Topic: THIS MODERN WORLD (Read 19873 times)

bk · « **on:** June 24, 2004, 11:59:56 PM »

Well, you've read the notes, you know everything there is to know, you are in the loop, you are in the know, you are happening and with it and cool, man, cool, so post away, my pretties.

Jrand73 · « **Reply #1 on:** June 25, 2004, 12:19:19 AM »

Haha...first post. Huzzah!

Jrand73 · « **Reply #2 on:** June 25, 2004, 12:28:40 AM »

VCR: More WB detective shows from DRMBarnum....featuring Miss Allison Hayes as Lotta Peel, the stripper, in SURFSIDE 6!

DVD: GUMNAAM.....that dance is the bomb! plus a new BOLLYWOOD double feature from, yes MB.

CD: Avenue Q.....I'm not wearing underwear today....therefore I cannot take part in the magic trick DRPANNI talked about yesterday. Now that would surprise the magician!

NOW....on Wednesday evening I watched WALK ON THE WILD SIDE with its wonderful Elmer Bernstein score, Saul Bass titles, and interesting performances.

I really have never seen so many two-bit chippies in haute couture since the last Emmy Awards....BUT.....

Jane Fonda is not so hot. But I keep remembering her...when I first remember her. She really was THE hot young actress for quite awhile. I loved her in TALL STORY and especially in ANY WEDNESDAY and SUNDAY IN NEW YORK.... She was so fresh and beautiful and so different from anyone I had ever seen in the movies. She was - usually - a better actress than Natalie Wood, certainly she was a better comedienne. Then of course, politics reared its ugly head, and she did what she thought was right at the time..... I always thought her speech when she won her Academy Award for KLUTE was one of the best ever....."There is a LOT to say....but this is not the time or place to say it....."

I see her now with all her plastic surgery....and no movies to do....I would hope she would get something together.... She is very talented and her performances (if not her appearance) have matured gracefully. I wish she would come back in something that was worth watching. I miss you, Jane.

Or is it just my youth I miss? No....it's Jane....

Panni · « **Reply #3 on:** June 25, 2004, 12:30:33 AM »

Jr - Your Jane IS doing a movie. MONSTER-IN-LAW with JLo.

Jrand73 · « **Reply #4 on:** June 25, 2004, 12:33:37 AM »

Ohhhhhhhhh....DRPANNI......ohhhhhhhhhhh....thanks for the news....I am not sure what to think. Nice to know though.

bk · « **Reply #5 on:** June 25, 2004, 12:34:12 AM »

A must-miss movie.

S. Woody White · « **Reply #6 on:** June 25, 2004, 12:53:57 AM »

Quote from: Panni on June 25, 2004, 12:30:33 AM

Jr - Your Jane IS doing a movie. MONSTER-IN-LAW with JLo.

And which one is playing the monster?

Jrand73 · « **Reply #7 on:** June 25, 2004, 01:03:20 AM »

LOL....Does anyone have a FAVORITE Jane Fonda performance?

I like TALL STORY....but I think the movie that really made me notice her...was SUNDAY IN NEW YORK with Rod Taylor and Robert Culp and Cliff Robertson.

Which I am watching right now on TCM, and enjoying just as much. Clever....based on a play, of course....on location photography, great clothes and music...everything going to a movie used to be.

S. Woody White · « **Reply #8 on:** June 25, 2004, 01:03:33 AM »

Added to our DVD shelf this week:

Quantum Leap, first season. A damn well-written show, adventurous with it's premise and willing to follow through on that premise. Yeah, it got preachy at times. What show these days doesn't have it's "Special Episode," and advertise them as such. Besides, Bakula has such a nicely hairy chest.

The Marx Brothers collection - the stuff starting with A Night at the Opera. Part of me says that we're adding these films to our collection because the grandlads should be introduced to it at some time. Part of me says we're adding them to our collection because der Brucer has somehow missed on seeing them. And another part says I love this stuff because it gives me a childhood I was born too late to have. A lot of my peers didn't get to see these films until college. Gives a whole new meaning to "sophomoric," and not a shallow one.

Der Brucer, meanwhile, has added the original Stepford Wives and the recent Secret Window, because he wanted to. Well, the initials of the films' titles are nice.

Jrand73 · « **Reply #9 on:** June 25, 2004, 01:05:28 AM »

There ain't no sanity clause.

S. Woody White · « **Reply #10 on:** June 25, 2004, 01:07:36 AM »

I thought Fonda was great in Klute. Of course, it was really Sutherland's movie, but she was pretty good as a hooker.

Which leads to a follow-up question: Why are so many good women's roles about hookers?

S. Woody White · « **Reply #11 on:** June 25, 2004, 01:14:04 AM »

I'm to bed. There's cookies to bake and salads to make tomorrow, and I don't want to fall asleep in the middle of my dough. Der Brucer meanwhile is trying to devise games for the birthday party on Sunday. I think I've got the easier jobs.

Charles Pogue · « **Reply #12 on:** June 25, 2004, 01:38:39 AM »

Nothing in CD.

But lots of DVD: ECCENTRICITIES OF A NIGHTINGALE...Televised play with Blythe Danner and Frank Langella, Tennessee Williams' re-written and preferred version of SUMMER & SMOKE. Quite wonderful.

ANTONY & CLEOPATRA...1974 RSC Televised play with Janet Suzman & Richard Johnson and Patrick Stewart. Quite nice and great eununchs!

ROBIN HOOD...the Patrick Bergin televised one from a few years ago. After the Flynn version, perhaps the best version of Robin Hood.

THE GREEN GLOVE...a cheapie I picked up because it looked interesting. Film noir by Rudolph Mate with Glenn Ford and George MacReady.

Jed · « **Reply #13 on:** June 25, 2004, 02:17:43 AM »

Quote from: S. Woody White on June 25, 2004, 01:03:33 AM

Added to our DVD shelf this week:
Quantum Leap, first season. A damn well-written show, adventurous with it's premise and willing to follow through on that premise.

My favorite television series, period (and I'm NOT a sci-fi guy at all). Bakula and Stockwell, both fantastic. Great writing, getting that blend of comedy and drama right most of the time. I'll have to wait for the price to drop before I get the DVD set, though... especially for a 9-episode first season!

Robin · « **Reply #14 on:** June 25, 2004, 04:48:27 AM »

Quote from: S. Woody White on June 25, 2004, 01:07:36 AM

Which leads to a follow-up question: Why are so many good women's roles about hookers?

Because most movies are written by men.

Robin · « **Reply #15 on:** June 25, 2004, 05:00:11 AM »

As to this week's Medea Czech:

On deeveedee: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra and finishing off Jonny Quest--Season One. Yeah, I know it took a long time to watch all of the 'toons, but I only wanted to watch one or two at a time....savoring, rather than gulping.

On CD: Boulez Conduct Webern II and Nino Rota's Third Symphony. Lordy, Rota was a great composer! I'm just now getting into his non-film music, which is marvellous.

On VHS: nada. I tossed the old broken player in the trash, but the Significant Other tells me we will be buying another one this weekend.

What I'm Reading: Will Eisner's The Spirit Archives, Volume 13. The Spirit is the greatest comic book, ever. (OK, Jack Cole's Plastic Man is great too.)

What we'll be seeing at the theater this weekend: definitely Fahrenheit 9/11, probably The Terminal, and possibly a second go-around for the non-Americanized Godzilla. (Oh, and a trip to the Gay Pride festival and parade. I was thinking about being one of the staff at the Minnesota Atheists booth this year, but got lazy.)

Ben · « **Reply #16 on:** June 25, 2004, 05:16:24 AM »

Not much in the various players at this point. I'll be listening to internet radio at work, probably the BBC. We may be going to see Joan Morris and William Bolcolm tonight but we're waiting to hear from a friend if we have tickets. Otherwise, I will watch Mr. Jennings on Jeopardy at 7pm NY time. Tomorrow we have pre-Pride day evening plans w/friends. We will have dinner and be proud and then wander around until around midnight when we will gather at Washington Square Park and gaze at the lavendar lights on the Empire State Building. They are switched off each night at midnight. We wait until they are turned off then we all go our separate ways. That's not video or audio or CD or book or television-related, but those are the weekend plans.

Dan (the Man) · « **Reply #17 on:** June 25, 2004, 05:23:35 AM »

My favorite Jane Fonda movie performances are Barefoot in the Park and Julia, but my absolutely favorite is her performance in a TV movie called The Doll Maker.

Media Check:

CD Player (at home): the soundtrack to Nashville

CD Player (at work): Taboo Broadway Cast Recording

DVD Player: another disc from the SCTV set. Like Robin with Johnny Quest, I'm savoring this one.

William E. Lurie · « **Reply #18 on:** June 25, 2004, 06:14:13 AM »

CD - Noel & Cole - For Noel the original cast of the 1950 ACE OF CLUBS which featured the song "Sail Away" twelve years before it was also featured in a Broadway musical of the same name; for Cole the DE-LOVELY soundtrack. What a strange mixture. A few of the tracks are excellent, but most are terrible. Whoever told Ashley Judd she could sing? Didn't anyone bother to teach Sheryl Crow the correct melody? I've heard the movie is a camp hoot and on the basis of the CD I'm sure it is. The only problem is, when it does no business people will point to it and say nobody wants to see a musical.

VHS - The AFI 100 Greatest Song Clips. What a strange collection. Since there is nothing from THE FIRST NUDIE MUSICAL, how accurate can this list be?

DVD - Catching up on some M*A*S*H and Dick van Dyke episodes.

Cassette - An episode of Richard Diamond from 1949 featuring a character names "Esther Blodgett".

Dan-in-Toronto · « **Reply #19 on:** June 25, 2004, 06:25:49 AM »

CD player: 110 in the Shade, with its "previously unreleased," and very beautiful, overture.

I love this musical. The music, lyrics and book are perfectly integrated (IMHO), and I imagine that N. Richard Nash, who also wrote the original play, was more than pleased with the collaboration. I'm trying to think of other playwrights who adapted their work for the musical stage, and can't imagine any other doing so as effectively.

Dan-in-Toronto · « **Reply #20 on:** June 25, 2004, 06:31:25 AM »

This e-mail snippet is from Ann W, a dear friend in the nation's capital, who manages to answer a perennial question:

"Good morning, Dan. It is a beautiful day in Ottawa and I am stepping out with a friend to have lunch at the Royal Ottawa. Very posh. My friend is a member and they have to eat up a certain amount of money, so once in a great while, usually after she realizes she has neglected me, I get to eat with the golfing, bridge playing crowd. Fortunately their lives do not inspire any envy. I think I shall wear a hat."

Noel · « **Reply #21 on:** June 25, 2004, 06:54:23 AM »

author=S. Woody White

Quote

If Broadway, as it is generally referred to, is a neighborhood in NYC known for it's theaters, in spite of the fact that most of the theaters are not located on Broadway itself, and in spite of the fact that the street named Broadway extends the length of Manhattan, so that even if you're on Broadway you might not be in the area known as Broadway...

Then it is logical that "West End Avenue" also refers to a neighborhood, in spite of the fact that not everything in that nieghborhood is on West End Avenue itself, and that the Avenue extends beyond the neighborhood referred to.

Therefor, when Stephen Schwartz wrote the lyric line "Delis and laundromats and gay bars" in 1974, he was being accurate.

It may be logical but it isn't true. Nobody refers to West End Avenue as a neighborhood. It's a street. Broadway, the street where I live, is of course also used to donote the large commercial theatres in the theatre district, as Madison Avenue is used to donote the advertising industry. But neighborhoods they're not.

But I agree about the song West End Avenue (as a whole) and its merits. I was nitpicking with Dan-In-Toronto, who called the "laundromats and gay bars" phrase a great rhyme. One could come up with a lot of great rhymes if one were willing to stretch the truth:

Gee but The Flintstones is a marvelous film.
I like it when Fred calls his girlfriend "The Wilm."

I also agree about the more popular Meadowlark. The Baker's Wife goes to great lengths to establish how happy the baker is to be married to Genvieve. So, to give her a long story-song in which she, through allegory, justifies her leaving him for another man. Well, the audience has just got to hate her, right?

David Merrick had the right idea in pulling the score off the orchestra's music stands.

Media: Mozart clarinet concerto, William Finn's Infinite Joy, Purlie, Godspell

Noel · « **Reply #22 on:** June 25, 2004, 07:05:44 AM »

Quote from: Dan-in-Toronto on June 25, 2004, 06:25:49 AM

I'm trying to think of other playwrights who adapted their work for the musical stage, and can't imagine any other doing so as effectively.

For starters, try the prolific team of Lawrence and Lee, who adapted their Auntie Mame into the first musical I saw on Broadway, Mame.

You're right that it doesn't happen very often, and it's rarer still to see it done well (110 in the Shade, Mame). Arthur Miller did the book to an awful musical about Adam & Eve based on his own awful play about Adam & Eve. And some wonder why I don't see the need for a Children of Eden

Dan-in-Toronto · « **Reply #23 on:** June 25, 2004, 07:38:14 AM »

Yes, Lawrence and Lee is another good example (though, unlike N. Richard Nash (did his wife call him N?), they didn't write the source material). (And Chaim Potok, who did an adaptation of The Chosen, is in the Arthur Miller group.)

I greatly admire clever rhymes - and agree that they can't be clever for their own sake. Still, I don't mind a bit of stretching. One of my favorites is Kiss Me Kate's "If a Harris pat means a Paris hat." On the other hand, that's not everyone's style, nor should it be.

Ben · « **Reply #24 on:** June 25, 2004, 07:49:34 AM »

Hooray, we are going to see Joan Morris this evening. She's doing a show as part of the Lucille Lortel White Barn Summer Season. The theatre is under renovation so they have moved the season down to the Lucille Lortel Theatre on Christopher Street. Morris will be performing with her husband, William Bolcolm, Robert White and Max Morath. The show is "AIN’T WE GOT FUN” songs with the lyrics of Gus Kahn. So I will tape Jeopardy tonight so I can watch Mr. Jennings (I guess I'm becoming a Jeopardy groupie).

mrkdl73 · « **Reply #25 on:** June 25, 2004, 08:00:17 AM »

CD - Bounce (and I really want to like it more than I do)

DVD - empty right now, but next to view is Moulin Rouge - I haven't seen it yet; I'm very behind in my movie viewing. The other night in the dressing room people were appalled at all the 80's movies I've missed. I guess I have some catching up to do.

Housemate wants to get online - gotta go

JoseSPiano · « **Reply #26 on:** June 25, 2004, 08:22:26 AM »

Good Morning!

I slept and slept and slept... well, I did have a slightly restless period somewhere in there, but at least I'm not feeling as tired and blah as I did when I woke up yesterday.

Media Check - Actually, even though I've been home and had the time, I haven't put anything new in any of my various audio and visual pieces of equipment. Shame on me! Instead, I've been listening to a lot of NPR and catching up on my TV (in reruns).

DR Ben - Can I come see Joan Morris and William Bolcom too?!??! Huh??!? Can I?!??! Pretty please?!?! Bolcom's "Cabaret Songs" - and Ms. Morris' performance of them - are among my favorites. And Mr. Bolcom's "Piano Etudes" - WOW! Talk about a lot of notes! And I like how they are written for the Bosendorfer grand with the extra low notes extension.

OK... I have to get out of the apartment today... Laters...

Ben · « **Reply #27 on:** June 25, 2004, 08:26:03 AM »

Yes, we are fans here of Miss Morris and Mr. Bolcolm. Thanks to DR Kerry, we have a tape copy of the long out of print Lime Jello Surprise. Even though they're in Chicago right now, THANKS AGAIN KERRY!

Panni · « **Reply #28 on:** June 25, 2004, 08:29:37 AM »

VHS - Emmy tape of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM episodes. Finally caught up with the renewal of the wedding vows episode. Hilarious! Esp. Barry Gordon as the rabbi.
CD - Gate of Dreams - Claus Ogerman
Book: Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music
Interviews with Kander and Ebb. Saw it among the new acquisitions at the library. Looked like it would be interesting to dip into.

Jennifer · « **Reply #29 on:** June 25, 2004, 08:34:34 AM »

Okay I'm a day late but I love the Stephen Schwartz album. And "Lion Tamer" is my favorite!

News:

Author Topic: THIS MODERN WORLD (Read 19873 times)

Ben

Ben

Ben