Crazy Random Happenstance

Billy: So good... Hey, this is weird. I ordered one frozen yogurt and they gave me two. You don't happen to like frozen yogurt, do you?
Penny: I love it!
Billy: You're kidding? What a crazy random happenstance!
-Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Monday, June 27, 2011

Might I suggest...

That you don't see the movie Red Riding Hood, starring Amanda Seyfried and directed by Catherine Hardwicke? Yeah, yeah, I know... You are all asking "Sarah! Why would you watch that movie to begin with!?" Well, I was curious. Firstly, I wanted to see just how much like Twilight it really was and the answer is this: so much like Twilight you have no idea. The longing stares, the loud score, the choppy cuts, not one but two Edward Cullen look-alikes... Twilight 2.0, friends. Secondly, it had Gary Oldman and Billy Burke in it. I like them both a lot, so how bad could this movie be? Terrible. It was terrible. So terrible in fact, that Dawn said she felt like she owed me a dollar for having to sit through it. It is 90 minutes that we will not get back, however, we (Dawn, Jeff and I) had a great time making fun of it while we watched. It was one of those times that I wished we were recording ourselves because lots of laughs were had. So, yeah, don't see that movie and if you have already, I'm sorry.

That you go see Super 8 while it's still in theaters.  You all know my love for JJ Abrams. It's no secret how much I adore the man who gave me Alias and he absolutely does not disappoint with this film. He wrote and directed it (Steven Spielberg produced it) and he did such a great job. I'm not going to go into detail about the plot or anything because you need to be surprised, but it is a mixture of Stand By Me/The Goonies/The Sandlot and E.T. If you love anything about any of these movies, go see this film. The cast of kids is virtually unknown, with the exception of Elle Fanning (Dakota Fanning's little sister) and they were wonderful. Joel Courtney (who plays Joe Lamb, the main character) was so fantastic. I am interested to see what he does next. So, take me up on this. You won't regret it. Go see it and then tell me how much you loved it (or hated it, whatever) but promise that you'll stay for the credits. 

 That you check out Game Of Thrones (if you haven't already) when it comes out on DVD. I am not exaggerating when I say that this show was done phenomenally well. Is it disturbing? Yes, but that's part of what makes it so interesting. I am currently reading the first book in the series by George R. R. Martin, that the show was based on and so far, it is spot on. Normally, I am the type of person who will read the books first and then watch the show/movie. Not this time. I am SO glad that I watched the show first. The element of surprise that goes into the scenes and the shock value is so much fun to experience. I am going to try to do this with the rest of the series as well but I may not be able to wait that long.

That you have an open mind when it comes to this season of True Blood. ***Spoilers ahead if you haven't watched last night's premiere*** You know me, I am a huge, huge advocate of the book series by Charlaine Harris. I love the story (with the exception of the last few books) and I love the show. They are not one in the same. Each series is it's own entity. I know that when it comes to book adaptations and TV shows, people can be very picky. I admit, I can be that way too but this season, I am going to trust that Alan Ball knows what he's doing. After watching the season 4 premiere and having some time to process it, I have decided that I really enjoyed it. Is it like the book? Nope. Not at all. YET. I have accepted that not everything is going to be an exact carbon copy of the story from the book. Do I still compare the storylines? You bet your ass I do. Do I still pause the show in the middle of a scene to explain the differences  between the book story and the current TV story to Jeff (whether he wants me to or not)? You betcha! But that's OK because I am incredibly intrigued by every story they presented us with last night (except for Tara's. UGH, just go away, Tara!) Especially (surprisingly) Bill's. In the books his character is pretty much weeded out. She turns him into a straight edge, boring, computer geek. So, to see that he has the potential to be a badass, as the King of Louisiana?? I accept! The fairy stuff (which I actually do not care for in the books) has me completely interested. Of course, I look forward to seeing where the Sookie/Eric storyline goes (I cannot wait to see where that goes!!) but I am going to be open-minded. I urge you to be open-minded with me. Obviously, they are not following Dead to the World exactly. Obviously. But let's just see where they go with it. On a television show, they have a lot more room to play around and be visual and flesh out the characters. I'm going to (try) to be patient and see where they take us. Who knows? I may be eating my words come season finale time and I promise you, my gentle readers, that I will be the first to admit it if that happens as long as you promise to be patient and see what Alan Ball has in store. 

That if you partake in such festivities as a fireworks display, a carnival or a concert... anywhere that may have you stuck in a packed parking lot, waiting to get into the flow of traffic, that you are considerate of your fellow drivers? Typically the rule is; one car goes, then another car is let in, one car goes and so on. So many times, this is not the case. Why are you in such a hurry?? Everyone is stuck in the same place (and yes, I'm talking to you, Mr. Douchebag in the red mustang, from the Spree fireworks last night) and if drivers were more courteous, the flow of traffic would go a lot more smooth than if someone is being a giant hole. As you can guess, this happened to Jeff, C and I last night (after a wonderful evening of watching the fireworks with Dawn and Bill). Mr. Mustang actually took the time to maneuver his car so that there was no way we would be able to get in front of him. After clapping boisterously for him and congratulating him on his "big win" he proceeded to tell us that if his "F'ing daughter hadn't been in the car..." something would have happened? He would have let us in? He would have gotten into a fight with Jeffrey a' la' Jets vs. Sharks style? Who's to say? All I know is my CBear summed up the incident perfectly when he said "Mommy and Daddy, that guy is a baaaaaad boy!" Indeed he is. So don't be a "baaaad boy" when dealing with a parking lot clusterfrick. Chillax and be a nice driver.

Friday, June 17, 2011

"OMG, we're back again!"


So, two concerts at The Palace in one week is exhausting. FUN, but exhausting. This time we went to see New Kids on the Block (NKOTB) and The Backstreeet Boys (BSB) -Shout out to Carrie for getting the tickets!- I have never been a real big BSB fan, I was always more of an Nsync girl but I was very impressed with those boys last night.

The merch stand had the typical t-shirts for $40 and keychain's for $15. I wasn't crazy about any of the shirts. As I told Carrie, I could probably make them myself and I wouldn't even charge you $40 for it!

We didn't get to people watch a whole lot but we did notice the usual homemade shirts (with puffy paint!), girls wearing their original shirts from back in the day (even though they are all growed up now) and LOTS of sparkly tops. So sparkly! Oh, and I saw maybe 3 boys in the crowd.

The show began right at 730 with a blah opener, Ashlyne Huff. She was dressed in some sort of leotard/sparkly bathing suit thing and had backup dancers and her own DJ hyping her up to the audience. It was really weird and kind of chaotic. In the middle of her set, she just started dancing to songs from the 80's and 90's. It was strange. She wasn't on for long though and then Jordin Sparks came out. I was actually pretty impressed with her. Girl has got herself a really good voice and I was surprised that I recognized so many songs. She didn't have a band though. She was singing along to a backup track of music, I guess? And she had this really lame visual of a dude's hands (I am assuming it was a dude) playing guitar whenever there was the slightest bit of guitar in the song. It was odd. But all in all, I was happy with her set.

After LOTS of visuals on the screens of ALL the boys, they came out. I'm not going to lie, it was really exciting. With all the flashing lights and the background music (Coldplay's "Viva La Vida"??) it was very cool. They started singing and the ladies lost it. Screams galore, but not the high shrill screams of the Glee concert... regular screams of lust and "JOEY/NICK/JORDAN etc., I LOVE YOU!!!!!" It was a very entertaining experience. NKOTB came out and sang a few songs and then BSB would come out and do a few of their songs. The whole show was really organized and very well done.

NKOTB changed outfits no less than 7 times. I think it was 7. If it was more than that, I lost count after 7.  I love the costume changes though. It fit the show perfectly and oh my goodness, THOSE BOYS ARE HANDSOME. Seriously, they have been doing this for how long now and they all look amazing. Each band had their "ballad/serenading" set. I liked NKOTB's better than BSB's not only because I know their songs better, but because they didn't pull girls up on stage and sing to them. Oh yes, the BSB boys went into the crowd, each picked a girl, brought her up on stage, set her down on a stool (gave her a rose) and serenaded her. While hysterically funny (though it wasn't meant to be), I could barely look on stage because I was so mortified for the girls. I'm positive they loved it, but I couldn't help but think how embarrassed  I would be, had it been me. The whole thing was UBER cheesy but it was supposed to be.

When I was younger, I was always a Jordan girl. I had the big giant button that I would set up in my desk at school (still have it somewhere in my attic) and I thought he was the cutest. He's still cute and can wear a V-neck t-shirt like no other, but my heart belongs to Joey McIntyre these days. Remember when he was on the first season of Dancing With the Stars? That's about the time when I decided to switch. Anyway, that boy is insanely talented. For real. His voice sounded so so so fantastic and when he belted out "Please Don't Go Girl", my heart melted a little. It was that good. AMAZING. I can't find a video of it from our show, otherwise I would be posting it right now but trust me when I say he was nothing short of stellar.

The rest of the night finished with all the boys performing their hits. BSB rocked it with "Everybody" and "I Want It That Way" and of course, NKOTB did "Hangin' Tough and "Step By Step" as well as a slew of other hits. They each did their own finale and just when we thought the concert was never going to end (we really didn't think they were going to stop), they ended the evening with this:



Fun, right?

We closed our night out by rehashing the concert in the parking lot, while waiting for the traffic to clear.

Listen, whether you think these boys are overrated simply for being "boy bands" or because only teenage adult women like them and swoon over them, please know that they are seriously talented. They worked their asses off during every single number. The amount of choreography and stamina needed to make a show like that be successful is off the charts and they nailed it. Nailed. It. Their voices were awesome and the dancing was almost mesmerizing. Bottomline: if you have a chance to check out one of their shows, do it. I promise, you will not be disappointed. You will be fully entertained for two and a half hours and you will be so happy that you went. And then you will go home and pull out your NKOTB tapes (yeah, I said tapes) and your BSB cd's and you will rock out and relive the memories of the night, as well as your youth.

Finally, I leave you with this... Because you have to experience some version of it and see why I love it so much. This performance is from their Toronto show:



Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Good on you, Gleeks!

When I first heard that Glee Live was coming here, I was semi-interested but tickets were real, real expensive. I decided I wasn't going to pay a ton of money to see these kids sing live, when I can see them sing on my TV every week... BUT if they were free, I most certainly wouldn't say no. As it turns out, my work was offering 2 tickets to the June 13th show at The Palace. I decided to request them, never thinking I would actually get them. Guess what? this girl scored herself a pair of really great seats.

I decided to take my soulmate, Dawn, since we have had our year long tradition of "Glee Nights" (and because she's awesome). After sitting in horrendous traffic, we arrived at the show a little after 730pm (FYI: show started at 730). We were starving, so we decided to get food before taking our seats. While ordering our delicious sandwiches, we missed out on the "opening act" which was a dance crew of some sort. There were girls and boys dressed as MicKinley High cheerleaders walking around the concourse area trying to get everyone pumped up and that was kind of cute and kind of cheesy. They passed out "Barf Bags" before the concert started, courtesy of Sue.

We checked out the merch stand and it was all very expensive cool. $65 isn't too much for a sweatshirt, right? $40 for a tank top is a bargain, isn't it?? Crazy prices aside, the stuff was very fun. They even had shirts from the "Born This Way" episode, where each one depicted a trait that makes the person insecure (IE: "Likes Boys", "Can't Dance", "Trouty Mouth"). I would have purchased something if I was rich. Alas, I am not.

Naturally, while waiting for the show to start, we people watched. There were lots of homemade shirts, Warblers ties, tweens, moms with young daughters and quite a few boys. On the screens, they showed quotes from the season and pictures of the scenes in which the quotes took place. That was fun. The tweens would scream with excitement every time a steam shooter was tested or if there was the tiniest of movements behind the stage.

When the lights went down, they showed a video of Sue and Mr. Schuester bickering and introducing the Glee club. It was cute and clever and definitely put the crowd in the mood for the show. The Glee kids came out rocking with "Don't Stop Believing". They were full of energy and excitement and they sounded great. There were 2 stages: the main stage and then a smaller stage toward the back of the arena. Sometimes while they were finishing up a song on the main stage, they would be setting up for the next number on the smaller stage. There were tons and tons and tons of lights and visual effects and background pictures that would correspond with the songs. It was just plain fun!

I was most excited when The Warblers showed up and I got to see Darren Criss sing live. I have such a crush on that boy. He was so fun and sounded fantastic! He bounced around the stage like he owned it and you could tell he was having so much fun. I was most surprised by Chris Colfer. I find him annoying and whiny on the show but on stage, he was wonderful. It was so nice to see him sing without having a cryface the whole time. The only one missing was Dianna Agron. She tweeted this morning "Detroit! I'm terribly sorry I couldn't be at the show tonight, it was out of my power. I WILL be back tomorrow. Much love, Di". The only thing that would have made the concert better was if Jesse St. James popped out from behind the curtains. He didn't. Sad. They only performed one of their original songs ("Loser Like Me") and ended the evening with "Somebody to Love" by Queen.

The evening wrapped up around 950 and then we sat in the clustrfrick that was the parking lot for a real long time. On our way out, we noticed that stretching the entire length of the driveway (from the Palace entrance, all the way out to the street) were fans. Tons and tons of fans, waiting on the sidelines for the Glee dudes to come out. I have been to 47 billion concerts at The Palace and I have never, ever seen that. It was like they were waiting for a parade. We didn't stick around to find out if they were able to meet anyone because we were tired and already partially deaf from all the screaming that we had just endured, but it was kind of neat to see the effect that this group of kids, who do a television show and sing covers of songs has on people.

All in all, I was very impressed with the concert. Honestly, it was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. After a really crappy season 2, I guess I had forgotten how much fun these people could be. They all stayed in character and played to the crowd really well and reminded me why I love the show so much in the first place. The fact that it was free made it even better, but they really put on a great show. We were constantly entertained and smiling and it was just a feel good experience. There was one teeny tiny moment where Dawn and I thought some of them may have been lip synching... but there was lots of dancing going on, so I suppose we can give them a pass for it. Maybe.

Here is one of my favorite performances from last night:




FYI: My next concert review will be none other than NKOTBSB...