Friday, January 21, 2005
Member since:
March 2002
March 2002
I should have known better, but I went to see "The Phantom of the Opera" today. I had already listened to the Broadway cast recording a few years ago and found it bored me to tears, but I wondered if maybe the movie would open it up a bit more and make the tedious Andrew Lloyd Webber music more palatable. No such luck.
The movie was as tiresome as the record album (except for the Bach/Rachmaninoff-sounding organ prelude, which is kind of spooky and melodramatic), not helped out by a silent-screen looking, Valentino-type matinee idol (Gerard Butler of "Dracula 2000" fame) as the Phantom. He's supposed to be hideous appearing, but here he's barely deformed in any way. Certainly nothing to have kept him from ever appearing in public his whole life. How dumb is that? The movie is also supposed to be very romantic and all, so the audience was made up almost entirely of young teenage girls (who should have been in high school at that time of day) and people over seventy who probably knew Lon Chaney in his youth! And, by the way, old people are just rude in a theater as young people.
I almost walked out, but knowing I'd have to review the disc eventually, I stayed the course. What a trooper I am, and what a pooper the film is. The whole thing is mostly a tribute to the set designer's elegant creations and costar Emmy Rossum's heaving bosom. And, remember, I LIKE musicals (and I have nothing against bosoms).
John
The movie was as tiresome as the record album (except for the Bach/Rachmaninoff-sounding organ prelude, which is kind of spooky and melodramatic), not helped out by a silent-screen looking, Valentino-type matinee idol (Gerard Butler of "Dracula 2000" fame) as the Phantom. He's supposed to be hideous appearing, but here he's barely deformed in any way. Certainly nothing to have kept him from ever appearing in public his whole life. How dumb is that? The movie is also supposed to be very romantic and all, so the audience was made up almost entirely of young teenage girls (who should have been in high school at that time of day) and people over seventy who probably knew Lon Chaney in his youth! And, by the way, old people are just rude in a theater as young people.
I almost walked out, but knowing I'd have to review the disc eventually, I stayed the course. What a trooper I am, and what a pooper the film is. The whole thing is mostly a tribute to the set designer's elegant creations and costar Emmy Rossum's heaving bosom. And, remember, I LIKE musicals (and I have nothing against bosoms).
John
Friday, January 21, 2005
Member since:
March 2002
March 2002
Heaving bosoms are okay, but me? I like chandeliers. :)
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Member since:
March 2004
March 2004
You know it's not worth the ticket price when they have to use Larry King for quotes in advertisment.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Member since:
May 2005
May 2005
Having had the misfortune to sit through 5 performances of 'Phantom of the Opera' on stage, I have no mind to watch the film. I always thought the show deserved not a crashing chandelier......better a dropped massive custard tart or cream cake!
Spike:@
Spike:@
