Media Morsels 11.26.10

• Happy Thanksgiving!
  Yesterday was Thanksgiving (duh!) and that meant the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The parade brought us all the usual bells and whistles and floats. As usual, my favorite part was watching the performances from Broadway shows. It should come as no surprise that my very favorite part of that was watching my beautiful Idiots perform "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)." They sounded great, they looked great and I just can't watch Johnny play guitar without tearing up. This Thanksgiving, I am so incredibly thankful for American Idiot, for pluralism and for the freedom of expression. Happy Thanksgiving!

• Bloody Bloody Bits
  President Sexypants was interviewed by the Craptacular, a Broadway blog (with a spectacular name…). Read on to find out what he’s been reading, how his “Rock Star” lap dance caused a woman’s teeth to fall out and how to get that “guy-liner” just right.
  
  
• Spider-Man Swings by NY Magazine Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is the subject of the cover story in this week’s New York Magazine. Sometimes theatre writer Jesse Green spent time with the creative team, mostly director Julie Taymor, to make some sense of this Spidey stuff. Taymor comes across as a thoughtful (not necessarily compassionate but rather meticulous) and confident artist, one who is shrewd about executing her vision. She also seems to be rather resilient and dismissive of the NY Post’s gossip whore columnist Michael Riedel, much to my delight. (Riedel has relished in being the bearer of bad Spidey news.) I’ll find out next week if the not-quite-finished product (it first starts previews on Sunday; the show won’t officially open until January 11) can quiet Taymor’s critics.
  
  
• NY Export: Opus Jazz
  The vibrant film adaptation of the wonderfully colorful and energetic Jerome Robbins ballet NY Export: Opus Jazz is now available on DVD! It was broadcast on PBS several months ago (maybe even a year ago…) and I taped it to VHS, but since VHS tapes are likely to go the way of the 8-track and likely won’t enjoy a resurgence like vinyls currently do, I’m definitely going to grab this on DVD. (I’ll report back about any nifty bonus features!) Visit opusjazz.com for more information and to order your copy today!