Cam Bert

Did somebody say 90s and the Beach Boys? All I'm thinking about now is Todd Glass guessing U2 songs

I wish I could have a pet but my apartment building doesn't allow them...

It's funny because sometimes it's really slow and sometimes its not. X-Men movies use to come out at the same time, but Deadpool, Apocalypse and now Logan are months behind. It's especially annoying when it is literally everywhere but here.

First, I'm very excited to see Cabaret as I too have never seen it. Second, I'm going to have Fiddler on the Roof songs stuck in my head for the next day.

I have no problem enlisting my mom's opinions of the handsomeness of men. I'm sure she'll just chalk it up to other weird things we talk about. For the record her favourite actor of all time is Jimmy Stewart who "aged very well" and "just seemed like the nicest man ever." Now I'm off to think about how to shoehorn "Ted Neeley handsome" into all my Surf Ninja comments just in case.

Thank you I appreciate that because for some stupid reason I have to wait until June to see it.

Well, I will pass the message along when I talk to her again in a few days. Thank you everyone who watched along whether you enjoyed it or not. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's not so much about the quality of the movie but the fun we have talking about it. I'm glad most everybody enjoyed it, but we can all agree the best thing to come out of JCS was the rebranding of tomspanks as the jaded mandarin.

So I talked to my mom today and told her about the whole Ted Neeley, hot or not debate and this is what went down. "So mom, last week I watched one of your all time favourite movies. Can you guess which one?" "Anatomy of a Murder?" (side note if there is one thing my mom loves more than Ted Neeley it's crime dramas/mysteries) "No, Jesus Christ Superstar." "Oh I do love that one. I haven't watched it in ages you know. You gave it to me on DVD one Christmas. I wonder if Ted Neeley is still playing Jesus." "Well, first no he's not. Second, remember how you use to have a crush on him?" "Yes, he was so handsome. All the girls in camp had a crush on him." (she grew up in a logging camp) "Well, there is a group of people I talk with online about movies, and we all rewatched this together. As we were talking about it I asked them if any of them thought he was handsome, and guess what they said?" "Yes!" "No!" "Oh? Are these people your age?" "Various ages. Mostly younger I believe." "Well, handsome changes every generation. Like I see on TV these new heart throb guys and I just can't see it. Like your sister liked that boy band guy that acts now (see was thinking of Mark Wahlberg) and I didn't get that at the time either. Like I never understood why so many women loved Sean Connery and I think that's because he was before my time. It changes. For his time Jesus(Ted Neeley) was very handsome." Afterwards we talked a bit about the movie and I asked if she had anything I should bring up with you guys about it and she just hoped that everybody enjoyed it.

Thank you kindly sir.

I quickly want to talk about Little Patusan. So when Patches takes the boys there he tells them that when the people fled from Colonel Chi's invasion they came there to settle and they started Little Patusan. The younger brother states at one point in the film that he's eleven and in the flashback scene he's a baby, so Little Patusan is roughly ten years old. In that short time these people fled from their home country bought a block of beach adjacent properties and establish a community for fellow Patusani refugees. Where did they get the money to do all this let alone the open real estate to do so? Did it start with them buying the restaurant and expanding from there? Why did all the refugees settle in one city in America? It's a tiny island nation, exactly how many people left? Surely there can't be enough. Also do you think ever for one second Patches of Adoptive Dad thought that hiding the princes of Patusan in the same city where all the Patusani refugees fled to was not the best of ideas?

I have a problem with the general hodgepodge nature of their use of Asian themes and stereotypes in this film. Let's start with the title of this movie. The movie is called Surf Ninjas (note the horrible "Asian" font used in the title screen) yet they are not ninjas. Ninjas were like the spies and mercenaries of feudal Japan who did the jobs that were beneath that of the cultured samurai. Contrary to popular belief knowing and doing some martial arts does not make one a ninja. Nothing that the main characters do could be considered ninja-like at all. They are not really surfers and they aren't ninjas. The closest thing this movie has to ninja's are the underlings of Colonel Chi. Where to start with Colonel Chi? First, it's a white guy named Colonel Chi who wears samurai armor. Putting aside the fact that he's white, there is conflict between his dress and name. Samurai are Japanese, and Chi is a Chinese or Taiwanese surname. Also samurai didn't have traditional military ranks, so he can't be a samurai and a colonel. Colonel Chi is described as a foreign mercenary in the film. Why does he have a rank if he's a mercenary and as a mercenary why does he want to take over a nation if he's not working for somebody? If he wanted to take over and rule of his own will that wouldn't make him a mercenary. So we have to assume that he's some mercenary who loves Japanese culture but not enough to know Chi isn't a Japanese name who employees only Asian underlings. Which brings us back to the ninjas in the movie. Their actions are ninja like in nature, but ninjas would wear clothing to camouflage into their surroundings, not just straight up cameo colored clothes. The whole point of the ninja were to be silent and unseen which none of their clothing does in this film. Also, in the restaurant fight scene they are straight up wearing kendo helmets, gloves and chest wear over top their tiger print "ninja" clothing. If it does need to be pointed out there is no connection between the sport of kendo and ninjas. All of this brings us to Patusan. So it's a made up nation, but it is also very clearly Thailand. That's not just in the fact that they shot in Thailand but everything we see about it is Thai. The clothing worn by Kelly Hu and their royal garb at the end are all traditional Thai style of dress and clothing. Even the food we see is vaguely Thai with maybe a few Chinese elements thrown in. Which brings me to Baba Ram. While Thailand is full of Buddhist as in most of Southeast Asia, there is no central holy figure to it like the Dalai Lama in Tibetan Buddhism which Baba Ram is truly trying to evoke or emulate. The name Baba Ram is also more Indian sounding than Thai sounding. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of other examples, but I hope you get the idea.

Wow! What a good way to wake up with a good hardy laugh. Excellent work Jam!

I just got back from seeing Cats. I have a lot to say but because it's 1:30 in the morning I will just quickly say two things. One, I highly enjoyed it. It is very visual and it's ridiculous and over the top in a certain sense but you're allowed that with theater. Given the Sir Dame Andrew Lloyd Webber connection I couldn't help but think of Jesus Christ Superstar and how this movie has some fantastic voices and performances but does lack some of the energy of the staged productions. Two, I have a lot of respect now for whomever translated the music. As I was listening to some of the songs I couldn't help but marvel over how hard it must be to not only translate the song's lyrics but do so in a way that doesn't change the music and still sounds like a song.

The next time I talk to my mom I will bring it up and report back to you guys with how she takes the news. Also, I'm kinda excited because tonight I am going to go see Cats on stage for the first time. I wonder if it being all in Japanese will make it more or less surreal.

The whole crux of the story makes so little sense to me that I feel like I'm missing something. So the two boys are the princes of this made up nation and were whisked away as not to be killed by Colonel Chi who wants to murder them so there is no legitimate opposition to his rule but they are also the destined princes that would free the country? First of all what kind of prophecy is that? For it to be something foretold they would have to also have to be foretold that their country would be taken over from a foreign invader. Otherwise what would they be freeing the nation from? Freeing them from the rule of Monarchy? If that was the case at any point in their history if a king said "let the people be free" they'd have to believe it because it was prophesied. If the prophecy was about Chi, then why weren't they more prepared for a foreign invasion? Seems like they knew it was coming and didn't do enough to stop it. Also after the house blows up Patches tells the kids that their father being kidnapped was part of the prophecy too. Does this mean that he didn't do all he could do to help because he had to let the prophecy come true? Also this is a very oddly specific and detailed prophecy. "And lo two princes will be born that shall free the nation from the oppressive rule of a white guy in samurai armor who shall invade when they are small children only to be saved by a mustachioed sailor who shall adopt them but be kidnapped while they are learning their destiny to be our true saviors. Oh, and surfing should be involved somehow." Also, when were Patches and their dad going to tell them about this prophecy? It seems all the folks in little Patusan knew it before the kids did. It's understandable that Chi thought the kids dead and only when he found out they were alive did he send "ninjas" to kill them. If it wasn't for this would they have waited until the kids were adults? If they were suppose to lead a rebellion why not be stricter on them and force them to learn how to fight and get better grades. It seems to be if Chi had just sent a lawyer over to the kids to sign away their rights to be Patusani kings, they would have signed and this movie would be done much quicker.

The thing that annoyed me most about Leslie Nielsen's costume, cultural appropriation aside which I will get to later, is the fact that they didn't spend an extra 30 minutes to try to make it look real. They didn't cover the area surrounding his eye with any sort of make up to try to blend it into the mask, which would mean when his face was crush remarkably his eye and surround area remained pristine. The same goes for the bottom part of his lip. There is just a gap because the make up didn't fit. Also his hair. The metal plate on his head just sit atop the hair like a cap. A problem that could have been solved with just parting his hair where the prosthetic met the hair. A little make up and some hair combing, seriously 30 minutes and the make up would have looked much much better. Actually I take that all back. The worst part is they gave him a metal ear. A non-functioning metal ear. That's just dumb.

I feel a large part of his preparation for this role was to look at many paintings and frescos of Jesus and really try to capture the lifeless eyes of a painting. Hold the phone! I went to wikipedia to see how old he is now and I came across this, "Having also performed the title role in Tommy in Los Angeles, Neeley was led to reprise the title role in the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar" From fake Jesus to real Jesus! Let's all take a moment to imagine him playing Tommy instead of Roger Daltrey.

I just watched that new Beauty and Beast clip and you are spot on about Luke Evans. Literally anytime the subject of Jesus Christ Superstar would come up. It would vary in degrees of bluntness from "Hey Mom, Jesus Christ Superstar will be at the QE Theatre." "I wonder how handsome their Jesus will be" to "Look Mom, Jesus Christ Superstar is on Bravo on Saturday." "Oh, let's record it. When I was your age I had a huge crush on the fellow that played Jesus." In fact when I told her last week that I had just rewatched it she remarked how she hadn't seen it in years but she watched it a lot in her youth because of Ted Neeley.

As I've mentioned my mother had a huge crush on Ted Neeley and would often tell me and my sister about it. I guess I can see how he'd be considered handsome but as many of us have already pointed it put his dead sad eyes are kinda off putting. I want to take a quick poll of what everyone here thinks, is Ted Neeley, handsome or not?

I am one of those "make it up on the spot" singers and it is a curse when working with kids. They'll either start singing my gibberish songs or ask me to sing them again when I have no idea what I sang.

This movie made me rethink about all the movies I loved when I was a kid. Were they all this bad?

You've really gone all in on the mandarin stuff!

Yes, I was thinking in terms of clothing but you're right tanks and fighter jets are far more anachronistic. Then there is also all the postcards, mirrors, fur coats and money of the market scene. I guess Herod's palace can be third.

Thank you. I'm over the hump of it now fortunately. It was my time. So far this month we had eight of twenty teachers out with it so it was only time it came to me. I may watch Hello Dolly with my last day off tomorrow. That or the movie Fister was talking about on Letterboxd.

I assumed they were suppose to be different groups. After all they only had a bus full of extras to work with so crowd scenes would have to reuse people.