I'm looking around

Our local Operatic Society, which used to put on very good shows which didn't cost them the earth to produce or the customer the earth to watch, have, over the last decade or two put on extravaganzas that involve heaps of cash and aren't cheap to attend.

There are two parts to the problem: one is that the Operatic Societies around the country decide together each year or thereabouts to produce a big show, something like Les Miserables. They club together and pay for the sets and costumes to be trundled around the country so that each society can have a turn with the goods without having to build and make them from scratch.

The other is that these shows cost a huge amount to put on in terms of royalties. Seth Godin had something to say about this in his blog the other day. He pointed out that even in the States to put on a now-rather-tired-old-show like Grease still costs the average musical comedy society or high school a good deal of money. $US3000 in the case of this particular musical. And the reason for this is that a small band of licensers have a kind of 'monopoly' on how much should be charged.

Here's Seth's solution. He writes:

Here's the opportunity that the net provides (in this case and so many others): someone should organize the customers and negotiate on their behalf.

Imagine contacting 3,000 high schools and finding 500 willing to join together and agree to act as a buying cartel. Now, the organizer can poll the directors at these schools and find thirty plays they'd be willing to put on next year. Go to the rights holders of these plays and say, "We're going to pick six of these plays. Each of the six will get a huge number of customers as a result, perhaps twenty times as many as you usually get. But to be among the six, you need to lower your price by a factor of ten."

Now, if you're the rights holder, you have a dilemma (but not a huge one). You can agree to lower your price and thus double your annual revenue on this dusty old play, or you can stay where you are and make zero.

As Seth so often does, he makes good sense. It's just a matter of having someone to champion such a process and get it off the ground. I'm looking around....

Notes on a Scandal

Just watched Notes on a Scandal, with Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Bill Nighy, and Andrew Simpson. Superb cast, oddball story; very intense, and rich in character detail. Both Dench and Blanchett get plenty of room to draw their characters to the max, the former showing her constant conniving on her face often without saying a word, the latter playing a woman who's foolish, and surprisingly naive. Not only does she have an affair with a 15-year-old pupil (scarily played by Simpson, who was only 17 or 18 when the film was made), but she fails to see how Dench's character is in no way a friend, but only gives the appearance of a friend. Many actresses could have made the character a total fool; Blanchett manages to convince us that this woman's behaviour is possible, and believable.

Dench has often been scary - as M for instance - but this must be Dench at her most subtly vicious. Even her Lady Macbeth from the late 70s isn't a patch on this. And she's allowed herself to be quite ugly, and almost nondescript. The sort of little old(er) lady you'd see pulling along her shopping cart in the supermarket.

In the story Dench is a near-to-retirement teacher who befriends the new art teacher (played by Blanchett) at a large comprehensive school. We gradually learn that Dench has designs for more than friendship and when she discovers Blanchett is having an affair with the pupil, she tells Blanchett that she knows about it, but that she'll keep it secret. Of course, it's a secret she can use against Blanchett in due course, when the latter doesn't play her game. Dench's character narrates a good deal of the story - she writes everything in her diary - and her cyncism about other people, and her sheer callousness (even about Blanchett's Downs Syndrome son) is overwhelming.

Not the most attractive group of characters, but absorbing all the same.

HSM2

Okay, what’s all the rave?
Sorry, I mean, if you have a pre-teen daughter, what’s all the rave?
High School Musical 2.
We’d just got over the sensation of version one when version two was announced. And even while that was in the works (it came out just before we went to England last year) HSM1 was turning itself into an onstage show, an onstage ice show and who knows what else. And was doing the world tour. (We came across it in Italy, for example.)
The marketers have gone mad, of course, and everything and its brother is covered with HSM guff, from bedding to cellphones, from shoes to schoolbags, from rubbish to more rubbish. As it always goes, since Walt Disney found that he could make more money out of his Mouse out of the movies than in.
Now don’t get me wrong: I actually enjoy the two musicals. Let me qualify that. I think the songs are twee and fluffy, some of the acting isn’t above the level of the script, but the dancing is topnotch. HSM1 and 2 (and Hairspray, as I mentioned the other day) have restored dancing to the big screen. Good on them!

Hairspray

We watched Hairspray last night as a change from moving the furniture around the house in preparation for the carpet-layers - who came today.
I’d heard that Hairspray wasn’t up to much and that people didn’t like Travolta in drag. I’m not sure that I was overstruck by his performance in this movie, but he carries it off pretty well, and gets some enjoyment out of sending himself up in the role.
The rest of the cast have an equally enjoyable time in what is a very upbeat movie. And there’s dancing, dancing of the calibre you don’t often see in a Hollywood musical these days. Actually you don’t see too many Hollywood musicals anymore, if it comes to that.
I miss musicals. They were the mainstay of my cinema-going in my childhood. It was the peak of the film musical period, and I’ve been saddened by the fact that so few musicals have been produced since the 70s. Why this should be, I have no idea. Someone in the marketing department got the idea that young people wouldn’t go to musicals, and that was that. Out they went.
Anyway, back to Hairspray, which apparently has been filmed before. Can’t say it passed my way, but in 1988 I may not have been going to too many movies, having a bunch of kids at home.
The film has a bunch of stars at its centre, from Michelle Pfeiffer and Christopher Walken to Queen Latifah and Zac Efron (better known as Mr High School Musical. But it’s Nikki Blonsky, who comes way down the cast list on IMDB, who carries the film. There can’t be many roles for short and solid girls, especially leads in a musical. But here she is, and she gives it everything she’s got. The rest of the cast orbit round her, but just when you think one of them is going to take over, up pops Nikki again. She’s a delight.
Zac Efron plays a bit of a wimpy role, which is a pity, because he’s got talent coming out of his ears, and needs a role with a bit more bite. It can’t be said that either of his High School Musical parts have given him much to do – apart from the singing and dancing.
The cast apart, the film is full of visual delights: not an opportunity is lost to play up the fun of crazy hairstyles and clothes, garish colours and skinny women. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and can see me sitting with my granddaughter watching it over and over.

Election

We came in halfway through ‘Election’ on tv, and obviously missed a lot of what made it worth seeing. By the time we caught up with it, it was a rather screwball comedy with some funny moments, and an excellent performance by Mathew Broderick (a much underrated comedy actor, I think). But a lot had gone before, apparently, if the reviews are anything to go by. There was no way what we saw would have been nominated for an Oscar, and Reese Witherspoon's
performance was over-the-top and little else. However, you can’t judge a film by its second half, obviously, so I won’t comment further.

Hey, did you hear about that actress who got stabbed to death. Reese...Reese....something...
Witherspoon?
Nah, with a knife.