by Christina Waters | Oct 12, 2014 | Home |
Director David Fincher has done some competent, stylish B movies in the past, e.g. Zodiac, The Social Network, and I guess you could call his latest, Gone Girl, a competent, stylish B movie.
I went to see the film because as a writer I was curious about the plotting of the original story. And I came away impressed with the intricate, he says/she/says twists and turns of this lurid domestic saga. I also came away with the sobering lesson that it doesn’t matter how smart your story is, if you don’t deliver an ending that satisfies all of your plotline teasing, your reader (or in this case, viewer) will come away feeling unsatisfied and ripped off.
First off, could anyone tell me why Ben Affleck is allowed in front of a camera? Listless and wooden, he is impossible to like. Yes, I know. His character was supposed to be questionable. Is he telling us the truth when he says he doesn’t know where his wife is? Did he kill her? Is he hiding some huge horrible secret? Maybe Affleck is fine for that character — typecast even. But he is almost unwatchable.
I was curious to see what the fuss was about—the book by Gillian Flynn is such a huge hit.
Okay we meet the couple and their first five years together, mostly in flashbacks told by the wife’s diary. Amy and Nick Dunne have been a dream couple, until (more…)
by Christina Waters | Sep 4, 2014 | Home |
Joan Rivers – wow – how many times did I use her “Can we talk?” line when I was a smart aleck kid?
A brilliant, genuinely funny trailblazer who definitely did it her way. Admit it, the world is a less edgy, less honest place without Joan’s witchy tongue and spot-on zingers. Such brazen chutzpah! Such cheek! What a woman!
Thanks for the laughs!
by Christina Waters | Sep 3, 2014 | Art, Home |
Would you travel 7000 miles to watch a stage full of pink and white mice singing the Wedding March from Lohengrin?
Well I did, and my reward—in addition to hearing sumptuous music performed in an acoustically perfect hall—was watching the reigning Lohengrin underscoring his stardom.
Gifted with a perfect stage name, Klaus Florian Vogt also has the looks and the voice to go with it. I’d been told that I was in for a treat by several of Vogt’s global devotées, but I was not prepared for the tenor’s ravishing opening notes as the mythic knight who arrives in time to save a medieval town from its political rivals.
The voice began high in the tenor register, in a long shimmering phrase and simply spun outward into the entire hall, celestial and pure. Unearthly in fact. Vogt’s voice is lieder light, and yet it has a gorgeous crystalline tone and relentless power. His voice stayed strong and clear to the very end, where in Hans Neuenfels’ brilliant production, Lohengrin rejects human society and moves on to find a better world.
Looking and sounding exactly as a Wagnerian hero should, the blonde, rockstar handsome Vogt (more…)
by Christina Waters | Aug 13, 2014 | Art |
I own two of the sensational, one-of-a-kind necklaces made by Dale Levy. From unique glass beads made on the Murano, near Venice, this designer crafts wearable art so luscious you will probably do as I did last time she was in town. Want some. Buy some.
Stop by Levy’s showcase at 838 Walnut Avenue on Sunday, Aug. 17 between 2 and 4:30pm. You’ll love seeing the work. Bring money!
