Queen of the Night

So, it's been a little while since my last post--there have been a number of higher priority matters, like grad school and being in Madama Butterfly. Nevertheless, this little blog of mine (I'm gonna let it shine?) has not been entirely forgotten; I'll be posting new content here soon enough.

In the meantime, however, this here short story was my entry for the second Machine of Death anthology. It didn't get picked, but hey--they can only use about 30 stories, and mine was one of almost 2,000 entries. I believe "healthy competition" is something of an understatement in this case.

A number of you have already read this, I know. Well, you poor bastards will just have to wait until I think of something new to write. It shouldn't be long, though; I just saw the new Three Musketeers and holy crap there's so much material I don't even know where to begin.

Anyway. Enjoy!

QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

Charlie Hyland

Occasionally, Anna had to remind herself that a half-fulfilled dream was better than nothing at all. You're onstage in a production at the Metropolitan Opera, she would think. So many singers your age would kill to be where you are right now. But no matter how many times she reassured herself, she would always come back to one disheartening fact:

She wasn't singing.

Anna Banks, twenty-nine year old coloratura soprano, was on a glorified death-watch for a perfectly healthy – if borderline psychotic – diva. Of course, the technical term for her position was “understudy,” but the reality of the situation was far more macabre.

It had all started with the machine, the Thanatomatic X-500: just a pin-prick and a blood sample, and anyone in the world could find out how they were going to die. To say that the machine changed the world would be an understatement – people had been throwing around the term “culture of death” for years, but the sudden advent of the machine made the idea much more literal. The X-500 was a cold, metal reminder of human mortality, and many people compensated for their own fears by becoming fascinated with the deaths of others.

Almost overnight, a whole new branch of reality television sprang into existence, documenting the daily lives of people with unusual death predictions. Shows like She's On Fire! (about a Latino drag queen who would die of SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION) and Polar Opposites (about a squabbling married couple destined to be MAULED BY A POLAR BEAR) became huge successes, with people from all across the country tuning in every week to see whether or not these new celebrities would meet their maker on national television. Every network that wanted to boost its ratings had a machine-related show, with clothing and product lines to match – and people ate it up.

In short, death had never been more profitable.

Anna would never forget the day that she had taken the test for the first time. She had been curious, of course, and even strangely excited – but the thing she remembered most was the feeling of vague dread that had hung in the air. Then came the pin-prick on her fingertip, the whirring of the machine, and finally, the card. The X-500 always spat the card out face down, so all you could see at first was the faint green stamp on the back that read “Made from 100% recycled materials.” That part had somehow been the hardest for Anna – she was about to find out how she would spend her final moments on Earth, and the machine seemed to be trying to soften the blow by saying, “That CAR ACCIDENT is going to be horrific, but at least you're reducing the size of your carbon footprint.” Anna had been tempted to walk away right then and there and forget about the whole thing, but her curiosity got the better of her. She had come this far; she just had to know. She took the card, turned it over in her hands, and saw her death sentence spelled out in rigid capital letters: DROWNING.

Anna cried herself to sleep that night and for several nights afterward, and her dreams were of dark water and soundless screams. One day, she knew, she would die in pain and terror, with her lungs burning and her vision fading and the water closing in over her head. There was nothing she could do to stop it. The machine had introduced despair into Anna's life, and she would never be quite the same.

The rest of the world, however, remained fascinated with the X-500. The frenzy surrounding the so-called “machine of death” was in full swing when Rosalinda Ericson first saw her death card. Rosalinda was a soprano – an aging one, past her vocal and physical prime, but a soprano nonetheless – who had achieved a certain degree of notoriety in her youth for her terrifying rendition of the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute. The passage of time had taken its toll on her, however, and the introduction of high-definition video broadcasts to the world of opera had already prompted many major opera houses to start hiring younger, prettier stars.

This only exacerbated Rosalinda's already prickly demeanor, and she soon became unbearable to work with. Directors hated her, other singers avoided her, and a few stagehands even began to actively sabotage her during performance. Finally, after a spectacular meltdown during a performance of Die Fledermaus at the Washington National Opera, her job offers began to dry up entirely. Faced with a dying career and a rapidly dwindling bank account, Rosalinda retreated from the public eye, wormed her way into the bed of a twice-divorced patron of the arts, and watched the musical world move on without her. By the time the X-500 had been tested and released for public use, she was nearing seventy and hadn't sung at a major opera house in over ten years. What did she have to lose? Her career was dead already; she supposed it couldn't hurt to find out how the rest would come to an end.

Her death card, however, contained a spark of hope. As Rosalinda read the words printed on the slip of recycled paper, her eyes began to fill with tears of joy. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore. She would indeed die, as everyone must eventually, but she would die while reliving her glory days: she would die singing the QUEEN OF THE NIGHT.

Rosalinda knew immediately what had to be done. She was accustomed to getting what she wanted by any means necessary – flattery, bribery, threats, and even blackmail, on a few occasions – and years of languishing in obscurity had done little to diminish her capacity for professional ruthlessness. It took nearly two years of making new contacts and rebuilding burned bridges (not to mention several sizable donations of her new husband's money) to arrange it, but she finally found herself in a position to submit herself as a candidate for the Queen of the Night in the Metropolitan Opera's upcoming production of The Magic Flute. She made her pitch at a meeting with the artistic staff and the board of directors, spelling out her proposal in the simplest terms possible:

“Money,” Rosalinda announced in a steely voice. “You need money. As everyone knows, ticket sales have been declining for years, and the average age of members and season-ticket-holders has been going up.” She swept her eyes across the room, judging the reactions of the board members. “Your audience is going to start dying soon, ladies and gentlemen. You need to attract a younger audience as soon as possible, or you will find yourselves in dire financial straits. And that's where I come in.” She smiled. “Put me on that stage next season. If you properly advertise my prediction, the audience will be overflowing with death-watchers.”

“That's a bit morbid, isn't it?” asked a bespectacled man in the back of the room.

Several people nodded in agreement, and Rosalinda snorted with disdain. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, Mr. Greenwood. You need to appeal to a new demographic, and this sort of event will draw in people who've never been to an opera before.” She paused for effect. “This is your chance to make a whole new generation of opera enthusiasts.”

“That's all well and good, Ms. Ericson,” Greenwood replied, “But it's a moot point. We've already offered the role to someone else.”

Rosalinda's eyes narrowed. “To whom?”

“Anna Banks,” a woman said. She was relatively new to the board, and Rosalinda couldn't be bothered to remember her name. “We offered her the role almost a year ago. Twenty-eight years old, beautiful voice, and a capable actress.”

“And a great body,” Greenwood added.

Rosalinda made no attempt to conceal her contempt. “And this would be her Met debut?”

“Yes,” What's-her-name said, “but I don't see what that has to do with—”

“Fire her,” Rosalinda demanded. “Rescind the contract. She's too young and she won't bring you half the publicity that I will. The little tart can have her debut some other time. And besides,” she added, throwing a venomous look at Greenwood, “you don't need to look like a pin-up girl to sing the Queen.”

After a great deal of consideration, the board decided to go along with Rosalinda's proposal. Anna's contract was “re-evaluated” the following week, and she was relegated to the position of the Queen's understudy. To the board, it appeared to be an ideal compromise: they would capitalize on Rosalinda's death card for the ticket sales, and Anna would take over the role in the event of the old diva's untimely demise.

Anna would have preferred to have been fired outright, though she didn't have the heart to walk away from the production entirely. Even if it was only half a dream come true, it was still a step in the right direction. Despite her optimism, though, she couldn't deny that it was humiliating: she had been ready to skyrocket to stardom, but now she had to shadow her own usurper around the stage, ready to take over without missing a beat when the old hag got around to dying. Anna had no idea when her next big break would arrive, to say nothing of whether or not that would fall through as well. All she knew for sure was that she hated Rosalinda Ericson.

As it turned out, however, Rosalinda had been right. The new production opened to sold-out houses and rave reviews, though Rosalinda's own performance garnered fewer accolades than she had hoped. The Times praised her “frightening stage presence and manic energy,” but remarked that her voice was “showing its age” and her technique was “passable but imprecise.” The New Yorker, on the other hand, commented on the “bloodthirsty audience” that “seemed noticeably disappointed every time Ms. Ericson left the stage unscathed.”

The rest of the cast felt much the same way.

“I can't believe the bitch isn't dead yet,” Tom Winchester remarked loudly after the third performance. Tom was singing the role of Papageno, the opera's eccentric bird-catcher, with whom he shared several character traits – most notably, a tendency to say whatever crossed his mind, consequences be damned. It had already caused a number of problems, especially because he never bothered to check whether or not Rosalinda was within earshot.

This was one of those times.

“Excuse me?” Rosalinda emerged from her dressing room, glaring daggers at the offending baritone. She had already removed her crown and let down her hair, but her face was still covered with the Queen's imposing stage makeup.

“You heard me, Rosie.”

“Ms. Ericson,” she replied sharply.

“Fine. Ms. Ericson.” Tom folded his arms. “I was just asking the rest of the cast when they thought you'd bugger off and die.”

“Don't think you can speak to me that way,” Rosalinda snapped. “You will give me the respect I'm due, or so help me God, I'll talk to the board—”

“And then what?” He let out a short laugh. “You act like you're some sort of legend, but you seem to forget that you pissed your career and all your friends away because you were – are – a harpy.”

“I am the reason this production is so successful,” she hissed furiously.

“It's your death card,” Tom sneered. “Not you. The only reason you have this job in the first place is because people are understandably eager to see you die, so maybe you should get on with it and leave the singing to someone remotely competent.”

Rosalinda moved faster than anyone anticipated, striking Tom across the face with a vicious slap. There was a moment of stunned silence before the baritone lunged at her, and only the immediate intervention of Sarastro, the First Armored Man, and the stage manager prevented an all-out brawl. Volleys of profanity were unleashed from both sides, but the two were finally separated, and both of them were assured that any further altercations would result in the immediate termination of their contracts. Needless to say, Tom and Rosalinda stayed far away from each other from that point on. Anna, however, had found an ally in the baritone, and she began to spend much of her time backstage in his company.

“I'm just saying, it could be a hoax,” Tom grumbled. It was the intermission of the seventh performance, and he and Anna had taken refuge in his dressing room to avoid Rosalinda's customary mid-show tantrum. “Who's to say she didn't have it printed up somewhere?”

Anna sighed and took a sip from the straw in her water bottle. “Trust me, I've asked that question already. They had her get tested again before they hired her. There were lawyers present and everything.”

“Well, there goes my plan to publicly discredit her.” Tom sighed. “So we're stuck with her until she kicks the bucket – and for all we know, she could sing the Queen for another ten years before it kills her.”

“If it kills her at all,” Anna reminded him. “It doesn't say HEART ATTACK WHILE SINGING A HIGH C. Just QUEEN OF THE NIGHT.”

“So what else do you think it would be?”

“I dunno.” Anna shrugged. “Isn't 'Queen of the Night' the name of a Whitney Houston song?”

“That seems like a bit of a stretch.” A mischievous grin spread across Tom's face. “I'm thinking more along the lines of a jealous understudy.”

Anna grimaced. “At this rate, I wouldn't rule it out. I've been trying to avoid her whenever possible, but still... I've never had to deal with anyone so difficult.”

“Welcome to show business, kid,” Tom said with a smirk. “Death cards or not, performers are insane. We don't spend our lives pretending to be other people because we're well-adjusted.”

Anna thought for a moment. “Have you ever worked with anyone whose death prediction was performance-related?”

“Not until now, thank God. But I heard about a tenor in Germany whose card read BASSOON. Or whatever the German word for bassoon is.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.” Tom grinned. “And from that day forward, he refused to perform with any orchestra that wouldn't fire its bassoonists first. But other than that... singers tend to die the same ways that everyone else does.” He paused and took a long look at Anna. “You're DROWNING, aren't you.”

The dressing room was silent for several moments.

“Yeah,” she said finally. “How'd you know?”

“I've seen it before,” Tom replied. “You never drink from fountains – always from a cup or a bottle, and always through a straw. Like you're afraid of water.”

“It sounds silly when you put it like that,” Anna said with a faint smile. “And what are you?”

“CLOWN CAR MISHAP,” Tom said. Anna couldn't tell whether or not he was serious.

—

“Good evening and welcome to Master Class on NPR. I'm your host, Jefferson Smythe, and with me tonight is soprano Rosalinda Ericson. Ms. Ericson, welcome to the show.”

“Thank you for inviting me.”

“As most of our listeners already know, you're currently singing the Queen of the Night in a rather controversial production of The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera – one that has gathered an unprecedented amount of attention in the opera community and mainstream media alike.”

“That's correct.”

“And this is due in large part to your death prediction?”

“Much of the publicity has been focused on my card, yes. This is the role that, in all likelihood, will kill me some day.”

“Now, if I remember correctly, you have quite a long history with this opera.”

“Oh, most definitely. I've been singing The Magic Flute for almost forty years now. My first big break was singing the Queen at the Chicago Lyric Opera, and it's been one of my signature roles ever since.”

“Was there anything in particular that drew you to her?”

“Absolutely – the Queen is a figure of power and mystery; she knows exactly how to get what she wants, and she'll stop at nothing to achieve her goals. She's fearless. Ruthless. And beyond that, the music requires an unparalleled degree of technical excellence. Any half-decent lyric soprano can sing Pamina, but it takes someone extraordinary to sing the Queen.”

“As you said a minute ago, this role may well be the death of you. Most people go out of their way to avoid or delay their own predictions, but you actually requested to be hired for this production. Why is that?”

“I couldn't think of a better way to mark my return to the world of opera. I'm incredibly blessed to be singing Flute again.”

“And you even went so far as to replace the singer who had already been hired for the part?”

“That was an unfortunate mix-up, and no one regrets it more than I do. Anna Banks is a lovely young woman, and I'm very happy that she agreed to stay attached to the production as my understudy.”

“I see. Now, a number of people have suggested that your insistence on singing this role is evidence of a death wish—”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Their words, not mine. But there have been some allegations that every performance of this role constitutes an attempted suicide on your part. Would you care to comment?”

“Nothing could be farther from the truth, Jefferson. Every time I get up on that stage, it is an affirmation of life. An act of defiance against the inevitability of fate.”

“An affirmation of life?”

“Yes.”

“And what's your opinion of the ad campaign for this production?”

“It's been very effective so far. Why do you ask?”

“Your death card is featured prominently in all of the opera's promotional material. It hardly seems in keeping with your positive outlook.”

“I'm afraid I had nothing to do with that. You'd have to take that up with the people in charge of publicity.”

“Of course. So do you think you'll survive this run?”

“Well, I have no way of knowing for sure. No one does. But every time I go onstage, I plan on leaving it alive.”

“In that case, why even sing Flute?”

“I'm sorry?”

“If you don't mind me saying, you would be much more sure of leaving the stage alive if you were singing an opera that didn't come with your own personal sword of Damocles attached.”

“And what would you suggest instead?”

“If I remember correctly, Olympia in Les Contes d'Hoffmann was another one of your signature roles...”

“Yes, well. I'm a little old for that now.”

“To be fair, singing the Queen at seventy is no easy task either.”

“I'm sixty-nine. And I manage.”

“Indeed you do. Nine performances down, with the final encore this Saturday. What's next for you?”

“What do you mean?”

“After this run finishes. Will you be singing anywhere else, or will you go back into retirement?”

“Retirement is... no longer an option. This business can be cut-throat and heartbreaking at times, but I would never have gotten as far as I did if I didn't completely and utterly love it. I spent almost thirteen years on the sidelines, and they were the longest years of my life. I don't plan on doing it again.”

“An admirable sentiment. Do you have any performances lined up after Flute finishes?”

“...no.”

“I see.”

“I doubt anyone will hire me until they see that I've survived the Queen.”

“I suppose that's understandable. In any case, that's all the time we have for now. Ms. Ericson, I wish you all the best for your final performance and your future endeavors, and thank you very much for coming on the show.”

“My pleasure.”

—

Tom was waiting in the wings when Anna left the stage, a huge grin on his face.

“Brava,” he said, though he was barely audible over the roar of the crowd. “That was amazing.”

Anna's face was flushed and her heart was racing. Rosalinda had collapsed in the middle of “Der Hölle Rache,” leaving Anna to finish the famous coloratura runs in front of an electrified audience. “I did it,” she murmured. “I finally did it.”

“Don't relax yet; you still have to get into costume and makeup for the finale.” Tom took her by the arm and led her backstage. “How do you feel?”

“Incredible. Like I could take on the world.” Anna paused to catch her breath. “And Rosalinda?”

“Still breathing,” Tom replied, “but just barely. The paramedics were already here when the stagehands carried her into the wings, so they were able to get her to a hospital right away.” He paused. “You were the one who called them, weren't you.”

Anna smiled demurely, but said nothing.

“That's what I thought,” Tom chuckled. “How'd you know?”

“Just a hunch,” Anna said, taking a sip from her water bottle. “That, and the stash of Vicodin and vodka in her dressing room.”

“Jesus.”

“I don't think she ever planned to make it to the final performance. Tonight was her last chance to go out in the blaze of glory that she was looking for.” Anna shrugged. “She would have been a legend, and I couldn't allow that. Not after everything that she put me through. Now she's just a washed-up old psycho – and even if she isn't institutionalized, no one will ever hire her again.”

Tom looked uncomfortable. “Damn, Anna. She's a bitch and all, but that's pretty cold.”

“She brought it on herself,” Anna said stonily. “And I did save her life.”

“Yeah, out of spite. Don't expect her to thank you any time soon.”

“I'd be disappointed if she did.” Anna smiled. “But she can't complain; she got everything she wanted, except for that one little detail at the end.”

“Death isn't exactly a little detail,” Tom said.

“I guess not,” Anna replied calmly. “But I hope she lives a long life anyway.”

Anna began humming to herself on the way back to her dressing room. It was funny how things could change, really: she had spent most of the production telling herself that a half-fulfilled dream was better than nothing at all – but somehow, she doubted that Rosalinda would agree.

Cinema Snark: Captain America

Okay, it's announcement time. This review took me a hella long time for a number of reasons, and the end result is that I'm going to be tweaking the way things work around here.

To make a long story short, it's become a little too easy to forget that this blog isn't a chore. I've saddled myself with a number of rules and regulations on just how I do things here, but that's rather silly. It's not like I'm being held to some journalistic standard of excellence here--it's pretty awesome to have readers and I love you all dearly for being so supportive, but this blog exists primarily for my own amusement and that means that I can basically do whatever the hell I want with it.

And besides, too many rules make things boring. Nobody wants to read something that's boring.

As such: my Cinema Snark posts will continue, but they won't be reviews as such--there are other people who get paid to do that, and who do it much better (and more concisely) than I. Instead, I'll give a quick overall opinion of the movie, and then spend the rest of the time discussing whatever stood out to me. It could be acting, it could be story, or it could be some deep philosophical question that I feel is in some way relevant. Or I could just talk about fluffy kittens for six paragraphs because fuck it.

I mean, it's pretty much what I do anyway, but for some reason I felt the need to say it out loud. Or type it. Whatever.

In any case, I loved Captain America. Straight-up loved it. It's my favorite Marvel Studios movie since the first Iron Man, although there's not a whole lot of viable comparison between the two movies except for the fact that they exist in the same continuity. It's apples and oranges, really, except that the apple is on super-soldier-steroids and the orange has titanium-alloy armor instead of skin. Iron Man was awesome because it was so snarky and self-aware, whereas Captain America is about as straightforward and earnest as a Jimmy Stewart movie.

Seriously. It's like It's A Wonderful Life, but with more Nazis in gimp masks and people getting vaporized. Captain America: The First Avenger is basically your perfect summer blockbuster: it's full of badassery, humor, explosions, and memorable characters. If you haven't seen it yet, you really should.

That being said, the movie isn't without its flaws. My least favorite part is the final scene, mostly because Cap's reaction to suddenly waking up in the 21st century and realizing that everyone he had ever known is probably dead by now is pretty fucking casual. It's also a little odd to see laser pulse weapons in something that's ostensibly a World War II movie, but this is the Marvel Universe we're talking about so I'll give it a pass.

There's one thing that stands out in my mind as making this movie great, though, and it's not the explosions or the fight choreography or the or the witty quips. It's the main character--or rather, it's the fundamental understanding the screenwriters have of who the main character is.

A lot of people see Captain America as nothing more than a mouthpiece for jingoistic propaganda (and sometimes he is), but when you're not dealing with '50s-era impostors or Ultimate Marvel's Asshole!Cap, you begin to realize something: Steve Rogers doesn't represent America as it is; he represents America as it should be. He epitomizes all of the ideals that this country is based on, even when his country fails to live up to them.

The first theatrical trailer almost brought tears to my eyes. When Dr. Abraham Erskine offers scrawny asthmatic Steve Rogers the chance to be part of an experimental super-soldier program, Steve asks "Why me?" Erskine promptly responds, "Because a weak man knows the value of strength... knows the value of power."

Those words sum up the entire concept of Steve Rogers as a character, and they're as important to him as "with great power comes great responsibility" is to Spider-Man. It isn't the super-soldier serum that makes Steve a hero; it's his sense of right and wrong. Scrawny!Steve knows that he probably wouldn't survive on the front lines, but his conscience simply cannot allow him to stay safe while others are laying down their lives. He's essentially powerless in physical terms, but his spirit is noble and courageous, and that's the very thing that makes him worthy of the serum. As Erskine says in the movie, the important thing isn't that he's a good soldier; it's that he's a good person.

And holy crap is he ever a good person. Steve Rogers is the American answer to Jesus. He's kind, brave, and willing to put himself in danger or even lay down his life to save the lives of the people he cares about. Even after he becomes the ironically Aryan exemplar known as Captain America, he's still the same scrawny kid from Brooklyn who hates bullies and refuses to run away. He's pretty much the ultimate good, which is why the villains have to be the ultimate evil.

How evil are they, you ask? Their leader is Hugo motherfucking Weaving. Oh, and they used to be Nazis but then they quit and started their own club because the Nazis weren't hardcore enough. That's how evil they have to be to counteract Steve Rogers' saintliness.

That vision of the character is what makes Captain America: The First Avenger so great; the rest is just icing on the cake. Awesome, awesome icing.

Operagasm: The Art of Disguise

Opera is an inherently ridiculous art form.

I mean this in the best way possible, of course: I have an undeniable affinity for ridiculous things, and hope to be doing this particular ridiculous thing for the rest of my life, but when you stop and think about it—and believe me, it doesn't take too much thinking—you start to realize how batshit insane the entire concept is. Opera is like the Voltron or even the Captain Planet of the performing arts: all of these individual art forms come together to create something entirely unique. Theater, orchestral music, singing, even ballet—YOUR POWERS COMBINE.

You get the idea.

So, yes. If opera were a superhero, it would be Captain Planet—except with fewer heavy-handed environmental messages and more sex, murder, and tuberculosis. Lots more tuberculosis, in fact. You've gotta wonder what the hell all these sopranos are doing; they're all dying of debilitating lung disease (yes, all of them—if Tosca hadn't thrown herself from the top of the Castel Sant'Angelo, I'm sure she would have been coughing up blood by Act IV) but they're still singing beautifully even as their respiratory systems spontaneously combust. Not exactly realistic, I'll admit—but neither is Rodrigo from Don Carlo, who gets shot in the back and still sings an entire aria before he dies. And this is Verdi we're talking about, so of course it's not easy music. In fact, it's pretty fucking balls-to-the-wall for a guy who's already leaked several pints of O-negative on the prison floor.

This is where willing suspension of disbelief comes in. Like I said, opera is inherently ridiculous—and when you've seen enough operas, there are certain things that you learn to take in stride. The last thing the composer wants you to do is start being logical, because A) most composers of standard operatic repertoire are long dead and so they don't actually want anything anymore, and B) logic has no place in the world of opera. Seriously, don't even attempt to use critical thinking. It's useless here.

Take Don Giovanni, for example. At the beginning of the second act, the eponymous libertine switches clothes with his manservant Leporello with the intention of banging a hot chambermaid. Keep in mind that by “switching clothes,” I really just mean “they exchange cloaks and hats.” However, from the way the rest of the cast reacts, you'd think that the two of them were Nic Cage and John Travolta from Face/Off and had literally turned into each other. NOBODY can tell the difference, which becomes especially hilarious if you've seen a production where Giovanni and Leporello have drastically different physical characteristics. Donna Elvira's inability to recognize the only man she's ever had carnal relations with is even funnier if he's suddenly a different race. No, jackass, it's not the glow of moonlight that's making him look pale—he a cracka.

Even when we put the quirks of casting aside (because that can affect any opera at any time), the in-story implications are still pretty ridiculous. Yes, it's dark out. Yes, they're wearing different hats and cloaks. But come on. Elvira doesn't notice that Giovanni, the notorious seducer, is suddenly awkward as fuck and has a completely different voice than he did two minutes ago. Masetto, despite being the only character in the opera who's sharp enough to instantly and consistently recognize Don Giovanni as a threat, doesn't think it's suspicious that the Don's trusted servant is being uncharacteristically cooperative, or that said servant just sent the armed search party off in all different directions. And then Masetto gives this guy his weapons and promptly gets the shit beaten out of him. And he still thinks the cloaked figure was Leporello.

Jesus, Masetto. This scene right here is why no one takes you seriously.

But even though he's the only good guy who suffers intense physical repercussions for his idiocy, we have to remember that everyone else is being just as stupid:

Zerlina: Look, there's someone dressed in the Don's cloak and hat!
Don Ottavio: Despite the fact that he's not acting anything like Don Giovanni, I'm pretty sure it's him.
Donna Anna: How sure?
Don Ottavio: Like... ninety-eight percent.
Masetto: Good enough for me. Time to get my murder on.
Everyone: [curbstomps Leporello]
Leporello: Jesus! What the hell, guys? I'm totally not the man you're looking for.
Everyone: No, we're pretty sure you are. Like... ninety-eight percent.
Leporello: [takes his hat off]
Everyone: HOLY SHIT WHERE DID LEPORELLO COME FROM
Leporello: It's been me this whole time. Are you people retarded or something? This barely even qualifies as a disguise.
Everyone: WHAT NEW DEVILRY IS THIS
Leporello: [facepalm]

The best part is, I'm not even exaggerating that much. The lynch mob reacts with massive shock and disbelief when they discover Leporello, as if they were all laboring under the impression that clothing bonds with its owner for life (like the Venom symbiote from Spider-Man) and NO ONE BUT GIOVANNI could possibly be wearing that cloak. Really, the only explanation I can come up with for the confusion is that Don Giovanni is part faerie and he can cast glamours on himself and Leporello—and you know something’s wrong with your story when the inclusion of faeries actually makes it more believable. (I'm warning you, True Blood. Stop with that Queen Mab shit or I will cut you.)

The shenanigans don't stop with this opera, either. Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, Don Giovanni's librettist, collaborated on two other operas, as well—Le Nozze di Figaro and Così fan tutte—both of which also involve disguises and mistaken identities. Since I haven't bothered to do any research as to why that might be the case, I'm just going to say that da Ponte probably had some sort of role-play fetish and pretend that it's an established historical fact. That's how musicology works, right?

The circumstances surrounding the disguising in Le Nozze are a little different—rather than helping someone get laid, the intention is to catch a philanderer. (It's basically your standard honeypot scenario, except it's not actually anything like that at all so shut up.) Count Almaviva has the hots for his wife's servant, Susanna, who just married the titular Figaro. (Honestly, whenever you see a nobleman in a Mozart opera, it's safe to assume that he wants to get his bone on with a peasant or servant—or anything that moves, in Giovanni's case. I guess lower-class women were less sexually frigid or something.) Anyway, the Count wants to get with Susanna and the Countess is understandably upset about this, so the two ladies devise a brilliant plan to catch him in the act: they arrange a meeting between Susanna and the Count that night in the garden, but then they switch cloaks so the Countess can impersonate Susanna and vice versa. In short, their plan is to make the Count unknowingly seduce his own wife. Da Ponte's reasoning here (or possibly Beaumarchais, since he wrote the play this opera was based on) seems to be that “All women look alike in the dark.”

I want this opera to be made into an episode of Divorce Court. It's so delightfully seedy, and there's just about as much singing.

Of course, neither the Countess nor Susanna find it necessary to tell Figaro that any of this is going on because they're bitches. Really. It's Figaro and Susanna's wedding night, and they're perfectly content to let the guy think that his new bride is about to get plowed by their employer. That rates about a 6.8 on the DNCI (Dude, Not Cool index), just below “knocking up your best friend's little sister.” So, Figaro hides in the bushes and gets to watch the Count put the moves on Fake!Susanna and try to get her into one of the pavilions. Fake!Susanna comments that it's too dark, allowing the Count to reply with my favorite line of the opera: “Tu sai che la per leggere io non desio entrar,” which loosely translates to “You know we ain't goin' in there to read, baby. Awwwwwwwww yeeeeeeeaaaahhhhh.”

It's fantastic. Stop judging me.

Anyway, Figaro finally figures out what's going on and helps Susanna complete her plan, proving that there was no reason at all to keep him out of the loop—aside from the previously mentioned “being a bitch” thing. The Count is exposed (not literally; that would be gross) but the Countess forgives him, and everyone lives happily ever after, except that they actually don't. Whoops.

In this case, the whole disguise thing is made more believable by the fact that Figaro can actually recognize the voice of the woman he's in love with. On the flip side, however, the Count fails to recognize the voice of the woman he's been married to for years—but that's somewhat justified by him being a really shitty husband. You win this round, Mozart.

That leaves us with Così fan tutte, which takes the idea of testing your partner's fidelity to all-new sociopathic highs. Or lows, really. Long story short, Ferrando and Guglielmo have a bet with the rich Don Asshole Alfonso that their lovers (Dorabella and Fiordiligi, respectively) will stay faithful to them no matter what. In order to test this theory, Don Alfonso makes the boys A) pretend to go off to war, B) send letters to Dorabella and Fiordiligi indicating that they had both been killed in action, and C) dress up as Albanians so each one can woo the other's bereaved girlfriend.

Why Albanians, you might ask? Why the fuck not.

The premise of this opera is so batshit insane that I can't even bring myself to care about the believability of the disguises. Ferrando, Guglielmo, and Don Asshole are waging such intense psychological warfare against these poor women that they probably could have just put on Clark Kent glasses and the ladies would have been none the wiser. Why don't they recognize their lovers? A better question would be, “Why the fuck would they?” Ferrando and Guglielmo are supposed to be dead. Best-case scenario, they received proper burials and possibly even last rites. Worst-case scenario, they're rotting on a battlefield somewhere with their entrails being chewed out by vultures and wild dogs. And then the girls have to deal with these crazy fucking foreigners who are trying to get into their pants for no apparent reason aside from just being horny. Aaaaand then the Albanians threaten suicide if Dorabella and Fiordiligi don't give in to their advances. Oh, and I forgot to mention: this is supposed to be a comedy.

What is this I don't even.

Seriously, that shit is fucked up. That's the sort of thing that you could probably get thrown in prison for nowadays, but there really aren't any huge consequences here for the people involved in the systematic psychological destabilization of two innocent young women. The opera pretty much ends with Don Alfonso winning his bet and being all like, “Bitches, man. I told you; they're all sluts!” Because that makes sense.

So, yeah. Remember what I said about critical thinking? This is the point where you make like an opera character and just turn off your brain. Trust me; it's easier that way.

Cinema Snark: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II

When I reviewed the first half of this two-part cinematic extravaganza, I said that most of the things that bothered me about the movie were also things that had bothered me about the first half of the book: namely, the massive amounts of angst and aimless wandering. So congratulations are due to Deathly Hallows Part II: This Time It's Personal, because I dislike it entirely on its own merits. Huzzah!

Okay, that's not entirely accurate. I didn't hate the movie—not by a long shot—but it rarely ever felt like it was rising above the level of “good enough.” The action scenes were entertaining, the special effects were at their usual level, and there were several legitimately awesome moments with some of the supporting characters (McGonagall and Snape, I'm looking at you), but it really wasn't the game-changing motion-picture event of a lifetime that it was hyped to be.

It was fun, sure, but the book was better (that damned epilogue notwithstanding)—and Deathly Hallows wasn't even my favorite book of the series. (That would be Prisoner of Azkaban because TIME TRAVEL. And because Sirius Black is awesome. And because it's wonderfully dark but the series hadn't yet started to take itself too seriously.)

But I digress.

Regardless of how good it is, Deathly Hallows is a Harry Potter movie—the last Harry Potter movie, to be precise—so the film is still going to make more money than a slender male prostitute on a six-week yacht cruise with a bunch of Republican legislators. There is literally nothing I can say that will change that, so I'm just going to spend the rest of my time nitpicking (shocking, I know). There are some spoilers, but honestly, it's a young-adult story about good versus evil—so everyone pretty much knows how it's going to end.

But yeah, you've been warned.

Here's the way I choose to remember the end of the book: Molly Weasley has her Crowning Moment of Awesome against Bellatrix, which she follows up by killing Voldemort and then also killing Harry for being such a giant douche for the last several books. Then she blows up Hogwarts (because why the hell not) and starts her own school of magic, where she teaches young witches and wizards to knit awesome sweaters and just generally not give a fuck. The school's coat of arms is a picture of Molly Weasley beating the living hell out of the Juggernaut, and its motto is “Shit just got REAL."

In short, Mrs. Weasley is made of pure, unadulterated badassery.

The movie seems to disagree, however. Rather than a Crowning Moment of Awesome, her fight with Bellatrix feels more like an Obligatory Moment of Above-Average Coolness. Mrs. Weasley gets the one-liner everyone was waiting for, but she seems more mildly annoyed than furious to the point of murder. The fight which follows is brief and not particularly spectacular, and ends with an extended death shot which leaves me with a couple questions—namely, how is a quick, instant-kill spell like Avada Kedavra on the list of Unforgivable Curses when another spell that makes you literally shrivel up and peel apart somehow isn't? That's kinda like saying “We can't execute this prisoner with a guillotine because it's too inhumane, so we're gonna flay him alive instead!"

Wizards, man. They're messed up.

Similarly, Neville Longbottom's display of gigantic brass balls in the face of insurmountable odds is greatly toned down for the movie (it's a Grudging Moment of Competence at best) so that the run-time can be padded with an extended Harry/Voldemort showdown and more shots of Ron and Hermione trying to kill the giant snake. I mean, I know that the filmmakers don't want the main characters to be overshadowed, but let's face it—Harry just isn't that interesting, and he's also not a great wizard. The only reason he's survived this long is because he's got friends and mentors who keep saving his dumb ass. He can cast a couple spells really well, but he's also gotten special treatment his entire time at Hogwarts because he's the magical Chosen One. Neville, on the other hand, started off as a laughably incompetent bumbler and has grown in confidence and skill to the point where he leads the resistance at school while Harry is busy wandering through the wilderness and being a dick to his best friends. Neville is the freaking Michael Collins of Hogwarts, and he has the stones to stand up to Voldemort himself when no one else will—and not only does he survive, he also pulls off one of the most awesome (and vital) kills of the entire book. The boy deserves his moment in the spotlight, dammit.

Or he could just get knocked out like a little bitch. That's cool too.

That being said, the confrontation with Snape in the Great Hall might be my favorite moment of the film series so far. I wish that the scene could have been a bit longer—not because it diminishes anything from the book, but because it was so damn cool that I wanted more time to enjoy it. Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith are just plain awesome, and it's nice to see such great actors step front and center for once. The whole scene pretty much screams “Sit back and take some notes, child actors: this is how we do it in the 'hood.” Furthermore, I really liked most of the flashback scenes which flesh out Snape's motivations; that sequence is probably as close to heartbreaking as anything in the movies can get (Dobby be damned). However, I'm sure that much of my reaction to those scenes is due to my previously-mentioned love of Alan Rickman.

Seriously. If he propositioned me, I would say yes in a heartbeat. That man's voice is like sex wrapped in velvet.

Ahem. Moving on.

There were a few other problems, like the fact that Harry's trusty wand never gets fixed—I guess that means he just keeps using Draco's wand from Deathly Hallows Part I for the rest of his life. No more “the wand chooses the wizard,” I guess. Does that count as magical-polyamory?

The one thing that I really remembered having a problem with in the book as well as the movie is the treatment of Slytherin students. Under normal circumstances, the administration at Hogwarts is apparently fine with having an entire house populated by sociopaths, douchebags, and pureblood supremacists at their school—but as soon as the shit hits the fan, they get sent off to the internment camp in the dungeons! And nobody seems to have a problem with this. In fact, everyone cheers. So here's the thing: if that's how it's going to be, why the fuck would the administration bother to keep Slytherin house around at all? Maybe instead of accepting students with violent antisocial tendencies, they should train the Sorting Hat to say “GET THE FUCK OUT” instead of “SLYTHERIN!”

But then at the end, one of the characters also tells his son that it's okay to be a Slytherin because OH HEY there can be brave and noble people in Slytherin too. But apparently you can be brave and noble and still get thrown in the dungeon for no reason other than your magically assigned house. Because that's justice.

Seriously, J. K. Rowling. What the hell.

Long story short, the movie is good but not great. It looks cool, the writing and acting are on par with the last several installments, and none of my problems with it were large enough to make me actively dislike it. Honestly, if you're a Harry Potter fan, you should see it at some point: it's the last part of an eight-film series which kept the same central cast (almost) through the whole damn run. That's pretty amazing, when you think about it.

Oh, yeah, and there was an audible groan from the audience when the “19 Years Later” title appeared onscreen at the end. Don't worry, though; it's more tolerable on film than it was in the book.

Cinema Snark: X-Men First Class

I'm really shirking my duties here. This movie came out over a month ago, for God's sake. Of course, I've been a bit busy since then, but still. No excuse.

On the plus side, however, it means that most of you have probably seen X-Men by now, assuming you had the intention of seeing it at all. Unless you were waiting for it to come out on DVD or get put on Netflix or something, but nobody does that because everyone loves paying fourteen bucks for movie tickets and another eight for popcorn. It's the American way.

In any case, this review will contain some spoilers because a lot of you have seen this movie already. Possibly multiple times, if you're like me. But if you haven't seen the movie, fear not! This isn't the most mind-blowing spoiler in the world because you can kinda figure it out by watching the trailer. (Oh hey, I don't see that one black guy in any of the shots of the final battle! I WONDER WHY.)

Okay! Onward.

Make no mistake: this isn't a movie about the X-Men. Not really. Oh, there's a team of costumed mutants flying around fighting evil in their iconic SR-71 Blackbird, but they take a backseat to the movie's real story, which chronicles the rise and fall of the best bromance ever.

No, I'm not kidding.

Here's the thing. To properly discuss this movie, I have to break it down into two categories: James McAvoy/Michael Fassbender, and everything else. The first category is awesome, and makes the entire movie worth watching because it's so damn good. The latter, on the other hand, ranges from good to competent to wince-inducingly clumsy. In the interest of ending on a high note (because I really did like this movie, despite what I'm about to say), I'm going to start with "everything else".

This movie carries some pretty strong messages about racism, almost all of which work better in theory than the way they're actually carried out on film. Yes, mutants are a minority. Yes, people fear and hate them and keep antagonizing them despite the fact that that's a really dumb idea because mutants have fucking superpowers. Hell, one of the main reasons the X-Men exist is so they can gain societal acceptance by saving the world and protecting ordinary humans. That's all well and good, but there are subtler ways of showing that humans are assholes than "HEY I DIDN'T KNOW THE CIRCUS WAS IN TOWN" and "THE MUTANTS ARE OVER THERE! JUST TAKE THEM AND LET US NORMAL PEOPLE GO!" Like I said, there are two movies at work here--one of them is really good, and the other one has good ideas but doesn't always know how to implement them. There's an effective way of portraying bigotry onscreen, but this isn't it.

And while we're on the topic of bigotry, can I just say that holy shit there are some racial undertones to this movie that make me extremely uncomfortable. I don't know how intentional this was, but maybe when you're making a superhero movie about the evils of racism, you shouldn't make your team of good guys exclusively white. Xavier and Magneto enlist two black mutants in their recruitment montage--and within thirty minutes or so, one of them has turned evil and the other is dead. But fear not, audiences! X-Men: First Class doesn't need them, because BLUE IS THE NEW BLACK. Out of the six good mutants that suit up for the final confrontation, two of them are cerulean-hued. That's like having minorities, right? Except that Mystique spends most of the movie looking like this, and Beast used to look like this.

Whoops.

Also, Darwin's death pisses me off on a non-racial level, because his mutant power is pretty much that HE CAN'T DIE. And then he's the first mutant to get killed. Seriously, I'm calling bullshit on this. The phrase "adapt to survive" is thrown around a lot, and then Kevin Bacon says "adapt to this" and puts a ball of energy into Darwin's mouth, and then Darwin looks like he's gonna puke and then he looks sad and then he starts crumbling and everything fades to white. What the hell, guys. It's not like Darwin couldn't think of a way to adapt, because the process is automatic. He's transformed into pure energy in the comics before, why couldn't he do it here? Honestly, they need to bring him back in the next movie. He's an interesting character with a really cool power and it would be really easy for the screenwriters to say "Oh, he didn't actually die from that after all."

On a more positive note, I loved Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw. He seemed to be having a whole lot of fun doing his villain schtick, and his powers were pretty great. The only downside was that they made him speak German and Russian and oh my GOD the man is awful at foreign languages. Seriously, there needs to be an agreement among all filmmakers that they will never again allow that man to speak German, and especially not when he's in the same movie as Michael Fassbender.

Another high point of the "everything else" portion of the movie was Azazel, Mystique's future baby-daddy (guess who their son is), because it's always nice to see teleportation powers used effectively in combat. People have this tendency to not take Nightcrawler seriously because he's not the strongest guy around, but OH HEY super-agility and teleportation can actually make you unbelievably deadly. And also swords. Swords help with the deadliness.

Banshee and Havok are both fun, as is Beast when he finally fursplodes, but they honestly don't have that much to do. That's the problem with team movies, really: you spend all your time on the main two or three characters, which means that all the colorful side characters don't get utilized to their full potential. (Take note, Avengers: Hawkeye is awesome and so is Jeremy Renner. Give him lots of screen time.) On the villain side, January Jones spends most of her time sitting around in slutty outfits, so she's got the most important aspect of Emma Frost's character down--but I kinda wish someone had told Ms. Jones that Emma transforms into diamond and not into a block of wood. Seriously, I'm not sure whether she can't act at all or just decided not to for some reason. And then there's what's-his-name, the one who makes tornadoes and doesn't say a single word for the entire movie. Turns out his name is "Riptide" and not "Eurotrash" like I originally guessed. You learn something new every day, I suppose.

Also, the movie just straight-up looks good. I really like the idea of a "superhero period piece", and I think First Class does a nice job with the 60's vibe. Here's hoping Captain America pulls of the WWII look, as well--it certainly looks like they're on the right track.

Okay. That brings me to my favorite part of the movie.

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are great. They're both very talented actors (Wanted and Centurion notwithstanding) who bring a surprising amount of depth to their roles, and any scene that features either of them becomes better by virtue of their presence. The scenes with both of them are just amazing, and not just because the fangirls want them to start kissing. (It's okay, I kinda do too.) The two of them have great chemistry and an innate understanding of how to play off each other, and it's completely believable that McAvoy's Charles Xavier and Fassbender's Erik Lensherr will go on to become two of the most influential figures in the Marvel Universe.

Honestly, if the movie had just been two hours of Michael Fassbender as Magneto traveling the world to hunt Nazis, I would have been okay with it. More than okay, in fact. I would have seen it six times on the big screen and pre-ordered the special edition DVD. He's badass, resourceful, debonair as fuck, speaks several languages, and has a face that looks like it was chiseled out of fine marble by Michelangelo himself. What's not to love? He's also the most sympathetic character in the movie, due to his traumatic childhood during the Holocaust, and he has pretty damn good reasons for his descent into extremism--namely, he spends the whole movie talking about how humans will try to eradicate mutants and then HE'S COMPLETELY RIGHT.

By comparison, Xavier is pretty much just a dick. He's brilliant and idealistic, yes, but he also uses shitty pick-up lines to seduce women in bars and treats Mystique less like a life-long friend and more like an annoyance. He's pampered and shallow, and for the world's most powerful psychic, he sure doesn't understand how people work. He spends most of the movie trying to convince Erik that mutants and humans will get along just fine, so he looks like a jackass at the end when the American and Russian navies try to kill them with a hail of missiles. All the same, McAvoy brings a surprising amount of depth to the character. It would have been easy to make this version of Xavier into a smug, holier-than-thou douchebag, but there's much more to it than that. Charles really believes that his utopian ideal is possible, and when the shit hits the fan, he doesn't back down. As naive as his beliefs may appear, he is willing to fight and die for them all the same.

The conflict between the two characters is set up wonderfully--Charles and Erik use different methods and eventually develop radically different goals, but they still feel an undeniable connection with each other. Even as they experience their parting of the ways, it's obvious that they both wish they could stay together. It's kinda heartbreaking, really.

And yes, their bromance is epic and adorable. There's even an entire Tumblr devoted to it.

So, yeah. See it, if you haven't. It's not all good, but what's good tends to be great.

Cinema Snark: Everything Must Go

Soooo it's going on a month since I actually saw this movie, but I'm still gonna review it because that's what I do, dammit. When I'm not doing something else. Or anything else, really. Whatever. I'm reviewing it now and that's all that matters. And then I can get on with writing opera commentaries and my X-Men: First Class review. And then I can see Green Lantern and weep bitter, bitter tears because it's apparently not the mind-blowingly awesome thrill-ride I hoped it would be.

I hate it when that happens.

In any case, Everything Must Go didn't get a wide release, so chances are you didn't hear much about it unless you've got a thing for low-key indie movies. So here's the trailer. Long story short: Will Ferrell plays Nick Halsey, a man who loses his job of sixteen years and then goes home to find that his wife (who is nowhere to be found) has changed the locks on their house and left all of his belongings out on the front lawn. Over the course of the movie, he befriends Biggie Smalls' son (no, seriously) and a pregnant lady who just moved in across the street, and turns the front lawn situation into a yard sale. The trailer gives it the appearance of an offbeat comedy about a man who is faced with Job-like trials but eventually learns that happiness doesn't come from your possessions blah blah blah and then he adopts Biggie Jr. and everyone hugs.

To the movie's credit, however, it reeeeally doesn't turn out that way.

I suppose I should be up front about something here: I'm not a big Will Ferrell fan. I can take him in small doses (like sketch comedy or cameo roles), but he's hardly ever my favorite part of any of his star vehicles. (Before you ask: no, I haven't seen Elf.) While I don't generally consider myself to be a humor snob, I can't help but notice that his main comedic tactic seems to be something along the lines of "I AM USING MY OUTSIDE VOICE IN A SITUATION WHICH WOULD NOT NORMALLY CALL FOR IT! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" (And yes, I know that not all of those clips are Will Ferrell. But you get the idea.) Along the obnoxious scale, I find it to be somewhat akin to that one face that Jim Carrey makes in all of the horrifically awful cinematic abominations he calls "comedies"--you know, the one that screams "LOOK AT MY FACE! LOOK HOW WACKY I AM! LAUGH, YOU SLACK-JAWED ASSHOLES!"

And that's the problem. If you have to inform your audience that you're being hilarious or zany, chances are you're doing it wrong.

What I will say for Mr. Ferrell, however, is that he has a killer deadpan. Ridiculous things are (almost) always funnier when said with a completely straight face (see: River Tam) because it's so unexpected--and the whole point of comedy is to undermine expectations. By that logic, however, Everything Must Go should have been a pretty hilarious movie, because Will Ferrell doing an understated dramatic role is pretty unexpected. And you know what? He actually does a damn good job.

It's not going to win an Oscar for Best Picture or anything, because it's not that sort of film. The Oscars go for big things: big emotions, larger-than-life people/events, etc. This movie, on the other hand, takes a huge problem for millions of people worldwide and views it through the lens of a single, relatively unremarkable man. See, the thing that you don't really get from the trailer is that there's actually a reason for Nick's misfortunes throughout the movie. It's not a movie about a man with the worst luck in the world (that's been done already); it's a movie about alcoholism.

One of the things that I like so much about Everything Must Go is that it doesn't just come out and explain everything right away. You're dropped into a man's life on a day where everything is going wrong, but not really given much backstory or explanation. As the movie goes on, however, you see and hear things that fill in the holes--and you realize that the main character actually pretty much has it coming.

I also really like that the movie never reaches the histrionic emotional excesses of a number of other movies I've seen about alcoholism. I mean, there's some anger and there are a few confrontations, but for the most part it stays pretty low-key. You get the impression that Nick needs a steady stream of alcohol to feel like he's in control of his life, and yeah, he's kind of a dick sometimes, but his ugly side doesn't really show itself until he runs out of beer. It's a necessary reminder that a person doesn't have to be stumbling drunk all the time to be an alcoholic--Nick needs alcohol to operate at normal capacity, because that's what addiction does to people.

In general, the overall message of Everything Must Go seems to be that no matter how badly you fuck up your life, it's never too late to make a change for the better. It's by turns funny, depressing, and uncomfortable to watch, but it's remarkably emotionally honest. It's probably not in theaters anymore, but it's quite worthwhile if you feel like renting it.

Operagasm: Don Giovanni

So, some of you may be wondering why I haven't posted anything here in over two weeks. Or maybe not. Maybe you're wondering why men have nipples, or why Adam Sandler hasn't yet been put to death for his crimes against humanity. I can't say I blame you--I've wondered about both of those things myself, and for quite some time. But whatever the case, I have been remiss in my duties as a purveyor of fine snark, and I feel that you loyal readers deserve some actual content after my unannounced hiatus.

In any case, the past week and a half has seen me move from Silver Spring to Binghamton, learn an entire opera role, and scamper off to Astoria to stay with my sister for six weeks while I do an opera program that will culminate in my New York City debut as Masetto in Don Giovanni. So yeah, it's been pretty damn busy--hence the cobwebs you might see appearing in the corners of the blog.

But no more! Now that I've more or less settled in, I thought it seemed like the perfect time to provide some commentary on my actual profession, as opposed to just blathering on about movies and comics and time travel like I usually do. I've still got two movies to review (X-Men: First Class is great and full of MANLY TEARS), but fuck it. I'd rather do this right now.

So! Let's talk about Don Giovanni.

If you don't know the story, you can familiarize yourself here. If you're too lazy to read the whole synopsis, however, it goes something like this: Don Giovanni is the mack-daddy to end all mack-daddies (that's the hip slang that all of today's youngsters are using, right?), and he spends pretty much every waking moment looking for places to stick his junk. The first scene has him raping a woman (Donna Anna) and killing her father (the Commendatore), and he pretty much spends the rest of the opera trying to get laid, getting cock-blocked by a vengeful ex (Donna Elvira), and avoiding the large numbers of people who want to kill his bitch ass dead (i.e. everyone except his servant Leporello) because he's a rapist and a murderer and whatnot. Eventually, he meets a living statue of the man he murdered and invites it to dinner at his house because why the fuck not. The statue shows up and literally drags him to hell, and then the other characters show up and sing a final sextet giving the moral of the story: "Thus ends the life of he who does evil."

Okay. That's a noble sentiment and all, but I'm afraid it's a tad misleading. Think of it this way:

Don Giovanni was extremely good at two things: getting laid and evading capture. His list of conquests adds up to over two thousand women from all over Europe (hell, he even boned ninety-one in Turkey), so it's pretty reasonable to assume that the lynch mobs he faces over the course of the opera aren't the first he's ever had to deal with. It's not clear if he had actually killed anyone before shanking the Commendatore, but he has two instances of attempted (possibly successful?) rape within the first act alone, so it's pretty clear that that's his standard course of action when regular seduction fails. Now, rape is the sort of thing that attracts attention--in fact, it's the sort of thing that makes people want to hunt you down and cut off your junk--so it's almost certain that people have tried to kill him on numerous occasions. And yet, he's still going strong after 2,065 catalogued conquests--with every indication that he'll keep boning his way around Europe until he keels over from a heart attack at age 70 while he's balls-deep in a buxom tavern wench. This is a man who is absurdly good at escaping justice.

So really, the moral of the opera isn't "don't be a murderous sociopath with a taste for rape," because that's not what gets him killed. The moral should be "DON'T BE A FUCKING MORON."

Don Giovanni is an idiot who invites his own death. Literally. He's walking through a graveyard and hears a disembodied voice predicting his doom, and then runs smack into a statue of the Commendatore--a statue which A) has a foreboding inscription swearing vengeance upon the man's murderer, and B) may or may not be alive. So he invites the statue to dinner. AND THEN IT NODS. AND SAYS "YES." Now, the normal reaction to that would be something like "Holy SHIT it's time to get the fuck out of here," but Don Giovanni's reaction is more along the lines of "Whoa, it said yes! This is going to be the coolest dinner EVER. " And then he goes home, even though everyone in Seville is looking for him and wants him dead.

Seriously, it's like he's lost all will to live by the second half of Act Two. Elvira finds him at home and basically tells him that he needs to repent for his crimes, and he just laughs at her until she leaves. He doesn't seem to care that she could tell everyone else where he's hiding. Aaaaaand then the statue of the Commendatore shows up, and Don Giovanni is all like "Hey, Leporello, bring some food for our guest!" instead of shitting himself like anyone with half a brain would. Then the statue invites Don Giovanni to come have dinner at its place, and the jackass says yes. And then, even as the statue has him by the hand and is about to drag him down to hell for an eternity of suffering, it gives him one last chance to repent and possibly save his soul.

Guess what Don Giovanni's response is.

The guy's like a troll on an internet message board who just won't stop being a dick even as the moderator is about to ban him. In fact, I'm pretty sure that some newer English translations of the opera have him shouting "I DID IT FOR THE LUUUUUUULZ" as he's being dragged down to hell.

In fact, that internet stuff makes me wonder: if someone were to take Don Giovanni and adapt it for modern audiences, what sort of wacky hijinks would ensue?

Durden Giovanni: Leporello is an unhappy, unsuccessful young man with a boring life and a terrible job--but one day, everything changes. He gets fired, he loses his house, and he meets an enigmatic young nobleman named Don Giovanni, who hires him as a servant. Giovanni is everything Leporello wishes he could be: charming, handsome, rich, and knee-deep in bitches. For the first time ever, things are looking up for Leporello--until the Don's sexcapades finally piss off the wrong people, and Leporello wakes up in his master's clothes. Suddenly, everyone wants Don Giovanni dead--and everyone seems to agree that Leporello looks exactly like the man they're looking for. Leporello has to figure out what's going on, and discover Don Giovanni's dark secret before it's too late.
Notable Quotes: "You broke our agreement, Leporello. You talked to Elvira about the List."
Rated R for language, drug use, and graphic sexual content.

D. N. Jovanimasu: Sousuke is a normal high school student with a big problem: whenever he gets aroused, he transforms into Donu Jovanimasu, the Phantom Pervert! He tries to keep a low profile, but Eruvira-senpai (the school's resident nymphomaniac) knows his secret, and wants to turn him into her own personal sex slave! To make matters worse, Sousuke is being pursued by the mysterious Komenu-Datore, a killer robot who has a score to settle with Donu Jovanimasu! Oh, and there's some tentacle rape, too. Will Sousuke ever be able to confess his true feelings for the beautiful Anna-kun, or will his alter-ego's numerous enemies and admirers get to him first??
Notable Quotes: "WATASHI WA DONU JOVANIMASUUUUUUUUU"
For mature viewers only.
This series will never air in the United States. Ever.

"Don Juan," from Old Spice: "Hello, ladies. Look at your man. Now back to me. Now back to your man. Now back to me. Sadly, he isn't me--but he could smell like me, if he stopped being cuckolded long enough to buy Old Spice's Don Juan deodorant. Look down. Look up. You're now pregnant with my child. I'm on a horse! And it's riding out of your life forever. Peace out."
Available now!

This blog post IS NOW DIAMONDS.