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Carol Burnett will be featured as the voice of "Hara" in Disney’s upcoming animation adventure, The Secret World of Arrietty, opening in theatres on February 17.
Residing quietly beneath the floorboards are little people who live undetected in a secret world to be discovered, where the smallest may stand tallest of all. From the legendary Studio Ghibli ("Spirited Away," "Ponyo") comes "The Secret World of Arrietty," an animated adventure based on Mary Norton’s acclaimed children’s book series "The Borrowers."
THURSDAY, FEB 9: Carol will be appearing on Conan on TBS.
Check your local listings for the channel and time.
MONDAY, FEB 13: Carol will appear on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS. Check your local listings for the channel and time.
Visit Stage Voices Publishing for archived posts and sign up for free e-mail updates: http://www.stagevoices.com/
Ethel Merman passed on the original Hello, Dolly! because she was tired of living her “life in a dressing room.” Instead, for over 5000 performances, Carol Channing lived there. If you are just catching up with the latest installment of her life, after Channing’s 2002 memoir Just Lucky I Guess, which took her four and a half years to write, you’ll find that at ninety plus, she has remarried and lost a husband (her birthday is also this month). She tells us that she has just recently found out that her mother was Jewish (in the autobiography, we learned that her dad had African-American blood). On talk shows, in the past, she usually discussed her parents with regard to their family life as Christian Scientists. About her son, who was left in boarding schools—and for whom she made Ethel Waters an adopted grandmother (see yesterday’s blog for ‘Suppertime’)--or her previous husband, who had sex with her only twice in four decades--we don’t get much, not that you’ll hear her complain. Debbie Reynolds, interviewed for the documentary, breaks down almost immediately (she also suffered a husband who left her with nothing); the Dolly “waiters” are devastated by the loss of one of their number to AIDs. You might even find yourself becoming ridiculously nostalgic as you hear “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” or another Herman or Styne standard (interviews here include those with Loni Anderson, Tyne Daly, Betty Garrett, Jerry Herman, Angela Lansbury, Bob Mackie, Chita Rivera, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Tune, Barbara Walters, and JoAnne Worley, among others). Channing herself goes unfazed—she’s onto her next cue; the only analysis she’s interested in is how to play the moment, not the past. Like Dolly herself, who continued to talk to her husband after his death, Channing isn’t much interested in tragedy. She’s better for theatre than for film (Marge Champion tells us that she was too “big” for the camera) or even life. Somebody will undoubtedly provide a fuller assessment one day, but, for right now, console yourself with what’s on display here--like the classic joke about strawberries Channing tells TV host Gene Shalit, who is completely tickled pink.
Releases in LA, 1/20; opens in NY, SF, Expansion, 2/3
(Manohla Dargis’s article appeared in The New York Times, 12/1.)
As soon as a thrilling Ralph Fiennes appears on “Coriolanus” it’s clear why he chose this lesser-known Shakespeare tragedy for his directing debut. Dressed in camouflage fatigues Mr. Fiennes — as the mythic Roman military hero first known as Caius Martius and later Coriolanus — enters a raucous scene and commands it with just a glare. What power! The city’s hungry, rioting citizens, some carrying protest signs and one holding a camera phone, have descended, demanding food. Martius charges at them and then lets loose the contempt that will aid in his downfall: “What’s the matter, you dissentious rogues, that, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, make yourselves scabs?”
(Mike Fleming’s post ran in Deadline New York, 8/19.)
The Roman Polanski-directed Carnage is up with a new trailer. The drama, an adaptation of the hit Broadway play God of Carnage, stars Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz.
(Maev Kennedy’s article appeared 1/31 in the Guardian.)
A tiny lost treasure of ballet history has been discovered – 30 seconds of the Ballets Russes dancing in 1928, the only film ever found of a performance by one of the most influential and famous companies in dance history.
The scrap of silent black-and-white news reel was spotted wrongly labelled in the British Pathé online archive by a dance enthusiast, and identified by Jane Pritchard, curator of the recent exhibition about the company at the V&A museum in London.
(Sheri Jennings’s article appeared in the AP, 9/11.)
Julie Taymor's interpretation of "The Tempest" is a gender-flipped fantasy film, with Helen Mirren playing the lead in the take on the William Shakespeare classic.
The film was unveiled out of competition Saturday in the final hours of the Venice Film Festival, which was awarding its top Golden Lion prize in a gala evening ceremony.
Taymor switches the sex of the traditionally male sorcerer role, Prospero, to a female sorceress, Prospera, for the Oscar-winning Mirren.
(Peter Rainer's article appeared 1/5 on Bloomberg.)
Cary Grant Clings to Abe’s Nose in ‘Northwest’ Anniversary DVD
When asked to name my favorite movie, my answer is usually “North by Northwest,” Alfred Hitchcock’s exhilarating 1959 thriller. Warner Home Video recently marked the film’s 50th anniversary by releasing a remastered two-disc collection with oodles of extras.
The title may derive from “Hamlet,” but this is one of the least stage-bound movies ever made.
As a debonair Madison Avenue executive mistaken for a U.S. intelligence agent by James Mason’s gang of murderous foreign spies, Cary Grant is hunted across a compass-spinning array of locations. He scurries from New York’s Plaza hotel and United Nations headquarters to the plains of Indiana, the forests of South Dakota and, most memorably, Mount Rushmore, where he and Eva Marie Saint, playing a blond Mata Hari, cling for dear life from what appears to be Abe Lincoln’s nostril.
(Jennifer Homans's article appeared in The New Republic, 12/28.)
The Art of Work
La Danse: Le Ballet de L’Opéra de Paris
Frederick Wiseman
Frederick Wiseman’s new film about the Paris Opera Ballet begins with a building. In a series of staccato shots that follow one after another like a silent slide show, we move from an overview of Paris into the streets of the city until we find ourselves squarely in front of the Palais Garnier, the ornate nineteenth-century theater where the company performs. The next image is a shock. From this light-filled, outdoor Parisian world we suddenly find ourselves in a dark underground tunnel: we are in the catacombs and the bowels of the theater. The “slides” continue, still in silence: shots of dimly lit backstage areas with ancient-looking pulleys, cranks, pillars, and ropes neatly wound on the floor as if on an old ship’s deck. The weight and the age of the theater’s physical plant is palpable. Then we see a hallway, hear music, and Wiseman cuts to a rehearsal studio where dancers are taking class.
(Tim Teeman's article appeared in the Times of London, 12/4.)
Nine, Odeon Leicester Square
As he introduced the world premiere of Nine, the film’s director, Rob Marshall, paid tribute to the late Anthony Minghella, whose last project was the screenplay. “We all feel the loss of this extraordinary man,” said Marshall. The film is dedicated to Minghella.
If you haven’t seen or don’t know the original musical, and if you are seduced by the spectacular trailers, you might expect Nine to be a glittering cavalcade of frouffed and bouffed leading ladies (Penélope Cruz and Nicole Kidman among them), prowling slinkily around leading man Daniel Day-Lewis. But Nine is one of those rare things: a sombre musical, as gritty as it is glittery.
The story of Day-Lewis’s tormented film director Guido Contini is based on Fellini’s 8½ and was first performed on Broadway in 1982, with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston.
Marshall draws richly on this theatrical DNA. His main stage is precisely that: a skeletal ruin acting as a backdrop for both sombre torch songs and razzle-dazzle ’em, spotlit showstoppers.
The film is set in the sharp-suited, zingy Italy of the mid-1960s. Kate Hudson’s Stephanie, a journalist desperate to bed Contini, sings a ritzy tribute to the era of “motor cars and coffee bars”. But the frustrated Contini doesn’t sleep with her and cannot find the right starting-point for his new film, his block a result of his many tangled relationships with women, which are played out spectacularly in fantasy sequences of song and dance. Your love of Nine will be heavily dependent on the suspension of belief that musicals typically demand.
MOVIE: ‘CAROL CHANNING, LARGER THAN LIFE’ A FILM BY DORI BERINSTEIN
Ethel Merman passed on the original Hello, Dolly! because she was tired of living her “life in a dressing room.” Instead, for over 5000 performances, Carol Channing lived there. If you are just catching up with the latest installment of her life, after Channing’s 2002 memoir Just Lucky I Guess, which took her four and a half years to write, you’ll find that at ninety plus, she has remarried and lost a husband (her birthday is also this month). She tells us that she has just recently found out that her mother was Jewish (in the autobiography, we learned that her dad had African-American blood). On talk shows, in the past, she usually discussed her parents with regard to their family life as Christian Scientists. About her son, who was left in boarding schools—and for whom she made Ethel Waters an adopted grandmother (see yesterday’s blog for ‘Suppertime’)--or her previous husband, who had sex with her only twice in four decades--we don’t get much, not that you’ll hear her complain. Debbie Reynolds, interviewed for the documentary, breaks down almost immediately (she also suffered a husband who left her with nothing); the Dolly “waiters” are devastated by the loss of one of their number to AIDs. You might even find yourself becoming ridiculously nostalgic as you hear “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” or another Herman or Styne standard (interviews here include those with Loni Anderson, Tyne Daly, Betty Garrett, Jerry Herman, Angela Lansbury, Bob Mackie, Chita Rivera, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Tune, Barbara Walters, and JoAnne Worley, among others). Channing herself goes unfazed—she’s onto her next cue; the only analysis she’s interested in is how to play the moment, not the past. Like Dolly herself, who continued to talk to her husband after his death, Channing isn’t much interested in tragedy. She’s better for theatre than for film (Marge Champion tells us that she was too “big” for the camera) or even life. Somebody will undoubtedly provide a fuller assessment one day, but, for right now, console yourself with what’s on display here--like the classic joke about strawberries Channing tells TV host Gene Shalit, who is completely tickled pink.
Releases in LA, 1/20; opens in NY, SF, Expansion, 2/3
© 2012 by Bob Shuman. All rights Reserved.
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