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Posted on August 24, 2003
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Posted on August 24, 2003
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So how weird is this? Here’s an article from TheStar.com about Joyce Brabner, the wife of Harvey Pekar and co-screenwriter of the new film American Splendor, was a student in the Drama Dept at the University of Delaware with me in the early 70’s. I recall parties at the apartment in Newark (a slum called Towne Court, if I recall correctly) she shared with two guys – George Stewart, whom she married (I almost typed “harried,” which probably would have been no less accurate), and Joel Berman, who she didn’t. It always seemed like a bizarre menage there, not to mention very intense. And the woman described in this article seems quite like the woman I remember from 30+ years ago. Geez, I gotta see this movie…
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Posted on August 13, 2003
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The Village Voice: Film: Children’s Crusades by Ed Park is the article that best captures my own ambivalent feelings about the new movie CAMP. I must admit, my hopes ran high during the opening sequence, which is built around the song How Shall I See You Through My Tears, from Gospel at Colonus – great song, great vocals, a provocative montage. The first Jill and Fritzi scene (”We were in ‘Night, Mother’ together.”) is a red flag that we’re in for some arch writing and weak dramaturgy. The ride on the bus, with all the campers cheerfully singing “Losing My Mind,” has a promising ironic quality. But then comes the arrival of Vlad in the dorm room, and again, the writing has a flat obviousness about it that disappoints. For me, the movie was a continuous push-pull like this – promising moments which piqued my interest, followed by scenes that had me squirming with impatience. The performances are great, though. It was especially fun to see Tiffany Taylor, who was a student in the U Arts Pre-College Program in Musical Theater last summer. She split midway through to go “be in a movie,” she told us; guess she wasn’t lying.
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Posted on August 3, 2003
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Here is a link to the NY Times’ review of AVENUE Q. I’m particularly intrigued by Ben Brantley’s consideration of the role of irony in the contemporary (musical) theater-goer’s sensibility. He points out that Avenue Q is only the second musical on Broadway targeted specifically at the younger (under 40) demographic – the first is RENT, which I saw again last month for the first time in a few years. Of course, Off-Broadway has churned out it’s share of these, but none have showed the staying power of Jonathan Larson’s breakthrough opus. [Worth noting, too, that Rent's profits have helped underwrite Baz's LA BOHEME as well as AVE Q.]
Brantley’s comments about irony make me recall an interview with Adam Guettel which he gave in Seattle at the time of the opening of THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA. Adam announced his desire to create a musical without irony, and he’s certainly a member of the under-40 AVE Q generation. But I suspect Adam doesn’t care too much about what the “typical” member of his generation is seeking from their theatergoing experience.
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Posted on August 2, 2003
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Reading this review of “Gigli,” by David�Edelstein and others like it (The Phila Daily News seemed gleefully savage), I wonder what the effect will be on Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl, the next onscreen foray for Ben ‘n’ Jen. The Daily News alludes to the fact that the release of Jersey Girl was postponed to February 2004 so that the stink from Gigli would have some time to abate. It’s provocative to imagine the anxious conferences that are going on in the offices of Miramax right now…
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