Walter Monheit Lives!

Only now, he's cloned himself and changed his name to Peter Travers and Pete Hammond.

Bonus points if you even remember Walter Monheit, and which magazine he gave his reviews for. Fire off a comment if you know.

I don't want to hear...

...movie ads for films that HAVEN'T EVEN COME OUT YET that include the line, "...and now, (name of movie) has been nominated for (number) Golden Globe Awards!" THE MOVIE ISN'T EVEN OUT YET!

The Golden Globes are a total waste of my time! Who has time to go to the movies during the holidays?

Little Men Watching Movies

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/09/you_give_out_too_many_stars.html includes a wonderful explanation of the Little Man rating system, all the way from the cheering man to the empty seat.

Don't Meet These Spartans

I don't ordinarily do movie reviews - that's best left to the many "experts" on the Internet who think they're A.O. Scott - but I have to say that "Meet The Spartans" probably represented the most excruciating 75 minutes I've ever spent in a theatre. Only redeeming feature: Carmen Electra. That's pretty much the only time I was awake during the film.

Had I known from the start this film was so poor, I wouldn't have gone. I publicly regret making the decision to see this film.

Tssss! More "Hairspray"

As a music arranger, I find articles about the process quite fascinating, so here is an interview with Marc Shaiman and how he created the score and those incredible orchestrations for "Hairspray" I talked about in yesterday's post. (A couple of nasty words should not stop you from reading this.) Shaiman, of course, wrote the songs for the musical with his partner Scott Wittman.

BTW, if you recognize the name, Marc Shaiman was sort of an adjunct member of the SNL Band in the late 80's, playing piano and arranging medleys for the Sweeney Sisters sketches featuring Jan Hooks and Nora Dunn.

"Hairspray": Some More Thoughts

I went to a matinee of "Hairspray", the new musical film, with the girls yesterday (as alluded to in the previous post). Part of the fun of these movies is trying to find things that don't quite mesh chronologically. In the first five minutes of the film, I found the first one as a 1963 Chevrolet Bel-Air whizzed by, a car that would not have been made yet in the spring of 1962. And then, later on, in Motormouth Maybelle's record store, there's a copy of Junior Walker's "Road Runner" album, which the sax great didn't record until 1966. Robair thinks some of the songs on Corny Collins' countdown board came out after the events of the movie transpired, and may not ever have charted together as a group... we'll have to wait until the DVD comes out to break that down.

Whose performances was I impressed with? Well, I always get a kick out of Christopher Walken, who's playing Tracy's dad in this film (and taking over from Jerry Stiller, who's moved over into another role in the new movie). Michelle Pfeiffer is great as well as the TV station manager and she and Walken have a great number together. Allison Janney was very funny as the mom of Penny Pingleton (Amanda Bynes). Some of the young performers were good too such as Jason Marsden (who played Corny Collins), Brittany Snow, and star Nicole Blonsky. Bynes, as Penny, got off some good lines and did some of her trademark pratfalls. Elijah Kelley played the guy Penny falls for, driving a lot of the plot of this film.

But John Travolta? My goodness, 30-some years after "Moment by Moment", he STILL looks like Lily Tomlin! And in drag and a fat suit, he looks like a bloated Lily Tomlin! I'm sorry, I just couldn't get that image out of my head. But he did dance pretty well, shaking his prosthetic ass for the camera. (And that's probably the only time you'll ever see that phrase on this blog. Bottle this moment in time.)

The songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman were great. These songs have worked on Broadway for several years and they sound much bolder on the big screen (and have the benefit of some great orchestrations). (Shaiman, Wittman, director Adam Shankman, and original "Hairspray" star Ricki Lake - not looking anything like the chunky Tracy of '88 - all had cameos in the film as talent agents.)

The one thing I miss about this new version? "It's Madison Time! HIT IT!"

"Ray"

Usually when I pop a movie into the DVD player, I doze off and fall asleep about 30 minutes in, particularly if the day at work has been a little on the draining side.

Such was not the case with "Ray". What a mesmerizing cinematic experience, and not at all deadly dull - even in the almost 3-hour-long "added footage" version.

Jamie Foxx is definitely deserving of his Best Actor Academy Award. He BECOMES Ray Charles, down to the facial mannerisms, the bobbing around at the piano, and his speech mannerisms. But lest it become a one-dimensional "In Living Color" parody, Jamie throws his considerable acting skill behind it and takes it to levels never before seen from someone who cut his teeth in sketch comedy. Foxx did some of his own performing, mostly songs from early in Ray Charles' career; when the more familiar tunes came up on the soundtrack, Foxx mimed to the original Ray Charles recordings like "Hit The Road Jack" and "Georgia On My Mind".

If you're a music buff, you'll enjoy the significance of the contacts he makes along the way - meeting up with a similarly young Quincy Jones early in their careers, signing with Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun (nicely played by Curtis Armstrong) of Atlantic Records, touring with sax player David "Fathead" Newman (who the closing titles note still tours the world and practices a healthy drug-free lifestyle). His switch in the late 1950's to ABC-Paramount Records is also given some play, in a nice scene where the Atlantic honchos are chiding him for making a business decision, but eventually Ertegun, realizing the Atlantic resources aren't as deep as ABC-Paramount's, gives Charles his blessing for the move. Of course, at ABC-Paramount, Charles started out doing songs like "Hit The Road Jack" and later migrated into country stylings with choir and string backgrounds, songs like "Born To Lose" and "I Can't Stop Loving You".

The frequent scenes of Ray Charles and others shooting heroin are mostly what gives this film its PG-13 rating. But his heroin use is not without consequence, as we see him going through withdrawl (without the benefit of methadone) in gripping scenes.

If you don't have one, you can get either the Widescreen Edition or the Deluxe 2-Disc set, by clicking the links. Do it, and you'll see why Mr. Foxx deserved his Oscar.

Blog On Oscar Night

It's always entertaining to read blogs as the Oscar telecast is going on. Last year, I made my destination Box Office Prophets, which had a panel of its best writers, and the added load of all the Oscar blog readers crashed that site into oblivion for about a week.

This year, my Blog destination for Oscar night is going to be Mark Evanier's News From Me. Mark and I have crossed paths many times over the years, though we have never met. I was a reader 20 years ago of his fine comic books "DNAgents" and "Crossfire", the latter of which included not letters from readers, but very interesting essays on show business. When I was Fearless Leader of APATOONS, Mark was one of our honorary members and was thus entitled to mailings without contributions. Now Mark's running this newsfeed, and it's really a treat to read his opinions on matters big and small, covering both showbiz and politics in equal doses. Professionally, Mark is probably most renowned for writing and voice directing every single episode of the "Garfield And Friends" cartoon series, one of the best Saturday Morning shows when cartoons still ruled that daypart. So go hear with Mark has to say on Oscar night! And hopefully it won't crash!

Ooh, "The Chase"

For one brief moment, I thought I was living in Los Angeles... or reliving an old Charlie Sheen movie.

At approximately 5:03 p.m. today, Channels 2 and 7 in New York featured helicopter footage of a police car chase that began in Hunterdon County and ended in a driveway in Bayonne. Such chases are an almost daily event in the Number Two TV market, but in New York they are almost unheard of. Channels 4 and 5 had the editorial good taste not to join their competitiors in the high-skies fray.

The old Charlie Sheen movie I was alluding to was "The Chase", in which Sheen (with Kristy Swanson riding shotgun) eludes cops in a high-speed, high-stakes gamble that is covered by two rival news teams. It frequently shows up on cable to this day. The film doesn't know if it wants to be a serious chase drama, or a goofy sendup of local TV news coverage, but it's one of those movies that has its moments. Mostly when Swanson is on screen.

And speaking of Sheen, how delicious was it seeing Jenna Elfman the other night on "Two And A Half Men"? Hey Chuck Lorre... sign that kid up, she's good! (Yeah, I know Mrs. Elfman and Lorre have a past together...)

She Had Legs And She Knew How To Use Them

That description suited Ann Miller to a T, right up until her passing this week. Although she made lots of film musicals (and literally had million dollar legs, the value of RKO's insurance policy), Ann Miller will probably be best remembered for a Heinz Soup commercial. That genius of the black art known as advertising, Stan Freberg, engineered a commercial in which a husband (played by Dave Willock) comes home and asks his wife what's for dinner. (So PI!) Ann Miller breaks into a choreographed dance routine and the kitchen splits apart to reveal a dance stage worthy of Busby Berkeley himself. Once she's sang and danced and spread the message about Heinz' soups, Willock deadpans, "Honey, why do you always have to make dinner into a big production?"

Classic Freberg... and the dancing wasn't bad either. Ann Miller kept active in films until last year; her last film role was in "Mulholland Drive" a few years ago. Ann Miller's status as retired dance queen was the parodic source for a mid-90's SNL sketch called "Leg Up!", featuring Molly Shannon as Ann Miller and Cheri Oteri as Debbie Reynolds.