That title is a lyric from a favorite Warren Zevon song, “Lord Byron’s Luggage” (a song that’s also noteworthy for successfully building a rhyme around the term persona non grata). It seemed an apt description for how I’m feeling as I look back on 2011.
It’s not a bad view, as these things go. Read more
There are two things about my brother Chris that must be made clear. One: if he recommends a movie to our family, then it will be a very, very good movie; and Two: one of his absolute favorite filmmakers is Wes Anderson.
And so it was that Christmas Eve found us together, watching Rushmore for the first time. Though I’ve loved every Wes Anderson film I’ve seen, I’ll admit that I haven’t seen nearly enough of his work to justifiably call myself a fan. Of course I’ve never let that stop me, but after seeing his second feature, I feel a little more qualified to keep saying it.
One of the things I love about seeing a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse is the pre-show entertainment. So when the time came to see The Muppets, there really wasn’t much question of where I’d go.
Of course, as I walked into the auditorium, a clip from The Muppet Show was playing: Harry Belafonte’s transcendent performance of “Turn The World Around”. With just a few frames, I was a kid again, in that time when the Muppets HAD me with every show.
And when the movie started, they had me all over again… Read more
As I write this, it’s just shy of five years since I met Nikki, and just shy of just shy since I informally joined the PrimaDonna team. I’d like to think I’ve learned a few things about the industry in that time, but it’s still a surprise, and no little honor, when I’m asked to share my experiences with others. Me being an ex-teacher and all, I have a hard time passing up that kind of opportunity.
And that kind of opportunity came again a couple of weeks ago, with an invitation from that man about two towns, Michael Druck. Home from New York for a time, Michael (through his Actors Network SA) was hosting an Actors Expo, an event designed to bring talent together to network with and learn from industry professionals. (Michael being Michael, the event also served as a fundraiser for the North East School of the Arts, one of the many essential organizations that foster and encourage the growth of young talent here in S.A.)
And that list of professionals turned out to include me. Read more
I’ve written before about the whole concept of certification, the idea (put forth by Walker Percy in The Moviegoer) that some places only become real to us once we’ve seen them onscreen. And I’m hard pressed to think of a place for which that’s more true than New York.
Of course I’ve never actually been there. But I can’t be the only one who feels like he has, because I’ve seen it in so many films and shows, heard it in so many songs, read it in so many stories. In the best of those, the city becomes a living character in his own right.
Which brings me to a certain subway train… Read more
Over four weeks of rehearsing The Love List, we had a list of our own to work on. And with each run-through, we refined and tweaked it, checking and re-checking each item.
It goes without saying – so of course I’m saying it anyway – that the dress rehearsal is one of the last, and therefore most important, steps in that process. It’s where we take all the pieces we’ve created and collected and put them together to see how they work as a whole. Set: check. Props: check. Costumes: check. Blocking: check. Lines memorized: check. Sound and light: check. MaMaLu Olivo as our stage manager: check. It’s our best chance to see how the show will play before we bring the audience into the theater. Read more
It’s a masterwork of writing and acting, and typical of Gilligan’s method/madness, building a shocking outcome on a foundation of nearly unbearable tension and pitch-perfect performances.
When I wrote that some while ago, fans were still abuzz over that “money shot” of Breaking Bad‘s season premiere. “Box Cutter” set a standard that any other season of any other series would struggle to merely approach, let alone maintain. But I was sure that Vince Gilligan and his cast and crew were up to the challenge.
I had no idea… Read more
As I write this, we’re nine days from opening night for The Love List. And in our third week of rehearsals, the play continues to take shape, each run-through bringing us closer to that one moment we’re all striving for. Read more
Working on last year’s Renaissance Guild/PDP co-production of Rumors was really an incredible experience, as you likely remember from my Rumors Control series. I’d learned so much, gained some great new friends, and was pretty sad to see it all end.
But now I get to go through it all over again. Read more
Even in my younger days, as I remember them, my favorite Westerns were always the films that dealt with the passing of the West. I’ve always been drawn to stories of cowboys who struggle to come to terms with a time and place that no longer seem to have time or place for them or their values. John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and – more subtly – The Searchers are classic examples of this kind of tale.
The one that has really stuck with me, though, is a film that distills that theme to its essence. Its star still cites it as one of his favorite performances. It helped launch the career of one of film’s greatest composers. And it might just be my favorite Western. Read more
