Sep 22, 2008

On a scale of "9 to 5," a 5?



Maybe it's not that bad, but Bob Verini's Variety review, the first out for Dolly Parton's Broadway-bound 9 to 5 musical, makes the show sound like a reasonably good time (particularly for the presence of Allison Janney) with a few bloat problems and a book that hasn't addressed some of the movie's more pronounced problems. My favorite graf:
Taste nadir is reached by intercutting (without irony) [the boss] Hart's trussed-up kidnapping in a car trunk, then hanging from the rafters, with the triumphant Girl Power ballad "Shine Like the Sun." [Director Joe] Mantello surely intends a contrast with his act one "Wicked" finale: Females still sing of self-empowerment, though someone very different is defying gravity. But there's something cringe-inducing in musical self-congratulations for terror arguably worse than the victim's workplace misdeeds.

Yeah, I remember that weird S&M bit from the movie, and even as a kid I could tell that scene was off.

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