The Prom (Movie)

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    Bumps on the Road From Broadway to Hollywood

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storycritic’s notebookBumps on the Road From Broadway to HollywoodNot for decades have so many plays and musicals been turned into movies. But even in the best of the new crop, a lot gets lost in translation.David Byrne, center, with musicians and dancers in Spike Lee’s filmed version of the critically acclaimed Broadway show “American Utopia.”Credit…David Lee/HBODec. 18, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETA moment I barely noticed in the 2019 Broadway production of David Byrne’s “American Utopia” jumped out at me with new resonance in Spike Lee’s film of the show for HBO.That was when Byrne, in his introduction to the song “Everybody’s Coming to My House,” described hearing it performed by students at the Detroit School of Arts. Without altering a word or note, the high schoolers had turned the number, which in Byrne’s original version comes off as an anxious monologue about being inundated by otherness, into a joyful choral invitation.“I kind of liked their version better,” Byrne says, apparently amazed by the material’s mutability: The song was the same yet had “a completely different meaning.”I knew what he meant; after all, I was watching an even more elaborate translation, in which a concert staged like a Broadway musical was turned into a live-capture television film for cable. And though Lee’s slick and exuberant adaptation includes plenty of shots of the audience at the Hudson Theater bopping to the beat and dancing in the aisles, it was now, like “Everybody’s Coming to My House,” the same yet totally different.Theater lovers are getting familiar with that feeling. These days, it seems like everybody’s coming to our house — and walking off with the furniture. Not for decades have we seen so many Broadway shows, whether musicals (“Hamilton,” “The Prom”) or plays (“What the Constitution Means to Me,” “The Boys in the Band,” “Outside Mullingar,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) or unclassifiable offerings like “American Utopia,” taken up by Hollywood, squeezed through the camera lens and turned into film.The squeeze is certainly subtler now than it used to be. Lyrics are seldom butchered to avoid offense as they once were; I expect that Steven Spielberg’s version of “West Side Story,” scheduled for release in Dec. 2021, will restore Stephen Sondheim’s original rhyme for “buck,” which had to be altered for the 1961 film.Nor are innumerable songs dumped like dead plants from fire escapes anymore. (The 1966 movie version of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” dropped at least half of Sondheim’s 14 numbers.) Musicals — and, in a way, plays too — are now being filmed because of their music, not in spite of it. More

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      Keegan-Michael Key Reaches into the Past With ‘Midnight Run’ and ‘Electric Ladyland’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMy TenKeegan-Michael Key Reaches into the Past With ‘Midnight Run’ and ‘Electric Ladyland’The actor, who appears in the upcoming musical “The Prom,” looks back on improv guides, Whoopi Goldberg’s comedy and Diego Rivera’s murals.Credit…Rich Polk/Getty Images For ImdbDec. 15, 2020, 10:00 a.m. ETThe world may have turned upside-down this year, but the actor-producer Keegan-Michael Key has grounded himself in his work, finding a refuge from the isolation and anxiety of the pandemic.For a gregarious person like Key, who is used to collaborating with others on set in projects like Netflix’s “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey,” Ryan Murphy’s musical “The Prom,” and even “Home Movie: The Princess Bride” on Quibi (R.I.P.), conditions this year have forced him to work remotely every day.“It’s been fascinating to have just finished work before the pandemic really hit the States,” he said. “I was in a very, very communal experience, working on ‘The Prom.’ And then the stark contrast of doing Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting and doing audio work from your home.”Digging into the things that bring him joy has helped him keep his equilibrium, he says. In a recent phone interview from Vancouver, where he’s shooting a musical comedy for Apple TV+, Key walked through the 10 things he’s found himself revisiting during his extra time. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “Every Frame a Painting”There’s a YouTube channel by a gentleman by the name of Tony Zhou, and it’s about film critique. The channel is called Every Frame a Painting [cocreated by Taylor Ramos]. I just absolutely love it, and I think it’s a tragedy that he stopped making them. Of the videos on the channel, my two favorite videos would be How to Do Visual Comedy, which is pretty much an exploration of Edgar Wright and his work. And then there’s one called How to Do Action Comedy, which is an entire episode about the art and craft of Jackie Chan.I think part of what draws me to all that stuff, to both of those, is the theatricality of them. So, the stuff with Jackie Chan I find so fascinating because he talks about how he locks off shots. He doesn’t pan or track. He always lets the performer do the special effects in the camera. So, seeing people actually jump and leap and fall and be struck is so dynamic and exciting to experience. With Edgar Wright, it’s the opposite. He uses a lot of artistry to show the passage of time, and a person moving from one place to another using cinematic techniques.But every single episode is an absolute gem. Sometimes if I’m just sitting during the day and I’m being contemplative or I have a break, I’ll find myself gravitating toward Every Frame a Painting. And it’s just something that gives me a lot of joy, and a lot of edification.2. “Impro” and “Impro for Storytellers” by Keith JohnstoneI had a director at the Second City who taught a technique about improvisation that he shared with us in a very figurative manner.He told us this quote, and I’m paraphrasing, about an improviser’s job is always to walk back, as if you’re walking backward. A performer’s always walking backward through space. As you keep walking backward, more things come into your field of vision.Oh, that’s a window, and that’s a lamp that’s now in the window. And I back up, now I see the kitchen counter. You need to see all of those things to help establish where you are.He got that idea from Keith Johnstone. He wrote a couple of really amazing books called “Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre” and “Impro for Storytellers.” And they were just perpetual manuals for me when I was performing as an improviser full-time and also teaching. And I just find so many fantastic things about narrative and how he looks at game play and how to open children’s minds and have them experience life in a fearless manner.3. “Midnight Run”One of my favorite movies of all time is “Midnight Run,” with Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Dennis Farina. Martin Brest directed it. American action films at that time had quite a lot of humor in them. But the bullets were still real. And there was this sensibility that the danger was gritty and authentic, yet there was also a place for jokes. And that’s fascinating to me.If you watch “Midnight Run,” it’s the funniest I think De Niro ever was in his career. Everything in the piece fits together. The narrative of the piece, and also how he’s reacting to Grodin. There was something very authentic about their buddy story, about the evolution of them coming together as two people.4. Kehinde WileyI think Kehinde Wiley is amazing. Just talk about an artist who really effectively uses juxtaposition. And the way that he celebrates the Black experience through another older experience. Legitimizing our very existence by saying, “Why couldn’t we have been any different to men on horseback with all this frippery, and regaling themselves with sashes and capes and sabers?” His art, it’s so dynamic and colorful and powerful and inspiring. I can’t go to an art museum right now, but I really enjoy his books so much.5. The Detroit Industry MuralsI’m from Detroit, and there’s a real love of epic that I have. In the Detroit Institute of Arts, there’s a room, and all the walls are filled with these murals that were painted by Diego Rivera in the ’30s. And they’re absolutely magnificent. It’s just these great images of all the people of the world. And then below it, almost the evolution of industry, and it’s fantastic. It’s just breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking.6. “The Great Eastern” by Howard RodmanI read a book right on the edge of Covid. It’s a piece of historical fiction called “The Great Eastern,” and it’s fantastic.There was a civil engineer in the 19th century in England by the name Isambard Kingdom Brunel. And he helped build the tunnel underneath the Thames, and he did all this in the 1850s, 1860s. A ship called the Great Eastern suffered from an explosion. That’s all historical fact. But Howard Rodman, the author, what he did is you find out it was actually a terrorist attack. A gentleman blew up the ship, and then kidnapped Brunel. And you find out, through the story, that the person who kidnapped him is Captain Nemo.It’s great. It’s been my favorite read of the year so far.7. “Electric Ladyland” by the Jimi Hendrix ExperienceI’m an enormous Jimi Hendrix fan. I think that “Electric Ladyland,” which was his third album, is an absolute masterpiece. And something that if I ever really want to get lost in a song, my favorite song on that album is a song called “1983 … (A Merman I Should Turn to Be).” And it’s like a whole big opus. And I love this song. It’s one of these great songs that has movements in it. I don’t even know how he makes the sound, but these wonderful sounds of, like, sea bells. Like, foghorn-y sounds and sea gulls. He paints a seascape with sound, and makes bubbly sounds with the bass guitar and the guitar. And the whole song is about being someone who’s submerging underneath water, because that’s going to be a place to exist in the future.8. East Asian CinemaI’m a big fan of kung fu and wuxia cinema. There was a movie that came out in 2002 called “Hero,” which is a Zhang Yimou film, with Jet Li, Tony Leung, and Zhang Ziyi. But it’s just one of the most visually sumptuous things I’ve ever seen in my life. Every character is represented by a color. And it reminds me a lot of Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran.” Which again, it’s something that plays with different factions and different characters being explained by color, or influencing you, the viewer, by the color. It’s another one of these films that I could watch whenever. It’s almost like my eyes are having Thanksgiving dinner almost every 10 minutes. I’ve always had a kind of steady diet of those movies in my life.9. “Whoopi Goldberg on Broadway”I think one of the most influential things for me as an artist, but also for me seeing the world in a new way that’s always stuck for me, is when I used to listen to Whoopi Goldberg. I didn’t get to see her on Broadway, but my parents had the album, and I would listen to her play these different characters. And it was astounding. Here’s this African-American woman who’s playing several characters. She’s playing a woman with disabilities, she plays a young girl who’s Black but she had blonde hair. She’s playing a surfer girl who, as I’m listening to it, I’m hearing her voice, I’m going, “OK, yes, this girl is supposed to be white.”And then she plays this educated junkie. A junkie who travels to Amsterdam and goes to the Anne Frank [House], and talking about, “When I got my degree at Columbia,” and the audience always laughs, and she goes, “What? You think I was a junkie for my whole life?” And it’s one little line in the thing, but you go, “Oh my gosh, that’s so brilliant.” The character becomes this fully realized human in this tiny thing. It’s her using something Jordan Peele called comedic judo. She’s using your expectations against you. And it’s done so deftly.10. “Laughter” by Henri BergsonHe posits these theories about why we laugh. And one of them is about flexibility and malleability in society. So that when we move through society, we all try to be, for the most part, as fluid as we can with each other. Oftentimes, inflexibility or rigidity is what brings about laughter. There are these unwritten contracts that we have with each other, that I’m going to keep this much distance from you, or I walk out of the way as you’re coming down the street. You know, that kind of situation. We have these moments, small, infinitesimal, almost imperceptible negotiations with each other all the time. And when someone refuses to negotiate, sometimes the result is laughter.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      New Star of ‘The Prom’ Sees a Chance to Make L.G.B.T.Q. Characters Visible

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew Star of ‘The Prom’ Sees a Chance to Make L.G.B.T.Q. Characters VisibleLike her character, Jo Ellen Pellman identifies as queer, and she is making her film debut in the Netflix musical alongside A-listers like Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman.“It’s the best feeling in the world knowing I can bring my authentic self to the role,” Jo Ellen Pellman said of “The Prom.”Credit…Da’Shaunae Marisa for The New York TimesPublished More

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      ‘The Prom’ Review: Showbiz Sanctimony, and All That Zazz

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘The Prom’ Review: Showbiz Sanctimony, and All That ZazzRyan Murphy takes on the Broadway hit “The Prom,” with help from Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Keegan-Michael Key.The bright (small) lights of Indiana meet Angie Dickinson glam: Nicole Kidman and Jo Ellen Pellman in “The Prom.”Credit…Melinda Sue Gordon/NetflixDec. 10, 2020, 7:00 a.m. ETThe PromDirected by Ryan MurphyComedy, Drama, MusicalPG-132h 10mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Early in Ryan Murphy’s “The Prom,” a Broadway flack starts reading the reviews of a newly opened show about Eleanor Roosevelt, “Eleanor!” The gang’s all here, including the self-adoring stars, Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep) and Barry Glickman (James Corden). The drinks and laughs are flowing, and everyone is as lit as their bedazzled outfits. And then the flack starts reading the notice from The New York Times (hiss, boo). “This is not a review you want when you have crappy advance sales,” he bleats. “This is going to close us.”In his review of “The Prom” on Broadway, my Times colleague Jesse Green amusingly reassured readers that this wouldn’t happen, deeming it “a joyful hoot.” It won’t happen with the movie, which is based on the show, for other reasons. “The Prom” starts streaming on Netflix on Friday, which means no amount of cheers or jeers will matter. On Netflix, the movie will sit alongside thousands of other titles, subject only to mysterious algorithms and sheltered from both critics and the box office. Its canny mix of nostalgia and idealism, old-fashioned conservatism and new-age liberalism will hit the spot for some, even if its vision of American unity is hard to recognize right now.In its broad outlines, the story — a show-people lark wed to a morality tale about a teenage lesbian’s triumph — seems unchanged. Called out as unlikable narcissists (who can’t even make a hit), Dee Dee and Barry decide to rehabilitate their tainted reputations with celebrity activism. With their overripe second bananas, the archly named Angie Dickinson and Trent Oliver (Nicole Kidman and Andrew Rannells), they travel to an Indiana town, intent on taking up (uninvited) the cause of the heroine, Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman), a high schooler who’s been barred from bringing her girlfriend to the prom.The theme and the story’s arc emerge when Dee Dee et al. descend on the town, waving placards and trumpeting indignation. “We are here from New York City and we are going to save you,” Barry announces to Emma, who’s embedded in a meeting filled with parents and other students. This joke is soon repeated, as often happens in this movie, where every rose is gilded and every laugh squeezed until it’s dry. “Who are you people?” asks the mother (a misused Kerry Washington) leading the homophobic charge. “We are liberals from Broadway,” Trent says, assuring that Team New York will fall on its smug face while securing its own redemption.The tolerance message in “The Prom” is sincere, no matter how satirically delivered. And it’s easy to imagine that onstage the whole thing came off as charming (as a friend insisted), a quality not in Murphy’s paint box. (The charm of his TV series “Glee” sprang from the youth of his cast and the musical genre itself.) Murphy likes to go big and lightly bonkers, and his aesthetic is best described as Showbiz Expressionism: it’s splashy and ostensibly excessive without being threatening. In contrast to, say, the shocks of John Waters, for whom tastelessness is a revolt (aesthetic, political), Murphy’s excesses are tastefully vulgar strokes rather than a value.The story unwinds with histrionics and homilies, jazz hands and twinkle toes, overly busy camerawork and hookless lung bursters. (Matthew Sklar wrote the music and Chad Beguelin wrote the lyrics and, with Bob Martin, the screenplay.) Some of the songs are cheeky (“we’re gonna help that little lesbian/whether she likes it or not”); others are as earnest as a daily affirmation (“life’s no dress rehearsal”). Taken together, they create a parallel narration that makes swathes of dialogue superfluous. “If you’re not straight,” Emma sings early on, “then guess what’s bound to hit the fan.” Later, she sings “nobody out there ever gets to define/the life I’m meant to lead.”Pellman doesn’t look remotely like a teenager, but her melancholic sweetness is appealing and she has a quality of stillness that creates a much-needed oasis amid Murphy’s insistent din. It helps that, in contrast to her famous co-stars, she hasn’t been directed to oversell every note, whether musical or emotional. With her open face and pretty soprano, she turns her character into a recognizable adolescent and lets you see — and feel — Emma’s yearning, her hurt and belief that something better, more soul-nurturing, waits beyond the prejudices and provincialism of her town. Like Dorothy and countless others, Emma dreams of her place over the rainbow.She gets it, with assistance from her soon humbled, ultimately victorious New York helpers (and the warm presence of Keegan-Michael Key as the principal). How this all goes down is as predictable as expected except that, in the year 2020, it’s also more fantastical than “The Wizard of Oz” at its trippiest. Here, all it takes for bigots to accept Emma and L.G.B.T.Q. rights is for Trent to call them out as hypocrites who should — in a sublimely narcissistic move — be more like their fabulous, righteous interlopers. In other words, if the haters would open their tiny, hard hearts, everything would be fine. You don’t have to be a cynic to know that is a crock. You just need to be an American.The PromRated PG-13 for who knows? Musical theater? Glitter? Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes. Watch on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More