Monday, January 9, 2023

Overheard at Table 2: Beautifica 360 (2023)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60rQD4YIvIg

Last Friday night, the missus and I went out to sea Beautifica 360

It was a nice evening out ... mostly because I love going out with my wife and we both love going to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, which is where Beautifica 360 is being played.

Essentially, it's a light show.  You sit in a big domed theatre and watch the lights play out overhead.

Yes, it's visually stunning and yes, it's technically proficient and very well done.

All the reviews will rave about it, telling you that it's a "CELEBRATION OF LIFE" and a "EXPERIENCE YOU WILL NEVER FORGET"

This is hyperbole.

It's a good show.

But it's not a great show.

For two primary reasons: the editing is choppy.  The individual scenes do not flow into each other in any coherent manner.  It started out very nicely, with a forest scene, and we are taken up through the trees into a night sky into different worlds and then after that, it's an hour long melange of different computer graphics twisting and twirling and it's apparently meant to WOW your senses, but frankly, you're left wondering "Where the hell is all this going?"

Ah! then, to answer that question, every once in awhile a voice comes out to tell you that this "is a celebration of LIFE" and to "breathe!"  and "let yourself love yourself" and all sorts of other palaver that, fifty years ago would be called "hippie shit" and thirty years ago would be called "New Age shit" and these days is called "Woke shit" - that's the second reason that this is a good show, but not a "great" show.  Not because that the message is bad (because yes, we all do need to be more loving) but because having this message across weird computer generated slap-dash-dot-strips of various colors simply makes no damn sense at all!  In short, this was an incoherent mess!

The music was good, especially the piece that sounded like post-Waters Pink Floyd (although my wife claims it sounded more like 1970s Santana ... but we'll just agree to disagree) and yes, I think I'll probably get the soundtrack, because that was much more entertaining than the visual.

But, even though I don't think it was great, it still was good.  Was it worth the $50 for the ticket?  Ehhh... probably in today's prices, sure, I mean, I'd've preferred half that, but then I'm a bit of a cheapskate.

Hope the album is no more than ten bucks.



 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

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