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: https://www.epageflip.net/i/120823
Die Hard in the White House Olympus Has Fallen (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Olympus Has Fallen (120 minutes) is poorly put together, albeit somewhat redeemed by a few bright and shining moments. Director Antoine Fuqua doesn't get much out of his actors, but he did manage to keep the action moving along at a fairly good clip. At least he avoids the worst sins of the most recent Die Hard — though both movies clearly came from the same well. The really interesting bit is the screenwriters. This is the first script from writing duo Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt … and unless you're namedropping Kathryn Bigelow there aren't really that many female action writers out there. While most of the film is pretty standard action-dude stuff there are a few standout moments for which I am giving Benedikt credit. For example, when Secretary of Defense Ruth McMillan (Melissa Leo) gets the crap beat out of her by lead baddie Kang (Rick Yune) it is pure feminism. Let me explain. Obviously I am not in favor of men beating women (or beatings in general). The reason I claim this particular scene for feminism (and I am sure there are lots of hardcore feminists who would stake me over an anthill for saying this) is the motive behind the beating. She was not being beaten as a woman or because she is a woman — she was being beaten in this particular scene because a man in the same role would have been beaten. Her ribs get broken, her blood ends up puddled on the floor and she sucks it up as much as a stereotypical male lead would and remains defiant even after the beating ends. In other words, Melissa Leo sold it for everything she was worth. Like Apollo punching Starbuck in the face, in certain situations it is a positive victory to be treated as an opponent in your own right rather than as a tool to coerce the nearest male protector into doing something they don't want to do. Sadly, the screenwriters giveth and they taketh away. Would it have killed them to make the lead's wife Leah (Radha Mitchell) a doctor instead of a nurse? Enough analysis. The film opens with some lovely pan and scan shots of snowfields, culminating in a close up of Mike Banning's (Gerard Butler) fist repeatedly punching the audience in the face. Which, if you have followed his work, is a pretty good summary of his career to date. I mean, if you watch 300 you can actually see the moment he got over being grateful for his job as an actor and started viewing his entire life as a longrunning prank he was playing on his audience. He was good in Law-Abiding Citizen, though. So, the camera angle changes and it turns out he is a Secret Service guy sparring with a blond-haired horse. Oh. My bad. That's actually President Asher (Aaron Eckhart, whose face is now approximately twice the length of a normal man's). The two trade witticisms and prepare to head out to a party with the First Lady (Ashley Judd) and First Child (Finley Jacobson). Then, bad things start to happen. Do they have anything to do with the rest of the plot? Not so much. Eighteen months later, Banning is working at the Treasury Department. Washington D.C. is targeted for an aerial attack complete with suicidal pilots who emasculate the country via knocking down the Washington Monument. This is not a subtle movie. This full frontal assault on the senses continues as civilians, Army soldiers, police officers and Secret Service agents are gunned down indiscriminately. Within a 15-minute period the audience is subjected to machine guns, automatic weapons, snipers, rocket propelled grenades and suicide bombers. Hilariously, literally hundreds of the good guys insist on running directly into the line of fire while Banning ineffectually pleads with them to duck. So, that's the movie. If you like that sort of thing, check it out. Now showing at Wynnsong HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandMarket Fair 15. comingweekly.com. Can't We All Just Get Along? Alien races try to coexist in the post-apocalyptic Defiance TV by DEAN ROBBINS Syfy boasts that Defiance marks the first conversion of TV and online gaming. The drama will unfold as both a series and a multiplatform videogame, with connections between the two mediums. That's an intriguing gimmick — but luckily there's nothing gimmicky about the TV premiere (Monday, 9 p.m.), which stands on its own as richly imagined science fiction. We're thrust into a near future where multiple alien species have landed, fought with Earthlings and transformed the planet. Post-armistice, they maintain an uneasy peace in post-apocalypse St. Louis, which look like a Mad Max landscape graced by a stillstanding arch. Into this powder keg come a roguish former Marine (Grant Bowler) and the orange-haired alien (Stephanie Leonidas) he's adopted as his daughter. Our heroes dream of traveling to the promised land of Antarctica, but financial problems dictate that they first navigate the tricky political dynamics of this multilayered culture. The pilot is a fully formed world, with a large cast of strange characters and a vast, unfamiliar terrain. Every detail has been thought through, from the aliens' language (frequently subtitled) to the awful futureEarth music. Best of all, the relationship between the unconventional fatherdaughter pair has emotional resonance, despite the videogame trappings. Defiance is highly recommended for members of all species. Vice Friday, 11 pm (HBO) The Vice media organization is known for such nontraditional gestures as Dennis Rodman's recent "basketball diplomacy" trip to North Korea. Whatever you thought of that stunt — and no sane person thought highly of it — you WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM might find yourself transfixed by Vice's newsmagazine on HBO. It promises "stories overlooked by the mainstream media outlets," and this week's episode delivers just that with a report on North Korean defectors. Even if a mainstream media outlet covered this story, it probably wouldn't take Vice's approach: sending a reporter, translator and camera person along with a North Korean woman on her dangerous journey to freedom. She leaves family behind to sneak into China, falls into the hands of a pimp, then undertakes a trip over Laotian mountains and rivers via underground railroad. We're right there as she crawls into a shaky boat that will lead her either to prison camp or to safety. I won't tell you how the story turns out, except to say that it doesn't fit our normal categories of "happy" or 'sad." MTV Movie Awards Sunday, 9 pm (MTV) I look forward to the irreverent MTV Movie Awards as an antidote to the pompous Oscars. Unlike the Oscars, the MTV ceremony emphasizes the fun side of movies — and that should make for a fun night of TV, right? Well, it's time to admit that the broadcast almost never lives up to its promise. The approach is usually more obnoxious than imaginative. And the nonstop hype for upcoming summer movies makes the whole thing feel like a commercial rather than a valentine to the past year's popcorn movies. Seth MacFarlane appropriated a signature MTV gag while hosting the recent Oscars: sniggering about boobs. To keep this year's ceremony a step ahead of the competition, host Rebel Wilson will obviously need to find some other female body part to snigger about. APRIL 10-16, 2013 UCW 25