My holiday movie hopes...dashed

Did it ever occur to anyone to cast singers in the movie adaption of "Nine?" That is, instead of pretty, famous actresses who just speak and breathe through some really wonderful melodies. Maury Yeston - are you still alive and allowing this? Allowing a cohesive - if a bit indulgent - musical to be butchered for the screen is painful each and every time it is done, but "Nine," I fear, could be the worst.

I plan on seeing the film when it comes out Christmas Day. Based on the snippets I'm previewing on iTunes right now, I might have to cook a goose other than the famed Christmas goose. Cinema needs something more than live theater as it loses a keep sense-ual element, I understand that. But the dark, gritty shots and cheesy added numbers like "Take it All" and "Cinema Italiano" in place of the heart-felt "Simple" and the decadence of "Grand Canal" probably won't play well to an audience familiar with the source material.

Daniel Day Lewis seems to be in his element - but of course he is. The man chooses his movies so carefully, there was no doubt he would be great as Guido. As for, well...the rest of the cast, I will remain skeptical. I (potentially scathing) review will follow!

Where are the Scissor Sisters when you need them?

Has any "American Idol" contestant ever come out with a CD that wasn't incredibly generic? After last season's upset - come on, no one saw Kris Allen winning - I expected Adam Lambert to be that exception. "For Your Entertainment," for the most part, isn't a reflection of his creativity from the show - particularly his single "For Your Entertainment."

The song could be any AutoTuned club singer backed by drum beats and synth. The lyrics are vapid - "you thought that I was soft and sweet/that an angel swept you off your feet/but I'm about to turn up the heat" - and the vocals unremarkable, a real disappointment after Lambert's renditions of U2's "One" and his performance with Queen. His high notes seem planned, a gimic rather than a talent. "Pick U Up," "Sure Fire Winners" and "Strut" follow suit. My favorite track, "If I Had You" doesn't deviate from the unoriginal pop formula the rest of the album follows, but it's a fun dance track - I just don't need 6 dance tracks. I wanted his album to have more depth - see a previous entry in which I embedded a video of singing 4 Non-Blones "What's Goin' On." The album seems to embody Lambert's AMA performance, playing more with fun and fame rather than true music, a sad thought considering the quality of his instrument.

Tegan and Sara's "Sainthood," on the other hand, builds nicely on their last two major albums, "The Con" and "So Jealous." The best track, "Hell" uses their typically melodic, but not necessarily major keyed, chorus structure and fast-talking verses. Creative rhymes - "I know you feel it to/These words gets over-used" - dispel critics continual dismissal of them into simple pop. These girls are intelligent, they feel deeply and they express well- it's not the clean and clear "So Jealous" nor is it the crunch of "The Con," but somewhere between. It's still hanging in my car stereo.

Rock Radio ignores day parts

Something about the Beach Boys makes me cry. Whether it be "Don't Worry Baby" or "God Only Knows," I'm all teary when I hear them. Play "Wouldn't It Be Nice" while a ship is going down, as in the new Philip Seymour Hoffman movie "Pirate Radio," and I'm a sopping mess for at least a few hours.

And that's the primary strength of the movie - the music. The songs are hung on a poorly developed story of pirate radio stations sitting in the North Sea in 1966, waiting to be made illegal by the British government (one of which is a formidable Kenneth Branaugh). There's a teenage boy looking to lose his virginity and accidentally comes across his hippie father, an over-sexed DJ named Big Dave and a wedding-that-wasn't, none of which is as compelling as hearing what radio jocks sounded like back then and jamming to The Who, The New Seekers and (as I mentioned) The Beach Boys. Murray from "Flight of the Concords" injects flashes of nut humor and Bill Nighy plays the exact same Brit he does in "Love Actually." The characters - besides Branaugh's dry role - give the movie spark.

I loved it so much, I decided to wear a dress with daises all over it today.

(Not really, but I did rock to some awesome tunes.)

Strangely enough, the class I TA for listened to a DJ from the '70s, I believe, the morning before I saw the movie. The same spirit of rebellion coursed through his words as did those of The Count (Hoffman). They - those behind the tunes spun before BOB FM and other pre-programmed stations - loved music and wanted to broadcast that personality with their favorite songs. I remember listening to the KISS 10 at 10 as a middle schooler; now I listen to my iTunes on shuffle all day. I don't miss the advertising, but I sometimes miss Janet Snyder in the morning. "Pirate Radio" makes me want to support stations again...but unless it's WERG 90.5, they probably don't play what I like anyway.

Losing Lea

Congratulations, Yankees fans. You won. But I'm glad you are no longer playing so I can watch "Glee."

The beginning of last night's episode was thrilling - the prospect of hearing Lea Michele sing "Defying Gravity?" So exciting for a theater nerd (like me). And she didn't disappoint - and neither did Kurt, my favorite character.

What has been disappointing is the almost complete loss of Lea Michele's talent otherwise. At the start of the season, she sang in every episode or had a temper tantrum or fantasized about Finn. Now, she hides behind the guise of no one liking her - even though, while annoying, she's not exactly unlikeable - and has been overshadowed by Quinn's pregnancy. I wrote in a previous post that it is the characters that keep "Glee" together. I revise that now. Lea Michele was one of the reasons I started watching the show and after two weeks without hearing her latest rendition of some famous song, that's what I really wanted to hear.

Some refreshing notes, too: Wheels singing Billy Idol. The tearful scene with Sue and her sister. Tina's admission to affecting her stutter (!).

Lea Michele is my favorite, musically, and I need more of her as a viewer. But the show is really stepping up to the plate with other character development, and I would probably keep watching even without her.

Come on, though. She's so made for "Defying Gravity!"

Go read someone else

It's probably obvious: I don't update as often as I did over the summer. I'm taking in more culture - theater especially - that I ever have, but I have not devoted enough time to writing about it here. Classes have my judgmental eye carefully crafting a piece - choosing a tone, seriously considering my verb choices - and that has taken some of the fun out of my spontaneous bouts of love for Sutton Foster.

So, until the freshman in my class need less help and I don't have to stare at HTML code for hours at a time, you should read: www.thelistomania.com. It's awesome writing (that I edit sometimes, I might add, so maybe I'm biased) - snappy, profane and full of the voice - about his 151 top songs of the '00s. Before you start thinking it's just some kid spouting off about Nickelback, know that he's been making lists like this for years and has a prolific knowledge of his subject matter. And that's all evident in the individual entries. He made me a jammin' mix CD a few weeks ago of Sigur Ros, Jenny Lewis, Chairlift and a bunch of other bands I absolutely will take notice of in the future. (Listen to Chairlift's "Bruises" and see if you don't tear up thinking about being a kid and being in love.) So the List acts as two things: First, he's a dude that knows a lot about music and has some great insight. Second, he makes you remember why you used to listen to Ted Leo on repeat. Ok, and third, the List will open your eyes to some artists you missed the first time through the decade.

www.thelistomania.com - Do it.

"Werewolf" has teeth

Rarely Done Productions’ latest show “Werewolf” proves that the size of the venue does not reflect the amount of meat in a production. Performed to a sold-out crowd at Jazz Central, “Werewolf” explores the darkness of a student’s family history and the fear he produces in a teacher trying to help him. Though Len Fonte’s script waxes and wanes in two acts, the principle actors, coupled with a glorious ‘70s cardigan sweater and McGraw-Hill Literature books, keep hold of at least a sliver of moon throughout their performances.

The looming question around “Werewolf” is a supernatural one – Is Cal Blaine actually a werewolf? Keegan Lounsberry, an actor just a few years out of the woods of the adolescent crises his character faces, handles this two-fold idea with acumen. He has to balance the belief that Cal actually is a werewolf with the reason he needs to believe in the fantasy, all the while keeping his long curly hair out of his eyes. He connects with Mark Austin as his teacher Mr. Alessandro truthfully, even if his longer monologues cross into territory eerier than a werewolf’s lair – Lounsberry doesn’t seem to need to blink.

Austin’s challenges stemmed more from the play’s structure than from acting difficulty – he has to be on stage with himself, 30 years older. The play blends the past and present, an older Mr. Alessandro telling his role in Cal’s story through the eyes of a younger Alessandro. Tom Minion plays the older Alessandro and with Austin successfully creates a man unable to forget the poor boy-wolf who couldn’t get over his past. While both Austin and Minion gave Alessandro the energy and care of a great teacher, it’s really Fonte’s script that allows them to give the character a full mythology. From the relationship with Alessandro’s wife, to the occasional throb from a “dog’s” bite, Fonte includes such specific details that Alessandro could be a long-time friend.

The play loses momentum after intermission, however, when the older Alessandro meets another troubled student, a black baby-Daddy whose sole purpose seems to be modernizing the plot. The playwright’s inclination is a good one; the incident allows the audience to understand what Alessandro thought he did wrong with Cal. But Jeffrey Owens as Tequan Adkins lisps expressionlessly through the powerful dialogue, a harrowing story of a dysfunctional family with drug ties, seeming to disregard the emotional weight of his role. He crosses his arms around the over-sized thug sweatshirt, paces in a circle and ends up feeling more superfluous than illuminating.

Had the first act been a play on it’s own, Fonte could be praised and Rarely Done lauded for choosing something to both celebrate the Halloween season and comment on a serious topic like mental illness in those who have experienced trauma. Fonte untangles the facts of Cal’s life one at a time, tossing out his bait and reeling the audience in like a willing fish. But the key player in this production’s second act left much – like diction – to be desired.

"Glee"-ful musings

“Glee” could have been a stale idea. The hour-long comedy about a group of misfits and their teacher trying to revive the floundering Glee Club harkens back to the “Fame” TV show and jumps on the multi-million dollar “High School Musical” bandwagon with mid-episode vocal numbers and choreography. The pilot aired in May following the “American Idol” finale, delivered to a ready-made audience of music lovers, amateur singing critics and performer hopefuls who would need an “Idol”-like fix before January’s new season.

But “Glee’s” fresh spin on high school resembles the quirks of “Freaks and Geeks” more than Disney’s squeaky-clean “HSM” and has something “Idol” has to manufacture in many of its contestants: personality.

Listed among the creators of the show, Brian Murphy might be credited with “Glee’s” bite. Murphy’s past work (“Nip/Tuck,” “Popular”) is known for dark, spiteful characters and plotlines. “Glee” retains the complexity of these shows, but has a more upbeat tone that focuses more on the characters being their best than their worst. Messages about being yourself are introduced with heart – a boy coming out to his father for the first time – but “Glee” inherits Murphy’s darkness through vicious humor – “That Rachel girl makes me want to light myself on fire. But she can sing.” The show foils “Nip/Tuck;” the characters are misfits who feel beautiful on stage, even without plastic surgery.

Almost.

The underdogs in “Glee” – a fashionista who joins the football team to make his dad proud (Chris Colfer), a wheel chair-bound guitar player (Kevin McHale), a Whitney-caliber diva (Amber Riley) – believe in their performance abilities, but not in their social skills. The episodes chronicle their trials, but the teen trauma doesn’t just bring about story lines, it drives character growth. Finn Hudson, played by the rosy-cheeked Cory Monteith, exemplifies evolution in the pilot episode, first watching as Colfer gets thrown into a dumpster, then, after befriending him in Glee Club, helping McHale out of a porta-potty locked by his football teammates. Rather than molding their misfit characters to fit the into the airbrushed world of Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, the creators are embracing distinctiveness, whether that be Finn’s realization that he’d rather follow his intuition than the crowd or an impressive vocal range.

“Glee’s” winning cast, some with notable performing resumes already, deserve the show’s focus. Matthew Morrison, who plays the Glee Club director Will Schuster with a sexy half-smile, was nominated for a 2005 Tony award for his role in “The Light in the Piazza.” Lea Michele, playing Glee Club’s star singer Rachel Berry, started performing on Broadway at age 8 and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her leading role in “Spring Awakening” in 2007. Michele shows off her range in songs like Rihanna’s “Take A Bow” and even spars with Tony-winner Kristin Chenoweth in “Maybe This Time” from “Cabaret.” Not every actor has such imposing presence, though. Monteith’s Finn is supposed to be Michele’s vocal equal, but his verses of “Don’t Stop Believing” sound more like Nick Carter than Steve Perry. Still, when he and Rachel lock eyes, his endearing awkwardness makes up for his high notes.

Cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester provides the best comedy, scheming against the self-esteem Mr. Shuster instills in his students with doses of distorted, hilarious reality, as her coaching attitude proves: “I empower my Cheerios to live in fear by creating an environment of irrational, random terror.” Jane Lynch plays Sue with vitriol and deadpan sarcasm reprised from “Role Models” and “40-Year-Old Virgin.” Her absurd proclamations and jogging suits continually upstage her co-stars – and she doesn’t even sing.

As the show progresses, the misfits of McKinley High School have started to find their niche, just as “Glee” has carved one from the imprints of popular movie musicals and performance contests. But the music Glee Club members sing means more to them than notes on a page – and to viewers, the singers matter more than the songs.