Xanadu Your Neon Lights Will Shine...

So I started that 10|25|50|75|100 series a month or two ago because I like a wide variety of years in my film blogging, but you have to restrain yourself somehow. You can't focus on all 100+ years of cinema at once! But yesterday on twitter WonderRobbie reminded me that it was the 30th anniversary of Xanadu today. Since y'all know I love the movie like crazy I figured a quick mention was in order. I've already written extensively about the movie, so let's just take a quick look at a few random progeny. It's had 30 years now to sink deep down into the DNA of pop culture.


Have you seen this parody which mixes the rollerskating musical with ... wait for it... Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby ? That's right. It definitely has its moments though video parodies that stretch over a few minutes, rarely go viral. It's gotta be short, don'cha know? There's an even longer parody staring peeps but... brevity is key for good movie humor. (Perfect example: Kill Bill in 1 minute.)



Now that YouTube has expanded the allowable upload length, even fewer people will restrain themselves. Ah well.

More? Here is sexgod Cheyenne Jackson, former Woody Allen regular Tony Roberts and the hilarious Kerry Butler doing "Don't Walk Away" from the excellent Broadway spoof.



Ms. Butler has actually made a habit of movie characters on stage. She was one of many replacement "Belle"s in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. She nailed "Penny Pingleton" in the original cast of Hairspray and was totally robbed of a Tony nomination. She then struggled a bit with Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors (but then, Ellen Greene owns that role so thoroughly one can only feel pity for anyone who dares approach it now). Finally, she was pure heaven when she essentially sent up Olivia Newton-John as "Kira" in the stage version of Xanadu. She won her first and very deserved Tony nomination for stretching out all those Aussie vowels to ridiculous length and singing her sparkly heart out.

You'd think more people would have covered the songs from the Xanadu soundtrack over the years given that the original screen musical, starring mostly the sounds of Olivia and Electric Light Orchestra spawned so many hit singles. But mostly I could only find evidence of the title song becoming a regular again a few years ago.



To your left is Sarah Blasko doing a gorgeous reworking of the tune for bonus tracks for "As Day Follows Night". To your right is Sharleen Spiteri doing a more traditional cover for her CD, "The Movie Songbook".

Xanadu. Xanadu-oooh-oooh. Now we are here. In Xanadu.

And we can't let this go without ONJ's heavenly presence for exit music.



Can you rollerskate like a Greek muse... or do you fall flat on your ass like me?
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Thanks Giving and Beloved Turkeys

Wishing you and yours the best for the holiday tomorrow. If you're travelling today, be safe. If you're trying to lose weight, sorry! If you aren't American, please pardon the slightly hijacked programming.


Over the holiday break, there will be posts. I've asked TFE contributors to give thanks for their favorite cinematic whatsis of the moment or to honor beloved turkeys. The other kind of turkeys. Not that you wouldn't eat a deliciously bad movie if you could. After years of obsession I don't so much regard Showgirls (1995) as a bad movie to love but a genius movie that only wears gaudy clothing and talks trash to be bad. So my favorite bad movie of all time is undoubtedly the Olivia Newton-John rollerskating musical Xanadu (1980), so if you haven't read that piece, click here.

Happy Thanksgiving

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Whip It Kiss It

Drew & Ellen K-I-S-S-I-N-G (from Marie Claire)

Nitflicky calls this the "photo of the day" but I'm more inclined to say "photo of the week" ...month?. For reals. It only makes me love Drew and Ellen more. I'm practically a straight man when it comes to girls kissing. More, please.

That said, the cover of the magazine is the typically boring airbrushed / heavily made up star portraiture. For a split second in this kissing photo (not the cover) I thought Ellen was Keira Knightley. I'll give you a moment to imagine Keira and Drew snogging.

stop it!

I'm not sure what it is exactly but I h-a-t-e seeing Ellen Page done up like any other young actress. I always feel like she wants to be makeup free and wearing pants. Did I read her pants-favoritism in an interview or am I projecting? Not every starlet needs to look the same. If you want to wear pants, wear pants. Think Katharine Hepburn and just go for it. Even on the red carpet. There are worse icons to take notes from. It seems like it's been a long time since we had a young female star who refused the typical red carpet looks.

Break free, Ellen, break free! Next time you're at an awards show, I want slacks! Or even a full suit.

<-- More cuteness from the derby girls

I'm so excited to see Whip It, I have an absurd and possibly fatalistic desire to roller skate to the theater on opening night. I blame this stupid desire on loving Xanadu during my formative years.

Xanadu can be blamed for any number of things.
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The Last Xanadu Post. I Promise.

yeah yeah... I know the TONYs are over. Back to movies. But I was laughing so hard watching these Xanadu awards campaign videos that I thought better late than never. Time to share. Plus the acceptance speech / campaigning humor is 100% translatable for Oscar junkies. There's a whole series of these videos and a storyline to boot but here's über gay episode 6 starring Cheyenne Jackson and guest star Nathan Lane and the 'just being nominated is an honor' finale with an awesome cameo from Cynthia Nixon (Miranda Hobbes herself from Sex & The City) and the cast.



Xanadu lost all 4 of its nominated categories. But at least they had fun trying. Too bad no Oscar campaigns ever get as wild as the campaigns for some Broadway efforts... well, apart from maybe Margaret Avery's 'letters to God' for her Color Purple nomination. But that was your whole lifetime ago! Can you imagine how much funner Oscar season would be if the campaigns from the people that know they're going to lose were this tongue-in-cheek? Imagine what yuks Cate Blanchett could have generated with a campy Elizabeth: The Golden Age campaign.

Cheyenne Love Medley

Sometimes when you finish watching an entertainment, you're done with it immediately... even if you liked it. Other times it sticks in your head ....even if you didn't like it. Happy Time: You liked it and it sticks in your head. Since I'm still thinking about that Xanadu performance @ the TONYs (previous post). I figured I'd just go with it and talk Cheyenne again. But P.S. on the film-to-stage magic trick of Xanadu: I wonder what recent bad movies everyone makes fun of now will, years from now, find new life in adorable comedic send-ups in other medium? Care to take a guess?

I wish I had more movie related ways in which to shamelessly plug Cheyenne Jackson's career. How about a photo of him singing with Meryl Streep? Ta-daaa!

Anyway, here's three videos featuring his cheerful exuberance and great voice.

Video 1 (Cheyenne meets a young fan. If you've never been to Broadway, you should know that it's typical for fans to wait outside after a show. When the cast members exit they will generally stop and talk to people briefly, sign autographs and pose for photos. Even A list movie stars will do this if they're working the boards. Hugh Jackman, for instance, was super friendly and unrushed with the crowds post-Boy From Oz performances a few years back). Video 2 is the aforementioned TONY performance from Xanadu. The great ELO number "Don't Walk Away"



Video 3 This is from a night at one of my favorite venues in NYC Joe's Pub (thx). Jai Rodriguez (Queer Eye For the Straight Guy) and Cheyenne do Moulin Rouge!'s "Elephant Love Medley". Jai plays Nicole and Cheyenne is Ewan.



And speaking of Moulin Rouge!...

I hope to have that new article on it up on Monday or Tuesday. I'm having trouble finding my DVD which is alarming me. Will I have to buy another?

Come What May I will own it until my dying day. Update: FOUND IT!

TONY Live Blogging

Why live-blog? It's the only way I might get through it. Because...

8:01 In the very first minutes, we get a performance from The Lion King. Now, I don't have anything against this particular show --other than that it started the horrid wave of Disney thinking all their animated films should become stage musicals and we all see the dark places that's taken the American theater and... OK maybe I do have something against this show. But here's the point. It's like, old. TONY should be celebrating the "now" rather than admitting that the theater is dead. Lie, people, lie. Your livelihoods depend on it.

8:05 Whoopi is hosting.

8:08 Rondi Reed wins Best Featured Actress (i.e. "supporting") for August: Osage County. It's going to sweep. She beat Laurie Metcalf, who America will know as second banana "Jackie" from endless seasons on Roseanne and Martha Plimpton, who is quite a theater fixture in New York but is also beloved by most folks who have a thing for 80s movies and early River Phoenix... i.e. people in their 30s.

8:12 CryBaby. This performance is a disaster --it's all over the place --but my friend, who has a thing for dark haired pale men, just melted into a puddle since the entire troupe of dancing jailbirds seems to have been cast to look just like the lead guy who has been styled to look like Johnny Depp from the 1990 John Waters film. Not that you can be styled to be Johnny Depp. There can be only one.

he's the king

8:22 THE LOVELY LAURA LINNEY! She's only presenting (somehow she defied the gods of awards shows by not being nominated for playing the Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses). But for me her appearance is the first true musical number of the night. "why do birds suddenly appear... any time she is near" The supporting actor award goes to Jim Norton for The Seafarer. Raul Esparza gets snubbed every year. I hate the TONYs. Maybe they'll give him more to do guest starring on Pushing Daisies in the fall. Oh, you know you want his salesman back in the Pie Hole romancing Kristin Chenowith.

8:26 Passing Strange. That number did nothing for me.

8:37 John Lithgow. Usually at some point while looking him I remember that he was briefly threatening to be a regular Oscar fixture. But then it turns out to be just a two-in-a-row deal (World According to Garp and Terms of Endearment) and then he became a TV star and weirdly he still seems to be doing that character from that show about the aliens all the time as himself now. Was it always there? Best Direction of a Musical went to South Pacific (the revival).

8:41 Patti Lupone doing the famous 1st act closing number "Everything's Coming Up Roses" from Gypsy. Is Gypsy to musical actresses what Hamlet is to stage actors? Seems to be. I liked that number well enough but I have seen Gypsy too many times. How do they fill the theater every 3 years when a new revival opens?

8:52 They just shared a bunch of awards that happened off-broadcast. I hate that part. I live in fear that the Oscars will eventually do that. Gives me award-junkie chills.

8:57 A rapped Latino acceptance speech for best score. I think that might be a first for TONY. Very cute. Loved the Sondheim shout out.

Sondheim I made a hat. Where there wasn't a hat. And a Latin one at that!

8:59 South Pacific. Another stage to movie back to stage affair. It's a medley. They start with "There is Nothing Like a Dame" which always cracks me up. Because it's never...butch. Although that was definitely butcher than the last version (that stiff Glenn Close TV version some years back). Now it's the Kelli O'Hara show. I wish I loved her because she keeps getting plum roles. Her voice is gorgeous but as a star... I can never quite bow down. She's just not an "it" girl for me, you know. These things can't be manufactured or rehearsed or willed. They either happen between performer and audience member or they don't. Sigh.

9:02 As we cut to commercial they showed Daniel 'Harry Potter' Radcliffe. Think he's trying to win friends and influence people early to prep for a Lead Actor TONY nomination next summer for Equus? Did that sound cynical? Oh you know they plan these strategies early...

9:08 Whoopi descended from the ceiling dressed as Mary Poppins. "I can watch your children" Hee. Segueway to Kristin Chenowith. [love!] This is Featured Actress in a Musical. And the TONY goes to... Laura Benanti as Gypsy Rose Lee. She's wearing Nicole Kidman's Oscar dress from March 2003 only this time it's glittery and red (see for yourself, pictured left). She is so happy. But take it from me who goes to theater and who has been to a few of her shows. The reputation is earned. By which I mean: her understudies go on... a lot.

9:13 A performance from Grease. Everything (very) old is new again... on Broadway. Zzzz

9:24 I almost fell asleep (still sick. This damn sore throat is not letting up) during commercials but then I got a little e-mail compliment on my work from a writer/director who actually guided one of my favorite actresses to an Oscar nomination. That woke me right up. What a surprise. Boyd Gaines just won (his fourth win! Watch out Audra McDonald) for Gypsy. The show is two for two now acting-wise. Guess Patti's got her next TONY in the bag.

9:27 We're getting a little medley of the musicals that didn't get nominated this year. Hmmm. I thought the punishment was that they didn't get to hawk their show on this show?

9:40 Oooh, clips (and sets!) for the Original Plays. August: Osage County will win. First it wins Best Director.

9:53 Mary Louise Parker. MLP!!! We love her so much. We loved her before Weeds. And now there's even more to love. Best Leading Actor in a Play goes to Mark Rylance in Boeing Boeing. We've heard from multiple sources that that win is deserved and that he's side-splittingly funny in it. If you're asking "who?" just know that he's amazing and totally sexy to me (What? Shut up!) and he's often naked onscreen including in the devastating Intimacy (2001, my review) and Angels & Insects (1995). I didn't understand that acceptance speech at all.

10:00 Deanna Duagan wins best actress. She's the pill-popping mom in August: Osage County. As soon as they decide to make it in a movie, there will be a war among all your favorite actresses 'of a certain age' to get it. That is, if Streep doesn't want it. You know Hollywood always gives Meryl first dibs.

10:04 a number from the new musical In the Heights. Strong number. The show is already a hit and this performance will only sell more tickets.

10:12 Harry Potter and the teacher from The History Boys (both are in Equus) presented Best Play to August: Osage County. Tracy Letts accepts. Takes some (deserved) potshots at both television and Broadway. I love him. He also wrote Bug.

10:15 Before I moved to NYC I was one of those guys who watched the TONY Awards every year and dreamed about seeing things that I never got to see. Before I ever saw a Broadway show I loved Mandy Patinkin wildly. So I was never one of those people who was like "isn't that Inigo Montoya?" So for me it's always a joy to see him... although his beard freaks me out. He is accepting a Lifetime Achievement for Sondheim. Nice proxy speech. And now a number from Sunday in the Park with George. Such a brilliant show and this was a strong production. The music.... ah, so pretty.

10:28 Best Revival goes to South Pacific. Glenn Close presenting was kinda telling/tacky since she played Mitzi on TV.

10:33 Lily Tomlin struts out all seductively and says that that was her tribute to Marisa Tomei. I don't get it. But Marisa (my current movie girlfriend) is shown laughing so all is right with the world. Or maybe I'm happy because Lily is introducing the "out of their minds cast of Xanadu" OMG. Cheyenne Jackson. Swoon. Hollywood is so missing out on him. He could so easily be the first big out gay movie star. So talented, handsome, manly, tall, memorable, everything. Gah! But the real star of Xanadu is of course Kerry Butler who is laugh out loud funny throughout playing Olivia Newton John playing a Greek muse playing "Kira". High-larious. Watching her hobble around during the "Don't Walk Away" number on one skate is so funny. I know the whole thing is silliness but I deeply appreciate silliness and that bit of slapstick generously reminds one of Katharine Hepburn's great screwball moment

I was born on the side of a hill

When I laugh I forget that I feel like hell. I have now lost track of the show because I keep rewinding and rewatching the Xanadu number.

Olivia Newton-John with the cast of Xanadu: Kerry Butler, Cheyenne Jackson
and Tony Roberts (not from the TONY broadcast unfortunately)

10:something Rent anniversary. Wheeee. Anthony Rapp --still so adorable. I used to always end up at the same shows as him Off Broadway. It was uncanny AND... true story: that first crazy screening of Moulin Rouge! that I went to at Ziegfeld in New York? He was also there... just a few people away in line. The original cast is lined up which I think might mean that they're going to sing 525,600 minutes. Yep. Taye Diggs & Idina Menzel met on Rent of course and they're such a handsome married couple. This'll be on YouTube in seconds I'm sure.

10:something LIZA! She needs a big font, don'cha know. The Best Leading Actor Musical goes to Paolo Szot as Emil in South Pacific (pictured, right). I guess I need to see this show. Damn he's handsome. I'm really gaying out with this live-blogging today. Cheyenne, Anthony, Mark, Paolo... but it's the TONYs so what did you expect?

10:something David Hyde Pierce is here to present a trophy to Patti Lupone... I mean to announce the Leading Actress in a Musical. I only saw Jenna Russell in Sunday in the Park and Kerry in Xanadu and both were deserving. She says she's using an old speech and just changing the names. The TONYs are in some ways like an unholy but classier version of the EMMYs: i.e. some people win over and over again. Other people are strangely passed over regularly despite many honors and big careers. She hasn't won in 29 years. Jesus.

i'm just fastforwarding now Oooh, final award. Best Musical goes to In the Heights.

the award for best live-blogging DOES NOT GO TO ME. My apologies. I'm sick and delirious!
Good night.

further reading: complete list of winners * ModFab projects about the fallout from the winnings and losing *
more familiar faces @ the TONYs last night:


Lily Tomlin, Kristin Chenoweth, Glenn Close, Gina Gershon, Laura Linney, Idina Menzel & Taye Diggs, Mark Rylance, Daniel Radcliffe.
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Tony Award Nominations (For Movie Fans)

The TONY Award Nominations for Broadway were announced today. Here's a look at the more celluloid friendly entries...

Plays & Revivals
As you may or may not have heard, the classically cruel French aristocracy play, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (familiar to moviegoers from the Oscar nominated classic Dangerous Liaisons) is back on Broadway. It received a nomination for Best Revival (the other nominees are Boeing-Boeing, The Homecoming, and Macbeth with Patrick Stewart who, clearly, was also nominated).

But, quelle dommage!, The Lovely Laura Linney was passed over for Best Actress in a Play. She plays the Merquise de Merteuil. We rarely get to see Linney with claws out but it's usually a treat --she's awesome in a malevolent supporting role in The House of Mirth (2000). But apparently the TONY voters didn't think so. The only acting nominee is Ben Daniels (as Valmont) which makes these TONY nods the flipside of the Oscar nods back in 1988 when Michelle Pfeiffer and Glenn Close where honored but their Valmont (John Malkovich) was snubbed.

When it comes to the Original Plays, the winner is already locked up. It will be impossible to beat the sensation that is August: Osage County. It's a dysfunctional family drama from the writer of Bug (I've raved about Tracy Letts work before) that people can't get enough of. Remember how enthused Famke Janssen was about it in her recent interview with The Film Experience? That reaction is common here in NYC. The hot play received seven Tony nominations in total including three for its actresses. When the movie version happens (you know it will) expect an all out war amongst Hollywood A-listers for the roles.

I should also note that Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, a play about an employment agency in the 90s, which stars wonderful actresses like Elizabeth Marvel, Mary Beth Hurt, Martha Plimpton and Marisa Tomei (who talked about this role on the TFE podcast) didn't do so well. Only Plimpton was nominated. Here's a little opening night video from Broadway.com

Musicals & Revivals
Broadway's "Best Musical" category continues to become "Best Original Musical Adapted From a Movie" as the transferring continues en masse. This year, two of them were lucky enough to get nominated: Cry Baby (adapted from John Waters' 1990 film which starred Johnny Depp) and the über gay and brilliantly campy Xanadu (adapted from the infamous Olivia Newton John 1980 rollerskating movie musical which I love to the ends of earth, through brick walls and on to neon'ed Mt Olympus). Neither is the frontrunner. That'd be In the Heights which leads all nominated entries with an incredible 13 honors.

Two blockbusters movie transfers got the stink eye from voters. Mel Brooks' adaptation of his own 1974 Young Frankenstein, which has been plagued by 'it's not all that' reviews and bad press resulting from Brook's greed (ridiculous ticket prices and everyone knows that greed from all sides is destroying Broadway), received only three nominations including one for featured actress Andrea Martin (Mel Brooks deemed Cloris Leachman's too old to reprise her "Frau Blücher" role which also contributed to the bad press). Disney's movie-to-stage transfer The Little Mermaid, which was filleted by most critics was an even bigger bomb with voters, receiving only two nominations (Score and Lighting). On the bright side: that's still one more nomination than their last cartoon to live-theater disaster, Tarzan (see previous posts).

In other movie-familiarized stage musical news, the 7,426th revival of Gypsy (this one stars Patti Lupone) won 7 nominations and will be singing out Louise for the main trophy... but chances are South Pacific will carry the night with its big haul of 11 nominations. Stephen Sondheim's brilliant (well... 2/3rds of it) Sunday in the Park with George, which has never been made into a movie and shouldn't be, could be a dark horse.

ONJ ~ unofficial mascot of the 2008 TONYs

In more horrific news the 1,002nd revival of Grease --yeah, the one that had its own idiotic reality show to pollute your airwaves --was also nominated in the revival category.I hate stage versions of Grease but I love this Olivia Newton-John theme that the TONYs have going on. She better be invited to host or present or something. So, let's go back to Xanadu to wrap up.

TFE favorite's theatrical hunk Cheyenne Jackson was passed over for lead actor which was no great surprise. He's game for those short shorts and his voice is super (as always) but "Sonny" has never been much of a role. Kerry Butler (pictured right), previously TONY snubbed for funny work as Penny Pinkleton in Hairspray a few years back, was justly honored though with a Best Actress nod for her gut-busting Aussie accent and Olivia Newton John send-up.

I smiled and laughed so much watching Xanadu on Broadway (seriously) that I can't recommend it highly enough. It's deeply deeply silly. If you love silly, go immediately. If you don't, avoid at all costs.

The TONY Awards will air on CBS on Sunday, June 15th.

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Back to the main blog if you're done with the stage: the movies await. Or dance on over to further reading if you're a Broadway nut: ModFab gets into the nitty gritty of the snubs and surprises * TONY's official site for the complete nomination list *
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While You Were Digesting

Even though Thanksgiving is over, I love the holiday banner so much that I'm leaving it up until Monday. It wasn't easy to find pictures of classy movie stars eating --pictures of useless celebrities (i.e. famous because they're famous. zzz) were plentiful. After the fact I spotted this Shia LaBeouf photo which made me laugh. Bananas are a comedy staple for a reason, y'all. Shia would've ruined the all fab actress lineup anyhow.

Meanwhile Pt. 1
I have never come up with a good reason to post this off the cuff Ledger & Bale lunch (?) shot either --no food enters their mouths so Thanksgiving banner participation was out-- I assume it's from the set of The Dark Knight (or thereabouts) so while I'm purging, here it is:


Meanwhile Pt 2
I spent way too much time this week watching and rewatching the first two episodes of Project Runway (season 4). Such is the danger of DVRs and everybody you know on their own TV watching timetables. Guests kept arriving who hadn't yet watched it and wanted to. ModFab snarkily and insightfully dubbed the record breaking debut episode "now with 750% more gay" And that was even before the second episode when Sarah Jessica Parker showed up and wreaked absolute homo havoc on the contestants: They gasped. Their eyes went buggy. They shreaked. They couldn't form sentences. They cried (no really). I feel butch when I watch that show... which is saying a lot.

LINKS
Anne Thompson reminds that you have to ignore favorites when making Oscar predictions --is No Country leaving Oscar voters cold? Speaking of...
Rob's Dad reacts to No Country for Old Men. Hmmm
My New Plaid Pants 5 thoughts on Hairspray (and a eery/accurate twin for John Travolta's Edna)
NoFo discovers Crawford treasure trove "Christina, bring me the internets"
Film Squish If you're like me, you're finding it impossible to keep up with all the blog-a-thons. Now in a quiet week, it might be the time to read this recent Akira Kurosawa love-in
Deadline Hollywood Six episodes of Speechess so far (starring Holly Hunter, Sean Penn, the cast of Ugly Betty and more)... in support of the writers strike.

And speaking of strikes: If you're in NYC any time soon looking for a show, please note that Xanadu is not affected by the current Broadway stagehands strike and who knows when that's ending. The adaptation of the notorious turkey is worth seeing even if it weren't one of the only shows playing. It's quite funny and the ELO/Olivia music is still excellent 27 years later. Because one can never get enough Cheyenne Jackson (the show's male lead) and because I can't get enough Xanadu here's an interview captured by Two Gay Guys over at After Elton


Online Videos by Veoh.com

mmmm Cheyenne
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Linkadu

"Is it a crime to look at Lange?"


You guys... All That Jazz is kicking my ass. I have all this guilt about how far behind I am on those fundraiser movie requests (still have 10 to go) and every single time I sit down to write about this Bob Fosse spectacular I feel like Jessica Lange is mocking me, all serene but flirtatious with confrontation. Damn you Lange! The movie has so much going on that it's maddening to write about if quite awesome to watch. When I saw this for the first time many years ago I thought a solid B/B+ but on a second and third spin these past two weeks we're obviously in A territory. More later... if it ever stops distracting me with mental loops and structural leaps.

Anyway: LINKS
Big Screen Little Screen "(Re)Visualize Blade Runner and I'm Not There"
Michael Moore "An Open Letter to CNN"
Empire Online And When Did You Last See Your Father (trailer starring Jim "Zidler" Broadbent)

What's Good... "Heaven on Roller Skates, Indeed" Xanadu is now open on Broadway and Cheyenne Jackson will pick up many new fans. Wheeee. Kerry Butler in Olivia Newton-John's role is looking very Sarah Michelle Gellar, isn't she? My mind reels ~ too many popculture associations at once. But won't critics please stop dissing the movie version in every review? It's sooo obvious. Be a little more creative in your angle please. (y'all know I love the silly oft incompetent movie)

Also: Kenneth in the (212) has photos of ONJ herself at the premiere. God I love that woman.

A Place Where Broadway Dared To Go

Oh for what could have been... Xanadu is soon in previews on Broadway and I have yet to buy tickets. In workshops Jane Krakowski and Cheyenne Jackson (pictured left) were playing the Olivia and Michael Beck roles. I was hopping up and down with nostalgic glee. Jane. love. Cheyenne. yummm

Though I have made my displeasure with the film to stage movement known in the past, there are exceptions to every rule. I had high hopes for this particular adaptation: seemed like an ideal film to rethink and/or restylize into grand kitsch or goofy musical comedy. But though I love Xanadu I got suspicious when both Jane & Cheyenne (two of Broadways very best) opted out of / proved too expensive for / or otherwise exited the production. I am more wary of this rollerskating ELO/Olivia scored Greek muse disco musical than I ever expected to be.

Incidentally Cheyenne writes on his own website about once a month and he's pretty funny. There's great stories about hearing "sexyback" in an elevator, working pilot season in LA, and Xanadu rehearsals with Jane.

(I've added Jane Krakowski's TONY winning Nine number "A Call From the Vatican" as well as the Xanadu theme to the jukebox in the sidebar)

20.07 ("you have to believe we are magic")

Each morning a screenshot from the 20th minute and 7th second of a movie

Kira: Sounds like you don't believe it.
Michael: Well, with all that's happened to me today, to tell you the truth I don't.
Kira: You're right. It's too coincidental. Someone must be setting us up

Every time I watch this movie I wish I could roller skate. Not that anyone does that anymore... but in retrospect, don'cha know. But, like Olivia herself, I was never much of a skater. I had to run into people or things to actually stop. The same is unfortunately true for my ice skating skills which is more of a shame because ice skating is classic.

related article: personal canon #96 Xanadu
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#96 XANADU

This post is for the Trashy Movie Blog-a-Thon hosted @ The Bleeding Tree as well as a new entry in my personal canon: "100 movies i think about when i think about the movies"


A stage version of this 1980 classic is about to open on Broadway but before it does --surely ushering in yet another jokey acknowledgement of Xanadu's kitsch value-- I think it's time to rediscover the film in all of its enduring time-capsule glory. For Xanadu, you see, is not the tongue-in-cheek comedy that it will be reworked as. It's a completely sincere endeavor and, I'd argue, endearingly so. It's not one of those films that are so intentionally bad that it's subversively excellent (see: Showgirls). No, Xanadu is the real deal: a straight-faced musical. It just had the terrible misfortune to celebrate a number of things that would be out of style almost immediately thereafter: roller rinks, disco, legwarmers, greek mythology, album covers … and Olivia Newton-John.

It's easy to dismiss Xanadu for the very things it shamelessly loves but it's a shame to dismiss the shameless if they're also compulsively watchable. What other movie gives you a glimpse into the lost profession of album cover illustration? None that I know of. In what other movie will you see Greek muses come to life from a painting on a brick wall? Even Clash of the Titans didn't have that. What other movie has the wacky chutzpah to give you a pop star as A list as Olivia Newton-John (she is strangely disregarded now but don't be fooled: she was an enormous star with dozens of hits) and put her on rollerskates and in only one baggy outfit for almost an entire film?

Xanadu, like many great musicals of yore, tells a rather silly story. The tale it spins is of a Greek muse with an Australian accent named Kira (Olivia) who inspires a young artist (Michael Beck, the whiniest male lead since Luke Skywalker complained about those power converters at the Toschi Station) to open a nightclub with an retired musician (Gene Kelly). This 1980 musical had the nerve to be Olivia Newton-John's follow up to the monster success of Grease and its subsequent box office failure insured that it wouldn't be spoken of nicely. And it is an easy target, don't get me wrong: what with the rollerskating, the new wave hairdos, and the visual tourettes (more on that in a minute)...

Continue reading for more XANADU

Tuesday Top Ten: Art in the Movies

tuesday top ten: for the list lover in you and the list maker in me

Today is the 532nd birthday of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (aka just "Michelangelo"), one of the most prolific, documented, celebrated and imitated artists of ... ever. So in honor of his birthday, herewith a top ten list devoted to artists or art related moments in the movies. Art was on my brain anyway, what with having just seen Jake Gyllenhaal's cartoonist in Zodiac (more on this soon) and last night's episode of Heroes still fresh in mind. I don't know about you but that stereotype of drug use enhancing ones artistic abilities is always delightful to see reinforced [/sarcasm] --and every week on Monday nights no less!

Obviously I will be forgetting many great art-centric films in this list (but hey, that's what comments are for --share your own favorites)

Art in the Movies

10 & 09 Max von Sydow as "Frederick" in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Julianne Moore as "Maude Lebowski" in The Big Lebowski (1998)
Two great comedies which contain supporting performances of archetypal artist types. Von Sydow is the cranky solitary "pure" artist --he's not just uncomfortable with the business of art, he's infuriated by it. Moore essays the 'artist as avant-garde nutjob' stereotype as a vaginal performance artist. It's her one and only great comedic work.



08 La Belle Noiseuse
Michel Piccoli spends 236 minutes sketching a nude Emmanuelle Béart in this 90s French import and many of those 236 minutes are pleasureable and/or intriguing. Is it Béart's stunning body and performance that make it so? (Previous Béart love here and here) The sheer extended chutzpah of the whole enterprise? The rare almost real time (or as close at you'll get) peek into the craft? Or maybe it's just, simply, a fine film.

07 Michael Beck as "Sonny Malone" in Xanadu (1980)
I know this is a horrible horrible eyesore on an otherwise respectable list but don't you miss painted album covers? That was his job! That used to be an actual profession. I was a kid when this movie came out and oh how I wanted his life when I grew up: painting for a living and romancing Olivia Newton-John. Mmmmm. I miss paintings everywhere: magazine covers, cd covers. Why is it always photography now?



06 Catherine O'Hara as "Delia" in Beetlejuice(1988)

This is my art and it is dangerous!

Long before we were familiar with Christopher Guests mockumentary troupe in films like Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show, O'Hara was already spinning comedic gold in the movies. She was in superb form as a narcissistic sculptor in this early Tim Burton hit.

05 the sidewalk paintings in Mary Poppins (1964)
Art is transporting -- in this case literally so. "I draws what I likes and I likes what I drew"Who hasn't wanted to dive into a drawing at one time or another?


04 Scarlett Johansson as the Girl With the Pearl Earring (2003)
In this case the appeal is the subject (Scarjo in her best performance) rather than the artist Colin Firth as "Vermeer". And to be fair it's also the exquisite and painterly cinematography by the talented DP Eduardo Serra

03 Julianne Moore (artist) and Madeline Stowe (subject) in Shortcuts (1993)
Casting siblings is obviously more difficult than not, given how many screen blood ties feel forced or improbable. But I love this duet from Robert Altman's Los Angeles panorama. The two actresses have a great silent rapport. Their modelling session together sends Moore's screen husband (Matthew Modine) into a flustered awkward exit after seeing his sister-in-law naked. The two actresses share a sudden synchronized laugh that's conspiratorial, exclusionary, and entirely sisterly. I love it.

02 Pollock (2000)
Ed Harris and Marcia Gay Harden both wowed in Harris' sturdy biopic. It holds a special place in my Oscar-obsessed heart because it was my first major claim to fame as a pundit: I predicted both of their nominations, which was --I know it's hard to believe now -- not the thing to do at the time: precursors had ignored them. Though Pollock is entirely too conventional to be a great film it's still a solid directorial debut from the great actor and one wonders why Harris hasn't followed it up. The aha! moment of Jackson's splatter painting technique is annoying and historically questionable but there's abundant pleasure in the performances: Harris didn't win the Oscar but his grunting masculinity is, for this moviegoer, far more potent than that of his conqueror (Russell Crowe in Gladiator). Marcia Gay Harden furiously chews scenery as his neglected wife and fellow artist, Lee Krasner. Best of all for art world aficionados Amy Madigan (Harris' real life unneglected wife) is a complete scream as the inimitable Peggy Guggenheim.

01 6 Degrees of Separation (1993)
In this transfer of the hit play Stockard Channing gives a revelatory Oscar nominated performance as "Ouisa" and Donald Sutherland lends her able if eventually incompatible marital support. It's hard to pick a favorite moment in this film about art dealers and a young man (Will Smith) who disrupts their carefully controlled if precarious existence. But two moments that are on loop in my head and have been since 1993 ... spinning the Kandinsky "chaos. control. chaos. control. you like? you like?" and Ouisa's self-startled joy slapping the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. See this movie! you'll like. you'll like.

A History of... Gay Cowboys

It's Tuesday, y'all. Time for "a history of..." The debut effort garnered the most hits ever for anything I've done here at the blog--like Oscar-Day traffic at the homebase. A little Gyllenhaalism goes along way apparently. Never seek treatment. So, in lieu of that and in anticipation of Sunday being Oscar night...


1920s The West gets mythologized in American culture. The movies speed that along. Wikipedia tells us that what we know as the cowboy shirt actually comes from Hollywood. "Snaps, used in lieu of buttons, allowed the cowboy to escape from a shirt snagged by the horns of steer or bull."

Oh, snap.

1943 Rodger & Hammerstein's immortal musical Oklahoma! premieres on Broadway at the St. James Theatre. Wins the Pulitzer. Becomes a legendary theater touchstone. Over 600 productions are licensed worldwide every year. That's hundreds of opportunities annually for showtune lovin' boys to play "Curly" onstage and Ado Annie behind the curtain.

1948 Western hotties Montgomery Clift and John Ireland fondle each others pistols (no, literally. They do) in Howard Hawk's classic western Red River. When they're not ogling what the other is packin', they're betraying crusty old John Wayne who is clearly not up for the movie these two are planning to star in, once this one wraps.

1953 Immediately prior to Judy Garland's comeback (A Star is Born, 1954), Doris Day pinch hits in her absence as gay icon. Adorably butch as cowgirl Calamity Jane, her "Secret Love" power ballad becomes yearning gay anthem.

1978 Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson record Alma Del Mar's favorite record. It speaks to her.

1979 The Sundance Kid, lost without Butch Cassidy, becomes The Electric Horseman. Cher, Bob Mackie, Sally Kirkland, Liberace, and Bette Midler are all embarrassed to be seen with him.

1980 Disco emits its catchy death rattle as the bad-musicals-we-love Xanadu and Can't Stop the Music both premiere at theaters. The Village People, "Randy the Cowboy" among them, star in the latter. Xanadu's 10 minute climax is filled with visual types. I'm willing to bet there's a cowboy in the mix.

1989 Sitting in a movie theater in Utah with my girlfriend (no, literally. I was) I get very turned on watching Matthew Broderick and Brian Kerwin make out in Torch Tong Trilogy. OK, so they're not gay cowboys or anything but they do kiss on a farm. In a barn... uh, I reckon there's a shot of some hay? I'm reaching. (Just wanted to share.)

1990 Costner bares his, um, ego in Dances with Oscar Wolves.

1992 Billy Ray Cyrus has a smash hit with Achy Breaky Hea--oh, right. Sorry. We were talking about the other kind of "gay."

2000 Madonna, five years ahead of the curve, kicks up some dirt with a bunch of Ennis & Jacks in her music video for "Don't Tell Me". A short-lived western shirt craze kicks off in Chelsea and West Hollywood.

2005 Brokeback Mountain fever begins. Jack and Ennis deliver the first big box office hit about gay cowboys since Red River packed them in in '48. It's so good it gets buried in gold statues. Emotional impact, craftsmanship, intelligence. meaning. It's only missing one thing: a time travel plot twist wherein River's Clift and Ireland are transported up to ole' Brokeback just in time for a fourgy. Plot twist? Plot nasty!

2006 Adam & Steve, a new gay romantic comedy opens next month. The climax, featuring Jackie Beat singing the hilarious "Shit Happens", is an elaborately choreographed gay western hoedown. (no, literally. It is)


previous and subsequent histories
Jodie Foster * Gender Bending * Bald Women * Sarah Jessica Parker *
Gay Cowboys * Julianne Moore's Screen Kids * Gyllenhaal

back to the full blog--there's lots more to experience.