Spring Awakening

Continuing on the Broadway preoccupation: Spring Awakening.

A few years ago, a friend instructed me to find a nice musical to watch on a celebratory night. I flipped through the newspaper ads until my eye fell upon a simple poster, featuring a boy and a girl lying together. Or more precisely, the girl on her back, dress piling erotically to reveal an inch of leg as the boy bent over her, clearly in the process of unbuttoning her top. The faces were half-hidden and her gray schoolgirl stockings only left more to the imagination. The title of the show was Spring Awakening.

I went online and brought two tickets.

What can I say? It was superb advertising. After all. the tension before the plunge is always the most compelling part. Furthermore, we'd been informed that the two actors would actually stimulate sex onstage during the show. Live. Are you telling me that you would have picked "Mamma Mia!" instead?

Cut to: A year later, when I'm listening to the soundtrack nearly every other day. The less said about the story and characters, the better. But the music was something I had never heard on Broadway. Sure, the lyrics are provocative, probably the main attraction to an agonizing pre-teen. But what's outstanding is the rock-balladic nature of the tunes, performed with rollicking gusto and more range of feeling than I've heard anywhere else by the SA cast, all of whom were under 25.

Featured: "Mama Who Bore Me" (my friend's favorite), "The Bitch of Living", "Totally Fucked".

And let's not forget that Spring Awakening's original cast featured a pre-Glee Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff, and the ever-winsome John Gallagher Jr (his hedge-haired character Moritz is probably the second-best aspect of the show). In a way, Spring Awakening has become the Rent of my generation. There are some I know who refuse to acknowledge Lea Michele as anyone else except "the original Wendla". And Jonathan Groff was the only reason I started watching Glee in the first place, because may the gods strike me before I miss a Spring Awakening reunion on national TV. I've already signed the Facebook petition to have John Gallagher Jr guest star next.

Favorites: "Word of Your Body" "Touch Me" "I Don't Do Sadness/Blue Rain"

John Gallagher Jr. after winning a Tony for the role of Moritz, and giving one of the rapid and "awww"-inducing winning speeches in recent history. Jonathan Groff was also nominated, but not Lea Michele.

Other famous poster says everything about the musical you need to know.

I'm so going to look back at these shots in the future and cry. They're positively ethereal.

Suck it, Newsweek.

Don't be frustrated, Johnny! This is all leading to a Tony and a passionate fanbase.

Hanschen (Jonathan B Wright) and Ernst (Gideon Glick) in the one of the funnier and sexier scenes of SA

Anna Kendrick Nails Sondheim and Cabaret

Can't believe I haven't posted these vids of Anna Kendrick before.

A few months ago, I went all biography on Anna Kendrick in the wake of her Up-In-The-Air-Oscar breakout, and found - curiously - videos of her singing. Apparently she's in that Anne Hathaway way. Anna Kendrick started her acting career on Broadway (yay, stage origins!) at the age of eleven or something crazy precocious. A Tony nomination followed; so did performing at Carnegie Hall shows like "My Favorite Leading Ladies" alongside legends like Elaine Stritch and Bernadette Peters.

Anna sang "Life Upon the Wicked Stage" with the ladies from "Cabaret". She wears pigtails. She's the lead performer. As it turns out, she is a phenomenal stage actress. I could not stop watching the video.

Thank goodness for these little side recommendations, because it led me to the Other Great video of Anna Kendrick singing "Lades Who Lunch" from the movie Camp (2003). Again, the quality of her singing and acting just bowled me over. There's something very sharp and confident about her movements - it's calculated, but executed with wonderful aplomb.

IMO, the best video comment is also the most insightful. For me, It's always great to hear praise from an area expertise, and user "SuttaBro" is clearly adept in the study of musical theatricality:

"This performance absolutely stuns me. Sondheim in general is NEVER easy to sing and yet here you have a girl who is about 30 years too young to be playing this role, and she absolutely nails it. The tone of her voice, the facial expressions, the attitude - she completely captures the emotional mood of the song. I am beyond impressed."

Nails it. We have schmucky musicals like Nine starring fake-singer-actors, while real singers like Anna Kendrick fly under the radar? I am fully ready to see a musical adaptation starring Anne Hathaway and Anna Kendrick. Yessir, I am.

The Style of "The Hours"

Love the slightly disheveled chignon, the askew necklace, the brooch, the orange drop earrings. Everything is so subliminal yet adds to the look of the character, never taking away from Nicole Kidman's hypnotic gaze, the true

star of the show. Colors of pink and orange highlight her English-rose complexion. Wispy elegance.

I loveeee that coat. Love the matching orange tones in the hat wreath, earrings, and necklace.

This has a kind of eerie Victorian spell. The little girl is wearing fairy wings, though you can't see them clearly. I have the score from this scene on my Ipod - downright shiver-inducing.

Possibly my favorite. Oh, to own a cream coat. A faraway dream for the owner of 3-4 damaged sweaters.

The gloves!

Adding to the parallel between Clarissa and Virginia Woolf's life, Meryl Streep wears an almost identical coat with orange drop earrings. Not so crazy about Julianne Moore's clothes in the movie, so I'll leave them out (big florals, ugh).

LOVE this sweater worn by Claire Danes.

The costume designer here is Ann Roth, who is currently nearly 80 years old! and who started out with contemp (Midnight Cowboy!) but has lent her eye to mostly period fare as of late from The English Patient to Mamma Mia! and most recently, Julie and Julia. With some M. Night Shyamalan movies in the mix.

Roth has repeat credits with Meryl Streep, having dressed the grand woman in 11 movies now. Coincidence or power backing? In second place is Nicole Kidman, who she's worked with 4 times, all of them in the last decade.

Matt Damon's swimming trunks are a stroke of genius.

Roth's inclination towards head wreaths (in The Hours, Miranda Richardson also wears a garden wreath at one point while playing with her sons), virgin-white dresses and pops of color. Though the trademark pink wig of Natalie Portman's Alice might not have been her idea originally - that kind of thing feels big enough to have been mentioned in the script.

Coraline

I need to buy this

Between Coraline, Bright Star, and Fantastic Mr. Fox, last year was truly special (in movie-going terms, that is). I brought the Coraline DVD as a birthday present for my friend, and ended up watching it four times with her. Each time, I notice new things - a painstaking detail or a sly foreshadowing. You know, signs of effort and innovation, two things Tim Burton forgot on his way to the box office. That's why it pisses me off - have I mentioned this before? - whenever people shrug off Coraline because "they don't care for Tim Burton". "It's not Tim Burton!" I practically scream at them. "No association with him whatsoever! None! Nada! Zip! It has none of Burton's self-satisfied trademarks! It does not mistake weirdness for originality, it does not throw together paper-thin plotlines with redundant art designs and then call it a day! It is hilarious and suspenseful and otherworldly and layered and magical and magnificently presented and -"

In other words, I need to go buy the DVD.

My First Movie Review

Recently stumbled upon my first-ever movie review, which I had written in freshman year. Before movies, I'd been mostly preoccupied with Amazon.com (I'm not kidding) and immersing myself in all the generally impish and lively activities most thirteen-year-olds go through with on Saturday nights, like writing searing reviews of Christopher Paolini's Eragon using multiple accounts and playing a very addictive game called "Redbeard" on Miniclip.com

Sofia Coppola has stated over and over again: This is not supposed to be a historical document. She never intended this to be something that came from the History Channel. So to the people who bash it for its historical innaccuracies, start looking at it as a MOVIE and less as a high school history project.


This is a movie about the girl herself - NO, not about the French Revolution. About a girl, and Coppola does a stunning job of fusing the audience into her world.


What Coppola is trying to do is document the personal life of a lonely teenage girl, completely ordinary except for the fac that she is queen. And we can see it - when Marie and her friends paw through endless shoes and dresses like today's girls at their favorite boutique, doing exactly what teens of today's society might do if suddenly thrust into a life of seemingly endless wealth - fulfill their dream of a play-house (or in Marie's case, a play-village), on a ridiculously extravagant birthday party (I mean, watch "My Super Sweet Sixteen" and see if you can honestly penalize Marie Antoinette.


We are able to comprehend her ignorance, her oblivion to the outside world, the seduction of Versailles, when all she sees her her Versailles bubble are the beautiful gowns, trimmed gardens and stately palace. (Think about how clueless and extravagant today's upper-class teens can be). And especially when she's constantly distracted and plagued by relentless, vicious gossip (again, teen girls can certainly empathize).


There's also beautiful visuals, and not just the lovely, succulent montages of seductive pink cakes and gowns-of-your-wildest-dreams. The use of light is extraordinary, as Coppola expertly and artfully maneuvers it to maintain the feeling she wants instilled in us - claustrophobia, fear, nostalgia, frivolity. The last shot, I thought was particularly beautiful, when a mixture of sunshine and shadow fall onto the sober, wistful faces of Marie and Louis as they look back at Versailles one last time.


Coppola is more of an artist than an entertainer, so if you were expecting big battles and The Patriot-type action scenes, be sadly mistaken. Coppola affectively employs everything in the movie for meaning - the little dialogue, the monotony and seeming repetition of Marie's life, etc.

If you are seeking to be entertained, go watch Spiderman. If you are seeking for a thoughtful, masterful, personal interpretation, watch Marie Antoinette.

I wrote it in quite a passion. MA was my first Sofia film and at the time, I was feeling that the movie was dreadfully misunderstood (incidentally the crying title of my review). In retrospect, I still agree with the things I said, though I wince a little at the spelling errors ("affectively") and wildly inventive phrases like "gowns-of-your-wildest-things". The hyphen has always been an enemy of mine, grammatically speaking. It's cute to look back on these things, isn't it? Off to hunt down my Eragon reviews. My friend and I spent, um, lots of time on them. They're funny, at least!

Why Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir Are the Best (and belong together)

My favorite video of the inimitable/best ice skating pair in the world currently (no hyperbole there, really) V and M surfaced a few weeks ago. It features all of their best intimate moments with some truly snazzy moves thrown in. And it's to the Beatles, no less!

1:26 is just.....amazing. There's no other way to put it. Why, oh why, are you two "just friends"?

The Adorable Eddie Redmayne

Ok, FUCK! I was writing an article on Eddie Redmayne, my latest actorly interest and pretended squeeze, but it all went down the drain after Safari cancelled (fuck Safari as well, it's the weakest-ass internet venue I've ever seen. One of the downsides of Macs). Isn't this thing supposed to auto-save every half minute? How the fuck did my post, which I was on the verge of finishing after twenty-five minutes cancel out?

Anyways, a boring summary: Very good actor. Even more adorable person. Caught my eye after playing the silent, inordinately talented Jack Jackson in "The Pillars of the Earth" convincingly and with shy vitality, so I checked him out in "Savage Grace" which I thought was a tremendous turn despite the ho-hum reaction from the critics. It wasn't mindblowing or anything, but particularly good considering the difficulty of the character. He rarely overplays or screws up, but he's not brilliant either, so we'll have to wait and see.

*Being endearingly shy in "The Pillars of the Earth"

Outside of movies and tv, he's come across as intelligent, marvelously enthusiastic, educated, exuberant, and humble. Loves Glengarry Glen Ross, animated cartoon characters, and Manhattan penthouses.

"Have you seen Devil's Advocate? Amazing movie!"

As I was saying before my post tragically disappeared into the black hole of cyberspace, I particularly liked how he said this line from Savage Grace:

"Mummy, I think that he's writing us a letter. I think he's writing us a letter, but in another alphabet, in Baekland writing. No one else can read it. Except, the thing about Brooks - " Julianne makes an angry, semi-audible sound. "Mummy, don't be angry. I love you." Julianne does not reply. "Mummy, I love you."

Looking Out For Eddie Redmayne

*All right, my original Eddie Redmayne post mysteriously popped up in the drafts after I published the second post, of course it does.

I've been terrible with these actor posts. I fall in love with actors so frequently that I would have expected to have a half-dozen names in my canon of fangirl posts. Strangely though, no actor after Ben Whishaw has really captured my attention. Mark Ruffalo caught my eye in this summer's "The Kids Are All Right" with his manly, vegetable-hauling sexiness, but alas! The draught of inspiring actors is no longer limited to Americans.

That reminds me - I thought Joseph Gordan-Levitt - aka American Actors' Only Hope - was wonderful in "Inception". Chris Nolan was smart, as he always is in his casting decisions - to pick such charming young actors of frenetic energy to play the near-thankless supporting roles. Unlike Leonardo Dicaprio (see Gangs of New York), Ellen Page and JGL have very easy, relatable charisma. Ok, so I suppose I have to thank Marion Cotillard and the lovely Cillian Murphy for that too - so much passion and earthiness to ground the frigid mechanisms of Nolan's dreamworld.

The only actor I've been vaguely enamored with for a week is Eddie Redmayne, and unfortunately, more of that has to do with his offscreen antics than his actorly skill, much like Ben Whishaw.

The bod or the head? Always, always, the head.

So this is a love entry, methinks. Oh, whatever hell! That's what personal blogs are for, anyways. Let's begin rifling through the sweet, albeit extremely brief, history of Me & Eddie Red-ma(y)ne.

2006: I encounter Eddie Redmayne for the first time in "The Good Shepherd". Am transfixed in an subjective manner by what I later learned was the term "jolie laide". A bit like that-guy-from-Twilight-whose-name-I-will-never-mention-on-this-blog-whilst-I-breathe. Classically, aristocratically handsome on some angles, slightly....odd in others. His eyes were distractingly wide. His voice was a little weird. Overall, an intriguing but not entirely positive first entrance. Very decent performance. Though it was totally unbelievable to see the 24 year old Redmayne play college son to Matt Damon, who I believe was like, twelve years older at the time.

2007-2008: Spot him frequently in the usual up-and-coming roles, from indie leads to oscar-movie cameos, like the assassin guy in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (the shittiest attempted assassination ever. Couldn't they have him at least shoot and miss? Blinded by her radiance? I'm sure it must have happened in real life to anyone lucky enough to encounter Cate Blanchett, but sheesh!).

I also see the trailer for Savage Grace, though the reviews scare me off. I absolutely do not notice him in The Other Boleyn Girl.

2009: I get a whiff of Eddie's radar but again fail to take notice, since at the time I was feverishly pursuing all traces of Ben Whishaw, the "other up-and-coming" Brit actor. The New York Times took note at least, featuring both actors in a screen-test termed "The Heartthrobs". The video also features Rupert Friend and Aaron Johnson. Rupert Friend comes off as more shy and intelligent than anyone would have given him credit for and Aaron Johnson acts like a pretentious ass, but both Eddie and Ben steal the show with their lively good nature and rambling humor.

This screen-test remains one of my favorites, and is notable for considerably warming my opinion of Eddie Redmayne* while remaining completely sidetracked by the precious, unwieldy charisma of Ben Whishaw. They're both such sweethearts, which is both worrying and appealing. Appealing to me as a fangirl, but worrying me as an actorphile. Where's the subtle shades of cynicism, the guarded hints of mysteriousness or moodiness? Boyish enthusiasm hardly colors the most interesting actors.

*Eddie is clearly a pop-culture fan. I love how he unabashedly refers not only to Serious Things like Glengarry Glen Ross and Oliver Twist, but also The Hills ("please! please!") and the Disney version of Robin Hood with foxes. He immediately gained my lifelong respect for mentioning Glengarry Glen Ross though, not gonna lie.

2010: He stars with Kristen Stewart and William Hurt in the ill-fated The Yellow Handkerchief, and again I barely take note of the movie other than wishing that it would die quickly. This is all Twilight resentment, don't worry, Eddie.

I see him in "The Pillars of the Earth", and now THIS miniseries, ladies and gentlemen, is the Cupid's arrow. He plays the painfully shy, inordinately talented mason/sculptor/architect Jack the Builder, a total color-by-numbers heartthrob. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've totally fallen for his character. It's not just because I really want to see him get it on with Hayley Atwell (whom I coincidentally discovered with Ben Whishaw in "Brideshead Revisited"! She was always so extreme in her affection towards Ben in interviews and videos that I seriously think he could have had her if he rolled that way).

I seriously digress. The point is, I loved his acting. Honestly. So many actors would have been all about interpreting shyness as "stoic and severe". It's a popular trend, and I don't mind when it's done well. Michael Corleone is the best example of this acting choice. The downside is, less-gifted actors just come across as wooden and humorless. Either way, it was totally refreshing to see Jack having a typical case of shyness. Having experienced severe bouts of shyness as a kid (I know, so atypical for a writer), I thought Redmayne was completely spot-on. The little blinks. The way of walking, the ever-present uneasiness, the rapt absorption of thought. He had everything down to a T, and remained beautifully vulnerable. I thought he did it with finesse, and he had me by the end of the first episode.

Then of course I had to google him in everything, analyzing microscopically. I rewatched his bits in The Good Shepherd. I watched Savage Grace, and was disappointed by the ho-hum reviews - IMO, everything they criticized was on part of the writing or directing, but I thought Redmayne was truly excellent as Anthony Baekeland. Ennui is always difficult to pull off without being irritating, and Eddie Redmayne nailed both the despair and shallowness of the character, without resorting to angst. He never overplays it, which is something I like. That's a valuable skill (my poor Christian Bale!) And I absolutely loved his arch, brittle narration.

Next on the list was Tess of the D'urbervilles, which I mainly spent (from the few clips I could gather) wondering why Gemma Arterton was so terrible and gazing at the dreaminess of Eddie's Angel Clare. I've never read the book, I admit. For some reason I thought it was about a hound....from some description I read when I was eight. I really don't know.

After that, there's not much on his filmography to look at, other than adorable clips of him winning a Tony for Red, being ignored in The Yellow Handkerchief interviews in favor of Kristen-whoring, and being completely joyful, humble, funny, and exuberant at various venues, explicating on an apparent love for Al Pacino and De Niro ("have you seen the Devil's Advocate? Amazing film!" [while tossing his head back]) and showing an appealing offscreen persona that has been as far from his rather internalized characters onscreen as possible.

So far I haven't really figured out a technique - he hovers between the natural and calculated, the charismatic and normal, resulting in a very good actor, which I suppose leaves room for potential. Like all theatre types, he's a natural with lines. He delivered this particularly well from "Tess of the D'urbervilles" well, considering the florid nature of it - every actor's nightmare:

"I'm devoted to you with all my heart. I love and adore you in all sincerity. And I shall need a wife, someone by my side. And no one better, more beautiful, more virtuous than you. Marry me, Tess. Be my wife."

Crickey-Christ.

Like Ben Whishaw, he's the type to work reliably, consistently, perhaps without ever reaching superstardom or dismal failure. Perhaps an oscar nom in the future. He's not a Heath nor an Orlando. Starring in Spielberg's "War Horse" is not necessarily a guarantee of making the A-list, the way everyone thought Ryan Phillipe would be after signing on for a Clint Eastwood vehicle ("Flags of Our Fathers"). But, he's making smart choices and immersing himself in different opportunities, so I think it's safe to say that we can expect a lot more from the classy, talented Eddie Redmayne in the future.

Trivia:

He has known that guy from Twilight for a long time (according to him, "British actors stick together in LA"), along with Tom Sturridge and other members of the Hot Young Brits club. He shot The Yellow Handkerchief before Kristen Stewart had begun filming "Twilight", and Kristen recalls Eddie telling her that her future costar and alleged love "[was] a good boy...he's kind of weird." hee.

He would rather live in a Manhattan penthouse than an English castle. He wants one like Al Pacino's from "The Devil's Advocate".

He had a crush on Maid Marian from the Disney Robin Hood, along with Nala from The Lion King.

He was an Art History major at Cambridge. That follows in nicely with the recent discovery that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a French major at Columbia.

Stuff White People Like

How many things on the list do you like?

Film festivals, organic food, feeling bad about not going outside, Wes Anderson movies, non-profit organizations, tea, awareness, traveling, wine, David Sedaris (!), Manhattan, Not having a TV (at least during my childhood), The Daily Show, Netflix, vintage, irony, dogs, natural medicine, bicycles, sushi, Knowing What's Best For Poor People (in all fairness my family was quite poor while they were starting out), recycling, gentrification, study abroad, Sweaters (cashmere), being offended, peacoats, Facebook, self-aware hip hop references (but only because of my cousin), bottles of water, Japan, Promising to Learn a New Language, Halloween, moleskin notebooks, Where the Wild Things Are, camping, Vespa scooters, Ray-Bans, Conan, Picking My Own Fruit.

The big reveal: I'm not white, but judging by my self-produced whiteness scale, 40/133 qualifies me as Somewhat White. I should probably launch into a psychoanalysis report but I think I'll laugh this one off instead.

What they should consider for #134: Having a blog. Don't know why it's not up there yet.

Staying True To Your Style

"What About Second Breakfast?"

Really let myself go today at brunch. A bowl of oatmeal sprinkled with liberal amounts of brown sugar, cinnamon, honey and granola; a bowl of quiche, three slices of crispy bacon, half a waffle with cream and maple syrup, a whole apple (fiber for the digestion), and glass of cucumber water.

Mmmm.....feeling sleepy.

Down at the Dinghy

"The swinging door opened from the dining room and Boo Boo Tannenbaum, the lady of the house, came into the kitchen. She was a small, almost hipless girl of twenty-five, with styleless, colorless, brittle hair pushed back behind her ears, which were very large. She was dressed in knee-length jeans, a black turtleneck pullover, and socks and loafers. Her joke of a name aside, her general unprettiness aside, she was-in terms of permanently memorable, immoderately perceptive, small-area faces-a stunning and final girl. She went directly to the refrigerator and opened it. As she peered inside, with her legs apart and her hands on her knees, she whistled, unmelodically, through her teeth, keeping time with a little uninhibited, pendulum action of her rear end."

- "Down at the Dingy", Nine Stories

I love it when authors are in love with their characters.

Beautific, enamored descriptions are so raptuous to read. And Salinger has such a way with his physical descriptions - the image as a "hipless, small, unpretty" childlike girl of twenty-five is intriguing enough, but he just had to go bestow that "stunning and final quality" that Boo-Boo is entitled to as a member of the illustrious Glass family. I found this paragraph exciting on a personal level, frankly, because I've always loved physical descriptions about people (if you look back, I rambled on endlessly about Margot from "The Royal Tenenbaums") and this vivid description reminds me of how, a few years back I experienced a rare jolt of inspiration that led me produce a lengthy description about a slender-ish, small girl who wore "khaki cutoffs trimmed smartly around the knee".

It makes me wonder desperately about Salinger's visualization of Boo-Boo, or who she was based off. I'll be on the lookout for any actress that resembles this description. Boo-Boo sounds insanely chic, doesn't she? Effortless gamine style. I have a theory that all writers are great fashionistas.