Category Archives: Celebs and Media

Where Deadrobot brushes up against celebrities

Priscilla, Queen of the Musicals

Celebs and Media, Toronto

Full disclosure: I absolutely hate musicals that rely on pop music to tell a story. I hate how the writers and producers try to crowbar a song about political unrest in Ireland into a musical number about seducing a love-at-first-sight prostitute.

Moulin Rouge? Hated it. So hated it. It actually makes me mad thinking of how this turd of a movie was actually liked by any percentage of humanity.

Mamma Mia? Love the music, hate the show. Take my Gay card. Please.

Priscilla? When we sat in our 5th row seats (thank you SharkBoy!!), I opened the playbill and scanned the musical numbers and found not one original tune I thought “Kill me now.”

Well. I’m eating crow, it seems.

Last night’s performance of Priscilla was amazing. Yes it was fluff and unoriginal like any derived movie-to-musical but I can honestly say it was as much fun as watching the movie, if not better. The show hit all the great points of the movie; story, character and costumes, and did so in an inventive fresh way. I found myself engrossed in the story as if I was watching the movie for the first time. This was thanks to the cast: each member bringing enough familiarization that makes you connect to the movie, yet adding their own twists to their character to make it fun to rediscover. Most notably is Tony Sheldon, who plays Bernadette (Raaaalph!) completely right angles to Terrence Stamp’s creation. Sheldon’s Bernadette is more like a smart Lucile Ball, a wide eyed Carol Channing compared to Stamp’s subtle yet strong Bernadette. And it works – s/he creates magic with a nod, a glance, a well timed pause.

The show is full of risks, in the metaphorical and physical, and they succeed on every level. I won’t spoil one technical marvel, but I’ve never been that close to a woman’s stiletto heel before in my life. If you thought a falling chandelier was a captivating stage effect, a drag queen on a giant shoe on a bus will decimate that.

Go see it before it leaves Toronto. And I’m not saying this because I’m a homo. It’s just a damn fun show.

Priscilla, Queen of the Musicals: Prologue

Celebs and Media, Toronto

I’m standing outside the Princess of Wales Theatre, awaiting limos with glitzy drag queens to pull up for the opening night of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with SharkBoy and CuriousJ when a young chap shoves a camera in our personal space. I seen him earlier and had warned SharkBoy and CuriousJ to back off if he came over. They slink away behind the camera man.

“What do you like about the movie!?” He enthusiastically asks.
“I love how it’s set in the Australian Outback! It’s a fantastic road movie! Great costumes, some funny lines, super action… I love the post-apocalyptic movie genre. Oh and I love how everyone chases each other in 70s style chop shop cars.”
“Whut?” His face falls a bit from behind his popped out LCD screen.
“Yeah! When he finds out the road gang kills his family he goes after them in his Interceptor.”
Pause. “What about the stage show… do you know anything about that?”
“I hear they toned down the bus.” (I was actually being serious. I had heard that the London show was plagued with serious tech issues)
“Toned down the bus…? Hoookay. What about the songs? Any song you like?”
“Didn’t Tina Turner do the theme song? Thundersomething?”
A limo full of drag queens does actually pull up and the camera swings away from my face.

I bet I don’t get used in those shouty “THIS IS THE BEST MUSICAL IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND” kind of ad on TV.

Oh Girls, I think we're lost!

Beasty And the Beaut

Celebs and Media

Hay LaaaAAAdies!

A day early, SharkBoy’s copy of Beauty and the Beast (Special Edition) arrived and we sat down last night to watch it.

There are moments when I thank the TV gods we bought HD and invested in a BluRay player. Last night was one of them. The opening sequence when the camera multi-planes through the forest to Belle’s home was so saturated I felt like Dorothy coming out of a shattered gray Kansas farmhouse. The transfer is gorgeous! I’m hesitant to buy 2D classical animation movies on BluRay because at that high resolution and image quality you notice how some animation cells have shadows behind them, not to mention the drop in animation quality when the lead animator hands off a minor scene to an apprentice or intern (see the scene right after the big opening number with Belle and the villagers, Belle’s face goes a bit… un-Belle-ish).

The reason this transfer is superior is because Disney started to use their CAPS line and colouring system for the first time with this movie (instead of the traditional ink and paint on cell form of animation). While the movie is stunning at 1080p, you can tell the software was in it’s infancy if you look close at the lines. The points where lines join up were a tad bit blotchy and the long stroke lines were a bit thinner than they should be – any graphic designer who has converted a drawing to vector format will recognize this flaw. Something to do with early conversion algorithms, but to the vast majority who’s never operated Illustrator, you’ll be fine watching this. Don’t worry.

Two items of note: the re-insertion of the musical number “Human Again” was done seamlessly. The song was made popular from the stage show and removed from the movie because it was too similar in grandure right after “Be Our Guest”. The animation recreated for the disk was equal in quality as the rest of the movie, instead of some horrid “Beauty and the Beast Christmas Special” crap they could have done. The song also bridges the seasons of winter to spring in the story, sealing up that weird timeline jump. Bravo!

And Best Menu Interface Evar. Sure it’s captured video of the characters doing stuff from the movie, dancing around in recycled movements, but they’re interspersed around the castle as you explore. Damned fun!

Enough with the tech, here are some story observations I had while viewing Beauty and the Beast:

How is it that Lumiere hasn’t burned down the castle after all that time with flames for hands? Especially when he’s fraternizing with a highly flammable feather duster behind velvet curtains?

How is it the cutlery create a Eiffel Tower during the dinner number, when it hasn’t been invented yet?

How did I not know Joanne Worley (from TV’s Laugh In) was the voice of the wardrobe?

Mrs Potts must have been super old when she had Chip. Like… dry old. She looks 60 as a human. If you think about it, she might have had Chip as a teapot. If that’s the case then she has lots of children. And what happened to the husband? Was he a serving platter and was dropped? Smashed into 1000s of pieces?

How horrid is it to be turned into an enchanted spoon and for years spend your time in a drawer, not get used and then suddenly you’re repeatedly jammed into the mouth of some poor French peasant girl for weeks on end? I am sure there was no modern dentistry back then.

Not every inch of Gaston is covered in hair. Look at his forearms. Shame.

If all the courtiers and attendants became magical chairs and tables and carpets, etc., what happened to the original chairs and tables and carpets?

What does the footstool leave behind when he poops? Upholstery tacks?

Who finally got the triplets? LeFou? I hope so.