Daniel Day-Lewis says he avoided dancing in 'Nine'

The promotional juggernaut behind the movie "Nine" shifted into high gear today when cast members of the film -- including Daniel Day-Lewis -- appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to discuss their work on the movie musical. 

One can hardly hope for a moment of unscripted candor in such a scenario. (Can you imagine the number of publicists working behind the scenes in Oprah's green room?) 

Still, Day-Lewis -- always refreshingly unpredictable -- was able to slip the fact that he managed to avoid dancing in a movie directed by Rob Marshall, who happens to be an accomplished Broadway choreographer. That's kind of like signing up for swimming lessons and then not getting in the water. His co-stars -- including Penelope Cruz and Kate Hudson -- did not get off so easy, as early footage from the movie has shown.

We can assume that at this stage in his career, Day-Lewis isn't going to do what he doesn't want to do. While the Oscar-winning actor (who seemed to spend the entire hour stifling giggles at Oprah's questions) doesn't dance in the movie, he does participate in several dance numbers. And based on clips featured during the show, he also speaks with a strong Italian accent while in character as Guido Contini, a burned-out film director who has more than his share of woman problems.

The rest of the show was given over to the usual celebrity sycophancy. At one point, Hudson compared Marshall to the late, great Bob Fosse -- surely one of the most cultured things the actress has said on the air. Marion Cotillard looked mostly lost. Nicole Kidman talked about living in Nashville. And Cruz gushed about Pedro Almodovar.

Incidentally, Marshall didn't direct the hit 2003 revival of "Nine" on Broadway. That job went to David Leveaux, who was nominated for a Tony.

-- David Ng

Photo: Daniel Day-Lewis in a scene from "Nine." Credit: David James / The Weinstein Company

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[Updated] Critic's Notebook: 'The Art of the Steal: The Untold Story of the Barnes Foundation'

 

[For the record: A previous version of this post incorrectly said that the film “The Art of the Steal: the Untold Story of the Barnes Foundation” shows that Pew Charitable Trusts Foundation President Rebecca Rimel gave false testimony in a court hearing. The film does not show that. The Times regrets the error.]

“The Art of the Steal: The Untold Story of the Barnes Foundation” is a riveting — and tragic — documentary film chronicling the gratuitous ruin of a school outside Philadelphia that houses an incomparable art collection. It's a classic story of destroying the village in order to save it.

Except this little saga comes with an unexpected twist: “Saving” the Barnes turns out to have been a sham, as the title's claim of artful theft implies. (Full disclosure: I was interviewed for the film and appear, uncompensated, in it.) That slowly evolving turn of events finally leaves a viewer slack-jawed and angry.

No doubt it's also central to the film's largely rapturous reception in recent weeks at film festivals in Toronto and New York. (It screens Wednesday night at the Mann 6 in Hollywood as part of AFI Fest; national release is slated for February.) You leave the theater energized but frustrated by the grim sense of needless waste, a dull ache roiling the pit of your stomach.

The Barnes Foundation is a school built more than 80 years ago by Albert C. Barnes (1872-1951), a cantankerous Philadelphia physician who became wealthy after developing a patent medicine. Modern art is the school's primary tool, while architect Paul Cret's specially designed building set in a 12-acre arboretum forms a unique container integral to the school's curriculum.

To build it Barnes assembled important examples of African sculpture, Navajo rugs, Pennsylvania Dutch furniture, decorative metalwork and more. These he displayed in distinctive arrangements with mostly Modern art.

The staggering art collection includes 69 paintings by Cézanne, 59 by Matisse, 46 by Picasso, 21 by Chaim Soutine, 18 by Henri Rousseau, 16 by Modigliani, 11 by Degas, seven by Van Gogh, six by Georges Seurat and four each by Manet and Monet. Some are among those iconic artists' greatest works.

Artist Per Kirkeby discusses painting, critics and 'Antichrist'

In his native Denmark, Per Kirkeby is regarded as something of a national treasure, an artist of exceptional talent whose intense and moody work is said to embody the spirit of the country.

For those of us in the U.S., he remains a somewhat obscure art-world figure, familiar mostly to curators, critics and Scandinavian connoisseurs.

Still, you've seen his work if you've seen the Lars von Trier films "Breaking the Waves," "Dancer in the Dark" or the new "Antichrist." Kirkeby created art for all three of these cinematic assaults, lending his monumental creative vision to Von Trier's unforgiving world.

For "Antichrist," which opens in the U.S. this week, Kirkeby created the designs for the title cards that divide the film into chapters. The designs suggest the scrawls of a psychologically disturbed mind, perhaps belonging to either of the two main characters, a husband and wife violently coming apart at the seams played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

This summer, the Tate Modern in London honored Kirkeby with a retrospective featuring paintings, works on paper, sculpture and more from his nearly 40-year career. The retrospective is now running at the Museum Kunst Palast in Dusseldorf, Germany, through January.

So who is Per Kirkeby? The artist, who was born in 1938 and lives in the Copenhagen area, agreed to an interview with The Times via fax (though his responses eventually arrived via e-mail). L.A. Louver, his main gallery on the West Coast, agreed to coordinate the communication...

A new video clip from Rob Marshall's new film 'Nine'

Back in May, Culture Monster shared with you the trailer for Rob Marshall's "Nine," the upcoming Weinstein Co. film based on the Broadway musical(s) of 1982 and 2003 and Federico Fellini’s “8½.” Now there’s a new "Nine" trailer out -- this one interspersing rehearsal shots with scenes from the actual film.

With a screenplay by Michael Tolkin and the late Anthony Minghella, the film features Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson, Sophia Loren, Stacy Ferguson (Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas), Judi Dench and Daniel Day-Lewis. Whew. With a team like that, how could it go wrong?

Then again, many people are saying the trailer was the best part of “Where the Wild Things Are.” (Or was it just Arcade Fire fans who were saying that?)

Well, we at Culture Monster have faith. After all, Rob Marshall is the guy who brought “Chicago” to life on the big screen. And the theatrical trailer and the new rehearsal video of "Nine" sure make it seem as if it will rate a 10. But just to be safe, we’ll withhold judgment until "Nine" is released on Christmas Day.

-- Lisa Fung

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A sneak peek at Rob Marshall's film version of 'Nine'

Daniel Radcliffe reportedly prepping for stage musical 'How to Succeed in Business'

As fans of the "Harry Potter" films will surely attest, Daniel Radcliffe, who created the on-screen role of the young wizard, has those "cool, clear eyes of a seeker of wisdom and truth."

That's also a refrain from "I Believe in You," the hit song from "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Citing unnamed sources, Variety reports that Radcliffe is going to kick the tires on the role in an upcoming reading for a possible revival of the satire on corporate striving that opened on Broadway in 1961. 

If a production comes to fruition and he takes the role of Finch, Radcliffe would be making his musical debut as a window-washer who rises to company top dog with the help of his trusty talking self-help book, whose title is the same as the play's.

Big business as farce? Never say that theater producer-types don't try to feed off the zeitgeist. Radcliffe earned critical huzzahs on stage in 2007 and 2008, starring as the stable boy in London and Broadway revivals of Peter Shaffer's psychological drama, "Equus."

Steven Spielberg and the Norman Rockwell painting that got away

More than 20 Norman Rockwell paintings belonging to Steven Spielberg have until July to get ready for their close-up, which will come when they're hung in a special exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington -- along with more than 30 other Rockwells from the collection of his fellow filmmaker-to-the-masses, George Lucas.

Then there's the one sitting in climate-controlled sequestration, somewhere in Las Vegas, and no telling when it'll be seen again. It's called "Russian Schoolroom," and it belonged to Spielberg from 1989 until 2007, when he and it became unexpectedly caught up in a sequence of events that, if turned into a film scenario, would require an eminently skillful director to keep the audience from losing the story's thread (many of its elements, including a surprising detour drawing a possible link between the stolen Rockwell and a plot to kill Martin Luther King Jr., were woven together here by the Riverfront Times, a St. Louis weekly).

The film's opening scene would be set in 1973. First we'd see the painting itself, a horizontal image of a roomful of Soviet schoolboys seated at their desks, eyes trained dutifully on a white, jut-jawed bust of Vladimir I. Lenin -- except for a lone dreamer (or dissident) whom Rockwell shows letting his mind and gaze wander. The camera would pull back, and we'd see "Russian Schoolroom" being snatched from its gallery wall in Clayton, Mo .

Cut to 1988, where an auctioneer in New Orleans slams the gavel, and the same painting is sold to a New York art dealer for about $70,000. She shows the painting publicly, advertises it, and by the following year it's hanging on Spielberg's wall.

Next big scene: in February 2007, an assistant to the film director sits at a computer and notices that "Russian Schoolroom" is listed on an FBI website of stolen art works. Spielberg immediately contacts the feds; they thank him for being a good citizen and tell him to hold the painting for safekeeping until they can figure out whom it belongs to.

Lucas, Spielberg present: Norman Rockwell as quasi-cinematic auteur

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are teaming up for a new blockbuster. No, not a movie, but an art exhibition.

"Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg" won't be opening wide -- it's limited to a single venue, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, which has announced a six-month run from July 2, 2010 to Jan. 2, 2011.

The museum says the show, featuring more than 50 paintings and drawings, will be "the first major exhibition to explore the connections between Norman Rockwell's iconic images of American life and the movies."

The museum's press release notes that Rockwell's "images contain rich character development, subtle scenic contexts and implied narratives that resemble movie-making strategies." While Culture Monster suspects that the same could be said for masterworks of Breughel, Goya and that precursor of the horror movie genre, Hieronymus Bosch, none of them is on record as having expressed any cinematic ambitions.

Rockwell, on the other hand, "once said if he hadn't been an illustrator, he would have loved to be a movie director," Virginia M. Mecklenburg, a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, told the Washington Post.

Video of Lucas and Spielberg talking about their love of Rockwell will play in the galleries.

-- Mike Boehm

Related:

Smithsonian to Feature Rockwell

Photo: Norman Rockwell's "Shadow Artist" (1920), from the collection of George Lucas. Credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Critic's pick: Opera at the movies

Opera on film and in movie theaters is making a decided comeback. "The Met: Live in HD" begins its new season starting Oct. 10, and for those who can't wait, a luscious version of that sturdy warhorse, Puccini's "La Bohème," is showing in a handful of Laemmle theaters starting tonight. Directed by Robert Dornhelm, it features Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón -- two stars who look as romantic as they sound -- as Mimi and Rodolfo. Tonight at 7:30 at the Royal in West L.A.; Sunday at 11 a.m. at the Music Hall in Beverly Hills and Town Center 5 in Encino; and next Thursday at 7:30 at the Music Hall, Town Center 5 and Playhouse 7 in Pasadena.

-- Kenneth Turan

Photo: Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon and Russian soprano Anna Netrebko in a scene from the film version of Puccini's "La Boheme." Credit: Associated Press

Lin-Manuel Miranda joins creative squad for 'Bring It On' musical

Producers of the upcoming musical theater adaptation of the cheerleading movie "Bring It On" (2000) have just announced its lineup of creative talent, but will it be enough to win the game?

Among the songwriters will be Lin-Manuel Miranda, a Tony winner for "In the Heights." He will be joined by Tom Kitt, who recently won a Tony for his score of "Next to Normal."

The book for the musical is being written by Jeff Whitty, yet another Tony winner for "Avenue Q." The production will be directed and choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler, who won a Tony for "In the Heights."

Though it is based on the hit comedy film starring Kirsten Dunst, "Bring It On: The Musical" will feature all new and original characters, according to the show's promoters.

The producers for the show said that they anticipate a developmental regional production in early 2011, with a national tour to follow. It is unclear whether they are planning to bypass Broadway completely.

Also included in the creative team will be lyricist Amanda Green and orchestrator Alex Lacamoire.

"Bring It On: The Musical" will be co-produced by Universal Pictures Stage Productions. (Universal distributed the original film in the U.S.) Also producing are Charlie Lyons and Armyan Bernstein of Beacon Communications.

No cast has been announced yet.

-- David Ng

Photo (top): Kirsten Dunst, left, and Eliza Dushku in "Bring It On." Credit: Ken Jacques / Universal Studios

Photo (bottom): Lin-Manuel Miranda. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Save Film at LACMA plans to hold gathering Saturday

Save Film at LACMA clearly has no intention of going away.

The grassroots organization has been a thorn in the side of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art ever since the institution revealed in July that it was closing down its weekend film series.

Though donations have extended the life of the program through June 2010, there remains considerable  uncertainty as to how the museum will go about raising the $5 million to $6 million the museum's press office said is needed to save the program.

Save Film at LACMA said it will hold a gathering on Saturday evening in conjunction with the museum's previously announced screening of a new print of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's "A City of Sadness" (1989). The group is designating the evening as "Save Film at LACMA Night." 

Organizers told Culture Monster that they are using the screening as an opportunity for cinephiles to meet and show their support for the museum's film program.

The group said it has also asked Michael Govan, the museum's director, to attend the screening, but he has not confirmed if he will or not.

Earlier this month, Save Film at LACMA met with Govan to discuss the museum's plans for its film department. During the meeting, Govan said that he had met with Martin Scorsese, whose open letter in The Times criticizing the museum's decision received widespread public attention.

"A City of Sadness" will screen only once at LACMA, Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

-- David Ng

Photo: A scene from Hou's "A City of Sadness." Credit: LACMA and Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, Los Angeles