Follow-up: What Turn off the Dark will be

Spider-Man: Another big, stupid, musical disaster

Since we're on the topic of big-budget, horrible musicals, I'd like to turn your attention to this:


This is one of many images from the actual upcoming Broadway musical; "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark" (as in "dammit, who left the dark on? I told them a thousand times; before you leave the house, you have to turn off the dark.") Julie Taymor, who has done the impossible in the past by bringing "The Lion King" to the Broadway stage and getting a huge amount of acclaim for it, is directing. Note that she has also directed "Titus" and "Across the Universe"; the latter of which was astounding visually, but utterly moronic story-wise.

Meanwhile, Bono-who it should be noted, has never composed a Broadway musical (or anything remotely approaching a Broadway musical)-is putting together the music. The villains featured are Carnage, The Green Goblin, Swiss Miss (created for the show), and a new villain based on greek mythology. According to various sources around the internet, Swarm and Kraven the Hunter are also going to be in it, but it's difficult to determine how much of this is just hearsay. But hey, at least we can see the Swiss Miss...
Okay, seriously? What the hell is that? Is that C-3P0's awkward sister? Madonna playing the Tin Man? What is that?

Also, what kind of a name is "Swiss Miss"? Really? I guess the point is that he (she? it?) is a swiss-army-knife themed villain. Alright, excusing the fact that that's the kind of villain a 7-year old would come up with, why would you name a knife themed villain "swiss miss"? That doesn't inspire fear. It makes me want to brew some hot chocolate and go hiking. Plus, just look at how impractical that costume is for someone who's planning on doing a lot of fighting. It's so awkward and off balance-you can barely move your arms, you can't really crouch, and a blunt object to your chest would knock you over, leaving you squirming to get back up. Maybe it looks cool when a ballet dancer is prancing around in it, but most supervillains aren't trying to impress an audience with their skillful pirouettes.

I mean, seriously, you couldn't have just found another villain who already exists? Why are Julie Taymor and Glen Berger writing this script when you could have paired one of them off with somebody who actually writes and understands comic books? I mean, somebody must have done some research on these characters. Because after all, they put a lesser-known character like Carnage in the mix...

THAT's not carnage! That's what a carnage toy would look like if you cooked it in the microwave on high for three minutes! This is a professional costume design? Not only is that not a good Carnage costume, it's not a good costume, period!

I mean, if you needed to pull off a high-concept villain onstage, why not someone like Sandman, or Dr. Octopus? You know, somebody who DIDN't have to wear a stupid-looking halloween mask for the entirety of the production?

Look, I'm not going to complain about what they left out, what they screwed up, and how they got the comics wrong. This isn't a film, there's no CGI, and there are going to be a lot of compromises made with the original material.

That said, this looks poised to be an epic disaster. Not only is it continuing the desperate trend of Broadway trying to be more like the movies by adapting literally anything popular into a big, forced production, but it's making every mistake a Spider-Man movie could possibly make. Look at what this show is trying to do for a story: it's trying to tell Spider-Man's origins (including the death of Uncle Ben shown in shadow-puppet form), show off upwards of 4 villains, integrate musical numbers and elaborate stunts, and all for an audience (Broadway regulars) that probably has only a passing familiarity with the source material.

Meanwhile, the show has been delayed twice (most recently due to a couple of stunt-man injuries) and will be opening in January-well past the holiday rush. Spider-Man isn't exactly a hot property right now, either, seeing as how his last film was a poorly received threequel three years ago, his comics have been suffering since the "One More Day" fiasco, and his new film won't be out for a few years. Comics fans probably won't be too interested in seeing a freakish troll version of Green Goblin flying around on a hang-glider, theater fans aren't exactly waiting on bated breath for Bono's Broadway debut, and comic book fans who are also theater fans (myself) are too poor to go see this (I may be projecting a little, though). I have a feeling this will be an incredible bomb. Then again, I thought "Avatar" was going to be a massive flop.

Honestly though, I don't want this to succeed. I don't want Broadway to smell a hit in every comic book property. I don't want "Batman: Turn off the Dark Knight", or "Iron Man: Turn off the Mark-1", or "Watchmen-Nite Owl gets Turned On". If I thought that this show was borne out of some genuinely brilliant experimental vision wherein pop-culture and elitist theatricality were melded into some sort of Baroque masterpiece, then I might be willing to give it a chance. But those pictures only demonstrate a desperate desire to cram as many neat comic-booky things onstage as possible, with little understanding of what makes these characters and their associated images so special in the first place.


All images are viewable here.

Oh, and can we please stop putting "Ka-Pow!" into the title of every single comic-book related article? Please?

Ok, it's final

I officially hate Glee.

Seriously, this brings me nothing but pain. The watered-down and obnoxiously censored lyrics, Gwyneth Paltrow trying to be sassy, the unbelievably obvious autotuning...I'm sorry. I hate Glee. It's official.

That said, I don't think I ever have to write anything about it ever again. I'm done. It's finished. I'm not going to watch any more. It's gone from being a good show to being an interesting trainwreck, then to being a trainwreck, and finally to being a complete waste of time. I don't even want to watch the show to see how much worse it gets, because frankly, I don't think it can possibly get any worse than this.

I mean, seriously. You put a bunch of white kids in a band room with Gwyneth Paltrow-the whitest person in the world-censor all of the lyrics to "Fuck You", and you expect the song to have anything close to the power and absurdly hilarious joy that Cee Lo Green brings to it?

The song is a soul number, for crying out loud! The least you could do is give it to the one soul singer in the cast: Mercedes. But no, you didn't put this song into the show because you know anything about music, did you? You shoehorned this song into the episode because it's popular and will bring in millions in iTunes downloads. Fine. Revel in your goddamn riches, you hacks. Just feast at the table of the almighty dollar. I hope you choke on a Missouri quarter.

Okay, good. I've gotten it out of my system. I don't ever have to devote a blog post to Glee again. I can turn to other interests. Right now, I'm going to watch this until my mind is completely scrubbed of anything Gwyneth Paltrow-related. Besides Iron Man.

This is a repost of something I wrote a few years ago, but you probably never read it, so it's new to you

I'm putting this up for two reasons. 1) I seriously am exhausted tonight, and even though I know I should be updating my blog on a weekly basis, I literally can't think of a thing to say. 2) I like to look at my old writing to see how much has changed since I wrote things like this two years ago. As you can tell, I was a lot angrier. It's a good thing I'm in a relationship now.

I was driving through Meredith today, going to a highly unnecessary orthodontist appointment, when a sign in front of the Meredith Baptist Church caught my eye. It was one of those stupid religious billboards with trite sayings that neither communicate any intelligent commentary on faith, nor communicate anything intelligent at all. Usually, I just ignore these signs and go on my merry Roman Catholic way, but today the sign I saw angered me with its blatant disregard for any sort of mathematical, logical, or downright common sense.

THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE NOT THINGS

I'm sorry, what?

That makes sense how?

Okay, then what are the best things in life? Are you saying the best things in life are logical contradictions?

I mean just think about it. In mathematical terms, what you're essentially saying here is "x does not equal x". You CAN'T DO THAT! It doesn't make sense!

In Aristotelian logic, you would have to sum this sentence up in the following argument.

1. Some things (x) are the best things (y) (Assuming that there are "best things")

2. No things (x) are the best things (y) (re-arranged from THE BEST THINGS ARE NOT THINGS)

3. Conclusion: Some things (x) are not things (x)

4. Conclusion: People who make signs (z) are idiots (k)

Already, if we go by the square of opposition, we can see that what we have here is a contradiction. Actually, you know what? You don't even need a square of opposition. IT'S SO FREAKING OBVIOUS!

I noticed that-with very little effort-you could arrange the letters on this sign to say THE HINGES ARE NOT HINGES. And you might as well. Because it MAKES ABOUT THE SAME AMOUNT OF SENSE.

Okay, I get what they're saying with this sign. They're saying "Hey, you shouldn't worry about material possessions ("things") so much because (either God or your family or...I dunno, fruit roll ups maybe) are the best things in life. And they're not things! Doesn't that make them good things?". Well, in that case, what the hell is the definition for a thing? You're saying (God or your family or whatever) is not a thing. Says who? If a "thing" is an object in space, then hell, maybe a person is a thing in the strictly literal sense. A person is totally an object in space, although it has the capabilities and sentience to distinguish it from non-sentient objects. But fine, we'll all agree that calling a person a "thing" is kind of derogatory, so they're not really things. We'll limit "things" to non-living objects, like an X-Box or a poop sculpture. Well then, why bother even classifying (people or God or whatever) as "the best things" in the first place? You're trying to have your cake and eat it too, aren't you? It's the equivalent of a dumbass husband saying to his wife "you're the best thing in my life!.....not that I think of you as a thing or anything...Not like you're just an object to me...a dishwasher, specifically..."

So don't even bother with the Oscar nominees this year, because according to the Baptists it's quite possible to nominate your grandparents for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Animated Short. When the audience screams in protest as Granny Meredith mounts the stage to take her Best Supporting Actress Oscar, you can go up to the podium and say "Hey, hey, hey, look. The best supporting actresses are not actresses, okay?"

Writer's Block

I'm having a real hard time coming up with things to write about these days.

......

...

Um, that's it.

(cue laughter).

No laughs?

Okay. I guess that wasn't funny.

Damn. Now I have to come up with something to write about.