Happy Halloween!
Posted on October 31, 2010 at 10:54 am
From The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Pirates of Penzance
Posted on September 19, 2010 at 10:00 am
Celebrate “Talk Like a Pirate Day” by talking like these delightful rascals!
February 29 (Leap Day) comes only once every four years, a calendrical adjustment that is of the utmost importance in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance
For some ridiculous reason, to which, however, I’ve no desire to be disloyal,
Some person in authority, I don’t know who, very likely the Astronomer Royal,
Has decided that, although for such a beastly month as February,
twenty-eight days as a rule are plenty,
One year in every four his days shall be reckoned as nine and twenty.
Through some singular coincidence – I shouldn’t be surprised if it were owing to the
agency of an ill-natured fairy –
You are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap-year,
on the twenty-ninth of February;
And so, by a simple arithmetical process, you’ll easily discover,
That though you’ve lived twenty-one years, yet, if we go by birthdays,
you’re only five and a little bit over!
Celebrate this quadrennial occasion with a viewing of the delightful The Pirates of Penzance
The Rocker
Posted on September 6, 2010 at 8:00 am
B-| Lowest Recommended Age: | High School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for drug and sexual references, nudity and language. |
| Profanity: | Strong and crude language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Adult character drinks a lot, some drug references |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Comic and slapstick violence, no one badly hurt |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | August 20, 2008 |
| Date Released to DVD: | January 27, 2009 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B001E95ZHY |
Emma Stone’s breakthrough role in next week’s “Easy A” makes this a good time to look at some of her earlier work. She is terrific in this story of a high school rock group.
Pete Best, who was famously kicked out of The Beatles just before they brought on Ringo Starr and rocketed to international superstardom, appears as himself in this movie about a drummer who was kicked out of an 80’s hair band before they went on to such heights of international superstardom that they now speak with cheeky lower-class English accents, even though they came from Cleveland.
“The Office’s” Rainn Wilson plays “Fish,” the drummer still stuck in Cleveland, where the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seems to be there just to remind him of how much he has lost. Fired from his job, dumped by his girlfriend, he is living in his sister’s attic when, 20 years after he last sat behind a drum kit, he gets one more chance to live the dream. His nephew’s band needs a drummer for the prom.
A video of Fish rehearsing in the nude becomes a viral sensation on YouTube and suddenly the group of three graduating high school seniors and a demented and bitter burn-out is on tour.
The Pajama Game
Posted on August 30, 2010 at 8:00 am
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | 4th - 6th Grades |
| MPAA Rating: | NR |
| Profanity: | None |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Social drinking, character gets drunk |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Some tense confrontations, knife-throwing tricks |
| Diversity Issues: | Strong women |
| Date Released to Theaters: | 1957 |
| Date Released to DVD: | August 29, 2011 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B0007QS306 |
Labor Day is a good time to see this musical about the romance between a representative of the union (Doris Day) and a representative of management (John Raitt). It has the good sense to keep the plot out of the way of the wonderful songs (like “Hey There” and “Steam Heat”) and the ebulliently energetic dance numbers (choreographed by Bob Fosse). But there is enough of a plot to provide an opportunity to discuss the ways in which workers and managers might feel differently about things, and how they work together to find the best solution for both of them.
NOTE: There is a subplot about a man who is irrationally jealous and possessive, played for humor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJJcDSZjxrk
The Runaways
Posted on July 20, 2010 at 8:00 am
The fierce determination. The big break. The tyrannical and sometimes unreasonable and sometimes even crooked manager. The endless rehearsals. The performances in dingy clubs. The breakthrough. The first album. The first magazine cover. The first fans. The fights among band members and between band members and their families.
And then, inevitably, the nightmare descent into booze and drugs.
That’s just about every single episode of “VH1 Behind the Music,” because it’s just about every rock band’s real-life experience. But the very success of that series has made it extremely difficult to make a movie about a real-life rock band that does not seem strangled by the constricting inevitabilities of the rock star story arc — as numbingly familiar in movies as it is in real life.
All of that is in “The Runaways,” the story of the pioneering all-girl rock group of the 1970’s. Joan Jett (“Twilight’s” Kristen Stewart) is the one with the fierce determination, especially when a guitar teacher suggests that girls don’t rock. She wants to have an all-girl band. Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) is the perfect storm to be out front — she is very pretty, just past puberty, and has a home life so awful that she will do anything for attention and affection. When a music promoter named Kim Fowley brings them together, he tells the teenage girls (in a much cruder way) that they should rock like men.
They were one part female empowerment, one part novelty act. They were Lolitas with a backbeat, jail bait in jumpsuits, their very name emphasizing their youth and rebelliousness. And they really did not have much in common other than a lack of experience and maturity and a longing for thrills. Jett, who went on to a long rock career and is still performing, was a serious rocker. Currie, who was barely old enough to drive when The Runaways were singing “Cherry Bomb” in lingerie to packed concert halls, had no great passion for performing. It is telling that in an early scene we see her at a school talent show — lip-synching David Bowie. It is her memoir that is the basis of the movie, and so it reflects her perspective and her story. She was torn apart by family problems and soon became addicted to drugs.