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🙀 Yeah, Everybody Wants To Pass As Cats... The Crime:  Cats The Guilty Party: Tom Hooper Overview: Nothing short of an unmitigated disaster Why I Hate It... Cards on the table here: I was never  going to like this movie. I'm lukewarm on musicals to begin with, and I've seen Cats , the stage show, and I didn't like it at all. Hell, I'm not overly fond of cats, the animal. But just because I'm not in the target audience, that doesn't mean a target audience doesn't exist, or that I can't appreciate a thing for what it is instead of what I want it to be. And yet this movie failed, on just about every level, to connect with anyone but the most blasted-out-of-their-minds-on-hallucinogens movie-goers. Now I'm not going to go into a laundry list of everything bad about this movie. I would instead point you to Lindsay Ellis's delightful video post mortem . Rather, I am fascinated by how this movie ever came to be in the first place, because it was destin

🎲 I Got Game, She's Got Game, We Got Game... It's that time of year when I spend four days at my favorite board gaming conference: Geekway to the West. This was the first one since the pandemic started that felt like it was really 100% back, and I got to hang out with some old friends and make some new ones. I mostly bypassed the big titles of the year-- Earth , Expeditions , and Rolling Heights --because people in my gaming group own them already, but there was still lots to discover! Here's a rundown of what I played. Cartouche Contract fulfillment and polyomino tile placement with drafting. Unlike a lot of polyomino games, you're not trying to fill a space. Rather, you're pattern matching in order to make connections and close things off. It's pretty light, but a lot of fun. I played it several times and would consider owning it. Shaolia: Warring States I wanted to like this one. It's a fairly meaty dice placement tableau-builder, but it's badly bala

📸 She's All Alone, All Alone in her Time of Need... The Crime: Diana: The Musical The Guilty Party: David Bryan and Joe DiPietro Overview: A wrong-headed venture fails to come together, surprising literally no one Why I Hate It... Diana: The Musical  is shockingly well-produced. The actors are great, the choreography is lively, and it makes excellent use of its small stage to tell a visually dynamic story. The music is better than average for a Broadway show, penned by Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan. The libretto is solid as well--there are even a few moments that are genuinely inspired, like The Main Event  ("The thrilla in Manilla with Camilla") or The Dress ("A feckity-feckity-feckity-feckity F-you dress"). And the costuming is incredible--a number of Diana's iconic outfits have been recreated and there are some truly astounding on-stage quick-changes. So many vital pieces are in place. And yet... you know the kind of book or movie or TV show that, fo

🎨 I See a Red Door and I Want to Paint it Black... The Crime:  Paint Your Wagon  (stage show) The Guilty Party: Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, and their respective estates Overview: A re-adaptation of the 1951 musical that bears very little resemblance to the film Why I Hate It... The word "anticipointment" was coined for the Star Wars  prequels, but it's not the first thing I think of when I hear that word. I'm a big fan of the soundtrack to the 1968 movie . It was one of those albums we listened to on long car trips, so I associate it with family vacations. I also enjoy the film, but at 3 hours, it's definitely a "sometimes" food. And ever since I started doing theater in the early 90s (sweet Jeebus--when did I get this old?), I've been interested in seeing the stage show. But the opportunity never came up. The show ran on Broadway for about a year in 1951 and to the best of my knowledge there's never been a revival. But then it showed up i

⌛Where Do We Go, Where Do We Go Now...? The Crime:  Harry Potter and Cursed Child Parts One and Two Special Rehearsal Edition Script The Guilty Party: J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne Overview: Someone published the script for this nonsense story that is used to prop up a special-effects extravaganza of a play that feels like both apologia and ret-conning for the one plot detail that pedants can't let go of from Book 3 and OMG I CAN'T EVEN WITH THIS Why I Hate It... Let's be clear up front that there are a few things this post is not  about. For starters, it's not about the stage show. I haven't seen the stage show. I feel confident that the story of the stage show is hot garbage, but it's clearly intended to be about the spectacle of seeing the "magic" from the Harry Potter world live and in person, and sometimes the combination of spectacle and nostalgia is enough to make up for deficiencies elsewhere. I still enjoy the first Michael Bay T

🏛️ Like the Deserts Missed the Rain... The Crime:  The President is Missing The Guilty Party: Bill Clinton and James Patterson Overview: A quote-unquote "thriller" is mired in contextual cringe and eye-rolling political drivel. Why I Hate It... You can see how this would seem like a good idea on paper. James Patterson writes schlocky potboilers, and pairing up with a living ex-president allows for, ahem , unprecedented insight into what a crisis at the highest levels of government looks like from the inside. The result could have been a compelling hybrid of Vince Flynn-style political thriller and Tom Clancy-esque technothriller, and with presidential pedigree on the marquis to boot! Instead, the result is bad. Just… bad. The story opens with President John Duncan being grilled by senators from the opposing party over some kerfuffle that in no way resembles Benghazi. He pulls himself away in order to don a disguise and meet with some foreign operative absent his secret servi