FILM: The Fall Guy

The Fall Guy is an unabashed petition to the Academy to finally create an Oscar for stunt work. Director David Leitch is not only familiar with action thrillers, having helmed films in the John Wick, Fast & Furious, and Deadpool franchises, but he’s also a stuntman himself, having been a stunt double for Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. This film does double-duty as a rom-com with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt (who wouldn’t cheer for them?) as well as an action thriller, all while highlighting the craft of stunt workers. This fun story follows Colt Seavers (Gosling), a veteran stunt man who flamed out years ago when a stunt went bad, and Jody Moreno (Blunt), a rising director working on an action-thriller-sci-fi-romance. The big name star of her new picture has suddenly gone AWOL in the middle of the shoot, and the producer recruits Seavers to find the star, while possibly rekindling their romance that also flamed out years ago. When Seavers’ quest to find the missing star suddenly turns into its own real-life action-thriller, with blockbuster stunts and some nice plot twists, the movie gets really good. As a romance, it’s a bit cheesy, but as an action thriller with a meta layer, it’s really good fun and you’ll be cheering in the suspenseful end of the film and the end of the film-within-the-film. And you’ll join the chorus clamoring for that new Oscar category for stunts.

STAGE: The Rhythm of Mourning

Last Thursday, we saw The Rhythm of Mourning by the Bethesda Rep company. On a bare stage with minimal props, a strong cast, with some subtle but effective lighting, costume, and choreography, tells a powerful story about loss and grief. At first we see a woman wordlessly express mixed feelings about the space she has just entered. She is soon followed by a handful of other characters who are talking about her like a kind of Greek chorus, except that Greek choruses spoke with a unified voice, and these characters are arguing with each other. Before long, it becomes clear (if you hadn’t already noticed from the cast of character names in the program – Anxiety, Shame, Hope, Innocence, Anger, Denial, etc) that what we are witnessing is the grieving woman’s internal struggle, her mental wrestling made manifest as a whole cast of emotions and stages of grief. It’s a powerful device deployed to great effect in this production, as the audience slowly learns who she lost, and how, what that person meant to her, and why this place she has entered is so fraught, all while we watch her movingly move her way toward an uncertain closure. We caught it at the Bethesda Rep’s home stage, but there will be a half-dozen more performances through June as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Check it out!

OPERA: Turandot

On Saturday night, we had the pleasure of seeing the sumptuous production of Turandot at LA Opera. The magnificent cast is lead by house-shaking soprano Angela Meade, the honey-rich tenor Russell Thomas as Karaf, and vibrant soprano Guanqun Yu who moved us to tears as Liu. (We had enjoyed seeing both Russell Thomas and Guanqun Yu a few years ago here in Mozart's The Clemency of Titus.) And expanded chorus voiced the hopes and fears of the people of Peking sensationally (of course we're partial since we know so many choristers). The sets, designed by David Hockney, are fantastic. Opera is an extravagant art form, and this is one of the most extravagant of operas, filled with passion and passionately beautiful music. If you have a chance to see it, go!

FILM: Challengers

Challengers, directed by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, among others), makes tennis look sexier than ever. Zendaya plays a fierce up-and-coming tennis star, Tashi Duncan, who ends up in a complicated relationship with two other young tennis stars Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist). The two guys have come from prep schools and backgrounds of privilege, while she has definitely not, and has had to work hard for everything she has. “Tennis is a relationship,” Tashi says early in the film, and the game at its highest level of competition is inextricably intertwined in the relationships of these three, with the two guys, closest of friends, also competing for Tashi. It all takes some interesting twists and turns, with a riveting final match with so much riding on it. The strong performances are underscored by great sound engineering, where the effort of every swing and the impact of every contact of racket with ball are visceral with layers of emotion.