Liza Minnelli's Latest Comeback

Originally published on www.sosogay.co.uk

With an Oscar, an Emmy, multiple Tony Awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award under her belt and over 50 years in the business that is show, Liza Minnelli is the definition of the term ‘living legend’.

Not content with sitting out her later years on a vast yacht in the baking sun telling stories about all the other greats she’s known – such as her mother, her father, Frank Sinatra or Sammy Davies Jr. – Liza continues to keep busy, and this year is no exception as she brings her celebrated gifts to the London stage for a one-night-only performance on March 1^.

Minnelli will be performing at the Royal Festival Hall in London as part of the Southbank Centre’s ‘Berlin in the 20s and 30s’ weekend, where she will perform songs from the legendary Cabaret, jazz standards and Broadway tunes. However, as she mentioned in The Telegraph, she’s still re-writing the show, so who knows what could happen.

The performance at the Royal Festival Hall will be her first performance at the venue since 1973, when she performed her renowned Emmy Award winning show Liza with a Z there.

The weekend will also see a screening of Cabaret, which celebrates its 41^st birthday this year and marks the 40^th anniversary of Minnelli’s Oscar win for her performance of Sally Bowles.

Aside from her one night engagement in London, this year appears to mark another comeback in the life of the legendary performer. With scheduled performances at the New York City Town Hall alongside Alan Cumming, a performance at the State Theatre’s 25^th annual benefit gala in May, a return to acting with a guest appearance as herself in TV shows Smash and Arrested Development and even, according to an interview with The Huffington Post, a new album in the works, it looks like Liza may be doing a few more appearances this year. Well here’s hoping she does.

Review: Bjork - Bastards

Originally published on www.soundblab.com

The eccentric or, as some may put it, batshit crazy Icelandic singer Bjork returns to the music scene with the remix album of her seventh studio album Biophilia, the aptly-titled Bastards. Now credit where credit is due, anyone who names their album Bastards deserves a round of applause. Of course, Bjork has been doing that kind of thing for almost 30 years, first as part of the band The Sugarcubes and then solo.

She's done more than garner masses of applauses as well. After all, the unconventional singer has gained herself numerous Grammy Award nominations and has even been nominated for an Academy Award. However, I don't quite think that honour will be bestowed this album. I'm a big fan of Bjork's massive back-catalogue and I often find that some of her songs work extremely well as remixes. In fact, the remix of 'Army of Me' is probably better than the original version.

However, her eclectic mix of music and amazing vocals just aren't enough to save this remix record. Some tracks are OK, some are good, some are bad and some are a little hit-and-miss altogether and tend to just blend into the background, and Bjork is someone who should never blend into the background. The album does sound very worldly and mixes what sounds like Bollywood and African music into her rocky, electro sounds. While this is all well and good, many tracks sound too samey and just get lost while you're doing something else.

The best track on the album has to be 'Crystalline', which mixes Bjork's excellent vocals with an upbeat, haunting and Bollywood-inspired sound. It's not a combination you would initially put together but it works. The same thing works but not quite as well on the track 'Thunderbolt,' although there's just not enough of Bjork on it.

Other good tracks are 'Sacrifice' and 'Sacrifice Reprise' with their haunting vocals and almost minimal music, focusing on the voice, which is, as always, amazing. Both tracks are very atmospheric and melancholic, with the later making you feel as though Bjork herself has been engulfed in waves. Listen to it and you'll get what I mean. The worst track has to be 'Hollow', which is just seven long minutes of really boring music and boring vocals which don't grab your attention or make you feel anything other than bored. Basically, it's an awful track.

A special mention has to be given to 'Mutual Core', which has a number of excellent vocals. When it kicks in, it's extremely dark and heavy. However, only these parts are worth listening to - some are flat out yawn-inducing. It's a classic case of the hit-and-miss song.

Overall this album has some good mixes and some brilliant vocals. However, some parts completely miss the mark and leave you bored while only a few others pick you up. I think Bjork needs to go back to the drawing board and work on some new music, which is probably best for all of us.

Giving Thanks: Alan Ball

Originally posted on www.biggaypictureshow.com

This week I’m heading across the pond back to America to give thanks to one of the gay heavyweights working behind the scenes in film and television, Oscar, Emmy and Golden Globe award winning film, theatre and television producer, writer and director, Alan Ball.

After finishing college in 1980, Ball began working as a playwright at the General Nonsense Theatre Company in Sarasota Florida. Although we may be skipping a few years ahead, by the 1990s he was working in television and contributed to a number of shows such as Oh Grow Up, Grace Under Fire and Cybill, which starred Cybill Shepherd.

In 1999 Ball’s first film as a screenwriter, American Beauty, exploded at the box office grossing over $350 million worldwide and won five Oscars at the 72^nd Academy Awards, including Best Picture and a Best Screeplay gong for Ball. Although the film was a huge success, most of a hefty gay subplot was removed from the film until the very end, which is slightly disheartening, but luckily for the LGBT community it wasn’t entirely ripped from the film.

Venturing back into television, Ball created the hugely successful HBO drama series Six Feet Under, which was a rating’s smash and ran for five series. The show included a major gay character that broke the mould of the traditional stereotype, in the shape of David Fisher, played by Dexter’s Michael C. Hall. After the series ended his next huge hit came in the shape of vampire series True Blood.

Throughout the show a number of LGBT issues have been at the forefront, with the openly gay Layfayette, a lesbian relationship involving Tara, and at the end of the latest series a blossoming vampire lesbian relationship between Pam and Tara. We’ve even seen male vampires engaging in sex together, which despite them being dead all helps towards normalising LGBT characters on TV.

The whole show has been read as an allegory for LGBT rights, with vampires ‘coming out of the closet’ and fighting for equal rights. Although Ball has dispelled this comparison as laziness, the author of the books the show is based on has said this was the case when she wrote them. Either way it’s great to be able to see the fight for gay rights being represented in a way that isn’t overly forceful on an audience.

Along with all this Ball been named one of the most impressive gay men and women in Out magazine’s annual 100 list, and has been lauded as a strong voice for the community. As he left his position as show runner at the end of series five of True Blood, it will be interesting to see what Ball does next and whether he will continue to channel gay characters on his shows and challenge stereotypes that have existed for far too long.

We Remember: Brokeback Mountain

Originally posted on www.differentscene.co.uk

In the latest instalment of We Remember we are taking a look at probably the most pinnacle moment in movie history when it comes to gay characters on screen, Brokeback Mountain.

Now I myself have a little bit of an issue when it comes to this film, fair enough it is a good film and the lead actors are brilliant in it and it was a huge moment for the gay community to see two very successful actors play gay for a big movie production. But my issue is that I don’t think it deserves the huge amount of praise it gets, yes it is good but I didn’t really think it was Oscar worthy?

Now there are probably a number of people who would like to sit me down now and tell me why this film was Oscar worthy and I would welcome them, but for the time being let’s just discuss the film.

For gay cinema goers this film was a definite stand out as the gay community finally had a huge blockbuster movie that centred around two closeted homosexual characters who were completely in love but because of the times they couldn’t be together, and that is extremely sad and this is heightened by the fact that this sort of thing would have happened to a huge amount of gay men back then, who would have got married, had children and repressed their homosexuality.

The best thing about this film has to be the fact that after a while you stop thinking about the fact that these two men are gay, and just watch it as an up to date love story for the 21^st century, and this is probably why it did get the praise it got and the awards it received.

I mean who would have thought that twenty or thirty years previous to this, that there would be a film with two hugely respected and well known Hollywood actors playing gay characters in a huge film that centred around them? And who would have thought that it would have grossed over $100 million at the box office? Not many that’s for sure, but it was about time it did happen.

All in all this film is a land mark in gay cinema, and I think it may be a long time before another film like this comes along, and the acting from both Jake and the late great Heath Ledger was absolutely brilliant.

So it is a definite watch for anyone who is gay or just enjoys cinema with a gay twist. I think after writing this I must go back and watch it again and see if I still stand by the opinion that it didn’t deserve Oscar glory.