BULLETS OVER BROADWAY Reviews — Page 7

UpInOne, i respectfully disagree. It goes without saying that every musical that opened this season got its share of raves and pans. But I just went to stagegrade.com, and I didn't see the love it or hate it reaction for any other show that we see with Bullets. There are many B-C reviews for Gentleman's Guide, If/Then, Beautiful, Aladdin, even Rocky. The show with the best reviews seemed to be After Midnight, which really didn't have full out pans though it did have a couple that were negative. What I'm saying is that the number of raves v. pans here, with very few in the middle, seems unusual.

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Nice to know they all saw the same show

I do not know if this was mentioned before but Roma Torre gave it a mixed but leaning negative.

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I personally felt that the chosen period songs worked very well. In fact, as I was watching Bullets, a couple of times I had to remind myself that the songs weren't written for the show, that's how seamless it seemed to me. (The rewritten lyrics helped with that, I would imagine.)

I had expected to see mixed reviews, but I'm surprised at how many pans there were. I enjoyed the show from beginning to end and thought it was very funny. I didn't find the hot dog number vulgar at all. It fit in really well with the character and the storytelling.

We enjoyed it but who knows how it would have played with an original score.

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There are people who really don't care at all whether a new show uses a re-cycled score or creates a new one; just as there are people who don't care at all if they hear singers and instruments acoustically or only through amplifiers.

If you don't care, you won't care. But it's good to remember there are people who do care, and they've expressed their reasons why.

There simply aren't enough theatre critics for that to be helpful. Rotten Tomatoes aggregates something like nearly 200 reviews. Stagegrade has about 10% of that number to work with, and often fewer for shows off-Broadway or without high profiles.

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Yea but Kad they are including some review sources most of us have never heard of and not all shows have the same number of reviews graded, it should be apples to apples. Stagegrade considered The Times review of If/then a B- Come on! (makes Italian hand gesture for "What's up with 'dat?") They need to fine tune their grading system.

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Saw this last night and left at intermission (a first for me). It wasn't a mess like say BABY IT'S YOU, but it was so insanely boring, at least I had fun watching the trainwreck unravel in BABY IT'S YOU, this was just utterly boring and pointless. I can't imagine why they decided to go with Stroman as a director if this was her vision for the show, utterly uninspired. The scenes just kind of sit there, the jokes don't land, the scenes are over before anything interesting happens, the musicals numbers come and go, none of them (in the first act anyway) actually do anything to flesh out the characters, advance the plot, or something. The cast tries, but they just end up (I assume per Stroman and Allen's request) playing the parts exactly like their film counterparts. I thought the score was terrible, obviously not the songs themselves, but the way in which they are "incorporated" (they aren't). It reminded me so much of Woody Allen's cringing EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU. I was so disappointed since I had been looking forward to this show for so long. A wasted opportunity. And yes, it's impossible to watch it and not feel like the show screams for an original score, and certainly a different director.

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I really enjoyed the show. It was a comedy as much as it was a musical. The question should be whether it should get best score. Of course, the answer would be no. The score is not original, but neither is the music for Aladdin, The Lion King, After Midnight, Beautiful, etc.

You can still dislike Woody Allen, but admire his work. Think of Roman Polansky.

I was not bored, but there were some lulls. I try to go to a show and think about the actors playing in it, the writers, the directors, the choreographers. Just because it is a show based on his films does not mean that you should penalize all the others who have worked for years on this production, certainly before the accusations came out, however true they may be.

I'm usually bored in the theater and my mind starts wandering on things I need to do. Bullets flew by for me. It's all so subjective. For instance, I left Sweet Smell of Success during intermission.

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By that logic how can we criticise a show if it's what the creators 'wanted'? They made a decision and many people don't like that decision. I don't see why they should have to keep quiet about it.

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But we can disagree with the creator's "choice" to use existing songs. And I feel. in this case, most of the songs are fun but they really don't "move" the plot or "flesh out" the characters, in my opinion.

I don't care if a song doesn't move a plot or flesh out a character.

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