| | In Which I View A Movie About Bottled Water Starring Queen Latifah,
And Also The Pope Dies
What an exciting weekend we had, lady and gentlemen! First off,
on Friday I went to what was billed as a "Comedy Showcase" which
featured an improv group a friend of mine is in. Part of the
appeal - at least for me - was that it took place on the second floor
of a Bennigan's smack dab in the middle of Midtown. What
could be more declasse? I thought it would be fun to be "down
among the people," so to speak. Who even knew that there was a
Bennigan's in New York, much less a two-story Bennigan's with a stage?
The actual show was a bit of a letdown - it was mostly standup acts and to be quite frank, I didn't think the
improv act fit in too well with the standup, but that was also because they were very hard to hear. Right after the
start of the show, a group of people toddled in, sat themselves down at
the table next to mine and proceeded to have a conversation just as
they might have had had they been on the first floor
of a Bennigan's smack dab in the middle of Midtown. One of the
group actually received a phone call in the middle of someone's standup
act. Worse than that, he proceeded to answer the phone and have
the
full conversation, sticking one finger in his ear to drown out the
irritating stand-up comedian who had the nerve to perform while he was
taking a telephone call. It was enough to make me think
racially-motivated negative thoughts, except one of the noisy ladies
was white, so I can't really make any generalizations except to say
they were all assholes.
So after that, I dashed out to make the 10pm showing of a much more interesting show, "Planet Banana"
(Order for performances through April 16th and use code PBS18 for $18
tickets) at the Ars Nova theater. It's a hard show to describe,
but it was bascially a sort of sexy cabaret and circus act. There's just a
three-person band and two performers, and the two performers act out a
little love story of a man and a woman meeting in a bar. At
certain times throughout the show, they work in singing, dancing,
fire-eating, juggling, and a trapeze act. All for just $20 (or
$18 with discount!) Also, the male lead is frequently shirtless and has
a nice set of manchesters.
On Saturday, E and I met
Glennifer, Dorita, and Nolando at a belly-dancing bar on the lower east
side. After first walking into the wrong belly-dancing bar -
who'd think there are TWO freaking belly-dancing bars on the same block
on Avenue B? - we mashed ourselves in among the hetero women and
men as they desperately tried to drink enough to reconcile the vast
distance between their home planets. It was loud and jangly, but
overall I had a good time, even though I didn't get to smoke out of a
hookah like I wanted to, but I did snag a cigarette off of Glennifer,
so it all worked out well.
On Sunday I met the boys for brunch in Williamsburg at Relish.
Earlier in the week E decided he wanted to take a tour of
Williamsburg - to see what it's like down among the people, I
presume - and I believe he was quite pleased with what he saw.
They certainly have a lot of sky out there in Williamsburg - lots of
low-slung warehouses, many of which had graffiti that was really good.
That afternoon we took in a viewing of the Queen Latifah movie, Beauty Shop Featuring Fiji Water.
It was a strange series of choices that led us to attend that movie,
but not as strange, I assume, as the series of choices that caused that
movie to be made in the first place. The movie is about a woman,
played by Queen Latifah, who leaves her horribly-fake-accented boss,
played by Kevin Bacon, to open her own store, taking with her the
shampoo girl, played by the horribly-fake-accented Alicia Silverstone.
Queen and Alicia take over a run-down beauty shop, and in the space
of
one musical montage make it over into a bright, clean beauty shop, the
sort of classy beauty shop where they serve capuccino and Fiji water right along with the hairdos
and comic banter. The movie has a very large esemble cast, so large
that the entire point of one person's character is solely to serve Fiji
water to the customers and flirt with the gang-bangers who come by the
sto'. All manner of comedy and drama ensues, attempting to answer such burning questions as:
- Will Queen Latifah fall in love with the
handsome, muscular, classicly trained pianist/electrician
upstairs?
- Are there any shots in the movie where a bottle
of Fiji water isn't clearly visible in the frame with the label facing the camera?
- Why is there a fried catfish stand set up in the middle of the beauty shop?
Such dramatic tension!
I have to add that although Alicia Silverstone's southern accent was
really, really bad, in her defense I should add that she only used it
on half of her lines, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
Oh, and the Pope died. Haven't got much to say about that except
I have a feeling he's in for a colossal disappointment. I hope you enjoyed playing dress-up, doodlebug. As it turns out, there's no afterparty!
That is all.
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| | Posted 4/4/2005 10:42 AM - 10 views - 5 comments
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