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/25625
Best Oscars Ever All my faves are favored TV by DEAN ROBBINS For once, I feel like the gods are with me on Oscar night (Sunday, 8 p.m., ABC). I think Christopher Nolan is an overrated director, and he got shut out of the Best Director category for Inception. The overrated Black Swan and The Social Network also got their share of snubs. On the other hand, I’m delighted with the abundance of nomina- tions for The King’s Speech and True Grit, along with the shout- outs for less commercial projects such as Blue Valentine, Winter’s Bone and The Kids Are All Right. And it’s good to see Toy Story 3 in the Best Picture category, where it belongs. For thrills, laughs and poignancy, no live-action production outdid Woody and Buzz in 2010. So I’m expecting a very personally gratifying evening, especially if Natalie Portman is denied Best Actress for that one-note perfor- mance in The Black Swan. Come on, gods — can you help me out? American Idol Wednesday, 8 pm (Fox) It’s Beatles night on American Idol, and you know what that means: time to put on headphones and play the actual Beatles really loud to drown out the horrible sounds coming out of the TV. I’m still traumatized by the memory of Taylor Hicks’ “A Day in the Life” from season six. Independent Lens Friday, 2 am (PBS) Full of appropriately blurry photos and shaky video footage, Yony Leyser’s documentary on William S. Burroughs does justice to the Beat writer-outlaw-junkie-murderer. It’s an admiring portrait, featuring testimony from Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, John Waters, Gus Van Sant and other artists influenced by the author of Naked Lunch. But it doesn’t sugarcoat Burroughs — and sugar wouldn’t stick to this alien life form any- way. As Waters says, Burroughs’ goal was to ruin things, including America’s wholesome vision of itself. Along these lines, Leyser incorporates a startling bit of foot- age in which Burroughs tears the United States a new one, in the form of a scathingly ironic Thanksgiving prayer. It might be just enough to convince patriotic members of Congress to pull funding from PBS — yet one more thing Burroughs would have ruined. Bethenny Ever After Monday, 9 pm (Bravo) Under a new title, Bethenny Frankel’s reality series has made it to season two. That’s an achievement for a foul-mouthed busi- nesswoman with no charm to speak of. Bethenny obsesses on her breasts, on her boredom while visiting her in-laws, and on her new husband marrying “some blond f-ing loser” if she happens to die. Nevertheless, she whines, “I don’t want to be this self- involved person!” That’s right — Bethenny is self-involved even in her de- sire for less self-involvement. She tries to talk her husband into getting involved in her clothing business, but he’s understandably wary of spending all day immersed in the trivial drama of her life. “There are going to be times,” he says, “when it’s, like, that’s enough Bethenny today.” That’s exactly how I felt after just 10 minutes of Bethenny Ever After. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM FEB. 23 - MARCH 1, 2011 UCW 21