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Page C-12 Montclair Film Festival Thursday, April 27, 2017 ‘Patti Cake$’ shows Jersey dreaming
‘Patti Cake$’
by GWEN OREL orel@montclairlocal.news
You know how a great Broadway show has you humming a tune as you leave?
Geremy Jasper’s new movie “Pat- ti Cake$,” the ction centerpiece of this year’s Montclair Film Festival, might have you humming a rap tune.
The movie follows Patricia “Killa P” Dombrowski (Danielle MacDonald), a heavyset girl from New Jersey, who dreams of being a rapper and making the big break for the city. In her dreams, Patti is a rap goddess, blessed by rap superstar “O-Z.”
In reality, she’s a bartender who lives with her hard-drinking mom, and her sickly Nana. But her talent is real: her best friend Jheri, who works at a drugstore, rhymes with her, and then they meet goth-metal recluse Basterd. Soon the three team up.
Stars are trying to be born.
Patti is Jasper’s alter ego, he said. “I’m from New Jersey. I have that underdog Jer- sey angst that’s a part of being there, a mix of pride and a chip on your shoulder.” He wrote and directed the lm.
Fiction centerpiece
Saturday, May 6, 1 p.m. Wellmont Theater, 5 Seymour St.
Patti lives in a “mashup of Lodi, Lin- den, Elizabeth, Paramus.” Jasper even shot some scenes in Hillsdale, his home town. “In the music world, from New Jersey, you’re in the shadow of the center of the creative universe. Like Sarah Palin, you can see it from your house. It felt like the moon, growing up. It seemed three thou- sand million miles away. I felt like a coun- try bumpkin in a weird way.”
The movie draws on Jasper’s own life for some details, including a stint living in his family’s home, trying to make it as an artist. “I couldn’t get arrested musically for like a decade,” Jasper said with a laugh.
“They say ‘write what you know.’ It’s de nitely a world that I know.” Jasper was even a heavyset kid. “It’s funny. The way you are when you are 7, 8, 9, kind of sticks with you. It’s a mix between how I felt physically around that time and how I re-
COURTESY MONTCLAIR FILM FESTIVAL
Patti (Danielle MacDonald) has “spit in her mouth,” and can bust a rhyme.
‘Mr. Chibbs’ keeps it real
lated, and never feeling like I was going to get out of my hometown.”
Like Barb, Patti’s mother (Bridget Ev- erett), Jasper’s mom was “a strong, tough woman, with very Patti qualities. She’s not going to take s--- from anybody.” Like Barb, she was a singer, though not an alcoholic.
For the movie, he wrote 25 songs, in-
cluding the song Barb sings on her record made in the ’80s.
“Bringing those actors in and recording before starting shooting was a cool way to get to know the characters better,” he said.
There will be a soundtrack, so viewers can keep humming. Jasper said, “It’s like a dream.”
Saturday April 29, 2:45 p.m. Sunday, April 30, 4:45 p.m.
Clairidge Theater, 486 Bloom eld Ave.
and knows a lot of children — basketball players or not — have it just as bad, if not worse. If he can help just a few by men- toring them, teaching them or just being a shoulder to lean on, Anderson feels as though his legacy would be much more important than titles or wins.
It’s part of a humble point of view he has begun to cultivate later in life. Even the choice of the title for the movie — Mr. Chibbs — comes from a humble source. That’s the name his family used to call him when he was a baby, and his mother would call him when he got a bit too full of himself later in life.
Campbell feels Anderson will be an easy person for audiences to connect with regardless of their background because of how honest he is about his aws.
“In life we’re all on that journey, all cir- cling, all trying to gure it out,” she said. “That’s why I feel like we can all relate to Kenny.”
‘Mr. Chibbs’
by ANDREW GARDA garda@montclairlocal.news
Kenny Anderson was an NBA player. Kenny Anderson is becoming a life coach. The journey from the rst sentence to the second is what “Mr. Chibbs,” a new documentary featuring the transition from professional basketball player to dad, coach and regular citizen, is all about. Anyone who has followed basketball should be familiar with Anderson. A high school phenom from Queens, New York, Anderson dominated while at Georgia Tech and then played professionally for 15
years, from 1991 to 2006.
Once a guy like Anderson leaves the
court, though, we lose track of him. That’s when things can get interesting, and that’s what director Jill Campbell was at- tracted to.
“I met him 10 years into retirement in a major midlife crisis,” she said. “To see what an athlete actually goes through in retirement and how Kenny really had to reconcile who he was going to be for the
rest of his life. I thought it was a really in- teresting place to start a documentary.”
For Anderson, the movie was an op- portunity to help people deal with issues like depression, lack of direction and fa- therhood.
“I’m just trying to pay it forward and try to help others,” Anderson said. “And tell people how I felt going through this process.”
What was most important to him was being honest, though, even when that honesty was ugly.
That made things easier — though not easy — for Campbell. Anderson is so en- gaging that it was hard at times to show him in a negative light.
In one scene in the documentary, An- derson is coaching his son’s South Florida Elite youth basketball team and they lose an important game. Anderson’s reaction is raw, rough and will be uncomfortable to watch for some. Campbell knew it had to beinthemovie—itwastoogoodamo- ment — but also knew it was a risk because it’s not a great moment for Anderson.
In the end, the scene has garnered some of the biggest laughs as the movie has played in festivals. In retrospect, that makes perfect sense, she said.
“It’s really real,” Campbell said. “And it’s what really happens when you coach.”
As far as Anderson, the coach himself, was concerned, showing the uncomfort- able moments was the point.
“I was telling the truth and not sugar- coating it.”
Over the course of the lm, which spans four years, Anderson travels and debates whether he will pursue a career in coaching basketball or perhaps move in another direction.
At the time of the lm’s release, An- derson says he leans much more toward being a life coach — someone who helps people nd positive direction in their life while avoiding bad choices. His time talking to young ballplayers while lm- ing made him feel as though his calling should be helping kids avoid the type of pitfalls he fell into.
Anderson knows he didn’t have it easy,