White Boy Rick

I was on the fence about seeing White Boy Rick but I didn't have any plans last night so I decided to check it out.  I ended up liking this cautionary tale based on a true story much more than I thought I would.  As a fifteen year old, Rick Wershe Jr. (Richie Merritt) can see that his life is going nowhere.  He lives in an economically depressed Detroit in the 1980s with a gun running father (Matthew McConaughey) who has big plans for opening a video store which never come to fruition and a sister (Bel Powley) who is a junkie.  He has dropped out of school and runs with one of the many black gangs who rule the city where he acquires the nickname "White Boy Rick."  Two FBI agents (Jennifer Jason Leigh and Rory Cochrane) blackmail him into becoming an informant by threatening to arrest his father for selling guns that were involved in a crime.  They have Rick do controlled buys of crack cocaine to build cases against the dealers.  He eventually sends the members of his former gang to prison and gets shot in the stomach for his trouble.  When his girlfriend has a baby and his sister almost overdoses, he decides that selling crack for himself will be the best way to help his family.  This leads to his arrest, a betrayal by the FBI, and a mandatory life sentence at the age of 17.  The brilliant performances are what makes this movie better than I expected.  Merritt, in his first ever role, is incredibly sympathetic as a teenager bereft of hope and he gives Rick a certain vulnerability along with the swagger.  McConaughey is charismatic (and a little bit sleazy) as a father who means well but can't do anything to improve his family's situation.  Powley is riveting as a strung out junkie and the scene where she is found in a flophouse is absolutely visceral.  I also really enjoyed the 1980s verisimilitude, especially the scenes at the roller rink.  My problem with this movie is that it is sometimes really unfocused and confusing with a lot of vignettes that don't add up to a cohesive whole.  I was left with a lot of unanswered questions which prompted an online search for information that should have been included.  I'm glad that I saw it, though, and I recommend it for the touching family drama and the great performances.

Note:  It goes without saying that a movie like this is full of violence and profanity, although I didn't find it to be gratuitous.

Bernstein on Broadway

Last night, in honor of Leonard Bernstein's 100th birthday, the Utah Symphony performed a concert featuring the music of Bernstein with guest conductor Teddy Abrams and Broadway star Morgan James.  Bernstein's music is so evocative and exuberant and James has such a powerful voice that she seemed capable of blowing the roof off Abravanel Hall so, as you can imagine, this concert was absolutely wonderful.  The orchestra began with the Overture to West Side Story and then James gave a lovely performance of "Tonight" from the same show.  She continued with several selections from On the Town including "I Can Cook Too," "Some Other Time," and "Ain't Got No Tears Left" while the orchestra played "Times Square 1944" which was a lot of fun.  Then she sang "A Simple Song" from Bernstein's Mass which I really loved.  After the intermission, the orchestra played the Overture to Bernstein's operetta Candide (the orchestra will play this in its entirety in November).  James, then, sang several songs from Peter Pan, a piece I was unfamiliar with, including "Dream with Me" and "My House" which were lovely.  The concert concluded with a rousing rendition of "Glitter and Be Gay" from Candide which brought the audience to its feet!  For the encore, she performed an incredible version of "Somewhere" from West Side Story.  I enjoyed this performance so much!  My favorite moment was when James sang "Some Other Time" because it was so plaintive and nostalgic.  If you are a fan of Leonard Bernstein I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here) to this concert which will be performed again tonight!

A Simple Favor

Last night I went to a Thursday preview of A Simple Favor and I thoroughly enjoyed this dark comedy.  Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) is a single mom living in a Connecticut suburb.  She is extremely lonely and tries to be the perfect mom (complete with a vlog giving parenting tips, recipes, and crafts for other moms) to mask her pain.  When her son wants a play date with another boy at his school, she meets Emily Nelson (Blake Lively), a wealthy, glamorous, and enigmatic woman with a high profile job in the city.  They bond over secrets and martinis but Stephanie thinks that their friendship is genuine while Emily sees it as a way to get free child care.  When Emily does not pick up her son from a play date, Stephanie begins looking for her missing friend and uncovers more than she bargained for.  She also begins a relationship with Emily's husband Sean (Henry Golding) which further complicates matters.  What makes this movie so much fun to watch is that you never know who is duping whom until the final resolution.  All three of these characters have secrets, which are revealed little by little, and the plot twists are completely twisted!  I loved both Lively and Kendrick in their roles (these characters must have been so much fun to play) and the dialogue during their martini-fueled afternoons is a definite highlight.  Rupert Friend is absolutely hilarious as Dennis Nylon, the designer Emily works for, and Jean Smart is fabulous as Emily's alcoholic mother.  This movie is so stylish with incredible sets, production design, and costumes (especially all of Lively's tailored suits).  I had so much fun watching this wildly entertaining movie and I highly recommend it!

The Nun

I really have no idea what possessed me (ha ha) to see The Nun last night!  I haven't seen any of the other movies in The Conjuring universe and it is rare that I can be genuinely scared by a horror movie so I usually avoid them.  However, the trailer for The Nun looked promising and, now that I have seen it, I have to say that I was initially really freaked out by the disturbing image of a demonic nun.  After a young nun commits suicide in an abbey in a remote area in Romania, the Vatican sends Father Burke (Demian Bichir), a priest tormented by an exorcism performed on a young boy during World War II that went horribly wrong, to investigate.  Because the abbey is cloistered, the Vatican also sends Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), a novitiate who sees visions, to help him gain access.  As they are haunted by a demonic presence that appears in the guise of a nun, they discover that the abbey was once a castle built in the Middle Ages and that the Duke who built it used Satanic rituals to open a portal to Hell within its walls.  Crusaders used the blood of Christ to close the portal and consecrated the castle for use as an abbey.  The portal was opened once again when it was bombed during World War II and the nuns must keep a constant vigil of prayer to contain the evil.  Father Burke, Sister Irene, and a local farmer (Jonas Bloquet) must face an ultimate showdown with the evil nun to close to portal once again.  The beginning of this movie is incredibly atmospheric with a castle shrouded in mist, long creepy halls lit only by lanterns or candles, nuns who appear and disappear, and deep and disturbing chanting.  There is such a sense of foreboding that I was really on edge and, like I mentioned, I found the nun to be a terrifying figure, at least initially.  As the movie progressed, however, the presence of the nun became less and less scary because you see nuns on the screen so often.  You never really know if it is the demonic nun or just one of the nuns in the abbey.  The final resolution seems to go on forever and, eventually, I found it to be a bit tedious.  The plot becomes more and more convoluted and the character development hinted at in the exposition ends up going nowhere.  This movie begins with so much promise but, by the end, I was just wishing that it would end.

Peppermint

Last night I went to see the movie Peppermint and, despite some negative reviews, I thought it was actually pretty decent.  Riley North (Jennifer Garner) sees her husband and daughter gunned down by members of a drug cartel.  Despite the fact that she witnesses the crime and identifies the three gunmen, they are released with the help of a corrupt lawyer and judge.  With no legal recourse, Riley then embezzles a large sum of money from the bank she used to work for and disappears for five years to acquire the skills needed to take matters into her own hands.  When she returns, she kills the three gunmen, the lawyer, and the judge, then sets her sights on the entire drug cartel and, in the process, becomes a sort of hero to the downtrodden.  It is a very standard revenge thriller with some cringe-worthy dialogue, stereotypical villains, a plot twist that I saw coming very early on, and some awkward camera work but I found it to be strangely satisfying.  Jennifer Garner is both heartbreaking as a woman who has lost her family and kick-ass as a vigilante out for justice and I enjoyed her performance.  There are some great action sequences that got my adrenaline pumping (it is, however, incredibly violent) and I don't know what this says about me as a person but there was a part of me that wanted to cheer at the final resolution between Riley and the leader of the drug cartel.  I also found the ending to be very intriguing.  If you are a fan of movies like Death Wish and The Equalizer, you may enjoy this.

Note:  I’m not sure why this movie is called Peppermint...