CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON - THE MUSICAL (REVIEW)

Jason and I went to Universal Studios Hollywood tonight to see the all-new CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON: THE MUSICAL. As I posted last week, the early reviews haven't been good.

When I heard about this show last year, I was honestly quite intrigued, and a little bit excited. I love old monster movies, I love rock musicals, and I love campy comedy. It sounded like a dream combo, and a cool new idea for a theme-park show. But on each one of those fronts, Creature never quite hits the mark -- even though it seems to be lobbing everything at the broad side of a barn at every turn.

It's far too easy to simply repeat the buzz that the show is awful. Don't get me wrong -- it is an absolutely tuneless, unfunny mess -- but I'm so flabbergasted at just how bad it was, that I'm compelled to dig a bit deeper. How does a big show like this -- with an obviously decent budget, a talented cast, and staged in a major destination -- fail to entertain on pretty much any level whatsoever?

( Click for Full Review )

SOUR

Probably one of the most innovative, interesting, adorable, creative, and sweetly moving music videos I've seen in a very long time, by the Japanese band Sour.

The cast were selected from the actual Sour fan base, from many countries around the world -- and every person and scene was filmed entirely via webcam. It gets more and more clever as it goes on, and left me with a blissed-out smile, swooning for more.

In the words of my pal Mike mkbrister, "It's like an internet magic show!"

CHESS IN CONCERT

It's been well-documented in my blog that I'm obsessed with Chess (the musical, not the game), so naturally I was excited to see the new concert version, produced last year at Royal Albert Hall in London, aired on PBS last month, and now available on CD & DVD (and iTunes).

It's quite possibly the best version of the show I've seen -- what hasn't worked in every version since the definitive concept album is fixed here, to breathtaking effect.

For instance -- I'm soooooo not a Josh Groban fan. In fact, I find his records to be the definition of boring. But he turns in a really impassioned, precise, note-perfect performance of Anatoly, both vocally and emotionally.

Well worth a purchase if you're a fan -- and if you haven't seen the show, it's a great place to start.