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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Delivering the Male Man Up gets modern dudes just right TV by DEAN ROBBINS I usually wince when a network sitcom panders to the 18-to-49 male demographic (see this year's Last Man Standing, last year's Traffic Lights). But the new Man Up (Tuesday, 8:30 p.m., ABC) hits this demographic where it hurts. It's a brilliant satire of male pretension and male pride, so painfully on target that it might drive away the very viewers it seeks to attract. Man Up joins fellow one-camera, no-laugh-track pro- ductions New Girl, Up All Night and Suburgatory at the top of this season's sitcom class. It's about three friends (Mather Zickel, Christopher Moynihan, Dan Fogler) obsessed with manhood, or what passes for it these days among suburban pharmaceutical reps and insurance salesmen. While their ancestors fought in World War II and Vietnam, these dudes battle each other in videogames, armed with controllers and headsets. They would never cuss around the kids, using "fluf- fin'" as a substitute for more salty language. And they opt for nondairy hazelnut creamer for their coffee, since dairy, you see, is no good for the cholesterol. All three actors find the sweet spot between reality and absurdity. Special props go to Fogler, who might be the fall season's breakout comic star. He's a short, bearded combination of Jack Black and Yosemite Sam, with a voice that rises into the screechy Sam Kinison register when he gets hysterical. Which is often. Man Up is a fluffin' masterpiece. Work of Art Wednesday, 9 pm (Bravo) When this reality series debuted last season, I denounced Bravo's attempt to subject fine art to the genre's kitschy formula of time-based challenges and elimi- nations. Now, with season two premiering, I've gotten over myself. I admit that Work of Art is an absorbing hour of TV and a cut above most reality offerings. An Island of Misfit Toys Moneyball (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Moneyball (133 minutes) is not breaking any ground in the sport's movie plot department. Much like every other sports movie, ever, an underdog (name a sport) team tries to (name a new strategy) so they can reverse their losses. But wait! (name authority figure) doesn't believe it will work! But this team has heart, so after ignoring the experts who did not believe in them, they insist on trying (repeat name of new strategy). At the end of the day, the team wins an award/proves they can win/learns that winning isn't everything. Two hours in the theater and that is what I am taking away from the whole experience. The film opens on the Oakland Athletics' as they wrap up their 2001 season. They have just lost to the Yankees by a couple of hits, and they are about to lose the heart of their team, Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Jason Isringhausen. Their general manager, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) struggles to maintain the competitiveness of the team de- spite having the lowest salary budget in the league. While roaming the Earth to recruit players, Beane runs into Peter Brand (Jonah Hill). Brand has clearly read Freakonomics and he is pushing for a math- ematical assessment of players' value. Bean is working through some issues related to the way he was recruited, which is revealed to the audience via some helpful soft-focus flashbacks. Convinced that Brand's focus on recruiting otherwise undesirable players will pay off, Beane hires him and they start convincing random scouts and own- ers that they are smarter than they look. After making peace with the scouts, the scene shifts to dealing with Manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman, chan- neling Tommy Lasorda a lot more effectively than he is channeling Howe). Howe insists on playing the roster his way rather than following the formula designed by Beane and Brand. Beane responds by trading the lone remaining superstar player so that WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Howe has no choice but to follow the strategy. Of course, the media gives the manager all the credit for the result- ing, record-breaking, winning streak. Flush with the prov- en success of the method he championed, and probably more than little bit pumped at having alpha-maled Howe, Beane wanders the locker rooms sprinkling words of wis- dom and motivation over the players' heads. There are some nice scenes in the middle of the movie introducing players who are in it for the love of the game, who aren't making a ton of money, and who are either trying to find their way into a secure contract after being labeled a liability or are on their way out, and struggling to hang on. There is also a brief scene introducing Beane's ex-wife (Robin Wright) that serves to encapsulate Beane's life. Basically, he had a lot of potential that he didn't live up to, so the people he was relying on to support him hung him out to dry. This is a good example of a sports movie. If you like sports movies, you will like this. Moneyball's strength lies in focusing on the dramatic tension inherent to the coach/general manager relationship, and the media scrutiny and second- guessing. The film is weakest when addressing non-team related issues. The flashbacks to Beane's recruitment seem emotionally disconnected from the rest of the film, and the scenes with his ex-wife and daughter (Kerris Dorsey) seemed tacked on. I get that the director/writers tried to add an emotional center to the film, but I don't think I am alone in saying the game itself is the only emotional center you really need. Now showing at Wynnsong 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Market Fair 15. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? editor@upand- comingweekly.com OCTOBER 12-18, 2011 UCW 21 The artists make for fascinating subjects. They're natu- rally obsessive, thoughtful and eccentric, and the producers don't have to cook up contrived interpersonal nastiness to get us interested in them. But for me, the best thing about Work of Art is the fact that a real critic is featured on the judges' panel: the cranky, bullheaded, imperious Jerry Saltz of New York Magazine. It's a rare treat to hear actual critical insight on reality TV, as when Saltz says of one contestant's work, "I think you embedded thought in material." If Work of Art needs another cranky, bullheaded, im- perious critic for season three, I think I know where to find one. (Hint, hint.) Masterpiece Mystery Sunday, 9 pm (PBS) Just when you think TV doesn't need another detec- tive, here comes Jackson Brodie (Jason Issacs) in "Case Histories." Jackson is not psychic, obsessive-compulsive, bionic or Swedish. He's such a rounded, appealing character that he doesn't need a gimmick to hold our attention. Jackson's specialty is taking on insoluble cold cases in his native Edinburgh, and he's got too big a heart to turn down an earnest request from a still-grieving family member. We learn about him over the course of his investigations, and the more we learn, the more we like him. He's a divorced dad who's devoted to his young daughter and a still-grieving family member himself, puzzling over his sister's unsolved murder. Issacs plays the part with just the right combination of gravitas and wit. As Jackson pokes around in decades-old crimes, a woman wonders, "Why are you digging all this up again?" Don't even ask. Just sit back and enjoy.