Smash Death Watch — Now on Life Support

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I just speed through New Guy’s songs. Is this because I am one of those olds they keep talking about who won’t appreciate them? Or is it that these songs are kind of boring? Also was that the same Gummer-girl on The Good Wife or a different one? And why don’t I like either of them? Is it them? Or does their presence remind me that there’s nepotism everywhere and life is unfair? Or are they both just a little too affected and actressy?

Of course nothing made sense because it never does. Once again we were told a whole bunch of stuff that we never knew before. Suddenly, Marilyn’s mother is vitally important to Julia. Is this a character played by an actor whom we’ve never seen? Does she have a number we’ve never heard? Again we are being asked to care about something being cut, but we have no way of knowing other than Julia’s whining about it, why we should.

When will the idiots writing this ever learn? Continue reading Smash Death Watch — Now on Life Support →

Idiots at the Opera — La Traviata Redux

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We hadn’t planned on seeing Willy Decker’s production of La Traviata again. We saw it eleven months ago with Natalie Dessay, Marcello Giordani, and Dmitri Hovorosky. It was our first time at the Met, our first opera, and it turned us into fans, so going back to see the same production with a different cast was a little like checking up, not just an old lover, but your first.

But when we realized Placido Domingo would be singing Germont, and Diana Damrau would be singing Violetta, and we could get $20 rush orchestra seats, we couldn’t resist. Continue reading Idiots at the Opera — La Traviata Redux →

Your Saturday Book Review — Wool-Part One and Wool Omnibus (Silo Series)

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Wool – Part I

I hadn’t heard of Wool till a week ago, when I saw it mentioned on an Internet forum about “great” self-published books. As the great Dan Holloway was doing the mentioning, I googled it, and found articles on Slate and WSJ about this best-selling phenomenon.

The initial story is FREE. That’s right folks, free! So you have nothing to lose by downloading it right now! It’s approximately 58 pages by Amazon’s estimate. My estimate would put it between 14,000-18,000 words – short enough to be read electronically, even by people who aren’t crazy about reading electronic books. It exists in print as well, but the self-published paperback is currently being sold as a collector’s item, and the traditionally published print version isn’t out yet.

The story takes place in the hours before Sheriff Holston’s scheduled execution for the crime of asking to “go out” of the underground silo, in which he and thousands of others live. “Out” is a poisonous landscape where no one can survive. This stand-alone tale reads like classic science fiction, or maybe simply classic fiction, and begins: “The children were playing while Holsten climbed to his death…” Continue reading Your Saturday Book Review — Wool-Part One and Wool Omnibus (Silo Series) →

Deception Finds Its Groove

Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review Blog,

Apologies for this being the 3rd television review in a week, but we haven’t gone to the opera or a movie lately, and the news is just too depressing. What else could I write about?

  • How we are now sending people to jail for life for pre-crime?
  • This depressing tale of post-partum psychosis?
  • The budget stalemate in which the Republicans continue to try to push through the same plan for destruction of the safety-net (specifically medicare) that cost them the presidential election?
  • The selection of a new pope, who at least was never a member of Hitler Youth, but believes marriage equality is Satan’s plan, and may have aided and abetted a fascist junta?

It’s enough to keep someone awake at night, which is exactly when I do most of my television watching.

Deception is one of those shows I probably would never watch on television if I watched television on television. I’m still not sure why the television machines haven’t gone the way of landlines, except it may have something to do with sports.

Because I watch online, my television decisions are usually spontaneous and most watching happens during bouts of insomnia. (That is except for a few programs I run to as soon as they are available, and a few I binge-watch.)

At first, Deception seemed like it was trying to be two or a dozen things at once, the first being a soap about the foibles of the very rich (which didn’t work out so well for Dirty Rotten Money, although I wish it had because of Donald Sutherland, the late Jill Clayburgh and Peter Krause). It’s also an old-fashioned whodunit, a thriller involving industrial espionage, and maybe some kind of commentary on race and/or class that might not have been intentional. Continue reading Deception Finds Its Groove →

Smash Death Watch — It Gets Worse

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It wasn’t like I actually sat down and watched. I was multi-tasking.

Here were just a few terrible moments:

  • Julia’s telling Tom (and the audience) that they are depressed, and this is the Chinese restaurant they go to when depressed, and this is what they order when they are depressed, and here they are again because – depressed. Does Tom have Alzheimer’s? Is that why Julia must tell him all this? Or is this yet again a sign of the writers’ laziness and contempt for an audience they think is too stupid to get it?
  • Julia’s “Oh my God,” at the news Jerry was paying Ellis. Has Grace just stopped trying?
  • The very special lesson that honesty is the best policy. Ivy tells Terry the truth about his performance and instead of firing her, the egomaniacal bully thanks her and changes his ways. And they all lived happily ever after.
  • New Guy saying he was going to “get high and go to work,” because heaven forbid we should forget that he uses DRUGS, or he should actually have to do any acting to show us that aspect of the character.

The list could go on and on. At this point almost every moment is bad, and not in a good way. Feel free to chime in if you think I missed any of the worst.