Joe's View

With Joe Meyers, entertainment writer

Archive for December, 2010

Another potent Carolyn Hart mix of mystery and the supernatural

Friday, December 31, 2010 by:Joe Meyers

Mystery writer Carolyn Hart has legions of fans for her wonderful “Death on Demand” series about a South Carolina bookstore owner and her private investigator husband.

The 20 novels combine brilliant, Agatha Christie-style plotting with acute examinations of human psychology — i.e. the stress of ordinary people who find themselves pulled into criminal investigations.

Although Hart is sometimes lumped in the “cozy” mystery category — her stories are not dripping in blood or profanity — she prefers the label “traditional mystery.”

There is nothing “cozy” about a realistically presented murder and its impact on the survivors’ lives (and that of whoever the wily perp might be). And yet, Hart presents an unfailingly hopeful portrait of humanity in which the crimes are solved and the evildoers are caught.

A few years ago, Hart launched a new series with a new protagonist — Bailey Ruth Raeburn — who happens to be dead.

When I first heard about the series I wondered if even a writer as skilled as Carolyn Hart would be able to pull off whodunits in which the crime solver is deceased, but “Ghost at Work,” “Merry, Merry Ghost” and the new “Ghost in Trouble” (William Morrow) uphold the novelist’s high standards.

The Bailey Ruth stories play with the form of crime fiction in a delightful manner, allowing Hart to add amusing supernatural elements to the sharp plotting and social observation in her other novels.

In the three stories so far, Bailey Ruth has been sent back to her own home town of Adelaide, Oklahoma, to protect people facing serious dangers. As much as Bailey Ruth loves being with her husband in Heaven — which is rendered in wry detail by Hart — she is thrilled to be able to return to a beloved place where she had a very good life.

A premise that might sound rather twee — as the Brits would say — has enabled Hart to add hefty dollops of “Topper” and “Heaven Can Wait” to the screwball supernatural humor the author finds in Bailey Ruth’s visits to Oklahoma.

“Ghost in Trouble” assigns Bailey Ruth to a case that starts out on a nasty foot — she has to protect a woman who never liked her when she was alive — but we are quickly drawn into a complicated mystery involving a very wealthy family in Adelaide and an “accident” in their mansion that was more likely a premeditated murder.

The joy Bailey Ruth finds in her brief returns to the everyday life of Adelaide — relishing things she took for granted while she lived there, like an especially tasty hamburger! — makes it clear that Hart sees the best parts of our earthly existence as a preview of what we will find in the hereafter.

‘Spider-Man’: the end of the Broadway preview system?

Thursday, December 30, 2010 by:Joe Meyers

Some PR folks believe there is no such thing as bad publicity but we have a good test case of that philosophy in the form of the Julie Taymor musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”

The official opening of the show is still more than a month away but a variety of disasters at early preview performances have garnered extraordinary press and media response, including a skit on “Saturday Night Live.”

Some wags are calling “Spider-Man” the “NASCAR musical,” implying that a sizeable portion of the packed houses for the previews is made up of people who go hoping they will see another accident (like the one involving the poor Spider-Man double who fell more than 20 feet a few weeks ago, causing the show to be shut down for two days for safety inspections).

Not since “The Producers” opened a decade ago has a Broadway show garnered as much national and international publicity as “Spider-Man,” but in the case of the Mel Brooks blockbuster the publicity was all good — the 2001 stories were about “The Producers” receiving extraordinary critical praise that made it the hottest ticket since, perhaps, “My Fair Lady” more than 40 years earlier.

“Spider-Man” is getting so much press because it is derived from a huge comic book movie franchise and has the largest budget in the history of Broadway ($65 million and counting). Add rock star composers Bono and The Edge and visionary director Julie Taymor to the mix and the stage was set for intense press coverage.

Because so many non-Broadway types have been writing about the show day-by-day, readers around the world aren’t being told that “Spider-Man” is still in previews. I wonder how many of the tourists who have been going to the show since the previews started are even aware of the fact that the musical hasn’t officially “opened” yet.

It’s a long standing Broadway tradition that critics do not see a show until the press opening, but earlier this week the reviewers for the Bloomberg news service and the Long Island daily newspaper Newsday both filed reports that made it clear they had attended previews — a total no-no in the theater community up until now. Even the august New York Times covered the first preview and has been sending reporters to the show on an almost daily basis (the paper also ran a video on its website of the double’s accident that was illegally recorded by an audience member in the balcony).

How can either of those reviewers attend an opening in February without being prejudiced by what they saw in December?

Because the show is selling out — and is being reported on in such detail — some observers have suggested that the musical’s producers might simply bypass a formal opening and not bother to invite reviewers.

In this age of mammoth, middle-of-the-road, tourist-oriented hits like “Wicked” and “Mamma Mia!” — both of which opened to largely indifferent New York reviews — do the producers of “Spider-Man” need press endorsements to keep filling the house?

Perhaps we are entering an age when reviewer-proof Cirque du Soleil-style spectacles will occupy Broadway theaters for years just as they do in Las Vegas. If “Stomp” and the Blue Man Group can run for decades off-Broadway to audiences who have never read a review of either show, “Spider-Man” might be able to pull off the same trick on Broadway.

‘Elf’: a 9-week, $9 million delight from Warner Bros.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010 by:Joe Meyers

I caught the limited-run Broadway show “Elf” over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised by the old-fashioned craftsmanship and high performance level of this new musical that will be closing on Sunday.

I feared that something designed for a 9-week holiday run would be sub-par — why would Broadway people work at full power for a musical that had to close right after the holiday season? — but the quality of the material and the ensemble make it clear that Warner Bros. Theatrical Ventures sees “Elf” as a perennial-in-the-making.

Thomas Meehan — of “The Producers” and “Hairspray” — co-authored the very witty book with Bob Martin, who won the Tony for his “Drowsy Chaperone” script.

And the song score by composer Matthew Sklar and lyricist Chad Beguelin — who collaborated on another screen-to-stage venture “The Wedding Singer” — was hummable and charming.

The producers of the show made the very wise decision to go with Broadway troupers — rather than TV or film star names — in the leading roles.

Sebastian Arcelus (above) — of “Jersey Boys” and “Wicked” — delivers a Tony-worthy performance in the title role.

Buddy — a human being accidentally raised as an elf at the North Pole — is a very potent mix of low comedy, poignance and song-and-dance showmanship that kept Arcelus on stage for nearly every scene. Arcelus might not qualify as a Broadway star yet, but he clearly has the talent and the charisma to break through in his next major role.

The supporting company includes “Drowsy Chaperone” Tony winner Beth Leavel, Amy Spanger and Mark Jacoby — who have dozens of Broadway credits between them — and they come through with strong performances.

The biggest name in the cast, George Wendt (Norm on the TV series “Cheers”), has the least stage time in the role of Santa, but he makes every scene count. Wendt is a wonderful stage actor — I was lucky enough to catch his drag performance in “Hairspray” a few years ago and he was every bit as funny and as energetic as Harvey Fierstein who originated the role.

“Elf” clearly delighted the packed house I saw the show with — the woman behind me kept saying “Isn’t this darling?” at intermission — so I have a hunch we will be seeing it again during future holiday seasons.

The reported $9 million that Warner Bros. put into the show was much better spent than the $28 million DreamWorks put into the dud stage version of “Shrek” — it’s an investment that should pay off in years to come.

Natalie Portman joins the ranks of great movie crazy ladies

Sunday, December 26, 2010 by:Joe Meyers

I wish I could hang out in lobbies all over the country as screenings of “Black Swan” are letting out.

“Sophisticated” New York metro area audiences are flipping out at Darren Aronofsky’s intense and teasing film about a star ballerina having a nervous breakdown, so who knows what is going on in theaters out in the boondocks?

Audience response is only going to get more interesting as “Black Swan” gathers Oscar nominations and a probable best actress win for its star Natalie Portman.

When I saw the picture a few weeks ago — before its national release — it was clear that half the audience was thrilled by the movie’s wild depiction of mental collapse and artistic self-destruction, and the other half viewed Aronofsky’s dark portrait of the ballet world as a form of cultural desecration.

The haters grasped at what they felt were nutty factual inaccuracies in the movie — claiming no rising New York City Ballet or American Ballet Theatre star would still be living with a mother as demented as the one played by Barbara Hershey or would still be sleeping in her pink girlhood bedroom.

It became clear in the hubbub after the screening that part of the audience expected “Black Swan” to be a love letter to the dedication and talent of the young women who devote the early years of their lives to ballet — they wanted something inspirational and refined on the order of “The Turning Point.”

They didn’t appear to get the idea that “Black Swan” isn’t meant to be any more realistic than Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” or Michael Haneke’s “The Piano Teacher” — two earlier, hallucinatory studies of beautiful, talented women falling to pieces emotionally.

Natalie Portman gives a performance so highly strung — and so brilliant — that she deserves kudos for being willing to turn off as many people as she turns on. The actress goes all the way with the part, just as Catherine Deneuve did in “Repulsion” and Isabelle Huppert did in “The Piano Teacher.”

Aronofsky seems to have a special gift for tapping into a whole new emotional vein in performers we think we know very well. Portman’s frighteningly intense characterization is reminiscent of Ellen Burstyn’s equally disturbing work as the drug and TV addict in Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream.”

So many Hollywood movies appear to be designed to lull the audience like a narcotic that it is thrilling to see an American director and star actress who are willing to shake things up.

Merry Christmas!!

Saturday, December 25, 2010 by:Joe Meyers

Behind the scenes of a loved/hated landmark play & movie

Friday, December 24, 2010 by:Joe Meyers

Mart Crowley’s play “The Boys in the Band” was controversial when it opened in the spring of 1968 for its frank depiction of a birthday party where all of the guests were gay.

Nothing like that had ever been seen on an American stage.

Two years later, however, when William Friedkin’s faithful movie version debuted in theaters, “The Boys in the Band” was controversial for a different reason. The gay liberation movement had been under way for a year, and the image of cloistered, self-hating gay men presented in the movie was considered retrograde and harmful to the movement.

(Things were changing so fast in those years at the end of the 1960s that a liberal like producer-director Stanley Kramer was horrified to be criticized by black critics and moviegoers who thought his 1967 movie “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” was antiquated and patronizing in its depiction of race relations.)

The other night I watched an advance copy of a documentary, “Making the Boys,” by Crayton Robey, that details the creation of the play, its first production in 1968 and then the fall-out of subsequent decades.

The 90-minute movie debuted at the Berlin Film Festival this year and was also shown at the Tribeca Film Festival and is set for a theatrical release in New York City in late winter. It’s a fascinating, balanced look back at a play and film that have gone in and out of fashion several times (the WPA Theatre did a hit mid-1990s revival and last year there was a site-specific staging in a real apartment that received mostly good notices).

Robey talked with just about everyone who was connected to “The Boys in the Band” from Mart Crowley to film director William Friedkin to the late Dominick Dunne (who produced the movie version).

“Making the Boys” includes some tough criticism from Edward Albee who was part of the stage company that produced the play but who declined to invest in it himself (the playwright wryly regrets that decision in light of the piece’s five year run in New York and countless international productions).

Tony Kushner talks about the play’s historical importance in opening the door he was able to walk through 20 years later with his Pulitzer Prize-winner “Angels in America.”

Crowley’s personal story is compelling. He worked as a gofer on Elia Kazan’s 1960 film “Splendor in the Grass” and struck up a friendship with its star Nataltie Wood, who hired him to work as her assistant after the filming wrapped.

Crowley spent much of the 1960s in Hollywood hanging out with Wood and her celebrity friends (Robey includes great home movie footage of a 1965 Malibu beach party with Jane Fonda, Tuesday Weld, and Rock Hudson). It was Wood who pushed Crowley to pursue his dream of returning to New York and writing a play. Wood’s widower Robert Wagner contributes a good interview to the documentary.

“Making the Boys” shows us how the gay actors in the play and film – Friedkin used the original stage cast in his movie — had a tough time maintaining their career momentum in the 1970s. Eventually, all of them died from complications of AIDS.

Two of the three straight cast members Laurence Luckinbill and Peter White are interviewed — the wonderful actor Cliff Gorman (above right, with Robert LaTourneaux) died prematurely from cancer — and talk about the type-casting they faced.

“Making the Boys” presents important cultural history in a very entertaining manner and should be much discussed when it is officially released in three months.

‘Mother’: Oscar-worthy performance by Korean star

Thursday, December 23, 2010 by:Joe Meyers

The chances are slim to none that you will see the name of Kim Hye-Ja on the list of best actress Oscar nominees in a few weeks.

The Korean star gives a spectacular performance in “Mother” — the equal of any other acting job I’ve seen this year — but the Academy Award voters rarely look beyond our shores when they fill out their ballots.

Movies are one of the most portable art forms, so you’d think the globalization of recent decades would be reflected in the films that we see in the U.S. and the work that is cited every year by critics’ organizations and industry groups.

The rise of conglomerates and multiplexes have left much of the country in the dark when it comes to foreign releases, however.

Tons of movies from overseas open briefly in New York and Los Angeles — and pop up on DVD or cable on-demand services — but they don’t stick in the minds of American movie people the way they used to in the 1960s and 1970s when there was still at least one independently-operated art house in nearly every city and college town.

If you look at the list of Academy Award-nominated performances from 30 or 40 years ago, you will see many foreign language films cited, from Anouk Aimee in “A Man and a Woman” to Liv Ullmann in both “The Emigrants” and “Face to Face.”

In those pre-multiplex days, popular foreign films would play for months in urban art houses (“A Man and a Woman” ran for a year at the Paris Theater in Manhattan) so they would often be more talked-about by savvy moviegoers than lesser Hollywood fare.

Aimee and Ullmann both had such strong followings here that Hollywood producers brought them over for English language roles (sadly, they weren’t successful).

Nowadays, foreign films race through U.S, theatrical release so quickly that a fantastic actress like Isabelle Huppert — who has been working steadily for 30 years — has never received an Oscar nomination (even for her monumental Cannes Festival best actress-winning work in “The Piano Teacher”).

Getting back to “Mother,” it should be noted that the Los Angeles Film Critics Association did have the guts to give Kim Hye-Ja its best actress prize a few weeks ago rather than go with an English-speaking star (they also cited Niels Arestrup in the supporting actor category for his sensational work in the French film “A Prophet”).

Kim Hye-Ja’s performance as a possessive mother, desperate to save her mentally challenged son from a murder charge, is moving and funny and scary. The poster line for the film is “She’ll stop at nothing” and that’s a good way to describe the character.

“Mother” recently became available on DVD and should go to the top of your Netflix list.

The ‘unused life’ of Shirley Valentine

Wednesday, December 22, 2010 by:Joe Meyers

Judith Ivey is back at Long Wharf giving another master class in acting in the Willy Russell play “Shirley Valentine.”

The last time the stage star worked with LWT artistic director Gordon Edelstein — two seasons ago — the result was a revelatory production of “The Glass Menagerie” that moved on to New York City and Los Angeles.

Ivey took the rather worn-out role of matriarch Amanda Wingfield and made it look newly minted.

Russell’s 1988 play about a Liverpool housewife who works up the nerve to take a vacation on her own is obviously not in the same class as the Tennessee Williams play, but the piece gives Ivey another chance to display her awesome talent for bonding with a character and then establishing a direct link to the audience.

“Shirley Valentine” is that riskiest of stage ventures — a solo play — but Ivey makes us believe in Russell’s conceit that Shirley is sharing her life and her dreams with an unseen friend — those of us who are sitting out there in the dark and cozy confines of Long Wharf’s small Stage II space.

Shirley becomes an old friend, telling us funny and poignant stories about her husband, her two grown children and the people who live in her Liverpool neighborhood. Although she has become “Shirley Bradshaw” through marriage, the woman longs for a return to the freedom and hope she felt as the young and single Shirley Valentine.

A potentially life-changing moment arrives when a well-off friend offers Shirley the chance to accompany her on a two-week Greek holiday.

Russell makes dramatic and comic hay out of the 52-year-old woman’s dilemma — would the trip be wasted on her now or is there still a chance for her to live out her youthful dreams of adventure?

Shirley realizes she has spent years leading what she calls “an unused life” — falling into routine and unquestioning acceptance of the way life is lived by the people around her.

The story is specific to England in the late 1980s, but Ivey’s vibrant, funny, moving performance is giving it a universal quality at Long Wharf. The actress and Shirley are in residence through Jan. 2 and they are not to be missed.

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