01 Mar 2015

Now You See It, Now You Want to See It Again: "Focus," "The Lazarus Effect," and "Deepsea Challenge 3D"

By Mike Schulz

Will Smith and Margot Robbie in FocusFOCUS

With Will Smith playing its polished and professional master of larceny, and Margot Robbie playing the fledgling grifter who becomes Smith's mentee and lover, Focus is so contrived, so ridiculous, and so phenomenally entertaining that while watching it, you'd almost think a new genre was being invented right before your eyes.

23 Feb 2015

I'd Like to Thump the Academy ... : Notes on the 2015 Academy Awards Telecast

By Mike Schulz

producer/writer/director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and team members of Best Picture Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)Neil Patrick Harris, at the tail end of last night's Academy Awards ceremony, climaxed his hosting duties with the resolution to a magic trick he'd set up earlier in the evening. Much, much earlier in the evening.

23 Feb 2015

Running, DUFFing, Tubbing: "McFarland USA," "The DUFF," and "Hot Tub Time Machine 2"

By Mike Schulz

Kevin Coster and Ramiro Rodriguez in McFarland USAMCFARLAND USA

God, I hate Disney. Not all the time, of course, and in any case, "hate" is probably a strong word. But why does the studio have to keep releasing live-action movies that are inseparable from cartoons, with all of the potentially legitimate conflict inevitably dulled down and scrubbed squeaky-clean? And why does its succession of inspirational sports dramas never feature any actual coaching beyond bland and clichéd motivational speeches? And why do these damned things keep making me weep like a baby?

23 Feb 2015

Forgotten, but Not Gone: "Still Alice" and "The Last Five Years"

By Mike Schulz

Kristen Stewart and Julianne Moore in Still AliceSTILL ALICE

In Still Alice, newly minted Oscar winner Julianne Moore plays Alice Howland, a 50-year-old recently diagnosed with a hereditary form of Alzheimer's. At one point in the movie, after a series of not-bad days and pretty-awful ones, Alice and her family attend an off-Broadway production of The Three Sisters starring the youngest Howland daughter, Lydia (Kristen Stewart). We see Lydia enact Chekhov's dialogue with appropriate, impressive anxiety and fortitude, and our view of Alice in the audience suggests that she sees it, too. After the play ends, the family goes backstage to congratulate Lydia, and Alice, with carefully chosen words, praises her daughter for her complex rendering of Chekhovian heart and humanity. Lydia smiles and blushes; this might be the most interest her mother has ever shown in her acting career. Then Alice asks what play Lydia is doing next, and whether she'll be sticking around New York much longer. And in the reaction shot that follows, the heartbreak in Lydia's eyes verifies what we immediately suspect: Alice, at this moment, has no idea who Lydia is.

20 Feb 2015

The Wind in Their Sales: "Glengarry Glen Ross," at St. Ambrose University through February 22

By Mike Schulz

Sam Jones and Jordan McGinnis in Glengarry Glen RossGlengarry Glen Ross was my introduction to the writing of David Mamet, with the 1992 film version of his play marking my first exposure to his work. Awestruck, I fell in love with Mamet's vulgar, layered, verbose style, which made it difficult for me to go into St. Ambrose University's new production without high expectations. Fortunately, though, director Corinne Johnson and her cast and crew - particularly set designer Kris Eitrheim - get it mostly right.

17 Feb 2015

What's Happenin': Thursday, February 19, through Wednesday, March 4

By Mike Schulz

Patrick Green and Jill Schwartz rehearse Love Stories featuring Romeo & JulietDance

Love Stories featuring Romeo & Juliet

Scottish Rite Cathedral

Friday, February 27, and Saturday, February 28, 7:30 p.m.

 

Ballet Quad Cities' latest presentation in the company's annual Love Stories series - being staged February 27 and 28 at Moline's Scottish Rite Cathedral - is officially titled Love Stories featuring Romeo & Juliet. As love stories go, that's an awfully powerful one. It's also a pretty depressing one, considering that Romeo and Juliet, in the end, both die.

Of course, you know that. And Ballet Quad Cities' Courtney Lyon knows you know that. And that's why choreographer and BQC Artistic Director Lyon chose to do something unusual in her particular take on Shakespeare's tale of star-crossed lovers: "I put the end of the ballet first."

15 Feb 2015

Whip Lass: "Fifty Shades of Grey," "Old Fashioned," and "Kingsman: The Secret Service"

By Mike Schulz

Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson in Fifty Shades of GreyFIFTY SHADES OF GREY

Everyone knows that movies aren't books. Yet it's amazing how many people - critics, specifically - have chosen to forget that fact when discussing Fifty Shades of Grey, director Sam Taylor-Johnson's and screenwriter Kelly Marcel's adaptation of E.L. James' pop-porn phenomenon.

11 Feb 2015

He Swoops, He Scores: Predicting "Birdman" and the Other 2015 Oscar Winners

By Mike Schulz

 

Michael Keaton in BirdmanA big Birdman night but nothing for Michael Keaton? A not-bad Boyhood night but nothing for Richard Linklater? A year in which every single Best Picture nominee will go home with at least one lovely, gold-plated parting gift? Yes, yes, and yes - so long as those "yes"es have asterisks behind them signifying "maybe."

08 Feb 2015

Blow It Out Uranus: "Jupiter Ascending," "Seventh Son," "The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water," and "Two Days, One Night"

By Mike Schulz

Mila Kunis in Jupiter AscendingJUPITER ASCENDING

After months of previews in the wake of its delayed release, the big-budget sci-fi spectacle Jupiter Ascending - originally scheduled for summer 2014 - finally landed this past weekend. And with its opening, a question can now be asked: Was there any point at which Warner Bros. executives seriously considered pulling the plug on writers/directors/siblings Andy and Lana Wachowski's epic stinker? Maybe when Channing Tatum was cast as a human/wolf hybrid with a blond goatee and pointy ears? Or when an incensed Russian beat the hell out of his son with a throw pillow? Or when, for the performer's first scene, the Wachowskis handed Mila Kunis an all-too-symbolic toilet brush?

03 Feb 2015

What's Happenin': Thursday, February 5, through Wednesday, February 18

By Mike Schulz

Augustana College presents Katrina: The K WordTheatre

Katrina: The K Word

Augustana College's Potter Theate

Friday, February 6, through Sunday, February 8

 

For years, the Augustana College course Theatre 350: Play Production has asked its students to wear a great many hats. With participants, under faculty supervision, wholly in charge of auditioning, casting, directing, designing, costuming, stage managing, and ultimately presenting a dramatic work for paying audiences, the class offers a rather comprehensive 10-week education on what it takes to successfully mount a show.

But this year, Professor Jeff Coussens' Play Production students are also receiving a 10-week education on their chosen play's subject, considering that the recent-seeming tragedy it concerns happened, as Coussens says, "when the students were, what ... nine?"

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