Gene Kelly and Ann Miller are unofficial Tony Players this yearGiven that not everyone can live in or even visit New York regularly and even those of us who do, can't see all the Tony nominees given our budgets, here's a list of ten plus smart movie choices if you'd like to feel tangentially invested in the upcoming Tony Awards (Sunday night! - should we live blog?) without actually having seen any of the shows! If you only have time for one movie make it an Ann Miller, Leslie Caron, or Gene Kelly movie as they're the unofficial mascots of this Tony season each having starred in two of the movies related to current Broadway hits.
TEN MOVIES
If you can't make it to Broadway
Congratulations! You've already won. You don't have to watch the super dull Finding Neverland (2004) again because it's Broadway adaptation didn't earn a single nomination! On a sadder note if you want to play along at home and you love good movies, the Doctor Zhivago (1965) adaptation has already shuttered since the Tony voters shunned it (yeah, it wasn't good) so you don't get to watch that classic again at home ...at least for this project.
10 Saved! (2004) + Meet the Feebles (1989)
If you can't make it to NYC to see the blasphemous/hilarious Hand To God about a confused young man living with his religious mother who believes his hand puppet is possessed by the devil, try a religious satire and a filthy puppet movie instead. For maximum effect play these movies simultaneously side by side. (You may substitute any preferred religious comedy in place of Saved but dirty puppet movies are hard to come by)
Nine more movies (and Tony thoughts) after the jump...
09 Gigi (1958)
The adaptation of the Oscar-winning musical was mostly ignored by Tony voters (but for supporting actress & costumes) and thumbs-downed by critics so when you're watching Vincente Minnelli's classic focus on the costumes and, like its Broadway adaptation, remove the icky lecherous male gaze subtext by taking "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" away from old Maurice Chevalier and handing it to Hermione Gingold instead.
08 The Queen (2006)
Why pay $100+ to see Helen Mirren play Queen Elizabeth II on stage in "The Audience" when you can just watch her Oscar winning performance as the same character again from the comforts of your own home. [We were just discussing Dame Mirren so we'll leave it at that.]
07 You Can't Take It With You (1938)
You've been meaning to watch Frank Capra's Best Picture winner forever anyway, right? Now, you have a good excuse. To imagine that you've seen the revival on Broadway, channel all your good feelings about Annaleigh Ashford from her delightful work on Masters of Sex and project them on to Ann Miller's dance-mad fool daughter because Ashford totally stole this show.
06 Wolf Hall (2015)
Okay this isn't a movie, but if you didn't have the stamina for the Broadway show (in two parts and many hours long), you DVR'ed the recent PBS version with Mark Rylance, right? If so, time to catch up with it.
05 On the Town (1949)
This musical comedy movie directed by Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly isn't a patch on their later masterpiece Singin' in the Rain (1952) but it's fun. Now imagine it performed on the stage where its artifice is less distracting and its old fashioned corniness less dusty and the add boundless live-performance enthusiasm. This revival is SO GOOD. So if you are in NYC make sure to see it before it closes.
04 The Elephant Man (1980)
David Lynch's most straightforward most Oscar friendly movie was made just a year after the play's original Broadway premiere. While you're watching sex up Lynch's classic in the form of Bradley Cooper (sans deformities... it's all in the physical acting) and Allesandro Nivola (mmmm) as Frederick Teves. And when the glorious Anne Bancroft is in frame, think of how much you love Patricia Clarkson in everything and know that she won raves for this performance and some people think she's going to win on Sunday night.
03 Hamlet (1990) and Hamlet II (2008)
Something Rotten! got so many nominations (too many!) and it's a spoof of both musical theater and Shakespeare classics, Hamlet in particular, so you need a Hamlet with more "pop" cachet than Laurence Olivier's Oscar winner. So go with the Mel Gibson/Glenn Close version and chase it with the hit and miss comedy of Hamlet II. That's as close as proxy as I can come up with for Something Rotten.
02 An American in Paris (1951)
We may never completely forgive this movie for taking the Best Picture Oscar away from A Streetcar Named Desire, but otherwise its a lovely movie. The Broadway adaptation is so LUX. It's very handsome and colorful and I've already raved and raved and raved about Max von Essen's great work on stage as Henri. So whenever Georges Guétary is onscreen in the movie try to imagine that he's stealing the entire show. That's very hard to do with Top Notch Gene Kelly in frame but try to imagine it as less of a star vehicle and more of an ensemble and you'll come closer to what the stage version is like.
01 The King and I (1956)
The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical gets a prestigious return to Broadway from the prolific duo of Director Bartlett Sher and Actress Kelli O'Hara (this is their fourth Tony competing collaboration in the past nine years following The Light in the Piazza, Bridges of Madison County, and South Pacific - Bartlett has won once but O'Hara is famously still Tony-free). While you're watching the movie, just drain a little personality from Deborah Kerr (Kidding! But O'Hara does shares with Kerr the thing of being a really good and classy actress who is nevertheless sometimes less than *exciting* to watch if you know what I mean) but add a spectacular voice that doesn't need no Marni Nixon, okay?! I haven't seen this production yet -- tickets still too pricey -- but I'd love to hear O'Hara's vocals on these classic songs. While watching Yul Brynner do his Oscar-winning thing at home, imagine the significantly more Asian Oscar nominee Ken Watanabe, in the role.)
The most important nominee that I didn't come up with any movie companion for was Fun Home... but I couldn't think of any coming-out lesbian cartoonist musicals. Maybe because this is the first one. See it. Pay full price if you must. Best show of the year.
HAPPY TONY-WATCHING SUNDAY.
Spin, Ann Miller, Spin!