Julie's Greenroom Review

            When I found out that Julie Andrews was doing a Netflix show educating kids about theatre, I had to check it out. I knew going into it that it was intended for children, but I had the feeling that theatre enthusiasts like myself would find it interesting as well. In Julie’s Greenroom, Miss Julie and her assistant Gus (played by the talented Giullian Yao Gioiello) teach some puppet kids (provided by The Jim Henson Company) about various aspects of theatre and the performing arts while preparing them to put on a show themselves. The educational segments and racially diverse puppets were reminiscent of your typical PBS kids’ shows like Sesame Street or The Puzzle Place.

            The puppets include the five kids of the greenroom, who are called Greenies. Hank is sports-loving piano player in a wheelchair. Fizz is a girl who is always screwing up, yet wants to be everything when she grows up. Peri is the know-it-all diva of the group. Spike is a word-loving guy who is destined to become a writer. Riley is a tomboy tech enthusiast who some viewers might mistakenly believe is male. There are also two animal puppets: Toby and Hugo. Toby is Miss Julie’s mischievous dog. Hugo is a duck that performs with the kids and helps out in miscellaneous ways. Some adults may be annoyed by the puppets’ various quirks, but children will get a kick out of them.

            Each episode also gives us different guest stars who come to share their performing arts expertise with the kids. These guest stars help make the show more interesting for adults. They include Idina Menzel, Chris Colfer, Josh Grobin, Alec Baldwin, Sara Bareilles, David Hyde Pierce, and more. Some of the lesser-known guest stars teach them about more specified fields like ballet, playing musical instruments, or improv. All of them come back for the final episode to see the kids put on their show. Also in the final episode, we get the one guest star who does not play herself: Carol Burnette. She plays Mrs. Edna Brightful, a potential benefactor for Miss Julie’s theater.

            It’s always delightful to see Julie Andrews onscreen, but these days, it makes me sad to hear her. Ever since her botched throat surgery in 1997, she’s lost her beautiful soprano singing voice. She does do a little singing during the songs of this show, but she has to talk-sing a lot of the time. The only times she actually sings are moments when the notes are low and simple enough for her to handle. I also noticed that even her speaking voice has become raspier during this show. Luckily, Gus and the rest of the cast are talented enough to pick up the slack for her. Even though her voice isn’t what it used to be, her graceful presence always adds a sense of elegance to everything she does.

            It seems like most musical kids’ shows don’t write many original songs. Most of the time, they just write new words to old, familiar melodies. Julie’s Greenroom doesn’t do that. The musical numbers in this show are all original as far as I can tell. Some of them are more memorable than others, but I imagine that some of them could grow on me, especially if they ever release a soundtrack. One particular highlight is the “Mashup Song,” which Sara Bareilles helps the Greenies write. Part of this song serves as the show’s theme song. I also love the final number of the season, “Anything Can Happen in the Theatre.” That song perfectly expresses why I love theatre so much.

            I think Julie’s Greenroom is a great way to introduce children to the world of performing arts. If this show had been on when I was a little kid, I probably would have gotten involved in theatre a lot sooner. It does a particularly good job of teaching the vocabulary of theatre. (I bet that a number of parents watching it don’t even know what a greenroom is.) The show also has some good inclusive messages. For example, it teaches that ballet is for everyone and not just for girls. Some people might accuse this show of being too cheesy and repetitive, but they need to keep in mind that it's intended for children. The show may not be perfect, but it does what it’s supposed to do.

My Rating: between 7/10 and 8/10

Experience

            Oscar Wilde once wrote, “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.” Unfortunately, most employers don’t see it that way. They see experience as a necessary precursor for a job. When I graduated from college, I had the hardest time finding a job because I didn’t have the necessary experience. After months of searching, I was finally able to get a job for a while, but now I’m in the same position I was when I graduated. You’d think that having a bachelor’s degree with a double-major would be enough to qualify me for a number of jobs, but only experience seems to matter to employers anymore. How am I supposed to get experience if no one will hire me?

            One might argue that internships are a good way to get a starting position that gives you experience. Unfortunately, most internships are exclusively available to students who are currently enrolled in college. Some of us didn’t do internships during college because we couldn’t do work and school at the same time. College is stressful enough as it is; having a job on top of that is enough to make some students lose their minds. Why aren’t there more internship opportunities for recent graduates? There are also people who decide to change careers long after they’re done with college. They’ll need some starter jobs too. Employers need to realize this and create new ways for us to gain experience. We can’t get a future if no one will give us a past.

            Employers also need to realize that there are other forms of experience besides jobs in the same field. Sometimes jobs in one field can help a person develop skills that apply to a different field. College classes give students experience in learning about the field of their major, giving them knowledge about related jobs. Applicants could get the chance to explain these skills in job interviews, but many employers won’t even call them back for interviews because there aren’t any similar previous jobs on their applications. People forget that job experience and necessary skills don’t always go hand in hand. There are also skills that an applicant can’t gain until they’re actually hired and learn on the job.

            Most of my work experience has been in retail, fast food, and similar fields. Those types of jobs not only don’t pay well, but are particularly inflexible when it comes to scheduling. I think one reason I haven’t been able to gain better work experience is because the business world is prejudiced against millennials. We are viewed as lazy, self-centered brats with a sense of entitlement. That may be true with some millennials, but the truth is that a lot of us just have a different way of looking at the world. People of older, more traditional generations are set in their ways and have a hard time adjusting to our points of view. As a result, I may have to go back to the kind of job that society says is beneath me.

Beauty and the Beast Review

                There’s no need to start this movie review with a summary. Unless you’ve been living under a rock your whole life, you know the story of Beauty and the Beast. The new film uses the same general plotline from the classic cartoon. However, there are a few new twists in this retelling (some of which are more surprising than others), but I won’t spoil them for you. I wouldn’t say that any of the new plot elements are bad per say; it may just take multiple viewings to get used to them. The core story is still the same and as great as ever. The filmmakers knew enough not to mess with what they know works. As Cogsworth says in the cartoon, “If it’s not baroque, don’t fix it.”

            The film gives us the high-quality production values we’ve come to expect from big-budget Disney movies. The sets and costumes are Oscar worthy. We get some nice camerawork, though I still don’t like the overuse of shallow-focus shots in movies these days. The CG may not be as photorealistic as last year’s remake of The Jungle Book, but it’s still pretty good. I personally would have designed some of the object characters differently, but that’s just a minor critique. The 3D is average with a few cool effects here and there. Overall, the film looks beautiful. The most visually spectacular part of the movie is the jaw-dropping “Be Our Guest” sequence.

            The cast is solid. Some people may find it hard to see Emma Watson as anyone but Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter movies, but I accepted her as Belle without any trouble. Luke Evans (Gaston), Josh Gad (LeFou), and Kevin Kline (Maurice) aren’t as exaggerated as those characters usually are, but they aren’t bland either. The actors voicing the CG characters are spot-on. They include Dan Stevens (Beast), Ewan McGregor (Lumiere), Ian McKellen (Cogsworth), Emma Thompson (Mrs. Potts), Audra McDonald (Wardrobe), and Stanley Tucci (a new harpsichord character named Cadenza). They all did their own singing, and quite well too.

            There are a few new songs written for the movie. They’re fine, but none of them will become classics. I still wish they had used some of the songs written for the stage version of Beauty and the Beast. I’m surprised they didn’t include the delightful song “Human Again,” which was cut from the cartoon and reinstated in the special edition. At least they kept the six songs from the original movie. Initially, Disney was going to have this film be a non-musical like the recent Cinderella movie, but director Bill Condon reminded them that the music was too iconic to cut. I’m glad he did so, because the movie wouldn’t have been as good without those wonderful tunes.

            This film finds a balance between staying true to the original, yet not making it an exact copy. There’s no way to please everybody when you’re re-tooling something that’s this well-loved. I’ve heard various opinions about little things people didn’t like about the movie. I admit that there were moments that kind of bugged me. However, we mustn’t make mountains out of molehills like people did with the film’s infamous “gay moment” (which is mild and easy to ignore). There’s still plenty to admire about this film. It will never replace the cartoon, but it doesn’t have to. We just get a new telling of a beautiful tale as old as time, and that’s good enough.

My Rating: 8/10

How I Lost my Job

Before I started working as a substitute teacher with the Davis School District, I had posted a series of videos on YouTube. Most of these videos were of me sharing jokes, telling funny stories, or singing silly songs. I mainly just made them to entertain my friends. After I became a substitute, I found out to my surprise that one of the students at my old high school had seen my videos and was a big fan. That student spread word of my videos to his friends. Before I knew it, word had spread to other schools in the Bountiful area. Any time a student would bring up my videos in class, I reminded them that school was a place for learning and encouraged them to focus on their studies.

After a year of trying to ignore obsessed fans, things started getting worse. I got a call from the District telling me that I had gotten several complaints from parents for encouraging students to look at my YouTube videos. I explained that the students found the videos on their own and that I was trying my best to keep the students on task. Then I promised to try even harder to avoid the subject when students brought it up. Not long after this, I got an email saying that a particular school would no longer accept me as a substitute because of reports that I fell asleep in class. I don’t know where they got that idea because I never fell asleep while teaching. However, I was glad to be rid of that school because it had a lot of frustrating students.

Unfortunately, word of my videos started spreading to schools up in Farmington and Kaysville as well. I kept my promise and avoided talking about YouTube, but more students than ever insisted on talking about my videos. Junior high kids were giving me a lot more trouble than high school kids, but hardly any high schools in the area seemed to need substitutes. Eventually, the District told me that they were still getting complaints from parents about me and decided to fire me. I tried to appeal by writing a letter explaining the whole situation and mentioning that I had now deleted my YouTube channel after all the grief it caused me. The District wrote back saying that they still hadn’t changed their minds.

While I was working as a substitute, I had been taking some classes that would have helped me become licensed as a regular teacher. This particular licensure program was only for people who were currently employed by a school district. After I lost my substitute job, I was basically kicked out of the program and taken off of the class rolls in the middle of the semester. As much as this disappointed me, these classes had reminded me of a number of problems with the education system. If those problems weren’t enough, incorrigible students and overly judgmental parents had cost me my job. All this made me realize that being a teacher would have made me unhappy anyway.