"A new logo...at last."

 

Happy (almost) New Year!

 I was going to try to keep this quiet until tomorrow, but I just can't help myself!

Tomorrow, December 30th, I will inaugurate the beginning of the Ten Years Celebration and re-dedicate the Museum with A REVAMPED LOGO! 

Out with the smudgy, hand-drawn icon of old, and in with a crisp new digitally-created one!

Happy Ninth Anniversary!

 A lot has happened--and I mean A LOT--within nine years. I started this blog at the end of 2012, at one of the lowest points of my life. No job to speak of, ever-dwindling funds, a few large outstanding bills, an extremely wild hairdo, and..let's just say I was kind of hoping for the Mayan calendar prophecy to come true. So I did what I'd always done for the better part of six years: got writing. And this little corner of the Web became a job that I could hopefully make some money off of. 

Here we are, nearly a full decade on. My job has gotten much more hectic than it was even five years ago, which sort of deadens the motivation to write. And, as it happens, I have lost almost all of my nice banners...the logo needs a freshening-up anyway. 

Oh, AND, as if things couldn't possibly make me feel older, come to find out that The Lord of the Rings movies turn twenty this Christmas season. Come on, man, that's just cruel. It feels like a century ago, a different world.

Too much heaven on my mind: "Jesus Christ Superstar 2000"

Originally published April 20th, 2014.

♪Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ/Who are you, what have you sacrificed?♫

Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice originally composed “Jesus Christ Superstar” as an album in 1970, and a stage album followed a few years later. Since then, it has been revived and adapted in countless productions, most notably in Norman Jewison’s 1973 motion picture, which starred the main Broadway cast.

For a long time, those productions hewed closely to the bell-bottoms-and-glitter 70s trappings. It worked, but sometime in the late 90s, Webber and Rice decided that it was old hat. A change was in order, and the turn of the millennium seemed—no, was—the best time to set that into motion.

A revival tour starring Liverpudlian actor Glenn Carter marked the opening gambit, and, when that ended in 1998, its cast and crew drew their plans to capture the updated show on film so that it could reach a wider audience. A traditional filmed performance, which is normally edited from the best "takes" of a tour, would not do. No, this required something more...it required a full studio. Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire--James Bond's cinematic home--provided that space, and then some.

The first few seconds make it clear that this is not your mom and dad’s Superstar. The Roman-inspired set dressings sit uneasily with modern graffiti (a sign reading “Nothing to be gained here!” points to a recently-killed man in a darkly amusing touch). Meanwhile, a Roman patrol strides menacingly about the set, dressed in a hybrid costume of Centurion shielding, SWAT team gear, and Darth Vader.

And Jesus presides over it all, dressed in a modern tank top and capri pants. (I should note that His clothing does change over the course of the show. He starts out modern, but gradually changes into a poet’s shirt, and finally into the tattered remains of a long robe.)

The new, modern styling extends to the production and cinematography as well. You’d expect a filmed stage production to be little more than a static camera covering a proscenium stage, but Superstar does away with that: The set is designed as an enormous “jungle gym,” with built-in ladders and platforms. Also, the set has two levels: The main stage area is at the top, and underneath is the cold, menacing, subterranean headquarters of the Pharisees. A motorized catwalk that raises and lowers as the action requires serves as a kind of “third level.”

There’s some static camerawork on display, but Superstar makes impressive use of the Steadicam (a camera on a perfectly-balanced harness) to pull and push you through the action, effectively creating a fully-immersive experience. Imagine if someone added stereoscopic 3D to the experience!

Lastly, Superstar 2000’s watchword is “visceral.” This is not some sedate, disco-fashioned presentation to be observed and forgotten. No, this one picks you up by the lapels and drags you through an emotional wringer! The scene in which Jesus casts out the moneychangers is an invasion of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll upon the sacred, with huge fistfuls of money passed around among slot machines, TV sets, drug paraphernalia, and cage dancers in belly-dancer garb. It’s so exaggerated that you can’t help but feel Jesus’ bewilderment grow into rage, and cheer Him on when He smashes a TV set and drives them all out.

On the other hand, you can’t help but feel Pontius Pilate’s growing revulsion at the 39 lashings he prescribes to Jesus. Even though it’s just stage blood being slapped onto Glenn Carter, his and Fred (Pilate) Johanson’s acting, dramatic music, high-contrast lighting, and striking sound design combine into a single, gut-wrenching package. (In a nice character moment, Pilate starts out all full of bravado, but as he starts counting to the teens and twenties, he’s practically flinching with every impact!)

With all that aside, it’s time to ask the million dollar question: What makes this a Millennium Artifact?

For better or for worse, Superstar 2000 honors the past by keeping the staging, orchestration, and music the same as it ever was, while updating the feel of the work and bringing the latest technical tricks into the work. More than that, it successfully transplants the ethos of the late 90s and early 2000s into the older music and staging. 

The result is...timeless, for lack of a better word.

800-TREKKER Christmas 1999/Y2K catalog.

....How'd this one slip the archives? I believe I had it lined up for a much, much earlier entry, but somehow it never got posted.

About twenty years ago, 800-TREKKER was the go-to for sci-fi nuts and budding Whovians like myself. On the in-depth review for Doctor Who: The Movie, I mentioned Critic's Choice, Signals, Movies Unlimited, and other catalogs as prime sources for Doctor Who. This, on the other hand, was something new: Doctor Who had merchandise available. Admittedly, it was a rather paltry selection of Dapol's figurines and gift sets, but at the time, it was something special.

[...I pause for a moment to take a quick detour. Dapol was based in Llangollen, Wales, and their primary stock in trade was model train sets. In the mid-80s, they'd acquired the license from the BBC to produce a toy line in time for the upcoming 25th Anniversary. The line included the Seventh Doctor; the TARDIS; his companions Mel Bush and Ace; a bat-like creature from the episode "Time and the Rani" called a Tetrap; several Daleks and their creator Davros; and, the crown jewel of the line, the Console Room Playset, which had a battery-powered console and a K9.

The show, at the time, would slowly peter out, and accuracy wasn't BBC Enterprises' top priority. This resulted in howlers such as a five-sided TARDIS console (in the show it has six sides); a K9 in green instead of silvery-grey (the result of a publicity photo depicting the computerized canine in a grassy field--his paint job picked up the color of the grass); and, most heinously, a Davros figure with two hands instead of one hand and a stump (only about 500 went out like this, and I have one, autographed by Davros actor Terry Molloy).]

Elsewhere in the catalog were goodies based on Star Trek's various series; Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess; Mystery Science Theater 3000; Area 51 and aliens in general; and countless other subjects. 

It must be noted that the website was 800-TREKKER.com. There was a little bit of trouble with this in the early 2000s--an adults-only site called itself 800TREKKER.com (note the lack of a hyphen). The catalog had to publish a disclaimer thereafter, but the damage was already done: The company folded following the dot-com bust of 2000, along with companies such as Pets.com.

That being said, all was not lost: In the late 90s, a store in Illinois called Alien Entertainment started selling assorted sci-fi merchandise and memorabilia, with its Doctor Who collection as its selling point. In the years since it opened, it has since taken 800-TREKKER's mantle.

Welcome, one and all, to 2021!

 So, 2021 marks the twentieth anniversary of the "technical" New Millennium. 2020 was the twentieth anniversary of the "aesthetic" New Millennium. A two and three zeroes, it looks nice and symmetrical. 

My break continues, but come February, I'll have some ideas for fresh content. 

--Doll ads

--The Sears Wish Book, 2000 edition (with an article about Sears and Roebuck)

--More Millennium

--British Heritage, Year 2000 special

--That one issue of National Geographic which I still have

--Entrapment

--Strange Days

--The Matrix franchise (still need to figure out how that's going to work)

And every day that goes by, we are marching inexorably closer to A FULL DECADE OF MILLENNIUM GOODNESS! Yes, that's right! 12/22/22 will be ten years of this amazing little thing. Gosh, it makes you sick, dunnit?