June 1, 2006: Music of the Night
You know what bugs me? The people who claim to fans of the Phantom of Opera when they've only seen the poor attempt to make the play into a movie. They haven't heard the real music of the play, they haven't seen the play, they have seen what a real distorted face looks like. They haven't read the book, but then again, I'm only on the 5th chapter, so I won't hold that against them.
They movie was great if you haven't seen the play or heard it's soundtrack. Most of my complaints are on or around Mr. Butler (the guy who played the phantom.) And here's the list of complaints:
1. his make-up just looked like he was recently in a fight and suffered a few hard punches.
2. There was a shot in his lair that had a terrible angle. While he was running around, looking at the mirrors, there was an angle where you could see his full face. He looked perfectly normal.
3. HE DOES NOT SING! He sounds like he's shouting on his first song, and it wasn't even on tune ("IN-so-LENT boy this SLAVE of Fashion!")
4. The masquerade scene made no sense in the movie; it was misplaced and had terrible costumes. Listen to the song and look at the outfits: there're no reds, yellows, or any other color besides black and white. And why are they having the masquerade? In the play, it celebrated the fact they got a new chandeler after PotO crashed the thing at Christine's feet!
5. "Did you think I was gone for good?" quoted from the Phantom's entrance to the Masquerade. He's noosed their stage hand and many other things without sign of ceasing. At least in the play, they had a chance that he went into hiding after his big stunt to wait for everything to blow over.
Now my reconmendations:
1. Get the make-up artist from the play. Now THAT was disfigured.
2. redo the Music of the Night scene.
3. Cast the actor who did Raul as the Phantom, he can sing. Then again, he needs to do Raul so: either recast the Phantom, or recast Raul when you give Patrick Wilson the role as Phantom.
4. Change the masquerade costumes to have varity and color.
5. Put stuff in the right order, possibly use the orginal script from the play. It CAN and WILL work as a movie. How do I know? I've got a book with notes on the play and the entire script. The only interaction with the audience is the chandilier.
Also: American football. come on, call it yardball or something that makes more sense.