Mad Men @ the Movies: The Age of Aquarius

Hi all, this is Deborah filling in for Nathaniel for our mutual favorite TV show. It figures that while I'm filling in there are no explicit movie references. However, I think I can keep you engaged with some juicy Broadway and implicit movie references.

Linda Cardellini guest stars on Mad Men

Episode 6.03, The Collaborators, is directed by Jon Hamm to dirty perfection. Make no mistake, this is a very dirty episode, concerned with adultery, broken promises, and things not being what they seem. 

We open with a party at the Campbell home; Pete is offering tickets to "Hair" to two neighbors. It’s a flirtatious conversation, Pete tells the ladies that hair is full of drugs, foul language, and “simulated sex acts.” Flirting is not the subtle art of yore in 1968, we say “sex acts” right out in public! (Spoilers ahead.)

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Smash: "Musical Chairs"

"Smash", the confused conflicted self-sabotaging TV Show rife with behind-the-scenes drama is about "Bombshell", a  confused conflicted self-sabotaging Stage Musical rife with behind-the-scenes drama. The TV series has gone so meta lately it's now devouring itself live. Which is turning it into must-see or at least can't-look-away television again.

Backstage at "Liaisons," another show within the show, slumming movie star (Just Jack) has read the online bitching about the show he's starring in and turns to Ivy (Megan Hilty) his supporting actress...

That's "Smash" in a perfectly nutty nutshell. more...

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Stage Door: Sigourney Weaver in "Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike"

On Mondays, Broadway's dark night, let's talk theater! I have reason to talk tonight, shout even. The highlight of my weekend was an unexpected one. I agreed to see Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike with friends knowing virtually nothing about it aside from the safe-guess that it was somehow riffing on Chekhov and that Sigourney Weaver was in it. Sigweavie was draw enough. 

This semi-blind purchase happily delivered far more than just starpower.

The play takes place in a single weekend at the childhood home of the very famous Masha (Sigourney Weaver), an Oscar-less aging movie star who made her name on a violent genre franchise. Heh. That sounds so familiar! Is playwright Christopher Durang having a winking laugh at his close actress friend? more

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Bunheads: They Dreamed A Dream

SusanP here, with thoughts on the season (series?) finale of Bunheads. A lot is at stake in the episode, but as in real life, not much is fully resolved. I’ll be disappointed if this turns out to be the last episode. Not because it was a bad, but it was anticlimactic for a finale. I’m anxious to spend more time in this world with these characters. I’d hate for this to be the last hour I get.

This Week on Bunheads…
A couple of weeks ago, TFE commenter Denny noted  that Bunheads is in many ways a show about what happens when an extremely talented person doesn’t catch a break and make it big. Denny wrote:

I like to think of Michelle as an alternate universe version of Sutton Foster - one in which she's almost exactly the same (except for focusing on dancing more than singing) but somehow always manages to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to make it the way Sutton has. And this feels very true to me. Growing up in the theater world, I cannot tell you how many supremely talented people I know who have just never made it, and not through lack of trying. This thread of "what does a talented person do when they just don't make the big time?" is one of my favorite parts of the show.

Potential can only get a performer (or a person) so far in life. The show tackles this idea head-on in “Next!” [more after the jump]

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A Musical Diversion

Composer Adam GuettelKnowing that the next 48 hours for most of us (well, the next 96 for me) would be filled with nothing but Oscar Mania, last night I went totally off-cinema to a night of cabaret with brilliant and unprolific composer Adam Guettel (Floyd Collins, The Light in the Piazza). [Tonight is the finale, the 8:30 is sold out but there's one more available at 11:00 pm]  Although I wasn't thinking it through properly exactly. The night didn't turn out to be all that off-cinema since the material and the train of thought kept rushing there.

Guettel is, famously, the grandson of the legendary and prolific composer Richard Rodgers, the first person to ever EGOT. Rodgers practically defined the American musical with his first partner Lorenz Hart and his second Oscar Hammerstein II: Babes in Arms, Pal Joey, The Sound of Music, The King and I, Carousel, Oklahoma... the list goes on and on and on. Guettel is an engaging witty stage presence (and unlike many composers has a beautiful singing voice to boot) but his grandfather's long shadow was ever present and referenced in self-deprecating hilarious ways.  And yet after I was done laughing I felt totally sad. The world's resistance to the musical form, and Guettel's own personal creative struggles have combined in an truly unfortunate way and we're all missing out!

Floyd Collins (1996) and The Light in the Piazza (2003) Guettel's two most famous shows are nearly breath-stoppingly beautiful musical works. I personally think both would make utterly rich film musicals if done correctly (The Light in the Piazza was already a movie, albeit a non-musical one) and since they're also serious period pieces they could be Oscar hits, too. Not that that matters... but it's just something for movie producers who might be reading to think about *cough*. If Floyd Collins, a true story of a miner trapped in a cave, was approached with the conviction and delicacy of something like Once it could be a movie masterpiece. And I've long felt that if Piazza went back to screen, there'd be a potential Best Actress winning role for the 40something/50something actress who got the plum lead role. 

In the years before/between/after? Guettel has written unfinished works and three musicals that are based on movies...

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