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Post by RhodoraO on Feb 17, 2017 5:27:48 GMT
Discussion, reviews, news, pics, etc.
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Post by RhodoraO on Feb 17, 2017 16:00:21 GMT
CB excerpt from a 1992 interview: link
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Post by RhodoraO on Feb 21, 2017 17:55:55 GMT
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Post by RhodoraO on Feb 24, 2017 9:22:47 GMT
A live filmed stage version of Newsies got released recently: Flipping the Flop: How Disney's Newsies Went from the Big-Screen to Broadway and Back AgainIt's mostly about the power of the original films' music which captured its young audiences' hearts. Here's an interesting excerpt: None of it, the four friends say, could have ever been possible without the help of the thousands of Newsies fans (dubbed “Fansies”) who championed the show. “It’s almost that life imitates art,” says Fankhauser. “The fans did all of this.”
“Newsies changed a lot of people’s lives, not just ours,” Keenan-Bolger adds. “Much like our show, the older generations underestimated a young generation’s power to mobilize. It was these young Fansies that demanded it have the vital life that it’s had.”
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 1, 2017 4:30:42 GMT
How historically accurate is the Newsies? Find out in this piece by Alex von Tunzelmann of the Guardian: www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/oct/17/newsies-disney-1899-news-boys-strike-pulitzerBale quote: In the film, a charismatic lad called Jack Kelly leads them in a strike. Film fans will be tickled to see he is played by a fresh-faced Christian Bale, the future American Psycho and darkest ever Batman merrily singing and dancing his way through a Disney musical. He’s not bad, actually.
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 7, 2017 22:04:52 GMT
I didn't get to watch Newsies as a child, rather as a mother and relatively recent Bale fan. I loved it with all its flaws and can totally get its recent resurgence. This New York Times review, however, is more joyless than it claims Ortega's direction of the film to be: Excerpts: - The premise for "Newsies," an elaborate Disney live-action musical about the New York newsboys' strike of 1899, never sounded all that promising in the first place. But this film's real trouble lies in its joyless, pointless execution. As directed by Kenny Ortega, the choreographer whose credits include many stage acts and rock videos as well as the film "Dirty Dancing," "Newsies" is a long, halfhearted romp through what is made to seem a not terribly compelling chapter in New York City's history. The story remains tedious even though Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst and Theodore Roosevelt are all briefly on hand to give it color.
- A score featuring music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Jack Feldman provides the film's only bright spots, but even these are bungled. Many of the musical numbers are staged so strangely that the characters, when they begin singing, appear to have taken leave of their senses.
- The Welsh-born Mr. Bale, who has grown from the sweet-faced schoolboy star of "Empire of the Sun" into a strapping actor, is as hamstrung by the film's insistence on heavy New York accents as are the other young performers...
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 11, 2017 6:44:17 GMT
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 11, 2017 7:00:05 GMT
From The Washington Post review: - "Newsies," the new live-action Disney musical, attempts in a rather willful manner to revive the glorious heyday of Hollywood song and dance films. And, in balance, the payoff is more positive than negative. Its intentions seem fairly modest, and so are its achievements. It's a modestly enjoyable diversion.
- The acting is engaging in its blatant haminess. The standout in this regard is Robert Duvall, who tears into his role as the money-grubbing Pulitzer as if he were scaling his effects to play the Metrodome. With his flaming red beard and hairpiece, he's a galvanizing Dickensian capitalist, a gloating fiend drunk with his own power. The character unleashes the nut-brained, eccentric side of Duvall's talent. It's a riot of a performance. Ann-Margret shows up too, as a sexy chanteuse, but can't quite manage the self-caricaturing, larger-than-life charisma needed to make the part work.
- All the kids handle themselves like old show biz pros. Bale, in particular, makes a strong impression; he could be a budding star.
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 11, 2017 14:56:26 GMT
According to this blog entry: The Newsies DVD came out on January 15th, 2002.
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 11, 2017 15:01:07 GMT
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 14, 2017 7:10:13 GMT
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 14, 2017 7:20:39 GMT
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 14, 2017 7:24:29 GMT
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 14, 2017 7:31:33 GMT
An Open Letter to Christian Bale Regarding the 1992 Film ‘Newsies’ By Gaby Dunn Sep 02, 2011
Dear Christian Bale,
Why do you hate Newsies?
Newsies. Don’t pretend you don’t know it. 1992. Disney. Musical. Turn-of-the-century newspaper boys. Singing. Dancing. A tinge of underage homoeroticism. Yeah, that Newsies.
It was a formative film in your career as a child actor, and it was eclipsed entirely by the 1993 Nazi sad-fest Swing Kids, which is widely considered to be a “better” film.
I love you, Christian Bale, but your well-documented and long-running hatred of Newsies is depressing to the film’s devoted fans. (They are mostly journalism students, gay teenagers, and aspiring slash fan-fiction writers).
Personally, I’ve looked it up so many times that my Google search bar completes “Christian Bale” with “hates Newsies.”
What comes up first is a December 2010 article in Esquire Magazine where you called acting in Newsies “embarrassing” and said you “don’t like musicals.”
I can see why you feel that way. When it was released, Newsies was the lowest-grossing Disney movie ever and it required you to perform the secondhand-embarrassment-inducing ‘Santa Fe’ alone, in an alleyway, with a lasso.
You’ve even said you feel like Newsies impeded your career trajectory.
“Time heals all wounds, but it took a while,” you told Entertainment Weekly in 2007 about the aftermath of starring in Newsies.
It’s a dubious claim considering Newsies obviously didn't hurt Bill Pullman. He was President of the United States just four years later!
At one point, you were claiming that you’d never even seen the movie. I don’t know if I buy that, Christian Bale. But either way, it cuts deep.
Over 63,800 people like Newsies on Facebook. Googling “Newsies fan” brings up 825,000 results. Brooklyn’s hip Bell House venue even hosted a Newsies sing-a-long and costume party this year. And word is it's heading to Broadway soon too. That movie is officially a cult classic, dude!
So what’s your damage, Bale?
You’re almost there. Now, nearly two decades after Newsies came out, you’re showing signs of coming around. During press for 2010‘s The Fighter, you hummed a few bars from ‘Santa Fe’ on the red carpet and the long-neglected Newsies fandom almost shat a Pulitzer.
Since Newsies, you’ve more than established yourself as a serious and accomplished actor. We’ve all read the Wikipedia page for The Machinist. (No one actually saw that movie, right? Too depressing!) We’ve marveled at your ability to go from looking like a more emaciated Gollum to sprouting muscles in order to play “The Batman.” You and Daniel Day Lewis will someday ride off into the sunset together on the backs of dragons.
Speaking of dragons, how is Newsies the movie you most regret making? You made Reign of Fire which IMDB describes as being about “a brood of fire-breathing dragons emerging from the Earth and setting fire to everything.” That is the premise of a movie you starred in. And it’s not even close to as dumb as Terminator Salvation. After that any mere mortal would have been, as you put it, “f**kin’ done professionally.”
But you’ve also had some of the most amazing performances in an actor’s career. Velvet Goldmine is a delicious glitter love-fest of great acting. Your embodiment of Dickie Ecklund in The Fighter was mind-blowing. American Psycho is one of my favorite films of all time. You knock the role of Patrick Bateman out of the park like “it” is Jared Leto’s head and you’re holding an axe. You nail it.
Maybe it’s “amateur” of me to say, but a turn as a serial-killing sociopath isn’t exactly inspirational. (Unless you count that one awesome guy I saw dressed in a “blood-splattered” raincoat for Halloween last year.)
You know what is inspirational? The heart-warming tale of an underdog group of rag-tag newsboys against a corrupt newspaper magnate. It’s Spot Conlon and Mush and Racetrak and Les and Bill Pullman and yeah, even Crutchy.
Come on, Bale. Take yourself out of it. Pretend it’s really Cowboy Jack Kelly up on that screen, fighting for his right to pas de beret in the streets of turn-of-the-century New York. It’s hope. It’s magic. It’s tap-dancing on a table and swinging on a ceiling fan. It’s a little boy screaming, “Never fear, Brooklyn is here!”
We’ve all made mistakes. One time, I CC'd my college’s entire journalism department on an email about how one particularly scary professor may or may not be in league with both Voldemort and Hitler. I’ve spit out gum onto my own clothing, I dyed my hair purple in the seventh grade, and I told Sam Worthington I enjoyed his performance in Step Up 3D. In college, I drunkenly convinced my frazzled roommate that she needed to let me sit up so I could do something really important and then proceeded to vomit into one of my rain boots. None of these mistakes earned me any fans.
But Christian Bale, people have gotten so much joy from watching you and David Moscow pretend either of you can dance. Just embrace it. You lucked out. Your big acting mistake is a movie people absolutely adore. I wish you loved it too.
In fact, let’s have a screening at my apartment. You can see Newsies for the “first time.” I’ll wear my Urban Outfitters newsboy cap and we’ll use my work computer to print out fake “newspapers” we made in Microsoft Office with a photo of you and an announcement of your change of heart.
Then, we’ll pass them out to strangers on the street while yelling, “Extrey! Extrey!” I’ll even use crutches to make it authentic.
Because as everyone knows: if you’re in the papers you’re famous; and if you’re famous, you can get anything you want -- even the courage to finally own up to Newsies.
Seize the Day,
Gabywww.movies.com/movie-news/christian-bale-hates-newsies/4343?wssac=164&wssaffid=news
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 14, 2017 8:01:56 GMT
A very grounded, balanced, realistic retrospective on Newsies the film over at Vulture.com (Bale mentions are quoted below): How Does Newsies Hold Up? By Rebecca Milzoff
Unfortunate accent notwithstanding, Disney at least lucked out in the casting department: Christian Bale is still a credible enough lead with more than a glimmer of future talent in his slit-eyed gaze. His floppy-haired charm is both alluring and alienating; one minute he seems like the buddy who’ll never let you down, the next like a firebomb ready to explode. He's at once a real departure for Disney — he smokes, he lies, he says “asshole!” — and a perfect fit with the Disney heroes of the past and future: a scrappy loner, smarter than he looks, motivated by a dream of something that may not be as wonderful as he imagines it to be (hey, hey — just like Aladdin!). “Santa Fe,” his big solo, is the classic, character-defining “I want” song that every good musical needs (it also bears more than a passing resemblance to Aladdin’s soliloquy, “’Riff raff, street rat’/ I don’t buy that/If only they’d look closer …”).
Bale’s no great vocalist, but when his voice cracks throughout “Santa Fe,” it’s endearing and seems like just the right touch. Read the full article at: www.vulture.com/2012/02/how-does-newsies-hold-up.html
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