There are only 4 more days until my most anticipated day of 2010… That’s right, the Lost premier. I just finished my 2 month marathon of the first 5 seasons, and cannot wait until Tuesday. I hope my professors are prepared for me to be unprepared come Wednesday, A girl has got to have her priorities you know.
In preperation for the upcoming season I have prepaired my list of questions I want answered along with the rest of the interents. Here it goes:
Why was Charles Widmore on the Island, and why do he and Ben hate each other so much?
How come Richard Alpert doesn’t age?
Who made Jacob God?
What was Claire’s role in all of this? Why did she stay on the Island with Christian Shepard? On that note, is Shepard dead or alive? Is he really there?
Speaking of dead people, is John the dead guy in the casket, or the alive guy under the foot?
What the hell is the smoke monster?
Is there any actual relation to ancient Egypt?
Can we change the future…?
I could come up with so many more questions, such as all of the ones in the above song (completely awesome), but the title of the post seemed catchier with the 8 questions thing. I just wish I had the motivation to come up with the 15, 16, 23, and 42 things, but I don’t.
I saw Spring Awakening last night and I am pretty sure It overtook Wicked as my favorite musical. They are very different plays, hence my being “pretty sure.” Spring Awakening follow teens as they discover life and death, sex, loss, failure. It is heavy. If you are looking for an uplifting evening this won’t be it, but the music was amazing and the story was incredibly powerful. I had chills throughout.
The story and characters were amazingly well written, and although I couldn’t keep all their names straight–it was set in Germany when they had names like Melchoir and Moritz–the story was timeless. With a change of names and costumes the musical could take place anytime, anywhere.
If you want a synopsis of the story you can google it, I was overwhelmed by the experience, so that’s what I plan on talking about.
The set design was simple. There were no props other than two switches that the adults used to beat children and a few chairs; there were no set pieces, just some environmental elements hung on the wall (mirrors, chalk board, art). The orchestra was on stage, as well as about 12-15 people from the audience. I wish I had those seats, it really gives new meaning to the best seats in the house. Because of the simplicity the set it was all about the characters and their stories. That’s one of the reasons I feel like this could be set anywhere. Because I had to visualize their surroundings, I didn’t visualize them in 1880’s Germany. I like that, I like when plays give the audience the chance to interpret the setting and scenery however they see fit. This was a very deliberate choice, I’m sure. It makes the play all the more real, these could be any kids.
The lighting design was breath taking. Because they didn’t use any set pieces, good lighting was necessary to set the mood, and had to work well with nontraditional music. All the songs were set to Rock music, which may not have worked in a classic musical setting, but it worked perfectly here.
It wasn’t like they broke out in song as they went about their lives, but more as if they used song to describe the emotions they were experiencing in a specific moment. Not everyone would be involved in each number, people who weren’t involved would simple freeze while the character described what was going through his or her head. It worked really well; had they tried to integrate very American Rock and Roll with a 1880’s Germany setting in a traditional way it probably wouldn’t have worked. The lighting was used to emphasize the change. The lighting would change drastically between the actual scene and when they would start to sing.
This play was filled with music I would gladly listen to over and over again, and the story is simple, but saturated with emotion and turmoil. [aside]Just had a thought, Let start showing this to high schoolers instead of making them take sex ed. It was much more exciting to watch and a much better explanation of the overwhelming emotions that adolescents experience, although it probably doesn’t jive with the traditional American values public schools try so hard to embrace.[/aside]
If you are in Cincinnati, go see the musical while it is here, If you aren’t, they are touring so check broadwayacrossamerica.com and see if they will be in town this season. I don’t want to say this play was life changing because that’s entirely too melodramatic for my tastes, but wow, just wow.
I saw Avatar yesterday like millions of other people out there, in one word: Awesome. I left the theater in awe. The story, as everyone else has said, Dances with Wolves 2.0. Sure, not particularly unique, but a good story. Where the movie shined was in its visuals. Absolutely amazing, the detail that went into the creation of the planet: the forest, the creatures, the plants, was unbelievable. And when I left it didn’t feel like a made up world, I feel like I could go there, period. It was so rich and colorful, I left the theater to drive through cold, grey, gloomy downtown Cincinnati, and was seriously depressed, I wanted to go walk through a forest, or ride a horse (I wish I could go ride dragons, but that isn’t a feasible option, although if it were, I would be all over that shit). With nearly every scene I just wished I could freeze frame it and look around, explore the detail that an amazing group of artists created.
I left the theater wishing the movie would go on for another 3 hours. It felt like no time at all. I want to know more about the Na’vi culture, and the people that are a part of it. I wish I could have seen more when Jake was trying to assimilate himself to the Na’vi, He had it way too easy in my opinion, I’m pretty sure that would have gone down differently. All in all, I know they couldn’t have made it a longer movie and expected normal people to go see it, but I would have sat through something twice as long. Fingers crossed for a ridiculous directors cut.
There is so much more I could say, but others have already said it better than I could. Annalee Newitz at I09 didn’t so much write a review, but I entirely agree with her take on the story. There are so few new concepts out there; we just keep re-imaging the same old stories, had Avatar brought a unique and insightful story to the table it could have been even better.
I’ll leave you with the two parts of the movie that just irk me:
1. Unobtainium? really? You write an entire language and you decided to call the ore that they are mining Unobtainium? I am sure there was a reason, but honestly, that’s just a little stupid.
2. You used Papyrus, or a font close enough to it to piss me off, for the subtitles, that knocks you down a few notches.
My sister may want to think that I am excited for February 2nd because it is her birthday, but she would be wrong. February 2nd is the premier date for Lost season 6. The final season. I said from the beginning that Lost would need to set an end date, and finish it. As sad as I will be for Lost to be off the air, it is much better this way.
Alias was the first show I was religiously attached to, and, without question, it went on too long. The story got muddled, the writing got worse, and by the end of the series, the only reason I was still watching was because, maybe, just maybe, J.J. would throw an awesome ending on it that would make season 5 worth it. It wasn’t. So yes, I was very glad a few years ago, when I heard that they had set an end date for Lost. The writers know exactly what questions they have, and what they have to answer and accomplish in the final season.
I have started re-watching the entire series. I watched season 1 last week, finished up yesterday afternoon, and now I’m on s.2 e.7 (what happened to the tail section of the plane for the first 48 days). I never really realized how little actually happened in season 1. It is amazing how the writers created such a brilliant show composed almost entirely of character development; very little of the over arching plot. We didn’t even know the Dharma Initiative existed. The first 3 episodes of season 2 are chalk full of questions, that is where the story of Lost really started. It is awesome to ride the crazy ass roller coaster that is Lost again. It has been years since I have watched these episodes, but I wanted to be entirely prepared come February. Also, I took a Lost trivia quiz, and failed miserably, I was very disappointed in myself.
I’m not going to re-hash all the challenges that face the writers with season 6, only say that I cannot wait to experience it.
This is nearly a week old over on Gizmodo, but somehow I missed it when it was orginally posted. I want it, maybe not as a wedding cake: I would have to explain what it is to my entire family, excluding maybe my dad and brother. I’m not sure my grandma would really appreciate it for the glorious cake that it is.
Check out the whole gallery. Then maybe we could cozy up in this for the honeymoon.
I went on a short story kick in New York; my 40 minute subway ride was perfect for reading a short story but never really gave me enough time to get into a novel. I, Robot is one of those books that I was loosing geek cred having not read it and I have to say, I don't know why I didn't read this earlier.
I loved that the short stories followed the same characters through different experiences and challenges that they face. It took a story about robots and made it about humanity. My favorite stories were probably "Catch that Rabbit" and "Liar." The first was about a little girl who was attached to her nanny robot and how her father thought it was inappropriate. It is something I have wanted to explore in my own writing, what are the consequences when technology replaces a human being in an emotional capacity, even when it preforms its tasks perfectly. The other is about a robot that reads minds, I have a thing with mind reading, I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm writing a story about it now and am very intrigued by the idea.
Overall, If you are a sci-fi fan like me who hasn't picked this up, go do it. Now.
