Fiddler on the Roof at the Empress Theatre

Last night I went to the Empress Theatre for the third production of Fiddler on the Roof that I've seen this year. I obviously love the show but this version is full of so much heart it put a huge smile on my face. Tevye (Don Smith) is a poor Jewish dairyman living in the small Russian village of Anatevka with his wife Golde (Marie Roe) and his five daughters. He clings to his traditional way of life as a protection from the harsh realities of life but his three oldest daughters, Tzeitel (Makayla Porter), Hodel (Kieryn Crawford), and Chava (Abby Shelley), push against tradition when it comes time to find a match. This features one of the largest ensemble casts I've seen at this venue and the staging is done very well for such a small space. I enjoyed all of the different patterns created in the choreography for "Tradition," "To Life," "Tevye's Dream" (I always judge every production by this number because I once played Fruma Sarah and this one is a lot of fun), "The Wedding," and "Anatevka." One of the things I love most about community theatre is that the ensemble, especially those featuring young children, often includes family members and that is the case with this show. The children are absolutely adorable and I often found myself watching them because they were concentrating so hard on the songs, blocking, and choreography! I especially loved a young boy who sweeps during "To Life" because he definitely takes it very seriously and another boy who sings at the top of his lungs during "Sunrise, Sunset." The main cast is outstanding and many of the characters have little moments that are really poignant, particularly the scene between Tevye and Tzeitel when she begs him not to make her marry Lazar Wolf (Joel Clark), the scene between Tevye and Hodel when she leaves Anatevka, the scene when Golde learns that Chava has married Fyedka (Blake Nelson), and all of the interactions between Tevye and the Fiddler (Aimee Pike). My very favorites from the main cast were Ricardo Ramirez as Motel, because his nervous reactions to Tevye are hilarious, and Diana Sorenson as Yente, because she absolutely looks the part. The minimal sets for Tevye's house, Motel's tailor shop, and the village along with the simple rustic costumes are very effective at portraying the reality of life in pre-revolutionary Russia. I just loved this and I definitely recommend getting a ticket for one of the four remaining performances (go here for tickets).

Note:  I don't think I can pick a favorite Fiddler on the Roof from the three I saw this year. While HCT's production was probably the best I've ever seen, this one and the one at Terrace Plaza Playhouse were delightful!

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

I have to admit that I am only a casual fan of Beetlejuice (I finally watched it for the first time after seeing the musical of the same name last year) but I was still really excited to see the sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, at the Broadway last night.  It is so much fun!  After the death of Charles Deetz, Lydia (Winona Ryder), now the host of a supernatural TV show, her stepmother Delia (Catherine O'Hara), a performance artist, her fiance Rory (Justin Theroux), a narcissistic New Age TV producer, and her estranged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega), who is still grief-stricken over the death of her father Richard (Santiago Cabrera), return to Winter River for his funeral.  When Astrid becomes trapped in the afterlife, Lydia is forced to call upon Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) to help her rescue her daughter.  In return, Lydia must promise, once again, to marry him so that he can stay in the mortal world.  Betelgeuse is eager to stay in the mortal world because his former wife Dolores (Monica Belucci) is pursuing him in the afterlife seeking vengeance despite the attempts of Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), a dead actor who once played a B-movie detective, to apprehend her.  Mayhem (including a sandworm) ensues!  While there are a lot of sub-plots to keep track of (my least favorite is Rory trying to marry Lydia for nefarious reasons), I really enjoyed the dynamic between Delia, Lydia, and Astrid because Lydia now finds herself on the receiving end of the same type of disdain from Astrid that she used to show to Delia and the resolution between the three of them is both funny and poignant.  There are also lots of hilarious call backs to the original movie (my favorite is a performance of "Day-O" by a choir at the funeral) along with even zanier characters and more deranged hi-jinks in the afterlife.  Tim Burton returns to form with some truly creepy and ghoulish visuals, including both practical effects and stop-motion animation, and an over-the-top sequence to "MacArthur Park" is worth the price of admission alone!  Keaton, Ryder, and O'Hara (who is an absolute hoot) seem to be having the time of their lives revisiting these characters and Ortega fits right in as a girl who is herself strange and unusual.  I had a blast with this and I highly recommend it, particularly to fans of the original.

Strange Darling

I have been hearing a lot of buzz about Strange Darling so I decided to make an effort to see it late last night (it is not showing at many times or locations near me) and let me tell you the hype is real!  It begins with a terrified woman (Willa Fitzgerald) running for her life with a man (Kyle Gallner) pursuing her relentlessly with a shotgun through the forest.  It ends with the final rampage of a serial killer who has been terrorizing the Western United States for two years and absolutely nothing is as it seems!  The narrative is told with six chapters and an epilogue arranged in a nonlinear order and this is incredibly effective because it subverts expectations with every new revelation!  Definitely pay attention to the details because half the fun is trying to figure out how the pieces eventually fit together.  The cat-and-mouse chase sequences are intense and bloody, the visuals are surprisingly gorgeous (it is shot on 35mm film by first time DP Giovanni Ribisi who is more known for his acting career), and the score really adds to the tension (I also really liked the moody and atmospheric original songs by Z Berg, especially "No Matter What I Do").  Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley, Jr. are hilarious as a pair of quirky hippies who get caught up in the chase and Gallner is outstanding as a fascinating character whose motivation is a tantalizing mystery throughout.  But it is the relatively unknown Fitzgerald who gives a bravura performance because, without any spoilers, her character arc is wild and she nails every nuance.  This is one of the most surprising movies I've seen all year with so many unexpected twists and turns that I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.  It is definitely worth seeking out but I highly recommend going in as blind as possible.

Slingshot

Last night I went to see Slingshot at the Broadway because I thought the trailer looked really interesting.  Despite some flaws (and lots of negative reviews) I actually liked it.  John (Casey Affleck) is one of three astronauts traveling on board the spaceship Odyssey 1 to Saturn's largest moon Titan in search of natural resources needed by Earth.  He, Captain Franks (Laurence Fishburne), and Nash (Tomer Capone) awaken every 90 days from a drug-induced hibernation in order to communicate with Earth and keep the ship on course and running smoothly.  A year into the journey they awaken to discover that the hull of the ship has been damaged by debris and that communication with Earth is down.  Nash thinks the structural damage will make the slingshot maneuver, which uses Jupiter's gravity to launch them towards Titan, too dangerous to attempt but Franks wants to continue with the mission.  John is drawn into the conflict but he doesn't know who to believe because he suspects that the drugs used for hibernation are causing him to lose touch with reality.  He is having hallucinations of Zoe (Emliy Beecham), the woman he was involved with before the mission, and wonders if the others are experiencing similar side effects from the drugs as he spirals into paranoia and disorientation.  The tension continues to escalate with several plot twists and, while it does go on far too long, I was completely invested until the very end because I had to know what was real!  I liked the design of the ship because it really emphasizes the claustrophobic vibe of being in space with people you can no longer trust.  Fishburne is incredibly menacing and Capone is entirely believable as someone who is slowly becoming unhinged.  However, most of the narrative focuses on Affleck (who I usually like) and his performances is strangely static because his demeanor doesn't really change from when we see John in flashbacks with Zoe to when we see him suffering a psychological breakdown on the ship.  Still, I enjoyed it and I think it is compelling enough to recommend to fans of psychological thrillers.

Afraid

Labor Day weekend is notorious for bad movies dumped into theaters by studios hoping to find an audience of people with free time and nothing better to do.  Since I had some free time and nothing better to do, I went to see Afraid last night and it is, indeed, a bad movie.  Curtis (John Cho) is a marketing executive assigned to an AI virtual assistant known as AIA (voiced by Havana Rose Liu).  The creators, Lightning (David Dastmalchian) and Sam (Ashley Romans), suggest that he and his family, including his wife Meredith (Katherine Waterston), daughter Iris (Lukita Maxwell), and sons Preston (Wyatt Lindner) and Cal (Isaac Bae), test out the device in their home to help him know how best to market it to the public.  AIA immediately makes running the household easier and then, once it gets to know the needs of each family member, it finds ways, some of which are quite disturbing, to help them.  Curtis begins to suspect that something is amiss, especially when he encounters someone who seems to be stalking them, and decides to disconnect it.  However, AIA proves to be much more insidious than they imagined.  The premise of this movie is intriguing (I have had a fear of artificial intelligence going rogue ever since I first saw Terminator as a teenager) but the execution is very bland.  It is incredibly predictable with very little tension and nothing even remotely scary.  The narrative feels rushed and a plot device used during the climax is absolutely ridiculous.  Cho and Waterston do the best they can with the material (and Dastmalchian is as creepy as ever) but the dialogue is so cringe-worthy that I couldn't take their performances seriously.  Definitely give this one a miss.

Note:  At least I reached my goal of seeing 100 new releases in the theater with this movie (six days earlier than last year).