Labapalooza

Last night I went with a friend to see a "Labapalooza!" performance. Labapalooza is the "mini festival of new puppet theater from the lab at St. Ann's Warehouse". I had been tremendously, tremendously excited about this performance, expecting moving, mind-blowing, imaginative pieces using puppets and manipulated objects. I've seen some things in this genre before and really enjoyed it.

Instead, I got pretentious, amateurish, over-thought, and somewhat cliched performance art. In all three of the pieces the puppetry was incidental, almost thrown in. The first piece, my favorite, called Polio Jitterbug, featured a long filmed segment where objects kind of romped together. It was so badly and cheesily filmed that I was uncomfortable (there was some well done filmed cut outs that I enjoyed, however). Eventually the puppets came out on the set and I was very, very moved. It was a dream sequence of a boy with polio and I very much appreciated the concept.

The second piece was basically a dance piece that had some manipulated object brought in here and there. The choreography was good but nothing new. The dancers were adequate at best. The opera vocalist who was on stage during most of the piece was very mediocre and seemed to be struggling. The puppetry, which was wheeled in a table, was quite interesting. But there wasn't enough of it.

The third and final piece was just horrendous and I'm not going to discuss it. It was supposed to be amusing in an old fashioned broad humored kind of way, but I found it thoroughly grating and tedious.

I love the venue, by the way. It was wonderful being in DUMBO on a brisk snowy night, and I want to see other things there in the future (although the rest of this season seems uninspired).

Wives & Daughters

I was so engrossed with the BBC four-part version of Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters that I watched the final version right after I woke up this morning. It was kind of weird, watching a movie at 9:30 on a Monday morning, but I felt so involved with the characters that I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate. And I'm glad I did, the fourth installment was definitely the best. The two fathers in the story were my favorite characters, particularly the father of the brothers, the Hamlins I think... The lead actress, pictured here, was so, so good. Wonderful the way her face registered emotions...

Stigma

Yesterday I read Goffman's Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity for what I believe was the fourth time. The first time in college, after having enjoyed Asylums. The second time preparing for my orals. The third time for a deviance class I was teaching, and now, to go through concepts I will specifically reference and work with in the dissertation.

It's a great little book. (Although after all these years my copy is rather worse for wear.)

Capricorn One

Last night I watched Capricorn One on the Netflix Watch Instantly feature. It was annoying because my internet connection kept going out.

Anyway, I really like this movie. As a child I saw it when it came out -- my parents just dragged us to whatever. I remember it being really scary and fascinating. I also misremembered the plot. I thought they fooled the astronauts into thinking they were on Mars.

It was a very good story, although filled with holes. Too many people in on a conspiracy, for one thing. But where it was really weak was all the speechifying and moralizing that went on. That kind of just seemed corny.

It was fun watching young Sam Waterston. So many of us must have a fondness in our hearts for him because of Law & Order.

Back to the Futures

Last night I watched Back to the Future II and tonight I watched Back to the Future III. A friend of mine had said he had his young daughters watch all three of them one rainy day and recommended them to me. I remember really liking the original. The sequels are good as well. Obviously not fresh, because obviously the concept is the same, plus twenty years have passed since they were made. Speaking of time travel.

Anyway, I really enjoyed these. They took my mind of my dissertation and were amusing. I got restless during all the fight/chase scenes, as I always do. Not an action film person, I guess.

Well, back to the present...

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight was really intense and creepy. I liked it a lot. The joker character, played by Heath Ledger, was frightening and so unique. On edge and agitated, disturbed, menacing but not filled with rage.

I find the whole comic book genre kind of exhausting and tiresome and childish, but this was much better than the rest. Truly a cut above. Yes, it was over-long. Could easily have been half an hour shorter. And yes, the psychological conflicts between and within characters were broadly drawn. But I really felt for the characters and was interested in most of the scenes. It was incredibly well filmed and visually arresting.

Like Life

I was kind of disappointed in Like Life, a collection of stories by Lorrie Moore. I thought the writing would be like Anagrams, but the stories would be better constructed. The stories ARE exquisite. Excellent, but compared to the prose of Anagrams, they don't jump out in the same way. All the sentences in Anagrams crackled. Also, these stories, as much as I liked them, fell kind of flat in a depressing way. They left me empty.