Kiss of the Spider Woman

I was absolutely blown away by Kiss of the Spider Woman when I saw it at Sundance this year so I was really excited to see it again with my sister Kristine last night.  I loved it just as much, if not more, upon a second viewing!  During a brutal military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1980s, Luis Molina (Tonatiuh), a flamboyantly gay window dresser, is jailed for public indecency and placed in the same cell as a political dissident named Valentin Arregui (Diego Luna).  The Warden (Bruno Bichir) offers Molina early parole if he can get Valentin to reveal important information about his revolutionary activities but this seems unlikely as the two of them take an immediate disliking to each other.  However, the bleak conditions in the prison prompt Molina to begin describing his favorite movie musical starring Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez) as a way to escape their circumstances and they soon form an unlikely bond.  As the musical comes vividly to life in technicolor, Molina starts to feel conflicted about betraying Valentin as life imitates art.  As a huge fan of movie musicals, I love that the characters use the genre as a way to escape from reality and as inspiration and I love all of the old Hollywood musicals that are referenced in the big production numbers (especially An American in Paris, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Singin' in the Rain).  I love the bright and effervescent color palette and the dynamic choreography, especially when juxtaposed with the drab and dreary scenes in the prison, because it really emphasizes the fantasy even if the songs themselves are largely forgettable.  Lopez is brilliant in a role that was made for her and I particularly enjoyed her singing and dancing in "Gimme Love" because she is dazzling. Luna is more subdued but I liked his sensitive portrayal of Valentin’s arc of learning how to love.  I was most impressed with Tonatiuh because he steals the show with an incredibly nuanced performance that is both tender and powerful and his rendition of "She's a Woman" is beautiful.  This might not be for everyone because there are some dark themes but, ultimately, it is about the transformative power of art and I highly recommend it.

Roofman

I have been looking forward to Roofman ever since I saw the first trailer so my nephew and I went to see it with a big Saturday night crowd.  It is funny but it is also much more poignant than I was expecting and I really liked it.  Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum) is at loose ends and estranged from his wife and children after being discharged from the military.  He is especially upset at not being able to give his children everything they want so, after observing the routines and schedules of a local McDonald's restaurant, he breaks in through the roof at night and surprises the early morning shift in order to rob the safe. He continues until he is eventually caught and sentenced to prison but, once again, he exploits the routines and schedules to escape.  He takes refuge in a Toys "R" Us store while he waits for his friend, and fellow soldier, Steve (LaKeith Stanfield) to procure him the necessary documents to leave the country.  However, Steve is deployed and will not be back for six months so he creates a more permanent hiding place behind a display.  He figures out how to stop the CCTV cameras from recording, roams the store at night, subsists on peanut M&Ms, and washes in the employee bathroom but he gets bored so he sets up baby monitors around the store so he can observe the employees.  He surreptitiously intervenes when Mitch (Peter Dinklage), the ill-mannered manager of the store, refuses to accommodate a scheduling request from Leigh Wainscott (Kirsten Dunst) and this eventually leads to a relationship with her and her two daughters, Lindsay (Lily Collias) and Dee (Kennedy Moyer).  When Steve returns and provides his documents, his relationship with Leigh wreaks havoc on his plans for escape.  Tatum gives an outstanding performance, one of his very best, and he handles both the humor and the pathos with a deftness that is sometimes difficult to achieve.  He is so charismatic that you root for him to succeed even though what he is doing is wrong and I really liked his arc as he discovers that people just need love rather than things.  I appreciated the deliberate development of his relationship with Leigh, even if the action does get a bit bogged down towards the end, because it provides a compelling motivation for his actions.  Dunst is also outstanding (she has tremendous chemistry with Tatum) and Dinklage is an amusing villain.  I thought that I would probably enjoy this but I am surprised by just how much I liked it.  I highly recommend it!

The Scarlet Pimpernel at Hopebox Theatre

One of my favorite novels when I was a teenager was The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy (I also loved the movie starring Jane Seymour and Anthony Andrews) so I am obviously a big fan of the stage adaptation. Last night I got to see it at the Hopebox Theatre and I was very impressed by the elaborate production. English aristocrat Percy Blakeney (Ricky Dowse) disguises himself as the Scarlet Pimpernel and recruits a band of followers to save his counterparts in France from the sinister Chauvelin (Dugan Brunker) and the guillotine during the French Revolution. He keeps his identity secret from his new wife Marguerite St. Just (Chrissy Andreasen), a Parisian actress, because he believes that she is helping Chauvelin, her former lover. He is also keeping his identity a secret from the Prince of Wales (Roger Brunker) by pretending to be a foppish nincompoop. His journeys to France are fraught with danger but he must make his most daring rescue when Marguerite is arrested trying to save her brother Armand (Porter Beesley). All three of the leads are fantastic and I loved their voices. Dowse is really entertaining as Percy and I laughed out loud at all of his dandified antics, especially his rendition of "The Creation of Man," but he is also very stirring in his performance of "Into the Fire" (my favorite song in the show) and quite affecting in "She Was There." Brunker is one of the best Chauvelins I've seen because his versions of "Falcon in the Dive" and "Where's the Girl" are incredibly passionate and his exasperation with Percy is a lot of fun. Andreasen is a lovely Marguerite and she sings "Storybook," "When I Look at You," and "I'll Forget You" beautifully and with a lot of emotion. The three of them also harmonize really well together in "The Riddle." The staging of the big musical numbers on such a small stage is extremely clever, especially "Into the Fire" because the boat used by the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel to travel from England to France appears suddenly from the rafters and the wings (I loved that Percy's boat is renamed Rachel's Resolve in honor of Rachel Rounds, the Wall of Hope recipient for this production, because it is such a touching detail), and the choreography is incredibly dynamic, particularly the integration of props (I loved the butterfly net and the cricket bat) in "Into the Fire" and "The Creation of Man" as well as the intricate patterns created by the dancers in "Ouilles Gavotte." This is a small community theatre but they really went all out with the costumes and set. Marguerite's gowns are gorgeous but the outfits worn by the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel take "frou frou" to the next level! The backdrop consists of marble archways and various set pieces for Marguerite's carousel at the Comédie-Française, Percy's study, the garden at the Bakeney estate, a prison, and the guillotine appear on stage by way of a turntable featuring a scarlet pimpernel. The guillotine is especially dramatic and a shadow effect used to show the drop of the blade is very effective. I had so much fun watching this show and I highly encourage everyone to get a ticket because, not only will you be entertained, you will be supporting a very worthwhile cause! It runs Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays (with a Saturday matinee) through Nov. 1. Tickets may be purchased here but act quickly because most shows are either sold out or have limited availability (although there is a possibility that more shows will be added).

Anemone

I was thrilled when I learned that Daniel Day-Lewis was coming out of retirement to star in his son's directorial debut, Anemone, and I immediately wanted to see it.  My nephew and I finally had the opportunity at the Broadway last night but, unfortunately, we were both incredibly disappointed.  In fact, the more we talked about it, the more we disliked it.  Ray Stoker (Day-Lewis) was so traumatized by his experiences as a paramilitary officer in Northern Ireland in the 1960s that he left his wife Nessa (Samantha Morton) and infant son Brian to live in self-imposed exile in a remote cottage in the woods.  Now, many years later, Brian (Samuel Bottomley) is struggling after joining the military himself and fears that he will end up just like his father.  Nessa sends Jem (Sean Bean), Ray's estranged brother, to deliver a letter asking him to return and help his son.  Tensions are palpable when Jem arrives because there is a lot of unresolved conflict between the brothers, most notably the fact that Jem is now married to Nessa and has raised Brian, but Ray eventually achieves a reconciliation with his brother and the possibility of one with his son.  Day-Lewis is a compelling presence (and often a terrifying one) on screen during the many scenes of protracted silence but it is in two very powerful monologues, especially the one in which he finally reveals the incident that psychologically scarred him, that he really proves why he is one of the greatest actors of his generation.  Bean and Morton are also outstanding actors but they are not given much to do beyond reacting with stoicism or concern, respectively.  The cinematography featuring the surrounding landscape is beautiful and atmospheric but there are also lots of intricately composed shots that range from vaguely symbolic (I had no idea what many of them were meant to represent, especially the supernatural elements) to utterly pretentious.  Finally, even though the story is slight, the pacing is still extremely sluggish (at least 30 minutes could have been removed from the runtime) and it becomes very boring tedious watching similar scenes over and over again. I really wanted to like this because I am a big fan of Day-Lewis but I wouldn't recommend it.

TRON: Ares

Last night my nephew and I went to an early access screening of TRON: Ares in IMAX and I had so much fun watching it!  Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), the CEO of Dillinger Systems, and Eve Kim (Greta Lee), the CEO of ENCOM, both have access to a generative laser that can reproduce digital structures in the real word.  Dillinger wants to militarize this technology, much to the dismay of his mother Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson) who wants to regain control of the company, and creates a highly sophisticated program known as Ares (Jared Leto) that can be used in battle while Kim wants to use it to solve world hunger and creates an orange tree.  However, the technology is in the early stages and anything created with it degenerates in 29 minutes.  Kim eventually finds a Permanence Code created by Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), the former CEO of ENCOM, and Dillinger will do anything to get it from her.  He sends Ares and another program named Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith) to the real world to capture the code but, when Kim destroys it, they bring her to the grid to extract it from her memory.  Complications ensue when Ares decides to ignore his directive and protect Kim and when Athena decides to do whatever is necessary to complete it.  When I walked into the theater, I was hoping for mind-blowing visuals, an epic score, a story that made sense, and a performance from Leto that wasn't too weird and I definitely got all of that!  We saw this in 3D and I absolutely loved all of the dynamic chase sequences, especially when Ares and Athena are trying to capture Kim in the real world and when Ares and Kim are trying to evade Athena in the digital world because the trails of light are absolutely dazzling, and the final confrontation between Ares and Athena because it is so striking to see the competing red and blue lights on their suits.  I also loved that when Dillinger hacks into the ENCOM server it is portrayed by having Ares and the rest of the programs physically break in to the digital structure.  I am a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails and the score is so propulsive that I could hardly take a breath.  I think the techno-synth music really emphasizes the tension between the digital world and the real world.  The story is so much better than I was expecting and I found the comparisons to Frankenstein, particularly when Ares rebels against his creator and discovers his humanity, to be very thought-provoking.  Finally, I really enjoyed the performances from everyone in the cast, especially Lee.  Leto is not my favorite actor but his surprisingly restrained delivery really works for the character and it often provides a bit of comic relief as Ares learns about the real world (I loved the running bit about his love for Depeche Mode).  This was everything I hoped it would be and I had an absolute blast watching it with my nephew!  I recommend it to fans of the franchise.