Hairspray at Murray Park Amphitheater

Last night I saw the musical Hairspray under the stars at the Murray Park Amphitheater (one of my favorite summer activities).  I love this show for its positive message about loving who you are, following your dreams, and standing up for what you believe is right and this production is so much fun!  Plus-sized Tracy Turnblad (Hannah Fellows) dreams of being one of the dancers on the Corny Collins (John "Bobby Jay" Haraden) Show, of having teen heartthrob Link Larkin (Porter Beesley) notice her, of integrating the show so Seaweed (Colton Kraus) and all of her Back friends from detention can dance with her, and winning the Miss Teenage Hairspray crown.  Velma Von Tussle (Julie Blatter), the former Miss Baltimore Crabs who now produces the show, and her daughter Amber (Makayla Conner Marriott) do everything they can to stop her from making her dreams come true but you can't stop the beat!  The cast is really exuberant and their excitement at being a part of this show is palpable and infectious!  Hannah Fellows is an incredibly charismatic Tracy and I particularly loved her hilarious rendition of "I Can Hear the Bells." I also laughed out loud at the antics of Jerrod Dew and Mark Fellows as Tracy's parents Edna and Wilbur Turnblad, respectively, especially when Edna dips Wilbur in "Timeless to Me."  Kraus is a fabulous dancer and I really enjoyed his dynamic version of "Run and Tell That" and Blatter performs "(The Legend of) Miss Baltimore Crabs" with a glint in her eye but, in my opinion, the highlight of the show comes from Fantasia Burgess as Motormouth Maybelle because she brings the house down with "I Know Where I've Been."  The 1960s inspired choreography in "The Nicest Kids in Town," "The Madison," "Welcome to the '60s," "The Big Dollhouse," "Hairspray," and "You Can't Stop the Beat" is an absolute blast to watch and the ensemble does a great job with it (I was especially impressed with Jezuz Gomez-Villalobos, Jessica Pierce, and Anna Kaitlyn Burningham as the Dynamites).  The staging is quite minimal but I really liked the backdrops, which feature bold colors and geometric patterns, and the period costumes.  There are five more opportunities to see this cute show (go here for tickets) and I highly recommend it because I loved it!

Note:  I love that there is always a live orchestra for every production at Murray Amphitheater and the one for this show, under the baton of Robert Bedont, is fantastic!  Their performance was another highlight for me!

The Naked Gun

Yesterday my nephew and I went to a matinee of The Naked Gun because we both needed a laugh.  It definitely delivered because we both had a lot of fun with it.  Lt. Frank Drebin, Jr. (Liam Neeson) engages in some questionable police tactics while investigating a bank robbery so he is pulled from the case by Chief Davis (CCH Pounder), head of the Police Squad, and is sent to investigate a fatal car crash involving Simon Davenport (Jason MacDonald) instead.  He accidentally discovers that both cases lead to Richard Cane (Danny Huston), a tech billionaire with a nefarious plan for world dominion using a P.L.O.T. device.  Drebin enlists the help of Davenport's sister Beth (Pamela Anderson) and his sidekick Capt. Ed Hocken, Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser) to conduct a sting operation at a WWE match on New Year's Eve.  Hilarity ensues.  Neeson is absolutely brilliant because he delivers all of the comedy with the seriousness and gravitas of his recent action roles and that makes everything even funnier.  Huston looks like he is having a blast as a sneering villain (all that is missing is a mustache for him to twirl) but it is Anderson who is the biggest surprise because she steals every scene she is in as a vampy femme fatale, especially in a hilarious montage of a romantic weekend getaway and a jazz performance at a night cub.  There are some fun callbacks to the original series and, even though the pratfalls, word-play, and sight gags didn't always make me or the rest of the audience laugh out loud, I did spend most of the movie chuckling to myself (pay very close attention to the names of everything).  There is definitely enough zany humor to make this a fun time at the movies and I recommend it to fans of slapstick comedies.

Together

I was actually in line for a screening of Together at Sundance but I was really tired and decided to skip it so I could be well rested for the four films I had scheduled the next day (festival fatigue is real).  I knew that it would eventually come to the Broadway and my nephew and I were able to see it there at a matinee yesterday.  It is pretty wild!  Tim (Dave Franco), an aspiring musician, and Millie (Alison Brie), a teacher, are a longtime couple whose relationship now lacks intimacy and connection.  They decide to leave the city and move upstate when Millie is offered a job teaching at a small rural school but, instead of a new start, their relationship further deteriorates when Millie proposes and Tim is unable to commit and when Tim starts to feel like a prisoner without a driver's license.  However, after an usual incident in the forest near their house, they become inexplicably drawn to each other and, over time, they start to become physically fused together (in scenes that escalate in intensity).  As they attempt to figure out what is happening, they must ultimately decide if they really do belong together.  Franco and Brie are a real-life couple so their depiction of two people who have been in a codependent relationship for a long time feels very authentic, especially their petty bickering over things of little consequence.  I was also very impressed by their physical performances, particularly in a scene where they contort their bodies while holding on to various objects in order to keep apart as they are literally pulled together like magnets.  The body horror is not as gory as I was expecting but it is very disturbing and unsettling (it features one of the most uncomfortable sex scenes I have ever seen) and there were moments when I had to look away from the screen.  The practical effects are amazing as is the ominous sound design (the less you know the better) but I do feel like the final sequence is a bit rushed because I wanted to know more about what was actually happening and why.  It is really weird but I liked it and would recommend it to fans of body horror.

Note:  The use of "2 Become 1" by the Spice Girls during a key scene made me laugh out loud!

Sorry, Baby

I really liked quite a few movies at the Sundance Film Festival this year but if I had to pick just one as my favorite it would be Sorry, Baby.  I was happy for the chance to see it again at the Broadway with my nephew last night and I loved it even more upon a second viewing.  Agnes (Eva Victor) lives in an isolated farmhouse with her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie) while the two of them attend graduate school at a small New England university.  She and Lydie belong to a cohort, including Natasha (Kelly McCormack), Devin (Cody Reiss), and Logan (Jordan Mendoza), led by literature professor Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi) and, much to the disappointment of Natasha, she is the obvious favorite.  She enjoys the praise she receives from Decker so, even though it is ill-advised, she meets with him at his house to discuss her thesis after he is forced to stay home with his sick child and he sexually assaults her.  She tries to move on from what she calls the Bad Thing by beginning a casual relationship with her neighbor Gavin (Lucas Hedges) but she can't commit and periodically suffers from panic attacks.  It is only when Lydie, who now lives in New York and is married and pregnant, comes to visit four years later that Agnes, who still lives in the same farmhouse, is teaching at the same university, still has the same rivalry with Natasha, and even has the same office that Decker used, realizes that she is stuck and must finally process what has happened to her.  This is a meditative, but often very funny, character study about surviving a traumatic experience and I found the non-linear timeline to be incredibly compelling (even more so the second time around) because the audience sees the effect before the cause.  This is a stunning debut for Victor (who wrote, directed, and starred) and I was particularly impressed by a powerful scene which features a long tracking shot following Agnes walking to Decker's house, then a shot of the house showing the passage of time, followed by another tracking shot of Agnes leaving the house and walking back to her car.  The direction and performance is absolutely brilliant because you can see that something devastating has happened by just the change in body language alone.  I was also very moved by an intense monologue in which Agnes apologizes to Lydie's baby for being born into a world where bad things happen because it is such a turning point for Agnes (I haven't stopped thinking about it since Sundance).  Finally, I really loved that Lydie simply shows Agnes that she is stuck instead of getting her unstuck because it is so empowering.  I am sure that this will be among my favorite movies of 2025 and I highly recommend it.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

My nephew and I finally had a chance to see The Fantastic Four: First Steps last night and I really enjoyed it.  On Earth 828, Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), his wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), his brother-in-law Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and his best friend Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) travel to space in 1960 and experience a cosmic anomaly that gives them superhuman abilities.  They become Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and The Thing, respectively, and use their powers to protect Earth.  Four years later, Reed and Sue announce that they are expecting a much longed for child when the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), a herald for a world-eating cosmic being known as Galactus (Ralph Ineson), appears to announce that Earth has been targeted for destruction.  The Fantastic Four return to space to negotiate with Galactus and learn that he is willing to spare Earth if they give him the child Reed and Sue are expecting because he believes that the child will have immense abilities.  Reed and Sue consider it to be a price too high to pay but face backlash for choosing their child over the fate of Earth.  Will the Fantastic Four find another way to stop Galactus?  I liked that narrative foregoes the origin story and jumps right into the action and, as someone who does not know much about the Fantastic Four as characters (I haven't seen any of the previous movies), I found it very easy to understand each of their arcs and motivations without it.  I also liked that the story is a simple one about the importance of family and that it is very self-contained.  I absolutely loved the 1960s retro-futuristic aesthetic in the production design, especially with the technology and the spaceship, the costumes, and the score by Michael Giacchino.  The action sequences are great and I particularly liked all of the cool visuals in the space battle and the climactic battle.  Finally, the performances are both fun (a scene involving a car seat in the Fantasticar made me laugh out loud) and poignant with opportunities for every character to have a moment of reckoning.  My favorite was that of Kirby as a fierce mother willing to do whatever is necessary in order to protect her child and I loved her chemistry with Pascal.  I was also strangely moved by Moss-Bachrach's motion capture performance (he has some wonderful scenes with Natasha Lyonne who plays a teacher in his old neighborhood).  Admittedly, the bar is a bit low with recent MCU projects but, between this and Thunderbolts*, my interest has been reignited and I am actually looking forward to Avengers: Doomsday (there is a mid-credits scene teasing the appearance of Victor von Doom/ Doctor Doom).