Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Me and Orson Wells

Backstage with the Mercury Theater is a place I'd want to be, so I was excited that I got a screener of "Me and Orson Wells". Turns out that according to writer director Richard Linklater ("Dazed and Confused") hanging with Orson and company isn't such a great place to be after all. Zack Efron is the "Me" in question here, a young actor who stumbles into a small role with the hottest players in New York and their cutting edge staging of "Julius Ceasar". I mean hot both in the forties sense (upcoming and popular) and the modern sense (sizzlin'sexy). The girls are smokin' and available and of course Zack is Zack (cue screaming teen girl).
All the buzz here centers around Christian McKay, a young stage actor out of London, a breeding ground for the best in character acting. What a debut. He channels the young Wells--voice, manner, temperament. He's a wonder to watch, but I really wasn't crazy about watching him. That's because he's written as such a manipulative, megalomaniac, horses ass that his genius seems to be a gift poorly given. Was Wells really like that? Maybe, but jeeze I hope not. Not really fun to watch.
But the problem here is old Zack Efron, the real lead. He's been charming in films before but here he's flat and not in the least bit engaging. "Me and Orson Wells" is worth seeing for McKay and the staging of the "Julius Ceasar" stuff and for some of the backstage shenanigans, but overall I was disappointed.

No comments:

Post a Comment