Brown Eyed Girl

My niece Tashena is eighteen today!  It has been so much fun watching her grow and develop into the amazing person that she is!  I love her so much and I can't wait to see what life has in store for her because she can do anything!

Tchaikovsky's 4th & The Red Violin

It seems like it has been quite a while since I've been at Abravanel Hall for a Utah Symphony concert!  It has been a very long week (it was the end of the term with lots of grading to do) so last night's concert was very much needed and I enjoyed it immensely!  The orchestra began with a suite of symphonic dances from Fancy Free by Leonard Bernstein.  I really enjoyed all three of them but I particularly loved the second one because it is so exuberant with a theme played by the timpani which is echoed by the brass.  Next, the orchestra was joined by Philippe Quint to perform John Corigliano's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra from The Red Violin.  The film tells the story of a mysterious violin and its many owners over the centuries.  The score, for which Corigliano won an Academy Award, is incredibly intense because the violin is almost like one of the characters.  Quint performed it magnificently with his bow flying across the violin in some of the more dramatic themes.  He received a well deserved thunderous standing ovation!  After the intermission, the orchestra played the piece I was most looking forward to:  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4.  I love Tchaikovsky because I think his music is so emotional and I love everything about Symphony No. 4, from the dramatic opening fanfare played by the horns to the final tumultuous crash of the cymbals!  I especially loved the theme played by the woodwinds in the second movement (which I think is quite melancholy) and the theme played by the strings in the third movement (which, in my opinion, is filled with such longing).  It was an incredible performance!  The orchestra was under the baton of guest conductor Andrew Litton and I thought his interactions with the musicians were adorable, especially when he blew kisses to the concertmaster!  I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here) to tonight's performance of the same program.

The Sisters Brothers

The second film in my indie double feature was The Sisters Brothers.  John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix play Eli and Charlie Sisters, two bickering brothers who are ruthless paid assassins for the enigmatic Commodore (Rutger Hauer).  They have a series of misadventures as they travel from Oregon City to San Francisco in pursuit of a mark (Riz Ahmed) who has teamed up with one of their former associates (Jake Gyllenhaal) but it ends up being a journey of redemption for the brothers.  I have to admit that this film is very different from what I was expecting.  It is a slow-burning character study, punctuated by incredibly brutal gun fights, with a somewhat anticlimactic resolution.  It felt much longer than it really is and I struggled to understand the point of what was going on much of the time.  Both Reilly and Phoenix give fantastic performances (although I feel like we've seen Phoenix play a charming psychopath many times before) that end up being very sympathetic and they have great on-screen chemistry, especially when they are bickering with each other.  There are some beautiful visuals (it was filmed in Spain and Romania) with wide shots of mountains, plains, and rivers as the brothers travel through the Pacific Northwest.  However, the performances and scenery do not really compensate for the ponderous pacing and meandering story.  I recommend giving it a miss.

The Old Man & The Gun

Yesterday I went to the Broadway, my favorite art house theater, for an indie double feature.  First up was The Old Man & The Gun which is reported to be Robert Redford's final film.  It tells the "mostly true" story of Forrest Tucker (Redford), a man who spent most of his life in and out of jail, who commits series of daring bank robberies at the age of 70.  These bank heists are non-violent and many of the tellers who are held up refer to him as a gentleman.  He commits the crimes simply because he wants adventure not because he wants or needs the money.  While on his crime spree he meets Jewel (Sissy Specek), a woman with whom he begins a relationship, and John Hunt (Casey Affleck), a detective who becomes obsessed with catching him.  It is a charming treatise on what drives people to live their lives the way they do anchored by an incredibly charismatic performance by Redford.  Tucker's eyes actually twinkle every time he flashes a smile at whomever he is with, especially when he smiles at Jewel.  The scenes between Redford and Spacek are absolutely magical, especially when they sit on Jewel's front porch and discuss the meaning of life.  Affleck is outstanding as a burned out detective who is reinvigorated by the investigation of Tucker while Danny Glover and Tom Waits are highly amusing as Tucker's Over-The-Hill Gang.  This film looks like a movie Redford could have starred in early in his career with its sepia toned cinematography and the period verisimilitude.  My favorite moment in the film is a montage of all of Tucker's escapes from jail which includes footage from some of Redford's early movies.  I loved this film and I highly recommend it!

Crazy Corn Maze

Sean and I have been planning to go to a corn maze for quite a while and we finally had a chance to go last night (we made a little detour to the pumpkin patch that is close by).  I have been going to this corn maze for many years now (once my friend Tony and I had to pay an attendant $5.00 to get us out of it) but this year it didn't seem as much fun.  The maze was really easy.  In fact, Sean and I made it through in about 20 minutes.  There were lots of little kids and strollers (the bane of my existence) and there seemed to be a lot of side activities geared more to small children.  Sean is such a good sport but we've decided that we want to find a different maze that is more complicated next year.  It was still really fun to spend time with him and I did get to cross off another item from my fall bucket list!

Pumpkin Patch

Sean has decided that we will be carving pumpkins next Sunday (we usually carve them on the Sunday before Halloween except for that one time).  He had his Mom buy a bunch of kits so we just needed the pumpkins.  Last night he and I went to Schmidt's Pumpkin Patch which is near my old house.  There were tons and tons of people there but we found a relatively empty area.  Sean meticulously picked pumpkins for himself, me, Tashena, and Marilyn (he picked a 20 pound pumpkin for Marilyn because she loves carving them).

I'm really glad that Sean still loves all of our holiday traditions!

Dutch Oven Cook Out

I really love cooking outdoors in Dutch ovens but I haven't done it for a long time.  I thought fall would be the perfect time to make a fruit cobbler.  I went to one of my favorite picnic sites in Millcreek Canyon Friday afternoon and made some.  The recipe is so easy!  In a 10-inch Dutch oven, pour a can of pie filling in the bottom (you can use any fruit that you like but I used cherry in this cobbler), then sprinkle a yellow cake mix over the fruit, and pour a 12 oz can of lemon lime soda over that.  Place the Dutch oven on some charcoal briquettes and then place 10-12 briquettes on top of the lid.  Let it cook for about 45 minutes or until it is bubbly.  I packed a lunch and read my book while it cooked and it was so nice to be in the canyon.  The temperature was brisk but not too cold (there were a lot of people hiking in the canyon) and I loved walking through all of the leaves on the ground.

It was such a nice afternoon.  The cobbler was absolutely delicious and I got to check off another item on my fall bucket list!

Fall Drive

Thursday morning I happened to be in American Fork getting my car serviced so I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to drive the Alpine Loop between American Fork Canyon and Provo Canyon.  It is one of my very favorite fall drives and it was just beautiful.  The temperature was brisk but not too cold and the smell of decomposing leaves was intoxicating.  I had a lovely time driving the switchbacks with the window rolled down and I got to check another item off my fall bucket list!

The Hate U Give

A lot of my students are reading the best-selling Y/A novel The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas so I decided to see the movie adaptation last night.  Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg) lives in the poverty-ridden and gang-controlled neighborhood of Garden Heights but she attends a prep-school in the wealthy Williamson area.  She suppresses who she really is in order to fit in at her white school but tries not to alienate her black friends.  One night she and her childhood friend Khalil (Algee Smith) are pulled over for a routine traffic stop and a white police officer fatally shoots Khalil.  Starr witnesses the entire incident and, when the police officer is not immediately charged with the shooting, she faces pressure to testify before a grand jury from an activist group.  She fears that testifying will draw unwanted attention which will affect how people view her at school and she is threatened by a gang leader because testifying could reveal that Khalil was selling drugs for the gang.  Ultimately, Starr realizes that she must use her voice to stop the cycle of hate.  This movie is intense and incredibly powerful with an amazing central performance by Stenberg and some strong supporting performances by Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Anthony Mackie, and Common.  It was sometimes difficult for me to watch but what I liked most about this movie is that it emphasizes so many different perspectives (the scene between Starr and her uncle, who is a cop, just about brought me to tears) and doesn't seek to vilify any one particular group.  The message that hate is what divides people really resonated with me and I think this is a movie that everyone needs to see, especially young people.  I highly recommend it.