Posted on September 3, 2010 at 7:41 am
The Jonas Brothers are back with a sequel to their popular “Camp Rock.” Returning to jam with the JoBros are Demi Lovato and “Step Up 3D” star Alyson Stoner. Will there be romance? Will there be music? Will there be a big battle of the bands? You bet, and it’s all a lot of fun.
Posted on August 20, 2010 at 8:04 am
I love StoryCorps, the wonderful NPR series and podcast that lets Americans tell their own funny, touching, inspiring, tragic, stories of love, work, family, war, school, struggle, heartbreak, and triumph. There are stories about world-changing historic events and stories about life-changing moments that matter only to the people involved. A boy with Asperger syndrome asks his mother what it is like to be a parent. A Brooklyn couple talk about falling in love, staying together, and living through the final stages of cancer as they prepare to say goodbye. A man adjusts to life with a bionic hand. A man recalls the Stonewall uprising that began the movement for gay rights. A woman talks to her adult son about her decision to adopt him.
Now it is a television series, the honest, intimate voices accompanied by beautifully designed animation. Please gather your family and watch. I hope it will inspire you to share your own stories with each other or maybe with StoryCorps, too.
Posted on August 15, 2010 at 8:00 am
Cable series about desperate circumstances do well because they put our daily lives into the sharpest possible focus. Somehow, they make characters who deal in drugs (“Weed,” “Breaking Bad”) or mental illness (“United States of Tara”) or even the compulsion to murder (“Dexter”) seem if not normal at least accessible. The latest addition premieres this week and the first episode (slightly edited) is available on YouTube.
Laura Linney stars in “The Big C” as a wife, mother, and teacher who has always taken care of others and colored in the lines who discovers she has terminal cancer. This causes her to think carefully about who she is and what she wants and needs. She had organized her choices based on having a lot of time. When she discovers that her time is limited, she tells a waiter, “I’m just having desserts and liquor.” She does not tell the people around her about her illness, but she begins to tell them the truth about other things. The cast includes Gabourey Sidibe of “Precious” as an outspoken student and Oliver Platt as an affectionate but needy husband. I especially like her interaction with her young doctor. Even he is relying on her for support because it was the first time he ever had to tell a patient she was terminal.
This may be a comedy, but it is no sit-com. It is an adventure with a woman trying to maintain some sense of control and achieve some sense of meaning. It is the way her diagnosis liberates her that makes the show bracing, provocative and yes, even funny.
Linney is one of the finest actresses in Hollywood and it is a treat to see her show us how a woman finds that the prospect of death makes her begin to understand for the first time what life really means.
Posted on August 11, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Episodes of the classic television series, “The Open Mind,” are now available online. These are real treasures. For more than 50 years, some of the most thoughtful and influential people in every field visited this program for lively conversations about pressing issues, understanding the past, and creating visions for the future. The name of the program comes from the saying, “Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.” The programs are now themselves essential historical artifacts, with interviews of fascinating people: Martin Luther King, Robert Redford, Malcolm X, Elie Weisel, and hundreds more. But of course in my opinion the greatest of all is this appearance by by dad, Newton Minow, who here discusses his famous “vast wasteland” speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, what he learned from Robert Kennedy, and how the great promise of mass communications has influenced society.
Watch the full episode. See more The Open Mind.
Posted on August 11, 2010 at 3:49 pm
“Class” is a new romance premiering August 14 on the Hallmark Channel, and I spoke to its star, Jodi Lyn O’Keefe (“Prison Break”), who plays a single mother struggling to take care of her son assigned to an arrogant law student (Justin Bruening) who is required to perform public service in order to graduate. Ms. O’Keefe called me to talk about the appeal and the challenges of a role very different from her previous appearances.
This is very different from your previous roles — you have often played more aggressive, physical characters. In this part, the way you held yourself and moved was so distinctive.
I just tried to keep everything quiet and small.
What attracted you to this part?
I kept my niece in mind the entire time. She’s nine and she doesn’t get to see a lot of what I do.
Your character has a very close relationship with her sister, which helps us see her as someone who is wounded but still open to connections with others. Are you close to your sisters?
I’m very close to my two sisters. It was a wonderful way to grow up, with two strong older sisters who always had my back. And the actress who plays my sister is a good friend of mine, Lauren Glazier. So that part was easy for me.
You began working very young, didn’t you?
Yes, I began modeling when I was very young, catalog work and all that, and then the modeling agency merged with a talent agency and I got an audition. That was the beginning of the end for me; I was in love. I was 13 or 14 and walked into the audition and the casting director said, “What did you think of the script?” That was what did it! That was the first time somebody asked my opinion and made me think I actually had one. Before that it was “Stand there,” “Wear this,” “Look over here.” There wasn’t a whole lot of “how do you feel about the character.” I was such a huge reader I had 40 thousand things to say about the script. My mom used to have to tear books out of my hands to go to school.
What were some of your favorite books?
I read everything I could get my hands on! I loved The BFG
When this script came to you, what made you want to do it?
It was something new for me. I wanted to see if I could do it. It’s been a long time since I’ve been the good guy. And my niece always asks why I don’t live in New Jersey. I wanted to make something she could watch. She and my nephews have been begging me for years to be a cartoon and I’d love nothing more, but until then, this is for them.
What connection did you feel to the character?
That whole “don’t judge a book by its cover thing.” And she feels confused and misunderstood. Like everyone else growing us, I have felt that way. I relied on that. And it is such a lovely, sweet, romantic story. I went with that. And I had such a great supporting cast. I fell so in love with Maxwell Perry Cotton, who plays my son, Shane. I was just over the moon about him. I could not get over him. He’s one of the loveliest kids ever, so funny and so bright, and he became more of himself every single day. It was one of the nicest sets I’ve ever worked on.
Did you have any formal training as an actor?
My training was working on a soap opera . It was overwhelming at such a young age but I learned a lot. It was where I learned everything, the longest hours I ever put in, a show a day. Incredible.
What makes you laugh?
Anything inappropriate! I’m from New Jersey!
And what inspires you?
Books! Right now I am reading the books about Sookie Stackhouse
Are you reading book books or ebooks? Have you succumbed to the Kindle
I absolutely did! I have a dust allergy and literally for six months my mother told me I had to get a Kindle. I used to travel with an extra suitcase just for books. She talked me into it and it changed my world. And now I have an iPad! It’s the greatest thing ever!
And what do you aspire to?
It’s pretty simple. I want to keep working, pay my mortgage, spend time with my family, and take care of my dogs. I have two sharpeis and a bulldog, Penny, Ophelia, and George.
