You know what I suck at?  Updating this here blog.  Yeah, I do.  No, really.  It's pathetic.  Improvements in future.

However, the Ransom review is up, and I'm one story closer to making it through my morass of short stories!

The de Palma/Finley review is up!  No, really.  I swear, it is.  I did it!  It seems like every movie I watch sees its review take longer and longer in the processing.  I'll try to improve.

Back to short story land, and you know what that means... it means I can do them faster and feel more like I'm accomplishing something.  Go me!

Yeah, so it's been a little while since any reviews have gone up.  This is because I pulled some ninjary and, instead of reading the next short story in the Greenberg compilation, I sneaked in a viewing of the de Palma/Finley film.  I needed the break from all the mediocrity.  That review should, theoretically, be up tomorrow--in the meantime, feel free to continue to think I am the world's biggest slacker.  I pretty much am.

You know what entertains me even more than dancing Danish monkeys in yellow bikinis?

Industry scandal.

Yes, I'm a bit of a controversy whore, at least when it comes to things I find interesting (feuds between people I don't know or in, say, most of politics or the movie industry just make me yawn). And what's more fun than a musical theatre scandal involving one composer biting on another's "turf"?

As everyone (meaning me and the other ten people who care, plus probably most of Britain) knows, Andrew Lloyd Webber is working on a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, supposedly tentatively titled The Phantom of Manhattan and based on the Frederick Forsyth novel of the same name. However, my powers of internet research have today uncovered that respected German composer Peer Raben, who has a list of musicals and movie music credits almost as impressive as Webber's (though less well known in the U.S.) has ALREADY written one. No, really. It's called The Phantom of Paris and was completed shortly before his death last January (as far as I can tell, it bears no relation to the Gwenith M. Vehlow novel with the same title). A Portuguese theatre company is even now putting it on, and states that it has plans to take it all the way up to London's West End (there to, I surmise, thumb their noses at Webber and laugh themselves silly).

I even saw this excellently surreal trailer for the production (sorry, folks, but it's in German, as is the show... nevertheless, check it out to hear a snatch or two of the music and giggle at the chubbytastic Raoul).

Webber so far has no comment.

Is this not fabulous? I imagine even if Webber is annoyed, there is A) pretty much nothing he can do about it, and B) little chance his legions of fans won't make his version just as successful if not more so. But still, my evil little mind thinks it's hilarious to posit how cranky he might be over the whole thing. Can you guys imagine his little old self jumping up and down in a fit of pique with me? It's great.

I must find a soundtrack to this show the instant it is produced.

Life is a complicated thing that likes to keep me inordinately busy.  Despite that and surmounting all odds, the Hoch review is now up.

Aren't you proud of me?  No no, just throw money.

More to come, as always.  I'll try to maybe hit a movie this weekend.

You would think this would go faster, with all short stories, but it does not, let me tell you.  These short stories have so far been seriously brutal, kind of a chore just to finish much less write about.  I'm on it, and will probably bust off another review tomorrow or the next day, but for the moment... just know that I'm trying, people, I promise I'm trying.

And beating my head on the wall every now and then.

First of all, I need to stop accidentally typing 07 on everything.  Stupid new year confusing my hardwired little brain.

Second of all, the Slesar review is up.  I would be proud of myself, except the story has left me sad and without faith in literature.  Hopefully the next one will be better, and I will cry less.

(Also, it's 60 degrees in New York City in January!  I bring the spring with me!)

The Wellen review is finally up.  Huzzah, go me, prosit, etc.  It would have been up faster, except that I kept trying to fall asleep every time I started work on it.  It was like a soporific drug.  It's easy to write reviews on good material, and easier on bad, but mediocre material?  It feels like slogging through snow.

On to the next short story, which hopefully will not activate my yawn sensors quite so much.