Paramount Pictures Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol***Opens in IMAX theaters today, everywhere else Dec. 21 The mission at the heart of Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol could not be more trite: a race to stop a Russian megalomaniac from triggering nuclear war. However, I suspect the simplicity is by design, for it allows the audience […]
Neil Morris
Posted inFilm & Television
To the end of Hawaii with George Clooney in The Descendants
The Descendants opens Friday (see times below) Our rating: Tone does not necessarily equal tenor. The Hawaii that the characters in Alexander Payne’s The Descendants inhabit is a counterpoint to the labored lives led by ordinary people of the idyllic archipelago. Lest there be any confusion, this irony is driven home within the first minute […]
Posted inCulture
When RailHawk eyes are smiling — Colin Clarke introduced as new head coach of Carolina RailHawks
Neil MorrisTeam president Curt Johnson welcomes Colin Clarke as head coach of the Carolina RailHawks WAKEMED SOCCER PARK / CARY — The site of the press conference announcing Colin Clarke as the Carolina RailHawks’ new manager took place in one of the hospitality suites at WakeMed Soccer Park, affording attendees a view of bulldozers beyond […]
Posted inCulture
Getting caught watching the paint dry — Hoosiers fence in N.C. State 86-75
RBC CENTER / RALEIGH — The best thing that can be said about N.C. State’s 86-75 loss to the Indiana Hoosiers in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge is that, judging by the morose reaction of players and coaches, the Wolfpack has in a very short time grown beyond moral victories. Joined by a smattering of Hoosier […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Pedro Almodóvar’s bizarre but bloodless The Skin I Live In
The Skin I Live In opens Friday in select theaters (see times below) Our rating: Like most films by Pedro Almodóvar, the meaning behind The Skin I Live In has little to do with its actual plot. Perhaps harking back to his more macabre early cinema, the 62-year-old director presents a rather mannered specimen of […]
Posted inGuides
Can Mark Gottfried move N.C. State beyond third-wheel status?
Follow Neil Morris’ reports on N.C. State basketball on Triangle Offense @IndyweekSports and @MarqueeMarquis. At 47 years of age, Mark Gottfried can hardly be calledto borrow a moniker from N.C. State basketball lorea “Gray Fox.” Still, since 1945 only two menPress Maravich and Les Robinsonwere older than Gottfried when handed the reins to the Wolfpack […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Scorsese’s Hugo celebrates the joy and art of moviemaking
Hugo opens Wednesday throughout the Triangle (see times below) Our rating: Like a codger lecturing his grandson about the way things were “back in my day,” Martin Scorsese’s first film for children (in 3-D, of course) is a journey through cinema’s early history. The ironic brilliance of Hugo is that Scorsese appropriates the en vogue […]
Posted inCulture
Breaking Dawn: Love it or really, really hate it, Twilight saga continues.
Summit Entertainment The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1Bomb (zero stars)Opens Friday New ad posters for the upcoming Muppets movie picture Kermit and Co. in send-ups of the Twilight films (e.g., Miss Piggy as “Bella Swine”). And, a recent episode of the new Beavis and Butt-Head opens with the slackers watching Twilight in a […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Soul survivor in Martha Marcy May Marlene
Martha Marcy May Marlene opens Friday in select theaters (see times below) Our rating: The unsettling soul of Martha Marcy May Marlene is best captured by its enigmatic bookends. A seemingly inscrutable title conveys the loss of identity suffered by its protagonist, followed by a denouement thatwhile certain to frustrate audiencesnonetheless leaves little doubt about […]
Posted inCulture
Carolina RailHawks coaching search enters final stages; MLS friendly in the works
A month removed from the end of the Carolina RailHawks 2011 season, and with it the departure of manager Martin Rennie to become head coach for the Vancouver Whitecaps of Major League Soccer, the search for RailHawks’ new gaffer has reached its final stages. When Vancouver announced Rennie’s hire in August, RailHawks’ management indicated at […]