Do you know the song “Defying Gravity” from Wicked? If you don’t, just know that it’s the showstopper from this decade’s most popular musical.

Wicked, which follows the Oz witches before Dorothy arrives, is not my thing. Many people have tattooed the show on their hearts, but I find it loud, garish, and cheaply sentimental.

That said, I love “Defying Gravity.” It’s Elphaba (the Wicked Witch’s) big number at the end of act one, and she sings it as she finally embraces her green skin and outsider status. Is the song all bombast? Yes. Does it rely on belty power notes that seem designed to blow out our eardrums and a singer’s voice at the same time? Yes. But somehow, it rises above its own hokeyness.

I think that’s because Stephen Schwartz’s music is so damn exciting. The melody is beautiful and memorable, and the dramatic swell of the final moments (“so if you care to find me/look to the Western sky!”) is viscerally thrilling. It also helps, of course, when the person singing the song can really hit the big notes. Sometimes, there’s nothing better than a diva just singing the shit out of something.

You can imagine my delight when I learned that “Defying Gravity” will be performed on an upcoming episode of Glee. Naturally, I searched YouTube for a leaked recording. I didn’t find one, but I did find what may be the all-time greatest recording of this song that I will ever hear.

A few years ago, Kerry Ellis, who has played Elphaba on Broadway and on London’s West End, recorded a rock version of “Defying Gravity” with Queen’s Brian May.

Let me repeat: Queen. “Defying Gravity.” Rock version.

Yes, the song is just as campy as those words would suggest. Hell, I’d say it’s an orgasm of camp. It’s just so over the top that I’m powerless before it. But why fight it? Any song that opens with brass and electric guitars and what sounds like high-pitched choral singers is not pretending to be anything but ridiculous, so I may as well go along for the ride.

And the ride is awesome. When those hyperactive drums roll in under the chorus? It’s like I’m riding an exhilarating wave of sound. And when Ellis sings, oh, seventeen high notes in a row, and even growls a little? I laugh with delight when I hear it. She’s so cheeky!

Just so you know… I have performed to this recording in my living room. Can you guess the moment where I jump up from my couch with flair? Can you guess where I throw my hand in the air and imagine a wall of sparks raining behind me?

Also, you may enjoy this “Defying Gravity” parody that Andrew and I wrote. It’s from our musical version of Brokeback Mountain…

I loved Malcolm Gladwell’s essay in the most recent New Yorker. He argues that football and dogfighting are essentially the same, at least regarding how they batter their participants, and at the end of the piece, he provocatively suggests that audiences for both sports are after the same thing.

Here’s his conclusion:

We are in love with football players, with their courage and grit, and nothing else—neither considerations of science nor those of morality—can compete with the destructive power of that love.

In “Dogmen and Dogfights,” Evans and Forsyth write:

When one views a staged dog fight between pit bulls for the first time, the most macabre aspect of the event is that the only sounds you hear from these dogs are those of crunching bones and cartilage. The dogs rip and tear at each other; their blood, urine and saliva splatter the sides of the pit and clothes of the handlers. . . . The emotions of the dogs are conspicuous, but not so striking, even to themselves, are the passions of the owners of the dogs. Whether they hug a winner or in the rare case, destroy a dying loser, whether they walk away from the carcass or lay crying over it, their fondness for these fighters is manifest.

This comparison, so beautifully stated, has haunted me for days. Especially the phrase “destructive love.” Because of course that’s what it is. Football players, boxers, dogfighting dogs… they’re our sin eaters. They get punished on our behalf. They symbolically absorb the thrashing that we believe our society deserves, and in doing so, they give us a catharsis. We love them for it.

I’ve never thought of that before. Frankly, it makes me see the nobility in football and boxing (and hockey and all the other violent sports). These athletes step before us like gladiators in arena, willingly absorbing the destructive energy that our culture must vent.

And of course it’s different with dogfighting, since dogs can’t choose to fight, but I can see how the primal response would be the same. You cheer and scream as these animals tear each other apart because they’re acting out the violence you feel but can’t express.

Whether they want to or not, these people and these animals are performing a service. As Gladwell implies, it’s a service we will always need, and that’s why these sports, brutal and even repulsive as they may be, will never go away. We love the wounds too much to heal them.

Last week’s discussion about movies we used to love (and are now afraid to re-watch) has gotten me thinking.

As several readers pointed out, a lot of us have been talking about kids’ movies, or at the very least, movies that we loved as children. But I don’t think this phenomenon—of being wary of re-watching old favorites, or of being disappointed when you do—is rooted in childhood. To me, it’s tied to our disappointment at losing a certain kind of artistic innocence, and that can happen at any age.

More on that, plus the reason Midnight Cowboy makes me sad, after the jump…

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Is there a movie that you used to love, back in the day? Maybe you and your brother would watch it over and over and over, and you just knew it would be your favorite forever? Only now you’re afraid to re-watch, for fear it won’t hold up at all?

During last week’s discussion of the Best Picture Expansion Project for 1994, Gonzalo and Pristine both broached this subject, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Because lord knows, there are a few movies I am certain should live only in my memory.

Like, I used to love The Care Bears Movie, where this magician’s assistant gets possessed by an evil book at a summer camp (or something like that.) I remember thinking it was cool that there was an evil spell book that talked, and I remember having a serious crush on the magician’s assistant. (This is the only picture I can find of him, but trust me, when he wasn’t looking crazy, he was making my six year-old heart just melt.)

Something tells me, though, that The Care Bears Movie would be excruciating today. It features a character named Funshine Bear.

The film that started this whole discussion last week was Reality Bites, which I saw in the theatre in 1994. About three minutes in, I decided it was showing me the ideal vision of my future. I needed to be that cool when I was twenty two.

I watched the movie again over the weekend (I hadn’t seen it in thirteen years), and… it’s not a classic. Unlike Gonzalo, I don’t think it’s terrible, but it certainly feels like a movie written and directed by people who are just discovering the concept of pacing.

Also? Winona Ryder’s character should not turn down the offer to develop a show at a major television network, just so she can hang out with scuzzy Ethan Hawke. Ben Stiller may not be offering her a perfect world, but he is offering an amazing professional opportunity. She doesn’t have to date him, but she should sure as hell work with him.

But… of course I think that, right? I’m thirty, not fifteen.

So maybe I shouldn’t have re-watched Reality Bites. Maybe I should have  kept listening to “Stay (I Missed You)” (still a great song) and let the movie live on in my heart.

How about you? Which movies need to stay in your past?

I don’t know why, but just moments ago, shortly after I wandered to my friend Ginger’s desk for yet another helping of chocolate-covered malt balls, I was suddenly assaulted with the memory of this song.

You guys! Corina! “Temptation!”

This is a lost classics of the nineties. The beat smokes like a sausage on the grill, the lyrics are clever, and that part in the chorus where Corina whispers is crazysexycool.

This song hit #6 back in 1991, so I know I’m not the only one who loved it. (Though I remember the first time I heard it, I thought it was by Madonna. Anyone?)

There’s no way to discuss Paranormal Activity, the little horror movie that’s sweeping the nation like the next Blair Witch, without giving away all the good parts.

So before you join the following discussion, you should probably go see it. (And if you can help it, DON’T see the trailer first. It gives away the best part.)

So yeah… go ahead and see it. I can wait. I’ll just sing to myself.

“Should’ve known better! Now I’m a prisoner to this pay-aiiiin! And my heart still aches for you!”

Oh, hey! Welcome back. Let’s get down to business…

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You may have heard the hype, and I’m here to tell you, brother, that it’s true: Carey Mulligan really is giving an astonishing performance in An Education, the exhilarating indie that’s currently rolling out across the country.

But her performance as Jenny, a British teenager who discovers her sexuality and her identity in the early 1960s, wouldn’t be as exciting without Nick Hornby’s script and Lone Scherfig’s direction.

More on that below… and be ready for spoilers.

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After six episodes of highs and lows, I’ve finally figured out why Glee frustrates the hell out of me.

There will be spoilers as I explain myself.

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Welcome back to The Best Picture Expansion Project, where we imagine that the newly reinstated Oscar rule of nominating ten films for Best Picture applied from 1943 to 2008.

Today I’m taking us back to 1994, a year that inspired one of my perennial Oscar party games.

To view the rest of the Project, please go here
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How fascinating that Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize!

Here’s my first reaction: As the New York Times pointed out, this seems like a direct rebuff of Dick Cheney and all the other politicians who have criticized Obama for being naive and overly optimistic. It seems like the Nobel committee is saying, “We are all of us desperate for thoughtfulness. Please, Mr. President, keep it up.”

I mean, I know the committee is saying that the award is being given for what he’s already done, not what he might do, and yes, just by attempting to launch  his international programs (not to mention his health care bill), he really has done something concrete to announce that the United States will now be leading a new type of conversation.

But by giving him this prize at the beginning of his tenure, isn’t the committee also saying that they want the world to water the seeds he has planted? When something new and beautiful shoots up through the ground, you have to tend to it, or it will die, The Nobel Prize could convince some people (a lot of people?) to get down in the dirt and take care of what is struggling into life.

And yes, I’m sure there are people in our country and around the world who are pissed about this. (I haven’t read that many websites this morning), but even if they don’t agree with the specifics of Obama’s policies and arguments, I hope they can see this award as a testament to Obama’s style. He and his administration have largely avoided the partisan hysteria that’s been the norm in our country for years, and they’ve modeled grown up behavior. Maybe even Obama’s detractors can see the Nobel as proof that, no matter what you believe, levelheaded, open-minded diplomacy is always valuable. That it really is an engine for peace.

Deep breath.

I’m feeling emotional that our sitting president has been declared a beacon for peace. The fact that anyone would say that about the American president means America is once again becoming the kind of place I’m proud to call home. Let this prize become the latest touchstone in a massive shift in our nation. Let us all become people who can be worthy of what the prize represents.

ETA: So, okay. I’ve digested this information a bit, and while I do still hope the things I mentioned above actually come to pass, I’m also developing a bit more skepticism. A colleague suggests that the prize could also be seen as putting political pressure on the United States to refrain from launching a war against Iran. Maybe. I can see it.

Another colleague mentions that the prize loses something when it can be read so obviously as a political statement. I’m not sure I agree with that. When isn’t a peace prize a political statement? And if the Nobel committee wants to use its highly visible platform to push forward its agenda, then more power to them. (Especially since I agree with them! Ha!)