When Pop Stars Attack: New Cole Porter Flick

[Crimen y Castigo]

Here’s a nice article on the new Cole Porter bio-pic (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/movies/20PURD.html) coming out soon, starring Kevin Kline and featuring Cole Porter tunes sung by Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette and Robbie Williams.

Color me skeptical.
>cough< ..crap...>cough<

Elvis Costello’s in it as well. Being a long-time fan, I can see him faring slightly better, plus it’s hardly a stretch considering his work with Burt Bacharach, the Brodsky Quartet, etc. But being an equally rabid fan of Cole Porter, I’m hoping Sherly Crow isn’t actually as horrible as the NYT article implies.

Of course the ol’ rock star/jazz standard car wreck is an oft-told tale by now. (Rod Stewart anyone? Cyndi Lauper? Sinead O’Connor? Bono?)

A lot of this can be traced back to the first Red Hot + Blue comp from the early 90s – a laudable AIDS prevention effort which resulted in a serial slaughtering of Cole Porter tunes by the likes of the Thompson Twins, The Fine Young Cannibals and Mz. O’Connor. To be fair, Annie Lennox and the late great Kristy Maccoll deliver beautiful performances on that record.

But I guess I’m just left wondering why the choices weren’t more inspired. Rufus Wainwright, perhaps? Loretta Lynn? Damon Gough? Polly Jean Harvey? Margo Timmins? Mary J. Blige? Morrisey?

Not that I don’t know the answer to that . . .

[sebakoole]

But I guess I’m just left wondering why the choices weren’t more inspired. Rufus Wainwright, perhaps? Loretta Lynn? Damon Gough? Polly Jean Harvey? Margo Timmins? Mary J. Blige? Morrisey?
I'd pay to see Morrisey sing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy"..."while tearing off a game of golf I may make a play for the caddy..." Suits him, dontcha think?

[bojendyk]

Elvis Costello’s in it as well. Being a long-time fan, I can see him faring slightly better, plus it’s hardly a stretch considering his work with Burt Bacharach, the Brodsky Quartet, etc. But being an equally rabid fan of Cole Porter, I’m hoping Sherly Crow isn’t actually as horrible as the NYT article implies.

I'm not so sure about Costello. He has done amazing things with a unique but, frankly, not very good voice. Someone needs to smack him in the teeth pretty hard and to yell into his ear, "You are not a crooner! You cannot croon." I'd sooner go deaf that sit through his shrill wailing in "God Give Me Strength" one more time.

[Crimen y Castigo]

He has done amazing things with a unique but, frankly, not very good voice. . .

I actually cannot disagree with much of your post. It's true: He's got a croaker of a voicebox.

But, from the No Accounting for Taste desk, I actually really like his vocals on "God Give Me Strength." Not only that, but -- here's one that would flip you like an omelette -- I have this live version of him with the Brodsky Quartet covering "God Only Knows" where his voice practically fails on the last rafter-scraping note.

And, yes, I like it. Heh.

[petezuke17]

They were actually shooting this film in the park where I was studying abroad in London for a semester (Regent's Park in London). I actually walked into Kevin Kline one morning as he walked around a hedgerow - kind of funny. The day that we sat there and watched them shoot, Kevin had to do a scene where he steped on the seat of a chair and then stepped on the top of it so it fell and he kept walking (a la Chaplin or Jonny Depp in Benny and Joon for the younger kids). They actaully had a guy come and teach him how to do it, was pretty funny. It is actaully very hard to make it look smooth like you are just walking along.

No Ms. Judd that day though, which was probably good becasue I would have started yelling Kentucky Sucks!

[obie]

Early reviews say that the film is garbage. Porter's wife was 15 years older than him, not 20 years younger, and by most accounts it was totally a marriage of convenience for both of them. The movie puts the Porters in a love affair with gay side benefits for Cole, which just doesn't match every other account of his life.

[riverplate]

A lot of this can be traced back to the first Red Hot + Blue comp from the early 90s – a laudable AIDS prevention effort which resulted in a serial slaughtering of Cole Porter tunes by the likes of the Thompson Twins, The Fine Young Cannibals and Mz. O’Connor. To be fair, Annie Lennox and the late great Kristy Maccoll deliver beautiful performances on that record.

But I guess I’m just left wondering why the choices weren’t more inspired. Rufus Wainwright, perhaps? Loretta Lynn? Damon Gough? Polly Jean Harvey? Margo Timmins? Mary J. Blige? Morrisey?

Not that I don’t know the answer to that . . .

I've dreaded this picture since I first heard about it. I have every intention of seeing it, so I'll let everyone know if my bad gut feeling about it gets alleviated at all.

One of the last things I need to hear are people like these ruining this kind of music. Kurt Weill had his stuff assaulted in a similar fashion around the same time in some bogus charity compilation album.

I resisted lashing into Mary J. Blige for her atrocious rendering of "What I Did for Love" at the Tonys on the Musical Theatre thread because I didn't feel like getting mugged again by apologists for these "entertainers" and those who seem to believe this is the kind of nonsense one must endure in order to get young (and not-so-young) idiots to finally listen to it.

(There was a laugh-out-loud piece in the New York Post about how, during one of the commercial breaks at the Tonys, Hugh Jackman got Sean Puffy Combs up and tried to get him to sing "Oh, What A Beautiful Morning." The jackass didn't know one lyric. How anyone who calls himself an American doesn't know at least some of the words to that song is astounding. It was only the moment Broadway launched into its Golden Age--and, yes, it was Oklahoma! which did that, not Show Boat.)

Anyway, getting back to Cole and his contemporaries, as much as the old movies of these great composers are a bunch of biographical hogwash, the specialties presented in them were generally splendid. Yes, there were the ludicrous moments, like Frank Sinatra doing "Ol' Man River" in a white tux with a million pianos around him from Till the Clouds Roll By, supposedly the life story of Jerome Kern. But the music and lyrics were treated with class, taste and dignity.

If someone wants to check out terrific "pop" renderings of this stuff, start with Ella Fitzgerald's American Songbook series. The Porter one is terrific. I'm sure some of you more astute folks out there are familiar with those recordings. I'm just as sure there are those who wouldn't know Ella if she fell on them.

There's also enough real Cole Porter out there. Beginning with 1943's Something For the Boys through his TV musical Aladdin (the last thing he wrote), there are cast albums of practically all his musicals available, with an exception or two. There are even numbers from the semi-musical Orson Welles fiasco Around the World in Eighty Days bouncing around.

If this Cole Porter movie compels a few people to check out some of this material, great. It may turn off just as many. Remember At Long Last Love anybody?

[Footix]

I resisted lashing into Mary J. Blige for her atrocious rendering of "What I Did for Love" at the Tonys on the Musical Theatre thread because I didn't feel like getting mugged again by apologists for these "entertainers" and those who seem to believe this is the kind of nonsense one must endure in order to get young (and not-so-young) idiots to finally listen to it.

Mugged? Wow, what a sissy. The Tonys suck year in and year out, regardless of who's onstage.




But, from the No Accounting for Taste desk, I actually really like his vocals on "God Give Me Strength." Not only that, but -- here's one that would flip you like an omelette -- I have this live version of him with the Brodsky Quartet covering "God Only Knows" where his voice practically fails on the last rafter-scraping note.

And, yes, I like it. Heh.

I'm with you. I was lucky enough to see Elvis & Burt do this live on a soundstage, and was in tears, I kid you not. Proof that you don't need to be "smooth" to make an impact on a song like that.

I've not seen this movie, but I've been told by a friend who's seen a rough cut that it's pretty dicey.

[obie]

I saw one of the four EC + Brodsky Q shows after The Juliet Letters was released, and all I can say is, EC can sing. It's not conventional, and sure it's not operatic, but his voice is stirring when it needs to be, sneering when it needs to be. I don't know what else one can expect from a rock singer.