Unpopular Opinions You Hold- Page 9

[jennamajig]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 9:22am

I also cannot abide by "Family Guy," at all. And I am a "Simpsons" and "Futurama" addict.

Me too! And I dated a guy for two long years that was obsessed with Family Guy (Seth MacFarlane is too smug for his own good). The Simpsons was always and for me, will always be a better show.

Though I love 30 Rock, I hate The Office. Don't think it is funny at all and I get told all the time, but you like 30 Rock, you have to like The Office. Um, no. Don't have to like anything :).

But back to theater: Despite sound fantastic music in it, I overall found Follies to be very meh.

[Zeitoujo]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 9:30am

Aaron Tveit is the best part about Next to Normal.

Alice Ripley's performance is overrated in Next to Normal.

Mary Testa annoyed me in Guys & Dolls.

[metropolis10111]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 10:18am

I don't think Cheyenne Jackson is all that. He has good thighs but everything else can go....his eyes creep me out

[Pianolin717]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 10:57am

I am still in love with the current revival of West Side Story.

[defyingravity11]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 11:23am

For me, Billy Elliot is the most disappointing musical of the season (and I saw all of them). The show didn?t make sense till I saw the movie. The book just strung a bunch of flashy production numbers together. The choreography was pretty, but it rarely made sense. The first half hour could have been eliminated. I was more invested in a 13 year old making his Broadway debut than any character in the show.

[Renart]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 12:46pm

I liked the film versions of Rent and Phantom of the Opera a lot. Fosse's great but I didn't like the film version of Cabaret. It's like it's in an alternate universe from the stage show (which I really liked).

Cry-Baby wasn't that bad. It wasn't great but there are many worse shows that have lasted longer.

Sondheim is not overrated but he's also not God. His early 70's stuff is a big snoozefest (Company, A Little Night Music, Follies). I dislike it when his stuff is described as "sophisticated." It innoculates them from any criticism. "Well, you're just not sophisticated enough to understand it." No, I understand it just fine. But it still sucks.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 3:10pm

Janice, I know we're not supposed to criticize, but don't you think the message of Shrek is a little hypocritical? The message seems to be that - - Everyone deserves the chance to feel special and beautiful, no matter how they look...unless, of course, they're "shorties." Then they're probably bound to become tyrannical rulers. It just perpetuates the Napoleonic stereotype. Everyone is virtuous except the little dude.

I saw it as Farquaad couldn't learn to be proud of himself the way he was and appreciate the advantages of being short or learn to laugh at himself. He was so self-conscious about being short that he blamed it on his father and became an obsessive perfectionist and really emotionally stunted-- which, had he been taught when he was younger that different isn't always bad, might have never happened.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 3:15pm

I think Shrek undermines its own message by having Fiona turn ugly, personally. It'd be more powerful if she'd stayed gorgeous yet chosen Shrek anyway.

Just my opinion, though.

[FMills]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 5:07pm

But she DIDN'T turn ugly at the end. She turned into an ogre. Which, she learned, is a beautiful thing to be. She embraced her own freakishness, and was able to find love by doing so.

Seems like YOU missed the message.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 5:23pm

Also, Fiona was more comfortable being an ogre than a dainty human princess, but she was embarrassed of being an ogre and hid it away from everyone. When she got together with Shrek, the curse of living a painful double life was broken, but she transformed into her true self permanently rather than be stuck in the forced princessy facade she'd been trying to keep up.

I never thought I'd be getting into a debate over SHREK, of all things!

[Rudy2]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 5:26pm

FMills, I think the problem is simply the message itself.

For my part, I think that using shortness of one character to make him a comical aspect of the show demonstrates the cleer lack of thought, lack of inclusion, in short people to the virtuousness imparted on other characters. "Shrek," is hardly the first slice of entertainment to do it, but I can only imagine that children take away something negative about short folks from it.

[FMills]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 5:43pm

While I see your point, there is also a tiny elf, a dwarf, and several children in the cast, and none of them are made fun of because of their height.

Farquaad is ridiculed not because he's short, but because he's an evil and murderous zealot who is in denial about being short. His problem is that he refuses to ACCEPT his shortness as a badge of honor, and instead tries to hide it - quite literally in a couple places (those silver leg extensions on the horse?) His whole goal is to wipe out everything weird and physically imperfect, though he himself is the son of a dwarf.

Yes, there are short jokes, and I guess that intellectually it goes against the message of the show, but it didn't bother me. Not because short jokes are less offensive than, say, fat jokes, but because they were at the expense of the VILLAIN. Double standard? Perhaps. But if he had just embraced his stature, and accepted everyone else's, then nobody would be making fun of him.

[Pianolin717]

Posted: 5/19/09 at 12:18am

After seeing him in WSS and hearing the revival recording, I have realized that I am in love with Matt Cavenaugh's voice.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 5/19/09 at 12:20am

Aaron Tveit sings well in N2N...and does a good job of playing (Spoiler!) a stoic, emotionless ghost. (End Spoiler)

That's about it. Totally justified in being snubbed this year.
Updated On: 7/10/09 at 12:20 AM

[Rudy2]

Posted: 5/19/09 at 1:38am

FMills, I just want to say that I disagree as to your final point, simply from life experience - of all the short people I have known, friendly and mean and in-between, they have nearly all been made fun of - and often meanly, not just innocent, unintentional stuff - for being short.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, either, but one lyric finds Fiona singing - while making an empassioned plea to be rescued from the prison of her lair - about the abomination that is "seven shorties," a reference to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

So yeah, definitely, double-standard. All should feel wonderful about themselves except for shorties. Great message for kids.

But this is the unpopular opinions board.

Here's another unpopular opinion - Sutton Foster has all the grace, charm and charisma of a 13 year-old boy. She also has a strong voice but nothing to write home about. It absolutely perplexes me that she has such diehard supporters.

[Tom1071]

Posted: 5/19/09 at 12:17pm

I despise Seth Rudetsky and do not find him funny at all...and he uses the word 'Anyhoo' way too much.

Raul Esparza is light years beyond overrated. If I never have to witness another one of his hollow, one-note performances again, it will be too soon.

[chenothegood]

Posted: 5/19/09 at 1:27pm

I am sure that these opinions are not particularly unpopular with the people on this board but with most people my age (20) and my friends....

I love musicals!! When people ask me my favorite type of music and i say musical theatre people are just like... oh ummm ok? Like they have no idea how to react to that at all!
I dont like listening to the "popular" music of today

And also my huge love of Judy Garland! Barely anyone that i know even knows who she is let alone can respect the massive amounts of talent she had! It makes me sad that people dont know about the talents of the "yester-years" and for that people always tell me i was born into the wrong generation!

[louderthanwords870]

Posted: 5/19/09 at 6:57pm

- As much as I liked Billy Elliot when I saw it in London, I think it's horrendously overrated. I think it's good, but not great.

- I have mixed views on the Tony Awards. I think that if you win a Tony, it's a huge honor, but if you lose or aren't nominated, that doesn't mean anything awful (unless there was a general consensus that the show was indeed awful). Take The Seagull - I missed it, unfortunately, but I heard it was excellent and Kristin Scott Thomas fantastic. But did that garner a Tony nomination this season? Not a one.

- I enjoyed the most recent revival of Les Miserables. I had heard that it was "hacked to pieces," but I loved it.

- I do love Raul Esparza, and I think Company deserved to win Best Revival of a Musical in 2007.

And... that's all for now.

[Tateh]

Posted: 5/21/09 at 5:49am

Didn´t like "Glee" at all, though Lea Michele is a great singer I think Cory Monteith can`t really sing

[lightinthepizza2]

Posted: 5/21/09 at 10:41am

I LOVED Roundabout's Hedda Gabler.

[TulitaPepsi]

Posted: 5/21/09 at 1:35pm

Barbara Cook has a lovely voice whicn I find completely uninteresting.

Audra McDonald is a far better actress than she is a singer. She tends to yelp.

Boyd Gaines is good, but not multiple Tony-award winning good.

Most of the time, Dorothy Loudon is unendurbable. Sledghammer hammy and totally unfunny. Vodka is sheer hell.
That said, her Mrs. Lovett is second only to Angelas, and she's hysterical in her chats with Johnny Carson on the old TONIGHT show.

[SharpCookies]

Posted: 5/24/09 at 10:38pm

From what I've heard and seen on YouTube (whenever I go to New York again I plan on seeing it) I like Shrek: The Musical.

[AndAllThatJazz22]

Posted: 5/24/09 at 10:40pm

I don't think the [tos] show is funny.

Updated On: 5/24/09 at 10:40 PM

[roquat]

Posted: 5/25/09 at 2:29pm

You can add me to the "Billy Elliot" bashers (I guess that's not an "unpopular" opinion any more). All the songs are three times too long; I was never more bored in my life.

Getting back to unpopular--I find most "jukebox musicals" incredibly entertaining, both to watch and to perform in. Same thing with musicals that come off as jukebox musicals but which are really about a decade of music (GREASE, HAIR, DREAMGIRLS, WEDDING SINGER.)

[MichaelUK92]

Posted: 5/25/09 at 3:04pm

I think Billy Elliot is a terrible production. I didn't like it to start with, and now people are making a fuss about it, it's making it more unattractive. I hate how it's passing off other musical which are of much more value.