Yesterday I saw the 4k restoration of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland at the El Capitan Theatre, where the movie is screening for the theater’s centennial. Before the movie started, there was a live Wurlitzer organ performance.
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My dead mother would have called this play in the form of a book “ugly.” I picked up a copy of Neil LaBute’s The Money Shot: A Play because of the subject matter and because I have liked a couple of his movies: In the Company of Men, Your Friends & Neighbors. The premise of The Money Shot is simple. Two A-list stars looking to make a hit movie decide to co-star in a movie in which they will have actual sex. The entire play involves the two stars and their romantic partners hashing out the details—(seemingly, the characters stand in as symbols for LaBute’s barely containable rage towards the Hollywood industrial complex that didn’t recognize him as the genius he perceives himself to be)—and bantering endlessly in dumb and crude ways. This insipid, go-nowhere work is a garbage can into which LaBute dumped the intense misogyny and homophobia with which he must wrestle with containing every day. Maybe if I saw the play performed I’d like it. But probably not.
Books I Read in 2024: Victory Parade, I Hate Men, My Friend Dahmer, The Crying of Lot 49, Machines in the Head, Big Magic, The Valley, End of Active Service, An Honest Woman, The Money Shot, Atomic Habits, Finding Your Own North Star, Crazy Cock, Sigrid Rides, Your Money Or Your Life, The Big Sleep, Eventually Everything Connects, Smutcutter, Shine Shine Shine, A Serial Killer’s Daughter, Confessions of a Serial Killer
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Charles Isherwood reviewed "Pretty Filthy" for the NYT:
Image credit: Mister Decal
"The travails of Becky, who quickly renames herself Taylor St. Ives (you know, after the apricot scrub!), and her boyfriend Bobby (Marrick Smith), who eventually joins Becky in the business as Dick Everhard, form a narrative through-line. In one of Mr. Friedman’s most searching and affecting songs, they reveal the disorientation that results when they find themselves in bed at night, after a long day at the office, suddenly unable to discern who they are to each other, sexually and emotionally."
[NYT]
Image via The Civilians
A New York theater troupe interviewed porn stars in Porn Valley about their business and turned their research into a musical: "Pretty Filthy."
"The Civilians are laying bare the lives of porn stars in their newest production, 'Pretty Filthy.' A behind-the-scenes musical about the adult entertainment industry, drawn as always from extensive interviews with players in the business itself, the new show features songs by the company’s go-to composer-lyricist, the supremely gifted Michael Friedman (known for 'Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,' among others); a book by Bess Wohl; and direction by Steve Cosson, the troupe’s founding artistic director."
[NYT]