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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Tuesday 22 augusT 2017
Review: In ‘Patti Cake$,’

hip-hop dreams in New Jersey

By JAKE COYLE traditionally reserved for confused for anything that
AP Film Writer James Brown. would, in our reality, be
The Sundance sensation The distance between characterized as especially
“Patti Cake$” may flow dream and reality has good. But trained on limer-
with formulaic beats but long been measured — icks by her chain-smoking
it’s got spirit for miles (eight and usually shrunk — by grandmother (Cathy Mori-
of them, at least) and fea- the movies, though the arty), she’s verbally inven-
tures one of the best moth- gap has rarely been so ex- tive and can unleash vers-
er-daughter relationships of treme as in “Patti Cake$.” es in torrents. She gathers
This image released by Fox Searchlight shows Danielle Mac- the year. When Patti arrives at her together an unlikely group,
donald, left, and Siddharth Dahanajay in “Patti Cake$.”
Associated Press Patricia Dombrowski (the bartending job — the only with Hareesh on beat and
terrific newcomer Danielle employment keeping her back-up, and a painfully
Macdonald) is an over- and her hard-drinking mom shy heavy-metal anarchist
weight, white New Jersey (Bridget Everett) just out of who goes by the name
23-year-old living a hard- their creditors’ reach — her Basterd the Antichrist (Ma-
scrabble life in the shadow boss tells her, “Toilet’s still moudou Athie) on guitar.
of New York City. She’s clogged and the karaoke They begin recording, sav-
cruelly called “Dumbo” by isn’t going to set itself up.” ing up money and believ-
many in town, but she’s got When she walks down the ing.
a nickname of her own. street rapping along with By piling on the eccentric-
“Killa P,” she calls herself, her headphones, she magi- ity (the anarchist lives in a
because, as she states cally rises in the air with the shack in the woods near a
matter-of-factly, “I murder music only to be brought cemetery) and, later, the
the beat.” down to earth by the blare predictably manipulative
And she does. Our first of a horn. moments (someone will die
glimpse of her is in a grimy, Patti wants to be a rap- at just the right juncture),
dirty-dish-strewn kitchen per, a notion she’s a little writer-director Geremy Jas-
freestyling while munching reticent to even admit be- per — a music-video vet-
on a Pop Tart. Later, her cause of its apparent ab- eran making his directorial
best friend and optimis- surdity. debut — shows himself a
tic music partner Hareesh But in Hareesh she has a good study of a well-trod
(Siddharth Dhananjay) will, faithful supporter. He nudg- genre: the Sundance-style
from behind his pharmacy es her into a battle at a lo- indie underdog tale. The
counter, announce her cal gas station where she’s film was, after all, devel-
arrival on the store PA sys- derided as “white Precious” oped at the Sundance
tem, as she strolls down the but holds her own in rhyme screenwriting lab where it
toothpaste aisle, with the and attitude. surely was injected with the
kind of grandiose pomp Patti’s hip-hop won’t be requisite quirks.q
Review: ‘The Room of Fire’

is a dark and violent book

By BRUCE DESILVA chologist hires Ford to track
Associated Press him down.
Roland Ford is a private “The Room of White Fire,”
investigator who excels at the first of a planned se-
finding missing people. He’s ries of Roland Ford novels
also a former police officer, by veteran thriller writer T.
an Iraq war combat vet- Jefferson Parker, initially
eran and a widower who unfolds like a standard pri-
is tortured by the loss of his vate eye novel. But as Ford
wife, who comes to him digs deeper into the case,
now in waking dreams. he discovers that every-
Dr. Briggs Spencer is a psy- one, from the hospital staff
chologist who made mil- to Hickman’s parents, is ei-
lions teaching the CIA how ther lying or has been lied
to effectively torture sus- to about the young man’s
pects. He is atoning for it military record. Hickman,
now — or so he says — by it seems, knows a dark se-
This cover image released
by Penguin Random House operating a chain of qual- cret about America’s war
shows “The Room of White ity hospitals for the men- on terror, and powerful
Fire” a novel by T. Jefferson tally ill. When a troubled Air and dangerous people are
Parker. Force veteran named Clay prepared to do whatever it
Associated Press Hickman escapes from one takes to make sure the se-
of Briggs’ hospitals, the psy- cret is never told. q