dirac

Alicia Vikander took home the Academy Award for best supporting actress. I have a question for those who've seen the movie: was she really in a supporting role, or was this one of those instances where a lead was shoehorned into the category?

Thanks for the report. I did see the movie, which was disappointing (and I hope the Italian-American stereotyping isn't part of the stage show). It was hard to tell if this was because Eastwood had no feel for the material or if the material was part of the problem. Everyone I know who's seen the theater show liked it. Has anyone else seen it?

Sorry to hear this, YouOverThere. It is depressing when they start dying on you.....

From the Department of One Generation Passeth Away and Another Generation Cometh, or Time Marches On: George R.R. Martin has to inform confused and agitated Game of Thrones fans that the news of his death has been greatly exaggerated.

Respectfully, pherank, I doubt if Spector ever regarded Martin as "competition." Let It Be isn't first-rate Beatles, but that's a high bar. It's an excellent album. Spector took some messed-up tapes and made them releaseable. Martin was critical of the result, which was certainly nof flawless, but then he would be. Very true, and Martin played an important role in that.

Thanks, lmspear, I forgot about that.

Hmmm. Streep looks great, but I don't think she could pass for mid-forties on the screen. It may not matter, though. Thanks for posting the Ironweed video link, Mme. Hermine, I didn’t have time to do that. DO NOT see the movie before reading the book, though. Streep also does a country-and-western number in Postcards from the Edge and she leads a rock band in Ricki and the Flash, unseen by me. And of course, Into the Woods and Mamma Mia. Onstage she did Mother Courage. I guess the only things left are rap and hip-hop. Now that I think about it, she might have been a great Mama Rose (?)

Thirded. I hope this is as good as it sounds. Thank you, Mme. Hermine, I didn't know about this! La Streep really can sing, as many of you already know, I'm sure. One of her best moments ever is her wonderful period rendering of "He's Me Pal" in the otherwise misbegotten Ironweed. (If ever there was a book less suited to translation to cinema......) My only reservation is that Streep by now is a bit old for the part. I don't know what years the movie will cover, though.

Good point - although the new money/old money split in California does reflect cultural differences. Also San Jose and Los Angeles are still in many respects more like really dense suburbs than traditional cities, even though both are technically larger than San Francisco.

Like other veteran performers, he found a late-career regular gig in Zucker brothers pictures, and he was very funny as the very dense Ed Hocken in the Naked Gun series. RIP.

Thank you for posting, pherank. I don't know that you would call Martin a great or unique producer -- Phil Spector, who worked with both George Harrison and John Lennon after The Beatles split, regarded him as little more than an arranger, and while that's a mite unfair one sees what Spector was getting at. The musical training he had and The Beatles lacked helped a great deal and he made a special contribution to their records. It is sad news, but it's nice that he lived to a ripe old age.

I don’t think the intent was ever to take audience share from San Francisco Ballet. Theoretically there’s room for two troupes in the Bay Area. However, attracting audiences doesn’t seem to have been the really big issue. The performing arts don’t hold the same interest and prestige value for the new rich than they do for the old money of San Francisco, so there’s no reliable pool of donors. This has been a problem for the orchestra and theater groups based in San Jose as well.

Thank you, Jayne. It was really nice to see Rylance up there. He won for a terrific performance that was also unshowy, he did no campaigning whatsoever, and he beat Stallone. Trifecta! In regard to the thread topic - I kinda liked Jennifer Lawrence getting her Courtney Love groove on.

Forgot to add sexism - James Bond got a scolding from Sarah Silverman. Very pleased for Mark Rylance, though.

You didn’t miss much this year, diane. It was like being trapped in a glitzy political re-education camp for three-plus hours, only none of us sitting through it at home got any $250,000 goody bags. Diversity, the evils of slavery, digs at unnamed presidential candidates alleged to be too chummy with Wall Street, diversity, sexual assault victims, diversity, climate change, and the veep showed up to give a heartfelt if rather confused exhortation to “Take the pledge!” There’s always a little bit of this at the Academy Awards and it isn’t always bad, but this was sort of stupefying. The star wattage was also low, whether due to the boycott or other reasons.

Thanks for the link. Yep, she's still got it......

"We gotta find out where He holes up at night." -- The Robe

I would suggest respectfully that we avoid grouping any human beings alongside animals and plants in terms of their capacity for arts appreciation. However, you do not do justice to the Aboriginal Australians, who are not only capable of appreciating ballet, but whose descendants are dancing it. I would also suggest respectfully that the quote is actually a perfectly accurate description of one aspect of "The Sleeping Beauty." Surely it is no deprecation of TSB to acknowledge its historical context. That we can certainly all agree on.

True, but then their situations are somewhat different. When Martins took over NYCB, his remit was mainly to keep a great company going, preserving an inheritance while maintaining the company as a vibrant institution, not to be an agent of major change. Over the years his interviews have mainly involved playing defense against observers critical of the direction of the company and its dancing. Not defending everything Millepied said, but as noted above he's not the first to run into trouble fast trying to run POB.

Thanks, Natalia. At the risk of snark, it was only a matter of time before somebody cast Redmayne as a girl. However, it's certainly a timely and interesting subject. I didn't know ballet figured in the movie, so that certainly is an added attraction. Alicia Vikander used to study ballet seriously and she's talked about it.

Garis was an admirer of Verdy's on and off the stage, but B. H. Haggin was the most devoted critical observer of the Verdy "operation," to borrow one of his favorite locutions. Haggin also wrote a book on Verdy as part of the Dance Horizons series.

Verdy was also uniquely articulate and analytical, a great “explainer” of ballet and Balanchine. She is irreplaceable. Marina Harss’ profile of Verdy for The Nation here. It has already been posted elsewhere, but it has a special resonance now.

Thanks, Natalia. It’s nice to hear a more positive take. I watched the series through to the end, but I can’t say it was easy, even though there weren’t many episodes even for a cable show. The series was not originally intended to be a limited run, which probably accounts for the hasty wrapping-up of some of the plotlines. The concluding ballet was nice, I agree, and it was good to finally get to some real dancing. It is interesting to speculate on what might have happened in a second season. (The brother got kind of a raw deal, to say the least, but I don’t know where you would have gone with that character and that was one way to handle it, I guess.)

That's par for the course when it comes to the Coen brothers. Hit and miss, and sometimes it's mostly miss.

According to the Jennings piece, the resistance to the change in "La Bayadere" came from within the company. It is troubling that apparently the organization as a whole were oblivious to the problem presented by having children caper onstage in blackface.