Pet Sematary

I love Stephen King (I once argued the literary merit of his novels with one of my English professors in college).  I especially love his earlier novels and I read them all when I was an impressionable teenager.  All of them scared me but Pet Sematary terrified me, so much so that I slept with the light on for over a week after I read it in eighth grade.  The story about an ancient Micmac Indian burial ground haunted by a malevolent spirit known as the Wendigo was entirely believable to me because I grew up in eastern Canada and was very well acquainted with the folklore surrounding the Wendigo.  I was so unnerved by this book that I debated for quite some time whether or not I should see the 1989 adaptation.  I finally decided to see it and I was very disappointed because it replaced what actually made it scary with gore.  After similar deliberations I decided to see the new adaptation last night and it is both more and less faithful to the source material than the 1989 movie.  Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) and his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) decide to move from Boston to the rural town of Ludlow, Maine with their two children, Ellie (Jete Laurence) and Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoie), and their cat, Church.  Their house is surrounded by forests but it is also near a busy highway.  As Rachel and Ellie explore the forest they discover a cemetery used by the local children for burying their dead pets.  When Church is killed by an Orinco truck on the highway, Louis wants to bury him in the pet cemetery but the Creed's neighbor Jud Crandall (John Lithgow) shows him the ancient Micmac burial located beyond the cemetery and instructs him in the ritual of burying his cat.  Later that night, Church is discovered to be alive but much more aggressive.  When another tragedy strikes the family, Louis is grief-stricken and decides to make use of the burial ground again with catastrophic consequences.  The biggest difference from the novel is that the other child is killed (but that decision makes the third act even more terrifying, in my opinion, because it enhances the physical threat) and the ending is a bit hokey (although I loved the Starcrawler cover of "Pet Sematary" by the Ramones during this scene).  What is retained from the novel is the story of the Wendigo and the unsettling and dread-filled atmosphere of the burial ground which scared me as much as the novel did.  This version is definitely much more menacing than the 1989 movie and I just might need to keep the light on at night.

Spring Avalanche Trip

My Dad and I really like to go to at least one and sometimes two Colorado Avalanche games every season.  We went over Thanksgiving break and decided to take in another game in the spring.  I hadn't used any of my personal days off from school yet so we could basically pick any game we wanted.  I have seen the Avalanche play just about every team in the NHL except for the Winnipeg Jets so that is the game we picked.  It also happened to be the last home game of the regular season so we were hoping that it would be an exciting game with playoff implications.  It was on both counts!  The Avs only needed one point to clinch a playoff spot so they just needed to tie the game.  They got a lot of scoring chances in the first period but the Jets ended up with two goals (one of them should not have counted).  In the second period Tyson Barrie scored a beautiful goal to cut the deficit by one.  The crowd went crazy and we were giving high fives to everyone around us!  It was so much fun!  In the third period Carl Soderberg tied it up with 9:25 remaining.  The crowd went into hysterics at this goal because all we needed was a tie for the playoffs.  I've been to a lot of exciting games before but I don't know if I've ever seen the Pepsi Center this wound up!  With only 1:26 left in the game Colorado got a too many men penalty (which, in my opinion, is one of the stupidest penalties you can get) which left them down a skater at the end of the game.  Every time the Avs iced the puck (sent it down the ice to kill time in the penalty)  the crowd went absolutely crazy until the clock wound down.  The Avs had to start overtime with more than 30 seconds left in the penalty but Erik Johnson took a pass from Nathan MacKinnon to score the winning goal.  It was epic!  The Avs needed one point but ended up with two and are going to the playoffs!  It was such a great game!

Note:  This was my first chance to see our new goalie Philipp Grubauer in action.  He made 34 saves!  I love him!

Sweat at PTC

Last night I went to see Sweat, the latest production at PTC which chronicles the demise of the industrial town of Reading, Pennsylvania when the once enviable jobs at factories are outsourced.  I didn't know anything about this play when I walked into the theater but I found it to be incredibly compelling.  The action takes place at a working class bar frequented by Tracey (Margot White), Jessie (Susanna Florence), and Cynthia (Nafeesa Monroe) who work the line at a local manufacturing plant.  Cynthia's estranged husband Brucie (Vince McGill) wanders in and out with a cautionary tale about how he lost his job at another factory when management wanted to cut costs and shut the workers out when the union took a hard line.  Stan (Christopher Duvall), a former factory worker severely injured on the job, is the bartender who lends a sympathetic ear.  Oscar (Xavier Reyes), the barback who is viewed as an immigrant because he is Hispanic, is trying to find a better job.  When Cynthia is given a promotion from the line to low-level management, Tracey, who also applied for the job, believes it is because Cynthia is African-American and she blames her when the factory wants to cut salaries and benefits and then locks them out.  Jason (Callum Adams) and Chris (Hassiem Muhammad), the sons of Tracey and Cynthia, respecively, who also work at the factory, blame Oscar when he crosses the picket line to take a job at the factory leading to tragedy.  What I found so interesting about this story is that the audience is clearly meant to sympathize with the workers who have given more than twenty years of their lives to a company that only cares about the bottom line but playwright Lynn Nottage also wants her protagonists to be held accountable for lashing out at the wrong people (Hispanics and African-Americans) instead of blaming corporate America.  This production is so well done and the ensemble cast is outstanding.  Every single character elicits sympathy and understanding even when expressing opposing viewpoints.  Almost all of the action takes place in one location and the choreography moving the characters in and out of the bar is very innovative.  The bar itself is fabulous with so much detail (I loved all of the sports pennants and neon signs for local beers).  I really enjoyed this production but it should be noted that there is an excessive amount of profanity (many people around me left at intermission) and there were several racial slurs that really upset me.  Sweat runs at PTC through April 13 (tickets may be purchased here).

The Mustang

Last night I had the chance to see The Mustang, a film that generated a lot of buzz at Sundance this year and rightly so!  It is a beautiful story about the redemption of a violent convict through his bond with a horse that is just as wild as he is.  Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts) has recently been transferred to a prison in Nevada after spending several years in isolation because of anger management issues.  A prison psychologist (Connie Britton) refers him to a rehabilitation program, run by the curmudgeonly Myles (Bruce Dern), in which convicts are used to train wild mustangs rounded up by the government to keep the population sustainable.  Successfully trained horses are sold at auction and unsuccessful ones are euthanized.  Myles pairs Roman with the wildest of the horses hoping that they will be able to tame each other (the resolution is beautiful but it might surprise you).  The more success he finds in the ring, the more Roman is able to make peace with himself and with his daughter (Gideon Adlon).  Schoenaerts gives an exceptional performance, one in which there is not a lot of dialogue but one in which body language and facial expressions show the full extent of Roman's pain.  He exudes a fury that is palpable which makes his transformation in the scene where he finally breaks down with his daughter all the more powerful.  The action is quite slow because the trust between Roman and the horse is developed very gradually, culminating in one of the most beautiful scenes in the film.  It is visually striking with the wide open spaces of the desert juxtaposed with the claustrophobic interiors of the prison.  I also really liked the score, especially a plaintive theme played by a guitar when Roman is in solitary confinement.  I was very moved by this film and I highly recommend seeking it out.

The Aftermath

I love books and movies about World War II.  I especially love romances set during World War II so as soon as I saw the trailer for The Aftermath I was almost giddy with anticipation for it to hit SLC theaters.  It finally reached my favorite art house theater this weekend and I had a chance to see it yesterday afternoon.  I really enjoyed it.  Colonel Lewis Morgan (Jason Clarke) is stationed in Hamburg with the British Forces tasked with rebuilding Germany at the end of the war.  He sends for his wife Rachael (Keira Knightley) to join him in a house requisitioned by the British government for their use.  Their reunion is chilly and it is slowly revealed that their son was killed during the Blitz and that they have never really resolved their feelings about his death.  Rachael is horrified when she learns that her husband has allowed the previous owners, Stefan Lubert (Alexander Skarsgard) and his teenage daughter Freda (Flora Thiemann), to remain in the house with them.  Both Rachael and Stefan resent each other's presence in the house and the atmosphere is incredibly charged. Lewis wants everything to go back to how it was before the war and is largely oblivious to the tension in the house as he deals with the tensions between the British Forces and the German citizens.  Eventually Rachael and Stefan bond over their love of music and they begin an affair.  This domestic betrayal mirrors a larger one leading to a dramatic confrontation.  It is a very standard story about a love triangle but what elevates it is the exploration of what happens when you have to live and work with someone who was once your enemy and about finding forgiveness for actions, large and small, committed during war.  I found it to be very compelling.  All three main actors give outstanding performances, especially Knightley during one particularly emotional scene.  Of course, the costumes and sets are exactly what you would expect in a historical drama and I was especially impressed with the overhead shots of the bombed out city.  If you have enjoyed other period pieces starring Keira Knightley (there are so many to choose from), I would recommend seeking this out.