Cha Cha Real Smooth

The Broadway is currently showing two of my favorite films from Sundance this year so I decided to see them both as a double feature yesterday.  I started with Cha Cha Real Smooth, which was the darling of the festival, and I think I enjoyed it even more the second time.  After graduating from college, Andrew (Cooper Raiff) is at loose ends because his girlfriend has moved to Barcelona to study and he living at home in the suburbs with his mom (Leslie Mann), stepdad (Brad Garrett), and younger brother David (Evan Assante) while working a dead end job at the food court in the mall.  When asked to drive David to a Bat Mitzvah, he crashes the party and eventually gets everyone dancing.  He meets Domino (Dakota Johnson) and impresses her when he is able to get her autistic daughter Lola (Vanessa Burghardt) out on the dance floor.  All of the other mothers are impressed with his energy and enthusiasm so they hire him to be a party starter for all of their upcoming Bat and Bar Mitzvahs which keeps him in frequent contact with Domino.  They eventually form a complicated friendship.  Domino flirts with him because, even though she is engaged, he makes her feel young and carefree and he believes that he is in love with her because he feels needed by both her and Lola.  Their relationship eventually runs its course after Domino finds the courage to commit to her fiance and Andrew finds some direction in his life.  This is a heartfelt and charming coming of age story with incredibly appealing performances from Raiff, who is as irrepressible as a puppy, Johnson, who is absolutely luminous, and Burghardt, who steals every scene she is in.  Even though I am a bit older (ahem) than the target audience I really related to the main character because I also felt completely lost during this period in my life.  I loved everything about this film (the attention to detail with all of the Bat and Bar Mitzvah themes is a highlight) and I left the theater with a huge smile on my face.  Go see it!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Eccles

Last night I had the chance to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a musical based on the beloved book by Roald Dahl, and I thought it was a lot of fun.  Willy Wonka (Cody Garcia), the world's greatest chocolatier, laments that making chocolate has become bitter for him and he wants to find someone to take over his chocolate factory.  Charlie Bucket (Kai Edgar) is an imaginative boy who loves chocolate but, because his family is desperately poor, he can only afford one chocolate bar a year on his birthday.  Wonka decides to invite five lucky children who find a golden ticket in one of his chocolate bars to tour his factory and soon four children from around the world, Augustus Gloop (David Nick), Veruca Salt (Angela Palladini), Violet Beauregarde (Zakiya Baptiste), and Mike Teavee (Jacnier), find tickets.  Charlie dreams of finding a golden ticket but, even though Grandpa Joe (Steve McCoy), Grandma Josephine (Jenna Brooke Scannelli), Grandpa George (Stanton Morales), and Grandma Georgina (Nicole Zelka) encourage him, his mother (Claire Leyden) warns him not to get his hopes up.  Charlie doesn't find one in his birthday chocolate bar but Wonka contrives to give him another one with a golden ticket inside.  The children join Wonka in the world of pure imagination but four of them give into their negative impulses.  The greedy Augustus falls into a chocolate waterfall after being warned not to drink from it, the obsessed Violet blows up into a giant blueberry after being warned not to chew an experimental piece of gum, the spoiled Veruca is pulled apart by the squirrels who sort the nuts after demanding one for herself, and the addicted Mike is shrunk inside a TV after misusing WonkaVision.  The imaginative Charlie gives into his desire to look at Wonka's inventions but this convinces Wonka to take Charlie on the Great Glass Elevator and give him his factory.  I loved the colorful projections, sets, and costumes (especially inside of the factory), the full body puppets used for the Oompa Loompas (they are hilarious), and the performances (especially the adorable Edgar as Charlie and the charismatic Garcia as Wonka).  However, I didn't think that any of the songs were particularly memorable.  There were only a couple that made an impression on me, including "Willy Wonka!  Willy Wonka!" and "The Oompa Loompa Song," and I liked them because of the choreography and the performances by the ensemble.  I also felt that the second act got bogged down with all of the special effects.  It was really cool to see Violet transform into into a giant blueberry and to see Mike shrink inside of a TV in front of our eyes but the execution of these and other stunts slowed the action down considerably.  I enjoyed this show and I am glad that I got to see it but I do not count it as a favorite.  It will be at the Eccles Theatre through June 19 (go here for tickets).

Lightyear

Last night I got to see an early access screening of Lightyear and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie that inspired Andy to ask for the toy!  Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans) is a Space Ranger on a mission in uncharted space 4.2 million light-years from Earth when his ship is diverted to a planet.  He and his commanding officer Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Udubo) explore the planet, determine that it is hostile, and attempt to leave but they become stranded when the ship is damaged after Buzz ignores the advice of the autopilot navigator.  The crew eventually decides to search the planet for an energy source needed to achieve hyperspace so they can go home.  Buzz, who feels responsible for marooning the crew, conducts many test flights for each energy source but they last a few minutes for him and several years for everyone else.  After many years and many failed tests, he finally finds the correct energy source but when he returns he discovers that Alisha has died and the planet has now been overtaken by alien robots ruled by Emperor Zurg (James Brolin).  To rid the planet of these robots and get everyone back home he must accept the help of a ragtag group of inexperienced volunteers, including Alisha's granddaughter Izzy (Keke Palmer).  What I enjoyed most is that, while there are similarities to the Toy Story franchise (Buzz is a cocky and arrogant pilot who must learn to work with others as part of a team in order to succeed), this is a standalone movie with a powerful message about being so focused on a goal that you miss out on living your life and there is a montage where Alisha gets married, starts a family, grows old, and dies while Buzz flies the same test missions over and over again that will pull at the heartstrings.  Evans does a wonderful job voicing Buzz because he displays such a broad range of emotions.  I'm not sure why there is so much discourse about continuity because Tim Allen's version of the character is a toy inspired by the movie character so they are meant to be different (in my opinion).  The rest of the voice cast is also really good with Peter Sohn as the robotic cat Sox as the standout (this character is hilarious).  The animation is fantastic and the action sequences in space are thrilling (I loved all of the visual cues to other space movies, especially 2001: A Space Odyssey).  Finally, the score by Michael Giacchino (he is having a good year) really compliments the visuals.  I wouldn't call this a top-tier Pixar movie but I had a lot of fun watching it (and so did all of the kids sitting near me) so I would definitely recommend it.

Benediction

I have a fascination with World War I and I am always drawn to movies set during this historical period so I went to see Benediction, a biographical drama about the war poet Siegfried Sassoon, last night at the Broadway.  After receiving the Military Cross for bravery, Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden) speaks out against how the government is prosecuting the war.  Rather than be court-martialed, his mother (Geraldine James) and a family friend (Simon Russell Beale) use their influence to have him declared mentally unfit and sent to a psychiatric facility against his will to recuperate.  Despite his therapy sessions with the sympathetic Dr. Rivers (Ben Daniels) and his friendship with fellow poet Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennyson), his experiences on the Western front plague him for the rest of his unhappy life.  He has a series of doomed love affairs with men, including the musician Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine), actor Glen Byam Shaw (Tom Blyth), and socialite Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch), he enters into a loveless marriage with Hester Gatty (Kate Phillips), he has a tense relationship with his son George (Richard Goulding), and he has a crisis of faith after converting to Catholicism.  It is his tortured existence that informs his brilliant and haunting poetry which eventually brings him the acceptance he so desperately craved but never found in life after his death.  With its non-linear narrative and beautiful cinematography, this movie almost feels as if it is one of Sassoon's poems and, even though it is incredibly slow, it is ultimately very moving.  The use of Sassoon's poems read by Lowden and Peter Capaldi, who plays the older Sassoon, along with archival footage of the war interspersed throughout is very effective in showing that Sassoon is never free from the horrors of war.  The performances are all excellent (I especially enjoyed Irvine's version of "And Her Mother Came Too") but Lowden's subtle portrayal of grief is absolutely captivating.  The scene in which Sassoon says goodbye as Owen leaves to return to the front and the final closeup on Sassoon with the voiceover of Owen's poem "The Disabled" almost destroyed me.  This is a heartbreaking but beautiful movie that was so compelling I immediately wanted to know more about Sassoon and read more of his poetry after watching it.  I recommend it to fans of biographical dramas.

The Wedding Singer at the Empress

The next show in the 1980s double feature at the Empress last night was The Wedding Singer.  After a brief intermission, the set for the Bourbon Room used in Rock of Ages was quickly transformed into a New Jersey reception center where Robbie Hart (Caden Terry) sings with his band.  At his latest wedding gig he announces to the crowd that he will be getting married himself the next day but his fiancee Linda (Brenna Moody) dumps him at the altar.  Julia Sullivan (K'lynn Reid), one of the waitresses at the reception center, tries to console him but his next wedding gig is a disaster.  He begins to have feelings for Julia but she is engaged to a rich, handsome, and charming (but sleazy) Wall Street banker named Glen Guglia (KC Cook).  Robbie decides to give up trying to be a rock star and gets a job with Glen but Julia is not impressed because she is having second thoughts about marrying Glen and Linda wants him back.  Will Robbie finally be able to win Julia's love or will Linda and Glen ruin things for them?  I have to be honest and say that I am not a big fan of The Wedding Singer (I saw it at HCT a few years ago) because, as is the case with many musicals adapted from popular movies, the music is incredibly contrived.  The songs often seem as if large sections of dialogue from the movie have simply been set to music, particularly "A Note From Linda" which Linda reads to dump Robbie, "A Note From Grandma" which Robbie's grandma writes to cheer him up, and "Come out of the Dumpster" which Julia sings after a disgruntled groom throws Robbie in a dumpster after he ruins his wedding.  None of the songs are particularly memorable but the cast is more than game and their exuberant performances are a lot of fun to watch.  My favorite in the cast was, once again, Cook because he looks like he is having a blast playing the shady Glen.  There are many elements of this production that I really enjoyed, such as the wedding dress Linda wears to dump Robbie (which resembles the one Madonna wore for her performance of "Like a Virgin" at the VMAs), the Halloween costumes worn by the guests at the wedding Robbie disrupts (the twins from The Shining, Princess Leia, Wonder Woman, and Indiana Jones), the scene at the mall where Julia buys her wedding dress as Robbie's grandma power walks around the perimeter of the entire theater, and the awkward dancing of the young guests at the bar mitzvah where Robbie performs (I laughed out loud at this).  This show is the first Empress All Night production (shown as a double feature with Rock of Ages on Friday and Saturday nights) and I loved being a part of the rowdy late night crowd!  The excitement was definitely infectious and I am glad I stayed for it!