Another Thursday round-up

Ok,as the week draws to a close,let us reflect upon the good,the bad and the WTF? that hopefully we all share. The reviews for Lestat on Broadway have been as mercifull as Simon Cowell's been to everyone on AI this season. You know your play's in trouble when the NY Times says it's the best sleeping pill since Ambien came on the market. Also,there was a write-up that called the lyrics"demented diary entries of a Goth teenager"(maybe Bernie Taupin likes to hang out at MySpace,who knows?). Despite this reception,plans are under way to put musical versions of High Fidelity and Legally Blonde on the boards sometime next year. This madness must end-read my lips,Broadway people,not every movie can or should be a damn musical! Whatever happened to producing original material? Sure,Hollywood cranks out remakes and movies based on video games and Tv shows but those guys have such things as DVD sales and cable/network broadcasting rights to fall back on. It's no excuse but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than making a Lord of the Rings musical!


TV has been tricky this week:Veronica Mars has once again been pre-empted on the East Coast for basketball but the episode will not be replayed until the weekend. Apparently,two hours of America's Next Top Model(one hour of which was a clip show!)is more vital to UPN than actually supporting an intelligent and witty show. Tyra Banks must be spreading the love over there,somehow. Stay strong,Mars fans!

American Idol has finally give Kellie Pickler her walking papers(after that horrible rendition of UnChained Melody,even Pick The Worst couldn't save her) and next week,we have double theme night. The contestants have to do a song From The Year You Were Born and Current Top 40 Hit. Paula's crying jag over Elliot's song has convinced me that she's mixing pills with her booze(come on,you really think there's Coca-Cola in her onstage cup?). I'm not sure who will be the winner but I don't want to see Paris in the Bottom Two again-the girl is way too talented to be last place!

On the Amazing Race,Fran & Barry(the token older couple)took their leave and things are heating up between the Hippies and Team MoJo. Joseph and Monica seem like such spoiled brats so I'm all about the Hippies. Top Chef finally knocked Snooty Stephen out of the running(should've helped out more in the kitchen there,buddy!) and next week,it'll be down to three. Things always get interesting when it gets down to the wire and with May,the major Sweeps month looming over the horizon,we should have some fireworks.

Oh,and South Park's riff on Al Gore was so realistic that it was almost scary. "I'm being serial!" sounds like a hot new catchphrase to me. For a moment there,it looked like the show was going to parody The Village(a vastly underrated movie,in my opinion) with the whole "Manbearpig" bit but it zigged instead of zagged. Fine with me,Cartman crapping out treasure was totally worth it.


On the movie front,most of the reviews for United 93 have been positive-Rotten Tomatoes so far has only found three that were not. I'm not surpised,this is the kind of movie that many people may be hesistant about giving any thing but praise to. It may be a well done film but it's the subject matter and how people will feel about seeing it that will determine it's financial success.

I was hoping to catch Hard Candy this weekend but sadly,it's not going to be playing near me,even tho it opens up tommorrow in more theaters. Just as well, I recieved the fourth volume of Batman:the animated series for my birthday and there are plenty of episodes that I didn't see. The only complaint I have about the B:TAS sets are the lack of episode synopsis. Every DVD set that I've bought of a TV show has plot descriptions of the shows in a booklet or printed on the box somewhere. Batman and Superman don't tell you jack about the episodes,just the titles. True,you can guess what villian is featured by the title sometimes but why not help a fangirl out? Not asking for an essay here,just a couple of sentences will do it.

I also got a couple of books as b-day gifts;Geraldine Brooks' March(which looked like someone was trying to hide the last two copies on the display table. There were two different paperbacks covering up March-good thing I checked the spines) and Jane Austen in Scarsdale by Paula Marentz Cohen. Cohen also wrote Jane Austen in Boca(think Golden Girls doing a production of P&P) and Much Ado About Jesse Kaplan. Her new Austen tribute uses the plotline of Persuasion(which is the most popular JA novel to modernize,after P&P) and there's another novel coming out with the same theme in early May. It's called Family Fortune by Laurie Horowitz and I may do a doubled up review of the two. This doesn't look like a Kaavya situation here(the storylines are very different,despite the JA tone),thank goodness.

On a final note,anyone else find this exchange of dialogue in the commercials for "Stick It" to be strange? Bad enough this movie has such a vulgar sounding porn title but these lines are odd to my ears:
Girl(to boy outside):"Call me!"
Boy:"Stalk you!"

What the....? I'm sorry but if some guy said that to me,his head would be spinning from the smack I'd give him across the face. Must be getting old. Then again,it's not like I'm the target audience here. I'm grateful for that!