joshg

Maybe he wasn't philosophizing so much as speaking from his own personal experience as a fly.

The Taotei reproduce upon being fed by their own offspring. From a certain point of view, they are basically inseminated by their own kids. Is that insect-like? Is there any example of a living creature that is that incestuous, fictional or otherwise?

We could just ask B*tch McConnell. If only his portrait was hung on the wall at the Turtle Club. That joke alone would earn this film 5 stars.

Another loose Star Wars connection: In the penultimate episode of the 2nd season of Felicity (a.k.a. the best show of all time), written by J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves, Felicity and Ben watch The Gold Rush. Ben had previously stood Felicity up, so he makes amends by finding the movie (and, one assumes, a projector). They set it up on their rooftop and watch the film (at least until after the dinner roll scene) and make out and it's all so beautiful you just want to die.

Yes, I was at a Boston show for an episode that hasn't dropped yet. If other audiences are anything like the audience from that night, then some angel is editing these podcasts to an extent that I hadn't appreciated until now. Is it just me or are audiences more obnoxious these days? It didn't seem so long ago when people would behave respectfully at a show.

Or....this is a meta commentary on the inscrutability of this movie. The book is intended for viewers of Master of Disguise, the film we are watching. This movie happened to us, we are the "dummies". Half the book deals with the Magic vs. Acting? debate, and there is an entire chapter devoted to Bo Derek entitled "James Brolin's Vagina".

Hi everyone! Paul wondered where the $16 million budget came from. Might I suggest the soundtrack? Consider these songs: Walking on Sunshine; Papa Don't Preach; Whip It; Eye of the Tiger; Conga (Miami Sound Machine); U Can't Touch This (M.C. Hammer); Happy Face (Destiny's Child); and the themes from Jaws and Chariots of Fire, just to name a few. This is the soundtrack to a major blockbuster film, not this movie. Perhaps the director said to the music director, "use a song like this" (names the most obvious placeholder song he can think of)....and then they were too lazy to find a cheaper version, so they just used those exact songs.

It's almost as if the filmmakers retro-fitted a script to give their two leads something to do together.

Late to the party here, but for anyone still curious about the difference in violin-playing ability between the two main actors... check this out! If you don't watch the whole video at least check it out from 10:20. They demonstrate what the music would really sound like based on the visuals. Hilarious.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I just want to point out that "Strings and Dance" competitions are not a thing. Sure, there are dance competitions. But they dance to something called MUSIC, not any one particular instrument. Why distinguish strings from, say, woodwinds or percussion? Are they judging the playing or are they judging the dancing? If they're supposed to be judging the overall symbiosis between the two art forms, then who gives a shit what kind of instruments are playing the music? What happens if Group B had the best dancing but Group C had the best violinist? There were 3 judges on that panel. We would assume that at least one was a dance expert and another was a violin expert. How would they be expected to agree on anything? it's like speaking different languages. There very much do exist string competitions...there are competitions for every instrument. But the judges are experts on that instrument, and aren't going to be distracted by another discipline which they know nothing about. On America's Got Talent the 4 judges have different backgrounds or areas of expertise, but the point is they are judging based on commercial appeal across the board, not artistic merit as they would do in a conservatory. Add to these complications the fact that the three groups were performing completely different styles. In fact, the only thing they had in common was that there was a dancer and a string player. One had ballet and a back-up orchestra. The other was faux-hip-hop with an urban dance crew. With all those variables (and only three entrants) it's a miracle they picked anyone. Finally, if Johnny was so against formal classical training, why did he have "sforzando" tattooed on his arm, an Italian term only used in formal classical score-reading?

I take it you're not looking forward to the sequel, "High Cs", where a bunch of young opera singers cut loose by crashing neighborhood Karaoke bars?

I believe this was a conservatory, modeled after Juilliard, as opposed to a performing arts high school a la Fame. Schools like Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, your state university School Music or Dance, etc. are standard 4-year college programs with a Bachelor's degree (they also offer Masters and Doctorates). Almost all of the courses are arts-related (private lessons, group classes, rehearsals, ensemble, theory, music history, ear training, etc.) but you may have to take one humanities per semester. The little Asian kid was probably a pre-college student. Most of these schools offer lessons to students younger than college age to help pay the bills and recruit for their degree programs. At a prestigious school like Juilliard the pre-college program is widely seen as a foot-in-the-door for acceptance through the highly competitive admissions process.

Don't forget that jerky violin boi was borrowing the school's bow. The lender guy literally said, "You break it, you buy it." You would think that, after he broke his own bow merely by playing Bartok, he would choose to avoid other violent bow-related activities such as, I don't know, whacking someone else's bow in a game of Fiddle Fencing.

It's all very lazy and confusing because there is contemporary dance, and then there is contemporary ballet. As a ballet dancer, one would assume that "contemporary" in Ruby's case meant she had to learn contemporary ballet, where you're still on pointe but not limited to the classic French moves. So maybe, giving this movie more credit than it deserves, the judges were shocked to see straight-out urban hip-hop style dancing, where the Crew weren't even on pointe.