Love Me Some J.K.

Seriously this clip changed my entire day. If you have 20 minutes to spare at some point I highly encourage you to watch it. She is full of wisdom!! And if the video is too obnoxious in this form you can find the clip here.

Enough said.

Book Review: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

So I have this rule that before I see a movie based on a book that I have to read the book first. This way I can be truly disappointed by how much the movie falls short of the book (there are a few exceptions to this rule like The Time Traveler's Wife and Count of Monte Cristo where I like the movie version better...). Anyways since this movie was coming out and most people who have read this book have said it is amazing I decided I really needed to read it.

I liked it. It is incredibly sad. So it is the story of a young boy whose father was killed in the 9/11 attacks. (Now a side note here: I might be a little biased on how sad I thought this was because for a couple of hours that day I thought my dad was dead...so I might overidentify a little too much.) Anyways so the father dies and one night the boy is in the father's closet going through his things and he knocks a vase over and it breaks. Inside the vase was a key with the word Black written on it. So the boy decides to look up everyone with the last name Black in New York City (all 5 boroughs) and go meet them to see if they know what the key is for. That's all I will say about the plot.

It is well written and engaging and fun fact: when they were filming the movie in Riverside Park the actors met my roommate Jessica because she was out walking my incredibly cute puppy named Sawyer. Cherry on top. I have yet to see the movie but once I do I will let you know what I think!

Musical Review: Spiderman

Well...it was different that's for sure. I think if I had been a 9 year old boy I would have loved it. It was definitely not theater for theater critics though. The music, although done by U2, was seriously lacking. There was half of one song that was really good (Rise Above). No really, just half of it. The other half was the weird "Arachne" character that was suspended in mid-air and sang and to be honest it sort of creeped me out...Everything she did creeped me out actually and was really strange.

The set though. Wow. The set was ridiculous. You can see how they spent so much money on it. It is very stylized and very comic book-y. Plus they have these moving digital panels that move around and are really amazing. Also the spiderweb effect of the stage was great and at the end there is a big showdown between Spiderman and the Green Goblin on the top of the Chrylser building and I kid you not they have the Chrysler building open up towards the audience so it looks like you are above it looking down towards the street. Also Peter has a dream that MJ is suspended on a the Brooklyn Bridge and the bridge pops out of the stage for a scene that is literally 2 minutes long. Kind of crazy.

Now for the "Cirque du Soleil" element to the show. Not gonna lie, it was pretty awesome. Literally the stunt guy goes from the stage to the front of the first mezanine balcony which is like 20 rows back. The stunts were pretty awesome. They had 8 Spiderman stunt guys so that it could look like he was moving quickly from one place to the other.

So I guess my final review is this: The acting, meh. The singing, meh. The music, boo. But the set and the stunts - Awesome. So if you are going to try and see it PLEASE don't pay full price. It is only worth half for sure!

Ah...Broadway, Nice to See You Again!

So over the past couple months I have not been to as much broadway as I would have liked, so with NYC's annual Broadway and Off-Broadway weeks upon us, I figured it was time to take advantage of the 50% off tickets!

Saturday January 28th: Spiderman-Turn Off the Dark...So to be honest I am not really sure how I feel about this, but I am excited to see the hot tranny mess I have heard it to be. Hopefully nobody dies while they are flying around over the orchestra! I will be sure to do a review on this sucker.

Saturday February 4th: RENT!! Always a favorite. RENT left broadway when Spring Awakening started (that launched Glee star Lea Michele) but fortunately it is back on off-broadway! I am very excited to go see it! This is a show that I love soo much that I would see at least once every time I came home from college. It's that good.

March 15th: NEWSIES!!!!!!! So I about peed my pants when it was officially announced that my new rising broadway crush (since Aaron Tveit) Jeremy Jordan is slated to revive his Jack Kelly performance in the Broadway version of Newsies. One - I am excited because this means I have more opportunities to see this kid live. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Two - I am excited because it means that Jeremy's beautiful voice will be the one recorded on the original cast recording. Perfection. Watch him, love him, come see him on broadway with me since I will probably be seeing this show a lot! (Also stay tuned for my Bonnie & Clyde review even though it has left broadway so that Jeremy here can star in Newsies!!)

Puerto Rico Preview

So as always when I get back from a vacation (no matter how quick) my work life and life life are a little bit in chaos as I try to get back in to my regular routine. Needless to say it was glorious being with Lis and Ryan and their new baby Dax. Here's a preview of me and Dax at the beach, feel free to be jealous of that gorgeous backdrop (also please forgive the awful hair...Lisa and I misjudged a wave and totally got knocked out and so the hair got wet and crazy)

Book Review - White Tiger

So my old roommate Jessica gave me this book because it was one of her favorites and she wanted me to read it. So I finally got around to reading it! It was really good. It is about a guy in modern day India and how he travels from a really poor village to Delhi and becomes a driver to a rich man and then kills the rich man, steals his money and sets up his own life (and don't worry he tells you in the first chapter that he killed his master so I didn't just ruin the book). The book is a series of "letters" to a Chinese government official who is coming to visit India and this man is trying to educate him on what India is really like and also how to become an entrepeneur (aka kill your boss, steal his money and set up your own business). It was very well written and had a lot of really interesting human dynamics in it. Definitely 2 thumbs up!