SHE ONLY LEARNED A LITTLE BIT FROM DAVID AND FARRAH

This makes sense. Yesterday was such a slow news day — I mean, the New York primary elections weren’t until today right? What else was going on? — that it was possible for some major celebrity news to come down the pike. Specifically, Eva Longoria decided to reveal that while she’s not leaving Desperate Housewives, she won’t do another TV series once this one has ended. Whew! Thank goodness. This means that we shouldn’t have to watch her mediocre acting except maybe on Lifetime movies. Oh sure, what she means is that she plans to embark on feature film stardom, but I’ll put money down that other than the woman-in-distress, woman-out-for-vengeance, woman-in-a-loveless-marriage made-fors, Longoria will exist at best in second-tier roles in third-tier films that don’t prove too demanding.

I don’t mean to be so hard on her, but Longoria is just the latest example of an actor being in the exact right place at the exact right time and believing too much of his/her own hype. Longoria is a very attractive woman who has enough acting talent to get by, but beyond that she has never been able to stand-up next to any of her three Housewives costars. In fact, I think she further benefited from having her husband played by Ricardo Chavira, regularly giving one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen from a regular on series television. Chavira was, in my opinion, the shows one major flaw from the beginning.

In the mean time, Longoria is the youngest member of a group of established actresses. As much as I used to crush on Teri Hatcher around the same time I was able to interview her for Soapdish (and as great as she still looks when not appearing nearly anorexic), Longoria is the “young hot” one. The show became a pop culture phenomenon. Of course she’s going to hit most of the magazine covers. But is she a draw? Absolutely not. Nor will she be.

Of course, the most famous recent case of an actor believing his TV hype is David Caruso leaving NYPD Blue after its first season. It only took eight years, but he came back to TV and luckily he did so in the kind of show that was virtually talent/personality proof in today’s television landscape. Longoria may be much prettier, younger and sexier than Caruso was, but he’s got slightly more acting chops (key word, slightly: he actually doesn’t seem to have too much range after all) than her. Come to think of it, maybe she has more in common with Farrah Fawcett, who also felt destined for bigger things after a year of Charlie’s Angels. Maybe by 2015, she’ll either be the new Meredith Baxter/Judith Light/Sean Young, or we’ll see her on CSI: The Next Generation. Either way, I hope her handlers don’t let her head get that big, cause in 10 years, she could be the new Teri Hatcher, on another hit television show watching her late-20s costar get most of the hype. Although, even Farrah hasn’t managed that feat.

I’M CATCHING UP, SLOWLY-BUT-SURELY

Really, I am. The key to catching-up, I find, is keeping up. So I’m trying to actually write about and review films when the damn things come out. That’s why you’ve seen some more straight-forward posts (while maintaining my incredibly casual/unprofessional/whatever voice) as I talk about all these films that publicists have been kind enough to invite me to. Yet, I still find myself behind with my continuing lists of “posts-to-write-that-I-have-yet-to-write” as well as things that come-up day-by-day, many of which have fallen by the wayside.

And here we are with the new TV season fast approaching (or basically here, at least on Fox). Oh woe’s me … so much to watch, so much to do, not enough hours in the day, and my advancing age proving that I need to reserve more of them for sleep.

Regardless, I’m going to continue to keep you updated on my continuous quest to achieve the “unattainable goal” of viewing an average of a movie a day in 2006. Excitedly enough, this year, my “unattainable goal” is actually damn close to attainable, and after the rush of the fall and awards season, I think I will most definitely surpass it. August 31 was day 243 of 2006, and as of that day, I had watched 236 different movies. From here on, for those of you utterly insane enough to care even one iota or for the consistent need of good sleeping material, I’m going to give monthly updates. So even though I’m actually up to 245 as of today, we’re we’re going to stick with the 236 and 8/31/06 number. Everyone clear? Good. Awake? Didn’t think so.

This post contains the first 205 titles. August saw me achieve this goal for this one month — 31 movies in 31 days. After the jump is the list …

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CONGRATS AVENUE Q

I’ve never made it a secret that I am utterly and completely in love with Avenue Q. I was thrilled, surprised and elated when it was presented with the Tony for Best Musical and disappointed when I learned that it would only play Las Vegas (in addition to New York) instead of going on a National tour so the entire country could witness its brilliance. I was ecstatic when one of the show’s creators Jeff Marx contacted me out of the blue giving me an opening to request an interview with him and writing partner Bobby Lopez, which ran on Gothamist in December 2004.

Thankfully, Avenue Q even became an unqualified commercial success, and now, it’s a record-holder. Tonight’s performance marks the 1,296th time the show has played on the stage of the Golden Theatre, breaking a more than 60 year old record held by the Patrick Hamilton play Angel Street. Now, roughly 1,300 performances is nothing compared to the true Broadway stalwarts. For nearly a decade, the record had been held by A Chorus Line which played 6,137 times. Cats came along, roundly trouncing that number with 7, 485 performances before finally (and mercifully) expiring in 2000. Meanwhile, it was only about a year ago that Cats’ reign was cut short by fellow Andrew Lloyd Weber spectacle The Phantom of the Opera which should be some where around 7,762 shows … and still counting. But blockbuster shows like those are the exception, not the rule.

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SHERRYBABY: GYLLENHALL SHINES AGAINST A MATTE BACKGROUND

06_0908sherrybaby_1Not long into watching Laurie Collyer’s film Sherrybaby, I began to experience a brief moment of deja vu. Why, it was only two years ago that another film about a woman who struggles with drug addiction and taking care of her children premiered and made a splash at Sundance just as Sherrybaby did this past January. And it was only last year that this other film received a brief release showcasing a tremendous award-winning performance by its lead actress. That other film was Down to the Bone and the actress Vera Farmiga.

I wasn’t as a huge a fan of Down to the Bone as many others, although I did love Farmiga’s performance. And to be fair, it only takes spending a bit more time with Sherrybaby to discover how the latter film is in fact quite different and overall superior. But what the two movies do share, in addition to the most basic thematic plot elements, is a dynamic actress providing a central performance and thus carrying the whole film on her shoulders. As true as this was for Farmiga, it’s even truer with Maggie Gyllenhaal. She’s proved her acting chops numerous times before, but never have I seen Gyllenhaal appeared on screen in a role that truly allows her to delve into so many different aspects of character, personality, sexuality, mood, emotion, maturity … you name it.

Unfortunately, beyond Gyllenhaal’s Sherry, the rest of the film is filled with archetype and cliche. You’ve got the super-tough parole officer; the judgmental sister-in-law; the understanding and supportive fellow recovering addict; the mysterious father-daughter relationship; and so on. The only character that escapes complete predictability is Sherry’s loving brother Bobby (Brad William Henke), a big guy with a soft heart and demeanor who really loves Sherry and does his best to help her but is also caught between the demands of his sister and his wife.

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PAPER DOLLS: SEEING IS BELIEVING BUT NOT COMPLETELY COMPELLING

06_0907paperdollsIt’s so easy to fall behind, as I’ve managed to do thanks to a very busy couple of days. Last week, I went to a screening of Paper Dolls, an intriguing documentary which opened Wednesday at Film Forum for a two week run. I say intriguing, but I don’t know that I can truly endorse the film as successful.

I left the screening and went to meet some friends for lunch. For the rest of the day, I told virtually everyone I ran into that earlier I had seen a documentary about Filipino transvestites, living in Israel and working as caregivers to elderly orthodox Jews (including some Hasidim). Without fails, mouths would drop, at which point I would generally say, “No, I only wish I could have made that up.” Of course, the obvious questions that would then be thrown my way would start with, “Is it any good?” followed by longer variations of “Why?” and “How?” Ahhh … there’s the rub.

Filmmaker Tomer Heymann introduces us to a group of Filipinos who have all immigrated to Israel within the previous decade. They are friends who perform in drag as a lip-synching group called the Paper Dolls. They each seem to be wonderfully kind, generous and loving human beings who take their jobs very seriously, often become close — sometimes even like family — to those to whom they’re providing care, and in general enjoy living in Israel. But their lives there are not easy, and they each exist straddling a fine line of employment; if they lose their jobs, they instantly become illegal immigrants and can be deported.

Heymann focuses on the lives of his five featured personalities Sally, Chiqui, Giorgio, Jan, and Cheska: their daily routines, their ambitions as performers and their relationships with their employers and each others. But what he never examines are those two basic questions: how and why? What made them leave the Philippines in the first place and if so, why Israel? If Israel is actually as potentially unfriendly to immigrants — gay or otherwise — why not the US? Or Canada? Or England, which by the end of the film seems almost the obvious choice?What do orthodox Jews, many of whom live in relatively closed communities and have very strict beliefs against homosexuality, look for and employ these people in their homes? If it’s so relatively simple to get kicked out of the country (as the film shows), how did they get in and find their jobs in the first place?

These are just a few questions that Heymann completely avoids yet watching the film I found completely necessary. I’m sure there are logical and good answers to each of these, but Heymann doesn’t give us a clue. What he does do well, however, is sympathetically portray in each of these people, forcing us to not just sympathize but truly like each of them. They share several traits, most notably a visible and heartfelt love for life as well as others, especially those people who are really their employers. The relationship between Sally and Chaim Amir is particularly touching. The two have a father-child relationship that is likely closer than those had by many members’ of the audience. There is genuine affection between the two. Some of the best scenes involve Sally reading in Hebrew to Chaim and watching him try to correct her pronunciation when she makes minor but vital mistakes.

Paper Dolls is by no means boring, and it certainly forces you to feel for these people who do nothing but help others yet are still ostracized and looked down upon by many, and obviously not just in Israel. But in its attempts to grab at your heartstrings, the film ignores vital elements that make its very subject matter so interesting in the first place. Sadly, feeling without understanding just isn’t that fulfilling, and so Heymann’s film proves to be as thin as real paper dolls.

WAITING FOR DAHLIA: EARLY REVIEWS ARE ON THE FENCE

So once or twice (or three times, I guess), I’ve had a little something to say about The Black Dahlia which opens a week from this Friday and my enormous amounts of both anticipation and dread for its arrival: I hope it will be amazing; I fear that it will suck.

I don’t need to repeat all my reasons for these hopes and fears; I’ve explained them before. But now, last week at the opening night of the Venice Film Festival, The Black Dahlia was unveiled, and that means the first reviews started appearing. Both major trades have stated their feelings, and while I don’t always agree with Variety’s Todd McCarthy and I will certainly withhold judgment until I’ve seen the film myself, what he writes in his review is, sadly, exactly the film I’ve been expecting: an attempt at noir from a former master who puts all his effort into a few set pieces, lets the story fall apart near the end and, most importantly, is ruined by a lead actor who doesn’t have the emotional depth and talent to carry a film and story of this magnitude on his shoulders.

Now, on the other hand, Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter seemed to like Brian De Palma’s work much more, and on a few points, his impressions contradict McCarthy’s. Of course, if you only read the first graf of his review, they actually don’t sound so different as Honeycutt mentions that near the end, “Disappointingly, the film edges dangerously close to camp.” He goes on to say the film doesn’t actually do this, and splits furthest from McCarthy’s comments when he writes, “Hartnett delivers an intriguing mix of tenderness, self-righteousness and self-incrimination.”

McCarthy, on the other hand, writes, “Hartnett is too blank and expressionless to carry the picture; he narrates and is almost constantly on view, but offers little nuance or depth.”

Now come on: I know I haven’t seen it yet, and maybe Josh Hartnett will surprise the crap out of me, but based on everything else you’ve ever seen him in, I ask you: Which of these two comments seems more believable? That he offers “little nuance or depth”? Or that he “delivers an intriguing mix” of anything? Hartnett is a less talented Keanu Reeves (who can at least play expressionless, personality-less, action-oriented, one-dimensional characters very well: see The Matrix and Speed), and a slightly more-talented Paul Walker, but that is faint praise if I’ve ever given it.

I still haven’t read the screenplay, so I know nothing of Josh Friedman’s adaptation. I’m also just now rereading the book which I haven’t revisited in close to a decade. But if I’m certain about anything and if I’ve repeated anything over the nearly two years since this film finally was announced and started moving forward, the role of Bucky Blanchert is one that takes a tremendous amount of internal expression. It’s all emotion and obsession, much of it expressed through narration in the book (and apparently in the film too), and the entire story rests on this one character more than any other being able to successfully dramatize the conflict going on within him. De Palma has been many things as a director, but an actor’s director has never really been one of them. Oh, he’s had tremendous performances in his films, but he’s yet to take a mediocre talent and make him/her shine. I’ll be shocked if he managed to do it here with Hartnett, and if McCartney is too be believed, he hasn’t.

I guess we’ll see for ourselves next week.

ONCE AGAIN PROVING THAT SEPTEMBER HAS NO MAJOR MONEYMAKING RELEASES …

They did it in February, and now again starting Friday. For the following five weeks Clearview Cinemas is turning Manhattan’s last great single screen movie palace into a revival house since, I suppose, they don’t figure there are any new releases worthy of potentially filling the 1000-plus seater. It’s a return of the Hollywood Classics series at the Ziegfeld Theater.

They have some truly great films scheduled to play between Sept. 8 and Oct. 12, and you can’t ask for a better or much larger screen to experience them on. Plus, all seats are only $7.50. I’m particularly intrigued with the thought of a double-feature Spielberg day with Jaws and E.T.. The last time I saw E.T. on a big screen, it was the year it opened at the long-gone Regency Theater on Van Ness in San Francisco. I’d also be fascinated to see Cabaret, and of course, you can’t go wrong with Gone With the Wind or The Wizard of Oz in that environment.

The full schedule can be found on this page.

FOR LABOR DAY WEEKEND, PAGE SIX DECIDES TO ILLUSTRATE ITS STUPIDITY (AND THAT THEY’VE NEVER BEEN TO THE ANGELIKA)

Huzzah for Christine Vachon. Yesterday’s NY Post Page Six led with the item”Indie Queen Blasts Angelika.” Apparently Vachon, the indie film producing stalwart who I interviewed last year for Gothamist, is coming out with her memoirs, and according to Page Six, she “viciously attacks the Angelika Film Center – the beloved Houston Street mecca for independent releases.”

“Beloved?” By whom, exactly? Apparently, as the story also notes, the Angelika “was voted best New York City movie theater in 2004 by the New York Press.” Obviously, that must have been a pretty small sample of judges.

The Angelika is the one theater in New York I absolutely refuse to go to. Page Six quotes Vachon:

“The seats are uncomfortable, the sound is crummy, you can hear the 4/5/6 train rumbling underneath you, and the film projectors are terrible,” Vachon rants. “Don’t even get me started on how the Technicolor [in] Far From Heaven looked on their screens. I couldn’t watch.”

I think Far From Heaven was actually one of the last films I saw there, and she’s write: the lush technicolor that Todd Haynes used so effectively to recreate the mood and style of old 1950s Douglas Sirk melodramas was virtually ruined. In fact, the only thing that Vachon isn’t right about in that quote is the subway: I’m pretty sure it’s the B/D/F/V trains that rumble beneath you every 3 minutes as they travel east right before stopping at the Broadway-Lafayette station a block away. The 4/5/6 trains are a little further east, you know, but big deal. You can hear — and feel — the subway.

The Angelika is a monstrosity that should be bulldozed. Hell, much grander and more important film palaces have suffered that fate in this town. There was a time when it was the only place in the city where you might be able to catch certain small films, but in the last five or six years with the opening of the Landmark Sunshine and the IFC Center, not to mention the Regal Union Square and the 42nd Street theaters, there is rarely, if ever, a time when a film sees its only NYC exposure at the Angelika. Occasionally, a film might play there for a week before opening elsewhere, but it seems that most of the time, if something receives downtown exclusivity at the Angelika, it often also plays at the Lincoln Plaza on the Upper West Side. I live in Brooklyn now, and if you give me the choice of the Angelika or traveling an extra half-hour to go to the Lincoln Plaza, I’ll be heading up to 62nd and Broadway every time.

But again, the Angelika (thankfully) doesn’t seem to get that many exclusives anymore. The Sunshine is the exact opposite of the Angelika — one of the nicest places to see a movie in the city. The IFC Center has only been around a year, and although some of the sight-lines present too dramatic an angle to the screen and I personally find the armrests on the seats a bit low, the projection is phenomenal and the movie-watching experience generally comfortable. (AND, although it’s directly on top of the West 4th Street train station with the A/C/E and B/D/F/V traveling below, I’ve yet to hear or feel the trains.) The Cinema Village on 2nd Avenue and 12th Street seems to exhibit more indie fare these days, especially after the initial couple weeks of release.

And in terms of the NY Press calling the Angelika NYC’s best in 2004, it was only the year before that Time Out did its big report card of all the movie theaters in town, bestowing a C- on the Angelika — one of the lowest grades given to any theater.

So basically, I’m not sure what kind of payola was involved — maybe Richard Johnson now gets free admission to the Angelika for life. Of course, if I were him or the other Page Six staffers, I still wouldn’t want to use it. New York thankfully has enough alternative options now; we can let the Angelika rest in peace, and good for Vachon. The Angelika deserves her “blasts” — as apparently does Page Six.

LAST WORD ON A FRIDAY

Well, I managed to disappear for another week-and-a-half. How did that happen? Especially with the Emmys smack dab in the middle and all these things left to write. I’m going to chalk it up to August sucking royally, and now that we’re in September, I’m going to try to suck less … or, at least less royally. With that in mind, I may or may not add a bunch of stuff this weekend (how’s that for firm and dependable), but I will return to regular, daily posting — nonsense or otherwise, but something — next week for sure.

So as we head in to the official unofficial end of summer and the one holiday weekend that movie studios actually tend to fear rather than eagerly anticipate, I’ll leave you all with this last little note that has been bandying around the worldwideinterweb for a very long while now, but apparently it’s making a resurgance as I’m getting new emails reminding me about it.

Google the word “failure” or the phrase “miserable failure.” The only thing that rivals the very first search result listed is the “Why these results?” link to a post on the google blog explaining the results themselves. This has been up for a year … and yet, the failure persists.

Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!

LASSIE: ACTUALLY, THIS JUST MIGHT BE YOUR FATHER’S LASSIE

2006_0901lassieIf everything old is new again, as the saying goes, than the version of Lassie that opens today is one of the freshest films in theaters. I don’t know that such a claim is actually true, but to continue the old cliche, this Lassie certainly does have legs. (I’m sorry.) However, to film biz observers, the most interesting thing about this Lassie will be seeing what kind of response it gets from it’s target audience — mothers and their pre-teen (at best) children — in a world where slow, plodding, grand, sentimental family films don’t really exist anymore. Not only is filmmaker Charles Sturridge’s treatment of the material a straight adaptation of Eric Knight’s original 1938 short story, but it resembles the old-fashioned family films of the ’40s through the ’70s both in style and sensibility.

This isn’t even the Lassie that most people comically think they know: there’s no Timmie; no trouble at the mill (well, not that kind of trouble) nor children stuck in a well; no long conversations of, “What is it girl?” followed by some barks before the kid translates and runs off to help save the day. Lassie long ago became a part of American culture and folklore, the name virtually synonymous with breed. his Lassie is the 11th feature film concerning the world’s most famous collie (in addition to several TV series and specials), but it’s only the second direct adaptation of Knight’s story. This is not an updated for the modern era Lassie; instead of Lassie as savior, it’s Lassie as kidnappee, … sort of.

The time is pre-WWII England, and the place a small Yorkshire mining town. Lassie belongs to young Joe Carraclough (Jonathan Mason) and his parents. She’s an extraordinary dog, meeting Joe at school every day to walk him home and protecting smaller dogs (like her friend Cricket) when necessary. She’s so extraordinary, in fact, that she catches the eye of Cilla (Jemma Redgrave) and her wealthy grandfather (Peter O’Toole), the local Duke who becomes determined to buy her. When the local mine is shut-down and Joe’s father loses his job, Joe’s parents feel they have no choice but to sell Lassie. What they should have kept in mind was that Lassie may not agree with this decision, and being as smart and special a dog as she is, nobody and nothing will be able to stop her from coming home — not a locked pen, a high fence or even being transported to the Duke’s remote castle in Northern Scotland.

A good chunk of the film is Lassie’s long journey home, filled with soaring music and gorgeous vistas of the countryside. It’s these two elements that actually prove to be the weakest parts of the entire film. The original music by Adrian Johnston is just way too much, and Sturridge doesn’t hesitate to use it or let it overwhelm the entire experience of the film. It goes on and on to the point where nothing makes you want to leave the theater more at the end than the simple desire to get away from the aural monotony. It is a truly distracting and unfortunate element of the film that absolutely proves the proverbial less-is-more argument.

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