Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Easter Parade"

If you have yet to join in the "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series we urge you to participate next week on April 11th when we look at a movie you've surely seen: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937). Last time we did an animated film we had a super turnout. All you have to do is 1) choose your favorite shot 2) post it on your blog, tumblr, site or pinterest page before next Wednesday night and 3) let me know. Presto, The Film Experience links up. The first step, choosing your best shot, is the only hard part.

This week's film is EASTER PARADE (1948).  

I love a perfect title. Easter Parade promises exactly what it delivers. The Judy Garland / Fred Astaire musical features two actual easter parades which form a through line on which the film can hang its gowns and musical numbers. In the first Nadine (Ann Miller), Don Hewes' (Fred Astaire) ex-girlfriend and ex-dance partner, stops traffic with a smashing gown and the chic accessories that are her show dogs.  Hewes, still hurt over the breakup promises his new partner Hannah (the immortal Judy Garland) that a year from then she'll be the one that no one can take their eyes off of. But the title offers more than just these two holidays. The movie is an easter parade all by itself. The whole movie doubles as one big lavish procession of color. It's got all the yellows, greens, whites, blues, pinks and purples you could possibly expect from an easter movie and every other color in the rainbow, too. Like many real parades it's alternately amazing and garish but there's always something to gawk at for better and worse.

The "worse" would be a hateful brown and pink gown (gag) that may well be the ugliest thing I've ever seen on Judy Garland. The "best" might be the white into hot pink gown that Nadine just floats in near the climax when she attempts to take Don back from Hannah.

The two shots that thrilled me the most both exploded by focusing on only one particularly saturated color. The first of these was Ann Miller's bright yellow gloves and bright yellow tear away skirt in her jaw-dropping toe-tapping solo "Shakin' the Blues Away". 

Keep dancing (and reading)

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The Two Maria Von Trapps

The Two Maria Von TrappsTwenty-five years ago today the real Maria Von Trapp passed away or, shall we say, climbed that last every mountain. I recently tried to find footage of her with the other real "Maria Von Trapp" Julie Andrews -- The Sound of Music is so embedded in culture that it's one of those movies that's as real as fiction gets, yes?  YouTube has a bit from the Julie Andrews Variety Hour from the early 70s but it's hard to watch due to the loud buzzing sound on the recording. Pity that because it looks fun.

I've been thinking about The Sound of Music a lot recently since the Captain himself, Christopher Plummer won the Oscar just last month. I want to watch it again right now. Or at least "The Lonely Goatherd" or something.

How many times have you seen it?

"Who am I... Who am I"

24601 !!!!!!! ♫ "

That's Hugh Jackman in character as Jean Valjean on the set of Les Misérables. The most epic musical made in some time hits the screen in just 268 days. Good luck to Tom Hooper and cast. Please let this be great. The stage show deserves it.

Smash: "The Cost of Art", "Let's Be Bad" and "Chemistry"

It's no fun to get behind when covering television since the new episodes just keep arriving. Let's dance through the past three weeks of Smash, our new favorite show, and be thoroughly caught up. Who's joining this kick line with me?

1.4 "The Cost of Art"
In the stellar fourth episode, we've reached day one of workshop rehearsals. The show is speeding along like it's about to be cancelled and wants to cram everything in. In the past I've criticized the show for a mildly sedate energy in certain key moments but that hasn't been from the typical television problem of the plot not advancing. 

I love first days, don't you?

The episode title is a literal reference to Eileen's (Anjelica Huston) original Degas which she hopes to sell to finance her Marilyn the Musical workshop. Thematically its a foreshadowing of impending grief for these showbiz folks as they struggle through the creation of the musical. Ivy (Megan Hilty) didn't realize that Karen (Katharine McPhee) was in the chorus and there's lots of power plays and wounded feelings. Karen didn't realize that Ivy was sleeping with the boss and there's lots of unspoken judgement and wounded feelings. Derek continues to blow so hot and cold that Ivy can't function and there's lots of insecurity, sex and wounded feelings. Meanwhile Derek (Christian Borle) and Julia's (Debra Messing) new love interests suggest that these two just aren't very good at managing their personal lives outside of work.

"Rumor Has It" ...Bobby is so fierce.

LET'S BE BAD after the jump...

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Stage Door: Carrie White, Sweeney Todd, and More...

Some people just can't be killed. Carrie White is one of them.

The bastard girl was born from a sweaty brief affair between religious fanatic Margaret White and a man unknown. (Maybe Margaret doesn't even know since the memory of sex seems to fill her with such masochistic horndog fever; can we trust anything that pours from her mouth not to have been thoroughly reworked by her demented faith?) By 1974 the shy teenager was infamous having massacred her whole town in the pages of Stephen King's best seller "Carrie". Brian de Palma's film adaptation Carrie (1976) immortalized the teenage telekinetic once and for all. Carrie White "burns in hell" but she's still aflame in popular culture, too. There will be no snuffing her out.

So what better time to resurrect her again than now when teen bullying is such a hot news topic? "Carrie" (the musical) was an infamous flop on Broadway in 1988 but the shy awkward girl has been given a makeover and is born again Off Broadway at the MCC Theater where she will rampage through April 22nd.

It's always a bit hard to imagine Carrie rampaging when you first meet her all shy awkward and lonely in that hell on earth: the high school locker room.

Marin Mazzie and Molly Ranson in "Carrie" Off Broadway

MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

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