Monthly Updates #7: March Watchables

The last Saturday of march? How is it already the day before Easter? What happened to all the term I was promised?

Now here’s a fun fact: due to tremendous bad timing on the lunar cycle‘s part, Easter has been falling pretty late during my entire college career, which means that now there’s this slightly panicky feeling in my chest anytime I hear the words Easter Holiday – because, basically, they mean that exams are almost upon us. Normally, I’m graduating this June, so the pressure seems to be even higher.
Luckily, though, I’ve managed to get some relaxation in this month, in what I’ve been watching – so let’s get started!

1. Next to Normal

Once upon a time I made a bet with my sister: for every exam she passed, I’d watch a musical with here.
Suffice it to say, we’re already 4 musicals later, and when she found out that Next to Normal was coming to a stage pretty near us, I knew I was going.

And I have to admit: I actually really liked it – even though the mother in this story is everything I fear I might end up being in the worst of my nightmares, the music is phenomenal – and even though it wasn’t brought to the stage with the same, let’s call it key, the musical as a whole really was excellent!

2. Ocean’s Twelve and Thirteen

 

So when me and the bf first got together, we made this list of films and series we wanted to see together – half of them were my suggestion, half of them were his, and as such, nobody had to feel like their taste wasn’t appreciated. We managed to get through all Star Wars-films (hence my current obsession), about half of the then-Marvel Universe, and three quarters of Doctor Who.
We even watched Ocean’s Eleven, fully intending to watch the next one of the Ocean’s-movies the next week or something.

Of course, then we promptly forgot about the list (I think that was the point we started watching Friends and Full House, and it just went downhill from there), so it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago – over a year later, woops – that we actually got to watching the second one.
And then I remembered why I loved these movies: sharp, witty, fast-paced, always something new going on – and geniusly played!

3.  Old French plays in modern productions

 

As I’ve mentioned maybe once or twice by now (or way more, but who’s counting?) I study literature. This term, one of my courses of French Literature is on the baroque and classicist literature (and thus: theatre) from the 16th to 18th century – think Molière, Racine, and the likes. One of the things I like most about this course, is how much attention the professor gives to the actual execution of the works, rather than just letting them remain “strictly on paper”. Of course, that also implies that there’s the occasional “modern” execution, such as this one, which actually stayed pretty close to the original text – but for, of course: flamenco!

4. Anything Hamilton

 

If you haven’t read Thursday’s post yet (if not, you should do that!) then you might not know this, but, basically: I’m obsessed. Like, big time. But because this musical is still so new, I’ve been stuck searching youtube for anything with the original cast – which, thanks to #ham4ham, there actually is quite a lot of. This past week, the cast has actually been invited to perform at the White House, and I figured I’d show a clip of that here, with some context – but, seriously, just read the post, google it, youtube it, and enjoy it as much as I have!
(if you just want the song: skip to 9:00 minutes!)

5. Il était une fois… (Once Upon A Time…)

 

I don’t know if this show was popular where you live, but here in Belgium, it was something of a staple! Basically, throughout several seasons, you have the history of the world, how the human body works, the history of America, and so on, all explained using the same figures – so the “wise old Neanderthal” suddenly turns in to Leonardo Da Vinci, and the same two figures are always the bad guys. Of course, this series does have its problems (it’s all white, for one), but the way it brought sometimes quite complex concepts to children and it’s just a huge bit of youth sentiment – so of course I have to rewatch it every once in a while 🙂

So there you have it, what I’ve been watching this past month! Now here’s a serious question, okay: did you ever watch Once Upon a Time? It’s just that here, everybody knows it, and I’m quite curious to know whether that’s strictly limited to Belgium, or whether it was actually known more widely 🙂

-Saar