Tag Archives: martin short

“Sometimes not giving up is the most heroic thing you can do.” Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom AND Wonka

3 January 2024

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“Sometimes not giving up is the most heroic thing you can do.” – Aquaman’s dad Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison)

“Every good thing in this world started with a dream.” – Willy Wonka’s unnamed mother (Sally Hawkins)

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, contrary to popular reports, is not a bad movie. It’s not a very good movie either. But it is fun and good-hearted in the spirit of big dumb blockbusters from the mid-80s. Director James Wan continues the day-glo world-building from its predecessor.

Wonka, contrary to popular reports, is not a great movie. It’s not a bad movie either. But it is fun and good-hearted in the spirit of big dumb musicals from the late 60s and mid-70s. Director Paul King continues the day-glo world-building from its predecessor.

(Sensing a theme here?)

What both films do really well is explore the ideas of legacy and familial love, both the family you are born into and your “found” family. I would say Wonka does a better job of that than the Aquaman sequel, but taken together (as I did in a post-New Year’s double feature), the films send a loving message about leaning on (and lifting up) friends and family to make the best of a tricky situation … be it preventing a glowy-eyed supervillain from destroying the earth through global warming or a chocolate cartel fixing the prices of yummy confections and driving all competitors out of business. (You can guess which challenge goes with which movie!)

Interestingly, if I had my druthers, I would have suggested some choose-your-own-adventure mashup of the two respective casts. Jason Momoa with his wild child ways actually would have made a far more effective Willy Wonka than the slight, safe Timothée Chalamet. Chalamet is perfectly serviceable as a reedy-voiced song and dance man (Wonka is a musical … Aquaman not so much), but he’s missing the malevolent, unpredictable glee of, say, Gene Wilder who so notably originated the role of Willy Wonka waaaaay back in 1971. Chalamet looks the part and has a (pun-intended) goopy sweetness, but he never delivers that electric charge of creative madness the character requires. Momoa on the other hand nails creative madness on a routine trip to the grocery store.

And then I might swap Patrick Wilson, who plays Aquaman’s ne’er-do-well brother Orm, in for Aquaman himself. Wilson is far more interesting than he’s ever given credit. He looks like he’s carved out of cream cheese (to quote Steel Magnolias) but he has the comic timing and gravitas of someone trained for the Broadway stage (twice Tony-nominated no less!) that would bring some classic zing to the King of the Seas IMHO.

Both films benefit from strong ensemble work, and, like some zany repertory road show, I’d mix and match any and all performers across the films: Sally Hawkins vs. Nicole Kidman as fretting but steely matriarchs in Wonka and Aquaman respectively; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II vs. Paterson Joseph as smoldering but surly baddies Black Manta and Slugworth; Olivia Colman vs. Randall Park for lightly malevolent comic relief; Martin Short vs. Hugh Grant for the “wait, why are THEY in this?” stunt casting (one’s an Oompa Loompa and the other a … fish-man mafia don?). You get the gist.

Oh, and ironically, Aquaman’s totally tubular, synth-rich score by Rupert Gregson-Williams is a smidge more compelling than the songs for Wonka, an actual musical, as composed by The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon. That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing/hearing Wonka’s catchy “Scrub, Scrub” being performed by Aquaman’s CGI deep ocean denizens Topo, the crabby scene stealing cephalopod, and Storm, the majestic bioluminescent seahorse. And Wonka director Paul King does wring a new heartbreaking context from classic Leslie Bricusse/Anthony Newley cut “Pure Imagination” toward the conclusion of the prequel. (I’m not crying. You’re crying.)

At this point, anyone reading this “review” has likely given up making head nor (fish) tails of it all. And that’s rather how I feel after having watched both Warner Brothers Discovery flicks. They are fine, fun, decent holiday diversions with enough good in each for you to roll out of bed in your sweatpants and spend an afternoon escaping January’s grey malaise. Both will play far better on a big screen as each film seems to be set-designed by Salvador Dali after raiding a Toys R Us while hopped up on Pixie Stix.

Before we begin our annual slog through Oscar-bait films that *may* be lurking in a theatre near you or are now more likely hidden on some streaming by-way that requires a pricey subscription and/or password you’ve forgotten, go have some big dumb fun at the movies. That’s why we all really love cinema, if we’re truly being honest, Scorsese be damned.

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

20 May 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So. freaking. good.

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

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

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Postscript … and then THIS happened … whoa!

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

“Ah, what the heck! I’ll just raise my li’l Beelzebub. Rockabye, babeeee….” Rosemary’s Baby (2014 NBC mini-series)

28 May 2014

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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]

Is anyone else’s DVR a graveyard of shows and movies you’ve saved, thinking you should watch them, but when it comes down to actually committing the time to a given program, you just keep deferring it?

The last three episodes of this season’s Glee remain (gleefully?) unwatched, as does the second half of The Maya Rudolph Show, the otherwise super-talented comedienne’s clunky attempt at a Sonny and Cher meets The Carol Burnett Show variety romp. And we skipped about half a dozen episodes of Arrow, just to view the finale in head-scratching befuddlement.

However, we did clear one lingering mini-series from the queue last night: NBC’s recent “reimagining” (what does that even mean? what happened to the term “remake”?) of Rosemary’s Baby.

Originally a novel by Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby was first made into a film by Roman Polanski in 1968, starring Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon (who won an Oscar for her work), Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, and Charles Grodin (!). Polanski’s screenplay was also nominated for the Academy Award, though it didn’t win.

The plot at this point is legendary (if not a bit dorky). Young couple (Farrow and Cassavetes) moves into apartment, befriends strangely overeager neighbors, and gets pregnant; husband (literally) makes deal with the devil; spooky doings ensue; child of Satan gets born; Farrow freaks out (justifiably) but then decides, “Ah, what the heck! I’ll just raise my li’l Beelzebub myself. Rockabye, babeeee….”

(Sort of sounds like some of Farrow’s recent interactions with ex-Woody Allen, come to think of it. What? Too soon?)

The recent NBC “movie event” adaptation, starring Zoe Saldana in the Farrow role, stretches this rather thin narrative from two hours to four and seems to exist primarily as a showcase for Saldana’s ability to cry, smile, cry, mope, cry, scream, and cry.

Don’t get me wrong. I really like Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek, upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy). She’s like a less manic Thandie Newton. She does her level best to keep the sloooooowly paced proceedings (transplanted to Paris from New York for no discernible reason) interesting.

She craftily cribs from the Audrey Hepburn Wait Until Dark school of worried pixie-cut acting, painting a compelling picture of a sweet soul trying to please everyone but herself and getting in deeper and deeper. Heck, Saldana’s Rosemary even has an adorable pet feline named “No-Name” (a la Breakfast at Tiffany‘s “Cat … poor slob without a name”).

It’s just that this story does. not. need. four hours. to be told.

There probably is a really crackerjack 90-minute telefilm in there, but I just kept forgetting why I was supposed to care. And, most surprising, the more interesting half of the mini-series is the first night which is all creepy, Hitchockian set up; the second night’s pay-off of gothic carnage and cuckoo witchery is a flat-out bore … by the time we finally get there.

The supporting cast is wildly uneven, with only Jason Isaacs (The Patriot, Harry Potter) rising above the fray as the smoothly cavalier, devil-worshipping neighbor/landlord. (Isaacs is just such a presence, as if Daniel Craig and Patrick Stewart had a really pretty son.)

Carole Bouquet as Isaac’s equally nefarious wife, is okay but not great, saddled as she is with the chief responsibility of making Saldana drink (over and over) some really gross-looking, moss-green smoothies made from some witch-y herbs in her fabulous botanical garden. (Yeah, you read that right.) Bouquet’s idea of setting a spooky tone is giving a lot of sidelong glances and delivering her oddball earth-mother-from-Pluto dialogue with Pepe le Pew “Frenchy-ness.” (She kind of sounds like a Martin Short character most of the time).

Patrick J. Adams (Suits) is a dull milquetoast of a husband, and Christina Cole as Rosemary’s Brit pal Julie is on hand primarily to bring the exposition every 10 minutes or so.

It’s a shame. In this postmodern, American Horror Story, “let’s use scare-fest genre tropes as metaphors for social ills” era, there was great potential for this new Rosemary’s Baby to say something interesting about gender politics, class warfare, race issues, and the increasingly slippery definition of “family.” Alas, no, the devil was not in these details. Better luck on the inevitable third time around for this tired tale.

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Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view. 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 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.

They don’t like the questions science asks: Frankenweenie

7 October 2012

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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]

Around the mid-way mark of Tim Burton’s new stop-motion Disney animated feature Frankenweenie, a suitably creepy but charming, Vincent Price-esque public school science teacher observes, “People like what science gives them…they don’t like the questions it asks.” Pretty heady, philosophical stuff for a kids’ feature.

Tim Burton seems to run on two speeds – 1) cold-blooded yet warm-hearted, allegorical goth fairy tales that offer finely spun, darkly whimsical takes on the human condition (see: Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, Ed Wood, even Sweeney Todd) or 2) sophomoric, recklessly morbid, crassly violent, meandering cinematic sketches that may start vigorously but skid to flat conclusions, running on their own self-satisfied fumes (see: Alice in Wonderland, Sleepy Hollow, Planet of the Apes, and, the worst of all, Mars Attacks). His other films fall somewhere along that continuum, with Beetlejuice, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and Batman Returns being the other standouts. I admit a soft spot in my heart for this past summer’s box office misfire Dark Shadows. It wasn’t really very good, but I kinda loved it.

So where does Frankenweenie fit in? Unfortunately, the film squanders a beautiful and loving and elegiac first two thirds with a third act that devolves into borderline hateful, truly unpleasant movie monster cliché (no doubt aspiring, rather, to cheeky b-movie homage…and failing). The movie tells the story of a kind but forlorn, science-obsessed boy who loses his beloved dog (and only friend) while being forced to “fit in” and play a game of baseball. By the way, I found that a telling autobiographical moment for the self-professed, long-time outcast Burton. This boy, a typical Burton anti-hero, is inspired by the aforementioned science teacher and resurrects said pooch a la Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein.

The dynamic between the boy (named Victor) and his devoted pup Sparky is completely engaging and fun. Further, the supporting characters, from Victor’s next door neighbor girl (voiced by Burton mainstay Winona Ryder) to Victor’s parents (voiced by two more Burton regulars Catherine O’Hara and Martin Short) are likable and interesting. As  all Burton productions do, the movie borrows its aesthetic and left-of-center worldview from Edward Gorey. All of that works beautifully, reinforcing the importance of family, animals, and open-mindedness in a world that is often quick to judge and demean. The film cleverly works in conceits from the original Frankenstein and other genre works, from a villainous mayor named Van Helsing to a gloomy windmill that dominates the town’s landscape to angry villagers who are intolerant to difference of any kind…that last part added a spooky parallel to life in post-millennial America.

HOWEVER, and this is a BIG however. The film takes such a strange tonal shift in its last third that it ruins the promise of the kind-natured, delicate story-telling it had achieved to that point. Suddenly, the film veers into Godzilla/Gremlins/Pet Sematary-lite ugliness and loses the good will it engendered…for this viewer at least. Such a shame. Imagine the first hour of Edward Scissorhands jumping to the last half hour of Mars Attacks, and you will understand my disappointment.