High School Musical 3!

I'd better start off right up front admitting that I get just as excited as my kids about High School Musical. (OK-- maybe even more so). Yup-- I've got all three soundtracks on my iPod, and I've seen 1 and 2 countless times.

I grew up LOVING musicals. The 1960s were replete with epic musicals: Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and my favorite of all time: Camelot (stage version more so than the movie....) I knew them and loved them all-- and still do.

High School Musical brings the musical genre back to a new generation, and for that, I truly adore it. So naturally my 9-year-old daughter and I were there on Friday for the opening night of High School Musical 3! What did we think? We loved it! Still, I'm not sure it was my favorite of the three...

It was certainly larger than life! The biggest difference, in my opinion, was that there were all kinds of fantasy/daydream sequences. That's very typical of musicals-- but more so of musicals of the 1950s (think Debbie Reynolds). Here's Ryan and Sharpay's fantasy sequence number, I Want It All:

End of song:


Oh-- they were just imagining it all:


That's kind of cute, but it's not the kind of musical the first two were. (With the exception of parts of the song Fabulous from HSM2).

There was even a nod (you could call it a very blatant copy, but I prefer to think of it as a nod) to Fred Astaire, when Troy danced up the wall, across the ceiling, and down the other wall during the song "Scream"! (That also reminded me of my new iPhone app, iChalky ($0.99 on iTunes):

iChalky dude, Troy, Fred Astaire

So, all-in-all the movie was great fun. My daughter and I thought it had a somewhat weak ending, though-- especially compared to the ending numbers of the first two! We're All in This Together and All for One were both FUN, upbeat songs, and the look was great. They left you in a great mood, thinking "That was a GREAT movie!"

This grande finale song was actually called "High School Musical"-- which is not a good start right there. The senior class danced around in their incredibly floppy gowns during graduation, singing "High-Schoool-Mus-i-cal. Who said you have to let it go?" over and over and over. Lame. Disapppointing. Bad ending.

Where I think they might possibly have made a mistake on this one is that I am certainly not going to see it in a theater again. It was great, but I won't go again. Part of the intoxicating thing about the first two was that you saw them on Friday, then again on Saturday and again on Sunday! Since our babies were toddlers, we've known that the more you see a show, the more you love it! (Blue's Clues, same episode five times a week, anyone?)

Well, we now have to wait... and wait and wait and wait for the DVD. Good idea? I'm not sure. It means we'll forget. I already can't conjure up all the scenes and songs in my mind. By the time the DVD comes out will I still want it? That's the gamble Disney took.

OK, the movie broke box office records for a musical, but will kids be as crazed for the DVD? I can't predict. I already can't remember how much I liked it.




What do you think?

Social Media Mistakes

Read a really interesting article on social media mistakes today! I'm so new to some forms of social media-- Facebook, Twitter, even blogging-- that I'm sure I make mistakes all the time. I have, for instance, written on my own Facebook wall. Does that make me a dork? (Some would say "well that's a given", but they should shut up!)

It's hard to know how much of yourself to put out there. It's hard to know who's paying attention. You certainly don't want to be a dork, but sometimes there you are. There were a lot of good "don'ts" in the post, and the comments were just as useful.

Some social media it's hard to know what to do with. Twitter for example. I tweet some of my Squidoo lens updates (but not all, 'cuz I don't want to be spammy), and I sometimes tweet what I'm doing. I haven't ever conversed with anyone, though. I am following some really interesting people (which is, in fact, how I came across this social media post today), so that makes Twitter worthwhile for me.

Facebook has connected and re-connected me with some people, and that's fun. Facebook seems to be more about your "real" friends, as opposed to the cyber-friends/strangers you follow and that follow you on Twitter. LibraryThing is just my own guilty pleasure-- I love, love, love having my library online where I can view it anytime I want to. I love the automatic recommendations and connections it makes, but most of all I love just looking at my books.

If anybody's stopping by White Pine Lane today, what social media do you use, and how do you use it? Check out the article to see if you agree with the "mistakes". Ciao.

Christmas in October

I love the way the red maple leaves have fallen all over this little pine tree. It looks like it's all decorated for Christmas!

It's Good to be a Giant

Squidoo home page featured? Who would've thunk it? But there I am, smiling out from the landing page. Which features Giants only. Me.

Woo hoo!

OK, that's the last time I'll create a post going on and on about how thrilled I am to be a Giant Squid on Squidoo. Wait-- one more little happy dance.... OK, now I'm done. Have I mentioned I LOVE Squidoo?

All right, let's form a conga line now....

I'm a Giant Squi-id, I'm a Giant Squi-id! Woo-hoo! The new batch of Giants was announced tonight on Squidoo, and I am honored and thrilled to find myself among them!

I'm proud to have the purple badge of the Giant on my lenses, and I'm excited to say I have many more lenses in progress, so keep on reading!

I LOVE SQUIDOO!