It's Only a Play

In Terrence McNally's It's Only a Play, the importance of theater is both celebrated and satirized. Surprisingly, 2014 was the first time that this show about Broadway was actually run on Broadway; it ran Off-Off-Broadway in 1982 and Off-Broadway in 1986. McNally has updated the references for the 21st century (including some jokes at the expense of neighbors like Matilda, Rock of Ages, and The Lion King) and this updated version was directed by Jack O'Brien.

It's Only a Play takes place entirely in the bedroom of producer Julia Budder (Katie Finneran) who is throwing a party after the opening night performance of "The Golden Egg". The first character we meet is a star-struck coat-check attendant named Gus who appropriately enough is played by a newcomer to Broadway (Micah Stock). The play-within-the-play was written by Peter Austin (Matthew Broderick), who wanted his friend James Wicker (Martin Short) to have the lead role, and directed by Frank Finger (Maulik Pancholy) who unlike the others, is hoping for his first bad review. "The Golden Egg"'s female lead is Virginia Noyes (Stockard Channing) who has seen better days, and theater critic Ira Drew (F. Murray Abraham) is mostly present to be a target of general critic-hatred. For instance, he embodies the cliche of every critic being a failed playwright.

Like its fellow Broadway satire The Producers, the headlining stars of It's Only a Play when it opened last year were Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, though Lane has been replaced by Martin Short. I didn't see Lane's performance, but I can imagine that Short was able to relate better to the character of a Broadway star turned sitcom actor since he has decades of television experience, and in fact the sitcom Mulaney that Short costarred in had been cancelled before he joined this play's cast. Katie Finneran was also on a short-lived sitcom, The Michael J. Fox Show, and here she plays Budder as such a dim bulb that you wonder how she was ever a successful producer.

Micah Stock plays Gus with a vocal quality that falls somewhere between Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory and Emo Phillips. There's a running gag of Gus bringing in ridiculous coats and identifying their unseen owners, and Stock's delivery often made these lines funnier than they had any right to be. In contrast, Broderick plays the least funny character of the bunch with an oddly nasal tone that wasn't always loud enough. It was disappointing to see a Broadway veteran like him seem less than fully invested in his performance.

Stockard Channing and F. Murray Abraham demonstrated what show business veterans can really be capable of, I was impressed by both. Although I cringed a little at the gags about Virginia Noyes' cocaine habit and ankle bracelet, Channing remained likeable. Pancholy, another sitcom veteran (Weeds, 30 Rock) played the British director very broadly but I think that was the intention since he's a pretty eccentric character.

Overall, It's Only a Play was very funny throughout, and is self-aware about how difficult it is to put on a Broadway show, and the fact that it probably isn't the end of the world if your show gets bad reviews. You can always move on to the next project and retain hope that a naive producer will give you a second chance.

Update: This show has ended it's limited run. Hopefully it will make a return some day.

Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison

Dragon Bound is the first novel in the Elder Races series. In this world, the Elder Races (Wyrkind, Elves, Light Fae, Dark Fae) have been out in the open since Elizabeth I. Each type of Elder Race has a hierarchy and their territory is divided by demesne (i.e. a Wyrkind demesne in New York and an Elven court demesne in South Carolina). The shapeshifter Wyrkind can shapeshift between whatever they are (dragon, lion, etc.) into humans. Our main characters are the half-human, half-Wyr Pia Alessandra Giovanni and the all-Wyr Dragos Cuelebre.

The novel starts out of the gate with conflict: Pia's ex-boyfriend has blackmailed her into using an artifact to break in to a dragon lair and steal anything to validate the ex-boyfriend's boasting that he could get it done. Before she delivers the stolen property, she procures a binding spell that she has the ex-boyfriend cast on himself so he cannot talk about her. Who is the dragon she stole from? The oldest and most powerful dragon, Dragos Cuelebre, who also happens to be the leader of the New York Wyr demesne.

During the action we learn that Pia has kept to herself her whole life and has hidden caches of money and identities hidden around so she can take off at a moment's notice (this made me think of Agents of Shield and other secret agent story lines). So her entanglement with Dragos as they become "bound" takes us on a familiar path where Pia won't have to run anymore and instead enjoy the benefits of being protected by a dragon.

I liked this book and I'm sure the rest of the books are going to be good as well. It wasn't clear, at least to me, until later in the book that Wyr was a shapeshifter and not just a dragon that can take human form. Also, like with A Shift in the Water, the main plot is actually the developing relationship between Dragos and Pia (explaining how Wyr mating works) rather than what I expected which was the conflict rising between the King of the Dark Elves and Dragos. This change of focus has taken me a while to get used to. That being said, I think this book, and I imagine the other 6 books and 7 novellas, are worth a read.

Visit Thea Harrison's website for more information about the author and how to purchase her books.

How Star Wars Conquered the Universe by Chris Taylor

When Disney bought Lucasfilm, fans of Star Wars were divided. Would the home of Mickey Mouse and princess culture really be the right home for George Lucas's epic franchise?

In How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, I believe Chris Taylor makes a good case for the galaxy far, far away being far, far better when taken out of the hands of the Creator (as Taylor refers to George Lucas). Star Wars was certainly birthed by Lucas, but it took a village of collaborators to make it into something that has lasted nearly four decades in the public consciousness.

The first several chapters deal with how the first film in the series was thought up and made. The most well known influence was Flash Gordon, including the idea for the scrolling text at the start. What Taylor makes clear is that the commonly assumed influences of Kurosawa films and Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces has been overstated, seeing as Lucas only became familiar with Campbell's book toward the end of the film's production. There are also distinctions made between the "official Lucasfilm history" and the facts that Taylor uncovered in his research and interviews. It's striking how much Lucas's painful divorce influenced his filmmaking after 1983.

The exploration into Lucas's influences and creative process is alternated with chapters about how fans have taken the franchise as their own. For example the 501st Legion of stormtroopers who made their own costumes, and another group dedicated to building astromech droids (usually R2-D2) from scratch.

The only problem I have with this book is that there wasn't equal time given to The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, which makes it seem as if the author remembered halfway through the manuscript that he had planned to write about the franchise as a whole and not just 1977's A New Hope. It was interesting to read about how Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand were chosen to direct the sequels, and I would have liked more about how the stories were developed. But I can see why the first film was the most important to discuss. This book puts to rest the naive idea that Lucas had six movies mentally planned from the beginning, and is especially telling when describing how rushed the writing of the prequels actually was.

Yes, the three prequels and their mostly negative response are given due diligence. Taylor has no love lost for those misfires but plays devil's advocate with a fan who defends them. The overall problem was that Lucas insisted on writing and directing those films by himself, while most of the aspects of the original trilogy that worked out best were the result of letting others into the decision making.

This was one of the most interestingly comprehensive non-fiction books I have read in a long time. I thought I had a pretty good knowledge of the Star Wars franchise and wouldn't learn anything new, but I found this book had a number of surprises and debunked common rumors about what happened behind the scenes. Anyone who is a fan, or even a former, disillusioned fan, should read this book and perhaps will be become optimistic that the new movies will be just as lovable as the ones we grew up with. I for one, can't wait for mid-December.

Breakers by Edward W. Robertson

A couple of weeks ago I posted a review for a new book, Outlaw, that takes place in the same universe as the author's other trilogy. This is a review of the first book in the Breakers series: Breakers.

Breakers begins by introducing us to two male characters that aren't doing so well: Raymond is out of work and struggling to keep himself and his wife, Mia, afloat in California while Walt is living with Vanessa who is waiting for the right time to leave him in New York. Just like Outlaw, Robertson alternates his chapters between following Raymond and following Walt.

The conflict begins when most everyone on the planet starts to get sick and die from some mysterious illness. Vanessa is one of the first characters to bite the dust. Walt goes into a depression and decides to go to California because Vanessa always wanted to go there. And since society is breaking down with all the death, he starts walking there.

Meanwhile Raymond and Mia hide in the abandoned home of a celebrity (after the conclusion of a subplot) and try to make the most of what they think is the post-apocalyptic world. But it seems it was the calm before the storm as the aliens show up. Apparently they engineered the virus to thin out the humans (those who didn't die are Breakers). The alien purpose isn't clear but they are trying to capture and/or kill the humans.

There are other characters in the novel but Walt, Raymond, and Mia are the only ones worth mentioning, in my opinion. And only one of them survives to the end (although one of them is whisked away by the aliens and the final fate is not actually seen).

I didn't like this book. It took me a long time to force myself through it. Although it wasn't as bad as some of the books I've read. I probably won't read the others but I may read the sequels to Outlaw.

Visit Edward W. Robertson's site for more information about the author and how to purchase his books.

The Interview

I saw The Interview in a movie theater, and I remain unharmed.

A few weeks ago, that seemed like it would be unlikely. At least the theatrical viewing. You probably know about how all of this went down, but let's consider the following a record for posterity:
The so-called Guardians of Peace, after hacking Sony Pictures' employees' emails in an attempt to get The Interview pulled from theaters, had threatened terrorist action referencing 9-11. This caused all the major theater chains to back out of playing it, which in turn caused Sony to pull it altogether. Later, independent theaters who remained determined to show The Interview were once again permitted to do so.

When tickets were made available by the Alamo Drafthouse chain, I bought tickets for my brother and I to see it on the day after Christmas at the Alamo location in Ashburn, VA. Not long after I made that purchase, it was announced that the movie would be available on Google Play, YouTube, Xbox Video, and a website made by Sony itself. Had I known about the online distribution, I could have saved a couple bucks and an hour-long drive. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our experience, and in a small way we stood up for our American right to free speech by watching a film where Seth Rogan and James Franco plot to assassinate the leader of North Korea.

The question that remains is, is this controversial movie even any good? If Sony had known the trouble it would cause them, would they have greenlit it in the first place?

To the first question, yes, I found it to be a very funny and sometimes thoughtful movie, but some of the raunchy humor and violence became gratuitous. Ever since Pineapple Express, Rogan and his writing/directing partner Evan Goldberg have been fascinated with having an ultraviolent climax to their action packed comedies. It's not the blood itself that bothers me, but the clash in tone; are we meant to laugh as a man gets his fingers bitten off, assuming that he's the equivalent of a cartoon character? Come to think of it, he didn't seem to be in much pain in the next scene so maybe that answers that.

These filmmakers are also fond of homoeroticism, sexual mishaps, and anal retention (I am not referring to attention to detail). These moments may bother some, but I thought they were handled in hilarious ways that made me shake my head with a chuckle. There is a funny cameo at the very beginning that will make you wonder "how the hell did they convince him to say that?"

I'm going to lightly spoil the movie, so skip the next paragraph if you plan to see it.

What would most upset the country of North Korea about The Interview is not the simple fact that the plot involves killing Kim Jong-un, but how the movie goes out of its way to make their revered leader look flawed and... human. And the ending depicts something happening that might actually occur in that country if its citizens realized that the Emperor (in one shot, quite literally) has No Clothes. It's not his death that ends up mattering, but the exposing of lies he and his allies have told the population in order to stay in power.

So it may be a dumb Rogan/Franco movie, but it also has something to say. It's not the greatest satire ever made, but if you can stomach the shock value, and/or you believe no art should be censored for political gain, it's worth checking out.

As stated above, you can watch The Interview at several places online, each charges $5.99:
http://www.theinterview-movie.com/
Or, find it in a theater near you. The Alamo Drafthouse played some decades-old Korean propaganda before the flick, as well as exclusive messages recorded for the chain by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, so those were interesting features. Watch out for tigers.

EDIT: Of course now, you can just stream the darn thing on Netflix.