Morning Deal Report: Remaking the Stone

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:30:00 GMT

I have nothing but remakes for you this morning, I’m afraid. It’s up to you, the Screengrab reader, to determine which among them is most egregiously unnecessary. We begin with Romancing the Stone, which itself was considered little more than a Raiders of the Lost Ark knockoff before cleaning up at the box office and spawning the much less beloved sequel The Jewel of the Nile. Now Fox has tapped Daniel McDermott to pen a remake of “the story of a repressed romance novelist who travels to Colombia to find her missing sister only to meet up with an American soldier of fortune,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

But that’s not all! THR is also reporting that “Russell Brand might soon be caught between the moon and New York City.” Yes, a remake of Arthur is on the table. As you’ll recall, the original starred Dudley Moore as “a boozy playboy rascal who is set to inherit a fortune if he marries an heiress his family thinks will make something out of him. However, he falls in love with a working-class woman and turns to his valet for help when his family makes him choose between money and love.” We’re interested in the remake only if Liza Minnelli reprises her role as the working-class woman Brand romances.

You’re saying, “Please, Screengrab! No more remakes!” But we cannot oblige. John Carpenter’s They Live is coming back to life. As you know, “The movie is known for a fight scene that lasts 5 1⁄2 minutes and for the line, ‘I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass ... and I'm all out of bubblegum.’” And Hollywood is all out of ideas.

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OST: "Cabaret"

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Appearing at a time when it seemed the big-screen musical was an outdated relic of the past, Broadway veteran Bob Fosse's clever and accomplished Cabaret caught all of Hollywood by surprise. Sophisticated, playful, adult and remarkably well-made, Cabaret was in, but not of, the classical musical tradition; and while it had many pillars of strength -- outstanding lead performances, rock-solid source material, sure-handed direction, and a unique approach to storytelling -- it wouldn't have been the huge critical and commercial success it became without its dazzling array of songs.

John Kander and Fred Ebb's musical had come along relatively late in the day, and though it proved extremely popular, there were plenty of reasons to suspect that it might not be an immediate success as a motion picture. Its homosexual subtext -- drawn directly from the autobiographical writings of Christopher Isherwood that inspired the play -- and its attempts to fold an energetic romantic comedy into a grim story about psychologically desperate people trying to find happiness during the rise of the Nazi party were controversial and were likely to draw criticism from all quarters if not handled with great care. Facing these issues as well as time constraints, at least seven songs were cut from the Broadway play, leaving only a dozen to make the transition to the big screen. New characters would be introduced, old ones would be cut, and the lead role of Sally Bowles was to be Americanized in order to accomodate the actress who would be playing her: Kander and Ebb's favorite collaborator, Liza Minelli. Fosse made the decision to play up, rather than down, the sense of doomed decadence that pervaded the Berlin social demimonde in those days, and to film in start, contrasting, and muted colors, giving what was a widescreen musical extravaganza a justifiable noir feel. Any of these factors might have sunk the production, but in all, they seemed to perfectly capture the tone, experience and mood of its audience of the day, who helped make it a runaway success upon release.

In what was then an extremely unsual move, only two of the lead actors -- Minelli as the cabaret singer Sally Bowles and the incredibly charismatic (and unnamed) Master of Ceremonies played by Joel Grey -- sing songs. (The rest are assayed by relatively minor characters.) Part of the reason this works so well is because of what Kander and Ebb called 'what if sessions': firm believers in a strong collaboration between author and actor, they would have frequent brainstorming meetings with Minelli and Grey to determine how the two wanted to handle their characters and what emotions and information they hoped to convey in any given song. Kander and Ebb would then would with Fosse themselves to tailor the music and lyric towards that goal. The result is an often seamless soundtrack that never once appears artificial or arbritray, as was often the problem in traditional musicals, but seems to grow organically out of the characters' interactions with one another and their gradually dangerous surroundings. Now, some 35 years later, Cabaret still stands as one of the greatest musicals of its day.

BEST TRACKS: Liza Minelli's showstopper as Sally Bowles, "(Life is a) Cabaret", is justifiably the most famous song in the musical, and went on to become her signature number later in life. Her collaboration with Grey's Master of Ceremonies, "Money, Money", is the play's funniest song, a hilarious meditation on greed delivered in a perfectly over-the-top evocation of pure camp. And while it's hard to pick a single track to stand for the best of Grey's sinister but playful MC, "Two Ladies" and "If You Could See Her" (with Gray dueting with a man in an ape suit!) are two of our favorites.

The Screengrab : liza minnelli

Morning Deal Report: Remaking the Stone

OST: "Cabaret"