EL SEGUNDO HERALD November 11, 2021 Page 5
Entertainment
Check It Out Film Review
The Incredible Winston Browne
by Sean Dietrich
By Mary Martes, Library Clerk
In the early 1950’s in the tiny town of Moab,
Florida, folks take their baseball seriously.
Residents listen as the Brooklyn Dodgers are
broadcast on the local radio station. They live
and die along with the teams’ fortunes. In
Moab, you are either a Dodger fan or a Giants
fan, and there is no crossover.
Sheriff Winston Browne has no family and
only one real friend. He has been the sheriff
of Moab since he returned from the war and is
well respected in this tiny hamlet on the river
where everybody knows everybody’s business.
He has no interest in sharing his diagnosis of
terminal lung cancer, but it makes him realize
the lonely existence he has been living.
Fortunately, circumstances and events conspire
to bring people into his personal orbit just at
the time he is ready to let them in.
Jessie has been raised in a communal cult,
where everyone is recognized as family, so she
has no idea who her real mother is but feels
the emptiness of that missing attachment. When
cult leadership changes, her life is in danger.
Her journey to a safe house goes horribly
wrong and she is left to fend for herself against
a posse sent to bring her back dead or alive.
Buz is fourteen years old and just wants to
be a boy and play baseball. Unfortunately, that
is not a choice he gets to make. He is forced to
leave behind his childhood, quit school and go
to work. His mother works double shifts, but
they are still living in dire circumstances. Buz
blames his amiable but alcoholic grandfather
who drinks away the money and frequently
gets lost wandering. He knows he must help
by working, but he is desperately unhappy.
Eleanor has grown tired of waiting for
Jimmy to propose. After all, they have been
dating since high school and are well into
middle age. Jimmy is clueless. As far as he
is concerned, everything is just fine the way
it is. Eleanor decides she must move on from
Jimmy, although she still loves him. She begins
a close friendship with Winston, and more than
Jimmy’s world is upended.
This story of friendship and kinship has all
the elements – love, betrayal, humor, intrigue,
adventure, pain and happiness. How this ragtag
collection of characters come together makes
for an endearing and lively story. What makes
Winston Browne incredible? Read it for yourself
and find out.
Check out these and other engaging stories
in hard copy at the Main Library or online via
our digital library ebooks and eAudiobooks
from Overdrive. Visit www.scdl.overdrive.
com or download the Libby/Overdrive Apps
to find out more. Wish we had other titles?
Let us know by emailing refdesk@elsegundo.
org or calling 310-524-2728. •
The Incredible Winston Browne by Sean Dietrich
Mary Martes
With ‘The French Dispatch,’ Wes
Anderson Invents with Short Stories
By Ryan Rojas, Cinemacy
In ‘The French Dispatch’–an anthology of
short films about a fictional magazine and its
articles–Wes Anderson finds new corners to
invent. Anyone who has seen all–or even just
one–Wes Anderson movie knows that every
outing from the prolific auteur is pure dessert
for moviegoers. A mere moment is among
the richest of intricately made confectionary
treats. Eating an entire box in a single sitting
is either the most savory of experiences, or
the most uncomfortably stuffing.
I’m happy and relieved to say that the
new film is actually, again, something of
another detour in Anderson-land. Where
Wes’ previous eight films have all adhered
to a single plot-driven storyline, the writer/
director breaks from that convention only
slightly in creatively making The French
Dispatch an anthology series of short stories.
That larger backdrop is a fictional magazine
(the Liberty Kansas Evening Sun) and its press,
which he clearly loves the history of both. It’s
actually obvious to see how The New Yorker
magazine–which he was fascinated with as
a child (can’t you just picture it?)–inspired
his particular and creative writing style that
evokes high-society intelligentsia. The French
Dispatch is an homage to the institution and
people that shaped that early artistic vision.
The film’s structure breaks from his previous
films, in that this outing is a series of
short films–articles within an edition that
cleverly mirrors a magazine itself. And it’s
this anthology structure that makes it so
welcome and appetizing at this point in his
filmography (where was he supposed to go
after the enormous accomplishment that was
the decades-spanning screwball caper The
Grand Budapest Hotel?).
The French Dispatch, courtesy Searchlight Pictures.
Ryan Rojas
Generations from front page
One resident in the graduating Class of
1996 speaks as part of a generational chain
that attended El Segundo High School
consecutively. Marjanneke Bergsma, an
immigrant from Holland, matriculated into
ESHS, going on to graduate in 1963. Bergsma
had two children, a boy, and a girl, both of
whom attended ESHS and had some of the
same teachers as her (Class of ‘96 and’ 99).
Marjolein Oakley, Bergsma’s daughter, went
on to have her own daughter, who graduated
ESHS Class of 2014 and shared some faculty
experiences with Marjolein.
Marjanneke and Marjolein, like many
other residents describing fond memories
of their education in El Segundo, describe
having classes like woodshop and auto class
when they attended, something the school
has since removed. Oakley also describes
having to create their Class floats in secret
locations, as students would try to destroy
the other classes’ floats by doing things like
throwing eggs and frozen potatoes.
“Our first assignment in virtually every
class was putting brown paper covering on
your books,” says Oakley, going on to note
this difference in her experience versus her
daughter’s, “when I made a comment about
that, she looked at me like I was freaking
crazy.” Technologically, her family has seen
the school evolve from pencil and paper to
light computer use, to every child having a
computer in their pocket.
Every resident who shared their experience
shared anecdotes about senior pranks and
after-school shenanigans and their favorite
teachers. Each of them also shared a piece
of wisdom for the current graduating class.
Marjanneke Bergsma says, “Don’t be upset
that you’re not popular or a football jock or
not in the clique. When you get out of high
school and in the real world, you’ll be great.”
Her daughter adds, “Enjoy yourself.
You’re only young once, and life has a way
of falling into place.” The things that seem
catastrophic in high school become trivial
the older you get.
“Develop your integrity as a human being,”
says Matthews, “Focus on caring for yourself,
learn how to enjoy yourself, take care of the
number one, and try not to blame anybody
else for what they are going through.”
Lancaster addresses the very different high
school experience during a pandemic and says,
“You should be proud; you’ve been able to
get through a really different world than any
of us have ever experienced.” Her advice is
to “take any of those disappointments, and
use them as preparation for the adult world.”
Getting an education in El Segundo is a
privilege, she says, and that being educated
at ESHS, you are more prepared than a lot
of other students.
Cynthia Robinson Bryan reminds us that
mental illness comes out in A year or two
after school and wants to impress on fresh
graduates that it’s okay and important to
reach out if you need some assistance. “Keep
an open mind,” she says, “Be open to new
experiences and new friends.”
No matter how different their academic
experience, every alumnus came out the other
side to say they loved El Segundo, and they
loved El Segundo High School. •
Generations of alumni in her family attend Alexis’s ESHS
Marjolein (‘96) in her ESHS cheer uniform. graduation (‘14).
See Film Review, page 8