Last night we saw Spamalot, the musical adaptation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This meant that the audience was packed with die-hard Monty Python fans who could recite lines and burst into laughter minutes before something that was going to happen actually did, and who probably should have been restrained.
This being the Vegas production, it was abbreviated to fit into 90 minutes, which they do for every show here. Jenn advises me that the cuts to Phantom have made it even less sensical than in its original format, and that disturbs me. But anyway, onwards to the Grail.
Our production starred John O'Hurley (J. Peterman from Seinfeld) as King Arthur. We were in the third row, about ten feet away from the stage, looking upwards at a sharp angle to see under the showgirls' skirts. Before the show, we (the audience) were crammed into the very small "Snackalot" area outside the theater, where water was $5 and Grail Ale was something more expensive.
The plot was pretty simple. Arthur recruits Knights. Galahad is vain, Lancelot is closeted, Bedevere is flatulent, and Robin is a coward (with chicken insignia on his robes). The Knights who say Ni won't let them pass to find the grail unless they stage a Broadway musical. but there are no requisite Jews to cast in medieval England. Hilarity and musical numbers ensue. Play ends much more coherently than the original film.
Not being a Python fan, I was still somewhat amused, although wicked annoyed at the guy behind us who had the movie memorized and felt the need to prove it, vocally. Cute pixie redhead in front of me provided extra entertainment when the showgirls weren't on stage. O'Hurley delivered his part in the Peterman persona, as the public will not accept him in any other role. It worked. You can rarely go wrong performing any part as J. Peterman.
So, this was our first non-Cirque show in quite a while. We've run out of Cirque shows, thankfully. No more mimes will prod us to help them take the lids off their jars of rainbows before shoving their spandexed crotches into the air. Unfortunately, there's really nothing else of note left playing here at all. We have officially used up Las Vegas.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Monday, March 5, 2007
Conservapedia
Love Wikipedia, but think the articles are just too left-leaning ("you got evolution in my science article!")? An elderly woman who led the charge against feminism in the 70's has put her money behind Conservapedia. Written primarily by her son, who lectures against vaccinations in quack medical journals, the encyclopedia has such whimsical quirks as banning the use of "CE" and "BCE" in order to tie dates firmly to Christianity.
Learn such interesting tidbits as, "Modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood."
Unfortunately for the authors, conservative bloggers are mocking their efforts as being, well, embarrassing for their movement. Here are some highlights one pointed out...
What does Conservapedia think about Descartes?
"Descartes locked himself in a stove and meditated, arriving at the unsurprising conclusion that nothing existed. He then used Anselm's proof of the existence of God to decide that perhaps he wasn't deluded, and perhaps things did exist after all. He thought the soul lived in the pineal gland, and when you lift your arm it's just an accident because your brain doesn't control your body, God does. This 'god-robot' theory of consciousness got him into ferocious arguments with Hobbes, but then Hobbes loved a good argument and was usually wrong."
Yes, but what about Einstein?
"Nothing useful has even been built based on the theory of relativity.…'All things are relative' became popular as atheists and others used relativity to attack Christian values. There remains enormous political support for the theory of relativity that has nothing to do with physics, and Congress continues to spend billions of dollars unsuccessfully searching for particles predicted by the theory of relativity."
Or Washington?
"Washington is perhaps the person other than Jesus who declined enormous worldly power, in Washington's case by voluntarily stepping aside as the ruler of a prosperous nation."
I bet you have plenty to say about the Holocaust, right?
"The Holocaust was the massacring of the Jewish race during World War II. The Germans are not to blame for this but the Nazi are. Besides 6 million Jews dying, 3 million Christians were killed also along with many priests and nuns. This is a very touchy subject for the Jews and is not often discussed amongst them."
Yeah, what's with them and the touchiness?! Let's face it, Wikipedia has been going downhill since they started writing about hacks like me. From now on, I'm only citing Conservapedia in all of my academic articles. Nobel Prize in Righteousness, here I come!
Learn such interesting tidbits as, "Modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood."
Unfortunately for the authors, conservative bloggers are mocking their efforts as being, well, embarrassing for their movement. Here are some highlights one pointed out...
What does Conservapedia think about Descartes?
"Descartes locked himself in a stove and meditated, arriving at the unsurprising conclusion that nothing existed. He then used Anselm's proof of the existence of God to decide that perhaps he wasn't deluded, and perhaps things did exist after all. He thought the soul lived in the pineal gland, and when you lift your arm it's just an accident because your brain doesn't control your body, God does. This 'god-robot' theory of consciousness got him into ferocious arguments with Hobbes, but then Hobbes loved a good argument and was usually wrong."
Yes, but what about Einstein?
"Nothing useful has even been built based on the theory of relativity.…'All things are relative' became popular as atheists and others used relativity to attack Christian values. There remains enormous political support for the theory of relativity that has nothing to do with physics, and Congress continues to spend billions of dollars unsuccessfully searching for particles predicted by the theory of relativity."
Or Washington?
"Washington is perhaps the person other than Jesus who declined enormous worldly power, in Washington's case by voluntarily stepping aside as the ruler of a prosperous nation."
I bet you have plenty to say about the Holocaust, right?
"The Holocaust was the massacring of the Jewish race during World War II. The Germans are not to blame for this but the Nazi are. Besides 6 million Jews dying, 3 million Christians were killed also along with many priests and nuns. This is a very touchy subject for the Jews and is not often discussed amongst them."
Yeah, what's with them and the touchiness?! Let's face it, Wikipedia has been going downhill since they started writing about hacks like me. From now on, I'm only citing Conservapedia in all of my academic articles. Nobel Prize in Righteousness, here I come!
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Completely Useless Movie Previews: 300
Thinking of going to go see 300? Gentle readers, once again I'll spare you the need, by reviewing a film I haven't seen based solely on the content of the trailers.
300 is the story of the first X-Games, held in Sparta, Greece a couple thousand years ago with single one event: Mortal Kombat! Painstaking attention to historical accuracy has wrought a film that cannot be questioned at all. Everything you see on screen is how it happened in real life, from freaky masks to hovering Matrix-style kung-fu attack moves to ancient Greeks actually having sex with their wives, and certainly not prepubescent boys. To question the authenticity of this film is to question history itself.
Our protagonist? Well, his name isn't mentioned in the trailer, so let's call him Steve. Steve and 299 other Spartans are trying to fend off an attack by the Persians, who eventually decided to call themselves Iranians. So we can probably guess they're the bad guys. Rarely do you see Iranian heroes in our popular culture. Just look at Heroes. Any Iranians there? No? See!
Steve gets to do cool things like watch deformed lesbians make out, run around shirtless, and shove people into bottomless wells, which you'll find all over Greece even to this day. The other 299 guys? They don't matter. Actually, Steve matters very little, because I gather he (and his 299 understudies) gets killed by the Persio-Iranians. How could these 299 Brawny Towel mascots be wiped out by a bunch of dudes who obviously devote most of their time to smithing elaborate bronze fetish gear? Did I mention there are like a trillion Persians? Well, there are. Take my word for it, I paused the trailer and counted them. One trillion and seven.
The film is shot in a hazy sort of Sky Captain/Sin City style that doesn't give away the fact that it was all blue-screened one bit. I, for one, truly believed they had sent Steve and his 299 life partners back in time to defend Sparta, a city so comfy that to this day our best accommodations are described as "Spartan". But no, it's all done with computers. Real, sweaty Greek soldiers couldn't stand there for long hours reciting their lines, they'd be too busy sneaking off for butt sex.
On my trademark-registered scale of 1 to 88 stars, I give 300 299 stars and one Steve. I can do this because it's my scale and I can do what I want, just like the filmmaker did what he wanted to in his own movie and altered the highly-effective phalanx military maneuver to "look cooler".
300 is the story of the first X-Games, held in Sparta, Greece a couple thousand years ago with single one event: Mortal Kombat! Painstaking attention to historical accuracy has wrought a film that cannot be questioned at all. Everything you see on screen is how it happened in real life, from freaky masks to hovering Matrix-style kung-fu attack moves to ancient Greeks actually having sex with their wives, and certainly not prepubescent boys. To question the authenticity of this film is to question history itself.
Our protagonist? Well, his name isn't mentioned in the trailer, so let's call him Steve. Steve and 299 other Spartans are trying to fend off an attack by the Persians, who eventually decided to call themselves Iranians. So we can probably guess they're the bad guys. Rarely do you see Iranian heroes in our popular culture. Just look at Heroes. Any Iranians there? No? See!
Steve gets to do cool things like watch deformed lesbians make out, run around shirtless, and shove people into bottomless wells, which you'll find all over Greece even to this day. The other 299 guys? They don't matter. Actually, Steve matters very little, because I gather he (and his 299 understudies) gets killed by the Persio-Iranians. How could these 299 Brawny Towel mascots be wiped out by a bunch of dudes who obviously devote most of their time to smithing elaborate bronze fetish gear? Did I mention there are like a trillion Persians? Well, there are. Take my word for it, I paused the trailer and counted them. One trillion and seven.
The film is shot in a hazy sort of Sky Captain/Sin City style that doesn't give away the fact that it was all blue-screened one bit. I, for one, truly believed they had sent Steve and his 299 life partners back in time to defend Sparta, a city so comfy that to this day our best accommodations are described as "Spartan". But no, it's all done with computers. Real, sweaty Greek soldiers couldn't stand there for long hours reciting their lines, they'd be too busy sneaking off for butt sex.
On my trademark-registered scale of 1 to 88 stars, I give 300 299 stars and one Steve. I can do this because it's my scale and I can do what I want, just like the filmmaker did what he wanted to in his own movie and altered the highly-effective phalanx military maneuver to "look cooler".
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