Finally, reluctantly, caught up with Spielberg;s West Side Story re-make. If you’d never seen the original or perhaps Some Came Running, guess it would, indeed, go deep. Spielberg and his team know how movies are made. So watch and learn. And they know how to cast. There’s nothing fake here. Anywhere. Pure cinema. Seeing the demolished tenements of Upper West Side NY making way for iconic Lincoln Center seems totally in tune with the Arthur Laurents original. Eerie that Rita Moreno is here still to cast her spell.
Cinema sculpting reality. HBO’s The Gilded Age tells a tale unfamiliar for the many, akin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. When the past is of spoken, not ever the past. Nobody wants that Thanksgiving!
Well, this year’s Academy Awards was unexpectedly riveting if not almost giving ABC TV execs a heart attack. Jessica Chastain: “unconditional love”. So much ‘love’ today is conditional. Strings attached. The trophy wife. Someone once said to me on this topic, “what’s in it for them?”. And we are back to The Gilded Age. It’s a costume drama in all but name. Aren’t we all still fighting the same battles within and without?
“At your highest moment, be careful. That's when the devil comes for you,” Will Smith in his Best Actor acceptance speech. The devil sure got close to me way too many times in my life. One thinks that could never happen to me. Seeing Liza Minnelli alive and on stage at the Oscars filled hearts with joy. One degree of separation. Most of my life’s been like that. I would happily have settled for 6 degrees. Even 12! Not a career, most certainly a life. One less ordinary. No wonder the devil was so god-damn interested.
Jane Campion’s producer was once said to me, “you always have to start again” even after her Academy Award win for The Piano. Is that still true for Australia? Elsewhere? Another big casting director said, “it never gets any easier”. Well, no, the devil is always watching and waiting. What does, or should get easier, is when one realizes that ambition matters little in this world beyond short term gain. ‘Therein lies the rub’. To get anywhere one must needs ego and ambition; keeping that in balance with reality is the blessing.
“Bring yourself into the room” advised a Broadway casting director. How true. Is that harder or easier for the kids of today? I’m thinking maybe the former, ironically. Billie Eilish’s success is surely the siren of a generation, an authentic voice akin perhaps their own hitherto lost or smothered in the simulacra of social media. The lesson, surely, swim better against the tide rather than be seduced and subsumed.
And it took Dr. Kevin Costner to make one realize I did indeed have an epiphany as a child. Younger! Always thought I was movie memory orphaned! Not as glamorous- a B/W TV and a backyard. Who knew the Oscars were better than a shrink?! What moments in movies just stick in your head, or is that heart? Funnily enough these two are co-habiting you. Well, two for me are Spielberg but he’s had enough PR already;) There’s a scene in Judy when two London fans end up guesting the esteemed but not so fested Judy at their humble abode for supper. When one of the gay couple says they never missed a performance except when…
Are you still catching up with last year’s Oscars let alone all the foreign movies…
And the late Lina Wertmuller a force to be reckoned with…
Amy Schumer searching ‘epiphany’ on the Met Museum website. Who am I to…wasn’t she great and graceful…
Whatever gets you there. Liza vs antiquities- what really makes you happy? Is there an emoticon for that?
Memories, they can steal my progammne for Liza’s 1986 London concert and all my Polish film posters and so much more…but so far, so good. They can’t steal our memories.
KITTY: A seed replanted still can grow…
say…yes…..
We will always need a little Liza.
KITTY has taken over Saturday Movie Night-Cyrano meets Audrey Wells.
People don't much use the three-cent. - Marge Gunderson: Of course they do. Whenever they raise the postage, people need the little stamps.
The moon was so bright that I read your letter on the way home.
ANDREW and KITTY have been on a top secret Furry Investigation mission if you were wondering. So secret that perhaps the pixels will evaporate as you read! Or imagine.
Ah: real life. There was the annual Met Costume Gala. Did we miss anything? Chris Rock getting down and dirty with a Peacock tail or…?
Next year’s Oscars will have stakes mounted affront the stage akin ‘ye olde’ Covent Garden Opera House where the ‘underlings’ stood in the now ‘posh’ seats and oftentimes thrust tomatoes and leeks when disappointed. No more close proximity ‘pole dancing’ comediennes. Lucky that wasn’t ‘Rome’ Maria Callas. Just imagine Jada and Jane Fonda mounting those spikes can’t you;) ?
KITTY hums for Mother’s Day 2022. And her Saturday movie choice.
Ce bel amour, qui ne peut mourir, Sera pour nous un doux souvenir,
ANDREW’S DREAM:
Audra McDonald is finishing the ‘set’ in her Upstate NY gala. Someone walks onto the stage. Torn raincoat. “Miss McDonald. Sorry to interrupt your concert. I’m Lieutenant Columbo, police.”
“Ma’am, I am so so sorry. My wife is still in my head. I’m not on police business but my wife had a dream that I would one day sing on a stage like this and well…”
[pause]
“I dreamed a dream of you once upon a time too Lieutenant. What do you wanna sing?”
“Well, with all due respects to our mistakes, how’s about, To Dream the Impossible Dream.
“Take it away Lieutenant.”
