Dance Revolution: THE PROM

If nothing else, The Prom is a testament to the irresistible power of a great schmaltzy Broadway finale. For even though the movie loses its way for most of the second act, when the cast finally gathers as a group to belt out their big cathartic final number, the confetti flying and everyone getting their happy ending and a few bars to contribute to the whole, I teared up, tapped my toes, and felt pretty good about the whole thing. Based on Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin’s chipper stage musical of recent vintage, the movie has been directed by Ryan Murphy, whose usual gonzo go-for-broke faux-camp artificial wildness (the reason his TV work’s promising potential is usually sooner (Glee) or later (American Horror Story) driven off a cliff) is tamped down by the fact he’s not the writer. That’s why his work on The People vs. O.J. Simpson and Pose is his finest to date; he’s a talented technician when he has someone around to keep the narrative consistent. He loves bold colors and broad performances, a camera that glides on greased tracks to push in, fly back, or spin around characters, poking at touchy subjects with a heavy handed light touch in a style that stops well short of the apoplectic opulence of a Baz Luhrmann, but cuts quick and flashy enough all the same. Here the material is his sunniest, most cheerful, most actually optimistic instead of the not-so-hidden cynicism undergirding his previous trips back to high school. It has big “It Gets Better” energy. Perhaps it is because the satire is so mild, and largely contained in the outsized presence of a quartet of Broadway has-beens and never-weres at the center. Here’s Meryl Streep and James Corden and Andrew Rannells and Nicole Kidman — an odd combination — swanning into small-town Indiana hoping to soak up some free rehabilitating social media buzz by coming to the loud defense of a lesbian student (Jo Ellen Pellman) who won’t be allowed to go to prom with her date. The sneering down-the-nose condescension of the stars is good for a laugh, as they steal focus while declaiming that this scene isn’t about them, and the movie sometimes forgets it isn’t, too.

The plot deftly balances their pomposity with chipper prom prep and the small-town dilemmas of being gay in a conservative area, albeit with some recognition that the town wouldn’t homogeneously be opposed (Keegan-Michael Key is a warm-hearted theater-loving principal in contrast to the clenched PTA president, Kerry Washington). The first hour flies along with buoyant good spirts and toe-tapping numbers—a dancy promposal roundelay past lockers and bleachers; a clandestine closeted love ballad; a giddy getting-ready song in an unrealistically bustling mall; a wide-eyed tribute to the transportive and transformative ability of a great Broadway show. And it all reaches a great, sympathetic Act I climax that’s one of those beautiful win-but-lose send-em-to-intermission buzzing numbers. Unfortunately, most of the good songs are in that first hour, and the rest is a drag of tedious character beats that forces one to realize the characters are thin stock types, and the balance of Broadway divas to small-town teens goes a little awry. What are we to make of mean popular kids changing their homophobic ways just because an actor sings jokes about the Bible at them in a food court? It’s a cute number, but elides complications, and builds up the movie’s gleaming theatrical falseness. Still, we’re on our way to a great finale, and the cast is so high-energy, hoofing it well and selling corny theater punchlines. And the heart of the matter remains such a lovely open-faced introductory star turn from a young actress playing a likable girl whose struggles with being out and ignored in her cramped Indiana town resonates through the second act doldrums. I left humming the good songs and remembering the good times. Like a troupe of theater kids, it means well and has a good time, even if it's annoying sometimes.

Sing Sing: GLEE: THE 3D CONCERT MOVIE

I don’t write about TV shows here, but if I were to start doing so Glee would not be my first choice. I’d rather write about Breaking Bad, or Mad Men, or Louie, or Parks & Recreation, or Community, or The Good Wife, or, or, or. But, that’s neither here nor there. None of those great shows have a recently released 3D concert movie to their name. Which is just as well since Glee, a show about a bunch of misfit choir kids in an Ohio high school, has a concept ripe for cinema. The widescreen and big sound could have potentially given the show the fullest expression of its inconsistent and deeply flawed musical soul.

The show itself started promisingly enough, but by the maddening second season it became clear that showrunners Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, and Brad Falchuk were not making the show I was ready to like. (To be fair, Falchuk, more than any of the other creators, seems to be interested in emotional coherence and narrative momentum). I want Glee to be a heartfelt high school musical with characters using their songs to express deeply held feelings, for production numbers to bubble up just because regular old talking just can’t handle the emotions on screen. Actually, the show is sometimes just that, and that’s when it’s good. Ironically enough, the best episode the series has yet produced, season one’s “Dream On,” was that. It was directed by Joss Whedon, a TV auteur in his own right, creating what is perhaps the clearest and strangest example of an outsider coming in and showing a better understanding of what a show should and could be.

Most of the time, the show is miscalculated comedy and thinly written characters that change their circumstances and emotions whenever and however it best suits the whim of the week. It’s exhausting and dull with terrible teasing flashes of brilliance. It’s often one of the best shows and one of the worst shows on the air right now, usually in the same episode, sometimes at the same time. It has attracted legions of vocal and committed fans though, and Glee: The 3D Concert Movie is sure to make them happy. For a hopeful but discouraged Glee skeptic like me, it’s hard to get too excited about it.

The film is technically proficient, loud, glittery, high-energy, and short. It features the cast singing and dancing (though the editing doesn’t do the choreography any favors) and every-so-often talking backstage in character. Once in a great while, the proceedings pause to showcase real-life stories from fans who have found inspiration in Glee, even though said inspiration is mostly tangential and incidental. There’s lots of screaming and swooning going on – this is a very youthful audience – but, as if to prove that this is no Hannah Montana concert movie, we get strategic cutaways to middle-aged fans flipping equally out over seeing their favorite characters singing memorable songs from past episodes.

What makes the show itself so good in patches, the very good, even great, acting from Chris Colfer and Mike O’Malley and the terrific charisma from the likes of Darren Criss and Lea Michele, is missing here by the movie’s very nature. It’s just a string of performances and a bunch of self-congratulatory multi-media aggrandizement. I don’t doubt that people going to see Glee: The 3D Concert Movie will get exactly what they want to see. The movie is exactly what it set out to be, for better or worse. But couldn’t director Kevin Tancharoen, last seen trying to remake Fame, have tried to do something more with this opportunity? Maybe the constraints of being disposable between-season product, fuel for the money machine that is Glee, prevented him from doing so.

Julia's World: EAT PRAY LOVE

Under the direction of Ryan Murphy, most recently notable for creating the TV show Glee, the popular Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat Pray Love has become a star turn for Julia Roberts who holds the screen with movie star style as she poses in exotic locations. This is a pretty travelogue with gorgeous scenery and well-dressed costars. What other leading lady in recent memory gets to be romanced by James Franco and Javier Bardem in the same picture? What other leading lady gets to indulge in lovingly prepared meals, walk through lush jungles and beautiful ruins, and look consistently endearing? This is a movie of wish fulfillment, allowing an audience to trek to Italy, India, and Indonesia with a beautiful travelling companion who lets us meet beautiful people.

It’s also a movie dripping in syrupy schmaltz, a gooey, sloppy mess that results in a movie that practically slides off the screen. This isn’t a chick flick; its a woman’s picture, but one portentous in the deep meaning it thinks it’s passing down to us. Roberts plays Elizabeth Gilbert, a writer who leaves her husband (Billy Crudup), has a fling with a struggling actor (Franco), and is all around unsettled. She tells her close friend (Viola Davis) that she feels disconnected from life, unsure of whom she really is. What she decides she needs is some time to get in touch with her appetites, her spirituality, and herself. Thus the eating, praying and loving that happens on her yearlong trek across three exotic locales.

Through her travels, Julia Roberts remains remarkably well put-together. She devours tempting plates of pasta that are sumptuously photographed. After many of those meals she mentions her need for wider pants, but when we get the shot of her struggling to button her jeans, she still looked skinny to me. She also stays remarkably clean, even when she tumbles off of a bike into a muddy ditch.

Figure and cleanliness aside, Roberts brings some small nuance to a role that, as scripted, has very little nuance inherent. She stands before breathtaking vistas, bikes through dripping, green rainforests, and meditates at an ashram in the heart of bustling India. She’s a great surrogate traveler for the audience, experiencing great beauty at every turn.

At each location, she meets people who help her along on her journey of self-discovery. The most intriguing is the sixtyish man from Texas whom she meets in India and is played by the always welcome, always excellent, Richard Jenkins. He has a moving background and a warm screen presence. Later, in Indonesia, Javier Bardem enters the picture and nearly steals the whole thing away with his effortless charm.

Yet, for all its amazing sights and charming cast, the film is frustrating in its lack of introspection. This is a story about a woman’s self-discovery, a woman coming to terms with whom she is, mentally and spiritually, finding a perfect balance and a sense of completeness. And yet, this is a film that gives us almost no sense of her interior thoughts. Sure, we get a few passages of on-the-nose narration, but we are otherwise left stranded with only occasional quivering lips, moody flashbacks, pensive eyes, and, maybe, a single tear rolling down Robert’s cheek. It’s a film that goes out of its way to convince an audience that this woman has learned Big Lessons on her journey, lessons that will change her life, change her outlook, for the better. And yet, as the credits rolled, I remained unconvinced.

Still, I found Eat Pray Love to be an agreeable experience. I liked the scenery and I liked the actors that I had to share it with. As the movie started, I found myself resisting it. I found it too maudlin, too episodic, and too full of polished imagery covering up its hollowness, it’s hodgepodge spirituality, it’s reductive view of foreign culture and it’s navel-gazing dullness. But the film outlasted my will to resist. While my early complaints still stand, by the film’s end I found myself lulled into a sense of small pleasure. It’s a shiny, big-budget, continent-spanning film with fine actors and a nice look, pleasant and undemanding. Robert Richardson’s sun-soaked cinematography is consistently lovely and the cast is enjoyable company. The film is far worse than it thinks it is, but much better than I was expecting, hardly necessary, but certainly watchable.