So the Backstreet documentary finally came out here this weekend and we rounded up a small fangirl posse to go and see it. Super-glad I’d allowed myself to be spoiled beforehand, because I think I would’ve been wrecked by all the personal stuff if I hadn’t had the chance to mentally prepare myself first.

Or, as I said: I’d been planning on watching it at home so I could cry there.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. I’m glad we went to watch it in the theatre so we could hang around afterwards and do some fannish post-show analysis. I miss that kind of thing!

Back in the day, some of us local fans used to get together on weekends and watch hours of footage that people from overseas had kindly sent us on video tape and squee and make in-jokes and really, as much as I love Backstreet — and I love Backstreet a lot — what I love more is how many lovely people pop fandom brought into my life. Some I’m still in contact with, and some have faded away, but the memories are still there. It was a really good community for me at a time when a lot of other things were going badly. Pop fandom is also where I learnt to write, how to critique my own work and critique others, and if I’m ever successful with my storytelling, it will be because of my time reading and writing and conversing with you all. I'm feeling the love right now. <3

In which I watch things.

Much Ado About Nothing

I loved this. It has its flaws, of course, some of which are inherent to the original play and some of which are introduced, but I enjoyed the humanity and the sweetness it brought to what is, I suspect, my favourite Shakespeare. I had several conversations with people in the days prior that went almost exactly the same way -- "I want to see it, but I really don't know about Amy Acker as Beatrice…" -- and that's something I feared, too, especially since Emma Thompson steals the show in Kenneth Branagh's version. But not to fear! She was great, especially at the dramatic parts, and although less sharp than most productions I've seen, I wasn't bothered by it. (Indeed, I have sometimes thought Beatrice can be a little one-note with the sarcasm. Acker's portrayal had a nice amount of nuance.) Alexis Denisof was delightful as Benedict, particularly at the physical comedy, and everyone else was pretty much fantastic. Even Nathan Fillion was perfectly cast as Dogberry, using his hammy acting to portray the hammiest of characters. The only real let-down for me was Jillian Morgese as Hero. It's a pretty blank role to begin with, but she didn't do a lot with the scenes she had.

(Is it too much to expect some tears in the wedding scene? I want tears, damn it!)

Interesting change that worked: Making Conrade a woman, even if sometimes the actors seemed unsure what to do with the resultant pronouns. I'm pretty sure she was referred to both 'he' and 'she' at some point.

Interesting change that did not work: Having Don John and company initially brought to the house in zip-strips (those modern plastic handcuffs). It didn't make a whole lot of sense given that Don John walks around the house freely throughout the course of the play and easily gets away when he needs to.

Interesting change I was neutral about: Giving Beatrice and Benedict a one-night-stand backstory. It fits with the play (there's a series of lines that seem to refer to a past affair) but I don't know that it added much. Or rather, I wish it could've added more. There's a nice sense that could be drawn from the idea of them having a one-night-stand but being unable to express their love for one another, but it couldn't really be explored within the play the way that it's written.

Though I had walking out of the theatre: This four-hundred-year-old play that pivots around a woman's virginity is still more feminist than most Hollywood films today.

I also enjoyed the light, jazzy feel of the music, which apparently was largely composed by Joss Whedon. Is there nothing that man can't do? For comparison, the song Sigh No More (which Shakespeare wrote the lyrics for) from the Branagh version and the Whedon version.

A Courtship of Rivals: Magic & Bird

In the late 1970s, the NBA was floundering, and even college basketball games were receiving higher ratings. Then along came a couple of young men who would become two of the greatest players the game had ever seen, Ervin "Magic" Johnson and Larry Bird, and the fact that they were so different was just icing on the narrative cake. Magic was African-American, gregarious and beloved. Bird was white, introverted, and kind of a dick. Together, they were rivals: for the NCAA final their senior year of college, for NBA rookie of the year, and then they met each other five times in the NBA finals. They were the story that pulled the NBA into mainstream media attention.

(Remember the Nike commercial This Is Where It Starts? Magic and Bird were basically like that, though they probably made fewer fuck-me eyes at each other.)

Still, goodness is this slashy. I mean, really, really slashy. By the last fifteen minutes, the producers aren't pretending they're making anything other than a love story. It's a nice little documentary and you could to worse things than watch it sometime. (Snakes, say. Anything involving snakes would be worse.)

Available on YouTube.

Jock Strap Cowboys

I'm just going to leave this here.