What About the Ladies?

Okay, we’ve got the leading man category all sewn up, what about the ladies? Prevailing wisdom says Dame Helen Mirren will take the prize, and I’m not generally one to disagree with prevailing wisdom. Since, in my world, all roads lead to Matt Damon, I’ll just point out here that Ms. Mirren was born Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov, and in The Good Shepherd a lot of time is spent trying to discern which of two men is the similarly-named Valentin Mironov. Dame Helen played Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, and she was so believable I felt as if we were being allowed into the very private life of this very public monarch. Every move, every gesture, every articulated phrase was so much the queen I’ve come to know from a lifetime of television appearances that I had no difficulty at all believing that this queen reacted in this way to the death of that princess. One has to wonder how the actual queen felt watching this performance. I do hope we will one day learn Her Royal Highness’ response to Ms. Mirren’s dignified and seemingly uncanny impersonation.

The Dame has some rather stiff competition for this year’s brief embrace by a fickle Hollywood. Meryl Streep has been nominated 14 times (winning twice, for Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie’s Choice), and is this time nominated for playing hell in heels. Meryl’s portrayal of Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada not only fleshed out a rather one-sided character, but made her the center of focus for this rather slight story, which, in turn, made the story more interesting than it ever meant to be. Meryl definitely deserves accolades for her uproariously entertaining turn as a fashion doyenne of the bitchiest caliber. No no, it wasn’t a question.

Dame Judi Dench took the lonely old spinster role for a ride in Notes on a Scandal. In learning the secrets of a not-very-careful (and not-very-discriminating) younger teacher, Ms. Dench held the fate of Sheba Hart in her cigarette-laden hand. She also bore the burden of narration, keeping a lively pace in a somewhat sluggish plot. Between Dench’s line-delivery and Philip Glass’ ostentatious score, much more was made of this Scandal than might have been, or perhaps should have been…Likewise, Kate Winslet was nominated for a film called Little Children, whose repute is a little overstated, if you ask me. Basically, it’s a movie about two married people having an affair with each other and then deciding that it isn’t in their best interest. That’s fine for a Lifetime (television for women…and gay men) flick, but for a theatrical release you have to spend $10 for? I think it’s a whole lot of nothing very much.

Penelope Cruz, who my friend Cheryl thinks should be asked to stay home and not inflict us with her periodic bursts of “acting,” was nominated for her role in Pedro Almodóvar’s latest zany epic, Volver. At first, I was sure this film was about a car, but then I found out that’s actually Volvo. Then, I thought of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry can’t remember his girlfriend’s name and she reminds him it rhymes with a part of the female genitalia, so he guesses it must be Mulva. But no, neither of these two suspicions turned out to be correct. Although I generally hear this film’s title pronounced as “vol-vare,”, I discovered from imdb.com that the correct pronunciation is “bol-ber.” Unfortunately, that site didn’t tell me what the word means, so I turned instead to babelfish (which is not nominated for an award this year, even though the film Babel is) and found that “volver” means “to return.” So good for Penelope Cruz for returning to Spanish films in an Almodóvar masterpiece, and bravo to Almodóvar for returning to the old story of family secrets. But to get me to return to movies I have to read, it’s going to take more than that. So no, I haven’t seen this one.

Nonetheless, what a race we have, no?! A queen, a couple of Dames, Hollywood royalty and a former co-star of Matt Damon’s. Not exactly a horse race, but it’s fun to judge all the pretty horses anyway.

Forest Fires Me Up!

Well, it looks like the good shepherd’s chances for Oscar have departed. But Matt is such a good sport about it all, I'm sure he's applauding the other nominees right this very minute! As brilliant as Matt was as Colin Sullivan, the Academy just didn’t love him as much as they loved Leo’s accent, O’Toole’s womanizing, Gosling’s drug habit or the Fresh Prince’s slightly graying hair.

The actor everyone seems to agree will be the one to take home the gold statue this year is Forest Whitaker, whose amazingly nuanced performance as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland certainly threw me for a loop. From his first speech in front of a cheering crowd, where he insisted he was one of them, to his last speech in front of a brutally beaten man, where he insisted justice be meted out the same way it was in the village he came from, Mr. Whitaker’s performance is never less than fully realized. In one scene, an advisor is berated for not disagreeing with the dictator on the subject of deporting 50,000 Asians from Uganda (because things have turned out rather worse than he had hoped), and when the advisor reminds Mr. Amin that he did disagree, Amin says “But you did not persuade me.” In that scene, Mr. Whitaker persuaded me there was no one else who could have played this role as well. The charm, the passion, the intimidation, all the elements that brought Amin to power and led to his downfall were beautifully realized by Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland. Even if Matt were nominated for his performance in The Departed, I believe I’d still have to vote for Forest Whitaker for this year’s Achievement by a Leading Actor in a Motion Picture award. That’s how good he was!

As for Matt, he’s been talking about what a wonderful year he’s had, working with both Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. He’s earned fine reviews for his performance in The Good Shepherd, some saying he deserved an Oscar nod for his quiet fortitude. I still feel he wasn’t quite right for the role, but it’s nice to see him in glasses for a change. Of course, I’ve been one of the biggest supporters of his work in The Departed, spreading the word everywhere I can what a terrific job he did portraying someone so totally foreign to his own personality. That’s why they call it “acting” after all, right?

Had I the opportunity to vote for nominations this year, I might have chosen DiCaprio and Damon as Lead Actors for The Departed and Aaron Eckhart for his charming cad in Thank You For Smoking. Or I might have chosen Patrick Wilson’s behind, as it pleased me as much in Little Children as it did in the HBO presentation of Angels in America, maybe more so, since it was seen closer up. Or I might have chosen Jeremy Piven for Keeping Up With the Steins, because every time he came on screen I murmured “he’s pretty.” But I never would have chosen Will Smith. Not because his performance was bad, no, I’d have to actually see the film to be able to state such a thing, but because I just don’t like him. And since our current White House resident makes decisions all the time based on what he does and doesn’t like, I feel perfectly justified in doing the same.

So in this year’s Oscar competition we have an amazing performance, a man who was nominated for the wrong picture, a man who was nominated for eight pictures, a man who played Hercules on TV and a man who’s played a lot of arrogant characters who make fun of other people. Should be a fun race, no? Go Forest!

If...then...

There once was a man named Ken Mandelbaum and he used to write on a site called broadway.com. The site still exists, and so, I suppose, does Mr. Mandelbaum, but alas, they’re no longer together. Ken Mandelbaum used to write wonderfully insightful articles about the theatre, and perhaps he still does, somewhere out there on the corner of Another Revival and Bad Movie Remake. I bring him up today because he was given to using certain language that annoyed the living crap out of me. Oh, I enjoyed most of what he wrote, and I was thankful for his knowledge, but I noted with alarming frequency his use of a certain turn-of-phrase that just made my skin crawl. The phrase in question is the “if…then” scenario. Basically, it goes “if something is happening or has happened, then it’s somehow linked to this other thing that’s happening or has happened.” My problem is with the way he used it. Many times, I feel his thoughts on these subjects would be better served in a declarative structure, rather than something that begs the question “do I really know what I’m saying?”

For example, when discussing a stage tableau used in Baz Luhrmann’s production of La Bohème, he wrote: “If that moment elicits the biggest gasp of delight from the audience, this Bohème has many such ravishing moments.” Do you see what I mean? Isn’t he really saying that although that moment elicits the biggest gasp of delight from the audience, he’s happy to report the delight doesn’t end there? Why should he make that an inquiry? Is he unsure if that particular moment elicits the biggest gasp of delight from the audience? Does he think it does elicit the biggest gasp, but he’s not certain the entire audience is delighted? Or is the fact that the show has many moments as ravishing as that one somehow connected to the fact that one particular moment brings the most pleasure to all attending the performance Mr. Mandelbaum witnessed? It doesn’t seem to me that one has anything to do with the other. He seems to be fairly confidently stating that one moment in this production shines above the rest, but he wants to simultaneously reassure us that there are many rapturous moments to behold in Mr. Luhrmann’s staging of the Puccini opera.

Let’s have another go at this, shall we? In this instance, he’s bemoaning the overuse of a technique in the film version of Chicago that shifts the focus in musical numbers from reality to fantasy, and back again. He writes: “If Cell Block Tango comes off best, it’s also early in the film, before we realize this technique will be applied to just about every song.” Again, I wonder why he couldn’t have used the conjunction although (in spite of the fact that). His use of a different conjunction, if, seems to make the phrase conditional. That is, if Cell Block Tango were placed at a later moment in the film, it would not have come off as the best use of the aforementioned technique. Is that true? It’s hard to say, actually, because the song is where it is and we’ve already seen it there. I don’t suppose it would matter if we watched the DVD, and when that number comes up, skip to the next scene, then go back and watch Cell Block Tango after, say, Mister Cellophane, to see if now you’re completely sick of this back and forth reality/fantasy thing and Cell Block Tango no longer holds any charm for you.

In the first example, he seems to be saying if there weren’t many ravishing moments in Baz Luhrmann’s production of La Bohème, the staging of the scene he singles out would not have elicited the biggest gasp of delight from the audience. I definitely find fault with that logic. If the staging he had in mind was so faboo, I believe it still would have elicited the biggest gasp of delight from the audience were there a complete lack of other delights in the remainder of the show.

I only bring this up because I’ve been seeing it a lot lately – in magazines that wrap up the year in entertainment, in a Victorian era murder mystery I just finished, and in reviews of Broadway shows. What’s up with this use of conditional clauses? It’s a usage I believe to be entirely inappropriate. Why can’t journalists be more sure of themselves when they’re wrapping up a year or reviewing a show? If, if, if…it’s enough to make me pull out my hair! You won’t catch me saying things like “If Ben Affleck had the most immediate success following Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon is the better actor” or “If Europtrip was a rather juvenile romp, Matt Damon shocked and delighted in his turn as the punk-rock singer of the caustic ditty Scotty Doesn’t Know.” This is because I’m absolutely sure of myself in both instances. Matt Damon is a far better actor than Afflack (but it’s not a competition), and I was both shocked and delighted to see Matt Damon in the extremely childish Eurotrip (which included an all-too-brief scene on a nude beach with about 100 naked men!). So, writers everywhere, seize control of your opinions! Own up to your feelings! Abolish the conditional clause! Unless it’s really necessary.

Oh, and just in case you're wondering, if the picture above has absolutely nothing to do with this entry, I like it a great deal.

Matt's the One That I Want

Can you imagine if Matt had to audition for all of America to be considered for the lead in All the Pretty Horses? Ridiculous, right? Well, that’s pretty much how I feel about Grease You’re the One That I Want, the new NBC show that will allow viewers to choose the next Danny Zuko and Sandy Dumbrowski for a Broadway revival of this ever-popular musical (Grease).

It’s interesting to me that they chose to name this show after a song that isn’t actually in the original score. As a matter of fact, You’re the One That I Want wasn’t even added to the 1994 revival. It was, however, a part of the 1978 film version. The music and lyrics for this song about chills multiplying and boys losing control are by John Farrar, who, interestingly, wasn’t the one smugly taking credit for the creation of the show on NBC’s auditionpalooza last night. That man was Jim Jacobs, and he did, in fact, create the show, but he did it with Warren Casey, a fact which seems to have slipped the minds of the judges, the press representatives and the hosts of the reality-fest.

Is this the wave of the future? Do we want to see all future Broadway talent chosen by America’s citizens? Perhaps a more important question to the producers is "Will America’s citizens promise to come to Broadway and plunk down their dollars to see what they’ve wrought?" I think it’s only fair, don’t you? It will be interesting to see how well this show continues to fare in the ratings (the first show came in fourth after ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, CBS’s Cold Case rerun and Fox’s The Simpsons and American Dad offerings). I understand the ratings were considered “solid” at 6.9. I don’t really know how ratings work, but I do know that coming in fourth out of four network channels isn’t the best possible outcome.

In the UK recently, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber thought it would be a good idea to allow the British populace to choose who they’d like their new Maria von Trapp to be in his Really Useful Company revival of The Sound of Music. The public chose Connie Fisher, who sounds like a cross between Connie Frances and Carrie Fisher, but looks like Sandy Duncan. The production opened November 15, 2006 and according to Michael Billington in The Guardian, Connie’s a hit!

So who am I to carp? It worked once, who’s to say it can’t work again? However, I caution all of you to remember, Americans aren’t Englishmen. England is a much smaller country, and maybe it's easier for them all to agree on entertainers, since they all suffer from the same lack of sunshine. But on this side of the pond, what we think is entertaining in, say, Iowa, might not fly in NYC. So let’s keep our eyes open to see who America chooses for the leads in this new production, and see if Iowa, New York and all of the Bible Belt agree on what makes a 1950's couple hot! And while we're at it, let's also keep our ears open to find out whether or not John Farrar allows his song, You’re the One That I Want, to be included in this version of the show.

Can I Help Next

Years ago, when there was a World Trade Center here in NYC, I used to go to a little coffee wagon each morning for a large coffee with milk and a raisin bagel with butter. As I stood on a line that stretched from WTC 1 to WTC 2, the woman with the heavy Brooklyn accent behind the cart would shout out "Can I help next" with an upward slide on the final word to indicate this was a burning passion for her, this ability she had to assist her fellow humans, so great was her need to be of service she was almost unwilling to let the phrase end..."Can I help neeeeeeeeeext." I was never really sure whether this was intended as a question or a statement, as it was always shouted in the same monotonic, yet archly nasal way. I've frequently wondered what happened to this most urban salesclerk when the towers fell. Of course, I pray she was whisked off to safety by an accountant on his way out of the disaster, and that they're married today with two little nasal children, neither of whom drink coffee.

But that's not the point. The point is that people in New York City who are in a position to help others too frequently seem less inclined to practice a mannered approach to discourse. The brash Brooklynite mentioned above didn't even have the time to use proper grammar in her quest to reach the next customer. Similarly, at a deli I now visit daily for a low-fat tuna on a roll with lettuce and tomato, the nose-pierced woman behind the counter bellows "Next!" before the person in front of her has had the opportunity to put away the change she's blithely tossed in their general direction. My position here is that it would be more humane to allow the person to get themself together before forcing the next person to hand their fat-free tuna around the neck of the unfortunate individual attempting to organize their change purse.

I do understand the lunch line is lengthy, but unless people have become uncommonly slow in organizing their change and stepping clear of the counter, I do believe they ought to be afforded the opportunity to walk away from the deli counter, or the coffee wagon with dignity. We've become so rushed as a society we seem to be forgetting our manners.

Cyndi Lauper, on The Tonight Show in the 1980's used to explain to Johnny Carson that she believed in the PEG principle, that politeness, etiquette and grooming were qualities she not only esteemed, but espoused. I, too, long for a world in which people are treated with respect as they're waited on, whether at a fast-food counter, a token booth or a hotel reservation desk. I know we're all busy and the lines are long. I understand none of us is really interested in the job we're doing and we're really just thinking about the Matt Damon DVD we want to buy next, or wondering whether or not Matt Damon will be taking his shirt off in The Bourne Ultimatum at least once. But as we deal with one another on either a daily basis or for the first and only time, I think it would be life-affirming if we could strive to avoid grammatical shortcuts (okay, I'll say it, no ebonics!) and do unto each other the way we forgive those who trespass against us. Aaaaight?

Wonnerful! Now can I help next?