Attention Lady Gaga's loyal subjects: Mark your calendars for July 25, when the performance artist cum pop diva's Monster Ball tour hits the main stage at Houston's Toyota Center.
Following the failure of a collaboration "Fame Kills" tour with Kanye West, Gaga announced the concept for the Monster Ball tour in October 2009, which was then revamped into a massive arena show for its European launch. Today, the performer has upped the ante once again, announcing an ambitious 31-date summer tour beginning June 28 in Quebec.
Touted by the Grammy winner herself as the world's first ever "pop-electro opera", the show will be rooted in "futuristic stage drama". Expect the usual maximalist wardrobe changes, as well as the addition of a 40-foot animatronic sea monster.
"The design of the show is very, very forward, very, very innovative," says Gaga.
Houston's Gaga devotees will be very, very excited for July's spectacle. Tickets will be sold through Livenation.
Hèra (Gaia Wise) in The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
The Peter Jackson-led Lord of the Rings movie trilogy in the early 21st century was such a smashing success that people have been trying to recreate that magic for a long time. First came the ill-conceived The Hobbittrilogy, which made lots of money despite mostly poor reviews. The recent Amazon TV series, The Rings of Power, has gotten generally good reviews, but doesn’t seem to hold a place in the wider pop culture consciousness.
And now comes The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, an anime-style film that seems like an attempt at both reclaiming the world in animated form from the weird 1978 film, and a nostalgia play for fans of the original series. Set 200 years before the events in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, it nonetheless takes place in two very familiar locations that are recreated to appear exactly like they looked in Jackson’s films.
The story centers around Hèra (voiced by Gaia Wise), the only daughter of King Helm (Brian Cox) of Rohan. An early conflict with Lord Freca (Shaun Dooley) leads Freca’s son, Wulf (Luca Pasqualino), to develop a deep grudge against Helm and his family. Wulf pursues that ill will for years, eventually driving his foes into a fortress in a valley to make a final stand against his aggression.
Based on information found in the appendices of Tolkien’s novels, this is the rare instance when choosing to use animation holds back the creativity of a film. Typically, animation allows filmmakers to do things that wouldn’t be possible in the real world, but director Kenji Kamiyama and his team seem beholden to the look of Jackson’s films. While the animation itself is great, it doesn’t offer the fluidity of live action, and so the action scenes are often stilted and flat.
The story itself is not very compelling, as a quartet of screenwriters have concocted a plot that relies on revenge and heroism tropes that allow the audience to predict almost everything that happens. There are a few surprises to be had, but as the conflict revolves around a strong-willed female and her unwillingness to be told whom to marry, it’s generally clear how the story will be resolved, with only the specific details left to be discovered.
It also would have been great if the film weren’t so dependent on nostalgia for the original films. The two main locations are ones that played a big part in set pieces from those films, and their usage here doesn’t measure up favorably. Eowyn (Miranda Otto) serves as narrator, and other characters/actors from the original trilogy also make appearances, leaving little room for this film to establish itself on its own terms.
The majesty of the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, with its New Zealand vistas and incomparable visuals created by Wētā Workshop, set a high bar that none of the subsequent projects have been able to meet. The War of the Rohirrim is a competently-made film, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny with the Oscar-quality work of 20+ years prior.
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The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim opens in theaters on December 13.
