No Sleep: December 2005 Archives

Hi *waves*. Today is going by so freakin’ slow. Its mind numbing. I feel like I’ve been at the office all day and its only 11am. I’m dying… please put me out of my misery.

I’m thinking I probably feel like offing myself right now because I’m completely and utterly sleep deprived. I got about 3 hours of sleep last night which wasn’t the plan, but my sister had to do some work on my computer and my mother decided to get all into The Phantom of the Opera (which I was watching because Gerard Butler is my new obsession (poor Mattie)). In fact, she made me play the finale, starting from The Point of No Return for Inbal, who was over that night to watch a movie with Quiana.

Phantom of The Opera is an interesting movie. I happened to completely adore it. The ending makes me cry; Gerard is so good. I think the look of the movie is gorgeous, but Christine and Raul leave me completely cold. Those two are so freaking boring it’s ridiculous. I end up fast forwarding through all the parts that don’t have Gerard in them. Not just because he is too beautiful to walk among mere mortals, but also because that Christina/Raul shit makes want to blow major chunks.

This got me thinking about what other people thought of the film. I know it got mixed reviews and a lot of people hated the fact that they cast Gerry as the Phantom; one reason being they thought he was way to good looking to play this supposed grotesque, twisted character. This is funny because, when mom and I first watched the film like last year, she kept saying, throughout the entire movie, “He’s not that bad? I’d take him. He looks pretty good to me. The left side of his face is fine.” And it happened again last night when Inbal walked into my room, as the climax scene was on when The Phantom tells Christine to choose between him and Raul, “He’s not bad looking,” She said. “Why are they making it out like he’s so terrible?” Dude, that totally cracked me up. I mean, Gerry is hot. No amount of prosthetic is going to cover up his perfection, no matter how hard you try, but damn. The guy is an actor. He’s trying to act the part of a tortured creature abused by the world because of the way he looks.

I would think it’d be really hard to get into the head space of that kind of person when everyone keeps telling you, “You’re too pretty. You’re the exact opposite. You’ll have to flip yourself and basically stop being you.” But I could see how that would be distracting to the audience as well. Everyone is too busy focusing on Gerry’s looks that they find it hard to believe that he is supposed to be this hideous and repulsive thing. It is distracting and the movement of the piece is lost on them. So, in that case, some critics have a point. But why, unlike everyone else, was I able to look past Gerry, so to speak, and focus on the way he played the part? I was able to moved by his acting and sympathize with his creature of the night. Am I not particularly shallow? Or is everyone else just stupid?

So yeah, I made the mistake of going to Netflix and reading the reviews of “Phantom”. Man, are people bloody dumb. They kept going on and on about how Gerry could never compare to Michael Crawford who originated the stage role in the musical in 1984. But here is the thing… Gerry is not trying to channel flippin’ Michael Crawford. I understand the guy has the voice of an angel, but hello, two different people, two different acting styles and two different approaches to the character. I’m sure if they could have gotten Michael to play the part in the film, they would have, but the guy is 65 years old. He has moved on. Not to mention that this was a film, not a stage musical. It was adapted for the screen… ADAPTED for the screen, by Andrew Lloyd Weber himself! The guy who wrote the whole shebang had a hand in every bit of this movie and the “Phans” still weren’t happy. They ripped it to shreds. It’s like, if the freaking guy who wrote the original play likes the direction of the film and approved Gerard to play The Phantom, who the hell are you fucks to tell him he’s wrong? He is supposedly the God of musical theater, right? You all worship the ground he walks on, correct? Still the peeps continue to get their hate on? What up with, player? What up with that?

As you can tell, I’ve thought a lot about this over the past few days. Of course it has everything to do with my wanting to marry Gerard and bare his children. I think He may be replacing Matt as my main obsession, which is sad. Matt and I have been together (not really together… you know what I mean) for the last 5 years and now we are growing apart. My goodness, I’m getting misty. I’ve never been obsessed with someone as long as I’ve been obsessed with Matt. But that just goes to show the rampant progression of my supreme neurosis. My obsessions are completely unhealthy and I have my theories as to why I get enchanted with unknown or barely know actors who don’t even know I exist on the planet earth… but that, my friends, is for another post.

Peace, Love, Blessed it be.