Movie Box Review

FAMILY ALBUM was one of the more buzzed-about FOX pilots of this past development season, and although it's not on the network's announced schedule, Deadline reports that it's in contention for midseason and will even shoot a second prototype episode.  So this isn't so much a postmortem as a look at how the show could improve its way onto the air.  (Let's leave aside the fact that even as-is, it's already far more promising than I Hate My Teenage Daughter--reviewed here--which FOX did pick up for Fall.)


For one thing, the gimmick that gives Famiiy Album its title is awkward and should be deemphasized.  In the pilot, written by the team of Joe Port & Joe Wiseman, the concept has the show's lead couple Marni and Dave (Rachael Harris and Mike O'Malley) explaining a group of online familiy photos to someone; in so doing, they flash back to the story that links the photos.  These interstitial bits are probably meant to be a parallel to the "interviews" that punctuate episodes of Modern Family, but in this case the breaks in action don't add perspective or offer different angles on the storyline.  They just distract from the flow of the episode.

Of course, for any single camera sitcom about a dysfunctional but loving family, Modern Family is the elephant in the room generally, setting a fearsomely high bar for the genre; Family Album doesn't have any particular distinctiveness, unlike a show like Raising Hope, and since it dwells in a millieu very much like Modern's, it's hard to avoid unfortunate comparisons.  Album centers on Marni and Dave and their 3 kids, one adopted (that's Damaris Diaz; the others are Ted Sutherland and Isabella Cramp), and also Marni's wacky brother Steve (Rob Huebel) and his new girlfriend Holly (Joy Osmanski).  Dave is bumbling but goodhearted, not unlike Ty Burrell's Phil on Modern, and his son has some complexes, sort of like Phil's boy.  But where Modern Family broadened its scope to include gay and May-December couples, Family Album just gives us another irresponsible brother-in-law character.  The show badly needs to find some ideas that are less generic.  Also, although it was considered a "get" to have Shawn Levy direct the pilot, since he's a big-time movie director (Night At the Museum, Cheaper By the Dozen, the Steve Martin Pink Panther remake), he opts for broad physical humor in lieu of character, and that doesn't help.

What works in Family Album is the cast, especially the leads.  O'Malley finally had his breakthrough role on Glee, and he brings the same Everyman likability to Dave, while Harris (who's superb in the small indie movie Natural Selection, hopefully coming to theaters soon) has intelligence and snap timing to spare.  It wasn't a mistake to build a show around the two of them, and it's still not too late to make this one come together. 

Family Album is already better than several of the other family comedies heading for the air this season (that's you, Last Man Standing), and its central couple has more charm and chemistry than, say, the leads in Whitney.  If the show can find a voice of its own, it might make its way off the Island of Busted Pilots.

The Sked's Verdict:  Worth Another Look.

Read more about TV's new shows at THE SKED PILOT REPORT.

One of the most heartening developments of the past couple of years has been the spreading popularity in theaters of cultural events presented in HD video.  Operas and ballets have become monthly features in many cities, and stage shows are now joining in:  Britain's National Theatre has been presenting several productions on screen for the past couple of years (most notably Danny Boyle's smash hit production of Frankenstein); last year's Tony-winning musical Memphis was shown several months ago; and last month Brian Bedford's Tony-nominated performance in The Importance of Being Earnest was showcased.  The newest arrival is a taped version of the starry gala concert staging of Stephen Sondheim's Company that was produced at Lincoln Center in April, with the New York Philharmonic serving as house orchestra.  It premiered this week around the country, and will be shown several more times in theaters over the next few days (the show's website, with theater information, is here). 

Few moments in popular culture are as unequivocally epochal as the Broadway opening of Company in 1970; there literally had never been a show like it before, and it changed the face of musical theatre, establishing Sondheim as the reigning genius of the era.  Structured with only a loose overall plot, it tells with revue-style vignettes the story of Bobby (Neil Patrick Harris in this production), a single 35-year old whose friends are all married couples.  Their relationships are mutually codependent; the couples rely on him to smooth over the rough edges of their marriages, and he uses them to ward off his growing loneliness.  The score is one classic song after another, culminating in the great "Being Alive," and George Furth's book is underrated, or perhaps it's just aged well now that it's no longer a topical story of its contemporary moment.

One can't really review the taped Company as a movie, per se; under Lonny Price's direction, it makes little attempt to be cinematic (it certainly doesn't approach the artistry of Spike Lee's filming last year of Passing Strange), and just serves as a record of the concert.  The staging itself suffers from 2 major handicaps:  the makeshift nature of a production with a cast quickly thrown together for a few performances, with just the suggestion of scenery (some couches that can be rolled around the stage) and little choreography; and also, for those lucky enough to have seen it on Broadway, PBS or homevideo, John Doyle's brilliant and fairly recent 2006 production, starring Raul Esparza as Bobby.

Harris, in particular, suffers by comparison with Esparza.  Bobby is a difficult character to play, being passive and reactive for much of the show until his final solo; he can seem sketchy and superficial unless the audience can be made to feel the building desperation beneath his charming surface.  Harris sings well and more than manages the charm, but he can't bring off anything like Esparza's explosive epiphany.  (It's not unlikely that back in 1970, the Warren Beatty of that period was an inspiration for Bobby, and that's not a comparison that works well for Harris.)  The rest of the cast (Stephen Colbert, Martha Plimpton, Craig Bierko, Anika Noni Rose) is workmanlike but not often transcendent, with 2 exceptions:  Christina Hendricks, as April, Bobby's stewardess partner in the song "Barcelona," is just about perfect, hitting every hilarious note of both her dialogue and the song.  And not very shockingly, Patti LuPone knocks it out of the park with her "The Ladies Who Lunch" and the scene that leads up to it.  

Company is a masterpiece, a landmark in theatre history; this production is just a good one, but the chance to see a work like this on the big screen, with full stereo sound and a cast in fine voice, is well worth seeking out.

The Tony Awards aren't quite like any other televised awards show.  They're happily, unapologetically insular (and so are the ratings--thank god for CBS, where "young" audience is a relative term), and there's hardly ever anything like an upset; this year the closest was probably Mark Rylance winning Best Actor In a Play for Jerusalem over Joe Mantello for The Normal Heart, and do you see what I mean by insular?  Here, then, are 10 moments you'd probably only see on the Tonys:

10.  Brooke Shields:  First she was supposed to be a "spontaneous" audience participant in host Neil Patrick Harris' opening number about Broadway not just being for gay people anymore (itself an "Only the Tonys" moment, but a self-conscious one), except that she couldn't read her 3 lines off the teleprompter.  Then, trying to make amends later while presenting an award, all she managed to do was get herself thoroughly bleeped.

9.   Bono and The Edge:  When the two came out to introduce a song from the latest incarnation of Spider-Man The Musical, Bono paid respect to their Broadway infamy by noting that the reason they used to be famous was just because they were in U2.  (The power ballad they introduced didn't do the show's cause any favors.)

8.   Anything Goes:  Even in a cut-down version, the presentation of the Act I finale was a demonstration of what Broadway musicals are all about.  (The production deservedly won Best Musical Revival.)

7.   Best Play  The Tony show producers have never ever figured out how to showcase the nominees for Best Play.  One year they show out-of-context excerpts, the next they have the playwrights make awkward speeches, and this year, they had cast members try to sum up complex works in 60 seconds or less.  (War Horse, more a spectacle than a play, ended up winning, making the happiest Tony watcher in Hollywood Steven Spielberg, whose film version of the novel opens in December.)

6.   In Memorium:  Let the Oscars worry about which giant dead stars should get the opening and closing spots in the montage.  The Tonys led off with Arthur Laurents, book writer of West Side Story and Gypsy, and ended with Joseph Stein, who did the same for Fiddler On the Roof and She Loves Me.  (Elizabeth Taylor was stuck somewhere in the middle.)

5.   Dueling Hosts:  Neil Patrick Harris was again a sparkling, enthusiastic host, and never more so than when he and Hugh Jackman did a number made almost entirely of theatre in-jokes, both of them seemingly having a terrific time.  (OK, maybe Harris was even more so in his triumphant last couple of minutes, where he rapped/rhymed a closing credits bit summarizing the entire show that must have been written just seconds before he delivered it.)

4.   Frances McDormand:  Other award winners will say that they love what they do.  But winning Best Actress In a Play for Good People (in a slightly perplexing denim jacket over her gown), McDormand roared out the words so we'd know she goddamn well meant it.  I forgive her in advance for co-starring in the new Transformers movie.

3.   Chris Rock:  For sheer honesty.  By the time he presented Best Musical, The Book Of Mormon had (deservedly) won so many preliminary awards that Rock said going to the trouble of reading the other nominees made as much sense as taking a hooker out to dinner.  "Either way, you know you're gonna get laid," he explained.  He was right--about Best Musical, I mean.

2.  Mark Rylance:  He followed up his classic non sequitur accceptance speech for Best Actor In a Play in Boeing Boeing a couple of years ago by winning again for Jerusalem, and delivering an address about walking through doors.  He seems to see acceptance speeches as his chance to audition for David Lynch.

1.  Sutton Foster:  Winning Best Actress In a Musical for her thrilling performance in Anything Goes, she had the ultimate "Only the Tonys" moment when she managed to keep her composure while thanking the cast, the director, even the love of her life--and only broke into crazy tears when she got to her dresser, who's moving to Cape Cod to become the greatest artist in the world. 

Congratulations and good luck to Sutton Foster's (ex) dresser, and to all the other people who make up that special subspecies of the business called Broadway.

Not Even For Free

It was a feel-good story last weekend when the expensive shambles called Sucker Punch went down, defeated by the relatively low-budget family comedy DIARY OF A WIMPY KID:  RODRICK RULES.  (Mitch Metcalf's weekend boxoffice roundup is here.)  The story would have been better, though, if Wimpy 2 were any good.

The new film is, of course, a sequel to last year's Diary of a Wimpy Kid, based on Jeff Kinney's series of bestselling children's books.  Wimpy did well enough ($75M worldwide on a $20M pre-marketing budget--although less than $12M of that was outside the US) to compel another entry, and this one confirms that the series is a genuine franchise for Fox as long as they keep the budgets low.

I'm describing the movie as though it's merely a piece of business--but that's because it's the way the picture has been made.  Directed by David Bowers in his live-action debut (he had previously directed the cartoons Astro Boy and Flushed Away), and written by TV veterans Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah, the film feels like a tired sitcom from 1987.  Our hero is Greg (Zachary Gordon), whose parents (the utterly wasted Rachael Harris and Steve Zahn) are clueless to the point of emotional dissociation, whose younger brother (played by twins) is hopelessly spoiled, and whose older brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick) amuses himself with sadistic torments.  The plot, such as it is, has Greg with his first crush (naturally on an angelically blond girl played by Peyton List), while he tries to endure life with his family.  Spoiler Alert, folks, but will you be shocked if I tell you that Rodrick doesn't turn out to be such a bad guy after all, and that the cute blonde girl really likes Greg?  And that along the way, we get an assortment of mild bodily function humor?

The only thing even mildly distinctive about the Wimpy Kid movies is the fact that Greg's diary includes cartoon drawings of the people in his life, and they occasionally come briefly to life.  But there's no attempt to do any more with the animation than the first film did, despite the fact that they hired an animation guy to direct the sequel.  Live action makes up the vast bulk of the movie, and it's shockingly over-lit and ugly to watch, considering that the cinematographer is Jack N Green, who did lovely work for Clint Eastwood on films like Unforgiven and Bridges of Madison County.  The rote editing by Troy Takaki is less surprising, given that his recent credits include The Bounty Hunter and Fool's Gold.

Of course, the target audience for this stuff could care less about the subtleties of cinematography and editing; as long as a comedy provides some poop and vomit jokes, and a story where everyone gets what's coming to them, they'll eat their popcorn and laugh when prompted.  It's just a little sad, in an era of Pixar and Rango, where "family entertainment" can be as smart and textured as any other kind, to see young audiences treated as though they have no taste.  Of course, it prepares them for later years when they'll discover that older audiences are often treated the same way.

(DIARY OF A WIMPY KID:  RODRICK RULES - 20th Century Fox - PG - 99 min. - Director:  David Bowers - Script:  Gabe Sachs & Jeff Judah, based on the novels by Jeff Kinney - Cast:  Zachary Gordon, Devon Bostick, Rachael Harris, Steve Zahn, Peyton List - Wide Release)