skygiants

Today I took a lightning trip down to New York so my brother and I could take our parents to go see the Into the Woods Original Cast Reunion at BAM.

The show opened with the host asking who'd seen the original Broadway show ... OK, who saw the original and the 2002 revival ... okay, who saw the revival, the original, and the 2012 Shakespeare in the Park show ... yeah, OK. A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF THE AUDIENCE, was the answer, so it's not like we're the only ones. (We had to stop raising our hands when they asked about last year's Roundabout production, which we never got to see, and the London production, which was maybe three people in the audience. Three out of five is not bad!)

( This will all probably be extremely boring to anyone who does not care deeply about the original cast of Into the Woods. )

I got my Yuletide fic! It is a TWELVE THOUSAND WORD long Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun fic about the GSNK drama club putting on Hamlet, which is such a shining glory of a premise that I would already feel blessed even if it did not feel exactly like an episode of the show, WHICH IT DOES.

With Pen and Prop

“Then you may like Hamlet! It also has tragic love!” Kashima proclaimed happily. “And a lot of people die!”

(I don't think I've talked previously here about Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun? I probably should make a post on it at some point; it's an anime that came out earlier this year that feels pretty much exactly Ouran High School Host Club filtered through an extra layer of JOKES ABOUT THE WRITING PROCESS, so naturally I love it.)

It looks like I also have a Yuletide treat as-yet unrevealed so more glory probably awaits! In the meantime: December meme, coyotegoth's request for the 20th, one movie I think everyone should see and why.

This is even harder than a book I think everyone should read, because IN ADDITION to finding it difficult to say 'everyone should' in general, I also don't tend to have anywhere near the same level of strong feelings about movies that I do about books. They're just too short! I experience them for a span of two hours, and then that's it and I go about my life. Unless I end up seeing a movie multiple times for whatever reason, it's rare for a film to make an enormously huge impact on me.

(I know. I'm a film archivist. I know. To be fair, these days I tend to do a lot more work with television and video.)

So ... I'm going to leave aside 'should,' because I don't really believe in the 'should, but there is one movie that I will do my own personal level best to force almost anybody who comes into contact with me to see who hasn't seen it already, 'should' or not. Original Broadway Cast Into the Woods! BECAUSE IT'S BEAUTIFUL, BIZARRE PERFECTION. I can only see this habit of mine increasing in the many days, weeks and years to come after ... whatever this movie is that came out tonight. (I am seeing it on Friday, en masse, with my family. If you happen to hear Extremely Loud Opinions About The Into the Woods Movie being shouted from somewhere to the northeast, it is probable that they came from us.)

For December thirteenth, next_to_normal asked me to talk about the upcoming Into the Woods movie, which is a great topic for Friday the thirteenth because I am really terrified that this film is going to be a DISASTER.

Okay, here's the irony: I was fully prepared for Les Miserables to be a disaster. I was ready to embrace the disaster! I mean, I love Les Mis, but if it had been as bad as I mostly expected, I would have laughed the whole way through and enjoyed myself enormously, it would have been great.

But Les Mis was not a disaster. So now, in penance, I am really afraid that Into the Woods IS going to be a disaster, and if it is then I will CARE, I will care SO MUCH. And normally I could just come back and make jokes about it and that would help, but in this case, I WILL CARE TOO MUCH TO MAKE JOKES. My only recourse will be seething incoherently, and/or weeping

Reasons I think Into the Woods may well be a disaster:
- JOHNNY DEEP AS THE WOLF
- against a PRETEEN LITTLE RED WHY
- also James Corden as the Baker which innerbrat assures me is terrible though I have no personal experience with this to vouch for
- they're adding a new song and we all know how well that went in Les Mis
- there is no Narrator casting listed
- WHY IS THERE NOT A NARRATOR
- WHY IS THE CAST SO WHITE
- WHY DID THEY NOT CAST BRANDY AS CINDERELLA, I'm forever going to be bitter about this, the director actually directed the Brandy Cinderella. No excuse!
- speaking of the director: Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides. I'm just saying. I'M JUST SAYING.
- I mean, that was a hilarious movie
- BUT NONETHELESS

Reasons it is possible that Into the Woods may NOT be a disaster:
- the cast has a fair number of people I like
- for example Emily Blunt, Anna Kendrick, Christine Baranski
- (I'm pretty neutral on the casting of Meryl Streep, like, I think she will be good and all, I just think they could have done something WAY more interesting and different with the casting of the Witch)
- the Brandy Cinderella was the opposite of a disaster
- Sondheim is heavily involved? They say? I mean WE ALL KNOW HOW THAT GOES, but
- okay yes the costumes look pretty fantastic

So, I mean, we'll see. There's a chance it might be good! . . . but still I'm trying to vigilantly trample all my hopes that it will be good. The less hope I have, the less full of rage I will be when they get it wrong! (That is a lie, but I tell myself that anyway.)

Today I pulled some very complicated procedures to get enough tickets for my whole family to see Into the Woods in the park! (Second time for me, first time for the rest of them.)

I am very tired but I wanted to note down some impressions about the stuff they did before I flee to DragonCon tomorrow, because I found some of their choices super interesting.

( Spoilery if you plan on seeing the show over the remaining . . . four days of its run? Four days sounds right. )

Wow, it has been over a month since I did one of these Top Five posts! At this point I'm just hoping I get all of them answered less than a year from the time I originally did the meme.

Anyway, lacewood asked me for my Top Five Awesome Ladies, which aside from being impossible to narrow down also has to be distingished from Top Five Badass Ladies (and also Top Five Cross-Dressed Ladies, and also Top Five Villainous Ladies, etc. etc.)


( Under the cut! )

AND NOW, AGAIN, I STOP.