Thoroughly Modern Millie

Thoroughly Modern Millie is a 1967 musical film nominated for seven Academy Awards and five Golden Globes. In 2000 it was adapted for a successful stage musical of the same name starring Sutton Foster and in 2003 a DVD was released:


Which is what I'm reviewing for Jake.

Long story short, the movie is about a woman in the 1920's who wants to get a job so she can marry her boss so she is both earning her own money AND marrying for wealth instead of love (which is thoroughly modern for the time) AND, I almost forgot, who lives in an "All Girl's Hotel" where the house mother is selling the girls into white slavery.

Um, WHAT THE FUCK?

You heard it kids...and it's set to music.

Now when I went to rent it from the Video Store (yeah, I still do that. It's my cardio...), the employee there gave it a HORRIBLE review and thought I shouldn't even waste my time on it. (Which of course is why I rented it.) Come on: if I have to hear one more queen yell RASPBERRIES at me and I don't know what the fuck they're talking about, I'm gonna throw myself out of an airplane over Long Island.

So the movie starts off with Julie Andrews, looking young and beautiful as Millie Dillmount (Yep, the thoroughly modern one) and after a poor man's version of Good Morning Baltimore she meets and befriends Miss Dorothy Brown played by Mary Tyler Moore. Miss Dorothy is an actress who has left her safety and wealth to "live".

Overall, I hate this character, but I always hate characters like this, so it's no big deal.

At a friendship dance, Millie (in a FABULOUS yellow and black outfit) meets paper clip salesman Jimmy Smith, played by James Fox. Blah, blah, blah: they dance, she likes him, they go for a drive and park. (Is this the 20's or the 50's?!) Later she gets a job at a bank and that is where we meet Trevor Graydon. (I love him and he's gorgeous and I hate that he's a Republican) ladies and gentlemen, John Gavin:




She loves him, as do I, but he ends up loving Miss Dorothy.

Anyway, Jimmy later takes Millie and Miss Dorothy on an outing to Long Island, where they meet Carol Channing as Muzzy "Raspberries" Van Hossmere (can you say scene stealer?) and although Millie is falling in love with Jimmy, she is determined to stick to her plan and marry Trevor.

Drama.

So what I haven't gotten into was the B plot line of Mrs. Meers (the hotel house mother) making several attempts to kidnap Miss Dorothy and hand her over to her Asian henchmen. (I think this is supposed to be funny and maybe in 1967 it was hysterical, but frankly they should have just cut it out.) Finally Mrs. Meers succeeds and Millie realizes Miss Dorothy is just one of several girls who have vanished without a word to anyone. Cut to Jimmy dressing in drag to try and get abducted, which he does and then we end up in Chinatown (of course) and that's where we find a ton of girls all tied up and...really, who cares. It's all B Plot line stuff.

If it weren't for all the white slavery stuff, I actually found the movie pretty enjoyable. Julie Andrews is funny and John Gavin is gorgeous and I'll take that as my life ANYTIME. It's a little long but the costumes are wonderful and it's really a story about following your heart instead of your mind and again: I'll take that as my life ANYTIME.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Last night I went to the current production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum presented by Reprise! as part of their 2010 Season.

"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Inspired by the farces of the ancient Roman playwright Plautus (251–183 BC), specifically Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus and Mostellaria, it tells the bawdy story of a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master woo the girl next door. The plot displays many classic elements of farce, including puns, the slamming of doors, cases of mistaken identity (frequently involving characters disguising themselves as one another), and satirical comments on social class. The title derives from the line that vaudeville comedians often used to begin a story: "A funny thing happened on the way to the theater".

The musical's original 1962 Broadway run won several Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Book. A Funny Thing has enjoyed several Broadway and West End revivals and was made into a successful film. It is a popular choice for school and community theatre." (love that last "FYI" tidbit)

In my opinion, some of the cast is VERY talented. Stuart Ambrose as Miles Gloriosus and Ruth Williamson as Domina were my favorites. I just felt like the show wasn't quite "set-up" right. Like they weren't in on the joke even though they break the fourth wall multiple times. I'd love to blame Pseudolus (the narrator) but I don't think it's entirely his fault.

The first act is WAY TOO LONG or perhaps their pacing is just off. The second act flew by, but I don't think that's because it's half the length. (please, that's typical Sondheim!) It felt like, in the second act, they had settled in and got excited they were getting the laughs and they finally believed in their production. Which is TOTALLY understandable because a show like this NEEDS it's audience to respond. If it doesn't, it just feels like everything they're doing in just a hack-job, knock-off farce...and NOT in a good Noises Off kinda way....

Now, I've never seen the show before. I saw Jerome Robbins' Broadway, with Jason Alexander which features the number 'Comedy Tonight' (and LOVED it), but I have never seen a complete production OR the film version. I wanted to like it. I wanted to LOVE it. I wanted to find a new song to be obsessed with. (Which I did. It's called "Farewell" and apparently they cut it out of all productions and put it back in for this one. BASTARDS!) It's just...well...here's what I'm gonna say: After watching clips for the film AND the 1996 Broadway Revival with Nathan Lane (as I wrote this review), I think I can put it all on the director. It wasn't Reprise's fault because their last production of Carousel was AMAZING! Perfect, even. (and I had never seen THAT show before either.) Yeah, poor direction and not enough screaming for final rehearsal week is where I put the problem. This show had to be faster and funnier and the boring people should have been fired. There's no room for boring in a farce unless it's dialogue referring to the news coverage of Tiger Woods. Yep. It had to be faster and funnier.

It wasn't.

Ironically, many funny things DID happen on the way to see Forum, but not that many funny things happened once the show began.

Dreamgirls, The Musical Tour

I've seen a few CLO productions of Dreamgirls and liked them. I've never loved them but they worked. When I heard that this production of Dreamgirls was touring I thought I HAD to go see a "REAL" production of it.

I didn't LOVE it, but most of it worked.

Billed as "Slick, sleek and glitzy", I guess they WERE right. (Even though the rumblings I heard during intermission is that the L.E.D. PANELS instead of sets was kinda boring...and I think that's supposed to be the SLICK part...and, well, I agree. They WERE boring.) That was one of the things I thought was amatuerish about this production besides that fact that all of the female characters all looked like little girls running around on stage instead of show-stopping Broadway stars commanding it. (Wow, that sounded bitchy.)

There's only SO much you can do when your set for the entire show is really just bigger versions of the fences from the helicopter scene in Miss Saigon (AND THOSE PEOPLE COULDN'T EVEN GET TO THE OTHER SIDE!!!), so a lot of time people are just kind of walking around downstage and singing out to audience instead of each other. It was weird and VERY high school productiony. What else was weird was that they kept in scene change music, when there was no set to change and then they cut out all the "Showbiz...Its. Just. Showbiz" stuff. Like, umm, WHY? The people could have been singing that instead of standing downstage waiting for the scenery not to change.

Whatever. I think I got over it, once the sets REALLY serviced the production (like during the 'TV Specials' segment. TOTALLY freakin' brilliant) instead of the production servicing the multi-million dollar panels.

Syesha Mercado as Deena Jones was good. Great, even. It's really a thankless role and I've never noticed that before. (But, I'm sure Beyoncè did, OKAY!?!?!) I thought she was really one of the only performers whose character actually grew and changed and expressed some REAL emotion. I never watched her on American Idol so I don't know WHAT she's like, performing wise, vocally or anything else, but I thought she did great and her character gets overshadowed a lot more than you think it would...

Moya Angela as Effie White, isn't bad, she just isn't great. She sounds JUST LIKE Lillias White when she sings but has nowhere NEAR the range...OR charisma. Her acting is High School Junior at best and once she hits the second act, she gets kind of gay boy doing black-girlish instead of a more centered powerful woman, EXCEPT for her second act number "I Am Changing". It KILLED twice as hard as "And Im Telling You". KILLED! IT WAS AMAZING!!! Why? Personally, I think it was because she could probably relate or there's NO pressure on that song, because for her And I'm Telling You I felt like she was focused on hoping people thought she could sing better than Jennifer Hudson while she was busy trying to do ALL the blocking Jennifer Holliday actually had modivation for.

Chaz Lamar Shepherd as Curtis wasn't AT ALL enjoyable. Every time he was onstage I kept thinking about who I would send a letter to so that they would give him the note of QUIT TRYING. He can NOT sing as well as the others in the cast, but MAN does he try. I wanted to scream: QUIT TAKING YOUR TIME AND STOP THOSE FUCKING VOCAL TWIRLS AND FOR CHRIST SAKE THIS SONG IS SYNCOPATED FOR A REASON: SING IT THE WAY IT WAS WRITTEN, YOU'RE FUCKING EVERYONE ONE ELSE UP! Ugh, totally annoying AND distracting even though he has "EVIL CONMAN CHARACTER" down to an art form.

Chester Gregory as James "Thunder" Early is the BEST thing in this show. THE BEST. HE STEALS THE SHOW. His curtain call applause at our performance out shown Effie's by a LONG shot. He's funny, charming, a BRILLIANT singer, AMAZING timing, dedicated to everywhere his character is going and has gone. You couldn't wait for him to come back on stage because EVERY THING he did was brilliant. He milked everything for what it's worth while NOT over doing it...how he does that, I have no idea, but he's a genius in this role and production.


GO SEE THIS JUST TO WITNESS HIM.

The pacing of this show is great (except when Curtis is singing), most of the costumes looked like they were borrowed from a bevy of retired drag queens (Only a couple looked like BROADWAY PRODUCTION costumes, and those were amazing.) The Orchestra is split up with the piano, drums and bass onstage and the rest down in the pit and when the "stage" band is playing it totally overpowers the singers and you can't understand a word they are singing OR saying.

WITH THAT SAID: I didn't walk out. I wasn't bored, I didn't hate it. I thought it was enjoyable and people who don't know anything about anything LOVED it. (all the gays I saw there thought it was 'fun'. Ugh. Kiss of death. Fun is the new 'Neat'.)

Would I go see it again? If it was free and we had house seats, YES. I would go to see if what I saw was their best performance or if they were just saving up for their 4 show weekend ahead of them...

Alice in Wonderland

It's not the worst piece of crap ever, it's enjoyable. Not because of Johnny Depp in clown drag as Elijah Wood, but SOLELY because of Helena Bonham Carter. She perfect. Nothing she does is this movie misses or fails in ANY way...
...Big head and all.

I have NO idea what this movie was REALLY about. The film's prologue isn't about anything and honestly all they had to do was start with her falling down the rabbithole and the movie could have begun. Instead they try to give it some subplot or story or something to try and make it a legit film when everyone is just there to see certain characters in 3-D. SO, JUST GET TO IT ALL READY!!!!

Back story:
Tim Burton said the original Wonderland story was always about a girl wandering around from one weird character to another and he never felt a connection emotionally, so he wanted to make it feel more like a story than a series of events. He was also quoted as NOT seeing this as a sequel to previous films or a re-imagining.

WELL THAN, WHAT THE HELL IS IT?!?!?

I mean, it DEFINITELY wasn't re-imagined. I got that. Re-telling, perhaps, but I couldn't figure out what the end of the movie was about or why she has to fight a dragon or whatever it was...until I got home and saw the film billed as a "Fantasy/Action".

Really? It's an ACTION film? Ugh. What a joke...fuckin' Hollywood drives me crazy.

The Cast:
Mia Wasikowska who plays Alice, really could have been played by ANYONE. How or why she got cast in this role is BEYOND me. Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter was a total disaster. Here's what Wikipedia said about his character:

Tim Burton explained that Depp "tried to find a grounding to the character, something that you feel, as opposed to just being mad. In a lot of versions it's a very one-note kind of character and you know his goal was to try and bring out a human side to the strangeness of the character. The orange hair is an allusion to the mercury poisoning suffered by many hatters who used mercury to cure felt."

According to Depp: "I think he was poisoned, very, very poisoned, and it was coming out through his hair, through his fingernails and eyes. Depp stated that the Mad Hatter is like 'A mood ring, his emotions are very close to the surface'. Depp and Burton decided that the Mad Hatter's clothes, skin, hair, personality and accent should change throughout the film to reflect his emotions. The Mad Hatter is "made up of different people and their extreme sides", with the Scottish Glaswegian accent (which Depp had modelled after Gregor Fisher's Rab C. Nesbitt character) reflecting a darker, more dangerous personality.

You're kidding, right?

ALL of THAT went into that? You guys are WAY too into yourselves. The look had NOTHING to do with anything, the same with the accent. I didn't think you were a talented actor, Johnny, I thought you were making a fool out of yourself worse that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If he would have just played The Mad Hatter and not try to be so fucking narcissistic about some artsy career, you would have been able to give a good performance, instead we got a Carrot Top looking Jake Sparrow knock-off talking hack job of a character by an actor who has to hide behind costumes to shield poor performances.

Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, is seriously perfect. One of my favorite roles EVER. Funny, mean, awful, right, wrong, fabulous, spoiled. Everything. The film is hers and no matter of billing or editting can take it away from her.


Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, is boring and as distracting as her eyebrows. I think I may just hate her though, so I'm probably not being entirely fair. You can see by her portrayal of the character that she thinks it's very eccentric and dramatic. According to Hathaway,

"She comes from the same gene pool as the Red Queen. She really likes the dark side, but she's so scared of going too far into it that she's made everything appear very light and happy. But she's living in that place out of fear that she won't be able to control herself." Hathaway describes her interpretation of the White Queen as "a punk-rock, vegan pacifist", with inspiration drawn from Blondie, Greta Garbo, and the artwork of Dan Flavin.

Um, "A" get a grip. "B" It's uneven, distracting and unreal at best. (But I'm glad she thinks she's a real actress!)

Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts is entertaining and the stunt casting of Matt Lucas (Little Britain) as Tweedledee and Tweedledum works.

What do I REALLY think? I think it's in 3-D and there are TONS of things to look at when you get bored so you'll be kept busy the entire time. Did you see The Fifth Element? I have NO idea what that movie was about but I LOVED it. That's kinda like how I felt about this. It's pretty to look at, a performance or two is stunning and the movies not really about anything. The movie "goes somewhere" but when it's over you really don't know what happened, but you enjoyed it.

Let's put it this way, this review is as uneven as the film.

There.

NOW does it make sense? LOL!