The Pop Culture Addict’s Blog

…but I sure enjoyed it on opening night at the Ziegfeld with a slap-happy, sleep-deprived, Stars-Wars-changed-my-life crowd at 3am. A good crowd can make a bad movie good and an already decent movie even better. So I just spent $25 for a movie! Dreamgirls opened at the Ziegfeld this past weekend and tickets were $25 for assigned seating, a program and a limited printing lithograph of the Dreamgirls. The crowd was so pumped, they cheered, they gave standing O’s, they clapped throughout the movie. It was fun. I would say the crowd elevated the movie experience at least half a grade. EW gave it a B. I would say it was a B+ but the hyped up audience brought it up to an A- if not higher. The standouts were definitely Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy. Beyonce is not much of an actress but she has a great voice. It might have been the way the part was written also. It didn’t give her much to work with. Jamie Foxx is a strong actor and had a tough role – the guy who makes unpopular yet effective decisions. Anika Noni Rose also has a great voice. Keith Robinson had a fairly likable role although his character also gets caught up in the drive to succeed. Basically, if you think you’ll like it, you’ll like it. It’s a musical movie with an emphasis on music, sets and staging. It looked great. The story is straightforward but the music, especially in the first half, keeps you hooked. For the record, I slept through most of Attack of the Clones and thought Revenge of the Sith was awesome.

From Rufus Wainwright and Co.

I’m not much for hoopla particularly around holidays. But I really enjoyed The Wainwright Family & Friends Christmas show at Carnegie Hall which I attended as an xmas present for a friend. It was initially advertised as the McGarrigle Christmas Hour, McGarrigle being Rufus and Martha’s mother’s name but the show shifted to Wainwright, which is their last name. I gather that their dad (Loudon Wainwright) is not a big part of the family since he did not appear at the Judy Garland concert Rufus did this year or this recent show. Also, I noticed on Martha Wainwright’s liner notes she did not mention her father in any recognizable manner. Anyway, it was surprisingly fun, very loose, like they rehearsed once and then decided to put on a show for the rest of the party. I didn’t know the music of Teddy Thompson (or his sister Kami or his apparently famous folk singer mother Linda) before and I was charmed. They sang Holly and Ivy and then an original entitled Boycotting Christmas. (EDIT: I donated $1 to the Teddy Thompson site for aid to Darfur in exchange for a link to an mp3 for Boycotting Christmas. I never got the link! So I followed up on it and didn’t hear back from them but then felt shallow for asking for something for my measly dollar when people in Darfur are suffering. Plus, I knew I would only listen to the song once before retiring it. I was just trying to be supportive. So,in the end, I chose to blow it off. But it was a somewhat mixed bag experience with Teddy Thompson.) (EDIT 2009: To be fair, I realized I should add here that recently, I received an email from someone who offered to send the link to the song. So, thanks.) Jimmy Fallon was cute singing Baby It’s Cold Outside with Martha among other songs. This guy Antony (from Antony and the Johnsons I think) sang a couple of songs including an Elvis-spiced Blue Christmas, and Lou Reed also sang with Rufus a funny version of I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas and a great and unique version of Silent Night.

I really enjoyed Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s participation. He sang a protest song he had written accompanying himself on ukelele. He also just hung out on stage with Rufus and company at one point singing a song in Hebrew with Rufus. I already admired his acting chops in Brick and Mysterious Skin and such. And actually, while I had heard of Martha Wainwright from friends, I was a hold out until this past concert when I decided to buy her cd in the lobby during intermission. Then I had this experience where I was watching a short Escargots by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and friends on his site and I was thinking, this is cool, I like the look and I like the sound. It turned out I had forgotten that I was looking at Martha Wainwright’s MySpace page and it had opened up and started playing her song BMFA. I realized it when I heard the lyrics BMFA because I had read that song title earlier and thought, I must hear this song. So funny. It was like what happened in the movie Tapeheads when they accidentally put their friend’s band’s song behind the footage of someone’s funeral and their “music video” becomes an arthouse hit.

EDIT: Read the Wainwright Family Christmas Show review in the NYT by clicking here.

I also recently saw Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German, his experiment in recreating a 1940’s style movie. I liked the look. I appreciate his dedication to his craft. My fellow movie-goers thought it was pretty good but too long and the plot too convoluted. I would say these are valid criticisms. I think it is fair to say I always find George Clooney and Cate Blanchett worth watching in movies and the like (I’m thinking of when I got to see Cate Blanchett as Hedda Gabler). Tobey Maguire played the anti-Peter Parker, a guy looking out for himself first and foremost although he did have a connection to the Lena character. It was interesting to see him NOT being Spider Man although I sure am looking forward to Spider-Man 3!

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