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/18075
Congratulations to Ashley Johnson Beginning Teacher of the Month for Cumberland County Schools Ashley Johnson, a former cheerleader for East Carolina University, has now become the “cheerleader” for the students at Ferguson Easley Elementary. Ms. Johnson is a 1st grade reading teacher who just began her career this year. She special- izes in early interven- tion and targets stu- dents who may experience diffi culty learning to read. Her philosophy is “Do what it takes”! Her organizational skills are awesome and her lessons are engaging. Most people say that it is hard to believe she’s a fi rst year teacher. The knowledge she possesses and applies to her instruction is “cutting edge”. Ms. Johnson’s energy is infectious! She brings a high diffi l l i d H level of professionalism to our school everyday. Her 55 minute drive each way to and from work does not slow her down. Not only does she give her best to the fi rst grade students, she is dedicated to the entire school and continually “reaches for the stars” to ensure that the Ferguson Easley All Stars meet their goals. We are so glad that she is part of our team! Sponsored by: Federal Transition to Teaching and Better Than Orphan Case 39 (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Since Orphan was good enough to pleasantly surprise me, I was look- ing forward to Case 39 (109 minutes). Imagine my surprise when I learned that some of my foreign friends had seen it a long time ago! Apparently, the film was completed in 2006, released in some countries in 2008, and was old news by the time I heard about it halfway through 2010. I keep a close eye on horror film releases via the Internet and Fangoria, but this one flew in completely under my radar…and has gotten some pretty nega- tive reviews in the bargain. Not only that, but the U.S. release date has been shuf- fled around several times, which usually indicates a real box office stinker. Sadly, imdb.com let me down this week, reporting a start time of 7:30 p.m. when the movie actually started at 7:10 p.m. So I missed the 20 minutes of Fandango, commer- cials and trailers as well as the opening credits. I made it inside just in time to figure out that social worker Emily Jenkins (Renee Zellweger) is handling a case of severe child abuse involving Lillith Sullivan (Jodelle Ferland, last seen playing Bree Tanner in New Moon, but much better in Tideland). Lilith’s parents (Callum Keith Can’t find a paper? Visit us online at www.upandcomingweekly.com Rennie from Battlestar Galactica! and Kerry O’Malley) attempt to host an unorthodox family dinner, but are stopped in the midst of their prepara- tions by detective Mike Barron (Ian McShane) and Emily. The two profes- sional doers-of-good get involved in Lilith’s life, so when she begs to live with Emily, the pair ignores all kinds of ethical and moral guidelines to quickly move Emily in with the single, over- worked, social worker who has failed to completely deal with her own troubled childhood — because becoming the foster parent of a troubled child is just that easy. And social workers have plenty of free time to provide the kind of intensive nurturing that an abused child is likely to need. Anyway, Lilith is placed with Emily on a temporary basis, while Mom and Dad go to the mental hospital. At first, things seem to work out well. But then some other clients of Emily’s start having bad luck, and Lilith’s overdue psychiatric evaluation doesn’t go so well. So Emily is immediately placed on leave so she can take some time to sort things out, parent her new foster child and complete the adjust- ment process in a time of emotional healing. Just Kidding. She is totally told to suck it up and get with the program of completing an emotional job in the midst of a personal and profes- sional trauma, and then go home to deal with an increasingly demanding child. This, as you imag- ine, works out splendidly. Luckily she has a best friend, Douglas (Bradley Cooper), willing to give Lilith her long overdue psychiat- ric evaluation, which reveals that not everything is going as well as it might. Eventually, Emily violates several con- fidentiality protocols to get some back- ground on her new child. It occurs to me that if she tried that before things got super weird she could have saved herself a great deal of trouble. An increasingly crazy Emily sucks everyone in to her personal drama, eventually convincing detective Barron that she knows what she is talking about. I suspect some of the haters are giving bad reviews because it only takes the obviously unstable social worker two minutes to convince the level-headed and experienced police officer of her story, but when watch- ing a schlocky horror movie, you really need to make certain allowances. Overall, the film had plenty of good scares, and is worth checking out. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com 38 UCW OCTOBER 20-26, 2010 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM