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Oct. 22nd, 2016 07:19 pmYesterday morning as I rode the subway to work, I looked up and across from me was a photo of two cream puffs, topped with whip cream and cherries, the caption was "Jayne Mansfield" from the Museum of Sex, but all that came to my mind? "Now I have an insane craving for creme puffs." This was quickly dislodged by the mass of middle school students who flooded my train, along with their leaders informing them that this was to be their last subway trip ever and to soak it in. Gotta to love the subway, it's a different ride every day, mainly due to the people who take it.
Rode the subway and trains a lot this past week, commuting to Manhattan, Brooklyn and Jamaica, all about forty-five minutes to an hour from one to another by train. Jumping to and from with thousands of others. The sheer volume of fellow travelers continues to astonish. Where did they come from? I don't remember this many people being about last year. (Also as an aside, they say you should do something physical every day, does walking a mile to and from the subway count? )
Rainy windy day. And it's getting darker earlier and earlier, as summer slides into fall and fall into winter. We're slowly approaching the dark season...shorter days, longer nights, which makes me want to hibernate indoors curled in a large sweater, reading a book. Except the heat in my apartment sort of makes the sweater bit unnecessary.
After another people intensive week, I took today off and vegged for the most part in front of the television. Watched a lot of musicals, the only halfway entertaining one was Crazy Ex-Girl Friend. The Hamiliton in America special was more of a documentary about what went into the making of the musical Hamiliton, most of which had already been covered in depth by 60 Minutes a year ago, and felt a bit too much like grandstanding by everyone involved. There's self-promotion and then there is "self-promotion". If you say you are great too many times...does it start to stop resonating? When does "self-promotion" start to approach narcissism, exactly? Or for that matter arrogance? I watched for the snippets of musical numbers that I was treated to, along with the snippets of history, intermingled within. Unfortunately, there were more interviews with various political figures than either musical numbers or actual history. I found it disappointing.
Then, oh dear, Fox's misguided attempt to do The Rocky Horror Picture Show as a live televised theatrical event. (I went into this with low expectations.) Fifteen minutes in, I began to miss Glee's take on it. The problem with The Rocky Horror Picture Show is that the plot, what little there is of it, makes no sense. Nor is it really supposed to, since it's meant to be a satirical send-up of various cultural motifs and B science fiction/horror movies from the 1950s, 1960s and early 70s. (It makes more sense if you saw those films and knew the time period.) At the time it was released, which was in 1975, it was a critical bomb. And the film is, to be fair, a convoluted absurd mess, with a few nonsensical albeit catchy songs thrown into the mix. Some of which are ear-worm songs that just won't leave after you listen to them. I still have a few of them humming around my head.
A few years later it became a cult hit with the late night movie crowd.
The film really only works as an audience participation event. Which is how it became so popular in later years -- people would go to late night showings and basically, make fun of it. (Think Mystery Science Theater 2000, except with a rowdier crowd and a musical soundtrack). They'd dress up as characters from the film, enact the parts with the actors on stage, scream out lines of dialogue, sing the songs, talk to the screen, dance the Time-Warp, and throw stuff at the screen. And in that setting, it's a hoot. But try watching it on tv sometime; it's deeply boring in places, absurdly funny in others, and doesn't really make a lot of sense. The best thing in it is Tim Curry as Frankenfurter.
They tried to do it as a Broadway musical a while back but it didn't take off --- mainly because I don't think it works as a Broadway musical unless you allow the audience to fully participate, heckle and make fun of it. I wondered how Fox was going to pull it off -- because as stated above, it doesn't really work well on television either. I suppose it can -- Glee managed to pull it off, partly by editing it and commenting on its themes within the episode. In short, Glee didn't try to reboot the film version.
Fox did not pull it off.
I fast-forwarded through a good chunk of it. And found it to be boring and on the silly side. Also, maybe it was just me, but it looked like the actors were lip-syncing the songs, not actually singing them, which was distracting. The audience framing did not work -- more annoying than anything else. They televised it as if a live audience had gone to a late night showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and was throwing things at the screen, screaming out lines, and dancing in front of it. This was more annoying than gratifying.
The only scenes that I sort of liked was the Brad and Janet in the grave-yard singing Damn-It Janet, and Janet's seduction of Frankenfurter's Creature with "Touch Me, Touch Me, Touch Me". But the fact that Rocky aka the Creature was wearing boxers instead of briefs or a thong...showed that Fox was trying to play it safe for a family audience, which just doesn't work with Rocky Horror Picture Show. If you are going to do it -- go all out. Otherwise, don't bother -- because part of the satire is sexual repression.
Anyhow, the critics were right, it didn't work.
So, Crazy Ex-Girl Friend's premiere is the only one I'd recommend. It had its clever moments and a few laughable lines. It's a rather witty satire about romantic love or rather how our society and culture views romantic love and the need for it. Rebecca Bunch is convinced that she can't be happy without romantic love and Josh is it. But truth is, she's actually happiest when she's not pursuing Josh or thinking about him.
There are lots of ironic love songs. And sex...which is satisfying for the moment, but disappointing overall. Now that she's having great sex with Josh...what now? Why is she still unhappy? Why is Josh?
Paula much the same way -- she's having great sex with hubby, but something's missing.
The best relationship Bunch has is actually with her friend Paula, which is not sexual or romantic.
Rode the subway and trains a lot this past week, commuting to Manhattan, Brooklyn and Jamaica, all about forty-five minutes to an hour from one to another by train. Jumping to and from with thousands of others. The sheer volume of fellow travelers continues to astonish. Where did they come from? I don't remember this many people being about last year. (Also as an aside, they say you should do something physical every day, does walking a mile to and from the subway count? )
Rainy windy day. And it's getting darker earlier and earlier, as summer slides into fall and fall into winter. We're slowly approaching the dark season...shorter days, longer nights, which makes me want to hibernate indoors curled in a large sweater, reading a book. Except the heat in my apartment sort of makes the sweater bit unnecessary.
After another people intensive week, I took today off and vegged for the most part in front of the television. Watched a lot of musicals, the only halfway entertaining one was Crazy Ex-Girl Friend. The Hamiliton in America special was more of a documentary about what went into the making of the musical Hamiliton, most of which had already been covered in depth by 60 Minutes a year ago, and felt a bit too much like grandstanding by everyone involved. There's self-promotion and then there is "self-promotion". If you say you are great too many times...does it start to stop resonating? When does "self-promotion" start to approach narcissism, exactly? Or for that matter arrogance? I watched for the snippets of musical numbers that I was treated to, along with the snippets of history, intermingled within. Unfortunately, there were more interviews with various political figures than either musical numbers or actual history. I found it disappointing.
Then, oh dear, Fox's misguided attempt to do The Rocky Horror Picture Show as a live televised theatrical event. (I went into this with low expectations.) Fifteen minutes in, I began to miss Glee's take on it. The problem with The Rocky Horror Picture Show is that the plot, what little there is of it, makes no sense. Nor is it really supposed to, since it's meant to be a satirical send-up of various cultural motifs and B science fiction/horror movies from the 1950s, 1960s and early 70s. (It makes more sense if you saw those films and knew the time period.) At the time it was released, which was in 1975, it was a critical bomb. And the film is, to be fair, a convoluted absurd mess, with a few nonsensical albeit catchy songs thrown into the mix. Some of which are ear-worm songs that just won't leave after you listen to them. I still have a few of them humming around my head.
A few years later it became a cult hit with the late night movie crowd.
The film really only works as an audience participation event. Which is how it became so popular in later years -- people would go to late night showings and basically, make fun of it. (Think Mystery Science Theater 2000, except with a rowdier crowd and a musical soundtrack). They'd dress up as characters from the film, enact the parts with the actors on stage, scream out lines of dialogue, sing the songs, talk to the screen, dance the Time-Warp, and throw stuff at the screen. And in that setting, it's a hoot. But try watching it on tv sometime; it's deeply boring in places, absurdly funny in others, and doesn't really make a lot of sense. The best thing in it is Tim Curry as Frankenfurter.
They tried to do it as a Broadway musical a while back but it didn't take off --- mainly because I don't think it works as a Broadway musical unless you allow the audience to fully participate, heckle and make fun of it. I wondered how Fox was going to pull it off -- because as stated above, it doesn't really work well on television either. I suppose it can -- Glee managed to pull it off, partly by editing it and commenting on its themes within the episode. In short, Glee didn't try to reboot the film version.
Fox did not pull it off.
I fast-forwarded through a good chunk of it. And found it to be boring and on the silly side. Also, maybe it was just me, but it looked like the actors were lip-syncing the songs, not actually singing them, which was distracting. The audience framing did not work -- more annoying than anything else. They televised it as if a live audience had gone to a late night showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and was throwing things at the screen, screaming out lines, and dancing in front of it. This was more annoying than gratifying.
The only scenes that I sort of liked was the Brad and Janet in the grave-yard singing Damn-It Janet, and Janet's seduction of Frankenfurter's Creature with "Touch Me, Touch Me, Touch Me". But the fact that Rocky aka the Creature was wearing boxers instead of briefs or a thong...showed that Fox was trying to play it safe for a family audience, which just doesn't work with Rocky Horror Picture Show. If you are going to do it -- go all out. Otherwise, don't bother -- because part of the satire is sexual repression.
Anyhow, the critics were right, it didn't work.
So, Crazy Ex-Girl Friend's premiere is the only one I'd recommend. It had its clever moments and a few laughable lines. It's a rather witty satire about romantic love or rather how our society and culture views romantic love and the need for it. Rebecca Bunch is convinced that she can't be happy without romantic love and Josh is it. But truth is, she's actually happiest when she's not pursuing Josh or thinking about him.
There are lots of ironic love songs. And sex...which is satisfying for the moment, but disappointing overall. Now that she's having great sex with Josh...what now? Why is she still unhappy? Why is Josh?
Paula much the same way -- she's having great sex with hubby, but something's missing.
The best relationship Bunch has is actually with her friend Paula, which is not sexual or romantic.