In honor of her not unexpected casting in “The Hobbit” as Galadriel — along with a number of less well known performers — below is a moment of Cate Blanchett.
Since I’ve been in a Bobish mood today, I’m featuring her BAFTA-winning, Oscar-nominated turn as a sort of Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes’ collage-like “I’m Not There.” Below, she performs my favorite Bob Dylan tune as Bruce Greenwood realizes that something is happening here, but he doesn’t know what it is.
Sam Rockwell might just be one of the most consistent actors of his generation, delivering solid work for the better part of the last decade with little recognition to show for it. But while his performance in “The Winning Season” can hardly be considered a career best, the film is a lot better because of his involvement. After all, most underdog sports movies rarely aspire to more than just crowd-pleaser status, and though the story is as predictable as they come – a washed out basketball prospect (Rockwell) is given a second chance at life when he’s offered the coaching job for a girls’ high school team – it does its best to avoid the typical genre clichés and offer something beyond those schmaltzy, inspirational moments.
That’s not to say that the film is entirely successful, but director James C. Strouse keeps those moments to a bare minimum, focusing less on the basketball team and more on the man in charge. It’s a lot like “Hoosiers” in spirit, but hardly a classic in the making. Still, Rockwell is always a joy to watch, and he’s surrounded by a great supporting cast (including Emma Roberts, Rob Corddry, and the ever-reliable Margo Martindale), so unless you’re just sick of the genre as a whole, there’s no reason you won’t enjoy “The Winning Season” for the piece of feel-good entertainment that it is.
It’s no secret around these parts that I love a good musical. Emphasis on both the “good” and the “musical” part. If you let me, I’ll give you an hour long dissertation on why John Cameron Mitchell’s “Hedvig and the Angry Inch” is way better than “The Sound of Music” which is, however, way better than Pauline Kael said it was and why Rogers & Hart songs are much better than Rogers & Hammerstein songs but that I still like “The King and I” and, yes, “Flower Drum Song.” Then, we’ll move on to MGM and the Freed Unit.
In fact, coincidentally, my last post here last night was also about musicals. I’m also actually angry at the place where I got the picture from above (it’s linked) because it’s from a “10 Musicals That Don’t Suck Piece” which fails to include any movies older than “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and therefore implies that all musicals made prior to 1974 suck, especially “West Side Story.” So “The Bandwagon” and “Singin’ in the Rain” suck also, I guess. That really sucks.
So, if there was one thing possible to distract me from the current almost-everyone-is-somewhat-or-very-or-incredibly-wrong clusterfrack in our nation’s politics at the moment (and I’m incredibly glad I’m not a political blogger these days), it has arrived. The Hollywood Reporter (via Monika Bartyzel) reports that the “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” duo, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, are in negotiations to direct a project I’d either never heard of before or forgot all about, “Bob: The Musical.” The music will be the very talented composer Marc Shaiman, whose fingerprints are on countless film scores and everything from “Hairspray” to “South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.”
If you’re wondering what the big deal is and you’re not one of my three known regular readers (for some mysterious reason, all of their initials are “R.R.” — okay, two of them are brothers, so there’s that), look up at those tiny red letters near the title of this post and that’s all you’ll need to know. All I’m saying is, assuming this ever gets made, it’d better be good. Yes, I know “Bob” is a common name, but since I already have to live with “What About Bob?,” this better be at least as good as that decent comedy was. Good or bad, I’m going to have to deal with jokes about it until I die.
And now a great moment from my favorite previously made Bob-themed musical film.
Okay, not everyone — just Robert Downey, Jr. and George Clooney. Maybe. You know how these things work.
Downey, whose been nursing a sideline as a singer for years (he plays piano and writes songs, too) is maybe not such a surprise. If you’ve never seen him sing, here he is with his 80s sensibility fully intact from the end credits of “The Singing Detective.”
Clooney’s only actual onscreen singing I could find was from “Return of the Killer Tomatoes” and barely qualified as singing. (He is supposed to have sung a little bit in “Burn After Reading” but I don’t remember that.) The subject matter is political (Enron), so there’s that. Also, there’s no indication that Clooney has any thought of appearing or whether he’ll just produce and/or direct. On the other hand, we know he can mime nicely.
One thought. Fellow miming Smoky Mountain Boy John Turturro also took a shot at directing a movie musical with “Romance and Cigarettes.” Tim Blake Nelson, the third member of the trio, is also a film director. Guess it’s only a matter of time.
The prolific, brilliant, and almost deliberately wildly uneven Steven Soderbergh takes on the troubled and amazingly engaging monologist and actor who passed away six years ago, an apparent suicide.
After the flip, I’ve got a bonus video of Spaulding Grey from Jonathan Demme’s 1987 film of his best known work, “Swimming to Cambodia.”
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