Arts & Culture

Although the prequels are a low bar, yes “The Force Awakens” is more akin in quality, scope and aesthetics to the original trilogy and much better than its woeful prequels. Say what you will about J.J. Abrams as a storyteller, but his stuff looks good.

Obviously it’s a kick to see the original cast, to say nothing of hearing that theme music again, and even seeing the tie-fighters and x-wings battling in newfound glory. It wouldn’t have worked as well if it had been a reboot with new actors in the old roles since there’s a huge nostalgia factor at work.

Although newcomers Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) all do well, cheers will erupt when Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) first appear; they’re the real stars of the film, and provide most of the humor as well.

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FAIR WARNING

But to get more specific, few films can put a smile on your face with an opening tile crawl. Thankfully, this preamble is fairly concise, but nostalgia also softens the problems with the film, specifically it being a recycle of the original in many respects, including more amazing coincidences that allow for the narrative to continue.

After a disturbing start that shows the Stromtroopers are basically the heartless SS of a Nazi Empire (now called The First Order), they once again prove to be the worst soldiers available, bumbling fools incapable of hitting anything that needs to be missed for the sake of the story.

Described as garbage and all but forgotten, the Millennium Falcon amazingly fares crazy well against multiple and more-advanced ships with a new pilot and a green soldier who barely knows how to work its clunky guns. Use of the Dark Side is spotty at best, jettisoned right when it would be a better idea to just choke someone from across the room. Outright monsters destroy every bad guy in their way, but decide to simply capture the good guys and allow ample time for escape. And don’t forget the grade-school level exposition, over-explaining every little connection and character motivation.

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THERE BE SPOILERS, HERE!

But could anything live up to “Star Wars: The Hype-Machine”? In 2013, both Carrie Fisher (General Leia) and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) supposedly had begun a vigorous regimen of diet, exercise and stunt training to prepare for their roles. It turned out to be more mere hype, since neither do more than stand around and chat for their scant screen time (with Hamill doing less than even that).

But can fans admit that it falls short? I’ve seen way too many perfect A scores for “The Force Awakens”, which tells me no; it’s too hard to separate yourself from the source material and the original experience to admit that “The Force Awakens” is just another in a series of J.J. Abrams’ redo’s.

“Super 8” was basically “E.T. The Extra Terrible”.

“Star Trek Into Darkness” was “The Wrath of Khan Again.”

And now “The Force Awakens” is a “Star Wars” retread, complete with a doe-eyed hero stuck on a planet of sand waiting for something more… indispensable Resistance intel hidden in a droid to keep it from the Empire… good guys captured and tortured by the bad guys for their knowledge of the intel… the bad guys have a ship the size of a moon that can wipe out whole planets with a single shot… the Jedi have vanished to the point that most consider them myth… the apprentice of a famous Jedi serves in the evil empire while he struggles with the dual nature of the Force… a father-figure is killed by light sabre wielded by someone he used to trust… the big bad Death Star-ish ship blown up by small x-wings that fire on an obvious target out in the open… all culminating with a new apprentice in need of training approaching a seasoned Jedi Master.

We waited 30 years for the same basic story?

Hmpf. At least it looked good and had the original cast. Without that, we’d all be crying ripoff.

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**1/2 stars 

135 minutes 

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence 

Directed by: J.J. Abrams

Writing Credits: Lawrence Kasdan (written by) & J.J. Abrams (written by) and Michael Arndt (written by), George Lucas (characters)

Starring: Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill , Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie, Peter Mayhew, John Boyega, Kenny Baker, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis, Anthony Daniels, Max von Sydow, Greg Grunberg, Christina Chong, Simon Pegg

Rich Bonaduce is Vice President of the Utah Film Critics Association, co-host of “Critical Mass,” a Salt Lake-based movie-review show, and a contributor to saltlakemagazine.com. Read more of his reviews at thereelplace.com.

Well-intentioned half-baked holiday schlock

Audiences can be forgiven for mistaking “Love the Coopers” for a romantic comedy. Certainly the trailer and marketing all mislead in this direction, and even the opening titles continue in this vein; filled with eye candy that belies the bleakness to come in this dreary family flick, mirrored in the washed-out colors of winter in Pennsylvania.

“Coopers” is a grab-bag of effects, flashbacks, classic film footage, awkward family sing-a-longs and shoehorned bathroom humor that toes the PG-13 line. So many story lines and characters exist that none are developed very well, with some explanations and connections left out entirely in favor of improbable and overlapping dysfunctional family malaise.

But it’s all wrapped up in a nice holiday bow in a truncated third act, culminating in end-credit outtakes of the Cooper family singing.  All problems are solved (or at least dismissed) in mere minutes, since the mess of everyday life is a gift in and of itself.

The Coopers’ mess consists of great-grandpa Bucky (Alan Arkin), a widower who wiles away his days in a diner in order to spend some socially acceptable time with young waitress Ruby (an unblinking Amanda Seyfried).

His jovial son Sam (John Goodman) has been married to buttoned-down Charlotte (Diane Keaton) for 40 lately unremarkable years, and they’re having a tough time keeping it together for one last holiday with their kids who have problems of their own.

Recently divorced Hank (Ed Helms) is struggling with dealing with his oafish ex-wife Angie (Alex Borstein), keeping his recent job-loss a secret, and being a single dad to his three kids. Son Charlie (Timothée Chalamet) is bullied when he freezes up around girls. His little brother Bo (Maxwell Simkins) only gets in the way when he tries to help, and sister Madison (Blake Baumgartner) is vulgarly acting out. Hank’s ailing elderly Aunt Fishy (June Squibb) is so far gone she barely remembers him.

Hank’s sister Eleanor (Olivia Wilde) is a wannabe playwright and the mistress of her married doctor. She dreads her mother Charlotte’s disapproval so much she entices a solder she met at the airport (played by a vanilla Jake Lacy) to be her fake date to the family festivities.

Charotte’s sister Emma (Marisa Tomei) is an unmarried and childless life-coach who is perpetually late and jealous of her older sister. Tomei shares the most out-of-left field scene of the movie with Anthony Mackie, from a movie that seems to be little more than a collection of left-field scenes.

Finally, Steve Martin narrates the whole film as the family dog. This last minute reveal is an eye-roller, but at least it explains the lilting manner in which Martin delivers every line.

Two movies coming out this weekend that threaten to deliver all the cheese you’d expect of a Hallmark Special instead cut back on the calories and deliver some fulfilling tales. I’d recommend you see “The 33” or “My All American” over “Love the Coopers” this holiday season.

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106 minutes 

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, language and some sexuality 

Director: Jessie Nelson

Writer: Steven Rogers (screenplay) 

Starring: Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Ed Helms, Amanda Seyfried, Alan Arkin, Marisa Tomei, Olivia Wilde, Anthony Mackie

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Rich Bonaduce is Vice President of the Utah Film Critics Association, co-host of “Critical Mass,” a Salt Lake-based movie-review show, and a contributor to saltlakemagazine.com. Read more of his reviews at thereelplace.com.

Photo by Adam Finkle

While in Mexico in 2003, entrepreneur John Barlow was approached by a business associate with an idea to start a boutique tequila distillery. Barlow jumped in, acquiring a partner in Jalisco, Mexico. “We took a risk entering a space where we had no experience,” Barlow recalls.

“When we started it, tequila wasn’t cool,” John’s wife and business partner Lisa adds. “But now, people are really gravitating to tequila, creating sleek, elegant cocktails. Tequila is for everybody.”

The Barlows are active Mormons, which makes Vida Tequila a curious investment path. But as Lisa explains, their interest in spirits and distilling was purely a business choice. “We love the industry we’re in. We’ve never looked at it as a religious wrong decision,” she says. “I love my business and I like my religion, too. It’s about being a good person and doing good things for people.”

Indeed, the couple, who live in Draper, has an “open door policy” when it comes to providing for their friends and family. “We really enjoy entertaining,” John says.

For Lisa that attitude led to co-founding Silver, the chic Main Street Park City restaurant, in 2011. “It’s fun to be part of the ever-growing food scene in Park City,” Lisa Barlow says. “It’s not even the same as it was two years ago.”

Recently they broke ground on a second home in Park City—that will be their official base for frequent forays and soirees in the mountains.

Our beloved Beehive State is full of surprises.

Everyone knows we have the best snow on earth, but did you know Utah is home to many of the best tattoo artists in the country (we’re holding a contest to decide Utah’s best tattoo artist on Instagram)? As well as beer brewers, whitewater rivers, biking trails and live music venues? Believe it. This is not the stodgy, conventional place many people elsewhere think it is. Here’s a list of more great secret reasons we love the Beehive.

Click the categories below to see this year’s Best of the Beehive winners.

Family Fun

Food & Dining

Shopping & Services

Arts & Entertainment

Get Outdoors

Of course, it’s not all butterflies and red balloons in the Beehive State. We would be remiss if we didn’t include a list of losers as well:

Wasatch Faults

Click here for Park City Life’s Best of Park City.

Contest: Put your tattoo or tattoo art on Instagram with #BeehiveTattoo and @SLmag to let us who you think is Utah’s best tattoo artist. Just for posting your photo, you’ll be entered to win $50 to Texas de Brazil.

Contest: We’re also asking readers what great people, products and places we missed in this year’s Best of the Beehive. Let us know, and you’ll be entered to win a $50 gift card to Ruth’s Creekside.

Expelled by choice from a Puritan plantation for his hubristic insistence that his own preaching is the one right way to God, William and his family—wife Catherine, daughter Thomasin, son Caleb, twins Mercy and Jonas, and a suckling baby—go singing through the palisade’s gate and beyond the pale to establish their own farmstead in the New England wilderness, near to a stream and a dark and ancient wood. The wood, issuing ominous cracks, groans, and whooshes (and for our private pleasure a madly dissonant, crescendoing, Kubrickian chorus), may or may not be inhabited by a red-cloaked witch, a half-seen hag whose need for fresh baby’s blood initiates a season of bedevilment that drives the family to grief, near-starvation, and all manner of strife.

“We will conquer this wilderness,” William insists, meaning equally that, guided by their idiosyncratic, relentlessly self-punishing fundamentalism, they will conquer themselves and each other as their collective fortunes decline. Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), wide- and wet-eyed during The Witch‘s opening trial scene as she watches three male judges pass the family’s sentence, provides the first and lasting image of their collective fear of a lawgiving God. But this fear can’t hold off the realities of their human needs and desires, evidence, for them, of sin and witchery, though we understand them as the internal emotional conflicts essential to the human experience. Thomasin and Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) are old enough to understand the sensual attractions of other bodies, which become even more fraught because options for partners have dwindled to family. William (Ralph Ineson with an exquisitely sonorous, Old Testament voice) is prepared to dissemble for a time in order to get the family fed without upsetting his wife (Kate Dickie), and the twins (Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson), too young to know better and too free-spirited to honor distinctions between their fictions and reality, can, as an instinctual team, turn any accusation of wrongdoing into truth for their paranoid audience. Are they witches in league with their favorite playmate, the family’s he-goat, Black Philip? Or is Thomasin the source of their ills, the teenager, the young woman, a potential sexual rival of her mother’s or a perfect mate for Old Scratch? Though her parents may be convinced her behavior is alien and evil, we recognize her response to this suffocating environment as perfectly natural.

Which is to say that The Witch of this stunning film’s title may be more an idea, more a suspicion, more an accusation than the actual figure we glimpse through the trees. But we can never be certain as director Robert Eggers expertly produces, through rich image and provocative editing, a frighteningly closed vision of 17th century America, a beautifully raw and insecure place in the eyes and ears of these desperate and isolated European immigrants (the family’s English accents mark them as still-recent arrivals). The Witch is a period film whose authenticity is one of mind, then, rather than objective fact, and these minds’ paranoia, faith in a punishing God, and inherent will to survive at any cost produce a deeply authentic, spellbinding, and rewarding experience.

Renato Olmedo-González with Nadia Rea Morale’s Zacuanpapalotls

Renato Olmedo-González, the new director and curator at Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts, remembers life in Jalisco growing up with centuries of culture and public art. “I grew up with Mexican culture everywhere around me. It shaped me as a child,” says the lanky and serious University of Utah graduate.

“I’ve always loved and appreciated artists—but I’m not an artist. I really don’t like to do things with my hands,” Olmedo-González says seriously.

Still, Mexico’s tremendous cultural heritage, nor even art in general, ever made much of an impression on him until he immigrated to Utah with his mother. As a student at Taylorsville High School—not exactly a center for Latino cultural scholarship—Olmedo-González needed to fill his class schedule and reluctantly took an elective in art history.

“I fell in love with art,” Olmedo-González recalls. “And I immediately found myself attracted to Mexican art. You learn about yourself through art. I learned my history.”

The high school’s superficial art-history course, which spent a day on muralists (Diego Rivera!) and a only few minutes on surrealist Frida Kahlo, spun Olmedo-González’s head around and left him hungry. He graduated from the U of U in spring 2014 with degrees in Latin American Studies and Art History.

As a university student, Olmedo-González connected with the city’s vibrant Latino art community through helping on the Artes de Mexico en Utah’s ¡Viva Frida! exhibit. Some of Utah’s leading Latino artists, including curator, contemporary artist and DJ Jorge Rojas, mentored him. “I’ve learned so much from Jorge; fortunately, he’ll be continuing to mentor me at Mestizo,” Olmedo-González says. “I plan on growing with this opportunity.”

Olmedo-González, aware of his inexperience, is throwing energy into leading the Institute’s gallery. “Mestizo is very important to this community. My goal is to make Mestizo even more respected.”

Many of Utah’s immigrants were forced here by economic necessity, he explains. As the parents work long hours and the children enter American schools, they lose touch with their culture. “Soon the kids have no clue who they are. Pancho Villa, Zapata? They have no idea. But they yearn for Mexico,” he says. “They aren’t accepted here, yet they don’t know anything about where they’ve come from.”

Olmedo-González’s first curation project opened earlier this spring with two mixed media installations, Pentz’s Ithaka 12 and Rea Morales’ Zacuanpapalotls. Both installations explore cultural migration, memory and transformation—through the Monarch butterfly that migrates between United States and Mexico, a trip that takes place over three to four generations.

“Mestizo’s a space not just for art but for discussion of social justice and inclusion,” Olmedo-González says. “It represents a community that is under-represented.” And by that, he doesn’t just mean the Latino community. Mestizo explores through art the beauty and challenges of all marginalized cultures, including gay.

“Art makes you want to get up and change things,” Olmedo-González says. “It can start a conversation that people don’t want to have, but when they are forced to have it—it’s good.”

Coffee, Tea or Culture

Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts began in 2003 to enrich and celebrate Utah’s many cultures. Since then it has injected vibrancy into Salt Lake’s art scene. Despite its awe-inspiring name, MICA is one of the state’s least-intimidating art galleries; its space on 631 West North Temple is shared with its namesake coffeehouse. Yet, the institute has set a Quixotic goal to connect Salt Lake’s dominant culture and its emerging immigrant communities. Its related programs include Mestizo Arts & Activism Collective, a leadership program for Westside youth in collaboration with University Neighborhood Partners and NeighborWorks Salt Lake. 631 W. North Temple, 801-596-0500, mestizoarts.org