Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/319008
MAY 28 - JUNE 3, 2014 UCW 21 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Don't Knock the Rock Pop musicians justify their art form with a Hall of Fame induction ceremony for the agesby DEAN ROBBINS You can roll your eyes over the idea of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — I have myself at times. But this year's induction ceremony (Saturday, 8 p.m., HBO) will wipe the sneer right off your face. It's a three-hour compendium of passionate words and soulful music that makes a case for pop as art. I'm so used to inarticulate acceptance speeches at the Grammys that the eloquence on display here took me by surprise. Bruce Springsteen offers profound insights about the E Street Band, as do Michael Stipe about Nirvana and Tom Morello about Kiss. Wait, wait — I can feel you rolling your eyes again. But I have no doubt that Morello's fiery defense of Kiss will go down in the history of rock and roll rhetoric. I could spend my whole column talking about the speeches, but that would leave no room for the performers. With the exception of Hall & Oates (okay, now you can roll your eyes), they suggest that rockers need not die before they grow old. Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks and Emmylou Harris form a strong-woman sorority in their affecting tribute to Linda Ronstadt. And Nirvana rocks hard even with a series of guest vocalists filling in for the dear departed Kurt Cobain. The most uncanny performance of the night is Nirvana's finale, "All Apologies," featuring Lorde. The 17-year-old establishes the song's enduring appeal as she interprets it anew for her generation. She enters a trance state to communicate the lyrics' mysterious agonies, and clearly has trouble coming out of it as the last note fades away. The image and the sound shook me up for the rest of the day. Motive Wednesday, 10 pm (ABC) The detective series returns with its intriguing gimmick: identifying the victim and the killer in the opening minutes of each episode. You'd think that approach would undermine the drama, but no: It simply replaces a police procedural's conventional suspense with a more novel sort. The big reveal isn't about who did it, but why they did it. Here, the motive is the mystery. Aside from that high concept, Motive is just a good, meat-and-potatoes cop show. The detectives (Kristin Lehman, Louis Ferreira, Brendan Penny) are low-key, unglamorous and thoroughly appealing. The scripts manage a light touch even amid the heavy-duty crime-solving. For me, that's motive enough to watch Motive. Undateable Thursday, 9 pm (NBC) Danny (Chris D'Elia) is renowned for his luck with women, but his playboy lifestyle is starting to feel empty as he pushes 30. Enter new roommate Justin (Brent Morin), a bar owner renowned for his bad luck with women. Danny decides to help Justin and his nerdy friends with their romantic problems, while Justin helps Danny edge his way toward maturity. Behold the new Odd Couple. Right out of the gate, the cast members find something distinctively absurd about their characters. But the writers don't do them any favors. The punch lines aren't very funny — in fact, they often don't even qualify as jokes. For example, people keep hearing the name of Justin's bar – Black Eyes – as "Black Guys." Laughing yet? As the characters nurse their romantic fantasies, I have a fantasy of my own: that NBC finds better lines for this promising ensemble. Crossbones Friday, 10 pm (NBC) Set on the high seas in the 1700s, this new series pits the bloodthirsty pirate Blackbeard (John Malkovich) against English spy Tom Lowe (Richard Coyle). This is supposed to be a battle of the titans, but viewers may have trouble taking it seriously. For one thing, Lowe has a perm, and no amount of swordfighting can make us forget that. For another thing, the prize the two men are fighting over is…a chronometer. How much passion can you work up for one of those? Nevertheless, Crossbones has a certain appeal as overwrought trash. Malkovich delivers a performance of grade-A ham, complete with diabolical grins and a shaky English accent. He speaks the florid dialogue with no pauses between sentences, suggesting less a pirate than a bad Shakespearean actor. "I will string up young Master Fletch in the town square," he says of Lowe's sidekick, with spittle flying, "and I will visit upon him enormities as to make Christ weep!" Crossbones may not make Christ weep, but it will surely make the rest of us snicker. CUMBERLAND The Department of Public Health is giving away free mosquito insecticide to Cumberland County residents while supplies last. The Mosquito Dunks product is a biological pest control agent that kills mosquito larvae. It is non- toxic to fish, birds, wildlife and pets. County residents can pick up a four-month supply of the insecticide at the Health Department, 1235 Ramsey St., Monday through Friday between 7:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. There are extended hours on Tuesday from 5 to 7 p.m. The round-shaped product is placed in water, where it floats. Each dunk will be effective for 30 days in standing water and will cover 100 square feet of surface. It can be used in lakes, fish ponds, bird baths, flower pots, aquatic gardens, flood-control basins, unused swimming pools and other areas where standing water creates a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The active ingredient is bacillus thuringiensis. Printed instructions will be available. The Health Department's Environmental Health Division will also be treating known areas of standing water in the community that serve as mosquito breeding grounds. For more information, call 910-433-3680. www.co.cumberland.nc.us Health Department Offers Mosquito Insecticide County Budget Meetings In June There will be a series of budget meetings in June following the May 29 presentation of the FY 2015 recommended Cumberland County budget. • June 4 at 5:30 p.m. - Budget Work Session - Room 564 • June 9 at 7 p.m. - Budget Public Hearing - Room 118 • June 10 at 5:30 p.m. - Department Head Appeals/Work Session - Room 564 • June 12 at 5:30 p.m. - Budget Work Session - Room 564 • June 16 at 6:45 p.m. - Budget Adoption - Room 118 The Cumberland County Department of Social Services is accepting donations of new box fans from civic organizations, churches, businesses and individuals in the community. Deliver fans to the DSS building, 1225 Ramsey St., between 7:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information about fan donations, call Deirdre Wells, Processing Unit Supervisor in the Adult Services Department, at 677-2536. Fan distribution will start at a later date. Fans will be available for those in our community whose income falls below 200 percent of the current poverty level and who have a family member in the home under the age of 2, over the age of 60, or with a heat-sensitive medical condition. Individuals interested in receiving a fan should visit the agency's Adult Services section and ask for a crisis worker. DSS Seeks Donated Box Fans To Provide Relief Health Youth Seminar Friday At Smith Center The Cumberland County Department of Public Health will host the "Get On My Level" Youth Seminar for teens Friday, May 30, at the Smith Recreation Center, 1520 Slater Ave., at 5 p.m. Seminar topics will include healthy relationships, HIV/STD prevention and teen pregnancy prevention. There will be free pizza, door prizes and games. Parents are also encouraged to attend the event. The Health Department will partner with the Act Like A Lady Mentoring Program and McGregor's Traveling Angels to produce the event. For more information, contact Public Health Educator Phyllis McLymore at 910-433-3894 or Lanora Washington at 910-257-1645. Appearance Awards Nomination Deadline June 1 Nominations for the City-County Joint Appearance Commission's Community Appearance Awards Program must be received by June 1. The program recognizes properties in Fayetteville and Cumberland County that are improving the appearance of the community. The commission will review nominations and select recipients who will be be honored at a summer awards ceremony. To obtain a nomination form, call the City of Fayetteville Development Services Department at 910-433-1612 or go online at at www.cityoffayetteville.org/AppearanceAward. Ugh. I hate reviewing an average movie the week after I review a movie I really liked. Would The Quiet Ones (98 minutes) get a higher rating if I weren't comparing it to Oculus? Well, probably not. Even after sleeping on it, The Quiet Ones just wasn't as good, even though it probably cost more money to make. The film is supposedly based on something called The Phillip Experiment, which is not even interesting enough to have its own Wikipedia page. Basically, Google results suggest (and I'm not discounting a viral advertising campaign planting the material) that in Canada, in the 1970s, a paranormal society decided to test the hypothesis that ghosts were manifestations of our unconscious. That is, ghosts don't exist and the paranormal phenomena we experience are something we create with the power of our minds. They made up a fictional person and then attempted to manifest an avatar based on the fiction they themselves created. They even filmed part of it and you can watch it on YouTube! So, it's totally like The Quiet Ones, except the 95 percent of the film that is completely not at all like The Phillip Experiment in any way. We open in 1970, in Oxford (England, not Canada). Professor Coupland (Jared Harris), the epitome of every possible cliché of a college professor, is trying to prove there is no such thing as ghosts. He is holding forth at length to a number of impressionable young people, including Brian McNeil (Sam Claflin, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire). Coupland then recruits Brian as a documentary filmmaker on his latest experiment. The job is that Brian will come to his house and listen to "Cum on Feel the Noize" at top volume while filming the torture of a mentally ill girl named Jane (Olivia Cooke, The Bates Motel) in order to prove that her mental illness can be … and this part is a little unclear … physically expressed, then destroyed. This, disregarding the fact that mental illness is socially constructed, will somehow lead to the cure of all mental illness in the world. Brian meets Coupland's assistants Krissi (Erin Richards) and Harry (Rory Fleck- Byrne). They are all terrible, selfish people. Jane is locked in a padded room and forced to listen to the above-mentioned Slade song on a seemingly endless loop, apparently to keep her awake? Again, it's not really explained but it is implied that sleep deprivation increases her agitation and therefore the possibility of observable psychic stuff happening. While Coupland instructs Brian not to make eye contact or talk to Jane, the first thing he does when he meets her is make lots of eye contact and chat about how she is locked in a sleep deprivation chamber because she is crazy. Since Brian clearly can't follow simple instructions it is now a countdown until he gets fired. Rather suddenly, the funding for the torture of an innocent girl is cut off. Coupland, with the sort of "can- do" attitude I can only wish to find in my own students, immediately transfers the experiment to an isolated, run-down, Gothic type mansion in the country. Thus, his experiment changes from torturing an innocent girl with the support of university funding while annoying the neighbors on his crowded city block with English glam rock, to torturing an innocent girl with no oversight, far from the prying eyes of any complaining witnesses. Overall, the scariest part of the movie was seeing it in an empty theater. I kept thinking I saw someone sneaking up on me out of the corner of my eye. Other than that, the special effects were childish and the ending was stupid. Let's not even mention switching back and forth between traditional cinematography and shaky-cam. Please, for the love of Mike, stop with the shaky-cam. Quiet! The Movie Is Trying to Scare Me! The Quiet Ones (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upand- comingweekly.com. 910.484.6200.