Blah blah blah
Jan. 1st, 2005 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tilly_stratfordHumming: Falling in love with love, Harry Secombe
Lyric sample:
Caring too much is such a juvenile fancy
Learning to trust is just for children in school
I'm home, slightly nauseated by the amounts of candy I ate yesterday, and I've returned from watching the movie version of The phantom of the opera.
WARNING: Extreme amounts of geekiness to follow. And possibly spoilers.
The moment the light went on in the cinema I turned over to my mother and said, "Please make that movie go away! Make it disappear!" But alas, it's there. And people who've no idea how cool the original novel/the stage musical/the pickup novel by Susan Kay is, are going to judge the whole phenomenon by this. lousy. movie. Lloyd Webber, why have you forsaken us?!
The bad stuff:
First of all, in a desperate attempt to look as far from Moulin rouge as possible, they've made it really realistic. Nothing is left for the imagination - before each ghastly thing happens, you have to witness the phantom plotting it. I've had PAGE LONG discussions of how Erik (the phantom) managed to make La Carlotta croak like a toad, and here he just swaps her mouth spray like a prankish school boy (which still doesn't make sense, because it was before she calls Christine a "little toad"). This was meant to be a movie version of the stage musical - where it's so extremely cool when you never know how he does it: The magic mirror? The locked door? Killing Buquet when he's a completely different place? Disappearing at the end? But they've made it into a musical horror movie, with every stalking, strangling, killing and plotting thing right before our eyes. The magic goes away. The scariness is there when you don't know how he does it - he's the Opera Ghost, for chrissakes!
But the problem is, they don't make it realistic enough, so they fail. Granted, musicals like that are a leap of fait, but they've even added certain theatrical tools that makes your escapism fail - like little Meg moves like a ballet dancer the whole time (even when she's conversing, she's standing the the fourth position, or whatever it's called)
And they've added such silly dramatic twists. Come on! Raoul see's the phantom threatening his girlfriend, and he runs to get a sword?! They had guns back then, people! (In the original book, Raoul even tries to shoot the phantom) And when they've had their dramatic (and way too long) sword fight, Raoul just leaves the Phantom lieing defenseless under the point of his sword, goes back to the opera, and THEN continues on the whole "I have a plan to ensnare our clever friend." Sure, that makes SENSE!
The actor playing Phantom couldn't sing. His plastic mask was too small, and he wasn't grotesque enough under it. He made a pathetic Red Death (come on, let's see his grotesque splendour!), and he didn't wear the cooler-than-Thou FEDORA HAT!!
My big comfort candy binging started after the first mask-revealing though. She rips it off, he's mad, then he starts looking at himself in the mirror. Suuure. Then he puts it on and growls "Come, we must return..." The coolest thing in the whole stage play should be that moment: Erik - raging, betrayed, pitiful and pathetic, lies sobbing on the floor. Christine pities him and in regret of what she's done, hands him back his masks. He repositions it, stands up, and in the coolest performance of vanity ever, he straightens his hair back - and then sings in such a careless, lilting tone "Come, we must return/Those two fools who run my theatre/will be missing you!" That change is meant to be sooo creepy, and then they just make it a little omnious in the movie. No!
Many other things too, but the thing that really gnawed on me: The added back story Mme. Giry (the only person in the story to have an outrageous French accent) tells Raoul. Oh, so she saved Erik, then? AND brought him back to the Opera where he slunked away? It doesn't even make sense - did he stumble over a secret lair which just happened to be down there, then? Did he just happen to find all his necessities at, what? Sixteen years old? For all you ignorants out there: Erik is about 50 when this story happens (Christine is 16) - but I can forgive the musical, because you can't have a 50-yearold actor on stage seven days a week. Erik is in fact much older than the Paris Opera, and he designed the lair himself.
A few more things: When Carlotta finds her dead husband, she cries out his last name - sure, I'd do that.
And just to flex my very last geek-muscles: In the book Erik has a very bad, childish handwriting. So there.
Some good things:
Gourgeous costumes, especially just the male suits.
Minnie Driver is a PERFECT Carlotta. She really nailed that role.
Yay for the only actor I knew beforehand, Simon Callow!
Thank God they kept the original opening - wonderful! Wonderful!
Raphael's Evolution
Oh, whatever:
HAP...PY NEW YEAR! Everybody! You all have a good time!
Another year over
And a new one just begun
Lyric sample:
Caring too much is such a juvenile fancy
Learning to trust is just for children in school
I'm home, slightly nauseated by the amounts of candy I ate yesterday, and I've returned from watching the movie version of The phantom of the opera.
WARNING: Extreme amounts of geekiness to follow. And possibly spoilers.
The moment the light went on in the cinema I turned over to my mother and said, "Please make that movie go away! Make it disappear!" But alas, it's there. And people who've no idea how cool the original novel/the stage musical/the pickup novel by Susan Kay is, are going to judge the whole phenomenon by this. lousy. movie. Lloyd Webber, why have you forsaken us?!
The bad stuff:
First of all, in a desperate attempt to look as far from Moulin rouge as possible, they've made it really realistic. Nothing is left for the imagination - before each ghastly thing happens, you have to witness the phantom plotting it. I've had PAGE LONG discussions of how Erik (the phantom) managed to make La Carlotta croak like a toad, and here he just swaps her mouth spray like a prankish school boy (which still doesn't make sense, because it was before she calls Christine a "little toad"). This was meant to be a movie version of the stage musical - where it's so extremely cool when you never know how he does it: The magic mirror? The locked door? Killing Buquet when he's a completely different place? Disappearing at the end? But they've made it into a musical horror movie, with every stalking, strangling, killing and plotting thing right before our eyes. The magic goes away. The scariness is there when you don't know how he does it - he's the Opera Ghost, for chrissakes!
But the problem is, they don't make it realistic enough, so they fail. Granted, musicals like that are a leap of fait, but they've even added certain theatrical tools that makes your escapism fail - like little Meg moves like a ballet dancer the whole time (even when she's conversing, she's standing the the fourth position, or whatever it's called)
And they've added such silly dramatic twists. Come on! Raoul see's the phantom threatening his girlfriend, and he runs to get a sword?! They had guns back then, people! (In the original book, Raoul even tries to shoot the phantom) And when they've had their dramatic (and way too long) sword fight, Raoul just leaves the Phantom lieing defenseless under the point of his sword, goes back to the opera, and THEN continues on the whole "I have a plan to ensnare our clever friend." Sure, that makes SENSE!
The actor playing Phantom couldn't sing. His plastic mask was too small, and he wasn't grotesque enough under it. He made a pathetic Red Death (come on, let's see his grotesque splendour!), and he didn't wear the cooler-than-Thou FEDORA HAT!!
My big comfort candy binging started after the first mask-revealing though. She rips it off, he's mad, then he starts looking at himself in the mirror. Suuure. Then he puts it on and growls "Come, we must return..." The coolest thing in the whole stage play should be that moment: Erik - raging, betrayed, pitiful and pathetic, lies sobbing on the floor. Christine pities him and in regret of what she's done, hands him back his masks. He repositions it, stands up, and in the coolest performance of vanity ever, he straightens his hair back - and then sings in such a careless, lilting tone "Come, we must return/Those two fools who run my theatre/will be missing you!" That change is meant to be sooo creepy, and then they just make it a little omnious in the movie. No!
Many other things too, but the thing that really gnawed on me: The added back story Mme. Giry (the only person in the story to have an outrageous French accent) tells Raoul. Oh, so she saved Erik, then? AND brought him back to the Opera where he slunked away? It doesn't even make sense - did he stumble over a secret lair which just happened to be down there, then? Did he just happen to find all his necessities at, what? Sixteen years old? For all you ignorants out there: Erik is about 50 when this story happens (Christine is 16) - but I can forgive the musical, because you can't have a 50-yearold actor on stage seven days a week. Erik is in fact much older than the Paris Opera, and he designed the lair himself.
A few more things: When Carlotta finds her dead husband, she cries out his last name - sure, I'd do that.
And just to flex my very last geek-muscles: In the book Erik has a very bad, childish handwriting. So there.
Some good things:
Gourgeous costumes, especially just the male suits.
Minnie Driver is a PERFECT Carlotta. She really nailed that role.
Yay for the only actor I knew beforehand, Simon Callow!
Thank God they kept the original opening - wonderful! Wonderful!
Raphael's Evolution
Oh, whatever:
HAP...PY NEW YEAR! Everybody! You all have a good time!
Another year over
And a new one just begun
