‘Lights. Camera. Cure.’ Theatrical Event Raises Over $20,000 For American Cancer Society Relay For Life

9 February 2019

Originally published by Encore Michigan and BroadwayWorld …

Photo Credit: Lia DeBiasi [More photos here.]

Lights. Camera. Cure. – a special theatrical event held on Wednesday, February 6, that featured classic film hits as sung by local performers at The Village Theater at Cherry Hill – was a sell-out success with a capacity crowd of 400 patrons. The show raised over $20,000 for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life Canton-Plymouth.

Producer/director Denise Staffeld of Lake Michigan Credit Union observed, “Last year, we had a vision to do a Cancer Society fundraiser that celebrated the healing power of Broadway. We sold out the house, and raised over $15,000. I had hoped this year would exceed last, both financially and artistically, but I never anticipated this. I am so very grateful.”

[View the show finale “Come Alive” here.]

Music direction was by Kevin Robert Ryan, Director of Music and Liturgy at St. Thomas a’Becket Catholic Church. Jeff Mongrain, Sonny Teodoro, and Joel Walter rounded out the orchestra. Songs included numbers from movies like The Greatest Showman, The Lion King, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Mary Poppins, Dirty Dancing, Oklahoma!, First Wives Club, The Bodyguard, Aladdin, Quest for Camelot, Moana, Pearl Harbor, The Secret Garden, Fiddler on the Roof, The Jungle Book, and many more.

Roy Sexton, director of marketing for the Clark Hill law firm, emceed the evening as well as performed. A published author of two books of film reviews Reel Roy Reviews, Sexton noted in his opening remarks that “film is a great unifier, helping audiences to escape the troubles of daily life and to aspire to something greater.”

The cast was comprised of semi-professional and professional talent from throughout Southeast Michigan’s theatre community: Shirley Auty, Denise Staffeld, Aimee Chapman, Christina Bair, Cathy Golden, Cathy McDonald, Caitlin Chodos, Noel Bittinger, Julzie Gravel, Bethany Basanese, Keri Mueller, Janine Creedon, Tracey Bowen, Diane Dimauro, Roy Sexton, Jeff Steinhauer, AJ Kosmalski, Bruce Hardcastle, Tim Chanko, Kurt Bowen, Tracy Neil, Carl Nielsen, Anna Nielsen, and David Dilsizian.

[Enjoy the cast’s take on “carpool karaoke” here.]

Kelvin Elvidge served as sound designer/engineer. Lia DeBiasi was the production’s stage manager, and Daniel Pocock assistant stage managed. There were special appearances by Tom Cassidy and Canton Township Supervisor Pat Williams opening remarks by Kim Scartelli, and event support by Megan Schaper (American Cancer Society) and Tammy Brown and Marion Rozum (Chicks 4 Charity.

Before the performance, there was a red carpet reception, with silent auction and desserts. A Facebook Live pre-show was hosted by Canton Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Paden and Stephanie Tierney. [View video here.]

American Cancer Society Community Development Manager Megan Schaper noted “This event truly embodies the motto attacking cancer from every angle. I was in awe of the show and I can’t wait to see and support what this show inspires these communities to do next.” Schaper supports Canton, Plymouth, Westland, Wayne, Ypsilanti, Livonia and Redford.

NOTE: I had an amazing time working on LightsCameraCure – honored to have been part of this exceptional evening where over $20K was raised for American Cancer Society. Thank you, Denise Staffeld and Kevin Ryan, for the opportunity. It was an incredible experience. This cast was divine!

Thank you to my sweet friends who came out and supported: Nikki Bagdady Horn, Lauren Crocker, Colleen McConnell Fowler, William Fitzgerald (longest journey – from CHICAGO!), Ashley Kryscynski, MSW, Michelle McAllister, Melissa Francis, Lori (Rundall) Compagner, Gabby Rundall, Pattie Curtis, Jim Paglino, Leo Babcock, Mary Newton, Nico LaFoudj, Christopher Tremblay, Ed.D., Sheri Hardcastle, and anyone I missed. ❤️

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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.

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

5 February 2015

2 Comments

Reel Roy Reviews, Volume 2

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

Roy and Susie waiting for the big show

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

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

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Reel Roy Reviews 2

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

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

Day I read a book … The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report

2 February 2015

12 Comments

You know what question I’m tired of hearing? “Did you read the book?”

I get asked this repeatedly when I see a movie based on a piece of literature (sometimes using that term very loosely), if I dare to have some issue with the film: its narrative structure, character choices, execution, blah, blah, blah. The questioner always seems to imply that my review is somehow thereby deficient, that I didn’t do my homework.

This scrutiny arose when I found the Twilight movies a tedious bore, when I thought Hunger Games was overrated nonsense, when I dubbed Mortal Instruments insipid idiocy, when I felt American Sniper was dangerous propaganda, and when I perceived Wild to be self-aggrandizing tell-all myth-making. I didn’t read any of these uber-popular tomes – I only saw the film treatments. And I’m not going to read the books. Stop asking me. Please.

(In my defense, I loved the films of Divergent and The Fault In Our Stars, without perusing the best-sellers on which they were based.)

Here’s the thing. I don’t want to have to read the book to understand and enjoy the movie. A good movie adaptation will anchor the narrative pulse points in a novel or biography and add visual flair to make the piece cinematic, comprehensible, and it’s own entity. Think Gone With the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Black Stallion, The Godfather, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Foxcatcher. Hell, think Gone Girl.

If it’s that imperative to read the book and see the movie to get the complete entertainment value, well, I just won’t. To me, that’s lazy film-making, and that’s coming from someone too lazy to read the books. So there.

“Day I Read a Book” – Jimmy Durante

But, guess what? I read a book – my pal Tom Joyce’s engaging The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report … and I liked it! To paraphrase Super Bowl halftime superstar Katy Perry: “I read a book … and I liked it!”

If Kurt Vonnegut and Janet Evanovich had a baby whose doting uncles were Raymond Carver, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, and Mickey Spillane, that baby very well might be Tom Joyce. The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report relates the sordid and satirical tale of Batley, a small post-industrial town in Central Pennsylvania, a burg terrorized by a nasty group of thugs (“The Slain”) and populated with a carnival tent full of freaks and weirdos (and that’s just the City Council). The central mystery (and it’s a compelling one) is why this town has been targeted, who’s pulling the strings, and why.

I won’t spoil any of the surprises, but the book is a zippy page-turner with just the right balance of mirth and mayhem to engage the most jaded of readers (me).

Joyce employs a rotating cast of narrators, including a hard-boiled and hard-drinking gumshoe; a universally reviled local journalist (named, oddly enough, “Tom”); and assorted colorful characters, including, among others, a foul-mouthed little person who runs a road-side freak show, a confidence man who grows increasingly less confident in his choice of allies, and a huckster demonologist/psychologist with a heart of gold.

Joyce has a great pulpy literary voice, informed with a cheeky sensibility, a knowing cynicism about the uniquely American ability to wave the flag while we stab each other in the back, and a genuine flair for marrying creeping crud, visceral thrills, and rich Mayberry-quirk characterization. This book is naturally cinematic in its execution, cable-ready for HBO or AMC or (likely) FX to develop a raw, ribald anthology series from the frothy material.

The novel is composed of a series of journal entries, letters, documents, and reports (via the various narrators delineated above) offering the cumulative effect that we, as readers, are suddenly privy to a hotbed of small-town intrigue as the mystery unfolds through hearsay, redirects, and anecdotes (see Carrie, The Color Purple, or even The Sound and the Fury for other examples of this technique). This, coupled with Joyce’s pragmatic, glib, and witty writing style, makes for an adventurous reading experience – Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew for adults.

Here’s looking forward to big screen (or small screen) adaptation, wherein I can finally ask others, “Did you read the book?”

You can order at Tom Joyce’s The Freak Foundation Operative’s Report by visiting his free-wheeling blog here.

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Reel Roy Reviews 2

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

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

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

21 January 2015

11 Comments

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

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

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Reel Roy Reviews 2

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

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

PLEASE look after this bear: Paddington (2014)

18 January 2015

16 Comments

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

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

While the marketing campaign makes Paddington look like one of those slapstick, stomach flu-inducing, lowest common denominator kiddie movies like Alvin and the Chipmunks or Smurfs, in reality, it shares more of its DNA with classier fare like Babe: Pig in the City
or The Black Stallion or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, honoring the intelligence of children and their parents and employing its kid-lit source material as sharp-eyed, warmhearted allegory for our present day sensibilities (and follies).

Ben Whishaw (Skyfall) voices the title bear, taking over for the originally cast Colin Firth. In between the expert CGI animation of this ursine lad from deepest, darkest Peru and the earnestly winsome vocal work of Whishaw, Paddington is a complete charmer.

He is aided and abetted in the charisma department by luminously winning Sally Hawkins (so excellent in Blue Jasmine) and crusty Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey) as the matriarch and patriarch (respectively) of the Brown family who discover the little bear as he desperately waits at Paddington train station with nothing but his signature hat, a tag that reads “please look after this bear,” one marmalade sandwich (for emergencies), and his battered suitcase. He hopes that someone … anyone … will take him “home” (though he isn’t quite sure where … or what … that is).

Me as Paddington for Halloween

Paddington and me at Christmas

Based on Michael Bond’s classic book series, the film stays true to the original narrative: a plucky bear is sent from Peru to London after he loses his uncle to an earthquake and after his aunt moves into a “retirement home for bears.” The aunt and uncle had met a world-explorer from England decades prior, and the geographer told them that they would always have a home in London should they so want it.

Paddington’s aunt sends Paddington off on a steamer ship, and eventually he lands in the aforementioned train station (for which he is eventually named). The Browns offer to give Paddington shelter until he can find said explorer, with Mr. Brown reluctantly warming to the little bear’s charms (after Paddington nearly demolishes the Browns’ home trying to understand human domestic customs).

In a deviation from the text, Nicole Kidman (channeling pretty much the same icily harmless villain she portrayed in The Golden Compass) plays a Cruella De Vil-esque taxidermist, anxious to make Paddington part of her collection. The subplot is unnecessary, but ultimately harmless (thank goodness!).

The film’s secret weapon is Hawkins whose genial sweetness toward the lovably inept Paddington had me near tears a half dozen times in the film. Hawkins’ Mrs. Brown is Paddington’s champion (and by extension the champion of anyone who has felt rudderless and sad, well-intentioned but confused at any point in their lives). She gives the film such heart, coupled with a cinematic Paddington whose expressive features convey those of every creature you’ve ever seen forlorn in an animal shelter.

Yes, there is plenty of silliness to keep the youngest audience members enthralled, but blessedly the goofy hijinks are kept to a minimum and always in service to the story, a narrative about making the best family you can with people (human and otherwise) you love and cherish for the spark they bring.

The cast is rounded with a who’s who of classic British talents: Julie Walters as a flinty housekeeper, Jim Broadbent as a twinkly shopkeeper, Peter Capaldi as a nosy neighbor, and Michael Gambon and Imelda Staunton as the voices of Paddington’s uncle and aunt.

Director Paul King, not unlike George Miller and his work on the exquisite Babe films, gives us a film that approximates beautifully the feel of reading a children’s picture book. In just the right amount so as not to seem gimmicky, King employs animation and miniatures (see: his very clever use of a dollhouse in the Browns’ attic) to illustrate and heighten the narrative in ingenious and magical ways. Such sure-handed and thoughtful direction is rarely seen in a film of this nature – he is one to watch.

Ignore the tone-deaf commercials and go see Paddington. It is a delight for the mind and the heart.

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Reel Roy Reviews 2

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

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

…but movies transport me

28 July 2014

8 Comments

Spider-Roy

Nina Kaur (thanks to fellow Farmington Player Amy Lauter for connecting us!) asked me to contribute a guest blog entry to her fun and interesting blog Thirty Something Years in Ninaland. Here’s what she wrote about me – “Every Monday I will have a guest blogger. Today I am featuring a wonderful Movie Reviewer named Roy Sexton. He is witty, charming and great critic! Enjoy reading about his journey!” Wow! Thanks, Nina! Click here for the original post on her blog.

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By yours truly …

Movies have always been an important part of my life.

I like to read books (more accurately comic books these days, as I seem to now have the attention span of a tsetse fly), and I adore music. Television is fine, and I’ve spent many hours traipsing the boards of theatres across the Midwest. But movies transport me.

I love the fact that a film is an encapsulated medium. Whether 90 minutes or three hours, a movie tells one story – beginning, middle, and end – introducing you to new friends and enemies and locales in an efficiently designed delivery mechanism. With a good film, you get the experience of reading a novel (whether or not the film is in fact based on any work of literature) in a highly compressed fashion.

Nina Kaur

Your brain leaves your body for a bit, you take a mini-vacation to places you might not otherwise ever see, and you return to your regularly scheduled life a bit changed, perhaps enlightened, and hopefully re-energized.

I stop reading email, answering calls, or monitoring social media…and just blessedly check out…for a bit.

My parents cultivated appreciation for the arts by filling our home with movies and music and books and love. I’ve groused in the past about wanting, as a child, to play with my Star Wars action figures in the solitude of my toy-lined room and being forced instead to sit in our den with my parents and watch some creaky B&W classic movie on Fort Wayne’s Channel 55. And I am so grateful now for that.

My appreciation for classic cinema resulted from these years basking in the glow of our old RCA color TV. And when we could finally afford a VCR and could now watch any movie of our choosing, I was already hooked on the story-telling of vintage movies with their requisite arch wit, dramatic stakes, whimsical joys, and belief that anything was possible.

However, not everything was high art in our house. The advent of HBO in the early 80s and its repetitive showings of whatever junk Hollywood had most recently cranked out shaped my tastes for better or worse as well. I’m a sucker for the movie train wreck – the more star-studded, over-budget, under-written, and garish the better. Some of my most beloved films are among the most notoriously awful of all time: Xanadu, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Wiz, Popeye, Flash Gordon. The Black Hole, Raggedy Ann and Andy’s Musical Adventure, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Return to Oz, Battle Beyond the Stars, Krull, The Neverending Story, and so on.

If it was a flop and it was shown ad nauseum one mid-afternoon following another on HBO in the 1980s, then I fell in love with it. Like self-imposed water torture on my nascent aesthetic.

As time went by and I stomped through my high school and college know-it-all years (some might argue I’m still stuck in them), I learned from both my parents and some wonderful teachers the tools of critique and criticism. What is the intent of the piece? What is the context for its creation? How effective is its structure, composition, impact? Where did it go awry or where did it cross over into something classic?

It’s all highly subjective and a bit arrogant, I suppose, but I can’t help it. I’m entertained by the act of analysis.

In more recent years, Facebook gave me an outlet to connect with my inner-Ebert. I started posting status statements summarizing in glib, condensed fashion my take on whatever flick we had just enjoyed … or endured. My kind-hearted and patient partner John has suffered through a lot of movies over the years, many he enjoyed … and even more he did not.

At wonderful Jim and Lyn’s beautiful wedding

We still bicker about his departure from Moulin Rouge after twenty minutes with nary an explanation. I found him after the movie in the lobby reading a newspaper – I don’t know what is more telling: that he was too kind to want to ruin the movie for me by alerting me how much he hated it, or the fact that I stayed to the end without checking on his safety and security!

My friends and colleagues enjoyed these little “squibs” I posted on social media. I suppose I was aspiring to capture the grace and insight of Leonard Maltin’s “micro reviews” that I consumed voraciously as a child every January when we bought his latest edition. (The paper on those early volumes was always of some strange newspaper-esque stock prone to smudging and was pulpily aromatic. I will never forget that musty, fabulous smell.)

John always asks plaintively, “Didn’t they know this movie was bad when they were making it?!”

Perhaps I keep trying to solve that riddle, with the false confidence that my $10 movie ticket entitles me to a shot at armchair quarterbacking. Perhaps the failed actor in me is still trying to reclaim some artistic glory. Or perhaps I’m just a wise-ass with too many opinions and without the good sense to keep them respectfully to myself.

My pals told me, “Set up a blog. Capture these Facebook reviews for future reference. They’re great; they’re fun! Blah blah blah.” I have to admit that eventually my ego got the better of me, and, one late night, I explored the wonders that WordPress holds (albeit not that many) and set up ReelRoyReviews as a diary of sorts, detailing my adventures in the cinema.

Here’s the funny thing. Nobody read them. Nobody. At least for quite a while.

Well, that’s not entirely true. My mom was an avid reader and supporter and was always the first to offer an encouraging comment: “My son writes the best reviews and everyone should love them.” So there!

But you know what? Something interesting happened along the way. I stopped caring and just started writing for myself. And I started having fun. And people started reading.

Life is way too short (and exasperating) to get too intense about entertainment, so I try to take a light and conversational approach with my reviews. And I try to respect that (for the most part) these are show business professionals putting (ideally) their best feet forward and that they are human beings with hearts and souls and feelings. I hope I never seem cruel. I don’t mean to be. These writings are off-the-cuff and journal-style and come from as positive a place as I can muster.

Approach everything and everyone honestly and with positive intent and offer candid feedback with an open heart and as much kindness as possible.

Please check out my latest reviews here … Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Edge of Tomorrow, 22 Jump Street, The Fault in our Stars, and Tammy and more …

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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.

“and i was so happy to be a part of it all” – April 26 author event at Ann Arbor’s Bookbound

27 April 2014

9 Comments

Wonderful friends [Photo by Megan Blackshear]

With references to forgotten Broadway musicals and even more forgotten films (Buckaroo Banzai or Time Bandits, anyone?), analysis of my ongoing “war” with the Cher-army, many funny asides, boffo binge-book-buying by all in attendance, and a whole lot of zany fun, yesterday’s book signing/singing event was a hit!

With Peter Blackshear [Photo by Don Sexton]

Magic to do [Photo by Don Sexton]

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Songs were sung: “Corner of the Sky” from Pippin, “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music, “My Funny Valentine” from Pal Joey, and “This is the Life” from Golden Boy.

Film musings were read: both entries from the book on the beautiful black and white comic weepie Penny Serenade – one by my mom, author and columnist Susie Duncan Sexton and one by yours truly.

And we got to catch up with some wonderful, kind, supportive friends (photos here)…

[Photo by Megan Blackshear]

With accompanist Rebecca Biber [Photo by Don Sexton]

John Mola, Susie and Don Sexton, Sean Murphy, Jim Lynch, Melynee Weber, Lauren M. London and the London kids, Angie Choe and Sean and kids, Matthew Theunick, Zaida Hernandez, Karen Southworth, Beth Kennedy, Jenna Jacota Anderson, Sarah Rauen, Marjorie and Patricia Lesko.

Thanks to Rebecca Biber for the wonderful accompaniment and witticisms. And thanks again to Bookbound and Peter Blackshear and Megan Andrews Blackshear (and Chester!) for hosting such a fun event.

[Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view.]

Signing actress Sarah Rauen's book [Photo by Megan Blackshear]

With actress Sarah Rauen [Photo by Megan Blackshear]

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Here is Bookbound’s write-up:

“Bookbound (1729 Plymouth Road, Ann Arbor) hosted local community theater actor, blogger, and author Roy Sexton for an afternoon of laughs and music. He read from his new book of cheeky movie reviews, Reel Roy Reviews, and entertained with movie themes and show tunes with Rebecca Biber accompanying.”

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Finally, what an honor and a privilege for us to be included in dear and talented and beautiful Beth Kennedy’s fantastic blog I Didn’t Have My Glasses On.

Here’s a quote: “there were so many sextons, so little time……and i was so happy to be a part of it all, and in awe of the heartfelt and mutual support shared by all.” We love you, Beth! Read the rest by clicking here.

ReelRoyReviews is officially launched, y’all! Time for me to collapse…

Celebratory dinner at vegetarian restaurant Seva

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; by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan; and by Memory Lane Gift Shop in Columbia City, Indiana. Bookbound, Common Language, and Memory Lane also have copies of Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series.

Point/counterpoint – Ann Arbor’s Rebecca Biber offers guest critique of The Grand Budapest Hotel

20 April 2014

14 Comments

Roy Sexton and Rebecca Biber – Photo by Dawn Marie Kaczmar

So, I did not like Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. I mean I didn’t like it … a lot. However, never let it be said that we here at Reel Roy Reviews aren’t equal opportunity reviewers.

My dear friend, the talented pianist, musical director, and instructor Rebecca Biber shared the following (beautifully composed) counterpoint today on Facebook, and I asked if I could pay it forward here. She graciously obliged. Her take actually makes me want to revisit this film … almost. 🙂

Bookbound April 26 Event

And, if you’d like a chance to meet the supremely talented Ms. Biber in person, Megan and Peter Blackshear of Bookbound, in Ann Arbor (1729 Plymouth Road), have generously agreed to host a Reel Roy Reviews book-signing/Q&A on Saturday, April 26 at 3 pm.

Rebecca will accompany me as I sing a few of my favorite movie themes and show tunes. She actually selected the numbers from our nearly decade-long musical partnership, so, if you like ditties from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, you are in luck!

(And be sure to check out this thoughtful response by my gifted mom – author Susie Duncan Sexton – to my review of Disneynature’s Bears.)

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Here’s Rebecca’s delightful take on The Grand Budapest Hotel – enjoy!

[Image Source: ComingSoon.net]

In a made-up land resembling Germany or Austria (with Alps) on the eve of WWII, a charming, perfect hotelier played by Ralph Fiennes struggles to maintain his composure, help his friends, and avoid bad guys. His tale is narrated by his protege, Zero the Lobby Boy, now grown up into F. Murray Abraham. But this is merely the nugget at the heart of the story-within-a-story-within-a-story. Abraham is speaking with a writer played by Jude Law, whom we have earlier seen in his aged incarnation, telling the viewer that if you are a writer, there is no need to make up stories: they will come to you. Earlier than that, we have seen a young woman placing a tribute of hotel keys at the base of a statue honoring her favorite writer, and holding a book that contains, we think, the story Jude Law has retold from F. Murray.

This movie is a typical Wes Anderson confection in some ways, with fanciful lettering, folk-tale inspired landscapes, and gorgeous color schemes throughout, not to mention the usual rapid-fire dialogue and the panoply of famous faces. While it can be entertaining to play Name That Actor, it is distracting as well – just as we are settling into the story for its own sake, what’s-his-name pops up and we’re back at the level of being mere viewers. Characters are pretty much as they first appear, with clear goodies and baddies. Edward Norton gets to play a Nazi (again, previously having played the neo-version in American History X) and Adrien Brody gets to…weirdly…also play a Nazi. Tilda Swinton is unrecognizable, Bob Balaban pops up like a fairy tale imp, and Harvey Keitel has jailhouse tattoos resembling middle school doodles. Young actress Saoirse Ronan is perfect as the young Zero’s girlfriend and pastry chef. But the standout, and one to watch, is Tony Revolori, who plays the Lobby Boy not merely as a supporting character with some great lines (which he does have) but as a complicated, unexpectedly fearless and wise young man. He has an unblinking gaze straight at the camera that compels both laughter and serious attention.

Unlike Moonrise Kingdom, which had all of the Wes Anderson cute and very little of the sad, Budapest has some moments of real darkness. And they always come unexpectedly. This movie is probably not safe for devoted animal lovers or the very squeamish. There are several bloody fights and, for those with Holocaust survivors in the family, the train scenes were a bit too close to real history despite Anderson’s attempts to fictionalize the material.
With all that goes on in the film, I haven’t even mentioned the stolen art, murder mystery and contested will (with legal executor played by an uncomfortable looking Jeff Goldblum). There is much to enjoy, and I came away glad I had watched this quirky adventure/love story with true friendship at its core. It is a visual feast with some nice musical touches (nothing overblown) and, if the story doesn’t make perfect sense outside of its own world, well, it does such an excellent job of conjuring that world that I was delighted to spend a couple of hours among its inhabitants.

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Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Please check out this coverage from BroadwayWorld of upcoming book launch events. In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan; by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan; and by Memory Lane Gift Shop in Columbia City, Indiana. Bookbound, Common Language, and Memory Lane also have copies of Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series.

Step into the Way-Back Machine: The Book Thief and Mr. Peabody & Sherman

30 March 2014

10 Comments

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

In my estimation, there are chiefly two types of films for young people:

There are the ones where a kid’s innocent yet wary POV on a grown-up world helps both adults and children better understand how tender and tenuous our collective grasp on daily reality truly is (e.g. To Kill a Mockingbird, Babe, The Black Stallion, E.T.).

And then there are those where sheer nonsensical anarchy takes over and society is seen through a colorfully madcap lens to rationalize how unfair and frustrating life can be (e.g. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Toy Story, The Princess Bride, The Incredibles).

Today, I saw fine examples of each form: The Book Thief (on DVD) and Mr. Peabody & Sherman (still in theatres).

The Book Thief somehow escaped my attention last fall when it was released. I think it was unjustifiably lost in a shuffle of Oscar hopefuls and critical muckraking (the latter of which appeared perilously close to sour grapes pettiness regarding the runaway success of the young adult novel by Markus Zusak on which the film is based).

Starring Geoffrey Rush (who turns in a refreshingly nuanced and subtle performance) and Emily Watson (always magnificent, walking that fine line between heartwarming, poignant and world-weary) and introducing Sophie Nelisse, The Book Thief offers a look into the atrocities of Nazi Germany from the perspective of a child growing up in a small town where survival is the primary concern.

Akin to essential classic The Mortal Storm, starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan (if you’ve never seen it, you must), The Book Thief relates the sweaty, creeping terror of totalitarian Nazi rule as it insinuates itself into the daily lives of everyday citizens. I remember thinking as child, “How could German citizens let this happen?” Both The Book Thief and The Mortal Storm do a wonderful and chilling job of showing that progression.

(And as an adult in post-millennial America, both films give me pause about where some of our political and business leaders might try to take us.)

Rush and Watson’s characters, not altogether altruistically, take lost soul Liesel (played by Nelisse) into their home. Liesel’s birth mother is a socialist who gives her daughter and son up, ostensibly for the children’s safety; the brother is lost to some unidentified ailment en route to their new home. As the film proceeds, we realize that flinty Watson and flaky Rush are actually deep-feeling souls whose private disgust over the direction Nazi Germany takes is balanced with an equally heart-wrenching desire to protect their adopted daughter, their unconventional life, and those human beings who enrich their existence, including a young Jewish man (ably played by Ben Schnetzer) who camps out in their basement to avoid persecution.

The film’s title is a nickname for Liesel, whose character is illiterate at the film’s outset but who learns the liberating power of language and free thought from the books she is able to swipe, despite Nazi attempts to limit citizens’ access to certain literature, art, and music.

John Williams’ score as always is lush and evocative and practically a character unto itself.

There is great supporting acting work throughout, including Barbara Auer as the mayor’s kindly wife who has her own literary secrets, Nico Liersch as Liesel’s charmingly unconventional best friend, and Roger Allam as, yes, the omniscient narrator Death. It is this latter aspect that gives the film its emotional resonance and sharp edge. Death is not spooky or malevolent but practical and even kindly, giving young and old alike a reminder of our inevitable mortality and that every moment should be lived as authentically and kindly as life will allow.

[Image Source: Wikipedia]

Now, on the other end of the family movie spectrum, we have Mr. Peabody & Sherman, based on my personally favorite segment of Jay Ward’s 1960s TV classic series Rocky & Bullwinkle.

For those unfamiliar with the concept (or how unlikely it is that I am pairing this movie with The Book Thief – just the luck of the draw in today’s viewings!), Mr. Peabody & Sherman relates the tale of a genius bespectacled pooch who adopts a not-so-genius bespectacled boy, invents a time machine (among many other scientific breakthroughs), and takes his son on many educational excursions throughout history.

The premise from the TV show essentially remains the same in this big screen adaptation, including Mr. Peabody’s endless series of painfully-so-unfunny-that-they’re-actually-funny puns and the crackpot Looney Tunes-meets-Your Show of Shows-era-Mel Brooks/Sid Caesar takes on historical figures as varied as King Tut, Marie Antoinette, Agamemnon, and George Washington.

The drawback for me would be DreamWorks Animation’s needless obsession with fart/poop/butt jokes. There were at least a dozen too many; they were jarring and dumb and an ugly distraction from what was otherwise clever and charming.

As in any good kids’ flick, despite the cartoon mania, there is a very real and haunting tension: that the adopted (and clearly adored) Sherman will be taken away from his doting canine father Mr. Peabody because the conventional world cannot accept such an arrangement.

Allison Janney does fine voice work as a beefy busybody social worker who will stop at nothing to upend their happy life, and Stephen Colbert and Leslie Mann (someone needs to cast them as a live action movie couple stat!) are starched-shirt-hysterical as a rival set of parents (think God of Carnage-lite) whose bullying daughter is bitten by Sherman at school. (Hence the overreaction of all the “sensible” humans that a dog is raising a boy as his own son.)

Mr. Peabody throws a dinner party to try to settle the matter in a civilized fashion, the kids monkey with the Way-Back Machine, something wonky happens to the space-time continuum, and all sorts of silliness ensues.

Directed by Rob Minkoff (Stuart Little), Mr. Peabody & Sherman is weighed down by its own episodic structure as we careen among historical eras, and, sadly, the ending is the typical lazy “let’s blow some stuff up and regurgitate some nonsensical pseudo science to wrap everything up” conclusion that Hollywood always tacks on these kinds of films.

But for a few brief and shining moments, Mr. Peabody & Sherman breaks through the absurdity and offers sweet-natured messages of tolerance and joy and, yes, like The Book Thief, the necessity of free thought and the critical importance of family, no matter how left-of-center.

___________________

Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Please check out this coverage from BroadwayWorld of upcoming book launch events. In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan; by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan; and by Memory Lane Gift Shop in Columbia City, Indiana. Bookbound and Memory Lane both also have copies of Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series.

Fair and fizzy assessment of a coquette-in-candyland: Katy Perry’s Part of Me

7 July 2012

5 Comments

[Image source: Amazon]

Throw in one part Madonna’s “Truth of Dare” and one part Miley Cyrus’ “Hannah Montana: Best of Both Worlds” and one part Zooey Deschanel’s “New Girl,” add a pinch of the original “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and a smidge of Tim Burton’s unfortunate 3D fantasia “Alice in Wonderland,” stir, bake accompanied by an infectious pop soundtrack…and voila…you have Katy Perry’s new concert documentary “Part of Me.”

We all more or less already knew Katy was an intensely likable personality with a knack for marrying catchy melody and zany “coquette-in-Candyland” visuals, but we probably didn’t realize how deep-feeling she could be or how sad and challenged her life had been. Yes, the film, like “Truth or Dare” before it, is a calculated play to humanize (and expand the brand of) its central pop heroine. Unlike that film, there is an authenticity to Perry (benefiting no doubt from 20+ years of us all living out loud, online, and through the self-aware guise of reality TV) that Madonna couldn’t/can’t effect.

Your heart genuinely breaks for Perry when the de facto villain of the piece Russell Brand (standing in for Warren Beatty from the Madonna film) ends their marriage. (One of her handlers remarks at one point, “Katy keeps leaving the tour to go see him…when is he going to ever travel to her?”) You also wonder how overbearing her fundamentalist religious upbringing must have been when you meet her traveling minister mom and dad who resemble even scarier versions of Sharon Osbourne and Swifty Lazar. Finally you leave the theatre with an uplift when Katy “conquers” all to sing triumphant versions of her hits “Firework” and “California Gurls.” (Oh-kay, that last bit may be a bit overstated since she is dressed like a giant peppermint at the time.)

The film is a lot of fun, and, yes, a bit contrived…and completely unnecessary to view in up-charged 3D. (2D will do just fine, thank you very much.) All in all, though, it is a fair and fizzy assessment of a pop star on the ascent, one of the few for whom you genuinely wish a happy and successful life. Just be prepared (with earplugs) for the shrieks that may emanate from some of your fellow audience members (the 12 and under crowd) when Justin Bieber makes the requisite appearance onscreen. Ugh.

Reel Roy Reviews

…to the chagrin of true arbiters of taste

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Fair and fizzy assessment of a coquette-in-candyland: Katy Perry’s Part of Me

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