matthew’s alibi

“Why aren’t I enjoying this?” my friend puzzled last night in what seemed like the fifth hour of the Showtime movie adaptation of the off-Broadway musical Reefer Madness. “It seems like something I should enjoy.”

I was in the throes of the same dilemma; I had seen and enjoyed the off-Broadway production a few years ago and had been eagerly awaiting the release of Showtime’s film version. Much of the winning stage cast reprise their roles in the movie, including the able and handsome Christian Campbell in the lead (looking a bit long in the tooth to be playing a 16 year old, but his winning, guileless smile is so perfect for this part that I won’t quibble too much). John Kassir (of Cryptkeeper fame) and Robert Torti also follow from the New York production.

The cast is further bolstered by Steven Weber (who I mentioned yesterday for flaking out on the concert performance of Working) and Ana Gasteyer (of SNL). Campbell’s sister Neve even makes an appearance. And then there’s the formidable Alan Cumming. There are plenty of elaborate, fun dance numbers, and it’s clear that Showtime spared little expense - most everything in this movie seems to have been done with thought and care.

So why does it fail so miserably? The score is the first problem - while there are some numbers that are good enough to get your toe tapping in the moment, there’s hardly a melody you’ll remember thirty seconds after it’s ended, much less be humming the next day. The orchestrations are outright terrible, like a bad karaoke accompaniment track. The lyrics, while occasionally very funny, are often clever for the sake of cleverness, signifying nothing much. Ultimately, the songs feel a hollow. As a rule, each song goes on at least one verse too long (with the exception of the number that ends the first act, which seems to go on for half of the movie. I began to wonder if it would ever actually end, and had a small existential crisis fearing that the rest of my life would be spent watching them reprise this showtune.)

I’ve got very little to say about the politics of the film. Presumably the target audience is hip enough to have at least a passing familiarity with the original 1936 film that it parodies. The politics are totally over the top - while it scores a few valid (and funny) blows, it’s not liable to convert anyone who’s against marijuana to see the folly of the drug war. Most of the factual references - even the lies spread by the Hearst media empire, which are explicitly mentioned several times - are liable to go over the head of anyone who isn’t already familiar with the history of US drug legislation. It’s a shame, really - even understanding that the film is meant to be pure entertainment, it seems like it misses some obvious teachable moments about the truly amazing history of lies and propaganda that caused marijuana to be demonized in the US. (For more on this, I recommend Jack Herer’s remarkable book, the text of which is available in its entirely online, The Emperor Wears No Clothes).

There are lots of visual references to other movie musicals, and particularly counter-culture musicals. Echoes of Rocky Horror, Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cabaret, and Chicago are all here for eagle-eyed musical fans. The movie is really rather spectacular, visually; costumes and sets are colorful and interesting. However, the prettiness is not enough to rescue the lack of a strong narrative structure, and things particularly seem to fall apart in the second act. Alan Cumming’s character is used to frame the movie, a device which worked very well on stage, but only serves to slow down the story in the film version.

A lot of things are shuffled from the off-Broadway version - songs cut, the ending changed (not for the better, in my opinion.) The stage musical is engaging and lots of fun; but in this case what worked well when played broadly on stage doesn’t come off as well on the small screen, where there is a greater expectation of realism. Suspension of disbelief is easier to come by in a small fringe theater; TV viewers are more likely more removed and more passive than their theater-going counterparts.

I finally decided that the reason this movie doesn’t work is because a filmmaker can’t intentionally do camp. For camp to succeed, on some level the creative team must be fully committed to the pathos, but this movie is never willing to stop winking at the audience, even for a second. It doesn’t really aspire to anything other than high camp, but it’s too self-aware to be truly campy, and so it ends up as pointless melodrama.

We can chalk this classic cautionary tale up as a cautionary tale for makers of movie musicals to come.

The first of this season’s Reprise Marvelous Musical Mondays was last night, a concert presentation of the musical adaptation of Stud’s Terkel’s book Working, with music by Stephen Schwartz, James Taylor and others.

The musical debuted in 1978, so there’s some excuse for the occasional schmaltzy disco era excesses of the score, but fans of Schwartz know that he’s not progressed much musically in the past thirty years; he’s still pretty much writing the same 70’s-sounding schlock. The songs he contributed to the musical were among the weakest, with the exception of “It’s An Art,” a liberation anthem for waiters and waitresses everywhere, but that song sparkled in large part due to the extraordinarily talented Camryn Manheim.

The cast was an interesting assortment of character actors you might recognize, but not quite know where from - top billing went to Manheim, Ricki Lake (thin!) and Kathy Najimy (from Sister Act), and the magnificent Orson Bean (Dr. Lester from Being John Malkovich). Stephen Weber (of the 90’s sitcom Wings and the fantastic movie adaptation of Paul Rudnick’s play Jeffrey) was supposed to be appearing, but unless he was hiding behind a trombone, was absent without explanation. It was rumored that Clay Aiken was in the audience.

The performance made for an enjoyable evening, but it’s clear why this musical doesn’t get frequent revivals: the score isn’t particularly strong. While the director’s note explains that the songwriters took pains to preserve the text of Terkel’s interviews as much as possible, the lyrics to some of the songs are still pretty stilted (and let’s face it, Schwartz has never exactly been Sondheim, even when he’s not constrained by an outside text.) The James Taylor songs may be of interest to Taylor fans, but they’re not ever going to be included on a Broadway’s Greatest Hits compilation.

In any event, the cast had a good time with it, and the audience got an opportunity to see a very talented group of performers take on a rarely-heard show from the vaults - and what better is there to do on a Monday night?

Seriously, for the last time: Terry Gross is not a lesbian. Which was news to me, since I had never given enough thought to Terry Gross to wonder if she might be gay. But last night, at the first UCLA Live spoken word event of the season, she assured the audience (at length) she is not.

By my count, it was discussed three separate times in the hour-long interview, and then brought up again in passing by a question from the audience afterward.

Now I never really cared much either way about Terry Gross. According to the press info, Fresh Air is the third most popular show on NPR (after Morning Edition and All Things Considered), but I’ve only heard it a handful of times. She seemed like an odd choice for a spoken word event, but she’s got a new book or something. Since Gross is known primarily as an interviewer - someone who asks questions, not someone who answers them, I guess it could have potentially been interesting to hear her own opinions, rather than those of her guests.

It could have been interesting, that is, if she had presented any unexpected ideas or viewpoints. But instead, we learned that she’s excited about the new Cronenburg film (*snooze*) and she’s not, absolutely not, a lesbian. She has a husband. And they’re happy. And so what if half of her guests are gay. Just drop it, ok?

I mentioned to one of my co-workers that she seemed a little preoccupied with the whole gay thing, but he shushed me and told me he wasn’t a fan of Gross.

“Why not?” I asked.

“A while back she had Angela Lansbury as a guest. The woman’s done more TV and movies and shows than just about anyone.”

“Yeah, so, it wasn’t a very good interview?”

“I don’t know. For the first ten minutes, she wouldn’t talk about anything other than the fact Angela Lansbury had been married to a gay man.”

It’s pouring today in LA. It has been so long since it rained in LA that it was sort of shocking last night to hear the pitter patter of raindrops outside the window. It was such an unexpected and pleasant surprise that I turned off the TV and snuggled under the covers to savor it.

It’s easy to forget that LA is a desert. Whenever I fly into the city, I’m always amazed at the contrast between the surrounding sandy emptiness and the lush green of the city, dotted with tiny little swimming pools. Our tribute to Mr. Mullholland, I guess.

One of my favorite things about the city is what happens to it in the rain (no, not the mudslides). The city is a little bit like a gremlin that way; it should come with an admonition not to get it wet.

In particular, there’s a peculiar thing that happens to drivers in the City of Angels when it rains. Half of them - I assume this is the half who are native angelenos and thus unaccustomed to anything besides sunshine - begin driving like grandmas zonked out on valium attempting to drive in cars flooded with molasses.

The other half - these being the east coast transplants, who have seen rain before - begin driving like psycopaths on angeldust trapped in cars full of angry hornets. Presumably, this behavior is largely in reaction to the grannies, but many of the east coasters maintain much of the same edge even when the sun is shining - they’re just like that.

Well, it’s a city of contrasts. But I still wish they could fix the traffic lights.

Some excitement this morning courtesy the BBC: at the Cleveland Clinic, they’re planning on performing the world’s first face transplant. For me, the article brings back memories of long afternoons in metaphysics classes discussing the personal identity problem, although unlike the motley crew of philosophy majors who were my colleagues back then, the beeb mercifully manages the entire story without likening anything to “that one episode of Star Trek.”

I guess it’s humanitarian and all, but it’s also at least five kinds of creepy to take a face from a dead person and give it to a living one.

According to the article, the lucky patient will have to take anti-rejection drugs for life. Man, it must be rough when your own body wants to reject its face. That’s as opposed to the rest of us, who need only fear our face will be rejected at Fiesta Cantina. Or the coffee shop. Or hell, the grocery store. But maybe that’s just a hazard of living in LA.