Interview: Jodi Lyn O’Keefe of ‘Class’

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 by Roald Dahl. His books are incredible.

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. I cannot get enough of my vampires! I just re-read my favorite book, Pride And Prejudice, and I just read The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which I loved.

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.

The Joneses

Posted on August 10, 2010 at 8:10 am

Why do we want what we want? I don’t mean world peace or for our school’s team to win the NCAA championship, but why do we want a particular brand of shoe or phone or perfume? Is it because we think we will be able to appropriate some of the glamor of the celebrities who endorse them or the happiness of the people in commercials who seem to be having so much fun? And how can companies sell products to consumers who skip the ads on television and use pop-up blockers online?

This provocative new film takes current marketing trends and tweaks them just slightly for a sharp, witty, and revealing take that shows us, among other things, that we never really leave middle school when it comes to wanting to be just like the cool kids.

A new family moves into a wealthy neighborhood. They are attractive, charming, and very friendly. They love to entertain and they are always helpful in suggesting products to help you feel better, smarter, and more successful. “What are friends for?” they smile when thanked.

They seem to have it all — and by that I mean every high-end, desirable, utterly enticing gadget, fashion, and accessory you might see in a luxury magazine or on a red carpet or in the SkyMall catalogue. Their name is Jones, as in keeping up with — and as in Jonesing for all of their goodies in an attempt to achieve their effortless glamor.

They’re not a family. They are “stealth marketers,” placed in wealthy neighborhoods to push products. Kate (Demi Moore) is in charge. She has been “Mrs. Jones” with six different “husbands” in different neighborhoods. The new “Mr. Jones” this go-round (David Duchovny) is a former golf pro and car salesman named Steve. Kate teaches him the power of ripple effects — you sell more by influencing the local influencers like the most popular hairdresser in town and the guy who works in the pro shop at the country club. Meanwhile, the fake Jones kids are in high school, pushing lipstick and a rum drink in a sack. “You can’t just sell things; you’re here to sell a lifestyle, an attitude,” their supervisor (60’s supermodel Lauren Hutton) crisply reminds them. “If people want you, they’ll want what you’ve got.”

All goes well at first, the smooth operation contrasting with their neighbor’s clumsy efforts to sell her Mary Kay-style cosmetics. Steve reassures himself that he’s only “making a match between great products and the people that want them.” But then things go very badly, with tragic consequences.

Duchovny and Moore are just right, both deploying and mocking their movie star glamor. In the past, both stars have traded on a talent for blankness (yes, that is a talent), allowing us to project our own feelings onto them. Here, both are a bit more vulnerable and accessible. The exceptional supporting cast includes Amber Heard and Ben Hollingsworth, as their fake children and Chris Williams as the hairdresser. And watch for the movie’s own stealth marketing through its product placements — almost all of the items used by the Joneses are real. If you leave the theater thinking you really should pick up one of those phones with real-time video or a Japanese toilet, ask yourself why.

CONTEST ALERT: I have three DVDs to give away to the first three people who send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Jones” in the subject line. Don’t forget to include your address! Good luck, and thanks very much to Fox for providing the DVDs.

Letters to God

Posted on August 9, 2010 at 8:00 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Character drinks to deal with pain
Violence/ Scariness:	Very sad themes of terminal illness
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	April 9, 2010
Date Released to DVD:	August 10, 2010
Amazon.com ASIN:	B003NKU9AK

Director David Nixon is dedicated to telling stories of faith and inspiration. His most recent film is “Letters to God,” inspired by the true story of a critically ill boy who wrote to God to ask for help. But the help he asked for was not for himself. He did not ask God to make him well. He wrote to ask God to help the people around him. His sincerity, spiritual generosity, and faith inspire those around him, including the mail carrier who had been consumed by his own pain and loss.
The sincerity and good intentions of this story help make up for some lapses in its quality. The acting and screenplay are uneven. But the power of its message makes it worthwhile.
I have one copy to give away to the first person to send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Letters” in the subject line. Don’t forget your address. (US addresses only, sorry.)

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The Kids are All Right

Posted on July 15, 2010 at 6:01 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some teen drug and alcohol use
Profanity:	Very strong and explicit language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drug use, by adults and teens, adult abuses alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense family confrontations, scuffle
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	July 16, 2010

Life is messy, and one of the ways we try to make sense of it is through stories. With their selection of detail and events and resolution — whether a happy or a sad one — they give us a sense of structure and logic and catharsis. They help us sort through life’s ambiguities and complications, even if only for a couple of hours.

At least, that’s what stories do most of the time. Once in a while, they are content just to reflect back to us the very messiness and ambiguity we are experiencing. And when they do it well, they give us a sense of recognition that is in its own way cathartic. This film manages to do that and to be subtly subversive, lulling us across some of our own internal boundaries with its matter-of-fact portrayal of family life.

Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a long-time couple who have each given birth to a child, biological half-siblings because both women used sperm from the same anonymous donor, selected as optimal on the basis of his profile. Now the children, Joni (Mia Wasikowska of “Alice in Wonderland”) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson of “Journey to the Center of the Earth”) are teenagers and curious about their biological father. So, without telling their moms, they contact him.

He is Paul (Mark Ruffalo), an organic farmer and restaurateur whose free-spirited approach to life is very appealing to two teenagers emerging from a home that is rather hot-housed by comparison. Nic and Jules have created a deeply nurturing, “Let’s talk about our feelings” environment that feels claustrophobic and intrusive to their children, especially Laser as the household’s only male. In a brief but beautifully filmed scene that opens the film, Laser looks on with a mixture of curiosity and longing as a friend casually roughhouses with his dad, captivated by this particularly male kind of communication. It may be in part this emotion that keeps Laser connected to a friend his moms correctly believe to be a bad influence.

Paul is an enticing figure for the teenagers, comfortable with his maleness and easy-going. And Paul himself is enticed by Joni and Laser, who surprise him with a sense of connection and stability he did not realize he was missing. Just as they are separating from overshare central in the house they grew up in as a normal part of adolescent search for identity, he is drawn to the road he did not quite realize he chose not to take. And this plays out in ways that threaten everything the family has built.

The title focuses on the kids, but the movie is really about the adults. The small miracle of this film is its portrayal of a long-term marriage, its perspective unadorned but sympathetic, satiric but tender. The dynamic of affection, distraction, familiarity, and frustration is deftly portrayed. The expectation of the movie is that audiences will take for granted that a same-sex relationship is just like every other relationship we have experienced and seen portrayed, and if there is any surprise at all it is how quickly we do.

And then, just as we get comfortable with the familiar discomforts of the relationship, it all gets turned upside down and we and the characters are asked to jettison yet another level of expectations and boundaries.

Bening and Moore are magnificent. It is a pure pleasure to see women with real faces on screen. They hold nothing back in allowing themselves to be seen fully in every sense of the term, opening themselves up with breathtaking generosity of spirit. The kids are all right in this film; the grown-ups are even better.

Related Tags:

Drama Family Issues Movies -- format

Hey, Hey, It’s Esther Blueburger

Posted on July 13, 2010 at 10:51 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 For thematic elements, language, some sexual content and brief teen smoking.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Teen smoking, drinking, drug references
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad death
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to DVD:	July 13, 2010
Amazon.com ASIN:	B003F5WOBA

This 2008 Australian film is one of my favorites of the past few years and I am very happy that it is finally available on a US-format DVD. It’s the story of the title character, Esther Blueburger (Danielle Catanzariti), approaching her bat mitzvah and feeling like a complete outcast among the confident and willowy girls at her school. When she meets the free-spirited Sunni (“Whale Rider’s” Keisha Castle-Hughes), daughter of an even more free-spirited single mother (Toni Collette), she decides to re-invent herself. Without telling her parents, she starts attending Sunni’s school, trying out a new, cool persona. And it works.

Until it doesn’t.

Yes, lies will be discovered and lessons learned. As coming of age stories go, this one is told exceptionally well, with verve, imagination, an outstanding visual sensibility, and a great deal of understanding and compassion for its appealing heroine.