Of him I wish to muse aloud

Adam Lambert is releasing a new single called “Ghost Town” sometime this month, to be followed by a full album this summer. I know this, along with many other Lambert facts, because I’ve recently become very interested in all things Adam Lambert. He is my current celebrity crush.

I am a bit weirdly monogamish about these. At any time, I of course enjoy the work and attractiveness of any number of celebrities. However, there is generally just one that I prefer above all others. Currently, that’s Lambert.

He succeeds Roger Daltrey.

Whom, I believe, succeeded Spike, as portrayed by James Marsters…

Spike in Fool for Love

So I may have a “type” when it comes to celebrity crushes.

A cool, steampunk, glitter-rock vampire with, like, tats and guyliner…

— Blaine’s description of Adam’s character (who is basically Adam) on Glee

Adam as glitter-rock vampire

Of course, for an actual relationship, this type is completely unrealistic—starting with the fact that I will never meet these people. And if I ever did, I would never be beautiful or charming or interesting enough for them. I’d just be another fan.

Although this kind goes both ways. I mean, who would actually want to date a celebrity? Your life suddenly made public? Your identity subordinated to someone’s else’s fame? And having to deal with an artistic temperament? With a partner who’s always off on tour or shooting on location? Who is constantly being tempted by adoring fans and groupies, or having to make out with his coworkers? No thanks!

So, a celebrity crush is all about fantasy. And its unrealistic nature goes beyond just the celebrity vs normal person thing. For example, with Roger Daltrey, I wasn’t really into the present tense him. I mean, dude’s 71 years old! He looks great for his age…

But he’s still basically a grandpa.

No,it was the Daltrey of the 60s, 70s, and 80s that I was into. This was a “time travel” crush.

Now, actor James Marsters is only moderately older than me; his present tense self was just fine, age-wise. Thing is, though, I didn’t really have a crush on “actor James Marsters”. I was really more into his character, Spike. Who was really very different from Mr. Masters. So this was a “fiction” crush. “Double fiction” really, as this was not only a fictional character, but a fictional creature as well. A vampire!

Spike the vampire — The non-vamp face was admittedly much hotter, though…

And Adam Lambert? He’s only 33, and he’s not fictional, so that’s all good. But he is gay. And not in “I can just pretend he’s bisexual” kind of way, but gay gay. So this would be a “sexuality is just construct” crush (or something. I have to keep working on that label.)

At any rate, I’m hardly alone in this impractical attraction.

Lambert is handsome — six feet one and 185 pounds, with patrician features and sky-blue eyes — and he’s unrepentant about flirting with both sexes. Even when you know that he’s gay, it’s hard not to find him physically attractive. And that’s the way he likes it. “I loved it this season when girls went crazy for me,” he says. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s all hot.”
— Vanessa Grigordias, Rolling Stone Magazine: “Adam Lambert: Wild Idol”

It appears that even some straight men get caught up in it.

[On watching the Queen + Adam Lambert UK New Year’s concert]

At the first few notes of Don’t Stop me Now, husband looked up.

“Fucking hell,” he said, “he’s gorgeous”. This is a guy who is normally fairly heterosexual.

— From My Bad Ass Alter Ego (a truly terrific blog about Adam, Queen, and music performance in general)

But it’s not just his physical beauty, or his incredible level of fitness, though both are quite remarkable.

✨🌟✨ 300 HQ pictures of @adamlambert - iHeart Radio Music Awards 2015 via @adamlambert_pic http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/qbzx9rh2u55aqu4h9pj56bj8bxfzrgxh … — Mmm. Pretty. (Photo courtesy http://lilybop.smugmug.com)

(Particularly that his fashion and style sense have a come a long way since his Idol days.)

Because there are a lot of gorgeous, well-dressed celebrities. Not too many of them, however, sing as well as Adam Lambert does. His voice is often described as “angelic”.

Blast from the Past — Adam singing “Mad World” on Idol

Which again, might not be enough, if he didn’t also sing songs I really enjoy. I am truly grateful that he has revitalized Queen, my favorite band, breathing new life into their music and allowing me to see them in concert for the first time.

Adam Lambert’s beautiful interpretation of one of Queen’s best songs: “Who Wants to Live Forever”

He was also an incredible interpreter of many styles on American Idol, which I caught up with via a 2.25 hour YouTube clip! Besides “Mad World”, I also especially liked his take on Johnny’s Cash’s “Ring of Fire” and Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”. His own solo output is pretty small at this point—two studio albums, one live—but also quite enjoyable.

And he not only has the vocal chops; he is a performer. In concert, he is charismatic and fun. And quite the dancer.

I also appreciate that in interviews and such, Adam comes across as a rather sweet person, with an endearingly goofy side. He never seems to take himself too seriously.

Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug — Both of these GIFs also from http://lilybop.smugmug.com

But he’s not all kittens and puppies. It’s good for a celebrity crush to have a bit of a dark side, for interest. Daltrey seems a very decent guy, but still had a temper (and more than few illegitimate children). Spike became one of the good guys on Buffy, but still and always—vampire! And Adam? Well, he’s the guy who nearly won American Idol, then scandalized middle America with his crotch-thrusting, tongue-kissing performance on the American Music Awards show. Remember?

Basically, the things he does with his hips, microphone stand, and tongue while performance are, well, not exactly “angelic”.

And what does my actual life partner thinks about my celebrity crushes? Well, he’s mostly confused by them. He doesn’t have his own, and doesn’t see the point of obsessions with the imaginary.

But he’s come to accept it as something I enjoy that is no threat to him–except for his having to attend a few more rock concerts or watch a few more vampire shows than he might otherwise choose to.

Goodbye to Glee

Glee Season 1 I once loved Glee. Season 1, I was completely enamored with the show. There was no denying its flaws—those two terrible pregnancy plots; the sudden and unexplained changes in characterization from episode to episode—but it more than made up for it in originality, heart, and wonderful music and dance numbers. At least for that year.

In Season 2, I still watched every episode, albeit with less enthusiasm. But somehow, the season finale episode just did me in. They’re at Nationals, in New York, the day before—and they still haven’t even written, let alone rehearsed, the original songs they’re going to perform?

Even for the bizarro world of Glee where a high school show choir can sing and dance every new song perfectly from the first take, it was too much. I couldn’t buy it anymore. I couldn’t watch it anymore. Just like that, Glee was off the PVR list and out of my life.

Til Cory Monteith. Now, Finn was never my favorite character, I was never that taken with Monteith as an actor (thought Mark Sailing, who played Puck, was hotter), but it was just so sad when he died. He was so young, and he seemed like such a sweet person, and the fact that he was actually dating Leah Michelle (“Rachel”) in real life… I had to tune in to see how Glee would handle it.

“The Quarterback”, Season 5, was ten-hanky episode for sure (music—it’s an emotional mindfield), but I thought it was a lovely handling of Finn’s death. It was set a few weeks later, cause of death never specified, and focused on how the character’s dealt with his loss. Which, being Glee, was mostly by singing.

Glee Farewall to Finn

And then I stopped watching Glee until—you’re probably thinking until the series finale, but no.

Earlier this month Netflix US made season 5 of Glee available. So I decided to watch the five episodes featuring Adam Lambert.

The first of these turned out to be the one right after “The Quarterback”, called “A Katy or a Gaga”. Auditioning for Kurt’s band (though mind boggles at the thought of Lambert actually auditioning for Colfer, but whatever!), Adam does this incredible cover of Lady Gaga’s “Marry the Night”. It so good it allowed me to forgive the rest of the episode, which wasn’t exactly bad so much as rote. So rote the characters themselves make snarky, ironic asides about the lack of originality. Sue somehow still hates the Glee club. Glee cast members might be new, but it’s still slut vs. virgin for the hunk’s attention. And so on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHRxji4p1rs

The best scene from A Katy or a Gaga

Next up, however, was “Puppet Master”. And it has to be said that this episode has two terrific musical numbers: one a re-creation of Janet Jackson’s “Nasty” / “Rhythm Nation” videos, another a black’n’white rendering of “Cheek to Cheek” featuring Will and Sue, of all people.

But it’s as though, having put so much energy into these two scenes, they had nothing left for the rest of the episode, which was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. With Muppets everywhere. And characters who seem completely different in personality from what they were on the previous episode I’d watched. And finishing off with that ridiculous “What Do the Fox Say” song. Why? I don’t know!

Blaine and muppets from Glee

(And one has to say that Angel has proven you can absolutely do an excellent episode of television based on Muppets! Having seen and loved “Smile Time”, I think, just made this awful Glee episode even more awful.)

Anglel - Smile Time — Scene from “Smile Time”, Angel season 5

As the AV Club said (not nearly scathingly enough, in my opinion):

It’s like “Puppet Master” is so embarrassed of this plot that it just wants to get to the fun stuff.

That discord is what really feels lazy. There’s no meaning in the mix of songs in this episode or the way these plots have almost nothing to do with one another, even though three vaguely revolve around leadership.

To make it even worse, Adam Lambert’s part is teeny tiny in this episode. (But at least the badness doesn’t rub off on him so much.)

So what was most shocking about the next season 5 episode I viewed, “Frenemies”, was that it was actually a quite decent episode of Glee. Artie and Tina; Kurt and Elliott (that’s Adam’s character); and Rachel and Santana try to maintain their friendship despite their rivalry, with mixed results.

Two more eps to go. (Then Adam left the show to tour with Queen. Good move!)

Meantime, I did in fact watch the finale, after the fact, on City-TV’s website. (Which featured far fewer commercial interruptions than I was expecting.) And much like “The Quarterback”, and much for the same reasons, it worked for me. The first half harkened back to the first season in 2009, filling in the storylines not featured then of how Rachel, Artie, Tina, and Mercedes came to join the Glee club. The characters began discussing Finn only near the end of that half, and then—there he was on-screen, as they replayed the “Don’t Stop Believin’” scene from episode 1.

Don't stop believin' from Glee — Don’t stop believin’

Cue the Kleenex, but very effective.

The second half occured now and in the future, and everybody is happy as their dreams come true, except there is this sadness over everything—because, Finn. Based on the AV Club comments, this was not very satisfying to those stalwarts who actually stuck with this program for six seasons.

But for fair-weather friends like me, it was just about perfect.

Experiencing pop culture in a time of grief

When someone you love dies, blogging about pop culture, news, travel, and food drops off the priority list.

Doesn’t mean that these trivialities drop our of your life, though. Just that your relationship to them changes, at least for a time.

Music

You know, if you break my heart I’ll go
But I’ll be back again
‘Cause I told you once before good-bye
And I came back again

Music is an emotional mindfield, isn’t it? I don’t think The Beatles “I’ll Be Back” would make anyone’s list of saddest songs ever, but on a day of bad news, I couldn’t handle it. I frantically searched through my playlists for safer havens. I finally settled on “High Energy”, a gathering of uptempo rock and dance numbers, generally with pleasingly dumb lyrics. I stayed locked on that for about a week and a half, ‘til it finally seemed just too incongruous. (Then I switched to Classical.)

Adam Lambert’s excellent album Trespassing was just the sort of uptempo music I needed for a time

Food

I was interested to discover that I still got hungry, still wanted to cook, was still able to eat. Because certain forms of stress and worry make that difficult for me. But not this one, this situation with a known but sad outcome. While I didn’t eat more, or drink more—I didn’t find comfort in that—I still enjoyed the routine of preparing and eating meals.

I certainly became a distracted cook, though. Leaving the milk out on the counter, putting the vinegar in the wrong pantry, forgetting to start the timer. Like the energy of pushing the sadness away enough to follow a recipe was not leaving enough mental space to remember anything that wasn’t written down.

Things are now improving on that front.

Movies and TV

While actually going out to a movie seemed like too much effort, watching stuff on TV was an appealing distraction. Since I don’t watch much medical stuff anyway, there wasn’t much I felt I had to avoid. Howard’s mother died on Big Bang Theory (as the actress had in real life), but it was handled with a light touch and didn’t set me off. In picking HBO movies, I decided to skip Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow for now, given its premise of the lead character dying over and over. I instead watched and quite appreciated the comedic In a World, one of the more overtly feminist movies I’ve seen in a long time. Recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZHBjLFu5is

In a World trailer

News

The human interest stories—little boys lost in the snow, Oliver Sack’s terminal cancer diagnosis—were best avoided for a while, but I still found the theatre of politics a surprisingly useful distraction. Especially in Twitter form (about the length of my attention span, at times). I couldn’t truly dig up my own personal outrage at some of what was going on, but I could still appreciate and retweet other people’s. #StopC51 and all that.

Books

So just a few days before all this my book club had selected Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal as our next book. It’s about getting older and end of life care, and how the medical profession has been dealing with it, and how it should.

Of course, there were days I wasn’t up to reading much of anything at all, but when I did feel up to it, I did read this, I seriously doubt I would have selected this particular book if left to my own druthers, but I feel it was in some ways helpful. It’s an excellent book, anyway, and much of it was more abstract and factual, which appealed to my logical side. Stories did become more personal and touching later in the book, but that was later in this whole saga for me too and—I don’t think it made anything worse. It certainly presented a number of scenarios I’m so glad my loved one never went through.

Award season

Movie award season has come around and I find myself somewhat more interested than some years. If nothing else, at least the talk of movies and actors is a nice distraction from the alarming events going on in the world.

Movie award trophis — Trophies for the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and SAG awards

However, I haven’t seen that many of the big contenders yet. I am pleased that The Grand Budapest Hotel, which we saw back in April, has been remembered and is getting recognition, as it really was quite delightful. But Wild is only getting recognition for Reese Witherspoon’s acting, when I thought the film as a whole was very good. And the fantastic Pride was up for a Golden Globe, but nowhere in the Oscar list.

So I guess my interest is that I would like to see many of the other contenders as well: The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, Into the Woods, Big Eyes, Still Alice, and Boyhood. Mind you, except for Boyhood—which I was deliberately waiting for the rental version of—those are in theatres now. Rather unlikely I find time to see all of them before award show season ends.

We did get to Birdman, however, back in December. And I’m still trying to figure out exactly I what I think of it! It tells the story of an actor who had been the star in a superhero movie franchise, and is now trying to adapt, direct, and star in a revival of a Raymond Carver play on Broadway. The effort of putting on the play is not going smoothly, however, and the stress causes him to break down and hallucinate at times. The hallucinations are largely presented as though they’re actually happening.

So it’s an unusual film, and for me that makes it hard to unabashedly love. But I didn’t dislike it, either. It’s certainly creative, and the actors—star Michael Keaton, Edward Norton as another actor in the play, and Emma Stone as Keaton’s daughter—are very good. And you certainly end up rooting for the main character, despite his flaws. Worth seeing if you’re up for a moderate challenge.

Some of the other Oscar contenders, though, I’ve decided I’m not up for the challenge of: Foxcatcher, Nightcrawler, Whiplash, American Sniper. All these movies about dark men being nasty. Oscar clearly loves that shit, but I do not.

Oscar also snubbed the Roger Ebert document, Life, Itself, which we had found quite good. Admittedly, though, I didn’t see any of the documentaries they did nominate, so can’t really say whether they were all better than Life, Itself.

Similarly with the animated movie category: I haven’t seen any of the nominees, but I did recently see The Lego Movie.(which was nominated for a Globe, but didn’t win), and found it to be one heck of a fun and entertaining movie, no matter your age. Jean was quite skeptical when I suggested we watch it, but he quite enjoyed it, too. (As an aside, he had the same reaction to 2012’s Pitch Perfect, the movie about the all-women a capella group, so that’s another recommended one from us, if you haven’t seen it already.)

At least the “Everything is Awesome” song was nominated, but I really think Lego Batman deserved more recognition for his work. 🙂

The Globes also give awards for TV shows and actors, and I’ve hardly seen of any of those nominees. But weirdly, many of the few I was acquainted with actually won. The Affair got best dramatic series—which appalled the TV critics—and best actress in a drama., and the star of Jane the Virgin won for best actress in a comedy—which delighted the TV critics. I, of course, have caught up with both of those shows recently.

In the mini-series category, Maggie Gyllenhaal took it for the amazing Honourable Woman, which I did watch on CBC. The network’s commercial insertions were jarring, but the series was a fascinating, complex look at Israeli / Palestian relations, and Gyllenhaal was great in it (as she usually is). And Matt Bomber won a supporting actor award for HBO’s The Normal Heart, an interesting movie about the early days of the AIDS crisis, that I watched not long after I subscribed to HBO.

I leave you with some links.

Hollywood Foreign Press (Golden Globe) nominees and winners list

Oscar 2015: Nominations in full (in case you really need to know who’s up for sound editing and for hair and makeup)

Oscar snubs: Shocks and surprises from the 2015 nominations (at least according to The Telegraph)

Wild women! Some reviews

It seems apropos to begin with Wild, the movie starring Reese Witherspoon, that we recently saw at the theatre. I was quite looking forward to it, as I’ve really enjoyed every other movie Jean-Marc Vallée has made. I also thought the rugged, outdoors-y story would appeal to Jean.

Wild is the story of Cheryl Strayed, who decides to solo hike the Pacific Coast Trail, which is over 1000 miles long and doesn’t have a lot of “comfort stations.” As her overly full backpack attests, she doesn’t have any experience with this type of trip. As she slogs along, she flashes back to the memories of her past that have led her to this point.

So it’s not inherently the most cinematic movie. The writer, director, and actors deserve credit for making it as compelling as it is.

Cheryl Strayed was kind of wild. Depressed after her mother dies of cancer, she spirals… drops out of schools, engages in casual sex, drinks, experiments with heroin. She does the hike as a kind of act of atonement. Instead she learns that maybe she has nothing to atone for.

The Affair poster The Affair, an HBO Canada (Showtime in the US) series that we finished watching over Christmas, presents another woman for whom a tragic death leads to “bad” behavior—notably, an affair. The conceit of the series is that each episode is show from two points of view: His (Noah’s) and hers (Alison’s). What’s interesting is how differently each of them recalls the same events. With this series, you can never be sure what the truth is.

Underpinning the story of the affair is a murky murder investigation: For the longest time, we’re not even sure who’s dead. But particularly at the start of the series, it’s the personalities and relationships that are of interest, anyway.

Watching this with Jean was added entertainment, as he’d get so frustrated with the characters and situation at times, he’d have to get up and pace to work off the tension. At one point he commented, “I don’t know why she’s so much more sympathetic than he is.” But she is. It’s sad but understandable that the strain of tragedy has damaged the relationship with her husband. Noah, on the other hand, seems to be undergoing a petulant midlife crisis, with his wife and four children as the victims.

It seems like the kind of series in which everything would get wrapped up at the end of the season, but not so much. This is TV, they wanted a season 2, so it ends in a kind of cliffhanger. That’s worrisome, as I don’t see this necessarily continuing to work well for another 10 episodes.

Jane the Viring Jane the Virgin, on the other hand—which we started watching on Shomi about a month ago and have nearly finished already—has enough plot and characters to run for years, probably. Central character Jane is, indeed, a virgin. In a bid to avoid becoming a teenage mom like her own mother, she has vowed to wait until marriage.

Unfortunately, a medical mistake in the first episode causes her to get pregnant anyway. And that’s just one plot among many.

The series is based on and includes Mexican telenovellas, which I know nothing about. But it seems to mean:

Fast-moving storylines
A large cast of intersecting characters
Painfully good-looking actors
High drama

(Or maybe that impression is just the result of watching so many episodes in such a short time.) At any rate, it is highly entertaining. If Jane isn’t wild, the same can’t be said of anyone around her: The number and variety of hookups is astonishing. They all (even her mother) see Jane and her morals as a kind of a mysterious, rare bird. Yet she’s not some preachy, perfect, dull character: She’s just a young woman trying to make the best decisions for herself.

In a really crazy world.

But HBO documentary Captivated: The Many Trials of Pamela Smart remind us that the real world can be pretty crazy as well.

The Pamela Smart story is one you probably think you know, at least if you were around in 1993. She was the pretty, blonde school worker who had an affair with a teenage boy, who later murdered her husband. She was convicted of conspiring to commit murder, the story being that she had seduced her young lover into committing the act. The case inspired the movie To Die For, starring Nicole Kidmann.

The documentary covers the media circus surrounding the case at the time. I hadn’t realized just how nuts it was on American TV, down to presenting a full re-creation of the supposed crime on television before the fully televised trial (the first ever) even took place! It points out which often-repeated “facts” presented in the media weren’t true, and some of the lax aspects of the case itself (such as allowing the four young men involved to stay together in prison pre-trial; and maybe get their stories straight?).

The “seductress” story was so compelling, it seemed any reality that contradicted it got dismissed.

I went into watching this assuming she was guilty, and the documentary wasn’t necessarily trying to establish her innocence. Still, I’m left wondering, particularly given the inclusion of recordings by one of the jurors (made at time of trial), who had extreme doubts about the evidence as presented. Perhaps Pamela Smart is guilty, But after watching this, I don’t think that’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Nevertheless, she’s in jail for life, The actual murderers are due to be released soon.

Masters of Sex

Masters of Sex is an hour-long drama that airs on Showtime in the US and The Movie Network (TMN) in Canada. It is about sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson.

I’ll admit that it was pure prurience that made me check it out. And the opening credits—which someone had way too much fun putting together—seemed to bear that out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve8orWqYzPU

Opening credits

The actual program, however, turned out to be remarkly un-sexy, particularly for something with so much sex in it. The encounters were often clinical, or awkward, or clinical and awkward. And ultimately, the show wasn’t really about that.

Much like Mad Men, it’s about complicated people living in the US at a time of rapid social change: The late 1950s and into the 1960s. Unlike Mad Men, though, these characters are based on actual people.

Mind you, it’s not aspiring to documentary-like realism. It is a drama, so the facts of history are enhanced with made-up stories and side characters to make them dramatic. Bill Masters did start his work with prostitutes, and one of them did suggest it would go better if he had a female partner. Did that woman then go on to change her life and become Masters and Johnson’s office manager? Not that we know of, but it did make for good TV.

Masters of Sex image

And as can be the case, the parts that seem most implausible in the drama are the ones based in reality. As a doctor, Bill Masters is presented as wonderful to his patients, and incredibly progressive. You cheer him as he advocates for them against the ignorance of the times. But as a husband, friend, partner, colleague, Bill Masters can be so cold, and often behaves appallingly (though he is evolving, and we’re getting to understand better why that is). And that is apparently what the historical records: His patients loved him. His colleagues… Eh.

As for Virginia Johnson, Bill Master’s partner (in more ways that one)—her character is much easier to like: She’s charming, warm, beautiful. So her almost pathological need to prevent anyone from getting too close to her are an ongoing puzzle. But again, this is grounded in reality, including the fact that the actual Virginia Johnson insisted she never loved Bill Masters—despite being married to him for 20 years. (A time period the show has not yet reached.)

And the other characters, including Bill’s wife, Libby, are generally given equal attention, presented as true and not stock characters.

Masters of Sex has little violence, no crimes to solve, no underlying conspiracy theories, and not even that much sexy sex. Furthermore, you somewhat know where this is going: Masters and Johnson will publish a book, it will be very popular, they will be recognized as pioneers in their field.

What holds the interest are the characters: Both the ones based on real people and the fictionalized ones surrounding them. Trying to guess these people’s motivation, who will interact with whom next and how that will go, is just incredibly compelling. Even my husband, who will often complain of character-based movies that the plot itself is lacking (“but nothing happened!”), is caught up in it.

Part of that intrigue might also be how the show plays with time. Not only are the characters an ongoing mystery to discover and understand, but we can never be sure how much time will have passed between episodes. Or even during one episode. The next episode may start the day after the last we saw, or it might start four weeks or eight months later. Two episodes this season covered a single day; another single episode took us through three years.

So, being based on some history doesn’t mean that this program is particularly predictable. Still, it’s probably not for everyone. But it is for me. Happy it’s renewed for another season.

Movie review round-up: Love stories

I keep meaning to catch up with the rest of the world and see Guardians of the Galaxy. In the meantime, I’ve been diverting myself with more obscure movies, all of which, I’ve realized, are variations on the love story.

Life, Itself (July 2014) – Theatre (97% positive rating at RT)

Life, Itself is a documentary about the life of Roger Ebert. And he had an interesting one: he almost accidentally fell into his movie critic role, and that led him to a Pulitzer prize, a popular television show, friendships with movie stars and directors, and even a brief career as a screenwriter for a most unexpected film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. He also suffered from alcoholism and, later in life, a debilitating form of cancer that robbed him of speech and the ability to eat.

The filming begins while he is undergoing for said cancer, and his physical struggles and treatment are sometimes hard to watch. Filming continued up to and beyond the day he died (but his death is not on film!).

How is this a love story? Well, that’s courtesy of Chaz, the woman Roger married late in life, who transformed his life for the better, and whose witness to his final days, as presented in this movie, is touching and beautiful.

I’d read the autobiography this documentary is based on, so I knew the outlines of the life story already, but it was quite interesting seeing and hearing the perspectives from other people. The behind-the-scenes films of Siskel and Ebert bickering are particularly fun.

I wasn’t sure what Jean would think of this, but he declared it “pretty good”, commenting approvingly that Roger was not made to look like a saint here.

Austenland (August 2013) – Borrowed from library (30% positive at RT—ouch!)

This one (which was a bit hard to track down; hurray for libraries) is the most conventional romantic comedy of the bunch, the story of a young woman obsessed with Jane Austen, who decides to spend an amount of money she can’t really afford to go on a trip to Austenland, where the female participants get to act out their own Austen-like story with male actors.

The lead characters (liked Keri Russell) play it straight, while the supporting cast (James Callis, Jennifer Coolidge) go for very broad humor. This makes the movie feel a bit off-kilter at times. It was funny, though. And I did like that the main story wasn’t entirely predictable, even down to who the leading man really was.

Jean declared that this one “wasn’t bad.”

Don Jon (September 2013) – TMN (80% positive rating)

OK, so this is about a young man, Jon (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who is obsessed with porn and doesn’t much see the point of long-term, real-life relationships—until he meets the lovely Barbara (played by Scarlett Johansson). If this was a true romantic comedy, they would fall in love, she would reform him, they would then have some of conflict, but they’d get together in the end.

This is not a true romantic comedy. And I won’t spoil what does happen, as it is somewhat unpredictable and fairly interesting. It’s notable that the character of Barbara is herself as obsessed with romantic comedies as Jon is with porn. And that proves to have its own issues when it comes to real-life relationships.

I forgot to ask Jean what he thought of this one, but he stayed in the TV room and watched it all, so I’m assuming he didn’t hate this one, either.

Veronica Mars (March 2014) – TMN (78% positive rating)

This one is basically a long episode of Veronica Mars, a TV show that ran for three years, from 2004–2007. The premise, somewhat amusingly, is that Veronica Mars gave up all her sleuthing work for nine years now, thus ensuring the show’s fans that they really haven’t missed anything!

What draws her back? Why love, of course, in the form of ex Logan, who’s been accused of the murder of his current girlfriend.

So this is much more a murder mystery than a romance, and I haven’t the faintest idea if it would appeal to anyone who hadn’t watched. As someone who had, I was mainly amazed at how completely I’d managed to forget certain characters over the past 9 years, considering I was a pretty big fan of this show.

Jean declared this a quite enjoyable movie, despite his not being entirely convinced by the murder plot resolution.

Enough Said (September 2013) – Redbox rental (96% positive rating)

Hey, a movie starring grown-ups! In the form of James Gandolfini, as Albert, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as Eva. But these are damaged, cynical adults, all divorced or seemingly on the verge of it. Eva, in particular, can’t seem to trust her own feelings of attraction and fondness toward Albert, allowing her view of him to be poisoned by the opinion of others.

Jean, especially, found her behavior hard to watch at times. “God, this is making me so uncomfortable!” was a frequent refrain. In fact, at one point he was so uncomfortable, he had to leave the room for a while.

I think it’s fair to say this movie won’t leave you indifferent. But maybe not the best “date night” movie.

Behind the Candelabra (May 2013) – HBO Canada (95% positive)

And speaking of uncomfortable… This is the story of the relationship between Liberace, played by Michael Douglas (of all people) and a young man named Scott Thorston, played by Matt Damon, on whose book this movie is based.

It’s not the fact that it’s gay love story that makes this uncomfortable. (I found the early scenes of their budding relationship very sweet, in fact.) It’s the power differential in the relationship that made it increasingly hard to watch. Liberace was older, richer, more famous, more established in his career than Scott… He holds all the cards. Scott becomes completely dependent on him; “Lee”, as he says, becomes “his whole life.”

So when Lee suggests he lose some weight on the “LA diet”—some sort of amphetamines—he does, becoming hopelessly addicted in the process. And when Lee suggests that Scott get plastic surgery to look more like, well, Liberace himself, Scott does that too! z(I actually had to stop watching, for a while, at that point.) And when it ends, well, there was no “alimony” available for gay men back in the 1980s.

It’s interesting, and the actors are very good, but this is no date night movie, either. (No Jean report here; he didn’t watch this movie.)

Whatever happened to the shows of summer?

Actually, in the good/bad old days, there weren’t really “TV shows of summer”, were there? It was mostly rerun city. But more recently-ish (it is a trend over a decade long) networks have programs they play only in the summer season. And the specialty networks debut programs all year long.

These are three I’ve been particularly enjoying.

Amazing Race Canada

Modeled after the American one (which I also like), this is somewhat more “respectable” reality show—Emmy winning, and basically “just a race”, though with the producers definitely manipulating said race to produce drama, and obviously casting it with colourful people.

I appreciate the very multicultural nature of this year’s cast. And what a strong set of contenders! Except for the two sisters who were, indeed, eliminated the first show, everyone seems quite athletic and potentially capable of winning.

But I did come in with a bias toward Rex Harrington and his fiance Bob, because…. He’s Rex Harrington! Amazing dancer and great judge on So You Can Think Dance Canada.

They did well the first episode (and were so funny!), but in the second became mired in controversy: They gave up and took penalties on not one but two of the episode’s challenges. They only made it through because another contestant got injured and had to withdraw.

But surviving that round made they got to experience the surprising development of this year’s season: It’s no longer restricted to Canada! The teams were off to Hong Kong, with China up next.

I do hope Rex and Bob stick around for a while longer, but they certainly aren’t the smart bet to take it all. That would have to be the team made up of two members of Canada’s women’s gold medal hockey team, who have so far won every leg!

Fortunately, I also like them, as I basically like all the teams, really. I found that about Season 1 as well. That doesn’t tend to happen on the American one. Is likeability a Canadian trait? Bit early to say: Some of teams may get awful once the “killer fatigue” really sets in. TBD.

So You Think You Can Dance

The international travel budget shows that Amazing Race: Canada is a summer show on the rise. Now in its eleventh season, though, Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance is definitely on the decline, struggling for ratings.

They have fewer shows than ever this year, so the audition footage was seriously compressed, and we didn’t get to “know” too many contestants ahead of time. They get only the single 2-hour performance show per week, during which they try to squish in everything, including guest stars. It’s meant no video recaps, no Dance for Your Life for the dancers in the bottom three. And their pre-emption for some baseball game meant that this coming week, they have to eliminate four instead of two dancers. Brutal!

What remains, though, is the what I’ve always loved about this program: Seeing wonderful dance pieces in a great variety of styles, performed by very talented young people who only get better each week.

For example, this hip-hop number from the last week. Can you tell that Tanisha is actually a ballroom dancer? Didn’t think so!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxhKiLmtTI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxhKiLmtTI

Or how about this amazing group piece ( again kind of highlighting Tanisha) in the jazz / modern style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAPJsbtqy_8

I’d really be sad if this show was cancelled.

Silicon Valley

This is a bit of a cheat to include here, as it is being rerun, currently. But it’s new to me, and its premiere was only in April, so…

This is a comedy about a group of five guys running a startup company in Silicon Valley, and it’s the funniest shows I’ve seen a long time. Jean, however, is not warming to it as much, so perhaps you need some understanding of / interest in tech culture to really appreciate the satire. (Wired explained how Mike Judge went about trying to make it as “based in reality” as possible, down to the math on the white board. )

Now, it is on HBO, but if you do have some understanding of / interest in tech culture, you’re going to have no trouble watching this show even if you don’t get that channel. But if you just want a preview, there a lot of clips on YouTube.

This scene, in which they implement the “scrum” method of organizing their development work, is an example of one in which I almost died laughing, while Jean was just confused. [Warning: Colorful language. It’s HBO!]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsJoLvRbri0

It’s not television. It’s HBO. (Unfortunately, it’s also Rogers.)

Calling Rogers support is a bit of a crapshoot. You sometimes get a very informed, very helpful employee. Other times… Not so much.

When I last called to make changes to my Rogers services, I hit it lucky. The support person clearly and carefully walked me through the options, helped me pick the right one, and explained exactly what it would mean for my bill. Not only that, but he gave me another number to call, saying I should insist on at least a 20% reduction in my bill. “You’ve been with Rogers a long time,” he said. “And we haven’t done much for you lately.”

And for the past couple years, I have indeed been getting a 20% reduction on my cable and Internet bill. But that discount just expired, making for some serious cable bill sticker shock. Time to reconsider what I’m subscribing to.

The list of cable package prices on the Rogers website shows a big difference between basic cable and the other tiers. And fact is that most of what I watch is on the big networks, not the specialty channels. If I get a real craving for Chopped Canada, it is available to stream from the Food Network website.

And at the whole other end of the Rogers cable package spectrum, at prices so absurdly high that I’d never considered subscribing, is package of all specialty channels + the movie networks.

But poking around revealed that you could get just the movie networks added to your TV line up. That is, you can get the various flavors of HBO Canada and TMN, without all the channels in between (those past 28). It’s not especially cheap, but did appear to be cheaper than what I was paying to add all those specialty channels I barely watched. Also on offer: a 50% discount on that package for the first four months.

I decided to go for it.

Unfortunately, I did not get quite the same quality of phone support this time out. Quite honestly, I now have no idea what this is going to mean for my bill. For one thing, based on past experience, the prices on the website seem to be only an approximation of the actual prices charged. (I have no idea why.) I’m still not sure whether activation or deactivation fees come into. Apparently an extra outlet fee applies to people who have only basic cable but more than one TV (even they get the movie networks, too). And I had to tell the Rogers person that I should qualify for a 50% discount for the first four months, which wasn’t really comforting.

But, dude. There sure is a lot of fantastic programming on those movie networks. In high definition, and commercial free.

Options on TMN

And I don’t even mean the Hollywood movies, though they do have a great selection of those. It’s the series, right? All the ones everyone torrents?

I’m too late for Game of Thrones. It’s in season 4; not jumping in on that now. I’ve read that Girls isn’t quite as good anymore. And I’ve kind of given up on True Blood (which I’d seen on DVD).

But I’m just in time to start with Silicon Valley, a very funny new show about a tech start-up company. Veep is just restarting Season 3, and it doesn’t appear to be necessary to have seen the earlier seasons to enjoy this one. It is a bit confusing jumping into Masters of Sex—a series about Masters and Johnson—mid-season, but enjoyable nonetheless. Then there’s new one called The Leftovers starting soon, that looks really interesting.

And with Real Time with Bill Maher and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver added to my viewing of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on CTV, my American political satire cup truly runneth over.

Then there’s the specials and documentaries (like the upcoming David Bowie: Five Years), the original movies (like The Normal Heart, replaying the first week of July)…

And all of this is also available on demand (~~though not at high def, for some reason?~~) [Edit: On demand is available at high definition; you just have to pick the right channel.] And everything plays many times “live”. So you don’t really have to worry about missing an episode or special, or arrange your schedule around the TV, or even remember to set the PVR (though I still do, because I’m just in that habit).

So I sure hope I can afford to keep this.

Dinner and a concert: Times three

As previously mentioned, May was a big concert month for us. Unusually for us, we went out to eat before three of these outings.

1. Food trucks and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy are a band who play retro, swinging jazz music. Before their concert at Centre in the Square, the Waterloo Hep Cat Hoppers were offering a dance lesson in the lobby. We wanted to take part in that, but it was at 6:30 pm on a work night, which seemed a bit tight.

So when Centre in the Square announced they’d have a couple food trucks there that night starting at 6:00, that seemed like a good option.

Seemed. But while food trucks are a whole big thing right now, they have a few problems.

Weather. At least the rain held off until we’d gotten our food and eaten it, but it was windy and cool, making it less than fabulous for eating outdoors.
Eating standing up. I’m a big fan of working standing up, but eating a meal is best enjoyed sitting down. Using metal and not plastic cutlery.
Standing in line. Just not my favorite activity. Made worst by the fact that while we were there promptly at 6:00, the trucks were not really ready until 6:15, allowing other people to get ahead of us in line, and making us a bit late for the dance lesson.

As for food quality… Meh… Jean didn’t particularly enjoy his Tandoori grilled cheese. I thought my Mediterranean crepe wasn’t bad, but not really worth braving weather / eating standing up / standing in line for again, unless I was stuck.

The dance lesson, though, was fine. What we were taught was very similar to the jive that Jean and I know well, only instead of backstep / step / step (or triple step), it was back-step / kick / kick. It was really hard to remember to do the kick / kick when we were so used to the step / step. Occasionally we just rebelled and reverted to jive dancing. But a good time.

Hep Cat Hoppers performance on YouTube

As for the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy performance, that was hard not to enjoy also, as the music is so lively and fun. I hadn’t known that the band, the same group of people, had been together since 1995. Jean wasn’t in the greatest mood that night (and I’m sure the grilled cheese didn’t help), but he could still recognize that they gave a really good show. (Should point out that this concert was his idea for a change, rather than mine.)

Video: Mr. Pinstripe Suit by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

2. Three Kretans and Ballroom with a Twist

Three Kretans is a Greek restaurant very close to Centre in the Square. For the past year or two, Centre in the Square’s parking lot has been under construction, making it a challenge to find a spot to leave your car before shows. So Three Kretans has come up with a pretty smart offer: Have dinner there, leave your car in their parking lot (for free), and walk to theatre. They have a pre-theatre menu that gets you to the show on time. With the ballroom concert at 7:00 on a week night, we decided to go that right.

The food isn’t bad. It is a casual Greek restaurnt, so you get your lamb, chicken, or pork skewers with potatoes and rice and Greek salad. And baklava-type dessert, if you want.

But Jean was underwhelmed. “I get better food than this at home,” he pointed out. [Ah, the perils of being such a fantastic home cook! 🙂 ]

The show, fortunately was in no way disappointing. Music was all provided by the KW Symphony, and the evening was hosted by Kym Johnson and Tristan MacManus of Dancing with the Stars, and also featured other dancers that show. That fact probably would have been more exciting if I watched Dancing with the Stars. (By the way, everyone in our ballroom dance class thinks it’s highly peculiar that we don’t watch that show.) And there were a couple singers from American Idol, which, again, I don’t watch, so I didn’t know who they were. But while the woman certainly had a nice voice, I will admit to being particularly impressed by the dude, one Von Smith, who had most impressive range and control.

Mainly, though, this was about dancing. It featured group numbers, solos, duets, mostly in the Latin and ballroom genres (though in that showy TV style with all the lifts and whatnot), but the twist was the inclusion of some modern and hip hop dancing as well. This was largely due to the inclusion of a couple dancers I had heard of: Legacy and Randi Lynn Strong, from So You Think You Can Dance. Their numbers were definitely my favorites. Very cool how the So You Think… training allows them to join the ballroom dancers in that genre, but also shine in their own.

Ballroom with a Twist promo video

At one point, the hosts even got the audience up dancing! All very fun.

Afterward we got to attend a reception with the performers, though I continued my tradition of never knowing what to say when in these situations. Still, what we learned from other people’s question were:

This was their only Canadian performance.
They don’t always get to perform with a live symphony, but like it when they do
… except when the symphony can’t keep the beat. But apparently, that was not a problem with the KW Symphony.

Randi Lynn Strong at reception — Randi Lynn Strong at Centre in the Square reception

After taking a few crappy phone photos, we headed home.

3. Marisol and KW Symphony Superheroes

Jean pointed out that Marisol restaurant is also close to Centre in the Square, but offers better food than Three Kretans. So though I hadn’t planned to go out to eat again this month, as we hadn’t been there in a while, I made a reservation before the final month’s concert.

It was a very enjoyable dinner. As an appetizer, we shared six small but delicious raspberry point oysters (they actually gave us seven, probably due to the size) and marinated sardines, served with a salad. There’s no beating fresh sardines from Portugal, but marinating them proved a rather good choice for those of us farther from the sea. We were so excited about these, we forgot to get a picture until almost done:

As the wine, the waiter suggested a Portuguese Viognier-Sauvignon Blanc blend that was lemony and well-suited to the food.

I continued the seafood theme through dinner, having the fish of the day, which was sea bream. Served whole, it was really easy to fillet, and had been cooked very nicely. The side was a pasta made in-house, dressed simply with lemon, olive oil, and parsley.

Jean went with the lemon-tomato gnocchi. The texture of the pasta was perfect, and the flavor was more subtle than one usually gets with gnocchi. Not a bad thing.

For dessert, we share a creme caramel and forgot to take pictures, again.

We were in plenty of time to walk over for our concert, which the KW Symphony performing music from Superhero movies. This was conducted by John Morris Phillips, Cincinnati Pops conductor, who is always a lot of fun.

The only themes I knew in advance was Darth Vadar’s from Star Wars, but I found most quite engaging. The themes from Dark Knight, Supergirl, and X–Men were particularly striking. A lot were almost hilariously short, though; just the length of the opening credits, I guess! In some cases they put a few scores together to make a somewhat longer “theme” piece. Nothing that ever really taxed the attention span, though.

It was a great way to showcase the symphony’s skill, and it was nice to see a very full house in attendance.

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Amazing Race Canada

So You Think You Can Dance

Silicon Valley

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1. Food trucks and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

2. Three Kretans and Ballroom with a Twist

3. Marisol and KW Symphony Superheroes

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