The 2011 Tony Awards

by Jack Garcia

So a gay friend of mine said to me "Gosh, you are soooo gay!" when I mentioned that I was going to watch the Tony Awards tonight.  My response to him was, "Um... duh."

But as tonight's opening number proudly proclaimed, the Tonys aren't just for gays anymore!  Neil Patrick Harris hosted the ceremony and he did a phenomenal job!  The entire night was full of show-stopping musical numbers, hilarious comedic bits, and plenty of memorable acceptance speeches.  After the abysmally dull Oscars earlier this year, I was very grateful for some entertainment!

Here are some of my favorite moments:

• Neil Patrick Harris' opening number was phenomenal.  But even better was his number with Hugh Jackman about midway through, where the two spoofed "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)" along with several other Broadway tunes arguing over who was the better awards show host.
• Nikki M. James' acceptance speech brought me to tears.  Her sheer happiness and gratitude were so overwhelming!  And the part about the bumblebees??  Priceless.
• I was so proud of my boy Daniel Radcliffe!!  He performed so well in the number "Brotherhood of Man" from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying!
• The numbers that The Scottsboro Boys and Sister Act performed were both very good and featured some fantastic vocalists like Joshua Henry and Patina Miller.  Unfortunately neither show was a big winner.
• John Leguizamo's standup bit from his show Ghetto Klown was highly amusing!
• "I Believe" performed by Andrew Rannells from The Book of Mormon was very very good.  I was quite happy that the show walked away with nine awards (out of 14 nominations) including Best Musical.  Congrats to Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Robert Lopez!
• Neil Patrick Harris riding in on the giant puppet horse from the play War Horse.  That thing was so cool!
• Whoopi Goldberg's hat.  What was that thing?
• The acceptance speech by Frances McDormand was so crazy and random!  Ha ha!  She didn't even dress up!  And Mark Rylance's speech was even stranger than hers... he just went on and on about how to walk through walls.  It was so odd but so funny!
• Neil Patrick Harris closed the night with a rap that mentioned so many specific details from the night that it had to have been written moments before he hit the stage.  Impressive!

Movie Reviews: Two Movies with Michael Fassbender in Them

X-Men: First Class movie poster, property of Twentieth Century Fox.
Jane Eyre movie poster, property of Focus Features.

by Jack Garcia

So I stayed after work today to watch the new X-Men movie and I was surprised to see Michael Fassbender was in it.  Somehow I hadn’t noticed it was him in the previews.  And since I never got around to reviewing Jane Eyre—which he’s also in—I thought I would review them both together!

X-Men: First Class ADMIRABLE

It’s about time somebody breathed some new life into the X-Men franchise!  Anybody remember that horrible X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie?  Thankfully X-Men: First Class was ten times better and very enjoyable to watch.

The film is the back story of enemies Magneto and Xavier, who were once good friends.  They are played respectively by Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, who both infuse the movie with a lot of humanity and depth.  Their relationship is at the center of the film, and watching Magneto slowly turn over to “the dark side” so to speak is fascinating to watch.  I honestly don’t think I would have liked this movie as much as I did if these two hadn’t been cast.  Seriously, Fassbender and McAvoy are terrific actors.

As far as the plot goes, Xavier brings together a group of young mutants and starts his academy where he teaches them to embrace their unique gifts and channel them into something useful.  These students include Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Havok (Lucas Till), and Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones) amongst others.  Together they must defeat Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and his minions Azazel (Jason Flemyng) and Emma Frost (January Jones).  Set in the early 60’s, Shaw’s plan is to pit the Soviets against the Americans resulting in a nuclear war.  From the rubble, the mutants will rise up and form their own nation.  I bet you didn’t know The Cuban Missle Crisis was linked to mutants did you?

Jane Eyre AWESOME!

I wasn’t a huge fan of last year’s Alice in Wonderland, but I have to thank Tim Burton for bringing to light Mia Wasikowska.  She was very good in The Kids Are All Right and boy was she spectacular in Jane Eyre.  She is quite the breakthrough talent.

The story is of a plain, poor girl named Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska) who was raised by a cruel aunt who sent her to an awful boarding school.  Once grown, she is hired by Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender) to be the governess of his young French ward.  In a big dark house full of secrets, ghosts, and unspoken sexual tension she finds herself falling in love with Rochester, which seems only to lead to more heartache and grief.  Wasikowska and Fassbender have some very powerful scenes together, and both characters grow and mature by the film’s end.  I was completely engrossed in this story from the beginning, and it’s largely to do with Wasikowska’s controlled intensity in her role.

The film by director Cary Fukunaga is far from the first movie adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë gothic novel, but he paints it with such a clear visual style that’s so mysterious and brooding when it’s not utterly beautiful.  The cinematography and sheer artistry of the film is what I found to be most striking, even with the astonishingly talented cast including Judi Dench and Jamie Bell.

Movie Review: Panda Finds Inner Peace

Kung Fu Panda 2 movie poster, image property of Dreamworks.

by Jack Garcia

Kung Fu Panda 2 AWESOME!

It’s not often that a sequel outshines the original, but in my opinion Kung Fu Panda 2 was a shining improvement on an already likable film.  It had kung fu action, plenty of laughs and a lot of heart.  And boy did it have some beautiful animation!

Jack Black stars as Po, the fat and fluffy panda bear who unexpectedly became The Dragon Warrior in the first film.  He works alongside The Furious Five—Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Crane (David Cross), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Monkey (Jackie Chan)—to  protect China from any possible threat.  When informed by their mentor Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) that China—and even Kung Fu as they know it—is threatened by an evil peacock named Shen (Gary Oldman), Po and the others embark on a dangerous mission to stop him.

The story gets interesting when we discover that Shen has a personal vendetta against Po.  An old soothsayer (Michelle Yeoh) had prophesied years ago that Shen would die at the hands of a panda.  In order to stop the prophecy from coming to pass, Shen killed all of the pandas in China… or so he thought.  Po is the only one left that can stop him.  The evil doesn’t stop there of course.  Peacocks were the inventors of fireworks, but Shen has found a way to use the principles of fireworks to his own wicked advantage.  He has created what is essentially the first gun ever, and with it he plans on destroying Kung Fu and taking over all of China.

The emotional core of the movie involves Po searching for the truth of his origins.  He realizes that his father, the goose Mr. Ping (James Hong), cannot really be his biological father.  I mean, Po’s a panda after all.  And when Po sees Shen’s henchmen for the first time he has a brief flashback of his past… a past involving his mother.  He soon becomes consumed with curiosity of the circumstances surrounding his birth, and when he discovers that Shen knows something about it he seeks answers from him.  This makes their battles all the more intense.

My favorite thing about Kung Fu Panda 2—aside from the surprisingly deep and intriguing story—was the use of various animation styles!  No less than three!  The beginning opens with a kind of 2D animation that evokes the feeling of shadow puppets.  Very beautiful.  It explains the back story of Shen.  Po’s flashbacks and memories are also shown through the use of 2D animation in a different style than the opening.  This style is similar to the opening of the first Kung Fu Panda movie.  Stylized and simplified, yet graphic and gorgeous.  I really loved these scenes.   Then, of course, the majority of the movie is computer animation full of dimension and vibrancy.  The fight scenes were choreographed beautifully and the locations were full of breathtaking detail.

The best scene is where Po finds inner peace, doing a rhythmic sort of martial arts while controlling a drop of rain, letting it roll over his body like a small ball.  This scene is intercut with the 2D animation showing his mother running through the woods with baby Po in her arms.  It’s hard to explain in words, because it’s something so visual!  The result is dramatic and emotional and just so stunning.  I was very impressed.

The strength of the movie came through its humor and its animation.  Dreamworks is definitely working its butt off to compete at Pixar’s high level of quality.  Technically, Dreamworks is doing amazing things, but their storylines still don’t connect as personally as Pixar’s do.  Kung Fu Panda 2 got really close… perhaps the closest they’ve come since How to Train Your Dragon… but they still lag behind.  They are closing the gap, however, especially with Pixar’s Cars 2 looking less than promising.

The Gleek Critique: "New York" Episode

The glee kids seeing the sights in New York City!  Image property of Fox.

by Jack Garcia

So last night was the second season finale of Glee on Fox and I had to work!  Oh, life can be cruel can it not?  But luckily Hulu was there for me this morning, so I was still able to see the spectacular farewell.

The episode opens with the sexy saxophone wail of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue while showing us a glitzy shot of New York City's Time Square, ending on Rachel Berry standing in utter glee in the city of her dreams.  That's when the Glee title came up and I knew I was in love with this episode.  New York City, Gershwin, and Glee. Oh, I was in heaven!

So the kids are in New York City with Mr. Schuester for Nationals, and although they want to explore the city and have fun, Mr. Schu insists that they stay in the hotel room and write the songs they will compete with.  But feeling uninspired indoors, the kids sneak out anyway and explore the city!  But they aren't the only ones being sneaky.  Mr. Schuester still hasn't told the kids about his possible Broadway debut, and he sneaks off to rehearse onstage.  However, his secret doesn't stay a secret for long.  Dustin Goolsby, the coach of rival Vocal Adrenaline, finds out and tells the New Directions kids.  They approach Mr. Schuester about it, but he decides then and there that he's not going to leave them.  His true calling is teaching.

Meanwhile the boys convince Finn that he should ask Rachel out and tell her how he feels.  So he texts Rachel and tells her to dress up and meet him in Central Park.  She does and he surprises her with a date.  They go to dinner at Sardi where they run into Rachel's idol, Patti Lapone.  She tells Rachel to never give up on her dreams, also adding that Finn is "cute."  Finn and Rachel seem really happy later as they are strolling through the nighttime streets of the city, but when Finn tries to kiss her, Rachel says no.

We discover the reason behind this when Kurt takes Rachel out to stand where Audrey Hepburn stood in Breakfast at Tiffany's.  While eating bagels she reveals that she wants to go to New York after she graduates from high school, and she knows Finn won't want to.  She loves Finn, but she doesn't want anything to hold her back and keep her from pursuing her dreams.  Kurt then convinces her to break into the Wicked stage, where the guard lets them sing a song before kicking them out.  After singing on a real Broadway stage, Rachel is even more convinced that she belongs there.

The moment arrives for the big competition, and New Directions performs two original songs just like they did at Regionals.  The first song is a duet between Rachel and Finn, and in the heat of the moment, the two kiss.  Everything is silent before they move on to their next number and really knock it out of the park!  However, that unplanned kiss ruined their scores and the group doesn't place in the top ten.  The competition is over.

Although they are crushed by the loss, everything ends happy.  Back in Ohio, Rachel talks to Finn about the big kiss and makes it clear that she loves him, but will be moving to New York City in the future.  Finn understands, but figures they still have a whole year before that ever happens and he kisses her again.  Looks like Finchel is back.  Other happy endings include Blaine and Kurt telling each other "I love you" and the realization that Mercedes and Sam are now dating.  Brittany and Santana also have a tender moment together where they express their feelings.  The episode ends with the group celebrating their 12th place victory with the smallest trophy I've ever seen.

I cannot wait until next school year!


The Pros:

• The episode was filmed on site in New York City!!!
• The opening with Rhapsody in Blue.  I am in love with that piece of music!!
• Quite a few original songs tonight!  Rachel and Finn's duet "Pretending" followed by the big New Directions number "Light Up the World" were both awesome.  The song "As Long as You're There" sung by Sunshine Corazon and Vocal Adrenaline was also an original song written for the episode.  And while Mr. Schuester's "Still Got Tonight" wasn't written for Glee, it wasn't a cover either.  It comes from Matthew Morrison's debut album.  Oh, and gotta love Brittany singing "My Cup"!
• The opening mashup of Madonna's "I Love New York" and the song "New York, New York" from the musical On The Town was so colorful and fun!  It really made me want to run away and move to New York City!
• Rachel looked unbelievably beautiful in this episode.  I couldn't get over it.  She was simply stunning on the date with Finn, in the blue dress with the adorable updo.  Who wouldn't want to kiss her?  And that rainbow coat she had on earlier?  So pretty!!
• "Bella Notte" from Disney's The Lady and the Tramp was adorable.  Puck and Artie are fantastic, are they not?
• Rachel and Kurt's duet "For Good" from the musical Wicked was also very, very good!  And it was filmed on the actual Wicked stage, how cool is that?
• I am glad they didn't win Nationals.  As mean as that sounds, a win just wouldn't have been very believable.  Just making it to Nationals is a success in and of itself, and ranking twelfth in the nation is still pretty dang good.  They still beat out 38 other schools!  Besides, it gives them something else to aspire towards next season.  Maybe they can rank higher.
• Finn and Rachel are back together and I love it!  Seriously, love it!!  The big surprise kiss where the sound disappeared and it was like they were frozen in time...in that moment.  Oh, just spectacular!

The Cons:

• I would have liked more New York-themed songs in this episode.  There was just the one mashup.
• I'm also a little annoyed that they flew all the way to New York without even knowing what songs they were going to sing.  In fact, their first assignment there was to write them!  I love Glee, but sometimes I just roll my eyes at how they never practice for anything.  Ever.
• Plenty of character closure at the end, but they left out Will and Emma.  I would have liked to see her waiting for him at the airport or something romantic like that.  Mostly I just love Emma and wish she were in more episodes...
• They also wrapped up the season without Sue.  I guess she had her big moment last episode... but it seems odd to leave her out of the big finale.  Maybe a scene at the end of her saying "Congratulations" to the kids.  That would have been nice.
• Jessie St. James.  Annoys me every time.

Movie Review: Zombies and Mermaids and Frogs, Oh My!

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides movie poster.  Image property of Walt Disney Studios.

by Jack Garcia

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ADMIRABLE

I have to admit that I was very nervous going into the fourth Pirates movie.  I love Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow—what a character!—and I’ve always thought the movies were a lot of fun, but for some reason a fourth one just seemed… unnecessary.  Then the reviews came in and critic after critic hated it.  A couple of friends said things like, “it was long” or “it was a snooze,” which isn’t exactly the most promising praise.  Even some random sales clerk at a retail store told me, “If you go in thinking you’re going to hate it, you might actually like it.  A little.”

So I’ll say it again.  I was very nervous going into the theater.  But I have to say that I didn’t find it to be all that bad.  In fact, I thought it was really enjoyable and fun.  Director Rob Marshall did a pretty good job, in my opinion.

Johnny Depp returns as Jack Sparrow, who runs into an old flame of his named Angelica (Penelope Cruz) who happens to be impersonating him to recruit a pirate crew.  Why does she need a crew?  Well she and her father—the infamous Blackbeard (Ian McShane)—are in search of the fabled Fountain of Youth.  Sparrow soon finds himself onboard the “Queen Anne’s Revenge” along with “zombified” pirates, being forced to help Blackbeard and Angelica in their quest.  It’s kind of hard to say no to a guy who can control the ship with a touch of his sword and control your actions with the pin prick of a voodoo doll.

Blackbeard needs to get to the Fountain of Youth because there is a prophecy that he will die by the hand of a one-legged man, that man being no other than Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) of the previous films.  Barbossa  seems to have given up on pirating and is now sailing under the British flag.  You see, the English are now interested in getting to the Fountain of Youth simply because they know the Spanish are going.  They are determined to beat them there and claim it as their own.  Barbossa however has more personal reasons of getting to the fountain.  He lost his leg when Blackbeard took control of the ship, The Black Pearl, and he now seeks revenge.  He’s even coated his sword with poison from a frog… he’s ready.

So everyone is off towards the Fountain of Youth!  In order to obtain eternal life from the fountain, the tears of a mermaid are required.  And I have to say, I loved the mermaids!  They were beautiful and whimsical, seducing the men and luring them closer… before turning into vicious, fanged monsters!  Very cool.  They manage to catch one of them, Syrena (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), who seems to be a lot more docile than the others.  She has fallen for the missionary Philip (Sam Claflin) whom Angelica has brought along in the hopes that he will convert her father to Catholicism.  Philip develops feelings toward the mermaid as well, and is the only one upset that they are treating her harshly to get what they want out of her.

Speaking of missionaries and Catholicism, the movie has a lot of religious things to say.  It talks about faith and salvation, which seemed a little too deep for a Pirates movie.  Of course, the movie also has voodoo and mermaids and fables as well.  I guess it’s just interesting to see the Christian and the Pagan beliefs interwoven together.

All in all, I felt like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides lived up to the film franchise.  It fit right in.  There was over-the-top swashbuckling, plenty of cheeky laughs, fantasy elements and a little bit of romance.  Rush and Depp were great in their roles as always.  Although I've seen Cruz in more interesting roles, I thought she brought a lot of energy to the movie and she and Depp had some great chemistry.  The story might have been a little disjointed, but I found that it wasn’t nearly as confusing as the previous sequels and for the most part pretty straight-forward.  The action was well-choreographed if not a little noisy with the constant scoring, but I’ll forgive its overuse of music.  I also didn’t miss Orlando Bloom or Keira Knightley.  Like, at all.  And casting Richard Griffiths as King George really made my day!  Very funny.  Sure, it’s not nearly as fantastic as the first Pirates movie, but it was a fun adventure that I didn’t mind going on.

Movie Review: Crude, Crass yet Completely Compassionate

Bridesmaids movie poster.  Image property of Universal Pictures.

by Jack Garcia

Bridesmaids AWESOME!

I saw this movie twice.  That’s how much I loved it.  It is hilarious.

Saturday Night Live’s Kristen Wiig stars as Annie, a woman who has hit rock bottom.  Her latest business endeavor—a bakery called Cake Baby—has gone under, her boyfriend left her, her car is a piece of junk, she lives with weird roommates that she dislikes, and her current job was given to her as a favor to her mother.  She spends a lot of nights going over to Ted’s (Jon Hamm) house for booty calls, hoping a real relationship might arise from this.  Of course it won’t.

So in the midst of all this crappiness, her lifetime best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) has announced her engagement and wants Annie to be her maid of honor!  Annie accepts and is obviously very happy for her friend, but can’t help but feel a little envious of Lillian’s happiness.  Annie’s life just seems so much worse by comparison.  This feeling of inadequacy intensifies when she meets Lillian’s new friend and fellow bridesmaid Helen (Rose Byrne) who is rich, beautiful, classy and seemingly perfect in every way.  Annie can’t stand Helen, and feels like she is losing her best friend to her.

Needless to say, Annie makes a million mistakes while trying to plan this wedding.  She takes the girls to a seedy Brazilian restaurant where they all get food poisoning… She gets so drunk and disorderly on a plane that they get kicked off…  She goes berserk at the Bridal Shower and destroys everything…   Annie seems to be on a self-destructive path.  Not only is she destroying her friendship with Lillian, she’s also mucking up a potentially good relationship with a cop named Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd) who she met when he pulled her over.

In the end everything works itself out, and Annie’s character finally gets some closure.  She realizes that she needs to take responsibility for her own life, and this realization comes from the oddest bridesmaid, the round and ridiculous Megan (Melissa McCarthy).  In what is arguably the best scene in the movie, Megan comes over and tells her to stop moping.  She wrestles Annie onto the couch, hitting her while saying things like, “I’m your life, Annie.  I’m your life.  Fight back!”  Funny to watch, but what a revelation!  Once Annie finally fights Megan off of her, Megan simply says, “You are your own problem, Annie.  But you’re also your solution.”  Words can’t describe how much I loved that scene.

Bridesmaids, to me, is a perfect comedy.  Every good comedy has elements of drama, just like every good drama should have elements of comedy.  This comedy is laugh-out-loud funny and not afraid to “go there.”  There is plenty of raunchy, crude humor in the true Judd Apatow style (who produced it).  The audience was in fits of laughter throughout.  But like a lot of Apatow’s movies, there is a very sentimental backbone that really grounds all of the comedic elements.  Kristen Wiig was one of the screen writers (along with Annie Mumolo) and her background as a comedienne really shone through.  The script was so funny, fresh and real.  I would say it’s one of the best-written comedies in a really long time.

And boy oh boy did Kristen Wiig put in a star-making performance in Bridesmaids!  I promise you we will see her in more leading roles, because not only was her comedic timing spot on but she proved to be a very talented dramatic actor.  She's so likable on screen and her character was so relatable.  She was essentially everyone who has ever felt lonely; who has ever felt like a failure.  Her character learns a lot and grows a lot in this movie, and I just can’t find the words to express how fantastic her performance was.  It really, really was.

I think I'll go see it again.

Movie Review: Infidelity is Okay as Long as Everybody’s Doing It

Something Borrowed movie poster.  Image property of Warner Brothers.

by Jack Garcia

Something Borrowed AWFUL

Ginnifer Goodwin stars as Rachel, a sweet lawyer without a backbone.  I’m not really sure how she survives in her job since she has a habit of letting people walk all over her.  Like her best friend Darcy (Kate Hudson).  You see, Rachel was friends with this guy named Dex (Colin Egglesfield) all throughout law school.  She harbored this secret crush on him but never had the guts to do anything about it.  Then along comes Darcy, who is not only flirtatious but highly assertive.  She sees that Rachel isn’t pursuing Dex so she puts the moves on him.  Rachel, of course, doesn’t say anything.  She just lets Darcy date the guy she likes.  Years go by and now Darcy and Dex are to be married!

Have you ever found out years later that someone you once had a crush on happened to have a crush on you too?  At the same time?  Well, that’s the case with poor Rachel.  With Dex and Darcy’s wedding quickly approaching, Dex decides to reveal that he used to have a huge crush on Rachel in law school.  What?  Are you serious?  Rachel reveals that she had a crush on him too!  OMG!  How did neither one of them pick up on that?  They only did everything together, laughing and flirting with sexual tension all around…  but who picks up on subtleties these days?

So what do Rachel and Dex do about this?  They kiss.  They do a little more than kiss.  And now we are caught up in a crazy love triangle of lust, betrayal, and secrets.  Although I don’t normally have a problem with infidelity portrayed in movies, for some reason this one bugged the crap out of me.  I think that the filmmakers didn’t handle the subject matter with the seriousness that they should have, and instead tried to make it all seem justifiable.  I don't know if we should blame Emily Giffin who wrote the novel or Jennie Snyder who wrote the screenplay, but the story lacks as much backbone as Rachel does.  Her character was always seen as “good” even when she was doing bad things.  Then towards the end—sorry if this ruins the movie for you—it is discovered that Darcy has cheated on Dex a few times, with a mutual friend named Marcus (Steve Howey).  Here we were all expected to breathe a sigh of relief and say, “It’s okay guys.  Darcy’s cheating too, so it’s okay that Dex was.  Nothing to worry about, folks.  They were both doing it.  Rachel is still a good person because Darcy didn’t really deserve Dex anyway.”

I really wish the movie had the balls to say this instead: “Look.  Rachel really did a horrible thing to her friend Darcy.  She really did.  Dex wasn’t in the right either.  Things between Rachel and Darcy will probably never be the same.  Maybe Rachel will be happy because she has found out that Dex has always loved her, and now the two can be together, but it doesn’t change the ugly truth that she was lying to her friend, betraying her trust, and sleeping with an engaged man.”

All that aside, I feel like Goodwin proved to be a likable enough leading lady.  Hudson, unfortunately, was more annoying than anything in her role and Egglesfield was more eye candy than substance.  John Krasinski, who played Rachel’s friend Ethan, was a bright spot for me although he felt a bit underused in this movie.  He can do so much more, I feel, than play the ignored best friend.  And one last thing, for a movie being advertised as a romantic comedy, Something Borrowed is oddly lacking in laughs.  I honestly don’t think I laughed once.  And with the drama of it being superficial at best, I didn’t cry either.  I didn’t laugh, I didn’t cry, I didn’t really feel anything.