Bullets Over Bway ( Why no talk ? )

I think most people didn't think it lived up to what it should have been.

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Personally speaking, I came to the city and saw 8 shows, last week. Bullets was my least favorite, but most anticipated. I was so, disappointed. It was so, blatantly overdone. Just call it, The Producers. In your face, loud, and the story, if you adore the movie, as I do, was completely changed, including the ending. It was such a disappointment, to me.
The director, I believe, was a mismatch in terms of this show. The performances are good, and the actors did what was asked of them. I had a few chuckles, but that was it.
The audience did, love it, from what I could tell. I did not.

Guess I'm the lone voice in the wilderness here, but I loved every silly, goofy, exhilarating moment of BULLETS OVER BROADWAY. I wasn't expecting The World's Greatest Musical, just a tuneful, fun time with some terrific choreography and performances, especially by Cordero, Mazzie, Ashmanskas, Ziemba and Braff. And that's what I perceived. It worked for me.

Woody said in an interview that Marvin Hamlisch asked to do the adaptation and he (Woody) said sure.

But Hamlisch never got back to him and after some years it was suggested to do it with period songs.

All I can think about is how great this could have been with a Hamlisch score.

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"Bullets was my least favorite, but most anticipated. I was so, disappointed. It was so, blatantly overdone. Just call it, The Producers."

Ummm. To many of us, you just gave it the supreme compliment. But I take it you didn't like The Producers either? If so, does that mean if we LOVED The Producers, then we are likely to LOVE Bullets?

Nah-- The Producers is funny. Bullets Over Broadway is not funny.

"It might seem that way because Tony nomination discussion was bundled into one thread instead of being broken out by show. That, in addition to the fact that Bullets (like the majority of shows) opened right before the Tony nominations, means there were less show-specific threads."

There was a Bullets previews thread for before it opened, and a Bullets reviews thread for when it opened and afterward, same as every show. Those are the main two threads for every show.

"Guess I'm the lone voice in the wilderness here, but I loved every silly, goofy, exhilarating moment of BULLETS OVER BROADWAY. I wasn't expecting The World's Greatest Musical, just a tuneful, fun time with some terrific choreography and performances, especially by Cordero, Mazzie, Ashmanskas, Ziemba and Braff. And that's what I perceived. It worked for me."

I'm with you 100% mamaleh.

SPOILER BELOW RE BANANAS

And I strongly disagree with those who call "Yes, We Have No Bananas" a debacle. When I saw the show, I thought it made perfect sense. Olive has just been blown to bits, and yet Nick does not seem particularly despondent. So when he's asked how he can still be "up" when his girlfriend has been murdered, he responds with the story of his Italian mother and her optimistic view of life, which is the point of YES, we have no bananas, meaning, I thought, we might not have bananas today but there's always something at least as good. So for Nick, not having Olive, his "banana", was OK because YES!, the show that he backed was a hit and he'd be making a ton of money.

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I agree wholeheartedly with ghostlight2's review. We had a very similar experience 2 weeks ago-- a Broadway blitz of 7 shows in 5 days (we live in LA). Bullets was the first ticket we bought and with the highest hopes. For us it was a complete disappointment on so many levels, and all of it comes down to lack of originality. We've seen it all before-- the same jokes, the same highs and lows, the same tap-dancing gangsters, dopey-sexy showgirls, boarding the train for the out-of-town tryout. Every joke, dance step and pratfall. Saddest of all, we'd even seen William Ivey Long's chrysler-building gowns and Santo Loquasto's night club sets before. (If only Santo had been more inspired by the brilliant sets supplied in the movie by... oh, right, Santo Loquasto.)

Three moments popped to life for us: Zach Braff's Act I panic in "I'm Sitting on Top of the World", the dancing redcaps to end Act I, and Betsy Wolfe's Act II torch song, "I've Found a New Baby." Three moments that left a long dispiriting evening to sit through around them. And yes, it's true, the audience around us just loved the show from beginning to end.

I loved Bullets. I laughed a lot and was entertained. That's enough for me.

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I thought Bullets was very good! I kept up with the previews thread, as I've been highly anticipating it since it was announced, so perhaps my expectations were slightly curbed.

I thought all of the performances were great, and the period score was very effective; the lyric changes really helped integrate the songs into the story rather seamlessly.

I think part of the problem is the book, not that it isn't funny, but some of the gags are far too overwrought. The binge-eating actor was funny, but nearly every time he's on stage there is a variation on the same gag: he's gotten fatter, now he's eating dog biscuits, he has a chicken leg in his pocket. Some of the supporting characters, like the one just described, suffer from being extremely one-dimensional.

I also disagree that this is a reflection of Woody's fading skill; Midnight In Paris and Blue Jasmine are two excellent films and screenplays with very different tones and artistic goals. Both were extremely successful, commercially and critically.

On a side note: does anyone think Christine Baranski would have been utterly brilliant as Helen Sinclair?! I loved Marin Mazzie, but her performance seemed so influenced by Baranski's mannerisms that I couldn't help picturing her in it and how amazing she would be! I know she's busy, and doing career-best work, on The Good Wife, but I would have loved to see her originate Helen on the stage!

Although we liked the show, the problem we thought was that the book was not as funny as the movie. It looked like some of the best gags from the movie were removed.

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