So recently we watched “Whiplash“, in which J. Jonah Jameson, having tired of terrorizing cub reporters, decides to start terrorizing musicians instead.
Now before discussing how long it took “Whiplash” to put my wife to sleep (spoiler alert: it was about 40 minutes), a note about the music: Lots of good stuff here, including plenty of foxtrots, swings, and quicksteps. I’m expecting to hear some of this music at the studio soon. Not that they play a lot of quicksteps, but it would be nice if they did …
Anyway, on to the not-a-review! “Whiplash” put my wife to sleep in about 40 minutes. (Told you that was a spoiler.) Before that happened, though, she made her usual sort of various observations about the film, including:
Wife: “Is this an independent movie?”
Me: “Yes.”
Wife: “I thought so. Nothing has blown up yet.”
Followed by:
Wife: “Is this guy supposed to be the Steve Jobs of drumming?”
And:
Wife: “Is this guy mentally ill?”
And:
Wife: “Doesn’t this guy have anyone to pick on besides the drummers?”
And:
Wife: “I’m going to find this soundtrack on Spotify.”
(pause)
Wife: “Wow, there are a lot of songs!”
I will add that she was very impressed with the final scene, which, I think, took the movie up several notches in her opinion. If it had started with the ending, she probably wouldn’t have fallen asleep so fast. Try parsing that one!
Wife: “A lot of movies don’t know how to wrap things up properly, but this one did a good job.”
As a side note, whoever was actually doing the drumming for this film was quite impressive. So impressive, in fact, that I decided to show my wife another feat of impressive drumming, to wit:
Me: “After the movie, I’m going to have you listen to another drum solo.”
Wife: “By who?”
Me: “Rush.”
Wife: (makes face)*
So after the movie I called up the live version of “YYZ” from Exit … Stage Left and advanced it to Neil Peart’s epic drum solo in the middle of the song.
Was she impressed? Eh, not so much.
Wife: (listens for a minute, says nothing)
Me: “What do you think?”
Wife: “The drummer from the movie was better.”
Me: “But this is real.”
Wife: “Well, somebody had to really play the drums for the movie.”
True enough, somebody did. And they did it very, very well.
* My wife: Not a Rush fan.
Viscosity 