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/29614
Extra-special Education Beyond the Blackboard redeems heroic-teacher cliché TV by DEAN ROBBINS Beyond the Blackboard (Sunday, 9 p.m., CBS) is another entry in a disreputable movie genre: the white middle-class teacher who goes into the ‘hood and, against all odds, gets through to the previously unreach- able disadvantaged kids. I’m person- ally inclined to distrust these glori- fied stories, having been a teacher myself in a disadvantaged neighbor- hood with less than glorious results. But I admit falling for Beyond the Blackboard, despite the cookie- cutter plot: Young teacher Stacy (played by Emily VanCamp and based on a real person) works won- ders with homeless kids despite a rocky start. She brings in fruit cups, paints the room and instills a sense of purpose in her class. The acting is topnotch, and the clichés are at least put over with conviction. The result is a poignant produc- tion, and I wish I’d seen it before my own teaching experience. I don’t know why I didn’t think of fruit cups. Dual Survival Friday, 9 pm (Discovery) Dave Canterbury and Cody Lundin place themselves in extreme survival situations, calling each other “bro” and showing how manly men would handle themselves. In the season premiere, Dave and Cody go to remote Tierra Del Fuego and pretend to be injured hunters. But pretending isn’t really very manly, is it? So Dave decides to slice open his arm with a hunting knife, pour gunpowder into it, and light it on fire to cauterize the wound. “What we’re doing should not be done at home,” Dave cautions the TV audience. To be honest, bro, I really don’t think anyone is stupid enough to try this but you. American Experience Monday, 9 pm (PBS) An excellent documentary on the Stonewall riots benefits from interviews with participants in the celebrated gay-rights uprising of 1969. It begins with a chilling account of the subhuman treatment gay people faced pre-Stonewall, from barbaric electric shock “therapy” to harassment from every corner of the American establishment. “Notice how Albert delicately pats his hair and adjusts his collar,” says the narrator of a typical anti-gay propaganda film. “His move- ments are not characteristic of a real boy.” After an hour’s worth of these horrors, the firsthand account of the mili- tant resistance at Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn is thrilling. Thousands of gay people fought back against a police crackdown, going so far as to pull a parking meter out of the ground to use as a weapon. “In the civil rights move- ment we ran from the police,” says one commentator. “In the peace movement we ran from the police. That night, the police ran from us, the lowliest of the low. And it was fantastic.” The documentary is so empowering that it makes you feel like pulling up a parking meter yourself. Summer/Fall Open Registration For all Stud Tony Rand St de t Ce te , Spri g Lake camp us dF ony Rand Student Cente , Spring Lake campus, and Fort Bragg Soldier Development Centerl .m. - 6 p.m d F B For all Stud S lld di D .m. - 6 p.m. C m. - 6 p.m. us, s, Last day to register for Summer Semester - May 19 Offering over 150 affordable programs in occupational, technical, general education, and college transfer leading to an associate degree, certificate, or diploma. Many programs are 100% online! NOTE: Open Registration for Fall Semester will also take place on June 21, July 12, August 2-4, and August 8-10. Students should complete the FAFSA (Free application for Federal Student Aid) application (www.fafsa.ed.gov) by June 1 for financial assistance to be considered for fall semester! www.faytec Admissions - (910) 678-8473 FTCC is a military friendly college! Students using Army Tuition Assistance (GAE) must register through the GoArmyEd web portal which opens for Summer April 1 and closes May 22. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM APRIL 20-26, 2011 UCW 25