Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real at the Commonwealth Room

I became a fan of Promise of the Real when I saw them perform with Neil Young on tour.  I thought they had a really great rock-country sound.  Then I found out that Lukas Nelson co-wrote some of the songs for the movie A Star is Born with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga and that Promise of the Real performs in the movie as Jackson Maine's band.  I loved these songs and I bought the movie soundtrack and listened to it over and over.  Then I discovered Promise of the Real's latest self-titled album which I also love.  When I found out that they were coming to SLC I bought a ticket as soon as they went on sale (which was a good thing because the show sold out very quickly) and I've been looking forward to it for so long!  I had never been to the Commonwealth Room before last night and now I think it is a great venue because it is so intimate.  I ended up right in front of the stage which was fantastic because Lukas Nelson is pretty easy on the eyes.  The older woman standing next to me said that if she was my age she would be chasing after him!  Not only is he good looking but he is very talented and charismatic and he and his band certainly know how to put on a good show!  They played their songs "Find Yourself" (which is my favorite), "Fool Me Once," "Just Outside of Austin," "Carolina," "Four Letter Word," "Little Girl," "Start to Go," "Forget About Georgia," "Turn Off the News," and "Something Real."  They also played a few songs off their forthcoming album, including "Save a Little Heartache" and "Where Does Love Go When It Dies" which I really liked.  I loved hearing all of these songs live because Lukas sounds so much like his Dad (who just happens to be Willie Nelson).  They also performed a few covers including a super sultry version of Tom Petty's "Breakdown," "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones, and "L.A. Woman" by the Doors.  The highlight for me came during the encore when they played an amazing version of "Shallow" from A Star is Born.  It was incredibly powerful and it gave me goosebumps (even though it didn't include Lady Gaga).  This was my first concert of 2019 and it was definitely a good one!

Cold Pursuit

I went into Cold Pursuit last night thinking that it would be a typical Liam Neeson revenge movie.  While it is an action thriller that revolves around a father seeking vengeance for the death of his son, it is also a strangely compelling dark comedy that I liked much more than I thought I would.  Nels Coxman (Neeson) is a snowplow driver in the Colorado ski town of Kehoe.  His son Kyle (Michael Richardson), a baggage handler at the Kehoe airport, dies of an overdose of heroin.  Believing that his son didn't use drugs, Coxman investigates and discovers that he was killed by a drug cartel in Denver over a misplaced cocaine shipment.  He vows revenge and kills the three men directly responsible for Kyle's death but then decides to take down the leader of the cartel, Trevor "Viking" Calcote (Tom Bateman), as well.  Chaos ensues when Viking mistakenly assumes that his men were killed by the local Ute tribe, led by White Bull (Tom Jackson), who control the drug trade in Kehoe.  When his only son is killed by Viking in retribution, White Bull also vows revenge.  This leads to an epic shootout between Coxman, White Bull's gang, and Viking's gang, leaving an ambitious Kehoe police officer (Emmy Rossum) to sort out the bodies.  This movie is filled with eccentric characters (each with a nickname) who behave in such an over-the-top manner that it almost seems like a spoof of the genre.  All of their bizarre antics are wildly entertaining, especially the irreverent ways in which Coxman kills and disposes of the bodies of his victims, and I laughed out loud at the gallows humor many times.  My favorite part of the movie is when each character gets a full-screen "in memoriam" card, complete with nickname, after he is killed (the entire screen is filled with names and nicknames after the shootout!).  It gets pretty wacky (imagine if Taken and Fargo had a baby) but I enjoyed it.

Note:  This movie even has its own version of Fargo's infamous woodchipper scene.

They Shall Not Grow Old

My great-grandfather fought in World War I with the Gordon Highlanders and was wounded at the Battle of Ypres so I have had a lifelong fascination with this war.  I really wanted to see They Shall Not Grow Old, the Peter Jackson documentary commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, but I missed the original screenings for one reason or another.  I was so excited when I found out that it was returning to theaters for a limited engagement and I went to see it yesterday.  It begins with the black and white, silent, and grainy footage that we have all seen before and then transitions into restored and colorized images with recreated sound.  I know that many people are against colorizing old film footage but, to me, this gave the images an immediacy that I had never experienced before, as if these events had happened during my lifetime rather than one hundred years ago.  It is incredibly powerful to see!  The documentary also includes audio of interviews with 120 veterans about their experiences as British soldiers on the western front and these are incredibly moving.  I was struck by several commonalities in the narrative.  First, the men were very eager to enlist because, not only did they want to do their part for king and country, they also wanted adventure.  Many of them were leaving the villages where they were born for the first time!  Second, most of them didn't complain about the truly horrific conditions in the trenches because they felt they had a job to do and simply got on with it.  Third, they regarded the German prisoners of war as lads just like themselves and started wondering why they were being asked to kill them.  Fourth, most of them reported that there were no celebrations on Armistice Day and many of them wondered what would happen to them now that the war was over.  Several mentioned that they were more concerned about going home than they were about enlisting!  These anonymous voices make the war come alive and I thought of my own great-grandfather many times, especially when the footage included men in kilts and the sound of a plaintive bagpipe.  I highly recommend seeing this extraordinary film while it is still in theaters!

Lend Me A Tenor at CPT

Last night I had the chance to see Lend Me A Tenor, the current production at CenterPoint Theatre, and it was so much fun.  Henry Saunders (Michael Hohl), the general manager of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company, has invited the world-renowned tenor Tito Merelli (Dale Boam) to perform for one night only. He asks his assistant Max (Michael Gardner) to get Merelli to the opera house on time but, when Merelli is indisposed, he has to take drastic action. Add a jealous wife (Holly Reid), an ambitious diva (Kati Paul), a love-struck daughter (Katie Plott), a ditsy opera guild president (Laura Krummenacher), and an opera loving bellhop (Holden Smith) and hilarity ensues. It took a little while for this show to get going but, once it did, it was full of physical comedy and mistaken identity that had the audience howling with laughter. I especially enjoyed a scene where both Tito and Max, who is impersonating Tito, are entertaining women in the hotel suite and then the women inadvertently end up with different Titos. The set, which features a hotel sitting room and bedroom with a connecting door (which are both visible to the audience), is fantastic and really adds to the action as Tito and Max run in and out while slamming doors. The costumes are also a lot of fun, especially the opera guild president's dress ("You look like the Chrysler building!") and the costume Tito (and Max!) wears as Othello. The cast has great comedic timing, particularly Gardner who has great facial expressions as the overwrought Max. As an opera fan, I really enjoyed the arias used at the end of scenes because the subject mimics the action. I'm sure most audience members didn't catch on but I laughed out loud when Mozart's "Lacrimosa" played after Tito is presumed dead!  I recommend this hilarious show for a fun night out (go here for tickets).

Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique"

It seems like it has been such a long time since I've been to Abravanel Hall to hear the Utah Symphony so I was very happy to be there last night for a concert featuring one of my favorite composers!  The orchestra began with the Overture to Tannhauser by Richard Wagner and I absolutely loved it!  This opera is about the temptation and ultimate redemption of a troubadour and the music is incredibly dramatic (I loved the themes played by the brass)!  After this performance I definitely need to put this opera on my list ones I want to see!  Next came a trio of pieces by Hector Berlioz: Sara la baigneuse, Ballade for Three Choruses and Orchestra featuring the Utah Symphony Chorus and the University of Utah Chamber Choir; "La Mort d'Ophelie" from Tristia featuring the women from the aforementioned choruses; and Reverie et caprice for Violin and Orchestra featuring an amazing performance by soloist Philippe Quint.  I loved all of these pieces but I especially enjoyed the second because I am obsessed with the play Hamlet and I could see Ophelia's death scene very clearly as I listened to the beautiful and ethereal music.  After the intermission, the orchestra played Symphony No. 6  ("Pathetique") by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.  I love the Russian composers because their music is very emotional and this piece, in particular, is almost unbearably so.  I especially enjoyed the final movement because I think it is so passionate and filled with such longing.  This was the best interpretation of this piece that I have ever heard and I had tears in my eyes at its conclusion!  It was an evening filled with music from three of the best composers from the 19th century romantic era performed beautifully by the Utah Symphony and I loved every minute of it!  I highly recommend getting a ticket to tonight's performance of the same program (go here).

Destroyer

Last night I went to see Destroyer, a film I've been wanting to see for months.  The trailer really intrigued me because it seemed to feature a tormented character looking for redemption which is a favorite theme of mine.  The tormented character in this film is LAPD Detective Erin Bell (Nicole Kidman) who, twenty years ago, infiltrated a notorious gang in an undercover operation with an FBI agent (Sebastian Stan) that involved a robbery gone wrong.  She was clearly traumatized by this event and, with her career in shambles and her relationship with her daughter (Jade Pettyjohn) in crisis, she responds to a murder scene which she believes is a message for her that Silas (Toby Kebbell), the leader of the gang, has resurfaced.  On her own, she cruises the underbelly of Los Angeles looking for former gang members Toby (James Jordan), Arturo (Zach Villa), and Petra (Tatiana Maslany) as well as DiFranco (Bradley Whitford), a crooked lawyer who launders money for the gang, to find Silas and exact vengeance.  Interspersed with her search for Silas are flashbacks to her time in the gang and the ill-fated robbery with an interesting revelation about her participation (and another interesting revelation in the present).  It is a fairly standard story of revenge but it is elevated by a transformative performance by Kidman who makes you care about a thoroughly unpleasant person doing reprehensible things.  The rest of the cast is uniformly good as well, especially Whitford and Maslany.  This film, in many ways, reminded me of You Were Never Really Here in that there is a kind of beauty in the brutality (Bell is thoroughly battered and bruised throughout but never wavers in her determination to set things right) and the redemption comes from an unexpected source.  Not everyone will enjoy this movie but I think it is brilliant.

Sundance Film Festival 2019

The Sundance Film Festival has concluded for 2019 and I had such a great time!  I am incredibly sleep deprived but I saw some amazing films and had some wonderful conversations with film aficionados from all over the world (including a couple from Sweden and a really cool girl from Toronto).  I was able to see fifteen films this year including two with students!  My first film was a documentary called Stieg Larsson: The Man Who Played With Fire which intrigued me because I am a huge fan of the Millennium series of books.  It chronicles Larrson's job as a journalist as he relentlessly investigated neo-Nazis and the extreme right in Europe, wrote books about the subject, and founded a magazine called Expo.  This suggests that he is every bit as interesting as his character Mikael Blomkvist.  I found it fascinating and alarming that so many extreme groups exist in Europe.  My second film was Adam, a comedy about a naive and inexperienced high school student (Nicholas Alexander) who convinces his parents to let him spend the summer in New York City with his older sister (Margaret Qualley) who is hiding the fact that she is a lesbian from them.  He attends a party with his sister and her LGTBQ friends and meets Gillian (Bobbi Salvor Menuez).  He immediately falls in love with her but she is a lesbian and she thinks that he is transgender.  Hilarity ensues as he tries to keep up the ruse.  This film is really funny and what I liked most about it is that a cisgendered heterosexual male is the outsider whose character arc involves learning how to accept others.  My third film was To the Stars which is set in a rural town in Oklahoma during the 1960s.  Iris Deerborne (Kara Hayward) is an incredibly repressed teenager who is bullied by her mother and all of the kids at school.  Her life changes when she meets a new girl from the city with a secret (Liana Liberato).  It was shot in black and white which made it quite moody and atmospheric and, while it did become heavy-handed at times, I enjoyed this coming of age story.  My fourth film was another documentary called David Crosby: Remember My Name.  It is a brutally honest portrait of a man living with regrets with an amazing soundtrack!  As a fan of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young I really loved it!  My fifth film was a free midnight screening of Honey Boy.  The script was written by Shia LaBeouf about his own experiences as a child actor with an abusive father.  Lucas Hedges plays Otis, a young actor on a downward spiral when several DUIs and a drunken tirade land him in court-mandated rehab.  He is forced to confront his past through a series of flashbacks with Noah Jupe playing the young Otis and LaBeouf brilliantly playing his own father.  It is a beautiful and heartbreaking film and I am so glad I got to see it (even though I might be getting too old for these midnight screenings on school nights).  My sixth film was The Souvenir, a huge hit with the critics which I found to be a bit boring.  Julie (Honor Swinton-Byrne) is a young and inexperienced film student from a wealthy and privileged background struggling to find her voice.  She meets an older and charismatic man named Anthony (Tom Burke) and they begin a tumultuous affair.  Julie eventually discovers that Anthony is a heroin addict and their doomed relationship helps her find her voice as a filmmaker.  This film is incredibly episodic and vague and, even though many scenes are incredibly beautiful, sometimes they seem rather pointless.  I think it requires more engagement than I was willing to give it.  My seventh film was a student screening of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (go here for my review).  I really loved this film and so did my students.  My eighth film was Them That Follow, an incredibly atmospheric coming of age story about a young girl in rural Appalachia.  Mara (Alice Englert) is a devout member of a snake-handling Pentacostal community who is about to enter an arranged marriage but is secretly in love with a nonbeliever.  She must choose between her beliefs and the man she loves.  It starts very slowly but, when it gets going, it is very intense (audience members at my screening gasped out loud multiple times).  My ninth film was Midnight Traveler.  One of my colleagues in the English department asked me to chaperone his field trip to another student screening (he chaperoned my field trip, too).  This documentary chronicles the harrowing three year journey that filmmaker Hassan Fazili and his family, including two young daughters, take from Afghanistan to Europe seeking asylum after he receives a death threat from the Taliban.  The students were incredibly affected by everything this family had to go through which is truly heartbreaking.  My tenth film was The Last Black Man in San Francisco, a story about a young black man (Jimmie Fails) and his obsession with a Victorian house built by his grandfather.  It is a fresh, original, and quirky exploration of identity, friendship, gentrification, and urban violence.  I really liked it but it might not be for everyone.  My eleventh film was Clemency, which is my favorite film of the festival.  It is a powerful story about the death penalty (to which I am vehemently opposed) and how it affects those who are required to carry out executions.  Alfre Woodard stars as warden Bernadine Williams who conducts these "procedures" dispassionately and by the letter of the law until she suffers from PTSD over a botched execution.  She then becomes emotionally involved with Anthony Woods (Aldis Hodge), the next inmate scheduled for execution who may well be innocent.  Both Woodard and Hodge give brilliant and affecting performances which reduced me, and the entire audience, to tears multiple times.  I highly recommend this amazing film.  My twelfth film, Top End Wedding, is about a young woman's search for her mother and, ultimately, her own identity before her wedding.  I'm not usually a fan of romantic comedies but I had to see this film because it stars Gwilym Lee (who played Brian May in Bohemian Rhapsody)!  It is fairly typical of the genre but it is quite funny and I enjoyed the setting in Australia.  My thirteenth film was Brittany Runs a Marathon, another favorite of mine.  Brittany (Gillian Bell) spends her evenings partying at clubs, her mornings recovering from hangovers, and her afternoons going late to her dead-end job as a ticket taker at a theatre.  She goes to a doctor to get a prescription for adderall but, instead, is told that she needs to lose weight or face serious health consequences.  She decides to start running and, eventually, to train for the New York Marathon.  This film is not just about Brittany's journey to run a marathon but it is also about her journey learning to love herself and I think it is not only funny but also incredibly inspiring.  I loved it!  My fourteenth film was Official Secrets which tells the true story of Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), a whistleblower who leaks a classified document to the press hoping to stop the Iraq War.  I liked this film for its important story about an ordinary woman willing to face catastrophic consequences in order to follow her conscience as well as its stellar cast (the aforementioned Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Matthew Goode, Matt Smith, Jeremy Northam, and Rhys Ifans).  My fifteenth and final film was Love, Antosha, a documentary about the late actor Anton Yelchin.  It begins when his parents, professional ice skaters Irina and Viktor, decide to leave the Soviet Union to give their infant son a better life in the United States.  We learn that Anton suffered from cystic fibrosis, was not just a precocious child actor but a dedicated student of film, and was an accomplished photographer and musician (all of which I did not know before this film).  There are very touching interviews with many of his co-stars (most notably Chris Pine, Jennifer Lawrence, Martin Landeau, and Jodie Foster).  It made me miss him all over again!  Fifteen movies, ten days, five venues, two student screenings, and zero sleep produced countless memories!  I loved every minute!

Note:  It's nice to know that I have good taste!  All of my favorite films won awards this year:  Clemency won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, The Last Black Man in San Francisco won the U.S. Dramatic Directing Prize, Honey Boy won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Vision and Craft, Brittany Runs a Marathon won the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award, and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize.  Good stuff!

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Wicked at the Eccles

I took a little break from the Sundance Film Festival (a full wrap-up is coming soon) to see the musical Wicked with my sister.  When I found out that the Broadway at the Eccles 2018-2019 season would include Wicked as an add-on to the season package, I thought that, since I have seen it so many times, I didn’t need to get a ticket.  Then I realized how sad I would be if I didn't see it while it was in SLC and decided that I had to go.  My sister Kristine had never seen it before so I got a ticket for her and she was so excited!  Even though I have seen it so many times I think I was just as excited as she was.  This show is extremely clever at telling the story of what happened to the Wicked Witch of the West, Glinda the Good, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the East, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow before Dorothy makes an appearance in Oz.  Not only do I love the story but I also love every single song ("What Is This Feeling?," "I'm Not That Girl," and "As Long As You're Mine" are my favorites), the elaborate costumes, the choreography, and the steampunk set design.  It is such an amazing show!  This particular production featured two of the best actresses I've seen as Glinda (Kara Lindsay) and Elphaba (Jackie Burns).  Lindsay is so funny and is particularly adept at all of the physical comedy in the role, especially in the song "Popular." Every actress I've seen play Glinda has added some little bit of business in "Popular" to make it her own and Lindsay was hysterical with her high kicks!  Burns has an incredibly powerful voice, especially in "Defying Gravity" and "No Good Deed."   She definitely gave me goosebumps!  The rest of the cast is great and I particularly liked Jody Gelb as Madame Morrible (I love all of the character's malapropisms).  This is a production that I highly recommend (even if you have seen it as many times as I have) and it runs at the Eccles Theatre until March 3.  Most shows have sold out but I have noticed tickets on the ArtTix website.

Note:  I ran into my dear friend Karen in the elevator, I saw one of my current students in the lobby, and found one of my colleagues in the English department at intermission (I got her tickets before they went on sale to the public).  I felt really popular!

Sundance Student Screening 2019

Yesterday I had my annual Sundance Film Festival field trip which is always a hit with the students.  I actually had several students ask me about it at the beginning of the school year and I had a group of students who have gone with me all three years (they asked if they could come next year even though they are graduating).  Being able to take my students to see a film is always a highlight of the festival for me and I am so grateful that the Sundance Institute, with support from the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation, provides these free screenings for students every year!  I derive so much enjoyment from the arts and it means so much to me to be able to share that with my students.  The film that we got to see this year was The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind which tells the true story of how a boy was able to save his entire village in Malawi during a severe drought by building a windmill to create electricity to power a water pump to irrigate the crops.  I really loved this film because, not only is it incredibly life-affirming, it also has a powerful message about the importance of education.  William (Maxwell Simba) is not allowed to attend school because his parents can no longer pay the fees but he sneaks into the school library every day to learn how to create electricity.  Simba is incredibly endearing and sympathetic in the role and there were times when I had tears in my eyes (so did my students), especially when he tries to convince his Dad (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to give up his bicycle to use for parts.  This film is Ejiofor's directorial debut and he was there for a Q & A afterwards.  My students were very taken with him and asked some great questions.  They loved the film as much as I did and talked about it the whole way back to school on the bus.  It was a really great experience for both me and my students.

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Serenity

The second movie in my Thursday night double feature was Serenity which looked like another intriguing psychological thriller.  It wasn't.  Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) is a down on his luck Iraq War veteran who makes his living taking tourists out on his fishing boat on an island off the coast of Florida.  He is obsessed with catching an elusive fish which sometimes causes problems with his paying customers.  He is often reduced to taking money from Constance (Diane Lane), his sometime lover, to pay for the gas to run his boat and must fire his first mate Duke (Djimon Hounsou) because he can't pay him.  Things change when Baker's ex-wife Karen (Anne Hathaway) approaches him to murder her abusive husband Frank (Jason Clarke) at sea for $10 million.  He initially refuses but begins to consider the offer for the sake of his son Patrick (Rafael Sayegh) who lives with Karen and Frank.  A mysterious businessman in a suit (Jeremy Strong), who has been stalking Baker, causes him to question his reality when he finally does make contact.  I have heard some critics refer to this movie as the worst of 2019 but they have clearly not seen Replicas which gets my vote for that dubious honor.  Like Replicas, this movie has an interesting concept, which could have been a really atmospheric noir thriller, but it is derailed by its execution and a completely implausible plot twist that I saw coming well before it was revealed.  Even though it is ridiculous and full of holes, this plot twist could have provided an interesting exploration of free will but, instead, we get McConaughey emoting in a sugarcane field.  Speaking of which, there is a lot of cringe-worthy dialogue (Hathaway refers to Clarke as "Daddy" more times than I could count) and most of the characters come across as wooden caricatures rather than actual people.  The only reason that it ranks slightly above Replicas is because of the cinematography.  Beautiful shots of ocean waves and sunsets are nicer to look at than sub-par CGI shots of robots any day!  Avoid both of these movies!

Glass

Last night I finally had a chance to see Glass, M. Night Shyamalan's sequel to Unbreakable and Split.  As one of the few people who actually liked Unbreakable, I was very eager to see it and, while there are problems, I really enjoyed this psychological thriller.  The movie begins with David Dunn (Bruce Willis) who, with technical support from his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark), acts as The Overseer, a vigilante taking down criminals using his extrasensory perception.  He encounters Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) and learns the location of four girls whom Crumb has abducted.  The Overseer confronts him in the persona of The Beast which culminates in their arrest and imprisonment in the mental institution where Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), known as Mr. Glass, is being held.  Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulsen), a psychiatrist specializing in treating people with delusions of grandeur, tries to convince David, Kevin, and Elijah that they are normal and that their superpowers have logical explanations.  She enlists Joseph, Mrs. Price (Charlayne Woodard), and Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), who survived an attack by The Beast, to help convince the three that they are mentally ill rather than extraordinary.  Glass, acting in the role of a superhero mastermind, plans the escape of all three hoping for an epic showdown between The Overseer and The Beast to show the world that superheroes really do exist but they are ultimately stopped by Staple.  Of course, in true Shyamalan form, there are several plot twists which lead to some redemption.  While there are some rather sketchy plot holes in the narrative, I enjoyed Shyamalan's supposition that comic books are the mythology of real world superheroes.  I also really liked the theme that it is important to see people as they really are.  All three leads give fantastic performances.  McAvoy believably moves from character to character in an instant, Willis gives one of his best performances in recent memory, and Jackson is completely over the top.  The production design is really interesting with each character inhabiting a specific color (carried over from the previous movies) juxtaposed with an otherwise drab institutional color palette and the hand-held camera work reinforces the claustrophobia.  The biggest issue I have with this movie is that it sometimes has way too much exposition, as if Shyamalan doesn't think the audience has seen the prequels.  However, I think this is an interesting and entertaining end to the saga and would recommend it.

Roma

The nominees for the Best Picture Academy Award were announced yesterday and there was only one film that I hadn't seen yet (you can read my commentaries for Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Vice, and A Star Is Born by clicking on the titles).  Since I always like to see the nominated films before the big ceremony, I decided to see Roma while it was still playing at one of my favorite art house theatres last night.  This movie is a masterpiece.  It chronicles a year in the life of a domestic servant named Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) and the affluent family she works for in Mexico City during the early 1970s.  Much of the narrative involves the mundane chores of Cleo's every day life: cleaning the house and courtyard, cooking and serving meals to the family, waking the four children, taking them to school, and putting them to bed.  Soon, however, both Cleo and Sofia (Marina de Tevira), the matriarch of the family, face a similar situation.  Cleo begins a relationship with Fermin (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) and, when she discovers that she is pregnant, he leaves her (in one of the most heartbreaking scenes I've ever seen).  Sofia's husband Antonio (Fernando Grediaga) leaves to attend a medical conference in Quebec and when it is over he does not return to the family's home.  The tumult in their personal lives is mirrored by the unrest in Mexico culminating in the massacre of student demonstrators.  Through it all the two women support each other and it is a beautiful story of redemption (Director Alfonso Cuaron has stated that this film is a tribute to the women who raised him).  There are two incredibly emotional scenes near the end of the film that absolutely shattered me but serve to highlight the resilience of these women and I don't think I will stop thinking about them any time soon.  The film is in black and white without a score and this really allowed me to see the careful composition of each shot.  There are many recurring images, such as a car being parked in a narrow alley, planes flying in the background, and water being splashed on the cobblestones of the courtyard, which are so full of meaning.  Aparicio gives an incredible performance as a quiet and self-contained woman who becomes more and more concerned about her own and Sofia's situation.  I loved that this film is a deeply personal story set against the backdrop of the larger political context within Mexico.  I highly recommend it!

Note:  I definitely want Bohemian Rhapsody to win Best Picture but, in all honesty, perhaps Roma should win.

Utah Opera's The Little Prince

Last night I went to see Utah Opera's production of The Little Prince.  I almost didn't get a ticket because I don't usually like modern operas with librettos in English and my only experience with the novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, upon which the opera is based, is when I was forced to read it in French when I was a senior in high school (I didn't understand it at all).  I am so glad that I decided to get a ticket any way because I loved it!  The story begins with a Pilot (Jared Bybee) telling a group of school children (Choristers of the Madeleine Choir School) about a drawing of a snake eating an elephant.  Every adult thought it was a hat which proves that adults can't see anything!  Then he tells them of crash landing his plane in the desert and meeting the Little Prince (Nitai Fluchel) who wants a drawing of a sheep to eat all of the bushes, especially the baobab trees, threatening to overtake his planet.  The Prince then recounts his life story on his planet which contains three volcanoes, one active and two dormant, and his beautiful, but vain, Rose (Grace Kahl).  When the Rose treats him badly, the Prince decides to visit other planets.  On the first planet, he meets The King (Tyrell Wilde) who has no subjects and only issues orders that can be followed such as commanding the sun to set.  On the second planet, he meets the Vain Man (Joshua Lindsay) who wants to be the most admired man on an otherwise uninhabited planet.  On the third planet, he meets The Drunkard (Addison Marlor) who drinks to forget his shame over drinking too much.  On the fourth planet, he meets The Businessman (Jesus Vicente Murillo) who fails to see the beauty of the stars by his need to count and catalogue them to prove ownership.  On the fifth planet, he meets The Lamplighter (Addison Marlor) who blindly follows orders to light and extinguish a lamppost every 30 minutes to correspond to day and night on his planet.  The Prince finds all of these adults to be ridiculous (the allegory was lost on me when I read it in French) so he decides to visit Earth and lands in the desert.  He meets a Snake (Joshua Lindsay) who tells him he can send him home any time he wishes.  He sees a rosebush which makes him think his Rose is just ordinary.  Finally, he sees a Fox (Melanie Ashkar) who tells him that you can only see with your heart not your eyes and that spending time with his Rose has made it special.  He decides that he misses his Rose and wants to go back home.  He takes the Pilot to a well to find Water (Melissa Heath) which saves him and makes arrangements with the Snake to return home.  The Pilot is upset but the Prince tells him not to worry that he has died because his body is just a shell that is too heavy to return to his planet.  The Snake strikes, the Prince disappears, and the Pilot repairs his plane.  The story ends with the Pilot telling the children that he can always see the Prince by looking at the stars.  This story of friendship, loneliness, love, and loss is so touching (I definitely need to read it again in English!) and Academy Award-winning composer Rachel Portman's music is incredibly beautiful.  I loved the costumes, especially the king's long train, and the set, which consists of a book-lined study and transforms into hundreds of pages from books to represent the desert.  The Choristers of the Madeleine School Choir, especially Fluchel who is amazing, are so talented and their voices add so much to the story.  It is a magical production and I highly recommend it (go here for tickets).

Dear Evan Hansen in Las Vegas

This weekend I went on my first road trip of 2019 and I had so much fun!  I love road trips so when I found out that the musical Dear Evan Hansen was playing at the Smith Center in Las Vegas I got a ticket the day they went on sale.  I have wanted to see this musical for a really long time and, even though it is coming to the Eccles Theatre next season, I didn't want to wait!  I packed my car Thursday night so I could leave as soon as school was out on Friday to make it to Las Vegas for the Saturday matinee.  It was a quick trip but worth it because I loved this show so much!  Evan Hansen (Stephen Christopher Anthony) suffers from anxiety and feels insignificant and all alone ("Waving Through a Window").  Heidi (Jessica Phillips), his busy single mother, doesn't know what to do to help him ("Anybody Have a Map?").  His one friend, Jared (Jared Goldsmith), is only nice to him so his parents will pay for his car insurance and he is too scared to talk to Zoe (Maggie McKenna), the girl he likes.  His therapist encourages him to write letters to himself to help build his confidence but Connor (Marrick Smith), a deeply troubled young man, intercepts one from the printer because it mentions his sister Zoe.  When Connor takes his own life, his parents, Cynthia (Christiane Noll) and Larry (Aaron Lazar), find the letter, and assuming it is a suicide note, reach out to Evan.  To comfort Connor's parents, Evan pretends that they were friends ("For Forever").  When Cynthia and Larry press for more information, Evan asks Jared to create a history of emails between him and Connor ("Sincerely, Me").  Larry and Zoe struggle to reconcile Evan's version of Connor with the difficult son and brother they knew ("Requiem").  Zoe tells Evan that the only nice thing Connor ever said to her was in his suicide note, which Evan wrote ("If I Could Tell Her").  Alana (Phoebe Koyabe), another lonely girl at school, wants Evan to do more to keep Connor's memory alive ("Disappear") so they create The Connor Project.  Evan gives a heartfelt speech at an assembly ("You Will Be Found") about loneliness and it goes viral.  He begins a relationship with Zoe ("Only Us") and bonds with her family ("To Break in a Glove") to the exclusion of Jared, Alana, and his Mom ("Good For You").  When the truth is finally revealed ("Words Fail"), Evan realizes that he was never really alone ("So Big/So Small"). This story is incredibly powerful and anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong will be moved by Evan's story (the people in my audience were so overcome they started applauding before the final song was over and didn’t stop).  I loved every song and how they are staged but my favorite was "You Will Be Found" which brought tears to my eyes.  I also really liked the set because it consists of a series of moving panels on which computer screens and social media posts are projected.  This is now one of my favorite shows and I can't wait to see it again when it comes to SLC.

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder at HCT

Several years ago I had the opportunity to see the Broadway touring production of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and I thought it was one of the funniest shows that I had ever seen! I was absolutely thrilled when I learned that it would be a part of HCT's 2019 season! I got to see it last night and I laughed and laughed! After the death of his mother, Monty Navarro (Jacob Squire) learns that she was once a member of the wealthy and aristocratic D'Ysquith family but was disinherited for marrying his father. He is really Montague D'Ysquith Navarro and he is in line to inherit the earldom. However, there are eight family members in line ahead of him! When his vain and heartless girlfriend Sibella (Erin Royall Carlson) marries the rich and handsome Lionel Holland, he decides to murder all eight family members ahead of him in the succession to become the earl and win her back. Standing in his way are the Reverend Lord Ezekiel D'Ysquith (who has an unfortunate fall from a cathedral tower), Asquith D'Ysquith, Jr. (who has a bizarre ice skating accident), Henry D'Ysquith (who is stung by his hive of bees), Lady Hyacinth D'Ysquith (who disappears in deepest darkest Africa), Major Lord Bartholomew D'Ysquith (who is decapitated while lifting weights), Lady Salome D'Ysquith Pumphrey (who is killed by a prop gun with real bullets during her debut in Hedda Gabbler), Lord Asquith D'Ysquith, Sr. (who is driven to a heart attack), and, finally, Lord Adalbert D'Ysquith, the Earl of Highhurst (who is poisoned). The entire D'Ysquith family is played by Dallyn Vail Bayles and he is absolutely brilliant! I was sitting on the front row in the Jewel Box Theatre so I had a great view of his facial expressions and they are hilarious! I laughed out loud many times at his antics! Every member of the D'Ysquith family has a distinct personality. I loved them all but my favorites are the eccentric Reverend Ezekiel (there was a bit of a mishap with his prosthetic teeth but it was so funny how he played it off), the flamboyant Henry, and the over the top Lady Hyacinth. Along the way Monty falls in love with Phoebe D'Ysquith (Lisa Zimmerman) and marries her to make Sibella jealous. Eventually, Monty becomes the Earl of Highhurst but he is arrested soon after for the murder of Lord Adalbert, the only D'Ysquith death for which he is not actually responsible! The charges are dismissed when both Phoebe and Sibella each give proof that the other one committed the murder! But Monty might not have long to live because Chauncey, another disinherited member of the D'Ysquith family, is lurking! The songs are all a lot of fun but my favorites are "I Don't Understand the Poor," "It's Better With a Man," "Lady Hyacinth Abroad," "Barrel of a Gun," and "That Horrible Woman."  Squire, Carlson, and Zimmerman have beautiful voices but I especially loved Bonnie Wilson Whitlock as Miss Shingle and Kacee Neff as Eugenia D'Ysquith, Countess of Highhurst, because they are such crazy characters. The set is incredibly clever with projections to depict the many locations. I especially liked the singing portraits of D'Ysquith ancestors at Highhurst Castle!  I loved this hilarious production and I can't recommend it enough! Get tickets (go here) as soon as possible!

Bohemian Rhapsody Sing-Along

My obsession with Bohemian Rhapsody knows no bounds!  When I heard that there was a sing-along version showing in cinemas in the UK, I really hoped that it would reach the US!  When I learned that it would be in a theater near me I immediately bought a ticket and went on Saturday night.  I had heard complaints that people were not singing but I hoped for a fun and rowdy crowd.  As soon as I entered the theater I felt the energy and knew it would be completely awesome!  Sing-alongs (go here and here for others that I have attended) feature the full length movie with the lyrics to the songs on screen, much like Karaoke.  The crowd was a little bit tentative during "Somebody to Love" but once we got to "Fat Bottomed Girls" everyone was singing at full volume!  In the scenes where Queen performs "Killer Queen" on Top of the Pops and records "Seven Seas of Rhye" and "Bohemian Rhapsody," the words are not on the screen but we sang them any way, especially the Galileos!  Everyone stomped and clapped during "We Will Rock You" and it really felt as if we were at a Queen concert!  The absolute best part was the Live Aid concert.  We did the claps for "Radio Ga Ga" and we participated in Freddie's call and response (although we couldn't sustain the "Ay-Oh" for as long as Freddie did which made us all laugh).  By the time we got to "We Are The Champions," we all were swaying our arms in the air and we even applauded at the end of the concert.  They included the words to "Don't Stop Me Now" and "The Show Must Go On" in the credits and most of us stayed to sing these songs as well.  It was so much fun!  My only complaint is that, even though I know the words to every single song (I have listened to nothing but Queen since I saw the movie for the first time), I paid so much attention to the words on the screen that I missed some of what was happening.  I have seen this movie so many times that it didn't really matter but if you are seeing Bohemian Rhapsody for the first time I definitely recommend the regular format!  As far as I know, the sing-along will be in theaters through the rest of this week so check it out if you want to have a good time...

Replicas

I found the trailer for Replicas to be very intriguing so I decided to see as part of my Friday night double feature.  Unfortunately, that decision was a mistake because this is a terrible movie.  William Foster (Keanu Reeves) is a scientist working at Bionyne who is trying to transfer neural pathways in the brain from a human host to a synthetic host.  His latest effort has been unsuccessful and he is feeling pressure from his boss (John Ortiz) and faces losing his funding.  When Foster takes his family on vacation they are involved in an accident that kills his wife and three children.  Grief stricken, he saves their neural pathways and coerces his colleague Ed (Thomas Middleditch) to clone their bodies so he can transfer their memories to their new brains.  When they are successful he learns the true nature of the company he works for and that his boss considers his family to be the property of Bionyne.  He figures out why his experiments have been failing and successfully transfers his own neural pathways into the synthetic host so it can fight everyone tracking his family.  While the concept for this movie is really interesting, the execution is filled with flaws.  The plot makes absolutely no sense.  How did Foster survive a car crash that killed his entire family with only a scratch on his forehead?  How was Ed suddenly able to clone three human beings after minimal success with animals?  How was Foster able to survive mapping his own neural pathways when his previous experiments required a donor who had died?   With a story this implausible I am sometimes willing to suspend my disbelief if I am given a reason to care.  There are big themes here but there is absolutely no exploration of the ethics involved in playing God.  The acting is abysmal.  Reeves is known for his flat monotone delivery but some of his line readings in this movie are so bad they elicited laughter from my audience (for the wrong reasons).  The CGI is a complete mess and the scenes where the synthetic robot attacks the bad guys (who are all wearing black suits so we can tell that they are villains) are so bad I had to wonder about the budget for this movie.  Even if you thought the trailer looked interesting definitely give this a miss!

The Upside

On Friday night I decided to see a double feature and began with The Upside.  I usually don't read reviews and make my decision to see a movie based on the trailer.  This usually works (except in the case of the second movie in my double feature) and I am certainly glad I didn't read the reviews for this movie because I probably wouldn't have seen it and I would have missed out.  Phillip Lacasse (Bryan Cranston) is a billionaire quadriplegic looking for a new caregiver.  Dell (Kevin Hart) has recently been paroled and needs to find a job to avoid going back to jail.  He applies for a job as a janitor in a high-rise building but accidentally takes the elevator to the penthouse instead of the basement and interviews with Phillip and his assistant, Yvonne (Nicole Kidman).  Phillip decides to hire the vastly unqualified Dell, against the objections of Yvonne, because he is depressed and wants a caregiver who will respect his DNR order.  As the two get to know each other, Phillip finds a will to live again and Dell starts rebuilding his relationship with his son.  This movie is so funny!  Hart and Cranston have great chemistry together and have great comedic timing (I usually find Hart to be a bit too frenetic).  Comedies are a hard sell for me but I actually laughed out loud many times, as did everyone in my packed screening.  My favorite scenes are when Dell gets some marijuana for Phillip to help with nerve pain, when Phillip takes Dell to the opera, and when Dell has to change Phillip's catheter. I also found it to be quite heartwarming which is something that I am finding to be more and more appealing.  This feel-good movie did a lot to help me get over a really long week and I recommend it!

On the Basis of Sex

Ever since I saw the documentary RBG, I've been a huge fan of Ruth Bader Ginsburg so I have been eagerly awaiting the release of On the Basis of Sex.  I was able to see a Thursday preview and it is so good.  This movie chronicles Ruth Bader Ginsbug's time as one of the first female law students at Harvard University, her inability to find a position at any NYC law firm despite graduating at the top of her class because she is a woman, her time as a professor at Rutgers Law School, and her role in a ground breaking sex discrimination case.  Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) is given a tax case by her husband Marty (Armie Hammer) in which a Denver man was denied a deduction for caring for his sick mother because he is a bachelor and caregiving roles traditionally belong to women.  Inspired to fight for the rights of women by her daughter Jane (Cailee Spaeny), she decides to take it because, if she can get a ruling on a case involving sex discrimination against a man, it will set a precedent that can be used against cases involving sex discrimination against women.  She, along with her husband and Mel Wulf (Justin Theroux) of the ACLU, files an appeal in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, writes the brief, and, despite the fact that she has very little experience arguing cases, gives an impassioned speech about how the world has changed and the law needs to change with it.  I found this movie to be incredibly inspiring because I had no idea how many laws discriminating on the basis of sex actually existed and there were many times when I wanted to cheer out loud.  There is a moment at the end when Ruth walks up the stairs to the Supreme Court to argue her next case when everyone in my screening applauded.  One of the things I really enjoyed about RBG is Ginsburg's mutually supportive marriage to Marty and it is portrayed exceptionally well in this movie (I loved the scene with Marty chopping vegetables for dinner).  Jones and Hammer give outstanding performances, especially in their scenes together.  I think I prefer RBG because it is more comprehensive but I really loved this movie and I highly recommend it!