No Day But Today

It's been a couple of weeks since I got to see Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway at the Cinemagic Theater. As both documentation of the final performances of the stage version of Rent and my first foray into digital cinematic projection, it was a great afternoon at the movies.

The final cast of Rent was a strong one, and it was great to see that the show retained its vibrancy even as things like "AZT breaks" became dated references that locked the show in the past. The staging had a raw feel to it that the movie (which I did like) sacrificed to polish. The filmed live version did a great job of capturing the energy of the show.

Digital projection is also rich. A voice-sync issue at the beginning had the audience squirming a bit, but once it locked in the sound and visual were sharp and compelling. It never felt like watching TV on a big, really big, screen. Two thumbs up.

Creative Politics

When Obama Girl released her tribute to Barack Obama that went viral a year ago, I had some hope that we might see creative approaches to presidential politics. We've seen some strong, very creative work from The Daily Show, which has pointed out some of the absurdities of this election season in hugely entertaining reporting. But it takes a cast of dozens to keep it edgy and entertaining. Certainly, Jon Stewart is doing the best corporate media work these days.

And what about the regular folk? There's no one doing better work these days than Michael Gregory, who is providing some of the most inspired mash-ups on the election. You've got to see them to believe them. They give me great hope for the future of the web and the next generation. I've included his VP Debate below, but go to his YouTube page to see the presidential debates in song and dance.