This is a very funny segment Stephen Colbert did a couple of years ago when three actors from Downton Abbey were guests on his show -- Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville and Allen Leech. Colbert suggests that one reason the show works so well for American audiences is because the high-toned British accents sound SO classy. So he brings out pages of a scene and asks them to do it with American accents. Usually such things are set up beforehand, and this may have been. But from their reactions, I get the sense that they maybe were only told part of what might happen, but not all. And regardless of what they knew beforehand, the result -- which could have been a quick laugh and that's it -- actually is a bit of a hoot. If for some reason this doesn't work, try this link instead.
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I don’t know if readers here have followed any of the mews stories about the email controversies with the Miss America pageant, for which three executive have resigned. I don’t usually follow such things, and didn’t with this either – but there was something about the headline of one of the later stories that I wanted to check out, and so skimmed through it. Scrolling down the article, they happened to post excerpts from several of the emails. I didn't particularly care, but one email was easy to notice because the correspondent referred to the contestants in the crudest way, calling them…well, let’s just say it’s an especially vulgar description of a private body part. (Charmingly, this word apparently got passed around in several emails.) I assumed this particularly note was from one of those executives who had resigned, but it turns out that it wasn't -- instead, it was from someone who surprisingly had the same name of someone I knew, although of course it could have been anyone with that name. But reading the article further, I realized it was, in fact, the person I knew.
I shall call him Gerald Monkrief. I’m not protecting him – the story is very public, and his name is out there for all to see. But I just don’t want to reference him, because…well, I’m me. When I first met Gerald Monkrief, he had no experience in Hollywood and was getting his big break by being a hometown friend of the director, having been hired for an important job on a film I was working on back in my days as the unit publicist. And in all my years working on movies…he is the ONLY person I ever got into a shouting match with. Publicists usually don’t yell at other people, it’s sort of the polar opposite of the job description, where diplomacy is a main requirement. And I personally just don’t get in yelling matches with people, even outside of work. I can’t think of the last time I did, going back to…well, childhood. But this guy had such a dark, cold, surly, bleak personality. Still, I’ve dealt with plenty of "highly-challenging" people (the polite, socially-acceptable term) in my days of Hollywood, and didn’t get into yelling matches with them. So, go figure. (How bleak and morose was he? I swear this story is true. One of the producers on this project was someone who at times was a quite wonderful fellow, and sometimes…wellllll, sometimes he was utterly bleak and harsh and mean-spirited and reveled in his abrasiveness as a sort of badge of honor. And one day, with a group of people around the camera during filming, someone referenced Gerald and something cold-hearted he’d done, and they made a joke to the producer about how Gerald gave the producer a run for being the nastiest, bleakest person on the movie set…and the producer actually got offended that anyone thought that he was as dark and moody and mean-spirited as Gerald!!! Not in a joking “Oh, no, not me,” kind of way with a laugh, but he really was bothered by the comparison and basically wanted the person to take it back! That’s the level of churlishness we’re talking about here.) So, what was our yelling match about? We were in the production office at the time. I was in the midst of finalizing the presskit for the movie, which was something I wrote with the production notes on the making of the project, along with biographies of the main participants. He had written something that he wanted used for his own biography -- that was truly awful. I don’t recall what it was, but I wouldn’t use it, the material was embarrassing and cringe-worthy, and I had left it out. He thought it was hilarious, and I said it just was too inappropriate. He insisted, and again I refused. I said the studio would blame me for including it. He got angrier and demanded that I use it. I kept saying no, it would reflect on me since everyone would assume the publicist wrote it, I’d get in trouble, and it was bad -- bad -- and pushed back just as hard. It ratcheted up from there, neither of us giving an inch. We never got to the point of screaming at each other, but it definitely got extremely heated and went on for a while – SO much so, in fact, that we were down the hall from the director’s office and he came out, bewildered and more than a bit perturbed asking what on earth was going on. I explained that Gerald had written something for his bio that was inappropriate and I simply couldn’t use it. I knew I was in a dicey position here – after all, I was the publicist who was supposed to be polite and diplomatic – and Gerald was the director’s hometown friend, a "principal" on the movie. But I have the sense that, knowing Gerald for so long, even the director knew where the bulk of the fault lay… He just said to work it out between us and walked away. At this point, years later, I don’t recall the exact resolution. I do know that whatever was done, it did not get printed his way. In fact, I just checked my old copy of the presskit, and this is his entire bio that shows up there. It says, in full – “GERALD MONKRIEF lives in New York City along with eight million other people.” And that's it. Period. The whole thing. If I had to guess, I suspect the resolution was that he didn’t want my normal bio and I wouldn't use his, and so perhaps he said, fine, then, just use this, that one sentence. He ended up working on a few other movies with his director friend, and from there he’s been able to build a very successful career working for prestigious “event TV specials.” And now comes this adorable story about Miss America. It just SO fits him. I don’t know if it will impact his getting hired – I suspect not, but who knows? But I was glad to know that if I was going to get into a yelling match with just one person – it was a guy like this, whose splenetic side was just made public. From the archives, this week's contestant is Dan Larkin, from Windsor, California. The hidden song should be very easy to guess, I think, and probably pretty early on. There were three composers I thought it might be in the style of. I had one in mind, but changed -- and it was the contestant's guess, as well, but it wasn't that. It also wasn't one of the other two. So, I was wrong. But I should have gotten it. And I think others have a good chance of getting it.
The weekend was another one of camping out at the Writers Guild Theater where I saw another couple of upcoming movies. And though officially "capsule reviews," I do stretch the definition of "capsule" by going into significantly more detail with the first one for what will be obvious reasons, related more to the making of the film rather than how the movie was itself. At least when discussing my thoughts on how the movie was I'm in the realm of "capsule..." That first movie is All the Money in the World, which came a great deal of attention recently when it did what is the near-impossible. With Kevin Spacey in a major role, the filmmakers realized the movie risked being a huge backlash, so with only a couple months before the movie's scheduled release...they cut Spacey out of the film, recast the role with Christopher Plummer, got all the actors to commit to participate, reorganized their schedules to be available, redid the sets and costumes, got much of the same crew to re-up, and Ridley Scott re-shot all of Spacey's scenes with Plummer. And got it all done in time to meet the deadline. Now for the "capsule" part. The movie tells the true story about the 1973 kidnapping of the grandson of J. Paul Getty, at the time the richest man in the world, apparently hewing pretty close though with some loose fudging of the story. The film is quite good, though mostly in its focus on Getty and his relationship with his estranged ex-daughter-in-law, played by Michelle Williams. The kidnap aspect of the film is good, though oddly not as compelling to me as the other story, perhaps because that's not only less-known than the kidnapping, but also not something we generally see in kidnapping stories. The acting was all fine, some very good, but remarkably with almost no time for preparation, it's Plummer's portrayal that leaps out and steals the movie. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he gets an Oscar nomination. We now leave the capsule portion of the evening (for this film at least) and head over to the WGA Theater where screenwriter David Scarpa did a Q&A afterwards. I don't always stay for such thngs, but this I wanted to hear. He said he was in awe at what Ridley Scott pulled off with the involvement of the actors. That's because throughout filming, which only began nine months ago, he had been told that everything had to be rushed because there as no time at all in the schedule -- none -- for reshooting anything if they were to make their release date that was looming so close. So, when he heard about dropping Spacey, Scarpa was sure the film was doomed -- after having already shot and edited it! It was only when director Scott told him he could do it that Scarpa gave the effort any hope. And quite an undertaking it was given that Getty's scenes takes place in several countries, on several continents, they only had maybe two weeks to rush shooting, and director Scott is 80 years old and actor Plummer is 88. Interestingly, Scarpa said that he thinks the film is actually better now. There had been things that didn't work in early test screenings that they cut -- but with Plummer, they tried them again, and they did work, so they were put them back in. (One thing I wonder about that is Spacey strikes me as a much-too-young choice. He's 58, Getty was 81 at the time, and Plummer is 88. So, Spacey probably had a lot of makeup, which might have helped make Plummer's more-natural fit for the role work better on many levels. Perhaps. Or not.) There was rewriting that some of the actors and other filmmakers suggested, now that they had a second chance to see what had worked and didn't work in the original cut, though the editor said that if they wanted to meet their release date, they really couldn't change much and had to stick pretty close to what they had before so that it could basically be "inserted" into the already-edited movie and fit in the "slots" where it was needed. Here's the trailer. It makes the movie look MUCH more like an intense, high-octane driven thriller than it is. As I said, the most compelling aspect of the story (to me) was not action, but the relationship between patriarch and former daughter-in-law which is given short shrift here -- And for fun, here's the original trailer before Plummer took over the role! It's completely different in tone -- closer to that of the movie, though still without much about the grandfather-mother relationship. And there's little of Kevin Spacey. Note that the first shot of him in the desert (this picture below, in fact) is a flashback of sorts, when the character is much younger. And there's still a lot of makeup. When he finally appears around the two-minute mark, he is indeed in very heavy make-up. And I can see that being far more distracting than Plummer's more natural fit. The second film was The Greatest Showman, another true story, this of P.T. Barnum -- though with much less interest in following reality all that closely. But I found that (unlike usually with me) that didn't bother me because, knowing the true story somewhat, they kept it in focus with the main points, and instead were clearly telling something larger with a thematic point, and I was willing to accept what they were trying to tell, even if it wasn't the exact truth. (Hey, this is P.T. Barnum, after all...!) And most imiportantly, they made that point with great sizzle and bravado. Stylistically, it's somewhat in the vein of Moulin Rouge a few years back, though more substantive and with less razzle-dazzle. Though it does play loose with the story and skirts along the surface for much of the film, I found myself having a wonderful time. They're trying to make a serious film, not merely splash, and do a dazzling job. (And I must note director Michael Gracey for that -- who not only has put together a vibrantly flamboyant film, but...it's his directing debut. Watch for more from him.) Fun too is to watch Hugh Jackman show that he isn't just an actor who can sing, but is an actual musical-comedy star, from his many Broadway and West End stage roles. He's very much in his element and is terrific. The others here, including Zac Efron and Zendaya, all give very nice, and surprisingly understated performances -- and it must have been The Michelle Williams Weekend, because she shows up again, this time as Barnum's wife, Charity. The songs are by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul who not only won an Oscar for their work on La La Land, but also a Tony for last season's Dear Evan Hansen. Honestly, I was not a fan of the score to La La Land, and find some of the same issues here, as well, with the songs being effective but unmemorable. BUT...I liked them a good deal more in The Greatest Showman. They fit the story and characters much better, and help define and move things along nicely. And even if I can't quite remember them well, there were about four songs that stood out -- something like, "My Wish," "Not Enough," "This is Me" and a nice ballad that Charity Barnum sings. (I suspect "Not Enough" and/or "This is Me" could get Oscar nominations -- I particularly liked the former, though the latter, being more thematic to the film, probably will get more attention.) Here's the second trailer for the film. The initial trailer tells the story well, but I think this one comes a little closer to the sensibility of the movie. Every year around this time, there are articles about which recorded version of A Christmas Carol is "the best." Usually it comes down to the films that starred either Alistair Sim or Reginald Owen. But for me, it's this one. It's not a movie, though, or a TV production. It's, of all things, an audio version that was done in 1960 for, I believe, the BBC. It's quite wonderful and as good an adaptation of the story as I've come across. It stars Sir Ralph Richardson as Scrooge, and Paul Scofield as Dickens, the narrator. Casts don't get much better than that. I first heard this on radio station WFMT in Chicago which has played this every Christmas Eve for many decades. (And did up until last year, though I don't see it on the schedule this season.) Eventually, I found it on audio tape. I've listened to it annually since I was a kidling. Some years I think I won't listen to it this year, but put it on for a few minutes for tradition's sake -- but after the first sentence it sucks me in. There are four reasons why, for me, this is far and away the best version. But one reason leaps out. First, the acting is as good as it gets. Scofield is crisp and emphatic as the narrator,and almost every creak of his voice draws you in to the world, and Richardson as Scrooge is a Christmas pudding joy. Second, being radio, you aren't limited by budgets to create the Dickensian world. Your imagination fills in every lush and poverty-stricken, nook and cranny -- and ghostly spirit, aided by moody sound effects and violins. Third, the adaptation sticks closely to the Dickens tale, and Scrooge comes across more a realistic, rounded-person than as a Mythic Icon. And fourth, and most of all by far, unlike any of the other version, this includes...Dickens. While the story of A Christmas Carol is beloved, it's Dickens' writing that makes it even more vibrant than the story alone is. And that's all lost in the movie versions, even down even to the legendary opening line, "Marley was dead, to begin with." Or any of the other classic narrative lines. Or the richness of Dickens setting the mood and tone and description of the gritty and ephemeral and emotional world. All that's gone in movies, good as the productions may be. But all of that is here in this radio adaptation, and Scofield's reading of it is joyously wonderful and memorable. For many, this will be A Christmas Carol unlike any other you're aware of, giving it a meaning and richness you didn't realize was there. The ending of the tale is so much more moving and joyful here, as we listen to Dickens' own words, that begin with "Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more," and it soars from there, to perhaps my favorite passage about the new Scrooge and how good he is in the "good old world. Or any other good old world." If you have the time or inclination, do give it a listen. If only for five minutes to at least get the flavor. You might find yourself sticking around. Let it play in the background, if you have other things to do. It runs about 55 minutes. (Side note: speaking of Dickens, if you know the original cast album of Oliver!, the actor here who plays the Ghost of Christmas Present, Willoughby Goddard, was Mr. Bumble on Broadway and in the original London production.) This might not play immediately, since it's a large file and may have to buffer first. But be patient, it's worth it. (That's Sir Ralph Richardson on the left, who plays Scrooge. And Paul Scofield must be the other one, as the narrator.)
Okay, here it is -- Mark Evanier's annual telling of his encounter with Mel Torme around Christmas at the Farmers Market in Los Angeles. Torme was a hugely popular singer who also co-wrote "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...). Even forgetting what a wonderful story this is, it is just beautifully written, period.
I have an additional person reason for liking it. My mother went to Hyde Park High School with Mel Torme, and I got to talk with him about that when he worked for a day on Naked Gun 2-1/2 in a cameo. Just read it. Even if you already have, many times. You can find it here. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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