Song of the Day: Come What May

I haven't posted one of these in a while so I figured I would post one tonight.  I just recently re-watched Moulin Rouge the other night and was reminded of what a brilliant and groundbreaking movie musical it was.  It's a shame that very few of the musicals Hollywood has released post Moulin Rouge have lived up to the promise that Baz Luhrman's musical provided.  It's a hyper stylized piece, but it also has plenty of melodrama and heart to spare.  I'm sure I will be writing up a large article on the film sometime soon, but in the meantime I'm posting the big love ballad (and the only original song) from the movie.  Enjoy

Note of Interest:  more of a question really... how in the hell did Ewan McGregor managed to get shafted by the Academy for his role here?  He is the heart and soul of the whole damn film.  Then again I could also ask how in the hell the Academy thought A Beautiful Mind was a better film than this or Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring, or Gosford Park, or In the Bedroom for that matter.  GAH!

The Films I Love: Saving Private Ryan

In the 1990's director Steven Spielberg arguably made the two most important films of his career.  The first, of course, being 1993's groundbreaking and monumental Holocaust Biopic Schindler's List and the second being 1998's harrowing war film, Saving Private Ryan.  The opening twenty five minutes alone are now a part of film history.  Most agree that the opening battle depicting the landing of Omaha Beach and the invasion of Normandy is the greatest modern combat scene ever put on the screen.  It has been given this prestigious title because it is unflinching in its depiction of gruesome violence, nauseating disorientation and the sheer horror of battle.  This scene would be enough to ensure Saving Private Ryan's enduring legacy as a great war film.  But what makes the film earn it stripes after the opening is it's pure and true human quality.  In the end Saving Private Ryan is just as much about the camaraderie between soldiers and the bond between all humans who fight for their country as it is about the horror of war.  Because of this Saving Private Ryan is probably the most positive, patriotic, and humble anti war film ever made.  It realizes that war can at times be a necessary evil, but does not shy away from the atrocities that can and have been committed.  It is a film that salutes the veterans that have served this country and depicts them in a sincere light.

I should state outright that Steven Spielberg is my favorite filmmaker.  His name has become synonymous with people of my generation who love film.  It is almost a cliche for someone my age to say that he is their favorite filmmaker.  But I cannot deny my beliefs.  There is a reason why Spielberg has such an enduring legacy in the history of post 70's filmmaking - he has captured the hearts an imaginations of disenfranchised film goers the world over.  He abandoned the bleak and sometimes hopeless filmmaking style of the sixties and seventies and instead made optimistic films that made you look to the stars and beyond.  If one were to look at his filmography no one can disagree that he has made many indisputable modern classics that have changed the way that we look at movies - Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Jurassic Park, and Schindler's List.  His work post Private Ryan has been much more experimental and bleak with Minority Report and Munich (the former being one of the best science fiction films in twenty years and the latter being the most challenging film Spielberg has ever made).  In a way Saving Private Ryan really seems to be a transition film for Spielberg.  He made the film for his father, who served in WWII.  It's a very adult film, much the same way Schindler's List was.  In Ryan you can see Spielberg struggling with the things that have made him the director that he is and trying to move on into something more bleak and honest.  Spielberg is examining the mind of a soldier and why we fight and die for our country.  In a way it's a more difficult film than Schindler's List because in that film it was very clear who the villains really were... not so much in Ryan where one German in particular is brought to the forefront and explored.  At the end of the film we realize that all these men were fighting for their country, which can at times be a very dangerous moral decision - case in point Nazism and to some extent the war we Americans are fighting now in the Middle East.  

What Saving Private Ryan deals with so well is the price and weight of a human life.  What does it mean to kill a man?  What are the implications?  And how much is the life of one man worth?  These are questions that the film explores, but it doesn't necessarily find an answer because there probably isn't one, especially not in war.  But the deaths in Private Ryan hit hard because we are forced to witness them in brutal detail and the deaths of the central characters hit even harder because we hear parts of their stories and can identify with them.  The main characters of the film are just normal men caught in an extraordinary situation and a monumental moment in history.  The film takes stock war movie characters and turns them on their head.  Take for instance the Vin Diesel character, who looks like the tough brute, but in actuality turns out to be the ignorant soldier with a soft heart.  It's a great switch on a stock character.  But the most surprising of the leads is Tom Hanks who plays the man in charge, but he is no John Wayne war hero.  Instead Hanks is a normal man who was a school teacher back home and is now taking charge of a group of men and he knows that many of them will not make it home to see their families ever again.

Tom Hanks's performance is really what holds Saving Private Ryan together and makes it human.  He is the glue behind all the decisions, right or wrong, made by the characters in the film.  He holds men's lives in his hands and the decisions that he makes ends up killing many of them.  But he rationalizes that the sacrifice of one mans life means that he saves hundreds more.  The problem with his rationalization is that in the case of his mission during the course of the story, he has to save one man.  How many men is one man worth?  Hanks is quiet yet commanding of the screen and his scene where he breaks down after the death of his medic is powerful because he has to hide his true emotions by cowering in a ditch as he cries his eyes out.  Even more powerful still is the monologue he delivers describing who he really is as the moral of his men starts to wane dramatically.  It's probably Tom Hanks's most subtle performance and as a result one of his very best.  I would argue that he was robbed of the Oscar for this film, but at the time he was lucky to even be nominated considering his more showy competition that year (including Roberto Begnini who won for Life is Beautiful and Edward Norton for American History X who many at the time felt was robbed). There are many other great performances in Saving Private Ryan both large and small including a very young Matt Damon in the title role.  His monologue (which was entirely improvised) towards the end of the film describing his last night with his brothers is probably the most emotional part of the entire film.  It's rewarding for the viewer to see that Ryan isn't an asshole and that these men did not necessarily die in vain.  

Saving Private Ryan is one of many films that Steven Spielberg will be remembered for long after he has passed (which I hope will not be anytime soon, the man has many years left yet).  But more importantly it will be remembered as one of the greatest war films ever made.  It is a testament to the veterans of our country who fought, bled, and died for not only our liberty, but for the worlds.  As veterans day approaches, I would recommend anyone who has not seen this film or not picked it up in a while to do so. You wont regret it.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Dir. Steven Spielberg

170 Minutes

Academy Award Nominations: Best Actor (Tom Hanks), Best Art Direction, Best Make-Up, Best Original Score, Best Original Screenplay, Best Picture

Academy Award Wins: Best Cinematography, Best Director (Spielberg), Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing

Note of Interest: In a strange and awful move by the Academy they decided to award Shakespeare in Love the best picture Oscar over Saving Private Ryan.  While the former has been quickly forgotten, the latter lives on.  Smart movie Academy...

Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye Spelling Bee

Thursday November 6th at 330 in the afternoon the cast of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee gave their arguably best and sadly final performance.  It was a great run of a great show and I was proud to be a part of that experience.  Our run garnered us lots of acclaim from teachers and students alike, plus at one performance a standing ovation (something pretty unheard of at this school).  I'm going to miss being with the cast and crew on a regular basis, but I can hope that we will all stay in contact with one another and get together whenever possible.  The process may have started off rough, but our end product was something to be admired.  I was privileged to work with some of the most talented and determined students in our department on Spelling Bee and I know that in the future I will get to work with you all again.  Your commitment to the piece and energy when on stage was at times awe-inspiring.  It isn't very often that you get to work on a show as good as ours was.  So basically I wanted to say thank you to everyone in the cast and crew.  Your raw talent pushed me to work harder and to be a better actor and for that I will always be grateful.  With each show you learn something new.  I learned a lot on Spelling Bee about myself and others around me.  I hope that you all did too.  So here's to the cast and crew of Spelling Bee.  I miss you guys already.  

P.S. - We kicked these guy's asses.

Song of the Day: Confrontation

Well I'm still sick, so this is the perfect opportunity to post a video of the day.  This is confrontation from Jekyll and Hyde, probably one of the worst musicals in the past twenty years that for one reason or another developed a huge following.  To be fair I did see the original production of this show before it ever went to Broadway and the staging was pretty remarkable and some of the score quite good.  Unfortunately by the time in arrived on the Great White Way it had been neutered and had lost much of its edge.  This was always a troublesome song in the show, but in the original production it was done with a video projection which made it less grueling on the actor.  Either way it's still a silly number and David Hasselhoff doesn't make it any better.  This is probably one of the most horrendous performances in the history of musical theater.  So in celebration of Halloween tomorrow here is confrontation from Jekyll and Hyde.  Enjoy.

ROCK THE VOTE!!!!!!!

The Election is in exactly one week.  So the point of this post is quite simple... VOTE!  Get out and make your voice heard.  It does not matter if you believe your state is going to go one way or another.  Just do it.  Fight for what you believe in.  And whatever you do don't follow these guy's advice....

Song of the Day: River

Well I'm officially sick, which sucks considering all I have to get done this week.  But on the plus side this means I could add a song of the day since I stayed home so I could be healthy for rehearsal tonight.  Today's song - River by Joni Mitchell sung by the oh so talented Michael Arden.  Not exactly a musical theater song, but it's good to mix it up every once in a while.  Plus I think its appropriate for the time of the year that we are all at.  Enjoy.

Note of Interest:  I usually hate tenor voices, but there is something about this guy that I just love.

The Films I love: JFK

Oliver Stone is probably one of the most controversial directors to ever live and JFK is his most controversial film.  It is a study of the John F. Kennedy assassination and the film paints a compelling argument that there was indeed a conspiracy behind the president's murder. One can only imagine the shit storm that came down on the film back in 1991 with several newspapers slamming the film months before release and claiming that it was a complete fabrication with no basis on facts.  And while JFK certainly does a lot of guess work and paranoid speculation it also presents a case with some undeniably sound arguments.  Oliver Stone is a smart man and the amount of research and time spent on this film is nothing short of astounding.  In the end what makes JFK so thought provoking and rewarding is it's message to continue searching for the truth in all facets of life.  It is probably one of the most patriotic films ever made even while it is condemning the American government for acts of treason.

If I had to name the three best films of the 1990's it would probably go in this order - Schindler's List (1993), Unforgiven (1992), and JFK (1991).  JFK surprisingly made a strong showing at the Academy Awards that year, but lost in most of its categories including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay which it so plainly deserved.  The recreation of the assassination alone is one of the most exhilarating pieces of directing ever placed on the screen and it cost Stone several million dollars to get it up there.  But JFK was too controversial and it was up against an unlikely juggernaut that year - The Silence of the Lambs, which would take all three of JFK's top awards for which it was nominated.  Lambs is in my top 10 films of the 1990's, but it simply cannot compare to the artistry that is on display within JFK.  The film did win two Oscars, which it justly deserved including Best Cinematography and Best Editing.  Any film student studying the art of editing should be required to view JFK as it has some of the most complex editing ever committed to film as it switches between real stock footage, recreations, scripted dialogue, and speculative footage all within the same scene.  It was probably the one award that no one could argue with no matter how controversial the film may have been.

The acting in JFK was largely ignored, though Tommy Lee Jones did score an unlikely nomination for playing a homosexual business man who had ties to the CIA, Cubans and Mob underworld- Clay Shaw.  I'm not a huge Jones fan but he really sells this character and it's one of his more daring performances without being overstated and stereotypical.  There are tons of cameo performances in the film from the likes of Donald Sutherland, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matheau, Joe Pesci, and John Candy.  But the real heart stirring performance of the film that was largely overlooked come awards time was Kevin Costner playing New Orleans DA Jim Garrsion who made it his life's work to find out the truth about the Kennedy Assassination.  Costner gives one of his most honest and vulnerable screen performances in JFK.  The Costner edge is largely missing from the part and instead he gives himself completely over to the quest.  Costner's final speech in the courtroom is emotional because of the honesty of this man's convictions.  Garrison was a patriot who dared to stand up to his country and his government and ask the questions that too many were unwilling to ask.  If more had stood by his cause perhaps there would be more answers about the slaying of the president and more of the files on the assassination would be on public record.  

JFK makes a lot of claims, some of which it cannot fully back-up.  It's biggest accusation is that Lyndon B. Johnson was somehow involved in the assassination.  It's a huge claim and scary one, but the film makes an intriguing case that the government was highly responsible for the President's death.  The truth of the matter is we still don't know.  The likely hood that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy alone is very slim as evidence in both the film and history suggests.  What JFK argues is that Oswald really was just the patsy and never fired one bullet, though he may have been involved in another way - as the fall guy.  But even after all the conspiracy theories are thrown out the film has another agenda up it's sleeves - it wants to inspire Americans to stand up for themselves and their rights.  It wants America's citizens to question their government and take more responsibility for themselves.  What JFK argues that hits closest to the bone is that Kennedy's assassination may have been more of the public's fault than anyone elses because of our complacency.  If nothing else JFK serves as a warning of what can happen to our great nation when we no longer stand up for ourselves.  

John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby Kennedy were both murdered in cold blood because they sought to change this country and to invigorate the American people.  They were extremely progressive leaders who fought for what they believed including civil rights and an end to needless bloodshed.  Kennedy prevented us from going into a nuclear war and maintained "friendly" boundaries with the Soviets.  For this he was branded a traitor and a communist by many in America.  But to others he was a hero and ultimately he died for it.  What Kennedy stood for is oddly representative of what is currently happening in our political climate this election season.  And as we head into the final week of this election we should be reminding ourselves to do exactly what the film JFK asks us to do - 

"Tennyson wrote, Authority forgets a dying king... and this was never more true than for John F. Kennedy, whose murder was probably one the most terrible moments in the history of our country. You, the people, the jury system sitting in judgment on Clay Shaw, represent the hope of humanity against government power. In discharging your duty, in bringing the first conviction in this house of cards against Clay Shaw. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.... Do not forget your dying king. Show this world that this is still a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. Nothing as long as you live will ever be more important.... It's up to you"

In other words - stand up for yourself, be a true citizen, make your voice heard and vote for the change you believe the country needs whatever that may be.  Remember your dying king.  Remember what John Kennedy fought for.  That's what the film JFK is really about.  It may be controversial, but it's also one of the most patriotic and one of the greatest American films of all time.  Oliver Stone should be very proud of his achievement.

JFK (1991)

Dir. Oliver Stone

Academy Awards Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound, Best Original Score

Academy Award Wins: Best Cinematography, Best Editing

Note of Interest:  Oliver Stone's Nixon serves as an unofficial sequel to JFK and it is equally fascinating in parts and even suggests that Nixon may have been inadvertantly involved in the assassination.  It also features a great performance by Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon.

Absence and Song of the Day: I LOVE YOU

Well I'm pretty sure that anyone who was reading this blog has long since stopped considering I haven't updated in well over a month.  I apologize for the absence.  I got started with school and my schedule went to absolute shit.  I got cast in a production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at my school and ever since have had very little time to myself.  I have a week left of rehearsal and then a short run of the show through November 6th.  Hopefully after that I will have a lot more time on my hands and will be able to update this blog regularly and continue with my various projects for the blog.  So check back in every once in a while, you may be surprised at what you find!  

And now to celebrate the fact that my show will be opening quite soon, here is what I consider to be the best song in the entire show.  Enjoy!