Best Picture

RibbitRePublic Theatre—Planetarium

This cast of three Fringe veterans do scenes and shout-outs for all the 85 or so Best Picture Oscar winners (and a few other movies) in a one-hour show.

They helpfully include a list of all the winners in the program, of which I had seen around half and knew something about another 15. As a lot of people probably don’t know too many of the early ones, most of those only warrant the title being mentioned. A few such as How Green Was My Valley get sent up a bit, as it somehow beat out both Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon for the Oscar.

More time is spent on the more modern and well-known movies, but the pace is pretty frenetic. Jon Paterson, Kurt Fitzpatrick and Tara Travis work well together and their banter about various characters or plots in the movies is really good.

Avid movie buffs will likely get some of the more esoteric jokes, and be able to identify a few more of the scenes, but I think it would still be fun for the average person.

Murray Hunter