arts & entertainment
Film review: ‘Our Idiot Brother’
Terminally-Naïve Hippie Wreaks
Havoc in Prodigal Sibling Comedy
N
ed (Paul Rudd) is a
good-natured organ-
ic farmer who was
dumb enough to be duped
into selling pot to a uni-
formed police officer (Bob
Stephenson). Not long past
the opening credits we find
him just being paroled, hav-
ing paid his debt to society
by serving a long stretch
behind bars.
However, when he hitch-
hikes home to surprise his
girlfriend (Kathryn Hahn)
after being released from
prison a few months early
for good behavior, he’s
shocked to find out she’s
already shacking up with
another hippie (T.J. Miller).
What’s worse, she won’t
even let him stay in the goat
barn while he tries to get
back on his feet.
So, broke and unem-
ployed, Ned appeals top his
mom (Shirley Knight) who
enlists the assistance of his
relatively-successful sisters,
Liz (Emily Mortimer),
M ovIE
r EvIEW
by Kam
Williams
Miranda (Elizabeth Banks)
and
Natalie
(Zoe
Deschanel). They grudging-
ly agree to take turns letting
the proverbial black sheep
of the family crash on their
couches, despite the fact
that he has never held a
steady job.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t
take long for Ned to wear
out his welcome at each
port-of-call, when the same
gullibility which initially
makes him so endearing
ends up destabilizing his
siblings’ assorted relation-
ships. For instance, he is
forced to bid mother-of-two
Liza adieu soon after mat-
ter-of-factly mentioning that
‘Our Idiot Brother’
Good (2 stars)
Rated R for nudity, sexuality and pervasive
profanity.
Running time: 90 minutes
Studio: The Weinstein Company
Page 8 The Portland Skanner august 31, 2011
he caught her film director
husband (Steve Coogan)
cavorting naked with his
latest leading lady (Lori E.
Cunningham).
He next manages to make
as much of a mess of com-
mitment-shy Natalie’s life
by nonchalantly informing
her lesbian lover (Rashida
Jones) that his sister is now
pregnant after having a het-
ero one-night stand. And
that same blasé attitude
comes into play when he
inadvertently interferes with
a platonic friendship of
Miranda’s as well as with
her latest interview assign-
ment for Vanity Fair.
Directed by Jesse Peretz,
the decidedly droll Our Idiot
Brother will work for you to
the degree that you are able
to suspend disbelief and
swallow Ned’s terminal
naïvete as he unwittingly
wreaks havoc everywhere
he goes. Credit Paul Rudd
for portraying the character
with an utterly convincing
innocence, even if that ded-
icated effort is regrettably
oft undermined by the
script’s repeated reliance on
repugnant misogynistic and
mean-spirited flourishes.
A well-intentioned idealist
clueless enough to make
Forest Gump look street-
wise.
Book review: Push Has Come to shove —
getting Our kids the Education They Deserve (Even If
It Means Picking a Fight) by Dr. steve Perry
By kam Williams
Special to The Skanner
News
“I’m often referred to as a
‘tough love’ principal… The
day I declared that I wanted
to start a school was the day
that the fighting began…
Push has definitely come to
shove…
I opened Capital Prep
because I know that
America has failed to devel-
op a successful public
school system that can be
replicated across racial and
class
lines…
Children
deserve better and we can
give it to them…
This book introduces you
to the challenges we
encountered and how we
beat them to become one of
America’s most successful
schools.”
— Excerpted
Introduction
Y
from
the
ou don’t need me to
recite the statistics
for you. By now,
everybody knows that the
public school system is fail-
ing America’s kids. Even
those who earn a diploma
are generally getting an
inferior education in com-
parison to their private
school counterparts and to
children in most developed
nations, especially places
like Finland and South
Korea.
The situation is the most
alarming in the inner cities
where the graduate rates are
so low that lots of schools
are now routinely referred
to as dropout factories. This
is not the case, however,
with Capital Prep, a magnet
school located in Hartford,
Connecticut.
The institution was found-
ed in 2005 by Dr. Steve
Perry, a proponent of tough
love reminiscent of the leg-
endary Joe Clark of “Lean
on Me” fame. Although he
doesn’t roam the halls with
a baseball bat, Dr. Perry is
just as demanding of his
pupils, and he also has very
high expectations of his
teachers as well.
And his tireless efforts
have yielded some astound-
ing academic results, name-
ly, a 100 percent graduation
rate in a district with a 29
percent
average.
Furthermore, he sends all of
his kids on to college, a rare
feat indeed for any public
school.
In “Push Has Come to
Shove,” Perry, a frequent
CNN contributor, shares his
formula for success in the
hope that it might be
embraced and replicated all
across the nation. But be
forewarned, his controver-
sial approach envisions the
implementation of signifi-
cant changes which would
amount to a drastic overhaul
of the entire school system.
For, with a glee akin to
that of former Washington,
D.C. Schools Chancellor
Michelle Rhee, Dr. Perry
advocates an assault on such
seemingly sacred cows as
top-heavy administrative
bureaucracies, tenure for
teachers, and the union
inclination to protect its bad
apples via what he dubs a
“leave no teacher behind”
philosophy. Luckily, the
author only needs to point to
the triumphs of his own pro-
gram as proof that his inno-
vative ideas deserve some
serious consideration.
Brutally honest in its
indictment of the status quo,
“Push Has Come to Shove”
amounts to an urgent clarion
call for change by a relent-
lessly-uncompromising
iconoclast who undoubtedly
has his students’ best inter-
ests at heart.