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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Super Freaks Alphas solves crimes with strange brains TV by DEAN ROBBINS The networks throw a lot of cop shows at the wall, and few of them stick. But Alphas (Monday, 10 p.m., SyFy) has extraordinary power – and why not, since it’s about people with extraordinary power? In this well-thought-out sci fi universe, “Alphas” are people with a neurologi- cal advantage. For example, Bill (Malik Yoba) is capable of remarkable strength, Nina (Laura Mennell) of controlling people’s thoughts, Rachel (Azita Ghanizada) of intense sensory perception. These super freaks are brought together by Dr. Rosen (David Strathairn), who tends to their psychological well-being along with deploying them to solve crimes for the government. And not just any crimes, but those involving other Alphas. The interactions among the misfit crew ring true, with each character given a credible persona. The filmmaking snaps and crackles, thanks to an expert use of music, editing and visual effects. I predict you’ll become a fan of Alphas. That’s because I am gifted with the extraordinary power of knowing what you will like. Necessary Roughness Wednesday, 10 pm (USA) Dani (Callie Thorne) is a brilliant psychotherapist and hot-to-trot single mom who takes a job as a football team’s shrink. If you think that sounds silly, just wait. This new series specializes in unlikely scenarios – for example, Dani leaving her kids alone in the middle of the night to administer therapy to a football player in a strip club. To me, the most jarring mo- ments find the Ph.D-toting professional using bad grammar, as when she tells a patient to “lay down” rather than “lie down.” I’d overlook such false notes if Necessary Roughness were as charming as other USA fantasies, like Monk and Psych. But Dani is an unsympathetic heroine, loudly proclaiming her ethical standards one minute and violating them the next. In fact, everything she does is loud. She has a fit of pique in almost every scene, and it’s not much fun waiting for the next explosion. Will Necessary Roughness find an audience? I wouldn’t lay odds on it. Or lie odds, either. Masterpiece Mystery Sunday, 9 pm (PBS) The Miss Marple mysteries I’ve seen have a comic undertone, acknowledg- ing the absurdity of a little old lady solving crimes out in the English countryside. But “The Pale Horse” takes a more serious approach to evil — indeed, it could give you nightmares. The episode begins with a chilling montage: a dying woman confessing her “wickedness” while a priest is beaten to death in a foggy London alley. Miss Marple, a friend of the murdered priest, springs into action after read- ing a mysterious letter from him. It quotes the book of Revelations: “And I looked and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and hell fol- lowed with him.” I’m not saying there aren’t a few droll moments in this spooky little mystery — it wouldn’t be Miss Marple without them. For example, Miss Marple’s housekeeper listens to the priest’s creepy letter and murmurs, “I don’t like the sound of that.” Miss Marple dryly responds: “Well, it’s the Bible, dear. I’m not sure you’re meant to.” True Blood Sunday, 9 pm (HBO) Now in its fourth season, True Blood has a genius for mixing the ordinary and the extraordinary. This week’s episode features gruesome murder and de- praved sex in a world of witches, vampires and fairies. And yet the series’ world also feels very much like our own. Vampire partners confess adultery: “I just fed on a guy.” Blood addicts try to kick the habit: “I used once today.” Members of a coven express outrage when a vampire tries to kill them simply for being who they are: “Last time I checked there was still freedom of religion in America!” In the episode’s central plotline, vampire Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) has lost his memory as the result of a spell. Sookie (Anna Paquin), the beleaguered Louisiana waitress, is forced to take care of him. Where some of us might be hor- rified to have a vampire in the house, Sookie is merely exasperated. She sets a few ground rules: “You do not touch me. And you most certainly do not bite me.” I won’t reveal whether Eric follows her rules, but I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying that, in general, fans of vampire bites will not walk away from the episode disappointed. 20 UCW JULY 6-12, 2011 Thoroughly Adolescent, Completely Average The Green Lantern (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Green Lantern (105 minutes) is a film for the adolescent boy in us all. What’s more, the characters and the actors portray- ing them are very much aware of this fact. The acting is wooden, the dialogue exposi- tory and forced, the plot overly complicated. All in all, it’s not the worst comic-book movie of the last 10 years (I assume no list is necessary, but if you want perspective compare it to X-Men: Last Stand. There. Now don’t you feel much better about The Green Lantern?), but it is far from the best. The film respects the comic book my- thology, even if I don’t. There were rumors that the filmmakers were experimenting with a comic twist on the story and were in talks with Jack Black (!) to star as Hal Jordan, and it’s a good thing they went with a more straightforward version. Director Martin Campbell didn’t do a terrible job, it is more that he didn’t do an amazing job, so the film comes off as very middle of the road forgettable. This is exactly the kind of generic super-hero film that makes just enough money so everyone involved can tell themselves they did a good job, and then move on to their next project. Millions of years ago, the Guardians of the Universe used the green essence of will power to create power rings that could manifest anything the wearer thought of, in a sort of intergalactic version of The Secret. Wow. Now I am thinking of one of my ex-boyfriends who told me he was a guardian of the Universe right before he broke up with me. Seriously. He was not joking. I thought he had a creative mind and a rebellious streak, but no. He was crazypants. Anyway, these guardians created a UN-type security force called the Green Lantern Corps. Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison) is a senior member of the Corps charged with containing Parallax (Clancy Brown), who escapes and mortally wounds Abin Sur. Abin Sur, clearly wounded so badly he forgets that his magic ring gives him the power of intergalactic flight, manages to get into a spaceship and fly to earth. Meanwhile, test pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) shows up so late for his big test flight that he doesn’t even undergo any of the flight prep one assumes experimental pilots need before they’re allowed to take the throttle. Oh well, at least he managed to find time for hate flirting with Carol Ferris (Blake Lively). Fun game! Take a shot every time she accuses him of acting like a child! Right around the last third of the movie, everything will seem much more entertaining. Hal and Abin finally manage to get in the same scene, and naturally Hal buries the alien and flees the scene with magic ring and magic lantern in tow just before the government shows up. Although it seems like, since Hal isn’t a doctor, much less a specialist in alien physiology, he maybe should have considered the possibil- ity that Abin Sur was in some kind of regenerative alien coma and not risked bury- ing him alive? That’s not a spoiler … it just seems like taking the time to build a burial cairn when the military was bound to show up any moment when you have no way of verifying the alien is dead-dead was possibly a tad misguided. Well, it seems to work out. And Hal is whisked away to the planet Oa where he meets Tomar-Re (Geoffrey Rush), Kilowog (Michael Clarke Duncan) and Sinestro (Mark Strong). Meanwhile, exo-biologist Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) has been tasked with creating some alien autopsy footage for use on the SyFy network. You might think the government would spring for some kind of biohazard suit and thick plastic gloves, but you would be wrong. These cost sav- ing measures result in Hector Hammon absorbing the yellow power wielded by Parallax, setting up the action in the second half of the film. The mythology continues to develop, the story gets infinite- ly more complicated, and the finale fails to deliver a satisfying conclusion. However, there is an after credits scene. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? editor@upand- comingweekly.com WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM