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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Bonnie and Clyde, Superstars The Depression-era criminals get the glamorous treatment in a new TV movie TV by DEAN ROBBINS The real Bonnie and Clyde were grotesque killers with no redeeming qualities. But the new TV movie Bonnie & Clyde (Sunday & Monday, 8 p.m., A&E, Lifetime & History) swathes them in glamour. As played by Emile Hirsch and Holliday Grainger, they're Depression-era hotties who look fabulous while robbing banks and breaking out of jail. They even take time to have sex in their getaway car, with the police hot on their trail. This is no cinematic classic, like 1967s Bonnie and Clyde. Director Bruce Beresford overdoes the dreamy images and the slo-mo. The script dabbles in cheesy sociology, letting our miscreants off the hook as much as it can. (Hey, times were hard in the 1930s.) It even has the nerve to paint Bonnie as a proto-feminist heroine. But I can't get too upset. The movie passes the time, and Hirsch and Grainger just keep looking fabulous, no matter how silly the plot. They're much more fun to hang out with than the real Bonnie and Clyde would have been. of all is the sub-Raymond Chandler dialogue. "This city, it's a sky full of stars!" says our two-bit loser, grasping for tough-guy poetry. "Up close, it's all gutter!" At times like this, you begin to think that Darabont hasn't watched quite enough Humphrey Bogart movies. Mob City Wednesday, 8 pm (TNT) This miniseries is set in 1947 Los Angeles, where a hardboiled detective (Jon Bernthal) battles fedora-wearing mobsters for the soul of the city. Clearly, writer-director Frank Darabont (The Walking Dead) has watched too many Humphrey Bogart movies. Mob City is a compendium of film noir clichés, from the jaded hero to the slinky dames to the two-bit losers. One of those losers (a miscast Simon Pegg) is even more hapless than Darabont intends. He quotes James Cagney in White Heat, even though nobody in 1947 would have heard of that 1949 movie. So it goes in Mob City, which botches every element of the film-noir genre. Worst Killer Contact Wednesday, 9 pm (Syfy) Syfy's new reality series features a team of investigators who solve crimes from the distant past, committed by legendary criminals like Jack the Ripper. How do they find answers where others have failed? They have a foolproof method: talking to ghosts. You'd be surprised how chatty the spirits of dead evildoers can be when a group of good-looking American TV personalities come calling. This week, armed with the latest in paranormaldetection gadgets, our gullible young heroes head to a Romanian castle to figure out if the 15th century tyrant Vlad the Impaler was really a vampire. For all their thermal cameras and infrared sensors, however, the kids try to rouse Vlad's ghost the oldfashioned way: by screaming at him. "Let's see how tough you are now!" one of them bellows in a gloomy castle chamber. "Get your ass out here!" Vlad "responds" only with faint crackling noises on the electromagnetic doohickey — the kind of crackling that, honestly, might also be caused by a slight breeze. Nevertheless, the investigators are satisfied that they've solved the mystery. Vlad was, they conclude, a vampire. No, these folks don't seem terribly bright. But come on — they can't be too stupid if they convinced a major cable network to base an entire TV series on faint crackling noises. ATTENTION: Military Service Veterans Under-employed or Unemployed? FTCC is offering free classes in the following areas: EMT-Basic (Emergency Medical Technician) and CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) New classes beginning in January! Classes provided through the NC Back-to-Work Grant Call (910) 678-8561 Offering over 189 programs leading to the award of associate degree, certificate or diploma. A military friendly school! www.faytechcc.edu WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM DECEMBER 4-10, 2013 UCW 23