Through a “Floor,” Schizophrenically

If I want to hold true to my personal pledge to evaluate movies on this blog “for what they are,” then I can’t really write what I want to write here—mostly because “Burn the Floor” isn’t a movie; it’s a Broadway show. But that’s a problem which is easily overcome, simply by saying, “To hell with my subtitle and the four people who read this.”

The other half of the problem is a little thornier: as always, I don’t want to evaluate anything unfairly. I see it done all the time. When a reviewer bashes something by evaluating it as a piece of Art when it’s pretty obvious that the producer was not interested in being artistic, it pisses me off. In movies, for example, evaluating “The Hangover” based on anything other than how funny it was would make as much sense as evaluating an apple pie as a cheesecake. I don’t support it.

However, I am of two minds when it comes to “Burn the Floor.”  I sort of expected it to be artistic, so I really want to chide it for its ostentation and Xerxean excess and for generally being a whore of a production, but I can’t, because I initially forgot to factor into my expectations that it’s a Broadway show, and Broadway’s very signature (excepting a few) is whoredom and Xerxean excess. What can I say—glitz is a great way to entertain.

The only way around this, then, is to write a dual, schizoid review—one reviewing it as Performance Art, and one as a Broadway Show.

“BURN THE FLOOR” AS A PIECE OF PERFORMANCE ART

It’s too bad. There was some real talent up there.

But in Broadway Production for Money-Hungry Invertebrates, it is clearly stated on page 86 that “talent is never enough; there must be dry ice and partial nudity.” And so it was written. And so it was overproduced.

Aesthetically modeled after the seasonal kitsch-a-thon of Dancing with the Stars, “Burn the Floor” is the relatively new Broadway production featuring twenty or so talented dancers from around the world performing wide-ranging ballroom(ish) numbers in several different styles.

Don’t get me wrong: the dances themselves are great. But they are eclipsed in a gale of cheese and sequins. To render it palatable to the average NYC Broadway-goer, the people behind this show apparently felt the need to “sex it up,” and thus we are left with slinky dresses, white fur boas, half-open shirts, hairless male busts, ubiquitous ground fog, and every other dance-related cliché you might be able to call to mind.

The cheesiness hits its peak with a number that centers around a blond woman in a silver-sequined dress in a foggy night-scene who’s joined on stage by two shirtless men. They waltz around for a while and are joined by another shirtless man. Then another. Then another. Then another. Until there are six men on stage dancing with one woman, spinning her between them, lifting her, dipping her, and spiraling around her like so many spray-tanned moons. Then they blindfold her and dance with her some more. Is this a harlequin romance novel? I was half expecting another shirtless guy to emerge on a horse, maybe with a broadsword and hair extensions. Maybe we’ll be so lucky in “Burn the Floor 2.”

“BURN THE FLOOR” AS A BROADWAY SHOW

I haven’t looked forward to anything in a long time as much as I looked forward to “Burn the Floor.” There’s nothing sexier than a good, edgy ballroom routine. All the marketing was covered with the word “Sizzle!” I’m a fan of “sizzle.” I don’t know who isn’t.

For those who seek premium dancing and captivating special effects, the show does not disappoint. It starts and ends at a breakneck pace, slowing down only a few times for a Waltz or two (which make the old people happy). Dances vary from Rumba to Jive, running the  style spectrum and sometimes bleeding into each other. I wouldn’t say it was enough to live up to its slogan, “Ballroom. Reinvented.” but the blending certainly produced some exciting fusions.

 Swing may have been the favorite of the night, as evidenced by the collective gasp every time we were sure one of the females was going to end up paralyzed from being dropped on her head, only to see her stop an inch from the floor.

I occasionally had trouble focusing on the dancers, though, as excellent as they were, having fallen hopelessly in love with Rebecca Tapia, the lead female vocalist, who strutted around in a magnetic sort of way, wearing sparkly things. She and male vocalist Ricky Rojas sang extremely well and effectively added the dimension of live music to the show (which is a dimension you don’t often get at dance performances, for obvious economic reasons).

This is a show that hits hard and often, with a lot of glitter and skin and occasional endearing Broadway cheesiness. I’m always glad to see Dance being popularized in such a way—expanded from weekday television. Any attention the dance community can get is a good thing. I will make this suggestion: if you see this show, have somewhere to go afterward, because you won’t be able to sit still for at least two hours.

“A Serious Man” – Zagat rated

As a Biblically uninformed non-practicing Catholic, I feel unqualified to review this movie. There’s all kinds of Hebrew. There’s a Yiddish parable. There’s a Mitzvah. There’s a Dybbuk. Even after a year with two Jewish roommates and another year in Crown Heights, I still suspect that half this movie flew over my head.

Therefore, to be fair to the indomitable Coens, I’m going to try something unprecedented, as far as I know, and string together a Zagat-style movie review.

Here we go:

When going to see a Coen brothers movie, it’s almost foolish not to expect a “metaphysical pie in the face,” which is exactly what they deliver with their “pitilessly bleak” new comedy, “A Serious Man.” Whether it will “floor you or drive you batty,” with its “grim narrative soil” is a matter of perspective. (Just ask the Junior Rabbi.) Like the Book of Job—its “source material”—this is a “distilled, hyperbolic account of the human condition,” but where “every cosmic joke is a black one.” True, this film, at times, “makes you feel anxious and miserable,” but it’s “impossible not to respect” a film that can manipulate your physicality like that.

Well, that was easy. Probably really illegal too. Sorry, Legitimate Media!

But really, after reading all those reviews (or at least the first paragraphs of them), I think the most apt sentence came from Todd McCarthy at Variety, who said “‘A Serious Man’ is the kind of picture you get to make after you’ve won an Oscar.” As “bleak” as it was—and that was the preeminent adjective—it also felt unabashedly celebratory.

I know: that sounds crazy and contradictory. But listen, I got a sense that the directors had always wanted to make this. There’s no discernible attempt at “broad appeal” here. One gets the sense, watching it, that there must be some autobiographical inside joking going on here to which we were not privvy–or invited. It’s set in Minnesota in 1967 and is about a Jewish family. The brothers were born in ‘54 and ‘57 in Minnesota. If you do the math and reduce the fractions, it looks like a movie that sprouted from a conversation that began with, “Hey Ethan, remember our adolescence?” And he totally did. Because no one forgets his adolescence.

And now, after they’ve won their golden folded-armed man, and after they’ve managed to stuff people like me so completely in their back pocket that they’ll just automatically shell out the money to see whatever they produce, they can make the movie they wanted to make this whole time without fear of it going unwatched. They can ask “big questions” and not answer them. They can include as much “Jew stuff” as they want. They can be cynical. They can be coy. They can be wink-winky and nudge-nudgey. They can make us cringe and cover our eyes and heave sigh after sigh and not even worry about it. They’re talented, and they deserve it.

That is not to say that this movie is bad. It’s very funny in a few scenes, and the acting  and costuming is superb. It’s just that it’s hard to watch a man trying to do right by God and family and getting screwed over so royally and consistently and relentlessly. But such is life, I guess. And from what I understand, such has been history for a certain People.

The Talented Mr. Whitacre

I laughed audibly at the trailer of “The Informant!” for two reasons. One: it was funny. Two: Matt Damon’s character Mark Whitacre looks and sounds exactly like the head of the ad/promo department where I work. Mostly, though, I laughed because it was funny. It looked like a lighthearted movie (a true story!) about an awkward, inept businessman bumbling around in an important FBI investigation, reminiscent, perhaps, of last year’s “Burn After Reading.” I liked that one.

However, “The Informant!” misses “funny” by a few kilometers—and “lighthearted” by a few more. Despite the playful title fonts and Whitacre’s ridiculous arsenal of horrifying neckwear, one couldn’t help but sense a seriousness to the movie. It was perplexing on several levels. The audience is never quite sure exactly what’s going on; Whitacre himself is morally ambiguous and unlikeable; the “truth” keeps changing; the cognitive narration is full of loony non-sequiturs; and you’re watching a tubby Jason Bourne throw hissy fits in a bad suit. (Seriously, who cast him? Who looks at the real-life Whitacre and thinks, “Oh, Matt Damon would be perfect.” Fucking genius.)

The movie is branded as a comedy, but I heard not one person in the theater laugh out loud. In fact, several people walked out, presumably upset over being misled by the amusing little trailer. Really, we expect some laughs and some wit, and what we get was an infuriating look at bipolar disorder, which in this case has manifested itself as chronic, compulsive lying. I say “infuriating” because we start off really rooting for Mr. Whitacre. He’s trying to do the right thing, trying to take down the “evil corporation” even if it means sacrificing his own welfare, risking his reputation and his job for the good of the everyman. Mr. Whitacre he believes in something, and that’s admirable. But then as the movie goes on, we find out a few more things. And then a few more. And then a few more. And we feel very, very betrayed.

The whole thing feels like a bad divorce. A really long, bad divorce. The movie, aside from the voice-over musing about random stuff and the offensively hideous ties, is decidedly un-fun. That is not to say, however, that it isn’t interesting. Director Steven Soderbergh is not a dumb man. He knew what he was doing making this movie. There is no question in my mind that we feel betrayed because he wanted us to feel betrayed.

“The Informant!” as I mentioned, is based on a true story, and it’s one that you’d want to tell because it’s just so crazy. But it’s something we may not be ready to listen to. We like heroes. He didn’t give us one. We like tragedies too. But he didn’t really give us one of those either. In a typical tragic arc, the hero builds himself up, makes a bad decision, and falls. In this movie, Mr. Whitacre builds himself up, then falls, but we find out that he was a jerk to begin with. What does one do with that?

This movie—and I’m going to call it now—will really divide people. It’s very smart and very resistant to classification, but anyone going in looking for laughs is going to be disappointed. You know, what they should do is give out pre-nups at the ticket window. Because you’re in for the long haul, and it’s not going to go well.