Monthly Archives: May 2018

“Family is not an ‘f’-word.” Deadpool 2 and Solo: A Star Wars Story

28 May 2018

8 Comments

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Ah, summer. The time we all look forward to all year long … until it’s actually here. We get to be outside. We get to do back-breaking yard-work. We get to enjoy the sun. We get to sweat through our dress clothes every day at work. We get to escape our troubles watching one blockbuster movie after another in the soothingly air-conditioned multiplex. We get to pay through the nose to be bombarded by an unyielding series of overblown, unwatchable chase scenes as latex-clad superheroes and blaster-wielding space-farers (most of them now owned in whole or in part by Disney) battle for the hearts and minds of John Q. Public.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Here we are, 2018. We’ve already witnessed Marvel’s Avengers storm cinemas, and I’m still a bit shell-shocked by what I did (and didn’t) see. Now, we steel ourselves for the one-two punch of Deadpool 2 (produced by 20th Century Fox in affiliation with Marvel Entertainment … though as Wall Street tells us Fox is soon to be owned outright by Marvel/Disney) and Solo: A Star Wars Story (released by Disney’s LucasFilm studio, less than six months after The Last Jedi underwhelmed some and thrilled a few more). I was prepared for the worst, and I was pleasantly surprised by both.

I thought the original Deadpoolwas a breath of fresh (raunchy) air, a genius bit of commerce that simultaneously lampooned the superhero genre (in the broadest Tex Avery-style possible) while laughing its red-and-black-ski-masked head all the way to the bank. I feared Deadpool 2 would be a stultifying, self-indulgent, self-satisfied, bloated, and unnecessary money-grab. The brainchild of producer and star Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool 2 welcomes a new director David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, John Wick) and a new raison d’etre. After burning the cape-and-cowl zeitgeist to the ground with the first flick, this latest chapter imbues our titular anti-hero with a compelling backstory and a heartbreaking new frenemy (Josh Brolin’s superb-I-won’t-break-character-for-any-bit-of-tomfoolery “Cable”) … while still frying our retinas and shaming us for any adoration we may still hold for these kind of films. And, yeah, admittedly it’s still kind of an unnecessary and bloated money-grab.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Nonetheless, I had a ball. I would have loved to have had 30 minutes of my life back from its lengthy run-time, but I had a ball.

(What happened to the fine art of the perfectly paced 90 minute or 1 hour 45 minute movie? Have filmmakers forgotten the time-tested strategy of “leaving the audience wanting more”? Asking for a friend …)

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Similarly, I was wary that Solo: A Star Wars Story, with its troubled production history, would be a bust. LEGO Movie and 22 Jump Streethelmers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller had filmed nearly 90% of the movie when they were unceremoniously booted in the 11th hour and replaced with Ron Howard. Further, there is much hand-wringing this weekend in the House of Mouse that the latest Star Wars installment only broke $100 million domestic. Boo hoo.

Well, Solo is pretty damn fun and utterly heartfelt and overall a delight … and also would greatly benefit from having a tighter running time.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

I’ll be blasphemous for a moment (I can’t wait for the comments). I actually like Alden Ehrenreich’s take on the title role. Solo details the “origin story” of this legendary character first portrayed by Harrison Ford, detailing Solo’s misspent youth meeting cute with Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover, running rings around Billy Dee Williams), and, um, the Millennium Falcon. I thought Ford was gangbusters as Indiana Jones, but his Han Solo was occasionally too aloof, too smug for the “scruffy nerf-herder” he actually was purported to be. Ehrenreich brings a refreshing “little boy lost” quality to the role, not dissimilar to Chris Pine’s blessed de-Shatnerizing of the iconic role of Captain Kirk in the recent Star Trek reboot. My two cents. Let the hateration commence.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Both Deadpool 2 and Solo are glorified heist movies, employing the “building the perfect team to complete the perfect job” conceit as an excuse to explore what it means to be a family.  The best heist flicks (Channing Tatum’s Logan Lucky a great recent example) present us a collection of colorful, misdirected ne’er-do-wells who discover a higher reason for being – the fellowship of man – on their way to doing something truly despicable. Deadpool even offers us the poetic bon mot “family is not an ‘f’-word” as our favorite mutant mercenary loses his true love (a luminous Morena Bacarin) and fills his broken heart with a collection of wackadoodle buddies (the aforementioned Brolin as “Cable,” Stefan Kapičić as a comically CGI’d “Colossus,” Zazie Beetz as a dynamite take-no-prisoners “Domino,” and Leslie Uggams as Deadpool’s cantankerous roommate “Blind Al”).

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Likewise, Solo is populated with a rogues’ gallery of character players. Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge (her feisty, feminist, rabble-rousing ‘droid L3-37 deserves her own outing ASAP), Paul Bettany, Jon Favreau, Joonas Suotamo, and aforementioned Donald Glover all turn in standout moments in an otherwise overstuffed enterprise. Emilia Clarke is particularly impactful as Han Solo’s hometown love Qi’ra, resisting “femme fatale” cliches and presenting a conflict-ridden soul who will persevere by golly, despite a galaxy-full of misogynistic roadblocks.  (I also must note that the train-robbing scene in Solo is one of the crispest staged action sequences in the Star Wars series in quite a while.)

Neither film is perfect, nor does either need to be. We have become a film-going culture that consumes its heroes in episodic narrative gulps – as if Charles Dickens had written in less prosaic terms about people who wore tight pants and could bend steel with their bare hands. Wait, he didn’t?

Deadpool 2 and Solo are way-stations in their respective decades-long cinematic franchises: X-Men and Star Wars. The fact that both offer a bit of humanistic allegory – some nutrition along with their empty popcorn calories – is quite remarkable and welcome.The fact that they will both sell truckloads of overpriced action figures and smirkingly ironic t-shirts is a given. Welcome to 21st century America.

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Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.

“Nevertheless, she persisted.” Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella) … Detroit’s Opera MODO

24 May 2018

11 Comments

“Nevertheless, she persisted.” Funny to consider that phrase apropos to a fairy tale princess, but darn if Opera MODO’s latest production Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella) doesn’t give glorious vocce to that timely and essential concept. I’m with her, indeed.

Directed brilliantly (and I mean brilliantly) by designer/director Moníka Essen, with a very clever original English translation by librettist Caitlin Cashin, La Cenerentola offers a Cinderella for our modern age: selfie-obsessed stepsisters with cotton candy colored hair; a wicked stepfather who looks like the bastard child of Stanley Tucci’s “Caesar Flickerman” from The Hunger Games and fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld; a fairy godmother in Chanel couture who would be a kick-a** contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race; TWO princes in skinny suits and hipster garb; and a Cinderella as a stifled artiste who gives as good as she gets.

In all transparency, my day-time employer Kerr Russell sponsored this production, and I was privileged enough to attend the final dress rehearsal in Essen’s home/performance space “The Fortress of Fun.” (Imagine the Kennedy Compound as designed by Marc Chagall and Dr. Seuss. This home is divine. I didn’t want to leave.)

Essen makes excellent use of the space (obvi) with the first and final acts transpiring in her cavernous and elegant living room/bar, some transitional moments as the audience is treated to libations and snacks in the courtyard, and a “ball”/Paris is Burning vogue-off centerpiece in Essen’s adjacent art gallery. The immersive approach is far from gimmicky. With a wink and a smile, Essen and her ensemble embrace the kitsch and the pathos and take their viewers on what is, in fact, a thoughtful, poignant, hysterical, and utterly engaging journey (a word that has become cliché, but is spot on here).

Accompaniment is provided by Steven McGhee on a grand piano, an omnipresent musical narrator of sorts, commenting at times on the proceedings with physicality and guffaws. He’s a pip. There are two casts performing in repertory. Our cast was the Friday/Sunday cast.

Julia Hoffert is a battle-ready Cinderella for the ages, as much Amazonian princess (think Wonder Woman with a painter’s palette) as Disney one. Her vocals soar, but her acting seals the deal, providing a haunted and heartbreaking and ultimately inspiring narrative arc of a woman reclaiming her soul.

The rest of the ensemble are equally brilliant and technically proficient. Lindsay Terrell and Erika Thomspon simultaneously terrify and amuse as Cinderella’s truly horrid siblings. There isn’t one piece of beautifully appointed scenery they don’t gleefully chew. Kurt Frank makes skeeziness a joy to behold as patriarch Don Magnifico. Ben Boskoff is a luminous and dreamy Prince Ramiro (this boy can sing!), and Jacob Surzyn is an utter lark as the Prince’s foil and sidekick Dandini.

But snatching wigs. And stealing. the. show? Aaron Von Allmen as Cinderella’s savior Alidoro, a fairy godmother with attitude who inspires both her charge Cinderella and the audience to be bold, to be bad, and to not take guff from anyone. It is a brilliant addition to the production to have a fierce and funny drag queen be the shaman who drives transformation of the most magical kind: becoming true to one’s self.

As you can imagine, the costuming is smart, yet economical. Not a prop nor a sight gag are wasted, and, every moment adds up to crystalline narrative coherence. I’m not an opera person (I’m sure the MODO folks are tired of hearing that), which is what makes what they do SO brilliant, creating accessible yet sophisticated entree to one of the most beautiful art forms. As my friend Jane Kang texted me after the show about her husband, “Ben was scared it would be too artsy for him … but he LOVED it.”

That is true. And I would posit that the reason we all loved it – and trust me, I haven’t observed as delighted an audience in a long time – is that the production spoke in wise and witty ways to our present human condition of cultural atrophy and of stunted identity and how we owe it to ourselves to rise up, push back, and, yes, persist. Do not miss this show.

  • Rossini’s Cenerentola! Tickets available HERE!
  • May 24-27, 2018 at The Fortress of Fun

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Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.

“Donny and Marie without the sexual tension.” Steve Martin and Martin Short’s An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life at Fort Wayne’s Embassy Theatre

20 May 2018

7 Comments

There is a perfect comedic moment – amidst countless such moments – at the end of Steve Martin and Martin Short’s current touring production An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life. Short is serenading the audience with Sondheim’s cliched classic “Send in the Clowns” while sitting atop the grand piano on which Steve Martin accompanies him.

For the first (and last) time in the show, Short is playing for sincerity, employing his surprisingly effective and beautiful singing voice to wring ironic pathos out of the lyrics, albeit with that omnipresent puckish twinkle in his eye.

Roles suddenly reversed, Martin editorializes shamelessly, interrupting the flow with delightfully pointed barbs (“Where are those godd*mned clowns?!” … “NARY a clown!”). Martin croons, “One who keeps tearing around [gestures to self], one who can’t move [flits a hand toward Martin].” Martin stops playing, looks at Short with believable exasperation, and spits out a perfectly timed: “F*ck you.” Cue audience howls of delight.

That moment of camaraderie and candor is an exquisite representation of the show in its entirety: a streamlined and contemporary homage to the unhinged yet cerebral comics stylings of, say, a Steve Allen or Victor Borge, the leave-it-all-on-the-field heart of a Sid Caesar, the button-down mind of a Bob Newhart, the buddy/buddy tension of a Martin and Lewis in their prime, and the glib showbizzy glitz of a classic Bob Hope Oscar hosting gig (sans those pesky awards).

While those influences are obvious and intentional and openly acknowledged by Martin and Short, the show is very much its own special creation, as much a reflection of and capstone to the storied careers of its two featured stars as it is a celebration of the artistic influences on these two talented baby boomers.

Performing at Fort Wayne‘s historic Embassy Theatre on Friday, May 18 to a sold out crowd (which became a witty aside in itself at the expense of performers who “never learned to save” and who “sell out” doing such latter-career runs), An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life is a warm, intimate, clubby, utterly charming fireside chat of a production: expertly paced, professionally mounted, and consummately memorable. To describe this as a Broadway caliber show would not be hyperbole.

There are some fantastically bonkers surprises I will dare not spoil in this review. Just be aware that, while both performers exhibit a lovely, moneyed, Carsonesque cool, calm, and collected demeanor throughout, that poise is a big ol’ ruse … their trademark crazy is just one banjo, bagpipe, or leaf blower away. Oh, and Jiminy Glick. As a hand puppet.

This is a beautifully balanced evening, leveraging video, music, talk show formats, monologues, vintage photos, and sketch comedy to weave a compelling narrative of how these two performers found success (and occasional failure) in Hollywood and how their infectious bromance evolved over four decades. “Donny and Marie without the sexual tension,” Short quips at one point.

Also, as evidence of the graciousness and wisdom of these two performers who endeavor to give every patron his or her money’s worth, to celebrate the talent of others, AND to take a well-deserved mid-show break, the production features a kind of concert-within-a-show as frequent Martin musical collaborators Steep Canyon Rangers take to the stage and offer a bluegrass inferno the likes of which I’ve never seen. Imagine the titular character in “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” bum-rushing a Lollapalooza mosh pit inside Studio 54.

So. freaking. good.

As my mother observed (we were there to celebrate her birthday and Mother’s Day): “It was like Steve Martin and Martin Short were in my living room, and we just got to listen to them and laugh without talking to them or without them hurting our feelings. Martin and Steve performed atop a grand piano at one zany point and referenced #MeToo in a hilarious, subtle fashion. What a show the Martins created…a real gift for two hours which flew by. I feel like I know those guys now.”

Amen to that. Nary a clown? Pshaw. Absolute geniuses? Indubitably.

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Postscript … and then THIS happened … whoa!

Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language

The King and I at Detroit’s Fox Theatre: A puzzlement worth solving

10 May 2018

5 Comments

king and I banner

Originally published by Encore Michigan

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I is a puzzlement. For the modern viewer at least. The classic show has one of the most beautiful and haunting scores in the legendary R&H canon, but that book … that book. It’s one part Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, one part Westernized history lesson of a culture that deserved better – a fetishization of Asian stereotypes that somehow doubles upon itself as a stringent critique of racism, ethnocentrism, and misogyny.

The King and I is very much a “have its cake and eat it too” smorgasbord of mid-century tropes. Is it a Rorschach test indicting Westerners’ elitist, imperialist, entitled tendencies, or is it simply a smug regurgitation of prejudices for self-satisfied commercial ends? That whole “Small House of Uncle Thomas” ballet in the second act was likely a provocative critique of racism in its day, but our post-Book of Mormon-conditioned cynicism now brings the sequence a whole new layer of culturally appropriated meta-awkwardness.

Blessedly, Lincoln Center’s recent Tony-winning revival, now touring nationally and currently running at Detroit’s Fox Theatre, sidesteps (mostly) the show’s more cringe-worthy moments with a light, humanistic approach that focuses less on spectacle (although there is just the right amount of glitz) and more on the quiet moments as Anna and the King find their appreciation for each other as people not stereotypes. The time-warped jokes about hoop skirts and polygamy still abound, but the production and its cast do a lovely job winking at the clunkier bits without condescending to the source material or breaking characterization. That’s an impressive high wire act.

king and IThe cast is sublime, with leads Elena Shaddow (Anna), Jose Llana (King of Siam), Joan Almedilla (Lady Thiang), and Q Lim (Tuptim) offering riched, nuanced turns on iconic characters. Llana plays up the childlike whimsy of an authoritarian wise enough to know his limitations but far too arrogant to openly admit them. His “et cetera, et cetera, et cetera” becomes a kind of postmodern emotional shorthand that never devolves into hackneyed shtick (more “I am Groot,” less “That’s what SHE said!”).

Shaddow presents a fiery and steely Anna, overlayed with poignant notes of loss and heartache -#ImWithHoopSkirt. Almedilla avoids the community theatre pitfall of devolving Lady Thiang into Cinderella’s Lady Tremaine, painting a portrait of a dutiful if wounded courtesan who finds agency working between the cracks in a broken system. Her “Something Wonderful” is a heartbreaking, pretzel-logic showstopper.

Q Lim’s Tuptim – offered as a gift of “property” to the King at the show’s beginning (even though her heart belongs to another) – is the show’s moral compass, revealing the toxic hypocrisy at the heart of Siam’s patriarchy. Her “My Lord and Master” is ablaze with a welcome feminist undercurrent that might be anachronistic to this show and its setting but perfectly welcome in this #MeToo era. “We Kissed In a Shadow” takes on an increased urgency in Lim’s hands as well. Thank goodness.

king and I posterAs expected, the costumes (Catherine Zuber) and sets (Michael Yeargen) are divine. You can’t do this show without some sartorial sumptuousness, and Zuber delivers, her cast awash in gorgeous, flowing jewel-toned silks. The sets are more evocative than detailed, filling the space with floating, gliding pillars that represent a number of locales. Yeargen’s scenic work brings a lovely and surreal dream-like quality to the proceedings which suits Bartlett Sher’s contemporary and self-aware direction.

The King and I is a classic that deserves to be rediscovered by modern audiences, and this production is one for the ages, smoothing over any problematic datedness with a fresh and humane approach. This production celebrates the wonder and beauty of cultures finding appreciation for each other and, more importantly, of people letting go of gendered and racial pretenses and embracing their common humanity.

king and I audienceReel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language

“I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends” – Survival Tips From the Front Lines of Legal Marketing (as published by JD Supra) #lmamkt

4 May 2018

4 Comments

Originally published by JD Supra – https://lnkd.in/ejKKP85

I never really understood what a mid-life crisis was. It seemed like a made-up thing to rationalize men acting super-self-indulgent, throwing over any prior obligations, and buying a stupid yellow sports car. The kind of thing Neil Simon would write about, starring George Segal or Donald Sutherland, rocking plaid bell bottoms and a silky shirt unbuttoned to their navels. (If you aren’t a child of the 1970s, I’m seriously dating myself.)

I still think it is a false construct, existing not so much in reality as in the minds of perpetually adolescent, commitment phobic men and Hollywood screenwriters.

HOWEVER, as I near the mid-century mark, I do understand that crushing, clammyfeeling of why am I here, what have I accomplished, have I made a difference? Every time I read my Wabash College alumni magazine, featuring tales of people my age (and younger) who have found cures for cancer while traversing the Congo as CEOs of major, multinational conglomerates with their beautiful, sartorially-gifted, well-read, blended families in tow, I think, “Why am I sitting here in my sweatpants eating a bowl of Froot Loops and reading comic books?”

Compound all of that with the immediacy of starting a (relatively) new job, leading marketing at an amazing firm in Detroit – a firm that never has had someone in a lead marketing role, a firm that, while open to learning and to change is also a firm (as they all are to some degree) residually agnostic about the long term impacts of marketing and of the voodoo that I do so well.

Things move slowly in that kind of environment. There are a lot of conversations. Every expenditure is scrutinized. You have to take as many victory laps as your colleagues can stand without falling past the tipping point of shameless showboating. You have to demonstrate results when there aren’t really any results yet to demonstrate. A seasoned marketer (or at least I think I am … some days) knows what their new organization needs, but, when said organization is unfamiliar with those needs and how costly they can be and that there is a good 12-to-18-month lead time to get the business development machinery settled and operational, said marketer finds him/herself in the tricky position of being internal salesperson, educator, executor, and judge. It’s exhilarating and exhausting to wear all of those hats simultaneously.

“We need to spend XXX on YYY. Trust me. We need it. What will be the return? Well. Why can’t I just do this myself with my laptop and some popsicle sticks? Um. Do we need additional outside support? Er. Isn’t that why I was hired? Yes …”

It’s very easy to lose your rudder. If you are a solo marketer (with apologies, I rather hate the term “unicorn,” but I get why people use it), you are a peculiar and intriguing presence. Attorneys need you, especially if you get them some ink or some love; attorneys want to understand what is it you do?; attorneys don’t speak your language and you don’t speak theirs; and, ultimately, you are an island with no one necessarily in your immediate reach who understands the context through which you think and approach the work. Consequently, you may feel perpetually defensive and isolated and alone.

Don’t succumb to the dark side of the Force: self-doubt and loathing.

That’s why, no matter the stage of your career or the self-confidence you possess, it is crucial to remember that, yes, in fact you do know what you are doing and that there are good reasons for the recommendations you are making. Furthermore, be patient. Education takes time, and trust the process. I live in fear (in any job I’ve had) that a few months or a year will go, and I will be summoned with a cold question of “what has actually been accomplished?” followed by “while we really like you, we are going to try something else.”

(As we know, statistically, the first marketer in any organization doesn’t always last, often immediately replaced by someone who tells the firm all the same things and suggests all the same steps, but now the firm is even further behind in their timeline as a result of the transition.)

How do you do stay vibrant? How do you stay true to yourself and not show up one day driving a Lamborghini and sporting an ascot? To quote The Beatles (of whom I’m one of the few who has never been that enamored), “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

• Build your internal constituency. Find your early adopters and turn them into marketing fanatics. Leverage any and all successes they have by celebrating them (not yourself). Encourage your attorneys to feel like these are their ideas, not yours.

• Hold your professional and personal consiglieres as tight as you can. But don’t drain their emotional well or try their patience by only talking about your issues. Find out what they are facing; support their wins; share their work; and learn from what they’ve experienced and accomplished.

• I don’t believe that you should never show weakness. I know that may be anathema in our industry, but your vulnerability connects you with others who are most assuredly feeling the same way. Be honest with yourself and others about what you do and don’t do well.

• Activate yourself in your professional association of choice. Mine is the Legal Marketing Association. Volunteering, mentoring, speaking, writing, attending – all keep my energy up, inform me, keep me smart(-ish), and make me feel like I have significance.

• Maintain a manageable clutch of go-to industry resources to keep you abreast of trends and concerns and issues. My list includes (but not limited to … forgive me if I left you out): Nancy Myrland; The Legal Watercooler/Heather Morse; Legal Marketers Extraordinaire; JD Supra; Jay Harrington; Darryl Cross; Samantha McKenna; Furia RubelCommunications/Gina Rubel; John Reed; Lindsay Griffiths; Jaffe PR; Mark T. Greene; Catherine MacDonagh and Tim Corcoran; Patrick Fuller; and Susan Freeman; among others.

• Find those external markers that help you remain validated. Is there a community or professional board of which you can be a part? Is there a volunteer activity where your intelligence and agency and autonomy are valued and appreciated?

• Remember what is actually important in your life. Our jobs define us and occupy far too much of our time. Our family and our friends are why we are here on this planet. Take care of the people who bring meaning to your life. Take time for the hobbies and shared activities that keep you sane. Otherwise, you are no good to yourself, your network, or your job.

That’s it. That’s what I’m thinking and feeling right now. I’m grateful to have a fabulous life that engages me, pushes me, stretches me too thin, but I need to be realistic about what can and can’t be accomplished in any given moment. I need to learn patience and to be more satisfied with the here and now. I am a work-in-progress. I suspect you are, too.

All the biographical bits you might care to know about me … third-person-style …

[Roy Sexton has led strategic planning and marketing efforts for nearly twenty years in a number of industries, including health care, legal services, and fund raising. He currently serves as Director of Marketing for Kerr Russell in Detroit. He serves as a regional board member for the Legal Marketing Association, sat on the state board of the Michigan Mortgage Lenders Association, and currently sits on the boards of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Ann Arbor, Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, Royal Starr Film Festival (Royal Oak, Michigan),and encoremichigan.com. He is a published author with two books of film and arts critique, compiled from his blog of the same name Reel Roy Reviews. He holds an M.A. in theatre history and criticism from the Ohio State University and an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan.]

Thank you to the Detroit Legal News for reprinting the piece.

Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital).

In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan.

My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language

My mom, cover girl!

3 May 2018

8 Comments

Wow!!! So thrilled with this coverage from The Post and Mail of my mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s inclusion in Henry Ford Centennial Library’s next “Big Read” anthology

What’s In A Name?

Quote from Susie in the article: “I was fortunate to have loving parents who supported my intellectual curiosity and sense of fun. My father Roy moved here with my mother Edna from the Carolinas to run the Blue Bell plant, now a wonderful senior living facility. It is amazing how life comes full circle. Growing up in this small town in the 1950s was a very special time. I have written about it at length in my columns and books, but every memory of walking downtown and seeing movies and remembering the special families who helped build this community is treasured to me. I fancy myself a personal historian who uses the past to better understand the present, always remembering that things weren’t always as great nor as idyllic as we might remember them to be. It’s one zany ride to be this age and remember everything so clearly! I am grateful that my writing in this digital age has been able to reach a global audience. I would have never guessed that my stories about growing up in Columbia City would be of interest to people far and wide. I am grateful to this community and the people within it for the special moments they have provided which have shaped my life and point of view.”

And read BroadwayWorld‘s coverage here!

Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital).

In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan.

My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language