The Age of Ultron...and on and on and on

So apparently there have now been a few screenings for critics of the new Avengers film. Yippee for them. But you know what? I'm so sick of hearing about this movie already. We have the next 5 years of Marvel/DC film release dates and I can't imagine the hyping for any of the upcoming films will be any less, and I'm already burnt out.

Am I going to see the movie? Of course. Opening weekend? Probably! Am I going to love it? Almost certainly! Am I going to be excited going in? Probably not. (Will that change the second the film starts?...yes >.> )

Granted, they've been smart about it. Nothing I've heard is really spoiler-y. Just a few basic plot points, nothing more than you'd get from a good trailer, plus some details that are pretty much only there to get the core Marvel comic fans hard. (And give them the more-knowlegeable-than-thou smirk) I don't feel like I know anywhere near enough about the film to be disappointed when I get there. (Which has happened with some other films)

But I'm pretty over the "special extended trailers with two extra seconds of footage and an extra frame of three characters you've never heard of!" And the endless headlines about new teasers or snippets of intel. It's really offputting.We get it, you have a movie coming out. We're excited to see it. You're excited to be producing it. (Because who wouldn't be with those box office numbers?) Just...show it to us.

Really, nothing I've seen beyond the standard trailers has made me more excited for this film. James Spader monologing was all I really needed. Do I give a shit about the extra special new characters? Not really. And I won't until I see the film and I actually learn about them. And I can't imagine all this teasing is really bringing in a new audience. If you aren't already involved with the MCU, you *really* aren't going to give a shit about the teasey bullshit.

So pretty much I'll be avoiding my usual media sites for the next month. I may miss some other news, but I'd rather be late to a couple parties than decide to leave this one.

r/IsolatedVocals

Okay, so usually I avoid reddit like the plague. It's full of icky things, or will steal three days of your life. But. Chris Hardwick posted a thing to Twitter that he found through r/IsolatedVocals, and I was hooked.

There's plenty I haven't listened to because I don't know (or like) the original, but there was plenty I did know. And I had some interesting thoughts and was babbling them at Paul via FBChat and then realized I had a blog I'd started for exactly this purpose.

So the first one I listened to was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPoRHr5sGWk ("Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen)
This one is pretty straightforward. The harmonies I'd thought were in the background are, in fact, there. A few things I hadn't caught in my previous listenings, but for the most part, spot on expected. (Ditto "Behind Blue Eyes" and pretty much all the Beatles' music. Their harmonies don't hide)

This however, shocked the hell out of me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHYjIIJ14MI ("Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen)
Granted, some of the harmonies have been trimmed down, so that explains some of my like "woah, the notes I'm expecting to hear aren't here at all" but it was way cool to hear it all more basic. (Made me think of the time we did it a capella in high school because Bobby G was the literal greatest.)

This one wasn't quite "surprising" because the harmonies are heard in the original record, but this was just a great alternative version, and the vocal lines are way more obvious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv2dhfzOZH8 ("Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" by The Police)

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnhqaHomEQ8 ("E.T." by Katy Perry)
I like it better than the original (which I don't particularly care for) because the non-vocals don't really add anything except a heavy dance beat, and it sounds like a cool a capella track. (Although if I wanted that I'd just go listen to Pentatonix. https://youtu.be/9STdbGrfCLA?t=1m38s They did it without autotune, without editing, and without Kanye West)

Some solo's aren't worth the strip down because who cares it's the same, but like...Adele? Yeah. She's the powerhouse you remember, and it's even more impressive when she's on her own. "Rolling in the Deep" was pretty good, but "Set Fire to the Rain" was the clear winner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQuNtQZTBRE

Another favorite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbNqlbyhKOc&feature=youtu.be ("Love Shack" by the B52's)
This is, I think, better a capella. The snaps and the background chatter give it plenty of energy.

"Love Shack" also shows off another thing revealed in these stripped down versions: mistakes. (https://youtu.be/TbNqlbyhKOc?t=2m45s) These are also sprinkled throughout some Beatles' songs. Little comments to themselves, the occasional in 4 or 8 counts to early, that sort of thing. It's pretty great.

So there you go. If you want to lose yourself in some cool music for a few hours, head over to reddit.com/r/IsolatedVocals and then pop around on YouTube going "oh I wonder if they have this one?!"

Bonus link: (because I love this song too goddamn much to leave out and this whole thing was prompted by a Four Tops song)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0_mlypLAPA ("Papa Was a Rollin Stone" by The Temptations)

Cinderelly, Cinderelly, night and day it's Cinderelly...

So I just saw the new Cinderella, and here are some thoughts I had :

1) HOLY SHIT COSTUMES ALL OF THEM MY GOD AMAZING XD Cate Blanchett's wardrobe was perfection. And that wedding dress was stunning (although I saw more of it in the promo photo than the actual film, so gorgeous)

2) I loved the nods to the animated version in the form of soundbites: Cinderella humming "Nightengale" (one of my favorites) and the mice making approximately the same noises (yes I have this film memorized so sue me)

3) The ball gown. (Yes this is separate from costumes deal with it) I have long dreamed of this ball gown being a real thing, and had pretty much accepted that it could not actually exist because physics. And the one I imagined was yellow. Because Belle is my favorite and the stunning frothy blue creation that Lily James is wearing in this film is actually a real person version of Belle's gown, not Cinderella's.

4) Watching them dance, I realized that all the interview quotes talking about realizing that the dress was a third entity in the relationship were totally spot on. That bitch stole the scene. And I was very impressed with our intrepid prince for being able to lift them both. (Although, let's be fair, Lily James plus that dress probably only weigh as much as one real person anyway)

5) Shoutouts to the casting folks for their work distracting me by having Agent Peggy Carter as Cinderella's mom and Stellan Skarsgard as the bad guy. I had to pull out my phone and make sure it was him before I could concentrate on what the hell he was saying. (In his trademark cadence, of course)

6) The prince is basically Kenneth Branaugh. I guess he figured since he was too old to star he'd just direct the lead to be like him? It worked. Same confident, oozing charm. There were several moments where the prince was obviously trying to win Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award.

Bonus thought: The credits for "Frozen Fever" were almost as long as the film itself.

Future posts

I have a bunch of things I want to write about, but I'm backstage of a theater at the moment so I'm just gonna jot em down and do the posts later:

-Jupiter Ascending
-Les Mis (once I have time to re-watch it)
-The evolution of the modern action film genre as it parallels the evolution of musicals
-There was maybe another I'm forgetting...drat

Solo-nerding

I feel like I'm a weird sort of geek/nerd/weirdo/whatever you want to call it.
I've listened to a lot of famous geeks talk about loving stuff and how it doesn't matter what you love, but if you have a passion for it, that's what you're a geek for. And that's cool. But they also talk about finding other people interested in the same things you like and talking about them and sharing and being excited together.
And that's where I veer away from the standard. I really hate talking about things I'm interested in with people. A friend of mine just discovered Craig Ferguson and is telling me his opinions on him. Like, in detail, analyzing his skills as a comedian. "I watched this one special and he's definitely a good comedian with some holes in his set." I don't want to get into it. I don't think about it like that. I like someone or I don't. I really am not that involved analytically with stuff. That sort of ruins it all for me. Over-thinking it, like. I don't want to talk about why I like something. I just do.
Granted, when I have a tv show or movie I'm watching, I will certainly sometimes get into thinking about it, discussing it with Paul or writing a blog post about something, but often that's so I can figure out how I feel about something new or because I have a thought that I need to share with someone to see if it makes sense.
Anyway, that struck me today.

Bad Marketing

So...despite having a release date listed literally everywhere as yesterday, apparently The Imitation Game is actually only out in limited release? And no one seems to know it's full release date?  I am so confused by their marketing. You could have...y'know...mentioned that...ever? IMDb doesn't even know about it. They just have yesterday listed as the release date.
Also, theater websites like Cinemark have it listed neither under current films or coming attractions so...that's baffling.

After more digging: The website for the film even had a countdown to yesterday as the big opening! IN ONLY FOUR THEATERS IN TWO CITIES! That's not even the standard limited release anymore. It's like they were trying the super old Hollywood version of limited release. Like....1920's old Hollywood. This is ludicrous.

Edit: Today an article was published talking about the weekend's take. Apparently the plan is and has always been to run in those 4 theaters this weekend and next and then go wide on Dec 12. Except that no one heard about that plan and I'm still grumpy. 

...but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?

 So I just took this Sporcle quiz:

http://www.sporcle.com/games/Mimbleton/fictional-races-clickable/results

and *spoilers* one of the fictional races was martians, from War of the Worlds.

Now...I know that there aren't martians. (As far as science is aware) But it seemed odd to me to put them in the same category of "made up creatures" as say, Daleks and Ewoks. Clearly, they are all fictional, in that no such thing exists. But it seemed bizarre to me to call "martians" made up, because it seems to me that if there were creatures living on Mars, we'd call them martians.

Maybe it's just a name thing. Marvin the Martian is clearly made up. And I guess that, since in War of the Worlds these creatures have some characterization that is imagined by H.G. Welles* they are also to be considered made up. I think it's just the name. "Martians." This word has existed for centuries and feels far more "real"


*Note: When I was younger, H.G. Welles and Orson Welles were interchangeable in my brain. I'd feel worse about this, but they were both obviously connected to War of the Worlds, so I feel like it's an easy mistake to make.