Land of Mine

Last night I went to see the film Land of Mine at the Broadway, my favorite art house theater.  Doesn't everyone spend their Friday nights watching independent foreign films with subtitles?  In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Sergeant Carl Leopold Rasmussen (Roland Moller) is given command of a group of German POWs who are tasked with removing hundreds of thousands of land mines on the western coast of Denmark.  We are not given Rasmussen's backstory but he has clearly been shattered by the events of the war and torments the POWs, most of whom are young boys conscripted at the end of the war, as a way of exacting revenge against Germany.  Their living conditions are deplorable and their job of locating and then defusing the bombs is dangerous, to say the least.  As we get to know and care about these boys, we are never allowed to forget the ever-present possibility that they could be killed by an explosion at any moment.  As a result, many of the scenes of them on the beach are fraught with tension, and occasionally horror.  At the crux of the story is Rasmussen's journey from hatred to compassion as he gets to know them as individuals rather than as the enemy and this is incredibly powerful.  There is a touching scene where one of the boys clears a path to rescue a Danish girl who has wandered on to the beach and I also loved the scene where Rasmussen plays soccer with the boys on part of the beach that has been cleared.  The cinematography is exceptional with widescreen shots of the endless beach which serve to show how daunting the task of removing all of the mines truly is.  I found this film to be both beautiful and terrible (the explosions are unbelievably difficult to watch) and I thought it was an interesting deviation from the standard war movie where heroes and villains are clearly defined.  I highly recommend it.

Note:  After watching this film, I spontaneously decided to see Personal Shopper again.  I simply cannot stop thinking about it.

Tashena Likes to Throw Things

I finally got to go to one of my niece's track meets yesterday!  I think watching Tashena throwing (and occasionally jumping) is a much better way to spend an afternoon than grading papers!  Wouldn't you agree?  However, I didn't actually get to see her do any throwing or jumping because she competed in all of her events (discus, shot put, javelin, and long jump) before the meet started because it was held at Bountiful (her home school) and she had to help run the discus.  Hey, at least I had an excuse to leave school at a decent hour!  Her best throw in discus was 115' for first place, her best throw in shot put was 31'6" for second place, her best throw in javelin was 89'2" for first place, and her best distance in long jump was 15'1" for first place.  That's not too shabby!  She told me that this meet didn't matter because it wasn't a qualifying meet and told me to come to the meet next week!  I'll be there!

Beauty and the Beast Sing-Along

Since we had so much fun at the Moana Sing-Along, Marilyn and I decided to take our Mom to see the Beauty and the Beast version (because she loves this movie so much).  While Moana definitely had better songs (Lin-Manuel Miranda!), this was just as much fun.  In fact, I think I liked the movie even more!  I definitely liked the new songs a lot more than I did the first time around.  The sing-along version is the original full-length feature but the lyrics of the songs appear at the bottom of the screen with a bouncing icon to tell you when to sing each word.  I loved that each song had a different icon.  "Gaston" featured a beer stein, "Beauty and the Beast" had a rose, and "Kill the Beast" had a flame to name just a few.  It was a lot of fun!   I really enjoyed singing along with "Belle," "Gaston," and "Be Our Guest" because those were the songs I knew the best.  My Mom was belting out the words to every single song and she even included dramatic gestures in "Evermore."  It was worth the price of admission just to see my Mom's reaction to every scene!  She giggled out loud every time LeFou was on the screen and she sighed when Belle was revealed in her yellow dress (she has seen it three times and she is still so enchanted).  As we walked out of the theater she wished that she could see it every day.  I'm so glad that I was able to see this with her and my sister.  I moved closer to my family to be able to participate in spontaneous activities with them but lately I have been so busy at school.  No more!  Last night was just too much fun!  This movie is not without flaws but I recommend it for its sheer entertainment value, especially the sing-along version which can be found in select theaters.

Your Name

I know next to nothing about Japanese anime so I didn't really know what to expect when I went to see Your Name yesterday.  What happened is that I absolutely loved it!  In fact, it is one of the best films I have ever seen!  Mitsuha is a young girl living in a rural and traditional village in the mountains.  She is very dissatisfied with her life and longs for the day when she can graduate and move to the big city.  One day she wakes up in the body of Taki, a high school boy in Tokyo and he wakes up in her body (it is very amusing for them to discover that they are a different sex).  This keeps happening intermittently and it takes them a while to assimilate into each other's world.  When they both realize what is happening they begin leaving each other notes for when they return to their own bodies.  They also begin affecting each other's lives in positive ways, especially when Mitsuha makes a date for Taki with the girl he likes.  Eventually, they stop switching with each other and Taki starts to miss Mitsuha.  He tries to contact her and when that fails he decides to look for her.  Then there is an incredible twist to the story which I didn't expect but found to be very emotionally satisfying.  I cared about these characters so much and it is such a beautiful story about fate and the connections we have with people including people that we haven't even met yet.  I laughed out loud many times and I cried during several scenes.  The animation is beautiful, especially scenes that take place during the golden hour.  It is a lovely film and I can't say enough about it.  I definitely recommend it, particularly to people who have never seen an anime film before.

Note:  I saw this film dubbed in English but I already have plans to see it in Japanese with English subtitles.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Last night's Utah Symphony concert featured one of my very favorite pieces, Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky.  It seems like the Utah Symphony programmed the 2016-2017 season with me in mind as they have featured so many of my favorites (Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, Mozart's Requiem, and now Pictures at an Exhibition).  The concert began with Military March No. 1 from Pomp and Circumstance by Edward Elgar which is instantly familiar to anyone who has ever been through a commencement ceremony.  I enjoyed hearing it and I am looking forward to hearing it again in seven weeks (but who's counting?) when my seniors are unleashed on the world!  The concert continued with Elgar's Violin Concerto with soloist Fumiaki Miura.  I loved this piece so much, especially the second movement which is almost unbearably beautiful and incredibly emotional.  Miura played brilliantly and received a rousing standing ovation!  After the intermission, the orchestra played Mussorgsky's masterpiece which, as the name implies, was written to commemorate the exhibition of ten paintings by Victor Hartmann after his death.  There are ten pieces which correspond to each of the paintings and these are connected by a Promenade (in several iterations played by different sections of the orchestra) which represents walking through the gallery from picture to picture.  I had goosebumps when I heard the opening fanfare in the first Promenade played by the brass!  It is amazing to me how you can almost visualize each painting as the orchestra plays.  I love each piece but I think my favorite is for the painting Byldo which experts believe is a group of oxen pulling a cart (many of Hartmann's paintings haven't survived).  I loved the theme played by the tenor tuba and the timpani because it is so atmospheric.  I always try to hear this piece whenever it is performed and I certainly enjoyed it last night.  You can hear it when this program is performed again tonight (go here for tickets) and I definitely recommend that you do so!