Champions

Last night I decided to have a double feature of 65 (for the third time) and then Champions.  I love a feel-good underdog sports movie and this was a lot of fun.  Marcus Marakovich (Woody Harrelson) is an incredibly volatile assistant coach for a minor league basketball team in Iowa.  An altercation with the head coach gets him fired and an accident while under the influence gets him sentenced to 90 days community service as a coach to a basketball team of adults with intellectual disabilities.  His first meeting with the quirky players, including Johnny (Kevin Iannucci), Cody (Ashton Gunning), Craig (Matthew Von Der Ahe), Blair (Tom Sinclair), Benny (James Day Keith), Arthur (Alex Hintz), Marlon (Casey Metcalfe), Showtime (Bradley Edens) and, eventually, Cosentino (Madison Tevlin), and Darius (Joshua Felder), goes about as well as you would expect!  Even though he knows everything there is to know about basketball, Marcus must get to know his players as people before they can start winning games.  The team's eventual success gets him an offer to coach in the NBA but it is when they play in the final game of the Special Olympics that he learns the true definition of a champion.  This features all of the training montages, inspirational locker room speeches, and come from behind wins that have become de rigueur for the genre but it is just so charming it doesn't matter that it is incredibly predictable.  Harrelson is great but I loved watching the actors with real-life intellectual disabilities who play the team members because their interactions with him are hilarious.  I especially loved Tevlin because her comedic timing rivals that of Harrelson!  This might be too crude for some people (it is directed by Bobby Farrelly, after all) but if you can get beyond that, it is very heart-warming and entertaining.

Matilda at CPT

Both of my sisters, my brother-in-law, my nephew, and I went to see Matilda at CPT last night and we had so much fun. This production features some innovative staging and I am always really appreciative when a show that I have seen several times does something to surprise me. Matilda Wormwood (Charlotte Witt) is a precocious five year old with a penchant for reading, telling stories, and being just a little bit naughty. She is ignored by her mother (Jaycee Harris), an amateur Latin ballroom dancer, and father (Caydin Bell), an unscrupulous used car salesman, and is terrorized by Miss Agatha Trunchbull (J.R. Moore), the former champion in hammer throwing who is now the headmistress of her school. With the help of a sympathetic teacher named Miss Honey (Amanda Frisby) and a story about an Escapologist (James Duncan) and an Acrobat (Keely Parry), Matilda triumphs over the neglectful adults in her life. I was incredibly impressed with the elaborate set because it is very different from the ones I have seen before. It features a large multi-level school made of bricks with barbed wire at the top of the walls, loudspeakers on poles, and a large iron gate (it looks like a cross between a medieval castle and a prison). There is a turntable which is used to bring in set pieces for the Wormwood's house and Miss Honey's classroom with other pieces brought on from the wings. As I mentioned, I really liked the staging of many of the numbers in this production, particularly "Miracle," because it includes the addition of a gospel choir backing up the Doctor (Garret Frazier), "School Song," because it features the use of typography with projections on an interactive chalk board, and "When I Grow Up" (my favorite song in the show), because, in addition to the usual swings, the choreography includes a seesaw, a hopscotch, a jump rope, fishing poles, hula hoops, and bubble blowers which give it a very playful feel. I also really enjoyed "The Smell of Rebellion" and "Revolting Children" because the children in the ensemble are absolutely fantastic! Other crowd favorites were "Loud," because Mrs. Wormwood (Harris is my brother-in-law's niece and we all loved her performance because her facial expressions are hilarious) and her dance partner Rudolpho (Caleb Birth) are completely over the top, and "Chokey Chant," because there is a fun effect involving throwing a child into the chokey. Witt does a great job and her renditions of "Naughty" and "Quiet" are wonderful but I sometimes couldn't hear her during "Escapologist Story." Frisby has a beautiful voice and her version of "My House" is very powerful and moving. However, Moore steals the show as Miss Trunchbull because his performance is a cross between Miss Hannigan and an East German Olympic athlete! I laughed and laughed at all of his antics during "The Hammer" and "The Smell of Rebellion," especially all of his facial expressions and gestures. Miss Trunchbull's costume in this show is probably my favorite of those I've seen for the character and I was also impressed by the attention to detail on the school uniforms worn by the children. So many elements of this show stood out to me as new and exciting and I really enjoyed it!  This show runs on the Barlow Main Stage through April 15 (go here for tickets) and I highly recommend it!

The Quiet Girl

Last night I went back to the Broadway to see The Quiet Girl, a recent Academy Award nominee for Best International Feature, and I was incredibly moved by this lovely coming of age story.  Nine-year-old Cait (Catherine Clinch) is the middle daughter of a large and impoverished family in rural Ireland.  Her ne'er-do-well father (Michael Patric) neglects their farm and spends his days drinking, gambling, and philandering and her exhausted mother (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh) is overwhelmed by the imminent birth of another baby.  Cait is painfully shy and is often berated for wetting the bed and wandering off so it is decided that she will be sent to her mother's middle aged cousin Eibhlin Kinsella (Carrie Crowley) and her husband Sean (Andrew Bennett) in Waterford for the summer.  Eibhlin cares for her tenderly and, even though he is distant at first, Sean eventually bonds with her when she helps him on his dairy farm and when they make a game of her running down the lane to retrieve the post (which informs an incredibly poignant scene later in the movie that brought tears to my eyes).  Cait blossoms after experiencing kindness for the first time in her life and she helps the Kinsellas come to terms with the death of their son years earlier.  The action is slow and monotonous, with many scenes showing Cait peeling potatoes, walking to the well for water, and cleaning the barn, but every moment is fraught with meaning, especially one involving a cookie.  The cinematography is beautiful and I loved that people and places are often depicted from the perspective of a child.  Clinch gives an amazing physical performance because she conveys so much of what she is thinking and feeling without a lot of dialogue (you automatically know that she has suffered, with very little exposition, by the wary look in her eyes when she is around her father, mother, and sisters).  I loved this movie so much and I highly recommend seeking out this little gem.

Inside

I thought the trailer for Inside looked really intriguing so I decided to see it last night at the Broadway.  It was definitely thought-provoking!  Nemo (Willem Dafoe) breaks into the luxury penthouse apartment of an art collector to steal several valuable paintings.  As he attempts to leave, however, the security system malfunctions and traps him inside with no way out.  The owner is away on an extended trip so most of the utilities have been shut off, including water, and there is very little food.  He is completely alone with no way to contact the outside world beyond watching a housekeeper in the building named Jasmine (Eliza Stuyck) who appears on the security camera feed every day.  As the weeks turn into months, he struggles both to survive and to find a way out of the apartment while interacting with the owner's art collection.  Any survival thriller taking place in only one location has a tendency to become a bit one-note after a while but Dafoe has such a compelling presence that my attention never wavered because I wanted to see what he would do next.  Watching him slowly become unhinged is absolutely riveting (see also The Lighthouse).  The production design is brilliant because the apartment is almost like a character itself.  It is large, spacious, luxurious, monochromatic, and filled with priceless art but it is also cold and sterile and none of these beautiful pieces can sustain him.  I had to sit with this movie for a little while to determine what the filmmakers are saying about art and I've decided the message is that art might be beautiful and profound but it cannot take the place of human connection and that the price we place on it is excessive.  This is definitely not for everyone (the couple I spoke to in the lobby afterwards hated it and thought it was incredibly boring) and I don't think it is something I will ever watch again but it has stayed with me so I recommend it.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods

I went to see Shazam! Fury of the Gods yesterday afternoon and it seems like I enjoyed it a lot more than most people.  The daughters of Atlas, Hespera (Helen Mirren), Kalypso (Lucy Liu), and Anthea (Rachel Zegler), steal the broken staff that once belonged to the Wizard (Djimon Hounsou) from a museum in Athens and compel him to repair it in order to reclaim the power stolen from their father.  They come into contact with the Wizard's champions, including Billy (Asher Angel and Zachary Levi), Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer and Adam Brody), Eugene (Ian Chen and Ross Butler), Pedro (Jovan Armand and D.J. Cotrona), Mary (Grace Caroline Currey), and Darla (Faithe Herman and Meagan Good), because their powers are derived from the staff.  Mayhem ensues.  What I enjoyed most about this movie is the emphasis on the importance of family and the storyline where Billy worries about aging out of foster care is incredibly poignant.  I also really liked the fact all of the siblings end up being more powerful as themselves rather than their superhero alter egos and I think that is a great message.  I do think that the Billy character is supplanted a bit by the Shazam character but Levi's goofy performance as someone suffering from impostor syndrome who learns how to be a leader is a lot of fun.  Even though the villains are not very memorable (I would have preferred a face-off between Shazam and Black Adam) I still loved seeing Mirren in this role, especially her interactions with Levi.  The action sequences are great, particularly the final battle, with VFX that definitely look a lot better than other recent CBMs.  I am actually baffled by the critical response because, despite a cameo (that I actually enjoyed) and some mid- and post-credits scenes that don't really make sense any more with all of the changes made in the DCEU as well as one of the most egregious uses of product placement I've ever seen, this is very entertaining with a lot of heart and I would definitely recommend it.