A hit and a miss (well almost)

I thought I would post reviews for a couple shows I saw this weekend.

On Friday night my son and I went to see the touring production of Monte Python's SPAMALOT. Spamalot was the 2005 Tony award winner for best musical. On January 11th it will end it's Broadway run. I'm not certain how long the touring company will continue, but if they should ever return I would go again. The show is primarily based around "Monte Python and the Holy Grail." There are also referrences to "Life of Brian" and various sketches from classic Python skits. For example, a reference to migrating coconuts carried by swallows contained a few of lines from the "Parrot" sketch. There were also some timely improved lines such as when the French Taunter is egging King Arthur on with lines like... "I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough whopper! I fart in your general direction! You mother was a hamster and your father smelt of eldeberries. I throw my shoes at your President!"

The female lead for the preformance we saw was played by Esther Stilwell. Miss Stilwell has a Disney connection. She has preformed at Disney Tokyo and on the Disney cruiseline. The show contains one of my all time favorite broadway songs. Here is "The Song That Goes Like This." The female lead here is not Miss Stilwell.



Another thing we did today was to go and see Disney's Bedtime Stories. Judging by the previews this film looked very promising to us. The film stars Adam Sandler. Now to me, Sandler's films can be very funny if... if they don't go to far. Which reminds me if you "have not" seen "Don't mess with the Zohan" good for you. That film is vulgar on too many levels.

During the open credits of "Bedtime Stories" I became concerned when the tag "A Happy Madison Production" appeared on the screen. Now this film is not vulgar, things are kept clean, but Sandler's influence can be felt here. One example, Rob Schnieder makes his obligitory appearance.

The film opens promising enough with Jonathan Price(Sandlers dad)narrating. We quickly learn that his father's bedtime stories ment a great deal to Skeeter (Sandler)as a child. Flash forward roughly 15 years and we find Skeeter watching his sisters kids while she is out looking for a new job. Skeeter makes up a bedtime story each night and the kids add their own spin to the stories as he makes them up. After the first night Skeeter realizes that parts of the previous evenings story have come true in the real world. Over the next few nights Skeeter attempts to guide the stories in a direction that will benefit his life.

There was something about the pacing of this movie that felt off. To me, parts of it felt just a bit disconnected. If I was reviewing this over on AATC I would give it 3 out of 5 kernels.