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/27198
Rated S for Stupid Gnomeo and Juliet (Rated G) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Gnomeo and Juliet (84 minutes) leaves some burning questions unanswered: where was Torchwood when all the gnomes were running around? Exactly how many poorly chosen Shakespeare references can you squeeze into 84 minutes? Why don’t the owners of the side-by-side houses get along better? Why don’t those owners ever notice all the destruction caused during mid-afternoon/overnight gnome romping? What are the Freudian implications of the big hats? How much money do you have to pay Sir Patrick Stewart to voice act in your horrible movie? And most im- portantly, where do little gnomes come from? How long do their parents treat them like children? And how is their ap- parently eternal childhood (which resembles the protracted adolescence of Claudia in Interview with a Vampire) not super-creepy? There’s more, but it’s time to move on to making fun of Director Kelly Asbury — who took an idea with tons of potential and turned it into stale flavorless marshmal- lows. I mean, he may have started out on Stallion: Spirit of the Cimarron, but he moved on to do Shrek 2, which was totally cute! For all the talent involved, he got nada out of his actors. There are no genuinely likable heroes to root for, no attempt to reach beyond a straightforward Romeo and Juliet rip-off for kids, and all the secondary characters sound like they are voiced by Robin Williams. And that is not a good thing. At least the opening of the movie is fairly cute. A little guy in a big hat stands on a stage and introduces the “two houses, alike in dignity …” while avoiding a cane that aims to remove him from the stage. Enjoy the laughs while they’re easy to come by, because they get few and far between as the movie progresses. Back in Step Dancing with the Stars recovers from the Bristol Palin fiasco TV by DEAN ROBBINS Dancing with the Stars (Monday, 8 p.m., ABC) had always been a silly showcase for bad dancing. But last season, it took an ugly turn. Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol joined the competition (even though the title includes the word “stars”) and pro- ceeded to touch off a civil war in the United States. Unaccountably, Bristol kept advancing to the next round, despite her clunky moves and her relatively poor assessments from the judges. Tea Party sup- porters were allegedly stuffing the ballot box, while Democrats (and even some conservatives with aes- thetic standards) cried foul. Bristol only intensified the crisis with her di- visive comments. “[Winning] would be like a big middle finger to all the people out there that hate my mom and hate me,” she said, wallowing in the politics of resentment. The new cast is free of such contentious figures, favoring the usual singers, actors, athletes and models. Can we please just get back to normal bad dancing? Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time Tuesday, 9 pm (ABC) ABC’s special holds out the exciting prospect of identifying the best films of all time. Well, it sounds exciting until you read the fine print. ABC put this vote to the public, who aren’t generally known for their film-scholarship credentials. Even worse, the network asked them to choose films from a list, rather than leaving it open-ended. In other words, we’ll simply get the conventional wisdom on this topic. Is any- one really interested in another showdown between Citizen Kane and Casablanca? The Fabulous Beekman Boys Tuesday, 10 pm (Planet Green) 22 UCW MARCH 16-22, 2011 In this reality series, a gay couple — doctor Brent and author Josh leave city life for an environmentally friendly goat farm in New York State. The opening credits promise “a herd of goats, a llama and a whole lot of drama.” I don’t know about “a whole lot,” but it is plea- surable to sink into the small-town rhythms with this unconventional TV family. In the season premiere, Josh and Brent bicker over the misbehaving llama, Polka Spot. “She is the Naomi Campbell of llamas,” Josh says. “It’s a good thing she doesn’t have a cell phone or she would have thrown it at the groomer’s head.” Now that would be a whole lot of drama. Can someone please slip Polka Spot a cell phone, pronto? Marcel’s Quantum Kitchen Tuesday, 10 pm (SyFy) How to justify a cooking series on SyFy? Make it about “scientific cooking.” Marcel Vigneron, a former contestant on Top Chef, calls himself a “molecular gastronomist.” Wearing lab goggles, he creates outrageous dishes with chemicals and technology. His favorite trick is to spray any substance with nitrous oxide to change it into something else. In the premiere, Marcel is hired to cater a high-end party for a wildlife charity. Nervous about pleasing the hostess, he madly experiments with wildlife-inspired dishes. He injects tomato gelatin into ballooned-out mozzarella to simulate birds’ eggs, and he glues meats together with an enzyme to simulate a tree. When the hostess tastes the bird egg, she’s horrified to see a gelatinous sub- stance ooze out of the mozzarella balloon. “The dish is a little disturbing, visually,” she says. I expected Marcel to spray her with nitrous oxide to change her opinion. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Mrs. Montague (Julie Walters) and Mr. Capulet (Richard Wilson) own two halves of a duplex. Their yards are filled with tribes of warring garden gnomes and other kitschy objets d’art. The blue gnomes include Gnomeo (James McAvoy), Benny (Matt Lucas), and Gnomeo’s Mother (Maggie Smith). The red gnome camp consists of Juliet (Emily Blunt), Nanette the Frog (Ashley Jensen) Tybalt (Jason Statham), Fawn the Deer (Ozzy Osbourne), and Lord Redbrick (Michael Caine). Wait — for real? Michael Caine? Maggie Smith? Am I missing something? This movie sucks! Where did all the star power come from and why isn’t it helping the movie to not suck so much? Maybe I’m getting cynical in my old age, but the script seems to go from set piece to set piece without any real plot or substantial narrative innovation. And let us not forget the soul-destroying Elton John reboots! A child begins screaming in the middle of the theater. I am sure we would both feel a lot better if the movie would just end already. Or maybe we just need the introduction of a cool Mercutio type character to make this all a bit more interesting. Hey! A pink lawn flamingo (Jim Cummings) just showed up! Maybe he’ll be cool? No. Nope. The pain goes on. The movie limps to an unsatisfying conclusion. I have no idea where all the box-office success is coming from. You’re welcome to send an e-mail and explain it to me. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com