Yesterday, 35mm Movie Projector detail, inside the recently refurbished Parkway Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
After dinner at the Tea House last night, Liz and I went to see The Brave One. I’ve always been a big Jodie Foster fan. She’s got charisma, isn’t afraid to tackle psychologically complex roles, and Liz and I both enjoy her intensely handsome good looks. This was a tough role. And I applaud her for taking it on.
I predict that most Americans won’t be able to stomach the underbelly truth of this film. Attendance numbers will drop. Because we live in a country that would rather pay to see the gratuitous violence of the Die Hard series, than skirt the stormy edges behind real violence in our own backyards.
This movie will make you think. And the chemistry between Erica Bain (Jodie Foster) and Sean Mercer (Terrence Howard, another favorite) is worth the price of admission.
New York City adds a fertile, heart thumping backdrop. But it’s the disturbing psychological thrust of the film that drives home a deeper truth we already know in our hearts – when it comes to integrity and morality, we don’t really know what we’d do…until an it-will-never-happen-to-me situation knocks the breath out of us and changes our lives forever.
The Brave One – Things To Look Out For
- Prolonged suspense
- Rugged good looks
- Understated sensuality (eye contact, voice, dialogue)
- Well-integrated score
- Increased heart rate
- Unexpected endings (in every situation)
- Changed definition of “community”
- Sideways glances as you walk out of the theater
- 2:02 hours of stomach tension. Prepare to be on edge.
- You’ll try to put yourself in the same situation. And wonder what you’d do.
-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, September 29th, 2007
Yes, Jodie Foster is always an actress you can count on. Solid. Interesting. Riveting. She’s one I would see in nearly anything.
I am wildly interested in this photo, as I saw this machine last winter when it was still covered with a film of dust in the projection room upstairs. I interviewed Bill, the then-owner of the Parkway. He worked at that theater for 40 years. I haven’t been back since it officially changed hands. I’m afraid I’ll be a little sad. The old Parkway with its lumpy seats and fabulous foreign films was a getaway for me. A place I could always go where no one could find me. And they always had fresh Twizzlers. Bill gave them to me for free since I was such a loyal patron.
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Teri, I thought of you when I was there a few weeks ago. Liz and I saw Ani DiFranco read her poetry there. And I have to say, the new owner (who owns Pepito’s next store) seems really great. He worked with Amazon Women’s Bookstore (across the street) to put on the last minute poetry event, shook our hands as we were walking in, and I was in awe at how much better the theater was looking (and smelling).
The original blueprints for the building are on the glass doors out front and I got the feeling that he’s working to keep the theater as close to the original as he can. It has the look and feel of the Riverview in Longfellow (which we love).
The theater has the same lumpy, colorful seats (though it seemed he had taken some out to make a venue for writers and performance). And the projector has been cleaned up and is on display in the lobby. I was happy to be able to see a writer read her work there and left that night feeling hopeful about the ongoing life of the Parkway.
I can sure understand how it would make you sad though. I did meet the old owner once. But I don’t know much about him. Did you profile him? And is there somewhere we can read about the previous owner and his 40 years with the Parkway? If you have a piece, I’d love to read it. Let us know.
I have a few more photos of the Parkway (and this projector) that I’ll be posting in coming weeks. Some will make it to red Ravine. But most you’ll be able to see in my Flickr account (LINK). I’d like to go back for another round. When and if you decide to head back to the Parkway, let me know. Maybe we can go together. I’d like to hear your thoughts.
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Yes, I did write a profile about Bill. I would be happy to share it. I was really touched by the way he loved film and loved his Parkway community. He was one of those people who knew his customers by name. He’d usually greet me by saying, “Hi, Teri! How’s your school year going?” He’d always have some tidbit to discuss about the Minneapolis Public School system. A real gem.
I also talked with the new owner when I did the profile. And yes, he is really interested in making a go of the new business in a way I think we can really support. Did you know he is a former actor? He has been in several movies.
After seeing your piece, I drove by the theater today. It’s all buffed and shined, and I tried to accept change. Yes, let’s go to a flick sometime soon.
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Teri, that’s cool that you got to meet the new owner, too. Kind of see the transition. I didn’t know he was an actor – that adds a whole new dimension to the way he has created a stage up front.
And Bill sounds like a great example of a community-oriented person I could really get behind. Let’s talk off-line about the profile piece. I’m excited to read it.
I can see you driving by the theater. I have to admit, it does look all buffed and shined. It’s hard when things change. I truly love these old places like The Ritz, the Riverview, and the Parkway. I’ve seen each one get a facelift. Something is lost. And something gained.
When I think of all the buildings that get torn down, it’s such a relief that there are people still investing in old architecture. I think most times, they do it for the love of history – and for community.
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Jodie Foster is one of my favorite actresses. I just saw an ad for this movie the other day and made a mental note to mention it to my husband as a possible outing this weekend.
Thanks for the review. I’m looking forward to seeing it.
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QM, I want to see this movie really badly…I have a great respect for the roles Jodie Foster chooses. She’s a brilliant, talented woman. But, from what I’ve heard, the first 10 minutes is so brutally graphic, I’m actually afraid to see it. I barely survived “The Accused”. I understand too well the truth of it…it’s just hard for me to live with.
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Yes, I like Jodie Foster, too. I suppose if I could see Silence of the Lambs on big screen, I could see The Brave One, too. Although the idea of sitting through 2 hours of tense stomach muscles is something I don’t know if I have the stomach (muscles) for ; – ).
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BTW, I feel like over the past 12 years, I’ve gotten kind of “namby” in terms of my movie-drama threshold. Pirates of the Carribean seems to be one of the more intense movies I’ve seen lately. That’s what happens when 99% of the movies you see are those you take your kids to.
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Robin, us know how you like it. BTW, I just spent some time with your Coyote Moon – the same one I’ve been watching rise and set over the Midwest. I love this time of year.
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Heather, yes, the beginning is tough. There are ways the whole movie is tough. There is so much violence all around us in movies and TV these days, that it’s interesting to note how a movie like this can be so jarring. Movies that contain situations that could happen in real life, that are closer to living, are harder to watch. It’s not the same escape.
I’ve noted that I have a hard time with movies centered around violence against women, even if the point of the movie is to show a positive outcome with change for the better. I just can’t watch them anymore. There were ways that this movie was disturbing but also empowering. We all pick our battles.
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ybonesy, I saw Silence of the Lambs on the big screen, too. That movie scared me to death, much more than The Brave One. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because someone like Hannibal Lecter doesn’t come along every day. He’s more of an aberration. Whereas the kind of violence in the opening scene in The Brave One is something many people are touched by each day, though most of us don’t want to think about it.
I rarely go to full screen movies anymore. I’m much more likely to watch something on HBO or satellite. But there’s nothing like a good movie at the theater. It’s still a thrill.
Hey, I saw Pirates, too. I have to say, I liked the first one and I do love Depp. But the last one bored me to tears. I don’t know what happened. It just didn’t have it for me! Depp wasn’t enough to carry it.
What movies do you have lined up next with your kids?
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I want to take Dee to see the Jane Austen film. It’s already at the dollar theater. That was the only one that piqued my interest this weekend when I looked up what movies I might take them to. I’m sure they’d prefer something super light and goofy. Although Dee said she wanted to see Becoming Jane.
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p.s., I can’t help but notice the timestamp on your comments. Were you a creative insomniac again last night ; – ) ??
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I see old projectors like that all the time at work…
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LB, that seems like a treat. I was checking on prices and the old projectors aren’t worth as much as I thought they might be. Maybe some day.
I personally still have my Super 8mm camera. That’s about the size film I can handle and like to work with. The good old days.
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yb, yes, couldn’t sleep last night. Too much on the brain. Now I’m The Sleepy One. 8)
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QM,
about the last paragraph – that’s why I’ve always been fascinated by accounts of extreme situations – like Solzhenitsin’s One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch, for example, because I agree that ordinary life doesn’t ever ask us the kind of searching questions of ourselves that those extreme situations do, or teach us so much about what human beings are really like.
Jodie Foster – 18 carat.
Your cinema and its proprietors – reminds me of places where I’ve been as a movie-goer at different times. There was one where we could smoke (I did) and eat great wedges of cake washed down with coffee (I did) and see double bills: the Brixton Ritzy. The site got ‘developed’, I think.
We have a 60-seat DVD-showing place opened recently near us – another era.
(Yb, thanks for calling.)
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First of all, this sounds like precisely the kind of movie I will wait for so I can watch it on the little screen at home. I agree with Anusvue that though I know it is acting, I also know these things really happen and I can’t distance myself as well with the big screen. I also love Jodie Foster. She is beautiful and a brilliant actress. As far as wondering what I would do in extreme situations, as the daughter of two Nazi concentration camp survivors, I have spent a good portion of all of my life thinking about this. I have no illusions. I know I would do anything to first of all keep my children alive. I mean absolutely anything. Protecting myself is secondary.
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QM,
Thanks for the heads up!
Movies like this don’t last too long in Venezuela. Venezuelans are even worse when it comes to wanting easy to follow action scenes. Anything too complex will be lost.
Fortunately I have been able to see good films (with original dialog in English) like “Little Miss Sunshine”, “The Departed”, and some others I can’t remember the titles right now, but my point is, I have to catch them quickly or they disappear.
Though I like her as an actress, the last Jody Foster film I saw, the one about the fake jumbo jet airplane was lame in my opinion. Too fake. Too unbelievable. Not her best.
I live in a somewhat unstable, sometimes violent (read high crime for both), country. Not sure if I’ll be able to drag my wife to this one or not.
MM
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stranger, I had to take a closer look at Solzhenitsin’s One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch (1962) (LINK). Definitely extreme situation and it seems the author was also imprisoned during the Stalin era.
It reminds me of something Liz was telling me recently from her history of community psychology book. It is speculated that even one of Stalin’s doctors, Vladimir Bekhterev, was executed after he diagnosed Stalin with paranoia (Stalin sought treatment for depression). Bekhterev’s son was killed, too.
There is something that draws us to study and read about extreme situations. I remember the True Crime section of the bookstore I worked at was one of the most popular. It was also the section where the most books were ripped off.
Oh, I had to look up the Brixton Ritzy after your comment. There have been quite a few changes. Here’s a link with a great old photo: Then and Now: Brixton Theatre and Ritzy, Brixton (LINK).
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TIV, yes, that makes sense. I was talking to ybonesy a little about the movie and we were talking about how we all bring our own history and life situations to the table when we read books or view movies and art. It’s very subjective. And our family and generational history plays a big role in our actions and opinions in the world today. I’m not a parent. But I sure like to think I’d go to great lengths to protect those I love as well.
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mm, yes, I can see how you may not want to see this one. If surrounded by potential violence on a day to day basis, it might be hard to add another thing to the mix. I didn’t see the last Foster movie – I admit, it didn’t get me going either. Didn’t her daughter disappear off a plane or something? I can’t remember the plot. It’s interesting to ponder the cross-cultural impact of movies.
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…ordinary life doesn’t ever ask us the kind of searching questions of ourselves that those extreme situations do, or teach us so much about what human beings are really like.
Well put, stranger. And I’m always much more inclined to watch documentaries about these horrific events, or read about them in books (e.g., Helter Skelter) than dramatizations of them. Which is probably also why I get sucked into People Magazine, which gives you short articles on extreme events mixed in with beautiful people. My God, they got the secret sauce recipe, didn’t then, in terms of what people are fascinated by.
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I just saw this yesterday, and I thought it was really good. Though, afterwords, when I asked myself why, it was hard to figure, exactly. The movie was well written, and I have a lot of trust in Jodie Foster which was huge, because I think I would have doubted, or psychologically struggled with following this travail and her reactions if say, Jennifer Lopez were at the helm. But in her voice, her thoughtfulness, I went right along with the character, through the trauma, the struggles, the repercussions and the odd confidence that seemed to come to her on those dark night journeys…
My mom rented it and watched it first before giving it to us to see, and she was so disturbed by it she stayed up all night but other than the horrible early scene of violence, I found it didn’t bother me to near a degree, I almost felt… satisfied? Not by her choices or the violence but by the voice she gave to fear and the repercussions of it. It was not an uplifting plot, so when I try to figure out why I liked/felt satiated by it so much I kinda think maybe, this was a film that spoke to and for people who have been through trauma, who have dealt with fear.
I liked it a lot. (and terrence howard was awesome in his part)
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amuirin, thanks for coming back and resurrecting this post! Timely, too. There are a couple of synchronicities for me here.
I was just talking to my friend, Teri, about Jodie Foster’s The Accused. She said she had rented it again recently and told me it seemed much more tame than she remembered it. (If she sees this, maybe she will comment!)
It also reminds me (when I read the comments again) that I still have Teri’s Profile piece to publish, along with my photographs of the Parkway Theater. It kind of gets me excited to get to that piece. In blog world, things move slowly. But they do move!
You bring up some great points about the movie. It’s interesting about your mother watching it, then not being able to sleep. I agree, I felt oddly satisfied by the movie. You bring up the point of having been through trauma or felt that kind of fear. I can relate to that, too. And I found the movie empowering for that reason.
It’s also got an odd twist at the end with Terrence that is worth seeing the movie for. It really makes you think about what you’d do in a similar situation.
The other point you bring up, about Jodie Foster giving the part legitimacy – totally spot on. If anyone else were doing it, I’d be hard pressed to want to watch it. She brings a credibility to everything she does. She’s got integrity.
I can’t remember where it was, but Liz and I recently saw that Jodie Foster was going to be in a magazine somewhere (or a promo) and she was in a phone booth, made up exactly the way Tippi Hedren was in The Birds. I think it might be a tribute to Hitchcock. But I’ll have to ask Liz to refresh my memory. She looked exactly like Tippi!
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The first time I saw The Accused it scared me to death. It scared me because a woman being gang-raped was a real and steady concern for my friends and me. It was happening, and we knew it. There was still a pervasive attitude that a bunch of guys could get by with it, and if you reported them no one would believe you. Now, seeing the movie again, I believe there has been a shift in consciousness. It isn’t the free-for-all it once was. Happily, progress has been made.
My opinion, only.
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Teri, when I read your comment, it strikes me that The Accused and The Brave One are totally connected. I can see why Foster took on The Brave One. I think The Accused came out in 1988 when violence against women (by people that were often known to these women) was starting to gain national attention for the first time.
What struck me about The Brave One, nearly 20 years later, was how much courage the character felt to go out and take her power back. I’m not saying I condone the way she chose to go about that. But it really spoke to her courage that she did. All the violence is still around. But people are dealing with it differently.
Though I recently saw a show on teenage girls and how they are being taped by their boyfriends (unknown to them) and then it’s being plastered all over the Internet and their friends cell phones. It seems like a new form of abuse. The girls were devastated by it. And it was hard for them to recover. It was really disheartening to me. It was on a news documentary show I was watching. What a betrayal of trust. It was hard to watch.
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I went to the Parkway last night, the first time since it changed hands. I saw the projector you photographed in the lobby, QM, and smiled to think of you and your ever-present camera(s). You’ll be interested in hearing (as a graduate of Minneapolis College of Art and Design) that the students from that school are going to be painting murals on the walls inside the theater. The new owner got up before the movie started (an independent flick called Honeydripper that takes place in 1950’s Alabama) and explained the renovations, and told us it was *our* theater. I loved that.
In our discussions of independent book stores, I make an equal pitch for independent theaters with one screen that show movies with character development and class.
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Teri, I’m in total agreement on supporting Independent theaters. I just love them. BTW, I am still planning to work on that collaborative post about the Parkway. It’s high on my radar for red Ravine! I’ve got to dig up those old photos I took of the Parkway. It was a good photo night. 8)
Isn’t the new owner great? I’m so happy he has enlisted the good students at MCAD to paint his walls with murals. He seems like a real community person and wants the theater to be the same. Thanks for coming back and commenting on that.
Hey, did you see Honeydripper then? How was it and what was it about.
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The Parkway only charges $5 for a ticket, and allows drinks from the adjoining Pepitos to be brought into the theater. I went with my niece, and we felt so happy to support what he is doing there.
Honeydripper stars Danny Glover, the owner of a country juke-joint (is that how it is spelled?) that is going belly-up. He enlists the help of his friends, family, and a vagrant to turn the establishment around. It made me want to go back to the South.
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[…] between Teri’s profile and the Parkway photographs were planted in a Comment thread on The Brave One. The result is this chance meeting between language and the […]
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[…] watched a film, based mostly on a recommendation from QM at red Ravine called, ‘The Brave One’. It features Jodie Foster, and I tried to put into words at the […]
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I watched The Brave One last night. For the first time. As for the scene in Central Park, I fast forwarded. I could get the gist without watching.
The filmmakers got the emotional fall-out for victims spot-on. The fear of going out of your house, the hyper-vigilance about noises and people, the depersonalizing scenes at the police station, the helplessness about violence everywhere that you can’t stop.
I liked watching where Jodie’s character found solace…and who ended up helping her in ways that mattered.
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