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/19373
The Walking Wounded Soldiers suffer post-traumatic stress disorder in Wartorn TV by DEAN ROBBINS Executive produced by James Gandolfini, Wartorn: 1861-2010 (Thursday, 9 p.m., HBO) examines the scourge of post-traumatic stress disorder among U.S. soldiers, from the Civil War to today. It begins by charting a Civil War sol- dier’s decline through his letters home. He insists that he would never shame his family by committing suicide, as some of his fel- low soldiers have done. After two years immersed in the horrors of war, however, he … shames his family. In our own time, post- traumatic stress disorder is no less devastating, even though it’s better under- stood. A woman laments her son’s suicide after two tours of Iraq: “The U.S. Army trained him to be a killer. They forgot to untrain him.” We meet many traumatized soldiers and keep watching through many tears — theirs and our own. Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the Impossible Friday, 9 pm (Encore) Tom Cruise narrates a heartfelt tribute to George Lucas’ special-effects outfit, Industrial Light & Magic. Directors like Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg express awe over the advances made possible by ILM’s revolutionary techniques. As Cruise puts it, “Industrial Light & Magic has given filmmakers the tools to achieve any- thing.” The screen fills with iconic images to prove the point: the rolling boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark, the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, E.T. sailing past the moon on his bicycle. Industrial Light & Magic ushered in the digital age in filmmaking, but its story begins in 1975, in what Cruise calls “the photo-chemical era” (which sounds about as ancient as the Precambrian Era). Lucas created the company to deal with the chal- lenges posed by his Star Wars script, which caused snickering among FX experts of the day. “This will never be done,” said an early reader. But Lucas wouldn’t be denied, so he pushed the boundaries of traditional tech- niques like stop-motion animation and miniatures. We hear quaint pre-digital stories about 12-hour shoots that yielded four seconds of film. “If anything got bumped,” says one technician, “we’d have to start again.” How charming is it to think of the epochal Star Wars being derailed by a bump? Nature Sunday, 8 pm (PBS) This week’s episode focuses on wolverines, a North American mammal whose reputation has hit rock-bottom. Wolverines are known as bloodthirsty killers, called “demons from the north.” Their scientific name, Gulu gulu, tags them as “gluttonous gluttons.” As if that weren’t bad enough, they’re related to weasels — and even wea- sels are embarrassed by them. That’s why I’m suspicious of Nature’s sympathetic take on the wolverine. “Those who have set out on their trail have met a creature completely at odds with its dia- bolical image,” the narrator claims. Enter witnesses who call the wolverine “sociable and bright,” even going so far as to paint them as family-oriented. Does anybody else smell a whitewash here? I’m not claiming that wolverines themselves are bankrolling this production, because I have no proof. I’m just putting the thought out there. Sarah Palin’s Alaska Sunday, 9 pm (TLC) Sarah Palin had problems as a governor and a vice-presidential candidate, but she seems just fine as the host of an expanded-basic-cable travelogue. It’s always nice to see people find their niche. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM nn orporat Premiere Party Copyright by Joanna McKethan NEW EXHIBIT Thursday, November 18 5:30-7 p.m. in the Corporate Office of orporate Offi Up and Coming Weekly, 208 Rowan St. Joanna McKethan The works of A. Jones Rodgers will be Gallery 208 Paintings By exhibited in the Leonard G. McLeod Gallery. Complimentary Food and Drinks Will Be Served Presented by: The FRESH CAFE Good Food...Naturally NOVEMBER 10-16, 2010 UCW 19 C o m g ii g m