Barbara Harris (1935-2018)

by Nathaniel R

Barbara Harris in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)

Sad news yesterday. One of the nation's best and most underappreciated actresses Barbara Harris passed away at 83 from lung cancer. The Chicago native got her start as a teenager on local stages and was an original member of Chicago's famed Second City troupe. Her intermittent screen career sprang initially from her stage successes. Though her filmography is mostly in the 1970s, she made a few 80s movies before retiring including Peggy Sue Got Married, Grosse Point Blank, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Curiously for such a talented thespian of both stage and screen, she seemed somewhat ambivalent about her career, stating that she didn't miss acting after her retirement...

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"the air is humming..."

...and something great is coming. 🎵"

Months of Meryl: A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

 

#33 —Yolanda Johnson, a Midwestern songstress and longtime staple of the titular radio show.

MATTHEW: Two of the most revered artists in American cinema history, Robert Altman and Meryl Streep each built their lauded careers by probing into characters from countless corners of the world, driven by an ardent and undiminished interest in the micro — but never minor — idiosyncrasies of collective human behavior. For those who believe in the supernatural forces of fate, there is something undeniably kismetic in Streep and Altman’s first collaboration, which would turn out to be this mighty auteur’s valedictory effort. A Prairie Home Companion, Altman’s final film, is a moving backstage comedy that sketches out the (fictional) final broadcast of the historic and beloved Minnesota radio variety show of the title, created and hosted by Garrison Keillor, who also scripted the picture. (Keillor was fired from his program in November of last year over allegations of sexual misconduct.) Brimming, like all of Altman’s work, with an abundance of people and all their peculiarities, A Prairie Home Companion relies on the character-inhabiting talents of an irresistible and excitingly-paired ensemble, whose every member gets ample opportunity to ingest spirit and specificity into a wide array of oddballs and straight-men, from Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly’s ribald cowboys to Maya Rudolph’s quietly panicked and heavily pregnant stage manager to the pair of aging songbirds brought to fanciful, rueful life by Streep and Lily Tomlin.

As Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson, the two surviving members of a four-sister singing act, Streep and Tomlin are, quite simply, a match made in acting heaven...

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Soundtracking: "Chi-Raq"

by Chris Feil

Few filmmakers understand the power of the soundtrack as well as Spike Lee. The full force iconography of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” in Do the Right Thing is an integral part of the American cinematic lexicon. But there’s also the era authenticity of Summer of Sam, the haze of jazz over Mo Better Blues, and the largely undiscovered but brilliantly precise filming he did of Broadway’s Passing Strange. It’s a wonder that the closest he’s come to a true musical is Chi-Raq.

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Cabaret Pt 3: 'From cradle to tomb...'

Occasionally Team Experience will take a classic movie and pass it around for a deep dive. This week Cabaret (1972) which is currently streaming on Filmstruck. But if you're in NYC don't miss your chance to see it in an actual movie theater at the newly renovated gorgeous Quad Cinema.

In Part One, Nathaniel investigated the way the musical's major players are introduced at the cliff end of the Weimar Era in Germany.

In Part Two, Dancin' Dan watched as two couples (Brian & Sally, Fritz & Natalia) fell in love and lust and into "money!". It makes the world go round. When we left off, Brian and Sally's new lover, a rich baron, has taken Brian out to lunch when a song interrupts their not-so-innocent idyll. - Editor

Part 3 by Chris Feil

1:18:16 - Out of nowhere, we hear a tenor breaking into the nationalist anthem “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”. We pan from his angelic face to see his Nazi uniform, realizing we've fallen into a musical number that is about to be a harsh reality in more ways than one.

It matters that “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” is a very different kind of song than what we have been given thus far, and the only number outside of the cabaret. Entirely without nuance, a straight-shooting melody that purposefully tries to pull you into its grip as we watch in horror while its grim subtext shows itself...

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