starring Ellen Page is up for all sorts of Academy Awards tonight, I like the film quite a bit, mostly because the lead figured out how to underplay almost everyone else in the cast without losing her centrality to the storyline. For a younger actress this is no small accomplishment, imagine the sort of histrionics we'd have accepted from Kirsten Dunst if by some temporal accident she'd played Juno?
My only question is whether or not Ellen Page simply lucked out here in finding a script that suited her talents or is she really that good?
Consider the case of Broderick Crawford, who won an Oscar as Best Actor in "All the King's Men" circa 1949m within a few years he was serving out his dotage in the TV show "Highway Patrol" far from the Hollywood A-list.
But what the hell, I wanna think well of the kid, she avoided tons of tempting actor pitfalls in Juno...she could be the next Jodie Foster or she could be the next Tatum O'Neal.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
$46 dollars and three hours of my life down the drain...
If I had to warn you all away from a Shakespearean production this year, I'd have to settle on the A.R.T.' s Julius Caesar now running down in Harvard Square. Bloated, loaded up with inpenetrable symbolism, rife with robotic acting and glacially paced at a torpid three hours plus, this has to be one of the worst Shakespeare productions I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of BAD interpretations of the Bard in my time.
I'm not sure what Director Arthur Nauzyciel had in mind, but it looks like he told his Brutus (one Jim True-Frost) to stare at the audience and recite the lines sans emotion or any of the actor's skill behind them. Sara Kathryn Bakker does as well as can be expected in the double role of Portia and Calpurnia but then she apparently ignored the whole "play it way android" meme
Otherwise the whole cast seems to execute on this mechanistic level, reciting, not acting...and they are SLOW reciters at that, what when they are not creeping around on stage like arthritis sufferers or listening rapturously at an inexplicable Jazz Trio complete with chanteuse.
If you are wondering why the play clocks in at three plus hours you can start with the above listed elements and do the math.
Orson Welles electrified Broadway when he dressed Julius Caesar up fascist regalia and got the whole thing down to about ninety minutes with no intermission so the legend goes. The A.R.T. isn't satsfied until it can double that running time no matter how many inappropriate song or dance interludes have to be hammered into Shakespeare's play til the damn thing rings up finally as ART!
I'm not sure what Director Arthur Nauzyciel had in mind, but it looks like he told his Brutus (one Jim True-Frost) to stare at the audience and recite the lines sans emotion or any of the actor's skill behind them. Sara Kathryn Bakker does as well as can be expected in the double role of Portia and Calpurnia but then she apparently ignored the whole "play it way android" meme
Otherwise the whole cast seems to execute on this mechanistic level, reciting, not acting...and they are SLOW reciters at that, what when they are not creeping around on stage like arthritis sufferers or listening rapturously at an inexplicable Jazz Trio complete with chanteuse.
If you are wondering why the play clocks in at three plus hours you can start with the above listed elements and do the math.
Orson Welles electrified Broadway when he dressed Julius Caesar up fascist regalia and got the whole thing down to about ninety minutes with no intermission so the legend goes. The A.R.T. isn't satsfied until it can double that running time no matter how many inappropriate song or dance interludes have to be hammered into Shakespeare's play til the damn thing rings up finally as ART!
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Cultural Note...
Let me assert quite freely that the Old Country Buffet in the Medford's Meadow Glen Mall is NOTHING but a gastronomic whore-house and an invitation to the deadly sin of GLUTTONY.
There are FIVE Buffets, plus a desert counter, pink lemonade and soft serve ice cream....the siren call to bloated self indulgence is as blatant as any I've seen this side of the old Combat Zone.
Shameful
Disgusting...
I ate like a starving government mule....undoubtedly the "build your own taco" alone took a day off my life.
The joint ought to be picketed, they picket Planned Parenthood...gluttony is a sin isn't it?????
And the prices were very reasonable, Jesus Lord isn't THIS a sign of the end times?
Leave some money in your budget for new pants, yer gonna need them afterwards trust me.
There are FIVE Buffets, plus a desert counter, pink lemonade and soft serve ice cream....the siren call to bloated self indulgence is as blatant as any I've seen this side of the old Combat Zone.
Shameful
Disgusting...
I ate like a starving government mule....undoubtedly the "build your own taco" alone took a day off my life.
The joint ought to be picketed, they picket Planned Parenthood...gluttony is a sin isn't it?????
And the prices were very reasonable, Jesus Lord isn't THIS a sign of the end times?
Leave some money in your budget for new pants, yer gonna need them afterwards trust me.
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