Category: Entertainment

Smaller conventions are typically run by non-profit organizations, and as such, are a labor of love put on by volunteers. I spent last weekend at Capricon, an awesome winter convention in Chicagoland.

You won’t see a lot of big name media guests and lines for signatures at this type of convention.  Instead, you’ll have a handful of guests – authors, artists, musicians, and others – who enjoy interacting with other geeks.  Take a look at WindyCon’s website for an example of guests coming to Chicagoland this fall.

Conventions don’t magically happen.  They’re the result of extensive planning, typically starting more than a year before the event.  If this year’s convention can announce the dates and location for next year, that means there’s a contract for the location and somebody has already been working on next year, all while preparing this year’s convention.  And that’s just the beginning.

There’s a schedule, generally provided in the program book and a portable version called a pocket program.  The schedule encompasses the various departments within the convention – areas that have to be staffed with department heads and more, along with volunteers to help during the convention.  Most small conventions have a con suite, which offers food to attendees.  That means shopping for food and drinks ahead of time, and having people available throughout the hours that con suite is open, including people who can handle food.  (I don’t know what is needed for that, I just know there’s something special.)  

There are typically panels – multiple rooms running various topics concurrently – and gaming.  Somebody comes up with panel topics and finds people who are willing to discuss those with whoever shows up.  If there’s a game schedule, that’s another set of volunteers that somebody needs to coordinate.  Even if there’s no game schedule, there’s a games library and a checkout process.  Plus registration, operations, security, art show and auction… a lot of people are needed to make these conventions happen. 

And then there are the parties, typically run by groups of fans or other conventions… maybe I’ll talk about those next week. 

Robert Downey Jr. returns to the big screen in Dolittle as an eccentric rich man who takes a young orphan under his wing while demonstrating a tendency towards creating wacky gadgets and talking with animals.  I know, it sounds quite similar to his role as Iron Man, but in Dolittle, the British kid gets to keep his own accent.  And there are multiple animals, instead of just a talking raccoon.  To be fair, Tom Holland may have kept his real accent too… he voices a dog.  (The less that is said of Downey’s variable accent, the better.)

We had seen the previews for Dolittle repeatedly and thought it would be an entertaining pair of hours.  It’s not high quality literature or cinema, it doesn’t even address the personal and social issues that Eddie Murphy delved into as Doctor Dolittle in his incarnation of the role.  The over-arching plot is that Dolittle and sidekicks must search for a miracle cure for the Queen on an undiscovered island, using only notes that Dolittle’s late wife left behind… after they retrieve those notes.

Most of the animals have ongoing issues that Dolittle is supposed to be solving, including a gorilla who’s so frightened of confrontation, he is hesitant to play chess; an injured squirrel who amuses viewers with his occasional commentary; and an emotionally stunted tiger living in the shadow of his brother, who as everybody knows, eats poachers.  The silliness is increased by an over-the-top villain who is clearly envious of Dolittle’s rapport with animals and is desperately trying to outdo him on anything.

This movie’s good for a few laughs.  If you happen to see it at a theater that sells alcohol (and you’re of an appropriate age), the alcohol will probably help.  Especially when Dolittle helps the dragon.

I finally saw a stage performance of The Phantom of the Opera. Back in college, when we stopped in London on the way to my year abroad in Glasgow, it was my third choice, and we only had time to see two shows; my first choices were Cats and Les Miserables.  Interestingly, I’ve seen both of those again, multiple times, but kept missing Phantom.  When I received a Broadway in Chicago e-mail saying it was coming to town in December, I decided that this would finally be my opportunity to see it.  I checked our schedules and bought tickets.  Simple, right? 

Not quite… my work holiday party was scheduled late, and I ended up flying back from California that day; my sister-in-law got to use my ticket.  So I bought myself a single ticket for the following Saturday.  I’m glad I finally saw it, I love the music, and would see it again.  [Spoilers after this point!]

But holy moly, what a bunch of nutcases!  Just looking at the three main characters, wow.  You have Christine who is fine with receiving singing lessons from a mysterious voice and initially unconcerned with the acts of violence that propel her to a lead role.  Kudos to Raoul for his devotion to his long lost childhood friend, but he ranges from gaslighting her – telling her there’s no Phantom immediately after a violent attack at the theatre – to somewhere between pushy and over-protective while helping plot to capture the Phantom, using Christine as bait. 

As to the Phantom himself, having insinuated himself into Christine’s life by advancing her training and pushing out the previous leading lady with seemingly random violence, he throws a temper tantrum when Christine falls in love with someone else.  And then he manipulates the entire theatre crew to position himself with Christine on stage, so he can propose to her in front of an audience, knowing that she’s in love with Raoul.  Talk about audacity! 

All’s well that ends well, I suppose… the Phantom, rejected, eventually allows Raoul and Christine to leave, though he presumably lingers around Paris for a time before moving to New York for the sequel, Love Never Dies.

You may have heard that the movie version of Cats received terrible reviews.  This is not one of them, presumably because I went in expecting the Broadway musical… and got the Broadway musical. 

If anything, this star-studded version of Cats was easier to follow than the stage show, because they added bits of dialogue explaining the overall plot.  They took some minor liberties by adding motivation for Macavity’s actions (played by the amazing Idris Elba) and replacing Growltiger’s song with light action in the story. 

Where the movie stands out is by using technology to do what they can’t do on stage.  Jennyanydots’s song typically involves other cats donning mouse and cockroach costumes, but in the movie, they have separate actors for those roles, and more importantly, were able to use technology to show the size difference between the mice, cockroaches, and cats.  Of course, this allows for the on screen eating of some of the cockroaches….

Technology combined with good sets were used to good purpose when showing cats in human places; the size difference helps the perspective.  A human bed is positively huge, even with three cats on it.  (That may be slightly flawed… I can tell you from personal experience that the bed is quite crowded when all three of my cats are on it!) 

I gather some people were weirded out by the CGI fur.  I’m of the opinion they were watching the wrong thing.  The fur was neat, and the color variety amazing amongst the cats, but the impressive use of CGI was the expressiveness of the cats’ ears and tails.  Those are hard effects to do on a live stage, so I’m glad they made good use of technology to accent how cats use their entire bodies to express themselves. 

All in all, three tails up, one from each cat at my house. 

I finished watching season 3 of The Expanse with a couple weeks to spare before the release of season 4. As I pondered what to watch next, Amazon Prime suggested The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I recalled a couple friends mentioning it on Facebook, so thought it would be a good placeholder while waiting for the next season of The Expanse.

Oops.

What do I mean by “oops”?  Season 4 of The Expanse released a week ago – and I’m loving the online release of entire seasons, instead of having to wait a week  between episodes – and I haven’t seen a single episode.  I’m almost done with season 2 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; when I finished, I’ll have to decide between its recently released season 3 or season 4 of The Expanse.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is set in New York City in the late 1950s and centers, appropriately, on Midge Maisel, whose life takes a sudden turn at the end of the pilot episode.  She suddenly goes from a supportive housewife whose husband is trying stand-up comedy on the side to being the stand-up comic.  Not surprisingly, given the era, she encounters discrimination as a comedienne, but verbally holds her own against heckling audiences and other unsupportive comedians.  

Each episode is a mix of seriously funny content and the drama of Midge’s home life, not the least of which is her day job at the make-up counter.  This is a truly funny show that keeps viewers coming back for more. 

I don’t watch many current shows, so I suppose it’s no surprise that I was late in discovering The Expanse. By the time I heard of it, there were already three seasons, and the fourth season was coming soon on Amazon Prime.  And partway through the third season before finding out it was based on a series of books, which have now been added to my ever expanding need to read list.

If you’re a science fiction fan and haven’t seen The Expanse yet, by all means, find the time.  There is an edge of reality to the show that most science fiction shows don’t bother with.  This is combined with the fascinating exploration of the biases and attitudes that will develop as humanity expands to other parts of our solar system.  The Earthers and the Martians are constantly on the edge of war, while the Belters are disadvantaged, underpaid, and providing raw resources to both of them.

The Earth is over-populated and can’t provide jobs to keep everybody busy, but does a passing job at keeping them fed, if not necessarily happy or in good health.  The Martians are still working on terraforming with hopes of turning Mars into a fertile planet like Earth.  And the Belters routinely suffer from problems caused by contaminated air and water and other problems caused when living in entirely contained environments.

What really caught my attention is the assortment of accents.  This isn’t one of your older science fiction shows where everybody speaks English with an American accent, with the occasional British accent to show that somebody is posh.  The Belters have their own language that they spout off in at times, and even among the Belters, there are a variety of accents, so you may have to listen carefully to catch what they’re saying… assuming you know the words, since of course, some new concepts are introduced.

By all means, find time to watch this delightful show.