January 19, 2023
L'Shana Tova! Happy Jew Year!by Randi / September 5, 2013 I can’t really express the fluctuating emotions I am feeling now that I know this exists:
So, this is actually happening
No no don’t touch that…dollhouse furniture?
I’m glad Aunt Becky is working since getting off that soft-core porn from the CW, the 90210 reboot. But did she had to pick the TV movie with the most hilariously awful title and premise in recent history for her comeback?
Hallmark Channel’s new movie, “Garage Sale Mystery”, is already poised to be the network’s greatest achievement this century. It’s about a woman (Lori Loughlin/Rebecca Donaldson/Aunt Becky Katsopolis) who is really good at antiquing and buying other people’s crap when they throw this crap on the front lawns of their houses and expect passersby to pay them money in exchange for said crap, which the passersby then pick up with their hands and carry into their own houses. Or, what we Americans call ‘garage sales’.
Hallmark Channel’s new movie, “Garage Sale Mystery”, is already poised to be the network’s greatest achievement this century. It’s about a woman (Lori Loughlin/Rebecca Donaldson/Aunt Becky Katsopolis) who is really good at antiquing and buying other people’s crap when they throw this crap on the front lawns of their houses and expect passersby to pay them money in exchange for said crap, which the passersby then pick up with their hands and carry into their own houses. Or, what we Americans call ‘garage sales’.
So, Aunt Becky, in her antiquing glory, becomes Detective Aunt Becky when a string of burglaries occur in a neighborhood that really loves the aforementioned good-natured exchange of crap. She somehow puts her skills at buying crap to use in detectiving who the burglar is. This is from the official website’s description of the movie:
“As she gets closer to the truth, Jennifer learns that crime solving can be far more dangerous than any garage sale.”
HAHAH. I mean, it doesn’t really get any better than that. Because we all know garage sales are extreeeemely dangerous. That’s what town curfews are really for – to stop people from the danger of meeting their neighbors and effectively digging through their trash. Gotta protect people’s secrets, you know! I wonder if that’s the message Hallmark has been going for all these years, with their impressive litany of made-for-mockery titles. Maybe all Hallmark movies form one sophisticated case for strengthened privacy laws.
“As she gets closer to the truth, Jennifer learns that crime solving can be far more dangerous than any garage sale.”
HAHAH. I mean, it doesn’t really get any better than that. Because we all know garage sales are extreeeemely dangerous. That’s what town curfews are really for – to stop people from the danger of meeting their neighbors and effectively digging through their trash. Gotta protect people’s secrets, you know! I wonder if that’s the message Hallmark has been going for all these years, with their impressive litany of made-for-mockery titles. Maybe all Hallmark movies form one sophisticated case for strengthened privacy laws.
“As she gets closer to the truth, Jennifer learns that crime solving can be far more dangerous than any garage sale.”
She’s so happy and blurry
It is accurate, I guess. Solving crime can be more dangerous than a garage sale; it’s just not guaranteed to be. We all know garage sales are up there with walking on beds of nails and eating raw produce in Asia. Hiiiighway toooo the danger zone.
Anyway, I cannot wait to see this movie, and I’m sure you feel the same way. I hope it’s good, for Aunt Becky’s sake. Just look at how happy and optimistic she looks at left! But she doesn’t even realize it’s all gonna come crashing down. I have a feeling this film is going to epic. Stay tuned; we are totally going to live-blog this. Oh crap, it’s airing on Yom Kippur. Ok, someone remind me to DVR this anti-Semitic piece of wonderment.
Anyway, I cannot wait to see this movie, and I’m sure you feel the same way. I hope it’s good, for Aunt Becky’s sake. Just look at how happy and optimistic she looks at left! But she doesn’t even realize it’s all gonna come crashing down. I have a feeling this film is going to epic. Stay tuned; we are totally going to live-blog this. Oh crap, it’s airing on Yom Kippur. Ok, someone remind me to DVR this anti-Semitic piece of wonderment.
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All My Sons at the Old Vic: I Don’t Know How Many Sons We’re Talking About But I’m Bored
You tell me Sally Field is coming to London, I’m gonna be there front and center holding up a big sign with GO SALLY! WE LIKE YOU! written in bubble letters. Metaphorically speaking, of course; I’m not a monster. So the chance to see the absolute ledge, what a ledge, perform live is something I’m grateful for. I’m glad I got to see her. What a treat.
You can tell I’m trying to delay talking at all about the play, huh? Okay, well let’s just say it’s fitting that I saw All My Sons at the Old Vic theatre in London in the same week I finished reading Zadie Smith’s book Swing Time, as both were not unpleasant to experience, but ‘not unpleasant’ is literally all I can say about them. There was nothing gripping about either work. While I liked watching both Sally and Bill Pullman (seriously, Bill Pullman! ledge on ledge!), everyone else felt slightly (or heavily) miscast and misdirected. It felt like Arthur Miller’s classic play has aged out of relevance, and rather than feeling like a noteworthy period piece, it instead felt like a dusty relic.
Sally and Bill (I met them; we’re friends) play a married couple of an adult son. Just one son. They had another son but he died in the war (sad). Two sons is still not enough for an ‘all’, you’re correct – the title phrase reveal was one of the only creative turns of phrase in the whole script. Anyway, so the dead son (sorry) had a sweetheart when he went off to war (as they do, as they do). Ever since – three years now – the girl, Ann, has been corresponding with the other (living) (sorry) son, Chris, and THEY now want to get married. This play was written in a time when it was SUPER NORMAL for a girl whose sweetheart died in war to marry the guy’s brother instead, and that is WEIRD. Luckily, the family also thinks it’s weird, but not in a women-aren’t-property-to-be-inherited-when-a-family-member-dies-that’s-super-gross way, more in the they-don’t-actually-believe-their-son-died way.
Turns out, War Son was only reported ‘disappeared’ those three years ago, so even though all signs point to Dead, Sally (let’s just call her Sally) is making herself sick holding onto any thread of hope that her son is alive. Which you can’t really fault her for, it’s so sad. Poor sad Sally! But even WITHOUT the hope that the son is still alive, it’s still super weird to sign off on your other son marrying the fiancee. Oof.
Anyway, the girl, Ann, comes to visit the family so she and Chris can announce the engagement, and we learn about the friction between the two families that exists for reasons other than brother-swapping weirdness. Bill and Ann’s father worked together, and some shady shit went down, but only Ann’s father ended up in jail. Did her father do crimes? Or was Bill guilty but got away with it by throwing Mr. Ann under the bus? The problem with this being the main conflict is that no one cares.
The other main problem with the show is that Chris (Colin Morgan, Merlin) is miscast, and without a strong Chris to really nail all the nuance and emotional beats and relationships, it all falls apart. His choices felt off, like surprisingly off; I’m surprised at the director here. The only confident, successful directorial choice was the very opening moment, with the house moving upstage amid flashing Americana television screens. I’m disappointed that that new, confident display of this classic work wasn’t continued at any other moment.
In fact, the only emotional beat that rang true was an extraordinarily minor moment between Ann’s brother George and a super-minor-character-neighbor-lady when they acknowledged that they would have ended up together had George not gone off to army, mother. It’s like, literally the neighbor lady’s only scene, so great job making your mark, but the fact that nothing else in the entire show felt as authentic is a shame. Of course, London audiences being as insane as they are, they laughed when George declines meeting her kids, even though it’s a heartbreaking moment, but that’s CLA (crazy London audiences) for you.
While I’m sure this play was revelatory in its time, what being about the problems with profiting from war and all the emotional turmoil it causes in its wake, it felt irrelevant today. And some of the twists seemed nonsensical. When Bill Pullman yells at his son (living) in the climax, he all of a sudden asks, “Was the money the problem? You had too much money?” and I literally went, “um, weird flex”, because that was literally the most random reaction to the argument, coming out of nowhere and clearly not the issue. Everything sort of felt untethered like that, disjointed and random. Even the big reveals at the end, both about Bill’s true actions regarding the crime and the other son’s disappearance, feel incredibly unsatisfying. (They also don’t make a ton of sense on examination. If Larry (dead son) knew about the dad’s trial and potential crime, that means it was at least MONTHS since the incident/arrest, and he never once spoke to his family to hear their response or thoughts? He just assumed his father was guilty and then decided to do what he did? do not buy it.)
And yet, despite all this disappointment in the play, I think Sally (and Bill, really) did a nice job. Poor sad Sally was literally shaking the entire time, but you believed that she was a grieving mother with too many traumas to keep in their appropriate boxes, leaving everything threatening to unravel. I just didn’t think this production was strong enough for her talents.
Thoughts on: Far From Heaven, Off-Broadway
The sold-out run of Far From Heaven at Playwrights Horizons promised a more epic experience that the one I actually had. It starred the magnificent Kelli O’Hara, was written by the musical team from Grey Gardens, was based on the 2002 Oscar-nominated movie starring Julianne Moore. I paid more than I ever have for a Broadway ticket, and I expected to be astonished. Aside from getting to listen to O’Hara’s beautiful voice live, I was actually disappointed.
The show put forth a solid effort, but it felt like a house constructed without a foundation. Considering how miraculously affecting much of the Grey Gardens music was, I expected at least one song to make me feel something. Instead, I felt less than I do while watching episodes from season 2 of New Girl. And that shouldn’t be close to the case for a show about a woman, mother, wife in the 1950s dealing with her homosexual, philandering husband and her own surprising romantic feelings for her black gardener. I know! It’s all there, waiting to be interpreted and transcended, and yet the opportunity was squandered. This show deals with pretty much the most serious dramatic ploys possible – all of them! – yet doesn’t deliver emotionally. There has to be a really big disconnect among the creators for something like that to happen.
The show put forth a solid effort, but it felt like a house constructed without a foundation. Considering how miraculously affecting much of the Grey Gardens music was, I expected at least one song to make me feel something. Instead, I felt less than I do while watching episodes from season 2 of New Girl. And that shouldn’t be close to the case for a show about a woman, mother, wife in the 1950s dealing with her homosexual, philandering husband and her own surprising romantic feelings for her black gardener. I know! It’s all there, waiting to be interpreted and transcended, and yet the opportunity was squandered. This show deals with pretty much the most serious dramatic ploys possible – all of them! – yet doesn’t deliver emotionally. There has to be a really big disconnect among the creators for something like that to happen.
I would love for this show to move to Broadway, but only if it undergoes serious reworking. Several new songs that better fit O’Hara’s talents are necessary. Although she always manages to be good, even in things like Nice Work If You Can Get It, her voice is not one that you let sit there on run-of-the-mill, generic, straightforward songs. Let her shine! Christine Ebersole’s performance of “Another Winter In A Summer Town”, from Grey Gardens, gives me chills just thinking about. O’Hara, just as capable of producing such a performance, was given no such opportunity.
The songs need to be rewritten, plain and simple. The book needs editing too, as I saw way too much of Cathy’s (O’Hara) husband’s office, and not enough of Cathy’s best friend’s seeming understanding yet complete and utter disapproval. I also didn’t understand the casting of Steve Pasquale as the husband. Maybe it was because I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Diction, people!
I didn’t actively dislike the show, but I didn’t actively feel anything, which is a huge problem. Plays happen up on that stage in order to make you, the audience, feel something, and I felt nothing. I just wanted to badly for it to be the event I was hoping for. With any luck, severe changes will be made and the show will be entirely transformed when (if) it goes to Broadway. I sincerely hope this happens, because everyone involved deserves better.
The songs need to be rewritten, plain and simple. The book needs editing too, as I saw way too much of Cathy’s (O’Hara) husband’s office, and not enough of Cathy’s best friend’s seeming understanding yet complete and utter disapproval. I also didn’t understand the casting of Steve Pasquale as the husband. Maybe it was because I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Diction, people!
I didn’t actively dislike the show, but I didn’t actively feel anything, which is a huge problem. Plays happen up on that stage in order to make you, the audience, feel something, and I felt nothing. I just wanted to badly for it to be the event I was hoping for. With any luck, severe changes will be made and the show will be entirely transformed when (if) it goes to Broadway. I sincerely hope this happens, because everyone involved deserves better.
