Friday, July 17, 2020 at 7:00AM Awww, it's Meryl loving on Cher in Mexico City on this exact day (July 17th) two years back...
Cher, Mamma Mia!, Meryl Streep, musicals, sequels Thursday, July 9, 2020 at 1:00PM by Nathaniel R
Hamilton won 11 Tony Awards in 2016. Now some fans want that same production to win Oscars, too.Have you been following the story on Hamilton as an Oscar contender? It has not been easy to follow! As you all know, the Academy Awards are in chaos this year due to COVID-19. In addition to pushing the ceremony back and changing the calendar of eligibility, they'd previously announced a bending of their "must play in theaters for a week" rules to allow for streaming films that only MEANT to play in theaters. That loophole was meant to close again after the COVID crisis was over but once you've made a loophole that big, it usually grows in size. Now suddenly everything wants to be an Oscar contender. Or at least fans of everything want their favourite thing to be one. It's yet another reminder of the cultural dominance of the Oscars (despite cries of "irrelevant!" each season) that it's considered the "top" award.
The Oscar rule change about streaming eligibility was meant to make up for movie theaters being closed for months on end but it was always going to be problematic. Exactly how will the Academy enforce a "meant to" clause?
Monday, July 6, 2020 at 12:30PM by Eric Blume
Disney+ made a shrewd and smart move by releasing the filmed-stage movie musical Hamilton over the July 4 weekend, at a time when the country really needs it. The themes and ideas of this Pulitzer Prize-winning theater phenomenon from five years ago seem even more relevant and powerful than they did upon arrival, and the movie version, which debuted this weekend, is a stage capture of the principal original Broadway cast, edited together from three live performances filmed in June 2016.
Filmed versions of staged material always have their limitations: one can never capture the visceral pump of energy that’s happening in the Richard Rodgers Theater before and during a performance of this show in particular. As such, the Hamilton movie ultimately succeeds best in preserving an unbeatable group of actors in the biggest show of this century, exactly as the original creators intended it to play...
Wednesday, July 1, 2020 at 10:10AM "The Furniture" is our series on Production Design by Daniel Walber. Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.
Funny Face (1957) is not really a complicated movie, visually or otherwise. Its production design doesn’t express inner turmoil or repressive social structures, nor does it take the characters on any sort of elaborate journey. And in some scenes it’s downright boring, director Stanley Donen essentially stepping back to allow Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn room to dance.
But production design doesn’t have to be profound to be good, or even Oscar-worthy. And while I wouldn’t have voted for Funny Face for the Academy Awards, I do think it’s worth a look. Besides, its design does sort of have a message: that the opposite of fashion is books, and that any attempt to combine the two will lead to utter chaos. Is it serious? No, of course not, but it manages to be fun and chic at the same time.
It all starts with a gorgeous opening sequence designed by legendary photographer Richard Avedon, who also served as “Special Visual Consultant”...
Tuesday, June 30, 2020 at 6:15PM Today we've turned the blog over to Tom Mizer, one half of the songwriting team Mizer & Moore...
Musicals have alwasy been adapted from non-musical material
by Tom Mizer
Can I admit something and you promise not to judge me? My writing partner and I are working on adapting some movies into stage musicals. If eye-rolling made a sound, I bet I would hear a thousand violent swooshes. “Not another movie made into a musical! Why can’t there be original musicals?”...
Here’s the deal: musicals have always been built largely on the foundations of other forms, whether adapted from novels (South Pacific, Show Boat) or straight plays (Oklahoma, My Fair Lady) or, yes, movies. Musicals are incredibly difficult to make work; there are so many moving parts that having the framework of a good story already in place can be an enormous advantage...
