Friday, March 23, 2018

Three in the Air

On my thirteen-hour flight I managed to watch The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Mo., and The Party in a marathon movie extravaganza. Best first. Three Billboards was a much more powerful picture than I had expected. Frances McDormand is the real deal, a strong actress who commands the screen. Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell gave fine performances, too. I liked how the film showed the attitudes of the townspeople and the indomitable nature of McDormand's character, even when she is off on a crazed pursuit. As a drama, it was gripping, with one big scene after another. A true movie movie. I would've nominated Sandy Martin for Best Supporting Actress--she turns in a bravura turn as Rockwell's mom.

Shape of Water is no more than a fancier rendition of a traditional monster picture. Sally Hawkins plays an interesting version of the girl who falls for the monster and Octavia Spencer gets into her role as the friend at work who watches out for the girl. But: monster warms to girl, monster escapes, monster shows a few human touches, monster is pursued by Russian spies, chase is the last climactic segment, all predictable. Since the monster doesn't speak, Boris Karloff still is the standout in this kind of role. Best picture? They had to be kidding. Some clever lines and photography and nice use of 1950s settings.

The Party is a Brit black-and-whiter with lots of talk. Kristin Scott Thomas and Cherry Jones are always worth watching--since they remain two of our finest actresses. Jones usually is a stage standout so it's good to get a chance to see her on screen. Last time I had seen her was as a powerful Amanda in a Broadway revival of The Glass Menagerie. It was fun seeing Bruno Ganz as an older guy--I remember him as the lead in Wim Wenders's The American Friend, drawn from one of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels. Timothy Spall just seems to stare at the camera. Patricia Clarkson is fun in a way as a real bitchy friend. But it all is a blur and adds up to a whole lot of nothing. These people have the problems all coteries have and their's are not all that enthralling.

Usually I like to relax on long flights with some classics. This time it was the Fred Astaire-Audrey Hepburn Funny Face. It is a classic Hollywood musical, set in Paris, with a collection of Gershwin songs and directed by Stanley Donen. Yes, it's fun but it is so 1950s that I started to have trouble sticking it out. Tried to decide whether Audrey Hepburn was doing her own singing or dancing. If she was, it was very good. Astaire always holds the attention and it is deservedly so. But the silly thin plotting here gets grueling. I kept thinking of the wonderfully titled (and delightfully written) John O'Hara story, Your Fah Neefah NeeFace, in which the characters remember a couple who would do wonderful imitations of Fred and Adele. 

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Three on Broadway

Had a nice long weekend in New York and saw three shows--Admissions, Come From Away, and Farinelli and the King. All were worth seeing. 

Admissions is at the Mitzi Newhouse under the Vivian Beaumont in Lincoln Center. Drama by Joshua Harmon, who wrote the excellent and very funny Bad Jews which we saw here in DC a couple of years ago. This one has a director of admissions, the wife, at an elite New England private school where the head is her husband. She's big on diversity but then she is hit with it seeming to work against her son's applying to elite institutions.

This play raises good issues of hypocrisy and values. They are well presented by the players, although the burden here to me always rests on the playwright to make it work. I think it does, although I wasn't always sure we had been given enough about each character to make us accept everything that follows. 

Come From Away is a musical--the current style which is steady music all through but which sounds basically the same. I liked it as a show--it moved, the cast was energetic, and they made the concept of the mob of air travellers who were stuck in Gander, Newfoundland, after September 11 work. The theme is the encounters between the air passengers and the locals. Lots of laughs and enjoyable, although, as noted, the music did not strike me as especially interesting.

Farinelli and the King was a more complicated affair altogether. A famed castrato singing Handel's opera in London is recruited to come to Spain to raise the spirits and cure the ailments of the reigning king, Philippe V. The play, her first, was written by Claire van Kampen, who is married to Mark Rylance, who plays the king, and, incidentally, is probably the finest working actor in the world today. There's some good dramatic tension because Rylance and the two performers who play the singer--one delivers the lines as an actor and another, a countertenor, sings the singing parts, which are arias from Handel's operas. Two countertenors share this part, apparently each singing every other performance.

There's been some commentary saying that the play is no big deal but Rylance is always worth seeing. I thought the play was fine and that the two title characters (Rylance (the King) and the singer) play off each other well. Rylance has the biggest part and is always a delight to behold. Supporting characters are good--the institutional figures pressuring each of the lead: in the case of the King, his chief minister, and in the case of Farinelli, his producer/manager in London who wants him back there. There's also another good character, the Queen, who comes from a fine Italian family and understands all.