The Review is In

The joy of music: Houston Chamber Choir does Leonard Bernstein — and hisdaughter — proud

The ladies of Houston Chamber Choir unleash their Latin sass in West SideStory's "America."
Photo by Jeff Grass
And the men got cheeky with "Gee, Officer Krupke."
Photo by Jeff Grass
Andrea Brown in "One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man."
Photo by Jeff Grass
Jamie Bernstein (left) with artistic director Robert Simpsion and hiswife Marianna.
Photo by Jeff Grass

Travel back to 1957, just weeks prior to the Aug. 19 premiere of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story in Washington D.C.

The composer wasn't getting sleep nor eating more than pastrami sandwiches. Many operatic portions which Bernstein thought significant were being cut. Music had to be rewritten, re-scored; he even drew the melody of "One Hand, One Heart" from a rejected tune intended for Candide, which he also penned that year.

Sure, everyone, including Bernstein, wanted the updated Romeo and Juliet tale to be commercially successful, but at what cost?

While fine tuning the partiture, his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre, traveled to her hometown of Chile with her daughter Jamie, and many letters documenting the progress went back and forth.

At a recent Houston Chamber Choir concert "Music in the Key of Joy" at the Church of St. John the Divine, Jamie Bernstein read (for CultureMap's interview with her click here) those letters and recounted the many trials and tribulations of her father's aesthetic journey, one whose music was invariably suffused with joy, taking listeners right to the point of creation and controversy as his works evolved against the current of what was thought of as "serious" in academia.

Bye bye bow ties and hello colorful shirts, naughty stilettos and jazz hands. It's time for vocal pops.

Tonality? Broadway? Musical theater? Tunes? They were considered passe — so last century. Atonality was in.

If there's one thing Leonard Bernstein couldn't stop sketching is an unforgettable melodic line.

And if there's one thing the Houston Chamber Choir knows best is how to shape beautiful melodic lines, like a swoosh that begins al niente, strives for a crest and cascades down to repose. Time after time the singers — usually in in prim and proper formal attire, long gowns, tuxedos, water bottles and scarves — managed to keep long contours connected across many bar lines.

But this was a different kind of Houston Chamber Choir: Bye bye bow ties and hello colorful shirts, naughty stilettos and jazz hands. It's time for vocal pops.

Even artistic director Robert Simpson moved out of the way, waving his baton just for the large ensemble numbers, to let loose a theatrical, sassy (saucy) and well executed somewhat programmatic musicale performed mostly from memory.

Four sections honed in on the composer's diverse opus. "Fortune Smiles" amassed tunes that evinced fate, "Adonai" delved into Bernstein's Jewish ancestry, "Life in America" touched on the immigrant experience, "Boy Meets Girl" explored cheeky romance and "Any Questions" summed up his ethos with Candide's "Make Our Garden Grow."

Someone needs to gift Kelli Shircliffe lots of sparkly bling — and no Swarovski crystals, either. Real stuff only, please.

To sing "Glitter and Be Gay" is akin to taking on Etta James' "At Last." It's a demanding diva ditty with all sorts of taxing technical and emotional difficulties. For her rendition, someone needs to gift Kelli Shircliffe lots of sparkly bling — and no Swarovski crystals, either. Real stuff only, please.

Besides gloriously bellowing E-flats and whipping through comedic coloratura passages, this gal's fearless fuss earned hosannas from many in the audience.

Chichester Psalms (which Leonard affectionately nicknamed "Chich") conveyed the troupe's blending capabilities. Magical harmonic modulations and unexpected resolutions rise and fall, opening up to a pure treble solo by fourth-grader Thomas Girardet, who reminded me of a time when I, as a young lad, stepped up to sing the second movement.

There was no restraint in "America" and "Gee, Officer Krupke" from West Side Story. Finger snapping, clapping, hip shaking, slapstick, it all worked.

What a gent Joshua Wilson was in "Lonely Town," which was a nice prelude to Sonja Bruzauskas getting foxy with "A Little Bit in Love." And Andrea Brown's "One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man" . . . let's just say she's a dame you don't mess with. Many other showcase performances, and that of the Treble Choir of Houston, were outstanding.

Having listened and performed these works repeatedly, I found myself reminiscing of the events surrounding past concerts with nostalgia. Jamie Bernstein honors her father by hosting these show-and-play productions, but she confided that recalling the memories isn't easy.

Music zealots surely appreciated her willingness to do so.

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Movie Review

New horror movie Faces of Death puts a modern twist on cult classic

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy — in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks — is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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