Tag Archives: tony

“Surrounded by the most vicious creatures on the planet: humans.” Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

10 December 2016

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[Image Source: Wikipedia]

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is to the “Harry Potter” cinematic universe what Captain America: The First Avenger is to the “Marvel” one. Bear with me here. In the obvious, both films are set in a golden-hued America of yesteryear where art deco glitter and workaday charm belie a dark societal underbelly of xenophobic, segregated bullying. In a more esoteric way, both films are surprising throwbacks to a slower paced, quieter, more subdued (escapist fantasy and overindulgent special effects notwithstanding) kind of film-making, where whimsy and poignancy meet and where heartbroken underdogs have their day.

I like cinema like that – Frank Capra, The Wizard of Oz, Howard Hawks, Saturday matinee cliffhangers, and so on, and even latter day homages like The Rocketeer or Dick Tracy. Modern audiences aren’t always sprung on this kind of retro storytelling – though Fantastic Beasts‘ box office returns seem to buck that trend.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book series (and the movie adaptations) focused, in a Brit boarding school milieu, on young wizarding students overcoming adversity, championing inclusion, and saving the day. Goodbye, Mr. Chips meets The Once and Future King. A Separate Peace meets Bewitched. Directed by longtime series helmer David Yates, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – a Harry Potter prequel of sorts that explores the American side of this magical world, nearly a century earlier (1926 to be exact) – is a different animal altogether (pun intended).

Newt Scamander (portrayed by Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne with the same shaggy-dog, twitchy, social misfit schtick he employed in The Theory of Everything) is a Hogwarts dropout who has dedicated himself to rescuing, rehabilitating, and protecting the mythical, magical animals of this world, woebegone creatures that neither muggle nor wizard seem to treat with honor or respect. He ventures across the pond for mysterious reasons, and some of his furry and feathered friends escape his watchful eye to frolic in a Jazz Age Manhattan. Spirited hijinks ensue, with surprisingly genuine peril and minimal lowest-common-denominator slapstick. In fact, Redmayne frets that these runaway critters are now “surrounded by the most vicious creatures on the planet: humans.” If Al Gore and PETA collaborated on a Harry Potter backstory, I suspect it wouldn’t be too different from the screenplay J.K. Rowling crafted here. Again: ok by me.

Redmayne is joined by a fabulous rogues’ gallery of character actors:

  • Katherine Waterston, suggesting Maura Tierney’s introspective authority as a low-level American wizard cop;
  • Dan Fogler, the Putnam County Spelling Bee-Tony winner bringing limited comic relief as a sadsack “Non-Maj” and wannabe baker along for the ride;
  • Alison Sudol, breathily transfixing – a Marilyn Monroe with Jessica Chastain’s flint – as Waterston’s mind-reading sis;
  • Ezra Miller, delivering the film’s most refreshingly unsettling moments as a glowering, abused Jimmy Fallon doppelganger (with an Oliver Cromwell haircuit) concealing a deep, dark secret;
  • Samantha Morton, always so ethereally captivating, this time as an ominous, muckraking evangelical;
  • Jon Voight, another great presence, when not getting tripped up by his own politics, ironically cast as a William Randolph Hearst-ish proto-Trump;
  • Carmen Ejogo, stately and evocative as the president of American wizarding society, tangled  in her own bureaucratic machinations;
  • Ron Perlman, nearly unrecognizable as an  Edward G. Robinson-ish mobster troll (literally, a troll), who runs muscle and intel from the murky corners of a Grimms’ fairy tale speakeasy;
  • And Colin Farrell, arguably the best of the bunch, having an understated field day, full of stylish gravitas, as Newt’s chief nemesis, maneuvering chess pieces to ignite a race war between wizards and humans.

Unlike other entries in the Harry Potter canon, Fantastic Beasts unfolds less like a picaresque and more like a candy-colored potboiler. (Technicolor noir?) Why is Newt in America? What is the political endgame for the various players introduced? Why is there such loathing and fear for these beautiful, mischievous creatures Newt hides and hauls around in a battered brown suitcase, a valise that magically hides a portal to Rowling’s version of the world’s grooviest “no-kill” shelter? By the film’s predictably cacophonous denouement (my only criticism), many answers are provided, but enough dangling threads are left to tee up (no doubt) another (very profitable) series of films. I think I’ll be packing my suitcase to tag along.

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[Image Source: Wikipedia]

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

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

“They don’t put people like us on television – except to be laughed at.” #HairsprayLive

8 December 2016

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“They don’t put people like us on television – except to be laughed at.” – Edna Turnblad

This line from the musical Hairspray has always haunted me. I’m not a huge fan of the show, though I’ve always admired Harvey Fierstein and Marc Shaiman’s moxie turning John Waters’ bruise black 1988 satirical film about the horrors and sadness of socio economic marginalization, body shaming, and racial segregation into a bright, frothy Broadway musical. Damn if Shaiman’s tunes aren’t catchy!

But back to that line. Matriarch Edna – played on stage by Fierstein, and the original film by Divine and in the first musical film version by John Travolta – declares this brutal truth to her husband as their relentlessly optimistic daughter chooses to head forth and audition for an American Bandstand-style local teen dance show. 

The Turnblads are anything but the typical Eisenhower Era, squeaky clean, nuclear family. With their rough hewn edges, “life is a banquet but don’t take too much” joie de vivre, economic challenges and “less than Greek” figures, this loving and relatable model of the typical American family does not fit the stylized mold of the typical American family that typical American families like to see on television. And this crucial line is the heartbreaking thesis of the show … and one might argue for daily life in these United States for 99% of us.

The timing of this particular NBC live holiday musical couldn’t be stranger or more appropriate. Fifteen years ago when the musical first hit with its early 1960s setting and focus on the ugly racist/sexist bile concealed under Dippity-do and crinolines, it seemed like a quaint reminder of another era, one which many of us knew we hadn’t actually escaped, but about which we blithely, mindlessly lived in denial anyway. Now that we are making America great again, which may be code for going back to this oppressive, regimented, candy colored era, Hairspray Live felt like a haunting, sickening, Orwellian cautionary tale.

Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, working with Fox’s Grease Live director Kenny Leon, seem to have finally landed, more or less, on a successful formula for these social media teasing live events. Other than the unnecessary commercial breaks, with hyperventilating Darren Criss and an army of golf carts hustling panicked actors visibly from set to set, the show was pretty seamless. (Well, there was also the cluttered, confusing, and chaotic camera work… But you can’t have everything.)

Wisely, they stacked the deck with an army of pros in the adult roles, from Fierstein himself revisiting his Tony award-winning part in a winning mix of pea gravel, bombast, and the milk of human kindness to insanely annoying but sharply talented and utterly typecast Kristin Chenowith as race-baiting Cruella de Vil knock off Velma Von Tussle. SCTV vets Martin Short and Andrea Martin added some sweet-natured depth and color as Wilbur Turnblad and Mrs. Pingleton respectively but were often lost in the manic shuffle.

Jennifer Hudson has a miraculous voice – which is her chief super power – but I find her generally overrated as an actor. Regardless, her arrival as Motormouth Maybelle at the midpoint gave the production its finest musical moments and its most heart wrenching reminders of how far we have yet to go – quite literally, in fact, with the number “I Know Where I’ve Been.”

Dancing With The Stars’ Derek Hough was the night’s most pleasant surprise, seizing the national spotlight the show provided to plant his flag firmly in Mt. Musical Theatre. His unquestionable technique paired with his slightly skeezy “toot sweets” charm was perfect for the role of Corny Collins, and he made the most of every moment, including what was either a wildly inappropriate or brilliantly meta embedded commercial for Oreo cookies.

The “nicest kids in town” – including newcomer Maddie Baillio as Tracy, Ariana Grande as Penny, Dove Cameron as Amber, and Garrett Clayton as Link fared less successfully. It’s not that their performances were bad, but they were bland in the face of their scenery chewing elders. It felt like the cast could’ve used another week of rehearsals. However, that has been pretty much the case for every one of these live productions. So be it. Ephraim Sykes as Seaweed was the exception that proved the rule, however. He was a bolt of lightning across the screen, and I wished he’d had more to do.

In short, this particular musical always just seems to exist chiefly as a delivery mechanism for buoyant, electrifying, raucous “anthem for the oddballs” finale “You Can’t Stop the Beat,” and Hairspray Live stuck the landing. I question how “family friendly” a musical that opens with a flasher on the streets and includes double and triple entendres in every other line might be. I chuckled when Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth implored us to “gather the family” in the show’s opening moments. 

That said, the show’s message couldn’t be more timely or appropriate. For all American families. Great and small.

“You can’t stop today/As it comes speeding ’round the track/Yesterday is history/And it’s never comin’ back!”

Ann Arbor’s Penny Seats Theatre Company with two offerings – The Canterbury Tales and Xanadu – this summer

2 May 2016

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From our press release … which is why I refer to myself in the third person on my own blog … or I’m just having a nervous breakdown. Or both.

Canterbury Tales

Ann Arbor’s Penny Seats Theatre Company is set to open its sixth summer season at West Park, performing outdoor professional theatre at movie-ticket prices, on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays throughout June and July. This year, the group’s season will open with a modern adaption of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (by Lindsay Price), followed by the 2007 Broadway musical smash, Xanadu (based on the 1980 cult classic movie of the same name), with a book by Douglas Carter Beane and music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar.

Canterbury Tales, directed by Anne Levy (Brighton), is set to star Matt Cameron (South Lyon), Dale Dobson (Milford), Jenna Hinton (Farmington Hills), Jeff Miller (Ann Arbor), Tina Paraventi (Ypsilanti), Debbie Secord (Ypsilanti), Jeff Stringer (Ann Arbor), and Jennifer Sulkowski (Plymouth). Tina Paraventi, who plays the show’s holier-than-thou Prioress, expressed great excitement about this new adaptation: “This is a wonderful adaptation of Chaucer’s Middle-English collection of stories, accessible to today’s audiences, very high-energy and entertaining. It’s also great fun for the actors, who not only play the travelers, but also act out different roles in the stories told by each traveler.” Debbie Secord (who plays the devilish Wife of Bath) agreed: “This cast and crew are phenomenal and I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish with this show. I must say, I am particularly fond of the host of characters I will be playing in the show, most notably the Wife of Bath and the chicken—ahem—hen, Pertelote. I must say, I’ve never played poultry before and am looking forward to it!”

This hilarious, energetic show will run at West Park, in the band shell area, from June 16th to July 2nd at 7:00pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

Xanadu Penny SeatsNext up is the 2007 Tony nominated musical comedy, Xanadu. It tells the tale of a Greek Muse’s decent from Mt. Olympus to Venice Beach, California, to inspire a struggling artist to achieve the greatest artistic creation of all time – the world’s first roller disco. And yes, there will be roller skating in the park!

With direction and choreography provided by Phil Simmons, along with Musical Direction by Richard Alder, the show will feature performers Paige Martin (Ann Arbor), Matthew Pecek (Berkley), Roy Sexton (Saline), Kasey Donnelly (Ypsilanti), Allison Simmons (Holland), Sebastian Gerstner (Ann Arbor), Logan Balcom (Hillsdale), Jenna Pittman (Waterford), and Kristin McSweeney (Ypsilanti).

Roy Sexton, who plays Danny Maguire, the show’s curmudgeonly businessman, summed up the feelings of many in the cast about Xanadu‘s quirky place in the musical theatre cannon: “I’ve loved Xanadu since I first viewed it – about a million times – on HBO in the early 80s. I wore out two copies of the ELO/Olivia Newton-John/Gene Kelly soundtrack, but I always lived in shame because the film was such a notorious Hollywood bomb. When it was revived and reinvented so successfully on Broadway, I secretly (well, not so secretly) hoped the Penny Seats would eventually take on this campy, kitschy, satirical stage re-do of the movie. The score is crackerjack and the narrative is just so hysterically loopy that I knew it would be a great fit for us. I live in shame no more!”

Xanadu will run at West Park’s band shell from July 14th to July 30th at 7:00pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. 

Advance tickets to both shows are available at the group’s website, www.pennyseats.org.  Although the curtain goes up at 7:00pm each evening, pre-show picnicking is encouraged for audience members, and the group will sell water and concessions at the park as well. 

ABOUT THE PENNY SEATS: Founded in 2010, we’re performers and players, minimalists and penny-pinchers.  We think theatre should be fun and stirring, not stuffy or repetitive.  We believe going to a show should not break the bank.  And we find Michigan summer evenings beautiful. Thus, we produce dramas and comedies, musicals and original adaptations, classics and works by up-and-coming playwrights.  And you can see any of our shows for the same price as a movie ticket.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about The Penny Seats call 734-926-5346 or Visit: www.pennyseats.org.

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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.


“Been waiting for someone to tell me the color of MY wind.” Vanessa Williams at Detroit’s Motor City Casino Sound Board

11 October 2015

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Vanessa Williams 4Vanessa Williams is an interesting figure in pop culture. One of the most (only?) successful (post-pageant winners) of “Miss America” … Lee Meriwether notwithstanding?

Sound Board 2Yet, can she still be considered “Miss America” when she was de-crowned after her Penthouse pictorial scandal mid-way through her reign?

Yet, she was reinstated this year because even the “Miss America” people realized that, in this day and age of Gaga and Miley and … Trump, that maybe zapping the title of one of the few contestants to actually have a viable career (Grammy/Tony-nominations, Top 40 hit songs, a freaking Disney theme) was kinda dumb?

Sound BoardShe’s had starring roles on just about every ABC dramedy of the past 15 years (e.g. Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives), and she has become, more or less, America’s b-list sweetheart.

Heck, she even plays Alan Cumming’s love interest now on The Good Wife – that’s a pair of celebrities who unexpectedly crawled from our nation’s puritanically judgmental margins to stand triumphant in the hazy comfort-glare of middle-America’s beloved boob tube. And they play a couple (sort of). Now that is something!

Vanessa WilliamsSo, when I got a panicky email from Ticketmaster last week, breathlessly urging me to “buy one-get one free” of her still copiously available tickets for Sunday’s performance at Motor City Casino’s “Sound Board” night club, you betcha I snapped up two.

And I’m so glad I did.

Her show is like a comfortably chunky, still stylish, but totally retro sweater in the back of your closet. It is 90-minutes of timeless nostalgia, a little funky and a lot soothing with a smidge of regret that whatever you thought you would be doing years later and however you thought you’d be changing the world just didn’t quite happen. And that’s ok. (This may be one of my worst/most confessional metaphors ever.)

Vanessa Williams 2Williams was one of the stand-bys in my mix-taped 90s/00s life soundtrack: from the Teena Marie-lite blast of her debut The Right Stuff through the adult-contemporary fog of The Sweetest Days, through the edgy post-divorce Alanis-ish angst of Next through her reinvention as a Broadway Baby in Into the Woods, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and Sondheim on Sondheim, culminating in the inevitable (and kinda genius) post-relevance cover songs albums Everlasting Love and The Real Thing.

I’ve stuck by Williams, as a singer and as an actor – a performer who always embraced an underdog’s moxie and the reprobate’s swagger, from her sparkling turn in the ABC TV-adaptation of Bye Bye Birdie to the standout scenery-chewer in soapy melodrama Soul Food.

Vanessa Williams 5Her stage show hit all those notes, covering the hits we love and the ones we’ve forgotten: “Dreamin’,” “Love Is,” “Oh, How the Years Go By,” “Betcha Never,” “The Sweetest Days,” “Colors of the Wind,” and, of course, signature torch song “Save the Best for Last.”

Every number was delivered with smooth sophistication and aplomb, with the polish of a performer who dove into the muck, climbed out if it, and narrowly avoided a life of cruise ship dinner theatre performances (but still carries a few of those blue plate special, “so happy to be here with you fine folks” tics).

Her band is a tight jazz and R&B combo, and they have played with her for 20+ years. It shows. With two keyboardists, two guitarists, and one drummer as well as two dedicated backing vocalists and additional vocals from some of the instrumentalists, Williams received exceptional musical support. The band showed such range, from disco to blues, ballads to soul; they could do it all … gorgeously.

Martinis and Little Caesars pizza ... only at Motor City Casino

Martinis and Little Caesars pizza … only at Motor City Casino

Carmen Ruby Floyd

Carmen Ruby Floyd

She also featured back-up singer Carmen Ruby Floyd (an accomplished Broadway vet in her own right) who delivered a knock-out “Creole Love Call,” from the Broadway revue After Midnight.

Martinis and Pizza 2Williams gave us a few carefully guarded insights into her tabloid storybook life, just teasing enough to let us know she hates her ex-husbands (still), loves her current (third), thinks her four kids are the best things she’s ever done, and really thinks Stephen Sondheim and Barbara Cook are the bees’ knees.

She did bring down the house with one joke in particular, noting that after Williams performed Oscar-winning “Colors of the Wind” at the Academy Awards, Whoopi Goldberg quipped, “I’ve been waiting for someone to tell me the color of my wind.”

Vanessa Williams 3The highlights for me of this stellar show? A one-two punch of Pocahontas’ “Colors of the Wind” and encore “Harvest for the World” (Isley Brothers). The lyrics for both detail, in a strikingly similar blend of the hopeful and the cynical, how this world and its resources and those inhabiting the Big Blue Marble demand an appreciation and a respect that transcend the commercial, the crass, and the opportunistic.

I know that Williams has always championed progressive causes, and I’m guessing she’s a longtime friend of Mother Earth, but from her delivery of these two numbers, I daresay she is about as “eco-friendly” and socially conscious as they come. Can’t beat a pop legend who takes the time to wring a social message or two from her back catalog of hits.

Thanks, Vanessa – come back to Motown soon, please!

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Image by Lee Gaddis of Gaddis Gaming

Drawing of yours truly as a superhero by Lee Gaddis of Gaddis Gaming

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.

Empathetic philosophy and ebullient heartache: Laura Benanti at Indianapolis’ The Cabaret at the Columbia Club

8 June 2014

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Benanti with my mom and me

Benanti with my mom and me

On this Tony Award weekend, we had the privilege of meeting a fabulous Tony-winner – Laura Benanti – last night at Indianapolis’ The Cabaret at the Columbia Club.

The Columbia Club

The Columbia Club

You might recall last fall that I was a staunch defender of NBC’s production of The Sound of Music (click here), which I thought suffered unfairly from a lot of social media-fueled schadenfreude. The one element that did not need defending, by me or anyone else, because it was universally lauded as perfection, was the performance by Laura Benanti as the Baroness.

Roy and Susie with poster

Roy and Susie with poster

I am happy to report that she is even more terrific in real life.

Benanti with my dad

Benanti with my dad

Throughout her fizzy cabaret show, not a note is missed – musically, comedically, thematically. She is one of the most engaging performers I’ve ever had the privilege to observe.

But even more importantly, she is kind and down-to-earth and real.
My mother and I accidentally ran into her at the elevator right before her performance. Rather than keep her distance, she walked right over to us, and with an effervescent smile, queried, “You’re coming back, aren’t you?” Of course we were! And, even though she had a two hour set to get herself psyched up for, she stood there and talked to us for several minutes.

 

 

 

I might add that she is just as gracious with all of her fans following the performance in what otherwise can be sometimes awkward for both audience and performer: the dreaded meet and greet. She takes time with each and every one and genuinely connects with all.

Almond with me and my mom

Almond with me and my mom

With my starstruck gushing aside, what about the performance itself? It is such great fun – a brilliant blend of soaring vocals, crack comic timing, cheeky irreverence, and poignant character analysis. The essence of what makes cabaret such a viable art form.

The Big Room

The Big Room

Benanti is marvelously aided and abetted by her amazing musical director Todd Almond who is as much sidekick and partner as accompanist, composing the original tunes, vocalizing with Benanti, and offering the periodic witty aside. And, by the way, he is equally personable, following the performance, happily taking my loony suggestions of pop nuggets they can skewer in their act – notably, my latest obsession Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea’s “Problem.”

Why, might you ask was I so bold to suggest such a silly song for these accomplished musicians to perform in their act?
Susie and Roy Capone

Susie and Roy Capone

 

Well, for someone like Benanti who moves seamlessly between My Fair Lady‘s “On the Street Where You Live” to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” to Nine‘s “Unusual Way” (mesmerizing!) not to mention Sisqo’s “The Thong Song,” it seems a logical addition.

What you may gather from the preceding paragraph is that Benanti’s show is a gutsy synthesis of her tastes and style and identity. She wears all these songs easily … which is a remarkable gift. She is always herself yet simultaneously channeling a wild array of characters.
Benanti and me

Benanti and me

 

This tour is captured live on her album “In Constant Search of the Right Kind of Attention,” recorded at 54 Below, formerly the iconic disco Studio 54. My recommendation? Buy this album now, and enjoy it like you would a cast recording before going to see a Broadway show. The album is remarkable, but seeing Benanti act and sing these songs live is something not to be missed. There are enough variances between the album and the show to keep things interesting, and I won’t spoil the surprises here. If she comes to your town, run (don’t walk) to see her.

Most compelling is the manner in which Benanti paints a picture of her life as a perpetual (though fiercely independent) underdog. About someone so talented and beautiful, that may be hard to believe, but the reality is she has always been a quirky theater kid on the outside looking in. Amusingly, she lays bare the personal turmoils of a young girl listening to cast albums, learning to play the ukulele, and dressing up as obscure musical theater characters for Halloween.
Cheers

Cheers

 

(She also isn’t afraid to go off script, poking gentle fun at the more provincial elements of the Hoosier-land where she was performing. I love my home state, but I give Benanti many props for gently reminding her audience that tolerance and compassion and humanity are essential regardless your background or beliefs. And if one can get that message across with a smile on one’s face, it makes an impact.)

I leave you with a clip of her singing “Mr. Tanner,” a forgotten gem by Harry Chapin. This number was a highlight for me both when I first listened to the recording as well as during the live performance. It definitely gives you a sense of her empathetic philosophy and ebullient heartache. Enjoy!

[All photos by Don Sexton – more here.]

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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.

Haunting truths – Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, The Counselor, and The Fifth Estate

27 October 2013

15 Comments

Me with my mom Susie Duncan Sexton at Grand Wayne Center prior to performance [Image by author]

When you visit your childhood home, you can’t help but feel like a kid again. You may be careening past 40 years of age, but one look at a stuffed animal you used to cuddle or a board game you used to play and you’re 12 again. I cherish my visits with my parents in Indiana as we always have laughter and thoughtful conversations and adventures and movies. And I always feel blissfully childlike.

Cover of Duncan Sexton’s second book, now available
[Image Source: Open Books]

It is with this deep-feeling and introspective state-of-mind – impacted also by the impending, always ethereal Halloween holiday and by a couple of manic weeks helping my mom shepherd her second book Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels to print (order it here – sorry, can’t help myself … but seriously, it is amazing!) – that I approached one of our family’s signature movie (and in this instance also theatre) marathon weekends.

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]

What did we see? What didn’t we see! Thursday night, we found ourselves at Fort Wayne, Indiana’s gloriously preserved Embassy Theatre with the John Mellencamp/ Stephen King/T-Bone Burnett horror musical Ghost Brothers of Darkland County making a stop on its trial tour of the Midwest. The show is told in old-fashioned radio drama style with actors and musicians on stage the entire performance and with minimal props and a vintage microphone in the middle of the stage (though that last bit is mostly for show as all the players also wear those Britney Spears/McDonald’s drive-thru/Time-Life operator headset things).

The spartan approach works generally well, at least during the first act, as the spooky tale unfurls of two feuding brothers, their bloody end, and the generational impact their war eventually would have on the nephews they would never have a chance to meet. The show stars Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek, Thirteen Days) and Emily Skinner (Tony-nominee for Side Show) as the family’s world-weary patriarch and matriarch (respectively) who want desperately for the current generation to just get the heck along.

Ghost Brothers cast at curtain call [Image by author]

Greenwood and Skinner and Mellencamp’s rockabilly/ bluegrass score are the assets of an otherwise uneven show. With a more-than-adequate supporting cast, the show rumbles through a strong first act exploring the corrosive effects that lies and jealousy and stubborn misunderstanding can have on every branch of a family tree.

The second act, however, doesn’t fare nearly as well. Logic, sensible chronology, and audience sympathies are all tossed out the window for a muddled, hasty denouement riddled with carnage and too many smart aleck remarks. The latter are delivered nonetheless with aplomb by the ever-present “Shape” – played by a firecracker Jake LaBotz – who lurks behind all the players encouraging bad deeds and ill intent. Other standouts are Kylie Brown wringing every last bit of malicious glee from her role as the resident temptress Anna (she’s one to watch!) and Jesse Lenat doing triple duty as narrator, guitarist, and angelic yin to LaBotz’s yang.

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[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Next up on our tour of cynical debauchery was Ridley Scott’s new film The Counselor. Script problems would plague pretty much every selection of the weekend, and this one was no exception. The first 30 minutes of the film are cringe-worthy with Scott’s trademark cinematic fetishization of sleek mid-century furnishings, gleaming sports cars, and objects otherwise found in lost issues of the J. Peterman catalog completely unchecked. Eventually, however, the film clicks into high-gear and these initial missteps are quickly forgotten (and one might argue seem intentional: rampant, glib superficiality in stark contrast to the soul-crushing darkness that follows).

Michael Fassbender stars as the never-named, vacuous, materialistic title character whose love of self and stuff leads him to make some dodgy deals with fabulously attired, endlessly entertaining, totally skeezy drug dealers. The latter are portrayed by the always dependable Javier Bardem as well as Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt, turning in frothy/smarmy/delightful performances. There are a host of fun cameos that I don’t want to spoil, but let’s just say this is a cast to die for. And pretty much every one of them does.

The Counselor is a Trojan Horse of a movie. It seems to be escapist fantasy – a Vanity Fair photo-expose of the rich and powerful, tacky and corrupt, brought to burnished, big screen life. Yet, the real agenda of screenwriter Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) in his first piece written directly for the movies is to taunt us with the trappings of wealth and then peel back every sordid layer of the blood, pain, and (literal) human filth underpinning these lavish, undeserved lifestyles.

Much ink may be spilled about Diaz’s … er.. relations with a yellow Ferrari in the film, but that scene (notably Bardem’s exasperated monologue, Diaz’s keen power-play, and Bardem’s and Fassbender’s wry facial expressions) is dynamite – funny, distressing, horrifying. It is a perfect snapshot of the scuzzy glitz personified by these Machiavelli-meets-Jersey Shore super-thugs.

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Finally, we made our way to Bill Condon’s The Fifth Estate, a film unfairly painted with the broad brush of box office failure. Yes, it has a script that devolves into train wreck – the final act squanders the spidery intrigue of the film’s first two-thirds with some US-government silliness led by the otherwise reliable Laura Linney and Stanley Tucci. However, Benedict Cumberbatch sparkles as Julian Assange, whose controversial website WikiLeaks is the film’s chief subject matter.

Condon takes his time tracing the rise of WikiLeaks, a website that effectively shielded a whole host of geopolitical and corporate whistle-blowers from those powerful enough to otherwise bully them into submission. Condon doesn’t lose his audience in cyberpunkery and technobabble; rather, he delivers strong characters in an easy-to-follow (if at times unconventional) entrepreneurial narrative, highlighted by quick edits, blessedly appreciated subtitles, hyperconscious symbolism and theatricality, and a great Daft Punk-meets-Kraftwerk-meets-Blondie score.

Assange, who in real life famously disparaged Cumberbatch and his performance and the film itself, actually comes off a sympathetic character. Assange’s chronic disappointment with the world and its inhabitants has turned him into the ultimate underdog, railing against a crushingly capitalistic infrastructure that espouses free speech while secretly depriving it at every turn.

Perhaps it is my predilection as fall edges closer to winter to turn inward and seek patterns where they may or may not exist, but, to my mind, all three pieces – Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, The Counselor, and The Fifth Estate – centered on a singular theme: that the choices we make to seek, reveal, or bury the truth – any truth – affect our futures irrevocably.

At some point, in all three pieces, some character ruminates on the pointless energy of grief and regret and that, once the decision is made to lie or to tell the truth, events are set in motion that can never be undone. The heroes and anti-heroes of these works are all haunted by truth – revealing it, hiding it, weaponizing it – and, as a consequence, we audience members depart the darkened theatre wrestling with the specters created by our own life choices, from childhood to the present.