The Theater Jerk Guide to New Releases on Netflix

Been a while since I did this, but I like to point out vague theatrical themes in films recently added to the vast repositories of Netflix. These are the types of flicks I personally seek out and plan to watch. Go figure.

In no particular order…

Carry On Cowboy and Carry on Cleo. A couple of the Carry On films from the dozens made between 1958 and 1992. These ensemble comedies are a crash course in British Music Hall stylings. Many of them co-star Jim Dale (whose new autobiographical one-man show virtually ignores this huge chunk of his film resume). Carry On Cleo was made on the same sets used for Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra. It was one of the films referenced in Terry Johnson’s play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick, which was about the winding down of the classic era of the Carry On films, .

Top Secret is a Cold War spy comedy starring Oscar Homolka, who worked with Brecht and Max Reinhardt in 1920s Germany, where he was also in the German premieres of several Eugene O’Neill plays.

It’s All Happening, a musical comedy starring Tommy Steele, a theater star and pop star whose big stage hit was Half a Sixpence.

Mystery Men. Based on the absurdist comic book concepts of Bob Burden. The Yale Cabaret turned Burden’s most famous hero, The Flaming Carrot, into a stage play something like 25 years ago. Also, Hank Azaria has done so much in so many media that his many cool stage acting credits tend to be overlooked. (I attended Tufts University at the same time as him, and he was great in everything from Christie in Love to a minor role in The Merchant of Venice.)

Shake It Up!, Dance Academy and First Position. Two series and a full-length film about teen dancer. Shake It Up! is from the Disney Channel, Dance Academy is Australian-made.

Madea’s Witness Protection. The first of Tyler Perry’s Madea films which did not start as a stage play.

That Guy… Who Was In That Thing. Documentary about the difficulties of maintaining a career as a professional actor if you’re not a big star.

Circus Rosaire. A 2008 family-circus drama.

Suave Patria. Two actors are hired for a prank but get ensnared in a con man’s scheme. Typical actors!

 William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet. Documentary of the creation of a Margo Sappingon performance piece based on Shatner’s album Has Been.

The Devil’s Carnival. A rather theatrical view of damnation, with sins turned into carny acts.

Shakespeare High. Documentary about urban youth entering a Shakespeare competition. Sounds like it’s loaded with cultural and class-based stereotypes.

A Liar’s Autobiography. The story of Monty Python member Graham Chapman. Lest you forget, all those guys came out of student theater groups at Oxford or Cambridge universities.

The Magic Flute. The 2006 Mozart update, set in early 20^th century Europe.

The Goldbergs. The TV version of Gertrude Berg’s classic Jewish family sitcom. Berg had a theater background from the Catskills, where her father ran a resort.

The Chicago 8. The very definition of political theater. This is the dramatization of the trial events following the arrest of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin et al. at the 1968 Chicago demonstrations.

Private Romeo. The Shakespeare romance, reworked for a present-day all-male military academy. (Guess they could just as easily have called it West Point Story.)

Studio One: The Defender. Golden age of TV drama stuff from 1957, reeking with live-theater values.

The Actresses. Real-life actresses play themselves in a Korean drama about real actresses not getting along at a photo shoot.

Heart of the King. Doc about peculiar Elvis impersonators.

Refuge. Comic drama about hostages, a dead body in the backseat, and some romantic action. Written and directed by old theater hand Mark Medoff.

Collaborator. Martin Donovan directed and stars in this drama about a disillusioned playwright who forsakes Broadway for Hollywood.