Holding Out for a Superhero

Review: Iron Man 2

The ending of the first chapter used a smart segue to the impending sequel: Tony Stark confesses he's Iron Man at a press conference; fade to black. As is the way with Part Twos, when we fade back in, everything's pumped up a few notches. Crowds have increased; explosions have tripled. Villains and sidekicks who command high salaries have sprouted like weeds. Imagine the catering bills.

But while some sequels add superfluous subtitles, grow bored with their leads, or ship their characters off to Abu Dhabi, Iron Man 2 has the good sense to understand its strongest ingredient: Robert Downey, Jr. The film series (a third Iron Man is in the works) charts Downey's real-life near-biblical fall from Hollywood grace and re-establishment as a newly risen hero to the masses. While the actor keeps his high profile in check these days, Iron Man 2 presents Tony Stark as an uncomfortable hero, thwarted by his own self-destructive tendencies. Villains are inside us, too.

Nevertheless, externalized baddies are requisite to the comic book genre. Mickey Rourke swings electrified nunchucks like they've been in his arsenal for years. He's a comeback king like Downey, praised for his recent work in The Wrestler. But while Downey maintains a persona of a healed man, a team player, Rourke still plays out in left field, master of the inappropriate award-show outburst. It's fun to see their real-life personalities reversed in the film. Rourke's diabolical Russian engineer is cool and collected, not one for smalltalk, while Tony Stark throws million-dollar temper tantrums.

Iron Man and its sequel obey the classical rules of comic-book films, with a touch of witty repartee a la Nick and Nora Charles. Don't expect too much out-of-the-box from these ventures. Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, and Samuel L. Jackson have been hired as the archetypal damsel in distress, sexpot, and one-eyed badass. Much of the sequel feels like filler story, dangling new threads that will wow (pow! zam!) us in future installments. After the poor taste of Transformers II last summer, though, this franchise earns cred for letting its oddball actors hog the spotlight. They're the real heroes.

The 2010 Tony Awards: Don't Rain on Memphis!

11:03  The season was kinder to plays and musical revivals than to new musicals. Only one Best Musical nominee had an original score. Here's hoping that next year provides a stronger candidate pool. Could the 2011 winner be Catch Me if You Can? Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown? Or Spiderman? Tune in then for more live blog!


10:58  Bernadette Peters presents Best Musical, as usual, to Memphis. And they perform again because they won? It's like American Idol at Radio City. What if some other show had won? Did all the casts get into costume just in case?


10:50  Bebe Neuwirth and Nathan Lane are the best presenters of the night, and Catherine Zeta-Jones is adorable in her shock (I don't know why she's surprised) winning Best Actress for a Musical for A Little Night Music, and trying to drag Michael Douglas on stage, "who's a movie star, and I get to sleep with him every night." Douglas Hodge wasn't at all surprised that he won Best Actor for a Musical riding on the La Cage train.


10:42  Okay, Sean Hayes as Spiderman mumbling through "Parade"... was probably better than Spiderman: The Musical will ever be. La Cage aux Folles may be the luckiest musical ever: it won Best Musical back in 1984, Best Revival in 2005, and now Best Revival of a Musical once again. Only ten seconds for a speech so that Billie Joe Armstrong can come out and be a complete weirdo introducing American Idiot. Note to future Tony-aspiring lighting designers: strobe lights. Seizure-inducing strobe lights. (Joelle terms this number "bro overload," or for short, "bro-verload.")

10:30  This just in: Glee star Lea Michele wins Best Performance by a Barbra Streisand Impersonator for her "Don't Rain on My Parade."

10:21  Fences wins Best Revival of a Play, Red wins Best Play, and the white people get twice as much time to talk. Just saying. (Also, vibrator count: five.)


10:15  Dear Oscars: Please watch the Tonys for lessons on the In Memoriam montage. The camera did not pan all over the place, the clapping was quieted, and Sarah McLaughin did not sing "I Will Remember You."


10:10  Another win for Fela!, this time for Best Choreography. Potential mutiny against Memphis? How odd that, during the list of nominees, both Come Fly Away and Promises, Promises performed their choreography... and then neither won.


9:51  Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's terrifying facelift introduce Fela!, which will not win Best Musical because it won't tour outside New York.


9:44  Sean Hayes in a curly red wig: "Did you hear? Annie's coming back to Broadway. So I dressed up like Bernadette Peters. She's the BP that isn't ruining the planet." Then Viola Davis and Denzel Washington take Best Actress and Best Actor in a Play for their work in Fences. Does their director, Kenny Leon, look angry because he's on the verge of tears?


9:39  "To a nunnery, go!" Play montages of Shakespeare and August Wilson are much better set to a rap beat.


9:30  Idina Menzel makes three cast members of Glee so far. Shame that Christiane Noll only gets to sing the second half of "Back to Before," from the closed Ragtime, but Finian's Rainbow (also shuttered) isn't performing at all.


9:25  Catherine Zeta-Jones' tips for singing on the Tonys: 1) Swivel your head wildly. 2) Take pauses in the middle of each sentence. 3) Look stunning. Seriously, though, her "Send in the Clowns" was the high point of her performance on stage. Tonight was just odd. But she still might win...


9:17  Kristin Chenoweth pretends to read a thank-you speech. Sean Hayes: "You didn't win anything." Kristin: "That's unusual for me." I definitely called Levi Kraus (and his hair) for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, Million Dollar Quartet. 


9:07  Mark Sanchez introduces Memphis, and I asked, "who is he?" Sports 1, Josh 0. "Listen to the Beat" seems suspiciously similar to "You Can't Stop the Beat" from Hairspray, also using catchy period music to tell a story about racial relations. Chad Kimball and Montego Glover's voices both sounded very tired. Both Beyonce, who knows how to sing, and Melanie Griffith, who... well..., barely clapped.

9:03  The Frasier-Niles reunion leads us into the most exciting category tonight: Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Angela? Barbara Cook? The winner is much-younger Katie Finneran for Promises, Promises... even though they chose an entirely different winner to print on the screen. "I want to thank the superstar Kristin Chenoweth, who loaned me her eyelashes tonight."


8:56  "Coming up next: Angela Lansbury, David Hyde Pierce, and Paula Abdul." One of these things is not like the other. Lansbury, of course, is one of two actors who have won five Tony Awards, and now she's the honorary chairman of something illustrious.


8:51  The Best Play presentations: How many times can we say "vibrator" tonight? (Up to four.) For inventing the device, Michael Cerveris says, "You're welcome, darling." Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne talk about how Red explores the integrity of art and creativity, but what does Eddie care? He's got a Tony in his pocket.


8:45  Sean Hayes in a dance belt. Yep, a normal night on Broadway. For Best Direction of a Play, Antonio Banderas gives Michael Grandage (Red) a Tony, which he clings to and refuses to look away from. Look at the camera, Michael... the trophy's not made of chocolate. Then Banderas announces La Cage aux Folles in a Spanish accent. Terry Johnson, a bit perplexed, gives a short 'n' sweet speech for Best Direction of a Musical.

8:34  The theater audience goes wild for a Republican! Oh, wait--it's Kelsey Grammar in La Cage aux Folles, doing very un-Republican things like running a drag club. Douglas Hodge, singing "The Best of Times," gets seduced by Will Smith and picks up a twenty from Mr. Schuester.


8:33  Eddie Redmayne wins Best Featured Actor in a Play for Red. To think, he was only cast because of his last name!


8:27  Million Dollar Quartet performed, and all I could watch was Levi Kreis' hair. His coiffure is probably why he'll win a Tony tonight: it worked for John Gallagher, Jr. in Spring Awakening. Now to a  commercial for bladder control products. For all those blue-hairs out there on the bus to watch American Idiot.


8:18  Best Featured Actress in a Play goes to Scarlett Johansson for her Broadway debut in A View from the Bridge. Jan Maxwell might push her off a bridge later, but her speech is classy (way to advertise Iron Man 2 from the stage, Scarlett). Vibrator Count: 2.


8:15  Is Sean Hayes the next NPH? "The Tony Award... or as Angela Lansbury calls it, a whippersnapper!" Way to be up for your sixth Tony, Ms. Lansbury. Greedy, greedy.


8:10  The rest of the opening medley: "I Say a Little Prayer" leads into Frank Sinatra, Motown, Afro-beat, drag queens, and punk rock. Yes sir, a typical year on the Great Multicultural Way.


8:00  2009-2010 was the season of non-traditional music on Broadway. How appropriate that Sean Hayes begins the broadcast with the Grieg piano concerto. Nice fingerwork, covering up some of the early microphone issues (please don't repeat last year!).


7:46  The official winners rules: "Be as heartfelt as you can, just do it in a minute and thirty seconds."


7:44  The rundown of the other awards: Red starts the plays sweep with Best Scenic Design and Best Sound Design. Christine Jones, who won Best Scenic Design for a Musical, thanked her husband, the love of her life and father of her children, then director Michael Mayer, "the love of my other life and father of my other children."

Robert Kaplowitz, winning Best Sound Design of a Musical for Fela!, said the Tony is "the best piece of bling ever."


7:31  Neil Austin beats... Neil Austin for Best Lighting Design of a Play in Red. Best Lighting Design of a Musical goes to American Idiot. And what music greets the Green Day winners? "If Ever I Would Leave You" from Camelot: an amusingly incongruous choice.


7:28  The Royal Family wins Best Costume Design of a Play, shocking the Memphis crew, who thought they just might conquer every category. This is the first (and surely not the last) time tonight the title In the Next Room, or the vibrator play will be spoken. Fela! takes Best Costume Design for a Musical, reassuring us that the Tony voters at least watched shows that weren't Memphis.


7:26  We're just powering through these early awards. Best Book goes to Memphis, as well. I think we can safely call Memphis as the Best Musical winner already. Good speech, though: "I never thought I'd be here tonight... The New York Times never thought I'd be here tonight." He's proud to be a theater animal.


7:24  Oh, Best Score. Two original scores: Memphis (which practically won by default) and The Addams Family, the burnt toast of critics across New York. And Enron, a play with some songs about finance and stock prices, not to mention velociraptors. And Fences, which apparently is a wonderful play revival with eleven minutes of incidental music.


7:22  First award of the pre-show: Best Orchestrations. Memphis just won, perhaps beginning the Memphis sweep of the night, a.k.a. the Only Decent Show with an Original Score This Year sweep. Is it cruel that the orchestra played the winners on with the overture to Candide, one of the best written for Broadway, and frequently played by symphony orchestras?


7:05  The Tonys have begun! At least, the Creative Arts Awards, which you can't see on CBS tonight. This is the pre-show hour where they bestow awards upon the unsung heroes of Broadway: the set designers, the orchestrators, the ticket scalpers, Catherine Zeta-Jones' chauffeurs.

Once the red carpet razzmatazz ends (who's covering these things? film students at P.S. 132?), the live blog will commence. Keep refreshing; new posts appear at the top. From Green Day to Stephen Sondheim, get ready for a melange of musical theater styles, old and new, borrowed and blue.

A Heartbreaking Reading of No-One-Cares

Now that my grad school years have ended, it's time for some perspective. Newly degree-d, I saw a fiction reading recently. But in the "real world" (which must be based on some MTV reality show), I feel less beholden to honor my noble, struggling literary friends. Yes, I've sat through poetry workshops just like you. I've churned out chapters the night before. But if you're reading, I expect you to hold my attention for fifteen straight minutes. That means...

1. Make me laugh. Not the hesitant maybe that's meant to be amusing laugh, or the oh it's so silent, I'll give a little titter laugh. You know how these stories that are so original, about what you did from 9:41 a.m. to 9:43 a.m. spread out across three chapters, and we laugh kind-of-sort-of, but they're totally unlike anything that's been published? Hint: Read something that will be published.

2. Don't ask, five minutes over, if you have time left. And seven minutes over, and nine minutes over. Bring a stopwatch. Maybe an egg timer.

3. You're among people who want you to succeed and who will clap no matter what. Don't abuse their sincere desire for you to not suck.

4. I don't want to know about your sex life. Unless it's my sex life too; in which case, please don't write a story about it.

5. Consider your spot in the queue. If you are last, don't send us off to the bar with gang rape or the Third Reich. (Though because we want you to succeed, we will probably say it was "deep" or "whoa, that was... wow.")

6. Mix and match. Listening to twenty minutes of one nonfiction piece about your grandmother, who you ate breakfast with from 9:41 to 9:43 this morning, requires superhuman attention span.

7. Don't talk about your process. Unless it involves Himalayan dwarf trolls and/or Satanic goat sacrifices.

I expect a performance. You expect to sell copies of your latest book. You don't have to read your most profound work. Or Chapter 45 from your four-hundred-page opus. Just be a down-to-earth, semi-literate dude(-ette) who doesn't take yourself too seriously. Because, let's face it, everyone pre-gamed anyway.