Aladdin on Broadway - Review

I try to review at least one show, movie, or tv show a week on Review Mondays. Here is this week's review of Aladdin on Broadway.

Aladdin on Broadway, New York, NY 

Overall, the production was tons of fun. It was lavish, outlandish, and a treat for the eyes and ears.

The sets were lovely: colorful and evocative of a fantasy Sahara with all the bells and whistles you would expect from a Disney production. The cave set and the jeweled palace set were beautifully envisioned and realized. The Magic Carpet Ride was particularly well done with the actors riding the carpet all over (above) the stage. 

A couple of technical glitches kept me from losing myself in the look of the production. The Aladdin (an understudy) either got caught up in his mic cord or just covered the mic when he placed his turban back on his head, because his voice kept going in and out during the song, and he missed a cue where his scene partner had to ad-lib a sputtering bit of dialog (literally he sputtered before the show could grind to a halt).

Regardless, the overall look and feel evoked Disney, fun, and beauty with an underlying sensuality you expect from the costumes (tons of belly dancing garb), desert, and starry skies. I wanted to eat figs under a starry sky in the desert while the vibrant but muted colors of our tents fluttered in the breeze.

James Monroe Iglehart as the Genie was perfect. He had one small mis-speak, but yikes when you have as many words to say as he says and have to say them as quickly as he does, I can see how one might make its escape. Regardless, he gave a great ride. Some of his Robin Williams-isms were spot on and made me miss RW all over again. In my opinion, his singing, dancing, and acting were spot on. I loved the way he blasted through the fourth wall. He was so over the top that we couldn't help but join him on his fabulous journey.

Don Darryl Rivera as Iago was also tremendous. I believe they combined two characters into one. The parrot (named Iago) was gone and Abu, the monkey, was played by and as a live actor. He was hilarious, and reminded me a little bit of Elder Cunningham in Book of Mormon, if Elder Cunningham had been evil with a capital E.

Aladdin and Jasmine were both pretty good and I'm always happy to see young people get the opportunity to stretch and grow as performers. But I didn't and still don't understand why a Broadway show would have two understudies on a Saturday evening performance. I would imagine that both actors got sick and couldn't do the demanding roles for the day. Otherwise, I would love it if that had not been the case. They both did a fine job, but you could tell that neither was an in-the-pocket on the blocking and some of the singing that the regular cast members would have been. They also lacked a little of the chemistry the regular cast members would likely have had with best friends, ladies-in-waiting, and the Genie himself. They were enjoyable, but both brought me out of the action of the show a couple of times. At one point, poor Kassim had to ad-lib a bunch of splutter when Aladdin missed his cue.

I realize I'm being extremely nit-picky here, but I admit that unless there is something ridiculously terrible happening, I expect Broadway caliber performances at Broadway shows. I had a similar reaction when I saw Kinky Boots a few years ago and Lola was understudied. The gentleman in the role tried, but he was no match for the task at hand. 

Full disclosure: I am a performer. I play music. And I have often said that if an audience wants to see/hear it as perfect, then they should go buy the CD. Most of the time, I stick to that. Having said that, I feel that if an audience is paying hundreds of dollars per ticket, that rule doesn't apply or at least it might be an exception. The understudies should be better rehearsed so that those kinds of missed cues are minimized. Again, I realize I'm being harsh. If this had been a college production, I would have applauded their efforts. But I also would not have been paying hundreds to see the show.

This brings me to the dancing. I must wonder why a show that takes place in ancient Egypt (in the Sahara) and makes use of belly dancing costuming has almost no belly dancing in it. And what little they attempted to have was almost universally poor. Only one of the female dancers seemed to have any ability to dance using the abdominal isolations and movements so critical to good belly dancing. I found it strange because these are trained dancers and when they did other sorts of dancing, they were generally terrific. One of the other dancers was just terrible. She had so little movement or undulation to her trunk that I started wondering if she was injured or something. Also, I want to ponder the choreography. Much of it seemed like it was out of the shtetls of Eastern Europe. It was cool, but it was nowhere near what I expected. I wonder if the choreographer wanted to do more with it but couldn't do the dancing styles and experience of his cast.

Still and all, I enjoyed myself. I stood with the rest of the audience and applauded like crazy because like so many I enjoy the fairytale. I love the splendor of the Broadway musical, and I adore the magic carpet ride. I just wish the technical glitches hadn't happened and the understudies had been better rehearsed.

My reaction to the show can be encapsulated in one instant of it. For the most part, I had a great time at the show, and I was ready to weep openly at my favorite line during the magic carpet ride, "Don't you dare close your eyes." Unfortunately, Aladdin's turban obscured the mic, and the moment was lost. 

Spoilery review of "Inside Out."

I'll try to do a spoiler-free review of "Inside Out." But likely it won't be so fair warning.

I wanted to love it. I did. But I didn't.

As colorful as it was, and as cool concept as it was, it was awfully two-dimensional.

The Good: The voice acting and casting was superb. Richard Kind was the stand-out for me. He had a relatively small role, but he was perfect in it. The other characters were all wonderful as well. The production values? Yeah, Pixar at their best.

The bad: Considering we spend most of the movie inside a character's head, the movie was awfully uncomplicated and relatively consequence-free. This is part of my problem with its two-dimensionality. It gives an idealized version of how things work and then tries to pass it off as something poignant.

I really didn't care for the fact that once Riley did *anything* against one of her building blocks, they crumbled into nothing. And yet when she redeemed herself, they returned good as brand spankin' new. Bob Mandelo (who we sat next at the screening) mentioned that the movie was made for six year olds and so I should forgive its one-dimensionality based on that. Nope. I don't. Pixar movies aren't just for kids. I'd say we all know that. And the "My girlfriend lives in Canada" line? Not for kids.

The character didn't learn a *thing* from her foray into being a bad girl (liar, cheater, etc.). She just got redemption because obviously she was a great kid all along and we are all supposed to go along with that.

And then, the movie added that ol' chestnut, "Into each life a little rain must fall." Yep, it did. What a pat answer. The thing that saves her? A nice, New Age philosophy. You don't have to apologize for your transgressions (I don't believe Riley ever did. I believe she just said she hated living where she was living). You don't have to say you were sorry for the nasty things you said. All you have to do is say you were unhappy in your circumstances and all is forgiven. Feh

The ugly: It had the most idealized family unit I've ever seen portrayed. The parents were freaked out and stressed out and the dad's big "discipline your child" moment after she did something really bad was the, "go to your room!" gambit Oh NO! Not the go to your room gambit!! Anything but that. :sigh:

And last, the movie doled out what our emotional reactions were supposed to be as specifically and purposely as the movie characters doled out Riley's. "You will laugh here." "You will cry here." You can pinpoint those moments, and it makes me sad because I would have liked to see more nuance and more room for interpretation regardless of the film's target audience. 

As said, I wanted to like it. The concept rocks. The execution? Not so much.

SPOILERY: Conflict? Yeah. Multiple Dimensions? Not so much. My thoughts on Man of Steel

SPOILERY-ISH (Man of Steel thoughts) Various thoughts. Some spoilery. Read at your own risk, blah blah blah.

Wow, could there *be* any more Christ imagery in that movie?

"

I'm 33. I will save all mankind, even, and most especially the ones who fear they can't be saved. I hold the key to everything inside me. Yes, when I am hurt the sun will shine through my hands like in every Renaissance painting of me." 



Honestly, I was waiting for Diane Lane to call him a lamb.



Things I didn't like:

Dear Zack Snyder, I would truly appreciate it if you would not have your fight scenes go faster than than the naked eye can see. The CGI was so fast, it blurred and felt boring and gray rather than at all compelling or exciting.



I liked the darker tone of the movie. I liked him not being *such* a boy scout. 

I liked the take on it that Zod had no choice but to be who he was. But, the execution of that little plot twist was classic Tell instead of Show. Kind of sad, really.



I will never understand why the rabble always stand around and watch the super heroes/villains fighting. There are buildings falling, cars, trains, spaceships, F-16s dropping out of the sky. And what do they do? They stand and watch. No, people. You don't stand and watch. You get the hell out of Dodge.



I suppose it's so we can see that the events were witnessed. Otherwise, who would chronicle what happened. But still. Why don't they run the frick away??



All in all, it was fun. Henry Cavill makes me need to wipe my chin. 

Amy Adams was kind of wasted in the role (though she starts out pretty plucky, but really when that super baddy throws her against the wall, she should be pulverized, not just a little shaken) as was Lawrence Fishburne. (Really, Perry? You've been relegated to being an insignificant bystander who stands with his mouth open and watches what happens and does nothing to get the story? What kind of a leader/editor are you? And this is the same guy who played Morpheus. Really, a waste.)

Things I kinda liked:

I actually really liked that there was even a little bit of conflict in him. I liked that he had to fight to decide to do the right thing. I liked that he made mistakes. IMO, one of the major themes of the movie was that his parents were products of their own genetic engineering. Jor-El couldn't see the hubris of what he was doing ("He will be a god to them.") because he was not genetically capable of seeing it. However, he did know enough to give his son the right to choose. I liked that they showed the conflict in young CK about how much he wanted to show everyone who he was and what he could do. It made him human. But he was always going to be different, better in many ways, but different.



To me, there is something much more compelling about a man who chooses to do the right thing after an internal struggle than a man for whom it is preordained that he will do the right thing. That's been my problem with Superman all along. We have hardly ever seen him conflicted between what he wants and what is right. That kind of selflessness might be comfortable and comforting to the audience but it doesn't make for good storytelling in my mind. 

For better or worse, this movie made him more human. He had an ego (the line after Lois said that everything after the first kiss was downhill). He made mistakes. He killed (to save others, but he killed). That made him more relatable to me. He made tough choices. In the end, he did the right thing but not until after some struggle. In fact, I disliked what they did with most of the rest of the characters because they were so two-dimensional where CK for once wasn't.



I think this movie in many ways honored the conflict many in this society feel. (Do we/they do the right thing or do we do what serves our self-interest?) It's more sophisticated, more jaded, and more ominous in theme than in previous versions, which were a reflection of their times. The explosions, fast CGI, etc. took me out of the movie, which could have been a nice reboot for our time. In some ways, it holds up an uncomfortable mirror to us and asks us how we would choose if we had the power of a god. Personally, I like wrestling with those philosophical questions. And at the very least, the movie raised a few of those.

I'll be interested to see what they do with this franchise in its next installment.

Les Miserables Review - Much to love. Much to be tweaked by

Saw Les Mis today.

I fully expect Ms. Hathaway and Mr. Jackman to stand on stage and accept their Academy Awards (her in support and him for leading actor). They both did a terrific job. Hathaway especially blew me away. She has an expressive face and she used it so well to show us Fantine's choices, pride, sacrifices and suffering. Nicely done.

I always expect Hugh Jackman will blow me away as he does in pretty much everything I've seen him in. He didn't disappoint. Beautiful, intimate, grand, passionate, and so very committed to his character and his craft - he always brings it!

Crowe did a passable job. What he did well was to finally, finally show me  Javert's innate self-loathing. I've seen the show several times but I've never seen that interpretation done so well before. However, Hooper's choices in filming often got in the way of what Crowe was doing (if I saw him up on that ledge walking the line one more time, I was going to throw something.) But more on Hooper's directorial choices later.

Once again, Cosette makes me want to throw things too and this isn't the actress's fault. In some ways, I feel like the character is a ninny. "Oh, I saw him and I fell in love and what's more I'm willing to endanger my father (for all intents and purposes) for the chance to write him a note." Blah blah blah. And I never understand how, as the older Cosette, she is so innocent. She spent a good bit of time in that pub as a child. She saw things and worked for them as a little slave. How is it that later she is such a babe in the woods? Why isn't she more aware, more sophisticated? Even if her father gives her everything and protects her, she ought to still have some memory of her life before him, oughtn't she?

Like Christine in Phantom of the Opera, she is another ingenue who is portrayed as worthy of love just because of what she looks like. It's so tiring. She might be a shrew or snooty, or she might like kicking puppies, but she is a pretty blond girl and so he must love her. And Marius, like so many before him, falls for someone he's never met and knows nothing about. That's not the movie's fault and I realize that, but I needed to rail against this paradigm for a minute.

One thing that the movie brought home to me is that war - the bloody, visceral devastating aspects of it - is truly a young man's game. The generals seldom die. It's the young wet-behind-the-ears recruits or enlisted people who die in battle.  The young revolutionaries were pretty much boys: young, passionate, willing to die for their cause, even if it meant that they fought alone. (On some level, hell, on most levels, I am certain they had no idea just what they were facing. At that age, I think we all still feel immortal and invincible.) They didn't really think the rest of Paris would carry on about their business. They thought, they hoped Paris would rise, but they were so very wrong. The last moment of this revolution poignantly brought that to the surface.

The supporting cast was stellar. Eponine was tremendous. She did a great job and yet again, I sat bummed that Marius didn't choose her. The story is timeless in its way. The friend, the one who's been there for you, the one who loves you with everything she has is the one you ask to go see about the girl you just fell in love with because you saw her cross the street. You don't see it. You don't see her. You are blind to her love and her loyalty until it is too late to do anything about it. Hugo got that part very and tragically right. They didn't spend as much time on Eponine in this version of Les Mis (which I find sad as she holds a special place in my heart) but her tale is old as time in its way and it's one many, if not all, of us can relate to. Gavroche also did a great job. He will continue to delight as he gets older and I look forward to more of his work.

And now, I come to what bothered me most about the movie. The camera work was mostly okay. But why Hooper felt he needed to have the lens up the actors' nostrils as they sang is completely beyond me. Don't get me wrong. I really liked the technique of having them sing live. I thought it brought an immediacy and lovely intimate quality to each song (and boy there are a lot of them). So, I'm pleased that he did such a radical thing. However, the extreme close-ups for such a long time weren't necessary for either character development or to move the story along. I wish he had left that as something to use sparingly rather than a "I must focus in one is left eye and keep the camera there for three verses" technique. 

Oh and the other thing that bothered me, as soon as anyone finished singing their intimate song while the camera hovered like a hummingbird around their eyelashes, the camera would sweep away and up, up, up, like it was attached to Superman's cape. Why would he do that more than once? If he had done it once, to make the point that it was a sweeping and grand story, song, theme, etc., that is all it would have taken to show it. But, no, he used it multiple times and therefore diminished its impact.

The last thing I want to say is a pet peeve I have with many period piece movies. Why is it that no matter when or where a movie takes place that everyone speaks with English accents? The movie takes place in France. Why is everyone British? Why is Gavroche speaking with a cockney accent? I might have been able to let it go but I kept getting pulled out of the movie when they would suddenly and for a brief second switch to a french accent for a "Mademoiselle" or a "Pardon" and then jump right back into their British accents. I guess nowadays it's just how things are done and so everyone does it, but I wish they would choose a different set of rules.

In the end, I enjoyed many parts of the movie despite the moviemaking parts of the movie. The acting for the most part was superb (if a trifle overdone at times). I enjoyed the immediacy of the singing. I thought the sets were wonderful. The supporting cast did a great job and disturbed me and made me love them and hate them as appropriate (Fantine's scene on the boat right before "I dreamed a dream," was tear, fear, and vomit inducing all at once). I wish Hooper had made some different choices. And maybe he does as well. In the meantime, he did it. He got it made, on his terms, and with that he has not only shown a piece of history, he has made it, as well.

Skyfall review

So, Skyfall. [spoilers abound so be warned] It was great in many ways. I enjoy Craig as Bond. I enjoyed Bardem as Silva (I do understand that some might call his performance over the top and I agree to an extent. But he did the split between mad villain and toddler who wants his mommy, very well). I do have a bit of a problem with the characters in the movie talking about how awful he was and then we didn't really see him do anything too awful. Sure, he does one awful thing, but for the rest, eh, not so much. I'm of the "show, don't tell" school of action movies and so when I keep hearing about how awful someone is and then he never does anything particularly terrible, I get a bit nostalgic for the days of Mr. Goldfinger or Mr. Blofeld.

I do need to say that they have deviated a good bit from the formula of historic Bond movies so in the end, I guess it's okay that they did what they did. I do miss some of the passion in the older Bond movies. There was grit. There was ferocity. There was depression. But there wasn't a whole lot of oomph. Again, I heard about it much more than I saw it.

Mendes did a nice job with the direction, although, I would have liked a few less tips of the hat to "The Dark Knight." I get it, Mr. Mendes, I get it. You liked the second Batman movie. You didn't have to do the exact same kinds of shots so often. And the over the top, garish, over-saturated color pallette juxtaposed against the dark, bleak panorama of the rest of the film was just a little too close to the Dark Knight. It wasn't necessary, although fanboys will be fanboys. :)

Skyfall was dark and rather morose, not much brighter in tone than Quantam of Solace. We got some nice back story on Bond, although I do need to say that when he is asked to word associate Skyfall [not so much a spoiler since it is part of the preview], he does not say what you would expect him to say once you know what Skyfall is.

There were few gadgets (though one of my all time favorite gadgets made a return appearance and I cheered out loud when it did). I thought the new Q was only okay. He's young and cocky and that's fine. But I believe you can only be cocky like that if you've got the goods to back it up, and he actually showed that he didn't quite have the goods yet. There was a nice "What, you were expecting yellow spandex?" moment between Q and Bond that raised my opinion of him just a bit. I'll wait for the next film to see if he does any better. (Oh and by the way, the Walther PPK that will only fire when held by Bond was a bit feh in my book because it pre-supposed that Bond would at some point lose his weapon to someone else. Once again, feh).

Honorary mention to Adele (and her co-writer) for the song. It was terrific.

Finally, I'd say this movie is not so much about Bond as it was about M and the relationships she has with her agents. Judi Dench, as usual, knocked it way out of the park and that actually made the entire movie worth seeing and I might want to see it again in the theater just to see her fab self.

Props to Ralph Fiennes, Naomi Harris, Javier Bardem, and of course Daniel Craig. They were a terrific supporting cast.