Tag Archives: Theatre

The Da Vinci Code sequel ANGELS AND DEMONS (2009) has David Langdon (Tom Hanks of course) recruited by the Vatican “despite your history of prying into church affairs,” when it appears the Illuminati have planted an anti-matter bomb to wipe out the Vatican during the conclave to pick a new pope (I’m inclined to suggest a double bill of this and Conclave for sheer incongruity). A set up like that should have led to pure, wild entertainment but Dan Brown is too busy teaching us esoteric details about the Vatican, Rome and the Illuminati to go with the flow (some of Michael Crichton’s talkier books have the same problem).

Plus, of course, the details are wrong. The real Illuminati were a branch of the Freemasons founded in 1776 in Bavaria, repressed by the state a few years later; here they’re a much older organization, a brotherhood of scientists driven underground by the Vatican’s persecution. Given the real Illuminati have been massively transformed in pop culture and political paranoia to something far more ominous, ignoring the reality (for that matter it doesn’t have much in common with the paranoid fantasy Illuminati) shouldn’t be a sticking point — but I don’t like the movie so I’m less forgiving than I might be. With Stellan Skarsgaard as a cop and Ewan McGregor as a priest. “Is it possible the Illuminati could have infiltrated the Swiss guard?”

Memory says I did like THE NET (1995) the first time I saw it, due my huge crush on Sandra Bullock; rewatching now, she can’t save such a slow, predictable thriller. Bullock plays Angela, a cybersecurity whiz who lives a high-tech, solitary lifestyle. Doesn’t hang out with her neighbors. Keeps her mother, who’s sliding into dementia, in a home (I’ve seen people deal with family members who have Alzheimer’s and I do not find Angela’s decision unreasonable). Her last serious relationship was with her married therapist, Dr. Alan Chapman (Dennis Miller). When she wants pizza — well, why go to a restaurant when you can order it online!

From Angela’s perspective it’s a good life … that comes crashing down when she unwittingly acquires the McGuffin, a software program that a sinister conspiracy definitely doesn’t want a security expert looking at. On vacation she meets Jack (Jeremy Bentham) who’s really into her … because he’s working for the conspiracy! This will come as a shock to no-one, except Angela. Bentham does a good job as a hit-man who might genuinely like Angela (or he might be lying) though not so much he won’t kill her. When he fails, the conspiracy goes to Plan B, rewriting Angela’s digital records so she’s now in police records as a petty crook and scam artist. An imposter takes Angela’s own identity, sells off her house, drains her bank accounts — and as she lives online, nobody knows it isn’t her.

It’s a shame I had to watch this without TYG, as she’d have some thoughts on the 1990s tech, like the crude avatars of Angela’s online friends in chat rooms. As a thriller, this is formulaic though I do find it interesting as a high-tech version of a concept — having your identity erased — that goes back much further (Twilight Zone: Person or Persons Unknown is one example). “She’s not running — she’s going in there to use a computer!

Finally got around to watching my brother in a production of SWEENEY TODD, the story of a barber transported (shipped overseas as a convict) for crimes he didn’t commit so that a lecherous judge could plays sexual predator to the barber’s wife. Now he’s back, out for revenge, but until he can get it, he winds up working in partnership with a local baker: he kills his customers, she bakes them into pies. My brother plays a rival barber who makes the mistake of blackmailing Mr. Todd.

The cannibalism dominates my memory of the show so I was surprised it doesn’t start until the show is half over. It shows Sondheim’s skill as a playwright that the drama of the first half kept me engaged, instead of waiting for the blood and gore to kick in. I’m inclined to suggest a double bill with Little Shop of Horrors as another story of a struggling business that gets involved in anthropophagy. “There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit/And it’s filled with people who are filled with shit.”

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MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (2025) is a film of the recent revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “cult flop,” currently streaming on Netflix. It stars Jonathan Groff as Franklin (lead character) with Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez as Charlie and Mary, the Second and Third of Franklin’s Three Musketeers (Iit’s not the production below but I like the image better).

When the film starts in 1976, Franklin is a successful Hollywood producer. Mary’s still his friend, a once successful writer drowning her writer’s block in booze. Charlie no longer talks to Franklin. Neither does Franklin’s ex-wife. Or his mentor. Or his son (it appears he doesn’t do much to fix any of this). How did he wind up alone in a room full of shallow Hollywood types, cheating on his wife with his latest star. To find out we bounce back in time, then further, then further still to see how Franklin — once an idealist and a gifted writer — kept succumbing to temptation (sex, money, fame) and selling out both his principles and the people in his orbit. It’s based on a George Kaufman/Moss Hart play which from synopses I’ve read sounds even darker. This production is well done; Radcliffe isn’t a great singer but he’s a good enough actor to make up for it. “I think Charlie and I will handle success very well — look how well we’ve handled failure!”

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES was a local production performing Oscar-winning songs from movie musicals, plus several from the 1230s before Best Song was a hit. Shows my taste that the only one I haven’t heard was “Toot Toot Tootsie!” about a young romeo bidding his girlfriend(s) goodbye, though I’ve heard the opening lines often enough. A lot of fun with the cast putting their heart and soul into the numbers.

I wouldn’t have gone to THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2 (2026) except LeAnn was a big fan of the original (we were both startled to realize it’s now 20 years old) — as it turned out, despite “meh” critical reviews, we both enjoyed it.

In the opening scene, Andy (Anne Hathaway) is now a superstar journalist; no sooner does she win a prestigious award than her company downsizes her and her coworkers as part of a cost-cutting move. By a happy coincidence, Runway, the magazine she briefly worked at under tyrannical Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep) is in deep shit due to running an article on a fashion brand that turns out to be made with child labor. Will putting a respected journalist in as editor turn things around? Will it help Andy’s career revive? Are the trends in legacy media — everything digital, serious news in decline — too deep to overcome? Or is it possible office backstabbing is the real threats?

This has a good feel for the plight of modern journalism and it’s also fun — in some ways more than the first one, as Andy’s better equipped to hold her own with Miranda. Solidly cast with Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Kenneth Branagh and Lucy Liu in supporting roles. No regrets about seeing this in the theater. “Stockholm called and they want their syndrome back.”

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I’m a fan of H.F. Heard’s novel A Taste of Honey, and a few years back watched the Boris Karloff TV adaptation, The Sting of Death. When I discovered Britain’s Amicus Films had adapted it into THE DEADLY BEES (1967) I couldn’t resist — though I can’t say that was a great use of my viewing time.

Suzanna Leigh plays Vicki, a singer burned out from overwork, though we do get a couple of pop songs before she collapses (as I know from Amicus Horrors, the studio started out doing rock-and-roll films). Recuperating on an isolated rural island (just typing those words seems to conjure ominous background music) where there’s a rivalry between her beekeeeping host, Doleman (Ralph Hargrove) and fellow apiarist Manfred (Frank Finlay). And as the movie progresses, a surprising number of people drop dead of bee stings …

All of which is rendered at a slow, plodding pace; I suspect the film added the opening (a couple of defense officials discussing some crackpot’s ridiculous claim he can weaponize bees) because otherwise it would take too long for us to learn what the film’s about. This also suffers from the lack of Mr. Mycroft, Heard’s Holmes-by-another-name figure. Still, I’m surprised nobody used this property a few years later, when America was consumed by fears of South American killer bees. “The scent of fear? I always thought that was just a phrase.”

GOOD MORNING (1959) is a slice-of-life dramedy from Japanese director Yasujiro Ozo, looking at the goings on in a small Japanese neighborhood. Housewives worry one of them has walked off with the homeowner’s assocation dues (or something equivalent), a salaryman bemoans his miserable retirement and two brothers vow never to speak until their parents by them a TV (a variation of a plotline in Ozo’s silent film I Was Born, But). This is quite charming, though I didn’t realize how much fart humor there is in it (the special features clued me in) — the beeps Ozo uses to stand in for farts didn’t register as such, partly because I was focused on subtitles more than sounds. “Do you still eat pumice stones?”

I’m not a fan of A CHRISTMAS STORY — THE MUSICAL (I caught a TV adaptation some years back) but as my brother was in one production I watched the recording of one of his performances as Ralphie’s dad. He does as well as anyone can who isn’t Darren McGavin but the stage version is still too, well, cute.

While the movie is hardly Eugene O’Neil, the family have their rough edges. Ralphie gets his buddy Schwartz in trouble by claiming he taught Ralphie the f-bomb; Mom apparently busts the legendary leg-lamp because she hates how tacky it is. The stage version sands them off, like George Lucas insisting Greedo shot first. Here, Ralphie’s brother breaks the lamp and Mom covers for him; a big part of the ending is a song about family and how any Christmas Story that has them all together is a happy story (the songs, in general, are forgettable). Though the cast were all good in their roles. “They were so far down the evolutionary chain, they weren’t even in Darwin’s family tree!”

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While I’ve watched my bro on stage both in real life and on streaming productions he’s sent me links to, TYG has never watched him. That was why last week’s date movie was Craig’s DVD of THE DROWSY CHAPERONE, which I rewatched last year.

The play has a middle-aged narrator retreating from the world by putting on one of his favorite LPs (as vinyl’s making a comeback, this no longer reads Old and Out of Touch the way I think it was meant to), a frothy 1920s show, The Drowsy Chaperone and making metacommentary as we watch the show. The story is absurd, involving a big wedding where multiple guests have clashing agendas and the bride is haunted by some second thoughts — will the wedding come off? Will flamboyant Euro-trash casanova Aldolfo seduce the bride? Will the groom fall for the incredibly beautiful French girl Mimi? Will it end happily — but y’all probably know the answer to that one.

TYG isn’t into musicals the way I am but she enjoyed the absurdity and my brother’s performance as a sad guy finding comfort in entertainment that he loves even though it isn’t that good (I can relate). She was thrown by a joke about the nameless narrator researching one ukelele-playing actor in the musical (“All my online research led me to photographs of Tiny Tim’s autopsy.”) as she’d never heard of the ukelele-playing Tiny Tim (well known when I was a tween). “You’ve been reading your own mind, you idiot!”