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You'll never give up, never give up, never give up that ship
Last night I dreamed I discovered a previously unknown and probably nonexistent biography of Ralph Richardson. I also dreamed my front teeth fell out like popsicle sticks. One of these dreams was better than the other.
This afternoon![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel and I met sairaali and M. at the A.R.T. for The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville, starring Mandy Patinkin and Taylor Mac. It was lovely. It's more or less what it sounds like: a relationship after the end of the world, described and explored strictly through gesture, mime, and music. Songs utilized include a post-apocalyptic update of Eddie Lawrence's "Old Philosopher," the best cover I have ever heard of the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York," and a subversively straight reading of "Another National Anthem" from Assassins. I grew up on Patinkin's singing (and Spanish accent), but I had never seen him in person before; he plays the older, dourer, more damaged of the pair, a tattered hermit who may or may not have been born in a trunk, but is living ferally in one when Mac's impish baggy-pantser rows a junk-cluttered lifeboat up to his shore. Mac turns out to remind me sharply of Donald O'Connor circa Singin' in the Rain, at least with a bowler hat on, a sprightly knack for physical comedy, and a mercurial talent for extracting everything from a picnic supper to a fifth of gin from the remote regions of judy's trousers. I have discovered that I am no longer the target audience for strobe lights—I didn't get a migraine, but I watched the storm sequences with one hand over my eyes. Eighty minutes with no intermission. If you can snag the tickets, it's worth your time.
So I have this relationship with the film of Stargate (1994), where I know it's a total brain-optional chariots-of-the-gods B-picture with almost certainly a white savior problem and in the days when I lived in a house with a television, I watched it every time it came around, because there are very few movies where a dork with a knowledge of dead languages saves the day. (To this day, even after Crash (1996), Secretary (2002), and Age of Ultron (2015), I am always faintly surprised when James Spader is not playing a sweet-natured nerd. Also, Jaye Davidson as Ra is ridiculously beautiful, even if the bass reverb voice processing is kind of unnecessary.) I knew about the television sequel and its multiple spinoffs; I never paid any attention to them because I couldn't see the point. People who watch more genre television than I do: are any of them any good? This question brought to you by vague curiosity upon realizing I lived through an entire sci-fi franchise without interacting with it almost at all. I mean, I've only seen the pilot of Farscape, but I've seen it.
This afternoon
derspatchel and I met sairaali and M. at the A.R.T. for The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville, starring Mandy Patinkin and Taylor Mac. It was lovely. It's more or less what it sounds like: a relationship after the end of the world, described and explored strictly through gesture, mime, and music. Songs utilized include a post-apocalyptic update of Eddie Lawrence's "Old Philosopher," the best cover I have ever heard of the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York," and a subversively straight reading of "Another National Anthem" from Assassins. I grew up on Patinkin's singing (and Spanish accent), but I had never seen him in person before; he plays the older, dourer, more damaged of the pair, a tattered hermit who may or may not have been born in a trunk, but is living ferally in one when Mac's impish baggy-pantser rows a junk-cluttered lifeboat up to his shore. Mac turns out to remind me sharply of Donald O'Connor circa Singin' in the Rain, at least with a bowler hat on, a sprightly knack for physical comedy, and a mercurial talent for extracting everything from a picnic supper to a fifth of gin from the remote regions of judy's trousers. I have discovered that I am no longer the target audience for strobe lights—I didn't get a migraine, but I watched the storm sequences with one hand over my eyes. Eighty minutes with no intermission. If you can snag the tickets, it's worth your time. So I have this relationship with the film of Stargate (1994), where I know it's a total brain-optional chariots-of-the-gods B-picture with almost certainly a white savior problem and in the days when I lived in a house with a television, I watched it every time it came around, because there are very few movies where a dork with a knowledge of dead languages saves the day. (To this day, even after Crash (1996), Secretary (2002), and Age of Ultron (2015), I am always faintly surprised when James Spader is not playing a sweet-natured nerd. Also, Jaye Davidson as Ra is ridiculously beautiful, even if the bass reverb voice processing is kind of unnecessary.) I knew about the television sequel and its multiple spinoffs; I never paid any attention to them because I couldn't see the point. People who watch more genre television than I do: are any of them any good? This question brought to you by vague curiosity upon realizing I lived through an entire sci-fi franchise without interacting with it almost at all. I mean, I've only seen the pilot of Farscape, but I've seen it.
no subject
Robert Carlyle is part of the reason this post happened. Robert Picardo is one of the others. I had somehow managed to miss that the combined Stargate universe ran for seventeen years in its various incarnations. On the one hand that doesn't make it much of an outlier, because the TV shows I haven't seen far outnumber the ones I have; on the other, I don't know, it felt like it couldn't hurt to check.
It also happens to have my favorite special effect sequence of all time.
That is the sort of statement calculated to get my attention.
So, I would say that it's worth watching a few episodes of SG-1 and seeing if it catches your fancy. I would not say that it's a must watch.
I'm not sure I have the time right now to catch up on fourteen years of television anyway! But I will see what I can find.
Thank you!