Nothing New Under the Sun (thankfully)

Ladies and gentlemen, the incomparable, the irresistible, the incredible Myrna Paris, our Katisha. We finally got her in rehearsal today, to begin staging the act I finale. That is the chorus and our Pitti-Sing below. A fantastic and productive day, but that is not what I am going to blog about at the moment. (Though it really was a fabulous day.)

Tomorrow is our day off, so I decided to take in a movie. Rehearsing is a fairly intense process, and I find that movies are a great way to decompress and recharge. I saw "Hot Fuzz", a British movie by the creators of "Shaun of the Dead". Dear Reader, it was perfection. Now I am not saying it is to everyone's taste, but it was a flawless execution of its style. It is a spot-on satire of Hollywood Police action movies. From the script to the acting to the cinematography it aped the style so effortlessly that there were times it almost became the type of movie it parodies. The characters in the movie watch police movies, and emulate them in ways knowing and unknowing. At one point one character chides another for not having a pithy enough catch phrase. And that got me thinking of good old G&S. After all, that last example is only a degree or two removed from the Mikado's line "Virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances." Direct Address--that is, breaking the 4th wall, or good old talking to the audience--has been around for centuries. Drama that is NOT self-referential in some way is a much more modern invention. "Hot Fuzz" parodies the conventions of the police action movie in PRECISELY the same way that G&S parodied the conventions of opera and melodrama. Both allow the audience to laugh at those conventions while simultaneously indulging in them. Pretty sneaky.

Shutting down now to go to bed, watching a few last scenes of "The Legend of Drunken Master", the classic Jackie Chan film. Talk about an artist who can seamlessly blend genres--tweaking conventions to the point of reinvention.

Good night for now.