It’s almost January 1, which means not just the beginning of the year, but also the month that I plan to resume my condo hunt. When I started the search over the summer, I was real excited about it, in the same way I get excited about most every other new thing in my life. But damn, this article in Sunday’s Boston Globe sure does make the process seem a lot less fun than it was over the summer.
When I see a movie like Margot at the Wedding, I can’t help but be thankful that my own sister isn’t a blunt, insensitive, unsupportive, bitchy, insulting, manipulative woman like the title character here is. As played by Nicole Kidman, she may be more of a villain than, say, Darth Vader or The Devil Wears Prada‘s Miranda Priestley. Her weapons are words, and when she arrives for her estranged sister’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) wedding, she gets under everyone’s skin. Margot isn’t in town for the wedding; she’s there for a bookstore appearance with a man she’s cheating on her husband with. She hates the groom (Jack Black). She doesn’t keep secrets. She says all the wrong things and leaves emotional distruction in her wake. Noah Baumbach (who also wrote and directed the excellent The Squid and the Whale) has made a film that will ring true with anyone who has family (i.e.: everyone). It makes you laugh and cringe, sometimes simultaneously, and at 92 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome — though it does end sort of abruptly. This character piece is light on plot (not a bad thing in this case) and features some great performances. I’m giving it a B+.
So yeah, I took a couple days off from work last week and spent them down in New York.
And for the first time in a long while, most of the time was spent in the city, playing tourist.
Here are some snapshots from the weekend.
O Christmas Tree: Bean, meet the Christmas tree at 30 Rock. Decided to get my Christmas on, so I spent a bit of time at Rockefeller Center trying to take the perfect picture of the big tree (after all, it’s never too early to start working on next year’s A Very Marty Xmas CD). But as I kept learning, it’s hard to take a picture of a lit-up tree at night. My damned camera didn’t seem to want to focus. This one here is probably the best one I took.
Number one or number two, it’s completely up to you: Best thing ever was Charmin’s second annual, temporary, free public restroom next door to the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. That’s all it is. You go up a tall escalator, wait on line, and you get to use one of the 20 or so toilets. They were spotless (cleaned after each use), colorful, and the attendants were having such a good time helping out that it was hard not to smile. As marketing gimmicks go, this one was pretty fun. And it was really convenient, because at the time, I really had to go.
People watching: Mitzi, Fetus, and I had a very very very minor celeb sighting Thursday night when we spotted Danny, from the New Orleans cast of The Real World, in the Times Square Toys ‘R’ Us just wandering around. And it occured to me how none of the current viewers of that show must know who he is. I think I also saw Andre 3000 from OutKast there. Oh, and Sean Dugan, an old college roommate, was on the same train into the city on Friday, but we didn’t get a chance to talk. And though she’s also on Broadway these days, in Cyrano de Bergerac, you’ll be happy to know I did not stalk wait for Jennifer Garner outside the stage door.
Flame on: Turned a corner at 9th and 44th on Friday and saw this taxi on fire. No one seemed to know how or why it happened. And while I knew the thing could have exploded at any second, for a change I did the stupid thing and got out my camera to take a picture, instead of running for cover. (What?! It’s not like the other people doing the same thing were any smarter than me.) Thankfully, the NYFD showed up just in time and put the fire out.
Show time: As I’ve previously mentioned, seeing Spring Awakening was unexpected. Here’s why. After lunch with Anna on Friday, I decided to hang out in Times Square and go to a couple places, then head back to meet up with Mitzi, Jason, and Fetus for dinner. Long story short, a couple guys on the corner of Broadway and 44th were selling discounted tix to a few shows, including Spring Awakening. Of course I was skeptical, and I did some background checks, even asking a cop a few feet away if he knew if the guys on the corner were scalpers. As it turned out, they were totally legit. So I took the chance, changed my plans, and saved $40 on top seats (12th row center) for what ended up being an awesome show. Money well-spent, even if at the time I felt like I was a total sucker buying Broadway show tickets from a random guy on the street.
Hmmmmm…:Believe it or not, I so enjoyed the day and a half that I spent in New York City that for maybe 15–30 minutes I actually thought about moving there. The cold winds snapped that thought out of me quickly enough, but I suppose that only goes to show you how good a time I had in the Big Apple. I need to do stuff like this more often.
Unexpectedly, I also got the chance to see Spring Awakening this weekend. And what a great, great show it was.
Is.
No wonder this won the Tony Award back in June for Best Musical — and Best Direction, Score, and five others.
Spring Awakening is so full of energy, so full of passion, so full of life that it’s hard not to be moved or shaken to the core while watching it. I haven’t liked a new show this much in, oh, I don’t know how long. Continue reading
Mitzi, Fetus, and I went to see Young Frankenstein on Broadway Thursday night. The show’s been so heavily hyped and it has such a great pedigree and it’s based on such a classic movie … so how could it not be a disappointment?
I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I’ll say the conventional line that while YF is entertaining, it’s no The Producers: it’s not as funny and none of the songs are as memorable.
That said, the sets are huge and impressive, as are the special effects, and Andrea Martin, who plays Frau Blücher, and Christopher Fitzgerald, who plays Igor (pronounced “eye-gor,” of course), are both really good. And Roger Bart … Continue reading
On Monday you’ll find out what’s on this year’s A Very Marty Xmas CD. Ooooh, I can’t wait to share it with y’all. But until then, I’m still trying to figure out if it’s possible to copy a CD on a Mac without using iTunes. But that’s my problem, not yours (unless, of course, you have a solution for me and then I’d be more than happy to hear it). Thanks!
I’ve been away from the computer for a couple days, but I wanted to acknowledge that Amy Winehouse earned six Grammy Award nominations on Thursday, and I say yes! yes! yes!
I’ve been listening to “Rehab” and the rest of Back to Black for just about a solid year now and the CD hasn’t gotten old or tiresome yet. It’s far and away my favorite album to be released in 2007. Continue reading
So it seems my alma mater was named the fourth ugliest college campus in America by a Web site called Campus Squeeze. (Drexel University is number one.) Jeez … when I was there we were named one of the unsassiest colleges by that leading authority on such things, Sassy magazine. This one hurts even less.
I didn’t really think I was going to like Charlie Wilson’s War. After all, I’m sort of over the whole “Tom Hanks Is Holier than Thou” thing, and I can’t get too excited about Julia Roberts anymore either.
Plus, I’m skeptical of a major studio movie that’s billed as Oscar bait based on pedigree alone.
But I’ll admit, Hanks is real good here in the true story of a Texas Congressman with questionable ethics, and he won me over. And generally, I was entertained by the movie, which documents how Charlie Wilson raised money — $1 billion annually — in Congressional funds to support Afghanistan in its war with Russia in the 1980s. (Those are your tax dollars at work, folks!) Continue reading
Jeff Wells, one of my favorite film columnists, is in town for a month. I know this because he’s mentioned it on his site in recent weeks, but Tuesday night at the critics screening of Charlie Wilson’s War that I was at, I saw him in person for the first time. It’s funny, because you read a blog like Wells’ — or David Poland’s — and you get an idea of what these guys must be like. And then there he is, and it’s sort of cool — like he’s some minor, D-level celebrity or something. (And yes, I have read the article in Los Angeles magazine that ran last year.) (And no, I didn’t say hello or introduce myself.)
The reason I’m mentioning this is because Wells went on a bit of a rant Wednesday about one of my least favorite movie theaters, the AMC Boston Common. Regular readers of this blog know I had a bad experience there a couple months back when I went to see In the Valley of Elah. And I’ve long thought the presentation quality there is subpar — especially compared to the Fenway 13, which is my favorite area theater, despite its awful parking garage. At the AMC, the sound is never right. It’s either too loud or too soft, and it’s never mixed right; instead of coming out of all the speakers the way surround sound is supposed to work, it seems to all be coming out of the front ones. Basically, it’s like they just don’t care about the movies there. They just want your money, and the ushers can’t be bothered to actually ush, or make sure the films are unspooling properly, or get rid of inconsiderate customers. Which, of course, sucks for those of us who hate that kind of crap and just want to enjoy a movie without being distracted. And don’t even get me started about the frequency that the fire alarm goes off. Blah blah blah …
So anyway, I appreciate Wells writing what he did — that the critics’ screening of Sweeney Todd was ruined due to shoddy presentation — because he does seem to wield some form of influence in the film world, but I think it’s worthless, unfortunately. That theater is a lost cause, and it gets worse every year. When I have a choice, I’m going to keep on going to the Regal Fenway 13, where the sound and the screens are bigger and better. But thanks anyway, Jeff. Nice try.
Martin's Musings 