Carol

I went to see Carol Sunday afternoon because Cate Blanchett's performance has garnered quite a bit of Oscar buzz but I left the theater completely blown away by Rooney Mara!  The film begins with a man interrupting a conversation fraught with tension between Therese (Mara) and Carol (Blanchett) and then flashes back to their first meeting to tell the story of how the two women got to that point (not a very original framing device but effective enough).  Therese is a young and naive woman who aspires to be a photographer but is temporarily working at a department store for the holidays in New York during the 1950s.  She has a sweet boyfriend who want to marry her but she is unsure of her feelings.  Carol, a beautiful and wealthy suburbanite going through a messy divorce, comes into the department store to buy a Christmas present for her daughter.  Therese helps her and, when Carol accidentally leaves her gloves on the counter, she retrieves her information from the sales slip and returns the gloves.  This leads to lunch, then a friendship, and then a passionate affair.  The nature of the relationship between Therese and Carol is the exact opposite of what I was expecting!  I thought that Therese would be the pursuer, leading Carol to completely disrupt the seemingly perfect life she had with her husband and daughter but Carol, who has had relationships with other women before, is the aggressor and she overwhelms the innocent Therese with just a smoldering glance.  I loved two things about the story.  First, neither woman is ashamed of the relationship, even in the repressive 1950s, and Carol refuses to admit that her homosexuality is wrong just for the sake of winning custody of her daughter.  Second, the relationship doesn't move forward until Therese becomes Carol's equal.  She lives on her own, begins a successful career in photography, and then chooses to be with Carol.  It is a compelling narrative that is beautifully told.  The production design and costumes perfectly capture the elegance of the 1950s and I thought the repeated use of the color red, especially against the stark white of winter, is particularly effective in portraying the vibrancy of the two women.  I loved the score because it is moody, atmospheric, and emotional.  Of course both Blanchett and Mara give incredible performances.  Blanchett is absolutely luminous and conveys more with just one look across a crowded room than many actresses do with pages of dialogue.  However, I was particularly impressed with Mara's ability to portray Therese's innocence and vulnerability (especially since my only exposure to her was as the antisocial hacker Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).  The scene where she silently cries on the train is incredibly affecting.  The Oscar buzz surrounding this movie is entirely justified and I recommend it.

Hitchcock/Truffaut

I have long considered Alfred Hitchcock to be one of my very favorite directors.  I watched many of his movies at a young age late at night on public television.  I had a small black and white TV in my room and, when I couldn't sleep at 2:00 in the morning, my only option was public television (this was back in the day when there were very few channels and many of them signed off at midnight!).  I was introduced to a lot of wonderful old movies in this manner but Hitchcock's made a lasting impression, particularly Notorious, Spellbound, Rebecca, and North By Northwest.  My first exposure to Francois Truffaut was, ironically, as an actor in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is a favorite!  I was very taken with his performance as a scientist investigating extraterrestrials and it was my Dad who told me that he was a famous director.  Of course, I have since become a fan of his movies, especially Day for Night.  What happens when one of the founders of the French New Wave meets with the Master of Suspense for one week to talk about the latter's entire body of work?  You get a groundbreaking book, published in 1966, considered by many filmmakers to be, not only a masterpiece, but a blueprint for the craft.  You also get a fascinating documentary by Kent Jones, which I had the chance to see last night, wherein he uses the films of both Hitchcock and Truffaut to illustrate the points mentioned in their epic conversations, which were recorded, with particular emphasis on Vertigo and Psycho.  Jones also interviews many of my favorite contemporary directors, such as Wes Anderson, David Fincher, Richard Linklatter, Olivier Assayas, Peter Bogdanovich, and Martin Scorsese, who talk about the effect the book, and Hitchcock's movies, had on them as filmmakers.  That they are effusive in their praise, which is interesting but gets to be a bit much, is to be expected;  however, it is incredibly compelling when they analyze specific scenes, especially when Fincher talks about Vertigo ("It's so perverted.") and Scorsese talks about Psycho.  I enjoyed this documentary immensely because it reminded me of why I love Hitchcock's movies and I think it is a must-see for any film lover.

Mozart & Mahler

There was one thing that got me through this difficult first week back at school after winter break and that was the prospect of listening to the Utah Symphony play Mozart, my favorite composer, on Friday night.  I've said this before but I credit the movie Amadeus with turning me on to classical music.  I remember distinctly the first time I watched it.  It was a Sunday night when I was in junior high and I was sitting on the floor in my parents' bedroom leaning against the foot of their bed watching it on HBO.  It was getting late and I'm sure that they wanted to go to sleep but they could see that I was absolutely transfixed and let me continue watching!  Several years later I was given a VHS copy for Christmas, the first movie I ever owned!  (When I moved to my new house I donated all of my VHS tapes and, later, I regretted that I gave away Amadeus.  I received a Blu-Ray copy for Christmas this year!)  Needless to say, I fell in love with Mozart's music after watching Amadeus over and over so I try to attend any concert featuring it.  Friday night the orchestra, along with soloist Augustin Hadelich, played Concerto No. 4 for Violin and Orchestra.  This piece totally exemplifies what I love about Mozart:  it is light, airy, romantic, and beautiful (not to be confused with simple).  Hadelich was absolutely brilliant (receiving a thunderous standing ovation) and I thoroughly enjoyed the performance!  But Mahler, though!  After the intermission the orchestra played Symphony No. 7 and I read in the program notes that this is considered the least popular of Mahler's symphonies.  It could very well be my favorite!  More than any other symphony that I've heard during the Mahler Cycle this year and last, this piece has made me a Mahler fan for life!  The first movement is rousing and exuberant with an incredible theme played by the brass, not to mention the horns, the harps (there were two), the timpani, and the crash cymbals!  There were moments when I couldn't catch my breath and, mind you, this was only the first movement!  It only got better!  The second movement features a playful theme by the woodwinds and the third movement is so vigorous that Maestro Thierry Fischer lost his baton (in what might possibly my favorite moment, ever, at a Utah Symphony concert!)  The fourth movement is beautiful and atmospheric with lovely violin and horn solos echoed by a guitar and mandolin!  It gave me goosebumps!  The fifth and final movement begins, spectacularly, with timpani and ends the only way it possibly could:  with the ringing of the chimes! I loved it!  It goes without saying that it was an exceptional evening and you should go here right now and get yourself a ticket for tonight's performance!

Beau Jest at HCT

Hale Centre Theatre likes to ring in the new year with a comedy and, once again, they picked a delightful one!  I interrupted my long winter's nap (it has been hard adjusting back to reality after winter break and I have been in bed by 8:00 most nights this week) to see their production of Beau Jest last night and it is absolutely hysterical! Sarah Goldman's parents want her to marry a nice Jewish boy and, because the man she is dating isn't Jewish, she hires an actor named Bob to pretend to be her boyfriend. There is only one problem. He isn't Jewish, either! With her parents at the door, there is no other choice but to proceed (Bob believes he can handle the "role" because he was once in a touring company of Fiddler on the Roof) and, of course, chaos ensues! I laughed and laughed at all of their antics, particularly when Sarah and Bob embrace and inadvertently hit the radio (several times) causing them to be serenaded by the song "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin over and over again. LizAnne Chapman is suitably overwrought as Sarah and Bryan Dayley is incredibly endearing as Bob and they have great chemistry together but, in my opinion, Ben Parkes, as Sarah's uptight brother Joel, and Todd Michael Thompson, as Sarah's boyfriend Chris, steal the show! Parkes brings a physicality to his role that is just so much fun to watch, especially in a scene involving throw pillows! I laughed out loud, as did everyone around me, in the scene where he tells Sarah to get over it! Thompson's facial expressions (and his double finger gun) are a hoot, especially when he competes with Bob for Sarah's attention! So funny!  I only have two complaints.  First, the scene with the Seder is much too long (in a play that is otherwise filled with lots of snappy dialogue) and I started to lose interest but it is early in the run and I suspect it will tighten up. Second, the set, uncharacteristically, is rather blah and, in my opinion, doesn't really look like an apartment that a young woman living in Chicago would have.  It didn't detract from my enjoyment but I kept wondering if it was the same set from last year's Over the River and Through the Woods. Aside from that, I definitely enjoyed Beau Jest and I highly recommend it for a bit of fun on a long winter's night!  It runs through January 30 and tickets can be purchased here.

A Day Snowshoeing

I really love snowshoeing and last winter was so mild that I only got to go a couple of times.  This winter we definitely have enough snow and my brother-in-law Trent showed me a great place to go that is literally five minutes from my house (I plan on going a lot).

Last Saturday Trent, Kristine, the kiddos, and I snowshoed the Meuller Park Canyon Trail and it was so much fun!

What a great day!