If opening night reviews are to be believed, the newest theatre hit of the year may have just premiered in Minneapolis last night.

Conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham has embarked on an ambitious venture that is sure to make most mainstream (left of Karl Marx) theatre critics scratching their heads – if not pulling the hair out of them. In the wake of her best-selling book, “The Obama Diaries” Ingraham has assembled a multi-media stage extravaganza complete with actors playing the roles of the President and First Lady.

I’m looking forward to providing our readers with a first-hand critical assessment of the production, but until then we’ll have to rely on some of the lucky folks in the audience last night. According to “MinnCon” at Redstate:

In a word, the show was “Obamalicious,” (satirically heavy on the “malicious”) and combined live onstage narration and hosting by Ingraham with real audio clips, photos, videos, and skewering-yet-spot-on impersonations of our imperious President and the First Lady by two fine performers.

Played – no, NAILED – by actors Russell Brown and Selma Schmidt (I believe those were the names – a printed program was not provided) the fictional secret thoughts of Mr. and Mrs. Prez came to life in all of their vainglory.

For the record, Reggie Brown played Obama and Sonja Schmidt played Michelle and yes, I hear their performances are spot-on and hilarious.

From my perspective (and the perspective of any good capitalist) the only real measure of a show is how it does at the box office.  And  by that measure, “Obama Diaries, LIVE” appears to be a hit.  The show played to capacity audiences in not-so-conservative Minneapolis.  If the show can play there, imagine how it will do in Dallas. (more…)

The new Will Ferrell comedy, Land of the Lost, based on an astoundingly bad mid-1970s children’s show produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, is typical of Farrell’s films–it’s funny, imaginative, action-filled, nonsensical, and essentially well-meaning. Unlike most of his comedies, however, it didn’t get a very good start at the U.S. box office, and it received very poor reviews.

Certainly there isn’t even a pretense at a coherent narrative or interesting, complex, plausible characters in Land of the Lost. Given that those are among the things critics tend to praise, it’s hardly a surprise that the film has gotten awful reviews.

Nonetheless, Land of the Lost is quite enjoyable. Despite the claims of some critics who seem disposed to hate everything about it, the movie is quite funny, with many instances of Ferrell’s usual blustering and amusing comeuppances as well as numerous funny comments by Danny McBride as Ferrell’s reluctant and cowardly sidekick. Jorma Taccone’s performance as Chaka is also very risible at times.

Moreover, there is actually a very good, important, and timely thought in Land of the Lost. In a very amusing way, the film satirizes the current-day perversion of science in which claims of consensus are used as a blunt instrument to shout down opposing ideas. (more…)