EXTRA CRITICUM

A Lesson from Glee

     

In a recent episode of Glee, Rachel (Lea Michele) is saying goodbye to the mother (Idina Menzel) who put her up for adoption. Rachel wants to sing with her mother before they part, so she hands Menzel the sheet music to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”. Then, from out of nowhere, the music director for the glee club appears. When Rachel hands him sheet music as he sits down to accompany them, she says something along the lines of, “That’s Brad. He’s around a lot.”

It’s a very good joke, a wink at the audience. Every fan of Glee knows that the conceit that allows the characters to sing to each other (they are all members of a glee club) is very thin. The professionalism of the singers and the size of the production numbers performed fall WELL outside anything possible in high school. But nobody really cares. I know I don’t.

Tongue and Groove Lyric Construction

So there's this lyric in this Lady Gaga song. (I know, I know! Time for an intervention!) And it uses a pair of words as a sort of pivot. They function as both the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next. And I'm wondering, is this a new technique? I want to call it "tongue and groove" lyric writing, cause like the tongue and groove technique of marrying two pieces of wood in cabinetry, the result is sort of seamless. And very strong.

Here's the lyric. From"Disco Heaven"

Sound Designers I Have Loved, v. 1: Alex Frowein

Lately I've been thinking a lot about sound. Not sure why. Maybe it's because I've been traveling a bit, finding myself in different cities with contrasting soundscapes. Have you ever noticed how if you just stand on a given street corner of any one of our major cities, there's a discernible character to the soundscape?

In any event, all this thinking about sound got me thinking about sound designers. In the 25+ years I've been making stuff (be it live theatre or canned film), virtually every project has been enhanced by a genius of audio. So I thought I'd do a series of short posts. In each I will profile a different sound designer or sound editor who I feel privileged to have worked with. First up: Alex Frowein.

Trying to Unhook Myself

At the end of last week, I called Time Warner Cable to cancel my digital cable service.

Ever since I spent a month in the California desert last summer, when I had no TV access at all and watched just a handful of shows on my laptop, I haven't been watching much television. In cold months of deep depression, I might troll Turner Classic Movies or Classic Movies On Demand for some Cary Grant movie to transport me out of my apartment and into some exciting, exotic place anywhere but here. But now that the weather is nice, Guiding Light was cancelled, LOST was a big disappointment, and VH1 plays music videos too early in the morning for me to catch, I don't really see the point of flipping through the channels to find something remotely interesting to distract me from my own life, or to just have noise on.

A Work In Progress

Last night I found myself at the BMCC campus in Tribeca to see a workshop production of a new play called The Apology by Dolores Rice. A friend of mine had been cast in the staged reading, and since my recent freelance life has required me to take advantage of as much free entertainment as possible, I happily reserved tickets.

It helped that I knew Andrew McCarthy was also going to be in it.

Let the Right One In – Let Me In

I recently watched Let the Right One In, a mighty fine coming of age film about two twelve-year old misfits finding each other and falling in love in suburban Stockholm. One of those twelve-year olds just happens to be a vampire and abides by the vampire conventions: he drinks blood, he has superhuman powers, he can’t endure sunlight, he has a creepy Renfield-like minion. And though the stars of this film are pre-teens, this is definitely a film for adults, and though it’s a genre film, it’s not about showing off how clever it can be within the confines of its genre. It is about human relationships. That may seem like an odd assertion when one of the characters is Undead, but if you watch this film I ask that you to consider the dynamics between: Eli, the young, castrated vampire and his new best friend, the milquetoast outcast Oskar; Eli and his servant, Hakan; Oskar and his alcoholic father. 

Brevity Fest II was a blast

Last night we held Brevity Fest II at El Cid. It was a great night of fun, camaraderie, strong drinks and some very strong writing. We got off to a bit of a late start due to some technical issues with the sound but once Irene Soderberg took to the stage to sing her first number, the night flew by.

Let the Cameras Roll

About an hour into Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven , there is a scene that takes place in a hotel room in Turkey. A mother, played by the great German actress Hannah Schygulla, has come to find information about her daughter, who recently died.

The scene is very unobtrusively shot. There is only one camera, placed overhead in the far corner of the room. We see the whole room, and through the windows we can see the busy street outside.

Lucky in Love: Brevity Fest stage to be graced by Irene Soderberg ... this Thursday

Irene Soderberg, chanteuse extraordinaire, will be sharing her gifts with us all on Feb. 4th at the first ever Extra Criticum Brevity Fest. We couldn't be more thrilled! Stay tuned for more tidbits on the evening, to be held at El Cid in Silverlake.

Irene is doing her life’s work; singing acting, helping many communities. Irene has  just released her 5th CD.  Irene Soderberg has been based out of Los Angeles for the past 15 years, singing in hundreds of clubs across the country, from NY to Chicago, Provincetown to Key West, Palm Springs to San Francisco, Phoenix to Denver.Irene’s opened for and worked with artists like Willie Nelson, Chaka Chan, Pat Benetar,

Sex and a Country of Ageists

It should come, sadly, to no one's surprise, that the reviews of Sex and the City 2 have been unusually fixated on the age and looks of Carrie and company. One review lambasted Sarah Jessica Parker saying something like 'no one can pretend that she's attractive anymore" which I thought was bizarrely cruel.

But what of the double standard that allows harsh criticism of four women when a new movie, The Grownups, features men that are definitely in the age range of the Sex and the City gals but happily unattractive? Why are bad puns in SATC2 being razzed but the fart and poop and piss jokes in The Grownups seen as just gosh darn funny?

The double standard that exists of how women are supposed to be a creature of beauty while a man is 'allowed' to go to pot is a well worn trope that I needn't go into here (even gay men seem to be ditching the gym in lieu of a second or third dessert - the thought is that if we've created a subculture where it's OK and even encouraged to be overweight, the health

Lucky in Love: Brevity Fest stage to be graced by JD DiSalvatore... again!

This just in, kids! JD DiSalvatore has just signed on to MC the Brevity Fest II, to be held at El Cid in Silverlake this Thursday evening at 7:30pm. More info on Brevity Fest can be found at the top of this blog. Rumor has it, JD will be joined on the stage by a co-MC, another Los Angeles notable, although... details are still evolving.

Here's more info on the ever-fabulous, JD: