review Archives - Page 6 of 60 - Ramblin' with Roger

Million Dollar Quartet Christmas

The Gilded Age

In the jukebox musical Million Dollar Quartet Christmas, which my wife and I saw at Capital Rep in Albany on November 25, “Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley come together again to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year.” In this timeframe, Elvis (Luke Monday) has left Sun Records and its owner, Sam Phillips (Rob Morrison) for hits on RCA Records and Hollywood stardom. He’s there with his girlfriend Dyanne (Taylor Aronson).

Johnny Matt Cusack) has signed with Columbia Records and experienced some country hits but not much crossover. Carl Perkins (Jeremy Sevelovitz) had a massive hit with Blue Suede Shoes, but his career was derailed by a car accident. Jerry Lee Lewis (Billy Rude) is still in the Sun stable, aching for chance of stardom.

If you’ve seen the famous photo of the Million Dollar Quartet, there was a woman sitting on the piano, Elvis’ girlfriend at the time, Marilyn Evans. It’s highly unlikely that she was as vivacious and flirty as Dyanne was, or that she was one of the singers.

Concert

None of this matters overly much. The bones of the story are largely accurate. Moreover, the musicians were fantastic. Cusack found the timbre of Cash’s voice. Monday could move like Presley. The real Perkins would be awed by Sevelovitz’s tremendous guitar work. But Rude embodied Lewis, from his manic piano playing to the youthful arrogance. Aronson’s Dyanne had a lovely voice.

The play was quite serviceable, with some clever quips. (The Day Tripper riff made sense, given the dialogue; I laughed out loud.) It is a ssequel to Million Dollar Quartet, which my wife and I saw at Proctors Theatre in January 2013. (This is why I have a blog.)

It’s a brief program, 45 minutes, then a 15-minute intermission, then another 45 minutes, the last 15 minutes or so which was a mini-concert. It was quite suitable for a holiday show.

It’s playing through December 24.

My church was a TV star

There was a watch party for the first episode of Season 2 of The Gilded Age at my church on October 29. That’s because “It’s Easter Sunday 1883… Featured amid the holiday flowers and strolling crowds are three landmark Capital Region churches. First Presbyterian Church at Willett and State streets teams up with St. Peter’s Episcopal Church at 107 State St. to stand in for St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in 19th-century Manhattan…

“‘It was very cool to see. They were in our building for three weeks. They used our assembly hall as a green room,’ said the Rev. Dr. Miriam Lawrence Leupold, co-pastor of First Presbyterian Church.

“State Street and Washington Park appear in the opening episode as the setting for the Easter parade. It starts off the eight-episode season’s continuing clash between new and old money in Gilded Age New York City over competing opera houses. Julian Fellowes is the creator of ‘The Gilded Age.'”

It’s a show on Max, which I don’t have a subscription for. Though our church’s star turn was over in the first ten minutes, the episode itself was very compelling, especially when dealing with labor issues. I’ve always enjoyed the work of Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon, the latter of whom I once voted for governor.

Taylor’s version

In late October, I went to see the film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. It was disappointing but it’s my own fault. I went to see it at the Spectrum, a Landmark theater not geared towards the hype three weeks after it opened.

So thee were a total of three of us in the theater, two women in their 20s, and me. They had “only” seen it once before because they’d been busy.

As someone not immersed in Swiftian music, I was impressed how her albums, her Eras, changed. I wasn’t crazy about Reputation, which I learned later has an interesting backstory. But I liked the story songs of folklore. I also enjoyed some of her very early work, with her at the piano.

I agree with this review: “Overall, The Eras Tour concert film is an enjoyable and entertaining experience for any music fan, but it will especially be a blast for Taylor Swift’s fans. It is a well-made film that captures the essence and excitement of Swift’s live shows. The film has good camera work, editing, and sound design that make the viewer feel like they are part of the concert.”

But I’m still not a Swiftie.

The price of tickets were $19.89 (she was born in 1989, which I knew), but since I’m a senior, it was only $13.13, 13 being TS’s lucky number (which I somehow missed.)

Movie review: The Persian Version

plates spinning

The movie The Persian Version has much to commend it. Writer/director Maryam Keshavarz has created a storyline based mainly on her own life as the youngest child and the only girl in a sizeable Iranian-American family.

Early on, Leila found that she didn’t fit in. She was too Iranian when she was in the United States and too American when in Iran. She forged her own path, conflicting with her mother, Shireen. Leila blames her mother for her breakup with Elena.

She has a peculiar relationship with the actor Maxmillian, who appears in the play Hedwig and the Angry Inch; she and her eight brothers have fun at Max’s expense. Her constant refuge is her grandmother Mamanjoon, who catalyzes a significant story arc.

As Leila’s father/Shireen’s husband Ali Reza becomes very ill, with medical bills piling up, Shireen becomes focused on remaking herself to take care of the family financially. The film has a suitable ending.

Good flick

The Persian Version has a lot to commend it. The family dynamics, with Shireen disappointed that her daughter is a basketball player and one of her sons a cheerleader, is believable. It takes on the redlining of immigrant families and businesses. The perceived role of women, past and present, is important throughout.

Critic Kate Walsh writes: “Keshavarz spins a lot of plates in ‘The Persian Version,’ and we can see the effort, but she keeps them all in the air.” Whether she pulls this off is the real issue. The Rotten Tomatoes critics, 18% of whom think she didn’t quite it off, are like Jeff Mitchell, who wrote, “Too many shifts in times, tones, and ideas crowd the earnest intentions.”

My wife is in the Walsh camp, whereas I see Mitchell’s point. That said, I think it’s an important film, and despite its flaws, it is very much worthwhile. I loved the use of dance. We saw the movie on Saturday, November 4, as usual, at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.

The Anthropocene Reviewed, reviewed

Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

I agreed to review The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green on September 12 at the Albany Public Library, mainly for selfish reasons.

I’ve been having a terrible time reading books this year. I’ve attended many book reviews and author talks this year and have even bought several books from the authors.

So if I agree to review the book, which I bought when it was brand new in 2021, read about 50 pages, then never got back to it, I MUST finish it. I completed it the day before the review.

Next issue: how to present the review. The first thing, I suppose, is to explain the title. What the heck is the Anthropocene? According to the video The Anthropocene and the Near Future: Crash Course Big History #9, the Anthropocene is “an unofficial geologic era where humans have an immense influence over the biosphere.”

Then, I needed to explain what Crash Course, started by John Green and his brother Hank, is. “At Crash Course, we believe that high-quality educational videos should be available to everyone for free. The Crash Course team has produced more than 45 courses to date, and these videos accompany high school and college level classes ranging from the humanities to the sciences.

“Crash Course transforms the traditional textbook model by presenting information in a fast-paced format, enhancing the learning experience.” I learned. I discovered that my daughter had looked at several videos for her Advanced Placement history course, notably on the French Revolution.

JEOPARDY

And, of course, I needed to introduce them to John Green. Fortunately, on the 20 February 2023 episode of JEOPARDY, episode #8811, there was a category called A CRASH COURSE IN JOHN GREEN. One clue mentioned his book The Fault in Our Stars, which was “largely inspired by a young friend, Esther Earl, who died of cancer at 16″ in 2010.

I noted that the earlier book had been banned or challenged in certain schools and libraries, much to John’s dismay.

The answer (or question) of one J clue was, “What is Nerdfighteria?” How do I explain that?! It is the mainly online-based community subculture that originated around Vlogbrothers videos, to “get together and try to do awesome things and have a good time and fight against world suck.”

This led to the DFTBA (Don’t Forget To Be Awesome) store and other activities. They’ve raised about $5 million to help fight maternal mortality in Sierra Leone. The Awesome Coffee Club, Awesome Socks Club, Pizzamas, and other endeavors have funded this.

Back to the book!

But what do I want to say about The Anthropocene Reviewed itself? In a Vlogbrothers post from 2021, What is my new book about, John admitted that it was difficult to describe. It’s an adaption of 2018-2021 essays, plus others going back to 2008. It’s a memoir.

Answers from some Nerdfighters: “The Anthropocene Reviewed attempts to capture what it means to be human. It is both joyful and terribly sad, filled with light and darkness, levity and grief. “

“It’s essays that “review facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale.”

“It is about honoring your lenses from which you see the world, letting yourself wonder and wander, but never forgetting that your lenses are not the full picture, and they depend on who moves them.”

John reviewed the reviews of his book.

Ultimately, I spent most of my time reading from the book. The only section I shared in its entirety is the section about the movie Harvey.

I did NOT play these videos. But if YOU want to get a sense of The Anthropocene Reviewed, check out these three, at least the first one.

Introduction

Auld Lang Syne

The Sycamore Tree

I liked the book a lot. Moreover, I loved the integration of self and the stuff around self. My audience seemed to appreciate the artfulness of the duality of the form in the book.

Movie review: The Good Mother

Empire State Plaza

I’m parochial enough to admit that I was actively rooting for me to love the movie The Good Mother.

Paul Grondahl “was allowed to read the script and was granted access to [the] 12-hour filming at the Times Union. As a reporter who worked at the paper for 32 years,” he felt “the script captures the strain of working at a daily newspaper that is struggling to remain financially viable and journalistically meaningful in a clickbait social media landscape. ” True, and this shows up in the movie, though it’s a minor part of the narrative.

Grondahl, who I’ve enjoyed reading for decades and who “wrote a long series of articles on the opioid epidemic,” believed that “the narrative shows how the opioid epidemic hit close to home and ravaged many ordinary lives, while conveying the gritty authenticity of Albany in all its bruised glory… It is not a flattering cinematic version of the Capital City. Still, it is a truthful portrait shot through with love from a director who has an abiding affection for his hometown.”

A good cause

Moreover, “following the quick sellout of a special screening co-presented by New York State Writers Institute and Film Albany, which included an awards presentation and talkback with director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte and co-writer Madison Harrison, the Madison Theatre dedicated its remaining theater space to ‘The Good Mother.’ While the added screenings exclude the talkback, a portion of the ticket proceeds for the additional screenings will benefit Youth FX, the award-winning film studio and education program empowering young filmmakers of color.” Incidentally, Grondahl, who I know a bit, leads the Writers Institute.

And heck, during the 2022 filming, Hilary Swank helped return a lost dog named Blue to its shocked owner.

The setup

Here are parts of C.J. Lais’ review in the TU. It notes “four main stars in the new thriller… — Hilary Swank, Olivia Cooke, Jack Reynor … and the Empire State Plaza. No joke, director and co-writer Miles Joris-Peyrafitte cuts to the brutalist government building complex so often I expected to see Nelson Rockefeller listed among the thank-yous in the film’s end credits…

“Set in 2016 amid the opioid crisis that had a stranglehold on the country, including the Capital Region, the movie centers around Times Union reporter-turned-editor Marissa Bennings (Swank), the paper’s ‘best writer’ who doesn’t write anymore. She’s already numb and numbing herself further with alcohol long before her cop son (Reynor) interrupts an editorial meeting to deliver the news that her other son, Michael, a once-promising baseball star-turned-junkie and drug dealer, has been shot dead in Arbor Hill.” Swank’s Mriisa is also numb from the grief of a spouse who died before the story unfolds.

“Marissa soon teams up, albeit reluctantly at first, with her dead son’s pregnant girlfriend Paige (Cooke) to discover the true nature of the murder and the seeming conspiracy surrounding it, including the possible complicity of Michael’s best friend, Ducky (Hopper Penn), a fellow addict and his partner in crime.”

True enough

I agree with some aspects of Lais ‘ review. “The film’s original title [was Mother’s Milk and is a better one than the generic one now, with several layers of meaning and on-screen references. A marketing decision, I fear…” And there are at least two other films with the same title, from 1988 and 2013, plus a 2009 documentary.

“It’s a blast to see local landmarks like the Palais Royale, the Jesus Saves Mission sign, Nipper, and the Rensselaer train station immortalized on film. ” VERY true.

“Cooke.. might play the most tragic character of all, a young woman so bright, so capable of anything she set her mind to, if only she hadn’t trapped herself in this inescapable life.” I saw her in Sound of Metal.

“Irish-born Reynor (‘Midsommar’) is effective in the ‘good son’ role.” He was okay. “Penn, the son of Sean Penn and Robin Wright, has some of his dad’s early, squirrely energy playing Ducky.” Sure.

“Model Dilone as Reynor’s wife represents yet another view of motherhood. Broadway vet Norm Lewis lends the requisite gravity to a role as regal and important as the editor of the Times Union…

“But it might be Karen Aldridge (‘Fargo’) who makes the most visceral impact in a small role. Her anguished monologue during a support group meeting presents some gut-wrenching truths and stellar acting choices. ” She was VERY compelling.

Conversely

And yet, the finished product on the screen felt murky and unfocused. There are too many unnecessary long shots of the Empire State Plaza. (Yes, we’re in Albany. I get it, I get it. )

Lais stated that Joris-Peyrafitte “takes us on a journey through the underbelly of Albany, finding allure in its squalor and hope in its apparent hopelessness.” I wasn’t feeling the hope, or indeed how I should respond.

Ultimately, I agree with most of the Rotten Tomatoes reviews, only 19% positive with the critics and 32% with audiences. Carla Hay wrote: “The Good Mother had the potential to be a better mystery thriller than it is, but the movie is undone by scenes that are either monotonous or predictable until it limps along to a very underwhelming ending. The big ‘plot reveal’ is not surprising.” Katie Walsh: “The screenplay strains for topicality, stuffing too many elements at once into this sad story in a bid for relevance that never quite resonates.”

As noted, I was rooting heavily for The Good Mother. Yet I was ultimately disappointed; the problem was largely in the editing. Still, I’m glad I saw it. Miles Joris-Peyrafitte and his boyhood pal, Madison Harrison, have some talent I look forward to seeing on screen.

Movie review: Golda

Henry Purcell

Right after we got home from church, my wife said we had to go NOW if we were celebrating National Cinema Day with $4 tickets. I didn’t know that she’d selected a movie to see at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.

I knew nothing about the film Golda, except that it was about the late Israeli prime minister and starred Helen Mirren.

After a cursory history of Israel (formed in 1948 and fought the Six-Day War in 1967), we heard a discussion among Israel’s military leaders about what turned out to be the Yom Kippur War of 1973. There were disagreements about strategies in anticipation of Egyptian and Syrian military buildups; a preemptive strike by Israel would have been unacceptable to the US leadership of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

What I learned in the film is that Golda Meir smoked cigarettes. She smoked a LOT of cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes was hazardous to her health.

Meanwhile, the battles far from Tel Aviv seemed at arm’s length, hearing about defeats and victories via audio transmissions.

I was not engaged in the film until about halfway through when Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber) arrived. There’s subsequently a good scene with multiple phones and a few others. But it was too little, too late.

Wanted more

Golda Meir, the person, is intriguing; she was born in Kiev/Kyiv in 1898, immigrated with her family to Milwaukee, and then emigrated to Palestine with her husband in 1921. She became the first female head of government in the Middle East.

Golda, the movie, is, according to critic Todd Jorgenson of Cinemalogueone” “.. .uninvolving as a political thriller and incomplete as a recap of Golda’s background and rise to power. It remains emotionally detached while struggling to penetrate her steely gaze.” I’ll buy that. It was 51% positive with the critics, though 89% with the audience on Rotten Tomatoes.

Music

One thing I loved was the outro music. It was from Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, specifically Dido’s Lament from the aria “When I am laid in earth.” Conductor Leopold Stokowski wrote a transcription of the piece for the symphony orchestra.

Here’s a version conducted by Stokowski. The video has too much background hiss, but I love that the conductor announces that it’s a piece “we all know.”

Listen to a version from the 1995 Proms, conducted by Andrew Davis.

One last thing: to the woman whose cellphone rang at least four times during the film- Grawlix.