We Need a Little Christmas

I love it when my house is decorated for Christmas (it is really the only holiday that I decorate for) and I enjoy putting up my tree because all of the ornaments that I have collected over the years have a sentimental meaning.  I actually put my tree up earlier in the week (I usually wait until the day after Thanksgiving) because I was in desperate need of some Christmas cheer.  This year I am especially looking forward to celebrating Christmas, including three more productions of A Christmas Carol, five Christmas concerts (I love hearing Christmas music performed live and I always hope to hear "O Holy Night"), a performance of The Nutcracker, the movie White Christmas on the big screen, and all of the traditional activities that my nephew is planning for us (I am most looking forward to our night of Christmas baking and our gingerbread house party).  I will also be volunteering for the Festival of Trees once again.  Now, more than ever, I hope this holiday season can bring all of us some comfort and joy.

Thanksgiving 2024

I spent Thanksgiving with my family (we definitely missed Tashena and Tucker who live in Washington) and it was a really nice day.  We had a wonderful dinner with ham (instead of the traditional turkey), potatoes, stuffing, yams, pomegranate salad (a family favorite), rolls, and vegetables with dip.  My sisters are amazing cooks and I am so glad that I am always invited because I am definitely not (my contribution is to bring store-bought pies).  After dinner we all had a rest (my nephew and I watched a movie) and then we played this crazy card game called Shanghai rummy.  We haven't played for a long time and it was a lot of fun (I won).  We had lots of treats while we played and then ended the night with pie.  I enjoyed spending the day with my family and I am really looking forward to all of the fun things we have planned for the rest of the holidays.  I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving with the ones you love.

Maria

My nephew and I went to a matinee of Maria at the Broadway yesterday and, even though it is my least favorite of Pablo Larrain's portraits of enigmatic women, I absolutely loved Angelina Jolie's bravura performance.  Maria Callas (Jolie) spends the final days of her life in Paris reminiscing about her celebrated career on stage and her turbulent relationship with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer), worrying her devoted butler (Pierfrancesco Favino) and housekeeper (Alba Rohrwacher) with her increasing dependence on prescription drugs, and rehearsing with a vocal coach (Stephen Ashfield) to improve her deteriorating voice in an attempt to become La Callas again.  She also has regular hallucinations in which a reporter named Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee), the personification of the drug she has become addicted to, interviews her for a documentary about her life.  However, it is only when she is able to break free from the prison of her voice and sing for herself that she finally finds peace (this is incredibly fatalistic but I think there is an exultation in Maria's final scene).  The narrative sometimes feels crowded and disjointed but it looks absolutely gorgeous with warm and saturated colors evoking Paris during the 1970s along with dramatic black and white images used to represent moments from the past.  I loved the elaborate staging of operas both on stage in famous opera houses around the world and in various locations around Paris in Maria's hallucinations (my favorites were the mad scene from Anna Bolena at La Scala and a surrealistic interpretation of the "Humming Chorus" from Madame Butterfly on the steps of a historic building during a rainstorm).  I also loved the parallels between the operas used and the events depicted (and, as a fan of opera, I loved that extended excerpts are used rather than brief snippets).  The costumes and sets are incredibly lavish but it sometimes feels like there is more style than substance.  The highlight is Jolie's brilliant performance because she imbues Maria with an imperiousness (I laughed every time she made her butler movie the piano for no reason) and a vulnerability that is absolutely captivating.  I think this is a role that Jolie was born to play because her own star status and troubled off-screen persona add credibility to the performance (just give her the Oscar now) even if the script leaves us wanting to know more about the character.  This will not be for everyone but it is a must-see for fans of Jolie and I recommend it when it comes to Netflix on December 11.

Moana 2

Last night I went with both of my sisters and my nephew to see Moana 2 at an early preview.  The original is my all-time favorite animated movie from Disney so I was both excited and nervous to see the sequel.  It is definitely not as good as the first one but I enjoyed it.  Moana (Auli'i Cravalho), who is now a Wayfinder, receives a vision from one of her ancestors asking her to break a curse placed by the storm god Nalo on the island Montufetu which once connected all of the people living in Oceania.  She sets sail with a crew of fellow islanders, including a master builder (Rose Matafeo), a grumpy farmer (David Fane), and a storyteller (Hualalai Chung), and eventually finds Maui (Dwayne Johnson), who has been captured by an underworld goddess named Matangi (Awhimai Fraser), while battling a giant clam for the Kakamora.  Maui joins the crew but they must survive Nalo's destructive storms in order to find Montufetu.  The story follows the original beat for beat and seems better suited for streaming but the gorgeous animation, particularly the dazzling storm sequences, makes it worth seeing on the big screen.  The message about needing to work together in order to solve a problem is not particularly subtle but I really loved the idea that you sometimes need to find a different way to do something.  The villains are not very memorable (Matangi had potential but she is abandoned after one epic scene) and many of the other new characters are one-dimensional but I really liked the dynamic between Moana and Maui (Cravalho and Johnson are great).  I think a lot of the humor is very crude (it involves a lot of slime being expelled from various orifices) but the children in the audience were laughing out loud the whole time.  Finally, the songs are definitely not as good as the ones by Lin-Manuel Miranda in the original (I absolutely love "How Far I'll Go" and "We Know The Way" so it was always going to be hard to top them) but I did like "Get Lost" in a fun sequence with Matangi and her back-up singing bats and "Can I Get A Chee Hoo" as Maui tries to boost Moana's confidence.  This is a fun movie to see with the family over the Thanksgiving holiday (the kids will love it) but it is good rather than great.

A Christmas Carol at Parker Theatre

Last night I went to Parker Theatre for the second of five productions of A Christmas Carol that I have scheduled this season. This version tells the well-known story of the reclamation of Ebenezer Scrooge's soul by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future but it is much more atmospheric than others I've seen and I loved it! I especially enjoyed some of the more dramatic differences, such as when Jacob Marley (Stephen Harmon) dies at the beginning of the show and then haunts Scrooge (Brinton M. Wilkins) before he appears to him in his chambers, when characters that Scrooge meets on the streets of London return at key moments from his past to soften his heart, when young Ebenezer (Matthew Delafuente) has a romantic dance with Belle (Isabelle Purdie), and when Scrooge learns the truth about his fate by opening his coffin in the cemetery (it is so ominous). I also enjoyed all of the elaborate special effects as Scrooge interacts with the Ghosts of Christmas Past (Helene Parker), Present (David Hanson), and Future (Helene Parker) because they are quite impressive. The use of a scrim, fog, and atmospheric lighting as Scrooge sees memories from his past as well as shadows and silhouettes as he is shown a frightening possible future is incredibly effective in creating an otherworldly mood. Wilkins is outstanding as Scrooge because there is a marked change, shown through facial expressions and body language, between the bitter old miser at the beginning of the show and the lighthearted character he becomes at the end after his transformation. His interactions with Bob Cratchit (Lucas Charon), when his clerk tearfully thanks Scrooge for his generosity, and with Fred (Tanner Tate), when Scrooge entreats his nephew to let him into his life, are very moving and brought a tear to my eyes. The sets and costumes may be simpler than other local productions but they portray a more realistic interpretation of Victorian London (I loved the street lamps). This is one of my favorite adaptations of the novel by Charles Dickens and I highly recommend including it as one of your Christmas traditions. It runs at Parker Theatre on Fridays and Saturdays through December 24 (go here for tickets).

Note:  I have become a huge fan of Parker Theatre and I am so excited for next season!  The shows include Persuasion, The Sting, Noises Off, Macbeth, Silent Sky, and A Christmas Carol.  Season and individual tickets are now on sale (go here).

Gladiator II

Last night my nephew and I went to a Thursday preview of Gladiator II and we were both definitely entertained.  Rome is now ruled by a pair of tyrannical twin emperors, Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger), who are bloodthirsty in their desire to acquire more and more land.  General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) leads an invasion of Numidia for them during which a Roman refugee named Hanno (Paul Mescal) is captured and his wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen) is killed.  Hanno, as a prisoner of war, is eventually purchased by a former slave named Macrinus (Denzel Washington) and he agrees to become a gladiator for him in order to take his revenge on Acacius.  Meanwhile, Acacius is growing disillusioned with fighting wars on behalf of the corrupt emperors and he and his wife Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, plot to overthrow them with his personal army.  Hanno begins winning the gladiator contests in the Colosseum and Macrinus plans to use him in his own plot to rule Rome but Lucilla recognizes him as her son Lucius who was sent away after the death of his father Maximus and is next in line to the imperial throne.  Will Lucius fight for revenge, for Macrinus, or for Rome?  The original movie is one of my very favorites and, while I did really enjoy this one, the plot often feels like a repeat without the same emotional stakes.  I think that Mescal does a great job, especially in the action sequences, but his character is not as compelling as Maximus because Lucius achieves success in the arena by emulating him rather than because of his own skills (there are lots of callbacks to Maximus when Lucius is fighting).  I also found Geta and Caracalla to be less villainous than Commodus because the two of them are unstable rather than evil (I hated Commodus by the end of the original but Geta and Caracalla are just annoying) and Quinn and Hechinger don't have a lot to do but wear more and more eyeliner to show their debauchery.  Pascal provides a great moment of pathos in the arena but even Acacius has a similar character arc to Maximus.  However, Macrinus is absolutely fascinating because he has risen from slavery to become a powerful political player and he gleefully treats everyone like chess pieces in the pursuit of his own agenda.  Washington commands the screen in a riveting performance (while having the time of his life chewing the scenery).  Finally, Ridley Scott can always be counted on to create a grand spectacle and he certainly does so here with some epic and exhilarating set pieces, especially those in the Colosseum involving a rhinoceros and the staging of a naval battle (although the battle with a bunch apes is a bit weird).  I also really loved the visuals, particularly some black and white sequences involving the afterlife.  This is ultimately a lot of fun (my nephew and I left the theater with big smiles on our faces) and, even though it doesn't reach the heights of the original, it is worth seeing on the biggest screen possible.

Wicked

I am a huge fan of the musical Wicked (I've seen it in London, on Broadway, in San Diego, and in SLC multiple times) so, even though I really enjoyed what Jon M. Chu did with In the Heights, I still had a bit of trepidation about a movie adaptation and I wasn't sure about the casting of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo.  I went to see it at an early access screening last night and I needn't have worried because it is amazing and I loved it.  It is a very faithful adaptation of the musical (with a few surprises) and the decision to separate it into two parts allows it to delve deeper into the friendship between Glinda (Grande) and Elphaba (Erivo) as they evolve into Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.  I really liked the flashbacks to Elphaba as a child (Karis Musungole) because we see her mistreatment for being different and her protective relationship with her sister Nessarose (played by Cesily Collette Taylor as a child) and I also enjoyed seeing Elphaba's training with Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and Dr. Dillamond's (Peter Dinklage) interactions with other animals.  The production design is dazzling and I loved how the worldbuilding has been expanded for the movie, particularly all of the elaborate classrooms and dorms at Shiz University and the Emerald City.  The choreography is incredibly lively and the large ensemble really adds to the exuberance, especially in "No One Mourns the Wicked," "Dancing Through Life," and "One Short Day."  Grande is perfect as Glinda and I laughed out loud at all of her antics (I love how she theatrically tosses her hair).  Her version of "Popular" is so much fun because she nails the physicality and the vocals.  However, I was most impressed by Erivo because she blew me away with her powerful and passionate renditions of "The Wizard and I" and "Defying Gravity" but I also loved her nuanced performance of "I'm Not That Girl" which is my favorite song in the show.  The two of them play off each other so well in the hilarious "What Is This Feeling?" and their poignant interactions in the Ozdust Ballroom brought me to tears.  Jonathan Bailey is a charismatic Fiyero (he is spectacular in "Dancing Through Life"), Yeoh adds dimension to Madame Morrible, and Jeff Goldblum has a subversive charm as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  I was also really impressed with the casting of Marissa Bode as Nessarose because she has the same disability as the character.  I had very high expectations for this adaptation and it exceeded every one of them!  I highly recommend it because it is the perfect movie to see this holiday season.

A Real Pain

I enjoyed quite a few movies at Sundance this year but A Real Pain was my favorite by far so I was really excited to see it again with my nephew at the Broadway last night.  I loved it even more upon a second viewing!  Two cousins, outgoing and charismatic Benji (Keiran Culkin) and uptight and reserved David (Jesse Eisenberg), take a guided tour through Poland to see where their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who has recently died, was born.  They come face to face with the tragedy of the Holocaust but they also feel the pain of realizing that, even though they were once close, they have drifted apart.  This is a moving, but surprisingly funny, portrait of generational trauma and the guilt that these cousins feel when they compare the vicissitudes of their daily lives with the horrors experienced by their grandmother.  I also really enjoyed the comparison between the way in which the cousins express their pain because David keeps everything bottled up inside while Benji expresses his every unfiltered emotion which endears him to the tour group despite the fact that he is often inconsiderate and offensive.  The scenes at the Majdanek concentration camp are very sobering and I was particularly struck by the observation from one of the characters that this evil was perpetrated so close to people going about their everyday lives because that was my response when I visited Dachau.  Eisenberg, rather unusually, is the more subdued straight man to Culkin's mania but they both give brilliant performances.  I frequently laughed at all of Culkin's antics but Eisenberg delivers a monologue that had me in tears.  Finally, I loved the use of Chopin in the soundtrack.  This is a very powerful exploration of how people confront pain and I highly recommend it.

A Christmas Carol at CPT

Last night I went to CPT with my sisters and my nephew to see the first of five productions of A Christmas Carol that I have scheduled this holiday season. This version is a musical, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and I have to admit that it was not my favorite adaptation of the novel by Charles Dickens but I enjoyed this production because it got me really excited for Christmas. As the rest of London celebrates the coming of Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge (Nick Cash) berates his clerk Bob Cratchit (Nathan Sachs) for wanting the day off, refuses an invitation to dine from his nephew Fred (Paul Dixon), and ignores a debtor (Josh Lee) seeking relief. He also has interactions with a lamplighter (Dylan Floyd Panter), a man wearing a sandwich board advertising a Christmas show (Logan Stacey), and a blind beggar woman (Abrielle Hambleton) who eventually become the the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. When he arrives home, the Ghost of Jacob Marley (Brett Klumpp), his former partner, warns that he will be visited by these three ghosts in order to reclaim his soul. Scrooge takes their messages to heart and strives to make amends. Many of the interactions between Scrooge and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future deviate from the source material and some of them really worked for me, such as having Scrooge's father put in debtors' prison (which is reportedly based on an incident from Charles Dickens' life), and some of them didn't, particularly a big production number involving tap dancing toy soldiers (I didn't know there were Rockettes in Dickensian London). Even though there are some incongruous elements, I really enjoyed all of the enthusiastic performances because the cast does a great job with the material. I also loved quite a few of the songs because they are beautiful, especially "You Mean More to Me" by Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim (Ross Clemens), "A Place Called Home" by Young Scrooge (Grayson Farr) and Fan (Liza Akerlow), "Christmas Together" by the Cratchits, Fred and his family, and the people of London, and "God Bless Us, Everyone" by the entire company. The staging of "Dancing on Your Grave" with the Ghost of Christmas Future and a group of monks and pallbearers is incredibly dramatic and I love how the scene transitions into Scrooge's reclamation in "Yesterday, Tomorrow, and Today." My favorite part of this production is the absolutely amazing set which brings Dickensian London so vividly to life (I especially loved the Christmas decorations at Fezziwig's factory) and the incredibly immersive projections (those used during Jacob Marley's visit are very effective). The period costumes are very impressive, although the ghosts during the song "Link By Link" looked more like mental patients to me and I was confused by the showgirls in the scenes with the people of London. Even though I didn't love the show itself I did enjoy everything CPT did with it and the message is so heartwarming that it is the perfect way to usher in the holiday season.  It runs on the Barlow Main Stage through December 21 but act quickly  because tickets (go here) are going fast.

Note:  I'm so glad that my nephew came with us.  He has a lot of Christmas spirit this year and it is making all of us excited for the holidays.

The Great Gatsby on Broadway

When I saw Jeremy Jordan in concert earlier this year, he performed "For Her" from his forthcoming musical The Great Gatsby and I loved the song so much I decided then and there that I wanted to see it!  Since I was already going to be in New York for Hold on to Me Darling, I got a ticket for Saturday night and I considered seeing Jeremy Jordan as the cherry on top of an epic day!  Unfortunately, Jay Gatsby was being performed by the understudy that night but, even though I was a bit disappointed, I still really loved the show.  The musical is based on the novel of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald and tells the story of how an eccentric and mysterious self-made millionaire named Jay Gatsby (Austin Colby) attempts to rekindle a romance with his former lover Daisy Buchanan (Eva Noblezada) by throwing lavish parties to get her attention.  It is narrated by Gatsby's neighbor and Daisy's cousin Nick Carraway (Alex Prakken) as he becomes more and more disillusioned by the careless behavior of Daisy, her husband Tom (John Zdrojeski), and her friend Jordan Baker (Samantha Pauley) which leads to tragedy (there were so many audible gasps at the conclusion it made me wonder how many people in the audience had read the book).  The musical emphasizes the romance between Nick and Jordan a lot more than in the book and the role of Meyer Wolfsheim (Eric Anderson), who engages in bootlegging with Gatsby, is expanded and includes interactions with George Wilson (Charlie Pollack).  In addition to "For Her," which is my favorite song from the show, I also really liked "My Green Light," when Gatsby and Daisy find each other again, "Past is Catching Up to Me," as Gatsby tries to recreate a party he once attended with Daisy, and "Beautiful Little Fool," where Daisy hopes her daughter will only aspire to be a rich man's wife.  The dancing in "Roaring On," "New Money," and "La Dee Dah With You" is absolutely spectacular and I loved the dazzling costumes and opulent sets (the costumes and sets reminded me of Baz Luhrmann's 2013 movie).  I was also really impressed by all of the effects used in the party scenes and the use of real period cars.  Colby, Prakken, and Pauley are fantastic but Noblezada absolutely blew me away, especially in "For Better or Worse" and "Beautiful Little Fool."  There are some comedic elements, particularly in "The Met" and "Only Tea," that didn't really work for me and create some wild tonal shifts but I enjoyed this show and would definitely recommend it (I'm sure there will be a touring production eventually).

Hold on to Me Darling Off-Broadway

Adam Driver has been my favorite actor ever since I saw Kylo Ren remove his helmet in The Force Awakens and it has long been a dream of mine to see him perform on stage.  When I heard that he would be in a play called Hold on to Me Darling by Kenneth Lonergan (he wrote Manchester by the Sea which is a favorite of mine) at the Lucille Lortel Theatre for a limited engagement this fall, I really wanted to go but I didn't do anything about it and every show sold out very quickly.  I was disappointed to be missing out so I kept randomly checking the website and, when I saw that some isolated single tickets had been released for a few shows, I found a date that would work for me and bought one.  I was able to get a flight and a hotel for a good price (the stars definitely aligned for this trip) so I left for New York last Friday and I had the best time!  I saw a matinee of the play on Saturday and I was on the fourth row!  I let out an audible sigh when Driver first appeared on stage (I was struck by how much he dwarfed the other actors on stage with him) and the three cute ladies sitting by me thought that was hilarious!  Driver plays Clarence "Strings" McCrane,  a country music star who is in the middle of an existential crisis brought on by the sudden death of his disapproving mother.  In an attempt to finally make her proud of him he decides to move back to his hometown in Tennessee, open a feed store with his estranged brother Duke (CJ Wilson), get married to his current fling Nancy (Heather Burns), and hopefully start a family.  His plans go awry when his notoriety disrupts life in his small hometown, when he is sued for dropping out of his current movie production and his upcoming world tour, when Nancy decides she would rather be married to a global superstar than the owner of a feed store, when he becomes reacquainted with his distant cousin Essie (Adelaide Clemons), and when someone (Frank Wood) from his past suddenly appears.  I really enjoyed the story because it is both funny and very moving with an interesting take on the price of fame and how it distorts one's view of one's self.  Driver is amazing in a role that requires sexy charisma one moment (he really delivers here!) and petulant narcissism the next with an emotional reckoning at the end that blew me, and my audience, away.  I also loved seeing him play the guitar (and get undressed *ahem*).  The rest of the cast is also outstanding (but it was sometimes hard for me to take my eyes off Driver because he has such a compelling stage presence) and I loved the rotating set, which consists of a funeral parlor, various hotel rooms, assorted living rooms, and a feed store, because it makes great use of the small stage.  I am still on a high from seeing this show and I am so glad that I was able to go!

Note:  Driver doesn't come to the stage door for matinees so I wasn't able to interact with him.  It was amazing just to see him perform so I wasn't too disappointed and, honestly, it was probably for the best because I'm sure I would have hyperventilated!

Memoir of a Snail

The second movie in my double feature at the Broadway last night was Memoir of a Snail and I was surprised by how often I laughed out loud during a movie that is so melancholy.  After the death of her eccentric friend Pinky (Jacki Weaver), Grace (Sarah Snook) releases her favorite snail into Pinky's garden and begins telling it her life story.  She has a series of misadventures, the worst of which is when she and her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) are separated after the death of their parents and she is sent to live with a pair of swingers in Canberra while he is sent to live with members of a religious cult in Perth.  As her life becomes bleaker and bleaker, she retreats into herself just like the snails she obsessively collects hide inside their shells.  It is only when she receives a posthumous letter from Pinky that she finds the courage to come out of her shell and begin living her life (after so much trauma there is a happy ending).  I really loved the stop-motion animation because the style (all of the characters look like blobs of clay with exaggerated features) really suits the dark themes while providing so much comedy (I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe when Grace gets a perm).  I also loved the voice cast, especially when Magda Szubanski and Bernie Clifford (who play Gilbert's abusive foster parents) speak gibberish during their religious ceremonies.  The humor is incredibly dry and I loved it whenever I would notice something hilarious seemingly hidden on the screen (pay attention to everything, especially the names of books and what is written on all of the signs) and the messages are poignant (my favorite one is that kindness will eventually be repaid).  This strange little movie is one of my favorites this year and I highly recommend it!

Blitz

I had another double feature at the Broadway last night and I started with Blitz because I am a huge fan of Saoirse Ronan.  I have heard this criticized for being too episodic with themes that are introduced but never explored fully but that is why I like it because it is a slice-of-life portrait of the people the two main protagonists encounter, many of whom are often underrepresented, while trying to survive the Blitz.  Rita (Ronan) is a single mother of a biracial nine-year-old boy named George (Elliott Heffernan) who works at a munitions factory and lives with her father Gerald (Paul Weller) in east London.  She makes the difficult decision to evacuate George to the countryside for his safety and tearfully puts him on a train.  However, he doesn't want to leave her and jumps off the train at the first opportunity and then finds himself lost in London.  George undertakes the journey to get back home, experiencing both adventure and terror, while Rita does whatever she can to find him.  I really loved George's encounter with an air-raid warden originally from Nigeria named Ife (Benjamin Clementine) because not only does he help George find safety but he also helps him find his identity.  I also loved Rita's interactions with a firefighter named Jack (Harris Dickinson) who helps her search for George because he represents the spirit of community during dark times.  It was fascinating to see events portrayed through a different lens because I never knew about the looting that occurred after buildings were damaged (it seems obvious to me now) nor did I know that people were denied access to underground stations during the bombings (almost every other movie about the Blitz depicts people sheltering there).  The action sequences are absolutely visceral, especially the opening scene of firefighters trying to control a blaze, and the camera work is incredibly immersive, particularly the closing scene when the camera pulls back from Rita and George to reveal the devastation all around them. Ronan gives a very affecting performance (she also does a great job singing) but I was really impressed by Heffernan because he is captivating.  I really liked this and highly recommend it.

Heretic

The second movie in my double feature at the Broadway last night was Heretic and to say that I was excited to see it would be an understatement.  It is deeply unsettling but I found it very entertaining (for reasons).  Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) are missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who are invited in to give their message to Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant).  They are initially hesitant because the rules stipulate that they cannot be alone with a man without a woman present but they are told by Reed that his wife is there baking a blueberry pie and are reassured when they smell it baking.  They begin a discussion with him but soon become uncomfortable when he mentions some problematic points of doctrine.  When Sister Barnes realizes that the smell of the blueberry pie is coming from a candle, they try to leave only to discover that Reed has locked them inside.  Thus begins a terrifying cat-and-mouse game in which Reed forces them to examine their beliefs.  This is psychological horror at its best and I found Reed's thesis that all religions are just iterations of the same idea to be fascinating (the use of "The Air That I Breathe" by the Hollies and "Creep" by Radiohead to prove his point is brilliant) and his assertion that belief is really a surrender of control is disconcerting (to say the least) because it is so true.  The production design (I loved all of the religious iconography), lighting design, and sound design are all incredibly atmospheric and the cinematography emphasizes the claustrophobia.  Grant is so menacing as Reed because he is playing against type (I am really enjoying his villain era) and delivers the most disturbing monologues with his usual charm and charisma.  Thatcher and East also give outstanding performances because their escalating dread is entirely believable.  Watching this with a crowd in Utah was absolutely wild and I highly recommend it.

The Piano Lesson

There are so many movies playing at the Broadway right now that I want to see so I decided on a double feature last night (I have another one planned for tonight).  I started with The Piano Lesson and, even though I found it to be uneven, I enjoyed it.  It is a sprawling story about several generations of the Charles family beginning in rural Mississippi with the purchase of a piano by James Sutter (Jay Peterson) for his wife Ophelia (Melanie Jeffcoat).  He trades two of his slaves, Bernice and her young son Boy Charles, to buy it but Ophelia misses them so he has Willie Boy Charles (Malik J. Ali) carve the faces of his wife and son on the piano.  The grown up Boy Charles (Stephan James) and his brothers Wining Boy and Doaker eventually steal the piano but Boy is caught and burned alive.  Years later the piano belongs to Boy's daughter Berenice (Danielle Deadwyler), who lives in Pittsburgh with Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) and Wining Boy (Michael Potts), but his son Boy Willie (John David Washington) wants to sell it to buy the land in Mississippi once owned by the Sutters.  Berenice and Willie Boy clash over the piano because she believes it is an important reminder of her past and refuses to sell it while he sees it as a way to secure his future.  This exploration of one family's legacy is very powerful but, in my opinion, a supernatural subplot involving the haunting of the piano by the ghost of James Sutter, including a dramatic exorcism by Berenice's boyfriend Avery Brown (Corey Hawkins), is less compelling.  There are a lot of characters to keep track of (I was sometimes confused about who was who as well as the relationships between everyone) and a few extraneous scenes that create some strange tonal shifts (my mind often wandered when the action strayed from the central conflict).  However, I loved the performances, particularly the juxtaposition between the wild and exuberant Washington and the restrained Deadwyler.  I really liked this but not as much as I thought I would and I recommend waiting for it to stream on Netflix.

Small Things Like These

Last night my nephew and I saw Small Things Like These and I was incredibly moved by its theme of quiet heroism.  Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) is a coal merchant in a small town in Ireland in 1985.  He is the hard-working father of five daughters and his wife Eileen (Eileen Walsh) considers him to be too kind-hearted because of his concern for the less fortunate.  When he makes an earlier than usual delivery to the local convent, he discovers a young pregnant girl named Sarah (Zara Devlin) locked in the coal shed.  He brings her inside the convent and is taken to meet Sister Mary (Emily Watson), the Mother Superior, who implies that his younger daughters will not be admitted to the the convent school if he reveals what he saw and then gives him a "tip" for his services.  He begins to suspect that the many pregnant girls living at the convent are there against their will and are mistreated but he is conflicted about what to do.  Eileen and several townspeople want him to forget what he saw because he can't do anything about it but he has flashbacks to when his unmarried mother Sarah (Agnes O'Casey) was taken in by her employer Mrs. Wilson (Michelle Fairley) when she became pregnant with him (the young Bill is played by Louis Kirwan) and wonders what might have happened to him if someone hadn't intervened.  He spontaneously returns to the convent in the middle of the night and, when he finds Sarah locked in the coal shed once again, he makes a decision.  This is definitely a slow burn but I was so riveted by the story that I was genuinely startled when the screen went to black (my nephew mentioned that he could have kept watching for another hour).  I actually really enjoyed all of the subtle symbolism (the ringing of a church bell is especially ominous and the scenes of Bill scrubbing his hands at the end of the day are portentous) and the use of a bleak color palette to represent the hardship of Bill's life makes his small act of kindness even more powerful.  Murphy gives an incredible performance because you see everything he is feeling with very little dialogue (the one tear falling from his eye almost undid me) but Watson gave me chills with the malevolence she conveys over a cup of tea.  This is a haunting character study about man who refuses to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing and I highly recommend it.

National Theatre Live: Present Laughter

Yesterday I went to a National Theatre Live screening of Present Laughter and I absolutely loved this hilarious comedy by Noel Coward.  It was filmed in 2019 during its run at the Old Vic and was presented by the Tanner Humanities Center and Salt Lake Film Society at the Broadway.  Garry Essendine (Andrew Scott) is a petulant and self-absorbed actor known for starring in light comedies on the stage.  He has a tight-knit group of minders, including his housekeeper Miss Erikson (Liza Sadovy), his valet Fred (Joshua Hill), his secretary Monica Reed (Sophie Thompson), his estranged wife Liz Essendine (Indira Varma), his manager Morris Dixon (Abdul Sallis), and his producer Helen Lyppiatt (Suzie Toase), who all attempt to curb the self-indulgent behavior that his fame enables.  Chaos ensues when he becomes entangled with two of his admirers, Daphne Stillington (Kitty Archer) and Roland Maule (Luke Thallon), and when he begins an affair with Joe Lyppiatt (Enzo Cilenti), the husband of his producer.  When everyone turns on him, he reminds them that he is the sun around which they all revolve and that they enjoy both the reflected fame they get from him and all of the percentages they get from his income (the way Scott says "percentages" is one my favorite line readings).  While it is laugh out loud funny, this version leans heavily into Essendine's neediness and almost everything he does is a bid for attention.  I loved Scott's brilliant performance (he won the Olivier Award for it) because he is hilariously overwrought and melodramatic with a physicality that is fun to watch (at one point he keeps spinning around because he has people ensconced in every room and doesn't know what to do).  He has charisma to spare but he also has a vulnerability that is often displayed with just a fleeting look and I found the ending to be quite poignant (it is different from other versions I've seen).  The rest of the cast is also really good and I especially enjoyed watching Varma and Thompson interact with Scott because they treat him like a lost little boy (they both deliver some great one-liners) and I also loved Thallon's frenetic energy.  The staging of this show is very clever because, even though the set for Essendine's London flat is static, it features a large main area with multiple doors (through which characters come and go endlessly) that circle around it and this mimics the relationship he has with everyone in his life.  I am a huge fan of Andrew Scott and I enjoyed every minute of this production!

Note:  The next National Theatre Live screening at the Broadway is Nye on January 11.

Prayer for the French Republic at PTC

Last night I saw Prayer for the French Republic at PTC and it is incredibly powerful and thought-provoking. The narrative revolves around the Salomons, a Jewish family who have sold pianos in Paris for five generations. In 2016 Marcelle Salomon Benhamou (Judith Lightfoot Clarke) lives with her husband Charles (Alok Tewari) and her two adult children Daniel (Japhet Balaban) and Elodie (Kim Taff). While hosting their distant American cousin Molly (Maggie Goble), Daniel is severely beaten for wearing a yarmulke in an antisemitic attack. Charles, fearing for his family's safety at a time of growing antisemitism in France, believes that they should all move to Israel just as he was once forced to flee Algeria as a child for the same reason. The decision to leave is not an easy one for Marcelle because of the piano store currently managed by her ailing father Pierre (Joel Leffert) and the situation is exacerbated by Molly's opinions about Israel as a privileged American. Interspersed with this timeline is that of Marcelle's great-grandparents who live in the same apartment and manage the same piano store in 1944. Irma (Jayne Luke) and Adolphe (Joel Leffert, who also plays the older version of his son) stay in Paris during the war but the consequences of that decision become apparent when their son Lucien (Matthew McGloin) and grandson Pierre (True Leavitt) eventually return. The show is narrated by Marcelle's brother and Pierre's son Patrick (Robert Mammana) and he often speaks directly to the audience, posing complex questions about identity, assimilation, persecution, and fear. The narrative offers few answers to these questions, which is why it is sometimes difficult to watch, but I know that I will be thinking about them for a long time. The entire cast is outstanding but my favorite performance was from Taff, especially an incredible monologue where Elodie criticizes the people who post their strong opinions about Israel and the Middle East on social media without an understanding about the complex history of the region. I loved the minimal set, which features a large grand piano as a focal point with small groupings of furniture and sliding walls. This arrangement, and the clever use of darkness, allows for a seamless transition between the timelines. I also loved the the LED lights which outline the rectangular ceiling because they become the flag of France during the recitation of the prayer which gives the play its name. I can't say that I enjoyed this because it is really intense (and three hours long) but it is brilliant and I highly recommend it. There are only two performances left today at 2:00 and 7:30 (go here for tickets).

Peter Pan at the Eccles

Last night I went to see a new and updated version of Peter Pan and I was very impressed with all of the magical special effects (at one point I was actually giggling out loud).  Peter Pan (Nolan Almeida) climbs through the window of the Darling children's bedroom to reclaim his shadow and ends up taking Wendy (Hawa Kamara), John (William Foon), and Michael (Camden Kwok) on an adventure to Neverland to meet the Lost Boys.  They run afoul of Tiger Lily (Raye Zaragoza) and her tribe but they eventually join forces to defeat Captain Hook (Cody Garcia) and his pirates.  Peter does not want to grow up so he stays behind when the Darling children take the Lost Boys back home but he returns years later to take Wendy's daughter Jane (Christina Helene Braa) on a new adventure.  At first it was a little bit disconcerting to see a more contemporary version set in the U.S. instead of Victorian England with references to social media but as soon as Almeida appeared and starting singing "I Gotta Crow" I was completely captivated.  Other changes include a multicultural cast of children, a male actor playing Peter, better representation for Tiger Lily and the other indigenous people (they clash with the Lost Boys because of their lack of reverence for the land and the problematic song "Ugg-a-Wugg" is replaced with "Friends Forever" which emphasizes cooperation), an expanded role for Wendy, and the addition of the poignant song "When I Went Home" (it was cut from the original 1954 production) which explains why Peter wants to stay in Neverland.  Almeida is the highlight of the show because his performance is incredibly dynamic and he displays a child-like wonder that is very appealing.  I loved his voice and I loved watching him during the high-energy choreography, particularly when he interacts with his shadow and when he fights a duel with Hook.  Garcia is a hoot as Captain Hook and I laughed at all of his antics, especially during "Hook's Tango," "Hook's Tarantella,"  and "Hook's Waltz" (all of his pirates play musical instruments during these songs and it is hilarious).  As I mentioned, the technical elements in this show are dazzling!  The flying sequences are amazing (the projections as they fly to Neverland are absolutely spectacular and I actually felt like I was flying, too) and the lighting design for Tinkerbell is so much fun. In addition to the projections, the physical sets include an elaborate bedroom for the Darling children, the lair used by Peter and the Lost Boys in the middle of a lush forest, and the deck of Captain Hook's pirate ship and they are quite impressive.  I appreciated the care taken with the costumes for the indigenous people but my favorite one was for Captain Hook (a red waistcoat and frock coat with gold embroidery, a white ruffled shirt, and black knee boots).  I had so much fun watching this (much more than I was expecting) and I highly recommend getting a ticket for one of the five remaining performances (go here for tickets).

Emilia Perez

I found the trailer for Emilia Perez to be really intriguing (to say the least) so I went to a matinee at the Broadway yesterday.  This crime thriller that is also somehow a musical is incredibly bold and, even though it doesn't always work, it is never boring.  Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldana) is an overworked and underappreciated lawyer in Mexico who is disillusioned by the number of violent criminals that she is forced to defend.  After winning a big case, she receives a lucrative offer from Juan "Manitas" Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascon), a notorious leader of a drug cartel, that she cannot refuse.  He asks her to help him become the woman he has always wanted to be so she secretly finds him a doctor to perform gender affirming surgeries, arranges for his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and his two children to relocate to Switzerland, and helps him fake his death in return for an exorbitant amount of money.  Manitas begins a new life as Emilia Perez but, four years later, she is desperate to see her children.  She contacts Rita and has her arrange for Jessi and the children to return to Mexico to live with her in the guise of a distant cousin.  As Emilia sheds her old identity, she is still haunted by her violent past so she and Rita create a nonprofit organization to locate the missing victims of her former cartel so she can atone.  She also begins a relationship with Epifania (Adriana Paz).  However, she cannot escape who she really is when Jessi resumes a relationship with Gustavo Brun (Edgar Ramirez), with whom she had been having an affair during the marriage, and takes the children away from her.  I enjoyed the songs individually (none of them are particularly memorable) but the shifts in tone are all over the place with big choreographed group numbers raging against violence and hypocrisy, poignant ballads about identity (my favorite is "Papa" when Emilia's son tells her that she reminds him of his father), a campy sequence detailing the surgeries involved in transitioning, and upbeat pop songs about love.  There are also issues with pacing because the scenes involving the search for those who are missing go on a bit too long while the romance between Emilia and Epifania and the fiery climax both seem a bit rushed.  The theme of living authentically is very compelling but I'm not sure how I feel about the assertion that you can never change who you are because that seems to diminish Emilia's arc as a trans woman (I was especially disturbed by a scene in which Emilia threatens Jessi using the voice she had before she transitioned).  Having said all of that, my attention never waved because everything on the screen is so audacious and all three actresses give amazing performances, particularly Gascon in a powerful double role.  I didn't totally love this (my favorite genre-bending musical is Annette) but I recommend it for its creative swing for the fences.

Anora

I am a huge fan of Sean Baker's films (my favorite is The Florida Project but Tangerine is a close second) because they are always provocative but humane character studies about people on the margins of society.  His latest, Anora, is no exception and I was really excited to see it last night at the Broadway last night with my nephew.  Anora "Ani" Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) is a Russian-American who lives in Brighton Beach with her sister and works as a high-end stripper at a club in Manhattan.  Because she speaks Russian, the owner of the club introduces her to Ivan "Vanya" Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, who hires her for a lap dance and then for sex at his family's mansion in Brooklyn.  After several nights together, he hires her to spend the week with him as his girlfriend and then proposes marriage so that he can get a green card to stay in America and avoid his controlling parents back in Russia.  They get married in Las Vegas and have a whirlwind romance before his minders Toros (Karren Karagulian), Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), and Igor (Yura Borisov), who have been lax in their supervision, are ordered by his father to deal with the situation.  Ani eventually proves that she has more class than the feckless Vanya and his wealthy parents (Aleksei Serebryakov and Darya Ekamasova).  This is surprisingly hilarious (I laughed out loud when Ani bests the two henchmen who are trying to subdue her) and incredibly poignant (the final scene is absolutely devastating but hopeful).  I especially loved the relationship between Ani and Igor because he sees the vulnerability behind Ani's bravura and she finds an unexpected ally against people who see her as transactional.  Madison gives one of the most magnetic performances I've seen in a long time (one that is garnering a lot of much deserved Oscar buzz) and Borisov is quietly powerful.  My only criticism is that the narrative sometimes drags in places, particularly the sequence where Ani and the henchmen wander around Brighton Beach searching for Vanya.  I loved this and highly recommend it (with the proviso that it is very explicit).

Here

The second movie in the double feature my nephew and I saw last night was Here.  I was really intrigued by the premise but I was ultimately disappointed in the execution of it.  This portrays events that occur at one location, and one single point of view, from prehistory to today.  The narrative is non-linear and includes the extinction of the dinosaurs, an indigenous man (Joel Oulette) and woman (Dannie McCallum) who live on the land where the house will eventually be built, the colonial governor of New Jersey (Daniel Betts) who lives on a plantation that becomes a museum across the street from the house, a man at the turn of the century (Gwilym Lee) obsessed with flying and his disdainful wife (Michelle Dockery) who are the first inhabitants of the house, an inventor (David Flynn) and his pin-up model wife (Ophelia Lovibond) who live in the house during the 1930s, and Devon Harris (Nicholas Pinnock) and his wife Helen (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and son Justin (Cache Vanderpuye) who live in the house during the COVID-19 pandemic.  However, most of the timeline involves Al and Rose Young (Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly, respectively), a couple who buys the house at the end of World War II and raises their family there through the mid-2000s.  Their son Richard (Tom Hanks) marries Margaret (Robin Wright) when she gets pregnant and they also live in the house and raise their daughter Vanessa (Zsa Zsa Zemeckis) there.  The static camera angle is really clever at first but then it left me feeling kind of bored and detached from the action.  The scenes are short and move through the timelines very haphazardly (the transitions occur with an outline of a shape through which you see one timeline inserted into another one) so a lot of the emotional impact is lost because, just when you feel a connection, the scene changes.  Hanks, Wright, and Bettany, especially, are great but almost everyone else inexplicably overacts.  At one point, my nephew and I looked at each other and had to stifle laughter behind our hands during what is meant to be a poignant moment.  I found the message to be very depressing (my nephew disliked it even more than I did) because Al and Rose buy the house thinking that they are achieving the American dream after the war but the house eventually stifles all of Richard's dreams.  I also think the score by Alan Silvestri is incredibly manipulative.  This movie thinks it is more profound than it actually is and I recommend skipping it (or at least waiting for it to stream).

Juror #2

My nephew and I went to a double feature last night and we started with Juror #2 at one of only 50 theaters showing it in the U.S.  I'm not sure why it is getting such a limited release because our screening was packed and there were a lot of positive comments from people after it was over.  My nephew and I really enjoyed it.  Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is a recovering alcoholic expecting his first child with his wife Allison Crewson (Zoey Deutch) when he is selected for jury duty in a high profile murder trial.  The prosecutor, Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette), thinks it is an open and shut case and is eager for a win to bolster her campaign to become district attorney.  James Sythe (Gabriel Basso) is accused of beating his girlfriend Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood) to death and leaving her body in a ravine after a fight in a local bar but he and his lawyer Eric Resnick (Chris Messina) staunchly maintain his innocence.  As Kemp listens to the testimony, he is horrified to realize that he was at the same bar on the night of the murder and that his car accident, which he believed to be a collision with a deer, may have killed the victim.  He is tormented by guilt when the jury begins their deliberations but he is also disconcerted when another juror (J.K. Simmons) starts asking questions about Sythe's guilt.  This is a slow burn in which the crime is shown from several different perspectives and I liked the fact that there was always some doubt about what actually happened.  I also enjoyed the discussion about culpability as Kemp tries to rationalize the fact that Sythe is a dangerous man who deserves to be punished even though he may not be guilty of the specific crime he is charged with as well as the criticism of a judicial system in which expediency is favored over the actual truth.  Hoult gives an incredibly powerful performance as a man desperate to believe that he is a good man and so does Collette because her character has a similar, though more understated, arc.  I found this to be very thought-provoking and I think it is a shame that most people won't have a chance to see it in a theater.