy in the West End production of Oliver! Apparently, one of the runners-up not only ALSO was in that concert (Eponine), but she and Nick are an item.

ANYWAY. So I heard the clip a bit and was actually impressed. He didn't sound bad at all! So that's good. And then I watched the clip. And dude did NOT impress me with his acting. He seemed very...samey. His character in JONAS was very dry, and maybe that's just his personality, because watching that clip, I just saw Nick Jonas. Not Marius. I mean, he's obviously trying to act. It just looks odd (his entrance is at about 3:00).

And then, of course, is the originator of the role, My Boyfriend Michael Ball. Here he is in the 10th anniversary concert, when he's both too old and too puffy for the part. But because he has actual theatrical training, he is Marius (entrance around 2:00). Just because you can sing a role doesn't mean that you're necessarily acting it.

(Need to keep going? "A Heart Full of Love" is here.)

To make an impossible choice

2011-01-11T22:47:00.002-05:00

New York Magazine is doing countdowns this week--greatest NY athlete, greatest NY tv show, etc. The one that interested me, of course, was greatest musical. Nora Ephron, Frank Rich, Jonathan Tunick, and George C. Wolfe debated the greatest American musical--I assume on Broadway, not off, but I'm not 100% clear. Anyway, that means no imports.

It's a fascinating discussion, and makes me want to see She Loves Me, which I am not even a little familiar with. I also now feel bad that I really don't know Porgy and Bess. I will, however, say that having seen Showboat somewhat recently, that its book is just not good and therefore should not be the greatest musical. I will accept the argument for it being the first. And I also totally agree with the uncomfortableness with Carousel due to the whole "Abuse is OK!" theme.

Also, having just read Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hit & Biggest Flop of the Season, 1959-2009 (which was a fascinating read, by the way; I definitely recommend it if you're a fan of musicals), it's lovely to have Sondheim mentioned so much. Oh, Sondheim. All of his are my favorite.

Anyway, it boils down to this quote--why I love theater:

Wolfe: Wait, I’m confused because if you isolate the elements it’s not a musical. A musical is what happens when text collides with motion collides with song collides with spectacle. And spectacle can be the human heart; it doesn’t necessarily have to be a helicopter crashing. You can go see ballet in its purity; you can go to a recital to hear music by itself. But what the American musical does so thrillingly is bastardize these forms into something that is exhilarating and compelling and deeply moving.

Comedy requires tragedy

2011-01-04T20:48:00.003-05:00

I've written before about how much I like How I Met Your Mother because I can relate to it. For a group of characters who are supposed to be my age (fairly exactly--I graduated college the same year Marshall, Lily, and Ted did), they seem about dead on. Sure, I don't spend nearly that much time in a bar, but they're people I relate to.

SPOILER ALERT

There's some debate about the ending of last night's episode--the sudden death of Marshall's father. One reaction that I just don't understand is that people don't want to watch the show for tears and didn't like the unexpected ending and "I don't want to see a sitcom do that" or "I watch this to get away from real life." There are certainly shows that I can see for that, but HIMYM has always been more to me.

To me, it's an amusing look at people growing up. You see them deal with their careers and relationships that involve hard choices (the Ted/Robin "I love this person, but we ultimately want different things") and parental issues (Lily, Barney). The situations can be comical, but there's a layer of realism that's very much there.

For the past couple of seasons, it seems like the show has drifted. It's still been enjoyable, but the characters have become too sitcommy. A show that had real people became one with cartoonish characters. This season has been a return to form, and it peaked with this moment. Of course, where they go from here is an issue, but I have faith in these writers.

The other major complaint I see is about the countdown. Honestly, I didn't even NOTICE the numbers until a friend on Twitter mentioned them. Then, thinking about the episode, I remembered some numbers sticking out. I've seen people being all, "It so SO OBVIOUS and DISTRACTING!" But...no. I mean, yes, some people noticed from the beginning, but it was subtle enough that a lot of people didn't. Inappropriate? I didn't think so. Co-creator Carter Bays said that it was done to create some foreboding in the episode. Because really, you never do know when those big moments are going to happen (as Whistler said on Buffy so many years ago). A countdown in life like that might be nice.

Anyway, it's nice to know that the cast of the show also appreciates it. Also, Josh Radnor needs to marry me.

Counting the days

2010-11-13T00:16:00.004-05:00

Oh my G, people. When I was little, I had a Sesame Street Christmas album (on tape) that I loved. I adored this thing. I only had the tape itself, not the case. But I listened to that thing all the frickin' time around the holidays. To the point that yes, my tape died. And then I couldn't find it on CD. And I was heartbroken, because there's nothing people like more than to relive things from their childhood.

And then, oh day of days!, there it was. On Amazon. I LOVE THE INTERNET. I sampled the songs. The track list was right. And, for $8.99, it was mine. And then I scared the cats by clapping excitedly and squealing. I do not care that it's not even Thanksgiving. I AM LISTENING TO THIS BAD BOY RIGHT NOW.

And I have never been happier.

Edit. I am possibly gaining insight into my psyche. During "The 12 Days of Christmas," they go through and make comments on each piece. Grover had "8 maids a milking" and you hear cows and he says, "Aw, cows!" And I? Love cows. And Grover is my favorite. This all makes sense now!

Behind the times

2010-11-12T19:08:00.002-05:00

I consider myself fairly up on pop culture. I do pretty well in general conversation; if someone mentions a book or a movie or an Internet meme or celebrity scandal, I usually have heard of it and am familiar with the general situation/plot/whatever.

I run into problems with music, though. I don't think I've been really up on music since I was in elementary school (and buying Madonna's True Blue on record). I frequently have heard of a song--which, when it comes to a movie or tv show, is good enough. I can cough up actors or the latest evictee from a reality show. But with music? It's harder. I can see people referring to songs, but rarely have I actually heard the song.

For example, watching Glee, a lot of the time, I'm all, "I don't know this song at all," and my friend Dave will be all, "Really???" I heard of Cee Lo Green's "F--k You" AGES ago, but only just heard the song itself a couple of days ago (when I finally watched the video on YouTube) (totally worth it, by the way) (and, OK, I did it because I know it's going to be on Glee next week). Katy Perry's "California Gurls"? Heard of it in, like, June. Heard the song? August or so.

This is the problem with getting so much your pop culture knowledge from the Internet instead of actually experiencing it for myself.

Chamber of Awesome, maybe

2010-10-26T20:46:00.002-04:00

I revealed myself as a total geek to some coworkers today. Most realize that I'm a total geek, but these were coworkers I didn't know very well. The topic? Harry Potter. I could not be more excited about the new movies if I tried. I make little squeaking noises every time I see a new trailer (like here).

It's amazing how well those stories hold together. I caught most of Chamber of Secrets on tv this weekend and it really drove home how important that book is in the overall story. I remember the first few times I read it, I wasn't blown away. I enjoyed it, sure, but thought it was basically just a rehash of Sorcerer's Stone. Entertaining enough, but I wasn't bowled over.

But then the saga continued. And the elements of CoS started to resonate throughout the other books. The house elves. The history of Voldemort. So good. The more I read the books, the more I watch the story, the more I'm impressed by what Rowling did.

Anyway...just a few weeks left! Yay!

Happy 70th

2010-10-09T19:40:00.002-04:00

I wish I had been older than 2 when he died. I wish the world could've known what John Lennon would have done with the past 30 years.

And also...just because I love this scene from Hard Day's Night

Also, great songs for my "Angst" playlist

2010-10-01T22:57:00.007-04:00

I always wind up in something of a funk after I see a show I really like. I'm not sure why; maybe it's that because it’s a play, I can't have that experience again (much as I inevitably want to see the show multiple more times). If I don't stop myself, I wind up listening to the songs over and over...which really doesn't help. I ran into a problem with Arcadia--because it's a straight play, I had no cast recording. I did have the script, but reading the scene multiple times doesn't really help. And I wonder if I'm more affected by shows I don't know incredibly well; on the one hand, I remember this vividly from the first time I saw Miss Saigon (surprisingly, no, I wasn't familiar with it beforehand; at that point, I didn't even know Les Mis, if you can imagine); on the other, familiarity didn't stop my obsession with Jesus Christ Superstar (which was aided by the fact that it was videotaped, so I could watch over and over and over and over).

I saw Chess at the Signature the other night and it was phenomenal. I was vaguely familiar with the story, and I knew a few of the songs quite well ("I Know Him So Well" is one of my absolute favorites; I have multiple versions of "Pity the Child" and "Anthem", and of course everyone knows "One Night in Bangkok") and had watched the preview video and listened to the concept album to have an idea of what to expect. Plus, it was a show at the Signature. I knew it would be great.

And wow, it didn't let me down. Chess is the story of a chess match between an American, Freddie (Jeremy Kushnier), and a Soviet, Anatoly (Euan Morton). Each has a second; for Anatoly, it's Molokov (Christopher Bloch), a KGB agent; for Freddie, it's Florence (Jill Paice), a Hungarian who grew up in the U.S. after the 1956 uprising. Freddie is clearly based on Bobby Fischer; he's loud, brash, doesn't care about the rules. Anatoly is quiet, controlled. And Florence is being pushed to the limit by Freddie's antics. So when she meets the level-headed Anatoly, there's an instant attraction.

The music is by the B's of ABBA and the lyrics are Tim Rice (whose bio in the program alone is worth the price of admission), so there's a definite rock edge to it. Kushnier winds up with the majority of the rock songs, and does them fabulously. Paice has to balance ballads and rock numbers—sometimes in the same song ("Nobody’s Side" has elements of both, and she absolutely kills on it; she practically got a standing ovation at the end of the number). Morton gets mostly quieter numbers and does them wonderfully; honestly, the cast as a whole were great. A friend commented that he found Chris Sizemore as the Arbiter a bit too "musical theater" but I didn't have that problem at all.

And the acting. Oh, the acting. Kushnier is just absolutely riveting. Freddie is a character who's hard to like; throughout the show, he's amusing, but doesn't do anything likeable. At all. To anyone. And yet, I wanted him to be on stage the entire time. Kushnier was great when strutting around stage for photographers, but probably my favorite moment of his was near the end of the play, while waiting for Anatoly to arrive for the final chess game. He's just sitting in a chair, staring at a chess board...but it was fabulous.

Anatoly, more than the other characters, goes through a real journey, particularly in the second act. Florence is the character screwed over at the end, but Act 2 is a methodical crushing of Anatoly. Morton goes from happy at the top of the act to being completely broken at the end--and the transformation is clearly visible. The whole range of emotions he has to portray come across perfectly. If Kushnier's moment was waiting for Anatoly at the final game, Morton's moment is at the end of the reprise of "You and I" when he grabs Florence and kisses her. There's a desperation there that was undoubtedly part of the reason that half the women in the ladies’ room at the end of the show were in tears.

Florence is really the heart of this version of Chess. I had expected the two men to be the leads--which they are, of course, but Florence is the glue and gets the last curtain call. As well she should. Jill Paice's vocals just absolutely blew me away (for serious, watch the preview video and listen through to the end).

Which is not to say that the show is perfect. I'm still not sure of some of the characters' motivations (including a fairly large plot point), and though I enjoyed the choreography for the most part, there were moments when it felt a bit off. I'm still not sure how I feel about the sort of goth look for the ensemble, though the show did come off otherwise as wonderfully 80s.

Obviously, this was a fabulous production. I've heard rumors that higher-ups in the theater world watched how it fared--a Broadway revival in the works? One can only hope. And, if so, please bring this cast.

Photos by Scott Suchman

Making someone's day

2010-09-25T18:18:00.003-04:00

The last time I volunteered at Ford's Theater, I was working the outside line, meaning that I answer questions ("Where's the Spy Museum?") and make sure that everyone has the correct ticket. I noticed a guy's t-shirt as he walked into the lobby--"Rogue Demon Hunter." I looked at him and asked, "You hunt rogue demons?" He and his girlfriend stopped and looked at me. I was like, "Angel, right?" They grinned and said that I was the first person to get the reference. It was awesome.

So glad my brain retains this stuff

2010-09-24T22:18:00.003-04:00

I was at work the other day when a guy walked by. I asked a coworker who it was, and she said, "Oh, that's Gordon." And out of nowhere, my mind went here:

I cannot remember the last time I thought of Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme, a Disney movie that first aired in 1990. I recorded it and watched it approximately a million times. Depite it being at least, oh, 15 years since I've seen that, I can sing along to that song. And I totally had a crush on Dan Gilroy, who played Gordon. (Though I liked him in the outfit he wears through most of the movie; less so the new jacket and hat from the end of the movie.)

Naturally, I immediately had to see whether there were any clips on YouTube. And the whole thing is on there! I have never been so happy!* And at some point, I'm going to rewatch. Because I'm sure it'll hold up! It's only been 20 years. I'm sure I'll still like everything I liked when I was 11.

* This may be an exaggeration.

A is for awesome

2010-09-19T22:35:00.004-04:00

I saw Easy A yesterday. If you've managed to avoid the trailer (which is apparently possible; when I suggested it, Steve had to pull up the trailer online), it's about a girl, Olive, who pretends to have sex with guys after a rumor spreads around school that she had sex with a college boy. She becomes ostracized and basically says "Screw it!" and wears a red A on sexy corsets.

I'd put it up there with Bring It On and 10 Things I Hate About You in the category of teen movies. It references 80s teen movies and the need for random musical numbers (Yesss!!!), which I totally appreciate. And though I like (as in, compulsively watch every time I see it on tv) She's All That, Easy A has a lot more intelligence in it. The writing's great, the main characters are relatable, and the acting is fab. Amanda Bynes's character, the uptight Christian chick, is a total stereotype, but she's the exception to the rule.

Olive's parents are a lot of fun--the whole quirky, caring type. It could've gotten old if they were in more of the movie than they were. I kind of wished they took a bit more of an interest in what was going on with their daughter. In that way, I compare them to Mr. Bennett from Pride & Prejudice. (And you know who appreciates that analogy? Boys.)

What I really appreciated was how realistic Olive's journey was. I didn't feel like any of her actions felt wrong. The only thing that felt particularly off to me was how the rumor of Olive's devirginization spread. Do kids really care that much? Particularly about someone who's on the edges of the crowd?

I was suprised to find that it was only rated PG-13--there was a lot of swearing. But I don't remember any F-bombs, which probably explains that. I only hope that this means it'll do well. It's a lot of fun and a very well-made movie.

Looking for lighter fare

2010-08-30T20:32:00.002-04:00

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.

2010-08-10T18:47:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-01T21:11:00.003-04:00

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.

Cure for the blues

2010-07-12T23:56:00.001-04:00

I was feeling a bit cranky tonight and knew I shouldn't go to bed in that mood. So, I hit YouTube. And gave myself an early Christmas present.

Just think of the stories!

2010-07-03T13:28:00.002-04:00

Great story in the Post the other day about George Austin Hay, who balanced working for the federal government and acting in the theater and movies. He sounds fascinating--he knew Gene Kelly, Alfred Hitchcock, Paul Newman, met Marilyn Monroe, and made promo films for the military.

Here's a man you just want to sit down and talk to for a long time.

Tangentially related, here's a fun video of Julie Andrews and Gene Kelly! Man, talk about people you want to hang around with. (If you haven't read Julie Andrews's book, go read it. Fascinating, really.)

Beyond the dugout

2010-06-29T19:06:00.003-04:00

It seems to me that Tom Verducci wanted to write a book about the Yankees' recent history. It makes sense--they won four World Series in five years, lost it dramatically the year after, and then changed the way the team ran in the quest to continue the glory. The Joe Torre years. I have this image of Verducci pouncing on Torre as soon as it became official that he wouldn't be a Yankee again, convincing him to do a book.

I started The Yankee Years thinking that it would be about Torre. Oh, how foolish I was. I read 477 pages and don't feel that I really know Torre any better than I did before I began the book. This book is the story of the Yankees as a team, with a lot of quotes from Torre. But there are also a lot of quotes from David Cone, Jason Giambi, and Mike Mussina.

(Side note: If you like baseball books, go read Living on the Black, about Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine in 2007. It's a great read.)

Verducci does some things really well. The chapter on steroids in baseball is great. He does a fantastic job tracking the problem from the early days, describing how it was allowed to grow, showing the connections between the teams. If you want a good description of steroids in baseball, read Chapter 3 of this book.

I also found the depiction of George Steinbrenner fascinating. You see the imperial side, the crazy side demanding nothing but wins. But the book also shows his softer side. You see a good relationship with Torre. You see Steinbrenner anxiously hiding in the clubhouse during playoffs, unable to watch.

(And God knows I agree. I actually was not able to read the sections on Game 7 of the 2001 World Series or any of the 2004 ALCS.)

But other things grated. People tend to accuse the Yankees of buying their championships, which certainly is a case that could be made for much of the Oughts. But the 1996-2000 teams? That was a homegrown, low-cost ("low-cost") group. It was a great group of guys. A group who were incredibly talented, who clicked well, who complemented each other. So when Verducci credits their run to a "desperation to win"? Yeah, no. There's a lot of debate about the importance of chemistry on teams, but no team wins because they're desperate to. They might lose because of it; the book even mentions the problems of a team being tight and trying too hard. Ask guys playing on the Red Sox before 2004. I'd imagine they would say that they were desperate to win. It didn't help once they reached the post-season.

And then there's Jeter and A-Rod. I like Jeter. I like A-Rod, probably more than a lot of people. Verducci, I'd say, does not like A-Rod. A-Rod was bad for the clubhouse. A-Rod sucks in clutch situations. A-Rod tried too hard to sound good. A-Rod hits home runs when they don't matter. A-Rod wins MVPs, but can't come through in the post-season. Of course, we'll ignore that those numbers that got him the MVP also helped the Yankees make the playoffs. A-Rod won't speak up in team meetings to encourage the other players. Who apparently don't like him, but he should be a leader, you know, like Jeets! Verducci tells a story about A-Rod going over to Jeter's house. Rodriguez wanted to watch a game, and asked Jeter where the baseball package was on his tv. Jeter doesn't have it. And somehow, A-Rod comes across badly. Because wanting to watch baseball is wrong, somehow. The story is told fairly neutrally, but it comes in the midst of a description of The Selfishness of A-Rod, so of course Rodriguez looks bad. Throughout the book, there are little jabs at A-Rod, and it just grates.

Jeter comes off beautifully. For all I know, there really is nothing negative about the guy. Verducci mentions in passing Jeter's less-than-stellar defense, and completely ignores the question of whether Jeets should've moved to third when Rodriguez joined the club. But exploring that may have put Jeter in a negative light, and Jeter is like a son to Torre, so I doubt we'd see that.

My other big problem with the book is how it deals with baseball stats. Verducci postively fawns over the transformation of the Red Sox. He goes on about how the league changes around the Yankees, finding players who aren't valued, living the Moneyball dream. But then, when Cashman comes in and starts focusing on stats, when he suggests that Torre (God forbid!) field a lineup with high on-base percentage guys at the top of the order, that's portrayed as just being crazy. Cashman suggests something based on (eww!) numbers, but he ignores what Torre knows about these guys. You know, by watching. Which is it?

The book ran longer than it needed to, but it was an interesting look into the Yankees clubhouse for Torre's years. At times, the bitterness bleeds through, though. A number of times, Verducci writes something like, "And the Yankees haven't won a World Series since." Now, I could understand "And the Yankees never won a World Series under Torre again" (which he did, a couple of times). But really, Tom Verducci? It's just foolish to write that "never." With the Yankees, in particular. The book is copyright 2009. On November 4 of that year, the Bombers dated the book.

I don't love farce THAT much

2010-06-14T19:37:00.003-04:00

I'm not going to say much about last night's Tony Awards. The plays looked way more interesting than the musicals--I'd love to see all of the plays up for Best Play.

The low point, though, was clearly Catherine Zeta Jones's "Send in the Clowns." Weird pauses, insane head gestures, overacting...no. No no no no no. Some people are trying to say that it makes sense in the context of the show, but I've seen A Little Night Music and no, it doesn't. HERE'S how you do "Send in the Clowns":

Yeah, I still need to get the horror of CZJ's version (and her WIN! NO!) out of my head. I think I know what will help...

Mmm. Much better. (I LOVE "All I Need Is the Girl"! Hearts, Matt Morrison!)

It's all over the second we ride up Troy's bucket

2010-06-07T22:01:00.003-04:00

Great story in the Washington Post today about the 25th (!) anniversary of The Goonies.

When I was in Oregon for Thanksgiving last year, we drove over to Astoria, and I insisted on doing my own little Goonies tour. I actually saw the owner of the Goonies house (she was taking out the garbage). If I had known she'd be so cool about it, I totally would've asked for a tour!

(I was glad that it was my dad who walked to the house with me. He'd never seen the movie, so didn't know that he should've asked me to do the Truffle Shuffle.)

Anyway, good times. I'm kind of bummed the museum hadn't opened yet when I went out there, but what can you do?

All about preparation and deprecation

2010-05-08T20:48:00.002-04:00

A while back I took an online Jeopardy! test. Things lined up for me, and I actually did well enough on the test to get contacted about a follow-up audition, which involves an interview, a mock game, and, God help me, another test. I've decided I need to prep for this (and if you are an expert in a particular field, feel free to pass helpful information my way!), and, naturally, have decided that the best way to prepare is to read Ken Jennings's book Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs. Hey! It has some questions in it.

But, really, it's a history of trivia woven with the story of Ken Jennings's Jeopardy! run. When writing about his time on Jeopardy!, Jennings needs to walk a fine line. If you're reading the book, you obviously know why Ken Jennings is famous. And when he writes about appearing on the show--particularly when he writes about the early games, when his goal was to win one game, and the games that were close--it would be really easy to come across as falsely modest. But he doesn't.

He comes across as really, really likeable.

He totally owns up to his nerdiness, explaining how he got that way, admitting that he was ashamed of it at certain points in his life. He's amusingly self-deprecating (not obnoxiously self-deprecating), and he outlines his thought processes enough that you're always on the same page as him. (Insert rimshot here.) He writes about how he felt bad about the people he beat--and again, it comes across as very genuine. Obviously he couldn't be all, "Ha ha, SUCKERS!" in the book, but that he acknowledges his advantages (comfort with the buzzer, etc.) and that luck is involved is good to read.

If I didn't already like him, I would've been won over when I got to page 179. He write about his relationship with Alex Trebek. Because of the rules regarding contestants interacting with anyone who has access to the questions, Jennings and Trebek weren't allowed to interact other than what you saw on screen. Jennings himself wondered whether Alex was annoyed with him (his musings about the producers freaking out about his streak are pretty funny). Which leads to this:

Despite all the quality time Alex and I have been spending together lately, he still seems a little chilly, as if he's rooting against me. Is this just part of his constant saltine-dry impartiality? Does he think I'm bad for the show? Does he dislike sharing the spotlight with a sidekick? Or is he just plain sick of me? I feel like passing a junior-high mash note up to his podium. "Dear Alex. Do you like me? Check one. Yes/No."

Awesome. I highly recommend this book. Also, I kind of want to be friends with Ken Jennings now.

I could be your girlfriend

2010-05-07T22:56:00.003-04:00

There was a period of time where I read a lot of Office fanfic. But I also quite enjoyed fanvids. This was during the Pam-Jim-Karen triangle, and one of my favorites was to Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend":

So much, I loved this video. To the point that I downloaded the song and still love listening to it.

Anyway, years go by. After Kristin Chenowith's recent stint on Glee, I found myself back on YouTube, looking for fanvids of Olive and Ned from Pushing Daisies. (I liked Chuck, sure, but there's no way she and Ned could have a real relationship. Plus, I have a ginormous soft spot for unrequited love. So I shipped Ned and Olive.) And what do I find? Same song:

Whee! I'll pretend it isn't totally lame that this completely made my night.

And holy crap. There are at least three for Veronica Mars, which is kind of odd, because of these shows, it's the one that really doesn't have much of a triangle. Sure, there are times that people get between Logan and Veronica, but most of the time, it's their own issues that are the problem, not other people. I don't care, though. LoVe videos are right up there with Jim/Pam ones for me.

Sounds as reasonable as "milk poisoning"

2010-04-24T18:35:00.003-04:00

I was volunteering at Ford's Theatre today and, because it's National Park Service Week, there was a little table set up with information about Lincoln sites around the country, and I wound up doing Lincoln trivia with some of the rangers. It went like this:

Ranger: What did Lincoln's mother die of?
Me: Vampires!

Yes. I am reading Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Why? (It's pretty good, BTW.)

The problem with Audrey

2010-04-15T18:47:00.002-04:00

I saw Little Shop of Horrors again last night and again quite enjoyed it, but it made me realize how much one aspect of it bothers me. The aspect can be summed up with the line from "Suddenly Seymour": "He purified me."

Ugh. I understand that Audrey has low self-esteem. But the whole thing is just icky. When the urchins (and also, "urchins"? They're teenage girls! At least call them "hoodlums," like I did when I lived across the street from a group of hooligans who liked to hang out on the street) suggest that she date good-boy Seymour, Audrey's all, "I can't, I have a history." In fairness, one of the girls points out that everyone has a history. Audrey's, however, is a bit more tawdry than your average, though, and thus is not deserving of a nice guy like Seymour.

On the one hand, Seymour never, ever judges her for her past or her choice in men. When she reveals that she used to work in a seedy bar, he doesn't care. But on the other hand, Audrey is a completely passive character. She doesn't do an active thing in the entire play; things just happen to her.

So, I don't know. The word "purify" consistently makes me shudder, to the point that it's hard for me to deal with that song, despite how cute Christopher Kale Jones and Jenna Coker-Jones are in it.

Darn good tv

2010-04-12T13:01:00.003-04:00

A bit belated, but the other day was the 20th anniversary of the debut of Twin Peaks. And thinking back, there is NO WAY that 11-year-old me should've been watching that show. I actually can't think of Bob without getting freaked out.

I would like to go back and rewatch. I'd probably limit myself to daytime viewing, but it'd be cool to see how well it holds up and whether 31-year-old Barb is as fascinated by the weirdness as 11-year-old Barb was. I feel like I may have less patience for that than I did back then.

But then, it does have Kyle McLaughlin.

So, for your enjoyment, Sesame Street's take on it. (I find it hard to believe that Sesame Street did this. Did it make ANY sense to the kids watching?)

When climbing meets the Blitz

2010-04-11T21:57:00.000-04:00

I'm fascinated both by mountain climbing (well, reading about it) and Britain during World War II, so The Fall was a slam dunk for me. It jumps between contemporary England and Wales and World War II, as we meet climbers Jamie and Rob and their mothers. Rob travels to Wales after Jamie's death and reflects on their lives; Mawer weaves that story with the story of their mothers, Meg and Diana, during WWII.

The sections about Meg and Diana in London during the war really brought that period to life for me in a way that other books and movies haven't been able to. The day-to-day realities of the Blitz were there as an organic part of the story, not as a lesson.

Mawer also handles the mountain climbing sections well. I've read a number of books about climbing, and again, he writes the sections in such a way that brings the experience of climbing to life. I admit that I have a tendency to skim over long descriptions of things like climbing, but I didn't do that with this book.

There are some weak aspects. Mawer draws some characters very clearly, but others--major characters--remain a mystery. Though I enjoy that he leaves a lot of things ambiguous, there are some character actions that are completely lacking. On initial read, it's easy to ignore, but deeper inspection of character motivations leave the reader wondering.

The plot, also, is nothing particularly new. The bringing together of mountain climbing and WWII may be new, but the stories of Meg, Diana, Rob, and Jamie are nothing you haven't seen before. And the end of the story hardly comes as a surprise.

But it's all so well written, it doesn't matter.

Improving Wednesdays

2010-03-31T19:19:00.002-04:00

There are a number of reasons I subscribe to The Washington Post (e.g., I worked on my college newspaper so have a soft spot for newspapers, someone has to support the people who are actually out there reporting, and so on), but even without those other reasons, I'd subscribe because the Post is what gets me through Wednesdays.

Oh, Wednesdays. It's the perfect storm. There's a new Carolyn Hax column, so I can peruse the comments. And then, the chats. WashingtonPost.com hosts multiple chats every day, most of which are weekly. And Wednesday is full of good ones: Tom Sietsema, the food critic. The Reliable Sources ladies for gossip. Monica Hesse, about Internet diversions. And, this spring, Liz and Jen dissecting the previous night's Lost. It's brilliant.

I tend to have one of those open throughout the afternoon, and I'll read a couple of questions every now and then as a distraction from work. It's a great way to take a momentary break from work.

Even if I decided to stop actually reading the paper, I'd still fork my money over just for the relief WaPo.com brings me on Wednesdays. It makes Hump Day a lot easier to get through. And you can't put a price on that.

Largest, gayest young adult fiction contest EVER*!

2010-03-29T20:32:00.003-04:00

I don’t read a ton of young adult fiction, and when I do, it’s usually by Meg Cabot. (I did give up on the Princess Diaries series somewhere in the middle, though.) So when I received a book by two “superstar authors”—John Green and David Levithan—it wasn’t a huge shock that I hadn’t heard of either of them. (Levithan, it turns out, co-wrote Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, the movie adaptation of which is in my Netflix queue, along with every other movie ever made. Seriously, my Netflix queue is its own infinite playlist.)

So I read the book with pretty much no expectations. And wound up really, really enjoying the book.

It’s the story of two high schoolers named Will Grayson who live nearish Chicago. It’s about their romances, their friendships, and Tiny Cooper, “the world’s largest person who is really, really gay and also the world’s gayest person who is really, really large.” And about the gayest musical ever, which is possibly also the most fabulous production ever put on by a high school.

The thing that impressed me the most about the book is how much I could relate to it. I wasn’t terribly fond of one of the Wills—too angry for me, really—but it all just felt incredibly real. There’s so much that the Wills deal with that I can remember all too vividly; some of it is stuff that I still deal with. And the character all were well fleshed-out; even the minor characters were fully formed. Angst of teen romance? Feeling unappreciated by friends? Thinking the best way to get through life is to shut up and keep your head down? It's in there.

Which is not to say that the book is perfect, of course. I’m still not sure how I feel about the ending. I can’t tell if the focus is in the right place, and I keep veering back and forth on it. Plus, I realize that Schrodinger’s cat is not an uncommon experiment brought up in popular culture…but it’s not THAT popular. The way it was used in a storyline made me think of it on The Big Bang Theory. It made sense in both places, sure, but me thinking about Penny and Leonard brought me out of this story a bit.

I do highly recommend this book—the characterizations are spot on. And honestly, it really is all worth it for the big gay play. For which I want to see a whole script and hear the songs.

As I mentioned above, I received a copy of this…from the book’s publicists. Want to read Will Grayson, Will Grayson? Leave a comment below and I’ll randomly choose someone to get the copy I was sent. Contest ends 11:59 PM on Sunday, April 4.

*On this blog, at least.

And the winner is...Steve!

When worlds clash

2010-03-25T22:04:00.002-04:00

In general, I don't like covers of songs I like. Sure, there are exceptions, but most of them? No. And covers of Beatles songs? That is just wrong, my friend. Seriously, there is no reason anyone other than the Beatles themselves should be performing Beatles songs. It's not like someone else is going to make the song better.

Naturally, I was conflicted to see this Glee promo:

I love Glee. I love the Beatles. I was already not fond of their version of "Imagine." I have similar concerns about the upcoming Madonna episode. I just need to accept that it's OK for me to not enjoy every song they do. I mean, there are songs on the CDs that I regularly skip.

(Hence my "Best of Season 1, Part 1" CD.)

Dark comedy and DARK comedy

2010-03-21T10:12:00.003-04:00

I've recently seen Little Shop of Horrors (at Ford's Theatre) and Sweeney Todd (at the Signature). Both were quite good, and I got to think how both are dark comedies...only Little Shop has more of an emphasis on "comedy" and Sweeney is definitely more on the "dark."

Little Shop was really quite good. Plus Audrey and Seymour were played by Jenna Coker-Jones and Christopher Kale Jones, who are married in real life, which makes it super cute. (Also, they made these fun videos about preparing for the show--Road to Skid Row One and Two.) It also had my girl crush Felicia Curry; seriously, I love her. She's so, so talented and is cute as a little button. And the dentist? Evan Casey, who I raved about as Mordred in Camelot earlier this year. He also rocked this.

The stage version of Little Shop is quite different from the movie version with Rick Moranis and Steve Martin and Ellen Greene. Of the 18 songs in the stage version, there are maybe 9 or 10 that I remember from the movie. (Admittedly, it's been a long time since I've seen the movie.) And the stage version is much darker--there's a lot more death. Though some of those deaths--the more moving ones, even--are played for laughs. It was almost confusing.

Credit to Jenna Coker-Jones. In the early part of the show, I felt like she was too much trying to imitate Ellen Greene's voice, but that faded by the end of the night. I'm not sure whether that was intentional or I just got used to it, but she was fabulous. They all were, honestly. It really is a fun show.

Sweeney Todd is NOT a fun show. I absolutely loved it. But it also totally freaked me out. Edward Gero's Sweeney had a tendency to stare out into the audience and it was like he was looking right at me and I kind of wanted to run away. I was sitting in the back row of the audience, in front of a passage that actors use to make certain entrances; at times I could hear them walking behind me and I was totally on edge. But in a good way.

Gregory Maheu was Anthony--and let me take a moment here on the name "Anthony." I had a flatmate when I studied in England named Anthony, and it's pronounced almost "Antony", but not quite. They did the same thing here. I could never quite get the sound right, so always misprounced it. Sorry!--and he was absolutely adorable. Seriously, he looks like Jude Law. He also could sing and act well.

My main problem, acting-wise, with the show was the Judge, played by Chris Van Cleave. There's a scene where he sings "Johanna" and is literally whipping himself for impure thoughts and it just did not work. I never felt that he was worked up to the point that whipping would be necessary. He was good in other parts--the "Pretty Women" duet with Sweeney was great--but that early misstep bothered me throughout the night.

I also want to compliment Sam Ludwig's Toby. I'm not sure why his hair had to be all weird, but it was a great performance. Sherri Edelman's Mrs. Lovett was also great.

I'd be more specific, but it's been a month since the show. I do highly recommend it--really, ignore the Post's review. Totally off the mark.

Edit. The Post just reviewed Little Shop. Ignore that review, too.

It's really not all about fashion...thankfully

2010-03-18T23:36:00.002-04:00

I’m not big into fashion. (If you saw the way I normally dress, this would be readily apparent.) I’m not even that interested in celebrity fashion. Sure, I’ll look at the “Best Dressed” list for the Oscars and whatnot, but I don’t watch all the red carpet stuff.

Yet I am addicted to Go Fug Yourself. Less for the fashion, more for their awesome commentary. And for the fact that they have George Clooney as an intern. (I now exclusively think of him as “Intern George.”) I love the descriptions of soap opera plots and memories of tv plots from the early 90s.

And even though my love for that site was long ago cemented, they post an entry that includes the video of the big dance scene in She’s All That, which I love, to the point that if I see that SAT is on tv, I will make sure I am watching at the right time to see that scene. That scene really does make me happy.

No Superman

2010-03-17T22:25:00.003-04:00

Tonight was the finale of Scrubs. Well, sort of. The real finale, I think, for most people was a year ago. (I mean, really. It was called "My Finale." And the hallway scene? The final montage? Plus, after a season or two of the show getting weaker, the last season came through in a BIG way. The characters returned to form and it all gelled.)

This past season's hybrid was just strange. I understand why they brought Zach Braff in for a few episodes, but it was handled incredibly oddly. Why was J.D. leaving after a few classes? He was there, they talked about the fact that he was leaving, but never why, really. And it was odd seeing Turk and having him talk about Carla, but never seeing her.

I will say that the Med School season got stronger as it went on. Braff leaving helped, I think. The characters became more complete, though I think it would've been better to have Drew as the narrator instead of the girl--who obviously is so incredibly memorable that a mere hour after watching the show, I can't remember her name. (Lucy! Got it.) We don't need a J.D.-lite, particularly when they made her as crazy as J.D. was in later seasons. Early J.D. was odd, admittedly, but the absurdity didn't take over until the middle seasons.

(That having been said, I did love Lucy's horse obsession.)

And by tonight's episode, I found myself enjoying the characters. I wouldn't mind spending more time with them, but I can't imagine how long this show could've gone on. I'm not particularly sad to see it go--it did end strong. Except the coda, with Turk. I wish they would've acknowledged the end of the show better. Or used it to acknowledge the end of the show at all.

(I'm also a bit disturbed that I only found out in passing that it was the "series finale." I didn't see an announcement anywhere. Which means that I'm afraid Better Off Ted--which is AWESOME--has been dropped as well, and I just don't have confirmation. Oh, BOT. You deserved so much more.)

Just me and the GWB

2010-03-07T18:13:00.002-05:00

I first encountered In the Heights at the Tony Awards, and then saw a special about it on PBS, which caused me to rush out and get the cast recording.

I finally got a chance to see it on Tuesday, in Baltimore. It's always odd seeing a show when you're just familiar with the cast recording; there's a fear of being let down after getting to know those voices. (Particularly in this case; Lin-Manuel Miranda, who starred as Usnavi in the original cast, also wrote the music. His performance and the interviews with him that I've run across are just amazing. He's awesome.) (Seriously, go watch his acceptance for when he won the Tony for Best Score.)

There was an insert in the program at the theater; it looks like I saw the show just after it switched casts--or, at least, part of the cast. Most notable: I'd be seeing a new Usnavi (or, in fact, someone who had been understudying the part). (Maybe he still is an understudy, but printing a whole new cast sheet seems a little excessive for a short-term thing. But what do I know?)

Anyway, any qualms I may have had disappeared pretty much instantly. Joseph Morales was phenomenal as Usnavi; I just totally loved him. I loved everyone, in fact, to the point that there were some actors who I liked better than their soundtrack counterparts.

What's fantastic about the show--other than the great dancing and phenomenal rhythms--is how much I, a 31-year-old white chick from the suburbs, could relate to it. It's one of those shows that illustrate that no matter how different people may seem, we're more alike than we think. The story itself isn't anything particularly new or different, but it's just a great, great show.

Phantom of Coney Island

2010-03-01T22:59:00.003-05:00

There have been rumblings about Andrew Lloyd Webber doing a sequel to Phantom of the Opera for years. I tried to convince myself that it wouldn't happen; he wasn't that crazy. Unfortunately, he is. I kept getting alerts about something called Love Never Dies from Andrew Lloyd Webber, and, firmly in denial, was convinced that it was another compilation album. I can only wish.

And then a friend sent me a link to the official Love Never Dies website. A website that includes the video for the song "Till I Hear You Sing." I'll ignore the fact that apparently Lord Lloyd Webber has forgotten the fact that the Phantom is an insane serial killer. No, what got me was the fact that they made a cheesy video in the first place. I didn't realize they still did that!

Confession time: In the early 90s, I owned a video of the ALW Premiere Collection Encore, which had videos of a number of ALW songs, including "Phantom of the Opera" and "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again." I think Sarah Brightman was on about half the songs on the video. I owned the video because of one person: Michael Ball. He created the role of Alex in Aspects of Love and I am was totally in love with him. I created a whole story based on the video of "Love Changes Everything." And, bless you, Internet!, I found another one of the videos he was in:

I may need to go kill myself now, having watched that and remembering how obsessed I was with that video. I don't think I can, in good conscience, make any more comments about teenagers and Twilight.

Close encounters of the actor kind

2010-02-20T00:17:00.002-05:00

Mike and I saw Sweeney Todd at the Signature tonight--it was fantastic. But that's not the story here. After the show, we were walking back to my car and ran into a guy who looked very familiar to me. "Hey," I thought, "it's the guy who played Sweeney [Edward Gero]!" Now, logic would say that this would be pretty impressive, because the play had ended fairly recently. But then, I've also seen some actors get changed and get out very quickly, so it didn't raise too much of a flag. So after making eye contact, I approached and said how much we enjoyed the show. He was like, "Oh, were you in the audience?" and I said that yes, we were, and what a great show, etc. Then he made a comment about it being a true story and I realized what had happened.

He wasn't Edward Gero. He was Andrew Long, who was in I Am My Own Wife, also at the Signature.

Fortunately, I immediately realized this, and said that whoops, I was mistaken, but I had seen him in My Fair Lady, which I just loved. Then I went on to compliment that performance in more detail, and somehow managed to keep my babbling to a minimum.

He, happily, was very, very nice and didn't seem to think I was a complete idiot. Of course, he is a professional actor--and a good one. So that doesn't really mean anything. I did feel like an idiot, though. (Mike says that I didn't come across too insanely, but I was completely flustered.)

Anyway, on a somewhat unrelated note, I'm Facebook friends with one of the actors in Sweeney. I met him on a tour of the Les Mis set at the Signature back in 2008, and we haven't had any contact since then...but I kind of want to write him a note, like, "Hey, awesome job!" But that seems weird. I'm Facebook friends with another local theater actor, and I struggle with that with him, too. It was particularly odd that when I logged on to Facebook just now, the Sweeney actor was also listed as active. I guess I know what he does after the show.

They say it's your anniversary...

2010-02-09T19:37:00.003-05:00

Today is the 46th anniversary of the Beatles appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show...

so I decided to commemorate by playing the Ed Sullivan Chapter of Beatles Rock Band!

Except I played drums. On medium. But I got 20/20 stars, so WOO! Also, when I play drums on early Beatles, I shake my head like Ringo (see top video). Whee!

Tomorrow I may try and do the entire story in a 24-hour period and beat that challenge. This is what happens when you're entering your sixth day of being snowed in.

Not a week that's only Mondays

2010-02-09T17:51:00.002-05:00

Of course I watch Glee. And am totally in love with Matthew Morrison. Who, naturally, I fanned on Facebook. I get a little swoony when iTunes decides to play "It Takes Two" from Hairspray, and I've spent some time on YouTube trying to find clips with him in that. Luckily, he posted one himself!

It's just nice to see a clip that isn't "You Can't Stop the Beat." Not that I don't love Beat. I do. It makes me happy every time I listen to it AND every time we practice our tap routine to it. But I just like to see other bits of the show.

And also? This works so much better than the movie version of this song. I prefer Link and Tracy actually singing this to each other. And, you know, totally making out at the end. Yay!

Miss election debates? Have I got a rec for you!

2010-01-29T19:12:00.003-05:00

With great timing, I read this review of The Rivalry at Ford's Theater this evening, having seen the play last night. Because apparently Chris Klimek and I are the same person ("Especially if you read Assassination Vacation twice and then listened to the audio version." Check and check, though I've read it more than twice.), I agree with his review pretty much all the way through, particularly about the ending. Because I was ushering, I got up at what I figured was the end (when the debates themselves ended)...and then found myself standing for another, oh, 10 minutes or so. Not cool. And not particularly necessary.

One thing that I particularly enjoyed about this was how real it made Abraham Lincoln. I've read accounts about how awkward he seemed to people early in his career, and it seems kind of crazy to us, because dude, Gettysburg Address, hello? But in the first minutes of the first debate...you could see it. And then, just like the accounts I've read, his passion for the subject came through and he (or, in this case, Robert Parsons) was just fascinating to watch.

Also, I found him incredibly endearing. It was the way he'd tell a funny story (and seriously, for a play about the Lincoln-Douglas debates, it sure did have its funny moments), and then laugh and laugh. Aww! So cute.

I do remain vaguely uncomfortable with the way directors of plays about Lincoln that are staged at Ford's have a tendency to light up The Box when Lincoln is being quoted. It's...weird. I mean, dude did see some plays there other than Our American Cousin (including The Marble Heart, which starred John Wilkes Booth, who apparently kept send nasty looks to the President) (that's, like, one of my favorite stories related to the Lincoln assassination), but it's not like he made speeches from there. He went there to get away from weighty matters. I think most people who see shows at Ford's, particularly ones about Lincoln, are all too aware of The Box's presence; I know I get weirded out, seeing this guy portraying Lincoln standing below the place where Lincoln was shot. To go that extra step...it's just unnecessary to me.

Anyway, the combination of this and The Heavens Are Hung in Black and seeing Conan O'Brien talk about Lincoln's humor (um...last spring, I think) are pushing me closer and closer to actually reading a biography of Lincoln. It probably is wrong that I know more about Lincoln's death and assassin than I do about him.

(In a side note, I realized that I'll be volunteering at Ford's the day after Lincoln's birthday. Neat!)

Edit. Another great review can be found here.

Not Bitter

2010-01-26T21:58:00.002-05:00

I follow Jen Lancaster (author of Bitter Is the New Black, amongst others) on Twitter (she's @altgeldshrugged). Something she posted a month ago (...and I am only writing about now, yes) caught my eye:

To clarify, I can appreciate the acting, writing, and staging - just hate the characters, the moral turpitude, and the feeling of nihilism. 1:59 AM
Dec 27th, 2009 from web

got Fletch the first season of Mad Men for Christmas. After everyone's rave reviews, am a bit surprised at how much I dislike this show. 1:42 AM
Dec 27th, 2009 from web

I found it interesting because it kind of reflects how I feel about her writing. Kind of. Reading her books--particularly Bitter Is the New Black--I kept thinking how I didn't really like her, but man, she was funny. Her writing is really well-done and amusing. I couldn't relate to, like, anything she was talking about (high-powered job; stable relationship; loads of confidence; losing a job; scraping the bottom of the barrel, financially) and I couldn't imagine having a conversation with her and enjoying it...but I couldn't put the book down. And I've since bought her other books. (Don't have Pretty in Plaid yet; waiting for paperback.)

It helps that I do read her blog and Twitter; she's easier for me to get a grasp on now, I think. But those tweets reflect how I felt after reading Bitter.

Reuniting with the Frasers

2010-01-22T20:21:00.002-05:00

I finally finished An Echo in the Bone, the latest (seventh!!!) Outlander book by Diana Gabaldon. I say "finally" not only because the book is 814 pages, but also because it was interrupted by me reading Anna Karenina for my book club--not exactly a small book, either.

I frequently recommend Outlander to friends; it's a great read, fabulous characters, well-written. "But," I say, "stop after the third book. It's all downhill from there." And Echo did nothing to make me change my mind. I had high hopes going into it; I had liked A Breath of Snow and Ashes (book six) more than The Fiery Cross (book five, whose first 200 pages dealt with one day). In my mind, really, Gabaldon should've just stopped as soon as Claire and Jamie, the two main characters, arrived in the American colonies from Scotland.

(If you haven't read any of the books, they're about Claire, a woman from 1946 England, who winds up traveling through time to 1740s Scotland and marrying Jamie. They wander around Scotland, try to stop the Rising of 1745, Claire returns to the future, has their daughter, becomes a doctor [she was a nurse during WWII]. Jamie winds up in prison, fathers a son, gets released from prison. They're reunited when Claire realizes Jamie didn't die at Culloden, and then they go the the American colonies. Their daughter follows them, with her husband [he maybe came after her? I can't remember]. Stuff happens. The daughter, her husband, and their kids return to the 20th century. Consequently, this book was split between Claire and Jamie [and miscellaneous other characters] in America during the Revolution and Brianna and Roger in the 1980s.)

As you can tell from that most broadest of outlines, there's a lot to keep track of. Which is a huge problem. Gabaldon regularly goes 4 years between publishing her books, so when I read this one, it had been about 3 years since I read the previous one, and probably a good 2 or 3 before that that I read Fiery Cross. Though my mind can retain a LOT of random crap, I can't remember every single flipping character from this series, so when a character who was important two books ago showed up, I had no recollection of him, much less an idea of the specifics of his relevance in the story. I managed to piece most of it together, though I'm still hazy on details.

She really just needs a good editor who will actually tell her to cut things. She gets really, really into the details. I guess for some people it's interesting to read about numerous surgeries, but I don't need it. And the pacing of this book is all wrong. It's pretty slow to go through, and then everything happens in the last 150 pages or so. And nothing gets wrapped up. It's all cliffhangers at the end, which hasn't been the case with the previous books. Earlier books wrapped up the main plots, but left the door open for the story to continue. This leaves the reader hanging, which is one thing when you're watching a tv show and know that you have a few months to wait. But if I have to wait another 4 years, I'm going to be incredibly frustrated.

I think what's frustrating me, really, is that I do still care about Claire and Jamie, and even Bree and Roger, but as soon as we get into the countless side characters...I can't care that much. I can't maintain that much depth of feeling for that many characters over that many books over this many years. The earlier books were told entirely from Claire's perspective; I think the series started going astray when we got narration from more and more characters.

Gabaldon needs to bring it back to Claire and Jamie; unfortunately, at this point, she can't. I'll keep reading until the series ends (theoretically in another book or two, but it was originally supposed to only be a three-book series, so who knows?), but I'll continue to urge others to stop after Voyager, the third book. After that, it's not worth it.

2009 in review

2010-01-16T16:23:00.003-05:00

I'm combining my 2009 lists into one ginormous post. Sorry! Following are the books I read, movies I saw, and shows I went to in 2009. The ones I particularly enjoyed are in bold.

Books
* indicates a reread.
Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of FDR (Brands)
The Wordy Shipmates (Vowell)
East of Eden (Steinbeck)
Outliers: The Story of Success (Gladwell)
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less (Schwartz)
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Horror (Moore)
Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street (Davis)
Love the One You're With (Giffin)
Into the Wild (Krakauer)
Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain (Adams)
A Dirty Job (Moore)
Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man (Carroll)
The Tales of Beedle the Bard (Rowling)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home (Whedon & Jeanty)
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (Jacobs)
One Hit Wonderland (Hawks)
Everyone Worth Knowing (Weisberger)
Chasing Harry Winston (Weisberger)
Mine Till Midnight (Kleypas)
My Jesus Year: A Rabbi's Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith (Cohen)
As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires (Weber)
The Good Terrorist (Lessing)
Heyday (Andersen)
Night Train (Amis)
Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (Austen & Grahame-Smith)
Double Play (Parker)
Freakin' Fabulous (Kelly)
Basket Case (Hiassen)
"They Have Killed Papa Dead!": The Road to Ford's Theatre, Abraham Lincoln's Murder, and the Rage for Vengeance (Pitch)
How to Be Popular (Cabot)
Pants on Fire (Cabot)
A Confederacy of Dunces (Toole)
Beyond Band of Brothers (Winters)
*Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Rowling)
*Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
*Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
*Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
*Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
*Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Rowling)
*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Rowling)
The Poe Shadow (Pearl)
Notes From the Underwire: Adventures From My Awkward & Lovely Life (Cummings)
Cold Comfort Farm (Gibbons)
Atonement (McEwan)
Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound With a Minor League Misfit (McCarthy)
The Left Hand of Darkness (Le Guin)
Best Friends Forever (Weiner)
*Good in Bed (Weiner)
*In Her Shoes (Weiner)
*Every Boy's Got One (Cabot)
Epileptic (David B)
*The Ghost in the Third Row (Coville)
*The Ghost Wore Gray (Coville)
People of the Book (Brooks)
Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America (Gould)
The Dud Avocado (Dundy)
The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History (Ortved)
*Bridget Jones's Diary (Fielding)
Assassins (Sondheim & Weidman)
Beatles: The Biography (Spitz)
American on Purpose: The Improbably Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot (Ferguson)

Movies
Milk
Revolutionary Road
The Reader
Last Chance Harvey
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Watchmen
Sunshine Cleaning
Star Trek
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Up
(500) Days of Summer
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
I Love You, Beth Cooper
The Hangover
Julie & Julia
Inglourious Basterds

Theater
The Heavens Are Hung in Black - Ford's Theatre
The Civil War - Ford's Theatre
Ragtime - Kennedy Center
Arcadia - Folger
Jersey Boys - National Tour
Show Boat - Signature
A Christmas Carol - Ford's Theatre

For one brief shining moment...

2010-01-09T00:51:00.003-05:00

The other night, I saw Camelot at Olney Theatre, and wow, I was blown away. SO good. I knew the basic story, of course, and knew some of the songs. Watching it, I realized that I was actually familiar with the entire first scene, since it was done for a Spotlight spring session once (if I recall, it was John Casiello and Kira Huberfeld as Arthur and Guenevere), but anyway. Even knowing the general story, I was still surprised by a few things.

Like, dude, Guenevere is quite the flirt! The humor of "The Simple Joys of Maidenhood" strikes me quite a bit more now than it did when I was 15, but she really lays it on pretty thick for some of those knights.

That being said, Guenevere and Lancelot falling in love seemed to happen awfully quickly. As in, one look after spending a good amount of time being at odds. I realize that that's fairly cliche, but most of the time, that sort of pairing has at least an intermediate phase between "I hate you and want you dead!" and "I love you!" Not that the actors didn't perform it fabulously, but...man. Fast.

Also interesting was the fact that Guenevere and Arthur didn't have children. It's never addressed, but it sort of underpins a lot of the action. The two are clearly pretty in love--and physically attracted to each other. (One of my thoughts had always been that Arthur is quite a bit older than Guenevere, and one of the things that leads her to Lancelot is that he's young and virile. At least, that's the impression I got from what I remember of First Knight. [I know, OK? Shut up.] But the age differential didn't seem to be that great, and it certainly didn't seem to affect how Guenevere felt about Arthur before Lancelot showed up.) But they've been married for 8 years when Lancelot shows up, which is a long time, particularly back then. And no kids. And that fact does set the stage (literally! /rim shot/) for the rest of the play, but it's never directly mentioned.

The show is quite a bit funnier than I thought it would be. I don't know why this surprises me; after all, Camelot is a silly place, but Arthur was pretty darn funny. To the point where I was all, "Dude, Guenevere, what are you doing? Arthur is AWESOME!" And not just funny. The play really does reflect today's society, with its refrain of "Might for right." Arthur had this one speech that made me want to elect him President.

My only real problem was that at times, it was hard to understand the singing. I didn't get a word of "The Lusty Month of May." I'm not sure whether it was that the orchestra was too loud. I was in the front row, and the house was far from full (sadly--seriously, folks, it's a great production!), which may have affected sound calibrations. But really, could not make it out.

Also, why does Lancelot have a sense of humor when we first meet him ("C'est Moi"), but no other time?

Overall, just a fabulous production. I adored the costumes. I might have a crush on Mordred, played by Evan Casey. I was particularly impressed by how much the cast put into the show. The house was small, which can completely suck the energy out of a show, but that wasn't the case at all. (I did try to clap loudly and laugh a lot when appropriately.) But everyone was so fantastic. I was frequently struck by how much Todd Alan Johnson actually looked like a king--particularly in profile. I can't explain why. But yeah, all great.

And the end just gets me. I remember at some point in my past reading the script and being moved by the end. So much more so actually seeing it. Sniff.

Now I have to go pull out The Sword in the Stone.

The portrayal of a grown-up

2010-01-08T23:13:00.003-05:00

There are certain movies that I always try to watch around Christmas, like The Muppet Christmas Carol and The Holiday. And Love Actually, which I have adored since Carrie and I saw it in the theater. There's so much to love about that movie--the cast, the reality of some of the storylines, the complete lack of reality of others, and so on. But as I watched it recently, I realized something else that I like about it.

As I get older, one of the things I struggle with is the concept of being a grown-up. I don't feel like a grown-up. I look at my friends and don't feel like they're grown-ups either, despite our discussions of things like taxes and mortgages and getting the best car insurance rates and the fact that an increasing number of them have children.

So I was watching Love Actually and I realized that one of the things that I find really endearing about it is how it illustrates that, as they said on Buffy, love makes you do the wacky. There are moments when so many of the characters make these expressions, like, "What did I just do?" It's one thing for Baby in Dirty Dancing to have her "I carried a watermelon?" moment, but it's another to see Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, and Laura Linney make basically that same face. It's reassuring to see that in some ways, we just never grow up.

(Related: I was watched a documentary about Monty Python this weekend, and one of the members--John Cleese?--made a comment about how he basically never had to grow up. It's just weird to see this older man talk about how he's essentially still a kid. The older I get, the more I think everyone really feels that way. No matter what's on the outside, we all still feel like we're 15 a lot of the time.)

...time passing...

2009-12-30T21:44:00.001-05:00

I'm currently reading Anna Karenina, so clearly I have no time to be consuming any sort of other culture. Though I did manage to watch three hours of Cats 101 the other night.

He also has a degree in history

2009-12-19T10:22:00.002-05:00

You know what's gratifying? Following an actor, admiring his work, and then seeing an awesome article like this one, about Will Gartshore's day job--he's currently in Copenhagen on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund. I have a feeling, though, that he'll miss tomorrow's matinee. I believe all of the airports are closed for Snopocalypse '09.

Daily Show prototype

2009-12-13T00:57:00.003-05:00

In reading the Daily Show With Jon Stewart thread at Television Without Pity, I found a YouTube clip of Jon doing stand-up in 1996.

The thing that's amazing about this video--other than the fact that it's still funny, 13 years later--is how much this is like the current Daily Show. I know it shouldn't really be that surprising; after all, Jon Stewart is obviously a very smart guy who's had these opinions for quite some time. But it's just so odd to see the young Jon giving what could almost be a current monologue; I mean, I guess I just think of him as the guy on MTV, not as someone thinking about politics. Maybe in my mind he just didn't become political until starting at TDS in 2000. Which is silly, I know. I mean, obviously there was a reason they chose him to be the host.

No, tax-free shopping does NOT make up for it

2009-12-12T12:20:00.004-05:00

Today's Frank & Ernest really amused me. Though I think they should've added--and I'm sure others on the East Coast will agree with me--something about having to pay the stupid tolls and getting stuck in the toll traffic. Delaware. So expensive!

Big city/small town dichotomy (plus some Austen!)

2009-12-06T01:40:00.003-05:00

I love cheesy television movies. The only thing better is holiday-themed cheesy tv movies, so I totally thought I was in luck with The Twelve Men of Christmas, which aired on La-La-Lifetime. I mean, it has Kristin Chenoweth searching for guys to pose in a calendar! What could be better?

Well, I should've actually read the description of the movie, because then I would've found out that the movie is set in Montana. And Kristin plays a woman from New York who winds up there, a situation to which I can somewhat relate, having moved from Connecticut to Montana when I was 16. And as soon as the movie started and she arrives in Kalispell and the mayor is all, "Call me Mayor Bob!" and she's all, "Everyone here is so nice!" I knew what would happen. She'd wind up falling in love not only with the telegraphed love interest, but also with the town. No, she'd realize. New York City is too out of touch.

Scenes toward the end proved me right. The expensive real estate! Restaurants that are so hip that they don't answer the phone! Aggressive pedestrians! Who would want to live like that when they could live in Kalispell, where you have to drive hours to get to the nearest Gap? (And point. You wouldn't have to drive all the way to Billings [which is closer to 8 hours away, not 10] to get to a Gap. Spokane is maybe 4 hours away. Not great, by any means, but not quite that bad.)

And it's not that I'm saying that life in a small, Montana town is necessarily bad. It isn't. I'm just sick of movie after movie showing someone who's happy with their life in the big city until something forces them to go to a small town and then they realize What They Were Missing. Because you know what? It doesn't always happen that way. I spent 2 years in a town in Montana, happy with certain aspects (lack of humidity, good theater program at my high school, no speed limit), but frustrated with the isolation and the closed-mindedness of a number of the people.

What's that I said? Closed-mindedness? How can that be? These people are nice and welcoming of outsiders! Well, except when the attitude you get from a number of people is, "Oh, you're from the East? You must think we're idiots." And you get this attitude as a reaction to absolutely nothing. (True story. I go with my mom to set up my school schedule. The guidance counselor tells us with no provocation, "I know you're from Connecticut and think you can't get a good education here, but you can.") A lot of people in Montana don't like Easterners. They don't like Californians. There's a reason the Unabomber wound up there, people.

And yes, I have my Montana prejudices, in good part from having to move there after my sophomore year of high school. I look back now in some fondness (again, great theater program where I met a LOT of cool people), but would I rather have stayed in Connecticut? Hells yeah. And where am I now? In a suburb of DC. I got out of Montana as soon as I could and went to a college within an hour of two major cities--though in a small town. I appreciate both worlds.

I was distracted from my annoyance in the middle part of the movie, when I realized that this was some sort of Pride & Prejudice remake/homage/update/something. Kristin's character? EJ. Her assistant/coworker? Jan. Her love interest? Will. It'd didn't dawn on me until Will confesses his feelings while admitting that he's repulsed by the idea. Then it all fell into place. Particularly when they were like, "It's crazy how proud I seemed!" and "I can't believe I was so prejudiced against you!" and I remembered Will telling Jan's love interest to back off from her (for no apparent reason). I have no idea why they went this direction. It kind of worked, though it was a bit heavy at times. Though honestly, it's a cheesy, holiday-themed tv movie. Why am I surprised?

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T20:02:00.001-05:00

From me and President Bartlet

Jersey night

2009-11-11T17:56:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-08T22:42:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-03T20:02:00.002-05:00

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...

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

I particularly like the contrast between the last two categories.

The older "Dancing in the Dark"

2009-10-26T22:25:00.002-04:00

I watched The Band Wagon tonight, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. Holy crow. The plot was, not surprisingly, not the most logical thing--but better than the show within the movie, which purported to be about a writer who writes both children's books (or something) and gory murder mysteries, but included a bunch of totally random songs (e.g., that triplets song, "Louisiana Hayride")--but it had Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse dancing, so I can't complain too much. I want to do this:

(And also, you know, have Cyd Charisse's body. They're about equally attainable.)

Oh, and kudos to the movie for acknowledging the age gap between the leads! Woo!

And now I can tell them apart!

2009-10-24T00:40:00.003-04:00

I just watched a bunch of episodes of JONAS, the Jonas Brothers' Disney TV show. (I was going to watch the episodes of Gossip Girl I had on my DVR, but it turns out I either erased the second or it never recorded, and I was too lazy to get up to see what happened that episode. Anyway. I'm not sure that story helped your opinion of (a) my taste in television or (b) my lifestyle in general.) Anyway, I found myself analyzing the show and comparing the brothers to the Monkees, which is a bit tricky, because there are only three Jonas Brothers and four Monkees. Then I was like, "I should watch a bunch of episodes of The Partridge Family and find other sitcoms about 'famous' musicians and compare!" What can I say? It's Friday night. My brain is fried. But my laziness prevailed. Yet I'm going to share my impressions of the show with you anyway. Sorry!

I wasn't terribly impressed with their music. It was OK, I guess. I kept getting the songs mixed up, to the point that I was convinced that the first two episodes I watched kept using the same song over and over--like, it was the title song, and the songs in the episode. I will say, though, that compared with the Monkees, they have way fewer songs in their show. I mean, some of the episodes didn't have any. That may be because the Jonas Brothers were already a hit before the show started; they don't need to promote their music on their show. Plus, it seems that bands today put out music a lot less than they did in the 1960s. So I don't know. I can't imagine going to see these boys in concert, but they weren't, you know, bad.

They are, however, charming, and act fairly well. I've decided that Kevin, whom I think is the oldest (...yes, Wikipedia confirms this), is the Peter Tork of the group. Frequent jokes are made at his expense, though he is, of course, good-hearted and sweet. Nick, the youngest, appears to be the Michael Nesmith--he has the understated humor and from what I can tell, is the brains of the group. Joe is the Davy Jones; he's the heartthrob and seems to be the lead and has the romantic storylines.

Which makes no sense to me. Nick is way cuter, and is the smart one and the one who writes the songs (...in the show at least) and is the one who actually got them started. Plus, again, cutest. And by that, I mean he has, by far, the best hair. Joe really just needs to get his out of his face.

I will give the show credit for its writing. The plots are actually somewhat interesting, if not incredibly unconventional, but there are a lot of little jokes in the show that I liked. (For example, someone mentioned manatees, and Kevin started to sing about manatees. Also, to show that Joe wasn't a jerk, Nick said he'd show that Joe was "panda-loving.") (These were possibly funnier on the show than as written here.) So, credit for that.

Also, credit for the fact that the show isn't on the Disney Channel all the time. I think it comes on maybe once a week; at least, that's what a cursory look at my DVR listings showed me. I happened to catch a marathon. (Which I DVR'd. Don't judge me!) I get the feeling that even though Disney helped propel them, they've managed to retain some control--and good for them.

What I would like to compare with other shows is the handling of the group's fans. In the Monkees, it wasn't an issue, because they were portrayed as being a struggling band--they didn't have fans. But what did the Partridge Family do? In JONAS, there are screaming fans all over the place...when it suits them. They're not horrible about it, but it does jar a person to watch an episode about how the boys are all crushing on the pizza delivery girl, and so going to the door all the time without any noticeable screaming, then to see an episode in which in they can't take out the trash because the screaming girls will take them down.

But that sounds all efforty. And I really don't need to devote any more time or energy into comparing teenybopper rock band sitcoms.

So that means you're 5 degrees away!

2009-10-22T19:52:00.004-04:00

I'm reading Can't Buy Me Love, which is about the Beatles, and really delves into their music and the cultural landscape. (I may or may not write an in-depth review at some point.) Anyway, it mentioned that their producer whom they met in Hamburg cowrote the song "Strangers in the Night." I got very excited about this, because my sister's best friend is the granddaughter of the man this producer cowrote the song with! That means I'm only four degrees of separation from the Beatles (me to best friend to uncle to producer to Beatles!).

I got a little overly excited about this, but I don't care. How awesome!

Paying the price

2009-10-21T12:18:00.000-04:00

Ads on websites are something we've all accepted. The Internet is free; dealing with the ads is the price we pay. And usually, they're not too bad and it isn't a big deal at all.

I do get annoyed on sites that, after clicking a link, direct you to a short ad, and THEN you get to where you wanted to go. Now, I don't mind in certain cases. But I do get annoyed when it's a website for a publication to which I subscribe. I wish the Washington Post would have a way to realize that I subscribe when I’m fooling around on its website and spare me the ads. Ditto Entertainment Weekly. EW gets a bit more of a pass, as I don’t have to sign in to access content there. But I do for WaPo. If I’m one of the (relatively) few people who’s actually spending money for these publications, the least I could ask is for fewer ads on the websites that I’m subsidizing.

Newsflash: Joining Twitter is NOT required by law

2009-10-14T21:49:00.002-04:00

I've long been annoyed by people who are annoyed by Facebook and Twitter. I found the epitome of this viewpoint in a chat on WashingtonPost.com today with food writer Tom Sietsema, who recently starting Tweeting:

Washington, D.C.: Just me, and I'm not a Luddite. I don't really need to read your Twitters or Tweets. If you have a good enough Web site, a good enough blog, and you have discussions on a regular and scheduled basis, then, to me,
that's sufficient. I don't see why everyone needs to be available on every "social network". Heavens' knows I appreciate all that I read under the Sietsema banner, and find almost all of it useful and/or interesting, but I doubt that I need to get minute by minute updates of each and everything. Even if it means I might be missing some minor piece of information in the global scheme of things, or missing out on the most immediate of things critical to the immediate survival of the world.

Sorry, but I don't have a Facebook or MySpace or...or a lot of other ways you can communicate with me, let alone Tweeter.

First of all, it's annoying that this person uses "Tweeter" in the second paragraph, since he or she obviously knows that it's "Twitter," having correctly used it (and "tweets"!) in the beginning of the post.

But honestly, this is sort of the height of what frustrates me about people who complain about Facebook and Twitter. "Who needs all that information? I don't need to know what someone is doing every minute!" Apparently they don't grasp that nobody actually posts what they're doing every single minute. I might check in to my Facebook and Twitter accounts twice or so during and average workday, and it'll take me maybe 10 minutes to scan what people have posted. I enjoy Facebook because it's a good way to have a vague idea of what miscellaneous friends are up to without the hassle of emailing--it makes staying in touch easier! I enjoy Twitter for a combination of similar updates, humorous comments from famous people, and deals on plays and things.

But more than anything else, dude, you don't have to sign up for Twitter. Tom is not decreeing that all must follow him. It's not like he'll offer special 140-character reviews of restaurants. It's just a way to get a different feel for what his life is like. It's like so many other things--television shows, websites, books, movies, people: If it annoys you, don't read it/watch it/hang out with them.

I never really thought it would have a happy ending

2009-10-05T19:38:00.002-04:00

I've watched The Office since the beginning. I had watched the British version, and spent the first season of the American version pulling out the DVDs of the British one. But the second season...I was drawn in. Sure, Steve Carell is great in it, and I enjoy a lot of the characters, but I'm a romantic. If there's a couple to ship--any couple, in the world--it's Jim and Pam. So I watch the promos for this week's episode, "Niagara," the episode in which Jim and Pam get married, and I melt. The promos totally make my day.

I watch that and remember going over season two over and over...so many great moments (and a lot of the moments in that promo are from season two), such a classic ending...OK, I have to include it:

Sigh. I could watch it over and over. As well as the confession scene that comes before it.

...Sorry. I just had to watch each of those, like, 50 times. But anyway. It's nice to see that the show's being consistent. They've said for a while that Jim and Pam are clearly compatible. This is where their story logically goes. And they're just going to do it. Huzzah!

And I have to take this time to acknowledge the brilliance of the British Office Christmas Special. I hear "Only You" by Yaz and get all warm and fuzzy. But probably my favorite part is actually around 3:20 of this clip (the last 10 minutes of the special), when Tim talks about coworkers. So true. Oh, Ricky Gervais, I love you.

Don't question the quality of free music

2009-09-26T17:53:00.003-04:00

I live in the downtown part of my town, and every Saturday there's a farmers market, and from 10 to 11, live music. Which means that I'm woken up every Saturday by music. It's not bad, really, and it keeps me from sleeping in too late. (I make up for this by napping later.) So naturally this morning, I woke up and heard music. I realized that the group was playing "Got to Get You Into My Life" by the Beatles. Only...they were not doing such a great job of it. They were, in fact, doing a pretty horrible job of it. I'd say the singer consistently forgot maybe 50% of the lyrics. If you don't know the lyrics, don't sing the song!

As I got up and wandered around the apartment, I continued to listen. I could hear enough to make out the songs and some of the words, but not all of them. I'm still not sure whether they were doing Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" or a parody of it. The singer consistently sang, "I lied, lied, lied!" in the chorus, and he didn't have a lot of the other lyrics right, but he had enough right to really make me question what he was doing.

I'm not even going to mention the Michael Jackson medley.

While it has been interesting, I can't say I'm disappointed that this was the last week of live music on Saturday mornings. I look forward to uninterrupted sleeping in...3 weeks. Which is the next time I'll be able to sleep in, unimpeded, on a Saturday morning.

Drop dead awesome

2009-09-20T19:10:00.002-04:00

A new show that I'm enjoying that hasn't gotten much press at all is Drop Dead Diva, which airs Sunday nights on Lifetime. (Tonight, of course, I'll be watching the Emmys, but that's why God made DVRs.) The premise is totally insane--a wannabe model (Deb) dies in a car accident, but winds up in body of a woman (Jane) who stepped in front of a bullet for her boss. The twist (as if the entire premise weren't twist enough) is that Jane is plus-sized. How does a wannabe model live life in a woman who wears a size 16?

And one of the things I love about the show is how they handle that. Deb's best friend knows that it's Deb in Jane's body, and at first tried to get Deb/Jane to lose weight...but D/J isn't worrying about it. She's having that morning donut. It's great to see. And the topic comes up in different ways. For instance, last week D/J sued a couture store for not carrying a chichi dress in her size. Jane would never have entered the store, knowing that they would never carry a dress her size. Deb just assumed that she'd be able to get the dress.

It's also fun seeing Deb mature. After dying, she wound up in sort of a waiting room, where she discovered that she was sort of morally neutral--neither a good person nor a bad person. Every now and then in an episode, we'll see that pop up. She'll see someone and think to help them...but get distracted.

However, the show does have its weak spots. Deb seems insanely not curious about Jane's life. We saw her at Jane's apartment once, but she pretty much just lives with her best friend. Even when she was going to Jane's high school reunion, she studied up on her classmates, but didn't seem to take the time to try to figure out what Jane was like (though she did wind up learning a bit). We haven't seen Jane's family contact her--and since she survived being shot, you'd think they might be around. And if Jane had any friends, they have yet to make an appearance. I understand that the show has set Jane up as a workholic, but that doesn't mean she's completely friendless. Where are these people. Why does Deb not care at all? I mean, geez, if I were in that situation, I'd totally be searching for pictures, diaries, blogs, Facebook, whatever. Who am I now? But that's not what Deb is asking.

Also, the situations in their cases are insane, but I think that's pretty par for the course when it comes to legal shows on tv.

What really makes the show work is Brooke Elliott. Margaret Cho is great as her assistant, too, but Elliott just does a fantastic job of acting the differences between Deb and Jane. It's nice seeing the confidence of Deb shine through in Jane...she's someone that I could probably take a few lessons from.

And the dream sequences are fun. (Though they may want to tone down the guest stars a bit. It's somewhat overwhelming, particularly for such a new show.)

Mediocre movies happen

2009-09-13T22:52:00.002-04:00

I'm a sucker for romantic comedies. I love them. Quality really doesn't matter--I mean, I've seen most of the ABC Family movies, which should tell you something. And if I like one of the actors in it? I'm done. Count me in! I own the second Bridget Jones movie. I will watch The Wedding Date if TBS is playing it...which it frequently is. I saw License to Wed in the theater. I am a target audience.

So naturally I've been seeing the trailer for Love Happens a lot lately.

And...I don't get it. Is there a hook here? I guess it's that he's a self-help guru? This trailer actually gives away a lot more than the one I've seen on tv does, but it in no way makes me think that there is anything new in this movie. I like Aaron Eckhart. I like Jennifer Aniston. I love Martin Sheen and Judy Greer, but I honestly see no reason to see this movie. There's no hook to make me interested in this movie. Which almost makes me think that this might actually be good...you know, that it's more of a good character study, which just doesn't translate well into trailer format.

Or not. I have suspicions that it's just two pretty people who say they're messed up falling in love. Which, honestly, I don't need to see. Again. I think I'll pass.

They really got a hold on me

2009-09-10T22:53:00.002-04:00

If you want to buy me a present and are trying to figure out what that should be, you can't go wrong with the 3 B's: baseball, Broadway, and Beatles. If it's related to one or any of those, you're pretty much good to go. So really, it was inevitable that I would wind up buying Beatles Rock Band. What's surprising is that I've managed to pry myself away from it and am on the computer at the moment.

Seriously, I love it. I am incredibly bad at it. The vocals I do OK on (...somehow). But guitar? Drums? Not so much. However, there's a fabulous combination of practice modes and the "Easy" (read: cannot fail) modes that make it incredibly enjoyable.

I realized years ago that I don't really have the ability to do many thing at once. I can tap dance, but can only barely add arm movements. I can't imagine trying to sing as well; I can't do that when I learn a routine to a song I already know. So playing a game that asks me to use both hands to drum, then also use the foot pedal? HAHAHAHA. Seriously, it makes me really appreciate what musicians do. I'm plugging away at the easy mode, and I can see little Video Ringo banging away on a not even particularly complicated song. It's just so impressive. And it makes me happy to see articles like this--appreciate Ringo, dammit!

I will say that I have a new goal in life. I want to be able to do this:

Ask me in a few years how that's coming.

Let my DVD go!

2009-09-06T00:45:00.002-04:00

I got an email from the Folger inviting me to watched a taped performance of their staging of Macbeth, which was performed there last year. They're showing the video twice on Sunday, the 20th, and the DVD is available for purchase. Now, I saw that production. It was great. And I think it's awesome that it's available for purchase. The thing is, it's part of a series; namely, the Folger Shakespeare Library editions of Shakespeare series. This says to me that they only have DVDs of the Folger productions of Shakespeare's plays. Which, Nooooo! I would pay good money to get my hands on a DVD of their production of Arcadia, which I saw earlier this year.

The one bad thing about live theater is that you can only experience it once. It's so frustrating to know that there are videos of these shows that I would love to own but can't have. I just can't think about this anymore.

(I mean, it's not like it's a show that's on Broadway. Seeing the show on DVD isn't going to keep me from seeing it somewhere else. Trust me. Ditto the Signature production of Assassins.)

Also, whatever you do, don't blink

2009-09-03T20:37:00.003-04:00

I'm very sad about David Tennant leaving Doctor Who--he was my first Doctor! I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about him leaving.

(And can someone tell me which ep the clip of the glowy Doctor that's being shot at is from?)

All you need is Beatles stuff

2009-09-02T23:14:00.002-04:00

In getting ready for the release of Beatles Rock Band, VH1 and VH1 Classic are airing the Beatles Anthology, which I haven't seen since it originally aired back in...1995? 1996?

(Veering off-topic: I want Beatles Rock Band so much. I don't have any of the accessories, I don't have anyone to play it with, and I sucked when I tried Guitar Hero, but I am drooling over this thing. The commercials have me pawing at my tv screen and telling it how pretty it is. I don't care how impractical. I want it!)

Anyway, Beatles Anthology. (Which, for those of you interested, is on my Amazon Wishlist. My birthday's only 2 months away!) (Same goes for Beatles Rock Band!) It's fascinating to watch, but what's really standing out to me is how happy they seem--and I've made it through the second part. For some reason, I had these images in my mind of them not being happy with each other, particularly after they stopped touring. I don't know why the unhappy end is the part sticking in my mind, but the show has all these home movies of them goofing around, and they seem all happy and smiley with each other even when doing the "All You Need Is Love" broadcast. And I had forgotten that Ringo, Paul, and George did some of their interviews together. It's all just so...nice.

I guess maybe it's the part of me that insists on reading how the person dies when I read a biography; the breakup of the band caught my attention and the bickering is what stayed with me, not that the Beatles was four guys who had fun together. And it's so cool to watch.

(Also fun is when the interviewer asks a question, and everyone keeps deferring to each other. For example, the interviewer obviously asked whether John wrote "All You Need Is Love" specifically for the broadcast. Ringo: "I don't remember. Paul would probably know better." Paul: "That was really John's song. I don't remember. George Martin would know better than me." George Martin: "I'm not sure.")

Anyway, much like when I was rereading the Harry Potter books, all I want to do at this point is watch the Anthology and the Beatles movies (which VH1 is making all that much easier [though it's not like I don't own the DVDs of Help! and Hard Day's Night] by doing 9 days of Beatles) and read my Beatles books. That's my life, pretty much: moving from obsession to obsession.

Potter rerun

2009-08-23T17:30:00.003-04:00

I just finished rereading the Harry Potter series. It took under a month, and most of that was spent reading two of the book (Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows). And the thing that really blew me away was how incredibly tight the series is. The old adage is that if you see a gun in Act One, it's going to go off in Act Three. That was just all over the place. The smallest thread from a book very well might show up two books later. I remember reading Goblet of Fire and being bored with the whole house elf subplot, but the actions of house elves--responses to how they were treated--were crucial in Phoenix and Hallows. The author of a textbook we first see in Sorcerer's Stone is a point in Hallows. Even the Time Turners from Prisoner of Azkaban are specifically destroyed in Phoenix so they can't be a plot point later. Reading it, over and over I'd encounter a name or a curse or an incident from a previous book and it was just exactly where it needed to be.

It's just really good to see. Rowling obviously plotted these things out incredibly before setting pen to paper for Sorcerer's Stone. There are stories of people asking her questions about some random character, and she'll give a detailed answer. It's clear that her knowledge of this world and the people in it extends far deeper than what she included in the books.

Which makes the epilogue of Hallows that much more frustrating. It annoyed me then, it annoys me now. I should not have to have read in an interview with Rowling a week after the book came out what Harry and his buds had chosen for careers. According to Rowling, "It would have been humanly impossible to answer every single question that comes up." Well, that's true. But I wasn't asking the names of Harry's great-great-grandparents. I just wanted to know his job. That information is WAY more interesting than the names of his kids, and Ron and Hermione's kids, and even Bill and Fleur's kids. Good Lord, woman. We learn that. And we learn that Neville is a professor at Hogwarts. Yeah, that isn't what I wanted to learn in the epilogue. Harry and Ron revolutionized the Auror Department? That's awesome! How? What did they do? Even just a hint would be better than them seeing each other at Platform 9 3/4.

(I won't get into Harry and Ginny. Let's just say that I don't feel it in the books or the movies. Even a little.)

Still, it's hard to quibble with a few missteps when literally thousands of pages are so good. I mean, I found it hard to put the books down, even having read all of them before--some of them quite a few times. Kudos to you, Ms Rowling, and I look forward to you releasing the Potter encyclopedia.

Hippity hop

2009-08-20T22:04:00.001-04:00

So I was visiting Becca last weekend, and we found ourselves sitting outside a bar on Saturday night chatting. We gradually noticed the total awesomeness of the songs being played--"Humpty Dance," "Baby Got Back," "You Say He's Just a Friend," and so on. Naturally this led to us compiling a list of songs that need to be on this mix. But I'm opening this up to the public--what songs are we missing? And do you want to send me the songs I don't have? (The ones I do have are marked by an X.) Because putting together this mix is going to cost, like, $25, and that sucks. And I refuse on principle to pay for "Me So Horny."

1. Humpty Dance
2. It's Tricky - X
3. Push It
4. Baby Got Back
5. Funky Cold Medina - X
6. Say He's Just a Friend
7. Gettin' Jiggy
8. Shoop
9. Girls
10. Walk This Way (Run DMC)
11. Never Gonna Get It - X
12. Jump Around - X
13. The Dinosaur - X
14. Informer
15. Wasn't Me - X
16. Bombastic
17. 2legit
18. Me So Horny
19. Da Butt
20. Bust a Move
21. OPP
22. Ice Ice Baby
23. I got a man (Positive K)
24. Back to Cali
25. I'm Gonna Knock You Out
26. Boom (Shake the Room) - X
27. Good Vibrations (Marky Mark)
28. Back to Life (Soul II Soul)
29. Motownphilly (Boyz II Men)
30. Jump (Kriss Kross)
31. Strike It Up (Black Box)
32. My Perogative
33. Poison (Bel Biv Devoe)
34. No Diggity

(Cross-posted to my other blog)

Julie, Julia, and Barb

2009-08-20T21:59:00.002-04:00

I read Julie & Julia at Christmas last year and quite enjoyed it; it amused me throughout my 24-hour trek to Oregon when I definitely needed the distraction. I was excited for the movie--after all, I liked the source material, and it stars Amy Adams and Meryl Streep! And I did enjoy the movie; more, in fact, than most critics.

The biggest criticism about the movie seems to be that the parts about Julie, the young woman in 2002 who goes through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blogs about it, drag. People seem to see her as whiny and find those parts boring; a number would rather just watch a movie with Meryl Streep as Julia Child. Which I might agree with, were the parts in the movie about Julia Child when she worked for the OSS during World War II and not about her learning to cook and attempting to write a cookbook. Meryl Streep was great, of course, and I enjoyed those parts of the movie, but I didn't find them as riveting as I guess a lot of other people.

Maybe it's that I can relate a lot more to Julie than Julia. Whiny? Not particularly. I haven't encountered the scorn of the cubicle that she did and I'm not surrounded by wildly successful friends, but I'm also someone who finds refuge outside of work. It was nice to see a character in a solid relationship, but we also got to see how her drive to get through the cookbook put a strain on that relationship. She came across as eminently human, which isn't necessarily the case with Julia.

One of the biggest contradictions--and one that cannot be explained--is that Julia Child did not appreciate what Julie Powell did. Both the movie and the book include the moment that Julie finds out that Julia didn't think Julie was being "respectful", whatever that means. But the Julia portrayed by Meryl Streep seems to have a sense of humor. True, by that point she was much, much older, and possibly not that familiar with blogs, and she had lost her husband. But the movie doesn't really show Julia as someone with flaws, whereas Julie is definitely flawed.

It's interesting, because in the book Julie & Julia, the Julia parts are weaker by far; Julie does much better writing about herself. But on the other hand, the sections in the book also show Julia and Paul meeting and marrying during the war, so the story (to me) was more interesting than the one in the movie. Obviously, though, Julia learning to cook and writing the book are more pertinent to the movie's story.

In any case, the movie was delightful--all of it. Now, who's up for a cupcake?

Haven't forgotten about him yet

2009-08-12T23:29:00.002-04:00

Just a quick post (because I'm tired, yo) to link to this article by a guy who went to school with John Hughes and had some Ferris-like adventures. And since I'm linking, I might as well post one to the op-ed Molly Ringwald wrote about Hughes. Because I remain fascinated by my youth. And when I hit play on a tape that's been in my tape deck for ages, it started playing "Don't You (Forget About Me)".

More recognition for the Sig

2009-08-09T18:12:00.002-04:00

The first show I saw at the Signature was Assassins. I loved it, loved the actors, loved the theater. I had told myself I should see more theater around here, since DC has a really vibrant theater scene, and I was making an effort to go somewhere other than the National and the Kennedy Center. But instead of proceeding to Arena or the Folger or Woolly Mammoth or any of the many others (though I should point out that I have managed to visit a lot of the theaters now), I just kept going back to the Signature. My Fair Lady. Into the Woods. Merrily We Roll Along. Kiss of the Spider Woman. And so on. They do a lot of musicals, which is right up my alley, and I love a lot of the actors who pop up again and again in Signature shows. I'm super excited to see [title of show] and Sweeney Todd this season. Really, I just need to start ushering there. It's a bit of a drive, but would save me a bunch of money.

Anyway, I was psyched when they won the regional Tony this year, and now there's a nice article in the NY Times. I'm just bummed I had to miss the open house yesterday, as I was being a dork and volunteering at Ford's.

Now I just have to figure out how to become BFF with some of the regular cast members...I'm cool, guys! Hang out with me!

From "Rainbow Connection" to "Don't You Forget About Me"

2009-08-06T22:24:00.003-04:00

One of the first things I thought of after hearing that John Hughes died was, oddly enough, Jim Henson's death. I've been mulling over why this was (other than the obvious connection that they were both J.H.). And I think it's a symbol of teen years being over, where Henson's death was a loss of my childhood. Of course, when Hughes's seminal work came out in the 80s--Breakfast Club, 16 Candles, Pretty in Pink, Weird Science--I wasn't even 10. But those movies speak to all teenagers; those teenagers were the people I looked up to, in a way. They were who I thought teenagers were supposed to be.

The movies are endlessly quotable, but it's true what countless other people are saying--he understood teenagers. Probably the line that sticks with me the most is from 16 Candles: "That's why they're called crushes. If they were easy, they'd be called something else."

RIP, John Hughes.

Missing the Cute One

2009-07-30T21:20:00.002-04:00

Sir Paul McCartney is playing FedEx Field this Saturday and I'm totally bummed that I have to miss it. He gives great concert. I do have this interview to console me, though.

Or I can watch him back at the Ed Sullivan Theater: