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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Sherlock Not Dead The brilliant detective dramatically returns to Masterpiece TV by DEAN ROBBINS When last we saw Masterpiece's Sherlock Holmes, two years ago, he had seemingly jumped to his death as a way of saving his friends. Since then fans have speculated on how he might have survived, and the long-awaited new season of Sherlock takes pleasure in teasing us about our obsession (Sunday, 9 p.m., PBS). The series is set in contemporary London, where citizens trade wild theories about the brilliant detective's demise, just as we viewers have been doing. These include romantic fantasies about Holmes and pathologist Molly, as well as homoerotic fantasies about Holmes and his nemesis Moriarty. When Holmes dramatically reappears in the season premiere (no, I will not spoil a drop of your pleasure by giving anything away), Londoners do what all of us now do in such moments. They madly take to Twitter, using the hashtag #SherlockNotDead. Folks, this 90-minute episode of Sherlock is as witty, touching, intelligent, well acted and cinematically inventive as any current Oscar contender. It clears the Victorian mustiness from Arthur Conan Doyle's detective series and makes adaptations like Elementary seem…elementary. The extraordinary relationship between Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and exasperated sidekick Dr. Watson (Martin Freeman) will have you laughing one minute, weeping the next. The filmmakers are wizards who can send up the mythology of Sherlock Holmes (the elaborate deductions, the sense of superiority) while simultaneously immersing us in his latest case, as terrorists threaten Parliament. They render Holmes' overheated brain at work via slow motion, fast forward, montage, jump cuts, sound effects, zooms and onscreen graphics. The effect is exhilarating, like being inside a human supercomputer. #Sherlock Is Wonderful. American Idol Wednesday & Thursday, 8 pm (Fox) American Idol clearly needed to try something new, given last season's off-putting tone and declining ratings. Right off the bat, you can feel the difference. Rookie judge Harry Connick Jr. is decent and smart, and the closest he gets to a Randy Jacksonstyle catchphrase is "frickin' great." Jackson himself has been moved from judge to mentor, so we'll hear less about "pitchiness" and "in it to win it." Yo, dawg, I'm a fan, but for me, for you, it wasn't working anymore. Connick has real chemistry with fellow judges Keith Urban and Jennifer Lopez, and so far the emphasis is on talent and triumph rather than dopiness and defeat. If that trend continues, season 13 may well be frickin' great. The Following Sunday, 9 pm (Fox) Last season ended with the serial killer Joe Carroll dead and his cult vanquished. But Fox has ordered a new season, so the premiere episode must naturally be called "Resurrection." The violence on display is sicker than it was last year — and that's saying something. We get a long, lovingly detailed scene about a necrophiliac killer. Then there's a graphic mass murder in a New York City subway car, with state-of-the-art squishy sound effects. Former FBI agent Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) has put Carroll behind him after last season's gruesome events, and at first he shows no interest in an even more perverse round of slaughter. "I want no part of this," he tells investigators. "This is over for me." As a viewer, I know how he feels. Not Completely Successful, But Not Bad The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Rated PG) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS When my husband asked if I liked the movie I responded by saying "Meh." The tone in his voice when he asked me why I didn't like it suggested that I was a soulless monster of a movie snob, destined to be dissatisfied with pure experiences like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (114 minutes). I clarified that I didn't hate the movie, it just wasn't grabbing me. From a technical standpoint there's not anything majorly wrong with it. The film was tightly written and includes some beautiful images. As a director Ben Stiller was able to capture some nice personal moments, probably in part because he claims to have strong affinity for the character he plays. The acting is fine, though I really think Adam Scott was miscast as the office bully (the fake beard didn't help). Walter Mitty (Stiller) works in the photograph department at the soon-to-be defunct Life magazine. The only remnant of the original story published by James Thurber in 1939 that inspired this is the frequent daydreaming that pulls him completely out of the here and now. He has a crush on his new co-worker, Cheryl (Kristen Wiig), but other than that he doesn't have a whole lot going on. The first waking dream occurs as he chats with an eHarmony tech support guy (Patton Oswalt). He zones out completely while imagining himself diving off a train platform and through a window in order to save Cheryl's dog from a burning building. He comes to having missed the train and gets to work late. Once at work he has an encounter with his off-puttingly narcissistic sister, Odessa (Kathryn Hahn), and then finds out Life is transitioning from print to web. While waiting for the elevator, he runs into a bully caricature, corporate transition manager Ted (Scott) and Ted's stupid fake-looking beard. It turns out that Ted is a Mean Girl who likes to taunt the powerless despite the fact that he risks a lawsuit every time he WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM opens his mouth. Seriously, in the current anti-bullying climate I just don't think the character works as anything other than a plot point, and that is a problem. Anyway, Walter makes it to the office in one piece, then finds out that a crucial film negative entrusted to his care by photojournalist Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn) has gone missing. He stalls for time while he tries to figure out where it could have gotten to, finally asking Cheryl where Sean's tax forms and paychecks get sent. Turns out his best lead is a picture of a ship in the oceans around Greenland. He decides to fly out himself and try to find Sean, reasoning that the best place to start looking is the last place he knows Sean was. Solid logic, if it didn't involve what I am sure is a ludicrously high-priced last minute ticket to one of the five places on Earth that approximates "next to nowhere." Aside: after researching Greenland and checking flights I now have a burning desire to go. It sounds like a cool, albeit mostly empty, place. Once Walter makes a change to his previously mundane life he finds it hard to stop. In Greenland, he gets into a bar fight with a drunken helicopter pilot who then flies him out to the middle of the ocean before dropping him into icy, shark-infested waters. From there he heads to Iceland, where he is almost hit in the face by a volcanic eruption. He has to return home without ever meeting Sean, though he eventually finds out that his mother (Shirley MacLaine) talked with Sean before he left — for Afghanistan. Overall, the film was a sweet family-friendly movie. Considering that the holiday releases competing with this were pretty adultoriented I am surprised it hasn't done better at the box office. Maybe I didn't like it, but that doesn't HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing mean I thought it was bad, either. Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. JANUARY 15-21,12014 UCW 17