Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/133137
The Modern-Day Brady Bunch The Fosters offers an alternative vision of a TV family TV by DEAN ROBBINS Social conservatives will not be happy with ABC Family's new series The Fosters (Monday, 9 p.m.), which lays down a challenge to the Ozzie and Harriet paradigm. The rest of us will appreciate it as a reflection of modern-day reality, featuring characters familiar from our own lives. Lena (Sherri Saum) and Stef (Teri Polo) are a loving lesbian couple raising two adopted Latino children and a son from Stef's previous heterosexual marriage. Callie (Maia Mitchell), a foster child, comes into the picture with a chip on her shoulder, threatening family harmony. Stef has her doubts about taking in yet another kid: "We're definitely not the Brady Bunch," she mutters. They aren't — but then again, they sort of are. Like the Bradys, they're a wholesome family who love each other despite the conflicts inherent in their blended arrangement. I'm delighted to see a series aimed at young viewers that puts a positive spin on same-sex marriage and kids who don't fit the conventional mold, including a cross-dressing boy. With The Fosters, ABC Family proves worthy of its name. The Brokaw Files Thursday, 10 pm (Military Channel) The Brokaw Files reminds us that Tom Brokaw didn't just luck into the job of iconic network news anchor; he earned it with 40 years of insightful, compassionate reporting. He revisits memorable stories from his NBC News documentaries, adding contemporary context. Over the next few weeks, we'll reacquaint ourselves with air traffic controllers after 9/11; World War II soldiers adjusting to postwar life; and recent presidents in the midst of their terms. Brokaw's modesty shines through in these reports, putting the focus on his subjects rather than himself. Even when he rides along in a fighter jet during the Afghanistan war, he's not showing off; he trying to make viewers appreciate the pilot's skill and courage. You find yourself praying that Brokaw and the pilot make it back safely. Both of them are too valuable to lose. Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic Friday, 9 pm (Showtime) This excellent documentary takes its title from a comment by one of Richard Pryor's collaborators. In reference to the comedian's crazy life, David Banks says, "Don't try to find no logic here. To understand Richard, first you have to omit logic, and then you come close." Banks' method works pretty well. When you omit logic, you have an easier time making sense of Pryor's path from troubled childhood to superstardom to selfdestruction. Along the way, he broke barriers by confronting sensitive racial issues in his foul-mouthed, truth-telling style. "He understood how to excavate the human soul onstage in front of 600 people," a colleague says. Just as Pryor reached the pinnacle of show business — a rare feat for an African-American in the 1970s — he toppled via drugs and demented behavior. In the most notorious incident, he set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine. That set the stage for his decline throughout the 1980s and '90s, all the way to his death in 2005. The documentary is generously stocked with clips from Pryor in his prime. You don't have to omit the logic to understand why those still matter. The Not so Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS I like to consider myself fairly well read. If it gets made into a movie or television show, I'll read it. If it is considered an American classic, I'll give it a try. If it is one of those books that appears on a list of some kind (Best Of, Must Read Before you Die, etc.) I'll check it out. The thing is, I could never work up much enthusiasm for F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I have even less interest after seeing The Great Gatsby (142 minutes). Frankly, the book always looked boring. If not even Baz Luhrmann, the King of Excess, can make your story interesting than I have better things to read. As a director, Luhrmann is usually fairly dependable in terms of opulence and spectacle. Here, though, it all seemed strangely beside the point. In my opinion, the narrative didn't translate well for the contemporary audience. The story has been done, the casting was atrocious, and the film was hegemonically masculine to a ridiculous degree. The female characters were weak willed, the male characters full of themselves. For whom is the audience supposed to root? The film opens with Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). He is the narrator and is discussing with his psychiatrist an episode in his life involving Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio). Back in 1922, just after Nick graduated from Yale, he rented a small cottage on Long Island and took a job on Wall Street. His cousin, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) lives across the bay with her millionaire husband, Tom (Joel Edgerton). One evening, while visiting, Nick meets golf pro Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki) who piques his curiosity about the lavish parties thrown in the mansion next door. She also supplies some exposition regarding Tom's mistress, who will be important later. Soon after the dinner party, Tom introduces Nick to mistress Myrtle (Isla Fisher) and some of his other working-class acquaintances. I'm not sure it makes sense to introduce the loyal cousin of your wife to your mistress, so a little more hand wringing WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM from Nick over the moral implications of keeping this secret from Daisy would have made the character more tolerable. Although, since the character was played by Tobey Maguire, perhaps not. I want to punch every character he has ever played in the face (except Spiderman 1.0 and 2.0). By midsummer, Nick receives an invitation to one of his neighbor's parties. Once there he hears a number of rumors about his host, who none of the guests have ever met in person. He finally has a brief encounter with Jordan, who leaves the party only after telling Nick that Gatsby told her everything and it all makes sense. Here's the thing, though. It doesn't. It is an overly complicated and confusing background story in which characters do not behave consistently and several strangely convenient coincidences twist the fates of the main players. While the story really didn't interest me enough to care one way or the other about important plot points, for those of you who weren't required to read the story in high school, consider the next bit a spoiler. Apparently, Daisy and Gatsby were previously acquainted and Gatsby needs Nick to assist in getting the two of them in the same room. Nick gets to play matchmaker, but since he started the film talking to a shrink about his miserable life we can safely assume the story does not have a happy ending, Overall, there is not much here beyond the periodic shock and awe assault to the senses that is part of the Luhrmann arsenal. Although the fast camera swoop, schizophrenic visuals and frenetic music offer the promise of excitement, the film itself fails to deliver. Now showing at Wynnsong 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Market HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandFair 15. comingweekly.com. MAY 29 - JUNE 4, 2013 UCW 17