Utah Symphony at the Gallivan Plaza

In the summertime there is nothing I enjoy more than attending some kind of performance outside under the stars.  Last night my friend Angela and I went to a free outdoor concert at the Gallivan Plaza downtown featuring the Utah Symphony.  It was absolutely wonderful!  I brought a blanket and a picnic and thoroughly enjoyed the music and the breeze.  The orchestra played Huapango by Jose Pablo Moncayo, Symphony No. 25 by Mozart, Danzon No. 2 by Arturo Marquez, and Symphony No. 8 by Antonin Dvorak.  For the encore they played Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa.  Such a fun selection of music!  I really enjoyed hearing Mozart but all of the pieces were lively and exuberant, perfect for a summer evening.  The Utah Symphony will be performing in many outdoor venues this summer and I highly recommend getting a ticket to one of these concerts (go here for information and tickets).

Note:  The people watching was superb last night!  Don't get me started on the three couples sitting next to us...

West Side Story

The next feature in the TCM Big Screen Classics series was West Side Story.  I love this musical so much so it was an absolute thrill for me to see it on the big screen for the first time!  The story about a boy in a street gang who falls in love with a rival gang member's sister, an update of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, is poignant but what makes this movie remarkable are the songs composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Stephen Sondhein, the truly brilliant choreography of Jerome Robbins, and the performances of Rita Moreno and George Chakiris.  I pretty much love all of the songs in this movie but my favorites are "Maria," "Tonight," "One Hand, One Heart," and "Somewhere" because all four of them are so romantic.  I got chills seeing these numbers on the big screen.  Sigh!  The choreography is simply breathtaking and I think that the opening number is one of the best sequences in any musical that I've seen because it establishes the animosity between the Jets and the Sharks with just movement (and the snapping of fingers)!  I also love the choreography in "The Jet Song," "America," and "Cool."  Finally, I think Rita Moreno, who plays Anita, is amazing in this movie, especially in the scene at the drug store when the Jets attack her, and George Chakiris gives a very affecting performance as Bernardo (they both won Academy Awards for their performances).  I thoroughly enjoyed seeing this movie on the big screen and I suggest that you see it when it is screened again on Wednesday (go here for information and tickets).

Note:  I love it when old-school movie musicals have overtures and intermissions!

The Seagull

Even though I studied British literature in college, Russian literature is my passion.  I love the play The Seagull by Anton Chekhov so I have been anticipating this new movie adaptation for quite a while.  I was able to see it yesterday and I loved it!  A group of artists and aristocrats are seething with unrequited love, jealousy, and resentment while staying at a country estate for the summer in turn-of-the-century Russia!  Of course I loved it!  Irina Arkadina (Annette Bening), an aging actress, has come to stay at the estate of her ailing brother Sorin (Brian Dennehy) with her lover Boris Trigorin (Corey Stoll), a celebrated author.  Her son Konstantin (Billy Howle), who lives on the estate, is a young and idealistic playwright who scoffs at his mother's fame because it is not "art" and yet he is jealous of Trigorin's success.  He is also jealous because Nina (Saoirse Ronan), the neighbor girl with whom he is in love, has become infatuated with Trigorin.  There is also a strong ensemble cast including Elisabeth Moss, Jon Tenney, Mare Winningham, and Glen Fleshler who play members of the household who all have their own intrigues.  Chekhov's play is all about subtext so there is not a lot of action and the themes are incredibly bleak so not everyone is going to like this movie.  However, the performances are what makes this movie worth seeing (for people not enamored of Russian literature).  Of course, Bening and Ronan are brilliant but I was really surprised by Stoll's interpretation of Trigorin.  I have always thought of him as a rather feckless character but Stoll imbues him with a vulnerability that was unexpected.  Moss, also, is hilarious as Masha, a woman pining away for someone who will never love her.  It is sometimes hard to translate a play to the screen but I really liked how the filmmakers made use of the locations, particularly the lake.  The production design and costumes are incredibly sumptuous so this film is gorgeous to look at.  Chekhov isn't for everyone but I loved this film.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

I have very vivid memories of spending afternoons at my Grandma Johnson's house when I was a little kid.  She had a large console television in the family room in the basement and I loved sitting right in front of it.  I would watch episodes of Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and then I would watch the exact same episodes again dubbed in French on the French channel (I lived in Canada) because I loved them so much!  I especially loved Mr. Rogers because I felt like he was talking directly to me and he explained things in a way that I could understand.  I loved it when he would walk through his door with some sort of object because that meant that he would show us how that object worked!  I also really loved the Land of Make-Believe!  As soon as you heard the trolley you knew that you would be transported to a kingdom filled with wonderful characters who always had a lesson to teach you.  My favorite character was Lady Elaine Fairchilde because, while most people thought she was the villain, I thought she was just feisty and always stood up for herself!  Because I love Mr. Rogers so much, I had to see Won't You Be My Neighbor?, the documentary about his life, as soon as I possibly could.  Like the man himself, it is just wonderful!  It traces his early days in television, his ordination as a minister in the Presbyterian church, his advocacy for children, the creation of his groundbreaking show, and his lasting legacy.  There are archival interviews with Fred Rogers himself as well as contemporary interviews with his wife, two sons, the program director of WQED, cast and crew from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, and close friends.  The overwhelming theme from these interviews is that Fred did not have a television persona.  He was exactly what you saw on the screen: a genuinely good person who truly cared about the welfare of children.  There is a moment when he says that everyone deserves love without having to do anything to earn it that moved me to tears!  I am so impressed by the fact that he wrote every script, composed all of the music, and voiced most of the puppets in the Land of Make-Believe!  He truly was a remarkable man and I think everyone should see this lovely tribute to his life!  Oh how I wish he were still here to bring a little kindness to a world sorely in need of it!

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

For me, and many people will disagree with me, the Jurassic Park franchise has always been about the dinosaurs.  I absolutely love the sense of wonder on the faces of the characters when they see the dinosaurs for the first time in Jurassic Park.  I even really liked Jurassic World, which has its fair share of issues, because the action sequences involving the dinosaurs are really intense and exciting. Last Thursday I went to a preview of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom thinking that, if nothing else, I would enjoy the dinosaurs.  I was a little bit disappointed.  Isla Nublar is now threatened by a volcano and debates arise about whether the dinosaurs who remain there should be protected as an endangered species.  Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), who now heads a dinosaur rights activist group is hired by Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), the head of the Lockwood Corporation, to rescue the dinosaurs and take them to a new island sanctuary and she recruits Owen Grady (Chris Pratt).  It turns out that Mills just wants the dinosaurs for nefarious purposes and is using Claire to access the island tracking system and Owen for his skill with the velociraptors.  The dinosaurs are brought to the Lockwood estate for auction to the highest bidder and that goes about as well as you would expect.  I really enjoyed the sequences on the island as they try to round up the dinosaurs (except for one which actually made me tear up a little bit).  These were really thrilling, especially on an IMAX screen!  But as soon as they leave the island, I found the narrative to be tedious because it turns into an atmospheric conspiracy thriller.  For much of this, the dinosaurs are sedated and in cages as Claire and Owen try to figure out what is going on.  And there are a lot of things going on!  I think that some of the subplots are entirely superfluous, especially one involving Lockwood's granddaughter, and some of the characters are unnecessary, particularly Geraldine Chaplin's character.  There is a spectacular battle with one of the dinosaurs at the end of the film but I wanted more dinosaurs (I also wanted more of Dr. Malcolm!)!  I'm sure that many people will enjoy this movie but I found it to be disappointing.

Note:  For me, the best movie in the franchise is the original Jurassic Park.  It will be screened in concert with the Utah Symphony playing the iconic score at USANA Amphitheatre on September 8 (go here for tickets).  I already have my tickets and I am so excited!