Instagram live replay of my interview with HRC Michigan – Annie, you’re a gem! We discussed my recent recognitions by INvolve People and Corp! Magazine, how Clark Hill creates an inclusive culture, the important work the Legal Marketing Association has done around DEI, what authenticity really means, and how important it is to simply live and let live.
Thank you, Legal News’ Brian Cox, Brad Thompson, Sheila Pursglove, for the lovely support you’ve consistently shown me in my career. Grateful for you, for your friendship, and for all you do for our profession!
Roy Sexton, director of marketing has been selected by Corp! Magazine as one of Michigan’s 2024 Most Valuable Professionals.
Sexton was among the winners of the 9th annual MVP Awards, honoring the state’s most dynamic and influential business leaders. Corp! Magazine characterized the winners as the leading voices in shaping Michigan’s business and economic direction. The MVP Awards recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to their businesses, their communities, and the state of Michigan.
Sexton leads Clark Hill’s marketing, branding and communications efforts in collaboration with the firm’s exceptional team of marketing and business development professionals. He has over 25 years of experience in marketing, communications, business development and strategic planning.
“At Clark Hill, our value proposition is simple. We offer our clients an exceptional team, dedicated to the delivery of outstanding service,” says Sexton. “We recruit and develop talented individuals and empower them to contribute to our rich diversity of legal and industry experience. “
Sexton is passionate about problem solving, facilitating business growth, crafting communications strategy and enhancing law firm culture. He works closely with the marketing team to advance the firm’s digital and social media presence and external engagement, using multi-channel distribution and data collection. This enables the team to quantify results and use those results to produce thoughtfully and strategically organized content for clients and prospects.
Sexton was named one of INvolve People’s 2023 Top 100 OUTstanding LGBTQ+ Executives internationally. He was listed in Crain’s Detroit Notable LGBTQ in Business in 2021 and Notable Leaders in Marketing in 2023, and he was a Michigan Lawyers Weekly Unsung Legal Hero in 2018.
In 2022, Clark Hill’s marketing campaign received the Best Marketing Campaign award from the Managing Partners’ Forum in London, celebrating professional services organizations. The campaign was noted for its focus on values, diversity and inclusion. The Clark Hill marketing and business development team was also awarded Best Marketing Initiative by Managing Partners’ Forum in 2020.
“I’m proud of how DEI has become so fully integrated into my professional efforts in this world. As international president of the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) in 2023 and as immediate past president this year, we have kept inclusion front and center, including me singing ‘Born This Way’ with drag queen Athena Dion in Florida last year at our annual conference,” says Sexton.
He adds, “At Clark Hill we received Mansfield Certification for our efforts in the DEI space as well as conducting firmwide allyship training, all led by our fabulous HR team, supported by the marketing team on external messaging, including a series of DEI-focused videos. Those videos have received hundreds of thousands of views which is very heartening to the team here.”
Sexton hosts the monthly Expert Webcast series “All the World’s YOUR Stage: Authentic Culture Drives Authentic Growth,” discussing the importance of inclusion, allyship, authenticity, and personal/professional branding with nationally recognized executives and thought leaders. Each episode has a monthly reach of at least 20,000 impressions.
“Always take the pause. This is advice my wonderful boss, our Clark Hill Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer Susan Ahern, has imparted on me regularly. We live in such a wired world, and, while responsiveness will always have its place, being measured and thoughtful, listening and learning first, and then collaboratively coming to solutions always wins the day. This has been transformational advice for me. Oh, and pick up the phone sometimes – nuance is too frequently lost in email and things can unfortunately escalate as a result!” Sexton comments. “Also, I carry with me the wisdom my late mother often shared: ‘Tell people what they mean to you in the moment when it will mean something to them.’ Carrying the large responsibilities of the LMA presidency, this thinking served me very well. Again, pause, acknowledge, reciprocate. It makes the world better for all.”
In 2023, Sexton was the international president of the 4,000-member Legal Marketing Association (LMA), a professional organization he’s been a member of since 2012. Throughout his tenure as LMA’s leader, Roy prioritized DEI issues, putting them front and center on all education and messaging efforts.
Sexton also serves on the board of Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, and he is a published author of two books: Reel Roy Reviews, Volumes 1 and 2. He was named Best Actor in a Musical by BroadwayWorld Detroit in 2017 for his performance as Jasper in The Mystery of Edwin Drood at Ann Arbor Civic.
“Be open and inquisitive to all adventures before you. Every task represents an opportunity to learn and nothing should be ‘beneath us.’ Obviously, know and hold your worth, but sometimes working on that presentation with a colleague is an opportunity to see how others think, to help shape narrative, and to expand your skill set,” Sexton advises.
He adds, “That was what differentiated me in the early days of my career when I was still in healthcare. I worked on bond rating presentations, board retreats, strategic visioning decks and everything in between. I’m a theatre person by training so storytelling is important to me, and I was able to enrich the work by helping my colleagues consider audience needs in their presentations. Through that I built relationships, gained trust, and was exposed to a number of operational areas that would have otherwise been unavailable to me.”
July 24, 6 pm eastern time … live on Instagram with HRC Michigan – more info here.
And thank you dear friends and colleagues Steve Fretzin and Ray Koenig for the lovely shout out here. Love you, both!
EXCERPT …
STEVE: So would we be, so we would be doing the right thing by giving a shout out to Roy Sexton, huh?
RAY: We can always give a shout out to Roy Sexton. Roy heads our marketing for entire firm and he is the king of celebrating other people.
STEVE: King of authenticity. That guy is crushing that on so many levels, but when I think about authentic, I go right to Roy, he’s amazing.
RAY: He really is and he provides a really great example for the attorneys in our firm. And then I think especially for the younger ones. And I think also for the people that in our firm, that most of us feel we don’t fit a cookie cutter mold and don’t want to, that’s Roy.
Roy is who he is and in a really good way. He’s also really smart and strategic. He does so many things well, but he’s just, he’s really good at, he’s authentic, but he’s also really good at celebrating other people, which I just, I really appreciate in that respect.
And then we also, full disclosure, we have a very good friendship. So he’s one of the first people to text me or call me when something good happens in my life. He’s just a great human being.
STEVE: Yep, yep, absolutely agreed. And he’s, I think he’s been on the show a couple of times. He’s just one of my favorite people and always so warm and inviting.
Roy Sexton, Director of Marketing at Clark Hill, has been named one of Michigan’s 2024 Most Valuable Professionals by Corp! Magazine. The recognition highlights Sexton’s significant contributions to his firm and the broader business community in Michigan.
With over 25 years of experience in marketing, communications, business development, and strategic planning, Sexton leads Clark Hill’s marketing, branding, and communications efforts. His work emphasizes collaboration with a skilled team to deliver exceptional service to clients. “We recruit and develop talented individuals and empower them to contribute to our rich diversity of legal and industry experience,” Sexton stated.
Sexton was named one of INvolve People’s 2023 Top 100 OUTstanding LGBTQ+ Executives internationally. He was listed in Crain’s Detroit Notable LGBTQ in Business in 2021 and Notable Leaders in Marketing in 2023, and he was a Michigan Lawyers Weekly Unsung Legal Hero in 2018.
Sexton’s leadership extends to his role as the 2023 International President of the Legal Marketing Association (LMA), a position he has used to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). “I’m proud of how DEI has become so fully integrated into my professional efforts in this world. As international president of the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) in 2023 and as immediate past president this year, we have kept inclusion front and center,” Sexton said. Under his guidance, the LMA has launched member resource groups and enhanced its inclusive talent pipeline.
His efforts at Clark Hill have also led to notable recognitions, including Mansfield Certification for DEI efforts and awards from the Managing Partners’ Forum for marketing campaigns focused on values, diversity, and inclusion. Sexton’s team has been instrumental in advancing the firm’s digital and social media presence, producing strategically organized content for clients and prospects.
Sexton is also active outside his professional responsibilities. He serves on the board of Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit and is a published author of two books. Additionally, he hosts the monthly Expert Webcast series “All the World’s YOUR Stage: Authentic Culture Drives Authentic Growth,” where he discusses inclusion, allyship, authenticity, and branding with nationally recognized executives.
Reflecting on his career, Sexton emphasized the importance of thoughtful communication and collaboration. “Always take the pause. This is advice my wonderful boss, our Clark Hill Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer Susan Ahern, has imparted on me regularly,” he commented. He also shared personal wisdom from his late mother: “Tell people what they mean to you in the moment when it will mean something to them.”
“Playing comedy is hell. The necessity to have an audience love you is perhaps more overwhelming than in any other form of entertainment. With singing, dancing, acting you don’t know until it’s over if you’ve had acceptance or rejection. The comic knows sooner. The audience laughs or it doesn’t.” – Imogene Coca
One might describe marketing and business development similarly. In fact, there is one unicorn in this industry who is adept at BOTH: Brenda Pontiff. We are thrilled that Brenda is joining host Roy Sexton to talk about how business development and stand-up comedy are in fact two great tastes that taste great together!
Born and raised in Texas, Brenda Pontiff left for graduate school in Kansas and wound up touring the country with the Complex Improv Theater. She returned home and began working on her stand-up comedy skills at The Houston Comedy Workshop’s Comixh Annex, the infamous club that spawned the likes of Bill Hicks and Sam Kinison. A few years later, she moved to Los Angeles and became a New Face at the famed Hollywood Improv. She was also a regular at Igby’s and toured as a feature act for franchise clubs including Punchlines, FunnyBones, and Laff Stops. She took a 14-year break in the early 2000s to focus on her global business development career but has happily returned to bring her Texas meets California perspective to the stage. Brenda believes comedy is like the Mafia, you can never leave.
During said global business development career, Brenda founded Partner Track Academy after years of watching young accountants and lawyers, often part of a group challenged with inclusion barriers, panic over business development expectations related to making partner. So often firms’ marketing staff members are not trained to support non-partners’ revenue generation efforts or they simply do not have the bandwidth to do so. This missing component can be filled through individual, customized coaching or periodic workshops and presentations that provide tools, tips, and best practices that lead to improved networking habits, client satisfaction, revenue growth, and ultimately, a coveted seat at the partners’ table.
Brenda has:
· More than 25 years in accounting and law firm sales and marketing.
· Sold services on behalf of an AmLaw 100 firm, exceeding sales and new client acquisition goals for almost eight years.
· Worked as a professional speaker, stand-up comic, writer, and actress, winning several national awards.
· Created a new sales process for a Big Four accounting firm, taking revenues from zero to $3.7 MM in the first year.
· Led a Big Four sales support team during the demise of Arthur Andersen, winning 67% of the regional client base while competing against three other international accounting firms.
· Maintained a 100% success rate while working as a Big Four global strategist to retain critical, at-risk clients.
· Created a cross-selling client team that increased an AmLaw 200 firm’s revenue by $900,000 through one pitch meeting.
· Spoken frequently at association events and corporate retreats regarding account-centric methodologies, best practices for networking at conferences, diversity and inclusion change management, harnessing stress for better productivity, navigating the book of business demand, and embracing resiliency.
Thank you, Clark Hill and Corp! Magazine, for this recognition. It truly means the world. I do the best I can to focus on helpfulness and team-building and community and celebrating the authenticity in everyone, so a nod like this really puts the wind in my sails. I’m grateful I get to work for such an incredible organization as Clark Hill as well as support my professional community in the Legal Marketing Association. I’m truly a fortunate soul!
And thank you, Joel Epstein, Leslie Smithson, Jennifer Kluge, Alexis Yaeger (Jakowinicz), for your friendship and support on this. I appreciate you all very much!
Thank you to producer Anna Spektor for her loving support and to friend (and our next guest!) Brenda Pontiff for connecting me with the divine Tim Duffy, CMT!
What is that old joke? “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, PRACTICE!” On this episode, we discuss a different kind of practice but one no less applicable to the business world: how meditation can enhance mindfulness and yield personal and professional success.
Guest Tim Duffy and host Roy Sexton unpack the career pivot Tim has taken to leverage his personal discoveries in this arena to help business leaders worldwide. Roy, being an avowed entertainment geek and fanboy, will no doubt ask Tim to talk about his career journey in Hollywood, what he learned from those experiences, and how his successful navigation of the entertainment industry now informs his coaching and consulting work.
Recently featured as a speaker at the iconic Netflix is a Joke Fest and the Hollywood and Mind Summit, Tim is a two-time Emmy-winner, an advanced meditation practitioner and a Mindfulness-based Executive Coach. His unique background in Behavioral Psychology paired with his wildly successful career as a Fortune 500 Executive and two-time startup Founder fuels his work with executives, performers and organizations.
Tim writes, “In 2010, I launched MTV Networks’ first Mindfulness Program and immediately became enamored with helping businesses harness the power of their greatest asset: people! During the next 13 years, I trained high-level executives throughout corporate America at companies like Amazon, Endeavor Agency, Netflix, AirBnB, and more, while implementing the same techniques and insights in my ‘other life.’ … In 2013, I launched my first startup, Ugly Brother Studios, which became widely known as one of the premier Food & Travel production companies in Entertainment. During this time, I created, sold, produced, and directed over 12 series, garnering nine Emmy Nominations, two life-changing wins, and four James Beard Award Nominations. … Through mindfulness and meditation, I’ve learned how to be truly alive to these people and to my own body and mind. Alive to the births of my children, the struggles of business, the joy of winning awards, the challenges of divorce, the loss of my father, the bliss of falling in love and, like us all, a freakin’ pandemic.”
Two of my Jiminy Cricket guardian angels – Liz Sobe and Laura Gassner Otting – just ran into each other at the train station! Hijinks ensued.
Gay film and television dramas always include suffering. A lot of suffering. We in the LGBTQIA+ community don’t get a lot of Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant frothy rom coms. Hell, we don’t get any Marvel epics, Disney fables, sci-fi adventures, or even glitzy musicals of our own. C’est la vie.
But sometimes in the suffering, Hollywood gets it right. That is indubitably the case with Showtime’s/Hulu’s/Paramount+’s literary adaptation Fellow Travelers, starring Matt Bomer, Jonathan Bailey, Allison Williams, Jelani Alladin, and Noah Ricketts. It is almost the case with actor/star/auteur Bradley Cooper’s latest opus, the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro on Netflix, co-starring Carey Mulligan, Sarah Silverman, Maya Hawke, annnnnnnd … Matt Bomer!
It may be an unfair comparison, as Fellow Travelers benefits a) from being a work of historical fiction and b) from being told over eight episodes. The adaptation of Thomas Mallon’s novel has a lot more latitude and space to explore the nuances and travails of gay men living, loving, and, quite frankly, simply surviving – from the McCarthy communist witch hunts and Lavender Scare until the AIDS crisis in the mid-80s. I might also suggest, however, that Fellow Travelers benefits from its showrunners being openly gay themselves – among them writer/executive producer Ron Nyswaner and director/executive producer Daniel Minahan.
Now, I’m not one who subscribes to the notion that only people in one particular group can tell the stories of said group. Art is about exploring and learning and growing – and you can only do that by molding clay that may be a bit foreign to your own lived experience. However, the viewer can feel the qualitative difference when said stories are told by those who have experienced them firsthand versus those who haven’t. What is that old saw? “Write what you know.” It’s a conundrum to be sure – some of the best art is crafted by those who have survived a fiery furnace, but others gain knowledge and empathy by exploring its simulacrum.
Fellow Travelers covers (in essence) a waterfront remarkably akin to that of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning two-part play Angels in America, itself a groundbreaking moment for gay literature and art. Closeted McCarthy bulldog Roy Cohn (later a mentor to Donald Trump) is a haunted gargoyle of an antagonist in each. As Cohn in Fellow Travelers, Will Brill is exceptional – infuriating AND heartbreaking – a scheming ball of self-loathing barbed wire. Matt Bomer’s Fellow Travelers character Hawkins Fuller, a state department bureaucrat and war hero, could be a corollary to Angels’ similarly “straight-presenting,” dual-life-leading Mormon anti-hero Joe Pitt. Jonathan Bailey’s tortured idealist Tim Laughlin who ricochets from cause to cause (McCarthyism, seminary, San Fran-community organizer) in Fellow Travelers evokes faith-conflicted, virtue-signaling Louis Ironson in Angels. And both characters are a bit … exhausting TBH. Hawk’s long-suffering wife Lucy Smith, as portrayed by Allison Williams in Fellow Travelers, follows a similar arc to Joe Pitt’s equally long-suffering wife Harper in Angels (minus the polar bear excursions). And we even have an answer for Angels’ Belize, the play’sover-it-all Jiminy Cricket-conscience, in Fellow Travelers’ will-they-won’t-they couple Marcus Gaines, a closeted journalist, and Frankie Hines, a very un-closeted drag performer and activist, portrayed respectively (and luminously) by Jelani Alladin and Noah Ricketts.
While the cast structure and timeline bear striking similarity to Angels, the tone is very different. No flights of fantasia nor whipsaw quippery here, and, in some respects, the story is more impactful for playing it, excuse me, straight. Particularly, Bomer and Williams turn in career-best performances. Neither fall prey to convention here. Bomer is, yes, a bit Mad Men-Don Draper-esque here (to the good). He plays the Machiavellian Hawkins as a fully formed human, broken as can be, but functioning – and functioning highly. A director I once had – Rex McGraw at Ohio State – told me, “Remember, the villain in a play doesn’t think they are the villain.” They are either trying to do the right thing or simply getting by. Hawkins is not a victim nor a victimizer, but a creature of circumstance and access. He’s paved a career through military and state service, lives a personal life of countervailing performative balance, and dreams of it all leading one day to unlimited freedom (a day that never comes). In contrast, Williams could play simply the tragic collateral damage to all this – the naive spouse who trades away full-fledged love for security. Her character and her portrayal are too smart for that. She knows what she’s gotten into, sees the promise in Hawkins, but also shields her own heart as best she can.
What people outside the LGBTQIA+ community – particularly of a certain era – may fail to understand is that for many (myself included) we play a game with ourselves (much like Hawkins) that with the passage of time (and the passing of some family members) one day we can be our true selves. Some of us realize that is folly, and some don’t. And that is a central tension of Fellow Travelers, Angels in America, and, yes, Maestro.
Bradley Cooper has gotten some flak for using prosthetics to resemble (uncannily I might add) composer/conductor/wunderkind Leonard Bernstein in Maestro. Regarding my point that not everyone has to be it to play it? This applies here IMHO. The film is a remarkable feat – Cooper writes, directs, produces, stars – and I mean he STARS, baby. Remember that clip of Cooper as an overeager grad student asking Robert DeNiro a question from the audience of Inside the Actors’ Studiowith James Lipton? That same overeager Cooper brings his golden retriever-like energy to Leonard Bernstein’s own golden retriever-like energy and at times it’s just so much muchness.
It’s all beautifully framed, reverent even. And that’s a bit of the problem. Again, Fellow Travelers has a lot more time in which to tell its tale, but Maestro almost comes off like a series of frustratingly fragmented sketches, a tone poem if you will, that can’t decide if it wants to lionize Bernstein or crush him under the weight of his own vanity. A good biographical film doesn’t have to do either – in fact it shouldn’t – but the fact that Maestro feels as synaptically syncopated as Bernstein’s score to West Side Story makes for a slightly maddening viewing experience. And please note, I generally liked the film, but I wish it had slowed down every once in a while, cut down on the Altman-esque overlapping clichéd dialogue, and let us really delve into this brilliant soul’s mind and heart. It feels like Cooper took literally Bernstein’s closeted bisexuality and the conflict it presented Bernstein – existing in the same era as Fellow Travelers with life and career at comparable risk. Consequently, Cooper is playing the same game of “keep-away” with the narrative that Bernstein played with his sexual identity.
Thank heavens for Carey Mulligan. I think I write that sentence yearly now. As Felicia Montealegre Bernstein, Mulligan keeps the film from spinning off its well-intentioned axis. The script doesn’t give her as much as it could – again, a LOT of naturalistic “dialogue” which weirdly on film comes off pretentious and unnatural, but it is what it is. Nonetheless, Mulligan gets more across with the arch of an eyebrow, the pursing of her lips, a clenched jaw, a smile that fades slowly into a grimace and then a frown, the flicking of a cigarette. (Speaking of which it becomes almost comical that every single moment of every single scene Lenny and Felicia have cigarettes in their hands – like everywhere. I know smoking was a different vice back then, but come on!) With her precisely-expressioned face alone, Mulligan gives the audience long, deep looks into the pain (and joy) of sharing her life – professional and personal – with the boundlessly creative and self-indulgent Lenny. And this is where having some LGBTQIA+ creatives involved in the production might have helped Cooper strike the right balance depicting the high wire act Leonard Bernstein was navigating. Mulligan has the sensitivity and insight and empathy to show us the impact, but Cooper – wearing ALL those hats and with a healthy dollop of hero worship – doesn’t quite stick the landing, the way Bomer does in Fellow Travelers.
And, yes, both Maestro and Fellow Travelers include fourth act scenes in discotheques. It seems to be de rigeur for queer-themed productions. Whereas Fellow Travelers uses the setting as a place to explore the impact of emotional (and physical) self-medication, Maestro uses it to cringe effect (as the kids say). Seeing a sweaty Leonard Bernstein swaying his arms to Tears for Fears’ “Shout” (seriously, was that song ever played in a gay dance bar) as some final, triumphant act of liberation? Yeah, not so much.
(By the way, Cooper also has Bernstein listening to R.E.M.’s “End of the World as We Know It,” exiting his cute red convertible just as Michael Stipe shouts the lyric “LEEEEOONNN-ARRRRD BERN-STEEEEEIN!” I really had no idea what to make of that. Seemed a bit Mel Brooks-y to me.)
Both productions are well worth your time. I feel like I’ve been a bit uncharitable toward Mr. Cooper and Maestro. He should be proud of his achievement, and if I were his eighth grade English teacher I would give him a gold star and an A+ on his thesis project. But, for my money, the better bet is with Fellow Travelers. It says much about the human condition – queer or otherwise – and is beyond revelatory regarding our present socio-politically fragmented days. It’s the end of the world as we know it … and I feel fine.
I spent this afternoon with John Cena. It was heaven. HBOMax’s Peacemaker is brilliant. A dash of Netflix’s Cobra Kai, a smidge of Fox’s Deadpool, some of Amazon’s The Boys, and even a little of HBO’s Watchmen. (That last reference comes full circle as Watchmen’s “The Comedian” was a riff on the original comic book “Peacemaker.”)
The show is bonkers, irreverent, subversive, and more than a bit poignant. Yes, Peacemaker is a study in male arrested development and will appeal to the naughty and vulgar 8th grader in all of us.
But Cena also conveys a tragic sadness amidst the rampant silliness, a beefy Willy Loman in spandex. And the smart ensemble trapped in an unceasing series of Rube Goldberg-esque dead-ends owes as much to The Iceman Cometh as it does to the X-Men.
See? Not all of my references are comic book-oriented.
Danielle Brooks as a comically green field agent (who might not be as inept as she telegraphs), Jennifer Holland as her more seasoned (read: wryly, candidly cynical) colleague, and Freddie Stroma as adorably homicidal and overeager wannabe sidekick Adrian Chase (aka “Vigilante”) are standouts.
Showrunner James Gunn takes the merry melody he began in last year’s The Suicide Squad and turns it into a symphony. Whereas that film occasionally was mired in its own fan service, Peacemaker builds upon its predecessor’s promise and avails itself of the expanded real estate serial television provides to develop its characters without sacrificing any gee whiz puerile shenanigans.
And watching The Suicide Squad is not a prerequisite. There is a brief recap in the first episode, and, in many ways, Peacemaker is the far stronger production. I almost wish I HADN’T seen The Suicide Squad first (which nonetheless I did enjoy).
Even if you loathe superheroes – or ESPECIALLY if you do – you’ll find it endlessly entertaining.
A week or so ago, I caught up with Netflix’s tick, tick…BOOM! and Amazon’s Being the Ricardos, which also could be dubbed the “late bloomers double feature” (not just because I saw them well after their respective premieres). Both films explore the challenging intersection of art and commerce, a limbo often riddled with casualties who *just* haven’t quite made it yet but keep hitting that show biz gaming table for one last hopeful spin.
tick, tick…BOOM! is the autobiographical musical by the late Jonathan Larson, Pulitzer Prize-winner for Rent. Detailing his 30th year of living, the piece reads like a Gen X bohemian Company with its protagonist bouncing from well-meaning friend to less-well-meaning friend on a journey to find himself and a backer for his long-gestating musical (no, not Rent … yet).
Director Lin Manuel-Miranda displays a sure hand with the material, fueled no doubt both by love and respect for his contemporary Larson but also from his own career’s stops and starts.
The film is a glorious fairytale of hardship, and its leading man Andrew Garfield (always a marvel) turns in a career best performance, deftly walking a high wire of being inspiring, endearing, maddening, and self-serving. Oh, and he sings (gorgeously), plays the piano, and (sort of) dances, all while painting one of the clearest-eyed portrayals of the white hot isolation of a creative spirit I’ve ever seen.
Supporting players Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesus, Vanessa Hudgens, Joshua Henry, MJ Rodriguez, Judith Light, and Bradley Whitford (as Stephen Sondheim no less!) are all stellar, sharply capturing the earnest if ephemeral nature of relationships in the theatre community. There are Broadway cameos aplenty, and I won’t spoil the fun, but I will give shout outs to Laura Benanti (always a comic delight) and Judy Kuhn who are positively larcenous in their all-too-brief respective scenes.
Comparably, Being the Ricardos is shaped by the endless, thankless years performers toil in an effort to “make it.” While the film focuses on Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz at the peak of I Love Lucy’s fame, we learn, through flashbacks and writer/director Aaron Sorkin’s signature rat-a-tat dialogue, the steep challenges through which this legendary couple powered to achieve blockbuster success relatively late in their respective careers.
The film clarifies without belaboring that Lucy and Desi’s success came with a steep price. Years of working in obscurity created hairline fractures that would eventually blossom into infidelity, but throughout they remained a united front in art and business.
Notably, while Kidman doesn’t look one whit like Ball, she does nail Lucy’s husky smoker’s voice and overall demeanor. We leave the film with incredible admiration for Lucille Ball as an entrepreneur who transformed the industry, as a comic visionary with an artiste’s obsession for detail, and as a social progressive who beautifully didn’t give a damn for mid-century social norms.
Kidman and luminous Javier Bardem (as Desi) conduct an acting master class in how to portray beloved historical figures, channeling their essences, while making them uniquely their own. Consequently, they land a timely and timeless message of living in one’s moment.
They are aided and abetted by JK Simmons and Nina Arianda as William Frawley and Vivian Vance respectively. Despite Arianda being saddled with an unfortunate body shaming subplot, both Arianda and Simmons sparkle brilliantly as showbiz workhorses who simultaneously value and resent their “second banana” success.
And, for those who geek out over sumptuous scenic and costume design, there is lush Eisenhower-era eye candy aplenty, with one postcard-perfect image after another of Hollywood’s (and television’s) golden age.
The film’s politics get slippy at times. Sorkin seems intent on force-fitting a modern liberal’s gaze onto Lucy and Desi’s history, but tricky details like Richard Nixon exonerating Lucy from her communist party past get in the way. Be that as it may, the performances transcend any pedantry to detail lives fully lived in service to art and cultural progress.
Joe: You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
Norma: I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.
From Sunset Boulevard
“If you dream it, you can achieve it.” – Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) in Wonder Woman 1984
“Nothing good is born from lies.” – Diana (Gal Gadot) in Wonder Woman 1984
Sadly, this seems to be the season of watching big ticket blockbusters crammed onto a home screen. Furthermore, this seems to be the season where all of your Facebook friends march like lemmings to tell you what you’re supposed to think of said offerings before you even have had a chance to view them for yourself. Being the good-natured contrarian that my parents raised, I find myself in direct opposition to much of the feedback I’ve observed. To me, The Prom was kind-hearted escapism-with-attitude, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was a stagy self-indulgent slog, Midnight Sky was a resonant Truman Capote-meets-Ray Bradbury short (long) story, and Wonder Woman 1984 was a candy-coated (admittedly overstuffed) confection.
I loved The Prom. I, for one, like unapologetic musicals, and this Ryan Murphy production reads like Hairspray, The Greatest Showman, High School Musical, and Bye Bye Birdie had a socially progressive movie baby. Much needless ado has been made about (formerly?) beloved Carpool Karaokemaven James Corden playing a gay character, claiming his take is offensively stereotypical. Many critics’ descriptions have been as troubling as what they accuse Corden of perpetuating, if you ask me.
To me, it is one of Corden’s better and more thoughtful performances, layering broad comedy in a compelling gauze of pathos, to effectively depict a man struggling to find his path in the margins (in career, physicality, and, yes, sexuality). Corden is part of a free-wheeling quartet of Broadway narcissists (all compensating for respective ghosts of failures past) who descend on a small Indiana town to “rescue” it from its own prejudices after the local PTA shames and embarrasses a young lesbian (luminous newcomer Jo Ellen Pellman) in a way that would make even John Travolta’s character in Carriecringe.
Meryl Streep (channeling a caustic yet charming mix of Patti LuPone and Susan Lucci), Nicole Kidman (at her most winsomely fragile), and Andrew Rannells (all bounding and puppyish joy) are Corden’s partners in well-intentioned, occasionally misplaced crime, and they have fabulous chemistry. Kerry Washington is suitably evangelically vampy as the rigid PTA president, and Keegan-Michael Key is a pleasant surprise (both as a singer and actor) as the high school’s show tune loving principal. Tracey Ullmann pops up as Corden’s regretful Midwestern ma, and their reconciliation scene is a lovely little masterclass in heightened understatement.
Oh, right, I did say the movie is kicky fun, but nothing I’ve written here much indicates why. Working from Matthew Sklar’s buoyant Broadway production, Murphy and team overdo everything in all the right ways, juxtaposing all-too-real intolerance and heartache (basically everyone in the film is guilty of uninformed prejudice of one kind or another) with the metaphysical joys of unhinged singing, dancing, glitter, and sequins. All ends (predictably) happily, almost Shakespearean (if Shakespeare listened to Ariana Grande), and I dare you not to sit through the end credits with a stupid, hopeful grin on your face.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is also adapted from the stage, as legendary director George C. Wolfe brings August Wilson’s play to the screen. I suspect my disappointment is more to do with the source material than Wolfe’s sure-handed if claustrophobic direction. To be honest, I wanted more of Viola Davis’ dynamite Ma Rainey and less of … everyone else. Davis has one scene worthy of the Hollywood time capsule, eviscerating the misogynistic and racist capitalist machine that steals artists’ voices (quite literally as Rainey is committing her vocals to vinyl) and tosses people to the curb when they’ve outlived their usefulness.
The film depicts one day in a Chicago recording studio as Rainey fights with, well, anyone who crosses her path in defense of her vision and to retain her integrity in a world that reduces her to a commodity. THAT is the movie I wanted to see, but Wolfe gives preferred time to Rainey’s studio musicians, a group of men whose primary purpose seems to be representing inter-generational animosity among those with a Y-chromosome. Perhaps I’ve just had my fill for one lifetime of toxic male posturing, but I grew weary of their (endless) scenes.
In total, the film feels like it never really escapes the confines of the stage, and I may be among the few viewers underwhelmed by Chadwick Boseman’s performance. His work seems hammy and like he is in search of another movie altogether. I could be wrong, but the overwhelming praise for Boseman here feels like groupthink rhapsodizing given that he is no longer with us. I’m going to hell. See you there. Boseman remains a singular talent, but I don’t think time will be kind to this particular role, Oscar-winning as it likely will be.
Wonder Woman 1984 follows the loping narrative style of all inexplicably beloved films made in, well, 1984, and thereby is a kind of referendum on the cardboard excess and shallow instant gratification of that hollow era, nostalgia for which continues to plague us in insidious ways to this very day.
I found it nicely character driven with a strong cast and with a warm and (mostly) light touch, but plagued by some script/logic problems in its final act. All in all, it met my comics-loving expectations, and I enjoyed what they were doing. Gal Gadot remains a commanding presence in a way we just don’t see in screen stars these days. She’s not an actor per se, but she is a star.
Director Patty Jenkins has great Rube Goldberg-esque fun with one improbable action sequence after another. All were clearly nods to similar films of the 80s featuring, say, Superman or Indiana Jones but enhanced through modern Fast and the Furious-style tech and suspension of disbelief. I’m not looking for pragmatism in a movie like this. Sometimes I just want to be entertained, and WW84 did that for me
Jenkins makes the smart choice of casting talent who will connect the dots in a wafer-thin script. In the film, Kristen Wiig consistently makes smart acting choices as her character progresses from heartbreakingly nerdy sidekick to sullen and insolent supervillain, never losing the heartache of exclusion underneath it all. I thought she was a refreshing and inspired choice to play Barbara Minerva/Cheetah.
Dreamy/witty Chris Pine doesn’t get much dialogue/plot to work with as newly resurrected love interest Steve Trevor, but he shines nonetheless, wringing laughs from fish-out-of-water nuance without ever belaboring the joke.
Pedro Pascal balances Trumpian satire and Babbitt-esque tragedy as a gilded charlatan who believes 80s greed is the key to self-acceptance. He’s grand until the dodgy final act strands him somewhere on manic Gene Wilder-isle, and the film limps to its inevitable world-saving resolution.
I also think if people had watched WW84 on the big screen, they would have walked away with a different vibe. Some may disagree, but there’s a hidden psychological bump to paying for a ticket and investing time away from home (one WANTS the movie to be good) that is erased by the small screen – which has little to do with what is actually being viewed. IMHO.
The global warming parable Midnight Sky (directed by and starring George Clooney), however, benefits from small screen viewing. That said, the film’s outer space, nail biting, race-against-time elements have all been covered (sometimes better) in The Martian, Interstellar, Ad Astra, and George Clooney’s own Gravity. Hell, throw in Event Horizon, Sunshine, and The Black Hole for good measure.
Rather, I enjoyed the film’s quiet moments with Clooney as the sole (maybe?) survivor on an ice-covered Earth, as he fights the elements, time, and his own failing health to deter a deep-space crew from returning to their certain death on an uninhabitable planet. I didn’t give two hoots about the space mission, which included Felicity Jones, Kyle Chandler, David Oyelowo, and Tiffany Boone, all doing their level best to make us care. However, I was transfixed by an almost unrecognizable Clooney who checked his golden boy charm at the door and exquisitely projected the exhaustion and anxiety and fear of someone nearing the literal end. So, in other words, how most of us feel in 2020.
If it were up to me, I would edit out all of the space-faring scenes and leave the film’s focus on George Clooney alone in a post-apocalyptic arctic, yielding a transcendent hour-long Twilight Zone episode.
Now, let’s see how I fare in the Twitterverse when I finally turn to watching Disney’s/Pixar’s Soul …
Postscript …what follows is an email sent to my mother Susie Sexton this afternoon about 1960’s classic Cimarron. They don’t make movies like this any more, and that’s a shame.
From IMDB’s synopsis: “The epic saga of a frontier family, Cimarron starts with the Oklahoma Land Rush on 22 April 1889. The Cravet family builds their newspaper Oklahoma Wigwam into a business empire and Yancey Cravet is the adventurer-idealist who, to his wife’s anger, spurns the opportunity to become governor since this means helping to defraud the native Americans of their land and resources.”
I just finished Cimarron and liked it very very much. I do think that Edna Ferber captures perhaps somewhat formulaically but absolutely effectively, the passage and snowballing magnitude of time and life, with a lovely progressive sensibility (pun unintended).
Maria Schell is exquisite. I don’t think the film would’ve been half as good without her in it. I really like Anne Baxter too. Their one scene together is quite understated and powerful.
Glenn Ford is of course great too, but Maria Schell really got to me. She acts in a style ahead of its time. It’s a beautiful film, but at least in the first ten minutes I kept expecting them to burst into song. When it really digs into their struggle and unpredictable relationship, it’s very powerful. The supporting cast was of course great since all of those people had been in one million films already.
Thanks for recommending this! Love you!
My family loves movies. We always have. It is our cultural shorthand, and every holiday – until this one – has been spent in communion over what movies we saw, how they made us think and feel, and what these films might say about our culture and its advancement. That is in short why I write this blog. I can’t imagine watching a movie without having the opportunity to share how it speaks to my heart and mind.
Thank you for reading these thoughts of mine for nearly ten years (!), inspired as they are by a lifetime of loving movies.
“Your imperfections make you special.” – Joey, student actor in “Spotlight,” the final episode of Marvel’s 616
Today, we brought in our deck furniture (from the summer!) to store in the basement, that is after decorating our house for Christmas. We bought the set what feels like yesterday (April), and we dutifully covered it to protect it from harsh sun and booming thunderstorms, pretty much never sitting on it, once wrapped in a cumbersome, billowing shroud of waxy canvas. So we paid for outdoor couches, negotiated their delivery in pandemic, never used them, and just huffed and puffed maneuvering them through endless doors and hallways into our basement, in another attempt to protect them.
Futility and comedy, thy name is home ownership. Everyone keeps blaming 2020 for everything, as if an arbitrarily determined twelve-month signifier of time’s passage is the cause of our collective woes. Yet, what has actually been laid bare in this dumpster fire period is, in fact, that we are all ourselves to blame with our materialistic, self-absorbed mania day after day, a long-standing debt that finally came due. How much have we taken for granted and what damage have we done to planet, culture, ecology, health, and mental well-being in the process? We’ve likely only seen the tip of that iceberg. Ahoy, me maties!
Take these chances Place them in a box until a quieter time Lights down, you up and die Driving in on this highway All these cars and upon the sidewalk People in every direction No words exchanged No time to exchange
When all the little ants are marching Red and black antennas waving They all do it the same They all do it the same way
My last legit movie review was Birds of Prey. In February. Lord, I hope that’s not the last movie I ever get to see in an actual movie theatre. If I had only known, I’d have chosen … oh, who am I kidding? I still would have seen it. I miss the communal experience of movies, observing audience reaction and assessing the art as well as the commerce of cinema. Wild horses couldn’t get me to go now, if ever again, but I do miss it. Yet, between lone gunmen and rampant plague, performance venues are the new OK Corral.
Thanksgiving has always been a special movie time for my family. My parents and I, year after year, would see hundreds of films over the long holiday weekends, beguiled by Hollywood’s relentless marketing machine. We’d pronounce a film as “awful!” only to change our minds over breakfast, searching for connective tissue and insights into the human condition from such disparate selections as Life of Piand Daddy’s Home 2. I miss that. I miss my parents.
My husband and I have had no end of entertainment – deck furniture notwithstanding. Showing my age, I do resent that finding new shows to binge is tantamount to a digital Easter egg hunt these days. Netflix? No. AmazonPrime? Maybe. Disney+? Possibly. Do we just have this on DVD somewhere?
We’ve enjoyed a lot of what we’ve seen, at times arguably more forgiving of relative quality for the escape that Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Ratched, Upload, All-American, Hollywood, The Order, The Boys, Emily in Paris, Mandalorian, The Umbrella Academy provided. I’m 99% certain we would have watched very few of these (let alone looked forward to each installment like Victorians eagerly awaiting the next Dickens chapter) had the world not been ending every five days. For this time with my husband, enjoying our home, staying at home, not chasing frenetically scheduled ACTIVITIES!, I am grateful. Pandemic has been a pleasant reprieve in that regard, and I may have been permanently transformed into Boo Radley as a result. Check our trees for handmade toys left for passers-by.
My dear friend Tyler Chase is a talented documentary filmmaker, and she gave me a sneak peek at her latest A Castle in Brooklyn, King Arthur. To say it was the right movie to see in my present mindset would be textbook understatement. I am haunted days after by her clear-eyed, unsentimental but utterly empathic filmic observations on the clash of creativity, capitalism, obsession, free thought, and community in postmodern America.
From the film’s website: “A Castle in Brooklyn, King Arthur with Golden Globe Award recipient, Brian Cox as the Narrator is an intimate and journalistic documentary by filmmaker, Tyler A. Chase. The intimate and journalistic documentary … filmed over a period of seven years, A Castle in Brooklyn, King Arthur, brings us through the doors of the iconic Broken Angel building and into the world of its creators, the visionary, Arthur Wood and his wife, Cynthia as they cling to their life’s work, the Broken Angel building, the last symbol of the bohemian artist culture that once permeated Brooklyn, NY.
“The Woods created the 108 foot Broken Angel objet trouvé building as a sculpture and landmark for the community located in a section of Clinton Hill bordering on Bed Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The Broken Angel building is the subject of local and international news specials; photographed by many. The Woods are loved by their neighbors who see the iconic structure as a beacon of freedom and the threat of its destruction as an omen of the disappearance of a way of life and community. To many it is a symbol of freedom – to others an opportunity for profit.
“Filmmaker, Tyler A. Chase renders the Woods’ story as one both magical and heart wrenching; following them through triumphs, judicial blunders, injustice, evictions, and comedic moments all the while inspired by the indomitable spirit of visionary artist and creator of the Broken Angel, Arthur Wood.”
Director Tyler Chase filming on location at Broken Angel (above) and with narrator Brian Cox (below)
The piece, which recently received the Audience Choice Award from YoFiFest 2020 and the Grand Jury Prize from the CARE Awards International Film Festival, is lyrical and poignant and heartbreaking. Chase captures the visceral nature of what it must have been like to live in that space. And the pain of being deeply misunderstood. Grey Gardens for the 21st century.
As far as narrative techniques, Chase employs interstitial chapter headings with ironic word choices/definitions, building the momentum inexorably. Like a slow-moving car crash, it’s clear things won’t end well for Arthur, Cynthia, or their beloved home. This chapter device – dare I invoke Dickensian tragicomedy again? – accentuates the tale’s inevitability. We all know how the relentless, monochromatic push of “economic development” can destroy the delicate work of sensitive souls creating art in the margins. America, ain’t it something to see? But the viewer mustn’t look away, and Chase’s gaze assures that you won’t.
The overall construction of the film mirrors the Broken Angel itself, layering upon itself in jagged turns, a documentary collage. Exquisite. The film FEELS artisanal – no doubt because of its lengthy gestation – which brings us that much closer to understanding Arthur’s quixotic DIY style. Hello, Oscar? Don’t overlook this essential, bespoke film.
Brian Cox’ regally dulcet tones as the film’s narrator are, yes, Arthurian, yet comforting with a wry edge. The use of music – folk, classical, even what seems like Gregorian chanting – is elegiac. And the moment Chase steps in front of her camera to advocate in real-time for Arthur (at The U.N. no less!), becoming a character in the story, is breathtaking. Just when the viewer is screaming, “Why can’t someone do something for these souls?!” … she does.
(Side note: for the inevitable scripted Hollywood remake, Willem DaFoe is Arthur Wood’s doppelgänger, and he could start preparing his Academy Award acceptance speech now. And then Stephen Schwartz could musicalize it for Broadway, dusting off some of the salvageable ideas from his work on Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. Broken Angel! The Musical! Arthur and Cynthia could live on forever!)
Chase tells the story of Broken Angel with an artist’s appreciation and identification sans any judgment. That’s all Arthur likely ever wanted, in his expression and in his life. Is that why some of us “live out loud,” making bold choices, seemingly incongruous with the workaday world? Semiotic code for the person to be seen and accepted as they are? More devastating than the demolition of Arthur’s life’s work is society’s sniffy rejection of his unique soul made manifest in the Broken Angel.
Surprisingly, this same theme carries through another documentary – or rather documentary series – of a more corporate variety: Marvel’s 616 on Disney+. Across eight episodes, helmed by a bevy of filmmakers, the series wisely eschews a linear recounting of Marvel Comics’ storied history, instead highlighting unsung corners of fandom and creative output.
The incisive episode depicting the rise and proliferation of women comic book writers and artists is as reflective of the fraught times in which we live as it is of Marvel’s fits and starts where inclusion is concerned. The episode about toy creation and collection is as frenetic and joy-filled as you might imagine. And the feature on Marvel’s growing community of international artists is quietly introspective and appropriately moving, if not quite compensating for Marvel’s poor track record with creators of color in the past.
Episodes, respectively, on the cosplay community and school-based theatre are almost tangentially Marvel, shining a much needed light on people left behind who found kinship, purpose, and family through the characters, stories, and mythology of Marvel. I dare you not to shed a few happy tears while viewing.
Much (digital) ink has been spilled on the episode highlighting the legendary “Marvel Method,” whereby an issue is created iteratively and collaboratively between writer and artist. Affable, jocular Dan Slott, the subject of the episode, spurred great ire from fanboys over what they perceived as his seeming disrespect for his fellow creators (and, ultimately, for the end user). Slott’s procrastination is played for comic effect in the episode, and his chronic inability to meet dreaded deadlines is excused under the guise of “Marvel Method.”
The angry binge-watching horde missed the point, however. This isn’t about their inconvenience over receiving the latest issue of Iron Man 2020 a few weeks later than expected. This is about, yet again, the thorny nexus of art and commerce. For Slott, like Arthur Wood, creative expression is a kind of one-sided communion with his fellow human beings. The procrastination prolongs the fun, the invention, the collaboration. Hitting deadline means the party’s over, only to begin again on a schedule set by management, not artists.
Dan Slott
The episode ends with Slott prowling his local comic shop – no doubt in avoidance of work awaiting him at home – joyously name-dropping his favorite writers and artists, as he thumbs through their latest issues. In that moment, he is a figure both inspiringly childlike and painfully alone. If anything, I am now more appreciative of Dan Slott as a singular voice than I am annoyed by delays in his output.
I’m just a face in the crowd Nothing to worry about Not even trying to stand out I’m getting smaller and smaller and smaller And I got nothing to say It’s all been taken away I just behave and obey I’m afraid that I’m starting to fade away
Hey, and for what it was worth I really used to believe That maybe there’s some great thing That we could achieve And now I can’t tell the difference Or know what to feel Between what I’ve been trying so hard to see And what appears to be real
Images of Bill Schwarz and of my mom Susie Duncan Sexton during various special moments of creativity and community
We all just want to be seen, to be understood, to matter. While writing this, my mom Susie Duncan Sexton received a glorious email from her friend and fellow Columbia City, Indiana native Bill Schwarz. My mother wrote about Bill nearly a decade ago (here), and they recently reconnected. Both are accomplished talents in their own rights (check out Bill’s singing group “New Tradition Chorus” and upcoming concert), but their appreciation for one another is inspiring. Bill just finished reading one of my mother’s books, and here is an excerpt of what he wrote to her in response:
“After reading your book (on my Nook reader) it prompted me to write my opinion… I perceived a sensitive, creative intellect that deeply cared and loved unconditionally. Your pets have that quality as does your son Roy. I sensed in your writing the wholesome expression of joy, yet I saw you tempering feelings of dismay. You said, how does the song go: ‘looking for love in the most usual places…..’”
And isn’t that all any of us desire? A voice that is heard, appreciated, reciprocated. To all of the artists in this world … thank you.
And then one day A magic day he passed my way And while we spoke of many things Fools and kings This he said to me The greatest thing you’ll ever learn Is just to love and be loved in return
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn Is just to love and be loved in return
Want to join me in supporting a good cause? Beginning this #GivingTuesday and on through my birthday on December 28, I’m raising money for Ronald McDonald House Charities Ann Arbor and your contribution will make an impact, whether you donate $5 or $500. I’m a proud board member and have seen firsthand how every little bit helps.
The mission of the Ann Arbor Ronald McDonald Houses is to provide families of children experiencing a serious illness or injury requiring hospitalization or treatment on an outpatient basis, a “home away from home” that assists in alleviating the families’ emotional and financial stress.
“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.” ― Richard Adams, Watership Down
When even our escapist entertainment reminds us of the dystopia in which we are currently living as Americans, you know things are dire indeed. This weekend we took in a Saturday night production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast by our talented pals at Augusta, Michigan’s Barn Theatre and a Sunday matinee of the film adaptation of Alexandra Bracken’s young adult novel The Darkest Minds. Both were engaging diversions, and, yet, as I sat through both, I was reminded repeatedly of how disconcertingly life imitates art.
If there were ever a tale as old as time that functions as a parable of toxic masculinity, it is Disney’s take on Beauty and the Beast, adapted from Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s fairy tale first as an Academy Award-winning animated musical in 1991, then as a Broadway stage show in 1994, and finally as a live action film musical in 2017. And it’s made boatloads of cash in each iteration.
Andrea Arvanigian as Belle and Charlie King as Maurice in “Beauty and the Beast” at Barn Theatre.
Let’s see. Belle, a bookish beauty, is caught between two brutes: 1) a misogynistic and vainglorious hunter (Gaston) who sees her as a trophy to be bullied and berated into submission and 2) a literal beast of a man who forces an exchange of her imprisonment for her father’s freedom and locks her in his castle until she succumbs to his “charms.” It may as well be renamed “#MeToo: The Musical.”
As always, the Barn wows with their stagecraft, turning around a technically complex show with barely a week of rehearsal, all the while smiling and parking cars and mowing lawns and serving drinks and selling souvenirs. Be our guest, indeed!
I’d never seen the stage iteration, and I admit to having some difficulty with the first act which pads out the narrative with some forgettable numbers and comic bits and belabors the Beast’s darker impulses to the point that we begin to lose the sense of isolation and loneliness that humanizes him in the films (not Alan Menken’s and Tim Rice’s finest work – Rice took over for the late Howard Ashman for the Broadway adaptation’s additional material). I now understand why Disney went back to the drawing board with last year’s live action flick, rather than adapt the stage version.
Swiped from Jamey’s Facebook page … sorry (not sorry)!
That said, Jamey Grisham as the titular beast does a lovely job working around those limitations and giving us a Beast who is more of a woebegone man-child than an outright Stanley Kowalski caveman. As I said to him following last night’s performance, his Beast was like a misunderstood pit bull who’d been left at the shelter too long. He looked at me quizzically, but, believe me, for an animal lover like me, that’s high praise. Jamey has the voice of an angel and moves beautifully, but arguably his finest moment is his quietest: when Belle reads King Arthur aloud to the admittedly illiterate Beast. The tender poignancy of Andrea Arvanigian’s Belle sharing a beloved tome with a creature who has never received the most basic of kindnesses is palpable. And the subtle canine physicality that Grisham brings to the scene (how does a Beast sit in a chair, anyway?) is heartwarmingly whimsical.
Albert Nelthropp as Gaston in Barn Theatre’s “Beauty and Beast.”
Albert Nelthropp has a true gift for balancing the cartoonish and the menacing as Gaston. He never misses a comic beat, has a voice (and articulation) that fills the cavernous Barn space, and possesses that rare ability to be likable without losing the utter despicability of his character. Penelope Alex is a lovely and warm Mrs. Potts, delivering the title tune in a soft and lullaby-like manner.
And Hans Friedrichs is having the time of his life as Maurice Chevalier-inspired major domo Lumiere. Few performers could be as elegantly hysterical with (basically) a flashlight strapped to the end of each arm. He and Samantha Rickard as his paramour-turned-feather-duster Babette are a hoot.
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast runs through August 10, with tickets available at www.barntheatreschool.org
Be sure to stick around for the Bar Show, a Barn Theatre tradition where the apprentices take over the Rehearsal Shed post-performance to deliver a kooky comic cabaret with polish and panache. Grisham directs and choreographs (is there anything this man can’t do?) with a zippy but inclusive efficiency.
Bar Show
The Disney theme continues with numbers from Coco, The Aristocats, and The Lion King, plus the lost number “Disneyland” from Marvin Hamlisch’s and Howard Ashman’s musicalization of Smile and a pretty epic opener “The Greatest Show” from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul‘s The Greatest Showman (which, for all intents and purposes, should be a Disney musical … but isn’t).
Video clipsat the bottom of this post.
From musicalized misogyny on Saturday to a sci fi fable on Sunday about children locked in cages by the government, forcibly separated from their parents – The Darkest Minds … I told you our entertainment choices this weekend seemed oddly ripped from today’s headlines. Or I just spend way to much time trolling CNN’s and MSNBC’s websites.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
The Darkest Minds has been unfairly pilloried by critics. It’s not awful. It’s not great either. The cinematic universe is now littered with Ray Bradbury-esque young adult future-shock franchises that aspired to the box office glory of Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games but never quite made it past the starting gate: The Golden Compass, The Mortal Instruments,Beautiful Creatures, Percy Jackson, Divergent, I Am Number Four, and so on. Judging by ticket sales this past weekend, Darkest Minds will be in the trash heap of failed young adult film series as well.
That’s a bit of a shame, as I found its depressing and ominous qualities oddly … refreshing (?). It is necessarily discomforting in today’s world to watch a piece of popcorn entertainment depict young children forcibly ripped from their parents’ arms and sent to internment camps for being “different” (albeit in this instance for having super powers). Yes, we’ve covered this territory a lot; hell, it’s basically the same premise Marvel’s X-Men have been milking for nearly sixty years. Yet, it remains timely. Sadly timely.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
The film probably would have worked better as a bleak TV series – something you watch on NetFlix on a grey Sunday afternoon, while still in your pajamas and eating an entire box of Cap’n Crunch cereal.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
In her first live action film (after Kung Fu Panda), Jennifer Yuh Nelson has assembled a capable and transfixing cast, even if they are in servitude to a fairly pedestrian and episodic script. A luminous and haunting Amandla Stenberg (Rue from the original Hunger Games) plays telepathically gifted Ruby Daly – as in all of these sorts of films, she is the Christ/Skywalker/Superman-like “one who will save us all.”
Stenberg is a star in the making, so her mere presence makes the film far more interesting to watch than it should be. A la Dorothy in Oz, she has a band of scruffy friends – Harris Dickinson as dreamy love interest Liam, Skylan Brooks as cerebral Chubbs, Miya Cech as mute Zu – who aid and abet her adventures. The foursome are by far the best thing in the film with a chemistry that deserves a far better vehicle to showcase it.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
They are on the run from a rather confusing collection of government entities and rebel factions that have sprung up in the wake of a nationwide virus that has killed 90% of America’s children and left the remaining 10% with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Uplifting, eh?
Of course, all the adults – well-meaning and earnest Mandy Moore (that’s pretty much her range right there), glowering Gwendoline Christie (sadly sans her shiny Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet), and West Wing‘s Bradley Whitford being all West Wing-y as, yes, the President – are on a mission to collect the super kids to do … well … something? Take over the world? Kill the remaining kids? Clean boots and grow vegetables? Heck, I have no idea.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
Arguably, the best outcome for the tens of people who will have walked past Mission: Impossible or Mamma Mia! to go see The Darkest Minds is that some of them might be inspired to pick up the far superior Watership Down by Richard Adams and give it a spin.
Ruby improbably finds a paperback copy in an abandoned shopping mall, reads it to her compatriots, and then repeats ad nauseum Adams’ narrator’s memorable caution to “Prince Rabbit” that “all the world will be your enemy.”
Sadly, these days, those words seem more prescient than ever. So much for escapist entertainment.
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Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language.
Be sure to stick around for the Bar Show, a Barn Theatre tradition where the apprentices take over the Rehearsal Shed post-performance to deliver a kooky comic cabaret with polish and panache. Grisham directs and choreographs (is there anything this man can’t do?) with a zippy but inclusive efficiency.
Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking