Rising's Rapid Reviews| January Cast Recordings: Kiss Me Kate, South Pacific, Octet, and Beetlejuice

I'm afraid that for a professional actor, I am rather uneducated in Broadway History.  In an effort to correct his, I've resolved to listen to one cast recording per week (while doing the borning data entry parts of my day job.)  Below are my (extremely brief) first impressions of my January explorations.

Image Credit: Ghostlight Records

Kiss Me Kate (2019 Revival Cast)

At first, I had the vague plan of going through the Tony Best Musical Winners in chronological order. Since there was a revival just last year of the first Best Musical Winner ever, why not start with that?  And....I barely paid attention.  Nothing against the quality of the music or the acting, but the story didn't grab me through the soundtrack.  I vaguely recall the pleasant sounds reminiscent of a carousel and something about lighthearted infidelity.  At the end of the day, musicals are meant to be seen live, and this was proof of it.
 

Columbia Records

South Pacific (1949 Original Broadway Cast)

Continuing my plan, I moved to the 1949 winner.  Apparently, I was familiar with many of the songs; I just never knew those songs were from South Pacific.  I often have difficulty getting into golden age musicals, as evidenced by my undying hatred for Oklahoma, but I was enchanted by this record's "Some Enchanted Evening."  The story was easier to follow than Kiss Me Kate, and Ezio Pinza can take up residence in my headphones any day.

Image Credit

Octet (2019 Original Cast Recording)

Ah!  Too real!  Abort Mission!  Abort Mission!  I had seen a friend's Facebook review of this show, and decided to try it.  It was painful.  I needed to listen to it in three pieces on three different days.  The final third was a lot easier, as those characters  shared stories less relevant to my personal struggles.  The (seeming) concluding theology was a bit pantheistic for my tastes, but more musicals written in this style please, and more art tackling this topic.

Ghostlight Records

Beetlejuice (2019 Original Broadway Cast Recording)

Despite my love of all things Halloween-ish, I had been avoiding this one out of a fear I would be fake-fanboying.  See, I was born just a bit too late to have an emotional connection to the geek classics of the 1980s such as Dark Crystal, Ghostbusters, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, etc.  I didn't see the Beetlejuice movie until I was in college, and I've never seen it from start to finish.  So it felt insincere to get excited when I heard there was a musical version coming to Broadway.  Top that off with mixed reviews, and I never bothered until now.  But yowza, did I love this cast recording!  It was made for me: Constant breaking of the 4th wall!  A battle of wits between a demon and a goth girl!  An entire ode to the joys of scaring people!  Hipster jokes!  I loved it, and I've listened to it multiple times since.

So that's January.  I'll be taking February suggestions in the comments below.  Thank you for reading.  Until next time, keep hearing the music of the Ainur.

5 Ways of Ranking the STAR WARS Movies

Buh dah dah dah DAH dah dah dah dah

My Rise of Skywalker review made me realize that ranking a movie is a difficult thing.  I liked it; it just wasn't a good movie. On top of that, I've been saying for years that The Empire Strikes Back is the best movie, because everyone else seems to think so.  However, if I'm honest, Return of the Jedi is still my favorite.  I mean, come on, how awesome are B-Wing fighters?

That question was rhetorical, as their awesomeness is infinite.

It occurred to me that whenever one ranks a movies series, one has four possible ways to do it.

A) By personal enjoyment: Sometimes we just like things, even bad things.  It could be that it is full of a vice we are attracted to (such as violent revenge flicks). It could be the nostalgia of seeing it first when we were a child.  It could touch upon our pet political cause.  Whatever, the reason, we like it regardless of what our higher critical faculties say.

That being said, are how I would rank the Star Wars movies by my own personal enjoyment.

1) Return of the Jedi

2) A New Hope

3) The Force Awakens

4) The Last Jedi

5) The Empire Strikes Back

6) The Rise of Skywalker

-(Tie) Revenge of the Sith

8) The Phantom Menace

9) Rogue One

10) Solo

11) Attack of the Clones

12) The Clone Wars

B) By quality as a piece of cinema:  Some people are movie buffs.  Some are not.  But most of us can tell when a movie is written, edited, acted, directed, and shot well.

Here is my ranking of the movies as pieces of cinema::

1) The Empire Strikes Back

2) A New Hope

3) Rogue One

4) The Last Jedi

5) The Force Awakens

6) Return of the Jedi

7) Revenge of the Sith

8) Solo

9) The Rise of Skywalker

10) Attack of the Clones

11) The Clone Wars

12) The Phantom Menace

C) As a member of the series: This is tricky, because it relies on the Aristotelian form that we keep in our own minds.  For instance Thor: Ragarnok is my second favorite Marvel movie because it is everything Thor should have always been--a goofy space comedy.  The friend I saw it with loathed it.  He believes Thor should be a dignified, unyielding viking warrior.  In his view, the first Thor movie is more "Thor-esque"   In mine, the third is.

So, which Star Wars movie is the most star-warsy:

1) A New Hope

- (tie) The Empire Strikes Back 

3) The Return of the Jedi

- (tie) The Force Awakens

5) Revenge of the Sith

- (tie) The Phantom Menace

- (tie) The Rise of Skywalker

8) Attack of the Clones

- (tie) The Clone Wars

- (tie) Solo

11) Rogue One

12) The Last Jedi

A side note: In case it is not obvious, but I am referring to The Clone Wars movie in this article, not the TV series.  Also, these three lists did not include any made for TV movies such as Caravan of Courage.  They are all awful, so let's not waste our time.

Still a better movie than The Clone Wars, though

D) By Critical Acclaim: As a rule, I'm deeply suspicious of popular opinion, but it is often good to check one's own ideas against someone else's.  For something as low-stakes as movie rankings, the Rotten Tomato tomato meter will do.   (Please note the calculations below factor in each movie's tomato meter as of January 2020.)

However, I want one list, not 4.  Is there an overly complicated way I could combine these 4 to make my ultimate list of Star Wars movies?  Yes, yes there is.  I want to check  my cinema ranking against the critics, but I want my own personal opinion to weigh more.  Thus...

E) Overly complicated formula for a combined list: [(A+C)/2] + [B*(1-D)]

Epimetheus Rising's Ultimate Star Wars Ranking:

Tier 1 (Love them or be wrong)

1) A New Hope [(2+1)/2] + [2*0.07]=1.64

2) The Empire Strikes Back [(5+1)/2] + [1*0.06])=3.06

-(near tie) Return of the Jedi [(1+3)/2] + [6*0.18]=3.08

-(near tie) The Force Awakens [(3+3/2]) + [5*0.07]=3.35

Tier 2 (Sure, why not):

5) Revenge of the Sith [(6+5)/2]) + [7*0.2]=4.9

6) The Last Jedi [(4+12)/2] + [4*0.09]=8.36

7) The Rise of Skywalker [(6+5)/2 + [9*0.47]=9.73

8) Rogue One [(9+11)/2 + [3*0.17]=10.51

Tier 3 (Love to hate it or hate to love it):

9) Solo [(10+8/2)] + [8*0.3]=11.4

10) The Phantom Menace [(8+5)/2] +[12*0.47]=12.14

11) Attack of the Clones [(11+8)/2]  + [10*0.35]=13

Tier 4 (not even hate-watch worthy):

12) The Clone Wars [(12+8)/2] + [11*0.82]=19.02

Thanks for reading.  Don't forget to like and subscribe.

January 1st: The Triple Holiday

Christmas Sunrise by Anthony DiNicola 

January 1st is a triple holiday for Western Catholics. It is New Year's Day, of course, the beginning of the calendar year (Note 1).  It is also the Octave of Christmas (Note 2); finally, January 1st is the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary under her title of "Mother of God." In the East, the word used is Theotokos, or "God-bearer." (Note 3). 

On the walk to church this morning, I was pondering why the Church, in its wisdom, chooses to venerate the Blessed Virgin under this title on the Octave of Christmas.  The answer appeared in today's gospel reading: "And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart." (Luke 2:19).   

Approaching the end of this season of wonders, maybe some reflection is in order.  How may Mary's motherhood have been a model for me in my holiday season?  She was accepted and embraced by her family despite the stigma of being pregnant out of wedlock; did I embrace my family despite their foibles?  She traveled far with the man she loved; was my inconvenient holiday travel lit by the glow of love?  She had no proper bed to give birth in; did I unite the much lesser disappointments of my holiday with the sacrifices of the Holy Family for the love of God?   Shepherds arrived at her door telling tales of angels; did I find joy to share with even the oddest of strangers as they appeared in my life?

So Mary's maternity is the perfect cap for the Christmas Octave, but why does it start the new year?  Well, pop wisdom says to treat every day like Christmas.  I don't think this means to spend too much, eat too much, and not go to work.  How did Mary spend Christmas, then?  Well, she radical trusted in God despite how unconventional things became.  She was filled with the overpowering joy of God's very real presence in her life.  Most importantly, she "kept all these things."  She is didn't lose what had been given to her in the distraction of life, though that would have been quite understandable (Note 4).  After all, the radical self-gift of God given to us at Christmas should not be lost during the hubbub of the rest of the year.

God-with-us.  God born in us.  That sounds like a pretty good way to start the year.  It sounds like a pretty good way to continue the year.  It sounds like a pretty good way to live a life.

Happy Two Thousand and Twenty, one and all.  May the sacrifice, joy, trust, rest and hope of Christmas grow in us more and more each of these 365 days.  May be all become, like Mary, "God-bearers."

Blessings,

Epimetheus

(Image Credit)

Notes:
1) The beginning of the liturgical year is the first Sunday of Advent.
2) Octaves are a concept I am still educating myself on. As I understand it, when there is a really important feast, like Christmas or Easter, Catholics celebrate the feast proper as 8 days long rather than just one day; (this is in contrast to the last 4 days of Christmas--January 2 through 5th--which are within the Christmas season liturgically, but are not quite at the same level as the first 8).
3) (In the Eastern Church this feast is also celebrated on a different day). This title title of Mary has been used since at least circa 250 A.D. and was confirmed by the Council of Ephesus in 431, but celebrating it on January 1st is a fairly young practice only beginning in 1969.  Before that, January 1st was the feast of Jesus's circumcision and naming.  Thanks Wikipedia.
4) Not to mention the whole fleeing to Egypt thing.