Uncertainty

Uncertainty starts off with one of the more compelling set ups in recent memory.  On the morning of the Fourth of July a young couple in the middle of a bridge tosses a coin.  Based on the outcome, the sprint in opposite directions, where, strangely enough each meets the other at the end of the bridge.  The two couples then spend the rest of day on separate time lines, one visiting with her family in Brooklyn, the other caught up in a criminal conspiracy, running for their lives in Manhattan.

Spend time with family or running from vicious criminals?  Let's toss a coin.

It's a little intriguing watching as the movie switches back and forth between the two stories, but I had trouble drawing a connection between the two.  The lesson I came away with is this: given the choice, spend the holidays with your family.  Otherwise, you'll get into all sorts of trouble with some terrible people.

Bottom line: 2 stars.

Tosca (Movie Glutton Opera Edition)

This weekend marked the start of the 2012 Fort Worth Opera Festival!  Opening night was terrific, with a performance of one of the classics, Puccini's Tosca.  As usual, the Fort Worth Opera put on a fabulous, world-class performance.    My mom and dad joined Elliot, Kelly and me at Yucatan Taco Stand (yum!), then we headed downtown to Bass Hall for the opera.

Tosca, set in Rome in 1800, opens with Mario Cavaradossi painting the Madonna in a church.  He is surprised by the appearance of Cesare, an escaped political prisoner with whose case Mario sympathizes.  They plan to go to Mario's villa, where Cesare can hide.  Before they can leave, Mario's lover Tosca, a famous singer, shows up, wanting to rendezvous after her performance.  After Mario and Cesare flee, the evil Scarpia (with a name like that, he just has to be a bad guy!) comes to the church, searching for Cesare.  He manipulates Tosca into thinking that Mario is having an affair with Cesare's sister, who happens to have been the model for Mario's painting of the Madonna.

I can't say enough good about Carter Scott's performance.
A beautiful voice, a perfect performance.

Scarpia's deception works, Mario is captured, Cesare commits suicide rather than be captured, and Tosca is distressed.  Scarpia offers Tosca a horrible bargain: he will let Mario live and give them safe passage out of the country if she will succumb to his lustful desires.  She agrees, and he gives the order to spare Tosca by faking his execution, and writes a letter giving them passage.  But before he can fulfill his desires, Tosca kills him.  She meets Mario before his scheduled execution, letting him know that the firing squad will be firing blanks, so he will simply need to fake being shot, then they can run to her waiting carriage and on to freedom.  Since happy endings don't seem to be allowed in grand opera, the firing squad somehow didn't get the memo and used live ammo, killing Mario.  Just as Tosca discovers that Mario is dead, officers come after her, having discovered Scarpia's murder.  Distraught, Tosca jumps to her dead.  The fat lady has sung, and it's over.

The production featured gorgeous, elaborate sets.

Puccini based the opera on Victorien Sardou's play, La Tosca.   It's one of those melodramatic stories which make you think, why would it come to this?  Deception, manipulation, torture, suicide, jealousy, lust.  Sounds like a modern soap opera.  I was actually struck by the timelessness of the story.  The opera does refer to its historical setting, but it could easily be set to take place in any time and setting.  (I can't help but think surely it has been. . . .)

I was also struck by the role of Tosca's faith.  She is presented as a faithful church member and believer.  As she's struggling with giving in to Scarpia, first to give up information about Cesare to spare Mario from torture, then to sleep with Scarpia to spare Mario, she cries out to God in a "Why me?" moment that most believers can relate to:

I lived for art, I lived for love, I never did harm to a living soul!  With a secret hand I relieved as many misfortunes as I knew of.  Ever in true faith my prayer rose to the holy shrines. . . . In the hour of grief why, why, Lord, why do you reward me thus?

Alas, the Lord does not come to her rescue, so she resorts to murder, then suicide, to find respite.

While I did enjoy the performance, I was not as moved as was the opera lover we spoke to as we were leaving.  Several minutes after the ovations ended and the curtain fell, she was still dabbing her eyes.  Apparently she has seen Tosca performed many times.  "I know how it ends, but it still makes me cry every time!"

Even if you're not an opera lover, make time to take in Tosca.  Yes, it's in Italian, but English translation is provided on screens above the stage.  I love the step back to the past, the musical delight, and the pageantry that classic operas like Tosca give.  It's not too late to catch it; there are three more performances, May 20 and 25, and June 2.  Check it out!

Here's a review by someone who might actually know what she's talking about!

Dark Water

I don't watch many horror movies.  They rarely tell a satisfying story, and when they get close they often have some supernatural theme that I can't buy.  Dark Water tries hard, sets an appropriately creepy tone, and creates characters you can care about.  But the end result--and the ending--were disappointing.

A young mom and her daughter, separated from their husband/dad, find an inexpensive apartment on Roosevelt Island.  Soon they see a strange leak on the ceiling, and hear noises from upstairs, in an apartment that isn't supposed to be occupied.  The little girl gets an imaginary friend, who, of course, isn't just imaginary, and the mom keeps having flashbacks to her childhood and her own neglectful mom.  While there is some sense of anticipation through the film, the "reveal" left me with an Oh, is that all? feeling.

Better call the plumber.  The ceiling's leaking again.

Maybe I should give the movie a little more credit, but ultimately I can't buy into the worldview that it espouses: that the souls of the dead hang around their old homes, looking for some satisfaction.  I know, I know, it's just a movie, but still, it's a rare movie that can take that idea and make it compelling (like The Sixth Sense).

Bottom line, 1 1/2 star.

30 Minutes or Less

Pros: very funny, and filmed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, my home for four years.
Cons: crass and crude, which overshadowed the humor and story.

I love a good comedy, and I (confession time) have a rather high tolerance for low-brow humor.  But it seems that a spate of recent comedies have pushed the bar lower than ever.  30 Minutes or Less does fall into the low-brow category, but tells a rather entertaining story in a very funny way.  I love Jesse Eisenberg; his everyman persona, sort of clueless and earnest, was perfect in this role as Nick, a pizza delivery man who isn't sure what to do with his life.

Are you guys really that dumb?  Yes.  Yes they are.

Nick gets a little more focus to his life after a couple of nitwits strap a bomb to him as part of a hare-brained scheme to raise some cash--they're forcing him to rob a bank so they can hire a hit man.  Of course it gets all messed up, resulting in more violence than I would have expected from a goofy comedy.

I have to admit, I did somewhat enjoy the inane, yet sort of clever story line and some of the resulting "How can they be so stupid?" comedy.  But with the constant cursing and crude elements, I cannot recommend it.

Bottom line, 1 1/2 stars.

Zookeeper

Family movie night!  Plus: wise-cracking, talking animals.  Minus: basically a romantic comedy.

Zookeeper is a fun movie, as you might expect, with the goofy Kevin James and a bunch of live-action talking animals.  James plays Griffin, a zookeeper who loves his job and loves the animals.  They love him back, and when they overhear him talking about taking another, higher-paying job so he can get his girl, the animals make it their mission to help him get the girl while keeping him at the zoo.  They break their animal code of silence and talk to Griffin.  His interactions with the animals are the best parts of the movie.  Their romantic advice doesn't quite help him out but gets some laughs.  The monkey says to throw poop; the wolf says to mark the territory by peeing.

A conference with the animals.

Other than the funny, slapstick, poop- and pee-humor (which my 10-year-old loved), the story is a pretty standard guy loses the girl, gets the wrong girl, loses the right girl, gets the right girl back romantic comedy story line.  Griffin's not a bad guy, but I was still wondering why both of these beautiful women were crazy about him.  They can both do much better.  All-in-all, Zookeeper is an entertaining but not great movie, with funny parts and a decent do-what-you-love, be-who-you-are message.

Bottom line, 2 stars.

X-Men: First Class

I'm not a big comic book reader, but I'm always a sucker for comic book movies.  I've never read X-Men comics, but the movies are pretty good.  X-Men: First Class gives the back story of the X-Men, telling us where they came from, how they got together, why Dr. X and Magneto are enemies, why Dr. X is in a wheelchair, how Beast got to be blue and hairy, and more.  But more than just giving these back stories, the movie itself tells a good story.

I especially enjoyed the James McAvoy as the young Charles Xavier.  He captures Patrick Stewart's charm, brilliance, humility, generosity, and leadership in a younger, more winsome version.  I now realize that one reason I must have liked him so much is that he played the wonderful Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Dr. X with hair, and not in a wheelchair.

Yes, it's a comic book movie, but it has great effects, a story and heroes you can get behind, multiple levels of relationships to develop and characters who mature, and, of course, some rollicking action scenes.  And, to top it off, we learn what really happened with the Cuban missile crisis!  Comic book fan or not, I recommend that you check it out!

Bottom line, 3 stars.

Midnight in Paris

I'm not one of those film snobs who thinks Woody Allen is a comic genius, but, well, he is a comic genius.  His films are almost without exception funny, entertaining, touching, and on a higher plane than the typical mainstream comedy film.  In Midnight in Paris, Owen Wilson plays a young Woody Allen.  OK, he actually plays Gil, a screenwriter who wants to be a novelist, but the character and Wilson's portrayal perfectly capture the Woody Allen from his earlier films: whiny, struggling with his identity, insecure, but funny and lovable.

A night on the town with Gil's literary heroes.

While on vacation in Paris with his fiance and her parents, Gil fantasizes about what he considers the golden age of Paris, the 1920s, where Picasso, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, and other luminaries interacted.  The clock strikes midnight, and he's transported to that time, meets his heroes, and even gets Gertrude Stein to read his manuscript.  His nightly forays into the past increasingly distance him from his fiance and deepen his love for the city of lights.
I have no love for Paris, and have always scorned those who romanticize the city.  But Midnight in Paris invokes a longing for a city I've only visited briefly, a nostalgia for a time about which I know little, transcending time and place for a reflection on contentment, idealization of the past, and making the most of your present. 

Bottom line, 3 1/2 stars.