Hello, Dolly!

I had never seen the movie Hello, Dolly! before (I saw the stage musical at HCT years ago) so I was really excited to see it yesterday as part of the TCM Big Screen Classics series.  It is simply delightful and I absolutely loved it!  At the turn of the century, the irascible Horace Vandergelder (Walter Matthau) wants to get married so that he will have someone to do all of the chores at his Hay & Feed store in Yonkers, New York.  His niece Ermengarde (Joyce Ames) wants to marry the artist Ambrose Kemper (Tommy Tune) but her uncle objects because he doesn't have a steady income.  His clerk Cornelius Hackl (Michael Crawford) is longing for an adventure in New York City and doesn't want to come back to Yonkers until he has kissed a girl.  He convinces his fellow clerk Barnaby Tucker (Danny Lockin) to come along with him.  Irene Molloy (Marianne McAndrew) owns a millinery shop in NYC but tells her assistant Minnie Fay (E.J. Peaker) that she wants a rich husband to take her away because she hates hats!  An enchanting and recently widowed matchmaker named Dolly Levi (Barbra Streisand) is hired to find a wife for Vandergelder but she decides that she wants to marry him herself.  She just needs to convince him!  She arranges for all of the couples to meet for a memorable evening at the Harmonia Gardens Restaurant in New York City and merriment ensues.  This is like one of those old fashioned classic movie musicals that I remember watching at my Grandma Anderson's house so I am not entirely sure why I had never seen it before.  The story is a little weak but I loved the big song and dance numbers.  My favorites are "Put on Your Sunday Clothes," "Dancing," and "Hello, Dolly!" because they are incredibly elaborate and involve a large ensemble!  I also really love the songs "Before the Parade Passes By" and "It Only Takes a Moment" because they both have poignant messages about life and love.  The sets are spectacular, especially the Harmonia Gardens Restaurant, and each costume worn by Streisand is more lavish than the one before!  Streisand is very charismatic in the role and sings every song brilliantly but my only complaint is that she doesn't lip-sync very well.  This is a fun and lighthearted musical that absolutely delighted me and I recommend seeing it on the big screen (go here for tickets).

The Kitchen

There are quite a few movies hitting theaters this weekend that I really want to see and I decided to start with The Kitchen last night.  The Irish mob rules an area of New York known as Hell's Kitchen in the 1970s.  When three of the mobsters (Brian d'Arcy James, James Badge Dale, and Jeremy Bobb) are arrested in an FBI sting operation and sent to prison, their wives Kathy (Melissa McCarthy), Ruby (Tiffany Haddish), and Claire (Elisabeth Moss) decide to take over their criminal enterprise by negotiating new contracts with the business owners with the help of a psychopathic assassin (Domhnall Gleeson).  They soon run afoul of the rest of the Irish mob who don’t like being upstaged, some intransigent Hasidic businessmen who don't like dealing with women, a rival crime family in Brooklyn, and the FBI.  However, they ruthlessly deal with their enemies to eventually become incredibly successful...until their husbands are released from prison.  Each of the women has a different motivation for taking action:  Kathy is rebelling against the stereotypical role of wife and mother, Ruby is lashing out against the racism within the community (especially by her Irish mother-in-law), and Claire is exacting revenge for the abuse she has suffered at the hands of her husband for years.  Of course there are some wild twists and turns, some of which I was able to predict and some I wasn't.  All three actresses do a really good job with the material that they are given but I did find the tone to be all over the place.  It is extremely violent but there are also lots of comedic moments that seem really incongruous.  I liked the 1970s aesthetic with the costumes and the soundtrack featuring Heart, Fleetwood Mac, and Kansas.  Honestly, I think Widows does a better job of telling the same story but I found The Kitchen to be entertaining enough.

Note:  I found it odd that the members of the Irish mob didn't seem very Irish...

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at CPT

Last night I had so much fun at CPT's production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I really love this show because, not only is it absolutely hilarious, it is unexpectedly poignant (I have seen the Broadway touring company and a fabulous production at PTC several years ago) and CPT did a great job with it. The spelling bee is moderated by Rona Lisa Peretti (Alexandra Rae Kalaher), the best realtor in Putnam County and a past spelling champion who frequently reflects on her experience ("My Favorite Moment of the Bee"). She is aided by Vice Principal Douglas Panch (Brandon Green) who is returning after a five year absence due to an unspecified incident. His main function is to give the definitions of the words and use them in highly amusing sentences ("The Spelling Rules"). Mindy Mahoney (Katelyn Johnson), an ex-con doing her required community service, hands out juice boxes to the losing contestants ("The Prayer of the Comfort Counselor"). The first contestant is Chip Tolentino (Jake Heywood), a baseball player defending his title as champion of the bee last year who spends most of his time flirting with a girl in the audience ("My Unfortunate Distraction"). The second contestant is Logainne SchwartzandGrubenniere (Savanna Hansen), the president of the gay/straight alliance in her elementary school who wants desperately to please her two fathers who have been coaching her for this moment for years ("Woe is Me"). The third contestant is Leaf Coneybear (Trevor Hansen), a home-schooled free spirit who makes his own clothes and is at the bee because the winner and first runner-up had to attend a bat mizvah ("I'm Not That Smart"). The fourth contestant is William Barfee (Aaron Linford), an uptight asthmatic who had to pull out of last year's bee because of an allergic reaction. He frequently has to remind the moderators how to pronounce his name (it's Bar-FAY) and uses an innovative method to help him spell ("Magic Foot"). The fifth contestant is Marcy Park (Emily Woods), a transfer student at Our Lady of Intermittent Sorrows Parochial School who placed ninth at last year's national spelling bee.  She is an overachiever who skipped two grades ("I Speak Six Languages") but now just wants to have a little fun. The sixth contestant is Olive Ostrovsky (Taneesa Wright), who hasn't yet paid the entrance fee because her mother is at an ashram in India and her father has not claimed the seat that she has been saving for him ("The I Love You Song").  Which of these six painfully awkward misfits will be crowned the winner? I really loved everything about this show: the cast, the set, the costumes, the choreography, and the random audience members who participated in the bee (they were responsible for many of the funniest moments). Several of the people around me said that they didn't know anything about this show before they came but they ended up loving it! I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here) to this delightful show.

Kristin Chenoweth at Deer Valley

Last night I got to hear Kristin Chenoweth perform with the Utah Symphony as part of the Deer Valley Music Festival.  She was supposed to perform with the orchestra last summer but she had to cancel due to an injury but she promised to return.  It seems like I have been waiting all year for this concert and I almost didn't go.  As I was driving through the canyon, a torrential rain started pouring down along with lots of thunder and lightning.  As much as I wanted to see Kristin Chenoweth, I didn't really want to sit in the rain but I decided to wait in my car for a little while to see if it would stop before the concert started.  Luckily it did and, even though my blanket got a little bit soggy, I managed to stay relatively dry.  Chenoweth came out wearing a giant orange rain poncho and that set the tone for the rest of the evening.  She was absolutely hilarious!  She mentioned that she had an album of standards coming out in the fall and sang a few songs from it, including "I Get Along Without You Very Well" which she said was her favorite song.  When she sang "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart," she sat on the laps of and kissed several of the musicians saying that no one on the stage was safe from her!  She sang a lovely rendition of "Desperado" with the full orchestra and then finished her first set with "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables which was amazing!  She frequently pointed out several of her friends in the audience and admonished us not to bother them during the intermission!  When she returned to the stage she performed "Popular" from Wicked (she originated the role of Glinda on Broadway) and she asked everyone to get out their phones to film her, pulled someone up to the stage for a selfie, and then live streamed on Instagram.  It was so funny!  She brought a musical theatre student from BYU ("I'm a cougar, too!") to the stage to sing "For Good" from Wicked with her and this girl was amazing.  Chenoweth loves mentoring young performers and she told her that she had a feeling she would make it big!  Next, she sang "The Man That Got Away" from her forthcoming album and then a mash-up of "You Were Always on My Mind" and "Losing My Mind" from Follies which featured a lovely solo by principal cellist Rainer Eudeikis.  She wondered aloud if Willie Nelson and Stephen Sondheim had ever met!  She sang a stirring rendition of "How Great Thou Art" after talking about the importance of her faith and, for the encore, she sang a sultry version of "I Will Always Love You."  This was a wonderful concert and I am so glad that the rain stopped so I could enjoy it!

The Farewell

I wasn't able to see The Farewell during the Sundance Film Festival so I have been looking forward to its wide release.  I had to wait a few days because I have been so busy lately but I finally saw it last night and I had quite a reaction to this beautiful and poignant movie.  When Billi (Awkwafina), a young Chinese-born writer struggling to find her way in New York City, receives the news that her grandmother Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen) is dying of cancer and only has a few months to live, she is bewildered when the rest of her extended family decide not to tell her.  Instead, a wedding is planned for Billi's cousin Hao Hao (Chen Han) and his Japanese girlfriend Aiko (Aoi Mizuhara) in China as an excuse for the entire family to get together to say their goodbyes to Nai Nai.  Billi is incredibly conflicted about this but ultimately has a meaningful visit with her grandmother who encourages her to keep following her dreams.  This movie is so funny because it is such an authentic portrayal of family relationships and I found myself laughing out loud many times at the wry comedic situations.  In my opinion, this movie is also a touching exploration of identity. Billi is constantly told that her objections to the lie they are telling her grandmother are because she is too Westernized but she idealizes the China she remembers from her childhood when she gets angry with her father for talking about the advantages of living in America.  There were several scenes that brought tears to my eyes because they mirrored my own personal experience of moving away from family to another country.  As her family drives around Changchun, Billi recognizes her grandmother's old neighborhood and asks them to take her back because she has happy memories there.  The last time I was in Canada I asked my Dad to drive me to my grandmother's old house for the exact same reason.  In another scene, an emotional Billi lashes out at her mother (Diana Lin) for moving her away from China and her family.  She is especially angry that she was not able to go to her grandfather's funeral because, the next time she visited China, he was gone and it was hard for her to reconcile it.  I felt the same way when I visited Canada after my grandfather died.  There is a beautiful scene near the end of the movie where Billi and her family are leaving to go back to the U.S.  The camera shows Nai Nai in the middle of the street crying as she watches their taxi drive away.  This absolutely gutted me because I have a distinct memory of looking out of the window from the car at my grandmother standing in her driveway and crying as my family drove away.  That is the last time I saw her.  I was openly sobbing for the rest of the movie and I had to sit through all of the credits before I could compose myself enough to leave the theater.  Awkwafina (who is so funny in Ocean's 8 and Crazy Rich Asians) gives a wonderful performance that is very subtle but incredibly powerful.  It is one of the best performances I have seen all year!  My reaction to this movie is definitely based on my own personal frame of reference but I think the themes are universal enough for everyone to enjoy it.  I loved it and I highly recommend it!