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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What's That Rule About Fight Club Again? Out of the Furnace (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Well, Out of the Furnace (116 minutes) was pretty bleak. It was also pretty slow paced. To make it worse, for the first time ever I had to leave the theater before finishing the movie, and I left right when the action started to pick up. Of course, there was only about five minutes left in the movie at that point, but come on! I sat through nearly two boring, depressing hours and had to leave right when stuff was starting to happen! This is the sophomore offering from Director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) and while his work is distinctive he struggles to properly use the talent he draws to his pictures. This could be the result of just getting started with directing, but based on what he has shown so far it is hard to imagine him suddenly amazing everyone with heretofore unknown talent. We'll have to wait and see, I guess. Honestly, I wasn't jazzed about either one of these features — I only saw Out of the Furnace because it was the only film in wide release that week. The narrative follows two brothers living in an economically depressed Pennsylvania Rust Belt town. Older brother Russell (Christian Bale) works at the local steel mill, trying to make a life for himself with his girlfriend, Lena (Zöe Saldana). His younger brother, Rodney (Casey Affleck) is an enlisted man either just coming back from, or just headed out to, a deployment overseas. He is sort of a tool. See, while Russell is the "good" brother, Rodney gambles and mouths off and yells a lot and doesn't want to work in a steel mill because he is a veteran, or something. It is unclear exactly what Rodney thinks he should be doing, other than participating in secret, meth-dealer run, underground, bare-knuckled boxing mountain-men fight clubs. And since we all know the first rule about fight club, it is a bit of a surprise that Russell seems to know all about it. Exactly how many of your friends need to get involved in a secret, meth-dealer run, underground, bare-knuckled boxing mountain-men fight club before you can quickly recognize the signs? Here is the sequence that I remember from the movie. Russell finds a bloody bandage in the trash. He does not think, gosh, I guess my brother cut himself shaving, got into a bar fight and/or fell and hurt himself. Russell jumps right to my brother is involved in a secret, meth-dealer run, underground, bare-knuckled boxing mountain-men fight club. Clearly, Russell is wasting himself at the steel mill and should instead get a job as a P.I. Anyway, it turns out that meth dealers who also run fight clubs are not very trustworthy people. Rodney disappears on a fightclub trip, along with his favorite loan shark/manager (Willem Dafoe). Since Russell feels responsible for Rodney he grabs his Uncle (Sam Shepard) and heads out into the mountains of Pennsylvania while the theme song from Deliverance plays in the background. They wander around back country roads looking for people to ask for drugs. Luckily for them, they get lucky and only need to buy angel dust and PCP from a few different gangs before stumbling across the drug dealers they are looking for. Conveniently, these drug dealers are homebodies and invite the not-at-all-suspicious-looking pair back to their drug house. Of course, first they ask Russell and his Uncle if they are cops. Because we all know that if the drug dealers ask, the police officers have to ruin their meticulously planned undercover operation and reveal themselves. Once at the backcountry meth house they buy their illegal drugs and hunt around for the author of their misery, Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson, a much less affable drunk here than in The Hunger Games). You would think that the meth dealers would be tipped off that their new friends are up to no good by the way they leave all the drugs they just bought behind, but you would be wrong. Overall, it wasn't a terrible movie. Some HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing people might even like it. Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upand comingweekly.com. Honoring the Wrong Pianist CBS airs a little-seen Christmas episode from 1956 TV by DEAN ROBBINS Cranston), the high school chemistry teacher This year's Kennedy Center Honors (Sunday, turned meth kingpin. The network did the same 9 p.m., CBS) celebrates jazz innovator Herbie thing in September, leading up to the muchHancock, guitarist Carlos Santana, movie star anticipated finale. Back then, though, we didn't Shirley MacLaine, opera singer Martina Arroyo know how the series was going to end when we and pianist Billy Joel for their contributions to watched episodes 1-61. American culture. I was going to maintain a Now we do, and it's bound to transform the discreet silence about the choice of honorees, experience of sitting through the whole run. having tired of making the case for the Episode 62 confirmed Walter as a man rather perennially overlooked Jerry Lewis year after than simply a monster. It redeemed him as year. But, dammit, the Kennedy Center has gone much as possible, given the shred of humanity out of its way to provoke me by choosing Billy he still possessed. But it didn't skimp on just Joel over a much more deserving pop pianist: deserts, for him or for the other evildoers in Jerry Lee Lewis, the outlaw genius behind Breaking Bad godforsaken Albuquerque. In short, it was a "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On" and "Great 75-minute masterpiece, establishing Breaking Balls of Fire." Bad as a tragedy for the ages. Sure, Joel had a string of pleasant hits, but how Let's start again with episode 1 and retrace Walter's path to what only now does that compare to helping invent rock 'n' roll? To channeling country, gospel seems an inevitable conclusion. and rhythm and blues into a primal wail that changed our culture forever? To inspiring the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and countless other musical titans? To playing the piano so passionately that it sometimes literally caught on fire? Plus, 78-year- The Wrong Woman Saturday, 8 pm (Lifetime) old Lewis still has a whole lot of shakin' goin' on, to judge by his excellent lateGod bless Lifetime for premiering an original movie during a week of wall-toperiod album Last Man Standing. When's the last time Joel made your hair stand wall reruns. The title is a conscious echo of Alfred Hitchcock, with the production on end with a new release? substituting a Lifetime-appropriate "wrong woman" for Hitchcock's "wrong I suspect the Kennedy Center passed over Jerry Lee Lewis for the same reason man" prototype. Ellen (Danica McKellar) is a normal wife and mother who it passes over Jerry Lewis: a hint of disrespectability. I say, God help American suddenly finds herself arrested for murder. The evidence appears undeniable, to culture if it consisted entirely of respectable artists like Billy Joel. the point where even her husband begins to believe it. Heck, even Ellen herself begins to believe it, wondering if her memory is playing tricks on her. Breaking Bad Marathon Whodunnit? In this week full of shows we've already seen, it's simply delightful Friday through Monday, Noon (AMC) not to know the answer. AMC runs every episode of the now-classic series about Walter White (Bryan WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM DECEMBER 25-31, 2013 UCW 15