Reverend's Reviews: What They Did for Love

I came late to an appreciation of the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, A Chorus Line. While I had seen and enjoyed Richard Attenborough's 1985 movie adaptation (which is reviled by most fans of the stage version), I only saw it performed on stage for the first time last year. It is a great musical that has easily stood the test of time, 34 years after its Broadway opening.

Every Little Step, an engaging documentary opening tomorrow in major cities, isn't only a backstage glimpse into the casting process behind the musical's 2006 revival but a revealing look at the show's genesis. Archival audio tapes and video footage of legendary, gay choreographer-director Michael Bennett, composer Marvin Hamlisch and original cast members (notably Donna McKechnie) help illuminate the power of A Chorus Line for a new generation.


One night in January 1974, Bennett assembled 18 of his fellow Broadway gypsies in a Manhattan exercise room and encouraged them, with the help of a jug or two of wine, to tell their personal stories about why they were dancers. The recorded revelations about their upbringings, family lives, sources of inspiration and sexuality became the basis of A Chorus Line. As we learn in Every Little Step, quite a few of these gypsies' statements were lifted directly by lyricist Ed Kleban for his and Hamlisch's songs.

A Chorus Line then went through a workshop-development process with the cast. The film states this was the first time the workshop approach was used for a musical. Original co-choreographer Bob Avian, who directed the Broadway revival and is prominently featured in Every Little Step, proves to be a font of information about the show's history, casting, and Bennett.


When A Chorus Line opened in May 1975, it was an immediate and (in the words of its famous closing song "One") singular sensation. It ran on Broadway for 15 years and remains to date the longest-running American musical, excluding British imports Cats, Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera.

Every Little Step, directed by James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo, moves briskly and is at times nail-bitingly engrossing. Editors Fernando Villena and Brad Fuller are to be particularly commended for their work here. The revival's casting process offers a bit of American Idol-esque suspense as we follow several hopefuls (including Broadway veteran Charlotte D'Amboise) through the arduous auditions, callbacks and more callbacks that lasted over eight months in all.

Whether talking about the original production's cast, the film version's cast, the Broadway revival's cast, or the cast of any production mounted anywhere in the world, these words from Every Little Step's press notes hold true: "Their lives are interwoven with one of the world's greatest musicals, their hopes and dreams hanging in the balance. This is their story, and the story of the phenomenon known as A Chorus Line."

UPDATE: Every Little Step is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reverend's Reviews: Flower Power

It's been a while since we've had a truly rousing, inspirational film about rectifying social injustices, à la Norma Rae or Philadelphia. American Violet, opening this Friday, is such a movie. Based on shockingly true events in rural Texas in 2000, it recounts the arrest of Dee Roberts (Nicole Beharie, giving a breakthrough, award-worthy performance) and 29 other Black residents of a low-income housing project during a police raid. No one is more shocked than Dee when she learns that she has been arrested not for unpaid parking tickets as she thought, but for allegedly selling drugs at an elementary school.

Dee, a single mother of four children barely making ends meet between her waitress job and government subsidies, is pressured by her court-appointed lawyer to accept a plea bargain. However, since the plea bargain requires Dee to admit to a crime she didn't commit, she refuses. Her case draws the attention of the ACLU, which assigns attorneys David Cohen (Tim Blake Nelson) and Byron Hill (Malcolm Barrett) to investigate.


Cohen and Hill enlist local lawyer Sam Conroy (Will Patton). Together, they encourage Dee to sue district attorney Calvin Beckett (an excellent Michael O'Keefe, who's come a long way since Caddyshack). The four set out to bring Beckett down by proving he has targeted blacks, Latinos and other minorities and prosecuted them unfairly.

The performances in American Violet are uniformly superb. In addition to the previously mentioned cast members, Alfre Woodard, Xzibit, Charles S. Dutton and Pamala Tyson all stand out. Bill Haney's screenplay is a bit over-earnest at times, but on the whole, it provides a riveting account. Also, the narrative jumps around quite a bit in terms of dates and time due either to the script or the film's editing, and some photographic shots seem too bright and over-lit.

Well-directed by Tim Disney (an up and comer who last made the acclaimed documentary The Price of Sugar), Dee Roberts' saga is a harsh but ultimately crowd-pleasing reminder that while racial and other injustices still occur in the US, the commitment to overcoming them is stronger than ever.

UPDATE: American Violet is now available on DVD and Blu-rayfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Women We Love: Valerie Harper

Object of our affection: Valerie Harper, actress.

- Her career began on the Broadway stage as a chorus girl in such musicals as Wildcat and Subways Are for Sleeping. More recently, she starred in Charles Busch's The Tale of the Allergist's Wife.

- As her most famous role, Rhoda Morgenstern, she won a Golden Globe and four Emmy Awards — three as Best Supporting Actress for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and one as Best Actress for the popular spin-off Rhoda (the first season of which comes to DVDnext Tuesday). She reprised the character 22 years later in the reunion TV movie Mary and Rhoda.

- After the first season of Valerie, she was infamously fired from the sitcom over a salary dispute (the last laugh was hers though when she successfully sued the production company for breach of contract). Her other television appearances include guest spots on Love, American Style (in an episode she wrote), The Muppet Show, The Love Boat, Melrose Place, Sex and the City and That '70s Show.

- On film, she can be seen in Li'l Abner, Freebie and the Bean, Chapter Two, The Last Married Couple in America and Blame It on Rio, as well as Golda's Balcony, in which she recreated her acclaimed stage performance of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

- She is currently camping it up as the notorious Tallulah Bankhead in the new stage play Looped, which will commence its pre-Broadway run next month in Washington DC.

Reverend's Reviews: Flushed & Furious

Love him or hate him, the late Pope John Paul II made an undeniable impact on the world. Following his 1978 election, he quickly became known as "the traveling pope" thanks to his unprecedented willingness to go to the far-flung Catholic faithful rather than wait for them to come to Rome.

The Pope's Toilet (El baño del Papa), a simultaneously charming and hard-hitting rumination on events surrounding one of John Paul's papal visits, comes out today on DVDcourtesy of Film Movement. It is a co-production of Uruguay, Brazil and France, and is co-directed by César Charlone, the acclaimed cinematographer of the excellent films City of God and The Constant Gardener.


The pope made a brief stop in the small, impoverished border town of Melo, Uruguay during his 1988 tour of South America. The locals, anticipating an influx of thousands of visitors from neighboring Brazil, took out exorbitant loans and even mortgaged their homes in order to support their get-rich-quick dreams. They made tamales, chorizo and empanadas by the thousands to satisfy the 50,000+ pilgrims envisioned.

In the film, villager Beto (a winning performance by César Troncoso) is inspired to build a lavish lavatory in his front yard to satisfy the more basic needs of the expected multitudes. Beto's effort makes unanticipated moral demands of himself as well as his wife and teenaged daughter, who longs to become a TV news reporter.



I don't want to give too much away, but suffice to say the Pope-seeking hordes fail to materialize. The Pope's Toilet raises important questions, thanks to an incisive screenplay by Charlone and Enrique Fernández, about social economics, journalistic ethics and religious responsibility. Do the pope's visits make a substantial, positive difference among citizens of nations led by corrupt governments, or do they unwittingly reinforce oppressive structures? While one can argue that the influence Pope John Paul II had in his home country of Poland contributed to the collapse of communism there, many observers have concurred that the recent trip to Africa made by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, was a disaster that poses a setback to AIDS-prevention efforts there.

The Pope's Toilet has comedic elements and moments but will likely stir feelings of righteous anger in those who view it. For that reason as well as the film's overall craftsmanship, it shouldn't be missed.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.