Tuesday, February 8, 2011

He's Got Radioactive Blood...

Not all the reviews of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark are savaging it...just most of them. Broadwayworld.com offers a rundown of all the major ones with excerpts. And the critic for that site, Michael Dale, explains why he chose not to review the show before its official opening.

• Posted at 10:52 PM · LINK

Tuesday Afternoon

It's a common talking point among Liberals — one heard especially during this contrived "Reagan at 100" holiday — that Ronald W. Reagan would never be nominated by today's Republican party. I disagree.

It's true that Reagan did a lot of things that his admirers today refuse to admit he did...like raise taxes and grant amnesty to illegals and raise taxes and work for nuclear disarmament and raise taxes and negotiate with terrorists and raise taxes and...oh, did I mention he also raised taxes? In fact, back when he was governor of my state, he not only raised taxes, he raised them more than his advisors advised and so wound up with a surplus. He tried to explain the surplus away as an example of his skill at cutting government spending but he hadn't cut government spending. Anyone can wind up with a surplus if they raise taxes too much. (I'm dwelling on this tax thing just to annoy my friend Roger who absolutely refuses to believe Reagan ever raised taxes. If you showed him tape of Ronnie saying, "I'm going to raise taxes," he would swear it was dubbed or that someone must have been holding Nancy hostage to get Ron to say that.)

Reagan also did a lot of things that his fans today acknowledge but just plain overlook, like the thing with illegals. If a Democrat did that, he'd be a Socialist Nazi who wanted to turn America into Bolivia or something but in the case of Reagan, it can just be ignored. No big deal.

Despite all this, they'd back Reagan today. Why? Because he'd be their best chance at beating Obama. Reagan was darn good at getting elected and winning is a lot more important these days than ideology. And Democrats would think the same way if the situation was reversed.

That's not necessarily hypocrisy. I want a candidate who believes in all the same things I do. I've never seen one of those on any ballot who seemed to have a prayer of getting even one electoral vote so I settle for 80% or 70% or whatever I have to. Given the choice of two candidates — one who mirrors my views but probably can't get elected, one who is off on a lot but probably can — I might claim I'll opt for purity of vision over victory. I might even convince myself of that right up until Election Day. But when it comes time to mark the ballot, I'm going to mark mine for the guy closest to my worldview. For most Republicans, even if they admit all the things Reagan did that go against Tea Party fealty, it would be Ronnie over Barack. Easily.

There are at the moment, no serious announced candidates for the Republican nomination. This is apparently because they're all on the Fox News payroll and they have to give up those checks and that exposure once they announce. But announce they will...and while some Repubs will say they won't vote for Romney because he championed a health plan not unlike "Obamacare," that will be overlooked if he looks like a winner. He'll renounce it. His father once did a complete reversal of his position on the Vietnam War claiming he'd been "brainwashed" and had finally come to his senses. This Romney will come up with some double-talk explanation of how he was tricked and anyway, it may look like the same kind of health plan but it's really different...and most folks who want to vote for the Republican will buy it if he's the Republican. They bought John McCain, flip-flops and all. Some of them are probably even willing to pretend that Sarah Palin knows what she's talking about.

And like I said, Democrats are no different. Obama has done a lot of things some of us don't like and we're just going to do a Sgt. Schultz about them, professing to know nothing, see nothing about them. Because even with all that, he'll still be preferable to the person Republicans are likely to nominate. Heck, we might even vote for Reagan today if he came back and ran on the Democratic platform. Which is probably where he'd feel the most comfortable.

• Posted at 12:26 PM · LINK

Today's Video Links

Following up to a video clip from a few days ago, here's more of Gene Kelly dancing while sitting down, this time with Donald O'Connor...

And if the dance looks familiar, it's possible you saw the video used in this Volkswagen commercial. Thanks to Bruce Reznick for the umpteenth time...

• Posted at 9:59 AM · LINK

Spidey Super Stories

In fairness to the Spider-Man show on Broadway, I link to a review by Scott Brown in New York magazine. This is about the best notice I've seen from a major publication and even it isn't the kind of thing producers will rush to quote in ads.

A recurring theme in just about all the reviews is that the show suffers from a general disrespect for the source material; that the creators of the stage version weren't content to do the Spider-Man from decades of comic books. They had to reinvent the property, doing their vision of the character...as opposed to, say, the one concocted by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Again, I haven't seen the show but what the critics are all charging is a problem that frequently crops up when a comic book is adapted into another medium, especially a live-action one. Some adapter rethinks (and too often, over-rethinks) the concept. It's kind of like, "I can't just put a comic book on the screen. People will accuse me of putting a comic book on the screen. I have to take it to another level and put some depth in there." This is too often thought by someone who got the assignment despite not being a true fan of the source material...someone who didn't realize there was already plenty of depth in there.

Or maybe it's just ego. Years ago, I was called in by a producer who wanted to take a stab at adapting Popeye for a new animated project. I will call this producer Harry Shmidlap...

Mr. Shmidlap told me he was a long-time lover of the character...but instantly I knew he wasn't. He had just decided he was because this looked like a lucrative project. He wanted me to perhaps write the script and he sat and learned plenty as I told him the history of Popeye and what I thought the sailorman's appeal was. I asked him if he'd ever read the original newspaper strips by Popeye's creator, Elzie Segar. He said no. I said, "Well, maybe you should because I think the way to do this right is to go back to the original Elzie Segar Popeye."

He looked at me with a scowl and said, "I have no interest in doing the Elzie Segar Popeye. I'm going to do the Harry Shmidlap Popeye."

• Posted at 8:48 AM · LINK

February 7, 2011 • Current • February 9, 2011