Every Olympics, I read about how beautiful and wonderful the Opening Ceremonies are, and I almost always find them reasonably interesting at best. And I found last night's the same. There are always absolutely great things about the event, but I generally find them very disjointed -- no story connecting things, just random vignettes. (And often ones based on the concept that weird is inherently artistic, moving and meaningful.) Furthermore, any show that requires a narrator telling you everything that's going on and what all the running around represents -- which is almost always the case with Olympic Opening Ceremonies -- the person who put the show together didn't do as good a job with their razzle-dazzle as they think. I also want to know about the country's culture and less about shifting equipment around. I did admire the use of technology (the drones were especially amazing), though there is a balance needed, and ultimately the point about the Olympics -- and most productions -- is the people, and technical wizardry should augment that and now turn the show into being like watching an animated film that could have been produced in any computer studio. And I thought the presentation of .the song "Imagine" was very well done...though not nearly as touching as so many comments suggest. For a song about all people living life in peace together, I thought it was strange to have the individual singers not only recorded in a blank, barren environment, but separate from one another, detached. It's a song about how "the world will be as one," and their version had each singer alone. It's possible that COVD restrictions kept them from being in Japan -- though they managed to get thousands of athletes there in the stadium. And at the very least, they could have done something with the videos to show the singers visually overlapping one another. And not in their separate boxes. I love the story of how U.S. Olympic softball player Madilyn Nickles got her nickname. And a nickname by which she's pretty much only know. In fact, on her UCLA team's webpage, it only lists her by her nickname. Her given name of "Madilyn" is nowhere to be found in her bio. When she was a young girl playing softball, her father could never get her attention because there were so many other little girls with the names Madilyn and Madison and Madeline and all manner of versions for Maddie, and when he called her she wouldn't recognize it was for her, and wouldn't respond. So, instead he gave her a nickname that would easily stand out. And it stuck completely, so that ever since then she's been -- "Bubba." There's a new event for women this Olympics, called 3x3 basketball. I find it incredibly strange, but fun -- and it's so fast-paced you almost get out of breath just watching. It may be a bit too fast-paced to the point of becoming dizzying, but ultimately that seems almost the point. It's like a scrappy game of schoolyard pickup hoops. The rules take a bit of adjusting to, but they're not terribly difficult. (Basically, a basket is one point, and outside the circle is two points, and the winner is who gets to 20 points first in 10 minutes. And play is non-stop, even after a basket is made -- the other team grabs the ball and throws it outside the circle before they can score.) It's more than that, but that's the general idea.) I like the rowing sports, but there's a challenge broadcast the team and sculls events that TV hasn't solved yet. There's no sense of where the finish line is, and perspective of where the boats are in relation to one another (and the finish line) is a bit off. They do run a graphic when the racers pass certain marks, but it's not as substantive as most racing events. But my favorite rowing competition is the whitewater races, which is reasonably new to the Olympics and, for me, one of the better "new" events in recent years. It's so vibrant and rambunctious compared to normal rowing -- and even compared to most other sports -- as you watched racers maneuver around twisting rapids, that I'm just enthralled by it. So, I await its entry into the Games soon... More to come.
1 Comment
Douglass Abramson
7/25/2021 01:23:53 am
I didn't watch the opening ceremonies for a change; I just couldn't work up any enthusiasm for them and I'm a guy who watched Ali light the flame in Atlanta from the cigar bar at Junior Seau's restaurant in San Diego, because it fit them into my evening plans. This year nada. As for the missing plot, maybe it was accidentally cut along with anything the host committee was afraid might be a hidden Holocaust joke left in the show by the director they fired at the last minute. I purposely didn't read what the jokes were that the man supposedly said twenty-four years ago. In my opinion, they would have to be pretty grotesque to fire someone over after almost a quarter of a century. However bad they may have been, even I, someone who isn't in television knows that you don't fire your director of a huge, live event with an expected audience of up to a billion people. Too much of too many things is riding on a smooth, successful broadcast. You keep schtum about the jokes until the day after, pray that nobody breaks the story before and then clutch your pearls and denounce the jackass after the show is over so fast that he not only gets whiplash, but Lindsey Graham turns green with envy because you stole his act and did it better by a country mile.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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