But first, a word about the Topic of the Day.
VCR: While Joe's away, I've been catching up on all those movies I taped from cable that he has no interest in seeing. I finally saw Angels in America and was bowled over. Favorite line, "The man who wrote 'The Star Spangled Banner' knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high no one could reach it."
But right now, I have a time-shift tape in there with two disappointing movies:
South Pacific with Glen Close, which I really wanted to like, especially since the screen-play is by the man who gave a fair-to-middlin' review in the University of Wisconsin newspaper to my first musical, My Son the Messiah.
I actually think that Glen plays Nelly Forbush quite well, despite being too old and the annoying fact that you don't believe from her accent that she is from anywhere close to Little Rock. It's Harry Connick Jr. that really irritates me. He just stands there and says his lines. Lt. Cable as a lounge singer. Even "You've Got to Be Taught" sounds like he's riffing "My Way". I mean, "to hate all the people your relatives hate" should be sung with some emotion, shouldn't it?
Lori Tan Chinn is quite delightful as Bloody Mary, however. But wot, no "Happy Talk"? What were they thinking?
And now, on the same tape I'm about half-way through Moulin Rouge. I suppose anything I could say has been said a hundred times already. I hate, hate, hate, hate the whole MTV style-over-substance quick cuts, tilted cameras, vomit-inducing steady-cam stuff. And not too taken with the One from the Heart world-as-digital-painting thing or the shoe-horning of irrelevant pop songs into the story. But so many of the reviews on imdb say it's "the best musical ever made" and "my favorite love story" that maybe I'm just an old geezer, like Charles Pogue? Naaah!
Oh, one thing that made the silliness and downright stupidity of the acting and dialogue a bit easier to tolerate was the sudden realization that this is a Feydeau farce! Now at least that is true to the period. Of course, I've seen college productions do Feydeau better, but... well, never mind.
