Monday, March 10

It was great waking up this morning to a rave review of In The Heights in the NYT! We're so happy for this cast and crew who have been working together for three years to get this play to Broadway. Just moving from Off-Broadway to Broadway is an amazing feat, but earning this kind of a review is such a boost to their deserved success. The reviewer, Charles Isherwood, really captured the strengths of the play and the up-beat mood created by the (mostly) young, incredibly talented cast. We feel like proud mommys . . .

Yesterday was a busy day for the Culture Buddies. First, Key Sunday Cinema Club, a movie club we attend every couple of weeks in West Newton, MA that prescreens independent and foreign movies, follwed by a speaker and discussion. We never know what we're going to see until we get there, but it's usually pretty good. Yesterday, we saw Under the Same Moon, a Mexican movie about a young boy's quest to get to his mother who has been in LA for four years trying to make enough money to bring him to the US. The child actor was very endearing, and it was a rather sweet movie, but a little too cliche-riddled for the Culture Buddies, and you could see every plot point coming a mile ahead (okay, Leslie still cried . . .).

We decided to make it a double-header and see another movie, since we had time to kill before meeting up with Culture-Buddy-in-Training, Lluvia, who was in town for a conference, and seeing a play at 7:00 in Boston. We saw Caramel a movie set in a Beruit that focuses on four women who work together in a beauty salon, their neighborhood, the restrictions they face as women in a repressive society, and their friendship. We both really enjoyed it and would recommend it highly.

After killing a little time at Barnes & Nobles, something the CB's have no trouble doing, we headed to the Huntington Theatre to meet up with Lluvia and see a production of Conor McPherson's play, Shining City. The CB's loved McPherson's Seafarer on their last NY trip and were looking forward to seeing another one of his plays. Unfortunately, we were rather disappointed in this one. Much of it depicted therapy sessions which seemed to go on and on at points, and the actor who played one of the four roles, the therapist, was pretty weak. In addition, it threw in the strangest curve ball ending that had the three of us trying to figure out what the hell it meant.

Lluvia Accepts Best Dressed Oscar
We caught some dinner afterwards and presented Lluvia with the Best Dressed Oscar for our Academy Awards party. This lovely statuette sported a one-of-a-kind couture dress designed by none other than Culture Buddy, Ann. Lluvia accepted the award on behalf of herself and Kate, and she also received a large poster of Sweeney Todd that the CB's had begged for from a movie theatre manager. By the way, did you know that the posters the movies display are double-sided w/a mirror image of the front on the back? Stick with us and you'll learn all kinds of fun facts!

More later,
The Culture Buddies