“She’s so little and sparkly … I want her as a key chain!” Bette Midler’s Divine Intervention Tour at The Palace of Auburn Hills

11 June 2015

Key chain Bette

“She’s so little and sparkly … I want her as a key chain!” So commented my very witty pal and fellow Leadership A2Y (Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti) classmate Naomi Fink on one of the many photos I feverishly posted on Facebook while watching the Divine Miss M (Midler, that is) perform at The Palace of Auburn Hills.

Keep in mind, we were under strict instructions not to take photos, so what you see here is ill-gotten gain. I’m not sure how or why artists in this day and age even try to prevent images from being captured and shared.

Folks like Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga even encourage the practice, likely realizing that it provides fabulous, cheap, immediate marketing … but I digress.

Roy and Heidi

I was accompanied at the show by another wonderful A2Y colleague Heidi Fisher, who prepared for her impending audience with Queen Bette by listening to two days worth of her classic tunes on Pandora. Now that’s dedication.

Needless to say, we loved the moving, funny, ribald, political, sparkling spectacle that is Bette Midler’s Divine Intervention tour.

Both of us were likely in a sentimental mood, having just driven from Ann Arbor where we had spent our final day together as a leadership class.

The balance of the day, after receiving our certificates of merit, was occupied by a last blast scavenger hunt (cleverly designed by another classmate Peg Windsor and program director Barb Davenport): we met with as many different Ann Arbor business people and creative types as we could cram before we waved goodbye (or perhaps just “see you later”) to our beloved classmates and program.

So we were pretty spent before we even got in the door for Bette.

We turned that frown upside down

Fortunately, we fit right in – as Midler joked in her opening monologue: “So glad to see my fans can still drive at night.” Indeed, it was that most blessedly rare of large-venue concert experiences where a respectful audience sat the whole time.

Ok by me. And, not unexpectedly for the spirit of the crowd and our state-of-mind, we made some new friends in our row. A schoolteacher from Grand Rapids and her East Lansing mom. And a man who seemed really sour about being there, until Heidi took a selfie with him. See, Bette, social media does make the world go ’round.

Oh, right, the concert? It was an old-school hoot, dressed up with the latest in projection technology and a dash of Midler’s own trademark pyrotechnic raunch.

Divine Intervention stage

The show opened with a quick animation, highlighting a cause famously near and dear to Midler’s heart: the environment and how deeply we have effed things up.

Good for her. I don’t think I can stand to hear one more local yokel/short-sighted fool who makes their living destroying the planet say, “Why don’t you people mind your own business? What I do in my town/state/whatever is my business.”

It is our business because we share this resource; we eat your crops the world over; we breathe the same air; we drink the same water. Consequently, I was thrilled to see Midler lead with such a powerful and sobering message.

Care … please

In her inimitable style, she then launched right into a cheeky medley of “Divine Intervention” and “I Look Good” amidst the detritus of a disposable society – giant size Coke cans, burning tires, and other debris – all with that impish smile and twinkle in her eye. Yes!

Polluters, agribusiness, and big manufacturing weren’t Midler’s only targets through the evening, though.

With a wry touch, she took shots at Vladimir Putin, the Kardashians, Fox News, Dick Cheney, and even Caitlyn Jenner – and her wizened audience ate it all up with glee.

She reserved her sharpest barbs for social media in a tart skit about how we can’t live in the moment without documenting every moment, as she was wheeled too and fro reclining on a hot pink sofa shaped like a pair of lips. Touche, Ms. M.

Hocus Pocus

She hit all the expected musical high points with a verve that belied her long history in the entertainment industry: “Beast of Burden,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” “Do You Wanna Dance.” You can tell Midler lives to be in front of an audience and her energy positively crackles. She also incorporated numbers from her latest album It’s the Girls, a salute to decades of so-called “girl groups” in pop music, the best of all being her poignant take on TLC’s cautionary “Waterfalls.”

She offered a fetching and frisky “I Put a Spell on You,” bewigged as her saucy witch character from Disney’s Hocus Pocus, and, in the show’s strongest segment “Bird in the Hand,” channeled her idol Sophie Tucker for a machine gunned sequence of the kind of filthy jokes twelve-year-old boys find hysterical. Since she was dressed for the number as if Mae West had made an X-rated appeared on Sesame Street, it was utterly delightful.

Yes, the high-schmaltz trinity of “The Rose,” “From a Distance,” and “Wind Beneath My Wings” rounded out the evening.

Bird in the Hand

I had a grandmother who was just too enamored of those tunes, in part due to some meddling family members who thought it fun to use the lyrics in rather passive aggressive fashion, so hearing any one or all of them always puts me on edge. (Not Midler’s fault obviously and apropos of nothing for this overview.)

I offer that context, though, to note that hearing Midler sing these signature tunes live redeemed them for this fan. In light of her passion for this planet and for all of us on it and in keeping with her parting wish for us to “be kind,” these ballads now make all the sense in the world to me.

I will add that the jarring juxtaposition of these saccharine hits against her “Last of the Red Hot Mamas” burlesque persona has always greatly amused me, and, in that sense, they are a sweet aperitif on her storied career.

In closing, she gave Detroit a glowing review, donning an “I [Heart] Detroit” t-shirt for the encore. She, the mistress of reclamation who joked earlier “I never get rid of anything … they say I put the whore in hoarding,” crowed about the reinvention of the Motor City and of its spirit of reusing and celebrating all that has come before.

She had visited Shinola (the celebrated watchmaker here) and took a tour of all the development along Woodward Avenue. She was breathlessly effusive, urging us to “keep it up” and to keep taking care of this city and each other. Will do, Ms. M. Will do.

____________________________

On another note …

The Penny Seats summer season is about to launch, with not just one but two shows at Ann Arbor’s West Park. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged] runs July 9-25 and Urinetown the Musical (that’s the one I’m in!) runs July 30 to August 15. Tickets are available at http://www.pennyseats.org, and we’ve gotten some great coverage already…

BroadwayWorld – here
Encore Michigan – here
Talk of the Town – here
Legal News – 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.

San Diego, Part the Second: San Diego Zoo, Jimmy Kimmel, Disneyland, La Jolla seals, Hollywood … and dirty jokes

22 April 2015

16 Comments

Earlier this week, I gave you a glimpse into my “professional” side (or as professional as I ever get), sharing some material from my presence at the 30^th annual Legal Marketing Association national conference in San Diego.

But I also promised I would share some of the tacky tourist-y stuff ‘cause if there’s anything this blog does well, it’s tacky! (Loads of photos documenting these adventures can be found here.)

During some rare downtime at the conference, my talented, silly, kind-hearted, slightly nutty pals Lindsay Griffiths, Gail Lamarche, Nancy Myrland, and Laura and Josh Toledo (along with yours truly) spent an afternoon at the internationally renowned San Diego Zoo. (Remember watching the zoo’s countless animal ambassadors as some of Johnny Carson’s most memorable guests on The Tonight Show throughout the 70s and 80s? I sure do.)

Now, as a pretty vocal animal rights proponent, I’m not generally a fan of zoos, circuses, animal-centered theme parks, aquariums, or any place where animals are used (incarcerated?) for entertainment, amusement, revenue, or souvenir sales.

However, my buddies made the wise choice to sign up for the Backstage Pass tour, which not only offers the ability to get up close and personal with animals as diverse as a rhinoceros and a cheetah, flamingos and an arctic wolf (the latter of which brought me to happy tears), but also provides a thoughtful review of the zoo’s ecological mission to educate and protect. Much information was provided to attendees about what products to buy (and not buy) that will protect these animals’ native habitats (e.g. sustainable harvesting of palm oil) as well as what we as individuals can do to save these beautiful creatures from extinction. I was also struck by the deep-feeling, kind-hearted animal handlers who had such obvious kinship with these exquisite animals. That cross-species bond is powerful and moving to observe.

As for the park itself, it is beautifully done, if veering dangerously close to a theme park’s epic scope and merchandising mania. I might have been less inclined to forgive that excess had we not attended the tour, so I highly recommend the add-on if you plan to visit the zoo, particularly if you are bringing kids (of all ages).

But, word to the wise, don’t even attempt to follow the zoo’s colorfully muddled maps. We got lost about 18 times, having to pass through the aviary about 12 of those 18 times and seemingly walking up (steep) hills everywhere. In fact, I can’t recall us ever walking downhill. It’s like being immersed in an MC Escher painting.

At the conclusion of the conference, John and I headed to Hollywood, baby. And Hollywood is gross.

After scoring tickets to a taping (yes, taping) of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live (which ain’t so live … spoiler alert), we headed to a pre-show lunch at amazing vegetarian chain VeggieGrill. How are these not all over the country yet? With an astounding array of choices, breezy décor, fabulous staff, and just the right amount of corporate polish, this was easily my favorite food stop of the trip. And others seemed to concur as the line to get in (you order at a counter and they bring you your food when ready) extended outside the building, the patrons being a glorious collection of hipsters, studio employees, computer programmers, blue-haired genre geeks, and regular joes. I loved it.

Kimmel’s studio is smack dab on Hollywood Boulevard, with patiently waiting audience members queuing across the starry Walk of Fame (I’m pretty sure I stood atop Mario Lanza for about 45 minutes) and facing the Hollywood & Highland mall complex which houses the Oscar Awards venue The Dolby (formerly Kodak) Theatre.

The process of getting into Kimmel’s eponymous show? Not so great. Unless you enjoy standing for a couple hours in the hot California sun while skeezily assertive street performers dressed like Spider-Man, Minnie Mouse, and Don King (!) accost you for photo ops … and for your wallet.

Once inside (Kimmel tapes in a former Masonic Temple), you are struck by how small the studio is. If you ever visited a local TV station newsroom, it’s not much bigger, but darn is Kimmel’s floor SHINY! I think it was mopped half a dozen times while we sat patiently waiting for Kimmel to arrive.

And once Kimmel arrived, things got all kinds of crazy? Right? Wrong.

Sadly, Kimmel in person seems like a cipher on his own program. The sweet, sparkly production assistant who got all of us situated in our seats had more zip and personality (and likely should have his own show). Kimmel wasn’t bad but he didn’t do a heckuva lot to engage his audience (creating even more irony around that “live” descriptor). When the cameras were on or guests would arrive, Kimmel lit up, but the minute cameras went dark, he would hang in a gloomy corner, looking downward at that eerily glistening floor. Perhaps that is just his process to retain his focus, but it stood in stark relief to the impish Kimmel persona that has been burnished over the years by the Mouse House.

As for Kimmel’s guests, we were treated to two musical performances by and an interview with Jamie Foxx (on hand to launch his new album, oddly enough titled Hollywood) and an appearance by legendary Betty White. It was the latter guest that got the biggest response from us (and the entire audience for that matter). She was as charming and sly, sweet and gracious as you might expect. And Foxx, of course, was a live wire, exuding charm and energy. (Though at times he seemed like that show choir kid you hated in high school … you know the one, right? Look at me! Look at me!)

I also had a special treat in meeting Dicky Barrett, Kimmel’s announcer and the lead singer for a college favorite band of mine The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. He was warm and funny and an absolute pleasure, kindly accepting copies of my books as a gift to him and to the show. (I hope they don’t mind my snark in the preceding paragraphs. That’s just how I roll.)

I should add that I was going through my own personal hell watching the show unfold. I had told everyone (including my parents) to watch the broadcast that evening and to look for us in the audience, only to feel totally mortified by how “blue” the humor skewed that particular episode. I’m no prude, but you know that particular phenomenon you feel as an adult watching something a little risqué in the company of your parents? That hot, clammy, bottom-fell-out-of-the-elevator feeling that creeps over you? Well, the minute Foxx launched into his musical interpretation of sundry Tinder (!) profiles, I thought I might die. (If you didn’t see the show, just let your mind wander … and then go a little filthier than that.)

And the next day we went to Disneyland …

Specifically, Disney’s California Adventure, which holds the dubious distinction of being a theme park in California dedicated to attractions about California that you could basically drive an hour or two in any direction in California and see in person in California. It wins the prize for one-stop shopping, and, to its credit, no one gropes you, picks your pockets, or tells a naughty joke!

In all seriousness, it is a beautiful park and, like Epcot, ideal for a meandering stroll. The actual rides seem few and far between, a fact which, as I plummet through middle age, was fine by me. From a vintage boardwalk (replete with Ferris wheel, carny games, and a truly terrifying roller coaster) to a quaint wharf district to chilled out wine country, there’s a “land” for every taste.

My favorite, hand’s down, was the recently added “Cars Land,” a pitch perfect recreation of the settings from Pixar’s critically-reviled but wildly popular Cars movie franchise.

The utter immersion in a world populated by life-size, anthropomorphic autos is an intoxicating fever dream (and I don’t think it’s because I was hopped up on DayQuil from my unsurprising “oh, I’ve been on a plane and at a conference and now I have a cold” cold). Even if you hated the films (and a lot of adults seem to – I don’t), you will be floored when Doc Hudson or Lightning McQueen roll by and offer you a pleasant salutation. Well played, Imagineeers!

Special thanks to my longtime pal (and fellow Deloitte Consulting alum) Ratana Therakulsathit, now a happy Angelino and successful actress and voiceover artist, for being our expert Disney tour guide. We’d still be wandering lost around the ticketing area if not for her. Please check out her website, including samples of her exceptional work, here.

We rounded out our trip to California with a stop in La Jolla, a place that is not only vegetarian friendly (I felt like we were back in Ann Arbor, only with better climate, exceptional views, and prettier people) but also seal and sea lion friendly.

Locals and tourists alike share La Jolla’s sandy beaches with a playful and relaxed population of seals and sea lions. Live and let live, dude. I could get used to that.

There are plenty of signs that caution you not to touch or approach the animals as they will become understandably territorial, but a resident told us that if you swim in the water and let the seals just be, well, seals, they will come up to you and want to play. Now that is my idea of the perfect vacation!

(Photos throughout by Lindsay Griffiths, Gail Lamarche, Nancy Myrland, Laura and Josh Toledo, Ratana Therakulsathit, John Mola, and yours truly.)

____________________________

Reel Roy Reviews 2

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 News coverage of #LMA15 presentation – and home again in #Indiana

6 April 2015

7 Comments

Thanks to the Detroit Legal News for this coverage of my upcoming presentation – alongside Gina Rubel, Heather Morse, and Megan McKeon – at the national Legal Marketing Association conference. You can find out more about LMA at legalmarketing.org – here’s a scan of the article and the full text follows …

(Congratulations also to my colleague Marcy Ford and her recognition here as a recipient of the inaugural “Career Mastered: Women’s Leadership in Action” award in Southeast Michigan!)

Trott Law, a Farmington Hills-based real estate finance law firm, announced today that Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs Roy Sexton has been selected to participate in a panel on legal marketing at the 2015 Legal Marketing Association (LMA) Annual Conference. The conference will take place on April 13-15 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront in San Diego, California.

As the authority for legal marketing that brings together marketing and business development professionals from firms across the Unites States, LMA invited Sexton to sit on a four-person panel, titled “Collaboration and Coexistence among Barristers and ‘Baristas.’” Sexton and his fellow panelists will focus their discussion on practical advice on effectively communicating with lawyers, leveraging generational commonalities, delivering results that will build credibility and establishing a career network.

Sexton earned his Bachelor’s degree from Wabash College in 1995 and is a 1997 graduate of The Ohio State University, where he earned his Master’s degree in Theatre. In 2007, he graduated with his MBA from the University of Michigan. He is a graduate of Leadership Detroit, a governor-appointed member of the Michigan Council of Labor and Economic Growth, and was appointed to the Michigan Mortgage Lenders Association Board of Governors in 2012. Currently, Sexton is an active participant in the Leadership Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti program.

Additionally, Sexton has been involved in a number of nonprofit boards and committees, including First Step, Michigan Quality Council, National MS Society, ASPCA, Wabash College Southeast Michigan Alumni Association, Penny Seats Theatre Company and the Spotlight Players. He recently published two books, Reel Roy Reviews, Volumes 1 & 2, collections of essays on film, theatre, and culture culled from his blog, reelroyreviews.com.

Prior to joining Trott Law, Sexton spent 10 years in various planning and communications roles at Oakwood Healthcare System, serving as the corporate director of strategic communications and planning. In this role he led a staff of 20 marketing professionals and developed the strategic direction for the $1 billion health care system.

____________________________

And I had a great visit to Indiana this past weekend – yes, that Indiana (the one I famously excoriated in my last entry, which was reprinted in my mom’s “Old Type Writer” column here) – to spend time with parents and to celebrate my dad’s birthday and Easter and whatnot.

Well, we had a fabulous time, and the Easter Bunny brought me (via my thoughtful, clever parents) a beautifully custom-made “Reel Roy Reviews” sweatshirt.

We had some great meals out and about, catching up, at these various local eateries, with sweet Nancy Hartman, my high school classmate Cammie Simmons Casey, and Mad Men fan Steven Wegman.

Happy spring, everyone! Let’s hope for increased tolerance, acceptance, and love for all creatures … be they two-legged, four-legged, finned, feathered, insectoid, or reptilian.

____________________________

And a little hometown love from The Columbia City Post & Mail …

____________________________

Reel Roy Reviews 2

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

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

Guest review … “At least our dinner was good.” Mr. Turner

26 March 2015

6 Comments

Description: Film poster; Source: Wikipedia [linked]; Portion used: Film poster only; Low resolution? Sufficient resolution for illustration, but considerably lower resolution than original. Other information: Intellectual property by film studio. Non-free media use rationales: Non-free media use rationale - Article/review; Purpose of use: Used for purposes of critical commentary and illustration in an educational article about the film. The poster is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic. Replaceable? Protected by copyright, therefore a free use alternative won't exist.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Second guest review of the week. I’m sensing a trend here. Either I’ve grown too lazy to see (and write) about movies this month, or my friends and family have become inspired by this blog to offer their cinematic musings to the world. Or both.

My parents saw two movies this week – Danny Collins and Mr. Turner at Fort Wayne, Indiana’s Cinema Center. What follows is a cautionary email I received early this morning from my father Don Sexton about the otherwise dependable actor Timothy Spall’s Mr. Turner …

____________________________

On Mar 26, 2015, Don Sexton wrote:

Don’t buy the DVD
Maybe we are missing something – a total bore
Unless you like watching people walk around in dress-up from the 1800s
And you like watching sunrises and sunsets over the ocean with ships (which he – Turner – used as his subject ALL the time)
And you like not understanding the dialogue because of the thick, muttering English 1800s accents
… And you like getting the feeling that everybody is coming down with some kind of 1800s malady because it is the 1800s
But we did like the three ladies Mr. Turner used/abused/treated badly … and to whom Turner all-around was an ass
And finally – if you have nothing to do with 2+ hours of your life – go sit through Mr. Turner.

We definitely do not understand the hype on this one. Love you. But we did have a very good meal at the Guesthouse after the movie. The glass was half full?

____________________________

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.

Talk of the Town features Reel Roy Reviews, Vol. 2

5 February 2015

2 Comments

Reel Roy Reviews, Volume 2

Thanks to Jennifer Romano and Talk of the Town! Read here. Quote from yours truly: “As my blog rolls into another year of entertainment, rife with comic book adaptations, sequels, Oscar bait, arena shows, and theatrical productions big and small, sometimes I wonder if I am choking the life right from this hobby of mine. Can you imagine if every time you saw a film that your OCD tendencies forced you to rush home, throw some quippy hoo-ha on the internet, and wait eagerly for 3.5 comments to appear? Ah, well, it’s still too much fun to stop now—anticipate Volume THREE Roy’s Movie Migraine shortly.”

Roy and Susie waiting for the big show

BONUS: Enjoy this fabulous new blog entry from my mom Susie Duncan Sexton – provocative and fun! Read “Got (almond) milk? Books, movies, politics, culture, and AGRIganda” by clicking here.

Excerpt: “Regarding BUT HAVE YOU READ THE BOOK jazz, my mother ALWAYS asked that question. Guess what? She very seldom had actually read the books herself; I preferred to write my book reports based on the more enjoyable movie versions!”

____________________________

Reel Roy Reviews 2

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

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

“My life – like all lives – is mysterious, irrevocable, and sacred.” Wild (2014)

31 January 2015

10 Comments

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Wild is an interesting film, and, on the whole, I liked it quite a bit. It’s great to see Reese Witherspoon digging in and acting again. I had begun to find latter-day Witherspoon (post-Walk the Line) a bit self-satisfied and, well, smug, and this based-on-a-true-story-as-turned-into-a-New-York-Times-bestseller role allows her to strip off the starry veneer and (mostly) give us some of the nuanced acting that her early career promised.

Where the film falters (at least for cynical me) is in what I would like to dub the Julie & Julia conundrum: a biographical film based on a regular ol’ person’s memoir, a tome that hangs on an oh-my-God-will-you-believe-THIS gimmick that makes great fodder for teary Oprah interviews or saucy segments on The View. In the case of, say, Julie & Julia, Amy Adams’ failed writer seems to declare, “Aw, what the heck! I’m just going to cook a different, fabulous Julia Child recipe every day and blog about it. I have no intention of becoming famous for it and leveraging it as a marketing hook to jump-start a literary career doused in flop sweat. Nope. Not me. I’m authentic.”

In the case of Wild, our protagonist Cheryl Strayed (interesting last name, given the subject matter) implodes after the sudden death of her beloved mother, throwing her marriage and her family and her English major lit aspirations (she’s a feminist because she references Erica Jong? that made me wince) in a garbage can, pouring kerosene on it, and lighting the whole kit and kaboodle on fire as she discovers the joys of sex addiction, heroin addiction, and just plain addiction. What saves her sullen, sputtering butt? Well, she just happens to see a guidebook to walk the Pacific Crest Trail (mind you, this is while sauntering into a drugstore for a pregnancy test ’cause she thinks she’s with child but not sure whose) and then determines that heading on a thousand mile vision quest will heal her soul. Oh, and if you didn’t know how rotten she was at this point, you later learn that she and her brother shoot her mother’s prized horse after mama’s death because they didn’t have the resources to care for it?!?! Um, how about offering it for adoption/rescue? Just a thought.

That preceding paragraph came across sh*ttier than I intended, but I’m leaving it there for all to ponder at will. It’s not this film’s problem, but our reality television/prurient tall tale tell-all culture has me wondering sometimes as to the veracity of stories like this one and the relative ease with which they translate from journal to blog to novel to Academy Award-glittering event film.

Regardless, Jean Marc-Vallee leaves behind any of his TV movie tendencies (see any of Jennifer Garner’s scenes in Dallas Buyers Club) and transforms the source material into cinematic poetry. The film is akin to a “memory play” where the central characters/audience float surreally in and out of present and past, and Vallee has a genius command of music and sound and imagery to evoke the kind of sense memory that snaps one back to happy and not-so-happy moments in time. Vallee and his game cast, which also includes a heart-breakingly luminous Laura Dern as Strayed’s/Witherspoon’s mother, allow for some marvelous bits of situational humor to shine through all the pathos – that is a real gift and essential for a movie like this, which could easily become a dark, cliched slog.

In the end, though, the movie lives or dies on Witherspoon’s epically back-packed shoulders, and her performance is a triumph. As she showed us so many years ago with her brilliant channeling of the What Makes Sammy Run? farce that is American politics (be it national, local, or … student council) in Election, Witherspoon with her jutting jaw, limpid eyes, and tortured/tortuous inner life excels when playing the unlikable. Pick Flick! Her Cheryl Strayed is raw-boned and relatable, someone whose misery has toxified her soul, not to mention anyone else’s within a five-mile radius of her.

Yet, Witherspoon never comes off maudlin, self-pitying, scenery-chewing. Her emotional collapse is chiefly internal (save some awkward heroin-den flashbacks that likely should have been left on the cutting room floor), and her trek along the rugged trail is believable and … kind of inept in its execution. Strayed makes lots of mistakes – think Cast Away in the woods which makes it all the more heroic in the end.

And, as for that horse situation (’cause you totally know THAT is what bothered me endlessly)? Strayed/Witherspoon is haunted by it (think Equus without all the weird Freudian freaky BS), and, as she journeys through California, animal life is a constant. A beautiful fox that very well may be the avatar of her late mother (the CGI was a bit clunky on that otherwise neat concept), an alpaca that she comes across in the wood (yeah, you read that correctly, but it leads to one of the film’s sweetest moments when she finds the grandma/grandson pair who care for the creature), little tree frogs that visit her in the night, and a whimsical encounter with a caterpillar. I’m sure I’m reading what I want to here, but Strayed’s/Witherspoon’s last words in the film are: “My life – like all lives – is mysterious, irrevocable, and sacred.” Damn right.

________________________________

Reel Roy Reviews 2

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

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

Even though I am too old to be doing all these silly things

29 January 2015

14 Comments

I am very lucky to have parents who continue to support and celebrate everything I do, even though I am too old to be doing all these silly things. My dad always makes a point to brag about me at his weekly Rotary meetings in Columbia City, Indiana, the small town in which I grew up and where my parents still reside. Below is a snapshot of the front page of the latest Rotary newsletter – you can see a mention of me and the latest book in the lower right corner. Thanks, Susie and Don – love you!

________________________________

Reel Roy Reviews 2

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

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

MLK holiday movie marathon (VIDEO): Paddington, Foxcatcher, Selma, American Sniper

21 January 2015

11 Comments

Enjoy this quick video synopsis of movies we saw over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend – Paddington, Foxcatcher, Selma, American Sniper. (You can read the full reviews of all four below this entry).

And thanks to The Columbia City Post & Mail for this additional shout-out for the release of Reel Roy Reviews, Vol. 2: Keep ‘Em Coming!

________________________________

Reel Roy Reviews 2

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

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

“A vicious lie as placation.” Selma

19 January 2015

6 Comments

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Selma is a beautiful film beautifully made and could not arrive at a more appropriate time in our nation’s history. Selma depicts a world in which we as a nation invest time and energy fighting foreign wars while neglecting our own people at home. Sound familiar? This core message in the film resonates today as it did then, and it is delivered flawlessly.

I won’t go into the recent Oscar controversy surrounding the film, but I do concur with those who feel the film’s lead actors and director not being nominated is a gross oversight. Like so many modern films depicting historic situations, Selma suffers from some genre clichés: collapsing too many complex issues into a glib exchange or two, projecting the passage of time chiefly through changes in wardrobe and hairstyle, giving us historical figures who sometime seem as if they walked out of a book of paper dolls.

However, and this is key, Selma is written and directed with a sharp eye toward how far we think we’ve come yet how little we’ve actually achieved when it comes to human rights in America. We are a country that celebrates freedom and equality but thrives economically on an ingrained caste system, which is based on race and ethnicity and gender and age, all superficial qualities ultimately irrelevant to one’s true value. The film wisely focuses on an episode in Martin Luther King‘s storied career (the march on Selma) as a means of understanding the man and his role in history, rather than doing the tired lifetime-crammed-into-three-hours biopic approach of yore.

Director Ava DuVernay stacks the deck with a cast that is both credible and compelling. David Oyelowo so inhabits the soul and voice and mannerisms of Martin Luther King, you forget at times that you’re watching an actor (let alone a Brit) portray one of our greatest historical figures. Carmen Ejogo (another Brit!) offers a Coretta Scott King who is flinty and self-possessed, gracious and justifiably exhausted in the face of harrowing trials both domestic and public.

Tom Wilkinson (Brit number three!) as a blustering, well-intentioned, frustrated and frustrating LBJ and Tim Roth (Brit number four!) as misguided/misanthropic political animal George Wallace round out a terrific cast. All are dynamite. With great nuance, Oprah Winfrey, one of the film’s producers (and not a Brit), plays a pivotal (if small) role in Annie Lee Cooper , whose efforts to gain the right to vote are the essential issue at play in King’s historic march from Selma to Montgomery.

Unlike Lee Daniels’ The Butler, which presented another take on the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Selma does not fall prey to its own high-minded aspirations. The filmmakers are not afraid to show King warts and all (his philandering is addressed in a quietly powerful confrontation between Coretta and her husband) or even to imply that King is as much a political opportunist as those white leaders both alongside and in opposition to his efforts. DuVernay lets her lens show King in a number of lights: noble, maddeningly self-serving, obtuse, kind. I found that approach refreshing, educational, and enlightening, particularly as I continue to scratch my head at the decision-making of our world’s current leaders.

In the film, King, in his climactic speech in Montgomery, uses the phrase “a vicious lie as placation,” impugning the very nature of a system that pushes one class down to the benefit of another. This insidious concept continues to corrupt our ability to peacefully coexist, both among ourselves as Americans and with all other denizens of the world; viewing Selma could be part of the antidote: instructive, heart rending, and essential

________________________________

Reel Roy Reviews 2

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

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

Les Miserables in a wrestling ring: Foxcatcher

18 January 2015

10 Comments

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Like some Oscar-bait cross between Million Dollar Arm and Sunset Boulevard with a pinch of Psycho and Jane Eyre thrown in, Foxcatcher details the sordid tale of Olympic gold-medal wrestlers Dave and Mark Schultz and their dubiously motivated benefactor John E. du Pont. The film is a slow moving, frosty enterprise that deftly skewers the out-of-touch misanthropy of one-percenters, the sweaty desperation of competitive athletics, and the strange sycophantic creatures known as athletic boosters.

Steve Carell, richly deserving his recently minted Oscar nomination, portrays the scion of the American chemical dynasty as a heartbreakingly creepy, incestuously inbred superpatriot whose preoccupation with Americana and misplaced mommy issues leads him to adopt a cadre of wrestlers to live and train on his sprawling estate. Vanessa Redgrave – in all of her three minutes of screen time – exonerates any lingering Freudian implications about du Pont’s mother, Jean, a world class horse trainer. With just a flicker of those legendary eyes and a pursing of the lips, Redgrave telegraphs, with a quietly, comically poignant thunderstorm intensity, her profound disappointment and confusion over the oddball son she raised.

You see, John du Pont runs around in a Revolutionary War three-quarter length jacket (when he’s not rocking a cheesy wrestling coach track suit), buys tanks to tool around his property, goes skeet shooting with the local police, insists that people call him “Eagle” or “Golden Eagle,” snorts cocaine, and decorates his home in a faux colonial style that would have been tacky during the ’76 Bicentennial. In other words, he would be a great addition to the Bush family. Sorry.

He aims to overshadow his mother’s equestrian accomplishments by helping Mark Schultz (and thereby ‘Murica) bring home the gold at the ’88 Seoul Olympics. Du Pont is a pathetically amateurish wrestler himself, with a very kinky preoccupation with singlets and wrestling mats. And an even kinkier preoccupation with the younger Schultz brother, as portrayed by Channing Tatum.

Tatum hasn’t gotten the accolades garnered by Carell as du Pont or by Mark Ruffalo as Mark’s older brother David. That’s a shame. Tatum turns in a brilliant variation of his standard lunkhead routine, swiping a bit from James Dean’s Cal Trask (East of Eden) playbook as the wounded, ever-ignored baby brother. It is this broken spirit that connects Mark with du Pont in a toxic brew of clammy co-dependence. As du Pont continues to derail the younger Schultz with his sociopathic manipulation, the thick-headed heartbreak of Tatum’s emotionally stunted Mark Schultz is palpable. His breakdown in a hotel room at the Olympic trials is epically harrowing (if not a touch overbaked).

Ruffalo, as always, is scruffy perfection as Tatum’s brother. He captures the pathetic swagger of an athlete whose accomplishments were forgotten before they even really began. Olympic gold for these brothers is more of a dead end than an open door. Ruffalo is warm and lovely and appropriately stilted in all of his interactions with family, not quite as stunted as his brother Mark … but awfully close. When he finally meets his tragic end, it is both shocking and expected but no less horrifying.

Director Bennett Miller, like Carell and Ruffalo, also has been nominated for an Oscar, though his recognition is arguably the least deserving. Bennett is brave enough to let the quiet moments speak for themselves, capitalizing on the expressiveness of his crackerjack cast to great effect. The movie’s strongest moments are in its silences; the most telling exchanges from a wordless look of disdain from one character to another.

However, the film’s pacing is ponderous, and, occasionally, Bennett allows the flick to devolve into TV movie clichés: Mark Schultz now has highlights in his hair … so he must be having an illicit relationship with du Pont; Mark Schultz is surrounded by beer bottles, so he must be letting training slide; Du Pont is snorting cocaine during a helicopter ride, so he must be a reckless ne’er do well; David Schultz can’t remember simple things like picking up his kids from school, so let’s have him write notes on his own hand like “pick up kids” which must show what a regular Joe he is. Ain’t that cute?

Regardless, the film is very much worth seeing, for the implications it offers regarding the super rich in this country … of their inability to understand the hopes and dreams of the rest of us, of their inability to see that we aren’t here as chattel for their amusement. To me, that was the most powerful message of all in the film, like Les Miserables in a wrestling ring.

________________________________

Reel Roy Reviews 2

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

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

Reel Roy Reviews

…to the chagrin of true arbiters of taste

Category Archives: Biography

San Diego, Part the Second: San Diego Zoo, Jimmy Kimmel, Disneyland, La Jolla seals, Hollywood … and dirty jokes

Like this:

Legal News coverage of #LMA15 presentation – and home again in #Indiana

Like this:

Guest review … “At least our dinner was good.” Mr. Turner

Like this:

Talk of the Town features Reel Roy Reviews, Vol. 2

Like this:

“My life – like all lives – is mysterious, irrevocable, and sacred.” Wild (2014)

Like this:

Even though I am too old to be doing all these silly things

Like this:

MLK holiday movie marathon (VIDEO): Paddington, Foxcatcher, Selma, American Sniper

Like this:

“A vicious lie as placation.” Selma

Like this:

Les Miserables in a wrestling ring: Foxcatcher

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: