The Shining

Stephen King famously dislikes Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of his 1977 novel The Shining but I think it is a cinematic masterpiece and was thrilled when I learned that it was coming back to theaters in honor of its 45th anniversary (what?).  I have seen it on the big screen several times but experiencing it in IMAX last night was absolutely epic!  Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) takes a job as the winter caretaker at the Overlook Hotel in the remote mountains of Colorado with his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and young son Danny (Danny Lloyd) because he is desperate to escape from his troubled past and hopes to find the time and solitude to work on his novel.  Once they arrive, the cook Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) recognizes that Danny has a strong psychic ability he calls "shining" and warns him that the hotel also has a "shine" because of its violent past.  Danny begins having frightening visions about the former inhabitants of the hotel but Jack seems to feel at home with these malevolent ghosts.  When a severe winter storm cuts them off from the outside world, Jack has a compete psychotic break causing him to attack his family.  I have always found this movie to be incredibly unsettling (the book is scarier but the movie creates an escalating tension that is almost unbearable) and the IMAX format makes the sense of unease even more immersive.  The long tracking shots following Wendy and Danny though the empty hotel are even more disconcerting because it really feels like you are there with them and the sound design, including Danny's Big Wheel traveling across different floor surfaces, ice cubes rattling in Jack's glass, the echo of the typewriter in the cavernous lobby, and the staccato beating of a heart, is even more menacing because it is all around you.  Nicholson's performance is iconic but I have always thought that Duvall's (or Kubrick's) interpretation of Wendy is less effective because it is very weak and passive.  However, in this format her fear is absolutely visceral (it makes Jack's behavior seem even more terrifying) and I couldn't look away.  Even though it wasn't filmed specifically for IMAX, seeing it this way was definitely my favorite viewing experience and I highly recommend it!

Hamnet

I love the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare (it was my favorite thing to teach to my British literature students) so I have been eagerly anticipating Hamnet, a fictional account of how Shakespeare came to write his most famous play, for what seems like forever.  My nephew and I were finally able to see it last night at the Broadway and to say that I loved it would be an understatement (he loved it, too).  William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) is working as a Latin tutor for the Hathaway family when he becomes enamored with the oldest daughter Agnes (Jessie Buckley).  Her late mother, who was believed to be a forest witch, passed down her knowledge of herbal lore so she feels most at home in nature and is influenced by the portents she sees there.  She falls in love with Will for his storytelling and, despite objections from both of their families, they marry and eventually have Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) and twins Judith (Olivia Lynes) and Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe).  Seeing that Will is unhappy working as an apprentice glove maker with his father, Agnes encourages him to go to London where he can pursue his writing but, when he finds success, she refuses to move there with him because of concern for Judith's health.  She had a difficult birth with Judith and, since she has visions of only two children at her deathbed, she is fiercely protective of her.  However, when she is struck by a fever, Agnes does everything to nurse her back to health but Hamnet succumbs.  Both Agnes and Will are devastated by his death but she is extremely resentful of the fact the he was not there to say goodbye to Hamnet and their marriage suffers.  When she learns of his new play, Hamlet, she travels to London with her brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn) to see it.  She realizes that it is a tribute to her son and is incredibly moved by a scene between the Ghost of Hamlet's father (played by Will) and Hamlet (Noah Jupe).  The power of art to heal is a favorite theme of mine and I had so many tears in my eyes by the end of this movie!  Buckley gives a brilliant performance because she is absolutely feral in her portrayal of motherhood and I especially loved a powerful scene in which she slowly comes to understand the connection between Hamlet and her son.  Mescal is also devastating in the scenes where he processes his grief, particularly when his actors are rehearsing the play and when he writes Hamlet's soliloquy.  I loved seeing callbacks to earlier moments in their lives within the play, such as the forest backdrop and the fencing scene between Hamlet and Laertes, and the choice to have two brothers play Hamnet and Hamlet on stage is absolutely inspired (Jacobi gives one of the best performances I have ever seen from a child).  The visuals, featuring bucolic locations, are gorgeous and the score is incredibly moving. I loved everything about this and I highly recommend it!

Noises Off at PTC

The first time I saw Noises Off, it was a production at PTC nearly twenty years ago. I have since seen it multiple times (including two productions this year at CPT and Parker Theatre) but I love it and was thrilled to see a new version at PTC last night! It is an absolutely hilarious farce featuring a play-within-a-play called Nothing On starring Dotty Otley (Linda Mugleston) as Mrs. Clackett, Gary Lejeune (Rhett Guter) as Roger Templemain, Brooke Ashton (Olivia Kaufmann) as Vicki, Frederick Fellowes (Terence Archie) as Philip Brent and the Sheikh, Belinda Blair (Sarah Marie Joyce) as Flavia Brent, and Selsdon Mowbray (David Manis) as the Burglar. Lloyd Dallas (Robert Mammana) is the director, Tim Allgood (Kilty Reidy) is the stage manager, and Poppy Norton-Taylor (Avneet Kaur Sanhu) is the assistant stage manager (there is an amusing playbill for Nothing On inside the playbill for this show). Act I takes place during a disastrous dress rehearsal (or is is the technical?) involving the wrong props, a malfunctioning set, missed cues, an actor questioning his character's motivation, an increasingly exasperated director, and a sleep-deprived stage manager. Act II takes place backstage while the show is on tour and features the deteriorating relationships between the actors which results in mayhem as they fight with each other and attempt to sabotage each other's performances. Act III takes place at the end of the run during which Dotty has a complete meltdown on stage and Frederick has an accident backstage causing the rest of the cast to improvise while Brooke performs her lines and blocking as normal. This is such a funny play and this production is one of the best I've seen because I don't think I stopped laughing! There is not a weak link in the cast because they all have brilliant comedic timing and give outstanding physical performances at a frenetic pace, especially in extended sequences involving a lost contact lens, an ax, several bouquets of flowers, a mop and bucket, a telephone cord, sardines on the ground, and several understudies for the same character going on at once. However, I was particularly impressed with Archie, because he spends a good amount of time running around with his pants around his ankles and he becomes progressively more and more injured as the play goes on, and Guter, because he hops up the stairs backstage with his feet tied together and falls down the stairs on stage spectacularly! The two-story pastel-colored set is fantastic and the sheer number of doors (which are frequently slammed very dramatically) is impressive. I also loved the large window because it allows the audience to see what is happening on stage during Act II and backstage during Act III (which adds to the chaotic humor). I had a lot of fun watching this and highly recommend it to anyone who needs a laugh (and who doesn't?) this holiday season! It runs at PTC through December 20 (with matinees on Saturdays) and tickets may be purchased here.

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair

Yesterday I went with my sister and brother-in-law, the biggest Quentin Tarantino fans in the world, to see Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, which combines Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2 into one movie as Tarantino originally intended, and it was seriously awesome!  A former assassin known as the Bride (Uma Thurman), code name Black Mamba, awakens after a four year coma resulting from a massacre that killed everyone else, including her unborn child, at her wedding rehearsal.  She vows to find and kill Bill (David Carradine), code name Snake Charmer, her jealous former lover and mentor, and four members of his Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, including Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), code name Copperhead, O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), code name Cottonmouth, Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), code name California Mountain Snake, and Budd (Michael Madsen), code name Sidewinder, for betraying her.  This is a brilliant revenge thriller that pays homage to low-budget exploitation films popular in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly martial arts films and spaghetti westerns, and features highly stylized action sequences.  I especially love the fight choreography in the showdown at the House of Blue Leaves in which the Bride battles O-Ren Ishii's second lieutenant Sofia Fatale (Julie Dreyfus), her Japanese schoolgirl bodyguard Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama), the entire Yakuza gang she leads known as the Crazy 88, and then the assassin herself with the samurai sword made for her by Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba) while wearing the iconic yellow tracksuit (inspired by the one worn by Bruce Lee in Game of Death) because it is so hilariously hyperviolent with flying limbs and blood gushing everywhere (it is expanded and all of it is shown in glorious color in this version).  I also love the shot composition in the black and white sequence during the massacre at Two Pines (it reminded me of the final shot in The Searchers) and the use of Japanese anime for O-Ren Ishii's backstory (it is also expanded in this version and it is very cool).  All of the music is fantastic but my favorite is "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" by Nancy Sinatra, which is used during the opening credits, because it immediately sets the tone for the Bride's story.  Thurman gives an epic performance as a woman who is seeking vengeance but also trying to reconcile what was done to her because she is equally adept in the action sequences and in the more emotional scenes with Bill.  Finally, I definitely prefer this version over the two-part one because the pacing is much improved, the deletion of one scene makes a later revelation even more powerful, and the expansion of several scenes adds to the context (not to mention the fact that watching this all afternoon was an incredible theatrical experience).  I highly recommend checking this out while it is in theaters (our screening was completely sold out) because it is a total blast!

Nate Bargatze at the Delta Center

I have always wanted to see a comedy show (it has been on my bucket list for a very long time) so I was really excited for Nate Bargatze at the Delta Center yesterday.  Comedians are sometimes a hard sell for me because I don't really enjoy crude humor (I think it is extremely lazy) but Bargatze makes me laugh because he is so relatable.  Four different comics opened for him (this really surprised me but I guess it shouldn't have because most music concerts have multiple opening acts) including Julian McCullough, Graham Kay, Keith Alberstadt, and Derrick Stroup.  All four of them, who each performed for about ten minutes, were really funny but I especially enjoyed McCullough, who talked about the Utah Jazz being a young team who will become competitive soon and called out all of the people arriving late (this made me laugh so hard because it is a pet peeve of mine), and Kay, who joked that, because he was getting married for the first time and thinking about starting a family at age 44, he could now finally relate to all of the 20-year-olds in the audience.  Bargatze came to the small circular stage in the center of the arena right after them and he performed for over an hour.  It was so much fun because I don't think I stopped laughing.  He told really humorous stories, in his signature deadpan delivery, about the absurdity of mundane situations including being able to ask AI important questions (such as how many chickens will fit inside a horse), technology in cars today being smarter than he is, teaching his daughter to drive a stick shift, feeling powerful for being able to order food from Door Dash any time he wants, dealing with his parents as they get older, telling his marriage counselor that he is frustrated with his wife for how she orders from the menu at the drive-through, and mining his family's hilarious group chats for comedy.  I particularly loved his bit about cars having opinions because I also sometimes feel like my high-tech car is judging my driving!  All of his jokes really landed with the sold-out crowd and the energy was an absolute blast to experience!  I didn't really know what to expect from a comedy show in a large arena but I had a great time and would definitely consider going again, especially if Bargatze returns to the Delta Center (or Leanne Morgan because she also makes me laugh).