It took until almost literally the end of the year for me to decide upon my favorite movies of M2K. Finding Forrester most def belongs on that list. The Story (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**) A young Black teen from The Bronx, a scholar-athlete? Whoda thunkit? Apparently, when it comes to Jamal "J" Wallace (Rob Brown), not many people. Including J, who hid his book smarts away in the classroom from his crabs-in-a-barrel friends, choosing instead to shine on the basketball courts. A straight-C student doing only enough to get by so his friends wouldn't dog him out for being the bookworm that he really is, about the only ones who knew that Jamal was more than the sum of his class grades, were his mother (April Grace) and underachieving brother Terrell (Busta "I don't belong in this flick" Rhymes). That is, until J's high standardized test scores catches the attention of school administrators, including admins from a private prep school which - oh yeah, by the way - happens to have a basketball team that might be helped out by J's roundball skills. Another force enters into J's life: the force he and his running buds know as "The Window" (Sean Connery), a legendary recluse who lives above the b-ball court they play on, and watches them play. On a dare from his friends, J breaks into The Window's apartment to prove he can hold his own against the object of his friends' many ghost stories, but after being spooked by The Window, J drops a backpack full of his writings. From this, their mentorial friendship begins, and soon after, J learns something extraordinary about The Window. J will need his new friend's tutelage to guide him when John Hartwell (Matthew Noah Word), one of his new teammates, is serenely unimpressed with J's skillz, when he develops a...friendship...with Claire Spence (Anna Paquin), whose Rich Daddy (Michael Nouri) doesn't think much of baller J, and when J comes up against crabs-in-a-barrel Professor Crawford (F. Murray Abraham), an unpublished (and bitter about it) Literature teacher who simply cannot believe that J could be as scholarly as his test scores show him to be. The Upshot Someone mentioned to me that he felt this movie "glossed over the African-American world it attempted to present in favor of a didactic agenda". Here's my take on it; consider this "The Upshot" and "The Black Factor" [ObDisclaimer: We Are Not A Monolith], all tied up in one big bow: A lot of people will see this movie's trailer, and its premise, and think "hmmm...Yet Another 'White Man Saves The Ghetto Boy' Flick"; still others will see the film, and partway through it, think "hmmm...Yet Another 'Magical Negro' Flick". But I saw something different. I saw a tale of the harms that are caused by giving in to peer pressure/crabs-in-a-barrel syndrome, and in letting someone else decide who you are and what you're capable of. And yes, it was a somewhat didactic tale - but one that was refreshingly free of so many of the stereotypical characters that make me cringe. The Bronx kids that Jamal hung out with were round-the-way boys, yes, but their "double dog dare" was more reminiscent of A Christmas Story than of Menace II Society; their 'hood had a 70's kinda "just boys hangin' out" groove that my old neighborhood had, with a '90s feel to the surrounding environs. And it was ironically fitting that the person who would hold J down most was not his pressuring peers, but instead his envious and bitter teacher. What's worse than the pressure your peers put upon you to not perform, if not the unexpected hinderance put upon you from someone who should be helping you? I'm not bothered that this movie didn't dwell on J's Blackness as much as one might think this kind of movie would. If "Forrester" could be said to be missing some why-he-is-what-he-is backstory depth, it was worth it for me to not see gangbanging, undereducated, (too much) nigga-this nigga-that hooligans that you'd cross the street to get away from if they were coming at you. These were normal kids growing up in a not-so-normal world; and I'd dare say there are a few normal kids left in this world. Even Black ones from the Boogie Down Bronx. Ignore Anna Paquin (Claire) and Busta Rhymes (Terrell) if you can; neither one belonged in this movie, and both, frankly, twisted my gizzard. Ignore also the pretty bad writing from Mike Rich; as I was just reminded (from the very wise correspondent mentioned above), there was fair little of the native Bronx dialect to be found in this movie, and some of the words put into the character's mouths were laughable to hear. But aside from those false starts, Finding Forrester clicked on all scales for me. Director Gus Van Sant kept me watching for his touches throughout; and Sean Connery and newcomer Rob Brown made a dynamic duo, overcoming the somewhat stilted dialogue they were given to say by writer Rich. It was as much a treat to hear that Scottish brogue wrap itself around the phrase "you the man now, dog" as it was to watch Brown's Jamal get all up in the Professor's face - literally. My husband said it best when, after I asked him what he thought about the movie at the end, he simply replied, "Oscar-caliber". I doubt that Oscar's gonna pay much attention to "Forrester", but that's okay. It's enough for me that it was truly one of the high notes of a fairly dismal movie season. In The Movie House To make a long review even longer...I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the spectacle that is Lowes' Star Southfield theater, in Southfield, Michigan. "Spectacle" describes the Star Southfield best. Las Vegas-big (for this area and reviewer, anyway), the SS is the first stand-alone movie house I've ever been in that had a legitimate sit-down restaurant in it. In fact, SS has at least four eateries, as well as a standard snack bar (with an extended menu). But while the sheer audacity of its numerous restaurants had me gawking, it was the sublime SDDS sound system that led me to chance the wrath of readers suffering through this already overlong review, to write a few more words on the movie house experience. The sound system, driven by multiple JBL speakers strategically located around the theater, put the sound and music of the film right into the audience's ears without blaring too loudly; combined with a great movie score, there's no doubt that the techno-cool sound system made an already enjoyable movie, all the better for me. Bammer's Bottom Line All the above elements, in a movie that used music like an exclamation point, and visuals that told of a cinematographer and a director in love with their vision of the world, elevated Finding Forrester to a place that few M2K movies went for me this year. Maybe it was Just Me, and the company that I kept; but this movie, and the interaction between young J and his needy mentor, warmed me greatly. FINDING FORRESTER: I hope Hollywood makes this New Year's resolution, though: no more movie roles for Busta Rhymes, ever again. back to top And that's the way I see it. Rose "Bams" Cooper 3BlackChicks Enterprises™ Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000 EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com    ICQ: 7760005 http://www.3blackchicks.com/ http://www.evenbetter.com/?partner=1987

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