A Very Unusual Way of Casting "Nine"

The Golden Rule of Movie Musicals: Cast a bankable actor, even if he can't sing, in place of a well-received Broadway star. Sad but understandable. The Rule explains many recent casting decisions. Take Gerard Butler in The Phantom of the Opera, Helena Bonham-Carter in Sweeney Todd, Uma Thurman in The Producers.

Wait a minute; didn't I say "bankable actor"? Did anybody attend Susan Stroman's megawatt flop to see The Bride sort of sing and sort of dance? With Tim Burton and Johnny Depp on the marquee, was Bonham-Carter a more marketable choice than names who have musical stage experience? (Here's looking at you, Meryl Streep and Toni Collette.) And did anybody know Butler before 300?

Now we have another curious exception to the Rule. Antonio Banderas led a 2003 revival of Nine. Here he is performing "Guido's Song":



Undoubtedly this revival inspired Rob Marshall to film the property. And what luck! Here was a star known to American and European audiences, with box-office success for action films, children's movies, sex thrillers... and he even sang on-screen in Evita. His Spanish accent might even pass for Italian.

So when the film was announced, how odd to see Javier Bardem's name attached. Another Spaniard known for European comedies, a recent thriller... and not for singing. When Bardem dropped out, was Banderas back in the running? No, for the role of Guido went to Daniel Day-Lewis. Why?

1. Marshall might want his own vision, separate from all previous Nines.
2. Maybe he, like Tim Burton, has grown weary of "the belting-to-the-galley type of Broadway singing."
3. The prestige factor. Six of the main actors (Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, and Sophia Loren) are Oscar-winners.

Fortunately, we'll only endure one or two songs from each. Here's the musical's songlist with the changes made:

Overture Delle Donne (Women)
Not Since Chaplin-Cut.
Guido's Song (Day-Lewis)
My Husband Makes Movies (Cotillard)
A Call from the Vatican (Cruz)
Only with You-Cut.
Follies Bergeres (Dench)
Cinema Italiano (Hudson)-Added.
Nine-Cut. Replaced with:
Guarda la Luna (Loren)-Added.
Be Italian (Fergie)
The Bells of St. Sebastian-Cut.
A Man Like You-Cut.
Unusual Way (Kidman)
The Grand Canal sequence-Cut.
Simple-Cut.
Be On Your Own-Cut. Replaced with:
Take it All (Cotillard)-Added.
I Can't Make This Movie (Day-Lewis)
Getting Tall-Cut.

As for "Unusual Way": Hard to say how Kidman's wispy vocals will fare. Most screening viewers report the song is fine, but one report says Kidman is "uncomfortable," and another says she's "the weakest of the women." Take with a grain of salt. Here, for eventual comparison, is Laura Benanti's rendition on stage (starting at 2:13):

Survival of the Dumbest 2

A column of ideas we should not adopt, for our national sanity.

Twitterature
It's a noble quest to manufacture literary journals in our near-Dickensian hard times. Though I'm a fan of reading novels for pleasure from actual pages--perfect bound, in signatures of 32--I fully endorse literature in other media. So when I read about Electric Literature in the New York Times, I rejoiced. Love letters to niche literary fantasias in the national news!

But I do wonder how graduate students will form master's theses in ten years on tweeted work: "Starting next month, Rick Moody will tweet a story over three days." It's a brave new world. Writing necessitates brave new marketing. But when you read Moody's tweets, do you start from the bottom or from the top? When you join in halfway through on your iPhone, can you read the first half you missed? Imagine writing the MLA citation.

I hope his novel is as provocative-cum-hilarious as Elizabeth Taylor's review of This Is It: "I truly believe this film should be nominated in every category conceivable." Yes, Elizabeth Taylor, the hot-tin-roof cat who's afraid of Virginia Woolf. Her tweets on Michael Jackson practically constitute a biography.

John Irving just spoke in Brookline about nineteenth-century novels. "That was it," he said. For him, Dickens and Hardy epitomize the greatness of literature, overflowing with characters and semicolons. Short form deserves praise, just like sprinters, but I hope we remember that marathon writers can be astonishing. And literary journals. At least people are still reading, Sort Of, even if the world fails to warm to TwitLit.

Survival of the Dumbest

A column of ideas we should not adopt, for our national sanity.

Disney's Keychest

A major innovation where film viewers can stream movies from cyberland on any format they want. Disney is developing this independent of all other studios--so that they can brand it. They'll probably make an animated cartoon of the Talking Keychest and then include the character in Spaceship Earth at Epcot. Just so you know it's Disney.

The terrifying angle is how they market this to parents:

A mother could start streaming Toy Story on a laptop for her kids, continue the film on an iPhone at a restaurant and finish it at home with a video-on-demand cable service ... [P]iracy, at least conceptually, would be less of a worry.

Who cares about piracy? I'm worried more about:

1.The ten-year-old laughing at Buzz and Woody while their parents twirl their pasta at Macaroni Grill. Parents should converse with their children at dinner. Yes, it's a secondary purpose of dining, but if you go out to eat, it's not just to avoid dishes but for ambience too. Relaxation, perhaps. Getting away from frantic domesticity. Tell your children that hot-fudge sundaes are the night's toys, and that they can only play if they make eye contact.

2. Should young kids have access to laptops? I first used the Internet in fifth grade and was monitored until I matriculated to middle school. Even then, I had to ask permission. We were also dial-up, which meant dragging a long shriveled cord across the upstairs, in front of the stairs (perfect for tripping) to my parents' bedroom's phone jack. It's great that we take Internet access All The Time, Every Time for granted. But is it? Kids should learn technology, but we don't need to force it upon them. It's like picking their nose: they will figure it out on their own. Let them watch Pixar on your high-def LCD screen.

3. OK, I am worried about piracy. But in the sense that having information streaming whenever you want it, on planes, trains, even automobiles, and switching among formats--all of that causes us to value the information less. Don't try to deny the truth.

Once upon a time, meaning ten years ago, you missed Friends. Your choices: call to see if your friends videotaped it on those antiquated VCRs, or wait until summer reruns. Then TiVo and DVR made scheduling simpler. In 2006, network channels posted their episodes online after they aired. In 2007, Hulu, a free service! Nowadays, I can find all of my Monday night sitcoms on certain websites where I don't need to download; no real illegal action on my part. And so I don't value paying for basic cable so much, because the content is elsewhere. I don't value must-see TV because I can't miss it--I can find it tomorrow, or next week!

I rarely see stupid movies in theaters for $8.25 and up; they're already available on Torrent websites, so why force me to waste my money on content already out there? But everyone's desperate for our 2.5-second attention spans. There are things we should value: Quality entertainment. Undivided attention. Eating dinners as a family. Together.

Apples to Adjectives

Urban legend has it that the adjectives you collect in Apples to Apples, the popular party-starter, define your personality. Here, direct from tonight's winning game, are my essential traits:

• Spunky
  
• Fragrant
  
• Cute
  
• Important
• Fabulous
  
• Delightful
  
• Unscrupulous
• Talented
• Fuzzy (Doesn't really fit, but I was proud of "Mardi Gras.")

And the final tie-breaker card I snagged with "Prince Charming": Brilliant. You are all privileged to know me.

Serious, Man, Those Coen Brothers Got Chutzpah

Review: A Serious Man

Once you've treaded the bleak waters of Cormac McCarthy, and nabbed Oscars for your nihilistic streak that's now in vogue, where to go next? Back into the art house, the Coen brothers have decided. Back into the casting pool of indie unknowns. Back into the synagogue.

No Country for Old Men was a desolate firecracker that churned suspense the old-fashioned way, an intricate insistence on craft. But the abrupt ending, and Javier Bardem's unpunished murder spree: those surprised as much as his lethal air compressor. The Coens' next outing, Burn after Reading, culminated in a cat's cradle of plot threads -- yet the mix of wrong-place-wrong-time encounters was frustratingly kept off-screen. Comeuppance for the wicked, a Coen staple from Fargo to The Ladykillers, now fails to mollify the brothers.


A Serious Man continues the theme of man pitted against an uncaring world. More explicitly in this film, man vies against God, as Job did in the Old Testament. If only half the plotlines that flicker by produce answers, the final foreshortened vista opens up a fourth act, not committed to celluloid, that disavows all notions of good vanquishing evil and happily-ever-afters.

Sounds like a downer? The Coens draw comedy out of everyday setbacks -- and ethnoreligious stereotypes. Unceasing tsuris and kvetching battle against the movie's simple, under-the-radar approach, and at times the squinting, nebbishy physical tics actors rely on threaten to overwhelm. Thankfully, Michael Stuhlberg balances all that mishegoss with an endearing portrayal of mensch Larry Gopnik, unfairly dealt a poor hand. Mazel tov to the Coens for taking a chance on theater-raised talent.

You won't be ver clempt by the end. Larry Gopnik's journey is heady and existential, set in 1967 but nostalgic and twinkly enough to be 1950. As his mind becomes overburned, nightmarish visions invade, superimposing a sexuality and violence on the film that were just breaking through in the late 1960s. Larry's crisis of faith, possibly cyclical or more probably aimless, is definitely contemporary. And also entertaining. The Coens are master puppeteers, their audiences collective Jobs dependent upon their give-a-little, take-a-little hand. Don't think they take their job too seriously.

Andrew Lloyd Webber Never Dies

The theater world was abuzz this past week as Love Never Dies, the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, unveiled its premiere dates and excerpts from the score. You may not have known that The Phantom of the Opera would receive a lavish musical sequel, opening March 2010 in London. You may not have realized that musicals have sequels. Oh, but look at the pantheon:

1. Let Them Eat Cake (1933). Same cast, same writers as Pulitzer-Prize winner Of Thee I Sing. But you can't have your cake and eat it too. 90 performances.

2. Bring Back Birdie (1981). Chita Rivera reprised her role from Bye Bye Birdie; Donald O'Connor stepped in for Dick van Dyke. The two track down Conrad Birdie, teen superstar, vanished for 18 years, to make a comeback. 4 performances.

3. Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge (1989). Played at the Kennedy Center in December but never made it to Broadway. Worse than receiving socks for Christmas.

4. Annie Warbucks (1993). Pretended the other Annie sequel never happened. Daddy Warbucks must marry within 60 days or else Annie will still be an orphan! Leaping lizards! 200 performances off-Broadway.

5. The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public (1994). The Times described the Vegas locale as "an international airport lounge on uppers." 16 performances.

The history of Love Never Dies:
1986 The Phantom of the Opera opens in London, launching Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman's careers, and redeeming ALW for Cats.

1999 Frederick Forsyth publishes The Phantom of Manhattan, set in the early 1900s, in which Christine learns she has fathered the Phantom's son. This same year, Kiri Te Kanawa presents ALW's "The Heart is Slow to Learn," intended for the Phantom sequel.

2001 ALW recycles the above melody for "Our Kind of Love" in The Beautiful Game.

2007 The Daily Mail reports that ALW has worked on the sequel's score... and that his cat Otto deleted it in one fell swoop from his digital piano.

2008 First named Once Upon Another Time, then retitled, the show goes on. A simultaneous New York-London-Shanghai opening is announced, then revoked.

2009 On October 8, ALW held a press event in which the orchestra played the "Coney Island Waltz," reminiscent of Carousel, and Ramin Karimloo sang "Till I Hear You Sing":



The show takes place ten years after the chandelier fell in Paris. Why quibble with the casting of Karimloo, age 31? Or worry about how Charles Strouse (with Annie and Birdie) singlehandedly cursed the musical sequel? Or Ben Elton's lyrics, from which I quote:

And leaves come, and leaves go,
Time runs dry,
And still I ache down to the core.
My broken soul can't be alive and whole
Till I hear you sing once more.

Update: New York magazine was completely inspired by my timeline and decided to create one of their own, which reminded me that Joel Schumacher directed the Phantom film because of the passion he lent tortured, trapped artistic genius Colin Farrell in Phone Booth.

"Take Out T-C-P"?!

Jimi Hendrix, after hearing so many people sing "Scuse me while I kiss this guy" in "Purple Haze," gave a tongue-in-cheek nod to "that guy" at one of his later concerts. I don't think they kissed, though. There's even a whole website spawned from Hendrix's infamous lyric, cataloguing all of our misheard mondegreens.+

+Mondegreen: a malapropism for song lyrics. Termed in 1954 by Sylvia Wright and her misinterpretation of the final line of Scottish song "The Bonny Earl of Murray." Lady Mondegreen was, in fact, "laid him on the green." Flash to 2008, when Mirriam-Webster permitted mondegreen entrance to its dictionary.

Recognizing and correcting a mondegreen, as well as insisting upon your own foolish lyric and how it sounds better, belongs to the upper-middle-class, iPod-surfing, road-trip experience. There's nothing that bonds people like shared misunderstandings. "Blinded by the light," we sing, but then what comes next? Our vocal cords say, "Wrapped up like a douche," but that doesn't make sense (and isn't pleasant if you try to puzzle it out). Bruce Springsteen originally wrote "Cut loose like a deuce," but Michael Mann had to change it to "Revved up like a deuce" and befuddle our eardrums on each listen.

We've all jammed to "Bohemian Rhapsody" in the car, a la Wayne's World. "Scaramouche, scaramouche" bewildered us; but we stayed in the game, through all the "Bismillah"s and "Mama mia"s... until the fateful line:

Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me.

Yes, Beelzebub, the prince of demons, the Lord of the Flies. On the tip of your tongue? My parents thought it was "the albatross" (those dangerous wings). KissThisGuy.com cites "the algebra."

It gets bad when listeners can't figure out the title. Some hear in Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" the banal "There's a bathroom on the right." (Real lyric: "There's a bad moon on the rise," just like the title promises.)



But there's one mondegreen so strident, so irascible, so nebulous that it dwarfs all other mondegreens before and after. Ellen DeGeneres does a bit about not even bothering to learn the words (at 3:15 in the link).

Yep, we can spell R-E-S-P-E-C-T. We know what it means to me. But... wait... we're supposed to "Take out T-C-P"? Then we're left with R-E-S-E. Close to Reese, the maker of delicious Pieces. "Rese," it turns out, is a verb meaning "to shake; to quake; to tremble." How we gonna get any respect by shaking and trembling?

American culture lesson of the day: "TCB" was a common African-American expression in the 1960s for Taking Care of Business. Second, Aretha covered Otis Redding's song and added the R-E-S-P-E-C-T bridge. Music publishers couldn't tell, audiences couldn't tell, and sooner or later, we were all chucking T-C-P to the curb like the proto-fems we were/are. Comments on YouTube think TCP stands for "The Colored People," or that it's a pain-soothing drug. The real (allegedly) lyrics:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB

If you get off, jump back in on "Sock it to me, sock it to me."