The Decemberists return to the Pavilion on Monday in support of their recent release What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World. Photo: Autumn De Wilde
Part modern folklorist, part “Portlandia,” The Decemberists never fail to deliver a fascinating set of intelligent, cathartic indie rock.
Front man Colin Meloy defines the band’s stylish, experimental narrative while throwing in enough whimsy to lighten things up and extract a few giggles. The revered act seems to have discovered the secret to engaging the disaffected as it continues to gather new fans even after a multi-year hiatus. Shovels & Rope opens.
Monday 6/1. $39, 7pm. nTelos Wireless Pavilion, 700 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 877-CPAV-TIX.
Andrew Middleditch turned left into a passing car on Barracks Road.
Mugshot from Albemarle Police
Prominent local realtor Andrew Middleditch, who was charged with driving under the influence following a May 25 fatal crash on Barracks Road, was released from jail Thursday on a $15,000 bond, according to the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail.
Ivy resident Middleditch, 55, was traveling east in the 2900 block of Barracks Road between Old Garth Road and Montvue in a 2013 GMC Yukon. He made a left turn into Haffner Farm, according to a police press release, at the same time Lonnie Wycliffe Branham, 78, attempted to go around Middleditch in a legal passing zone. Branham’s 1990 Chevy Lumina collided with the Yukon at 8:12am, according to police, who say the Lumina overturned and Branham died at the scene.
Judge William Barkley approved bond May 26 on the condition Middleditch neither consume nor possess alcohol, and he must, at his own expense, wear a bracelet that detects whether he’s in contact with alcohol, said Albemarle police spokesperson Carter Johnson. Neither Middleditch nor his attorney, Fran Lawrence, returned phone calls from C-VILLE.
This was Middleditch’s second DUI arrest. He was convicted in 2011, and had a 30-day suspended sentence and a restricted license for a year, according to court records. He also was charged with refusing a breath or blood test, a charge that was dropped.
A second DUI carries a mandatory 20 days in jail, and can go up to 40 days, depending on how high his blood alcohol content was, said legal expert David Heilberg.
Middleditch has not been charged with manslaughter, and police said the investigation is ongoing. Heilberg said the prosecutor will have to determine causation: whether Middleditch’s alleged intoxication was responsible for the fatality or whether it was merely coincidence. Such consideration includes whether his left signal was on, how fast Branhamwas going and whether a sober person would have looked in the mirror before turning, said Heilberg. “It’s not a black-and-white causation issue and could be argued by each side,” he said.
Before he retired in 1999, Branham worked at excavation contractor A.G. Dillard. According to his obituary, he liked tinkering with antique tractors and trucks, he restored a green-and-white 1972 Chevy Super Cheyenne named “Baby Doll,” and he loved bluegrass music and flat footing.
Middleditch has sold over $400 million in real estate in the 25 years he’s been in business, according to his website, including historic estates like Castle Hill in Keswick and Verulam in Ivy.
“He always seemed like a decent guy who worked hard,” said an acquaintance, who declined to be identified.
Martese Johnson and his attorney, Daniel Watkins, are optimistic that charges against Johnson will be dropped, even if it means another court date in June.
Staff photo
At a scheduled May 28 court hearing, the prosecution asked for more time to review the Virginia State Police investigation into the bloody March 18 arrest by Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control agents of 20-year-old UVA student Martese Johnson.
Prosecutors said in a motion that a final meeting with state police is set for the first week in June to review evidence, discuss findings and make decisions about the case. “Without suggesting what result may be reached, a short time after this meeting, the commonwealth will advise counsel for the defendant whether or not the commonwealth will be seeking to pursue the charges pending…,” read the motion, which suggested a June 12 court date, by which time a decision will be made.
Johnson was charged with obstruction of justice and being drunk in public after he was turned away from Trinity Irish Pub on the Corner early March 18 and questioned by ABC officers waiting there to apprehend underage drinkers. One of the agents grabbed his arm, and when Johnson asked to be released, he was grabbed from behind and wrestled to the ground, according to a friend. His head hit the sidewalk and required 10 stitches before he was delivered to jail.
Johnson’s attorney, UVA law grad Daniel Watkins, filed a motion to dismiss the charges, asserting that his client was arrested without reasonable suspicion. “An unconstitutional seizure occurred the first time [Special Agent Jared] Miller grabbed Mr. Johnson and demanded that he stop to answer questions,” said the motion. When Johnson was grabbed, there were no facts to support a reasonable belief he was engaged in criminal activity, the motion contended.
Watkins said if the case was tried, he’d need a two-day trial.
Said Charlottesville General District Court Judge Bob Downer, “Frankly, we don’t do two-day trials in general district court.” Downer said he would hear the case, not a jury, and he’d go to 5am the next day if necessary. He scheduled a September 30 trial date.
Outside the courtroom, Watkins said the charges are very serious and “it’s a big deal to have jail time hanging over your head.” He said he had not seen the state police report. “We believe the police lacked justifiable suspicion to detain [Johnson] so we believe the charges should be dropped,” said the attorney. He also said that he believed Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman was a “reasonable” man, and noted that Chapman’s small staff of prosecutors have been busy with two murder cases.
Johnson, who leaves for a Capitol Hill internship next week, spoke to reporters. “I just want to thank everyone who has supported me through what has been a strenuous process.” He added, “I believe justice will be served.”
The photo of Johnson on the ground and bleeding put the ABC in the national spotlight again and sparked protests on Grounds. Two years ago, ABC agents arrested a terrified, sparkling water-carrying Elizabeth Daly after surrounding her car in a darkened Harris Teeter parking lot, and later paid out $212,500 to settle the UVA student’s lawsuit.
Chapman refused to prosecute the Daly case, and immediately following Johnson’s arrest, he asked the Virginia State Police to launch a criminal investigation into the ABC officers’ arrest of Johnson. Although the ABC refused to identify the agents, according to the defense motion, they’re Miller, John Cielakie and Thomas Custer.
Johnson will appear again in court June 12 to learn whether his charges will be dismissed or if he goes to trial.
It’s just after 6am when 14-year-old Brianna Knight steps into a chicken coop in her backyard. Her hens are happy to see her, clucking and pecking as she works quietly, giving them food and fresh water and releasing them out into the yard for the day.
This is just the beginning of Brianna’s duties as caretaker of three flocks of laying hens on her family’s small farm, Three Creek, in Earlysville. Brianna is head of egg production and sales, an official-sounding title because this is more than a backyard hobby—last year, Brianna sold 220 dozen eggs at $4.50 each, bringing in almost $1,000 for the family.
“It’s all part of family entrepreneurship,” says her mother, Jennifer, who, along with her husband, Scott, moved to the farm in 2011 to not only teach Brianna and her two younger siblings, who are all homeschooled, the responsibility of work, but also to educate them about caring for other living things.
“Kids don’t know where their food comes from anymore, that a carrot comes from under the ground, or what grows on a tree, and it was really important for us to have that experience of being a caretaker of creation and animals,” Jennifer says.
Brianna says she decided she wanted to raise chickens after watching Food Inc. and learning more about the egg production process.
“It just horrified me that thesechickens are being kept in cages, stacked on top of each other… I was very upset with how they were being treated,” she says. On her 7th birthday, Brianna got her own flock of hens.
Last year, Brianna Knight pulled in almost $1,000 for the family by selling eggs from the chickens she’s raising on her family’s farm, Three Creek, in Earlysville. “It’s all part of family entrepreneurship,” says her mom, Jennifer. Photo: Emily Sacco
From the beginning, Brianna had a special connection to her birds, Jennifer says. “When we first got them, they weren’t friendly with people, so Brianna would take a milk crate and go into that chicken coop and sit there until they would come and sit on her lap. They would smell her shoulder, and she would swing on the swing set with a chicken on her lap,” she recalls. “We call her the chicken whisperer.”
Brianna says paying close attention to her charges is key to their health and safety.
“Some people ask me, why don’t you listen to music or something while you’re doing your chores? But a big part of it is listening,” Brianna explains. “The chickens will come up to me and just look at me, and I can look at them and figure out if anything is wrong… I can tell if a predator has been close, or if I see a chicken with watery eyes or looking kind of droopy or not drinking then I’ll look at them, look through their feathers, in their mouth and eyes. Or if one is stuck or getting pecked on I can hear them.”
Photo: Emily Sacco
Jennifer adds, “Things that I wouldn’t see, she is very aware of. She just has an ability to see and care for animals that I feel is very unique.”
Brianna’s dedication shows in the product she sells. The family has a waiting list for their brown, white and blue-green eggs, from a variety of chickens raised on non-GMO, soy-free feed from Sunrise Farms, in Stuarts Draft. “They’re the kind of eggs we want to eat,” says Jennifer.
The hens are free-roaming and moved every four to six weeks in the mobile chicken coop Brianna and her father created out of a friend’s trailer. They produce three to four dozen eggs per day in the warmer months, but they get a break in the winter.
“Some people put a light on their chickens in winter so they keep laying,” says Brianna, “but it’s just not natural and not healthy or kind to our animals. So even though we are letting our customers down and not making as much money, we just let [the chickens] have a break.”
Photo: Emily Sacco
But it isn’t all eggs, all the time for Brianna either. In addition to her Classical Conversations schoolwork, she spends her time acting in plays at Blue Ridge School or at worship team practice at her church (she sings and plays guitar). She is interested in medicinal herbs, and loves to forage in the woods near her house for tea ingredients.
She also cares for the family’s rabbits (raised for the family’s consumption) with her 10-year-old brother, John, and is responsible for breeding them in the summer. “We get as many as 30 rabbits sometimes,” she says. Last summer, she tried her hand at dairy goats but soon realized they weren’t the docile French Alpines she was expecting, but pygmies instead. “They would jump on me and I’d fall over, so they had to go,” she laughs. But Brianna is undeterred. Grinning, she says, “Next, I want to do pigs.”
Ev Chapman (left) and Molly Bocock began making jewelry in sixth grade. Now sophomores with their own line, Osita, the girls are selling out in local stores like Petit Bebe and Finch. Photo: Emily Sacco
As babies, Molly Bocock and Everett Chapman played together on the floor, babbling and cooing as their mothers lovingly watched. Today the girls, now high school sophomores, design jewelry together for their own line, Osita—and their mothers are still looking on.
Bocock’s mother, Nora Brookfield, and Chapman’s mom, Shannon Worrell, are longtime friends and founders of Charlottesville-based jewelry company Mi Ossa, which partners with women-owned studios in the U.S., Haiti, El Salvador and Ethiopia to create fair trade, one-of-a-kind pieces. Mi Ossa, which loosely translates to “my bones” in Italian or “bear” in Spanish, is the parent company of Osita (“little bear”).
Photo: Emily Sacco
“I consider Mi Ossa and Osita’s styles to be very different,” says Bocock. She says Osita is more preppy and colorful in style, while Mi Ossa sticks to earth tones. Osita is also geared toward a younger clientele at a lower price point.
But that doesn’t mean only high school and college students are wearing Osita designs.
“My friends wear them out and about all the time,” laughs Brookfield. “It’s fun to see people buy their products.”
Bocock and Chapman began making jewelry as sixth-graders, using leather scraps and leftover beads from their mothers’ buying trips to exotic locales.
Photo: Emily Sacco
“We started experimenting with it for fun,” says Chapman (whose father is C-VILLE co-owner Bill Chapman). They made bracelets and necklaces for friends, posted photos of the pieces on Instagram, and gained a following. They began selling their jewelry at local craft fairs, and soon, the demand was more than they could keep up with.
Today, Bocock, who attends Charlottesville High School, and Chapman, who attends St. Anne’s-Belfield School, are placing orders in the hundreds and selling out of their products online and in local stores such as Petit Bebe and Finch.
The girls design many of the items in collaboration with the same artisans who create pieces for Mi Ossa. And just like their mothers, they try to source only from women-owned studios, many of them in El Salvador and Haiti.
“The opportunities for women there are limited,” says Bocock. “Culturally, women are subordinate.”
The girls got to see this first-hand on a recent trip to Haiti with their mothers (over Chapman’s spring break) to meet with the businesswomen and artisans and create new designs.
“The artisans need work,” Bocock explains. “We realized that the more orders we can fill, the more work we can provide, the better it is for them… they can keep making money for theirfamily, maybe send their kids toschool, maybe get better water.”
Chapman agrees, “It definitely changed my mindset and inspired me to do more.”
The trip also inspired the girls artistically.
“When some people think of Haiti they don’t think of it as a very beautiful place,” says Bocock. “And a lot of times it’s not; it’s impoverished, there is rubble everywhere.”
Chapman continues, “But everything in Haiti is so colorful—the stores, the tap taps (buses) … there’s artwork everywhere. We want to showcase the art, to show off Haiti.”
Photo: Emily Sacco
Their latest products, which they designed in and sourced from Haiti on this trip, are a result of that desire. They created two necklaces using organic Majok seeds, brass, steel and horn, which were made by Haitian artists and metalworkers as they watched. They also selected colorful bracelets and beaded wallets by “hip Haitian designers,” as Brookfield describes, to incorporate into their line.
“They have a great fashion sense,” says Brookfield. “They have a good eye for what is going to sell, which is hard to have.”
They also know how they want to help, and donated a portion of the proceeds from their May Days sale (held May 4-9 at the Mi Ossa lab downtown) to the Restavek Freedom Foundation, which works to help end child slavery in Haiti.
“It’s become more than just two girls from middle school or high school designing stuff for their parents for fun,” Bocock says. Chapman agrees. “We didn’t think about the social entrepreneurship thing back then,” she says. “It was more like, ‘Oh, these are some cool beads from Haiti,’ but now we really understand what we are doing.”
“In Haiti, they were so professional,” says Brookfield. She recounts an important meeting with the head of that country’s Artist Business Network, Nathalie Tancrede. “She’s our cornerstone person, and has ties with all the artisans we work with. She said, ‘We would really like you to come again in June,’ and she meant Molly and Ev, not Shannon and me.”
Technically, 2-year-old Peanut belongs to Adam Hensley’s mom, Keri, but it’s Adam who has a special bond with the bird. Since
the family found the sun conure on Craigslist last summer, the 15-year-old has taken it upon himself to help care for him. They get along so well that, “Whenever Adam comes home from school, [Peanut] will jump on Adam and start kissing his lips,” Keri said. “It’s just like having a dog.”
The best thing about summer? A quick (or not so quick) dip in the pool to cool off. Here are a few of the area’s best offerings, where the water’s cold and the splashes come free.
Pools
Smith Aquatic & Fitness Center
1000-A Cherry Ave., 970-3072
The biggest and baddest of public pools in the area, 27,000-square-foot Smith Aquatic features two indoor pools (one competitive, one leisure), water slides, a play structure and a lazy river.
Onesty Family Aquatic Center at Meade Park
300 Meade Ave., 295-7532
This outdoor pool near Woolen Mills boasts water slides, in-water playgrounds, a lazy river, a diving board, lap lanes and a zero-depth play area.
Washington Park Pool
1001 Preston Ave., 977-2607
A well-known sledding spot in the winter, Washington Park comes through in the summertime, too, with a lighted swimming pool, zero-depth play area, water slides, a diving board and a mushroom waterfall.
Spray grounds
Forest Hills Spray Grounds 1022 Forest Hills Park Ave.
Greenleaf Spray Grounds1598 Rose Hill Dr.
Belmont Spray Grounds 725 Stonehenge Ave.
Lakes
(Open daily 11am-7pm from Memorial Day to Labor Day)
A few years ago, Dave Berzonsky and Estela Knott, who run Blue Ridge Music Together, added a yurt to their backyard with dreams of opening a preschool. And they did—for a couple years while their girls, Luna and Mareana, were little, they used it as a homeschool cooperative. These days, the yurt has morphed into a quiet space for their two girls, ages 7 and 5. “It’s a hang out spot for our kids, our music making, meditation and as a little get away from the buzzing keneticness of our house,” Estela says.
John, Eliza, Emily and Anne Marie Morrison can often be found having a jam session on the front porch of their Belmont house. Photo: Meredith Coe
You may have never seen the Morrison family before, but if you live in Belmont, you’ve likely heard them. The quartet—John, Emily and their two daughters, 12-year-old Eliza and 10-year-old Anne Marie—often sets up theirfamily band on their front porch across from Belmont Park, which, as it turns out, is a great advertisement for their nonprofit roots/acoustic music school, The Front Porch (go figure).
“By ‘roots’ we mean old time, bluegrass, blues and folk,” says Emily, who hosts jams, teaches classes and holds workshops in guitar, fiddle, banjo, cello, voice and dance from their home, but will expand the school and its offerings to a studio on the campus of Mountaintop Montessori in the fall. “We’ll have lots of classes available for people of all ages.”
The true purpose of The Front Porch,” says Emily, “is to be a gathering place for music lovers and players, a community center for creativity.” And the Morrisons practice what they preach: Each family member plays at least two instruments. We spent an afternoon with them for a peek at their life in Charlottesville (and their musical chops).
Photo: Meredith Coe
Describe another member of your family in three words or less.
John: Anne Marie is warm, lively and persistent.
Emily: John is dedicated, appreciative, loving and lighthearted.
Eliza: My mom is chatty, loyal and creative. (John adds, “Inspired.”)
Anne Marie: Eliza is playful, funny and smart.
Photo: Meredith Coe
What are your careers and hobbies?
Emily: I’ve been a classroom teacher for 15 years in the Charlottesville area. I taught high school English at Western Albemarle and at Tandem Friends School, and was the music director at Mountaintop Montessori. I’m also a yoga teacher—I run a summer camp for kids called Yoga Camp for Creativity. But this year I’m taking a hiatus from all of it to homeschool Anne Marie and get The Front Porch started. John has been a Medical Physicist at Varian Medical Systems in Charlottesville for 14 years.
John: We love playing music with friends and family—Emily’s two talented brothers also live in Charlottesville. Our kids have grown up participating in the Blue Ridge Irish Music School, which has been formative for them in terms of loving traditional music and dance. The girls ride with the Cutaway Girls’ Mountain Bike team, which they have been participating in for three years now. It’s a wonderful program that promotes strength and determination in young girls.
Emily: We camp, hike and backpack in this area as well as out west. John is from the West Coast, so we’ve spent a number of our summers in Washington, Oregon and Colorado. John spends most of his spare time searching for banjo picks, puttering in the yard and walking Sheila (the dog).
Photo: Meredith Coe
Anne Marie and Eliza, what would be your ultimate day in or around Charlottesville?
Anne Marie: Get up at 8:30, go to the Saturday farmer’s market and get tacos and donuts, have a play date, eat pizza lunch, then go biking with our friends at Preddy Creek. For dinner we would have stuffed shells and a Caesar salad, and we would watch two family movies before bed. (Eliza adds, “Read a great book and eat more donuts!”)
Photo: Meredith Coe
When and where do you spend family time around Charlottesville?
Our absolute favorite hike in the area (shh, it’s a secret!) is the St. Mary’s Wilderness over in Stuarts Draft—it’s great for a day hike as well as a backpacking excursion. The Saturday and Wednesday farmer’s markets are sure bets for us in the warmer months. We love riding bikes on the Rivanna Trail and Albemarle greenways. The girls’ favorite bike ride is Preddy Creek. These days we find ourselves on the sidelines at many girls’ lacrosse games on the weekends.
Do you have any advice on how families can better enjoy our town?
Get outside! The Rivanna Trail is a wonderful resource that we use nearly daily to walk our dog Sheila and ride bikes. We spend a lot of time in city parks, especially Belmont Park, which is across the street from our house. Our girls practically learned to walk at that park, and it’s still a big part of our life every day. Enjoy your neighborhood! We frequently stroll the ’hood visiting friends, having dinners and wandering downtown to hit the library and get gelato.
Take the kids to a show! There are so many incredible arts-related activities available to us that often we feel we’re choosing what not to do. John and I met at the Prism many years ago, a place where we still love to see live music as a family. I love theater, of which there is a staggering abundance in C’ville, and of course catching live music of all kinds, which we have in spades. The density of talented musicians and artists in this area is truly awesome.
What are some of the more challenging aspects of parenthood?
I suppose the greatest challenge is often feeling there aren’t enough hours in the day. Coffee helps! But we also feel so grateful and humbled by this beautiful community we live in, it’s hard for any of the challenges to feel like much more than blips on the radar.
At Light House, 17-year-old Saunder Boyle has had the opportunity to write, direct, film and edit her own movies, a few of which have screened in festivals across the U.S. Photo: Rammelkamp Foto
It’s late at night, and 17-year-old Saunder Boyle was supposed to be home three hours ago. But her parents aren’t worried. She isn’t out partying with friends; she’s making a movie.
“My parents get the whole long-hour shooting days,” says Boyle, a rising senior at Tandem Friends School. “Things invariably go three hours late. I guess they’re glad it’s film and not something else.”
Film has been “it” for Boyle since she was 13, when she took her first class at Light House Studio, a local nonprofit youth filmmaking center.
“It was filled with juniors and seniors in high school, and I was this little 13-year-old just kind of there, and I was so intimidated,” says Boyle. “But I was just so interested in film itself. I knew that whatever I was going to learn from the class was going to be better than how nervous I felt.” Boyle went on to take at least 15 more workshops at Light House, “more than any other student I’ve met,” says Lead Mentor Amanda Patterson. Each workshop focuses on a different aspect of filmmaking: narrative, screen-writing, music video, documentary, cinematography, animation, visual effects or commercial production. All students at Light House finish with a completed portfolio of work, which can give them an advantage when applying to film schools, says Zoe Cohen, Light House program director. In eighth grade, Boyle made her first film, The Pillow, about a walking and talking pillow looking for its purpose in life (the pillow, played by Boyle, is repeatedly rejected but finally finds its calling when it catches someone’s fall). Since then, she has made six more films, several of which have gone on to film festivals. Her most recent, The Lemonade Standoff, which she directed, has been shown at film festivals across the U.S. and was the runner-up for the ACTION! High School Director Competition at the 2014 Virginia Film Festival.
Boyle says she feels “most connected” to The Lemonade Standoff, about two siblings with competing lemonade stands, because it was the first film in which she was the lead director. “I was heavily involved in all aspects of that one—from story to script to production to editing,” she says. “I really put all of myself in it.”
It was also her most challenging film.
“On-set conditions were insane,” she says. “It was about 95 degrees in the middle of the summer and all of the scenes were outside. We all got terrible sunburns; the team was lobster-red for days.”
Another film, Breaking Character, which Boyle describes as “a mixture of a dark comedy, psychological horror and thriller,” has been shown at multiple film festivals, and in 2014, her film The Collector received the Golden Clapper Award at the Reel Riot Film Festival in Atlanta.
Patterson describes Boyle’s filmmaking style as bold. “Every step of the way, she always has her eye on the finished product, paying special attention to the important details that make her films stand out. She’s a risk-taker.” Patterson also praises Boyle’s ability to lead, an important skill since “a film cannot be made with just one person,” she says.
Boyle says she owes a lot to her mentors at Light House, many of whom are former Light House Studio students themselves. According to Cohen, the mentors’ job is to allow students to be as hands- on as possible in filmmaking. “We want to really let them take over and learn from the process of exploring,” she says.
Boyle says she finds inspiration for her films in real life. “I often just take weird things that happen to me and put them into other characters lives,” she explains. “I just wrote a script about a family who finds an urn in their vacation home, which actually happened to me last summer—it was the weirdest thing.”
Writing is Boyle’s favorite aspect of the filmmaking process. She hopes to study film after she graduates and eventually become a screenwriter and director. “I want to do the sort of movies that people like and can go back to, that they relate to.”
Her advice for aspiring young filmmakers: “Take whatever class interests you, but diving in is the best thing. There’s no time to be meek. If you’re really interested in something, you just have to go ahead and do it.”
Saunder’s flick picks
Dead Poets Society
This movie has meant a lot to me for a long time. It explores so many themes—the pur-
pose of art, the battle between tradition and innovation, trust in one’s self—through a cast of characters that are all well-rounded and developed into human beings with their fair share of very human flaws.
Birdman
Birdman is one of those movies that actually lives up to its hype. It’s incredible as far as the cinematography goes, but the quality of the story is really what made me get attached to this one.
Moonrise Kingdom
I don’t think Wes Anderson’s style always works to his movies’ benefit, but Moonrise Kingdom is an exception. The film’s visual quirks definitely work in favor of the story. I first saw this movie when I was just beginning to take film seriously, and the sheer beauty of nearly every shot made quite the impression on eighth grade me.
Good Bye, Lenin!
I actually saw this movie for the first time in my European historyclass last year, and I was immediately impressed. It has a fantastic mix of history, comedy and drama that struck me as being very honest—a balance I hope my future work can display.
The Blues Brothers
Apart from being funny on its own, this movie pulls off some crazy stuff while remaining cohesive. I imagine it’s not easy to weave elements like choreographed dances, ridiculous car crashes and a giant list of celebrity cameos into one movie, but somehow they did—and the movie is all the better for it.
