Tomorrow night the Ann Arbor Philharmonia Orchestra will be performing Stravinsky’s Firebird and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Cello Concerto under the direction of Salonen’s own baton. Salonen is a Finnish conductor and composer who is the current principal conductor for London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. His performances Tuesday and Wednesday nights mark his debut with the University Musical Society and both shows will feature different pieces. The Wednesday night performance will be featuring Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7. I chose the Tuesday night performance due to my own musical history. I played cello for 5 years in middle and high school with my local youth orchestra with one of our many performances featuring an excerpt from the Firebird ballet. I am eager to see this piece performed live for the first time and hear Salonen’s take on the piece. However, I am even more curious to hear Salonen’s cello concerto which is being performed by Truls Mork, a Norwegian cellist. Salonen wrote this piece under commission by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with its premiere being performed by world-renowned cellist, Yo-Yo Ma. I’m excited to see what Mork and the Ann Arbor Philharmonia Orchestra bring to this piece!
Month: March 2019
REVIEW: Greta.
Greta begins like an upscaled lifetime movie, with bouncy music played to the streets of New York, montages of beautiful temperate days in the park, homey cooking scenes, a cute dog – the sweet introduction to the film is a bit undermined, however, by its reputation.
Frances, an ingenuous Bostonian, finds a handbag on the subway and resolves to return it to its owner – her roommate, Erica, notably reminding her in Manhattan they usually call the bomb squad for an unattended bag. Nevertheless, the well-intentioned Frances follows the address found on an ID card to a quaint, scenic house and meets Greta, who is seemingly sophisticated and French, mother-like, charming, and isolated. They bond over their individual loneliness as a friendship is built upon the understanding of loss.
However, about twenty minutes into the film, the movie drops all its horror elements with an inelegant slap of screechy violin music and Chloë Grace Moretz gasping as if she were in a B-movie. Surprise is lost to the speed in which the film rushes into the thick of the story, barreling through its hour and a half runtime with poor pacing.
Underneath its artful glaze of cinematic appeal, Greta is brimming with the clichés of frantic music and jumpy cuts. It’s applied heavy-handed at times, less like a varnish of ingenuity and more like space to fill the shallowness of the characters, the plot.
Isabelle Huppert carries most of the film, almost all of Greta’s horror imbued into one sinister person, and it’s impressive that outside of soundtracks and camera angles, she is the sole source of terror. Greta is largely devoid of any fantasy elements, any secondary antagonists, any other fear that is not Greta herself – near comically deranged and frighteningly pervasive in Frances’ life. The suspense is from her honed act of psychopathy, the delivery of her lines. The tension is from the deliberateness of her obsession.
There are moments not quite explained, disposable characters tossed aside, overly theatrical scenes executed wildly, and the film suffers from the lack of subtlety or wit and a directorial grasp outside of just its visuals. While not bad enough to be entirely campy and not good enough to be spectacular in its genre, Greta is still strangely palatable.
Despite all of its flaws, the style in which Greta combines delicate cinematography with a hammer of horror elements banged into anywhere that fits is, surprisingly, enjoyable and interesting. Without reading too much into the plot or picking at the seams where the film unravels, Greta can still be satisfying in an uncomplicated, indulgent, slightly satirical way. Like a McDonalds milkshake – not necessarily good but whatever.
PREVIEW: CatVideoFest 2019
Are you tired of manually scouring the internet for feline entertainment? Do you have an insatiable thirst for the more beloved, graceful, and heavily worshipped four-legged domesticated companions that don’t bark or beg to be walked on the daily?
The annual CatVideoFest, playing this Sunday at the Michigan Theater, may be the purr-fect solution to your cat-video-shortage woes! Be prepared for 70 minutes of an adorable audiovisual experience of a lifetime- back by popular demand, the CatVideoFest is an artistic curation of the world’s most prized, individualistic cat videos- ranging from music videos to animations. Not only is this a beautiful communal experience with fellow cat-lovers, but also a fantastic way to support local shelters and animal organizations, joining them in their battle to mitigate the suffering of cats all around the world. Join us in this gleeful celebration of the beauty and hilarity of our feline friends Sunday, March 10, at 4 pm in the Michigan Theater!
Tickets may be obtained here: https://secure.michtheater.org/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=431337~c76be4f4-22b5-4bed-a89c-7def863b8c53&_ga=2.34390305.1264812886.1552026665-1233648933.1551894674
REVIEW: The Lightning Thief musical
Based off everyone’s favorite series that replaced the Greek mythology section of your sixth-grade history class, The Lightning Thief is a charming musical that dutifully adapts the themes and action-packed plot of the book in a way that is emotionally engaging for a devoted fanbase. (Cue: “It’s better than the movie”. Ah, poor Logan Lerman.)
The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series was incredible popular when it debuted in 2005, with its first installment, The Lightning Thief. It is about the twelve-year-old titular character, the son of a struggling single-mother in New York. Percy, played endearingly by Chris McCarrell, is diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, has a unhygienic and cruel stepfather, and is constantly kicked out of schools due to freak accidents that seem to follow him everywhere. Percy often struggles to get second chances, which turns out to be kind of the point. He’s a demigod: half mortal from his mother, half Greek God from his absent father.
And, well, all Greek heroes face tragedies.
Percy is blamed for stealing the lightning bolt of Zeus and is set to find the true thief to prevent a war among the Olympians, along with his new friends and new-found identity.
The five-part series was definitely one of my personal favorites, especially since I was in the bracket of “too old for Roald Dahl” and “too young to approach the later Harry Potter books”. But Percy Jackson’s appeal lied in its modernization of (pretty risque) myths as well as its more colloquial, urban fantasy approach to the young adult genre.
The musical is more kid-oriented, of course, with dialogue snappy and plot heavy for an older audience (the crowd was a pretty good mix of adults and families). To be transparent, the production was relatively low-tech with a pretty small cast but that should not deter anyone with its light work, stage movement, dance sequences, and dedicated cast/crew.
The standout sequence was the trip to the Underworld (“D.O.A.”)– it was the most visually appealing and exciting song of the bunch. “Good Kid” and most of the second-act songs were incredibly strong too. The way the musical packs together most of the later elements of the book into a montage of fast-pace numbers and stage movements was especially impressive as they still found time to respect the heartfelt character development of Annabeth and Grover (Kristin Strokes and Jorrel Javier respectively). (They even managed to add Thalia and the diAngelos! Come on, Chris Columbus.)
Not everything is a winner— some of the songs, especially “Prologue” and “The Campfire Song”, are a little hard to listen to with how precocious they come off. The gods— especially two of the Big Three featured in the second-half— were also a little hard to take seriously. Not to spoil anything, but I think they were meant to be caricatures, but I am not sure of what exactly. This characterization took away a lot of the weight behind the gods and their place in the world. Maybe that was musical’s point, but it felt disappointing all the same to get such a quick and shallow look at the beings that run these kids’ lives.
But despite this, parental abandonment were still tackled head-on, keeping the demigods in the center of the story. Most children’s series are pretty inherently grim, often masked with some kind of whimsy, but the Percy Jackson franchise was its own kind of fridge horror filled with all-powerful parents who happily ditch their kids and teenagers who are tracked by monsters. Of course, this too was wrapped in a sharp and fun narrative, but the musical does embrace the underlying theme of found family, duty, heroism, and abandonment (sometimes very well and sometimes not so well— but always respecting its complexity).
The contrast between the trio and the villain along with their dark backstories were especially handled very well. I could go on and on how about the subtle moments they incorporated and adaptation choices but I’m already over word count.
The final song, “Bring On The Monsters”, was my favorite because of how the musical portrayed the characters and their desire to be their own people in the face of personal tragedy— it felt like a ringing summary of the series it self: rousing, bright, hopeful despite the darkness of its world.
The Lightning Thief is touring until mid-summer, with the Detroit show in Fisher Theater from February 26th to March 9th. You can check out the musical official soundtrack on Youtube.
REVIEW: Isn’t It Romantic
Isn’t It Romantic was a charming movie that incorporated satire and witty quotes. It made fun of a lot of motifs in the genre of romantic comedy, like the gay best friend, the attractive guy who turns out to be a jerk, being blind to your ‘true love’ being right in front of you, etc.
Here’s a more specific recurring scene in the genre: have you ever noticed in rom-coms when the characters set up a date but never mention the date or location? One of my favorite scenes in the movie made fun of this: Blake (played by Liam Hemsworth) wrote each digit of his phone number on a different rose petal, and gave the jumbled petals to Natalie (played by Rebel Wilson). I got a good laugh from the ridiculous scene.
Was Isn’t It Romantic the best movie ever? No. Was it a good rom-com? I would say so. I don’t know if I would ever consider a rom-com a film classic bearing in mind the genre’s reputation. People like romantic comedies because they are feel-good movies—albeit sodden with logical fallacies and tiresome cliches. Of course, Isn’t It Romantic had the obligatory storyline of the budding couple having to overcome an obstacle to be together. Originality is not generally the goal of the genre (although nor is it for most genres, like action movies for example, there’s a bad guy and a good guy, the bad guy is defeated and the good guy gets the woman, with exceptions of course. But still, cringe.)
Since the 90s or early 00’s, there has been a decline of rom-coms. With the drop in rom-com production in major film studios, there’s been a rise of budget sources like Netflix originals, Hallmark movies, ABC Family originals, etc. The five rom-coms with the highest lifetime gross were produced from 1990-2005. Number six on the list is Crazy Rich Asians, released in 2018.
Rom-coms aren’t ‘dead’ necessarily, although they are less successful and have had to change over the decades to reflect evolving gender norms and views on premarital sex and matrimony. There’s a scene in the movie where Natalie bursts into a wedding uninvited (another common rom-com trope). But, originally planning on stopping it an professing her love to the groom, she ultimately realizes that she loves herself and doesn’t need anyone else to complete her. This new twist on crashing a wedding crashing is consistent with fourth-wave feminism in regard to promoting self-love and self-sufficiency.
But reflecting new gender norms supposedly isn’t enough for a rom-com to do well, that’s why the movie also has a satirical twist. Similarly, Crazy Rich Asians is not just a rom-com about Singaporean billionaires, it is the first Hollywood movie in 25 years to have an all Asian cast. If new rom-coms want to break the record for highest profit, they need to think of new ways to spice up stale formulas.
REVIEW: Sexual and Gender-Based Misconduct Awareness and Prevention in the Performing Arts
Immediately following a panel discussion on sexual and gender-based misconduct awareness and prevention in the performing arts, Strength & Sensitivity and Carla Dirlikov Canales of The Canales Project presented a truly fascinating performance.
Strength and Sensitivity is “a multimedia concert experience that blends contemporary music, poetry readings, and audience interaction to catalyze dialogue on themes of gender Dynamics, intersectional feminism, and empathy,” and their performance expounded on the themes discussed during the panel. One of the most thought-provoking works was Improvisation by Colleen Bernstein on piano. As she relayed to the audience, in the aftermath of one of the Michigan Daily articles concerning sexual misconduct and people associated with the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Colleen Bernstein sat down at the piano, opened a voice memo on her phone, and improvised at the piano to try to make sense of what she was feeling. This recording was played through the sound system in Hankinson Rehearsal Hall on Tuesday night. For the duration of Improvisation, interactive questions appeared on a screen behind the stage, and audience members could text responses to a given number. Question included “What does this community need to do to make progress towards gender equality?” and “Describe how you feel right now in one word.” As I sat and watched the responses fill the screen, changing in size according to how many people had submitted that same word, I could hear hope, grief, and a sense of tranquility permeating the music. I especially appreciated that even the performance was continuing the dialogue that had been started.
The second part of the performance was presented by Carla Dirlikov Canales of The Canales Project. An SMTD graduate and acclaimed opera singer, Ms. Canales started Hear Her Song as an initiative that honors “distinguished women leaders through new songs inspired by their words, written by leading female songwriters and composers.” The project has commissioned over 40 songs to date. Ms. Canales’s performance was, without question, my favorite of the evening. My only disappointment was that due to time constraints, she was able to perform only three of the five programmed songs (how I would have loved to hear “This is What” in honor of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, or “What Greatness is Possible” for Jennie Boelkens!). She sang “Foster Love,” a song honoring Lynn Price, who has dedicated her life to reuniting siblings separated by foster care, and “Mercy,” honoring Sister Marilyn Lacey, founder of Mercy Beyond Borders. She then closed with the organization’s theme song, “Hear Our Song” by Katie Pfaffl. Although the audience at that point had dwindled to only about 30 people, the energy was palpable as Ms. Canales’s voice soared to the hummable, empowering anthem. In fact, she will perform that song later this month at the United Nations in celebration of International Women’s Day, which is March 8. It was an uplifting conclusion to an evening of hard conversation.
Tuesday’s performance on the theme “Sexual and Gender-Based Misconduct Awareness and Prevention in the Performing Arts” has given me hope that together, we can address the issues that need to be addressed.
