One of the most annoying arguments I hear people use to discount musical theatre or musical films is that, “People just don’t break into song and dance in real life. It’s not realistic.” Well here’s a great big raspberry in your face if you think that. Check out these folks on the London Tube.
Carol Channing Reincarnated Early
My dear friend Hilary sent me this post from the Go Fug Yourself blog comparing Janine Turner, previously of Northern Exposure looking uncannily like my role model Carol Channing. First, check out the pic.
Jessica of GFY ponders whether Ms. Turner is playing Channing in a biopic, a theory I cannot substantiate, thank goodness. It may, in fact, be time for the Channing biopic and Turner is about the right age (45), since Carol originally played Hello, Dolly! at about the same age. But I’m not too sure about the casting if it turns out to be true. More likely, Turner is suffering a mid-life crisis and decided she “needed a little softness around her face” (ala The Merm) in light of her recent birthday on December 6.
Besides, don’t we need a Bea Lillie biopic (starring Kathy Najimy or Molly Shannon) first?
But if you really want to compare that hairdo with the real thing … well, you can do that yourself. It’s more fun to compare it with my Channing ventriloquist doll!
Part of Your World
I’m speechless.
Update 30 minutes later:
Good God, there’s more.
My new favorite punchline
Let me catch you up. Amazing little off-Broadway musical (about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical), [Title of Show] (featuring Susan Blackwell of Susan Blackwell fame) ran at the Vineyard Theatre July to September of 2006. Limited run. Awesome cast album. But too bad, so sad, all good things must come to an end.
Or do they? The cast have kept the little show alive via their blog and obsessive fans like moi read it … well, obsessively. But about three months ago, the cast started posting short You Tube videos that they collectively call The [Title of Show] Show. The show chronicles the cast’s efforts to transfer the musical to Broadway (or play an out of town gig) and is a serial masterpiece in it’s own right.
But they’ve really outdone themselves with episode 6. If you know and/or care nothing about the show or fancy-schmancy musical theatre stars, then at least skip to the post-end-credit coda at timecode 9:30 to see the most awesome cameo punchline ever.
Even my mom would get and appreciate the joke, I think. Michael’s mom, no. But my mom, yes.
Cloud Nine
Michael told me about this the other day, but it never really sank in until I read on Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals that Javier Bardem has been cast as Guido Contini in the film version of Nine. (For non-theatre people, Nine is a musical based on a film by some unknown director named Fellini. But it’s a half-number better.)
In his blog post, Chris rightly points out that it’s hardly an issue if Javier can’t sing beautifully — dude’s hot. Who cares? (Wait, did you say there were some women in the movie too?)
But my real question is this: Why do Spanish-speaking actors keep getting cast in this Italian role? Raul Julia, Antonio Banderas, Javier Bardem. WTF? Not saying they can’t do it, of course. I just have this feeling that it seems “close enough” for America. (Zhang Ziyi in Memoirs of a Geisha, anyone?) Eh, could be worse. Could be Mickey Rooney as a Chinese landlord.