Leslie Caron made a lot of films, but she’ll always be “Gigi” to me.
And that girl from “An American in Paris”.
Tag Archives: movies
Happy Birthday, Olivia De Havilland
How many actresses won 2 Oscars, starred in arguably the most famous film ever made, hung out with Errol Flynn and beat up Bette Davis?
Miss De Havilland has crammed a lot into her 95 years…
Filed under Entertainment, Movies
New York Diary: Part 2: Lysistrata Jones, A Motherf@cker, Diana Sands and Roses from Howard McGillin
I started my second day in New York on Fifth Avenue. I had forgotten how much Fifth Avenue got on my nerves now…
Like most of Mid Town Manhattan, between 40th and 50th Streets, Fifth Avenue is now just like part of Branson, Missouri or Myrtle Beach South, Carolina. It is tourist hell.
New York has become entirely too safe. I really am starting to miss the days when the only time you saw teenagers in Times Square was if they were there to turn tricks or buy drugs. That would be vastly preferable to slack jawed idiots who stop cold on the side walk to gape at the tall buildings. Or families who leisurely stroll up the side walks four or six abreast. It’s really country come to town time….
Broadway really is starting to reflect this more and more each season. There’s just not a lot on Broadway that I want to see- or put up with the tourists to see.
Even though I loved “Catch Me If You Can”, I still had to put up with five or six cretinous teenage girls sitting behind us talking and periodically noisily unwrapping food through the whole show. That’s why they are putting on junk shows like “Spiderman”, “The Adams Family”, “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” and “Sister Act”. It’s all for this crowd.
There is a big difference in both the quality of the shows and the quality of the audience once you go off-Broadway.
That’s one of the reasons I loved seeing “Lysistrata Jones” down in the East Village Friday night. It was in a Church Gym and had a real New York audience. Real New York audiences don’t applaud the scenery and they loved “Lysistrata Jones”. As did we. It is a modern re-telling of the Greek play “Lysistrata” where the women withheld sex to stop the war. In this version, cheerleaders withhold sex in order to get their slacker basketball player boyfriends to actually try to win a game. It was a musical. It was wonderful. It reminded us of a mix of “Glee”, “Xanadu” and a touch of “Spring Awakening”.
Saturday was a full day with three shows.
First up was “The Motherf@cker with the Hat”. This was nominated for multiple Tony Awards and deserved them all. It was a comedy about addiction. Addiction to drugs, addiction to sex, addiction to the past, addiction to people…Amazing performances.
Having not seen “Jerusalem”, I would have voted Bobby Cannavale the Best Actor Tony award. He was amazing. Chris Rock was very good. The set was amazing. The play was amazing. I’m so glad we saw it. It’s so rare to see a really good new play on Broadway…
We went from there to my partner Steve Willis’ play reading. It was an almost sold out house for his play “Diana Sands”. It was a new version of the play and it was very well received. It was a great time. Good people, good audience, good play. We’ll see where it goes from here…
We cabbed it uptown from there to see the off Broadway show “The Best is Yet to Come”, the new musical review of Cy Coleman’s songs. Great cast of Broadway veterans including Lillias White, Howard McGillin, Rachel York, David Burnham, Natascia Diaz and Billy Stritch. Great audience of New Yorkers and not tourists.
We had seen Lillias in her Tony Award winning performance in Cy Coleman’s “The Life” and it was great to see her recreate her show stopping number again. She’s an amazing performer. Rachel York was beautiful and delivered some great moments. The rest of the cast was delightful.
Howard McGillin has always been one of our favorites. We love his CD/Album and play it frequently. He’s spent most of the last 15 years going in and out of “Phantom of the Opera” where he’s played the lead more than any other actor. Something like 17 million performances….
He’s much more than that…It was great to see him up close and personal from the third row of a very small theatre. He is so good…and aging very well.
At the end of one song, he threw a rose into the audience. It landed in my lap. Several elderly New York women now hate me…
A rose from Howard McGillin is not a bad way to end a Saturday night in New York.
It’s even better ending the evening by going back to a comfortable hotel with Steve Willis and knowing there is more to do on Sunday, one of my favorite days in New York…
Happy Birthday, Neil Patrick Harris!
This guy is a National Treasure
And he’s only 38 years old today….
I hope he has many, many more Happy Birthday’s ahead…
Here are some scenes from his wonderful job as Tony Host Sunday night….
Filed under Broadway, Movies, Television, Uncategorized
Midnight In Paris
We saw “Midnight in Paris” this afternoon. This is the best movie Woody Allen has done in years.
I’m not an Owen Wilson fan, but he was very good in this film. Marion Cotillard was luminous. Every time I see her, I am just amazed by both her talent and her beauty. There were too many excellent supporting performances to mention. Beautifully done.
And Paris. This film is a love song to Paris and Allen shows her at her best. After seeing this film, I can’t wait to go back there again…I need to go back there again.
And as an added benefit, which isn’t clear in the trailer, there is a time travel element. You also get to experience Paris in the 1920’s with Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Salvador Dali, Cole Porter and Gertrude Stein, among others. And a brief visit to La Belle Époque Paris with Talouse Lautrec and the crowd at Maxims.
If you love Paris, or you love Woody Allen at his best, you will love this film.
It was wonderful.
Happy Birthday, Marilyn Monroe….and Andy Griffith.
She would have been 85 today- just like Andy Griffith.
Talk about a Birthday Odd Couple…
I’ll compare and contrast below…
Here’s my favorite Marilyn Clip:
And here is my favorite Andy Griffith movie- yes, movie. He did more than television and Mayberry…
He was great in this one and I’ve run this trailer several times…
I like to think of it as “The Glenn Beck Story”…
Let’s Face the Music and Dance
There’s a reason Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers became so beloved and famous during the Great Depression.
Not just style and talent, but escapism…
When things get really bad, it’s best to recognize the facts and not ignore them. It’s also best not to let them overwhelm you. Life goes on and one has to make the best of it while finding joy in the moment.
Fred and Ginger dancing embodies that philosophy for me…
Maybe I’m just another victim of the Hollywood Dream Factory, but how bad can it be when you have Fred, Ginger, Nat King Cole and Irving Berlin all wrapped up together?
Here’s a little video I found on YouTube to enlighten our Sunday Morning…
Beats Church for me….
Filed under Entertainment, Politics
Remember When? Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise was- for one brief, shining moment- cool.
This was before Scientology…
Before becoming overly self-conscious and self-absorbed made him a joke…
Before he jumped on Oprah’s couch…
Before Katie Holmes…
Before he became a jerk…
This is how I like to remember him…
Filed under Entertainment, Movies
Rupert Everett: Beyonce is Dull and Sharon Stone Unhinged
I’ve loved Rupert Everett ever since I saw him in one of my favorite movies, “Another Country.”
He’s definitely off the wall- and very outspoken…
He kind of reminds me of someone I “dated” back in the 1980’s who was also great fun, but totally crazy…
Believe me, no matter how enthralling they are, it’s best to observe guys like this from a distance….
From London’s The Daily Mail:
‘When I got to Hollywood I had this fantasy that all these huge stars would be these amazing, fabulous creatures. I grew up devouring books on Montgomery Clift, and so much of his appeal to me lay in the gutter side.
‘But you get to Hollywood and everybody’s so boring. Being an actor in Hollywood is like joining the Army or something.When you see them in a restaurant raising an arm, it’s more likely to be to make a call to their banker than swig back a glass of champagne.
Rupert described Madonna as smelling ‘vaguely of sweat’ and being an ‘old, whiny barmaid’
‘So many of these stars today are just boring, boring, boring. Listening to Beyoncé Knowles talking about her life, her career, is like listening to an Army general talking about a military operation. Beyond dull.’
via Rupert Everett: Beyonce is dull and Sharon Stone unhinged | Mail Online.
Filed under Entertainment, Gay
Whitney Houston In Rehab: It’s Crack Again
It’s truly scary when Bobby Brown is coming off as the sane, responsible one….
This is really tragic.
Whitney could have been the biggest thing in show business.
Beautiful, an amazing singer, on her way to becoming a very good actress…
Then Crack…
And she’s turning out to be more Judy Garland than Barbra Streisand…
So sad to think of what might have been….
Singer Whitney Houston was using crack again when she went back to rehab, RadarOnline had learned, and her use of the highly-addictive drug terrified even ex-husband Bobby Brown!
A source close to R&B star Brown said he is so worried about his ex-wife that he fears “she might not pull through.”
“Whitney is doing crack again,” the source said about the 47-year-old Houston, the singer of top 1990s hits like I’ll Always Love You. “It’s the worst it’s ever been. Whitney went on tour again, and that’s when the relapse occurred.”
Brown, 42, has also told friends that Houston, 47, has increasingly isolated herself.
“Whitney’s shutting a lot of people out of her life,” the source said. “It is a dire situation.”
Bobby and Whitney were married for 14 years and were officially divorced in 2007. Both have a history of substance abuse. Their 18-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina, was recently caught on camera snorting lines of cocaine.
via Whitney In Rehab: It’s Crack Again, And Even Bobby Brown’s Freaked Out! | Radar Online.
Filed under Entertainment, Music, Uncategorized
Lost in the 21st Century 