Just Got Made

So by now, you must have run into an article or two in the entertainment section of your local newspaper about Russell Brand, who was this year’s VMA Host. Apparently, some people found him to be controversial, which I find surprising/not surprising. I’m not surprised because America is clearly more Puritanical than we’d all like to believe, surprised because he hosted the VMAs. Aren’t the VMAs supposed to be the big finger to the establishment? Then I realize this response proves that finger was received.

First of all, Russell Brand was funnier than all get out. (see, even I can keep it clean sometimes.) The fact that he is generally unknown in the States was the main impetus for his freedom. His stream of consciousness style managed to be both crazy and focused; he was always on topic. Crikey – he made two Jonas Brothers jokes that were hilarious, and then had a third that proved the first two were merely setups for the third joke’s punch! Way to go, Brand. Way to go.

And that brings up another problem many people had with Brand’s jokes. People are up in arms about his jokes about the Jonas Brothers’ “promised virginity.” Huh??? I’m pretty sure that if the Jonas Brothers sent out a press release telling of their promise rings, then they’re comfortable being talked about in general whether in support of their rings or not! This even got a live response during the show itself. Jordan Sparks was presenting an award with John Legend when she vocally supported the Brothers’ promises by agreeing “Not everyone wants to be sluts!” WHAT? Why is that the only other option? Is that what we’re telling the kids nowadays? You can either be a virgin until marriage otherwise you’re a slut? That doesn’t even mention the hypocrisy of Proud Compassionate Christian Jordan Sparks calling people sluts, because that above all is definitely what compassionate people do regardless of religion? This may be exactly the problem! The oldest Jonas Brother is almost 21 years old! I’d have to say that if you’re 20 and having consentual sex with a committed partner then that is nowhere near the definition of a “slut.” The point is this is obviously not working. Take a look around! Maybe more teenagers than ever are becoming pregnant because they haven’t been alerted to any other options than virgin/whore!

But I digress, this space here is not political. It just gets tricky when entertainment arouses political ideas. Speaking of, Brand also took a lot of flack by pleading for America to elect Barack Obama. People are angry that a Brit would even suggest a candidate, which tells me they transparently ignored his statement. To be fair, Brand said “Do the World a favor and elect Barack Obama.” Damn. Do the whole World a favor? That’s not even a slight exaggeration about how the rest of the real world feels. The people who are angry that he said that are simply afraid to have the debate about why the rest of the planet feels that way. (remember? It ties into the whole “Haters are jealous” theory.)

I guess I should say it again, this here space is not organically political. Sometimes, quality entertainment makes us think about what’s going on. And I am grateful for that. At the end of the day, I’m just happy that a VMA host has people thinking! Has that ever even happened before? I’m just saying…



© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.

whatever makes you break

I’d have to honestly say that the 25th Anniversary MTV Video Music Awards were the best that they’ve put on in memory. In the last decade I’ve been disappointed, partially because the last decade is when MTV stopped being a channel about music videos. And the last decade’s VMA ratings have shown a similar downturn. I always thought is was “funny” that MTV was all up in arms about the VMA’s having ever lower ratings when they show fewer music videos every year. Hello! Show more videos and the VMAs will be reputable again! Reputable is questionable I know, but throw me a bone.

SO – A few months ago when I was told that this year (the 25th anniversary) was going to be held on the Paramount lot here in Hollywood, I was astounded. Why would they go from an arena like Staples to a soundstage??? Was it the end of an era? Yikes! I just couldn’t comprehend the choice.

I was wrong. Really, really wrong. MTV used a soundstage as the mainstage and that looked good. Soundstages are very controllable, that’s why they were invented. But they ventured out from there. The Jonas Brothers performed on an “NYC stoop” which pulled apart to a “street performance” on Paramount’s New York City backlot. That reveal was more creative than most performances that have been on the show previously! Pink used the same back lot, but started in an upstairs apartment, and continued downstairs and outside onto the city streets, up to a stage where she killed it! I won’t digress into a gushing review of the show because there is a point: This show was seriously creative. It managed to combine the best of what we love about music videos (admit it, everybody loves good music videos) with the best of awards shows. If you don’t believe me, check it out yourself, MTV has all the performances online and we all know it’ll be re-run over and over for the next three weeks and the weeks leading up to next year's awards. And we know we’ll watch them then, even though we know better.



© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.

SPENT.

I’m completely spent, out of words. I tried to figure out what to write about today, but came up emptyhanded. This is the only thing on my mind right now. As I said, the musical RENT closed on Broadway yesterday. I was here in LA but really went through it with them all, emotionally. I just love storytelling, it’s a way of sharing ideas about life with whomever chooses to listen. This musical came around when I first “officially” started studying storytelling as art and what it means to be an artist. This show is about love, and expression and selling out (and what does that mean exactly?), family and most importantly living every moment fully because absolutely nothing is promised. That’s one of many poignant things about Jonathan Larson dying the night before RENT’s first preview Off-Broadway. He wrote a show about the importance of being present, and then died before he ever saw the first public performance.

It’s hard to remember that before RENT, there wasn’t really a show that combined so many relevant issues to so many people all at once. And it did it in a popular musical style. It had rock music, artists, gay people, AIDS, death, suicide, the homeless, drug addiction, ideas about artistry/selling out yet more than anything manages to be about love and optimism. That sounds like life to me.

So yeah – I’m mourning the end of its era. I understand this is its time, and that makes me more reverential. I lit a candle yesterday, this show deserves it. It changed who I was – forever.

No. Day. But. Today.




© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.

The Round Up : 9.7.08

Here’s this weekend’s box-office estimates!

1. Bangkok Dangerous $7.8 million
2. Tropic Thunder $7.5 million
3. The House Bunny $5.9 million
4. The Dark Knight $5.7 million
5. Traitor $4.6 million

This was not a good weekend for Hollywood, with the cumulative total being down by just about 30% from last weekend, not including the holiday itself. In fact, every single movie in the top 20 was down compared with the previous weekend. The number one movie didn’t even clear eight million and won the weekend from Tropic Thunder (who had been the number one four weeks in a row!) only by $.3 million! WTF? I know Nic Cage has had some difficult times lately, but dag. This is bad even for a one of his movies. Many people I know say that the weekend after Labor Day is traditionally the beginning of a slow period for the box office, and any big budget movie that was released that weekend was dumped there.

Can’t wait to see what coming up next weekend. We at The Round Up expect The Women to be the top movie, but we'll have to wait and see. Though it's nice to see a movie based on a good play out there. It sticks to the original conceit, there's not one Y chromosome on that screen at all during the movie.

Speaking of upcoming movies, Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla got a great review in Variety, having just screened at the Toronto Film Festival. Reviewer Joe Leydon says that Ritchie is back in top form, and calls the movie “a cleverly constructed, sensationally stylish and often darkly hilarious seriocomic caper.” Well done, Guy. I can’t wait till it comes Stateside. I know a lot of people will say that the “British Caper Movie” is the only genre he can do, as a way of knocking his talent. Let me tell you, haters are just jealous. Anyone who makes movies is lucky to do so, and as long as Ritchie keeps making movies of that genre, I’ll keep going to see them. I believe, and I’m sure Guy will agree that it sure as hell beats working at the Dairy Queen.

And that’s the weekend? Ouch.



© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.

No Day But Today.

I’m not going to pretend to be coy about this. RENT is easily and by far my favorite musical, and it closes on Broadway this weekend. It will be the seventh longest show in Broadway History, ultimately having played 5,124 performances and 16 previews. I’m finding it difficult to put into words what it was like living in New York City back in 1996 and experiencing this phenomenon take place. There was an electricity about it, you could feel that this was history in the making.

For those who have forgotten, here’s a recap. Back in January of 1996, Jonathan Larson’s musical RENT was opening Off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop. After the dress rehearsal, book/music/lyrics writer Larson did an interview for the NY Times, went home, put on a pot of tea, collapsed and died of an aortic aneurism. His untimely death immediately gave the show an immense amount of publicity and many believe that event gave the production its transfer to Broadway. I have to agree that the show’s transfer to Broadway the next month was because of the publicity Mr. Larson’s death received, but I firmly believe this show would have gotten to Broadway anyway. It did win the Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical, Best Score of a Musical and Best Musical. Jonathan Larson also won the Pulitzer Prize for literature that year, and the show is still one of a handful of musicals to do so.

It was strange and interesting time to live in New York, it had been so long since one show got everyone talking. The entire city was talking about it, all the time. The actors were everywhere, on posters, magazines, making appearances, you couldn’t get away from the show.
Adam Pascal and Daphne Rubin-Vega were on the cover of Newsweek! There was even a Rent boutique inside Bloomingdales featuring clothes inspired by the show, which is unheard of. Not only were so many people just loving the show and talking about it everywhere, it was impossible to get tickets to. The producers brilliantly came up with an idea, they would put the first two rows of the orchestra on sale two hours before the show for $20! Students could finally see a show and be able to afford it. Back then before they put a lottery system in place, people would line up the night before for these tickets, and sit in line overnight to get in. It sounds a little crazy, but it was an incredible bonding experience. You’d be camping on a street in Manhattan and get to know the other 20-30 people in line with you. You’d be exhausted by the time you’d get your ticket in hand but you’d all would be friends. And then two hours later, with no sleep and adrenaline pumping you’d see, no… experience this incredible show about love and living in the present from the front of the theater with the actors onstage often breaking the fourth wall and singing to you directly.

It was amazing.

I am much more torn up about this show closing than I ever expected, that’s how effective it is. It’s spent twelve wonderful years on Broadway, so it hasn’t been cut short in any way. It’s simply the end of an era. If you’re a fan of the show, then tomorrow let yourself be a little sentimental and light a candle for the show.



© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.

The Man With the Voice

“In a world where diamonds mean more than money…”

“In a world where Pirates still rule the sea and pillage our beauties…”

“In a world where he is the last man of his world…”

We have heard one voice in the trailers for so many movies. So many trailers that we have moved past the annoyance of the overuse of this phrase, and now let it bring us into the story quicker. In a movie trailer, there’s not much time to get a lot of info across, and the “In a world where…” line sets the scene in an extremely efficient way.

You may not know his name, and definitely don’t know his face, but all of those trailers were performed by a man named Don LaFontaine. Yesterday, Mr. LaFontaine passed away here in LA. He really was in every trailer, that’s the most efficient to account it. When I first joined the unions, I was told on no uncertain terms that I could forget about doing voiceovers for movie trailers, there was already a guy who did them. I knew that they all sounded so similar, but was astonished to find out that a very large percentage was performed by one man. Even the ones he didn’t perform tried to sound like him! Best of all, he fell into this accidentally. Mr. LaFontaine was a recording engineer producing radio spots in NYC when an narrator didn’t show up to record one day (in 1965) and LaFontaine performed the copy himself for the MGM picture “Gunfighters of Casa Grande.” The executives at MGM loved his performance, and the rest as we say, is history.

This man went on to record more that 5,000 voiceovers in his career and became the head of the trailer department at Paramount! After many years at Paramount, LaFontaine struck out on his own and started his own production company. This change allowed him to work for everyone and established him as The King Of Voiceovers. He was so successful that he even played himself in a series of Geico commercials (rare for him to appear onscreen!). Remember? “In a world where both of our cars were totally underwater…” That was him!!! He also was the voice for the Academy Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Mr. LaFontaine is thought to have signed more SAG contracts than any other actor.

Don LaFontaine will be missed.

In a world where they’ve lost the man who told what was going on, who the hell will set the scene now…?



© MD TOTAL all rights reserved.

American Boy

August in LA was especially interesting this year. Many Angelenos who would normally go on a trip for their vacation, opted instead for a staycation because gas and airfares are so expensive right now. Most of Western Europe has the entire month off, so August is when they all travel. Many head to the places you expect – Ibiza and Northern Crete (If you’re a Brit), Corsica and Sardinia (if you know what’s what), Mykonos and Positano (if you’re a little ahead of the curve), St. Tropez (if you’re rich) and Nice (if you’re not). But with the current exchange rate, more and more Europeans are Coming to America for their holiday. And LA was full of Europeans this past month, in the best way. Not only are many of these people super polite, but I got to speak French on a daily basis. Speaking French is not something that I get to do everyday, but in August it’s multiple times a day. You can visibly see the relief on their face once they realize that they’ll be able to rest their brain and speak in their home language. What’s nice about it all is that it’s usually a good starter to an interesting conversation that we then conduct in Franglais. Giving directions is a big one. Suggesting places to go and what to avoid, but I also found myself telling people how to get to The Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas! Even San Francisco! For that one I actually told a person in French how to get there from where we were standing while his girlfriend wrote it down on a napkin. I suggested purchasing a map but they declined, saying that if they got lost they’d buy one then! I’ve never lived like that, especially since MapQuest came around and definitely not now with Google Maps. It felt liberating just imagining it. It’s great to talk with people from other places, and hear what they have to say. I did not get out of the country this summer to experience other cultures so I’ll have to take it where I can.

What blew me away is how much shopping they are doing. The exchange rate is so good for them that they literally come to LA with empty suitcases that they plan to fill entirely with the clothes that they’ve bought! When I tell them about the outlet shopping that’s within 100 miles, you can feel their excitement rising. Plus, they’re not even staying at some cheap motel, they’re at the Beverly Hills Hotel or the W and renting a Mercedes! What’s going on? I knew that the dollar has been tanking, but I simply had no idea it was like this. Oh well, I guess that’s why today is called Labor Day, huh? (not really) Time to shake the summer sand from myself and get back to making money! Hmmm… I wonder if there’s a way to start making money in pounds…




© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.