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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Soviets in the Suburbs The Americans seeks to undermine our way of life TV by DEAN ROBBINS We've seen many dramas about married couples living a lie in the suburbs, with tensions cracking the cheery façade. The lie in The Americans, however, is bigger than most. Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) are KGB agents passing as a normal American couple during the Reagan era, with two normal kids. The kids, in fact, really are normal, having been born in the U.S., and knowing nothing about their parents' real identities. Elizabeth is troubled that they're growing up without socialist values, but she would never blow her cover by telling them the truth. Philip, on the other hand, is beginning to wonder why the two of them don't just flip to the American side and live happily ever after, sans murder and kidnapping. The Americans (Wednesday, 10 p.m., FX) dares us to sympathize with the most unsympathetic of protagonists as they try to undermine our way of life. Sympathy is possible only because Philip and Elizabeth emerge as believable human beings, with doubts and fears and backstories. Besides the logistical problems of their lifestyle — including a snoopy FBI agent who's moved in next door — they're not quite an actual couple. The KGB arranged their marriage for the purpose of this mission, so they're ambivalent about one another even after a decade-plus together. Indeed, ambivalence is the keynote of The Americans. I can't wait to work out my own mixed feelings about it over the course of the season. Do No Harm Thursday, 10 pm (NBC) Dr. Jason Cole (Steven Pasquale) is an eminent surgeon and a solid citizen — at least for 12 hours a day. At night, his alter ego comes out to indulge in 12 hours of gleeful mayhem. Jason is all too aware of his nightmarish doppelganger and tries to keep him bottled up via experimental drugs. That just makes the bad Jason angry, so he sets out to ruin the good Jason's life. Do No Harm is an effective variation on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The new series makes you feel the good Jason's distress, thanks to Pasquale's brilliant performance. Actually, make that two brilliant performances. Pasquale is just as convincing as the bad Jason, scaring you to death with the prospect of pure id on the loose. The scariest moments are when the good Jason wakes up with only a vague sense that "he" has done something horrible. "You will not see that side of me again!" he tells a freaked-out colleague who, he gathers, has been victimized by his alter ego. "I promise!" Those of use who've read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — or who've labored to bottle up our own bad selves — can sense the futility of that promise. Super Bowl Sunday, 6:30 pm (CBS) Two weeks ago, Beyoncé blew away the multitudes with her "Star Spangled Banner" at President Obama's inauguration — live or lipsynched, who cares? Now she's fixing to blow us away again with her Super Bowl halftime extravaganza. I think we can all agree that the woman is capable of kicking any event to the next level. So why not hire her to sing at every important national telecast? Even next year's State of the Union address might be watchable with a "Single Ladies" intro. A Hard Film to Review The Impossible (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS The Impossible (114 minutes) is a hard film to review. First, it is based on the true story of real people who survived the most devastating tsunami in recent memory. That makes it real hard to crack jokes or make sarcastic observations, and that's 90 percent of my typical review content. Second, the acting isn't terrible. The other 10 percent of most of my reviews revolves around calling out the over and under actors. The length was fine, the narrative arc balanced throughout the film, and director Juan Antonio Bayona managed to avoid Spielbergian levels of emotional manipulation. Most of the bodies that show up are covered, but there are several scenes that hint at the number of dead — though, I suspect, without conveying the true magnitude of the disaster. Toss your leads around in a huge water tank all you want, it's still going to fall short of the actual tsunami. I may not have much to work with, but I can point out that the story of a Spanish family was conveniently turned into the story of a bunch of white people. In the film, María Belón is called Maria Bennet (Naomi Watts), her husband Enrique becomes Henry (Ewan McGregor) and son Tomas becomes Thomas (Samuel Joslin). At least sons Lucas (Tom Holland) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast) get to keep their names. The director may claim that his goal was to create a family of ambiguous ethnic background, but he didn't do such a good job since after seeing the film I was left with the impression that they were from England originally. I'm not sure which was the biggest clue, but maybe it was the English accents? The film opens on a plane. A family of five is headed overseas to vacation in Thailand. There is a bit of character-establishing family discussion. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM It seems that Thomas is upset by his older brother Lucas ignoring him, so Mom Maria runs interference. Meanwhile, Henry fills out paperwork. As family dynamics go, the brief scene is enough to reveal all. There is a bit of mild sibling rivalry, a stay at home mom mediating the squabbles and a father more concerned with external needs than family business. McGregor and Watts have a fairly realistic chemistry and the two youngest kids are too cute to be believed. They settle into their rooms, complete with ocean view and do vacation stuff together. They celebrate Christmas and I wonder about the logistics of shipping Christmas presents back and forth by plane. Wouldn't going to Thailand be present enough? Perhaps my standards for gift exchange are a bit off. The appearance of the tsunami is both intense and brutal, occurring just as Henry and the two younger boys are playing in the pool, separated from Maria and Lucas. The film follows Maria and Lucas as they are swept away and hurled into a variety of moving and stationary objects by the unrelenting flood waters. This is seriously edge-of-the-seat stuff. Eventually, battered and dressed in the remains of their lounging-by-the-pool outfits they reach semi-safety and are assisted by locals. The rest of the film is about this little family trying to reconnect in a sea of people. Overall, a tense film that manages to show just a little bit of the reality of a devastating natural disaster. Now showing at Wynnsong HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandMarket Fair 15. comingweekly.com. JAN. 30 - FEB 5, 2013 UCW 17