Spiderman Preview Thread!- Page 32

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 2:36am

Have I seen the show? No. Have I read Twitter reports? Yes. Has a friend of mine seen the show? Most likely. Did I see the 60 Minutes report when it aired? Definitely. Have I seen U2 live? More times than I can count and long before many of you were born. Do I laugh at a lot of you musical geeks who think auto-tuned boo-shizzle on Glee is somehow better than rock music? Heartily.

Do I think most of you who are clutching your pearls and claiming the show should be shut down for the sake of the acting community are a bunch of phonies? Absolutely. Do I think you wouldn't be hurling half the invectives at Julie Taymor if she were a visionary male director? Totally because so many of you are idiots.

Do I think most of you should just shut the fudge up and go listen to My Fair Lady cast recordings and masturbate nostalgically for a time you never knew? Absolutely.

Just my two cents! XO

Updated On: 12/4/10 at 02:36 AM

[helloworld2]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 2:47am

dramamama, those are all valid reasons, none of which were given in the post I was pointing out. The original post simply said that they only support "good" theater. My point was that they can't know if it's good, so they could either have given a different (and more valid) reason, or not said anything at all.

[crewdude]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 3:42am

Dramamamma, you say "I have a ticket to see the show." AND " I can chose to NOT support the show without seeing ". What? I suggest you reexamine the definition of "support".

You can "play" devil's advocate all you want, but no matter what words you type regarding all the reasons why you "don't" "support" the show the FACT is you "have a ticket". Which means you bought a ticket. Which means you "support" the show.

There's an old Russian proverb, "A man is judged by his deeds, not his words."

Type away with all your words about Bway not being the place for spectacle or a superhero, or about not liking Taymor's work or "mindless entertainment". But the fact is your actions of buying a ticket either reveal you to be a hypocrite or just a person bull ****ting everybody to create drama, mamma.

Either way. since you haven't seen it and feel free to not just espouse your opinions but to also speak out against those that have seen the show already only help to prove that you are not "playing" but just plain old bull ****ting.

[crewdude]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 4:27am

Hey, FudgingNamo...oops, i mean Finding Namo...are you for real? Seriously. You haven't seen the show. You read some "twitters" about it. "Maybe" a "friend" saw it. And you saw the whole 7 minute segment on 60 minutes with no footage from the show but with a lot of press positive statements from those that stand to gain financially from the success or failure of the show and none of the footage or discussion of the disregard for performer safety that has led to one actor with a broken ankle and a man to have two broken wrists (so badly broken that he can not feed himself or wipe himself after going to the bathroom.) and now a women with a severe concussion because no one wanted to "cause a scene" and call for medics at the time of the incident (ask the actress Natasha Richardson about sustaining a concussion and ignoring it at the time of incident). ALL of this and yet, you think this is about the director having a vagina instead of a penis????

I still don't understand what seeing U2 live has to do with one's ability to form an opinion of whether or not a Broadway musical that have NOT seen or work on, is "good" or safe for actors to perform in? Trust me, no matter how many times you say you saw U2 live or how many years ago, many of us where around LONG before someone decided to call himself "The" or "Edge". We were around when the only "Bono" in the music world was named Sonny and he worked with Cher.

You want to "clutch some pearls"? I can tell you for a fact, that after the truth came out about the concussion, that at at least 5 Broadway shows tonight cast members were sitting around talking about making Equity get more involved in making the conditions of the show be made more safe or shut it down until it made safe.

So until you and the rest of the audience members or the online community that are part of "the phonies" that work here or haven't even seen the show are directly affected by the working conditions at Spiderman, I suggest YOU clutch YOUR pearls and your old U2 concert tickets and masturbate to this idea - next time, don't so fast to decide that you think YOU are the wise old sage advice for the entire Broadway working community of which you are so blatantly not a part of while you try to convince yourself that Taymor is remotely a "visionary" anything.

[crewdude]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 4:30am

Songanddanceman2 writes "It's amazing how none of the positive tweets get posted"

No, no. They both have been.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 5:40am

Just because their reason doesn't work for YOU, still doesn't make thier opinion invalid. They don't FEEL it will be good, then they listen to thier instinct. Good enough to me.

Should theater fans go to every show just because it exists? There are many shows I have no desire to see and won't. That doesn't make me less of a fan.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 5:43am

Crewdude: THat was my point exactly: that I DO have a ticket so I am seeing the show...but I can still allow those that don't want to see it their opinion based on their tastes and word of mouth. I don't have an opinion of the show yet...I freely admit that.

I wasn't badmouthing anyone, or anything. I didn't claim that those thoughts were MINE which is why it IS playing Devil's Advocate. I used "I" simply as a device.

Are you that obtuse, really? Or do you just going around being argumentative to each and every person that posts here?

Updated On: 12/4/10 at 05:43 AM

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 6:41am

"Do I think most of you should just shut the fudge up and go listen to My Fair Lady cast recordings and masturbate nostalgically for a time you never knew? Absolutely."

Hahahaha it's funny coz it's true

[After Eight]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 7:43am

""Do I think most of you should just shut the fudge up and go listen to My Fair Lady cast recordings and masturbate nostalgically for a time you never knew? Absolutely."

Hahahaha it's funny coz it's true"


I don't find it all funny. I find it snarky/stupid. Absolutely. (Just like your response). And I wonder why he said "most of you." Who gets the bye, here? The people who DID know that time? What should they do? (And I shudder to think of his/your answer to that one.)

[mybigsplash]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 8:17am

I think what needs to happen is a line needs to be drawn, and everyone here needs to take a side. All those who think Spider-Man is something visionary say "Aye." and all those who think its a worthless disaster say "Nay"

This way, when/if the show closes, the "Nayers" can say 'I told you so.' If not, the "Ayes" can.

[Patash]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 9:01am

I think some of you misread my post about "drooling" over the prospects of failure. I wasn't saying anything about supporting a show if it is indeed bad. What shocks me is that many truly see m to delight in the idea that it might fail. Even if the show is bad beyond belief, true theatre supporters should be sad that it didn't work -- not thrilled that any Broadway show failed and sitting around waiting like vultures gleefully pouring over any possibility of an early closing.

[leefowler]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 11:46am

I was a huge fan of "Passing Strange" in previews, but didn't read many favorable opinions here. It never occurred to me to doubt the very humanity of those who were posting snarky things about it. I chalked it up to a difference of taste.

I mean, Patash, have you REALLY never hated a show, and made a joke about it? Are you really that pure?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 11:57am

Do I think most of you should just shut the fudge up and go listen to My Fair Lady cast recordings and masturbate nostalgically for a time you never knew? Absolutely.

Or the original recording of Promises, Promises. So many speak with benevolence about the alleged team of chiropractors on duty to work on the cast because of the rigorous choreography. I don't think I've ever read a single comment that expressed concern for the actors. Why? Because it was a different time? No. Because Bennett is amongst the celebrated so he gets a pass. Taymor directed The Lion King. Therefore, she is the Andrew Lloyd Webber of Broadway directors.

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 12:27pm

Anyone who thinks that Julie Taymor is not a visionary director needs some help. Visionary is defined as "a person who is given to audacious, highly speculative, or impractical ideas or schemes; dreamer." If that's not Taymor, I don't know what is.

Like it or not, LION KING was, and still is, highly innovative and groundbreaking. And what about JUAN DARIEN? A show praised for its stunning visual storytelling. What the public and critics love about Julie Taymor is that she has balls. She may not always be successful, but she takes major risks and never plays it safe. I'm not saying SPIDER-MAN is a masterpiece by any means (nor would I have the right to, as I'm not seeing it for another 12 days), but I'm all for a director who truly dares to be different. I would rather see her try and fail than see half of the directors working today succeed by playing it safe.

[HopeChanged]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 3:41pm

In the words of Charlie Brown's teacher: "Wah wah wah. Wah wah wah wah." (Man, we humans sure love to hear ourselves yammer on.)

[EdenIsMyHero]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 3:44pm

Has anyone tried rushing this yet? Just wondering if they set anything aside or if the fact that it's apparently sold out for the next several weeks would make it pointless.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 4:16pm

How about those of us who think it's *both* visionary and an utter disaster?

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 4:25pm

^^^^
Wasn't the same said about Michael Cimino and Heaven's Gate? Herzog and Fitzcarraldo? Coppola and Apocalypse Now? The Taylor/Burton Cleopatra? It could be both and go either way in terms of critical response and gross revenue.

[Disneyland Magic Man]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 4:55pm

"I would rather see her try and fail than see half of the directors working today succeed by playing it safe."

With who's money? Yours?

At $65 million, I hope you're willing to put up the $100 million for the next.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 6:10pm

strummergirl - You forgot Stravisky and The Rite of Spring, which caused a riot of an infuriated audience opening night. It was an utter disaster later deemed visionary.

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 7:06pm

Disneyland Magic Man - Is it your money? No, I seriously don't think so. But if a producer is willing to fund her efforts, good for them. She is constantly trying new things and, if I were a producer, I would choose to support her projects over a project that is a lot of stuff I've seen before.

[blaxx]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 7:31pm

What the public and critics love about Julie Taymor is that she has balls. She may not always be successful, but she takes major risks and never plays it safe. I'm not saying SPIDER-MAN is a masterpiece by any means (nor would I have the right to, as I'm not seeing it for another 12 days), but I'm all for a director who truly dares to be different.

Bwahaha! Please spare us the story of the poor risk taker when she's in charge of exploiting a trillion dollar franchise.

I hope no one is naive enough to think this wasn't salary over artistry, please...

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 8:21pm

It is one thing to be visionary -- I will give Taymor that in spades. But her failing seems to be that, when the budget allows, she gets *so* *very* *visionary* that there's no stopping her from throwing paint around the room by the brushloads and then expecting us to (1) applaud and (2) clean up the mess afterwards.

I love her design work. I think her costumes for LION KING and MAGIC FLUTE were sensational. But let's bring this back down to earth a bit, shall we? As a director, what did she bring to FLUTE aside from some very pretty stage pictures? Her costume and prop designs were all, as usual, magnificent, with a whole vocabulary -- but what did it have in common with Tsypin's set? Anything? He had this very cool plexiglass cube with all these great geometrics that were pretty much ignored by the director, while her work was anything *but* geometrics. So much of what happened in that opera was staged in front of the cube that it might as well not have been there at all. So what was the connection in this vision that I somehow missed?

Her film of her own stage production of TITUS really talks to the problem -- and it *is* a problem. The original stage production was, by necessity, small but intense, with, again, several amazing stage pictures. But then she makes it as a film and expands these intense pictures out of all proportion, to the point where the "vision" becomes almost borderline laughable. I'm sure she was trying to convey *something* in that film, but I'm not sure many people actually got it -- simply because it was vision laid on with a cement mixer's worth of mortar.

As for SPIDEY... again, I have not seen it. But the visuals I *have* seen, either in photos or the 60 Minutes piece or the trailer, suggest that she went out of control in a MAGIC FLUTE kind of way. Everything came down to the power of the visual in some arcane, mysterious way that we mere mortals shelling out 100+ bucks to see must not be sufficiently aware to understand. It has aspects that look amazing -- the giant LED screens, the pop up runway that hurtles Spidey across the theatre. But so what? Once more, that's Tsypin's work, not hers. He's giving us billboard-scaled imagery, while she's giving us sparklers. I guess that's visionary, but at a certain point, it's not. It's just artistic masturbation.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 8:42pm

Well at least Julie won't be alone in being scrutinized for deviating too much from canon by the Spiderman fanboys now (In all honesty, since movies are more affordable and accessible than a Broadway stage musical, Marc Webb is going to feel the most wrath if this movie is terrible):
http://io9.com/5706072/spider+man-reboot-adds-peter-parkers-parents-and-a-new-villain-to-the-mix

[Papacusco]

Posted: 12/4/10 at 11:11pm

I am seeing it on Sunday matinee Whats the running time of the show now ?? thanks