AboutEnnis grew up in Cincinnati, the sixth of ten children. In his first life he was an actor and singer; embarking on his second, he completed his BA at Empire State College, where he was a Richard Porter Leach Fellow.
Read moreIt’s been 100 years, but a short memory is inexcusable. The Republican Wisconsin senators who adopted a bill built to curtail collective bargaining for workers need to be reminded of the event that galvanized the movement for worker’s rights. March 25 is a notorious date for fires–in 1990 87 people died at the Happy Land…
Continue readingRead the late Mel Gussow’s glowing obit in the NY Times. And the Los Angeles Times. RIP, Liz…
Continue readingIn the NY Times yesterday, a prefab feast: real estate developer Forest City Ratner proposes the construction of a modular tower for residential use in Brooklyn. Not sure about the long term implications (durability, stability, the usual) but those of us who salivate over the houses showcased in a certain magazine are curious to see…
Continue readingCrazy for Hugh: Any tunesmith who wrote The Trolley Song, The Boy Next Door and, enduringly, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, could die happy. Retrospect: Check this link to hear Garland sing The Trolley Song in Meet Me In St. Louis. RIP, mister…
Continue readingBurlesque (Steven Antin, director and writer). Disparities (an aspiring showgirl plot whose high suspense turns on air rights!) and derivatives abound in a movie geared to capitalize on the blockbuster glow of a trend spurred by Chicago, and killed by its cousin, Nine. Burlesque gleefully rips these films off while scavenging every other small-town-girl-searches-for-big-city-fame trope…
Continue readingA friend of Hopper: Guy Pene du Bois’s Opera Box, 1926 I tend to think of New York’s Whitney Museum as the house of Hopper. Right now they’re hosting another retrospective of this fine painter’s work with a twist. Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time is on display now through April 10, and it’s…
Continue readingThe theater is schizophrenic, I mused after a recent matinee of Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark. Only a month before I’d seen Daniel Sullivan’s exemplary revival of The Merchant of Venice—it goes without saying that the shows were as different as night and day, but sometimes such dichotic experience makes us realize the range of…
Continue readingToo young to die, but old enough to have accumulated a mixed bag of celluloid work. Retrospect: Pass up the disposable Bride Wars and Letters to Juliet (though Vanessa Redgrave and Amanda Seyfried are both charming in it). Opt instead for Tadpole, his vinegary May-December wanna-be romance, and the Winick-produced, Altmanesque Personal Velocity with Kyra…
Continue readingWith MM in the delightfully daft Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)–she called it her favorite film. RIP.
Continue readingRetrospect: Check out Shearing’s collaborations with Mel Torme, or my favorite, The Swingin’s Mutual, the 1960 stunner with Nancy Wilson. Retrospect: The Producers, yeah, sure, but don’t forget Mars in Woody Allen’s Radio Days and Shadows and Fog–and what a crackup in What’s Up Doc?. A nonpareil in movie musicals until the Hollywood Blacklist killed…
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