May 5, 2008
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A week before his obsessively anticipated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens in U.S theaters, George Lucas has a reason to bite his fingernails--and not just because Iron Man seems to already have become the blockbuster darling of the summer.
On Monday, the film will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. To refresh your memory, the last Hollywood Goliath to attempt this kind of introduction was Ron Howard's adaptation of The Da Vinci Code two years ago. Cannes critics almost universally abhorred the film, and, unfortunately for Lucas and Spielberg, some early comments by unnamed Hollywood players have already deemed Crystal Skull a flashy failure as well.
"With all the perils and with the film guaranteed a huge opening, why is Indiana Jones entering the Kingdom of the Critical Knives?" wrote Timothy M. Gray in yesterday's Variety.
He went on to argue that at arguably the world's most artistically self-important venue, Lucas and Spielberg can remind their peers that they, in fact, are right at home alongside the great cinematic names of Europe. Most importantly, he wrote, these mass-audience darlings can afford to take the risk. The Da Vinci Code did, after all, gross more than $750 million worldwide.
That Indy, unlike Da Vinci, got its first slamming feedback well before its festival screening may have been its saving grace, Gray writes. Word travels instantly in the blogging age, and the dust may have already cleared by Monday.
"Like The Da Vinci Code, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not a film aimed for critics. Negative reviews can't hurt," he writes. "But after The Da Vinci Code, Crystal Skull proves exhibit B in the ongoing battle over whether critics matter."
The cultural magnitude of Harrison Ford and his whip may thus be the film's saving grace. A film this widely awaited is almost bound to return the costs of its colossal budget. Such is hardly the case for an array of small films making their debut at the festival this week and next.
As Manohla Dargis and A.O Scott wrote in The New York Times yesterday, this is just the beginning for an increasingly challenging distribution process. Warner Brothers recently shut down its two distribution channels for independent and foreign films, and with the shrinking of U.S newsrooms, fewer small-scale titles are likely to make it to public consciousness.
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In my post last week I linked to The New York Times' City Room-section that featured reader questions for the president of the Alliance for the Arts, Randall Bourscheidt. The topic was the state of the arts in New York City, and the often verbose inquiries included questions about donor funding, treatment of older artists and whether European countries with more generous government funding have an advantage.Bourscheidt took time to answer--in two separate sections, in fact. Access part one here and part two here. He breaks down the city's cultural funding process and even makes an attempt to explain in a paragraph why the public should care about the arts. It's a worthwhile glimpse into the frustrating, multifaceted time and place in which today's culture is attempting to thrive.
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Judging from recent coverage on the upcoming Sex and the City film, its long-overdue release couldn't have come at a more apt time to promote public discussion. To the recession-fearing public of 2008, fictional journalist Carrie Bradshaw's Manolo shopping sprees don't just appear charmingly utopian; they seem both outdated and irksome. This week's New York Magazine interview with Sarah Jessica Parker placed far greater focus on the cultural state of Manhattan than on the film itself; in transforming into Carrie's world of $14 cocktails and $500 heels, what happened to the city's ubiquitous, defining artistry?
"You know, when I arrived in the city in 1976, New York was financially a wreck,” Parker told New York's Emily Nussbaum. “But to me it's the New York that Matthew [Broderick] and I literally try to find every day of our lives. It was the best place in the world. It was literature. It promised everything. And for someone who loved food and smells and stimulation, who was rocked to sleep by the sound of taxis—well, there’s just so much money now, and the city is so affluent, and all the colors, all the shops, the look of a street from block to block is just terribly absent of distinguishing coffee shops, bodegas. All of that stuff that made it possible to live in New York is gone.”
The New York Times' decision to feature the president of the Alliance of the Arts in its Taking Questions-section this week might bear minimal connection to Sex and the City, but it confirms that the death of New York's bohemia is a prevailing topic in cultural journalism this spring. If the 40-plus reader questions so far are any indication, New York's chic stint seriously slowed down its creative pulse.
The readers, many of whom are part of the arts scene, have presented their list of inquiries with plenty of indignation to back them up. The alliance's president, Randall Bourscheidt, will have some multilayered concerns to dissect. The questions express dismay about artists' lack of health
care, the city's sluggish arts education, high rental costs for performance spaces, and dwindling donor support during a recession. Many of them, in true New Yorker fashion, aren’t questions at all, but rather just short manifestos about the city's emphasis on money and lack of artistic support.
Most real-life Manolo shoppers will of course prevail, somehow, but their fictional artist counterpart is losing the last traces of her credibility. That economic slumps call for movie fantasies could, however, be Carrie's saving grace.
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Even if you stopped tuning in to 'American Idol' after the unimpressive album sales of its recent winners began to give the show's title a slightly paradoxical quality, you most likely came across Paula Abdul's name in yesterday's news feeds.
If, somehow, you missed the drama that journalists have coined 'Paulagate,' here is Entertainment Weekly's Adam B.Vary's play-by play. In short, judge Abdul critiqued contestant Jason Castro's first and second performance of the night after he had only sung one song.
As if Idol's motivations weren't subject to enough hair-pulling in the blogs (is 17-year-old David Archuleta totally overrated? Does America ever vote for the best? Are these judges really qualified to judge vocal talent?), Paula's brainfart whipped reporters and bloggers into a rhetorical frenzy. Michael Slezak (also of Entertainment Weekly) wondered if this, finally, was evidence that the judges' comments have been pre-scripted all along. Paula's eventual explanation that she had mixed up Castro's dress rehearsal with his live performance has initiated further discussion over why Idol producers even allow their judges to watch the rehearsals.
Many journalists on-scene, including Richard Rushfield of The Los Angeles Times, gave their own play-by play of the night's events. Sitting in the audience on Tuesday night provided a slightly more revealing perspective than watching the events unfold on TV: You can decide for yourself by reading Rushfield's blog entry
Much of American Idol's success can be accredited to its pick-your-own-ending-formula that gives a viewer a sense of control. Any revelations of pre-determined judging could thus be seriously damaging to the show's future. Randy and Simon's consistent swooning over the same candidates already suggests a heavy bias towards a certain top two, and scripted commentary could make voters feel like little is, ultimately, in their hands. If the judges' reactions aren't based on the quality of the performances, who's then to say that the voting isn't somehow crooked as well?
Paula Abdul and Ryan Seacrest have already offered their explanations, but if Idol-tracking blogs and their comments are any indication, the public hasn't yet been willing to brush off the incident. Next season will determine if Idol's credibility is really in trouble, but there's also a good chance that amidst our speculation of the validity of reality shows like The Hills, a silly mistake on the part of one judge simply happened at the worst possible time. It's a visible crack of the surface of the Reality paradigm, and all of our eyes are drawn to it.
April 4, 2008
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About a month and a half ago, I attended a screening of indie documentarian Virginie-Alvine Perrette's 35-minute film that documents the closing of New York City's neighborhood stores (you can see my Q & A with Perrette here).The project is both an admirable exercise in inspired DIY-journalism and, hopefully, a wake-up call for New Yorkers. Perrette's effort to get to know her subjects during six years of filming shines through, and the result is both unassuming and genuinely affecting. She captured children reaching for treats across the counter, cardboard boxes exchanging hands and owners chatting with locals; in many cases, she stood alongside store owners with her camera as they closed their registers for the last time.Most importantly, the film isn't structured to be a sob story; to gain insight into what gentrification says about the state of our civilization, Perrette consulted several authors and academics. Their voices offer a credible frame to the finished film.Perrette is currently showing the film at venues around New York City. At least four screenings are scheduled for the next two months: -Saturday, May 3rd at 2pm. Sponsored by Long Island City Alliance, Quinn Building, 35-20 Broadway, 4th Floor, Long Island City, Queens-Saturday, May 10th at 3pm. Sponsored by Center For the Urban Environment, 167 7th Street, Brooklyn-Thursday, June 5th at 7pm. Sponsored by Common Cents, 570 Columbus Avenue, Manhattan-Thursday, June 12th at 7pm. St. Mark's Church In-the-Bowery, 131 East 10th Street, Manhattan If you're in the area, I strongly recommend attending. It's a way to show your support for both local businesses and local artists like Perrette.
11:28 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Welcome to Hollywood, Tom Cruise.
After his move to head up United Artists with producing partner Paula Wagner in late 2006, the publicly ridiculed star hasn't been able to reheat his career--even through films produced by his own studio. Nearly six months after Lions for Lambs, a film whose flashy PR campaign screamed Oscar-hopeful, tanked late last year, he now finds himself in limbo over his next film, Valkyrie.
First, The German Government refused to support the film that tells the story of Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, Colonel who plotted to assassinate Hitler in the tail end of World War II. It was speculated that officials had denied the studio to film at the Bendler Block because of Cruise's scientologist status--"A professing Scientologist in the role of Stauffenberg is like casting Judas as Jesus," wrote journalist Josef Joffe--but the defense ministry cited concerns about the portrayal of postwar Germany in the film as the official reason.
The government reversed its decision in September and filming proceeded, but as reported in The
New York Times yesterday, United Artists recently decided to push back the film's release for the third time. This delay-approach is known to be the kiss of death for a Hollywood project. 2001's Prozac Nation famously took several rain checks on its theatrical premiere, only to end up in the straight to video-pile. Meanwhile, imdb.com's daily discussion boards contain numerous exchanges about the mysterious delays of allegedly upcoming flicks. Holdups of release dates sustain curiosity to a degree, but the final result of intra-studio arguments rarely delivers with critics or audiences.
After all, wouldn't studio heads be eager to push out anything that contains real promise of commercial or awards success?
According to The Times, bloggers are already predicting Valkyrie to be a tragic end to Cruise's shot at creative success with United Artists.
"United Artists’ future will depend on reversing a growing perception — fed by an Internet culture that publicizes notions once confined to lunchtime gossipfests — that the studio took a wrong turn shortly after Ms. Wagner joined Mr. Cruise," Michael Cieply wrote.
United Artists hopes to allegedly create a cushion with two or three other upcoming films, one of which won't feature Cruise in its lineup.
Artistic setbacks are, needless to say, the worst possible PR for Cruise, whose public image is already less-than desirable for present and future business partners. And in a culture where news of internal debacles reach potential audiences as they unfold, careless publicity moves don't just bruise movie projects--they can be directly responsible of their failure.
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That the New York indie theater scene is drawing forced breaths and the gap between Broadway and off is more pronounced than ever is no news to arts-inclined locals. Sure, performers and writers are still everywhere, but Manhattan's astronomical rents are quickly molding its culture from gritty bohemia to hipster chic. Actors continue to flock to the city that historically belongs to them, and collective frustration builds. Besides an endless audition circuit and off-hours unpaid readings, a performer's most viable option is to partake in a theater festival or find a self-made audience online.
Title of Show, a meta-musical that will open on Broadway on July 17, found a fan base through both avenues. And it couldn't be more fitting that the show, written by its cast members Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, is about the thing itself: Writing a musical, against the pervasive forces of self-doubt, and submitting it to a theater festival.
After a successful run at the New York Musical Theater Fest in 2004 and Off-Broadway's Vineyard Theater in 2006, Title of Show has recently connected with a fresh following through eight 'webisodes' on its home page. In the spirit of the musical, these YouTube videos document its cast's efforts to get a Broadway contract. To date, the viewership of each episode ranges from 6,000 to over 17,000.
The idea for this method of self-promotion, writer/cast member Jeff Bowen says, sparked from the cast's shared antsiness about the future of their creation. A move from Off-Broadway to on was in the talks, but very much up on the air. "We were at a place where we didn't really know what was going on with the show," Bowen says, " and we thought, is there a way that we can set this ball in motion without having to wait for anybody to make a decision for us? So we just came up with the idea to go on Youtube, for the fans who had been asking what was going on."
The first episode sparked a multitude of fan emails, in which viewers wondered if a Broadway stint was truly a reality.
"We didn't know; we knew as much as we were telling our viewers," Bowen says.
As the cast added episodes, its fan base began to include viewers who didn't know of the musical but had caught on to the web series. Fan letters continued to drop in larger and larger volumes, and the show's soundtrack sales peaked. The large-scale interest, Bowen says, woke producers up to the show's marketability.
"[The web series] had everything to do with us going to Broadway," he says. "It definitely worked, it got the producers much more fired up about this new demographic who were coming in and didn't know anything about the show."
During the musical's 2006 run, some critics appreciated its earnestness and sass but found it too much of a theater geek's inside joke to resonate with the average patron.
What the creators would have said to the critics requires little guessing, "I'd rather be nine people's favorite thing than a hundred people's ninth favorite thing," Title of Show's autobiographical characters sing near the end of the musical.
As another self-made success story of the internet age comes true, the cast may have just done what even their most inspired lyrics didn't count on: Their creation, in a matter of months, has become a hundred people's favorite thing.
05:25 pm | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment
Over the past couple of years, Bravo network has accomplished a paradoxical feat by adding a highbrow-dimension to the reality television phenomenon. That I watch Rock of Love on VH1 every Sunday isn't likely to come up at an editorial meeting (in case you didn't know, the show documents Poison rocker Bret Michaels' quest for surgically enhanced true love), but sharing insights about the week's challenges on Project Runway or Top Chef is a perfectly acceptable way to pass an office lunch hour.
On the surface, Project Runway is a formulaic competition program, with weekly challenges and eliminations and bickering, frequently teary-eyed participants. But there's something about its serious emphasis on artistry that makes the show not just an opportunity to rest one's brain. Each week, the final verdict is based on the opinions of judges whom many of the contestants idolize; with all due respect to Paula Abdul, she is hardly the musical equivalent to Runway's visiting judge, Roberto Cavalli.
This week, however, Bravo lost this captain of its reality show lineup. Starting this November, The Weinstein Company-owned design show will move to Lifetime, a network known more for its clumsily executed original movies than critical nods.
Almost immediately after the story entered my google news feed, so did reports of an impending lawsuit. Bravo's parent, NBC Universal, apparently never agreed to this bizarre-seeming arrangement. According to the suit, The Weinstein Company had closed a deal with Lifetime without honoring a prior agreement that would allow NBC to match any purchase offer on Project Runway.
Bloggers are now reacting to the feud, wondering if the cult show will provide incentive for fans to turn on an otherwise mocked channel. "Is Runway sufficiently ready to wear on Lifetime?" wrote New York Post's Nicole Homewood. "Will you still watch?" she asked readers. Blogging Project Runway conducted an informal poll on its site and found nearly half of its readers to consider the show's move "a tranny mess" (an expression coined by season four winner Christian Siriano).
Despite Lifetime's solidified uncool-factor, it's doubtful that the network change will be enough to turn away loyal fans. Besides, the makeover might be Lifetime's long-overdue ticket to a more diverse audience.
"If Martha Stewart can make a K-Mart line work, maybe Lifetime can make "Runway" ferosh," MTV bloggers
wrote.
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Roundabout Theatre Company, New York's largest nonprofit theater initiative, is to be commended for keeping Disney-laden Broadway interesting in recent years. Although its latest revival, Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, hasn't created quite as much large-scale buzz as Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights, this stunning production should be a must-see before it closes in June.
Loosely based on French artist Georges Seurat's creation of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, the musical is Sondheim's meditation on the isolating, narcissistic nature of art that somehow ends in liberation and immortality. Its humanity and hypnotic appeal happen almost in spite of these themes; there are, after all, few experiences more off-putting than watching a successful artist's lament on the tribulations of being misunderstood.
The story shows Seurat (or simply "George") obsessing over his painting of passersby in the park, visualizing hats, trees, infants and sailboats and eliminating details he doesn't like: a little girl's clunky-framed glasses, a former lover's new family unit. In the process, he loses his muse and finds himself incapable of returning affection for anything but the stiff figures on his canvas. The second act jumps ahead a hundred years, to George's great-grandson presenting a piece of modern art inspired by Sunday Afternoon. All that remains of George's artistic agony is his most famous painting that, thanks to the inspiration it provides, gives a purpose to his failed personal life.
Even in the special effects-laden world of Broadway, Sunday is perhaps the only show that I could, if forced, watch without sound. The purposely bare-bones story is moved forward almost entirely by its animated visuals that do something remarkable: Evoke a jaw-drop reaction in viewers who routinely watch cities turn to ash on movie screens. Thanks to breakthroughs in computer animation, the audience watches a painter envision a dreamy landscape on the stage's white backdrop. Boats move, dogs scratch their ears, and, over time, a lush public space turns into a riverbank populated by industrial buildings.
A careful listen reveals thoughtful lyrics ("You watch the rest of the world from a window while you finish the hat," George sings), but in the end it's the images that most deliver the meaning of Sondheim's characters. From the first, gray line that George's imagination draws across the blank stage, Sunday is an experience that makes us believe in the otherworldly power of visual art--and a Broadway musical with layers and substance.
March 3, 2008
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At their most thought-provoking, works of art can provide a welcome news hook for resurfacing otherwise overlooked societal issues . Such is the case with two recent autism-related documentaries that delve into thedaily lives of affected children and their families. With their releases tied to the soon-to be commencing Autism Awareness Month, these films are generating notable media buzz.
This week, publications from coast to coast featured imagesof a smiling group of kids from Autism: The Musical that premiered on HBO on Tuesday. Directed by Tricia Regan, the film shows the rehearsal process of a musical production at a collaborative theater program called The Miracle Project. Although it highlights the unexpected abilities of an often misunderstood population, Autism: The Musical isn't all sweet and cuddly.
"It exposes you to a story that is not feel-good at all, but instead is full of stress and frustration and despair. It’s the story of what it’s like to be the parent of a child with autism or any other serious disability, a tale that deserves to be told even if it is difficult to watch," Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times wrote.
Lauren Thierry's film, Autism Every Day, has thus far earned less press--most likely because its screening date is not until next week and the host network, The Sundance Channel, is slightly less mainstream. Thephilosophical approach, however, is similar to Autism: The Musical. Living life with a disability can be upsetting, exhausting and isolating.
Roundups of the two films in the L.A Times and Newsweek used the opportunity to gather overall insight into the condition, and a recent NPR piece focused on a specialized school for autistic children. The disorder is making headlines again.
Alison Singer , spokesperson for Autism Speaks that funded the production of Autism Every Day, said that increased publicity can draw attention to the scope of autism: One in 150 children is diagnosed with the illness today.
"With that level of prevalence, everyone now is probably going to know someone whose life is affected by autism. And we want to create a more compassionate and caring community," she said. "So often families are telling us that instead of offering compassion and understanding if their child is behaving inappropriately in a supermarket or having a meltdown, families are greeted with scorn and disdain. We want people to understand that autism is a developmental disability and not the result of bad parenting."
Last year The New York Times called autism Hollywood's "disorder du jour," and the visibility of these documentaries might show that there is still more we need to know.
