Staying In Character: Hannah Montana and Peter Sellers

Originally, this post was going to be much longer, but given that it covered two topics, I decided to break it up instead.

Last night, I watched the 2004 HBO TV Movie The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. I've been on a real Peter Sellers streak as of late, and I've wanted to see this for some time. It was kind of disappointing. Geoffrey Rush does a good job inhabiting Sellers, as does Charlize Theron as Britt Ekland. The production and costume design was very period accurate as well, but it's not enough for me to recommend it.

The timeline is really screwy--Sellers made Casino Royale after After the Fox, for one thing. Also, the music seemed to be misplaced as well--"I Heard It Through The Grapevine" which plays in a montage set during Ekland and Sellers' courtship, came out in 1968 (Sellers and Ekland were married in 1964). In another instance, The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go", which is placed before the making of Being There (released in 1979), came out in 1982. Finally, and most importantly, you don't really see what made Sellers special. Yes, he was an awful husband and parent, but even his children saw some good in him. To get the essence of Sellers, you need to go rent his movies.

Today, I saw Hannah Montana: The Movie, which wasn't bad. Anyone who's seen the show knows the story: Miley Stewart is an ordinary teenage girl with a secret. She moonlights as Hannah Montana, a big singing sensation. Hannah Montana was created so that Miley could maintain a sense of normalcy. In the movie, things come to a head with Hannah getting in the way of Miley having a normal life. There's also a subplot of a British Tabloid reporter trying to expose Hannah Montana. At the end, Miley takes off her Hannah wig and sings "The Climb". After telling the audience she can't keep up the facade anymore, a little girl tells Miley to put the wig back on--she'll keep it a secret!

I enjoyed it, knowing that if Miley/Hannah had been a real person, "Hannah Montana" would've been exposed a long time ago on TMZ. Also, I'm glad they picked Peter Chelsom to direct, as the movie's overall look actually looks like a movie, as opposed to a bigger budget Hannah Montana episode.

The World of Peter Sellers

In the last 48 hours, I've watched two movies starring Peter Sellers.

The first was The World of Henry Orient. In the movie, Sellers plays a concert pianist whose every move is followed around by two thirteen year old girls. Sellers is funny here, but the real heart of the movie is the two girls, Gil (Merrie Spaeth) and Val (Elizabeth "Tippy" Walker). The movie was a major inspiration for Ghost World, and fans of that film can see similarities between the story of Enid and Becky following Seymour around, and Gil and Val following Henry around in this movie.

Henry Orient is usually a Christmas movie for me (The Holidays are never complete for me without watching Meet Me In St. Louis and this one), but lately, I've been very fascinated with the story of Elizabeth "Tippy" Walker, who played the incorrigible Valerie Boyd. At Henry Orient's IMDb board, she's made some very detailed posts about the movie, her touch-and-go post-Orient career, and why she left the business. These days, Elizabeth is an artist and an activist for the homeless, an incredible contrast from her co-star Merrie Spaeth, who played a big role in orchestrating smear campaigns against John McCain (South Carolina in 2000, she she says she regrets) and John Kerry (Swift Boat Vets for Truth). Elizabeth mentioned in one thread that she had a casting contact in New York back in 2005, so it sounds like she has some interest in acting again.

Last night after The Soup, I did some channel surfing to find that nothing was on (What else is new?). After coming across a program on PBS hosted by Michelle Phillips that seemed to be designed specifically for pledge drives, I decided to put on my DVD of I Love You, Alice B. Toklas on a lark.

Alice has sellers playing Harold Fine, a 35 year old Lawyer/Mama's Boy who's reluctantly engaged to Joyce (Joyce Van Patten). Overwhelmed by the expectations put upon him by his Jewish family, he begins to gravitate toward Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young), a friend of his hippie brother's, and after bailing out on his wedding, drops out himself.

Someone on YouTube posted one of the funniest scenes in the movie, where Nancy makes Harold some "Groovy Brownies":

The movie is very dated, but the story is a solid one: a man who goes to the extreme to find out what he wants for himself. If you're looking for pre-Easy Rider psychedelic kitsch, this is it. A lot more watchable than the genuinely awful Skidoo, in my opinion.