Ah gentlemen, you know why we are here, we’ve not much time, and quite a problem here.
I started my Easter celebration a bit early this year. I sat down this evening and watched my favorite rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar. It is only Thursday, but it is early morning Friday, Good Friday, in Jerusalem. Maybe tomorrow night I’ll watch the live stage version that John Legend did in 2018.
Today’s movie was my annual tradition of watching the 1973 Jesus Christ Superstar. The first song in the movie is “Heaven on Their Minds” song by Judas Iscaroit while he sits on a rock watching what’s going on.
When I saw the framing this it reminded me of a scene in another movie I watched earlier this week, The Martian, with Mark Whatney sitting alone looking out over the Martian landscape. Do you think he has heaven on his mind?
I like this movie enough that it could become an annual tradition too, if I only had a date to hang it on. Wait a minute, I just Googled ‘Mars Day’ which led to a page on nasa.gov that says that ancient Babylonians considered Tuesday as Mars Day. It also links the month of March to the red planet too. And I may have actually watched the movie this past Tuesday. Now I’ll just need someone to remind me on a Tuesday next March.
Tell me what’s happening.
It’s Easter weekend which means it was time for my sporadic annual rewatching of my favorite rock opera – Jesus Christ Superstar.
Some folks have called this rock opera/stage play/movie blasphemes, but how about this for blasphemes, Marjorie Taylor Greene comparing Donald Trump’s recent arrest to Jesus’s arrest a couple of centuries ago.
Though having heard this comment earlier in the week while watching the movie it got me thinking, maybe she’s on to something, Substitute Jewish priests for the NYC DA’s office, the Donald for Jesus, Stormy Daniels for Mary Magdalene and Michael Cohen for Judas.
After the overture the first song is ‘Heaven on Their Minds’ and the first stanza works well unchanged:
[JUDAS]
My mind is clearer now
At last, all too well
I can see where we all soon will be
If you strip away
The myth from the man
You will see where we all soon will be
Now, in no way do I think that Mr. Trump is in any way worthy of adoration, but wow, as I was listening to the rest of the songs in the movie there were several that could also be slightly reworked to fit my analogy…
Anyway, try and have a Happy Easter.
Listen, Jesus, I don’t like what I see
All I ask is that you listen to me
And remember
I’ve been your right hand man all along
You have set them all on fire
They think they’ve found the new Messiah
And they’ll hurt you when they find they’re wrong
From the song “Trial Before Pilate” on the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar:
-Pontius Pilate-
Don’t let me stop your great self-destruction.
Die if you want to, you misguided martyr.
I wash my hands of your demolition.
Die if you want to you innocent puppet!
Friday I watched Jesus Christ Superstar on the TV in the living room. Donna poked in a couple of times as she like the music, but doesn’t really care for the movie. Last year I watched the movie on the laptop and the video quality was not that great, but my rip of the 720p resolution DVD which in of itself was made from the 1973 movie film really looks fuzzy only 9 feet away from a 52″ TV. I’ve read there is a blu ray version of the flick available, but I have also read it wasn’t remastered in any way so I’m not to keen on buying it. There is probably a torrent out there of it. What Would Jesus Do? Would he download the torrent to see if it worth maybe buying it?
Today we watched the totally forgettable movie The Intern. From the title I thought it was that stupid Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson thing, but the trailer had Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway and it seemed kind of fun. And it was, but at 2 hours it was about 15-20 minutes too long. We didn’t need the interns Ocean’s Eleven side trip, Ben at the kid’s birthday party and we didn’t really need the whole infidelity sub plot.
In between we had breakfast out with a small contingent of the MMC, lunch out with a friend, a three mile walk in Hitchcock Woods and plenty of screened porch time. The 3-day holiday weekend is winding down and tomorrow it will be back to work for me and back to the grind of retirement for Donna.
Every time I look at you
I don’t understand
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand
Alison Hendrix sings this in the role of Judas during a rehearsal of the Scarborough Community Theater production of Jesus Christ Superstar in the current episode of Orphan Black. This is right after we see her give up the location of our protagonist Sarah, leader of the Clone Club, to the evil Neolutionists. Too on point? Yes, because that is exactly what the show wants you to believe. She of course is just sending the bad guy into an ambush.
You’d have managed better
If you’d had it planned
Is this too, too on point? I’m beginning to think so. The first season of the show was awesome and at times since then has been very uneven. With all the weird plot holes, changing bad guys and weird swapped allegiances I’m not too sure the show runners even had a plan for more than the original 10 episodes. It seems almost Lost-like in its ability to create questions and not ever get around to answering them. If it wasn’t for the magic that is Tatiana Maslany I might have quit watching by now.
Now why’d you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?
If you’d come today
You could have reached the whole nation
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication
Don’t you get me wrong
And ever since I watched the episode on Friday evening I have had this song stuck in my head…
Only want to know
Orphan Black
Orphan Black
What are you? Where are you leading me?
Orphan Black
Supershow
Do you think you’re what they say you are?
In an almost Easter weekend tradition, we watched Jesus Christ Superstar this afternoon. I connect with this movie on several levels, the 2-album rock opera was probably included in my 12 albums for a penny introductory package from the Columbia House Music Club in 1971, I made a field trip to New York with my high school Current Events class to see the stage play on Broadway in 1972 and if I had any musical or dance talent I probably could have been any one of those background players (I know I dressed the part in 1973.)