Noises Off at CPT

I had so much fun at CPT's hilarious production of Noises Off last night. I don't think I stopped laughing during the whole show! Lloyd Dallas (Brandon Garside), a temperamental and sarcastic director, is staging a play called Nothing's On starring Dotty Otley (Carol Madsen), an aging television star, as Mrs. Clackett, Gary Lejeune (Michael Reis), a scatterbrained actor who can't finish a sentence, as Roger Tramplemain, Brooke Ashton (Amelia Joan Bowles), a young and inexperienced actress having an affair with Lloyd, as Vicki, Frederick Fellows (Josh Curtis), an insecure and accident prone actor, as Philip Brent and the Sheikh, Belinda Blair (Samantha Wursten), a reliable actress who knows all of the gossip about the cast, as Flavia Brent, and Selsdon Mowbray (Doug Caldwell), an accomplished actor who has a drinking problem and a tendency to miss his cues, as the Burglar. Poppy Norton-Taylor (Jenni Cooper) is the put-upon assistant stage manager who is also involved with Lloyd and Tim Algood (Radley Haws) is the overworked and sleep deprived stage manager tasked with fixing every problem. Act I of this play-within-a-play involves a disastrous dress rehearsal before opening night with missing props, a malfunctioning set, an actor questioning his character's motivation, a spontaneous nosebleed, and a lost contact lens.  Act II takes place backstage while the show is on tour. The relationship between Dotty and Gary has deteriorated and the two of them do everything they can to sabotage each other's performance while Lloyd is trying, unsuccessfully, to keep both Brooke and Poppy happy by having Tim make several ill-fated attempts to buy them flowers. Act III takes place at the end of the run and features a complete breakdown with the actors ad-libbing the entire scene while Brooke performs her lines and blocking as normal. The entire cast has brilliant comedic timing because the pace is incredibly frenetic (if you blink at all you will miss something funny). The physical performances are outstanding and I don't know which is funnier: when Frederick hops up the stairs because his trousers are down around his ankles or when Gary trips down them so spectacularly! I love that the bows incorporate all of the hijinks from the show, especially when Bowles looks for a contact lens on the floor, when Reis gingerly walks down the stairs, and when Caldwell misses his cue to come through the window. The elaborate two-story set is almost a character itself, particularly when it fails so dramatically, and the sheer number of doors (which are slammed continually) is impressive. I enjoyed everything about this show and I highly recommend it for a fun night out. It runs on the Barlow Main Stage through February 25 (go here for tickets).

Sundance Film Festival 2025

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival concluded last night and I had the best time!  I got the Salt Lake City Pass again and I was able to see 28 films (which is the most I've ever seen at the festival).  I enjoyed most of what I saw but I especially loved reconnecting with friends who come to the festival every year as well as making a few new ones.  My first film was Jimpa.  Hannah (Olivia Colman) travels with her nonbinary teenage daughter Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde) to visit her gay father Jim (John Lithgow) in Amsterdam.  When Frances wants to stay in Amsterdam with Jim to escape the provincial attitude towards queer people back home, Hannah must reconcile her feelings about being abandoned by Jim for the same reason during her teenage years.  This is an emotional portrait of a family with lovely performances from Colman and Lithgow.  My second film was the documentary One to One: John & Yoko.  This covers the 18 months that John and Yoko lived in a Greenwich Village apartment.  Excerpts from their One to One benefit concert are interspersed with archival footage from that time period to provide context for the songs. The music sounds amazing (it was mastered by Sean Lennon) and this actually made me feel more sympathetic towards Ono (although I still say that she can't sing).  My third film was the documentary Folktales.  This focuses on three students, Hege, Bjorn Torne, and Romain, at the Pasvik Folk High School located above the Arctic Circle in Norway.  The students learn wilderness survival skills and are paired with a dog for sledding while studying Norse mythology.  I really loved this because it was heartwarming to see the transformation in the students and the dogs are adorable (lots of oohing and aahing from the audience). My fourth film was the documentary It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley.  I am a huge fan of Buckley (I love his voice) and I enjoyed this because it includes lots of never-before-seen archival footage, voicemail messages left to the people closest to him, and his journal entries.  My fifth film was Bubble & Squeak.  Declan (Himesh Patel) and Delores (Sarah Goldberg) are on their honeymoon when they are detained and then relentlessly pursued by a border agent named Shazbor (Matt Berry) for smuggling cabbages into the unnamed Slavic country.  I was expecting this to be a lot funnier for such a bizarre premise (the funniest scene involved a hilarious cameo from James Franco).  My sixth film was the documentary Come See Me in the Good Light.  This profiles poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley and their love story as they navigate the former's terminal cancer diagnosis.  It is incredibly moving and whenever I wasn't crying I was laughing out loud.  It features a beautiful song called "Salt Then Sour Then Sweet" performed by Sara Bareilles with lyrics by Gibson and music by Bareilles and Brandi Carlile.  My seventh film was All That's Left of You and it is one of my favorites from the festival.  It depicts three generations of a Palestinian family displaced from their home in Jaffa by the creation of Israel.  It culminates with the difficult decision to donate the organs of a teen after he is shot by an Israeli soldier only to discover that his heart went to an Israeli child.  It is incredibly moving with a powerful message that all life is precious.  My eighth film was Atropia and, because it was one of my most anticipated films of the festival, I was a bit disappointed because it is just okay.  Fayruz (Alia Shawkat) is an Iraqi actress unable to find work in Hollywood so she takes an acting job in a fake town used by the military to simulate conditions during war before troops are deployed.  It is funny (a cameo from Channing Tatum as an actor doing research for a war movie made me laugh out loud) but the themes that are initially developed go nowhere. My ninth film was the documentary Free Leonard Peltier.  This profiles the indigenous activist who has been in prison for nearly 50 years after being convicted of killing two FBI agents during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation as well as the attempts by a new generation of activists to get his sentence commuted.  This was very eye-opening for me because it makes a pretty persuasive argument that he was falsely convicted so the FBI could save face.  My tenth film was the documentary Selena y Los Dinos.  I already knew a lot about Selena Quintanilla but this provides insights from her family, her husband, and other members of her band so I found it very compelling.  My eleventh film was The Ballad of Wallis Island.  After winning the lottery, Charles (Tim Key) arranges for musician Fred McGwyer (Tom Basden), of his favorite folk duo McGwyer Mortimer, to come to the remote island where he lives to perform a concert just for him.  However, unbeknownst to Fred, Charles has also invited Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan) and this brings up tensions stemming from their personal and professional break-up.  I am a huge fan of British humor and this delightful comedy had me laughing out loud from start to finish.  My twelfth film was Ricky.  After being incarcerated at age 15, Ricky (Stephan James), now age 30, is out on parole but he has difficulty adjusting to life on the outside and in meeting the demands of his tough-as-nails parole officer Joanne (Sheryl Lee Ralph).  James gives a highly sympathetic performance (one scene in particular had me in tears) and I loved the message that everyone deserves a second chance.  My thirteenth film was Oh, Hi!  Iris (Molly Gordon) and Isaac (Logan Lerman) go away for a romantic weekend in the country and, while Iris hopes that this is the beginning of a committed relationship, Isaac just wants to have a good time.  Iris eventually goes to great lengths to convince him that he loves her.  This is really funny with a hilariously unhinged performance from Gordon and, even though it starts to run out of steam, it has something interesting to say about the travails of dating.  My fourteenth film was The Thing with Feathers.  After the sudden death of his wife, a father (Benedict Cumberbatch) struggles to care for his two sons (Richard and Henry Boxall) so the Crow (voiced by David Thewlis), a character from his graphic novel, comes to life as the manifestation of his grief in order to help him.  I wanted to like this more than I did but, despite a committed performance from Cumberbatch, it doesn't really work as a horror film because it is not scary and it doesn't work as psychological character study because there isn't much of an arc for the father.  My fifteenth film was the documentary Life After.  Director Reid Davenport, who suffers from cerebral palsy, uses a right to die case brought by a disabled woman named Elizabeth Bouvia in the 1980s to begin a powerful discussion about why some disabled people might feel that medically assisted suicide is their only option.  I have very strong opinions about assisted suicide and this thought-provoking documentary challenged many of them.  My sixteenth film was Peter Hujar's Day.  This recreates an actual conversation recorded in 1974 by Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) in which she interviews photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw) about one day in his life. I loved the performances and the 1970s production design but, in my opinion, this is not compelling enough to warrant a full-length film and I was often bored.  My seventeenth film was Magic Farm and this was the worst film I saw at the festival (it is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen). A film crew for a series about unusual global trends mistakenly arrives in a rural town in Argentina (the mistake stems from the fact that most Latin American countries have a town called San Cristobal).  They wreak havoc on the locals while trying to manufacture a trend that they can film.  It has an intriguing premise (which is why I picked it) but I didn't find it even remotely funny and none of the sub-plots go anywhere.  My eighth film was Touch Me.  Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris) are co-dependent friends suffering from trauma and mental illness who bring out the worst in each other.  They meet up with a track-suit wearing alien named Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci) and eventually fight over him because his touch silences the voices inside their heads. This is absolutely wild (the sex scenes feature tentacles) but it has a lot to say about the nature of addiction and I really dug it.  My nineteenth film was Plainclothes.  Lucas (Tom Blyth) is an undercover police officer involved in sting operations in bathrooms conducted to apprehend gay men for indecent exposure in the 1990s.  He is struggling with his sexuality and this is further complicated when he is attracted to one of his marks, a pastor named Andrew (Russell Tovey).  They begin a secret relationship which puts Lucas in jeopardy as a police officer but Andrew ultimately ends it because he also cannot risk being found out.  This gives Lucas the courage come out to his family because he refuses to hide any longer.  I was impressed by Blyth's quietly powerful performance and I also loved the theme of identity.  My twentieth film was Lurker.  After a random encounter with the pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe), Matthew (Theodore Pallerin) ingratiates himself to him and is soon part of his entourage.  However, when Oliver's attention turns to the next sycophant, Matthew is willing to do anything to keep his proximity to the musician.  This is definitely about obsession but I was really struck by the idea that fame can be alienating.  Madekwe and Pallerin do a great job portraying the power struggle between the two characters and I loved the ending.  My twenty-first film was Kiss of the Spider Woman which was my most anticipated film of the festival and I absolutely loved it.  This is an adaptation of the 1992 musical and is set in an Argentinian prison during a military dictatorship.  A hardened leftist revolutionary named Valentin Arregui (Diego Luna) shares a cell with Luis Molina (Tonatiuh), a gay window dresser, and they escape from the harsh realities of prison when Molina recounts his favorite musical starring Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez).  Art imitates life when the themes of the musical begin to mirror what is happening to Valentin and Molina.  Lopez is absolutely brilliant but I was especially impressed with Tonatiuh (his rendition of "She's a Woman" is beautiful).  I loved the juxtaposition between the dark and drab prison and the technicolor dream world of Molina's fantasies which evoke the Golden Age of Hollywood.  My twenty-second film was Sorry, Baby and this is another favorite.  It is a meditative, and often humorous, portrait of how a young graduate student named Agnes (Eva Victor) tries to move on after a sexual assault by her professor.  I loved how her relationships, with her best friend (Naomi Ackie), a jealous colleague (Kelly McCormack), and a neighbor (Lucas Hedges), show her that she is stuck rather than help her become unstuck.  Victor (who also wrote and directed) gives a performance that is absolutely stunning (one that I won't soon forget).  My twenty-third film was Twinless.  After losing his twin brother Rocky, Roman (Dylan O'Brien) meets Dennis (James Sweeney) at a twin bereavement support group and they become unlikely friends.  This takes a wild turn, that I was not expecting but absolutely loved, and it is one of the few comedies at Sundance that is funny and has something to say (about the grieving process).  My twenty-fourth film was Opus which had a lot of buzz but proved to be disappointing.  Ariel (Ayo Edibiri) is a relatively inexperienced journalist who is invited by the legendary pop star Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich) to his isolated compound to listen to his first album in thirty years.  She soon finds herself among a cult of sycophants who do Moretti's bidding but she is even more horrified to discover that she has become one of them herself.  This had so much potential to say something of substance about the dangers of celebrity worship but it is derivative and shallow.  Watching Malkovich sing and dance while wearing one elaborate costume after the other makes this bearable but only just.  My twenty-fifth film was Rebuilding.  After he loses everything when a devastating fire destroys his ranch, Dusty (Josh O'Connor) finds himself after reconnecting with his young daughter Callie Rose (Lily LaTorre) and discovering a community with others who also lost everything.  I loved O'Connor’s sensitive, yet powerful, performance and the cinematography is beautiful.  My twenty-sixth film was the documentary Middletown.  In 1991 a group of students in Middletown, New York are inspired by their English teacher Fred Isseks to investigate toxic waste in the local landfill and expose wrongdoing within corporations and local government.  Thirty years later the students involved revisit their experience.  As a former English teacher I really loved hearing about how one teacher was able to give real world learning experiences to his students but I am now even more anxious about the possibility that regulatory agencies that guard against things like toxic waste might be eliminated by this current administration.  My twenty-seventh film was Last Days.  John Chau (Sky Yang) is idealistic and yearns for adventure so he rejects the life his father (Tony Leung) has planned for him to become a missionary.  He eventually becomes obsessed with converting an isolated tribe on North Sentinel Island while a police officer (Radhika Apte) in India tries to stop him.  This is a lot more compelling and suspenseful than I was expecting but the message is muddled because I am still not sure if John was really devout or just lost.  My twenty-eighth and final film was Didn't Die.  Two years into a zombie apocalypse, Vinita Malhotra (Kiran Deol) travels the country recording her podcast for everyone who didn't die but things don't go according to plan when she decides to return to her hometown to record the 100th episode.  I liked the black and white cinematography (an homage to Night of the Living Dead) but there are jarring tonal shifts and, like many of the films this year, none of the ideas really come to fruition.  Whew!  I am absolutely exhausted but I had so much fun and am already looking forward to seeing some of these films again when they get a wide release.

All We Imagine as Light

The second movie in my double feature at the Broadway yesterday was All We Imagine as Light.  I have been eager to see it ever since it won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes this year and it did not disappoint because I loved it.  Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) are nurses who live together in Mumbai.  Prabha is very reserved and conscientious so, even though she is lonely because her husband abandoned her to work in Germany immediately after their arranged marriage and has not contacted her for over a year, she refuses the advances of a doctor (Azees Nedumangad) at the hospital.  Anu is more uninhibited and is having a secret affair with a Muslim named Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon) even though she worries that her parents and Prabha will disapprove.  Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) is a cook at the hospital who is being forced out of her apartment by greedy property developers who want to demolish it to build a skyscraper.  When she decides to move back to her village on the coast, Prabha and Anu travel with her to help her get settled and both of them find release.  As much as I loved the theme of female empowerment, I was very intrigued by the examination of loneliness and how people often feel alone while living in a large city full of people.  This is portrayed with gorgeous shots of Mumbai at night with voice over narration from anonymous inhabitants about life in the city along with many shots featuring the women traveling alone in a crowd on public transportation.  The shift from the darkness of the city to the dazzling light of the village is striking (the cinematography in both locations is beautiful) and the scenes of revelation for both of the women are incredibly compelling (I was blown away by the magical realism in one and moved by the sensuality in the other).  The performances are subtle and the pacing is slow but it is still very powerful and I cannot recommend it enough!

Hard Truths

Yesterday I took a break from Sundance for a double feature at the Broadway.  I have been looking forward to both movies for a long time and I didn't want to take a chance on them leaving before I could see them (and I wasn't particularly excited about any of the films screening at Sundance yesterday).  I began with Hard Truths and I found this poignant character study to be very thought-provoking.  Pansy Deacon (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) suffers from extreme anxiety and she is annoyed by just about everything.  She gives vent to her to all of her frustrations with everyone she interacts with but mostly her husband Curtley (David Webber) and her twenty-two-year-old son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) who are both so cowed by her they no longer react to her rants.  Her younger sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), a single mother with a loving relationship with her daughters Kayla (Ani Nelson) and Aleisha (Sophia Brown), repeatedly invites her and her family to spend Mother's Day with them.  However, the visit is fraught with tension and, in a heated exchange, Pansy tells them she knows they all hate her.  She is moved to tears when Moses gives her flowers for Mother's Day but, despite the fact that her family loves her, they don't know how to help her be happy.  There were several audible groans at the abrupt ending but, despite the fact that I also wanted some catharsis, I think it is an incredibly accurate look at the reality of mental illness and what it does to the person suffering and to the people who love them.  I was intrigued by the juxtaposition between Pansy and Chantelle (and their houses) because it shows that children in the same family are impacted by trauma, in this case an absent father and an overly critical mother, differently.  Jean-Baptiste gives an incredible performance because, even though Pansy is so antagonistic, she is also highly sympathetic and her points are often valid (Why do baby clothes have pockets?) which creates many moments of unexpected humor.  I was also struck by Webber's nuanced performance because my opinion of Curtley frequently changed.  I was angry with him when he refuses to comfort Pansy as she cries but I also felt so much pity for him when Pansy refuses to help him after an injury.  Is Pansy so unhappy because Curtley doesn't respond to her or is Curtley so closed off because Pansy has pushed him away?  I know I will be thinking about this movie for a long time and I highly recommend it.

The Book of Mormon at the Eccles

Watching The Book of Mormon in Sal Tlay Ka Siti is so much fun because audiences here get all of the jokes!  I saw the Broadway touring production again last night at the Eccles Theatre and I don't think I stopped laughing the whole time!  After spending some time at the Missionary Training Center learning how to preach the gospel around the world ("Hello"), Elder Price (Sam McLellan) and Elder Cunningham (Diego Enrico) are called to serve in a remote village in Uganda.  Elder Price is very disappointed in the location because he had hoped to go to Orlando, the most wonderful and magical place on Earth.  He is also disappointed in his companion because Elder Cunningham has a tendency to lie to compensate for his low self-esteem.  However, he soon realizes that he will be a great missionary no matter the circumstances ("You and Me But Mostly Me").  When they meet their fellow missionaries in Africa, they get some advice about dealing with any unusual feelings they might be having ("Turn it Off") and they soon realize that Africa is nothing like The Lion King because the villagers are more concerned with poverty, famine, AIDS, and a violent warlord than with their message ("An American Prophet").  Elder Price gets discouraged and decides to go home but, when the chief's daughter Nabulungi (Keke Nesbitt) shows some interest because she wants to leave Africa and go to paradise ("Sal Tlay Ka Siti"), Elder Cunningham must teach her on his own ("Man Up").  He has never actually read The Book of Mormon because it is boring so he begins embellishing it with references to The Matrix, Star Wars, Star Trek, and The Lord of the Rings ("Making Things Up Again") and eventually baptizes Nabulungi ("Baptize Me") and then the rest of the village.  Meanwhile, Elder Price decides to return after having a dream about being in Hell with Jeffrey Dahmer, Genghis Khan, Hitler, and people who drink Starbucks coffee ("Spooky Mormon Hell Dream").  Even though they get in trouble for their false teachings, they see that they have made the lives of the villagers better so they decide to stay and even send missionaries out to teach The Book of Arnold ("Hello Reprise").  In my opinion, this is an absolutely hilarious satire that exaggerates what is already humorous about the religion but people could definitely find it offensive because it is outrageous and often very inappropriate (there is a lot of profanity).  However, my audience seemed to feel as I do because it was one of the most enthusiastic I've seen and the laughter was sometimes louder than the actors, especially during "Sal Tlay Ka Siti."  In addition to the humor, the sets and costumes are visually stunning, the musical numbers are very catchy, and the choreography is incredible, especially in "Turn it Off" (I always enjoy tap dancing) and "I Am Africa."  The performances of the three leads are fantastic but Craig Franke steals the show as Elder McKinley, a missionary trying to pretend that he is not gay.  I had a blast watching this but I suggest doing a little research before buying tickets (which may be purchased here) to make sure it is something you would enjoy.  It runs at the Eccles Theatre through January 26.