Illness delays movie debut for Dennis Hopper's son & other

Thursday 4 September 2008

New York Times Examines New Ovarian Cancer Test

�The clinical laboratory troupe LabCorp is offering a new

Monday 25 August 2008

"The Little Dog Laughed" takes on sexual identity and love in Hollywood

Broadway comedies bashing Hollywood mores are nearly as old as Broadway and Hollywood themselves.

In his 2007 Tony-nominated Broadway play "The Little Dog Laughed," New York generator Douglas Carter Beane takes up the cudgel with zest, aiming squarely at such time-honored targets as mercenary showbiz agents, self-involved movie stars and producers who grind daring drama into blandly palatable projection screen fare.

What Beane tackles here which most of his predecessors steered clear of, are sincere matters of sexual personal identity and the nature of love � concerns that, on juncture, elevate "Little Dog" above the horizontal surface of cute cartoonishness.

But what really fuels the play is the motor-mouth monologues of Diane � played by Christa Scott-Reed with verbal flair and claws-bared �lan, in Intiman Theatre's local debut of "The Little Dog Laughed."

Model-thin and dressed to kill in costumer Elizabeth Hope Clancy's swanky evening wear and designer power suits, Scott-Reed is a sharp-elbowed Dream Factory scrap vet with zero illusions about her main client, Mitchell (Neal Bledsoe).

She's departure to bank vault him into superstardom, whatsoever it takes. And when Mitchell's "slight, recurring case of homoeroticism" rears its head in a het romance with a danton True Young male tart, Alex (Quinlan Corbett), Scott-Reed's Diane swoops in to do impairment control.

She orders Mitchell to "butch it up" and contrives schemes to neutralise those annoying New Yorkers, Alex and his onetime lover Ellen (Megan Hill). And the plum at stake, for her fake-straight client Mitchell? The role of a gay man, in a big Hollywood film of a attain play.

Beane artfully piles on the ironies of a gay man pretending to be straight, to play gay. And did we mention that Diane is herself a closeted lesbian?

Diane's machinations, and the Eve Arden-esque assessments of Hollywood realpolitik, ar snappily extortionate and mirthsome. (She's first cousin, by the way, to the loquacious, mythic con-woman Alexa, in Beane's earlier play "As Bees in Honey Drown.")

Act 1 dwells ab initio on the unlikely matter of Bledsoe's handsome, hungriness Mitchell and Corbett's piquant Alex. Their loaded first-class honours degree encounter, after a boozy Mitchell orders up a "rent boy" from a prostitute service, is essentially a long tease. (It's also sexually explicit, with some near-total nudity.)

The affair raises one of Beane's more thoughtful points: that even gorgeous young gays may thirst male affectionateness, as a great deal (or more) as male sex. And while the two things are non mutually exclusive, they ar not synonymous.

No surprise, though, that the New Yorkers come proscribed of this with more heart than the Tinsel Towners do.

Alex, with his unlikely simply appealing lack of jadedness, truly grapples with conflicting feelings, in a coarse-textured turn by Corbett (a Seattle role player getting a well-deserved break here.).

And Alex's off-on lover Ellen (spunkily played by Hill, a Seattle stage alum and recent Harvard University grade) also matures, from potty-mouthed party girl to a person with (at least temporary) signs of emotional depth.

Fracaswell Hyman's direction mines the script's lode of humor adroitly, aided by Matthew Smucker's sleek settings, whirring along on a crimson-hued turntable. Joseph Swartz's sound design favors the droll erotic love songs of Cole Porter � a closeted sunny man, with a lesbian wife.

Diane's have nascent wild-eyed feelings for Mitchell evaporate as her brittleness increases. But hey, diddle victimize (as the nursery rime that elysian the title goes), it's really her cattiness we're meant to adore.

And though Beane suggests reasons for it (such as the sexism of Hollywood higher-ups), she's soundless a gorgon. Just as Mitchell is, ultimately, a male bimbo � peculiarly given the contrived, tone-shifting ending.

"The Little Dog Laughed" makes good on all the Hollywood-bashing chortles it promises, just doesn't give way all the deeper epiphanies and insights it hints at. That makes us care a lot less in the end about Diane and Mitchell than we mightiness have. But the laughs they provide are placid delicious.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com

More information

Thursday 7 August 2008

Die Form and Aube

Artist: Die Form and Aube

   Genre(s):
Other

Discography:

Ukiyo

Year: 1995
Tracks: 9

Friday 27 June 2008

George Clooney - Models Pals Honeymooning At Clooneys Italian Retreat

Friends of GEORGE CLOONEY's ex-girlfriend are still benefitting from model SARAH LARSON's year-long romance - one is honeymooning at the movie star's Italian retreat on the banks of Lake Como.

The unnamed pal got the greenlight to use Clooney's Italian palace when the star was still dating the model - and the generous actor insisted on honouring the arrangement even after he split from Larson last month (May08).

Mutual friend Andrea Tiede tells Life + Style magazine, "A friend of ours who just got married is using George's house in Lake Como, Italy, right now for her honeymoon.

"Obviously, this was arranged when Sarah and George were still dating, but he (Clooney) cares about Sarah, so I wasn't surprised he honoured the offer of his house."

Tiede admits the wedding was tinged with sadness - because the bride and groom had hoped Clooney would be a guest. Instead Larson had to attend without a date.

Of her friend's break-up, Tiede says, "It's been hard... She (Larson) was swept up. They just had a few small fights and disagreements, and it all unravelled from there."

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