Macaulay Culkin and Me

So color me surprised when I checked my daily podcast downloads this morning and saw that Macaulay Culkin was featured on the latest episode of WTF with Marc Maron.

For those of you under thirty, allow me to provide some background: back in the early 1990s, Macaulay (or Mac as he's generally known by) was the biggest child movie star in the world and perhaps the biggest one since Shirley Temple. In 1990 he was in a Christmas movie called Home Alone and it was one of the biggest hits of that decade. It made him a movie star -- for a while -- and he appeared in the movie's successful sequel a couple years later plus another successful movie called My Girl. Then he made a bunch of other movies that most people didn't see. And then, by the late 1990s, he vanished.

Until the early 2000s when he came back -- sort of. He did an off-Broadway play and some indie movies. Then ... he vanished again. And, since then, he's basically been absent from popular culture. 

What's Mac been doing? That's what he talks about in this podcast episode. It seems that he just lives on his movie money and travels and hangs out. He talks about his complicated family life and the fall-out with his father who used to manage his career. It's a fascinating, if somewhat sad, story.

And, bizarrely, yours truly, yes Mr NYC himself (i.e. ME) is a small, very small, part of Mac's story.

Back in the late 1980s, as a young child, I was a student at the School of American Ballet (SAB). I was one of small cadre of boy students. I was there for about four years and appeared in the New York City Ballet's The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center for three years. My last year there, and the last time I was in The Nutcracker, Mac had just joined SAB and we were in the same Nutcracker cast. We "worked" together for about three months. We didn't become friends (I found him annoying, he was always running around, seemed completely unable to focus) but we muddled through. I strongly remember his very large family hanging around as well as his father who, later on, he had an epic falling out with. They all seemed very noisy. 

After that Nutcracker year, I left SAB and didn't give this kid (like the others) a second thought. So, as you might imagine, it shocked me when, a couple years later, he popped up in this movie Home Alone (I didn't realize he acted and danced) and overnight became a sensation. It was a surreal, fun-house experience to see this. And, this morning, listening to this podcast, it was  equally surreal to hear him talk about his time in The Nutcracker of which I was a part.

I certainly hope Mac is happy and wish him well. I'm also so glad that I never got into show business and walked away from the mentally and emotionally punishing world of of child performing. It's not a surprise that he hasn't had a normal life when he certainly didn't have a normal child hood. It'd be interesting to talk with him again and, who knows, maybe I will. 

But it's strange when a small part of your childhood literally pops up one morning on your phone. 

Oh the times we live in. 

Review: "Fame" (1980) and Its Legacy

Warning: This movie review has a tiny plot twist all its own at the end. Read on!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This summer I finally got around to seeing a movie that had been on my "When I get around to it" list for literally decades -- the original 1980 classic Fame.

The late great movie critic Robert Ebert wrote a review of Fame when it was originally released that is so good, so beautifully descriptive, that I'll quote part of it here (I certainly can't write anything better):

    "Fame" is a genuine treasure, moving and entertaining, a movie that                 understands being a teen-ager as well as Breaking Away did, but studies its      characters in a completely different milieu. It's the other side of the coin: A        big-city, aggressive, cranked-up movie to play against the quieter traditions of     Breaking Away's small Indiana college town. Fame is all New York City. It's    populated by rich kids, ghetto kids, kids with real talent, and kids with mothers     who think they have real talent. They all go into the hopper, into a high school    of kids who are worked harder because they're "special" -- even if they're secretly not so sure they're so special.

Fame centers around a bunch of kids over their four years at the High School of the Performing Arts, otherwise known as "LaGuardia." On the one hand they are regular high school kids, blossoming teenagers with all the regular wants and fears and academic pressures, but, in addition to their studies, they are also training to become actors, dancers, and musicians. Drawn to the school from all walks of life, from across all five boroughs -- rich and poor, black and white, very talented to barely talented -- they work hard, dream hard, and experience numerous joys and heartbreaks. The movie centers around Montgomery, an actor and closeted homosexual; Lisa, a dancer who becomes an actor; Coco -- a dancer and singer; LeRoy, a dancer who is as troubled as he is talented; Ralph, an actor and aspiring comedian, along with Doris, a shy fellow actor who falls in love with him; Bruno, a brilliant musician; and Hillary, a wise-cracking dancer who falls in love with LeRoy. The movie does not have a simple, straightforward plot but, instead, shows a series of interlinking stories, following the characters as their lives change and evolve over their four years together.

Released in May 1980, Fame became a sensation, a surprise box office hit considering that it had no famous stars, no simple or traditional plot, and was about, of all things, a bunch of odd-looking teenagers at a performing arts high school in NYC. It came at a pivotal moment for both New York City and America: NYC was still recovering from its mid-1970s almost-bankruptcy, and was still plagued with its "Fear City" moniker; culturally, however, it was thriving -- "Saturday Night Live" was the hottest thing on TV, Woody Allen was at the height of his career, Studio 54 was raging, and Broadway had big shows like "A Chorus Line" and "Annie" running. And then here comes along this little gem of a movie about a bunch of ragtag NYC kids trying to make it through high school while starting a career in the arts -- and audiences loved it.

America, on the other hand, was changing -- Ronald Reagan and the triumph of cultural and economic conservative was months away, and the country seemed more than ready to rid itself of the tumult of the 1960s and '70s. Fame, in some ways, was a last hurrah of that era, a paean to a time that was troubled but also creatively alive and exciting, a celebration of the arts and artists, and a love letter to NYC, a city that the rest of the country loved to hate. It was an early middle-finger to the political and cultural world to come -- but also, ironically, the unofficial beginning of the 1980s teen movie crazy.

Even though the movie is called Fame, it could also have been called "Sweaty" -- the students literally sweat for their art (especially the dancers) as much as they are sweating about their futures of making it in showbusiness. There are many uncomfortable scenes where the characters face the limitations of their talents, their relationships, their aspirations, their place in this crazy world of the arts. While this movie is a celebration of the artistic spirit, it's not sentimental in any way -- it brutally shows you the grimy, often sleazy showbiz world these kids inhabit, without sugarcoating it.

In that way, it's a real NYC movie.

As you might imagine, Fame is full of amazing acting, dancing and music. There are beautiful scenes of dancers moving gracefully, of musicians giving their all to make the best sounds they're capable of, of actors trying to nail a scene, and also wonderful show-stopping songs. These include the Oscar-winning title song "Fame (I'm Gonna Live Forever)", "Out Here on My Own", "Hot Lunch", and the amazing final number "I Sing the Body Electric" that is performed in rousing spirit at graduation. Everyone in the whole movie sings, "And in time, and in time, we will all ... be ... stars!" Most of them, of course, will never become stars -- but they can and should always dream.

And that's what this movie is all about -- always dreaming, never giving up, even when the world tells you that you should.

Fame has had a surprising after-life since it came out over 42 years ago. In 1982, it became a TV show that ran for five years, with some of the movie's actors joining the show along with a whole new cast of characters and stories. In the late 1990s there was a second, short-running series called "Fame: LA" with all new characters and stories set on the West Coast. And then, in 2009, there was a remake called, unimaginatively, Fame that the critics hated but had some box office success (Kelsey Grammer was in it if you can believe it). Fame was a forerunner to other "I wanna be in showbusiness" projects like Smash or Glee or even The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. In seems, in this era of a million TV shows, like the Fame property or IP or whatever is just ripe for a comeback -- heck, if they can bring back Full House and Quantum Leap, why not Fame?

A few ironies about this movie and my review of it:

First, the director. Even though Fame is a down-and-dirty NYC movie, it was directed by a British guy -- Alan Parker -- whose previous film had been the intense, Oscar-winning, Turkish-set triller, Midnight Express. Fame was obviously a big change of pace, and he would go on to direct other arts-centric movies like The Commitments and other intense movies like Mississippi Burning. A great talent, he died in 2020.

Second, Irene Cara. Oh, how I loved her! I was already planning to write this review before I learned, just days ago, that Irene Cara who played Coco in "Fame" had died at the age of 63. She is amazing in this movie, and performs its most brutal, emotionally intense scene. She also sings most of the songs, luminously, and, if someone became a big star out of "Fame", it was her. Three years later she would win an Oscar and a Grammy for writing and singing the song "Flashdance ... What a Feeling!", easily the best dance pop song ever. She was an amazing talent whose career and life ended far too early -- but her songs will truly "live forever."

Third, and finally, my "history" (of sorts) with Antonia Franceschi, who plays the funny, horny, and super-talented dancer Hillary in Fame. Antonia was a young aspiring dancer at the School of American Ballet when she was cast in Fame and, interestingly enough, even though the movie became a huge hit, Antonia eschewed an acting career to spend the next twelve years as a dancer at the New York City Ballet before embarking on a long career as a choreographer. Very recently, I contacted her to see if she would do an interview for this blog but it didn't quite work out, even though she was very polite and informative in her replies.

But here is the plot twist (of sorts) that was promised ... drum roll ...

I've blogged about how, back in the mid-1980s, I appeared in "The Nutcracker" at the New York City Ballet. Well, I recently went back to look at one of the old programs I saved for my run in "The Nutcracker" and guess who appeared with me (and many others) in the opening party-scene -- that's right, Antonia Franceschi! So yours truly, Mr NYC, has performed on stage with a cast member from Fame! How cool is that?

Fame is truly a classic, a movie that may be decades old but that feels so fresh, so alive, so true-to-life that it never gets old, never gets boring, never feels outdated.

It's a must-watch for anyone whoever was young, whoever loved the arts, and whoever loved NYC.

A Nutcracker-Less NYC in 2020

New York City Ballet has cancelled performances for "The Nutcracker" for December of this year.  There are very tentative plans perhaps to stage it in early 2021 but that's not certain.

"The Nutcracker" was first staged by City Ballet in 1954, nearly 70 years ago, and has been performed every year without fail since then. Not even terrorist attacks or economic crises has stopped it -- but a pandemic did. This is the original and definitive American version of this ballet classic, the American Mother of All Nutcrackers. 

This is a huge financial hit for City Ballet -- "The Nutcracker" is their Avengers, their Star Wars, their sure-fire hit franchise that just mints money without fail. It's the ballet that people who otherwise don't go to the ballet go to see. I was stunned to see that it grosses over $15 million a year for City Ballet, more than some movies.

It's also a big cultural loss for NYC -- along with the lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas tree and New Year's Eve in Times Square, it's one of the biggest holiday events in the city. So this is a big loss -- for now.

No doubt the Sugarplum Fairy will dance once more.

P.S. I was in "The Nutcracker" as a kid as I've blogged about before. 

Stephanie Selby RIP

Over the years I've blogged about my childhood experiences in the world of professional ballet. Like much of what we might consider "showbiz", it's a rough, grown-up world for a young developing child to intersect with, a place where the innocence and vulnerability of youth smashes up against the brutal realities of an exacting, demanding profession.

So it was with some interest, and much sadness, that I read about the recent death of Stephanie Selby.

She played Marie in "The Nutcracker" at the New York City Ballet in 1976 (you can read her review here) and became the subject of a book that same year called A Very Young Dancer. It was a backstage collection of photographs showing her rehearsing for the famous ballet, a behind-the-scenes "making of" look at the magical production. (Remember, back then, we didn't have reality TV or social media or anything like that so the public rarely saw the behind the curtain of cultural touchstones.) The book became a surprise bestseller, inspired many young women to pursue dance, and Stephanie became a temporary celebrity. 

However, like in my experience, it turned sour when the teenage years arrived. She began to misbehave at the School of American Ballet (the feeder school for the New York City Ballet and where the kids for "The Nutcracker" come from), her dancing suffered, and eventually she was kicked out of the school. Her dreams of being a professional dancer were shattered and, it appears, she never got over it. This dissapointment was also exacerbated by clinical depression.

In her adult years, she migrated to Wyoming and she died there, from suicide apparently, at agae 56. She seems to have had a vagabond life but also had some good people in it and some love. It's a sad ending to her life. But I hope she had some happiness from time to time and that she's at peace now. 

1986 Redux

In the first year of this blog, I wrote about Robert Chambers -- the notorious "preppy murderer" who strangled a woman named Jennifer Levin to death one night in Central Park in 1986.

Before Lorena Bobbit, before OJ, before #MeToo, this was the big scandal that provoked the subject of violence towards women into the American conversation. The whole story was grotesque and sad. It was also an example of how men, especially handsome white men, who had committed horrific violence towards women (in this case, actual murder), got shockingly sympathetic treatment in the media and culture while the female victim became largely forgotten. 

Chambers even claimed -- like so many predators do -- that he was the real victim in this case!  He said that the slime petite Levin had actually tried to rape the massive, statuesque Chambers and that he was only acting in self-defence -- and some morons actually bought this BS. Chambers did some time, got out of jail, promptly became a drug dealer, and went back to prison. He's there now -- gone but not totally forgotten.

Now this case is the subject of an upcoming true-crime documentary -- revisiting 30+ year old scandals and stories seems to be all the rage these days. However, I'm curious to see how this case will be handled from a 2019 perspective -- and hopefully we'll learn less about Robert and more about Jennifer.

Talking about 1986, the final episode of The Deuce aired last night -- it ends in 1986 and then jumps ahead to 2019, showing in dramatic detail how Times Square and the city transformed in the 33-year interim but is still haunted by ghosts of the past. 

1986 is a year I remember well -- I turned 10, debuted in The Nutcracker at City Ballet, went away to sleep away camp for the first time, visited England with my mom, and saw the Aerosmith/Run DMC "Walk This Way" video for the first time. I was blissfully naive about things like the Chambers chase at the time -- and wish I still was.

Christmas NYC Redux

As I've written before, there's nothing more magical than Christmas in NYC. A couple of years ago, I blogged about a guy to the holidays in our fair city and here's another one called "The Untouristy Guide to the Holidays in New York."

Some of the suggestions, if you're celebrating the city here: go to the big tree at Rockefeller Center, ice skate in Central Park, see "The Nutcracker", the creche at the Metropolitan Museum, and window shop at Macy's.

Frankly, I think these suggestions are pretty touristy but they're fun all the same. My favorite spot for Christmas in NYC is standing at the corner of Grand Army Plaza at night, looking at the Plaza Hotel and lower edge of Central Park ablaze in lights and covered in decorations. It's a very New York, very Christmas sight to see.

"Gods of New York: 1986-1989"

The years 1986 to 1989 were quite formative for me: I was a kid becoming more aware of the wider world, I was switching schools between elementary and middle, I was doing The Nutcracker and other ballets at Lincoln Center -- and NYC was in tumult.

Crack, crime, corruption, and big personalities ruled the town -- Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump and others were in the news every day ... and even though Koch is long days, the others still (obviously) haunt us.

This moment in time is the subject of a new book by Jonathan Mahler called Gods of New York. Mahler wrote the classic early-aughts book Ladies and Gentleman the Bronx is Burning and he is a great NYC historian.

You should listen to this great conversations between Mahler and Chuck Todd about how late 1980s NYC seems to be more relevant than ever in 2020s America.

And while yours truly wasn't a "God" of New York at that time, I was, in a way, a very minor princeling.