Recently Seen: The Producers (2005)

The Producers is not your typical movie musical. It is based on the identically monikered Broadway musical which was in turn based on the 1968 Mel Brooks movie, which was about a musical but was not itself a musical.

So, The Producers is a movie musical based on a stage musical based on a non-musical movie. What makes it all so very meta is that the stage musical is typically Broadway and the musical-within-the-musical is presented as a parody of typical Broadway musicals. The movie version essentially has the challenge of filming two musicals - the Broadway musical "The Producers" and the musical-within-the-musical "Springtime in Hitler". How to do this without making "The Producers" a parody of Broadway and making "Springtime in Hitler" a parody within a parody?? (Okay, I have thoroughly confused myself now).

In a way, director Susan Stroman began batting with two strikes against her. It is a Herculean feat to film such an ostensibly old-school Broadway musical and not have the whole thing come across as precious or ridiculous. In the more intimate medium of film, the extravagance of musical theatre can appear exaggerated. And this is a musical so over the top that it almost parodies itself as a stage production, never mind as a movie. The musical was such a big hit precisely because of its exuberantly unapologetic excesses .Toning it down for the filmed version would have been neutering the energy that makes it work on stage.

Does Stroman avoid the pitfalls of unwitting parody? I suppose it is a matter of taste or perhaps, exposure. I love the old Hollywood musicals with the big production numbers and the likes of Ethel Merman pitching it to the back rows. Once you have seen any of the Zigfield Follies, you become rather inured against gaudiness in movie musicals. The OTT elements of The Producers are nothing I haven't seen before. I think Stroman just about avoided parody, but she did not alleviate the movie beyond being a filmed stage production. Her inexperience as a movie director told; too many scenes seemed bound them to their stage origins rather than being enacted in the language of cinema. In a way, it is both a good and a bad thing. I personally liked the staged quality of the film as a reminder of its Broadway roots. But cinema magic is very different from theatre magic. In keeping to theatrical conventions in the cinematic medium, Stroman captures the magic of neither.

Still, The Producers as a movie should succeed at some level on the strength of its source material. It is after all based on a very fine musical with a strong book. Musically, The Producers is not in Sondheim territory nor does it pretend or aspire to such lofty heights. The tunes are simple and almost repetitive; Broadway-by-numbers, if you will. (Just take these two songs -"I wanna be a producer" and "When you've got it, flaunt it". They are practically the same number in terms of their melodic lines.) The genius is in the lyrics, which are often bitingly clever, scan brilliantly and achieve rhymes of such virtuoso dexterity that they rival Ira Gershwin's work. "You Never Say Good Luck on Opening Night" and "Keep it Gay" are particular highlights for their words, if not the music.

Most of the original Broadway cast reprise their roles in the movie, with headliners Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick playing the producers, Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom. They inhabit the roles effortlessly, although I think the charm of the performances is less well served on film than it would have been in the theatre.

Broderick has the especially difficult task of playing straight ... well, straighter ... man to practically every other character in the show. Leo Bloom is not without his idiosyncrasies but he is the closest thing to an Everyman in the main cast. Much of the time, Broderick has to react to insanities around him and the script calls for much eyebrow popping, lip quivering and other exaggerated facial expressions. On film, his is the performance that seems most stagey, precisely because it is the least extoverted and the character the most normal. Everyone else gets to go to town with bombast and gleefully cross the line into caricature.

On Broadway, Nathan Lane must have been the show-stopper. This role is almost the perfect Nathan Lane role, giving him plenty of opportunity to do his Nathan Lane thing. It does not translate quite as successfully on film, but I can see how he would have prompted standing ovations on Broadway after his two bravura numbers, "Along came Bialy" and the one-man tour-de-force "Betrayed". In the movie, "Betrayed" seems out of place and too long (I think Roger Ebert commented on this), mainly because it is unimaginatively filmed. But in the theatre, this must have brought the house down every night and probably won Nathan Lane his Tony.

Two big names not in the original Broadway cast were brought in for the movie - Uma Thurman playing Swedish bombshell Ulla and Will Ferrell taking on the role of Nazi nut Franz Liebkind. Stunt casting? Maybe, but not necessarily bad casting. Franz Liebkind is exactly the kind of role that Ferrell can pull off almost as second nature. Thurman certainly has the necessary physical attributes to play Ulla, and she purrs her way through the role nicely. I wish she was a more graceful dancer, but perhaps the point is that Ulla is not supposed to be all that talented.

Gary Beach plays Broadway's worst director Roger de Bris and is an absolute hoot. When he assumes the role of Hitler in "Springtime for Hitler", he is marvelously, simperingly campy and fey. I just loved how he actually looks physically like Hitler once they get the moustache on him, much more so than any of the Hitler auditionees or Franz Liebkind. Then his entire body becomes limp-wristed, and we are suddenly watching drag!Hitler and the rest is history.

The castmember that stands out the most for me is Roger Bart as Carmen Ghia, "common-law assistant" of Roger de Bris. It is not a large role, but Bart is hilarious and steals every scene in which he appears. He is in turn and all at once bitchy, gossipy, loving, ascerbic, fawning and disdainful. I cannot believe this is the same man that played psycho-pharmacist George on Desperate Housewives.

Talking about cast members, special mention goes to John Barrowman who plays the lead tenor who plays a German soldier in "Springtime for Hitler". He gets to sing the titular opening number of the show-within-the-show. It is the most memorable song in The Producers, and is the only one which featured in the original 1968 Mel Brooks movie. I have only seen the original movie once, more than 15 years ago. In all that time, I have never forgotten the tune of "Springtime for Hitler". Barrowman (another versatile talent; he was Captain Jack in Dr Who) sings this wonderfully, in a very authentically musical theatre style and in full control of his very fine lyric tenor voice.

For what it is - the filmed version of a stage musical - this movie is thoroughly enjoyable. It moves along at a fair pace, is visually eye-catching and makes no intellectual demands on its audience. The tunes are hummable and grateful to the ear, if not always memorable. The dance numbers are well-choreographed and excellently performed. Mel Brook's screenplay is full of intentionally corny jokes at which one can laugh or groan and enjoy doing it. The songs have clever lyrics which are good for at least a chuckle or two. It is a fun little diversion for its two-hour running time.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Recently Seen: The 40 Year Old Virgin

Up until last week, I was a The 40 Year Old Virgin virgin. I am suitably ashamed.

The 40 YOV, a gross-out comedy in the vein of American Pie and There's Something About Mary, is directed by TV veteran Judd Apatow and stars my favourite American, Steve Carell, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Apatow.

Like the typical gross comedy, the screenplay is peppered with mentions of bodily fluids and gases and jokes about various body parts especially reproductive organs. Unlike the typical gross comedy, the movie has many genuinely tender and touching moments. Even the gross jokes are non-sophomoric.

Despite the title and the genre, the movie is not preoccupied with sex. It's not about sex, or even about a man trying to have sex. It's a buddy movie and a rather sweet one, at that. It is also a romantic comedy and a coming-of-age drama.

Steve Carell plays Andy, the titular 40 YOV. He is shy, rides a bicycle to work, collects action figures and plays computer video games. His home is probably every teenaged geek's wetdream. He is a stockist in an electronics store, where he is buddies with David, Jay and Cal. They are his cadre of cherry-popping enablers, intent on helping him relieve himself of his virginity. Hilariously, their own love-lives are either disastrous or non-starters. David (Paul Rudd) is particularly tragic, being hung up on a woman who dumped him two years ago. For me, Andy's friendships with these guys are the best thing about the movie. There is affection and warmth in their interactions, even while they are making gross jokes.

Their efforts to accomplish "Mission: V Loss" make for several classic set-pieces. There is the by-now infamous chest-hair waxing scene. It is crude and pandering to the lowest common denominator, but it is also laugh-out-loud funny. The speed-dating segment is especially memorable, with an inspired assortment of single women including a lesbian re-entering the market and David's ex, played by Carell's The Office co-star, Mindy Kaling.

The rom-com plot charmingly handled, with Catherine Keener striking all the right notes as Trish, the love interest. Trish runs a business, is confident and go-getter. She exudes a joie de vivre that could potentially overwhelm Andy but around him, she shows her vulnerability and insecurities as a single mother and a woman who has failed in relationships. Importantly, Keener and Carell have chemistry and their on-screen relationship is believable.

The movie works because Andy is likable and worth rooting for. He could so very easily have been overplayed as one of life's pathetic sad-sack losers, deserving of contempt rather than sympathy. This does not happen in the movie. Even as he stumbles from one embarrassing encounter to another, we admire him for his own brand of sweet-natured courage to pick himself up and enter the fray again. Carell pitches this performance perfectly, as does all the cast.

This is not a movie for people with low tolerance for crass and crude comedy. But for the rest of us, this is one of the funniest movies of recent years.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Authorial responsibility?

More on the Great Gay!Dumbledore Reveal.

People are not happy with Jo Rowling. More extreme members of the "values" camp are probably planning a campaign to keep Harry Potter away from the kids. They are around 300 million copies too late, but points for trying.

Even sane non-bigots diversity sympathisers are getting on Jo's case now.No less a liberal pillar than the Guardian Newspaper has weighed in on the issue (to be fair, James Ball's piece is on the whole quite even-handed). She should have written it into the books! She wasted an opportunity to make strong positive statement about gay people!

Realistically, COULD she have written it into the books? The books are largely written from Harry's point of view and he was not exactly going around taking note of everyone's sexual preference. (Hmmm .... come to think of it, OOTP would have zipped by a lot faster if Harry WAS doing that.) By the time Harry came to Hogwarts, Dumbledore was well into the "grandfather figure" stage of his life. Teenage boys tend not to think about their grandfathers' sexuality. Especially not teenage boys who are fighting evil forces on a regular basis.

To establish Dumbledore as a gay character within her chosen narrative device, JKR would have had to provide a context for discussing Dumbledore's sexuality at all. As it the books aren't long enough as they are! The alternative is to resort to appalling gay stereotypes (a taste for show-tunes or a prized collection of Vogue back issues) for Harry to observe and relay to us as the reader. Frankly, why should she go through the trouble to do either when Dumbledore's sexuality has nothing to do with the books' central plot? Sexuality is an interesting character note but it is hardly Dumbledore's (or anyone's) single most defining characteristic.

James Ball suggested that JKR could have made explicit Dumbledore's love for Grindelwald in The Deathly Hallows. After all, a fair few pages of that book is devoted to exposition on Dumbledore's past and the Grindelwald sub-text is quite apparent without being obvious.

Again, COULD she have written it that way? I think she knew that DH would have become ALL ABOUT GAY!DUMBLEDORE if she had done that. It would have completely overshadowed Harry, Voldemort and the Horcruxes, which is the main story she is trying to tell. This is a fandom with serious ADD. Large chunks of readers already think that Harry Potter is a teen-romance series.

James Bell wrote in the Guardian:

Harry Potter is not a story about a gay head teacher, of course. But mentioning Dumbledore's sexuality within the books would not have changed this.

I think it would have changed it. Maybe not in Britain, where attitudes towards homosexuality are perhaps more tolerant. But in more than one place I could think of, "mentioning Dumbledore's sexuality within the books" would have most certainly made Harry Potter "a story about a gay head teacher".

I like how JKR handled this. She spoke about Dumbledore's sexuality because she was asked. It was almost a throw-away fact. Yes, it is part of Dumbledore's identity but just one of the many things about him that she could not fit into the books. Not an unimportant detail, but not a big one either. Just another factoid about the greatest wizard of his age. By not making a big deal about it, she is saying that it isn't a big deal. Which is what tolerance essentially is; that differences in race, gender, colour, religion, sexuality etc., are not a big deal.

The Big Gay Dumbledore reveal

JK Rowling has "outed" Albus Dumbledore.

Finally, fandom has a canonically gay character! Canon-compliant be damned, this is the real thing, straight from the horse's oracle's author's mouth!

I gotta give it to old Jo for doing this in such style. Already, she has turned a book reading in LA's Kodak Theatre into something of a rock concert. Then she chose that particular platform to tell the world that Dumbledore is gay (to be fair, the revelation was in response to a question from the audience and I don't think she planned to say anything until it was brought up). She even had a good-natured poke at fandom when she made a knowing comment about the fanfiction that this revelation would spawn. I think I have already come across at least one Grindelwald / Dumbledore fic, so fandom is ahead of the curve here.

The good folks at Fandom Wank have documented the Internet response. Splooge was naturally the order of the day. As expected, the anti-gay/ anti-yaoi camp are appalled. But what I really love is how sections of the "pro-gay" camp are equally unhappy about Dumbledore being gay, albeit for completely different reasons. For the anti-camp, Dumbledore is an important, powerful figure of authority - making him gay is "endorsing" gayness. For the pro-camp, Dumbledore is too old, too asexual, too dead, goddamit, to be an effective poster-boy for slash. Oh, Jo, you should have just said that Sirius Black is gay. That would have sent significant portions of fandom over the moon. And since Sirius Black met an untimely end in Book 5, the anti-camp could have cited him as an example of the dangers and risks of embracing the "gay lifestyle". Everyone wins!

Away from the internet fandom, some of the reactions are just downright sad. Not unexpected, of course. And what in the world is a Values Voters’ summit?

Recently Seen: Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest (2006)

This first of two sequels to the megahit Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl is a very, very strange creature. As strange as the creatures that man Davy Jones's Flying Dutchman, and the multi-tentacled sea-monster that wreaks havoc at the end of the movie.

The first Pirates movie was a rollicking adventure, with innovative special effects and an iconic anti-hero in Captain Jack Sparrow (Johny Depp). This follow-up appears to have amplified everything ten-fold: the music, sets, special effects, locations, monsters, creatures, action sequences. And despite all the visible effort, it is around one tenth as much fun as the original. Everyone seemed to be trying too hard and everything came across as much too effortful.

The entire episode with Jack Sparrow as the "king of the savages" was unwatchable to me. It dragged, was predictable and felt like something that could have been heavily edited and we would have all been the happier for it.

And then there was the interminable island scene with the three-way fight for the key to Dead Man's Chest, leading to the wheel sequence and Davy Jones's men chasing after Elizabeth in the jungle. It should have been heart-thumping, but I was left strangely unmoved and just wanted them to get on with it.

Davy Jones and Flying Dutchman crew are no doubt magnificent achievements in special effects and make-up, but does anyone really want to watch 90 minutes of THAT? All those boils and sores, and the rotting flesh and slimy tentacles - had they had less money in the budget, would we have had a movie less likely to induce mass loss of appetite?

Even Jack Sparrow seems less fun and not quite as outrageous this time around. He is also quite unlikeable in this movie, which is a major problem. He is not meant to be heroic and he is certainly petty, mercurial, selfish and all manner of non-indefensible traits, but in the first movie, there was always a vulnerability about him that made him sympathetic. In this sequel, I did not care if he survived. Not Depp's fault; he played the character he was given to play. It was the writing that served him most poorly.

As for the rest of them; despite Depp's scoring an Oscar nomination for The Black Pearl, this is hardly the sort of movie that brings out award-worthy performances. Orlando Bloom gets a story line involving his long lost father and with that, an opportunity to emote. He has improved as an actor since his days gracing the LOTR trilogy with his outstanding prettiness, but he is not quite an Ian McKellan yet. I was moved by the father-son sub-plot but mainly because Jonathan Pryce, who played Will's father, was tremendously affecting despite the layers of make-up. Keira Knightley fares about as well as Bloom does. She gets to play the cliched 18th century proto-feminist, who dons men's clothes, wields a gun and fights off the baddies with not one but two swords. It's not much of a role, really and she does not very much with it. (Oh, and I really could have done without seeing Knightley kissing Depp - a tremendous lack of chemistry even given the context of the scene).

The supporting actor that really caught the eye was Jack Davenport, reprising his role the former Captain Norrington, now just plain old Norrington, dispossessed of wealth and status. He makes a wonderful down and out villain. From a purely shallow perspective, Davenport also really suits the scruffy, unkempt appearance of a pirate - much more so than the more conventionally pretty Bloom.

All in all, this was a bit of a damp squib. It certainly does not leave me craving the final installment. Although, I suppose I would watch that just to see Chow Yun Fatt and Hollywood's recreation of Singapore.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Recently Seen: The Lake House (2006)

Apparently, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock have a shipname. And it's Keendra. That blew my mind when I first heard it, although it is no worse than most of the mashed up shipnames out there.

Anyway, The Lake House is THE Keeandra movie. Attempting to recapture the chemistry that the pair showed on screen all those eons ago in Speed, this movie is an unabashed old fashioned romance. Unlike many modern romcoms, there is no sex and the two protagonists do not even meet properly until the last 3 minutes of the movie. In that way, The Lake House has rather a lot in common with Sleepless in Seattle.

I don't think this will become a classic like Sleepless, although it is certainly as romantic and the leads are certainly equally as attractive. (In fact, some may say that with Reeves as the male lead, this movie comes out top on the attractiveness score.) This movie is very sweet and likeable and propelled by a genuine romantic compulsion, something missing from many movies with pretensions of being romantic. It is based on a screenplay from Korea, where they know a thing or two about romance. There is a sincerity in the writing of this movie that is the hallmark of the best Korean movie romances.

However, Korean romances also tend toward sentimentality and melodrama. Some of this has made the journey to Hollywood and unfortunately bogs down parts of The Lake House. There is a pivotal scene in the middle of the film where the two leads have an encounter, involving a dance and an almost kiss (or maybe an actual kiss? I don't know, I was too bored to pay full attention). It was a scene with potential for great angst or some clever humour. Instead, the writers and director chose to play it as sentimental, with a ballad playing in the background and the scene lit by the glow of dusk.

Still it is churlish to nitpick when the film so clearly has its heart in the right place. The plot device is a time-slip and it is expectedly in turn clever, full of holes, illogical and plausible. She is in the present, he is in the past. They manage to communicate with each other while both remain in their respective times. Neither know where he is in the present, and he is loathe to approach her in the past as she did not yet know him. Certainly, as plot devices go, this is one of the more effective ways to keep the star-crossed lovers decidedly apart until the final joyous rapproachment. I have to admit to rather liking the conceit behind the resolution of the time-slip. It was predictable, yes, but done without any nod-winking and self-conscious cleverness.

In the lead roles, Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves are not stretched but do what they need to do. They are both thoroughly sympathetic and believable. I find myself rooting for them as individuals and for their relationship as a couple. Sandra Bullock plays noble workaholic doctor Kate, who works too hard and seems to have no life outside the hospital. Bullock rather specialises in pulling off these types of roles - the single modern woman who is somewhat lonely, who views her lot with good humour but is on the verge of sadness. The Keanu Reeves character, Alex, is an architect who is building the lake house. He has a side-arc involving his uneasy relationship with his father, played by Christopher Plummer. Usually, such sub-plots can come across as padding or filler material, but this was sensitively handled and relevant to the development of Reeves's character.

There are a few pretty illustrious names in supporting roles, including the great Shohreh Aghdashloo, the aforementioned Plummer and Niptuck's Dylan Walsh as Bullock's putative boyfriend.

You don't get a cast like this to put on a shoddy show. This is definitely not a shoddy show; the production values are superb. The eponymous lake house is a gorgeous glass construction and there are numerous scenes that showcase the beauties of the lake area in the fall and winter. It is a beautiful film to look at in more than one way. It is also heartfelt, feel-good and a pretty good way to while away a couple of hours.

Over-zealous Austen purist alert: I did have a major point to pick with the movie's use of Jane Austen's Persuasion as a symbolism for its themes of waiting and people being kept apart by time. It does not really mar my enjoyment of the show, but Persuasion is among my favourite books of all time, and it was rather jarring to have it quite thoroughly misrepresented.

A few of the Persuasion references worked very well. The initial almost-encounter between Kate and Alex takes place when he picks up her copy of Persuasion that she leaves behind on a train station bench. This neatly serves as a character note for Kate; she is an Austen reader, which tells us that she is slightly old-fashioned, a romantic and something of a softie.

The physical copy of the book also establishes a link between the two characters. Towards the end of the movie, Kate finds the exact same copy (now well thumbed and read, in a rather nice production touch) that he leaves under the floorboards of the lake house. She reads from it the line that Austen wrote about Wentworth and Anne Eliot during their first engagement - "... no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar ...". It reminds her of herself and Alex and she is shaken anew by the impossibility of their relationship. This works well, because at the same point in the book, Anne Eliot is similarly distressed at the distance that had grown between Frederick Wentworth and herself, despite their earlier compatibility.

If only they had kept the Austen references to these two scenes. Of course, Hollywood is never content until a piece of symbolism has hit us on our heads often and hard enough to induce a coma. And so, we have Kate and Alex discussing "Persuasion" just before they dance at Kate's birthday party. And what a wildly inaccurate discussion! Kate tells us that Persuasion is "wonderful" (it is), and that it is purportedly about two people who meet and "almost fall in love" (NO! NO! NO!) but the timing was not right (NO! NO! NO!) and then they meet again years later and have another chance at their relationship (yes, but only in a most oblique way).

Anyone who is halfway familiar with Persuasion knows that there is nothing "almost" about Wentworth's and Anne's first attachment. It was her family who stood in their way, not "timing", nor any lack of emotions. And when they meet again years later, he is not at all interested in a second chance and she is resigned that there would be none. Yes, Persuasion is about constancy, and in this respect, it has something in common with this movie. Persuasion is also about many other things that bear no parallel to the movie. And Persuasion is not about 'waiting' - had Wentworth overcome his pride 6 years earlier, there would have been no need for the long separation of time before seeing Anne again.

Rating: 7 out of 10

London first photos

View from Hotel Room (Regent Park Lake)













St Paul's Cathedral