It was a pretty good movie. Another quirky product from the Farrelly brothers. it would have been just as good without her. And she wouldn't have won that Oscar for SiL without Weinsteins' machinations.
The best thing I've ever seen Paltrow in is 'Two Lovers' from 2008, with J. Phoenix and Vinessa Shaw. G.P. gives a convincing performance of a rather raw character.
I've read all 4 and seen all but The Invention of Love about the gay poet Housman ("Shropshire Lad"). It made the least impression on me, but then, as you point out, it was created for the stage not for the arm chair.
Arcadia blew me away, I was gobsmacked a play could contain everything that was contained in there. I also loved Jumpers and the Coast of Utopia, though the latter requires a commitment on both staging and attending that is difficult to repeat.
But a special mention for Darkside. One would have thought the most perfect rock album of all time couldn't possibly be improved on. And then...
I'd incorrectly assumed that Tom Stoppard (b. 1937) didn't actually like the long-haired rock music of his early prime because he was already 30 when he became famous with "Rosencrantz" in 1967, the year of Sgt. Pepper. His 1972 play "Jumpers" contains a lot of tributes to out-of-fashion 1950s musical songs that he liked as a teen and young adult.
Similarly, John Updike (b. 1932) wrote a memoir essay for The New Yorker about all the forgotten pop standards he liked in the late 1940s as a teen. He concludes by saying that the last new song that made an impression on him was "Hey Jude" in 1968 at age 36. Now, Updike had hugely powerful aesthetic and emotional sensors, but if by age 36 only "Hey Jude" could make an impression on him anymore ...
But the Hermione Lee biography of Stoppard I reviewed made clear that Stoppard liked the Beatles and Stones and Pink Floyd a whole lot and would play their new records while working.
Updike began as an illustrator and enjoyed popular music, but not much.
Words engulfed his passion. Music, accurately but rarely evoked (barring high school rally songs), were another flyspecked memory pulling Rabbit Armstrong back to the past that he grew to understand, too late, had prevented him from adulthood and maturity. And insight.
Part of the genius of Darkside is that it's only half a play springing off the album, while the other half is interlaced with the music in a way that 1) actually ratchets up the drama of the music and 2) does so in the same way the band itself might have done. As someone who has spent thousands of hours over many decades listening to Pink Floyd, I can certify that the latter could only have been accomplished by someone who has spent thousands of hours over many decades listening to Pink Floyd.
Some of the stray phrases Stoppard weaves in also have the ring of a nudge, "Hey, if any of you guys have another concept album in you, here's an idea." They might have sunk in a little. The phrase "This is not a drill" that Stoppard used to great dramatic effect in "Time" was repurposed by Roger Waters as the title for his 2020-22 tour.
Arcadia is my favorite play. Seen it 3 times. One time, when I was walking out of it I heard one of the stupidest comments when one theater goes asked another "Do you think abd Septimus were married?" I was about to say something snide but my wife stopped me.
I also liked Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I thought the movie was pretty good although for many years I thought Gary Oldman was Keanu Reeves!
"I thought the movie was pretty good although for many years I thought Gary Oldman was Keanu Reeves!"
I just had that problem yesterday despite knowing perfectly well it wasn't Keanu Reeves, it was Gary Oldman. It's funny how Keanu is famous for being part Asian while Oldman seems very English, and yet ...
“To prove your enemies wrong on the Internet, see their arguments driven before your logic, and to imagine the lamentation of their women.”
Oh for goodness sakes, Steve.
On the previous post regarding Stoppard's death, I wanted to post that while there's definitely a strong case to be made that Stoppard is his generation's greatest playwright, that's not a cut and dry statement when it comes to say, film screenplays (especially as film is a different medium than theatre, where endless gobs of words and telling a story verbally, and not visually is the key component).
As far as one of the greatest screenplay writers of the generation, I would tend to put David Mamet ahead of Stoppard (and Mamet is also very, very highly regarded in the world of theatre). Like Stoppard, Mamet is also highly regarded and has the professional, critical accolades to go with it. So as far as screenwriting goes, I'll give the edge to David Mamet. From Wag the Dog, the Untouchables, the Verdict, Redbelt, Ronin, and of course the adaption of his famed play Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet more than deserves to be included in the conversation of great screenwriters of his generation (definitely as good a screenwriter as Stoppard, in fact, one could make the case as far as realistic dialogue for the big screen, it's Mamet first).
There isn't much evidence that Stoppard was even a particularly good screenwriter, other than that he kept getting hired to work in secret on movies. His batting average of good movies out of total movies he worked on is not high. Is that because so many were rewritten? Or were so many rewritten because Stoppard's contribution weren't fully satisfactory?
I guess "Shakespeare in Love" is his fullest piece of work for the movies. His co-writer came up with the basic idea and the first scene and then Stoppard wrote the rest.
I get the impression that Stoppard thought his late TV miniseries "Parade's End" was finally when he got to show what he could do for the screen rather than the stage. But I haven't seen it.
Thanks. Then my original statement would tend to stand. Of the two playwrights, David Mamet is the better screenwriter of the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
Roger Ebert absolutely loved Mamet's smaller movies like The Spanish Prisoner (IIRC). I've only seen Speed the Plow and Glengarry Glen Ross. I went to see it in Chicago around 1984 because Peter "Columbo" Falk was in it. But the local crowd gives a huge round of applause when a local actor named Joe Mantegna comes out on stage with Falk. So that was really a good show.
For naturalistic dialogue and not stilted, flowery, philosophical, but the way actual humans talk with one another in everyday life, Mamet is the best.
So just got around to seeing an early 80's classic, First Blood (1982), around the time you were graduating UCLA and off to Chi Town.
Better late to the party than never. Stallone gives an amazing performance, especially in the final scene where he loses it with PTSD. He's often underrated as an actor, but when he's cast in the right role he can truly shine. And no, Stallone hasn't been in a David Mamet film.
Parade's End is pretty good stuff; it stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall. IIRC correctly, it's a bit uneven, but has some very good, very intense scenes. BC is great as an extremely repressed British officer.
Sounds like Stoppard had niche employment getting clunky productions out of the ditch and across the finish line. I think Ron Howard does that as well.
He seems like a pretty grounded, humanist guy, with an active, curious mind. I'm sorry I'm not more familiar with his work.
The only thing I have to go on him is Shakespeare in Love, which I thought I wouldn't like but ended up enjoying.
There's a spreadsheet and everything (and I bet this crowd will love that). The visual comparison of how Stoppard sliced out the flab and extended acts for balance is useful.
All that said, I went into IMDB for my own substack post... and saw the stinkers that Stoppard was a script doctor on, and I actually love that he was a consummate professional. Evidently, he was a script doctor for Beethoven (the film about the big slobbery dog), and hey, they paid, I assume.
My personal fave was Arcadia bc of all the "literati", Stoppard actually understood math/science at a high level that he could include it in his work in a RELEVANT way. I appreciated that.
I didn't realize that he directed the movie version of R&G are Dead, but now that I know that, I appreciate it more, b/c he put stuff in there he couldn't have in a stage play (even tho Steve ragged on him for not having a good eye for a film director, which, fair).
It was really good but you needed a lot of reading/backstory about Russian Revolutionaries and Oscar Wilde to get it. I went to it and loved it but a guy behind me was sighing and muttering under his breath because he didn't understand what it was about.
Yes, and in addition it’s important to have read Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of being Earnest.” Stoppard was definitely a playwright for highly intelligent, educated audiences.
Best is "The real Thing"...I played a smallish, but cool role (the coachman) in "On the Razzle", which was apparently based on the source for what became "Hello, Dolly" which is kinda interesting...plus Stoppard loved cricket, like many excellent writers, so a plus, there...
Where have people seen his plays? The last few years I have looked for productions, and besides R&G there are not many around the country each year. I would have thought a contender for "Greatest Living Playwright" would have more popular reach.
I saw a lot of Stoppard plays in the 1980s and 1990s, often in lavish productions: e.g., the U. of Chicago's Court Theater did Every Good Boy Deserves Favor about a Soviet dissident locked up in a mental hospital alphabetically with a genuine madman with the same name who hears an orchestra everywhere he goes ... with a full orchestra.
I suspect Stoppard shows weren't big moneymakers then in terms of ticket sales, but were prestige projects that brought in donations from smart rich people.
I almost always made sure to go to the theater book store on Clark St. in Chicago and buy a copy of the play I was going to see and read it ahead of time. But that's a lot to ask of people looking for a fun, relaxing evening out at the theater.
Also, middle-aged Stoppard did a huge amount of publicity in person on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a frequent flier on the Concord.
Journalists loved interviewing him. He'd been one of them from 18 to 25, but he was also obviously a superior individual, a Jeffersonian "natural aristocrat" who took a kind interest in helping the second string reviewer of the Southtown Economist turn in a really good interview.
Gwyneth was good in 'Shallow Hal', which I think is a great movie, the naysayers be durned.
It was a pretty good movie. Another quirky product from the Farrelly brothers. it would have been just as good without her. And she wouldn't have won that Oscar for SiL without Weinsteins' machinations.
The best thing I've ever seen Paltrow in is 'Two Lovers' from 2008, with J. Phoenix and Vinessa Shaw. G.P. gives a convincing performance of a rather raw character.
I'll put Two Lovers on my Things To Watch list.
Travesties.
Rosencrantz etc.
The Invention of Love
Arcadia
Re 1 and 3, I think you really have to see them performed. 2 and 4 work pretty well on the page.
I've read all 4 and seen all but The Invention of Love about the gay poet Housman ("Shropshire Lad"). It made the least impression on me, but then, as you point out, it was created for the stage not for the arm chair.
Arcadia blew me away, I was gobsmacked a play could contain everything that was contained in there. I also loved Jumpers and the Coast of Utopia, though the latter requires a commitment on both staging and attending that is difficult to repeat.
But a special mention for Darkside. One would have thought the most perfect rock album of all time couldn't possibly be improved on. And then...
I'd incorrectly assumed that Tom Stoppard (b. 1937) didn't actually like the long-haired rock music of his early prime because he was already 30 when he became famous with "Rosencrantz" in 1967, the year of Sgt. Pepper. His 1972 play "Jumpers" contains a lot of tributes to out-of-fashion 1950s musical songs that he liked as a teen and young adult.
Similarly, John Updike (b. 1932) wrote a memoir essay for The New Yorker about all the forgotten pop standards he liked in the late 1940s as a teen. He concludes by saying that the last new song that made an impression on him was "Hey Jude" in 1968 at age 36. Now, Updike had hugely powerful aesthetic and emotional sensors, but if by age 36 only "Hey Jude" could make an impression on him anymore ...
But the Hermione Lee biography of Stoppard I reviewed made clear that Stoppard liked the Beatles and Stones and Pink Floyd a whole lot and would play their new records while working.
Updike began as an illustrator and enjoyed popular music, but not much.
Words engulfed his passion. Music, accurately but rarely evoked (barring high school rally songs), were another flyspecked memory pulling Rabbit Armstrong back to the past that he grew to understand, too late, had prevented him from adulthood and maturity. And insight.
Good point, words were Updike's "music".
"Rock and Roll" is basically a love song to Floyd, and interspersed "the waif " (Syd Barrett) through proceedings...
Part of the genius of Darkside is that it's only half a play springing off the album, while the other half is interlaced with the music in a way that 1) actually ratchets up the drama of the music and 2) does so in the same way the band itself might have done. As someone who has spent thousands of hours over many decades listening to Pink Floyd, I can certify that the latter could only have been accomplished by someone who has spent thousands of hours over many decades listening to Pink Floyd.
Some of the stray phrases Stoppard weaves in also have the ring of a nudge, "Hey, if any of you guys have another concept album in you, here's an idea." They might have sunk in a little. The phrase "This is not a drill" that Stoppard used to great dramatic effect in "Time" was repurposed by Roger Waters as the title for his 2020-22 tour.
The Coast of Utopia was great. I saw all three in the same day. Love Arcadia. And Leopoldstadt. Haven't seen most of the earlier ones.
Sadly I have only seen a few of them.
Arcadia is my favorite play. Seen it 3 times. One time, when I was walking out of it I heard one of the stupidest comments when one theater goes asked another "Do you think abd Septimus were married?" I was about to say something snide but my wife stopped me.
I also liked Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I thought the movie was pretty good although for many years I thought Gary Oldman was Keanu Reeves!
My third favorite was the Coast of Utopia.
I also liked the Hard Problem.
"I thought the movie was pretty good although for many years I thought Gary Oldman was Keanu Reeves!"
I just had that problem yesterday despite knowing perfectly well it wasn't Keanu Reeves, it was Gary Oldman. It's funny how Keanu is famous for being part Asian while Oldman seems very English, and yet ...
“Steve, what is best in life?”
“To prove your enemies wrong on the Internet, see their arguments driven before your logic, and to imagine the lamentation of their women.”
Oh for goodness sakes, Steve.
On the previous post regarding Stoppard's death, I wanted to post that while there's definitely a strong case to be made that Stoppard is his generation's greatest playwright, that's not a cut and dry statement when it comes to say, film screenplays (especially as film is a different medium than theatre, where endless gobs of words and telling a story verbally, and not visually is the key component).
As far as one of the greatest screenplay writers of the generation, I would tend to put David Mamet ahead of Stoppard (and Mamet is also very, very highly regarded in the world of theatre). Like Stoppard, Mamet is also highly regarded and has the professional, critical accolades to go with it. So as far as screenwriting goes, I'll give the edge to David Mamet. From Wag the Dog, the Untouchables, the Verdict, Redbelt, Ronin, and of course the adaption of his famed play Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet more than deserves to be included in the conversation of great screenwriters of his generation (definitely as good a screenwriter as Stoppard, in fact, one could make the case as far as realistic dialogue for the big screen, it's Mamet first).
There isn't much evidence that Stoppard was even a particularly good screenwriter, other than that he kept getting hired to work in secret on movies. His batting average of good movies out of total movies he worked on is not high. Is that because so many were rewritten? Or were so many rewritten because Stoppard's contribution weren't fully satisfactory?
I guess "Shakespeare in Love" is his fullest piece of work for the movies. His co-writer came up with the basic idea and the first scene and then Stoppard wrote the rest.
I get the impression that Stoppard thought his late TV miniseries "Parade's End" was finally when he got to show what he could do for the screen rather than the stage. But I haven't seen it.
Thanks. Then my original statement would tend to stand. Of the two playwrights, David Mamet is the better screenwriter of the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
Roger Ebert absolutely loved Mamet's smaller movies like The Spanish Prisoner (IIRC). I've only seen Speed the Plow and Glengarry Glen Ross. I went to see it in Chicago around 1984 because Peter "Columbo" Falk was in it. But the local crowd gives a huge round of applause when a local actor named Joe Mantegna comes out on stage with Falk. So that was really a good show.
For naturalistic dialogue and not stilted, flowery, philosophical, but the way actual humans talk with one another in everyday life, Mamet is the best.
So just got around to seeing an early 80's classic, First Blood (1982), around the time you were graduating UCLA and off to Chi Town.
Better late to the party than never. Stallone gives an amazing performance, especially in the final scene where he loses it with PTSD. He's often underrated as an actor, but when he's cast in the right role he can truly shine. And no, Stallone hasn't been in a David Mamet film.
I watched "The Spanish Prisoner" last year. It was great.
I liked it a lot more than Glengarry Glen Ross.
Parade's End is pretty good stuff; it stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall. IIRC correctly, it's a bit uneven, but has some very good, very intense scenes. BC is great as an extremely repressed British officer.
Perhaps Stoppard's contributions on popular films shouldn't be judged by how good the movie was, but by how much box office it generated.
Sounds like Stoppard had niche employment getting clunky productions out of the ditch and across the finish line. I think Ron Howard does that as well.
He seems like a pretty grounded, humanist guy, with an active, curious mind. I'm sorry I'm not more familiar with his work.
The only thing I have to go on him is Shakespeare in Love, which I thought I wouldn't like but ended up enjoying.
The Verdict was a masterpiece, and not just the screenplay. Lumet, Newman, Warden, Mason ...
I'm a sucker for any movie with Jack Warden or Jack Weston in it.
Ok, for those who haven't seen the comparison, you need to see how Stoppard punched up Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade:
https://mffilm.wixsite.com/lastcrusade
There's a spreadsheet and everything (and I bet this crowd will love that). The visual comparison of how Stoppard sliced out the flab and extended acts for balance is useful.
All that said, I went into IMDB for my own substack post... and saw the stinkers that Stoppard was a script doctor on, and I actually love that he was a consummate professional. Evidently, he was a script doctor for Beethoven (the film about the big slobbery dog), and hey, they paid, I assume.
My personal fave was Arcadia bc of all the "literati", Stoppard actually understood math/science at a high level that he could include it in his work in a RELEVANT way. I appreciated that.
I didn't realize that he directed the movie version of R&G are Dead, but now that I know that, I appreciate it more, b/c he put stuff in there he couldn't have in a stage play (even tho Steve ragged on him for not having a good eye for a film director, which, fair).
Travesties
It was really good but you needed a lot of reading/backstory about Russian Revolutionaries and Oscar Wilde to get it. I went to it and loved it but a guy behind me was sighing and muttering under his breath because he didn't understand what it was about.
Yes, and in addition it’s important to have read Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of being Earnest.” Stoppard was definitely a playwright for highly intelligent, educated audiences.
Every Good Boy...
The NYTimes review is a masterpiece of denial, even in 1977.
Arcadia
Coast of Utopia
The Real Thing.
And then everything else he wrote.
Best is "The real Thing"...I played a smallish, but cool role (the coachman) in "On the Razzle", which was apparently based on the source for what became "Hello, Dolly" which is kinda interesting...plus Stoppard loved cricket, like many excellent writers, so a plus, there...
Where have people seen his plays? The last few years I have looked for productions, and besides R&G there are not many around the country each year. I would have thought a contender for "Greatest Living Playwright" would have more popular reach.
I saw a lot of Stoppard plays in the 1980s and 1990s, often in lavish productions: e.g., the U. of Chicago's Court Theater did Every Good Boy Deserves Favor about a Soviet dissident locked up in a mental hospital alphabetically with a genuine madman with the same name who hears an orchestra everywhere he goes ... with a full orchestra.
I suspect Stoppard shows weren't big moneymakers then in terms of ticket sales, but were prestige projects that brought in donations from smart rich people.
I almost always made sure to go to the theater book store on Clark St. in Chicago and buy a copy of the play I was going to see and read it ahead of time. But that's a lot to ask of people looking for a fun, relaxing evening out at the theater.
Also, middle-aged Stoppard did a huge amount of publicity in person on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a frequent flier on the Concord.
Journalists loved interviewing him. He'd been one of them from 18 to 25, but he was also obviously a superior individual, a Jeffersonian "natural aristocrat" who took a kind interest in helping the second string reviewer of the Southtown Economist turn in a really good interview.
It's hard to think of a better example of Christian kindness than that.
The Southtown Economist. Yes!
Turned down the chance to be the HS student of the week in 1969. Would my life’s course have been different if I’d agreed? I will never know.
I saw the full nine hour production of Coast of Utopia when it played in New York with Ethan Hawke as Bakunin. A great experience.
Nine hours?
I didn't know that about Revenge of the Sith. Not even Tom Stoppard could find a way to polish a turd.
Brazil, Brazil and Brazil again.
Foundational film in my youth.
My buddies and I left the theater pretty stunned...