2018 Oscar Predictions

[+ WilliamM]

I can wait till 2024 to get the president I want if I have to.

 

Very few people get the president they really want. Perhaps once in a lifetime.

 

 

I love reading things like this from people who are clearly well-read or teachers/experts in their field

 

Agree about the second paragraph only. Brilliant explanation.

[+ WilliamM]

We'll just have to disagree on that one. It doesn't make Porter any less of a genius to also praise Herman's work, which to me is generally first-rate. Neither of them got it right all the time, but does anyone?

 

My dislike of Jerry Herman is really about the subject of his musicals. I like "Milk and Honey" and "Mack and Mabel." I saw little reason to add music and lyrics to "Auntie Mame" or the French film that became Broadway's "La Cage aux Folles."

[Kenny]

The way the "This Is Me" lyric reads to me is much more contemporary/pop in feel, and not structured as carefully or cleverly as Herman's more traditional Broadway lyric. (Herman is also more daring with his rhymes, which he always has been - the rhyming in "this is me" is much more general and common.) In terms of song structure, Herman always worked in the expected AABA kind of "standard" lyric structures, which "This Is Me" doesn't have. ("I Am What I Am" is 3 refrains of AABA lyric, each refrain carefully building and changing in tempo and feel - that kind of build or variety is also nowhere to be found in "This Is Me.") If anything, looking that that lyric simply on its own terms, I would tend to think, structurally, of something like "I Am Woman" way before "I Am What I Am" lol.

 

More to the point, "pastiche" in terms of music/song tends to refer more to a direct imitation of musical style. A lyric imitation would naturally follow, but the music would be the main focus. And there is nothing musical that connects the 2 songs. Though, Pasek and Paul can indeed do pastiche very well - I don't think they were trying for that here at all. (Or, in the film in general, as even Jenny Lind's "Never Enough" isn't pastiche for her character, which would have been an obvious choice to consider. Compare Cy Coleman's attempt at something more pastiche in Barnum, where Lind sings the more lyrical/quasi-operatic "Love Makes Such Fools Of Us All.")

 

 

Pastiche doesn't refer to the literal substance of a song (i.e. a similar message or "plot" in the lyrics), rather a deliberate and obvious imitation of style. That isn't what "This Is Me" is doing. It may be a pastiche pop song (from the standpoint of Pasek and Paul being musical theatre writers "imitating" pop, in a sense), but it's not a pastiche of Jerry Herman.

Oh.

[Kenny]

I didn't vote for Trump last time, but I WILL in 2020 if Democrats cheat/smear/attack indies & progressives again. I can wait till 2024 to get the president I want if I have to.

Spoken like a truly privileged white guy. Sheesh.

[bostonman]

My dislike of Jerry Herman is really about the subject of his musicals. I like "Milk and Honey" and "Mack and Mabel." I saw little reason to add music and lyrics to "Auntie Mame" or the French film that became Broadway's "La Cage aux Folles."

 

I'm not much of a La Cage fan either - save for a few first-rate songs (especially the perfection that is "Look Over There") it's one of his weakest scores, musically and especially lyrically, IMO. ("A Little More Mascara" and "Masculinity" have some of his worst lyrics ever, IMO. The words can be clunky and odd, they don't always sit on the music well, and it just feels to me like you can hear the heavy labor he had to put into them, instead of the breeziness that so many of his lyrics have.) I'm not sure I agree that the original French film isn't a good property for a stage show, though - and of course there's also The Birdcage, which was to have more songs in it that it wound up with.

 

I'm not sure that the Porter/Herman comparison is all that apt if we're talking subjects/plots, though, because Porter worked mostly in an era where often properties/plots didn't need to make much sense lol. In fact, it's almost ironic that Porter's indisputable stage masterwork, Kiss Me, Kate, was written under a bit of resistance - he wasn't all that happy about how Rodgers and Hammerstein had already completely changed the expectations of what a musical could be. (And yet that show has what I consider one of the great classic musical theatre books, even if some of the songs do come out of nowhere lol.)

 

I personally think that Mack and Mabel is a brilliant score stuck in a book that will never quite work (there have already been 2 major revisions over time, at least, and it still isn't quite right). In my mind, it might be a better musical if one cut the book and just played the drama through the songs. It's hard to beat ballads as perfect as "I Won't Send Roses" or "Time Heals Everything" - those songs are one-act plays in their own right, and tell us everything we need to know about those characters' all too human mindsets. Wonderful stuff.

Edited March 8, 2018 by bostonman

[+ WilliamM]

I'm not sure that the Porter/Herman comparison is all that apt if we're talking subjects/plots, though, because Porter worked mostly in an era where often properties/plots didn't need to make much sense lol. In fact, it's almost ironic that Porter's indisputable stage masterwork, Kiss Me, Kate, was written under a bit of resistance - he wasn't all that happy about how Rodgers and Hammerstein had already completely changed the expectations of what a musical could be. (And yet that show has what I consider one of the great classic musical theatre books, even if some of the songs do come out of nowhere lol.)

 

I know that Cole Porter wrote songs for musicals that did not always make much sense. Mary Martin wrote in her autobiography about reluctantly turning down "Kiss Me Kate" because her voice had changed since Porter's "Leave It To Me." Were all the songs for the film "High Society" written for that specific cast, including Grace Kelly? Or were some of the songs written years before?

 

Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald sang dozens of Cole Porters songs. Merman too because many of his songs were written for her.With Ms. Fitzgerald, it went far beyond just her Cole Porter songbook.

Edited March 8, 2018 by WilliamM

[EZEtoGRU]

How can you be delusional/blind enough to accuse me of pretending to be a moderate centrist after reading any of my posts?????? I literally bash the corrupt neocon/neolib centrist establishment as much as I can in each & every post lol

 

And no, I didn't vote for Trump last time, but I WILL in 2020 if Democrats cheat/smear/attack indies & progressives again.

 

Anyone who voted for Trump in 2016 or would vote for him in 2020 should have their voting privileges revoked for two election cycles due to severe intellectual incapacitation.

 

Admin Note: Wrong Forum for Politics.

Edited March 8, 2018 by Cooper

[LoveNDino]

Best part...

[+ WilliamM]

Compare Cy Coleman's attempt at something more pastiche in Barnum, where Lind sings the more lyrical/quasi-operatic "Love Makes Such Fools Of Us All.")

 

I have great respect for Cy Coleman, and I saw "Barnum" on Broadway. But, I do not remember that song.