Well, dear readers, The Great Meatloaf Experiment was at least a partial success, only really failing in a perfect appearance, but rather looking like a mutant meatloaf. But taste-wise I very much enjoyed it – I ate half and saved half for today. I put one pound of ground beef into a bowl, added one egg, onions, and ketchup, then stuck my hands in it and mooshed it all up, which was as nauseating as I remembered from doing it as a child. Then I transferred that to a cooking dish, added a ketchup glaze to the top, pre-heated the over to 400-degrees, and then cooked it for forty minutes. In terms of doneness, it was perfect. I had two small slices to start, ascertained their goodness, and then had more. All in all, I think I did well. I did get nine lovely hours of good sleep, got up, answered e-mails, and then began The Great Meatloaf Experiment. It was ready around two o’clock. After that, I got a streaming screener e-mail for Nosferatu, which has been getting some great reviews, so I sat on the couch like so much fish and began watching it. I’d seen one of this director’s four movies, The Witch, so I pretty much knew what I was in for, I just hoped given the reviews that it would be better. Well, it was just another artsy-fartsy horror movie whose violence was so sickening that once a crazy in a jail cell ate the head of a bird I was done, one hour in. I also cannot stand Lily Rose Depp, who’s the female lead, so that didn’t help either, nor did the jangly score. Maybe the other hour and twelve minutes are better, but I won’t be seeing them. The reviews are mostly good, but the out and out raves are hilarious because, for me, watching critics fall all over themselves for this artsy junk just makes me laugh. There were only two or three critics that called it correctly, at least in my opinion. My favorite thing was one review who called Ms. Depp’s performance “revelatory” while the critic below that review called Ms. Depp’s performance “especially weak.” But my favorite idiotic critic quote for this said that this director has been working toward this kind of movie for his entire career. His entire career consists of three movies prior to this one.
After shutting off Nosferatu, I made a little green salad with some green and red peppers and Good Seasons Eyetalian dressing and ate that – very good – followed by a few blueberries and raspberries. Then I had a long telephonic conversation, and then got an e-mail with a streaming screener for – Wicked. So, I instantly sat on my couch like so much fish and watched all of it without even getting up once. My history with Wicked dates back to the very first reading of it at Universal, when friends were invited to see what Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman were up to. We all knew there was a show there, but it wasn’t there yet. When I went up to Stephen, I told him that Popular was one of the best things he’d ever written and that I’d enjoyed the reading, he said a very smart thing. He said, “I don’t want to hear about what worked, I want to hear about what didn’t work. Please write some notes and send them to me.” Which I did. I’m sure he got similar notes from others. Mine were four pages and he called me and thanked me and said he didn’t really disagree with any of them. And I have to say, they were all things that got fixed by the time the show got to Broadway. I didn’t see it on Broadway but did see it twice here at the Pantages back in 2007, first with Elphaba understudy Julie Reiber on for Eden Espinoza and Megan Hilty, with Carol Kane as Madame Morrible and John Rubinstein as The Wizard (I thought he was not so hot). I’d already decided to use the two understudies in our benefit for LACC – Julie and the Galinda standby, Emily Rozek – and that’s why I was there. I thought the show worked well and it was easy to understand why it was a hit, but for me it never quite got to great and a lot of that was the production itself. That was the first LA run and a sit-down tour that ran over two years. And that was it. I’ve had many friends do the show, and they always cherish the experience. And now, we have the movie – well, part one of the movie, which runs almost as long as the entire Broadway show. So, they’ve added stuff, which I didn’t find all that necessary, frankly. I enjoyed a lot of it, but I have to say the pacing is off for a lot of it, especially in the dialogue sequences, where the pacing is really slow and were they’ve added so much underscoring to try and move it along – in fact, I’m not sure the underscoring ever actually stopped for more than a minute. The two leading ladies are fine – but some of Cynthia Erivo’s riffing drove me crazy as it hurt the songs where it occurred, and while I found Ariana cute (and definitely following the Chenoweth model), she didn’t really make me laugh at all. I thought Michelle Yeoh was just bad casting, as much as I’ve enjoyed her in other things. And I know everyone reveres Jeff Goldblum, but for me he was pretty insufferable in this. And then there’s the choreography, which, like every movie and show’s choreography these days I would not call dancing – it’s like watching calisthenics or gym class and all the great choreographers of old would abhor this trend – it’s like no one understand the PURPOSE of dance and storytelling through dance. It just killed all the group numbers for me. For me, the film’s two biggest misfires were Popular, which instead of letting the song do its job that it does so well in the show with its simple staging, here gets tricked out with such busy staging and camera work that it just ruins the number – at least, it did for me. And then what should have been the film’s knockout, Defying Gravity, has now got all kinds of interruptions in it – which robs both the song’s power and robs Cynthia Erivo’s chance to truly soar. And the last twenty minutes or so, it starts to feel like a Harry Potter movie. Still, I didn’t hate it and I enjoyed it with the above caveats.
After that, it was time to write these here damn notes, which, in case you haven’t noticed, is what I’ve been doing.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever the HELL I feel like, and I have to finish anything I’m interested in on the MHz streaming channel because my free trial is up at the end of the evening. I’ll probably have the leftover meatloaf and a salad of some sort for food. Not sure if I’ll heat it up or eat it cold of if I’ll eat it at all – depends on how I feel. I could have a nice cheese and onion omelet, too, as I have those ingredients here. We shall see. Otherwise, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same and I will have to figure out how to get my dry cleaning and mail from the mail place.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever the HELL I feel like, eat whatever I feel like, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Time to do our best lists for 2024. Let’s start with: What were your favorite theater experiences for the year? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a mostly successful The Great Meatloaf Experiment.