Thierry Fischer Conducts Jessie Montgomery, Mozart, Schoenberg & Copland

Last night I attended the final Utah Symphony concert of the unusual but highly memorable 2020-2021 season.  I sincerely appreciate the extraordinary lengths to which the Utah Symphony organization has gone in order to perform beautiful music for the community this season and, in my opinion, they definitely ended on a good note!  The concert began with a piece called Strum by Jessie Montgomery, a contemporary composer who was also featured earlier in the season.  I really loved this piece, so much so that I downloaded it from iTunes as soon as I got home!  It is incredibly dynamic and I especially enjoyed it whenever the musicians would pluck their strings.  Next the orchestra played my favorite piece by my favorite composer: Eine kleine Nachtmusik by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  My heart just about burst when I heard the instantly recognizable opening notes (you can probably hear them in your head right now) and my delight only increased as every movement was performed.  It is so light, airy, and filled with joy and I always love hearing it (I played my vinyl recording of it over and over when I was in high school), especially performed live!  Next came Chamber Symphony No. 2 by Arnold Schoenberg and, in my opinion, this piece is very atmospheric and brooding and I particularly enjoyed the second movement.  The concert concluded with the Orchestral Suite from Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland.  This is another piece that I always love hearing performed live but it seemed particularly poignant last night.  I really enjoyed the variations on the Quaker hymn "Simple Gifts," which is first developed by a solo clarinet and then repeated by various instruments, because the pandemic has really helped me to appreciate the simple things in life.  The audience, which was the largest that I have seen at Abravanel Hall since the pandemic began, gave the orchestra a well deserved standing ovation for a beautiful concert last night and, I suspect, for persevering through all of the challenges this season!

Note:  Although the regular season is over, the Utah Symphony will be performing at the Deer Valley Music Festival (go here for updates on the availability of tickets) and at a variety of outdoor venues for the recently announced Forever Mighty Tour (go here for more information and free tickets) this summer.

A Quiet Place Part II

I really loved A Quiet Place so, when I heard that a sequel was in the works, I was quite apprehensive because I didn't think it could possibly compare to the original.  I saw the long-awaited Part II last night and all of my fears were allayed because it is brilliant.  The movie begins with a flashback to the day the aliens arrived and then the narrative shifts to the immediate aftermath of the alien attack on the Abbott family.  Evelyn (Emily Blunt), Regan (Millicent Simmonds), and Marcus (Noah Jupe) decide to leave with their newborn baby because their house and barn have been destroyed.  They hope to find other people who have survived and immediately encounter their neighbor Emmett (Cillian Murphy) who is distraught over the fact that he didn't do more to save his wife and son.  They hear a radio broadcast from a nearby island and Regan wants to go to them to tell them that the aliens can be defeated by the feedback from her cochlear implants.  Emmett begrudgingly goes after her while Evelyn stays behind in a makeshift bunker to care for Marcus who was injured in a bear trap.  Both groups must contend with the aliens but Regan and Emmett must also face groups of survivors who may or may not be sympathetic.  I found this story to be even more compelling than the first because it is an exploration of the toll that survival has taken on all of the characters and it is very affecting, particularly Emmett's character arc.  The action sequences are intense, to say the least, and there were several times when I literally jumped out of my seat.  I loved all of the parallels between Emmett and Regan's narrative and that of Evelyn and Marcus and the editing is particularly effective in creating suspense.  The sound design and the atmospheric score add tremendously to the almost unbearable tension.  Blunt and Murphy are outstanding in their roles but, in my opinion, Simmonds gives an incredibly powerful performance as her character tries to live up to her father's memory.  I do think the aliens are more menacing in the original because they are mostly left to the imagination rather than shown as they are in this movie but that is a small criticism.  This is a worthy successor to the original and it is definitely worth the wait necessitated by the pandemic.  I recommend seeing it in a theater!

Note:  Crowds usually give me anxiety but being in a packed IMAX theater at the beginning of a holiday weekend made me very happy because it seemed so normal!  A man stood up just as the movie was about to start and shouted, "Three cheers because we are all at a movie on a Friday night!"  Three cheers, indeed!

Cruella

I had an absolute blast watching a Thursday preview of Cruella with a large and appreciative crowd last night!  Estella (Tipper Seifert-Cleveland) is a brilliant and creative little girl who was born with black and white hair.  She is also rebellious and has a habit of lashing out when anyone crosses her which earns her the nickname "Cruella" from her mother Catherine (Emily Beecham).  After the death of her mother she ends up on her own in London but soon meets up with two street urchins who reluctantly take her under their wing.  Ten years later Estella (Emma Stone), Jasper (Joel Fry), and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser) are accomplished pickpockets with Estella designing and creating elaborate costumes to aid in their deceptions.  She finally gets what she thinks is her dream job at the Liberty department store but she is actually relegated to working as a janitor.  She idolizes the designer Baroness von Hellman (Emma Thompson) and is thrilled when a window display she designs in secret one night at Liberty gets noticed by the Baroness.  She is asked to join her prestigious fashion house as a designer and does everything she can to impress her.  However, disturbing revelations about the Baroness soon prompt Estella to adopt the persona of "Cruella" and enlist the help of Jasper, Horace, a vintage clothing store owner named Artie (John McCrea), and her childhood friend Anita (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) to help her compete with the Baroness to exact her revenge.  This movie is so much fun and it is easily one of the best Disney live-action remakes yet but, honestly, I think I enjoyed it more when I didn't think about the fact that it is a prequel to One Hundred and One Dalmatians and just appreciated it as a revenge-heist thriller.  The images on the screen look fantastic and I loved the edgy 1970s London punk aesthetic.  Stone and Thompson give really fun over-the-top performances that are wildly entertaining and I also found Hauser to be very amusing.  The costumes are absolutely spectacular, particularly the gowns worn to the Black and White Ball and Cruella's gowns in her pop-up shows.  Finally, I loved the 1970s pop music featured in the soundtrack, especially "Bloody Well Right" by Supertramp, "She's a Rainbow" by the Rolling Stones, "Livin' Thing" by Electric Light Orchestra, "One Way Or Another" by Blondie, "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" by The Clash, and, of course, "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones.  I enjoyed watching this movie so much and the crowd at my screening seemed to enjoy it as well because they laughed and cheered throughout the whole thing (although the kids seemed a bit subdued).  I highly recommend it!

Note:  The mid-credits scene featuring Anita, Roger (Kayvan Novak), Pongo, and Perdita got the biggest reaction from the crowd!

The Dry

The movie The Dry is based on the novel of the same name by Jane Harper and, since I loved her latest release The Survivors, I decided to see it last night.  Harper is known for moody and atmospheric murder mysteries in small towns with secrets and this movie definitely delivers on that vibe.  Aaron Falk (Eric Bana) returns home to Kiewarra, a small farming community in Australia suffering from a severe drought, after a twenty year absence to attend the funeral of his childhood best friend Luke Hadler (Martin Dingle-Wall).  Hadler is accused of killing his wife and young son before taking his own life but his parents refuse to believe he is guilty and ask Falk, who is a federal police officer in Melbourne, to investigate.  He teams up with the local police sergeant Greg Raco (Keir O'Donnell), a rookie who is still traumatized after finding the bodies, to review all of the evidence.  However, Falk's return stirs up memories of another mysterious death that happened twenty years ago of which he and Hadler were the prime suspects.  Tensions are high as Falk tries to solve the present crime because it seems that everyone involved has a secret.  Interspersed between Falk's activities in the present are flashbacks to the earlier incident involving the young Falk (Joe Klocek), the young Hadler (Sam Corlett), Gretchen Schoner (Claude Scott-Mitchell), and Ellie Deacon (BeBe Bettencourt), the young woman who drowned, and it seems that even Falk has his secrets as the details of both cases are slowly revealed.  It is definitely a slow burn (pun intended) but I found it very suspenseful.  I loved the juxtaposition of all of the wide shots of the parched ground with vegetation ready to go up in flames with the close-up shots of the suspects who also seem ready to combust from the tension.  Bana gives an incredibly nuanced and restrained performance as a man haunted by his past and the rest of the cast is also excellent, especially Genevieve O'Reilly as Gretchen in the present-day and William Zappa as Ellie's father.  This movie is a bit under the radar because of the big blockbusters scheduled for release this weekend but it is absolutely worth seeking out.

Dream Horse

I had the chance to see Dream Horse with a group of my students (and Sean) last year at the Sundance Film Festival and we all loved this inspiring true story!  I saw it again last night now that it is in wide release and I had just as many goosebumps as I did during my first viewing.  Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) lives in an economically depressed mining village in Wales with her unemployed and unmotivated husband Brian (Owen Teale).  She works as a checker at a co-op during the day and as a barmaid at the local pub in the evening as well as caring for her aging parents.  She feels that her life has become stagnant and yearns for a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  One night at the pub she overhears Howard Davies (Damian Lewis) brag about owning a winning racehorse with a syndicate of investors (he fails to mention that this venture nearly bankrupted him) and decides that she wants to own a racehorse.  She uses her savings to buy a bad-tempered mare who came in last in every race she ran and enlists Howard's help in recruiting a group of friends, including the town drunk (Karl Johnson) and a lonely widow (Sian Phillips), to form her own syndicate to pay the stud fee of a champion.  They name the resulting foal Dream Alliance and raise him on their small allotment in the village.  Philip Hobbs (Nicholas Farrell), a well-known trainer in England, decides to work with Dream because he thinks the horse has spirit but he doesn't have much hope for his prospects.  Nonetheless, Hobbs enters Dream in a local race and the syndicate is elated when he comes from behind to win.  As Dream wins more and more races against all odds, he becomes a symbol of hope for Jan, Brian, Howard, and the entire village.  This is a stand-up-and-cheer movie about doing whatever it takes to achieve a dream and I found it to be incredibly moving even though I knew the outcome!  The racing sequences are exhilarating but my favorite moments are when the ragtag group of misfits in the syndicate watch Dream's first race in the owners' box with the other wealthy and aristocratic owners (it is hilarious) and when the entire village welcomes the syndicate home with a victory parade.  I highly recommend this feel-good movie (stay through the credits to see the actors and their real-life counterparts singing in the pub).

Note:  This story is also the subject of fabulous documentary called Dark Horse.  I recommend it as well.

Beethoven 1 & Demarre McGill Plays Jolivet

Last night I attended another wonderful performance by the Utah Symphony.  The concert began with Suite en concert for Flute and Four Percussionists by Andre Jolivet and it featured Utah Symphony musicians Keith Carrick, Eric Hopkins, Michael Pape, and Gavin Ryan on percussion and guest soloist Demarre McGill on flute.  This piece was mysterious and primitive and, in my opinion, it almost seemed like the notes played by the flute were casting a spell on the audience.  I especially liked the second movement because it was very solemn and sounded like it could have been used in a sacred rite.  It included a gong (which I love) and an alto flute which is bigger and has a much deeper tone.  McGill played this highly technical piece brilliantly and I wish that the audience had been bigger to show him the appreciation he deserved (we tried and were rewarded with an encore).  The concert concluded with Ludwig van Beethoven's Sumphony No. 1.  I think Music Director Thierry Fischer has a real affinity for Beethoven and he led the orchestra through a lovely performance of this piece.  I really like the first movement because the opening notes are so dramatic and the themes played by the strings and woodwinds together are beautiful.  This symphony is incredibly joyful and exuberant and I left Abravanel Hall feeling so happy and lighthearted.  I highly recommend getting a ticket to the concerts tonight or Saturday featuring the same program (go here).

Ariadne

My Book of the Month selection for May was Ariadne by Jennifer Saint (the other options were Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen, How Lucky by Will Leitch, The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave, and Imposter Syndrome by Kathy Wang). I was so excited to read this novel because, with the name Phaedra, I have always been fascinated by Greek mythology in general and King Minos' daughters in particular and I simply couldn't resist a story about Ariadne, Phaedra, Theseus, and the Minotaur! Princess Ariadne of Crete is subject to the tyrannical whims of her father King Minos and she witnesses firsthand how her mother Pasiphae is capriciously punished by the gods for the king's hubris. She is determined to live her life on her own terms rather than as a pawn of men or the gods so, when Prince Theseus of Athens comes to Crete as one of the tributes to be fed to the Minotaur in the Labyrinth below the palace, Ariadne makes the dangerous decision to betray her father and help him as a way to avoid an arranged marriage. However, this decision has unforeseen consequences for both her and for her sister Phaedra. Even though Ariadne falls under the spell of the god Dionysus after being betrayed by Theseus and is powerless to stop her sister Phaedra from being torn between Theseus and his son Hippolytus, she ultimately finds the courage to demand a future for herself and the women and children under her care. I love strong female characters and I really enjoyed the retelling of this familiar Greek myth from a feminist perspective, especially the exploration of motherhood, and I enjoyed learning aspects of the story that I didn't already know. Ariadne's character arc is incredibly powerful because, even though she is fallible, she finds a sort of redemption and her story is very compelling. Saint's prose is beautiful and poetic and, at times, it mimics the oral storytelling tradition of the original Greek myths as characters recount the exploits of Zeus, Hera, Perseus, Medusa, Heracles, Hades, Poseidon, Daedalus, and Icarus. As previously mentioned, I have a particular fascination with the story of Phaedra (for obvious reasons) and have read many accounts but, even though this is ostensibly Ariadne's story, I really heard Phaedra's voice come to to life for the first time and I absolutely loved that! This novel was everything I hoped it would be and I highly recommend it!

A Drive to Antelope Island

Yesterday I spontaneously decided to take a drive out to Antelope Island in the middle of the Great Salt Lake.  It is about a 45 minute drive from my house, and once you drive across the causeway, the scenery is pretty spectacular.  I drove around the island and up to Buffalo Point to get some good views of the lake, then I drove to the Garr Ranch to see the buffalo grazing (some of them were really close to the road which was thrilling because I love buffalo), and then I walked down to the beach near the causeway.  It was a beautiful day (not too hot and not too cold) and it felt great to be outside!

Go here for more information about Antelope Island State Park.

Profile

I was absolutely fascinated by the movie Searching because the entire narrative takes place on computer and smartphone screens.  When I saw the trailer for Profile, which employs the same format, I immediately wanted to see it and I had the chance to do so last night.  Amy Whittaker (Valene Kane) is a British investigative journalist who works freelance but is desperate for a permanent position.  She pitches a story about the recruitment of young European women into the terrorist organization ISIS but she needs something compelling to impress her editor (Christine Adams).  She decides to create a new Facebook profile using the persona of a young girl who has recently converted to Islam so she can experience the recruitment process firsthand.  She begins liking and sharing videos with jihadist content and is soon contacted by Abu Bilel (Shazad Latif), a member of ISIS living in Syria.  They begin conversing over Skype every day and, while Amy initially tries to find out damaging information from Bilel, she eventually becomes sympathetic to his cause.  Is she falling in love with the charismatic terrorist or is she doing whatever it takes to get a good story?  The images on Amy's computer screen flash very quickly between her conversations with Bilel, her conversations with her increasingly concerned editor and friends (Morgan Watkins and Emma Carter), footage of ISIS activities from other Facebook profiles, and Google searches for information.  This particular format is even more compelling in this movie than in Searching because it is based on a true story about a relationship conducted entirely on social media.  It is also a cautionary tale about revealing too much about yourself to strangers online. The narrative is incredibly suspenseful and I was on the edge of my seat for most of the final act as Amy's situation becomes more and more dangerous.  Both Kane and Latif give convincing performances as two people playing a cat-and-mouse game with deadly consequences and the tension is palpable.  I really enjoyed this and I recommend it to fans of these so-called Screenlife movies.

Those Who Wish Me Dead

I have been looking forward to Those Who Wish Me Dead for months because it looked like an intense action thriller.  I saw it last night and, while I did enjoy it, I was expecting more from director Taylor Sheridan.  Hannah Faber (Angelina Jolie) is a smoke jumper for the National Forest Service stationed in the wilderness of Montana.  She is suffering from PTSD after a recent fire because she misjudged the direction of the wind which resulted in the deaths of three young boys and she feels responsible.  After failing a psychological evaluation, she is demoted to keeping watch at an isolated fire tower along the Continental Divide.  Owen Casserly (Jake Weber) is a forensic accountant who has discovered a vast government conspiracy.  When he learns that the D.A. working on the case has been assassinated, he correctly assumes that the assassins (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult) are coming for him next and flees with his son Connor (Finn Little).  The assassins predict that Owen will be trying to reach his brother-in-law Ethan Sawyer (Jon Bernthal), a sheriff in Montana, and ambush him on the road.  Owen is killed but not before he gives Connor the information to implicate many people in power.  Connor is stranded in the wilderness but Hannah finds him and vows to help him as a way to atone for the deaths of the other boys.  However, she must contend with the ruthless assassins who want Connor dead in one direction and a deadly forest fire in the other.  I always enjoy flawed characters seeking redemption but Hannah is very thinly developed (as are most of the other characters in this movie) and the narrative relies more on things implied rather than things explained which becomes frustrating because there are so many unanswered questions.  Jolie gives a kick-ass performance but I was absolutely riveted by Little (I loved him in Storm Boy) and Medina Senghore, who plays Ethan's pregnant wife, has several stand up and cheer moments with the assassins.  The action sequences are an absolute adrenaline rush and the images of the fire destroying everything in its path are strangely compelling.  I liked this movie but it definitely feels like a throw-back to the disaster movies of the past in which the action supersedes plot and character development.  See it for the spectacle but don't expect much more.

Army of the Dead

Last night I took my nephew Sean to see Army of the Dead (Sean is a huge fan of Zack Snyder) and we both had so much fun watching this epic mash up of the zombie and heist genres.  The movie begins with a heavily armed military convoy transporting an unknown, but dangerous, payload.  When the convoy is involved in a head-on collision on a Nevada highway, the container opens to reveal a zombie who infects all of the soldiers before wreaking havoc on the city of Las Vegas in an awesome opening credits sequence (that rivals the one in Deadpool) with a cover of "Viva Las Vegas" underneath it.  A group of heroic soldiers, Ward (Dave Bautista), Cruz (Ana de la Reguera), and Vanderohe (Omari Hardwick), are responsible for saving many lives and helping to contain the city behind a wall of shipping containers.  However, they are now back to their low paying dead-end jobs until a wealthy casino owner (Hiroyuki Sanada) approaches Ward with a proposition.  The government has decided to detonate a nuclear bomb over Las Vegas to wipe out all remaining zombies and Tanaka wants the $200 million located in an almost impenetrable safe in his casino.  He asks Ward to assemble a team and offers $50 million as a reward to infiltrate the city and get the money.  He recruits Cruz and Vanderohe along with a helicopter pilot (Tig Notaro), a safecracker (Matthias Schweighofer, who steals every scene he is in), a coyote who knows the best route into the city (Nora Arnezeder), and a viral personality famous for killing zombies (Raul Castillo).  Tanaka insists that his head of security (Garret Dillahunt) accompany them and Ward's estranged daughter (Ella Purnell) infiltrates the group to locate a friend who has gone missing in the city.  They must contend with the undead (who are pretty terrifying) as well as a traitor in their midst while racing against the clock.  Will any of them survive?  The action sequences are so much fun (but are extremely gruesome) and I especially loved the scenes where they trick the undead into springing all of the booby traps to get to the safe and when one of Siegfried & Roy's undead tigers gets revenge on a bad guy!  Along with all of the action, there is also quite a bit of humor and pathos (I laughed at just about everything Schweighofer says and does until he made cry).  Bautista gives a surprisingly affecting performance in between all of the battles, especially in a touching scene with his daughter.  Sean and I both really enjoyed this movie and I recommend seeing it on the biggest possible screen with the biggest possible crowd and the biggest possible tub of popcorn.  It is the perfect summer blockbuster!

Note:  It is incredibly violent.  At one point I covered Sean's eyes and said that his parents would be horrified that I took him to this movie (I had permission).  He giggled and replied, "My Dad will love this movie!"

Utah Opera's La Tragedie de Carmen

The very first opera that I saw performed live was Georges Bizet's masterpiece Carmen so it will always be one of my very favorites.  I was, therefore, understandably intrigued when I heard the announcement that Utah Opera would be performing La tragedie de Carmen by Peter Brooks to close out the 2020-2021 season.  This is a pared down version of the classic (there are only four singing roles and no chorus) that is much more intimate with a particular emphasis on fate.  I procured a highly coveted ticket  (seating is limited to 30 percent capacity to accommodate social distancing) to last night's performance and I was thrilled to be back at Capitol Theatre.  Unfortunately, the director, Omer Ben Seadia, chose to change the setting from Spain in 1820 to Spanish Harlem in the present day and Don Jose is a police officer instead of a soldier, Carmen appears to be a cross between a prostitute and an exotic dancer rather than a factory worker, and Escamillo is a famous singer instead of a bullfighter.  Micaela (Julia Gershkoff) travels from a small town to the city in search of her betrothed Don Jose (Isaac Hurtado) and, while he has fond memories of his hometown, he seems to reject her.  He and his commanding officer Zuniga (Brandon Bell) are called to a commotion on the street and find Carmen (Kristin Chavez) singing about the fickle nature of love.  Zuniga insists that Jose arrest her but she tries to convince him to let her go by promising to dance for him.  Jose is beguiled by her and lets her go, which gets him demoted, then meets her at a club owned by Lillas Pastia (Daniel O'Hearn), who may or may not be Carmen's pimp (he is a sleazeball wearing a red track suit and gold chains).  Carmen dances seductively for Jose but becomes enraged when he says he must go back to work.  When Zuniga comes looking for him, Jose kills him in a fight while Carmen becomes enamored with Escamillo (Efrain Solis) when she hears him singing at the club about a bull fight.  Jose is jealous when Escamillo invites her to his next performance and challenges him but Carmen intervenes and Jose declares his love for her.  They begin a relationship but when Carmen's husband Garcia (Brnadon Bell) appears, Jose kills him.  After a tarot card reading that predicts her death, Carmen leaves him to meet Escamillo at the stage door of his performance at Madison Square Garden.  When Jose finds her there, she knows that he is desperate and has nothing to lose but she refuses to submit to him.  Jose embraces her in a long goodbye, with Fate (Edith Grossman) looking on, before stabbing her to death.  I am not a fan of altering the source material for artistic purposes so I didn't really care for the changes made to the story or to the characters.  I was also really confused by the staging.  While I did like the projections on a scrim at the back of the stage (a chamber orchestra performed on stage behind this scrim), I had a hard time figuring out what was happening with two large panels, especially when the characters would write on them.  However, the beautiful music more than made up for these complaints and the four leads sang their roles brilliantly.  I especially loved Gershkoff's aria "Parle-moi de ma mere," Chavez's rendition of the habanera, and Solis' performance of the famous "Toreador Song."  Even though this production was a bit of a miss for me, I was still so happy to be in an audience listening to beautiful music performed live by a talented cast. There are a very limited number of tickets available to the two remaining performances (go here).

Here Today

I am a huge fan of Billy Crystal and the trailer for Here Today made me laugh so I went to see it last night.  Charlie Burnz (Crystal) is a well respected comedy writer responsible for successful Broadway plays, movies, television shows, and books.  He is currently the head writer for the popular sketch comedy show This Just In and is working on a memoir.  Emma Payge (Tiffany Haddish) is a free-spirited singer who has lunch with Charlie because of a winning bid at a charity auction.  She eventually confesses that she has no idea who he is and just bid on him as a way to get back at her ex-boyfriend who is a big fan.  She has a severe allergic reaction to shellfish during lunch and, because she has no insurance, Charlie pays the substantial emergency room bill.  She attempts to pay him back little by little and they form an unlikely friendship.  She is the first to notice that he is suffering from dementia, which he has been keeping secret from everyone in his life, and helps him reconcile with his son Rex (Penn Badgley) and daughter Francine (Laura Benanti) who blame him for their mother's death.  I actually laughed out loud multiple times and I enjoyed the chemistry between Crystal and Haddish who both give incredibly charming performances.  The message about making peace with the past and living in the present is also very heartwarming but it does become quite mawkish in the final act.  The pacing gets a bit bogged down when the focus shifts from Charlie's relationship with Emma to his role as a mentor to an up-and-coming writer (Andrew Durrand) on the comedy show and to the flashbacks with his wife (Louisa Krause) which feel forced.  Despite the flaws, I liked this movie and so did the large and vocal crowd in my screening.

Wrath of Man

When Guy Ritchie is good, he is very good but, when he is bad, he is very, very bad.  Most of the time you don't know which Guy Ritchie you are going to get until the lights dim and the movie starts.  I saw his latest, Wrath of Man, last night and it definitely belongs in the former category even though it is a bit of a departure from his usual idiosyncratic style.  Fortico, a private armored car company responsible for moving millions of dollars around Los Angeles, is involved in a heist in broad daylight which results in a shootout that kills both Fortico guards as well as a civilian.  Several months later, Patrick "H" Hill (Jason Statham) is hired as a guard at Fortico after barely passing his shooting and driving tests.  He is taciturn and antisocial (Statham is perfect in the role) but, when H singlehandedly shoots every member of a gang during another heist, his co-workers come to view him as either a hero or a psychopath.  H is clearly not who he claims to be and half the fun of this movie is trying to unravel who he is and what he is doing as an armored car guard.  There are multiple possibilities as to his identity which are explored in several timelines and all converge in the initial heist shown from three different perspectives.  It is very clever and it kept me guessing throughout with a mysterious member of law enforcement who turns a blind eye (Andy Garcia), a group of ruthless gangsters (Cameron Jack, Darrell D'Silva, Babs Olusanmokun, and Thomas Dominique), a group of veterans (Jeffrey Donovan, Scott Eastwood, Deobia Oparei, Laz Alonso, Raul Castillo, and Chris Reilly), and a group of guards who may or may not be on the take (Holt McCallany, Rocci Williams, Josh Hartnett, and Niamh Algar).  The final heist at the Fortico depot, in which H unleashes his wrath, is absolutely epic and features stylized action sequences, cross-cuts between the planning and the execution of the heist, and a pulse-pounding score underneath it.  However, this movie is much darker in tone than any of Ritchie's previous movies and it lacks the humor and witty banter that we have come to expect from him but it really works.  I had a lot of fun watching this movie (I loved being in a large crowd on a Friday night) and I highly recommend it to fans of crime thrillers.

Percy vs. Goliath

I like a good underdog story so I went to see Percy vs. Goliath, a movie which pits a small independent farmer against a behemoth agribusiness corporation, last night and I found it very charming.  Percy Schmeiser (Christopher Walken) and his wife Louise (Roberta Maxwell) have a small canola farm, passed down from generations of his family, in Bruno, Saskatchewan.  Every year he harvests the seeds from the sturdiest plants in order to use them the following year just as his ancestors once did.  In 1998 he is accused of using Monsanto's genetically modified seeds without a license and then saving them to use again.  Monsanto sues him for patent infringement and demands the value of all of the crops grown from the seeds for the past several years.  He contends that the seeds from his neighbor's farm accidentally ended up on his and refuses to settle.  He hires an inexperienced but idealistic lawyer named Jackson Weaver (Zach Braff) and the case attracts the attention of Rebecca Salcau (Christina Ricci), an environmental activist, who uses Schmeiser shamelessly to gain publicity for her organization's fight against Monsanto.  They eventually take the case to the Provincial Court of Appeals, which brings Schmeiser to the brink of bankruptcy, and then, when he receives support from farmers around the world, to the Supreme Court of Canada.  This movie is based on a true story and it is incredibly inspiring with quite a few stand up and cheer moments.  My favorite is when a nervous Weaver gives an impassioned speech to the Supreme Court after watching a phalanx of Monsanto lawyers enter the building.  Walken is extremely appealing in the role (I sometimes forget that, despite his penchant for giving campy and eccentric performances, he is a very good actor) and I was surprisingly invested in his plight considering the outcome of the case is basically a foregone conclusion.  The visuals, which feature many wide shots of the open prairie, are absolutely stunning.  The message is sometimes a bit heavy-handed and the stakes are not as high as in the much better Dark Waters, but this is highly enjoyable and I recommend it.

The Virtuoso

Last night I went to see the action thriller The Virtuoso but, ultimately, I didn't find it to be very thrilling.  The Virtuoso (Anson Mount) is a highly paid assassin known for his meticulous planning and attention to detail (he tells us so in an elaborate second-person narration as he carries out a hit on a mobster).  He is given a job by The Mentor (Anthony Hopkins) without the requisite time that he needs for planning and, due to circumstances beyond his control, it goes horribly wrong resulting in collateral damage.  He is haunted by this and ignores a number of jobs until The Mentor gives him one he cannot refuse.  He only has a time, a location, and a mysterious clue to use to identify his target, a fellow assassin.  He arrives at the appointed place at the appointed time and sees several possibilities: a Loner (Eddie Marsan), a Waitress (Abbie Cornish), a Stranger (Richard Brake), a Local Girl (Diora Baird), and a Deputy (David Morse).  After observing them without discovering his target, he decides to eliminate them all one by one.  However, this assignment is not what it appears to be.  The premise of this movie is actually quite intriguing but the execution (pun intended) is incredibly bland.  Because the pacing is so slow, I was anticipating a build-up to something dramatic but I guessed the plot twist early on so it was a bit anticlimactic.  Mount’s performance is not engaging enough for his character or his actions to be compelling and the excessive voice-over gets very tedious very quickly because it is so monotone.  I wasn't invested in any of the other characters either because they have almost no development which wastes the considerable talents of the actors in these roles.  The only highlight is Hopkins who has one impressive monologue (but phones in the rest of his performance).  All of this could be forgiven if the action sequences were exciting but, alas, even they are few and far between and the lighting is so dark that you can't really see what is happening.  Despite an interesting story and a talented cast, this is a dull and boring movie and I recommend giving it a miss.

Limbo

I am a huge fan of dark comedies and comedies of the absurd so I absolutely loved Limbo, which I saw last night.  Omar (Amir El-Masry) has recently fled war-torn Syria and is seeking asylum in England.  While he waits for his status to be resolved, he is detained on a desolate island in the outer Hebrides in Scotland with a group of refugees, including Farhad (Vikash Bhai), Wasef (Ola Orebiyi), and Abedi (Kwabena Ansah).  Omar spends his days trekking to a pay phone (the only cell phone service on the island is located at the top of a mountain) to talk to his parents who have relocated to Turkey and to inquire after his brother Nabil who remained in Syria as a freedom fighter, Farhad "adopts" a chicken and names him after his idol Freddie Mercury, while the brothers argue about whether Wasef will be able to play for Chelsea F.C. and about whether Rachel and Ross were on a break (they find a DVD box set of Friends at the donation centre).  The refugees also spend time in cultural awareness classes, run by Helga (Sidse Babette Knudsen) and Boris (Kenneth Collard), to help them fit in but the locals still think they are terrorists.  These episodes and others provide much comic relief (I laughed out loud multiple times) but the main narrative is incredibly poignant.  Omar carries his grandfather's oud, a traditional stringed instrument, with him everywhere he goes but he never plays it because it represents his identity, which has become blurred.  He must make peace with his decision to leave Syria and with his brother (Kais Nashef), who he thinks disapproves of his decision, before he can play and move on with his life.  I was incredibly invested in the character of Omar and his fate because El-Masry gives a performance that is both sensitive and powerful.  His expressionless, yet somehow mournful, gaze communicates everything he is feeling so effectively, even more than the dialogue.  The juxtaposition of this with a video on his phone, which he watches multiple times, of him playing the oud at a concert and joyfully acknowledging his family (one of the best uses of an aspect ratio change I've ever seen) is absolutely brilliant.  The highly composed wide shots of the barren landscape serve to emphasize the isolation the refugees feel as does the production design which features an almost empty apartment where the refugees live and a barely stocked grocery store where Omar tries, unsuccessfully, to find the ingredients for a recipe his mother gives him.  I honestly loved everything about this movie because it is both humorous and affecting while quietly portraying the harsh realities that refugees face.  I couldn't recommend this more!

Note:  I read a review comparing this to a Yorgos Lanthimos movie in tone and a Wes Anderson movie in execution.  Since I am a fan of both of these directors, it is no surprise that I loved it!

Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street

I have lots of memories of watching Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood when I was a little kid.  After finishing each episode I would immediately watch it again dubbed in French on the French channel (I grew up in Canada) because I loved both shows so much.  Since I enjoyed Won't You Be My Neighbor?, I was really excited to see Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street yesterday.  Like the former, this documentary about the making of the iconic children's show brought back so many childhood memories and I absolutely loved it!  In the late 1960s most of the programming for children was made to sell products to the white middle class parents of the children who watched it and it was also an era when many children were spending most of the day in front of the television while their parents worked (one study showed that even very young children could recite all of the words to a jingle for a beer commercial).  Because many low-income minority children were educationally behind when they started school, a television executive named Joan Cooney had the idea that a television show could use the same principles of advertising to teach letters and numbers to these children to compensate for the deficit.  Writer and director Jon Stone was recruited to develop a show and he had the idea to use an authentic neighborhood street to appeal to the target audience of inner-city children.  Puppeteer Jim Henson was recruited to help the show capture and retain the attention of the children with his puppets.  Composer Joe Raposo was recruited to write catchy songs to reinforce educational concepts (I remembered every word to every song featured in this documentary even though it has been almost forty years since I heard them).  This extraordinary collaboration resulted in one of the most groundbreaking shows in television history which has had a profound impact on generations of children.  Archival footage and contemporary interviews with many involved with the show, including the actors who played the beloved characters Gordon, Susan, Bob, Luis, and Maria, provide a fascinating look behind the scenes and I was especially interested to learn about how intentional each episode was with very specific cognitive and affective goals.  Big Bird is one of my favorite puppets (I was deeply offended as a child when no one would believe Big Bird about the existence of Mr. Snuffleupagus) and I love that his character was developed in order to learn along with the children.  The most poignant learning opportunity was when the characters tell Big Bird that Mr. Hooper has died in order to teach the audience about death.  I had a few tears in my eyes but I also laughed and laughed at the puppet blooper reel.  This was a delightful journey back to the street where I spent much of my childhood and I highly recommend it!

Four Good Days

It seems like a lot of the movies that screened at the Sundance Film Festival last year are finally getting a wide release after being postponed due to Covid.  I remember being really intrigued by Four Good Days at the time (even though I ultimately picked other films) so I decided to see it last night.  Molly (Mila Kunis), a heroin addict for the past ten years, randomly shows up on the doorstep of her mother, Deb (Glenn Close), who refuses to let her in.  Deb has spent years trying to help her get clean, including fourteen stints in rehab, but Molly has always relapsed and this has wreaked havoc on her entire family, including her step-father Chris (Stepehen Root), her father Dale (Sam Hennings), her sister Ashley (Carla Gallo), her ex-husband Sean (Joshua Leonard), and her children Colton (Nicholas Oteri) and Chloe (Audrey Lynn).  Deb ultimately relents and drives her to a clinic where she detoxes for three days.  A doctor at the clinic offers Molly the chance for a monthly shot of Naltrexone, which eliminates the craving for opioids, but she needs to be drug free for one week in order to be eligible for it.  Since she needs to stay clean for four more days, Deb allows her to move back home.  These four days are fraught with tension as the two of them give vent to the simmering recriminations in their relationship.  This is a fairly typical addiction movie such as we have seen many times before (Ben is Back and Beautiful Boy are much better explorations of how parents cope with children who are addicts) and it has the usual story arc but the material is elevated by the performances of both Close and Kunis.  Close is incredibly poignant as a mother who loves her daughter but is torn between desperately wanting to help and knowing that her help won't make a difference in her daughter's recovery.  Kunis is almost unrecognizable in a gritty and authentic performance that is one of her best, especially in a scene where Molly speaks to a high school health class about the realities of addiction.  This was not quite as good as I was expecting it to be but it is still worth checking it out when it becomes available as a VOD on May 21.