Review: Liza Minnelli live at the Royal Festival Hall

Originally published on www.sosogay.co.uk

If there’s one person you should see live before you die make sure its the queen of showbiz herself, Miss Liza Minnelli. At the age of 66 the legend of stage and screen showed the audience at the South Bank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall just how she became a living legend.

Minnelli’s performance was part of The Rest is Noise Festival, which was billed by London’s South Bank Centre as being a tribute to the Weimar era, though Minnelli herself didn’t perform much from the era attributed with inspiring the reason for her performance. However, this didn’t stop her from being mesmerising, witty and funny, or from giving an all-round triumphant performance.

From the moment she walked onto the stage she had the audience in the palm of her hand as they sat their enthralled by her. The performance was her first at the Royal Festival Hall since 1973, when she performed Liza with a ‘Z’, and we got a reminder of this when she performed the song in question.

Despite her vocals being a little shaky at the beginning, they improved significantly as the show moved on, giving the audience a look at her memorable belt that, despite everything, she has managed to maintain. While the voice was incredible for someone her age, she looked a bit shaky on her feet and required a rest at one point allowing her pianist, Billy Stritch, to perform a solo number, ‘No Moon At All.’ Stritch was a big part of the show in fact, as he performed a duet of ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love’ with Liza, to a roaring applause.

The applause and laughs throughout the show continued as Minnelli told hilarious stories from her past and gave impressively big performances of ‘Maybe This Time’ and ‘Cabaret’, which received standing ovations; there were also a couple of humourous songs such as ‘He’s Funny That Way’ and ‘You’ve Let Yourself Go.’ But one of the best performances of the night came when Liza performed Charles Aznavour’s ‘What Makes A Man A Man.’ Lit by a spotlight, the audience could see Minnelli, and Minnelli only, as she sang the song about sexual identity and told her audience to be themselves. I’ve heard the song on a number of occasions but seeing it live gave me chills.

Minnelli ended the stellar show with her signature tune, ‘New York, New York’, giving the audience a glimpse of her signature “YEAH” before the song and ended on an incredible high note that saw waves of applause fill the room.

After 90 minutes on stage and being every inch the professional non-diva, Minnelli gave a number of encores for her fans – something you wouldn’t see at a Madonna concert – and ended by singing a cappella to fans; proving that despite the ups and downs of her life, the voice is still as big and strong as ever.

Review: The Blue Angel

Originally published on www.moviemuser.co.uk

As a lover of old Hollywood films, especially those made during the film industry’s golden age – because in my opinion the films were just better as they had a type of mystical Hollywood gloss painted over them – I was excited at the prospect of reviewing a film from 1930. This was in part to see a film from this era that I’d not heard of. It was also because the film was made not long after the transition into the talkies and, of course, it features film legend Marlene Dietrich.

However, like most good things they always seem a bit too good to be true, and that is certainly the case when it comes to this film. It’s being released as part of a Masters of Cinema series in a dual format (DVD & Blu-ray) edition that also features both English and German language versions of the film. The movie depicts the downward spiral of a school teacher (Emil Jannings), whose attempts to catch his students frequenting a local cabaret bar leads to his own enthusiasm for the bar’s main attraction, Lola (Dietrich), which results in both his life and fortune entering a time of turmoil.

Despite being included in the Masters of Cinema collection, unfortunately I couldn’t find anything too magnificent about it. In fact I can think of a few other films from the 1930s, such as Grand Hotel and Of Human Bondage, that would benefit more from a new HD release. They also feature legendary stars such as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, who are all on par with Miss Dietrich, if not better.

The film itself is rather boring, bland and has minimal dialogue to begin with; in fact it made me think of a rather bad version of the 1970 hit, Cabaret. It does have some good points when it comes to the use of the camera, mainly due to the panning that was very difficult back then due to static cameras, but apart from that there’s not much else to go on about.

Maybe it’s been seen as worthy to be included in this new collection due to it being the first collaboration between the director Josef Von Sternberg and Dietrich (it was also her ticket to Hollywood), who would make many more films together, but apart from that I can’t see any other reason why it would be included.

One thing I will say is that we get a clear indication of the twilight years of Marlene’s career, as she spent most of them as a cabaret singer touring the world. But apart from that, unless you’re a huge fan of Dietrich or old movies I’d give this a miss.

Review: Arthur

Originally posted on www.thefancarpet.com

With Hollywood remaking films left right and centre it was no surprise that when Dudley Moore’s iconic role of Arthur was going to be remade with comedian Russell Brand in the title role a doubtful shadow was cast over the whole project, with many feeling that the film should be left alone.

Now I, like many others don’t believe film’s should be remade and should be left as they are, but after sitting down to watch the new and up to date Arthur I found myself being pleasantly surprised.

The movie was a whole concoction of brilliant one liners, hilarious laugh out loud moments, such as some highly amusing elements involving a life sized gummy bear, a boxing ring and a rather extreme wedding photo shoot. All this was coupled together with some rather sweet and touching parts and also some very sad parts that the audience will definitely get behind, you’ll know what I mean when you watch it, I definitely didn’t see it coming.

Besides the brilliant comedy that was the film, the acting was also on top form. Jennifer Garner was absolutely hilarious as the psychotic and completely crazy Susan and Brand really stood out as he made the childish and completely incapable character of Arthur his own, and he really makes you feel for the character. One downfall with the choice of stars was Greta Gerwig as the lovingly sweet Naomi who, was no match for the incredible screen presence of Liza Minnelli from the original film.

But I must be honest the stand out performance of the whole film came from Helen Mirren as nanny Hobson. Her quick one liners and her impeccable comedy timing stole the show from the remainder of the cast, and her emotional force during the developing of the relationship between her character and Arthurs was really heart warming and made the whole film worthwhile.

Overall the film was pretty flawless, apart from some parts that seemed just a little too extreme even for a movie of this nature, you’ll see what I mean during the central station segment. But overall I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the film and it will make you laugh out loud, feel sad, touched and may even make you cry a little. One of the best remakes I’ve seen.