Archive for June, 2008
June 30th, 2008
Rock Valley College Starlight Theatre offers a superb selection of plays this summer season: Jonah, the Wiz, Little Shop of Horrors, and Thoroughly Modern Millie. We recently went to go see our two favorites, Little Shop of Horrors and Thoroughly Modern Millie, and were quite pleased with their productions!
Little Shop of Horrors stayed true to the funny, endearing play it always is. For those of you unfamiliar with the play, Seymour is a florist in an unsuccessful flower shop in a bad area of town. He grows an unusual, unique plant which he names Audrey II after his love interest and co-worker, Audrey. After countless efforts of trying to make the plant grow he finally finds the secret feeding ingredient: blood. Media attention increases the plant’s popularit throughout the country, and Seymour feels increasing pressure to get the Audrey II to continue to grow. After some incidences (we don’t want to give to much away to those of you who haven’t seen it), the play ends on a slightly depressing tone.
Our favorite roles included a great voice of the Audrey II (the blood-thirsty plant) and Orin (Audrey’s dentist boyfriend). The music was upbeat and kept our interest throughout the entire play. Overall, we really enjoyed this play and would recommend it.
Thoroughly Modern Millie is our new favorite production. Ourhigh school, Boylan Catholic, put on the show this spring. We had our first experience of this play at that time and we absolutely loved the script. Millie arrives to New York City in hopes of finding a job so that she can marry her boss to be a “modern.” Upon shortly arriving she lands a seemingly ideal job and makes quick friends with the girls who she lives with at the Hotel Priscilla. Little does she (and the rest of her hotel-mates) know that that the owner of the hotel is a part of the white slavery trade and is sending the orphan girls to China. Through her quest to find a suitable husband, she ends up finding true love and saving her friend along the way.
Starlight did a great job in casting to stay true to the characters; the voices were all perfect for their parts. The musical was fun and entertaining throughout. We especially enjoyed the songs “I’m Falling in Love with Someone” and “Muqin”. This play is one of our Starlight favorites and we are excited to see it again in its next showing later in July.
For more information of show dates and ordering tickets look at their website or call them at (815) 921-2160.
June 15th, 2008
When we think of Hollywood’s most popular actors, we tend to think of men like Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Denzel Washington, and the likes. But then the MTV video awards opened our eyes to who we have been overlooking: the classic comedy king – Adam Sandler. According to Internet Movie Database (which never lies,) Sandler has taken on 36 acting adventures, dating all the way back to the late eighties with the Cosby Show.
Billy Madison was one of his first big hit movies. Sandler stars as an aging, well, loser with no skills, job, or usable education. He is banking on inheriting daddy’s fortune, but cannot do so until he re-completes kindergarten through 12th grade, this time learning all that he should have the first time around. There are so many comical moments in this movie, including his habit of singing odd songs. For some reason, we have his “Victory” song on our itunes… it’s pretty humorous!
After a stint on SNL, Sandler starred in another of his great films: Happy Gilmore. This movie is about a hockey player with an anger problem who tries to save his grandma by winning golf tournaments, and it is absolutely hilarious. One of the best-known scenes features Sandler and “Price Is Right” host, Bob Barker, fighting.Sandler plays another under-achiever role in Big Daddy.
Here, he poses as his friend and accepts custody of a child he is in no way prepared to care for. We like all of the horrible things he teaches the child to do, such as using walls as rest rooms and tripping roller bladers with sticks.
His career has been pretty stable – he is constantly coming out with new films. Many of our other favorites include The Waterboy, The Wedding Singer, Mr. Deeds, Little Nicky (pretty stupid, but still funny), Eight Crazy Nights, Fifty First Dates (by the way, what is his obsession with falling in love with Drew Barrymore?), and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
A few weeks ago, Sandler’s latest hit, You Don’t Mess with The Zohan hit theaters. He stars as Zohan, an unbeatable Mossad agent who moves to New York to cut hair. This is one of his most recent best, in our opinion. We were laughing the entire movie! If you have yet to see this film, go see it! And remember Sandler’s many hits in your next Blockbuster trip.
June 9th, 2008
This weekend we decided to adventure to a place we hadn’t been since about the fourth grade- Skateland. Before you laugh and think we’re crazy, you should give it a try because it was actually a lot of fun!
We went on Friday night for the 8:30-11 pm open skate for only $6 including rentals. We were actually quite surprised with how busy it was. The crowd ranged from younger children to full-grown adults.
They played a variety of modern, fun music- a lot of dance numbers to keep the mood going. Our favorite was when they turned all the lights down except for a few black lights and a disco ball that hung from the center of the rink.
Our only complaint was the lack of the ‘90s music which we had remembered skating to nearly a decade ago. We had requested to hear some “classic” songs from our childhood- remember the 16-year-old Britney Spears phenomenon or the NSYNC and Backstreet Boys craze? Although it was not played while we were skating, we got our fix by listening to our favorites on the drive home.
Finishing off the night with some milkshakes at Steak ‘n Shake, our fun night was less than $10. This isn’t bad considering nowadays it’s nearly $10 just to see a movie alone. We definitely enjoyed our time at Skateland and recommend it for anyone in search of an entertaining night with a group of friends.
[Skateland is located at 4843 Stenstrom Road in Rockford. You can find more information and complete skating schedule at www.skatelandrocks.com.]
June 2nd, 2008
Last week, there was a big to-do about the Sex and the City movie, which premiered Friday. We were more than a little excited with this, considering we have been fans of the show for quite some time. So, we bought tickets for the midnight show (over a week in advance – yeah, it’s that big of a deal) and planned a little pre-movie get-together for a few friends and us.Our little party was Sex and the City themed, with fake cosmopolitans as the main drink of the night. Our mocktails were composed of cranberry juice, mango nectar, grenadine, and a splash of lemon-flavored carbonated water. There really isn’t a food with a main role in the show like our cosmos, so we chose to serve brie baked in a pastry puff and spinach and artichoke purses simply out of liking these particular foods.We arrived at the movie about an hour early, which was completely unnecessary. It was not as crowded as other midnight premieres have been, such as Star Wars and Harry Potter. We were apparently wrong in equating this premiere with those movies; it was much more low-scale, at least in the Rockford area. Also, there’s no wizard or Jedi-equivalent costumes to wear to the Sex and the City movie. Anyone that dressed up was wearing a fashionable dress or nice outfit with high, high heels like the famous quartet would. The movie, in our opinion, was excellent! If you’re not a fan of the show, you obviously won’t like it, but we thought it kept within the lines of the show very well. It seemed to be a really long episode. The plot begins with the marriage of Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big – you finally find out his real name – and after an expected plot twist, the girls’ drama continues to get bigger and more intense! We enjoyed our little pre-party and the movie, and recommend that you see the movie if you are a fan and haven’t done so yet. It is definitely worth your time and money.
