Stage Door: Asher Lev, The Jungle Book, Love's Labour's Lost

How has "My Name is Asher Lev" never been made into a movie? The novel by Chaim Potok, about a young Hassidic Jew who becomes a controversial and successful fine artist (painting crucifixations of all things) is one of those mainstays of primary education so you'd think that there would be a movie. Most of those get-em-while-they're-young classic novels can claim multiple film versions. But there's only been runs at the stage. I recently saw a new adaptation by Aaron Posner at the Westside Theater. 

The production was minimally staged but the set was a moody beauty. The night I attended the understudy for the female roles (there are only three actors in the production) went on. Turns out she was Chaim Potok's actual daughter! Imagine that.

Ari BrandAri Brand was constantly on the stage in the title role but adeptly swung around between various ages from little boy to grown man to track Asher Lev's artistic awakening and simultaneous emancipation from and acceptance of his faith. But the chameleon in the cast was Mark Nelson who plays quite a few characters including Asher's father and is particularly memorable as his jovial uncle and Asher's mentor artists who speaks largely in manifestos about what art is and how artists should live. Asher's struggle couldn't be more specific (a Jew painting Christian iconography) but the themes are wildly flexible to any coming of age or coming into one's own spiritual or ideological journey which is surely why people love it when they're young. 

It's Your Last Chance: My Name is Asher Lev plays through September 1st at the West Side Theater. 

Movies and TV Moving to the Musical Stage
Playbill warns that there's a GLEE stage musical in the works? God Antoinette Perry help us all. We've really gone over the top and back down again with the cross pollination of mediums. In September HONEYMOON IN VEGAS hits Paper Mill in Jersey and over in Boston at the Huntington Theater Company they're launching Disney's THE JUNGLE BOOK which is aiming for Broadway (eventually) and one supposes they're dreaming of another Julie-Taymor-does-Lion-King size hit. Here's a Making Of with director Mary Zimmerman, whose biggest hit Metamorphosis was so good. Let's hope she doesn't fall into the Julie Taymor trap of not being able to edit herself. Bostonian readers who've seen the show do tell us what you thought! 

The great Norbert Leo Butz in BIG FISH

The migration continues directly on Broadway with Big Fish (Sept 2013), The Bridges of Madison County (Jan 2014) and Rocky (Feb 2014) among others. Which are you most interested in hearing about?

Exit Music
And did any of you get a chance to see the final Shakespeare in the Park for the season: Love's Labour's Lost? I'm still humming this particular show stopper. 

Heavy rotation on my playlists.

Link Spot

Cinderoncé The complete Cinderella story set to Beyoncé music because of course
LA Times on the 20 year road to get Dallas Buyers Club made.
Pajiba on the "Fred"'s aka Lucas Cruikshank's adorable coming out
Crikey a review of Pain & Gain that actually makes me want to see the first movie. The last paragraph is blurb heaven and should be quoted on every poster
/Film Reality Bites, one of my personal definitive movies of the 90s, is going to TV series. I'm not against this in concept except that Winona Ryder is unimproveable as Leilana so you're starting from behind, you know? I've long thought it was her (arguably) her greatest performance in a career full of memorable ones.

MNPP suggests a movie for Domnhall Gleeson and David Wenham. Someone Kickstarter Ginger Heat please!
Cinema Blend whoa, I thought Tony Jaa (of Thai action Ong Bak film fame) was long gone from cinema but he's been added to the Fast and Furious 7 cast
Boy Culture pitch-shifting Madonna's vocals on MDNA. These lower versions sound so much better which leads you to wonder what was with all the up-shifting (p.s. I love the album as is, unlike most) 
Salon on why you should watch Project Runway again 
In Contention has a Venice Film Festival preview
Gawker defends Ben Affleck's casting as Batman by way of Heath Ledger's equally (at first) controversial casting as The Joker. Forgets to also notice that Heath Ledger was always an awesome actor before The Joker but yes, people do go on about casting notices for superhero films. 

Marion. I added the Damn Spot*Speaking of... ZOMG
I forgot to mention what you've already finished talking about. That Marion Cotillard replaced Natalie Portman in the upcoming Macbeth film. The one with Fassy as Macbeth. Yay, upgrade! I like Natalie more than Marion (historically speaking) but that part was such a weird fit for the ballerina.

*Lady Macbeth, and the Complete Character Gallery of Tennesse Williams plays are my equivalents to superheroes when it comes to casting notices. I'd definitely prefer a new Lady Macbeth or a new Maggie the Cat reboot every 5 years to a new Batman or Spider-Man origin story every 5, wouldn't you?

Box Office Big Spenders: Tony Stark vs Jay Gatsby

Excess was in this weekend, the second of the summer movie season despite the slight technicality of Spring having just started. Billionaires Tony Stark and Jay Gatsby were flaunting their expensive suits and pining for Pepper & Daisy everywhere you looked.

Iron Gatsby via Nathaniel R

Cheer up boys, you can now afford your second twenty-second home.

BOX OFFICE TOP DOZEN
01 IRON MAN THREE $72.4 (cum. $284.8) Reviewed
02 THE GREAT GATSBY  $51.1 *NEW* Reviewed
03 PAIN & GAIN  $5 (cum. $41.6)
04 PEEPLES  $4.8 *NEW* 
05 42 $4.6 (cum. $84.7)
06 OBLIVION $3.8 (cum. $81.6) Reviewed
07 THE CROODS $3.6 (cum. $173.2)
08 THE BIG WEDDING $2.5 (cum $18.8)
09 MUD $2.3  (cum $8.3)
10 OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL $.8 (cum. $229.9) Reviewed
11 SCARY MOVIE 5 $.7  (cum $30.6)  
10 THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES $.6 (cum. $19.9) Reviewed

Though I'm nearly always pleased when a non-franchise non-genre drama wins big gold coin, The Great Gatsby's huge gross fills me with dread for our collective future. I  think the movie is admirable in some ways and a failure in others but the movie isn't really the point. I was holding on to Drama as my last refuge from those fucking 3d glasses and you know Hollywood will assume that it was the EXCITING 3-D that drove audiences to purchase tickets to a lengthy romantic drama. Worse still, Baz Luhrmann -- a true original who works so infrequently he probably only has about 3 more movies in him before he dies --  apparently has his heart set on doing Hamlet next... and with DiCaprio, too (meaning DiCaprio would have starred in 50% of his filmography). Annoying Fact: Hamlet has been filmed over 50 times for the screen and is revived somewhere on stage every year.

FOR GOD'S SAKE BAZ... AT LEAST PICK A LESS OVER-WORKED SHAKESPEARE IF YOU GOTTA HAVE THE BARD. THERE ARE DOZENS TO CHOOSE FROM!  AND P.S. YOU'VE ALREADY DONE THE BARD WITH LEO AND YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TOP ROMEO + JULIET. FIND NEW TOYS TO PLAY WITH!

What did you see this weekend?  And are you, like me, weeping over the apparent future of Bazmark Productions?

Something Portman This Way Comes

JA from MNPP here - by now I think most of you have probably heard the news that Michael Fassbender is going to play Macbeth for the director of Snowtown. (Any fans of Snowtown up in here? I found it monstrously, emphasis on monstrously, effective.) Speculation immediately turned to what actress would play the scheming Lady to his doomed King - I saw everybody from Tilda Swinton to Emma Watson mentioned (and no doubt somewhere Sally Kellerman whispered her own name into the wind, too).

Well today we find out his former Jane Got a Gun co-star to be that never was Natalie Portman will be the one whispering deadly somethings in his ear, and... people don't seem happy, from what I can gather? I have to admit I'm kinda skeptical myself. I like Natalie, I thought she deserved her Oscar for Black Swan, but Vincent Cassel wasn't wrong when he told her she can nail the White Swan but she has some trouble with the darker side. Can she summon the wicked gravitas you need for this role?

I mean, we need somebody in this part that can convincingly tell Michael Fassbender that he doesn't have, you know, the sufficient manhood, ahem. So yeah... now that I think about it pretty much anybody's doomed, having to sell that whopper. "The Scottish Play" is a curse after all!

"Yes, No, Maybe So" x 4: Elysium, Filth, Rush, Romeo

The trailers have been flying at us so quickly these days that it could only mean one thing: summer movie season approacheth. All the late summer would be blockbusters and early fall Oscar contenders are waiting to spring from their respective buzz gates.

Left to Right: Brühl in "Rush", Damon in "Elysium", McAvoy in "Filth", Booth in "Romeo and Juliet"

So with so many newbies we'll just get them all out of the way after the jump with a look at the new Romeo and Juliet, the sports bio Rush, the depraved Filth with James McAvoy, and Neil Blomkamp's Elysium, his eagerly awaited sophomore effort post stunner-debut District 9. Ready. Set. Go...

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