Fort Worth Star-Telegram from Fort Worth, Texas • 82

Friday September 10 2003 1 Star-Telegram and local actor ei may oepiemiX'r 21)03 show spark MACK Continued from 3E Like Family has the makings of a comfortable pleasant funny experience Like Family IS 7:30 Ml tonight 33 Kevin Michael Richardson is Ed and Holly Robinson Peete is Tanya in Like Family Although Keith (Fort Mack Slaughter) acts like a street-smart wiseguy who refers to himself as giggle Dog we know a lot more than that: sensitive kind a good student who will do the right thing in the end I buy Slaughter as a tough troublemaker for a minute He looks like what he is: a well-mannered good-intentioned kid schooled at Fort Worth Country Day His best moments come when not playing tough such as his funny tub scene in episode when everyone is parading into the bathroom as he bathes Says Tanya insulted that object to her presence: cleaned you I diapered you seen parts of you you find with a Keith: got new stuff since how Like Family goes at its worst when the 12-year-old quips like the big white brother I never and at its best next week in a well-executed comedic farce about Ed attempting to spend time alone with his wife episode might be a so-so but next a solid Ken Parish Perkins (817)390-7862 com By KEN PARISH PERKINS STAR-TELEGRAM TV CRITIC Because the show looks and behaves like so many other sitcoms it would be rather easy to dismiss Like Family as too conventional too unoriginal too safe too forgettable Its premise is a white mother and wayward son moving into the home of a black family but no mention of race The teen-age son is supposed to come equipped with rough edges but he looks about as hardcore as lint Story lines in the first two episodes seem like they were lifted from one of a million sitcoms that have already used them Like Family is as comfortable as a worn slipper sliding across a cold hardwood floor which of course is part of the ploy: look feel be familiar This so sinful when the jokes zing from one character to another like they do on say Reba the hit that Like Family will gleefully follow on Friday nights This sitcom have the zip of Reba but there are glimpses in debut and quite an enjoyable episode the week after that Taken as a whole this comedy has a nice pleasant rhythm of its own just enough to make a jaded critic hope it finds a place on the television wwwstar lelegramcom feel like one of 10000 guys thinking my god never gonna get because test- ing and you know between you and five other guys He had what seemed like endless callbacks until he got the final OK He called his family Says Mom nearly burst into tears Mack grew up near Hulen Mall in a family where Dad (also a Mack by the way) sang and played guitar and his sisters performed Sis Lisa is studying to be a nurse Other sis Sarah is a fixture at Casa Manana As for Mack he was onstage as early as 2 performing with his family They played everything from family reunions to Mayfest Mack would fall in love with musical theater already have 10 years under his belt before tossing the dice in Hollywood Music is still his thing got a band in San Diego and Los Angeles into rock funk jazz Making a choice between acting and music is out of the questioa So is worrying about what happens to actors who put out albums after their acting reps have been established people will say an actor he do Mack says so true to my heart real The only reason a lot of actors get recording deals is because they are who they are I hope people will listen to my music simply because good you We know Mack is a bit mad crazy himself with acting and bands in two cities performing in general that really does it for he says a rush All of it Some people jump out of planes I Ken Parish Perkins (817) 390:7862 kpperkmsd'star-telegram com band do some shows get a little local flavor going and well pow you blow up got an agent a manager a stack of 8-by-10 glossies at the ready in Los Angeles auditioning for a role in a situation comedy starring Peete and Diane Farr and Anthony Brown who calls you And not merely a cast member central to the show Like Family airing tonight on the WB is about a mother who moves her son from the city to a suburban hamlet because she fears running with the wrong crowd Mack is the son just cut him without crippling the premise on which the series is based And with Like Family airing after Reba the series has a better-than-average chance of being around next year the year after that and the year after that Fine by Mack who plans to be around whether the show is or not Look when he talks passion he means leaving School a year early and finishing his senior year by fax and e-mail He told Country Day he wait another minute and because they knew his talents and the skill of his sisters before him they agreed Mack worked here and there but without the timetable aspiring artists often place above their heads lowering it as patience grows thin and fear just grows Clooney was like what 35 before it happened for Mack says was trying man His heart was in Mack even 25 But he knows the Hollywood rejection game he says landscape Holly Robinson Peete who started her career in drama (21 Jump Street with Johnny Depp) has become a sitcom veteran and here the liveliest ever seen her She plays Tanya the sassy take-no-mess best bud to Maddie (Diane Farr) Maddie is searching for an escape route for her 16-year-old son Keith who is hanging out with the wrong crowd Moving to the New Jersey from Manhattan is the trick she thinks so Tanya makes room in a home already inhabited by the usual round of sitcom characters the burly but softhearted dad (Kevin Michael Richardson) the cute 12-year-old kid (BJ Mitchell) the sexy boy-crazy daughter (Megalyn Echikun-woke) and the wisecracking grandfather (J Anthony Brown) KELLY Continued from IE accessibility the way say Tu Mama Tambien Talk to Her or Spellboimd did at the Toronto fest in recent years not to say that there some very fine films Among my favorites all hitting theaters in the ColeHaan TRUNK SHOW RIDGLEA STORE TODAY! WATTS ings (In the Cut starring Ryan and Ruffalo Testosterone starring Sabato Jr and David Sutcliffe) and high schools where bullies rule the roost (the Swedish drama Evil and Gus Van Elephant a fictionalized portrait of the Columbine massacre) Why all the gloom and doom? And why are so many of these movies so uncompromising and graphic? I think a case of shock for sake Quite the opposite I suspect a lot of this has to do with the ways artists are responding to Sept 11 (Keep in mind that it usually takes about two years to make a film from conception to completion) Filmmakers are eager to portray real life and ready to analyze our wounds and reckon with our collective torment This can be a very good thing in the case of Elephant a great thing Van Sant immerses us into the everyday often banal push-and-pull of high school life: kids fiddling in the photo lab gossiping in the locker rooms studying in the library wandering through the corridors And then with little warning and explanation the killing spree begins And this already demanding plot-free slow-moving film turns even more difficult refusing us easy answers or tidy resolutions You watch Elephdnt and realize the Columbine massacre could have been approached only in this manner as a tragedy that touches us all but from which no moral lessons can be drawn And yet for every film like Elephant there seemed at least three films where the humorless tone seemed slightly at odds with the subject matter As for those movies that tried for tender pathos they felt underdramatized and forgettable Great art is bom out of agony yes but also out of hopefulness and clarity My guess is that it may be awhile before our best filmmakers can strike that balance again 6333 Camp Bowie Blvd 817-731-2555 Compare at $1099 A 0' vf 4 1 i I among them guy has worked with Steven Spielberg Robert Zemeckis Night McCanlies says adding that it was interesting to see the bonding that went on among Osment and the old er actors especially Caine were both nominated for an Academy Award the same McCanlies says they were always peers from minute one I think Bobby Duvall sure about working with a kid at first but very quickly when he found out who Flaley is and how great he is they were really three equals They were all peers and they talked to each other like The true grounding element for Osment is his family especially his father Eugene who doubles as an acting coach and has a bit part in Lions determined that his family implode the way families of young stars sometimes do very hard to get through this business without having Osment says of his family really do need that support whether from family or elsewhere in order to not get carried away from the outlying aspects of the business very hard to stay That mean missing out on childhood though big on video games and has lent his voice to at least one of them also a jock getting into golf crosscountry racing and soccer He brings his guitar along when filming on location and his musical tastes lean toward the artier side of pop Radio-head Coldplay REM Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin I5ut he really becomes engaged when the conversation turns to history He and his father traveled to Poland in 2000 to work on Edges of the Lord a I Iolocaust drama The movie which is being held up over legal matters stirred interest in history a subject he thinks some teens are missing out on read some fact he says think it was like 30 percent of high school graduates in the United States tested that they knew what the Holocaust was That's appalling because so much indifference to the past and just a recipe for Osment then begins to discuss current genocides in North Korea and Africa Here beginning to sound like the future Yale student he aspires to be I not sure though whether pull a Brooke Shields and drop out of acting for a few years to con-centiale on college hard for me to say whether it will be possible for me to do films while in school" he says "But if I go to Yale or wherever I definitely will be involved in the drama depaitment" Rohcrl Philpot (8U) 390 7872 rphilpolUir-IHTgiam com OSMENT Continued from IE doing it is great especially if you get to do a performance that always be happy with very happy with Sixth Sense But on its own That be part of what you do the answer of a seasoned actor one used to talking to the media Which of course Osment is As he bounces with nervous energy easy to forget that this teenager is already an Academy Award nominee and that already had a career-defining role In The Sixth Sense he played a haunted child TCole with such empathy and eeriness that fear became pail of the chills He also slyly fit into the clever structure which led to a knockdown twist that only the sharpest viewers could see coming Most actors wait a lifetime for roles like that child actors sometimes never recover from them But Osment already has another beautiful performance to his credit as David the android who wants to be a real little boy in AI Osment added wonder poignancy and even subtle terror to a character that could have been cloying Even when drowned by melodramatic mawkishness as he was in the well-meaning misfire Pay It Forward Osment transcends the story In Secondhand Lions Osment is surrounded by some more melodrama but there are also heavy doses of humor and adventure in Texan writer-director Tim story about a shy teen who spends a summer with a couple of eccentric uncles fourth high-profile movie role shares an earnestness with his other best-known work and as talented as lie is he risks typecasting and even critical backlash which is something a teen have to worry about Not that Osment does "I think most actors pay too much attention to reviews" says Osment good to know the response that you get But so many reviews and so varied So really good not to take them too seriously good or Osment has a reputation for maturity both on and off the set 1 Ie has also been fortunate to woik witli directors who are sensitive to young actors Those include McCan-lies who directed fotir up-and-coming stars in the regional hit Dancer Texas Pop Hi a few years back With Lions McCanlies aims for something bigger and that includes woik-ing with bigger stars such as Mk had Caine and Robert Duvall who play uncles These lie people who are a little moie intimidating and expel ienced and McCanlies counts Osment 2 23 Flex steel Flexsteel vyVY -1 ll Recliner commg months were Robert meditative and keenly observant drama about a ballet company called The Company The Triplets of Belleville a gorgeous almost entirely silent animated film from France and Mayor of the Sim-set Strip an unexpectedly tender documentary about Los Angeles radio disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer and his obsession with celebrity But I was surprised by the rigor and the severity of so many of these movies Their refusal to please viewers in fact their determination to make viewers very uncomfortable proved exhausting Young Adam for instance is a simmering Scottish noir about a bargeman (McGregor) who begins an affair with his wife (Tilda Swinton) Director David Mackenzie nicely captures the bleak harsh chill of rural Scotland and he ratchets up the tension beautifully But the movie ultimately struck me as too dour and nihilistic in its portrait of an amoral young man who destroys every womin he touches Where is the grim comic touch that the great film noirs of the 1940s specialize in? Where is the sort of sinister playfulness that McGregor does so well? I had a similir beef with 21 Gnuns an accomplished often entrancing drama with a jumbled time frame that the audience must piece together The lead performances by Naomi Watts (as a woman whose husband and two daughters arc killed in a car accident) and Sean Penn (as a math professor with a failing heart) are among the best seen this year But after 125 minutes of this unrelenting heavy-lieartedness I needed a drink Or at least a double feature of Freaky Friday and Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star Am I being too quick to draw conclusions here from too small a sampling of what was on display? (I saw only 35 of the 250 plus features) I don't think so if only because the same themes kept recurring Parents grieving over dead children or children grieving over dead parents (the Belgian weepie Feathers in My Dead the Russian dintnu 77ie Return) heated sexual journeys that give way to gruesome behead BRUMBAUGH'S LEATHER GALLERY 81 72449377 1 1 651 Camp Bowie West 1-30 Ft Worth TX 76008 Christopher Kelly (817) 390-7032 cmkellyMar-telegram com My First Impression Was Wonderful! have lived at Raic Place since it opened and I am happy I like the independence we have 1 enjoy reading in the libiary and sitting in limit of the fireplace in the allium while listening to the piano music It is soothing and filings peace to my soul The food is good and the stall has an ait it tide ol graciousness which makes for comloi (able living You are free to do what you want to do and he who you arc We reler to Paic Place as The Castle! It is unique and you will not find another place like it ParclPIace Unique Retirement Living 1301 Airport Frwy Bedford Road Bedford Texas 76021 817-283-6700 Metro 817-267-8614 wwwspectrumpropcom I 1.