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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The Damage Done How our leaders dealt with 9/11 TV by DEAN ROBBINS There will be many documentaries about 9/11 over the next week as we mark the tragedy's 10th anniversary. I recom- mend 9/11: Day That Changed the World (Monday, 8 p.m., Smithsonian Channel), which offers a minute-by-minute account of how the people in charge dealt with the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. For the length of the program, it's possible to set aside partisanship and root for our leaders to get the country back under control. The documentary vividly evokes a sense of confusion among the powers-that-be. After the first plane hit the Twin Towers, an F-15 fighter pilot defending the country's northeastern sector asked his commanders what he should do. "They weren't really sure," he admits. As much as we've learned about 9/11 in 10 years, the documentary still offers many new details. Lynne Cheney, Vice President Cheney's wife, relates an incongruous sight in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center: "There were cookies lined up in the center of the table on doilies. That was a little sur- real, to come into PEOC and have it be arranged like there's going to be a nice little party." I half-expected to hear that Vice President Cheney, faced with an unimaginable crisis, nervously stuffed the whole plateful of cookies into his mouth. Because that's just what I would have done in his situation. Dinosaur Revolution Sunday, 9 pm (Discovery) In this special, top dinosaur illustrators show us prehistoric scenes we've never seen before, based on recent research. We witness the mating dance of the Gigantoraptor, the family life of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and the underwater birth of the Mosasaurus. We even get to see the newly discovered Beelzebufo, a fat, slimy frog so big it could eat a dinosaur. On second thought, maybe it'd be best not to watch that scene, especially before dinner. Curb Your Enthusiasm Sunday, 10 pm (HBO) Here's yet another brilliant episode. Creator-star Larry David throws out several incongruous motifs — sexual dysfunction, dis- graced baseball player Bill Buckner, a Mr. Softee ice cream truck — and ties them together with his usual dyspeptic brilliance. In one scene, Larry whines to his psychiatrist about a trau- matic incident in his youth – the one that supposedly led to all the hilarious neurosis we've witnessed over the past eight seasons. Young Larry was close to having his first sexual experience when an unlikely humiliation occurred, preventing the girl from getting naked. "I feel like if she had taken her top off," Larry reflects, "my whole life would have been different." Thank God she didn't take the top off. No Curb fan would want Larry David to have led a well-adjusted life. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Monday, 9 pm (Bravo) The Real Housewives has been a reliable purveyor of tawdry behavior. One looks forward to the season premiere of each city's franchise for cat- fighting, self-delusion and temper tantrums among the well-heeled heroines. But whoever is in charge of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills has fallen down on the job. Aside from some minor hurt feelings, the season-two premiere (reedited at the last minute after the suicide of a Housewife's husband) is a model of moderation and sensible decision-making. In spite of enduring a messy divorce from TV star Kelsey Grammer, Camille doesn't throw a single piece of furniture. "The last few months I've been healing, working on myself," she says, displaying — gulp — sound judgment. Don't Bring a Gun to a Bomb Fight 30 Minutes or Less (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS In or out of 30 Minutes or Less, (83 minutes) Jesse Eisenberg really is just a complete and utter waste of space. I am well aware that he was in Zombieland (the first collaboration between this actor and director). He gets absolutely no geek credit for that one. It was not cool because he was in it, it was cool in spite of the fact that he was in it. He is obnoxious, arrogant and pathetic in even his smallest of roles. In fact, whatever small success he enjoyed in The Social Network was primarily due to the fact that it did not require him to act much at all. He only had to act smart. Because he is not smart. He is stupid. Speaking of stupid people being stupid, whose bright idea was it to write a movie based on an incident in which an actual person actually died in a pretty horrifying way and then claim that the movie, which was obviously based on this event, was not, in fact, based on this event? I'd call that a Jesse Eisenberg level of stupid. Nick (Eisenberg) is a pointless character. Even though most pizza places have long since discontinued their 30 minutes or less policy due to legal liability issues from all the school children who were run over, he is still following the 30 minutes or less policy. Because he can't find a better job, and the high point of his day is speeding through intersections and missing his delivery deadlines. That may not sound like much, but it does allow him the satisfaction of tricking pre-teens into paying for pizza they should be getting for free. Other than that, he doesn't do a whole lot. He hangs out with his good buddy Chet (Aziz Ansari), at least until he finds out that Chet caused his parents' di- vorce and Chet finds out about Nick's secret crush on Chet's twin sister (Dilshad Vadsaria). The timing of their big friendship-ending fight seems a little off, and it is never really clarified how two guys who seem to pretty much hate each other have managed to stay friends for so long. Not that either one of them really sells WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM the hating. And as much as I enjoy Ansari in his nicely delimited role on Parks and Rec, he is not the break-out star that everyone wants him to be. He always plays the same character, and while he might be a bright spot in this film, that's mostly because this film isn't all that great. Toss into this mix Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson! Someone I actually like!). Dwayne is an amalgamation of several kinds of entitled jerk — the kind that is always unwilling to work an actual job, but totally willing to whine about how the people he is sponging off of won't let him spread his wings and fly. Danny McBride seems to be under the impression that this is a totally original character. He also seems to think he is really, really, funny. He is wrong on both counts. Dwayne sees his father (Fred Ward) as the engineer of all his troubles, so he plots with a stripper (Bianca Kajlich) to hire an assassin (Michael Pena). The two halves of the movie finally meet in the middle. Dwayne needs money to pay the assassin, and Travis is an explosives expert (Of course. Of course he is.). So they plan to get a pizza delivery guy, strap a bomb to him, and threaten him with a fiery death so he will rob a bank to get them the assassin's fee. Poor dumb Nick is that pizza delivery boy. He manages to make up with Chet, and they embark on a crime spree. Things get steadily more complicated, and ev- eryone on the screen ends up yelling at everyone else. Note to the Director: People yelling at me is not funny and does not make me laugh. Also, Jesse Eisenberg is stupid and you should stop putting him in your movies. Now showing at Wynnsong 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Market Fair 15. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? editor@upand- comingweekly.com AUGUST 31 - SEPTEMBER 6, 2011 UCW 17