Tuesday movies & TV update

[bironic]

Dance class was cancelled tonight, so there were an unexpected extra 90 minutes which I was hoping to put to good use by practising or finishing Accio paper revisions or hashing out "Victor's Solo." Has anyone ever attempted to transcribe music? Is it supposed to take an inordinate amount of time? Because last night I spent over two hours at the piano with my laptop and headphones, picking out all the notes I could manage of this little piece from "Corpse Bride," and only made it about 55 seconds in. True, it took probably 15 of those minutes to find the key and dredge my memory for where to put which notes on the bass clef and how to do octave notations, and on the bright side I've learned how to play everything that's written down already thanks to the constant repetition - but still ... it seems excessive. And the poor keys around middle C are dusted with rubber eraser bits.

 

"Corpse Bride" itself was vaguely disappointing, partly because it failed to live up to its predecessor but mostly because it failed to live up to itself. The beginning was so promising - blues and grays and stone and pale skin, leisurely pace, gentle humor, spindly dark-haired protagonist with charming nervous habits, Victorian themes to match its setting and tone (my favorite was the male fear of marriage and sex as embodied by the creepy, sultry, heavily made-up *corpse* with loose hair and a skimpy wedding dress, which, when juxtaposed with the corsetted, sheltered, high-collared, button-down fiancée with her prematurely gray hair pulled into a tight bun, promised commentary on social repression of women) - and then it all went pear-shaped.

 

They dropped the ball on Victor's transformation from stuttering to self-assured; he changed within minutes of meeting Dead Mrs. Victor and no one ever mentioned it - not him, not Victoria, not his mother. I didn't care about the bride. I can't even remember her name. Once Victor landed in Deadville the movie picked up speed and there wasn't enough time to soak in all the details that had made the beginning so enjoyable - and I didn't love it enough to comfort myself with the prospect of catching everything on DVD. The sidekicks, particularly the Igor-maggot, were ugly and annoying. (There is no excuse for ugliness in a Tim Burton movie. Even the disgusting bits are supposed to be pretty.) Like in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," you couldn't make out half of the lyrics once you slammed into the wall of sound that was the main number. Burton & co. could have done any number of things with their underworld, but they only gave us a handful of skeletons, one of which seemed to be Napoleon, a spider, some ravens, and another bony puppy. The happy ending didn't even feel right - after all the time they spent depicting a colorful and lively afterlife (as opposed to the staid, drab horror of the world of the living) I thought they might go for an unconventional solution and reunite Victor with Victoria after he'd drunk the poison and she'd been murdered, and have them be better off down there where things are fun and they can act as they please. Alas.

 

Which isn't to say the rest of the movie was bad. Victor was very pretty, and had Jack Skellington's odd angly grace and an effete hesitation which I loved. There were lots of funny moments (even if some were just our own Harry Potter jokes - take for example the ghostly green skull that reminded us of the Death Eaters, or the Snapey behaviour of the cranky bishop who had synn snickering, or the Mrs. Black overtones to Victoria's scowling aristocratic mother), like the pitter-pattering butler and the contorted Scottish handmaid, and pretty piano music, despite both pieces being interrupted. And of course the whole film was technically awesome. Pity Nick Park chose this year to release Wallace and Gromit for an Oscar.

 

In other movie news, MirrorMask comes out on Friday, at which time it will be showing at exactly one theatre in all of New York State. On the one hand, I'm glad it's a limited release because that implies a limited audience, which in turn means no crowds and consequently getting to enjoy the special sense that you have been let in on a secret. On the other hand, what is wrong with people that they don't fight to fund, produce, distribute and soak in the genius that is Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman on a 70-foot screen? (Even if one of the main characters' head looks like a Super-Size box of French fries.)

 

synn and Joe P. and I will probably have to sit towards the back of the theatre, though, or risk our brains liquefying from overstimulation.

 

Last night I had a dream that the cast of Lestat were giving a preview performance, leaping and twirling across the stage. Lestat was barefoot, dressed in black, and locked in position with one knee bent and one arm out for balance as he "flew" across on wires (a Peter Pan pose, now that I think about it). They all had pale face makeup and dark lipstick and looked beautiful. Somehow I ended up onstage - getting a closer look, or something - and slid over to stage left to get out of the way. One woman, maybe Gabrielle, did those ballet spins one-after-the-other all the way across, to loud applause.

 

After the performance half the audience rushed over to the ticket kiosk to secure places for when the show opened. I watched them, knowing it was closed and that tickets didn't go on sale until mid-November. There was a Frenchy chef there from New Orleans who'd been displaced by the Katrina floods who asked to see my sister; I found her, and they hugged - apparently she knew him from some online thing. Then I congratulated one of the actresses for her impressive leaping earlier, only then her sister walked up and I realized I'd had the wrong woman.

 

These are the sort of dreams one has when one works in an office all day.

 

In closing, things about today that make me happy:
- Cortland apples are in season again.
- My Chinese co-worker (because without the dash it always looks like "cow orker") wore his crisp white suit shirt today with belted black pants and black loafers, always a favorite, and on break I caught sight of a silver necklace.
- New episode of "House" tonight, followed by the season premiere of "Boston Legal": The only two shows I watch, now back-to-back.

Comments

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Of course, it might be a case of dashed expectations. If you go in having read my review and expecting less than you would have otherwise, you might end up liking it more. Or you might like it for different reasons. There are many flowers, for example; at one point the disappointed bride even names some of them as she picks off their petals in dejection.