Profile for marknyc

I saw "West Side Story" on Valentine's Day, and I wanted to take a few days to compose my thoughts before I posted. First, the good: I'm happy the score was not tampered with (I'd heard crazy rumors about hip hop being added, etc). What a relief to hear the score exactly as written (minus a few instruments and some cuts). Second, the singing was beautiful - everyone delivered the spine-tingling notes of the score beautifully. It should make for a great OCR.But from there, things go downhill. ...

Soaring29 said: "Why did Wicked lose?" Because it's awful, and "Avenue Q" is one of the best musicals of this century. Period. "

Love all this discussion. Any comments on the dubbing examples included in Parts 1 and 2? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg_Ke_jjRMs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q1W7x6UfeM

Yes, I've always heard that Marni "augmented" Natalie's one line, "Don't you touch him!" and it does sound like two people saying it.

Thanks for the compliment. Karine, who did research for this compilation, interviewed Marni and played this clip for her - Marni confirmed that it is her voice for that one line. The Fox recording logs also confirm this.As to Rita, the film's music director stated that she was dubbed for a few notes in "Shadows" on the soundtrack of the film. I can't hear it, though.

After weeks of work, I've finally finished my second dubbing compilation. It's a lot of fun to watch. Would love to read your reactions - lots of surprises in here!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg_Ke_jjRMsMark

Saw it last night and had mixed feelings. The cast is great, of course. But it was strange to hear all the exposition about how great SA was and then to see nothing of the actual show. Crucify me, but I felt Audra was miscast - it felt like an opera singer doing jazz, and she didn't do it as well as she did as Billie Holiday. Billy Porter's solo in Act 2 was the first time I felt I was hearing these songs the way they were meant to be heard.Glover's choreography had a sameness to it - it was ...

Let's be clear - the show is great. And La Chanze is great, when she's not singing. Perhaps it was just nerves and she'll be better tonight. Either way, the show is definitely worth seeing.

I was going to wait, but I have to counter these reviews.While the show was great, particularly the dancing, La Chanze was clearly struggling vocally. Everyone I was with agreed on that point, and everyone I asked later also agreed. This was more noticeable in the first act than the second, but even in Act II, she was still spotty. Her acting was great, but her singing (particularly her low notes) was a real problem. I'm crossing my fingers that this was just nerves and she'll do better tomor...

"La Chanze was totally, totally amazing." Really? I was there and came away with a very different opinion. But since it was the first dress, I'll wait for the reviews tomorrow.

I learned my lesson about BWW preview threads after reading dozens of raves for "Gigi" and then wasting money on a poor show. Same thing seems to be happening here. DAS is not a bad show, it's just...meh. In 1968, when the nostalgia craze was in its infancy, this must have been a lot of fun - I don't think there had ever been parodies of WB musicals before. (And I'm sure Bernadette was amazing.) But in the last 47 years, this idea has been done to death, and far better. The book has few jokes...

You're nit-picking and missing the of my post and the story. To explain it again: Gigi begins as a girl, whom Gaston does not see in any sexual way and who he treats only as a fun-loving kid. The dialogue makes this clear many times. Over the course of the play, she matures into a young woman, whom Gaston falls in love with and is now is sexually attracted to. Anyone who watches the title song and doesn't get that is not listening.

The original intent of the song was clearly not sexual. It mirrored the storyline, which centers around the fact that Gigi, previously seen as a nonsexual playmate, suddenly blossoms and sends Gaston "crashing through the ceiling". In 1958, pedophilia (like homosexuality or Presidential affairs) was not discussed or even acknowledged, so it was possible to have 70-year-old Maurice Chevalier sing the song. In 2015, we're far too aware of child sexual abuse to allow the same thing, so I underst...

Let's be clear that none of us bemoaning what was lost from he film are doing so out of "nostalgia". The film is a great work, and amazing in that they were able to discuss what was essentially prostitution in 1958. Of course, a film must be adapted for Broadway - but if you are going to change important scenes, the changes must be at least as good as the original. This ending was far weaker than the film's moving final scene (which was far better than the original 1948 French film's ending)....

Saw this last night. Enjoyable, but with some significant drawbacks. Interesting that the women, especially Victoria Clark and Dee Hoty, are great, whereas the men are lacking. Corey Cott is too callow as Gaston, and Howard McGillin brings little to the role of Honore, especially when he's competing with the ghost of Chevalier. But nothing can explain the change to the ending. The film's final scene is perfect - one of the best in all musical films, I think. Why they felt the need to dilute s...

So I was hopeful this was improving, but then I read a review of last night's preview (3/24) on Facebook. Does anyone care to respond? (This is not my review.) The initial buzz proved to be true: the new production of The King And I is queerly draggy, without spark, saddled with dull direction; vapid second leads in the roles of Tuptim and Lun Tha; and plagued by poor sound and muddy miking. None of these problems are much-publicized star Ken Watanabe's fault, but he's ultimately the weakest ...

Had to share the phone call I got from my 90-year-old mother last night. I told her I loved the film, so when her senior center chartered a bus to go see it she went (she loves musicals). She hated it! "Too many lyrics, too much yelling, too much singing - it was like an opera!" She said all the seniors there also hated it. So is ITW a generational thing? I honestly thought she'd love it.

Wow - that reads like it was written by an NBC press agent. Not one criticism in it. I was really looking forward to this, but I'm shocked at how disappointing it was. I thought the fact that this show has been performed so many times, by so many people, would make it impossible to screw it up. I was wrong. How do you take a joyous scene like "I'm Flying" and drain all the life out of it? And why do you light it so that the wires are more evident (in HD) than ever before? They really didn't g...

"And the reconstructed main title sequence (with music taken from the Overture instead of the Main Title music) is nice, but missing two of the film's credited orchestrators." I only missed one credit in the title sequence, since it was cut off in the transfer and I could not find it on IMDB. It was not an orchestrator. Unfortunately, the Main Title was not on the LP, so I had to use the Overture.

absolutelynot2, you should definitely see the film. It's so much better than the show it's hard to believe they use essentially the same script.