Greatest Hits of 2010 - My Version

Photo at left: receiving an award at Columbia Gorge Film Festival

It seems like everyone is making lists of the Ten Best and Ten Worst of whatever...This isn't one of those. It's a list of the best things that I saw/did/experienced this past year.

One thing that won't be on the list: favorite movies. That's because I haven't seen most of the good ones that came out recently (The King's Speech, The Social Network, The Fighter, or any of those other movies whose title starts with the word "the").

1. Best New Broadway Play: Red by John Logan, starring Alfred Molina as Mark Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as his assistant. I loved this play from start to finish, but especially the quasi-dance as the 2 men paint a large red canvas together.

2. Best Broadway Revival: A View From the Bridge by Arthur Miller, starring Liev Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson, and Jessica Hecht. I must admit that I'd probably like any play Liev Schreiber is in. But this was great.

3. Best Off-Broadway Play: Trust by Paul Weitz, starring Zach Braff, Bobby Cannevale, Sutton Foster, Ari Graynor. Fun with a dominatrix.

3a. Runner-up for Best Off-Broadway Play: This Wide Night by Chloe Moss, starring Edie Falco and Alison Pill. This British one act drama about two women recently released from prison starred two of my favorite actors.

4. Best New Television Show: It's almost a cliche (already!) to say this, but I love HBO's Boardwalk Empire. Steve Buscemi is still one of the creepiest looking guys around, but he's terrific, as is Kelly Macdonald.

5. Best Film Festival Experience: I had a great time at the Columbia Gorge (formerly Washougal) Film Festival - Breven Angaelica Warren did a great job. Foreclosed got an award (that's the photo at the top), they had some terrific speakers, and yeah, some good movies too. Plus I got to have dinner with my cousin Jen & her husband in Portland, and saw spectacular scenery.

5b. Runner-Up for Best Film Festival Experience: Flint Film Festival, with all the credit to Robert Joseph Butler of Spirit of Isabel for the great audience and terrific q&a. Plus my sister Amy joined me for the day, and we had a delightful tapas dinner together (yes, in Flint).

6. Best weekend: Any weekend that I'm in the Poconos.

"Foreclosed" on The REEL Show, Sat. Feb 12

I'm delighted that my short Foreclosed (http://www.foreclosedthemovie.us/) will screen on The REEL Show on the MSC Network on Saturday afternoon February 12 at 2 PM. Even better: I'll be chatting live during the show to answer viewers' questions and provide insight into the movie.

The REEL Show premieres on Saturday January 8 on http://www.morningshowcentral.com/ , and is dedicated to providing expsure to indie films and filmmakers.

It's produced and hosted by Kristina Michelle in cooperation with executive producer Ray Szuch. I know both of them through The Indie Gathering film festival in Cleveland (check it out at http://www.theindiegathering.com/ ). They do a terrific job with the festival, and are now expanding to producing shows on an ongoing basis. I really hope it takes off - not just because they're nice people, but (yeah, selfishly!) because good indie movies - and shorts in particular - need more outlets for broad-based exposure.

Molly Shannon's a Hoot in "Promises, Promises" on B'way

We saw Promises, Promises on Broadway last night. I got the tickets because I think Kristin Chenoweth's terrific, and the play is closing on January 2. I knew Sean Hayes was in it too (Jack on the tv show Will & Grace). Plus it has some great Burt Bacharach songs, like "I'll Never Fall In Love Again."

I had NO idea that Molly Shannon had joined the cast on October 12 to play Marge MacDougall, the flirty, possibly drunk but definitely sexy woman who picks up Hayes' Chuck Baxter at a bar at the beginning of the second act.

Shannon (best known for six seasons on Saturday Night Live) is only in 2 scenes, but she damn near steals the show. She's wonderfully physical in a way that echoes her Catholic school girl character Mary Katherine Gallagher even as she does her best to seduce Baxter. The roar from the audience when she took her bow at the end of the show suggested that they enjoyed her as much as I did.

The other fun surprise was Tony Goldwyn as the womanizing J.D. Sheldrake. He's played some of my favorite yuppie sleazes over the years, like the guy who killed Patrick Swayze's character in Ghost. My all-time favorite "sleaze" actor is still James Spader, but Goldwyn is a solid second.

And finally, a word (or two) on my favorite theater topic, the bathrooms: well done. A dozen stalls, and no space wasted on couches or easy chairs. The line was long, but it moved well.

Promises/Promises is at the Broadway Theatre, 1681 Broadway (between West 52nd and 53rd Sts) until January 2. Good discounts are available at http://www.theatermania.com/ and http://www.playbill.com/ .

David Duchovny, Amanda Peet, & The Lucille Lortel Theatre

I like the Lucille Lortel Theatre. It's getting old (last renovated in 1990) and the pitch of the seats isn't the best (so hope you're not sitting behind a tall person). But the leg room is much better than average, the bathrooms are small but clean (no idiotic sofas!), and it's convenient to the Christopher St. PATH station (great for those of us in Jersey City and Hoboken).

The audience generally tends toward West Village twenty-somethings, so it was nice to see a solid smattering of tourists lured from midtown in order to see David Duchovny and Amanda Peet in Neil LaBute's The Break of Noon. It's a dark drama about a guy - Duchovny - who is the only survivor of a work-place shooting. And he claims that God spoke to him and helped him survive.

It's not a great play, but it's pretty good - and it's only 90 minutes, which always makes me happy. I have to give Duchovny credit for a very solid performance, especially on the long opening & closing monologues (Peet is good as well, as are the other 2 cast members, Tracee Chimo and John Earl Jelks).

My quibble is more with the writing: LaBute's plays (which include reasons to be pretty and Fat Pig) are generally edgy, a bit angry, and sometimes annoying. The Break of Noon could use a bit more of that: Duchovny's character is clearly imperfect, but I thought he should seem downright rotten (or pretty close to it) by the end.

One other thing: director Jo Bonney uses the loud noise & flash of light approach to scene changes that seems to be all to popular these days. I don't hate it, but it makes me think: Oh yeah, that again.

Overall: not great, not terrible. And it's nice to see tourists at a play in the West Village.

Lombardi: guys, issues, and a great space

I had the pleasure of seeing the play Lombardi last night - to say that Dan Lauria looks and sounds like the man himself would be a major understatement. It's a terrific play - well written, well directed, and I love the cast (Judith Light, Michael McCormick, and as the football players Bill Dawes, Robert Christopher Riley, and Chris Sullivan). I'm a football fan (go Giants!) as well as a theater-lover, so I certainly wasn't going to miss this.

But since all of this has been well covered elsewhere, I'd like to present a few thoughts on other points.

First: I have never - and I do mean never - seen so many guys at a play. It really made me smile to see clusters of middle-aged men in business suits or in jeans & sweaters at a play without a woman dragging them. I really hope other shows are able to bring them in as well (how about a play that incorporates the 1986 World Series, maybe from the perspective of a fan? Just a thought...)

Second: Playwright Eric Simonson did a great job of touching on important issues without belaboring them. A few examples:

In a flashback scene, the great man wonders aloud if his inability to get a head coaching job - even at the college level - has anything to do with his name ending in a vowel.

Dave Robinson is the Green Bay Packers' rep to the NFL Players Association, and is trying to put off his teammate Jim Taylor (an excellent Chris Sullivan), who wants his salary and benefit grievances (including payment for exhibitions games!) addressed immediately rather than after the season. It's amazing to realize that NFL players didn't even have a collective bargaining agreement until 1968.

The African American Robinson also appreciates Lombardi's insistance that black and white players be able to stay in the same hotel in the south, and prohibits them from drinking in segregated bars (paraphrasing Robinson: "maybe that's because he's been called a WOP his entire life").

Third (and finally): I have to say that the Circle in the Square Theater is one of my favorite Broadway spaces. It's relatively small, there are no bad seats, and it allows for interesting directorial choices with the audience on all 4 sides. I saw the trilogy The Norman Conquests there last year, and look forward to seeing what they do next.