Workplace Theater Presents: “The Star Wars Conversation”

CB: Coworker B
ME: Me
BB: Big Boss

BB: (on the way out the door) I better get these parking passes to the movie theater so they give me my Star Wars tickets!

(BB exits, approximately two minutes of silence)

CB: How is James Cameron able to do all of those Star Wars prequels?
ME: Uh, what?
CB: How can James Cameron make those Star Wars movies?
ME: What Star Wars movies?
CB: You know, those prequels that he did.
ME: I don’t know what you’re talking about, what prequels did James Cameron do?
CB: You know, the ones before the first ones, there was one that was “Phantom” something.
ME: Do you mean episodes one, two and three? That’s not James Cameron, it’s George Lucas.
CB: Oh, that’s right. (pause) So how is he able to do the prequels?
ME: What do you mean?
CB: Well, how did he get the rights to do them?
Me: Um . . . George Lucas is the original director and writer of Star Wars. He has all the rights already.
CB: Oh, huh!

FIN

Dragged Scott off today to see The Phantom of the Opera. We were going to see The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou afterward, but the 2:40 showing was sold out, and I didn’t want to hang out downtown for two hours. We’ll see it soon.

Anyhoo, back to Phantom. I’m a fan of the musical, so my expectations were pretty high. How did it disappoint me? Let me count the ways:

The girl playing Christine was the worst . . . lip-syncher . . . EVER. You sing in the studio with a ton of vibrato, you should probably let your chin wiggle. At least a little bit. Maybe it was the director’s choice, and if so, poor choice.

The Phantom was totally not grody enough. Even when you got to see his whole disfigurement without mask or wig, it wasn’t enough. And speaking of the Phantom, that guy isn’t a good enough singer for that part. He wasn’t awful, but the role was a little too challenging for him. Plus, the Phantom is supposed to be older. And the new backstory created for him? Lame.

Overall, song lyrics do not make good dialogue. In fact, they sound pretty darned stilted when just spoken. And if you’re editing a musical and take out a chunk, try to make sure you don’t show the next person who would have sung a line open their mouth and draw a big breath, then cut away abruptly. Tacky. But not quite as tacky as taking a haunting romantic duet (my favorite song from this show, in fact) and ruining it by having dancing mimes in the background.

I offer this film a 6 out of 10, based mostly on the nice costumes and sets. Which were still fairly overdone. I need to watch Evita to get the taste of bad movie musical out of my mouth.

Meanwhile, we got the packages from Best Buy — a DVD of Napoleon Dynamite in one, a Best Buy gift card in the other. Neither one has any indication of who they came from. Both my brother and Scott’s younger brother are potential suspects, since we haven’t seen any gift from either of them. It would be especially creepy if one came from one brother and the other came from the other. We haven’t seen Napoleon Dynamite yet, though my droogies all think it’s fantastic. Otherwise, a good Annual Gift Grab — there’s only a couple of things to return to the store.

Scott and I went and saw Spider-Man 2 today. I will agree with many others, it was a very very good superhero movie. My observations:

I did find the whole middle part of “I don’t want to be a superhero anymore” a bit long. Then again, I’m the person who thought that Pulp Fiction was “too talky, not enough action”.

Tobey Maguire, just like Orlando Bloom, looks like he’s about to cry a lot of the time.

However, Tobey Maguire has a really nice ass.

The preview for Cat Woman looks just awful. The few CG shots they showed were just hideously fake looking.

Pirates of the Caribbean was just fantastique. A big, dumb, fun romp. Johnny Depp was absolutely delightful (though Scott has seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas so many times, apparently it looked to him like Hunter S. Thompson playing a pirate).

I can see why the ladies like Orlando Bloom, because he is indeed a good looking guy. But he also seems a bit … nonthreatening and effeminate. He’s got those big moist doe eyes and frequently looks like he’s about to cry.

After watching The Invisible Man last night, Scott pointed out something that I should have noticed, but didn’t. The leading lady, Flora, was played by Gloria Stuart, who played the old Rose in Titanic. Very cool. Looking at her filmography, she was in nine films in 1933, including The Invisible Man. It certainly was a different way of making movies back then.