Shame is a fascinating character study. The film’s emphasis is less on plot — Brandon drifts from one sexual liaison to the next without a whole lot of direction or purposefulness — and more on examining what’s happening to Brandon as he grapples with trying to make connections without other people. The way I saw it, sex is the only way in which he can connect, and when women — his sister and a beautiful co-worker, played by Nicole Beharie, begin to make demands on him that involve anything even remotely emotional, his world begins to fall apart.

We first saw Fassbender in Hunger, McQueen’s 2008 brilliant first feature about the 1981 Irish hunger strike. Fassbender was amazing in that role, and he’s equally great here. Both films focus on Fassbender’s body, but in very different ways. In Hunger, his character starves himself to death. Here, Brandon is obsessed with replacing the emotional with the physical. He’s a man who can’t satiate his emotional needs with sex, but he nevertheless tries and tries and tries.

Much of the advance buzz about this film focused on the nudity — we see a lot of Fassbender (and all of it is beautiful!) — but the film quickly gets over that and focuses on the character’s emotional paralysis instead. The sexiest scene in the movie is the one featured in the trailer, when Brandon cruises a woman on the subway. The other sex scenes are decreasingly sexy as Brandon’s desperation to replace emotional connection with meaningless sex becomes less and less fulfilling.

Mulligan plays Brandon’s sister, Sissy, a lounge singer who is just as messed up as Brandon, though in different ways. Her attempts at emotional connection are usually with the wrong, often married guys, and she ends up destroying whatever chance she has with the unmarried ones by suffocating them and the relationship. She’s great in this movie, especially in a lengthy scene in which she slowly sings “New York, New York” while Brandon and his boss watch. Here’s a clip:

Near the end of the movie, there is a controversial scene in which Brandon has sex with a man. Some viewers see this as a statement that he has hit rock bottom, since gay sex necessarily is “bad.” I don’t think this is what the film is saying. Rather, I thought that it was more about Brandon just needing to get off and this is one of the ways he gets off when he can’t get with a woman. It didn’t seem like this was the only time he’d done something like this. Fassbender seems to agree:

It doesn’t become about homosexuality or heterosexuality, it becomes about a fix, and where can I get my fix? People think, Wow, this is his descent into hell, and it’s not the case. I mean, we shot in a real club. That is a real scenario for many addicts that are predominantly heterosexual and they end up with a guy. You put yourself into a scenario that you wouldn’t do in a normal situation because your choice is gone. (Source)

It is unfortunate, however, that the film doesn’t depict this scene in as much detail as the heterosexual ones — that seems to suggest that McQueen doesn’t trust his audience (or maybe himself?) to be able to handle it.

Shame is a daring, beautiful, moving character study that kept me riveted. I thought it was one of the best films I’ve seen this year, and both of its stars deserve Oscar nominations.

Gotye was born in Belgium but grew up in Australia. After listening to this song a few times, I tried out some of the other tracks on Gotye’s new album, Making Mirrors, which is great, and so I bought it. It’s now one of my favorite albums of 2011. Gotye has been compared to Sting, especially in his interest in drawing on various forms of world music, which seems an apt comparison.

Part of what makes this song great, of course, is that he inserts the woman’s point of view, underlining the male perspective, who ultimately comes across as kind of whiny. I think this is bloody brilliant! It’s also risky. I love it.

I also found a great live version of “Somebody I Used to Know”:

There’s also this great documentary about the making of Making Mirrors:

Here are the lyrics to “Somebody I Used to Know”:

Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it’s an ache I still remember

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I’ll admit that I was glad that it was over

But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
No you didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

Now you’re just somebody that I used to know
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

[Woman:]
Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I’d done
And I don’t wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn’t catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know

[Man:]
But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
And you didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

Somebody
(I used to know)
Somebody
(Now you’re just somebody that I used to know)

In this case, the play focuses primarily on the Wyeth family’s Christmas gathering in Palm Springs, California, where the elder Wyeths, Polly and Lyman, played by Stockard Channing and Stacy Keach, live. Polly and Lyman are Old Guard Republicans who remain active in a certain kind of Republican circle. Lyman was a former actor, much like Reagan, and was appointed an ambassador during his administration. Polly is friends with Nancy.

Polly and Lyman have taken in Polly’s sister, Silda, played by Judith Light, who has had a drug problem. Now out of rehab with no place to go, she resents living with her sister in part due to their former success as a screenwriting partnership, which broke up with Polly’s turn to Republican conservatism. As Silda constantly reminds her, Polly is a Jew who plays the part of a transplanted-Texas WASP.

Rounding out the family gathering are the Wyeth “children,” both of whom are adults. Rachel Griffiths plays Brooke, an emotionally delicate writer who suffered from a six-year emotional breakdown after the publication of her first novel but who now insists that she knows how to manage her depression. Trip Wyeth, played by Matthew Risch, who will soon be replaced by Justin Kirk, is a producer on a cheesy Judge Judy type of television show in which celebrities serve on a jury and decide cases.

The plot centers around Brooke’s new book, a memoir detailing her perspective on the death of the Wyeth’s other, older son Henry, who had joined a cult that blew up an army recruiting station, killing a janitor. Guilt stricken by this turn of events, Henry apparently jumped overboard off a ferry and drowned himself 30 years ago. Brooke’s memoir dredges up the past, reopening all of the family’s old wounds. Here’s a clip of the play, a scene in which Brooke gives her parents copies of her book:

Overall, this play was interesting and enjoyable, and the performances are great. Griffiths, Channing, Light, and Keach all deserve Tony nominations. But PJ and I were both confused by the plot’s details. I couldn’t keep straight the sequence of events — when did Henry kill himself, when did Lyman become an ambassador, and how old was everybody when each of these events happened. Presumably the former was in 1974(ish), since the play is set in 2004. But I kept getting confused in the dialogue; I needed more reminders of how everything was connected.

I’m willing to assume that this is my fault for not keeping up, but it did affect my enjoyment of the play nevertheless. I liked it, but I wasn’t as wowed by it as others seem to be. It felt more like Sturm und Drang over actual substance. I’m sure it will win the Tony for Best New Play, however. The real excitement will be whether Griffiths or Channing will win Best Actress in a Play!

Seminar is hilariously witty and a crowd-pleaser (even if you’re not an English professor!). Rickman is excellent as Leonard, a boozing, lecherous, washed-up writer who makes end meet by writing magazine stories and teaching these private seminars. He imbues Leonard with life, pathos, and egotism, making him a fully rounded character when he could easily be a one-dimensional stereotype instead.

Here are a few clips from the production:

Hamish Linklater, who we just saw in The Future, is also excellent as a sardonic, know-it-all named Martin who’s too committed to pure language in art to take Leonard’s seminar seriously. He’s also immensely jealous of another, much more professionally successful writer, Douglas, played by Jerry O’Connell, who is talented but mostly depends on his connections to get published.

Martin is also attracted to Izzy, played by Hettienne Park, a vivacious woman who foregrounds sex in her work, but Izzy seems more interested in Douglas and then Leonard. Rounding out the cast is Martin’s long-time friend, Kate, played by Lily Rabe. Kate’s wealthy family rents the apartment in which the seminar takes place, and she’s the first of the writers to be subjected to Leonard’s penetrating criticisms.

The plot of the play if fairly simple: we see what happens as each writer jockeys for Leonard’s approbation while he eviscerates their writing. They become increasingly competitive with one another and alliances switch and become more complicated.

It’s a funny, entertaining work that zips right along. The audience laughed more during this show than during any other we saw in NY this year. All five of the actors are great, and I highly recommend Seminar. It’s the second play we’ve seen by Theresa Rebeck, who also penned The Understudy, another play we really liked and which we saw in 2009.

Both quickly realize that they’re still in love, and comic mayhem ensues as they flee their new spouses and run off together to Amanda’s Paris apartment. The reason their previous marriage fell apart five years ago, however, was that Elyot and Amanda fight as passionately as they make love. We see both sides of their relationship in Acts 2 and 3.

Here’s a brief glance at the Canadian production, which is nearly the same as the one in New York:

This next sentence is probably one of the gayest things I’ve ever written: one of my favorite plays as a kid was Private Lives.

My parents raised us to be black-and-white movie buffs, and the 1931 film of Private Lives starring Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery was a huge hit with me:

So, I’m predisposed to love everything about this production, which received mixed reviews from critics. I thought Cattrall was excellent as Amanda, and Gross was also good as Elyot. The one problem I have with the production is the set in the second and third acts: it’s too big for what happens in these scenes. Coward’s play is largely witty dialogue with some farcical fighting. The set for these scenes is cavernous, and I found myself looking around at it rather than keeping focused on the action.

Other than that, I thought that this is a lovely production of a classic of the American theater. Many critics have compared it to the Alan Rickman-Lindsay Duncan revival a decade ago, which doesn’t seem fair. I found a clip of it too:

One can’t fault this production for not being that production. I enjoyed it — though PJ, and our friends Nathanael and James didn’t.

Follies takes place on the night before an old theater is being torn down to make room for a parking lot. To say goodbye to the old place, Mr. Weismann, the former producer of “Weismann’s Follies,” hosts a party in the theater for a group of his former performers.

Here’s a quick look at these ladies:

While the former “Weismann girls” remember days gone by, two couples become the focus of the show’s plot: Buddy and Sally Durant Plummer and Benjamin and Phyllis Rogers Stone. Sally and Phyllis were showgirls, and Buddy and Ben are the guys who courted and then married them. The “ghosts” of the past take the stage throughout the show, showing us this courtship and the couples’ interactions. It soon becomes clear that Sally, played by Peters, and Ben had an affair before their respective marriages and that Sally is still in love with Ben.

This leads to one of the great songs of this show, “Losing My Mind:”

On the other hand, Phyllis, played by Jan Maxwell, has grown tired to Ben’s philandering. As she sees Sally make one last play for him, Phyl has to decide what she’s going to do about it, if anything, which leads to her great number, “Could I Leave You?”:

Both of these actresses are great in this musical, but so are all of the other performers. Here’s a look at Terri White’s big number, “Who’s That Woman?”:

The show also stars Elaine Page, who is always great in whatever she does, but my favorite of the other ladies is Solange, played by Mary Beth Peil (Grams in Dawson’s Creek!). She’s the Parisian seductress of the group (at least on stage), and Peil is great singing, “Ah, Paris!”

But the show belongs to Peters and Maxwell, who both deserve Tonys for their work in this production. Follies is a surprisingly affecting musical that I really enjoyed. It’s closing next month, so I recommend seeing it before it’s gone!

Here’s my favorite of the videos, which all feature Sylvester’s potty mouth:

He had me at “Fuck ‘em!” All of the videos are great and highly addictive!

One of the highlights that immediately stand out is his cover of Madonna’s “Take a Bow.” Here’s a live version I found on YouTube:

I’ve uploaded the album to my iPod so that I can listen to it more. “The River,” “Velvet Goldmine,” and “Tightrope” also stand out as potential favorites. I hope he puts out a video or two too — “End of the World” demonstrates that he has the video aesthetic to be a great video artist.

Cooper is amazing in this role. In the past, I’ve mostly thought of him as a sexy actor. In such movies as Momma Mia!, An Education, The Duchess, and The History Boys, he stands out as a handsome, attractive man rather than as an accomplished actor. The Devil’s Double certainly makes the most of his physical attractiveness. Early in the movie, for example, we see him in various states of undress, such as with his shirt unbuttoned:

In a speedo:

And nude:

Towards the end, we also seem him in a sex scene that again features his beautiful ass. While Cooper is lovely to look at, I quickly stopped lusting after him and instead became enamored with his performance, which is spectacular.

Cooper plays both the psychopath Uday and the more normal Latif so well that the audience can always tell who is who, even when they’re not on-screen together. That he embodies both men so well is amazing. His whole physicality changes depending on which character he is at a given moment. One of the features on the DVD explains how they shot the scenes in which both character are on-screen simultaneously. The fact that Cooper is in almost every shot is also impressive. It’s one of the great performances of the year, I think.

While Cooper is great, there are a couple of plot points in the movie that could have been better. The plot basically revolves around the question of whether Latif will ever escape Uday’s sadism. I knew before watching the movie what the answer to that question is — it’s based on a true story, so we know he’s  got to live, so he must get away eventually. The details of that escape are too sketchy in the movie. It’s almost as if the filmmakers decided that this wasn’t really an important point that needed to be explained, making part of the last act rather difficult to understand. I would have liked a little more detail in this part.

I should also note that the movie is very violent, as one should expect with this subject matter. It doesn’t shy away from the horror caused by Hussein and his family. I think that’s good. It’s also somewhat sexually graphic, though the violence is more graphic than the sex, which sometimes overlaps with the violence. It’s a sometimes difficult movie to watch, but I also admired that quality. It’s kind of fearless in its depiction of these aspects of the regime and of war.

All in all, The Devil’s Double was a very good movie and definitely worth watching. Cooper is great in this role, and it suggests what he’s capable of. I hope he gets the chance to give this caliber of performance again (and is acknowledged for it).

I love the album’s quiet simplicity, which really works on a song like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” the old Judy Garland classic:

The album also features “The Christmas Waltz,” “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and “Blue Christmas,” all of which are great! I highly recommend it.