Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for August 29, 2011

Good point, Alice!

“Excited” may be the wrong adjective …

There’s excited, and then there’s excited…

Why indeed, Alice. Why indeed..

Alice, when have you EVER seen your big brother excited?! I don’t know if Madeline is just incredibly calm, or unaware of the seething unrest in her children….

Petey is exhibiting a pretty disturbing behavior. It’s disturbing to me because I know first hand how socially crippling it can be. It has ruined my life and, after a ten year legal battle, I still can’t get SSI.

Mom your good…..

A little full of yourself, aren’t you Alice.

Crossover at Reality Check today. Give me a sec, I think I need a Reality Check.Sorry I’m getting loopy

Alice and Danders make an appearance in a Reality Check tribute.

OK, as an acting geek, I must refute Petey’s point thoroughly. When you’re acting you pour you heart and soul into the performance, into being the character. With movie acting, you’ll be doing this and suddenly — cut — another take. it ruins your connection with the character. If you’ve said the line 7 times, it ceases to be the character talking and it’s just you, trying to get a good take. In a play, you’re allowed to be in the moment, to really BE the character. There are no second takes.

Petey, come on now! Think about ALICE!!! She DEMANDS it!

Spanish, as another acting geek, I understand you, but movie acting has its compensations (as well as its own challenges). A movie can combine the immediacy of theater with the permanence of, say, a novel: when you DO get it “just right”, it’s captured and preserved. Acting for a camera also allows for nuance that couldn’t possibly be communicated on a stage: When the face you’re looking at is ten feet high, every twitch of the lip and dart of the eye becomes significant.

I think Mom may be the only one who’s really all excited.

I’m totally saving today’s comic

Alice with “actors ego” and a stage-mother. UGH!!! A societal apocolypse.