Super Mario Brothers – The Opera

via Nerdist.com

New Romance Video

Warning: comic violence.

Music video that is mashup of films like Final Destination and TV shows like Saved by the Bell found via Shadowlocked.com

ramblings

I am having a busy week and all my thoughts are stale.  I’ll just ramble a bit.

Picked up the book The Lightning Thief and Nim’s Island from the library.  Both appear charming and I doubt that the film versions caught the whimsical tone of either book.

Still watching season 2 of House MD.  Cameron is less annoying since the writers dialed down her smugness a bit.

Watched a Starz special on character actors The Face is Familiar.  The choice to focus on how hard it is to get roles in Hollywood films was a poor one.  I would have preferred seeing any old Hollywood actors and seeing contemporary ones in more depth.

I managed to watch 4 musicals recently (at least I think of them as musicals): Blues Brothers, Drumline, August Rush and The Fighting Temptations.  They were all a lot of fun, although I had seen Drumline and the Blues Brothers years ago.

In the middle of Pharoah’s Daughter by Julius Lester.  I have Escape from Egypt by Sonia Levitin and Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs by Barbara Mertz (Amelia Peabody mysteries) on hand too.  I didn’t realize the common theme until today.

La Vie en Rose (2007)

Image via Wikipedia

This biopic of Edith Piaf won lots of awards and lots of praise from audiences and reviewers. I don’t have a lot to say about this movie.

The beginning of the movie, especially the scenes in the brothel, were surreal and interesting.

Unfortunately, once Piaf discovered drugs, the movie became dull very fast.  The zipping back in forth through time didn’t help me concentrate either. According to this film, she seems to have been either oblivious to her surroundings or rebuffing most everyone. The movie failed to inspire me to learn more about her life.

It’s actually Piaf’s own vocals.  I fast-forwarded to the musical numbers but even her singing was muted or slurred over in places.

A. O. Scott’s review

De-Lovely (2004)

I had high hopes for this movie because they could be totally honest about Cole Porter this time.  Yeah!

The movie was truthful about his life and about his sexual orientation but it was less entertaining to me than Night and Day.

Kevin Kline had the role of Cole Porter and Ashley Judd was his wife Linda Lee.

Unfortunately, the movie seemed bound to portray Cole and Linda Lee’s marriage as a love match when it was clearly one of convenience.  I can see how they came to understand and support each other as good friends but the movie seemed to be pushing the ‘romantic’ angle which wasn’t convincing to me.

Moreover, the film did not give much space to his abilities as a composer.  It is dramatic and affecting that his songs are a reflection of his relationships.  But, surely, he was also gifted and prolific.  It must be hard to do to show a person struggling and succeeding at their work because too few biopics develop this part of their life. Still, I wish they had spent more time on showcasing his personality and tracing his career.

From what I’ve read, it appears that he was so successful that  a film about his career would have been boring.

However, all the musical productions were highly entertaining and the DVD is worth renting for them alone.  My favorite number was Elvis Costello’s “Let’s Misbehave.”

Short biography of Porter’s life.

Summary of Porter’s career.

An interesting analysis of his life.

Night and Day (1946)

An old biographical movie of Cole Porter.  It’s antique enough that it avoids mentioning his sexual orientation altogether.

Cary Grant is Cole Porter and Alexis Smith is Linda Lee, his wife.

I’m having trouble with this movie.  On the one hand, not mentioning his affairs with men completely falsifies his relationship with his wife.  The movie is invalidated as biography by leaving out this important aspect of his personal life.

However, on its own merits, the movie had entertaining scenes.  I’m specifically thinking of the scene in which he composes the song, “Night and Day.”  I know it’s unrealistic but it’s a highly entertaining way of visualizing the creative process.   It also did convey that he was a talented and hardworking songwriter.

Overall, I can’t really recommend it as a biopic.  Big pop singers and stars of the day take on the musical numbers, and thus it has some value.

I also saw De-Lovely and will comment on it soon.

Misheard Lyrics – Sean Paul – Temperature

If you haven’t watched this one, you’re in for a treat. Some naughty words.

more about “Misheard Lyrics – Sean Paul – Tempera…“, posted with vodpod

searching for lyrics – website

Image via Wikipedia

I’m trying this NaNoWriMo thing and it turns out that I’m very, very slow.  I’ll be doing a lot of link blogging this month. Here goes…

A lot of websites that offer the text of lyrics have tons of pop ups, pop unders, flashing ads, division ads, and unattractive designs.

On the other hand, Zokky is pleasant to read and navigate. The lyrics have fewer typos and misspellings than other sites.  I like it most of all because the format makes it easy to copy and paste.

The site includes a blog on entertainment news. I don’t know how accurate the lyrics are. One searches by the first name of the artist or first word in the band.

I found Marillion lyrics and lyrics for Chess the musical and Wolfmother lyrics.  Who knows, your band might be there too.

by any other name

Moving has made me more scattered than I realized and Internet access has been less than plentiful. So this is just a quick note to let you know that Shine a Light a film by Martin Scorsese is advertised as being a documentary.  It isn’t a documentary even by VH1 standards.  It is a nicely filmed concert. Odd.

I may have a guest blogger post later today.  I think she’s calling herself KatGirl. 

Please treat her kindly.

ta,

Murcia

4 anime music videos

Lately, I’ve been watching amv again. It’s kind of a neat to become aware of new series. But this can backfire when I grew intrigued with an anime called Tales of the Abyss only to find out that it is a game. *sigh*

I especially like the completely inappropriate ones. The innocent ones with salacious songs. The overwrought, angsty songs paired with comedies. And the peppy songs with the serious shows.

1. Geeks Get the Girl – by American Hi-Fi. The anime is World of Narue and it is about an ordinary-Japanese-schoolboy and his alien girl friend. Pretty sure, he wasn’t getting laid on the show. Somebody worked hard on the editing, and this is a funny one.

2. Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen. It’s Cowboy Bebop, and I think the devil-may-care song matches the spaceship crew nicely. Pity the visual quality is sketchy, this is otherwise well done.

3. Fallin‘ by Alicia Keys. This is from Kingdom Hearts which I haven’t played. This shows a love triangle between Kairi, Sora and Riku. Kairi appears very naive in the clips which undermines Keys’ rather torchy song.

4. Little Red Riding Hood by Sam the Sham. This is Blue Seed, one of my all-time favorite anime ever. This is pretty funny, especially since Kusanagi is hardly a rake. Oh, and lots of panty shots, in case that concerns you.