{"id":1331,"date":"2008-08-25T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2008-08-25T13:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/?p=1331"},"modified":"2008-08-25T10:30:23","modified_gmt":"2008-08-25T14:30:23","slug":"say-what-you-want-about-the-chinese-but-they-sure-know-how-to-put-on-a-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/?p=1331","title":{"rendered":"Say What You Want About the Chinese, But They Sure Know How to Put on a Show."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/xin_50208052422156252100482.jpg\" title=\"Boom, shake the room\u2026\" alt=\"Boom, shake the room\u2026\" align=\"middle\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I was actually kinda blas\u00e9 about the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, at the outset, so I didn&#8217;t really tune in, initially, or check out the opening ceremonies.<\/p>\n<p>Boy, was <em>that<\/em> a mistake.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><em>Hallucinogenic<\/em> might be the sanest word to describe the closing ceremonies, and probably the opening ceremonies, too, from the clips I&#8217;ve seen. (I can only imagine the shock that people who tuned in, not knowing what to expect, must have experienced.)<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/zhang-yimou-0001.jpg\" title=\"\u201cYou can\u2019t mess with me.\u201d\" alt=\"\u201cYou can\u2019t mess with me.\u201d\" align=\"right\" width=\"150\" \/>In truth and retrospect, I&#8217;d have turned it on <em>just<\/em> for the opening, had I known director Zhang Yimou, right, (<em>Ju Dou<\/em>; <em>Raise the Red Lantern<\/em>; <em>Hero<\/em>; <em>House of Flying Daggers<\/em>) was involved. Somehow, he took his rich obsessions with light, form, and chroma and made them three-dimensional, intricate, and even fun.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcdvd.com\/\"  target=\"_blank\">NBC is cashing in with DVD sales<\/a>, $29.99 for a two-DVD set, but, I dunno. This deserves a Blu-Ray hi-def treatment, and I don&#8217;t see any word on when we can expect that. Hope it&#8217;s extremely soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was actually kinda blas\u00e9 about the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, at the outset, so I didn&#8217;t really tune in, initially, or check out the opening ceremonies. Boy, was that a mistake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51,9,59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}