The Awl

Sneak Peek: NBC's "Smash" Self-Leaks Its First Episode on Airplanes

Choire Sicha — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:20:46 +0000

You know what America is craving right now, post-recession and during a harrowing election? That's right: a very self-important drama about New York City gays, Fosse impersonators and their ladies who all love Broadway musicals and like to be mildly catty! That's why NBC is going big guns on its mid-season spectacular, "Smash," which premieres a week from today. It's supposed to redeem their fall season. Ahem. Not even kidding, about the plot: "Former 'American Idol' contestant Katharine McPhee stars as struggling actress Karen Carpenter, competing for the leading role in a new musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe."

Talk about doing it wrong. If only they'd named her Marilyn Monroe, and the musical was based on Karen Carpenter.

Good news: while reviews of the show have been embargoed, even though they've circulated DVDs to the New York City elite media, which is, not incidentally, made up of gays and single women who like being catty, any recent boarder of an American Airlines flight has gotten to see the first episode! I caught it Friday night, and boy is it... well it's... "expensive" seems accurate. (If you're not flying, you can even watch it on Netflix.)

Maybe it'll be great? Debra Messing (who actually is given a husband and a family in the show—talk about ways to alienate your single lady demo) and her best gay (presumably; gayness telegraphed by his "chatty hands") are back in the game with a brassy producer (the getting-divorced character played by an extremely taut Anjelica Huston) with a Big Musical! But they must Make Sacrifices to play the Broadway Game as they begin to cast their Marilyn, working with an Evil Scheming Fosse-alike. What Marilyn will win? Will it be the sassy unfamous one with the bosoms? Or will it be the newcomer with the heart of gold, who wears a dress literally adorned with cherries to her call-back?

Tune in for the second episode to find out which over-produced musical song rendition will win! Or don't bother. Because it's not actually campy: "The show slogs through one grave, brow-knitting plotline after another," is how one brave soul put it.

To be fair, I could go for this show, but the way they treat the music is so dreadful. The songs are Broadway-good (not really a compliment in my book but here we are) but they don't let anyone sing; everything is so relentlessly over-studio'd and done up Real Big, what's the point? The current TV audience is used to "American Idol"; we're not afraid to hear people actually sing, but we're being really quite protected here. The music here is more like being trapped in an elevator with Celine Dion's backing tracks blaring at you. That takes away half the fun, and then what are you left with?

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Did White Guys Stop Singing?

Alex Balk — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:40:18 +0000

Andrew Sullivan points to this important query: Why are white men singing so much less in popular music these days? I don't know! Also, while I have you here, let me just mention that I, while late to the party, have been listening to Julia Holter's Tragedy pretty much nonstop over the last couple of weeks. It is an amazing record, although it is probably not for everyone. There are a ton of elements that could seem gimmicky or annoying in the wrong hands, but these hands seem to do everything right. Give it a listen.

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Movie Star Sees Movie As Metaphor For Modern Life

Alex Balk — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:40:46 +0000

"I didn’t know it a year ago that it was going to speak to so many of the issues we’re having here in the United States and throughout the world, the same kind of theme."
—Guess what this person is talking about. Go on, guess.

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Percival Everett, "Assumption"

Alex Balk — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:40:40 +0000

There were two very nice reviews over the weekend for Percival Everett's Assumption. Here is what I would suggest that you do: not read these reviews (yet) and just get the book. Once you've finished it you'll want to read a bunch more about it to help yourself figure it out. My only caveat is that if you are the kind of person who needs neatly-tied bows at the end of your fictions, you will find yourself displeased with this one. I, not being that kind of person, thought it was terrific. I read it a couple of months ago and it still sticks with me. Anyway, it is definitely what you want to take with you over the holidays; it's engrossing enough that it will provide good defensive cover to keep you from whatever terminally boring conversation you might otherwise be forced to suffer through with your family.

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Records Enjoyed

Alex Balk — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:40:04 +0000

Awl pal Alex Ross gets listy, picking his ten favorite classical recordings of the year. There is some supplementary material here.

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The Sound of 2011

Alex Balk — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:30:23 +0000

"If you look for a trace of our economic woes in the music, you’ll be frustrated. People weren’t supposed to sell records, apparently, but if your name was Adele, your second album, “21,” didn’t leave the upper reaches of the Billboard Top 200 chart in the forty weeks since its American release (usually hanging about in the top ten). What about the music-biz truism that people only come out in big numbers for rappers from the gangsta disapora? Well, apparently you can be Drake and wear sweaters and sing and be as hardcore as Pikachu and go to No. 1. (You risk being called “the human croissant” on the Internet by somebody imitating the voice of Ghostface Killah, but you can handle that.) You can also be a hip-hop diaspora unto yourself, made up of largely foul-mouthed young men, and give away almost all of your music on Tumblr—and watch your leader get signed to the same label as Adele."
—Awl pal Sasha Frere-Jones looks back at the year in music. Apparently he has a fondness for Katy B.

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The Stacey Q Gap

Alex Balk — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:50:02 +0000

We are going to draw the generational line right down the middle here between those of you who are all, "Who?" and those of you who will be cursing my name for the rest of the day as you try to get this song out of your heads. So: Stacey Lynn Swain, you turn 53 today! Remember that time you were on "The Facts Of Life?" I do! You played an aspiring musician! I think you wore spandex leggings at some point! I spent four years learning the Spanish language and can barely remember one word today, let alone any kind of conjunction or idiomatic expression, but I remember that episode! The human brain is truly and mysterious and ultimately comical thing. Anyway, happy birthday! I hope you put on this dress and go celebrate.

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Jane's Addiction 1987-1991, In Order

Dave Bry — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:00:57 +0000

28. Sympathy
27. Rock & Roll
26. Chip Away
25. Thank You, Boys
24. No One's Leaving
23. Of Course
22. Obvious
21. Idiots Rule
20. Trip Away
19. Standing In the Shower... Thinking
18. My Time
17. Had a Dad
16. Ain't No Right
15. 1%
14. Ted, Just Admit It...
13. Pigs In Zen
12. Been Caught Stealing
11. Stop!
10. Classic Girl
9. Ocean Size
8. Mountain Song
7. Whores
6. Summertime Rolls
5. Up the Beach
4. I Would For You
3. The She Did...
2. Jane Says
1. Three Days

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Some Thoughts On 'Jack and Jill'

Alex Balk — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:40:36 +0000

1. Let's dispense with the obvious: Jack and Jill is a vehicle for Adam Sandler, who plays both titular roles. The concept that Sandler is playing his own twin sister is, of course, the hook here to draw audiences, as well it should be: Sandler is one of our most under-appreciated performers, comedic or otherwise, and it's been obvious since his debut as the lead in Billy Madison, where he actually made you feel his transformation from lazy, spoiled hotel-empire heir into energetic scholar who finally realizes the importance of actually believing in something. But Jack and Jill is about much more than a talented thespian at the height of his powers. It's a meditation on identity.

2. The film opens with LA ad executive Jack Sadelstein dreading the arrival of his twin sister Jill for her annual Thanksgiving visit. While the pair were once quite close, Jack now finds Jill difficult to take. Once Jill shows up, hijinks, as is their wont, ensue. There is a series of crude if effective gags, and the humor is on the level that one generally expects from a Sandler film. But this time the comedy is more subversive. One gets the sense that Sandler and director Dennis Dugan are using farce to mask the more serious points they want to get across about who we are and how we define ourselves in a stark and uncaring world.

3. The fact that Jack and Jill are twins speaks directly to the dualities inherent in all of us. Sandler and Dugan want us to consider who we are on the most basic existential level, what we show and what we hide as we make our way through life. The very traits that Jack finds so irksome in Jill are, of course, extensions of his own nature, jagged reminders of what he's repressed as he has chased success in his chosen field and attempted to create the perfect family life. (In an interesting bit of casting, Katie Holmes, whose own domestic relationship has been the subject of much analysis concerning public face v. private motivation, plays his wife.)

4. Even more transgressively, Jack and Jill are twins of different genders. What Sandler and Dugan are doing here is, to my mind, the most audacious attempt to encourage discussion about the fluidity of sexual classification in a major studio comedy since 2000's challenging—if worryingly heteronormative—What Women Want. In an era where the dominance of the patriarchy is widely assumed to be in its twilight, Jill, and her contentious relationship with Jack, represents the anxieties many men are feeling when they think about the future. The fact that much is made of Jill's unattractiveness is a knowing nod of the part of the producers to the barely concealed disgust with which men are confronting their increasing lack of relevance.

5. To make matters even more complex, Sandler and Dugan have convinced Al Pacino to portray Al Pacino, or at least a cinematic version of Al Pacino. The sheer genius of this exploration of mimesis in a film that is already concerned with the concept of individuality may be the movie's most triumphant stroke: To have an actor who is so frequently accused of playing himself actually playing himself as an addled version of Al Pacino—one who falls for the feminine side of the lead character's struggle in duality—could easily have been a step too far, but the depth of thought that Sandler's creative team has put into the whole project makes the whole thing work on an entirely new plane of personal exploration.

6. Also there is a cameo by Johnny Depp. You should totally see this movie.

Jack and Jill, directed by Dennis Dugan, opens tomorrow. The running time is 90 minutes.

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The Author's Big Mistake

Alex Balk — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:10:25 +0000

"Confronting your reviewers never seems to go well. But I did it anyway. Kevin Morris, loather of my novel, responded, and we thought it might be interesting to talk about why he hated my book with such intensity. The following email correspondence occurred over several days following that initial contact."

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