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.
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Santa Got Militant Rise of the Guardians (Rated PG) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Apparently, Rise of the Guardians (97 minutes) was a series of children���s books. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of both movies and books, and I must say this is the first time I���m hearing of this. I now feel a deep and abiding shame and I must go forth to Barnes and Noble and read all three William Joyce originals. Although, the movie does take place about 200 years after the original stories covered in the books. The film starts out with some freaking gorgeous visuals. The palette is a nice combination of blues, greys, and whites with accents of gold, red, and peacock. So give the guy that picked out the color combos an Oscar. The writers need a spanking though. Would it have killed somebody to point out the lack of powerful female characters in the film? Make no mistake, Guardians is boy���s town. This is especially irritating since there are so many places in the narrative which, with just a little bit of tweaking, a strong female character could easily fit. Have they never heard of Mother Nature? Did the Easter Bunny need to be a boy? What about a clever little gender reversal in which Santa Claus laments the patriarchal twisting of her-story? Then there���s the fact that the one major female character is more than a little bit ditzy and dressed in brightly colored feathers. Way to reinforce gender stereotyping, movie! We open with the birth of Jack Frost (Chris Pine). The Man in the Moon brought him to life to serve as the spirit of winter, but didn���t give him any other information. Fast forward to just before Easter Sunday, roughly present day, where Jack has been invisible for 300 years or so since people don���t believe in him. What people do believe in is Santa Claus with a Russian accent and no wife (Alec Baldwin), the Tooth Fairy (stupid Isla Fisher), and the Australian Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman, still doing penance for appearing in the Wolverine movie) and Sandman (Heather Romagano in a non-speaking non-acting role). These latter four meet up at the North Pole where yetis are making toys and elves are ���helping.��� They find out that a crisis is imminent and The Man in the Moon has chosen a new hero to join them in guarding the children of the world. Naturally, that���s Jack Frost. But he���s a loner, baby, a rebel. He doesn���t play well with others and they don���t take him seriously. I wonder if the rest of the film will be about how Jack Frost is hiding is own feelings of inadequacy behind flippant remarks and then he makes a mistake ��� due in part to his insecurity ��� and gets rejected by the real champions but then redeems himself in some final lone wolf act of heroism? Whoops. I just gave away the plot of every PG kids movie ever. My bad. Anyhoo, enter the villain. The Bogeyman AKA Pitch Black (Jude Law) flipped through Terry Pratchett���s Hogfather and was inspired by the tooth fairy subplot contained therein. He is tired of being ignored in favor of friendlier fantasy figures and hatches a plot to destroy the belief that makes them real while leaving him invisible. Overall this was a fine family film. I mean, have a talk with your children about sexual politics and the patriarchal ideology communicated throughout the narrative, but other than that not bad. If you stick around during the credits there are some extra scenes. Now showing at Wynnsong HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandMarket Fair 15. comingweekly.com. Wear and Tear Joan Rivers rips into 2012���s celebrity style in Fashion Police TV by DEAN ROBBINS Joan Rivers weighs in with a year-end fashion roundup on Fashion Police (Friday, 10 p.m., E!). Along with Giuliana Rancic, Kelly Osbourne and George Kotsiopoulos, Rivers will call out the best and worst of celebrity frocks, naming the ���Fash-Hole��� who���s committed the most egregious crimes against couture. The word ���Fash-Hole��� only begins to suggest Rivers��� raunchy approach to this subject. Now pushing 80, she can still elicit gasps with her foul-mouthed jokes. But her genius ��� and no, that���s not too strong a word for this pioneering female comedian ��� is that she can also elicit laughs while making you deeply uncomfortable. It would require a Ph.D. dissertation to explain exactly how she pulls this off, but I think it involves the fact that she���s as hard on herself as she is on her victims. Plus, Rivers is just plain witty ��� much more so than most of the mean-spirited women comics who���ve followed in her wake. Goaded by Joan, the panelists help make Fashion Police one of the most transgressive shows on TV. ���We���re all going to hell,��� Rancic told her colleagues on one broadcast, following a particularly nasty bit. ���You know that.��� They probably are going to hell. And I, for one, can���t wait to hear what they think of the clothes down there. Impractical Jokers Thursday, 10 pm (truTV) I reluctantly gave this prank show a thumbs up when it premiered last year, despite its lowbrow concept. I wanted to be the mature TV critic and look down my nose at it, but I was laughing too hard. The idea is that four friends compete to embarrass each other in public situations. For example, one of them is installed as a receptionist at a business, and the others WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM give him instructions (through an earpiece) on acting weird around the people who come through the door. There���s a fair amount of cruelty involved, but the friends direct it at themselves, not at innocent bystanders. And they have so much fun humiliating each other ��� and being humiliated ��� that it���s hard not to have fun watching them. Look at me, trying to sound like the mature TV critic with my justifications for Impractical Jokers. The bottom line is: The show is indefensible, and irresistible. American Masters Friday, 10 pm (PBS) Joffrey Ballet: Mavericks of American Dance chronicles an artistic revolution. Before Robert Joffrey and partner Gerald Arpino came on the scene in the 1950s, American classical ballet companies reflected European and Russian traditions. The Joffrey Ballet was a truly indigenous company, with American themes and music. The choreography opened classical ballet to modern-dance influences, and it also responded to current events. Thus, the troupe premiered antiwar and psychedelic-rock ballets in the 1960s, blowing audiences��� minds. Along with the dazzling dance footage, the documentary offers decades��� worth of colorful anecdotes. On a tour of Afghanistan in a freezing auditorium, the audience applauded silently while wearing mittens. In the 1990s, Prince became enamored of the Joffrey and offered the use of his songs royalty-free. That led to both financial solvency and temporary artistic bankruptcy. Joffrey Ballet: Mavericks of American Dance is an enjoyable program that will have you applauding, with or without mittens. DEC. 26, 2012 - JAN.1, 2013 UCW 17