Holiday Hits and Misses: A Review of Susan Boyle’s I Dreamed a Dream and Nine

Posted on December 29th, 2009 under Media Review

Pop culture has given us another object lesson this year in the form of an astronomical success and an anticlimactic flop.  I’m talking about Susan Boyle’s runaway success with the release of her first album, I Dreamed a Dream and the lavish holiday musical dud Nine.

Nine had all the trimmings of a Las Vegas Christmas extravaganza with all the rhinestone studded bells and whistles.  Whatever else can be said about this film, it wasn’t lacking in talent.  Daniel Day-Lewis, Penélope Cruz, Judy Dench, Kate Hudson, Sophia Loren.  These movie legends proved that quality doesn’t come with quantity or even proximity.  Push a bunch of stars on stage in expensive costumes, and you have, well, a bunch of stars on stage in expensive costumes.  You can’t take a fashion show and expect a story to evolve to fill in the space between the acts.  The weak story collapses before your very eyes under the boas, sequins and tiaras.

Just to be clear, the movie does have a plot.  The film stalks a famous director as he works on his next lavish undertaking.  The world idolizes him.  His talent, reputation and mystic make him the ultimate sexual conquest for the film’s many leading ladies, his suffering marriage notwithstanding.  A restless celebrity, a deteriorating marriage and a profusion of alluring women set against the romantic Italian coast.  His professional career and his personal life slide in and out of each other as he tries to find himself, whatever that means.  I think you get the picture.

“Flashy” doesn’t necessarily translate “bad.”  But, you take a story pinned together with strings of mesmerizing choreography and sex, you’ve still only got a more grown up version of Fantasia meets Entertainment Tonight.  Where’s the beef?

Read more…

Traveling Mercies, Part II

Posted on December 22nd, 2009 under Travel

Speaking French in France would have been helpful.   We accidentally bought toothbrushes and gum medication instead of toothpaste.   After Amanda and I left the hostel in the morning, we ended up at Charles de Gaul Etienne which we soon realized was not the same thing as Charles de Gaul airport.  No worries.  We had somehow ended up at one of the drop-off points for the airport shuttle, which we happily boarded.  Of course, it couldn’t be that easy.  After five minutes on the shuttle, Amanda got a bad feeling.  True enough, we were on our way to the Orly airport not Charles de Gaul!

By this point, the comfortable window of time before our flight was starting to shrink.  We flight was scheduled to leave in two hours and we were still in the middle of Paris, standing by the Arc de Triumph were we had exited the subway the first time.  We raced back to the subway cursing ourselves for not realizing you couldn’t fit an airport in a city.

Read more…

Traveling Mercies, Part I

Posted on December 22nd, 2009 under Travel

After two delayed flights, two cancelled flights and one exciting, serendipitous night in Paris, I am now happily back at home in Maryland.  The trip started uneventfully in the wee hours of Saturday morning.  I boarded an airport shuttle at 5:15 in the morning in St. Andrews for a sleepy ride into Edinburgh.  I got comfortable, because, for some strange reason, I’d decided to stay up late enjoying those last few hours with friends before saying goodbye for Christmas.  After all, I’d have the whole transatlantic flight to catch up on lost shuteye.  Yeah Right.

My traveling buddy Amanda and I made it onto our flight in Edinburgh, with only one minor hitch, a hitch that ended up making a world of a different 48 hours later.  Amanda had some trouble getting her boarding pass to print.  Another boarding pass was printed for her by one of the receptionists.  We didn’t know it then, but the receptionist had made an error on the boarding pass that would mean another line to stand in and eventually our return to the United States by Sunday evening not Christmas Eve.

As soon as with touched down in Paris, Amanda and I took off running through the airport to catch our next (cancelled) flight.  Somehow the cancellation took everyone by surprise, including the airport staff.  When I finally reached the top of the first queue, I got up to the desk and handed the receptionist my boarding pass. She informed me that this plane had already left.  If it had left, I would have been on it. No, sadly this plane was not going anywhere.  Thus began a long day of standing in one line and then another.  Some seven hours later Amanda and I were still standing in the airport.

Read more…