The News and Observer from Raleigh, North Carolina • 62

6 The News and Observer The Raleigh Times Fri April 22 1988 ifferentiate and conquer The Connoisseur's Inn At-z 'tb't 4 AL 4 'Sq V7' --1? laatif si A1414 4r: SktSTS "Il tir a a 1': ti 1r7 ifti0t': 7i 4 4 14 -'4r" rf i A 41: A- (4'': 't1 V' 4 kle 0: I ''''41''' 44:: ic'A tt: i1r--' 'tj 1 1 v-- 1-- l3- 81 OILY INN Cherokee Road Box 2300 Pinehurst NC 28374 (919)295-2300 Managed by Ashford Management Ltd Per person double occupancy for 2 nights 3 days greens fees Taxes gratuities and cart rental not included Price subject to change unless confirmed Kate is for inn room inn suite slightly higher 'Stand and Deliver's' Edward James Olmos left with teacher Jaime Escalante Ilolly Inn is in the center of Pinehurst's historic village Luxuriously refurbished in 1987 it's a real collector's item Cozy surroundings and personalized service at its best Enjoy gourmet dining in one of Pinehurst's most elegant and historic dining rooms Simply relax beside our sparkling pool or if you're planning to play golf we offer the ultimate Bed Breakfast Golf package for $230 Contact your travel agent or call 800-682-6901 1800-533-0041 outside NC) el- xtvw MEM 11 A i IL kr iiog a 14-bt I 4 a' ii 4 141 2' '13 0 fine 4 cost )t tttilw roJ i fine cost By SCOTT ROSS Correspondent 12 STAND AND DELIVER Starring Edward James (Amos Lou Diamond Phillips Rosana De Soto and Andy Garcia Directed by Ramon Menendez At the Cardinal Twin Raleigh Willowdaile Durham Rated PC "Stand and Deliver" isn't the kind of movie Hollywood makes Financed by two educational foundations and two public television stations the film was written produced directed and acted by Hispanic artists it's set in East Los Angeles it concerns a passionate Bolivian-born teacher building the academic confidence in a group of barrio teenagers and it was made in a period of rampant anti-intellectualism A dubious prospect at best Yet this quiet lovely film is moving without undue histrionics inspiring without the trappings of athletic achievement or military machismo and exciting even thrilling without a single automobile chase or down-to-thewire-score-that-wins-the-game grandstanding "Stand and Deliver" recounts the efforts of Garfield High School mathematics teacher Jaime Es calante to restore self-confidence In 18 Chicano students by training them to pass the calculus advanced placement exam Filmmakers Ramon Menendez and Tom Musca have juggled a few dates created composites and altered the outcome slightly Escatante began teaching at the school In the early 1970s not the early '80s as the film has it and where the movie presents all the students passing the exam the number was (and this is not to diminish the feat itself) 14 out of 18 The impact on those four kids would have been worth noting and would have added a tick more verisimilitude But these cavils become minor when compared to Escalante's triumph and that of the movie's creators The intense preparation and the exam results are only half the story Through some misunderstanding or perhaps a flaw in Es calante's methods the same error was made by all of the students prompting the Educational Testing Service to question their honesty It is here that the film's underlying theme of subtle racism comes brutally to the foreground The fact that the examiners were black and Hispanic contributes a level of ironic pain and gives the movie's climax its power and emotional release In art as apparently in life it is Escalante in the person of actor Edward James Olmos who holds the film together and gives it drive Olmos does not so much perform as inhabit this beatific man's skin He transforms the classroom into the agitprop theater that is the province of all great instructors Now wheedling now cajoling alternately bullying and charming the kids he shifts '1) l'- 6:4 -l' 4- Al xi 10'' OU LES 1 ci 0 ANIrf 1 L'OLRDA 0 '1 Rle A single rose petal under each wine glass Attentive waiters serving lavish gourmet dishes-- Escargots sur Artichauts Homard la Trufant Bananas Foster And after dinner a rose for the lady Quiet elegance The Velvet Cloak Inn's Charter Room elevates dining to an art And sometimes art doesn't as much as you'd think So if your date is a little misled just tell her your Porsche is in the shop Ultimate gourmet dining Once you have a little 1 taste you'll hate that you can't find the Velvet Touch it i anywhere else es teS7 irl' Cooep taih- I' 1' 1 jmth 4i 47 Experience The Tn elvetich -0' ylorged Of The Velvet Cloak Inn 44ricie' 1505 Hillsborough Street Raleigh NC 27605 919-828-0333 A single rose petal under each wine glass Attentive waiters serving lavish gourmet Escargots sur Artichauts Homard a la Trufant Bananas Foster And after dinner a rose for the lady Quiet elegance The Wvet Cloak Inn's Charter Room elevates dining to an art And sometimes art doesn't as much as you'd think So if your date is a little misled just tell her your Porsche is in the shop Ultimate gourmet dining Once you have a little taste you'll hate that you can't find the Velvet Touch anywhere else Experience The 'el ve 'Much to10f Of The Velvet Cloak Inn 1505 Hillsborough Street Raleigh NC 27605 919-828-0333 The youthful cadre is of uniform superbness and Andy Garcia and Rosana De Soto are even more so Craig Safan's low-key musical score pulses with life only occasionally lapsing into obtrusiveness The same might be said of Tom Richmond's cinematography and Nancy Richardson's editing as well as Menendez's direction The screenplay he has written with Musca works its own miracles Without canonizing their subject the two men show Escalante and his mission with candor and invention They depict the nearly Indefatigable progress in myriad telling ways Setting up summer shop in an oppressively hot locker room Driving the kids' cars Debating their parents Even suffering a heart attack that leaves his charges in the care of a substitute who in a heartrending scene is revealed to be a music teacher Or the way a mother cautions her zealous daughter with a disapproving "boys don't like you if you're too smart" Or weaving themes and characters' lives and their brushes with petty bureaucracy with the intricate precision of the master Take one example Escalante has just gotten his obstinate class to repeat to his grudging satisfaction "A negative times a negative equals a positive" Without basking in this minor victory the teacher then demands "Why?" The film cuts swiftly to the next scene It's a small moment yes but one that contains volumes in its monosyllabic simplicity It speaks to the content and about the character and refuses to comment on its own cleverness by dwelling a beat longer than required Mark Van Doren once noted that "the art of teaching is the art of assisting self-discovery" So too filmmaking "Stand and Deliver" does MOVIE REVIEW gears changes shape alters himself to suit each occasion a benevolent Richard One of Escalante's most remarkable features is his ability to command respect without sacrificing his students' self-esteem Like another real-life education figure Joe Clark (he of the bullhorn and baseball bat) his methods may at times be unorthodox But unlike Clark's they are never extreme or physically threatening When the dug-in conservatives at Garfield warn him against raising the youngsters' hopes he counters with "Students will rise to the level of expectation" Olmos himself rises to the challenges with grace and nuance He makes the students' desire to succeed equal his own even as he requires us to lean forward to catch each utterance or infects us with the joyous fulsomeness that discovery promises It's a performance as startling for what it omits in triteness and mannerisms as for what it provides: crispness freshness and the complete subsuming of the ego that separates the artist from the mere performer The beauty of Lou Diamond Phillips' work comes not only from his personal attractiveness but also from a chameleonlike absence of guile As a seemingly unreachable tough whose salvation lies in Escalante's classroom Phillips does the nearly impossible: allowing an audience to see the moment at which realization seizes hold and a delicate wisp of intellectual hunger begins to form Phillips does this almost solely with his eyes It is a key to his character and all he is later able to do.