Kevin Bacon Has Nothing On Britain

I'll be honest: I love me some British procedural dramas (cf previous post). They're so gritty and the people are so unattractive and they're always so fucked up. Love! That's part of the reason I fell in love with Viva Blackpool (it was a real effort for me not to stay up all last night and watch them ALL): at the heart of all the musical ridiculousness* is your classic British procedural drama (Bpd).

My most recent Bpd obsession was Cracker. It was excellent, right up until the second season when the only compelling female character was horribly and bizarrely raped, which totally derailed the rest of the series. That was less than awesome. It was particularly unsettling because the actress who plays Penhaligon (rape victim) also play's Harry's mom in the Harry Potter movies. Yeah: disturbing.

Bpds are practically breeding grounds for the Harry Potter movies, possibly because at any given time there are only forty-three British actors authorized to have speaking parts in film and television. From Cracker: rape victim (Harry's mother) and Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid). From Viva Blackpool: religious casino protester (Filch) and character whose purpose is yet to be identified (Arthur Weasley). It's a little disturbing to have characters from an easily-recognized kids movie thrown into your gritty Bpd. Branch out, people! Honestly.

Note to sci-fi geeks: in classic we-only-have-forty-three-speaking-actors fashion, the lead detective in Viva Blackpool is, of course, the latest Dr. Who. YEAH, I KNOW.


* Footnote! I love how it's not so much a musical as a sing-a-long. With choreography. I don't know what you call it, actually, other than "awesome."

I *heart* the BBC

As soon as this is available, I am rejoining Netflix specifically so I can rent this BBC mini-series. I only have a very sketchy idea of the plot, but based on the following clips it is clearly AWESOME.

Interrogation scene!
Angsty angst scene!
Sexy sex scene!

Admit it: you're as intrigued as I am, aren't you?

College roommate A and college roommate's fiance R, I really wish you lived in Chicago because this would be perfect drunken afternoon fare. Um. Flying to Maine just to enjoy your running commentary would probably be extreme, wouldn't it? Yeah, probably. BUT STILL.

Update: I love the internet: I just watched the first episode (even better than expected) and found this clip. Joy!

Additional Update: America ruins everything. It's The Office revisited. British version? Awesome in fifteen different ways. American version? Horrifying in fifteen hundred different ways. YOU DESERVED CANCELLATION, Viva Laughlin.

The Glorious 100

Here's the thing: my most recent lack of posting stems from this being my hundredth post. "Self," I said, "this is your hundredth post. It should be awesome. It should put all past posts to shame. It should make the internet tremble in awe. Etc. Etc."

Obviously I couldn't work with that kind of pressure.

So now I'm throwing together all my random thoughts from the last, oh, five days or so, in a post that is sadly representative of the usual drivel you find here. Winning!

1. Dumbledore's gay! I *heart* Dumbledore; he was always my favorite character. (His death is part of the reason I didn't finish book six: I was quite depressed enough, thank you.) Oh, and a bonus tragic love story. Jesus, JKR, kick a man when he's dead why don't you.

2. Whiskey and I are in an abusive relationship: I love it like burning, but it treats me so badly. [Fill in "I wish I could quit you" joke of your choice here.]

3. Okay, so you know the end of Transformers? (Note: the spoilers that follow are only spoilers for the truly retarded.) When boy gets girl and boy and girl make out? They're making out on his car, which you may recall is a robot. Interspecies orgy: am I right or am I right? God it was creepy.

4. Hey, you want to see a picture of me pretending to be American Gothic at the Miro museum in Barcelona? Sure you do.



My nerdiness knows no bounds, national or otherwise.

5. CIRQUE. We should totally do this. Motivation!

6. Am I done now? Is this good enough for #100? Because I'm beginning to bore myself.

Gay Nazis in Luuuuurve

If there's a single theme that American theater has neglected in recent years, it is most definitely the poignant and timeless theme of gay Nazis in love. (Thank you, Windows, for letting me know that "Nazis" should always be capitalized.)

Thank god for the Goodman Theatre's production of Passion Play, then: I greatly enjoyed my quota of gay Nazis in love this weekend.

My weekend was chock full of theater, actually. (Sadly, not chock full of gay Nazis in love. If only!) We saw Fiction by Remy Bumppo at Victory Gardens, which was excellent. If you go and are underwhelmed at intermission, trust me and stay. The second half is an insane wrap up of the first half and it's amazing. I do not abuse the italics button for just any play, people: it was damn good.

Sunday was, as I said, Passion Play at the Goodman. Eh...I just don't know. Maybe I just didn't get it? I mean, yes, some of it was fascinating and very well done, but other parts were just distracting and unnecessary.* Giant fish? Yes, yes, I'm sure it had something to do with how we're all fish and Jesus is a fisher of men and...and...stuff, but mostly the huge, person-sized fish were just enormously distracting (no pun intended).

I also feel like the play itself was not entirely polished. Not the performances, which were of very high caliber, but the text was just...getting there, but not there yet. I don't know: I would make a terrible theater critic. Part of the problem is that every play I see at the Goodman I can't help but compare to their King Lear, which was so amazing that I may have teared up multiple times (although I'll never admit it).

Still, the cycle did have its merits. I did very much like the second piece that took place in Nazi Germany, and not just because of the gay Nazis in love (although the dynamic between those two actors was fantastic throughout the entire cycle). At the very end, with the train to Dachau pulling up, my breath caught. The cycle is almost worth it just for the middle third.

Related but irrelevant: there was a guy on my train this morning sporting a Hitler 'stache. Very jarring for 7:30 a.m., I must say. Not a good call.

Summary: see Fiction if at all possible, see Passion Play if you get free or discounted tickets.

* Distracting but totally necessary: male nudity. As one of my fellow audience members put it, "Hell yes." Good lord, I think that thing is probably visible from space. If I looked like him, I wouldn't have problems getting naked in front of an audience twice a day either.