Angels in America: Perestroika

Kudos to An Other Theater Company for another wonderful evening of theater with their staged reading of the second half of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece.

Director, Kacey Spadafora assembled his entire cast from the first part, Millennium Approaches and treated us the audience to a wonderfully staged reading with the same incredible performances by his brilliant ensemble!

This part of Kushner's seminal work is even more emotionally impacted and I was completely moved by evening's end! The brilliant HBO mini-series left a lot out, which I can see why Kushner, who adapted his own play for the mini-series did that because most of what was left out wouldn't have worked on screen, only on stage. This is why theater is so different from screen work.

Kushner's piece really gets to the soul of humanity and what makes us tick. But it is also now an incredible historical allegory. The entire story is set in the mid 80's, right in the heart of the AIDS crisis and ends in the early 90's where the cold war is coming to an end and the LGBT civil rights movement was just beginning to gain momentum again. The ending of Kushner's piece has the character of Prior Walter directly addressing the audience saying, "We're not going to die secret deaths any longer. We will be citizens!" How prophetic that is today with the victories of Same Sex Marriage on a national level, the Matthew Shepherd Civil Rights Act, more and more corporations including Sexual Orientation in their anti-discrimination policies, etc. 

Thank you An Other Theater Company for having the courage to bring this work to Utah County! I will never forget the experience! Please give this infant theater company your support! They are headed into their second season this fall and they are truly a new and fresh artistic voice in the Utah County theatrical landscape. We need it here so badly!

Oscar Nominations (My Picks) - 2018 Edition

KEY: Bold (Winner)/Bold/Italics (My Pick)

Best Picture

Call Me By Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

Actor in a Leading Role

Timothée Chalamet: "Call Me By Your Name"
Daniel Day-Lewis: "Phantom Thread"
Daniel Kaluuya: "Get Out"
Gary Oldman: "Darkest Hour"
Denzel Washington: "Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Actress in a Leading Role

Sally Hawkins: "The Shape of Water"
Frances McDormand: "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"
Margot Robbie: "I, Tonya"
Saoirse Robbin: "Lady Bird"
Meryl Streep: "The Post"

Actor in a Supporting Role

Willem Dafoe: "The Florida Project"
Woody Harrelson: "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"
Richard Jenkins: "The Shape of Water"
Christopher Plummer: "All the Money in the World"
Sam Rockwell: "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"

Actress in a Supporting Role

Mary J. Blige: "Mudbound"
Allison Janney: "I, Tonya"
Lesley Manville: "Phantom Thread"
Laurie Metcalf: "Lady Bird"
Octavia Spencer: "The Shape of Water"

Animated Feature Film

Born Leader
The Breadwinner
Coco
Ferdinand
Loving Vincent

Cinematography

Roger A. Deakins: "Blade Runner 2049"
Bruno Delbonnel: "Darkest Hour"
Hoyte van Hoytema: "Dunkirk"
Rachel Morrison: "Mudbound"
Dan Lausten: "The Shape of Water"

Costume Design

Jacqueline Durran: "Beauty and the Beast"
Jacqueline Durran: "Darkest Hour"
Mark Bridges: "Phantom Thread"
Luis Sequiera: "The Shape of Water"
Consolata Boyle: "Victoria & Abdul"

Directing

Christopher Nolan: "Dunkirk"
Jordan Peele: "Get Out"
Greta Gerwig: Lady Bird"
Paul Thomas Anderson: "Phantom Thread"
Guillermo del Toro: "The Shape of Water"

Documentary Feature

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Faces Places
Icarus
Last Men in Aleppo
Strong Island

Documentary Short Subject

Edith+Edie
Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405
Heroin(e)
Knife Skills
Traffic Stop

Film Editing

Baby Driver
Dunkirk
I, Tonya
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Foreign Language Film

A Fantastic Woman (Chile)
The Insult (Lebanon)
Loveless (Russia)
On Body and Soul (Hungary)
The Square (Sweden)

Makeup and Hairstyling

Kazhuro Tsuji, David Malinowski, & Lucy Sibbick: "Darkest Hour"
Daniel Phillips and Lou Sheppad: "Victoria & Abdul"
Arjen Tuiten: "Wonder"

Music (Original Score)

Hans Zimmer: "Dunkirk"
Jonny Greenwood: "Phantom Thread"
Alexandre Despot: "The Shape of Water"
John Williams: "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"
Carter Burwell: "Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri"

Music (Original Song"

"Mighty River" from Mudblood
"Mystery of Love" from Call Me By Your Name
"Remember Me" from Coco
"Stand Up for Something" from Marshall
"This is Me" from The Greatest Showman

Production Design

Beauty and the Beast
Blade Runner 2049
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water

Short Film (Animated)

Dear Basketball
Garden Party
Lou
Negative Space
Revolting Rhymes

Short Film (Live Action)

DeKalb Elementary
The Eleven O'Clock
My Nephew Emmett
The Silent Child
Watu Wrote/All of Us

Sound Editing

Baby Driver
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Sound Mixing

Baby Driver
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Visual Effects

Blade Runner 2049
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2
Kong: Skull Island
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
War for the Planet of the Apes


Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

James Ivory: "Call Me By Your Name"
Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Webber: "The Disaster Artist"
Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green; Story by James Mangold: "Logan"
Aaron Sorkin: "Molly's Game"
Virgil Williams & Dee Rees: "Mudbound"

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjani; "The Big Sick"
Jordan Peele: "Get Out"
Greta Gerwig: "Lady Bird"
Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor; Story by Guillermo del Toro: "The Shape of Water"

Martin McDonagh: "Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri"

Call Me By Your Name

This coming of age film is beautifully shot and beautifully written. The story surrounds one six-week period during the early summer of 1983 in a small town in the north of Italy. A graduate student (Armie Hammer) comes to work with a college professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) as his research assistant at his home and where the professor's 17-year old son, Elio (played to perfection by the Oscar nominated Timothee Chalamet) eventually falls in love with the student.

Without being exploitative in any way, director Luca Guadagnino leads us through a beautiful coming of age story of young love and two very different characters. Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet have great chemistry on screen and you feel for both these characters. Armie's character, Oliver, is still very much in the closet and never really comes to terms with his sexuality, but Timothee's character, Elio, is very much open to his and finally begins to except himself for who he is along with the help and encouragement of his father (Michael Stuhlbarg). One of the most beautiful scenes in gay cinema history takes place between Elio and his father. Kudos to the Luca Guadagnino and the brilliant actor, Michael Stuhlbarg, for such an incredible scene of unconditional love between parent and child.

This film broke my heart. I was moved tremendously! This film so deserves the Oscar nomination for Best Film it's received and I personally feel that Timothee Chalamet deserves to win the Oscar for his touchingly beautiful performance in this film! Don't miss this film!

Murder On the Orient Express

For someone who grew up on the 1974 film version with Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot and an all-star cast including the likes of Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Martin Balsam, John Gielgud, Sean Connery, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, and Michael York; the idea of a new version left me very worried. I am so happy to be wrong!

Kenneth Branagh stars as Hercule Poirot and directs this magnificent adaptation of Agatha Christie's acclaimed novel with another all-star cast including the likes of Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Leslie Odom, Jr., Tom Bateman, Penelope Cruz, Josh Gad, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Judi Dench, and Willem Dafoe. In this version, 20th Century Fox (their last film before the big Disney takeover) has delivered an epic film that reminded me of the films of my childhood and of the golden age of Hollywood. Kudos to everyone involved for a job well done. 

One thing that stood out for me, besides the magnificent performances by one incredible cast, is the deep human aspect that was played up, particularly with the ending. This film packs a wallop and I was left in tears at the end of this film. I am so grateful for Kenneth Branagh, the brilliant screenwriter, Micheal Green, for delving deeper into the emotional ramifications of this story. Agatha Christie was truly a great writer and this adaptation has done justice to the source material as well as paying great tribute to the talent of Ms. Christie! Don't miss this film!

Just 45 Minutes From Broadway

I stumbled upon this simple little film on Amazon Prime today and I was pleasantly surprised. Despite a wonderful supporting performance by Judd Nelson (Breakfast Club), the rest of the ensemble of this film is unknown but fantastic! This is a true tribute to the theater and a love letter to actors everywhere! It's about our families, particularly the lucky ones among us that have our family's love and support of our passion for our art.

This is a strange film but I fell in love with it and it's characters pretty quickly. It had a touch of Noel Coward in it but at it's heart, it's about a family of artists. It's about separating art from real life and how sometimes that line is blurred. This was based on a play by the same name and written and directed by the playwright himself.

It's a touching tribute to family and sometimes the wounds that happen when life doesn't pan out the way we think it should. I highly recommend this film to everyone, particularly to my fellow theater artists.

Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her

This is a very subtle but heartwarming look at people, in this case, women. Can you really know someone by just looking at them? This film explores this subject with gentleness and a universal look at humanity in all of its subtleties. Five interweaving stories of women just trying to get through life and their challenges. Glen Close stars as a physician whose role of sole caregiver of her elderly mother begins to take its tole. Cameron Diaz and Amy Brenneman star as sisters, one blind the other a police detective looking for love and their own place in the world. Calista Flockhart as a medium whose spouse is dying of cancer. Holly Hunter as a bank manager who's life is suddenly turned head over heals in the wake of an important decision that must be made. And, finally, Kathy Baker, a single mother who finds a chance at new love in the strangest of circumstances.

This film interweaves these stories cleverly and subtlety. I stumbled upon this little know gem on Amazon Prime. I highly recommend this simple yet touching story of humanity.

Boynton Beach Club

This is a wonderful romantic comedy from 2004 that I recently discovered on Amazon Prime streaming service.

This film boasts an all star cast including Diane Cannon, Brenda Vaccaro, Joseph Bologna, Sally Kellerman, Len Cariou and Micheal Nouri. It was so much fun to watch these actors come together to tell a wonderfully funny and touching look into love after 60.

Brenda Vaccaro plays a recent widow who reluctantly joins a nearby senior beach club's Bereavement group and ends up becoming fast friends with one of the local members, Dyan Cannon. Things spread like wildfire from there and we get a delightfully funny and heartwarming look at the romance game amongst seniors.

I loved each and every moment of this wonderful film and I highly recommend it.