I just watched The Birdcage after having not seen it since it was in the movie theaters back in 1996. It is probably not quite as good as I had remembered it. But it has a great script by Elaine May. It is especially good in that May managed to take what is basically a filmed play in La Cage aux Folles and turned it into a movie. What’s more, Mike Nichols gets every bit of comedy out of the material. And he gets great performances out of everyone — especially Robin Williams, who is often just unwatchable.
But there are problems. One is that Nichols does tend to get a little film-craft crazy — and this really doesn’t mesh well with what is otherwise a very direct style. For example, there is a really amazing long helicopter shot that seamlessly dissolves into a steadicam shot that walks across the street, inside the club, and all the way to back. I appreciate that kind of thing because I marvel at the technique. I also think that it is narcissistic and unnecessary. It was also an incredibly trendy thing to do. As I remember it, pretty much every film in the mid-90s did it. Regardless, for people who know film, such tricks are simply a distraction. And for everyone else, they are just a waste.
The bigger problem is that The Birdcage is still a faithful remake of La Cage aux Folles. And so the plot is entirely dependent upon upon the kids behaving foolishly. Regardless of how well this one dinner goes, the story will never play all the way to the wedding — much less after it when the daughter’s last name will be Goldman and not Coleman. But that would be okay, if the adults had some possible reason for not noticing this. And so, even when I first saw the film, I thought the kids behaved terribly right up through the denouement. But that strikes me as picky. May dealt with the problem as well as I can possibly imagine it being done.
Another thing about the film is that I had remembered it as being more toned down than La Cage aux Folles. I don’t think that’s true. It’s very much the Looney Tunes of portrayals of gay culture. This is exactly what conservatives must be thinking when they talk about the “homosexual lifestyle.” What’s remarkable is just how much more authentic the portrayal of gay people has become over the two decades since then. The Birdcage probably was state of the art for Hollywood at that time. We seem now to be at the point where a homosexual relationship is hardly worth noting. I suppose this is something that should cheer us up when we look at so many other areas where we are regressing.
Otherwise, the film is delightful. It has some of the best movie lines ever written. I had remembered some of them like, “Oh I see, so you’re going to a cemetery with your toothbrush. How Egyptian.” But one line I had totally forgotten that busted me up was, “I’m very maternal. And Albert’s practically a breast.” But what most stood out to me were two short speeches by Armand (Robin Williams). The first is the defense of his life, when his son really is asking the unacceptable:
And the other is after Albert has announced that he is going to the Los Copa cemetery — implying suicide:
Like all great comedy, The Birdcage is at heart sentimental. If you haven’t seen it in a while (or ever), you should really check it out. And you can also remember Mike Nichols and Robin Williams, who both died this year.
I’ve long wondered about the conservative addiction to shutting down the government. I get the fact that they hate the government, even though they are actually for bigger government than liberals. (They are remarkably good at defining as “government” only those things — usually the least expensive things — that they don’t like.) But given that shutting down the government always goes poorly for them, I’ve wondered why they continue to do it. In general, I’ve been of the opinion that they do it because they just can’t help themselves. It’s a form of irrational exuberance for them.
Most of the Very Serious Pundits would have us believe that the Republican “establishment” beat the Tea Party elements into submission during this electoral cycle and that’s why the party did so well. But it has been apparent for a very long time that there really is no substantive difference between the two factions. In fact, that was always the hilarious (and terrifying) thing about the Tea Party. It was made up of a bunch of middle class people who were “mad as hell!” And their solution just happened to integrate perfectly with the interests of the elites. This is, interestingly, exactly what happened to Howard Beale in the film 
I think all players should be judged within the context of the era in which they played, and during McGwire’s career, the sport was saturated with performance-enhancing drugs, largely because over the period of about 15 years, no one within the institution of baseball — not the union leaders, not MLB owners, not the commissioner, not the clean players, nor the media that covered the sport — aggressively addressed the growing problem. Through that inaction, what evolved was a chemical Frankenstein of a game. Like it or not, that’s what the sport was in that time: no drug testing, lots of drug use, lots of drug users, lots of money being made by everybody. (And by the way, no team, baseball executive or player has offered to give back the money made in that time.)
Today, the great comedian