June 11, 2004 - 3:37 AM

Dude, Seriously God? They're Making Fun of You.

Continuing the god theme, I saw the movie "Saved!" this past Sunday. It's a cute confection of a satire/comedy about a small group of seniors at a Christian High School in Maryland. There's a lot of promise in the setup and the actors (Jena Malone, Macauley Culkin, Mandy Moore, Patrick Fugit, Martin Donovan) for the movie to have that indie edge with some quirky and wicked humor, and it does deliver a modest amount of that. But it seems to go the easy route and become a "lesson" story, kinda like an after-school special; too quickly, it falls into the cliche high-school dramedy situations. The usual "popular clique" which serve as the antagonists is the pretty teen-queen bitches, only the twist is that they are the most righteously "holy"; led by Mandy Moore, the incongruencies lead to funny set-ups such as their constant attempts at converting the only Jewish girl in school and their failed exorcism ritual performed on one of the members who has fallen from grace.

Beyond that and a few other instances, the promise of skewering not just the trappings of high school life, but of Christian High School life, and exploiting the blind devotion of the recklessly faithful isn't delivered upon. The whole Christian aspect feels second hand after a while, like it's a gimmick to cover up the fact that this is just another teen movie. The two main girls fight over the same boy; the protagonist starts off liking being popular, but finds out by hanging with the "outcast" group that popularity isn't all that, and that being true to yourself and your friends is most important; misunderstandings, jelousies, sabotage, and revenge occur, and hijinks ensue; the whole thing climaxes at, you guessed it, prom. Christ is just the frosting on the cake, a convenient way to get a few different jokes in.

Despite all this negative feedback, I thought it was a fun movie, one to watch at home on DVD or cable. I probably have a particular affection for it since I attended a Christian High School in Maryland. Although my school wasn't as snazzy as the one in the movie which had a particularly televangelistic feeling to it. And not everyone was as much a Jesus-freak as the entire population of the movie school was (and, dude, no WAY were the mad Jesus-freaks the cool people in my school).

Some interesting tidbits: Michael Stipe was one of the Executive Producers and he duets on Brian Wilson's "God Only Knows" with Mandy Moore over the credits; Mandy Moore does a comedically ostentatious rendition of a Kim Fox song for a school assembly (which had me abuzz with delight for Kim); the movie was filmed in British Columbia, although the suburban developments looked very much like the ones near my school; Mary-Louise Parker and Jena Malone are absolutely convincing physically as mother/daughter.

Even more godstuff: I started work at the theater this week on a stage production called Ramayana 2K4. It's a dance-story spectacle centered around the Hindu myth of Rama, his wife Sita, and his nemesis Ravana and involves all sorts of gods, goddesses, and demons. The whole thing is a bit Cirque-du-Soleil with a lot of rave-y elements. We open tonight, but it's still in a bit of disarray; our preview run last night made it through thanks to some well-placed chewing gum, several paper clips, and lots of hope. Since I'm still new to the live sound engineer gig, the week has had many ups and downs as I learn on the job, including nearly blowing my ears off with feedback several times. But I'm making it work, gritting and grinning...it's a steady gig for the next month and a nice paycheck, so I won't complain. Too much.

I'm excited to see how it turns out, though, when everything gels together; we run for four weeks, through July 3rd. Y'all should come down and check it out in a week or two. It's at the El Portal theater in North Hollywood. Drop me a message if you're interested, and I'll see about getting you free tickets.

Oh, and by the way, this is now my third job at the theater. The first was that Gay/Lesbian chorus thingy last month, and the second was the 6th Annual Los Angeles Dance Invitational last Saturday. That ended up being a 14 hour day as we started at 10 in the morning tech-ing out (that's the "official" theater term for plotting out what light colors and effects, what staging and backgrounds, and what music cues are needed for an act with the director and peformers...I refuse to say it myself since I'm staunchly against using silly industry-specific jargon...it's so geeky while also sounding pompous, like you're part of an elite "cool" group who speak in special codes...miscreants [and of course that's a big fat lie since I'm all jargony when it comes to recording]) each performance group (there were 14 different acts on the show doing various dances, from tap, to modern, to jazz) until 7 PM, with a showtime of 8 PM. I gotta say, most of the performances were fucking amazing. And many of the dancers did moves that made me want to cry. Because they looked so painful.

And man, those dancer chicks are HOT. Sure, they could easily beat me up and then twist me into a pretzel. In fact, maybe I shoulda asked them to. That would have been sweet.

Now Listening To : Cake- Fashion Nugget
Random Thought : What are your plans for the summer? I plan to conquer the world. Or, at the very least, my pants.

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