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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Basically Adventures in Babysitting, But Not That Good The Sitter (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS There is a very good reason that the release date of The Sitter (2011) was pushed from August to December. August 2011 saw the release of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Help and a little sleeper called 30 Minutes or Less … and since The Sitter is dreck, it could not risk any competition. I certainly wouldn't have seen it if there was anything else to review (that wasn't a cartoon or a Gary Marshall movie. And yes, Muppets count as cartoons for the pur- poses of my example). Director David Gordon Green is just going steadily downhill: His last good movie was Pineapple Express, and that was only good, sort of. Some people really seemed to like it. I guess it made me laugh. I wish The Sitter were funnier so I could laugh and have some- thing more interesting to put in the review. Screenwriters Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka don't even have any other credits under their belts, which actually makes me wonder if these are Alan Smithee type screenwriter credits (Look it up kids. You can even watch the documentary!) So the "hero" of the piece is Noah Griffith (the before shot of Jonah Hill). He isn't very likeable, and he must have watched every after-school special ever, be- cause by the second half of the film every discussion he has with another character involves a lengthy public-service announcement. We open on Noah and his pseudo-girlfriend, Marisa (Ari Graynor, Meadow's college roommate from The Soprano's) "telling secrets." That thankfully brief scene ends, and Noah heads home to be an unemployed burden to his poor mother (Jessica Hecht). I am sure the scene where he refused to answer the phone is supposed to be funny. It is not. It is what men who sit on the couch and drink beer while their wives simultaneously cook, clean and change diapers think is funny when they do it, but which hopefully ends with aforementioned dirty diaper dumped on their heads. Can we mail David Gordon Green some dirty diapers? Anyway, the phone call is about canceling his saint of a mother's dinner plans, at least until Mom guilt trips her obnoxious son into agreeing to babysit. He arrives at Playing Dress-up TV by DEAN ROBBINS The new series Jane by Design (Tuesday, 9 p.m., ABC Family) is a wish-fulfillment fantasy for ordinary teen girls who think they just might wind up in the glamorous fashion industry one day. Jane (Erica Dasher) introduces herself as "a dateless high-school zero" who's taunted by the popular girls and ignored by her longtime crush. Oddly enough, nobody seems to have noticed that she's really an Anne Hathaway- level beauty whose perfect figure is draped in stunningly sexy clothes. Even though those clothes must have cost a fortune, the plot depends on Jane's being poor and faking her way into a hip couture business to support herself. There, she tames her drag- on-lady boss (Andie MacDowell) and catches the eye of a hunky British coworker, who treats her like the belle of the ball rather than a dateless high-school zero. Take that, longtime crush! As silly as it is, Jane by Design tamed me, too. Jane's insecurity is fetching, and the peek inside her office inspiring. After all, I just might end up in the glamorous fashion industry myself one day. Oprah's Next Chapter Sunday, 9 pm (OWN) Oprah Winfrey's cable channel, OWN, has struggled since it launched a year ago. It's had no breakout hits, and even the shows featuring famous names (Rosie O'Donnell, Sarah Ferguson, Ryan and Tatum O'Neal) have failed to draw decent audiences. So now, it's Oprah to the rescue. Not long after ending her syndicated talk show, she returns with an OWN show called Oprah's Next Chapter, which gets her WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM out of the studio and into the world. Winfrey will fire-walk with Tony Robbins, tour Haiti with Sean Penn and, in this week's debut, chat with Steven Tyler on his New Hampshire estate. Since Oprah is OWN's only real asset, expect to see a lot more of her. Beginning at 9 p.m. on Dec. 31, for example, she reruns the three farewell episodes of her previous show so we can relive the bitter- sweet emotions we experienced only a few months ago. OWN has not yet scheduled Oprah Goes to the Dentist for a Routine Checkup, but it might come to that. Finding Bigfoot Sunday, 10 pm (Animal Planet) A more accurate title would be Not Finding Bigfoot. In the new season, this series sends its grandly named Bigfoot Field Research Organization around the country in search of the large, hairy, human-like animal that doesn't exist. Don't tell them that, though. The four members are eternally convinced that they've found real evidence of Bigfoot as they examine photos and interview wit- nesses. In the season premiere, the BFRO heads to the Catskills to view video footage of a supposed baby Bigfoot. "I think we're looking at a juvenile sasquatch, which is quite amazing because seeing a baby is incredibly rare!" says one gullible team member. The BFRO decides to conduct an evening investigation using a baboon bor- rowed from a local zoo. And even the baboon seems to have trouble keeping a straight face. DEC. 28, 2011 - JAN. 3, 2012 UCW 17 the House of Poor Parenting to greet Mrs. Bad Parent (Erin Daniels). She introduces him to Future Lindsay Lohan Blithe (Landry Bender), Slater (Max Records) and Walking Talking Stereotype Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez). One and a half of the children are se- verely neglected, and I wonder how they managed to adopt, since it would require passing a rigorous home screening (Spoiler Alert: One of the kids is adopted. See if you can guess which one!) After Noah sexually harasses Mrs. Bad Parent for a while, Mr. Bad Parent (D.W. Moffat) pede-texts his way into the room. They head out, leaving Noah to emotionally abuse their already fragile children. Not too long after, he gets a call from pseudo-girlfriend to swing by Poorly Characterized Drug Dealer's (Sam Rockwell) house and get her some illegal drugs. Noah takes about five seconds to consider her request, and decides that taking three small children into the city to buy drugs, and then escorting them to an adults-only party is a great idea that will never possibly go wrong in a million years. Except, of course, it does, leading to the repetition of a scene from A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas that wasn't funny the first time. His poor impulse control leads Noah to a child's Bat Mitzvah party, a shady Chinatown set piece based on the drug den from Boogie Nights, his estranged father's, the Diamond District, and an even shadier set piece based on the Blues Club from Adventures in Babysitting. Finally, he gets to the party, experiences some character development, forces the children to listen to several inane speeches and discov- ers his inner-strength — or something. Overall, a waste of two hours of my life. But feel free to judge for yourself, when it is released on basic cable sometime next month. Now showing at Wynnsong 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Market Fair 15. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? editor@upand- comingweekly.com Jane by Design peddles fashion-industry fantasy