Blog
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Shows We Could Watch in the Triangle
DPAC Shows
Shucked
March 4 – March 9
This is the next show Erin and I are watching, at my insistence. We have both admitted to each other that we don’t know what the show is about, we just know corn plays a role. I’ve gathered it’s set in Cob County, a town that revolves around the crop. The drama and comedy, as far as we can expect any, may revolve around Maizy and Beau, “a couple who are planning their wedding.” We’ll be watching this one for my birthday.
Beetlejuice
March 18 – March 23
We will be seeing Beetlejuice for the second time, remembering it as a fun show that expands on the gaps in the movie’s world building. The stagecraft was also a big deal, with inventive ways of displaying hauntings and the netherworld (how do they pronounce it? Neither-World?) that is specific to Beetlejuice lore.
The Book of Mormon
April 8 – April 13
Yeah, I don’t like this one very much. We saw it a couple seasons ago and I don’t need to see it again.
The Book of Mormon, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s 2011 musical, has persisted through the Great Woke Wars of the 2010’s, I think because the uninitiated just assume it targets Mormons the way that famous South Park episode did. But a lot of the core humor centers around depictions of an African village. Now we can get into whether this has some resonance as a skewering of the way sheltered Americans view Africa, but you and I both know that when a black actor is hired to sing about having AIDS in a supposed Ugandan accent that this humor is designed to be laughed at by an audience that questions the necessity of Brown v. Board of Education. It’s just dated as hell and I’m frankly surprised to see it keep popping up.Kimberly Akimbo
April 29 – May 4
For the rest of this season, this one is the most tempting. Kimberly Akimbo is based on a 2001 play written by David Lindsay-Abaire. a screenwriter involved in a lot of family movies, Robots, Inkheart, Rise of the Guardians, and, uh…..Oz the Great and Powerful. The story of the Tony award winning musical features a teenage character who has a condition causing her to look like an elderly woman.
Back to the Future
May 20 – May 25
I love the film Back to the Future and consider it as an all-time great adventure comedy. But I have next to no interest in seeing the musical. Perhaps it’s great. It could be just as good as Beetlejuice in mining the depths of its IP, but the first movie already seemed like a pretty complete experience and it had two weird sequels to boot, so I’m just not curious to see what emotional heights can be reached with a musical number about Marty McFly’s musings on time and youth. I’m good.
Some Like it Hot
June 17 – June 22
I only recently saw the original movie, because we tend to watch classic movies with Erin’s grandfather in Rehoboth. More so than Back to the Future, this could be a pretty interesting update on a Billy Wilder movie that was already surprisingly open-minded for the time period. We will be T-minus three weeks for second baby’s due date, though, so our likelihood of catching this one is low.
Les Misérables
July 15 – July 20
My favorite musical of all time due to its nostalgic honor of being the first one I saw on stage, Les Mis will not be one we see again since we saw it shortly before the birth of our first kid in 2023 and also we’ll have a newborn in the house. That said, I urge anyone who hasn’t had the opportunity to run for the show. Particularly as we’re dealing with a moment of what seems like the obliteration of many people’s hopes for society, you need some music that rouses you to action and guides you to acceptance.
The Wiz
August 5 – August 10We saw The Wiz a while ago in a Ford’s Theater production. This is the tour of the 2024 revival with some potential updates to the original 1970’s book. I’m steeped in Oz lore, but have yet to really internalize The Wiz‘s accomplishments. The point is moot for me as I will be in spit-up and gassy-baby mode.
DPAC Tickets Here.
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Expanding the Family
The news is out there: Our second baby arrives in July.
Things have gone well so far! We’ve joined a second Centering group, which is a way to do your OB appointments alongside some guidance and discussion with people who are in similar stages of pregnancy.
Preparing for a second is different, because the question of whether we can do it at all has been answered. But now we have to fit second baby into an existing childcare routine, including sleeping arrangements. So that’s what occupies my time considering Second Baby.
Oh, and trying to decide on a name.
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Songs for the 2005 Mixtape: The Game’s “The Documentary”
The Documentary, The Game
2005 represented rapper 50 Cent at the height of his powers, capable of blessing an artist as a member of G-Unit and also dismissing them on a whim. The Game was a high profile member of the crew even before the release of his debut album, The Documentary. 50 Cent featured on three of the tracks, all of which were singles.
One of these, “How We Do” is an iconic representation of mid-aughts hip-hop. A club anthem employing that playful tinker and kick drum sound, MTV would abuse the instrumental to signify that one of its on-screen personalities was reveling in opulence.
One of the non-50 singles was “Dreams,” produced with pre-Nazi Kanye West. The song samples “No Money Down” by Jerry Butler and is explicitly pro-black, with allusions to MLK Jr. as well as several black artists who passed away early, including Aaliyah and Lisa Lopes. It speaks to The Game’s aspirations to be an important voice not only for West Coast rap, but for all the black experience in hip hop.
But I think the one with the best shot to end up on the mixtape is “Hate It Or Love It,” another single featuring 50 Cent. This one samples “Rubber Band” by the Trammps and was produced by the duo Cool & Dre with Dr. Dre (no relation) doing additional production. This one is a cruising anthem, showcasing both 50 and The Game’s abilities against a genius interpolation. I don’t remember what school project I used it for, but I remember feeding the music video into some sort of project.
Sadly, 50 Cent’s and The Game’s creative collaborations would not be long for the world. Shortly after the success of The Documentary, there were disputes over how much 50 Cent collaborated to writing the songs on the album. The Game was booted from G-Unit and would go on to have a full-on feud with its members. The beef with 50 Cent continues into this decade, with them trading barbs on social media.
So we’ll pick “Hate It Or Love It” as a candidate for the 2005 mixtape as a tribute to old friendships.
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A Handful of Recent Letterboxd Entries
Iron Man (2008) – Rewatched via DisneyPlus June 24, 2025 (whoa, right before Leo was born)
It’s funny to hear Obadiah Stane growl “Just because you had an idea doesn’t mean it belongs to you,” telegraphing that Feige and Favreau saw themselves as subversive artists within the machine rather than the machine itself. Fast forward 17 years and now they’re the ones parasitically draining the life force out of new film talent and lumbering along with a shambolic husk that isn’t nimble enough to withstand the heights of their ambitions. Poetic, really.Minus half a star for what they do with Christie the Journalist. That subplot just keeps aging worse and worse.
Party Girl (1995) – Watched via YouTube Free Movies on June 6, 2025
I don’t know if you all have noticed that my reviewing has majorly fallen off, as I’ve entered a reckless gaming era, but I feel maybe I can draw up some motivation by writing my reviews as poems, which is a decision I think Parker Posey’s character would approve of. So here we go –
Parker, you are
a force of society
so relatable
and so Sisyphean
This movie is smart
But packaged like turkish delight
Not the kind offered by the White Witch
But perhaps one that has a couple of factories in Lebanon, working at an efficient clip
yet not yet purchased by a global candy behemoth, like Nestle
I was
Uncomfortable
With the fetishizing of your Lebanese character (who looks like they could have been cast from a pool of supermodels)
But I do agree with Director Daisy’s assertion
That the movie is told from Mary’s perspective
And, truth be told, just because she really likes this guy
Doesn’t mean she can’t be racist about it
Shane (1953) – Watched via Kanopy on April 17, 2025
Now, I’m no fan of Ryker, because he’s clearly a NIMBY.
But you have to admit, the homesteaders are bringing strong gentrifier “wouldn’t it be nice if this nasty old parking lot were a juice shack instead” vibes. Plus, they’re allied with a white supremacist and I’m not entirely sure the guy in the black hat was in the wrong.
Hot Rod (2007) – Watched via YouTube Free Movies on March 20, 2025
Hot Rod is a piece of internet ephemera exploring the complex relationships men within patriarchy have with their father figures. Since the time of Oedipus, there has been a tension between son and dad to acknowledge the passing of a mantle, the assumption of a legacy. But how do we define a legacy without being inspired by the past? And how can you find inspiration in the past without becoming blinded by nostalgia? Hot Rod dares to asks these questions and its fate is to now become a piece of nostalgia itself. It is something that, much like Evel Knievel’s legacy, cannot be understood objectively. It now represents a simpler time for us all. A time when the Internet was a source of joy and community instead of a deep well of fascistic thought. As such, it is a fool’s errand to try to give this a star rating.
But I will give it 2.5 stars because that cool beans song is stupid.
Mickey 17 (2025) – Watched in the theater with my new friend Robert in Raleigh on March 12, 2025
I guess I’m a Bong-head.The initial idea of adapting this story had a 95% chance of producing a movie that I still probably would have liked, but which would have felt somewhat paint by numbers. You pace the movie so that you make the Creeper translator into some sort of macguffin and seed its origins early on; you ratchet up the tension Nolan-style in the final act to get the audience snapped into climax mode. It would have all been cool, but it would have been a little tiresome to go back to years later.
The antidote to that fate is to give this to Bong Joon Ho, who makes sure every character is either a charming or at least compelling collection of foibles and flaws. Every scene becomes a small work of art thanks to the ongoing support of composer Jung Jae-il and cinematographer Darius Khondji. You draw on the talents of Robert Pattinson and Toni Collette to make sure no one accuses you of putting a stock character on screen, even though, alas, you kind of wasted Steven Yeun.
It’s a rare achievement, wherein a little-known IP gets nearly a $120 million budget from a recent Best Director who operates on a wavelength that would jar 90’s Hollywood producers. I wish one could reliably walk into the theater to get stories told this way, but I think this might be the One and Only, as they say.
