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Merry Christmas from South Carolina.
Dec. 25th, 2014 10:55 amHave safely journeyed to South Carolina to spend Christmas with my parents. Left on Sat so avoided all the storms and cancellations. The theme this year has been lots and lots of rain. Buckets of rain, I mean seriously enough with the rain. Oh well, according to my parents they needed it since they'd been in a bit of a drought.
On Tuesday, we saw the stage production of the musical Singing In The Rain, which was an impressive production - they managed to pull off all of the major dance sequences, including the showstopper and title song, "Singing in the Rain" with 600 gallons of water , which effectively rained down on the stage. One of the better productions that I've seen down here - we all loved it, even though we've seen the film version various times. My mother informed me after wards that she'd gone to see the film when it premiered in her home town of Liberty, Mo in 1952 with her sisters. They had to leave in the middle of it because her younger sister, who was five years her junior and about five at the time, got upset. Her parents had forced them to take their younger sister to the film, even though she was much to young at the time. My father didn't see it until much later on television.
On Wed we'd, mom and I went to see Mockingjay Part I - the screenplay was written by the guy who portrayed Jonathan on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and wrote the screenplays for the butler, game change, and is the show runner for the new TV series Empire. IN case you've been hiding under the pop culture equivalent of a rock, this film was adapted from the third book in the Hunger Games series. Which for once they wisely split in to two parts, since that last book was jam packed with some complex themes, unlike the Hobbit which should have been at most tow films and has been stretctched out to the point that I barely remember why I loved the story to begin with.
I've decided to skip the last one, since I've fond memories of Ralph Bakshi's 1970s animated version. Well that and neither my mother nor myself, enjoys watching drawn out battle scenes.
Mockingjay surprised me, it's actually better than the first two films, tighter and in some respects more haunting and chilling in places. I feared up at one point - they go out to shoot a series of propaganda scenes, using katniss, who is suffering from severe Post traumatic stress disorder , and they sit by a lake, one of the cameramen asks her to sing, so she sings This haunting folk song about a hanging tree, which slowly syncs into a chant sung by rebels who storm a dam, as they get mowed down. Just thinking about this scene makes me cry- it is so tragic, and such a clear statement about the insanity of violence and war. The hunger games at its heart is an anti- war story, and a satire about the cost of power, materialism, placing such things above life. This film more so than the first two, which in some respects were more satirical, really gets it across. My mother who hadn't read the books was able to follow it with little difficulty, and she didn't remember the second film that well. I think I may need to get the soundtrack for this one as well, it had some haunting songs.
To continue with the rain theme, during the film, there was this clicking sound. At first I thought it was the movie, then maybe someone popping popcorn, finally I remembered the bucket in the row in front of us and the signs, "Caution, Wet Floor". Sure enough, it was poring outside and there was a leak in the roof of the theater, so it was raining in the theater as well, one long drip from the ceiling into the bucket. Fortunately the film was so good, that I was able to disregard it after a bit. But it was a little distracting, at one point my mother turned to me and asked, what's making that clicking noise? It also added atmosphere during the rain scenes.
Better post this now, considering since I've been typing this on my iPad, the stupid web page has had to reload seven times.
Have a merry Christmas all. And wait...I think I see a sliver of blue sky, could that actually be the sun?
(typos galore due to iPad and constant rebooting.)
On Tuesday, we saw the stage production of the musical Singing In The Rain, which was an impressive production - they managed to pull off all of the major dance sequences, including the showstopper and title song, "Singing in the Rain" with 600 gallons of water , which effectively rained down on the stage. One of the better productions that I've seen down here - we all loved it, even though we've seen the film version various times. My mother informed me after wards that she'd gone to see the film when it premiered in her home town of Liberty, Mo in 1952 with her sisters. They had to leave in the middle of it because her younger sister, who was five years her junior and about five at the time, got upset. Her parents had forced them to take their younger sister to the film, even though she was much to young at the time. My father didn't see it until much later on television.
On Wed we'd, mom and I went to see Mockingjay Part I - the screenplay was written by the guy who portrayed Jonathan on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and wrote the screenplays for the butler, game change, and is the show runner for the new TV series Empire. IN case you've been hiding under the pop culture equivalent of a rock, this film was adapted from the third book in the Hunger Games series. Which for once they wisely split in to two parts, since that last book was jam packed with some complex themes, unlike the Hobbit which should have been at most tow films and has been stretctched out to the point that I barely remember why I loved the story to begin with.
I've decided to skip the last one, since I've fond memories of Ralph Bakshi's 1970s animated version. Well that and neither my mother nor myself, enjoys watching drawn out battle scenes.
Mockingjay surprised me, it's actually better than the first two films, tighter and in some respects more haunting and chilling in places. I feared up at one point - they go out to shoot a series of propaganda scenes, using katniss, who is suffering from severe Post traumatic stress disorder , and they sit by a lake, one of the cameramen asks her to sing, so she sings This haunting folk song about a hanging tree, which slowly syncs into a chant sung by rebels who storm a dam, as they get mowed down. Just thinking about this scene makes me cry- it is so tragic, and such a clear statement about the insanity of violence and war. The hunger games at its heart is an anti- war story, and a satire about the cost of power, materialism, placing such things above life. This film more so than the first two, which in some respects were more satirical, really gets it across. My mother who hadn't read the books was able to follow it with little difficulty, and she didn't remember the second film that well. I think I may need to get the soundtrack for this one as well, it had some haunting songs.
To continue with the rain theme, during the film, there was this clicking sound. At first I thought it was the movie, then maybe someone popping popcorn, finally I remembered the bucket in the row in front of us and the signs, "Caution, Wet Floor". Sure enough, it was poring outside and there was a leak in the roof of the theater, so it was raining in the theater as well, one long drip from the ceiling into the bucket. Fortunately the film was so good, that I was able to disregard it after a bit. But it was a little distracting, at one point my mother turned to me and asked, what's making that clicking noise? It also added atmosphere during the rain scenes.
Better post this now, considering since I've been typing this on my iPad, the stupid web page has had to reload seven times.
Have a merry Christmas all. And wait...I think I see a sliver of blue sky, could that actually be the sun?
(typos galore due to iPad and constant rebooting.)