Category Archives: Action

Glorious fairytales of hardship: Peacemaker; tick, tick…BOOM!; and Being the Ricardos

16 January 2022

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I spent this afternoon with John Cena. It was heaven. HBOMax’s Peacemaker is brilliant. A dash of Netflix’s Cobra Kai, a smidge of Fox’s Deadpool, some of Amazon’s The Boys, and even a little of HBO’s Watchmen. (That last reference comes full circle as Watchmen’s “The Comedian” was a riff on the original comic book “Peacemaker.”)

The show is bonkers, irreverent, subversive, and more than a bit poignant. Yes, Peacemaker is a study in male arrested development and will appeal to the naughty and vulgar 8th grader in all of us.

But Cena also conveys a tragic sadness amidst the rampant silliness, a beefy Willy Loman in spandex. And the smart ensemble trapped in an unceasing series of Rube Goldberg-esque dead-ends owes as much to The Iceman Cometh as it does to the X-Men.

See? Not all of my references are comic book-oriented.

Danielle Brooks as a comically green field agent (who might not be as inept as she telegraphs), Jennifer Holland as her more seasoned (read: wryly, candidly cynical) colleague, and Freddie Stroma as adorably homicidal and overeager wannabe sidekick Adrian Chase (aka “Vigilante”) are standouts.

Showrunner James Gunn takes the merry melody he began in last year’s The Suicide Squad and turns it into a symphony. Whereas that film occasionally was mired in its own fan service, Peacemaker builds upon its predecessor’s promise and avails itself of the expanded real estate serial television provides to develop its characters without sacrificing any gee whiz puerile shenanigans.

And watching The Suicide Squad is not a prerequisite. There is a brief recap in the first episode, and, in many ways, Peacemaker is the far stronger production. I almost wish I HADN’T seen The Suicide Squad first (which nonetheless I did enjoy).

Even if you loathe superheroes – or ESPECIALLY if you do – you’ll find it endlessly entertaining.

A week or so ago, I caught up with Netflix’s tick, tick…BOOM! and Amazon’s Being the Ricardos, which also could be dubbed the “late bloomers double feature” (not just because I saw them well after their respective premieres). Both films explore the challenging intersection of art and commerce, a limbo often riddled with casualties who *just* haven’t quite made it yet but keep hitting that show biz gaming table for one last hopeful spin.

tick, tick…BOOM! is the autobiographical musical by the late Jonathan Larson, Pulitzer Prize-winner for Rent. Detailing his 30th year of living, the piece reads like a Gen X bohemian Company with its protagonist bouncing from well-meaning friend to less-well-meaning friend on a journey to find himself and a backer for his long-gestating musical (no, not Rent … yet).

Director Lin Manuel-Miranda displays a sure hand with the material, fueled no doubt both by love and respect for his contemporary Larson but also from his own career’s stops and starts.

The film is a glorious fairytale of hardship, and its leading man Andrew Garfield (always a marvel) turns in a career best performance, deftly walking a high wire of being inspiring, endearing, maddening, and self-serving. Oh, and he sings (gorgeously), plays the piano, and (sort of) dances, all while painting one of the clearest-eyed portrayals of the white hot isolation of a creative spirit I’ve ever seen.

Supporting players Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesus, Vanessa Hudgens, Joshua Henry, MJ Rodriguez, Judith Light, and Bradley Whitford (as Stephen Sondheim no less!) are all stellar, sharply capturing the earnest if ephemeral nature of relationships in the theatre community. There are Broadway cameos aplenty, and I won’t spoil the fun, but I will give shout outs to Laura Benanti (always a comic delight) and Judy Kuhn who are positively larcenous in their all-too-brief respective scenes.

Comparably, Being the Ricardos is shaped by the endless, thankless years performers toil in an effort to “make it.” While the film focuses on Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz at the peak of I Love Lucy’s fame, we learn, through flashbacks and writer/director Aaron Sorkin’s signature rat-a-tat dialogue, the steep challenges through which this legendary couple powered to achieve blockbuster success relatively late in their respective careers.

The film clarifies without belaboring that Lucy and Desi’s success came with a steep price. Years of working in obscurity created hairline fractures that would eventually blossom into infidelity, but throughout they remained a united front in art and business.

Notably, while Kidman doesn’t look one whit like Ball, she does nail Lucy’s husky smoker’s voice and overall demeanor. We leave the film with incredible admiration for Lucille Ball as an entrepreneur who transformed the industry, as a comic visionary with an artiste’s obsession for detail, and as a social progressive who beautifully didn’t give a damn for mid-century social norms.

Kidman and luminous Javier Bardem (as Desi) conduct an acting master class in how to portray beloved historical figures, channeling their essences, while making them uniquely their own. Consequently, they land a timely and timeless message of living in one’s moment.

They are aided and abetted by JK Simmons and Nina Arianda as William Frawley and Vivian Vance respectively. Despite Arianda being saddled with an unfortunate body shaming subplot, both Arianda and Simmons sparkle brilliantly as showbiz workhorses who simultaneously value and resent their “second banana” success.

And, for those who geek out over sumptuous scenic and costume design, there is lush Eisenhower-era eye candy aplenty, with one postcard-perfect image after another of Hollywood’s (and television’s) golden age.

The film’s politics get slippy at times. Sorkin seems intent on force-fitting a modern liberal’s gaze onto Lucy and Desi’s history, but tricky details like Richard Nixon exonerating Lucy from her communist party past get in the way. Be that as it may, the performances transcend any pedantry to detail lives fully lived in service to art and cultural progress.

“She just publicly updated her relationship status.” Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

10 February 2020

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Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is a shotgun blast of pure pop riot grrl anarchy. Just the slap in the face “bro culture” has needed. And will continue to need.

Director Cathy Yan and producer/star Margot Robbie, working from a script by Christina Hodson, have crafted a beautifully forward-leaning day-glo antithesis to the retrograde sludge that was Suicide Squad (the precursor to Birds of Prey wherein Robbie’s “Harley Quinn” made her scene-stealing debut). One could even argue that Birds of Prey is a razor-barbed bookend to the exquisite existential angst of DC Entertainment’s Oscar-winning Joker.

The set up of Birds of Prey is that Harley has finally broken up for good with her boyfriend: yes, The Joker. Not Joaquin’s superior “Mistah J,” but Jared Leto’s inferior one – the tattooed, gold-toothed, overacting, “Hot Topic” fever dream one from Suicide Squad. Their breakup involves blowing up a chemical factory because, you know … comic books. As Rosie Perez’ world-weary and whimsically hard-boiled Detective Renee Montoya observes, “She [Harley] just publicly updated her relationship status.” Robbie is divine as Harley. Full of madcap poignancy, unencumbered by the cinematic fetishization she and the character suffered in Suicide Squad.

Alas, freeing herself from one hotbed of toxic masculinity just throws Harley into the deep end of a pool of abusive, egomaniacal, swaggering male bullsh*t as every thug in town now sees Harley as fair game. Leading the pack is Ewan McGregor’s sadistic Roman “Black Mask” Sionis and his sleazy, murderous, codependent wingman Mr. Zsasz (a fabulously glowering Chris Messina). McGregor literally gnaws at every splinter of scenery in one of his best performances – all fluttery hands, gritted teeth and coiled self-loathing.

Eventually the film adds a serpentine plot line about a diamond and a hidden family fortune, tied to a mafia family entirely gunned down years ago with only one “lost” survivor. Think Anastasia by way of The Jersey Shore. As Birds of Prey gathers momentum, like a pinball careening through a Rube Goldberg contraption, Harley partners up with Detective Montoya as well as a scrappy street thief Cassandra Cain (charming Ella Jay Basco), sonically superpowered club singer Black Canary (sparkling Jurnee Smollett-Bell of Roll Bounce and The Great Debaters), and socially maladjusted but utterly a$$-kicking Huntress (dynamite – as always – Mary Elizabeth Winstead of Fargo and Sky High).

There is a buoyancy to the entire film that is utterly infectious. The sheer joy these actors seem to be having playing women in command in a world out of control is a delight. I’m not one to care much for fight scenes or action sequences, but the balletic, athletic choreography on display here is Gene Kelly meets Sly Stallone, Bob Fosse meets Jackie Chan, if filmed by Vincente Minnelli. When a climactic car chase involves one of the characters on roller skates, you may be in for a treat.

The film reminded me of Drew Barrymore’s reboot of Charlie’s Angels, now 20 (!) years old. A film by women and about women, reclaiming a genre (action/superheroes) which has been far too long dominated by men (and, worse, by men of a certain stunted emotional development). Go for the hijinks, stay for the surprising depth of character development, and linger for the final scene as the women celebrate their victory over tacos and margaritas, sharing camaraderie and conversation and honest appreciation for their common humanity. Far too few films – let alone comic book epics – end on such an affirming note. Keep ‘em coming.

P.S. Spoiler alert for my animal loving friends, but Harley’s hyena “Bruce” makes it to the end of the film just fine. 😉

I leave you with these lyrics from one of the songs in the film, the lyrics of which I think encapsulate the flick nicely. From Birds of Prey soundtrack cut “Smile” by Maesie Peters: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X0exh-UHsjg

[Chorus]
Got bridges to burn and places to run
Yeah, this smile is a loaded gun

[Verse 1]
It’s my party, my body, my business
It’s my town and my crown on my hitlist
It’s my world and you’re just living in it
Did I, did I, did I finish?
They are my girls, and it’s us who’s deciding
It’s our door, did we say you’re invited?
Leave your name and we’ll call if we like it
If we, if we, if we like it

[Pre-Chorus]
No more Mrs. Sweet and Miss Nice
No more Mrs. Fuckin’ Polite
Time for Mrs. Takin’ What’s Mine
You don’t need him

[Chorus]
Got bridges to burn and places to run
Yeah, this smile is a loaded gun

[Verse 2]
It’s my party, my body, my business
If he tries to control me, he’s finished
Won’t be crying, there’s plenty of fishes
And I, and I, and I’m fishin’
You should know that you won’t find another
Who will ruin your life then your brother’s
Who will take what she’s owed when she wants to
Did I, did I, did I stutter?

“You’re always sorry. And there’s always a speech. But we no longer care.” Dark Phoenix (and another thought or two on Hugh Jackman’s The Man. The Music. The Show. in Detroit)

30 June 2019

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[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Perhaps Dark Phoenix was a creative casualty of corporate wrangling via the finalized Disney/Fox combination that brought the previously Fox-licensed X-Men characters fully back into the Mouse House’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Perhaps the X-Men movies should have called it a day (no pun intended) with the far superior Days of Future Past. (Don’t get me started on the candy coated cluster that was its follow-up Apocalypse.) Perhaps longtime writer/new-time director Simon Kinberg should have just stuck with the writing (though that isn’t very good either in Dark Phoenix and not up to par with his previous work). Or perhaps we all are just (finally) suffering from movie superhero fatigue.

All I know is that Dark Phoenix is a soapy bore, not unwatchable by any means, but not a hellvua lot of of fun either.

I began this week taking in erstwhile Wolverine Hugh Jackman’s sunny, zippy one-man The Man. The Music. The Show. at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena, and I ended the week with this X-Men: Last Stand retread that made me long for Hugh to show up and sing a few more Peter Allen-penned show-tunes while swiveling his bedazzled 50-year-old-hips. Hugh was a wise man to finally walk away from this sputtering franchise and spend the summer doing what he does (and loves) best. Thank you, X-Men, for giving Hugh his start in this country … and, 20 years later, for setting him free.

Dark Phoenix attempts to right the wrongs of Last Stand, an over-baked muddle from 13 years ago that first told the tale of mutant Jean Grey’s descent into madness via a cosmic-based parasitic “Phoenix force.” I know to non-geeks it sounds absurd, but the original “Phoenix/Dark Phoenix” story-line by Chris Claremont and John Byrne from the late 70s is a beloved one, revolutionary in its day for its exploration of gender issues, agency/autonomy, and how absolute power can corrupt absolutely.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Don’t get me wrong. Dark Phoenix tries. Really, really hard. And that’s part of its problem. Too self-serious by half, yet slapdash in its execution, the film takes a solid cast – Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, Evan Peters, Alexandra Shipp, and Sophie Turner (as the titular antihero) – portraying classic Marvel characters, all lovingly re-established in a fresh, postmodern way with X-Men: First Class, and squanders the whole shebang with heaps of illogical character motivation and turgid dialogue. As Fassbender’s Magneto cautions his bromantic rival James McAvoy’s Charles Xavier: “You’re always sorry. And there’s always a speech. But we no longer care.” True dat.

It’s a shame. It truly is. The series could have gone out on a high-note, pulling all the topsy turvy threads of time travel, lost souls, and marginalized identity into one super nova of an ending … if they’d just have followed the blueprint of the original damn comics. Seriously, look at how many Oscar winners/nominees are in the cast; yet, at times, I thought I was watching Guiding Light: The Mutant Years.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

C’est la vie. The plot, as it is, details how young Jean Grey was orphaned (or was she?) by telepathic powers run amok. Charles Xavier rescues her (or does he?) and raises her as his own, always wary of the limitless powers at her disposal. One epic space shuttle tragedy later, a now-adult Jean Grey finds herself imbued with the nuclear power of a thousand solar systems, but she really just wants to mope around, glare a bit, and throw her enemies into the sides of buildings. Chastain as some alien despot with the albino aesthetic of Edgar Winter seeks Jean’s newfound power for herself. And, blah, blah, blah … more moping, more glaring, more throwing.

Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique notes to Xavier, “By the way … we women are always saving the men around here. You might want to change the name of this group to X-WOMEN.” Now, THAT’s a movie I think I would have preferred to see. And, as poorly written as that line is, it says something about Lawrence’s uncanny abilities that it lands like the best zinger you’ve ever heard from a Noel Coward comedy. Otherwise, Lawrence is clearly just collecting a paycheck here, waiting for her contract obligations to final run out.

Photos taken by my parents Monday night in Detroit

Back to Hugh. If Dark Phoenix truly is the death knell of the X-Men movie universe, perhaps the rest of the cast should follow suit and launch their own respective concert tours. As noted here earlier, his show is an absolute delight … and also a bit surreal, given that it is the culmination of Jackman’s wildly varied career, plus a melange of influences and experiences close to his heart. It is, in essence, a two-hour midlife crisis, Vegas-style, but a kicky, charming, loving, unmissable one. [Photo album here.]

What I also learned this week is that there are two kinds of people: those who know that Hugh Jackman sings … and those that don’t. As to the former, all I had to do was mention I saw him in concert, and they rattled forth rapturous perspectives on which songster Hugh they loved the most: Les Miserables, Greatest Showman, Oklahoma, The Boy from Oz … all of which were featured in Monday night’s show. As to the latter, I was met with a quizzical gaze and a “what did he do for two hours?!”

Ah, what didn’t he do? Tap dancing to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”? Check. Channeling his best Gene Kelly for a Singin’ in the Rain homage? Check. Working through what felt like some Freudian confessionals about family, romance, and fatherhood? Check. Offering a salute to the atrocities experienced by the aboriginal peoples of his Australian homeland, complete with didgeridoo? Check.

There were some missteps Monday night. A blown mic … or three. Some faulty projection screens. Heartfelt but at times overly fawning tributes to Detroit (we ate it up … but at times it got a bit thick). A strangely sequenced second act that seemed to jettison the chronological overview of the first act for a random grab-bag of themes and ideas. I also admit that I wouldn’t have minded a bit more attention paid to his Tony-winning role in The Boy From Oz. The medley of Allen’s more obvious (for American ears) pop tunes was understandable as was the Rip Taylor-style vamping in the audience; yet, I longed for more of Peter Allen, the brilliant singer/songwriter and a bit less of the theme park character flash on display. That said, these are all minor quibbles in an otherwise extraordinary evening.

My hunch is that our singing, dancing, jazz-hand flinging former-“Wolverine” will be riding this arena-gig until the wheels fall off. The Hugh Jackman on display Monday night was simply too exquisitely blissed out not to, and, as a result, I’m sure he will be playing every arena, concert venue, and state fairgrounds into which he can get his twinkly visage booked. Given what I just experienced this afternoon watching Dark Phoenix, that’s one damn smart career move!

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

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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.

“The measure of a person, of a hero is how well they succeed at being who they are.” Avengers: Endgame

28 April 2019

5 Comments

  • [Image Source: Wikipedia]

    “The measure of a person, of a hero is how well they succeed at being who they are.” – Queen Frigga (Rene Russo) to son Thor (Chris Hemsworth)
  • “No amount of money every bought a second of time.” – Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) to father Howard Stark (John Slattery)
  • “You look like melted ice cream.” – Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) to Thor (Hemsworth again) who has discovered a physique-obliterating love of beer, junk food, video games, and sweatpants

Marvel’s Avengers movies are, yes, about superheroes and, by extension, merchandise, theme park attractions, and an infinitely extendable money-minting film franchise. But they are about something else … and always have been: family. Finding one’s family in the most unlikeliest of places and forging new bonds (Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor), rediscovering and healing one’s fragmentation with the past (Black Panther, Iron Man, Captain America), or redefining one’s destiny and defying the limitations others’ have unfairly or unintentionally imposed (Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Ant-Man) are all themes that have defined this groundbreaking film series.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

I would suggest that is why last year’s Infinity War with its (one-year-later spoiler alert!) decimation of nearly half the beloved team struck such a chord (and blow) with the general movie-going public. We comic nerds (and anyone who paid half a millisecond of attention to box office returns or awards season nominations) realized there was no earthly way a character like Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) was going to remain “dead.” Nonetheless, we were gutted to see newly arrived fan favorites like Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) or Spider-Man (Tom Holland) erode as pillars of collapsing ash, Sodom and Gomorrah-style, after “Mad Titan” Thanos (beautifully glowering Josh Brolin) snapped his fingers (literally), worked his “Infinity Gauntlet” mojo, and made 50% of all living creatures disappear from the universe. You see, Thanos has an unusual solution for chaos theory and overpopulation: get rid of half of us, re-instituting balance in a world run amuck. I suppose there are worse ideas.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Last year, we viewers were left with the mother of all cliffhangers, and, while Marvel Studios’ unyielding production schedule pretty much spoiled the surprise that the surviving Avengers would find a means to bring their missing brethren back, we didn’t know how and, perhaps more importantly, we didn’t know what this dissolution would do to the Marvel family.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

I won’t reveal the plot of this year’s $1.2 billion (and counting) juggernaut Endgame. To be honest, even if I wanted to detail the 3-hour narrative here, I’m not sure I could unravel the plateful of spaghetti that relies as much on the 21 (!) movies that precede it as it does some rudimentary knowledge of quantum mechanics, bad time travel flicks, and somberly-crafted peanut butter sandwiches.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

And, in the end, it doesn’t much matter. The movie is a marvel (pun intended) because directors the Russo Brothers (no relation to Rene … that I’m aware) are smart enough to pepper the proceedings with brilliant action sequences yet ground the entirety in humanity, heart, and deft character development.

The running time of Endgame never feels gratuitous (other entries in the Marvel franchise have felt overlong and indulgent occasionally). This much airtime is in fact essential to re-engage with our core heroes: Iron Man (Downey, Jr. who started it all with his character’s eponymous debut), Captain America (Chris Evans, long the heart and soul of the series), Thor (Hemsworth who has evolved from pretty dull to pretty comic dynamite), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo, by far the best actor in the bunch who always makes every other performer just that much better in their scenes with him), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson, who, like Hemsworth, found much surer footing as the series proceeded), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner, more often than not a cipher who truly comes into his own in this latest installment).

No one is given short-shrift here, with emotionally weighty, at times devastatingly heartfelt, denouement(s) that honor all that has come before and set the entire franchise on an exciting and uncharted path. It’s not all doom and gloom as there is plenty of self-referential/self-deprecating wit, with Captain America himself setting off some of the best zingers in the bunch. The whole enterprise is sweet-natured, entertaining-as-heck, genuinely humorous, and damn moving. Trust me, you will be sniffling throughout the last 20 minutes and downright sobbing at the very final scene.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Possibly for the first time ever, it feels like we can expect nothing but the unexpected from Marvel films going forward. It’s a genius move. For over a decade, Marvel Studios president and executive producer Kevin Feige has teased us with his “phased” master plan, all leading up to these final films. All of Hollywood became covetous of Marvel’s “shared cinematic universe” (less artistic envy, I suspect, than material greed … but c’est la vie). (See: DC Extended Universe, Universal’s Monsters Universe … no, better yet, don’t.) We are at Endgame, and, effectively, Feige and Marvel have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, sun-setting beloved canon while simultaneously thumbing their nose at it. The sky’s the limit, so empty your wallets, moviegoers: who knows what’s next?

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[Image Source: Wikipedia]

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.

 

“If a superhero can’t save his family, he’s not much of a hero after all.” Shazam! (2019)

14 April 2019

2 Comments

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

The entirety of the superhero film genre deals with issues of identity and family and belonging. The best entries – Superman, Dick Tracy, Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Wonder Woman, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – transport us to escapist realms while metaphorically helping reconcile the harsh reality of our daily lives vs. our wish fulfillment fantasy to champion all underdogs and right all wrongs. This disconnect between the inner child who still feels all things are possible and the jaded adult who fears the best of life has passed one by keeps us spinning the wheel at the superhero box office in the hopes of finding our ultimate champion on the silver screen.

And Shazam! comes pretty damn close.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Based on the classic Fawcett Comics character Captain Marvel, Shazam was  acquired by DC Comics in a copyright dispute in the 1950s over the character’s (overstated) similarities to Superman. DC, ironically in turn, lost the rights to use the name (but not the character) “Captain Marvel” to Marvel Comics in the 1970s, and Marvel’s version of “Captain Marvel” had her cinematic debut one month ago. Consequently, DC’s “Captain Marvel” now goes by “Shazam,” which in actuality is the magic word young Billy Batson exclaims to become “The Big Red Cheese” Captain Marvel (but we can’t actually call him “Captain Marvel” any more). Clear as mud? Thanks a lot, intellectual property laws. (It’s all explained much better and in much more detail here.)

None of this matters one whit to your ultimate enjoyment of David F. Sandberg’s film treatment of Shazam (which was also a corny Saturday morning Filmation live action series in the 1970s and a Republic serial in the 1940s). For the casual film-goer, the more relevant comparison is to Tom Hanks’ classic comedy Big as a wish fulfillment fantasy of a little boy lost who assumes adulthood (and superpowers) will solve all his real-life problems (spoiler alert: they don’t). Shazam even offers an onscreen nod to Big’s FAO Schwartz super-sized floor piano keyboard duet.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Asher Angel (think young Zac Efron, but a bit less precious) plays foster kid Billy Batson, ever on the hunt for the birth mother he lost years ago at a winter carnival and who mysteriously never reclaimed her son. Batson bounces from group home to group home until he lands at the beautifully blended foster home of Rosa and Victor Vasquez (warm and earthy Marta Milans and Cooper Andrews). Overeager and lonely foster brother Freddy Freeman (It‘s Jack Dylan Grazer in a dynamite and heartbreaking turn) introduces Billy to the nerdy joys of super hero trivia, and, before we know it, flash-bam-boom!, Billy finds himself one subway stop away from the magical “Rock of Eternity,” imbued with magical abilities by an ancient wizard (an almost unrecognizable Djimon Hounsou).

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

When Billy shouts “Shazam!” (acronym of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury and the respective abilities of each), the young boy transforms into 6’3″ Zachary Levi (Chuck, Tangled, She Loves Me) whose sitcom/musical comedy ethos paired with a physique that now seems to have muscles-on-top-of-muscles makes him the perfect choice for this whimsical hero.

The film is saddled, as are most comic book adaptations alas, with a “take over the world” megalomaniac antagonist. This time, Mark Strong plays Dr. Sivana, and, in his typical glowering skinny/tall-British-Stanley-Tucci-with-dodgy-dental-work-way, Strong meanders about the film, saying vaguely apocalyptic things and shooting energy bolts from his hands. He’s completely unnecessary.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Thematically, Strong’s primary contribution seems to be to further the film’s exploration of family lost and family gained. Sivana’s father is a Lex Luthor-esque SOB, played by the go-to actor for Lex-Luthor-esque SOBs John Glover (Gremlins 2, Smallville … where, in fact, he played Lex Luthor’s dad) whose brutal parenting style predictably turns his little lad into a grade-A psychopath.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Shazam! works best when the film turns its gaze toward the adorable band of misfits in Billy’s foster home. The child actors are loving, lovable, believable, and kind. The challenges Billy endures embracing his new home and relinquishing his dream of reuniting with his birth mother are poignant and accessible and juxtapose nicely with the comic farce of him learning to be a proper super hero. Levi is an utter delight playing a 14-year-old boy in an (overgrown) man’s body, attempting superheroics when all he really wants to do is gobble junk food and play video games. At one point, Batson in his superhero persona observes, “If a superhero can’t save his family, he’s not much of a hero after all.” Amen to that. Amen to that.

 

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Thanks to my boss Susan and coworker Megan for this! #wishfulfillment

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.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Old Type Writer: Conversations in motion (Plus video of Sterling Heights Regional Chamber keynote)

2 April 2019

5 Comments

Enjoy this contribution to my mom’s Old Type Writer column (ten years going strong!), originally published on Jennifer Romano’s Talk of the Town Whitley County.

 

“Oh, I went to the emergency room last night. They took me from the veterinarian’s in an ambulance. The EMS boy looked like Aquaman.” – Susie Duncan Sexton 

Wait. What?! So began a phone call with my mother about a month ago. To clarify a few things: no, she does not receive her health care AT the veterinarian BUT got light-headed while she was there and, then … nearly passed out. And, no, Jason Momoa is not moonlighting for Whitley County EMS, but my mom is threatening to call 911 again, just so she can hang with the young man who apparently bears a striking resemblance to Game of Thrones’ Khal Drogo.

My mom has gone through a battery of tests over the past month, and the good news is that her exuberance for life and her candor and her irreverence have apparently served her well physically in that an army of doctors have found no issues of concern. As my mother notes, “I don’t want to go into that medical world if I don’t have to.” Who can blame her? I do wish she wouldn’t have such a propensity to read and believe all of the side effects listed on any and all medications, but, hell, that wariness has likely served her quite well in this pharmacologically reckless culture.

What my mother has learned from this experience is that when others don’t listen or behave like outright jackholes, it can cause her to experience justified exasperation to the point of plummeting-elevator-wooziness. I think too many of us are still trying to learnthat lesson.

“At 46, I’m coming to the realization that I want life to be less about ‘stuff.’ I’ve had so much fun collecting and gathering and accumulating, but now it all just feels like a weight around my neck.” – Roy Sexton 

Two weekends ago, I went to visit my parents. After her chance encounter with a hunky Momoa-look-alike, life flashed before my mother’s eyes, and she wanted to call a family meeting to discuss our “plan.” Note: we are NOT a “family meeting” kind of family, and we might have “plans” but for some reason we don’t actually share them. We are more of a “something unanticipated just happened so let’s light our hair on fire” kind of family. My mother has always been the one who says the things that need to be said but aren’t always heard. This time, it felt like my father and I stopped being idiots long enough to listen. I was cautiously optimistic that we might talk about what the future could hold. And, then …

“I’m getting up at 10 am tomorrow to take the LaCrosse in to trade for an Impala.” – Don Sexton

Unclear if that was invitation for me to assist in the car-buying process or not, but I volunteered to tagalong on a task that has pretty much eluded me my entire adult life. I inherited a hand-me-down Buick Century from my grandmother when I was in college. My parents were kind enough to buy me a Honda Civic when I was in graduate school. Then, I was wise enough to marry an automotive engineer, and I never set foot in an auto dealership again.

My father used to call on auto dealers across northern Indiana in the late 80s when he was a lending officer for Merchants National Bank. He knows a thing or two about this world; the finer points of operating an iPad may befuddle him but he knows his Carfax from his Kelley Blue Book. Nonetheless, the game of buying a car remains one rife with swaggering toxic masculinity.

“I’m sorry. With whom am I negotiating on this? You or your dad or John,” whined the auto salesman as I handed him my cell phone and asked him to work everything out with an auto engineer stationed at his home computer in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

My father and I both gestured toward the phone and then promptly closed our traps. The best way to cut through toxic masculinity? Introduce a well-informed curve ball who doesn’t cotton to preening peacocks. We walked out of there with a gently used Ford Fusion at a third of the expected price, paid in cash, leaving behind a small army of Dockers-wearing salesmen scratching their heads.

“Good. I’m glad John got involved. He reminds me of me. When he gets to talk about what he loves, he’s unstoppable.” – Susie Sexton, upon our return. 

You see, all along, my mom had suggested their ancient Buick LaCrosse needed a retirement. My mom is the one saying, “Can we slow down and just take care of the things we love before time is completely gone?” My mom is the one urging people to live their best lives and to enjoy the moments they are in. My mom is the one asking for authentic conversation that isn’t transmitted via digital device in tweets, texts, and cynical memes.

KNOCK! KNOCK! “We’re at the door here for breakfast and swimming and to tell you our plan.” – my parents at my hotel room door the last morning of my weekend visit. (I may have asked for them to call before heading over … that didn’t happen.) 

At some point in the past couple of years, my parents and I transitioned to that mid-stage milestone of the child (gleefully) staying at a hotel when he/she comes to visit said parents. It’s not meant to be rude or controlling, but as one ages, as one becomes set in their ways, as one’s midsection grows more pear-shaped … the idea of retreating to a hotel room, collapsing in a heap, and breathing solitary air at the end of a day’s family visit carries a touch of appeal.

And my parents get to come use the pool like two 12-year-olds who’ve just run away from home.

Here’s the thing: those two 12-year-olds who these days spend as much time plotting each other’s demise as they do reflecting wistfully on their 50 (!) years of wedded “bliss,” came bounding into my room, speaking a mile a minute, finishing each other’s sentences, sharing their “plan” with me. I was half awake and a little cranky, but their zeal was a tonic.

And that plan? It’s a pretty good one. It’s not for me to tell, but I feel good about the future. Possibly for the first time ever. You see, I have a vision of the fun we will have, reminiscent of those special days I lived at home and had nary a care in the world, other than what cartoons were airing on Saturday morning or passing an algebra test. And that vision is shared. That makes all the difference.

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It was quite an honor to offer the keynote address alongside ProfessionalMovers.com’s spectacular Andrew Androff at last week’s Sterling Heights Regional Chamber of Commerce/Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Sales & Marketing Conference. Video of my presentation “How to Win the Room (When You’d Rather Stay Home)” courtesy the lovely Brenda Meller of Meller Marketing: https://youtu.be/xnvDZFDYGI8

I adore Brenda whose kindness and generosity know no bounds. She authentically cares and celebrates. That is a rare quality. And thanks to the equally loving and supportive Heather Morse-Geller who got this ball rolling with a lovely post last year and to my sweet friend Blaine D. Fowler for reading it aloud at this very conference (same day it was posted, in fact, when HE gave the keynote).

Thank you, Melanie Hughes Davis and Sterling Heights Regional Chamber of Commerce for this fantastic opportunity.  #BeARoySexton 😊❤️

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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.

“I have nothing to prove to you.” Captain Marvel

9 March 2019

5 Comments

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Marvel Studios’ latest offering Captain Marvel is a welcome addition to the cinematic superhero pantheon. The film is more quietly groundbreaking than, say, Wonder Woman or Black Panther because Oscar winner Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers simply belongs at the table, without apology or explanation. Perhaps we’ve turned a corner … at least where these movies are concerned. Now, if only the rest of the world would follow suit.

And if only Captain Marvel had been a bit more interesting.

As a film, Captain Marvel is entertaining and pleasant and altogether unremarkable. It feels like an extended episode of ABC’s Agents of SHIELD, replete with a de-aged Samuel L. Jackson as Agent Nick Fury and a similarly CGI’d Clark Gregg as Fury’s sidekick Phil Coulson. The film takes place waaaay back in 1995 (when did that year become retro? it still feels like yesterday), hence the Industrial Light and Magic cinematic plastic surgery on Jackson and Gregg. The effect isn’t as creepy as it once was (see: Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in X-Men: The Last Stand …. ayiiiii!), although both of Jackson’s and Gregg’s faces do look a bit like shiny ice rinks, and Gregg resembles a dour Gene Kelly now more than ever.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck cram in a handful of too-cute-by-half visual references to icons of the era, like Blockbuster Video stores, pay phones, and NIN (Nine Inch Nails) tee-shirts. There’s Goose, an adorable cat who is actually an alien in disguise and who easily could have been a running joke in Men In Black. And the soundtrack is loaded with hits from the flannel and grunge era – Garbage! Hole! Elastica! Des’ree! TLC! Ya gotta be … chasin’ waterfaaaaallls.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Unlike Bumblebee, which invoked a bygone era to add color and context, Captain Marvel‘s filmmakers treat the setting as both novelty and afterthought. The 90s environs just feel kinda “meh.” Taking viewers back nearly 25 years seems designed chiefly as a means of allowing Marvel to retcon their universe and to correct one of their rare tone-deaf choices: that is, not featuring a strong woman lead until 21 (!) films into their Marvel Studios’ storied run.

All of that said, Captain Marvel does succeed in introducing a smart and interesting hero into the Marvel Universe. On this International Women’s Day weekend, it’s also canny marketing. As Larson’s Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel states plainly to her honey-colored alpha male mentor / anti-hero Yon-Rogg (an effectively smarmy/charming Jude Law), “I have nothing to prove to you” (right before blasting him into the side of a mountain in their climactic battle).

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

The supporting cast is populated with a galaxy of solid character players from Annette Bening as Danvers’ former (and current) boss (it makes sense when you see the flick) to Ben Mendelsohn as a disarmingly funny frog-like alien (with an inexplicable Australian accent) to  Lashana Lynch as Carol’s long-suffering bestie.

Captain Marvel is fun and forgettable, and it’s greatest legacy may be that it delivers its ass-kicking star with a shrug … like, why is this a big deal in 2019 to have a blockbuster comic book movie with a woman in the leading role?

“No need to whine, boy./Like a wind up toy, you stutter at my feet.” – Elastica, “Stutter.”

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[Image Source: Wikipedia]

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.

Legal Marketing Association: Tech Recipes From “You Don’t Just Buy Tech, You Live It”

19 January 2019

4 Comments

Co-written by yours truly and two legal marketing colleagues – original post here:

“Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we’re too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.” – Steven Spielberg

Last month we spoke at the inaugural LMA Mid-Atlantic Conference about not just buying technology, but living with it. We discussed our real-world challenges and successes with technology. Whether we as legal marketers like it or not, the reality is that we are all “tech people” now.

We acknowledge this is difficult; change is hard! Going into a room of successful people — ahem, lawyers — and telling them their paradigm needs to change… The odds are against us. But, what would motivate them to listen? If we use technology to change the way we share and leverage information about our firms in order to create a more meaningful client experience, change will happen.

When working on a specific initiative, step outside of the “project tunnel.” Look around, and confirm that your marketing team, the working group of attorneys and other professionals involved in the project are on the same page. Keep your eye on the prize and help those around you see the benefits ahead. Confirm that they understand the pain points and can articulate the positives and navigate the negatives. Communicate progress and successes, great and small. Don’t be afraid to admit when something isn’t working. The team you build will be equipped to be your problem solvers and the advisors in this process.

In order to maximize our technologies, emphasis must be placed on the business case. We often focus on this when requesting approval for a new technology, but it’s imperative to do so at every stage of the project, even after a successful launch. Embracing a new technology is a disruptive change for a firm, and we need to address it as such via change management principles such as training, guidelines, and being positive stewards of the new technology. Highlight its positive results and value to other departments and attorneys. Most important, when you launch it, don’t walk away. Live in the “on” stage, and leverage the information gleaned for even more positive results.

Below are a few “tech recipes” and how we made it work at our firms:

Websites: Your website may be brand new, or you may feel it’s awful. Either way, use it! Maximize your attorney biographies. Post to your news or knowledge center daily. Make your content and SEO power work for you. This is one key example of living in the “on” stage. Your website should never stop changing.

Blogs: Attorneys not giving you content? Make it up. All joking aside, leverage sponsorships, programs they’ve presented, events you’ve attended and alumni magazine mentions. Anything. Aim for posting at least twice a month.

Email Automation: Get those newsletters out. Measure the open rates, look at the data, share it with your attorneys, and help further refine the next round of content based on your subscribers’ interests.

Social Media: Get on social media (and, don’t be afraid of Facebook). Tag your attorneys (but, ask them first). And if you have a decent network of your own, cross-share. Build a network with media in the legal space and industries in which your attorneys focus. You will see the impact and create motivation for your attorneys to be involved.

Contact Relationship Management (CRM): If you can get approval for an investment and it doesn’t already exist, push for CRM or some equivalent to track your client contact info. You may be surprised but many firms still do not track this vital information. (Don’t forget those pain points mentioned!) CRMs come in all shapes and sizes now. Connect with your professional colleagues in LMA to learn about what’s worked and what hasn’t for firms of different sizes, different budgets and other considerations.

Webinars/Podcasts: Augment the written word with the spoken word. Webinars are inexpensive (and even free through some outside offerings like Strafford Publications) and can be promoted before and after as events. Podcasts offer client convenience and minimize attorney stress due to their short nature and opportunity to listen on the way to work, etc.

Experience: It doesn’t have to be an off-the-shelf solution. Start with a coalition of the willing, the groups that have a pain point and are willing to work with you to solve it. Identify critical pieces of information that will allow you to gain insights from other sources of information such as client-matter numbers. Design with your future end-product in mind, not just solving today’s problem.

Added Bonuses: And, no matter what, content can and should be repurposed on all of your channels. Boost the social posts by targeting your audiences; impact can be had for as little as $50.

Remember: Implementation of technology — and promoting/monitoring thereafter — is KEY. Listen to your users, and modify and update as needed. Report regularly to your internal stakeholders on your successes, challenges and the value provided. With apologies to Gandhi, exemplify the change you want to see in your world.

By Rachel Shields Williams, Senior Manager of Experience Management, Sidley Austin, LLP; Terra Liddell, Chief Marketing Officer, Finnegan; and Roy Sexton, Director of Marketing, Clark Hill PLC, for the Fourth Quarter 2018 LMA Mid-Atlantic Region Newsletter

 

 

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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.

“It is new and different. Therefore, we should fear it.” Ralph Breaks the Internet

1 January 2019

4 Comments

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Happy New Year! We finally saw Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet. Don’t make fun of our movie choice because it took a month and a half to get there. Or because it is, well, Ralph Breaks the Internet. The flick is a clever and zippy analysis of the light and dark sides of the internet and a logical extension of the franchise. The Disney princess sequence which has gained the lion’s share of the film’s buzz is indeed loony meta-perfection. The last 20 minutes of the movie feel a bit labored and darkly existential, like the filmmakers just had NO idea how to wrap the thing up, but otherwise the movie is a delight.

About the original film, I wrote six years ago:

“Does Disney’s latest animated foray Wreck-It Ralph live up to the peppy pixelated promise of its retro fun trailer? Not quite. Is it an enjoyable pre-holiday diversion with a lot of heart to accompany its endlessly merchandisable premise? Absolutely. A shameless amalgam of Disney’s own Toy Story, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and Tron, this film deftly imagines a world in which video game characters (from across thirty years of canon beloved by Gens X & Y, Millennials, and beyond) live, laugh, argue, and play after the neighborhood video arcade takes its last round of quarters for the evening. Clever touches and pop cultural references abound, with the Donkey Kong-esque titular character Ralph, warmly voiced by the ever-reliable John C. Reilly, trying to shake off three decades of villainy to gain acceptance from his digital cohorts.”

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

This synopsis basically holds true of the 2018 sequel as well. However, Wreck-It Ralph 2 benefits, like the Toy Story sequels before it, from a built-in audience familiarity with its premise. Going in, we carry few (if any) expectations for a groundbreaking narrative or breathtaking visual experience and are settled in for some cinematic comfort food. On that front, Ralph Breaks the Internet more than delivers.

The vintage arcade that houses Ralph, Sugar Rush racing game’s Vanellope von Schweetz (an impishly acerbic Sarah Silverman), and their sundry digital buddies adds “WiFi” internet access for its young patrons’ convenience. After a mishap involving the steering wheel controller attached to Vanellope’s game console, Ralph and Vanellope use said WiFi to take a wild and woolly trip into the far reaches of the internet to retrieve a replacement.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

The same aesthetic inventiveness from directors Phil Johnston and Rich Moore that benefited the first film is on display here, depicting the interwebs as a glistening Emerald City-style metropolis, populated with perky chirping Twitter birds, YouTube-inspired video cafes, and an ebay shopping complex that borrows liberally from Target and IKEA and the Mall of America. Oh, and just like the real internet, the denizens of Ralph‘s mythic world know that one should never read the comments section.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Vanellope and Ralph’s friendship is put to the test when she is lured by the manic, violent pleasures of an online Grand Theft Auto-style game Slaughter Race and its a**-kicking heroine Shank (a wry Gal Gadot). After a satirical meet-up with all the Disney princesses (which is somehow both ultimate Disney-corporate synergy and a bold send-up of Mouse House excess), Vanellope sings her own “I’m Wishing”/”Part of Your World”/”Belle”-style anthem of longing, the zany “A Place Called Slaughter Race”: “What can it be that calls me to this place today?/This lawless car ballet, what can it be?/Am I a baby pigeon sprouting wings to soar?/Was that a metaphor?/Hey, there’s a Dollar Store!” (and so on).

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Ultimately, the core message of Ralph Breaks the Internet is that true friendship can withstand any challenge or geographical distance. Ho hum. The more important takeaways are that women are people too, free-thinking and bold, and that nothing is gained in life without a sense of risk and adventure. As the arcade characters are cautioned by one of their own when “WiFi” enters their midst: “It is new and different. Therefore, we should fear it.” Pshaw!

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Yours truly modeling my new birthday coat (FAUX fur collar). My mother thinks I look like the creature from “The Shape of Water.” LOL.

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.

“At the end of this, I will be exhausted. You probably will be too.” My whirlwind 48-hour career as a motivational speaker and Detroit FM radio DJ … #BeARoySexton?! What is that exactly?!

11 August 2018

6 Comments

Photos courtesy Brenda Zawacki Meller, Milan Stevanovich (w/ Chanel Stevanovich), Ziggy Whitehouse, and my iPhone.

  • View video – courtesy Brenda Meller of Meller Marketing – here.

What do you do when you know you need to network and market yourself but the introvert within says, “Uh, maybe later”? On August 9, 2018, Kerr Russell Director of Marketing Roy Sexton (that’s me!) presented strategies for embracing your qualities as an introvert (or for those occasions when you aspire to introversion!) and establishing and maintaining a successful personal brand, both online and in person.

About the session, co-chair Brenda Zawacki Meller of Meller Marketing wrote, “Today my friend and marketing idol Roy Sexton of Kerr Russell presented ‘How to Win the Room When You’d Rather Stay Home’ to a PACKED ROOM at Inforum Michigan Troy. Video link below. Now that the meeting is over, I have to confess: I was freaking out a bit this week. We typically have 30 attendees at this monthly meetup and our registration was at 62 people earlier this week. We were getting pretty close on seating. It was almost going to be ‘standing room only’ at one point! But we brought in extra chairs. This is what happens when you book a ROCK STAR MARKETER for your speaker. I think both his marketing and the topic itself were both reasons for our outstanding turnout. Roy was an amazing presenter. I knew he would be great, but he was even better than I anticipated. Roy has a genuine, approachable, and relatable speaking style. He reminded us introverts that we’re OK to be an introvert. We don’t need to apologize for it, and we can be effective at networking, too. I learned that if you give introverts an assignment at a meeting (live tweeting, taking pics, helping at the registration table), it eases our anxiety. Need a keynote or conference presenter? Check out Roy Sexton. And tell him Brenda sent you. Then, check out the hashtag #BeARoySexton.”

Roy (me again!) has nearly 20 years of experience in marketing, communications, business development, and strategic planning. He earned his BA from Wabash College, his MA (theatre) from The Ohio State University, and his MBA from University of Michigan. He is a graduate of Leadership Detroit and Leadership A2Y. He sits on the boards of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Ann Arbor, Royal Starr Film Festival, Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, EncoreMichigan.com, and Legal Marketing Association – LMA International. A published author with two books (ReelRoyReviews), Roy is an active performer, awarded 2017 Best Actor (Musical) by BroadwayWorld Detroit. He recently received recognition as one of Michigan Lawyers Weekly’s “Unsung Legal Heroes.”

And then THIS happened …

My mother Susie Sexton’s critique of my first (and probably last) radio gig as vacationing Rochelle Burk’s stand-in alongside Robby Bridges on their 96.3 WDVD drive-time show Friday, August 10. This is one of the funnier things I’ve read in a while: “stayed for nearly every second? geesh? you both were fabulous….nice repartee all the way around…I now am no longer a music lover as I was listening to stuff about the smell of sexy sheets and such just to hear your patter? one little bit I missed was when I needed to medicate issie with her pill and she was hiding? the word mousey was said and something about walking down a street? and sears called with a mix-up….they had changed delivery date to aug. 17 and then just called to robot me about tomorrow delivery again…that was sure effing fun. maybe straightened out now. damn 4 hours of choreography, engineering and listening to countless sex-crazed songs….but the patter was mighty fine…spell-check? no…I am exhausted.”

Postscript – she added when we chatted on the phone: “I liked that man (Robby) a lot. He has a kind, sweet quality that is inviting and not snarky, but also very funny. That is rare.” ❤️

And – bonus – Brian Cox, editor of Detroit Legal News, ran my “tech thoughts” article from the Legal Marketing Association’s Strategies Magazine. Whew! You can read the full text 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.