Anthony_NYC

A friend just sent me a link to a sharp-worded piece about "Crash" in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The author is apparently a black playwright. Worth a read. Here's a sample:

Ang Lee has said that by the time Ennis realizes what he had, it's gone, and that is the tragedy of the story. If you've ever had someone near and dear die suddenly and unexpectedly, this hits home especially hard when it is portrayed with such excruciating eloquence as in the movie. I find it almost intolerable even to think the movie from the telephone scene to the end. As for the wives--you know, I like Lureen all the way through and don't find her the least bit unsympathetic. She suspects but never really admits to herself what her husband is. It's not until that final telephone conversation that she's forced to really KNOW who Ennis is, he's right there on the other end of the line, and she is forced to KNOW that Brokeback was not an imaginary place--Jack had the passion and joy in his life she never did, as she buried herself in her work, a method of denial ironically identical to Ennis's. Her physical appearance is I think meant to mirror that years-long struggle to cover up the emptiness in her inner life. When you remember how young and bold she was in the beginning, how pretty and fresh and full of promise, your heart just has to ache for her. I too wish Lureen had more screen time, I'd love to know more about this character--a tribute to how superb Hathaway was in the role. About the much-debated Thanksgiving scenes, another function of them is to distinguish the characters and destinies of Ennis and Jack. Ennis, confronted by his ex-wife, is totally, pathetically beaten down (literally!). Jack, on the other hand, finally confronts the self-described "stud duck"--a stand-in for his own father and for patriarchal oppressiveness in general. (This, in turn, mirrors the Independence Day scene where Ennis knocks down the biker who disparages his manhood.) Jack takes charge of his family, Ennis runs from his.

Not to change the subject (I could discuss "Brokeback" forever, I love it to pieces), but I wonder if I could solicit opinions about "Munich." From the listless "The Terminal," to "War of the Worlds," where the director seemed to have lost interest in his own movie, to "Munich" now, it seems to me like Spielberg has been off form lately. "Munich" was a much better than the first two, but, like them, it left me unmoved and a little bored. There isn't enough of a payoff by the end to justify its great length. You spend a large portion of the movie wondering little more than how they're going to off their next target. Obviously, it was a deliberate decision on Spielberg and Kushner's part to structure it that way, but I don't quite understand what I'm supposed to take away from the experience. Was I supposed to tire of the violence just as the assassins do? Or was I supposed to grow inured to it, making the final shot a sudden jolt of reality? Honestly, I feel like I really missed something.

Lol. Andrew Sullivan was bemused by the "Robert Wilson version of a cop feeling a woman up." This is what makes the Oscars worth watching! Do we know who was responsible for it? Oh, and that song about the pimp. Was it written by a ten-year-old? Lordy, there's nothing like Hollywood!

Lol. I'll be happy if any of the other four movies wins over "Crash," though I'm rooting for "Brokeback." Ebert's comparison of "Crash" to Dickens strikes me as fundamentally false. Dickens drraws you in with rich, vivid characters and superb storytelling, the long-lined plots intertwining as in a good mystery or thriller. "Crash" is a straight-ahead propaganda parade, and the actors might as well have worn sandwich boards announcing what they stand for. It gives up all its got on one viewing.

I finally heard this, and agree with you. Disappointing. When I sent "Che gelida manina" to a friend of mine, her only response was, "What a limp strand of spaghetti!" Not exactly what you expect from a rock group, especially one with "East Village" in its name. It did make me realize that I have not yet listened to Rene Pape's recording with the popular German rock group Rammstein, "Mein Herz brennt."

Yahoo reported some news about Gelb's plans for the Met that I haven't seen reported elsewhere: "The company will also adjust its ticket prices in an attempt to broaden its audiences. The cheapest tickets, accounting for about 11 percent of the season total, will cost $15 rather than $26; prices for the most expensive seats will rise from $320 to $375. (Ticket prices for the remaining 82 percent of tickets will be unchanged.) Under the plan, Gelb said, 'our wealthier patrons subsidize our poorer ones.'" Now that's the way to give opera more popular appeal! I hope standing room is included in the plan (for ABT as well as for the Met). "Levine, whose current contract as music director runs through the 2010-11 season, said Monday he will stay at least two additional seasons for a new staging of Wagner's Ring Cycle, which will be the centerpiece of the Met's 2013 celebration marking the` 200th anniversary of the composer's birth...The Met's new Ring Cycle is to be staged by Robert Lepage, who supervised Cirque du Soleil's $30 million production of 'KA' in Las Vegas last year." The mention of Cirque du Soleil makes it sound dire. I'm unfamiliar with Lepage's work, but Googling a little bit, he seems to have some solid credentials.

Today I got an e-mail message: "Dear Members, After we faced up several technical problems which damaged the site, we are now able to announce the Andante website is working again. Please bear in mind that some functions are still unavailable, but should be fixed very soon. Be sure we are doing our best to continue as long as possible to give you satisfaction with this great access to classical music of highest quality, and maintain the Andante website. Thank you for your trust and understanding. With our best regards, the Andante team." Piece by piece, it does seem to be coming back. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Yes, it was a wonderful resource. There's a related article in today's New York Times. When Andante was in its infancy, they invited me to participate, along with perhaps a dozen other people in various performing arts professions, in a meeting to discuss their plans. The people couldn't have been nicer, their goals were noble, and you had to root for them 100%. I immediately subscribed. I do remember thinking, however, that their huge ambitions, despite the influential people backing them (Pierre Boulez was one), seemed unrealistic. They wanted to be all things to all people; it would take a staff the size of an army, all with a serious music education, plus a king's ransom to bring their plans to fruition. (In retrospect, it's ironic they were eventually bought out by a label called Naive.) Many of their early ideas were never implemented. But their online listening library and magazine and the CD label were just fantastic while they lasted. After they moved their offices to Paris, though, some of us began having billing and technical problems. E-mails were rarely answered until, suddenly, a couple weeks ago, I got a curt message stating they were shutting down. I'm no business person, but I think Andante's fatal mistake was that they seriously undervalued their product. A subscription was obscenely cheap. They were on the right track, though, and Naxos Music Library and Classical.com show that with the right business model it's possible to make a success of streaming audio. It's not hard to imagine a world where WiFi is as prevalent as cell phone use. When that happens, it is my belief--my hope!--that subscription streaming services will take the place of downloading. Who needs to bother with shopping and downloading and copying when, for a reasonable fee, you can have access to most anything you want, whenever you want it, without using up any disc space on your computer?

All of a sudden Il Divo is in the news everywhere. The New Yorker even did a Talk piece about their groupies--middle-aged ladies with apparently waaay too much time and money on their hands. I'm worried if nobody stops the group Peter Gelb will commission Andrew Lloyd Webber to write an opera for them to sing at the Met.

I agree with you, dirac. The other parts of the review are fine, but this tangent about the joy of family is kind of weird. There's a thoughtful review by Daniel Mendelsohn in the New York Review of Books that tackles the real issues in the movie head on.

Mr. B up in heaven, please forgive me, but I think it's an ugly move. The ballerina always has to hunch her shoulders to make contact. To me, it doesn't express anything except "Looky what I can do!" I bet Whelan could even touch her forehead to the *back* of her knee. The story about Farrell unraveling her tights is hilarious! Wouldn't it be a fun practical joke to put a little Velcro on the ballerina's tiara, see what happens?

bart, thanks so much for the Stroman quotes. Now I'm actually eager to see it, glad to anticipate good, old-fashioned long takes. May the directors of "Dance in America" learn a thing or two from it. Spoilers ahead for "Brokeback Mountain" dirac, you might be right about the Thanksgiving scene in "Brokeback." Maybe this is far-fetched, but I suspect one reason for its inclusion was to introduce "stud duck," a phrase Proulx has talked about--part of the theme of masculinity that runs through the story--though here it is applied to Jack's father-in-law rather than to his father, as in the story. I'm not sure which girlfriend scene you're referring to, but I thought the introduction of Cassie was largely a set-up for the final trailer scene. canbelto pointed out, correctly I think, that we begin to lose sympathy for Alma. She can't quite love Ennis enough to get beyond her hurt and reach out to him in his own. Alma Junior, on the other hand, understands and accepts--almost unconsciously, it seems--that her dad isn't "the marrying kind." That beautiful smile of hers in the trailer scene--a wordless communication of unconditional love from a younger generation to an older one--is Lee's only subtle offering of hope in this otherwise bleak tale. But then, yeah, there's that final masterly shot, where we lose the picture of Brokeback for the flat "grieving plain" out the window. It's devastating.

Michael, I enjoyed Sylve's Bizet Saturday night, too. With more experience I'm sure she'll bring more romantic soulfulness to it, the only thing a found a little lacking. On the plus side, hooray, she does NOT touch her forehead to her knee (which always strikes me as a show-offy circus stunt inappropriately inserted in this most generous of pas de deux).

That's amazing! I had never thought about it, but you're absolutely right. I'm going to have to watch the Hitchcock again and look for parallels. canbelto, I have the opposite problem. I used not to like Woody Allen at all (not even "Annie Hall"). Somewhere along the line, for no good reason I can pinpoint, that completely changed, and now I adore all of his movies, even the ones I know aren't really very good. Just a weakness of mine. An interesting aspect of "Match Point" that's been much commented on is the fact that there is no "Woody" character in it at all, which, together with its London location and mostly British cast, gives it a very different feel from Allen's other movies. (On the subject of British actors, why is it that Rhys-Meyers, who is Irish actor playing an Irish tennis player, sports an English accent?)

You know, I was never a big fan of the original movie. I've never really "gotten" Zero Mostel, plus the whole "Springtime for Hitler" segment that's supposed to be the big climax is a one-note joke that goes on waaay too long. In the show, there's a surprise here (I won't spoil it for you), and it's a stroke of genius--much, much funnier, and the lyrics are genuinely quite witty. I have never heard an audience reaction like the one in the theater during this number--a roar of sheer dilirium and unbridled love for the performers. (At curtain calls, Nathan Lane teared up.) Maybe PBS should have just broadcast a film of the thing live, to capture that buzz. Anyway, looks like I'm not seeing "The Producers" tonight after all. My friends (one of them from Berlin!) had to back out. Maybe it's all for the best.

I've been waiting to hear comments about "The Producers," this being a dance board. I'm finally seeing it this weekend, and after hearing about its box office woes I'm afraid the theater will be empty and there won't be any laughter, which would be really depressing (I'm taking two friends who never saw it on stage). Stroman always strikes me as great with a gag, but at something of a loss when it comes to pure dance values. I thought she was the perfect choice for a Mel Brooks vehicle, and I've rarely had so much fun in the theater or laughed so hard. How are the production numbers in the movie? I would assume they are expanded to fill the big screen. I saw "Match Point" last weekend. A very well done film, with a theme reminiscent of "Crimes & Misdemeanors." There's a rather improbable plot twist towards the end, which I went along with but my companion didn't. Leaving the theater, however, the first thing both of us exclaimed about, talking at the same time, was the *piano accompaniment* (!!!) used in the Covent Garden scenes. I'm sure it was a budget issue, but I wonder if Allen realized just how bizarre this comes off to any opera goer.

I agree, I think Alma Jr. definitely knew. That's why she tells Cassie her dad's "not the marrying kind." When she asks to come live with him, I think she's trying to rescue him--he needs somebody, but she doesn't want him to make the same mistake he made marrying her mother. At the end, when Ennis says he'll come to Alma's wedding, her incredibly touching smile, so big and young, says it all--her dad's finally going to let her into his life. I know what you mean about the resemblance! How do they do that? She even has exactly the same eyes as her mother in the movie. Hathaway is amazing in that phone conversation, isn't she? The woman who began in a blazing red charge at the rodeo has bleached all the color out of herself (then applies it artificially to her nails and lips). She lets out a couple of almost inaudible wimpers as she listens to Ennis--only at that moment does she understand that her husband had the great passion in her life that she never did. She was, like Ennis, too busy hiding in her work to notice anything all those years--or maybe she didn't want to notice, choking back her emotions just like Ennis, not willing to look the thing full on.

dirac and canbelto, I'm kind of relieved to hear your reactions to "Crash." The actors are superb, I thought; I especially liked Dillon and Newton. The screenplay is contrived, to say the least, which maybe wouldn't bother me much if it were a) better structured, and b) less mawkish/preachy towards the end (all those epiphanies for each character). The intentions are so good that I have a hard time resisting it despite its flaws. "Brokeback Mountain," on the other hand, also has a message, but everything is subtle, understated, with no easy answers. Even the smallest details, you realize afterwards, work on the level of metaphor, without the movie ever seeming even the tiniest bit calculated. It's such an *organic* thing, I'm amazed by it. How do they do this in movies, with so many hands involved? For me it is a lyrical masterpiece.

And I'm doing the same with Syriana, for the same reason (boy, a lot it went right over my head). AFTER reading your incredibly detailed synopsis, though! The friend I saw it with wondered why it wasn't told in plain, straightforward fashion, but I'm not convinced the movie would have worked any other way. I also just picked up the DVD of "Crash" in order to watch it again. I've been recommending it to everybody, but in truth my own feelings about it are still unsettled. Now, I'm really wondering about Tristan & Isolde.

Yes, you're right. The old "King Kong" is a great movie. I guess I'm just thinking of all the TV and movie remakes that always seem to be on the box office charts nowadays. I've also had my fill of the fantasy films--"Star Wars," "Harry Potter," "Lord of the Rings"--where it's always Good vs. Evil, one CGI-filled battle after another. Everything starts to seem like an exploded TV sitcom or cartoon. Give me some character development and adult dialogue, please!

I'm so glad you enjoyed it, canbelto. There seems to be a strong pattern in how it affects people (including me), a kind of delayed reaction. It has to sink in, scenes replay in your mind, and patterns and meanings come through that weren't immediately apparent while watching. I went back to see it a second time, and was even more impressed and moved. On the surface it seems so plain, so quiet and deliberately paced--but the closer you observe and give yourself over to it, the more you find in it and feel it. Part of this is due to the fact that so much is left deliberately ambiguous--it forces you the viewer to participate in it emotionally. The sheer craft of it is just incredible. A friend directed me to some remarkable discussions about Brokeback that are happening on the Internet. I don't know if I'm allowed to post a link like this, but here, for example, is a thread on IMDB. For those who haven't seen the movie yet, I would strongly discourage you from reading it, though! Or the short story, for that matter. Just go to enjoy a great love story, beautifully told--and bring some Kleenex!

Wow! Very happy to see that all the nominations are for serious films aimed at adults. Even King Kong was passed over. (No judgement, I haven't seen it yet.)

Oh, well if she's in New York, she can try this.

Your friend might want to peruse books by noted voice teachers like Oren Brown or Richard Miller to see the kind of work required for an operatic career. She might also want to subscribe to Opera-L, or just search its online archives--I'm sure the subject has been discussed there.