Perhaps my expectations were too high. Black Swan is getting excellent reviews and I have been hearing positive buzz for months. I do not see it as the masterpiece some are claiming it is, but the film has an excellent cast and is a fine psychological thriller. [Read more →]
I had been looking forward to seeing David Russell in concert for a long time. In my opinion, he is the finest living classical guitarist. He was to perform at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. It’s a pretty big room. It seats about five-hundred and there were people standing in the back, too. People suck up sound, you know. I leaned over to a fellow guitarist and said, “Do you see any microphones?” He furrowed his brow and shook his head. We were worried. We were halfway back in the crowd. This was terrible. Then, David Russell trotted out pleasantly to lively applause and took his seat. He checked his tuning, but the turning of the buttons had the secondary effect of serving as a volume dial for his audience: the crowd slowly went as silent as a snowy pine-forest. [Read more →]
I regret that I am not old enough to have seen a proper burlesque show, although I have done my homework on the subject. I have studied the writings of the late Ralph Allen, who did for old burlesque sketches what the Brothers Grimm did for folk tales. I’ve read accounts by burlesque habitués and sons of habitués. I have decided that my seventh grade math teacher, a nutty old man who frequently used the exclamation “cheese and crackers!” probably learned that term from Billy “Cheese and Crackers” Hagen, a top banana who frequently appeared at the Troc, Philadelphia’s last burlesque house. The Troc is still there but with bands, not bananas.
Perhaps the reason Love and Other Drugs seems like three different movies is that the film credits three screenwriters (Charles Randolph, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz ) for the screenplay based on the book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy. This may be the reason why Love and Other Drugs seems much less than the sum of its parts. But the film has a few laughs, a few tears and very attractive naked people. [Read more →]
I’m late on this. I admit it. But after having seen Toy Story 3 with my kids the other night, I need to weigh in. If you are even more behind than I am, I must warn you — some semi-spoilers are coming . . .
I’m not a movie critic, but I do write fiction. From that perspective, I think that films for kids might be losing their way — that is, if they follow the Toy Story 3 model. The people at Pixar are brilliant. I’ve been a fan for a long time and I very much liked Toy Story 3, but I don’t think the movie is quite right, in terms of its storytelling, for kids — definitely not for my kids, who I’m hoping are not completely different from everyone else’s children. [Read more →]
Last night I went by one of my best friend’s parent’s house and saw that his dad decorated the house. The decorations have been roughly the same my entire life, and always instantly put me in the Christmas spirit. So I thought I would devote this week’s entry to the things I love about Christmas since I am brimming with holiday cheer! [Read more →]
So a month ago my wife, in one of those heroic moves toward permanent marital stability, bought us tickets to the Jason Bonham Led Zeppelin Experience. The show tapped directly into my untouchable love of Zeppelin. I was awed not just by the talent of Bonham and his band but the emotion driving this tribute. Meandering home afterward, thinking about the grainy videos of Jason as a child that were part of the show, I wondered what if Zeppelin had tried to launch today, in the age of helicopter parents. [Read more →]
Not all of my Broadway experiences have been in midtown theaters. Between 1988 and 1993 I did my graduate work at 721 Broadway in lower Manhattan, the sixth floor of which housed (and still houses) the NYU Department of Performance Studies. There I learned to think of performance as something broader and more diverse than what happened on so-called legitimate stages. I had friend who was into Japanese Rakugo, another into shamanic rituals involving trance states, another into queer theory, and still others who studied downtown dance in which the women lifted the men. My area was American popular performance, especially vaudeville with a concentration in magic–the entertaining deception kind, not the raising the dead kind. Today, I sometimes teach a course with a deception theme, but back then I was still learning the basics.
Is Burlesque a “good” movie? No, but I do not think it is trying to be that. Did I love it? Yes. It has a predictably stupid plot, but it looks gorgeous. The performance numbers are big, bright and dazzling and for the most part, the cast is terrific. I sat like a mindless zombie for 100 minutes, eyes glued to the screen, and it felt great. [Read more →]
I recently remembered a magic spell I once knew. Here’s how it happened:
A few months ago, I had my metaphorical butt kicked by a twelve-year-old. Part of my lifelong musical journey is that I have been studying classical guitar for the past five years. My teacher is kind enough to hold “salons” for her students several times per year, at which we can perform solo pieces for each other — mostly adults. Many self-conscious jokes are cracked before performances (mostly by me), many excuses are made from the stage (mostly by me) and many right hands shake nervously over the strings (mine, especially), derailing passages that sounded so great just the day before in everyone’s practice rooms. [Read more →]
When I look at my children, I shudder.
They have lived their entire lives in the so-called “age of superheroes.” They are too young to remember a time before the likes of Superman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman forced us to accept their “protection.” They didn’t ask to live in this world – they had it forced upon them.
The rest of us should have known better. We should have seen this coming. We have given up our sovereignty to people (if in fact they are “people;” many of them are not even of this world) who, by virtue of their enormous physical strength or possession of amazing weapons capable of mass destruction, believe they have the right to decide what is best for the rest of us.
At what point did we, the average and non-superpowered individuals, decide to just let this happen? When did we become sheeple, just placidly accepting the notion that because some people have the ability to destroy things efficiently they can make the rules for all of us?
Earlier this month, Gotham City’s wealthiest and most powerful resident, Bruce Wayne, held a press conference in which he revealed that he has been financing the extra-legal activities of the vigilante known as “Batman.” If there were any sense to our world, Mr. Wayne would have been immediately arrested and brought to trial. Taking the law into our own hands is a crime. [Read more →]
No, I am not talking about the heartwarming 1993 movie about the love affair between a young boy and a killer whale. I am talking about the weekend arrest of grizzled country music star Willie Nelson for marijuana possession. It just ain’t right.
10. In The Expendables he wore an orthopedic beret
9. He keeps looking for the ‘mute’ button on his machine gun
8. He rides into battle on a Rascal scooter
7. His ‘reinforcements’ are a big bag of prunes
6. That headband in the latest Rambo was to help keep his wig in place
5. His stunt double is Eli Wallach
4. Instead of raw eggs, he’s gulping down Metamucil
3. Now, instead of bounding up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum, he uses the wheelchair ramp
2. His latest love interest was played by Betty White
1. To help him lift his gun, he’s been taking Viagra
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
I feel a little sad that this series is almost over. But Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is by far the most adult of the Harry Potter films and I found that I relished it in a whole new way. As Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) proclaims, “Well, well, well, look what we have here. It’s Harry Potter. He’s all bright, and shiny, and new again, just in time for the Dark Lord.” Oh, yeah. [Read more →]
Sometimes I play a game for my own amusement. I sprinkle references to musicals into my conversations and lectures and wait expectantly to see if anyone notices. A few years back a student returned to class after an absence and as I took roll, he asked facetiously if I missed him. I said, “I cried and cried until the tears came down and I could taste them.” No response. Then I added, “I love to taste my tears. I am special. I am special. Please, god, please… don’t let me be normal.”
After I got no response, I announced the name of the musical I quoted and asked if anyone had ever heard of it. Still no response. Then one of my brightest students, a fearless and flamboyantly “out” gay man, answered “No, I’m not that gay.”
My sons have been making construction paper turkeys in school with multicolored feathers that are labeled with the things for which they are thankful. So, here’s my one-feathered construction paper turkey: I’m thankful for artistic failure. Of course, if you have read any of my stuff before this, you will know that (1) “failure” is going to be qualified and that (2) I blame no one but myself for this failure. [Read more →]
I read in Playbill that Broadway’s original Harold Hill, Robert Preston, had a ritual whenever he went to a Broadway show. Just before the curtain was to go up, Preston would roll up his Playbill, place one end to his wife’s ear, and whisper “I love you” into the other. Damn. I wish I had thought of that.
I was almost deterred by the copious television commercials that made me fear Morning Glory would be another lame comedy. But the desire to see my seventies Star Wars crush and the amazing Annie Hall (ok, Diane Keaton) won, and I am glad. This film may be trivial, but it is light and fun, and better than the ads suggest. [Read more →]
Beethoven’s hair was crazy for a reason. I don’t think it had anything to do with styling, though. My own humble speculation is that it was not a conscious decision at all. Beethoven’s hair was messed up because he didn’t care that it was. It was messed up because he wanted to write music and because primping would eat up time he could better spend with quills and keys; therefore, the master’s external manifestation of artistic weirdness falls into a category I call “true bohemian weirdness.” [Read more →]
