[Movies] Victor Victoria (1982)

There are a lot of musicals that have been adapted as films, and there are a few movies that that have become musicals in turn. In the case of Victor Victoria, this was actually a movie musical that was later adapted as a stage musical, which is sort of interesting. Most movie musicals are adaptations of their stage equivalents, but this production when the other way.

It rather surprised me that Julie Andrews agreed to take on this role - the classic woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman premise that we've seen a heck of a lot before (Shakespeare) and after (Connie and Carla) this movie came out. But it certainly managed to present it in a manner that made it highly accessible to a wider audience. It's hard to say no to Dame Julie Andrews after all.

It's interesting how the 1980's included a few movies like this that included drag as a central part of the story (think Tootsie). LGBT representation may not have been all that public during this period, but it was certainly something that a lot of people were thinking about more than expected, I think.

[Theater] August: Osage County (Repertory Philippines)

I make a distinct effort to avoid the opening weekend of any theater production. I sort of want to the cast to get through that first run through with live audiences so they can work out the kinks and really grow into their roles fully. I know, I know, they rehearse these things for months at a time. But if you've ever had to take the stage, you'd know that it's a whole different world once you're up there when the curtain goes up and you see the packed house waiting for you to utter your first line.

Admittedly I knew little about August: Osage County other than the fact that it pretty much swept the theater awards for best play across different award-giving bodies including the Tony's and the Drama Desk Awards. But I avoided reading about it since I didn't want to spoil myself in terms of what the story would be about.

Since we bought the Year Pass for Repertory Philippines' 2014 season, it was really just a question of selecting dates for watching each of the shows. And this time around, we ended up catching the show during its opening weekend, since it fit the goal of watching one show a month.

[TV] Community: Season 4

It's kind of weird when a television network seems to antagonize it's own television show, if you know what I mean. Every now and then a fairly popular program can start to attract some degree of resentment from studio executives, typically because the program isn't quite delivering the kinds of rating that they're hoping for. And so the network starts taking steps to ease the show out, which feels like a passive-aggressive way of dealing with things.

Community is one of those shows with a rabid fan following but hasn't quite seen the big ratings that networks hope for. And over the years, it seems the show has had to survive a number of challenges set in its path including schedule changes, unexpected mid-season breaks and a change of showrunner.

This fourth season marked a weird time for the show as it tried to get on by without its creator (and perhaps its true voice), Dan Harmon. And while it still had its decently funny moments, it just felt a little bit off - like when you enter a room and it takes you a moment to realize that something is missing or out of place.

[Podcasts] Welcome to Night Vale

I've never really gotten into the whole podcast thing - I guess it stems from (1) not owning any iDevices, (2) never really getting into portable MP3 players, and (3) not knowing how to drive. And while I could totally listen to a podcast during my regular commute to and from work every day, I feel that would distract me too much potential pickpockets and other petty thieves that are rather common in public transportation in Metro Manila.

But I've been hearing various discussions referencing Welcome to Night Vale more than a few times over the years and a recent PBS Idea Channel episode about the show really got me curious enough to give it a go. And I have to admit, this is now officially my first ever podcast that I'm actually committed to - apart from my own weird attempts at podcasting some years ago.

[Books] Have Wormhole, Will Travel

I primarily signed up for NetGalley since the Angry Robot Army review program of Angry Robot Books decided to move to that particular platform. And while I continue to enjoy the review titles offered by Angry Robot Books, I've also started to explore the site's other publishers and their respective books for review.

I can't precisely remember how I encountered Have Workhole, Will Travel. I guess it was in one of those regular update emails that NetGalley sends out to subscribers or something like that. But hey, wormhole theory is one of my more preferred means of interstellar travel in terms of science fiction books, so it wasn't too hard an idea to jump on board this particular ship, so to speak.

The book was surprisingly well-written given it's pretty much an indie title. This is not to belittle the majority of indie works out there - as an aspiring writer myself, my own insecurities are naturally factor of sorts in terms of how I view this part of the publishing world. And while I haven't found too many of the great ones so far, this one is definitely more impressive than a lot of the others that I've encountered.

[Movies] This Is The End (2013)

It's interesting how the Hollywood comedy world sort of goes through phases of talent. Or maybe phases isn't quite the ideal word - it just involves distinct batches of comedians whose careers seem to coincide and continually intersect for a time until they disappear and make way for the next generation. The same can probably be said about a whole bunch of other things, but today I only want to focus on comedy.

I was prepared to be disappointed by This Is The End since it seems like a forced gathering of a lot of the different comedy personalities that sort of represent the state of Hollywood comedy all in a single movie. These sorts of hodgepodge collections of actors don't necessarily turn out well since they seem to bank on the combined star power more than anything else.

But I wasn't surprised but how fun this movie would actually be and how the gathering of said talent turned out to be the perfect mix of comedians to get this story out there. And as silly as the premise may seem at first, at the end of the day it all just works rather well.

[Movies] A Four Letter Word (2007)

Friday was a little lazy, so I ended up digging through my practically random collection of LGBT movies - but I'll concede most of them can be categorized as gay movies more than anything else. But hey, I try. Well, I sort of try - my interest range also factors into what I end up reviewing here after all.

Unless folks decide to send me screener copies of movies. HINT HINT.

Work's been rather stressful, so I focused on the comedies more than anything else, and admittedly this is a pretty major sub-segment of the gay movie world as we know it. I guess we all just think that we're really that funny - or at least funny among ourselves.

A Four Letter Word isn't something I went out of my way to watch - it just happened to be the only movie in English that was working on that particular back-up DVD. I didn't really know what to expect from it.

It wasn't great, but it was better than I had expected. And that's a good enough of a thing, right?

[Movies] I Love You, Man (2009)

It turns out that my partner Tobie has a fair number of Jason Segel movies. And so when I'm digging around for something to watch while I'm home alone, I keep coming across them. And at the end of a stressful work day, I really can't handle more than a decent comedy - the stressful period dramas will have to wait.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from I Love You, Man, but it was nice to see that Paul Rudd is pretty much back to making movies. I swear, the man has not visibly aged since I first saw him in Clueless, and this is not a bad thing at all. And he's still highly adorable in a nice boy next door kind of way.

The movie is built around a weird concept - a man who has never really had guy friends for most if not all of his life. And while this seems like a perfect situation for introducing a gay twist, that's not at all the point of the movie (although there are a few jokes along those lines). There's a lot more to more to this comedy on the surface and the resulting situations are pretty strange and hilarious at the same time.

[TV] Keeping Up Appearances

Social media platforms rely on the premise that people are more likely to buy things based on the recommendations of friends. And while I don't think this rule is an absolute for all of my social media contacts, every now and then I come across something that really tickles my fancy - and yes, these discoveries tend to involve closer friends who share many of my interests.

And as much as I'm quite the fan of British television, I admit that there are a lot of shows that they've come up with that I haven't even heard of before. Such was the case with Keeping Up Appearances, which has turned out to be quite the delightful comedy. I don't think it's all that intelligently plotted, but it hits the sweet spot of repetitive humor that just...works.

So my thanks to that Facebook friend who started a whole thread on celebrating British TV that inevitably degenerated into various meme-style images, a lot of them involving a quirky lady who goes by the name of Hyacinth.

[Games] Wallace & Gromit: Fright of the Bumblebees (Grand Adventures Episode 1)

I fell in love with the Wallace & Gromit animated features as soon as I watched The Wrong Trousers - I just have a thing for penguins, I guess. Plus Gromit is downright adorable despite not having a single line of dialog in any of their little adventures - and he just works out that way.

With Telltale Games exploring different franchises like Sam & Max, The Walking Dead and even Back to the Future, it's a great thing indeed that they decided to set their sights in creating graphical adventure games for Wallace & Gromit. And thus we've received the episodic adventures that start with Fright of the Bumblebees, the first of four separate adventures featuring the two lovable characters.

[Books] Slaughterhouse Five

Whether you're working on following the Barnes & Noble 50 Books to Read Before You Die bookmark or Amazon's 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime, we all have our quirky lists of books that you feel you should read even though they were published before were born or something. At least this is generally true among bibliophiles.

Slaughterhouse Five is one of the books that has been on my personal to-read list for some time now. A lot of folks keep referencing or mentioning this book for one reason or another and my curiosity has grown over the years. But of course with so many books in my general reading queue (particularly thanks to the likes of Angry Robot Books and NetGalley), it took me a fair amount of time before I finally diverted back to this particular.

I have to admit that I had no idea what to expect when I came around to reading this book. And given that the only other Vonnegut book that I had read prior to this one was the more recent Hocus Pocus, I really didn't have much to go on.

[Movies] Jack The Giant Slayer (2013)

It's always interesting how the big movie studios seem to draw inspiration (if you can call it that) from some sort of a group consciousness. This shared pool of ideas is more than likely driven by market research more than anything else, but it certainly results in movies following certain themes that go beyond mere genres.

One of the quirkier movie trends as of late involve these action adventure adaptations of classic fairy tales. And we're not talking about the Disney- style adaptations that keep things all cut and cuddly. Oh no, we're talking about all these instances of trying to turn rather simple morality tales into more adult-oriented high fantasy and adventure movies with massive special effects budgets and all that good stuff.

I think what surprised me most about this movie is the rather high profile cast of talent recruited into this movie.Normally you'd sort of expect that these films would just be easy money machines that the studios would just want to get done with as limited a budge as possible. But instead we get this whole extravaganza, which almost felt like an attempt to start a whole new movie franchise or something. Totally not happening though.

[Technicolor Musings] Appreciating Facebook's Improvements

This week the big news has been about Facebooks new options for one's gender identity. It may not seem like a big thing, but providing this option to people in order t better represent themselves online is an amazing step forward in the right direction. And while there are those who choose to see the negative side in things and complain that it took 10 years for Facebook to get around to doing this or other such complaints. But really, we need to celebrate progress for its own sake. I mean come on, they've coded in 56 different options plus you can also set what pronouns Facebook will use when referring to you. The little things matter!

And this comes like 3 years after Facebook provided more LGBT-friendly options for one's relationship status including "domestic partnership" among others. As much as Facebook's privacy snafus annoy me to heck, I do appreciate how they're taking steps to better represent their LGBT members. And when a social media platform as big as Facebook makes changes like this, it certainly sends ripples throughout the tech community that get more people thinking about how they want to handle LGBT concerns as well.

So good job, Facebook! Now all we need is for you to get your act together in terms of your News Feed filtering.

[Movies] Jeff, Who Lives At Home (2011)

I had seen mentions of Jeff, Who Lives At Home around the web as part of lists of movies to see or movies of interest, but had otherwise not heard much about it. So on one of those days when I was alone at the Sietch, I figured I might as well kill some time by watching it and seeing what it was all about.

I've written about how I enjoy occasionally going into a movie experience completely blind. There's something about the totally raw process of true discovery that happens when a story unfolds before your eyes for the very first time.

And then the movie starts with, well, Jason Segel. I'm pretty sure that my partner, Tobie, has a thing for this guy, especially when he's trending more on the chunky side. And while he's a funny guy in general, there's the odd movie that doesn't quite rub me the right way. I guess it's because his brand of humor dances on the edge of what I can tolerate in terms of the more low brow sort of comedies that Hollywood likes churning out. And while this movie had small touches of that, the rest of it felt very indie in tone and storytelling style. And I don't mean that in a bad way.

[TV] The Big Bang Theory: Season 6

I honestly enjoy watching The Big Bang Theory. I know, I know, the show gets a lot of flak within geek circles for celebrating stereotypes or having no real character development and things of that nature, but I can't help but feel that folks are already nitpicking at this point. Or there's the ironic possibility that geeks aren't actually the target audience for this show.

Stereotypes will always be a staple of comedies, and perhaps the entertainment world at large. They're easier to understand for most people and it becomes easier to write jokes around them. Of course there are stereotypes that are less than ideal but there are those that we just need to accept as having some relevance by now.

If anything, I've always treated to be more like Friends with a slightly geekier context. And if we want to argue semantics while we're at it, the guys in The Big Bang Theory aren't just geeks - they're also nerds. And that's a completely different subset of intellectuals entirely. And too often I have members of the geek community complaining that the show isn't realistic since geeks aren't all that into science or whatever. Sheesh.

[Gadgets] Urbanears Humlan Headphones

So I received another accessory for review from Digits Trading Company, this time being the Urbanears Humlan brand of headphones. I'm really more of an inner ear headphone kind of guy, but  was pretty curious how this unit would compare in terms of performance.

Plus it has such an outlandish red color.

[Comics] G.I. Joe/Transformers - Volume 2

The Transformers comics license has bounced around different companies over the years, although I suppose we should be thankful that DreamWave was unable to hold on it (or most of its assets, quite frankly). Although the post-DreamWave era did eventually lead to IDW Publishing gaining the right to publish Transformers comics, there was a weird moment when Devil's Due Press was allowed to bring the Transformers into a G.I. Joe story, even though DreamWave wasn't quite dead yet at the time.

With IDW in full control of the comic book versions of the Transformers, this has also given them access to some of the past licensed works, including this strange crossover series. And they've gone ahead and re-released the various story arcs (yes, there have been more than one) in new collections.

Through the wonders of comiXology, I finally got my hands on (so to speak) copies of these compilations and it certainly for entertaining reading all throughout. And even though I was never that big of a G.I. Joe fan, I knew enough about the franchise to still get a kick out of what was done here.

[Movies] The Lego Movie (2014)

I got into LEGO at a early age - it was one of the first distinct toy brands that I remember getting into when I was about 3 years old. And while I don't collect them as much as I used to these days (primarily because of cost and difficulty of storage), I maintain a love for the franchise and I still get into the various LEGO-themed games that are released for various console platforms.

At first I was worried that The Lego Movie would just be a horribly long commercial for the toyline. And I know that's a somewhat funny statement to hear from someone who is so into the Transformers franchise - one that grew to great success because of a cartoon series that was also pretty much a series of commercials disguised as stories.

But as the trailers for the movie started to hit the internet and more and more information was released about what the film would actually be about, it was clear that they had decided to make a heck of a lot more of this movie than I had anticipated. And the end result was actually pretty awesome.

[Books] The Hunger Gays

When a book directly references another, it's always a tricky thing. Many such titles that draw direct inspiration from another route normally take the path of parody to justify itself and to avoid potential lawsuits.

And that's sort of what I was thinking when I opted to read a review copy of The Hunger Gays, a book clearly patterned after The Hunger Games based on the title and its cover art alone. And given that, I naturally assumed that it would adopt a lighter tone given the sort of "tradition" to take the parody route. But this wasn't the case.

If anything, this book is a fairly serious effort to adapt the narrative format of The Hunger Games and re-contextualize things with LGBT characters - or in this case just gay ones. I wasn't quite prepared for how heavy this book would be or how much of a struggle it would be to get to the end of the book. Whether it's because of my incorrect expectations or the book being that challenging a read, it's hard to fully wrap my head around this story to the level of me being able to recommend it wholeheartedly.

[Movies] Jurassic Park (1993)

Jurassic Park is an important movie for many different reasons - and I have a lot of personal reasons to stack on top of all of them. And while this isn't necessarily my favorite movie of all time, it is certainly way up there among the most memorable of my life.

One of the key aspects to this movie is the fact that this was one of the first times that I had read the full novel that the movie was based on before the fact. In addition, Jurassic Park was also pretty much my very first novel and Michael Crichton one of the first authors that I tried following. And thus this was also my first encounter with reader disappointment - that feeling you get when you start to see just how different the movie is from the original book.

All that aside, there's a lot to be said in favor of this movie and the impact it had on the rest of the entertainment industry at the time. And I suppose a lot of us who got to see this movie while we were all fairly young were just happy to see dinosaurs come to life on the big screen in a manner that felt worlds away from what had been done before.

[Theater] Wicked (Cultural Center of the Philippines)

I wasn't sure if I wanted to post a "review" of sorts of the local staging of Wicked since this marks the third time that I've seen the play and the second time I've seen this particular theater company - Lunchbox Theatricals. They were the same group that staged the play in Singapore some time back and even featured the same lead actors in the key roles of Elphaba and Galinda.

But still, each performance is different, and for traveling shows like this we also get to factor in actor changes and the venue itself in terms of how it affects the production. And thus I've decided to push forward with this review, which may be more of a reflection piece more than anything else.

After all, it is interesting to note that I've invested so much into this particular theater production. As much as I'm willing to travel within the region to see good shows, that doesn't necessarily obligate me to watch the same show should it finally come to the Philippines. But Wicked is a unique theater experience indeed and one that I don't regret seeing over and over again.

[TV] Partners: Season 1

It's pretty sad when a TV show isn't allowed to really complete a season before getting cancelled. Despite getting a season order for so many episodes, that in itself is not a guarantee against potential cancellation. And thus we've seen shows with several episodes in the can already but are unable to get broadcasting rights in their country of origin.

What makes it even weirder is when these shows do get to finish their runs, but in a completely different country. This was the case with Caprica as it eventually got to see a full series run in Canada. And this was the case again with Partners, as it did manage to finish up in countries like South Africa and India. The country selection felt totally random though.

I can't automatically state that this is a review in defense of the show - I too had rather mixed feelings about it. However I think that doesn't mean that one shouldn't allow a show to at least get through its first season before we come to a final decision. If that was always the case, then I probably would never have gotten into shows like Fringe given how I didn't quite get on board during the first few episodes. A lot of us viewers are willing to give a show a decent shot before we quit on it - I'm talking to you big time TV executives!

[Games] Little Inferno (PC)

I really enjoyed World of Goo when it came out. It marked an interesting time when a lot of indie games were getting a lot more notice (think early Plants vs Zombies time) and such. It was a novel game with an interesting aesthetic and endeared itself to a lot of puzzle gamers everywhere.

So I was rather interested when it was announced that developers Kyle Gabler and Allan Blomquist had joined up with Kyle Gray (who created Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure) to start a new game company called Tomorrow Corporation. Their first project - a game called Little Inferno that gave little clue as to what the game was going to be like. I eventually picked the game up as part of the Humble Bundle: PC and Android 8 and only really got to try it out recently.

It didn't take me all that long to finish the game, but it certainly took me a while to figure out just how I felt about the game.

[Books] The Book of Atrus (Myst Book 1)

Back in 1993, brothers Rand and Robyn Miller released the point and click adventure game, Myst. It was one of the first games that relied on the relatively new CD-ROM technology for its distribution, which was important given the stunning graphics of the game and the use of live-action video throughout the game as well.

Simply put, the game was a game-changer. It was an amazing demonstration of what games could be like with the benefit of advanced 3D modeling and live-action video. It was a game that was clever (as adventure games typically are) and yet also experiential. The game placed you on Myst island and it tried to make you feel like it was actually you walking around the island trying to unravel its secrets.

The Book of Atrus is the first of three books set in that magical universe and tries to provide more of an explanation of how Myst came to be by focusing on it creator, Atrus. And this story begins well before Atrus eve reaches adulthood.

[Movies] The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

When we first caught the trailer for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty at the cinema, it certainly struck a cord. It was clearly aiming to be one of those surrealist pieces that could either be pretty amazing or sadly disappointing. It's not an easy type of movie to capture and bring to life on the silver screen, but they do tend to be notable projects.

And while there was a lot in this movie that interested me, there were also key points that gave me some concerns. A lot of the had to do with Ben Stiller and how this might be some sort of a niche product on his part while he tries to take his career in a new direction. We've seen a lot of popular comedians venture into this realm including the likes of Jim Carey and Steve Carell.

It's a mixed bag really in terms of how such movies fare. Some folks make the transition rather gracefully and everything just seems to fall into place. Others struggle with how to approach the subject matter and flail around a bit. This movie didn't overly impress me, but I do see what they tried to accomplish. They certainly had admirable goals, but there was also something about this movie that felt a little hollow or lacking. And while the movie was certainly interesting and at times entertaining, but it wasn't quite a knock out in that sense either.

[Movies] Get A Life (2006)

When you commit to watching as many LGBT movies as possible in order to better understand what options are out there, there's a lot more bad than good. And this all part of the process of an evolving movie industry I suppose. You get through the weird bits in order to increase the chances of finding the more interesting stuff.

Get A Life was a direct to video release that certainly had a singular vision in mind. I'm sure that the creators had a valid enough story to tell, although I just don't see how marketable that story could be with the general population. I far that there's a more personal angle to things in terms of why this story was created in the first place. And I certainly don't want it to seem like I'm picking on the person behind the story more than anything else.

But man, it's hard to even imagine how this movie could have been more tolerable at the very least. There's not all that much that I can salvage from this story to make it somehow palatable.