Word: splendid
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...fatuous forgettables out of Hamlet, have been revived once again. Poor fellows, they're forced once more to wrestle with the existential riddles of Tom Stoppard's 20-year-old classic. Lucky for us, though, because the Leverett House production is a compellingly clever and lively show, a splendid send-off for the house theatricals season...
Peggy Sue has had a turbulent history, surviving defections by its original star, Debra Winger, and Directors Penny Marshall and Jonathan Demme. But everything finally came together under the sensitive directorial hand of, yes, Francis Coppola. The supporting cast is splendid. The film's occasional lapses never puncture the airy tone; they are easily forgiven, like Peggy Sue and her friends, whose only sin was to grow up. This prom-night balloon of a movie floats easily above the year's other exercises in '50s nostalgia. If you dare reach for it, it will land smartly in your heart...
...film. Filming in 11 days, with minimal sets (either Nola's boudoir or the streets of Brooklyn) and a small no-megastar cast, Lee made the most of what he had. And that includes a terribly talented family circle: his father, the esteemed jazz pianist/composer Bill Lee, furnished the splendid score as well as a nice cameo performance as father Darling; and Joie Lee, Spike's sister, makes an enchanting but too-brief appearance as Nola's old roommate. Her looks are intriguing and her manner is wonderfully intimate...
That sounds a little defensive, as well as prideful, for a past master songwriter who is passing 43. It may be that when Simon embarked on the project that was to become his splendid new album, Graceland, he was, in his own words, "not hot in any way." One-Trick Pony, the 1980 feature film he wrote and starred in, bottomed out at the box office. A 1983 tour with his old partner Art Garfunkel was a nostalgic about-face. Hearts and Bones, in 1983, did not even offer up one high-charting song, a novel situation indeed...
...still stands, with its green shutters, 14 rooms and veranda and upstairs gallery extending the width of the 53-ft. front. Elsie Reeves Baum, 71, of Creswell, expects the day to swing from sad to happy as she and others walk among the ghosts of their forebears and the splendid cypress trees they planted. Says she: "They sang the same spirituals we sing. 'Steal Away to Jesus!' And 'All o' God's Chillun Got Shoes' . . . For us to walk on the soil where they walked -- there is going to be some crying and everything...