Detroit

Last night I went to see Detroit, one of the most powerful films about brutality and injustice that I have ever seen.  It is set against the backdrop of the riots that happened in Detroit in 1967.  As the city burns out of control the local police, along with the state police and National Guard, are asked to do the impossible and keep the peace.  We meet a trigger-happy young white officer named Philip Krauss (Will Poulter) who has been reprimanded for shooting a looter in the back, an aspiring black singer named Larry Reed (Algee Smith), and a black security guard named Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega).  They all converge at the Algiers Motel, where Reed has taken refuge for the night when he can't get home, after a resident foolishly fires a starter pistol at the National Guard who mistake it for a sniper attack and fire back.  What follows is a long and protracted sequence where Krauss and two other white officers brutalize Reed and the other black residents in order to get them to confess, ultimately killing three of the young men, despite Dismukes' attempts to intervene.  These scenes affected me on a visceral level but I was even more upset when the young men seek justice.  In my opinion, they faced more discrimination in the courtroom than they did while being beaten in the motel.  I was very moved by Boyega's performance, especially in the scenes where he is interrogated unjustly as a suspect just because of his race.  Poulter also gives an incredible performance because I hated him and, frankly, I am going to have a hard time watching him in any other movie from now on because he is so menacing in this role.  This film was incredibly difficult for me to watch because in my mind I pictured my nephew in that motel and I cried through most of it (and for hours after it was over).  However, this is a film that I think everyone should watch because, as much as we would like to think that we as a society have moved on from 1967, I don't think we have.

Green Day at USANA

Last night I saw Green Day at the USANA Amphitheatre and it was a great concert.  As you may know, I love attending outdoor performances and it was certainly a perfect summer evening.  Green Day got the crowd on their feet by starting out with one of their biggest hits: "Know Your Enemy." They played quite a few songs from their latest album, Revolution Radio, including "Bang Bang," "Revolution Radio," "Youngblood," "Still Breathing" and "Forever Now."  In between the new songs, they proceeded to play their hits for over two hours starting with a rousing rendition of "Holiday" and then "Letterbomb," a poignant performance of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," "Longview," "2000 Light Years Away," "Hitchin' A Ride," "When I Come Around," "Welcome to Paradise," "Minority," "Are We the Waiting," "St. Jimmy," "Knowledge," "Basket Case," "She," and "King for a Day."  For the first encore they played "American Idiot" and an epic version of "Jesus of Suburbia."  For the second encore Billie Joe came out on stage alone for an amazing acoustic performance of "21 Guns" and "Good Riddance."  Just as the second encore began it started raining and not one person left.  Everyone just started swaying in unison and singing every word.  It was really cool!  Green Day puts on an incredibly entertaining show and I think my favorite moment of the night was "Are We the Waiting" because it is my favorite song from the musical American Idiot!  Billie Joe suffers a bit from Lead Singer Syndrome and sometimes his antics overshadow the performance but I can't deny that he is fun to watch.  He strutted across the stage, rolled around on the stage, and conducted an extended chorus of "Hey Jude" from a prone position on stage.  He mugged for the cameras and, at one point, he sat down on the stage waiting for the crowd to yell loud enough for him to continue.  All through the night he exhorted the audience to get on their feet, put their hands in the air, clap, and sing along to every chorus (I think the audience sang more than he did).  He even pulled members of the audience up to the stage to sing during two different songs and one lucky girl got to keep the guitar she came on stage to play during "Knowledge."  He got in a few political rants (but they were pretty mild) and I lost track of how many times he mentioned Utah.  Billie Joe's antics aside, Green Day can definitely rock and this concert felt like one big party!  

Note:  The opening act was Catfish and the Bottlemen, a band handpicked by Green Day to open for them on this tour.  I really like them and, one day during the last few minutes of class I told the students that I had the song "Seven" stuck in my head.  They wanted me to play it for them, so I did.  After class, one student came up to me and asked me who sang the song because he really liked it.  About a week later he came up to me again and told me that he had downloaded the album because he liked them so much (It's a little service I provide, introducing my students to new music!).  I wonder if he was at the concert?

Mt. Rushmore with Sean

Last summer Marilyn and I took Sean on a road trip to the Four Corners Monument, Grand Canyon National Park, and Zion National Park.  Apparently, summer road trips are now a tradition so we asked Sean where he wanted to go this year and he picked Mt. Rushmore.  We went last weekend and, aside from a very long drive, we had so much fun!  Sean said that the view was worth the drive!

At the entrance to the monument.

Sean in front of a sculpture of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor who created Mt. Rushmore.

The plaza leading up to the monument.

It is quite impressive!

Sean and I walked along the Presidential Trail to get a few different perspectives of the presidents.  We ate lunch at the cafeteria and, of course, we had to get some of the famous ice cream.

As we drove away from the monument there was a turnout to get a really good view of Washington's profile.  It is pretty spectacular.

Sean posing in front of the sign in his new Mt. Rushmore hoodie!

In the late afternoon we decided to visit the Crazy Horse Monument.  So far only the head has been completed and they have started working on the horse.  It doesn't seem like much has been done when you look at what the completed monument is supposed to look like but it is quite different from what I remember seeing as a kid.  Sean really liked the Native American museum.  In the evening we went back to Mt. Rushmore for the evening patriotic program and to see the monument illuminated.  It was a great day.  Marilyn and I had so much fun with Sean and it seemed like we were laughing all of the time at everything he said.  He means so much to both of us and I am so happy that we could take him on this road trip.  He is already thinking of where he wants to go next year!

Note:  It was the beginning of the Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis so we saw lots and lots of motorcycles which was really cool.  The street in front of our hotel was lined with parked motorcycles.

The Dark Tower

I have read all eight books in Stephen King's Dark Tower series and I absolutely love them so, as you can imagine, I have been anticipating the movie adaptation with both excitement and apprehension.  I was so excited when I heard that Idris Elba had been cast as Roland Deschain because, in my opinion, he is the Gunslinger.  But I was also apprehensive because I really wanted this movie to be good.  It is always bad to walk into a screening with such high expectations because they are rarely met and they certainly weren't met in this case.  The Dark Tower is such a disappointment.  I knew going in that it had received appalling reviews and the theater was nearly empty, which is very unusual for a Thursday night preview, so I should have known better.  I still hoped it would be good and I was disappointed.  This film has both too much and too little exposition.  Way too much time is squandered on Earth introducing Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) and describing his visions of the Gunslinger (Elba) and his quest to stop the Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey) from destroying the Dark Tower, which holds the universe together.  Then, when we get to Mid-World, the story becomes incomprehensible.  I had only the vaguest notion of what was going on (and I've read the books so I understand the mythology).  I also was quite bewildered by the cuts back and forth between Mid-World and Earth and the tone in the Earth scenes is inappropriate.  The fish-out-of-water trope is very tedious here.  The books are full of action but the action sequences here are not only few and far between but they are not very good (The only scene that really held my attention was when Roland shoots his way into a portal to Mid-World).  The special effects are pretty shoddy for a summer blockbuster.  The only character that is really explored in depth is Jake and he is played rather blandly by Taylor.  McConaughey is an absolute disaster as the Man in Black, playing him as a caricature of a villain rather than someone to be feared, and we never learn enough about him or the Gunslinger because we don't get enough time with them.  They are supporting players to Jake which is a huge mistake.  The only bright spot in this movie is Elba.  Imagine what he could have done with a decent script and a proper budget for effects.  Ugh.  Definitely give this a miss!

Summer Reading: Commonwealth

The final selection on my summer reading list (the summer has gone by so fast!) was Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. My former book club read Truth and Beauty, a memoir about Patchett's friendship with the author Lucy Grealy which was quite moving, but I had never read any of her fiction until now. I will definitely read some of her other works because I loved Commonwealth. This novel spans fifty years in the lives of the blended family of Bert Cousins and Beverly Keating, including Bert's children Cal, Holly, Jeannette, and Albie, and Beverly's daughters Caroline and Franny. The six children spend their summers together with their parents in Virginia, mostly left to their own devices as the adults try to deal with the situation they have created, until a tragedy strikes. The events are told in a nonlinear narrative from multiple perspectives as the children become adults and deal, each in their own way, with the trauma of their childhood. All of the events are set in motion when Bert attends the christening party, to which he has not been invited, of the daughter of a man with whom he has a passing acquaintance and then shares an illicit kiss with his wife, Beverly. Thus begins a chain-reaction of events which have far flung consequences. All of the children, at various points, wonder what their lives would have been like had that kiss not happened. There is a sub-plot involving Franny and her relationship with a famous author who uses her childhood stories as the basis for a best-selling novel, and later movie, and her siblings' negative reaction to something which makes them confront their past. This is an interesting device because Patchett's own childhood informed much of this story and one has to wonder if her siblings had a similar reaction as the fictional ones. What I liked most about this novel is the use of time. Whole decades are skipped in the lives of the characters in favor of a series of vignettes but you still feel like you know them intimately and they are all incredibly compelling. The time span allows the theme of learning how to forgive family members, even ex-spouses, to emerge very powerfully. The writing is absolutely exquisite and I enjoyed reading this novel so much, which I did well into the night so I could finish it. I think anyone who has ever been a part of a blended family will find it very authentic and I highly recommend it.

Have you read Commonwealth or any of the other selections on my summer reading list?  What did you think?