Required Viewing

Yesterday I was at the Jewel on Stony Island and I ran into a friend I went to grammar school with back in the day.  She introduced me to her son, who was all of thirteen.  She was a bit distraught with him because he had been sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night to hook up with some little girl.  My friend was blasting him in the middle of the store so I was hesitant to say hello, but I knew it would be worse if I passed her and didn’t say anything at all.

What she didn’t share with him was that when we were his age, back in the stone ages, we had two friends who had a baby when they were around his age. It was a neighborhood scandal, they were both too young to know what they had gotten into. They had missed the “Love is nothing new”, “Everything you’re doing ain’t nothing but a re-run” and “You didn’t invent love” speeches that I heard on a regular basis when I was little.  Between those lectures, watching someone ruin their life close up and in person, and the movies of the time, I was very careful as a kid when it came to boys – had to be.

If it were my world, every kid would see a few movies to set the foundation – “Gone With The Wind” – it’s long, but being young and foolish and not thinking about the consequences of one’s actions is a major topic – it’s generally applied to the war, but the love story is layered in - the main character is running after a man who says in the first fifteen minutes of the movie “I don’t want you”, her response is to chase him down like the last coke can in the vending machine.  The book offers better lessons but it is horrendously long. It’s kid appropriate though.

“The Last Picture Show” – every kid should see what high school is really about beforehand.  It takes the romance out of it and shows some of the hidden motivations, the back stage drama that you might miss if your head is in the clouds. It’s a stinging rebuke to the myth of “love at first sight”. Make sure you’ve had “the talk” before they see this one.

“Sparkle” – the drug angle alone makes this required viewing for all kids, but it is admittedly brutal. When I was little, there were commercials about the dangers of smoking.  When I was a little older, there were commercials about the dangers of drugs.  I don’t see those anymore but the message still needs to get out – being an addict is only going to shorten your life.  Being turned into an addict by someone who claims they love you is a foolish choice.  I’m curious to see what Whitney Houston is going to do with the movie now that she is remaking it. The original was low budget but effective – everyone saw it when it came out.  I practically know all the lines in “Sparkle” by heart, it’s one of my favorite movies. I was singing the songs even before I got to Kenwood.

“The Other Side of Midnight” – a crash course for a teen-ager, but also required to see a real jerk operate during an uncertain time. Times change but people don’t and everyone is going to meet a Larry or two in their time.  Forewarned is forearmed so that you can recognize a hurricane before it hits you. This story is also spread out over time, but it is very effective.  You’ve got to learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. Some will be distracted, but you can’t afford to be.

The Ides of March

I just came back from seeing George Clooney's movie and it was good - not a nail biter, not a hide under your seat and hide movie, but tension building, thoughtful and reserved like George Clooney himself.

Imagine life as the Deputy Chief of a major presidential campagn - who can you trust?  I think its clear and has been said before that if you want a friend - buy a dog.  The main character befriends a wrtier, pledges his loyalty to his candidate, and finds himself odd man out.  The qustion is will he press his obvious advantage and get back into the game.

I've worked on a few campaigns as a volunteer, so I can tell you - you learn early on to fight hard against the other side and the resentment doesn't fall away easily.  I recall many campaigns folding into my own and being told " We're all together now" but in truth being all together doesn't make you feel better.  If those other people had been any good, wouldn't they have won?

You have to be ready to fall on the grenade but the goal is to achieve the greater victory - winning for your country, your state, your town, your district.  If the other side offers you a chance to come over early - do you take it? We all want advancement, but this movie delivers a heavy handed dose of principles on a plate.

My HR background tells me "No".  You get an offer, someone offers to take you to lunch - tell your boss and turn down the free meal - you can buy your own steak - at least you didn't get fired.  Tempted to tell your manager that you have a better offer and if they don't match it, you're taking your blocks and going home - don't get your victory parade together just yet - you'll be the first to get dumped when the company downsizes and the most charitable thing they'll tell you is "You can find something else, after all, a little while ago, something else found you, right?" Bottom line - if you're leaving, just go.

You know this character is about to take a dive, and after hearing his credentials, you wondering how someone could be so smart and yet so stupid at the same time?  I console myself with the thought that I'm a little older than he is and I've been where he's going - but then it makes me wonder if I'm too smart for this movie or just too experienced to feel sorry for him.
Writers had to work harder in the 50's to get their point across with more style and the American moviegoer was the winner with a more amusing movie.  This was good, but a little dry, a bit sad, and without the guile and wickedness that we love about movies like "All About Eve", This is a poor remake but a thoughtful thriller.   I recommend it, but I admit that I injected other endings, additonal twists and turns that might have been a distraction, but would have reminded me more of something I've actually seen, and that's why I go to the movies.

The Help

I just came back from the Delta Sigma Theta sponsored introduction of “The Help”.

The movie is delightful and I recommend it with a couple of caveats –

Take a box of tissue, especially if you have ANY relatives who are black, came from Mississippi, or turned their lives around. Read a Bible or any other very inspirational piece of literature afterward – otherwise, you might do time!

I actively avoid depressing movies and TV shows because they sometimes overwhelm me – the first time I saw “Hair” I got so upset my uncle had to remind me that it was just a movie. “Precious” left me drained as I surveyed the theatre to see people shaking their heads, sobbing, or rocking back and forth in unison. I spent time while the credits rolled consoling strangers who sat near me. “The Help’ is such a movie, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

It’s amazing how long ago that period was – Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Kennedy Assassination, and a book of rules on how to interact with people who don’t look like you.  A lot has changed and yet we still have so far to go.  After learning the frightening statistics regarding race and wealth building you can see that our gains are slowly being wiped out – the middle class, especially the black middle class being winnowed out. If things continue to deteriorate, we’ll all be right back on the bottom.

The movie revolves around a progressive woman from a socially acceptable family who wants to be recognized as a writer, even though her friends and family want her to concentrate on something worthwhile – getting a husband.

The woman decides to interview a black maid and submit her experiences for a book. The fear is palpable – living in the oppressive state of Mississippi, a state famous for its disregard of the Negro race. Her job isn’t a hobby or a past time – she needs the money to eat!  The thought of betraying the confidences she is privy to frighten her and the audience to death.

You thought you had a hard job, but imagine being a maid in Mississippi in the 60’s.  You can’t look your boss in the face – can’t touch him or her. You’re intimately involved in every aspect of their personal lives – cooking, cleaning, raising their snot nosed brats and you can’t even use the bathroom, or eat off a plate.  You’re constantly being accused of stealing, lying, and/or being lazy. People talk to you like you’re their child and you’re older than they are in most instances. You can’t go to school because you have to earn a living to make ends meet, and you go home to a house that’s basically a shotgun shack.

The turning point comes when one of the maids tries to send her children to college.  It’s sad, demoralizing and debilitating, but it encourages the other maids to tell their stories.  There isn’t a dry eye in the house and I scratched my face wiping off the cascade of tears that flowed from my eyes.  There are some very funny moments to be sure, but they don’t come without a price. I suggest attending with a group of friends so that you can decompress after the movie is over.  I’m glad I went with the Deltas – and I do encourage you to find a group and attend this weekend.

    Copyright  2011 Patrice Brazil

The Social Network

I've been following the career of Aaron Sorkin since "A Few Good Men" came out. I enjoyed "The American President" and  I watched "The West Wing" religiously, and I was one of the few fans of "Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip". When this movie came out, it went to the top of my list of "must sees". Sorkin utilizes a verbal smackdown approach in his storytelling that I find irresistible.

The movie is a fictionalized account of the creation of 'Facebook', the on-line network that connects friends, family, co-workers, and consumers.  I enjoy the product, but I've missed Sorkin's writing style, so that was the true selling point for me. I recommend this movie to anyone who ever plans to work for themselves, and to anyone who likes a fast paced story.

The movie begins with a confrontation between the fictionalized Mark Zuckerberg, and a girl he is dating.  The girl is so turned off by his condescending approach that she leaves Zuckerberg sitting there after obliterating him in a local pizza place.  This experience propels Zuckerberg to create a temporary website where women are judged one on one. As you can well imagine, it didn't endear him one bit to the campus or the audience in the theater either. 

 So, Zuckerberg's antics reach the ears of a few Big Men On Campus who hire him out to make a website that fits their specifications - he agrees to do this for the group.  In actuality, he doesn't agree with the concept, has some other ideas of his own, and instead of saying just that - or doing what most sane people would have done - asked to be made a partner instead of a worker bee, he blows them off and gets the money from his "best friend" to make the website according to his own specifications.  That's where it gets interesting.....

Now, Zuckerberg is supposedly not interested in money at all - and it appears that he doesn't have a single dollar to his name, but his friend is rolling in the stuff because he actually ("horrors") works!   Anyway, FACEBOOK gets started and the people who hired him are more than a little miffed at his defection - which is a situation that many can understand.  The "Big Men On Campus" decide not to handle it gansta style - guns, beat downs and baseball bats - they go to the University President (who happens to be a fictionalized version of Larry Summers) and complain that Zuckerberg has violated Harvard student policy - and Summers shows them the tender understanding and concern of  a man about to squash a bug.  There's been a great deal of talk about this movie making a jerk out of the main character, the "best friend" and the "Big Men On Campus", but if you ask me, NO ONE should he racing to an attorney faster than Larry Summers. At least the others got paid!  Summers is depicted as a self absorbed moron in this movie, and let me tell you, if the actual exchange had any approximation to the one in the movie and that had been my child, he'd be asking Libya for asylum because I'd still be trying to find him and give him a piece of my mind!!!  I'm not sure that it's in Summers best interest to be depicted as a moron in his role as the President of Harvard University and I'm certain it's not in his best interest as a Director of the National Economic Council, a position that he recently threw in the towel on.

The funny part of the movie is when he meets the fictionalized version of Sean Parker, the founder of "Napster".  Napster (was, is - does it still exist?) a website that people used to share and (borrow, steal, avoid paying for - enter your own verb here) music that someone else had produced and was selling so that they could get paid for their effort.  Sean Parker felt that the record company's business model was old school and record companies should stop functioning the way they had because their model could be circumvented.  Now, I'm just going to divert a second on this - it's relevant to the movie, but more important to think of as it may apply to you - if you have a job or ever aspire to have one.  Let's say you get paid to make music.  You get paid a portion of the money that is collected based on the sales made of your product.  With Napster, that portion is lessened because now instead of getting a portion from everyone who has the record, you are only getting a portion from those who actually paid for the record.  Everyone who is (borrowing, sharing, stealing, avoiding paying for) the record is giving you nothing but they are still getting down on your groove - if that were you, would you be cool with it?  Of course not!  That's why I'm not down with Napster. I don't want to steal from anyone because I don't want to be robbed. But enough of my personal mission statement, let's get back to the movie.

David Finch didn't add this to his movie, but it was in my mind as I watched it -  the fictionalized Sean Parker walks into a restaurant to meet Zuckerberg while the music to "Skin Tight" is playing. From the very beginning, the fictionalized Sean Parker is throwing money around like water, and women are running up to him like he's Magic Don Juan, only thing missing are some colorful clothes and a chalice in his hand. It's intriguing, and it makes it understandable that Zuckerberg falls into his web also. The "best friend" hates Parker from the beginning, and here the true seduction of the movie takes place. The fictionalized Zuckerberg and Parker are kindred spirits - together they plan to take over the world by tossing everyone else in on their "dream" overboard. When all the dust settles - it's about getting paid, and that's when the roof starts caving in on the dream.  Depositions start flying and billion dollar settlements begin to stack up like the Great Wall of China.  I'm pretty sure that there was a better way to handle this. 

The movie is a cautionary tale - don't go into business with people you obviously don't respect, get everything in writing and get a real lawyer to read it on your behalf, speak your truth with your foot above the gas pedal, and maybe it's time to be reminded that even Darth Vader had a soul.  This movie doesn't leave you with ANY good feelings about the real FACEBOOK founder. Mary Kay said it better than I ever could " You may be the only Bible a person will ever read."  That means that you should always try to present your best self, because you are the product in your customer's mind. She epitomized graciousness and giving, and we cared about how we did business as much as who we did business with. Mary Kay has gone on to her reward - but the company is still making that paper! What's your bet FACEBOOK will be as viable long term?  Millions of people have seen this movie, and not that many are going to read about his philanthropy. If it were my name, I'd do whatever it took to blunt the impact, a herculean challenge.

True Grit 2010

It wouldn't have made sense to see the new version of "True Grit" without first seeing the original. John Wayne won the Oscar for his role as a no-nonsense Marshall taking The West by force.  The movie also featured Glen Campbell and at the time people marveled that Campbell was as good an actor as he turned out to be. Campbell was humble and attributed any ability he displayed to being on the screen with "The Duke".  That's a gentleman - you can't find that as much nowadays.

The new movie is a closer interpretation to the actual book than the John Wayne version, which ends in Hollywood sunshine when compared to this latest version.

The main character, a take charge teen-ager with a pocket full of greenbacks and a realization that money doesn't grow on trees.  Her father has been killed by his servant while away from home.  The teen-ager comes to prod the local law to arrest the man she knows is responsible. This is the story of a little girl who's a little too grown for her own good, and the audience knows that, but its clear the little girl telling the story does not.

The girl single handedly puts together a posse of three that rattle the Indian territory and shake loose a murderous vermin, bring together a group of lifelong friends, but ends in difficulty for a child who learns too late that revenge sometimes exacts a horrible, however necessary, price.

Jeff Bridges does a great job as the new Rooster Cogburn, and the Duke would have been proud.  Matt Damon is lost in the Glen Campbell role - Glen maintained his cool good looks on the screen. Matt is covered in a scrawny beard and ugly scowl that make it impossible to see him as possible crush character for impressionable Mattie.

The story is compelling because the child's sense of purpose suspends your disbelief regarding what kids were capable of in, and yet it reminds you that childhood is still difficult for many children who are made to grow up too fast and too soon to understand the livelong consequences of their actions. The movie may still romanticize the old west, but its just harsh enough to make you grateful you were born in a different day.

The King's Speech

I'm into the Royal Family, so I have been waiting for this movie for a long time.  Today I finally made it and I have to agree with the critics - this is one of the best films I've seen in a long time.  I'm not sure the Academy will make it Best Picture, although it gets my vote. I know that anyone who's ever made a speech in front of an audience can relate to this story of triumph in the face of certain defeat. If you know anything about the history of the Royal family, you can appreciate it even more.

King George's father, King George V, wasn't born to be king.  His older brother, Prince Albert Victor, died at a young age.  Officially, he died of pneumonia, but Prince Albert Victor was suspected of being Jack the Ripper, the famous serial killer. The word on the street was that he was driven mad by a sexually transmitted disease from which there was no cure at the time.

The man who became King George VI, also wasn't meant to be the King.  He came to the throne under very unusual circumstances. His brother, King Edward VIII, decided that if the Church and his government would not accept his paramour as his wife and queen, he wouldn't remain on the throne. This is quite a decision from someone who had been pampered and fused over since the day he was born.  Edward VIII was the exact opposite of his brother - he was outgoing, well liked, extremely charming, and some considered him one of the handsomest men in the world. He was the quintessential Flapper Prince Charming of the 1920's.  Instead of embracing his role, however, he sought the company of unavailable women who could never make suitable matches. The King abdicated rather than give up his lifestyle.

George VI was a married man with two children.  He was painfully shy, had been born with knock knees that were corrected with painful splints, and he had a stutter that made him almost unintelligible. He was teased about it relentlessly in his family and all he sought in life was to hide under a rock and emerge to perform the occasional royal duty.  He was a nervous wreck at the mere thought of taking the throne.  He had never been trained for the position. The stutter that had been a nuisance was suddenly a cause for real concern. The stutter might have been politely tolerated for the second son of the King.  But once it became clear that George might have to take his brother's place, it was certain that he would need to conquer the biggest obstacle in his life.

Who doesn't have at least one friend who stutters or struggles with words, or general communication.  Whether it's a learning disability, illiteracy, or a fear of public speaking, it can be debilitating.  I spent many an hour in school listening to classmates struggle through public readings. I never had the problem myself, but it didn't mean I was unsympathetic.  It was heartbreaking, but you can't take their turn for them, and you weren't allowed to help them out.

This movie made me forget that the King was one of the wealthiest men on the planet, that his life was a flowery bed of ease, and that he could trace more than half his ancestry to the very country that was about to engulf us in a bitter and long lasting tangle that would change the world forever. Watching this movie I could only think that if history had been a little different, the world would be speaking German, our ancestors would have been killed in concentration camps, and a Republican White House would have been the least of our problems. I was glad that the King found a teacher who would help him - and the free world.