THEATRE REVIEW: Wycherley’s ‘The Country Wife’

Posted on October 12, 2007 by admin

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – When the curtain goes up in the new West End production of William Wycherley’s Restoration sex comedy “The Country Wife,” Toby Stephens, as a priapic young stud named Horner, is standing alone with his back to the audience grinning and stark naked.

countrywife372At first night this week, I was sitting just in front of his mother, actress Maggie Smith. A companion whispered to her, “Were you expecting that?” and received in reply a shocked “No!”

Smith’s delighted laughter could be heard along with the rest of the audience throughout the production, not least for her son’s performance but for everyone including Fiona Glascott as the titular young wife, Margery. Smith played the role at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1969. In the same row a few seats along, also having a good time, sat Judi Dench, who played Margery in 1966.

Many great actresses have played the young wife including American Ruth Gordon (“Harold and Maude”) in 1936 with Michael Redgrave as her husband, Joan Plowright in 1956 with Laurence Harvey as Horner, and Helen Mirren in a 1977 BBC production with Bernard Cribbins as the husband.

The play might have been shocking in 1675, but its tale of lustful men and wanton women mocking the veneer of polite society is played for rollicking laughs in director Jonathan Kent’s new production at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Cynical and bawdy, it assumes that every wife is ripe for plucking and every husband is destined to be a cuckold. It could be taken as misogyny except that the women give as well as the men and the betrayed husbands are a pious bore and a jealous buffoon.

Dressed in blue jeans and frock coats to blur the time frame, three young men – Horner (Toby Stephens), Harcourt (John Hopkins) and Dorilant (Tristan Beint) – spend their time drinking beer, playing pool and planning their next conquests.

Horner devises a scheme whereby his doctor will declare him a eunuch following a bout of the pox, the idea being that husbands will trust him with their wives and leave him to exploit the circumstances as he will. Invariably, the objects of his attention are all too willing to enjoy the deception.

Chief among these is Lady Fidget (Patricia Hodge), who is always on the lookout for a wayward male and the opportunity to test his honour, as Wycherley puts it. Horner is up for anyone at any time, and he also is particularly taken with Margery (Fiona Glascott), the pretty, giddy young wife of a furiously overprotective older man named Pinchwife (David Haig).

Margery is from the country and longs for the attention of the city gallants while her husband goes to great lengths to keep her away from temptation. Pinchwife’s sister, Alithea (Elisabeth Dermot Walsh), is engaged to marry a foppish dimwit named Sparkish (Jo Stone-Fewings), though his friend Harcourt is doing his best to displace him.

Kent, in the first production of his yearlong season at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, moves things along at a gloriously lusty pace. Paul Brown’s sets involve plenty of doors for miscreants to dive through and hide behind while the actors relish Wycherley’s ribald dialogue, which is rich with euphemisms for sexual dalliance and doesn’t sound dated at all.

All the performances are entertaining. Stephens is a touch too cocky for a man pretending to be a eunuch but he’s full of dash and eager to please. Hodge makes Lady Fidget a sly and knowing conspirator and Walsh and Hopkins contribute some sense of propriety with great poise and charm.

The real crowd-pleasers, however, are Glascott as the winsomely irritating country wife and Haig as her combustible green-eyed spouse. Glascott is sexy, innocent and maddening in the role.

Haig is a master of farce, and he frets, blusters and comes as close to exploding as John Cleese at his best. It’s a witty and boisterous performance that will send packed audiences out onto the Haymarket laughing happily well past Christmas.

Venue: Theatre Royal Haymarket Company; runs through Jan. 12;  Cast: Toby Stephens, Patricia Hodge, David Haig, Fiona Glascott, David Shaw-Parker, Timothy Bateson, Nicholas Day, Lucy Tregear, Liz Crowther, John Hopkins, Tristan Beint, Jo Stone-Fewings, Elisabeth Dermot Walsh, Catherine Bailey, Janet Brown; Playwright: William Wycherley; Director: Jonathan Kent; Set designer: Paul Brown; Lighting designer: Mark Henderson; Sound designer: Paul Groothuis; Costume designer: Paul Brown; Music: Steven Edis.

A version of this review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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Charles Strouse earns his applause at the ASCAP awards

Posted on October 11, 2007 by admin

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – No matter their age nor how well they sing, there is something magical in songwriters performing their own tunes. Broadway veteran Charles Strouse (pictured), who turns 80 next year, proved that at the 2007 ASCAP Awards banquet at London’s Grosvenor House Wednesday night.

Charles Strouse ASCAP 2007 x325Strouse won standing ovations from the seen-it-all industry crowd after warbling such hits as “Once Upon a Time,” “Kids,” “Applause,” from his hit show of the same name starring Lauren Bacall, and “Tomorrow” from “Annie.”  Besides his musicals “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Annie”, the Tony-winning composer and songwriter composed the scores for movies such as “Bonnie & Clyde” and “The Night They Raided Minsky’s.” He also wrote the theme for TV’s “All in the Family.”

I was at a table with prizewinning composers Patrick Doyle, Anne Dudley and Alex Heffes, who joined in the enthusiastic response. A few tables away, record producer George Martin and Lady Martin and Oscar-winning lyricist Don Black and his wife Shirley also were on their feet.

Academy Award-winning composer Anne Dudley and nominated composers Patrick Doyle and Dario Marianelli were among the winners in the film and television music prizes presented at ASCAP’s’s annual banquet that honours members of Britain’s Performing Rights Society for the most performed works in the U.S. in 2006.

Norwegian pop duo Tor Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen (Stargate) were named songwriters of the year and their “So Sick” was named best song. EMI Music Publishing U.K. was named publisher of the year.

ASCAP senior vp international Roger Greenaway told me ahead of the event: “It’s safe to say that the performing rights end is not doing as bad as the record industry these days because we’re about performances and they’re about physical recordings, although we do feel their pain. We’re not safe, but we’re safer. In fact, we see a rise of 4-5% over the next two or three years.”

Greenaway said that film and TV music is thriving. “It’s doing better than ever as there are more TV channels on cable and satellite. With more than 800 TV stations in the U.S., performing rights for film and TV music is really vibrant,” he said.

In this year’s film prizes, Dudley, who won the Oscar for “The Full Monty” in 1997, was honored for Kevin Reynolds’s “Tristan + Isolde.” Current Dudley projects include Paul Schrader’s “The Walker” and Lynda La Plante’s ongoing ITV miniseries “Trial & Retribution.”

Doyle’s ASCAP prize was for Stefan Fangmeier’s 2006 fantasy “Eragon.” Current projects from the veteran U.K. composer (Oscar-nominated for “Sense and Sensibility” and “Hamlet”) include “The Last Legion” and “Sleuth.”

Marianelli, who won for “V for Vendetta,” was an Oscar nominee for “Pride & Prejudice” (2005) and might be in the running next time for the hit “Atonement.” He also scored current pictures Neil Jordan’s “The Brave One” and Asif Kapadia’s “Far North.”

Other film music honorees were John Taverner, who won for Alfonso Cuaron’s “Children of Men.” A legend in classical music, his rare movies include Carlos Reygadas 2005 Argentine film “Battle in Heaven,” which was In Competition at the Festival de Cannes in 2005 and won the critics’ prize as best Latin American film at the 2005 Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival.

Alex Heffes won for Kevin Macdonald’s “The Last King of Scotland.” His credits include “Touching the Void” (2003) and “Dear Frankie” (2004) and he scored Macdonald’s new documentary on Nazi Klaus Barbie, “My Enemy’s Enemy.”

And Erran Baron Cohen won for “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” Sacha Baron Cohen’s brother, he wrote the music for the 2005 U.K. documentary BBC TV series “Serious Arctic.”

The ASCAP television theme awards went to “American Idol,” “Dancing with the Stars,” “House” and “Who wants to be a Millionaire?”

Songwriters Hermansen and Eriksen had seven of the most performed songs in 2006 including Ne-Yo’s “So Sick” and “Sexy Love,” Rihanna’s “Unfaithful,” Kelly Clarkson’s “Walk Away,” sand Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable.”

Their success went a long way to helping EMI land the publishing prize for the fourth time, as managing director Guy Moot emphasised: “For Stargate to pick up seven awards, including Songwriters of the Year is particularly pleasing in a year that has seen them make a huge breakthrough in the U.S. With other wins for Yusuf Islam, Phil Collins, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Lenky, it’s good to see the diversity and breadth of our catalogue being acknowledged.”

2007 ASCAP Awards

Honoring PRS writer and publisher members whose repertory is licensed by ASCAP and was among its most performed works in the United States in 2006.

FILM

Erran Baron Cohen, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”

Patrick Doyle, “Eragon”

John Tavener, “Children of Men”

Alex Heffes, “The Last King of Scotland”

Anne Dudley, “Tristan And Isolde”

Dario Marianelli, “V For Vendetta”

TV THEME

Keith Strachan, Matthew Strachan, “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” Publishers: Universal Music Publishing Group

Cathy Dennis, Julian Gingell, Barry Stone, “American Idol.” Publishers: EMI Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group

Elizabeth Fraser, “House.” Publishers: Sony/ATV Music Publishing (UK) Limited

Dan McGrath, Josh Philips, “Dancing with the Stars.” Publishers: BBC Worldwide Music/Universal Music Publishing Group

RECORDINGS

Songwriter of the Year: Tor Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen (Stargate)

Publisher of the Year: EMI Music Publishing UK

Song of the Year: “So Sick,” Ne-Yo. Writers: Tor Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen. Publishers: EMI Music Publishing, SONY/ATV Music Publishing (UK) Limited

College Award: “Hats off to the Buskers,” The View. Writers: Kyle Falconer, Kieren Webster. Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group

Vanguard Award: ‘Fur And Gold,’ Bat For Lashes. Writer: Natasha Khan. Publisher: Chrysalis Music Ltd.

A version of this story appeared in The Hollywood Reporter. Here’s more about Strouse and ASCAP

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RIO FILM REVIEW: Viggo Mortensen in ‘Good’

Posted on October 10, 2007 by admin

'Good' x650By Ray Bennett

RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazilian director Vicente Amorim’s drama “Good,” based on a play by C.P. Taylor, is set in Nazi Germany and tells with escalating tension the story of a presumably decent man whose bland acquiescence to Nazi terror makes him a horrified accessory.

Viggo Mortensen is outstanding as a head-in-the-clouds lecturer who allows a novel he wrote exploring euthanasia to be exploited in support of Hitler’s demented theories about a master race. Using a credible English accent along with the mostly British cast, Mortensen conveys the scholar’s self-absorption and willingness to be blinded to events all around him that point to the Holocaust.

Paced deliberately in a way that reinforces the tragedy of evil flourishing when good men do nothing, “Good” may find box office returns slow to build but the film’s aim is true and patient audiences will be well rewarded.

Perhaps the original title, “A Good Man,” would have been better employed rather than the ineffectual “Good,” for that’s what Professor John Halder (Mortensen) appears to be. An earnest, intense teacher, he loves his obsessive-compulsive wife and their two children, and he looks after his addled mother.

His best friend is a Jewish psychoanalyst named Maurice (Jason Isaacs, also executive producer) and together they treat the Nazi grip on government as an aberration that will soon pass.

Things begin to change when Halder is called before a charming but sinister government officer (Mark Strong in a typically sinuous cameo) and asked to write a paper advancing the notion that the lives of chronically sick patients should be terminated.

He dashes off something but is soon encouraged to accept that an honorary membership in Hitler’s SS will help his ambitions for promotion at his university. He also succumbs to the temptations of a beautiful student (Jodie Whittaker) although he waits until she has graduated before leaving his wife, who has become impossible to live with, to marry her.

The film tracks Halder as Germany convulses in Hitler’s madness while the professor somehow fails to see what is going on around him. It’s a harsh tale and not one that aims to forgive men like Halder. It might help to understand them a little better, though.

Venue: Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, Out of Competition; Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs, Jodie Whitaker, Mark Strong; Director: Vicente Amorim; Screenwriter: John Wrathall; Director of photography: Andrew Dunn; Music: Simon Lacey; Editor: John Wilson; Producer: Miriam Segal; Production: Good Film, Miromar Entertainment; Sales: Imagem Filmes; No rating; running time, 96 minutes.

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Feat of clay: Terracotta Army marches on

Posted on October 9, 2007 by admin

Terra cotta army British Museumx650

By Ray Bennett

The exhibition of China’s 2,000-year-old terracotta warriors at the British Museum is everything it’s cracked up to be.

Some 100,000 tickets were sold in advance of the six-month display of a small group of the immense army created to guard the tomb of the first emperor of China, and it’s well worth a visit.

Lion Television, which produced a clever docudrama titled “First Emperor: The Man Who Made China” for Channel 4 and the Discovery Channel, hosted a small gathering at the museum one morning last week ahead of the crowds.

Other groups were there too with film director Alan Parker among the curious. Like me, he also was enthralled by an unusually close view of the British Museum’s beautiful dome. The exhibition is staged on a platform built over the reading room so the ceiling has never seemed so close.

The fine detail of the life-sized fired clay figures, however, is extraordinary and many will leave the show thinking of a trip to China to see the emperor’s tomb.

Lion’s film is available on DVD and here’s my review from The Hollywood Reporter:

First Emperor x650

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – If only all history were taught as vividly as “The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China,” a two-hour television program that combines high-level documentary techniques with engaging drama to tell the story of the monster who created China more than 2,000 years ago.

Qin Shi Huangdi, as he called himself, was among the most ruthless and single-minded despots of all time but in his vision of himself as a divine ultimate ruler he managed to bequeath on a tumultuous people the landscape of a nation that has lasted for more than two millennia and achieved greatness.

The discovery in the 1970s of what is known as the Terracotta Army – life-size statues of extraordinary detail that were to be Qin’s guardians in what was no doubt destined to be a heated afterlife – revealed the enormity of his ego and the underground mausoleum he created.

Made emperor at aged 13, Qin came to embody the ruling philosophy of Legalism, a ferocious and unrelenting exploitation of the population toward the goals of peace and harmony, and the greater glory of Qin. A courageous warrior, Qin led his armies in conquering all six neighboring countries to create one nation that he named for himself, Qin, or Chin.

Qin slaughtered friends and enemies with equal fervor and spent one million lives building the Great Wall of China to protect his empire from marauding outsiders. Insiders were totally at his mercy and he ultimately tried to ban all freedom of thought and expression.

His dedication to warfare, however, resulted in the finest weaponry with swords of the highest quality that survive to this day. In a lesson for today’s Washington armchair warriors, each blade carried the name of the prime minister, who had to take personal responsibility for its excellence.

It is in such detail that “First Emperor” delights as it follows Jeffrey Riegel, Professor of Classical Chinese Language at the University of California, Berkeley, and Wang Tao, of the School of Oriental & African Studies at the University of London, as they explore and explain the legend.

New discoveries are made all the time at the immense mausoleum just outside the Chinese city of Xian and the documentary marks the first time a western TV crew has been allowed to shoot there. The result, shot in high-definition (HDTV) is extraordinary but not entirely surprising from the U.K.’s Lion Television, whose recent documentary on Lawrence of Arabia was also first class.

As the scholars reveal the remarkable legacy of a monstrous individual, dramatic scenes show how life may have been in that time with actors playing the principal characters.

Writer and director Nic Young employs a colloquial approach to their ancient dialogue in colorful scenes that are at first disconcerting but come to be entirely believable. He is helped by some spirited acting, especially by James Pax as the emperor who soars to despotic heights and then descends into deadly madness.

A co-production of Discovery Channel and Lion Television; Cast: James Pax; Wang Ji; Hi Ching; Vincent Wong; Tony Tang; Narrator: Samuel West; Writer and director: Nic Young; Producer: Lucy Van Beek; Executive producers: Richard Bradley, Bill Locke; Drama producer: Lamy Li; Cinematographer: Brian McDairmant; Art director: Senlin Yu; Director of production: Shahana Meer; Editor: Simon Greenwood; Music: Ilan Eshkeri.

Here’s more on the DVD

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THEATRE REVIEW: Noel Coward’s ‘Present Laughter’

Posted on October 5, 2007 by admin

By Ray Bennett

LONDON — Noel Coward’s brittle and pathetic self-portrait of the matinee idol as the center of the universe is preserved more or less under glass in the National Theatre’s glossy new production.

The play is set in 1939, but the outbreak of World War II doesn’t add up to a hill of beans compared to the life and loves of Garry Essendine (Alex Jennings), who is king, and possibly sometimes queen, of all he surveys in his tightly sycophantic and highly theatrical world.

present laughhter Sara Stewart Alex Jennings x325“Present Laughter” is the kind of dated, middle-class artifice in which someone says, “Cynthia, darling, it’s Daphne. I’m at Garry’s,” and it’s supposed to mean something.

Daphne (Amy Hall) is what would later be called a groupie, but as the play was written in the days when British theater was heavily censored, she has spent the night at the boulevardier’s house only because she lost her own “latch key,” and even then stayed in the spare room.

Little does she know that she has entered a well-oiled and predictable environment in which the grand seducer is coddled and fussed over by a coterie that includes secretary, housekeeper, valet and an estranged but not quite ex-wife. The latter, Liz (Sara Stewart), is of course still in love with Essendine and is always there to help him brush off his conquests.

The fading lothario swans through life with labored insouciance and a carefully manufactured air of indifference to the malicious fate that has caused him to be so handsome, charming and desirable. Cosseted by his entourage of adoring women — and men — he is a star required constantly to twinkle.

But when Joanna (Lisa Dillon), the sexpot wife of a hapless friend, sets her decolletage at him, and an intense young man named Roland (Pip Carter) shows up peddling his serious writing, Essendine unleashes a torrent of snide and condescending derision on everyone.

Set in a huge, bookish room designed by Tim Hatley that suggests more Victorian Conan-Doyle than art-deco Coward, the production features all the polished style that you would expect at the National. Jenny Beavan’s costumes suggest 1930s glamour on the downslide, while director Howard Davies keeps the dialogue coming at a lively pace.

The trouble is that Coward has little to say that’s relevant today. The drollery isn’t very funny, and the insults appear lame. Sarah Woodward makes the most of seen-everything secretary Monica, and Stewart plays ex-wife Liz with sensible poise.

Hall is a bit too gushy as Daphne, while Dillon makes her plump little trollop reminiscent of mid-career Elizabeth Taylor. Carter turns highbrow writer Roland into a buffoon, and Tim McMullan and Simon Wilson struggle with the under-written roles of friend and cuckold.

It’s left to Jennings to carry the evening as Essendine, and he does it with great flair. Flouncing, sighing or raining down invective, he pays Coward the highest compliment of acting as if his slick and empty words really mean something.

Venue: National Theatre; Cast: Alex Jennings; Amy Hall; Anny Tobin; Tony Turner; Sarah Woodward; Sara Stewart; Pip Carter; Simon Wilson; Tim McMullan; Lisa Dillon; Frances Jeater; Playwright: Noel Coward; Director: Howard Davies; Set designer: Tim Hatley; Costume designer: Jenny Beavan; Lighting designer: Hugh Vanstone; Sound designer: Paul Groothuis; Music: Dominic Muldowney; Keyboard: Anne Kavanagh; Alto saxophone: Simon Harare

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Ye Olde Steak House: a fond farewell

Posted on September 30, 2007 by admin

Ye Olde Steak House x650

By Ray Bennett

I’ve eaten in a great number of restaurants in my life, good, bad and indifferent, but only two ever captured my heart.

One is Dan Tana’s on Santa Monica Boulevard, the most enjoyable dining establishment in Los Angeles. The other is Ye Olde Steak House in Windsor, Canada, which has served its last meal after 41 years.

Kurt and Irma Deeg ran the place expertly with reliably good food and friendly service, attracting customers from around Ontario and Michigan, being situated across the river from Detroit.

I was a regular in my time at The Windsor Star newspaper in the late 1960s and ’70s, and Kurt even allowed me an account, taking a huge risk with a newspaperman in those days, or at any time.

I took English comics Jimmy Edwards and Eric Sykes (left) to lunch at Ye Olde Steak House in 1976 when they were in Detroit performing their classic comedy ‘Big Bad Mouse’. They declared the steak & kidney pie a great success, which it invariably was.

Lunches with colleagues from the newspaper could turn into all-afternoon affairs. Sunday nights were a favorite time for me with a quiet steak and bottle of wine. No return visit to the city was ever complete without a meal there.

The Deegs served great steaks prepared perfectly and a damned fine French onion soup. The servers knew your taste and the bartenders knew your drink. It could be raucous or romantic; a place for friends, love and laughter.

Windsor won’t be the same without it.

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THEATRE REVIEW: Patrick Stewart in ‘Macbeth’

Posted on September 29, 2007 by admin

Macbeth650

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – Seldom can Shakespeare’s murky Scottish tragedy “Macbeth” been have staged with so much clarity and emotional punch as in Rupert Goold’s exhilarating production at London’s Gielgud Theatre. It stars Patrick Stewart in probably the finest performance of his career in the title role.

Created at the Chichester Festival Theatre and bound for Broadway, the show is staged in two 80-minute acts that pound the senses and seize the imagination in ways that make the ancient tale of unbridled hubris vitally modern.

Using a stark basement setting reminiscent of Beckett’s forlorn “Endgame,” Goold stages the play in cinematic terms designed to establish a mood of dread as Macbeth and his wife bloody their hands in order to become rulers of an unruly state.

Soviet-style uniforms, video images of crushed rebellion and machine guns establish a bleak 1950s mood as Macbeth conspires to eliminate his rivals to the throne. The references might be to kings, princes and thanes, but Macbeth is a mid-management desperado seeking the top job — in business and politics — and he is willing to use all ruthless means to have his way.

This involves murdering the Scottish king, Duncan (Paul Shelley), while he sleeps and also killing his guards in order to lay off the blame. The king’s sons flee, suggesting mistakenly that they might have been complicit, while stalwarts Banquo (Martin Turner) and Macduff (Michael Feast) go along with crowning Macbeth.

Full of bluster but also deeply deranged, Macbeth suspects everyone and is soon arranging torture and more ugly deaths, including those of rivals Banquo and Macduff. But Macduff is away when his assassins come to call, and the slaying of his wife and children lead him to an alliance with the late king’s son, Malcolm (Scott Handy). With a force of soldiers loaned by the English, they head to Macbeth’s castle seeking vengeance.

Framed in the manner of a gangster film, the production uses imaginative lighting and sound to amplify the play’s supernatural elements. The three witches (“Double, double toil and trouble”) are portrayed as nurses who are definitely weird sisters. Banquo’s ghost shows up bloodily corporeal at the end of Act 1, but when the curtain rises again the scene is repeated showing that only the harried Macbeth can see the spectre of his slain enemy.

Stewart demonstrates that many years of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and big-screen outings in “The X-Men” movies haven’t diminished his stage presence one iota. He inhabits the role and is matched in intensity by Kate Fleetwood (pictured with Stewart) as Lady Macbeth and Feast as Macduff. Also making vivid contributions are Suzanne Burden as the doomed Lady Macduff and Turner as Banquo.

Designer Anthony Ward, and all the design talents, deserve high praise but especially music and sound designer Adam Cork. It is director Goold, however, who will be most applauded for his dynamic interpretation of a jaded classic.

Venue: Gielgud Theatre; Cast: Patrick Stewart; Kate Fleetwood; Paul Shelley; Scott Handy; Ben Carpenter; Martin Turner; Michael Feast; Suzanne Burden; Sophie Hunter; Polly Frame; Niamh McGrady; Mark Rawlings; Tim Treloar; Bill Nash; Playwright: William Shakespeare; Director: Rupert Goold; Designer: Anthony Ward; Lighting designer: Howard Harrison; Music/sound designer: Adam Cork; Video/projection designer: Lorna Heavey.

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FILM REVIEW: Julie Taymor’s ‘Across the Universe’

Posted on September 29, 2007 by admin

across-the-universe x650

 

By Ray Bennett

Julie Taymor’s “Across the Universe” is a sparkling treat for anyone with an appreciation of how popular music became the soundtrack for so many people’s lives.

That was never so true as in the ’60s when Beatles songs dominated the airwaves around the world. Critics of the film, which opened in the U.K. Friday, seem to view it as a failed attempt at interpreting the Beatles lyrics but it’s much more fun than that.

Although filled with colorful images and affectionately punning dialogue by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais that evoke the songs, it’s more about the way pop music, especially by the Beatles, informs the romantic aspirations of youngsters.

It’s a blast as Taymor, creator of the stage version of “The Lion King” and director of films such as “Frida” and “Titus,” displays her customary visual flair. The songs are sung by the cast, which includes Jim Sturgess, as a Liverpudlian who visits the U.S. to find his estranged father, Evan Rachel Wood (“Thirteen,” 2003) as the girl he falls in love with, and Joe Anderson as a down-to-earth rich boy who becomes his best friend. Joe Cocker, Eddie Izzard and Bono have cameos performing iconic Beatles numbers.

Three superb music producers, composer Elliot Goldenthal, T-Bone Burnett and Teese Gohl, combined on the 31-song soundtrack. Goldenthal, of course, is the director’s domestic and professional partner, an A-list composer who won the Academy Award for “Frida” and he provides the score for “Across the Universe.”

Burnett has been responsible for some of the best song soundtracks of recent times including “Walk the Line,” “Cold Mountain” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Gohl is partnered with Steve McLaughlin in the U.S.- and U.K.-based film music production company, gohlmclaughlin, with credits including “Stardust,” “Layer Cake” and “Closer.”

Interscope has put out a soundtrack CD but it contains only 16 tracks from the film. Some fine numbers are missing including “If I Fell” by Wood, “I Want You” by Anderson, and “Because,” by the whole cast. Crucially missing are some great tracks by costars Dana Fuchs and Martin Luther and Goldenthal’s fabulous end-title orchestration of “Flying” with the Secret Machines. Perhaps if the film is a success then Interscope will release an album with the rest of the music. boomer nostalgia.

Across the Universe 2

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FILM REVIEW: George Clooney in ‘Michael Clayton’

Posted on September 27, 2007 by admin

MichaelClayton George Clooney x650

By Ray Bennett

Tony Gilroy’s gripping thriller “Michael Clayton” starring George Clooney, which previews in the U.K. today and opens Friday, is the writer turned director’s second topnotch film in 2007.

Paul Greengrass directed Gilroy’s script for the hugely entertaining “The Bourne Ultimatum,” which continues to thrive at box offices everywhere. “Michael Clayton” is a more cerebral type of suspense film akin to classics such as “The Parallax View” and “Three Days of the Condor” but it’s also a winner.

Clooney is in great form playing a fixer at a big law firm dealing with the meltdown of a senior partner (the excellent Tom Wilkinson) who sees the error of his ways in defending an unprincipled multi-national corporation. Tilda Swinton gives a sizzling performance as a femme fatale.

It’s early yet, but don’t be surprised to see the film edge into next year’s Oscar race with nominations for Clooney as best actor along with Swinton and Wilkinson in the best supporting categories.

Another of the film’s many pleasures is the imaginative score composed by James Newton Howard and after being Oscar-nominated four times for scores and twice for songs, this could be his year.

Howard has written the music for all of M. Night Shyamalan’s films including “The Village,” for which he landed his most recent Oscar nom. His others were for “My Best Friend’s Wedding, “The Fugitive,” “The Prince of Tides.” He was also nominated for best song for “Look What Love Has Done” from “Junior” and “For the First Time” for “One Fine Day.”

A top-flight film composer since “Head Office,” a 1985 comedy from director Ken Finkleman, Howard also wrote the theme for TV’s long running hit “ER.” Up next is Scott Frank’s caper movie “The Lookout,” which is due in the U.K. Oct. 26.

Warner Bros. gives “Michael Clayton” a limited release in the United States on Oct. 5. It goes wide on Oct. 12 with international territories to follow. ad guy himself.

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TV REVIEW: Billie Piper in ‘The Secret Diary of a Call Girl’

Posted on September 27, 2007 by admin

billie-piper secret diary of a call girl x650

By Ray Bennett

Chrissy Skinns, producer of the new Billie Piper series “Secret Diary of a Call Girl,” which debuts tonight on ITV2, insists that the show’s depiction of prostitution as something fun, glamorous and relatively carefree is an accurate one.

In the promotional material, she tells of doing research for the show’s central character, Belle, and meeting many women who were quite happy on the job.

Skins says, “What really came across in the main was that the women at this end of the market had chosen to be hookers, they weren’t on drugs or forced into it, which is, of course, another side of prostitution. We’re not pretending that doesn’t exist; it’s just not what our ‘Belle’ is about. The women we talked to genuinely liked their profession.”

Obviously she’s never seen Channel 4’s “Sex Traffic.” Here’s my review from The Hollywood Reporter:

LONDON — By most accounts, the life of a prostitute is desperate and vile, despite such absurd male fantasies as “Pretty Woman” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” The new U.K. series “The Secret Diary of a Call Girl” also puts a shiny gloss on commercial life between the sheets, but this time it’s created by women.

Billie Piper from “Doctor Who” plays Belle, a character based on an anonymous blog and subsequent book by someone claiming to be a happy and successful call girl in London. Produced by Chrissy Skinns, the show was created by Lucy Prebble, who also wrote four of the eight episodes. Documentary outfit Silver Apples optioned the property and took it to IMG’s Tiger Aspect, which produced the half-hour show for ITV.

You would hope the result might be thoughtful and revealing, but the series is really just a tame peep show for fans who think Piper is a cutie. She is an “escort girl” who dresses in sex-shop lingerie and undresses quite a bit. In each episode she encounters a new “client” provided for her by her female “agent.” No johns and pimps in this joint.

Belle speaks directly to the camera most of the time, making statements that are supposed to be bold and candid, such as, “The first thing you should know about me is that I am a whore.” She happily provides props for her sessions, mostly sex toys and riding crops and saddles when required.

Belle prides herself on being a complete professional, which apparently means a life of bookkeeping and personal hygiene. She’s lost count of the men she’s “slept” with — and when a callow customer fails to rise to the occasion, she says it’s a first. She’s not sure how to handle things, though, when another client, a bearded doofus with a bad Russian accent, takes her to an orgy and then becomes possessive.

Such scenes cry out for some kind of wit, but that is seriously lacking. Piper milks what she can from trite dialogue by raising her eyebrows to the camera or simply leering. The show would benefit from some notion of sensuality to go with its portrait of a woman who supposedly enjoys sex so much. The orgy sequence is cretinous and banal, with the Russian guy salivating over a woman doing a striptease by bursting balloons tied to her knickers.

Piper makes a game attempt at being sexy, but her character is dull and hackneyed. Many of her TV customers might want their money back.

Read the full review and here’s more about the series and info on ‘Sex Traffic’

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