Forbidden Home Companion

In the past few weeks I had the opportunity to see two things for which I have particular fondness: a Chinese martial arts movie and Prairie Home Companion. The movie was Forbidden Kingdom, and PHC was playing at Wolftrap, where I'd never been before. Movie first:

I was very excited back in March or so when I heard that Jackie Chan and Jet Lie would be in their first movie together. The 1994 version of Drunken Master is my favorite martial arts movie, and Fist of Legend comes in at second. They've both done a lot of great work over a long period of time, and in pretty different ways. I'd say that Chan is more of a stunt-comedy performer, and Li more straight martial arts, and that may be a reflection of their training backgrounds. Chan was brought up in the Peking Opera, and Li was a Wushu champion. So they have different styles, and it makes for an interesting matchup to watch.

As for the movie itself, here's what I liked:

--The general storyline. Find magic staff, free Monkey King, defeat evil warlord and assorted minions. That works for me.

--Any fight involving Chan and/or Li. The matchup between the two of them was quite good. I got to see Drunken Boxing vs Wushu and Crane vs Tiger. I could have stood a little more.

What I didn't like:

--The kid from Boston. I had a hard time buying him as the "chosen one" character.

--English. Jet Li can't speak it well, and neither could the pretty girl.

--Dialogue. Awful, cliche stuff. Tough to listen to.

I thought more could have been made of what was a pretty solid storyline. Why the first Li/Chan film is in English and made for American audiences is beyond me. I believe it would have been better had it been a straight Chinese movie. It would have allowed a more natural performance from Jet Li, and I wouldn't have had suspension of disbelief issues with the American kid. I think the villains could have been a bit more evil, but this seemed to be a bit kid-friendly, which held it back. I'm glad I saw it for the Chan/Li stuff, but it could have been better.

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Prairie Home Companion was a lot of fun. Wolftrap has an interesting setup, with people able to sit out on the grass and still see the stage.

I saw the show several years ago in Baton Rouge, and it hasn't changed much since. What was a little different is that this was the Friday night show, rather than the taped Saturday show. The first 15 minutes was us singing along with Garrison Keillor. "Let's sing O Beautiful, for Spacious Skies." So we all sang that for a while. Everybody knows the first verse. Some people know the second verse. Nobody knows the third verse.

"Let's all stand up and sing the national anthem." So we all stand up and sing the national anthem. No fancy arrangement that you get at sporting events, just the straight anthem, just the way I like it.

"Since it's getting close to summer, let's sing 'Summertime'." So we all sing the first verse of the song. The acoustics at Wolftrap are great, so everybody sounds good. I am amazed at the number of people who know the lyrics to "Summertime". It's a great song.

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry

They also had Raul Melo, a tenor from the Metropolitan Opera singing Italian love songs and a couple other things. It got me to thinking about singers and performers. If there's somebody you hear on the radio singing R&B, or hip-hop, or rock, or easy listening type of music and you think they can sing, then listen to somebody like Raul Melo and let me know what you think. A lot of the people we like listening to have their blemishes covered up by excellent production techniques. Get them in front of live people, and it's a different story. For guys like Raul Melo, that's not the case. They can SING. They spend all their time perfecting their voice and training it to do exactly what they want it to do. They are a pleasure to see in person.