P.S.: I'll tell the truth

I mean, I'm not going to lie to you in my second post of the year, so, that means I guess I have to tell the truth. Which, well, to tell the truth, is not going to make me seem like the best person in the world. On the other hand, telling the truth will raise my level of self-importance because, simply, I am telling the truth which so many people don't do nowadays. And quite frankly, telling the truth about this topic is really no big deal at all, really, when you come right down to it. So, to sum it up, I'm not sure why I said "it's not going to make me seem like the best person in the world." Perhaps it will make you scoff at me, or turn your nose up, or turn the other cheek (what?), but ... nah, it's no big deal. So, here goes nothing:

I liked P.S. I LOVE YOU.

Sorry. I know. I couldn't believe it either. I didn't want to. I didn't choose to. It's a romcom (wow, that's a new cool phrase I learned from reading a blog of a friend of a friend who is in the know and inside the industry, and I liked it ... plus, it makes me feel like I'm writing for Variety, or rather, it makes you feel like you're reading Variety, which many of you probably have never read anyway because it's not so important to you). So, a romantic-comedy it is. But, it's not your standard Julia Roberts romcom, no. It's funny and quirky. It offers a small who's who of Broadway/NYC theatre people (Susan Blackwell and Sherie Renee Scott, and of course the incredibly strange yet really cool Nellie McKay) and made me laugh. Out loud in fact.

That said, I have no idea why I'm writing more about this movie than another movie that I truly LOVED but only gave a mention the other day. JUNO is HYsterical, brilliant, lovely, cute, charming, and perfect. It's wonderful. I mean, come on, who doesn't love a good story about teenage pregnancy?

Insider's Scoop

It's fun to live in New York when good things happen. I was lucky enough last weekend to score passes to two movie screenings. I will divulge a little here; not a lot, but enough to make you wish you were me (if you didn't already).

AMERCIAN GANGSTER
Yeah, this comes out in a week or so, but it was nice to see the foreign press screening of it here in the city. I guess I hadn't been reading up on it, so I had know idea it was about drug trafficking, but, okay. Once I woke up (after the first very slow twenty minutes), I really enjoyed it. Do I recommend? Yes if you want to see a good film in the long line of standard/middle-of-the-road gangster, mafia, shoot 'em ups.

BABY MAMA
This one isn't scheduled for release until April 2008, but I got to sit in and be a test audience for it. It's another comedy from Tina Fey, but it's essentially pretty sappy. I wanted it to be like Wedding Crashers, but it wasn't. I don't know why I wanted that, though, because I should have said, "oh, it'll probably be a morality play like Mean Girls." And it was. But it was a funny morality play nonetheless. With the likes of the UHMAZING Amy Poehler, Steve Martin and Sigourney Weaver, this has some really brilliant moments. I won't spoil my favorite, but remember this: it's when Amy offers to pay Tina for gas money.

Also, I finished the second season of WEEDS at three in the morning. I love it. And what an ending. That's good, because it was sort of getting lazy and sloppy I thought, but they sure pulled out the big guns (pun intended).

While I go spend the rest of my day off catching up on network television (Brothers and Sisters, 30 Rock, The Office and maybe Private Practice), I want to know what have you been watching?

Two Happy Endings

Julie and the Beatles
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE has its moments, but in all, I guess I just didn't like it. Don't get me wrong, FRIDA is one of my favorites, but this one just doesn't have that same spark. Of course, it would have been better after a few magical brownies ("reefer madness, reefer madness!")... Some very touching scenes, neat colors and spectacle, but overall rather blah.

I Was Going to Go Anyway
...even if I didn't get a free pass. ENCHANTED, first of all, is narrated by none other than that glorious voice of voices, Ms Disney herself, Julie Andrews. Also a venerable who's who of Broadway (including Tonya Pinkins in a hysterical scene or two), this new flick from the Mouse is ... well, enchanting. Amy Adams is beautiful and does a brilliant job. I guess I just had a big smile on the whole time - sure, it's for the kids, but hey, I'm still a kid.

Spoilers Ahead.

I watched THE UPSIDE OF ANGER half last night and half this morning. One word=insane. The guy blows up at the dinner table! The husband didn't go off to Sweden with his secretary, he fell down a well in the back yard. Huzzah! it's hysterically flawed and fatal, and yet, I watched the whole thing.

I then proceeded to spend most of the day in my pajamas, singing in my bedroom at the top of my lungs. Now I'm hungry so I'll eat something, and then I'll probably drink something tonight since I have off until dinner time tomorrow night.

Anybody got a job for me that pays extraordinarily well and doesn't require me to keep regular hours? How could I not have gotten hired? I applied for this job this week, and apparently didn't get it. Come on! I even had an in. What've they got that I ain't got? Oh well. They'll eat their shorts next week when I'm on the silver screen next to Mr MacGuffin.

Don't blow your socks off

Okay, crazies, let's not sneeze over everything and start sobbing into our downstairs neighbor's coat rack. Dreamgirls didn't deserve an Oscar nom, that's why it didn't get one! Bam. But can't wait for Ellen's take on things Feb 25th!

In other, and frankly, more life-important news, on my midday trip home today, the N train stopped on the tracks for, oh, about twenty freaking minutes while "workers [repaired] the tracks directly in front of this train." Goodness. And then, it decided to automatically become express, bypassing four stations it normally stops at. Whazzup wit dat?

Dreamgirls will make you happy?

I haven't sat down to read what everyone else is saying, because I wanted to form my own thoughts and opinions (I know! How terribly liberal of me). I finally made it to see DREAMGIRLS this afternoon with my sister, but before we were able to see the movie, we had to sit through about twenty minutes of nothingness, as the staff at the movie palace realized there was a problem and then had to correct it. My guess is something went awry with the tape and it had to be rewound or something -- do they do that in this day and age?

Anyhow. Jennifer Hudson is a yawn. She's an amateur way up there on the silver screen with the stunning Beyonce and the silent killer, Anika Noni Rose. This is supposed to be about this group of girls who are talented and rocket to stardom, right? Well, no wonder mister Curtis Taylor Junior fired her -- not only was she late all the time, but she didn't have the moves, the look, the voice, the style, the panache, or the raw skills to make it. And I can't understand how these award voters are being blinded.

The reason DREAMGIRLS was a smash on Broadway was because of the venue. This is a stage musical. It was written that way and should have stayed that way. It's the reason these big blockbuster musicals aren't transfering to the big screen -- because they're not meant to. We desperately want to applaud when Effie stands up to Curtis (and at my showing, one young girl did vehemently, to the annoyance of everyone around here), but it's not appropriate in a move theatre because ... and this is the big thing I realized today folks ... we're not applauding something that may have taken a dozen tries from several angles over a couple days to get right, and then fix and style in the editing room over months. When we want to applaud, we want to applaud the performance of a lifetime. Watch Jennifer Holliday sing the song (1982 Tony's or later in her career). It's breathtaking. There's nothing like it. Because it's real, it's live, it's in the moment. There's no one else there except her to share this very real and true moment with us the audience. On screen, there are a dozen to a hundred people neatly packaging the whole thing and sending it to us. That's not what broadway musicals are about.

CHICAGO made the transfer and did it brilliantly. RENT didn't. THE PRODUCERS didn't. Even SINGIN' IN THE RAIN didn't make the transfer to the stage. It was written as a Hollywood musical and should stay that way.

Anika Noni Rose was the best one up there, because she is from Broadway. She knew exactly what to do, how to play the role, sing the songs, act the act, and do it right. She was just so sweet and in the pocket, but unfortunately she's in the smallest of the roles.

[here: Original Lorrell, GREY'S ANATOMY's Loretta Devine] What would have helped the situation would have been the use of the 2001 concert cast (Lillias White as Effie, Audra McDonald as Deena and Heather Headley as Lorrell -- although, I'm still hardpressed to replace Rose with Headley). That cast also included Norm Lewis (Broadway's current Javier), Shoshana Bean (WICKED's Elphaba), Adriane Lenox (of DOUBT fame and a standby on CAROLINE, OR CHANGE where she worked with Rose), Brian Stokes Mitchell, Malcolm Gets, Alice Ripley, Emily Skinner, Brad Oscar and Sara Ramierz. Although, still, I think they work best in the recording and on the stage rather than if they had been shipped off to Hollywood and stuck up on film.

And, the cinematography. CRAPOLA. It looked like some failing frosh film fudgebucket finangled his way behind the camera somehow. It's awkward and strange, a poor turn from the guy who was the director of photography on FREE WILLY 3. The choreography (Fatima Robinson) is flat and lousy, too. Thank goodness they were wise enough to bring in tried-and-true team of Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhower to do the lighting. At least they knew what they were doing.

It's too bad about all of that, but that's the way it is. Go see it though, the music's kick-ass. And then you'll know what's what when the mount a national tour in the next year or so [my gut tells me they've just got to!].

"Grand Hotel... always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens."

If only "nothing ever happens." Rather, RFK was assassinated and nothing was ever the same it would seem. Emilio Estevez's BOBBY is gripping. From Anthony Hopkins and Harry Belafonte's first lines about the Grand Hotel through the end of the credits, it is excellent filmmaking. The characters are real, the emotions are universal, the war stories are current. This is what the film industry should be. Always. No exceptions. It was beautiful and tragic, sweeping and innocent. More, it is timely and wholly relevant.

I was pleased as punch with Ms Lohan, of whom you may recall I haven't always been so thrilled. Her performance, and Elijah Wood's eyes (they were bluer than mine for chrissake), surprised the heck out of me. And maybe it wasn't her performance so much as the events surrounding her, and the epic scale of the finale ultimo in the kitchen. But anyway, at least she was comprehendable.

The very funny, very clever actors Shia LaBeouf and Brian Geraghty took their scenes and flew ... sky high. "Look at me." "I am." "Now, look at me ... through my eyes." Pass eyeglasses. Brilliant.

I was captivated by Mr Fishbourne's early scene over cobbler. Talk about taking the text, chewing it up, mulling it around, making it speak on so many levels and at twelve different volumes at once, spitting back out, and having all of that captured in the lens. He did excellent work in his scenes, of which I think there were a total of two? Both bursting with talent, however. Such a marvelous performance.

Hopkins is at the door to welcome the Senator in a really human moment. He's king of the screen in my book -- what I wouldn't give to simply watch him work. He is a fascinating (and terribly imposing, in that you're-my-hero sort of way) persona on screen, and I imagine him to be a real genuine soul in life, too.

So, of course, then there's the end. Again, the filmmaking is rich. Camera work, audio, file footage, editing, et al. are terrific. Kudos to the team behind the screen for making this sequence happen. I'm so thrilled to really agree with JJ about a film. He loved BOBBY and so did I. And I didn't love it because he did, or because I was trying to see in it what he saw weeks before. I really found it incredibly wonderful on my own. As I've hinted at before, to me, it was sad and uplifting at the same time. It's a film of these sort of oxymorons, I think.

It's really important for people to see movies like this, and for Hollywood and the razzle dazzles out there to make them. It's fantastic, because yesterday, I wrote about the hate that PRIMETIME exploited of minorities in our world. I found myself making comparisons here... such beautiful words for these actors to say, such crippling images for our eyes to see... all about the dangers and results of hatred and anger, war and rebellion. What a time to be alive--when in the face of such fear and doubt that Vietnam brought to America, there was someone who wanted to lead, someone who was willing to actually say (in much more eloquent words), "Gosh, we're in a heap o' trouble. Let's figure out what's wrong and fix it. We have to accept and acknowlege our mistakes, then move on and try to do good."

Knowing nothing about the film or Kennedy, I found myself transfixed and contemplative, wanting to know more. And yet, maybe, wishing I wouldn't have to look to the past for a leader who would be frank with the American people. In Prestonburg, Kentucky (not Prestonsburg, which is quite a distance from the other, as I found out this spring), Kennedy told the truth. Things were bad. People were not doing well. Everyone already knew it, so that wasn't the shock, but perhaps that he was man enough to say it to them. AND, he went on to say it didn't have to be like that, it could be better. It was a shame that in a country so blessed with riches as we are, there were places still like Prestonburg. And it's STILL TRUE. Things haven't changed that much. We need now someone who can affect change, who can accept our mistakes, seriously consider the suggestions and criticism of colleagues. We need a visonary, a leader, a go-getter, a person, a human being with a personality that rings true with all of us.

I wonder if it will ever happen. But, I wonder thanks to BOBBY. Go see it. Do yourself a favor.

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

This week has been exhausting. I've worked, like a regular human being, five whole days in a row. I went to a sporting event last night and afterward for a drink. Today, I slept in, went eliptical-ing, watched the end of LOVE ACTUALLY and did some web design research. Now, I plan to watch HANNAH AND HER SISTERS because I didn't do it last week when I should have -- it's my favorite Thanksgiving movie. It always makes me feel cozy and warm, even though I'm not sure I'd want my life to be like the ones in the film, it just exudes the sort of aura that I feel is right for that holiday. Perhaps moreso than Christmas, Thanksgiving is the coziest holiday in my book.

You may ask, "Beedow, what book is that?" Well, I don't understand the question and I won't respond.

Borat, jak się masz?

Born to Asimbala Sagdiyev and Boltok the Rapist, who is also his maternal grandfather, Borat is brother to a caged and retarded brother and Kazakhstan's trophy-winning fourth-best prostitute. He has had several wives and fathered three children, including Hooeylewis. He has been a guest of Conan, Leno, Letterman, Regis and Kelly, Jon Stewart, Harry Smith, Matt Lauer and more. When FOX's Gretchen Carlson said she would be seeing his upcoming documentary, Borat responded: "You let women in cinemas here? In my country we have a pen outside for the animals and womens!"

"I hope you kill every man, woman, and child in Iraq, down to the lizards...and may George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman, and child in Iraq," he said before a crowd of boo-ers in Salem, VA in January 2005. This and his other antics have caused a wave of legal issues for Sacha Baron Cohen (and distributor 20th Century Fox). He's the guy who created this character and produced and wrote and starred in the film. According to Page Six, however, Pam Anderson was in on the whole thing ... well, at least her "sacking."

Having the cops called 91 different times during the filming of one's movie (according to IMDB) might make one say, "Whoa!" But comedian Cohen didn't, and his Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is certainly a hysterical feature. Without a doubt, much of the footage is in poor taste, derogatory, graphic, obscene, gratuitous, silly, stupid, drunk and/or X-rated for language, sex, nudity, violence, et al. However, I put my PC Hat away on the shelf and laughed all the way through this movie. Even my guest L'il B guffawed throughout. I mean, if the Atlantic Monthly can call this "may be the funniest film in a decade" surely you too can get out of your easy chair and close this blog and see it.

Wikipedia has some fascinating stuff on this. Check out these links: The Movie and The Guy for some more blindsiding (or is it blindsighting?) facts. Then, do what everyone doesn't want you to do and go to see this. Although, perhaps you should pick one of those days when your local movie palace offers the cheap tix like I did. Yeah, maybe the guy should have actually gotten real consent from these people--or hired talented actors like Beedow to play dumb college kids instead of giving away another acting job (thank you reality tee-vee)--but still, he's damn funny. And if you can't laugh at yourself, then don't go, because you're sure to be insulted at some point.

Dziękuję.

Survey: Movies

1: Popcorn or candy? Nothing. I don't know why people insist on eating during a movie. It makes loud noises (gurgle, crunch, pop, cicero, lipshitz) and sticks to the floor and drives me insane. Plus, the popcorn kernels get stuck in my teeth.

2. Name a movie you've been meaning to see forever. STAR WARS, any or all of them.

3. You are given the power to recall one Oscar: Who loses theirs and to whom? I don't care, but they should give it to me.

4. Steal one costume from a movie for your wardrobe. Which will it be? Ray Bolger's scarecrow.

5. Your favorite film franchise is... Christopher Guest-u-mentaries.

6. Invite five movie people over for dinner. Who are they? Why'd you invite them? What do you feed them? Jack Nicholson, Julie Andrews, Gene Kelly, Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman (and Gene Wilder and Faye Dunaway). They all seem like fun, and I think we'd all have a lot to chat about. I'd have them fill out a menu card in advance: check one - bacon cheeseburger, beef on weck, chicken finger sub, or for the veg's, beer.

7. What is the appropriate punishment for people who answer cell phones in the movie theater? Chinese water torture.

8. Choose a female bodyguard: Ripley from Aliens. Mystique from X-Men. Sarah Connor from Terminator 2. The Bride from Kill Bill. Mace from Strange Days. What about Angelica Houston from THE WITCHES? I bet she'd bite someone's head off.

9. What's the scariest thing you've ever seen in a movie? Not a movie. Youtube. Just watch.


10. Your favorite genre (excluding comedy and drama) is? SINGIN IN THE RAIN. It's a genre in itself.

11. You are given the power to greenlight movies at a major studio for one year. How do you wield this power? I cast me in as many films as possible, giving me an extensive array of characters and situations to play, offering the public exactly what they want: me.

12. Bonnie or Clyde? Well, Bonnie. Because didn't Clyde have some sort of sexual inablities? I don't want that. So, Bonnie.

13. Who are you tagging to answer this survey? All y'all.

Solitude @ the movies

What's wrong with seeing movies alone? There's too many people out there (authors, critics, celebs, regular joes) who are, I don't know, ashamed maybe, or embarrassed to go to the movies alone. They think it's uncool, it's not hip, it's a sure sign that they're loners and losers who can't even find someone to go sit with them in a dark room and not talk for two hours. Even a loser should know someone -- or should be able to pay someone to go see the film, right? Just so they won't walk in and sit alone?

Well, I'm here tonight to dispel that myth. Last fall, on my eventful six week tour of the upper midwestern states, I had a great deal of free time and felt that there was no better way to spend it than seeing just about every film out during that time. It was ... GREAT FUN. I went alone because the person I was driving along with didn't really want to go. No problem. I cam to realize there is a great and wonderful peace and brilliance in solitude at the movies.

Why would you want to go with someone when you can go alone? You won't have to pretend you're enjoying it if you're not. You won't have to answer any questions they ask. You won't have to listen to their popcorn chewing and root beer slurping. You don't have to hold their hand if something scary happens, and you won't have to get a stiff shoulder when its a sad movie and they put their head on it. Come on, tell me, what's bad about going alone?

Plus, you can see anything you want and don't have to compromise. You can go early if you want and watch "The 20" and enjoy ALL the previews. I love it and will continue to go alone whenever I can.