Category: Entertainment

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I had a slightly jarring experience on my way back from lunch today which provides a perfect introduction to something I had already planned on writing. I absent-mindedly tuned my car radio to a station that until this week had been an English-language rock station and was briefly surprised to hear a commercial in Spanish. I then tuned to a Spanish-language rock station, and was surprised to hear a song in English. (It was by Shakira, who usually sings in Spanish – and IMO, her Spanish work has been considerably better than the English songs she’s released so far.)

This week’s passing of Cool 94.3 marks the fourth time in just three years that I’ve lost a station from my radio presets. It’s becoming harder and harder to turn on the radio and hear music I like without sitting through too much that I don’t.

Musically I’m down to Star 98.7, which suffers from the binge-and-purge method of playlist scheduling (play the hell out of a song until the audience is sick of it) and an increasing shift toward personalities over music. I can’t hear any music during my morning commute because they run the extremely annoying Jamie and Danny show, and during my evening commute Ryan Seacrest spends more time talking than playing music. To make matters worse, Continue reading →

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OK, first I’d like to stress that I did like most of The Two Towers the first time through. It was mainly the non-ending that bugged the heck out of me, and that was the impression I was left with leaving the theater.

I can say now that not only does the movie hold up to a second viewing, it was actually more enjoyable this time around. Perhaps because I knew where it was stopping, it didn’t bother me so much that it stopped there.

One review I read lamented not seeing the developing friendship between Gimli and Legolas. That puzzled me, since I saw it even during my first viewing of the film. From Legolas ready to defend Gimli to Eomer, to their camaraderie during the battle: Legolas offering to get Gimli a box to stand on (and Gimli smiling at the joke instead of growling), their competition over who can kill more orcs, etc. Actually, that competition was one of my favorite character bits from the battle, and I was glad to see it make it to the screen.

Most of the story changes didn’t bother me much. Continue reading →

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A few months ago I read an article about filmmaking which talked about why the ending of a film is so important: it’s not just that the audiences want to see it come out a certain way, but the ending is the last impression the audience is left with. A film can be fantastic all the way through and then fall on its face at the end, and that’s the impression people will be left with.

Now I loved The Fellowship of the Ring, both the theatrical release and the special edition. I enjoyed most of The Two Towers. But the ending fell flat on its face. Helm’s deep simply stopped, and the Frodo/Sam story did nothing more than present a vague threat from Gollum.

Imagine if The Empire Strikes Back had ended not with Luke getting his replacement hand and Lando and Chewbacca heading off to rescue Han, but had instead ended with the escape from Cloud City. That’s what this felt like.

Visually, the film is amazing. The effects, the scenery, the sets, costumes and battle sequences are stunning. The acting, like last time, is excellent. And yet between the jumbled editing and the lack of an ending, the film is far less satisfying than the previous one.

I’m left with two conclusions: either New Line Cinema stepped in to “protect the franchise” instead of trusting the people who got the first one right, or they had a harder time cutting it down to three hours and made poorer choices.

At this point I’m going to bring up some specifics. Continue reading →

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Driving back from the Tori concert, fortified with Frappuccinos, we were trying to figure out the distribution of songs per album. Kelson commented that there were several from singles, and that she could probably release an album of just B-sides and have it sell well, which prompted us to start naming all the B-sides we could. At one point we were stuck, and then we came up with her version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” I started singing the chorus, Tori-style, and a few seconds after I stopped, Kelson said, “You know, it just proves how out of it I am……right after you started, I was about to try to turn up the volume.”

I definitely need to sing more.

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Tori Amos concert last night – second in two weeks at the same theater. It was interesting to compare the differences in the two shows. Security, for instance: at the Counting Crows show, security consisted of shining a flashlight into people’s purses and bags as they walked in. At the Tori show, everyone also had to walk through metal detectors. (As Katie pointed out, Adam Duritz probably hasn’t had problems with stalkers.) Another change was that the Tori concert had video screens to zoom in. The most interesting difference was that last week’s not-quite-a-mosh-pit up front was filled with rows of seats.

It was a very good concert, even if the sound balance made it hard to understand the already difficult-to-hear lyrics (although this has been true of just about every concert I’ve ever attended, with the exception of Weird Al at the Greek Theater). She was set up in the center stage with a grand piano on one side and an organ on the other, close enough that she could just sit on one bench and turn around to switch quickly – something she did on several songs. On a few of them, she actually would play the organ and piano simultaneously, one hand on each! Behind her and to each side were her guitarist and drummer.

She had a good mix of songs from Continue reading →

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Went to the Counting Crows concert last night. Good concert, even after their drummer disappeared partway through the show due to an unspecified medical emergency. They improvised acoustic versions of several songs, then brought on the drummer from Toad the Wet Sprocket (who opened for them) and the ex-drummer from Cake (who I guess just happened to be there) to finish the set. Still no news of what actually happened, or even whether it was Ben or a friend/relative of his.

Oh, and I’ll have to get Katie to post the fish quote.

Unfortunately it took a half hour just to get to the car afterward, so we didn’t get home until one in the morning.

I’m on my second large coffee…

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