Saturday, March 14, 2009

Magpie Viewing

Okay, so falling way behind on the idea of recapping Dollhouse.  Life has been intervening with unpleasantness in the form of expensive car trouble, stress-inducing rescheduling, and now a (fairly minor) cold.  But I intend to get back to it soon because I'm enjoying my attempts at this form of writing, and I find that I am an even more insightful viewer when I watch through this lens.

On another note, the end of BSG keeps making me flash on the end of the book Passage by Connie Willis.  And it's creeping me the hell out.  The Galactica is out there in the big black, just slowly dying, lights going out, hull bursting, everything shutting down.  And I don't think I'd feel it so strongly if that book hadn't left its imprint on me but good.  It's so sad and beautiful.

30 Rock this week made me laugh hysterically; funniest it's been for me in weeks.  I'm not a traditional slapstick fan, but if physical comedy ever does strike me as funny, it strikes hard. Like Spaceman and Bear Jenna and the table or Buffy and Spike and the flamethrower in Him.  I don't know why it's so funny, but awesome.

Also, Wicked IS AWESOME!  I remember reading the book when it first came out and being, unlike everyone else, underimpressed.  I suspect I had my own ideas of how the story should go and the author had the gall to do something different; I really don't remember.  Just remember thinking that it was probably a new idea for fiction readers, but for a genre fan it was just okay.

I don't know if I'd see it differently if I reread it.  I know the Musical is its own entity and different from the book.  In any case, I love love love the musical.  I expected I'd enjoy it, but I had no idea how affecting it would be.  I think I have Winnie Holzman to thank for that, and I really need to finish making my way through My So-Called Life.  I just remember, during the last duet between Glinda and Elphaba, thinking that the whole story is really about this incredibly complex friendship between these two women.  And how often is that ever given primacy and importance in stage and screen?  I mean, there's more women protaganists now, but so many times the most important relationships they have are with men, usually romantically.  And it seems to me that a lot of women's friendships are still played more for laughs or as a side story or as proof that there's nothing more "interesting" in that particular character's life than gossiping with girlfriends.  

I don't know; maybe I'm overlooking something or maybe I don't watch enough Lifetime -- that sort of women's drama doesn't appeal -- but it really struck me as amazing that this whole big Broadway hit play was about these two women's stories.  And it was obviously about a lot of other things that I also loved.  The whole people's perception versus individual perception versus truth, how being what people think you are instead of who you are never gets you anywhere, and on and on.  I just wish it were in a format that I could watch over and over without paying a fortune.  I did get the soundtrack and found a copy of the script online, so I'll have to make due with geeking out over that instead.

That's it for my entertainment thoughts of the week, those of any substance anyway.  Guess I'll go rewatch Dollhouse 3 now.

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