May Flowers, Kathleen Turner

May Flowers, weeknights @ 11:00


Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder. She's a hopeless... no, a hopeful romantic. What a slam dunk star turn that was. And how galling that Romancing the Stone didn't net her an Oscar nomination. It was deglam and glam in one package. Plus it was super fun and Oscar should remember to have fun more often. Fun movies sometimes have more staying power than dutiful prestige pics. Not all the time but why eliminate them because they aren't serious? Screwball comedies were as far from serious as it gets and Oscar didn't hate those.

The Oscar Nominees that year were four previous winners and one breakthrough performer (Judy Davis)

• Judy Davis, A Passage to India
• Sally Field, Places in the Heart (winner)
  
• Jessica Lange, Country
• Vanessa Redgrave, The Bostonians
  
• Sissy Spacek, The River

<-- Kathleen as "China Blue" also in 1984. She wasn't a dainty feminine thing, don't let the rose fool you.

If I had been giving out my awards back then, the Best Actress list would not have been 60% farm wives. My list might have read like so...

• Judy Davis, A Passage to India
• Mia Farrow, Broadway Danny Rose
  
• Sally Field, Places in the Heart
  
• Kathleen Turner, Romancing the Stone (and Crimes of Passion)
• Lesley Ann Warren, Choose Me
  
  umm... one caveat. I never saw The Bostonians... but back in 1984 when I was a wee boy I was very obsessed with Daryl Hannah in Splash and Elisabeth Shue in Karate Kid so I had no time for Vanessa Redgrave!
  

Basically, Mia Farrow excepted, no movie star had as much right to bitch about the Academy's choices as Kathleen Turner did in the 1980s. Those two just couldn't catch a break with AMPAS. I don't know who they pissed off but it was someone important and vengeful. Turner couldn't even catch a break with TONY voters after her gobsmacking "Martha" in Edward Albee's immortal Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (pictured backstage below)


In case you missed it and you are Turner-simpatico (more people should be) you should listen to my interview with Bill Irwin from last year's Rachel Getting Married. I kept making him talk about Kathleen. I couldn't help myself!

NOTE: For the next 24 hours for no particular reason whatsoever I'm going to be celebrating 1984 --an impromptu 25th anniversary celebration. Join me. Party like it's 1984. Coming up: The Top 10 of 1984 and a look back @ Terminator.

For now feel free to discuss Oscar's 1984 Best Actress choices and yours. You know you want to.
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TONY Award Nominations / Movie Connections

The Tony Award Nominations are upon us. As is my inconsistent tradition, I thought I'd share a little bit about a movies you can rent or think about to create an unfulfilling celluloid guilty-by-association approximation of the Broadway experience of the 2008/2009 season before the TONYs roll around on June 7th. Not everyone gets to New York to see the shows. And even if you live here, like me, you don't get to them in your financially challenged years. Tony Winners Cynthia Nixon (who seems to be everywhere lately, right?) and In the Height's man Lin-Manuel Miranda are announcing them live any minute now.

If you want a reminder of what's eligible which you can use to see who got snubbed check out this eligibility chart.

P L A Y R E V I V A L
Joe Turner's Come and Gone
This is the 2nd in August Wilson's famous 10 play decade by decade cycle of the African-American experience. The themes are identity and migration. There is sadly no great movie epic about The Great Migration (That's a missed opportunity A list writer/directors. Get on it!). The original production starred Delroy Lindo and Angela Bassett so you can rent one movie from each. Only one (!?!) of Wilson's plays has been filmed: The Piano Lesson with Charles S Dutton and Alfre Woodard in the lead roles.

Mary Stuart
Imagine a whole movie about Samantha Morton's doomed Mary Stuart instead of Cate Blanchett's cousin-killing Elizabeth in The Golden Age. Although maybe you wouldn't like to think about the Golden Age right now or ever again. My apologies!

A sampling of actresses who've played Mary: Helen Hayes, Vanessa Redgrave, Samantha Morton and Janet McTeer. Scarlett Johansson was set to play her in an upcoming film but that seems to be off her schedule now.

Better yet, rent Vanessa Redgrave's Oscar nominated turn as Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) with Glenda Jackson as her rival. Oscar nominee Janet McTeer (Tumbleweeds) is Mary of Scots in the Broadway revival. Further reading about Bess & Mary

The Norman Conquests
This comedic trilogy by Alan Ayckbourn was filmed in the 70s for television but it's not on DVD.

Waiting for Godot
This Beckett classic has been staged countless times and filmed a few times for television. It's so theatrical and abstract by nature (two men wait in vain on an empty country road. The end!) that it doesn't really invite the screen treatment. The current revival stars Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin. When I interviewed Bill Irwin (who shoulda been Oscar nominated for Rachel Getting Married) last year we talked about this a bit. I figured he could handle Nathan Lane what with all that sparring with Kathleen Turner already under his belt. I heartily recommend renting Beckett on Film in which interesting directors interpret Beckett's work. At the very least you'll get to see Julianne Moore doing Beckett's insanely great monologue piece Not I (see previous post)

M U S I C A L R E V I V A L
Guys and Dolls
The 1955 movie version starring Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons isn't really definitive since it's not particularly well loved and there are some singing issues. The current revival stars familiar actors from TV mostly (Oliver Platt, Lauren Graham and Craig Bierko). When they revived this musical comedy in London 4 years ago the Brits got two actors who fill me with glee: Ewan MacGregor and Jane Krakowski. No fair!

Hair
I LOVED this production (see previous post) but if you can't get to NYC to see it, you can always watch the 1979 Milos Forman film version.

Pal Joey
This got the film treatment back in 1957 with Frank Sinatra as star, so you'll want to rent that. Here's two videos to give you a slice of musical heaven this fine Tuesday morning...



Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak. That combo is almost too beautiful to look at. Double mmmmm. Stockard Channing and 80s teen star turned ubiquitous Broadway player Martha Plimpton are the "mice" on Broadway.

West Side Story
I really want to see this rare revival of my favorite musical of all time. But I could always watch the movie a gazillionth time.

B E S T P L A Y
Dividing the Estate
This isn't a new play but this family drama from Horton Foote is having its first Broadway run, therefore eligible for "best play". Foote died just two months ago but in his long career he wrote many plays and screenplays, too (including that film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird which marked his first Oscar win). His most successful play-to-screen transfers happened in the 80s with the Oscar winners Tender Mercies and The Trip to Bountiful.



God of Carnage
A friend of mine has already seen this one three times. The play is about two sets of parents who meet to discuss an altercation between their childen. The civilized meeting goes haywire and everyone behaves very badly. The couples are film and tv regulars Hope Davis and Jeff Daniels and awards magnets James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden (yay! my love grows)

reasons to be pretty
This is the latest provocation from Neil Labute also from my alma mater BYU in which a boyfriend's offhanded comment about his girlfriend's beauty-deficiency gets back to her sparking much trouble in their social circle. Thematically this is supposed to close an unofficial trilogy which started with The Shape of Things (which was made into a film with its original cast intact: Rachel Weisz, Paul Rudd, Gretchen Mol and Fred Weller) and continued in Fat Pig. LaBute's film career started strong with the vicious In the Company of Men which introduced movie audiences to Aaron Eckhart (another BYU alum) but lately he's been sliding: Lakeview Terrace and Wicker Man? Really... that's what you got?

33 Variations
This is the play that brought Jane Fonda back to Broadway. It's a story of a mother and daughter relationship and also a story about a composer: it spans 200 years from contemporary New York to 19th century Austria... plays aren't as literal as movies, you know.

Fonda is a nominee for Best Actress. Why can't somebody give her another shot at a third Oscar? Streep shouldn't be the only one giving Katharine Hepburn a run for her 4 Oscar record.

<--- Here's a photo from Jane Fonda's blog of 92 year-old Oscar winning supporting actress superstar CELESTE HOLM (!) visiting her backstage. This photo makes me so happy.

B E S T M U S I C A L
Billy Elliott
You've already seen the movie but why not watch it again. I'm still confused about how it makes a stage musical. If everyone is singing and dancing what makes little Billy so special. He's no longer out of place which was sort of the whole emotional point. That said, reviews are strong so maybe they worked magic.

Oh and yes, this will easily be the Slumdog of TONY night. It's up for 15 prizes including a special 3-way nomination for Best Actor

Film to Stage: It takes three boys to fill Jamie Bell's talented shoes

Next to Normal
A family in crisis (the mother is bipolar)... sings. More than 30 original songs. Alice Ripley (Side Show) headlines.

Rock of Ages
This is a head banging musical comedy (lots of famous songs from 80s radio) which unfortunately continues the trend of putting American Idol stars in Broadway roles -- this time it's Constantine Maroulis. Since this is a send up I guess maybe This is Spinal Tap! could be a vaguely connected movie rental choice. Or, go see Anvil! The Story of Anvil in theaters. It's a goodie even if its comedy is less intentional.

Shrek the Musical
I am in the tiny .001 percentile of the population that finds the whole Shrek phenomenon completely overrated and disheartening. I still think it's embarrassing that the movie beat Monsters, Inc to the Oscar . This musical doesn't have a prayer of accomplishing a similar feat, thank goodness. Small comfort because I am tremendously annoyed that my beloved Sutton Foster keeps wasting her bankability and starpower playing roles in mammoth productions that don't need a star of her calibre to sell tickets and for which no one will remember her. If your name alone can generate press and sell tickets why not harness your power for good and support new composers and smaller shows?

Here she is yukking it up at Joe's Pub last year and on Rosie O'Donnell in 2002 when her star first exploded in Thoroughly Modern Millie


(sigh) I love her so. It's so weird to me that she's never made a movie though she has finally done a bit of TV (Flight of the Conchords)

That's it! Whew. I'll talk about the actors and actresses soon (in brief) Have you seen any of these productions? If not, what's the last Broadway or touring show you saw?

Bill Irwin, The Film Experience Interview

new podcast!
Part 2 of 2: Rachel Getting Married Special

If you sat through Rachel Getting Married, curious about where you'd previously seen Anne Hathaway's mediating papa "Paul" before I'll help you out. Bill Irwin's film credits stretch all the way back to Robert Altman's Popeye (1980) and he's popped up in films as diverse as Lady in the Water, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Stepping Out, Across the Universe and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. His television appearances include The Cosby Show, Northern Exposure and multiple stints on Sesame Street as "Mr. Noodle"

For theater aficionados he's a much more familiar presence, a bonafide star. I've been an admirer since the first time I saw him on stage in The Goat or Who is Sylvia? in 2002. I was late to the party since Mr. Irwin has actually been winning coveted high profile awards in New York since the 1980s. He's practically an awards magnet. Remember that comic thread in the movie The Savages (2007) wherein Laura Linney and Philip Seymor Hoffman desperately yearned to become Guggenheim Fellows? Well Bill Irwin received just that honor all the way back in 1984...

Read more about my interview with Bill Irwin

Or if you're illiterate, you can just move straight to the enhanced podcast @ iTunes to hear me grill Bill Irwin incessantly on the great Kathleen Turner (thank God he indulged me) and hammer out what it is about Rachel Getting Married that makes people love it or hate it so. There's also a standard mp3 if you don't have iTunes. And just for fun here's a couple of Bill Irwin routines from YouTube...



(left) w/ Broadway star Karen Ziemba perform "Sooner or Later" (right) in Regard of Flight with Michael O'Connor and Doug Skinner
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New Podcast: Rachel Getting Married Pt. 1

Part 1 of 2: Rachel Getting Married Special

When I interviewed screenwriter Jenny Lumet she claimed ignorance, blissful ignorance, when it came to the movie industry. While it's true that she grew up in a famous household (she calls legendary Lena Horne grandmother and one of Hollywood's most lauded filmmakers, Sidney Lumet, father) she didn't know the fine details of getting script to screen. She apparently didn't stop to question her instincts, didn't stop to worry that screenwriters aren't technically supposed to announce their choice of Oscar winning directors... and get him. Her directorial suggestion of Jonathan Demme (Married to the Mob, Silence of the Lambs, Something Wild), underlines what one can already hear in Rachel Getting Married's illuminating screenplay: this is a sharp perceptive woman.


Last week I also spoke with "Rachel" herself Rosemarie DeWitt, currently an Oscar hopeful for Best Supporting Actress, on her ascending career. We dish on Mad Men (she jokes that it's hard to make out with Jon Hamm week after week, poor thing), investigate why Cinderella Man was important to her, praise Anne Hathaway, and I geek out about Searching For Debra Winger (which I am prone to do -- I really should write about that documentary) when we come around to DeWitt sharing the screen with the elusive 80s icon.


You can read more about these interviews here

Those with iTunes can get the enhanced podcast here.
If you're without,there's a standard mp3 for your listening pleasure.

Oscar prediction updates are in progress -more later

Rachel Getting Married = Hathaway Getting Nominated

Naked Gold Man: Each Sunday, we discuss the current Oscar race. Sure Oscar gets mentioned with great regularity here. We're obsessed. But the current year's race stays penned up on Sundays until pre-season really gets rolling. That's the plan at least...

By now I suspect you've seen the trailer to Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married (formerly titled Dancing With Shiva --and that earlier title makes sense once you see this). It looks good and I'm feeling vindicated about my very early enthusiasm.

See... long before the other Oscar sites glommed on to it, I was touting the possibility of Dancing With Shiva Rachel Getting Married being a return to form for Jonathan Demme. As a dedicated actressexual Demme is a director I'm inordinately fond of. His favorite actress is Michelle Pfeiffer (that makes him so easy for me to love). He's pulled great things out of Pfeiffer, Jodie Foster and Melanie Griffith in past years. I had the feeling that he had another Best Actress nominee in him. Not to blow my own horn --ok ok, I'm blowing! But remember, when Hathaway is walking those carpets: I called this one first.





I have to toot my own horn once in awhile when I see things coming, when I see things like Streisand could see them on a clear day (forever!) ... because the only other way to get attention is to fight. And I'm not really into that scene. It often seems to work for people in raising their profile. Its just something that's on my mind right now because have you seen what's going on between Awards Daily and Gold Derby? Circle round I guess and watch. Remember when Kris Tapley used to diss David Poland on the former Oscar Watch... and then Poland hired him!!? Anyway, fighting works. Just ask politicians.

problem child

But it's not for me. I want to be about the movies. Back on topic...

Love Demme and Anne Hathaway. And I'm hoping that my preproduction enthusiasm is justified by whatever they came up with in filming and in post. Here's to dysfunctional family dramedies! Yes, yes. They're a dime a dozen but the great ones should be savored, don'cha think? Cross your fingers.

P.S. Movie fanatics will be excited about the return of Debra Winger and A-list-Anne... but I also feel compelled to note: Bill Irwin, playing her father, will be less familiar to many of you but he's an a-m-a-z-i-n-g actor. He fully deserved that TONY Award he won for Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf a few years back and he was also riveting in another Edward Albee production, The Goat or Who is Sylvia. I saw the latter twice, once with Mercedes Reuhl and Bill Pullman and the second time with Sally Field and Bill Irwin who were their replacements on Broadway. It'll never be made into a movie but damn if it doesn't completely rock the house. What a play that was.
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Antoinette Perry

So, the Tony Awards have come and gone. Much happiness have I in regards to the Bill Irwin win for Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. And, though it pained me to see Kathleen Turner lose for the same show, one can't argue with the estimable Cherry Jones taking another trophy. She is a divine gift to the theater. My other favorite show of the season The Light in the Piazza also managed to take home the most awards for a musical (five in all) though it lost the big prize to the blockbuster Monty Python's Spamalot which won only three.

In other stage-ish news, check out the new trailer to the film version ofRent. (thanks to ModFab for the headsup) Props to this films marketing team for not hiding the fact that it's a real musical. That's nice to see given the way Chicago and Moulin Rouge! were half-assed about actually showing people sing in their promotional materials.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Despite two hours of sleep on Wednesday night and a marathon work day on Thursday, I was wide awake on Broadway Thursday night for the duration of that infamous and vicious couple's pub crawl through the home of George and Martha. The boozy evening of which I speak (for those of you who are young...or older folks who have lived under a rock) is the framework of Edward Albee's masterpiece Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

For those unfamiliar with the original play or its film incarnation, it begins as if already in Act 2: George and Martha, a middle aged college professor and his wife, return home from a faculty party already inebriated and waiting for the arrival of a younger couple whom they met earlier in the evening. For the remainder of the three act play George and Martha torment each other, their guests, and especially themselves. It's an all-night binge on strange love, regret, bourbon, petty grudges, and the comfort of familiar emotional baggage. Sounds like a laugh riot, huh? Yet thanks to Albee's razor sharp skills as a writer and the indelible characters within, the play is thrillingly alive and therefore funny, smart, and joyous in the way art can be even when its subject matter is bone-crushingly dark.

Woolf is hardly Albee's only major theatrical claim to fame; he also wrote the blisteringly funny The Goat, or Who is Sylvia and Three Tall Women among other important pieces for the stage. His most recent triumph was the off Broadway The Play About the Baby which was, in a peculiar way, a kind of abstract rendering of Virginia Woolf's central mystery. Albee has also won the Pulitzer three (!) times. Yet George and Martha's epic tussle remains his signature piece. In the course of its history (1962 to the present) and throughout its various incarnations it has won 8 Tony Nominations (with more presumably to come for this production), 5 Tonys, 13 Oscar nominations, 5 Oscars, 7 Golden Globe nominations, and many others. Not too shabby.

This Broadway revival's cast features Bill Irwin (famous New York clown) as George in his second dark descent into Albee's land of tormented couples. He previously starred in The Goat I'm happy to report that he's much more impressive here. But then, to be fair, Bill Pullman's creation of The Goat role would have been impossible for anyone to top -being one of the best performances ever(hyperbole fully intended). But of course the marquee name here is the one and only Kathleen Turner.

For longtime readers of my site, my love for certain actresses is well known. Yet my devotion to Kathleen Turner may have slipped by unnoticed due to her rather abrupt descent from the movie star ranks. Those who first dropped jaw at this actress's debut in Lawrence Kasdan's early 80s noir effort Body Heat probably wouldn't have seen a fine grande dame stage career in her future.... but, in a way, Turner has been building up to Martha for years. From her memorably dangerous seduction of William Hurt in that film to her breakout star turn with Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone through her sometimes violent love/sex matches with Jack Nicholson in Prizzi's Honor Steve Martin in The Man With Two BrainsTony Perkins in Crimes of Passion and within the divorce dramedies The War of the Roses and Peggy Sue Got Married nearly all of Turner's important characters have been women in the midst of extremely contentious and high stakes coupledom. Stepping into Martha's shoes, once inhabited by legends as large as Uta Hagen and Elizabeth Taylor is, to Turner's great credit, a completely unforced fit. Taylor's bray as Martha in the film version was a perfect match and won her the Oscar. Turner's famously husky voice and big throaty laugh spin just as naturally from and in service of one of the best written characters for stage or screen. She is Martha and will certainly be rewarded with one of this year's Tony nominations.

By the end of the play I had momentarily forgotten all about the film (which I love) so immersed was I in this new production. The finale is a marvel. In those superb last moments overflowing with repetitive "yes" and "no"s the consensual nature of George and Martha's emotional violence hits home. For these weary warriors, one realizes with a shudder, this night might be just like any other night. It's a dismaying thought. But for the audience, happily, this is not just any night at the theater. Highly recommended.