Liars and Saints

  The NYT is celebrating 50 years of Sandra Boynton in print. I'd like to nominate one Boynton title as the greatest--it's "The Belly Button Book." In this tale, a group of hippos celebrate their belly buttons. We always like to get balloons... And I know why. Do you? It's because we like to think balloons Have belly buttons, too. Boynton then moves the action to "Belly Button Beach": Where hippos like to stand around In bathing suits too little-- Because we hope you will admire  The button in our middle. But life's pleasures are fleeting, and Boynton has a brutal conclusion, surprising and inevitable. We love to show our belly b's-- We show them off with pride. But not in chilly wintertime-- When belly buttons hide. No, not in chilly wintertime-- When belly buttons hide. A mic-drop kind of performance. Not a word is wasted.

 I have made clear that my own personal Broadway diva is Victoria Clark. I'm a great fan of Clark's intelligence and cunning--her watchfulness. Good acting--which is rare in a musical, even a Broadway musical--involves a magic trick. You have to have full control over your eyes; the eyes have to telegraph a message. I am actually in the place and in the time that the words of this musical are referring to. I am not in New York City, in a theater, in 2026. Whether she is speaking or not, Clark has "Olivia Colman" eyes. She is a brilliant performer. All that said, Heather Headley is also on my Mount Rushmore. Headley's slightly mannered performances feel "extreme"--they remind me of the work of Liza Minnelli. Either you love Headley or you do not. I think she gets away with intense melodrama because she conveys a sense of utter conviction. Here--for Miscast--she is performing a colleague's big number, "Endless Night." On one level, she is sin...

 It took me a long while to get to "Mindhunter," because I prefer procedurals. I get nervous if something is billed as experimental. And "Mindhunter" has problems; it has one of the most tedious "opening credits" sequences I know of. It features a gay actor whose gayness seems almost palpable--yet no one speculates about the related character being possibly "in the closet." (Knowing David Fincher, I'm sure that the casting of a gay actor, Jonathan Groff, in an apparently "heterosexual" role is part of a bigger strategy. The strategy is unclear to me for now.) But there are things I like very much. One genre of old movie--"let's put on a show"--dramatizes the conflicts within a group of creative people as we move from "table read" to opening night. That's essentially what "Mindhunter" is. It's the story of a creative act. Three oddballs decide that they are going to rewrite the rules of murde...

 What we lack is a terrific blockbuster scary movie. Last summer, quite early, we were all treated to "Final Destination: Bloodlines," an experience of pure pleasure. There is nothing like "Bloodlines" right now. Summer should mean thrills--that's because of Steven Spielberg. That's because of "Jaws" and "Jurassic Park." Spielberg's current offering--"Disclosure Day"--is bloodless and boring. At a recent screening, my spouse and I both fell asleep. The best I can offer in terms of Spielberg-ian wonder, at the moment, is the soundtrack from the Broadway musical "Six." My family listens in the car. Why--asks my daughter--why would Henry VIII murder people in his own clan? I explain that he sustained a head injury in a jousting accident; this led to bad choices, and because he was King, no one questioned him. My daughter then wants to know how--if two of the Queens are dead--how is it possible that they are singing on...

  "The Best Minds" is worthy of the hype; it's an astonishing story told by the *correct* storyteller. As the NYTimes observed, it's "pin-you-to-your-couch" storytelling. Michael is a bright and egotistical kid in New Rochelle. He is interviewed at the school paper's office; if he were offered the spot of managing editor, rather than editor-in-chief, would he accept? Despite the fact that the editor-in-chief will be his close friend, Michael throws a tantrum. This moment of poor judgment does not hurt in the long term; Michael is offered a spot at Yale. He lives in Silliman College and graduates in three years. Summa cum laude. Phi Beta Kappa. He goes off to work at Bain, which pays Yale graduates to spend long weekends memorizing all of the operational details that form the skeletons of various industries. (The Bain employees then offer their consulting services.) At this point in his life, Michael has started imagining that flames are licking the floor...

 Yesterday, Adam Feldman wrote on Facebook that "there is an alternate, better timeline in which Heather Headley is the dominant Broadway musical star of the twenty-first century." No one could argue with this. After Headley's barnstorming performance in "Aida," Headley sort of disappeared. Her few appearances--in "Dreamgirls," "The Color Purple," "Into the Woods"--have become the stuff of legend. Headley has warned against the siren song of adulation. "If, when you're off the stage, you don't know who you are....you're in trouble." Headley spends most of her time in suburban Illinois. Anyone who saw Headley as Sondheim's Witch can imagine how fiercely the director must have fought *against* the Patina Miller scenario. I'm sure Miller was fine. Heather Headley was earth-shaking. The Witch is Sondheim's opportunity to revisit Madame Rose. Like Rose, the Witch is a weak leader. She is politically flaw...