Cuz We Said So

"The Lord of the Rings"

While I was in London recently I went to see a musical that I was intrigued by: "The Lord of the Rings". As a moderate fan of the somewhat windy novel, and a major fan of the nearly perfect movie series, I wondered how the sprawling story could ever be crunched down into a three-hour stage presentation.

To be perfectly honest, I think that for anyone without a grounding in the story, this musical will be confusing and inpenetrable. Even though it has been remarkably streamlined, (Rohan? What's that?) there's still a lot of characters and peoples and places to try and keep up with.

How does it stack up for Tolkienphiles? I wasn't particularly annoyed by any choices they made. It almost seems as if they went out their way to reintroduce aspects of the original story that Peter Jackson left behind. (Saruman's plan to overthrow Sauron, the scouring of the Shire, even a quick mention of Tom Bombadil) It's pretty drastically cut down, but the essence is still there.

As a technical stage production, it was quite good. The costumes and "sets" are all well done. And the stage itself, with counter-rotating multi-level sections rising and falling, does a nice job of simulating mountains and castles and whatnot. The representation of the giant spider Shelob gave me chills.

As a musical, it was okay, nothing special. The performers sang well enough, but I won't be rushing out to buy the CD.

I'm glad I saw it, but I can't really recommend it to anyone unless they really are Tolkien completists.

Four Years Ago

I ran across this list from an old David post from 2004 of possible contenders for the GOP Presidential nomination in 2008:

Jeb Bush, Florida governor.

Bill Frist, Tennessee senator and majority leader.

Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor.

Chuck Hagel, Nebraska senator.

John McCain, Arizona senator.

Bill Owens, Colorado governor.

George Pataki, New York governor.

Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota governor.

Mitt Romney, Massachusetts governor.

Not bad. No Huckabee. But three of the other contenders are there.

"No Country For Old Men"

I found myself, after watching NCFOM, comparing it to the other critical darling and Oscar contender from 2007, "There Will Be Blood". It's kind of hard for me to review it without referring to TWBB. So I won't try.

"Ever Try to Ride the Subway Covered in Blood?"

"...It doesn’t really matter how crowded the car is. People make room."  Kevin Gamble had an eventful first week in New York City.  (Via Digg)

Cat and Mouse

My cats have an entire house to hang out in.  So where does Spot choose to hang out?

Are You A Brain Floating in Space?

Cosmology can make a brain hurt, whether it's floating in space or not.  As if to illustrate this point, Dilbert creator Scott Adams links to a New York Times article discussing a bizarre theory that's getting serious consideration in some circles.  Adams:

Scientists haven’t disproved evolution. But I found it interesting that some cosmologists are putting a lot of effort into doing just that, albeit indirectly.

To be fair, in this context, the cosmologists can’t prove a negative. They can’t demonstrate that evolution didn’t happen. They can only show that evolution is infinitely unlikely compared to an alternative explanation.   

That potentially better explanation, subject to much dispute, is the idea that your existence and consciousness is far more likely to be a free-floating brain created instantly by random fluctuations of the universe, and imbued with false memories of your past.

Is that all?  From the article, the problem in a nutshell: 

The basic problem is that across the eons of time, the standard theories suggest, the universe can recur over and over again in an endless cycle of big bangs, but it’s hard for nature to make a whole universe. It’s much easier to make fragments of one, like planets, yourself maybe in a spacesuit or even — in the most absurd and troubling example — a naked brain floating in space. Nature tends to do what is easiest, from the standpoint of energy and probability. And so these fragments — in particular the brains — would appear far more frequently than real full-fledged universes, or than us. Or they might be us.

I'd be tempted to say more about this, but there's no point wasting time on it if the theory is wrong, and if the theory is right, you're just a figment of my imagination anyway.

We All Float Down Here

Sunday Morning Moblog Test

I picked up a Motorola Q over the holidays, and thought I'd set it up for mobile posting and see how it does.  My verdict: not bad at all.  The wide, responsive keyboard and ability to crank up the font size makes it a lot easier to write and edit on this than on other phones I've owned.

Gratuitous kitty picture added to test how the camera works for this also.

Most Random Celebrity Sighting Ever

I'm in the UK right now. Yesterday I saw Imogen Poots near the Embankment tube station. I wonder if the strangest part is that I recognized her, or that I knew who she was in the first place. (I'm a big fan of "28 Weeks Later"...)

"Cloverfield"

By now, anyone interested in this movie understands the premise. But I'll describe it briefly anyway.

The entire movie is a tape of "found footage", showing how a group of twenty-somethings in New York deal with the attack of a giant, unexplained monster. There's the additional gimmick that Hud (the cameraman) is accidentally taping over a previous recording of an excursion that Mark and Beth took about a month earlier. Mark and Beth made a connection that day, but little came of it.

When the creature attacks, Mark decides to go save Beth. That's the goal. The obstacles, however, are the point of the movie.

I won't spoil the various additional complications that occur. But I will take a moment to talk about the creature. It's pretty cool. The design of it is not totally original, but it's still fascinating. And the way we get only bits and pieces for a while introduces even more tension.

We've seen movies that are simply supposed to be found footage ("The Blair Witch", for example). But this one is a little different, since it's literally exactly what's on the video tape. The only editing occurred when it was being made. That makes for some interest edits, and that's the most innovative thing about it, for me. Some takes feel strangely leisurely, while other edits zap forward in time uncomfortably fast, faster than you're used to in a regular movie. Sometimes it's funny, other times it's scary.

All in all, they pulled it off. The middle third of the movie was the least interesting, because it seemed more of a standard horror picture. But the opening (both the party and the initial scenes of devastation) and the end are very impressive. In particular, the hero shot of the creature in the final minutes of the film is still echoing in my brain.

If you see the movie, don't be annoyed when there's no explanation. There can't be an explanation of what the creature is or where it came from or what it's motivations are when all you get is the story of the "extras" from a movie. You just have to live with that. And I can.

Don't see this movie if you don't like to be scared, or if hand-held-crazy photography makes you sick. Otherwise, I'd recommend it.