Word: evening
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...there's hardheaded career calculation here too. Hollywood, which gave her an Oscar in 1973 for Cabaret, pretty much washed its hands of Liza years ago, and even Broadway hasn't been very hospitable lately. Her last appearance, replacing Julie Andrews as the star of Victor/Victoria in 1997, got mixed reviews and ended prematurely because of her health problems. On a concert tour in the months that followed, she began canceling performances, alienating fans and bookers alike. When she called in sick at the last minute for a tribute in her honor thrown by Burt Reynolds in Los Angeles--then...
...Louis) and demonstrates that her voice, if not the exuberant, no-holds-barred instrument it once was, can still curl stylishly around numbers like I Got Rhythm and Baubles, Bangles and Beads. A little nostalgia, a little Broadway pizazz, a little coming to terms with middle age (she's even got new lyrics for I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore)--what better way for Liza Minnelli, 53, to announce she's back...
...with Fantasia, boldly merged classical music and abstract images. Those were revolutionary days for animation; more was conceived in those 12 years than in the 60 that followed. Fantasia 2000 may look a bit timid by comparison, but it provides some fine artists the chance to stretch and frolic, even as it reminds today's audiences of animation's limitless borders. When freed from cartoon bondage, the form can soar like a whale...
...book, Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir (which, among other things, recounts Lorna's role in getting Liza into rehab). The two aren't talking now, though Liza doesn't describe it as a feud: "We're sisters, and we're going through something." She won't even bad-mouth the book, which she claims she hasn't read. "It's her point of view. I think it was probably cathartic for her to write it." Catharsis or not, Liza refused to join her sister in a couple of tributes to Judy Garland at the London Palladium and Carnegie...
...tears, some of them earned. And there's a lot of sharp acting, led by Hanks' pained restraint. The two villains are vigorously portrayed: a sadistic, craven guard (Doug Hutchison) and a strutting, rabid inmate (played with a daringly lunatic, dark-star quality by Sam Rockwell), whose crimes are even worse than we feared. At the core, though, one finds a slacky, sappy film. The human mystery that breathed so easily in Shawshank is often forced here. Grandstanding reaction shots of teary guards cue us to John Coffey's miraculous power as surely as the big man's initials hint...