Literally Speaking

I just returned from Edward Scissorhands, the ballet running at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Yes: Edward Scissorhands is now a ballet. Our human potential has been reached. Tim Burton may not know this, but just about every movie he conceptualized/directed is a ballet waiting to happen. Will someone be choreographing The Corpse Bride next? I sure hope so. Edward Scissorhands was a tender, quirky dance that (I’ll own) made me laugh and cry.

I’m mean, when that heartbroken, old lady hobbled on stage clutching a pair of scissors…oh oh… it was just hit that spot. The one embedded deep underneath the space between my top left rib and my bra wire.

Two things that I wish were different: The difficulty of the ballet (several moments were only inches away from typical Broadway dancing) and Jim’s fate. As everyone knows, Jim dies in the movie. He should have died in the ballet. That’s a very important part. And the build-up needed for his well-deserved stabbing would have added even more to the emotional punch at the end.

The sets? Amazing. Kim? Amazing. Edward? Amazing.

I really enjoyed the dance that fleshes out this town’s nauseating perfection at the beginning. I actually watched the movie last night to get in the mood, and I was telling my roommate that the town reminded me of my father’s hometown. Can’t you picture it? Two decades behind, flat, immaculate and rather like living on a miniature golf course. The townsfolk themselves reminded me of the old Leave it to Beaver family with clocks for hearts. The irony of this, of course, is that Edward is more humanistic than everyone else despite being an invention among the “natural beings.” Therefore, his leather-clad, gothic outfit is less disturbing than the white capris and pastel button-downs that dominate and seems to say: Really folks. It’s your heart that matters.

For those who don’t know of the plot at all, allow me to give you a brief rundown. Edward was invented in the mansion overlooking the Spectre-esque town, but wasn’t finished. His inventor died before he could give Edward hands and he was left with a bunch of scissors protruding from his wrists. One day Peg, the Avon lady, arrives at the mansion and finds Edward desolate and scared. She takes him home where he is an instant sensation. While he has difficulty fitting in, his talents at shearing hedges, dogs and hair encourage the town to accept him. Edward falls in love with Peg’s daughter Kim, but her boyfriend Jim, sensing Edwards affections, frames him in a burglary. With the entire town turned against him, Edward runs back to his mansion. Kim follows, knowing that Jim has ruined Edward’s chances of happiness. Unfortunately, Jim follows her, and cuts into a rather tender scene by trying to kill Edward. Of course, as Edward has scissors for hands, he won rather easily, but now with Jim dead, Kim had to leave him behind.

The story itself is a creative masterpiece that gives more edge to the Beauty and the Beast story. But while I wouldn’t recommend going to Beauty and the Beast on stage, it works in magnificent ways with Edward.

Mostly because Beauty and the Beast is a musical and Edward Scissorhands doesn’t have any of that “Producers” shit going on.

The dancer who played Edward fortunately recognized that while he wasn’t Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp was Edward Scissorhands, and didn’t screw up the character all of us knew and loved. He even turned his body in the same way and kept that particular look (you know the one) on his face so that all of us clearly understood the Johnnyness of Edward, despite the pirouettes.

I’m bothering with this review because it has potential. As said, the technicality of the dancing was lacking and the deviation from the script at the end was anti-climactic. That it managed to still touch everyone in the audience (including yours truly, whom we all know is not one to get emotional) despite those two things makes its future very exciting.

We can only hope the director will come across this review and make the necessary changes.

In the meantime, if you can see it, you only have one day left. If you can’t see it, sit and imagine it with the soundtrack. Shhh… no laughing: I’m serious.

and so romantically inclined, that many of a Shakespearean stereotype is true. Wherefore art though Romeo?

So I watched Amelie last night. Amelie and Nino can put me in a rather joyful and flighty mood, but I ache when I wake up the next morning to strap on my hardhat. Especially now, young and alone, such a story makes my oft-admired independence seem murderous. But as I am alive and writing, I must be doing something right.

Apologies. The damage has been done. This post is about love. No, this post is about eternal love. Romantic love. Hollywood and fiction.

In third grade I would lay awake nights thinking of a boy who, in those days, sat in the desk behind mine. I couldn’t tell you our relationship beyond my daydreams (which would frequetly involve a cataclismic earthquake and rescue mission), whether we spoke on a day-to-day basis or looked at each other in the face every once in awhile. The fondest memories I have of him now are entirely fictional, but I remain convinced that had a catagory-9 quake split our third-grade classroom in two, caving in the ceiling and cutting he and I from everyone else’s vision, he would have held my hand.

Third-grade love was a magical time for me. Really, love was magic. Fairies and talking deer and kisses that caused fireworks. Starring in a Disney movie.

After that I wised up by reading some Judy Blume and growing some breasts. Thereafter love was work. Sex education didn’t throw me off as much as the discovery that there really aren’t any fireworks involved in kissing. The awe of love’s physicality diminsished and instead came a longing for a real steamy mental connection. High school daydreams were less erotic than my third grade ones, with who-ever Charming and I having an insightful, intellectual conversation and looking deep into each other’s eyes.

As you can imagine, in high school I was a total nerd. All intellectual and shit.

Good news: I’m still a total nerd! But as reality has increased in its eroticism, daydreams have ceased. All but my lustful longings for dark chocolate that is. Love has become this complex question of timing: Is love good enough for me? Am I good enough for love? And that bastard didn’t clip his fingernails… ouch.

More good news: love isn’t required for physical romps! It certainly heightens the experience though, and truthfully, I’ve concluded that physicality without the mentality is a waste of my time and that I’m better off staying at home writing blog posts.

So who is that good looking devil in bed with me? Why, that would be my laptop. Your words please. 

a) The Old Testament plagues are on the news and no one cares.

b) Children throw their hamsters out the window.

c) Chocolate has lost its flavor, and when you look at the night sky with binoculars, you see gigantic green vultures and Darth Vadar.

d) Janet texts “Vote” to the American Idol hot-line. Damn you Phil.

This just in: apparently, college students consume dangerous amounts of alcohol and energy boosters.

Thank you CW11. I really had no idea.