The Ten Commandments

When TCM announced the lineup for this year's Big Screen Classics series, The Ten Commandments was the movie I was most excited to see (I bought tickets to it and The Maltese Falcon as soon as they were available).  I have so many memories of watching this on TV with my sisters when I was young because it seems like it was broadcast every year around Easter and Passover.  Since it is so long, we were always given permission to stay up past our bedtimes to watch it to the end which was a rare treat.  Sometimes we made it to see the Ten Commandments written on the stone tablets and sometimes we didn't!  Seeing this spectacle on the big screen last night was an amazing experience and I had so much fun anticipating every epic moment!  Moses (Charlton Heston), the son of Hebrew slaves, is an adopted Prince of Egypt vying with Rameses (Yul Brynner) for the throne of Seti I (Cedric Hardwicke) and the attention of Nefretiri (Anne Baxter).  When his true identity is revealed, Moses is banished to the desert but eventually returns to Egypt to lead his enslaved people to freedom and to receive the Ten Commandments from God.  I loved all of the elaborate sets, reported to be the biggest and most expensive up to that point, as well as the period costumes and I was surprised by how stirring I found all of the big action sequences to be, especially the scale of the scene in which the Hebrews leave Egypt (14,00 extras and 15,00 animals were used) and the grandeur of all of the Egyptian chariots giving chase across the desert.  Some of the special effects, such as the turning of a staff into a snake, have not aged particularly well but the parting of the Red Sea is still pretty impressive, even by today's standards, and the writing of the commandments on the stone tablets is quite dramatic.  Heston is incredibly handsome and charismatic in the role of Moses and I found his struggle to accept his destiny to be very moving while Brynner's campy performance as Rameses is a lot of fun to watch.  The overture and an intermission (it is almost four hours long) are included in the theatrical version and, for some reason, I really enjoyed that!  It was certainly exciting to see this movie as it was meant to be seen and I definitely recommend checking out the rest of TCM's lineup (go here).

Cherry

I finally had the chance to see Cherry last night and, as a huge Tom Holland fan, I was really looking forward to it.  Unfortunately, it is an absolute mess.  It is based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Nico Walker which details his alienation from society and ultimate redemption.  The narrative is told by Cherry (Holland), a stand-in for Walker, through a series of chapters and an epilogue (each with a red saturated title card) which roughly correspond to his time as a college student who works menial jobs and then meets and eventually marries Emily (Ciara Bravo), his time in basic training after a temporary breakup with Emily prompts him to enlist in the army, his time in Iraq where he has several horrifying experiences as a medic, his time back home immediately after his deployment where he suffers from PTSD and becomes addicted to OxyContin, his time as a bank robber as he attempts to fund his and Emily's heroin addiction, and his time in prison where he detoxes and recovers.  The story is incredibly compelling with a riveting performance from Holland but, stylistically, the movie is all over the place without any sort of cohesion to hold the narrative together (each chapter could have belonged to a different movie).  Cherry's expletive-laden stream-of-consciousness narration, which sometimes breaks the fourth wall, comes and goes without any rhyme or reason.  There are many jarring tonal shifts created by some truly bizarre music choices, such as using Puccini as Cherry is arrested and "Disco Inferno" as he comes home from Iraq, and some ineffective attempts at humor, such as using "Shitty Bank" instead of "Citibank."  The camera work is very inconsistent because the Russo Brothers use just about every technique taught in film school to prove that they are serious directors.  Everything is overdone and used for effect rather than to serve the narrative.  Even the color palette shifts from scene to scene with a gritty sepia tone one moment and then garish primary color filters in the next.  Finally, I'm not sure that this movie even has a point.  Is it supposed to be a criticism of an economic system that gives young people so few choices?  Is it an indictment of war and the way in which returning veterans are treated?  Is it a call to action over the opioid epidemic in this country?  Or is it an attack on society as a whole?  My main takeaway is that prison seems to be the only option for some people to get the treatment and vocational training they need to become successful and even this part of the story, the emotional payout for sticking it out with Cherry, is told in a matter of minutes with a montage of prison life and a cloying score.  It is a very unsatisfying resolution.  I really like Tom Holland (I think he has the potential to be great but he definitely needs to pick better material) and I wanted to like this movie but it is such a mess that I can't recommend it.

Six Minutes to Midnight

Last night I saw Six Minutes to Midnight and, even though I am a huge fan of movies featuring World War II intrigue, I found this particular movie to be quite underwhelming.  England is on the brink of war with Germany but Miss Rocholl (Judi Dench) continues as headmistress of the Augusta-Victoria College for Girls, a finishing school for the wealthy daughters of Germany's most influential and powerful families including the Nazi High Command, located in the village of Bexhill-on-Sea.  She sees the school as a way to strengthen the cultural bond between England and Germany but one of the teachers, Ilse Keller (Carla Juri), has more ominous intentions and has attracted the attention of the British secret service.  An agent named Thomas Miller (Eddie Izzard) masquerades as a teacher, replacing another agent who has disappeared, in order to uncover her secrets but he is thwarted by a Hitchcockian plot twist that is more ridiculous than compelling.  The story of the school, which actually existed on the coast of England before the war, is absolutely fascinating (I wanted to know more about the girls and their motivations) but the fictionalized espionage narrative is very thin and doesn't always make sense.  There are far more questions than answers.  Dench gives an affecting performance as a woman devoted to her students but I wish that her character had been explored more fully.  Izzard seems incredibly miscast as a spy (the many scenes of Miller running from his pursuers are not only awkward but highly improbable).  The same could be said of Juri because her portrayal of a German spy is also very bland, consisting primarily of shouting commands in a monotone voice.  James D'Arcy is almost a caricature of a sinister double agent but Jim Broadbent is as genial as ever in a small but pivotal role.  The cinematography features stunning shots of the coastal location and the production design is moody and atmospheric in its depiction of the period but, unfortunately, this movie is more style than substance.  It is a mediocre entry in the spy genre and I would recommend waiting for its inevitable appearance on a streaming platform.

Nobody

Last night I went to see the movie Nobody and, because there was a large and rowdy crowd (by Covid-19 standards), it was an absolute blast!  Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) is a mild-mannered accountant for his father-in-law's manufacturing business and lives in the suburbs with his wife (Connie Nielsen), son (Gage Munroe), and daughter (Paisley Cadorath).  Life has become monotonous but one night he and his family are the victims of an armed home invasion during which his passive behavior allows the burglars to get away subjecting him to the derision of his son, neighbor, brother-in-law, father-in-law, and the police.  This awakens a long dormant rage in Hutch so, when a group of thugs begins harassing him and the other passengers on a bus, he beats them savagely.  One of his victims is the younger brother of a Russian mob enforcer (Aleksei Serebryakov) who vows revenge.  When a group of Russian gangsters comes after him, it becomes apparent that Hutch is not who he appears to be.  This is an adrenaline rush from beginning to end with some of the best fight choreography I've seen, particularly a sequence where Hutch fights off a group of gangsters in his house using ordinary objects and an extended sequence in his booby-trapped factory.  People in my audience were clapping and cheering throughout!  Odenkirk reportedly trained for two years in order to perform all of his own stunts and he gives a kick-ass performance that is also highly amusing (I laughed out loud several times at his witty one-liners).  Christopher Lloyd steals every scene he is in as Hutch's father, who is also not who he appears to be.  The needle drops in this movie are fantastic!  I especially liked "I've Gotta Be Me," "My Way," "You'll Never Walk Alone," and "Let The Good Times Roll" because the contexts in which they are used are hilarious.  This is the most fun I've had watching a movie in a long time and I highly recommend it to fans of the genre.  See it with the biggest (socially distanced) crowd you can!

Marc Albrecht Conducts Mahler & R. Strauss

I was so happy to be back at Abravanel Hall for a Utah Symphony concert last night!  Before Covid-19, I spent most Friday nights at Abravanel Hall listening to the Utah Symphony and I really missed that during lockdown.  After finally being able to attend several concerts last fall, it was a bit of a blow when all Salt Lake County performing arts venues were closed again last December.  But now it looks like there might be a light at the end of the tunnel because these venues are open once again and several concerts were announced to finish out the Utah Symphony 2020-2021 season (I bought tickets to all of them).  Last night's concert, featuring guest conductor Marc Albrecht, was absolutely wonderful!  I was already feeling emotional just listening to the orchestra warm up so their performance of the Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 by Gustav Mahler just about did me in!  This piece is incredibly beautiful and otherworldly but it also quite mournful (it was performed at the funeral of Bobby Kennedy in 1968) so, of course, I loved it.  I especially enjoyed the theme played by the harp.  The concert concluded with the Suite from Der Burger als Edelmann (Le bourgeois gentilhomme) by Richard Strauss which is so charming.  I read the satirical play about a social climber by Moliere (in French!) when I was in high school so it was a lot of fun for me to imagine what was happening as I listened to the music.  I particularly liked "The Fencing Master" because it is very lively and energetic (with a great trumpet solo) as our protagonist tries to learn fencing from a master who takes advantage of his ignorance and "The Dinner" which is quite stately and dramatic with exaggerated pomp as our protagonist tries to impress his aristocratic guests (I loved the timpani).  I loved all of the music featured last night but I think what I enjoyed the most was the experience of being in an audience at a live performance because that, more than anything else, is a sign that things might be returning to some semblance of normalcy.  I am so ready for that!  I believe there are a limited number of tickets available (go here) for tonight's concert featuring the same program and I highly recommend getting one of them, especially if you have missed live performances as much as I have!

Note:  The 2021-2022 season was announced this week and I am so excited!  I have already subscribed to the Films in Concert Series (featuring The Return of the Jedi, Back to the Future, Home Alone, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) and I'm trying to decide on the concerts I want to include in my Design-A-Series subscription (Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Piano Concerto No. 2 are already on the list).  Go here for more information.