Category Archives: Review

These aren’t so much reviews as contemplations on the subject matter. What I loved, what pissed me off, what intrigued me, what I disliked, what made me think, what made me beg Google for answers.

To Try Men’s Soul by Newt Gingrich & William R. Forstchen

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Started: 2/5/2012 Finished: 3/2/2012 An absolutely fascinating study. I like how the foreword directly addresses the fact that they (Gingrich and Forstchen) interrupted a perfectly good narrative of alternate history in World War II’s Pacific theatre to dramatize this particular event. Before reading this, the only thing I had in my mind regarding this historical event was that one painting of “King George” standing stern and glorious in one of the boats as it sails through the ice floes of the Delaware. I never really thought about how much that night truly sucked and how on edge Washington was regarding the crossing and the secret plan.

11/22/63 by Stephen King

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Started: 1/23/2012 Finished: 2/4/2012 Stephen King, how dare you! Every time I read one of your books, I’m inexorably sucked in. But the movie adaptations are always horrible! Or at least I’m still bitter about Dreamcatcher. Anyways, it was really exciting to learn so much more about the Kennedy assassination than ever before….I mean Lee Harvey Oswald is always portrayed so wimpishly in Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins that sometimes you forget what he was really like. *shudder* But the whole thing was incredible as our hero stalks Oswald and prepares to change history. But more than that, our main character was a really likable guy! For whatever reason I deeply connected with him and wished him nothing but personal happiness by the end (and was mostly mollified). New favorite word: obdurate. Definition: Adjective: Stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or course of action

Beauty And The Beast 3-D – AMC 12 At Downtown Disney, Anaheim, CA

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Wow. Stunning, beautiful, extravagant…I’d need a thesaurus to better describe how incredible this film looked in 3-D. This film in particular is a great example of how beautiful 3-D can be, and it’s all thanks to a little thing Walt pioneered in 1937 called the multi-plane camera. I think Disney’s next big push should be for Snow White And The Seven Dwarves in 3-D. I would pay money to see that. But the film was only stunning up until the last 15 minutes or so. I’ve never had problems with 3-D before (although several of my friends have mentioned not being capable of watching a film with the glasses without developing a migraine), but the last 15 minutes were ruined for me because I can’t see the gorram sailboat. And it wasn’t just me! Recent conversations have revealed the same problem with Lion King 3-D and the grass. And it … Continue reading →

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows – AMC 12 at Downtown Disney, Anaheim, CA

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Absolutely beautiful. I wish I could talk more about how beautiful this film was, but I have to be really careful and not spoil anything for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie(s). Sufficeth to say, if you’ve been waiting for somebody to encourage you to go see it, this is that moment (or it would be if you respected my opinions at all). 😉 The film picks up about 6 months or so after the first one ended and it does so perfectly. It immediately finds it’s groove again and just runs with it. It’s so beautiful to see Holmes face off against his greatest opponent yet! The acting is top notch! So great to see Stephen Fry as Holmes’ brother, Mycroft (unparalleled brilliance). Hans Zimmer delivers another amazing score. While listening, I at first made the mistake of trying to compare his work for this one with his work … Continue reading →

White Christmas – OCPAC

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Alright, that was cute. A very nice adaptation with some interesting and eyebrow-raisingchanges. Thank you Sarah for pointing out that the dancing/choreography is amazing – we agree. And yes, the tempo’s are all a bit too fast (even “Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me”), but we’ve decided that that is because they added so much content they needed to race through all the songs in order to be done at a decent hour. 😉 Laura very much liked the formation changes – they were very dynamic and effective. I guess at the end of the day, they have to make a bunch of broad changes and the audience gets to pick and choose their favorites. Me, I liked the General and Martha and all of the new songs were VERY well done. The only original songs cut were Mandy/Minstrel Show and Choreography which makes perfect sense as they are … Continue reading →

Arthur Christmas

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Curse you Rob Bredow, you didn’t warn me I would cry!!! I mean congratulations on your promotion (since Cloudy) and your prominent place in the credits! :-)And yay for R. Stirling Duguid!They are both in the credits and we know them personally! The Beiber music video was better than the song (sorry, I’m not a big fan…although his duet with Jaden Smith for Karate Kid 2010 was pretty sweet). The steampunk elves is an AWESOME concept though. Iwas surprised to see that the film was partially Aardman Entertainment’s fault which is kind of cool to see them jump into the digital realm (although the trailer we saw for their pirate movie, The Pirates! Band of Misfits,looks SOOO purdy and makes me think it’s claymation but who knows). It also explains how Anglicized the film was: the leads were all Brits: James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy andImelda Staunton! … Continue reading →

A Streetcar Named Desire – Golden West College

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Kim Brown was the primary reason we came (and Laurie Reynolds…and Veronica Mullins…and Mason Meskell…and Nika…and…well you get the picture), but the raw emotional power onstage was the reason we stayed. One particular moment is still shudderingly vivid in my head…it’s in Blanche’s Act II monologue about what really happened to Belle Reve and the line where Blanche calls to the soldiers creeped me the hell out! And the music was fantastic (Veronica told us later that she just brought in her collection of jazz and told the director, “Here.” LOL).

Blue Man Group – Segerstrom Center for the Arts (OCPAC), Costa Mesa, CA

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AMAZING!!! I’ve been a Blue Man Group fan for years and am very excited that they can now take the amazing artistic/cultural experience that their show is and tour the country! Shake That Thang (at least 90% of the audience stood up which is pretty amazing for Segerstrom Center) Please give us back our balls Gipad multiple blue men to pull off the costume changes for the digi-enhancer bit, but absolutely brilliant! also a very culturally relevant way to do the information bit (the three giant signs where if you’re lucky or insane you can read all the content before the change it) Texting before light suits Toilet paper confetti They gave away all the artwork!!! Well not the human canvas cuz they need that one. but the shirts and hats song, they gave away the painting and the marshmallow tower! set list they definitely started with TV Song Drumbone … Continue reading →

Real Steel – Century 20 @ Bella Terra, Huntington Beach, CA

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What an amazing movie. Yay! Danny Elfman has a career outside of Tim Burton movies and it’s really good! Really impressive, dramatic, and powerful stuff. Amazing acting. Of course Hugh Jackman takes his shirt off at least once. It’s gotta be in his contracts or something. Dakota Goyo is incredible (go baby Thor!). It was really nice having a loser, lovable scoundrel as a hero again…Laura says it’s just like 40s noir films and that gets us all excited for the future. If you place this film in the context that next year’s Ãœber-fail (it’s like epic fail but in German) / box-office-bomb is based entirely on the game Battleship you can’t help but compare this film to Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots. However it is my opinion that the comparison only works as an initial story idea: “Hey you know what was a great game? Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em … Continue reading →