Tag: Featured

“Project Runway” 
Thursday 9pm, Lifetime
It wasn’t long ago that I was bemoaning the state of this once-great fashion design show, but the charming “All Stars” spin-off did a lot to cleanse my Gretchen-and-Anya-stained palate (a second “All Stars” season is reportedly in the pipeline, by the way). Season 10 will feature 16 wannabe fashionistas vying to become the next great American fashion designer, and will feature the now-familiar team of Heidi Klum, Michael Kors, Nina Garcia, and Tim Gunn. One of the new designers is named Gunnar Deatherage. I can’t wait to hear how Tim and Heidi pronounce that one.

“Bachelor Pad” 
Monday 8pm, ABC
ABC’s “Bachelor” and its two spin-offs, “The Bachelorette” and this show, have emerged as the unlikely warhorse of the reality-TV mainstays. There have been a whopping 27 seasons between the three programs and they continue to pull in substantial viewership, especially for a decade-old franchise. It’s especially impressive when you consider that almost none of the relationships followed by the show have panned out, although a look through the various cast bios show an incredibly incestuous little world where former suitors from various seasons have since paired up in real life. Hence “Bachelor Pad,” a game show that gives these chiseled white folks another shot at “love,” but which also admits that these people mostly just want fame and money. In a twist this time around, among the 20 contestants will be five super fans who will join the largely awful former “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” contestants.

“Alphas” 
Monday 10pm, Syfy
If you’re a fan of the X-Men comics and movies, or still raw over how horribly bungled NBC’s “Heroes” turned out after that excellent first season, this Syfy drama might be up your alley. David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) plays a scientist/psychiatrist who becomes aware of the existence of people with extraordinary abilities. Much like Professor Xavier, he gathers these folks—one can heighten her senses at will, one has super reflexes, etc.—to help track down other so-called “alphas,” and to work with the government on covert cases. Season 2 is stocked with nerd-baiting guest stars like Sean Astin (Sam from Lord of the Rings, but always Mikey from Goonies to me), C. Thomas Howell (currently on the big screen in The Amazing Spider-Man), Lauren Holly, and Summer Glau, beloved by dorks but a certified showkiller (“Firefly,” “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” “Dollhouse,” “The Cape”).

The new Wes Anderson movie is certainly a richer pastiche than anything else you’ll see at the multiplex this season. And in its Andersonian manner, Moonrise Kingdom is a nourishing regressive pleasure, a sort of summer movie for grown-ups. Yes, the manner is mannered, but the intention is noble: to affirm the dignity of escapism by direct example.

And so we find the New England island town of “New Penzance” sent into mild upheaval when a serious and sensitive Boy Scout (Jared Gilman) runs away with the headstrong misfit girl he decides he loves (Kara Hayward). This being a Wes Anderson movie, the kids are precocious; it feels good and righteous to root for them, like reclaiming those pre-adult prerogatives regrettably ceded to the pose of maturity. Wasn’t summer once supposed to be about the pure liberty of endless possibilities?

Anderson still knows better than anybody how to survey the cusp of adolescence with all the existential angst of a mid-life crisis, and for relief’s sake, to salt his findings with droll irony. Co-written with Roman Coppola, set in the 1960s, and shot by Anderson’s regular cinematographer Robert Yeoman, Moonrise Kingdom accommodates not just retro flourishes of Euro-mod chic, but also the emotional aura of some wistfully remembered Charlie Brown holiday special. Habitually, Anderson revels in bric-a-brac production design, eloquent riffs on stagings from his earlier films, and a tendency to arrange his stars—Bob Balaban, Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Bruce Willis—in handsome tableaux. The filmmaker’s musical affinities lean toward English composers; sometimes it seems like instead of a full film narrative he should’ve just tried a music video for the entirety of Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols. Which, of course, would be fantastic.

But the movie’s characters—in particular its refreshingly un-actorly protagonists, so poignantly and palpably unformed, nicely set off against all that art direction—seem quite helpfully, people-like. All the grown-ups are in some way hapless, and therefore implicitly obliging to the youngsters’ enterprise. With heart-swelling sympathy and sincerity, Norton, as the scoutmaster, redeems potential caricature, and Willis stands out as the cop, a melancholy and reflective figure of earned adult authority. “It takes time to figure things out,” he advises the boy, tenderly.

That might also be Anderson talking to himself. Moonrise Kingdom has a welcome new allowance of naturalness, particularly in landscape and weather. It is another of Anderson’s dollhouses, unavoidably, but with its windows open and without any shortage of fresh air in circulation. If Anderson now lacks the will to innovate, he has traded it for the real benefit of relaxing into vision refinement. Now we know for sure that he makes movies, even summer movies, the way he must.

Monticello Road is an odd part of Charlottesville. It was once literally the road to Jefferson’s house, but the construction of I-64 and Route 20 have truncated it to a short stretch that cuts through southern Charlottesville’s Belmont neighborhood. Though it’s only a mile in length, Monticello Road is a cross-section of residential homes, fancy restaurants, corner store bodegas, a gas station, an elementary school, and even a factory. This spring, photographer Peter Krebbs documented the people he met on his daily walks along the street in “The Monticello Road Project,” and the resulting photographs showed a broad range of individuals, a reminder of all of the different types of folk who make up a community.

This summer, Krebbs walked the road again, this time with 35 kids and a handful of mentors and volunteers as part of The Storyline Project. Now in its fourth year, Storyline is a collaboration between a half-dozen local organizations, led by The Bridge PAI and Piedmont Council for the Arts. For the project, a group of rising fourth through sixth graders from the Charlottesville Parks & Recreation summer camp program walked the length of the road over the course of four days, stopping along the way to draw what they observed and listen to presentations from those who live and work along the street.

The trip took them from Jefferson’s Monticello itself to places as varied as Lazy Daisy Ceramics, the Virginia Institute for the Blind, tapas restaurant Mas, and the so-called Belmont Mansion, the house that gave the neighborhood its name. The journey ended at the Free Speech Wall on the Mall, where the children spent the day drawing a chalk mural that represents their experiences.

Pete O’Shea, one of the landscape architects responsible for designing the Free Speech Wall, helped start the Storyline Project through his work with the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Preservation of Free Expression. “It’s my favorite project of any kind that I’ve ever worked on,” O’Shea said. “I’m used to finishing a project and just putting it away, but this has been a way of maintaining a relationship with the community.” With the program’s upcoming fifth year, O’Shea hopes that the project can be expanded, possibly by working with multiple groups, and offering the template to local schools as a teaching tool.

Local poet and teacher John Casteen IV has volunteered with Storyline since the beginning. “The group of campers for the first Storyline Project came from the Tonsler Park area,” said Casteen. “I grew up in that neighborhood, and I found it startling that The Bridge was making connections with neighborhoods like Tonsler, and with kids in places like Westhaven and Fifeville. In my life, I had not seen any outreach going on in those neighborhoods. When I talk to white, middle-class people in Charlottesville, they’re not even aware that places like the Southwood Trailer Park exist. To give the kids who are from those neighborhoods access to local history is to give them a way to make themselves politically aware.”

As the kids gathered around the Wall, with buckets of chalk at the ready, there was a wave of creative energy waiting to be unleashed. Rowdiness is the default setting at this age, but once the project was underway, they were fully committed to covering every inch of the Wall with chalk.

Some of the children had impressive technical skills, while others were just finding ways to move beyond basic stick-figure representation, and the chalk mural gave everyone a chance to try things and mess up without the pressure of permanence or the intimidation of working alone.

“If you ask a group of kids this age who’s good at drawing, they’ll all point to one or two kids,” O’Shea said. “But if you ask a class of kindergarteners who can draw, everybody’s going to raise their hand. We learn to draw before we can write, and it’s not until we get older that we start to become self-conscious about it. Adults have the hardest time with it, actually—by the time we’re adults we’ve already raised so many barriers for ourselves, and told ourselves what we are and aren’t good at.”

As the mural neared completion, it unmistakably resembled the work of children, and in fact it may already be washed away by rain by the time this column sees print. But the goal of the project is the process, not the results, and seeing the children work with each other and the volunteers seemed like a small success. At one point, a middle-aged woman held a tiny child aloft so he could trace the towering outline of a VIB employee who had stopped by to help out. Once the kids had their hands covered in chalk, several began painting it on their own faces as well —until a volunteer showed them a photo of what they looked like and they squealed in delight and horror. A hula-hoop materialized seemingly out of nowhere, and, most impressively, when a dozen pizzas arrived, the kids were too busy working on the mural to notice.

 “Trust Us with Your Life” 
Tuesday 9pm, ABC
This comedy series from the creators of “Whose Line is it Anyway?” brings back the televised improv concept, but with a celebrity talk-show spin. Each episode will feature a different famous person—Serena Williams, Jerry Springer, Florence Henderson, and Ricky Gervais among them—being interviewed by host Fred Willard, as he prompts them to recount key moments from their actual lives. A troupe of improvisers reenacts their stories through a variety of improv games and sketches. Anchoring the improv team are familiar faces Wayne Brady, Colin Mochrie, and Jonathan Mangum, who’ll be joined by rotating comics. Writing this prompted me to watch some “Jerry Springer” videos on YouTube, and his episode’s hair weave budget (for pulling) had better be massive.

“Political Animals” 
Sunday 10pm, USA
This new mini-series is easily one of the most anticipated TV events of the summer. Sigourney Weaver stars as a former First Lady and current Secretary of State potentially eyeing a run at the presidency. (Now where do you suppose they thought up that idea?) While the six-part series deals quite a bit with politics, and the media’s role in them (Carla Gugino plays a scoop-thirsty reporter), it is also very much a family drama: which makes sense, as it’s being executed/produced by the man who brought us “Brothers & Sisters.” Rounding out the cast are Ciaran Hinds as the oft-philandering former President, James Wolk (“Lone Star”) and Sebastian Stan (“Gossip Girl”) as their twin sons, and the great Ellen Burstyn as the family matriarch.

“Breaking Bad” 
Sunday 10pm, AMC
“Mad Men” and “Walking Dead” get all the headlines, but scores of critics—and viewers—consider “Breaking Bad” the best show on AMC. I’ve seen its most recent season referred to as one of the strongest seasons of any show in TV history, and a hard-to-please friend referred to it as a completely flawless string of episodes. So of course the show is coming to an end. Its fifth and final season bows this week, featuring 16 episodes split in half with a sizable break in between (like “Walking Dead” Season 2). The good news is that means we get a little longer to learn the final fate of Walter White, cancer-ridden high-school science teacher turned inadvertent drug kingpin (played to perfection by Bryan Cranston), and his tragic de facto protégé, Jesse Pinkman (the equally excellent Aaron Paul).

Odd that a movie about an arachnoid teenager coming of age and falling in love and doing battle with a lizard-man to save Manhattan should be so forgettable. What to blame but reboot-itis? Sam Raimi’s trilogy of just a few years ago was after all just a numbered series of spider-men, but this new movie felt compelled to call itself Amazing. Well, it isn’t. And bland sincerity being its most salient feature must have something to do with Marvel Studios house style.

Let’s assume there’ll be a couple more in this configuration—with a fetchingly moony Andrew Garfield as our webcrawler hero, Emma Stone as his leggy and gently sassy girlfriend Gwen Stacy, and maybe Marc Webb directing again—until arcs play out or players burn out or somebody wants a raise or a writing credit, to which the studio’s answer will be that replacing people is what studios (especially this one) do. By then the common complaint about franchise reboots won’t be that they are too soon, but too frequent, with all parties grudgingly resigned to the understanding that until the technology improves or its cost comes down, movies will remain at the mercy (of those currently alive) to make them.

So here we go: Young gadget-nerd Peter Parker, ostensibly orphaned by his father’s dangerous research and consequently overprotected by his salt-of-the-earth aunt and uncle (Sally Field, Martin Sheen), tracks down dad’s former partner (Rhys Ifans), a genial bioengineer with a missing arm and a red-flag proneness to pronouncements like, “I wanna create a world without weakness!” Well, one little mishap in the secret room full of super spiders and suddenly he’s Peter Parkour, scampering up walls, sticking to stuff, swinging into costumed action. This invites cute complications with Gwen and especially with her dad (Denis Leary), the city’s top cop, but matters become more serious when the bioengineer morphs into a marauding reptile.

At least The Amazing Spider-Man reminds us that showing well is relative. The combined glare of rough lighting and IMAX 3-D could be kinder to Sally Field, for instance, but the last thing we need here is another rictus of cosmetic modification. Perhaps relatedly, it’s hard not to notice that Garfield’s beanpole frame isn’t camouflaged by the Spidey suit. Or maybe it’s that the suit’s essential silliness is harder to ignore with him in it. But then, isn’t that the basic point of this geek alter-ego mythology? Lankiness is an asset to this character—certainly to any character construed as a teenager but played by a guy in his late twenties.
Surely qualified for the comic-book-blockbuster-with-heart, Webb last probed noisy movie machinery for the serenity of young romance in (500) Days of Summer. With that last name he’ll be blamed for a tangle here that’s really thanks to writers Alvin Sargent (who had a hand in two of the Raimi films), Steve Kloves, and James Vanderbilt. More important is the tensile strength needed to endure inevitable sequels.