Puffs at the Empress Theatre

Last night I went to the Empress Theatre for their production of Puffs, Or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic. I think this show is so fun and clever and I had a blast watching it with a large and boisterous crowd who laughed out loud all night! It is a parody of the beloved Harry Potter franchise and all of the well-known characters are alluded to with enough recognizable traits to know exactly who they are without naming them (my favorites are A Certain Potions Teacher, Professor Turban, Professor Locky, A Very Tall Man, and Real Mr. Moody) and all of the memorable events still happen but they are shown from the perspective of secondary characters who are not involved in the action. A Narrator (Jana White) introduces the audience to a brave orphan wizard with a lightning bolt scar named Harry Potter (Lexy Osborne) but then tells us that this story is about another orphan named Wayne Hopkins (Raiden Dwight) who is also sent to the school of female magic and male magic after learning that he is a wizard. When he arrives, there is a ceremony to sort everyone into one of the four houses: Braves, Smarts, Snakes, and Puffs. Wayne is sorted into Puffs and he is soon introduced to the prefect, Cedric Diggory (Brendan Sampsel), and the other outcasts and misfits in this house, including Oliver Rivers (Brady Neilson), Megan Jones (Hannah Stark), Susie Bones (Lexy Osborne), J. Finch Fletchley (Adrian Young), Sally Perks (Lucy Bawden), Ernie Mac (Konor Hafen), and others. On the same fateful night when Harry, Ron, and Hermione become friends while defeating a troll, Wayne becomes friends with Oliver, a math prodigy, and Megan, the daughter of one of the Dark Lord's followers, while hiding from the troll in a forbidden chamber. Over the next seven years, Wayne struggles to learn magic and protect everyone from Mr. Voldy (Brendan Sampsel) but he is constantly overshadowed by Harry who steals all of the attention, including the moment when the Puffs are finally allowed to shine during the Three Wizard Tournament. In the final battle, Mr. Voldy mistakes Wayne for Harry and kills him and, when he meets the Headmaster, he complains that his life was useless. The Headmaster tells him that everyone is a hero to someone and then we see in the Epilogue nineteen years later that Megan and Oliver have named their son Wayne. Fans of the books and movies will find so many hilarious references (but you have to pay attention). I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe when Wayne says that he and Cedric will be like Batman and Robin (a subtle nod to Robert Pattinson's role as the caped crusader) and when Blondo Malfoy tells his son Scorpius to avoid time turning in the Epilogue (an allusion to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child). The action is non-stop with most of the actors playing multiple roles (two different actors play the Headmaster and three different actors play Hermione at the same time in a time turning mishap) and I was very impressed with everyone in the cast because the physical comedy is extremely well done. I especially loved Dwight, because Wayne's exasperation every time Harry steals his thunder is so convincing, Osborne, because she is so energetic and over-the-top as Harry (she literally jumps into every scene), and Sampsel, because his facial expressions as Mr. Voldy are hilarious (especially whenever he uses a megaphone). The set is very simple (I loved all of the portraits located around the theater) but the costumes are fun and the props are incredible (particularly the snake and the dragon). You will definitely have a great time at this show (go here for tickets) but there are only two more performances so act quickly!

The Legend of Ochi

The trailer for The Legend of Ochi was absolutely beautiful so I decided to see a matinee at the Broadway yesterday afternoon.  I mostly loved this throwback to the adventure movies of my youth.  Yuri (Helena Zengel) is a young farm girl living on Carpathia, an isolated island in the Black Sea.  The inhabitants share the island with mysterious creatures, known as ochi, that are feared and hunted.  Yuri's father Maxim (Willem Dafoe) is especially zealous in his desire to hunt them down and trains a group of boys, including an orphan he has adopted named Petro (Finn Wolfhard), who he takes out on patrol every night.  Yuri rejects much of what her father says so, when she finds a baby ochi in one of his traps, she releases it and smuggles it home.  Yuri interacts with the baby and, when she realizes that it is a gentle creature, she decides to try and find its family.  On the journey, she encounters her mother Dasha (Emily Watson), who left the family because of Maxim's brutality, and discovers that she has studied the ochi extensively.  Her father hates them and her mother respects them but it is Yuri who truly understands the ochi and it is her bond that will ultimately bring about acceptance.  The theme of fearing what is different is not new but it is so gorgeously rendered that I was absolutely enchanted by Yuri’s quest.  I loved all of the stunning visuals of the island and the puppets are amazing (the baby ochi is adorable).  The relationship that develops between Yuri and the creature is so moving because there are many parallels between them and I think the lack of dialogue is really effective (she communicates with the ochi in their language) although some might find the pace sluggish as a result.  I really enjoyed the Eastern European influences because they make the story feel like a fairy tale (Maxim hunts the ochi wearing medieval armor) but the music is sometimes overpowering.  Zengel is luminous and Dafoe is as unhinged as ever but I especially liked Watson's performance (Wolfhard has very little to do and his character's motivations are very ambiguous).  However, I found the scene in a grocery store to be incredibly jarring.  I think it is included as commentary about the encroachment of the modern world into traditional life on the island but this theme is underdeveloped and the scene feels like it belongs in a completely different movie.  I found this dark fantasy to be very magical most of the time and would recommend it but I seem to like it more than most.

The Accountant 2

I went to see The Accountant on a whim and was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it so I was really looking forward to the sequel.  I had the chance to see a Thursday preview of The Accountant 2 last night with my nephew and, unfortunately, I found it a bit underwhelming.  Raymond King (J.K. Simmons), a retired Treasury Agent now working as a private investigator, meets with a mysterious woman named Anaïs (Danielle Pineda) in the course of his search for a family of three from El Salvador who went missing while crossing the border into the U.S.  During their meeting, King is ambushed by assassins but manages to write a message to find the accountant on his arm before he is killed.  King's former colleague at the Treasury Department, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), sees the message and reaches out to Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) through his handler Justine (Allison Robertson) at Harbor Neuroscience.  Medina and Wolff begin working together to solve King's murder but eventually unravel a vast human trafficking organization run by Burke (Robert Morgan) and they recruit Wolff's estranged brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) to help find Anaïs and the missing family.  The central mystery is very convoluted and there were many times when I had no idea who a character was or how they were involved in the story (and after a while I didn't really care who was who).  I was also disappointed by how much Wolff relies on his cadre of students at Harbor Neuroscience and their hacking skills rather than his own extraordinary abilities to solve the puzzle (which is what I liked about the first movie).  There are some fun action sequences but, in my opinion, the culminating gunfight in a detention camp in Mexico is tedious because it is incredibly far-fetched, to the point of incredulity, and it goes on way too long.  I did really like the dynamic between Affleck and Bernthal as brothers who each have their own way of finding information in some hilarious scenes and as brothers who are trying to forge a relationship with each other despite these differences in some touching ones.  This was a mixed bag for me and I suspect people who are fans of buddy comedies or action movies will like it but fans of the first movie might not.

Pride & Prejudice

Believe it or not I didn't see Joe Wright's adaptation of Pride & Prejudice when it was first released because I didn't think it could possibly compare to the BBC version and I couldn't see Keira Knightley as my very favorite character from literature.  Of course I now love it and I have probably seen it close to a hundred times, just never on the big screen.  It is back in theaters for a limited run to commemorate its twentieth anniversary (what?) and I was beyond excited to finally see it as it was meant to be seen with my sister (I think she loves it more than I do) last night.  Even though I initially thought that Knightley was much too beautiful to play Elizabeth Bennet as she is written in the novel by Jane Austen, I really love her plucky performance and her chemistry with Matthew Macfadyen, who gives Mr. Darcy a vulnerability that makes me swoon, is off the charts as they spar with each other.  The scene where it looks like they are leaning in for a kiss but then touch their foreheads together instead had everyone in the crowded theater audibly sighing.  I also love everyone else in the ensemble, especially Tom Hollander as the priggish Mr. Collins (the audience laughed out loud at the comment about the excellent boiled potatoes), Donald Sutherland as the curmudgeonly Mr. Bennet (I love the tears in his eyes as he gives his permission for Elizabeth to marry Mr. Darcy), Judi Dench as the imperious Lady Catherine de Bourg (she is just so mean), and Kelly Reilly as the haughty Caroline Bingley (her side-eye is second to none).  The shot composition is absolutely brilliant and my favorites are the tracking shot as Elizabeth walks through a field while reading a book, the shot of Elizabeth walking away from Mr. Darcy with a smirk on her face at the assembly hall, the shot of Elizabeth and Jane (Rosamund Pike) talking under the covers, the continuous shot of Betsy (Sinead Matthews) walking through the house amidst preparations for the Netherfield ball, the shot where Mr. Darcy suddenly appears behind Elizabeth and then quickly disappears at the Netherfield ball, the shot of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy dancing in a crowd which then cuts to them dancing alone at the Netherfield ball, the shot showing the passage of time as Elizabeth spins on a swing, the shot when Mr. Darcy sees Elizabeth in the mirror at Pemberley, and, of course, the wide shot of Mr. Darcy walking towards Elizabeth through the mist as the sun rises (sigh).  The visuals are gorgeous (one of the reasons why I was so excited to see it on the big screen) and I loved the locations used for Meryton, Longbourn, Netherfield, Rosings, and Pemberley as well as those in the Peak District (the shot of Elizabeth overlooking the moor with the wind blowing is iconic).  Even though I do love an empire waist, I think the use of an eighteenth century silhouette for the costumes really works and the subtle change from stiffly formal to completely undone in Darcy's costumes is incredibly effective (sigh).  Finally, the score is amazing (the reason I think my sister loves this movie just a bit more than I do is because she owns the soundtrack) and I especially love that the same piece, based on a Beethoven piano sonata, used in the opening scene is also played by Elizabeth and Georgiana (Tamzin Merchant).  I love this movie and it was so much fun to see it with my sister (we recited all our favorite bits of dialogue the whole drive home).  I definitely recommend seeing this while it is in theaters!

The Ugly Stepsister

I had planned on seeing The Ugly Stepsister at Sundance this year and I was even in line for the screening but I decided that I was too tired to enjoy it and went home instead (festival fatigue is real).  When I saw that it was playing at the Broadway, I went to a matinee yesterday and I really liked this twisted take on Cinderella.  Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp) marries Otto (Ralph Carlsson) because she thinks he is wealthy but is dismayed to learn that he was penniless after he dies.  She now must take care of her daughters Elvira (Lea Myren) and Alma (Flo Fagerli), as well as her new stepdaughter Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Naess), on her own.  She believes that the only solution is for one of her daughters to marry well and, since Alma is too young, she pins her hopes on Elvira even though she thinks that she is unattractive.  Elvira fantasizes about marrying Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth) so, when it is announced that he is throwing a ball, she submits to her mother's primitive and painful attempts to make her beautiful even though her personality deteriorates as her physical appearance improves.  The prince seems to fall in love with her at the ball but he ignores her when an enchanted version of Agnes suddenly appears.  When Elvira realizes that it is Agnes who has stolen her prince, she moves to attack her but Agnes escapes leaving behind her shoe.  The prince declares that he will only marry the girl whose foot fits inside the shoe so a desperate Elvira maims herself (this occurs in the original fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm).  What I found interesting is that every character is extremely unsympathetic (even Agnes because she is really in love with the stable boy but is willing to marry the prince to escape her stepmother) except for Alma, who cares nothing for beauty and does most of the work around the estate, and it is she who ultimately rescues Elvira.  The commentary on the lengths to which women will go to be beautiful reminded me of The Substance but this takes the body horror to a whole new level!  It is sometimes really gross and there was a scene involving a tape worm that actually made me gag (there were lots of audible reactions from the crowd to several other scenes).  The production design, costumes, and score are all what you would expect from a traditional fairy tale so this subversive take is a lot of fun!  I dug it but I would only recommend it to those with strong stomachs!