Wild Mountain Thyme

When I saw the trailer for Wild Mountain Thyme I thought it sounded really familiar.  It turns out that it is an adaptation of the play Outside Mullingar by John Patrick Shanley.  I absolutely loved this play when it was performed at PTC a few years ago so I decided to see the movie last night (even though it was the second romantic drama this week).  Tony Reilly (Christopher Walken) and Aoife Muldoon (Dearbhla Molloy), who live on adjoining farms in Ireland, are both getting old and are contemplating their mortality.  Tony, especially, is concerned about leaving his farm to his son Anthony (Jamie Dornan) because he shows no sign of getting married and won't have any children to leave it to when he dies.  Tony briefly considers selling it to his nephew Adam (Jon Hamm), who visits from America, but Tony eventually realizes that he just wants it for an investment.  Tony then decides that the best solution would be for Anthony to marry Aoife's daughter Rosemary (Emily Blunt) because she has been in love with him since childhood.  However, Rosemary is too caught up in her romantic notions of love to approach him and Anthony is seemingly oblivious to her feelings.  Will they ever get together or will Adam's interest in Rosemary ruin Anthony's chances?  I did not enjoy this as much as I hoped I would.  Much has been made about the laughable Irish accents but that didn't bother me as much as the portrayal of the two main characters did.  In the play, Rosemary and Anthony are funny and eccentric people who are clearly meant to be together but just haven't realized it yet.  In the movie, they are angry in their interactions with each other (without the witty back and forth banter that I loved so much in the play) and they come across as totally unlikable.  I can't decide if this is because of how the characters are written (the playwright also wrote the script) in the movie or if it is just how Dornan and Blunt chose to portray them.  When they finally do get together, it is so sudden that it doesn't seem at all believable (it doesn't help that Dornan and Blunt have zero chemistry).  One minute they are screaming at each other and the next they are kissing in the rain.  Anthony's reason for keeping his distance from Rosemary, which is sweet and charming in the play, is just bizarre in the movie because the characterization isn't there to support it. The addition of Adam, a character who is only alluded to in the play, as a love interest who comes between Anthony and Rosemary lessens the impact of their romance because it takes the interference of someone else for Anthony to finally realize that he loves Rosemary.  Unfortunately, something that I really loved on the stage falls horribly flat on the screen so I would recommend giving Wild Mountain Thyme a miss.

All My Life

I'm not really one for weepy romantic dramas (although I really enjoyed this one) but All My Life is a true story about a couple from my home province of Ontario so I decided to see it last night.  It is actually pretty good and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  Jennifer Carter (Jessica Rothe) is a graduate student in psychology and Solomon Chau (Harry Shum, Jr.) works at a job in marketing that he hates when they meet, fall in love, and impulsively decide to move in together.  Jenn convinces Sol to quit his job and follow his dream of becoming a chef because the time to take action is now or never.  They get engaged and begin planning a modest wedding when Sol is diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his liver.  They are optimistic about his treatment but their friends decide to create a GoFundMe page and plan various local fundraisers to give them the wedding of their dreams.  When his cancer becomes more aggressive, Sol tries to break off their engagement to save Jenn from heartache but she reminds him once again that the time to live is now or never.  This movie is quite innocuous with nothing very earth-shattering or ground-breaking to say but, as I mentioned, I did enjoy it.  Jenn and Sol are incredibly appealing characters and the sequences where they fall in love are really fun as are the fundraising and wedding planning montages.  They are decent people who handle the adversity in their lives with love and laughter and their story is a sweet one about living every day to the fullest.  Both Rothe and Shum give affecting performances (I may or may not have had a tear in my eye during the wedding) and they have a lot of chemistry with each other.  I usually find movies like this to be emotionally manipulative but, while it is tragic, the narrative focuses more on how the couple deals with Sol's illness rather than the illness itself and I really appreciated that.  I liked this movie so fans of the genre are sure to love it!

Note:  Sol proposes to Jenn by having a flash mob sing "Don't Look Back In Anger" by Oasis and their first dance at the wedding is to "Lovesong" by The Cure.  If that doesn't convince you to see this movie, I don't know what will!

Sean's Sixteenth Birthday!

Yesterday my family celebrated my nephew Sean's sixteenth birthday (his actual birthday was last Thursday).  Sean picked hamburgers and fries for dinner and then we had a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake.

I got Sean a game for his X-box (he specifically requested it and even sent me a link for it on Amazon) but it is not going to be released until Thursday (I have strict instructions to bring it to him the second it is delivered to my house because he doesn't want to hear any spoilers from anyone online).  I wanted him to have something to open so I got him an X-box gift card.  He was not expecting it so he was pretty excited!

Sean really loves The Flash (he is actually wearing a shirt with The Flash on it which we thought was hilarious) so Marilyn made him a quilt featuring his favorite character!  It turned out so cute and he was really excited to get it!

Marilyn bought a Flash pattern for her embroidery machine so my parents had her embroider it on some towels, a beanie, and a hoodie!

I suspect that he will want the Flash symbol embroidered on everything he owns!  I can't believe that he is 16! 

The Prom

I am a huge fan of musical theatre and, as such, I have a long list of shows that I want to see with The Prom near the top.  Since I can’t see it on the stage, seeing the movie adaptation last night was the next best thing. I had so much fun watching a feel-good story about having the courage to be who you are that is also a colorful and sparkly love letter to theatre!  I loved everything about it!  Down and out Broadway stars Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep) and Barry Glickman (James Corden) are commiserating over the fact that their show has closed on opening night because the critics don't like them as people.  They think the best way to resurrect their careers is to champion a cause to show the public that they care about something other than themselves.  They hear about a girl named Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman) in Indiana who wants to attend her high school prom with her girlfriend (Ariana DeBose).  Rather than allow this, Mrs. Greene (Kerry Washington), the head of the PTA, cancels the prom despite the support of the high school principal Tom Hawkins (Keegan-Michael Key).  They decide to help Emma and are joined by Trent Oliver (Andrew Rannells), an out of work actor who never fails to mention that he attended Juilliard, and Angie Dickinson (Nicole Kidman), a chorus girl who has been the understudy for Roxie Hart for twenty years, on a bus for a non-union tour of Godspell headed to Indiana.  They help get the prom reinstated for the good publicity but, when Emma suffers an additional heartache, they realize they actually do care about helping her have a night to celebrate who she really is.  I loved every single song but my favorites are "We Look to You," about the power of theatre (Keegan-Michael Key really surprised me with how good he is in this number), "Love Thy Neighbor," about the hypocrisy of believing that you are a good person when you hate and discriminate against those who are different than you, and "Unruly Heart," about the freedom to love who you want.  The choreography throughout is a lot of fun, especially the Fosse-inspired "Zazz" and the exuberant "It's Time to Dance." Streep is absolutely perfect as a narcissistic Broadway diva and I especially enjoyed her rendition of "It's Not About Me" because it is so over the top! There has been some controversy over the casting of Corden, who is straight, but his performance as a gay man rejected by his family is full of such pathos that it really feels authentic.  Despite the star power, I was most impressed with newcomer Pellman because she is absolutely luminous and her rendition of "Unruly Heart" is incredibly touching.  I also enjoyed Broadway veteran DeBose (she was in the original cast of Hamilton) and her song "Alyssa Greene" is one of the most powerful moments in the movie. I had a smile on my face from beginning to end (I laughed out loud at the many theatre references) and I am so glad that it will be streaming on Netflix soon because I want to watch over and over again!  Its message of acceptance is an important one and I highly recommend it (especially to theatre fans).

Half Brothers

Comedies are usually a hard sell for me but I decided to see Half Brothers because the trailer made me laugh out loud! I saw it last night in a packed theater (by Covid-19 standards) and it was a lot of fun.  Young Renato (Ian Inigo) and his father Flavio (Juan Pablo Espinoza) are inseparable and share a love of model airplanes and figuring out puzzles.  When the value of the peso declines in Mexico, Flavio feels that he has no choice but to travel to the United States to look for work.  He never returns and Renato (Luis Gerardo Mendez) grows up to becomes a cold and bitter, albeit successful, man.  When he receives a phone call requesting that he visit his dying father in Chicago, he is angry but he begrudging decides to go to appease his fiance Pamela (Pia Watson).  He learns that he has a heretofore unknown brother named Asher (Connor Del Rio) and that his father has arranged for the two of them to complete a scavenger hunt which will explain why he never returned to Mexico. The uptight Renato is jealous that the free-spirited Asher got all of their father's attention while he had no one to rely on but himself and Asher reveals that he always felt like he was a disappointment to their father.  Through a series of misadventures, they eventually bond with each other and learn some important lessons from their father.  The plot is a bit far-fetched, there are quite a few jabs at the politics and culture of the United States, and the humor sometimes feels forced and silly (especially the physical comedy involving a goat which is amusing but comes out of nowhere) but this movie is a surprisingly poignant look at the relationship between fathers and sons.  I laughed out loud, especially in a scene where the brothers have to rescue the goat (the needle drop here is hilarious), and I had a tear in my eye by the end of the scavenger hunt.  I enjoyed this so much (and so did the crowd at my screening) but I suspect that this is because there is a dearth of new releases right now rather than because it is a great movie so keep that in mind when deciding whether to see it or not!