You needed a hint this week, but ultimately got them all.
I added a hint
…you probably already noticed.
Tuesday Trivia: The return of character trivia
Well, I liked it last week, so here it is again.
1. Celia is a receptionist with a boyfriend named Mike.
Solved by Bill.
2. Sheronda is from the country and thinks Compton is Hollywood.
Solved by Evn.
3. Billy’s mother is friends with his nurse.
Solved by Ken.
4. Mary will marry the Colonel after this journey has ended.
HINT: Same movie; Harriet yammers on endlessly and self-importantly.
Solved by Wendy.
5. Guido still grieves the death of his wife; he tries to seduce Roslyn, but she likes his friend better.
Solved by Melville.
6. Yvonne is willing to trade sex for help getting out of the country, but she won’t have to.
Solved by George.
7. Uncle Victor has a mechanical salute.
Solved by Ben.
Monday Movie Review: The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) 9/10
The movie: Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) is a transvestite pansexual from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania in the classic rock-and-roll cult movie.
The live show: Fans go to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show (RHPS) live and experience a “shadowcast” (a group of performers mimicking the on-screen action), lines shouted at the screen, props thrown during the film (rice during the wedding, for example), and other direct interactions with the film.
Look, a lot of people think RHPS is a bad movie, enjoy it in a so-bad-it’s-good way, and assume that the whole point is the cult experience. I have always contended that it’s a good movie. It suffers from a low budget in some places, and thrives on the same low budget in others. The music is outstanding, the performers are dynamic and thrilling. Sure, the ending’s a downer and there’s a middle section that drags after you’ve seen it a dozen times, but so what? Setting aside the cult experience, RHPS works as a musical, it works as a celebration of hedonism, and it works as a campy love letter to a life obsessed with the movies.
On Saturday night I went to the Legends of Rocky Horror Reunion, because yes, I was there way back when. From the perspective of returning to the musical after many years, it was both wonderful and disappointing.
Disappointing only because some of the changes are for the worst. RHPS can be a rowdy and even unpleasant experience. In many theaters, the shouting at the screen drowns out the film. At the Eighth Street Playhouse, we prided ourselves on being the original and best, and our lines were carefully timed, in unison, and allowed for you to pay attention at the movie—in an enhanced way. If there’s too much shouting, you can’t hear the movie, and we avoided that. Nowadays, New York is just one more theater, and sometimes your ability to watch the movie is totally drowned out.
On the other hand, the good, enhancing kind of audience participation is superb. It’s amazing that it’s still happening more than thirty years later, and that a lot of it is fresh and new. Sure, people still say “Where’s your fucking neck?” like they did in 1977, but they also do and say things that are completely 21st century. That are fun.
One thing that Rocky Horror did in the ’70s is allow a group of weirdos to find each other. Now people mostly find each other on the Internet, don’t they? How much need is there for face-to-face affiliation with like minded oddballs? At RHPS this week, I discovered that the joys of hanging out and being strange are undiminished.
Pagan chants
Do you have a good repertoire? Recently I participated in some absolutely excellent ritual, but they kept using the same four chants over and over; all old ones from the seventies.
Chants can lift the tempo or mellow it, they can evoke specific energies needed for specific work. They can bring in elements and focus the mind on deities or purpose. They can create reverence, joy, or solemnity. Knowing a good assortment adds greatly to your magical bag o’ tricks.
Here are some of my favorite sources:
Chants: Ritual Music: The ones from this that get the most use in my house are The Beginning of the Earth, Air I Am, Rise With the Fire, We Are the Flow, Air Moves Us, and Water and Stone.
Mothertongue: I don’t own this one, but a lot of the chants are around in the community and are excellent.
Abbi Spinner McBride is a wonderful Pagan singer, and at least two of her chants, Let the Way Be Open, and Oh Ma Ma Ma, are breathtaking. I’ve heard a second CD but I don’t know it well.
Victoria Ganger is an awesome singer. I use Lord and Lady Now in ritual all the time.
Character trivia answers
All done. Good work.
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Tuesday Trivia: Characters
Here’s the character, name the movie.
1. Calvin is a mellow Native American smitten with the main character, though he knows little about her.
Solved by melissa.
2. Spence is pretending to have a Special Forces background, but is found out.
Solved by melissa.
3. Big Dan wears an eyepatch.
Solved by Evn.
4. Marie is too smart for her low-life boyfriend, and has eyes for Roy.
Solved by Melville.
5. Lambert is the fifth to die.
Solved by Hazel.
6. Polexia is a friend of Penny’s.
Solved by Christina.
7. Lydia is a bullfighter who was injured in the ring.
Solved by Christina.
Monday Movie Review: The Fountain
The Fountain (2006) 6/10
Tommy (Hugh Jackman) is a research scientist working on brain tumors, and hoping to find a breakthrough in time to save his beloved wife Izzi (Rachel Wiesz). Tomas (Jackman) is a Spanish conquistador seeking the Fountain of Youth on behalf of Queen Isabella (Weisz). Tom (Jackman) is a bald guy in a bubble with a tree. Directed by Darren Aronofsky.
I am so confused.
I am okay with non-linear plots. I adored Memento. I like mysticism. I love romance. But I found this movie very difficult. Visually stunning, kind of engrossing, but ultimately frustrating. I had a sort of a sense of what was going on, but I felt like I was spending too much time trying to figure out what was going on, and it was distracting me from enjoying the movie. My teenagers (my son and my goddaughter) enjoyed the movie a lot more than I did. Arthur in particular didn’t care whether he understood, because he found the palette of light and color, and the repeated motifs of stars and specific shapes, so fascinating. And certainly the movie is like a painting; unfortunately, too much Dali, not enough Monet.
Because The Fountain deals with a man facing the death of his beloved wife, and because it is abstract and laden with symbolism, it lends itself to comparison with What Dreams May Come. The latter movie is weird, otherworldly, and metaphorical, and yet I never had trouble following it.
After watching The Fountain, I started looking at some of the DVD extras, and they started talking about Tom on his spaceship in the future. And I was all like “SPACESHIP? It was a SPACESHIP?” No clue. I had no clue. Because shaved head, lotus position, talking to a tree in a bubble in the stars doesn’t read “spaceship” to me, it reads astral travel or nirvana or something like that. The kids, apparently, knew it was a spaceship, so maybe it was me, but seriously, the teensiest bit of exposition is all I ask.
So what I get is that these two very pretty people with very prominent eyebrows are deeply in love, and this love transcends time, except it doesn’t really, because the whole Spanish conquistador thing may be a novel that Izzi is writing, except maybe it isn’t. But she is dying and he is upset by that so there are intense facial expressions and some hot sex.
The ideal eyebrow
As I was tweezing this morning, I thought of the several occasions on which I was told I had “good eyebrows.” No, seriously. My arch is exactly where the arch is supposed to be.
And it suddenly hit me how stupid it all is. I mean, there’s a place where your arch is “supposed” to be? And if it’s not there, you’re irrevocably flawed? Now, I agree your arch should not be in your nose. If your arch is in your nose, tweeze that sucker.
The Ideal Eyebrow
I like grooming. Grooming is fun. Grooming is pleasurable primate behavior. That’s not the point. The point is, how many body parts have “ideal” states, and how come we have to work so hard to achieve that ideal and hate on how we have failed to achieve that ideal?
It is objectively insane to care about whether your eyebrows conform to an ideal. Or to think that there is something wrong with the eyebrows you have that makes you somehow Less Than.
I saw Julia Roberts on a talk show and they asked her about Mystic Pizza, and she said that was before she started doing her eyebrows, so it’s unbearable for her to look at it now. Julia Roberts. Hates on how flawed she was because of those giant hairy monsters devouring her face.
And this is the point at which I think we must all agree that we are OKAY with the body parts we have. Stop hating on the eyebrows. Or the breasts or the ass or the skin or the toes. Stop. The energy of self-hatred is exhausting. The time spent trying to fix imaginary flaws is extensive. Groom, enjoy the pretty, but calm the hell down.
New Jersey trivia: All solved!
I love New Jersey.
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