Up & Coming Weekly

Was Kal Penn Busy Elsewhere? The Last Airbender (Rated PG) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS I admit I did not watch the original series. After watch- ing M. Night Shyamalan’s lackluster (and more than a little racist) version, I wish I had. Shyamalan’s career started off strong, but quickly degenerated into a series of farcical box office flops too dependent on his signature “twist” to sustain creditability. The Happening offered the promise of better things to come, but The Last Airbender (103 min- utes) fails to deliver on that promise. The world created by DiMartino and Konietzko is dis- tinctly Asian and references authentic cultural practices, celebrating diversity. The world created by Shyamalan rel- egates Asian actors to background roles and villainy while the heroes are all obviously caucasian. This is even more inexplicable considering the caucasian heroes live in the middle of villages filled with Asian characters. This is not to imply that there are not Asian actors in primary roles. Adding insult to injury, consider the main villain, Prince Zuko (Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire), alongside a number of other villains primarily played pre- dominately by Asian actors. Central casting can hide be- hind choosing actors over ethnicities, but there are so many prominent/qualified Asian actors it is especially offensive to think that Hollywood values them so little. Did anybody even call Kal Penn? What about John Cho? What about Michelle Yeoh? What about that chick from Glee? The list goes on. The myth behind the show involves element-based tribes, the Airbenders, the Waterbenders, the Earthbenders and the Firebenders. The Firebenders are the film’s antagonists, and this tribe seeks to dominate the rest of the world. They began taking control with the disappearance of an Avatar capa- Self-help guru Tony Robbins helps himself in Breakthrough Let the Healing Begin TV by DEAN ROBBINS Tony Robbins is a hulking self-help infomer- cial guru with frighteningly perfect teeth. And by “self-help,” I mean that his empowerment em- pire is designed to help himself — to glorify him as the man who makes your dreams come true. Note the title of his new NBC reality series: not just Breakthrough, but Breakthrough with Tony Robbins (Tuesday, 8 p.m.). After showing footage of himself in an audi- torium filled with wildly cheering fans, Robbins turns his attention to a couple who’ve lost their money in the recession. He forces them through a crackpot regimen that will supposedly solve all their problems, including flying fighter jets and living in a homeless shelter. As they experience “breakthroughs” on cue, Robbins barks faux-wisdom at them: “Everything that’s going wrong is the most important thing that’s ever happened to you!” The final scene is set — who’d have thunk it? — in an auditorium of fans wildly cheering Robbins’ healing powers. I guess I shouldn’t be so cynical, because cynicism is an impediment to a positive outlook on life. Do you think flying a fighter jet would make me more positive about this series? The Pillars of the Earth Friday, 10 pm (Starz) According to the opening title: “A royal ship carrying the only legitimate heir to the English throne catches fire and sinks off the coast of England. This event will lead to a long war of succession.” They’re not kidding about the “long” part. This eight-hour adaptation of Ken Follett’s novel is a royal soap opera in which medieval factions tussle for power. You either like this kind of thing or you don’t: the swordfights, the 22 UCW JULY 21-27, 2010 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM bearded guys drinking mead, the profusion of people named Gloucester. The Pillars of the Earth isn’t my cup of tea, but I suspect many viewers will like the vivid settings, the tangled alliances and the plentiful monks. Lay in a few bottles of mead, though, because by hour eight you’re going to need fortification. Being Human Saturday, 10 pm (BBC America) You may think The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has cornered the market on vampires and werewolves this summer. Being Human certainly won’t touch Eclipse’s popularity, but it’s the superior product. There’s no corny love story, no amateurish acting, no insipid dialogue. Being Human uses a ghost (Lenora Crichlow), a vampire (Aidan Turner) and a werewolf (Russell Tovey) to tell a poignant story about people — a story that does more than just pushing the usual buttons for romance, action and horror. The three friends live in a shabby English flat, dealing with the same prob- lems as the rest of us: loneliness, self-doubt, existential anxiety. These prob- lems are intensified by the fact that they’re monsters. But really, who isn’t a bit monstrous at one time or another? In the second-season premiere, they fret about their careers and their relationships, and almost every scene is brilliantly rendered in low-key psychological realism. I say “almost every scene” because, occasionally, the characters’ inner monsters burst forth, as when the amiable werewolf transforms into a snarling, hairy killer. It’s a horrifying moment, but even here the focus is on humanity. He wakes up naked the next morning in a field feeling guilty and disoriented. You can’t help but think it’s the same way you’d feel if you’d just gone on a ram- page without meaning to ble of controlling all four basic elements approximately 100 years prior to the film’s opening. In the present, the Avatar Aang (Noah Ringer) is rediscovered and immediately begins to suck screen time while running around with a cheap version of Falcor the Luck Dragon from The Neverending Story. He begins hanging out with the wonder twins Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone). Between the three of them, they have the acting ability of one child star, so in any given scene only one of them is re- ally selling the story while the other two look on blankly. The three begin a pilgrimage to various ruins on the way to the big waterbender city while dodging sev- eral factions of the Fire Nation. Their most persistent pursuers include Prince Zuko and Admiral Zhao (Aasif Mandvi) who are unable to play nicely together. The acting grows increasingly worse, the plot grows more and more complicated, new characters are intro- duced, but nobody in the audience cares. The reason nobody really cares is because the real stars of the film are the elements, twisted into new life by skillfully ap- plied CGI. The FX guys and gals are the saving grace of an otherwise poorly realized vision, giving us something to look at instead of the dead eyes of the leads. Though enjoyable on a basic level, the film fails to achieve the bright contrasting tones of other visually arrest- ing action movies (Curse of the Golden Flower; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com

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