I love voice talent, partly because I have a (very) little bit of it, but mostly because I appreciate it so much. Wielding voice talent can be a thing of beauty, so seemingly simple, yet so very difficult to do well.
The king of voice talent, Don LaFontaine, passed away last week.
Watch this:
If you live in Houston, Sugarland, or Katy, you really need to go see the film BORDER. It will be in Katy on Wednesday, November 14, and in Sugarland and northwest Houston on Thursday, November 15.
I have seen it. The film will open your eyes as to what really happens on our southern border with Mexico. You will see and hear from eyewitnesses about the Minutemen, Coyotes, and FBI agents investigating the film makers. You'll see infrared footage of a mule train (human mules, that is) carrying millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs into our country. And you'll wonder how many OTMs have worked their way into our country.
Chris Burgard was told that he would never get this film made. He proved Hollywood wrong. Of course, there's no way Hollywood will help him out now. But you can. Even if you don't live in Houston, you can buy the DVD.
As I type, it's still going on, but the best part has already happened; Jennifer Hudson won the award for Best Supporting Actress.
As for the rest, who really cares? Alan Arkin? Happy Feet?
Best joke: Algore feigning self-importance.
UPDATE - Most exquisite moment of Hollywood pretentiousness: camera cut to Stephen Spielberg and Kate Capshaw (among others) pretending to understand what Ennio Morricone was saying in ITALIAN!!! Oh, it was beautiful!
There are three definitive American art forms: jazz, film, and musical theater. Rare is the time any of the three come together. They did so in Chicago in 2002. Like that appropriately-Oscar-winning effort, Dreamgirls uses the same confluence of art to provide a spectacular movie-going experience.
Some preface. I've never seen the original stage version of Dreamgirls (or Chicago, for that matter). So I can't compare what I saw on the big screen to what I might have seen on the stage. And I'm glad, because what I saw on the big screen had me riveted. Right from the start, you know you're about the hear great songs sung by great voices. When the Dreamettes' first chance at something big seems near, you're crushed to see it taken away so quickly.
I won't give you a plot summary. You can find that elsewhere. But I will talk about the casting. Where did they get all these names? Beyonce Knowles, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Danny Glover. An outstanding cast that fit their characters perfectly; and not just the leads, but the secondary characters as well. Eddie Murphy did surprisingly well, I thought. (I hope that was his voice and not a dubbing.) And I'll talk about the set design and costuming. You knew what year it was simply by looking at the clothes or the furniture in any given scene. Outstanding.
But, by far, the best part of the film is Jennifer Hudson. Mrs. Light Bulb and I are American Idol fanatics. I say again, fanatics. We were heartbroken the week Jennifer was voted off the third season. To see this young woman in her screen debut, providing the best performace of the film was wonderfully fulfilling. The audience we saw it with cheered at the end of "And I Am Telling You." (I'm serious. I was screaming myself.) This young lady can sing AND act. And if she doesn't win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress this February, I may never watch another Academy Awards telecast again.
Dreamgirls - go see it.
I recommend it. My wife and I saw it today at the Studio Move Grill (which I also recommend). I don't know if the sound was intentionally LOUD (as in a Director choice) or happened to be LOUD (as in a facility setting), but it was LOUD. This served the movie exceedingly well (IMHO), especially during the beautiful opening and title sequence. The explosion of Krypton shook my bones. I'm serious. After the explosion was finished, I turned to look at my wife . . . and realized that I needed to exhale. Evidently I had been holding my breath because the movie was so frighteningly LOUD. Highly cool. (Those of you who know me know my penchant for all things loud when it comes to film audio and exercising my 15 inch subwoofer, so you know that I know of which I write.)
Cast. Spacey was expectedly great. It is always fun to play the bad guy, and you could tell he enjoyed it. Parker Posey, spot on. Kate Bosworth . . . well, Louis Lane is supposed to be an intrepid reporter. Bosworth was not an intrepid reporter. She's pretty, but she just didn't convince me. Routh did well. Let's face it, when casting Superman you're probably not looking for Olivier or Branaugh. You're probably looking for a specific-looking body that has a specific-looking head attached to it that has a brain inside it that can take direction. And he did that well.
The film was beautifully photographed. The flying sequences were AMAZING. The first action sequence (which Singer has admitted was an homage to Donner) was an E-ticket rollercoaster ride. You could tell that bits of the flying were computer generated, but I could get over it. The story was good with a couple of possible directions to go for the next one.
Overall, a definite add to my DVD collection when it appears. Can't wait to see Krypton blow up again.
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FAVORITE QUOTESThe most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
Thomas Jefferson
Every immigrant makes America more American. You can't become an Englishman by going to live in England, or a Frenchman by going to live in France, but anyone can become an American.
Ronald Reagan
Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government.
Daniel Webster
While capitalism and socialism exist side by side, they cannot live in peace. One or the other will triumph — a funeral dirge will be sung over the Soviet Republic or over world capitalism.
Lenin, On Peaceful Coexistence, 1920
The family, however, has to be a sacred unity believing in the permanence of what it teaches, if its ritual and ceremony are to express and transmit the wonder of the moral law, which it alone is capable of transmitting and which makes it special in a world devoted to the humanly, all too humanly, useful. When that belief disappears, as it has, the family has, at best, a transitory togetherness.
Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, page 57, 1987
It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now ... Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.
John F. Kennedy
We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our national prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence they had for the things that are holy.
Calvin Coolidge
The issue as regards judicial activism is not whether there shall be "change” since no one is against generic "change" but who shall wield the enormous power of prescribing the particular nature and direction of change and by whose authorization? More specifically, shall it be done openly by officials assigned this task by the Constitution and responsible to the voters, or shall it be done furtively by unelected judges using verbal sleight-of-hand to attribute to the Constitution things that the Constitution never said? The issue is preemption of power, not "change."
Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed, page 230, 1995
America, is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.
Joseph Stalin
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens.
George Washington, Farewell Address
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