Joe*s View

‘Walking into a dog’s mouth’

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:21:24 -0500

Benjamin Kunkel’s funny and scary piece in the new GQ — “World Without Oil, Amen” — is must reading.
The article follows Kunkel’s attempt to figure out what might happen after we reach the point known as “peak oil” — “(when) diminishing global oil production will cause gas prices — steep enough already, you might think — to go up and up as supplies go down, with far-reaching consequences for the only world we know.”
Kunkel wrote the wonderful 2005 novel “Indecision” and is one of the founding editors of the journal n + 1.
He’s a writer who loves to explore the contradictions in modern American life — our well-founded anxious thoughts about the future while we luxuriate in the consumer comforts all around us (for the moment).
“Start thinking about oil and it’s in everything you see, taste and hear,” Kunkel writes of a trip to cover an oil futurist’s conference. “It was oil in the form of a passenger jet that had brought me to Atlanta and oil in the form of chips and guacamole that I’d eaten in the hotel bar before wandering outside to take in a view of oil and more oil: sluggish streams of SUVs and dark sedans slipping past the theater marquee, the dialysis-center storefront, and the emptying parking lot…The sight was the same wherever I looked — 87 million gallons a day keeping the global economy afloat.”
Kunkel explores the debate over what happens when we reach the point of diminishing returns as far as the earth’s supply of oil goes. He travels from Atlanta to Houston to Colorado, keeping an open mind about the subject, but also envisioning a “worst-case scenario” straight out of “The Road Warrior” — “neo-barbarians” slaughtering each other over an ever-dwindling supply of bubbling crude.
The gap between what we think we should be doing and the way we actually live is illustrated in a hilarious encounter with Howard Kunstler —“perhaps America’s most prominent scourge of suburbia…a hair-raising pessimist.”
Kunkel assumes Kunstler will agree with him about the absurdity of the meat-locker temperature in the Houston hotel where the “peak oil” guru is scheduled to speak.
“Well that’s true,” Kunstler says. “But if you go outside, it’s like walking into a dog’s mouth!”

Money, money, money

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:29:57 -0500

Call me a movie elitist, but I’ve never understood the press and public obsession with Hollywood box-office figures and production budgets.
For the past few days, everywhere you turn there are stories about the “record-breaking” grosses scored by “The Dark Knight” last weekend.
Warner Bros.did smash a three-day record set by “Spider-Man 3” last year, selling close to $160 million worth of tickets for the Batman sequel.
Those are impressive numbers for the rather tepid summer of 2008 — in three days, “The Dark Knight” earned almost as much as it’s taken “Sex & the City” to make in more than a month.
But why should I care what a movie grosses or what it cost to produce?
Warren Beatty once said a very wise thing when someone complained to him about the runaway costs associated with his notorious flop, “Ishtar” — i.e. that the ticket price is the same for a $100 million movie as it is for a $1 million indie.
Before the multiplex boom of the 1980s, films opened slowly around the country, filtering out from exclusive first-run engagements in urban centers to the second-run theaters in outlying territories. This process was spread out over several months, so it took quite a while for studios to gauge how much money a movie might earn. Because they had a much longer theatrical shelf life, movies had the time to pick up steam from good word of mouth — that’s how “Bonnie & Clyde” slowly became a sizeable hit in late 1967 and early 1968 after a very disappointing first-run debut.
When I came of age as a moviegoer in the ’60s and ’70s, me and my friends never had the foggiest notion of what the movies we loved were grossing on a week by week basis because that information wasn’t considered “news” outside of trade papers like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.
We never knew that “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) was only a modest earner or that “Petulia” (1968) was a financial flop — movie buffs in those days focused on what was up on the screen, not the money that was flowing into a studio’s coffers.
If you had gone up to someone interested in movies in the summer of 1974 and mentioned that “The Parallax View” had lost a bundle for Paramount you would have gotten a blank stare.

‘Moscow Rules’ stands alone

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:10:34 -0500

Many of us who enjoy crime and espionage fiction are reluctant to pick up the latest installment of a series that has been up and running for several years.
Thinking we must start at the beginning of a detective or spy’s adventures, we put off adding another author to our reading list until we have time to go back to the first book and work our way through.
This is a good way to miss lots of fine new books each year.
Case in point — Daniel Silva’s just-published “Moscow Rules” (Putnam), the eighth installment in an increasingly popular series of novels about the Israeli intelligence officer (and art restorer) Gabriel Allon.
I had been hearing very good things about Silva’s books from friends for the past decade, but already had lots of my recreational reading time carved out each year for the latest Lisa Scottoline, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke etc. etc.
Well, providence came in the form of Silva kicking off his national book tour in Stamford and New Canaan this week and my having to read “Moscow Rules” for the author interview that ran in my Sunday “Book Beat” column.
It was clear from the first few chapters that I was being introduced to a character who has been through some pretty exciting adventures — casually referred to by Gabriel and his associates in the opening pages — but the novel stood alone as a thrilling account of the agent’s search for the killer (or killers) behind a series of assassinations directed against Russian journalists.
Silva takes us into the bizarre and dangerous world of post-communist Russia where designer goods boutiques have sprouted in the shadows of the Kremlin and dangerous criminal forces may be forming alliances with our terrorist enemies.
“Moscow Rules” suggests we have entered a new Cold War with Russia, one that might be even more complex and frightening than the one we waged against Soviet Russia for most of the 20th century.
Gabriel Allon is a wonderful character, a mix of aesthete and man of action. The man has no sooner married and settled into a relaxing honeymoon/art restoration job in Umbria, Italy, when he is called upon by his Israeli bosses to meet a Russian journalist who has come to Rome. The reporter wants to share information about some sort of vague terrorist threat against the West that is being fueled by one of the new Russian business moguls.
Silva is a journalist-turned-novelist and he delivers a mix of page-turning thrills, travelogue and contemporary political expose that most readers will devour in a few sittings.
Now, I want to go back to the beginning — the first Allon book is “The Kill Artist” — and read my way through what appears to be a great series.
(Daniel Silva will be talking about “Moscow Rules” tonight at 6 p.m. at the Stamford Town Center Barnes & Noble store and on Thursday at noon at the New Canaan Library.)

Making a fool out of a good actor

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:35:02 -0500

Nearly everyone involved with the new movie version of “Mamma Mia!” faces some sort of on-screen humiliation — even the wonderful Meryl Streep comes off badly in the starring role of a frenetic old hippie — but what director Phyllida Law does to Pierce Brosnan is unforgivable.
A non-singer (to say the least), Brosnan is generating shocked (and mocking) audience laughter for the sounds that come out of his mouth when he is called upon to sing in the role of Meryl’s old rocker boyfriend.
Say what you will about ABBA — whose 1970s pop hits make up the song score for the stage-show-turned-film — but their lushly produced ditties were always gorgeously sung and featured harmonies worthy of comparison with The Beach Boys and The Mamas and the Papas.
The Broadway production of “Mamma Mia!” opened in 2001 with a cast of strong singers that included musical theater powerhouse Judy Kaye, among other gifted performers .
The strong presentation of the music in the stage show overshadowed the rather ludicrous plot about a girl’s determination to find her real father just before she gets married on the Greek island where her one-time rocker mom runs a hotel. Mom slept around when she was a hippie singer and isn’t sure which of her three sexual partners that year fathered the girl.
The plot was ripped off from a long-forgotten 1968 Hollywood comedy called “Buena Sera, Mrs. Campbell.” On stage, the songs keep coming so quickly and so cleverly that we ride right over the dumb (and rather offensive) plot.
The program for the theatrical version of “Mamma Mia!” doesn’t have an ordered song list, so part of the fun of the show is wondering how the heck they are going to work tunes like “Chiquitita” and “Take a Chance on Me” into the story and who will get to sing them.
The movie literalizes everything about the ridiculous storyline and sets the shenanigans in a real place, so the songs have to carry more dramatic weight than they do on stage, and the whole thing collapses.
Even the great actress and pretty good singer Meryl Streep looks unsure of herself as she is directed to hop and jump around her character's hotel like a chorus girl on speed. The frenetic attempt to make her character seem “youthful” actually makes the beautiful Ms. Streep look older than her real age (59) — it’s like seeing one of those desperate suburban moms who decides to dress like her teen daughter.
When the action stops for Streep to sing an overwrought solo (“The Winner Takes It All”) she carries on as if she is singing the death scene in “La Traviata.”
But it is Brosnan who suffers the worst treatment in this poorly put together musical. When it became clear the actor can’t sing — but his star presence was needed for international box-office insurance — couldn’t his vocals have been discretely dubbed by an anonymous vocalist?
There was a time when audiences accepted the notion that movie stars sometimes needed help when they were asked to star in musicals. Marni Nixon made a nice career out singing for actresses such as Audrey Hepburn (“My Fair Lady”) and Natalie Wood (“West Side Story”) and doing it in the style of the performer’s speaking voice.
Surely, in this age of electronic wizardry, someone could have helped Brosnan out — it’s truly terrible to sit in a theater and hear an audience laughing at a good actor who got in over his head.

An actress with style

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:33:47 -0500

Most of the actresses under the age of 30 working in movies these days are girly girls like Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johansson — they’re great to look at but don’t have the emotional heft of a woman with real wit and personality.
It is a rather sad exercise to compare these Hollywood girls of the ’00s to the young female stars of earlier eras. Can you imagine Jessica Alba going toe to toe with Lauren Bacall or even Veronica Lake?
One of the exceptions to this rule is the 29-year-old Maggie Gyllenhaal who has the looks and charisma to hold a movie audience’s attention, but also has the acting chops to put some muscle behind her work on the screen.
If you missed Gyllenhaal’s Golden Globe-nominated performance in “Sherrybaby” (2006) — as a recovering alcoholic/drug user desperate to regain custody of her child — you missed a remarkable piece of work. Gyllenhaal’s willingness to explore the messiest (and most unsympathetic) aspects of the character reminded me of the raw performances Jane Fonda gave in “Klute” (1971) and “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (1969)
Gyllenhaal is, of course, the female lead in “The Dark Knight” which opened today on a wave of hype (you can find my review on the entertainment page of this Web site). For my money, her performance is one of the best things in the movie — she gives an otherwise perversely dark and depressing comic-book movie a jolt of charm and sex appeal.
One of my problems with most comic-book movies is that they are aimed squarely at male adolescents so there is never much romance — let alone sex — in these action thrillers. Because the superheroes so often have to hide their “real” identities, Bruce Wayne in the Batman stories and Clark Kent in the Superman adventures lead painfully chaste lives when they are among "real" people. A romantic entanglement might, of course, compromise our comic-book protagonist’s secret identity.
Even as a kid, I always preferred the James Bond movies to the comic-book stuff because of those sensational ladies the spy met along the way — Honor Blackman, Ursula Andress, Diana Rigg, etc.
Gyllenhaal somehow manages to break through the macho surface of “The Dark Knight” and deliver a full-bodied female character in the midst of all the masculine hubris.
In this wonderful actress’ work, there are echoes of the great urban dames who populated movies in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Somewhere around the middle, I wished Gyllenhaal could hijack the picture and turn it into a 2008 version of “His Girl Friday.”

Doing things your own way

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:49:07 -0500

For a guy who seems to have a perpetual glass-half-empty philosophy, the New York singer-songwriter and actor Jay Brannan has been gaining a lot of ground recently.
Brannan takes self-deprecation to new depths (heights?). If you visit his Web site here’s how you will be greeted on the home page:
“hi. my name is jay brannan.
i'm a singer/songwriter living in new york city, and i'm as tragic as i look in the above photo (right).
i only own one pair of jeans and currently i hate them.
i maintain this website myself, which explains why it sucks. thank you for the offers, but for now i don't really want it re-designed. i like it this ugly and under my own control.
i can't imagine why you'd want to see/hear/know more, but just in case, you can find me in the following places online…”
Much to his own surprise, Brannan’s so-called career has been coming together beautifully lately.
Jay’s first “real” commercial recording, “Goddamned” (Great Depression Records), debuted on CD yesterday, following its digital release on July 1.
Tonight, Brannan is headlining a show at one of the best venues in Manhattan — the Highline Ballroom — and he will then be setting off on a national tour that will wind up in Chicago at the end of the month.
Thanks to the power of the Internet — especially Jay’s savvy use of YouTube and iTunes — the performer already has a sizeable international following and will be touring England later in the summer.
I first ran into Jay when he was promoting the John Cameron Mitchell film, “Shortbus,” two years ago. I did a story about him and the film which he was nice enough (or desperate enough) to post on his Web site.
Jay did a gig at the Ars Nova theater a few months later that was quite wonderful and then last summer I took some friends to see him at Joe’s Pub where — as they say in show biz — he killed.
Now that he finally scraped together enough of his own money to record and release a CD, I figured it was time for an update.
“It was so hard, to be completely honest,” Jay said of producing his own CD in a recent phone chat.
Jay put out a neat little homemade recording last year called “disasterpiece” that sold out on CD Baby within hours.
“That was just me in a studio, performing live — a total of 15 hours to do the whole thing — so it was definitely not the same,” he said of moving from DIY New York City recording to a Los Angeles studio where he worked with other musicians.
“The arrangements are pretty simple, but everything has to be metered, with a click track. I was never very good with a metronome because I always want to play to my own internal clock,” he said of the technical challenges behind his musical upgrade.
The CD features 11 tracks and demonstrates the fact that Brannan’s voice has gotten stronger with all of the touring and club dates he’s done over the past year.
The off-beat humor and charisma that Brannan can use in club settings to augment his performances don’t count for much in a merciless recording studio.
“I didn’t love that aspect…it’s a whole different skill you need to sing into a microphone,” Jay says of the cool, hard technology of professional recording.
“It’s weird. I know I have decent pitch…(but) when you listen to (the playback) it has to be exactly right for the whole song. People expect a lot from a recorded project. A club setting is forgiving for everybody,” he said.
Brannan got a big boost from “Shortbus” — which continues to find fans on DVD — but has been building an audience that knows him strictly for his music. Jay decided not to include “Soda Shop” on “Goddamned” since the song received so much attention on the film’s soundtrack CD and the Internet.
“I’m not trying to move past ‘Shortbus’ — it’s something I’m very proud of — but this is the next step,” he said of the CD and tour.
Brannan laughed when I asked him if he has been able to give up his day job as a proof-reader and move out of his tiny subsidized artist’s apartment in downtown Manhattan (he only got in by proving he made less than $29,800).
“No I'm talking to you from there," he said of his 200-square foot apartment. "I hope to quit my day job and I probably could have if I lived somewhere like Phoenix where I might be able to have a real place to live on what I make.”
“I have made some money from my music, but I invested it in the album, so I could make it on my own terms,” Jay added. “I can’t say that tons of people are clammering for me, but I do have management now.”
“I found someone who was willing to be a trailblazer. He’s on board for that — ready to break some rules.”
(For more information on Jay’s music and tour, visit his Web site at www.jaybrannan.com.)

The little show that could

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:31:54 -0500

A war has been raging in the chat room of the Talkin Broadway Web site over the musical “(title of show)” that has been previewing at the Lyceum Theatre since July 5 in preparation for Thursday night’s official opening.
The piece has been a cult favorite for the past four years — ever since it debuted at the 2004 New York Musical Theater Festival.
Written by and starring Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, it’s a show about two struggling actor/writers and their two actress/singer friends who desperately want to be in a musical worthy of being accepted by the NYMTF.
Drawing together elements of “Seinfeld” and reality television, the musical is totally self-referential and this is driving some members of the Broadway theater community nuts. The critics believe this tiny show doesn’t deserve to be on Broadway and that it will close as soon as the Manhattan cult audience — and the friends and family of the four creator/stars — have seen it.
“(title of show)” has no large production numbers, no special effects, no blaring orchestra, no chorus line — just four performers and a guy named Larry Pressgrove who sits at the back of the barren apartment set playing a keyboard. Larry’s stylings are the only accompaniment to the singing of Hunter and Jeff and their pals/co-stars Heidi Blickenstaff and Susan Blackwell.
I was charmed by the show when it ran at the Vineyard Theatre during the summer of 2006. The yearning of the four cast members to make it in the theatre powered a very small but funny show about New York City actors and writers.
The fact that Bell and Bowen were able to make a show out of their wanting to make a show was enough for an amusing 90 minutes in the small space. The intimacy of the Vineyard and the energy of the acting quartet made “(title of show)” a winning experience.
Seeing it for the second time at a Sunday night Broadway press preview — with one of the most jacked-up audiences in recent memory — “(title of show)” seemed forced and out of its natural element.
Like so many other behind-the-scenes show biz tales, the musical assumes we are vitally interested in the struggles and career prospects of the performers we are watching. Rather than find “roles” that could showcase their talent, Jeff and Hunter and Heidi and Susan present a stage version of themselves that we are supposed to embrace in some sort of theatrical group hug.
The story of the making of the show IS the show. Our role as the audience at the Broadway production is to pretend we are friends and family of the cast and to scream our heads off frequently simply because the spunky quartet has indeed made it to the Great White Way.
It’s a “what is theatre?” conceit in the spirit of Eugene Ionesco or Samuel Beckett, but the mult-million dollar question of the moment is whether or not there is an audience for a Broadway musical featuring four very talented people who, on some level, still think of themselves as needy cases.
(For “(title of show)” performance and ticket information call 212-239-6200 or visit Telecharge.com)

Thrills and laughs at the Grand Hyatt

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:03:43 -0500

It was so much fun to hang out at ThrillerFest in Manhattan on Saturday, listening to some of the most popular writers in the country talking about their work.
The four day event was sponsored by the International Thriller Writers and featured many of the biggest guns in the genre, from Lee Child to James Patterson, and Douglas Preston to Brad Thor (all four of those writers have books on The New York Times list at the moment).
Having attended many gatherings of crime, mystery and thriller authors over the years, I am always imprssed by the sheer niceness of most of the people who spend so much time writing about the darker sides of life.
The first two days of ThrillerFest were devoted to a series of workshops for aspiring writers where folks like Lee Child and Joseph Finder shared the secrets of their success. The ITW also invited more than two dozen agents who were available to listen to pitches from unpublished writers.
The event’s guest of honor — what the ITW called the “2008 ThrillerMaster” — was Sandra Brown (right), who is one of the funniest and most down to earth writers you would ever want to meet (she doesn’t act like a lady who has sold 70 million books in 33 languages).
Unlike many of her peers, Brown has avoided falling into the trap of focusing on one character in a series of novels. Each new Brown novel has introduced new people and explored new territory (the only common trait in her books, Brown says, is her fascination with people who abuse whatever power they might have). The next book, "Smoke Screen," will be in stores Aug. 12.
Brown started in the romance field — where she would write five or six books a year — and then shifted to suspense in the early 1990s. At her panel on Saturday, one attendee told the energetic and attractive author that “I just can’t do the math. You have a book a year. How have you written 70 novels?”
“I’m 112!,” the writer said, laughing, before explaining her incredible pace when she was a romance writer in her earlier years.
What’s so great about the Texas native is that it’s clear she is ready to answer any question she is asked.
When a rather meek looking lady in the front row seemed to challenge Brown’s “faith” because of some of the spicier bedroom interludes in her novels, the writer smiled and said, “Well, you know, God did create sex.”
Next year’s ThrillerFest will be at the Grand Hyatt from July 8 to 11 and information will be posted at www.thrillerfest.com as planning for the event commences.

New plays for ten bucks

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:58:51 -0500

People like to complain about the high cost of theater tickets in Manhattan, but the truth is that there are bargains to be had all over town.
Only suckers — or the very rich — will shell out more than $100 to see a play or musical on Broadway.
If you check Web sites like broadwaybox.com or playbill.com there are dozens of great shows to be seen for $50 or under.
Right now, the fifth annual Summer Play Festival is underway at the Public Theater with $10 tickets — less than what you would pay for the latest Hollywood bomb at your local multiplex.
As exciting as the pricing at SPF is, what really powers the festival is the chance to see fresh new work by some of the best talent in the city.
Earlier in the week, I talked with the singer-songwriter John Bucchino whose “It’s Only Life” (left) was presented at the first SPF four years ago and has been wending its way to a possible off-Broadway staging next season. The show just opened to strong press and audience response at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura, California.
Bucchino is well known within the New York cabaret community for writing some of the best songs of the past two decades.
One tune in particular, “Grateful,” has been recorded by everyone from Michael Feinstein to Art Garfunkel. Other songs by Bucchino have been performed and recorded by Judy Collins, Barbara Cook, Patti Lupone and many other top contemporary singers.
The songwriter made his Broadway debut with “A Catered Affair” which is running through July 27 at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
The show divided critics but has been embraced warmly by many audiences. A cast recording has preserved the score and should lead to productions at regional theaters and colleges all over the country in years to come. It’s a small, intimate piece that doesn’t deliver the spectacle and chorus lines that many theatergoers associate with “Broadway.”
The composer said it was a real challenge to channel his songwriting into the specifics of a book musical.
“That was very different for me…I’m used to letting the spirit move me when it does and documenting that in a song. It’s very challenging to have to write songs for an individual character…to shoehorn a song into a story,” he said of working on “A Catered Affair” for the past two years.
Bucchino said he remains very grateful to SPF for choosing “It’s Only Life” for its inaugural season.
The show brings together a wide array of songs Bucchino has written over the years and turns them into an evening of theater.
“Revues are really hard to do,” the songwriter said of shows that try to give an overview of a composer’s work. “You want the songs to be elevated by the (new) context. Several people tried to do that in the past but I’ve never been happy with the results.”
For “It’s Only Life,” Bucchino joined forces with an old friend — director Daisy Prince — who told him she would “like to take a crack it it.”
“She knew my songs very well and I thought she could do it,” he recalled.
A reading Prince put together with Bucchino got a thumbs up from the SPF folks for their first season.
“Because of that (production) we were asked to be part of the American Songbook series at Lincoln Center and we got a great review in The Times and PS Classics recorded it,” Bucchino said of the growing interest in the piece since SPF put it on four years ago.
Now that “A Catered Affair” is behind him, Bucchino is ready to get back to the “freer” feeling of writing individual tunes when the spirit moves him. He will soon be flying out to California to see “It’s Only Life” in what he hopes is a pre-New York engagement.
Meanwhile, theatergoers can check out the eight new shows on the Summer Play Festival slate between now and July 27.
For ticket information, visit the group’s Web site at www.spfnyc.com.

Manhattan before Disney

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:19:46 -0500

The 1970s might have been a terrible time for New York City’s municipal finances and crime rate, but it was a Golden Age for the moviemakers who worked in the city then.
It was the period when Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Sidney Lumet and Paul Mazursky did much of their best work. The pictures shot in New York in the 1970s have a raw quality — you couldn’t hide the fact that the city was in the middle of a social and cultural breakdown — and the reality of the backdrop pushed actors to be as authentic as the setting.
Method specialists Al Pacino and Robert De Niro emerged from the New York films of the 1970s, but so did Diane Keaton and Jill Clayburgh.
One of my favorite 1970s New York pictures — “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” — is the attraction at next Tuesday night’s “Martini and a Movie” screening at the Fairfield Theatre Company.
Although the picture was endorsed by critics and audiences in 1974, it wasn’t a “prestige” hit like “The French Connection” (1971) or “Serpico” (1973).
It was only with the passage of time that film buffs and young moviemakers such as Quentin Tarantino began to appreciate the incredible filmmaking craft that went into this thriller about a subway hijacking. The criminal gang — led by mercenary Robert Shaw — all dress identically and call each other by color-coded names (Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, etc.), a device that Tarantino tipped his hat to in “Reservoir Dogs.”
What separates “Pelham One Two Three” from most of the other 1970s New York crime pictures is the black comedy that director Joseph Sargent and screenwriter Peter Stone found in such an explosive premise.
The transit cop who negotiates with the hijackers is played by Walter Matthau in one of his best and most droll performances. The actor captures the essence of the seen-it-all New Yorker who is ready to cope with whatever bizarre situation he faces next.
Stone also uses the financial catastrophe of the city for some wry joking. When the hijackers demand $1 million, the mayor and his minions aren’t sure if they can raise the cash in a few hours.
“Pelham One Two Three” must have been a logistical nightmare —with much of the film shot on subway platforms and in the tunnels connecting them — but it has a documentary feel that you just don’t find in contemporary Hollywood movies.
Join me next Tuesday at 7 p.m. for this free screening of a New York classic.
(The Fairfield Theatre Company is at 70 Sanford St. in Fairfield Center. For more information visit the non-profit organization’s Web site at www.fairfieldtheatre.org.)

Share house hell

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:55:47 -0500

When most of us think about “the Hamptons” we have visions of the super-rich escaping Manhattan on summer weekends for plush estates and expensive restaurants where might you rub shoulders with Steven Spielberg, Billy Joel and Jerry Seinfeld.
Jasmin Rosemberg takes us to the other side of the plush beach resort's tracks in her amusing new novel, “How the Other Half Hamptons” (5 Spot), set in a Long Island share house/pig pen where a few dozen twentysomething guys and gals look for summer fun on the cheap.
Rosemberg knows what she is writing about, having spent a recent summer living in a Hamptons share house and writing about it in a weekly New York Post column.
In the novel, Rosemberg follows three Manhattan girlfriends who decide to spend much of their summer in a share house. The characters are far from fresh — a party girl, a “nice” girl who has just broken up with her boyfriend, and a smart girl tired of living in the shadow of her older sister — but the journalistic aspect of the narrative will keep many readers turning pages.
Rosemberg would have been well-advised to stick to one protagonist in her first novel, but she does a good job of immersing us in a crowded and funky beach house that doesn’t seem like much of an escape from the jammed city where the characters work.
When I was young and foolish, I visited friends in a similar set-up in Dewey Beach, Delaware, and came away thinking it was like returning to college dorm life in your mid-20s (not a good thing). The non-stop drinking, drugging and…how shall I say this?…mating was quite awesome, however.
Reading “How the Other Half Hamptons” is a good guilty pleasure in the tradition of the MTV train-wreck reality series “The Real World” and “My Super Sweet 16.”

Movies & art at MOMA

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:08:19 -0500

It was worth fighting the opening weekend crowds at the Museum of Modern Art’s new exhibition, “Dali: Painting and Film” on Sunday.
The huge sixth floor space at MOMA showcases the work that Salvador Dali (1904-1989) did during his regular forays into the world of movies, from the experimental short films he did with Luis Bunuel in the 1920s through his work with Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney.
Each gallery is devoted to an individual film, with one large wall displaying a continuous screening of the movie and the other walls filled with related drawings and paintings.
The 1928 collaboration with Bunuel, “Un Chien Andalou” (right), has lost none of its shock value in 80 years, particularly during the notorious sequence in which it appears a man is going to use his razor on a lover’s eye. Modern-day horror films such as “Hostel” and “Saw” have nothing on Dali and Bunuel when it comes to disturbing an audience.
At the time of the film’s first screenings, Bunuel and Dali provoked near-riots in theaters; college film classes and art-house audiences have been squirming their way through this odd-ball classic ever since.
Dali went on to do another film with Bunuel in 1930 — “L’Age d’or” — but it was his brief and tempestuous work with Alfred Hitchcock on the 1945 “Spellbound” that brought the Spanish artist his biggest movie audience.
Sadly, after Dali prepared many minutes’ worth of bizarre dream sequences (for the psychiatric patient played by Gregory Peck), the studio got cold feet and pressured Hitchcock to cut the material down to only a few minutes. The gallery space devoted to “Spellbound” is dominated by a huge painted backdrop that was used during the filming.
In conjunction with the exhibit, a series of screenings in the MOMA theaters will allow museumgoers to see “Un Chien Andalou” and the other Dali films without the gallery distractions, as well as examples of films that were inspired by Dali.
The exhibit runs through Sept. 15.
For more information, visit the museum’s Web site at www.moma.org.

Jackie vs. Lauren: No contest

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:42:57 -0500

On vacation last week I picked up two quintessential summer beach books — Lauren Weisberger’s third novel “Chasing Harry Winston” (Simon & Schuster) and Jackie Collins’s 26th novel “Married Lovers” (St. Martin’s Press).
Both books were published within the last month. The Weisberger tome seems to have surpassed “Married Lovers” in the best-seller sweepstakes, riding comfortably in the number six slot of The New York Times best-seller list for the past several weeks while the Collins book has dropped out of the top ten.
Weisberger’s fashion magazine world debut novel, “The Devil Wears Prada,” was one of the key chick-lit titles of the past decade and her follow-up book, “Everyone Worth Knowing,” was an entertaining look at the public relations industry in Manhattan.
“Chasing Harry Winston” is a lame time-waster that reads like a contractual obligation book written under duress.
Weisberger catches up with three college pals after a decade of living in the New York fast lane — Emmy, Leigh and Adriana — but the novel stalls out after only a few chapters when it becomes clear the author doesn’t care about these women and hasn’t thought of a plausible narrative for them. The women are pushing 30 and make an inane bet to change their aimless dating habits within the next year.
Where her earlier books were grounded in Weisberger’s actual experiences working in New York media, “Chasing Harry Winston” is a desperate recycling of material from “Sex and the City” and the other chick lit/chick flick milestones of the past decade. The writer never tries to make the ridiculous Brazilian Adriana credible as the best friend of Emmy and Leigh — the hot-blooded swinger is a stale amalgam of Samantha from “SATC” and a Eurotrash party girl in an early episode of "SATC" who was revealed to be a high-class hooker.
I kept reading “Chasing Harry Winston” assuming that some sort of plot would kick in eventually, but I was wrong.
Jackie Collins has been writing beach books for as long as Lauren Weisberger has been on the planet.
While Jackie might not have quite the “heat” of her “Hollywood Wives” era of the 1980s, she still knows how to tell a good story and how to keep a reader hooked for hundreds of incredibly fast-paced pages (Jackie keeps her chapters short and punchy and makes sure her cast of characters are such distinct individuals that we never get that feeling, so prevalent in “Chasing Harry Winston,” of not being able to tell one person from another.)
Jackie has kept her finger on the pulse of the international jet set for four decades and the new book serves up the same irresistible mix of gossip, pop sociology and sheer fun that has been the hallmark of every book since “The World is Full of Married Men” in 1968.
In "Married Lovers," Collins serves up more juicy characters and situations than you would find in the average half-dozen beach books. Over-heated dust jacket copy is, for once, an accurate reflection of what's inside: "Three high-powered Hollywood couples, two hot affairs, one underage Russian ex-hooker, a passionate murder - and the players' lives are changed forever."
Reading Lauren Weisberger’s latest you get the feeling she had to slog her way through the manuscript to fulfill an unpleasant obligation to Simon & Schuster. Racing through “Married Lovers” you can tell that Jackie Collins loved writing every dirty, sexy and funny page.

A shockingly bad movie

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:54:26 -0500

The new Will Smith movie “Hancock” is the only major studio release to open during the July 4 weekend, so the box-office figures on Sunday should be strong.
Word of mouth has got to be deadly, however; this is one of the worst summer movie star vehicles since Arnold Schwazenegger’s “Last Action Hero” in 1993. That turkey had a decent opening weekend, too, but the star’s reputation took a big hit — Schwarzenegger was no longer the sure thing he represented during the previous decade.
The pressure on big box-office stars to deliver is intense. The bigger they get, the bigger the budgets become, and record-breaking grosses are expected for every movie.
Years ago, Meryl Streep gave a speech where she complained about the huge discrepancy between the star salaries paid to men and women. She had already won two Oscars by that point, but was earning a pittance compared to male counterparts such as Kevin Costner and Harrison Ford.
Streep had a point, but perhaps her lower salaries and her continuing willingness to take chances on low-budget movies (such as "A Prairie Home Companion") are responsible for the actress still being a prestigious in-demand performer, while many of her 1980s and 1990s male peers have faded out. The terrific performer has the starring role in “Mamma Mia!” opening July 18 and will be seen in the film version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Doubt” late this year or early in 2009.
Will Smith has been a money-in-the-bank star for more than a decade now — can you believe “Independence Day” opened 12 years ago this weekend? — but he appears to be losing his edge and his knack for finding good material.
“Hancock” is a messy, nasty piece of work that is poorly made to boot — it’s distressing to see a major talent misuse his gifts this way. And I don’t think audiences will keep Will Smith at the top of the movie star heap if he keeps making duds like this one.

Ben Whishaw’s rising star

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:37:55 -0500

Fans of the Evelyn Waugh novel, “Brideshead Revisited,” and the 11-hour British miniseries from the early 1980s, will probably find a lot to criticize in the new theatrical film version that’s opening on July 25.
The miniseries — which launched the career of Jeremy Irons — was exhaustively faithful to the book.
The Miramax film is a Cliff’s Notes version of what Waugh was trying to say about class and sexuality in England in the years between the two world wars. Ironically, at the screening I attended in New York last week, I heard someone complain that the two-hour-and-10-minute film was “slow” — what would they have made of the miniseries?
No matter what happens to “Brideshead Revisited” in its midsummer art house release, the picture should bring more accolades to the 27-year-old actor Ben Whishaw — his performance as the alcoholic gay aristocrat Sebastian Flyte is the best thing in the movie.
After a series of small roles in British TV and films, Whishaw got his big break when he landed the starring role in the 2006 “Perfume” — where he played a sympathetic madman with a genius for creating expensive scents. The following year, Whishaw turned up as one of the multiple Bob Dylans in “I’m Not There” and held his own in a company that included Christian Bale, Heath Ledger and Oscar nominee Cate Blanchett.
Whishaw is a classically trained stage actor with the charisma of a movie star — he has that special ability to draw us close to angry, disturbed and confused characters who might not be sympathetic if played by a less compelling performer. Whishaw reminds me of the young Tom Courtenay, who was able to redeem anti-social anti-heroes in "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" (1962) and "King Rat" (1965).
Sebastian Flyte in “Brideshead Revisited” is a more conventional character than the ones Whishaw played in his last two movies — a sad young man who drinks to block out his inability to come to terms with being gay — but the beautifully mounted production will take the actor into the center of the mainstream. It’s the sort of flashy and tricky work that earns Oscar nominations.