The synopsis for JLA #124 (due in January) includes the phrase, “he loses focus on stopping The Key and saving Dawn, and turns his energies on an even deadlier foe.”
Now, I know these are separate DC characters, but my first thought was “But Dawn is the Key!”
Once you start down the Buffy path…
Last night we went out to see Evita at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. It was a good production, but it was a slightly odd experience for me because it was based on the original staging by Hal Prince. Back in college, I was in a production of the show at school…and our director also based it on the original staging. Visually, the show was almost exactly what we would have done if we’d had the budget. (And a full orchestra, and more experienced actors, and so on.) They did make different choices in characterization at points—Eva was harder, Che was more comedic, etc.—but there was a definite deja vu element. (Katie will get her turn at deja vu next week when we see Carmina Burana.)
It also got me thinking about the structure of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s shows . His early works, like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and Cats and tend to be much more presentational. There’s lots of breaking the fourth wall, large chunks of Evita are symbolic (and the second half of act 2 is very disjointed), and many of them actually have narrators (Judas, Che, or just “The Narrator” in Joseph). But by the time you get to The Phantom of the Opera, the structure is entirely narrative. I’m not sure how much of that is Lloyd Webber changing his style and how much of it is moving to a new lyricist (Tim Rice worked on Joseph, Superstar and Evita). I don’t know Starlight Express very well, but what I’ve heard seems to fit more with Phantom, Sunset Boulevard, and Whistle Down the Wind.
Looking over at that site, I’ve discovered three more ALW shows I didn’t even know about. It’s not surprising when I think about it, though. I have been out of the musical theater loop for a few years. I mean, the big exciting musical event for me this year? The film adaptation of Rent that opens next month. I’m really looking forward to that, and the show is almost 10 years old!
I was recently reminded that Kevin Smith’s daughter is named Harley Quinn Smith. At the time I thought it was crazy (though really, who am I to talk about people naming their kids after fictional characters?), but compared to Nicholas Cage naming his son Kal-El, it seems positively ordinary.
Well, I picked up Infinite Crisis #1 yesterday. Aside from the fact that I think I’d be lost if I hadn’t been reading the various mini-series that led up to it (and the big reveal depends on knowledge of the original Crisis), I started thinking: I’m reading more comics right now than I have at any time in the last few years, but very few of them are DC Universe. And I’m not entirely sure I’m going to stick with the ones I am reading, post-Crisis.
Back in 1985, when Crisis on Infinite Earths was first published, I was reading these ongoing DC books on a regular basis:
That was it. I was also reading Groo the Wanderer and Transformers.
In 2005, with Infinite Crisis arriving, I am reading these ongoing DC books on a regular basis:
The more things change… Continue reading
Another discovery at the mall on Saturday: “The Essence of Adventure.” I honestly cannot figure out what the target audience is for this. I mean, a Hummer fragrance? Does it make you smell like you’ve been driving in mud all day? Is it a bottle of engine oil? Is it supposed to give you that new car smell? Is it supposed to increase your chances of getting—uh, never mind.
Seriously, who came up with this idea? And are we likely to see Jeep cologne next? Maybe BMW or Mercedes fragrances for the more sophisticated market?
We had some free time before seeing Serenity again on Saturday, so we wandered into Hot Topic. (Katie finds T-shirts there from time to time, and it’s always interesting to just look at the slogans you wouldn’t think of actually wearing.) Well, they’ve had a line of Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise for a while, so of course they’ve added a line of Corpse Bride tie-ins. Including this:
OK, I understand the movie-tie-in-on-a-blanket concept. I had Empire Strikes Back sheets when I was a kid. And I understand that they’re targeting the goth audience. But somehow, as much as I liked the movie, the words “corpse” and “comfort” don’t fit together in my mind!
It’s refreshing when a movie you’ve anticipated for years actually lives up to your expectations. It’s unprecedented when it happens twice in one weekend. MirrorMask and Serenity were both amazing.
The MirrorMask theater listing looks like a tour schedule, with the film opening in a few more cities each week. Unfortunately, at least some theaters that have it now won’t have it by next weekend, so we’re going to have to catch it again one night this week. Then we’ll seek Serenity again on the weekend. Somewhere in there we’ll find time for the other movies we wanted to see.
We’ve got a more thorough review of Serenity planned…
