Tag: youtube

Thursday Check-In

I saw him live when I was 5 years old, and because my dad was too cheap to pay for parking he made us walk through 2 miles of Scarface-era Miami to the arena.

Rather than gurn about all the things that aren’t going my way, as I usually do, here is Michael Jackson’s Beat It.

I have loved Michael since I was 4 years old. I had an MJ doll that was the Ken to my Barbies, complete with red Thriller outfit and single sparkly glove. I saw him live when I was 5 years old, and because my dad was too cheap to pay for parking he made us walk to the arena through 2 miles of Scarface-era Miami. Doing The Wave for an hour confused and exhausted me and I fell asleep halfway through the show…

…BUT. 

MJ’s music has long been a powerful antidepressant for me. As far as I’m concerned Beat It is like a 200-cc shot of ‘NO LONGER TAKING BULLSHIT FROM ANYONE.’

This week has been a downer, but I am resolved to bounce back. I am working on some entries for next week, and doing a lot of reading and commenting in the meantime. I’m resting up, basically, after a marathon of both personal and professional productivity.

I wish you luck today, in all you do!

Go forth and BE AWESOME!  I know you can! 

 

A World of Beautiful Insanity Awaits

But then I remembered that this existed. Some COMEDY GENIUS set a bunch of scenes from the original Star Trek to White Rabbit and it’s the best thing you’ll see today.

There’s a new trailer for Alice Through the Looking Glass! 

Yes, it features Pink singing the immortal White Rabbit for some reason. She doesn’t improve on the original and her voice is nicely comparable to Grace Slick’s, but there are some intriguing techno flourishes. I’m digging it, I admit. I do like Pink so perhaps I’m biased.

Looks WAY fun. I loved the first one. And hearing Alan Rickman’s voice brought on an unexpected bout of melancholy.

But then I remembered that this existed. Some COMEDY GENIUS set a bunch of scenes from the original Star Trek to White Rabbit and it’s the best thing you’ll see today.

My favorite is the scenes where they’re just standing around like ‘Is it working yet? do you feel anything?’

Have a great day!

“We Will Speak in Music.” – 1994’s Immortal Beloved

I’ll be honest – Immortal Beloved is a fierce, intense movie. And like anything powerful, it is worth the experience. It is one of the best illustrations of the artist’s interior struggle, and the ultimate tragedy for for some of the most brilliant minds: That people love who you are, or what you do, but rarely both.

Most people are familiar with Milos Forman’s powerful work Amadeus, which explored the friendship and eventual rivalry of Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Boatloads of awards, fantastic setpieces, amazing costumes and performances, and fame in the form of pop culture references are all associated with this movie. And while I love Amadeus, and love to pop it in now and then it is not my favorite biopic of a Classical musician.

That honor belongs to 1994’s Immortal Beloved. 

Immortal_beloved_film

It’s become de rigueur for award-winning biopics to explore the difficult, tumultuous lives and mental states of artists, and Immortal Beloved is one of the great examples of this. (Honestly, it’s more shocking to find a biopic about an artist who isn’t batshit crazy and emotionally abusive. For a fun experiment, watch the biopic Dark Star on H.R. Giger and have your mind blown by now normal and pleasant he is. He has a healthy long-term relationship! His friends hang out at his house all the time! This from the man who gave us the Birth Machine!) But I digress. We were speaking of Beethoven.

First, some background.

Continue reading ““We Will Speak in Music.” – 1994’s Immortal Beloved”

I’m Back, Y’all!

I totally teared up during this trailer. Between the music, the voicework, and that little boy’s spunky spirit, I am all over this. I am READY.

Got my internet situation handled, and I’ll have some entries up later this week – one for one of Gary Oldman’s greatest roles, that of Ludwig Van Beethoven in Immortal Beloved. HOW HAS HE NOT WON AN OSCAR BY NOW?

But today – oh, today!- here is another trailer for Disney’s new The Jungle Book. 

I get that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but as a weird little only child who grew up climbing trees alone in a big backyard, and preferred the company of animals to people…

…this has me. 

I totally teared up during this trailer. Between the music, the voicework, and that little boy’s spunky spirit, I am all over this. I am READY.

I LOVE the casting – I am hearing a lot of snark about Scarlett Johansen as Kaa, specifically her voicework, but I think it’s perfect. People are complaining that the line-reading sounds flat, but I disagree. After all, Kaa is supposed to be disarming, supposed to sound as if eating you is the farthest thing from her mind. She’s a 50-foot python and running prey down isn’t an option – large reptiles are ambush predators, meaning they wait hidden for you to let your guard down, before they strike. In the cartoon Kaa used hypnosis on his prey, but I like the reinterpretation. They’re playing with the  ‘Eve and the Snake’ mythology of Western culture a bit too, with woman as ‘seductress,’ but I kind of dig it. Mowgli’s wolf mother is played by Lupita N’yongo, which is nice, but seriously can we get her in a big blockbuster role where we see her face?.

And Idris Elba as Shere Khan?

Get that casting director a bucket of awards and a dumptruck of money because that is PERFECT.