It all came to this.
Two weeks of auditions. Six weeks of rehearsals. Days spent on building the set, securing props, publicity, promotion, and phone calls and texts and E-mails to cover every miscellaneous detail you can think of and probably a few more. All for this.
One moment.
Opening night for Rumors. Continue reading
Read any related post on PDP’s News & Events page, and you’ll see a common thread when we talk about our relationship with The Renaissance Guild: privilege. As a PrimaDonna, it has been my privilege to have worked with TRG over the last three years, and as an emerging theatergoer and critic, it has been just as great a privilege to attend and review the company’s productions, from Steel Magnolias in 2007 to their out-of-the-park performance of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom earlier this year. Continue reading
It’s been a long while since the network formerly known as American Movie Classics has been anywhere near worthy of its original name. And its current on-air lineup (series like Breaking Bad excepted) hasn’t quite helped matters. Something like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is not really a classic, it’s not exactly American, and I’m not entirely sure it’s even a movie.
But there are always exceptions, and even AMC can have a lucky shot, as in the last couple of weeks it’s been running one film that may actually deserve the Classic label.
Continue reading
Continuing from where I left off in yesterday’s post…
If 2009 was a good year for science fiction or space opera or sci-fi (not to be confused with SyFy, which in turn is not to be confused with smart rebranding), I’d argue that it was an even better year for animated film, at least in the U.S.
Readers who followed me over from MySpace will know that I tend to advocate for the idea that animation is a medium, not a genre:
It’s very easy on our side of the oceans to equate “animated film” with “kid’s film”, since that’s more or less what we’re given. But look outside that box, and you’ll find filmmakers who know that you can tell just about any kind of story in animation, along with many you just can’t tell in live action. And when you know that, then you can go far beyond the expectations of “kids’ films”.
The idea of animation as a medium for something beyond “the crass, cynical, autopilot films that studios who aren’t Pixar and Studio Ghibli revel in” is something that has never quite caught on here. But this year, something changed. It might be something very small, but it’s still something… Continue reading
The S.A. Film Commission‘s annual Holiday Party, our last big film event of the year, happened on Tuesday night. It was a lot of fun – if you were there, I hope you had a great time, and if you weren’t, I’m sorry you missed it.
With the party over, and all but one of the End of Year Blockbusters in theaters (I’ve not yet seen Avatar and have some doubts about Sherlock Holmes, which is still yet to open, but I’m still counting that one for now – we are talking about Robert Downey, Jr., after all), it’s just about time to call a wrap on 2009. All told, I thought it was a pretty good year for movies – I don’t have enough info to agree or even disagree with Roger Ebert’s now near-infamous tweet that it is/was “one of those magic movie years like 1939 or 1976″, but I did notice a few hopeful trends in the films I did see… Continue reading
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that one of our favorite pastimes at PDP is trading favorite TV shows. In the last year, Nikki has gotten me hooked on Breaking Bad and Lie to Me (go out and rent those shows now), and I’m working on returning the favor by introducing her to The Mentalist.
Now, The Mentalist is one of my favorite shows; anyone who knows me will likely be shocked to read that it’s actually surpassed House on my must-watch list. It’s a lot of fun, and it almost goes without saying that Simon Baker is terrific in it. It’s the kind of performance you don’t usually see on network television, not on this kind of show. Continue reading
Lee Hurtado, Writer 