The Tonys 2015

This is an exciting year for the Tonys with some close races.   Fun Home and An American in Paris lead with twelve nominations each.  Finding Neverland, the Harvey Weinstein backed production, received no love from voters (Weinstein isn't used to that).  Alan Cumming, fresh off of his Tony-winning run in Cabaret, is sharing hosting duties with Kristen Chenoweth, who is nominated for her role in On the Twentieth Century. The two of them will surely have a fun show.  I have only seen one of the nominees so far, On the Town, but here goes nothing:

Best Play
Will win: Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Watch out for: Wolf Hall Parts I & II

Best Musical
Will win: Fun Home
Watch out for: An American in Paris

Best Book of a Musical
Will win: Fun Home
Watch out for: Something Rotten

Best Musical Score
Will win: Fun Home
Watch out for: The Last Ship

Best Revival of a Play
Will win: The Elephant Man
Watch out for: Skylight

Best Revival of a Musical
Will win: The King and I
Watch out for: On the Town

Best Actor in a Play
Will win: Alex Sharp (Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Watch out for: Bradley Cooper (The Elephant Man)

Best Actress in a Play
Will win: Helen Mirren (The Audience)
Watch out for: Ruth Wilson (Constellations)

Best Actor in a Musical
Will win: Michael Cerveris (Fun Home)
Watch out for: Biran d'Arcy James (Something Rotten!)

Best Actress in a Musical-- the closest race
Will win: Kelli O'Hara (The King and I)
Watch out for: Kristen Chenoweth (On the Twentieth Century)
Also watch out for: Chita Rivera (The Visit)

Best Featured Actor in a Play
Will win: Nathaniel Parker (Wolf Hall: Parts I & II)
Watch out for: Micah Stock (It's Only a Play)

Best Featured Actress in a Play
Will win: Patricia Clarkson (The Elephant Man)
Watch out for: Sarah Stiles (Hand to God)

Best Featured Actor in a Musical
Will win: Andy Karl (On the Twentieth Century)
Watch out for: Christian Borle (Something Rotten!)

Best Featured Actress in a Musical
Will win: Judy Kuhn (Fun Home)
Watch out for: Sydney Lucas (Fun Home)-- she's only 11!

Best Director of a Play
Will win: Marianne Elliott (Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)
Watch out for: Jeremy Herrin (Wolf Hall: Parts I & II)

Best Director of a Musical
Will win: Sam Gold (Fun Home)
Watch out for: Bartlett Sher (The King and I)

Best Choreography
Will win: Christopher Wheeldon (An American in Paris)
Watch out for: Joshua Bergasse (On the Town)

Best Orchestrations
Will win: An American in Paris
Watch out for: Fun Home

Best Scenic Design of a Play
Will win: Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Watch out for: Wolf Hall: Parts I & II

Best Scenic Design of a Musical
Will win: The King and I
Watch out for: An American in Paris

Best Costume Design of a Play
Will win: Wolf Hall: Parts I & II
Watch out for: The Audience

Best Costume Design of a Musical
Will win: The King and I
Watch out for: An American in Paris

Best Lighting Design of a Play
Will win: Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Watch out for: Wolf Hall: Parts I & II

Best Lighting Design of a Musical
Will win: An American in Paris
Watch out for: Fun Home


Update: I scored 18/24.  I went 0 for 4 in the featured acting categories, but to be fair they were all toss ups.  Fun Home and Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time were the big winners with five wins each, including the top prizes.

A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune) (1902)

This 1902 silent French classic is a landmark in world cinematic history.  The movie was lost and rediscovered in the late 1920s when Melies's importance was recognized.  In 1993, a hand-colored print was found incomplete and it is this version that was restored and screened at Cannes in 2011.  The black-and-white prints were colored by hand to fill in the missing scenes.  To be honest, the coloring was a little distracting, kind of trippy as the shades kept changing ever so slightly.  The restoration also features strange music by the French band Air, which is very twenty-first century.  It did not match 1905 at all, but it did fall in line with the psychedelic colors.  I also saw the pure black and white version, featuring a piano score and some awkward narration.

What is the significance of this film? It pioneered entertaining narrative storytelling in film,  primitive special effects, expensive production value, and "long form" movies (~15 minutes).  The most famous scene is one in which the camera seemingly zooms into a moon with a face.  The special effect is a mechanical rigging system in which he moved the moon toward the camera.  Some substitution splicing lets the capsule rocket ship magically/fantastically appear in the moon's eye.  This is all brought together by a very overly theatrical cast that sort of scrambles about the set in a comical fashion. All filmmakers owe everything to Melies and this film.

Dear White People (2014)

Justin Simien's debut film is not as funny as I was expecting--to be sure, it is a comedy-drama, mostly drama.  And I think that is a bit of a detraction from the film.  At times in the middle, the movie takes itself a little too seriously.  Granted, this is serious material, but some of these dialogues are a little too blunt and soapbox-y. Maybe Simien is a little too intelligent, assuming his audience is at the same level.  Most of the movie, however, is very tactful in getting its message across.  That message is very important and much needed.  Race is a touchy subject in this country, but Simien stares unflinchingly at this issue and confronts race in the context of our top universities.  Simien is brutally honest about the systemic racism that pervades our population.  Simien's message is helped along by a strong cast.  Tyler Jesse Williams is perfect as a black homosexual student and Tessa Thompson is excellent as a charismatic student activist and host of "Dear White People," a campus radio show that just might be what our schools need in 2015.     

A Most Violent Year (2014)

JC Chandor creates a gritty 1981 New York City, with a brooding atmosphere of crime and violence.  Alex Ebert's score with a very prominent flute darkly colors each scene contributing immensely to this effect.  Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain act with an intensity to match the period.  Isaac plays a businessman whose business is under attack, putting a big contract at risk.  He must protect his business and his family, though Chastain, as his wife, holds her own.  The real genius of this movie is Chandor's screenplay.  The only way to describe it is a slow burn.  The story trudges along slowly, but it is never boring.  Every scene is quite deliberate and intriguing.  The pace only enhances the suspense and intensity.

Furious 7 (2015)

The seventh (that's right, seventh!) installment of the Fast and Furious series takes place post-Tokyo Drift.  It has the same message about family, the glamorous high life, diversity (spoiler alert: they kill off the Asian) and fast cars.  The only difference is they aren't fugitives anymore.  And this one is probably the most ridiculous in its stunts. But perhaps what is so ridiculously insane is the stunts were real, with minimal CGI.  They actually threw these nice, expensive cars out of a plane.  That was a pretty incredible sequence that was exhilarating and well edited.  There are some terrific action scenes. They know what they do best: car sequences, though I could've done without the non-auto fighting scenes.  The Rock has a fighting scene early on, and then does not reappear until the end rather comically.

Of course, we know that this was Paul Walker's final film before his untimely death.  This fact looms over the entire film.  I kind of got the sense that the intention was for Walker's character Brian to die. Brian, himself, speaks a number of foreboding lines that seem to foreshadow his death, but I suppose it would have been a bit harsh and disrespectful to have his character die.  Especially towards the end, you can tell that the stand-in for Brian is not, in fact, Paul Walker, but one of his siblings, though they do look strikingly similar.  Walker does get a fitting send off at the end, with Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again" over a montage of clips from the previous films in the series that remind you just how far this franchise has come.

  

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (Broadway) (2013)

This is a very strange musical.  The far-fetched plot: a man discovers that he is a member of the very rich D'ysquith family, except there are eight relatives ahead of him for the earldom of Highhurst.  These eight relatives all with different personas, ages, and genders are played by the same actor (Tony-nominated Jefferson Mays was off but his understudy was excellent in his own right).  Each murder is more ridiculous than the last and you sort of just have to go with it.  The opening number is sung by mourners who warn the audience that the play will be disturbing.

This show benefits from some very creative and clever staging. There is a smaller stage with an elegant red curtain that sits front and center atop the actual stage.  The smaller stage extends out from time to time to accommodate the actors, who at times exit the smaller stage to act on the main stage.  The main stage has a semicircle that protrudes above and around the pit. The back of the stage has a moving LED screen that enhances some of the murder scenes.  The best scene is "I've Decided to Marry You," in which Monty moves between two rooms separated by a corridor.  This is depicted by two doorways facing perpendicular to the audience so the audience can see both rooms.  And there is some excellent, fun counterpoint between Monty, Phoebe and Sibella in this scene.

In all its ridiculousness, the play is actually very funny.  The actor who plays the D'ysquith family enunciates all of his lines very clearly, leading to some very visible spit.  then in Act II, this is acknowledged in a very comical scene that involves a spitting battle of sorts.  

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

I did not really know what to expect going in, and coming out I was not quite sure what I had just seen, completely at a loss for words. For starters, the movie is not about plot.  Imagine a post apocalyptic desert wasteland world that is short on resources.  That's really all you need to know.  There is a society that is run by a disgusting (yet imaginative) looking villain that controls all of the water.  And then the chase ensues, a chase that lasts for two glorious hours.

The movie is literally nonstop, crazy, intense action.  The chase takes place in juiced up monster vehicles that are made up of parts of other cars. Every vehicle is unique and they make the chase all the more exciting.  The violence is brutal and graphic but the sound effects and the ridiculousness of the entire movie slightly mitigate the effect on the viewer.  The production design is incredible, from the cars, to the Citadel, to the variations on barren wasteland that they drive through.  The costumes and makeup too are fantastic.  Due to a lack of water, everyone has this awful dirty look and the War Boys are all bald and pure white with black around their eyes.  They are so devilishly creepy.  And the movie overall is an over-the-top explosion of insane style.