Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.
After viewing Rogue One, a prequel to George Lucas’ original trilogy, you might find yourself wanting to binge watch the first three films. Rogue One fills in the blanks, specifically how the Rebel Alliance learned about the Empire’s Death Star. Without giving anything away, we know that Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Luke Skywalker, eventually help to destroy that weapon of mass destruction. Now we learn the backstory, namely the identity of the scientist who helped to create the Death Star and how the Rebel Alliance exploited the design flaw that left the device vulnerable to destruction.
Diego Luna, Felicity Jones, K-250 (voiced by Alan Tudyk)
There’s a world of difference, however, between the first three films and Rogue One. While all are rated PG-13, younger children may find Rogue One’s action too violent and intense and both the heroes and villains a little scary. (The director, Gareth Edwards directed Godzilla.) There are no Muppet-like aliens that once populated the venues visited by Han Solo and his crew. While the new characters in Rogue One are engaging, it remains a challenge to top the original cast, particularly because after last December’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, they remain fresh in our minds.
Mads Mikkelsen
Felicity Jones, last seen running around Italy with Tom Hanks in Inferno, is Rogue One’s female lead. Her Jyn Erso is every bit as brave and smart as The Force Awaken’s Rey, played by Daisy Ridley. Jyn’s story serves as the film’s centerpiece. As a child, she watches while her mother is killed and her scientist father, Galen (Mads Mikkelsen), is taken away by an Imperial force led by Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn). The Empire needs Galen to finish the Death Star. The young Jyn flees to a pre-arranged hiding place where she is rescued by Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker).
While Jyn has a vague memory of her father being captured, rumor has it that he has gone over to the dark side. But when she’s shown a hologram of her father speaking to her, she learns that he is being coerced into working for the Empire. He’s managed to program into the Death Star a weakness that can be exploited. The organized Rebel Alliance, led by Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits) doubts Jyn’s story. (Blink and you’ll miss Smits appearance, it’s so brief.) However, a rag-tag group of fighters enlists to help Jyn find her father.
Donnie Yen
Jyn’s new crew is certainly diverse. We have the leader, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a very tall droid, K-250 (voiced by Alan Tudyk he gets all of the film’s best lines), a blind swordsman (Donnie Yen), a warrior (Jiang Wen), and Riz Ahmed, as a pilot who defected to help the Rebellion. Once the organized Rebellion realizes Jyn’s group has a chance to succeed, the much-needed air support arrives. The battle scenes are exciting, although the demise of some characters may be upsetting to younger viewers.
Darth Vader, once again voiced by James Earl Jones, makes an appearance towards the end in a scene that sets the stage for what is to come next. While Jones’ voice delivered the expected jolt, it was nowhere near as shocking as the appearance on screen of Peter Cushing, who died in 1994, and was resurrected courtesy of CGI as the Imperial leader Grand Moff Tarkin. (There was an audible gasp from the preview audience at my screening.)
While the Lucas prequels failed to catch fire with fans, Rogue One should live up to expectations. Connecting it so closely to the trilogy works in its favor. And the musical score, from Michael Giacchino, includes enough of John Williams’ original themes that audiences will certainly tap into memories of all those galaxies that came before.
Considered the “most versatile vocalist of the modern era,” you know that when Linda Ronstadt takes the stage, the crowd will rise, and shake the rafters. That was the case at the Tilles Center, in Brookville, Long Island last Thursday night. She’s not on a concert tour, nor a book tour (her bestselling memoir, Simple Dreams, came out in 2013), and there’s really nothing to “plug,” but it’s just Linda and her fans, who followed her career since the late ‘60s, and continue to support her in this chapter of her career. In 2009, Linda gave her last concert, and announced her retirement; her diagnosis of Parkinson’s the reason. These appearances are being called a “public speaking engagement,” a way to connect with the people she loved singing to, and for.
John Boylan and Linda Ronstadt
Escorted by her longtime manager, John Boylan, Linda sits in front of a large movie screen which allows her career to pass in pictures before our eyes, beginning with her early years, growing up with music all around her, and singing her favorite Mexican tunes with her brothers and sister in their Tucson, Arizona living room. At the age of two, Linda says, “I was told I could sing.” She learned to harmonize with her sister, and it’s the kind of singing she likes best; and the ballad is the preferred choice of song, but, she says, “I knew I’d have to include livelier songs.”
While her siblings went on to other things, Linda kept to the singing and at 17 went to California and began hanging at the famous Troubadour club, meeting other singers, playing with new musicians, and formed The Stone Poneys. Upon the screen comes a black and white photo of Linda at 17 with the 19 year old Jackson Browne, and a few other guys like Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Randy Meisner, who joined her backup band. Her first hit, “Different Drum,” came off the band’s second album. “At one point,” Linda says, “they told me they want to go off to form their own band.” That’s how the Eagles came to be. In 1968, Linda went solo.
Her versatile career took a turn into country music in her collaboration with good friends, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, for two top selling albums, Trio and Trio II. “Emmylou called me up and told me to come over, that Dolly was there. I did, and we sang together and thought, ‘a ha.’ ” At one point in her career, she “wanted to perform on a stage that had a curtain,” which drew a laugh. That desire brought her to the Public Theatre and a role in the hit musical, Pirates of Penzance, with Kevin Kline and Rex Smith, which also took her and her role as Mabel to the movie version. There came a point when she wanted to improve her range and vocal presentation, and knew that with one of the great American standards, there’s no room for error. She called up Nelson Riddle one day and asked if he’d work with her on one of the great classics, like the kind Frank Sinatra sang. “I was hoping he’d work on one song, but he came ready to do a whole album,” she says. “It was the most thrilling thing.”
John Platt and Linda Ronstadt
Of the onset of Parkinson’s, she first noticed it in 2000, “I knew it in my voice. It became more and more difficult to sing, and could only really whisper, and not always stayed in tune.” Appearing healthy and happy now, with a few pounds added to her once slight frame, Linda has, to the audience, come to terms with the diagnosis. In the second part of the night’s event, WFUV-FM radio host John Platt, joined her to do a Q and A with questions already submitted by audience members, covering topics like Was she ever interested in songwriting? “No, though I did write one song, I was never much of a writer, no desire to get into the songwriting business.” What does she do now? “More talking now. When friends come over, we used to sing a lot, now we talk a lot. I’m also interested in what happens with our immigration laws, and protect those who may be affected.” The crowd erupted with approval. Linda is also busy raising her adopted children, Carlos and Mary, and although she’s been linked to some celebrity beaus like George Lucas and Gov. Jerry Brown, had no interest in marrying. She has said, “it was not important to me.”
She can also reflect on a career that “defined a generation,” as one reviewer posted, garnering her multiple Grammy’s; the 2013 election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (despite her assertion that she was not a rock and roll singer); the Latin Grammy for Lifetime Achievement; and in 2014 at a White House ceremony, President Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts.
In the opening paragraph of her epilogue, in the memoir, “Simple Dreams,” Linda writes this: “I live these days with my two children, and am watching them navigate the wonderful and strange passage from teenager to young adult. They both play instruments, have a lively and active interest in music, and use it to process their feelings in a private setting. This is the fundamental value of music, and I feel sorry for a culture that depends too much on delegating its musical expression to professionals. It is fine to have heroes, but we should do our own singing first, even if it is never heard beyond the shower curtain.”
