“West Side Story” is the safe musical, the one grasped easily enough by young (but not too young) audiences that it’s become one of the de facto introductions to theater. Of course, it helps when your source material is Shakespeare, your music is Bernstein/Sondheim and your legacy is ten Oscars. Now that the mega-successful 1961 adaptation of the hit Broadway musical has turned 50 and seen fit to unleash a 3-disc Blu-Ray special edition, I wanted to revisit the film itself to see how much of its finger-snapping razzle dazzle still has the power to wow. [Read more...]

There’s one crucial component of film stars that separates them from theater actors: eternal preservation, the simple fact that a winking, luminous Marilyn Monroe in her white dress in 1954’s “The Seven Year Itch” would remain that way, sexy yet innocent, in 2011. [Read more...]

Making the most of a Muppet

When Kevin Clash plays Elmo, his face takes on an otherworldly demeanor as his arms manipulate the furry red monster. You can see his eyes drift off like they’re staring at somewhere far away, almost rolling into the back of his head. He looks like he’s possessed, like the high-pitched baby voice protruding from his mouth is being put there by the puppet on his hand instead of the other way around. Is it so crazy to think that being a Muppeteer involves a bit of cosmic reverse ventriloquism? [Read more...]

Success stories in the theater world, like in music, film and every other form of art, are predicated first and foremost on one thing: circumstance. All of Rodger’s or Hammerstein’s talent and drive wouldn’t mean bupkis if they hadn’t been born men in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. You spend enough time thinking about history’s greatest also-rans – those who could’ve brought generations untold riches, if only they hadn’t been born at that time, in that place, to that person – and your head starts to hurt a bit. [Read more...]

Give credit where credit is due: Roland Emmerich’s Shakespeare movie is not a Roland Emmerich Shakespeare movie. There are no earth-shattering explosions, no hordes of civilians fleeing for their lives like in the rest of Emmerich’s sound-and-fury-filled oeuvre, which includes the likes of everyone-outrun-the-Ice-Age thriller “The Day After Tomorrow”, everyone-outrun-the-giant-lizard thriller “Godzilla” and everyone-outrun-the-Mayan-prophesy thriller “2012”. [Read more...]