Part II: Speed
图文无关 In California kidnapping: An immigrant girl alone, afraid Mel Robbins | May 23, 2014
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(CNN) -- This week, a California woman who disappeared from her home when she was just 15, walked into a police station and ended her decade-long alleged kidnapping saga.
According to the police, she was just 15, when her mother's boyfriend, Isidro Garcia, drugged her and kidnapped her. She woke up in a barricaded garage and that's allegedly when the sexual, physical and mental abuse began. He allegedly moved her frequently over the 10 years, gave her a fake name (he went by "Tomas") convinced her that her family was no longer looking for her and told her she'd be deported if she looked for them.
I've heard some people say that "there's something a little off" about the woman's story. The reason: In recent years, the victim has been living in plain sight with her kidnapper. In fact, they were apparently married and have a daughter together who is 3. Neighbors of "Tomas" and his wife said they were stunned to learn that the "happy couple" who were "thrilled" about their pregnancy were in reality a kidnapper/rapist and his victim.
It's easy to be baffled by this case or question the victim's story. She was, after all, not physically barricaded against her will in the House of Horrors, like the three women held captive by Ariel Castro for years in Cleveland, nor was she chained in the wilderness and disguised in a wig, sunglasses and a veil the way Elizabeth Smart was when she was rescued after nine months of absolute hell.
In recent years, the young woman in this case, according to neighbors was often at the park alone with her daughter or at the grocery store. Or dancing happily at the elaborate parties the "couple" threw with caterers and clowns.
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I guess it seems a little off because it's natural to wonder why an alleged victim living in the open with her alleged captor didn't escape. Psychologists will tell you that it's natural to not only think about what you might do in the same situation but to also try to convince yourself that you'd have the courage to escape. We do this as a way to reassure ourselves and make ourselves feel safe against the many threats in the world.
To wonder what you might do in a similar situation is psychologically natural, but to judge what this young woman should or shouldn't have done, is unfair. In an interview with The Associated Press, Elizabeth Smart cautioned people to not question why a victim might not have escaped sooner: "We don't know what these evil people are holding over them -- whether it's their families' lives, their lives, whatever it is. We just don't know. There can be stronger bonds and chains than physical bonds and chains."
Or as Michelle Knight said on CNN's New Day: "You don't know what went through her head. You don't know what that was doing to her. You have absolutely no clue what she went through to say things and say that she was lying or she's doing this. You're making her not able to function or heal properly when you do these things to people. You're making people not want to come out, not want to say anything."
In the late '80s, I was trained as a crisis intervention counselor and I volunteered on a domestic violence hotline for four years. Abusers typically have a Jekyll and Hyde personality. In public, an abuser often acts like a "friendly guy" or a "nice neighbor," but in private he may be pure evil. Most victims are terrified to come forward fearing no one will believe them because neighbors and friends never witness the abuse. I'm sure friends of the actor Michael Jace, for example, who is accused of murdering his wife were shocked to learn that such a "friendly" guy might be capable of such evil.
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And this California kidnapping victim isn't a typical American 15-year-old (like my daughter) with a smart phone, a U.S. education, a large family network and an army of teenage friends. She was a 15-year-old from Mexico, who had been living in America for just six months when she was allegedly kidnapped. She didn't speak English. She didn't attend school. She was undocumented and of course feared deportation. With no network of friends or extended family, no education, no roots and no papers, she was allegedly completely under her captor's control.
Finally, there was the alleged physical and sexual abuse. She told police she was beaten twice when she tried to escape and for many years was never out of Garcia's sight. I've heard immigration experts speak about undocumented people living in "the shadows." This woman may have been living out in the open, but she was in the psychological shadow of her abuser and of a system that makes undocumented immigrants fear the police.
Bottom line: Unless you've lived through the pure hell that someone like Elizabeth Smart or the courageous women from Cleveland have, you are lucky to only have to imagine it. Like Elizabeth Smart, I'm so happy to learn that this man has been charged and held and grateful that his alleged victim finally found the courage to come out from the shadows and save herself.
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Source: CNN Opinion
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/23/opinion/robbins-kidnapped-girl-california/index.html?hpt=op_t1
"Silver Linings Playbook" (2012): Bradley Cooper in what sounds like a football movie, but isn't. Has there ever been a great football movie? Mike Downey | April 11, 2014
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(CNN) -- I count 105 football movies on Wikipedia's "list of sports films."
There is a 1998 one called "The Garbage Picking Field Goal Kicking Philadelphia Phenomenon," a title I know nothing about, except that it obviously had no use for commas or hyphens.
There is a silent one, 1925's "The Freshman," about a milquetoast whose teammates use him in practice as a tackling dummy.
There is a 1976 one called "Gus," about a mule who kicks field goals.
(Not a true story, I believe.)
The 105th (chronologically) on this list is "Draft Day," a tale of a fictional NFL executive -- he is played by Kevin Costner, king of sports cinema -- that opens Friday at a theater near you. From the trailer I have seen, it looks pretty good.
Raising the question:
Has there ever been a GREAT football movie?
I mean truly great, not just good. A masterpiece. A film you seriously could rank among your 100 best of all time.
All right, all right, all right, as Matthew McConaughey would say, let's take a look at some of those 105 movies on this here list.
("American football" is the category, which is just to let our CNN friends in Asia, Europe and South America know that you can go look for YOUR favorite football films under the category "soccer.")
OK, for openers, what does and doesn't qualify as a football film?
For example, "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012) is not, even though its title sure does sound like one. Football gets talked about a lot, but a football movie, it is not.
"M*A*S*H" (1970) also is not, even though it ends with a football game. The movie itself had nothing to do with football.
"Horse Feathers" (1932) ends with a game. It makes the list, if only because Professor Wagstaff (Groucho Marx) wants to know: "Have we got a college? Have we got a football team? Well, we can't afford both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the college!"
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There are two versions of "The Longest Yard" (1974 and 2005), two of "Brian's Song" (1971 and 2001), two about legendary Alabama coach Bear Bryant (1984 and 2002), one of which has Bear played by the somewhat less legendary Gary Busey.
There are "true" stories about Knute Rockne, Tom Harmon, Frankie Albert, Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch, Rocky Bleier, Ernie Davis, Ernie Nevers and more, some of which contain scenes that are actually factual.
In "Invincible" (2006), a bartender (played by Mark Wahlberg) named Vince (as in invincible) gets to play for the Philadelphia Eagles. It really happened. In "Paper Lion" (1968), the writer George Plimpton (played by Alan Alda) gets to play for the Detroit Lions. It sort of happened. It was actually in a team scrimmage, not in an NFL exhibition game, as in the film.
There is 1993's "Rudy," about a small dude (played by Sean Astin) who gets to play with a Notre Dame team made up mainly of big dudes. There is 1981's "Grambling's White Tiger," in which a white dude (played by master thespian Bruce Jenner) gets to play with a college team made up mainly of black dudes.
A couple star Dennis Quaid. A couple star the Rock. I like both these actors, although both would have been badly miscast playing Rudy.
A couple star Burt Reynolds, who actually played a little football in school.
Sandra Bullock, who probably did not play a lot of football in school, won an Oscar for 2009's "The Blind Side," in which she demonstrates to future NFL star Michael Oher how to throw a block. Nice scene. Totally made up. Oher later wondered "why the director chose to show me as someone who had to be taught the game of football."
Because that's show biz!
Costner's new one, "Draft Day," concerns the NFL's Cleveland Browns, with their general manager maneuvering to acquire the No. 1 pick of the college player draft. The Browns need any help they can get, never having won a Super Bowl.
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I appreciate that in Costner's career he has played cowboys, lawyers, naval officers, Robin Hood, Eliot Ness and guys obsessed with JFK. I am nevertheless always pleased to find him in a sport-related role. I'd watch him do anything, except maybe fight Rocky or play soccer.
Has there ever been a football film classic, you ask?
Hmmm, probably not the one with a team coached by John Wayne, nor the one with a team coached by Goldie Hawn. Oh, and probably not "Against All Odds" (1984), a remake of the film-noir mystery "Out of the Past," for which instead of a private detective, the main character was changed by some Hollywood genius to -- duh -- a pro football team's injured wide receiver!
Ah, but a few keepers do exist. A half-dozen, in no particular order:
-- "All the Right Moves" (1983) was a drama about a high school kid, good, not great, played by a young Tom Cruise, who basically finds out that if your coach feels like it, he sure can mess up the rest of your life.
-- "North Dallas Forty" (1979) was a realistic look, with plenty of farce thrown in, at the behind-the-scenes activities of a pro football team, including a martinet of a coach and a number of players who indulge in very unsportsmanlike conduct.
-- "Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29" (2008) is a documentary, often as witty as the headline that inspired it. It looks back on a November 23, 1968, football game unforgettable to everybody involved in it, including a Harvard lineman you might have seen in another movie or two, Tommy Lee Jones.
-- "Brian's Song" (1971), the original, not that lame reboot of 30 years later, deals with teamwork, friendship, rivalry, race relations, terminal illness, you name it. Acted impeccably by Billy Dee Williams and James Caan, this was a fine bromance.
-- "Jerry Maguire" (1996) has had its cute lines regurgitated for so long -- "show me the money," "you had me at hello" -- that its memorable premise is oft forgotten, that being the value of loyalty, to a partner, to a principle, to an employer, to a client. For a romantic comedy, it's actually a pretty fair drama.
-- "Friday Night Lights" (2004) took a book that offended some of the good folks of Odessa, Texas, exposing the lows as well as the highs of high school ball. In time, many came to accept what a significant story this is, in literature and film, the latter with a letter-perfect script and A-plus cast.
Others out there in movie land might prefer the life lessons of 2000's "Remember the Titans." Or even a fossilized relic like 1940's "Knute Rockne, All American," in which a dying 25-year-old George Gipp (played by Ronald Reagan) tells his old coach Knute to "go out there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper," which they do.
Me, I'd remake that one.
Costner could do a great Knute.
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Source: CNN Opinion
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/11/opinion/downey-great-football-movie/index.html?hpt=op_bn7
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