Tag: Gloria Estefan

Review: ‘If These Walls Could Rock,’ starring George Rosenthal, Mark Rosenthal, Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce Springsteen, Slash, Sharon Osbourne, Kelly Osbourne, Dave Grohl and Rande Gerber

December 27, 2025

by Carla Hay

Billy Bob Thornton in “If These Walls Could Rock”

“If These Walls Could Rock”

Directed by Tyler Measom and Craig A. Williams

Culture Representation: The documentary film “If These Walls Could Rock” (based on the 2013 book of the same name) features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans and Latin people), mostly from the entertainment industry, discussing the history of the Sunset Marquis, a famous hotel in West Hollywood, California.

Culture Clash: The Sunset Marquis, which opened in 1963, attracted a celebrity clientele and developed a reputation for being lenient toward and discreet about decadence from the hotel’s guests, but the hotel fell on hard times in the early 1990s, when the Sunset Marquis was plagued by tax problems and being millions of dollars in debt.

Culture Audience: “If These Walls Could Rock” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of documentaries about celebrity lifestyles and true stories about failing businesses that made a comeback.

“If These Walls Could Rock” is a very entertaining documentary about the volatile history of the Sunset Marquis, a famous hotel in West Hollywood, California. Stories about celebrity decadence are expected, but the movie is also a bittersweet tale about the father-and-son executive relationship as the hotel’s driving force. “If These Walls Could Rock” features interviews with numerous people—most of them are showbiz celebrities who’ve been guests at the Sunset Marquis—but thanks to very good film editing, the documentary doesn’t feel overstuffed with these talking heads.

Directed by Tyler Measom and Craig A. Williams, “If These Walls Could Rock” is based on the 2013 non-fiction book “If These Walls Could Rock: 50 Years at the Legendary Sunset Marquis Hotel,” written by Williams and Mark Alan Rosenthal. The book is now out of print, but can be found at some places that sell used or rare books. The movie “If These Walls Could Rock” had its world premiere at DOC NYC in 2025.

“If These Walls Could Rock” begins with showing a montage of anecdotes and commentary from some celebrities talking about the Sunset Marquis, which opened in 1963. The movie’s stories mostly focus on what happened at the Sunset Marquis during the 1970s to 1990s, which were considered the peak years of the hotel being a haven for decadence and discretion about that decadence. The Sunset Marquis has been particularly popular with music stars, which is why most of the celebrities interviewed in the documentary are people from the music industry.

ZZ Top lead singer/guitarist Billy Gibbons tells a story about seeing Ozzy Osbourne at the hotel. Osbourne told Gibbons to toss a beer bottles and liquor glasses near the hotel’s swimming pool. By the end of the mayhem, Gibbons says, “There was so much glass around the swimming pool, no one could leave. That’s the kind of shit that happens at the Marquis.”

Bruce Springsteen has fond memories of staying with his E Street Band at the Sunset Marquis in the early-to-mid-1970s. He says the Sunset Marquis was the first hotel in the Los Angeles areas that he and his New Jersey-based band stayed at in the early years of their career. Springsteen comments in the documentary about the hotel’s atmosphere at the time: “You saw a lot of fellow musicians. We thought we were living in heaven.”

Nile Rodgers—a Grammy-winning producer/songwriter and a co-founder of the disco group Chic—says of the Sunset Marquis: “This was the great melting pot. Everybody was here.” Kiss singer/bass guitarist Gene Simmons adds, “I didn’t know any of the history, but it was like any other hotel that I’d ever been in.” Guns N’Roses guitarist Slash (whose photo is on the cover of the “If These Walls Could Rock” book) comments on the hotel’s ambience: “It was sort of a misfits kind of vibe.” Foo Fighters lead singer/guitarist Dave Grohl quips, “God, a if a bomb went off in this place, rock radio would be fucked.”

Sharon Osbourne—Ozzy Osbourne’s widow, who was his manager for his entire solo career from 1980 to his death in 2025—says the Sunset Marquis was one of the few hotels in the Los Angeles area that never banned Ozzy as a guest during his most notorious and wildest period in the 1980s. Sharon Osbourne says, “If you wanted sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, you stayed at the Marquis.” Even with all the debauchery, Sharon remembers the Marquis offering a cozy atmosphere: “It was like you were in your own home with a lot of friends.”

Later in the documentary, Ozzy’s daughter Kelly Osbourne comments: “It was the only hotel where my dad could stay in where my dad could be himself. We’d been kicked out of everywhere, but not the Sunset Marquis.”

Kelly Osbourne, who often traveled with her parents when Ozzy was on tour, also says the Sunset Marquis was the place where she had her first kiss, her first alcoholic drink and her first line of cocaine, with the cocaine supplied by one of Ozzy’s friends. (Kelly says in the documentary she does not want to say the name of this friend.) “I was like the Eloise of the hotel,” Kelly says, in reference to Kay Thompson’s “Eloise at the Plaza” children’s book series.

The Sunset Marquis catered so much to the music industry, the hotel opened a recording studio, called NightBird Studios, which launched in 1992. NightBird Studios owner Jed Leiber, who is also a music producer, is one of the people interviewed in the documentary. Aerosmith, Miley Cyrus and Drake are some of the famous artists who’ve recorded music at NightBird.

The Sunset Marquis has also been a popular spot for photo shoots and music videos. Morrissey, who is interviewed in the documentary, did photo shoots for several of his record sleeves at the Sunset Marquis, including “That’s How People Grow Up,” “All You Need Is Me,” “Now My Heart Is Full,” “Tomorrow,” “Hold on to Your Friends” and “The Very Best of Morrissey.” Music video director Russell Mulcahy remembers how things got kind of unruly when filming Rod Stewart’s 1981 “Tonight I’m Yours” music video at the Sunset Marquis.

Actor/musician Billy Bob Thornton, who call himself the “unofficial mayor of the Sunset Marquis,” gets quite a bit of screen time in the documentary. That’s because he says he’s lived off and on at the Sunset Marquis for many years, especially because he stays at the Sunset Marquis every time he gets a divorce, “which is often,” he says with a wry grin. In the documentary, Thornton gives viewers a tour of some parts of the Sunset Marquis.

Thornton says it wouldn’t be unusual for him to have famous neighbors at the hotel: “At one point,” Thornton says, Keith Richards [Rolling Stones rhythm guitarist] was below me. Chris Robinson [lead singer of the Black Crowes] was next door. Metallica, Steven Tyler [lead singer of Aerosmith], U2 would come in an out. It was like a rock-and-roll Friars Club.”

Many of the celebrities who are interviewed in the documentary say that one of the major appeals of the Sunset Marquis was the Sunset Marquis staff could be counted on to be discreet by not selling stories to tabloids or not telling the media about which celebrity guests were staying at the hotel. The Sunset Marquis actually has a policy for the hotel’s press releases and other publicity materials to not name any celebrities who stayed at the hotel. It’s also implied that the hotel’s employees have to sign confidentiality agreements not to publicly tell scandalous stories about the Sunset Marquis, even after their employment ends at the Sunset Marquis.

Duran Duran lead singer Simon LeBon says, “You always did feel there was an element of discretion at the Marquis. You cold really relax and be yourself, and for it not to hit the front page of the newspapers.” LeBon shares a story about how Duran Duran once stayed at the Sunset Marquis in the 1980s and had a loud party. A couple staying in a nearby suite knocked on the door. Instead of complaining about the noise, the couple asked to join the party, and the band welcomed the couple to party with them.

Lisa Hagen, who worked in Sunset Marquis’ sales and marketing team, comments in the documentary: “My job was to keep our name out of the press. My job would’ve been a lot easier if I advertised who stayed there, but I don’t think they would’ve kept coming back. I think they felt the secrecy we allowed them made them feel more comfortable and at home.”

Black Crowes lead singer Robinson says the Sunset Marquis was the band’s first-choice “home away from home” in Los Angeles during the 1990s and 2000s. He describes how the Sunset Marquis was the type of hotel where guests could feel free to leave illegal drugs out in the open in their suites without fear that the maid service would take away the drugs or that the drug possession would be reported to law enforcement. For example, Robinson says that Black Crowes and members of their entourage would leave marijuana and cocaine out on tables in Sunset Marquis suites where they stayed, and the drug stashes would be untouched when they would come back to the rooms, hours after the maid service had finished cleaning the rooms.

Robinson also tells a story from the early 1990s, about the Black Crowes being invited to stay at the then-newly opened Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills, which took some persuading because the band preferred to stay at the Sunset Marquis. At the Peninsula, Robinson says he was at the bar, when a hotel employee shushed him for cursing—and that’s when he says he knew he made a mistake of staying there instead of at the Sunset Marquis. When he went back to his Peninsula suite, he says he threw a potted plant at a mirror and demanded whoever was in charge of the band’s hotel bookings for the band to go back to the Sunset Marquis.

Not all of the drug-related stories at the Sunset Marquis are about fun and games. Rock star Slash went public many years ago about being addicted to heroin, cocaine and alcohol during the height of Guns N’Roses’ popularity in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. In the documentary, Slash talks about being at the Sunset Marquis sometime in the 1990s, when he had a major drug-related freakout where he hallucinated that creatures were trying to kill him. It was also at the Sunset Marquis where Slash said he had an intervention that led to him going to rehab.

Past and present Sunset Marquis employees are interviewed in the documentary, including general manager Rod Gruendyke, bartender Mia Heldt, bellhop Logan Steppart, valet Peter Bartolota and publicist Kelly Cutrone. “George Rosenthal is a genius,” gushes Cutrone. “Let’s face it: The guy is a G.” Most of these employees refuse to tell stories that they know about celebrity guests who stayed at the Sunset Marquis.

The exception is Gruendyke, who tells a story about how rock band Green Day got banned from the Sunset Marquis for a year because the band threw furniture out of a window. A year later, after the ban ended, Gruendyke says Green Day was banned again (for three months) for pulling potted plants off of the hotel property and for painting the band’s suite floor green. Green Day came back to the Sunset Marquis after the three-month ban had ended. And the most mischief they got up to was filling the hotel’s Jacuzzi with bubbles.

Most of the celebrity stories told in the documentary aren’t very scandalous and just involve pranks or some lewd actions. Thornton tells a story about how he once had sex on some Sunset Marquis outdoor stairs with his “beloved at the time” (he doesn’t say who she is) while another an actor and his wife (whom Thornton does not name) walked by and congratulated Thornton on whatever award he had been nominated for at the time. Thornton remembers that the other couple acted like seeing them having sex in public was no big deal, which Thornton says is an example of people’s overall attitude at the Sunset Marquis during the times that he stayed there.

Gruendyke mentions that the Red Hot Chili Peppers once jumped from their hotel suite windows into the hotel’s swimming pool. And speaking of the Sunset Marquis swimming pool, which gets mentioned several times in the documentary, another story told about the pool comes from Steven Van Zandt, guitarist for Springsteen’s E Street Band. Van Zandt says in the documentary that Springsteen was so disenchanted by the first pressing of the 1975 album “Born to Run” and being on the cover of Time and Newsweek, Springsteen threw this early pressing and the magazine issues into the Sunset Marquis pool.

Years later, it was also at the Sunset Marquis where Springsteen met Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic, who became the subject of the 1989 movie “Born on the Fourth of July.” Kovic also inspired Springsteen to write the song “Born in the U.S.A.,” which was the title track of Springsteen’s blockbuster 1984 album. Springsteen and Kovic became lifelong friends as a result of this meeting.

But behind the tales of celebrity glamour and decadence, the documentary tells a story that can be just as riveting. It’s the story of the hard-driving, workaholic founder of the Sunset Marquis and the founder’s son who spent a lifetime trying to please him and ended up being the leader who saved the hotel from the brink of financial ruin. Sunset Marquis founder George Rosenthal (who was born in 1931) and his son Mark Rosenthal (who was born in 1959) are both interviewed in the documentary and give candid commentary about their often-troubled relationship and how it became intertwined with the Sunset Marquis’ business.

George Rosenthal (a native of Medford, Massachusetts) made his fortune in construction and property development, in a career that began when he moved to California in 1953. He founded the company Raleigh Enterprises in 1955. In 1963, George launched the Sunset Marquis, which he describes as the “first all-suite hotel” to open in the United States. Mark Rosenthal says that part of the hotel’s name was inspired by his childhood nickname Marky, which rhymes with Marquis.

George says he was inspired to open the Sunset Marquis after he went into business with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner to help launch the first Playboy Club in Los Angeles. The Playboy Club in Los Angeles opened in 1964, after a few years of development. George says he wanted to build a hotel to accommodate entertainers who visited Los Angeles and who would be the type who would also go to a place like the Playboy Club.

Unlike most high-profile Los Angeles/West Hollywood hotels located on busy commercial streets like Sunset Boulevard or Hollywood Boulevard, the Sunset Marquis is located on Alta Loma Road, a mostly residential street off of Sunset Boulevard. The residential location of the hotel made the Sunset Marquis feel more “discreet” and more “off the beaten path,” but it also caused problems when residents on the street complained of noise or other disturbances coming from the hotel.

By the time the Sunset Marquis opened, George was a divorced father who was enjoying his bachelor lifestyle. Celebrity photographer Timothy White, who has done many photo shoots at the Sunset Marquis, describes George as a “gentle man, but a playboy.” By George’s own admission, he wasn’t an attentive father, and he could be very tough on Mark, whom he expected to be involved in running the hotel when Mark was old enough to do so.

Mark describes his father as being a hard-driving individual who liked to win, no matter what the emotional cost. Mark tells a story of when he was a child, the Rosenthal family got into a legal dispute with a neighbor over the Rosenthal family’s dog. Instead of spending money on legal fees for a lawsuit that George might have lost, Mark says that George gave away the family dog, just to make the neighbor’s complaint go away.

George also had a more vulnerable side, according to Mark, who says that George identified with outsiders and misfits because of the brutal antisemitism that George experienced when George was growing up. Mark says that George wanted to create an environment at the Sunset Marquis for outsiders and misfits to feel welcome—including those who were banned or kicked out of other hotels.

Mark also remembers when he was child, his father often dated beautiful women and had a proverbial revolving door of girlfriends and lovers. In the documentary, George freely acknowledges why he was able to date so many beautiful women: “The ego side of me said it was me. But the reality was the hotel was a great attraction.” George indulged in women who were willing and available because he says he enjoyed their company and it made him feel good.

When Mark went into the family business as a Sunset Marquis executive in the 1980s, Mark started as a corporate liaison and rose through the ranks to become president/CEO. Mark describes his father as being demanding and overly critical, partly because that was George’s management style and partly because George didn’t want Mark to get special nepotism treatment. By the 1980s, George had let the Sunset Marquis go into a dilapidated decline because he had become distracted by other business ventures.

Mark stepped in to make renovations and to restore the previous rock-star glamour to the Sunset Marquis. However, by the early 1990s, the Sunset Marquis faced its biggest obstacle: According to Mark, the Sunset Marquis was about $50 million in debt. To make matters worse, in April 1991, the insurance commissioner for the state of California sued the Rosenthals for “billions of dollars.” Mark became the Sunset Marquis’ attorney to sort out this legal mess. The result of this lawsuit (the Rosenthals won) is included in the documentary.

The 1990s was also a major transitional period for the Sunset Marquis because of the arrival of the Whiskey Bar, an exclusive nightclub created by promoter Rande Gerber. The Whiskey Bar, which had a maximum capacity of only about 60 people, opened at the Sunset Marquis in 1994, and soon became a magnet for A-list celebrities and paparazzi. Guns N’Roses, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and her “Friends” co-stars were among the famous regulars at the Whiskey Bar during its heyday.

The Whiskey Bar closed in 2006, after the Sunset Marquis declined to renew the Whiskey Bar’s contract. Gerber, who is interviewed in the documentary, says he was disappointed by this decision because he says he wanted the Whiskey Bar to continue for much longer at the Sunset Marquis. It’s implied that Sunset Marquis management made this decision because the hotel got tired of how much of a paparazzi zoo the Whiskey Bar had become.

Other people interviewed in the documentary include The Who lead singer Roger Daltrey, former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, Def Leppard lead singer Joe Elliott, Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen, former Guns N’Roses drummer Matt Sorum, singer/songwriter Richard Marx, musician John Oates (of Hall & Oates fame), singer/songwriter Darius Rucker, photographer Ross Halfin, music executive Merck Mercuriadis, singer/songwriter Cyndi Lauper, musician Sheila E., singer Gloria Estefan, music producer/musician Emilio Estefan, , singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow, music manager Doc McGhee, photographer Bob Gruen, singer Michael Des Barres, Halestorm singer Lzzy Hale, Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson, singer Julian Lennon and singer/guitarist Joe Bonamassa.

Although Mark Rosenthal and his father George went through some rough times, Mark and George seem to have a much stronger and healthier relationship now, compared to previous decades. In the documentary, George gives credit to Mark saving the Sunset Marquis and steering the hotel to a path of financial stability. The Sunset Marquis doesn’t have the wild “let it all hang out” reputation that it used to have in the 20th century, but “If These Walls Could Rock” is an enjoyable glimpse into the ups and downs of a bygone era of the Sunset Marquis, before the Internet and social media made celebrity life much less private and more exposed.

Review: ‘Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie,’ starring Laila Lockhat Kraner, Kristen Wiig, Gloria Estefan and the voices of Jason Mantzoukas, Fortune Feimster, Logan Bailey and Tara Strong

September 24, 2025

by Carla Hay

Laila Lockhart Kraner in “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” (Photo by Leah Gallo/DreamWorks Animation/Universal Pictures)

“Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie”

Directed by Ryan Crego

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional U.S. city of Cat Francisco and briefly in Illinois, the live-action/animated film “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” (based on the “Gabby’s Dollhouse” TV series) features a cast of characters who are humans (Latin, Asian and white) and talking animals.

Culture Clash: A teenager, who’s a cat enthusiast and owns a magical dollhouse occupied by cat dolls, goes on a road trip from Illinois to Cat Francisco, where she encounters a greedy cat litter mogul, who has stolen the dollhouse.  

Culture Audience: “Gabby’s Dollhouse” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the TV series of the same name, the movie’s headliners, and fluffy and silly live-action/animated adventures aimed at children under the age of 10.

Jonesy the Cat and Kristen Wiig in “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” (Photo by Leah Gallo/DreamWorks Animation/Universal Pictures)

“Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” is like rotten and tangled cotton candy. This sloppy movie spinoff of the Netflix TV series tries to look vibrant and appealing, but it’s an incoherent mess with terrible acting and a cluttered plot about a lost dollhouse. Although “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” is obviously aimed at children under the age of 10, viewers of any age deserve better than what is essentially garbage “junk food” cinema that will leave a proverbial bad taste in a lot of viewers’ mouths.

Directed by Ryan Crego, “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” was written by Mike Lew, Rehana Lew Mirza, Adam Wilson and Melanie Wilson. The movie, just like the TV series, switches back and forth between live-action and animation. These transitions aren’t always done smoothly and might be a little disconcerting to people who aren’t familiar with the “Gabby’s Dollhouse” series, which began in 2021, and is from the production studio DreamWorks Animation. “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” is DreamWorks Animation’s first theatrically released live-action/animated hybrid movie.

In the “Gabby’s Dollhouse” TV series and in “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie,” the stories are centered on an American teenager named Gabby (played by Laila Lockhart Kraner), who has a dollhouse filled with miniature cat toys called the Gabby Cats. Pandy Paws (voiced by Logan Bailey) is Gabby’s goofy “best friend” out of all the Gabby Cats. The movie does an inadequate job of introducing the Gabby Cat characters to viewers who are unfamiliar with the TV series.

The other Gabby Cats in the movie that are also in the TV series are CatRat (voiced by Donovan Patton), a flamboyant, sometimes troublemaking character who can move through portals; Kitty Fairy (voiced by Tara Strong), a cat with wings and a gentle personality; Cakey Cat (voiced by Juliet Donenfeld), a cupcake-shaped cat who is sweet-natured; Daniel James “DJ” Catnip (voiced by Eduardo Franco), who is musically talented; Pillow Cat (voiced by Sainty Nelsen), who likes bedtime stories; Carlita (voiced by Carla Tessar), a feisty combination of a car and a cat; and cat-shaped pencil toppers Hopper, Chopper, Bopper and Marley, who do not speak but make noises.

Gabby has a magical headband for cat ears that can shrink her to the size of the Gabby Cats when she chants “A pinch on my left. Pinch pinch on my right. Grab Pandy’s hand and hold on tight.” The cat ears headband also gives other magical abilities to Gabby. Whenever Gabby is shrunk to the size of the Gabby Cats, the movie switches from live-action to animated.

In “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” Gabby (who’s about 13 or 14 years old) goes on a road trip from Illinois with her beloved Grandma Gigi (played by Gloria Estefan), to visit Gigi for a week in Gigi’s home city of Cat Francisco. (It’s really San Francisco with another name.) Gigi (who’s in the movie for less than 15 minutes) also loves cats and has a 1970s-styled Volkswagen van (with an 8-track cassette player) that has cat decorations on the front, including cat ears on the roof. Gabby takes her dollhouse with her by hitching it to the back of the van.

As soon as Gabby arrives at Gigi’s house, the dollhouse accidentally gets loose from its hitch on the van. Gabby spends much of the movie looking for the dollhouse. The dollhouse rolls away and ends up in the possession of a retailer, who sells it to a conceited business mogul named Vera the Cat Lady (played by Kristen Wiig), who offers a bigger payment than the intended buyer.

The intended buyer is a woman who wanted to purchase the dollhouse for her daughter, whose name is listed in the movie’s end credits as Kitty Ranger #1 (played by Kate Whiddington), who gets very angry that this dollhouse was “stolen” from her. There’s a clumsy subplot about Kitty Ranger #1 enlisting her two friends Kitty Ranger #2 (played by Sophia Biling) and Kitty Ranger #3 (played by Lauren Chan) to track down Vera and get the dollhouse back.

Vera is written and portrayed as the most negative stereotype of an unmarried “cat lady” who lives alone: She’s depicted as mentally unwell and mean-spirited. Vera’s cat sidekick is Marlene Purrkins (played by Jonesy the Cat), who doesn’t speak in a human voice. But if this cat did, the cat would probably say, “Get me out of this horrible movie!”

It’s explained in the movie that Vera made a fortune for inventing Pretty Glitter Kitty Litter, which looks exactly like the name suggests. Bizarrely., Vera uses Pretty Glitter Kitty Litter on herself as if it’s perfume—and she thinks other people should too. Vera is an obsessive collector of cat-themed memorabilia. As far as Vera is concerned, the dollhouse that he bought is collectible art that she sees only for monetary value.

Someone who befriends the Gabby Cats is a cat toy named Chumsley (voiced by Jason Mantzoukas), whose sarcastic personality masks his emotional pain of being abandoned by Vera years ago when Vera became a teenager (played by Cassidy Nugent) and outgrew playing with toys. During the hunt and battle over possession of Gabby’s dollhouse, the movie constantly brings up the theme of people usually outgrowing their interest in playing with toys. (This theme of outgrowing childhood toys is very reminiscent of the Oscar-winning 2010 animated sequel “Toy Story 3.”)

The movie doesn’t condemn adulthood but repeatedly says when people mature out of childhood, they usually lose a sense of childlike wonder. A scene beginning of the movie shows Gabby being worried that she might lose interest in her dollhouse and Gabby Cats when she becomes an adult. A flashback scene shows a tween Gabby at about 6 or 7 years old (played by Tina Ukwu) getting the dollhouse as a gift from Gigi, who is a dollhouse designer. A teenage Gabby is now inspired to be dollhouse designer, just like Gigi.

“Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” swirls with a lot of brightly hued action scenes and explosions of pink of almost every shade. These visuals cannot compensate for a flimsy story. Mildly amusing gags go on for a bit too long and become tiresome, such as a sequence where Vera tries to compete with her cat Marlene on who can do the most difficult yoga poses. Wiig’s performance is intentionally hammy, but it’s still hard to watch her waste her comedic talents in this dreck.

The movie goes off on a tangent with wooden Kitty Gnome statues in Vera’s backyard. The Kitty Gnomes (voiced Thomas Lennon, Ego Nwodim, Kyle Mooney and Melissa Villaseñor) believe that Kitty Fairy is their queen. And so, there’s a part of the movie where the Kitty Gnomes insist on giving an offering as a gift of loyalty to Kitty Fairy.

One of the many problems with “Gabby’s Dollhouse” is that only a small fraction of the characters in this overstuffed movie truly stand out from the rest. Gabby, Vera, Gigi, Chumley and even wordless cat Marlene are the most memorable characters, while all the other characters in the movie just sort of flit around and jabber a bunch of witless dialogue. Fortune Feimster has a supporting voice role as Refrigerator, an appliance in Gabby’s dollhouse. Hardly anyone who watches this movie will remember anything that Refrigerator said.

“Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie,” which also has forgettable songs written for the film, overloads on cutesy imagery but still has a weird penchant for trying to shoehorn in tacky “fart and poop” jokes, as if it’s trying to appeal to older kids and adults who want “edgy” comedy. For example, there’s a scene where Cakey Cat tries to fart sprinkles out of her cupcake body, but she can’t. “I’ve never felt so empty inside,” Cakey Cat says. It’s a feeling that many viewers will have about the boring and shallow characters in “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie,” which is just unfunny and unimaginative cartoon chaos.

Universal Pictures will release “Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie” in U.S. cinemas on September 26, 2025.

Review: ‘Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over,’ starring Dionne Warwick

December 31, 2022

by Carla Hay

Dionne Warwick in “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” (Photo courtesy of CNN Films)

“Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over”

Directed by Dave Wooley and David Heilbroner

Culture Representation: In the documentary film “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over,” a group of African American and white people (and a few Latinos), who are celebrities, historians or philanthropists, discuss the life and career of entertainer Dionne Warwick.

Culture Clash: In her long career, Dionne Warwick battled against racism, misogynistic rap music and prejudice against people with HIV/AIDS. 

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of Dionne Warwick fans, “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in biographies of entertainers who first made their mark in the 1960s.

Dionne Warwick in “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” (Photo courtesy of CNN Films)

“Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” is both a retrospective and an uplifting story about one of America’s most treasured entertainers/activists who is both celebrated and sometimes underrated for her breakthroughs. This documentary doesn’t uncover new information, but it’s a thoroughly engaging and comprehensive look at the life and career of the talented, sassy and outspoken Dionne Warwick. It would be a mistake to think that this movie won’t have much appeal to young people, because “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” has meaningful themes and life lessons that can relatable to people of any generation.

Directed by Dave Wooley and David Heilbroner, “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” had its world premiere at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival. Warwick also participated in the making of the 2018 PBS documentary “Dionne Warwick: Then Came You,” which focuses mainly on Warwick’s music, whereas “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” includes not just her music career but it also takes a much deeper dive into her personal life and her activism. Warwick’s 2010 memoir “My Life, as I See It” also covers a lot of the same topics as these documentaries. In other words, there’s no shortage of Warwick’s first-hand accounts of her life story.

Fortunately, Warwick is a great raconteur with amusing wit and candid self-awareness. There could be dozens of documentaries about her, and she’s the type of person who will give something unique and different every time in her documentary interviews. “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over,” which unfolds in chronological order, has the expected telling of her experiences with fame and the challenges she’s encountered when people pressured her to be something that she wasn’t but she stayed true to herself.

Born in 1940, in East Orange, New Jersey, she describes her childhood in East Orange and nearby Newark as being in a family that was “middle-class and working.” Her father had various jobs, including being a Pullman porter, a music promoter and an accountant. Her mother was an electrical factory worker who also managed a gospel singing group called the Drinkard Sisters, which consisted of relatives on her mother’s side of the family. Warwick’s maternal aunt Cissy Houston (mother of Whitney Houston) was a member of the Drinkard Sisters. Cissy Houston is one of the people interviewed in the documentary.

With all this music talent in one family, it was inevitable that Warwick would pursue a music career too. She says her first performance was at the age of 6, when she sang “Jesus Loves Me” in church. Warwick also says that it was also the first time she got a standing ovation. “Gospel will never be far from what I do,” Warwick comments.

Warwick grew up during an era when much of the U.S. had legal racial segregation, but she says in the documentary that East Orange was a very integrated city. “It was like the United Nations,” she quips. It might be why she didn’t want to be confined to doing music that was labeled as being for any particular race. During the early years of her career, racial segregation also extended to the music industry, which marketed pop music as “music for white people” and R&B music as “music for black people.” Radio station playlists also followed these narrow-minded race divisions.

It didn’t take long for people to notice her talent. In 1957, she performed with the Imperials during Amateur Night at the famed Apollo Theatre in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. They won that contest. “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” includes archival footage of that fateful performance.

She then became a backup singer, with credits that include the Drifters’ 1962 songs “When My Little Girl Is Singing” and “Mexican Divorce,” as well as Jerry Butler’s 1961 hit “Make It Easy on Yourself.” She stood out as a backup singer and was eventually signed to a record deal with Scepter Records as a solo singer. Warwick comments, “Thank God for my daddy, who negotiated my contract.” Warwick’s debut album, “Presenting Dionne Warwick,” was released in 1963.

The documentary repeats a fairly well-known story about how Warwick told the music producers of “Make It Easy on Yourself” that she didn’t like the results. That experience later became the inspiration for her 1962 song “Don’t Make Me Over,” which is a statement of Warwick’s refusal to be anybody but herself. It was an issue that would come up many times when people questioned her choices in songs, performing style or even her hairstyles and clothing.

For example, Warwick says in the documentary that when she was on tour with Sam Cooke, she ignored his advice to never turn her back to a white audience when she was singing. At shows where white people and black people would attend but would be racially segregated inside the venue, Warwick says she made a point of turning to sing to the black people, which meant that sometimes her back would be turned to the white people in the audience. It was Warwick’s way of telling the black people audience that even though they were being treated like second-class citizens by racist laws, the black people in the audience mattered to her.

Warwick also tells a story about the touring party going to a racially segregated restaurant, where a waitress took their menu order, but refused to let anyone in touring party sit in the restaurant. When Warwick cancelled the order because of this racist discrimination, the waitress then called the police on the touring party because Warwick didn’t talk to the waitress in a subservient way. Warwick says that Cooke got angry at Warwick because he thought Warwick defending herself from racism would get the entire touring party arrested.

Later in the documentary, Warwick says of the civil unrest and bigotry problems in the United States and elsewhere: “All of this craziness that happened in the ’60s, unfortunately, is happening again. What has changed? Nothing. But there is hope. Love is the answer.”

Warwick’s hit collaborations with songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David are duly noted in the documentary. Bacharach is one of the people interviewed in the film. David passed away in 2012, at age 91. The collaborations between Warwick, Bacharach and David resulted in Warwick’s biggest hits in the 1960s, including “Don’t Make Me Over,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” “Walk on By,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.”

In the documentary, Warwick talks about how her first major international success happened in Europe, but even her introduction to European audiences was marred by racism. Scepter Records put a photo of a white model on the cover of Warwick’s 1963 single “This Empty Place” when it was released in Europe, because the record company didn’t think European music buyers would respond to the song as well if Warwick’s photo was on the cover.

Warwick remembers European audiences being surprised and accepting when they would see her perform live for the first time and find out what she really looked like. She comments in the documentary: “Yeah, I ain’t white. I’m a tempting, teasing brown.”

Warwick adds, “My career really blossomed in Europe. It was exciting. I was treated like a little princess. It was a lot of fun.” She also talks about how actress/singer Marlene Dietrich became a mentor when Warwick spent time in Paris. Warwick says that Dietrich introduced her to haute couture fashion and encouraged Warwick to wear these types of designer clothes on stage.

With success comes inevitable criticism. Warwick often had to contend with people who would accuse her of “trying to be white” or “not being black enough” because her songs didn’t fit the expected R&B mold. (It’s the same criticism that her cousin Whitney Houston experienced when she became an instant crossover hit artist in the 1980s.) Not for nothing, Warwick became the first black artist to win a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal performance, for 1968’s “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.” It was also the first of her six Grammy Awards.

Any major entertainer whose career lasts for more than 10 years has ebbs and flows. Warwick says that in the 1970s, when her career was in a slump, Arista Records founder Clive Davis (one of the people interviewed in the documentary) convinced her not to quit the music business and signed her to a record deal. In 1979, she had a huge comeback hit with “I’ll Never Love This Way Again,” which earned her another Grammy Award.

“Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” also includes a big segment on Warwick’s activism for AIDS causes. Several people in the documentary credit her with being one of the first celebrities to become an AIDS activist. Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and Elton John—her song partners in the 1985 mega-smash hit “That’s What Friends Are For” (another Grammy winner and a fundraising song for the AIDS charity amfAR)—share their thoughts on the experience and the impact that the song had for AIDS causes.

John says of Warwick: “She’s a hero of mine. She was one of the first people in the music business to speak up about [AIDS].” The documentary also shows Warwick meeting with amfAR CEO Kevin Robert Frost and designer/philanthropist Kenneth Cole at amfAR headquarters in New York City. Frost says that Warwick’s AIDS fundraising (including donating all of her royalties from “That’s What Friends Are For”) made a crucial difference in improving healthcare, research and other assistance for people with AIDS.

In the 1990s, Warwick spoke out against rappers having misogynistic lyrics in their music, even though she got some backlash for it. Snoop Dogg talks about how a meeting that he and other rappers had with Warwick in her home made such an impact on him, he decided to no longer have degrading lyrics about women in his songs. Snoop Dogg says the turning point was when Warwick got him to really think about how he would feel if someone used those misogynistic words on her or any of his female family members.

“Not much scares us,” Snoop Dogg comments on that pivotal meeting, “but this had us shook! We were the most gangsta you could be. But that day at Dionne Warwick’s, we got out-gangsta’d.” Warwick says of that experience of having a group of gangsta rappers in her home: “My sons thought I was out of my mind.”

Warwick also talks about her personal life, including briefly dating Sammy Davis Jr. in the 1960s (whom she also calls her “mentor” when she first performed in Las Vegas), and having a volatile marriage to actor/jazz musician William Elliott. The first time they married in 1966, they got divorced less than a year later. They remarried in 1967 and then got divorced again in 1975.

The former couple’s sons David Elliott and Damon Elliot are interviewed in the documentary. David mentions that his mother would sometimes divert her tour, just so she could go to one of his Little League games. “Those were special times,” he comments. Damon adds, “She’s the everything of the family.”

Friends and relatives say Warwick was devastated by the deaths of Whitney Houston (in 2012) and Whitney and Bobby Brown’s daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown (in 2015), who both died of drowning-related causes in a bathtub. The documentary includes a clip of Warwick’s speech at Whitney’s funeral. In a documentary interview, Warwick says she misses Whitney and Bobbi Kristina tremendously and thinks about them every day. Warwick is philosophical when she says that whatever time people have on Earth is best used in service of others.

Warwick also opens up about filing for bankruptcy in 2013, which her son Damon says happened because of “having an accountant who screws you over.” Warwick comments, “If General Motors can file for bankruptcy, why not Dionne Warwick?” There’s also acknowledgement that Warwick’s 1990s stint as a spokesperson for the Psychic Friends Network was a low point in her career.” Her son David says of her association with the Psychic Friends Network, “Unfortunately, it overshadowed her as a singer.”

As expected in a celebrity documentary such as “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over,” other notable people in the film have nothing but praise for the celebrity. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton mentions that when he was courting his wife Hillary during a trip to Northern California, he wanted to visit San Jose, because of Warwick’s song “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.” He also says that when he was president of the U.S. in the 1990s, Warwick always pushed him to approve more federal funds for AIDS causes, and he appreciated how she always told him that whatever was given was “never enough.”

Barry Gibb talks about how he and Arista Records founder Davis had to work hard to convince Warwick to record the Gibb-written song “Heartbreaker,” which became a big hit for her in 1982. Gibb says, “If you want to make a great record, make a Dionne Warwick record.” Former U.S. congressman Charles Rangel gives the type of gushing comment that many of the other interviewee say in the documentary: “She is truly one of the greatest ambassadors of good will.”

Other interviewees in the documentary, whose screen time is really just reduced to sound bites, include Jesse Jackson, Gloria Estefan, Berry Gordy, Quincy Jones, Alicia Keys, Carlos Santana, Melissa Manchester, Chuck Jackson, Olivia Newton-John, Smokey Robinson, Valerie Simpson, Apollo Theater historian Billy Mitchell, radio DJ Jerry Blavat and National Museum of African American History director Lonnie Bunch. Because of this over-abundance of praise, the movie often veers into looking more like a tribute. However, because the documentary doesn’t gloss over some of Warwick’s low points in her life, and she talks about these low points, it’s saved from being a superficial, fluffy film.

Even when Warwick makes a self-congratulatory statement in the documentary, such as, “I am a messenger. I am carrying messages of love and hope,” it’s not too grandiose in the context of this film. “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” has plenty of evidence of Warwick’s lifelong actions for worthy humanitarian causes. Most of all, the documentary is testament to Warwick being an example of someone who can have staying power in showbiz without having to invent any personas and without compromising who she really is.

CNN will premiere “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over” on January 1, 2023.

Review: ‘Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days,’ starring Sonia Monzano, Whoopi Goldberg, Angelina Jolie, Rosie Perez, Steve Youngwood, Kay Wilson Stallings and Sherrie Westin

May 20, 2021

by Carla Hay

Ryan Dillon (Elmo puppeteer), Bradley Freeman Jr. (Wes Walker puppeteer) and Chris Thomas Hayes (Elijah Walker puppeteer) in “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” (Photo courtesy of ABC)

“Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days”

Directed by Rebecca Gitlitz

Culture Representation: The documentary “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” features a racially diverse group of people (African American, white, Latino and Asian) discussing their connection to the groundbreaking children’s TV series “Sesame Street.”

Culture Clash: “Sesame Street,” which launched in 1969 on PBS, was the first nationally televised children’s program in the U.S. to be racially integrated, and “Sesame Street” has endured controversy over racial diversity, AIDS and representation of the LGBTQ community.

Culture Audience: “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in a comprehensive overview of “Sesame Street,” with an emphasis on how “Sesame Street” is responding to current global issues.

Stacey Gordon (Julia puppeteer) in “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” (Photo courtesy of ABC)

ABC’s documentary “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” offers some nostalgia for “Sesame Street” fans, but the movie is more concerned about how this groundbreaking children’s culture has made an impact around the world and with contemporary social issues. Directed by Rebecca Gitlitz, it’s an occasionally repetitive film that admirably embraces diversity in a variety of viewpoints. The major downside to the film is that it won’t be considered a timeless “Sesame Street” documentary, because the movie very much looks like it was made in 2020/2021. Therefore, huge parts of the movie will look outdated in a few years.

“Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” premiered on ABC just three days after director Marilyn Agrelo’s documentary “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street” was released in select U.S. cinemas. “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street,” which focused mainly on “Sesame Street’s” history from 1969 to the early 1990s, interviewed people who were “Sesame Street” employees from this time period, as well as some of the family members of principal “Sesame Street” employees who are now deceased. “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” takes a broader approach and includes the perspectives of not just past and present employees of “Sesame Street” but also several “Sesame Street” fans who are famous and not famous.

In addition, “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” (which was produced by Time Studios) makes a noteworthy effort to convey the global impact of “Sesame Street,” by including footage and interviews with people involved with the adapted versions of “Sesame Street” in the Middle East and in South Africa. “Sesame Street,” which is filmed in New York City, launched in 1969 on PBS. In the U.S., first-run episodes of “Sesame Street” began airing on HBO in 2016, and then on HBO Max in 2020. “Sesame Street” is now available in more than 150 countries.

“Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” quickly breezes through how “Sesame Street” was conceived and launched. There are brief mentions of “Sesame Street” co-creators Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, but this documentary does not interview them. “Street Gang” has interviews with Ganz Cooney and Morrisett, who go into details about how they were inspired to create “Sesame Street” to reach pre-school kids, particularly African American children in urban cities, who had television as an electronic babysitter.

“Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days,” just like “Street Gang” did, discusses that the concept behind “Sesame Street” was to have a children’s TV show with a racially integrated cast and puppets, which were called muppets. A lot of research went into creating the show before it was even launched. The intent of “Sesame Street” was for the show to be educational and entertaining.

But the creators also wanted “Sesame Street” to include real-life topics that weren’t normally discussed on children’s television at the time. For example, when actor Will Lee, who played “Sesame Street” character Mr. Hooper, died in 1982, “Sesame Street” had an episode that discussed Mr. Hooper dying. “Sesame Street” did not lie to the audience by making up a story that Mr. Hooper had moved away or was still alive somewhere.

Time For Kids editorial director Andrea Delbanco says, “Many people avoid the topics that they know are going to be lightning rods. ‘Sesame Street’ goes straight for it. And they handle each and every one of them with the amount of thoughtfulness and research and care that they require.”

David Kamp, author of “Sunny Days: The Children’s Television Revolution That Changed America,” mentions that one of the reasons for the longevity of “Sesame Street” is the show’s ability to adapt to changing times: “They’ll pivot. They’ll adjust. They’ll say, ‘We got it wrong. Now, we’re going to get it right.’ That’s one of [the show’s] great virtues.”

One of the noticeable differences seen in comparing these two “Sesame Street” documentaries is how racial diversity has improved for “Sesame Street” behind the scenes. “Street Gang,” which focused on the first few decades of “Sesame Street” shows that although the on-camera cast was racially diverse, behind the scenes it was another story: Only white people were the leaders and decision makers for “Sesame Street” in the show’s early years. Several current “Sesame Street” decision makers are interviewed in “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days,” and it’s definitely a more racially diverse group of people, compared to who was running the show in the first two decades of “Sesame Street.”

Sonia Monzano, an original “Sesame Street” cast member (her character is Maria), says that although the show has always had a racially diverse cast, the muppets are the “Sesame Street” characters that people remember the most. “I remember my first scene with [muppet character] Grover,” Monzano comments with a chuckle. “It took me a while to be comfortable, not try to upstage them. And that’s the same with kids. You give them the platform. Get out of their way.”

As memorable as the “Sesame Street” muppets are, the human characters on the show had a particular impact on children, who saw “Sesame Street” people who reminded them of their family members or neighbors. Several celebrities who are interviewed in the documentary grew up watching “Sesame Street”—including Lucy Liu, Rosie Perez, Olivia Munn and Questlove—and they talk about the importance of seeing their lives and experiences represented on the show.

Perez comments on the show’s racial diversity: “We needed to see that, because when you’re a little girl in Brooklyn watching ‘Sesame Street,’ it’s nice to know that when you opened your door and walked down your stoop, you had the same type of people on your television.” Perez says about “Sesame Street’s” Maria character: “She was my Mary Tyler Moore,” and that until Maria came along, “Desi Arnaz Jr. was our only [Hispanic TV] role model for years.”

Racism, social justice and AIDS are some of the topics that “Sesame Street” has openly discussed over the years, sometimes to considerable controversy. But one topic was apparently too much to handle in “Sesame Street’s” first year: divorce. In “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days,” it’s mentioned that the original pilot episode of “Sesame Street” had a segment about muppet character Mr. Snuffleupagus dealing with his parents’ divorce. The “Sesame Street” executives did a test screening of this episode with children.

“The kids freaked out” because the idea of divorce was too upsetting for them, says Time staff writer Cady Lang. And the episode was “tossed out.” The documentary has some of this unaired Mr. Snuffleupagus “divorce” footage. In the documentary, Martin P. Robinson, the puppeteer and original voice for Mr. Snuffleupagus, expresses disappointment that this decision was made to eliminate talk of divorce on the first “Sesame Street” episode, because he says it was a missed opportunity for “Sesame Street” to start off with an episode that would have been very cutting-edge at the time.

However, there would be plenty of other episodes that would rile up some people. It’s not mentioned in the “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” documentary, but it’s mentioned in the “Street Gang” documentary that TV stations in Mississippi briefly wouldn’t televise “Sesame Street” in 1970, because they said people in their communities thought the show’s content was inappropriate. They denied it had to do with the show having a racially integrated cast. But considering that Mississippi was one of the last U.S. states to keep laws enforcing racial segregation, it would be naïve to think that racism wasn’t behind the “Sesame Street” ban.

The topics of racism and race relations take up a lot of screen time in this “Sesame Street” documentary, but mostly as pertaining to a contemporary audience, not the “Sesame Street” audience of past decades. Black Lives Matter protests and the racist murders of George Floyd and other African Americans have been discussed on “Sesame Street.” And there has been a concerted effort to have all races represented on “Sesame Street,” for the human cast members as well as the muppets.

Roosevelt Franklin (the first African American muppet on “Sesame Street”) was on “Sesame Street” from 1970 to 1975, and was voiced and created by Matt Robinson. The “Sesame Street” documentary briefly mentions Roosevelt Franklin, but doesn’t go into the details that “Street Gang” did over why the character was removed from the show: A lot of African American parents and educators complained that Roosevelt Franklin played too much into negative “ghetto” stereotypes. In the “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” documentary, musician Questlove and TV host W. Kamau Bell mention that they have fond memories of watching Roosevelt Franklin on “Sesame Street” when they were kids.

Although most muppets aren’t really any race, some of have been created to be of a specific race or ethnicity. Some muppets look like humans, while others look like animals. For the human-looking muppets, there have been Asian, Hispanic and Native American muppets in addition to the muppets that are presented as white or black people. And the documentary also gives significant screen time to Mexican muppet Rosita, a character introduced in 1991, which is considered a role model to many, particularly to Spanish-speaking people. Carmen Osbahr, the puppeteer and voice of Rosita, is interviewed in the documentary.

The documentary features a Mexican immigrant family called the Garcias, including interviews with mother Claudia and her autistic daughter Makayla, who are the only U.S. citizens of the family members who live in the United States. The Garcias say they love watching “Sesame Street” for Rosita, because she represents so many American residents who are bilingual in Spanish and English. Claudia Garcia, who moved from Mexico to the United States when she was 12, comments in the documentary: “When I was 12, it was not cool to speak Spanish. Now, it [the ability to speak Spanish] is a super-cool thing that you have.”

Four other diverse muppet characters are the Walker Family, an African American clan that is intended to be a major presence in contemporary “Sesame Street” episodes. Elijah Walker (a meteorologist) and his underage son Wesley, also known as Wes, have already been introduced. The characters of Elijah’s wife Naomi (a social worker originally from the Caribbean) and Elijah’s mother Savannah were being developed at the time this documentary was filmed. The documentary includes concept art for Naomi and Savannah.

According to Social Impact U.S. vice president Rocío García, “The Walker Family is a new family we’re creating for the racial justice initiative [Coming Together].” Wes and Elijah are characters that are supposed to contradict the media’s constant, negative narrative that black males are problematic. “Sesame Street” producer Ashmou Young describes the Wes Walker character as “a happy, energetic, innocent child who loves reading and architecture.” Elijah is a positive, intelligent role model. And no, he does not have an arrest record.

Bradley Freeman Jr., the puppeteer for Wes Walker, says in the documentary how proud he is to be part of this character, which he knows can be a role model for all children. “I was bullied at school for being black. That’s something that can hurt you, and you don’t know how to talk about it.” In “Sesame Street,” Elijah and Wes candidly discuss race issues and what it means to be an African American.

Omar Norman and Alisa Norman, an African American married couple, are in the documentary with their two daughters and discuss how the Walker Family on “Sesame Street” means a lot to them. Elder daughter Macayla says it’s impactful when Elijah talks to Wes about racism and how being a black male means being more at risk of experiencing police brutality. Omar gets emotional and tries not to cry when he thinks about how it’s sadly necessary for these topics to be discussed on a children’s show.

All the muppet characters were designed to not only teach kids (and adults) about life but also show what the world is all about and how to cope with problems in a positive way. Chris Jackson (who’s known for his role in the original Broadway production of “Hamilton”) talks about writing the song “I Love My Hair,” which debuted on “Sesame Street” in 2010. The song was written for any girl muppet to sing, but it has special significance to black girls because of how black females are judged the harshest by what their hair looks like. Jackson says that after he wrote the song, he thought, “I think I just wrote a black girl’s superhero anthem,” which he knows means a lot to his daughter.

And if some people have a problem with “Sesame Street” supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, well, no one is forcing them to watch the show. Kay Wilson Stallings, executive vice president of creative and production for Sesame Workshop, comments: “Following the murder of George Floyd, the company decided to make it a company-wide goal of addressing racial injustice [on ‘Sesame Street’].” U.S. first lady Dr. Jill Biden adds, “‘Sesame Street’ is rising up to the movement and addressing what’s going on and what kids are seeing and feeling around them.”

Wilson Stallings says, “We showed diversity, we showed inclusion, we modeled it through our characters. But you can’t just show characters of different ethnicities and races getting along. That was fine before. Now what we need to do is be bold and explicit.”

Sesame Workshop CEO Steve Youngwood comments on increasing “Sesame Street’s” socially conscious content: “We realized that nothing was hitting the moment the way it needed to be. And we pivoted to address it. The curriculum we developed is going to be groundbreaking, moving forward.”

LGBTQ representation on “Sesame Street” is still a touchy subject for people who have different opinions on what’s the appropriate age for kids to have discussions about various sexual identities. In 2018, former “Sesame Street” writer Mark Saltzman, who is openly gay, gave an interview saying that he always wrote muppet characters Ernie and Bert (bickering best friends who live together) as a gay couple. The revelation got mixed reactions. Frank Oz—the creator, original voice and puppeteer for Bert—made a statement on Twitter that Ernie and Bert were never gay.

Sesame Workshop responded with a statement that read: “As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach pre-schoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identifiable as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most ‘Sesame Street’ muppets do), they remain puppets, and have no sexual orientation.”

In retrospect, Sesame Workshop president Sherrie Westin says: “That denial, if you will, I think was a mistake.” She also adds that people can think of Ernie and Bert having whatever sexuality (or no sexuality) that they think Ernie and Bert have. As for LGBTQ representation on “Sesame Street,” Jelani Memory (author of “A Kid’s Book About Racism”) is blunt when he says: “It’s not enough.”

And it’s not just social issues that are addressed on “Sesame Street.” The show has also discussed health issues, such as the AIDS crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Although “Sesame Street” got pushback from some politically conservative people for talking about AIDS on the show, this criticism didn’t deter “Sesame Street,” which was supported by the majority of its audience for this decision. Dr. Anthony Fauci is in the documentary praising “Sesame Street” for helping educate people on health crises.

The documentary includes a segment on the first HIV-positive muppet Kami, a character in “Takalani Sesame,” the South African version of “Sesame Street.” Kami, who is supposed to be a 5-year-old girl, was created in 2002, in reaction to the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Her positive outlook on life and how she is accepted by her peers can be viewed as having an impact that’s hard to measure.

Marie-Louise Samuels, former director early childhood development at South Africa’s Department of Basic Education, has this to say about Kami: “It wasn’t about her getting some sympathy. It was really about how productive she is in society with the virus.” Even though Kami was well-received in South Africa, “the U.S. was not as receptive,” says Louis Henry Mitchell, creative director of character design at Sesame Workshop.

Also included is a segment on Julia, the first autistic muppet on “Sesame Street.” It’s a character that is near and dear to the heart of Julia puppeteer Stacey Gordon, who tears up and gets emotional when she describes her own real-life experiences as the mother of an autistic child. Julia is one of several muppet characters that represent people with special needs. As an autistic child of a Mexican immigrant family, Makayla Garcia says in her interview that Rosita and Julia are her favorite muppets because they represent who she is.

The documentary shows how “Sesame Street” is in Arabic culture with the TV series “Ahlan Simsim,” which translates to “Welcome Sesame” in English. The Rajubs, a real-life Syrian refugee family of eight living in Jordan, are featured in the documentary as examples of a family who find comfort in “Ahlan Simsim” even though they’re experiencing the turmoil of being refugees. David Milliband, CEO of International Rescue Committee, talks about how “Sesame Street” being a consistent presence in children’s lives can help them through the trauma.

Other people interviewed in the documentary include Shari Rosenfeld, senior VP of international at Social Impact; Elijah Walker puppeteer Chris Thomas Hayes; Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, senior vice president of education and research at Sesame Workshop; Dr. Sanjay Gupta; Peter Linz, voice of muppet character Elmo; “Sesame Street” actor Alan Muraoka; Nyanga Tshabalala, puppeteer for the mupppet character Zikwe on “Takalani Sesame”; and former “Ahlan Simsim” head writer Zaid Baqueen. Celebrity fans of “Sesame Street” who comment in the documentary include Usher, Gloria Estefan, John Legend, Chrissy Teigen and John Oliver, who says about the show: “It was my first introduction to comedy, because it was so relentlessly funny.”

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCR) special envoy Angelina Jolie comments that The Count (the muppet vampire who teaches counting skills) is her favorite “Sesame Street” character: “He had a wonderfully bold personality: The friendly vampire helping you learn how to count. It worked for me.” Whoopi Goldberg adds, “All the things that ‘Twilight’ did for vampires, The Count did more. [The Count] made vampires cool because they could count.”

Jolie also comments on “Sesame Street’s” social awareness: “What they’re bringing is more relevant to today than ever.” The documentary includes 2021 footage of “Sesame Street” executives cheering when finding out that Sesame Workshop and International Rescue Committee won the MacArthur Foundation’s inaugural 100 and Change Award, a grant that gives the recipients $100 million over a maximum of six years.

There’s also a notable segment on the music of “Sesame Street.” Stevie Wonder (who has performed “123 Sesame Street” and “Superstition” on “Sesame Street”) performs in the documentary with a new version of the “Sesame Street” classic theme “Sunny Days.” The documentary has the expected montage of many of the celebrity guests who’ve been on “Sesame Street” too.

“United Shades of America” host Bell says that being asked to be on “Sesame Street” is a “rite of passage” for “famous people at a certain point. Got to get that ‘Sesame Street’ gig! That’s when you know you really made it: When ‘Sesame Street’ calls you.”

Although there’s a lot of talk about certain “Sesame Street” muppets, the documentary doesn’t give enough recognition to the early “Sesame Street” muppet pioneers who created iconic characters. The documentary briefly mentions Jim Henson (the creator and original voice of Kermit the Frog and Ernie), but Frank Oz (the creator and original voice of Grover, Cookie Monster and Bert) isn’t even mentioned at all.

Big Bird is seen but not much is said about Caroll Spinney, who was the man in the Big Bird costume from 1969 to 2018, and who was the creator and original voice of the Oscar the Grouch muppet. Spinney died in 2019, at the age of 85. Henson died in 1990, at age 53. Oz did not participate in the documentary.

The movie doesn’t mention the 2012 scandal of Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash resigning from “Sesame Street” after three men accused him of sexually abusing them when the men were underage teenagers. The three lawsuits against Clash with these accusations were dismissed in 2014. Clash had been the puppeteer and voice of Elmo since 1984.

“Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” tries to bite off a little more than it should chew when it starts veering into discussions about United Nations initiatives and how they relate to “Sesame Street.” There’s no denying the global impact of “Sesame Street,” but “Sesame Street” is a children’s show, not a political science show about international relations. And some viewers might be turned off by all the talk about social justice content on “Sesame Street.”

The documentary could have used more insight into the actual process of creating these memorable muppets. Except for some brief footage in a puppet-creating workspace, that artistic aspect of “Sesame Street” is left out of the documentary. Despite some flaws and omissions, the documentary is worth watching for people who want a snapshot of what’s important to “Sesame Street” in the early 2020s. Whereas “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street” is very much about the show’s past, “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” tries to give viewers a glimpse into the show’s future.

ABC premiered “Sesame Street: 50 Years of Sunny Days” on April 26, 2021. Hulu premiered the documentary on April 27, 2021.

Review: ‘Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It,’ starring Rita Moreno

February 4, 2021

by Carla Hay

Rita Moreno in “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions and American Masters Films)

“Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It”

Directed by Mariem Pérez Riera

Culture Representation: The documentary “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It” features a group of predominantly Hispanic people (and a few white people and black people), discussing Rita Moreno, the only Latina entertainer who has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award, also known as being an EGOT winner.

Culture Clash: Moreno talks about racism and sexism that caused problems for her.

Culture Audience: “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in biographical stories about celebrities with long careers who broke barriers, as well as frank discussions about what it’s like to be of Hispanic ethnicity in the predominantly white American entertainment industry.

A photo of Rita Moreno on the set of 1961’s “West Side Story” in “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It” (Photo courtesy of MGM Studios)

“Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It” doesn’t reveal anything new and significant that Rita Moreno didn’t already reveal in her 2013 self-titled memoir. However, this laudatory documentary, which includes Moreno’s participation, is still inspirational and will be very informative to people who know very little about Moreno’s story before seeing this movie. Breezily directed by Mariem Pérez Riera, “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It” follows a pleasant but not groundbreaking celebrity documentary formula of flattering commentaries from other celebrities and pundits; archival footage and exclusive documentary footage; and candid but selective confessions from the celebrity. “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It” had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

The movie opens with a scene of Moreno preparing for her 87th birthday party in 2018. But she’s not being fussed over by an entourage of people. She’s in her house’s kitchen laying out the silverware and the decorations, with some help from assistants. Moreno is all too aware that people watching this scene will be surprised that she’s doing the kind of work a personal assistant or event planner would do.

Moreno quips, “You can tell I’m not a real star because somebody else would be doing this. Show business: That’s why you must never really believe anything about your fame and all that kind of bullshit. Yeah, it goes up and down. Right now, it’s up.”

The documentary includes footage of the party (which has a Cuban costume theme, because Moreno says she likes hosting themed costume parties), where an energetic and lively Moreno dances happily with guests. She’s charismatic, humorous and has a very obvious zest for life. It’s that mixture of self-deprecation and self-confidence that Moreno has on display throughout the entire documentary.

And these personality traits have helped Moreno (who was born Rosa Dolores Alverío Marcano in 1931 in Humacao, Puerto Rico) sustain a career for longer than a lot of people end up living. But, of course, she didn’t get to where she is so easily. And the documentary rightfully gives Moreno a lot of screen time to tell her story: the good, the bad and the ugly.

She recounts that from an early age, she knew she wanted to be an entertainer: “Being a natural performer, I think I was born that way, I was wired that way. I wanted to be a movie star since the time I saw my first picture.”

Moreno’s mother Rosa María, who was a seamstress, left behind Moreno’s father Francisco and Moreno’s brother Francisco Jr. in Puerto Rico to move with Moreno to New York City in 1936. Moreno vividly remembers seeing the Statue of Liberty and thinking that the statue represented the president of the United States. It might have been a future indicator that Moreno would go on to support feminism and other progressive issues when she became a social activist in the 1960s.

The documentary could have used some insight from Moreno about how leaving behind her father and brother impacted her life and if she ever kept in touch with them. It’s unclear if the filmmakers didn’t ask her those questions, or if they did ask but Moreno didn’t want to talk about it on camera. At any rate, she doesn’t mention her family left behind in Puerto Rico for the rest of the documentary.

Nor does there seem to be any attempt by the filmmakers who find anyone who knew Moreno from her childhood or her teenage years, to verify some of her stories of what life was like for her before she became famous. It’s an omission that’s an example of how this documentary is certainly good about rehashing information that Moreno has already talked about in several interviews and in her memoir, but the documentary doesn’t really dig beneath the celebrity veneer in a way that is entirely revealing, even if it might make the celebrity uncomfortable.

Moreno says that her mother fully supported her showbiz aspirations from a very young age, because Rosa María would often dress her daughter up like a doll and encourage her to perform wherever she could. By the age of 15, Moreno dropped out of high school because she was busy working as an entertainer. By the age of 16, she was supporting her family with her income.

But that doesn’t mean that her entry into showbiz went smoothly. Moreno remembers that as a child living in New York City, which was very racially segregated at the time, she had insecurities because she was treated as inferior because of her race. And as she became a young woman, she says she was often the target of stereotypes of being a “spicy” or “sexpot” Latina whose only worth was in her physical appearance.

A fateful meeting with Louis B. Mayer (the co-founder of MGM Studios) led to Moreno’s first big break in the movies. She went with her mother for an appointment to see Mayer at New York City’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where Mayer was staying in the penthouse. Moreno’s first major role model as a movie star was Elizabeth Taylor. And so, for this important meeting with Mayer, Moreno says in the documentary that she deliberately made herself look like Elizabeth Taylor as much as possible. The tactic worked, and Mayer decided on the spot to give Moreno a contract at MGM, because he said that she looked like a “Spanish Elizabeth Taylor.”

Moreno says in the documentary that this big break is an example of how one person can change the course of someone’s career in a matter of minutes, in ways that years of hard work cannot do. Moreno had a contract with MGM, but it came with strict limitations, because it was back in the days when movie studios controlled and dictated whom their rising young stars could date and how they would appear in public. And because of her racial identity, Moreno was always typecast as the “ethnic girl” where she usually played supporting characters who were written as subservient and/or intellectually inferior to white people.

It’s fairly well-known that Moreno’s most famous movie role was in the 1961 movie musical “West Side Story.” Nothing new about her “West Side Story” experience is revealed in this documentary that she hasn’t already talked about elsewhere. She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Anita in “West Side Story,” making her the first entertainer of Hispanic ethnicity to win an Oscar. She still jokes about how her speech was short because she was so shocked that she won, and she’s been making up for that short speech ever since.

Moreno is also in director Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” remake, which is due out in December 2021. Details about her role in the movie have not yet been revealed as of this writing, but she plays a character named Valentina. The documentary has brief footage of her walking onto the set of the “West Side Story” remake, with Spielberg making a quick cameo.

Moreno’s traumatic experiences with sexual assault and sexual harassment aren’t glossed over in the documentary. Just like she’s done in other interviews and in her memoir, she talks about being raped in her 20s by her agent at the time. (Moreno does not name him.) She says she continued to work with him because he was the only agent she knew at the time who would represent a Latina performer. Moreno says that rape experience also fueled a lot of realistic anger when her “West Side Story” character Anita successfully fought off a gang of male attackers.

Moreno also shares the experience of being sexually demeaned at an industry party in Beverly Hills when she was in her early 30s. The perpetrators were not only a powerful party guest but also the party host, according to Moreno. She describes being told by party guest Harry Cohen, who was head of Columbia Pictures at the time: “You know, I’d like to fuck you.” She says that, at the time, she laughed off this sexual aggression to his face, because she was afraid of the backlash she would get if she got visibly angry.

And later, when the party host (whom she does not name but she describes as a well-known distillery mogul) asked her to dance, he sexually grinded on her without her consent. During this assault, he said to her, “You’re a sexy little bitch, aren’t you?” Moreno says she was so mortified and scared that she asked the Mexican gardeners at the party to take her home, and they willingly obliged because they could sense that she had been violated in some way.

Moreno mentions that these gardeners were the “classiest people at the party.” And it’s clear that she tells this story to serve as an example of why people shouldn’t be dazzled by money and fame as a reason to think that someone is “better” than someone else. Money and fame don’t buy class. And being rich or famous doesn’t mean someone is incapable of heinous acts.

Moreno’s story is also an example of how winning an Oscar isn’t an automatic guarantee of getting bigger and better opportunities. After winning an Oscar, she says was only offered roles where she played the type of character that was a lot like Anita in “West Side Story.” Because she didn’t want to be typecast, Morena says in the documentary she turned down roles and that she didn’t do movies for another seven years after she won the Oscar for “West Side Story.” She says that instead, she worked in TV and theater.

This is where this documentary’s filmmakers show some carelessness. A quick look at Moreno’s filmography shows that she in fact did appear in several movies during the seven years (1962-1969) that she says that she didn’t. But she was correct in saying that she also worked in television during that time period. Her inaccuracy doesn’t mean that she deliberately lied, but it’s very possible her memory of that time period isn’t as accurate as it should be. It’s why celebrity documentaries aren’t always reliable if the celebrity controls too much of the narrative and the filmmakers don’t really care to fact check.

Moreno also talks about her torturous romance with Marlon Brando, whom she says she dated off and on for seven or eight years from the mid-1950s the early 1960s. It’s clear that she’s still conflicted about him all these years later. She bitterly describes him as an “anathema in my life,” but she also says that he loved her. And she has some therapy-speak when she declares, “He was the daddy I couldn’t please. I think about [him] now. What was there to love?”

She describes Brando as brilliant but also very selfish and controlling. Just as she did in her memoir, Moreno talks about how she got pregnant with Brando’s baby and secretly hoped that he would marry her. Instead, she found out he didn’t want to be her husband or the father of her child, and she had an abortion, which was illegal at the time. She had medical complications after the abortion that were traumatic for her.

Moreno also talks about how she was so distraught over the relationship with Brando that she attempted suicide. This is information that Moreno revealed several years ago. After they ended their relationship, Moreno and Brando co-starred in the 1969 movie “The Night of the Following Day,” where they have an argument scene and she slaps him in the face. She says that it didn’t take much acting on her part because she channeled her real-life rage at Brando into the scene.

If there’s any good that came out of her relationship with Brando, she says it was that he helped awaken her social consciousness during the 1960s. She became involved in the civil rights movement and feminist causes before it was “trendy” to do so. She says of her progressive political activism: “For the first time, I felt useful.” The movie includes video footage of her giving speeches and attending political marches and rallies, such as the 1963 March on Washington, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In one scene in the movie, Moreno is shown in her “One Day at a Time” dressing room, watching on TV the 2018 U.S. Senate’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, who was nominated by Donald Trump for the Supreme Court. Moreno watches Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a former schoolmate of Kavanaugh’s from high school, testify that he sexually assaulted Ford in 1982, when they were teenagers. Moreno comments that she believes Ford, and that some of the testimony about sexual assault is triggering for her.

Moreno also describes her relationship with her husband Leonard Gordon, a cardiologist who later became her manager. They were married from 1965 until his death in 2010, at the age of 90. She recalls how she was charmed during their early courtship because he wasn’t aware that she was famous when they first started talking to each other. Moreno also said one of the best things about their relationship was that he had a knack for making her laugh.

But she’s also candid about admitting that toward the end of their marriage, she basically fell out of love with him, but they never got divorced because he loved her more than she loved him. Moreno also says that she and her husband had terrible fights and had a very dysfunctional marriage. However, Moreno confesses that they were skilled at hiding their marriage problems from the world, including their daughter (and only child), Fernanda Gordon Fisher, who is interviewed in the documentary. Gordon Fisher says that her parents had a good marriage with normal disagreements that weren’t too serious.

That’s not the way her mother describes it. Moreno says that Gordon was a “control freak” who didn’t like the “raucous and loud” side of her. She says, “When Lenny died, I gave that little Rosita [referring to herself] permission to leave.” She also admits she felt relieved when he died because “I didn’t have to answer to anyone anymore.”

Moreno has mixed feelings about her late husband, but there’s no doubt that she and her daughter adore each other. It’s mentioned that when Moreno’s daughter was in her 20s, she toured with Moreno and was Moreno’s backup singer/dancer. The documentary shows how Moreno and her daughter are still very close. Moreno also talks lovingly of her two grandsons (Cameron and Justin Fisher), who are briefly shown in the documentary.

The movie chronicles several of Moreno’s career highlights, including winning a Grammy for the 1972 cast recording album of children’s TV series “The Electric Company”; a Tony Award in 1975 for her featured performance in “The Ritz”; and two Emmys in 1977 and 1978, for guest-starring on “The Muppet Show” and “The Rockford Files.” She was also a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004 and was celebrated at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015.

As for the title of this movie, it’s inspired by slogan on a T-shirt that Moreno wore when she received a career achievement award at a Television Critics Association event in 2018. Footage of her getting ready for the event and her acceptance speech is included in the documentary. “Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It” is a saying that sums up her persona perfectly: gutsy, vibrant and never forgetting her humble beginnings.

Most of the people who provide commentary for the documentary are other famous entertainers. Their remarks about Moreno are all positive, while some of the Latina actresses (such as Eva Longoria and Karen Olivo) expound on the specific barriers that Hispanic female entertainers often face in showbiz. Other people interviewed in the documentary include some actors who’ve co-starred with Moreno over the years, including George Chakiris (“West Side Story”), Morgan Freeman (“The Electric Company”), Héctor Elizondo (“Cane”) and Justina Machado (“One Day at a Time”).

Also weighing in with their thoughts are Lin-Manuel Miranda, Whoopi Goldberg (another EGOT winner), Mitzi Gaynor, Gloria Estefan, “One Day at a Time” executive producer Norman Lear, “Life Without Makeup” director Tony Taccone, “Oz” creator Tom Fontana and Moreno’s longtime manager John Ferguson, who breaks down in tears when he remembers how Moreno found her will to live after her suicide attempt. (Miranda and Lear are two of the executive producers of this documentary.) And some academics provide their perspectives on Moreno and her impact on pop culture, such as Columbia University artist/scholar Frances Negrón-Muntaner, The New School cultural historian Julia Foulkes and Columbia University film historian/author Annette Insdorf.

The documentary uses some whimsical animation at times to illustrate some parts of Moreno’s storytelling. But this added creative flair and all the celebrities who gush about her in the movie are all just icing on the cake. Moreno has more than enough charisma and has lived such a full life that her story could be a miniseries, not just a documentary film.

UPDATE: Roadside Attractions will release “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It” in select U.S. cinemas on June 18, 2021. PBS’s “American Masters” series will premiere the movie on October 5, 2021.

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