Joss Whedon has famously filmed Shakespeare's comedy in 12 days at his home, using actor friends from previous projects. Done in modern dress using Shakespeare's language, filmed in black and white, scored with smooth guitar jazz, it's a pleasant diversion and a lovely valentine to language.
But oh my goodness, does that plot creak!
This is the hazard of updating the presentation at all, and really, somebody has got to be brave and do something about it. For those of you who have a hard time remembering which plot goes with which generic play title (I'm looking at you As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and All's Well That Ends Well) I will summarize.
The prince, Don Pedro is home from war with an entourage of warriors, including the young and callow Claudio and the bitter Benedick. They arrive at the home of Leonato (played here by Agent Coulson from the Avengers movies), where Claudio falls in love at first sight with Leonato's daughter Hero. Also present is Hero's cousin Beatrice, who has a sketchy past with Benedick--they bicker so they must be in love!
Don Pedro has defeated his brother, Don John, and John is nursing a major grudge. Instead of accepting his brother's mercy, John plots with his few accomplices to spoil everybody's happiness. The night before the wedding of Claudio and Hero, he arranges for Claudio and Don Pedro to see a woman in Hero's bedroom "entertaining" a man. (Of course, it's the maid, not Hero at all, as the audience knows.) Claudio accuses Hero of being unchaste at the altar in front of the entire assembled wedding guests and she faints from shame. It is decided to put out the rumor that Hero has died, the plot gets uncovered, Claudio accepts his punishment is to marry one of Leonato's nieces, who turns out to be Hero. Benedick and Beatrice also admit they are in love, and Don John gets captured. Happiness abounds!
Except--it is nearly impossible to swallow this plot these days. Claudio might as well be dressed in red flags from the Bad Boyfriend department at Sears--he's rash, jealous, intemperate, and rude. When he first falls for Hero, he's unwilling to court her himself, so he lets Don Pedro do it on his behalf. Then it takes just a whisper from Don John for him to become convinced that Don Pedro is going to keep Hero for himself. So he rushes in, accuses everyone of playing him for a fool, and that isn't enough to alienate Hero? No, it isn't.
Now, to be fair, it's got to be awful to see your fiancee messing around with another man on your wedding night, even today. But the shock isn't that she's no longer a virgin--which is the substance of the Shakespeare text. No, the shock is that she's sleeping with somebody else, which has got to make you think twice about whether this marriage has any chance at all. But then, Claudio the Clod doesn't bring it up with Hero, or Leonato, he doesn't do anything sensible. Instead, he goes for the biggest humiliation he can arrange, by waiting until Hero has already said "I do" before he goes at her for being a "common stale." Don Pedro joins in, and even her father accepts the accusations at face value.
That poor girl. Nobody asks her "where were you last night?" Nobody talks to her at all. They do ask Beatrice if she was Hero's "bedfellow" last night, and for some reason--and for the first time ever--she wasn't. Nobody asks why, or where anybody was, or how Don John knew about this, or even questioned whether it might possibly be some other woman they saw. (Ashley Johnson, who plays the maid Margaret, is a solid 6 inches shorter than Jillian Morgese's Hero, and is an entirely different body type.) No, let's just get all the old, white, privileged men to scream at the scared girl, disown her, humiliate her, and then they can go on their merry way--back to their rooms in Leonato's house, because that's not awkward at all.
And then, the "punishment!" Claudio feels bad that Hero died, but only after he finds out that he had been duped, because under those circumstances, her death is unmerited. Because, whaaaa? Deflowered girls are apparently universally considered to be better off dead, I guess, depending on the whim of the men around her. (Beatrice, however, is shown to have slept with Benedick in the unspecified past, and Margaret seems to be allowed to live as well.) Anyway, Claudio's "punishment" for having "unjustly" caused Hero's death is that he has to agree to marry some other female relation of Leonato's, who he is promised looks exactly like Hero. Of course, she turns out to be Hero, revealed only when he agrees to marry whoever Leonato puts in front of him.
Does anybody ask Hero if she still wants to be married to this idiot? Does anybody foresee anything but domestic violence and unwarranted jealousy in this relationship's future? This is where a reaaaaaaly long engagement would be a really good idea. Even better? Kick him out of your house and get a restraining order.
But, if you can overlook that horrible plot--and I couldn't really--the rest of the production is a delight. The lines are delivered crisply and the Beatrice/Benedick banter is worth the price of admission.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
The Great Gatsby, A Movie Review
So Baz Luhrman bit at the biggest, gaudiest, showiest piece of literature out there, and managed to out-Moulin Rouge his own Moulin Rouge. This version of Gatsby is shinier, louder, brighter and more gaudy than you might have thought possible. As a movie it both slavishly adheres to the novel while simultaneously betraying everything the book stands for. It's a hot mess and I kind of loved it.
This is notable, because I hate everything.
I won't rehearse the plot, because you should know it by now.
The movie doesn't try to recreate the 1920s in any faithful way, but evokes our dreams about it. As such, it kind of falls midway between two other historical film pastiches: Joe Wright's Anna Karenina (which I feel didn't quite cohere in any meaningful way), and Sofia Coppela's Marie Antoinette (which I do love). Luhrmann's Gatsby isn't quite as successful as Coppela's Marie Antoinette, but it is doing some of the same things stylistically while also working with a famously difficult text.
I would totally go see this again, and expect that any time it turns up on television I will be sucked into it for at least the first 2/3s. The last third, as the snares close around Gatsby, are well done, but nothing special. The visual flair of the first part of the movie dissipates as the machinery of the plot has to take precedence. But until then, it is gorgeous to look at.
I saw this in 3D, and the forced perspective gives the whole a faint feeling as though it's all being enacted on a model train set--not quite realistic, with odd details emphasized, making the whole more dream-like and odd, which seems appropriate as Carraway tries to explain to himself just what happened and why he is still haunted by that summer.
Let us address the framing device. The movie opens in 1927, winter at a sanitarium, where Carraway is being treated for a list of ailments, including "morbid alcoholism." He begins to tell the attending doctor about that summer of 1922, and finds he can't talk about it. "Then write it" the doctor says, launching Carraway into creating a typescript that he calls "The Great Gatsby." It's a little bit hokey, of course, and the rich and homey interior doesn't really seem anything like what a sanitorium would have been, even back in the early 20th century. Critics have near universally hated it, but I don't. I think it gives the movie the chance to honestly invoke the elegiac nostalgia of Fitzgerald's novel, that fragile and sensitive mix of longing and revulsion that makes the novel work. Because, face it, stripped of the delicacy of language, that ambivalence of narration, the story is lurid melodrama and trashy spectacle. Using the framing device, Luhrmann is able to use descriptive passages from the book, language that would otherwise be risible if delivered as dialogue. He is able to describe things he would never have seen, like Gatsby and Daisy's first kiss, back in Alabama, when Gatsby paused on the edge of falling in love, knowing that if he fell for this girl, "his mind would never again romp like God's." (Or something like that.) I allow that, because this is not a report, this is a story Carraway is telling himself, as he tries to make sense of something that touched his emotions and that his logic can't entirely understand.
The movie owes an enormous and unacknowledged (so far as I have seen) debt to Citizen Kane. Leonardo DiCaprio even looks like Orson Welles, as if they are long separated siblings.
Honestly, I can't be the only one who sees the resemblance.
Both movies are reconstructions of the protagonists' lives after their death. And Gatsby dies whispering "Daisy" just as Kane says "Rosebud." I'm sure there's more, but that's enough for now.
The first two thirds of the movie are visually overwhelming, a design aesthetic that can only be described as "More is Not Enough." It's frenzied, it's ridiculous, and while it might technically fit the descriptions of the book, it kind of misses the point. Because Luhrmann so patently adores filming the excess, he kind of misses the fact that the excess is tawdry and misguided. Gatsby throws these enormous parties hoping that Daisy will hear about them and wander in, never recognizing that these are precisely the kinds of things that are too common, too nouveau riche for Daisy to actually come to voluntarily. Furthermore, they are the kind of bacchanals that Tom will prevent her from attending, even if he himself is willing to go--alone.
Luhrmann's film doesn't really seem to grasp the ways in which Gatsby is performing his own dream of what wealth looks like. Like Gatsby, Luhrmann seems to believe that Daisy would find this sort of thing exciting and appropriate. So the movie indulges in that excess, exactly as Gatsby does, and misses the edge of disapproval that permeates the novel.
To be fair, at first, Nick is also excited and charmed by this world, even if he ultimately rejects it. He starts out with that very American belief that the rich are somehow better than everybody else, that their money is proof of some sort of divine merit--like titles in Europe, the rich are the elect and to be accepted by them is to prove to yourself that you too are finer than the average man. Over the course of the summer, he learns that the rich are no better than the rest of us, and are in some ways infinitely worse. Jordan Baker cheats at golf (a detail left out of the movie), Tom cheats on his wife, Daisy can hit a woman with her car and retreat into her money and leave the mess to others to clean up. Wealth is not proof of worth.
I keep recalling Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country as I watched this film. In that novel, the unutterably lovely and grossly common Undine Spragg erupts onto the New York social scene. She has gotten it into her head that she wants to sit atop the social hierarchy, and so she marries a man who is utterly inappropriate for her. Because there are two, parallel New York societies--the old Knickerbockers who have old money and don't spend it. Theirs is a live of inherited furniture and dining at home, good works and stolid values. Undine doesn't understand this world and doesn't like it. She craves the fast cars and flashy nightlife of the new demimonde, and is much happier when she is sneaking away from her husband to party.
Gatsby has some of the same DNA (the character, the novel and the movie). Daisy is a girl in an expensive white dress, lounging on a sofa as the breeze moves the gauzy curtains--not the flapper guzzling illegal alcohol while dancing the Charleston at a crowded party full of strangers. Gatsby doesn't really know who she is, in fact, he doesn't see her at all as a person, rather she is just the trophy that would seal his success in life. Charlie Sheen is not the first to mistake frantic activity for "winning."
And what about Daisy? Carey Mulligan is delightful (always) and fun to watch, but there really isn't very much there there with Daisy. Personally, I blame Fitzgerald. I don't think he ever understood Zelda either, and Fitzgerald's Daisy is kind of like Gatsby's Daisy--a symbol rather than a full person. Mulligan is winsome, and has some backbone--especially when she refuses to do what Gatsby wants and tell Tom that she never loved him. She is unhappy, but isn't willing to be Jay's puppet. Her decision to stay with tome is communicated as fear. She's killed a woman, she's afraid of what she's done, and Tom opportunistically uses that fear as a tool to keep her with him. It's a devil's bargain she is making, one she accepts from a position of weakness and social pressure. She knows better, but she's too frail to stand independently--she's never been allowed to before, why should we think she could now?
It's a gorgeous movie, full of fabulous set pieces and over the top visuals. The first full image of Gatsby is typical of the movie. It's Leo DiCaprio looking as beautiful as he has in years (apparently beauty is inconsistent with being a Serious Actor), toasting us as fireworks frame his golden head and the strains of Rhapsody in Blue swell. It's ridiculous, it's campy, it's too over the top, and that's why it works.
This is notable, because I hate everything.
I won't rehearse the plot, because you should know it by now.
The movie doesn't try to recreate the 1920s in any faithful way, but evokes our dreams about it. As such, it kind of falls midway between two other historical film pastiches: Joe Wright's Anna Karenina (which I feel didn't quite cohere in any meaningful way), and Sofia Coppela's Marie Antoinette (which I do love). Luhrmann's Gatsby isn't quite as successful as Coppela's Marie Antoinette, but it is doing some of the same things stylistically while also working with a famously difficult text.
I would totally go see this again, and expect that any time it turns up on television I will be sucked into it for at least the first 2/3s. The last third, as the snares close around Gatsby, are well done, but nothing special. The visual flair of the first part of the movie dissipates as the machinery of the plot has to take precedence. But until then, it is gorgeous to look at.
I saw this in 3D, and the forced perspective gives the whole a faint feeling as though it's all being enacted on a model train set--not quite realistic, with odd details emphasized, making the whole more dream-like and odd, which seems appropriate as Carraway tries to explain to himself just what happened and why he is still haunted by that summer.
Let us address the framing device. The movie opens in 1927, winter at a sanitarium, where Carraway is being treated for a list of ailments, including "morbid alcoholism." He begins to tell the attending doctor about that summer of 1922, and finds he can't talk about it. "Then write it" the doctor says, launching Carraway into creating a typescript that he calls "The Great Gatsby." It's a little bit hokey, of course, and the rich and homey interior doesn't really seem anything like what a sanitorium would have been, even back in the early 20th century. Critics have near universally hated it, but I don't. I think it gives the movie the chance to honestly invoke the elegiac nostalgia of Fitzgerald's novel, that fragile and sensitive mix of longing and revulsion that makes the novel work. Because, face it, stripped of the delicacy of language, that ambivalence of narration, the story is lurid melodrama and trashy spectacle. Using the framing device, Luhrmann is able to use descriptive passages from the book, language that would otherwise be risible if delivered as dialogue. He is able to describe things he would never have seen, like Gatsby and Daisy's first kiss, back in Alabama, when Gatsby paused on the edge of falling in love, knowing that if he fell for this girl, "his mind would never again romp like God's." (Or something like that.) I allow that, because this is not a report, this is a story Carraway is telling himself, as he tries to make sense of something that touched his emotions and that his logic can't entirely understand.
The movie owes an enormous and unacknowledged (so far as I have seen) debt to Citizen Kane. Leonardo DiCaprio even looks like Orson Welles, as if they are long separated siblings.
Honestly, I can't be the only one who sees the resemblance.
Both movies are reconstructions of the protagonists' lives after their death. And Gatsby dies whispering "Daisy" just as Kane says "Rosebud." I'm sure there's more, but that's enough for now.
The first two thirds of the movie are visually overwhelming, a design aesthetic that can only be described as "More is Not Enough." It's frenzied, it's ridiculous, and while it might technically fit the descriptions of the book, it kind of misses the point. Because Luhrmann so patently adores filming the excess, he kind of misses the fact that the excess is tawdry and misguided. Gatsby throws these enormous parties hoping that Daisy will hear about them and wander in, never recognizing that these are precisely the kinds of things that are too common, too nouveau riche for Daisy to actually come to voluntarily. Furthermore, they are the kind of bacchanals that Tom will prevent her from attending, even if he himself is willing to go--alone.
Luhrmann's film doesn't really seem to grasp the ways in which Gatsby is performing his own dream of what wealth looks like. Like Gatsby, Luhrmann seems to believe that Daisy would find this sort of thing exciting and appropriate. So the movie indulges in that excess, exactly as Gatsby does, and misses the edge of disapproval that permeates the novel.
To be fair, at first, Nick is also excited and charmed by this world, even if he ultimately rejects it. He starts out with that very American belief that the rich are somehow better than everybody else, that their money is proof of some sort of divine merit--like titles in Europe, the rich are the elect and to be accepted by them is to prove to yourself that you too are finer than the average man. Over the course of the summer, he learns that the rich are no better than the rest of us, and are in some ways infinitely worse. Jordan Baker cheats at golf (a detail left out of the movie), Tom cheats on his wife, Daisy can hit a woman with her car and retreat into her money and leave the mess to others to clean up. Wealth is not proof of worth.
I keep recalling Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country as I watched this film. In that novel, the unutterably lovely and grossly common Undine Spragg erupts onto the New York social scene. She has gotten it into her head that she wants to sit atop the social hierarchy, and so she marries a man who is utterly inappropriate for her. Because there are two, parallel New York societies--the old Knickerbockers who have old money and don't spend it. Theirs is a live of inherited furniture and dining at home, good works and stolid values. Undine doesn't understand this world and doesn't like it. She craves the fast cars and flashy nightlife of the new demimonde, and is much happier when she is sneaking away from her husband to party.
Gatsby has some of the same DNA (the character, the novel and the movie). Daisy is a girl in an expensive white dress, lounging on a sofa as the breeze moves the gauzy curtains--not the flapper guzzling illegal alcohol while dancing the Charleston at a crowded party full of strangers. Gatsby doesn't really know who she is, in fact, he doesn't see her at all as a person, rather she is just the trophy that would seal his success in life. Charlie Sheen is not the first to mistake frantic activity for "winning."
And what about Daisy? Carey Mulligan is delightful (always) and fun to watch, but there really isn't very much there there with Daisy. Personally, I blame Fitzgerald. I don't think he ever understood Zelda either, and Fitzgerald's Daisy is kind of like Gatsby's Daisy--a symbol rather than a full person. Mulligan is winsome, and has some backbone--especially when she refuses to do what Gatsby wants and tell Tom that she never loved him. She is unhappy, but isn't willing to be Jay's puppet. Her decision to stay with tome is communicated as fear. She's killed a woman, she's afraid of what she's done, and Tom opportunistically uses that fear as a tool to keep her with him. It's a devil's bargain she is making, one she accepts from a position of weakness and social pressure. She knows better, but she's too frail to stand independently--she's never been allowed to before, why should we think she could now?
It's a gorgeous movie, full of fabulous set pieces and over the top visuals. The first full image of Gatsby is typical of the movie. It's Leo DiCaprio looking as beautiful as he has in years (apparently beauty is inconsistent with being a Serious Actor), toasting us as fireworks frame his golden head and the strains of Rhapsody in Blue swell. It's ridiculous, it's campy, it's too over the top, and that's why it works.
Alan Cumming's Macbeth--A Review
For my first ever Girls' Weekend, my friend and I went to New York for some serious Shakespeare immersion. We had tickets for Sleep No More, as well as Alan Cumming's Macbeth. We kicked off the time with Joss Whedon's new Much Ado About Nothing as well, because we are nerds like that.
Macbeth was at the Barrymore Theater, a block away from our hotel (the Marriott Marquis, which I can recommend as a lovely hotel in the center of Times Square). The doors seriously caution you against saying the name of the play while inside.
Once inside, Friend and I fortified ourselves with vodka-soda-&-limes in Broadway approved sippy-cups and found our seats. They were marvelous--center of the row, eight rows from the stage. I must remember to commend her seat selection.
The stage is open--no curtain. It's obviously a terribly neglected medical facility of some sort, tiled in that bilious institutional green that looks like being nauseous feels. The lower three rows of tile are dingy and the grout is stained, speaking to the years of indifferent mopping of the equally appalling linoleum floor. The tile runs up two or three stories, interrupted in the back by a large curtained window. There is a crummy sink and a small mirror to the right side, three bays for institutional beds, although only two hold beds. A tub sits just below and to the right of the observation window, oddly cantilevered so that it doesn't require any feet--presumably easier to sluice the floor underneath it then.
For a medical ward, there is some odd detritus--toppled and mismatched chairs, a baby doll on the floor. A door sits up on the right hand wall, with eleven metal steps descending. A keypad operates the door, and three television screens hang over the top of the stage.
You don't want to be here. Nobody wants to be here.
Lights go out, come back on, and three people are on stage. A older woman doctor. A large bearded orderly. Alan Cumming. Alan (or "Alan"--since he plays a nameless character, but we'll dispense with the quotation marks) is being gently wrangled. The orderly asks for his suit jacket, and Alan gives it up. It is folded and placed in a large paper bag marked "Evidence." The doctor swabs the inside of Alan's cheek. With a kind smile, the orderly asks Alan for his dress shirt. (The characters are obviously speaking, but the audience can't hear anything, as the eerie music/static blurs out their words.)
The doctor sees the bloody "M" carved on Alan's clavicle, and swabs it with disinfectant, which obviously hurts. The orderly needs Alan's pants now, leaving him in just a pair of grey briefs. The doctor carefully cleans under the nails of Alan's left hand. The orderly hands him a pair of ivory scrub pants, which he puts on. Alan seems docile, co-operative, tractable, grateful that someone is taking care of him. Something terrible has happened, and the business with collecting the matter under his nails indicates that he is the suspect. Murder?
Oddly, the orderly gathers up the scrub shirt and surprises Alan by forcing it over his head. Until now, the orderly has been entirely respectful, apparently kind. Both the medical professionals have treated him as someone who is voluntarily present, willingly subjecting himself to their attention. Perhaps this is not true. Alan refuses to relinquish a paper evidence bag that apparently holds some object of importance, and the orderly does not insist.
Alan sits on the bed at the far left as the medics gather their items and start up the stairs. Alan calls out "When will we three meet again?" The tone is plaintive; he does not wish to be left alone. They stop, look at him with some pity, then leave the room.
"In thunderrrrr, lightning, and in RAIN!" Alan continues, and the show is underway.
What follows is an hour and 45 minute version of Macbeth performed at breakneck speed, almost entirely by Alan Cumming. The performance is impressive, as there are many different characters to be conveyed, and the actor uses voice, accent, posture, and props to make them distinct. It mostly works. Some of the stagecraft is very clever. When the three witches speak, three security cameras whirr awake, and the actor faces each one in turn so the three screens above the stage give three different perspectives, augmenting the illusion of three speakers. Banquo is denoted by the way he shifts an apple from one hand to the other. Lady Macbeth is generally given a slightly higher voice and a subtle posture shift which seems to give Cumming (who is a lean and wiry man) more feminine curves.
It's quite a feat, of course, and the sort of thing that audiobook narrators are often called upon to achieve--creating different characters with their voices. (I can't help but think about the achievement of Jim Dale's Harry Potter narrations--literally hundreds of different characters who are identifiable solely from how he voices them.) Cumming has the advantage of being able to use props as well, creating the characters visually as well. Lady Macbeth's "unsex me now" speech takes place in the bathtub (yes, technically a "nude scene" but entirely SFW) which leads to his use of a towel to denote the two Macbeths in the following scene: clutched to his chest as the Lady, draped casually at waist level for the Lord.
It's too bad, because the framing device Baz Luhrman uses in The Great Gatsby has been largely criticized as maudlin and off-putting, as outside the scope of the book, or even laughable. Yet that device, of Nick Carroway narrating his memories of the fateful summer, allows the film to recreate the elegaic tone of the novel and to use some of Fitzgerald's beautiful language that would frankly sound silly if simply presented as dialogue. Yet the far less thoughtful framing device of this play is routinely praised as a "radical re-imagining" of Shakespeare.
Let's be honest, it's not. It doesn't really do anything new to Shakespeare, but it doesn't do any harm either. If you go, go because it's exciting to see a human being work so hard to tell this story, because Cumming's Scottish burr is lovely to listen to as it wraps itself around the poetry of the play. Go because it's a good production of Macbeth, and it is entertaining. Go because you are in the city, and you are a Shakespeare nerd, and you have just seen Sleep No More and you want to catch up on the language of the play as well.
It's a worthwhile two hours, because Shakespeare is always worth your time.
Macbeth was at the Barrymore Theater, a block away from our hotel (the Marriott Marquis, which I can recommend as a lovely hotel in the center of Times Square). The doors seriously caution you against saying the name of the play while inside.
Once inside, Friend and I fortified ourselves with vodka-soda-&-limes in Broadway approved sippy-cups and found our seats. They were marvelous--center of the row, eight rows from the stage. I must remember to commend her seat selection.
The stage is open--no curtain. It's obviously a terribly neglected medical facility of some sort, tiled in that bilious institutional green that looks like being nauseous feels. The lower three rows of tile are dingy and the grout is stained, speaking to the years of indifferent mopping of the equally appalling linoleum floor. The tile runs up two or three stories, interrupted in the back by a large curtained window. There is a crummy sink and a small mirror to the right side, three bays for institutional beds, although only two hold beds. A tub sits just below and to the right of the observation window, oddly cantilevered so that it doesn't require any feet--presumably easier to sluice the floor underneath it then.
For a medical ward, there is some odd detritus--toppled and mismatched chairs, a baby doll on the floor. A door sits up on the right hand wall, with eleven metal steps descending. A keypad operates the door, and three television screens hang over the top of the stage.
You don't want to be here. Nobody wants to be here.
Lights go out, come back on, and three people are on stage. A older woman doctor. A large bearded orderly. Alan Cumming. Alan (or "Alan"--since he plays a nameless character, but we'll dispense with the quotation marks) is being gently wrangled. The orderly asks for his suit jacket, and Alan gives it up. It is folded and placed in a large paper bag marked "Evidence." The doctor swabs the inside of Alan's cheek. With a kind smile, the orderly asks Alan for his dress shirt. (The characters are obviously speaking, but the audience can't hear anything, as the eerie music/static blurs out their words.)
The doctor sees the bloody "M" carved on Alan's clavicle, and swabs it with disinfectant, which obviously hurts. The orderly needs Alan's pants now, leaving him in just a pair of grey briefs. The doctor carefully cleans under the nails of Alan's left hand. The orderly hands him a pair of ivory scrub pants, which he puts on. Alan seems docile, co-operative, tractable, grateful that someone is taking care of him. Something terrible has happened, and the business with collecting the matter under his nails indicates that he is the suspect. Murder?
Oddly, the orderly gathers up the scrub shirt and surprises Alan by forcing it over his head. Until now, the orderly has been entirely respectful, apparently kind. Both the medical professionals have treated him as someone who is voluntarily present, willingly subjecting himself to their attention. Perhaps this is not true. Alan refuses to relinquish a paper evidence bag that apparently holds some object of importance, and the orderly does not insist.
Alan sits on the bed at the far left as the medics gather their items and start up the stairs. Alan calls out "When will we three meet again?" The tone is plaintive; he does not wish to be left alone. They stop, look at him with some pity, then leave the room.
"In thunderrrrr, lightning, and in RAIN!" Alan continues, and the show is underway.
What follows is an hour and 45 minute version of Macbeth performed at breakneck speed, almost entirely by Alan Cumming. The performance is impressive, as there are many different characters to be conveyed, and the actor uses voice, accent, posture, and props to make them distinct. It mostly works. Some of the stagecraft is very clever. When the three witches speak, three security cameras whirr awake, and the actor faces each one in turn so the three screens above the stage give three different perspectives, augmenting the illusion of three speakers. Banquo is denoted by the way he shifts an apple from one hand to the other. Lady Macbeth is generally given a slightly higher voice and a subtle posture shift which seems to give Cumming (who is a lean and wiry man) more feminine curves.
It's quite a feat, of course, and the sort of thing that audiobook narrators are often called upon to achieve--creating different characters with their voices. (I can't help but think about the achievement of Jim Dale's Harry Potter narrations--literally hundreds of different characters who are identifiable solely from how he voices them.) Cumming has the advantage of being able to use props as well, creating the characters visually as well. Lady Macbeth's "unsex me now" speech takes place in the bathtub (yes, technically a "nude scene" but entirely SFW) which leads to his use of a towel to denote the two Macbeths in the following scene: clutched to his chest as the Lady, draped casually at waist level for the Lord.
The doll is used for Malcolm, with Cumming as the ventriloquist.
Perhaps the most impressive scene is as Lady Macbeth urges her husband to "screw your courage to the sticking point" as she climbs atop him, using sex as a weapon to get her way. Cumming flops onto his back, now the man underneath, all but orgasming as he cries "You should bear only sons!"
Other parts of this setting work very very well. Sounds that are referred to in the text--Lady Macbeth hears an owl while waiting for her husband to kill the king, and the sound comes from an air vent in the wall. The famous sleepwalking scene gives the doctor and orderly a chance to speak lines, as they play the parts of the doctor and the gentlewoman from the observation window, viewing Alan's antics.
But on the whole, the framing device of the mental ward sits uneasily atop the Shakespearean story, and doesn't really provide anything new to that tale. Macbeth is rashly ambitious, and wades into murder without realizing the domino effect he has unleashed. The play shows how he has to pile murder on top of murder in an endless quest to feel safe, as the mounting horrors rattle his sanity. Starting the story with a man who is already "insane" robs the play of some of its subtle progression. Macbeth starts with an honorable warrior who falls into a madness of his own making, the consequences of his own hubris. Alan Cumming's Macbeth skips straight to the madness.
And the connection between the patient "Alan" and Macbeth is not explained at all, and is quite jarring to begin with. The docile patient of the silent prologue flips like a switch into a megalomaniacal declaimer of Shakespeare as soon as the security door slams shut on his medical team. So was he faking his cooperation? If so, then why doesn't he hide his posturing self when he sees himself being observed from the window? This isn't Edward Norton in Primal Fear, gaming the judicial system, because Alan continues his re-enactment regardless of whether he is watched or not.
Macbeth doesn't illuminate the patient's situation. He doesn't see himself as Macbeth any more than he sees himself as Banquo or Duncan or Lady Macbeth either. He fully inhabits each character while they speak, then moves on to inhabit the next one. There is no reason to think that by reciting Macbeth he is reciting the events of his own life--if he has committed a murder, one that has left traces under his nails, it wasn't by murdering a king.
This is also not real mental illness either. This is "theatrical mental illness"--like "Ali MacGraw disease" from Love Story in which no actual, identifiable symptoms are present, only what is demanded by the plot. More egregiously, this is not mental health care either. The medics saunter casually back and forth across the observation window, only randomly glancing in to see what he's up to. There is no attempt to talk with him, offer him psychiatric care, therapy. Why would there even be an abandoned baby doll for him to use for Malcolm? Why would there be a bathtub left unlocked and unguarded? (Like Chekov's gun, it's not really a surprise that he tries to drown himself late in the play--that's exactly why it wouldn't be allowed.)
The witches' second prophesy is enacted with a bird he finds by unscrewing the cover to the air vent. Why would there be a bird there, and how would he know he would find it there? Plot necessity/ theatrical requirement isn't really an answer.
After he "murders" Duncan, Alan's hands are covered with blood, and the medical team responds as they should, treating it like a real emergency, washing his hands and looking for signs of injury. But there aren't any. There is no discoverable source for the blood. But it is real, they see it, they deal with it, this is not the imaginary spot that Lady Macbeth alone can see. So what is going on here? The production doesn't say.
 |
| There is no visible injury--so where did the blood come from? |
The conceit continues to break down as the play progresses. Banquo's ghost appears, a large male figure (probably the same actor who plays the orderly) stalking about the stage in a suit and bondage mask. Why would there be anybody there? Why would Alan conjure up something like that, so inescapably real? Especially since just after that, he lies on a bed and the security camera comes on, showing him on the bed with a shadowy figure lurking at the foot--a figure that exists only on the screen because the stage is otherwise empty. That is a scary ghost, more genuinely eerie than the cartoonish horror figure from earlier.
(But then, as the masked figure comes around to the side of the bed, looming ominously, it suddenly looks up into the camera, the mask disappears, and it's Alan Cumming looking into the camera. What is this supposed to mean? He has killed himself? He is watching himself? It's a nifty effect without any meaning.)
In the end, I gave up trying to make any sense of the "reality" of the hospital. It's just a setting, just a stage design in order to invoke a frisson of horror around insanity. Which is irresponsible, really, because mental illness is a real condition that affects large numbers of people on a daily basis. To represent it on stage like this is to stigmatize it without explaining anything.
Alan Cumming's character is not a "mental patient," despite what the publicity and reviews might say--he doesn't have a real mental illness, and he's no "patient" since he's not receiving any care either. It's a cliched use of out-of-date notions of what mental illness is, used for a cheap thrill, that doesn't illuminate anything new about the play or the characters in it.
It's too bad, because the framing device Baz Luhrman uses in The Great Gatsby has been largely criticized as maudlin and off-putting, as outside the scope of the book, or even laughable. Yet that device, of Nick Carroway narrating his memories of the fateful summer, allows the film to recreate the elegaic tone of the novel and to use some of Fitzgerald's beautiful language that would frankly sound silly if simply presented as dialogue. Yet the far less thoughtful framing device of this play is routinely praised as a "radical re-imagining" of Shakespeare.
Let's be honest, it's not. It doesn't really do anything new to Shakespeare, but it doesn't do any harm either. If you go, go because it's exciting to see a human being work so hard to tell this story, because Cumming's Scottish burr is lovely to listen to as it wraps itself around the poetry of the play. Go because it's a good production of Macbeth, and it is entertaining. Go because you are in the city, and you are a Shakespeare nerd, and you have just seen Sleep No More and you want to catch up on the language of the play as well.
It's a worthwhile two hours, because Shakespeare is always worth your time.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
The Good News, Gym Division
Hit the gym for the first time since breaking my ankle back in December. I haven't just been sitting around since then--there was a good month of PT to get the muscles back into shape. Today was the first time I got on the elliptical and the weight machines.
The good news is that I didn't have to start all the way back at the very very beginning--I managed to retain some of my fitness during that time. I did a complete circuit, re-establishing my weight settings, and managed better cardio than I thought I would.
Now to keep it up!
The good news is that I didn't have to start all the way back at the very very beginning--I managed to retain some of my fitness during that time. I did a complete circuit, re-establishing my weight settings, and managed better cardio than I thought I would.
Now to keep it up!
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Oz The Great and Powerful, a Review
I saw this, in IMAX and 3D, for the biggest, most spectacular Spectacular method possible. And there is no denying that this is amazing to look at. The technology is hyper-realistic, color saturated, and overall a good match of subject and technology. There a are lot of special effects that are Very Special, and Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams are gorgeous to look at, and hold their own against the wonders of Oz. James Franco is perfectly fine, grinning and hamming it up like he's doing a satire of George Clooney's persona. If you are going to go see it, go ahead and see it in IMAX and 3D, because that's the reason to see it--to be blown away by the visual design.
Because, let's be frank, the story just doesn't measure up.
Look, I understand the appeal of looking at a classic work from a new perspective. There is a lot of built in excitement--how did things end up the way we "know" them? Why are there two witches who are sisters, but they live on opposite sides of the world? What made them Wicked? (Incidentally, Wicked, the book, does this in spades and from a very sophisticated perspective. The musical, not so much.) Why is the Lion so cowardly? Who made the Scarecrow? How did the Wizard get from being a carny from Omaha to the Ruler of the Emerald City anyway?
This movie sets itself the task of answering the first question, but fundamentally fails at it. Now, unlike Dana Stevens from Slate (who I like and respect a great deal, but disagree with on this movie), I don't think it's a fool's task to take on retelling this story. The Warner Brothers' movie is a "universally beloved classic," but it is also nearly seventy-five years old! So much has changed in terms of what can be done, and how we watch movies. I mean, just try watching an old kids movie, like Doctor Doolittle with Rex Harrison. Oh. My. God. The pacing! It is soooo slow--it's like an endurance test. Granted, Wizard of Oz holds up much better, but there's no reason to think that there is nothing new to say or see. And to be honest, the visuals are pretty amazing. Sam Raimi takes his movie into different places in Oz from the 1939 movie, so we get to see new things too!
But--and this is a big "but"--Oz the Great and Powerful fails to provide a story worth telling. I mean, we all know that the carny becomes the wizard, so showing us that he does just isn't enough. I wanted to see the How and the Why of it. What combination of circumstances and character created a man who was able to remain the ruler of a magical land for decades, with no magic of his own? And why does he stay? What is the fundamental truth about this character that makes this all work?
The answer is--nothing, really. He's a guy, he wants something, there are only women standing between him and what he wants, so of course he gets it. Of course he gets to be the Ruler of Everything, because he's A Man! And in case you doubt that as justification enough, there is A Prophecy! So really, that should answer all your objections about realpolitik and social contract and consent of the governed.
Plot summary in a thimble: turn of the century carny gets caught in a tornado while flying his hot air balloon, lands in Oz, has a few adventures, becomes the ruler of the Emerald City. Anything you didn't know already? No.
There are some conscious nods to the original, most overtly in the structure of the whole movie. The first part takes place in black-and-white in Kansas, where Oscar [many many middle names] Diggs is a carnival magician that everybody calls "Oz." While in Kansas, he has an assistant, a would-be girlfriend, and a devoted fan who believes in his magic, all three of whom show up again in the Land of Oz.
There is a contretemps with an adversary, this time the carnival strongman (who does NOT show up later) instead of Miss Gulch, a flight through a destructive tornado, and a crash landing in the technicolor landscape. There he meets a good witch who sets him on the path to the Emerald City, and he gathers companions on the way. Once there, he is given the task of killing a wicked witch, this time by destroying her wand rather than bringing back her broom, after which he is promised great rewards. The biggest difference is that instead of going back home at the end, he stays.
This might actually be the platonic ideal of a sequel format--all the fundamentals are in place, so then we can enjoy the new parts. Sadly, the new parts are uniformly clunkers, story wise. Let's get into the spoilers.
The first twenty minutes of the movie show us Oz in his native habitat. Cleverly shown in a nearly square aspect ratio and filmed in black and white, the movie establishes itself as set in The Past. As the circus magician, Oz has a sort of oily charm, because he is James Franco, and we are placed firmly in his POV, aware that his job is to amaze and fool the rubes. However, the Oz is not so much a magician as he is a horn dog and he is also obsessed with getting laid. He pulls an obviously well worn routine on his newest "assistant," presenting her with a music box that "belonged to my grandmother" in exchange for a kiss and likely more later.
This is insulting, really. The "simple country girl" is being used and the moves are obvious to the audience, but somehow she doesn't catch on, being too dazzled by the glamor of her new role I guess? It's a profoundly offensive view of a woman, and doesn't make me like James Franco/Oz at all. Then he is abusive to his technical assistant (played by Zach Braff), and once on-stage, bedazzles a young girl in a wheelchair who asks him to make her walk again. Instead of turning the moment into a human one--"I wish I could, but my magic doesn't work like that" or something, he blusters his way into an early dropped curtain in front of an audience he has alienated. Once safely off stage, he again berates Zach Braff for not dropping the curtain fast enough to save him from the encounter with the crippled girl. Not at all a nice person, nor someone I have any reason to root for at all.
But it swiftly gets worse. Back in his caravan, a woman knocks on the door, and Zach Braff offers to "wind up another of the music boxes." In case you didn't see it as a practiced scam the first time he used it on a gullible young woman, you see. But this is Annie, who he has some history with. Annie is Michelle Williams, so she is very blonde and beautiful and gentle and pure and everything Oz is not. So what does she see in him?
(That's the problem with this film, and one I am tempted to explain as a Male Problem. I assume that the intent was that we would see things from Oz's point of view, would immediately identify with him and his desires, and take his part as the story unfolds. But since I am not a Male, I didn't default into a pro-Oz camp. Thus, as the life of the carnival frustrates him, I saw him not as a beleaguered hero, but as a squirrelly creep who had not earned my favor. When Michelle Williams turns up as his Dream Girl, I'm rooting for her to run far away from him, because he is neither kind, nor trustworthy, nor anybody she should waste her time with. Perhaps, if I had been more inclined to ally myself with Oz's worldview, I would have liked this movie better. As it is, I think Oz the man was unfairly rewarded for being a creep and I can't condone it.)
Anyway, Michelle Williams has come to visit, like she always does when he's in the county, and John Gale has asked her to marry him. So she is Dorothy Gale's mother? Which makes her doomed, right, because she's dead by the events of Wizard of Oz which is why Dorothy lives with her Auntie Em. Still, though, it's probably a better life than one spent with James Franco, the serial seducer of the circus.
Oz has a speech about the difference between being a "good" man and a "great" one. John Gale is a good man, Annie should marry him, while Oz still wants to do great things. This is news to us, the audience, because so far we've just seen him doing the barest minimum to meet his basest needs. He manipulates and disrespects the woman he's seduced, he's antagonized his audience and cut the show short, he's shortchanging his assistant in splitting the box office take, and now he says he wants to be "great?" Doing what? He's venal, greedy, lecherous, disrespectful, a phony through and through.
Then it turns out he's pulled the "music box seduction" on the strong man's girlfriend, and the strong man is determined to wreak some physical damage in retaliation. Don't even get me started on what's wrong with this one. Oops--too late. Men fighting over a woman like this entirely overlooks that a woman has her own agency and has to be allowed to make her own choices about who she loves. Nope--she is Strong Man's Woman, and Oz has poached her, so he must be punished. This is Men Folks' Business, honey, so you just stand out of the way. Because it's not like maybe she didn't want to stay with a man with such a violent temper or anything--she doesn't get a say.
So Oz hops into a balloon that isn't entirely his property. (Unidentified carny: Hey! That balloon's half mine! Oz: And the other half is mine! So now we can add property theft to his list of charming attributes.) He narrowly escapes the strong man, and gets tossed into a twister. There the items swirling in the cyclone are more threatening than Dorothy encountered, and Oz is nearly impaled by several piece of white picket fence.
(This is used for 3D effect, as the pickets come flying out toward the audience. It's also probably a commentary on his fear of commitment with Annie--nearly being crucified by the symbols of agricultural domesticity in Hardly Subtle.)
At any rate, Oz is reduced to a gibbering heap, frantically pleading with god to "Let me live! I promise I will do great things!" Despite being Theologically Suspect (God does NOT bargain with terrorists!), Oz gets to pratfall into Oz and land at the feet of Mila Kunis. Who for some reason (*cough*fanservice*cough*) is wearing tight black leather pants and boots, which provoke exactly NO reaction from Oz the Great Horn Dog, despite being as UNlike anything he's seen on a woman's body in turn of the century Kansas.
Why does she wear black leather pants anyway? Nobody else in Oz dresses like that--the other witches wander around in ball gowns, and the female citizens of Oz wear outfits that would meld seamlessly into a Dr. Seuss book. But Mila Kunis skips along in her dominatrix gear, topped with a crimson jacket and enormous hat. She's Mila Kunis, so of course Oz hits on her, but he's actually less interested in her than in The Prophecy and the promise of wealth. Because, of course, about the first thing she says to him is "The Prophecy was true! You are here to become our King and return Oz to its former greatness!"
Does anybody else immediately flash back to Ghostbusters?
Exactly like this--more than once.
The only--and I mean THE ONLY--evidence of a problem is the appearance of the flying baboons, who are pretty destructive, but they are deployed because The Wizard has arrived. There's no evidence of oppressive tactics, or general unhappiness, or even irritable civil servants. Everybody is well fed, well dressed, racially integrated, and capable of breaking into elaborate choreography at the drop of a hat. Sure, there's some talk about "The Wicked Witch" and "The Curse," but what's the problem? Honestly?
(There is the matter of China Town, which was reportedly destroyed by the flying baboons on the orders of the Wicked Witch--and this is where James Franco meets the same little girl who can't walk that he met in Kansas. The China Girl says "we were all celebrating the arrival of the Wizard when they came." Again--not clear that there was anything wrong with Oz before James Franco showed up.)
Once in the Emerald City, he meets Rachel Weisz as Evanora, who is apparently the Cardinal Mazarin of the place, keeping the place running for the indeterminate amount of time between the death of the former king and the arrival of James Franco. We know she is evil because she's not willing to turn over supreme executive power just because he fell out of a hot air balloon. She wants some proof that he's a legitimate candidate before she turns over all governmental authority and an enormous amount of specie to some moistened wanker who is capable of forming the words "I am the Wizard."
I know! How unreasonable!
She also has the temerity to tell her sister, the dangerously naive and gullible Theodora (Mila Kunis) that maybe, just maybe, she shouldn't be ordering her coronation wardrobe just yet, because James Franco doesn't seem to be the commitment type. He just might not have actually promised that Theodora will rule as queen--which is pretty darn savvy of Evanora, because hello! That's exactly who he is.
Well, Mila Kunis overreacts, because the twenty minutes she spent with James Franco has rendered life unliveable without him--I'm skeptical. I mean, she is a witch, presumably she has a day job of witchery, right? She does something other than waiting around for eligible bachelors to fall out of the sky so she can maneuver them into marriage and rule the kingdom, doesn't she? Anyway, she sees him walking next to Michelle Williams (now as Glinda), and she goes full-on psychopath. Anything is better than watching him on the crystal ball cam, busily not killing the blonde witch. Because there are no other men in Oz, apparently. Or maybe there's an obscure marriage law that requires men and women captured on the Oz equivalent of a security camera to be irrevocably affianced. It's also a personal rejection, a message sent intentionally by James Franco, to signal his lack of interest in Mila Kunis. She's not "Theodora the Good," she's "Theodora the Whack Job." I mean, Bro! Beeyotches be cray-cray, amirite?
(Not of fan of this characterization--can you tell?)
The movie pretends to have a twist--which witch is the wicked one? Of course, if you've been paying any attention, there are plenty enough clues. For one, Theodora and Evanora are sisters, which means they are the witches of the East and West. Also, they are brunettes, and Michelle Williams is blonde, so that's proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Anyway! Theodora and Evanora tell James Franco that Michelle Williams is the Wicked Witch and must be killed. And he believes them, because. . .because Rachel Weisz tells him he can't have the gold until he kills the witch, which he has to do because Prophesy! (Do we ever actually hear this prophecy? No, we don't. Just pieces. As convenient to get the plot to the next beat. Personally, I think everybody is just making all this up as they go along.)
What is the one thing we know about the "wicked witch" who is so oppressing Oz? She has flying baboons. Where do the flying baboons come from? Well, the many times they get sent out, they come flying out in an enormous black cloud--from the Emerald City.
Is Michelle Williams in the Emerald City? No, she's been banished to the Dark Forest, allegedly for killing her father, the king, so she could rule. So she's been exiled, she's far away, and nobody wonders who's running the flying baboon circus since she's been gone? PEOPLE!! USE YOUR BRAINS!! THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE THEM!!
So, in case you are surprised, Rachel Weisz has been running Oz and doesn't want to give it up to somebody who's major qualification seems to be the ability to bounce when dropped from the sky. James Franco fails to kill Michelle Williams, because he notices that she's blonde, and he realizes that she can't be evil. So he cooks up a plan to use his stage magic to scare the witchy sisters out of the Emerald City so he can get the gold.
There is a half-hearted attempt to make him into Han Solo from the first Star Wars movie, setting him up as a guy who is going to take the gold and run away--honestly, do we think we don't remember there is a Wizard in the Wizard of Oz movie? There is running around, there are steampunk goggles and a face projected onto smoke, and the true proof of evil--Rachel Weisz is actually old and ugly! It was just a spell that kept her looking like that! See! Old people don't deserve to rule!
Honestly, it's just such a mess. It's in no way clear that James Franco has any reason to rule in Oz--there is almost nothing about him that is anything other than self-interested. There is an odd sort of pacing too, as though large swaths of the movie were just left out--the journey with Theodora and Oz to the Emerald City starts with them walking, then suddenly there is a carriage with a military escort. How? Why? How much time has passed anyway?
Nor are the themes well parsed. The little girl in Kansas who wanted to walk again was disappointed, but James Franco manages to repair the broken china legs of the China Girl. But that was just a matter of having glue--there wasn't any change of heart, or particular sacrifice involved. It wasn't even magic--it was just glue.
Nor does he change his relationship with Zach Braff, who is a flying monkey in a bellhop uniform in Oz. He starts out the movie manipulating the monkey for his own convenience, forcing him to carry a heavy bag that keeps him from being able to fly. Then--they just stop interacting? The bag goes away somehow? There's literally no resolution to that subplot.
In summary--apparently, Oz needs a ruler with a Y chromosome, because women in charge just ruin things, even though there's not really any evidence of things being ruined. (There is the matter of murdering the king, which apparently happened, and Evanora did, but not clear how, or why, or what the rules for succession were, or ANYTHING.) Just take it on faith--women can't run a country, and nobody inside Oz has any claim, and they are all perfectly happy to let a foreigner come in and take all their gold! Because he's a man?
And there is a completely spark free kiss between James Franco and Michelle Williams--so Oz and Glinda were a thing? Really? And how did that work out? Not well, judging by the lack of passion between them.
And it could have been good! Really!
But it is gorgeous to look at. Just don't think about it too much.
Because, let's be frank, the story just doesn't measure up.
Look, I understand the appeal of looking at a classic work from a new perspective. There is a lot of built in excitement--how did things end up the way we "know" them? Why are there two witches who are sisters, but they live on opposite sides of the world? What made them Wicked? (Incidentally, Wicked, the book, does this in spades and from a very sophisticated perspective. The musical, not so much.) Why is the Lion so cowardly? Who made the Scarecrow? How did the Wizard get from being a carny from Omaha to the Ruler of the Emerald City anyway?
This movie sets itself the task of answering the first question, but fundamentally fails at it. Now, unlike Dana Stevens from Slate (who I like and respect a great deal, but disagree with on this movie), I don't think it's a fool's task to take on retelling this story. The Warner Brothers' movie is a "universally beloved classic," but it is also nearly seventy-five years old! So much has changed in terms of what can be done, and how we watch movies. I mean, just try watching an old kids movie, like Doctor Doolittle with Rex Harrison. Oh. My. God. The pacing! It is soooo slow--it's like an endurance test. Granted, Wizard of Oz holds up much better, but there's no reason to think that there is nothing new to say or see. And to be honest, the visuals are pretty amazing. Sam Raimi takes his movie into different places in Oz from the 1939 movie, so we get to see new things too!
But--and this is a big "but"--Oz the Great and Powerful fails to provide a story worth telling. I mean, we all know that the carny becomes the wizard, so showing us that he does just isn't enough. I wanted to see the How and the Why of it. What combination of circumstances and character created a man who was able to remain the ruler of a magical land for decades, with no magic of his own? And why does he stay? What is the fundamental truth about this character that makes this all work?
The answer is--nothing, really. He's a guy, he wants something, there are only women standing between him and what he wants, so of course he gets it. Of course he gets to be the Ruler of Everything, because he's A Man! And in case you doubt that as justification enough, there is A Prophecy! So really, that should answer all your objections about realpolitik and social contract and consent of the governed.
Plot summary in a thimble: turn of the century carny gets caught in a tornado while flying his hot air balloon, lands in Oz, has a few adventures, becomes the ruler of the Emerald City. Anything you didn't know already? No.
There are some conscious nods to the original, most overtly in the structure of the whole movie. The first part takes place in black-and-white in Kansas, where Oscar [many many middle names] Diggs is a carnival magician that everybody calls "Oz." While in Kansas, he has an assistant, a would-be girlfriend, and a devoted fan who believes in his magic, all three of whom show up again in the Land of Oz.
There is a contretemps with an adversary, this time the carnival strongman (who does NOT show up later) instead of Miss Gulch, a flight through a destructive tornado, and a crash landing in the technicolor landscape. There he meets a good witch who sets him on the path to the Emerald City, and he gathers companions on the way. Once there, he is given the task of killing a wicked witch, this time by destroying her wand rather than bringing back her broom, after which he is promised great rewards. The biggest difference is that instead of going back home at the end, he stays.
This might actually be the platonic ideal of a sequel format--all the fundamentals are in place, so then we can enjoy the new parts. Sadly, the new parts are uniformly clunkers, story wise. Let's get into the spoilers.
The first twenty minutes of the movie show us Oz in his native habitat. Cleverly shown in a nearly square aspect ratio and filmed in black and white, the movie establishes itself as set in The Past. As the circus magician, Oz has a sort of oily charm, because he is James Franco, and we are placed firmly in his POV, aware that his job is to amaze and fool the rubes. However, the Oz is not so much a magician as he is a horn dog and he is also obsessed with getting laid. He pulls an obviously well worn routine on his newest "assistant," presenting her with a music box that "belonged to my grandmother" in exchange for a kiss and likely more later.
This is insulting, really. The "simple country girl" is being used and the moves are obvious to the audience, but somehow she doesn't catch on, being too dazzled by the glamor of her new role I guess? It's a profoundly offensive view of a woman, and doesn't make me like James Franco/Oz at all. Then he is abusive to his technical assistant (played by Zach Braff), and once on-stage, bedazzles a young girl in a wheelchair who asks him to make her walk again. Instead of turning the moment into a human one--"I wish I could, but my magic doesn't work like that" or something, he blusters his way into an early dropped curtain in front of an audience he has alienated. Once safely off stage, he again berates Zach Braff for not dropping the curtain fast enough to save him from the encounter with the crippled girl. Not at all a nice person, nor someone I have any reason to root for at all.
But it swiftly gets worse. Back in his caravan, a woman knocks on the door, and Zach Braff offers to "wind up another of the music boxes." In case you didn't see it as a practiced scam the first time he used it on a gullible young woman, you see. But this is Annie, who he has some history with. Annie is Michelle Williams, so she is very blonde and beautiful and gentle and pure and everything Oz is not. So what does she see in him?
(That's the problem with this film, and one I am tempted to explain as a Male Problem. I assume that the intent was that we would see things from Oz's point of view, would immediately identify with him and his desires, and take his part as the story unfolds. But since I am not a Male, I didn't default into a pro-Oz camp. Thus, as the life of the carnival frustrates him, I saw him not as a beleaguered hero, but as a squirrelly creep who had not earned my favor. When Michelle Williams turns up as his Dream Girl, I'm rooting for her to run far away from him, because he is neither kind, nor trustworthy, nor anybody she should waste her time with. Perhaps, if I had been more inclined to ally myself with Oz's worldview, I would have liked this movie better. As it is, I think Oz the man was unfairly rewarded for being a creep and I can't condone it.)
Anyway, Michelle Williams has come to visit, like she always does when he's in the county, and John Gale has asked her to marry him. So she is Dorothy Gale's mother? Which makes her doomed, right, because she's dead by the events of Wizard of Oz which is why Dorothy lives with her Auntie Em. Still, though, it's probably a better life than one spent with James Franco, the serial seducer of the circus.
Oz has a speech about the difference between being a "good" man and a "great" one. John Gale is a good man, Annie should marry him, while Oz still wants to do great things. This is news to us, the audience, because so far we've just seen him doing the barest minimum to meet his basest needs. He manipulates and disrespects the woman he's seduced, he's antagonized his audience and cut the show short, he's shortchanging his assistant in splitting the box office take, and now he says he wants to be "great?" Doing what? He's venal, greedy, lecherous, disrespectful, a phony through and through.
Then it turns out he's pulled the "music box seduction" on the strong man's girlfriend, and the strong man is determined to wreak some physical damage in retaliation. Don't even get me started on what's wrong with this one. Oops--too late. Men fighting over a woman like this entirely overlooks that a woman has her own agency and has to be allowed to make her own choices about who she loves. Nope--she is Strong Man's Woman, and Oz has poached her, so he must be punished. This is Men Folks' Business, honey, so you just stand out of the way. Because it's not like maybe she didn't want to stay with a man with such a violent temper or anything--she doesn't get a say.
So Oz hops into a balloon that isn't entirely his property. (Unidentified carny: Hey! That balloon's half mine! Oz: And the other half is mine! So now we can add property theft to his list of charming attributes.) He narrowly escapes the strong man, and gets tossed into a twister. There the items swirling in the cyclone are more threatening than Dorothy encountered, and Oz is nearly impaled by several piece of white picket fence.
(This is used for 3D effect, as the pickets come flying out toward the audience. It's also probably a commentary on his fear of commitment with Annie--nearly being crucified by the symbols of agricultural domesticity in Hardly Subtle.)
At any rate, Oz is reduced to a gibbering heap, frantically pleading with god to "Let me live! I promise I will do great things!" Despite being Theologically Suspect (God does NOT bargain with terrorists!), Oz gets to pratfall into Oz and land at the feet of Mila Kunis. Who for some reason (*cough*fanservice*cough*) is wearing tight black leather pants and boots, which provoke exactly NO reaction from Oz the Great Horn Dog, despite being as UNlike anything he's seen on a woman's body in turn of the century Kansas.
Why does she wear black leather pants anyway? Nobody else in Oz dresses like that--the other witches wander around in ball gowns, and the female citizens of Oz wear outfits that would meld seamlessly into a Dr. Seuss book. But Mila Kunis skips along in her dominatrix gear, topped with a crimson jacket and enormous hat. She's Mila Kunis, so of course Oz hits on her, but he's actually less interested in her than in The Prophecy and the promise of wealth. Because, of course, about the first thing she says to him is "The Prophecy was true! You are here to become our King and return Oz to its former greatness!"
Does anybody else immediately flash back to Ghostbusters?
Gozer: ARE YOU A GOD?
Dan Akroyd: No?
Gozer: THEN DIE!!
Ernie Hudson: When somebody asks if you are a god, you say YES!
Exactly like this--more than once.
Everybody in this movie:"Are you The Wizard?"So, as he wanders around Oz, there is talk about a "terrible curse" and how the Wizard is supposed to "save the people" and "return us to our former glory." But frankly, it's hard to see anything wrong in Oz. Colors are hyper-saturated, fields are stuffed with corn, horses are many different colors, and there's a Smaug-sized gold hoard in the Emerald City vault. Oz totally does a Scrooge McDuck and rolls around in it even.
James Franco: "Maybe? But probably not."
Everybody in this movie: "But if you are then you get gold/a throne/the girl/popular adulation!"
James Franco: "Yes! Yes I AM THE WIZARD!"
The only--and I mean THE ONLY--evidence of a problem is the appearance of the flying baboons, who are pretty destructive, but they are deployed because The Wizard has arrived. There's no evidence of oppressive tactics, or general unhappiness, or even irritable civil servants. Everybody is well fed, well dressed, racially integrated, and capable of breaking into elaborate choreography at the drop of a hat. Sure, there's some talk about "The Wicked Witch" and "The Curse," but what's the problem? Honestly?
(There is the matter of China Town, which was reportedly destroyed by the flying baboons on the orders of the Wicked Witch--and this is where James Franco meets the same little girl who can't walk that he met in Kansas. The China Girl says "we were all celebrating the arrival of the Wizard when they came." Again--not clear that there was anything wrong with Oz before James Franco showed up.)
Once in the Emerald City, he meets Rachel Weisz as Evanora, who is apparently the Cardinal Mazarin of the place, keeping the place running for the indeterminate amount of time between the death of the former king and the arrival of James Franco. We know she is evil because she's not willing to turn over supreme executive power just because he fell out of a hot air balloon. She wants some proof that he's a legitimate candidate before she turns over all governmental authority and an enormous amount of specie to some moistened wanker who is capable of forming the words "I am the Wizard."
I know! How unreasonable!
She also has the temerity to tell her sister, the dangerously naive and gullible Theodora (Mila Kunis) that maybe, just maybe, she shouldn't be ordering her coronation wardrobe just yet, because James Franco doesn't seem to be the commitment type. He just might not have actually promised that Theodora will rule as queen--which is pretty darn savvy of Evanora, because hello! That's exactly who he is.
Well, Mila Kunis overreacts, because the twenty minutes she spent with James Franco has rendered life unliveable without him--I'm skeptical. I mean, she is a witch, presumably she has a day job of witchery, right? She does something other than waiting around for eligible bachelors to fall out of the sky so she can maneuver them into marriage and rule the kingdom, doesn't she? Anyway, she sees him walking next to Michelle Williams (now as Glinda), and she goes full-on psychopath. Anything is better than watching him on the crystal ball cam, busily not killing the blonde witch. Because there are no other men in Oz, apparently. Or maybe there's an obscure marriage law that requires men and women captured on the Oz equivalent of a security camera to be irrevocably affianced. It's also a personal rejection, a message sent intentionally by James Franco, to signal his lack of interest in Mila Kunis. She's not "Theodora the Good," she's "Theodora the Whack Job." I mean, Bro! Beeyotches be cray-cray, amirite?
(Not of fan of this characterization--can you tell?)
The movie pretends to have a twist--which witch is the wicked one? Of course, if you've been paying any attention, there are plenty enough clues. For one, Theodora and Evanora are sisters, which means they are the witches of the East and West. Also, they are brunettes, and Michelle Williams is blonde, so that's proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Anyway! Theodora and Evanora tell James Franco that Michelle Williams is the Wicked Witch and must be killed. And he believes them, because. . .because Rachel Weisz tells him he can't have the gold until he kills the witch, which he has to do because Prophesy! (Do we ever actually hear this prophecy? No, we don't. Just pieces. As convenient to get the plot to the next beat. Personally, I think everybody is just making all this up as they go along.)
What is the one thing we know about the "wicked witch" who is so oppressing Oz? She has flying baboons. Where do the flying baboons come from? Well, the many times they get sent out, they come flying out in an enormous black cloud--from the Emerald City.
Is Michelle Williams in the Emerald City? No, she's been banished to the Dark Forest, allegedly for killing her father, the king, so she could rule. So she's been exiled, she's far away, and nobody wonders who's running the flying baboon circus since she's been gone? PEOPLE!! USE YOUR BRAINS!! THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE THEM!!
So, in case you are surprised, Rachel Weisz has been running Oz and doesn't want to give it up to somebody who's major qualification seems to be the ability to bounce when dropped from the sky. James Franco fails to kill Michelle Williams, because he notices that she's blonde, and he realizes that she can't be evil. So he cooks up a plan to use his stage magic to scare the witchy sisters out of the Emerald City so he can get the gold.
There is a half-hearted attempt to make him into Han Solo from the first Star Wars movie, setting him up as a guy who is going to take the gold and run away--honestly, do we think we don't remember there is a Wizard in the Wizard of Oz movie? There is running around, there are steampunk goggles and a face projected onto smoke, and the true proof of evil--Rachel Weisz is actually old and ugly! It was just a spell that kept her looking like that! See! Old people don't deserve to rule!
Honestly, it's just such a mess. It's in no way clear that James Franco has any reason to rule in Oz--there is almost nothing about him that is anything other than self-interested. There is an odd sort of pacing too, as though large swaths of the movie were just left out--the journey with Theodora and Oz to the Emerald City starts with them walking, then suddenly there is a carriage with a military escort. How? Why? How much time has passed anyway?
Nor are the themes well parsed. The little girl in Kansas who wanted to walk again was disappointed, but James Franco manages to repair the broken china legs of the China Girl. But that was just a matter of having glue--there wasn't any change of heart, or particular sacrifice involved. It wasn't even magic--it was just glue.
Nor does he change his relationship with Zach Braff, who is a flying monkey in a bellhop uniform in Oz. He starts out the movie manipulating the monkey for his own convenience, forcing him to carry a heavy bag that keeps him from being able to fly. Then--they just stop interacting? The bag goes away somehow? There's literally no resolution to that subplot.
In summary--apparently, Oz needs a ruler with a Y chromosome, because women in charge just ruin things, even though there's not really any evidence of things being ruined. (There is the matter of murdering the king, which apparently happened, and Evanora did, but not clear how, or why, or what the rules for succession were, or ANYTHING.) Just take it on faith--women can't run a country, and nobody inside Oz has any claim, and they are all perfectly happy to let a foreigner come in and take all their gold! Because he's a man?
And there is a completely spark free kiss between James Franco and Michelle Williams--so Oz and Glinda were a thing? Really? And how did that work out? Not well, judging by the lack of passion between them.
And it could have been good! Really!
But it is gorgeous to look at. Just don't think about it too much.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
OSCARS!! Big Awards Edition
And here we are at Director, going to Ang Lee for Life of Pi. I didn't even call this category. Have to say Jane Fonda looks amazing in bright yellow. Did they seriously just give this award and then go to ads?
How much time would we have saved by cutting Seth McFarlane out entirely?
Oh, and the ad for Baileys reminded me that I should be drinking! Fortunately, I have some Baileys in the house!
Best Actress, introduced by the still charming Jean Dujardin--wait, wasn't he a character in Les Miz? Jennifer Lawrence won! Wow. And she tripped on the stairs. I bed she mentions it in her speech. And she gets a standing O--yes! She mentioned it! She was charming and flustered and DeNiro looked like it was past his naptime.
Nice move, McFarlane. You were right--Meryl Streep needed no introduction. This is DDL again, although the clip of Hugh Jackman makes him unrecognizable. That's the kind of role that wins often, but not against DDL. Also, Denzel should win for his role as a drunk, but the DDL thing is hard to beat, especially him playing an American icon like that. Yup. Who knew? First actor to win 3 in the Lead Actor category? Wow.
How much time would we have saved by cutting Seth McFarlane out entirely?
Oh, and the ad for Baileys reminded me that I should be drinking! Fortunately, I have some Baileys in the house!
Best Actress, introduced by the still charming Jean Dujardin--wait, wasn't he a character in Les Miz? Jennifer Lawrence won! Wow. And she tripped on the stairs. I bed she mentions it in her speech. And she gets a standing O--yes! She mentioned it! She was charming and flustered and DeNiro looked like it was past his naptime.
Nice move, McFarlane. You were right--Meryl Streep needed no introduction. This is DDL again, although the clip of Hugh Jackman makes him unrecognizable. That's the kind of role that wins often, but not against DDL. Also, Denzel should win for his role as a drunk, but the DDL thing is hard to beat, especially him playing an American icon like that. Yup. Who knew? First actor to win 3 in the Lead Actor category? Wow.
DDL is so gracious, but he couldn't sell that joke. I guess we won't ask him to host the show next year.
I do not love Jack Nicholson. Seriously, why is he still being trotted out all the time? I never got him. I saw Five Easy Pieces and could not get the love.
WTF? Michele Obama? That WAS a surprise! And a great dress too! Go M.O.! And the winner is going to be Lincoln, isn't it? Michele Obama gets to open the envelope? ARGO? ARGO?!?!
Wow. That was not what I expected. But it's got two really good looking producers to bring to the stage. And the funny looking one takes the mic. Turns out he's funny too.
Now we get a closing musical number and it's almost 11--will they cut it? Will they play these guys off? No, it's a direct steal from Neil Patrick Harris's closing number at the Tonys. Having Kristin Chenoweth helps sell something that is pretty weak.
Let's not have him back next year, but ask Adele to host! Or Shatner. Or Tina and Amy. Somebody who is actually funny. Or nobody at all, and just have excellent traffic control to send people onto the stage without the person "hosting." A word which here means "tells stale jokes that are both boring and cringeworthy."
Congratulations to the winners. See you next year!
OSCARS!! In Memorium Edition
Babs was a nice choice, making this the Oscars all about women bringing the voices--Seth who? Maybe we don't need a "host," maybe we just need great voices and a traffic director backstage to get people to their marks?
Have to say Greg Louganis still looks awfully good in a Speedo--but no way am I watching "Splash."
Oh good, a gay joke from McFarlane! Offensive and not funny--that's what we want in our telecast!
Ten years since Chicago won it's Best Picture oscar. Zellweger looks especially scrunchy faces--like she can't even see out of her tiny eyes any more. The years have not been kind to her, but Queen Latifa looks WONDERFUL! And they are introducing Film Score--again, not one I feel qualified to predict. And the Oscar goes to Life of Pi.
Wow, it's after 10 p.m. here, and there are still a whole lot of awards to be given out. Are we going to be here until the wee hours!
Original song--who knew Scarlet Johanson performed one of them? Chasing Ice? I didn't even know it was a movie, much less a song. And what's the deal--two of the five nominees are in a film clip mash-up while Skyfall and the one from Les Miz are performed live? Do. Not. Get. We have time for Chicago and Dreamgirls but not the actual nominees? And Seth McFarlane's song from Ted gets Norah Jones onstage? Guess we know who are the favorites?
Actually, everybody knows Skyfall is going to win this. No question. But would Joshua Bell and Scarlett Johanson have come if they were asked?
Zellweger is all but unrecognizable--I feel like a bitch for saying it, but girlfriedn does not look like herself. She's totally rocking that gold dress, though.
And an Adele acceptance speech--too emotional, and very sweet and plenty of time for her co-winner. Lovely.
Oh no--Jimmy Kimmel is having an Oscar show afterwards. No, I am not going to watch that too. Although I am kind of surprised that I'm not also checking out what E! is doing now. Weren't they going to be counter-programming with more fashion analysis? Oh, I just checked, it's a Kardashian show, so I'm not missing anything.
Argo won adapted screenplay! I was wrong, I thought sure it would be Silver Linings Playbook--I overestimated the Harvey Weinstein factor, which I didn't think was possible to do!
Amazing how Quentin Tarantino can say words that might read as humble, but he still makes it all about himself. I had picked Moonrise Kingdom for screenplay, but this is the year of "Everybody Gets Some Love!" The Best Picture nominees are going home with a couple each it seems.
Have to say Greg Louganis still looks awfully good in a Speedo--but no way am I watching "Splash."
Oh good, a gay joke from McFarlane! Offensive and not funny--that's what we want in our telecast!
Ten years since Chicago won it's Best Picture oscar. Zellweger looks especially scrunchy faces--like she can't even see out of her tiny eyes any more. The years have not been kind to her, but Queen Latifa looks WONDERFUL! And they are introducing Film Score--again, not one I feel qualified to predict. And the Oscar goes to Life of Pi.
Wow, it's after 10 p.m. here, and there are still a whole lot of awards to be given out. Are we going to be here until the wee hours!
Original song--who knew Scarlet Johanson performed one of them? Chasing Ice? I didn't even know it was a movie, much less a song. And what's the deal--two of the five nominees are in a film clip mash-up while Skyfall and the one from Les Miz are performed live? Do. Not. Get. We have time for Chicago and Dreamgirls but not the actual nominees? And Seth McFarlane's song from Ted gets Norah Jones onstage? Guess we know who are the favorites?
Actually, everybody knows Skyfall is going to win this. No question. But would Joshua Bell and Scarlett Johanson have come if they were asked?
Zellweger is all but unrecognizable--I feel like a bitch for saying it, but girlfriedn does not look like herself. She's totally rocking that gold dress, though.
And an Adele acceptance speech--too emotional, and very sweet and plenty of time for her co-winner. Lovely.
Oh no--Jimmy Kimmel is having an Oscar show afterwards. No, I am not going to watch that too. Although I am kind of surprised that I'm not also checking out what E! is doing now. Weren't they going to be counter-programming with more fashion analysis? Oh, I just checked, it's a Kardashian show, so I'm not missing anything.
Argo won adapted screenplay! I was wrong, I thought sure it would be Silver Linings Playbook--I overestimated the Harvey Weinstein factor, which I didn't think was possible to do!
Amazing how Quentin Tarantino can say words that might read as humble, but he still makes it all about himself. I had picked Moonrise Kingdom for screenplay, but this is the year of "Everybody Gets Some Love!" The Best Picture nominees are going home with a couple each it seems.
OSCARS!! The Nine O'Clock Hour
Scientific and Technical Awards awarded by Star Trek actors? Well chosen dudes.
Ted is presenting--I don't like it. Not funny, not cute. Technically impressive, but a crudeness too far. Sound mixing--goes to a musical do you think? As someone who doesn't understand technical awards, that's what I would vote for. Apparently so does the rest of the Academy.
A TIE for sound editing! So nice they both get to win. I was afraid we were going to have to do something unsavory with the damn animated teddy bear to break it.
Now a Von Trapp Family Singers joke. Which works almost, until McFarlane laughs at his own set up. And then we introduce Christopher Plummer. And now here we are with Supporting Actress. And I was right about Hathaway. I like her, but I'm preparing for a lot of backlash in the recaps. I even like her pink Prada dress. Hey, I didn't know that she was married to a Baby Goose Celebrity Impersonator!
And what are the popcorn usherettes doing? Is that usual? To keep people from passing out before dinner?
ADELE is awesome. She changed her hair from the red carpet, and it's gorgeous. I kind of wish her dress were floor length, but then we wouldn't be able to see her sparkly shoes. She totally killed that song. (I checked, her shoes were not the ruby slippers Kristin Chenoweth was teasing during the red carpet--but if she clicks them together three times, will they take her home? Or to a world of bimetalist fiscal policy?)
And now Nicole Kidman, looking human and not at all plastic. The best picture nominees: Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, and Amour. What ties these together--medical care/dentistry?
Dan Radcliffe and Kristin Stewart--I heard she was on crutches? Is that actually true? I wasn't paying attention. Production design goes to Lincoln--kind of predictable because so many of these go to period pieces. Not surprised to see Anna Karenina nominated, for example.
Snotty intro to Selma Hayek--she looks gorgeous, and she's using her second language. Let's see you be an artist in your non-native language, McFarlane. Thanks for being a jerk and a racist as well. These were pretty big awards given to big Hollywood players. Way to minimize them.
Ted is presenting--I don't like it. Not funny, not cute. Technically impressive, but a crudeness too far. Sound mixing--goes to a musical do you think? As someone who doesn't understand technical awards, that's what I would vote for. Apparently so does the rest of the Academy.
A TIE for sound editing! So nice they both get to win. I was afraid we were going to have to do something unsavory with the damn animated teddy bear to break it.
Now a Von Trapp Family Singers joke. Which works almost, until McFarlane laughs at his own set up. And then we introduce Christopher Plummer. And now here we are with Supporting Actress. And I was right about Hathaway. I like her, but I'm preparing for a lot of backlash in the recaps. I even like her pink Prada dress. Hey, I didn't know that she was married to a Baby Goose Celebrity Impersonator!
And what are the popcorn usherettes doing? Is that usual? To keep people from passing out before dinner?
ADELE is awesome. She changed her hair from the red carpet, and it's gorgeous. I kind of wish her dress were floor length, but then we wouldn't be able to see her sparkly shoes. She totally killed that song. (I checked, her shoes were not the ruby slippers Kristin Chenoweth was teasing during the red carpet--but if she clicks them together three times, will they take her home? Or to a world of bimetalist fiscal policy?)
And now Nicole Kidman, looking human and not at all plastic. The best picture nominees: Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, and Amour. What ties these together--medical care/dentistry?
Dan Radcliffe and Kristin Stewart--I heard she was on crutches? Is that actually true? I wasn't paying attention. Production design goes to Lincoln--kind of predictable because so many of these go to period pieces. Not surprised to see Anna Karenina nominated, for example.
Snotty intro to Selma Hayek--she looks gorgeous, and she's using her second language. Let's see you be an artist in your non-native language, McFarlane. Thanks for being a jerk and a racist as well. These were pretty big awards given to big Hollywood players. Way to minimize them.
OSCAR!!What Happened to my Posts Edition?
And now, A TRIBUTE TO BROADWAY! Seriously, why doe movies on television need live stage performances? But I still love Chicago, thought Dreamgirls was adequate--with a special nomination for Beyonce's unplucked eyebrows. I have zero interest in Les Miz. It's Hugh Jackman singing--just like on Broadway!
I'm not buying this as necessary. A medley of tunes that all sound exactly the same as each other. That's an easy clip job. Love Samantha Banks though. Do we bring the whole cast on because we know the movie isn't going to sin anything? And where was Helena Bonham Carter during the red carpet shows? She's looking cracked out as usual, but that's apparently in character for the movie. I do like Hathaway's dress too. But I want to see more of Banks!
Oh guess, a standing ovation for this? I guess is twas guilt to create one. Either that, or there were actual electrodes implanted in the seats so everybody HAD to stand up
I think I had some posts that got lost, but they were mostly about how little there was to comment on, so no great loss, and maybe they will show up. We're back to ads, and I'm going to post this.
I'm not buying this as necessary. A medley of tunes that all sound exactly the same as each other. That's an easy clip job. Love Samantha Banks though. Do we bring the whole cast on because we know the movie isn't going to sin anything? And where was Helena Bonham Carter during the red carpet shows? She's looking cracked out as usual, but that's apparently in character for the movie. I do like Hathaway's dress too. But I want to see more of Banks!
Oh guess, a standing ovation for this? I guess is twas guilt to create one. Either that, or there were actual electrodes implanted in the seats so everybody HAD to stand up
I think I had some posts that got lost, but they were mostly about how little there was to comment on, so no great loss, and maybe they will show up. We're back to ads, and I'm going to post this.
OSCARS!! The Part Nobody Cares About Edition
What is there to say about these awards? Life of Pi sure was pretty--so visual effects awards make sense, bunch of movies I have never heard about. Seth McFarlane is mercifully absent mostly. A good speech from a guy who I don't know what the movie was. Short documentary--I don't know anything about these. Jamie Fox and Kerry Washington are doing a good job and not embarrassing themselves.
This is probably as good a time as any to go check some other live bloggers. I personally want Linda Holmes and Stephen Thompson to be sitting on my sofa and talking me through these awards, but their life feed is full of commentary and so it's terribly diffuse and hard to follow.
I love the Fug Girls, but their comments on fashions will keep.
Any others recommended?
Liam Neeson! Still attractive, but I don't like his devolution into an action hero. Argo, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty--these are the political movie nominees. I see why they are together. Too bad the hair and beards of the 70s weren't nearly as attractive as Ben Affleck's are. Victorian facial hair is also pretty weird, and who know that they had Grecian Formula for Men in 1863? (Yes, I'm looking at Tommy Lee Jones's hairpiece.)
Searching for Sugarman wins documentary. Shot on a iPhone, I hear. So now there is really no excuse for the rest of us not to be making movies too.
Hey--Marchesa is coming to JCPenney's? Harvey Weinstein is EVERYWHERE! Quick! Revise your Oscar picks--SLP for EVERYTHING!!
This is probably as good a time as any to go check some other live bloggers. I personally want Linda Holmes and Stephen Thompson to be sitting on my sofa and talking me through these awards, but their life feed is full of commentary and so it's terribly diffuse and hard to follow.
I love the Fug Girls, but their comments on fashions will keep.
Any others recommended?
Liam Neeson! Still attractive, but I don't like his devolution into an action hero. Argo, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty--these are the political movie nominees. I see why they are together. Too bad the hair and beards of the 70s weren't nearly as attractive as Ben Affleck's are. Victorian facial hair is also pretty weird, and who know that they had Grecian Formula for Men in 1863? (Yes, I'm looking at Tommy Lee Jones's hairpiece.)
Searching for Sugarman wins documentary. Shot on a iPhone, I hear. So now there is really no excuse for the rest of us not to be making movies too.
Hey--Marchesa is coming to JCPenney's? Harvey Weinstein is EVERYWHERE! Quick! Revise your Oscar picks--SLP for EVERYTHING!!
OSCARS!! Animated Films Edition
Paul Rudd and Melissa McCarthy in a classically bad bit of banter about actor's voices as tools of the craft. They tried, but the material was weak. Oh, and what a surprise! Pixar won for "Paperman."
Animated Feature Film--is--Brave! The non-brave choice--it goes to Pixar. But I do like the kilt on the producer/director.
Reese Witherspoon has to introduce three best picture nominees. This is kind of awkward, but probably necessary. Les Miz, LIfe of Pi and Beasts of the Southern Wild--quick! Why group these ones together? I guess they all have boats?
Avengers cast taking digs? Not really funny, but not UN-funny. Cinematography going to Life of Pi makes sense because it's a gorgeous looking movie--but is he high? Way to just say thanks and get the heck off the stage.
Visual Effects? Any of these is decent--special effects have gotten so good that there's really no difference in craft--it's sort of a matter of artistic effect now. And Life of Pi used the special effects in service of a story, rather than in service of the special effects. A logical win.
Using the music from Jaws to play off the speaker--rude, but kind of awesome. Shouldn't there be a hook or something coming to pull them offstage if they overrun the allotted time? When you are playing "Jaws" the menace is palpable.
Animated Feature Film--is--Brave! The non-brave choice--it goes to Pixar. But I do like the kilt on the producer/director.
Reese Witherspoon has to introduce three best picture nominees. This is kind of awkward, but probably necessary. Les Miz, LIfe of Pi and Beasts of the Southern Wild--quick! Why group these ones together? I guess they all have boats?
Avengers cast taking digs? Not really funny, but not UN-funny. Cinematography going to Life of Pi makes sense because it's a gorgeous looking movie--but is he high? Way to just say thanks and get the heck off the stage.
Visual Effects? Any of these is decent--special effects have gotten so good that there's really no difference in craft--it's sort of a matter of artistic effect now. And Life of Pi used the special effects in service of a story, rather than in service of the special effects. A logical win.
Using the music from Jaws to play off the speaker--rude, but kind of awesome. Shouldn't there be a hook or something coming to pull them offstage if they overrun the allotted time? When you are playing "Jaws" the menace is palpable.
OSCAR Ceremony!!
We are inside the theater, seeing Renee Zellweger in gold Carolina Herrara, looking good but also kind of old. Time is not kind to women.
Queen Latifah looking BOSS!! Badgely Mischka FTW!
Credits are running and now it's the last sponsors before the higher ad fees kick in maybe? Let's check and see if Levi's/J.C. Penny's has any ads during the actual ceremony. . .
And we're starting! Lots of LED lights! Seth McFarlane and his punchable face.
Let's make Tommy Lee ones laugh. It worked.
The monologue jokes are old--really a joke about accounting for no profits?
But the Captain Kirk thing is working! "We Saw Your Boobs" as a kind of parody of bad Oscar musical performances actually works. Charlize Theron and Channing Tatum doing a sort of Astaire/Rogers dance to "Just The Way You Look Tonight" is actually charming. How did that happen? The changing newspaper headlines, the sock puppet re-enactment of Flight. . . .not terrible. Especially the dryer tumbling the socks. JGL and DRadcliff dancing to "High Hopes?" He's all the way up to "mediocre." He's willing to take "mediocre."
The Green Room Sally Field and Seth in the Flying Nun sequence is a bit off, but using the "alternate history" approach allows him to have his cake and eat it too. And really, he's got to be nervous--this is a lot of singing and dancing for a guy who isn't usually in front of the camera. And I haven't wanted to punch him even once. So I'm calling this a success.
Octavia Spencer for Best Supporting Actor. She's charming and lovely and amazing. And the winner is--Christoph Walz! I didn't pick a winner here, but what a great clip they showed. Bounty hunting--"much like slavery, it's a flesh for cash business." And Walz is a classy speech-maker. A well crafted speech and they didn't even have to play him off!
Hey--Seth McFarlane does the voice over outro to the ads. He's a bargain! And we're into commercials.
Queen Latifah looking BOSS!! Badgely Mischka FTW!
Credits are running and now it's the last sponsors before the higher ad fees kick in maybe? Let's check and see if Levi's/J.C. Penny's has any ads during the actual ceremony. . .
And we're starting! Lots of LED lights! Seth McFarlane and his punchable face.
Let's make Tommy Lee ones laugh. It worked.
The monologue jokes are old--really a joke about accounting for no profits?
But the Captain Kirk thing is working! "We Saw Your Boobs" as a kind of parody of bad Oscar musical performances actually works. Charlize Theron and Channing Tatum doing a sort of Astaire/Rogers dance to "Just The Way You Look Tonight" is actually charming. How did that happen? The changing newspaper headlines, the sock puppet re-enactment of Flight. . . .not terrible. Especially the dryer tumbling the socks. JGL and DRadcliff dancing to "High Hopes?" He's all the way up to "mediocre." He's willing to take "mediocre."
The Green Room Sally Field and Seth in the Flying Nun sequence is a bit off, but using the "alternate history" approach allows him to have his cake and eat it too. And really, he's got to be nervous--this is a lot of singing and dancing for a guy who isn't usually in front of the camera. And I haven't wanted to punch him even once. So I'm calling this a success.
Octavia Spencer for Best Supporting Actor. She's charming and lovely and amazing. And the winner is--Christoph Walz! I didn't pick a winner here, but what a great clip they showed. Bounty hunting--"much like slavery, it's a flesh for cash business." And Walz is a classy speech-maker. A well crafted speech and they didn't even have to play him off!
Hey--Seth McFarlane does the voice over outro to the ads. He's a bargain! And we're into commercials.
OSCARS!! E! News Working their Blackout
I just checked out what was happening on E! while ABC was on ad break--they are pimping the heck out of E! shows that will happen later. Because guys! They totally aren't just watching TV and commenting just like you are at home! No way!
We have Giuliana Rancic and Kimora Lee and Ryan Seacrest and Kelly Osborne (and someone from Marie Claire) and they are wearing expensive dresses and they are totally not just watching TV! They are "Live from the Red Carpet!!"
Back at ABC and KChen and her Oscar Mystery--Anne Hathaway just guessed Dorothy's Slippers, and that's what it was! We have a winner!
Jamie Foxx is here with his 19 year old daughter. They talked about college in the limo on the way over--that's great. Makes me like Foxx better.
Daniel Day Lewis and his wife, Rebecca Miller--she looks like a smart person--mostly because I want that to be true. I want them to be a marriage of interesting minds. (I think he's a lock, by the way.)
So, less than 12 minutes to broadcast. Shall I make some picks?
Best Picture:I'm going with Lincoln.
Best Actor: DDL--Daniel Day Lewis
Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence--as the "token" SLP winner
Best Supporting Actor: No Clue--everybody has won before, so it doesn't matter.
Best Supporting Actress: Hathaway is also a lock
SLP for Adapted Screenplay
Moonrise Kingdom for Original Screenplay
Best Animated Feature Film: Brave is the logical one, but I'm going to pick Wreck It Ralph, because that one had the whimsy and cleverness that we expect from Pixar and didn't get in Brave.
Those are the only ones I feel are worth predicting. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Seth McFarlane isn't going to be asked back after tonight. I have no inside info--this is just my gut.
Enjoy the show!
We have Giuliana Rancic and Kimora Lee and Ryan Seacrest and Kelly Osborne (and someone from Marie Claire) and they are wearing expensive dresses and they are totally not just watching TV! They are "Live from the Red Carpet!!"
Back at ABC and KChen and her Oscar Mystery--Anne Hathaway just guessed Dorothy's Slippers, and that's what it was! We have a winner!
Jamie Foxx is here with his 19 year old daughter. They talked about college in the limo on the way over--that's great. Makes me like Foxx better.
Daniel Day Lewis and his wife, Rebecca Miller--she looks like a smart person--mostly because I want that to be true. I want them to be a marriage of interesting minds. (I think he's a lock, by the way.)
So, less than 12 minutes to broadcast. Shall I make some picks?
Best Picture:I'm going with Lincoln.
Best Actor: DDL--Daniel Day Lewis
Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence--as the "token" SLP winner
Best Supporting Actor: No Clue--everybody has won before, so it doesn't matter.
Best Supporting Actress: Hathaway is also a lock
SLP for Adapted Screenplay
Moonrise Kingdom for Original Screenplay
Best Animated Feature Film: Brave is the logical one, but I'm going to pick Wreck It Ralph, because that one had the whimsy and cleverness that we expect from Pixar and didn't get in Brave.
Those are the only ones I feel are worth predicting. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Seth McFarlane isn't going to be asked back after tonight. I have no inside info--this is just my gut.
Enjoy the show!
OSCARSII Is it a Head?
Hugh Jackman guesses the Oscar Mystery is a head--just like Amanda Seyfried. The clue has changed--the first clue was "over 2000 components." The new clue is "It was given as a gift." Can't say to whom.
Chris Evans also brought his mom as his date.
DeNiro and his wife--she's younger but not exactly young, and African American, which I didn't know. Robyn Robinson is asking DeNiro about Cooper, which is nice.
Dan Radcliff is cute, and HP is clearly over, since there aren't hordes of screaming fangirls dogging his progress. It must be a relief!
So many many ads! We're already at another commercial break, which is kind of nuts. I didn't realize just how little content there is between the ads.
Jennifer Aniston in red--not black? Is the world ending? She's got her hair down and minimal make up and no visible jewels--oh, there's a bracelet and ring and a clutch. Now we can see the earrings inside her hair, which is kind of a loss for Fred Leighton. The dress is Valentino, of course.
Jennifer Garner in purple looks awesome, with a ruffled train down the back, and what looks like a vintage elaborate necklace
Halle Berry and Robyn Robinson. Berry has a lovely black and beaded thing in stripes that looks great. She's a Bond Girl too! And this is the 50th anniversary so there's going to be a tribute. The dress is Versace, it looks great.
Chenoweth and Adele. Adele is about a foot taller than Chen, and they are talking about how heavy Adele's dress for performance is. "How tall are you?" Adele is 6'1" in her heels. They are darling together.
George Clooney--he and Walt Disney have the most different category nominations. Stacy Keibler looks very vintage. Cloons has a nice beard--he looks charming, and Keibler has lasted HOW MANY award seasons?
Sandra Bullock in Elie Saab look tall and lovely. THere's a problem with the sound--they start out booming over speakers, and then Chenoweth is heard gabbling about something. Accountants are in the house!
Are we going to get the answer to the "Oscar Mystery?"
Chris Evans also brought his mom as his date.
DeNiro and his wife--she's younger but not exactly young, and African American, which I didn't know. Robyn Robinson is asking DeNiro about Cooper, which is nice.
Dan Radcliff is cute, and HP is clearly over, since there aren't hordes of screaming fangirls dogging his progress. It must be a relief!
So many many ads! We're already at another commercial break, which is kind of nuts. I didn't realize just how little content there is between the ads.
Jennifer Aniston in red--not black? Is the world ending? She's got her hair down and minimal make up and no visible jewels--oh, there's a bracelet and ring and a clutch. Now we can see the earrings inside her hair, which is kind of a loss for Fred Leighton. The dress is Valentino, of course.
Jennifer Garner in purple looks awesome, with a ruffled train down the back, and what looks like a vintage elaborate necklace
Halle Berry and Robyn Robinson. Berry has a lovely black and beaded thing in stripes that looks great. She's a Bond Girl too! And this is the 50th anniversary so there's going to be a tribute. The dress is Versace, it looks great.
Chenoweth and Adele. Adele is about a foot taller than Chen, and they are talking about how heavy Adele's dress for performance is. "How tall are you?" Adele is 6'1" in her heels. They are darling together.
George Clooney--he and Walt Disney have the most different category nominations. Stacy Keibler looks very vintage. Cloons has a nice beard--he looks charming, and Keibler has lasted HOW MANY award seasons?
Sandra Bullock in Elie Saab look tall and lovely. THere's a problem with the sound--they start out booming over speakers, and then Chenoweth is heard gabbling about something. Accountants are in the house!
Are we going to get the answer to the "Oscar Mystery?"
OSCARS!! The Who Is Taller Edition
K Chenoweth is comparing height with Mama Cooper, and takes off her heels to see she's shorter--then Bradley Cooper gets down on one knee to help her get it back on. Very lovely, and a complete rehab from his smirky, fratty character from The Hangover.
Kidman and Urban! She looks actually human. She's got a black and gold sequined sheath and it's lovely. L'Wren Scott--it's classy and fabulous.
Charlize Theron again. The costumes from Snow White and the Huntsman is the topic of the interview. She's refusing to take any credit for her look, giving props to her styling team. I like it, but there's a train that comes out from her butt crack, which I don't like.
Oh, Robin Robinson--it's so good to have you back! (Okay, I had to say that.) Cobalt blue looks really good on her.
I'm not fond of the "Oscar Mystery" nonsense, but I'm guessing it's the Ruby Slippers from Wizard of Oz. Amanda Seyfried has guessed "A Head" and Bradley Cooper said "A Parrot?"
Over on E!, the aggressive Size 0s saying ANYTHING about Adele is just obnoxious and hypocritical. Adele does look great and happy, but also exactly like she always looks. Big black dress, big hair. Salon nails and make up. She's awesome, but shut up Giuliana. You look like you have a padlock on the fridge and you lost the combination on purpose.
Okay, I'm posting this one and switching back to ABC.
Kidman and Urban! She looks actually human. She's got a black and gold sequined sheath and it's lovely. L'Wren Scott--it's classy and fabulous.
Charlize Theron again. The costumes from Snow White and the Huntsman is the topic of the interview. She's refusing to take any credit for her look, giving props to her styling team. I like it, but there's a train that comes out from her butt crack, which I don't like.
Oh, Robin Robinson--it's so good to have you back! (Okay, I had to say that.) Cobalt blue looks really good on her.
I'm not fond of the "Oscar Mystery" nonsense, but I'm guessing it's the Ruby Slippers from Wizard of Oz. Amanda Seyfried has guessed "A Head" and Bradley Cooper said "A Parrot?"
Over on E!, the aggressive Size 0s saying ANYTHING about Adele is just obnoxious and hypocritical. Adele does look great and happy, but also exactly like she always looks. Big black dress, big hair. Salon nails and make up. She's awesome, but shut up Giuliana. You look like you have a padlock on the fridge and you lost the combination on purpose.
Okay, I'm posting this one and switching back to ABC.
OSCARS!! Again!
Why am I doing these serial posts? Because I have lost too many posts to inadvertent deletions. So I'm posting as soon as I have a break so I don't lose it all.
ABC is doing something foolish--an Oscar road trip? No thanks. Back to E!
But, E! is doing something on the Governor's Ball. It happens on the top floor of the theater, which you can check out if you tour the theater--like we did a hear and a half ago.
Giuliana Rancic is dark haired?!?! And understated in something black and strapless.
Bradley Cooper and his mom! Mom is about Chenoweth height! They are representing Philadelphia! Mom looks great, sporting a cape of feathers, and Brad is cute and awkward as he stands on somebody's gown.
Anne Hathaway was supposed to wear Valentino? She's in a pale pink Prada, and I like it. I like the simplicity, but I don't loke the double waistline--Empire and one at the waist too.
Back to ABC, which apparently has dibs on red carpet for the last hour before the actual ceremony. Reese Witherspoon rocking the Veronica Lake glamorous hair. JGL showing off his funky fly socks. ABC is showing clips of Movies of 2012--while E is recapping fashion. So that's where I am.
Jessica Chastain--her dress is kind of the same color as her hair. It's tailered and subtly beaded, but it just doesn't show on the red carpet. It's too understated, really.
Hey! The crawl says that the Governor's Ball crew will be eating chicken pot pie too! Just like me! Although theirs will be prepared by Wolfgang Puck and includes shaved black truffles. Mine is not going to be so glam, but then I get to have mine earlier than they get theirs! Win!
ABC is doing something foolish--an Oscar road trip? No thanks. Back to E!
But, E! is doing something on the Governor's Ball. It happens on the top floor of the theater, which you can check out if you tour the theater--like we did a hear and a half ago.
Giuliana Rancic is dark haired?!?! And understated in something black and strapless.
Bradley Cooper and his mom! Mom is about Chenoweth height! They are representing Philadelphia! Mom looks great, sporting a cape of feathers, and Brad is cute and awkward as he stands on somebody's gown.
Anne Hathaway was supposed to wear Valentino? She's in a pale pink Prada, and I like it. I like the simplicity, but I don't loke the double waistline--Empire and one at the waist too.
Back to ABC, which apparently has dibs on red carpet for the last hour before the actual ceremony. Reese Witherspoon rocking the Veronica Lake glamorous hair. JGL showing off his funky fly socks. ABC is showing clips of Movies of 2012--while E is recapping fashion. So that's where I am.
Jessica Chastain--her dress is kind of the same color as her hair. It's tailered and subtly beaded, but it just doesn't show on the red carpet. It's too understated, really.
Hey! The crawl says that the Governor's Ball crew will be eating chicken pot pie too! Just like me! Although theirs will be prepared by Wolfgang Puck and includes shaved black truffles. Mine is not going to be so glam, but then I get to have mine earlier than they get theirs! Win!
OSCARS--The Switch to ABC
There's an alternative to Ryan Seacrest! And it's on ABC--and Kristin Chenowith is interviewing Amanda Seyfried and doing a MUCH better job getting Amanda Seyfried to say anything. There is also a gimmick, an "Oscar Mystery" with clues and making people guess.
Quvanzhane Wallis getting her first red carpet interview, and is at least as good as Seyfried is. And Wallis is only 9 and ridiculously poised. She's wearing an age appropriate cobalt blue dress.
A salute to movie fashions! Since we keep asking the stars who they are wearing, this makes sense. In fact, it's kins of neat as they talk about what the fashions SAY about the characters.
JLaw and KChen. The second question is "How tall are you?" KChen is 4'11", JLaw says she's 5'8", but wearing "9 inch heels." And they are bonding over watching "Dance Moms." This is cute.
Zoe Saldana--we aren't asking who she is wearing? I lover the hem, love the belt, love the earrings. No so fond of the appliqué and the bow as well. There is just a little too much going on in the top half of that dress.
ABC commercial break! So we switch channels again!
Over on E!, Anne Hathaway showing some side boob, and her hair is growing out beautifully. She's reaqlly working it. It's a nice pink Prada with a very interesting back.
Naomi Watts in a sparkly Armani Prive that is rather sci-fi--cutout neckline unlike anything ever seen on the Oscars red carpet. She's lovely, I loved her so much in Mullholland Drive, but Liev Schriber on her arm is the BEST accessory.
Charlize Theron--in white Dior Courture, buzzed for "Fury Road" and she's following Anne Hathaway in the "how to rock the new cut" reality show. I'm reminded of a dress Kate Hudson wore last year, I think--white sculptural fabrick like ice cream.
Quvanzhane Wallis getting her first red carpet interview, and is at least as good as Seyfried is. And Wallis is only 9 and ridiculously poised. She's wearing an age appropriate cobalt blue dress.
A salute to movie fashions! Since we keep asking the stars who they are wearing, this makes sense. In fact, it's kins of neat as they talk about what the fashions SAY about the characters.
JLaw and KChen. The second question is "How tall are you?" KChen is 4'11", JLaw says she's 5'8", but wearing "9 inch heels." And they are bonding over watching "Dance Moms." This is cute.
Zoe Saldana--we aren't asking who she is wearing? I lover the hem, love the belt, love the earrings. No so fond of the appliqué and the bow as well. There is just a little too much going on in the top half of that dress.
ABC commercial break! So we switch channels again!
Over on E!, Anne Hathaway showing some side boob, and her hair is growing out beautifully. She's reaqlly working it. It's a nice pink Prada with a very interesting back.
Naomi Watts in a sparkly Armani Prive that is rather sci-fi--cutout neckline unlike anything ever seen on the Oscars red carpet. She's lovely, I loved her so much in Mullholland Drive, but Liev Schriber on her arm is the BEST accessory.
Charlize Theron--in white Dior Courture, buzzed for "Fury Road" and she's following Anne Hathaway in the "how to rock the new cut" reality show. I'm reminded of a dress Kate Hudson wore last year, I think--white sculptural fabrick like ice cream.
OSCARS!!--Red Carpet part Deux
During this commercial break, I am making a confession. The plan was for pizza and wine and serious couch surfing. HOWEVER--I am out of wine, so I decided to substitute rum-and-diet-pepsi. Then I punted on the pizza, because the one I like best requires actually leaving the apartment and driving to pick it up. Yes, outside the delivery area sucks.
So to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear of my own laziness, I'm having "Life of (chicken pot) Pi(e)" and the Pepsi version of "Zero Dark Thirsty" (which should be Coke Zero, which I don't have, and dark rum, which I do.)
Back to the red carpet!
GJL and Sally Field nattering about JGL's inability to tie a bow tie, while CZJ and Michael Douglas are in the background--girlfriend is looking FIERCE and FABULOUS. She was pregnant when she was here for Chicago. Is this her first time back since then?
Dustin Hoffman and Sally Field hug delightfully, and JGL is totally star struck. Dustin is spared the ManiCam. Why?
Charlize Theron is rocking a seriously short haircut. Melissa McCarthy looks lovely and nice nice hair, but almost no visible jewels--not snark, given she's got the #1 movie of the week.
Jennifer Hudson looks great, but I don't like the bangs--it makes her look ridiculously generic.
Back to the B team (Ross and Kelly in the sky box) reprising Seyfried in Alexander McQueen--it's lovely, but it's getting overpowered by the carpet.
Sneak peak of Jessica Chastain, who is so talented an actress, and such a disappointment on the red carpet. Last years black and gold gown was fabulous, this year looks washed out and small.
So to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear of my own laziness, I'm having "Life of (chicken pot) Pi(e)" and the Pepsi version of "Zero Dark Thirsty" (which should be Coke Zero, which I don't have, and dark rum, which I do.)
Back to the red carpet!
GJL and Sally Field nattering about JGL's inability to tie a bow tie, while CZJ and Michael Douglas are in the background--girlfriend is looking FIERCE and FABULOUS. She was pregnant when she was here for Chicago. Is this her first time back since then?
Dustin Hoffman and Sally Field hug delightfully, and JGL is totally star struck. Dustin is spared the ManiCam. Why?
Charlize Theron is rocking a seriously short haircut. Melissa McCarthy looks lovely and nice nice hair, but almost no visible jewels--not snark, given she's got the #1 movie of the week.
Jennifer Hudson looks great, but I don't like the bangs--it makes her look ridiculously generic.
Back to the B team (Ross and Kelly in the sky box) reprising Seyfried in Alexander McQueen--it's lovely, but it's getting overpowered by the carpet.
Sneak peak of Jessica Chastain, who is so talented an actress, and such a disappointment on the red carpet. Last years black and gold gown was fabulous, this year looks washed out and small.
OSCARS!!
I'm late to the red carpet, but I managed to catch Jacki Weaver standing over Daniel Radcliffe's shoulder, rubbing her teach to make sure there's no lipstick for her interview with Ryan "The Tool" Seacrest.
I predict this is the high point of the night.
Although Zoe Saldana's dress is architectural and fabulously understated.
Amy Adams and Amanda Seyfried look like the same person.
Octavia Spenser, looking awesome and amazing in an asymmetrical beaded and tulle-topped gown.
Is that a drawing of Bette Davis in an Edith Head dress in the background?
Kelly Osbourne--lose the purple hair. It's really not doing anything for you.
Amanda Seyfried's dress is the EXACT SAME color as Kelly's hair. Also, her eye shadow is the same color.
Split screen Amanda Seyfried and Jennifer Lawrence--again, two women, one look. Seyfried is also refusing to participate in the Seacrest Show--it's kind of obnoxious. Is there a "Big Showstopper Surprise" musical number that nobody knows about? Then answer the damn questions.
Sally Field in Red--Nice.
JLaw--now with Seacrest, and she totally towers over him. SHe's being charming, voluble, and looking creat in a white Dior, with an interesting find chain necklas that runs down her back. Love her classy hair, and the GIANT diamonds in the earrings.
Mani-Cam failure? That's a feature, not a bug!
I predict this is the high point of the night.
Although Zoe Saldana's dress is architectural and fabulously understated.
Amy Adams and Amanda Seyfried look like the same person.
Octavia Spenser, looking awesome and amazing in an asymmetrical beaded and tulle-topped gown.
Is that a drawing of Bette Davis in an Edith Head dress in the background?
Kelly Osbourne--lose the purple hair. It's really not doing anything for you.
Amanda Seyfried's dress is the EXACT SAME color as Kelly's hair. Also, her eye shadow is the same color.
Split screen Amanda Seyfried and Jennifer Lawrence--again, two women, one look. Seyfried is also refusing to participate in the Seacrest Show--it's kind of obnoxious. Is there a "Big Showstopper Surprise" musical number that nobody knows about? Then answer the damn questions.
Sally Field in Red--Nice.
JLaw--now with Seacrest, and she totally towers over him. SHe's being charming, voluble, and looking creat in a white Dior, with an interesting find chain necklas that runs down her back. Love her classy hair, and the GIANT diamonds in the earrings.
Mani-Cam failure? That's a feature, not a bug!
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Downton Abbey Season 3
Well, that was weird. Not quite as weird as season 2--no creepy Canadian "heirs" for example, but still really weirdly paced. It's the way that the major plot developments get introduced and resolved in minutes, while the small things get drawn out to such a degree that the whole season feels out of balance.
For example--
And for gods' sakes, there will be spoilers, so only read this if you are prepared to discuss endings!
For example--
We spent two years worth of episodes on the Matthew and Mary story line. TWO YEARS. And they get married in the first hour, and the honeymoon takes place in the gap between episodes. Meanwhile, Anna and Bates (who are really hopelessly boring) take a picnic and walk the garden paths and look at each other with an appalling amount of schmoopiness. I'm glad they are together, I'm glad they are happy, but who cares if Anna knows how to reel? Who really wants to watch her take lessons from Rose? It's not dramatic, the payoff is non-existent, and it's hopelessly dull.
Or the restructuring of Downton Abbey and the elevation of Branson the Estate Agent. We had to sit through Lord Grantham being a big whiny baby about making any changes to the farms and the estate, we had to listen to him flirt with Ponzi schemes as a better solution than adopting efficient farming practices, we had to put up with his whinging about "but is it fair to the tenant farmers" far too many times...
...and suddenly it's all be done already, the entire business plan for Downton has apparently be created, adopted, and successful, to the point where Shrimpy simply says "If only we had restructured like Downton, then I could have saved Duneagle. . . ." What? In a single year? A farm-based economy has, within a single calendar year, been entirely restructured and the economic benefits became sufficiently apparent by mid summer? How is that even possible?
It's not. It's like Fellowes has an attention problem--he seems to believe that he needs to have major plot developments, but he's really not interested in them. What he is interested in are the details of how a life like the Downton's is actually lived. That's why the question of Thomas and his sexuality plays out across several/many/most episodes, ending in the weirdly anti-climactic scene where Jimmy confronts him and in two sentences they agree they can be friends, no problem.
Similarly, the Big Plot Twist at the end of the season. It's only a Big Plot Twist if you hadn't seen the many many articles about Dan Stevens' decision not to sign on for another season. Or if you didn't know he's been starring on Broadway with Jessica Chastain for the last several months. Of course Matthew had to be killed off. But killed off in the Fellowes Fashion (TM), where there is really no emotional arc or resolution. Nope--he gets run off the road, and the season ends with nobody learning about it. What do you bet that next season is at least another year later, and everybody is over him too?
BUT! He couldn't die without leaving behind a male heir, because as much as Fellowes hates change, he hates chaos more. That's why Thomas had to not be dismissed, despite everything--because he's part of the furnishing of the plot by now. He had to come back as a servant, even after his war service, and his attempt at entrepreneur status, because Downton without Thomas is apparently unthinkable. It's why Branson is staying with his aristocratic in-laws instead of setting up his own life, but he remains an employee so they don't have to call him "Tom."
I really wish Fellows would recognize that he really doesn't do melodrama very well, and just drop it. It's the small details--what does a Gillies Ball look like? How do Scottish people wake up in the morning? (To a piper treading across the bridge over the dry moat, apparently.) What is it about Rose's dress that is so scandalous, and what did the Dowager wear to her first ball?
At least Lord Grantham apologized for his opposition to Matthew, so perhaps he can stop being such a whiner and idiot. Plus, he did it just in time so Matthew can die without anybody thinking he was anything less than perfect. And Lady Mary is now free to "inherit" as regent to her son. Too bad she's such a nasty woman too. Matthew at least got to die without getting tired of her snobby, bitchy comments about Edith and Michael. So I guess it was a win-win?
There have been internet commenters who feel that Dan Stevens should have remained with Downton, either because Matthew was their favorite character, or because they feel he is not "good enough" for a different career path. Frankly, as boring as Matthew's character arc has been this season, and as uneven a writer as Fellowes has shown himself to be, I have a lot of sympathy for someone who wants to do something different for a change. I wish him luck.
For example--
And for gods' sakes, there will be spoilers, so only read this if you are prepared to discuss endings!
For example--
We spent two years worth of episodes on the Matthew and Mary story line. TWO YEARS. And they get married in the first hour, and the honeymoon takes place in the gap between episodes. Meanwhile, Anna and Bates (who are really hopelessly boring) take a picnic and walk the garden paths and look at each other with an appalling amount of schmoopiness. I'm glad they are together, I'm glad they are happy, but who cares if Anna knows how to reel? Who really wants to watch her take lessons from Rose? It's not dramatic, the payoff is non-existent, and it's hopelessly dull.
Or the restructuring of Downton Abbey and the elevation of Branson the Estate Agent. We had to sit through Lord Grantham being a big whiny baby about making any changes to the farms and the estate, we had to listen to him flirt with Ponzi schemes as a better solution than adopting efficient farming practices, we had to put up with his whinging about "but is it fair to the tenant farmers" far too many times...
...and suddenly it's all be done already, the entire business plan for Downton has apparently be created, adopted, and successful, to the point where Shrimpy simply says "If only we had restructured like Downton, then I could have saved Duneagle. . . ." What? In a single year? A farm-based economy has, within a single calendar year, been entirely restructured and the economic benefits became sufficiently apparent by mid summer? How is that even possible?
It's not. It's like Fellowes has an attention problem--he seems to believe that he needs to have major plot developments, but he's really not interested in them. What he is interested in are the details of how a life like the Downton's is actually lived. That's why the question of Thomas and his sexuality plays out across several/many/most episodes, ending in the weirdly anti-climactic scene where Jimmy confronts him and in two sentences they agree they can be friends, no problem.
Similarly, the Big Plot Twist at the end of the season. It's only a Big Plot Twist if you hadn't seen the many many articles about Dan Stevens' decision not to sign on for another season. Or if you didn't know he's been starring on Broadway with Jessica Chastain for the last several months. Of course Matthew had to be killed off. But killed off in the Fellowes Fashion (TM), where there is really no emotional arc or resolution. Nope--he gets run off the road, and the season ends with nobody learning about it. What do you bet that next season is at least another year later, and everybody is over him too?
BUT! He couldn't die without leaving behind a male heir, because as much as Fellowes hates change, he hates chaos more. That's why Thomas had to not be dismissed, despite everything--because he's part of the furnishing of the plot by now. He had to come back as a servant, even after his war service, and his attempt at entrepreneur status, because Downton without Thomas is apparently unthinkable. It's why Branson is staying with his aristocratic in-laws instead of setting up his own life, but he remains an employee so they don't have to call him "Tom."
I really wish Fellows would recognize that he really doesn't do melodrama very well, and just drop it. It's the small details--what does a Gillies Ball look like? How do Scottish people wake up in the morning? (To a piper treading across the bridge over the dry moat, apparently.) What is it about Rose's dress that is so scandalous, and what did the Dowager wear to her first ball?
At least Lord Grantham apologized for his opposition to Matthew, so perhaps he can stop being such a whiner and idiot. Plus, he did it just in time so Matthew can die without anybody thinking he was anything less than perfect. And Lady Mary is now free to "inherit" as regent to her son. Too bad she's such a nasty woman too. Matthew at least got to die without getting tired of her snobby, bitchy comments about Edith and Michael. So I guess it was a win-win?
There have been internet commenters who feel that Dan Stevens should have remained with Downton, either because Matthew was their favorite character, or because they feel he is not "good enough" for a different career path. Frankly, as boring as Matthew's character arc has been this season, and as uneven a writer as Fellowes has shown himself to be, I have a lot of sympathy for someone who wants to do something different for a change. I wish him luck.
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