03/31/05

LC050331

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

A violent end to a promising young life and the struggle to turn
pain into hope.

Lovel Abram>> He would just be filled with joy because he loved
people and he loved life.

Val>> And then, it's called Sunset Hall, but these feisty
seniors are not fading away. A peek inside a place known as a
home for free thinkers.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> It's one thing to read about the murder of a young person
in the newspaper and it's another to know them intimately. That
was the case for Tom Riley who was a volunteer Big Brother for a
young man named Dexter. Then Dexter was killed and Tom was
devastated. So what do you do with that kind of pain? We'll
show you in a moment, but first Philip Bruce brings us the story
of Tom and Dexter.

Philip Bruce>> When Tom Riley met Dexter Rideout, he was
twenty-five and Dexter was eight. Tom says he'll never forget
their first outing. He'd just become Dexter's "big brother".
It was the Christmas season and Tom decided to take Dexter to a
party in downtown Los Angeles.

Tom Riley>> When we took an elevator up to the second floor and
Dexter was terrified. I said, what's wrong? I didn't think
anything of it. He said he'd never been in an elevator before.
I was like, wow, this is an eight year old kid that really
hasn't been anywhere.

Philip Bruce>> As a single mother, Lovel Abram wanted a mentor
for Dexter, someone who could take him places she couldn't and
help him learn to be a man.

Lovel Abram>> I always wanted him to be into things that he
would progress, that he would stand up and be somebody.

Philip Bruce>> Lovel says, when she met Tom, she knew she had
found exactly what she wanted for her son. The two connected
immediately.

Lovel Abram>> Tom started right away picking him up, throwing
him over his shoulder and everything, carrying him out. They
hung out plenty. They went to Big Bear, they went camping, they
went everywhere.

Tom Riley>> I was comfortable with kids and I'd just come from
the University of Notre Dame and playing football there. Kids
really responded to me.

Lovel Abram>> They asked me when I applied to the Big Brothers
organization, what color would I like the Big Brother to be? I
told them I don't have color schemes and I don't mind what color
he would be as long as he had his head on straight (laughter).

Forbes Riley>> When I first met what would be my husband, Tom,
I started dating a very tall, six foot six white guy and a very
short little Dexter (laughter). They came as a team. They were
bookends.

Philip Bruce>> And when Tom and Forbes married a few years
later, Dexter was one of the groomsmen at the wedding.

Forbes Riley>> You couldn't get any more black and white than
the two of them together, but he was his brother. Tom is
adopted, so for him, family is all about inclusion. It doesn't
matter where you come from or who your parents are. This is his
brother.

Philip Bruce>> As years passed, Dexter remained close to Tom
and Forbes, though he didn't see them as often as he once did.
He was busy with his own life while Tom and Forbes recently
became the parents of twins. Dexter kept the babies' picture in
his room and talked to Tom about visiting. But now that's all
history. Dexter was shot and killed at this spot not far from
his home on a Sunday morning in July. He was only twenty years
old.

Lovel Abram>> Some little tiny man, little brown man, came to
the door and said, are you Dexter's grandmother? I said, no,
his mother. He said, I have bad news for you. I said, bad news
for me. Dexter is shot. I said, is he dead? And he said yes.

Tom Riley>> Actually, it's hard to talk about it. I was pretty
devastated. I just held my babies and shed a tear. My wife was
working, so I didn't want to disturb her at her shoot, so I
waited until she got home and I told her and we both cried
together.

Forbes Riley>> Oh, my God, this can't be true. This could not
have happened to Dexter because he wasn't a gangbanger. He was
a kid who was so sweet and so loving that that's the last thing
I would have ever thought of, that that's how he would have
ended up.

Philip Bruce>> But then Forbes Riley remembered a picture she
had seen Dexter draw when he was ten. He was at a gathering
with kids from different parts of the city.

Forbes Riley>> They were all drawing pictures of their
neighborhood and Dexter drew this picture of a drive-by shooting
and the first thing I remember was looking at it and was
completely stunned, not even sure where this had come from. He
said, well, that's my neighborhood. You know, this is what
happens. It's so amazing to look at that picture now because,
ten years later, it's a prophecy. It's him lying there.

Philip Bruce>> Tom Riley has been a presence in Lovel's life in
the weeks since Dexter's death. Many of his own family members
attended Dexter's funeral.

Lovel Abram>> His brother came down from Vegas, yeah, and how
many? About twenty of the whole family. His mom, yeah, the
family know Dex, you know. Tom love us and we love him. Dex
loved Tom because he's our family.

Philip Bruce>> Tom is determined to help find Dexter's killer
or killers. He organized a press conference at the spot where
Dexter was murdered. The initial $2,000 reward for information
about the case has now grown to $27,000. And Tom wants
something more. He hopes he can use Dexter's story to encourage
others to become Big Brothers or Big Sisters to kids who are
growing up in troubled neighborhoods.

Tom Riley>> He was my friend, he was my little brother and I
feel lucky that I had a chance to know him.

Val>> Tom Riley's hopes have come true. It's been a year and a
half since Dexter's death and today the Big Brothers and Big
Sisters of Greater Los Angeles had a wonderful announcement to
make. They have created the Dexter Fund, $100,000 that will go
toward screening, recruiting and training volunteers for South
Los Angeles kids. The announcement was made at the California
Science Center, a place Dexter visited as a child.

Tom Riley>> "Being a Big Brother or a Big Sister -- I'm Tom
Riley, by the way, if you don't know that (laughter)."

Val>> For Tom Riley, today is about a promise fulfilled. The
$101,000 grant from the S. Mark Taper Foundation will be focused
on the needs of children in South Los Angeles where the waiting
time for Big Brothers and Sisters is especially long.

Tom Riley>> "We're going to build this fund to be the premier
fund that really helps kids in South Los Angeles. No kid should
have to go without a mentor, a Big Brother or Big Sister if they
want one, and we're going to make a difference."

Val>> Then Dexter's mother, Lovel Abram, came to the podium. I
asked her how she was doing in the wake of her son's murder.

Lovel Abram>> I've been just on one wing and a prayer.

Val>> The murder remains unsolved, though the police
investigation is ongoing. What do you think Dexter would think
of all this?

Lovel Abram>> Oh, my God, Mom, Mom. Do you see what Tom is
doing (laughter)? He would just be filled with joy because he
loved people and he loved life just like Tom Riley.

[Film Clip]

Lovel Abram>> "I know that my son's life was cut short, way too
short, but I thank God that he had Tom Riley in his life."

Val>> At the end of Lovel Abram's heartfelt speech, the
audience gave her a standing ovation.

Lovel Abram>> "Big Brothers and Big Sisters are friends of Los
Angeles. We love you."

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Val>> The New York Times called it a gem of a documentary.
It's a film about two elderly women who would otherwise be
invisible to the world. They have a special friendship and they
live in a retirement home in Los Angeles, but not just any
retirement home. This one is for political liberals, or as they
like to call themselves, free-thinking elderly. Vicki Curry
talked with the filmmaker, Laura Gabbert, about what it was like
to document a special friendship at Sunset Hall.

Vicki Curry>> Laura Gabbert, you have made a documentary called
"Sunset Story" about a very specific kind of retirement home.
Tell me about Sunset Hall.

Laura Gabbert>> Sunset Hall is a retirement home here in Los
Angeles. It was founded back in 1923 by women from the
Unitarian Church. It was founded for religious and political
progressives specifically and it has maintained that tradition
until today.

Vicki Curry>> And how does one get into the hall? Are there
sort of requirements?

Laura Gabbert>> There aren't really, but it attracts a person
with a certain political bent. It's in sort of the Wilshire
District near Koreatown here in Los Angeles and really it's
people who just want to stay engaged sort of politically and
otherwise in life as they age.

Vicki Curry>> So why did you choose to make a documentary about
this place?

Laura Gabbert>> Well, my collaborators, my producers and
myself, had read an article about Sunset Hall in the New York
Times back in 1998 and it described the place. We were
interested in the politics of the place and that that it was a
really unusual type of home. Usually people are grouped
together in nursing homes by age, not by sort of interests, and
that was really fascinating to us. So we went down there and
spent some time.

What we discovered was that many of the people there had
Alzheimer's and dementia and it was really hard to elicit
stories from them. We thought originally we'd do this piece
about the history of the left through the eyes of people at
Sunset Hall and that was actually difficult to do. So about a
year into our research, two women, Lucille Alpert and Irja
Lloyd, moved in who were wonderful sort of extremely lucid,
bright, funny women. We thought, hey, this is our story, these
two women.

Vicki Curry>> So once you found these two women, where did you
go from there?

Laura Gabbert>> Basically, we just started following them
around. They became best friends when they moved in and we
thought this is maybe more of a story about friendship and about
growing old and how people stay engaged personally and through,
you know, political activities and such rather than a specific
piece about the history of the left. So the politics of the
piece sort of became the backdrop of the film and the story of
Lucille and Irja, their friendship, really became the main
narrative of the film.

Vicki Curry>> So tell me a little bit more about these two.

Laura Gabbert>> Well, the reason we were attracted to them is
that they sort of flung this dynamic duo. They're really kind
of a classic comedic team. Irja Lloyd was a Finnish immigrant,
a political activist her entire life, very earnest, a do-gooder,
a wonderful person.

Irja Lloyd>> "I was a teenager during the big Depression and I
used to march then and do you know that was sixty-seven years
ago? And I am still marching for the same thing."

Laura Gabbert>> Lucille Alpert was an assimilated Jew, very
ironic, very incredible wit.

Lucille Alpert>> "I could follow you."

Irja Lloyd>> "Yeah, you could follow me. We'll have a race."

Lucille Alpert>> "Yeah. I'll hang on your chair, your
chariot."

Irja Lloyd>> "Yeah, but no, I use my walker."

Lucille Alpert>> "Oh, your walker."

Irja Lloyd>> "Yeah."

Lucille Alpert>> "Oh, well then, I could use my walker."

Irja Lloyd>> "Yeah. We'll have a race."

Lucille Alpert>> "Yeah. I'm so excited about it (laughter)."

Irja Lloyd>> "Yeah. I walk four times a day (laughter)."

Laura Gabbert>> And the two of them together just made this
great team. They loved each other dearly, but also kind of able
to get under each other's skin like kind of great odd couples
do. In the film, there's this sort of running theme that Irja
wants Lucille to observe the Jewish holidays. Lucille, being a
very secular Jew, doesn't want to do that.

Lucille Alpert>> "You keep pushing us out. Be Jewish. Be
Jewish. I told you. We send cards, Happy New Year, and that's
enough for us. Don't have to be in Jewish."

Irja Lloyd>> "(Laughter) I love lighting candles."

Lucille Alpert>> "Well, light them if you want to. You don't
have to drag all the Jews into it."

Irja Lloyd>> "(Laughter) Yes, I do. It's your holiday."

Lucille Alpert>> "Yeah. We'll drag the Fins in. We'll eat Rye
Krisp, eat the raw fish. Be Finnish."

Irja Lloyd>> "Oh, no comparison."

Laura Gabbert>> I think another moment that does, again, sort
of capture the essence of their relationship is a scene where
they're talking about what it's like to be Jewish in a small
town. Irja grew up in a small town. Lucille grew up in
Chicago. They're sort of having this debate about each other's
experience and who really understands what discrimination is
like.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> So you had set out to do a film about Sunset
Hall, but it really ended up being more about these two women?
So where did your film end up going? What story did you end up
telling?

Laura Gabbert>> We ended up telling a very intimate story and a
story that's, I think, much more universal. I think that people
will respond to these women and what they go through, whether
they're of the right or the left. The politics really just
became the thing that they are engaged in, so it doesn't really
matter if you're engaged in politics of the right or politics of
the left. It's just something that they both cared about deeply
their entire lives and continued to care about into their later
years. Our goal as filmmakers was really to humanize the
elderly in this film, and our hope was that somehow their age
would sort of fall away and you would just become involved in
their story and the sort of narrative thread of the film and
kind of fall in love with them.

Vicki Curry>> Laura Gabbert, filmmaker of "Sunset Story", thank
you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

Laura Gabbert>> Thanks, Vicki.

Val>> As for the future of Sunset Hall, it's struggling. Only
about half of its rooms are occupied and it's got a debt of
about $300,000. A developer has offered to pay off the debt in
return for control of the home. In the meantime, the board is
also considering selling the property. If you'd like to see the
full one-hour documentary on Sunset Hall, it airs right here on
KCET this Saturday night at nine p.m.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
by mail at this address:

Life and Times
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contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm
Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week is "Sin
City". It's co-directed by Frank Miller along with Robert
Rodriguez. "Sin City" is the comic book series that Miller has
written for a number of years and, in this film adaptation,
Bruce Willis, Clive Owen and Mickey Rourke star.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Peter Rainer,
past President of the National Society of Film Critics, and Lael
Loewenstein of Variety. Peter, what did you think of "Sin
City"?

Peter Rainer>> Well, "Sin City" is one of the most effective
comic book adaptations on film. It's really darker than dark,
more noir than you've seen certainly for a comic book movie.
Frank Miller, who's the comic book artist who co-directed the
film with Robert Rodriguez, is known for "Daredevil" and
"Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" and this is based on his comic
book novel "Sin City". Some of it I found to be quite effective
in a pulp way.

There's a wonderful opening segment -- I think it's the first
third of the movie -- with Mickey Rourke as a kind of humanoid
character who's a real brawler who's trying to track down the
murderer of a hooker that he's fallen in love with. His chase
through the night streets and all of the pulping and bashing
that he does is really, I think, easier to take for this kind of
a pulp universe than it would be if it was a live action film.
The rest of it is a bit repetitive, but it's kind of a pretty
good thrill ride.

Larry Mantle>> What did you think, Lael?

Lael Loewenstein>> I really loved "Sin City". I thought it was
just like noir on steroids. I mean, if you're a noir fan, this
is the movie for you. The performances particularly by the
three lead men, Rourke, Bruce Willis and Clive Owen, were just
right up there with some of the great hard-boiled actors of the
past. In many ways, it was just a remarkable visceral
experience.

I also thought it was really astounding how much Robert
Rodriguez gave up to realize the vision of Frank Miller. He
gave up his membership in the Director's Guild. He gave up the
screenwriting credit because he was so determined to keep it
faithful to Miller's original vision. Also, as a point of
technology, it was just a remarkable piece of work. It's shot
digitally and all the backgrounds are done on green screen as
well.

Larry Mantle>> Our second film this week, "The Upside of
Anger", stars Joan Allen and Kevin Costner in a movie written
and directed by Mike Binder.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> Lael Loewenstein, what did you think of "The
Upside of Anger"?

Lael Loewenstein>> I was mixed to positive on this film. For
me, the best reason to see the film was Joan Allen who is such a
wonderful actress and she has played the role of the long-
suffering wife in so many films of the mid to late nineties,
like "Nixon" and "Face-Off" and "The Crucible". It was
wonderful to see her as the central character in this film where
she absolutely dominates. She is just radiant, beautifully lit
throughout the film, in spite of the fact that she's, I think,
pushing fifty.

She embodies anger, personifies anger, because she is a woman
whose husband has left her alone to raise these four teenaged
children and she has to deal with her rage, her resentment, her
hostility, and she never makes you believe that she's gone over
the top. She's just absolutely right on. I thought all the
performances were excellent, but for me, the problem with the
film was that it has a twist towards the end that broke faith
with the audience and so I just didn't really buy it at that
point.

Larry Mantle>> Peter Rainer, what did you think of "The Upside
of Anger"?

Peter Rainer>> I think it's a pretty mixed bag. There are some
terrific adult comedy moments in it. There are some teen pix
stuff that doesn't really work and a lot of fluffy sit-com
material. For me, the main reason to see this movie is the
performances and especially Kevin Costner's. Costner is an
under-rated actor partly because he has very bad taste and often
puts himself into really bad movies. But here, he's playing a
very laid-back guy, a former baseball star who's now a DJ, and
it brings out the best in him.

His kind of affable camaraderie, his humor, his just general
camera presence which has been see too rarely, but does show up
in films like "Perfect World", "Tin Cup", even "3,000 Miles From
Graceland", which was a turkey. Here, I think, he really lights
up the screen with his easy-goingness and hopefully this is
going to mean more and better for him, better movies too. It's
almost as if he, you know, discovered acting again and enjoyed
it for the first time in a long time.

Larry Mantle>> And our final film this week is the latest from
writer-director, Woody Allen. "Melinda and Melinda" stars Radha
Mitchell and Will Ferrell.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> Peter, the latest from Woody Allen?

Peter Rainer>> Well, the good news is this is Woody Allen's
best movie in a while, but there's a little asterisk on that
statement because he hasn't made a good movie in a long time.
So this is certainly a look forward, I think, to some of his
better work before the last ten years. But he's not really
comfortable, it seems to me, still in this kind of a picture.
He's not in it, but it's a movie about two different stories
that coalesce starring Radha Mitchell in each one, a kind of
supposedly serious story where she plays a disturbed woman who
breaks into a friend's gathering and life crumbles around her as
the film goes on, and the other where she's a downstairs
neighbor and things are a bit funnier.

Will Ferrell and Amanda Peat is one of the couples and Johnny
Lee Miller and Chloe Sevigny are the other couple. It, to me,
was mostly worth seeing because Will Ferrell is so funny in this
movie that, even though it's a kind of Woody Allenish film and
everyone always seems to be playing Woody Allen, somehow Will
Ferrell seems to be playing himself playing Woody Allen, so that
works.

Larry Mantle>> Well, thanks so much for joining us for another
edition of FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3
KPCC joined by critics Lael Loewenstein of Variety and Peter
Rainer, former President of the National Society of Film
Critics. We invite you to join us next week at this same time
for another edition of FilmWeek on Life and Times.

Val>> And, of course, you can hear a full hour of FilmWeek
every Friday morning at 11:00 a.m. on KPCC public radio. And
that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and
Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

They are some of the most expensive homes in California, but the
beach belongs to the public, right? Just try to use it.

>> Because quite frankly, this is the most inaccessible beach
in the state of California except for this one Zonker Harris
access-way that we just came down. You can't get to the water
for four and a half miles in this direction.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.