Jonny's Enemies List

Broadway, which handed out the Tony Awards last Sunday. The top prize for Best Musical was given to Kinky Boots, a musicalization of a little-seen 2005 film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor about a conservative shoe company that is in dire financial straits until it reinvents itself as a creator of sexy footwear for transvestites. I saw the movie version of Kinky Boots when it first came out and my review of it opined “Instead of the potential danger of two sexually opposite worlds colliding with unexpected results, the interminable bore takes its predictable journey as a formulaic comedy/drama where you can safely forecast how each scene will play out before it starts and where its one-dimensional characters learn nothing about life or change as the result of being exposed to each other.” This isn’t to say that my opinion is necessarily one you would agree with or that the creators of the musical didn’t improve upon the source material, but it is a sign of an unfortunate trend on Broadway of taking a mediocre-to-terrible movie, throwing in a bunch of over-produced dance numbers and selling tickets for a hundred and thirty bucks a pop. Making musicals out of movies is nothing new: A Little Night Music is based on Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night, Promises, Promises is based on The Apartment and Sugar is based on Some Like it Hot. But at least they took their inspiration from great movies. Broadway today mines the fool’s gold of crap like Flash Dance, Legally Blonde and Sister Act, or transparently commercial behemoths based on bland family fare produced to cynically balance the corporate bottom line like Shrek the Musial, Elf or anything ever animated by the Walt Disney Company. That, or lazy producers will take a song catalogue of some faded super group and assemble something approximating a story around it. Since most of this hack work pulls in hundreds of millions of dollars on Broadway and from bus-and-truck touring shows that are forced down the throats of theatre-hungry communities like Quarter Pounders with Cheese, I guess no one suffers from it. But I can’t help but feel cynical when these corporate profit generators (whose film antecedents weren’t even nominated for their sound effects editing at the Oscars) clean up at the Tonys because the pickings are so slim on Broadway that there’s literally nothing else to honor. Even so, I’m looking forward to The Fast and the Furious: The Musical next season. I’m told that Nathan Lane is already the one to beat for the Tony for his performance as Dominic Toretto, if only because there won’t be anyone competing against him except for a couple of teapots from a Disney thing and the guy who plays the title role in a musical about Aquaman. And he almost drowned twice while it was still in previews.
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Bro Joe. To keep the flotsam and jetsam of humanity that have been rounded up in a sorry collection known as my Facebook friends amused lest they unleash their collective angst unto the world, I occasionally create clever illustrations featuring their membership to mollify them into lucidity (much like one would distract a rampant plains gorilla with a shiny object). This week’s fun was a scene from the film classic Casablanca featuring the glorious Mara Marini as Ilsa Lund, myself as Captain Louis Renault (the Claude Rains role), Tom Ashworth as the piano player Sam (replacing Dooley Wilson who, according to the movie, was the only black person in Africa at the time), my beloved Pug Winston, Misty LaRue, Tawdry Baubles and Glenn “Piece of Shit” Simon as barflies enjoying Ashworth’s rendition of As Time Goes By (although the look on his face makes it seem like he’s desperate to finish so he can get to a toilet), Bro Joe as a mysterious dude in a fez, and the immortal Humphrey Bogart in his signature role as the broken hearted Rick Blaine. Everyone was delighted to be included in the image save Joe, who grumbled “Thanks for making me the guy in the fez. I thought I would get a lousy part, like Rick.” This brings us to the delicate alchemy of movie casting. Casablanca is the immortal classic that it is largely because of its perfect cast. This is especially true in the case of the character Rick Blaine, in which Bogart brought the perfect blend of cynicism, world-weariness and antihero danger that no other actor was capable of. Would Mr. Blaine be the iconic figure he is today if he had been played by chipper Ronald Regan (as was announced in a studio press release prior to production)? Or if George Raft had accepted the part when it was offered to him before Bogart?

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Matthew McConaughey, who I saw in a film called Mud last weekend in which he gave a brilliant – yes, I said brilliant – performance as a shady southern drifter who recruits the help of two young boys in trying to get him out of a precarious situation. Mr. McConaughey has been on my radar for years as an actor who rose to prominence because he possessed a perfect body and a devil-may-care charm while delivering atrocious performances in atrocious movies like Contact, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure to Launch and Sahara. I was perfectly willing to forgive his genetic superiority to me in exchange for the understanding that he had no talent for the art of acting whatsoever. Then a few years ago, Mr. McConaughey seemed to be weaseling out of his end of the bargain, delivering ghastly work in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and The Paperboy but slipping in unexpectedly amusing and memorable supporting roles in Tropic Thunder and Bernie. Then last year, Mr. McConaughey totally fucked me over by winning honors from the New York Film Critics, the National Society of Film Critics and the Independent Spirit Awards for his performance as a male stripper in Magic Mike, a part which allowed him to show his acting chops and his rock-hard abs to good advantage. Now with Mud under his belt (a film in which he didn’t remove his shirt until fully 2/3 into the running time, which is a new record for him), it seems to me that Mr. McConaughey needs to be reminded of the rules. If he expects me to continue to tolerate his presence in my consciousness, he’d best stop cranking out the arty crap and get to work on How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days II. Either that or he’d better put on 150 lbs. and develop a double chin. A deal’s a deal.
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Brandy Dean of the website Pretty Clever Films offered an interesting essay on the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1928. Anyone who is intimate with me knows that one of my defining qualities is my obsession with the Oscars (along with a fascination for Internet pornography and my tragically misshapen genitalia) so I read with interest Ms. Dean’s account of the banquet (until 1940, the awards were handed out in a hotel ballroom instead of a theatre), especially of the Academy’s presentation of a special award to Charlie Chaplin “for versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus.” The Circus is not considered one of the highlights of Le Charlot’s blue chip career (he was going through a bitter divorce while making it) and Ms. Dean concluded that “I don’t have any specific information to support this theory, but this strikes me as a ‘We really should give Charlie an award but all he’s got this year is The Circus.’” A valid conclusion (especially considering that his masterpieces City Lights and Modern Times failed to be nominated in any category in years the Best Picture Oscars were given to the dubious choices of Cimarron and The Great Ziegfeld), but there’s more to the story than that. When those first nominations were first announced and the Academy was still working out the kinks in the system, Chaplin was among the three finalists in the categories of Best Actor and Best Comedy Direction (the only time that classification was given an award) for his work on The Circus but the Academy wrote him “The Academy Board of Judges on merit awards for individual achievement in motion picture arts during the year ending August 1, 1928, unanimously decided that your name should be removed from the competitive classes, and that a special first award should be conferred upon you for writing, acting, directing and producing The Circus. The collective accomplishments thus displayed place you in a class by yourself.” This made Chaplin ineligible for the competitive categories he was nominated in (the only time that a nominee was taken out of the running for competitive awards after being given a special award instead) so the man many people regard as the greatest artist in film history wouldn’t win a competitive Oscar until 1972, when his 1952 classic Limelight won him the award for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score when it became eligible on the loophole that it hadn’t played in Los Angeles until 20 years after it had first been made because of Chaplin’s difficulties with the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s.
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Angelina Jolie, who I’ve been annoyed with for many years because she first came to prominence as an unpredictable wild woman who made out with her own brother at the Academy Awards and wore a vial of Billy Bob Thornton’s blood around her neck, but who somehow managed – almost overnight – to reinvent her public image as an altruistic Earth Mother who cared only for saving babies in Africa. Add to that the fact that she has the reputation as a Hollywood megastar despite the fact that the only decent film she’s appeared in was as the voice of The Tigress in Kung Fu Panda caused the mention of her name to add ten points to my already off-the-chart blood pressure. Then Ms. Jolie announced last week that she had chosen to undergo a double mastectomy (and will be having her ovaries removed) because her doctors told her that she had an 80% risk of developing breast cancer if she didn’t. When the news hit the Internet, a disconcertingly large number of men expressed exasperation that she would sacrifice such grade-A melons without even being diagnosed with the disease, feeling that she should have held onto her massive rack for as long as possible even though once breast cancer has been detected, it’s frequently too late to treat it. I was among those who marveled at her courage for submitting herself to the procedure under such circumstances and then going public about it, serving as a role model for women who are in the same situation and proving that if a smokin’ hot piece of ass like Angelina Jolie can undergo a double mastectomy and remain a smokin’ hot piece of ass, maybe there’s an upside to it after all. I have no doubt that if she had any choice in the matter, Ms. Jolie would have preferred not to be a role model and carry on with her bodacious tah tahs as they were. But she was wise enough to look at the situation rationally and consider her kids and her family and friends and all those babies in Africa who would continue to need her, and did what needed to be done. And sometimes just doing what needs to be done makes you a hero whether you wanted it to or not. I may have to check out Kung Fu Panda this weekend as a tribute to a genuine Tigress.
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Peter Robbins, a 56 year old apartment manager undergoing treatment for drug and alcohol addiction who was recently sentenced to a year in prison for threatening his former girlfriend and stalking her plastic surgeon. The only thing noteworthy about this story is that Mr. Robbins’ claim to fame is that he was the original voice of Charlie Brown in the Peanuts television specials A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as well as the animated feature film A Boy Named Charlie Brown before his voice broke and he descended into anonymity (his last acting role was in 1972 when he was 16). Ironically, Mr. Robbins is exactly the kind of train wreck you would expect Charlie Brown to grow up into, since a childhood of having footballs snatched away from you and seeking out psychiatric help from unlicensed quacks who charge five cents a session is going to take its toll in some heavy ways. Even in court, Mr. Robbins couldn’t escape his angst-ridden past as the sentencing judge admonished him “don’t be a blockhead,” a taunt that Charlie Brown heard so often that it seemed like he would be muttering it to himself as he mounted a nearby bell tower with a high powered rifle. We hope that Mr. Robbins gets the help he needs in federal confinement (preferably from mental health professionals who don’t work out of a modified lemonade stand) and returns home in a year to be a better master to his dog Snoopy (no shit, the guy who voiced Charlie Brown has a dog named Snoopy; which might just be part of the problem here). But as grim as things seem for Mr. Robbins right now, he really should consider himself lucky. Some people in his position don’t get help until it’s too late. I’m told that Calvin killed himself from an overdose of Nembutal after Hobbes fell apart in the dryer.
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The Tony Awards, who announced their 2013 nominees this week. I don’t know why I’m as interested in the Tonys as much as I am since I live in Los Angeles and see almost none of the shows being honored. But I’m a theatre fan and an entertainment awards junkie so I read the reviews of all the shows on Broadway to try and stay up on who’s going to get those cute little medallions. The thing that irritates me every year about the Tonys is when the nominees are announced and are populated by distinguished stage actors whose names aren’t well-known outside of New York, the media covering the event inevitably bitch that a handful of famous names from movies or television who appeared on the Great White Way that season (often making their stage debuts) were “snubbed” by the awards as if a Tony nomination was guaranteed in their contracts. Such was the case this year as columnists from TMZ and Entertainment Weekly beat their breasts that household names Scarlett Johansson, Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin were overlooked for Broadway appearances, just because their performances received mixed and even hostile reviews. In the mean time, the press fails to understand why nobodys like Tracy Letts, Kristine Nielsen and Tom Sturridge will be getting camera time when their nominations are announced on primetime TV just because they did work that the 3.6% of the country who actually attended Broadway theatre in 2013 thought stood out above their colleagues. That doesn’t mean anything to the 96.4% who never heard of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and who are itching for a glimpse of the insulted movie favorite Jessica Chastain (who inexplicably failed to receive a Tony nomination for her Broadway performance in The Heiress, which the New York Times called “as shadowless as a high noon”). Fortunately, the American Theatre Wing had the good sense to nominate mega-star Tom Hanks for his Broadway debut in Lucky Guy. True, BroadwayWord.com said Mr. Hanks was “not as convincing as the hard-nosed, tough-guy journalist” and The Times decried the lack of depth that his role was written with, but at least the TV audience will have someone they’ve actually heard of to root for at the telecast of the awards. And even if Mr. Hanks doesn’t take home the Tony (I’m predicting it will go to the fore-mentioned Kerry Letts for his acclaimed performance in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which has been staged on Broadway four times and has resulted in four nominations for the actors playing George and – if Mr. Letts wins – three Tonys), his beloved mug on the screen when the nominations are read will probably inflate the show’s TV ratings to the degree that was guaranteed in his contract. After all, a deal’s a deal.
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Dove Body Wash. In last week’s list I ranted against the annoying ad campaign by LasVegas.com which would have us believe that there is a dude running around with the legal name of Las Vegasdotcom who is constantly being mistaken for the website. This week’s commercial which caused the moron meter to explode came from the good people at Dove, who attempt to raise awareness for their over-priced liquid soap by running an ad showing a bevy of hot women meeting at a scientific laboratory that the Dove Corps of Engineers works out of and then dip samples of “test paper” into competing brands, all of which react to the broadsheet like sulfuric acid dissolving away a plate of soft cheeses. All except for Dove, which leaves the dainty pink tissue so pristine that you could still wipe your ass with it after conducting the experiments. This commercial causes my head to explode every time I view it; not because of my feelings about the quality of Dove Body Wash, which (since I usually wash myself with a Brillo pad and a garden hose) I have no experience with, but because of how we are supposed to accept how these hot chicks are dolled up for the commercial. When they walk into the test area to dip the tissues in the swill, they appear to be naked except for thin white terry-cloth robes which they inexplicably enter the room wearing. I get the idea is that we’re supposed to subliminally assume they’ve just gotten out of the shower after luxuriating their bodies with magical Dove Body Wash, but the reality is that all they’re doing is marching into a room to dunk some pink toilet paper samples into soap. Imagine the sleazy ad man who had just gotten the ladies to sign their release forms then mopping the sweat from his face and saying “now before we start shooting, you’re going to all strip naked and then put on some thin white robes. Harry, start passing out the Lady Bics.” None of the women in the commercial seem even mildly confused why they all needed to be practically nude in order to watch some pink tissue paper dissolve in liquid soap; in fact they all seem so giddy with excitement that all they want to do is extend their silky smooth forearms (courtesy of Dove Body Wash, of course) to allow each other to cop a feel despite the fact that under most circumstances, women tend to be a tad self-conscious standing buck naked in front of each other wearing nothing but a cheap muumuu from Wal-Mart. If hot chicks were really so gullible that all a guy needs to do to get them to strip down to nothing but negligees is come up with an old video camera and a storage space with a few beakers and a Tesla Coil and say he’s a Madison Avenue hack casting a commercial, I’m going to ask Mara Marini to star in an ad I’m shooting where she has to watch paint dry for a few hours at the Jonny® Labs. She’ll need to wear a thong bikini while she’s doing it, but it’s all in the name of science.
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The lunatics who bombed the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Bro Joe and I drove across the southern United States many years ago and, quite by accident, we visited the memorial of the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing. It turned out to be the highlight of our trip. Not because we saw the wisdom and light in Timothy McVeigh’s whack-jog pro-militia agenda, but because we were moved and inspired by the heroics and compassion of the people who responded to the tragedy and those who would never forget the sacrifices and lessons that came from it. Such is always the case after such a disaster. When I visited Ground Zero in the wake of 9/11, the throngs of people who had made pilgrimages there weren’t in attendance to curse the Devil United States or cower in fear of another attack; they were there to reaffirm their devotion to this country and offer tributes of love and remembrance to the victims and the heroes who risked everything to save them. When madmen carried out mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut and Casas Adobes, Arizona, we didn’t fall over ourselves pondering the motives of those who pulled the trigger; we idolized the children and teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary and the six people who were killed at the “Congress on Your Corner” rally as Congresswoman Gabby Giffords used the attacks to force us to reconsider language in our constitution written in the 18th century that likely didn’t anticipate things like automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines. Such will be the case with the Boston Marathon bombings. We all want to find the monsters who was behind it and know their motive for carrying out the atrocity (Boston is on lockdown today as the police search for a suspect named Dzhokhar Tsarnaev aka “The Man in the White Hat,” which makes it sound like a cousin of Curious George’s sidekick planted the bomb, after lawmen gunned down his brother in a shootout) but in the end it will have the antithetical effect of what the murderers were hoping for. Timothy McVeigh didn’t bring down the government in Oklahoma City, he caused citizens to rally around it. Osama bin Laden didn’t demoralize the people of the Unites States, he gave us a cause that united us in a way that we hadn’t known since Hitler was in power. Whatever misguided reason that the bombings in Boston were carried out turns out to be (Boston Police Chief Ed Davis said “We believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people”), I guarantee that the result will be the polar opposite of what the fiends behind it were hoping for. The human race is a marathon dotted with these violent, ill-conceived pleas for attention, and when the runners encounter those obstacles they take from them the lessons that will allow them to carry on with the race; not the self-serving agenda offered up by the flotsam and jetsam standing on the sidelines who placed the hurdle in their path. Whatever reason we discover that the Boston bombings were intended for, their effect will be to bring us closer as a human family and ultimately allow us to find ways to make the road a little smoother for the runners yet to come. We aren’t anywhere close to the finish line, but we are winning.
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