Buffy Sing-a-Long
Okay, that was awesome.
I, Mom and Dad (Is that right? It doesn't look right.) went to Ann Arbor to the showing of the Buffy Sing-a-Long Musical Episode, "Once More with Feeling," with my cousin Ian and his wife. They showed some music vids at the start, to set the mood and honor a couple of characters that didn't appear, I guess, and then called some (very, very good) volunteers (seriously, they may have been plants) up to act along to some scenes.
They episode itself was pretty good, actually. I liked the Spike/Buffy romance (he was such a complete dork that it was cute), I liked Giles' pop-ballad solos, I liked all the issues between Tara and Willow, I liked the dorky romance between Anya and Xander (that dance was awesome, btw, and are you getting that I have a thing for dorkiness in romance yet?), I liked (well, kind of, in that "Thank God I don't actually know her" way) Dawn and her earnest way of blurting everything out, and I seriously loved the villain.
I think Whedon does some of the most brilliant villains, largely because he gets that they are acting from their own, twisted and perverted, but internally consistent motives and beliefs. They aren't evil for it's own sake (even when they are) - they're evil for the sake of the Alliance, or because they think that their evil deeds are simply the fair cost of the goods they offer. It's something I have a hard time with, and I admire it when it's done well.
And finally, the Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor is simply gorgeous (the bubbles looked incredibly lovely), and I want to go back just to be there.
I do not, however, want to deal with Ann Arbor traffic, which is not gorgeous.