John Wick: Chapter 4

I really love the John Wick franchise because the stakes keep getting higher and the action sequences keep getting more exhilarating with each movie.  That is especially true of the latest installment John Wick: Chapter 4, which I saw in IMAX last night, because I was on the edge of my seat, holding my breath, and cheering out loud!  After John Wick (Keanu Reeves) kills the Elder (George Georgiou), the Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard), acting under the auspices of the High Table, targets the New York and Osaka Continentals as well as their mangers, Winston Scott (Ian McShane) and Shimazu Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada), and concierges Charon (Lance Reddick) and Akira (Rina Sawayama), respectively, for aiding him.  The Marquis also compels Caine (Donnie Yen), a blind assassin and old friend of Wick's, to come out of retirement and kill him and he offers a contract to a bounty hunter known as the Tracker (Shamier Anderson).  Wick eventually finds an archaic way to end his obligation to the High Table but first he must reconnect with the Ruska Roma crime syndicate and survive a $40 million bounty placed on his head.  The action sequences are absolutely amazing with spectacular set pieces that are intense and unrelenting!  The fight choreography is brilliant with ingenious and visually stunning shot compositions, particularly a fight against dozens of assassins with just a pair of nunchucks in between glass display cases, hand to hand combat while dodging groups of dancers in a neon-lit nightclub, a continuous overhead shot involving dragon's breath ammunition, an epic car chase in the traffic around the Arc de Triomphe, and another fight against dozens of assassins on the 222 stairs leading to the Sacre-Coeur Basilica.  In fact, the action in the final act might be the best I've ever seen and I loved it!  Reeves gives his best performance in the franchise, in my opinion, because Wick must finally face the consequences of his actions in a very visceral way but Skarsgard is perfect as a petulant villain and Yen almost steals the show (one particular line delivery made my audience laugh out loud).  I was also really impressed with Sawayama because she holds her own in a great fight sequence.  Much has been made of the nearly three hour runtime but I didn't feel it at all and some might not like the final resolution but, if this is indeed the last movie in the franchise, I think it is really the only way Wick's character arc could have ended.  I had so much fun watching this and, it you are a fan of the franchise, I think you will be blown away!

The Last Russian Doll

My March Book of the Month selection was The Last Russian Doll by Kristen Loesch (the other options were The London Seance Society by Sarah Penner, Weyward by Emilia Hart, The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth, Rootless by Krystle Zarah Appiah, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, and Lone Women by Victor LaValle). I have been defaulting to the thriller for the past several months so I thought it was time to pick a historical novel and this is a good one. In 1991 Rosie (Raisa) and her mother have been living in England since they defected from the Soviet Union in 1977 after her father and sister were brutally murdered. She has always wanted to understand what happened on that fateful day so, when when she finds a cryptic clue about her family's past inside a porcelain doll after her mother's sudden death, she contrives to return to the Soviet Union as a research assistant for a famous author. In 1915 Antonina (Tonya) is trapped in a loveless marriage to a wealthy nobleman in St. Petersburg who treats her like the porcelain doll he had made especially for her. She begins a passionate and scandalous affair with Valentin, one of her husband's workers, at the beginning of the Bolshevik revolution but events conspire to separate them. The narrative alternates between the two timelines as Rosie's investigation leads her to Tonya. I really loved the mystery aspect of this novel because every single clue that Rosie finds leads her to another mystery, just like a nesting Matryoshka doll, and, even though I knew the two storylines would eventually converge, I was completely engaged until the final resolution. As someone who loves Russian history, culture, literature, and music, I was fascinated by all of the historical references to the 1917 revolution, the Russian Civil War, Stalin's purges, the siege of Leningrad during World War II, and the fall of communism. I also loved the use of Russian fairy tales at the beginning of every chapter because they very cleverly inform what is happening in the main plot. All of the characters are interesting and well-developed but I especially enjoyed Tonya's arc because she begins the novel as little more than an ornament without autonomy but she is transformed by events into an incredibly resourceful and resilient woman. She is the perfect personification of Russia itself (beautiful but formidable) and I was enthralled by her journey. This is a beautifully written multi-generational saga set against the backdrop of 20th century Russian history so I literally couldn't help but love it. This is definitely my favorite book of 2023 so far and I highly recommend it!

Champions

Last night I decided to have a double feature of 65 (for the third time) and then Champions.  I love a feel-good underdog sports movie and this was a lot of fun.  Marcus Marakovich (Woody Harrelson) is an incredibly volatile assistant coach for a minor league basketball team in Iowa.  An altercation with the head coach gets him fired and an accident while under the influence gets him sentenced to 90 days community service as a coach to a basketball team of adults with intellectual disabilities.  His first meeting with the quirky players, including Johnny (Kevin Iannucci), Cody (Ashton Gunning), Craig (Matthew Von Der Ahe), Blair (Tom Sinclair), Benny (James Day Keith), Arthur (Alex Hintz), Marlon (Casey Metcalfe), Showtime (Bradley Edens) and, eventually, Cosentino (Madison Tevlin), and Darius (Joshua Felder), goes about as well as you would expect!  Even though he knows everything there is to know about basketball, Marcus must get to know his players as people before they can start winning games.  The team's eventual success gets him an offer to coach in the NBA but it is when they play in the final game of the Special Olympics that he learns the true definition of a champion.  This features all of the training montages, inspirational locker room speeches, and come from behind wins that have become de rigueur for the genre but it is just so charming it doesn't matter that it is incredibly predictable.  Harrelson is great but I loved watching the actors with real-life intellectual disabilities who play the team members because their interactions with him are hilarious.  I especially loved Tevlin because her comedic timing rivals that of Harrelson!  This might be too crude for some people (it is directed by Bobby Farrelly, after all) but if you can get beyond that, it is very heart-warming and entertaining.

Matilda at CPT

Both of my sisters, my brother-in-law, my nephew, and I went to see Matilda at CPT last night and we had so much fun. This production features some innovative staging and I am always really appreciative when a show that I have seen several times does something to surprise me. Matilda Wormwood (Charlotte Witt) is a precocious five year old with a penchant for reading, telling stories, and being just a little bit naughty. She is ignored by her mother (Jaycee Harris), an amateur Latin ballroom dancer, and father (Caydin Bell), an unscrupulous used car salesman, and is terrorized by Miss Agatha Trunchbull (J.R. Moore), the former champion in hammer throwing who is now the headmistress of her school. With the help of a sympathetic teacher named Miss Honey (Amanda Frisby) and a story about an Escapologist (James Duncan) and an Acrobat (Keely Parry), Matilda triumphs over the neglectful adults in her life. I was incredibly impressed with the elaborate set because it is very different from the ones I have seen before. It features a large multi-level school made of bricks with barbed wire at the top of the walls, loudspeakers on poles, and a large iron gate (it looks like a cross between a medieval castle and a prison). There is a turntable which is used to bring in set pieces for the Wormwood's house and Miss Honey's classroom with other pieces brought on from the wings. As I mentioned, I really liked the staging of many of the numbers in this production, particularly "Miracle," because it includes the addition of a gospel choir backing up the Doctor (Garret Frazier), "School Song," because it features the use of typography with projections on an interactive chalk board, and "When I Grow Up" (my favorite song in the show), because, in addition to the usual swings, the choreography includes a seesaw, a hopscotch, a jump rope, fishing poles, hula hoops, and bubble blowers which give it a very playful feel. I also really enjoyed "The Smell of Rebellion" and "Revolting Children" because the children in the ensemble are absolutely fantastic! Other crowd favorites were "Loud," because Mrs. Wormwood (Harris is my brother-in-law's niece and we all loved her performance because her facial expressions are hilarious) and her dance partner Rudolpho (Caleb Birth) are completely over the top, and "Chokey Chant," because there is a fun effect involving throwing a child into the chokey. Witt does a great job and her renditions of "Naughty" and "Quiet" are wonderful but I sometimes couldn't hear her during "Escapologist Story." Frisby has a beautiful voice and her version of "My House" is very powerful and moving. However, Moore steals the show as Miss Trunchbull because his performance is a cross between Miss Hannigan and an East German Olympic athlete! I laughed and laughed at all of his antics during "The Hammer" and "The Smell of Rebellion," especially all of his facial expressions and gestures. Miss Trunchbull's costume in this show is probably my favorite of those I've seen for the character and I was also impressed by the attention to detail on the school uniforms worn by the children. So many elements of this show stood out to me as new and exciting and I really enjoyed it!  This show runs on the Barlow Main Stage through April 15 (go here for tickets) and I highly recommend it!

The Quiet Girl

Last night I went back to the Broadway to see The Quiet Girl, a recent Academy Award nominee for Best International Feature, and I was incredibly moved by this lovely coming of age story.  Nine-year-old Cait (Catherine Clinch) is the middle daughter of a large and impoverished family in rural Ireland.  Her ne'er-do-well father (Michael Patric) neglects their farm and spends his days drinking, gambling, and philandering and her exhausted mother (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh) is overwhelmed by the imminent birth of another baby.  Cait is painfully shy and is often berated for wetting the bed and wandering off so it is decided that she will be sent to her mother's middle aged cousin Eibhlin Kinsella (Carrie Crowley) and her husband Sean (Andrew Bennett) in Waterford for the summer.  Eibhlin cares for her tenderly and, even though he is distant at first, Sean eventually bonds with her when she helps him on his dairy farm and when they make a game of her running down the lane to retrieve the post (which informs an incredibly poignant scene later in the movie that brought tears to my eyes).  Cait blossoms after experiencing kindness for the first time in her life and she helps the Kinsellas come to terms with the death of their son years earlier.  The action is slow and monotonous, with many scenes showing Cait peeling potatoes, walking to the well for water, and cleaning the barn, but every moment is fraught with meaning, especially one involving a cookie.  The cinematography is beautiful and I loved that people and places are often depicted from the perspective of a child.  Clinch gives an amazing physical performance because she conveys so much of what she is thinking and feeling without a lot of dialogue (you automatically know that she has suffered, with very little exposition, by the wary look in her eyes when she is around her father, mother, and sisters).  I loved this movie so much and I highly recommend seeking out this little gem.