My Weekend with Marilyn and The Artist

(:)(:)(:) for The Artist

(:)(:)(:)(:) for My Week with Marilyn  

This weekend I saw The Artist and My Week With Marilyn.   I was eager to see one of the films.  The other I was willing to see but had zero expectations--guess which one was better?  Read on...

(:)(:(:) for The Artist seen at the Piedmont Theater in Oakland, California Saturday.  Wow, what a disappointment.  I was all hyped up for this.  So many critics.  So much attention.  I shoulda known that I needed to psych myself down.  My first clue should have been that my husband was only moderately interested in seeing it.  He figures these things out in advance.  I have to experience them.

That having been said, as a movie-going experience, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  If I had just wandered in off the streets to see this film, I probably would have loved it.  But it wasn't as good as Singin' in the Rain, it's obvious cinematic ancestor which covered the same ground: transition from silent to talking pictures.

Judging from the expressions on the faces of the Golden-Globe-winning French team that made this film, they essentially knew it wasn't as big a deal as people were making it.  This is a sweet story, well-acted and compelling with a gimmick that makes you especially interested: it's silent and it's about silents.  That's it.

See it, but don't expect Citizen Kane.

(:)(:)(:)(:) for  My Week with Marilyn at the Shadduck Theater in Bezerkeley.   This was one of those movie choices predominantly driven by schedule.  We were looking for something to fill time in a sleepy Sunday in the east bay before we went to see a play at the Berkeley Rep (see review of A Doctor in Spite of Himself).    We almost saw this movie another time and I wasn't particularly sorry that it hadn't come together.

Wow.  I loved this story and how they did it.  Michelle Williams totally became Marilyn for this.  In fact, she is so Marilyn that I can't imagine it could have been easy to play.    But as compellingly sexy, vulnerable and messed up as she is, this movie is not about her.  It's about Colin Clark--after all it's his week with Marilyn, not Marilyn's, not ours and not not Sir Lawrence Olivier's (played oddly by Kenneth Branagh).

 

 Colin Clark, played by Eddie Redmayne, is the real engenue of the film.  He's the virginal, wide-eyed innocent, working hard as the "third" (director/gopher) in the fraught production of a film within a film where classically trained actor Olivier and movie star Monroe don't see eye to eye on how to approach their work.

This boy is perfectly cast and gorgeous to watch.  Through him, we experience Marilyn as a near school-boy's fantasy juxtaposed against her f***ed up reality.  Yet, at some point, with his full-lips and wondrous big-eyed looks, one becomes conscious that Eddie the actor may be working the same screen magic on us that Marilyn worked on everyone. How conscious this is for the director and writer I don't know, but it interests me.

The rest of the cast and story is strong.  Emma Watson (aka Hermione Granger) plays the small part of a costume girl whom Colin works his magic on while he's fantasizing about Marilyn.  Branagh's choice to play Olivier as if he were an affected actor of German origins must be defensible (knowing Branagh's discipline and sensibilities) but it didn't work for me.

My advice:  see both movies with minimal expectations and you'll (probably) have a good time!

See In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play Now!

(:)(:)(:)(:) for In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play at Capital Stage in Sacramento Now!

I haven't had much time to blog lately, but this play only runs through February 26th so I want you have an opportunity to see it.  It's a funny, sexy, romp of a play, well-acted, well-staged.  It's set at the turn of the last century in a time when ladies were ladies and gentlemen were gentlemen.  If you try to kiss someone, it's a scandal.  Yet, what's going on above board "in the next room" in the doctor's "surgery" (or treatment office) is hilarious and sexy by our standards and by theirs, is it?

The New Yorker would have us believe that this is historically accurate.  Women in this era routinely went for this particular type of treatment for their "hysteria."

See it, but maybe if you take your mother, don't sit next to her.

Whither the Tower Theater?

My recent experience of watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in a freezing Tower Theater made me wonder what's up with Tower these days.  A few years ago, I was sympathetic to a push to save Tower Theater because the City Council was proposing to spend millions fixing up the downtown plaza multiplex (which is part of a big chain) while the scrappy, independent, architecturally beautiful and historically unique Tower was languishing.  Leaving aside the amusing thought of a city spending money on something (those were the days!), whatever happened to the promises that the Tower's management made at that time?

As I recall they said they'd paint it, refurbish it, perhaps even put in heat and make it suitable for all viewing audiences not just the current dwindling audience which seems to consist of highly educated able-bodied movie goers with heavy coats, no fear of steep stairs in the complete dark or shabby carpet with places to trip all of whom live within 3 miles of the theater.    For years this place has been a fire trap and they don't even have any lights to show you the exits.  It is an ADA lawsuit waiting to happen.

Until my recent experience of watching a movie virtually unprotected from the elements, I would defend this theater.  It shows great stuff.  It's in my neighborhood.  It's got the Tower Cafe next door and those plants.  What's not to like?

But it's impossible not to draw comparisons to the Crest Theater which some 15 years ago invested in a complete restoration of its gorgeous single screen space and then put in smaller screens downstairs.  Attracting parties, large events, speakers, and musicians as well as showing foreign and independent films, the investment seems to have paid off.

The Tower's owners seem to be cut from a different cloth.  Perhaps the city can't support two fully renovated gorgeous old theaters (I think it probably could, but what do I know whether it would pencil out), but surely some paint, some lights, new carpet, a few exit signs and some heat could do a lot to attract a wider audience.

What do you think?