Hamilton (#722)


When my daughter Alison paid the extravagant and outrageous ticket price to see Hamilton shortly after it opened on Broadway in January of 2015, I thought she had made a mistake and that it would be closing shortly. I owe her a sincere apology, particularly after seeing it in my theater last weekend. This movie, very innovatively and creatively filmed, was of the actual live stage production, using multple cameras, camera angles and closeups and was, in my opinion, a choreographic milestone. Try to imagine a movie theater screen filled with an enormous head-only scene of the young actor from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (where I live), as King George, singing the funniest song in the show. HAMILTON was colorful, with wonderful singing and dancing—it is superior entertainment, and I really liked it. I did some research and learned that this film was streamed on television in 2020, and it may have been a wonderful experience, but cannot be compared to its magnificence on a huge theater screen. Even if you saw it then, I urge you to see it in your theater if you are fortunate enough to have a theater that's showing it. All the performers were first rate, and it was fun to see pure history depicted in this fashion. It was no surprise that this production was produced and distributed by Disney. 98% of critics and 99% of audiences joined me in a rousing thumbs up. Because nothing in my world is perfect, this 2 hour and 50  minute movie didn't need a 15 minute intermission, and I thought the movie was not as good after it, with a less than complementary depiction of Thomas Jefferson and diluted energy overall. Perhaps the author of this superlative spectacle just wore down. 


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