Jeff Goldblum, superstar

I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend. Mine was lazy, but enjoyable. I was tempted to go out of town for a few days, but decided to just relax and do... nothing! Sometimes those are the best plans.

I actually had time to watch tv over the last few days and finally had a chance to see Jeff Goldblum's movie "Pittsburgh". It's part documentary, part mockumentary covering his 2 week departure from Hollywood to perform the lead role in CLO's production of Music Man , right here in his hometown. It's very entertaining (in a Larry David/Curb Your Enthusiasm kind of way). I was always a Goldblum fan, so it was an easy film to watch. His personality always reminded me of a cross between Woody Allen and Jimmy Stewart, both very likeable characters!

If you're from Pittsburgh, then you will hopefully recognize what a wonderful gesture this is on behalf of Goldblum, a Hollywood superstar who put a great effort into claiming Pittsburgh as his home. From what I heard, many of our local theater people had their panties in a bunch over this whole thing. They need to get over themselves for a moment, quit being divas and realize that an international superstar simply wanted to bring attention to our fair city (despite the scripted plot). Knowing this, it does get annoying listening to the prissy director scold Goldblum over and over during the movie. I assume he forgot that he was merely a regional director, far, far beneath Broadway and also forgot that Goldblum was doing the city and the Cultural District a tremendous favor just by being here.

If you didn't know- Warhol never came back to Pittsburgh. He left for New York and never looked back. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Warhol fan. I am just very impressed with Jeff Goldblum's effort to make a return to Pittsburgh, claim the city as his home AND take a step backwards in his career to perform in our theater district. How many stars have done that? Michael Douglas (stage name Michael Keaton) did in fact maintain strong ties with Pittsburgh, but that's not the norm.

Thanks Jeff, you're a superstar. Pittsburgh is proud of you.