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CurtainUp
By Elyse Sommer
Index of Topics (Items are posted with the
most recent at the top
Reviews:
Savages
Romance and Cigarettes
Sweeney Todd--Includes DVD review
Charlie Wilson's War
A Number
Hairspray
Evening
Coeurs--from Ayckbourne play
The Namesake
Dreamgirls
The Queen
.The Devil Wears Prada
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News of Plays into Films.
Starting Out in the Evening—, based Brian Morton's novel of the same name is a veritable stage actor fest. To start with, there's the main character played by Frank Langella who might nab an Oscar to put alongside his Tony for Frost/Nixon. He plays Schiller, a lonely 70-year-old widower a(Lauren Ambrose, to stir up his quiet life. The support players include Michael Cumpsty (my favorite ever Richard III), musical theater star Jeff McCarthy and the always excellent Jessica Hecht A Number. Caryl Churchill's intriguing A Number will make it to the small screen as an HBO Film. The mysterious, sci-fi flavored story which we reviewed in New York, London and California (the review) will be helmed by the original director James Macdonald guiding stars and star Tom Wilkinson and Rhys fans. The screen play was adapted by Churchill and is expected to air sometime next year. It should be noted that Churchill's play Top Girls is headed for a Broadway revival.Naked Boys Singing! the fifteen-song celebration of the male form, now its ninth year Off-Broadway at New World Stages Stage 4 has now hit the screen, the October 12th world premiere at the Quad Cinemas in New York, to be followed by other showcase openings. For a theater near you, check out www.nakedboyssingingmovie.com
The screen adaptation of Tracy Lett's creepy horror drama Bug has been adapted into a film by the playwright and is from what I hear even creepier. It's directed by William Friedkin and stars Ashley Judd as the divorcee leading a rather shabby life in an Oklahoma motel. Her lesbian friend is played by stage veteran Lynn Collins. The seemingly harmless young man named Peter is played by Michael Shannon who created the role when Lett' play premiered in New York and became an off-off-Broadway hit.
Peter Morgan had already done the screenplay for Frost/Nixon when the play opened on Broadway, again to mostly rave reviews. The only thing up in the air was whether director Ron Howard would opt for a Hollywood actor (Warren Beatty's name was much bandied about) but he has (wisely so!) decided to keep not only Langella as Nixon but Michael Sheen (Tony Blair in The Queen). To read our review of the play in London and New York go here .
John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Doubt will be adapted for the Mirimax film version by Shanley. Meryl Streep will take on the role of the nun and school principlan who suspects a priest of pedophelia, that priest to be played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. The role was originated by Cherry Jones and won her a Tony Award and the original priest was Brķan F. O'Byrne who this season was one of the leading players in the Tom Stoppard epic Coast of Utopia. Amy Adams will play Sister James. The mother of the boy at the center of the pedophelia issue is yet TBA.
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Savages—
Theater goers reading the cast lineup of writer/director Tamara's film are likely to feel as if they've wandered into a Broadway or Off-Broadway theater rather than a movie multiplex. The stars are Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Laura Linney and Phillip Bosco, all showing their acting mastery no matter in what medium. Peter Friedman, who in 1998 was nominated for a Best Actor Tony for his role in the musical Ragtime, has a major support role as Linney's married boy friend. There are also brief appearance by actors usually playing major roles on stage: Debra Monk, Margo Martindale, David Zayas, Guy Boyd and Peter Freshette (I've probably omitted a few). And, towards the end, there's a scene inside and outside a venerable downtown venue, the Theater For a New City.I caught up with this film at an afternoon performance in a multiplex near my home. The audience was comprised largely of senior citizens for whom this story is somewhat too close for comfort: The girl friend (Doris Metzger) of an old man with dementia (Phillip Bosco) has died leaving him homeless and no longer care for himself until the inevitable arrival of the Grim Reaper. His 39-year-old daughter Wendy (Linney) and 42-year-old son Jon (Hoffman) are faced with what to do with this man from whom they've long been estranged.
While I heard some exit comments about it being depressing, there were as many and more indicating an appreciation for this sharply unsentimental and very funny (yes, funny!) take on death and dying. Besides the absolutely superb performances of Linney and Hoffman, this film is much more than an all too realistic take on the pain of declining health and mental powers not just for the afflicted, but for their children who are usually at the midlife crisis points of their own lives. And the lives of the Savage children are indeed in trouble well before they get a call from the Arizona retirement community where their father's been living. Both are smart in an intellectual sense — he's a college professor, and she a playwright— but the family dynamic which has led to the estrangement from the father has not helped either their love lives or their sibling relationship to mature. It is Ms. Jenkens' achievement that she has managed to actually use the end of one life to create a new beginning for Jon and Wendy's dead-end lives.
As for Savages being funny, I wasn't kidding. It's chockablock full of funny business and dialogue. My own favorite line is one that seems made for a film with so many theater people in the cast. Jon responds to Wendy's plea join him in hunting down their father with "This is not a Sam Shepard play." (I suspect that Hoffman may have contributed this comeback to Ms. Jenken's screenplay).
And so, while the film does paint a savage picture of the travails of old age, it is filled with hope and renewal and a delightful surprise happy ending.
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Romance and Cigarettes.
Movie musicals are so 1950 but this year has seen two innovative ones: Julie Taymor’s Across The Universe and now, Romance and Cigarettes, written and directed by actor John Turturro. Both have blue-collar protagonists,. Similarities pretty much end there.Turturro’s hero Nick (James Gandolfini) is a middle-aged construction worker with a beautiful wife, Kitty, who is a dressmaker (Susan Sarandon) and three grown daughters. When Kitty finds a note he wrote to his red-haired mistress Tula (Kate Winslet), life as he knew it effectively ends.. His day job involves ruminations high above the city towers with co-worker Angelo (Steve Buscemi). The inarticulate characters’ emotions are expanded by pop music. They burst into lipsynch at the drop of a feeling, sometimes as a group in topical costumes on the streets in their shabby neighborhood where each small house has a giant TV screen and a back yard with cement for grass where Nick’s daughters and boyfriend Fryburg (Bobby Cannavale) put on concerts, hoping their songs will someday reach a larger audience.
Although this seems artificial at first, the characters gradually draw us into their lives. Elaine Stritch hits her marks as Nick’s Ma, as does Christopher Walken as Cousin Bo, but wonderful actors like Barbara Sukowa as Fryburg’s mother Gracie and Mary-Louise Parker as Constance don’t have enough to do. However, this cast is a cornucopia of riches, many of them well known to theater lovers. Besides the under-utilized Parker, there's Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken; also Bobby Cannavales who last Fall contributed greatly to the success of Mauritius and Elaine Stritch who's currently reprising her one-person play at the Carlyle.
Turturro’s use of songs reinforces Noel Coward’s comment,”Extroardinary how potent cheap music is.” Tuturro mixes Italian passion with a style reminiscent of the writing of two well-known theater scribes, John Guare and John Patrick Shanley, as well as the early work of Federico Fellini. He’s in good company and those giants have a fresh talent to welcome to their pantheon.
Many will have a love/hate relationship with this movie but what hangs around is the inevitability of passion, the many forms of love and the assuagement of music, cheap or otherwise. —Reviewed by Laura Hitchcock
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Sweeney now on DVD
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The 2005 Broadway revival in which director John Doyle eliminated an orchestra and had the performers play instruments as well as act and sing, was a case in point. Some critics and audiences loved it (including Curtainup's chief critic-- review), some found this pared down staging a style whose time should never have come. Tim Burton's film has so far generated its own controversy —though the ecstatic yeas seem to outweight the so-sos and nays and the first weekend box office results put this Sweeney into the top 5 category.
To begin, anyone who doesn't like violence, beware. The film gushes blood like a rich oil well, especially in the second half. As for the casting, neither Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham Carter are singers. Yet, and this is where director Burton and screenplay writer John Logan have won over many of even the musical's diehard fans (and apparently Mr. Sondheim) to his vision, Depp and Carter powerfully convey Burton's Grand Guignol vision even though their voices are not in a class with such stage interpreters as Angela Lansbury and Patty LuPone or Michael Ceveris.
Depp's voice is quite strong, Carter's a bit on the thin side-- but they make Sondheim's arias work. And while several numbers (like the Ballad of the Deman Barber) have been sacrificed to the film's look and feel, and in the interest of bringing the film in at a little under two hours, the overall streamlining has not done major harm.
The casting generally focuses on non singers (with the exception of Laura Michelle Kelly who plays the Beggar woman): Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin, Timothy Spallas Beadle Bamford, Sacha Baron Cohen as Signor Adolfo Pirelli and Christopher Lee as the gentleman ghost, Jamie Campbell Bowen as Anthony, Jayne Wisener as Johanna, Ed Sanders as Toby.
And so, as a theater person and someone not generally drawn to the macabre, I went to my local theater with some trepidations about the excessive violence, a musical starring non-singing actors and the generally unsatisfactory translation of musicals to movies. Ultimately, I liked what I saw and though I hesitate to join those who have dubbed it a masterpiece. I liked Depp's passion and Bonham Carter's witchy Mrs. Lovett. They both know how to carry a song even without being singers. However, I found their interpretation of the character interesting though neither they, or anyone else in the film, eclipsed my more stirring memories of what for me will always be the real Sweeney Todd.
DreamWorks and Warner Brothers are to be commended for taking on this risky project that, whether on stage or screen, goes counter to the conventions of what we expect from the American Musical. —Reviewed by Miriam Colin
Postscript: The film on your home screen! The dark and bloody film has now been transferred into DVD format so that you can watch it on the small screen and perhaps keep the lights on to make the blood and gore just a bit more palatable. However you watch it, and even on a small-ish screen, the DVD is crisp and clear with Johnny Depp as sad and demented as ever. Actually the reduced size of the images somehow enhances the Victorian London street scenes, the contrast of the touches of bloody red against the overall black and white palette and the painterly flashback to Todd's earlier and happier history. The DVD is available as a single and deluxe double disk. Even though the special features have a lot of not very special features, there are a couple of historic background items that make the collector's edition the preferable choice, especially since the price difference is minimal. Back to Index of Topics
Charlie Wilson's War.
It was a bit weird to see director Mike Nichols' and screenwriter Aaron Sokin's clever satire inspired by the Afghanistan and extra-curricular passions of a former womanizing, hard-drinking East Texas congressman named Charlie Wilson the day after the assassination of Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto. There's even a mention of Bhutto's father who also died violently (hanged by his enemies). The way this plays out in Charlie Wilson's War,
the funloving Wilson is played by Tom Hanks and manages to be more charming than gross, as dedicated to good causes as he is to indulging his passion for sex, booze and drugs—that is once caught up in sexy, God fearing Houston Socialite Joan Herring's (Julia Roberts) project for getting more money and weapons for the Afghan rebels to counter the Communists' ruthless bombings and end the Cold War. Sorkins adaptation of a book by George Crile and Nichols' slick as sleet direction takes us on a whirlwind tour behind the scenes in Washington, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Israel as Congressman Charlie proceeds to devote all his power to procuring this militrary aid without it looking as if it's coming from the United States. What helps you to accept and enjoy the wheeling and dealing for what it is —a clever entertainment — is attributable to the terrific performances. Hanks and Roberts are a sizzling with chemistry team. But best of all is Philip Seymour Hoffman as Gus Avrakotos, a tough CIA operative who hooks up with Wilson. Hoffman is truly a man of a thousand personas, whether on stage or screen. His relationship with Hanks is another example of actors with smashing stage chemistry
As the film moves between the crisis in Afghanistan and Wilson's career crisis resulting from drug charges brought against him by none other than the crime busting Rudolph Giuliani before his turn as America's Mayor and Republican presidential hopeful. But as Hanks makes Wilson a much more sympathetic character than he must have been, so his wheeling and dealing which led to the U.S. support of the Afghan rebels and did contribute to the end of the Cold War is ultimately more sad than funny — a maddening reflection of foreign policies without a properly planned end game since it also made the region a training ground for Islamic terrorist activitities. The charismatic lead players are well supported by a large cast of players including his sexy all female staff (Bonnie Bach, Hilary Angelo, Cyia Batten). Theater goers will recognize veteran stage actor Ned Beatty as a character called Doc Long. They'll also wonder if the versatile Hanks (he's added directing to his movie star gigs) will ever be tempted to test the Broadway waters as his Texas millionaire colleague Julia Roberts did not long ago.
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HairsprayIt took years for The Sound of Music to metamorphose into a sing-along hit, but New Line Cinema's July 20th release of Hairspray the Musical based on the John Waters film and Broadway musical has been such a hit that a special print of the film with audience sing-along tracks took less than a month to l be released nationally in 100 theaters.And how satisfying is the film per se for fans of the cult Waters film and the still running Broadway hit? Not bad and certainly better than good for the producers (It grossed well over $40 million within weeks of its release). Director Adam Shankman has kept the many faces of beauty theme and the Baltimore 1962 setting and plot pretty much intact.
Nikki Blonsky is winning as the unstylishly plump teen, Tracy Turnblad. Her hefty parents, Edna and Wilbur are played by John Travolta (thanks to a fat suit, he's as enormous as Harvey Fierstein was —-but there's only one Harvey!) and Christopher Walken (surprisingly endearing but somehow often not in synch with Edna). Tracy's very 1962ish big hair is matched by her big dream: to dance on The Corny Collins Show, a racially mixed literally after-school television program. Of course, making the show is one thing, but dealing with the program's star teen, Amber Von Tussle (Brittany Snow) and her nasty mom and the show's producer, Velma (Michelle Pfeiffer, a stunning asset to the film), is another.
The title is derived from the contest for the title of Miss Hairspray. Happily, Amber's boyfriend Link Larkin (Zac Efron) finds plump Tracy more appealing than perfect Amber-- and Tracy's enthusiasm for the black kids' dancing leads to a Negro Day on the show. The complications all end happily not only for Tracy but her best friend Penny Pingleton (Amanda Byrnes). The Negro Day's DJ, Motormouth Maybelle is now played by Queen Latifah.
While a most of Marc Shaiman's and Scott Wittman's songs have transferred to the silver screen, a few have been re-tinkered or eliminated, and several new ones have been added. All are sung by the cast — no Marni Nixon ghosting!
It's all great fun and well done but quite a bit less edgy than either the film or the Broadway show (which apparently has enjoyed a boost at the box office as a result of the film. Not only isn't Travolta as wonderful as Harvey, but he's also not as divine as the diva by that name for whom Waters created Edna. Still he brings his own likeable personality to the role.
Film buffs will love the celebrity cameos (Waters as the flasher in "Good Morning Baltimore"), the original movie Tracy Ricki Lake (in the final " You Can't Stop the Beat"), and the original Wilbur as Mr. Pinky.
—Reviewed by Miriam Colin.
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Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide