Current fixations (in no particular order):

[enthusiastick]

24: I had honestly never watched a single minute of this show before I got home. But the Blockbuster by me has terrible selection in television, which mixes poorly with the fact that renting DVDs of TV series has become something of an addiction for me. So faced with a decision between 24, which I'd never seen, and the Sopranos which I've seen some of and am lukewarm towards, I picked 24. I've now watched from midnight to noon (i.e. half the first season) and am starting to think I made the wrong decision. I just don't find the show that enthralling thus far - the plot twists are all either predictable or so wildly out there as to render them equally uninteresting. On the whole I enjoy Alias a good deal more. The third season of that is theoretically available for rental at my local Blockbuster, but seeing as they have only one copy of each disk it is literally never in when I visit.

Entourage: I watched the first three episodes of this apparently little-known HBO series via Jon S's OnDemand system, graciously provided by the obviously illegal Comcast installation guy. The episodes I saw I enjoyed a great deal - Jon and I were actually laughing out loud at the television, which can be a surprisingly hard feat for a show to accomplish. Of course now I have no way of seeing any more of this show, because my parents selected a basic cable contract in the early 1990s and have never given updating it or changing our service a second thought. I suppose I'll just have to go back to Boston and bogart off Jon some more...

the Wicked soundtrack: After an obsession with the song I heard at Sidetrack (Defying Gravity by name, the performance of it that was taped for the Tony's) that has not yet ended but has sort of plateau'd I finally broke down and bought the whole soundtrack. Turns out there are at least three other very catchy songs in the show, which overall I find very poignant. It captures some of the themes of the book well and elaborate on some that are only touched upon. I was initially wary of the fact that the musical inflates Glinda to the status of co-heroine, but I got over it pretty quickly. I'm really into the composer's technique of not immediately getting to the theme of a given song, but rather having a given character start singing well before they find the essence of the song musically. Also the bridge of Defying Gravity turns out to be a recurring theme ("Unli-i-imited...") which is just keen. And I am also falling in love with the voices of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. Menzel is just an unbelievably good singer, and she proves it time and time again. Chenoweth's speaking voice, which I know is supposed to be exaggerated/annoying honey-sweet is just fascinating to me. There's this one song Popular where she drops briefly into speaking voice at one point and it just slays me every time.

Comments

[rollick.livejournal.com]

Listening to the whole "Wicked" soundtrack made me appreciate "Defying Gravity" a lot more, given the themes and references that resurface in it: bits from "No One Mourns The Wicked" and the bit about "As someone told me lately, everyone deserves a chance to fly…"

But going back to SideTrack, my biggest disappointment for the whole trip was when "Defying Gravity" came up again and I realized that the Tonys version had entire verses and segments removed and was sort of a glossed-over, sped-up glam version. Which, of course, foiled my attempts to sing along. Grr.

[pooka-madness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I figured that out when I first downloaded the song. I can't say how troubled by it I would actually be, not having had a chance to return to SideTrack. Given my current state of mind I think my overwhelming reaction would just be: "Ooh! Idina Menzel! Pretty."

[rollick.livejournal.com]

I wasn't troubled by it in the "Hey, they ruined a wonderful song" sense, or even a "Hey, this isn't the canon version" fanboy sense. It was just that all the unexpected cuts and tempo changes made it impossible to sing along, and dammit, I wanted to sing along. That was why I was there.

[zerbie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so my feeling on "24" is that it should just be called "12." It just gets old after a while, because you KNOW whatever the hell they're doing can't work.

S2 is a little better, because what they're doing DOES actually work, and it works halfway through the season, so then you're sitting there going, "Uh, wtf? Now what?" It also inspires lines like, "Come on, Jack, SHOOT HER IN HER BITCH HEAD!!!" Talking about Sherry Palmer, of course.