Exploring the Northeast : Salem Mass.

Butterfly

F-4U

The real Simpson grade school

Mckim, Mead , White -- MMB 1919-1915

Metric Terminal 5 NYC May16, 2010

Metric rocked the house in at Terminal 5 in New York City. The sold out was filled by the usual hipsters, indie rock fans and feminists with their girlfriends. Metric is a band comprising of a strong rhythm section and charismatic female lead singer and a mediocre guitarist. The sound was mixed to highlight vocals and drummers. The band focused more on recent material but also threw in plenty of old favorites.

The venue was quite comfortable with is a great air conditioning unit which felt like you are watching an old door show, and a very clear sound system.

Metric featured a light show which was unexpected but the strobe light was annoying to painful.

They played for about an hour and a half. It was a Sunday night after all

Oceans (2010)

Disney’s Oceans isn’t the best nature documentary I have seen but it is worth a look. It is mostly a dark blue and gray visual sensation. There are a lot of waves and it is easy to become sea sick.

Unlike most ocean documentary where dolphins take up most of the time and ham up the screen, the one focus’ on some less well known sea creatures.

For better or worse, they barely mention the effects of climate change and pollution. Although, it is good to not feel lectured and powerless about it, there is not an appreciation given to effects on oceans’ wildlife. Growing up in South California, you spend a significant amount of time by the ocean. The power of the ocean and the sites of its many birds and mammals are ubiquitous themes. It is not hard to see the pollution or the dead seals on the beach that arrive every hour. This would be my biggest criticism of the film.

On the bright side, there is the best underwater photography ever filmed. Why this was not in 3D is my question. It looks great! Despite that it lacked structure and seemed long. It is didn’t have the usual story telling of Disney nature paradigm. This is good or bad depending on your opinion. I found it somewhat refreshing then I missed it.

If you are going to see this, see it on the biggest screen possible and sit near the front.

Lend me a tenor (Broadway 2010)

Lend me a tenor is a fun irrelevant farce with a great cast playing on Broadway right now. It stars Tony Shalhoub, Anthony LaPagia, and The Hangover’s Justin Bartha. It is directed by Stanley Tucci.

Despite being fun, it is good but not great. It tries to be Marx Brothers/Neil Simon play without the brilliantly witty dialogue and the subtle drama. Many of the jokes are hackneyed and the plot is far too predictable for someone that such matters usually doesn’t bother much.

Although stage direction is great, the actors do a lot with their space and play with audience’s sense of spatial intuition; the play itself leaves much to be desired.

It is basically an English, as in England, comedy written in the 1980’s trying to be a Jewish-American comedy from the 1930’s. The stereotypes are right but the insights and sole’s are all wrong.

Mostly the plays survives on the presence of Tony Shalhoub and the funny facial expressions of Justin Bartha, the rest is often a lot of sex jokes.

I would not recommend paying a lot of money to see this.

Kick-Ass (2010)

Disturbing and completely unoriginal, yet thoroughly entertaining is Kick Ass. This movie, in Tarantino style, copies the first Spiderman movie almost shot for shot and set design for set design.

It is part of the realism genre of comics; like this could really happen without radioactive spiders and such, but Kick Ass fails miserably at this. The main character, Kick Ass, is beat up pretty bad and suffer nerve damage giving him a greater capacity for pain. So, basically, it is the same plot line as The Simpson’s where Homer becomes a boxer.

This is a movie that is NOT for kids, but every kid will want to see. The characters practically live in a kid universe, except when they have damage adults.

Still, the highly stylized violence, which is patterned after The Watchmen, gets disturbing when you a grown man beating up on an unconscious ten-year-old girl.

The last bit of violence is pattern after the Nick Cage, who is batman like father figure in the film, film The Rock. I think that might be an homage or something.

There the usual teenage romance, but much like Harry Potter you just go with it. There is a funny bit where Kick Ass gets the girl because she thinks he’s gay. Feel that tolerance!

Overall, I am not sure. Comic book fans will see it and like it, because it is so familiar. I am not sure about everyone else. I liked it.