So, taking advantage of the free hotel stay they gave us for sitting through the timeshare presentation last year, we're going to Vegas near the end of October. I've been bound and determined to see the souped-up Phantom at the Venetian ever since I heard about it.

I'm...not sure how bound and determined I remain after discovering that the "cheap" seats are $75. For a 95-minute show!!

The next rungs are $100, $125 and $150 (that last for the "Golden Circle", or as we call it in sanity-land, the forward center section of orchestra).

The plan was, the trip for our anniversary, and PotO for my birthday. But JEEZ! $100 for middle mezz or rear orchestra (starting at row HH, or something like that)???

I was prepared to pay something like the $90 we paid for Avenue Q at the Wynn last year. The full-length production. In killer seats. Which, okay, not exactly the same production costs. But still!!!

*scowls mightily*

...but I really was telling the truth when I said I'd get to that review. :-D

The fact that I've now given it two tickets' worth of money and over five hours of my life is your first clue that it'll be positive, unlike a lot of what's out there. Like I said the other day, soft target, just like the show has been for the last 18 years. (It finally struck me the other day that Emmy Rossum was born the same year the show opened in London. Dude.) For all the trashing they've taken, though, both show and movie serve admirably well the purpose I want them to serve. They have lots of pretty people in pretty clothes singing pretty music on pretty sets, with a healthy dash of Victorian gothic weirdness, and at the end I'm sobbing like the world's biggest sap on behalf of a homicidal whackjob.

If that's not your idea of a good time? Wrong movie. End of discussion.

If it is, however, RUN to a cinema near you. Do not walk, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, do not yield the right-of-way to small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. Go. Because whatever anyone tells you, I'm here to tell you they done good.

( Spoilerrific details, including surprises for those of us with the stage version tattooed on our brains. )

So. Now you know why I didn't get around to this for almost two weeks. I could almost have seen it again in the time it took to write this. *sheepish g* I did mention that it was going to be exceedingly geeky and detailed, right?

Hey, why are you still here? I said RUN! ;-D

Phantom trailer! (Thanks to tzikeh for the link.)

For the record: I don't care that I haven't trusted Joel Schumacher to make a decent movie in years. I don't care that certain segments of the fandom have been having conniptions over the casting of Gerard Butler. (Whom, for the record, I consider to be a damn good actor and hot as hell to boot anyway.) I don't care that I'm insanely jealous of this American answer to Charlotte Church they've got playing Christine.

It's coming! Squeeeeeeee!

Is it December yet?

(Yeah, yeah, 'posed to be prepping directorish stuff for AYLI auds tomorrow night. Your point?)

Joining in the ( game... )

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