By Lynn Venhaus

Music: Yacht Rock Classics

“Baby Come Back,” “Still the One,” “You Are the Woman,” “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight,” “Every Time I Think of You,” “Magnet and Steel,” and more hits will be coming on Saturday night.

The Family Arena hosts an evening of Yacht Rock Classics as the Sail On tour docks on Saturday, Oct. 15, starting at 7 p.m.

So what is Yacht Rock exactly? Mostly soft-rock music popular from the mid-70s to the mid-80s.

The line-up includes Firefall, The Babys, Orleans, John Ford Coley (England Dan has passed), Walter Egan, and Peter Beckett from Player share the stage.

Good seats still available. For tickets: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/06005C76EA2B9722

Movie: “Into the Woods” Sing-along

The 2014 film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s classic “Into the Woods” gets a sing-along version, now streaming on Disney+.

The Rob Marshall-directed musical starred Meryl Streep, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Chris Pine, Anna Kendrick and more in the fairy tale fantasy featuring Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Jack – each one on a quest to fulfill wishes.

Personal Note: I saw the acclaimed Broadway revival that’s been extended twice, now through Jan. 8 at the St. James. Such glorious voices and enchanting adaptation. The 2022 OBC soundtrack is out now, so search for it.
The cast was on the Today Show on Oct. 6. Here they are:

If you’d like to see a local production of “Into the Woods,” the Washington University Performing Arts Department is presenting the Sondheim musical starting Friday, Oct. 21 through Oct. 23 and then Oct. 28-30, with performances at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Edison Theatre on the Washington University campus. For more information, pad.wustl.edu.


Local Stage: Greek Mythology + 31 Songs

Planning to see “Hadestown” at the Fox?

Here is the review by Chas Adams, one of our wonderful website writers:

I talked about it on KTRS Wednesday morning.

Carl the Intern and I talked about it on the podcast today/

TV: “I Love You, You Hate Me”

This 3-part docuseries on Peacock Premium explores the rise and eventually violent response to Barney the Dinosaur.

As a mom of a preschooler who loved that purple dinosaur (and we stood in line at St Clair Square for several hours to see ‘him’), this is a fascinating dive into the ‘real’ story, using interviews and archival footage.

Five things we learned, according to Variety:

https://variety.com/2022/streaming/news/i-love-you-you-hate-me-barney-docuseries-peacock-spoilers-1235397274/


Word: #MeToo

On this date in 2017, Actress Alyssa Milano tweeted “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too.’” It prompted a flood of replies across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

More than a viral hashtag, #MeToo is a social movement against sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape culture, in which people publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment.

By Lynn Venhaus

A quiet film whose topic speaks volumes, “The Assistant” is a dramatic recreation of something that goes on in countless offices across the U.S. – systemic oppression of women by male bosses.

Written and directed by Kitty Green, the film captures the nuanced points made by the #metoo movement.

Hired by a film production company in New York, Jane (Julia Garner), a recent college graduate and aspiring film producer, is eager to please in her junior assistant job. However, she begins to see shady behaviors and practices in use, learning how sexual predator behavior is accepted as others look the other way.

Julia Garner, who won an Emmy Award for “Ozark,” has a perfectly expressive face for young Jane as she goes through a very long day. It shows the daily drudgery and routine —making coffee, changing paper in the copy machine, ordering lunch, making travel arrangements and getting work shoved on them by colleagues.

The boss is heard but not seen. Jay O. Sanders is the voice actor playing the powerful entertainment mogul on the phone, and he calls her in verbally abusive tirades that chastise her for decisions she has made.

We begin to see how these degradations affect Jane in every aspect of her workday. When she finally decides to take a stand, we discover that the corporate culture is too insidious to do any good for her. 

The movie provides an inside look at what is happening, but doesn’t grab the headlines. It’s slow, subtle and chilling.

The languid pacing is an issue because the film makes its points silently, and the office is a rather bland location, so there are those detriments. But if you look at it as an everyday scenario, that’s part of the reason it’s so effective.

And Garner keeps our focus in a mesmerizing less-is-more performance.

Julia Garner as Jane in “The Assistant”

“The Assistant” is a drama written and directed by Kitty Green, starring Julia Garner, Matthew MacFadyen, Kristine Froseth and Jay O. Sanders. It’s rated R for language and is 87 minutes long. Lynn’s Grade: B
A version of this review was published in The Times newspapers and discussed on KTRS (The Big 550).