Category: Arts

REVIEW: Pitch Perfect 3

Aria Gerson Leave a comment

Objectively, Pitch Perfect 3 was not a good movie. Several plot choices were odd and unnecessary (especially for the best musical comedy trilogy since High School Musical; no need to deviate from the formula that worked). The character development was uneven, especially when it came to Emily.

But a movie doesn’t have to be good to be entertaining. Pitch Perfect 3, despite its cringe-worthy moments, was a ton of fun. It’s a movie I wouldn’t watch again, but at the same time I’m glad I saw it.

What Pitch Perfect 3 did best was the way it seemed to not take itself too seriously. At times the writers almost seemed to be making fun of themselves. One of the best parts of the movie was the running joke regarding Jessica and Ashley, two members of the Bellas who were introduced in the first movie but seemed to disappear. Jessica and Ashley’s amazement at Fat Amy’s acknowledgement of them is the writers poking fun of themselves for essentially forgetting their characters, and as a comedic device it completely works.

It wouldn’t be a Pitch Perfect movie without a riff-off, and this one follows the trend. The riff-off is altogether unrealistic and doesn’t do a lot to advance the plot of the movie, but then, the same was true of the riff-offs in the other movies and I loved them anyway. The riff-off is a pure joy to watch, and this time it comes with a new twist that throws a wrench into the Bellas’ plans.

Much of the plot, in which the Bellas travel overseas to compete for the opportunity to open for DJ Khaled on a USO tour, feels contrived. Some of the subplots, especially the quasi-action movie one with Fat Amy and her father, felt like they belonged in a cartoon.

The subplot with DJ Khaled and his decision on which of the groups to choose was also ridiculous and contrived, but I enjoyed it. Khaled played himself perfectly, poking fun at the lavish and eccentric celebrity lifestyle. Many of his parts were hilarious and the humor was enough to make me forget about the writers’ other questionable choice.

However, at its heart, Pitch Perfect 3 is about all the same things the first two movies were: the desire to belong, balancing personal desires with others’ expectations, and above all staying true to oneself. And despite the odd plot choices, those themes were as relatable as ever.

In one of my favorite exchanges, Chloe strikes up a conversation with a soldier named Chicago. She begins by asking about the Bulls and Cubs before realizing that he’s not even from Chicago and had no idea what she was referencing. I laughed out loud at that moment because it felt so much like something I would do.

Throughout, the Bellas struggle with finding their people and their passion now that they have to move on from college and the a cappella group that shaped them. Each character realizes how to do what she loves while still maintaining an upward trajectory in her life. As someone who has struggled with many of the same feelings, I found that part of the movie relatable and I appreciated how the writers handled it with both humor and heart.

I wish that this struggle had taken more of a main role in the movie’s plot; I think it could have done just as well as a movie about the Bellas coming together one last time to do what they loved, finding themselves in the process, without the Fat Amy action-movie subplot.

The movie culminated in a perfectly cheesy Pitch Perfect sort of way: with a musical number that pulled together all the loose ends. (I also appreciated Beca using live looping onstage.)

And in the movie’s very last scene, the sexist commentator John Smith gets absolutely owned by his female co-commentator Gail Abernathy-McKadden-Feinberger — a moment the entire series seemed to be building up to.

It was the perfect culmination to a film and series that was sometimes dumb, sometimes weird and sometimes hilarious, but always a lot of fun.

REVIEW: Princess Ida

Neha Srinivasan Leave a comment

Having been involved with the UM Gilbert and Sullivan Society for seven shows now, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to see their shows and compare them to each other. Princess Ida, in my opinion, was one of the better ones they’ve done in the time I’ve worked with them.

The plot is as follows. Princess Ida has renounced men and is running a school for women. Her husband, Prince Hilarion, to whom she was married twenty years ago when they were both infants, comes looking for her with his two trusted friends, Florian and Cyril. To get into contact with her, they sneak into the castle dressed as female students.

Ida‘s libretto is in itself quite humorous (as it should be): the humor is on the subtle side, mostly deriving comic effect from wordplay, tongue-in-cheek comments, or absurd statements. For example, the lyrics of one song go, “Like most sons are we, Masculine in sex.” I, for one, was taken by surprise when first they delivered this line, expecting something less obvious. Or, while preparing for a battle, Princess Ida surveys her troops: “My fusiliers, advance! Why, you are armed with axes! Gilded toys! Where are your rifles, pray?” Chloe, the head of the fusiliers, replies: “Why, please you, ma’am, we left them in the armoury, for fear that in the heat and turmoil of the fight, they might go off!” With every show I watch, my respect for Gilbert’s writing abilities increases. If I could be as humorous a writer, I would be so happy.

 However, as funny as Gilbert’s lines are, they stand very little chance of evoking laughter if the actors don’t take every effort to tease out the humor in them. In my opinion, comedy is all about the small things. This performance of Ida did a fantastic job of inserting small additions to their actions that enhanced the existing humor. Using the above example of the fusiliers, Chloe lowered her voice as she delivered that line, pausing before she said “go off”, making it seem like the rifles going off would be an unspeakable scandal. Another example: when Hilarion attempts to have a conversation with Ida, he is continuously interrupted by Cyril, who has managed to get drunk and keeps making comments that verge perilously close to revealing that they are not female students in disguise but men. In this show, Hilarion, in trying vainly to prevent this from happening, at one point bodily picked Cyril up and carried him across the stage. That entire scene, watching Cyril whirl around singing a kissing song while flirting with the students while in the background Florian tries to restrain Hilarion from tackling him, was made quite amusing solely because of what the actors were doing off script. It’s those details that make a performance stand out in my mind, and those details were abundant in this performance of Ida.

Then, on the other hand, there are the moments of genuine emotion that Gilbert and Sullivan manage to integrate into even the absurdity of their shows. For me this moment came when the students were preparing for battle and came onstage in their military uniforms, wielding weapons. That song, “Death to the invader,” is musically the most reminiscent to a tragic opera. It is chromatic and full of desperation. The girls don’t want to fight, but they are there for Princess Ida, and that knowledge added to the music makes it clear they are on a doomed last stand.

I think that emotion is part of what has made Gilbert and Sullivan’s work so enduring. Their operettas may be comic and quite ludicrous, full of legal technicalities that magically save the day, but their characters, for the most part, are genuine and believable. (And if you are worrying after reading the part about the doomed last stand, don’t, because there is no bloodshed in Princess Ida. Everyone lives safely and happily ever after.)

REVIEW: The Nutcracker – Ann Arbor Ballet Theatre

Sophia McPherson Leave a comment

It’s always rather conflicting when attempting to indulge in the holiday spirit during the everlasting finals season. Time spent seeking out the festive spirit typically leaves one in guilt for time loss from studying. However, The Nutcracker was being performed on campus so this would be exempt! There were two different groups performing The Nutcracker on campus. So, I chose to see the Ann Arbor Ballet Theatre perform at the Power Center.

The opening scene takes place in the Stahlbaum Home on Christmas Eve. From the beginning, I noted that the acoustics could have been better given that they would need to compensate for not having a live orchestra pit. However during Act I, Scene I, I undoubtedly still felt the Christmas festivity transcending from an evening spent with gifts, sweets, and dancing around the Christmas tree. Unaware of the Ann Arbor Ballet Theatre and all of its members, I was utterly pleased to see so many young performers on stage. From ages perhaps as low as five years old to older teens, it was a sight to see so many young performers expressing themselves through theatre and dance.

Act I, Scene III, The Land of Snow, was a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. To my surprise, they had fake snow falling onto the stage! From the snowflake-like blue lighting and  background to the complementing snow fairy outfits and dances, this scene was aesthetically pleasing and beautifully accompanied by Tchaikovsky’s “Scene in the Pine Forest” and “Waltz of the Snowflakes.”

Act II: The Kingdom of Sweets, carries the bulk of the story and most rousing parts. During this, Clara and her newly gifted nutcracker arrive at his Palace high atop Sugar Mountain in the Kingdom of Sweets. (How could we not be the least bit of enlivened by a scene held in a place called The Kingdom of Sweets?) This scene is composed of several intensive and rather intimate waltzes that represent various ethnicities. To begin is Chocolate: a high-spirited Spanish dance. Next is the Arabian Coffee, a sultry, languid dance. Arguably, the most detailed and personal dances of them all with slow, thoughtful movements in sync with their partner. Coffee was the most expressive dance where the audience had the chance to analyze each intentional movement according to the music. In all fairness though, Coffee is the lengthiest and has the slowest tempo of all six dances, so this impression may be biased. Following Coffee was a much more upbeat, high-pitched lively and athletic Chinese inspired dance called Tea. To trump Tea’s lively nature, Trepak outperforms its predecessor with a much faster-paced beat in light of a Russian folk dance that is filled with bravura. To close out the divertissements, we are left with Marzipan, which in contrast, is a pas-de-trois, performed by three people — all followed by an appearance by Mother Ginger and her beloved Sugar Plums.

The curtains begin to close as Clara’s wondrous dream begins to fade while she finds herself back at home with only memories of a magical night. Upon the curtains closing, we are left with a matched feeling in comparison to the characters as we have followed along on their adventurous journey overnight and also come to a silent, peaceful close. Even in a wicked time known as “Finals Season,” time should be allotted for the holiday classic, The Nutcracker.

REVIEW: The Square

Corrina Lee Leave a comment

It seems appropriate that a film that revolves around a modern art curator would, itself, resist interpretation. Like the art that it intends to satirize, The Square is difficult to define.  In fact, one cannot even say that it is the story of one person or one story, although it may seem that way at first. The film, at first, seems to focus on Christian (Claes Bang) and the museum he curates.  Life seems to be going well for Christian. He is rich, handsome, and secure in his power and privilege. The museum is prepping to open a new exhibit, also titled The Square, which is a simply lit square in the plaza in front of the museum. However, as Christian explains to the brash, young ad men hired to promote the exhibit, it is supposed to mean something more.

‘The square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it we all share equal rights and obligations’

It is the ramifications of this phrase that Christian and the other rich, upper-class citizens that he associates with must confront throughout the movie.  Stockholm is home to not just to the wealthy, but also countless beggars and the homeless. The Square, both the film and the art piece, challenges the rich to look at their own privilege and how they are abusing it, even as they pretend to be generous.

Fortunately, the director Rueben Östlund never lets the pretensions of his subjects slow the movie.  Instead, he constantly undermines Christian’s and others’ attempts to be serious by incorporating the entire screen. There are constantly visual and audio jokes in the margins of the frame. Even as Östlund focuses his camera on Christian, the true aim of the film is to highlight all in the world that Christian is missing. Christian and his fellow art-lovers may espouse to be more sophisticated, more evolved than those around them, but they, too, are subject to the whims of outside forces that they can’t control. By employing a greater focus, Östlund considers subjects that are harder to skewer than simple art-world pretentiousness. The film ranges from classicism to racism to urban poverty without restraint.  It is hard to criticize a film for lacking focus when its ambitions are so high and are so often successful. The Square leaves many threads hanging, all of which extend beyond the reach of the theater. Östlund is aware that many of the viewers of the film share much with the characters within the film and thus, realizes the importance of continuing the discussion even after the end of the film. Although it certainly wanders at points during its two hours and twenty-two-minute runtime, The Square is thoughtful and beautiful filmmaking that never lets the viewer forget their culpability. Through its sounds and visuals, it constantly invites us to think beyond the scope of one movie. There are greater problems to be confronted in the world and within ourselves. The Square may have defined limits, but our empathy should not.

REVIEW: The Square

Tara Dorje Leave a comment

At first glance, Ruben Östlund’s The Square appears solely to be a satirical look at an art world off the rails. Yet the film is interested in a broader social critique; we ourselves are not exempt from contributing to the insane ongoings of the fictional X-Royal Museum in Sweden.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, The Square has no shortage of overblown on-screen ridiculousness, from painting chimpanzees to palace raves, but we recognize realities of the contemporary art world and its penchant for elitism within it.

 

 

Direct parallels can be seen between events at the X-Royal and those in real-world art spaces. Security personnel watch museum visitors give galleries barely a second of their attention, and a millennial duo from an outside marketing agency infuriate with their self-assurance. Museum events drip in inscrutable art-world language, and a custodian casually vacuums up an installation made up of gravel mounds.

Through his provocative live performance, “The Jungle,” the artist Oleg—brilliantly played in all his discomforting glory by a bare-chested, crawling Terry Notary—runs through a grand dinner gala attacking event attendees. The limits of violence that we are trained to transform and accept in the name of art are tested here.

 

 

In Claes Bang’s performance as the suave X-Royal curator Christian Nielsen, we see the larger questions that Östlund raises about the art world and its detachment from reality. The film regularly spotlights this character’s interactions with disenfranchised members of Swedish society, specifically beggars and panhandlers. As the film shifts between the cash-flush private museum and the outside world, the curator struggles to balance these unwelcome interruptions to his work and family lives.

 

 

Though The Square might let on as a film centered solely on bashing indulgent art-world practices, its commentary extends far beyond to implicate members of any audience.

REVIEW: Novitiate

changje Leave a comment

I have only seen two movies about nunhood in my entire life, both of them in the Michigan Theater. One was “The Little Hours” (starring Aubrey Plaza) and the other was Margaret Betts’s “Novitiate.” The two of them couldn’t be more different. A quick You Tube search will reveal why.

“Novitiate” is about nunhood– specifically, nunhood in 1960’s America, at the time of Vatican II, or the period of reform within the Catholic Church. Mother Superior, (played by Melissa Leo), is a menacing presence who looms over the women within the covenant, and her oscillations from benign and benevolent to frenzied and vindictive are played out very well. The girls are both extremely pious and devout and yet retain a girlish romanticism, explored in several scenes. The film maintains that the nun is a woman who is the bride of God, who dedicates her whole life and being to that sacrificial love. And this idea is seized upon by the girls and the other nuns within the covenant with a dedication that is tinged with borderline desperation, especially by Mother Superior. The Church is her entire life and identity, as it is for the other nuns, especially Kathleen; without God, what is there?

As a non-Catholic with no real background knowledge on what it means to be a nun, I was kind of concerned about how Catholicism and its practices would be portrayed in this film. Would nunhood be sensationalized and demonized? Would the “sexy nun” trope make an appearance? The trailer suggested a bit of a horror-based,  trope with explicit acts of sin and punishment, but the actual film is more as a slow buildup of psychological pressure and tension. Although the film opens with Kathleen’s life, it pans out to encompass the worries and troubles concerning almost all of the sisters within the cohort; namely, the main concern for many Sisters is the fear that their sacrifices are being made in vain. The penances that were slightly exaggerated in the movie trailer are less dramatic; the more impactful punishments are the psychological ones.

While I enjoyed the film’s cast and plot, I do think that some characters were underdeveloped and others were suggested to be of importance, only to be cast away later. Many characters dipped in and out of the film in quick succession, which made it a little difficult to focus on the main ones. However, I thought that Kathleen was a very interesting character; some might argue that she is a “Mary Sue” character, too pious to be true; yet her steadfast commitment to her faith only makes her eventual demise all the more compelling and explicit.

Unfortunately, “Novitiate” is no longer playing at the Michigan Theater. However, if you ever get the chance to watch it, I would highly recommend.

(Picture credits: IMBD)