![]() In the midst of chaos - relationships, a day job at a diner, the AIDS epidemic - Jonathan must decide if he's going to stick with his dream of becoming the next great musical theater auteur or sell out. Boom! affectionately plays tribute to its originator, vaguely fictionalizing his life just before his 30th birthday in 1990. It's absolutely worth a view for the always entertaining story, an Oscar-winning turn by Hathaway (and her Very Good short hair), and the novel live singing, but perhaps if you're going to have people sing live, you might want to cast more, oh, I don't know.singers? Just a thought!Īdapted from the late Jonathan Larson's autobiographical one-man show, Tick, Tick. ![]() Operatic in construction and sweeping in scope, Les Misérables was one of the most anticipated movie adaptations of any musical in recent memory, with fair results. Over decades, he is hunted by single-minded police officer Javert (Russell Crowe) as he cares for Cosette (Amanda Seyfried), the daughter of ill-fated factory worker Fantine (Anne Hathaway) whom he takes in as his own. After Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is released from prison after 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving nephew, he assumes a new identity to escape his parole. ![]() Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC.Les Misérables is perhaps one of the most epic modern musicals ever, and if you couldn't already tell from the name that it's set in France, knowing that it all begins with drama over a loaf of bread should seal the deal. Watch Life-Affirming Performances from David Byrne’s New Broadway Musical American Utopia See several more of Kalman and Byrne’s beautifully optimistic pages from American Utopia, the book, at Brain Pickings.ĭavid Byrne’s American Utopia: A Sneak Preview of Spike Lee’s New Concert Filmĭavid Byrne Launches Reasons to Be Cheerful, an Online Magazine Featuring Articles by Byrne, Brian Eno & Moreĭavid Byrne Curates a Playlist of Great Protest Songs Written Over the Past 60 Years: Stream Them Online Kalman confesses she’s still in “quiet shock,” but finds hope in historical perspective and “incredible people out there doing fantastic things.”īyrne takes us on one of his fascinating investigations into the history of thought, referencing a theorist named Aby Warburg who saw in the sum total of art a kind “animated life” that connects us, past, present, and future, and who reminded him, “Yes, there are other ways of thinking about things!” Perhaps the visionary and the Pollyannaish need not be so far apart. You can see the whole, hour-long conversation just above. Do Byrne and Kalman still have reasons to be cheerful post-COVID? Just last week, they sat down with Isaac Fitzgerald for Live Talks LA to discuss it. Byrne’s two-year endeavor can be seen as his answer to “American Carnage,” the grim phrase that began the Trump era.Īmerican Utopia the book, like the musical before it, was written and drawn before the pandemic. ![]() Then, Byrne had the audacity to call a 2018 album, tour, and Broadway show American Utopia, and the gall to have Spike Lee direct a concert film with the same title, and release it smack in the middle of 2020, a year all of us will be glad to see in hindsight. Contra the common wisdom of most adults, a couple years back Byrne began to gather positive news stories under the heading Reasons to Be Cheerful, now an online magazine. Maybe we all have to be a little like practical Aunt Polly, but do we also have a place for Pollyannas? Can that not also be the role of the modern artist? David Byrne hasn’t been waiting for permission to spread joy in his late career. ![]() Pitted against Pollyanna’s effervescence is Aunt Polly, too caught up in her grown-up concerns to recognize, until it’s almost too late, that maybe it’s okay to be happy. Whatever your feelings about the sentimental, lighthearted 1960 Disney film Pollyanna, or the 1913 novel on which it’s based, it’s fair to say that history has pronounced its own judgment, turning the name Pollyanna into a slur against excessive optimism, an epithet reserved for adults who display the guileless, out-of-touch naïveté of children. ![]()
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