CUW Theatre Awards

Today at 5, over pizza and soda, Profs. Schaufler and Eggebrecht will present the annual Concordia Theatre Awards to a deserving group of students.  It’s been a great year – thanks to everyone, casts and crews, for their great work!

Great but depressing theatre

Saw DEATH OF A SALESMAN at the Rep on Thursday – fantastic production.  Lee Ernst remains an incredible actor.  I did not care for Laura Gordon’s performance, however; she seemed to be just going through the motions.  Rest of the cast was superb, and you can’t top Miller.  Friday we went to Chicago to see NEXT TO NORMAL – another depressing but fantastic play about a bipolar woman going crazy.  Incredible music; wonderful cast, although I thought Alice Ripley, who played the lead, had a really weird quality to her voice that I had not noticed before.  Worth seeing!  Great set and lighting.  The Rep is doing it next season.  Can’t wait.

reviews: WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, and FAST FIVE

It’s a long time since I read the novel WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, and while I don’t remember a thing about it (nor did I as the movie played), I do remember that I liked it.  I found the movie a bit frustrating at times, but overall I liked it.  The story is set in a run down, second rate circus (and you learn more about circuses than you proably ever wanted to know).  Reese Witherspoon is wonderful as the nasty circus owner’s wife, Christoph Waltz is just about as vicious and nasty as the character he played in GLORIOUS BASTERDS, and Robert Pattinson, with whom I was not familiar, is excellent as Witherspoons’s lover and the circus veteriarian.  To drum up sales, the owner buys an old elephant, whom he mistreats, and the young couple are responsible for it.  There is some great cinematography, the story moves along nicely once it gets going (it gets off to a slow start), and the acting is superb – worth seeing for that alone.  A very, very old Hal Holbrook (when did he get that old?!) plays the narrator of the story, which is a long flashback.  It’s a movie that the more I think about it, the more I like it, and it gets a socks up 7.

Then, just for the fun and cheap thrills, I went to see FAST FIVE, starring Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson (who looked like twins to me except Johnson had a goatee), and a group of actors I’ve never seen before.  This is four or five in the FAST FIVE sequence, and the first I’ve seen (and it ends with a preview of the next one).  I haven’t missed anything.  There is some terrible acting, a lot of souped up cars driving fast, and an incredibly destructive chase scene that takes up the last third of the movie.  I can’t imagine how they filmed that.  (It does have the warning not to try it at home – ha).  the story, which I didn’t quite get, has something to do with their trying to steal a billion dollars from a gangster’s vault.  Their plans keep going awry until they attach the vault to two cars and drag it through Los Angeles, destroying the city along the way.  There is some grreat cinematography, and the music pumps your blood faster, but it is really stupid.  It ges a 5 for laughs.

Two Reviews

PARAGON SPRINGS went very well!  The cast and crew did a fabulous job!!  Unfortunately, not many people saw it, including only 14 on Sunday.  That is horrible – what does it take to get people to student activities around here?!

Anyway, I went to see the latest animated feature, RIO, which has received really good reviews, at least the ones that I read.  Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would.  It’s very colorful, and the animation is good, as is the acting, including voices like Anne Hathaway and a huge cast of others.  It’s about a rare blue Macaw and his also rare girlfriend, Jewel, who are kidnapped to be sold and need to be rescued by their other feathered friends.  The story sags a bit along the way, but builds nicely towards the end, and there were some good laughs at times.  Overall, I give it a  7.

Then I went to see LIMITLESS, advertised as a suspense thirller.  It is.  Bradley Cooper, who plays the lead, is given a new pill to try by his former brother-in-law, who works for a pharmaceutical company (and is shortly murdered).  Not knowing what it is, he takes the pill (How much sense does that make?  But people sometimes do stupid things).  In thirty seconds the pill gives him access to his entire brain, rather than the 20% people ordinarily have, so he is able to do and act on things he usually wouldn’t be able to. Unhappily, he quickly becomes addicted to the pill which has all sorts of unpleasant side effects, and, of course, there are nefarius people who want the pills and want him dead.  Complications arise along the way.  It was entertaining, suspenseful, and, despite the need for the willing suspension of disbelief, well written and acted.  It gets a socks up 8.

Review

At the movie today I saw the preview of what looks like a pretty good movie entitled ANONYMOUS.  It’s about how Shakespeare didn’t really write Shakespeare, and while I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH ALL OF THE NO SHAKESPEARE THEORIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, this movie looks like it was pretty well made and gives a good picture of Elizabethan times.  So, this summer, I will be going to see it.

The movie I saw was HANNA, which was not at all what I expected.  Hanna is played by Saoirse Ronan, who was so wonderful in ATONEMENT, and who will be playing “The girl who. . .” in the American series based on those novles.  She is wonderful, also, in HANNA.  Essentially, it’s a chase movie, and very much like a story I once read by Dean Kpontz, which should tell you a lot about it, although I won’t give away any important stuff.  Hanna is a very young looking sixteen year old who has been trained by her father (Eric Bana – Hektor in TROY) to be a very efficient assassin.  (You don’t want to try to kiss her) Evil villainess Cate Blanchett, for reasons I won’t reveal, is out to kill them both and the two pronged chase is on.  Happily, much of the violence is off screen or fairly bloodless;  there is some marvelous cinematography; and with that cast, the acting is first rate.  Much of the story occurs in the Mideast.  I found it entertaining for the almost two hours of the moive and give it a 7.

Almost there

First dress rehearal last night, and I let the understudies perform and invite family and friends.  They did a very nice job.  Tonight’s our final dress, and we are ready.  I detest the old bromide that a bad dress rehearsal means a good performance.  A bad dress rehearsal means you’re not ready.  WE ARE READY!  Can’t wait.  ACTF Rep comes on Friday.  Always exciting to open a new show – love the script, love the cast, love the set, love the lighting, love the sound – all coming together nicely.

boorish behavior

Earlier this week I almost committed murder.  When I went to the movies, during SOURCE CODE, some idiot guy behind me felt compelled to explain to his dim wife every scene in the movie and what it meant.  I was close to mayhem by the time the movie happily ended.

In PARAGON SPRINGS the cast is off book, and tonight is the last time they can ask for a line if they need it.  We’re getting there and it’s shaping up.  Set should be mostly finished tomorrow.  It is unique and really cool.

reviews

Yesterday I saw two pretty good mvies and part of one really bad one.  First I went to see SOURCE CODE, a really exciting science fiction film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, and Vera Farmiga, whom I have really grown to appreciae recently.  The essence of the plot is that a train headed for Chicago has a bomb planted on it, and has actually exploded, killing everyone aboard.  Gyllenhaal’s character, through a means I won’t give away (nor will I reveal any of the plot twists and surprises), is sent back to the last eight minutes before it explodes to find the bomb and the bomber.  He keeps being sent back until he is successful, each time finding more cluse.  It’s a really well written film of its type, and the acting is supereb.  Monaghan plays the woman he is sitting with on the train, and Fermiga is the supervisor of his trips back to the train.  The editing and special effects are very realistic and effective, as is the cinematography.  Once you buy into the concept (it is sci fi, after all), it’s a really exciting and satisfying movie that I thoroughly enjoyed, and give a 9.

I had an hour between films, so I stepped in to watch part of SUCKER PUNCH, which ranks among the most stupid and exploitive films I’ve ever seen.  A group of five beautiful women, imprisoned in an insane asylum (I didn’ see the beginning, so I don’t know why), are sent on some sort of combat missions from which, after they have killed dozens of “enemy” soldiers, they are sent back to the asylum.  Fortunately, I din’t see the end, so I have no idea how it turns out, nor do I care.  the acting was horrible, the special effects cheap and sleazy, and the whole thing a waste of time.

But then I went to see THE LINCOLN LAWYER, a movie based on a novel by Michael Connelly and starring Matthew McConaughy.  I thought the movie did a pretty good job of adapting the novel to the screen.  McMonaughy plays a lawyer who works out of his car.  He is defending a wealthy and handsome young man accused of brutalizning a young woman.  To say more would require me to give away too much of a really interesting plot; suffice it to say that everything is not as it seems.  The acting is great, the cinematography does a good job of showing off Los Angeles, and the story is tightly constructed. There are some nice surprises along the way.  It’s interesting how,as the movie goes along, the dialogue changes from light and funny quips to very serious and heavy conversation.  This movie also gets a 9, and is well worth seeing.

Up-date on PS

Been too long since writing – been a busy time.  PARAGON SPRINGS is shaping up very nicely!  Last night three people were completely off book, the rest of the cast is almost there (as of Thursday – no more books on stage!  The set building and painting is in process and will be really cool, and the staging looks great.  You won’t want to miss this show.

two reviews

Yesterday I saw one movie that was much better than I expected, and one that was even worse.

The movie that was better was BATTLE LOS ANGELES, a science fiction thriller filled with cliches, but entertaining, nonetheless.  As we are quickly introduced to the cast of marines, news broadcasts tell us that a cluster of meteors is headed for earth.  Turns out they’re not meteors, but UFO’s filled with robotic aliens intent on colonizing earth and killing all inhabitants.  The small group of marines, somehow by saving three people in a polices station in Los Angeles, is going to save the world.  (I know, it’s really stupid. There is no logical plot).  There are a lot of noise and shots and explosions, and hand held cameras that jerekily keep one from seeing anything distinctive, but it is visceral and engrossing, though going on a bit too long.  The ending doesn’t have much logic behind it, but is impressive.  The special effects are quite good and convincing, and the acting surprisingly good for a throw away movie like this.  Aaron Eckhart, a very good acto, plays the leader of the marines with a dark and never explained past, and makes a good action hero.  The rest of the cast does their best with really inane dialogue, made up mostly of single words like, “Incoming,” “Over there,” Lookout,” and the like.  It did get so tense it gave me a slight headache, and while it’s pretty stupid, it was mildly entertaining.  Surprisingly, for this type of movie, there is very little foul language.  I give it a 6.

RED RIDING HOOD was worse than bad, but, it was so bad I found it entertaining and laughed out loud a lot, along with the one other individual in the theatre with me.  Because of overlap, I missed the first fifteen minutes, but I don’t think I missed anything because the movie keeps repeating it.  This is a total waste of a wonderful cast.  Valerie (RRH) is played by Amanda Seyfried, who was wonderful in MAMA MIA and other recent films; Gary Oldman, a bit over the top and in full out ham mode, plays the van Helsing-like character Father Solomon; Billy Burke plays Valerie’s father, and Julie Christie is her Grandmother.  Unfortunately, they don’t have much  to do, and the two pretty boys who play Valerie’s competing boyfirends, have no acting talent at all.  They are wooden mannequins.  The film makers have turned this into a werewolf movie, and the werewolf is so obviously computergenerated, it’s almost embarrassing.  In an isolated medieval community, clearly a set, the wolf has returned after some time and is again wreaking havoc.  Father Solomon, famed werewolf killer, is called to help, and quickly determines the wolf is one of the villagers (duh).  He turns into a bad guy himself, and part of the fun is trying to figure out who the wolf is (I didn’t until the rebvelztion)  The costumes are great, the story stupid, some of the dialogue inane, the acitng pretty good for the most part, and, as I said earlier, it is so bad it’s hilarious.  With good reason it’s rated PG -13, although the maiming and killing are pretty bloodless.  There are a couple of farily steamy sex scenes and adult themes, so it’s definitely not for kids.  Amanda Seyfried is worth the price of admission – wuh!  For entetainment value it’s probably worth a six, as a movie, it gets a minus 5.