Roads to Safe Places

I did sort of want to go and see the University Player's production of Into the Woods, but fourthage's most recent music post made it a definite plan. I didn't know that the musical was that awesome, and I'm really curious to see what the UPs did with it, they are usually so very good.

A user on YouTube has uploaded what appears to be the entire thing - and after watching it I think "Agony" is probably my favourite song so far:

Pity I didn't manage to go this week already, now it'll have to be some time next week, and I have no clue when. It'll be a chaotic week as it is, as I have to go to two office hours that I intended to go to this week already - and could not, because the Professors had come down with the flu and cancelled. Seeing as I want to go to the premier of Crocky's play on Tuesday, I'll have to take a car-sharing-ride at 7am on Wednesday to be in Hamburg by 9am, when the office hour'll begin. And Tuesday, oooh, Tuesday is going to be awesome - go to Hamburg at 9:40am to make it to the office hour at 1pm, then take the train back to attend the premier, which begins at 7:30pm.

Yesterday was pretty much the perfect day. Perfect. I had asked Crocky whether she'd like to see What the Butler Saw with me, and so she came along and spent the day with me in Hamburg, which is always a good foundation of a perfect day.

At first, I went to see one of my examiners, the didactics one, who is just generally wonderful and awesome and who chatted to me about my final paper and was very interested in my topic. I love her. Then, I picked up two Scheine, which I was very pleased with, as well.



Since by then it was only around 3pm, there was a lot of time to kill until 7.30pm. Thus, we went to see Hancock, which I had unwisely not read any reviews of and which I was exited about because it features a Will Smith as a superhero.


Why I Did Not Like Hancock In Spite of Will

After three quarters of an hour, feeling vaguely self-conscious and nerdy for doing so, I leant across to Crocky and told her I was wondering whether this movie is actually worse from a gender perspective or a race perspective only to find out that she'd been trying to make up her mind about that, too.

Of course now some people will roll their eyes and marvel how she and I can even be bothered to care enough about such things to let them interfere with watching a good movie, and rest assured that I really wouldn't have, had there been a decent enough movie to watch. Now, it's not as bad as The Happening, which had me wondering and thankful for watching it, because it may actually be the absolutely worst movie I have ever had the privilege of seeing, but just generally... sort of... wrong on several levels.

The only good things were probably the special-effects and the mere fact that it has a black superhero! As a main character! As the title role! Which was awesome.

Not so awesome was pretty much everything else.

The blatant, really unnecessary nationalism, which was probably only to be expected of a movie that opened on the fourth of July - and still I think that the film could have afforded to lose a few eagles, especially the random real eagle that made a WTF-inspiring appearance in the closing scenes.

The way the hero had to be told to adjust to the role of the tradintional, white superhero to be accepted by society, guided by a wise, well-adjusted white mentor figure and with the vulnerable white, blonde woman as the ultimate prize at the end. How- in spite of her freaking super powers- said white, blond woman's purpose was to be saved by the male hero, for heaven's sake. How this is also a movie about a poverty-stricken, aggressive alcoholic being polished up for society by the nice upper-class, white family.
How the backstory stayed lame and vague and was only introduced in the last part of the film, making a rushed appearance.

How, in spite of Hancock, there was just one other black character, who was of course a male news presenter, and a few criminals without lines, and no black women at all. This especially made Hancock not only "the only of his kind" as a superhero, but also the only of his kind as a black character, which is sad, as the film was promising.

So, I did not really like it. I still love watching Will Smith, but the first black superhero could really have deserved a different context in my eyes.


We then went and watched the University Player's performance of Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw, which was very, very enjoyable.
Even though I know that some people had had their doubts about the effectiveness of having the characters played by cross-dressing characters of the opposite sex, that made the play all the more enjoyable to watch for me.
The skill of the actors and the professionalism of the production once again made me marvel at the skill of the people involved.