The Nightmare Before Christmas in Concert

Last night I got to see the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas while the Utah Symphony played the score by Danny Elfman live and it was so much fun!  I usually think of this as a Halloween movie (it is one of my favorites and I watch it at Halloween every year) but it also works really well for Christmas and this concert was a great way to start the holiday weekend!  Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King and leader of Halloween Town, is getting bored with scaring everyone with the same old tricks every year so, when he accidentally discovers Christmas Town while wandering through the woods, he decides that Christmas is a more appealing holiday and that he should take it over this year.  He has the best trick-or-treaters in Halloween Town, Lock, Shock, and Barrel, kidnap Santa Claus, assigns the rest of the residents the job of making toys, which are terrifying, and delivers them with a disastrous result.  Will Santa Claus be able to escape from the Oogie Boogie and save Christmas in time?  Only Tim Burton could dream up such a macabre, yet strangely enchanting, world filled with quirky characters brought to life with brilliant stop-motion animation.  The sold-out crowd at Abravanel Hall was in a really festive mood and there were cheers and applause when each character first appeared on the screen (the Mayor of Halloween Town got the loudest applause), when Jack first visits Christmas Town, when Sally escapes from Dr. Finkelstein, and when Jack rescues Santa and Sally from Oogie!  Hearing the Utah Symphony play Danny Elfman's iconic score was such an immersive experience!  I especially enjoyed the chimes in "This is Halloween" (the people around me sang this song out loud), the themes played by the brass in "What's This?" and "Kidnap the Sandy Claws," the themes played by the woodwinds in "Making Christmas" and "Oogie Boogie's Song," and the plaintive melody played by the strings in "Sally's Song."  I thoroughly enjoyed all of it!  I don't think I will ever tire of Utah Symphony's Films in Concert series because attending these performances has become one of my favorite things to do!  The next Film in Concert will be An American in Paris (go here for tickets) and I can't wait!

The Whale

There are a few movies left to catch up on before I make my end of year list of favorites so I went to see The Whale at the Broadway last night and, while I was very impressed with Brendan Fraser's performance, I did not like it at all.  Charlie (Fraser) is a morbidly obese and reclusive English professor who teaches writing courses online without enabling the camera on his computer.  When he has a health scare involving his heart he finds solace in reading a student's essay on the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville and draws a comparison between himself and the whale.  His caregiver Liz (Hong Chau) fears that he is in congestive heart failure and that he doesn't have long to live but he refuses to go to the hospital.  Knowing that he could die at any moment, he attempts a reconciliation with his estranged teenage daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) who is angry and bitter over his abandonment of her and her mother Mary (Samantha Morton) nine years earlier to have a relationship with one of his male students.  Ellie lashes out at her father but, despite her cruelty, he only sees the good in her.  This is reinforced by a sub-plot involving Ellie's relationship with an evangelical missionary named Thomas (Ty Simkins) because her betrayal ends well for him.  Many have had a very positive reaction to this movie but it was extremely difficult for me to watch because I found Aronofsky's portrayal of Charlie to be steeped in humiliation rather than empathy.  It is almost voyeuristic because every scene involving Charlie's body seems designed to shock the audience (particularly the scene where we actually see him for the first because he is awkwardly masturbating to gay pornography).  It was also upsetting to me that, with the possible exception of Liz, every character responds to him with disgust (even the pizza delivery boy with whom he has had a sort of friendship until he sees him).  Finally, Fraser does what he can with the material (his eyes and voice are incredibly expressive) but, ultimately, Charlie is a static character because everyone reacts to him instead of interacting with him and it is their redemption that he seeks rather than his own.  The symbolism is excessive, most of the performances are overwrought (I am definitely in the minority but I disliked Sink's performance because there is no nuance at all), the score is manipulative, and the one location (Charlie's dark and dingy apartment) makes this feel like a showy stage performance.  Not only do I not recommend this, I regret seeing it myself.

The Circus Train

My December Book of the Month selection was The Circus Train by Amita Parikh (the other options were Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun, Babel by R. F. Kuang, All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham, and The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton). I am a huge fan of historical fiction, especially fiction set during World War II, so I enjoyed this. After his wife dies in childbirth and his infant daughter Lena suffers from a bout with polio which leaves her paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair, Theo Papadopoulos takes a job as an illusionist with a magnificent traveling circus. The World of Wonders travels all through Europe in a luxury steam engine with many opportunities for the intelligent and ambitious Lena, but Theo is strict and overprotective because he fears for her safety. When Alexandre, a young orphan boy with a mysterious past, is found hiding on the train Lena feels like she has found her first friend and soon they are inseparable. However, as Europe is plunged into a war, Alexandre and Theo are arrested and become separated from Lena. She is forced to fend for herself for the first time in her life and discovers that she is stronger than she ever imagined she could be. I really loved the character of Lena because she is so strong and resilient. Not only must she overcome her own disability, but she must survive the atrocities of World War II and, when the war is over, she must defy the limitations placed on women to become a doctor and, ultimately, forgive the two people she loves most for their betrayal in order to find happiness. I love it whenever a woman, a disabled woman no less, is able to achieve something that society says she cannot do! I also really enjoyed the romance between Lena and Alexandre because I am a sucker for star-crossed lovers and I like the fact that they are both outsiders who find strength in each other (although I found the resolution to their love story to be rather convenient and a bit rushed). I was very impressed by the descriptions of life in the Theresienstadt Ghetto during the war and I could definitely tell that this aspect of the novel was meticulously researched. I was a bit disappointed that the same care was not given to the circus setting because I had a difficult time visualizing what the various compartments on the train looked like (I especially wanted to know what the giant maze created for Lena looked like and how it fit inside of the train) or how the illusions were performed (particularly the escape from the water tank because it plays such a pivotal role). I've seen this compared to The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen multiple times but I think the circus setting is the weakest element in the plot and it does not play any real role in the narrative once the war begins. I loved this novel as a historical coming-of-age story with elements of romance and I definitely recommend it as such rather than the circus story it is being marketed as.

Avatar: The Way of Water

Last night I went with my family to see Avatar: The Way of Water and, as a huge fan of the first movie, I almost couldn't contain my excitement!  It is an immersive spectacle with unparalleled visual effects and I absolutely loved it!  Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is the chief of the Omaticaya tribe and he and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) are the parents of an adopted daughter named Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), sons Neteyam (James Flatters) and Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), and daughter Tuktirey (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss).  They are also the guardians of Spider (Jack Champion), the son of Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) who was left behind when the humans were forced to leave Pandora.  After a decade of peace, the Na'vi are once again threatened by another invasion of humans wanting to prepare Pandora for resettlement because the Earth is becoming uninhabitable.  Sully also faces a personal threat from a group of recombinants, Na'vi avatars with the memories of the dead marines, including Quaritch, he and Neytiri killed in battle.  Fearing for the tribe, Sully makes the decision to leave the forest and take refuge with the Metkayina tribe, a reef dwelling people led by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and his wife Ronal (Kate Winslet).  As Sully and his family attempt to adapt to a new way of life, it is only a matter of time before Quaritch finds them.  This movie is visually stunning, espcially the underwater diving sequences, and I felt completely immersed in the world of the reef (we saw it in 3D HFR).  However, it is more than just a spectacle because I really loved the focus on what it means to be an outsider, particularly the relationship between Lo'ak and Payakan, a cetacean who has been shunned by his species.  I also really loved the journey that Sully and Neytiri take as parents because they focus so much on protecting their children but ultimately end up being saved by them and the emphasis on the father-son relationship between between Sully and Lo'ak is incredibly poignant.  Finally, the theme of respect for the environment is very powerful, especially the scenes where whalers hunt tulkuns merely for the sake of acquiring a valuable resource.  My only complaint about the plot is that Kiri's story seems very underdeveloped (but there are three more sequels planned).  The action sequences in the third act kept me on the edge of my seat and I was very impressed by the emotional performances of Worthington and Saldana.  Watching this was a thrilling experience (but doesn't quite live up to that of watching Top Gun: Maverick) and I highly recommend it!  I already have tickets to watch it again with my niece!

Gingerbread Houses 2022

Yesterday afternoon Sean, Tashena, Marilyn, and I made gingerbread houses which is a tradition we have had ever since Tashena joined our family and, as always, it was a lot of fun!  This year I got kits for these elaborate gingerbread manor houses because I thought they looked so cool but they ended up taking a long time to decorate!  None of us even bothered to decorate the backs of our houses (Sean didn't even decorate the sides) because they were so big.  They came with lots of candy (I still bought more) and royal icing in bags with piping tips.  It turns out that I am not very good at piping (I even had a major incident in which I got icing everywhere and I had to have Sean get it all back in the bag) but I think it would be fun to learn how to do it better.

I always have to get the traditional picture of Sean eating the icing!

Sean's house.

Tashena's house.

Marilyn's house.

My house.

Our gingerbread village!  I think they all turned out great this year!