Tag: Bebe Neuwirth

Frasier (1993) s07e09 – The Apparent Trap

The Apparent Trap is another episode “Frasier” can only do because it’s been running seven seasons, and there’s lots of back story. Plus, guest star kid Trevor Einhorn has aged enough he can more fully participate in the episode. He’s not quite full supporting, but he’s closer than he’s ever been before. It’s a Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) episode and a Thanksgiving episode (the second Neuwirth Thanksgiving episode), so there are the traditional John Mahoney can’t stand Neuwirth, and she weirds Jane Leeves out material.

But it’s the first Neuwirth appearance she and David Hyde Pierce made the beasts with two backs last season, which means there is all sorts of new material for them to work through. And Kelsey Grammer, reacting to all of it. So Apparent has a lot going on before the A-plot finally reveals itself—Einhorn’s trying to get his parents back together. The title, obviously, lends itself to that story, though it also could’ve involved a previously unknown twin.

Anyway.

It’s a funny episode. The main plot’s not spectacular, but they’re able to get a lot of laughs from it. While Einhorn machinates, Neuwirth and Grammer are co-authoring an article (for The New York Times Magazine!) about single parenting when you’re rich, white, and smart. While the beginning of the episode focuses on Neuwirth as the regular cast’s cause for consternation, the second half almost plays like a backdoor pilot for a “Lilith” show. We get to see her as single parent, dealing with Einhorn’s day-to-day problems while (almost always offscreen weekends) weekend dad Grammer mainly just supports her. Despite Einhorn visiting Grammer (Neuwirth’s an unexpected guest), Grammer doesn’t spend much time with him.

Instead, Einhorn’s got a good video game subplot with Hyde Pierce, then the standard boyishly lusting after Leeves (in knowing competition with Hyde Pierce).

But the episode’s mostly Neuwirth’s. She gets a couple great showcases, which just make the opening animosity stuff with Mahoney a little tired after seven seasons.

Grammer also directs the episode, showcasing how far he’s come; when he started, Grammer didn’t appear in the episodes he directed, and now he’s second lead. Though he’s the one giving Neuwirth the showcase. He’s good about sharing the show’s spotlight, especially when directing, even when he’s around.

Leeves has only got a little bit—a funny monologue about unseen fiancé Donnie’s Thanksgiving is the highlight—while Peri Gilpin is only in the first scene, setting up Grammer’s plans, so there are some balance issues. Like Mahoney being missing for the beginning of Thanksgiving dinner like they don’t have enough chairs.

The script credit goes to Dan O’Shannon, his first “Frasier” writing credit. The script does a good job of a traditional, annual, very special episode (Neuwirth or Einhorn guesting, a holiday). It’s an easy episode, but when it’s strong, it’s bending steel bars. Neuwirth’s superb.

Frasier (1993) s05e15 – Room Service

While this episode does a great job with Eugene O’Neill references—Kelsey Grammer at one point remarks to David Hyde Pierce they’re brothers out of an O’Neill play (because Hyde Pierce is suffering narcolepsy due to divorce proceeding stresses and Grammer is a sex maniac regarding ex-wife Bebe Neuwirth) and then the title cards all riff on O’Neill plays… it does have a gaff with Hyde Pierce talking about Freud. He’s a Jungian. Writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs, who turn in a fantastic script, gaff-included, hadn’t been watching the show apparently.

Or there just aren’t any good Jung jokes for after you sleep with your brother’s ex-wife.

Neuwirth is in town visiting Grammer after her marriage suddenly collapses—her husband leaves her for another man, which never gets too cringe vis-à-vis homophobia but does make a couple hard jokes at Neuwirth’s expense—and ends up canoodling with Hyde Pierce. The majority of the episode has them in her hotel room trying to reconcile their passionate night the morning after, with Grammer arriving to complicate things.

Most of the episode is just the one scene, which oscillates between screwball comedy (people hiding, Hyde Pierce’s narcolepsy causing trouble) and comedically minded dramatic conversation. Or maybe dramatically minded comedic conversation. The actors do a phenomenal job, with Hyde Pierce and Neuwirth quickly establishing a rapport—the “seduction” happens offscreen, with their initial meeting in the episode being humorously prickly—as they try to resolve the situation with and without Grammer’s involvement.

Grammer mostly gets to act the horny buffoon in the first section of the episode, grinding against Neuwirth as opportunity presents, unable to stop himself. It’s a funny turn of events given how unsympathetic Grammer gets in his lusting.

There’s only a little for the regular supporting cast, with Peri Gilpin and Neuwirth mini-bonding in the opening, then John Mahoney and Jane Leeves literally running out of the episode to avoid Neuwirth at the apartment. Mahoney comes off best—he’s at least got a gag, whereas Leeves is a passive sidekick to it—but it’s an exaggerated, easy joke, betraying a lack of effort towards character development in the script. It’s a rush to the main, morning after sequence, which is more than excellent enough to cover for the slightly bumpy opening.

Good direction David Lee, great performances from Hyde Pierce, Neuwirth, and Grammer. Also John Ducey as the room service waiter. Ducey’s essential.

Frasier (1993) s04e07 – A Lilith Thanksgiving

The title of this episode, A Lilith Thanksgiving, is simultaneously accurate and not. While the episode does indeed guest star Bebe Neuwirth and does indeed take place at Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving is tangential to the plot and doesn’t involve Neuwirth at all. The episode does one of those “Frasier” forecast and switches, where the opening introduces the idea the A plot is going to be Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce, and John Mahoney going to Hyde Pierce’s luxury cabin to celebrate the holiday, with Neuwirth accompanying she and Grammer’s son, Trevor Einhorn. It’s Einhorn’s first appearance of many as the kid; he’s good.

The first scene has Hyde Pierce on the phone with the caretaker while Peri Gilpin and Jane Leeves have quick scenes—Leeves is going somewhere else, Gilpin is house-sitting the apartment. There are a bunch of good one-liners for everyone, even if it’s obviously a way to get Leeves and Gilpin out of the action so we can just enjoy Mahoney being miserable around Neuwirth.

But wait!

Grammer gets a phone call and it turns out they can’t go to the cabin, they all have to go to Boston—Grammer and Neuwirth have to go to an entrance interview for Einhorn to go to a shishi poopoo private school on Thanksgiving morning. It’ll be Thanksgiving in Boston.

While Grammer and Neuwirth are at the interview, Hyde Pierce is in charge of cooking the turkey and Mahoney’s babysitting Einhorn. Despite the continent-trotting, it’s a very contained episode—there’s the apartment at the beginning, Neuwirth’s kitchen, then the large living room of school headmaster Paxton Whitehead. The present action is a few hours, as Neuwirth and Grammer fret over how they’ve done in the interview and continue to pester Whitehead, even crashing his Thanksgiving dinner.

Meanwhile, Hyde Pierce and Mahoney are breaking the very delicate Einhorn with baseballs, refrigerator doors, and anchovies.

Whitehead’s a perfect guest star, especially for the intensity of Grammer and Neuwirth, who are even more outrageous when acting in unison than against one another. It’s a great guest spot for Neuwirth, whose presence tempers the entire cast and they all get to react against it in different ways. She and Grammer are superb together.

Excellent script, credited to Chuck Ranberg and Anne Flett-Giordano—Gilpin and Leeves have a wonderful moment bonding over Grammer being so difficult—and fine direction as usual from Jeff Melman.

It’s not a “Lilith Thanksgiving” or even much of a Thanksgiving episode, but it’s still a hilarious episode with great performances from the guest stars and the regular cast.

Frasier (1993) s02e09 – Adventures in Paradise (2)

I wonder how this episode would play in one sitting. Even just marathoning it (as opposed to cutting out the recap at the beginning of this second part, which Kelsey Grammer performs quite well). Because writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs still have an odd structure. They had an odd structure last episode, as they built to the reveal of Bebe Neuwirth also on vacation in Bora Bora to interrupt Grammer’s romantic getaway with new girlfriend JoBeth Williams.

The cliffhanger resolve introduces Neuwirth and Williams then Grammer and Neuwirth’s fellow, James Morrison. They make dinner plans to resolve some of the oddness of them being next door neighbors on their respective sex vacations.

We don’t get to see the dinner, just to see how Grammer’s going to obsess about it and make some really poor decisions. Those poor decisions start to ruin the trip and end with Williams not talking to Grammer. Can he fix the new relationship or is Neuwirth’s proximity going to screw things up?

Meanwhile, David Hyde Pierce has gotten Jane Leeves and John Mahoney to attend the ballet with him, where ever unseen wife Maris has a role.

There’s good quick material for Hyde Pierce, Leeves, and Mahoney, including some great punchlines, and Levine and Isaacs give Peri Gilpin a great bit, but it’s all about Neuwirth, Grammer, and Williams.

The episode gives Grammer some very broad physical comedy to do and he’s fantastic, it gives Neuwirth this detached dramatic and she’s fantastic. Williams is fine, but never gets anywhere near the material she’d need to make as much of an impression as Neuwirth or Grammer.

Just the expressions Neuwirth makes while listening to Grammer blather on, you wish director James Burrows had just focused on her instead of cutting to Grammer, no matter how funny he got.

Celebrity voice guest star this episode is Kevin Bacon, who doesn’t get a lot but does get to play into Gilpin’s very funny bit.

And the ending is perfect too. It’s a big swing episode and it’s a hit.

Frasier (1993) s02e08 – Adventures in Paradise (1)

Remember when we didn’t see TV show episodes all the time? What were they called—electronic programming guides (thanks, Google). So watching Adventures in Paradise: Part 1 in fall 1994, you weren’t wondering why it was called part one. The episode’s got a somewhat strange pacing as writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs have to introduce guest star JoBeth Williams in a significant supporting part in just one episode.

So none of the regular supporting cast gets a lot to do. David Hyde Pierce and John Mahoney bond over cigar smoking in a very small subplot. Peri Gilpin is entirely there for supporting Kelsey Grammer’s arc, which has him starting to date Williams after seeing her in a magazine feature on Seattle’s best and brightest.

Grammer and Hyde Pierce’s low-key coveting of the associated prestige provides a handful of really good jokes. The episode’s full of them. Even without a lot to do, the entire cast (save maybe Gilpin) gets some really funny jokes. Jane Leeves has an amazing few minutes and Hyde Pierce goes on a particularly good Maris rant this episode.

Even stranger, the first big set piece doesn’t involve any of the regulars or even Williams. She and Grammer are out on their date and there’s a blowup between the restaurant owner (Pierre Epstein) and his daughter (Jessica Pennington). It’s absolutely hilarious, but it’s got nothing to do with the story. Except giving Grammer a great opportunity to “I’m Listening” in public.

Then the episode skips ahead a couple weeks and Williams and Grammer make an impromptu decision to run off together for a week and take things to the next stage. There’s some “Frasier fretting,” which also allows for some more on the cigar bonding subplot, but then it’s off to Bora Bora and the surprise cliffhanger.

Everyone’s really good, even when they barely get anything to do, and Williams is a nice match for Grammer. And the cliffhanger is rather hilarious.

It’s a really good episode, especially considering it’s just a setup for the next one.

Frasier (1993) s01e16 – The Show Where Lilith Comes Back

Bebe Neuwirth’s visit to the new show, coming in the back nine of the first season, is everything it could and should be. Writers Ken Levine and Davis Isaacs craft this perfect plot, which showcases Neuwirth and gives her a relationship—active or not—with all the regulars, then still manages to keep it an episode for Kelsey Grammer, but one where the narrative distance is so focused there’s extra room for Neuwirth.

Even when Neuwirth’s not onscreen, once she arrives, she’s very present. She calls into Grammer’s radio show in the opening (Merry Prankster Timothy Leary is the guest caller, which seems random) and cuts him down to size on air as far as his professional diagnoses, giving Peri Gilpin as many laughs as it gives the viewer. Gilpin’s reaction to finally hearing Lilith—though, Grammer assures Neuwirth, his listeners have heard all about her—has a great punchline too, foreshadowing how well Levine and Isaacs are going to do getting them in after the main action.

Because even though no one’s ever seen Lilith interact with Frasier’s family, she’s obviously got history with both Martin (John Mahoney) and Niles (David Hyde Pierce). Mahoney’s pretty funny—especially when Neuwirth’s grilling him over repressed sexual urges when he was beating people with his nightstick—but Hyde Pierce is the cake. He’s still mad about Lilith mocking Maris’s wedding vows—great line about Lilith being weird versus Maris being a little strange (Levine and Isaacs’s barbs are particularly sharp, as the show immediately establishes Neuwirth can take them and doesn’t care if anyone else can).

Meanwhile, Jane Leeves has sensed a disturbance in the Force and has a constant headache… until she actually shakes Neuwirth’s hand, at which time she loses all sensation in the arm.

The family scene isn’t the point of the episode, however; there’s some unfinished business for Neuwirth and Grammer, which catches Grammer off guard. The rest of the episode is pretty damn good for a nineties sitcom episode dealing with recent divorcees. The balance of laughs and drama work out and it gives Grammer a nice range. Neuwirth doesn’t get a huge range because she’s Lilith, but still… very nice guest appearance.

I’m sure James Burrows directing didn’t hurt either.

Dear Diary (1996, David Frankel)

Dear Diary was originally a TV pilot, which didn’t get picked up, then got (slightly) re-edited into a short. It’s impossible to imagine it as a weekly show, just because Diary does so little to establish what would be its regular cast.

It opens with star Bebe Neuwirth writing about her day in her diary. She narrates the whole film, with her musings about what she encounters–usually about people she meets, sometimes about herself, sometimes memories, or a lot of concepts (golf, photography)–visualized. If it’s people in the cast, they’re in the musings. If it’s an idea or a memory, it’s stock footage. On video. But Diary is shot on film. So it’s constantly visually jarring. Director Frankel is constantly moving the camera after cuts. It’ll tilt to focus on the actor, it’ll tilt away. It’s not effective. And it’s a problem for the first act.

The first act introduces Neuwirth and her family. They’re New York yuppies. She’s a magazine editor, husband Brian Kerwin is an attorney, they’ve got a couple kids who don’t matter except to remind Neuwirth she’s forty. Kerwin doesn’t figure into the plot at all. He’s an accessory, albeit one with more going on than the kids.

Neuwirth goes to work, where she ends up quitting almost immediately after her boss, Bruce Altman, gets introduced. Then she’s just got a free day; that free day is where Diary starts getting a lot better. She goes lunch golfing, where she meets avid golfer and department store security guard Mike Starr. They hang out for long enough to see her old college friend, Haviland Morris, rip off a dress. So Neuwirth tracks down Morris, meeting her husband (Ronald Guttman) eventually, and he knows Altman, which ties it all together with Neuwirth losing her job. Or quitting. That opening scene didn’t play well because Frankel’s not good at directing dramatic or expository scenes.

So Neuwirth’s narration is all-important. And it’s great. And her performance, even as problematic as the first act gets–there are hiccups in the Morris section too–but her performance is always fantastic. You just have to pretend there’s enough character. The diary entry she’s writing aloud is nowhere near as effective as the film postulates.

The third act ties it all together, not just Neuwirth’s days’ events, but also the film in general. It works because its well-acted. It works because of Neuwirth.

Though it’s Starr who saves the thing when it’s still getting through the rockier stuff. Altman’s good, Guttman’s funny (it’s a very small part), Kerwin seems fine. Morris is way too affected, but Dear Diary is way too affected so it fits. Enough.

Given Frankel’s direction and the general production concepts–the stock video footage is a disaster (why not just shoot the whole thing on video)–Dear Diary should be a lot less successful. As for the writing (by Frankel)… it’s fine. But it’s a sitcom. An okay sitcom. So you’ve got an okay sitcom script directed goofy (or worse) and a great lead performance.

Neuwirth makes Diary happen. However, last thing, the diary she’s writing seems to be very thin. Is it a new diary? Doesn’t matter. I guess.

But it does matter. Frankel’s way too loose on detail.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Written and directed by David Frankel; director of photography, Maryse Alberti; edited by Michael Berenbaum; music by Wendy Blackstone; production designer, Ginger Tougas; produced by Barry Jossen; released by DreamWorks Pictures.

Starring Bebe Neuwirth (Annie), Brian Kerwin (Tom), Bruce Altman (Griffin), Mike Starr (Fritz), Haviland Morris (Christie), and Ronald Guttman (Erik).

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Liberty Heights (1999, Barry Levinson)

Liberty Heights is about protagonist Ben Foster's last year in high school. Levinson never puts it in such simple terms because the film is about quiet, deliberate, but perceivable life events. Every moment in the film's memorable because Levinson is going through these people's memorable moments of the year. Of course, he never forecasts the film will take place over a year. Heights is an epical story, lyrically told.

Levinson splits the film primarily between Foster and Adrien Brody, as his older brother. But Joe Mantegna, as their father, and Orlando Jones, as Mantenga's business antagonist, also get some of the individual focus. So Levinson, along with cinematographer Christopher Doyle, editor Stu Linder and composer Andrea Morricone have to figure out how to identify these moments for the characters. Through the sound, the light, everything has to be perfect because of Levinson's approach.

It seems like a precarious approach–to set up a film to only have intense scenes; even scenes with Foster watching television or Brody talking to a friend, they all have to be intense in some way or another. Morricone's score is gorgeous and exuberant, but Levinson also uses contemporary popular music to get the scenes done too.

The performances are essential. Foster, Brody, Jones. All three are phenomenal. Bebe Neuwirth's great as Foster and Brody's mother, Rebekah Johnson is excellent as Foster's friend. The entire supporting cast is perfect.

Heights is simultaneously ambitious in its filmmaking, but also in its sincerity. It never hits a false note.

Jumanji (1995, Joe Johnston)

Jumanji is a thoroughly decent film, mostly due to good production values and Johnston’s direction.

It’s sort of hard to talk about the film due to the plotting. The film’s not real time, but the present action is still short… or not. In some ways, it’s twenty-six years, in others, it’s a day and a half and, in even others, it’s five minutes. Or three hours and five minutes. It’s not a problem for the film, which is just an amusement. There’s no attempt at any depth, just competent presentation of depth in the moment.

Jumanji doesn’t even work in a way one could take it seriously.

The casting is solid, though Bebe Neuwirth gets the short end of the stick. Adam Hann-Byrd is rather good. Robin Williams is fine, even if the script loses track of how to treat his character after a certain point. David Allen Grier and Bradley Pierce are both good. It’s hard to believe, between Pierce and Kristen Dunst (the kids in the movie), Dunst is the one who still acts professionally.

There’s a nice little James Handy cameo.

The film just has a good feel to it, something James Horner’s music helps.

The special effects are fine. While from the early days of CG, Jumanji would be impossible without it… as opposed to using CG instead of practical effects.

Sounds from a Town I Love (2001, Woody Allen)

Allen did Sounds from a Town I Love quickly, for the “Concert for New York City” benefit. It’s very short clips—about ten seconds—of (uncredited) people walking around New York on their cellphones. The snippets of conversation are all played for comedic effect, while still maintaining a mild sense of reality (some of the snippets are more real than others—the mother worrying her three year-old’s life is over after not getting into a preschool).

There’s a frequent balance between laughing at the conversation and at the speaker. Austin Pendleton’s director whose understanding of the south-central Asia countries is based on their film festivals is a fine example. If it weren’t Pendleton, it wouldn’t work. But he’s likable in his absurdity.

The snippets let Allen make Sounds very memorable very quickly… which then made me wonder how his use of the final snippet would be.

Unsurprisingly perfect.