“This took 30 years to write,” Beverly Glenn-Copeland says, laughing, remembering how his song “Prince Caspian’s Dream” came to him in small increments every 10 years starting in the 1990s.
A room of fans and artists wearing their red-carpet best in a downtown L.A. loft hung on Glenn (his preferred name) and his creative and life partner Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland’s every word and note Saturday afternoon. Zooming in from their home in Hamilton, Canada, they shared stories, songs and sacred objects: cherished photos, a Christmas mouse, even a sacred pickle. “This is my alter ego,” Glenn said, holding up a picture of a turtle, “it takes me a very long time to get to any place in my life.”
In 2015, Glenn’s self-released 1986 album “Keyboard Fantasies” received critical acclaim, global recognition and a new life when Ryota Masuko started importing tapes directly from him to collectors in Japan, which was the subject of a 2019 documentary. In the years since, Glenn’s status has gone from local artist to internationally respected genius; this year he’s collaborated with Sam Smith and Devendra Banhart, received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his queer activism, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Toronto. While Glenn is happy that his work has a wider reach today than it did in 1986, he was never waiting around for anyone to find him. A Black trans elder who has refused to sacrifice himself or his art for the sake of playing by the rules, he has cultivated a diverse fan base that finds inspiration and hope in his music and life story. Glenn has always been an active and inspired visionary who sees his music and art connected to a personal and spiritual path. And nothing, not even dementia, can ever change that.
The Glenn-Copelands, accompanied by pianist Alex Samaras, performed Saturday for Level Ground Co.’s Re-Union: 10 Year Anniversary Soirée. Level Ground Co. is an artist collective and production company focused on telling empathetic and experimental stories, supporting diverse creatives, particularly those who are queer, transgender and people of color. The organization hopes to create an “eco-system and community” of artists, co-director Yétúndé Olágbajú said. Level Ground Co, along with artist Josephine Shetty of Pride Month Barbie, worked together to make the soiree an intentional event that embodied this sentiment; indigo dying napkins, sourcing artist-created cakes, drinks and food, and booking DJ Jihaari to remix Glenn’s catalog with dance music.
The celebration doubled as a filming location for “See You Tomorrow,” a new documentary by Level Ground Collective co-founder and co-directors Samantha Curley and Chase Joynt, about the couple’s journey navigating Glenn’s dementia diagnosis. In the film they contemplate complex decisions about his care and well-being while they embark on a mission to preserve his artistic legacy. It also follows them as they work to leave creative offerings for their loved ones, and for the ones ahead.
Advertisement
After a career spanning seven decades, this was Glenn’s first-ever L.A. concert, and he received an incredibly warm welcome. Originally scheduled to be in-person, Level Ground Co. pivoted when the Glenn-Copelands learned that they could not travel to L.A. due to some recent health concerns. The event was an experimental afternoon of singing songs, sharing stories and poetry, and some never-before-seen personal and performance footage. People danced, cried, and sang along, sometimes sustaining Glenn and Elizabeth’s notes, keeping the physical and spiritual connection alive in L.A. in the few moments that digital tech difficulties cut it short.
The crowd at Level Ground Co.’s Re-Union: 10 Year Anniversary Soirée in downtown L.A. watch Beverly Glenn-Copeland and his wife Elizabeth perform via Zoom. The couple were originally scheduled to perform in person but had to switch to a virtual performance due to Glenn’s health concerns.
(Tina June Malek)
“What’s manifested through Glenn and Elizabeth performing virtually is an extraordinary opportunity for the film,” Joynt said, describing the twin film teams, one with Glenn and Elizabeth at their home in Hamilton and one in L.A. “From an audience perspective, you’re going to be able to see that these rooms are vibrating and breathing and living for and through each other. If I do my job right, we will obliterate the Zoom screen.” Curley thinks of this as one of the most hopeful projects she’s been a part of that feels urgent and gentle. “To be close to Glenn and Elizabeth, to be in their world of deep, queer, chosen family is such an honor and a privilege,” said Curley.
Advertisement
Glenn and his wife Elizabeth’s journey together started in the 1990s when she sang backup for Glenn at benefit shows. Their queer love story heated up in 2007, when, after psychic visions in the dream realm and a notorious night of furious dancing at a friend’s wedding, the pair became an inseparable team. Their love continues to unfold around collaborations, social justice advocacy, music and steadfast commitments for each other and their communities. Take for example their work at Kidplayhouse Productions; a not-for-profit theater school the couple founded and sustained for nearly a decade on the Acadian Coast of Canada that provided healing arts programming and education for kids and adults.
Earlier this year, Glenn and Elizabeth announced that the couple were privately navigating a difficult time while also experiencing a massive creative renewal. Glenn made his dementia diagnosis public and declared that his 2024 tour would be his last. However, he and Elizabeth are still working on new projects including music, children’s programming with puppets, and a new book. After the success of Saturday’s event they may be considering doing more hybrid performances.
“As humans and artists, there’s a lot to face, but we are determined to look at where the life is,” Elizabeth said. “As parts of Glenn’s brain are dying, there are parts of him that are actually more alive than I have ever seen. There’s a great deal of beauty interwoven with a great deal of pain.” In thinking about how they proceed in this chapter of their life, and how humanity can overcome the daunting challenges of rising fascism, racism, transphobia and climate disaster, she invokes a lesson from Los Angeles artist-activist (and nun) Corita Kent. Rule No. 4, which also happens to be Level Ground Co.’s current inspiration, demands that students and artists “consider everything an experiment.”
Shot of a vinyl copy of Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s 2023 album “The Ones Ahead” at the DJ booth during Saturday’s performance.
(Tina June Malek)
Advertisement
Glenn’s work has long reveled in the experimental. A groundbreaking album in folk, ambient and electronic music, “Keyboard Fantasies” was composed with only a Roland TR-707 drum machine, a Yamaha Dx7 keyboard, a (at the time) cutting-edge Atari Computer, and Glenn’s unparalleled three-octave vocal range. Optimism and care are themes you could gather from his music without knowing any of his lyrics; “Keyboard Fantasies’” soft and cosmic melodies resonate like a dawning horizon, a message in a bottle retrieved 30 years later by both its recipients and its sender with codes and keys to help us make sense of our ever-changing world. He and Elizabeth opened their set Saturday with the album’s “Let Us Dance,” moving together as Samaras played the instrumental outro on their home piano.
Glenn also performed an a capella version of “Deep River,” his syncopated low voice and skilled falsetto moving the entire room into snaps, whistles and screams. A spiritual written in the 19th century, it is embedded with coded information about the Underground Railroad, Glenn explained. “Jordan” was code for the Ohio River, and “Campground” was code for a community for Black people who were successful in escaping enslavement. He closed this song with a dynamic djembe beat, moving through multiple time signatures.
Glenn and Elizabeth played a string of sold-out shows during fall in New York and Canada that Joynt and Curley filmed. Glenn won the 2024 Joyce Warshow Lifetime Achievement Award from SAGE, an organization that focuses on advocacy and services for LGBTQ+ elders. He and Elizabeth were also a part of Red Hot Org’s new album “Transa,” a massive collection of work from a diverse community of over 100 musicians and artists including (but not limited to) Sade, Eileen Myles, Hunter Schafer, Clairo, Sam Smith and many others, celebrating trans and nonbinary music, and bringing awareness and support to transgender rights.
“In this era of intense backlash against trans rights and freedoms, it felt like a profound and timely gift to collaborate with Sam Smith on a version of ‘Ever New’ for the next generation,” Glenn said. The two formed an instant connection in the studio. “There’s great love there,” Elizabeth remarked, remembering that “as they were hugging, Copeland said, I’m adopting you.” Smith said that singing with Glenn was one of the most important and beautiful moments of their musical life. The backlash against trans rights is palpable this week, as Chase Strangio makes history as the first openly transgender attorney to argue before the Supreme Court, challenging Tennessee’s ban on transgender healthcare — which is expected to be upheld, despite the Biden administration calling it unconstitutional.
The new documentary challenges and complicates one-dimensional narratives about dementia. Working on this has helped both the filmmakers and the doc’s main subjects reimagine staying connected through music and art alongside some of the inevitable changes of aging. Saturday’s event also presented an opportunity to reimagine what supporting aging artists, as fans and as producers, could look like.
Advertisement
“See You Tomorrow” is an unfolding trans history, a living portrait of a queer extended family, rather than a reflection on something that’s happened in the past. It bears “witness to an extraordinary love story as it is still unfolding,” Joynt says.
A crowd watches Beverly Glenn-Copeland and his wife, Elizabeth, perform virtually from their home in Hamilton, Canada
(Tina June Malek)
Queer and trans musicians are often described in relation to time: generally, as being ahead of their time, playing in strange time, or living creative lives outside of values and timelines marked as acceptable by rules of mainstream society. The ahead-of-their-time arc has often plagued stories about so-called forgotten and avant-garde queer talent from electronic to classical genres. It is often queer artists and artists of color like Glenn who inspire culture, change genres and creative fields, rarely benefiting financially from their visions and innovations, but still creating.
As the couple received a roaring ovation at the end of their set on Saturday, Glenn held up a handwritten sign to the camera. The message, scrawled on a white sheet of paper, read “I love you.” For many fans, Glenn represents beloved elders of the queer community and his music is also a love letter to younger generations.
Advertisement
“Glenn’s life and legacy is so precious because we have so few trans elders,” Elizabeth says, noting the historic importance of sharing her husband’s story. “We want to leave this world in a way where we have touched lives, shaken people out of stupors, and woken people up. … In all the years, when nobody knew who the heck we were, we were traveling around from place to place; it’s always been about community.”
“Trying to find your niche as a movie star isn’t easy,” said Frank Scheck in The Hollywood Reporter. Take Glen Powell. A year ago, the Twisters and Anyone but You star was being talked about as possibly the next Tom Cruise. But he “stumbled badly” when he tried to play a macho action hero in November’s remake of The Running Man, and he’s now turned in a second straight box office flop. He took a risk with How to Make a Killing, playing a guy cheated by fate who we’re supposed to root for as he begins murdering off the seven rich relatives standing between him and an enormous inheritance. But c’mon. “Powell is charming, but he’s not that charming.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Advertisement
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week’s Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The movie “needed to pick a side,” said Jacob Oller in AV Club. It could have been “a clownish class comedy” or “bitter sociopathic satire,” but it winds up being neither, and “at the center of it all is Powell, making the same face for an hour and 45 minutes, too unflappable to root for, too smug to magnetize as an inhuman American Psycho.” I’m not ready to give up on him, said Nick Schager in the Daily Beast. To me, he and co-star Margaret Qualley, who plays the femme fatale who eggs on the killing spree, come across as “such alluringly nasty delights” that this reworking of the 1949 black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets “ survives its potentially lethal missteps and works on its own limited terms.” Though its teeth aren’t as sharp as they should be, “it’s smart and spiky enough to leave a pleasurably painful mark.”
‘Pillion’
Directed by Harry Lighton (Not rated)
Advertisement
★★★★
While this gay BDSM rom-com from a rookie director “might sound niche,” said Amy Nicholson in the Los Angeles Times, “free yourself to see it and you’ll discover it’s a universal romance.” Former Harry Potter side figure Harry Melling stars as a shy singleton who’s figuring out what he wants in a relationship when he happens into a submissive-dominant entanglement with a tall, handsome biker played by Alexander Skarsgard. Soon, Melling’s Colin is obeying his lover’s every order, including by shaving himself bald and sleeping like a dog on the floor. But the “kinky-funny” screenplay, which won a prize at Cannes, makes sure we see that Colin is not stuck but growing.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
While the movie’s sex scenes are “refreshingly graphic,” they’re “never used or shock value,” said Odie Henderson in The Boston Globe. “The real shock comes from how emotionally involved the characters become within the construct of their kink.” And when Colin brings his new lover home to meet the parents, Skarsgard and Lesley Sharp, as Colin’s suburban London mom, do memorable work because “neither of them approaches the scene in a way you’d expect.” Until the ending, which “feels a little neat,” said Zachary Barnes in The Wall Street Journal, the movie “proceeds with an assurance of tone that’s especially impressive for a first-time filmmaker handling material like this.” Harry Lighton’s debut “could have been simply shocking, revving its engine in sexed-up style. Instead, Pillion purrs.”
‘Midwinter Break’
Directed by Polly Findlay (PG-13)
Advertisement
★★
Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds “would be appealing to watch just fumbling for their reading glasses,” said Natalia Winkelman in The New York Times. Unfortunately, this “staid” drama about an aging Irish couple puts that claim to the test. A “slow-moving film with a sappy score and mellow mood,” Midwinter Break opens with Manville’s Stella surprising Hinds’ Gerry by arranging a spur-of-the-moment trip to Amsterdam. Alas, “precious little conflict occurs until long afterward.”
But while Polly Findlay’s adaptation of a Bernard MacLaverty novel is a “delicate” film, said Lindsey Bahr in the Associated Press, its impact can be profound “if you can get on its level.” Stella, a devout Catholic, has an ulterior motive for dragging Gerry abroad, and when she nervously proposes how she’d like to live more purposefully in retirement, “it feels earth-shattering.” This is a couple accustomed to leaving much unsaid, including how the violence of the Troubles led them to flee Belfast years earlier for Scotland. Manville and Hinds give the movie everything they’ve got, said Caryn James in The Hollywood Reporter. In a scene in which Stella pours out her heart to a stranger, “Manville delivers one of her most magnificent performances, which is saying a lot.” Alas, the script lets them down, “not because it needs more action but because this ordinary couple’s problems seem so unsurprising, their inner lives so veiled.”
This story contains spoilers for the pilot of “Marshals.”
When the curtain came down on “Yellowstone” last year, Kayce Dutton had finally found his happily-ever-after.
The youngest son of wealthy rancher John Dutton (Kevin Costner) had secured a modest cabin in a mountainous region where he could reside in secluded peace with his beloved wife, Monica (Kelsey Asbille), and son, Tate (Brecken Merrill), far from the turbulent dysfunction of his family.
“Kayce found his little peace of heaven, getting everything he ever wanted and fought for,” said Luke Grimes, who plays the soft-spoken Dutton in “Yellowstone.”
Grimes reprises the role in CBS’ “Marshals,” which premiered Sunday. But in the new series, Kayce’s serenity has been brutally shattered, forcing him to find a new path forward after an unimaginable tragedy.
Advertisement
The drama is the first of several planned spinoffs of “Yellowstone,” which became TV’s hottest scripted series during its five-season run. And while some familiar faces return and events unfold against the magnificent backdrop of towering mountains and lush greenery, “Marshals” is definitely not “Yellowstone” 2.0.
Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton in “Marshals,” which combines the gritty Western flavor of “Yellowstone” with the procedural genre.
(Sonja Flemming / CBS )
In “Marshals,” Kayce joins an elite squad of U.S. Marshals headed by his Navy SEAL teammate Pete Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green). The drama combines two distinct brands — the gritty Western flavor of “Yellowstone” with the procedural genre, a flagship of CBS’ prime-time slate.
Advertisement
During an interview at an exclusive club in downtown Los Angeles, Grimes expressed excitement about dusting off his cowboy hat and boots, though he admitted to having initial concerns about whether the project was a fit.
“I had never watched a procedural before, so I had to do some homework on what that was,” Grimes said hours before the gala premiere of “Marshals” at the Autry Museum of the American West in Griffith Park. “And I just couldn’t wrap my head around it at first. In the finale, Kayce had ridden off into the sunset. So I thought, ‘Let him be, let him go.’ ”
Those doubts eventually ebbed away.
“To be honest, there was a part of me that didn’t want to let Kayce go just yet,” Grimes said. “Saying goodbye to him was really hard, so the opportunity to keep this going was something I couldn’t pass up. We get to show his backstory and also this other side of him that we didn’t see in ‘Yellowstone.’ ”
But this Kayce is a man in crisis. “Yellowstone” devotees will likely be shocked by the “elephant in the room” — the revelation in the pilot episode that Monica has died of cancer. The couple’s sexy and loving chemistry was a key element in the series while also establishing Grimes as a heartthrob.
Advertisement
“I think fans will be upset — and they should be,” Grimes said as he looked downward. “Kayce is very upset. It’s the worst thing that could have happened to him. But as much as I’m really upset not to work with Kelsey, it’s a good idea for the show.”
He added, “His dream life is no longer available to him. Now the only thing he has is his son, who is not so sure he wants the same life as Kayce. A big part of the season is Kayce learning how to manage all these new things — new job, being a single father.”
“His dream life is no longer available to him. Now the only thing he has is his son, who is not so sure he wants the same life as Kayce,” said Luke Grimes about his character Kayce.
(Jay L. Clendenin / For The Times)
Executive producer and showrunner Spencer Hudnut (CBS’ “SEAL Team”) acknowledged in a separate interview that viewers may be stunned by the tragedy. “Real life intervenes for Kayce. Unfortunately it happens to so many of us.”
Advertisement
But he stressed that although Monica is physically gone, her presence will be heavily felt this season.
“She is guiding Kayce, and their relationship is moving forward,” Hudnut said. “His dealing with his inability to confront his grief is a big part of the season. It became clear that something horrible had to happen to put Kayce on a different path.”
As the development evolved, Grimes embraced the procedural concept: “This is a very different show and structure. This is an action show, very fast paced. I meet a lot of fans who say they really want to see Kayce go full Navy SEAL.”
Alumni from “Yellowstone” returning in “Marshals” include Gil Birmingham as tribal Chairman Thomas Rainwater and Mo Brings Plenty as his confidante Mo.
“Yellowstone” co-creator Taylor Sheridan, who had already spearheaded the prequels “1883” and “1923,” will further expand the “Yellowstone” universe later this month with “The Madison,” starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell, about a New York City family living in Montana’s Madison River territory. Later this year, Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser will star in “Dutton Ranch,” reprising their respective “Yellowstone” roles as John Dutton’s volcanic daughter Beth Dutton and her husband, boss ranch hand Rip Wheeler.
Advertisement
Hudnut said fans of “Yellowstone” will recognize themes that were central to that series: “The cost and consequences of violence, man versus nature, man versus man.”
“We’re trying to tap into what people loved about ‘Yellowstone’ but to tell the story in a different framework,” he said. “The procedural brand is obviously very successful for CBS. And nothing has been bigger than ‘Yellowstone.’ So the challenge is, how do you marry those things?”
Taking on the lead role prompted Grimes to reflect on how “Yellowstone” transformed his life after co-starring roles in films like “American Sniper” and “Fifty Shades of Grey” and playing a vampire in the TV series “True Blood.”
“‘Yellowstone’ changed my life in many, many ways,” he said. “The biggest change is that I now live where we shot the show in Montana. The first time I went there, I would have never thought I would ever live there.
“I would come back to the city after shooting. But a little bit more each year, I felt more out of place here, and more peace and at home there. I’m a big nature person — I never was a big city person, but I had to be here to do what I wanted. But after the third season, my wife and I decided to move there. We wanted to start a family.”
Advertisement
The topic of a Kayce spinoff kept coming up during the filming of the finale, but “meanwhile we were having a baby, so that was the biggest thing on my plate.”
“‘Yellowstone’ changed my life in many, many ways,” said Luke Grimes.
(Jay L. Clendenin/For The Times)
Grimes was also dealing with the off-screen drama that impacted production due to logistical and creative differences between Costner and Sheridan. Costner, who was the show’s biggest attraction, exited after filming the first part of the final season. His character was killed off.
Asked about the backstage tension, Grimes said, “I just tried to do my job to the best of my ability, and not get caught up in all that. It was sort of frustrating, but I felt lucky to have a job.”
Advertisement
He recalled getting a call from Sheridan about the plans for a spinoff: “He said, ‘I think you should talk to the guy who is going to be the showrunner. I’m not telling you to do it, and I’m not telling you not to do it. But Spencer is great and he has some good ideas.’ ”
Hudnut said Kayce “was always my favorite character. Also, Luke is not Kayce. Kayce is an amazing character, but Luke is really thoughtful and smart. He is a true artist and has an artist’s soul, while Kayce is kicking down doors and terrorizing people. And Luke has such a great presence. He can do so much with just a look to the camera. He is a true leading man.”
In addition to starring in “Marshals,” Grimes is also an executive producer. He pitched the opening sequence — a flashback showing Kayce in the battlefield. He also performs the song that plays over the final scene, in which he visits his wife’s grave. The ballad is from Grimes’ self-titled country album which was released last year.
“Luke’s creative fingerprints are all over the pilot,” Hudnut said.
Grimes said he does not feel pressure about being the first follow-up from “Yellowstone” to premiere.
Advertisement
“We’re not trying to make the same show, so no matter what happens, its a win-win,” he said. “I had a blast doing it.”
I am a sucker for all those straight-to-video slasher movies from the 90’s; there was just a certain point where you knew the acting was terrible, however, it made you fall in love. I can definitely remember scanning the video store sections for all the different horror movies I could. All those movies had laughable names and boom mics accidentally getting in the frame. Truckerseems like a child of all those old dreams, because it is.
Let’s get into the review.
Synopsis
When a group of reckless teens cause an accident swroe to never speak of it. The father is reescued by a strange man. from the wreckage and nursed back to health by a mysterious old man. When the group agrees to visit the accident scene, they meet their match from a strange masked trucker and all his toys with revenge on his mind.
Roll on 18 Wheleer
Trucker is what you would imagine: a movie about a psychotic trucker chasing you. We have seen it many, many times. What makes the film so different is its homage to bad movies but good ideas. I don’t mean in a negative way. When you think of a slasher movie, it’s not very complicated; as a matter of fact, it takes five minutes to piece the film together. This is so simple and childlike, and I absolutely love it. Trucker gave us something a little different, not too gory, bad CGI fire, I mean, this is all we old schlock horror fans want. Trucker is the type of film that you expect from a Tubi Original, on speed. However, I would take this over any Tubi Original.
I found some parts that were definitely a shout-out to the slasher humor from all those movies. Another good point that made the film shine was the sets. I guess what I can say is the film is everything Joy Ride should have been. While most modern slashers are trying to recreate the 1980s, the film stands out with its love for those unloved 1990’s horror films. While most see Joyride, you are extremely mistaken, my friend; you will enjoy this film much more.
Advertisement
In The End
In the end, I enjoyed the entire film. At first, I saw it listed as an action thriller; I was pleasantly surprised, and Trucker pulled at my heart strings, enveloping me in its comfort from a long-forgotten time in horror. It’s a nostalgic blast for me, thinking back to that time, my friends, my youth, and finding my new home. Horror fans are split down the middle: from serial-killer clowns (my side) to elevated horror, where an artist paints a forty-thousand-year-old demon that chases them around an upper-class studio apartment. I say that a lot, but it’s the best way to describe some things.
The entire movie had me cheering while all the people I hated suffered dire consequences for their actions. It’s the same old story done in a way that we rabid fans could drool over, and it worked. In all the bad in the world today, and my only hope for the future is the soon-to-end Terrifier franchise. However, the direction was a recipe to succeed with 40+ year old horror fans like me. I see the film as a hope for tomorrow, leading us into a new era.
