Lessons Were Learned

Well, it's been a busy couple of days, I had intended to get this posted Monday morning. I've been back in school for 2 1/2 weeks and am so ready to be done. Just another 2 years, 10 months, 2 weeks and 4 days left to go!

So to start with, Linda was FABULOUS!!! Like I expected anything different. The nice surprise this time was that the Rosemont pops orchestra, instead of giving us an hour of Spanish-themed music filtered through a harmonica virtuoso before brining Linda out, this time only did 4 songs, all Broadway related (although the Harry Potter medley was somewhat obliquely related, at least coming from the show-biz category). They started with a medley of Broadway overtures, which was about two lines each from Kiss Me Kate, Annie Get Your Gun, The Music Man, Sweet Charity, and Phantom. It was pleasant and got the evening off on the right note, although I have issues with amplified orchestras. They then did the Harry Potter medley, the Funny Girl overture (probably the most appropriate number) and then a medley of songs from Chicago, basically the Overture, All That Jazz, All I Care About Is Love, and Me and My Baby, wrapping up with the background music of Velma and Roxie's last few lines of the finale. We then got a nice intermission for a glass of wine and then it was time for Linda. The crowd really was there for her, she got a huge reception when she first came out. The show was basically an abridged version of the concert she did last March, but she did all the important numbers, including a tight rendition of Zing Went The Strings of my Heart/The Trolley Song, Stormy Weather, If I Could, Don't Rain on my Parade, and of course, Vienna and Man of La Mancha. She was on stage for about an hour and a half, and it seemed like she was barely there at all, I wanted her to stay all night. She didn't mention anything about a new album this time though. When she was here in March, she mentioned that she had a new album scheduled for early this year, and it was going to include If I Could. Well, we're almost done with the first quarter, and there's no news of a new album, only the Greatest Hits CD she originally released exclusively through Barnes & Noble last year now in wide release. She didn't mention anything about it this time, hopefully it's not delayed. In the meantime though, she may want to consider a live album. She's really come into her own as a live performer and it would be great to get that energy and excitement captured on disc while she's at her peak.

Then on Sunday it was time for the Oscars. As I had expected, I got home about an hour after it started and just used the fast forward function of the TiVo to cut through the speeches and filler, so it wasn't as annoying of a show as usual, although afterwards I felt kind of unfulfilled. Granted, it was a short show, they only went 15 minutes over, but it felt like I had missed something. Jon Stewart wasn't that funny (other than his lines about Hilary thinking Away From Her was the feel good movie of the year and when we have a female or black president, an asteroid is about to hit the statue of liberty, I really don't remember much about him other than his one really classy gesture, and more on that in a second), and as usual the scripted banter was just putrid, with poor Anne Hathaway as this year's top casualty. It was unfair enough having to pair her with Steve Carrell, but to give them such a horrendously unfunny conversation was criminal. Awards wise, I did about the same as last year in the major categories, only missing Actress and Director, although in my predictions I did acknowledge that either of the winners were real possibilities. The lesson I learned was not to bet against history. The academy is on a roll awarding female biographical portrayals, and while I thought that Cate Blanchett would have siphoned off enough votes from Marion with hers to allow Julie Christie to win, the academy was determined to make it happen. And, there's still no best director winner whose picture wasn't nominated, but it was nice to see the Coens finally get their due. Of course, I was thrilled to be wrong about art direction (Sweeney won) and best song, which was truly a shock for me. It was so great to see them win, and Jon Stewart was so classy bringing Marketa Irglova back out to give her full speech after the orchestra cut her off when she tried to speak after Glen Hansard. Way to read my instructions Jon! Speaking of Best Song, how fabulous was Kristen Chenoweth? And Amy Adams! Too bad that guy they got to do the 3rd song from Enchanted couldn't sing a note in tune to save his life. While being gorgeous can enhance the enjoyment of listening to a great singer (like Cheyenne Jackson, Matthew Morrison, Justin Timberlake, etc.), being goregous alone can't make up for being a bad singer (Anthony Rapp, Ryan Cabrera, and this guy, whoever he was). Despite being somewhat lackluster, at least they learned most of the lessons from last year, I would only say to Javier Bardem, don't apologize for giving your speech in Spanish, be proud! The only lesson for next year is for nominees, no matter how much of a long shot they may think they are, don't get baked before the ceremony. Tilda Swinton seemed like she was on the verge of freaking out every time the camera panned on her, and then when she won, the jig was up, that was the most out of it acceptance speech I can remember in a long time, which could have made the night more memorable had she tried to eat the Oscar or take her clothes off or tried to hump Alan Arkin when she got up to the stage. Lastly, just to rub it in, did anyone else think Jennifer Hudson's delivery of the Best Supporting Actor award was completely wooden? There was no emotion or any excitement there, maybe she was high too. At least this year's winners were all deserving.

Top Prizes

Just over 48 hours left to go, and here are my final two predictions.

Best Director
Who Will Win: Ok, I'm going to do it. I do this every year even though I totally no better, and always end up making some wild prediction completely convinced it will happen. Last year I thought Peter O'Toole would win best actor, in previous years I've thought Julianne Moore would win best supporting actress, I thought Titanic would get shut out, and this year I'm predicting Julian Schnabel will win best director. It'll be a first, no director has ever won for a movie that was not nominated for Best Picture. However, on Julian's side is that fact that over the past 10 years, the academy has bucked almost 40 years' worth of tradition and issued several split decisions on director and picture (Stephen Spielberg and Shakespeare in Love, Steven Soderburgh and Gladiator, Roman Polanski and Chicago, and Ang Lee and Crash). While the academy routinely issued these split decisions in the 30's and into the 40's, somewhere around the end of World War II they started showing solidarity between picture and director, splitting only a handful of times until the late 90's. That makes it at least somewhat more likely that they would consider Schnabel, who has already won an armload of awards, without necessarily being concerned that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly wasn't nominated for best picture. There's a chance they could go with the Coen brothers for No Country, but they've shown a dislike of the brothers in the past, how else can you explain the snub of Fargo in favor of the bloated, boring, insipid The English Patient? I don't think they'll overcome that now even though the movie should steamroll most of the other categories. While I consider Paul Thomas Anderson a genius, the academy again has refused several times to concur and he's out of luck. Tony Gilroy and Jason Reitman, for Michael Clayton and Juno, are also out of the running, genre pieces don't win best director. The last director to win for a comedy was Woody Allen over 30 years ago, and while Erin Brokovich was up for director, I can't even remember the last time a legal procedural actually won.

Who Should Win: The Coen Brothers, and maybe it's that fact that's keeping me from predicting a win for them. They so deserved the award for Fargo and it was heartbreaking to see them lose after Fargo had been built up for almost 10 months as the movie to beat only to see The English Patient sweep in just under the cutoff and win everything. The academy so rarely rewards the truly deserving for their truly deserving work that I'm reluctant to believe they'll do it now. Still, it did happen for Roman Polanksi, maybe, just maybe, they'll be ready to do it again.

Who Should Have Been Nominated: For putting up with all the crap I said about him before getting a chance to see the finished product, Tim Burton hands down should have gotten a long overdue nomination here. Sweeney Todd was quite an achievement, one that he can rightfully be proud of, and I can't understand what the academy was thinking shutting him out again.

Who Should Not Have Been Nominated: Easily enough, Jason Reitman. Nothing about Juno deserved to be nominated, not here, not in any category.

Best Picture
Who Will Win: And we thought last year was up in the air! At least we could narrow down the field to 3 probables and 2 less probables, although I did pick the wrong probable. This year, any of them could win, including Juno. Atonement was the early favorite, but while it won the Golden Globe and the BAFTA, it's lost just about everything else. Juno and Michael Clayton are genre pictures, which usually don't win, and like I said earlier, if Little Miss Sunshine couldn't win last year, Juno definitely won't win this year. Plus, all three of these movies did not get nominated for Best Editing, and no movie has ever won best picture without at least being nominated for editing, which was an early indication 2 years ago that Brokeback wasn't going to go all the way. That leaves No Country and Blood, both of which have editing nominations, and both of which completely deserve to win. The edge goes to No Country though, having picked up more awards throughout the night, the academy will give it the final big one.

Who Should Win: This is a tough call for me, I was fond of Atonement, but really No Country For Old Men is the one for me. It's bleak, violent, relentless, and completely perfect.

Who Should Have Been Nominated: Another tough one on a personal level. In a year that gave us Once, Hairspray, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Rescue Dawn, Harry Potter, Enchanted, and In The Valley of Elah, it's hard to pick just one here. Still, I'm going to have to go with my theme and say that Sweeney Todd should have been much more recognized than it was. The academy rarely seems to like Golden Globe comedy/musical winners, having only recognized Chicago in recent memory with a nomination after it won the Golden Globe. Dreamgirls, Nurse Betty, Walk the Line, and now Sweeney Todd all won best comedy/musical at the Golden Globes only to find themselves shut out of the oscar race, and Sweeney now joins the ranks of the egregiously overlooked (except in Dreamgirls' case, that was justifiably overlooked). The academy shouldn't punish good movies just because they justifiably dislike the Golden Globes and the fact that they have two best pictures.

Who Should Not Have Been Nominated: Wrapping up my other theme, Juno is so completely out of place here. Other than last year, there's always at least one, and this year she's it.

So, how did I do? We'll have to watch Sunday and find out. While I'll try to post some updates during the show, I'm not going to be doing live posting like I was for the Tony's. We've had our friend from Prague staying with us and he's flying back home at 9:00 pm on Sunday, and we have to get him to the airport. Still, that means we have to have him there by 7, which should give me just enough time to get back home in time to fast forward the Tivo through the monologue and catch up with the awards. I'd urge the everyone to remember the lessons learned last year: start with some real awards like the supporting acting awards to grab our interest; practice your lines ahead of time, don't try to wing it; subtitles are highly preferable over Clint Eastwood for providing translation; classiness is always preferable over crassness; no matter how overwhelmed you are at winning, look to Judi Dench as your speech giving model and keep it under 30 seconds; and lastly, once the show runs long, nix everything except the awards, no contortionists, montages, musical numbers, tributes, sound effects choirs, special presentations, comedy bits, etc. Once you hit 3 hours, name the category, list the nominees, announce the winner, quick acceptance speech, then next category and keep repeating unil the end. Look for my thoughts on Monday as well as a review of Linda Eder's Saturday night concert with the Rosemont Pops. Let's hope she learned some lessons too and skips the harmonica impressario this time.

Actors

A couple of things before we get into the actor predictions. I watched the first act of Company on PBS' Great Performances last night (it went way past my bedtime so I'll be watching the rest sometime this weekend between Linda Eder and the Oscars). I loved the sets and costumes even more with an up close view and am even more baffled how it got shut out from nominations in both categories at the Tony's. I can appreciate Raul's performance more too seeing his closeups instead of watching the action from the upper half of the balcony. It's definitely a very subtle performance which is probably what hurt him at the Tony's. The voters in all the critics and guild awards probably would have scored closer seats than some of the Tony voters and been able to fully appraise his performance. Still, if the people in the balcony can't see enough to appreciate it, is it really a good performance? While I'm liking it more than when I saw it, I'm still not completely sold on it. There's a lot of business on the stage that I find distracting and too many of the cast members are "Acting" which really grates on my nerves. It doesn't feel like anyone's taking it seriously. It comes across even more so on TV than it did live, so I am now even more firm in my opinion that 110 in the Shade should have gotten best revival, and probably would have had Sweeney not been robbed the year before. Next, when I went to playbill.com for my daily dose of news, I saw the thrilling announcment that John Barrowman, who does such an excellent job playing Captain Jack on Torchwood (the best show currently on TV, if you get BBC America, you must check it out), is in talks to play the title role in Barnum next year in London. I may be making another trip. Now, onto the actors.

Best Supporting Actor
Who Will Win: One of the other no-brainers of the night, this one goes to Javier Bardem. No one else will come close.
Who Should Win: Javier, it's as close to a perfect performance as possible.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Really, any of the other male performers in Sweeney, except maybe for Borat who I exclude on principle, should have been nominated, but the best among them was definitely Alan Rickman, another long overdue underappreciated performer in a long list of them this year.
Who Should Not Have Been Nominated: Normally I like him, but Philip Seymour Hoffman just doesn't cut it here. The whole movie didn't cut it, although it was gratifying to see just how low Tom Hanks' and Julia Roberts' caches have sunk over just a few years. The Terminal and Mona Lisa Smile may turn out to have been bigger mistakes than they even seemed at the time.

Best Actor
Who Will Win: This is being touted as a no-brainer, but I think it may be a little closer than the conventional wisdom is assuming. Still, it would take a lot for anyone other than Daniel Day Lewis to win this one. The ending and that infamous line may scare away some voters towards George Clooney, but Daniel's got enough support he should still come out on top. It'll be nice to see him win for something he deserves and we can finally all put Gangs of New York behind us.
Who Should Win: No surprise for my constant readers, but Johnny Depp gave the gutsiest and most successful performance of the bunch. Unfortunately, he's being O'Toole-ed by the Academy and the most he can look forward to is an honorary Oscar in about another 20-30 years.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: No question, Glen Hansard deserved to belong in this group. It was a very nuanced, balanced performance, no "Acting" here.
Who Should Not Have Been Nominated: It's so hard for me to say this, but Viggo Mortenson is the odd one out here. He's nominated for the wrong movie. He should have been nominated 2 years ago for A History Of Violence, one of the greatest movies of the last 25 years. Maybe my expectations were too high after seeing that movie, but Eastern Promises just didn't live up and I found his performance flat and flaccid, although the bath house scene certainly provided a nice diversion. Still, while the nomination is an award for his gutsiness in filming that scene, the scene also guarantees he won't win, it'll turn off too many older conservative voters.

We're almost there, come back tomorrow for the final predictions.

Actresses and a Song

One of the more interesting "lesser" categories that I forgot to mention yesterday was Best Song. Obviously, I'm pulling for "Falling Slowly" from Once to win. Unfortunately, as is true with most categories, the most deserving is the least likely to win. Looking at the nominees, the odds would seem to favor Stephen Schwartz, who would deservingly win as well for any of the three songs from Enchanted, and indeed, 10 years ago, he would have been assured a win. However, times have changed, and in an effort to appear more "hip" the Academy over the past few years has had a habit of awarding what can most charitably be categorized as "crap" in this category, culminating in the execrable and inexplicable win for "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" two years ago. They made up for it last year by ignoring all 3 Dreamgirls nominations and giving the award to the truly best song and best performer in the category, but having done that, they will now feel free to go back to awarding crap and the winner will be "Raise It Up" from August Rush. Not a good night for music.

Best Supporting Actress
Who Will Win: This is one of the more interesting categories as none of the nominees are all that great, giving the category a distinct lack of excitement. Even an upset in this category really wouldn't be very exciting as it would just be one blah actress winning instead of another. The early favorite here was Amy Ryan for Gone Baby Gone, but after winning an armful of early awards, she suddenly saw her cache drop when Ruby Dee won the SAG award and Cate Blanchett won the Golden Globe, placing them in the running. However, I'm thinking that Tilda Swinton will take this one. Hollywood loves her almost as much as it loves George Clooney, and since Michael Clayton doesn't have much chance for any other awards, they'll be sure to recognize it, and by extension George, here. It's the same consolation prize tendency that brought us the phrase "Oscar Winning Actress Marcia Gay Harden."

Who Should Win: Again, I'm not that thrilled with any of these, but Amy Ryan seems to be the best choice. It's a meaty role and she gave it her all, making it definitely the most memorable of the 5 performances here.

Who Should Have Been Nominated: I know it would have been a long shot, but Imelda Staunton strongly deserved a nomination for her performance in Harry Potter. This one was NOT a kids' movie and her performance as a female George W. was strong, three dimensional, and memorable, completely unlike the real life George. She made it very easy to understand how evil can flourish in uncertain times.

Who Should Not Have Been Nominated: I love her, but this was not her year for making movies. Cate Blanchett has no business being in this category, or in the Best Actress category either. Unlike Amy Ryan's showy performance, this was a show-off-y performance and the Academy should have known better. Cate should have too.

Best Actress
Who Will Win: In a somewhat more exciting category (they've got three deserving nominees here), it's a close race between early favorite Julie Christie, and gaining-ground-fast Marion Cotillard. I'm thinking Christie has the edge, she's a previous winner long overdue for a second while Cotillard can always come back later. However, the Academy has been loving female biographical portrayals lately (after Gwyneth Paltrow won at the 1998 ceremony, only 2 other actresses since have won for playing fictional characters - Halle Berry in 2001 for Monster's Ball and Hilary Swank in 2005 for Million Dollar Baby), which could favor Cotillard. She also stepped up her momentum just as the Oscar ballots went out. Still, there's a lot of love for Christie among the acting community and I think she'll come out on top.

Who Should Win: In a rare occurance, Julie Christie is the most deserving here. Why she hasn't gotten a second Oscar way before this is a mystery. It'll be nice to see the Academy finally coming to its senses.

Who Should Have Been Nominated: Nikky Blonsky. Two words: Jennifer Hudson. If that untalented wannabe hack could win, Nikky should at least have been nominated. Enough said.

Who Should Not Have Been Nominated: While I am not fond of Cate Blanchett's nomination here either (she got a second nomination for the same role with the god-awful Elizabeth: The Golden Age while Anthony Hopkins got ignored on his second and third go-rounds with Hannibal Lecter? Criminal.), it's Ellen Page here that really pisses me off. Don't get me wrong, I love her and totally think she should have been nominated for Hard Candy, and can't wait to see what she'll do next, but this was not a performance to remember. Similar to how the Moldy Peaches completely embody Juno's character in almost the completely opposite way from what Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody intended, Ellen's performance here completely works against establishing the personality that Reitman and Cody intended Juno to have. She manages to get the characterization completely right and yet so completely wrong at the same time, maybe she does deserve the nomination after all, it's not many actresses that can do that.

With that, come back tomorrow for a look at the much more interesting actor races.

February Madness

It seems like just yesterday I was predicting Alan Arkin's win and now it's time to do it again. Everyone thought last year was a wide open race, but that was nothing compared to this year. Seeing as how the straight Oscars ended with a surprise upset a few weeks ago, I'm betting it's more than likely we'll be seeing a few of those this year, more than just Alan Arkin or Crash (which really were no surprise here). With that said, here are my thought.

Since no one really cares about the technical awards, I'm not going to spend much time here. I care more about the snubs in these categories than most of the nominees. Rescue Dawn and Harry Potter should have dominated the music, costumes, cinematography, editing, and all the categories of visual and audio effects. I can understand why the Academy would shy away from Harry, but do they really hate Christian Bale that much? And if so, why? Or, is it that they just hate movies? What does it say about the Academy, and the world we live in, when Norbit is an academy award nominated movie, and Hairspray didn't get any? Ironically, Norbit's one nomination is in the category that Hairspray didn't deserve - makeup, but Hairspray definitely should have at least gotten a nod for costumes. And even if Hairspray didn't deserve a makeup nomination (whoever did John Travolta should be kicked out of the makeup artists union for life), is Eddie Murphy in another fat suit really worth a nomination? I would have prefered 28 Weeks Later in this category. Looking at Documentaries, any of them would be worthy. I'm partial to Sicko, but No End In Sight will probably take it. Animation has lately replaced Best Supporting Actress as the upset category du jour, so look for Persepolis to win there. Now, on to the ones we care about!

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Who Will Win: As with most of the major categories, there's no frontrunner here. With No Country and Blood leading the Best Picture race, either could be favored here, and indeed, the winner in this category will probably make a return trip to the stage at the end of the night. However, they could cancel each other out, opening the way for Atonement, a potential dark horse in the Best Picture race. Away from Her and Diving Bell probably have little chance here, although seeing as how the Academy likes to use the screenplay category as a consolation prize (see Pulp Fiction, Fargo, Brokeback, Little Miss Sunshine), Diving Bell could take this one. However, the consolation prize this year is more likely to happen in the Original category, and I'm predicting No Country For Old Men to take this one. While the ending has been criticized, Blood's ending has been widely ridiculed and the Academy won't take a chance on it. No Country has an impeccable literary pedigree and survived the page to screen adaptation process much better than Blood or Atonement, making it the winner.

Who Should Win: Call me sentimental, but I think Sarah Polley's touching Away From Her deserves this one. Her achievement, at the age of 28 no less, and for a first time picture, is astonishing. Of course, being in Academy-land, the most deserving is the least likely to win.

Who Should Have Been Nominated: John Logan, for Sweeney Todd. He took a sprawling, messy (narratively, that is), not necessarily linear, chorus-based (as in Greek Chorus), fabulous stage production, and turned it into a sprawling, tightly told, gut-wrenching, emotionally involving, absorbing, fabulous movie. He accomplished what screenwriters on Phantom, Rent, The Producers, Dreamgirls, and to a certain extent Hairspray, all failed to do: he produced the first quality script for a movie musical since Chicago and should have gotten his due here, especially since he claims not to have been a fan of musicals to start with. We never would have known, there's that much love throughout the script.

Who Should Not Have Been Nominated: Really, the nominees here are all deserving. In some ways, Diving Bell is the weakest choice, but in others it's also the strongest. There's been a lot of rumbling that Atonement botched the book's surprise ending, so that's the one most likely in need of replacing. I know I would have appreciated Sweeney over any of these 5, but Atonement is probably the weakest link.

Best Original Screenplay:
Who Will Win: This is one of the night's few no-brainers. Diablo Cody will take home the prize for Juno. Remember what I said earlier about the screenplay category usually being a consolation prize? Everyone loves Juno but comedies don't win (and if Little Miss Sunshine couldn't win last year, when only one person in the world - Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwartzbaum - hated it, Juno is not going to win with the amount of backlash it's already generated), so Juno gets the consolation prize this year. There's a decent chance that Michael Clayton could end up getting the consolation prize instead - the Academy LOVES George Clooney, and by extension anything he does, but also won't give the top prize to a procedural - but Diablo's got the better rags to riches story and will ride this one all the way home.

Who Should Win: The pickings are much slimmer on this side of the fence (was it really that weak a year for screenplays? All of these were written well before the strike, what's that going to say about next year's crop of nominees?), so Michael Clayton stands head and shoulders above all the others. If there was any justice, Tony Gilroy would be striding up to the podium instead of Diablo Cody slinking up to it.

Who Should Have Been Nominated: So many choices, but my heart goes with John Carney for Once. Like Sarah Polley, he crafted such a warm gentle yet profound movie that belies its hidden depths. Movies like Once don't come around very often, it would be nice if the Academy could recognize them when they do.

Who Should Not Have Been Nominated: And here it is, the start of this year's hate train. Last year we had Dreamgirls, this year we have Juno. I can understand the appeal, I want to like it too, but no one, not even yours truly, was that precocious of a 16-year-old girl. The script is a mix of preposterous and pretentious (The Moldy Peaches?!?!?! It definitely nailed Juno's character, but not in the way they intended, see Jim DeRogatis's excellent commentary in the Sun-Times on this topic), and while it means well, you know what they say about good intentions. Just ask Sweeney.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the Actress predictions.

Sad Day

I never watch the Grammy's anymore, they're almost as irrelevant as the Golden Globes, but I was rather pleasantly surprised when I woke up this morning and heard on the radio that Amy Winehouse had won 5, but then was stunned to hear that she was beaten out for Album of the Year by Herbie Hancock, the least relevant and worst "musician" of the nominees. Of course, I had predicted that he would win based on those traits, but it was still saddening to hear just how right I was. Winehouse would have been the best pick out of all of them, although her CD also wasn't what I would consider the best of the year. Knowing that the Grammy's year doesn't correspond to the calendar so the Xanadu cast recording wouldn't have been considered, I would have thought last year's best CD to be the 110 in the Shade cast recording, with Prince, Kelly Clarkson, and Mika as runners up, as well as the Scissor Sisters, who released Ta-Dah around the same time in 96 that Amy's CD came out (Victoria Clark can be considered next year with Xanadu since her fabulous CD came out in November). Still, Spring Awakening got Best Soundtrack which it highly deserved. I was then further saddened to read on msnbc.com this morning that Roy Scheider died. I know I mentioned this earlier, but given his performances in French Connection, Marathon Man, and All That Jazz, it is criminal that he didn't have a more high profile career. The film community is definitely the worse off for his passing. Lastly, a bit of kind of good news. As I predicted last week, Sarah Brightman did chart last week, although she came in at number 13 in her first week. Given the empty shelf space at Target, I had hoped she would break the top 10, which I don't think she's done since La Luna. Still, it's been quite a while since Harem came out, so she may need to remind her audience that she's around. We'll see how future week's sales stack up. Idina was nowhere to be found on the chart (although it only went to 20), hopefully she'll continue to grow her audience and be making an appearance soon. Oh, one other thing, as I was looking through the A&E section of the Trib yesterday, I saw a listing for The Mystery of Edwin Drood at Pheasant Run starting next month. It seems they've finally realized that the Fox Valley is not Wicker Park and booted Noble Fool and brought back their theatre productions. I'll definitely have to make a trip out there to catch it. One more thing to add to the list with Drury Lane's Goodbye Girl (the actual musical, not the play!), Les Miz, Little Dog Laughed, and Shining City. I'm going to have to get on these, time's awastin' and we're only getting more shows as the year goes on.

Drama

Just as the hurt feelings on both sides finally seemed to be smoothed after the Urinetown brouhaha, Chicago's local theatre scene again finds itself facing Broadway's ire. Apparently, Eric Rosen, who is a phenomenally talented director and who will be greatly missed when he departs for Kansas City later this year, made some cuts in his production of The Little Dog Laughed without Douglas Carter Beane's approval. Specifically, he changed the nude scene so that both actors were wearing underwear, and changed some lines to reflect this visual change. Well, seeing as how this is one of the first regional productions of the show, Beane showed up a few days ago to check it out and was outraged that anyone had dared to change his show, no matter how much they may have known the audience and what would fly, and threatened to have the show closed, which would have cost About Face Theatre several thousand dollars. Eric personally interceded and got Beane to withdraw his threats but had to send out a humiliating letter to local critics outlining how he had "substantially" changed the show. Let me see if I understand this; first, a Chicago theatre gets in trouble for being too similar to a Broadway production, now, another one is in trouble for being too different. How is a regional theatre supposed to know what to do? Is the Mariott going to get in trouble for their production of Les Miz because they don't have a turntable stage? Or, conversely, if they installed a turntable, would they then get in trouble for being too similar? These producers in New York need to figure out what they want or they're going to find regional theatres demanding fewer and fewer licensed productions and going the route of Drury Lane (and Mariott for that matter) and starting to produce more original materials. That actually wouldn't be a bad thing for theatre in general. Looking at it that way, let's see how else we can piss off New York.

Love Last Night

Try as it might, the new wave of horrendous weather yesterday couldn't prevent from having a great time last night at thr House of Blues where I saw Mika in concert. I had bought tickets for myself and a friend for Christmas and had planned to make a whole night of it. Thanks to the weather, we just did the show and called it a night, but the concert itself was fabulous. I was a little cranky beforehand, dealing with the freezing rain while driving home after work and then trying to race down there. I don't know why it had to be so early, but I made it to the hotel about 6:15 and met my friend and walked across the street to get in line. Now, I don't know if the TSA or Homeland Security are the owners of HOB, but trying to get in is even worse than trying to get through O'Hare. Back in college I almost missed an entire concert standing in line waiting to get in. They have one entryway for approximately 3000 people and this was a sold out show. It took about 10 minutes from getting in line to get to the door where they checked our tickets and gave us our wristbands (although I don't know why they bother with that, the bartenders inside still want to see I'D, it's an extraneous step that just slows everything down). Then, as we were herded inside, they were wanding everyone and for some reason had two lines for women but only one line for men. They really didn't know their target audience at all. It was like being on the Kennedy during rush hour, the other two lanes kept moving, but the one I was in was at a standstill. Finally, after about another 10 minutes, as we were getting toward the front, they changed one of the women's lines to men and it moved. My friend got into that one and I stayed in the one we were in and figred out why we were going so slowly. The guy doing his line got about three people through for every one that my guy got through, he was SLOW and kind of rude. So, my friend got through before me, and then when I finished I stepped around the corner to where the staircase is to go up to the actual concert hall. I didn't see him and was looking around and the one woman taking tickets (again, 3000 people and they have 1 ticket taker) was really rude. She tried to take my ticket and I said I was looking for someone and she's like "you can't wait in this area, you have to go upstairs." So, I rolled my eyes and gave her my ticket and started walking up the stairs and heard her yelling at a bunch of other people who were standing waiting. Seriously, this isn't O'Hare, if we need to wait for someone because their staff can't move the line along at a reasonable rate, there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to. Fortunately, my friend was at the top of the stairs, so while it ws kind of a crappy start to the night (seriously, do they not want people to enjoy the evening?), we went and got a drink and were over it. It was already filling up, but a helpful staff directed us to two empty stools at a table. There were two other people sitting there, a young straight couple, and I was so worried that they were going to be annoying, but Chris and Stephanie actually ended up being so cool. It was a very fun evening. The opening act sucked, they were kind of like Maroon 5 meets Dave Matthews meets Jack Johnson, very boring. I used the time to get food from the bar, and that really picked me up. Mika came on around 8 and gave us an almost 90 minute high-energy, hughly entertaining show. He opened with Relax and followed it up with a rocking Big Girls, You Are Beautiful, complete with blow up dolls and strobe lights. I have to say, I thought he looked kind of weird in the album photos, but in person he's gorgeous (as were a lot of the guys there, it was better than a Saturday night at Roscoe's). He went through a lot of the album tracks, a couple new tracks (one good, one just ok), and then did a rocking version of the Eurythmics' Missionary Man as a duet with his backup singer, appropriately drag-named Sarah Naid. He then wrapped up most of the rest of the album tracks, all high energy (even the ballads) with lots of running around the stage, and then launched into Love Today, driving the audience nuts. He ended by ripping off his shirt and banging away on a trashcan drum set, and then capped it all off with Grace Kelly. He thanked everyone and walked off, but was back a few minutes later to perform Lollipop as his encore, and he outdid the gayness of Cher's performance of Believe as her encore number on her last 2 tours. It was THE gayest thing I have ever seen, it was so awesome. It really ended the night on just the right note and I was so glad I had dealt with the rudeness and pain-in-the-ass-ness of getting into the place. I can't wait to see him again, it was such a terrific show, it's being able to do stuff like that that keeps me in Chicago Chris and Steph had driven up from Purdue and it was obvious they were ready to move here as soon as they graduate for the same reason. It definitely was one of the most theatrical things I've ever seen and it was nice to see it in a smaller, more intimate venue and not from the third balcony of the United Center. Of course I blasted the CD all day at work today. It'll be in heavy rotation, at least until we go to Les Miz at the Marriott and the London recording will end up back in my CD player.

Pictures (3 of 3)

Saving the best for last, this is me on the zip line in St. Maarten. There were 32 "conveyances" between platforms high up in the trees, fortunately they took this picture on the first zip line and not the last one, which would have been very different. There were rope bridges, tight rope wires, combinations of those with swinging logs, and one rope swing. It was exhausting and I ached in the strangest places for the next three days. I was very tempted to open up those Bacardi bottles when I got back to my room.

Pictures (2 of 3)

This one is after I went on the Bacardi factory tour in San Juan. Every evening, the Royal Caribbean housekeeping staff would leave towels for the next day in the room, "sculpted" in some animal shape. Over the week we had a dog, turtle, stingray, and monkey. This one was a bat, which just happens to be Bacardi's logo. I thought they did it intentionally, having gotten the names from the excursions staff of who went on the tour, but it turned out apparently everyone got the bat. Still, it was pretty good timing. Also, I'm holding my spoils from the trip, a Bacardi reserve that is not sold in the US and a Ruby Red Peach rum that I've never seen before either. We weren't supposed to have them in our rooms, but there was no one at the gangway collecting them, so I just walked right in and up to my room with my big Bacardi bag and no one stopped me. I just kept it in the back of my closet then sent it home with my parents and these are part of the haul I picked up on Sunday.

Pictures (1 of 3)

Ok, it's a little later than I intended, but today is Elaine Stritch's birthday and to honor her I started celebrating early and didn't get around to posting these last night. So, without further ado, here is my pre-boarding picture:

They take everyone's picture as you're about to board the ship, presumably so that if you try to sue them after the cruise saying you got injured, they've got a picture of what you look like beforehand and can see if you already had the injury prior to boarding, then after the cruise they try to sell you the picture. As I mentioned Thursday, I usually don't buy these but this one turned out fairly well, you can't tell that I only got 4 hours of sleep and endured a bumpy plane ride, a bumpy bus ride, and stood in line for almost 2 hours to get to this point.