Tag Archives: Arts

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Broadway, Boys and Betty Buckley @RHCPA

I have no ear for music, a genetic gift from the Nonagenarian; unlike Betty Buckley, who acknowledges her talent was inherited from her mother. I fill that void with a passion for lyrics. George needed Ira; Cole…well he just needed Porter…and then there was Larry Hart. My appreciation for Sondheim is as a lyricist, not a composer.

Presuming that you have no idea who Larry Hart is, I quote the lyrics for “With a Song in my Heart” -

With a song in my heart
I behold your adorable face.
Just a song at the start
but it soon is a hymn to your grace.
When the music swells
I'm touching your hand
It tells that your're standing near, and ..
At the sound of your voice 
heaven opens it's portals to me.
Can I help but rejoice
that a song such as ours came to be?
But I always knew
I would live life through
with a song in my heart for you.

In comparision, I present the refrain from No Scrubs written by Kandi Buruss and Tameka Cottle:

I don’t want no scrub
A scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from me
Hanging out the passenger side
Of his best friend’s ride
Trying to holler at me
I don’t want no scrub
A scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from me
Hanging out the passenger side
Of his best friend’s ride
Trying to holler at me

Which one will still be sung 100 years from now? I’m putting my money on Larry Hart. I think Betty Buckley would too!

Betty Buckley has a powerful voice, but in concert she doesn’t belt, rather she uses that power judiciously to embellish the lyrics when the volume is appropriate. Her restraint is particularly welcome as these days young female singers seem to have only two speeds- silent or full throttle. By focusing on the lyrics, the audience is drawn into her performance, eager to hear how the story ends.

Thank goodness for the iPod. I no longer have to despair that radio has forsaken lyrics for street slang and expletives. I can download Betty Buckley’s interpretations of the Great American Songbook and skip the musical dystopia.

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Deanna Durbin died today. Another pop culture reference is lost.

Deanna Durbin on the Argentinean Magazine cover.

Deanna Durbin on the Argentinean Magazine cover. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My condolences to the friends and family of Deanna Durbin, a child star of the 1930s and someone instrumental in educating me about orchestras. She was 91 when she passed. She retired from acting at 28. There are Glee stars older than that who are just beginning their career.

People of my generation remember Ms. Durbin, because her black and white films were shown repeatedly on televisions after school. The after school movie was a staple at my house. I remember them all as black and white: We didn’t have a colour television.

There was a time I could mention 100 men and a girl and I would be understood. That no longer happens. If my pop culture references are not from Harry Potter, Britney Spears or the Spice Girls, a translator is required.

There are some older references that work – Star Trek and Star Wars. A current pop culture reference that I find is understood by nearly all is The Big Bang Theory. I was at a party recently where three generations grinned when a reference to Sheldon and Knock, Knock Penny was made.

Ms. Durbin, I hope a new generation of fans are inspired to watch your films. Thanks for the orchestra lesson.

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#42, A Revelation about a Revolution in Baseball

Jackie Robinson swinging a bat in Dodgers unif...

Jackie Robinson swinging a bat in Dodgers uniform, 1954. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The very best films that feature a sport don’t require a viewer to understand, or like, the game: Rocky, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, Men with Brooms, are some films that come to mind. I’m adding 42 to that list.

The path that ended with the Nonagenarian and I at the cinema for an 11:21 AM showing began in Kansas City, MO, at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, a few years ago. My limited knowledge of baseball did not include the segregation of professional ball into separate leagues based on skin colour. At  the NLBM I learned that Jackie Robinson had spent his minor league years in Montreal, while he waited to be called to The Show. Montrealers treated him with respect and appreciated his skill.

42 begins with the recruiting of Robinson from the Kansas City Monarchs, a legendary team of the Negro Leagues. It ends when the Brooklyn Dodgers win the pennant with the first integrated major league baseball team. That short span in baseball history changed the game forever.

42 is dense with well known names and faces – most of them character actors that provide depth in the backfield seldom seen in films today. Harrison Ford ditches the dashing hero image for a crooked bow tie, gnarly eyebrows and the passion of a man with a guilty conscience who wants to right a wrong. There isn’t a bad performance by anyone, and the cast list is extensive. The face with which I was least familiar was that of Chadwick Boseman, who played Robinson. My ignorance was my loss. His performance is extraordinary in a film that is abundant with them.

Jackie Robinson faced persecution, humiliation, injury as often as he faced pitchers during that period. If the film, “based on a true story” is believed, he faced his tormentors with strict instructions from Branch Rickey, a Dodgers executive, to turn the other cheek. The recreation of one incident when an opposing team member taunts him in front of a stadium full of fans is harrowing. When Robinson, pushed to his limit, finally allows himself to release his rage – we in the audience feel the release too. Rickey’s strategy of  building sympathy for Robinson to engender acceptance is artfully executed in the film to the same end by director Brian Helgeland.

I have dismissed a biopic or two because I “knew the ending.” Don’t dismiss this one, the story is in the details and the journey, not only of Robinson and Major League Baseball, but American culture.

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Why you should have been watching @MrRPMurphy’s & @AliAdler’s #NewNormal last night

Since the first episode of The New Normal, I have been extolling its virtues as an entertaining, witty and smart comedy to anyone who would listen. I raved about Ellen Barkin as Nana – the Bitch is Back! I told you that Bryan and David, the gay couple, around whom the show revolves were solid, often times playing straight men to the antics of the supporting cast. After last night’s Boy Scout themed episode I need to rectify an oversight – The New Normal is exquisitely written, especially when it has a point to make.

The writers of The New Normal do not stand on a soapbox and deliver a one-sided diatribe. Through their characters they present cogent arguments for and against the issue they are examining, unlike news channels in the US that have become mouthpieces for special interest groups. If you had watched last night’s episode, whether you believe the US Scouting association is correct to ban gays or you believe that it is time the Scouts were inclusive…you would have felt welcome.

The New Normal came out in support of inclusion… no surprise. Granted, viewers rigidly clinging to dogma may not have changed their minds, but they would have been hard-pressed to fail to understand that David’s regret at being stripped of  his membership was not a “gay” regret, but a “man’s” regret. Any man’s regret of losing something that he recognized was instrumental in shaping his character for the good.

Bryan is a lucky man to have found his David, a man of principle, and with a heart big enough to love a world that doesn’t always love him back. If only we of the real world could be like David, ready to forgive, while fighting for our principles.

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#Oscars’ Silver Linings Playbook: #Hits and #Misses

Rethink Mental Illness

Rethink Mental Illness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Critically acclaimed, nominated for 4 acting Oscars and best picture, Silver Linings Playbook seemed the ideal film to see Oscar weekend. I had to overlook that Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence were the leads. Both have failed to capture my interest in previous outings. Maybe this film would turn me into a fan.

The Misses

Interviews with great actors have clearly differentiated screen from stage acting. Acting on the screen is all about the eyes expressing the characters interior. Less is more. Stage acting requires gestures, voice and facial expressions large enough to be seen in the back rows. More is less. Cinematography aids screen actors and director through close-ups. A 20 feet tall face ensures that we – the audience – can look the actors in the eye. In a film burdened with close-ups…so many that I felt I was watching something made for television…why was it then that when I looked the actors in the eye I saw nothing. They went through the motions, not the emotions.

The Hits

Mental Illness is a designation that I dislike. Illness implies that those with an affliction of the mind need only take a pill, wait a few days, and recover. I would rather we used a term such as Mental Affliction, implying a struggle over time, with the possibility of no cure, but not without hope.

One out of five Canadian adults will experience some form of mental illness. This is not as amazing a statistic as it first appears, when you consider that Mental Illness is on a spectrum from functional to dysfunctional. Many forms of Mental Illness go undetected and therefore untreated because we don’t recognize the symptoms. “That is just Jake,” we will say when a friend’s behaviour appears eccentric, but consistent.  We accommodate odd behaviours because those we know with the behaviours are functioning, holding down a job, going to school, fitting in despite the signs that something isn’t quite right.

Silver Linings Playbook masterfully presents the probability that those closest to us go untreated because we are blind. The film also makes it clear that mental illness can run in families from generation to generation, untreated because “that is just Jake.”  The film warns that the untreated can move from function to dysfunction when a trigger occurs. All of a sudden the carefully constructed accommodation doesn’t work anymore, and a family is thrown into crisis.

If Silver Linings Playbook moves only one family to recognize that a loved one might need help, and they act on that new understanding then this film is worth every pixel presented. If Silver Linings Playbook moves the conversation about Mental Illness away from extreme dysfunction to the type we refuse to recognize then this film is of great social value.