Monday, August 27, 2012

In Which I Review Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

So it's been a while since I've written here on le blog. It's been pretty weird what with starting public school, trying desperately, and in vain. to catch a showing off the Dark Knight Rises (still haven't seen it).
Now that school has started, I'm hoping I can get into a routine and update this thing more often.
Anyway, onto the point: Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog.
If you're not already interested in this thing after hearing the name, you may need to be examined by a doctor.
Directed by Joss Whedon, Dr. Horrible's is on youtube in it's entirety and rumor has it that it's going to be developed into a TV show in the next year or so.
Basically, Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) goes about singing songs, building a freeze ray, going to the laundromat, trying to get his dream Penny (Felicia Day), and avoiding his arch nemesis and Penny's new boyfriend, Captain Hammer (Okay, I completely blanked on his name, but he's the guy from Castle). He's trying to get accepted into the Evil League of Evil, and fails constantly. I won't give anything else away, but I loved it. It's forty-five minutes of awesomesauce with singing and super hero jokes. What's not to love?
Probably the coolest thing about Dr. Horrible is how even though he's unquestionably a villian, he's the equivalent of the hero in this story. It's quickly apparent after about fifteen minutes of the musical that Captain Hammer is, to put it lightly, a jerk.
The music is surprisingly catchy, and the actors do a great job with the vocals as well. I've had a few of the songs stuck in my head for a while now.
As is Joss Whedon's trademark, the dialog is quick and witty, and the story is classic. Boy likes girl, girl kind-of-sort-of-more-than-likely- likes guy, guy builds freeze ray, but it twists all that into something entirely new and fresh. And the actors handle the material wonderfully. Felicia Day is especially good here.
Another interesting fact: This was filmed during the strike in Hollywood a few years back. The cast and crew behind this did it not only because it's a fracking good story, but to show you didn't need a big studio and fancy geekery to make a good film. The whole thing was shot in six days. That's pretty amazing.
Seeing as I'm writing this on my super fancy (and super painful to use) school laptop, I cannot provide such an extra-curricular link at the moment, but as soon as I remember, I'll post it here.

Seriously just go watch it. It's great. Come back here and let's make inside jokes about it later.

-Randi