the movie, the play, and the weekend
continuing with my short tradition of discussing noteworthy entertainment "events," after this past weekend, i would be remiss not to discuss two notable productions: the off-broadway play dog sees god: confessions of a teenage blockhead, and the long-awaited motion picture adaptation of the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe.
dog sees god is an irreverent reinterpretation of the classic charlie brown/peanuts characters that is in no way authorized or recognized by the estate of charles schultz. the story opens immediately after snoopy's death, and ages the characters to teenagers, plotting them against high school angst, and in many cases, each other.
it is interesting, and for the most part, humorous to meet the new versions of the familiar characters that we all grew up with. linus is a stoner, sally is a goth girl, pigpen is an ocd-clean-freak-homophobic-jock, schroeder is a sexually abused recluse, lucy is a mental patient, marcy is the wannabe-popular sidekick, and funniest of all, is peppermint patty, (now called tricia), who somehow manages to embody every cheerleader-teen-queen stereotype and still be hysterical. charlie brown himself is the most boring character, per usual, but the plot centers of his exploration of self in this place in time.
a little slow to start, the pace picks up speed after we re-meet all of the characters, and then continues to treat us to a lot of riotous humor and "shocking" plot twists, with many great "wink-wink" tributes to the sunday funnies and classic television specials. at points, the story struggles with identity between comedy and drama, with some ultra serious moments that seem out of place. beyond that, i won't give anything away, should you wish to see it for yourself (all tickets on friday at 10pm are $25. i bought tickets less than a month ago and still managed front row, orchestra).
a word to the wise, some members of an older generation exiting the theatre commented that the play was nothing more than a 90 minute SNL skit, and i can see where they are coming from. the play is clearly marketed to a younger generation, with a cast of young b-listers such as eliza dushku (bring it on, buffy) as lucy, eddie kaye thomas (american pie) as charlie, logan marshall-greene (the oc) as shroeder, and ian somerhalder (lost) as pigpen. the cast, of course, adds to the novelty of the show, but i don't believe they are essential to make it entertaining. the reimagining of such classic pop culture characters takes creativity and ambition, and i give the playwright credit for having the balls, or should i say, the peanuts to do so.
and moving on to the other c.s...lewis that is, the highly anticipated movie version of his classic novel, the chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, opened this weekend, and as one of the longtime fans of the story, i made the effort to support its opening box office numbers.
the movie version had been one of those problematic hollywood projects, like rent, that everyone and no one wanted to make at the same time. the rights changed hands many times over, with different big names attached, and finally settled in the hands of walden entertainment and later, disney. with the aid of lucasfilm's industrial light and sound technology, the film could finally be made realistically with the cgi required to blend a handful of human characters with armies of fantastical creatures. and, i'm happy to report, it worked very well.
the film was an extremely faithful adaptation, elegant, tasteful, humorous at points, and complete in just over two hours. as one of my favorite books of all time, it is difficult to be surprised by any of the plot elements, but its fun to see them unfold on film in a way that does the story justice.
given the genre of the film, it is almost impossible not to draw comparisons to the other recent and hugely successful adaptations of literary epics, harry potter and lord of the rings (also written by authors who choose to initialize part of their names...hmm). like lotr, and unlike harry potter, this tale arose from a different era of storytelling, where values are more clearly defined, and the line between good and evil is finite. despite the medieval style battle sequences, there is scarcely a drop of blood in the film, and that is a testament to filmmakers that can bring an epic story to life and keep it safe and entertaining for all ages.
it is my hope that the novel is still as prevalent in elementary schools today as it was for my generation. but, even if it's not, i am thrilled that there is now a solid theatrical version all can enjoy. fittingly, the film opened at number one with the second biggest december opening ever, (behind one of the lotr films), and after all of these years, it deserves its moment on the throne.
dog sees god is an irreverent reinterpretation of the classic charlie brown/peanuts characters that is in no way authorized or recognized by the estate of charles schultz. the story opens immediately after snoopy's death, and ages the characters to teenagers, plotting them against high school angst, and in many cases, each other.
it is interesting, and for the most part, humorous to meet the new versions of the familiar characters that we all grew up with. linus is a stoner, sally is a goth girl, pigpen is an ocd-clean-freak-homophobic-jock, schroeder is a sexually abused recluse, lucy is a mental patient, marcy is the wannabe-popular sidekick, and funniest of all, is peppermint patty, (now called tricia), who somehow manages to embody every cheerleader-teen-queen stereotype and still be hysterical. charlie brown himself is the most boring character, per usual, but the plot centers of his exploration of self in this place in time.
a little slow to start, the pace picks up speed after we re-meet all of the characters, and then continues to treat us to a lot of riotous humor and "shocking" plot twists, with many great "wink-wink" tributes to the sunday funnies and classic television specials. at points, the story struggles with identity between comedy and drama, with some ultra serious moments that seem out of place. beyond that, i won't give anything away, should you wish to see it for yourself (all tickets on friday at 10pm are $25. i bought tickets less than a month ago and still managed front row, orchestra).
a word to the wise, some members of an older generation exiting the theatre commented that the play was nothing more than a 90 minute SNL skit, and i can see where they are coming from. the play is clearly marketed to a younger generation, with a cast of young b-listers such as eliza dushku (bring it on, buffy) as lucy, eddie kaye thomas (american pie) as charlie, logan marshall-greene (the oc) as shroeder, and ian somerhalder (lost) as pigpen. the cast, of course, adds to the novelty of the show, but i don't believe they are essential to make it entertaining. the reimagining of such classic pop culture characters takes creativity and ambition, and i give the playwright credit for having the balls, or should i say, the peanuts to do so.and moving on to the other c.s...lewis that is, the highly anticipated movie version of his classic novel, the chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, opened this weekend, and as one of the longtime fans of the story, i made the effort to support its opening box office numbers.
the movie version had been one of those problematic hollywood projects, like rent, that everyone and no one wanted to make at the same time. the rights changed hands many times over, with different big names attached, and finally settled in the hands of walden entertainment and later, disney. with the aid of lucasfilm's industrial light and sound technology, the film could finally be made realistically with the cgi required to blend a handful of human characters with armies of fantastical creatures. and, i'm happy to report, it worked very well.
the film was an extremely faithful adaptation, elegant, tasteful, humorous at points, and complete in just over two hours. as one of my favorite books of all time, it is difficult to be surprised by any of the plot elements, but its fun to see them unfold on film in a way that does the story justice.
given the genre of the film, it is almost impossible not to draw comparisons to the other recent and hugely successful adaptations of literary epics, harry potter and lord of the rings (also written by authors who choose to initialize part of their names...hmm). like lotr, and unlike harry potter, this tale arose from a different era of storytelling, where values are more clearly defined, and the line between good and evil is finite. despite the medieval style battle sequences, there is scarcely a drop of blood in the film, and that is a testament to filmmakers that can bring an epic story to life and keep it safe and entertaining for all ages.
it is my hope that the novel is still as prevalent in elementary schools today as it was for my generation. but, even if it's not, i am thrilled that there is now a solid theatrical version all can enjoy. fittingly, the film opened at number one with the second biggest december opening ever, (behind one of the lotr films), and after all of these years, it deserves its moment on the throne.
posted by mark at 11:45 AM
1 Comments:
This is the part of the comments where Mark and I have warrning movie commentary...
Going to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was pretty awesome for me, since I wrote my senior thesis on conflicts between gender and religion in all seven books. Most of the blatantly sexist lines were cut out of the movie but a lot of the attitudes towards gender remained (one example: "battles are ugly when women fight" morphed into "battles are ugly" and just implied that that is why Susan and Lucy shouldn't fight but Ed and Peter could). I enjoyed it as a great kids' adventure movie, but I couldn't help worrying over the political climate that suddenly made a Christian analogy (Lewis insisted he meant the story as an analogy, not an allegory) an ideal movie plot. Why now? It's a nail biter.
My initial reaction out of the way, I have to disagree about the battle scenes. I thought they were far too violent for the PG rating. My sister and I kept wincing and looking at each other, mouthing: "This is PG?"
Also, I don't think that good and evil is so cut and dry in The Chronicles. Sure, there is ultimate evil: The witch. Voldemort and Sauron are ultimate evil as well. Aslan is a good being, but he has his faults ("he's not a tame lion, after all")...he's a big, scary, growly lion. Then there's humans...from LOTR to Harry Potter to The Chronicles, humans are depicted as a crazy mixture of both good and evil. Actually, LOTR and Chronicles are very similar on their portrayal of humans and their ability to be tempted to good or evil- it is no surprise that Lewis and Tolkein used to hang out in pubs together.
Ew, I just wrote the longest comment ever. Sorry. But it was fun.
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