and after a busy week... | 1:00 PM >

The reason I haven't been around at all was a few days of work -- from 8 until 4 daily. That meant getting up at 6, and between that and a freelance thing I've been working on I had no time for anything else, really. But the teaching is over now and the freelance project is coming to a close (a successful close, at that, which makes me both proud and happy), so I'll be having more time again.

Got boxes from PR, though, the ones I packed while I was down there to have sent up. A few old photos (one of which shows me embarassingly young; it will be posted soon), a handful of good books (three of them Shakespeare), and most importantly, about a hundred CD cases that I'd left behind when I moved to Japan. Turns out it's not all of them, but it's enough to make my collection look at little more respectable, sitting on a shelf instead of in my old broken black CD binder.

From here on out this post will be sprawling and have no cohesive thread. I apologize for that. Lemme start with the best animated gif ever.

Past little while I've seen more movies out at the theatre than I usually do, and with the upcoming glut of animated features and summer blockbusters I'll prolly be spending a lot of time out. Phoebe and I caught Dreamgirls a while back, and saw Music & Lyrics last week. Dreamgirls was highly enjoyable, and I'm glad I saw it before the Academy Awards to shift my idea of whether or not it was good. It was enjoyable, but I don't think it was successful. The whole movie through I couldn't figure out why I thought that, and then it dawned on me: the movie did not make a decision on whether or not it was a musical or a movie with musical numbers.

For most people these two things are interchangeable terms, but not for me. Musical numbers are moments in which the characters are singing and performing, but they lie sanely within the general structure of the story, like a montage. Movies like Drumline are an example of this. Or even Mean Girls (Tina Fey, I heart you) -- near the end they have a musical number where the girls dress up as naughty Ms. Clauses. There's music, and there's performance, but it fits within the plot and the "real-world" rules of the universe created for the film.

Then there are musicals. When musicals do numbers, the real-world rules no longer apply. Time and space and logic are putty for the characters to mould as long as the singing continues. Sometimes this switch to illogicality does not seem apparent -- it could be something as simple as a change in the physical motions of the characters, or a change in blocking to more theatrical character positionings. I would argue that Dreamgirls does not go far enough in the first half of the movie in pushing for the "musical" feel -- most of the first half of the movie feels like a movie with musical numbers, so when musical elements start appearing the audience feels lost.

Music & Lyrics, on the other hand, is one of those movies that it's really hard to find fault with. Unless, of course, you hate romantic comedies; if so, there's nothing for you here, move along. Still here? Good. I can sum this movie up in one sentence: Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymoore being irresistably awesome. And despite knowing how the movie ends before you buy the ticket (it is a romantic comedy after all), there are plenty of surprises and a lot of excellent writing and timing. Seriously, if you haven't seen it, drop whatever you're doing and go see it.

On music lately I took a gamble on My Chemical Romance. I saw them interviewed in Spin, and the interview intrigued me enough to pick up a copy of The Black Parade despite the fact that it's technically Punk music. The verdict? Every time I listen to the CD again I like it a little more. I was totally unprepared for their sound, not having ever heard them before (and have heard multiple comparisons to The Smashing Pumpkins). The vocals do have that "skater punk" sound that's so popular among the Avril Lavigne crowd, but at the same time there are layers of depth there that I was surprised to find. Lyrically it's quite satisfying at times, and despite the band's "mission to save humanity" the songs don't get terribly preachy. I got it on sale, and I'm happy for the price paid.

Oh, and speaking of Avril, I think I'll finish off this post with some Machinma that blew me away.