Free State of Jones

Last night I went with my parents to see Free State of Jones which is an incredibly powerful movie about a rebellion against the Confederacy during the Civil War.  Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey) is a medic in the Confederate army who becomes disillusioned after witnessing his nephew's death in battle.  He deserts in order to take his nephew's body home to Jones County, Mississippi and discovers that the Confederate army has been confiscating grain and livestock from the poor farmers in the area.  In one of my favorite scenes in the movie, he helps a widow and her daughters stand up to the soldiers, thereby placing a price on his head.  He is helped by a group of runaway slaves to escape into a swamp and is soon joined by other deserters.  Knight leads this ragtag group against the Confederate army, eventually taking control of a large area of Mississippi.  After the war, he tries to hold this coalition together to fight for the rights of the freed slaves during Reconstruction but the alliance is fragile.  Some of these scenes are very upsetting, such as when one of the freed slaves (Mahershala Ali) is lynched for registering voters and when the Ku Klux Klan burns down their church.  There is also a subplot involving the relationship between Knight and one of the freed slaves (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and a trial in the 1950s involving one of their descendants who was arrested for a racially impure marriage.  As I previously mentioned, this is a very difficult movie to watch at times but I found it to be incredibly compelling, especially since it is based on actual events.  McConaughey is outstanding as the charismatic leader, especially in the scenes where he rallies his group to action (I think McConaughey was a fire-and-brimstone preacher in another life).  I really enjoyed the use of Mathew Brady's iconic Civil War photographs interspersed throughout the movie to give historical context (something director Gary Ross also did very effectively in Seabiscuit).  The movie is quite long with a running time of 2:19 (the omission of the trial of Newton's great-grandson might have made it tighter) but I found Knight's story to be riveting.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it and I highly recommend it.

Summer Reading: Little Bee

Little Bee by Chris Cleave is a book that I desperately wanted to love (there is so much hype surrounding it and the topic is particularly salient at the moment) but, while I did love many parts, the story left me feeling flat at the end. Little Bee is a 16-year-old Nigerian refugee who has seen her entire village, including her family, brutally murdered and is seeking asylum in the UK. Sarah is a 30-something suburbanite mother who runs her own fashion magazine but feels like she is losing her journalistic integrity and that her marriage is in shambles. The lives of these protagonists converge for a brief moment under horrific circumstances on a beach in Nigeria and the story begins two years later when Little Bee seeks Sarah out to help her (with flashbacks that reference the events many, many times before revealing them). The narrative alternates between the two women but I enjoyed Little Bee's perspective much more than Sarah's. I found Little Bee to be incredibly sympathetic and her voice made me think differently about the refugees around the world. I had tears in my eyes every time she would search for a way to kill herself in a new environment just in case the bad men found her and I laughed as she thought of ways to describe first world problems to the imaginary girls back in her village. I found Sarah to be less likable because her behavior seems so random.  I could never figure out her motivation for anything (I think her affair with Lawrence would have made more sense if it had begun after the events on the beach), including her reason for helping Little Bee, and she wasn't entirely believable to me, especially in her interactions with her son Charlie (who refuses to wear anything other than his Batman costume). I am not sure how I feel about the ending because it seems rather ambiguous, as if Cleave's message is that there is nothing anyone can do to help refugees. I don't want to believe that! I liked this book (I would have liked it better had it been from Little Bee's perspective only) but I didn't love it and I certainly don't think it lives up to the blurb on the cover (a cryptic message that the book is so good that the publishers can't give away any of the details).

Note:  I do, however, still want to read Cleave's latest book Everyone Brave Is Forgiven.

Waitress on Broadway

The one musical that Esther really wanted to see, besides Hamilton of course, was Waitress.  I am so glad that she suggested it because I don't think I would have picked it if left to my own devices and I ended up loving it so much.  It is absolutely amazing with incredible music by Sara Bareilles and a powerful performance by Jessie Mueller, both of whom were nominated for a Tony.  The musical is based on the 2007 independent film of the same name and tells the story of how Jenna (Mueller) uses baking to cope with her dead-end job as a waitress and her unhappy marriage to Earl (Nick Cordero).  When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant and then begins an affair with her gynecologist (Drew Gehling), she feels as if her life is spiraling out of control and decides that her only hope is to enter a pie baking contest to use the prize money to begin a new life.  Whenever life gets to be too much for Jenna, everything around her freezes and she gives the audience the recipe for a pie that would help her situation, always beginning with, "Sugar. Butter. Flour."  In the end she realizes that the one ingredient missing from her pies is courage!  There are parts of the story that are so funny and parts that brought tears to my eyes.  The music is brilliant and I loved every single song.  My very favorite was "She Used to Be Mine" because Mueller performed it with so much passion (Did you see her perform it at the Tonys?) that I literally cried through the whole thing.  I loved the fact that the cast actually makes pies throughout the show and that they place them in large pie coolers (like you see at Village Inn) on both sides of the proscenium.  It is an amazing show and I am so glad that I got to see the original Broadway cast!

Note:  At intermission you could buy individual servings of pie in tiny Mason jars!  I got cookies and cream pie and Esther got Key lime pie.  So much fun!

She Loves Me on Broadway

One of the shows that Esther and I were able to see while in NYC was the Broadway revival of She Loves Me.  Quite a few people from my HCT group saw it and loved it so I was really looking forward to it.  The setting is 1934 in Budapest at Maraczek's Parfumerie, a little shop with a group of eccentric clerks.  Two of the clerks, Georg Nowack (Zachary Levi) and Amalia Balish (Laura Benanti), bicker constantly in the shop but, of course, they are secretly corresponding with each other (this musical was the basis for the movies The Shop Around the Corner and You've Got Mail).  Chaos ensues when they arrange to meet and Georg discovers that his "dear friend" is really his enemy at the shop.  This show is a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the songs "Tonight at Eight" and "Will He Like Me?" because they show both the male and female perspectives on getting ready for a date and I also really loved Levi's enthusiastic rendition of "She Loves Me."  I was actually quite star-struck by both Levi (from the TV show Chuck and the movie Tangled) and Jane Krakowski (from the TV show 30 Rock) who gives a marvelous performance as Ilona, one of the clerks. Laura Benanti has gotten quite a bit of buzz for her portrayal of Amalia but, in my opinion, Jane Krakowski steals the show as Ilona, especially in the big production number "Ilona" where she is pulled across the stage in the splits!  In addition to the great performances and fun musical numbers, the stage is absolutely spectacular and I was particularly struck by all of the different views and levels of the perfume shop. I loved how they changed the shop for the different seasons, especially for winter which Esther and I got to experience first-hand sitting on the second row! I really enjoyed this show.

Note: Esther and I decided to wait at the stage door after the show (a first for me) and we got to meet both Zachary Levi and Jane Krakowski.  Both of them signed my Playbill!  Jane Krakowski didn't stay out very long but Zachary Levi signed everyone's Playbill and posed for pictures with anyone who wanted one.  He was really cool!  He talked to me for a few minutes and some people around me asked me if I knew him because he seemed so friendly towards me! While we were waiting for autographs, Lin-Manuel Miranda drove by and shouted to us.  No big deal!

Beethoven, Mozart, & More at the Gallivan Plaza

I think it is a well established fact that I absolutely love attending performances outside in the summer.  There is just something about listening to music under the stars that I love and, when the Utah Symphony is involved, it is even better.  When that concert is free, it is an evening that is not to be missed!  Last night the Utah Symphony began a series of free community concerts (go here for more information) with a performance of classical favorites at the Gallivan Plaza downtown.  I loved every minute of this concert!  I brought a blanket and a picnic and, after a while, there was a lovely breeze so it was the perfect summer evening.  The orchestra played selections from Rossini, Faure, Handel, Tchaikovsky, and Gershwin which were wonderful.  After the intermission they played  the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (those first four instantly recognizable notes got the crowd going) and Mozart's Symphony No. 35, which was brilliant (I love Mozart).  There was a little girl in the audience near where I was sitting who dramatically conducted the entire concert (Associate Conductor Rei Hotada may have some competition) and it was awesome!  It was a lovely evening!

Note:  There are lots of free concerts scheduled at the Gallivan Plaza throughout the summer.  Go here for more information.