This movie is awesome. From beginning to end, it has the Coen Brothers stamped all over it. The star-studded cast did a great job playing characters outside of their comfort zone with all of the quirkiness you expect from the Coens.
J.K. Simmons is only in two scenes in the whole movie, but he did such a great job that I think he was my favorite character in the show, but everyone was awesome.
]]>A lot of people are blogging about the death of George Carlin, and I too am affected by his passing. I find so much of what he says to be true, and I loved his way of cutting through the layers of cultural BS that the rest of the world has so carefully and painstakingly put in place.
NPR's show Fresh Air was playing old interviews with him this afternoon. There was a particular part of it that I heard that seemed particularly poignant now that he's gone. Terry Gross asked him what he turns to for comfort, since he is not a fan of religion.
His response was that science tells us that all complex molecules originate from the center of stars. (This happens to be true, though simplified. Higher density atoms, like carbon, are formed in the center of stars as a by-product of fusion. Without these dense elements, complex molecules couldn't form.) Since this is true, then all material in the universe, including what our bodies are made of, are all the same stuff. We all come from the centers of stars. And all of that material gets recycled. The molecules in your body are made up of atoms that could have been part of a star or planet twenty billions years ago, and now it's in you.
If that's true, he reasoned, then we are all really the same thing. We are one. All that is out there in the universe is, in that way, nothing but an extension of himself, and he of it. We humans get screwed up because we are born, named, and individuated, and that's why all religion plays on this desire to once again become one with the universe.
I really like this idea. It's like scientific existentialism.
Who knew that one of the greatest philosophers of our age would be a foul-mouthed stand-up comic.
George, I'd say I miss you, but my molecules are your molecules. Thanks, man.
]]>The theater group I've been involved in is now having weekly script readings to pick its shows for the 2009-2010 season. Yes, they pick them out a year and a half ahead. They do this because they operate partly off of a grant from Conoco-Phillips, and they have to have their shows planned before the grant application deadline, which is in June.
Basically, we all get together, pick parts, and read through a play that one of the members recommended. Tonight we read A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller. It's hard to say how a man who was having sex with Marilyn Monroe could write something so depressing. Depressing as it is, however, it's a good play. We'll see if it makes the final list.
Next week, we're reading The Foreigner. I recommended it. The play is almost overdone, but it hasn't played here for about ten years, and it's screamingly funny.
And, on a completely unrelated note...
Please...
Don't leave personally owned geese.
Seriously.
]]>Last night was closing night. Here's one of the articles that came out opening weekend. I'm not sure how long the link will be good.
There was a review Saturday that said we had them "rolling in the aisles." :->
Something I found surprising was the difference in audiences. The first two nights were great. The Sunday matinee I thought someone needed to go out into the audience and check their pulses. The next weekend, Friday was our best show yet, with about 260 people in the audience and an outstanding response to each joke, then last night, closing night, we were back to performing for a room full of crash test dummies. Go figure.
]]>I went on stage tonight, dressed as a woman (a really ugly one, at that), and made a fool of myself to make the audience laugh. This was opening night for "Love, Sex, and the IRS." They did laugh, so... mission accomplished. It would have really sucked if I went through all that and no one thought it was funny.
Strix had never seen this, so it ended up on our Netflix list. What a silly, campy little movie this is, very much a product of the 80's (1984, to be exact). Still, it's a fun little movie, and the plot makes more sense to me now that I'm no longer 12. And hey, Kathleen Turner actually looked good, even though even then she had that voice that made her sound like she really enjoyed cigars and whiskey.
Completely off topic, but it was snowing like mad here earlier. It was hard to even get home from rehearsal... near white-out conditions.
Come to New Mexico, they said. It's beautiful and tropical, they said. Lovely.
]]>I ran across Richard Cheese among my Internet travels, and knew right away I would have to get more. He takes pop and rock songs, the lamer the better, and instantly makes them cool by doing covers of them with a full Big Band backing him up and singing them in Vegas Lounge-Singer style. This is the first song I heard from him:
For comparison, here's the original:
So once I'd heard Mr. Cheese's take on this song, I had to get more. Unfortunately, iTunes didn't have anything of his at the time (though now they do), so I put some of his CDs on my Amazon wishlist. Lo and behold, my mother, who is almost as demented as I am, bought it for me for Christmas.
Here's one of the songs:
Sorry, I don't know why the cover art won't show here. And again, for reference, the original:
There are 18 parodies on this CD, and they're all hilarious.
]]>Originally posted on my old blog on April 27, 2006:
We watched Robots last night. Although Christina and I do not have children, we have always enjoyed movies that most people would consider "kid movies," particularly those movies in the Pixar canon: Toy Story, Toy Story 2, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, etc. Robots isn't Pixar, but you can tell that they have watched and learned from those great movies, and added their own frenetic style. The pace of the visual gags reminds me a little of the show Family Guy, otherwise a completely different kind of humor, but the pace of the humor is as rapid-fire as the animators could make it.
]]>Originally posted on my old blog on March 28, 2006:
Tonight, Stina and I watched The Producers, a 1968 movie staring Zero Mostel and a young Gene Wilder. There's a remake out now staring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, which I have not yet seen but it has to be better than the original. The original Producers is very zany, which you would expect from Mel Brooks' directing debut, but for too much of the movie it went beyond zany into just plain old bizarre.
Thanks to Stephen for pointing to this guy. He's a comedian, singer, songwriter, musician, and he's freaking hilarious. A lot of his stuff is fairly political, which I try to stay away from in my blog, but I give you this gem from my newly acquired collection of his work. I dedicate this one to Ladeewolf.