Wicked. I read Gregory Maguire’s book thirty years ago and was transformed. In this pre-internet era, the idea of approaching a well-worn tale like The Wizard of Oz (which had always been an obsession of mine) from the “villain’s” perspective was relatively, er, novel. But Maguire had more than a gimmick – he had an incisive message to relay, a takedown of the patriarchy, an attack on racism and classism, a desire to champion the rights of all creatures great and small. I had never read anything like it.
A few years later, Stephen Schwartz (another obsession) adapted the novel into a big, brassy Broadway musical. My husband and I would finally see the show in Toronto a few years after its debut, and John fell deeply in love with the score and the narrative around an underdog and a top dog striking an unlikely friendship that changed both of their lives … for good. I enjoyed the show but felt something had been lost. The novel’s thornier edges had all been sanded down and replaced with an equally moving but slightly different message around empowerment in the face of institutional adversity.
Twenty years later, director John M. Chu crafted a cinematic hybrid of sorts between novel and stage show to generally positive results. Wicked, Part 1 as it has come to be known felt like a revelation (again), bringing the zip of Schwartz’s score into an overlit landscape that didn’t shy away from Maguire’s cultural critique, while remaining a family-friendly, infinitely merchandisable affair. Chu made the arguably controversial, definitely monetizable decision to break the stage show into two films. Given that the first act of the stage show remained unencumbered from too many specific ties to L. Frank Baum’s Oz books and was thereby free to do a good bit of world-building around the school years of Elphaba and G(a)linda, the first film felt like a complete thought, ending with the triumphant anthem “Defying Gravity.”
So what to do with the stage show’s more problematic second act which episodically barrels through key moments in Elphaba’s and Glinda’s adult life, intersecting frequently, sometime elegantly, often cumbersomely with key moments in Dorothy’s overly familiar journey through Oz? On balance, Chu blessedly gives us some breathing room to digest all that is happening. It took me four views of the Broadway show to actually remember and process what the heck transpires in that second act. Offering that second act material more cinematic real estate is both good and bad. In Wicked: For Good, we get far more character moments, enriching the dynamic between the former school chums as they lead their separate yet symbiotic lives. The downside? There’s more time for us to scratch our heads and ask, “Wait, where were Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Lion just then?” From a chronological perspective, at times it just feels like that math ain’t mathing.
But Chu was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. If he drastically reworked act two to unravel some of the nonsensical bits, 20 years of Wicked-heads would have revolted. If he changed too little, the more casual audience members (and mean-spirited critics) would declare this second installment a letdown. “It’s just not as much fun as the first one.” Well, duh. Elphaba does still have to become the “Wicked Witch” we all knew and feared as children. Schrodinger’s witch as it were.
For the tl;dr crowd, I enjoyed the film. A lot. It took me a week, though, to figure out what if anything I wanted to say about it. So here’s this. Go see it. Be open-minded. Hold space for revelatory turns by both Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. And remember how disappointed you were with The Empire Strikes Back as a child, but how eventually it became your favorite Star Wars film in adulthood because it dares to be dark … and, well, real. Or as real as fantasy can be. Through a mirror darkly revealing that even in a magical land of escapism there are, in fact, lions, and tigers, and bears. Oh my.
My God, Jurassic World Rebirth is an astonishingly stupid movie. The kind of movie that makes me angry I saw it. I don’t want to devote any more time to the damn thing by writing about it, to be honest, but I have … thoughts.
Here’s the thing. The overarching conceit – 32 years in – just doesn’t work anymore if it ever actually did past the first installment. As an audience, can we in good faith care about, worry over, or invest in the humans in peril if they are such nitwits that they willingly return to the former park setting, research lab, holding island, WHATEVER where chaos has already ensued countless times? Shouldn’t we in fact feel utter sorrow for the dinosaurs at this point? They asked for NONE of this, happily extinct until “life found a way” with greedy entrepreneurs who only worried about whether they “could not if they should” (and all the other pseudo-philosophical bromides that have peppered this film franchise).
Have these films become my generation’s version of those Irwin Allen disaster pics of yore where random celebs at various points of their careers survive an airport on fire in the middle of a hurricane which is also on fire? Paging Shelley Winters.
Rebirth director Gareth Edwards is one of our more interesting filmmakers, particularly with this kind of capitalistic science run amuck enterprise. Why didn’t he finally flip the script on its head and give us a film where without equivocation humans were the real enemies?! That would have been interesting. No one would have bought a ticket, but at least there would have been a raison d’etre.
What do we get? An L.L. Bean catalog costumed romp through Spielberg’s greatest hits:
Beautiful cinematography of sweeping jungle vistas
The epic swell of John Williams’ iconic theme (a LOT)
Random yuppie family members inexplicably in peril – people who should be nowhere near ANY of this but by dumb luck and poor life choices are
Chic product-placed SUVs
One whimsically likable and infinitely merchandisable pocket dino to contrast with those mean big ol’ SCARY ones just looking for a meal
Thumbnail tragic back stories ONLY for the characters who will clearly survive so we are manipulated into fretting over them
A handful of other people, each of whom will clearly get offed every seventeen and a half minutes because they’re painted as marginally unlikable
Absolutely zero grief from the survivors (UNLESS it’s a red herring death of a cast member who will reappear from the jungle ten minutes later)
Internal logic that is all over the map – e.g. don’t make a sound to inadvertently attract the dinos UNLESS we need you to scream and wail in the next scene with little existential consequence
Flippant jokes made amidst the carnage to show how chill the characters really are
Characters who periodically whoop and holler with glee at unearned “victory” or “in awe” moments – like they are attending a college football game
AND a terrifically talented and terrifically wasted cast who would have been better served playing Pickleball than showing up for this drivel
Scarlett Johansson plays a kind of remixed Lara Croft mercenary version of Chris Pratt’s and Laura Dern’s characters from earlier films. Mahershala Ali is the wise and world-weary boat captain with a secret heart of gold. Jonathan Bailey fares the best of the three as the Sam Neill/Jeff Goldblum arch-but-sexy-nerd “voice of reason” paleontologist. Bailey manages to wring some gold from the lines he’s given, landing a few zingers along the way – my favorite: “What would I do with mutant dinosaurs from an accounting perspective? Is that REALLY what we are asking?” Or maybe I just found that funny because it felt like an indictment of Universal Pictures still pumping these movies out.
Seriously, the film is sharp enough to cast three smart, winning, box office draws who can act but then has them wander around cavalierly for two and a half hours like they are at a blood-splattered country club. It felt like this was the direction they were given: “Yes, we know being surrounded by frantically carnivorous dinos should elicit some authentic reactions of abject fear, but we think it would be better if you portrayed your characters like they were in a Hallmark movie on their way to a county fair after grabbing a low-fat soy macchiato at Starbucks and some workout gear at lululemon. Can you make that work?”
There are simply no stakes in this film. I suppose I should tell you the hook for all the mayhem THIS time. In short, people in this Jurassic universe just don’t care about dinos anymore – they’ve moved on. Ho hum. And the remaining dinos can’t survive anywhere but a few equatorial islands. THAT could have been an interesting concept to explore in detail – how jaded and indifferent we have become as a society through the lens of dinosaurs becoming extinct, not literally but in popularity. We cavalierly cast aside such a miracle of science because it ceases to entertain; not to mention the planet’s atmosphere is so effed up these amazing creatures can’t survive here anyway. But, no, that’s just a passing thought in the first 10 minutes to set up an excursion to the equator to draw DNA from THREE – count ‘em THREE – very specific dinos (one by sea, one by land, one by air … naturally) in order for big pharma to develop a cure for heart disease. Yup, that’s why these nincompoops travel to hell on earth and get themselves killed (or mostly killed). For MacGuffins. Bailey’s character is stuck being the Jiminy Cricket conscience, periodically chastising with comments like “Science is for ALL of us, not SOME of us” and “WE don’t rule the earth … we just THINK we do.” Sigh.
Hey, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures, the next time – and that is a fiscal inevitability – you start cranking up your marketing machinery to gestate another one of these Jurassic babies, just take a moment and remember what Jeff Goldblum cautioned alllllll the way back in 1993 (and I repeat for those in the back): “You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn’t stop to think if you should.”
Wicked. An adjective. A thirty year old book by Gregory Maguire. A twenty year old musical by Stephen Schwartz. A present day marketing/merchandising juggernaut by Universal Pictures. And, oddly enough, the post-2024 presidential election escapist allegorical cautionary tale none of us quite realized we would need.
(And here my money would have been onJoker: Folie à Deuxto fill that niche.)
As an inversion of L. Frank Baum’s classic The Wizard of Oz (itself a sly critique of populist politics and presidential scandal of its time), Maguire’s source text has always served as a post-feminist, pro-queer indictment of classism, patriarchy, misogyny, and speciesism. A good bit of that got lost in Broadway’s necessary streamlining for a 2.5 hour tune-filled run time. But the DNA of questioning “the man behind the curtain” has always been a constant in every version of this oft told tale. As Jeff Goldblum’s Wizard intones, “Nothing brings people together like a common enemy.” And in this instance, it’s the hat trick of turning an entire population against one woman whose primary “crimes” are difference, compassion, ferocity, and intelligence. Sound familiar?
(I still hope one day the BBC turns the original novel and its subsequent literary sequels into a mini series.)
Director Jon M. Chu made the controversial (to some minds) choice of splitting his film adaptation of the stage musical into two parts. I’m sure doubling the potential box office returns helped sweeten the idea. But it also turns out to be an inspired artistic choice. It feels like the story can breathe a bit more now. The Broadway show is a spectacular spectacle but it’s also a bit of a bombastic freight train with nary a pause from one BIG! number to the next.
Yes, as a Thanksgiving family film offering, there is still plenty of “bigness” – set design that looks like M.C. Escher on an acid trip, costumes that could be an Edith Head x Dr. Seuss collab, CGI that resembles a Chat GPT “Mad Libs.” All to be expected. But the best “special effect” of all? How Chu turns his cinematic gaze to the politics of the personal, giving his A-list cast clear moments of haunting, poignant, or humorous introspection and connection. Expanding her book from the stage show deftly, Winnie Holzman pulls from Maguire’s source text to build out back story, deepen relationships, and bring increased credibility to character developments that the compressed theatrical stagetime glossed over.
Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Ariana Grande-Butera as Galinda, and Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero – the show’s/film’s three principal characters – make effective use of the additional airtime. Yes, they all are gifted singers/dancers who sell all the big iconic moments – “The Wizard and I,” “Popular,” and “Dancing Through Life” are respective highlights for this talented trio, honoring their theatrical forebears while adding mucho cinematic surprises and emotional delights.
Yet where the film establishes its heart, gravitas, and, quite frankly, staying power is in the expanded scene work among the trio. They all effectively leverage the relative intimacy of film versus stage to bring grace notes of heartache, insecurity, loneliness, and fear that counterbalance the more day glo elements of the enterprise. I don’t know that audiences will realize the excellent technique and timing these three actors have brought to this production. It will all seem effortless (as it should) but hopefully not taken for granted.
Also, unlike the stage show, the film effectively explores the anti-animal propaganda that propels the Wizard’s rise to power in Oz. (Shades of James Gunn’s last Guardians of the Galaxy.) This is the element from Maguire’s novel that gripped my heart thirty years ago, so I was glad to see it restake bigger, clearer narrative claim. In my opinion, it’s crucial to framing Elphaba’s character arc re: how easy it can be for others to vilify strident empathy. As Galinda flippantly questions her goat history teacher Dr. Dillamond (warmly voiced by Peter Dinklage) before tragedy dramatically opens her heart (and mind): “Why can’t you teach us history instead of harping on the past?”
But just as the expanded run time brings many welcome enhancements, challenges are introduced as well. Notably, signature anthem “Defying Gravity” loses a good bit of its emotional build and thereby payoff, interspersed as it is with a typical Hollywood climax clock tower chase. It still works, in great part due to Erivo’s and Grande’s nuanced delivery, but CGI aerial maneuvers can’t quite compete with the old school theatrical magic of a fab diva belting from a hydraulic lift masked by a football field’s worth of black crepe.
Nonetheless, Wicked, the film … part one, is a marvel, and arguably a movie musical masterpiece, every bit deserving of the success inevitably coming its way. Erivo’s Elphaba wryly observes, “I don’t cause commotions. I am one.” Here’s to that!
Thank you, The Professionals: Inside Professional Services Marketing magazine, for this feature and shout out.
EXCERPT: “AI is certainly not a new phenomenon, and many firms and individuals within professional services firms are experimenting and even using it to save time. However, for many firms, its full potential to deliver and enhance their business development and marketing efforts has so far not been successfully tapped. To assist with this, a leading professional services BD and marketing agency, The BD Ladder, has released a thought leadership eBook, The Impact of AI on Business Development & Marketing in Professional Services, which features eight articles from leading independent BD and marketing consultants and practitioners within the professional services. …
“In comparison to this Roy Sexton’s article offers a contrary view on the widespread rush to adopt AI. He emphasizes the importance of thoughtful, strategic adoption of AI rather than chasing trends. Sexton warns against superficial compliance and advocates for a deeper understanding of AI’s potential and limitations.”
Are the kids all right? Are we too concerned with trend-chasing as opposed to delivering real value? Find out my thoughts on marketing, BD and AI in my article in The BD Ladder’slatest eBook.
Download your copy today and read the thoughts and opinions of industry leaders including Ben Chiriboga, Lynn Tellefsen Stehle, Ben Trott, David MacDonald, Megan Senese, Jennifer Ramsey, Richard W Smith, Michelle Howard, and Paul Roberts.
Thank you to Ben Paul and Lucy King who invited me to take part.
The kids are NOT all right … one marketer’s (cheeky) thoughts on trend-chasing and real value
By Roy Sexton, Director of Marketing at Clark Hill and Immediate Past International President of the Legal Marketing Association
I suppose I’ve become more of a contrarian as I’ve progressed through my career. I love new ideas, change, and growth, but sometimes my Spidey-sense goes off when I feel like too many people are all rushing off after the same shiny object and I don’t perceive a great depth of thinking in their discourse. Now I’m not saying that’s the case with AI right now.
I’m implying that’s the case with AI right now.
Why do I say this? Well, for one, we’ve all been living with AI in one form another already for 20+ years. It’s baked into just about every cell phone and home media device, ubiquitously scattered across the land. It’s part of all major software applications. It’s part of every shopping recommendation we receive – and heaven knows AI-shopping suggestions sustained my spirit during the pandemic!
But in 2023 it suddenly captured the zeitgeist and, at least in my chosen profession of marketing, it seemed as if everyone feared they didn’t sound “smart” if they didn’t jump into the fray. For a while, it seemed all slapped the sentence “AI won’t take your job, but people who know AI will” into every piece of thought leadership, whether pertinent or not.
It’s AI o’clock … do you know where your children are?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m as enamored of AI-prompts and AI-streamlined tasks as anybody. As a glimmer into my psychology: I remember I fought voice-to-text for years, until my poor thumb screamed “give me a break with all the texting!” And now I haven’t typed anything on my phone for the better part of a decade (I think). I also am not sure I’ve proofread any of my texts in the better part of a decade either come to think of it.
And I guess that’s a bit of my concern. There’s a meme I share on social media every time I see it, and much like Yogi Berra I’m sure I will mangle its verbiage. It’s something to the effect of … “Hey, rather than have AI replace all the artists and screenwriters, let’s have it clean up the oceans.” That speaks to me. I will sound like a tin-foil hat wearing conspiracist but did the accountants get together with IT and say, “You know what … we both hate writing. Can we work on something to replace THAT?” I know AI does SO much more, but this is what hits close to home for me. Truth be told, writers are generally paid a pittance anyway, and I’m not totally convinced that what comes from AI prompts is as compelling as what comes from the human mind and heart. Plus, if the robots are doing all the writing and the responding, who’s doing the reading? Asking for a friend. Isn’t the point of marketing copy to connect with fellow humans and influence their purchasing decisions? At least that’s what I always thought.
What does appeal to me is the idea of AI clearing the decks of tasks that are not value-add and replacing with ones that generate market insight, while expanding the reach of the human minds in the room. I do believe in my bones we are at an incredible tipping point where data is concerned; AI rapidly scouring all the interwebs to inform our creative decisions, to target the right clients and customers just-in-time, and to close the deal will create greater efficiency and outcomes. This will also empower the creatives to do their work, to not have to fight their internal clients endlessly (that’s honestly where all the marketing waste is), and to focus on what they do best: innovate and connect.
I caution us as professionals to not lose ourselves in a sea of buzzwords and trends. For the past decade, every conference season, I slog through a million panel discussions where everyone hyperventilates over the next big “disruption.” Shall I rattle off a few? Big data. Internet of things. Blockchain. NFTs. Um … Clubhouse. I could go on.
What I am interested in is how we can already leverage what we have been using unknowingly for ages, not to downsize teams or confuse an already broad generational contingent even further, but rather to quickly craft holistic solutions that empower creators and consumers alike to connect over what they really need.
We’ve already seen the speed with which digital solutions can disrupt (negatively) real life, particularly the impact that social media has had on community fragmentation, political turmoil, and the dissemination of fraudulent information. When education and human comprehension don’t keep pace with technological advancement, human beings veer into “Dark Ages” dystopian times. Disruption seems clean and sleek and sexy in the rearview, but it is messy in real time. People are messy. We can’t help it. I’m not saying that’s bad and I’m not saying that’s good. I loved Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat as much as anyone. But it remains a concern and as breathless as we are about these new tools and solutions and what they can do for the “bottom line,” let’s also consider what they will do to an already fragile human condition.
I will leave you with this anecdote, names changed to protect the innocent. I have an attorney friend – a Baby Boomer. I’m not being ageist – it’s important context. This attorney reminds me of my beloved late mother. Both reflect a fascination with social and digital platforms and a desire to connect as broadly as possible, seeing the potential in these channels for commiseration on scale and enthusiastically embracing it all. Both also are petrified they are going to “break something” every time they touch social media. Doesn’t hold them back but fear always lurks in the background.
(Sidebar: I grew up in the era when parents told you not to sit too close to the television for fear of ruining your eyesight nor to turn it on and off and on and off for fear of breaking it. In fact, we – gasp! – took our TVs periodically to the “repair shop.” I wonder if this is why an entire generation lives in abject terror over tech. Just a theory.)
One day this attorney asked me why they don’t see the words “[their name] likes this” under posts on social. I said, “Well, when you click ‘like,’ OTHER people see that.” They then got insistent: “No, I want it to say [my name] LIKES this.” I explained again. Then a light bulb went off. I looked at their activity and realized in the time we were chatting they had started typing this as a comment “[their name] likes this” over and over and over under different posts. Paging Amelia Bedelia!
Now flash forward a few months, I get another call. On a Sunday. This attorney is apoplectic. “Why does it show I’ve left all these comments on my very important clients’ posts? I didn’t say these things. I wouldn’t say these things. Can I sue LinkedIn? I’m so embarrassed.” Again, I calmly asked, “Now describe to me what you are seeing?” (I learned this in years of similar panicked chats from my mom. I think I could have a side hustle here.) With some time, I figured out they thought the AI prompts under a given post were a string of comments they had actually left. They were so distressed about it that they had then sent emails to all said connections apologizing. THEN they reached out to me. Not a great look for someone trying to show their facility and agility in this digital age.
So, what’s the problem here? Why am I sharing this? I actually GET why the attorney was alarmed. Now, I knew what I was looking at when I saw those prompts, but they didn’t. Because the tech industry sometimes moves at the speed of “we’ll get to it when we feel like it” and other times at the speed of “we’re changing stuff and not explaining it and you can just figure it out or not,” there is likely a deep rift we will create across generations if we don’t pause a bit and implement things sensibly. Did this attorney NEED a prompt to say, “Congrats on your work anniversary?” Do any of us? Was that actually a problem that needed to be solved? And how many troubles have been created inadvertently in the process?
What’s that line sardonically offered by Jeff Goldblum’s Jurassic Park character Dr. Ian Malcolm (who specialized in chaos theory BTW)? “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Now, I know those reading this ramble will shake their heads in judgment and think, “I’m shocked. SHOCKED! I had no idea Roy was such a wet blanket luddite.” Listen, I’m not. I love what we are able to do with digital and social tech and how AI can supercharge our ability to connect meaningfully and hopefully change the world for the better. But I’m not honestly seeing much of that yet in the discourse to which I’ve been privy. So just imagine I’m Ian Malcolm here. And remember he’s one of the few characters who survived.
P.S. Confessional … I first asked Chat GPT to write this article for funsies. I hated the result. Tossed it all out. And then I wrote this. You might hate it. But I don’t. And I still think that matters.
P.S. Above depicted one of my most treasured invitations I’ve ever received in 12 years of being a member of the Legal Marketing Association. Thank you, Tahisha Fugate, MBA [she/her]! Love you and love this dynamic, brilliant, fantastic, fun group of incredible human beings.
LinkedIn post from Tahisha: “For the third year in a row, a group of Black Women in Legal Marketing and friends gathered at #LMA24. Women from firms of all sizes, across the U.S. and Canada, connected and engaged. We were thrilled to be joined by some legal marketing business partners, including Chambers USA, Passle, RubyLaw, and Jaffe to name a few.
“A special thank you to my firm Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP for their continued support of this event! I look forward to seeing everyone in DC next year. #legalmkt #marketing #businessdevelopment #DEI”
There is no question that this world feels more than a bit broken these days. Over this Thanksgiving holiday, we took in three films that all deal with our shared past, present, future imperfect in poignant, heartrending, riotous, and allegorical ways: Boy Erased, The Front Runner, and Isle of Dogs. In essence, all three deal with the fact that our world is governed by people who don’t always have our best interests at heart … nor, in fact, have any interests but their own in mind.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
Boy Erased, based on Garrard Conley‘s best-selling memoir, is a gut punch with a surprisingly light touch – as much about family, faith, being true to one’s own self, and integrity as it is about the horrors of gay conversion therapy. Directed with a balanced and nuanced approach by Joel Edgerton (who also plays the head conversion “therapist” with a refreshing lack of Snidely Whiplash-ism), the film withholds judgment on well-meaning parents whose hearts are in the right place even if their actions couldn’t be more out-of-touch. Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe are absolute magic as an Arkansas couple whose capital-C Christianity defines every square inch of their lives. He is a pastor AND runs a Ford dealership where the salespeople begin each day with a group prayer. Ah, the American Southland. Am I being judgy? Ah well.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
Lucas Hedges ably portrays their prototypical all-American golden boy Jared – a basketball-playing, cheerleader-dating, Mustang-driving alpha-male-in-training. Except, he isn’t. He’s a sensitive and dutiful son following the recipe-for-life set before him by his noble if misguided parents, still striving to define himself in a world far too ready to box him in with hetero-normative conventions. The irony is that Jared is the purest soul, lost amidst elders who purport purity yet are more obsessed with human sexuality than the supposed “deviants” they seek to condemn. The textbook definition of “thou dost protest too much.”
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
The chief strength of the film is how believably this trio of acting pros – Kidman, Crowe, and Hedges – weaves together a family dynamic that is sad and warm and funny and never melodramatic. This is an essential film and must be viewed by everyone, particularly those arrogant and hypocritical enough to weigh in on social issues that they lack the empathy to fully comprehend.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
What is it about Australians – like Crowe and Kidman – that they are capable of translating the American experience to film better than most Americans? And here we have fellow Aussie Hugh Jackman offering a pensive, detailed, reserved, dynamite turn as 1988 presidential hopeful Gary Hart in director Jason Reitman’s stellar flick The Front Runner. Jackman is aided and abetted by the always magnificent Vera Farmiga as Hart’s long-suffering but never victimized wife. Jackman and Farmiga are a formidable acting combination, and I would love to see them do something again soon.
Jackman has always been a twinkling presence (a true blue Greatest Showman) – sometimes even a glowering, steroidal, twinkling presence (Wolverine … and Jean Valjean) – but I had my doubts that he had the chops to be unapproachable and unlikable yet still admirable in a ripped-from-the-headlines character role like this. I was wrong. (I do think his hair and makeup people should be fired, though, for the weird dusty mop they plopped on his noggin in the film.)
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
Reitman has surrounded his leads with a fantastic supporting cast – including exceptional JK Simmons and Alfred Molina as two sides of the same benevolent puppet-master coin, the first as Hart’s campaign manager and the latter as The Washington Post’s editor. Furthermore, Reitman uses the controversy surrounding Hart’s infidelity which derails his campaign as a sharp-eyed allegory on today’s contentious and never-ending donnybrook between politicians and news media.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
Is a public figure’s personal life fair game for the media? Is a private transgression a worthy public measure of integrity? Do people care, or do they only care when it benefits their party of affiliation? And what of the ongoing invisibility and disposability of women in said process, be they spouse or mistress or aide or voter?
The film raises all of these questions in the context of what once seemed a charmingly bygone era, yet offers us, today, no easy answers. Significantly, Reitman turns the mirror on ourselves, challenging the viewer to assess his or her own culpability in perpetuating this madness, and that is a marvelous hat trick.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
But would you believe me when I said that the best and most pointed analysis of our current milieu comes from what is ostensibly a children’s animated film about dogs banished to a garbage heap island by a Japanese magistrate who prefers cats over canines? I predict masters theses will be written about Isle of Dogs at liberal arts colleges and universities all over the land 20 years from now.
I’m not crazy about director Wes Anderson. Twee sarcasm is not usually something that screams “great night at the movies” to me. His Isle of Dogs (now on home video), blessedly, is anything but.
Imagine Richard Adams’ novel Plague Dogs or George Orwell‘s Animal Farm adapted to film by Quentin Tarantino, using Manga-stylized puppets and stop-motion animation. Isle of Dogs is sweet-natured yet caustic, escapist yet blisteringly critical, whimsical yet horrifying. If there is a movie that pushes and explores and avails itself of every inch and vista what the artsy fartsies call “cinema,” this is it.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
The script is layered and thoughtful and addresses everything from animal rights to totalitarianism to the twin toxicities of apathy and wishful thinking. The film’s core message, beyond that we should be kind to animals and to each other and that tolerance and inclusion heal? It’s this: if you want this damn world to change, get in there and change it. Anderson seems to be directly addressing any children watching his film that if you see oppression or evil, take it upon yourselves to stop it. Adults are too fat and lazy to care. The young human protagonists in this film are heroic in a way that goes beyond the fantasy role-playing of, say, Dorothy Gale or Katniss Everdeen, presenting young audience members with salient and actionable examples to follow.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
Oh, and the voice cast is to die for, including Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Ed Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, F. Murray Abraham, Greta Gerwig, Tilda Swinton, Liev Schreiber, and, yes, Yoko Ono. The titular dogs are, yes, adorable but with agency and surety and never one moment of infantilism.
Hot damn!
Thanksgiving is a time of reflection and appreciation. It’s also a time to think about what’s next and where you want to go. This seemingly serendipitous combination of films does indeed add up to a pretty important road map. One worth following. For that, I am thankful.
_______________
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.
Marvel Studios’ latest – Thor: Ragnarok – is about as delightful a film to come from the Marvel/Disney machine as we’ve yet seen.
Marrying the free-wheeling whimsy of Ant-Man with the trippy nothing-is-too-zany visual style of Dr. Strange, layering in the heart and humanity of the Captain America films, and playing off the wackadoodle Shakespearean promise of Kenneth Branagh’s first Thor, director Taika Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) nonetheless delivers a completely unique vision and a superhero flick for the ages.
There is nary a shred of evidence of the micromanaged focus-grouping that seems to have plagued other entries in Marvel’s now 17-movie strong cinematic universe: the unfunny, overbaked narrative mush of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2; the ponderous “how-many-action-figures-can-we-cram-into-this-for-merchandising” clutter of Avengers: Age of Ultron; the just plain dull-as-dishwater “end-is-nigh” pretense of, yes, Thor: The Dark World.
No, Thor: Ragnarok belies its title with a light-as-air zip and a screwball comic touch that plays beautifully to star Chris Hemsworth’s Cary-Grant-trapped-in-Tab-Hunter’s-body charms. Hemsworth’s gift is in simultaneously embracing the absurd and the self-serious, mining Thor’s lovable arrogance in uncertain circumstances for “fish-out-of-water” laughs. Akin to Shakespeare’s better “history” plays (say, Henry IV with its introduction of the iconic Falstaff), Ragnarok honors the operatic complexity of its source Norse mythology by juxtaposing the light and the dark, the goofy and the grand, to play out the prodigal son’s/hero’s quest to overcome both palace intrigue and the intoxicating lure of interstellar adventure to find his proper path to the throne.
The film shouldn’t work as well as it does. Waititi is obviously fueled by a love of the corny sci-fi box office bombs that littered HBO’s schedule in the early and mid 80s (post-Star Wars) like Krull, Beastmaster, Flash Gordon, Buckaroo Banzai, and so on – movies that I myself watched in a constant loop, attracted to the gonzo so-bad-it’s-great storytelling and campy visuals. In fact, Mark Mothersbaugh’s Moog-synth score sounds like it was written for an arcade game in 1983. And that’s a fabulous thing. (There is also an epic use of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” in segments that bookend the film. It’s a touch that not only enlivens the two sequences in which the tune is used but adds a nice layer of meta commentary – “we come from the land of the ice and snow” – about finding one’s home and one’s place in this world.)
However, Waititi isn’t on a nostalgia trip; he isn’t interested in self-indulgence. Rather, with a Howard Hawks-esque (Bringing Up Baby) command of pacing, set-up, visual jokes, and patter, Waititi delivers a character-driven romp that celebrates a lost soul embracing his destiny and learning a touch of humility along the way. Of course, in this case, the lost soul happens to be the Norse God of Thunder and a superheroic Avenger who pals around with the Hulk, but that’s beside the point. Odin (a wry Anthony Hopkins) consoles his son at one point, when Thor is bemoaning the loss of his magic hammer Mjolnir, “But … are you Thor, god of … hammers?”
The plot is almost impossible to encapsulate, but I’ll try. Thor and brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston reclaiming the smarmy twinkle that made the character such fun initially) are on a search to find their father Odin who is hiding out in Norway. Early on, they encounter Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr. Strange in a witty cat-and-mouse sequence that telegraphs that Ragnarok won’t be your typical Marvel flick.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
Eventually, Loki and Thor discover that their father has concealed both a dark history from them and the existence of a sister Hela (Cate Blanchett, all slither and swagger and having a devil of a good time) who has returned to Asgard to take over the universe and wear some really fierce eyeliner and multi-horned headgear. Thor and Loki get shunted by Hela to Sakaar, a planet of garbage and misfit toys, where Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster runs a Let’s Make a Deal-meets-Gladiator “Contest of Champions.” (This is the best use of Goldblum’s insidious, out-sized, googly-eyed demeanor in years.)
Lo and behold, Thor’s old buddy The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo fully embracing the sweet/sour rampaging baby characterization from the Avengers films) is somehow on Sakaar too. The boys fight; they make up; they fight again; and eventually, with the aid of new compatriot Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson bringing the boozy, bossy fun), return to Asgard and save the day (more or less) from Hela’s machinations. Whew.
Oh, and Karl Urban (Star Trek, Dredd, Pete’s Dragon) pops up as Hela’s right-hand thug Skurge the Executioner, and, as always, Urban brings a nuanced inner-conflict and a compelling screen presence to a character who in lesser hands would have been a screaming, raving slab of testosterone. One day, I’d like to see him in a movie that doesn’t require special effects, if they make those any more.
In the end, though, the film is a showcase for Hemsworth’s effervescent wit and steroidal comedy and for Waititi’s sure-handed cinematic voice and eye-popping visuals. Hemsworth is at a difficult career crossroads: a household name actor in international box office blockbusters who doesn’t yet seem like a star. Perhaps this turn will change that. If not, he and Waititi need to team up again posthaste and, maybe this time, sans capes. Hemsworth is that rare performer – a beautiful human specimen with the comic genius of an ugly duckling. Waititi is that rare director – one who loves all films and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the best and the worst but deftly avoids self-indulgence and derivativeness. As Goldblum’s Grandmaster says in response to Thor’s use of his lightning powers, “Out of your fingers … was that, like, sparkles?” Indeed, Hemsworth plus Waititi generate nothing but cinematic sparkles. Here’s hoping for more.
________________
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital).
Regarding this weekend’s big summer blockbuster release Jurassic World, my animal advocate mom posted this on my Facebook wall earlier today: “But are they mean to dinosaurs? Are the dinosaurs the villains? Is it a glorified hunting movie? Inquiring minds want to know these things? Would Sarah Palin approve and reignite girls to wear clean sportsy clothes and hiking boots? Posing with bears and rabbits and deer and giraffes pretending they killed them? Because if so, my friend… ha!”
I can pretty safely say that it’s not a glorified hunting movie, and I don’t think the Sarah Palin-types would like it, as most of their stand-ins in the film get eaten pretty quickly by roaring, teeth-gnashing dinos. However, the film is a typically schizophrenic Steven Spielberg production (he executive produced this installment but directed the original Jurassic Park way back in 1993). Is the film making a satiric point about how horrible humans are to the environment, how we reap what we sow, and how we deserve any and all climate change payback which results from our rampant over-development of land, air, and sea? Or is Jurassic World just more yuppie disaster porn designed to sell Happy Meal toys, glistening Jeeps, and Patagonia safari gear? I’m still scratching my head. I just don’t know.
When you look at Spielberg’s filmography, as both director and producer, from Jaws to Close Encounters, E.T. to Gremlins, Poltergeist to, yes, Jurassic Park, he returns time and again to themes of man’s infinite ineptitude and limitless arrogance in the face of a planet, nay universe, full of mystery, wonder, and violent counterbalance. For Spielberg, karma is a four-color funny – build a beach home, destroy a burial ground, feed a cooing creature after midnight, genetically modify a reptile for an overpriced amusement park? You’re gonna get sliced, diced, and eviscerated, all to the strains of a symphonic John Williams score.
And you know what? That is ok by me!
The problem with Spielberg’s films is he wants to have his sardonic cake and eat it too. Spielberg’s movies are expensive and they make a lot of money; whether directed by Spielberg or under the auspices of Amblin Entertainment or DreamWorks, these big budget boogers are sold to every demographic quadrant an army of polished marketers can dream up, so ultimately the flicks dare not go too far. We don’t want to alienate any viewer, slurping over their Mr. Pibb and Kit Kat bites (yeah, that’s what I had today), and, consequently, any unique and incisive POV gets diluted in a gauzy haze of product placement, no matter how postmodern and ironic said placement may be.
No, Spielberg did not direct Jurassic World. Those honors (?) go to Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed), but Spielbergian DNA is all over this sucker. Sorry, Colin. I can only imagine this must have been like being hired for a dream design job at Apple, only to find they really just want you to arrange, into artful displays, the new Apple Watches when they arrive in stores.
Jurassic World does its job efficiently and effectively. It entertains, and it will make a mint … but it has no real raison d’etre. (Yeah, I got all fancy. It doesn’t need to exist.) It basically lifts the very plot from the first film, but this time we get Bryce Dallas Howard (how is this mugging, one-note actor still making movies? oh, right, Ron Howard’s kid) instead of Richard Attenborough and Chris Pratt instead of Sam Neill. Jeff Goldblum is now Irrfan Khan, and Wayne Knight is now Vincent D’Onfrio. B.D. Wong? Still B.D. Wong – that man must be an automaton as he hasn’t aged one freaking bit.
Seriously, these actors may be playing different characters (obvi) twenty-some years later (natch) but their narrative functions are still the same.
Portraying a grizzled velociraptor trainer (and apologist), Pratt is the best thing in the film by far. Wearing a steady exasperation that seems to suggest he wishes he had a better script with which to work, Pratt does a fine job channeling Neill’s gravitas: just because you can make a dinosaur does mean you should make a dinosaur. Pratt is a delight, one of the few actors in the film who seems to believe where he is and what is doing and who has a genuine affection for the misunderstood creatures in this world (dino or otherwise).
Howard fares less favorably as the Isla Nubar theme park’s chief executive who in sexist Hollywood shorthand is an out-of-touch, controlling, insecure ninny with a severe bob, impractical shoes, and an ever present iPhone. Ugh. It doesn’t help that her emotions range from sweaty to panicked to rigid to … sweaty.
D’Onofrio is a kick in an underwritten role as a nebulous InGen contractor who wants to use these “assets” (that’s how mean people refer to animals in this cardboard world) for military purposes. Boo hiss. Blessedly, he has the chops to fill in the mile-wide gaps the script allows. He exudes the oily opportunism of those post-millennial types who see our natural resources simply as walking/breathing/pooping dollar signs. He may as well have had Monsanto painted on his backside.
At one point, Wong’s character (you may recall he is the ethically-dubious geneticist who figured out how to fabricate dinos from whole cloth in the first place) intones what passes for a philosophical thesis in the film: “To a canary, a cat is a monster. We are just used to being the cat.” Yup, amen to that.
There is a perverse joy in seeing blank-faced, cornfed tourists hoisted by their own petards, tossed like beach balls from one pteranodon to another above Jurassic World‘s Starbucks/Margaritaville/Pandora encrusted main street. I also loved the jab at Sea World with a dino sea creature (mosaurus?) that grudgingly entertains a nautical football-arena-size stadium of onlookers but gets the last laugh when he/she gobbles a few vacationers down.
Ultimately, by the final act, when the Frankenstein’s monster dino “Indominus Rex” (cooked up by Howard and Wong to sell more t-shirts and key chains) has shredded the park top to bottom and is now fighting a pack of velociraptors and a t-rex for no real explainable reason, I was in a Mr. Pibb/Kit Kat coma. I just didn’t care.
And the adult in me kept thinking … Who is going to put these dinos back in their paddocks? Is the Hilton corporation going to rebuild their opulent hotel on Isla Nubar for future product placement? Who is going to clean up this mess, and will Starbucks return to sell more mocha-choca-lattes? And why didn’t the dinos just finish off all the humans? That’s a movie I’d pay $10 more bucks to see.
____________________________
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.
Roy Sexton and Rebecca Biber – Photo by Dawn Marie Kaczmar
So, I did not like Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. I mean I didn’t like it … a lot. However, never let it be said that we here at Reel Roy Reviews aren’t equal opportunity reviewers.
My dear friend, the talented pianist, musical director, and instructor Rebecca Biber shared the following (beautifully composed) counterpoint today on Facebook, and I asked if I could pay it forward here. She graciously obliged. Her take actually makes me want to revisit this film … almost. 🙂
Bookbound April 26 Event
And, if you’d like a chance to meet the supremely talented Ms. Biber in person, Megan and Peter Blackshear of Bookbound, in Ann Arbor (1729 Plymouth Road), have generously agreed to host a Reel Roy Reviews book-signing/Q&A on Saturday, April 26 at 3 pm.
Rebecca will accompany me as I sing a few of my favorite movie themes and show tunes. She actually selected the numbers from our nearly decade-long musical partnership, so, if you like ditties from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, you are in luck!
Here’s Rebecca’s delightful take on The Grand Budapest Hotel – enjoy!
[Image Source: ComingSoon.net]
In a made-up land resembling Germany or Austria (with Alps) on the eve of WWII, a charming, perfect hotelier played by Ralph Fiennes struggles to maintain his composure, help his friends, and avoid bad guys. His tale is narrated by his protege, Zero the Lobby Boy, now grown up into F. Murray Abraham. But this is merely the nugget at the heart of the story-within-a-story-within-a-story. Abraham is speaking with a writer played by Jude Law, whom we have earlier seen in his aged incarnation, telling the viewer that if you are a writer, there is no need to make up stories: they will come to you. Earlier than that, we have seen a young woman placing a tribute of hotel keys at the base of a statue honoring her favorite writer, and holding a book that contains, we think, the story Jude Law has retold from F. Murray.
This movie is a typical Wes Anderson confection in some ways, with fanciful lettering, folk-tale inspired landscapes, and gorgeous color schemes throughout, not to mention the usual rapid-fire dialogue and the panoply of famous faces. While it can be entertaining to play Name That Actor, it is distracting as well – just as we are settling into the story for its own sake, what’s-his-name pops up and we’re back at the level of being mere viewers. Characters are pretty much as they first appear, with clear goodies and baddies. Edward Norton gets to play a Nazi (again, previously having played the neo-version in American History X) and Adrien Brody gets to…weirdly…also play a Nazi. Tilda Swinton is unrecognizable, Bob Balaban pops up like a fairy tale imp, and Harvey Keitel has jailhouse tattoos resembling middle school doodles. Young actress Saoirse Ronan is perfect as the young Zero’s girlfriend and pastry chef. But the standout, and one to watch, is Tony Revolori, who plays the Lobby Boy not merely as a supporting character with some great lines (which he does have) but as a complicated, unexpectedly fearless and wise young man. He has an unblinking gaze straight at the camera that compels both laughter and serious attention.
Unlike Moonrise Kingdom, which had all of the Wes Anderson cute and very little of the sad, Budapest has some moments of real darkness. And they always come unexpectedly. This movie is probably not safe for devoted animal lovers or the very squeamish. There are several bloody fights and, for those with Holocaust survivors in the family, the train scenes were a bit too close to real history despite Anderson’s attempts to fictionalize the material.
With all that goes on in the film, I haven’t even mentioned the stolen art, murder mystery and contested will (with legal executor played by an uncomfortable looking Jeff Goldblum). There is much to enjoy, and I came away glad I had watched this quirky adventure/love story with true friendship at its core. It is a visual feast with some nice musical touches (nothing overblown) and, if the story doesn’t make perfect sense outside of its own world, well, it does such an excellent job of conjuring that world that I was delighted to spend a couple of hours among its inhabitants.
_________________________________
Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Please check out this coverage from BroadwayWorld of upcoming book launch events. In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan; by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan; and by Memory Lane Gift Shop in Columbia City, Indiana. Bookbound, Common Language, and Memory Lane also have copies of Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series.
![[Image Source: ComingSoon.net]](https://i0.wp.com/www.comingsoon.net/gallery/92606/hr_The_Grand_Budapest_Hotel_3.jpg)