On Demand Alert: Passing Strange The Movie

In spring 2008, Ann and I caught the Broadway production of "Passing Strange," an "autobiographical fiction" musical starring Stew (that's all, just "Stew") and co-authored by Heidi Rosenwald. Stew's story -- of a young African-American searching for meaning in Europe during the Seventies, and living off of checks from his middle-class mother from the Compton neighborhood in Los Angeles -- was interesting to someone who was a somewhat less privileged contemporary of his (me)... but the telling -- with Stew fronting a terrific rock band that held center-stage through the entire performance -- was something special. The original Broadway production only lasted for 165 performances, but fortunately filmmaker Spike Lee was so taken with it that he captured the work on film. "Passing Strange The Movie" debuted at the IFC Center theater in New York on August 21st, and on Wednesday August 26 it will be available on-demand on cable systems across America. Someone described "Passing Strange" as "The Rock Musical for Rock Musical Haters" -- if you're one of those, tune in. It's great music, it's organic to the play, and the production is captivating. Based on the clips on the movie's website, Spike Lee has very effectively captured what we so thoroughly enjoyed in the theater.

A Movie Liker's Guide to the Oscars

I as a music lover (you couldn't tell?). I am a movie liker. I might watch 30-40 a year, mostly on VOD or DVD, and maybe a half-dozen in the theater. I don't put a lot of stock in the Oscars, but since that particular set of award nominations does help to focus the mind, I'll use it as a jumping-off point for my views - not my "picks," my views.

Best Picture of 2008 has to be Slumdog Millionaire. It was one of the most original, creative and energizing things I've seen on screen in a long time. Superior cinematography, sharp and edgy direction and editing, and a knockout score that will bring overdue attention to A.R. Rahman and ultimately to other Bollywood composers. I found the story a little too contrived, but that didn't get in the way of what I considered to be the best movie experience of the past year.

As for Milk - superior performances by Sean Penn and Josh Brolin, but this was a by-the-numbers bioflick that, had I not known the story (which is quite moving), probably wouldn't have grabbed me. As for the performances, I felt Penn's pain, but I felt Brolin's, too, as a working-class Irish-Catholic pol who just didn't know how to handle change. Between this film and No Country for Old Men, I think Brolin has put some of the best work up on the screen in the last two years. Brolin is nominated in the same Supporting Actor category with at least two extraordinary performances - Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, and, in one of the bravest and funniest performances I've seen in a long time, Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder - a movie I wanted to hate but couldn't. (Come to think of it, Downey has put up two of the best performances of the last two years, too - he was great in Iron Man, which had me right up to the final fight scene that looked like a parody of the dumbest action picture ever).

I hope to see Frost/Nixon next week. I will wait for Benjamin Button and The Reader on VOD. Having not yet seen those three, I will still puzzle over why The Dark Knight and WALL-E didn't get Best Picture nominations. WALL-E deserves to walk away with Best Animated Feature. I'm surprised that The Wrestler was passed over - that's on my VOD list, too.

We'll probably hear a lot of lamenting that this was not a great year for the movies. That's OK - the year gave us 30 Rock, The Office, Mad Men, and Flight of the Conchords on cable and broadcast, which was plenty to keep me entertained when I wasn't watching UConn basketball.

Bond... the Real James Bond

I'm a latecomer to 007. I didn't pay much attention during the Sean Connery and Roger Moore years, and only started paying to see Bond films when Pierce Brosnan stepped into the role. I never read Ian Fleming's novels until, for some reason, my son became fascinated by them (and by Agatha Christie mysteries) when he was about eight years old. The Bond novels became part of our bedtime reading, usually between releases of Harry Potter books (though I expurgated Bond as I read aloud). I do think Daniel Craig's reinvention of Bond in a darker vein is a triumph, and I will be in a neighborhood theater when Quantum of Solace premieres in the U.S. next weekend.

Last week, I learned about the connection between Ian Fleming's hero and my neighborhood of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia. James Bond was an Oxford-trained ornithologist who worked at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia (America's oldest science museum). Bond lived near the Philadelphia Cricket Club in Chestnut Hill. Fleming was a fan of the Caribbean and of birding, and Bond's "Birds of the West Indies" was by his bedstand when he was casting about for a suitable name for his fictional secret agent.

Bond worked at the Academy for some 60 years. According to a WHYY radio interview last week with an Academy executive, the real James Bond met the real Ian Fleming exactly once -- at Fleming's Jamaica escape, "Goldeneye" (which gets a lovely write-up in an article about Fleming and Jamaica in this New York Times article this weekend). During that visit, Fleming reportedly inscribed a copy of his novel "Goldeneye": "To the real James Bond from the man who stole his name." I am also reminded that the real Bond's birding book makes a cameo in the movie Die Another Day as Pierce Brosnan flips through it while visiting Havana. (Guess I missed it - must have been distracted by Halle Berry's emergence from the sea.)