La La Land’s “Another Day of Sun” as Utopian Entertainment
La La Land’s opening number, the dance performance “Another Day of Sun”, is about much more than just dreaming the traffic fantastic.
musical
What Was Paramount Smoking When It Released ‘Murder at the Vanities’?
There are wild numbers in the raunchy pre-code 1934 musical Murder at the Vanities but “Sweet Marijuana” really stirred up the uptights. Paramount shrugged.
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25 Years Ago Madonna Sought Respectability and Validation with Film Biography ‘Evita’
In a career defined by musical makeovers, Evita represented Madonna’s most extreme and conservative musical guise in the Andrew Lloyd Webber kitschfest.
The Way They Kiss in ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’
Julie Andrews’ 1960s musical Thoroughly Modern Millie does its anti-authoritarian, anarchic-chaotic thing in a different key.
Giddy and Buzzy ‘The Prom’ Compresses ‘Glee’ into a Single Film
Ryan Murphy's Netflix adaptation of the satirical musical about Broadway stars inserting themselves into a same-sex school dance controversy, The Prom, hits his sweet spots and his weaknesses.
Flowers for Hermes: An Interview with Performing Activist André De Shields
From creating the title role in The Wiz to winning an Emmy for Ain't Misbehavin', André De Shields reflects on his roles in more than four decades of iconic musicals, including the GRAMMY and Tony Award-winning Hadestown.
NYFF: ‘American Utopia’ Sets a Glorious Tone for Our Difficult Times
Spike Lee's crisp concert film of David Byrne's Broadway show, American Utopia, embraces the hopes and anxieties of the present moment.
Performing Race in James Whale’s ‘Show Boat’
There's a song performed in James Whale's musical, Show Boat, wherein race is revealed as a set of variegated and contradictory performances, signals to others, a manner of being seen and a manner of remaining hidden, and it isn't "Old Man River".
Why I Did Not Watch ‘Hamilton’ on Disney+
Just as Disney's Frozen appeared to deliver a message of 21st century girl power, Hamilton hypnotizes audiences with its rhyming hymn to American exceptionalism.
David Byrne Channels the Weird and the Ordinary in ‘True Stories’
As a piece of both cultural history and film history, David Byrne's True Stories takes its place alongside two other films from the mid-'80s that are also steeped in a surrealistic other-worldly place, Repo Man and Blue Velvet.
The Coen Brothers Tackle Short Story in Film Again with ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs ‘
Not their first foray into bringing the short story form to cinema, the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs affirms, sadly, that in this regard, cinema is the lesser storytelling form.
The Coen Brothers’ ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ Is American Myth in Vignette
In the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, there's something altogether new about having revisionist western ideas filtered through their rich sense of character, black comedy, and their penetrating awareness of humanity's fatal imperfections.
