I Am Legend
Having just watched a TV Guide special on it last night, it was quite fascinating to see the final product. The third re-telling of Richard Matheson’s The Last Man On Earth (1960’s The Last Man Standing with Vincent Price and 1970’s Omega Man with Charlton Heston) puts Will Smith in the titular role of one man’s struggle to cope with overwhelming loneliness in the face of some worldwide catastrophe that turns everyone else into dead or zombie/vampire thing*.
A little scarier than I like my thrillers, but still very enjoyable. Will Smith is absolutely phenomenal as he copes with loss, loneliness and mutated humans who love eating other living things. It was also an intriguing look at breaking down the psychology of the human mind. The mutants are led by an alpha male who (despite Will Smith’s theories) displays very-human like abilities of mimicry and plotting. It’s all VERY interesting and a lot of fun.
There’s a brilliant bit of photoshopping – at one point we’re panning through a deserted and overgrown New York City and we see a movie poster with the Superman logo embedded on the Batman logo (indicating a Batman/Superman story with the new characters portrayed in the restarted series (Christian Bale and Brandon Routh)) and I just sat and drooled at the very concept.
OH! And the movie starts with a prologue for The Dark Knight Returns in which we get to see Heath Ledger’s Joker pull off a bank heist. It’s absolutely incredible and gets me really excited.
* I can see elements of this concept being woven into Joss Whedon’s Reavers (Firefly/Serenity universe).
Phantom (The Vegas SPECTACULAR)
This show really highlights the best of Vegas show-stopping-ness. It’s a shortened version of Phantom (unless you’ve memorized every note, lyric and line of dialogue, you won’t notice the missing bits) that just blows the mind. For a very small sample, just look at the chandelier before the show and the ornateness of the theatre set (before the curtain even goes up!). It’s just as good as the national tour that stopped through Southern California some time ago (a couple of years? not sure) and remind me very much of the movie with it’s energy and vivacity. But it’s just an incredible show that you have to see if you’re in Vegas. Oh – and the conductor was right-handed…all is right with the world again 😉
Blue Man Group Live! At The Venetian
It’s always fun to see the Blue Man Group (I’m a fanatic). Pictures! I can’t even really describe how much fun I have seeing the show and participating in the art/live show experience that is Blue Man Group. I guess all I can say is that if you see two shows in Vegas, spend the night at the Venetian and see Blue Man Group and Phantom. Friggin’ incredible.
OH! And at one point they have a rock song tribute section. They played “It’s not unusual (to be loved by anyone”, “Whip It”, “Like A Virgin”, some other song they always play (duh nuh…..duh nuh…duh nuh…duh nuh…), and then someone in the audience shouted Free Bird and the Blue Men looked around and then the band broke into it which was hysterical. The Blue Men look around and then one of them lights the lighter and does the wave and the other pulls out the fire extinguisher and douses the lighter. Hilarious.