Between Stages

Thursday, July 17, 2008

A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Spring Green

Shakespeare’s mot popular plays are perhaps the trickiest to bring to the stage. A play with instant name recognition that A Midsummer Night’s Dream comes to any stage with an immense amount of cultural baggage. The trick is to present the play in a way that is novel enough to seem fresh, yet reverent enough to the source material to satisfy purists. The American Players Theatre production asserts its individuality the moment one sits down in the APT’s somewhat vast outdoor theatre. Todd Rosenthal’s set looks distinctly modern, featuring a winding ramp and a port-a-potty. Actors in costume as somewhat contemporary Greek stagehands mill about apparently going about the sorts of business that stagehands normally attend to prior to a show.

Yes, this is a contemporary staging of Shakespeare’s classic complete with actors delivering lines in a distinctly contemporary style, but this need not turn away purists. The cast at the APT does remarkable job of making some of Shakespeare’s most beautiful lines sound perfectly natural and intelligible to anyone regardless of their level of experience with late sixteenth century verse. In a brilliantly understated performance, James Ridge plays Egeus, an upper class gentleman who wishes that his beautiful daughter Hermia (a remarkably poised Tiffany Scott cleverly dressed to look like a contemporary wealthy, Greek shipping heiress or some such) wed a reasonably nice young man named Demetrius (Steve Haggard, who puts in a suitably awkward performance. Dressed to look like a contemporary geek, he s seen at one point taking a few puffs from an asthma inhaler.) As such things usually go in Shakespeare, Hermia is, of course, completely against marrying Demetrius, as she is completely in love with the much more rugged and masculine Lysander (Matt Scwader.) Schwader is particularly interesting in the role of the slightly thick Mesomorphic uber-guy. He delivers lines with a sharp stupidity that’s almost imperceptible. Though Hermia is quite clearly in love with Lysander, Demetrius is determined to win her over, oblivious as he is to the fawning attentions of another girl named Helena (Carrie A. Coon.) The clever contemporary translation of characters is particularly appealing with respect to Helena, shown here as a mid-90’s pseudo-bohemian a la Alanis Morissette. She is shown at one point carrying an acoustic guitar in a black case adorned with quasi-political stickers. Cute.

Of course, things get complicated when the fairy kingdom gets involved. In keeping with the contemporary feel of things, Fairy costuming is simple and modern with clean lines and tastefully mild hints of the supernatural. Michae Huftile look positively regal in the role of fairy king Oberon . . . bedecked in a costume that seems more inspired by traditional Wiccan imagery than the senselessly ornate images of the fairy kingdom given in popular culture. Much of the rest of Rachel Healy’s costuming follows this spirit and performances seem to follow in a similarly naturalistic style. This doesn’t always serve to give fairies the kind of dreamlike quality that the script is so eager to grant them, but there are moments when things seem positively surreal, and that’s what’s really important here. Of prticular note here is Jonathan Smoots in the role of the weaver Bottom, whose head is transformed into that of an ass for reasons that will go unnamed here. Smoots’ performance here is the kind of comic relief that rounds out the edges of an otherwise uneven production, ensuring that everything feels more or les satisfying as the production awakens at play’s end.

The American Player’s Theatre’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs through October 5th in Spring Green. For more information call the Box Office at 608-588-2361 or visit the APT online at http://www.playinthewoods.org

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Friday, June 13, 2008

Incredible Hulk Review

THE INCREDIBLE HULK
Starring: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, William Hurt, Tim Roth, Tim Blake Nelson, Ty Burrell
Directed By: Louis Leterrier
Written By: Zak Penn and Edward Norton
Marvel Studios/Universal Pictures
Rated PG-13

While Ang Lee’s 2003 Hulk film probably broke even with worldwide ticket sales and home video revenue included, it certainly didn’t make enough money to justify a production budget of $150 million. Weighing in with a production budget $13 million heavier and a runtime 24 minutes shorter, 2008’s Incredible Hulk is a substantially lighter film than its predecessor. Judged by many to be too cerebral, Ang Lee’s Hulk was a moody big-budget horror drama with a little bit of action thrown-in. The new film is a bit heavier on the action, but lacks enough contrast from the previous film to firmly establish itself in form as the more commercially successful successor that it’s likely to become in fact. This film will do a lot better than Ang Lee’s Hulk at the box office due to the perception that there’s more action in it. There isn’t. It’s just a different drama.

As everyone is more or less familiar with the character’s background, it’s cinematically rushed-through without dialogue during the opening credits as the opening theme moves along the action. The film promptly establishes that Dr. Bruce Banner (in this case, Edward Norton) is looking for a cure to his rather tragic condition in Brazil. He’s working in a soda bottling plant and taking martial arts lessons to curb his anger. When an accident at the plant lands some of his blood in a bottle of soda, a man drinking that soda “in Milwaukee” (who bears a striking resemblance to Stan Lee in a cameo appearance) ends-up with Gamma poisoning, The US military gets word of this, traces the soda to Brazil and the hunt is on for the fugitive Dr. Banner. This sets-up one of the more interesting scenes in the film: a chase through the cluttered streets of Rio de Janeiro. Here we have Banner running away from his pursuers, carefully watching his pulse to keep it low enough that the irradiated epinephrine (or whatever it is) in his system doesn’t take over and turn him into the Hulk. It’s a clever scene, as Norton has played the character with enough emotion leading-in to it that we don’t really want to see him turn into the title character. Throughout the film, we see Norton checking his pulse, ever vigilant to avoid another “incident.” The film ratchets-up the concern about this by periodically showing a tally of how many days it’s been since Banner last became the Hulk. As pale, emaciated and generally unhealthy as Norton looks, there’s a powerful sympathy for him that builds into a really memorable turn in the role of Banner.

It should be noted that the CGI Hulk (put together by special effects outfit Rhythm and Hues) that shows-up in this film looks considerably more realistic than the one ILM created for Ang Lee’s film five years ago. It’s too bad this new Hulk isn’t put in the service of a better film. On the whole, Norton puts in the kind of compelling performance that makes it something of a disappointment whenever the Hulk shows-up. This is a problem for a film that seems to be promoting itself as the action alternative to Ang Lee’s five year-old drama. With the drama being more compelling than the action, Incredible Hulk suffers from feeling too much like an attempt to fine-tune a film that was already pretty good. Here Liv Tyler plays Banner’s love interest Betty, but she doesn’t have the kind of intelligent magnetism Jennifer Connelly had as Betty in Ang Lee’s film. Tyler’s a really good actress, but the script doesn’t give her much to do. Likewise, William Hurt puts in a solid performance as the US army general obsessed with bringing in the Hulk, but the script doesn’t give him the kind of opportunity to perform that Sam Elliott had in the same role five years ago. The addition of Tim Roth as villain is interesting, but the script keeps him from ever becoming the kind of captivating figure Nick Nolte was as main villain in Ang Lee’s film.

If successful, Marvel Studios’ ultimate plan with the Hulk franchise is to fuse it into a larger group of films that cohesively share the same world. There are fine details here and a much-publicized cameo by Robert Downey Jr. that tie this film to Iron Man. And while there isn’t enough here to make it even a thematic sequel to Iron Man, the themes of the two films are similar enough to be promising for future films in the series. It’d be a bit odd if these big-budget action films ended up inadvertently making some sort of sophisticated statement about the military-industrial complex and its effect on the individual . . .

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Sunday, March 02, 2008

Bad Movies In Bay View

In the interest of attracting audiences, the newly-minted Alchemist Theatre has begun showing vintage B-grade films between certain weekends. It’s not a bad deal: for $2 you get a domestic beer, free popcorn and two classically bad films. Here’s a brief glance at what’s coming-up:



MARCH 11TH and 12TH: HORROR MOVIE DOUBLE FEATURE: MANFISH and GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE



MANFISH (1956)
Almost sort of inspired by Poe’s The Telltale Heart, this was one of Lon Chaney Jr.’s four appearances on the big screen in 1956. Here Chaney plays it big and dumb as the first mate of a vessel searching for treasure on the high seas. Oddly enough, Chaney isn’t playing the title character here. The title is the name of the vessel he and Captain Brannigan (John Bromfeld) helm.

Total drinking time: 76 minutes



GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE (1974)
From writer/director Jon Hayes, (evidently the auteur behind such films as 1970's Dream No Evil and Jailbait Babysitter in 1977) comes this mid-‘70’s father/son vampire film. A vampire named Croft (Michael Pataki) returns from the dead to rape a woman who then bears a child who can only drink blood from his mother’s breast. Hard to believe this one wasn’t a bigger hit.

Total Drinking Time: 95 minutes

MARCH 19TH and 20TH: CRAPTACULAR SCI-FI DOUBLE FEATURE: WAR OF THE PLANETS and PHANTOM PLANET



WAR OF THE PLANETS (1977)

In Italy, they called it Battaglie negli spazi stellari. In America, they didn’t really call it anything. In 1977, Americans were too busy being glued to a reasonably better sci-fi film out of Hollywood by that guy who directed American Graffiti. War of the Planets is an enigmatic film caught somewhere between the cheesiness of 1960’s Hollywood space opera and a mid-1970’s European cinema aesthetic. Having come out when it did, it could be argued that this was the last 1960’s B-grade Sci-Fi film.

Total Drinking Time: 95 minutes



PHANTOM PLANET (1961)

This one is a classically bad film from the golden age of misdirected, well-meaning science fiction. An astronaut travels to a distant planet where he encounters a race of really short people. Before long, the planet’s physics shrink him to six inches in height. He is accosted by a few women to help the denizens of the planet fend off an attack from weird, rubbery aliens. Or something like that.

Total drinking time: 82 minutes



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More bad movies are scheduled to hit the Alchemist in April.

For more info, check out the alchemist's website.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

A SMALL ARMY OF LITTLE GOLDEN MEN

The annual Hollywood invasion of little golden men has been announced once more. The eightieth such invasion is slated to hit the Kodak Theatre February 24th. Thankfully, the academy didn’t have to roll a steel-belted red carpet over the Writers Guild to make the ceremony happen . . . a year without the biggest televised awards ceremony in the world just might cause the earth to fall off its axis . . . and so it goes with what the late George C. Scott once referred to as, “a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons." The nominees for this year have been announced. There have been no surprises. Here’s a brief listing:


BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

Diablo Cody: JUNO, Nancy Oliver: LARS AND THE REAL GIRL Tony Gilroy: MICHAEL CLAYTON, Brad Bird: RATATOUILLE, Tamara Jenkins: THE SAVAGES

The Academy seems to be reaching a bit here . . . Ratatouille? And Juno looks cute, but it’s hardly an original screenplay. The only script listed here that has even a vague spark of originality is Nancy Oliver’s, but making a somewhat ompelling drama out of the 1987 Andrew McCarthy/ Kim Cattrall comedy Mannequin still feels vaguely derivative.

WHAT THEY OVERLOOKED: Quite a lot, actually. But, just to make a point about how distribution effects the process I’d say that Anamorph, which made the festival circuit this past year without finding a commercial release company, was probably one of the better scripts to come out of the fringe this year. The script was the foundation for a very vivid look into the nature of psychological turbulence. It may not have been brilliant, but it was one of many films far more intelligent than anything that got nominated in this category.


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

Chris Hampton: ATONEMENT, Sarah Polley AWAY FROM HER, Ronald Harwood THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, The Coens NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, Paul Thomas Anderson THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Here is a perfect example of how limited the memory of the Academy seems to be. These are all films that came out very recently. Most of them are out in theaters right now.

WHAT THEY OVERLOOKED: Just about anything good that came out in the category in the first half of the year. My favorite adapted film this year was SLEUTH. Harold Pinter’s work there was amazing. Again—it was a small release, so it was completely ignored here.


ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS:

THE GOLDEN COMPASS,
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END,
TRANSFORMERS

For this category, the Academy seems to thro darts at a listing of the top grossing films every year. The visual effects in all of these were pretty impressive, but The Golden Compass was particularly so due to the nature of the story.

WHAT THEY OVERLOOKED: There’s a scene in Spider-Man 3 featuring Thomas Haden Church being completely reconstituted out of constituent grains of sand. That was kind of a big deal for me. It showed a kind of dramatic use of special effects rarely seen that was one hell of an advancement in the realm of computer animation.

WHY THE ACADEMY IS REALLY STUPID: All three of the films here (and nearly every other nomination in this category fort the past decade and half or so) features advancements in CGI visual effects. In 1982, when TRON (the first pioneering computer animated film came out,) the Academy did not nominate it for special effects because they felt that TRON “cheated” by using a computer. Years later, they decided that CGI effects were okay and gave awards in the category to CGI-laden films like The Abyss and Jurassic Park. In 1982, it was a little too early for the Academy to understand what was going on in Tron. And this is the group of people designated to recognize cutting edge advances in cinema?

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING:

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
RATATOUILLE
3:10 TO YUMA
TRANSFORMERS

Only three films get nominated for visual effects and FIVE get nominated for sound? Wow.


ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING:

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
RATATOUILLE
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
TRANSFORMERS

Evidently the mixing for 3:10 to Yuma was better than the editing. You listen to the way Yuma is edited and I sounds pretty good, but next to a towering accomplishment like THERE WILL BE BLOOD and it sounds totally inept by comparison . . .


ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING:

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
INTO THE WILD
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THERE WILL BE BLOOD

When the academy finds a few films it likes, it doesn’t really feel the need to look that far for nominees. I’m pretty certain that more than a dozen films come out in any given year.


BEST MOTION PICTURE SCORE:

Dario Marinelli: ATONEMENT, Alberto Iglesias, THE KITE RUNNER, James Newton Howard: MICHAEL CLAYTON, Michael Gacchino: RATATOUILLE, Marco Beltrami: 3:10 TO YUMA
Everything here is pretty forgettable. It’s all pretty solid musical back-u for th films in question, but it all feels kind of flat.

WHAT THEY OVEROOKED: Danny Elfman’s work for MEET THE ROBINSONS. Didn’t see the move but the score is pure fun . . . this is Elfman in an infectiously silly mood.

ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP:

LA VIE EN ROSE
NORBIT
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN

Okay—the make-up in NORBIT looked impressive, but I’m not sure it’s anything to be proud of.

WHAT THEY MISSED
I’ll have to settle for mentioning that it kind of surprises me that SWEENY TODD wasn’t mentioned here. It’s quite subtle but very distinctive—an understated achievement is an achievement nonetheless.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:

BEAUFORT
THE COUNTERFEITERS
KATYN
MONGOL
12

There are some good films here. I hope to see some of them some day. Milwaukee is a lower-tier market for foreign films. With a few notable exceptions, we usually get them the year after they’ve been released elsewhere. One or two of these might have come out here, actually . . . the distribution scheme for foreign films needs to change, is all I’m saying.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN:

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
ATONEMENT
ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE
LA VIE EN ROSE
SWEENEY TODD

All the films here have pretty impressive costuming, but there’s so much good work done in this area every year that choosing “the best” seems kind of absurd. It’s all made to fit different moods and if you’re noticing the costuming at all, chances are the costume artists didn’t do their job that well. It needs to blend in. This, of course, could be said of nearly every category . . .

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:

THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD
ATONEMENT
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Given the sheer variety of different moods captured by cinematographers every year . . . some of them extremely talented, this category seems to be the most arbitrary of them all.

BEST ART DIRECTION:

AMERICAN GANGSTER
ATONEMENT
THE GOLDEN COMPASS
SWEENEY TODD
THERE WILL BE BLOOD

SWEENEY TODD is a good choice here, but is it any more impressive than THE GOLDEN COMPASS? It’s just different. The same could be said of a number of films that haven’t been nominated.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE:

PERSEPOLIS
RATATOUILLE
SURF’S UP

Judging from the three they chose this year, the academy didn’t see many animated films. Politics generally sells at these things, which is why PERSEPOLIS is probably going to win. RATATOUILLE has been nominated in enough other places, however, that it just might come away with this one.

WHAT THEY MISSED:
The best animated film I saw this year was PAPRIKA. The trippy Japanese film was released on this side of the Pacific in 2007, but seeing as how it was released in its native country in November of 2006, it doesn’t qualify. AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE COLON MOVIE FILM FOR THEATRES was probably the single most inexplicable achievement for a commercial animated film this year. It is, by far, a lot more progressive than anything the Academy has looked at this year in ANY category.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Cate Blanchette I’M NOT HERE
Ruby Dee AMERICAN GANGSTER
Saoirse Ronan ATONEMENT
Amy Ryan GONE BABY GONE
Tilda Swinton MICHAEL CLAYTON

This is kind of an interesting selection of actresses. Classy academy-bait like Blanchette and Swinton are joined by an 83-year-old woman, a thirteen-year-old girl and a woman who played a drug-addicted mother. Evidently this is the academy trying to diversify its nominees again . . .

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

CaseyAffleck THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES
Javier Bardem NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Phillip Seymour Hoffman CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR
Hal Holbrook INTO THE WILD
Tom Wilkinson MICHAEL CLAYTON

Hands down the best choice here would be Hoffman in CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR. I think part of the reason why I liked his performance here so much was the fact that I didn’t expect to like the film at all. Honestly, he is the only reason to see this film, but he’s a really good reason.

BEST LEAD ACTRESS:

Cate Blanchette ELIZABETH
Julie Christie AWAY FROM HER
Marion Cotillard LA VIE EN ROSE
Laura Linney THE SAVAGES
Ellen Page JUNO

And Blanchete gets nominated for two different roles in two different films . . . the tiny Nova Scotian girl has wan a number of awards for JUNO already. It’s all too easy to play a bright, tough girl in a movie so engineered to tug at heartstrings. Personally I found her far more compelling as a girl who could walk though walls in a huge special effects blockbuster from a couple of years ago. She managed to seem distinct amidst all the flaming cars flying through the air and whatnot. That was a challenge.


BEST LEAD ACTOR:

George Clooney MICHAEL CLAYTON
Daniel Day-Lewis THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Johnny Depp SWEENEY TODD
Tommy Lee Jones IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH
Viggo Mortensen EASTERN PROMISES

The list is like a who’s who of famous screen actors, which makes a lot of sense. The problem is that, while nearly all of the performances represented here were good, they weren’t surprisingly good.

WHAT THEY MISSED:
Jude Law was actually really impressive in SLEUTH . . . probably his best performance to date and one of the best of the year. Law played an actor opposite a typically austere and particularly sinister Michael Caine. Law’s performance here was a huge surprise . . . particularly for those of us who were unaware that Law and Caine were the only people in the film.

BEST DIRECTOR:

Julian Schnabel THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Jason Reitman JUNO
Tony Gilroy MICHAEL CLAYTON
The Coens NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Paul Thomas Anderson THERE WILL BE BLOOD

BEST PICTURE:

ATONEMENT
JUNO
MICHAEL CLAYTON
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THERE WILL BE BLOOD

I don’t think that there’s anything that I can say in either of these last two categories that I haven’t already said. If you must watch John Stewart, do so where he belongs on basic cable. Save yourselves.

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Saturday, January 26, 2008

When Cans Got The Lip

It’s the tiniest details that can briefly derail the attention of any theatergoer. Last week, I attended two different shows set in the late ‘70’s/ early ‘80’s: True West with Spiral Theatre and Ralph Pape’s Say Goodnight, Gracie with the Boulevard. Both shows were reasonably meticulous about making certain that the fashions onstage represented the era they came from. Both, however, featured cans—beer cans in True West and cans of Tab in the Boulevard show . . . in both circumstances, there was something distinctly out of synch with the era: the cans in question had lips. For some reason, my focus on everything else in the play briefly faded out as I looked at the lips on the cans of soda and beer respectively. In the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s—cans did not have lips. It’s hard to describe how an entirely superficial detail like this could become such a distraction for shows that were—in every other way—pretty good.

I was a young child in the late ‘70’s/ early ‘80’s, but I distinctly remember the circumference of the circle formed by the top of a can of soda was identical to the circumference of the body of the can. At some point in the mid to late 1980’s, someone somewhere had decided that this was uncomfortable, obscene or just plain wrong and promptly marketed a new style of beverage can, presumably meant to give some sort of comfort to the lower lip. The tops of the new cans were slightly smaller than the rest of the can, allowing for a slight, curved indentation near the top of the can that looked kind of cool and vaguely futuristic at the time. I imagined that there was some kind of high-tech enginering involved in the new can design. Somewhere along the line, the new look became universal. I’m not sure when it happened.* At some point everyone woke-up and the iconic American can had always looked the way it does . . . weird. . .



You’re always learning something new about yourself: Somehow there’s a part of me that feels nostalgic about the distinct design of older beverage cans . . .



*The internet research I did failed to turn up any details about that particular event in the long and winding history of the aluminum can. The research did, however, turn-up the rather odd fact that, in the past ten years or so, the wall of an aluminum can has been cut in half. The can you’re drinking out of today is made of aluminum that is about half as thin as the can you were drinking out of ten years ago. And you probably didn’t even notice. If you don’t think this is subtly somewhat inexplicably sinister, you have no soul.)

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