The Phantom and The Ghostwriter
Oh God, why do I do these things to myself? Just tried to watch Phantom of The Opera, purely to see if it deserved its stinking reviews and dropped out barely over halfway through thinking that there are not enough rotten vegetables in the world.
I don't actually like the novel that much, and as for Andrew Lloyd Webfoot - well, given the choice between watching a Lloyd Webber musical or going for a pap smear, I would actually plump for the latter. At least it prevents cancer.
Had a few giggles watching Gerard Butler shouting his way through the part of the Phantom. Actually I wanted him to whip off his mask to reveal the face of awesome screamy beardy Leonidas and bellow THIS IS SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRTAAAAAAAAAA!!!! at such earsplitting volume that the huge eyed narcoleptic in the boat's head exploded from the force of the sonic boom. But it never happened. Shit.
Man also gamely tried but dropped out "When that floofy bloke entered her dressing room and they started duetting for no apparent reason," which is as good a reason as any to flee screaming from a musical, I suppose. And I know Raoul was kind of a wet git in the book, but that's just taking casting to extremes.
I hit my vomit threshold about ten minutes in when the black and white bit faded out and the Phantom of the Opera overtune came sledgehammering into any mind within a five mile radius. You can call Andrew Lloyd Webber many things - such as 'Crap', 'Talentless', 'Bastard spawn of an unholy liason between a frog and a King Edward potato', but 'subtle'?...no.
Then there was a lot of silly fuckaboutery with Minnie Driver (by far the best thing in the film) being shunted from an opera about Hannibal after chucking a hissy fit. Fair enough. Along comes Christine Daae (Emmy Rossum in 'I has big eyez! I has breastz! Oh hay, I cans be singing nao? Laaaaa! Laaaa! I be singing good, lulz' mode - which she does almost as convincingly as 'corpse'.) and suddenly the whole opera appears to change from Hannibal to some 12 year old girl's fevered fantasy of being a Disney Princess - complete with poofy big white dress, flowers in her hair and unicorns and angels nuzzling at her pure-as-the-driven-snow chuff.
I know historical opera is hardly the pinnacle of historical accuracy but everything remotely Carthiginian does a bunk to accomodate Christine's huge white dress, huge brown eyes, and hideous 'singing'. This is truly the hallmark of a huge, stinking, fetid horror of a Mary Sue - which again, is true to the book after a fashion. Because Christine's pretty damn slappable, so in this respect Emmy Rossum is perfect casting.
Jesus, that was nasty. Never again.
I'm also going to start making notes on the stupid things people say. Stupid things like (as Bill Bailey pointed out) "As a mo-ther...", or "It's just political correctness gone mad!"
Latest stupid thing I keep hearing is from writers, or alleged writers. Get this one, because it's a beauty.
"Well, you know - I don't really read many books."
Okay. Uh huh. You. Don't. Read. Many. Books?
This is often followed by: "Did they make a movie of that?" and the sound of my head hitting the desk very, very hard.
You want to write books, but you don't read them? That's like a composer saying "I don't really listen to music," or a film director saying "Oh? Films? No. Don't watch them."
How in the name of pink, slippery fuck do you expect to learn anything about writing if you never fucking read, cretin? Seriously - how does that work?
Okay - celebrities do it all the time, admittedly, but they can afford ghostwriters to write the crap that they were to busy opening nightclubs or babbling inanely on daytime TV to write. Then they slap their name on the jacket and we have to endure the agonising spectacle of Katie Price (AKA Jordan) or Kerry Katona revelling in their newfound 'authorship'. Although I have to hand it to Jordan's ghostwriter - the job of a good ghost is to capture the tone and style of the person whose name is on the book cover - and whoever did Jordan's 'literary' debut did very well indeed by convincingly capturing the tone of a fame hungry plastic surgery casualty with all the literary gifts of an exceptionally thick first year GCSE student. In its own way, that's got to take some serious talent - to be that bad. Better pay for ghostwriters, I say, considering the huge fat rake-off's the purported 'authors' are getting for books they had more or less fuck all to do with.
I don't actually like the novel that much, and as for Andrew Lloyd Webfoot - well, given the choice between watching a Lloyd Webber musical or going for a pap smear, I would actually plump for the latter. At least it prevents cancer.
Had a few giggles watching Gerard Butler shouting his way through the part of the Phantom. Actually I wanted him to whip off his mask to reveal the face of awesome screamy beardy Leonidas and bellow THIS IS SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRTAAAAAAAAAA!!!! at such earsplitting volume that the huge eyed narcoleptic in the boat's head exploded from the force of the sonic boom. But it never happened. Shit.
Man also gamely tried but dropped out "When that floofy bloke entered her dressing room and they started duetting for no apparent reason," which is as good a reason as any to flee screaming from a musical, I suppose. And I know Raoul was kind of a wet git in the book, but that's just taking casting to extremes.
I hit my vomit threshold about ten minutes in when the black and white bit faded out and the Phantom of the Opera overtune came sledgehammering into any mind within a five mile radius. You can call Andrew Lloyd Webber many things - such as 'Crap', 'Talentless', 'Bastard spawn of an unholy liason between a frog and a King Edward potato', but 'subtle'?...no.
Then there was a lot of silly fuckaboutery with Minnie Driver (by far the best thing in the film) being shunted from an opera about Hannibal after chucking a hissy fit. Fair enough. Along comes Christine Daae (Emmy Rossum in 'I has big eyez! I has breastz! Oh hay, I cans be singing nao? Laaaaa! Laaaa! I be singing good, lulz' mode - which she does almost as convincingly as 'corpse'.) and suddenly the whole opera appears to change from Hannibal to some 12 year old girl's fevered fantasy of being a Disney Princess - complete with poofy big white dress, flowers in her hair and unicorns and angels nuzzling at her pure-as-the-driven-snow chuff.
I know historical opera is hardly the pinnacle of historical accuracy but everything remotely Carthiginian does a bunk to accomodate Christine's huge white dress, huge brown eyes, and hideous 'singing'. This is truly the hallmark of a huge, stinking, fetid horror of a Mary Sue - which again, is true to the book after a fashion. Because Christine's pretty damn slappable, so in this respect Emmy Rossum is perfect casting.
Jesus, that was nasty. Never again.
I'm also going to start making notes on the stupid things people say. Stupid things like (as Bill Bailey pointed out) "As a mo-ther...", or "It's just political correctness gone mad!"
Latest stupid thing I keep hearing is from writers, or alleged writers. Get this one, because it's a beauty.
"Well, you know - I don't really read many books."
Okay. Uh huh. You. Don't. Read. Many. Books?
This is often followed by: "Did they make a movie of that?" and the sound of my head hitting the desk very, very hard.
You want to write books, but you don't read them? That's like a composer saying "I don't really listen to music," or a film director saying "Oh? Films? No. Don't watch them."
How in the name of pink, slippery fuck do you expect to learn anything about writing if you never fucking read, cretin? Seriously - how does that work?
Okay - celebrities do it all the time, admittedly, but they can afford ghostwriters to write the crap that they were to busy opening nightclubs or babbling inanely on daytime TV to write. Then they slap their name on the jacket and we have to endure the agonising spectacle of Katie Price (AKA Jordan) or Kerry Katona revelling in their newfound 'authorship'. Although I have to hand it to Jordan's ghostwriter - the job of a good ghost is to capture the tone and style of the person whose name is on the book cover - and whoever did Jordan's 'literary' debut did very well indeed by convincingly capturing the tone of a fame hungry plastic surgery casualty with all the literary gifts of an exceptionally thick first year GCSE student. In its own way, that's got to take some serious talent - to be that bad. Better pay for ghostwriters, I say, considering the huge fat rake-off's the purported 'authors' are getting for books they had more or less fuck all to do with.