Those do sound like two incongruous motion pictures. But each is a worthy effort, each in its own way. "On the Matter of Sex" is the second pic this year about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg so for me, the bar was high. But this one comes through--it avoids repeating the first one, which was truly a documentary--and benefits from good writing and acting.
Best choice made in putting it together was to focus on one case, possibly her first, on applying the tax law unequally but in this case, a man was deprived of benefits afforded women. It provided a chance to show how her husband, tax lawyer Marty Ginsburg, supported her across the board, both in strategizing the legal path and managing the home life with two children to care for.
The Harvard Law aspect was of interest to those of us who also are graduates. Sam Waterston, though aged, looks far better than long-time Dean Erwin Griswold ever did. The Griz had toned down his infamous welcoming speech for first-year students by the time I heard it, as it turned out for the last time since he left after 20 years near the end of my first year when he was named Solicitor General. His sexism of 1959 vintage was par for the course in those days.
Ernie Brown, whom I had as a prof for tax, was terrible as a teacher by then and he too left at the end of the next year to become the grand old man of the Justice Department's Tax Division, from which he retired at 93 a few years ago. Paul Freund was doubtless looking more in 1960 like the youthful player who filled his role in the picture as compared to when I studied constitutional law with him almost a decade later--you got an idea of his urbanity but he didn't seem different enough here from the standard preening law school prof.
The picture's strength was in sticking close to the facts. For example, the three Tenth Circuit judges were the real names and one is credited and given thanks in the crawl for presumably recalling Justice Ginsburg's early argument there. One critic has taken the picture to task for showing her hesitating for a length of time that only could have existed in a film as she rose to argue--apparently this is the only thing that Justice RBG didn't agree with in the film, and she was right. It was a case of the director adding in what the critic called a cliche found in such biopics.
The film also made me rethink my reaction years ago when at a D.C. Circuit Judicial Conference chaired by then-Judge Ginsburg. At the main dinner, she profusely thanked her husband (she called him her "life partner") and I discounted this praise as one of the ritual thank-yous, usually directed at and for wives. But the picture, and Armie Hammer's magnificent portrayal of Martin Ginsburg, made me appreciate finally that RBG had it right back then. Felicity Jones also did a fine job as RBG.
So too did Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins, returning the character to the screen after oh so many years. I read the four P.L. Travers books featuring Mary P., and Blunt played her the way Travers wrote her: a very tart, sure of herself character with no "Spoonful of Sugar" stuff which did take away from Julie Andrews's great performance in the original picture, especially her singing.
Lin-Manuel Miranda was an excellent Jack, nephew of Dick Van Dyke's Bert the chalk artist in the first picture. The Hamilton creator even had one song which was essentially rap, which he had used to such advantage in Hamilton. The songs, alas, are not quite up to the memorable, if somewhat saccharine, ones in the first picture. But the performances, including a villainous Colin Firth, are. It's the kind of picture where you enjoy their bringing in Angela Lansbury and Van Dyke for cameo "special appearances" near the end, and Meryl Streep providing an amazing turn both singing and dancing as well as acting in creating a novel character. Fun all around.
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Saturday, December 15, 2018
A Great Play
There's a terrific, powerful play and it's actually playing on Broadway. What, you ask? Have we returned to the days when Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller, and others, graced the New York Theater District?
The Ferryman is a full three-acter that premiered last year in London and is the product of playwright Jez Butterworth, who's English but with strong roots in Ulster, where the play is set. It tackles what was happening in Northern Ireland to a farm family in Armagh in the time of the Troubles. A man disappeared in 1971, his body turned up ten years later, and his large family with what it means, as well as some IRA men.
The plot thickens and develops with superb performances by a large cast, many of whom were in the original production and draw on Irish backgrounds. Butterworth, joined by renowned director Sam Mendes, who ran London's Donmar Warehouse, manages the many actors on the stage together well and as one critic concluded, in a rave notice, brings it all to an explosive finale.
He compared it to Jacobean tragedy, such as those by Thomas Middleton. If you've ever seen Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling, you'll realize that things never get as gruesome as in that drama, but the ending is truly powerful, but the steady buildup to what happens then is well conceived.
A few years ago, I happened to see Butterworth's play, Jerusalem, when passing through London. It was a well-drawn picture of British counterculture which worked largely due to the casting of Mark Rylance in the leading role. Rylance is likely the finest actor working today and he's always worth seeing. I didn't think the play would make it in the States, even in New York, because it was very British, but it did come to Broadway and got good notices. However, it did not attract strong audiences and played only a limited run.
Later in the day, we stuck around and enjoyed a musical comedy, The Prom, which also received some good reviews. It's light but the writing is often clever, the songs are pleasant, and the players enjoyable, especially Beth Leaval as a leading lady of the theatre trying to save her reputation after getting disastrous notices by "doing good deeds" as the Wizard of Oz put it.
It's Broadway musical comedy wrestling with social issues--here it's gay high school students coming out in the Midwest--and the blend works better than does the injection of social concerns in the somewhat dated British postwar mystery, An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestley, which we saw in D.C. recently. This musical is good spirited and enjoyable, even getting me to ignore the current Broadway reliance on excessive amplification for once.
The Ferryman is a full three-acter that premiered last year in London and is the product of playwright Jez Butterworth, who's English but with strong roots in Ulster, where the play is set. It tackles what was happening in Northern Ireland to a farm family in Armagh in the time of the Troubles. A man disappeared in 1971, his body turned up ten years later, and his large family with what it means, as well as some IRA men.
The plot thickens and develops with superb performances by a large cast, many of whom were in the original production and draw on Irish backgrounds. Butterworth, joined by renowned director Sam Mendes, who ran London's Donmar Warehouse, manages the many actors on the stage together well and as one critic concluded, in a rave notice, brings it all to an explosive finale.
He compared it to Jacobean tragedy, such as those by Thomas Middleton. If you've ever seen Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling, you'll realize that things never get as gruesome as in that drama, but the ending is truly powerful, but the steady buildup to what happens then is well conceived.
A few years ago, I happened to see Butterworth's play, Jerusalem, when passing through London. It was a well-drawn picture of British counterculture which worked largely due to the casting of Mark Rylance in the leading role. Rylance is likely the finest actor working today and he's always worth seeing. I didn't think the play would make it in the States, even in New York, because it was very British, but it did come to Broadway and got good notices. However, it did not attract strong audiences and played only a limited run.
Later in the day, we stuck around and enjoyed a musical comedy, The Prom, which also received some good reviews. It's light but the writing is often clever, the songs are pleasant, and the players enjoyable, especially Beth Leaval as a leading lady of the theatre trying to save her reputation after getting disastrous notices by "doing good deeds" as the Wizard of Oz put it.
It's Broadway musical comedy wrestling with social issues--here it's gay high school students coming out in the Midwest--and the blend works better than does the injection of social concerns in the somewhat dated British postwar mystery, An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestley, which we saw in D.C. recently. This musical is good spirited and enjoyable, even getting me to ignore the current Broadway reliance on excessive amplification for once.
Monday, December 3, 2018
'Green Book'
Have only good things to say about Green Book, the movie I saw last night. One rarity was that everyone whom I know who has seen it has exulted about how good it is. This time they were all correct. It is a gem.
The two leads--Viggo Mortenson and Mahershali Ali--are not exactly household names. Mortensen was making some good pictures a few years back but has been less prominent of late. This superb rendering of an oft-presented character--the prototypical Italian-American from the Bronx--should get him award attention, as should also be the case for Mahershali Ali, who's appeared in Moonlight and the final Hunger Games film, neither of which I happened to see.
Mortenson has been in a bunch of pics I also have not seen, except for a small supporting role in Witness, some years back. I didn't recognize most of the rest of the cast, but all performed well.
The key to the success of this movie, however, as is almost always true, is the writing. Director Peter Farrelly is one of the three writers, along with Nick Vallelonga and Brian Currie. They all deserve huge credit for providing a top-notch script. I did want to see this picture but was also worried that its subject would be sentimentalized or simplified or exaggerated or any one of numerous ways it could have been messed up.
Instead, this tale of a brilliant black musician who's been everywhere and knows multiple languages and a parochial white driver clicks astoundingly well as they move along on a road tour that winds its way toward the Deep South. Each stop brings forth a different aspect of the racism prevailing there in 1962, in case we forget how recently this was the way things were when you travelled not very far past the Mason-Dixon line.
The incidents are presented effectively, without needless exaggeration because what happens is bad enough when played straight. And the picture is not preachy, but filled with plenty of humor, and avoids what I would regard as obvious and demeaning joking between the black and white pair. Done this way, a movie can provide terrific entertainment and carry a valuable message that is more likely to prove effective.
The two leads--Viggo Mortenson and Mahershali Ali--are not exactly household names. Mortensen was making some good pictures a few years back but has been less prominent of late. This superb rendering of an oft-presented character--the prototypical Italian-American from the Bronx--should get him award attention, as should also be the case for Mahershali Ali, who's appeared in Moonlight and the final Hunger Games film, neither of which I happened to see.
Mortenson has been in a bunch of pics I also have not seen, except for a small supporting role in Witness, some years back. I didn't recognize most of the rest of the cast, but all performed well.
The key to the success of this movie, however, as is almost always true, is the writing. Director Peter Farrelly is one of the three writers, along with Nick Vallelonga and Brian Currie. They all deserve huge credit for providing a top-notch script. I did want to see this picture but was also worried that its subject would be sentimentalized or simplified or exaggerated or any one of numerous ways it could have been messed up.
Instead, this tale of a brilliant black musician who's been everywhere and knows multiple languages and a parochial white driver clicks astoundingly well as they move along on a road tour that winds its way toward the Deep South. Each stop brings forth a different aspect of the racism prevailing there in 1962, in case we forget how recently this was the way things were when you travelled not very far past the Mason-Dixon line.
The incidents are presented effectively, without needless exaggeration because what happens is bad enough when played straight. And the picture is not preachy, but filled with plenty of humor, and avoids what I would regard as obvious and demeaning joking between the black and white pair. Done this way, a movie can provide terrific entertainment and carry a valuable message that is more likely to prove effective.
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